Factors Affecting Activities to Protect the Ideological Foundation of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Current Socio-Economic Development

Le Thi Thuy Huong, Bui Hoang Tan^*

Can Tho University, Vietnam

* Corresponding Author

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.1103043

Received: 25 February 2024; Revised: 11 March 2024; Accepted: 16  March 2024; Published: 17 April 2024

ABSTRACT

This paper reports many factors affecting protecting the ideological foundation of the Communist Party of Vietnam and fighting against wrong and hostile views, focusing on an analysis of the ability of the Communist Party of Vietnam to lead the country. Using qualitative research methods of political science such as the historical method, and the logical method. This study aims to analyze the comprehensive construction work of the Communist Party of Vietnam; its policies, facilities, and technical infrastructure; capacity and bravery of the people, officials, and socio-political organizations. The findings of the study indicate that accurately the nature of historical phenomena and events conclude with scientific value. Therefore, this study is examined the factors that influence protecting the ideological foundation Marxist-Leninist of Vietnam within the context of Vietnamese changing and developing.

Keywords: protecting ideological foundation, fighting hostile forces, Communist Party of Vietnam, Party building, Government of Vietnam

INTRODUCTION

Since its inception, the Communist Party of Vietnam has clearly defined the revolutionary path and ideals and resolutely fought to protect the path, contributing to the development of correct theoretical perspectives and widely propagating Marxism – Lenin and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology in social life, while improving the level and political theoretical awareness of cadres, party members and people. Accordingly, the Communist Party of Vietnam has determined to take Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought as the ideological foundation and guideline for action. At the 13th National Congress of the Party (2021), General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong emphasized that: “Being steadfast and steadfast on the foundation of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology… constantly fighting and preventing plots and sabotage activities of hostile, reactionary and fighting forces refute wrong and hostile views, protect the Party’s ideological foundation” [2]. This is considered not an easy task but full of difficulties and challenges due to factors affecting both internally and externally, creating both advantages and challenges. Therefore, identifying factors that affect the implementation of the task of protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against wrong and hostile views is both a scientific and valuable issue in current political work.

METHODOLOGY

A case study for influence protecting the ideological foundation Marxist-Leninist of Vietnam used qualitative methods. First of all, the historical method applied in this research is based on documents and documents of the Communist Party of Vietnam to present an overview of identifying plots and tricks of the strategy peaceful have been taking place in Vietnam. Besides, the logical method is applied in the research article to generalize and analyze the connected research problem coherently. On that basis, the research article accurately reflects the nature of historical phenomena and events to conclude with scientific value.

RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

National Leadership Strategy of the Communist Party of Vietnam

In the Political Platforms, Party Congress Resolutions… have clearly and specifically expressed the leadership guidelines of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Reality shows that the achievements of the Vietnamese revolution in the resistance war against foreign invaders, especially the results achieved after more than 35 years of national reform, are the most convincing evidence, proving the correctness of the policy The Communist Party of Vietnam determined to use Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought as the ideological foundation and guideline for action. Resolution of the 13th Party Congress (2021) affirmed: “Those achievements are the crystallized product of creativity, the result of a process of persistent and continuous efforts over many terms of the entire Party, the entire people, and the entire army; continue to affirm that our path to socialism is correct, consistent with objective laws, Vietnamese reality and the development trend of the times; Our Party’s innovation path is correct and creative; The Party’s leadership is the leading factor determining all victories of the Vietnamese revolution”[2].

The Complicated Developments of the International Situation and the Increasingly Sophisticated Sabotage of Hostile Forces

Peace, cooperation, and development are still the main trends of the world, but in recent years, the situation in the world and the region is still evolving very quickly, complicated, unpredictable, and facing many difficulties: “Extreme nationalism and populism are emerging” [3], Non-traditional security issues are still ongoing. In particular, “the sabotage of hostile forces and reactionary organizations is becoming more and more sophisticated” [3]. Hostile forces have taken full advantage of hot spots in Vietnam’s socio-economic field to distort the country’s development situation, oppose, entice, and gather dissatisfied elements and fundamentalists, domestic and foreign associations, international organizations and governments interfere in Vietnam’s internal affairs, forming opposing ideological trends hostile to the Party and Government of Vietnam.

In addition, recently hostile forces have made the most of information means such as the internet, social networking sites along with radio, press, and publishing systems overseas to spread propaganda articles distorting the truth about Vietnam, and posting many harmful videos on Facebook, YouTube… That increasingly sophisticated sabotage is a factor that has a significant impact on the awareness, psychology, and attitude of a segment of the people, including officials and party members.

Party Building and Rectification Work and the Political and Ideological Situation of Cadres and Party Members

In President Ho Chi Minh’s view, a system of comprehensive and profound theoretical perspectives on cadres and cadre work in Vietnam was formed based on absorbing and inheriting the thoughts and perspectives of Marxism-Leninism. This theory is associated and developed with the tradition of meritocracy associated with revolutionary ethical standards in Vietnam that have arisen and been tested through practice. On that foundation, a guiding ideological basis has been formed for the work of building a team of officials of the Party and the Government of Vietnam in implementing socio-economic management.

