Bringing into play the achieved outcomes over the past time, the Army College No. 2 has been accelerating the implementation of Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW issued on October 25^th, 2018 by the Politburo (12^th tenure) on “Enhancing the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation and fight against distorted and hostile viewpoints in the new situation” with multiple creative and effective measures, thereby contributing to maintaining the Party’s ideological foundation and improving the College’s education and training quality.

The Army College No. 2 is a centre for training cadres and officers specialising in staff and command at tertiary and postgraduate levels and for scientific research in the Army’s military art. In recent years, together with the improvement in education and training quality, the College has seriously thoroughly popularised and implemented Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW issued on October 22nd, 2018 by the Politburo on “Enhancing the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation and fight against distorted and hostile viewpoints in the new situation”. As a result, all cadres, lecturers, cadets, personnel, and soldiers in the College have always remained steadfast in Marxism – Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts and absolutely loyal to the Party, the Fatherland and the People to be ready to accept and accomplish the task of education and training, thereby building a pure and strong Party Committee and an all-powerful, “exemplary and typical” College.

However, in the current context, with the conspiracies to overthrow and eliminate the Party’s ideological foundation, hostile and reactionary forces have been intensifying their sabotage of all areas of social life, especially on ideology and culture with numerous cunning tricks; and the Army is their main target. Therefore, as the major educational and training centre of the Army, the College will continue to concentrate on intensifying the implementation of Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW of the Politburo throughout the College and consider it as the key task that parallels the implementation of the training objectives and requirements.

In order to address the situation that several party committees and commanders of agencies, faculties, and units lack attention and drastic actions in leading, directing, and organising the implementation of safeguarding the Party’s ideological foundation, the College must concentrate on educating, disseminating and heightening the awareness and responsibility of organisations and forces in performing the Resolution. This is a fundamental and vital premise and a determinant that accelerate and enhance the quality of implementing the Resolution. Its contents include the focus on basic issues listed in the Resolution of the Politburo (especially the measures and responsibility of party committees at all levels toward the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation); the resolutions, directives, and instructions of Steering Board 35 of the Central Military Commission and the General Political Department on the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against distorted and hostile viewpoints in the new situation; the regulations and instructions of the Ministry of National Defence and instructions of functional agencies on ensuring information security, cybersecurity, the State secrets, and military secrets. Importance must be attached to disseminating and educating all of the College’s military men, and national defence workers on their position, roles, and necessity; advantages and disadvantages; the full awareness of their functions, tasks, and authority over the implementation of Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW of the Politburo through various and flexible forms and measures such as party meetings, political study sessions; task assignment to cadres, party members, and the mass; training, professional development, exchange of experience and struggle skills of specialised forces; the practical struggle to protect the Party’s ideological foundation in agencies, faculties, and units; participation in writing Political articles about the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation; review and drawing experiences at all levels, etc. Accordingly, it is necessary to bring into play the high sense of responsibility of organisations and forces in the struggle against distorted and hostile viewpoints, improve the awareness and "immunity" of cadres, lecturers, cadets, personnel, and soldiers in the face of anti-party and anti-state activities of hostile forces.

Strengthening the leadership and direction of the College’s Party Committee and Board and instructions of the Standing Agency is the top measure in intensifying Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW of the Politburo. Therefore, the College’s Party Committee and those of agencies, faculties, and units to concretise the contents of Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW of the Politburo in the periodical leadership resolutions with practical guidelines and measures; periodically review, draw experience and propose directions, tasks, and measure to enhance the quality and effectiveness of implementing the Resolution. To strengthen the leadership and direction to enhance the quality of Steering Board 35, the Standing Agency and Secretary Group support the Board and the specialised forces to fight against distorted and hostile viewpoints. The Standing Agency (of the Political Office) must bring into play its role in advising and supporting Steering Board 35, the College’s Party Committee to implement the Resolution; regularly direct, instructing, supervise, and speed up the implementation of their tasks; effectively bring into play Task Force 47 in collecting and reporting information to the Standing Agency in order to advise Steering Board 35 to carry out the content, form, and measures for the fight against distorted and hostile viewpoints to ensure fast, timely, accurate, and highly effective results. It is important to propose measures to overcome difficulties during the task implementation; proactively coordinate with agencies, units, and local authorities to participate in the fight to protect the Party's ideological foundation in the new situation.

