The 5^th Plenum of the 13^th Party Central Committee issued Resolution 21-NQ/TW, dated June 16^th, 2022 on “enhancing the consolidation and building of grass-roots level party organisations, raising the quality of party members in the new period”. This could be seen as a central and regular task of our Party; therefore, it is necessary to thorough grasp and effectively implemented this task in practice to make contributions to successfully fulfilling the Resolution of the 13^th National Party Congress.

When he was alive, President Ho Chi Minh ever said that “the Party must be strong enough for its leadership over the revolution. For a strong Party, there must be good party cells. For a good party cell, all its members must be good”, and party members act as “a bridge between the Party and the masses”. The Charter of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) specifies that “grass-roots level party organisations are the foundation of the CPV, serving as a political nucleus at grass-roots level”; “members of the CPV are revolutionary soldiers within the vanguard of the Vietnamese working class and labouring people”. That demonstrates the position and role of paramount importance of grass-roots level party organisations and party members to the CPV’s leadership. Over the years, our Party has attached significance to raising grass-roots level party organisations’ leadership capacity and the quality of party members as a central, routine task, which has been implemented comprehensively, synchronously via various measures, with a lot of important positive results. Notably, due attention has been paid to building and consolidating pure, strong grass-roots level party organisations, supplementing tasks and functions of those organisations to ensure the CPV’s leadership at grass-roots level in line with the building of the political system. Consideration has been given to training party committee members and secretaries. The quality of party members has considerably been improved, thus contributing to making the Party and the political system at grass-roots level really pure, strong, building a contingent of cadres and party members with great political zeal, prestige, and capacity to fulfil all revolutionary tasks.

However, in addition to those good results, the quality, leadership capacity, and combativeness of several party organisations are still limited. The method of leadership is slowly renewed. They have yet to opportunely amend or supplement their working regulations, or strictly abide by the principle of democratic centralism. The quality of party meetings, criticism, self-criticism, and task performance assessment at grass-roots level has been low. The Party’s role in dealing with the people’s difficulties and issues at grass-roots level has not been clearly asserted. A number of grass-roots level party organisations have yet to act as a political nucleus and bridge between the Party and the people, while failing to ensure the CPV’s leadership at grass-roots level. The organisational structure of some types of grass-roots level party organisations has been slowly consolidated. A section of party members has yet to fulfil their responsibilities before the Party, the Fatherland, and the people; their revolutionary ideal has faded away, and they have even committed “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” as well as violated the Party’s discipline and laws.

To overcome those weaknesses and make a huge positive change in raising grass-roots level party organisations’ leadership capacity and combativeness and the quality of party members as the basis for building and rectifying the CPV and the political system at grass-roots level into purity and strength, cementing the people’s faith in the Party under Resolution 21-NQ/TW of the Party Central Committee’s 5^th Plenum, in the upcoming time, the whole CPV, Military, people, and political system should focus on the following measures.

1. Enhancing the consolidation and building of grass-roots level party organisations

Grass-roots level party organisations serve as the CPV’s foundation; they are political nucleus and bridge between the Party and the people. Hence, consolidating and building those organisations constitute an important, urgent, and long-term task that should be performed frequently in a comprehensive but focalised manner.

First of all, aligning the consolidation and building of grass-roots level party organisations with the building of the political system synchronously. This is an objective requirement as grass-roots level party organisations are placed in the whole system and a relationship with other organisations of the political system. For that reason, consolidating grass-roots level party organisations must be in tandem with renewal and arrangement of the political system. In the process, it is necessary to associate the building and consolidation of party organisations with the building of all-level key cadres, in accordance with the organisational structure and size of the grass-roots level political system to guarantee the uniformity and synchronicity of each organisation and provide an incentive for sustainable development.

Second, renewing and completing the organisational structure of types of grass-roots level party organisations. To that end, it is important to seriously, quickly renew and perfect the organisational structure of party organisations under commune-level party committees and of specialised grass-roots level party organisations within enterprises and public non-business units. As our country has been integrating into the world more widely and deeply, with rapid socio-economic development, it is essential to step up the building and development of grass-roots level party organisations within non-State sectors, state-owned corporations, and cooperatives. Significance should be attached to maintaining, consolidating, and building commune-level military and public security party cells in accordance with the regulations on party organisations within the armed forces. At the same time, it is necessary to review, amend, and supplement functions, tasks, authority, responsibilities, and work relationships of grass-roots level party organisations, particularly those within the Military Party Organisation and the Public Security Party Organisation properly.

