The Inevitability of the Path to Socialism in Vietnam Today

Currently many hostile forces and political opportunists seek to deny the path to socialism in Vietnam as well as deny that today’s era is the era of socialism on a worldwide scale. This is an extremely malicious plot of reactionary forces against the Party and against the socialist regime in our country. If hostile and reactionary forces make people lose faith in the path to socialism, it also means they have shaken the goal of going up to socialism in our country. Therefore, although this is an issue that has been mentioned and affirmed since the early days of the Vietnamese revolution in the early 20th century, it still needs to be further affirmed, supplemented and developed in the current period. This is especially true in the current situation in which the world is undergoing many changes with new development trends, opportunities and challenges which are complexly intertwined.

1. The inevitability of today’s era – the era of transition to socialism on a worldwide scale

Answering the question: What is today’s era? There are many different viewpoints. One approach emphasizes the role of science and technology, calling today’s era the digital age or the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The “civilization-wave” approach calls today’s era the post-industrial civilization or information society. The “knowledge-promoting” approach calls it the era of the knowledge economy. There is also an approach that considers today’s era an era of conflict between civilizations, emphasizing elements of conflict and contradiction between different peoples, religions, and civilizations across the globe. These approaches, some with certain rational factors, also reflect prominent and typical trends in the development of science and technology, in the current social development, although they do not yet reflect comprehensive social development. However, there is an approach that shows reactionary, anti-scientific features, with deepening contradictions and conflicts in the world. This approach views today’s era as a clash between civilizations.

With the birth of Marxism-Leninism, a scientific and revolutionary approach to social development was formed, a dialectical materialist approach to history – “historical materialism.” And it is the Marxist-Leninist doctrine that outlines the scientific basis and affirms the objective law of historical development, thereby proving the inevitability of today’s era, the era of transition to socialism on a global scale.

With the birth of historical materialism, which is based on the theory of socio‑economic forms, the classics have affirmed that the development of each historical epoch is “determined by objective laws,” regardless of the subjective will of man or the will of the gods. According to the classics, the development of society is the interchange between socio-economic forms from low to high, from simple to complex, from less perfect to more perfect. The development of societies comes from their material ground, which is material production, and that ultimately, the development of production forces determines the development of socio-economic forms. As K. Marx wrote: “The windmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the industrial capitalist”. On the basis of material production, the basic elements of the socio‑economic form are established, that is: productive forces (all factors constituting social production, laborers, and means of production), production relations (relationships between people and people in material production) (all relations of production that constitute social infrastructure) appropriate to the level of development of productive forces. On that infrastructure, a superstructure is formed which comprises all views and ideas about politics, the rule of law, religion, morality, as well as their relevant social institutions. As a rule, the basic elements of the socio-economic form are constantly changing and interacting with each other.

The development of socio-economic forms follows objective laws. First is the law of conformity of production relations with the level of development of productive forces. Accordingly, the constant development of productive forces has led to a conflict between productive forces and production relations, thereby requiring replacement of the old production system with a new one more suitable to a new development level of the productive forces.

This thereby forms the foundation for a new, higher socio-economic form.

Next, there is the law of the dialectical relationship between the infrastructure and the superstructure. The change in the dominant relations of production has changed the economic or social infrastructure. This leads to a conflict between the economic base or the new infrastructure and the old superstructure that is protecting the old infrastructure. This leads to the replacement of the old superstructure with a new superstructure, which is suitable to the new infrastructure with the new dominant production relationship at the center. Thus, with the constant development of the productive forces, a new production relation and a new superstructure of society were formed, from which a new and more complete socio-economic form was born, replacing the old socio-economic form. That is the regularity of social development as pointed out by the historical materialism, specifically the theory of socio-economic formation. It is these objective laws that determine the inevitability of the replacement of socio-economic forms in history as well as the birth of a new socio-economic form, socialism of which the highest stage is communism.

Besides these common laws, the development of societies in history also follows specific laws such as economic, political, moral laws, etcetera. That further confirms that the development of socio‑economic forms as well as the birth of socialism and communism is a natural historical process.

On the ground of the scientific theory of historical materialism, the inevitability of the current era ­– the era of transition to socialism on a worldwide scale is expressed as follows:

First, in economic terms, it is the contradiction between the productive forces and the production relations, which requires replacing the old production relations with a new and progressive production relation that is more suitable to the development level of the production forces. Specifically, it is a contradiction between the increasing level, the increasingly socialized nature of productive forces and the production relations based on private ownership of the main means of production. That contradiction leads to a crisis in the development of the mode of production, which requires breaking the relations of production based on capitalist private ownership by a new production relationship based on public ownership that is more suitable for the process of production level of the modern productive forces.