On the foundation of the requirements and tasks of fighting against distorted and hostile viewpoints to protect the Party’s ideological foundation in the current period, the renewal of content and methods of the fight is determined as the central solution. To obtain high effectiveness, the College must adhere to the content of Resolution 35-NQ/TW of the Politburo; the instructions and orientation of the Central Military Commission, and the General Political Department. The focus must be placed on renewing the content to ensure the combination of "building" and "resisting", in which "building" is a fundamental, strategic, and long-term task and "resisting" is a vital, urgent, and regular task. Agencies, faculties, and units must actively propagate positive information and step-by-step dilute negative information to guide and alleviate the impact of negative and toxic information, especially on the internet. Faculties specialising in politics must continue to improve the quality and effectiveness of lecturing Marxism-Leninism, and Ho Chi Minh's thoughts; in particular, they must affirm the principled standpoint - the lifeline of our Party, which is the adherence to and creative application of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's thoughts; fidelity to the goals of national independence and socialism; constancy with the Party's reformation path; at the same time, denouncing the nature and conspiracies of hostile and reactionary forces that deny and distort our Party's ideological foundation. During the implementation process, the College must always closely associate with reviewing and thoroughly implementing the Party’s relevant resolutions, conclusions, directives, and regulations. As a result, cadres, party members, and the mass can be deeply aware of the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation to refute distorted and hostile viewpoints in the new situation. this is considered a combat task of the College’s cadres, cadets, and soldiers in peacetime.

Concerning the renewal of fighting methods, the College must concentrate on expanding and diversifying the forms of struggle on social media accounts of specialised forces, thereby magnetising the participation, sharing, comments, and connection of members on social media, both within and outside of the military to create a positive effect on cyberspace. At the same time, the College must organise Political Article Contest on protecting the Party’s ideological foundation; coordinate to provide information and exchange experience with agencies, faculties, and units as stipulated; coordinate with academies, schools, and propaganda committees in provinces and cities when implementing Resolution 35-NQ/TW; innovates the coordination protocol with higher-level agencies and units, regularly review, detect, block, dismantle, and eliminate gateways, blogs, and social media accounts of hostile and reactionary forces who sabotage the Party, the State, the Army, and the College.

Building a proactive and resilient force to create a constant and irresistible momentum is also one of the vital measures that the College, agencies, faculties, and units always prioritise. Accordingly, the College must focus on leading and directing the strengthening of the Steering Committee 35 of the College’s Party Committee, as well as the Secretary Group to ensure efficient quantity and quality. The College must continue to review and evaluate the results and effectiveness of the operations of the groups and members of the specialised force to have timely measures and orientations. It is necessary to strengthen the role of the core force in refuting distorted and hostile viewpoints with the active participation of cadets. Proactive coordination with higher echelons is required to update the activities of the groups and pages on Facebook, as a foundation for determining the training content and improving knowledge, experience, and skills for the advisory staff and specialised force. The College must direct mass organisations to promote the vanguard role of the members; coordinate to propagate and mobilise students and veterans in the area; closely coordinate with agencies, units, academies, and universities both inside and outside the military, and localities in exchanging information and sharing experiences to mobilise the synergy of all forces to participate in the struggle to refute distorted and hostile viewpoints on cyberspace.

In parallel with the aforementioned measures, the College’s Party Committee and Board must encourage and promptly commend outstanding collectives and individuals during the implementation of the task. Simultaneously, it is essential to stimulate investment in equipment and technical means to contribute to the effective implementation of Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW of the Politburo (12^th tenure) to protect the Party’s ideological foundation with the entire Party and the people

Senior Colonel, M.A. DINH DUC THANH, Vice Political Chief of Army College No. 2