BUILDING A STRONG COMMUNIST PARTY ACCORDING TO HO CHI MINH'S IDEOLOGY IN VIETNAM - FROM THEORETICAL AWARENESS TO PRACTICAL ACTION

BUILDING A STRONG COMMUNIST PARTY ACCORDING TO HO CHI MINH'S IDEOLOGY IN VIETNAM - FROM THEORETICAL AWARENESS TO PRACTICAL ACTION

Nguyen Tuan Anh

Lecturer, Faculty of Political Education, Thai Nguyen University of Education,

Vietnam, Thai Nguyen

Nguyen Thị Khuong

Lecturer, Faculty of Political Education, Thai Nguyen University of Education,

Vietnam, Thai Nguyen

ABSTRACT

Building a strong and clean Communist Party (CP), according to Ho Chi Minh's idealogy to serve the fatherland and the people, is a decisive factor in ensuring the victory of the Vietnamese revolution in the cause of national liberation and national construction. The article pointed out that Ho Chi Minh's idealogy on building a clean and strong CP is very important and the basis for CP to continue to set out views, guidelines, and measures on building CP at present and in the future.

Keywords: Communist Party, nationalism, revolution, struggle, Ho Chi Minh's ideology.

1. Introduction

Each victory of the Vietnamese revolution in the process of the national liberation struggle and building socialism is associated with the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the illumination of Marxist-Leninist theory, and Ho Chi Minh's idealogy. In more than 90 years of Vietnamese national leadership, CPV has clearly demonstrated an actual CP's revolutionary and scientific nature. Today, CPV continues to lead the Vietnamese people to carry out the cause of national renewal successfully. The Vietnamese are free from poverty and backwardness and have a warm, free, happy, civilized, and modern life. Building an intense and clean CP becomes a very important task to continue that noble mission.

2. Content

2.1. History of research

When researching the issue of building an intense and clean CP, many domestic and international leaders and researchers have also affirmed the importance of building a CP in the course of revolutionary history in general and in Vietnam in particular.

In the book "The New Party of the Proletariat," V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin mentioned the need to build a new party of the proletariat. The new party must gather the best of the class, must create a Party organization that is the vanguard of the proletariat, must have reasoning to lead the way in the struggle with the bourgeoisie to take the government into the hands of the people and build a socialist society without more class, and exploitation [1]. When discussing Party building, J. V. Stalin (1971) raised the principled issues of new party building: the leadership role, position, and importance of the Party in the conditions of proletarian dictatorship; issues to do when the Party was in power, in which self-criticism and criticism were also considered as a principle to improve the Party's leadership and fighting power [2]. The leader Mao Zedong (1961) pointed out three main pillars of Party building: correcting party style, leadership methods, and unity [3].

In Vietnam, there are also many studies on Party building associated with the ideology of President Ho Chi Minh. Mach Quang Thang (1995) affirmed that Ho Chi Minh's idealogy on building CP was the basis and foundation for setting guidelines and measures to build CP [4]. In his research, Trieu Quang Tien (2004) also showed that Ho Chi Minh's idealogy had significant theoretical and practical value in constructing CP [5]. The authors' research works have confirmed the theoretical and practical value of President Ho Chi Minh's idealogy of building the Communist Party. However, no work has systematically presented theoretical awareness of the practical action of President Ho Chi Minh's idealogy on comprehensively building CP. This is why the author continues researching, discussing, and affirming the great values of Ho Chi Minh's idealogy in building CP.

2.2. President Ho Chi Minh and the building of CPV

Ho Chi Minh's idealogy on CP occupied his views' most prominent and essential position. From the very beginning, he absorbed Marxism-Leninism and put it into practice. He asserted: “What must the revolution have first? First, there must be a revolutionary party to mobilize and organize the people inside and communicate with the oppressed nation and the class proletariat everywhere outside. The revolution will succeed if the Party is solid, just as the experienced helmsman can control the boat.” [6]

Referring to the issue of strategic significance and the special importance of the Vietnamese revolution, Ho Chi Minh not only mentioned the nature of the working class, the people's character, and nationalism but also the relationship between CP and the people, with the nation. CPV's responsibility is to have ready, clear, and thoughtful lines, directives, resolutions, and plans “to avoid passivity, omissions, and mistakes.” The Party must be genuinely “clean,” “united,” and “pure from big to small works” [7] to be able to lead the people and the revolution for “complete victory.” He was also particularly interested in the essential and urgent issues of CP building in the following aspects: politics and ideology; education and retraining of Party cadres; training in revolutionary ethics; anti-individualism; responsibilities of Party members and Party organizations in educating the masses, setting an example before the groups, exemplary in daily practical work, in the moral character and lifestyle of revolutionaries. He also took care of preserving and promoting the tradition of solidarity in the CP. He considered the struggle of criticism and self-criticism as the best way to make the CP clean, strong, and worthy of a revolutionary CP. Ho Chi Minh's conception of CP and such CP construction is comprehensive and profound. This is a core issue in Ho Chi Minh's political thoughts, strategic approaches, and revolutionary methods. He once said: "Our party is a ruling party. Every Party member and cadre must be truly imbued with revolutionary morality, real need, thrift, integrity, and impartiality. We must keep our CP truly clean, worthy of being the leader and faithful servant of the people"[8]

