The article does not aim to review the entire range of socio-economic activities carried out in Vietnam in the period 1976-1986, i.e., in the first decade after the country's reunification. It traces only one, but it seems to be the most important aspect of the economic policy of the Vietnamese leadership in those years: the process of developing a concept of transformation and economic construction in a reunified Vietnam, which, in essence, covers 1976-1986.

On May 15, 1975, a solemn rally was held in Hanoi to celebrate the Victory Day-the liberation of South Vietnam. Speaking at the rally, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers ' Party of Vietnam (PTV) Le Duan not only gave a comprehensive assessment of the victory won, but also touched upon the challenges facing the Vietnamese people in the North and South of the country: "Let the people of the North strengthen socialist construction. Let our compatriots in the South fight in close unity for building a truly national democratic system in South Vietnam, a prosperous national economy based on democratic principles, and a progressive national culture distinguished by spiritual health and democracy " [Nhan Dan, 16.05.1975; Essays..., 1977, p. 469].

The question of the timing of the reunification of the country, Le Zouan did not touch at all. Moreover, in the summer of 1975, measures were implemented to emphasize the independence of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. At the initiative of the DRW, it was recognized by a number of States that did not do so earlier, in the year of the creation of this government. The ceremony of presentation of credentials by ambassadors to the RYW was held. It should be noted that it did not take place in Saigon, but near the demarcation line, in the city of Quang Chi, and the ambassadors were appointed "part-time" at the request of the Vietnamese side, i.e. they were already in Hanoi. The demarcation line along the 17th parallel in its former purpose was eliminated, but the free movement of the population from North to South and from South to North was not allowed.

September 1975 marked the 30th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The opening of the mausoleum of President Ho Chi Minh, built with the help and technical assistance of the Soviet Union, was also timed to coincide with this event. The Soviet delegation that participated in the celebrations certainly showed great interest in the prospects for the reunification of Vietnam. The Vietnamese side responded that this is a long process, which should be carried out step by step and may take several years. There were very big differences in the economy, social structure, lifestyle, and psychology of two roughly equal parts of Vietnam in terms of population.

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In the North, during the years of people's power, especially after the third Congress of the PTV (1960), which proclaimed the course of socialist construction, a completely new community of people was formed, cemented by the consciousness that socialism and independence are inseparable concepts. Once, during the war, one of Le Zouan's assistants remarked:: "We have about 28 million people in the North, and it is impossible to make everyone think the same way. It is important that everyone understands that Vietnam must be united. And that's what we've achieved!" The great idea of Homeland unity cemented North Vietnamese society and helped it overcome incalculable difficulties and losses, including human ones, caused by the devastating US war against the DRV that began in 1964.

During the three and a half years of the undeclared air war against the DRV, which was aimed at "returning North Vietnam to the Stone Age," American aircraft consistently expanded the area of operations to the north, but did not affect the area adjacent to the Chinese border. Its tactics were limited to delivering pinpoint strikes on industrial and other important objects in cities and to massive scattering of "ball bombs" in rural areas. This caused serious damage to the economy of the DRC, especially to energy and transport facilities: for example, the Wangbi thermal power plant and the Red River road and railway bridge in Hanoi were significantly damaged.

After ten years of peaceful life, North Vietnamese society once again had to enter the military phase. It was necessary to solve a lot of problems in the shortest possible time-from the restructuring of production to saving human lives. It was necessary to learn how to shoot down American bombers and continue to support the struggle of compatriots in the South. Special attention was paid to the maintenance of transport routes in working order. For this purpose, along with the use of military units, youth work brigades were created responsible for a certain section of road, groups of specialists for the restoration of bridges destroyed by bombing. Industrial enterprises from the cities were dispersed to rural areas and continued to work. The province with a population of about one and a half million people turned into a self-sufficient economic unit, using the center to build enterprises for the production of essential goods, the production of agricultural equipment, and the development of local natural resources. All of North Vietnam, with its 500 counties, became a bastion in the undeclared destructive war of the United States. It was "an ideology of mobilising the entire population to take part in the war of Resistance and at the same time democratic in the form of devolution of powers to the local level under the general leadership of the Center" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 226].

Looking ahead, it should be noted that the "transfer of authority to the local authorities", a certain independence of "places" later with the transition to peaceful life caused noticeable concern for supporters of centralized management.

A timely reorientation of the economy made it possible to ensure that throughout the war, the prices of rice, cloth, salt, and kerosene distributed on coupons were not changed, and the supply standards were not reduced in comparison with the pre-war period. The health authorities worked clearly. During the war years, there was not a single outbreak of epidemics. In fact, North Vietnam has returned to the era of a kind of Vietnamese "war communism", the forms and content of which were formed during the years of the first Resistance (1946-1954).

