5th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam

5th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam

The flag of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Date	27–31 March 1982 (5 days)
Location	Ba Đình Conference Hall
Participants	1,033 delegates (which includes the members of the 4th Central Committee)
Outcome	The election of the 5th Central Committee

The 5th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Đại hội Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam V) was held in Ba Đình Hall, Hanoi from 27–31 March 1982. The congress occurs once every five years. A total of 1,033 delegates represented the party's 1.727 million card-carrying members.

The 5th National Congress was postponed several times (it was actually planned to be held in late-1981). The Congress was preceded by two exceptionally lengthy Central Committee plenums. The reason for the congress' postponement was a divided central leadership, factional infighting and corruption within the party. The Central Committee, and the entire Party, had prepared for the 5th National Congress for over a year. Local party congresses held on every level of the party's hierarchy discussed the draft of the Political Report.

1,033 delegates were elected to represent the party's 1,700,000 members. Other figures at the congress was retired war veterans who had contributed to the socialist revolution, intellectuals and public figures. 47 foreign delegates were represented at the congress, all of them being communist and workers' organizations, with the exception of, a delegation representing the magazine Problems of Peace and Socialism. Among the party's who were represented were the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP), the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP), the French Communist Party, the Communist Party of Cuba and the Polish United Workers' Party.

The 5th National Congress was held at the Bu Dinh Conference Hall, and at 09:00 local time the members of the Presidium of the 5th National Congress took their seats next to the foreign delegations from the CPSU, LPRP and the KPRP. Then a group of red-scarved children, members of the Ho Chi Minh Young Pioneer League, presented the members of the Presidium and the foreign delegates with flowers. That was followed by the opening speech held by Trường Chinh, the second-ranked member of the 4th Politburo. Trường asked the delegates and foreign representatives to observe a minute of silence for Ho Chi Minh, and for Central Committee members, for ordinary Party members who died during the war and any individual who had participated in the country's liberation and reconstruction process. He then turned to the tasks of the 5th National Congress, which would;