Ideological work across the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) is a basic part of party and political work, making significant contributions to building a politically strong VPA. Bringing into play the role and outcome of ideological work in the past 80 years of building a politically strong VPA, offices and units across the entire Military should renew and further improve this important work to meet the requirements of VPA building, national defence consolidation, and Fatherland protection in the new situation.

Fully aware of the importance of ideological work, the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Ministry of National Defence (MND), the General Department of Politics (GDP), offices, and units across the VPA have always exercised their close leadership and direction over ideological work via synchronous, creative, effective measures, under the motto: “ideological work will always be one step ahead of every task”. The whole VPA has seriously executed the CMC Stand Board’s Directive 2423-CT/QUTW, dated 9 November 2023, on “renewing and improving political education in the new period” and Regulations on troop ideological management, public opinion grasp and orientation within the VPA, with many breakthroughs and reforms in terms of content, form, and method. Adhering to their political missions and practical activities, offices and units have focused on rendering their troops cognisant of revolutionary goal and ideal, partners and opponents, improving their staff’s political zeal and determination.

Lt. Gen. Truong Thien To launches a press contest on the Communist Party of Vietnam and President Ho Chi Minh (photo: qdnd.vn)

Offices and units have closely combined ideological work with organisational work, personnel work, and policy work, aligning the Determined to Win Emulation Movement with the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle as well as resolutions, directives, and conclusions by the Party and CMC on Party building and rectification. Propagation and press work has promoted its core role; it has been carried out via diverse, flexible forms, means, and methods, in all areas, activities, and circumstances to opportunely orientate troop ideology amid issues of public concern, arouse national and military heroic traditions, spread typical examples, and encourage a sense of dedication among cadres and soldiers.

Offices and units have complied with principles and procedures for managing troops’ political and ideological qualities, increasing direct dialogues, opportunely settling troops’ ideological issues and legitimate aspirations. Great value has been attached to building fine, diverse, healthy cultural environment and promoting the synergy of forces, offices, units, families, and localities in carrying out ideological work. The fight against wrong, hostile viewpoints has been widely, deeply organised to defend the Party’s ideological foundation, protect the Party, State, people, and socialist regime, thwart hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution”, riot, and subversion strategies, cement cadres and soldiers’ faith in the Party’s leadership and the State’s management. As a result, in any circumstances, cadres and soldiers have always shown their political steadfastness and absolute loyalty to the Fatherland, Party, State, and people, remaining unity, proactivity, and creativity, readily undertaking and successfully fulfilling all assigned tasks. Notably, under the spirit: “wherever there are hardships or dangers, troops are present”, cadres and soldiers have promoted the noble nature and tradition of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” which have been nurtured by generations of troops over the past 80 years; more specifically, troops of the VPA have always been opportunely present at dangerous, difficult sites, taking a vanguard role in flood, storm, epidemic prevention and control and search and rescue, setting shining examples in terms of willpower and courage “for the people to sacrifice themselves”.

However, several party committees, political commissars, junior political commissars, and commanders have yet to be sufficiently aware of the role of ideological work. Forms and methods of ideological work within some units and offices have yet to be really diverse, proactive, or flexible, particularly at sensitive, crucial moments; in some places, there have been signs of oversimplification, negligence, and untimeliness in ideological work; forecasts about troops’ ideological developments and management of troops’ social relationships have yet to be effective; there have been violations of law and discipline negatively impacting on the nature, tradition, prestige, and virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers”.

In the upcoming time, there will be rapid, complex, unpredictable changes on global and regional scales; strategic competition, armed conflicts, territorial disputes, and non-traditional security challenges will be on the increase, together with profound impacts on many countries. As for Vietnam, its economy will continue to thrive; political - social stability will be maintained; many new policies on military and defence fields will be implemented; however, our country will be confronted with many difficulties and challenges especially when it enters a new era of development, with a lot of theoretical and practical issues to be resolved. Hostile forces will continue to step up their “peaceful evolution” strategy with new, more cunning artifices. Our VPA is accelerating the streamlining process towards modernity, leading to dramatic changes in its organisational structure; the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Officers of the VPA will be executed across the entire Military. That situation has been directly impacting on troops’ ideology and necessitating offices and units across the VPA continuing to raise the effectiveness of ideological work via synchronous measures, with a focus on several ones as follows.

