Building and enhancing the Party's ruling culture - the core issue of political culture, is the objective requirements and regular task of each party organisation, cadres and party members in order that our Party really represents for the honor, conscience, and wisdom of the nation. Therefore, this content should be supplemented and emphasised in the Draft Political Report submitted to the 13th National Congress of the Party.
There are different approaches to culture, but in the end, it is the expression of the beauty, the true and the good. Accordingly, the Party's ruling culture is cultural values crystallised in the emotions, will and actions of the Party's leadership activities, of each party organisation, cadres and members who are always exemplary in terms of politics, morality, lifestyle, behavior, etc. When the Party's culture and morality are always focused on and nurtured appropriately, the Party's prestige and ruling capacity are, then, enhanced, and the Party is always pure, strong, capable and intelligent enough to lead the political system and the whole society successfully realise the revolutionary cause. These values are permeated into all leadership activities and in the leadership content and modalities of the Party, and vividly expressed on the following main contents:
First, in the Party’s political platform and line. The Communist Party of Vietnam leads the political system and the entire society with its political platforms and lines. The Party's culture and wisdom are firstly shown in the formulation of the right, creative and scientific revolutionary path in accordance with the legitimate will and aspirations of the entire Party and people in the construction of an independent and socialist Vietnam with rich people, strong, democratic, equal and civilised country. Therefore, political platform and line are a measure of leadership capacity, development level, and ruling culture of the Party.
Secondly, in the relationship between the Party and the State and socio-political organisations. The leadership of the Party is performed through the role of the State and socio-political organisations. In this relationship, the Party is both a leader and a part of the political system. Therefore, the Party's ruling culture is reflected in the fact that the Party rules and operates under the Constitution and law. Party cadres and members must exemplarily respect and observe the Constitution and laws. The Party promotes the role of the State in institutionalising the Party's undertakings and lines into policies and laws and successfully organising the implementation of those undertakings and lines. It must not exercise monopoly, overlap the State, and stand above the law.
Thirdly, the Party's ruling culture is deeply reflected in the relationship between the Party and the people. The Party is the leader, but the people are the masters. All activities of the Party are for the independence, freedom and happiness of the people. Therefore, it is required that the Party's ruling must “win the heart and mind of the people”. Only when the people completely believe and follow the Party, will the Party's revolutionary cause succeed, and the ruling culture of the Party's be well implemented. In order to do so, the Party must be typical in intellect and ethics, strong in political steadfastness, have correct leadership method, close to and respect the people, understand the people, and learn from the people. Party’s cadres and members must be mindful and capable, and take the interests of the people as their operational purposes.
Fourthly, the pioneering and exemplary role the party’s cadres and members in terms of politics, intellect, ethics, lifestyle is the most vivid and convincing expression of the Party's ruling culture. The cadres and party members are the bridge between the Party and the people; directly contact, lead and organise the masses to implement the Party's line, the State's policies and laws. Therefore, the Party's ruling culture is vividly manifested in each cadre and party member. The cadres and party members who are good, talented, enthusiastic will be standard, prestigious, and trusted by the people, and so on.
Thus, the Party's ruling culture is the embodiment of the beauty, demonstrating the value of the ruling Party, of leaders, cadres and party members in performing the leadership duties and responsibilities. In practice, although founders of communism and President Ho Chi Minh did not mention the concept of the Party's ruling culture, they did propose and always remind cadres and party members to cultivate and exercise good ethics, lifestyles, capabilities, methods and manners to deserve to be the leaders and servants of the people. In his Will to the entire Party, people and Military, President Ho Chi Minh wrote that: “Our Party is a ruling Party. Each party member and cadre must be truly imbued with revolutionary ethics, truly diligent, thrifty, honest, righteous, and public-minded. We must keep our Party pure, and worthy to be the leader and the faithful servant of the people”. Adhering to and creatively applying Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh's ideology, our Party always attaches great importance to building and improving the ruling culture, paying attention to the education and training of cadres and party members in all face to make them “both red and expert”, thereby, making the Party's ruling activities really humanistic and our Party truly “moral and civilized”, leading the Vietnamese revolution from victory to victory.
