95th Anniversary of the Party's Founding: Radiant Vietnam

To Lam - General Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam

A new Spring is coming, bringing joy and new vitality to every corner of the country.

This Spring becomes even more meaningful as our entire Party, people and army celebrate the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Vietnam (February 3, 1930 - February 3, 2025) as a brilliant milestone for the whole country to enter a new stage of development, towards a bright future.

During the past 95 Spring years, our Party - the vanguard of the working class, the working people and the Vietnamese nation - has led the country to overcome countless hardships and challenges, achieving great victories and achievements, leaving a deep mark in the glorious history of the nation.

In 1930, the Communist Party of Vietnam was born in a special historical context and with a special mission. From the middle of the 19th century, French colonialists invaded our country and imposed brutal domination, causing our people to suffer slavery and misery.

During the past 95 Spring years, our Party - the vanguard of the working class, the working people and the Vietnamese nation - has led the country to overcome countless hardships and challenges, achieving great victories and achievements, leaving a deep mark in the glorious history of the nation.

General Secretary To Lam

With a tradition of patriotism and an indomitable spirit, our people have risen up to fight continuously and strongly through many different paths and tendencies, from the Can Vuong movement to the Yen The uprising, from the Dong Du, Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc, Duy Tan movements to the Yen Bai uprising...

Our people have fought very bravely and made many sacrifices, but all have not been successful because of the lack of a correct policy, the failure to gather and promote the strength of the entire nation, the lack of an appropriate method of struggle, and especially the lack of a leadership organization and a political party that meets the requirements of the nation and of the times.

From January 6 to February 7, 1930, the conference to unify communist organizations and establish the Communist Party of Vietnam was held in Hong Kong (China) under the chairmanship of comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc on behalf of the Communist International. (Photo: VNA)

At the same time, in the world, the development of the workers' movement and the victory of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 opened a new horizon, lighting up hope for oppressed and exploited peoples, strongly encouraging the movement for independence on all continents.

Faced with the demands of history and with a burning desire for national liberation, the passionate patriot Nguyen Tat Thanh left to find a way to save the country. He traveled across continents, through nearly 30 countries, hundreds of cities, overcame countless hardships and thorns, and did many jobs to earn a living, to learn the "wisdom" of humanity.

It was this journey that helped the Vietnamese youth understand clearly the root of the suffering of the working class in the oppression and exploitation of imperialist capitalism and formed a clear class consciousness. With the determination to strive for: " Freedom for my compatriots, independence for my Fatherland, " Nguyen Tat Thanh came to Marxism-Leninism naturally, as a historical necessity and found there the fundamental issues of the path of national liberation associated with class liberation, human liberation; national independence associated with socialism.

Faced with historical requirements and under the guiding light of Marxism-Leninism, the young man Nguyen Tat Thanh-Nguyen Ai Quoc carried out many activities, painstakingly preparing both ideology, theory and people for the birth of a pioneering political organization to lead the Vietnamese revolution.

He spread Marxism-Leninism to Vietnam through works such as "The Indictment of French Colonialism" (1925), "The Revolutionary Path" (1927), trained revolutionary cadres and promoted the domestic struggle movement.

On February 3, 1930, in Kowloon (Hong Kong, China), under the chairmanship of comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc, the conference to unify three communist organizations in Vietnam took place, agreeing to establish the Communist Party of Vietnam.

This was a decision of great historical significance, uniting Vietnamese communist organizations into a single force with a clear and unified revolutionary line. The first Party Platform adopted at the Party Founding Conference determined the basic path of the Vietnamese revolution, meeting the urgent demands of history and becoming the banner that gathered and united communist organizations, revolutionary forces and the entire nation.

This historical event ended the crisis of the Vietnamese revolution's line and organization, opening a new era in our country's history - the era of fighting for national independence and advancing towards socialism.

Since its founding, with the right guidelines, appropriate and creative methods, practical organizational capacity and the tenacious fighting and heroic sacrifice of many generations of cadres and party members, and the trust, support, wholehearted protection and care of the people, the Communist Party of Vietnam has led the country to great victories of historical and epochal significance.

Within just 15 years of its establishment, our Party has continuously developed and led the struggle for national liberation, making the victory of the August Revolution, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945, abolishing the semi-feudal colonial regime in Vietnam, opening a new chapter in the history of the nation. The Vietnamese people have transformed from slaves to masters of the country, society and their own lives.

