Schoolchildren learn about revolutionary achievements, victories over foreign invaders and acts of heroism. But a senior diplomat in Hanoi said selective truth and secrecy served a purpose. Who wants accountability, that's what follows transparency. The party member said internecine struggles, slur campaigns and clashes of vested interests had caused trust within the elite to ebb. Leaden Marxist and revolutionary rhetoric has become irrelevant as around 60 percent of the population are too young to remember the Vietnam War.
Analysts say people, including many party members, are now more interested in cash than politics.
The Vietnam Communist Party is a dinosaur living in an age where it should be extinct. A group of retired military and party veterans have rallied behind elderly General Tran Do to urge the party to examine itself and be prepared to democratise and drop socialism if that was what was needed to ensure economic growth. A political officer at a foreign embassy in Hanoi said a slowing economy coupled with ideological struggles over the introduction of a market economy, as well as conflicting vested interests, threatened the party's ability to rule. They have to lighten up, take a step back and develop good governance through nurturing open dialogue with all sections of society. Only then can they have legitimacy.