Online national conference popularising resolution of 13th National Party Congress, 27-28/3/2021 - Photo: vnanet.vn

1. The necessity to continue to renovate the leadership method in the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions

The Party’s leadership methods are all forms, methods, processes, manners and styles of working that the Party uses to influence subjects of leadership in order to successfully implement the content of the leadership. The leadership method is not “unchangeable” but varies depending on tasks of the revolution, the lines, guidelines and policies of the Party in each period, state of the revolution and subjects which the Party leads.

In the process of revolutionary leadership, especially in the reform period, our Party has constantly clarified and gradually perfected the Party’s leadership method in accordance with the requirements and tasks set forth by the revolution. The Platform for national construction in the transitional period to socialism (supplemented and developed in 2011) has clearly defined the Party’s leadership method towards the State and society by means of the Platform, strategies, major policy directions and guidelines; communication, persuasion and advocacy work; organization and staff work; inspection and supervision; exemplary actions of party members; The Party leads through the party organizations and its members operating in the organizations of the political system. Thus, it can be understood that the promulgation, review and summary of resolutions are indispensable links and play an important role in the leadership of our Party.

To meet the new development requirements of the country, the 13th National Party Congress states: “Further renovate the Party’s leadership method, ensure the smooth, timely and correct leadership and direction of Party committees and organizations at all levels; promote the role of example, promote renovation of methods, improve the quality and operational efficiency of organizations and agencies in the political system. Innovate the working style and manner of the Party’s leading agencies from the central to grassroots levels; build and implement a scientific, collective, democratic, people-oriented, reality based and progressive and working style in the ‘talks going along with actions’ principle”⁽¹⁾. It can be seen that renovating the leadership method is still a key task of Party building throughout the tenure of the 13th National Party Congress.

One of the aspects of renovating the leadership method, our Party emphasizes: “Further renew, improve the quality of formulating and promulgating resolutions of the Party. Promulgate practical, concise and feasible resolutions when absolutely necessary, (and) reasonable. Focus on resolutely leading, directing, closely monitoring the specification, institutionalization and organization of the implementation of resolutions; attach importance to inspecting, supervising, urging, reviewing and summarizing the implementation of the Party’s resolutions, regulations, directives and conclusions, ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency”⁽²⁾. The promulgation, review and summary of resolutions is indeed one of the indispensable contents in the renovation of the Party’s leadership method.

According to Regulation No. 66-QD/TW dated February 6, 2017 of the 12th Secretariat promulgating “Regulations on the genre, promulgation competence and format of the Party’s Documents”, Resolutions are documents that record decisions adopted at congresses, conferences of Party leadership agencies at all levels, meetings of party members on guidelines, lines, policies, plans or specific issues. Thus, the Party’s resolution is a form of document that presents the content of decisions on basic issues after being discussed and approved by meetings of the leading bodies, i.e. party committees at all levels or party members’ conferences and reflects the guidelines, policies and plans to implement a specific issue within the Party’s leadership and direction functions.

Among the various Documents of the Party, in terms of the level of leadership and direction, resolutions are the highest-level documents while sub-resolutions are decisions, directives, conclusions, regulations, rules, circulars, guidelines, etc..

A directive is a document used to direct subordinate party committees, organizations and agencies to implement guidelines, policies or a specific task. Compared with resolutions, directives are less general and often narrower in scope. The purpose of promulgating directives is to convey guidelines, policies or measures of leadership and direction in order to assign tasks and urge subordinates to perform tasks according to the stated directives.

A conclusion is a document that records the official opinions of the Party committees, organizations or agencies about certain issues or guidelines and measures to handle specific work. The conclusion is essentially a presentation of the review and an evaluation of the results of the implementation of a resolution, decision or directive of the Party on a particular guideline, policy or task after a period of implementation and gives directions to continue, to stop or to end. Normally, conclusions are only issued when certain resolutions, decisions and directives of the Party are implemented for a certain period. Therefore, conclusions are often associated with the content of a specific resolution, decision or directive.

Practice shows that the renovation of the promulgation of leadership and directive Documents of the Party has been raised quite early in the renovation process, such as: Resolution No. 03-NQ/TW dated June 26, 1992 of the 3rd Plenum of the 7th Party Central Committee on “a number of tasks for renovating and rectifying the Party” states: “Improve the making of resolutions and decisions. Party committees and organizations only promulgate resolutions when they find it absolutely necessary and choose the right issues, etc. Resolutions shall contain practical and feasible content and specify the period to implement, etc.”.

