75 years ago, on 11 June 1948, President Ho Chi Minh made the “Appeal for Patriotic Emulation” to encourage and incorporate the strength of the whole Vietnamese people to do the urgent mission of “enhancing the victory of the assistance war, successfully building the Homeland”. This document contained precious guidelines and great values on both theory and practice for the Patriotic Emulation of the whole nation. It is also the basis and foundation for our Party and State to complete the guidelines and policies on the Patriotic Emulation and building new life and people.

Being imbued with his appeal, the Patriotic Emulation movements have been widely and continuously launched, becoming the drastic evolutionary movement, arousing the patriotism within each person and people of all classes, etc. to devote their spirit, possessions and health to the country making the greatly revolutionary motivation and contribution to the victory of the cause of national liberation and unification, and the cause of building and safeguarding the Homeland of Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Vietnam People’s Army was established, led, organised, educated and trained by the CPV (Communist Party of Vietnam) and our beloved Uncle Ho. Through its nearly 80 years of development, President Ho Chi Minh’s Appeal for Patriotic Emulation has deeply penetrated and become a great strength for the Army’s periods of building, growing, struggling and winning. Together with the Patriotic Emulation movement, the Determined-to-win Emulation movement in the Army has been drastically and widely developed, creating the driving force to encourage cadres and soldiers to promote their patriotism, spirit of self-reliance and resilience, determination to overcome difficulties and sacrifices to successfully accomplish all assigned missions.

The effectiveness of the Determined-to-win Emulation movement has contributed to the improvement of the general quality and combat strength for the Army, the building of a revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled and gradually modernised Army becoming the struggling force which is absolutely loyal to our Party, State and People and excellently functions as an army ready for combat, an army ready for work and an army ready for production. Cadres and soldiers have possessed firmly political spirit, been ready to receive and successfully accomplish all assigned missions, stably protect the sacred independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of our Homeland, protect our Party, State, People and the Socialist regime. The Army has regularly set a good example and taken the leadership in implementing the Party’s guidelines, the State’s policies and laws; played a key role in building the all-people national defence, the all-people defence posture associated with people’s security posture, building the strong “people’s hearts and minds posture”; well done the public relations, international missions and defence foreign affairs contributing to the enhancement of the solidarity and international friendships. From these emulation movements, there have appeared hundreds of thousands of collectives and individuals awarded the title of Heroes, Emulation soldiers, advanced examples in their working fields. They are shining flowers in the Determined-to-win Emulation and the Patriotic Emulation movements who have continuously beautified and lit the quality of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era.

In the coming years, the whole Party, people and army continue to make effort and determination to successfully implement the 13^th National Party Congress’s Resolution; enhance the renovation and international integrity; the position and power, the general strength, the country’s prestige and the trust by people, cadres and soldiers in the Party are improved, creating an important premise to build and safeguard the Homeland. However, the world and region have continuously witnessed complex and hard-to-predict developments; the fierce resistance from the hostile forces; the reorganisation of the Army, etc. greatly affects cadres’ and soldiers’ thought. In this situation, together with completely implementing all working fields, offices and units need to grasp and creatively apply the spirit of Patriotic Emulation by President Ho Chi Minh, enhance the Determined-to-win Emulation Movement, create the greatly spiritual motivation for all cadres and soldiers to make unity and overcome all difficulties and challenges to successfully accomplish all missions focusing on well implementing several contents as follows:

Firstly, enhance the propaganda and education to improve the awareness and responsibility, build the right motivation and emulation determination for cadres and soldiers. All offices and units, with their plentiful and lively forms being suitable with each object, attentively propagandise and educate to highlight the values and meanings of President Ho Chi Minh’s thought of Patriotic Emulation; the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines, the State’s policies and laws, resolutions and directions by the Central Military Commission (CMC) and Defence Ministry on emulation and awards. Some of them include Direction No. 34-CT/TW, dated 07 April 2014 by the Politburo (11^th tenure) on renovating the emulation and commendation work; Direction No. 19/CT-TTg, dated 16 July 2021 by the Prime Minister on “Launching the emulation movements to successfully accomplish the mission of annual socio-economic development and the 5-year Plan (2021 - 2025) according to the 13^th National Party Congress’s Resolution”; Direction No. 507-CT/QUTW, dated 28 July 2014 by the Standing Committee of the CMC on continuously renovating the emulation and commendation work in the Army, etc. Accordingly, all cadres and soldiers in the army, especially the party members, are deeply aware of the position, roles and meanings of the emulation and commendation work and the Determined-to-win Emulation Movement in order to build the right motivation and determination, heighten the responsibility and the self-awareness, activeness, enthusiasm and creativity in the implementation.

Leaders of the Ministry of National Defence at the launche of an emulation movement to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the "Dien Bien Phu in the air" Victory