First, keeping a close watch on the performance of tasks to focus leadership and direction on raising the quality and effectiveness of ideological work. This measure is aimed at ensuring that ideological work will always be in accordance with the Party’s viewpoints and lines and the State’s laws and policies, affirming this work’s pioneering role in orientating troops’ awareness and action. Therefore, all-level party committees, political commissars, junior political commissars, political agencies, and commanders should be fully aware of the importance of ideological work and especially direct, multidimensional impacts on troop ideology. Resolutions and plans with specific lines and measures for ideological work should be developed in accordance with viewpoints, resolutions, directives, and guidance set by the Party, CMC, and GDP to ensure that this work will always be carried out constantly and relevant to each office and unit’s functions, tasks, and particularities as well as troops’ training, combat readiness, and work activities.

It is necessary to proactively, comprehensively, synchronously realise pieces of ideological work, particularly the Regulations on troop ideological management, public opinion grasp and orientation within the VPA. Due regard should be paid to providing direction and guidance and passing on experiences in ideological work to cadres at grass-roots level. Roles and responsibilities of political agencies and party committee members in advising, guiding, and directing ideological work should be promoted to proactively detect and settle weaknesses and passivity in this work. Reviews and inspections should be regularly conducted to rectify wrongdoings and draw lessons. The outcome of ideological work should be seen as a criterion for assessing cadres, party members, and party organisations as well as for commending typical examples in this work.

Second, continuing to renew content and forms of ideological work in a proactive, practical, timely, effectively way. The cause of VPA building and national development in the upcoming time will witness profound, all-round changes, together with rapid, multidimensional impacts on troops and citizens. That situation necessitates offices and units keeping a close watch on realities, grasping principles, and flexibly, creatively applying content and forms of ideological work. It is necessary to achieve a fundamental, comprehensive, synchronous reform in content, forms, and methods of political and ideological education and make this work more modern, diverse, attractive, and relevant to groups of troops and each office and unit’s task performance, facilities, equipment, and means.

Emphasis should be placed on asserting and further clarifying the Party’s ideological foundation within the VPA, making Marxist - Leninist worldview, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, the Party’s lines, and the State’s laws and policies more dominant in the spiritual life of the Military and each cadre and soldier. At the same time, it is important to regularly educate troops on patriotism and national pride, build and strengthen troops’ faith and resolve to win victory in any circumstances. The core role of propagation work on ideological and theoretical fronts should be enhanced to encourage cadres and soldiers to remain steadfast in their combat goal and ideal, dare to confront and overcome all difficulties and challenges, readily perform any tasks for the people and the Fatherland. Cultural and artistic activities at grass-roots level should be diversified to create a healthy military cultural environment, push back negative phenomena, and make significant contributions to improving the qualities and virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers”.

Press and publishing agencies should step up digital transformation, diversify forms of communication, maintain their operating principles and purposes, remain political steadfastness against the impacts made by the new situation, play a vanguard role in public opinion orientation, and raise awareness of the building of an adept, compact, strong VPA, national defence consolidation, and Fatherland protection among cadres, soldiers, and citizens, while acting as a sharp weapon in the fight against wrong, hostile viewpoints to defend the Party’s ideological foundation and protect the Party, State, people, and socialist regime.

Additionally, offices and units should attach special importance to taking steps of ideological work in troop management. Troop ideology and health, particularly within independent units and among non-commissioned officers and soldiers, should be closely monitored to opportunely detect negative manifestations, flexibly, correctly, completely handle ideological issues under law and military discipline, with education and persuasion as the main method, and prevent negative impacts on troop ideology and offices and units.

Third, closely combining ideological work with organisational work, personnel work, and policy work. While serving as a principle of party and political work, this measure is also a valuable lesson drawn from over 80 years of VPA building and should continue to be promoted in the current period. The entire VPA’s streamlining process in accordance with the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution 18-NQ/TW, dated 25 October 2017, and the organisation of all-level party congresses towards the 14^th National Party Congress represent major lines and tasks that will create a strong prerequisite and incentive to usher our country into a new landmark era of development. This is a revolution with multidimensional, sensitive, complex impacts on all cadres and soldiers’ ideology and sentiment. Thus, it is necessary to strengthen leadership and direction of party committees and commands over the introduction and execution of higher echelons’ resolutions, directives, and conclusions on force adjustment. A political campaign should be widely and deeply organised to opportunely provide information and public opinion orientation for cadres and soldiers about this important line in building the VPA and its offices and units.

