All benefits of our Party are for the people and all policies of our Party are derived from the people. On the threshold of the 13^th National Party Congress, with the respect for the people, our Party has asked for opinions from the people so that it could formulate leadership guidelines in accordance with the development of reality. However, hostile forces have devoted efforts to distorting and sabotage that humane viewpoint of our Party. Thus, it is very important to remain vigilance against and unmask those artifices by the hostile forces.

Consultation with all party organisations and people from all walks of life on draft documents prior to a Party Congress is a principle and tradition to promote democracy within the Party, while demonstrating the close-knit bond between the Party and the people as well as between theory and practice. However, the hostile forces have exploited public consultation to sabotage our Party. Social networks as a convenient channel of information and interaction have been used to launch malevolent attacks against the Party’s draft documents by the hostile forces in a bid to undermine cadres, party members, and citizens’ faith in the Party and its draft documents. It is clear to see their artifices as follows.

1. The hostile forces focus on sabotaging the guidelines and viewpoints on the 13^th National Party Congress. According to them, documents of this Congress are only copied or modified from those of previous Congresses without any value to the national development. More seriously, they think that documents of this Congress will constrain Vietnam’s progress. They believe that documents of all Congresses of our Party include only cliché issues, dogmatism, conservatism, and Marxism-Leninism in order to maintain the Party’s power. In the forms of “open letter,” “feedback letter,” and “discussion about the 13^th National Party Congress and the Communist Party of Vietnam,” they ask for recovery of the previous names of our Party and State so as to “win the people’s hearts and minds,” “mobilise the whole country’s strength,” “seize the opportunity” for developing Vietnam. When a number of cadres and party members are severely punished by our Party and State, they distort it as a “purge” or “individual revenge.” Hence, they incite discontented elements to write and publish articles on social networks with a view to force Vietnam to remove “the dictatorship and totalitarianism of the Communist Party,” exercise “pluralism,” and build a “democratic society.”

Since its inception, a part from its founding conference on February 3^rd, 1930, our Party has organised 12 National Party Congresses. Although these Party Congresses have been held in different historical contexts, documents of the Congresses all contain great values on the national, democratic and socialist revolution in accordance with the people’s aspirations. Our Party’s will and the people’s desire have created a source of strength to defeat all invaders, construct and defend the country. The Party’s Political Platform in 1930 led to the revolutionary movement in the 1930s and the 1940s as well as the victory of the August 1945 Revolution, while laying a solid foundation for our Party to formulate the policy on an “all-people, all-round, durable, and self-reliant” resistance war against the French Colonialists. At the 2^nd National Party Congress in February 1951, our Party issued a resolution on leading our people to win the victory in the resistance war against the French and build socialism in the North. At its 3^rd Congress in September 1960, our Party determined to perform the two strategic tasks simultaneously, namely fighting the U.S., for national salvation and carrying out the socialist revolution in the North. After the country had been reunified, from the 4^th Congress to the 12^th Congress, our Party has set out, increasingly supplemented and completed the guidelines on socialism in Vietnam. It should be noted that amidst the new requirements set by the national development, to overcome shortcomings which led to the socio-economic crisis after the war, our Party has conducted a reform in theories of socialism and gradually developed the Guidelines on National Renewal. The Party’s 6^th Congress in December 1986 clearly analysed the country’s situation and formulated the guidelines on renewing Vietnam comprehensively, thereby ushering in a new era of national development. At the 7^th and 11^th Party Congresses in June 1991 and January 2011 respectively, our Party completed and concretised the guidelines on national renewal via the Platform on national construction in the period of transition to socialism (the Platform of 1991 and the supplemented and developed Platform of 2011). At its 12^th Congress in January 2016, our Party has decided to build a pure, strong Party, bring into play the entire nation’s strength and socialist democracy, step up the national renewal synchronously and comprehensively, firmly protect the country, maintain peace and stability, and devote efforts to quickly basically turn Vietnam into a modernity-oriented industrialised country.

