To successfully fulfill the task of a strategic mobile main corps, the Army Corps 1’s Party Committee and Command have adopted various measures to build itself strong comprehensively and improve its synergy and combat power, with emphasis placed on stepping up the exercise of “democracy, discipline, safety, and effectiveness” as a major breakthrough.

Over the past years, the development of the task of national defence has imposed the new requirements on the Military in general, the Army Corps 1 in particular. In addition to the advantages, especially the investments and leadership by the Party, State, Central Military Commission (CMC), and Ministry of National Defence (MND) with a view to making the Corps standard, seasoned, compact and strong, it has been faced with a lot of difficulties and challenges. Notably, the hostile forces are enhancing their sabotaging plan with the increasingly cunning artifices in order to encourage “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”, “civilize” the Military, and weaken the close-knit bond between the Military and the people. Besides, the negative side of the market economy and the social evils are impacting its troops’ ideology and sentiment.

Maj. Gen. Doan Thai Duc inspecting the Corps’ units’ preparations for the training season in 2019

Against that backdrop, the Corps’ Party Committee and Command has focused their leadership and direction on stepping up the exercise of “democracy, discipline, safety, and effectiveness” so as to build an “iron wall” and prevent the negative impacts from the outside as the basis for making the Corps strong comprehensively. As a result, the Corps has witnessed huge changes in troops’ awareness and responsibility; democracy has been expanded and consolidated; the State law and the military discipline and regulations have been strictly maintained; there has been no serious discipline violation while minor discipline violations have decreased. Those results have greatly contributed to improving its synergy and combat power and provided an important basis for it to fulfill its political task. However, there have been some weaknesses in the exercise of democracy, discipline, and safety; the work of discipline education and management in some units has yet to be close; the decrease in traffic accidents and minor discipline violations has yet to be steady.

To overcome those weaknesses, enhance the quality of discipline management, and meet the task requirements, the Corps has determined to achieve a breakthrough in the exercise of “democracy, discipline, safety, and effectiveness” with importance attached to raising the effectiveness of troop management, detecting and strictly handling the signs of negative phenomena and social evils, resolutely inhibiting the occurrence of serious discipline violations and traffic accidents.

To that end, first, the Corps has strengthened the leadership and direction of all-level party committees and commands over the exercise of “democracy, discipline, safety, and effectiveness”. It has required offices, units and schools to more thoroughly grasp higher echelons’ directives on building comprehensively strong units and exercising democracy, discipline, and safety, particularly the CMC’s Directive 590-CT/ĐUQSTW on “continuing to step up the building and implementation of the Regulations on grass-roots level democracy within the Military”, the MND’s Circular 111/2009/TT-BQP on the organization and operation of Soldiers’ Councils, the MND’s Directive 91/CT-BQP on enhancing discipline management and education within the Vietnam People’s Army. By doing so, the Corps has rendered its cadres and troops fully aware of the importance of democracy and law and discipline management to their unit’s successful fulfillment of the task. The whole Corps has clearly understood that discipline is the Military’s strength, and promoting democracy and maintaining discipline and safety is the source of combat power and the responsibility of all cadres and soldiers. Grounded on the recorded results and experiences, the Corps has directed all-level party committees and organizations to include the contents related to democracy, discipline and safety in their regular resolutions and conclusion with emphasis placed on resolving weaknesses. At the same time, it has ordered commanders and political commissars at all levels to elaborate those resolutions in their working plans and issue the regulations in the process. Moreover, it has used the results of this work as a yardstick for the task performance of party organizations, cadres and party members. Due regard has been paid to promoting the role of competent offices and mass organizations in counselling, instructing, inspecting and pioneering the process of performing this work; combining the exercise of “democracy, discipline, safety, and effectiveness” with the Determined to Win emulation movement and other ones in order to create the synergy and widespread effect across the entire Corps.