The 12th National Party Congress states: “Further renew, improve the quality of formulating and promulgating resolutions of the Party, laws, policies of the State. Resolutions shall be practical, concise and feasible; take into account the balance of resources and conditions to ensure effective implementation, etc.”⁽³⁾.

In recent terms, the Party Central Committee, the Politburo, the Secretariat and the Party Committees at all levels have made renovations in the promulgation of resolutions, directives and conclusions in the process of performing their leadership and direction functions. Most of the resolutions, directives and conclusions have been properly promulgated on the right issues, and met urgent practical requirements. The content is presented scientifically and more focused and targeted. Notably, most of the resolutions, directives and conclusions of the Party at all levels have come to life in line with the requirements of reality, played the role of guiding and orienting the reality and affirmed the position and the role of leadership and direction of the Party in all fields of social life. Among them, there are resolutions, directives and conclusions that make important imprints such as the Resolution of the 5th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (8th Tenure), on “building an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity” promulgated in the context of the Party actively renewing thinking, leading the entire people to carry out the comprehensive renovation of the country, including culture; the Resolution of the 4th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (11th Tenure) on “Some urgent issues of Party building today” promulgated to reflect the social mood, people’s aspirations and the need to strengthen the trust of cadres and Party members and the people towards the Party; Resolution No. 35 of the  Politburo (12th Tenure) on “strengthening the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting against wrong and hostile views in the new situation” promulgated in the context of hostile, reactionary, opportunistic and opposing forces trying to make drastic attacks on the ideological foundation, distorting the Party’s lines and views, smearing and demeaning the prestige of the Party...

The review and summary of the Party’s resolutions has also been significantly renewed and become more practical and effective. The essence of review and summary is to consider and evaluate the results of the actual implementation of the Party’s resolutions. Therefore, this work is very important for the leadership and direction of the Party. The review and summary of the Party’s resolutions is done seriously, methodically and with quality to objectively assess the advantages, limitations, and shortcomings and learn valuable lessons and experiences, set examples of renovation and creativity in understanding and implementation, thereby affirming the quality and effectiveness of the Party’s leadership and direction.

For example, the review of the implementation of Directive No. 05-CT/TW dated May 15, 2016 of the Politburo on “Promoting studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style” in 2021 of the Party will be implemented throughout the Party and political system, both at the central and local levels, after 5 years of implementation. The results of review have made a good impression with wide spread results, inspiring the whole Party and society to enter a new stage of studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style at a more comprehensive, profound and effective level such as Conclusion No. 01-KL/TW dated May 18, 2021 of the Politburo on continuing the implementation of Directive No. 05-CT/TW dated May 15, 2016 of the Politburo (12th Tenure) “On promoting the study and following of President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style”.

2. Limitations, inadequacies and requirements for the renovation of leadership methods in the current promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions

Limitations and inadequacies

In addition to the above advantages, the renovation of the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions still has limitations and inadequacies and has not met the requirements of the Party in the new situation.

Firstly, the renovation of the promulgation of the Party’s resolutions has been carried out, but has not yet met the requirements for quality and urgency.

The 13th National Party Congress poses the need to continue to renew and improve the quality of formulating and promulgating the Party’s resolutions and requests resolutions to be promulgated only when absolutely necessary. That shows that the promulgation of resolutions has not been renewed as expected. In fact, resolutions promulgated by some party committees sometimes lack practicality, fail to meet the urgent requirements of reality and lack feasibility. The contents of the resolutions are presented in a scattered, cumbersome and unconcise manner. Many resolutions are modeled mechanically after the resolutions of superiors. This makes it difficult to learn, to grasp thoroughly and implement for Party organizations and members because it is difficult to understand, remember and implement effectively.

Secondly, the leadership and supervision of the specification, institutionalization and implementation of resolutions are still limited, not focused and close.

Resolutions, directives and conclusions are documents that express the views, guidelines, and direction of the superior party committees towards the subordinate party committees. The effectiveness of leadership and direction of such documents can only be achieved when those views and policies are concretized by Party committees and organizations at all levels into plans of action at each level, each sector, each field and into effective policies and measures to implement seriously and synchronously at all levels, sectors and fields across the whole society. The Document of the 13th National Party Congress states: “the specification and implementation of the Party’s guidelines, policies and resolutions by some Party committees and organizations are not timely and not close to reality. The leadership, direction and implementation of a number of guidelines and resolutions are sometimes still weak, delayed, lacking decisiveness and clear definition of responsibilities of collectives and individuals, especially the leaders”⁽⁴⁾…

Thirdly, the inspection and supervision of the review and summary of the implementation of the Party’s resolutions has not been given due attention.

