For nearly 90 years, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President Ho Chi Minh, our people have recorded great achievements in the cause of national liberation, and building and safeguarding the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland.
The most important achievement of the Vietnamese revolution is the victory of the General Uprising in August 1945, which overthrew the rule of colonial, feudal regime and established the first state of workers and peasants in Southeast Asia. That achievement changed our people’s status from slavery to mastery over the nation, ushering in a new age – national independence and socialism. With that great feat of arms, on 2 September 1945, at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi Capital, President Ho Chi Minh, on behalf of compatriots, solemnly declared that: “Vietnam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence, and truly become a free and independent country. The whole Vietnamese people resolve to exploit all of their spirit, power, lives, and wealth to firmly preserve that right to freedom and independence.”
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| President Ho Chi Minh delivers the Declaration of Independence (file photo) |
That immortal Declaration of Independence represents an affirmation of the truth and imprescriptible right of the heroic Vietnamese people – a people which has never yielded to any foreign aggressors no matter how powerful and cruel they are. Exactly as the talented leaders Ho Chi Minh predicted, not long after the foundation of the revolutionary government, the French colonialists, under the support of several imperialist countries, invaded our country again. In this perilous situation, realizing the Directive of the Party Central Committee and the Appeal for National Resistance of President Ho Chi Minh, our people unanimously rose up to fight against the foreign aggressors in the spirit that we would sooner sacrifice everything than surrender our country to the enemy or become slavers. Under the leadership of our Party and President Ho Chi Minh, the tradition of patriotism, deep hatred towards the enemy, undauntedness, and national solidarity, which had been molded for thousands of years, were stimulated and brought into full play once more. This helped create an exceedingly great power in the protracted war of resistance against the French colonialists. Owing to that unrivalled power, our people and soldiers were able to surmount numerous difficulties and challenges in the protracted war of resistance against an enemy who possessed superior military power to gradually make progress and gain complete success through the world-shaking Dien Bien Phu Campaign.
Victory of the war of resistance against the French colonialists was a great feat of arms of the whole nation, creating essential preconditions for our soldiers and people to enter the heroic struggle against U.S. aggressors. On the basis of objective, scientific assessment of domestic and international situations, our Party set out the sound political guidelines on concurrently conducting the two revolutionary strategies, namely the people’s democratic revolution in the South and the socialist revolution in the North. The South truly became the great front line in the struggle against the U.S. In the meantime, the North served as the great rear, which embarked on building socialism while fighting to defend itself and actively providing financial and military support for the South during the most protracted, fierce and glorious struggle against foreign aggression. Thanks to sound revolutionary guidelines and sensible strategic instruction, our Party was able to bring into play the strength of national solidarity and combine national strength with power of the age to generate integrated strength. This enabled us to win the war, which was marked by the General Offensive and Uprising in Spring 1975, most notably by the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign, fulfilling the mission of liberating the South, reunifying our country, and the struggle for national liberation by our soldiers and people. That victory is the most glorious feat of arms in the history of our nation, which was attributed to many factors, especially the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President Ho Chi Minh.
After reunification and Vietnamese entry into the period of national building and defence, under the leadership of the Party, our soldiers and people continued to execute and fulfill our lofty international mission in Laos and Cambodia. We completed successfully the wars to defend our borders at both ends of the country – the Southwest border and the Northern border.
The comprehensive reform initiated and led by our Party since 1986 represents an outstanding achievement, which demonstrates the intelligence and creative thinking of the Party. It is a common knowledge that prior to reform, our country faced numerous difficulties in all fields of social life, particularly the lack of aid from the Soviet Union and other socialist states. After decades of reform, our country has witnessed positive changes, gradually got rid of blockades from outside, and step by step gone through crisis. From an underdeveloped country with low economy, Vietnam has become a developing country with average income, and is escalating industrialization, modernization and international integration. From an agricultural country but lack of food, it has become one of the leading rice exporters in the world. People’s standard of living continually improves. Culture and society step by step develop. National defence and security are enhanced. Foreign relations are expanded. The country’s status is increasingly raised, thereby creating new drivers for national building and defence. Given the recorded achievements, it can be said that the reform, started from innovation of thinking, first and foremost in economic field, is really a deep and comprehensive transformation. That is a great discovery of strategic importance by our Party. Generally speaking, the 12th Party Congress affirmed that “after 30 years of reform, our country has recorded great achievements of historic importance on the way to socialism and national defence.” At the same time, the Congress also pointed out shortcomings and weaknesses as well as 5 lessons learned to continue to accelerate national reform in a more comprehensive and synchronous manner, in conformity with national and international context in the time to come.
Nevertheless, apart from important achievements as well as fundamental advantages and new opportunities, we are now facing a number of difficulties and challenges in the process of reforming, building and safeguarding the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland. Those challenges are also the risks specified by our Party at various Party congresses, including further lagging behind other countries in the region and the world in terms of economics; “peaceful evolution” launched by the hostile forces to sabotage our country; deterioration in political ideology, morality and lifestyle as well as demonstration of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party; and existence and complex development of unresolved bureaucracy, corruption, wastefulness, and so forth.
Those challenges and risks still exist and become worse. They take place concurrently and closely intertwine with one another, which not only have bad influence on the society and impede development of our country, but also directly threaten the survival of the regime and socialist Fatherland. Therefore, it is important to resolutely tackle those challenges and risks through drastic measures and high political determination of the whole political system and society. That is also an urgent task of the whole Party, people and military. However, in present complex situations, our Party is committed to exercising resoluteness, patience and consciousness through appropriate ways and steps; firmly grasping the situations; analyzing and assessing every challenge; and identifying causes, relations and interaction between the challenges to work out synchronous, proper and effective solutions. It is important to resolutely implement the measures but avoid hastiness. Patience does not mean hesitation in dealing with problems and challenges through drastic actions. As for sensitive, complex challenges, which are likely to impinge upon other problems, it is important to carefully consider and choose the suitable time to address in order to avoid unnecessary consequences.
The struggle to deter and deny the aforementioned challenges and risks is taking place and will continue to take place fiercely with a great deal of difficulty and complexity and cannot be ended in the foreseeable future. Consequently, during the struggle, we need to be fully imbued with the Party’s position of resoluteness and patience to attain success. The Vietnamese revolution has proved that there was time our country faced perilous difficulties and challenges in the cause of national liberation. However, we overcame that situation and won glorious victories. Given that precious tradition and pride, together with the spirit and outstanding intelligence of our Party as well as the solidarity and support of the whole people, we have adequate basis to believe that we will continue to gain victory in the struggle to cope address threats and challenges while taking advantage of new opportunities to increasingly develop our country in association with firmly safeguarding the Fatherland, striving for fulfilling the goal of “rich people, strong nation, democracy, equality, and civilization.” (To be continued)
Nguyen Ha Anh