2.3. From theoretical awareness to practical action on building a strong CP according to the idealogy of President Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam

One of the problems posed to the ruling CP (V.I. Lenin called the true CP) was how to avoid the risk of bureaucracy in the organization of the apparatus, in the mode and method of operation to perform the functions of the CP. On the other hand, when becoming a ruling CP, part of Party cadres participate in leadership and management in the system of CP's agencies, the state, and socio-political organizations, they become civil servants and state officials with power. Therefore, it is necessary to lock management in a "mechanism cage" so that each Party member, each branch from the central to the grassroots, is always clean and robust.

A strong and clean CP is, first of all, a matter of morality, lifestyle, the status of Party cadres, CP organizations at all levels that do not suffer from bad habits and resolutely correct them, such as bureaucracy, waste, embezzlement, corruption... CP is strong not because of the large number of Party members but of the strength of unanimous unity in the CP in terms of views and political stances according to the nature of the working class, the stability of the worldview, ideology, organization, strict discipline, self-discipline with the vital principle of democratic centralization. A strong and clean CP must be reflected in the strength of critical struggle and self-criticism, considering it as the law of CP development to enhance the quality of its branches, eliminate corrupt elements, and add the most elite elements to the Party. A clean and strong CP must also be reflected in the deep connection between CP and the masses; The masses actively comment on CP, from CP's guidelines, strategic platform, policies, and leadership methods to the political qualities and moral character of Party members.

In short, a clean and robust ruling CP is a decisive factor. It directly influences the purity and strength of state institutions, the political system, the political and cultural environment, moral culture, and the spiritual life of society in general. A clean and strong ruling CP must show purity and strength in the whole CP and each Party member, in the leadership and critical cadres, in the power and effectiveness of the State, in the democratic rights and ownership of the masses,  in the stability, health and upward development of society.

The Resolution of the Sixth Central Committee, the eighth session of the Central Committee of the Party on the primary and urgent issues of the current Party building work stated: "The CP must take measures to promote its advantages, resolutely correct the shortcomings, continue to strengthen,  to grow stronger in all aspects, especially in politics, ideology, morality, lifestyle, organization, and cadres" [9]. That is the essential content of the CPV building work and is reflected in the ten tasks that the whole CPV and each party member must perform. The tasks covering the Party's areas of activity are to strengthen the unity within the Party in terms of theoretical awareness to practical action; renew the education and training of lifestyle qualities and ethics for Party cadres; implement the principle of democratic centralization, self-criticism, and criticism in the Party, strengthen the organization, strengthen the Party's leadership and fighting capacity. Performing the shown tasks in the Resolution well will create positive changes that make the CP more and more clean, strong, and worthy of being a new type of CP, leading the people to build socialism in Vietnam successfully.

3. Conclusion

Ho Chi Minh's idealogy of building a strong and clean CP has theoretical and practical thoughts and brings many valuable experiences in the construction of CP in Vietnam today. The values of reasoning are concretized by resolutions on building CP in the new situation.

References:

1. V.I. Lenin, J.V. Stalin. (1972). The New Party of the Proletariat. Truth Publishers. Hanoi.
2. J.V. Stalin. (1971). On Party Building. Truth Publishers. Hanoi.
3. Mao Zedong. (1961). On the Question of Party Building, Truth Press. Hanoi.
4. Mach Quang Thang. (1995). Ho Chi Minh's idealogy on the Communist Party of Vietnam. National Political Press. Hanoi
5. Trieu Quang Tien. (2004). Ho Chi Minh's idealogy on Communist Party Building. Labor Press. Hanoi.
6. Ho Chi Minh. (2011). Complete volume, volume 2. National Political Publishing House. Hanoi.
7. Ho Chi Minh. (2011). Complete volume, volume 5. National Political Publishing House. Hanoi.
8. Ho Chi Minh. (2011). Complete volume, volume 15. National Political Publishing House. Hanoi.
9. Communist Party of Vietnam. (1999). Document of the Sixth (2nd) Conference of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party. National Political Press. Hanoi.