Second, in terms of socio-politics, class conflicts between the working class who make up the majority in modern society, impacting progressive productive forces and production relation with the bourgeoisie who make up a minority in society but hold the bulk of the social wealth due to private ownership of the main means of production of society. This contradiction can only be resolved when the working class conducts a socialist revolution to overthrow the domination of the bourgeoisie, overthrowing the bourgeois government, thereby changing the capitalist production relations by the socialism productive forces based on public ownership of the main means of production, thereby liberating production power, and bringing about a fairer social system. Thus, from the revolutionary change in the productive forces to the changes in the dominant production relations, to the infrastructure and superstructure of the new society, leading to the formation of a new socio-economic form – the communist socio‑economic form (of which the first stage is socialism) replaces the old socio-economic form, opening a new era: “the era of transition from capitalism to socialism on a worldwide scale.” The new era began with the Russian October Revolution of 1917, with the birth of the Soviet state and the socialist system in the twentieth century and continues to the present day.

It is on the scientific basis of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine that our Party affirms: “according to the evolutionary laws of history, mankind will definitely move towards socialism.” (The platform for building the country in the transition to socialism (amended and supplemented in 2011)).

At present, although capitalism still has potential for development, capitalism itself cannot solve its intrinsic contradiction between the development of productive forces and production relations based on capitalist private ownership. It is still a social system based on exploitation, inequality, and injustice. This can be seen both within a capitalist country and the development of capitalism on a world scale. Many scholars, researchers, and policy makers in capitalist countries also realize this and are also looking for solutions to move towards a free, democratic, fair and prosperous society for its people. But solutions from a non-Marxist stance have not been able to turn the goals of that future society into a reality. The choice of the path to socialism is a progressive social model with a scientific basis, towards the common goals of freedom, justice, democracy and prosperity for all mankind. It can be said that it is the right choice for humanity to solve global problems as well as the problems of capitalism. Therefore, at present, in the hearts of capitalist countries in many parts of the world, from Europe, America, Africa, and elsewhere, there is an increasing tendency to look back to Marxist-Leninist doctrine for research and design on the road to reform capitalist society. During the global financial‑economic crisis in 2008, Marx’s “Das Kapital,” was reprinted many times in Western countries. Marx was voted the most influential thinker of the millennium. Marxist philosophy has been studied and lectured upon in the Philosophy Departments at the undergraduate and graduate levels of many universities in the United States, the West and around the world today. That is also the trend that shows that the “seeds” of socialism are growing gradually in the heart of capitalism. This proves the inevitability of today’s era as the era of transition to socialism on a worldwide scale, not only in socialist countries but also in the hearts of capitalist countries.

2. The inevitability of the choice of the Vietnamese revolutionary path – national independence associated with socialism

The path to socialism is the inevitable trend of the times, and this objectively determined the inevitability of the path to socialism in Vietnam from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present with the transition to socialism bypassing the capitalist regime. The two mains reasons that we follow the development path “bypassing the capitalist regime” to move towards socialism are: first, it is the path that is consistent with the objective trend of the times – the transition to socialism on a worldwide scale; and second, the socialist revolutionary path is suitable to the specific historical conditions of Vietnam in the early twentieth century. At that time, the ways to save the country based on feudal and bourgeois lines failed. Only the path of national liberation associated with the proletarian revolution led by the Communist Party came to victory. Therefore, moving towards socialism is an inevitable choice. It is the will and aspiration of the entire Vietnamese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Thanks to that revolutionary path, victory to the Vietnamese revolution was gained in the resistance war as well as the victory of the renovation and construction of socialism in our country in the current period.

Today, when humanity enters the digital age, the fourth industrial revolution is advancing strongly, the inevitability of the path to socialism continues and is still affirmed on a global scale as well as in Vietnam. It is the development of science and technology that has strongly promoted the productive forces, creating an important material and technical foundation for socialism, germinating socialism to form and develop more strongly on the world scale as well as creating conditions for the cause of continuing socialist construction in countries such as China and Vietnam, promoting itself to further great achievements.

Thus, continuing the glorious revolutionary tradition of the nation, in line with the objective trend of the times, is the inevitability of the path of socialism in Vietnam. It is the practice of building socialism that has accomplished many great achievements in all aspects that confirms the correctness of our country’s path to socialism. Proper awareness of the scientific and practical basis of the nation’s revolutionary path is an effective remedy to help us protect the Party’s ideological foundation, and to fight and prevent wrong and hostile viewpoints. At the same time, the entire Party, People and Army firmly believe in the victory of the socialist revolutionary cause, and in the future prosperous development of the nation, thereby creating social consensus and creating spiritual motivation, stimulating the will and aspiration to develop the country in the new century of independence, freedom, democracy, justice and prosperity./.