75 years ago, on December 19th, 1946, in order to protect the Homeland’s independence and freedom, President Ho Chi Minh issued the Appeal for National Resistance. His proclamation aroused patriotism and encouraged all Vietnamese people to rise up against enemies. 75 years have elapsed, but the Appeal for National Resistance has always been in each Vietnamese citizen’s mind. The historical significance of the Appeal for National Resistance remains valid, particularly in building the politico-spiritual potential of the all-people national defence for constructing and defending our Socialist Vietnamese Homeland in the new situation.

As soon as we successfully carried out the August Revolution of 1945, French colonialists abetted by allied imperial nations returned to invade our country again. They unilaterally invalidated all agreements, especially the Preliminary Agreement (March 6th, 1946) and the Provisional Agreement (September 14th, 146), while intensifying their military activities to destroy our people’s peace. As our Homeland was “hanging by a thread,” on the evening of December 19th, 1946, President Ho Chi Minh released the Appeal for National Resistance. In this document, he underlined that “We want peace, we have to make concessions. But the more we make concessions, the more the French colonialists encroach on us because they want to take over our country again. No! We are better off sacrificing everything than losing our country and becoming slaves.”

Troops expressing their resolve to defend the capital city (file photo)

In response to President Ho Chi Minh’s sacred Appeal, at 20.00 on December 19th, 1946, with a series of volleys of cannonballs into the enemy’s targets within the city, troops and citizens of Hanoi commenced a resistance war against the French under the spirit of “sacrificing for the Homeland.” At that time, across Hanoi, each house was a stronghold, each street was a front line, and each citizen was a soldier to combat French troops. The people of Hanoi were unafraid of hardships and sacrificed their lives and assets to establish defensive works against the enemy’s advance. Together with Hanoi, troops and citizens of localities across the North, the Central Coast, and the South courageously rose up as one and determinedly, unanimously fought against French colonialists. Our people and military’s resistance war nationwide foiled the French plot of rapid fight and rapid win, helped protect our fledgling revolutionary government, and created a favourable condition for our Party Central Committee (PCC) and key offices to safely move to bases. At the same time, we succeeded in encouraging our people to enter a durable, arduous but very glorious resistance war with a faith in certain victory.

The national resistance war against French colonialists provides us with many valuable lessons on the sound leadership of our Party and President Ho Chi Minh, on the strength of the national great unity block, on force preparation, war posture, and combat methods, and especially on arousing and bringing into play our people’s patriotism and indomitable spirit forged in thousands of years of national history to create great politico-spiritual power and synergy.

During the resistance war against the French, the politico-spiritual factor was expressed via the people’s faith in the Party, the State, President Ho Chi Minh, and national independence gained in the August Revolution of 1945; it was also manifested via our people’s patriotic tradition, deep hatred of enemies, and determination to combat invaders aroused, promoted, and lifted to a new height by our Party and Uncle Ho into revolutionary heroism and a giant source of strength for the entire Party, military, and people to surmount all difficulties and carry out an all-people, comprehensive, prolonged, self-dependent resistance war with a lot of landslide victories, especially the victory of Dien Bien Phu that “resounded across five continents, shook the globe,” smashed the yoke of old-style colonialism, and ushered in a new period of the Vietnamese revolution.

In the resistance war against the U.S., for national salvation, the politico-spiritual strength of Northern and Southern troops and citizens was promoted to the utmost and it created wide and deep revolutionary action movements with enormous human and material resources for the war. Under the spirit of “splitting Truong Son mountain range to save the country,” numerous young people eagerly joined the military and the youth volunteer force on battlefields. All activities and patriotic emulation movements were directed towards the South. Troops and citizens of the whole country achieved glorious feats of arms, particularly the historic victory in the Ho Chi Minh campaign that enabled us to completely liberate the South and unify the country. Since then, the entire nation has progressed towards socialism.

In the Homeland construction and protection, after 35 years of national renewal, we have obtained tremendous, historic achievements. According to Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, “our country has never had such fortune, potential international position and prestige as it does today.” This is an important incentive for the entire Party, Military, and people to overcome all challenges, keep carrying out a comprehensive, synchronous national reform, remain steadfast in the goal of national independence and socialism, and facilitate rapid, sustainable national development.

In the upcoming years, Vietnam will continue integrating itself into the world and it will have to fulfil all commitments when joining new-generation free trade agreements. Our economy will be confronted with a lot of new difficulties and challenges. COVID-19 pandemic will greatly impact on all aspects of social life. Four threats pointed out by our Party will still exist. Hostile forces will step up their “peaceful evolution” strategy against our Party, State, and Military. The impacts made by the dark side of the market economy, the degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, and the signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” amongst a section of cadres and party members will possibly undermine the people’s faith in the Party and socialism. More demanding requirements will be imposed on the military-defence task. Hence, to successfully fufil the task of national construction and protection, our Party and State advocate “developing defence and security potential, building and promoting the posture of people’s hearts and minds within the all-people national defence and the people’s security, and consolidating the postures of all-people national defence and people’s security.” In the building of the defence potential, our Party and State have attached importance to building the politico-spiritual potential as the basis for developing and mobilising other types of the defence potential.

