Protecting Ho Chi Minh Thought from Marxism-Leninism

 As an extremely cunning artifice of hostile forces, disconnecting Ho Chi Minh Thought from Marxism-Leninism is aimed at denying our Party’s ideological foundation. Thus, we must always raise our revolutionary vigilance against and actively fight to unmask that trick.

Removing the ideological foundation of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) represents a consistent goal of hostile forces to pervert our Party and step by step abolish the CPV’s existence and leadership over Viet Nam’s State and society.

To that end, one of the foxiest artifices employed by hostile forces is disconnecting Ho Chi Minh Thought from Marxism-Leninism via their sophistries. On the one hand, they adduce the collapse of the socialist system around the world at the end of the previous century to announce that “Marxism-Leninism is out of date; therefore, there is no need to mention Marxism-Leninism when it comes to the CPV’s ideological foundation”. On the other hand, they define Ho Chi Minh Thought as the opposite of Marxism-Leninism when saying that “Ho Chi Minh is a nationalist; Ho Chi Minh Thought has, therefore, no relevance to Marxism-Leninism”. More artfully, they do not publicly reject Marxism-Leninism, but they argue that “the spirit of Marxism-Leninism has been included in Ho Chi Minh Thought; hence, when it comes to the CPV’s ideological foundation, Ho Chi Minh Thought is more than enough”.

It is vital to point out immediately that those above-mentioned viewpoints are very dangerous as they easily make a lot of people without good knowledge of political theory unable to understand that behind the trick of “praising Ho Chi Minh Thought” is hostile forces’ plots of rejecting Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, and our Party’s ideological foundation. Researching into the process of forming and developing Ho Chi Minh Thought will help us prove those aforementioned arguments absolutely wrong.

First of all, Ho Chi Minh Thought is theoretically derived mainly from Marxism-Leninism, and the latter is the ideological foundation of the former. It is Marxism-Leninism that provided Ho Chi Minh with world view and scientific methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism as the basis for him to create his own system of viewpoints on the Vietnamese revolution in a diverse, comprehensive way. On Ho Chi Minh’s journey to find the way for saving our country, under patriotism and desire for gaining national independence, while earning his living, Nguyen Ai Quoc – Ho Chi Minh both studied political theories and directly took part in political struggle movements launched by the working class in many countries to improve his knowledge and assert his political ideology. In the process, he found Marxism-Leninism as a “miraculous manual” for the Vietnamese revolution. Since then, he was all in favour of the Third International (Comintern). He participated in the foundation of the French Communist Party in 1920 and became the first Vietnamese communist, marking a milestone in the formation of his own political ideology. In preparation for the foundation of the CPV, in 1927, he wrote the work titled “Revolutionary Path” in which he stated that “there are now numerous ideologies, but Leninism is the most genuine, solid, and revolutionary one”. In the article entitled “The path which leads me to Leninism”, Ho Chi Minh emphasised Marxism-Leninism as the root of his ideological theories, adding that “At first, it was patriotism, not communism, that led me to Lenin and the Third International. Step by step, along the struggle, by studying Marxism-Leninism parallel with participation in practical activities, I gradually came upon the fact that only socialism and communism can liberate the oppressed nations and the working people throughout the world from slavery”. According to those items of data, it is impossible to say that Ho Chi Minh Thought is nationalism; Ho Chi Minh Thought can not be put outside Marxism-Leninism. In other words, no one can disconnect Ho Chi Minh Thought from Marxism-Leninism as the former’s ideological foundation.

