Over the past years, in order to firmly protect the Party’s ideological basis within the Army, all offices and units have attached great importance to effectively leading, directing and implementing the task of fighting against wrongful and hostile viewpoints, rendering each officer and soldier steadfast in Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, and absolutely faithful to the Party, the Motherland and the people as well as willing to undertake and accomplish every single assigned mission. Currently, due to drastic sabotage of hostile forces to remove the Party’s ideological basis in the Army, greater significance should be attached to this mission.

Vietnam People’s Army (VPA), which was organized and trained by the Vietnam Communist Party and President Ho Chi Minh, considered Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought as the ideological basis and the lodestar for its operations. As a result, over the past 70 years, the VPA has been always strong in terms of politics, ideology and organization while profoundly exposing its working-class nature as well as people and nationalistic manners, deserving to be the absolutely loyal and truthful political force of the Party, the State and the people, and being willing to undertake and accomplish every single assigned mission.

Marxism-Leninism is a scientific and revolutionary doctrine and a sharp instrument of the working class and the whole mankind in the fight against the exploiting class to set themselves free, and in the performance of their historical mission of eliminating the capitalism and building socialism and communism societies, bringing about a better life for the labour. Therefore, since its appearance, Marxism – Leninism has continuously suffered from the sabotage and rejection of the imperialism and the reactionaries. In our country, making use of the shortcomings in the State’s management as well as the manifestations of negativity, corruption and degradation of a section of cadres and party members, hostile forces and political opportunists have stepped up their acts of sabotage against the Party’s ideological basis via more and more sophisticated and malicious modes and tricks aiming at removing the Party’s leadership and the socialism. They baselessly argued that Marxism-Leninism was only valuable in the period from the late 19^th century to the early 20^th century and not appropriate for the current situation anymore as evidenced by the collapse of the socialism models of Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries. From that point of view, they quibbled that only Ho Chi Minh’s thought was valuable, with a view to making it opposite to Marxism-Leninism. That was a very dangerous allegation which could lead to the rejection of Marxism-Leninism, and then the rejection of the Party’s ideological basis.

The sabotage of the reactionary and hostile forces against the VPA was included in their sabotage against Vietnam’s revolutionary course with the aim of “depoliticizing” the Army and separating it from the Party’s leadership. To do so, they focused their propaganda on the distortion and the rejection of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought and the Party’s guidelines and Political Platform to make officers and soldiers eventually derail the revolutionary goals and ideals, fall into degradation in terms of political ideology, ethics, lifestyle, as well as into “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”, lack confidence in and deny the Party’s sole and direct leadership over all activities of the Army. Thus, protecting the Party’s ideological basis in the Army is being a task of urgency which requires branches, organs, and forces within the Army to seriously grasp and effectively implement.

Sr. Lt. Gen Nguyen Trong Nghia addressing the conference on military press and publishing in March 2018 (photo: qdnd.vn)

Over the past years, the Central Military Party Committee, the Ministry of National Defence as well as party committees, commissars and political organs at all levels have always paid attention to synchronously adopting solutions regarding organization, forces, contents, models, and means to promote the effectiveness of fighting to protect the Party’s ideological basis in the Army. Among those solutions, top priority has been given to the work of political education which contributes to enhancing officers and soldiers’ awareness of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, the Party’s political, military and national defense guidelines, the Army and the unit’s missions as well as their socio-cultural fundamental knowledge. Through the education, the hostile forces’ wrong viewpoints as well as their sabotage plots and tricks against the Party’s ideological basis were clearly identified. It also interpreted the sustainable value, the judiciousness, and the scientific and revolutionary manners of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought and the goals of the national independence and socialism, and the Vietnam’s path to the socialism. Organs and units have organized many activities with the participation of various forces to effectively fight against the reactionary and hostile forces’ plot and trick of “peaceful evolution” as well as their promotion of “self-evolution”, “self-transformation”, and Military “depoliticization”. Many websites and blogs were in good service for the notification, propagation, and criticism of the wrongful and hostile viewpoints. The military press agencies have actively presented special pages and columns composing of many keen, highly competitive and convincingly theoretical and practical articles which gained much of concurrence and support from the public. Organs and units in the Military have focused on seriously grasping and implementing the 12^th Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW on May 15^th, 2016 and the Central Military Standing Committee’s Directive 87-CT/QUTW on July, 08^th 2016 on “studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, ethics, and lifestyle” via many creative and effective methods. The campaign was a focused theme of the military press agencies as evidenced by their presentation of special pages and columns which composed numerous articles on his thought, ethics and lifestyle. Especially, the column of “Uncle Ho’s teachings on this day in the past” has contributed to making Ho Chi Minh’s thought, ethics and lifestyle really become a strong spiritual basis within the Army and the whole society. The information and propaganda work and the cultural and artistic activities have been renovated while their orientation was maintained to stay close to the political tasks of the country as well as the Army, and to better meet the requirements of the soldiers’ cultural and spiritual life. Those operations helped promote the revolutionary ideals and the qualities of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” as well as prevent soldiers from being affected by the wrong viewpoints and bad information, thereby maintaining the Party’s ideological position within the Army.

