III. Making the Communist Party of Vietnam deserve the title of “Our Party” forever

Given our wholehearted confidence and pride in the Party, it is necessary to affirm that this is the goal and political determination of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) – the vanguard of Vietnamese labourers and people. For 88 years’ leadership, the CPV has successfully completed its historic missions in the course of national liberation, moving our country along the road of socialism and firmly safeguarding the socialist Fatherland, contributing to the struggle for national liberation and preserving a peaceful, stable environment conducive to cooperation and development in the region and the world.

On assessing the CPV, President Ho Chi Minh argued that “with all the modest spirit of a revolutionary, we still have right to say that our Party is really great!”. The affirmation of our Party’s considerable stature and service to Vietnamese revolution represents the most convincing rejection over the hostile forces’ allegations about the Party. However, in present complex situations in the world, apart from huge opportunities, we are facing numerous difficulties and challenges. To enable the CPV to continue to successfully perform its historic lofty mission of fostering “rich people, a strong nation, democracy, equality, and civilization” in the socialist direction in Vietnam, it is important to execute the following key measures.

First, continuing to strengthen Party building in an innovative, robust, intrinsic, and effective manner. Party building, which focuses on implementing resolutions of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (Tenures XI and XII) on Party building, has been carried out robustly and seriously, and recorded significant achievements, contributing to preventing and pushing back negative manifestation, degradation in political ideology, morality and lifestyle, and “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party in recent years. Nevertheless, there remain several limitations and weaknesses during implementation. Some aspects fail to achieve the goals set forth by the resolutions. Consequently, it is necessary to attach importance to building the Party politically, ideologically, organizationally, and morally, with a focus on maintenance of the Party’s ideological foundation, national independence and socialism, and reform policy and matters of principle regarding Party building, thereby ceaselessly improving political steadfastness, intellectual standard and militant spirit of party organizations, cadres and party members. Attention should be paid to renewing the Party’s method of leadership over the State, Vietnam Fatherland Front and people’s unions to ensure its consistency to reality; and reforming ideological and theoretical work in terms of content and ways for implementation with a view to better meeting the requirement of political missions and generating consensus within the Party and society. It is important to enhance the effectiveness of propagandizing and training cadres and party members in politics, ideology, morality, and lifestyle; and regularly train and update leading cadres at various levels, especially at the strategic level, on new knowledge.

Second, concentrating on cultivating a corps of cadres who possess fine dignity, competence and prestige on a par with their assigned tasks. Cadre work is a matter of special importance, which is the key to success or failure of the revolution. On thoroughly perceiving that significance, our Party has regularly paid attention to well leading, directing and realizing cadre work with the aim of cultivating a corps of cadres who possess political steadfastness, fine dignity and practical competence on a par with requirement of missions in each revolutionary period. However, the implementation process still witnesses some weaknesses. Some cadres, including those at strategic level, have had low prestige and competence; lacked interaction with people; and even drifted into acts of corruption, wastefulness and group interest, doing serious harm to the Party’s prestige and reputation. Consequently, it is important to deeply grasp the Party’s stance and guiding ideology on cadre work, particularly Resolution of the 7^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (Tenure XII). Cadre work of the Party closely relates to many issues and fields, and has diversified, complex connotation and methods, thus requiring a general, dialectical view to align cadre work with other tasks. During implementation, it is necessary to exercise carefulness; strictly comply with principles; correctly follow road maps, procedures and steps; and identify, train, plan, assess, realign, and promote cadres. All steps and phases have to be fully taken, but top priorities must be given to new breakthroughs. Each phase in the process closely relates to and interacts with each other. Therefore, we are absolutely not allowed to underestimate any phases to ensure correct promotion of cadres.

