Building Military cadres is a factor deciding the combat power of the entire Military, creating a stable premise to build the revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled and modernised Military, which is strong in politics, ideology, morality, organisation and cadres. Presently, to have a strong contingent of cadres meeting the requirement of building the elite, strong and compact Vietnam People’s Army towards modernity, it is a must to research and propose synchronous, scientific and practical solutions.

Building a strong contingent of cadres is a “pivotal” step in the “pivotal” task in Military building, strengthening the national defence and safeguarding the Fatherland; and also a basic, long-term and urgent issue. Thoroughly understanding this issue, in recent years, the party committees at all levels have grasped and seriously implemented the viewpoints and guidelines of the Party and Central Military Commission on building a contingent of cadres with many drastic, synchronous, practical and effective solutions. As a result, “the great majority of cadres own strong political spirit, and are loyal to the Party, Fatherland, the People and the socialist regime. They all have good morality, organisational and disciplinary sense, healthy lifestyle, high responsibility, are always united to overcome difficulties and accomplish the tasks in all situations, and they are the key forces in the Vietnam People’s Army”, which meets the demands for building the “revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, and gradually modernised” Military, and successfully accomplish all assigned tasks.

Besides the great achievements, in some units, the cadre work has shown weaknesses and limitations, i.e. the process is not synchronous and scientific; the evaluation of cadres is not objective and accurate; the planning does not have the general and long-term view; cases of selection, training, appointment and promotion are not correct, etc. Therefore, cadres in these units have still had weaknesses; their ability and qualities have not been on a par with the tasks; they are not setting good examples and in low prestige; even “some of them have had manifestations of political, ideological, ethical and lifestyle degradation, lacked cultivation, training and learning ability, been moderately working, opportunistic, pragmatic, patriarchal, arbitrary; violated the Party’s discipline, the State’s law and the Army’s discipline”. To solve these shortcomings, meeting the demands for building the elite, strong and compact Vietnam People’s Army towards modernity in the new situation, the building of cadres needs to be renovated strongly and comprehensively, focusing on several basic solutions as follows:

Firstly, improving the quality of selecting cadres at all levels. This is a pivotal step closely linked to all others of the cadre work. When being alive, President Ho Chi Minh paid special attention to cadre selection and regularly recommended us to well treat the talents, cadres and people who are useful for common work, and carefully select people who are talented and able to work, and the ones whose are dedicated to the people and the country. The reality has proven that cadre selection is both a science and an art to create the stable development and quality of the entire contingent of cadres, making sure the inheritance, continuous transition and avoiding the shortage of human resources. Hence, all-level party committees need to base on their political tasks, detailed requirements of building the elite, compact and strong units, the reality of cadres, and each cadre’s development direction to build plans and request competent authorities to select and recruit cadres. In the process, it is necessary to grasp and implement seriously, closely and effectively the guidelines and policies of the Party, State and Central Military Commission on attracting qualified and competent people, moral and talented cadres to the resources to be selected and recruited in the Army. It should be prioritised to select and recruit newly-graduated students who have had excellent qualifications, and scientific young cadres whose training majors are appropriate to the jobs that the Army has not trained or had high use commands. It is necessary to seriously apply the regulations of title standards in selecting, adding and appointing cadres; especially, carefully consider the appointment of commanding and managing cadres; all-level commanders, commissars and junior commissars are responsible for training, cultivating and suggesting their successors and taking responsibility for their suggestions; it is also necessary to be determined to overcome every manifestation of negativeness, indulgence and lowering the standards when selecting and appointing cadres.

