Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Manh Ha (former Director of the Institute of Party History) and Thanh Nien looked back at the important marks of the Party over the past nearly a century.
PHOTO: VU TOAN
Imprint of the ruling party
As someone who has studied the Party's history for many years, what important marks have you seen the Party make in the nation's development process?
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Manh Ha : For nearly a century, the Party has undertaken the mission of leading the nation, and we have seen great milestones, such as the Party leading the people to gain national independence after 15 years of its birth with the August Revolution in 1945, leading to the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Next, the Party led the people to wage a resistance war against foreign invaders, the French colonialists and the American imperialists - a 30-year long march (1945 - 1975) to protect national independence and unify the country.
The third mark is that the Party led the people to build socialism in the North (1954 - 1975) and then led the whole country to socialism. From 1986 to now, the Party has resolutely abandoned the centralized planning and subsidy mechanism, carried out comprehensive national renovation and international integration. The renovation policy that our Party set out at the end of 1986 has continued to be implemented and has shown great achievements as assessed by the 13th National Congress: "Never before has our country had such a foundation, potential, position and international prestige as it does today".
At the 13th Congress, the Party determined that the work of Party building and rectification must be implemented resolutely, comprehensively, synchronously, and regularly in terms of politics, ideology, ethics, organization, and cadres.
PHOTO: GIA HAN
We have built socialism in the North since 1954 and achieved many successes, despite the war. After 1975, when the country was unified, the Party had the task of leading the whole country towards socialism. But at this time, difficulties began to appear: due to the severe consequences of 30 years of war; due to the blockade and embargo of the US and Western countries while aid from other countries decreased sharply; then 2 wars to protect the border; especially mistakes in policies and directions..., so in the period of 1975 - 1986, the country gradually sank into socio-economic crisis. At that time, there was a mentality of "holding our breath" for 30 years of war, so we wanted peace and a better life. However, life was more difficult than before... During that period, the Party still persistently led the people to continue promoting the spirit of overcoming difficulties, innovating, and finding a way. The Party has recognized the breakthroughs in innovation in localities, summarized them into innovation viewpoints to present at the 6th Congress and finally we have succeeded, so that from 1986 to now, the country has developed very strongly.
The Party corrects its mistakes to become stronger.
To maintain its leadership role, in addition to the legitimacy of a ruling party, the Party must have constantly innovated and improved itself throughout that process, sir?
Of course. Innovation is an inevitable need within the Party itself, so that the Party's activities can become better and better, in line with the development reality. Rereading the work Self-criticism by General Secretary Nguyen Van Cu published in 1939, we see that right from its infancy, the Party has frankly criticized itself, pointed out shortcomings and limitations in order to correct itself. In this work, General Secretary Nguyen Van Cu emphasized the need to "openly, boldly, and honestly point out one's own mistakes and find ways to correct them, and fight against the tendency to compromise, which does not weaken the Party, but makes it unified and strong".
Relying on the people to build and rectify the Party is the consistent viewpoint in President Ho Chi Minh's Reform of the Working Style.
PHOTO: TL
For a leading political party, making mistakes and shortcomings is inevitable. Therefore, self-criticism and criticism are essential principles in the Party. Through self-criticism and criticism, we can clearly and early recognize mistakes and shortcomings, thereby promptly correcting them. This is clearly stated in the work: "Each failure is an opportunity for us to gain experience, to see whether the slogans we put forward are understood, recognized and practiced by the masses."
Later, in 1947, when writing the Reform of the Working Style, President Ho Chi Minh determined: "The Party's working style must be reformed". In 1956, President Ho Chi Minh pointed out the "diseases" of Party cadres and members in a speech when he visited Quang Binh. At the end of 1956, at the 10th Central Conference, the 2nd term, he also severely reviewed the mistakes in land reform and disciplined a number of Central comrades who made mistakes...
Self-renewal within the Party has been carried out consistently through congresses, where the Party has always self-examined, refined, and perfected its leadership methods in accordance with the given context. At the 6th National Congress, which initiated the comprehensive renewal of the country, the Party promoted the spirit of "looking straight at the truth and speaking the truth clearly". From this spirit, the work of Party building and rectification has become more drastic and stronger, and in recent terms there have been specialized meetings on Party building and rectification. The Party's leadership capacity and fighting strength have continued to be enhanced.
At the 13th National Congress, the Party emphasized: "The work of Party building and rectification must be carried out resolutely, comprehensively, synchronously, and regularly in terms of politics, ideology, ethics, organization, and cadres", and most recently, in the article Continuing to strongly innovate the Party's leadership and governance methods, an urgent requirement of the new revolutionary stage , General Secretary To Lam pointed out the limitations that need to be revised to improve leadership and governance capacity, ensuring that the Party is the great helmsman, leading the country into a new era - the era of national growth. General Secretary To Lam also affirmed that the practice of innovation is always moving and developing, requiring constant innovation of the Party's leadership and governance methods on the basis of steadfastness in the Party's principles; imbued with the teachings of General Secretary Le Duan: "Must lead closely and with principles, never wavering before the difficulties and challenges of the revolution".
As I said above, in the process of leading the revolution, the Party is not always right, but sometimes it is wrong. And the Party has strictly corrected its own shortcomings. The Party must renew itself, renew its methods and ways of working, so that it is equal to its tasks, fulfills its mission, serves the Fatherland, serves the people. When the Party renews itself, it will promote and lead social renewal. And to renew, one must have courage, self-awareness, self-criticism, look straight at the truth, clearly state the truth, correctly evaluate the truth, to discover one's own weaknesses and shortcomings and be determined to correct them.