The damage caused to North Vietnam by American bombing was enormous. Almost all cities and provincial centers were destroyed. 12 provincial and 51 county centers were completely destroyed; 4,000 communes (volosts) out of 5,788 were damaged, and 30 communities were completely destroyed. Destruction

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all industrial areas were affected, many of them were destroyed to the ground, all power plants were seriously damaged, 5 million square meters of housing were destroyed (only in cities). All railway lines, bridges, ports, sea and river communications were bombed. 160 irrigation facilities were damaged, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land were taken out of agricultural circulation, and 40 thousand heads of cattle were destroyed. 300 schools and 350 hospitals were damaged, 10 of them were wiped off the face of the earth [IV Congress..., 1977, p.28].

With the advent of peace, it was necessary not only to restore everything destroyed by the war, to resume the work of enterprises evacuated to rural areas, but also to return to life mothballed construction sites. There was a need to show our compatriots in the South the advantages of the socialist system in the structure of the economy, in the system of economic management, and, most importantly, in all aspects of the material and spiritual life of the population. It was necessary to move from the Vietnamese version of" war communism " to a new, largely still incomprehensible and unknown peaceful life.

An even more complex picture opens up when looking at South Vietnamese society. Saigon's two-decade-old military-police regime not only suppressed all dissent, but also sought to build a social base for itself. For this purpose, the generous financial and economic assistance of the United States, as well as the involvement of American political advisers, masters of organizing propaganda campaigns, etc. were used.

The Vietnamization of the war, which replaced the direct aggression of the United States, was not limited only to the military side. An equally important part of it was to restructure South Vietnamese society, especially the peasantry, in order to create a social pillar of the regime in rural areas. It was for this purpose that the agrarian reform was initiated back in 1970 under the leadership of American experts and with funds allocated by Washington. Carried out under the slogan "Land for those who cultivate it!", which is traditionally popular among peasants, the reform was aimed at creating middle peasant farms of the farmer type, i.e., at introducing capitalist relations in the countryside.

As a result of the measures taken within the framework of the reform, land ownership by landlords has significantly decreased. Land plots purchased by the government from landlords and large owners exceeding the established norm (11-15 ha) were distributed free of charge among the peasants. At the same time, the person who received the land plot was issued a government certificate for the right to use the land. According to official data of the Saigon administration, in 1971-1973, more than 1 million hectares of land were transferred to the ownership of 800 thousand peasant households [USAID VN Annual Statistical Bulletin, 1973, p. 25]. Even if these figures are exaggerated for propaganda purposes, it is clear that the reform has affected the social structure of the rural population in the Saigon-controlled zone. Tenants and landless people disappeared, and small proprietors took their place. Simultaneously with the redistribution of land in rural areas, various capitalist-type cooperatives and "agricultural development centers"were created. The authorities also took the path of uniting peasants in a managed organization-the Farmers ' Society (a branch of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions), which accepted 85 thousand people. "reliable" farms [USAID VN Annual Statistical Bulletin, 1973, p. 25]. Moreover, the regime decided to organize peasant "people's self-defense units" in the villages and arm them.

During the years of "Vietnamization" , this reform created greater difficulties for the NWFPS than the strengthening of the Saigon army. The Saigon regime widely propagated that agrarian reform "extends to areas controlled by the Vietcong", i.e., the zones liberated in 1969-1970. NSFPS due to mistakes made in the political process-

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Due to heavy work and military miscalculations, it was forced to retreat from a number of liberated areas.

Saigon's agrarian reforms were not entirely successful: they were accompanied by the actions of the army and special services, and forced relocation of residents to "development centers". "People's self-defense units" were formed forcibly, and forced recruitment was carried out in the army [Le Zuan, 1987, p.229].

The spontaneous reaction of the population of the South Vietnamese hinterland was expressed in the fact that whole families left the places where they were resettled, and went away from the punishers, from the war. Major cities remained the most calm. Therefore, during the years of" Vietnamization", the urban population of South Vietnam grew rapidly. By 1970, 29% of the population lived in South Vietnamese cities, and almost half of the country's population, including suburbs [Letyagin, 1977, p. 50]. By the time of liberation, there were more than a million refugees in major cities in South Vietnam. Around Saigon, Da Nang, Hue, and the suburbs of provincial centers, "bidonvils" grew, filled with unemployed, declassified elements that created a breeding ground for crime.

