General Nguyen Chi Thanh and the lesson on strengthening the Party's leadership over the Army

President Ho Chi Minh was the one who named General Nguyen Chi Thanh. Photo: Archive

While the resistance war against French colonialism of our people entered an important and fierce transitional phase, our Party and President Ho Chi Minh mobilized comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh into the army and assigned him the important responsibility of Chief of the General Political Department, Deputy Secretary of the General Military Commission (in 1950). During this period, in his new position, he devoted all his efforts together with everyone in the Party Central Committee and the General Military Commission to directly lead the armed forces to implement the Party's strategic determination, fighting for increasingly greater victories, the great victory in the historic Dien Bien Phu campaign (May 1954), defeating the invading French colonialists and the intervention of the United States.

With a profound understanding, dialectical and scientific thinking, special political sensitivity, and proficiency in linking theory with practice, Comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh has firmly grasped and creatively applied Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought in the practice of revolutionary warfare and building armed forces. In his new position as Chief of the General Political Department of the Vietnam People's Army and Deputy Secretary of the General Military Commission, General Nguyen Chi Thanh's consistent viewpoint is to consolidate and strengthen the Party's leadership over the Army. He affirmed: "The Party is the soul and vanguard of the Army. When the Party is strong, everything will be successful. When the Party is weak, everything will not be guaranteed." and "The Party's leadership is the life of the People's Army." The Party's direct and absolute leadership of the Army demonstrates the imbued fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought on war and the new-style army of the proletariat. The army must be placed under the leadership of the Party. That is the immutable principle.

General Nguyen Chi Thanh. Photo: Archive

Therefore, it is necessary to constantly strengthen the Party's leadership over the Army, build a politically, ideologically and organizationally strong Army; foster and promote the revolutionary nature of the Army; build a tradition of Party work and political work (CTĐ, CTCT) in the Army. General Nguyen Chi Thanh has devoted much effort and enthusiasm to building the Party's leadership mechanism for the Army; put CTĐ, CTCT activities in the right position and promote their role in practice to truly ensure that "... they are the soul and lifeblood of our Army, making our Army truly become an army of the nation, of the class, an army that has fought and won all battles". General Nguyen Chi Thanh has directed the establishment of a system of political agencies and the implementation of the political commissar and political officer regime from the General Political Department down to the military regions, divisions, regiments, battalions and companies. Thanks to that, the CTĐ - CTCT has increasingly entered life, permeated all organizations, forces, and people, adapting to all circumstances, at all levels of the army. With the same spirit, under the direction of the comrade, in each campaign, in addition to the General Command directly commanding the campaign, the General Political Department organized a General Department agency at the front, responsible for coordinating with the General Department agency in the rear to directly command the CTĐ - CTCT in combat. Thanks to that, the CTĐ - CTCT in the campaigns, especially in the historic Dien Bien Phu Campaign, promptly encouraged the spirit, perfected the organization, ensured continuous leadership and command in combat; at the same time closely combined ideological work with organizational work and policy work, creating a combined strength to serve combat and fight for victory.

General Vo Nguyen Giap and General Nguyen Chi Thanh

Time has passed, but the issues that General Nguyen Chi Thanh raised in strengthening the Party's leadership over the Army; in the activities of the Party Central Committee - Central Military Commission in general and the leadership of ideological work in particular, still remain valid. Thanks to the effective and flexible application of the principles and scientific methods that General Nguyen Chi Thanh put forward, the activities of the Party Central Committee - Central Military Commission in the Army have achieved great victories, contributing to strengthening the combat strength of the Army in the two resistance wars against French colonialism and American imperialism, as well as in the cause of building and defending the Fatherland today.

