Building of strong potential of the all-people national defence, the political-spiritual potential in particular, is one of a regular, pivotal tasks of all Party, people, and military. As for the strategic Northwestern area, this mission becomes ever more important. This matter, therefore, deserves further research and creative application to the area with high political resolution and scientific, synchronous solutions.

The Northwest is a strategic area of special importance in terms of politics, economics, culture, society, national defence, security, diplomacy, and ecological environment of the whole country. In recent years, owing to the great care of the Party and State as well as effort of party committees, authorities, armed forces, and people, the Northwest has made much progress in every aspect, i.e. increased socio-economic development, strengthened national defence and security, enhanced political situation, social order and safety, and improved people’s life. Thus, people’s confidence in the Party, State, and local party committees and authorities is promoted, which provides a solid foundation for building this area into a robust shield at the western and northern gateways to our country. However, economic growth remains slow in some places. People’s intellectual standards are uneven. Hostile forces and reactionaries exploit issues relating to race, religion, freedom, democracy, and human rights to do harm to the great national unity bloc and show division between people and the local party committee and authority, the military and Public Security, etc., with the aim of destabilising security, politics, social order and safety, and so on. Additionally, the reorganisation of military units in the area has had considerable influence on the thought of part of cadres, professional military personnel, and defence workers.

Facing such situations, to fulfil objectives and missions set forth by Resolution No. 11-NQ/TW, dated 10 February 2022, of the Politburo (13th tenure) on the “Directions for socio-economic development and ensuring national defence and security in the Northern midland and mountainous area through 2030, vision 2045,” aiming for making the Northwest “green, sustainable, and comprehensive” and enabling Northwestern provinces to escape from underdevelopment and poverty, local party committees, authorities, and armed forces in the area must attach importance to building of strong all-people national defence and increasingly strong district-and province-level defence zones in terms of potential, force, and posture. Of note, special attention should be paid to establishment of increasingly robust political-spiritual potential and “people’s heart and mind posture,” regarding this as the most important solution and basis for building, mobilising, and multiplying the power of other potential in the construction and protection of the Fatherland. The article seeks to share a few thoughts on this matter in the Northwestern area.

The Northwest is one of the areas where hostile forces step up acts of sabotage with a view to inciting secession, casting doubts, and undermining people’s confidence in the Party, State, and regime. Therefore, to build political-spiritual potential in this important area, first and foremost, requires cultivating all people’s confidence and consensus on the Party’s leadership and success of the construction and protection of the Fatherland. Of note, the key solution is to speed up propagation and education for cadres, party members, and people about the position, role, and content of building political-spiritual potential. Good implementation of this measure will provide a solid foundation for establishing, mobilising, and multiplying power of other potential of the all-people national defence. Accordingly, content of propagation and education must ensure comprehensiveness and focus, especially the Party’s guideline on safeguarding the Fatherland in the new situation; the State’s policies and law; party committees’ resolutions and directives on socio-economic development and promotion of people’s spiritual, material life; patriotism and pride in tradition and people of the heroic Northwestern area. Additionally, it is vital to raise people’s awareness of national defence and vigilance in the hostile forces’ plots and acts of sabotage without being seduced. During implementation, there is a need to tap into overall power of organisations and forces; apply forms and methods of propagation flexibly; use many suitable, practical solutions synchronously; actively reform content and forms of propagation and education; enhance quality of defence and security education for each type of subjects, especially the corps of grassroots cadres, young generation, religious dignitaries and ministers, village chiefs, and highly prestigious individuals in ethnic minorities. Military units should improve the effectiveness of the project on “Bringing into play the role of People’s Army in law education and encouraging people to comply with law at the grassroots level in the 2021-2027 period” as provided by Decision No. 1371/QD-TTg, dated 30 July 2021, of the Prime Minister, thereby generating consensus among party committees, authorities, people from various walks of life, and armed forces in the area on building increasingly robust political-spiritual potential.

