Currently, adversary forces are employing every method to smear the image of Ho Chi Minh. Identifying and choosing the right approach to defeat their acts of sabotage are impending political tasks for our Party, our people and our military.

1. The subject, content, and method of sabotaging

Subjects, they are reactionary and anti-communist groups, reactionary Vietnamese organizations and individuals who are living abroad, and opportunist and discontent elements inside the country. Their goal is overthrowing Vietnam Communist Party and our socialist regime to establish a capitalist government. There are many  examples these groups and individuals, such as: “Viet Tan”, “Que Me”, “Dien Dan”, “Thong Luan”, “Hop Luu” and many other groups which were established by former Saigon puppet officials. They are those who hold grudges against our revolutionary cause and always wish to serve foreign reactionary forces or commit acts of sabotage for personal purposes. Many of these people are former Party members, government officials, artists, writers, journalists, intellectuals, etc. They are all morally and politically corrupted and work together to act against the interest of the nation and the Party, some even turn themselves into “democratic” puppet to sabotage our revolutionary cause. Sadly, there are a lot of people, due to the lack of awareness and information, have been tricked to follow and support their acts of sabotage.

Reactionary contents, those adversary forces aggressively discredit Ho Chi Minh’s career, background and thoughts. They say that the President had an unclear profile, demeaning morality, and that he was not an ideologist, or an extremist nationalist at best. They claim that his ideology is not Marxist-Leninist in nature. In addition, they assert that Ho Chi Minh left no legacy but “disasters” instead. Also, reactionary groups put a lot of efforts on distorting and sabotaging the credibility of the President’s achievements and his thoughts on national liberation and socialist revolution, and the Party’s policy on studying and following his ideology, morality and life style.

Sabotaging strategy, reactionary forces invent and forge documents to discredit Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and life style and domestic as well as foreign scientific studies about his life; they also seek to alter and distort the truths about the President to demean his merits and achievements and criticize his works. At the same time, they pit Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts against Marxism - Leninism; they fabricate stories about the disagreement between him and his fellow revolutionists, etc. Their goal is creating foundation to support their toxic and reactionary notions and spread misunderstanding about Ho Chi Minh among the people. These are extremely dangerous acts, directly attacking Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, which is the political foundation of our Party and regime.

Sabotaging methods, adversary forces have numerous sabotaging methods, such as slandering, using profane languages, passing fabricated “secret stories”, and publishing fake articles, video clips, and leaflets, etc. abroad and then sneak these documents into the country. Especially, they work with extremist anti-communist media outlets in Vietnamese  (BBC, VOA, RFA), and use online platforms such as facebook or youtube to broadcast their falsified notions. They even publicly create reactionary websites with different addresses such as: Danlambao, Quanlambao, Viet Tan fanpage, Nhatkyyeunuoc, etc. to spread fake news and misinformation to denounce and discredit Ho Chi Minh. Notably, their activities have become more and more systematic and intensive; they are also widely supported by international reactionary groups and have severely violated Vietnam’s rules and laws.

2. How to defeat adversary forces’ sabotaging strategy

To defeat adversary forces’ plots and activities to discredit President Ho Chi Minh, we must implement the following works.

First, promote propaganda and education work to enhance the awareness of Party members, cadres and citizens about Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and life style. This is a fundamental issue which determines the effectiveness of our fight against the enemy’s notions. Specifically, we must clarify the story in which Ho Chi Minh, from a patriot and a revolutionist at heart, after a long journey of seeking a way to liberate the nation, had adopted and actively combined Marxism – Leninism with Vietnamese people’s patriotic movement; and become the founder of Vietnam Communist Party. Under the President’s leadership, our Party raised the banner of national independence and socialism, leading our people to victory after victory. This fact has proved that Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, morality and life style have been deeply integrated into Vietnam’s revolutionary movement, and become the foundation to create a new era for the Vietnamese nation – Ho Chi Minh era.

