Vietnam’s Premier Becomes Party Chief : Communists: Do Muoi advocates market reform without greatly altering the political system.

Vietnam carried out its biggest leadership shake-up in five years Thursday, but the country will resist the winds of change sweeping Eastern Europe and retain a one-party Communist system.

Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh, 75, was replaced by the country’s premier, Do Muoi, who like Linh is an advocate of reforming the marketplace without fundamentally altering the political system. Party officials made clear that Linh is retiring because of poor health and is not being ousted.

Do Muoi told journalists that “our party and our people will follow the way of socialism, of Ho Chi Minh, as the sole correct way.”

Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach, the architect of Vietnam’s efforts to seek reconciliation with the United States, was also dropped from the Politburo. At 68, he is the youngest member of the Politburo to leave.

Thach’s departure from the leadership was apparently in response to the failure of his policy to warm relations with the United States 16 years after the Vietnam War. Vietnam is suffering under a U.S.-imposed trade embargo that is observed in varying degrees by many Western countries.

Thach’s prestige was damaged when the United States publicly linked improvement in relations to a settlement in Cambodia, which Vietnam invaded in 1978. The Vietnamese felt that the Bush Administration had adopted an essentially Chinese position.

In other important changes, Interior Minister Mai Chi Tho was also dropped, as was Vo Chi Cong, who held the largely ceremonial job of president.

In all, seven of the 12 men in the ruling Politburo were removed, and a similar personnel housecleaning took place in the party Central Committee. The new Politburo will have 13 members.

The changes were announced at the end of a four-day meeting in Hanoi of the 7th Congress of Vietnam’s Communist Party, held to map Vietnam’s future as Marxism is retreating virtually around the world. The political heirs to Ho Chi Minh took few initiatives, in contrast to the last congress in 1986, when the country embarked on sweeping economic reform.

Communist Party officials portrayed the changes mostly as an effort to rejuvenate party leadership because of the advancing age of many members.

“It’s a continuity congress,” said a Western diplomat who has observed Vietnam for 20 years. “The message is that what was adopted in 1986 was the right way to go, but not perfectly implemented. Now, they are going to stress technical competence.”

Do Muoi, 74, is being replaced as premier by a senior economist, Deputy Premier Vo Van Kiet, according to party officials.

Linh, who is stepping down after what is believed to be a stroke, opened the congress with a speech saying that socialism remains the only path Vietnam will follow. He said Vietnam will not sacrifice the fruits of its revolution to achieve capitalism, which he said “cannot ensure a genuine independent nation, freedom and happiness for the majority of the people.”

Linh came to power in 1986 at a time when Vietnam was stagnating economically and its people were virtually starving.

The party set in motion economic reforms that tamed rampant inflation and created more of a market economy, so that consumer goods such as television sets and video players are now more plentiful in Hanoi than in Moscow.

But Vietnam still has enormous problems, such as subsidized industry, lack of freedom to buy and sell land and high unemployment.

Like the Chinese leadership, Vietnam’s party leaders evidently plan to continue tinkering with economic reform rather than offer political pluralism as did the Soviets. Poverty is still the main issue in a country of 66 million people where per capita income is $200.