Viet Nam Human Rights
A ‘high-profile online democratic activist,’ who had for years bled his own mind and strength for criticizing the Party and State of Vietnam, has finally turned back to acknowledge that the Party has increasingly consolidated its legitimacy and credibility as the single ruling party in the country after 30 years of reform (Doi Moi). But he is not alone. In fact, many others with hostile views on the Party used to think that the Party would fail to conduct Doi Moi, and as a result, it would lose its leading position.
Legitimacy of the Party has increasingly been promoted
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| Photo for illustration |
In recent days, a number of online newspapers in Vietnamese, such as BBC, RFA and VOA, have made people laugh by posting articles about their predictions for Vietnam by the end of 2016. Authors of the articles, who call themselves Dr. A or Professor B, predict that independent labor organizations and political parties would mushroom in Vietnam by the end of 2016, and that they will unite themselves to peacefully compete with the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). Some are bold enough to say for sure that CPV will implicitly adopt the inevitable trend toward pluralism and a multi-party system by the end of this year.
One may wonder why they have such predictions with the aim of stirring up Vietnamese society, which is already peaceful and stable. It is not very difficult to answer the question. 30 years ago, when CPV initiated Doi Moi, hostile people were outspoken about the end of CPV as the single ruling party in the country. At that time, those people decided that CPV would probably lose its leading position as the country was facing piles of socio-economic difficulties, the unwanted outcomes of the development of the market economy, and many other negative impacts from the outside. A foreigner even published a book titled “Year of 1999 – Victory without war,” in which the author predicts that CPV would be ousted from its leading position.
Due to these seemingly reliable forecasts of foreign authors, some political opportunists ran away to other countries, changed their viewpoints and turned to protest the Party, State and people of Vietnam. They hoped that the country would become chaotic, CPV would be ousted from the political arena, and they could then return to take power. Among the deserters, there were some high-ranking officials. At first, they sought every chance to speak ill of the Party, State and people of Vietnam, and called on people at home to rise up against the Party and State.
Time has passed but Vietnam, under the leadership of the Party, has become more and more economically and politically powerful. Some of them seem to regret their decision to leave the country and their hostile views and activities against the Party, State and people. They have finally realized that the Vietnamse people under the leadership of the Party have obtained great achievements in the past 30 years of Doi Moi.
During its time leading the nation to carry out the Doi Moi process, the Party has continuously improved itself. It has asorbed many valuable experiences which has helped it become stronger, more capable and mature, increasingly deserving of its position as the single leader of the Vietnamese revolution and nation. In fact, the Party has stood firm during the Doi Moi process when it persistently pursued the principle “reforming but not decoloring.” That is to say, the country started to conduct a comprehensive reform and step up integration into the region and world but it would never change the nature of the political system or deviate from Leninism, Marxism and Ho Chi Minh Thoughts and the path to socialism that the Party and nation had chosen.
When the 2013 Constitution Draft was made public for a national poll, Vietnamese people at home and overseas offered 27 million opinions and ideas. The good opinions and ideas were then supplemented to the draft, which was finally ratified by the National Assembly with a vast majority of yaes. Article 4 of the 2013 Constitution reads that the Communist Party of Vietnam is the force to lead the State and society. This means that the legitimacy of the Party as the single leading force in the country has once again been adopted by the whole nation, and its status and position has been constitutionalized.
It should be understood that the Vietnamese people have recognized the great contributions of the Party to the country in the past national liberation wars and current country building and Fatherland defense, and keep trusting the leadership of the Party at present and in the future. This also means that the Party is always capable of leading the nation to victories and achievements.
Not only the Vietnamese people, but also international organizations have highy valued the leadership of CPV. The outcomes of scientific projects conducted in Vietnam by the Harvard Institute for International Development, the USA and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency point to an important political avantage of Vietnam in comparison to other Communist Party-led countries, saying that from 1975 the Communist Party of Vietnam led a united political system, and that it had a legitimate position and faced no competition for power. The research projects continue to state that after 30 years of war, CPV led the nation to defeat all the national enemies and won national independence, freedom and unification. In comparison to other Communist Parties, the CPV elite group has been stable and united and always reached consensus in dealing with major national issues, while CPV members include the most dedicated and patriotic Vietnamese people, the projects note. According to the authors of the projects, no other political parties will be capable of competing for power with CPV in the foreseeable future.
In short, both facts and scientific projects show that CPV has been constitutionally and universally recognized as the single leader of the nation. To deserve the trust of the Vietnamese people, CPV has always drilled itself, improved its leadership and made great contributions to the nation over the past 30 years of Doi Moi.
Unity between the Party and State and the people
Apart from their articles to deny Doi Moi’s achievements, hostile forces have also sought to undermine the unity and close ties between the Party and the people. For example, when competent agencies and functional forces organized exercises to ensure security for the 12th National Party Congress, normal activities that every country does before any big national event, they still distort the truth and say that these activities showed the Party’s fear and mistrust of the people When the Party Central Committee convened a session to discuss the personnel issue for the 12 National Party Congress in accordance with its principles of centralization and democracy and in a careful, serious and responsible manner, they deliberately mistranslated that the Party “deprived” the people of the right to discuss this issue, and irrationally asked the Party to “return” power to the people. However, their noisy scoldings have rarely affected the unity and the close ties between the Party and the people as the Party has always cemented its relationship with the people and strived for the people and country. As a result, all Vietnamese people understand the nature of the Party and are well aware of hostile forces’ plots, attempts and tricks.
