The implementation of the Resolution of Party Central Committee’s 4^th Plenum (12^th tenure) on Party building and rectification of the Party Committee of the Coast Guard Region 1 has witnessed some initial achievements thanks to its high political determination. As a result, a positive change has been brought into cadres, party members and soldiers’ political thought, morality, lifestyle as well as their working style; leadership capacity, fighting power of party committees, party organizations at all levels are raised up.

To complete the functions and tasks of patroll, inspection, control and law enforcement maintenance in the waters of the Tonkin Gulf of the Fatherland, the Party Committee and the Commanding Board of the Coast Guard Region 1 have determined that the decisive factor is to enhance leadership capacity and fighting power of party organizations, and to bring the role and responsibility of cadres and party members into play. The spirit of looking straight at the truth, clarifying the truth was hired in tandem with making full use of seriousness, democracy and solidarity in following the main contents of the Resolution of the Party Central Committee’s 4th Plenum (12th tenure); therefore, the work of Party building of the Region’s Party Committee has achieved significant results. However, there still exists limitations and shortcomings in this work. The Region’s Party Committee has discussed, analyzed, and pointed out the strengths, weaknesses, causes and responsibilities of its own and its members, while laying down the direction and remedial measures. Among the shortcomings, untimely introduction of political education, ideological orientation, moral qualities and lifestyle training, law and discipline abiding consciousness, standard order building; unthorough implementation of the principle of democratic centralism, collective leadership, personal responsibility have emerged as the main ones. Some cadres and party members have placed less importance on  executing the regulations, heightening sense of responsibility for unit management and construction, as well as on studying, training, thereby resulting in their poor task performance. The above situation is caused by uncomprehensive leadership and guidance of the party committees, the political commissars (commissars), and the commanders; untimely grasp, evaluation and forecast of servicemen’s thought, morality, lifestyle, discipline practice, standard order building in some units; and ineffective work of emulation and reward, preliminary, summary, experience drawing, as well as replication of typical examples.

In order to remedy that situation in accordance with the contents of the Resolution of the Party Central Committee’s 4th Plenum (12th tenure), the Region’s Party Committee has focused first and foremost on putting quality improvement of political education, ideology, morality, lifestyle of the cadres and party members, especially cadres in charge at all levels under its own leadership and guidance. Realities show that the exemplification of cadres and party members (first and foremost in terms of political ideology, ethics and lifestyle) not only decides individual prestige, but helps enhance the quality of party committees and organizations’ leadership and direction over the task performance of agencies and units.Therefore, eliminating manifestations of degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle of a proportion of cadres and party members serves as a task of routine and urgency for the work of building the Region’s Party Committee at present. To this end, the Region’s Party Committee has instructed the party committees, political commissars, commanders at all levels to focus on leading, directing and organizing the implementation of the content and program of political education, in which more importance must be attached to raising servicemen’s awareness of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, Party’s lines, and tasks of the Army, especially of the Vietnam Coast Guard. Particularly, the political and ideological education in the units has been linked with the implementation of the Directive No. 05-CT/TW by the Politburo (12th tenure) on “Acceleration of studying and following Uncle Ho’s thought, morality, and lifestyle”, the campaign of “Promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers” and the movement of “Four Goods, Four Nos, Four Againsts”⁽¹⁾ under concrete norms and measures which are relevant to functions and tasks of each agency, each unit and the responsibility of each cadre and party member. That helps each cadre, party member, and ordinary person study and follow Uncle Ho’s spirit of overcoming difficulties, raising the political will, morality of revolutionary soldiers, being solidary, daring to think, to do and to take responsibility, being willing to undertake the hard phase and work to fulfil their tasks. During the implementation process, the party committees and the commanders often heighten their responsibilities, saying and doing under the guidance of the Resolution; closely following soldiers’ daily-life activities, successfully carrying out the work of ideological forecast, management and orientation; strengthening the protection of internal politics, preserving the stability in terms of ideology in the face of complicated developments of the situation; and attaching the importance to cultivating new models who are typical in terms of political ideology, morality and lifestyle. Simultaneously, those organizations and individuals have been active in fighting against all signs of undermined faith and ideal, opportunism, pragmatism, ambiguity, and degradation of morality and lifestyle; while resolutely combating and preventing “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” so that hostile forces’ distortions cannot effect an internal division.

