Viet Nam Human Rights
Hostile forces and political opportunists have recently enhanced their activities against the Party and State of Vietnam. As usual, reactionaries step up their information campaigns against the Party and State on major events and national anniversaries. When the whole nation has just celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Independence Day and the entire Party is now organizing congresses at all levels in preparation for the 12th National Congress, they continue their illegitimate claim to “depoliticize” the Vietnam People’s Armed Forces.
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First, it must be said that their attempt to “depoliticize” the armed forces is one of the goals of their “peace evolution” strategy to sabotage the Vietnamese revolution. The real purpose of their claim to “depoliticize” the armed forces is to eliminate the leadership of the Party over the Vietnam People’s Army and People’s Police. In doing so, they want the two key forces of the Vietnamese revolution to stay away from domestic politics and no longer to serve as the faithful political forces of the Party, State and people in the country building and Fatherland defense cause.
To meet this end, they use old-fashioned but more sophisticated tricks. They held that the People’s Army and People’s Police and armed forces as a whole should be “loyal to the country and people rather than any political parties, particularly the Communist Party of Vietnam.” Their other arguments include: “Armed forces should only protect the territorial integrity and serve the people,” and “The armed forces should be apolitical or remain politically neutral.” They therefore ask to delete the term in the 2013 Constitution, reading: “The armed forces must be loyal to the Communist Party of Vietnam.” In fact, their claims and requests are irrational and appropriate in the national history and current context of Vietnam. Unfortunately, some still advocate and echo such views posted on the internet. Unfortunately, it is not known whether Western news agencies, namely VOA, BBC, RFA and RFI, have lacked knowledge of the Vietnamese context or defied the Vietnamese laws and the nation’s aspiration while assisting hostile forces and political opportunists in spreading their illegitimate and irrational claims and requests to depoliticize the armed forces of Vietnam, running against the Vietnamese people’s choice and aspiration.
With such large information campaigns, hostile forces and political opportunists aim to undermine the Party’s credit and separate the armed forces from the Party. They wish to nurture the “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” process inside the Party as well as People’s Army and People’s Police. This is really a malicious plot because the two armed forces would lose the revolutionary nature and their strength, and give up their key missions of protecting the Party, State and people and firmly defending the socialist Fatherland if they were depoliticized and disintegrated. That situation does not benefit the nation but reactionaries, who always want to lead the country to instability and chaos.
In fact, hostile forces’ arguments are irrational in both theory and practice.
First, it is evident that there has been no universally accepted theory saying that armed forces must be “politically neutral,” “out of politics,” “classless,” or “uninvolved in politics.” In study on the nature of the State, the armed forces of a country function as a special violent tool of the ruling class to suppress the ruled ones and help maintain the domination of the ruling system; in other words, the armed forces, particularly Army and Police, of a country are part of the political system. What is more, the armed forces protect and more or less share political and benefits with the ruling class so they must be tied to politics, influenced by politics and definitely loyal to the political goals of the State, or in fact, the ruling class. Other studies also show that the political system of a country determine the nature, functions, missions and major relationships of the country’s Army and Police.
In his books, V. I. Lenin affirms that one should not indulge in illusion that the armed forces can be “politically neutral,” “out of politics,” “classless,” or “uninvolved in politics.” The armed forces of a country are born by the political system, particularly the ruling class so they certainly bear the nature of the class. According to Lenin, the argument saying that the Army and Police must be “out of politics” is really reactionary, and the ruling class, particularly bourgeoisie, continuously repeats that lie in order to hide its anti-revolutionary features and cheat people. Thus, any argument saying that armed forces should be “apolitical” or/and “classless” is indeed demagogic rhetoric and big cheat, which aim at gullible and politically unknowledgeable people.
In practice, facts from Vietnam’s contemporary history show that the Party and President Ho Chi Minh founded the Vietnamese armed forces with the core forces of the People’s Army and People’s Police. Since their births, they have been educated, trained cared and developed by the Party and President Ho Chi Minh and put under the absolute, direct and comprehensive leadership of the Party during the Vietnamese people’s revolutionary cause. Therefore, the Army and Police hold the nature of the working class of the Communist Party of Vietnam, deep features of the people and nation. In peacetime, the Party also continuously focuses on the building of the Army and Police. In its resolutions and documents, the Party always highlights the directions of building the Army and Police toward “revolutionary, regular, elite and gradually modern” forces, and continuously improving their political stance to maximize their comprehensive capabilities, so that they are able to successfully fulfill their core missions of protecting the Fatherland, maintaining political security, social order and safety in any circumstances.
