Building an advanced Vietnamese culture that is rich in national identity to truly become an endogenous strength and driving force for national development is the consistent viewpoint of our Party and State. For the Army, that culture has been crystallised into the noble values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and is constantly being spread through actions and deeds for the Fatherland and for the people of the Army’s cadres and soldiers throughout the process of building, fighting, and development.

The qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”, also representing the moral qualities of communist and revolutionary soldiers, are summarised in the Resolution of the 11^th Military Party Congress as “Steadiness and steadfastness, pure motives, high responsibility, good actions; clean, healthy morality and lifestyle, being truly thrifty, honest, public-minded, and impartial; having scientific knowledge, military qualifications, capacity, methods, working style and good health; democracy, self-discipline, and strictness; solidarity, respect, having blood-and-flesh ties with the People, and a pure international spirit”. Those are also the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” that, under the Party’s leadership, have been promoted and spread to wholeheartedly serve the Fatherland, serve the people, and fulfil the function of a working army. This is clearly shown in the way that, in any conditions and circumstances, the entire Army carries out mass mobilisation work well, actively propagates and mobilises the people to implement the Party’s guidelines and policies and State law. It also actively participates in building and consolidating strong local political bases, eradicating hunger, reducing poverty,... to deepen the blood-and-flesh ties between the Army and the people, contributing to strengthening the People’s trust in the Party, State, and socialist regime.

In fact, the movements such as “The Army joins hands to build new rural areas” or “The Army joins hands for the poor - Not leaving anyone behind”; the programmes “The Coast Guard accompanies fishermen”, “The Vietnamese Navy serves as a fulcrum for fishermen to reach out to sea”, “Support children’s schooling”, “Breed cows help poor people at the border”, “Adopted children at border guard stations”,... have been implemented in accordance with practice in each agency and unit, bringing high efficiency in mass mobilisation work. From 2020 to 2022, the Army conducted training and combat readiness, while actively and proactively taking the lead in preventing and fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, natural disaster prevention and control, and search and rescue, leaving a deep impression in the hearts of the people. In particular, in 2022, the Army mobilised 119,503 cadres and soldiers and 5,634 vehicles to effectively participate in 1,105 rescues, saving 1,107 people and 231 vehicles; put out fires of 629 houses and 310.43 hectares of forest; relocated 32,142 households to a safe place to avoid storms and floods; repaired 3,559 houses and 198 km of roads; harvested 23,540 hectares of rice and crops, etc.

The above results continue to affirm the tradition of “Loyalty to the Party, filial piety to the people, every task completed, every difficulty overcome, and every enemy defeated” of the Vietnam People’s Army. The image of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” always being present promptly in difficult and arduous places, working side by side to help the people in responding to and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters and epidemics has left a good impression in the people’s hearts, contributing to spreading the cultural value of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in social life. As affirmed by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong: “The Army is always the core force, taking the lead in preventing and combating natural disasters, epidemics, search and rescue, and overcoming environmental incidents to increasingly deepen and shine the qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new situation,... cadres and soldiers of the entire Army have truly become a solid and reliable support for the Party, State, and people, worthy of being the Army  of the People and in the hearts of the People”.

Troops promote reading habit in their rest time (Photo credit: qdnd.vn)

Recently in our country, besides the emergence of new cultural values, countercultural phenomena are increasing, eroding and even breaking some sacred standards established for thousands of years in Vietnamese national culture. In particular, the downside of the market economy has negatively affected ethics, culture, and society, causing division between rich and poor and unfair competition, increasing crime, social evils, etc. Some people who emphasise the material factors have formed and developed a pragmatic lifestyle, ignoring values, moral standards, human personality, and social culture, to get rich and make money by any means, including appropriation of State property. All of them belong to countercultural perceptions and behaviours that have been existing in our country’s social life, requiring struggle to overcome and eliminate in the process of building a new cultural life and new socialist people under the current leadership of the Party.