In fact, to increase the effectiveness of building political-spiritual potential of the all-people national defence requires making the Party and State pure and strong and strengthening the great national unity bloc. Thus, building of effective, efficient, comprehensive, robust communes and wards, capable of leading and directing organisations to undertake socio-economic development, improve people’s living standard, strengthen national defence and security, and safeguard the Fatherland, is key to building political-spiritual potential. The political system at the grassroots level is the place where the Party’s guidelines and State’s policies and law are materialised and brought into life, directly carrying out missions of localities. To do so requires units of armed forces in the area to collaborate closely with party committees and authorities of localities in successfully realising resolutions and directives of the Central Party Committee on building the Party and political system; enhance leadership capacity and combat power of party organisations as well as the vanguard role of cadres and party members in undertaking military, defence missions. Units of the People’s Army and Public Security, especially the local military bodies, need to work closely with functional agencies to recommend the equivalent party committees and authorities to streamline apparatus of the political system, ensuring that the apparatus is comprehensively strong in terms of politics, ideology, morality, organisation, and cadre, adept, compact, efficient, and effective. Of note, attention should be paid to building, strengthening, and enhancement of party organisations’ comprehensive leadership capacity and high combat power; building of robust authorities at all levels to improve their efficient, effective management of socio-economic development and fortification of national defence and security in localities. At the same time, the Fatherland Front and sociopolitical organisations in localities are to be made strong and operate in accordance with their functions and missions. The regulation on grassroots democracy must be observed strictly and promoted under the motto: “The people know, the people discuss, the people do, the people inspect, the people supervise, and the people enjoy.”

The armed forces in the area should successfully carry out mass mobilisation; grasp situations thoroughly; be present in complex, difficult places to help people to deal with consequences of natural disasters, conduct search and rescue, and address the eradication of hunger and reduction of poverty; proactively send cadres and party members to join commune-level party committees and participate in party cells and party organisations. The selection, training, and admission of party members must be well carried out to ensure that all villages have party members, thereby cultivating cadres for the grassroots level. This serves to ceaselessly fortify and leverage strength of the great national unity bloc and facilitate sustainable development for increasing political-spiritual potential in the cause of building and safeguarding the Fatherland.

People’s life in the region, especially that of ethnic minorities in remote and border areas, is the deciding factor in the sustainability of the political-spiritual potential. Therefore, regular attention to improvement of people’s spiritual, material life provides foundation for making political-spiritual potential increasingly strong. To successfully implement this task requires party committees, authorities, and leading cadres at all levels to stick to realities to discover emerging issues relating to economics, politics, culture, society, national defence, security, etc., and timely introduce measures to lead and instruct socio-economic development and closely combine economics with national defence and security, ensuring that economic development always goes hand in hand with strengthening of national defence and security in the area. It is vital to align socio-economic development planning with building defence posture of each province and the region as a whole.

On tapping into the function of an army for production, military units in the area should cooperate closely with localities to successfully implement development projects in economic-defence zones, especially those in strategic areas such as the border areas, difficult terrain with extreme climate and high risks of landslide and flood, areas with hydropower projects and low population density, and areas where people’s life is still full of hardship. The units must also actively participate in the military’s joint effort to build new-style countryside movement, focusing on developing infrastructure namely power grids, road system, irrigation, schools, hospitals, houses of culture, civil-military clinics, and so forth. They are to encourage people to settle down their life and farming; instruct people how to engage in farming and do business; transfer technical science; assist people in changing crop structure, developing cattle breeding, and establishing home farm; help people in growing, caring for, and protecting forests to eradicate hunger and reduce poverty, thereby contributing to efforts to make the Northwest politically stable, people’s life increasingly better, create vital material conditions for building strong defence zones as requested by requirements and missions of constructing and safeguarding the Fatherland in the new situation.

Senior Colonel TRAN DAI THANG, Deputy Commissar of Military Corps 12