However, there are manifestations of degradation in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation”, weaknesses and incapability of a number of cadres and party members over the past time, which have eroded the ruling cultural values, weakened the Party's leadership and fighting power and undermined the people's confidence in the Party. This situation, if not promptly overcome, will threaten the legitimacy of the Party, the survival of the regime and the development of the country.
Currently, the cause of comprehensive national renewal, national construction and defence has both intertwined opportunities, advantages and difficulties, and challenges, posing high requirements for the Party to preserve and promote the fine cultural values of the nation, improve the ruling culture, well resolve relationships, create a driving force, promote the strength of the great national unity bloc, combined with the power of the times, in order to successfully implement the planned targets. Therefore, the Draft Political Report submitted to the 13th National Congress of the Party should add the following contents and solutions: “building and improving the Party's ruling culture” after the phrase: “Building and implementing cultural standards in leadership and management” in Paragraph 2, Section VII. Accordingly, the expression of this content as “Building and implementing cultural standards in leadership, management, especially building and enhancing the Party's ruling culture”, is necessary and an important solution in current situation.
In order to contribute to building and improving the ruling culture of the Party, each party organisation, cadre and party member need to thoroughly grasp and well implement the Party's resolutions and directives, especially on the Party building and rectification work. First of all, they should uphold self-cultivation and self-training in revolutionary moral qualities; actively study to improve capability to meet requirements and tasks. Party committees and organisations should continue to effectively implement Directive No. 05-CT/TW, dated May 15, 2016 of the Politburo (12th tenure) on promoting learning and following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and style associated with the implementation of Central Resolution 4 (12th tenure) on Party building and rectification with practical and specific deeds. At the same time, raising the spirit of self-criticism and self-correction; resolutely struggle to prevent, combat and overcome manifestations of degradation in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, and “self-transformation”. Each cadre and party member must build for themselves a diligent, thrifty, honest, righteous, simple and clean lifestyle; strive and sacrifice for the Party's ideals, the independence and freedom of the country, and the People's happiness. Actively study to improve the level of culture, science, technology, Marxist-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh's thought, law,... to better meet the requirements and tasks.
Continuing to renew content, form, and building specific regulations to improve the quality of self-criticism and criticism activities is the best measure to promote strengths, alleviate weaknesses, consolidate the solidarity and unity, and enhance the Party's ruling culture. Party committees, organisations, cadres and members should thoroughly grasp, well implement the regulations on setting example, especially the leaders, and observing the Party's guidelines and the policies and laws of the State. They should be really exemplary in political qualities, morals, lifestyles, capacities and styles for cadres, party members and the masses to follow.
Continue to innovate, improve the effectiveness of the mass mobilisation work, maintain and strengthen the close relationship between the Party and the People; promote the role of the People in building the Party and the political system. The contingent of cadres and party members must really respect the people, close with the people, understand the people, learn from the people, and be responsible to the people; closely follow the grassroots level, listen to the thoughts and promptly resolve the people's legitimate aspirations. Resolutely criticise and strictly punish the irresponsible party members, cadres and officials, bureaucracy and people harassment. Task performance, people's satisfaction and confidence should be taken as an important criterion to evaluate the quality of party organisations, cadres and members. To step up theoretical research, summarise practice, contributing to clarifying the Party's lines and views and new issues posed by practice; strictly maintain the Party regimes, rules and principles of organisation and activities; strengthen inspection and supervision, promptly detect and strictly handle violations of Party officials and members.
Building and enhancing the Party's ruling culture is the basis for building and developing Vietnamese culture and people to meet the country's sustainable development requirements. This is an urgent, long-term issue that needs to be strengthened and emphasised in the Draft Political Report submitted to the 13th Congress of the Party, as a basis for Party organisations, officials and party members to raise awareness, responsibility, effective implementation, contributing to building our Party really pure and strong in politics, ideology, ethics and organisation, so that people always believe, respect and follow.
Senior Colonel, PhD. NGUYEN VAN THANH
Department of the Party work and political work, National Defence Academy