After promulgation, the party committees and organizations at all levels are responsible for inspecting, supervising and urging the implementation so that the Party’s resolutions, directives and conclusions come to life effectively.

Ho Chi Minh said: “Once the right policy is in place, the success or failure of that policy depends on how it is implemented, by whom it is implemented and how it is checked. The policy is also useless if the above three factors are poorly implemented (...) The inspection aims to mobilize the positive spirit and great force of the people to know clearly the capacity and shortcomings of the cadres, thereby correct and help timely”⁽⁵⁾.

The 13th National Party Congress frankly points out: “directing and organizing the implementation is still a weak and slow step to be overcome. The capacity to concretize and institutionalize policies and resolutions is still limited, and the organizational capacity of cadres has not met the task requirements, making is so that  laws and resolutions are slowly implemented and less effective”⁽⁶⁾.

Obviously, the inspection, supervision and urging the implementation of the Party’s resolutions and the State’s laws are still limited and inadequate, leading to the limited specification, institutionalization, slow and ineffective implementation of the Party’s resolutions, directives and conclusions. Not only that, the urging, supervision and inspection of the review and summary of the Party’s resolutions have also not been given due importance, leading to the very formal review and summary by some Party committees and organizations, which only take into account reporting achievements without paying attention to specifying limitations, shortcomings and causes, to find ways to overcome, or if they do, it is very sketchy and superficial.      

Requirements are as follows:

Firstly, the renovation of the promulgation and the review and summary of the Party’s resolutions shall be combined as a premise and condition to jointly improve the quality and effectiveness of the Party’s leadership and direction

Renewing the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions is a requirement of the reality of the Party’s leadership and direction in the new period. The period “the Fourth Industrial Revolution, especially digital technology, has developed strongly, made breakthroughs in many fields, created both opportunities and challenges for all nations and peoples”⁽⁷⁾. Therefore, the renovation of the promulgation and the renovation of the review and summary shall be given equal importance as there is a dialectical relationship between them. This is the premise, the condition of the other and vice versa. Quality resolutions promulgated in line with the requirements of leadership and direction in practice will be the premise and conditions for conducting a practical and effective review and summary. On the contrary, renewing the review and summary of the implementation of the Party’s resolutions aims to detect the limitations, inadequacies and issues posed from reality as a basis of promulgating more reasonable resolutions. This is the basis of improving the quality and effectiveness of the Party’s leadership and direction.

Secondly, institutionalize the process of promulgating, reviewing and summarizing the Party’s resolutions based on the principles of objectivity and democracy from the grassroots level and attach great importance to collecting opinions from people of all walks of life, including scientists and experts.

The promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions shall be carried out according to a unified process within the Party committees and organizations at all levels on the basis of ensuring the promotion of democracy and objectivity. Whether it is the promulgation of resolutions or the review and summary of resolutions, the process is still a decisive factor for the quality and effectiveness of the Party’s leadership and direction for those activities.

The core principle for building such a process is to ensure the democracy and objectivity of the promulgation as well as review and summary process of the Party’s resolutions. To do so, the process needs to be concretized by steps and stages in a harmonious combination from top to bottom and bottom up and attach importance to getting opinions from the grassroots with the participation of experts and the masses. Therefore, institutionalization of the process is the condition for renewing the promulgation, and the review and summary of the Party’s current resolutions to be of quality and effective.  

Thirdly, promote the spirit of looking directly at the truth, properly assessing the truth, focusing on detecting limitations and shortcomings in the process of reviewing and summarizing the Party’s resolutions

The Party leads the State and society through the setting of views, guidelines and polices promulgated by the Party’s resolutions as a basis for the elements of the political system to institutionalize and concretize and implement in practice. Therefore, the review and summary cannot be sketchy, rough, attaching importance to achievements and downplaying limitations and shortcomings. These are inherent limitations in the review and summary of the Party’s resolutions by many Party committees and organizations. Therefore, renewing the review and summary shall come from the spirit of looking directly at the truth, properly assessing the truth to evaluate objectively and honestly the results of the implementation of the Party’s resolutions. Accordingly, it is necessary to boldly and frankly point out limitations and shortcomings to learn from experience and find solutions to overcome.

Fourthly, the inspection, supervision, reward and discipline work are factors in promoting the renovation of the promulgation, review and summary of quality and effectiveness of Party resolutions.

