Zur soziopolitischen Struktur des gegenwärtigen Politbüros der kommunistischen Parteien Vietnams

Abstract The personnel continuity of the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party is one of the remarkable facts characterizing the hitherto existing political stability in Vietnam. The paper seeks to approach this phenomenon by analyzing the social background of its members and by tracing their ascent during the organizational development of the party since 1941. The consistence of the political leadership in Vietnam can then be explained, first by the extraordinary social homogeneity in the personnel composition of the politburo and, second by the latent function of both Vietnam-wars which produced a revolutionary dlite that has limited the rise of bureaucrats as another type of leadership. These historical factors are now absent in the present political development. It is assumed that the next supersession of the present Vietnamese leadership would be associated with a change in type of leadership that could distort the political stability.