Currently, studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and living style in compliance with 12^th Politburo’s Guideline 05-CT/TW have become a task of routine in the Armor Corps and proven to be very effective in improving the morale and conduct of the Corps’ cadres, Party members and civilian personnel.

Maj.Gen. Vu Minh Tri addressing the 2017 Propaganda Contest on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s lifestyle held by the Corps (photo: qdnd.vn)

With the announcement of Politburo’s Guideline 05-CT/TW, Central Military Commission Standing Committee’s Guideline 87-CT/QUTW and General Political Department’s Plan 1585/KH-TC with the theme “Push ahead the work of studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and living style”, the Armor Corps Command and Party Committee had a great opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of their Party building and cadre training activities. Subsequently, the Corps’ leadership issued a number of directives and orders to realize these guidelines, making a lot of improvements in armor units and service members’ consciousness, conducts, morality, responsibility and working and living style to fulfill any mission.

First, Armor Corps Command and Party Committee laid down policies and methods, developed plans and identified criteria for specific groups of their subordinates. The Corps' Party Committee determined that the implementation of Guideline 05-CT/TW should be integrated into the realization of Resolutions of the Party Central Committee's 4th Plenum (11^th and 12^th tenure), Resolutions of the 10th Military Party Congress and Armor Corps Party Congress as well as “Uphold tradition, devote talents, earn the title of Uncle Ho’s soldiers” Campaign. To this end, cadres and Party members, especially leadership at all levels, should demonstrate the spirit of “lead by example” and “actions must match words”. Due to the fact that Guideline 05-CT/TW consists of more issues than Guideline 03-CT/TW (by 11^th Politburo), the Corps Party Committee decided to establish an assisting board to instruct, monitor, inspect and support its subordinate units in executing their tasks. At the same time, the committee also closely oversaw the performance of those units to addressed downsides such as: just-for-show results, inefficient activities and belittlement to prevent political, moral and living style degeneration and “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” inside the Corps.

Besides, armor units increased propaganda and education activities about Uncle Ho’s life and career. This work was implemented under various forms and methods, such as: study sessions, story-telling contests, political meetings, forums; broadcasting on mass media; or propagating with panel and sign systems, and notice boards in barracks. In addition, studying and fully grasping 12^th Central Party Committee Resolutions and other political papers related to Uncle Ho were put in high regard, and training sessions were organized to ensure a thorough implementation of Resolution 05-CT/TW in the entire Corps. Also, the Corps held a conference to honor and award exemplary individuals and summarily debrief 3 years of “Uphold tradition, devote talents, earn the title of Uncle Ho’s soldiers” Campaign⁽¹⁾; an informal talk with the subject “Push ahead the work of studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and living style, earn the title of Uncle Ho’s soldiers in the new era”; and a propaganda contest⁽²⁾ with a similar topic. These activities aimed for making members of the Corps deeply aware of President Ho Chi Minh example and encouraging them to work, train and study harder for better performance in their daily service. So far, most of the Corps’ members have shown notable improvement in their political awareness, morality, living style, work ethic, and discipline and law abiding consciousness.

Following President Ho’s ideology and methods, Party building has made significant progresses. In 2017, Armor Corps Party Committee focused on enhancing leadership ability and quality among its cadres and Party members. Notably, the work of overseeing, training and educating officers and junior personnel was implemented with the spirit of “self-criticizing and criticizing”, “self-evaluating”, “self-correcting” and “promoting examples” to prevent political, moral and living style degeneration and “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” as 4^th Central Party Resolution underlined. In addition, the principles of combining plural leadership with individual management, human resource development with Party member building work were strictly followed. Units’ internal unity was well preserved, equity was highly regarded in party committees, party organizations, and their subordinate units, and internal inspection and supervision were also heavily focused.

