As a unit conducting Party work and political work through art and cultural activities, the Military Theatre always actively reforms art creation and performance to serve soldiers and people, contributing to fostering and raising value of the true, the good, and the beautiful of the new socialist man and qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in each cadre and soldier.

Over the course of 70 years’ building and development, the Military Theatre has always attached to soldiers, people, theatres of war, and major political events of the country; delved into the topics of armed forces, revolutionary war, and soldiers to compose and deliver art programs reflecting truly and vividly combat life, working life, national construction and defence of the people’s armed forces and the entire nation. Generations of cadres, artists, actors and actresses, employees, and soldiers of the Theatre have tried their best and devoted themselves ceaselessly to art and cultural cause of the Party and nation. It is always a prominent art unit of the military and adored by comrades and compatriots of the nation as well as international friends. The State has praised and awarded the Military Theatre the title of Hero of People’s Armed Forces on 8 November 2000 and many other noble rewards in recognition of its achievements.

Performance at the Spratly Islands

Today, hostile forces are stepping up sabotage in the ideological, cultural field, which requires every artist, actor and actress, and employee of the Military Theatre to possess political steadfastness, increase awareness and responsibility, continue to embrace innovation and creativeness in art production. They are to actively collect, preserve, and bring into play art and cultural value in order to serve soldiers and people and propagandise the Party’s guidelines and State’s law, thereby contributing to struggling against harmful ideological, cultural trends, building a healthy cultural environment, fostering pure soul and fine dignity of revolutionary military personnel, further enriching noble qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers,” and making the military politically strong.

To successfully complete the above-mentioned missions and goals requires the Theatre Party Committee and Board of Directors to continue to deeply grasp the revolutionary mission, standpoints, and viewpoints of the Party on culture, arts and letters, political task of the military, the Party work and political work of the General Political Department and successfully guide politics and ideology in art activities. The comprehension and correct application of the Party’s guidelines, military missions, and its functions and missions in each period are solid foundations for ensuring that art activities always stick to the Party’s standpoints and the Theatre is capable of bringing into play fine traditional cultural value of the nation. Accordingly, the Theatre Party Committee and Board of Directors focus on grasping and strictly carry out resolutions, plans, and instructions of higher echelons, especially Resolution of the 9^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (11^th tenure) on “Building and developing Vietnamese culture and people to meet requirement of sustainable development of the country” and the Campaign for composing and popularising art and cultural works on the theme of “Studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality, and style” in the military. This serves as guidance for art creation, arrangement, and performance of the Theatre in the new era. Additionally, the Theatre Party Committee and Board of Directors need to promote education to improve cadres’, soldiers’, actors’ and actresses’ awareness of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s Thought, and the Party’s guideline on developing culture and art in the new era, thereby tapping the role, responsibility, art creation and performance of military artists, successfully satisfying cultural needs of soldiers and people.

It is necessary to stick to realities and units and delved into the topics of armed forces and revolutionary war, contributing to encouraging soldiers and people to accomplish revolutionary missions. These are endless sources of art creation to produce eternal works, which has been proved in 70 years’ operation of the Military Theatre. Realties are fascinating materials that enable art programs to reflect cadres’, soldiers’, and people’s combat life, working life, national construction and defence more and more truly, vividly, and copiously in the military, national, and modern direction, thus contributing to building and developing an advanced Vietnamese culture enriched with national identities and actively encouraging soldiers and people to successfully accomplish revolutionary missions. To ceaselessly enhance quality of serving soldiers and people, the Theatre Party Committee and Board of Directors request their units to perceive the roles and fulfil functions and missions of the Theatre; follow closely political missions of the military and operations of the armed forces; take initiative in designing art programs with profound ideological content and high quality of art capable of firmly maintaining political direction and pervading fine cultural value of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and the nation. During the implementation process, the Theatre has successfully combined the mission to serve soldiers and people with collecting ideas from the daily life to design and produce art programs with a focus on units being deployed in remote areas, on the border, islands, and in strategic areas. During the period of preventing and responding to Covid-19 pandemic and practising social distancing, the Theatre timely adjusted its plans and proactively collaborated with Viet Nam Television, local television stations, and media companies to produce and broadcast programs to serve soldiers and people, ensuring good quality and effectiveness. Performance activities are strictly managed and carried out according to regulations of the State and military, especially the diplomatic shows and those conducted in foreign countries. The Theatre has well leveraged the roles of specialised departments and councils, composers, and choreographers both inside and outside the unit to have new works of high quality and develop many large-scale programs at military-wide and nation-wide levels. It has participated in many art festivals of the military and country to celebrate major events of the Party, country, and military and won good prizes. These activities serve to improve performance quality and contribute to propagandising and introducing fine qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” as well as national cultural value to people and international friends.

Being imbued with President Ho Chi Minh’s teaching which reads: “cadres are the root of work,” the Theatre Party Committee focuses on leading the development of a corps of cadres with proper quantity and structure and high quality, capable of meeting mission requirements in the new situation. Given its pivotal role in success of the Theatre, the Theatre Party Committee does timely planning; reviews and supplements the cadre plan annually to ensure its compatibility with reality of missions; and aligns cadre evaluation with planning, training, rotating, and appointing cadres. In addition, it encourages cadres to undertake self-study to improve their comprehensive, specialised capabilities, most notably foreign languages and information technology; attaches importance to cultivating cadres’ knowledge through working practice; and proactively proposes the discovery, cultivation, and preparation of the source of leading cadres, ensuring stability and continuity. Both the Theatre Party Committee and party cells adopt synchronous measures to develop the corps of cadres, especially leading cadres in departments, divisions, and affiliated units, who possess political steadfastness, good ethics, good sense of discipline, and comprehensive knowledge and capabilities. Attention is paid to developing cadres’ scientific, democratic, meticulous, concrete working style and giving prominence to proactiveness, creativeness, and enterprise for common benefits. Every year, the Theatre takes confidence votes of leading cadres and members of party committee’s standing boards at all levels with the aim to supplement, adjust, and generate sources of cadres. The Theatre has developed a corps of cadres with a proper quantity and structure so far, ensuring a smooth transition from one generation to another and fulfillment of mission requirements.

In the face of negative impacts of the market economy, to complete political missions, have a source of highly qualified cadres, and enable artists, actors, and actresses to keep their minds on their work require the Theatre Party Committee and Board of Directors to attach importance to leading ideological work among cadres, soldiers, artists, and employees. Quality and effectiveness of political education and law popularisation must be improved in order to foster cadres’ political steadfastness and readiness for undertaking and successfully completing any tasks. There needs to take initiative in managing, predicting ideological situation and carrying out ideological work to achieve consensus about awareness and action; bring into full play the potential and creativeness of collectives and individuals in realisation of missions; step up the campaign of Promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era in connection with implementing Directive No. 05 of the Politburo (12^th tenure); uphold and leverage fine qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”; timely honour and multiply prominent examples to bring about positive effects in the unit. It is also necessary to comply with regulation on grassroots level democracy, promote dialogues at all levels, speed up gratitude work, visit and encourage social welfare beneficiaries while leading economic operations in accordance with law and regulations, contributing to generating income to improve the standard of living of cadres, actors and actresses, employees, and soldiers.

On tapping the tradition of a heroic unit and as the vanguard on the art and cultural front of the Party and military, cadres, artists, actors and actresses, and employees of the Military Theatre continue to bring into play their spirit of art creation, proactively work with departments and units to promote quality of art and modes of performance, contributing to improving cultural, spiritual life in grassroots units and building the military in politics.

Senior Colonel Nguyen Thi Bich Hanh, Director of the Theatre