During the course of performing its tasks, apart from the advantages, the 4th Corps encounters a lot of difficulties. Specifically, the Corps is stationed in different cities and provinces which have heavy traffic and many industrial zones with a large number of immigrants nationwide. Social order and safety, especially social evils there are complicated. Meanwhile, cadres and soldiers of the Corps, most of whom are young, without proper awareness, are easily infected by negative social influences. Therefore, it is required that the cadres and soldiers have not only strong political will, high self-awareness, but also knowledge and sense of observance of State law, military discipline and regulations of the unit. In recognition of this, over the past time, the Corps’ Party Committee and Political Bureau have directed the offices and units to well perform the work of education to raise awareness and responsibility of cadres and soldiers towards legal culture; in particular, linking ideological management with legal propaganda, dissemination and education is one of the important solutions.

Activities of the Legal Day

In such spirit, the Political Bureau advised the Corps’ Party Committee and High Command to instruct and direct offices and units to thoroughly grasp the above-mentioned directives and resolutions on the work of ideology and legal propaganda, dissemination and education, to develop specialized resolutions on conducting this work with the contents and measures suitable to the Unit’s characteristics. Political commissars, cadres, commanders of all levels elaborated resolutions into programs and thoroughly disseminated them to all cadres, party members and soldiers. In the quarterly and monthly resolutions, the Party Committees at all levels evaluated the results of directing this work, promptly added the contents and measures suitable to the development of the situation, tasks as well as cadres and soldiers’ awareness, raised responsibility of the Party committees, commanders, functional offices and mass organizations in their implementation. The political offices at all levels acted as the standing organs which advised the Party committees, commanders and units to properly implement the programs and take initiative in elaborating plans, clearly determining the subjects, contents, time and organization of implementation as well as cooperating with offices and units in evaluating soldiers’ ideology, the observance of the State law and military discipline. Thereby, it helped promote ideological education, orientation, management and forecast; strictly maintain the order for reflection and report in order to promptly solve arising ideological problems, prevent cadres and soldiers’ law and discipline violations.

In order to improve the observance of military discipline, the Bureau directed the offices and units to attach importance to renewing the forms, contents and methods of political and ideological education and legal education, considering it as an important content for the building of cadres and soldiers’ political stuff, moral quality, and lifestyle as well as the adjustment of their behavior, legal awareness and culture and discipline observance. Accordingly, the units annually carried out programs of political education under the guidance of the General Department of Politics. All forms of education were carried out in an open manner directly relevant to the characteristics and tasks, close to cadres and soldiers’ mentality and cognitive levels. The forms of thematic study, news briefings, political and ideological meetings, reading newspapers, listening to radio, etc. were important to help officers and soldiers improve their cultural knowledge, build up their political will, make great improvement in their perceptions and actions and their determination to fulfill assigned tasks. The Bureau also asked political agencies at all levels to strictly follow the process of giving lectures, practicing teaching, building sample lectures, models, tables and charts, etc. for teachers and rapporteurs at all levels, ensuring high attractiveness and practicality. In terms of content, for recruits and the first-year soldiers, the focus was placed on the Law on Military Service, the Military Ordinance, the regulations of the Ministry of Defense, the Corps and the units on disciplinary training and dealing with the violations which were not serious enough to be examined for criminal liability; so as to build regularity and ensure traffic safety and safety in training. For the second–year soldiers, the contents were upgraded for the sake of their good fulfillment of military tasks and their rights and obligations when returning to their localities, such as Law on Road Traffic, Civil Code, Criminal Code, Law on Marriage and Family, etc. For officers and professional servicemen and women, specialized seminars were organized to serve the work of unit command and management.

