Ur-socialist Kolko tries - and fails - to come to grips with
Vietnam's embrace of a market economy. Kolko (formerly of York
Univ., Toronto) goes through hoops trying to explain why Vietnamese
communism hasn't worked. In this weakly argued, tediously written
tract, the author of Anatomy of a War (1986) - a fervidly
anti-American history of the Vietnam War - castigates a disparate
group of socialist enemies, including ignorant, avaricious,
market-loving Vietnamese communist apparatchiks, and officials of
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along
with the capitalist, imperialist Americans who control them. Kolko,
for example, calls Vietnam's Communist Party General Secretary Do
Muoi "an opportunistic, intellectually banal figure." Long-time
Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet is power-hungry, a "consummate cynic."
Kiet's economist Nguyen Xuan Oanh is "a consummate opportunist" and
a "key link with the IMF." World Bank and IMF officials have
blackmailed Vietnam, Kolko claims, offering much-needed loans to
gain the "prize" of "abolishing socialism." In prose that often
reads like a rhetoric-strewn ultraradical political tract, Kolko
concentrates on the economic changes that have come since 1985 with
the introduction of liberalized market-economic reforms (read:
capitalism). Although he calls the American war in Vietnam a
"terrible crime against humanity," Kolko ignores communist
Vietnam's human-rights abuses, both during the war and since. He
seems never to have heard the words "re-education camps" and skips
very lightly over the current Vietnamese government's shortcomings,
including press censorship and a still-strong secret police. An
embarrassing attempt by Kolko - more socialist than Ho Chi Minh -
to explain why his beloved Vietnamese communists have aided and
abetted "the ultimate American victory over socialism." (Kirkus
Reviews)
Vietnam has experienced huge political and economic development since the war. In Anatomy of a Peace, Gabriel Kolko looks at the main economic phases the Communist Party has embarked upon since 1986 and outlines the transition to nascent capitalism. He also explores Vietnam's relations to its neighbours and the US in the light of social and psychological national features.
Based on extensive research and over 30 years first hand experience, Anatomy of a Peace is a timely examination of recent history and developing economies in Asia. Gabriel Kolko argues that neither an intentional socialist or market strategy have determined recent Vietnamese history and, in fact, the Communist Party has little control over development during peace time.
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