Victory of the August Revolution of 1945 marked a great turning point in Viet Nam’s revolutionary history, bringing the Vietnamese nation into a new era of national independence closely associated with socialism. Our people, once in the position of slaves, became masters of their own country and destiny, leaving behind many invaluable lessons for today’s cause of national construction and defence, including the strengthening of coordination between the People’s Public Security and the People’s Army.

The August Revolution of 1945 was the most glorious milestone in the history of building and defending our country. Within 15 days (from 14 to 28 August 1945), under the leadership of the Communist Party and President Ho Chi Minh, our people simultaneously launched the General Uprising to overthrow Japanese fascism and its puppet administration, seize power nationwide, end over 80 years of French colonial rule, topple the thousand-year-old feudal regime, and open a new era for Viet Nam, i.e. the era of national independence associated with socialism.

The August Revolution of 1945 left behind many invaluable lessons. These include the lesson on the pioneering leadership role of the Party with its correct, scientific, and creative guideline for national liberation; the thorough preparation in organisational, political, and military terms to seize the revolutionary opportunity, uniting the entire nation; and the flexibility and responsiveness in determining appropriate methods of struggle for each stage, each moment, and each locality to create overall power for complete victory. It is also a lesson on arousing and promoting the strength of patriotism, uniting all social strata to meet the urgent demands of the revolution; on building revolutionary bases and revolutionary forces, including political and armed forces, and mass movements across the country to meet revolutionary requirements in each period, actively preparing in all aspects for the General Uprising; on firmly grasping the evolving situation, promptly identifying the revolutionary opportunity, and seizing it in time to launch the General Uprising to win a victory. Another lesson is the constant care for fostering and highly promoting the creativity, initiative, self-reliance, and resilience of the masses and of cadres and party members.

Over the past 80 years, under the sound and skillful leadership of the Party, the decisive engagement of the entire political system, and the unity and consensus of people from all social strata, the Vietnamese revolution has achieved great accomplishments by combining national power with power of the times. The 10th Plenum of the 13th Central Committee wholeheartedly agreed that, given the position and strength accumulated, our country stands at a historic opportunity to enter a new era, which is an era of national rise. However, alongside these fundamental advantages, our revolutionary cause also faces numerous difficulties and challenges, particularly the fierce sabotage of hostile forces through their “peaceful evolution” strategy, promoting “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party, with the aim of abolishing the Party’s leadership role and the socialist regime. Notably, they employ all tricks to incite division between the people and the Party and State; to sow discord between the People’s Army and the People’s Public Security; and to demand the “depoliticisation” of the armed forces. In addition, traditional and non-traditional security challenges continue to evolve in a complex manner. This context requires the entire Party, people, and military to continue promoting the value of the 1945 August Revolution, especially by further strengthening solidarity, coordination, and close cooperation between the People’s Public Security and the People’s Army in performing the tasks of safeguarding national security, maintaining social order and safety, and fulfilling defence missions, thereby meeting the demands of national construction and defence in the new era.

General Phan Van Giang, Minister of National Defence, presents a gift to the Ministry of Public Security (Photo: qdnd.vn)

First, under all circumstances, it is imperative to ensure the Party’s absolute and direct leadership in all aspects over the People’s Army and the People’s Public Security in carrying out the mission of defending the Fatherland. The victory of the August Revolution is clear evidence of the leadership role of our Party, which steered the Vietnamese nation through all obstacles to achieve historic feats. Under the Party’s leadership, the building of the people’s armed forces, with the close coordination between the predecessor organisations of the People’s Army and the People’s Public Security serving as the core and vanguard, played an important role together with the political forces in seizing power. In the new era, the coordination between the two forces in carrying out the mission of defending the Fatherland must ensure the Party’s absolute and direct leadership in all aspects, directly exercised by the Central Public Security Party Committee and the Central Military Commission; the supreme command of the State President; the unified management of the Government; and the direct command and management of the Minister of Public Security and the Minister of National Defence. To ensure smooth coordination from the central to local levels, the two forces must continue to thoroughly implement the Resolution of the 8th Plenum of the 13th Central Committee on the Strategy to Safeguard the Fatherland in the New Situation, the Viet Nam National Defence Strategy, the National Security Protection Strategy, and so on. This provides the basis for the two forces to jointly review, supplement, and improve the legal system, mechanisms, and policies on national defence and security as well as regulations on coordination in ensuring security and defence. At the same time, it is necessary to soon study and define a roadmap and concrete steps to strongly promote cooperation in key areas such as electronic warfare, defence industry, security industry, and information verification, etc., contributing to enhancing comprehensive operational coordination capabilities to respond quickly and effectively to both traditional and non-traditional security challenges.

