Oral propaganda is an important element of cultural – ideological education work, a crucial component of Party – political work of Vietnam People’s Army. This type of propaganda has many advantages, because it can quickly provide necessary information about sensitive and “burning” issues. During an oral propaganda session, the reporter in charge, thanks to his direct interaction with the audience, can easily grasp the crowd’s behavior to make appropriate adjustment in his report and performance. Therefore, throughout the history of our Military, oral propaganda has always been a powerful tool in promoting Marxism – Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts, our Party’s lines and principles, the State’s laws and policies, our Military and revolutionary tasks as well as exposing sabotaging plots of adversary forces. That said, it has greatly contributed to the work of strengthening revolutionary soldiers’ morality and vigilance; and encouraged our military members to actively and innovatively fulfill their missions.
With that being said, over the past years, Central Military Commission, Ministry of National Defense and leadership at all levels have always paid special attention to organizing and implementing oral propaganda programs. To this end, oral propaganda mechanism has been regularly updated to better suit the reality of this work. Also, propaganda contents always closely follow our Party lines and principles, our military and national defense missions; important international and domestic events; sensitive issues; and sabotaging plots and activities of adversary forces. Besides, methods for delivering, receiving, and broadcasting information are constantly renovated to ensure flexibility and diversity. In addition, propaganda reporters in the military are those who are politically stoic, skillful in political reasoning, highly vigilant and combative, and active and effective in propaganda work, etc. Therefore, oral propaganda in the military has enjoyed substantial improvements, greatly contributing to the work of keeping military members and the people well-informed and has become a powerful “weapon” in the fight against adversary notions, firmly holding the ideological foundation that the Party laid down for the Military.
However, in some units, oral propaganda has not been put in high regard as it should be; the integration of oral propaganda into the fight against “peaceful evolution”, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” and other negative phenomena in the Military has not been really close and effective. Oral propaganda has not been pioneering in providing information and directing public opinion to deal with new issues and pressing concerns in the society. Also, propaganda contents and methods of some reporters have still somewhat monotonous and uninteresting.
Exploiting technologies of the current “age of information”, adversary forces increasingly conduct sabotaging plots in every aspect to “depoliticize” our Military. Therefore we must further improve the quality and effectiveness of oral propaganda to ensure that it will truly be a spearhead in enhancing military members’ political awareness and regulating their conduct; and fighting and refuting adversary and falsified notions and wrongful behaviors, thus contributing to the work of building a strong political foundation for the Military. Accordingly, we need to address the following issues.
First, further enhance the leadership role of command staffs and Party committees at all levels in implementing oral propaganda. Due to the rapid advancement of modern technologies, this type of propaganda has become somewhat less advantageous than other formats. And in some units, it is considered to be the responsibility of only political education personnel. That said, the prerequisite for the success of this work is that leadership at all levels must fully comprehend their responsibility and their leading role. Accordingly, the role and function of ideological work in general and oral propaganda in particular, which were determined by the Party’s principles, must be comprehensively grasped by military units. At the same time, review and censorship regime, as well as summary work applied for political reports must be strictly maintained. Also, technical equipment needs to be invested to enable responsible personnel to have better access to information sources and renovate their working methods.
Commanding officers, Party committees and political branches at all levels must uphold responsibility for studying and utilizing information sources and related documents; develop mechanisms for receiving, processing and providing information to ensure timeliness, effectiveness and practicality of oral propaganda activities. Also, oral propaganda work must always be proactive and flexible. And since this type of propaganda does not depend on time, space and location, off-schedule propaganda sessions can be easily organized to inform cadres and soldiers about important and sensitive issues, this advantage cannot be found in any other type of propaganda. In current situation, we must pay special attention to propaganda work before, during and after critical events such as Party National Congresses, National Assembly plenums, legislation announcement, etc, which are usually the targets for adversary forces to smear and distort, to keep military members well-informed and direct their political awareness in a timely manner. In addition, we must improve the effectiveness of coordinated propaganda efforts between military units and local authorities to strengthen the political awareness of local cadres, Party members and people about the task of national defense.
Second, constantly enhance the quality of oral propagandists at all levels. The success of an oral propaganda activity depends on many factors, in which the propagandist’s political awareness, method and skill and qualification are the most important elements. Therefore, in each unit, the leadership must choose cadres which are really enthusiastic and highly responsible and have good oratorical skill to implement propaganda work. To do this, leadership at all levels must constantly organize training activities for propaganda reporters. These training activities must be comprehensive, but they also need to focus on enhancing reporters’ political awareness, propaganda methods, oratorical skill, etc. to ensure that their speeches are always interesting for the audience. At the same time, we need to develop appropriate mechanisms to enable propagandists to get access to hands-on training and combat operations and critical political events to really understand the nature of these activities, thus improving the persuasiveness and the effectiveness of their propaganda sessions. Also, leadership at all levels should introduce special policies and benefits for propagandists to make them really want to stick to this task in long term.
Additionally, propaganda reporters must actively conduct self-training to improve their working skills; especially their oratorical technique and abilities to utilize information sources and technical equipment. At the same time, they must further uphold the spirit of responsibility and working ethics to choose appropriate methods and contents to present in their propaganda sessions. Propagandist must fully grasp and have correct understanding about the contents of their reports, and avoid presenting outdated and obsolete information. During their propaganda sessions, reporters must closely observe the reaction of their audience to make appropriate adjustments in their presentation; and encourage direct interaction to correctly identify issues that listeners particularly concern.
Third, closely combine oral propaganda with the fight against adversary and falsified notions on the Internet. Nowadays the cyberspace has become a critical tool which is being fully utilized by adversary forces to spread fake news and misinformation to sabotage the credibility of our Party, State, and Military while most of our military members are able to access to this domain and can be influenced by the information mentioned above. In fact, the cyberspace contains the most viral and diverse information sources which potentially have the strongest impact on the mentality of our military members. Therefore, oral propaganda work must strictly follow the Party’s principles about “partner” and “opponent”; and the development of adversary forces’ strategy to expose their sabotaging plots, direct our military members’ political awareness and help them to develop clear and correct understanding about controversial issues. Also, propaganda contents must provide scientific-base information for military members to utilize to effectively refute reactionary and falsified notions to defeat adversary forces’ “peaceful evolution” and “military depoliticization” strategies. In addition, military units must develop information sharing mechanisms between oral propaganda reporters and cyberspace propagandists to ensure the quality of propaganda activities and the success of the fight against falsified and adversary notions.
Nowadays, the impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution and devious sabotaging plots of reactionary forces have led to many new demanding requirements for the task of enhancing the political aspect of our Military. A comprehensive understanding and systematic implementation of all the measures mentioned above are the foundation to improve the quality and effectiveness of ideological work in general and oral propaganda activities in particular in the Military. These will surely greatly contribute to the work of building a revolutionary, standardized, elite and gradually modernized military, and the cause of national defense and development of our people.
Colonel Nguyen Trong Trien, MA, 7th Military Region Military School