On August 19, 1945, the people of the capital occupied the Bac Bo Palace, the headquarters of the French puppet government in the North. The August Revolution opened a new era in Vietnam, the era of the Vietnamese people being masters of the country and their own destiny. (Photo: VNA)

Immediately after the success of the August Revolution, our country had to face countless difficulties and challenges; at the same time, it had to confront "famine, ignorance and foreign invaders." In the "critical" situation, the Party led our people to steadfastly protect and build the young government, while actively preparing in all aspects for the resistance war against the invading French colonialists.

With the right policy, promoting the strength of the entire nation, our Party led our people to successively defeat all enemy plots and invasion plans during nine years of arduous and heroic resistance, culminating in the historic Dien Bien Phu Victory, forcing the French colonialists to sign the Geneva Agreement (1954) on peace in Indochina.

During the following twenty years, our country was divided and there was no peace. Under the leadership of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh, with an iron will and unshakable determination, our people overcame countless hardships and sacrifices, carried out a great resistance war, successively defeated the war strategies of the US imperialists, completely liberated the South, unified the country, wrote one of the most heroic pages of the nation's history, an event of international stature and profound contemporary significance.

This is the realization of the vision and determination that our Party has put forth since the 3rd Congress (September 1960): “ Our Vietnam is one, our Vietnamese people are one. Our country will definitely be unified on the basis of independence and democracy, our people will definitely be reunited in peace, freedom and happiness. Rivers may dry up, mountains may wear away, but the will to unify the Fatherland of our people will never waver and in the end we will definitely win. ”

While urgently overcoming the extremely serious consequences of the war, our country continues to face new challenges. The Party continues to lead our entire army and people to both restore the socio-economy and improve people's lives, and to fight steadfastly to maintain every inch of the sacred land of the Fatherland, to protect independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and the living space of the nation. At the same time, we fulfill our noble international duty to the Cambodian people.

Faced with new requirements in national development, to overcome the shortcomings of the bureaucratic, subsidized centralized planning mechanism that led to the socio-economic crisis in the post-war years, on the basis of summarizing initiatives and creativity in the Party's leadership and direction practices and the implementation of the entire political system and people, our Party has proposed and implemented the policy of comprehensive national renovation, marking an important turning point on the path of transition to socialism in Vietnam.

The birth of the renovation policy has met the practical requirements of the process of building the economy, national defense, security, and foreign affairs of the country, demonstrating the steadfastness and creative thinking of the Communist Party of Vietnam and opening a new era for the country's development.

After nearly 40 years of implementing the renovation process under the leadership of the Party, our country has overcome all difficulties and achieved great and historic achievements.

From a poor, war-ravaged, besieged and isolated country, Vietnam has now become a developing country with average income, deeply and widely integrated into world politics, the global economy and human civilization, taking on many important international responsibilities and playing an active role in many important international organizations and multilateral forums.

Independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity are maintained; national and ethnic interests are guaranteed. The economic scale in 2024 has reached over 470 billion USD, ranking 32nd in the world and being in the top 20 economies in terms of trade and foreign investment attraction.

People's lives have improved significantly, the poverty rate has decreased sharply, now only 1.93% (according to multidimensional standards) compared to 60% in 1986.

From a poor, war-ravaged, besieged and isolated country, Vietnam has now become a developing country with average income, deeply and widely integrated into world politics, the global economy and human civilization, taking on many important international responsibilities and playing an active role in many important international organizations and multilateral forums.

Political, economic, cultural, social, scientific-technological, national defense and security potential is constantly enhanced.

The foreign affairs situation has been constantly expanded; the country's position and prestige have been constantly spread, making positive contributions to solving regional and global issues, and performing many tasks as a member of ASEAN, the United Nations and other international organizations and institutions, which have been recognized and highly appreciated by the international community.

The great achievements of the Vietnamese revolution over the past 95 years stem from many factors, of which the correct and wise leadership of the Party is the leading decisive factor, along with the sacrifices, fighting, and creative labor of the entire people and army under the Party's leadership, and the support and assistance of international friends.

In difficult and challenging times, our Party has clearly demonstrated its mettle and solidarity, being a unified bloc in will and action, thereby leading and directing the entire political system to strive to achieve great and comprehensive achievements in all fields.