This problem became more acute as the United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam, stopped military construction work, etc., since the inhabitants of "bidon-viley" existed mainly at the expense of small services, day labor, paid for by the American expeditionary force. By the end of 1974, the number of unemployed in the Saigon-controlled area was, according to official data, 2.5 million people [Essays... 1977, p. 203.].

One of the consequences of the policy of "Vietnamization" was the emergence of a criminal situation in large cities, primarily in such a megacity as Saigon-Tiolon. Tiolon, a suburb of Saigon, has long been inhabited by merchants, mostly ethnic Chinese. While remaining loyal to the regime, the merchants of this vast city within the city had close ties to American, Chinese, and other firms and services, and were essentially independent of the authorities. Corruption, "black business" flourished here, and various criminal groups operated. All this has contributed to instability in the regime's "strongholds" in Saigon and other cities in South Vietnam.

Citing the need to step up the fight against "communist aggression", the President of the Republic of Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, sought to grant him emergency powers in the field of national security, defense, finance and introduced wartime laws in the country, increased taxes, tightened the mobilization of young people into the army, and dissolved all bourgeois-nationalist parties. The next step of the Saigon President was the adoption of the law on political parties in 1972. Based on this law, the leading position was taken by the Democratic Party, consisting of Thieu's supporters in the state apparatus and the army, and three more "trustworthy" parties were allowed to form from the fragments of the dispersed parties.: The Liberal (conservative wing of Catholics), the Social Democratic Union (trade unions and nationalist entrepreneurs and intellectuals) and the United Buddhist Social Democratic Party. It was assumed that these political organizations would contribute to the consolidation of anti-communist pro-government forces, but Thieu's calculations were not justified.

Special mention should be made of the situation of the working class in South Vietnam. Using methods of blatant bribery and veiled pressure, the Saigon authorities managed to keep a certain part of the small working class out of the struggle for reunification of the country. Relatively high wages (although significantly lower than, for example, in Singapore or Hong Kong), rather decent working and living conditions for a colonial country created the pre-emptive conditions for the population.-

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conditions for spreading the ideology of reformism, "class peace", limiting the labor movement to narrow economic limits and giving it an anti-communist orientation. This is exactly how the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions operated in South Vietnamese enterprises, which enjoyed full support and assistance (including financial) from the United States and Saigon. Back in October 1969, the authorities officially recognized the Workers 'and Peasants' Party headed by the leader of the "yellow" trade unions, Tran Kuok Byu; this party automatically included in its ranks all members of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (about 500 thousand people in 1970) [Letyagin, 1977, pp. 124-125].

Le Zouan, summing up the General Offensive of 1968 and the temporary capture of Hue, wrote in 1971: "... the contingent of our fighters in the cities is limited to students, students. Even in the most favorable areas, only a fraction of the general population can be involved, and the vast majority still stands on the sidelines or behaves passively, showing only formal support. Therefore, in many places, the actions of activists are isolated, there are no workers among them... Work on rallying forces in working-class districts and neighborhoods is still not at the proper level... The weakness of the labor movement... The main reason is that it to some extent separates economic demands from political ones" [Le Zouan, 1987, p. 209, 213]. General Vo Nguyen Ziap writes even more explicitly in his memoirs: "The beginning of the General Offensive on Tet Mau Than in 1968 was unexpected, which was a creative approach. But the General Uprising was not combined with it, and in reality it did not work out" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 739].

Realizing the importance of maintaining stability in the South, the Vietnamese leadership immediately after the liberation declared its attitude towards those who were on the opposite side. In a speech on May 15, 1975 Le Zouan emphasized: "In the pursuit of national reconciliation and harmony, the people have shown admirable generosity to those who are deluded, helping them to understand the truth and take the side of the national forces. Whoever they may have been in the past, as long as they honestly realize their guilt and sincerely want to devote themselves to serving the Motherland, they will be guaranteed a place in our national community, while all the shame and dishonor will go to the American imperialists, the perpetrators of all the suffering of our people " [Essays..., 1977, p. 269]. He spoke more openly and definitely and with undisguised concern at the first meeting of personnel workers in South Vietnam (yesterday's underground workers, military personnel, security service employees, leaders of patriotic public organizations). Le Zouan pointed out that " after the revolution had already won, life presented many difficult problems. In the old days, when the war of Resistance was still going on and we gave our flesh and blood to the cause of independence, unanimity was easier to achieve. But now that success has already been achieved, these big painful sacrifices are no longer required, and it happens that even when solving a small task, we lose cohesion. I ask you to remain united!" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 719]. And continued: "I don't know my compatriots living in Saigon well enough yet. I can see that they are very modest... Do you study it? I'm sure the Saigon Party Committee doesn't fully understand the people of Saigon yet... It is necessary to do everything possible to help our compatriots to remove the stigma of "living in the puppet zone"; for the people of the old regime, the revolution must do so in order to restore to man his human rights... We must strive to reduce people's difficulties... Vietnam has passed through 30 years of war, and there has never been a revolution that was so long and difficult" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 720]. Le Zouan drew the attention of "cadres and party members to the need for a deep understanding of the people, demanded the elimination of any manifestation of bureaucracy, and was concerned about not allowing the people to be allowed to leave."-

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to avoid weakening or losing the qualities of a communist." Apparently, he was referring to the purely human reaction of people who lived and fought in the jungle for a long time to the life and way of life of the population of South Vietnamese large cities that were practically unaffected by the war [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 720.].

In his memoirs of Le Zuan published at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a South Vietnamese who knew him well writes that Le Zuan "persistently repeated that next to the" advertising face " of Saigon, he had another face that he could be proud of. This is Saigon, with an abiding revolutionary spirit that has risen up in a timely fashion... this determined the fate of the puppet authorities. He also saw this as a factor that ensured the rapid restoration of calm and normal life in the city immediately after the liberation." Therefore, he believed that "it is necessary to expand the patriotic Front, attract the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie to participate in it", "it is necessary to pursue a policy of truly free choice, use dialogue", " implement national reconciliation... make sure that the Front in its activities convinces, appeals to reason, feelings, and does not resort to coercion " [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 720].

At the end of 1975, the world got the impression that the reunification of Vietnam was a long process. However, in the spring of 1976, events began to unfold with unexpected rapidity for the international community. On April 26, 1976, general elections were held in the country, which "eloquently testified to the desire of the people to participate in the elections.".. the people's will to create an independent, unified and socialist Vietnam. And the historic session of the united national assembly of the whole country, the national Assembly of the sixth convocation, solemnly proclaimed the reunification of the country, which became known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" [IV Congress..., 1977, p.31].

A sharp turn towards rapid reunification of the country was caused by a number of objective reasons. First, stability was maintained and strengthened in the South. In the last days of the Saigon authorities, in April 1975, those who were closely associated with the puppet regime and the United States fled the country. The remaining representatives of the exploiting and bourgeois strata in the country either agreed to accept the new system, or did not express any tangible protest that threatened general democratic transformations. (The illegal departure from the southern regions of Vietnam - the "flight by sea" of those who were dissatisfied with the policy of the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam - continued in the first half of the 1980s.) Second, the then Chinese leadership raised the issue of huaqiao (in Vietnamese-hoa kieu)-people of Chinese origin living in the southern part of Vietnam. Vietnam. In Beijing, they claimed that members of the large Chinese diaspora in the southern provinces of Vietnam should be considered citizens of the PRC and subject only to it. After the reunification of Vietnam, this population group automatically fell under the influence of the Vietnamese-Chinese agreement of 1955 that the Vietnamese side "will manage the Huaqiao living in North Vietnam, and that they will gradually accept Vietnamese citizenship" [Ilinsky, 2005, p. 587]. Third, there was an urgent need to preserve the country's territorial integrity and counter armed provocations on the southwestern border of Vietnam by the Vietnamese who came to power in Cambodia in March 1975 (Pospelov and Stepanov, 1983, pp. 70-78).

The turn toward rapid reunification can also be explained by the words of Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Van Dong at a rally in Hanoi on September 1, 1978: "Already in 1975, when our people won a complete victory in the war against the American aggressors and their collaborators in South Vietnam, Beijing came to the conclusion that the birth of a peaceful,peaceful, peaceful, peaceful, peaceful and peaceful independent united socialist Vietnam

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It will become an obstacle to the implementation of its expansionist plans in Southeast Asia " [Nhan Dan, 02.09.1978].

A few months after reunification, the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, rightly called the Congress of winners, was held. As in any other socialist country, in Vietnam, it was at the congress of the Communist Party that the strategy of economic, political and social construction was determined, at least for the next five years. The Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam was notable not only for summing up the results of the 30-year struggle for the liberation and reunification of the country, but also for defining the long-term strategic domestic and foreign policy course of a united Vietnam. It ushered in a period of radical transformation of Vietnamese society, and marked the beginning of a decade of searching for ways to transform it, a decade of mistakes and losses, overcoming various internal and external difficulties, gaining experience and making bold decisions.

The Fourth Party Congress stated: "It is obvious that our country is still in the process of transition from a society in which small-scale production is predominant to socialism, bypassing the stage of capitalist production. This is the most important feature that reveals the essence of the process of the socialist revolution in our country and determines the main content of it" [IV Congress..., 1977, p. 34]. In his memoirs, one of Le Zuan's assistants, economist Dau Ngoc Xuan, wrote: "Many comrades are well aware that the socialist revolution in the north of our country unfolded under special conditions. The most difficult moment was that the socialist revolution was unfolding in our country, which was different from all other fraternal countries... Therefore, solutions to many problems facing others were not acceptable in our country [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 478-479].

At the Fourth Party Congress, it was decided that progress towards socialism in a reunified Vietnam would be carried out in the same forms and methods that were used in the North after the Third Party Congress (1960): after all, they demonstrated their effectiveness and contributed to achieving victory in the war. However, this decision did not put an end to many reflections and doubts.

The difference in socio-economic structure in the reunited parts of the country prompted such reflections. In North Vietnam, there were three economic systems: state, cooperative and private economy. Considering the post-liberation economy of South Vietnam, Le Duan, speaking in July 1976 at a meeting of personnel workers convened in Ho Chi Minh City (as Saigon became known), emphasized: "I want to say that there are five economic structures in South Vietnam... There is a socialist system created by a socialist state. Without this, there would be no growth and strengthening of the public sector, which plays a crucial role in the development of the state's economy. Mixed public-private and cooperative enterprises are also mostly the fruit of socialist transformations. Along with these three sectors, we have allowed the existence of small producers in certain sectors, mainly in the sphere of production, private capitalist and private economy " [Le Duan, 1978, tr. 65]. He insisted on preserving the multi-layered economy of South Vietnam, demanded not to carry out agricultural cooperation there, as was done in the North, support the middle peasants, etc. This misunderstanding caused, according to Vietnamese economists, Le Zuan's critical remarks: "In some places, socialist transformations are carried out superficially, and transformations should be carried out using the methods of perestroika and reconstruction. reorganizations should become the goal of development; transformations should not be limited to confiscation, alienation of property, mixing with the public sector, and should affect the opportunities for economic development " [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 486].

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The idea of a "multi-layered system" did not initially become generally accepted, nor was it a basis for work, especially in the first years after the congress, when recognition of two sectors prevailed: state and cooperative. Only when new phenomena began to appear with increasing acuteness did the" multi-layered system " begin to be recognized. It took five years of practical and explanatory work, persuasion, and disciplinary measures for the Fifth Party Congress (March 1982) to recognize the existence of three economic systems in the North and five in the South.

The Third Congress of the Workers ' Party of Vietnam (1960), which set a course for building socialism in North Vietnam and socialist industrialization of the country, pointed out the need to develop mainly heavy industry of central subordination for these purposes [III Congress..., 1961, p.56].

The experience of the war years, when many enterprises of central subordination were evacuated to the hinterlands by separate workshops, and familiarization with the organization of management of industrial enterprises of the Saigon regime, the very situation in the economy forced the party and state leadership of the country to decide on the construction of the economy of central subordination while simultaneously developing the local economy. Le Zouan believed that it was necessary, on the one hand, to build large enterprises, and on the other-to create many small and medium-sized enterprises, up to the parish (huen). He emphasized: "... economic transformations in our country should be carried out simultaneously in the following direction: national scales are combined with specific local scales, modern technology is combined with the best examples of semi-artisanal skills. The strength of the whole country is combined with local capabilities, etc. Only on this path can we develop labor resources, intelligence, natural resources, capital investments, and realize the "State and people work together"attitude that expresses the essence of our system."

However, not everyone shared this approach of the General Secretary of the CPV Central Committee. His associate, General Vo Nguyen Ziap, in his memoirs regarded this as a serious mistake.: "In order to move more quickly to large-scale socialist production, we have hurried to include provinces, counties, volosts and cooperatives in this process. These attitudes, which do not correspond to an objective pattern, plunged the economy of our country into a serious crisis " [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 40].

A difficult situation was created with the forms of management of the socialist economy, distribution supply of the population, labor remuneration, and economic initiative of enterprises. Nguyen Van Chan, former secretary of the Hanoi City Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, admitted: "Economic measures and the organization of economic management for a long time did not bring the expected effect, the population was dissatisfied with the distribution policy, which did not become a stimulator of production" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 226]. Passivity and disbelief in the existing system grew, fraught with the threat of losing the unity of society and cohesion.

Earlier than others, the drop in enthusiasm of the war years, fatigue and growing indifference of the population to the appeals and slogans of the authorities was felt in the outback. Already in the first years after the Fourth Congress, villages and small towns began to receive not only critical comments, but also concrete proposals for changing and improving the forms of management, bringing them more fully into line with the objective processes that are developing in the country's economy.

Former Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Vietnam Vo Van Kiet, who at that time held the post of head of the Ho Chi Minh City party organization, recalls that the country's leadership did not go "beyond the economic ideas prevailing in the entire socialist camp." According to Vo Van Kiet," although there was considerable concern about the difficulties in the economy and society, "Le Zouan did not" put a lot of money on the table."

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the question is officially on the Politburo or not instructed a group of specialists to study what concerns the system of centralized financing and supply. Moreover, working methods that ran counter to "conventional thinking" led to serious conclusions: "We have Kim Ngok (Secretary of the Vinfu Provincial Party Committee - Acting) disciplined for running a family contract in agriculture on his own." Some industrial enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City took the initiative to "untie the knot", "unlace", and although these proposals did not in any way contradict the requirements set, Le Zuan noted: "Something on the way to Tan Son Nhat (Ho Chi Minh City Airport-Acting) I smelled Yugoslavia" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 66].

In August 1979, the sixth plenum of the Central Committee met to discuss the production of consumer goods. Prime Minister Pham Van Dong delivered a report on the need to review economic Policy at the plenary session. Le Zouan and the Politburo supported the need to review economic policies and increase the output of consumer goods.

Nguyen Van Chan, a participant in the sixth plenum of the CPV Central Committee and then secretary of the Hanoi City Committee of the CPV, recalls that the first thing to do in order to revise economic policy was to solve the problem of pricing. In accordance with the current exchange rate, all prices were set by the state. The state distributed basic goods and products by card. The card system was necessary during the war years, but during the transition to peaceful life, it showed inconsistency with the new conditions and caused many problems. Government price fixing and the card system negated market trading. All revenues of enterprises were transferred to the state budget. Cooperatives were required to sell the entire product produced to the state, which is why their incomes were very low. Since the goods and products distributed were cheap, enterprises and cooperatives were obliged to sell their products to the state at low prices - at cost price. The distribution system gave rise to such phenomena as a shortage of consumer goods, a decline in production, speculation in commodity and food cards [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 229].

Nguyen Van Tran notes: at the plenum, many cadres felt that the old pricing system should be preserved, arguing that changing it would mean moving away from the socialist path. However, at the same time, the South Vietnamese province of Longan independently abolished the card system, and trading enterprises in the province began to freely sell rice and food at negotiated prices. The results were positive. Le Zouan listened to the detailed report of the provincial leadership and assessed this experience as creative, which should be disseminated throughout the country.

The project "Price-salary-monetary system" was developed. During the discussion of this project, Le Zouan made a fundamentally important statement: "I have no doubt that our colleagues who worked on this project have a high level of scientific training. But you and I must continue to think independently and search and search independently. After all, no one knows our country and the situation in the country better than we do" (emphasis added) [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 230]. This call for independent search echoes Le Zouan's statement dating back to the war years, when he called for "respect for the councils of fraternal countries", but to decide the fate of the country independently, using their own methods.

The implementation of this project encountered serious difficulties, the main one of which was that they tried to implement the project using the usual, well-established methods and techniques of the command and bureaucratic system of farm management.

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The most radical practical steps were taken in the sphere of production activities of agricultural cooperatives, where there was a difficult situation that negatively affected not only the financial situation, but also the moral state of the population both in the village and in the city. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, analyzing the situation in cooperatives in the 1980s, Le Duan came to the conclusion that "a huge mistake is that they involve peasants in the cooperative without caring about their interests, but only chase statistics, numbers" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 477].

That is why he paid attention to the proposal to introduce a family contract in cooperatives. This proposal was put forward by Winfu provincial party secretary Kim Ngoc, who conducted such an experiment in the province, for which he received a party penalty. Le Zuan's opinion, expressed in Vinh Phu Province, is quoted in his memoirs by Dau Ngoc Xuan: "As for the economic activities of cooperatives, I am undecided. We have given 5% of the acreage to individual families, they provide 45% of the harvest, and from 95% of the acreage available to cooperatives, we also get about 50% of the total food harvest... I've been undecided for a long time. And, to tell the truth, I haven't figured out how to solve this problem yet. You submitted a "Note" (Kim Ngok, in a "Note" sent to the Central Committee, described the experience of Vinfu province and suggested that it be studied for possible application in other parts of the country. - Acting), and what it sets out may also be a method of solving the problem. But, probably, because of the established way of thinking, the duration of the work carried out, and the novelty of the proposals, most of the comrades do not agree with the "Note". But calm down, any new offer is not immediately perceived by people-this is common. Of course, you need to think through everything impartially. After all, for many years we have been constantly faced with the problem of developing the direction of economic development. You need to go through a lot of methods until you find the right one, you need to go through experiments in order to get down to business and be able to perform it. There is no need to rush and assume that such and such a situation has already been finally thought out, decided and became the truth! The construction of socialism, the creation of a modern economy, is for us a work of enormous proportions that has not yet been seen in history. There is no one who can see the whole problem at any time. Truly, everything happens according to the expression "Truth is concrete, and revolution is creativity." Therefore, often the revolutionary path passes through a lot of experience and a lot of creativity and only then becomes the truth" [LeDuan..., 2002, tr. 477].

