In the autumn of 1945, under the Party’s leadership, our people across the country rose up to conduct the August Revolution successfully, establish the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (the present-day Socialist Republic of Vietnam), and change their status of slaves to that of masters of the country. That was a great revival ushering in a new era of national independence, unification, renewal and international integration.

The victory of the uprising in Hanoi on August 19^th, 1945 played a decisive role in our people’s August General Uprising of 1945 and led to the great historic event on September 2^nd, 1945 when Ho Chi Minh, on behalf of the Vietnamese people, stately read the Declaration of Independence at Ba Dinh Square, giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as the first People’s Democratic State in the Southeast Asia.

The General Uprising to seize power in Hanoi - victory of resoluteness, timeliness, creativity, and exploitation of the situation

Seizing “a window of opportunity,” within a fortnight (from August 14^th, 1945 to August 28^th, 1945), with the revolutionary spirit and the great national unity strength, our people successfully carried out the General Uprising across the country. Under the Plan by the Municipal Party Committee and Revolutionary Military Commission of Hanoi, on August 19^th, 1945, the General Uprising of Hanoi took place quickly with the minimal bloodshed. Immediately one day later, the revolutionary government was set up and presented itself to the people at the Tonkin Palace in front of a large number of Hanoians (the Northern Provisional Revolutionary People’s Committee headed by comrade Nguyen Khang and the Hanoi Provisional Revolutionary People’s Committee headed by comrade Nguyen Huy Khoi). The Party Organisation, Authority and people of Hanoi quickly stabilised the situation and Hanoi became the political centre of our new regime.

Bringing into the victory of the 1945 August Revolution, generations of Hanoi’s people and troops achieved brilliant feats of arms in 60 days and nights opening the resistance war against the French Colonialists, making contributions to the Victory of Dien Bien Phu on the seventh of May, 1954 that “resounded across five continents, shook the globe,” and led to the liberation of Hanoi on October 10^th, 1954. Between 1954 and April 1975, the Party Organisation, Authority and people of Hanoi experienced periods of construction and combat full of difficulties and sacrifices but gained glorious victories. Between 1966 and 1975, Hanoi went through three major period of peace, war, and restored peace. In spite of challenges, with its knowledge and courage, the Party Organisation of Hanoi mobilised the strength of all people and worked with forces to defeat the two wars of destruction against the Capital City by the U.S. air force. Typical example was the victory of the Capital City’s people and troops in 12 days and nights (late December 1972) when they defeated the Operation Linebacker II with the use of B52 aircraft, recorded the victory of “Hanoi - Dien Bien Phu in the air” as a never-ending epic, and greatly contributed to the Great Victory in the spring of 1975 that led to the reunification of the country. Hanoi became the beloved Capital City of a unified Vietnam.

The victory by the Party Organisation, Authority and people of Hanoi in the August Revolution gives us a lot of valuable lessons on exercising resolute, flexible leadership over the revolution, creating and taking advantage of the opportunity, conducting an uprising to seize power quickly with few losses, promoting the entire nation’s strength and the core role of the worker-peasant army, maintaining the Party’s leadership and a close-knit bond between the Party and the people, encouraging cadres and party members’ vanguard and exemplary role, relying on the people and bringing into the people’s great strength. Those lessons have been grasped and creatively applied to leadership over the Capital City’s construction and development by the Municipal Party Organisation of Hanoi.

Promoting the spirit of the August Revolution to build a prosperous, civilised, modern Capital City

After the country was unified, the Municipal Party Organisation of Hanoi determined to organise movements to boost production and construct the Capital City, while providing human and material resources to assist southern provinces in stabilising the situation as a central task. Between 1976 and 1985, Hanoi and the whole country executed the second and third 5-year plans. The city opportunely implemented our Party and State’s new guidelines and policies on facilitating socio-economic development and constructing infrastructures, especially houses, roads, and lighting system. Many constructions were built and put into operation, such as Thang Long bridge, Duong bridge, Chuong Duong bridge, Pha Den harbour, road No.6 (Hanoi - Ha Dong), Maternity Hospital of Hanoi, Vietnam-Sweden Children's Hospital, and Viet Xo Friendship Labour Cultural Palace (present-day Friendship Cultural Palace), thereby initially meeting the people’s demands.