In the time to come, the reactionary and hostile forces as well as the political opportunists inside and outside the country will continue to make full use of the social networks and the internet in a bid to disseminate the documents to sabotage the Party’s ideological basis, guidelines, political platform, and personnel work, and to denigrate leaders of the Party, the State and the Army, as well as to exaggerate the shortcomings and limitations in economic development and social management. They will also utilize the manifestations of degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle among a section of cadres and party members as well as the issues relating to sovereignty protection to criticize the Party and the regime. By doing so, they desire to promote “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” and “depoliticization” within the Army, and gradually change the revolutionary nature of our army. Therefore, in order to protect the Party’s ideological basis of the Army, it is necessary for the party committees and commanders at all levels to effectively grasp and implement the Party’s directives and resolutions on this issue, focusing on the following.

First, the quality of the political education must be enhanced to help the cadres, party members and soldiers thoroughly perceive the fundamental principles and the sustainable value of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, the Party’s lines and guidelines, the State’s policies and laws, the Army’s tasks, the nature and the traditions of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers”, and the unity between the military and the people as well as the reactionary and hostile forces’ plots and tricks to sabotage the Party’s ideological basis of the Army. Organs and units need to thoroughly grasp and strictly implement the Directive 23-CT/TW on February 9^th, 2018 by the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee (12^th tenure) on “Continuing to renovate and improve the quality and the effectiveness of studying, applying and developing Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought in new situation”. Accordingly, education and training establishments need to continue to renovate the program and contents of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought education in order to make them suitable to the fundamental and comprehensive renewal requirements of education and training. The first and foremost is to renovate the training curriculum and syllabus and to foster lecturers of the social scientific and humanitarian subjects to make them be really steadfast in Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought, and be equipped with modern teaching methods. It is also necessary to combine theory and practice, and update knowledge. The continuance must be placed on the project on “renovating political education in grass-roots units in the new situation” as well as strict maintenance of the annual political educational programs and plans, and the order for reading newspapers, listening to the radio, watching news programs, the Party’s Day, and the Political and spiritually cultural Day. The roles of scientists, research agencies and institutes, and educational and training establishments should be brought into play to step up the work of theoretical research and practical summary, contributing to clarifying, developing and creatively applying Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought into the current national building and protection course, serving as the scientific basis in the struggle against the hostile forces’ wrong viewpoints and sabotage allegations.

Second, in the ideological and theoretical work, there is a need to closely combine the “building” and the “fighting” while a focus should be place on the “building” to create “immunity” from the hostile forces’ allegations and distortions. Organs and units actively popularize the models of “good people, good deed” and examples of studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, ethics and lifestyle while focusing on propagating socio-economic achievements and on looking after the people’s living conditions, ensuring the objective and comprehensive manners of both positive and negative aspects of the society. The struggle against the negative phenomena must be based on the constructive attitude under the guidance of focusing on the “building” and using the positive aspects to repulse the negative ones. During the work of propagation, it is necessary to point out that the collapse of  socialist states of  Soviet Union and Eastern European countries was due to their communist parties’ inflexible, dogmatic and voluntary application of Marxism-Leninism, not due to the fact that the Marxism-Leninism was outdated. Especially, in dealing with recent global economic problems and crises, Marxism-Leninism, particularly Karl Marx’s economic doctrine has attracted the study and application by many countries, which confirmed that Karl Marx’s ideology still remained its value and sustainable vigor in the 21^st century.

