During a working session with the Hanoi Party Standing Committee on March 30, General Secretary and State President To Lam suggested establishing a pilot socialist ward or commune. Following this profound suggestion, Hanoi has rapidly advanced implementation steps to get the ball rolling, aiming to manifest inherent goodness right at the administrative level closest to the populace. Within this framework, policies and activities are unequivocally geared toward citizens and their happiness, ensuring equity and progress so no one is left behind.
However, in cyberspace, numerous hostile accounts have reportedly peddled distortions, attempting to warp the benevolent nature of this initiative. The Facebook page “C.T.M.M.” published a post with a highly disconnected tone, deliberately pitting the establishment of a socialist commune against the global trajectory of technological and AI advancement. This account attempts to manipulate public discourse by implying Vietnam is going against the times through ambiguous questions regarding feasibility in order to sow seeds of skepticism.
Meanwhile, the reactionary organization “V.T.” has been spreading baseless arguments to negate the nation’s developmental triumphs following 40 years of renovation, intentionally labeling research on this model as a mere formality.
Individual accounts are utilizing extremist language to launch attacks, citing the collapse of the socialist model in Eastern Europe to dismiss brilliant achievements of the renovation process that Vietnam has reaped.
These claims deliberately bait and switch core concepts, equating “grassroots governance piloting” with “returning to the subsidy era”, sparking panic in the community. In stark reality, however, piloting is a ubiquitous mechanism employed to rigorously test every policy.
The narrative asserting that building a “socialist commune and ward” equates to returning to the subsidy era is flawed, devoid of any scientific or practical foundation. Equating a centrally planned model with a socialist-oriented market economy is essentially a fragmenting history, ignoring the vital roles various economic models have played during specific historical junctures.
For Deputy Director Le Thi Anh Dao of the Academy of Politics Region II, the theoretical framework is clear. She explained that constructing a socialist commune operates strictly on the bedrock of a socialist-oriented market economy.
Accordingly, the State legally recognizes and vigorously protects the roles of all economic sectors, explicitly encompassing the private economy and ownership rights. It actively encourages citizens to amass wealth legitimately, engage in free enterprise, and embrace international integration.
Cultivating communes under this model is about fostering a favorable business environment and elevating local competitiveness, instead of regression. Selecting the grassroots level to test these models signifies a profound idea shift towards developmental facilitation as state governance must resolve local conundrums.
To effectively identify and dismantle these distortion tactics on cyberspace, Deputy Director Le Thi Anh Dao advises that citizens need to equip themselves with a robust information filter grounded in a profound understanding of national history, alongside solid fact-checking skills.
Most notably, people must bolster their ideological immunity, which involves staying abreast of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies through official channels, deeply comprehending their civic rights and duties online, and maintaining unwavering faith in the State’s leadership as well as the absolute supremacy of the law.
Meanwhile, for Director of the Institute of Philosophy Assoc Prof Dr Dang Quang Dinh, the value of this model lies in shifting the focal point from constructing socialism on a macro level to verifying it through the practical lives of citizens.
While development was previously gauged through macroeconomic indicators like economic growth rates, GDP scale, and infrastructure, the question is now posed more directly: are the people genuinely being served better, can they feel social equity, and are they living in a safe, humane, and trustworthy environment?
Therefore, a socialist commune should not be interpreted as a mere political nickname or a novel administrative model, but rather as a grassroots governance model where core values are rigorously institutionalized. Within that sphere, authorities must genuinely serve the public; citizens must act as leading role of the developmental process; and every policy must be geared toward elevating human happiness.
Assoc Prof Dr Dang Quang Dinh contends that as Vietnam strides into a new developmental era, the pressing mandate goes beyond mere economic growth.
Citizen happiness remains ultimate yardstick
At a recent session of the Hanoi People’s Committee, the task force assigned with developing the “Socialist Commune and Ward” model in Hanoi for the 2026-2030 period and beyond reportedly reviewed the draft scheme to roll out this pilot model across the capital.
According to the draft, a “socialist commune and ward” is officially defined as an integrated developmental and governance organizational model at the grassroots level, wherein the administration doesn’t merely perform administrative functions, but directly translates socialist objectives and values into highly tangible developmental outcomes within the locality.
The model aims to fundamentally reorganize developmental spaces, restructure socio-economic activities, and revamp governance methodologies, ensuring a seamless harmony between economic growth and social equity, progress, cultural evolution, human development, and the robust promotion of the people's right to mastery. Notably, the degree of improvement in living standards, alongside citizen satisfaction and happiness, is definitively pinpointed as the most crucial, comprehensive yardstick.
Hanoi plans to select two adjacent communes to pilot this socialist model, encompassing a population scale of roughly 700,000 residents.