In order to bring into play the spirit of national resistance in the building of the politico-spiritual potential for the Homeland construction and protection in the new situation, it is necessary to focus on several measures as follows.

First, build a pure, strong Party in terms of politics, ideology, morality, organisation, and personnel and perfect the socialist rule-of-law State of the people, by the people, and for the people.

This measure acts as a determinant to building the politico-spiritual potential of the all-people national defence. There is a fact that our Party sets out guidelines, exercises its leadership over national construction, and performs a core role in uniting and encouraging the people to successfully fulfil revolutionary goals. The Party exercises its absolute, direct leadership over the defence task and the Homeland protection. The Party’s sound leadership decides the revolutionary nature of Vietnam national defence and the victory of the task of defending the Homeland. Thus, all-level party committees and organisations shall grasp and seriously implement tasks and measures for the Party building and rectification under the 12th PCC’s Resolution No.4 and the 13th PCC’s Conclusion 21-KL/TW, dated October 25th, 2021 on enhancing the building of the Party and the political system, while resolutely preventing and pushing back the degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle as well as all signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” amongst cadres and party members in tandem with the 13th Politburo’s Conclusion 01-KL/TW, dated May 18th, 2021 on continuing to realise the 12th Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW, dated May 15th, 2016 on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle. They shall adhere to principle of democratic centralism, self-criticism, and criticism, regulations on role model-setting responsibility and part members’ don’ts, enhance the work of inspection and supervision, improve their cadres and party members’ revolutionary morality, and step up the fight against individualism, corruption, negative practices, and wastefulness. Doing so will help build a pure, strong Party in terms of politics, ideology, morality, organisation, and personnel so that it will always be a true representative of the entire nation’s knowledge, will, and aspirations.

Due attention should be paid to building the Party, perfecting the socialist rule-of-law State, consolidating the political system in a pure, strong manner, and institutionalising the Party’s leadership over the building of the politico-spiritual potential via legal documents and policies. Party committees and authorities from central to grass-roots levels must consider the building of the politico-spiritual potential as an important, routine task, heighten their heads’ responsibility, and strengthen their leadership and direction over this task.

Second, enhance the work of political education and ideological management to enable Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology as the driving factor of the politico-spiritual potential to play a dominant role in the people’s mental life.

All-level party organisations shall further promote the roles of competent offices and forces in disseminating and educating patriotism and national pride, raising social responsibility of people from all walks of life, particularly the youth, and step up propagation of historical heroic examples and typical examples in terms of leadership, command, production, training, combat readiness, study, work, natural disaster and epidemic prevention and control, and search and rescue. Offices, units, and localities shall better defence and security education for all people. In this regard, it is necessary to develop contents and forms of defence and security education effectively for persons with great prestige amongst the people and religious dignitaries, particularly in remote, isolated areas and areas mainly inhabited by ethnic minority groups. Consideration should be given to closely combining the work of propagation and education with the defence of the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting against the hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy, pushing back “self-evolution” and “self-transformation,” and thwarting the schemes aimed at “depoliticising” our Military, undermining the strength of our national great unity block, and separating our Party, State, and Military from our people. Doing so will contribute to achieving a consensus and encouraging patriotism, self-reliance, and aspirations for developing a prosperous, happy country amongst the people.

Third, foster socio-economic development and improve the people’s material and mental life.

This is a central task of the national construction and development process and serves as an important measure to build the politico-spiritual potential of the all-people national defence. Boosting socio-economic development and raising the people’s living standards will provide a solid material foundation for well conducting ideological work and building the politico-spiritual potential. Therefore, it is vital to grasp and execute the Party’s guidelines on facilitating socio-economic development, renewing growth model, restructuring the country’s economy, completing an independent, self-reliant socialist-oriented market economy, and raising the effectiveness of international economic integration. Due regard should be paid to maximising human resources of Vietnam, promoting innovation, applying scientific - technological advances and achievements of the 4th industrial revolution, and accelerating national industrialisation and modernisation. Great value should be attached to effectively implementing programmes on socio-economic development, hunger eradication, poverty reduction, social security, education, and health, especially in remote, isolated areas and within economic-defence zones. It is necessary to closely combine socio-economic development with defence-security consolidation to ensure that economic growth will help strengthen defence-security potential in each locality, region, area, programme, plan, and task. Policies for people with meritorious services to the revolution and ethnic minority and religious citizens should be well implemented to ensure social progress and equality. Besides, due regard should be paid to raising the quality of cultural activities and sports, preserving and bringing into play national cultural identity, and resolutely fighting against negative practices, superstitions, social evils, and depraved customs as the basis for improving the people’s material and mental life.

Fourth, strengthen the national great unity block and further encourage socialist democracy and the people’s right to mastery.

