Building the people’s armed forces politically strong is a basic principle, a consistent requirement of critical importance to raising their synergy, combat power, and task performance. This is also a foundation for building an adept, compact, strong Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) towards modernity, serving as an indispensable prerequisite to ensuring that the VPA will always be an absolutely loyal, reliable political and combat force of the Party, State, and people. Grasping that standpoint, over the years, Lao Cai’s Provincial Military Party Committee (PMPC) and Provincial Military Command (PMC) have taken synchronised measures to make the provincial armed forces politically strong as the basis for raising their synergy and combat power to meet their task requirements in the new situation.
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| The provincial armed forces take part in search and rescue in Lang Nu village, Phuc Khanh commune, Bao Yen district (baolaocai.vn) |
First, maintaining and enhancing all-level party committees and party organisations’ leadership - the primary factor for building politically strong provincial armed forces. The Party’s sound, all-round leadership plays a decisive role in victory of the revolutionary cause, acting as an inviolable rule for the organisation and operation of the VPA in general, local armed forces in particular. Therefore, maintaining and strengthening party organisations’ leadership within Lao Cai’s provincial armed forces have always been seen as a central, consistent, decisive task. Over the years, all-level party committees and party organisations have always grasped lines and viewpoints by the Party and the Central Military Commission on Party building work. Various measures have been adopted to build pure, strong party organisations in terms of politics, ideology, morality, organisation, and personnel in tandem with the building of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units. Due attention has been paid to adhering to the Party’s principles, especially democratic centralism, self-criticism and criticism, collective leadership, and individual accountability. The quality of meetings at party cell level has been maintained and raised to handle practical issues; the leadership role of party committees and party organisations has been promoted in specific tasks. As a result, the all-round leadership of party committees and party organisations in all activities has been ensured, while consensus within offices and units has been achieved.
All-level party committees have been consolidated and opportunely staffed by cadres with great qualities, capabilities, and prestige under regulations. Party committees at all levels have attached importance to improving their members’ political theoretical knowledge, hands-on skills, and working methods; they have regularly reviewed and supplemented their work and leadership regulations in accordance with realities. Party organisations have regularly enhanced the work of inspecting, supervising, and managing party members, particularly those members’ ethical qualities, lifestyle, sense of responsibility, political zeal, and example-setting responsibility in performing their tasks, thereby opportunely handling deviations in awareness and action, creating positive spillover effects across offices and units, raising combativeness and internal unity. Party organisations have promoted their role as the nucleus of leadership, especially within units stationed in border, isolated, remote, key, complex areas. Maintaining and strengthening the leadership role of party committees and party organisations have directly contributed to laying a solid foundation for ensuring that the provincial armed forces would always remain their loyalty and political steadfastness and readily undertake all assigned tasks.
Second, unceasingly improving the quality and effectiveness of political education, building troops’ political zeal, cementing troops’ faith, raising troops’ sense of responsibility and loyalty to the Party, Fatherland, and people. The provincial armed forces have always considered political and ideological education as a central, routine task. Offices and units have grasped and seriously realised Directive 2423-CT/QUTW, dated 9 November 2023, by the Central Military Commission Standing Board, on renewing and improving political education in the new era in line with the Resolution of the Party Central Committee’s 4th Plenum (12th and 13th tenure) on the building and rectification of the Party and political system, the Politburo’s Conclusion 01-KL/TW on continuing to implement Directive 05-CT/TW, and other guiding documents by the General Department of Politics on political education. Based on those documents, offices and units have practically renewed forms and methods of education relevant to target individuals and areas, especially the remote, isolated, border areas. Great value has been attached to educating cadres and soldiers on tradition of localities, offices, and units in order to foster their ideal, pride, willpower, and devotion. Doing so has also helped create strong incentives and right attitudes for cadres and soldiers in their studying, training, and working process, enable them to remain vigilant against the dark side of the market economy and hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy, and form a solid “ideological foundation” within offices and units.
