state capitalism

Vietnam 2021, the mood in the air seems to be that of optimism. The government’s relentless pursuit of a Zero-COVID strategy has won them widespread approval both domestically and internationally. The economy managed to squeeze out positive growth whereas many of its neighbours suffered a decline from the pandemic. Yet underneath all this bravado, one could sense that something is amiss. There’s this nagging feeling that no one seems to be able to put a finger on. Almost as if, there is a spectre haunting Vietnam, the spectre of communism — the true kind without any bells and whistles.

Vietnamese commissars will deliver up resources and cheap labor to international corporate capital, sometimes to the very same exploiters they spent thirty years fighting. It should be no surprise that Vietnamese army veterans are beginning to ask what exactly it was they fought for.

Mèo Mun is an anarchist collective working to make anarchist materials and ideas more accessible to a Vietnamese audience, together with providing an analysis of social struggles from a Vietnamese anarchist lens. Over the next hour you’ll hear three collective members, Mai, Will and tùng share their critiques of leftist misrepresentations of the Vietnamese State as Socialist, lasting impacts of imperialism and war on populations of Vietnam, the centering US imaginaries of Vietnam, the struggles of working class people in general (and queer folks and sex workers in particular) in Vietnam, nationalism promoted by the government and other topics.

An interview with Mèo Mun, an anarchist group archiving, translating, and dissemination anarchist texts to aid the anarchist movement in Vietnam.

Việt Nam năm 2021, mọi nơi đều được bao trùm bởi một bầu không khí lạc quan. Chiến dịch chống COVID bền bỉ của chính phủ đã giành được sự công nhận ở cả trong và ngoài nước. Nền kinh tế tăng trưởng dương một cách thần kỳ trong khi nhiều nước láng giềng khốn đốn vì đại dịch. Thế nhưng ẩn sau bầu không khí hân hoan ấy, ta vẫn thấy có điều gì nặng nề, bức bối mà không ai có thể gọi tên. Dường như có một bóng ma đang ám ảnh Việt Nam: bóng ma của chủ nghĩa Cộng sản — thứ chủ nghĩa Cộng sản chân chính không chút giả dối.

This denunciation of the monsters who administer global capitalism is not meant to mythologize or glorify the Vietnamese. Certainly, the Vietnamese stalinists never abolished the market economy in an attempt to create a liberatory, communal society.