The legal education and dissemination were conducted in both forms and contents. The teachers put these columns on the internal broadcasting system, introduced books, newspapers and documents on law in Ho Chi Minh’s rooms, libraries, bookcases and law bookshelves of offices and units. At the same time, they closely cooperated with the localities in propagating, disseminating and educating the law to people in the stationed areas. During the implementation, the Bureau directed the units to focus on the fairly efficient forms of propagation and education such as studying the legal themes, conducting the "Legal Day", news and political reports, seminars "Each day each law", competitions of young propagandists, etc.; thoroughly grasping the legal documents, directives and instructions related to the observance of military discipline and the units’ missions; discussing legal contents; checking officers and soldiers’ awareness about the observance of law, discipline and regulations of the units. The units regularly met local Party committees and authorities as well as soldiers’ families to provide information on the units’ situation, military discipline and inform them about soldiers’ studying and training results. Thereby, it helped unit leaders opportunely grasp soldiers’ ideological development and prevent serious incidents from happening. In order to well perform the managing task, the Bureau directed political committees, commissars and political offices at all levels to successfully carry out the work of forecasting and closely managing the internal politics, thoroughly understand soldiers’ backgrounds, family circumstances as well as their relations, especially the ones in key secret positions. When receiving recruits, in addition to cooperating with localities in selecting and grasping their dossiers and curricula vitae, attention must be paid to their qualifications, working capacity and moral qualities, health, relations through their localities and families’ comments comparing with soldiers’ narratives for proper measures to strictly manage their ideology. Management must be comprehensive, focusing on issues of soldiers’ trends, preferences, talents, political awareness, attitudes, responsibilities with the unit, motivation of training, disciplinary sense, ethics and lifestyles. Thereby, it helped advise leaders on correct, relevant and effective contents, forms and methods of political, ideological and legal education.

Meanwhile, the Bureau’s Party Committee and  Board attached great importance to directing units to perform well "5 active" (1), improve the efficiency of military regularity and discipline maintenance, promote emulation movements and campaigns in the units. Based on each type of unit with difficult, complicated and sensitive tasks such as maneuvers on combat readiness, live fire, holidays, receiving recruits and preparing soldiers for finishing military service, etc., Party committees and commandants of units actively grasped soldiers’ ideological tendency, moral quality, lifestyle, unity and discipline to opportunely solve negative thoughts. In addition, it was important to hold regular meetings to educate typical soldiers who have a tendency to violate the discipline and fail to fulfill the tasks, as well as ones who live in difficulties, etc., in order to adopt specific suitable management and education measures. This contributed to stabilizing the ideological situation, creating an open, democratic and united atmosphere within offices and units. Offices and units maintained strict regimes and regularity, concentrated on renovating working methods and style, promptly correcting wrongdoings, creating habits in the implementation of legal culture, sense of observance of  State law, military discipline and regulations of the Service in parallel with building a healthy military culture, closely linking with the implementation of the Resolution of the 4th Plenum of the Central Party Committee (12th tenure) on building and streamlining the Party, promoting the studying and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and lifestyle, the campaign “Promoting traditions, devoting talents, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. Thus, a perfect form was made to diversify the process of building and training revolutionary soldiers. Emulation activities were always maintained in order, creating motivation for the units to complete the tasks. Evaluating, praising and rewarding collectives and individuals for fulfilling their tasks in the emulation movements and campaigns, especially in training recruits and conducting sudden and difficult missions, etc., were focused on, creating excitement and eagerness in learning and training. The movements: "Youth with discipline training"; "Youth in charge of crime, drug abuse and prostitution prevention"; models "Battalion, company to successfully complete the tasks, not violate the discipline and ensure absolute safety" were well performed. The competitions "Knowledge of traffic", "Awareness about 10 oaths, 12 disciplines", etc. were concretized closely to the characteristics and tasks of each collective and individual. As a result, cadres and soldiers’ responsibility and sense of observance of law, military regulations and regulations of the Service in the entire Corps changed dramatically. Soldiers’ discipline violation was declining, in which conventional incidents were less than 0.3% (0.06% down compared to 2010).

Promoting the achievements, in the coming time, the Party Committee and the Board of the Political Bureau of the 4th Corps will continue to implement various practical solutions and direct the offices and units to consider the work of legal propaganda, dissemination and  education and soldiers’ ideological management as a task of leadership and routine for all unit levels, commissars, and commanders, ensuring the units’ stability and accomplishment of  all assigned tasks.

Senior Colonel Nguyen Van Dung, Head of the Corps’ Political Bureau

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1 - 5 active: 1. Ideological education, and orientation; 2. Ideological forecast; 3. Ideological grasp; 4. Ideological resolution; 5. Ideological struggle.