Literature and art are important parts of the spiritual life of the society in general, of cadres and solders of Viet Nam People’s Army (VPA) in particular. Today’s building of a politically strong VPA, a foundation for improving comprehensive quality and combat power, makes increasingly high demands, requiring adoption of synchronous solutions. Leveraging the role of literature and art in creating cadres’ and soldiers’ spiritual, political motivations for successfully completing every assigned task is a vital measure deserving appropriate attention of party committees and leading cadres at all levels.

With a strategic vision, right after the success of the August Revolution in 1945, our Party and President Ho Chi Minh were committed to building of a revolutionary literature and art, which served to create huge spiritual, political drivers of the Party’s and people’s war of resistance and national construction. In response to this guideline, a generation of talented writers and artists in the 1930 – 1945 period voluntarily served the common revolutionary cause of the entire people in the spirit: “Literature and art are also fronts. Writers and artists are soldiers on these fronts”. Many of them joined the VPA to both compose art and fight against the enemy. Thanks to experience in the struggle to liberate the nation and in today’s construction and defence of the Fatherland, the VPA’s writers and artists have created a priceless treasure of literature and musical works, propaganda posters, cinematography movies, etc., with high artistic, ideological, political, humanitarian value, which contributes to clearly craft the fortitude, resilience, courage, and simplicity of the VPA’s soldiers – images of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” over periods of time. During the war of resistance against French colonialists, literature and art, especially the revolutionary songs, added spiritual power to encourage soldiers to overcome all difficulties, hardships, and be determined to fight and determined to win regardless of sacrifices. “The singing drowns the bomb explosions” during the fiercest stage of the war of resistance against American imperialists for national salvation inspired our people’s and military’s wholehearted support for the front as well as their willingness to fight and sacrifice for the Fatherland, making a vital contribution to our victories over foreign aggressors. Nowadays, literature and art in the VPA continue to be brought into play to encourage cadres and soldiers to devote themselves to national construction and defence in the new situation.

Deeply grasping and concretising the Party’s guidelines on culture, in recent years, the Central Military Commission (CMC), Ministry of National Defence (MND), the General Political Department (GPD), party committee, and commanders of departments and units have put forward many policies and measures to lead and direct literature and art work in the VPA. The GPD has promulgated the Plan to organise activities in military culture, literature, art, and press domains in the 2021 – 2025 period in order to concretise the Party’s guidelines and State’s policies and law on culture and literature in the VPA. Functional departments tap into their role in advising and proposing policies and measures for party committees and commanders at all levels to effectively lead and direct cultural activities in departments and units. The system of cultural institutions at all levels is set up and strengthened. The VPA’s writers and artists undergo basic training, possess political steadfastness and fine dignity, bring into play their vanguard role in the ideological, cultural front, and actively serve soldiers and people. Therefore, artistic, cultural work in the VPA not only helps to improve soldiers’ spiritual, cultural life, but also serves to expose hostile forces’ strategy of “peaceful evolution”; prevents and responds to deterioration in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution,” and “self-transformation” within the Party; criticises signs of wrongdoing; protects the genuine, the good, and the beautiful, contributing to establishment of people’s heart and mind posture, development of close relations between the military and people, and building a politically strong VPA.

To leverage the vanguard role of military artistic, cultural activities in the ideological, political front in the cause of national construction and defence as well as protection of the Party’s ideological foundation in the new era requires adopting the following fundamental solutions.

First, reforming thinking in leadership, direction, and management of artistic, cultural activities in the VPA. Leaders and commanders at all levels need to regard literature and art as an extremely important aspect of ideological work, which aims to promote patriotism, resolution, and consistency to the revolutionary cause of the Party and people, enabling the military and people to be ready to fight and sacrifice for firmly defending the Vietnam Socialist Fatherland. They are also requested to clearly identify leadership measures, contributing to release of soldiers’ pressure, creation of positive mental attitude, and building a healthy, happy, spiritual life for soldiers. Increased literature and art activities must be part of party committees’ policies and leadership measures to promote the effectiveness of ideological work and building of politically strong units. The leadership, direction, and management of the VPA’s literature and art must be carried out in a regular, flexible, sensible manner, which both ensures that these activities are politically oriented to practically serve the cause of building the VPA and safeguarding the Fatherland and creates facilitation mechanisms and favourable environment for writers and artists to bring into full play their creativity. There needs to closely combine creation of valuable works of literature and art about the theme of protecting the Fatherland with disseminating and leveraging value of these works in life.

