Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 5.djvu/187

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

As of 1963, 80% of the Party were members of 10 years or more, less than 10%, were women, and no more than 7% were non-Vietnamese Although an elite, the Party admitted in 1960 that 85% of its members had no more than 4th grade educations. Lack of skill and drive, as well as inadequate strength, handicapped the Party in its attempts to encadre the DRV's ambitious agricultural and industrial programs. From the 1960 admissions, it appears that of 110,000 managerial personnel in the DRV, only 50,000 or so were Party members; about 10% of the Party is then employed directly in management. Nonetheless, the Party has from all appearances succeeded in lodging itself in pivotal positions in every part of the society, and certainly in the DRV's main undertakings.

b.

One of the fundamenal procedures of the Vietnamese Communists has been the forming of a "united front" in which Communist Party members join cause with non-communists, especially nationalist activists. The Party itself has pointed out that this is in proper Leninist fashion:

"The policy of founding the Indochinese democratic front between 1936 and 1939, the Viet Minh front between 1941 and 1951, and the Lien Viet front [1946-1951]; the decision of signing the 6 March 19146 .. preliminary accord [Ho' s accommodation with France] .. -- all these are typical examples of the clever application of the ... instruction of Lenin." 11/

In 1955 the DRV organized non-communist elements into "mass organizations," within the "Fatherland Front" (Mat Tran To Quoc). 12/

SELECTED COMPONENT ORGANIZATIONS OF THE FATHERLAND FRONT

Lao Dong Party

Democratic Party

Socialist Party

General Confederation of Labor

National Liaison Committee of Peasants

Women's Union

Youth Federation

Writers and Artists Union

Journalists Association

Unified Buddhist Association

National Liaison Committee of Patriotic & Peace Loving Catholics

Industrialists and Traders Federation

Peace Committee Rh