Communist Review - In the 35-year process of Doi moi, the Communist Party of Vietnam always considers building and reorganizing the Party as “a key” issue, a guarantee for the Party to maintain and promote its leadership role in the revolutionary cause. The 13^th National Congress of the Party has summarized 5 major lessons, in which, the top lesson has been edited and revised. This is an important basis for the Communist Party of Vietnam to continue to apply, promote and develop creativity in leading, and firmly overcoming difficulties and challenges in the new revolutionary phase.

Closely combining economic innovation with political innovation, taking the task of economic development as the center and building the Party as the key

The 6^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in December 1986 made the decision on the comprehensive reform of the country in terms of economy, politics, culture, society, national defense, security and foreign affairs. In 1986, Vietnam fell into a severe socio-economic crisis, with an inflation rate of 774.7%, a total national income of about 14 billion USD, per capita income of about 280 USD. In the extremely difficult situation of people’s life, with the responsibility of the ruling Party, the Communist Party of Vietnam is clearly aware that renewal is the command of life, the responsibility of the Party to the country and the people. In the beginning, the Party advocated closely combining economic innovation with political innovation, taking the task of economic development as a central duty, building the Party as the key; focusing on economic development and from economic achievements, gradually renewing the political system, renewing theoretical thinking, first of all, economic thinking, renewing the working style and leadership method of the Party.

After 35 years of renovation, Vietnam has achieved great achievements of historical significance. In 1996, Vietnam came out of the socio-economic crisis; in 2008, out of the status of a less developed, middle-income country, and in 2020, with nearly 100 million people, per-capita income reached 3,521 USD. The country’s appearance is more dignified, more and more beautiful, the people’s life has been markedly improved in terms of material, culture, spirit, living standards and quality of life; especially in terms of food, accommodation, travel, education, medical treatment, and life services. The political system was built, strengthened, and ensured the political stability of the country. National defense and security are strengthened to firmly protect the country’s independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, sea and islands. Foreign affairs and international integration are constantly expanding, combining internal and external forces, enhancing Vietnam’s position, creating an environment of peace, cooperation and development. General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong repeatedly stated and the 13^th National Congress affirmed that “Our country has never had the opportunity, potential, position and international prestige as today.” (1)

Looking back on the process of 35 years of renovation and previous terms, the 13^th Party Congress has summarized 5 major lessons, in which, the leading lesson is about building and reorganizing the Party: “Work on building and reorganizing the Party must be implemented drastically, comprehensively, synchronously, regularly and effectively in terms of politics, ideology, ethics, organization and officials. Consistently, applying and creatively developing Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology; improving the Party’s leadership, ruling and fighting capacity; regularly consolidating and strengthening solidarity within the Party and political system; strictly implementing the principles of building and regularly renewing the Party’s leadership method. Building a clean, comprehensively powerful State and political system; perfecting the mechanism to strictly control power; resolutely and persistently fight against recession, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” internally; stepping up the fight against corruption and wastefulness. Personnel work must be really “the key of the key”, focusing on building a contingent of cadres at all levels, especially those at strategic level and leaders with sufficient quality, capacity and prestige on par with their mission; promoting the responsibility of setting an example of cadres and party members according to the motto that the higher their positions are, the more exemplary they must be, especially members of the Politburo, members of the Secretariat, members of the Central Committee” (2).

Building the Party in politics is of special importance

The reality of Doi moi shows that building the Party in politics is of special importance in order to uphold the ideals and goals, ensure the correctness of the platform and guidelines, and train the political bravery of the Party’s members, ensuring to lead the revolutionary cause to develop in the right direction to victory. The Party’s platform and guidelines must come from the reality of the country, for the sake of the people, with the people as the root. It can be clearly seen that the 6^th National Congress in December 1986 was a strong development step in Party building in terms of politics, leading to a decision on the renovation policy. The innovation path is also based on an attitude of frank self-criticism, looking directly at the truth, properly assessing the truth, stating the truth, overcoming the disease of haste, subjectivity, and willpower. The 6^th National Congress emphasized the lesson of Party building on par with the political tasks of the ruling Party to lead the people to carry out the socialist revolution. A profound lesson of the 6^th National Congress is that “The Party must always start from reality, respect and act according to objective laws. The ability to perceive and act according to the rules is a condition to ensure the sound leadership of the Party” (3).

