Promoting good traditions, enhancing Party’s revolutionary and vanguard nature

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Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong speaks at the ceremony (Photo: NDO/Duy Linh)

Distinguished participants,

Dear comrades and compatriots,

In the jubilant atmosphere of the whole nation rejoicing at the momentous achievements recorded in 2019 and welcoming the Year of the Rat 2020, today in Hanoi - “A-Thousand-Year Cultured and Heroic” Capital City and “The City for Peace” — we are solemnly celebrating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the glorious Communist Party of Vietnam (February 3, 1930 - February 3, 2020).

On behalf of the Party Central Committee, I would like to extend my warmest greetings, most heartfelt regards and best wishes to incumbent and former Party, State and Vietnam Fatherland Front leaders, veteran revolutionaries, Vietnam Hero mothers, distinguished guests, all comrades and compatriots across the country, and overseas compatriots.

Dear comrades and compatriots,

The many-thousand-year-long history of our nation has proved that the love for the country, the preservation of the country, the resolute fight against foreign invasion, and the defense of national independence, sovereignty and unification constitute an extremely precious tradition of our people.

Building on this tradition, since the mid-19th century when our country was invaded by the French colonialists, never subjugated to slavery, our people had kept rising up in continual and forceful patriotic movements characterized by multiple paths and tendencies, ranging from national salvation paths chosen by scholars to rebellions by peasants and bourgeois-styled revolutionary paths, etc.

However, despite their staunchness, wholeheartedness and immense sufferings, all those movements ended in failure due to historical limitations, most notably the lack of a judicious line. A new path was dictated by history.

In 1911, the young patriot Nguyen Tat Thanh (our greatly beloved Uncle Ho) set out for a new path to save the country and fight for national independence.

Driven by eminent and ardent aspirations, He came to Marxism-Leninism and found in this revolutionary doctrine the right path for national salvation - that of proletarian revolution.

Throughout the many years of intensive travels and activities overseas, He persisted in studying, learning and creatively applying Marxism-Leninism and incrementally disseminated it to Vietnam, while strenuously preparing conditions necessary for the establishment of a genuine revolutionary party. Convened in Kowloon, Hong Kong (China) on February 3, 1930 and chaired by Him (alias leader Nguyen Ai Quoc), the communist merger Conference made a decision to merge the then Vietnamese communist organizations into a single political party which was named Communist Party of Vietnam. That was a monumental historic turning-point, putting an end to the protracted crisis in the organization and guidelines of the Vietnamese revolution.

That the Communist Party of Vietnam was born resulted from the convergence of Marxism-Leninism on the one hand and the workers’ and patriotic movements on the other, attesting to the Vietnamese working class’s maturity and capacity to shoulder the historic mission of leadership over the revolution.

The Party’s first Political Platform adopted at this founding Conference identified the fundamental path for the Vietnamese revolution that met the urgent demand of the nation and the impassioned aspiration of the population.

Within a mere 15 years since its founding, in flesh-and-blood bond with the population, and enjoying their full support and trust, our Party led the national liberation movement and conducted three revolutionary high-tides: the 1930-1931 high-tide that culminated in the Nghe-Tinh Soviet movement, the 1936-1939 high-tide demanding social welfare and democracy, and the 1939-1945 national liberation revolutionary high- tide, so that in 1945, when the time for the revolution was ripe, the Communist Party of Vietnam led the entire Vietnamese nation to the landslide victory of the August 1945 Revolution and the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945 (whose 75th anniversary we are celebrating this year).

Hardly had the Democratic Republic of Vietnam been born when the revolution was to face numerous difficulties and challenges, among them simultaneous confrontation with a three-fold enemy, namely hunger, illiteracy and foreign invasions.

In such a time of great peril, the Party led our people through the situation which was “hung by a hair,” unyieldingly safeguarding and building the infantile government, while proactively making all-round preparations to embark upon the war of resistance against the French colonialists.

In keeping with the line of an “all-people,” “all-sided,” “long-term” and “essentially self-reliant” war of resistance, and building on the promoted tradition of all-¬nation unity and patriotism, our Party led the people to successively defeat all of the enemy’s aggressive schemes and plans. Of special significance was the triumphant 1953-1954 Winter-Spring Operation, with its culmination being the historic Dien Bien Phu victory that “resounded over the five continents and shook the globe,” and that drove the French colonialists into signing the Geneva Accords in 1954, thus ending their war of aggression against Vietnam.

From 1954 to 1975, our country was divided into two parts. Under the leadership of the Party, the North exerted great efforts to build socialism while devoting all of its energy to fulfilling the duty of a great rear to the great frontline. The people of the South continued their undaunted struggle for national independence and reunification.

