Thus, due to the media campaign, the mass movements of social demand were monitored and evolved as a pressure supporting political change, which resulted in the promotion of a new Party leadership and the shaping of a new Party fine. The emergence of a new leadership was the culmination of popular objection, to the detriment of the old status quo, and can perhaps be compared to the early phase of the historical event that occurred in Prague in the Spring of 1968.

Probably civil society's intrusion into the political arena constitutes the most significant event in Vietnam in 1986. Until then, real social issues had always been obliterated by a false consensus fabricated by latent terror and the system of thought control. Popular participation to the campaign of media openness and liberation has introduced a new set of civic values and helped shape new patterns of interaction between the communist rulers and the people. One witnesses the stirring of social consciousness and the emergence of a social environment with a new type of citizen, no longer a subservient pawn, but starting to claim his own rights. For the first time under this famous totalitarian regime a relative atmosphere of freedom and democracy is pervading the country, with so-called unorthodox ideas or thoughts being tolerated and publicized. 'Me new reality is tangible primarily in the world of symbols and significations, "essential constituents of the reality of everyday life and of the commonsense apprehension of this reality".109

Vietnam's new culture and information policy is an imposing socio-political fact, while the joint efforts of the media, artistic community, scholars and intellectuals to refute the fiction of "the happy and perfect socialist country of Vietnam" bestows a fresh legitimacy to the emerging new social environment. The official political culture, molded by many generations of dogmatic theorists and orthodox ideologists, not only in Vietnam but also further afield in such places as Moscow, Beijing and La Havana, is being criticized, questioned and eventually replaced. In short, commonsense reality appears to have gradually overtaken Ultimate Dogma.

This socio-cultural change is more than a symbolic success for the people and the Party reformers. It in fact plays a vital role in the democratization process and radically transforms the system's voting and debating procedures, including those of its highest institutions: the Party and the National Assembly. It has made possible the ascent of Linh and his allies to the top, and has also remodeled the rituals of official ceremonies, be it a meeting between the General Secretary and his guests or, a debate at the National Assembly. The overall result is a progressive lessening of control and condescension from the top, and growing tolerance and concession for the people and their delegates.110 Another crucial aspect of democratization is the legal reform which puts into effect the popular appeal for exposure and legislation against abuses of power and privileges. The growing official concern towards crime and lawlessness reflects social pressure on the regime's inadequate legal and judicial institutions, forcing it to take sanctions against the corrupt officiais and their
patrons.111
Within the Vietnamese context, the global effectof the cul tural policy may be hailed as revolutionary. In terms of historical import, it has no equivalent. Actu.ally, we are perhaps observing the transformation of a totalitarian reality into a new political entity. Vietnam cannot become France or Sweden overnight, yet could it possibly be on the way to becoming a proto-democracy? 'Me ongoing democratic debate among the Vietnamese cultural elite is perhaps a premonitory sign of an emancipated future for the country and its citizens.

On the road to power, Nguyen Van Linh and his comrades have skillfully handled and mobilized the energies of popular dissatisfaction and social vindication. With his power base in Ho Chi Minh City, his widespread connections with the part apparatus in the South, and his long experience in propaganda and mass mobilization (Linh was the master mind of the NLFs propaganda machine during the anti
Indochina Report 18	Oct-Dec 1990