At the same time, promotion of the Determine to Win emulation and the Campaign “Promoting the traditions, devoting the talents, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers” needs to be attached to the implementation of the Directive 05 by the Politburo (12^th tenure) and the Resolution No.4 by the Party’s Central Committee (12^th tenure) on the Party’s building and rectification in order to prevent and repulse the degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle as well as the manifestations of the internal “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”. It is also necessary to closely combine the movement of “To build  fine, healthy cultural environment in the Army” with the movement of “All people unite in building cultural life” in order to improve officers and soldiers’ patriotism, national pride, and belief in the Party and the regime as well as the values of truth, goodness and beauty, helping them bring into play the quality of “Uncle Ho’s soldier” in every circumstance and situation. Currently, one important task is to resolutely struggle to defeat the reactionary and hostile forces’ "peaceful evolution" strategy in the field of ideology and culture, and plot of "depoliticizing" the Army; and to actively overcome and prevent the manifestations of degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle, the individualism, and the internal "self-evolution" and "self-transformation" as well as to fully accomplish the work of internal politics protection without letting the information be leaked out, or bad publications be infiltrated into the units, ensuring that the Army is always strong politically, ideologically and organizationally.

Third, forms of propaganda and communication should be diversified to create the synergy in struggling against and rejecting to the wrong and hostile viewpoints. First and foremost, press and publishing agencies, especially online newspapers, journals and websites must proactively take the lead in this struggle so that they are able to closely follow the incidents and grasp the hostile forces’ sabotage tricks to submit the articles which provide the precise information and the orientation for the public opinion. Consideration should be given to the building of special pages, columns and programs as well as the publishing volume of pieces of news and articles which reject to and clarify the reactionary and unscientific manners of the hostile forces’ wrong and distorted viewpoints and arguments aiming at separating the Army from the Party, the State and the people. Literary and artistic units focus on building and popularizing the ideal and humane revolutionary models, and on glorifying and beautifying the standards and the image of “Uncle Ho’s soldier” as well as on encouraging the national building and protection cause so that the good qualities of “Uncle Ho’s soldier” are increasingly reflected in all areas of the social life. At the same time, roles of the rapporteurs and the verbal propaganda should be brought into play to provide timely, accurate and official information to all officers and soldiers. Personal websites should be established in combination with expanding and developing blogs to directly struggle against the wrong propaganda allegation on cyberspace. Importance should be attached to the effective study and application of information technology to improving the effectiveness of the struggle in ideological and cultural fields, and applying the technical methods to blocking and filtrating information on the internet as well as to prevent the hostile forces from making full use of the internet for the sake of their act of sabotage.

Fourth, leadership and direction of the party committees and organizations over the struggle of protecting the Party’s ideological basis must be enhanced in tandem with the fight against “peaceful evolution” in the ideological and cultural fields. This task must be put under the leadership of the party committees and the direct management and governance of party committee secretaries, commissars, and commanders at all levels. In order to ensure the leadership and direction within the entire Army, the Military Party Central Committee issued the Directive 823-CT/QUTW on September 10^th, 2017 on “Enhancing the leadership and direction over the prevention of “peaceful evolution” in the ideological and cultural fields within the Army”. Grounded on that Directive and closely following the direction of the Central Military Commission’s Steering Committee 94 and the guidance of the functional bodies of the Political General Department, the party committees at all levels have proposed precise and effective policies and measures for the leadership and direction of the struggle. The political organs at all levels should raise responsibility for offering the counsels, guiding and leading the implementation while actively building the programs and plans as well as creatively applying the forms and measures in the ideological struggle. The combined strength of the organizations and forces should be promoted while the regulations on speech, the provision of information to the press, and the usage of the internet must be strictly executed.

Fifth, importance should be always attached to building the core force and ensuring technical and technological means for the work of propaganda and rejection to the wrong and hostile viewpoints. Over the past time, the organization and operation of the core force in the struggle on the ideological and theoretical fronts have been highly valued by units, especially schools and press agencies. In order to meet the requirements of the task, units focus on building, fostering, and improving the quality and the operational efficiency of this force. They are the cadres and party members who have strong political wills, high theoretical levels, expressive ability, persuasive arguments, enthusiasm, courage, and determine to defend Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, and to protect the Party and the socialist regime. Importance should be attached to improving theoretical levels and experience in organizing the force for scientists and key cadres in research institutes, schools and academies, and agencies and units as well as of the correspondents and editors of the press and publishing agencies. At the same time, attention must be paid to investing on and equipping technical and technological means for the struggle on cyber space as well as ensuring the suitable expenditure and policies for the force engaging in this type of struggle.

Fighting against the hostile forces’ allegations to defend the Party’s ideological basis in the Army is a long, difficult and complicated battle that requires the enhancement of the combined strength of organizations, forces at all levels. And protecting the Party’s ideological foundation will contribute to defeating plots and tricks of "peaceful evolution" and Military "depoliticization" by the hostile, reactionary and opportunist forces, making Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought perform the mainstream in social life.

Sr. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Trong Nghia, Member of the Party Central Committee, Member of the Central Military Commission, Deputy General Director of the Political General Department of the VPA