Secondly, prove the role and responsibility of organisations and forces in leading, directing and organising the Determined-to-win Emulation Movement. This is an important solution to mobilise the general strength, create the high unanimity in the awareness and thought, unite the synchronous and harmonious activities within organisations and forces in their implementation. The party committees and organisations need to strictly follow the emulation topics, directions, targets and contents defined in the 10^th whole-army-level Determined-to-Win Emulation Congress; basing on the political missions of each office and unit to outline their leading and directing guidelines and solutions making them all-round, focused and highly feasible. It needs to treasure the leadership, direction, guidelines and roles of functional offices and mass organisations in order to build strong motives and emulation determination for soldiers. The building, further training and multiplying of advanced examples are made objective and persuasive. The partial and final summaries, learning from experience need to be strictly and closely carried out in all levels. Cadres and party members, especially the leading cadres at all levels, need to clearly realise the important roles of the emulation, commendation and their missions in order to take responsibility for their leadership, direction and implementation. All cadres need to set good examples in all fields, be dedicated and ardent, the motive force to encourage and guide cadres and soldiers in their emulation of doing their tasks. All-level political offices need to be ceaselessly renovated and creative in their building plans, guidance and implementation of emulation movements. These offices need to actively inspect, speed up, supervise and assist other offices and units in solving their difficulties; thoroughly grasp the situations to propose leading and directing solutions for improving the quality and effectiveness of the Determined-to-Win Emulation movement. The Council of emulation and commendation need to maintain their regular and effective activities and well take its consulting role in the emulation and commendation work. The mass organisations need to highlight the spirit of solidarity to encourage all union members’ active and self-conscious emulation to successfully accomplish all missions of their offices and units.

Thirdly, continue to renew the contents, forms and methods of organising the Determined-to-Win Emulation movement. This is an objective requirement obtained from the organisation of emulation movements in recent years in order to maintain the vitality, interest and effectiveness of the emulation. Accordingly, for contents, offices and units need to thoroughly grasp and understand the leading spirit that all Determined-to-Win Emulation movements need to base on the grassroots, closely follow the central political missions, solve the weaknesses and difficulties; the emulation should be closely connected with the daily activities of each cadre, party member and the mass to make suitable contents and targets. The organisation methods should be plentiful, interesting and able to arouse the cadres and soldiers’ patriotism, self-consciousness and creativity. It also needs to closely combine between the regular emulation and the peak emulation, and the emulation of all levels, agencies and mass organisations; attach the Determined-to-win Emulation Movement and the Patriotic Emulation Movement, other movements, campaigns and the implementation of resolutions, directions and regulations on building and reorganising the Party and the political system.

Presently, the Determined-to-win Emulation movement needs to focus on building comprehensively strong, “typical and exemplary” offices and units, pure and strong party organisations; excellently strong mass organisations; enhancing the emulation of successfully implementing the Resolution of the 11^th Army Congress, with the main focus on well carrying out the “Three breakthroughs”; Resolution No. 05-NQ/TW, dated 17 January 2022 by the Politburo (13^th tenure), Resolution No. 230-NQ/QUTW, dated 02 April 2022 by the CMC on organising the Vietnam People’s Army in the period of 2021-2030 and the following years. At the same time, it is necessary to renovate, improve the quality of education and training, regularity building, discipline observance and law compliance, and enhance the military administrative reform; improve the quality of the work of staff, politics, logistics, technique and national defence industry; well carry out the military foreign affairs, etc. Among those, it is necessary to focus on renewing the organisation forms and methods towards the compactness, lightness, practicality and suitability; avoiding the formalism and show-off, making sure all the emulation movements could achieve practical, continuous and sustainable development.

Fourthly, enhance the discovery, further training and multiplication of the role models, good people and good deed; closely combine emulation with commendation. President Ho Chi Minh once said: “One of the best methods to build the party, revolutionary organisations and new people, new life is to educate one another with daily good people and good work”. As a result, all party committees and organisations, offices and units need to well accomplish the construction, multiplication of the role models; make sure the synchronous implementation in all four stages of discovery, further training, total summaries and multiplication. They need to build typical models in all working fields who have been really excellent, and had the pervasive and persuasive role in the whole army and country; well carry out the propaganda by organising conferences, partial summaries and total summaries, exchanges, seminars, or through social media, etc. for individuals and units to learn and follow.

“Emulation is cultivation, commendation is harvest”, all offices and units, therefore, must closely attach the emulation to the commendation; promote the emulation movements to select and award typical collectives and individuals, through which, to encourage more emulation movements. Pay attention to discovering, building and awarding typical collectives and individuals who are working in grassroots units, remote and border areas, coasts and islands; preventing and overcoming the natural disasters, diseases and doing the international missions, etc.

Fifthly, frequently consolidate and strengthen the organisation; well implement the examination and evaluation. Emulation is one of the important party and political work promoting all activities of offices and units, which demands socialist-minded and professional staff in their implementation. Hence, offices and units need to consolidate, strengthen and build the contingent of qualified cadres who are doing the emulation work and having good morality, skills and professional competence to meet the demands and missions at present period of time. It is also necessary to enhance the administrative renovation, apply the information technique into the emulation and commendation work. At the same time, the party committees and commands at all levels need to intensify the examination and supervision; make periodical summaries to rightly evaluate the results and achievements in order to boost the strengths, repair the weaknesses in leading and directing the movements; timely discover and solve the difficulties and obstacles, firmly prevent the “credit mania” and other negative manifestations in the emulation and commendation work.

The 75^th Anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh making the “Appeal for Patriotic Emulation” is the time for cadres and soldiers in the whole army to deeply memorize his saying, i.e.  “Emulation is patriotic, being patriotic must emulate. And people who emulate are the most patriotic ones”, continuously enhance the Determined-to-win Emulation movement, make the motivations for the Army to successfully accomplish all assigned missions, firmly protect the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the new situation; together with the whole Party and people look forward to the 80^th founding Anniversary of Vietnam People’s Army and the 35^th Anniversary of the all-people defence Day with practical meanings.

General LUONG CUONG, Member of the Politburo, Member of the Central Military Commission, Chief of the General Political Department of the Vietnam People’s Army