The Capital City of Hanoi is being built and developed towards civilisation and modernity (photo: nhandan.com.vn)

Since 1986, under the guidelines on a comprehensive national reform, fully understanding that “Hanoi’s Party Organisation must set the pattern for others to follow,” the Party Organisation, Authority and people of Hanoi have proactively, creatively carried out a reform to build an increasingly prosperous, civilised and modern Capital City. After nearly 35 years of implementation of the renewal policy and especially after 5 years of execution of the Resolution by the 16^th Municipal Party Congress (2016-2020 tenure), Hanoi has played a vanguard role in grasping and creatively applying the Party’s renewal policy to the city’s practical conditions. It has obtained impressive socio-economic achievements while the people’s mental and material life has been ceaselessly improved.

The city’s economy has developed rather rapidly and greatly contributed to the whole country’s economic growth. In the period of 2016-2020, its average Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) is estimated to increase by 7.39%. In 2020, its GRDP is estimated to reach about 45 billion USD while the per capita income is about 5,420 USD, a 150% increase compared to 2015. Its economic structure has witnessed positive changes, with industry and services taking a bigger share.

Due attention has been paid to urban planning, construction and development. The city has proactively, actively synchronously developed and modernised its urban infrastructure services, built new residential and urban areas, managed and adjusted the distribution of its population, and upgraded old apartment blocks into modern urban areas.

The construction of new-style rural areas has been closely, drastically directed and achieved outstanding results. Due regard has been paid to upgrading and building rural socio-economic infrastructure, with a total investment of over 8,000 billion VND on a yearly basis. Rural roads have been concreted. The drainage system has basically operated effectively. The rate of poverty in the rural areas has been considerably reduced while rural citizens’ material and spiritual life has been improved rapidly. The city has made preparations to establish new urban districts (the rural districts of Dong Anh, Gia Lam, Thanh Tri, Hoai Duc and Dan Phuong). The urban area has been increasingly expanded. The rate of urbanisation in 2019 was 49.2%.

Social security has been maintained as the basis for raising the quality of Hanoians’ life. Policies for people with meritorious service to the Revolution, poor households, beneficiaries, the elderly, disabled people, and ethnic minority people have been implemented sufficiently, opportunely. Social, health, and unemployment insurances have been ensured. The target of poverty reduction has been reached 2 years before the deadline. At present, basically the city has no poor household according to the multidimensional poverty index.

Socially and culturally, Hanoi takes the lead in cultural development. The city has always considered culture as the society’s spiritual foundation and put it at the forefront of the sustainable development policy. Hanoi is the first locality that has finished counting, assessing and classifying relics, while safeguarding cultural relics (about 5,922 ones) and intangible cultural heritage, many of them have been recognised as national-level cultural relics. Hanoi really deserves to be the Capital City of Vietnam and a top cultural centre of the region. The city has preserved, inherited and promoted thousand-year-old cultural values and built new values in the society’s spiritual life.

Regarding education and training development, Hanoi always takes the lead amongst localities in the network of schools and the quality of education. 318 out of 384 communes of Hanoi have met the national standards for their schools at all three levels. The city has brought into play the potential and knowledge of its intelligentsia, universities, colleges and institutes in the area. It has made investments in constructing the biological technology centre and the scientific and technical information centre, while enhancing the effectiveness of scientific research and technology transfer so that Hanoi would become an education, training, and science hub of Vietnam and the region.

Besides, Hanoi has maintained political security and the absolute safety of targets and political, diplomatic and cultural events, particularly the second U.S. - North Korea Summit, being highly appreciated by the people across the country and the international community, spreading the message of a “City for peace.” Importance has been attached to performing the national defence work and making the all-people national defence, the postures of all-people national defence and people’s security and the capital armed forces increasingly strong. Diplomatic and cooperative relations have been expanded and contributed to raising the city’s status in the region and the world.