Notably, in response to new issues, such as the streamlining of the political system’s apparatus, adjustments in district-level military agencies, and the merger of provinces, the PMPC and PMC have stepped up propagation and education work to raise their troops’ awareness of the significance, goal, and requirements of those major lines. Thanks to those efforts, the PMPC and PMC have given timely ideological orientations to troops, maintaining revolutionary viewpoints, creating uniformity in awareness and action across the entire armed forces under the spirit: “Ready to go anywhere and undertake any task”, “ready to sacrifice personal benefits for the common good”. With their political steadfastness and strong sense of responsibility, cadres and soldiers of the provincial armed forces have really become a solid spiritual anchor for other forces and the people to resolutely successfully implement all lines and policies of the Party and State, contributing to maintaining political - social stability within the province.
Third, building a pool of cadres at all levels with political steadfastness, pure morality, and comprehensive capacity. To that end, the provincial armed forces have always comprehensively, synchronously carried out personnel work, with significance attached to cadre planning, training, cultivation, rotation, evaluation, and use as an important link in the building of pure, strong party organisations and the armed forces’ improved task performance. Offices and units have conducted personnel planning work in an open, changeable, inter-connected fashion, ensuring inheritance and development, closely combining criteria with practical evaluations, taking cadres’ qualities, capacity, prestige, and task performance as the main yardstick. The training and cultivation of cadres have been closely aligned with task requirements; special importance has been attached to improving cadres’ political theoretical knowledge, professional competence, hands-on skills, and capacity to settle situations in mountainous, border areas characterised by complex elements regarding ethnicity, religion, and security. Evaluation of cadres has been carried out in an increasingly practical, objective manner, with their task performance, sense of responsibility, prestige, and quality of participation in party meetings being seen as primary criteria. Those evaluations have laid an important foundation for selecting and employing cadres in accordance with their forte.
Besides, the deployment and use of cadres has been carried out closely, flexibly in accordance with each office and unit’s particularities. Job rotations among cadres have been conducted selectively in line with long-term personnel planning, especially in the key, complex areas of defence and security. As a result, cadres of the provincial armed forces have developed comprehensively, remaining absolutely loyal to the Party, Fatherland, and people, showing their political steadfastness, pure morality, simple lifestyle, and high responsibility for the masses and their work, acting as the core force in leading, commanding, and performing political tasks of offices and units.
Fourth, promoting mass mobilisation, strengthening military - civilian unity, creating a solid political - social foundation for making the provincial armed forces politically strong. Grasping the particularities of a border province, offices and units of the provincial armed forces have actively given advice to local party committees and authorities and collaborated with local sectors in mass mobilisation work. They have renewed forms and methods of mass mobilisation, with a focus on encouraging the people to well implement the Party’s lines and the State’s laws and policies. They have actively taken part in fostering socio-economic, cultural development, building political bases, removing temporary and dilapidated houses, thereby improving the people’s life, particularly in the remote, isolated, extremely difficult areas. They have promoted their core role in natural disaster and epidemic response and search and rescue, thus cementing the people’s faith in the Party and VPA. Moreover, mass mobilisation has always been aligned with defending the Party’s ideological foundation. Via mass mobilisation activities, the provincial armed forces have opportunely orientated public opinion, proactively fighting to thwart hostile forces’ plots and artifices of taking advantage of issues on ethnicity and religion aimed at undermining great unity, political stability, and the people’s faith. Mass mobilisation has contributed to shaping a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds”, maintaining faith, support, and consensus within society, and raising troops’ political zeal, sense of responsibility, and resolve to undertake and successfully accomplish all assigned tasks. Furthermore, well implementing Regulations on Grass-Roots Democracy has helped maintain unity and bond among troops and create strong motivations for them to fulfil all missions.
Thanks to their political strength, the provincial armed forces of Lao Cai have unceasingly raised their synergy, combat power, and capacity to successfully accomplish their tasks in any situations. That is also a solid foundation for the provincial armed forces to continue to play their core role in building and protecting the Fatherland in the new era.
Sr. Col. NGUYEN DUC CUONG
Political Commissar of the PMC