From the 6^th National Congress in 1986 to the 13^th National Congress in 2021, the Communist Party of Vietnam has constantly researched theory and summarized practice and clarified many issues in the reform path, such as clearly understanding the goal of developing a socialist-oriented market economy and properly perceiving the characteristics and laws of the market economy, properly handling the relationship between the market economy and the socialist orientation; implementing industrialization and modernization of the country in association with the strategy of science - technology development, education - training, human resource development, especially high-quality human resources, development of the knowledge economy, digital economy; building and perfecting the political system, building and raising the effectiveness and efficiency of management of the socialist rule of law State of the people, by the people and for the people; “completing synchronously the development institution, first of all, the institution for the development of a socialist-oriented market economy” (4); building and perfecting the system of social policies, strategies for hunger eradication and poverty reduction, ensuring social security; combining economic growth with progress and social justice in each development step; building and developing an advanced culture imbued with national identity, building Vietnamese human standards in the new era; formulating and implementing the all-people defense strategy and the people’s security strategy to firmly protect the Fatherland and the socialist regime; implementing the foreign policy of openness, multilateralization and diversification, Vietnam acts as a friend, a reliable partner and an active and responsible member of the international community, proactive and active international integration.

The Platform on building the country in the transitional period to socialism, approved by the 7^th National Congress (June 1991), identified six characteristics of the socialist society constructed in Vietnam. The 6^th National Congress (January 2011) has continued to supplement and develop into 8 characteristics. By the 13^th National Congress, the awareness of socialism and the path to socialism became clearer and clearer. Specifically, more clarity on the model, goals, development steps; more clarity on political, economic, cultural and social issues of the transitional period; more clarity on the possibility and content of bypassing the capitalist regime and inheriting the development achievements of mankind in the capitalist socio-economic form, in the ability to coexist and cooperate among nations with different political and social regimes and development paths. The 13^th National Congress determined that “Striving for the middle of the twenty-first century, our country will become a socialist-oriented developed country” (5).

Building the Party in politics requires training and improving the political bravery of the Party, each cadre and Party member. That is the spirit of independence, self-control, self-reliance; is consistent with ideals, revolutionary goals; is proactive and resilient to face and overcome difficulties and challenges; is a spirit of self-criticism, honest and constructive criticism; is the courage to admit mistakes, shortcomings, weaknesses and determination to correct them; is flexibly adapting according to the motto “firm in objectives, flexible in strategies and tactics”.

Attaching an importance to Party building in terms of ideology and theory in the renovation process

During the renovation process, the Communist Party of Vietnam attaches great importance to Party building in terms of ideology and theory, including education and training, raising ideological awareness and theoretical levels within the Party, and firmly defending the foundation of the Party. The Party’s ideological foundation is Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology. The 6^th National Congress of CPV is a step to renew theoretical thinking. If there is no new thinking on socialism and the transitional path to socialism with its characteristics and laws directed by V.I. Lenin and President Ho Chi Minh, there will certainly be no reform guideline at the 6^th National Congress. When the socialist regime model collapsed in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, the Communist Party of Vietnam remained steadfast and clearly recognized the revolutionary and scientific nature of Marxism-Leninism. The 7^th National Congress (June 1991) affirmed that Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology are the ideological foundation and guideline for the Party’s actions. On March 28, 1992, the Politburo at the 7^th National Party Congress issued Resolution No. 01-NQ/TW, “On theoretical work in the current period”. The resolution clearly states the success of the Party’s ideological and theoretical work since the 6^th National Congress. “The outstanding feature is that it has initially renewed theoretical thinking, especially economic thinking, and partially overcome the problems of dogmatism and voluntarism; and at the same time be alert to prevent harmful effects of opportunism and revisionism” (6).

The Politburo emphasized that “It is necessary to regularly conduct an ideological and theoretical struggle as required by the renovation cause. To overcome dogmatism and empiricism and oppose right-wing and revisionist opportunism” (7). The correct ideological and theoretical viewpoints ensure that the Party firmly overcomes challenges at that particularly difficult time, and at the same time shows the maturity in the Party’s cognitive methods. The Party also advocated reforming the contents and methods of education and learning of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology at the Party’s schooling system since the early 1990s of the twentieth century. In 1992, the Politburo decided and directed towards constructing the national textbooks in Marxist-Leninist sciences, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, and the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Teaching and learning political theory subjects in universities and colleges have been improved with the newly compiled curriculum. Agencies carrying out ideological and theoretical work, such as the Central Ideology and Culture Department (It is now the Central Propaganda and Training Commission), Nguyen Ai Quoc Party School (since 1993, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics), the Central Theoretical Council (established in 1996), Communist Review, Nhan Dan Newspaper are very important organs in Party building in terms of ideology, theoretical and theoretical research, education to raise ideological awareness for cadres and Party members; thereby, contributing to improving the theoretical level of the Party as it is today. Theoretical research results have made an important contribution to clarifying the ideological foundation of the Party, which is really a scientific argument to supplement and develop the Platform for national construction in the transitional period to socialism. (supplemented and developed in 2011), developing the reform policy at Party congresses (especially the 12^th and 13^th congresses).