It should be noted that since the beginning of 2020, the city has been confronted with numerous difficulties and challenges, especially the impacts made by COVID-19 pandemic. However, thanks to the Party’s leadership, all-level party committees and authorities’ close, drastic, flexible, creative direction as well as a sense of unity and tireless efforts by the Fatherland Fronts, unions, the armed forces, people from all walks of life and businesses, Hanoi has attained the twin goals of both epidemic combat and socio-economic development. It has focused on improving the investment and business environment, resolving difficulties, and providing assistance for investors and enterprises against the COVID-19 pandemic. It has quickly postponed collecting over 17,500 billion VND of corporate tax. For 2 consecutive years, Hanoi ranks 9 out of 63 provinces and municipalities for the provincial competiveness index (PCI). For 3 consecutive years, it ranks 2 out of 63 for the public administration reform index (PAR Index). The total social development investment capital in the first half of 2020 was 152.100 billion VND, increasing by 5.9%. At the Conference “Hanoi 2020 - Cooperation and Development,” the city granted permission to 229 projects with a total investment of 17.6 billion USD. Social policies have been implemented opportunely, sufficiently. A capital budget of 1,020 billion VND consigned to the Municipal Social Policy Bank has been supplemented and mobilised to assist poor households, proprietorships, and small and medium-sized enterprises in facilitating production and business against the COVID-19 pandemic. The Party Organisation of Hanoi has directed its affiliates to grasp and strictly execute the Politburo’s Directive No.35 and the Municipal Party Committee’s Plan No.155 on holding all-level party congresses in accordance with the regulations by the Party Central Committee, the Politburo and Central and Municipal offices.

In the upcoming time, the global and regional situation will continue to be complex and unpredictable. The hostile forces will step up their “peaceful evolution” strategy against our country via the increasingly malicious artifices. The COVID-19 pandemic will still spread and will be complex in many countries and regions across the globe. The tasks of socio-economic development, defence-security consolidation, and Homeland protection and the building of the Capital City will be more demanding. Hence, Hanoi should promote and creatively apply valuable lessons from the August Revolution as well as its age-old heroic cultural tradition to constructing and developing a prosperous, civilised and modern Capital City as a driver of socio-economic development of the region and the whole country. To that end, the Party Organisation, Authority and people of Hanoi should focus on several tasks and measures as follows.

1. Continue to pursue the policy on rapid and sustainable growth, develop a green, smart, and inventive city, and maintain a higher economic growth rate than the national average. Hanoi will strive to be an industrialised, modernised city. The GRDP per capita will be 8.100 - 8.300 USD. The average growth rate will be 7.5% - 8% in the period of 2021-2025. The rate of urbanisation will be 60% - 62%. The rate of coverage within general plans and zoning plans will be 100%. All districts will meet the new-style rural area criteria. 30% of the communes will satisfy the exemplary new-style rural area criteria. By 2030, Hanoi will become a green, civilised, and modern city with the competitiveness at international level and fulfil the task of industrialisation and modernisation; the GRDP per capita will be 12,000 USD - 13,000 USD. By 2045, Hanoians will have high-quality life, the city’s economic, cultural and social development will be comprehensive and sustainable, it will become a global city, and the GRDP per capita will be over 36,000 USD.

2. Expanding and improving the city’s foreign affairs, cooperation and international integration in order to boost its economic, cultural and educational development and raise its status and prestige. The city will build revolutionary, regular, elite, and gradually modern municipal armed forces, construct the all-people national defence and the posture of all-people national defence associated with the posture of people’s security, avoid falling into passivity in any situation, maintain political security and social safety, effectively prevent and combat crime, and ensure the absolute safety of central and municipal offices and national and international events taking place in its area.

3. Continue to make a huge change in the Party building and rectification and build a really exemplary, pure, strong, compact, effective political system. The city will effectively execute the Patriotic Emulation Movement, major campaigns of the country, the 12^th Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics and lifestyle, and the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.4 on the Party building and rectification. It will promote the vanguard, exemplary role of cadres and party members, particularly the key ones. Besides, it will proactively fight to defend the Party’s ideological foundation, resolutely prevent and push back the degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle as well as the signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” from within, enhance the fight against corruption, wastefulness and bureaucracy, and cement the people’s faith in the Municipal Party Organisation and Authority.

The all-level party committees and authorities’ consistent, creative direction and management, the people’s consensus, and the entire political system’s great responsibility have been adding a new incentive to the Capital City's development. Each cadre and party member will exercise self-examination and self-correction, promote their strengths, and overcome all weaknesses, difficulties and challenges to build a prosperous, civilised, and modern Hanoi - a city for peace to deserve the faith of Hanoians and the people across the country.

VUONG DINH HUE, Member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee

Head of the Delegation of National Assembly Deputies of Hanoi