Perhaps these hostile forces will never understand the reason for their failures although they have used every possible means to separate the people from the Party. Neverthless, the answer is simple. Over the past 30 years, the Party has paid much attention to the Party building work. The Party frequently fostered its revolutionary nature and virtue, continuously promotes its position, status, credibility, capability and leadership and works to perfect its organization. As its 2011 amended political credo reads, “The Communist Party of Vietnam is the pioneering force of the Vietnamese proletariat class, working people and the whole nation, and the representative loyal to the interests of the Vietnamese proletariat class, working people and the whole nation,” the Party strives to better serve the people and the country. This also means that the Party’s nature bears the common features of the proletariat class defined by Marxism and Leninism, and the specific characteristics of the Vietnamese proletariat class developed by President Ho Chi Minh, which suit the reality of Vietnam and satisfy the demands and desires of the Vietnamese people.
What is more, the Party has always renovated the method of leading the State and nation with the aim of steering the ship of Vietnam toward independence, peace and development over the past 30 years. In fact, the creativity and renovation of CPV in leading Vietnam over the past 30 years has contributed to developing the theory of Marxism and Leninism in the new context. For example, the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European socialist countries did not understand the concept and nature of ruling party; as a result, the communist parties in these countries made numourous terrible mistakes and loosened the communist party’s principles. These resulted in the fall of the Soviet Union and the meltdown of the socialist system in Eastern Europe.
Unlike other communist parties in Eastern Europe, CPV has focused on leading the State and nation; that is to say, it did not take the role of the State nor directly participated in governance, management and other economic activities, over the past 30 years. Furthermore, the Party has continuously perfected its relationships with the State, Government and the whole political system as a whole. After drawing good lessons and experiences from the practices as well as carefully studying the theory of Marxism and Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thoughts, it renewed the political credo in 2011. This political credo has then been reflected in the 2013 Constitution, saying that the Party leads the political system, and at the same time is part of the system. The Party has close relations with the people; honors and promotes the people’s right to mastership of the State and country; relies on the people to build up the Party; puts itself under the supervision of the people; and operates under and within the Constitution and laws.
As the ruling Party, it leads the whole society via the State mechanism and seeks to bring into full play the strength of the entire people so that the Party’s viewpoint plays a principal role in every development of the society, and all the Party’s directions are implemented across the society. Facts from the 30 years of Doi Moi show that the enhancement of the Party’s leadership and the promotion of the State management do not interfere with each other but support each other, as the Party and State can determine their positions clearly and perform their functions exactly. That is to say, the Party crafts directions and views, and the State is responsible for instituionalizing these directions and policies into policies, laws and other legal documents, and then instructing and organizing the whole political system and society to realize them. One of the key functions of the Party is to select and nominate the cadres with good abilities, virtues and credibility to hold positions in State agencies. The Party also has a mechanism to check the activities of all Party organizations and members. All Party members working in State agencies are responsible for executing the Party’s decisions; abiding by the Party regulations; mobilizing other officials in State agencies to implement and realize the Party’s directions and views; and submitting people’s ideas and opinions to the Party so that the Party can revise and readjust inappropriate guidelines and policies.
To implement one of its major functions, the Party at every National Party Congress carefully and responsibly works on personnel work in order to select and recommend good and competent cadres for positions in State agencies to the people’s representative agencies, the National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels. These representative agencies of the people in accordance to their authority will finally vote for positions in State agencies. This should be understood that the Party has a good sense of responsibility to the people by finding good candidates for positions. Therefore, those who allege that the Party’s discussion of personnel work at the 12th National Party Congress is “robbing” the people of the right to select personnel for positions in State agencies, are either ignorant or hostile to the Party, State and people of Vietnam.
Another important achievement of the Party during the Doi Moi process is to promote the unity between the Party and people. The interactions between the Party and people have been reflected during the Doi Moi process. In fact, the single and foremost goal set by the Party when launching Doi Moi was to serve the people’s interests. In so doing, the Party consolidated its relations with the people, as the people are a decisive factor to promoting the strength of the Party. The relationship between the Party and people is one of mutual trust, and is a process to harmonize the Party’s will and people’s interests and aspirations. During Doi Moi, the Party has always sought to better serve the people, promote its relationship with the people, and as a result, receives great support form the people.
Recently, the Party has issued a number of resolutions on the Party building work. The Party reviewed itself and its activities over the past 30 years, and asked all Party organizations and members to seriously carry out criticism and self-criticism with the aim of augmenting the Party’s capacity for leadership, correcting its mistakes and faults, and dismissing politically and ethically degraded cadres from Party organizations and the political system. This political activity drive also served as a strict warning for those who used the name of the party to go against the interests of the people. This indeed has helped people place more and more trust and support in the Party.
The Party has led the nation to carry out Doi Moi for 30 years. The great achievements of Doi Moi that the Vietnamese people obtained over the years under the sound leadership of the Party cannot be denied.
In the new context, the country faces a number of difficulties and challenges. This requires the Party to persistently pursue the goal of “national independence and socialism,” creatively follow Marxism, Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thoughts, continue Doi Moi, strengthen its relationships with the State and people, and enhance Party building in order to deserve to be the pioneering and leading force of the Vietnamese proletariat class, working people and all Vietnamese people.
From the great outcomes of Doi Moi in the past 30 years, all Vietnamese people believe that under the leadership of the Party the nation will overcome all difficulties and challenges, and strive to develop Vietnam as an independent, peaceful, powerful and prosperous country.
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