Cementing the close relationship between the Party and the people and relying on people to build the Party
Cementing the close relationship between the Party and people and relying on people to build the Party are enshrined in the 13th National Party Congress document as a crucial mission and solution to the Party building, which should be thoroughly grasped and effectively executed by party committees and organisations.
Cementing the close-knit bond between the Party and the people
Having inherited and creatively applied Marxist- Leninist theories, President Ho Chi Minh ever affirmed “Our Party is an integral part of our society”; “Ours is the Party of the working class and the working people; therefore, it must be the Party of the Vietnamese peoples”. The Party is the vanguard of the working class, the working people, and the Vietnamese people, and represents the interest of the working class and the nation. Therefore, the flesh and blood relationship between the Party and the people has been stipulated in the Party’s documents and practical activities and increasingly fostered in accordance with the principle of “the people as the country’s roots” and key factor in the cause of national renewal.
Far from its very own interests, the Party was established and evolved for the purpose of struggling for national independence and the people’s freedom and happiness. The ruling Party’s leadership emanates from the people’s mandate with the latter at the centre of the cause of national renewal and construction and protection; hence, every guideline and policy must come from the people’s aspirations and legitimate rights and interests. The Party can not fulfill its responsibilities without the people’s support. The people’s invincible strength is a source of every victory ever recorded in the Vietnamese revolution. For the sake of cemented relationships between the Party and the people, it is essential to thoroughly grasp and seriously uphold the principle of “the people as the country’s roots” in all affairs of the Party and the State”.
The Party shall genuinely trust, respect and uphold the people’s right to mastery since it is an inviolable right that needs to be respected and brought into full play in the Party’s institutional and practical activities. To this end, it necessitates the Party fulfilling its responsibilities as a leader and a servant of the people. As a result, it is crucial to actively protect the rights and legitimate interests of organisations and resolutely handle violations of the law, while great importance should be attached to exercising direct and representative democracy and seriously executing democratic regulations at grass-roots level in a transparent and responsible manner. Heads of party committees and governments at diverse levels need to actively hold face-to-face meetings and dialogues with the people in order to be receptive to their legitimate aspirations and handle their complaints whilst bringing into full play the people’s right to mastery and attending to their lives, and combatting negatively democratic manifestations. In fact, there are the majority of people in authority in the ruling Party. As a result, while operating the mechanism for exercising power, some party organisations and members are highly susceptible to keeping themselves aloof from the people and showing little regard for their right to mastery. Therefore, “it is crucial to criticise and strictly handle cadres and civil servants who show gross misconduct towards the people”.
Consolidate the people’s trust in the Party, the State and socialism. Over the course of 90 years of its revolutionary leadership, the Party has always received great support and affection from the people, which has forged national block of solidarity and created momentum for the nation to end poverty and backwardness and to enhance the nation’s prestige in the international arena. Only when the Party and the State set out sound guidelines and policies together with organisations and individuals’ correspondingly effective management and governance and exemplary role in the political system and the people’s improved living standards have the people’s trust and belief been reinforced. The reinforcement of the people’s trust has to result from the building of a clean and strong political system and a contingent of cadres, party members and civil servants with good morality and lifestyle in accord with the principle of “respecting the people, staying close to the people, trusting the people, understanding the people, learning from the people, relying on the people, and being responsible towards the people”. In addition, it is important to ceaselessly renovate the contents and forms of dissemination and effectively utilise mass media and social websites so as to build socialist values in society.
Strengthen the building of national block of solidarity on the basis of common interests of the whole Party and people and the guidance of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s laws and policies, and the worker-peasant-intellectual alliance as the core. All the activities undertaken by cadres, party members, and civil servants in the political system must serve the people’s interests. Additionally, it is essential to harmoniously deal with relations of interest in society and protect the people’s legitimate rights and interests, relentlessly improve the people’s mental and material life, and resolutely foil plots to create divisions between the Party and the people.