Second, enhancing selection and training of human resources for the VPA’s literature and art activities. Departments and units should work out policies to attract people with talent for literature and art to the VPA’s literature and art sections and cultural institutions. These are the ones who constantly track realities of soldiers’ life, combat training and readiness, protection of sovereignty, participation in overcoming consequences of natural disasters, response to pandemics and other nontraditional security challenges in grassroots units to compose invaluable works about the theme of safeguarding the Fatherland today. In addition, units need to actively discover and cultivate gifted cadres and soldiers to turn them into key players in units’ literature and art activities. It is necessary to bring into play the role of training institutions, management bodies, and cultural institutions at all levels in the discovery and training of military writers and artists capable of meeting mission requirements in the new situation.

Third, further effectively carrying out the campaign to compose works of literature and art about the themes of revolutionary warfare and today’s protection of the Fatherland. First of all, functional departments must actively and proactively advise leaders of the MND and GPD on successfully organising composition camps in all fields such as literature, painting, cinema, music, theatre, dance, and so on. Proper policies must be issued to encourage writers and artists both inside and outside the military to take part in composing works of literature and art about revolutionary warfare and serving cadres’ and soldiers’ spiritual life. Departments and units should create favourable conditions for writers and artists to penetrate into soldiers’ reality of study, training, combat readiness training, participation in disaster prevention and response, search and rescue, most notably knowledge about mission performance of units in the front line of protecting national sovereignty over waters, islands, and borders. The Ministry-level assessment and award presentation for works of literature and art need to be conducted periodically in a fair, objective, accurate manner to encourage writers and artists to have more invaluable works about the theme of people’s armed forces.

Fourth, continuing to tap into value of works of literature and art composed during the historical periods of the liberation wars and today’s protection of the Fatherland. Nearly 80 years of the VPA’s history, many invaluable works of literature and art were composed in the struggle for national independence, in the two wars of resistance against French colonialists and American imperialists, in the wars to defend northern border and southwestern border and perform international duties, and so forth. Therefore, departments and units should adopt drastic solutions with the aim to make soldiers’ spiritual life deeply imbued with value of these works through competitions, performances, and proliferation of “reading culture.” Military academies and schools need to make genres of literature and art become part of training programs to orientate and encourage soldiers to enjoy and bring into play value of works vividly displaying our military’s and people’s history of struggle in Ho Chi Minh’s era, thereby arousing their pride in traditions of the country, revolution, and VPA, further heightening their patriotism and resilience in combat readiness and protection of the Fatherland.

Finally, units at grassroots level in the entire military need to make effective use of cultural institutions in support of the enjoyment and composition of works of literature and art. It is necessary to encourage cadres and soldiers to take part in the struggle against bad influence of non-cultural works; actively participate in their units’ movements of arts and letters, making positive contribution to building of a healthy, pure, military environment – a true place for shaping cadres’ and soldiers’ dignity of revolutionary military personnel. More importantly, the VPA’s literature and art activities, through cultural institutions, must closely follow the training and combat readiness in grassroots units; encourage cadres, soldiers, and people to struggle to firmly preserve independence, sovereignty, unification, and territorial integrity of the Fatherland and effectively respond to emerging nontraditional security challenges today.

Literature and art in the VPA are a front and always connect to practical activities and life of cadres and soldiers, thus deserving constant leadership and direction and adoption of synchronous solutions. Good implementation of the above-mentioned measures will serve to improve soldiers’ spiritual, cultural life; make the VPA politically strong; enhance the VPA’s comprehensive quality and combat strength; enable the VPA to be ready to undertake and successfully complete all assigned tasks; facilitate successful realisation of the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress aiming for “arousing aspirations for building a happy, prosperous country; leveraging cultural value and strength of Vietnamese people in the cause of national construction, defence, and international integration.”

Doctor Nguyen Minh Cuong, Political Officers Training School