Building morally pure cadres is a matter of principle and paramount importance to the Party building and rectification work. Therefore, promoting research and proposing synchronous and effective solutions to enhance this work is practically contributing to building clean and strong party organisations at all levels, successfully accomplishing the assigned tasks.
Throughout the process of leading the Vietnamese revolution, our Party and President Ho Chi Minh have always paid attention to the education and training of revolutionary ethics for cadres and party members, and identified morality as the "root" of the revolutionary cadres. As shown in practice that the morality of cadres and party members is the first factor to bring about the prestige for the Party, make the people believe and follow the Party wholeheartedly, and create synergy to bring the revolution to success. On the contrary, the moral deterioration of the cadres will necessarily lead to the deterioration of the Party in all fields and inevitably undermine people's trust, as well as its leadership role and historical mission. Being well aware of that, for the past years, our Party and its subordinates have always focused on promoting guidelines and solutions to educate and train cadres and party members in ethics, and achieved positive results, which "contribute to the training of revolutionary moral qualities, fighting against individualism, opportunism, pragmatism, "group interests", expressions of degradation in political thought, morality, lifestyle, and internal “self-evolution", "self-transformation".
However, there still remain serious deteriorations in political thought, morality and lifestyle in some cadres and party members. This is mainly due to the fact that the cultivation and practice of morality and lifestyle of the some cadres and party members have yet to be regular; their actions have yet to match their words; some do not comply with the Party's principles and regulations and fall into bureaucracy, corruption, wastefulness". According to the Central Organisation Commission, the number of Party members who have degraded in morality and lifestyle accounts for 60% of the total number of declined ones. If not prevented and curbed, this situation will represent a direct threat to the survival of the Party and the regime. Therefore, the 13th National Congress of the Party determined that building the Party in morality is one of the pillars of Party building work, which is dialectically connected with Party building in terms of politics, ideology, organisation and staff. In order to contribute to building ethically pure cadres and party members, this article proposes some basic solutions as follows:
Promoting the positivity and self-discipline of the cadres and party members. As “Revolutionary morality does not come naturally. It is nurtured and developed through daily practices. Just like the more polished the more the pearl shines, the more tempered, the purer the gold become”, all levels of party committees and organisations need to strengthen education on politics, ideology, history, tradition, Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh's thought, and the Party's resolutions and directives to make cadres and party members deeply aware of the role and necessity of cultivating and practicing revolutionary ethics. Especially, it is necessary to transform the process of education and training into the self-cultivation and self-training process of each cadre and party member through practical activities, revolutionary movements and campaigns. To that end, besides private purposes and targets, each cadre and party member must have energy, high determination, and strong will to overcome all difficulties and obstacles to practice self-cultivation and self-training; be diligent, patient, persistent, pro-active and self-disciplined to improve and perfect themselves.
Along with that, Party committees and organisations at all levels should make the promotion of the studying and following of Ho Chi Minh's thought, morality and style a regular and daily job associated with the strict implementation of Conclusion No. 21-KL/TW, dated October 25, 2021 of the 4th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (13th tenure) on accelerating the building and rectification of the Party and the political system, resolutely preventing, repeling, and strictly handling cadres and party members with degradations in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle, "self-evolution" and "self-transformation". This should be considered an effective solution to constantly improve pure moral qualities. The interests of the Party, the country and the nation should be put first and foremost.
Setting example is the most persuasive and effective method of education for cadres and party members to cultivate and practice revolutionary ethics, because “A live example counts more than a hundred propaganda speeches". In that spirit, the contingent of cadres and party members in general, and leading and key cadres in particular, must always promote their exemplary role in practicing revolutionary ethics. To do that, first of all, cadres and party members must have good moral qualities and a healthy lifestyle. President Ho Chi Minh taught us that: "To the eye of the people, “communist membership” does not necessarily comes with credit. People only love and believe in the cadres with good morality. If we want to guide the people, we must set a standard for them to follow”. To that end, each leading, commanding and managerial cadre must first be exemplary and take the lead in implementing the Party's regulations on staying exemplary and make it a regular job, a cultural lifestyle in daily life and work, anytime and anywhere, so that a spillover effect is made in their organisations. The higher positions the cadres holds, the more pioneering and exemplary they are required to be. In addition, their actions should always go hand in hand with their words. In some cases, they can even prove themselves through actions only, without speech.
Individualism is an "internal enemy” right within each person. Therefore, party committees and organisations at all levels should implement the motto of closely combining "construction" and "resistance". Along with strengthening education for cadres and party members to make them aware of the manifestations and dangerous nature of individualism so that they can practice self-discipline, each level of Party committee and organisation should promote self-criticism and criticism; require cadres and party members to commit to cultivate and practice their morality and lifestyle, and this should be taken as a criterion for evaluating the level of their task performance annually. At the same time, commendation work should be done regularly for the role models in practicing revolutionary morality in order to replicate, create synergy, and arouse the personal needs of each cadre and party members in self-correction themselves and overcoming the manifestations of individualism both in perception, thought and action, contributing to perfecting the quality and personality of cadres and party members.
Along with that, party committees and organisations at all levels should strengthen inspection, supervision and disciplining work. President Ho Chi Minh taught us that: "inspection helps motivating and educating Party members and cadres to fulfill their duties to the Party, to the State, and set a good example for the people", "Strict inspection will unveil every mistake, and prevent latent ones". Therefore, all levels of Party committees and organisations should focus on leading and directing the work of inspection and supervision in a comprehensive way, but there should be plan to inspect and supervise the cultivation and practice of revolutionary morality and lifestyle of cadres and party members, especially the leading and key ones. This work should be done in accordance with regulations and with right method; bring into play the role of Party committees, party cells, the inspection committees at all levels, all cadres, party members and the masses; resolutely avoid perfunctory and ineffective ways of implementation.
Building a team of cadres and party members who are ethically pure is an important and urgent requirement and task today, contributing to building clean and strong party committees and organisations, worthy of being the nucleus of leadership for agencies and units to successfully complete all assigned tasks. The matter is what policies and measures should be applied to achieve high efficiency in practice. The above solutions are only preliminary research and they are open to discussion.
LE VAN CUONG, MA., Academy of Politics, Ministry of National Defence