Mono-Organizational Socialism and the State

Political, economic, and social change has accelerated dramatically in Vietnam since the mid 1980s. One consequence has been an explosion in the amount and quality of information about Vietnamese society generated from within Vietnam. This in turn has led to a re-evaluation of long-held assumptions about state-society relations, such as the applicability of the Leninist model. This chapter presents a critical evaluation of the Leninist model (or mono-organizational socialism) in the post-unification period. Vietnam's market reforms have not only given birth to a legalized private sector, but have led to the revitalization of group and organizational activity at the local level and the emergence of groups and associations formed as a result of local initiative. Vietnam has often been perceived as being a "strong state" because of the ability of its leaders to mobilize the peasant masses to resist foreign invasion and to conduct land reform and agricultural collectivization.