Thanks to Guideline 05-CT/TW, Armor Corps managed to boost morale, determination, duty spirit and combat readiness among its members. In combat readiness missions, Armor Corps Command closely instructed its subordinate units to strictly maintain regular and combat duty tasks, frequently make necessary adjustments in projected combat plans, and conduct drills in accordance with these plans to avoid being passive and caught by surprise in any scenario. Also, the Corps closely coordinated with local authorities, friendly units and other forces in search and rescue, disaster relief, fire prevention and firefighting and public relation activities. In training, strictly following guidelines issued by superior institutions, especially Central Military Commission’s Resolution 765-NQ/QUTW, which sought to “Improve training quality from 2013 to 2020 and beyond”, Armor Corps actively prepared training materials and infrastructures, strictly exercised “fundamental, practical, solid” principle in training activities, frequently conducted combat maneuver activities as projected in combat plans; improved proficiency in employing assets in its current weaponry, especially newly acquired weapons and equipment. Besides, enhancement training sessions were organized for new personnel, and to improve quality in drills, contests and combat coordination activities. Thanks to the spirit of self-strengthening and innovation learned from the example of Uncle Ho, so far, the training quality, management performance and weapon and equipment proficiency in Armor Corps have been significantly improved. There were 100% units met training standards; 80% of them were rated good and excellent; all live-firing tests were graded excellent. In standardization building, Armor Corps Command and Party Committee always strictly applied discipline education and monitor methods for their men; proactively reorganized units’ structure and strength, set priorities in manpower for training and combat-readiness units. Therefore, in the entire corps, state of affair regarding discipline and legal violation has made a lot of progresses. There was no legal violation incident, and non-serious discipline violation rate in 2016 was only 0.14%. Another highlight in implementing Guideline 05-CT/TW in Armor Corps was fully exploiting internal resources to achieve high performance in logistic and technical work. The Corps Command always promoted emulation movements such as “Military logistic branch follows Uncle Ho’s words”, “Build a well-fed and well-managed unit,” and closely supervised concentrated food-processing and logistic depots. Also, self-sustained farming was well-expanded with many efficient “Garden, pond, farmhouse” facilities. Besides, healthcare services for corps members were seriously taken under “5-goods medical criteria”, which resulted in 98% of the men fit to serve. In technical services, Armor Corps’ weaponry, vehicles and equipment were always well-managed in both quantity and quality and properly synchronized for various types of mission. In armor units, daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly maintenance activities were conducted under strict regulations. Other technical works such as repair, preservation, storage, service life expanding and upgrade were also properly implemented. Additionally, innovative ideas were greatly encouraged and extensively employed, and the role of engineers and technicians in managing and utilizing weaponry and technical assets was highly promoted. At the same time, “Technical Day” at all levels was organized in a regular and orderly basis with high efficiency. This work was also effectively and closely integrated with “Manage and utilize weapons and technical assets for high performance and durability, with no accident and ensure traffic safety.”

Notably, there have been many innovative and excellent methods and model were explored in the progress of implementing Guideline 05-CT/TW, such as: “5 weekly understandings”, “Mental and physical health counseling group” in Brigade 201 and 215; “Determine to win Youth Vehicle Crew” in Brigade 215; “Youth Union Cell with no discipline and legal offense”; “Self-monitored Class”; “Self-monitored Youth Week” in Armor Technical School and Armor NCO Training No1; “Exemplary workshop, exemplary garage” in Medical Depot and Workshop 32; “5N Handbook”, “Benevolent wave”, etc.

Especially, in spite of just being implemented from March, 2017, the model “Voice of Commissar” in Tank Brigade 201 has shown many practical values, enabling the brigade’s political cadres to complement their knowledge and propaganda skills, improve the quality of propaganda activities and promote spirit de corps among their men. It also became a crucial factor in developing service members’ morality, ideology and responsibility.

Grounded in outcomes mentioned above, in the following years, Armor Corps Command and Party Committee will continue to push ahead the implementation of Guideline 05-CT/TW to further enhance the corps’ units and service members to strengthen its capabilities in all aspects to fulfill any mission under any situation.

Major General Vu Manh Tri, Armor Corps Political Commissar
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1. After 3 years of “Uphold tradition, devote talents, earn the title of Uncle Ho’s soldiers” Campaign in Armor Corps units, there were 89 individuals received commendations; 20 individuals were awarded Armor Corps Certification of merits, and 2 individuals achieved Ministry of National Defense Certification of merits.

2. There were 18 commanders from units in the corps participated in this contest, among them, one officer received distinction rank, and 17 others were awarded excellent rank (at all-army level, 2 armor corps officers competed in the contest, one of them received 2^nd prize and the other was awarded 3^rd prize).