W.Minh Tuan
The two General Secretaries To Lam and Le Kha Phieu both came from the armed forces, Comrade To Lam was a former police general, Minister of Public Security, and Comrade Le Kha Phieu was a former soldier-general, Director of the General Department of Politics, Ministry of National Defense, a position that does not exist in the armies of all democratic and free countries in the world, only in the communist armies that remain in the world, in charge of ideological, political, and spiritual work in the Vietnamese army, like a chaplain in the US army, but not religious, but ideological work of the Vietnamese army in the Communist Party of Vietnam.
In December 1997, at the 4th Central Conference of the 8th Party Congress, comrade Le Kha Phieu was elected by the 4th Central Conference as the mid-term General Secretary, after all three leaders, Do Muoi-General Secretary, Le Duc Anh-State President, and Vo Van Kiet-Prime Minister, all retired in December 1997, these three leaders were transferred to the position of Advisors in the Party.
According to tradition, the Party Congress elects the General Secretary, the Politburo, and the new Central Executive Committee.
However, the 8th Party Congress from 1996 to 2001 did not have a Party Congress in 1997, so at the 4th Central Conference, when there was an abnormality that all three leaders above simultaneously requested to retire, the 4th Central Conference in the mid-term would elect a new General Secretary, and then the National Assembly would elect a new President, and a new Prime Minister.
At that time, after the 4th Central Conference elected comrade General Le Kha Phieu as General Secretary in December 1997, then, in early 1998, the National Assembly also elected comrade Tran Duc Luong as President, and elected comrade Phan Van Khai as Prime Minister.
Now, in 2024, comrade To Lam was also elected by the Central Conference of the Party as General Secretary, of the 13th Party Congress, but it was an extraordinary Central Conference, not a regular Central Conference like comrade Le Kha Phieu, because comrade General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong suddenly passed away, although more than 1 month before, comrade Phu Trong was still healthy enough to welcome Russian President Putin who visitted Vietnam at the end of June 2024, but just over 1 month later, at the end of July, comrade Trong passed away, showing that the Central Health Protection Committee of the Vietnam Party is only a Committee to destroy the health of the Party.
For example, the story of Professor Nguyen Dinh Tu, former university professor, Head of the Central Committee for Science and Education, was elected as a member of the Politburo at the preparatory meeting of the 8th Party Congress on June 27, 1996.
According to some street news – that is, I (Minh Tuan) am not sure if this news is true or not – Comrade Tu has a history of high blood pressure, and his wife, Professor-Doctor Nguyen Thi Thu Nhan, is very experienced in treating her husband’s high blood pressure. Every time Mr. Tu had a high blood pressure attack, Ms. Thu Nhan would immediately let him lie down to rest, and gently massage the back of his neck. Only 30 minutes later, his blood pressure dropped to normal, and he was OK, healthy as usual to serve the Party and the State.
Unfortunately for Professor Tu, on June 27, 1996, he was elected as a member of the Vietnam Politburo, so from that moment on, the responsibility of taking care of Tu’s health no longer belonged to his talented and capable wife Thu Nhan, but to the Central Health Protection and Killing Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Therefore, on the fateful evening of June 27, when Tu was elected as a member of the Politburo, he was so happy and excited that we heard that some flatterers even brought champagne to congratulate the new Politburo member Tu, so he was both so excited and drank so much champagne that Tu suffered a stroke of high blood pressure.
But if he had been just let his wife Thu Nhan take care of her husband Tu as usual, it would have been fine, but since the night of the 27th, the Central Health Protection-Killing-Destruction Committee took over, so this useless-stupid Health Committee sent an ambulance, dragged Tu out of bed, and put him in the ambulance, with the siren blaring, took Tu to the 108 Military Hospital for treatment, with all kinds of catheters, serum tubes, tied his hands and feet to the bed, not allowing him to move, forced him to pee on his peeing part, not allowing him to sit up to pee, so Tu passed away the next day, June 28, 1996, at the age of 64.
If he had not been elected to the Politburo, and had not been given over to that Central Health Protection-Killing-Destruction Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party, then maybe Tu would still be alive until now 2024, and well at over 90 years old, continuing to contribute to life, to his family, to the country.
So, comrade Phu Trong suddenly passed away thanks to that Central Health Protection-Sabotage Committee, so comrade President To Lam was suddenly elected General Secretary in the mid-term by the extraordinary Central Conference in the August 2024.
General Secretary Le Kha Phieu became General Secretary when he was 66 years old, and was General Secretary for only over 3 years, because at the 9th Party Congress in April 2001, he was not re-elected as General Secretary by the Congress, or did comrade Phieu voluntarily withdraw from the Party’s election list, because he saw that it would be difficult for him to be re-elected?
At that time, in 2001, National Assembly Chairman Nong Duc Manh was elected as General Secretary.
For comrade To Lam, the 14th Party Congress is scheduled to take place in January 2026, 2 years from now. At that time, will comrade To Lam be re-elected as General Secretary by the 14th Congress? Or will comrade To Lam be like comrade Le Kha Phieu, think that will it be difficult to be re-elected, and will he To Lam ask to withdraw from the election list?