No more stereotypes
In the work " Reforming the Way of Working " that you just mentioned, President Ho Chi Minh mentioned a lot about the close relationship between the Party and the people. He said: "The leadership in all practical work of the Party must come from the masses and return to the masses". In the article of General Secretary To Lam, it stated: "The leadership of the Party must ensure that real power belongs to the people; the State we build must be by the people, for the people". In your opinion, how has this viewpoint been realized?
I think the Party is implementing the right motto, which is also a slogan: "People know, people discuss, people do, people check, people supervise, people benefit". When this is implemented in practice, it means that the Party has relied on the people to lead and real power belongs to the people.
However, in reality, there are still things that people do not fully know, that people have not been checked and monitored. Therefore, we must expand democracy further; be more open and transparent; listen to the people's opposing opinions, even opposing opinions, so that the Party can improve itself and cadres and Party members can improve themselves. President Ho Chi Minh's determination to rely on the people to build the Party is a requirement of the revolutionary cause for each Party member and for the Party's leadership.
According to Him, the Party must always review how its resolutions and directives have been implemented. Otherwise, those resolutions and directives will turn out to be empty words and will also harm the people's trust in the Party. Therefore, imbued with President Ho Chi Minh's viewpoint of relying on the people to build and rectify the Party, more than ever, the Party must strive to apply and implement consistently, with a scientific and revolutionary spirit, respecting the people's right to mastery, wholeheartedly trusting the people, being extremely loyal and devoted to serving the people; considering it a measure of the quality and capacity of the contingent of cadres and Party members, and the most solid guarantee for the Party to gain strength from the people's trust, attachment, assistance, support and protection of the Party. This is what President Ho Chi Minh considered the secret to success.
Also in the work " Reforming the way of working ", discussing "leadership", Uncle Ho stated the view that the Party must "lead in the true sense". How is this understood, sir?
There are two concepts here: "party leadership" and "party in power". From its inception until 1945, the Party led the people to fight for national independence in secret circumstances, at that time not in power. After the successful August Revolution, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was born and the Party openly operated, then the Party was in power. But here, the concepts of "party leadership" and "party in power" need to be understood a little more clearly.
The Party leads through setting out policies and guidelines. The ruling Party means that the Party sends Party cadres and Party members to government agencies and public authorities to implement and organize the implementation of the Party's policies and guidelines.
In the work "Reforming the way of working ", President Ho Chi Minh wrote that "true leadership" means that the Party must set out correct policies and guidelines and Party cadres must be exemplary in implementing the Party's policies and guidelines. The Party cannot make excuses and do things for others. Even at that time, there was already a view that "the Party leads". As for the work of government agencies, it is through its policies, guidelines and cadres that the Party "rolls up its sleeves" to do all government work.
Leading by guidelines, policies and strategies is one of the Party's leadership methods. However, as General Secretary To Lam pointed out, one of the current limitations of the Party lies in the issuance of policies, some of which are still general, scattered, overlapping, and slow to be supplemented, revised and replaced. Some of the Party's major policies and orientations have not been institutionalized in a timely and complete manner, or have been institutionalized but their feasibility is not high...
That's right! In order for the Party's policies to be put into practice and easily implemented, the Party's resolutions need to be concise and easy to understand. In many cases, the resolutions issued are long and lack specificity, so their feasibility is not high. I hope that the Party's resolutions go straight to the point; the Party's policies and guidelines go straight to the point. Readers and when they hear them disseminated, they will understand immediately, but currently when listening to resolutions and understandings, they often seem long-winded and formulaic; they rarely go into specific issues, they are general and "rosy".
In the Party's leadership, we must also clearly recognize and point out what is successful, what is the result, what are the limitations and what are the solutions to overcome them? There are resolutions, but they are long and diluted, making it difficult for people to understand them in detail. General Secretary To Lam also mentioned this when he noted that resolutions must be concise, easy to understand, not lengthy or formulaic. I think this is a way to innovate the Party's leadership method.
Furthermore, the innovation in leadership means that even the leaders must be more democratic, that is, implementing the principle of democratic centralism in the most effective way, instead of "just discussing a little bit, but already having an idea in mind" is not acceptable. Now we must be truly democratic, listening to all opinions to finally make a decision, that decision must reflect the will and thoughts of the entire Party to create consensus.
Another innovation in the Party's leadership method is to have real solidarity, "showing off but not being satisfied" is not acceptable. That's why people say "I agree with you" is not the same as "I agree with you". We must create "consensus", consensus within the Party and consensus in both "the Party's will and the people's heart" so that resolutions and leadership can come into life and be effective.
Thank you very much!
If we do not resolutely correct our shortcomings, it is like hiding our illness, not daring to take medicine, allowing the illness to become more and more serious, endangering our lives.
President Ho Chi Minh (Working style modification )
The practice of innovation is always moving and developing, requiring constant innovation in the Party's leadership and governance methods on the basis of firmly upholding the Party's principles; imbued with the teachings of General Secretary Le Duan: "We must lead closely and with principles, never wavering before the difficulties and challenges of the revolution".
General Secretary To Lam (Continuing to strongly innovate the Party's leadership and governing methods, an urgent requirement of the new revolutionary stage)
Thanhnien.vn
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/dua-vao-dan-de-doi-moi-dang-185250202215221618.htm
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