The current situation shows that, if there is not a contingent of high-quality cadres and Party members in which each cadre and Party member is an exemplary vanguard in implementing the Party’s resolutions, policies, programs and plans, it will be impossible for such resolutions, policies, programs, and plans to be realized despite of their correctness. For the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) today, the successful implementation of the Resolution of the 4th plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure) on strengthening the work of Party building and rectification; preventing and repelling the deterioration of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, the expression “self-evolution”, “internal self-transformation”, it is essential to promote the role of the exemplary vanguards of the contingent of cadres and Party members.

Over the past years, the CPV has attached special importance to Party building, thus achieving encouraging results, bringing about positive changes in the political system, contributing to gradually preventing and repelling negative recession in the Party. Most of the cadres and Party members maintain their exemplary vanguard role in work and life, well implement the CPV’s lines, viewpoints and resolutions, the policies and laws of the State; resolutely struggle with false claims, distortions of hostile forces, reactionary organizations, politically dissatisfactory people; preserve revolutionary moral qualities, lead a healthy lifestyle, and are respected and loved by the people. Many cadres and Party members are not afraid of hardships and sacrifices. Some even sacrifice their lives for the prosperous, happy and peaceful lives of the people to maintain the sovereignty of the territory, sky and islands of the country. The cadres and Party members who perform well their vanguard and exemplary roles in work, ethics and lifestyles contribute to enhancing the political prestige and leadership of the Party, building the Party to become stronger and stronger in politics, ideology, organization, leadership and combativeness.

However, in the Party, there have also emerged worrisome issues: “Many cadres and Party members, including leaders, do not show their vanguard and exemplary characteristics; there is also a manifestation of bureaucracy, authoritarianism, not really closely understanding reality and localities”(2), and deterioration in political ideology. A part of cadres and Party members, including high-ranking officials, take advantage of their positions and loopholes in policies and laws to embezzle, corrupt, causing huge losses and waste of property and land owned by people and the State. While the country still faces many difficulties, there are cadres and Party members who lead lavish lifestyles with illicit money or impure relations, causing frustration among the people and cadres and Party members. The above-mentioned situation reduces people’s confidence in the Party, its political prestige and reputation among the people, posing a direct threat to the survival of the Party and the regime.

The Resolution of the 4th plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure) stated: “The degradation of political ideology, morality, lifestyle of a large part of cadres and Party members has not been pushed back. Some aspects, some parts are still active in a more complicated way…”. In addition, the limited awareness, neglect, loss of vigilance, confusion in identification and struggle are still existent in many Party organizations and Party members in the prevention of “self-evolution”, “self-transforming”... Meanwhile, the deterioration of politics, ethics and lifestyle which  lead to “self-evolution”, “self-transforming” is just a short, even very short, unpredictable, dangerous step that can assist or collude with bad, hostile forces and betray the Party’s and the nation’s ideals”(3).

In order to effectively prevent and repel the deterioration of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, the manifestations of “self-evolution”, “self-transforming” internally, the Resolution of the 4th plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure) identified four groups of tasks and solutions, in which the promotion of the vanguard and exemplary role of the contingent of cadres and Party members is emphasized. For implementation, it is necessary to do well the following:

Firstly, it is essential to raise awareness and responsibility of the Party committees, Party organizations, cadres and Party members on the promotion of the vanguard and exemplary role of cadres and Party members in preventing and repelling the recession in political ideas, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transforming” internally.

This is the most important issue, because all levels of Party committees and organizations want to set out the right guidelines and solutions to promote the role of pioneering and exemplary role of cadres and Party members in the prevention and repellent the deterioration of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transforming” internally, there must be a correct and increasingly raised awareness of this issue. Each cadre and Party member can only take the right action in promoting their vanguard, exemplary role in preventing and checking the recession and the expression “self-evolution”, “self-transforming” when they have full understanding of it.

Party committees, Party organizations, cadres and Party members need to be deeply aware that deterioration in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, and “internal self-transformation” mainly take place among cadres and Party members; therefore, in order to effectively prevent and check this situation, it is necessary to promote well the vanguard and exemplary role of the contingent of cadres and Party members. This is because, cadres and Party members often understand the most clearly the downturns in their ranks and often have effective solutions to clean, push back the recession, and prevent it right from the beginning. Reality shows that although the Party, Party committees and Party organizations have had strong and synchronous solutions to prevent and check the recession, if the cadres and Party members do not play the pioneering and exemplary role, the solutions are in vain.

It is necessary to intensify communication on the importance of promoting the role of the cadres and Party members in preventing and repelling the deterioration of political ideology, morality and lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” internally. The communication can be done through the mass media, internal newsletters of Party committees. It is important to include this content in the cadres training and fostering programs at the Party, State cadres training and retraining establishments, socio-political mass associations, and into the contents of the activities of Party cells and Party committees. Topically-specialized activities, conferences on preliminary and review activities of Party committees, Party organizations should be organized; learning experiences should be exchanged.