The changes that were initiated mainly affected the peasantry of Northern and Central Vietnam, as there was no hurry to cooperate in the southern part of the country. As noted in the materials of the Fifth Congress of the CPV (1982), "part of the peasants in the provinces of Nambo (i.e., South Vietnam proper. - Acting) are organized into production teams; in the southern provinces of Trungbo (Central Vietnam. - Acting), the transition of peasants to collective forms of labor has basically been completed" [V Congress..., 1983, p. 15].

The author of this article had a chance to work in Vietnam between 1981 and 1983, and I can attest to the fact that after this decision was made, work in suburban cooperatives in Hanoi became more active. Once again, farmers began to go out into the fields in the dark, with flashlights in their hands, working for a really tangible result, and not for a "stick in the list". Trade in the area of Hanoi's famous Dong Xuan market has revived. My good friends, employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, after the traditional visit to rural relatives on the Lunar New Year in 1982, said that "living in the village has become more fun." In fact, the first real and effective step was taken in rebuilding the very foundation of Vietnamese society-agricultural production - in a business-like manner, without any pomp or crushing the foundations of the political system. However, it appears that,

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that this decision was influenced by the centuries-old traditions of the Vietnamese rural community, which are familiar to the peasant.

The ideas, points of view, experiments and their results mentioned above were reflected in the Political Report of the Central Committee of the Party to the Fifth Congress of the CPV, held in March 1982.The Congress was held less solemnly than the previous one, in a more "down-to-earth spirit". Over the past five years, Vietnam has won an important victory, withstanding political, economic and psychological pressure and repelling the Chinese military intervention organized by the then leadership. The main attention of the congress delegates was paid to the consideration of internal difficulties and the search for ways to overcome them, while not going beyond the approaches and methods of "classical" socialist management. Two approaches were seriously criticized in the Political Report. First, "haste and hotness" in determining a number of overestimated indicators of the pace and volume of capital construction and production development, especially in the initial period, and gigantism in the creation of agricultural cooperatives. Secondly, "conservatism and looseness", the continuing existence of an administrative and bureaucratic system and subsidies, a slow change in the course, and the containment of production. The Congress decided: "To improve the existing management and planning, to eliminate the system of administrative and bureaucratic management and subsidies, to overcome and eliminate looseness and conservatism. While maintaining prices, at the same time carefully monitor prices and pricing patterns" [LeDuan..., 2002, tr. 487].

For a number of reasons, including the influence of outdated approaches to economic planning, this direction did not represent a new political system that should be implemented in practice [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 487]. It was about improving the existing management system, not about changing it or rebuilding it. "During the first decade of building socialism on a national scale," writes General Vo Nguyen Ziap, one of the oldest members of the CPV, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PTV - CPV in 1951-1986, " serious mistakes were made: they wanted to quickly create a socialist economy with a high degree of development of two sectors - state and cooperative; they exaggerated the role of centralized bureaucratic planning and rejected any market relations" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 39].

Vo Van Kiet, then secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City CPV City Committee, describes the situation in those years very self-critically: "There is no one who would raise their voice to criticize the discrepancy between the old structure and the proposal of a new one. If the Fourth Party Congress (1976) had done even a fraction of what was done at the Sixth Congress, our country would have been different. Naturally, I advised myself: if you take the position of that time, it is difficult to demand anything more from Anh Ba (Le Zuan - Acting) and other comrades from the leading core of the party. As for us, who worked at the city level, we only knew that we "beat" each other in the struggle over the management of the economy and society and did not have time to define some structure, sometimes acting in a subjectivist spirit. Therefore, although they expressed dissatisfaction, grumbled, and made suggestions that they called "jumping the fence", they actually immersed themselves in the framework of the system that existed at that time " [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 67].

Exactly ten years after the "congress of winners", the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam met, which played a pivotal role in the development of a post-war unified Vietnam. It was, without exaggeration, the first congress in the history of the CPV, which not only publicly spoke about the mistakes made over the past ten years of peaceful construction, but also critically revealed the origins and causes of omissions and failures in the country's leadership

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in the course of this dramatic decade, he bluntly concluded: "Mistakes and miscalculations in the management of the economy and society are the result of shortcomings in the ideological, organizational and personnel work of the party" [VI Congress..., 1988, p.20].