In Party building, General Nguyen Chi Thanh always thoroughly grasped and mastered the principle of democratic centralism, the Party's collective leadership, while always being close to the masses, listening to the opinions of cadres and soldiers; promoting internal democracy. He determined that in any circumstance, it is necessary to "take centralized democracy as the regime, take collective leadership as the highest principle of the Party's leadership"; at the same time, he affirmed: "Reality has proven that thanks to the strict implementation of that principle, we have united the Party internally and on that basis united the army, we have promoted the intelligence of Party members and the masses, reduced subjectivity and one-sidedness in leadership, avoided and prevented the evils of developing personal authority, arbitrariness, and anarchy". The characteristic of the Party's principle of democratic centralism is to promote the positive and proactive spirit of each individual, each organization and each Party member towards the revolutionary cause of the Party; making the Party's guidelines implemented in life.

General Nguyen Chi Thanh always considered the political and ideological building of the army to be the most decisive and important work. Because ideological leadership helps cadres and soldiers have the right revolutionary stance, viewpoint, goals and ideals, this is an important basis for unifying thoughts and actions to successfully implement the Party's guidelines.

From the practical guidance on the battlefield and the subtle analysis of the limitations, weaknesses and pointing out the causes in the ideological work of the units, he gave wise and timely instructions to improve the effectiveness of ideological work in the army. He affirmed that ideological work must go deep into cultivating awareness, will, emotions, forming revolutionary awareness and profound political mettle for cadres and soldiers; equipping cadres and soldiers with worldview, outlook on life, and scientific methodology to act with the highest efficiency. According to General Nguyen Chi Thanh: The core issue of building our army politically is to build the working class nature of the army. Our army was established, led, educated, and trained by the Communist Party, so the working class nature of the army is the thorough understanding of the working class nature of the Party; is the political, ideological and organizational implementation of the Communist Party in the Army, in accordance with the characteristics and organizational functions of a military organization.

General Nguyen Chi Thanh stated: The fighting spirit of any army originates from the political awareness of each officer and soldier in that army. General Nguyen Chi Thanh was the one who brought the CTĐ - CTCT into the Army, becoming a very important part of our Party's leadership of the army. From the revolutionary practice in directing the implementation of tasks, General Nguyen Chi Thanh raised issues of principle in leading ideological work, which are: ideological leadership needs to have a positive spirit, self-awareness and constructiveness; must solve problems at the root with a scientific basis; must be proactive, have a far-sighted view of problems, following the motto of disease prevention combined with treatment; must have principles and a sharp fighting spirit; Ideological leadership is a difficult, long-term, and extremely complicated task, so ideological leadership needs to be based on reality, specific circumstances, task situations, and characteristics of the target to promptly propose different content, requirements, and tasks. General Nguyen Chi Thanh always attaches importance to the human factor, the spiritual factor, and the ideology that inherits the humanistic military ideology of Ho Chi Minh with the motto: "politics is more important than military"; "people first, guns later".

On the basis of the above-mentioned principled issues, General Nguyen Chi Thanh proposed a method of leading ideological work, which is: always grasp and understand the ideological situation, analyze the causes; know how to encourage and reward promptly, be persistent and persistent, increase persuasiveness; promote the effect of self-criticism and criticism, in the spirit of objective and voluntary construction, ensuring the mass nature; direct all forms and tools of political education towards the purpose of ideological leadership; combine ideological leadership with organizational leadership; combine ideological leadership with leadership in implementing the Party and Government's policies and guidelines. He requested that ideological work must combine "building" and "fighting", be persistent and persistent, and focus on persuasion, but must also firmly maintain principles, respect discipline and the law. Build a political work regime and system and promote the strength of political work in the people's armed forces, making political work truly the soul of the army.