Relying on the people for Party building is a matter of great significance to the Party’s survival since the people are the Party’s mainstay and source of strength. Over the past time, a wide variety of policies and solutions have been implemented to promote the role of the people in the Party building, namely the revision of the people’s rights to mastery in the 2013 Constitution, the Regulations on grassroots democracy, and so on. Yet, there are still many limitations and shortcomings that arise in the Party building and rectification. Therefore, it is crucial to build and perfect relevant documents in order for the people to take part in building the Party, whilst due attention should be paid to continuously perfecting the mechanisms for the Party’s leadership, the State’s management, and the people’s mastery, and drafting and promulgating regulations regarding the people’s participation in building the Party, the clean, strong political system, and a contingent of cadres, which stipulate responsibilities for relying on the people for the party building resting with party organisations at all levels, cadres, party members, especially heads of offices, units, and localities. Moreover, the nuts and bolts of those regulations should be clearly stated and gradually revised and perfected in practice so that the people and socio-political organisations alike are fully aware of their participation in the party building. Party organisations, cadres, party members need to formulate their plans of action accordingly and resolutely avoid executing them in a perfunctory fashion.
Furthermore, it is necessary to collecting the people’s feedback on the formulation of the Party’s guidelines and policies. The Party’s affairs are theoretically and practically equated with the people’s. Yet, based on the country and localities’ specific circumstances and conditions, party organisations at all levels have to choose corresponding issues on which they gather the people’s feedback, and show their receptiveness to appropriate feedback in order to perfect those guidelines and policies. “The people’s participation in formulating, promulgating, and executing the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies and laws should be promoted on the basis of sustaining harmonious interests among the State, enterprises, the people and localities”.
Further promote the motto: “the people know, the people discuss, the people do, the people inspect, the people supervise, and the people enjoy”. In view of “the people know”, it is a must to provide official information in a rapid and timely fashion so as to orient the people and public opinion towards healthy information and socialist values whilst due regard should be paid to addressing “information gap” and fake news that negatively affect the people’s trust in the Party, the State and the socialist regime.
Are the people allowed to discuss the Party’s affairs? And what kind of discussions the people should have on the work of party building? To this end, disclosure and transparency-related regulations need to be concretised in the Party building and rectification from central to local levels. In terms of “the people do”, the people are entitled to know and discuss the matters of their interest. When a sense of unity in awareness is achieved, it is the people as the core who carry out the tasks under the leadership and directions of party committees and governments at all levels. As far as “the people inspect and the people supervise” are concerned, relying on the people to supervise and inspect the Party’s affairs is a matter of paramount importance to the Party building. According to the 13th National Party Congress, it is important to “effectively conduct the people’s substantive supervision of organisations’ operational performance in the political system as well as of the virtue and capability of a contingent of cadres and party members”. Every cadre and party member, no matter what position they hold in the apparatus of the political system, must be put under the inspection and supervision of the people where they work and those of the people where they reside; hence, it is so hard for them to cover up their wrongdoings in the full glare of the people. To this end, the Party needs to formulate specific and favourable regulations concerning the people’s participation in this regard. In view of “the people enjoy”, it is newly enshrined in the 13th National Party Congress documents, which is a matter of great significance to the effective exercise of democracy. Thus, it is a must to take cadres and party members’ mission performance, the people’s satisfaction and credibility as a yardstick for measuring the quality of the apparatus of the political system and the quality of a contingent of cadres and party members”.
Rely on the people to nominate the capable and talented for party membership. The quality and quantity of a contingent of party members are an indispensable part of the Party’s strength and quality. In addition to promoting the collection of the people’s feedback on the Party’s guidelines and policies and the people’s supervision and inspection to filter out a contingent of party members, the Party has to bank on the people’s revolutionary movement to discover and select the capable and talented for party membership.
As a matter of law and principle, cementing the close relationship between the Party and the people and relying on the people for the Party building truly bear out the nature and ever-lasting vitality of the Communist Party of Vietnam; therefore, thoroughly grasping and seriously executing these task and solution make a substantive contribution to the Party building and rectification, enhancing the Party’s leading and ruling capability in the new situation.
Prof. MACH QUANG THANG, PhD