In the program of surmounting the shortcomings under the guidance of the Resolution of Party Central Committee’s 4th Plenum (12th tenure), the Region’s Party Committee particularly attaches great significance to the strict implementation of the principle of democratic centralism, collective leadership, personal responsibility in order to renew working style and method. Accordingly, all activities of the party committees and organizations at all levels of the Region must be in line with the functions, tasks and promulgated regulations. In the meantime, the party committees and organizations must actively innovate the style of leadership, direction and administration so that the collective intellect can be brought into full play in tandem with a sense of heightened personal responsibility; while successfully implementing democratic regulations at grassroots level, matching words with actions and closely combining “building” with “fighting”. Party committees at all levels have reviewed, supplemented and stringently implemented the working and leadership regulations, proactively innovated the working method and style, seriously maintained the regulations and order of party meeting, improved the quality of resolution issuance and implementation as well as that of individual and collective annual self-criticism and criticism. Every month, the party committees at levels issued the leadership resolutions which include fair and comprehensive evaluation of achieved results as well as leading policy and solution relevant to the reality, functions and tasks of the units in accordance with the Resolution by the Region’s Party Committee Congress for the 2015-2020 tenure and special resolution on “Building up moral standards of Coast Guard soldiers”. The focus is also placed on actively innovating working style and method, closely following training activities served for combating readiness, patrolling, law enforcement on sea, discipline abidance and regular force building; resolutely overcoming all manifestations of bureaucracy, authoritarianism, and impracticality. At the same time, the sense of self-criticism and criticism as well as responsibility of setting out good example of cadres and party members should be brought into full play in accordance with the Regulations 55-QĐ/TW on December 19th, 2016 of the Politburo (12th tenure) and the Central Military Commission’s Regulations 646-QĐ/QUTW.

Besides, the Region’s Party Committee always attaches great importance to improving the quality of cadre work and building cadres staff to meet the requirements in the new situation. The work of cadres from the stage of planning, training, fostering, evaluating, giving feedback, using, to rotating shall be strictly carried out in accordance with the procedures. It is necessary for the cadres who are scheduled for certain leading positions to have strong political will, good moral standards, high prestige in units; and to be regularly cultivated in order to improve political awareness as well as Coast Guard professional competence. The regulations and authority on the work of cadre must be strictly applied during the implementation, ensuring the principle of the Party’s uniform leadership over the cadre work and the work of building cadre staff. At the same time, it is also important to promote the role and responsibility of the party secretary, the unit commander in the management, remarks, evaluation, promotion and appointment of cadres in the direction of expanding democracy, promoting the initiative at grassroots level in a just and objective manner, ensuring that this staff could quickly adapt to the requirements of the tasks, creating high concensus. It is highly recommended not to include cadres who have low prestige and low performance of tasks in the cadre planning. To build “both red and expert” cadre staff, along with professional competence training and cultivating, maritime law enforcement capacity improving, cadres and party members are requested to review 27 manifestations of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation" as set out in the Resolution of Party Central Committee’s 4th Plenum (12th tenure) for “self-rectification”, and build plans of self-improvement. The Party Committees at all levels firmly grasp the ideological situation, the relations of cadres and party members, especially with respect to social relations in order to take appropriate measures to deal with once there is violation; while properly implementing the policy work for beneficiaries according to regulations, creating favourable conditions for them to keep their mind on work and strive to fulfill all tasks.

The fleets and contingent of officers and soldiers of the Region regularly operate and work independently, dispersedly, and remotely from the management and leadership of the commanders at all levels, making them vulnerable to the negative side of society in term of both political thought, morality, lifestyle and "self-evolution", "self-transformation". Therefore, the Region’s Party Committee attaches great importance to improving the quality of inspection and supervision. Accordingly, the Region’s Party Committee requested the Party committees at all levels to continue to make the work of inspection and supervision a regular task of party committees and organizations; proactively adjust and supplement programs and plans for inspection and supervision. The contents of the inspection and supervision shall focus on the implementation of resolutions, the observance of the democratic centralism principle, and the Regulations on party members’ don’ts. Moreover, party committees and organizations within the Region’s Party Committee have strictly maintained the Party’s discipline, successfully investigated and definitely settled violations of discipline, letters of complaint and denunciation, particularly serious, complicated, long-lasting cases.

Thanks to actively promote the implementation of those aforementioned solutions, in 2016 and 2017, great importance is always attached to Party building of the Region’s Party Committee; the contingent of cadres and Party members of the region always have strong political will, upholding the sense of responsibility, willingly undertaking and fulfilling all the assigned tasks without showing degradation of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, "self-evolution", "self-transformation". That result contributed positively to the building of strong Party Committee of the Region in terms of politics, ideology, organization and morality; revolutionary, regular, elite, modern and professional Coast Guard Region 1. In 2017, the Region was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Minister of National Defense, the National Steering Committee 389 and the Coast Guard Command for outstanding achievements in the fight against smuggling and trade fraud. This is the basis and premise for officers and soldiers in Coast Guard Region 1 to strive to well fulfill the task of law enforcement on the sea, thus contributing to firmly protecting the national sovereignty over the sea and islands.

Sr. Col. Nguyen Van Thang, Political Commissar of the Coast Guard Region 
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(1) Four GOODS:

 1. Good politics, ideology.

 2. Good professional competence.

 3.Good internal solidarity and army-and-people unity.

  4.Good regular orders, discipline enforcement.

(2) Four NOS:

1. No gambling, betting, getting in debts without payment capability.

 2. No illegal drug trading, receiving, transporting and using.

 3. No alcohol or beer consuming against regulations.

  4. No smoking in working and public places.

(3) Four AGAINSTS:

1. Against intervention.

2. Against lending a hand.

3. Against clouding.

 4. Against ignorance.