ABSTRACT
State initiated change in the relationship of party, state, and people in socialist countries has had several broad aims. All of these aims appear to have played a role in the decision of the Vietnam Communist Party to combine political with economic reforms. In Vietnam, popular political participation has been understood by party leaders and probably most party members in conventional Leninist terms as active involvement in the implementation of decisions made by the party. Land reform extended the mobilization of northern Vietnamese society by enrolling previously subject or parochial segments of the population in the struggle against "enemies of the revolution". The trend in Vietnam's political reform is broadly consistent with what experience in other Asian countries at comparable stages of development suggests is the key to economic success. That key is regime capacity to cope with challenges to the design and implementation of efficient strategies by organizing consent within society and the elite.