Second, there is a need to promote the strength of the great national unity bloc by closely combining the building of the people’s security posture with the building of the all-people national defense posture. The August Revolution of 1945 affirmed the truth that revolution is the cause of the masses, and it is the masses that make history. Even a small nation, when facing a much stronger enemy, if it knows how to promote patriotism, solidarity, self-reliance, and the will to endure sacrifice and hardship, can achieve great and miraculous feats that go down in history. The lesson of the August Revolution places a higher demand for strengthening coordination between the People’s Public Security and the People’s Army in building and promoting the strength of the great national unity bloc in fulfilling the task of defending the Fatherland. Coordination between the two forces must aim to maximise patriotism and active participation of the people to prevent and defeat all sabotage acts by hostile and reactionary forces and all kinds of crimes; to promote the initiative and creativity of the people in performing military and defence tasks, building local defensive zones, and conducting activities to protect national security and maintain social order and safety; to promote the people’s proactive role in detecting and providing information on the sabotage of hostile and reactionary forces; and to actively struggle against acts infringing upon national sovereignty and violating the law. The People’s Public Security and the People’s Army must actively coordinate in advising and assisting Party committees and authorities in effectively implementing guidelines and policies on socio-economic development, ensuring social security, constantly improving the people’s living standards, and protecting their legitimate rights and interests; and increase coordination in assisting and helping the people, truly serving as their backbone, especially in times of danger, hardship, and natural disasters.

Third, it is necessary to strengthen coordination between the People’s Public Security and the People’s Army in grasping the situation, swiftly identifying developments, and making timely recommendations on ensuring the highest national interests. Immediately upon its founding, to protect the fledgling government and the revolutionary achievements in a risky situation, the People’s Public Security stood shoulder to shoulder with the People’s Army in combating internal and external enemies, eliminating traitors, and suppressing reactionary organisations. During the two resistance wars against French colonialism and American imperialism, the two forces upheld their tradition of solidarity, revolutionary heroism, and brave, resilient fighting, achieving numerous outstanding feats.

Today, as the world undergoes rapid, complex, and unpredictable changes, and our country is stepping up implementation of the Party’s strategic guidelines to confidently enter a new era, while implementing a new two-tier local government model in 34 provinces and cities nationwide from 1 July 2025, the tasks of building and defending the socialist Fatherland present very high new demands. Being imbued with President Ho Chi Minh’s teaching that “the Public Security and the Army are the two arms of the people, the Party, the Government, and the dictatorship of the proletariat, thus needing to unite closely and help each other.” The two forces must strengthen close coordination more than ever in firmly grasping the international, regional, and domestic situation, promptly detecting and jointly assessing developments, and advising the Party and State with correct internal and external policies to effectively handle contradictions, disputes, and defence and security situations; to prevent and eliminate all risks of conflict and war; to firmly safeguard the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of the Fatherland; and to protect the Party, State, people, and socialist regime. Coordination must also ensure effective implementation of diplomatic work and international integration and advise on mapping out foreign policy in the new period to enable the country to leapfrog and make breakthroughs, contributing to the successful realisation of the strategic goals to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Viet Nam and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the nation.