Facts from the Vietnamese revolution also show that the Vietnam People’s Army and Police, when being put under the leadership of the Party, have continuously developed in both quantity and quality. During the national liberation and national protection wars, the Army and Police under the leadership of the Party have defeated all the enemies, wining national independence, peace and freedom. In peacetime, the two forces have firmly protected the Fatherland, the political system and maintain social order and safety; in addition, they have actively prevented and successfully fought hostile forces’ plots and attempts to foster “peaceful evolution” and revolt, as well as contributed to national socio-economic development and supported people. In short, since their foundation, the Vietnam People’s Army and Police have always held the Party’s nature and strived for its objectives and ideal, and thanks to the sound leadership of the Party, the Vietnam People’s Army and Police have been able to continuously obtained glorious victories in wartime and large achievements in peace time.
Therefore, any arguments of hostile forces and reactionaries that advocate and call for depoliticization of the Vietnam People’s Army and Police are not acceptable and irrational. This must be seen as another malicious plot of hostile forces and reactionaries to undermine the leadership of the Party over the armed forces, particularly the Vietnam People’s Army and Police and people, and a sophisticated trap set by hostile forces to lead the country to disorder and disturbance. Those who still have some doubts should refer to the lessons on the fall of the former Soviet Union and disintegration of the socialist system in Eastern Europe as well as civil wars and domestic conflicts across the world in recent years.
Against this backdrop, the whole Party, State and people, especially the armed forces, should heighten the alert against plots and attempts of hostile forces and reactionaries.
All comments [ 10 ]
The promotion of the “depoliticization” of the Vietnam People’s Army is the hostile forces’ dangerous and wicked plot.
In the last decades of the 21st century, realizing that the ways to sabotage the socialism by conducting aggressive wars was not effective, the imperialism has accelerated sabotage by “Peaceful evolution” strategy.
One of their plots was to disseminate the slogan “the military must be neutralized politically” in one communist party-led socialist countries, aimed at “depoliticizing” the revolutionary armed forces, which by nature targeted at separating the armed forces from the leadership of the communist party, neutralizing the role of the armed forces-the violent tool of the Party and State in the cause of building and safeguarding the socialist Fatherland.
As for Vietnam, recognizing that at present, the Communist Party of Vietnam exercises its tight control over the military and police, therefore it is impossible to abolish the leadership of the Party over the State and society, as well as the Socialism, therefore, our revolution’s hostile forces frenziedly embarked on the mask “the armed forces must maintain neutrality politically”.
It was a pity that a number of people were political confused and were not vigilant, tricked by the hostile forces’ wicked plot to side with them, repeat wrong arguments, and they were not vigilant to ask themselves: Why was the idea of “depoliticization of the armed forces” enthusiastically applauded and supported by VOA, BBC, RFI, etc., and the country’s betrayers and overseas deep hatred people?
Being criticized that this idea was the manifestation of “ideological and political degeneration”, people who supported this idea hastily glossed that they only requested the armed forces to be neutralized politically and they did not request the military’s “depoliticization”?
This sophism could not delude public opinion, since by nature the request that "the armed forces had to maintain neutrality politically” was a formula and a version of the idea of “depoliticizing the armed forces”.
“Political neutrality” means “to stand between political forces”, or “to stand outside politics” or “not to engage in politics”, etc., while the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) has been built toward the orientation of “revolutionary, regular, seasoned, and gradually modernized”, regarding sound political building as foundation to build the VPA comprehensively powerful.
In order to carry out the plot of “depoliticizing” the military, hostile forces have used variety of methods, both theoretically, ideologically and practically.
they want the military and police lose prestige among people, lower the position of the military and police in the society, etc., hence, neutralize the role of the military and police in the struggle to defend the revolutionary government.
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