Increasingly attaching a great importance to the issue of Party building on morality

During his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh paid a special attention to the education of revolutionary morality for cadres and Party members. He considers morality as the root of revolutionaries. In the renovation process, due to the downsides of the market economy and the open-door policy, negative things arose and developed in social life and in the contingent of cadres and Party members. In January 1994, the Party identified corruption and squandering as one of the four major risks. On June 26, 1992, the Party Central Committee issued Resolution No. 03-NQ/TW, “On a number of tasks of reforming and rectifying the Party”. The resolution stated that “Building revolutionary ethics and healthy lifestyle of cadres and Party members in the conditions of the market economy and expanding international exchanges. Cadres and Party members must make the interests of the Fatherland and the people a top priority. Upholding the patriotic spirit, will of self-reliance, exemplar of labor, thriftiness in building and defending the country, making the people rich and the country strong; preserving and promoting the good traditions and identity of the nation” (8).

The 12^th National Congress (January 2016) placed the task of Party building on morality in parallel with Party building regarding politics, ideology and organization. The 12th Party Congress emphasized “strengthening the training of revolutionary qualities and ethics, fighting individualism, opportunism, pragmatism”, “Resolutely fighting against bureaucracy, corruption, wastefulness, individualism, opportunistic lifestyle, pragmatism, factionalism, “group interests”, only talk the talk, but not walk the walk” (9).

The fight against corruption, wastefulness and other downsides during the 12^th National Congress of the Party has achieved very important results, contributing to strengthening and enhancing trust in the Party and people. The Party has promoted revolutionary moral education associated with studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style in the spirit of Directive No. 05-CT/TW, dated May 15, 2016, of Politburo, “On promoting learning and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style”. Experience shows that the improvement of revolutionary morality and the building of the Party on ethics must be closely combined with the enhancement of the Party’s education; strictly maintaining discipline and discipline with the effort of self-cultivation and training of cadres and party members, upholding the responsibility to set an example, including setting an example of morality and lifestyle.

Party building on organization and cadres plays a decisive role

To ensure the Party’s leadership and ruling activities, the task of Party building in terms of organization and cadres plays a decisive role. The Party is constantly consolidating the Party’s organization system from the central to local levels, developing the contingent of Party members, and building a contingent of leading cadres at all levels at the same levels of duty. The 6^th National Congress (in 1986), the whole Party had nearly 1,9 million members; By the 13^th National Congress (in 2021), there were more than 5,1 million members. From the requirements of the reality of innovation, the 4^th Plenum of the 10^th Central Party Committee (in January 2007) decided to rearrange the organizational apparatus of the Party and the political system. The advisory bodies that assist the Central Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat to lead 8 boards, and it is not compulsory if there are any committees at the center, the same is true for localities; The government consists of 22 ministries, ministerial-level agencies and has been stable so far. The Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW, dated October 25, 2017, of the 6^th Plenum of the 12^th National Party Congress stated that “a number of issues on continuing to innovate, reorganizing the organizational apparatus of the reduced political system, effective and efficient operation”. The resolution decided to continue to innovate, arrange the organizational apparatus of the political system to be streamlined, operate effectively, efficiently and in accordance with the socialism-oriented market economic institution in order to strengthen the leadership role of the Party; improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the State’s management and the quality of operations of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations; promote the people’s self-control... That policy has been implemented with great success at both the central and local levels. Experience shows that, if there is political determination and appropriate solutions, for the common cause, no matter how difficult it is, the Party can still successfully accomplish the set goals.

