Lê Khả Phiêu has previously been viewed as a conservative. However, this categorization has been challenged by historian Martin Gainsborough, who notes that Lê Khả Phiêu made some remarkably outspoken comments about problems in the party before the Tenth Party Congress. Lê Khả Phiêu criticized what he called 'illness of partyization' ("bệnh đảng hoá"), meaning that the Party controls everything. Lê Khả Phiêu was a protégé of his predecessor, Đỗ Mười. He was elevated to the Politburo in the early 1990s.