At the same time, through the process of leading the revolution, our Party has been tempered and increasingly matured and strengthened, worthy of its role and mission of leading the revolution and the trust and expectations of the people.

That reality has affirmed: in Vietnam, there is no other political force other than the Communist Party of Vietnam that has enough capacity, courage, intelligence, experience and prestige to lead the country to overcome all difficulties and challenges, bringing the revolutionary cause of our nation from one victory to another.

Looking back on the 95-year journey of building, fighting and growing up of the Communist Party of Vietnam, we express our infinite gratitude and respectfully commemorate the great President Ho Chi Minh - the genius leader, the national liberation hero, who opened the revolutionary path, making our mountains and rivers, our country, famous.

We also respectfully commemorate the Party's senior leaders, heroic martyrs, compatriots and comrades who fought steadfastly and sacrificed themselves in the glorious revolutionary cause for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland, for socialism, for a peaceful, happy and prosperous life for the people.

The Party, State and people of Vietnam will forever remember the contributions of those who have rendered service to the country, families of martyrs, Vietnamese Heroic Mothers, Heroes of the Armed Forces, Labor Heroes, wounded and sick soldiers, comrades who were imprisoned in colonial and imperialist prisons, soldiers who fought on all fronts and fulfilled noble international duties, veterans and those who worked hard and creatively to create material wealth for society.

We are also always grateful to our international comrades and friends who have always accompanied, supported and helped the Vietnamese people in the past struggle for national independence, as well as continued cooperation and support in the cause of national construction and development today.

Looking back at the glorious and proud history and tradition of the Party over the past 95 years, we see more clearly the responsibility of today's generation of leaders and Party members in the historical process of the nation.

Scene of the closing session of the 13th Party Central Committee Conference. (Photo: Doan Tan/VNA)

The Party's current mission is to lead and bring the country into an era of development, an era of prosperity and strength, successfully building a socialist Vietnam, a rich people, a strong country, democracy, fairness, civilization, on par with the world powers; ensuring that all people have a prosperous and happy life, are supported to develop and get rich; contribute more and more to peace, stability, and development of the region and the world, for the happiness of humanity and global civilization.

The top priority is to successfully implement the strategic goals by 2030, Vietnam will become a developing country with modern industry and high average income; by 2045 it will become a developed socialist country with high income.

To continue to shoulder that historical responsibility, the Party must constantly grow stronger, maintain its revolutionary nature, improve its leadership and governing capacity, fighting strength, and maintain close ties with the people.

The Party's current mission is to lead and bring the country into an era of development, an era of prosperity, and successfully build a socialist Vietnam with rich people, strong country, democracy, fairness, and civilization.

General Secretary To Lam

The Party must always renew itself, self-rectify itself, promote internal democracy, build a strong, clean cadre team, and be steadfast in the goals and ideals of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh thought.

At the same time, the Party must constantly improve its theory, improve the quality of ideological work, and create a solid foundation to lead the country to rapid and sustainable development.

Faced with new requirements of the revolutionary cause, especially in the context of deep international integration and challenges from the world situation, Party building work needs to be paid more attention, innovated and implemented more drastically, focusing on the following key groups of issues:

First, continue to adhere to the Party's goals and ideals. Our Party was born with the mission of leading the revolution, representing the interests of the working class, the working people and the entire Vietnamese nation. From the early days of the struggle for independence, to when it became the ruling party, the Party has always adhered to the goal of liberating the nation, building socialism, and bringing prosperity and happiness to the people. The Party does not exist for its own benefit but operates for the benefit of the entire people.

The Party's leadership power does not come from itself, but is delegated by the people, and is a mandate from the people. The Party has no other purpose than to fight for the interests of the people, the nation and the people. President Ho Chi Minh once emphasized: "The Party is not an organization to make officials rich. It must fulfill its mission of liberating the nation, making the Fatherland rich and strong, and the people happy."

Therefore, the Party must always be closely attached to the people, take the people's interests as the highest goal, maintain its revolutionary nature and pioneering role.

In the current context, the Party must firmly uphold its ideological foundation, continue to creatively apply Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought into practice, and firmly defend the path to socialism.

