The 30^th of April 1975 marked a milestone in the Vietnamese people’s history of fighting foreign invaders, victoriously ending our people’s prolonged, arduous, fierce, but extremely glorious resistance war against the US for national salvation. This is a great victory in the national liberation cause, symbolising progressive, peace-loving people’s desire for peace, independence, and freedom around the world, becoming a huge source of spiritual strength for our entire Party, Military, and people in general, the Party Organisation, armed forces, and people of Ho Chi Minh City in particular to firmly step on the path towards socialism and build an increasingly civilised, modern, affectionate City.

Chairman of Ho Chi Minh Municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Van Duoc addressing the scientific workshop “Ho Chi Minh City - achievements in 50 years of construction, protection, and development (photo: tienphong.vn)

After constant victories of our strategic offensives in the Central Highlands and Hue - Da Nang, the enemy’s 1^st and 2^nd Corps were eliminated; the puppet regime’s government system in Military Zones 1 and 2 were destroyed. We liberated a large area making up three quarters of the land and nearly half of the population of South Vietnam. As for the enemy, despite being demoralised, they still had a large number of troops and means of war; they concentrated their remaining strength and ultimate efforts on adjusting their defensive posture to control the remaining areas in the South Central Coast and the South, including Saigon - the nerve centre of the puppet regime in a bid to gain more time for seeking US aid and intervention.

A new course in the war was opened up; we were comprehensively superior to the enemy in military, political, and strategic terms; the opportunity to completely liberate the South ripened. As a result, our Party quickly exercised its leadership over the entire Military and people under the spirit of “one day equalling 20 years”, mobilising the entire nation’s strength into a strategic decisive battle, directly attacking the Saigon puppet regime’s final stronghold, annihilating the entire puppet army, smashing all puppet governments, ending the war. At its sessions on 30 March and 14 April 1975, the Politburo decided to launch a historic large-scale campaign named after Uncle Ho - Ho Chi Minh Campaign. This is a sound decision by our Party as it not only identified the correct nature and form of warfare at the end of our resistance war, but the name of the Campaign also served as a symbol for tapping the national great unity strength for a historic victory.   

In line with the revolutionary fervour in the South, the Party Organisation of Saigon - Gia Dinh City exercised its leadership over the robust, continuous development of urban political struggle movements, creating spillover effects; Saigon - Gia Dinh Military Region established Determined to Win Regiment (aka Gia Dinh Regiment 1); the urban armed forces were reinforced with ranger and commando groups as well as armed and semi-armed units of the City Youth Union and mass mobilisation movements. Grasping lines by the Politburo and directives by the Central Office for South Vietnam, Saigon - Gia Dinh Party Organisation promptly directed military, political, and enemy agitprop forces to make preparations for the strategic decisive battle and combine the armed forces’ offensive with the people’s uprising. When the time came, in tandem with our main army corps’ attacks from the outside, local armed forces, particularly ranger and commando groups in suburban and urban areas attacked their assigned targets; the people in many places conducted uprisings against the enemy; workers within factories rose up to protect facilities and materials from being destroyed or dispersed by the enemy. By the morning of 30 April, across the whole City, there had been 107 uprising points, with star flags flying all over the streets until the victory flag flew on the roof of the Independence Palace. The entire City shone with smiles. The people welcomed the Liberation Army, urging troops of the puppet regime to abandon their ranks and surrender themselves to our Liberation Army. At that time, no places could perform a miracle like Vietnam did: the enemy’s central city was liberated rapidly but remained almost completely intact.

In the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign, our Party creatively applied the rules of armed uprising and revolutionary war at the crucial moment to create synergy for defeating the enemy. That was a perfect combination of general offensive and uprising: “The masses entered the battle at the right moment, neither too early nor too late. This is the most precious merit of the people of Saigon - Gia Dinh as well as the result of propagation, education, organisation, and training work over many years of struggle by the City’s Party Organisation”. For the Party Organisation and people of Saigon - Gia Dinh, the Great 1975 Spring Victory was the process of developing people’s war posture and “people’s hearts and minds posture”; it was the crystallisation of the invincible strength of the people who sacrificed their lives for national independence, with their iron will and aspirations for peace and national unification.

Many lessons were drawn from the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign, and they remain valuable in the present-day building, development, and protection of Ho Chi Minh City. It is the lesson on enhancing the Party’s leadership capacity and combativeness, ensuring unity and uniformity within the Party, building a pure, strong Party in terms of politics, ideology, and organisation. It is the lesson on building a corps of cadres and party members, who truly play a vanguard role, dedicate themselves to the people, remain ready to fight and sacrifice their lives. It is the lesson on building, expanding, and developing an increasingly firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds”, promoting the people’s invincible strength. It is the lesson on proactively building, reinforcing, disposing, and using forces in line with the building of revolutionary bases from small to large, from separate to inter-connected and complete.

