Military culture is part of national culture, including mental and material values being formed and developed during the Military’s construction and development process. Promoting military cultural values and arousing cadres and soldiers’ internal strength to reach the targets of building of revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, modernised Viet Nam People’s Army (VPA) represent a both urgent and long-term requirement.

As part of Vietnamese culture, military culture has been formed and built up throughout thousands of years of the history of national construction and protection. In the Ho Chi Minh era, since the inception of the VPA, military culture has been supplemented with new values crystallised from training, combat readiness, and combat activities for the Party’s revolutionary goal and ideal and for the people’s happiness. Those values demonstrate the nature and glorious tradition of our Military – a new-style army of the Vietnamese working class, by the people and for the people, with its absolute loyalty to the Party, the Fatherland, and the people.

Thoroughly grasping and concretising the Party’s culture-related viewpoints and guidelines, the Central Military Commission, the Ministry of National Defence, and the General Political Department have formulated many guidelines and solutions for cultural work within the Military, together with a large number of directives and guiding documents on building culture in general, military culture in particular. As a result, military cultural values have contributed to promoting human factors as the foundation for building a politically strong VPA, maintaining the Military’s revolutionary nature, and leading the building of a revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, gradually modernised VPA. However, some offices and units have yet to pay due regard to bringing into play military cultural values, thereby failing to keep pace with the development of our country and the times.

In order to continue promoting military cultural values and arousing cadres and soldiers’ internal strength to fulfil the targets of building a revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, modernised VPA, the following measures are recommended.

First, continue enhancing research work to clarify theoretical and practical issues on military culture and apply military cultural values to the Military build-up, national defence consolidation, and the Fatherland protection. This is an important measure aimed at providing scientific arguments for bringing into play military cultural values in the face of hostile forces’ severe sabotage, particularly in ideological and cultural fields. Culture itself always undergoes inheritance, absorption, and development; Viet Nam’s military culture is not an exception. Our military cultural values have been crystallised from the history of national construction and protection; they have been enriched in our struggle for national liberation, in today’s national construction and protection, and especially in the building of a revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, modernised VPA, under the impacts made by globalisation, international integration, and the 4^th industrial revolution. Thus, it is necessary to step up research work in order to clarify theoretical and practical issues on military culture and include new cultural values in the system of Vietnamese military cultural values in accordance with the development trend of the times. Besides, it is important to embrace the quintessence of human culture so as to strengthen the factors of patriotism, socialism, military cultural environment, military art, and determination to defend the Fatherland. At the same time, based on the established standards, such as “steadfastness, pure motive, high responsibility, noble action; pure and healthy morality and lifestyle; industriousness, thrift, integrity, uprightness, public-mindedness, selflessness; good scientific knowledge, military capacity, working methods and styles, and health; democracy and strict self-discipline; solidarity with the people, respect the people, close-knit bond with the people, and pure internationalism”, it is essential to properly add more standards of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”.

Second, step up the work of propagation and education to spread military cultural values in units’ politico-spiritual life. This is a basic measure aimed at enabling Vietnamese military cultural values to be inherited and absorbed by cadres and soldiers of the VPA. Thus, units’ party committees and commands must put education about military cultural values at the forefront of their political education work, while developing and implementing plans and programmes of education uniformly, synchronously, and both widely and deeply. It is necessary to clearly identify basic military cultural values for the building of a revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, modernised VPA and include them in political education programmes for troops; the contents of such programmes must inherit cultural values developed from the country’s tradition of national construction and protection and satisfy the requirements set by the Fatherland construction and protection in the new situation. Military cultural values must be integrated into military schools’ training programmes and grass-roots level units’ annual political education programmes for troops. In the process, units across the VPA should actively renew methods of education suitable with cadres and soldiers’ educational background. At the same time, units should bring into play the role of professional and grass-roots level cultural institutions in propagating and educating military cultural values. All-level party committees and commands should organise more visits to museums, memorial houses, and historical relic sites to visually educate cadres and soldiers. Besides, it is vital to apply digital platforms and the Internet to educating troops and citizens on military cultural values.

Third, promote military cultural values in building the “posture of people’s hearts and minds” and mobilising the strength of the national great unity block and the entire political system for the modernisation of the VPA. Uniting and sticking with the people like the close-knit bond between “fish and water” represent a noble cultural value of our Military. It is worth noting that in order to contribute to building a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds,” the VPA itself must be made really revolutionary, regular, and highly-skilled, and it must preserve and promote the nature and fine tradition of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers.” Only by doing so could military cultural values be instilled into each cadre and soldier, be trusted by the people, and be brought into play in mass mobilisation work. To that end, units across the Military should strictly maintain discipline, well carry out political and ideological education work, and improve political zeal and professional etiquette of revolutionary soldiers. Cadres and soldiers must have pure motive, political steadfastness, great responsibility, pure and healthy morality and lifestyle, good professional competence and work methods, while exercising democracy, strictly, self-consciously observing discipline, and maintaining internal and international unity and a close-knit bond with the people. In addition to the tasks of training and combat readiness for protecting the Fatherland, units should help the people with socio-economic development, hunger eradication, poverty reduction, natural disaster and Covid-19 prevention and control to maintain citizens’ peaceful life. Only by practical activities could cadres and soldiers better themselves and the image of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” be bolstered to make contribute to cementing the people’s faith in the Party and the Military, strengthening the relationship between the people and the VPA, and taking advantage of the strength of the national great unity block and the entire political system for modernising the Military.

Fourth, keep renewing cultural and artistic work within the VPA. This measure is designed to deal with the backwardness of military culture in comparison with the development of the society and meet troops’ cultural and mental needs. Therefore, all-level party committees and commands should keep grasping and strictly executing the 10^th Politburo’s Resolution 23-NQ/TW, dated June 16^th, 2008 on “continuing building and developing literature and art in the new period” in tandem with the 13^th Politburo’s Conclusion 01-KL/TW, dated May 18^th, 2021 on continuing enhancing the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s thought, ethics, and lifestyle, the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 847-NQ/QUTW, dated December 28^th, 2021 on promoting the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and fighting against individualism in the new situation, and the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines on building and developing Vietnamese culture in the new period. Moreover, they should renew their leadership and direction over cultural and artistic operations in a scientific, increasingly modern way to ensure political orientation, make cultural and artistic work relevant to the Military’s training, combat readiness, study activities, and bring into play qualities and creativity of artists and forces on cultural and artistic fronts. In the process, units across the Military should effectively realise the Planning of cultural institutions within the VPA in the period of 2021-2025, with orientations towards 2030. Special importance should be attached to promoting traditional cultural values and modernising the organisational structure and modality of military theatres, art troupes, museums, libraries, and grass-roots level cultural institutions in order to increase their attractiveness and persuasiveness. Those institutions should be more proactive and creative in accessing new technologies, such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and digital platforms to better their efficiency, raise the quality of their cultural and artistic products, and further disseminate their products to troops and citizens. Moreover, it is necessary to actively encourage artists both inside and outside the Military to produce literary and artistic works regarding revolutionary wars in the past and the VPA’s current process of training, combat readiness, natural disaster and Covid-19 prevention and control, and search and rescue. There should be more policies to recruit talents in literary and artistic fields to the Military, while great value should be attached to detecting cadres and soldiers with aptitude for cultural and artistic activities and training them to become military professional artists.

Sr. Col. DINH QUOC TRIEU, PhD.

Political Chief of the Political Officer Training College