We do not know yet, we have to wait until January 2026 to know.
During the 3 years of working 1997-2001, comrade Le Kha Phieu did some very impressive things, very popular with the people, but perhaps not popular with some retired leaders of the party.
The first thing is that comrade Phieu launched the campaign of Criticism and Self-criticism within the party, to fight corruption, and improve discipline within the party. With Comrade Phu Trong now, 2015-2024, corruption cases in the Vietnam party are more terrible, more widespread, more obvious, more brazen, and more developed than in the time of Comrade Kha Phieu, so Comrade Phu Trong ordered the police to investigate, and easily find evidence to handle disciplinary action, arrest, and imprison corrupt people. And now, Comrade General Secretary To Lam in 2024-2025 also continues to do the same to fight corruption.
When Comrade Kha Phieu was General Secretary, corruption was still small, primitive, and naive, envelopes were often worth a few tens of millions of dong only, and they even brought chickens, pigs, sticky rice to Hanoi as gifts. But now when Comrade Phu Trong was General Secretary 2015-2024, the level of corruption in the Vietnamese Communist Party had developed dramatically, with the most advanced money-making technologies in the world being applied, and new languages being added to the Vietnamese language treasure trove, for example “cho tao may dong an Tet” – meaning “give me several dongs for New Year Party“.
How can the Vietnamese language of Vietnam, with its 4000-year history, develop so gently, concisely, delicately, and concisely, with the level of money-making in the Vietnamese Communist Party being more effective, advanced, sophisticated, and intelligent than Apple’s smartphone?
The level of corruption in the Vietnamese Communist Party only needs to use “1 dong” to refer to 1 billion dong of corruption, gifts, and bribes.
There is no country in the world that uses language more effectively than the corrupt leaders in the Vietnamese Communist Party.
Therefore, comrade Le Kha Phieu only uses Criticism and Self-Criticism to fight corruption in the Party, but has not gone as far as using the police and security apparatus as in the time of comrades Trong and Lam.
Second, comrade Phieu established Team A 10 to secretly investigate the assets of corrupt leaders. But Group A 10 has not done much, because it was strongly opposed within the party, and after Comrade Phieu retired, Group A 10 was also abolished.
In terms of personality, perhaps General Secretary Le Kha Phieu is the most popular, lovable, approachable, and friendly leader in the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party, second only to President Ho Chi Minh.
Comrade Phieu always smiles, always talks warmly with journalists, and talks to all the people who want to meet Comrade Phieu.
Comrade Phieu is the one who promoted the signing of the Vietnam-US Trade Agreement in 2000. If it were not for Comrade Kha Phieu, perhaps this Vietnam-US Trade Agreement would have been delayed and not signed in 2000.
As for General Secretary To Lam, he has only been General Secretary for a few months, since August 2024, so it is not known whether he will be able to do anything great for the country and the people.
But we see that comrade Lam has initiated a right thing, which is to streamline the apparatus.
In the past, our ancestors only needed Luc Bo-Sau Bo- six ministries, which was enough to lead the country to run smoothly, the salaries of high-ranking mandarins-Ministers- were high enough to maintain integrity, maintain morality, and not be corrupt. A high-ranking mandarin in the Nguyen Dynasty, more than 100 years ago, had an income enough to pay the salaries of 50 service staff, including guards, secretaries, cooks, etc.
Now, the salary is too low, only 20 million VND/month (1000 USD) for Ministers, Provincial Governors, 30 million VND/month (1,500 USD) for the President, Prime Minister, General Secretary.
However, the envelope money is terrible, look at the Secretary of Ben Tre province, he has a watch worth hundreds of thousands of USD, and other assets are not counted.
Or a security-police colonel of the Central Internal Affairs Committee, whose watch is also worth hundreds of thousands of USD.
However, President Ho Chi Minh once said: “Do not dig up old stories to make new cases”.
Therefore, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong dismissed three people: President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President Vo Van Thuong, Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue in 2023, 2024, and comrade Phu Trong does not to dig up the stories of those three people anymore.
However, now comrade To Lam wants to demonstrate his power, digging up the old stories of the three people above, to announce new discipline in December 2024, which is contrary to the humanitarian ideology of President Ho Chi Minh, and contrary to the humanitarian tradition of the Vietnamese people since ancient times.
During the Tran Dynasty, in 1285-1289, King Tran Nhan Tong and King Tran Thanh Tong burned all the memorials about the surrender of many Vietnamese people to the Yuan Mongol army, when the Yuan army invaded Dai Viet, King Tran pardoned and did not punish those who surrendered to Yuan, to keep the people at peace after the war, and to show his gratitude of the humane nature of our Vietnamese people.
Comrade General Secretary To Lam should also follow Uncle Ho, and follow the kings Ly, Tran, Le, both fighting corruption and being humane, not digging up old stories to make new cases, so that at the upcoming 14th Party Congress in 2026, Comrade To Lam will be re-elected as General Secretary.///