Democracy is the principle of collective operations; if being well maintained, it will promote the synergy; if being lost, it will lead to many consequences. Working for a main, strategic mobile corps and a core force in the significant missions, particularly in operations, during the process of performing their missions, the Corps’s cadres need to be assertive. However, that is why its cadres easily fall into the authoritarianism. Thus, promoting democracy is of significance to the Corps. Perceiving that, the Corps has strengthened and expanded democracy in all operations from command and leadership democracy to political, military, professional, financial, and daily life democracy. To do so, the Corps has directed its affiliated units to continue supplementing and completing the regulations on democracy, especially those for the leadership of party committees and the management work of commanders at all levels. At the same time, units have been asked to grasp and stick to the principle of democratic centralism, collective leadership and individual accountability; all-level party committee members and commanders have been required to set examples in democracy for cadres and troops to follow. Besides, the Corps has ordered its cadres at all levels to renew their working method and style and stick with their inferiors and soldiers; resolutely fight against individualism, partiality, group interest, and abuse of power; intensify the work of supervision and inspection to make the regulations valid within all organizations and forces. Offices and units have encouraged the role of organizations, particularly the Soldiers’ Councils, strictly executed the Regulations on grass-roots level democracy, and maintained the order for the Political-Spiritual Day and the Law Day at all levels, thereby creating a favourable condition for fully promoting grass-roots level democracy to successfully fulfill the political task and help party committees and commands grasp and opportunely deal with the arising issues and maintain a sense of unity within the Corps.

Democracy must be associated with discipline, and there shouldn’t be excessive democracy. Fully aware of that principle, while promoting democracy, the Corps has enhanced the work of discipline management; all cadres and soldiers have acted under the military regulations. Over the past years, the Corps has always stringently maintained the daily, weekly regimes, combat readiness duty, and soldiers’ manners, while aligning training with discipline management and cultural environment building. At the same time, it has improved the management and command capacity and method of all-level cadres, particularly those working in grass-roots level units. To well conduct the work of discipline management amidst today’s complex, multidimensional impacts, the Corps has intensify inspections, opportunely rectified and resolutely handled violations, and enhanced its cadres’ capability and experience in troop management. In this regard, importance has been attached to equipping cadres with basic knowledge so that they could apply to their work of discipline management, such as “Must-knows about criminal and criminal behaviour”, “Experiences in managing discipline and handling popular discipline violations”, “Measures for preventing loan sharking today”. The Corps has directed units to closely manage cadres and soldiers’ ideology and social relationships, classify groups of troops for the work of ideology and discipline management, frequently meet and encourage cadres and soldiers, particularly those in difficulty. Besides, party committees and commands at all levels have been asked to closely cooperate with local party committees and authorities in maintaining the relationship with troops’ families, grasping the situation in the areas, and proactively preventing social evils, such as betting, gambling, narcotic, and loan sharking from penetrating into the units; to build strong units in line with safe areas.

One of the most important solutions is to ensure safety in all operations, especially in training, exercises, and combat readiness. The Corps’ affiliated units have raised troops’ awareness of safety maintenance, reviewed, supplemented and strictly followed the regulations and procedures for ensuring safety during the process of performing their task. The Corps has required its units to instruct and inspect the work of ensuring safety, particularly in the highly dangerous activities, such as night-time training, river crossing, and live-fire field exercise. Units have been ordered to proactively formulate and practise the projects for fire, explosion, and natural disaster prevention and control, adopt the measures for closely managing weapons, technical equipment and vehicles, and avoid being insecure.

The exercise of “democracy, discipline, safety, and effectiveness” has laid an important foundation for the Army Corps 1 to make itself comprehensively strong and unceasingly improve its combat strength, thereby meeting the requirements for defending the Homeland in all situations. This is a task, target, and major measure for all offices, units, and schools within the entire Corps.

Maj. Gen. Doan Thai Duc, Commander of the Army Corps 1