Communists in Vietnam Live in the Past

Insight on the News, Sept 25, 2000 by Stephen Goode

In what must be taken as a sign of badly deteriorating revolutionary ardor, the Communist Party in Vietnam has ordered party members to sing "The Internationale" and the national anthem rather than having them played on cassettes or by bands, according to a dispatch from Reuters. Hanoi Moi [New Hanoi], the official publication of the Communist Party, said the order came from the top echelons of power -- the 19-member Politburo -- and would take effect Sept. 2.

Hanoi Moi added that some Communist Party members might have to take singing lessons and brush up on the words but that the only concession the party would make would be to allow singers to use recorded music as an accompaniment.

"The Internationale," the anthem of the international communist movement, was written in 1871 during the French Commune by Communard Eugene Pottier. Vietnam, one of the world's few remaining communist countries, is one of the declining number of places where it still is sung on a regular basis even if a lot of folks there have forgotten the words:

"Arise, you damned souls of the earth!/ On your feet, inmates of hunger's prison!/ ... We are nothing, let us be everything!/ This is the final conflict...."