Fourth, it is imperative to enhance coordination between the People’s Public Security and the People’s Army and bring into full play power of the nation and power of the times to safeguard the Fatherland.
The lesson of combining national power with that of the times, drawn from the August Revolution, has been a consistent thread running through the entire course of the Vietnamese revolution under the leadership of the Party, yielding major, groundbreaking achievements in national construction, development, and defence.
In the new revolutionary period, the entire Party, people, and armed forces are united in will and action to lead the country firmly into a new era, i.e., the era of development and prosperity, standing shoulder to shoulder with the great powers of the world. This demands integration of national power with that of the times to constantly strengthen defence and security potential, prevent the risk of war and conflict to resolve disputes by peaceful means in accordance with international law, proactively prevent, detect, and eliminate adverse factors that could cause sudden upheavals, and firmly consolidate a protective belt for the Fatherland from early and afar.
Accordingly, the coordination between the People’s Public Security and the People’s Army in the new revolutionary period must be increasingly close, efficient, and effective, which includes cooperation in firmly protecting independence, sovereignty, and national security; ensuring security and order in border, sea, and island areas; preventing and combating crime; conducting public mobilisation work; building the people’s security posture in association with the all-people national defense posture, formulating plans and measures for preventing and responding to demonstrations, disturbances, riots, and terrorism; ensuring the absolute safety of key targets and major political, cultural, and diplomatic events of the country. It is also essential to actively participate in and contribute to the process of establishing new international rules, standards, and regulations, as well as consolidating multilateral institutions capable of addressing regional and global challenges; show solidarity with and support progressive and revolutionary movements around the world for the goals of peace, national independence, democracy, and social progress; and take full advantage of the power of the times to overcome risks and challenges and constantly increase resources to enhance the overall power of the country to protect the Fatherland “from early and afar,” meeting the highest requirements of safeguarding the Fatherland in the new era.

Fifth, there is a need to strengthen coordination in building the People’s Public Security and the People’s Army into revolutionary, regular, elite, and modern forces. Fully grasping the Marxist–Leninist view on the use of revolutionary violence to oppose counter-revolutionary violence, our Party made thorough preparations in all aspects to build the revolutionary armed forces to launch the General Uprising to seize power nationwide. Under the Party’s leadership, the armed forces were born and played the core, leading role, together with the vast political forces of the people, in seizing power across the country. This is also a valuable lesson that must be vigorously promoted in the current revolutionary period, especially in the context of the explosive development of the scientific and technological revolution, the emergence of many new and modern types of warfare, and non-traditional security challenges. All these factors pose new demands for the cause of protecting the Fatherland. Therefore, the two forces must continue to thoroughly grasp and seriously implement Resolution No. 05-NQ/TW dated 17 January 2022, of the Politburo on the organisation of the Viet Nam People’s Army for the 2021 - 2030 period and the years beyond and Resolution No. 12-NQ/TW dated 16 March 2022, of the Politburo on promoting the building of the People’s Public Security into a truly clean, strong, regular, elite, and modern force, capable of fulfilling tasks in the new situation. They must step up coordination in building and improving a flexible, unified command mechanism, ensuring close operational coordination to meet the requirements of defending the Fatherland in all situations.
In the new context, the two forces must regularly carry out effective education for their cadres and soldiers to fully understand the significance and importance of the combat coordination between them. They must devote effort to jointly make the People’s Army and the People’s Public Security strong in politics, ideology, morality, organisation, and personnel; constantly improve overall quality and combat power; remain absolutely loyal to the Party, the Fatherland, and the People; have absolute confidence in the Party’s sound leadership; and be ready to fight and sacrifice for independence and freedom of the Fatherland, for peace of people’s life, and for their happiness. They must resolutely combat and prevent all plots and activities aimed at sabotaging in the Party and sowing division between the People’s Army and the People’s Public Security by hostile forces, thereby creating an endogenous strength and firmly upholding the traditions of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and “People’s Public Security Soldiers” in the new conditions, successfully fulfilling all assigned tasks.

The celebration of the 80th Anniversary of the August Revolution’s victory and the 80th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Public Security (19 August 1945 – 19 August 2025) is an occasion for us to recall and honour the glorious victories recorded in the proud history of the nation and promote the image of the People’s Public Security soldiers who sacrifices for the nation and serves the people. On inheriting and promoting that glorious and heroic tradition, the officers and soldiers of the People’s Public Security will continue to stand side by side with the People’s Army, contributing to the building and firm defence of the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland and maintaining a peaceful and stable environment for the rise of the country in the new era.

General LUONG TAM QUANG, Member of the Politburo, Minister of Public Security