At the same time, the Party must constantly innovate, self-rectify, improve its leadership and governing capacity, and build a clean and strong Party to continue leading the nation on the path of development in the new era, realizing the goal of a rich people, strong country, democracy, fairness, and civilization.

Second, constantly perfect the Party's theoretical system. A solid theoretical foundation is the compass for the Party's actions, deciding the correctness of its leadership and development strategy for the country.

Over more than 95 years of revolutionary leadership, the Party has drawn many lessons and gradually developed theoretical thinking on the path to socialism, on the model of socialist-oriented market economic development, on building a socialist rule-of-law state, on national defense, security and foreign affairs, and many other important fields.

Completing the theoretical foundation is an urgent requirement for the Party to continue leading the country in the context of today's world, which is undergoing profound changes in all aspects of life. However, in the process of development, practice always raises new issues, requiring the Party to constantly summarize practice, supplement and develop theory.

General Secretary To Lam delivers the closing speech at the 13th Party Central Committee Conference. (Photo: Thong Nhat/VNA)

The work of summarizing practices needs to look straight at the truth, accurately assess the achieved results, frankly and objectively point out the limitations, weaknesses, shortcomings and causes; clearly identify the bottlenecks and bottlenecks that are holding back the country's development, thereby proposing breakthrough solutions, creating strong momentum for the development process in the coming time.

Research work also needs to clarify what are the great opportunities to be exploited, what are the great challenges to be overcome, and what are the new elements of practice that need to be added. Frankness, objectivity, science, honesty, steadfastness and caution are necessary to avoid mistakes and voluntarism.

These issues need to be clarified in the process of drafting documents to be submitted to the 14th National Party Congress. This is not only the work of the Party's professional agencies but also requires the participation of the entire political system, intellectuals, theoretical research agencies and each cadre, party member and people nationwide.

Third, continue to build and rectify a clean and strong Party. This is a task of decisive significance to the existence and development of the Party. It is necessary to constantly consolidate solidarity and unity within the Party, improve the leadership capacity and fighting strength of each Party organization; build a truly clean and strong grassroots Party organization, act as the core of the political system and be closely attached to the people.

At the same time, it is necessary to continue to strengthen the work of inspection, supervision and Party discipline; promote self-criticism and criticism, resolutely handle cadres and Party members who have degraded in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle, and have shown signs of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation"; improve the effectiveness and efficiency of inspection and supervision work to maintain discipline and order within the Party. The work of preventing and combating corruption, negativity and waste needs to continue to be implemented resolutely, synchronously, comprehensively and systematically, without forbidden areas or exceptions, creating deterrence and warning, contributing to cleaning up the apparatus and strengthening people's trust in the Party.

Cadres and party members, especially leaders of party committees at all levels, need to uphold their responsibility to set an example, always listen to people's opinions, promptly resolve people's legitimate aspirations, and create social consensus. At the same time, it is necessary to promote the people's supervisory role over cadres and party members, ensuring that the Party is always a loyal leading force for the interests of the nation and for the happiness of the people.

Fourth, determined to consolidate the political system's organization and apparatus towards streamlining, effective and efficient operations, overcoming cumbersome and overlapping situations.

In many recent congresses, congress documents have emphasized specific tasks on streamlining the organizational apparatus or researching and building a comprehensive model of the political system's organizational apparatus in the new period. The Party has also continuously issued many Resolutions and Conclusions to lead the implementation of the policy of innovation and reorganization of the political system's organizational apparatus.

However, the awareness and actions of some Party committees, Party organizations, leadership groups, and heads of some agencies, organizations, units, and localities are not complete, not profound, not determined, not resolute, the arrangement of the organizational apparatus is not synchronous, comprehensive, and has not linked streamlining of staff with restructuring...

Therefore, up to now, the organizational structure of the political system is still cumbersome, with many levels and focal points; the effectiveness and efficiency of operations have not met the requirements and tasks; the functions, tasks, powers, organizations, and working relationships between many agencies and departments are not really clear, still overlapping; the division of responsibilities, decentralization, and delegation of powers are not synchronous and reasonable, there are places where people make excuses, places where they miss out or do not invest appropriately.

Compared to the great changes of the country after 40 years of renovation, the development of the socialist rule of law state and scientific and technological achievements, the organization of the political system in our country is still basically following the model designed decades ago. Many issues are no longer suitable for new conditions, which is contrary to the law of development; creating a situation of "Saying does not match doing."

