own policies, accusing foreign investors of exploiting his native country and harming socialism. He attacked the growing gap between the rich and the poor and accused American companies of dumping goods on the country rather than helping it with investments and technology. He then wrote a regular newspaper column called "Things That Must Be Done Immediately" attacking corruption and incompetence among the Vietnamese political elite. Linh died of liver cancer on 27 April 1998, in Ho Chi Minh City. He was 82. Contributions to Vietnam Nguyễn Văn Linh had charted the evolution of the reforms of the party organization. Scholars argue that Linh's contributions and importance in reform gave a very detailed and clear analysis of his program to reform the Vietnam communist party within the wider context of Đổi Mới. Linh showed flexibility and adaptability with an inclination for the unorthodox spin to policy making. Scholars like Stern see that Linh relied less on mobilizational instruments, campaigns exhortations, symbols and more on bureaucratically co-ordinated programmes. He was able to utilize unique combinations of resources to attack specific party related problems, often relying on media and selected mass organizations to propel his reformist ideologies. Linh was critical in steering plenary sessions of the Central committee to take more importance in decision process where competing views of economic policies and fundamental political issues were discussed. Stern argued this was possible, in large part due to Linh's open, flexible, innovative and unconventional mode of operation within the Vietnamese bureaucracy which showed Linh's importance in how he managed politics to contribute towards reform. Under Linh, effort was made to make the party more responsible and accountable for policies and personnel choices which was a strong factor in the success of economic reform. Stern suggested that it was Nguyễn Văn Linh himself who was most important in the biggest part to play in Vietnam's economic reforms. He suggested that Linh's position and foresight was that economic reforms should be done gradually and steadily without causing political instability or creating opportunities for negative elements to create trouble. Linh also allowed flexibility and local initiative for issues of parallel political and economic renovation which sheds light for scholars to compare Linh's style and contributions to other key leaders in the current narrative. Linh also could be seen to have also got to where he was with self promotion more than what he was able to do.