Dong: Vietnam's Marxist mandarin

Dong: Vietnam's Marxist mandarin

HANOI (AFP): Pham Van Dong, who has died aged 94, served as
Vietnam's prime minister for more than 30 years and was one of
the giants of the country's struggle for independence and
reunification.

Dong died in Hanoi on Saturday, on the eve of celebrations
marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon -- now Ho Chi
Minh City -- to communist forces and the end of the Vietnam War.

Dong rose to international prominence at the head of the Viet
Minh delegation at the Geneva talks in 1954 when Indochina won
independence from France but Vietnam was divided between the
communist North and the U.S.-backed government in the South.

Bitterly opposed to the division, Dong spent the first 20
years of his premiership fighting for reunification, which came
in 1975 after one of the most brutal wars of modern times.

The former prime minister was an uncompromising proponent of
national reunification who even as the North was being crushed by
American bombs confidently predicted victory for Hanoi because it
would always outlast the United States.

Seen from the outside as a fervent pro-Soviet Marxist and hard
negotiator -- Henry Kissinger described him as "wily and
insolent" -- at home Dong was more an administrator and
ideological guardian.

As Ho Chi Minh's "favorite nephew," Dong inherited the mantle
of "Uncle Ho" following the death of Vietnam's avuncular
nationalist figure in 1969.

Born March 1, 1906 to the private secretary of Emperor Duy
Tan, Dong grew up in the Confucian mandarin tradition but was
heavily influenced by the Vietnamese nationalism that developed
under French colonial rule.

Convicted of leading a student demonstration in Hue, Dong
spent seven years from 1929 doing hard labor on Poulo Condore,
the brutal French penal colony that served as the "university of
revolution" for Vietnam's leaders.

Released in 1936, he resumed his underground activities but
after a crackdown at the start of the war he escaped to China,
joining up with Ho Chi Minh.

During these years he became a key figure in the founding of
the Vietnam Minh alongside Ho and Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, even
taking over the leadership from Ho when he was imprisoned by the
Chinese from 1942-43.

In 1946 he represented the Viet Minh in talks with the French
government at Fontainebleau.

But when these broke down he went back to the Viet Minh's
jungle base for another eight years of war, culminating in the
defeat of the French at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

After independence in 1954, Dong played an increasingly high
profile role as prime minister and foreign minister until 1961,
controlling policy during the war with the South and maintaining
a hard stance during negotiations.

Premier from 1955 until 1987, he survived the turmoil of land
reform in the 1950s, wars against the United States, Cambodia and
China and the economic crisis that hit the country after
reunification.

Later he would admit that "mistakes were made" after 1975,
when the country suffered from what Dong called "subjectivity and
leftism" -- Marxist jargon for the leadership's determined push
for socialism that left Vietnam bankrupt and dependent on the
Soviet Union.

Seen only as a competent administrator by the more adept
political operators in the politburo, Dong reportedly complained
of powerlessness during his time in office when all decisions
were by consensus.

He stepped down from the politburo in 1986, a year when many
of the old guard were swept out and Vietnam began a process of
market reforms.

Almost blind by the end of the 1980s, the haughty and
patrician leader kept a semi-official post as an advisor until
December 1997, wielding considerable clout and remaining an
implacable critic of the inequalities and corruption that
accompanied reforms.

His hands remained cupped around the dying members of the
socialist flame as the stiff winds of reform whipped through
Vietnam and his communist credentials remained impeccable to the
bitter end.