Third, closely aligning the implementation of Resolution of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (Tenure XII) with the implementation of Directive 05-CT/TW of the Politburo (Tenure XII) on “Stepping up learning and following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and lifestyle.” In recent times, the implementation of Resolution of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee and Directive 05 has gained rather good results and produced positive changes in the political system, party organizations, cadres, and party members. Given the high resolve of the whole Party and the drastic direction of the Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption and relevant agencies, particularly at central level, many scandals relating to corruption, wrongdoing and group interest have been exposed and dealt with in accordance with law and the Party’s regulations. This serves to warn and prevent degradation in political ideology, morality and lifestyle of cadres and party members, making contribution to generating consensus in the society and consolidating people’s belief in the Party. However, strictly speaking, some results did not live up to expectations. The association between the implementation of Resolution of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee and Directive 05 was not really close and even. Consequently, proper attention should be paid to this task through new, drastic, intrinsic methods with a view to creating positive effects in Party building and training of each cadre and party member. Units and individuals’ results from implementing Resolution of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee and Directive 05 should be part of periodical meetings, preliminary and final summings-up of party organizations, and will be one of the criteria for assessing cadres’ task fulfillment, promotion and appointment. Self-criticism and criticism must be conducted in a serious, straightforward, responsible manner. Units and party organizations must thoroughly overcome formalism, superficiality and manifestations of indulgence, evasion, and compromise. As for party organizations which have weaknesses and shortcomings or signs of discord and internal strife; are in violation of Party’s principles and regulations, etc., party executive committees from higher levels must send their envoys to attend and give direct instructions. To effectively realize Directive 05, it is important to escalate propaganda and education though various forms, particularly on social media, to make Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and life style deeply imbued in the hearts and minds of each Vietnamese person and truly become the ideological, political, cultural, spiritual, and moral base of the whole Party and people.

Fourth, proactively countering the hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” in association with preventing and combating “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party. The current struggle is taking place in a fierce, complex manner. The hostile forces associate external forces with internal reactionary forces; thoroughly exploit the negative side of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and our country’s policy on international integration to do deliberate damage to every aspect of our social life through sophisticated, malicious tricks. Their key constant goal is to abolish the leading role of the CPV and socialist regime in our country. First of all, they concentrate on undermining Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’ thought – the ideological base of our Party and people. Therefore, more than ever, the whole Party, people and military have to exercise vigilance and proactively detect and defeat every plot and act of sabotage of the hostile forces. It is necessary to acknowledge that this is a life-or-death struggle between us and adversaries, thus requiring high resolve, decisive but precautious attitudes, and comprehensive, synchronous solutions. At the same time, it is important to be well aware of situations, plots, tricks, and acts of sabotage to proactively deal with all situations and resolutely avoid passiveness and surprise, especially at strategic level. Also, it is necessary to attach importance to preventing and countering “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party. The Resolution of the 4^th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (Tenure XII) has straightforwardly pointed out 27 manifestations of “self-evolution,” “self-transformation” and degradation in political ideology, morality and lifestyle of many cadres and party members. This is a matter of great concern, which cannot be ignored, because it has taken place quietly in the apparatus of the Party and State and is difficult to address. More alarmingly, the hostile forces have thoroughly exploited our Party’s campaign against corruption, wrongdoing and degradation within the corps of cadres and party members to incite “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within our Party. Therefore, it is necessary to attach importance to protection of internal politics; resolutely and patiently prevent and counter “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party by means of synchronous solutions; and associate this mission with the struggle to defeat the hostile forces’ “Peaceful Evolution Strategy” under the motto of combining “building” with “countering” and taking “building” as the main priority with the aim of laying the foundation for “countering” while considering “countering” as an important task, which will create favourable conditions for more robust “building.”

Fifth, establishing strong “people’s heart and mind posture” to restore people’s confidence in the Party, State and socialist regime. On clearly realizing people’s extremely important role, our Party has paid constant attention to leading the State to issue many mechanisms and policies suitable to the situations with a view to ceaselessly improving people’s material and spiritual life. Particularly, social welfare beneficiaries, people who have rendered meritorious service to the country, and people who belong to ethnic minorities, follow religions, and live in remote, border areas and on islands have been entitled to specific policies on economic development, social insurance, health care, education, etc., contributing to reducing difficulty in their life, ensuring social progress and equality, strengthening the great solidarity, and consolidating the “people’s hearts and minds posture.” In today’s renewal process, on the basis of institutionalizing the Party’s standpoints, policies and guidelines on harmoniously combining economic development with social progress, democracy and equality, it is necessary to continue to innovate and perfect mechanisms and policies to ceaselessly improve people’s standard of living, bring into play and promote democracy at all levels and in all fields, establish mechanisms and regulations to facilitate people’s participation in activities of the Party, State, Fatherland Front, sociopolitical unions, and so forth. This represents the inheritance and creative application of the standpoint on building people’s capabilities in association with bringing into play people’s strength and respecting people’s role to build and safeguard the country.

Synchronous implementation of the aforementioned measures is a vital premise for ensuring that the CPV continues to bring into play its leading role, fulfills its historic mission in the new era of the revolution, and deserves the title of “our Party” forever in the people’s hearts.

Nguyen Ha Anh