Grasping the viewpoints formed at its Congresses and bringing into play domestic and international experiences, our Party has exercised its leadership over the national renewal, construction and protection with numerous victories. As a result, the country has surmounted difficulties caused by the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Europe as well as the enemy’s isolation and embargo to continue remaining strong on the road to socialism. After over three decades of national renewal, Vietnam has transformed from a poor country into a developing one. Culture and society have been developed. The people’s life has been improved. Socio-political stability and national defence, security, independence and sovereignty have been maintained. The country’s status and prestige have been increasingly raised. It is worth noting that many other countries all over the world are wrestling with the COVID-19 pandemic and the risk of economic recession; however, our Party and State have proactively adopted various measures for COVID-19 prevention and control since this pandemic’s outbreak in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China. Vietnamese State and Communist Party have succeeded in promoting the great national unity block and the role of medical, military and public security forces, thereby both facilitating economic development and combating the pandemic effectively. Vietnam has been recognised as the best in the fight against COVID-19, together with the fastest-growing economy in Asia.

2. The hostile forces take advantage of the fight against corruption to distort documents of the 13^th National Party Congress. Corruption is a social phenomenon associated with the formation of social classes and the existence of all states. In Vietnam, over the years, corruption has been extremely serious. Our Party and State have taken many measures for combating this type of vandalism effectively. It should be confirmed that our Party has been fully aware of corruption and fought against it for ages. Take a look back on the Party’s Congress in the period of national renewal, its documents have always mentioned and heightened the resolve to prevent and combat corruption and negative practices. Recently, our Party has announced that corruption and social evils, economic backwardness, socialist deviation, and the hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy are the four threats to the survival of our country and socialist regime. At the 13^th National Party Congress, the task of fighting against corruption will be mentioned more drastically once again. At the Party’s 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th Congresses and especially in the 11^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.4, the task of corruption prevention and combat has been set with very strong political determination. Notable, at the 12^th National Party Congress, this task has been set together with “the mechanism for making corruption impossible,” “the mechanism for deterrence and punishment so that cadres and party members would not dare to commit corrupt,” and “the mechanism for ensuring that cadres and party members would not need to commit corruption.” Under the direct direction by the Chief of the Party, this task has been performed in a drastic, just, correct, timely, and effective manner. Party committees and the all-level Inspection Commissions have taken disciplinary action against 1,111 party organisations, 18,265 party committee members, and 54,573 party members. The Party Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Party Central Secretariat have taken disciplinary action against 8 party organisations and 45 party members, while the Central Inspection Commission has taken disciplinary action against 111 party members, including 2 Politburo members, 21 Party Central Committee members, 38 military and public security officers. Doing so has helped consolidate cadres, party members, and citizens’ faith in our Party and State and refute the argument that “a single-party state is unable to combat corruption.”

3. The hostile forces distort the personnel work of the 13^th National Party Congress. To make preparations for the 13^th National Party Congress, all-level party committees and organisations has closely, seriously carried out personnel work. Grounded on the master plan made by the Party, cadres included in the personnel work have been assigned to attend training courses for further education and hold various positions to gain hands-on experiences. This work has been conducted in a close, democratic, objective, public, and transparent fashion. Due attention has been paid to resolutely excluding those who offer bribes for positions or those who express factionalism and the signs of degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle as well as the manifestations of “self-evolution,” “self-transformation,” bureaucracy, and corruption from new party committees. That truth will disprove all distortions that the personnel work of the 13^th Party Congress lacks transparency and deprives its participants of rights to self-nominate, appoint, and elect.

Up to now, draft documents of the 13^th National Party Congress have been elaborately prepared together with the feedback from the Politburo, the Party Central Secretariat, the Party Central Committee, ministries, sectors, cadres, party members, party organisations, and all people. In the process, our Party will respect and receive all opinions to complete and submit the documents to the 13^th Congress for approval. Certainly, the 13^th National Party Congress’ documents will contain sound guidelines and policies for modernising and developing the country and the documents’ values will be the greatest evidence to refute all distortions.

NGUYEN VIET HIEN, PhD

BUI THI HOAN, PhD