During the revolutionary cause, President Ho Chi Minh always paid special attention to the revolutionary cadres. He specifically requested that the Communist International have the responsibility to help colonial countries in training, coaching, and organizing revolutionary forces. When discussing revolutionary organizations, we need to discuss the issue of revolutionary people, so to have a revolutionary organization, we must first have the people of the organization. Right from the 20s of the 20th century, through propaganda media such as the newspaper “Le Paria” (1922), “French colonialisms on Trial” (1925), “Revolutionary Road” (1927) … Nguyen Ai Quoc mentioned the position of cadre work in the Vietnamese Revolution At the end of 1924, Nguyen Ai Quoc from the Soviet Union came to Guangzhou (China) to directly organize and train a team of cadres to form the core of building forces for the Vietnamese revolution. Throughout the process of leading the revolution, national liberation, resistance war to protect the Fatherland, and building socialism, President Ho Chi Minh always mentioned frequently and consistently the work of building a team of cadres revolution, from the work of “Modifying the way of working” (1947) to “Political Knowledge” (1953) and finally “Will” (1969).

According to the current viewpoint of the Communist Party of Vietnam, cadre work is about building a team of cadres, including setting standards, planning, training, evaluating, appointing, promoting, rotating, mobilization, management, rewards, and staff remuneration policies to serve the Party’s political tasks in a certain period. An overview of this issue is as follows: “Cadre work is the work of the Party and the State to build a team of good quality cadres, ensuring the Party’s guidelines, policies, and laws, resolutions and decisions of officials at all levels are seriously implemented and bring practical results to the People” [4].

Through practice, it has been shown that Party building and rectification work, including cadre work, has always been given special attention by the Party throughout the years. The work of building and rectifying the Party and the political and ideological situation of cadres and party members is a particularly important condition and a solid basis for the struggle to protect the Party’s ideological foundation today.  The 13th Party Congress affirmed: “The work of building and rectifying the Party is given special importance by the Central Committee and Party Committees at all levels, implemented comprehensively and synchronously with high political determination and great efforts, acted decisively and achieved many clear results, making an important contribution to the successful implementation of the Resolution of the 12th Party Congress” [3].

In addition, the Congress also stated that during the past term, “party committees and inspection committees at all levels have disciplined 2,209 officials and party members involved in corruption; including 113 central management officials, both current and retired” [3]. The above reality is reflected in the deterioration of political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, especially ambiguity and skepticism about the country’s goals, ideals, and development path; along with embezzlement, corruption, and waste, it is still complicated and brings great challenges to the work of protecting the Party’s ideological foundation today.

Mechanisms, Policies, Facilities, Technical Infrastructure

Mechanisms and policies have had a great impact on mobilizing forces and organizing activities to fight opposing political forces to protect the Party’s ideological foundation. Physical and technical facilities are factors that directly affect the quality and effectiveness in detecting and fighting the tricks of hostile forces to protect the Party’s ideological foundation in difficult situations. In recent years, the development of the internet platform and global social networks has created extremely favorable conditions for reactionary and hostile forces to carry out plots against the Party and Government of Vietnam. Accordingly, the growing number of users of the Internet’s virtual space has contributed to creating “fertile land” for hostile forces to take advantage of to distort and sabotage the Party’s guidelines and policies of the Vietnamese government, at the same time, denies the nation’s cultural values, dividing the great national unity bloc of Vietnam. This problem is becoming more and more serious as over time, a series of videos with harmful and false content related to cultural and social issues have continuously appeared on social networking platforms in Vietnam. This is an alarming issue for Vietnam’s cultural security and political ideological foundation in cyberspace today.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s physical and technical infrastructure serving the fight to protect the Party’s ideological foundation still does not meet practical requirements. Therefore, the review, detection, and blocking of accounts and social networking sites with reactionary and anti-Vietnam purposes is still slow and limited. Vietnam’s current method of fighting and fighting in cyberspace, using technical measures to neutralize the tricks of hostile forces, has not been as effective as expected. However, facing the development trend of the digital era, the Party and Government of Vietnam have continuously researched and promptly issued state-level documents to cope with this situation, typically: Directive No. 30 -CT/TW, December 25, 2013, of the XI Politburo “On developing and strengthening the management of electronic press, social networks and other forms of communication on the internet”; Decree No. 101/2016/ND-CP, dated July 1, 2016, of the Government “Detailing responsibilities for implementation and measures to prevent activities using cyberspace for terrorism”. In particular, at the 5th Session of the 14th National Assembly, the Cyber Security Law was passed. This event marked Vietnam’s development in recognizing and analyzing the increasingly important role of cyberspace in the development of society. It can be seen that this is the process of developing awareness of the Party and Government of Vietnam on issues related to the development of cyberspace to adapt to the development of the digital technology age. These state-level documents have created the foundation for strengthening the Party’s leadership over press and media agencies, and the Government’s management of information security and cybersecurity contributing to the regulation of activities in virtual space must comply with current Vietnamese laws. Building a strict policy mechanism and legal corridor will contribute to creating a healthy developing cyberspace to serve the legitimate needs of the people, and at the same time, this is also an important tool for the work of protecting the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting against wrong and hostile views in cyberspace within the context that the rate of Vietnamese people using Internet subscriptions is increasing percent of the total population (table 1).

