Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party

The Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party (Vietnamese: Cần lao Nhân vị Cách Mạng Ðảng or Đảng Cần lao Nhân vị), called simply Can Lao Party, was a Vietnamese political party, formed in early 1950s by the president of Republic of Vietnam Ngô Đình Diệm and his brother as well as the adviser of the regime, Ngô Đình Nhu.

Basing on mass-organizations and secret networks as effective instrument, The Can Lao party played a considerable role in creating a political groundwork for Diệm ‘s power and helped him to control over all political activities in South Vietnam^[1] The doctrine of the party was ostensibly based on Ngô Đình Nhu 's Person Dignity Theory or Personalism (Vietnamese: Thuyết Nhân Vị) and Emmanuel Mounier's Personalism.

Formation

According to Ngo Dinh Nhu, the founder of the Party, The Cần Lao was the "fusion" of the groups which were founded by Ngô Đình Nhu in early 1950s in the regions in Vietnam. In Northern Vietnam, he collaborated with Trần Trung Dung, a Catholic activist who then became South Vietnam ‘s deputy minister of defense. In central Vietnam, Ngô Đình Cẩn's network of loyalists was Nhu's fulcrum. In early 1954, Cẩn established the core groups of supporters inside Vietnam Army and civil service of State of Vietnam. In Southern Vietnam, Nhu established a group which served mainly as roundtable for political debates of intellectuals linked to a journal entitled Spirit (Vietnamese: Tinh Thần). In 1953, Nhu allied with Trần Quốc Bửu, a trade unionist who headed the Vietnamese Confederation of Christian Workers with ten of thousands of members. They began to publish a journal called Society (Vietnamese: Xã hội) which endorsed the creation of workers and farmers' cooperatives and unionization rights for industrial laborers in Saigon. Through the alliance with Bửu, Miller argues that Can Lao program follows unionism, advocates the co-management of national industry by representatives of capitalists and labors, as well as workers' participation in interest and technological development of industries.^[2]

According to the decree 116/BNV/CT of Republic of Vietnam, the Can Lao Party was established on 2nd September 1954.^[3] Nhu became the General Secretary of the party. Initially, the Party named Personalist Revolutionary Party of Worker and Peasant ("Nông Công Nhân vị Cách mạng Đảng"), then this name was replaced by Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party ("Cần Lao Nhân vị Cách mạng Đảng").^[4] According to Miller, the name "Can Lao" shows Nhu's profound concern in political potential of Vietnamese labours which related to French unionist ideology.^[2] The slogan of the Party was: Labor - Revolution - Personalism.

Guiding ideology

Personalism was the foundation of the Can Lao Party. Ngô Đình Nhu was the founder of Personalism in South Vietnam and Ngô Đình Diệm applied this doctrine as the national ideology - the backbone of the regime. It was also called "Oriental Personalism" (Vietnamese: Chủ nghĩa nhân vị phương Đông) by researchers of Republic of Vietnam and Spiritual Personalism (Vietnamese: Chủ nghĩa Duy linh nhân vị) by communist researchers.^[5]

When came back from France, Nhu was passionate in Personalism of Emmanuel Mounier, a prominent French Catholic philosopher,^[6] and believed that Mounier's ideology which rejects Liberalism and Communism (materialism) could be a "third path" to be applied for social development ( and Spiritualism) in Vietnam. The Ngô brothers also believed that Personalism could go well with their Third Force which was not in line with French colonialism and the communism of the Việt Minh. For Diệm's regime, Personalism was treated as the only doctrine which restored the best traditional values of Asia and combined with Western values to innovate the state and serve public interests. It can be a counterbalance - communism doctrine.^[7]

From April 1952, Nhu's ideas on Personalism was delineated in his speech at Vietnamese National Military Academy in Đà Lạt city. He contended that initially, Personalism was a Catholic ideology, though, it had universal relevance and was compatible to Vietnam, which had to suffer from the devastation of wars. For Nhu, Personalism was a form of Revolution, which was more transformative than Marxist socialism and he described himself as an advocate of "personalist revolution". Ngô Đình Diệm also understood the term Personalism in the etymology of "nhân vị", which could mean either "humanity" or "human being". The Ngô brothers used the term Personalist Revolution to frame their nation building programs.^[7] On 26 October 1956, Republic of Vietnam's Constitution was promulgated. It's preface declared that "Building Politics, Economy, Society, Culture for the people basing on respecting Personalism". Simultaneously, Diệm's regime lie down as a policy the teaching of Personalism in universities and the propaganda of the doctrine in South Vietnam.^[8]