Imbued with the spirit “We would rather sacrifice all than surrendering our country and being enslaved” and “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom,” following the Party’s sound and creative guidelines, and thanks to the entire nation’s aggregate strength, our armed forces and people successively defeated the American imperialists’ war strategies, completely liberated the South, and reunified the country on April 30, 1975.

This victory will “be written in the history of our nation eternally as a most glorious page and an illuminating symbol of an all-winning victory of revolutionary heroism and human wisdom, and go down in world history as a great feat of the 20th century and an event of pivotal international importance and profound epoch-making magnitude” (whose 45th anniversary we are celebrating this year).

While having to work to urgently address extremely grave war aftermaths, the Vietnamese people continued to confront newly staged wars. Under the Party’s leadership, our armed forces and people focused on socio-economic restoration while fighting to defend our borderlines and safeguarding our sacred national independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty. All the while, we succeeded in fulfilling internationalist obligations of helping the Cambodian people escape from genocide and revive their nation.

In the face of the emerging needs of national development and in a bid to redress the shortcomings caused by the centrally-planned subsidy-based bureaucratic mechanism which resulted in post-war socio-economic crises, and basing itself on reviews of the population’s initiatives and innovations in reality, the Party embarked upon phasing in Doi Moi (Renewal) of agriculture and industry, first and foremost of theoretical thinking about socialism, and came to gradually shape the National Doi Moi policy.

Having deeply analyzed the country’s situation, and after a practical exploratory and testing process, in the spirit of “looking straight into the truth, evaluating correctly the truth, and telling the truth in a black-and-white manner,” the 6th National Party Congress in December 1986 charted out the policy of Comprehensive National Doi Moi, marking an important watershed in the transition to socialism in Vietnam.

The Doi Moi policy’s enactment met the demand of historical realities, demonstrating the Party’s firm willpower and innovative thinking, and opening up a new period of development for the country.

Following the 6th National Congress, the Party step by step improved and concretized the Doi Moi policy the basic and core substance of which was expressed in the Political Platform on National Construction in the Period of Transition to Socialism (the 1991 Platform and the amended 2011 Platform) and other important Party documents adopted by subsequent successive Party Congresses.

The 1990s witnessed the Communist Party and people of Vietnam surmounting the challenges arising from the collapse of the real socialism model in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, remaining unswerving and taking steady and creative steps on the path to socialism in a way suitable to Vietnam’s specific conditions and characteristics.

The Party Central Committee has between the 6th and 12th Tenures adopted a great many resolutions on the fundamental and crucial issues of the Party as well as on the development of the country. These documents have been then institutionalized by the National Assembly into the legal system and laws, hence an increasingly synchronized and appropriate legal foundation for the Doi Moi process. They have been further concretized by the Government into specific mechanisms, policies and solutions in service of the management, governance and administration over national construction and development.

In defining and determining the Doi Moi policy, our Party has always firmly grasped and innovatively applied the basic tenets, viewpoints and dialectical materialist methodologies of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought and practical local and foreign experiences, properly tackled such basic relations as those in the development of a socialist-oriented market economy; the building of a socialist law-governed State “of the people, by the people and for the people;” the close-knit combination between Doi Moi in the economic sphere and Doi Moi in the political sphere, as well as between economic growth and the realization of social progress and equity; the effective combination between socio-economic development and national defense and security, between national construction and national defense, between national independence and autonomy on the one hand and proactive and active international integration on the other, as well as between the Party’s leadership, the State’s governance and the people’s ownership, etc.

And all this has been done in a manner free from lopsidedness, extremism, wishfulness or switching from one extreme to another.

As reality has shown, Vietnam has after nearly 35 years of Doi Moi transformed itself from being an underdeveloped country with an outdated material-technological base, backward socio-economic infrastructures, and a low level of development into a middle-income developing country, with its culture and society continuously developed, its population’s material and spiritual living standards improved, breakthroughs in Party building and the building of political system achieved, its all-nation unity unceasingly consolidated, its political and social situation stabilized, its national defense, security, independence and sovereignty firmly maintained, and its status and prestige in the international arena increasingly elevated.

Today’s home to a nearly-100 million-strong population with a per capita income of US$2,800, Vietnam has acceded to virtually all international organizations and become an active and responsible participant in the activity of the international community.

Elected in a recent United Nations General Assembly session with a record high number of votes, almost unanimously, Vietnam has now been serving for the second time as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

In view of the great achievements attained, we are well-grounded to confirm that never has our country enjoyed such fortunes, potential, status and prestige as they are today.