Third, renewing the contents and method of leadership of grass-roots level party organisations and raising the quality of party cell meetings. To do so, great value should be attached to abiding by the principles of democratic centralism, self-criticism, and criticism and maintaining discipline and unity within the CPV. Due attention should be paid to improving capabilities in grasping and concretising higher echelons’ guidelines and resolutions, raising the effectiveness of leadership over political tasks, and opportunely dealing with issues arising from reality, formalism, and merit-driven practices in party member and organisation evaluation. It is essential to effectively implement the models of “four-good party cell” and “four-good grass-roots level party organisation” (good political task performance, good meeting quality, good unity and discipline, good party members). The contents of party cell meetings must relate to resolutions and conclusions on the Party building and rectification, particularly Conclusion 21-KL/TW, dated October 25^th, 2021 by the 13^th Party Central Committee’s 4^th Plenum on building and rectifying the CPV and the political system, on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, on cadres and party members’ responsibility to set good examples, on resolutely preventing and strictly handling degradation in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle as well as “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”, on opportunely detecting, preventing, and combating corruption and negative practices right at grass-roots level. The contents of discussion at party meetings must be practical and focalised, while emphasis should be placed on disseminating higher echelons’ guidelines, directives, and resolutions, the State’s laws and policies, and the situation on domestic and international scales, satisfying legitimate aspirations of the people and party members, opportunely detecting and strictly handling violations by party organisations and members.

Fourth, improving political zeal, leadership capacity, and party work skills of grass-roots level party committee members. This measure plays a decisive role in raising grass-roots level party organisations’ leadership efficiency and effectiveness. Hence, it is necessary to better grass-roots level party committee members’ knowledge of political theory, party and mass mobilisation work skills, and hands-on experience. Importance should be attached to the planning and training of cadres at grass-roots level; in this regard, party committee secretaries should be also chairmen of people’s councils or people’s committees, party cell secretaries should be also heads of villages or hamlets, and party committee secretaries should be also heads of offices or units in accordance with tasks and practical conditions of each office, unit, and locality.

2. Raising the quality of party members

Party members could be seen as hi-quality human resources and perform an important role in the country’s long-term and short-term sustainable development. Improving party members’ qualities and capabilities is a basic, determining factor in the quality of the whole CPV. This matter has wide, diverse connotations and remains its position in Party building work; therefore, it is necessary to focus on the most fundamental contents as follows.  

First, renewing and strengthening political, ideological education to raise party members’ political zeal. This is a top priority as political ideology will decide the outcome of action taken by party members. Thus, it is vital to raise the quality of political education, encourage self-study of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, and heighten responsibility of party members for defending the Party’s ideological foundation. All-level party organisations should proactively grasp developments in their members’ ideology and opportunely orientate their members’ ideology against problems arising from reality. Due attention should be paid to perfecting revolutionary moral standards in accordance with the country’s new conditions and cultural tradition. It is essential to heighten revolutionary moral education, self-improvement, self-review, self-correction, and honour of revolutionaries.

Second, enhancing party member management and opportunely conducting screening work to expel ineligible party members from the Party. It is necessary to well manage party members right at grass-roots level party committees, step up the management of party members working abroad, and frequently inspect party cells and members’ implementation of regulations on party meetings. Significance should be attached to actively renewing the work of party member evaluation, amending and supplementing regulations on party meetings, stepping up administrative reform within the CPV, further applying information technology to managing party members in a synchronous, inter-connected manner, and completing the database of grass-roots level party organisations and members. Besides, it is essential to opportunely carry out screening work, resolutely expel ineligible party members from the CPV, and settle complaisance, irresponsibility, and merit-driven disease in self-criticism, criticism, and party member evaluation.

Third, well managing quality and quantity issues in the initiation of new members into the CPV so as to both raise the quality of the recruitment of new party members and continue increasing the quantity of party members. In this regard, importance should be attached to admitting new members to the CPV within the armed forces and non-State sectors, amongst workers, peasants, and entrepreneurs, in border, sea, island, mountainous areas to provide human resources for all-level political systems. Great weight should be added to renewing training programmes for candidates for CPV membership and new party members in a practical, good-quality, effective fashion, with a focus on basic issues relating to the CPV and party members’ tasks, authority, and vanguard, exemplary role.

Those above-mentioned measures should be thoroughly grasped and synchronously implemented by the entire CPV, Military, people, and political system, especially the people’s participation in the Party building and rectification. To that end, a favourable condition should be created for the people to take part in building and rectifying grass-roots level party organisations comprehensively. Emphasis should be placed on improving the reception of the people, increasing the number of channels for receiving the people’s opinions about guidelines and tasks formulated by grass-roots level party organisations, promoting the people’s role in inspecting and supervising cadres and party members within localities, opportunely detecting and reporting violations committed by cadres and party members, and recommending elite citizens to the CPV and all-level political systems. Additionally, it is necessary to bring into play roles of all-level Vietnam Fatherland Fronts in giving opinions about party organisations’ tasks and guidelines and encouraging the people to participate in building and rectifying the CPV, particularly supervising cadres and party members’ self-improvement.

Raising grass-roots level party organisations’ leadership capacity and combativeness as well as the quality of party members has always seen as a central, routine task by our Party. Grasping and well implementing those above-mentioned measures are of importance to building and rectifying the Party, promoting the CPV’s leadership role at grass-roots level, and contributing to cementing the people’s faith in our CPV, State, and regime and successfully fulfilling the Resolution of the 13^th National Party Congress.

Prof. MACH QUANG THANG, PhD.