The 3^rd Plenum of the 8^th National Party Congress approved the Strategy of Personnel in the period of industrialization and modernization (on June 18, 1997), with a focus on building a contingent of leading cadres of the political system; scientific staff, experts in various fields; officers of the armed forces and managers of enterprises. The reality of innovation and international integration increasingly requires a deep awareness of President Ho Chi Minh’s viewpoints that cadres are the root of all tasks, training and coaching staff is the original work of the Party. The 7^th Plenum of the 12^th National Party Congress issued Resolution No. 26-NQ/TW, dated May 19, 2018, “On focusing on building a contingent of cadres at all levels, especially at the strategic level, with sufficiency in quality, capacity and prestige on par with their tasks”. That is a very crucial step in the awareness and practice of building staff.

The cadre work has had obvious innovations, from assessment, planning, training, retraining, rotation, selection to policies towards cadres. Fundamentals are determined that attaching a great importance to the detection, training and retraining of cadres, “building a contingent of cadres, first of all, leaders with solid political courage and pure morals, outstanding ability. They dare to think, to speak, to do, to take responsibility, to innovate, to face difficulties and challenges, to act for the common interest. They are prestige, truly pioneering, exemplary and solid” (10).

Innovation is increasingly developing, the Party and people wish that the team of leaders and managers who are qualified and talented enough to lead the country to socialism, Vietnam to become a developed country of development, prosperity, happiness. Accordingly, with a contingent of cadres and Party members, “mortality” is learning and following Ho Chi Minh’s moral example, the qualities of a communist soldier; “talent” is mastering modern knowledge and education, especially in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. V.I. Lenin once emphasized that successfully building a communist society must require high intelligence and education. Communism is “only possible on the basis of a modern education, and if they do not have that education, communism is still only an aspiration” (12).

Renovating the leadership method is an objective requirement to improve the Party’s capacity and effectiveness in leading, ruling and fighting. It must be based on the good implementation of the Party’s principles of organization and operation, such as the principle of democratic centralism, collective leadership, individual responsibility, upholding the responsibility of the head, leading by democratic methods on the basis of promoting socialist democracy, against bureaucracy, orders, irresponsibility and indifference; the principle of solidarity and unity in the Party on the basis of the Platform, guidelines, ideology and comradeship, and on the discipline of the Party; principles of self-criticism and criticism, in which criticism and self-criticism must be sincere, honest, serious, constructive, reasonable, and equitable; principles that the Party is closely associated with the people, consults, listens to the people’s opinions, understands the people, believes in the people and for the people.

The Party leads and governs by the Platform and guidelines and the State leadership concretizes and institutionalizes the guidelines into policies and laws; led by the Party organization system, a contingent of cadres and party members; by the inspection and discipline of the Party; by directly mobilizing and organizing the people to implement the guidelines and through mass organizations in the political system; leadership by political prestige, by inspiration and by example. That is the content and also the important experiences in the leadership and ruling of the Party. Proper handling the relationship between the Party’s leadership, the State’s management and the people’s ownership is a decisive factor for the success of the revolutionary cause.

The 13^th National Party Congress set out important tasks and solutions "to continuing to accelerate the construction and rectification of the Party, to build a socialist rule-of-law state and a clean and powerful political system” (13) “to combine harmoniously, closely and effectively between Party building and Party rectification, between Party building and Party defense” (14); to focus on building the Party on morality, associated with learning and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style; to renovate and perfect the organizational apparatus of the reduced political system, to operate effectively and efficiently in parallel with consolidating and improving the quality of Party organizations and Party members;  to improve the State’s operational capacity and efficiency in institutionalizing, concretizing and organizing the implementation of the Party’s guidelines and resolutions; to renovate the organization, apparatus, contents and mode of operation of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations ... The best implementation of the above tasks and solutions will ensure the improvement of improving the Party’s leadership, ruling and fighting capacity, bringing the nation’s revolutionary cause to glorious victories.

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(1), (2) Documents of the 13^th National Congress of Deputies, Publishing House. National Politics Truth, Hanoi, 2021,

t. I, p. 25, 26 - 27

(3) The Complete Party Document, Publishing House. National politics, Hanoi, 2006, t. 47, p. 363

(4), (5) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 53, 14

(6) Complete Party Document, Publishing House. National politics, Hanoi, 2007, t. 52, p. 19

(7) Complete Party Document, Phone number, t. 52, p. 25

(8) Complete Party Document, Phone number, t. 52, p. 194

(9) Document of the 12th National Congress of Deputies, Office of the Party Central Committee, Hanoi, 2016, p. 202

(10) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 187

(11) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Volume, Publishing House. National Politics Truth, Hanoi, 2011, t. 5, p. 313

This article was published in the Communist Review No.  964 (April 2021)