Nowadays, to defeat adversary forces’ aggressive sabotaging activities, we must further integrate Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, morality and style into the society’s political and spiritual foundation. Accordingly, there should be appropriate propaganda and education methods. Those methods must be continuously implemented with the full support of the political system and cultural institutions from local to governmental level. Besides, we must closely combine education and propaganda activities, and these activities must be appropriate to everyone. In addition, examples of good deeds conducted by leadership at all levels should be promoted to attract more popular support. Also, we must push ahead the work of building an advanced culture imbued with national identity, practicing democratic principles, ensuring social security and creating a healthy social environment to enhance the “immunity” of the people. Additionally, we must expose adversary forces’ anti-Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts strategem and actively provide countermeasures for the people. Besides, we must reform and create diverse propaganda methods to improve the awareness of Vietnamese abroad and foreigners about Ho Chi Minh’s greatness.

Second, improve the quality of studies on Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, morality and life style. Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts is a comprehensive and insightful ideological system on profound issues of Vietnam revolution, it is also the combination of the creative application of Marxism – Leninism into our country’s condition, the inheritance of our beautiful traditions and the acquisition of mankind’s cultural quintessence. Therefore, studying and building a sufficient, correct and solid information source on Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, morality and lifestyle is a fundamental task for our Party and our State. If we execute this task effectively, we would be able to not only achieve correct perceptions on Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, morality and lifestyle, but also eliminate falsified and reactionary notions. In contrast, if this task is not implemented properly, it will cause negative impacts on the fight mentioned above and even become a catalyst for distorted notions about the President to become more infectious. Therefore, we must continue to comprehensively and systematically study Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, morality and lifestyle.

Third, constantly supplement and perfect Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts for the work of building our Party and our country in the new situation. Besides studying to clarify the revolutionary and scientific nature of Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, we must supplement and perfect the President’s ideology, turning it into the driving force for our country’s political, economic, cultural and social development. In the past, our Party adopted Marxism – Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts to develop strategies for our revolution. Therefore, the spirit of Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts still lives on in our Party’s line and principle, in our State’s policies and legislations, and in the mind of each Vietnamese citizen. That said, the work of implementing and supplementing Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts can be started with building an “upright and civilized” Party, and “red and expert” Party members to truly become loyal servants of the people; capable of developing and implementing correct strategies to lead our country and society to the goal of “prosperous people, strong country, democratic, just and civilized society”. Accordingly, authorities at all levels must push ahead the implementation of Central Committee Resolution 4 (tenure XII) on Party building and rectification and Central Committee Resolution 7 (Tenure XII) on personnel building, especially cadres at strategic level. They also must well-execute the work of studying, reviewing and developing theories to constantly revitalize Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts in our society and daily living. At the same time, we must further study to fully grasp the path to socialism in Vietnam and the true values of theories that Marx, Engel, Lenin and Ho Chi Minh proposed. In doing so, we will have more logical arguments to support our fight against distorted and falsified notions about Ho Chi Minh.

Fourth, effectively manage and provide information sources. Authorities at all levels must actively and properly provide mainstream information for the people to completely eliminate any form of distorted and falsified information. Political education and information and media branches, as well as party committees at all levels, must closely monitor every source to ensure the truthfulness for all information about Ho Chi Minh which is provided for the people. At the same time, we must increasingly direct public opinion and propagate legislations on State secret protection; and closely manage publishing activities, especially in content editing. Also, in personnel management, we must strictly follow regulations on Party organization and meeting, especially regulations about freedom of speech practice and document management.

Fighting against distorted notions about Ho Chi Minh is a sacred duty and a crucial political task of our Party, our people and our military. Successfully implementing this task will greatly contribute to the overall strength of our society, create general consensus among the people, and ensure the success of the fight protecting the name Ho Chi Minh.

Nguyen Van Dao, Political Academy Zone II