To fight and eliminate current countercultural behaviours, in addition to deterrent administrative and legal measures, it is necessary to spread good things and multiply simple and pure examples, good people, and good deeds throughout society so that “each good person and good deed is a beautiful flower, and our whole nation is a forest of beautiful flowers” as advised by President Ho Chi Minh. Promoting and constantly spreading the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in social life is to implement the motto of “taking the beauty suppress the beast”, contributing to a clean and healthy socio-cultural environment in our country today. Accordingly, it is necessary to focus on some of the following main contents and solutions:

Strengthening propaganda and education to preserve and promote the traditional values of the Vietnamese People’s Army. Those are the traditions of determination to fight, determination to win, cunning, brave, resilient, indomitable, “Loyalty to the Party, filial piety to the people, ready to fight and sacrifice for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland, for the socialism; every task completed, every difficulty overcome, and every enemy defeated. Accordingly, in the current conditions, agencies and units need to promote and spread the spirit of steadfastness with the Party’s ideal goals, for the happiness of the people; dare to face difficulties and challenges and find every way to overcome them; dare to go anywhere and do anything when the Fatherland needs it; always struggle with the mindset of holding back, avoiding, waiting, relying on, not trying to strive for improvement, etc; and maintain and continue to promote the tradition of solidarity and blood-and-flesh tie between the Army and the people, excellently completing the tasks and functions of the “working army” in all conditions and circumstances. In implementation, leaders and commanders at all levels need to attach importance to propaganda and mobilisation of cadres and soldiers to actively participate in economic and social development, building of a new cultural and rural life, and sustainable poverty reduction, especially in ethnic minority, mountainous, border and island areas, contributing to building a strong local political base and continue to innovate methods, improve the effectiveness of the “Smart mass mobilisation” emulation movement and special propaganda work to consolidate and strengthen the close relationship between the Army and the people and between the people and the Party.

Promoting the pioneering and exemplary role of cadres and party members, especially presiding cadres at all levels, and the shocking role of Youth Union members and youth when organising forces to perform front-line tasks. Presiding cadres at all levels need to have a drastic spirit in leading, directing, and organising soldiers to participate in preventing and controlling natural disasters and epidemics and helping people and highly focus spirit and intelligence to find flexible, creative and effective methods and ways of conducting. The cadres and party members must enthusiastically volunteer to take on difficult tasks, go to complex places, and potentially dangerous positions to set an example, bring summoning power, and encourage the soldiers’ spirit in carrying out their duties of the “working army”. In addition, party committees and unit commanders need to take measures to mobilise the youth, dynamism, creativity, and impulsivity of Army youth. It is necessary to identify this as the core force in essential positions and times to regularly educate, encourage, and promote the sense of responsibility and willingness to sacrifice for the people of the Youth Union members and youth. It is also required to strengthen training and practice and regularly orient, correct, and advise so that he Youth Union members and youth can complete all tasks in participating in preventing and controlling natural disasters and epidemics, especially when operating independently or under the management and administration of local party committees and authorities.

Innovating thinking and actions in the leadership and direction of party committees and cadres at all levels to organise the implementation of the Drive on promoting traditions, dedicating talents, and being worthy of the title “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new period. The focus of the Drive should be placed on maintaining and promoting the noble qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” with new content consistent with the development of practice. At the same time, it is also necessary to focus on attracting talents and fostering high-quality human resources to meet the requirements of the Army’s modernisation process in the coming years, especially those directly serve the fields of modernity advancement, such as cyber warfare, electronic warfare, air force, navy, defence industry, communications, etc.

Continuing to implement activities to build a cultural environment in the Vietnam People’s Army, build landscapes and environments that are increasingly “bright, green, clean, and beautiful”, and improve the material and spiritual life of the soldiers. In particular, importance should be attached to building increasingly good and standard cultural relationships, becoming models in social life, such as relationships between superiors - subordinates, comrades - teammates; solidarity and blood-and-flesh and between the Army and people and maintaining solidarity, friendship, understanding, and trust with the armies and people of neighbouring countries of units stationed in border areas, etc. Along with that, regular attention should be paid to training and fostering to build a team of artists and intellectuals in the Army that is increasingly large in quantity and strong in quality. There should be a strong mechanism to motivate and encourage them to maximise their creative capacity and enthusiasm in researching and clarifying theoretical and practical issues in building and developing Vietnam’s military culture in the new situation. This is also the core force in composing, performing, and promoting high-quality literary and artistic works, fully reflecting the lives of cadres and soldiers of the armed forces and the work of building and protecting the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland today, contributing to spreading noble values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in social life.

With specific, practical, and effective actions and jobs, cadres and soldiers of the entire army continue to promote and spread the noble cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” to contribute to repelling and eliminating uncultural and anti-cultural perceptions and behaviours to build a new society and socialist people.

Dr. NGUYEN MINH CUONG, Political College, Ministry of National Defence