Establishment of a cultural environment in the military is both momentum and target for improving dignity of revolutionary military personnel, which contributes to units’ successful accomplishment of political missions. On realising the importance of this task, over the years, the Party Committee and commanders of the 575th Signal Brigade have deeply grasped directives and instructions of higher echelons, especially the Directive No. 143/CT, dated 12 May 1992 of the General Political Department (GPD) on carrying out the Campaign of “Building a rich, healthy, good cultural environment in the military” (hereinafter referred to as Campaign) and focused on leading and directing implementation by many effective, synchronous solutions suitable to its characteristics and mission requirements.

First of all, the Brigade Party Committee and commanders make every effort to set up a unified leadership mechanism at all levels, ensuring close collaboration among branches as well as between departments and units in order to bring into play overall strength of all forces. On closely following four targets and five standards set by the Campaign in association with realising the movement: “The entire people unite to establish a cultural life,” the Brigade proactively develops suitable, synchronous, unified implementation plans to tap into the role of organisations and individuals. Development of cultural people is key to setting up a cultural environment in the military. Thus, the Brigade Party Committee and commanders pay constant attention to the cultivation of military personnel according to standards of the socialist new person, especially in terms of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, comradeship, civil-military relations, and compliance with military discipline and State law. Accordingly, departments and units are requested to formulate specialised resolutions on leading implementation of the Campaign and concretising these resolutions by means of specific measures for each period of time. Each individual is requested to register to adopt a civilised lifestyle in interaction and behaviour between comrades with the aim to establish a fine cultural environment in the entire Brigade.

Troops of the brigade respond to the Vietnam Book Day

To give the Campaign the depth and scope to affect every activity, the Brigade attaches importance to associating implementation of the Campaign with other movements such as “Determination to Win,” “The Military Logistics Follows Uncle Ho’s Teaching,” “Economical, Safe, Durable, Good Management and Use of Weapons and Technical Equipment and Traffic Safety,” “Promoting Tradition, Devoting Talent, Deserving to be Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era, etc., in which the study and imitation of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality, and style are the consistent, core issue. The content is focused on building and training according to standards of new Vietnamese people, who have fine dignity, good ethics, and clear minds; are of high intelligence, ability, and creativity; are physically strong; have duties and a strong responsibility towards society; strictly abide by law; are capable of successfully bringing into play the role of creative subjects in the construction and protection of the Fatherland. At the same time, the Brigade pays attention to cultivation of good relations between cadres and soldiers as well as between the higher echelon and lower echelon, transparency and democracy, internal solidarity, and civil-military unity, thereby making cadres and soldiers regard their units as their homes, comrades as their brothers, and developing a close linkage with people. Many creative models and ways, which have been applied and brought about practical outcomes, include “One Uncle Ho’s teaching per day” on the “Wave” website, the Brigade’s fan page namely “Hai Van Information,” “Son Tra Station studies and follows Uncle Ho,” telling stories about Ho Chi Minh’s moral example during meetings, etc., thereby educating and guiding soldiers’ enjoyment of cultural values, especially the interesting, unique features of military culture and the Brigade’s traditions. This will serve to encourage soldiers to have a voice in protecting right things and criticising the wrong ones in their units; enable soldiers to have a correct understanding and pay regular attention to training of individual ethics and compliance with State law as well as military discipline.

As a result of its unique characteristics with many sub-units performing independent tasks and being deployed at scattered locations, the Brigade must regularly conduct ideological, political education; cultivate soldiers’ sense of responsibility; and train soldiers to comply with discipline in every activity. Apart from enhancing quality of political education, the Brigade attaches importance to implementing regulations in a regular, strict manner, especially the regulations on reading newspapers, watching television, reporting on weekly politics and news; diversifying ways of education, particularly individual education, themed education in connection with other supplementary activities. It also regularly carries out the spiritual, cultural, political day and democratic dialogue at all levels to create a positive, democratic atmosphere, thereby detecting and timely addressing emerging ideological problems, making cadres and soldiers keep their minds on the jobs, develop a sense of responsibility and resolution to successfully complete their assigned tasks. Given the spirit of turning on signal devices means putting themselves in combat positions, cadres and soldiers of the Brigade always accomplish their key political task of ensuring timely, accurate, reliable, smooth communication, thus having been praised and won many awards of the Ministry of National Defence and Military Region for several years. Propagation and popularisation of legal knowledge is one of the most important tasks, which is constantly led and directed by the Brigade Party Committee and commanders. Departments and units have successfully leveraged operation of “The group of legal, psychological counselors for military personnel”; enhanced quality of “Legal Day,” “One clause a week,” etc., taken initiative in collaborating with the Military Region Procuracy to disseminate and educate cadres and soldiers about legal knowledge. Therefore, higher echelon’s documents, directives, and regulations are regularly popularising among all military personnel in the unit, contributing to raising cadres’ and soldiers’ awareness and sense of compliance with law and discipline.

