Nguyen Van Linh encouraged the trend towards greater creativity.
Yet the real breakthrough occurred with the political mutation in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's crackdown on bureaucratic immobilism had a tremendous impact on Vietnamese internai affairs and helped reduce the resistance of conservative officialdom. In the cultural and artistic spheres, dogmatic interference gave way to open debates and frank criticism. In the media world also, complaints and confessions revealing the life of the creative intelligentsia under ideological fetter were abundant and unanimous in their grievances against illiterate censorship and arbitrary bureaucratic controls78 Dishonesty, false consciousness, and fear of commitment were the most widely recognized foibles of the literati.

Before his death, Nguyen Tuan, the most prestigious cultural figure "de l'avantguerre" openly stated that poets and writers in Vietnam have avoided the truth, fabricating with their works a "false reality"?9 This statement was supported by similar experiences among the younger generation of conscientious writers such as Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tu, Duong Thu Huong, Nguyen Minh Chau, Nguyen Duy, Le Luu, Le Minh, Dao Vu, and Nguyen Ngoc 80 This spurious escapism was no perfect solution, as Nguyen Khac Vien related, "the writer wearing a mask becomes schizophrenic, living with two sets of values: one for himself, one for the society"81 Vien's remark found an echo in Pham The My's account from musical cirdes: "we can no more accept a fake existence. False consciousness, false expression, even
false creation..."82

The General Secretary's broad-minded gestures during his memorable meeting with the creative elite put an official seal of approval in their quest for truth and authenticity. Linh's motto: "facing and speaking the truth" legitimized the "problematic" tendency of those writers who wished to see and describe things as they were. He even encouraged them in their creative baffle against the dogmatic bureaucrats and frankly admitted that there were difficulties, obstacles and stubborn opposition to the policy of openness. But the highest authority of the Party system strongly supported sincere exposure and investigation of the country's issues by its writers, going as far as to define art and literature as necessary instruments of social forecasting.83 This is far removed from the orthodox picture of "engineers of the soul" - faithful obedient servants of the infallible Dogma. Poets and writers in Vietnam today can also use their talents to predict and shape the nation's future. Linh's intelligent political openness towards the artistic and cultural has facilitated the "recuperation" of nonconformist definitions of reality, thus reincorporating the critics of bureaucratic institution and ideological dogmatism into a new consensus in fine with the Party's policy of renewal and restructuring.

If the years 1986-1987 marked a turning point in the history of the Vietnamese press and media, they also witnessed a cultural blooming moderate in scope, but outstanding in quality and relevance considering the existing ideological framework. While Duong Thu Huong, Nguyen Minh Chau, Ma Van Khang, and Luu Quang Vu remained the foremost figures of civic morality and artistic vitality, the new stars of the period were Le Luu and Nguyen Huy Thiep. Luu's novel Thoi xa vang (rime long gone) relates the "education sentimentality" of a soldier with différent kinds of women, and paints a merciless portrait of the Vietnamese fair sex 84 Thiep's incisive short stories capture the rueful and demoralizing everydaylife of common City folk in a style reminiscent of Stendhal and Tchekhov85 Van Nghe, the literary weekly of the Writers' Union, which supported original talent such as Thiep, also featured interesting interviews and articles covering a wide variety of topics. Besides famous names, like Tran Van Giau and Nguyen Khac Vien, younger writers dealing with subjects previously taboo, such as the system's arbitrary and lawlessness nature or the exploitation and oppression of defenseless peasants were, published and ac
daimed86

Photography and motion pictures were also employed in the common effort to capture the true aspects of reality. During May 1987, an exhibition held in the capi
Indochina Report 14	Oct-Dec 1990