Officers and soldiers of Capital Regiment march to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Hanoi’s liberation (source: VNA)

The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s leadership over the army is comprehensive and absolute, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has affirmed.

That leadership covers all aspects, including politics, ideology, organisation, and personnel, through a strict, suitable mechanism, emphasised the Party chief, who is also Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

He made the statement in an article he wrote in anticipation with the 70th founding anniversary of the army (December 22). The article is titled “The Party’s leadership is the deciding factor in all successes, maturity and development of the Vietnam People’s Army”.

Right in its first political platform in 1930, the Party pointed out that forming a worker-farmer army was a matter of urgency, the Party leader pointed.

He recalled that in early 1944, leader Ho Chi Minh, or Nguyen Ai Quoc at that time, laid stress on the need for the Party committee to take the leadership over the national main armed force, which was then known as the Vietnam Armed Propaganda Unit for National Liberation.

In the article, the Party leader reviewed important milestones in the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA)’s history, including those in the resistance wars against French colonialists and US imperialists and at the modern time.

In any period, the resolutions and documents issued by the Party reflected a consistent viewpoint that is the CPV, with its prime leading bodies – the Politburo and Secretariat - performs supreme, overall, and direct leadership over the armed force.

He highlighted that over the past 70 years, the Party has maintained its firm leadership over the army in all circumstances and during every historical period.

That leadership was seen as the deciding factor determining the maturity, fighting capacity and victories of the VPA, making it a sharp revolutionary tool and a loyal political force of the Party and the fatherland that serves the people, stand by the people and fight for the people.

The leader also emphasised fundamental issues for maintaining and strengthening the Party’s leadership to ensure the army sticks to its revolutionary nature as well as fighting purpose and ideal while fulfilling its tasks of constructing and defending the fatherland in the current situation.

Firstly, the principle of the Party undertaking absolute, overall and direct leadership over the army stays unchanged in any circumstance and conditions.

He clarified that the Party comes up with guidelines and orientations for the development of the national military and defence strength, define purposes and ideal as well as measures to improve the combat capacity of the armed forces.

The Party also directs the implementation and realisation of viewpoints and guidelines to build a revolutionary, regular, elite and modern army, he added.

He underscored that the Party, especially the Politburo and Secretariat, decides major issues relating to the building of a strong army in terms of politics, ideology and organisation. Meanwhile, the State concretely manages the army in accordance with the Constitution and law, he added.

“It is the CPV that is the only organisation that leads the VPA,” the Party chief stated, declaring that the leadership cannot be undertaken by any individual or any other political force.

He noted that the State management of the army is based on the principle of democratic centralism under the leadership of the Party.

Secondly, it is a need to constantly improve of the overall leadership and combat power of the Party committee of the army, and the effectiveness of the Party and political affairs, he stressed.

It aims to ensure the army always stands loyal to the Party, the nation, and people and steadfast in the Party’s goals and ideal, the renewal and building of socialism, serving as a key force in the fight against wrongful viewpoints, protect Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, the Party’s guidelines as well as the State policies and laws.

Thirdly, it is the soundness of the State management of the army. The Party chief explained that the State keeps control of the army by laws, policies and plans, which were created based on Party resolutions and guidelines. It needs to revamp the administrative apparatus from the grassroots to central level.

Reinforcing the Party’s absolute, overall, and direct leadership along with increasing the State’s management of the army are crucial, closely-linked, and vital to building the “revolutionary, regular, elite, and gradually modern army”.

The Party and State need to supplement, develop, and fine-tune their leading methods and management mechanisms and policies for the army while developing a system of healthy and strong Party organisations and reinforcing a military command system at all levels.

Fourthly, efforts to thwart “peaceful evolution” scheme in general and “apolitical army” scheme by hostile forces in particular must be stepped up.

The Party chief made it clear that these schemes are an extremely wicked plot against Vietnam’s revolution, attempting to separate the army from the Party leadership and disempowering the army as a sharp tool and a trustworthy political force of the Party and State. The lessons learnt from the former Russia and Eastern Europe still hold their value for us, he wrote.

Consequently, the leader asked every military officer, Party member, and soldier to fully and deeply understand that the Vietnamese army is the revolutionary force of the people, from the people and for the people under the close leadership of the Party.

The goal of the army is to fight for national independence, socialism, and the well-being of people, which is also the goal and ideal of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Party leader said.

In his article, he stressed that what it takes to intensify the Party leadership over the army is to build a healthy and strong military Party Committee in terms of politics, ideology and apparatus.

There is a must to persistently implement the Resolution on “Some urgent issues on Party building at present” set at the fourth Plenum of the Party Central Committee (11th tenure) in combination with a campaign to study and follow President Ho Chi Minh’s moral examples, he said.

Mistrust behaviors, degradation in political thinking and ethics, opportunistic lifestyle and attitude, individualism, and violation of the State laws and army disciplines must be stamped out.

The Party, State and people always believe and wish that the VPA, with its 70 glorious years, will make maximal efforts to build the “revolutionary, regular, elite and gradually modern” army, deserving a trustworthy mainstay of the Party, State and people, he concluded.

Source: vietnam +