The purpose of promulgating, reviewing and summarizing the Party’s resolutions is to strengthen and improve the quality and effectiveness of the Party’s leadership and direction. However, to achieve that goal, in addition to the prerequisites and conditions mentioned above, it is necessary to strictly implement the inspection, supervision, as well as the reward and discipline work. If the inspection and supervision work is performed regularly and closely and emulation and commendation work is focused on in Party committees and organizations at all levels, this will create the necessary pressure and motivation for the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions substantively and practically, contributing to improving the quality and effectiveness of the Party’s leadership and direction in the new situation.

3. Some solutions to continue to renovate the leadership method in the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions in the new situation

Firstly, raise awareness and responsibilities of Party committees and organizations at all levels, especially amongst the leaders in response to the request to renovate the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions.

Renewing the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions in the spirit of the 13th National Party Congress is a process that shall be conducted in a careful, methodical and scientific manner. If party committees and organizations aren’t properly aware of its meaning and importance, or lack the sense of responsibility in leadership and direction, especially for those in leadership roles in the implementation process, it is difficult create quality and effectiveness.

In fact, at the central level, the Central Executive Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat have always paid attention to the policy of renewing and improving the quality of promulgating the Party’s resolutions and achieved positive results, but some local Party committees and organizations at the grassroots level have not really paid enough attention. The manifestation is obvious in the way resolutions are promulgated by the Party Central Committee, superior Party committees and the implementation, review and summary thereof under the direction of the Party Central Committee and superiors, has not been performed seriously, leading to inefficiencies. The main reason is that the Party committees, organizations and leaders have not properly understood the importance their responsibilities and their role in the process of renewing promulgation, review and summary of the Party resolutions in the new period.

Secondly, party committees and organizations at all levels need to conduct an objective and comprehensive survey and assessment of the actual situation to accurately select issues to be promulgated.

Resolutions are documents on leadership and direction of party committees and organizations for all areas of social life. Therefore, to accurately select the most pressing issues of social life on which to promulgate a resolution, it is necessary to conduct an objective and comprehensive survey and assessment of political, economic, cultural and social aspects, etc., to detect issues that require the promulgation of documents for leadership and direction in a timely manner. That is to choose the issues that are really necessary based on the requirements of practice.

To do so, party committees and organizations shall make a clear plan and adequate investment to be able to organize quality surveys and assessments and generate accurate results. This is also a solution to ensure that “resolutions are promulgated only when absolutely necessary, reasonable and practical” as required by the 13^th National Party Congress, to overcome the situation of promulgating leadership and direction documents based only on subjective judgments and assessments imposed by the parliament of a number of current party committees and organizations; at the same time, to contribute to limit the issuance of impractical and ineffective resolutions in the Party’s leadership and direction.

Thirdly, focus on renewing the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions in the direction of brevity, clarity, feasibility, practicality and effectiveness.

In promulgating resolutions, it is necessary to continue to renovate their content, to clarify issues to be understood and grasped thoroughly and to specify tasks and solutions towards solving the difficulties and problems of practice, to make it easy for cadres and party members to remember, understand and do. Avoid presenting content that is too broad, over extended, and abstract, making it difficult and boring for cadres and party members to learn and grasp the resolutions. This is also a solution to overcome the laziness and fear of studying resolutions that can be found among many current cadres and party members.

In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that cadres and party members have many opportunities and means to receive knowledge and information, the content of the Party’s resolutions needs to be concise, practical and specific to make it easier for them to absorb and remember. The guiding and directing contents should be designed into problems for cadres, Party members and people to discuss and come up with solutions to promote democracy and create a social consensus. Resolutions, directives and conclusions should be concise and clear, free of lengthy analyses and explanations. Issues that need to be further and deeply analyzed and clarified should be assigned to advisory bodies to be included in research and study guidance documents and reporters when communicating contents.

The process of renewing the promulgation of Party resolutions should focus on the investigation of public opinion; capture information from the press, media and social networks; organize seminars and scientific seminars to get expert opinions before promulgating important resolutions.

Actively polling public opinion, create public opinion through mass media, social networks, oral communication of reporters, propagandists, etc., in the process of preparing and formulating draft resolution to ensure that when the resolution is promulgated with a high consensus and unanimity of cadres, party members and  people.

The review and summary of the Party’s resolutions should be renewed in a more democratic direction by listening to and respecting opinions from the grassroots level. After the Party committees and organizations have selected and oriented the key issues to be reviewed andsummarized, the opinions of cadres, party members and the masses from the grassroots level should be consulted to evaluate whether the implementation process is practical and effective and whether there are any concerns, questions, suggestions? It is necessary to thoroughly grasp the Party’s view: “All guidelines and policies shall really derive from the people’s legitimate requirements, aspirations, rights and interests”(8).