Table 1: Table of Vietnamese people using Internet subscriptions (unit: thousands of people)

Source: General Statistics Office of Vietnam

Capacity, Bravery, Sense of Responsibility, and Participation of Officials, Party Members, People, Socio-Political Organizations, Media, and Press Agencies in Fighting and Protecting the Foundation Party Ideology

Protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against wrong and hostile views is not just the duty of any individual but is truly the most important responsibility of the entire Party, the entire Army, and the entire Vietnamese people, in which media and press agencies at all levels are the core force. It is necessary to realize that this is a voluntary and regular work of party committees, Party organizations, the Government, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, and local socio-political organizations, in which the leader has a pioneering role.

Therefore, every citizen, especially civil servants, and party members, is constantly studying and improving their level of awareness, capacity, and revolutionary bravery in protecting the Party’s ideological foundation. That is demonstrated through typical activities such as content research on the key role and core values of the ideological foundation, methods of identifying plots and tricks of hostile forces, and practice skills to fight and refute distorted and destructive arguments in reality and on the Internet.

In addition, officials and party members need to be properly and fully aware of their responsibility in actively protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against current wrong and hostile views. Cadres and party members need to regularly study political theory to increase their ability to “immunize themselves” against distorted rhetoric from hostile forces.

In addition, the participation of the people and socio-political organizations makes an important contribution to building an expanded network of struggle against hostile forces. With the activities of many people, on many fronts, and many forums, it contributes to creating a solid fighting posture, while improving the ability to supervise and social criticism of the performance of tasks by officials, party members, party committees, and local authorities.

Media and press agencies are extremely important elements, their activities have a great impact on the performance of the task of protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against wrong and hostile views enemy in Vietnam today. If media and press agencies operate effectively and proactively reflect information with positive content, they will contribute to spreading and affirming the value of the Party’s ideological foundation. On the contrary, if these agencies do not fulfill their roles and responsibilities as people’s mouthpieces, bad and harmful information will spread out of control, negatively affecting psychology and public opinion, it is difficult to identify and refute false and hostile accusations.

CONCLUSION

Taken all together, Vietnam is greatly influenced by many different factors in protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and fighting against wrong and hostile views. These factors both bring advantages and create significant difficulties and challenges in carrying out the above task. Therefore, strengthening solidarity and unity within the Party based on the Party’s organizational and operational principles, building a clean and strong Party in all aspects. This is an effective solution to defeat the plots and sabotage tricks of hostile forces and is the top principle of the Party and Government of Vietnam. At the same time, the Party and Government of Vietnam constantly strengthen their leadership and effective management role for the entire society. In particular, regular innovation to update the situation and improve the quality of Party work and personnel work is considered the basic foundation to protect the Party, the Government, and the socialist regime, and protect the Vietnamese people on the ideological front. On the other, the Government needs to strengthen measures to grasp the social situation at the grassroots level, promptly detect the intrusive activities of reactionaries and their connections at home and abroad to take measures to control them, fight, prevent, and defeat all attempts to infiltrate, connect, and sabotage the Party and Government of Vietnam from reactionary forces. On that basis, Vietnam’s legal corridor is constantly being researched, supplemented, and strengthened in terms of the legal system and regulatory documents to improve and enhance the quality of the media and mass information system, especially electronic newspapers and the internet. That will contribute to meeting people’s information needs with many new, better, and more attractive programs to overwhelm the informal electronic media trends that hostile forces are using to sabotage. On that basis, the entire Party, the entire army and the entire Vietnamese people unite, believe, and steadfastly pursue the Party’s goals and ideals, taking advantage of favorable factors to gradually overcome difficult factors in implementation when performing this task.

REFERENCES

1. Bon, B. D., (2017). Identifying the sabotage of hostile forces in the field of ideology and culture. Communist Magazine.
2. Communist Party of Vietnam (2021). Documents of the 13th National Congress. Vol 1. National Politics Publishing House. Hanoi.
3. Communist Party of Vietnam (2021). Documents of the 13th National Congress. Vol 2. National Politics Publishing House. Hanoi.
4. Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics (2020). Party work operations at the grassroots – Intermediate course of Political and Administrative Theory. Political Theory Publishing House. Hanoi.
5. Politburo (2018). Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW “On strengthening the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting against wrong and hostile views in the new situation”. Hanoi.