The Political Officer College is tasked with training the Military’s detachment-level political cadres and instructors of social sciences and humanities. Graduates from the college will be in charge of the political affairs and the party and political work at detachment-level units. Thus, it is important for the college to grasp and implement the 12^th Politburo’s Resolution 35-NQ/TW on “further defending the Party’s ideological ground and combating the wrong, hostile viewpoints” as the basis for improving its cadres, instructors, and especially cadets’ political zeal and skills in “self-evolution” prevention and combat.

To achieve the effectiveness, the college has formulated the outline, organized training courses for communicators who are party committee secretaries and members at all levels and would directly convey the Resolution 35 to cadres, party members, and the masses via Party meetings and Political and Spiritual Day on a monthly basis at their level. Emphasis of education and propagation has been placed on consolidating the faith in Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, and the Party’s guidelines. At the same time, consideration has been given to clarifying the viewpoints, targets, task, and measures for defending the Party’s ideological ground and fighting against the wrong, hostile viewpoints in the new situation. In the process, the college has always attached importance to grasping and executing the Party’s relevant resolutions, conclusions, directives, and regulations, such as the Party Central Secretariat’s Directive 23-CT/TW, dated February 9^th 2018, on “continuing to raise the quality of studying, applying, and developing Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology in the new situation,” the Party Central Secretariat’s Conclusion 94-KL/TW, dated March 28^th 2014, on “continuing to renew theoretical study in the system of national education,” the Party Central Secretariat’s Guidance 02-HD/TW, dated February 8^th 2018, on “reviewing practice and studying theory,” and the Project on “the Military’s self-evolution prevention and control in the ideological and cultural fields in the new situation.” Doing so has helped achieve a sense of consensus among cadres, party members, and the masses on the defence of Party’s ideological ground and the fight against the wrong, hostile viewpoints in the new situation.

Maj. Gen. Nguyen Hung Oanh addressing the Conference on exchanging experiences in preventing and combating the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace held by the college

Due regard has been paid to actively raising the quality of education and training, equipping cadets with comprehensive knowledge, improving their political zeal and “immunity” against the hostile force’s plots and artifices of “self-evolution” in the ideological and cultural fields as the basis for enhancing their skills in fighting against the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace. In the process, the college’s Board has always determined to maintain the Party’s nature, ensure the scientism, combativeness, and orientation towards cadets, and combine the provision of scientific knowledge with the sharing of experiences in the training programs and content. Grounded on the supplemented and completed curriculum, the college has focused on reviewing and renewing the teaching method and updating all subjects. Doing so has helped build up cadets’ world view, scientific methodology, revolutionary ideal and sentiment, comprehensive knowledge, and needed qualities to become political cadres. This provides a basis for cadets to settle issues arising from reality in accordance with the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and policy. This also enables the college to review, supplement, and complete the action plan for the resolutions and directives by the Party, Central Military Commission, and Ministry of National Defence, update the practical issues in the lectures on “self-evolution” prevention and control in the ideological and cultural fields, and include the Resolution 35, the Project entitled “the Military’s self-evolution prevention and control in the ideological and cultural fields in the new situation,” and the Cyber Security Law in its curriculum.