Exploiting national great unity is a strategy of our Party and it is a main driving force and a determinant to sustainable victory in national construction and protection. To that end, party committees and authorities at all levels shall focus on making Vietnam Fatherland Front and its members strong and capable of playing a core role in uniting and gathering people from all walks of life. It is essential to renew contents and methods of operation of those organisations, take the defence of national independence, unification, and territorial integrity, wealthy people, strong nation, democracy, equality, and civilisation as the shared goal, remove guilt, prejudices, and discrimination, keep an open mind, and build up mutual trust for the future. At the same time, importance should be attached to implementing policies on ethnicity, religion, and overseas Vietnamese, ensuring legitimate benefits of social strata, and maintaining harmony in individual, collective, and social interests to gather and encourage forces and citizens to devote their knowledge and effort to the country’s development.

In addition, it is necessary to complete mechanisms to enhance democracy, promote the people’s right to mastery, raise the effectiveness of exercising direct democracy and representative democracy, well execute Regulations on Democracy at Grass-Roots Level, and ensure that “the people know, the people discuss, the people do, the people inspect, the people supervise, and the people benefit” in all organisations and units. Due attention should be paid to “opportunely, seriously handling organisations and individuals’ exploitation of democracy to undermine politico-social stability or violations of democracy or detriments to the people’s right to mastery.”

All-level party committees shall frequently concentrate on building a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds” as the basis for mobilising the entire nation’s strength in the Homeland construction and protection. A firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds” will also provide a prerequisite for building defence potential and protecting the Homeland from afar.

Fifth, make the armed forces in general, the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) in particular revolutionary, regular, seasoned, and gradually modern. By 2025, we will build a compact, strong VPA a solid foundation for making it revolutionary, regular, seasoned, gradually modern, strong in terms of politics, ideology, morality, organisation, and personnel, and capable of building the politico-spiritual potential to meet the requirements of national construction and protection.

Fighting for the people, serving the people, and maintaining a close-knit bond with the people, over the past 77 years, under the Party’s absolute, direct leadership, the VPA has always well performed its function as “an army ready for combat, for work, and for production.” In any circumstance, for national independence and freedom and the people’s happiness, cadres and soldiers of the VPA have always surmounted difficulties and challenges, readily sacrificed their lives for the country and the people, and helped the people with natural disaster and epidemic prevention and control, thereby bolstering the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period, cementing the people’s faith in the Party, the State, and the Military, and making the politico-spiritual potential of the all-people national defence increasingly strong.

Bringing into play those good results, the CMC and the Ministry of National Defence have regularly given advice to the Party and the State on strategies and policies to raise the effectiveness of building the all-people national defence and the politico-spiritual potential. Great value has been attached to “maintaining and strengthening the Party’s absolute, direct leadership over and the State’s focalised, unified management of the VPA, the People’s Public Security, and defence-security cause, raising the effectiveness of party and political work within the VPA and the People’s Public Security to make the people’s armed forces politically strong and capable of playing a core role in defending the Homeland in the new situation.” In the foreseeable future, offices and units across the VPA shall grasp and realise Resolutions of the 11th Military Party Congress and the 13th National Party Congress. Due attention should be paid to stepping up the Determination to Win Emulation Movement in line with the Patriotic Emulation Movement and campaigns launched by the Party, the State, the Fatherland Front, sectors, and localities, strictly maintaining combat readiness, and observing the State’s law, the VPA’s discipline, and regulations on relationship with the people. Doing so will contribute to enabling cadres, party members, and soldiers to remain steadfast in Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, and the Party’s guidelines, preventing the degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, “self-evolution,” and “self-transformation,” building pure, strong party organisations and comprehensively strong offices and units, and raising the VPA’s synergy and combat power.

Offices and units shall actively take part in consolidating political bases, carrying out the movement of “gratitude,” building new-style countryside, and helping the people, particularly in the remote, isolated, border, sea, island areas with hunger eradication, poverty reduction, and natural disaster and epidemic prevention and control. Cadres and soldiers across the Military shall devote effort to overcoming difficulties and cooperating with the people in the whole country in preventing, controlling, and winning against the COVID-19 pandemic. Due attention should be paid to well implementing Prime Minister’s Decree 03/2019/NĐ-CP, dated September 5th, 2019 on coordination between the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of National Defence in protecting national security, ensuring social order and safety, preventing and combating crime, and performing the defence task  to create the synergy for the Homeland protection, cement the people’s faith in the Party, the State, and the VPA, and build an increasingly solid “posture of people’s hearts and minds.”

The 75th anniversary of the National Resistance Day is also a chance for us to look back on our heroic national history. Lessons during the resistance war against the French, particularly on building and bringing into play the politico-spiritual potential should be disseminated widely, deeply to people from all walks of life and applied to the building of a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds” and solid all-people national defence for the Homeland protection in the new situation. Doing so will help enable all citizens to more clearly understand the nation’s heroic tradition and the spirit of “sacrificing for the Homeland,” keep their faith in the Party’s leadership, and actively participate in making the all-people national defence strong and capable of mobilising the strength of the entire country to build and firmly protect the Socialist Vietnamese Homeland in the new situation.

Gen. LUONG CUONG, Member of the Politburo, Member of the CMC Standing Board

Head of the VPA’s General Political Department