Therefore, the key task in the current period and the coming time is to build and organize the implementation of a comprehensive model of the organization of the Vietnamese political system to meet the requirements and tasks in the new revolutionary period.

Fifth, take care of building a contingent of cadres, especially key cadres at all levels. Faced with increasingly high requirements for development and integration, the contingent of cadres, especially key cadres at all levels, must meet important standards: have strong political will; have pure ethics, high sense of responsibility, be truly exemplary, honest, dedicated to serving the people, not self-interested, not corrupt, not negative; have innovative and creative thinking; know how to seize opportunities, dare to think, dare to do, dare to take responsibility for the common good, not avoid, stagnate, or be passive in the face of newly arising problems; have practical capacity, leadership and management ability.

To do this, it is necessary to strongly innovate the thinking in personnel work. Personnel work processes must become a mechanism to select the best and most worthy people, not a mechanism to legitimize the selection, appointment, and promotion of people who do not meet the standards, are not truly representative, and are not truly for the people.

In addition to making the process of appointing and rotating cadres transparent and strengthening inspection and supervision, it is necessary to develop a mechanism to detect, protect and promote talented people, and at the same time have a clear mechanism for handling responsibilities, in which anyone who introduces or appoints cadres who do not meet standards, lack qualities, or have weak capacity must be held responsible. At the same time, it is necessary to resolutely fight against the practice of seeking positions, power, and group interests in the work of planning, appointing, and using cadres.

Sixth, strengthen the application of science and technology and digital transformation in Party building work.

Advances in information technology, artificial intelligence, big data and digital transformation are having a strong impact on all aspects of social life. The application of scientific and technological achievements to Party building is not only an urgent requirement but also a breakthrough to enhance the Party's leadership capacity and fighting strength in the new situation.

Information technology and artificial intelligence will contribute to modernizing the management of party members and the operation of party organizations. Building a party member management system on a digital platform helps increase transparency, accuracy and efficiency in managing records, working processes, evaluating and classifying party members.

This helps Party committees at all levels accurately grasp the situation of their staff, thereby having appropriate training, fostering, and rotation mechanisms, overcoming bureaucracy and impracticality. Digital technology also helps improve the effectiveness of propaganda and political and ideological education.

Digital platforms and social networks can be used to propagate the Party's policies and guidelines to a large number of cadres, party members and people quickly, vividly and effectively.

New technologies also help improve the ability to detect emerging issues early, analyze, forecast, and propose appropriate solutions. Digital technology provides accurate, objective data, helping Party committees make the right decisions, based on scientific analysis instead of emotions.

Seventh, the urgent key task in 2025 of Party committees at all levels, each Party cell, and each Party member is to concentrate their efforts and intelligence together with the people to strive to complete and exceed the targets stated in the Resolutions of Party committees at all levels, especially focusing on socio-economic development targets; organize and conduct Party congresses at all levels, towards the 14th National Congress of the Party, focusing on contributing opinions to the content of Party documents; introduce and select truly exemplary people, for the country and the people, to participate in the political system at all levels; create a truly democratic, united, enthusiastic atmosphere of labor, production, construction, and development of the homeland among all classes of people.

Looking back at 95 years of the Party's construction and growth, we have the right to be proud and have complete confidence in the bright future of the Party and the nation.

In 1945, when the leadership of the entire people successfully implemented the August Revolution, our Party had only nearly 5,000 party members, but with the right way, the spirit of faithfulness, the strong will and the patriotism, the Party led the people to win the glorious victory, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

By 1960, when the country entered the period of the anti -American resistance battlefield, the number of party members increased to about 500,000 people, becoming a nucleus leading the entire nation to fight for independence and reunification.

Today, with more than 5.4 million party members, our forces are constantly growing both in quantity and quality, enough to shoulder the responsibility to bring the country forward in the new period.

Each party member is a symbol of faith, intelligence and solidarity of the whole nation.

Being able to believe in the strength of the Party and the solidarity of the entire nation, we affirm: The whole Party, the entire people and our entire army will agree to overcome all difficulties and challenges, bring the country to develop quickly and sustainably in the new era, build a glorious and radiant future for the Vietnamese people./.

Pano celebrate the Party, celebrate spring.