In addition, it is necessary to overcome the review and summary of the Party’s resolutions in a formal, simple and superficial manner which only pays attention to the boastful achievements without frankly pointing out the shortcomings, limitations, etc., even mistakes in thoroughly grasping and organizing implementation. Only when the Party committees and organizations at all levels frankly assess and point out the limitations and shortcomings, and learn profound lessons from experience, will the review and summary be considered practical and effective. 

Fourthly, scientificize the promulgation, review and summary of the Party’s resolutions by specifying how to present the contents and the implementation process to ensure consistency and rationality from the central to the grassroots level

The promulgation or review and summary of the Party’s resolutions needs to specify how the content is presented, as well as the process to standardize and ensure consistency in both content and format from the central to the grassroots level. Currently, Regulation No. 66 - QD/TW in 2017 and Guideline No. 36-HD/VPTW in 2018 are the only regulations on the matter, giving authority to promulgate documents and technical guidelines for presentation of Party documents without specifying how to present content from the layout, to the structure, to the presentation method, or how to start and end the promulgation process, and so on.

The review and summary of the Party’s resolutions should also be more specific and detailed. Therefore, it is necessary to scientificize these activities by developing and promulgating regulations and procedures, reviewing and summarizing the Party’s leadership and direction documents to ensure the rationality and consistency from the central to the grassroots level.

Fifthly, be resolute and strict in leading, directing and supervising the specification, institutionalization and implementation of the Party’s resolutions

To overcome the limitations in concretizing, institutionalizing and organizing the implementation of the Party’s resolutions in recent years, it is necessary to apply drastic leadership, direction and close supervision at each stage. Up to now, the specification and institutionalization of the Party’s resolutions is still the weakest element pointed out by our Party through congresses, but the remediation is still slow and has not yielded the expected results. The main reason is the leadership, direction and supervision of the specification and institutionalization of resolutions, especially congress resolutions into specific action programs, mechanisms, policies and effective solutions have not been paid due attention and determination. The supervision and inspection are still formal.

Therefore, the leadership, direction and supervision with a resolute and strict attitude towards the specification and institutionalization of the Party’s resolutions at Party committees and organizations at all levels shall be considered as key tasks throughout the implementation process. Therefore, it’s necessary to continue to renovate the working style and manner of the Party’s leading agencies from the central to grassroots levels; build and implement a scientific, collective, democratic, people-oriented, reality based and progressive working style in the “talks going along with actions” principle as set out by the 13th National Party Congress.

Sixthly, attach importance to the inspection, supervision, review, summary, reward and discipline of the implementation of the Party’s resolutions.

The inspection, supervision, review, summary, the process of reward and discipline are all considered to be factors that promote Party committees and organizations at all levels to be more responsible for the implementation of the Party’s resolutions. Because the leadership and direction shall include inspection and supervision to urge the implementation; If there is no inspection or supervision, there is no leadership and direction. Through the inspection and supervision, it is determined whether the implementation meets the purposes and requirements or not, as well as the advantages, difficulties, whether progress is fast or slow, etc., to urge, remind and adjust timely.

The review and summary of the implementation aims to evaluate the implementation in terms of both advantages and limitations, to learn from experiences and make recommendations and suggestions to the leadership and direction levels.

In parallel with the inspection and supervision, the review and summary are the reward and discipline in the implementation of the Party’s resolutions. The “reward and discipline work” is both a driving force promoting positivity and a factor preventing and restraining negative behaviors in the implementation of Party resolutions.

Therefore, attaching importance to inspection and supervision, review and summary, reward and discipline in the implementation of the Party’s resolutions are important solutions to renovate, improve quality, effectiveness of the Party’s leadership and direction in the new period n

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Received: 28th July 2022; Revised 1st August 2022; Accepted for Publication: 22nd August 2022.

Endnotes:

(1), (2), (6), (7), (8) CPV: Documents of the 13th National Party Congress, vol.I, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2021, pp.198-199, 199, 94, 106, 96.

(3) CPV: Documents of the 12th National Party Congress, Office of the Party Central Committee, Hanoi, 2016, p.216.

(4) CPV: Documents of the 13th National Party Congress, vol. II, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2021, p.168.

(5) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, vol.5, National Political Publishing House, 2011, p.636.

ASSOC. PROF., DR. PHAM HUY KY

Academy of Journalism and Communication