Conducting regular check of party members at the Tank and Amoured Corps

Secondly, enhancing the renovation of training and cultivating cadres. The reality of building and struggling of the Army over the past 80 years has shown that the quality of cadres depends on many factors; of which, education at schools and training in units have played an especially important part. In fact, the present training and cultivation of Military cadres, despite some positive changes, have shown several shortcomings, i.e. the defining the training goals, contents, programmes, forms and methods has not caught up with the real requirements of building the elite, compact and strong Military; there have been negative manifestations such as running after targets, achievements and marks, which could destroy the real motivation of learning by parts of cadres. Therefore, it is necessary to attentively improve the quality of training and cultivating sources, especially for operational-level and strategic-level cadres, postgraduate and oversea training, at the same time, effectively train and cultivate cadres to have equivalent knowledge and political theories to their positions towards professionalism and specialisation, taking the basic, long-term and regular training of advanced training programmes as the cores combined with other training levels to meet the task requirements and gradually decrease the short courses in the military schools and academies. Training institutions need to renovate their training programmes, contents, learning and teaching methods; combine the theories and reality, the consciousness and practical actions, the acquisition of knowledge and improvement of political and moral qualities; firmly solve the problems of being lazy to learn and running for qualifications. Besides, it is also necessary to closely combine the education at schools and training in units; focus on cultivating and training the political and leading mentality, knowledge of management, leadership, sciences, theories, foreign languages, and upgrading new information and knowledge; through which, to build a “both red and expert” contingent of cadres who dare to think, dare to say, dare to do, dare to take responsibility, dare to reform, dare to confront difficulties and challenges, and dare to act for the common interest.

Thirdly, improving the quality and effectiveness in managing, evaluating, arranging and using all-level cadres in the Military. In the cadre work and building the contingent of cadres, it is a must to synchronously carry out all steps of planning, evaluation, training, cultivation and rotation, of which, management, evaluation, arrangement and usage are the most important ones. Strict management and correct evaluation will lead to correct planning and usage; this responsibility belongs to the cadres’ party committees and party organisations, the direct seniors and their self-evaluation. In the process of judging and evaluating cadres, the party committees at all levels need to strictly follow Regulation No.  89-NQ/TW, dated 04 August 2017 by the Politburo (12^th tenure) on the standard framework of evaluating all-level leaders and managers; at the same time, base on their results of doing tasks, training, cultivating the qualities of politics, morality, lifestyle and prestige as the main measures to assure reality, objectivity, transparency and publicity; prevent subjectivity, emotion and one-sidedness. Basing on the correct judgement and evaluation, the party committees at all levels proactively check and select cadres to the planning and training sources at schools and academies inside and outside the Military; focus on the sources in the planning, sources of operational-level and strategic-level cadres, sources of postgraduates and sources of foreign training; resolutely remove from the sources unqualified cadres. It is a must to follow the planning and directions when arranging and using cadres; combine the results of learning and accomplishing the assigned tasks with the selection, appointment and promotion in order to improve the comprehensive qualities, at first, the political spirit, thinking ability, the Party nature and regulations in working. In addition, according to specific management levels, the party committees and organisations strictly manage the internal politics; firmly hold the present political history and issues, attentively consider the ideological stand, speeches, motivation, political attitude, morality and lifestyle; discover and strictly punish any cases of opportunism, political dissatisfaction, “self-transformation”, “self-evolution”.

Fourthly, inspecting, supervising, strictly controlling the power, firmly preventing corruption and negativeness in the cadre work. This is an important solution which requires all-level party committees and organisations to regularly grasp and seriously implement the task of “Building regulations on the competence and responsibility of the chairmen of the work of cadres and cadre management; well implementing the regulations on controlling the power in the cadre work, preventing the bribe for positions and power, etc.”, and Regulation No. 114-QĐ/TW, dated 11 July 2023 by the Politburo (13^th tenure), making sure that all powers are strictly controlled and bound by their responsibility, the higher the powers are, the greater the responsibility is. It is necessary to strictly define and implement the process of cadre work, assuring the publicity and transparency of the personnel standards, process, procedures and records; clearly define the collective and individual responsibilities, strengthen the roles of the responsible personnel in cadre work; strictly and effectively manage the cadre contingent according to the central regulations; enhance the inspection, selection, replacement, dismission and force the resignation for the presiding cadres who are in low qualities of politics, morality, lifestyle and credit, or violate the rules of democratic centralism, self-criticism and criticism, and working principles in their leading and operating the work; concurrently, strictly punish any negative manifestations, the bribe for positions and power in particular, in the cadre work.

Building a contingent of cadres is a decisive factor in building the elite, compact and strong Military towards modernity, which should be thoroughly researched in both theory and practice, assuring this contingent has appropriate qualities, abilities and prestige to well accomplish the tasks in each equivalent position and responsibility, making contribution to successfully implementing the task of safeguarding the Fatherland in the new situation.

Senior Colonel, Dr. VU PHU DUNG