Comrades and compatriots,

The rich and vivid reality of the Vietnamese revolution over the past 90 years has demonstrated that the judicious and clear-sighted leadership of the Party is the primary determinant of all victories of the revolution and a great number of extraordinary achievements in Vietnam.

In parallel with that, in exercising its leadership over the revolution, our Party has become tempered and increasingly mature, worthy of its role and mission as the leader of the revolution as well as of the people’s trust and expectation.

Such a reality affirms this one truth: In Vietnam, there is no other political force than the Communist Party of Vietnam that has adequate mettle, wisdom, experience, prestige and capability to lead the country through all hardships and trials, and bring our nation’s revolutionary cause from one victory to the other.

Also in this process, our Party has accumulated and synthesized many invaluable lessons, and forged the glorious traditions which we are now responsible for preserving and bringing into full play. It is the tradition of infinite loyalty to the national and class interest, and persistence in the goal and ideal of national independence closely linked with socialism based on Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought.

It is the tradition of solid maintenance of independence and autonomy in guidelines; firm grasp, creative application and development of Marxism-Leninism, and due reference to international experience with a view to working out sound policies and organizing the effective execution of revolutionary tasks.

It is the tradition of flesh-and-blood bond between the Party and the people, and consistent idea of serving the people as both raison d’etre and goal in life and work. It is the tradition of unity and unanimity, close-knit organization and discipline, and strictness and transparency based on democratic centralism, self-criticism, criticism and comradeship. It is the tradition of faithful and crystal-clear internationalist solidarity built on lofty principles and goals.

Looking back on the 90-year journey of building, combat, and growth of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and at this sacred moment, we express our boundless gratitude to the heavenly merits of President Ho Chi Minh, the genius Leader of our Party and people, the great Teacher of the Vietnamese revolution, Hero of National Liberation, and Man of Culture.

He devoted his entire life to our people and country, led our Party and people to resounding victories, and brought “glory to our nation, our people, and our Homeland.”

The more developed our country becomes and the greater our people’s affluence and happiness are, the more evident it demonstrates that President Ho Chi Minh’s thought, life’s work, morality and style constitute an invaluable treasure and the guiding torch for our nation to steadily step towards the future.

We will forever remain grateful to the tremendous contributions of past leaders and millions of heroes and fallen soldiers, those outstanding men and women who bravely gave their life for the Homeland’s independence, freedom, sovereignty, unification, and territorial integrity, for socialism and in the name of lofty internationalist obligations.

We express our deep gratitude to veteran revolutionaries, families of fallen soldiers, Vietnam Hero Mothers, wounded and ill veterans, families with meritorious service to the nation, and all compatriots and male and female combatants for their valiant fight and sacrifice, creative work and colossal contributions to our nation’s glorious revolutionary cause.

With all modesty of revolutionaries, we can still say, “How great our Party is! How heroic our people are!”

We will forever engrave in our hearts and be deeply grateful for the valuable support and help that the people of the fraternal socialist countries, progressive forces, and friends all over the world have extended to our past struggle for national liberation and reunification as well as our present cause of national construction and defense.

Dear comrades and compatriots,

At the moment, our entire Party, people and armed forces are making all-out efforts to implement the Party Platform and State Constitution; push forward in a comprehensive and concerted manner the Doi Moi undertaking, and national industrialization and modernization; develop a socialist-oriented market economy; effectuate openness and international integration; and put into practice the dual strategic task of building and firmly safeguarding the Homeland, for the goal of a prosperous people, a strong, democratic, equitable, and advanced nation.

This is an enormous revolutionary undertaking, or in Uncle Ho’s words, “a gigantic struggle,” yet full of difficulties and complexities. The international and domestic context has presented us with numerous difficulties and challenges, apart from advantages and opportunities. We are encountering a host of emerging issues and extremely complicated developments to be addressed.

All this requires our entire Party, people and armed forces, more than ever, to maximize our patriotic and revolutionary traditions, the sense of unity and responsibility, and endeavor to overcome all difficulties and challenges in order to build ours an ever more prosperous and beautiful Homeland.

The resilient and innovative efforts by the entire population as well as by each and every industry, locality and economic sector are of critical importance to our national development.

It is imperative for our Party to exert utmost efforts to bolster Party building and rectification, for the Party to be increasingly clean and strong, and to successfully fulfill its responsibility as the vanguard exercising leadership over the revolutionary cause in the new period.

Since its 12th National Congress, our Party has devoted significant time and effort to Party building, considering this a key task. More recently, the entire Party has involved in Party building and rectification in line with the Resolutions of the 4th Central Committee Plena (the 11th and 12th Tenures), scoring initial crucial outcome and experience, contributing to preventing and repelling to a certain extent negative practices, while enhancing the Party’s leadership capacity and combat capability.

However, much remains to be done in Party building, particularly in fighting against the degradation of political ideology, morality, and lifestyle; manifestations of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”; and corruption, wastefulness, red tape, and detachment from the population, etc.

Hostile forces are still seeking all means to undermine the revolutionary cause of our people; try to distort and slander our Party and State; directly strike at our Party’s ideology, Platform and political guidelines; and incite and sow division within the Party as well as between the Party and State on the one hand and the people on the other, aiming at disintegrating our Party and system from the root and from within. This is extremely insidious and dangerous.

Today’s general direction in Party building and rectification is to continue to promote the good traditions; firmly preserve and enhance the Party’s revolutionary and vanguard nature; build ours a truly clean and strong Party in terms of politics, ideology, morality, organization, and personnel; innovate its leadership mode; and strengthen the flesh-and-blood bond between the Party and the people to ensure that our Party is adequately capable of leading our country along the line of uninterrupted development.

With ours being the party in power, operating in an environment of market economy development, openness and international integration, in which Party cadres and members hold many high responsibility positions and consequently in constant contact with the inducible temptation of money, wealth, power and personal interests, it is all the more necessary for US to attend to firmly upholding the Party’s revolutionary and vanguard nature.

Without profound awareness of this, and without active and tenacious self-training and learning efforts, Party cadres and members would easily fall victim to degeneration and denaturation. The preservation of the essence of our Party - a Communist Party, a genuine revolutionary party working for the cause of the working class and the nation, in the interest of the people — is a basic issue of paramount importance.

President Ho Chi Minh once warned, “A nation, a party, and an individual with greatness and huge charisma yesterday may not surely enjoy the same affection and commendation from the people today and tomorrow, if their minds and hearts are no longer pure, and if they fall into individualism.”

The Resolutions on Party building adopted by the 4th Party Central Committee Plena (the 11th and 12th Tenures) affirm the necessity to actively, resolutely and vigorously build and rectify the Party in order to bring about an ever more visible change across the board, prevent and repel ideological degradation, and consolidate the steadfastness in the revolutionary aims and ideals; to strengthen unanimity in willpower and action; to fortify party organization; to forge an ever closer attachment to the people; and to promote the Party’s leadership capacity and combat capability. These are considered matters of life and death to our Party and our system.

A genuine revolutionary party with sound guidelines, a close-knit organization, and a contingent of party cadres and members, who are clean, exemplary, dedicated, and attached to and supported by the population, enjoys power invincible and uncheckable by any force as it leads the nation forward.

Dear comrades and compatriots,

This year, we are celebrating the Founding of our Party at a time of great significance: The year 2020 is the concluding year of the 12th Tenure, when party congresses at different levels are held in the run-up to the 13th National Party Congress, anniversaries of various political events of extraordinary importance celebrated, and Vietnam’s roles as the ASEAN Chair and a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council performed.

The international and domestic landscape brings about many opportunities and advantages as well as hardships and challenges, requiring utmost efforts and strong determination from our entire Party, people and armed forces with a view to successfully accomplishing the tasks set for 2020, the core of which includes the fulfillment to the greatest extent of socio-economic development tasks, the betterment of macroeconomic stability, the furtherance of the strategic breakthroughs, the restructuring of the economy in conjunction with the innovation of the growth model, the ensuring of social security and welfare, and the improvement of the people's living standard.

National independence, sovereignty and the peaceful and stable environment for national development must be firmly maintained and foreign relations energetically bolstered. Efforts must be focused on successfully organizing Party congresses at various levels in the run-up to the 13th National Party Congress, in association with the continued implementation of the Resolutions of the 4th Party Central Committee Plena (the 11th and 12th Tenures) on Party building; Instructive No. 05 of the Politburo on pressing ahead with the studying and following of Ho Chi Minh Thought, morality and lifestyle so as to foster ever more vigorous development in Party building and rectification.

Filled with joy and pride, we strongly believe that the Communist Party of Vietnam will fulfill outstandingly its heavy tasks. Our entire Party, people and armed forces will endeavor with joint efforts and single-mindedness for a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic, prosperous, and strong Vietnam, marching steadily toward socialism.

Eternal glory to the cultured and heroic Vietnamese nation!

Long live the glorious Communist Party of Vietnam!

Long live the Socialist Republic of Vietnam!

Great President Ho Chi Minh lives forever in our cause!

Thank you sincerely.