It was not only about the weakness of the party leadership, but also about the concept of building a new Vietnam, about revising the ideology of socialist construction and foreign economic relations, which was guided in previous decades. It should be noted that the changes that took place in the Soviet Union pushed the Vietnamese leadership to such a turn [VI Congress..., 1988, p.45].

The VI Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam marked the beginning of a qualitatively new stage in the history of Vietnam. He set out not to improve the existing system of economic management, but to update the economic structure in all directions and at all levels and the existing management system, without abandoning the main goal - to create a socialist Vietnam on the basis of such a renewal. A completely different understanding of the essence and forms of socialist management in the whole complex of its constituent problems required the renewal of cadres, including in the highest echelons of the party and state leadership. The past decade has been marked by purposeful actions in this area. From congress to Congress, the number of practitioners from the South, with their ideas and proposals based on the real state of affairs in the country, increased in the leading bodies of the party. The participation of qualified, well-trained specialists in these bodies is also noticeable. This combined force, which was based on the real state of affairs and saw prospects, overcame the resistance of middle-level party functionaries, who relied on postulates that were divorced from Vietnamese realities and traditions. The above assessments of former leaders who participated in the events of the decade under consideration indicate that there was a struggle of opinions in the party, and if at first the preponderance was on the side of those who stood on the positions of orthodox socialism, then in the end the opinion of those who advocated renewal became the priority. There was no political cataclysm, because the participants in these disputes put the preservation of unity and cohesion above all else.

Speaking at the congress with a report on the main directions and tasks of socio-economic development for 1986-1990, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Vo Van Kiet described the meaning and significance of the party forum as follows:: "On the path of socialist construction in our country, the Sixth Party Congress is a turning point and an important step towards the renewal of party leadership in all aspects of the country's life. In the economic sphere, this turn means restructuring the structure of the national economy and capital investment, updating economic policy and the management mechanism" [VI Congress..., 1988, p. 119].

According to Vo Nguyen Ziap, " after the Sixth Party Congress, held in 1986, we looked straight into the eyes of the truth, told the truth, strongly condemned the ideology of fraud, boldly put forward a new course of change that corresponds to the ideas of Ho Chi Minh. This is the only way for our country to emerge from the crisis step by step and gradually turn towards development" [Le Duan..., 2002, tr. 39].

Vietnam started a new stage of construction with a new line, but not with a clean slate. There was a material and technical base created over the previous decades, there was a fairly powerful squad of qualified scientific, engineering, and economic personnel, and finally, there was the experience of searching, mistakes, finds, and achievements. There was a political, power, social, and cultural superstructure that was not broken in one fell swoop, but was gradually changed and is being changed, bringing it into line with changes in the economic base and social structure of the country. It took 15 years for the ideas expressed at the VI Congress of the CPV, developed and refined later at the subsequent VII and VIII Congresses, to be translated into reality, laying the foundation for the co-operation of the Party.-

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socio-economic structure of present-day Vietnam. At the IX Congress of the CPV (2001), it was determined: "The Party and the state pursue a consistent and long-term policy of developing a multi-layered commodity economy under the state administration with a socialist orientation. This is a socialist-oriented market economy" [Documents of the IX Congress..., 2001, pp. 39-40].

list of literature

Il'insky M. Vietnamese syndrome, St. Petersburg, 2005. Letyagin D. V. The working class of South Vietnam (1954-1975). Moscow, 1977. Pospelov D. M., Stepanov E. D. Peking vs Vietnam. Moscow, 1983. Le Zouan. Letters to the South, Moscow, 1987.

III Congress of the Party of Workers of Vietnam, Moscow, 1961.

IV Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Moscow, 1977.

V Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Moscow, 1983.

VI Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Moscow, 1988. Documents of the IX Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Hanoi, 2001. Essays on the history of Vietnam. Hanoi, 1977.

Le Duan, mot nha la, h dao loi lac, mot tu duy sang tao Ion cua each mang Vietnam. Ha Noi, 2002.

Le Duan. Cach mang chu nghia xa hoi о Viet Nam Tac pham chon loc! // Su that. T. 2. Ha Noi, 1978.

Dang Cong san Viet Nam. Van kien Dap hoi dai bieu toan quoc Ian thu V // Su that. T. 2. Ha Noi, 1982.

Nhan Dan.

USAID VN Annual Statistical Bulletin, 1973.

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