It is essential to proactively grasp ideological developments and aspirations of cadres and soldiers in order to further apply methods and forms of ideological work coupled with education and propagation, achieve unity, uniformity, and resolve, and encourage cadres and party members to sacrifice their personal interests for the common good. At the same time, policies and entitlements for individuals affected by force adjustments should be synchronously implemented. Party committees, party organisations, offices, and units should thoroughly grasp regulations, conduct general surveys and reviews in an objective, equal manner to screen and select cadres and party members, closely combine the building of a contingent of key cadres at all levels with personnel preparations for new-tenure party committees so as to raise leadership capacity and combativeness of party committees and party organisations and improve the task performance of offices and units. Doing so will help achieve uniformity in terms of awareness and action across the entire Military, realise the goal of building an adept, compact, strong, modern VPA, and make contributions to ushering the whole country into a new development era.

Fourth, raising the effectiveness of the fight against wrong, hostile viewpoints to firmly safeguard the Party’s ideological foundation within the VPA. This is a crucial task of the entire Party, people, and Military, acting as an urgent measure of ideological work. Thus, all-level party committees and commands should continue to grasp and execute Resolution 35-NQ/TW, dated 22 October 2018, by the 12^th Politburo on “further protecting the Party’s ideological foundation, combating wrong, hostile viewpoints in the new situation” under the 13^th Politburo’s Conclusion 89-KL/TW, dated 25 July 2024, while promoting the core, vanguard role of specialised forces in charge of fighting wrong, hostile forces and defending the Party’s ideological foundation.

The fight against wrong, hostile viewpoints must cover all fields. Emphasis should be placed on identifying and combating hostile forces’ sabotage efforts against our all-level party congresses towards the 14^th National Party Congress, our revolution in streamlining the political system’s apparatus, our Party’s lines on breakthrough development of science and technology, innovation, and digital transformation, our revolutionary fruits, and our entire Party, Military, and people’s resolve for the new era of the nation’s rise; consideration should be given to combating “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” from within, hostile forces’ plots to “depoliticise” our VPA, undermine the Military’s prestige, and distort the image and virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers”. Well implementing this measure will help raise troops’ political awareness and consensus, cement cadres and soldiers’ faith in the Party’s leadership and State’s management, create “immunity” and positive changes in each cadre and soldier’s attitude, sentiment, mindset, and awareness during their task performance process.

Furthermore, offices and units should closely combine forms of struggle to achieve absolute superiority in positive information in cyberspace. At the same time, due regard should be paid to building increasingly “elite” forces in charge of fighting wrong, hostile viewpoints. In addition to raising the task performance of those specialised forces, there should be policies to gather and attract top experts and scientists with great theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience to produce high-quality combative articles.

Fifth, promoting roles and responsibilities of organisations and forces, creating synergy for conducting ideological work. Realities show that one of the main reasons for weaknesses in ideological work lie in the “complete delegation” of this work to political agencies and political cadres. Therefore, offices and units should be sufficiently aware that conducting ideological work is responsibility of all organisations, forces, cadres, and party members, with political commissars, junior political commissars, political agencies, and political cadres playing a core role. All-level party committees and commands should promote their central role to ensure that all pieces of ideological work will be properly led and directed; all lines, programs, and plans for this work must be closely managed and flexibly, completely realised to deal with signs of oversimplification, indifference, and insensitivity towards troop ideology. Cadres at all levels should keep a close watch on every field of their units and every individual even when their units have advantages or face difficulties to make situational analyses, find out causes of ideological developments, and opportunely provide ideological orientations for troops; superiors and party members must provide ideological orientations for their subordinates and the masses respectively, while cadres and party members must set good examples for the masses to study and follow.

Simultaneously, it is necessary to promote the role of mass organisations and Soldiers’ Councils and increase dialogues to grasp troops’ ideological developments and meet troops’ legitimate needs and aspirations as the basis for enabling cadres and soldiers to keep their mind on their work. Offices and units should continue to closely, effectively collaborate with ministries, sectors, unions at Central level, local party committees and authorities, and military families to carry out ideological work. Moreover, due regard should be paid to improving material and mental life of cadres and soldiers and providing sufficient facilities and means for ideological work to be conducted in the most efficient way.

Our country and VPA are entering a crucial phase in the new development era which requires a very high degree of consensus within the entire Party, political system, people, and Military. Thus, all-level leaderships and commands should heighten a sense of responsibility and adopt measures drastically, synchronously to raise the effectiveness of ideological work and make contributions to building a politically strong VPA, tightening discipline, improving the Military’s synergy and combat power, and meeting the requirements of Fatherland construction and protection in the new situation.

Lt. Gen. TRUONG THIEN TO

Deputy Director of the GDP of the VPA