Landmark 81 tower as the symbol of a modern, smart Ho Chi Minh City (photo: hcmcpv.org.vn)

Despite numerous hardships, 50 years after the Great 1975 Spring Victory, Ho Chi Minh City has emerged as a major hub in economy, culture, education and training, science and technology; it is the locomotive of the Southern key economic region and the entire country with its great attraction and effects; it is among few cities in the world that have maintained constant double-digit economic growth in a long period of time. However, during Covid-19 pandemic, the City suffered significant losses; it was the first time in its history of formation and development, the City experienced a negative growth rate of 6.78% in 2021. At those most challenging moments, the City always maintained and promoted its core values, namely unity, dynamism, creativity, and military - civilian affection. When the pandemic was gradually under control, the City’s economy recorded an impressive recovery in 2022 with a growth rate of 9.03%, far exceeding the pre-set target (6% - 6.5%); its budget revenue reached 122% of its estimate, contributing 26.5% of the country’s total budget revenue; it proactively unlocked resources and created motivations for its recovery. Special mechanisms and policies issued by our Party and State are not seen as a favour for the City; in fact, those mechanisms and policies are appropriate to the City’s realities, enabling the City to tap resources and bring into play its creativity, role, and potential, endowing it with responsibility for the whole country.

In 2024, amid difficulties and challenges, thanks to the resolve of its political system, forces, organisations, people, and businesses, the City gained very important results in various areas. It continued to maintain its economic growth drivers, sustaining and developing its central fields and sectors, adopting strategic breakthrough measures to attract investments in socio-economic infrastructure. Its main goals and tasks were basically accomplished; notably, its state budget was over 500 trillion VND for the first time. Its key and breakthrough development programs were accelerated. It designed and completed many national-level major programs, plans, and projects, such as Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien Metro Line, Ring Road 2, Ring Road 3, and Ho Chi Minh City international financial centre. Urban planning, management, development, and improvement, smart city building, green transformation, and digital transformation were increasingly synchronised and modernised, with many positive changes. The City obtained initial significant achievements in designing and executing the Project on smart city building, setting up a Common Database, developing an open data ecosystem, establishing a socio-economic simulation and forecast centre. Reforms in the public service system brought about positive changes to contribute to building a professional, modern, open, transparent, efficient public administration for better serving the people. Moreover, the City concentrated on comprehensively developing education and training, raising the quality of teaching and learning, bringing its education closer to regional and international standards, and improving its preventive medicine, grass-roots health care, specialised medicine, and hi-tech medicine systems in response to epidemics.

Many movements and models of mutual support across the City have been executed, spread, and become the whole country’s common policies and movements. The City has initiated and well implemented hunger eradication and poverty reduction program (it is now the program for reduction of poor households and increase of rich households). Besides, the movements to build charity houses for the poor and take care of the elderly, persons with meritorious services to the revolution, war invalids, and offspring of martyrs have been also considered highlights of an “affectionate” City. The City has paid due attention to effectively executing programs on accommodating low-income people and providing assistance for policy families and Vietnamese Heroic Mothers. “Together with the whole country, for the whole country”, the City has taken the lead in the movements and campaigns, namely “green summer”, “for beloved Truong Sa”, “contributing stones to construct Truong Sa”, “fishing nets of affection”, and “supporting beloved Truong Sa”. Promoting its cultural and traditional traits, on a yearly basis, delegations from the City have visited and given presents to border people, localities affected by natural disasters as well border guard stations and military units in charge of border, sea, island protection, thereby creating a beautiful image of an “affectionate” City.

The work of Party and political system building and rectification has been comprehensively enhanced. The City has continued to step up the innovation and arrangement of Party organisations in conjunction with the overall model of its political system. Due regard has been paid to building a pool of cadres, particularly strategic, key cadres at all levels on a par with their task requirements and executing Directive 35-CT/TW of the Politburo on all-level party congresses towards the 14^th National Party Congress. The City has well conducted personnel planning and organised refresher courses for cadres eligible for all-level new-tenure party committees and party committee standing boards. It has implemented the Politburo’s Conclusion 14-KL/TW and the Government’s Decree 73/2023/NĐ-CP on encouraging and protecting dynamic, creative cadres who dare to think, dare to do, and dare to take responsibility for the common good. Besides, the organisational structure of the political system at all levels has continued to be streamlined to meet the increasingly high task requirements; the City has accelerated administrative reforms, tightening discipline, improving the efficiency of public service. The political system’s mass mobilisation work has been effectively carried out; the City has directed sectors and localities to rally social strata, promote democracy, raise social consensus, and cement national great unity. It has taken various measures to improve inspection and supervision work, strictly executing anti-corruption regulations by the Party Central Committee and the Municipal Party Committee, resolutely handling serious, complex cases and incidents of public concern, opportunely exercising its direction over long-standing issues and violations, thereby earning public support.

Bringing into play the values of the 30 April Victory represents a sacred, noble mission; it is also a responsibility of present-day and future generations. With their revolutionary tradition, unity, dynamism, and creativity, the Party, Authority, armed forces, and people of Ho Chi Minh City will continue to devote efforts to surmounting all difficulties and challenges, building a strong, developed, smart, civilised, modern, affectionate City joining hands “with the whole country and for the whole country”, making contributions to ushering the country into the era of the nation’s rise with an increasingly prosperous and happy life for every citizen.

NGUYEN VAN DUOC

Member of the Party Central Committee

Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee

Chairman of the Municipal People’s Committee