Second, Ho Chi Minh Thought constitutes the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to Viet Nam’s practical conditions. At its 11^th National Congress, our Party affirmed that “Ho Chi Minh Thought is a comprehensive, profound system of viewpoints on basic issues of the Vietnamese revolution, resulting from the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to our country’s practical conditions”. It is clear for us to see that the whole system of viewpoints of Ho Chi Minh on core issues of the Vietnamese revolution was developed from the creative application of fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism to our country’s practical conditions. Thoroughly grasping those fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh employed scientific methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism to find out guidelines, measures, and strategies in accordance with each specific circumstance and period of the Vietnamese revolution and establish an all-round, profound system of viewpoints on basic issues of Viet Nam’s revolution. Not basing on conclusions available in Marxist-Leninist classics, Ho Chi Minh adopted Marxist cognitive methods in order to master the spirit and nature of Marxism-Leninism, avoid binding himself into the surface of language, properly apply Marxism-Leninism to Viet Nam’s practical conditions, and form basic viewpoints on goals, forces, motives, and methods of the Vietnamese revolution. That is absolutely appropriate to the nature of Marxism-Leninism and instructions given to posterity by the founders of Marxism-Leninism that their doctrine is not what is “complete” or “invariable”; it must be an open system. Therefore, Ho Chi Minh always advocated that “studying Marxism-Leninism is to master the spirit of managing things and relationships with people and oneself, to learn and creatively apply universal truths of Marxism-Leninism to our country’s practical conditions”, to “study viewpoints and methods of Marxism-Leninism and apply them to successfully dealing with real-world issues arising from our revolution”. Under that spirit, Ho Chi Minh Thought on fundamental issues of the Vietnamese revolution has been gradually perfected, which has reflected the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to Viet Nam’s practical conditions. Thus, it is impossible to separate Ho Chi Minh Thought from Marxism-Leninism.         

Third, Ho Chi Minh Thought makes contributions to supplementing, enriching, and fuelling Marxism-Leninism, thus being worthy of the continuation of Marxism-Leninism. Researching into Ho Chi Minh Thought on basic issues of the Vietnamese revolution will render us fully aware that Ho Chi Minh did not adopt a dogmatic approach to Marxist-Leninist theories; according to him, “Marxism-Leninism is the lodestar for action, not the Bible”. Remaining steadfastness in the standpoint and methodology of Marxism-Leninism, correctly analysing Viet Nam’s practical conditions, Ho Chi Minh soon discovered differences in terms of society between Eastern and Western countries, which had not been studie for various reasons in the Karl Marx era. Grounded on those differences, Ho Chi Minh put forward a lot of creative arguments concerning Viet Nam’s revolutionary path. For instance, the goal of Vietnamese revolution must be national independence associated with socialism; rules for the foundation and development of the CPV must include a combination of Marxism-Leninism, workers’ movement, and patriotic movement. Social foundation of our Party is comprised of not only the worker class, but also the entire labouring people; the CPV is the representative of not only the worker class, but also of the labouring people and the whole nation. Ho Chi Minh also offered an argument concerning the settlement of the issues of nation and class in a semi-feudal colony according to which national benefits must be above class ones when that country lost its independence; national liberation partly included class liberation and created a favourable condition for the latter. Besides, national and colonial issues were seen as a significant contribution made by Ho Chi Minh to Marxism-Leninism. He argued that national liberation revolutions within colonies could be successful prior to bourgeois revolutions in “mother countries” and help accelerate such revolutions in such countries. Those above-mentioned contributions of Ho Chi Minh manifest his loyalty to the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism. Besides, it is worth noting that Ho Chi Minh made important contributions to enriching Marxism-Leninism and stoking up this doctrine. Therefore, Ho Chi Minh Thought must be the continuation of Marxism-Leninism as part of human beings’ cultural flow; it is neither separate from nor contrary to Marxism-Leninism as distorted by some people.

From those analyses above, it can be affirmed that both Ho Chi Minh Thought and Marxism-Leninism serve as our CPV’s ideological foundation. In order to defend the Party’s ideological foundation, it is necessary to “remain steadfastness in and creatively apply and develop Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought” as well as resolutely fight against all plots of isolating or disconnecting Ho Chi Minh Thought from Marxism-Leninism. That is a both long-term and urgent task in today’s Fatherland construction and protection cause.