Due attention has been paid to holding training courses to improve the quality and effectiveness of fighting against wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace. The college has organized full-time training courses at the battalion level in accordance with each group of cadets with various forms, such as dialogue, conference, and forum. Doing so has enabled the college to provide cadets with the knowledge of the cyber security work, render its cadets fully aware of the hostile forces’ sabotage artifices in cyberspace, and improve their skills and method of combating the wrong, hostile viewpoints in cyberspace. The college has promoted the role of the core force (the Force 47) in combating the wrong, hostile viewpoints with the participation of many cadets. To do so, it has initiated many cadets into the Force 47 and allowed those cadets to actively comment on and share the Force 47’s articles. The college’s Steering Board 35 has always adhered to higher echelons’ direction and proactively forecast the hostile forces’ sabotage plots and artifices, particularly prior to the country’s major political events so as to proactively adopt proper measures for fighting against the hostile forces. It has frequently renewed the combat method and written articles according to the political events, thereby drawing the attention of cyber citizens both inside and outside the Military and causing the positive information effect in cyberspace. At the same time, it has organized a special column for the combating work on the college’s web portal and created a favourable condition for cadets to access and exploit the web portal. Great value has been attached to renewing and maintaining the operation of blogs, Facebook fanpages, and individual Facebook accounts of members of the Force 47 in order to establish a multi-layer network and various directions for the combating work. The college has diversified methods of combat with the active participation of cadets on the YouTube. Besides, it has effectively organized models of specialized combat clubs at cadet management units to improve cadets’ combat skills. Notably, the college has successfully held an exercise on fighting against the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace. The exercise has given cadets a chance to enhance their capacity to combat the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace. Grounded on the outcome of the exercise, the college has directed its offices to design special topics for other exercises on combating the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace for cadets who would graduate from the college in the school year of 2018-2019 and beyond.

Significance has been attached to studying and reviewing reality and encouraging cadets to take part in researches on “self-evolution” combat in cyberspace. When assigning the task of annual research, the college has encouraged its staff members and cadets to join researches on theories and practice relating to “self-evolution” prevention and control in the ideological and cultural fields and the fight against the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace. Cadets from the second year above have to take part in scientific researches with various forms, such as scientific topic, graduate paper, assignment, and article on newspapers and journals. Together with the education work, the mechanism for bonus marks has encouraged cadets to actively participate in scientific researches. So far, the college has had 7 research topics concerning the work of “self-evolution” prevention and control which have aimed at settling the issues arising from reality. Typical examples include: On the ideological orientation against the impacts made by information on social networks, Building a sense of Homeland defence in cyberspace, Improving the skills and capacity of combat in cyberspace, Measures for information security, and Managing cadets’ relationships on social networks. The college’s researches have been applied and promoted the effectiveness in its propagation and teaching. In addition, the research activity has enabled cadets to improve their knowledge, creativity, critical thinking, and skills in analyzing, summarizing, assessing, and using the information, thereby contributing to raising their capacity to fight against the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism in cyberspace.

The college has diversified the forms of cooperation with units and localities in leading, directing, and organizing the fight against the wrong, hostile viewpoints and political opportunism. Via the mass mobilization and twinning activities, exchange programs, forums, and the movement entitled “the Military joins hands in building new countryside and civilized urban area,” the college has actively, proactively cooperated with units and localities in disseminating the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and policy as well as in unmasking the hostile forces’ plots and tricks of taking advantage of the Internet and social networks to step up their “peaceful evolution” strategy. The college’s Youth Union has cooperated with local youth unions in educating, disseminating, and introducing the historical and traditional values and the qualities of Uncle Ho’s soldiers to young people. At the same time, it has cooperated with local party committees and authorities in allowing its speakers and communicators to deliver news briefings in order to opportunely orientate the people’s ideology against the impacts made by negative information in cyberspace and against the sensitive, complex issues, thereby contributing to building strong political bases.

The college has cooperated with local propaganda sectors in exchanging experiences in fighting against the hostile forces and methods to expand the combat force within the society as well as in organizing the force to write combat articles. It has proactively shared articles and video clips on social networks. Doing so has helped produce positive reactions and widespread effect on the fight against distorted and hostile information. Besides, the college has proactively cooperated with competent offices of the High Command 86 and the Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group in technical and Internet support so as to encourage a large number of cadres, instructors, and cadets to join the fight against the hostile forces.

The outcome mentioned above provides a solid foundation for the Political Officer College to continue executing the Politburo’s Resolution 35 and training a contingent of “both red and expert” political officers who are in charge of political education and ideological leadership, making contributions to defending the Party’s ideological ground in the new situation.

Maj. Gen., Associate Prof. Nguyen Hung Oanh, PhD

Rector of the College