To strengthen the Party's leadership over the Army, General Nguyen Chi Thanh attached great importance to building a strong Army Party organization, the key of which was building a contingent of cadres. He thoroughly understood the viewpoint of building cadres from workers and farmers, because this was the main force of the revolution; however, he was also very objective in commenting, evaluating, and using cadres from other backgrounds. He was a person who dared to take responsibility to protect cadres, protect what was right, and was not afraid of shortcomings, because he had a firm belief in the enlightenment and development trend of human beings. He regularly paid attention to the training and fostering of a contingent of military cadres who were "both red and professional", building a contingent of cadres with sufficient virtue, talent, qualities, and capacity for our army, ensuring the correctness of the Party's class line, meeting the development requirements of the situation and tasks in each revolutionary stage. He paid great attention to educating cadres about revolutionary ideals, mass work, democracy, discipline, solidarity, and repeatedly reminded cadres to be truly politically equal to soldiers, to wholeheartedly love, care for, guide, and help each other as if they were family. Cadres must constantly and highly promote the spirit of revolutionary self-awareness, set good examples before the masses to arouse the creative spirit of the masses. Many cadres under his command were discovered, promoted, and assigned to suitable positions and developed into key members of the Party, State, and army.

Pay attention to directing the building of the Party Committee system and work in the Army. When determining the Party Committee system in the Army, it means establishing Party committee members at all levels, from the battalion level up, to act as the core of unified leadership in the army and clearly defining the system of leaders assigning responsibilities, under the collective and unified leadership of the Party Committee, to implement the Party's leadership regime for the Army. He especially attached importance to building company Party cells, which are considered the bridge between the Party and the masses, the core of solidarity at the grassroots level and leadership in the company. At the same time, always set requirements and demands that all levels must do a good job of educating and training Party members comprehensively in terms of political awareness, class awareness, revolutionary ethics, capacity and methods, and working style.

General Nguyen Chi Thanh has made great contributions to consolidating and strengthening the Party's leadership over the army, building the Vietnam People's Army strong in politics, ideology and organization; fostering and promoting the revolutionary nature of our army, building the tradition of revolutionary struggle and political reform, and constantly improving the fighting strength of the people's armed forces.

Regularly pay attention to consolidating and perfecting the Party Committee system and work in the army; upholding the principle of democratic centralism in Party activities; establishing the Party Committee system to serve as the nucleus of unified leadership in the army and clearly defining the system of leaders assigning responsibilities under the collective and unified leadership of the Party Committee. He believes that perfecting the Party Committee system is to unify and strengthen the Party's leadership over the army.

General Nguyen Chi Thanh and his wife, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Cuc. Photo: Archive

To strengthen the Party's leadership over the army, General Nguyen Chi Thanh and the General Military Commission focused all efforts on researching and perfecting the Party's leadership mechanism over the army. From understanding the reality, he proposed replacing the final political commissar regime (applied since August 1949) with the Party Committee regime. This issue was discussed, approved and clearly stated in the Party Charter by the Second Party Congress (February 1951). The birth of the Party Committee regime was a great success, marking the important contribution of General Nguyen Chi Thanh, helping to overcome the limitations of the old mechanism; at the same time forming a new mechanism: "Taking the Party Committee as the core of the leadership core, and at the same time determining the regime of political leaders and military leaders assigned responsibilities under the collective leadership of the Party Committee". It can be said that up to now, through different stages of the revolution, that regime has been affirmed to be correct, scientific, and suitable to the characteristics and revolutionary nature of our army. The great contributions of General Nguyen Chi Thanh in theory and practice of directing Party and political activities for the building of our army are valuable lessons.

In the current conditions, we are required to constantly study, practice, improve our political capacity, and fight against signs of moral degradation and “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” lifestyles. We must learn from the shining example of General Nguyen Chi Thanh on his steadfast class stance, radical revolutionary spirit, resolute and continuous attacks on the enemy, to gain victory for the revolution, to protect the Party, and not retreat in the face of difficulties; on his infinite loyalty to the Party’s revolutionary cause, his love for the Fatherland and the people.

Always maintain high vigilance, resolutely and uncompromisingly fight against the plots and tricks of hostile and reactionary forces to carry out "peaceful evolution" and violent overthrow; defeat the false arguments that the army is non-Party, non-political, and non-class, which in fact want to downgrade and eliminate the leadership role of the Party and the role of political work in the army.