Nevertheless, according to some scholars, Nhu's personalism was evaluated as "a vague mish – mash of ideas"^[9] or "a hodgepodge"^[10] because "it was a mixture of Catholic teachings, Mounier's Personalism, Confucius' humanism, some factors of Capitalism and anti-communist spiritualism"^[11] and its actual substance was "maddeningly opaque".^[12] Thus, even the Vietnamese intellectuals could not understand Nhu's doctrine, neither Americans, who spent much time in examining his doctrine and gave up.^[13] Lately, the values of Personalism (Chủ nghĩa nhân vị) of the Ngô's brothers has been revised. According to Nguyễn Ngọc Tấn, their Personalism a long with their Democratic Ethical Regime based on Personalism was a combination of the quintessence of Western values and Asian values, was a contribution to Political Science, especially in resolving the Democratization issue in developing post-colonial countries, such as Vietnam today.^[14]

Activities

Initially, the party acted secretly basing on networks of cells, and the members only know a few members’ identities, when necessary, the Party could replace the role of the government. It also included any factors that could help its agent to penetrate the army, national assembly, police, educational system and the media.^[15] Fall describes the Party as “a state within a state” in its own governmental mechanism, which was what a Communist party would do.^[16] In the early years of 1950s, Diệm and Nhu used the party to mobilize support for Diệm s’ political movements. The cardes of the party were Catholic organizations, such as: Union of Catholicism, Catholic Youth, Catholic Society… with Catholics dignitaries and followers, officers in the army. Ngô Đình Nhu was the general secretary in the Central Committee Board including Trần Trung Dung, Nguyễn Tăng Nguyên, Lý Trung Dung, Hà Đức Minh, Trần Quốc Bửu, Võ Như Nguyện, Lê Văn Đông.^[17] The Party also declared the goals of struggling for the revolutionary ideology: Personalism; constructing the nation in four aspects: spirit – society – politics and economy. The principal of the Party was Centralized Democracy. In its political manifesto, it criticized both Capitalism and Communism.^[17] In less than year, the Can Lao had all the key positions in the government, like national security and Ministry of Defence's offices. With the military's support, the Can Lao started a dominant-party rule.

After 1954, the existence of the party was recognized but its activities have been hidden from public views. In 1955, Nhu practiced the governmentized policy which aimed at placing 70% members of the Party to important positions in the government. On 6 July 1955, Nhu established Office for social and political studies led by Trần Kim Tuyến, the general Secretary of the Party and Special Force, led by Lê Quang Tung. On 2 October 1955, Nhu established National Revolutionary Movement (Vietnamese: Phong trào cách mạng quốc gia) including Can Lao ‘s party members and nominated Trần Chánh Thành, Minister of Information as the president of the movement. The organization includes members above 21 years old, from different parties, religions. This organization played an important role in drawing up and carrying on policies of RVN, helped Diệm to win in the elections in 1955 and 1959 and the presidential election in 1961.The Party ‘s activities were represented through those organizations.^[18]

On 26 October 1955, Diệm declared the establishment of Republic of Vietnam. On 29 October 1955, Diệm promulgated the degree 4-TPP to establish the first government of Republic of Vietnam which embraced most of Can Lao party ‘s members in key positions. Can Lao Party had 112/123 positions in National Assembly.^[19] In 1956, Diệm and Nhu established Personalism Training Center in Vĩnh Long province administrated by the bishop Ngô Đình Thục to train the key personnel for propagandizing Personalism in South Vietnam.^[20] The administrative and teaching staff included Catholic priests and followers. On 31 December 1957, Diệm forced the administrative and military personnel in the government to join the training on Personalism. From 1956-1963, The Center trained about 25.000 personnels for the government.^[20]

In 1958, the Can Lao Party established its youth 's wing, the "Revolutionary Youth", led by Ngô Đình Nhu that obtained a strong influences in the rural areas. Also, the membership was increased: from 10,000 members in 1955 to 1,500,000. In 1962 the are 1,386,757 members active in the party.^[21] In 1961, the Can Lao formed also a women's wing, the "Women Solidarity Movement", led by the First Lady Madame Nhu. The organization formed also a military training for women,^[22] and organized charity initiatives, like blood donation, distribution of medicines to the village and visits to soldiers in frontline.^[21]

After the coup d état organized by Vietnamese military forces sanctioned by the US in November 1963, Ngô Đình Diệm and Ngô Đình Nhu were assassinated and the party was banned and dissolved.

References

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