Besides education, the Brigade attaches importance to promoting good order; building of beautiful, clean, green units in association with establishing a rich, healthy, good, spiritual, cultural life. On grasping and realising the Directive No. 917/1999/CT-BQP, dated 22 June 1999 of the Minister of National Defence on building comprehensively strong units and the Directive No. 05/CT-BQP, dated 6 March 2012 of the Minister of National Defence on further promoting the emulation movement of “Building and managing beautiful, clean, green, regular barracks,” the Brigade proactively and creatively mobilises comprehensive resources to set up a “beautiful, clean, green, bright, regular environment” and improve soldiers’ spiritual, material life. Attention is also paid to unified implementation of promoting good order; reforming military administrative work; establishing an effective, scientific working style; organising living and working spaces according to a unified plan. Thanks to cadres’ and soldiers’ self-reliance and resilience as well as leverage of collective effort and intelligence, the Brigade’s barracks have been newly built and renovated to become more spacious, cleaner, more beautiful, and more suitable to the overall plan. The system of signs, boards, bulletin boards, panels, house of traditions, precincts, youth’s flower gardens, training grounds, etc., is renovated to ensure unity, regularity, greenness, cleanliness, and prettiness. Constant attention is paid to environmental sanitation within the barracks, especially the living and working spaces, messes, kitchens, and common rooms, which helps to prevent environmental pollution and diseases.

Additionally, the Brigades regularly cares for building rich, healthy, spiritual, cultural life; formulating a framework of criteria, rules, and regulations for soldiers’ approach and enjoyment of cultural institutions in units. The system of company- and battalion-level cultural places and Ho Chi Minh rooms is strengthened and operated effectively. Departments and units collaborate with their twinned units to regularly organise movements for culture, letters and arts, physical exercise, and sport by means of various forms to create an effervescent atmosphere on days of rest, hours of rest, holidays, and new years. Departments and units are provided with books and newspapers by current standards. Every company has 42- and 55-inch flat screen television sets, karaoke machines, amplifiers, speakers, and radios to enrich cadres’ and soldiers’ spiritual, cultural life. These are practical deeds that aim to improve cadres’ and soldiers’ cultural life and multiply fine, humanitarian values of Vietnamese traditions and military culture.

Realising the viewpoint of building going hand in hand with combat in setting up a cultural environment, the Brigade regularly educate cadres and soldiers to proactively prevent and counter the influence of reactionary, harmful publications on units. It is necessary to actively propagandise to raise cadres’ and soldiers’ awareness of hostile forces’ plot of “peaceful evolution” and proactively organise forces to enhance effectiveness of the struggle against politically opportune, hostile, false viewpoints in cyberspace. To do this, the Brigade Party Committee promulgated the Plan No. 05-KH/DU, dated 29 July 2015 on the struggle against “peaceful evolution” in ideological, cultural domains, rejecting reactionary, false viewpoints and harmful information on the Internet in the Brigade for the 2015 – 2020 period. Accordingly, reform to enhance operational effectiveness of specialised forces, increased propagation and education to raise cadres’ and party members’ consciousness of the dos and don’ts when they join social networks, collaboration with local party committees and authorities on monitoring and controlling soldiers’ ideology and social relationships, and proactive prevention of pornographic publications and social evils from afar are identified as breakthroughs. There needs to conduct periodical inspection to timely rectify manifestation of wrongdoings and strictly punish violations.

The Brigade Party Committee and commanders also attach special importance to strengthening of civil-military solidarity and active participation in building of cultural life in residential areas where its units are deployed. Deeply perceiving the higher echelon’s directives and resolutions on mass mobilisation, the Brigade has put forth correct measures to successfully lead implementation of the mass mobilisation; associated implementation of emulation movements with building of “Good mass mobilisation unit”; concretised contents of the Campaign in connection with carrying out the “All people are united in building cultural life” in residential areas; and attached importance to propagation about building civilised life and eradicating unsound customs and social evils. It usually collaborates with local party committees, authorities, and unions in areas where its troops are being stationed to conduct propagation and mass mobilisation; participates in setting up and consolidating local political bases; assists people in eradicating hunger, alleviating poverty, and building new-style countryside; takes part in overcoming consequences of natural disasters, epidemics, and so on. These activities have been appreciated by localities and people, thereby further beautifying fine dignity of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and strengthening close civil-military relations.

Establishing a cultural environment is both a short-term, urgent, objective requirement and a long-term, strategic task. Despite certain limitations during implementation process, the achievements together with correct perception and high political resolution will be fundamental premises that the 575th Signal Brigade bases on to overcome difficulties and successfully complete contents and targets of the Campaign in the new situation.

Senior Colonel HOANG VAN THANH, Brigade Commissar.