Secondly, learning of political theory in the Party and learning to improve the qualifications of cadres and Party members should be enhanced.

Strictly implementing the regime of learning political theory, improving the level of political reasoning and learning, raising the level of all aspects is the condition for cadres and Party members to effectively promote their pioneering and exemplary role in practical activities. It is necessary to thoroughly grasp and better implement the Party’s resolutions and regulations on improving the level of political reasoning, in which, focusing on well implementing the Politburo’s Regulation No. 54-QD/TW on the learning regime of political theory in the Party; Regulation No. 164-QD/TW of the Politburo on the regime of fostering and updating knowledge for leading cadres and managers at all levels; Resolution No. 32-NQ/TW of the Politburo on continuing to reform and improve the quality of training and fostering political theory for leaders and managers. In addition, it is necessary to improve the quality of training and retraining for cadres and Party members in the system of political schools from grassroots levels to the central, focusing on the development and implementation of training programs which are  practical, effective, selective, appropriate and attractive in contents and methods, closely linking theory with the reality of the political, economic, cultural situations and social life of the country and the world. A mechanism should be developed to encourage cadres and Party members to learn by themselves while imposing responsibility and sanctions on cadres and Party members who fail to comply with the regime of learning to improve their qualifications and meet their job requirements.

Thirdly, each cadre and Party member needs to actively study and practice to improve the quality of politics, morality, lifestyle and all aspects; they should be self-aware not to fall into degradation, “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”.

Each cadre and Party member needs to actively and self-study to raise their awareness of Marxism - Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, the Party’s lines and viewpoints, State policies and laws and the advanced knowledge of humanity; improve their political quality; practice revolutionary morality, lead a clean and wholesome lifestyle; research to have deep awareness and clearly identify degrading manifestations of ideology, politics, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” stated in the Resolution of the 4th plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure) on Party building to actively prevent such negative influence. They should actively implement the Politburo’s Directive No. 05-CT/TW dated May 15, 2016 on “promoting the learning and following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and style”. At the same time, each cadre and Party member should be active in self-learning to improve the level of all aspects, meeting the requirements of assigned tasks. It is necessary to grasp the Party’s viewpoint: “Lazy learning, lazy thinking, not regularly receiving new information, new insights are also signs of deterioration”(4).

Party committees and organizations at all levels need to create favorable conditions for cadres and Party members to learn and practice to improve their political ideology, ethics, lifestyle and qualifications in all aspects, gradually forming a quantitative mechanism to assess the results of study and training in order to have ways to recognize the efforts of active cadres and Party members as well as to remind those who lack the sense of learning and training.

Fourthly, the evaluation criteria for cadres and Party members in the current period should be supplemented and completed; the manifestations of degradation of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” should be closely followed to evaluate cadres and Party members.

The evaluation criteria for cadres and Party members in current conditions should be quickly studied, supplemented and completed. The pioneering and exemplary roles should be concretized for cadres and Party members in terms of intelligence, working capacity, sense of organization, discipline, ethics, lifestyle to suit new conditions; quantitative criteria should be established to facilitate the evaluation and classification. In addition, it is necessary to thoroughly overcome the general, formal and subjective evaluation. It is essential to closely link the results of the assessment of the pioneering and exemplary roles with the stages of the work of cadres and Party members.

Fifthly, the regulations on the responsibility to set examples of cadres, Party members, especially the heads, key local officials, agencies and units should be completed and strictly implemented.

The Resolution of the 4th plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure) identified the solution: “to complete and seriously implement the regulations on the responsibility of setting examples of cadres and Party members, first of all, members of the Politburo, the Secretariat, Central Committee members and secretaries at all levels”(5).

On the basis of the Party’s regulations on the responsibility to set examples of cadres and Party members, all levels of the Party Committee need to concretize in accordance with localities, agencies and units, first of all for leading cadres, key managers, heads of the Party organization, agencies or units. In which, it is necessary to clearly define the contents of setting examples in political, ethical and lifestyle qualities; abiding by the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines, the State’s legal policies, regulations and regulations of the agencies and units; style, style of work, attitudes and relationships with people, cadres and civil servants; setting an example of work and residence activities; income disclosure and asset declaration. Since then, the Party committees at all levels will lead and direct the serious implementation, strengthen the inspection and supervision of the committees, agencies and units to avoid the formal and cursory implementation; bring into play the people’s supervisory role towards setting examples of cadres and Party members.

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Endnotes:

(1) Ho Chi Minh: Complete works, vol.7, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 1996, pp.235-236.

(2), (3), (5) CPV: Document of the 4th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure), Office of the Party Central Committee, Hanoi, 2016, pp. 22, 22-23, 38.

(4) CPV: Document of the 8th National Congress, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 1996, p.141.

Dr. Pham Tat Thang

Office of the Party Committee, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics