'The Party is not an organization for officials to get rich'

President Ho Chi Minh has passed away, but he left behind warnings as political predictions about the dangers of a ruling party that we need to seriously ponder today.

Just over a month after reading the Declaration of Independence (September 2, 1945) giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, President Ho Chi Minh immediately wrote a “Letter to the People’s Committees of the regions, provinces, districts and villages” (October 17, 1945). More than a year later, he wrote two more letters, “To the Comrades of the North” and “To the Comrades of the Central Region”.

The content of the two letters aimed to criticize the Party and State agencies for their shortcomings: localism, factionalism, militarism, bureaucracy; narrow-mindedness; fondness for formalities; desk work, lack of discipline, lax discipline; selfishness; arrogance; embezzlement; corruption...

At the end of his life (June 1968), he advised: "A nation, a party and each person, who were great yesterday and had great appeal, will not necessarily be loved and praised by everyone today and tomorrow, if their hearts are no longer pure, if they fall into individualism..."(1).

According to President Ho Chi Minh, in the current situation of being in power, the Party is at risk of becoming corrupted if its mistakes are not corrected, causing the Party to not only no longer be a truly loyal "servant" serving the people but also become a "people's official", even becoming the polar opposite of the people.

Here are some mistakes that lead to danger.

President Ho Chi Minh speaks at the 2nd National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Vinh Quang commune, Chiem Hoa district, Tuyen Quang province.

Wrong decision

After having a government, the most important issue for the Party is to “have a good plan for economic and cultural development, aiming to continuously improve the people's lives” (President Ho Chi Minh's Testament). That is the Party's top political task. Therefore, when having a government, the issue of determining the path of economic and cultural development that is independent, self-reliant, cooperative and internationally integrated has the most decisive position for the “qualifications of a genuine revolutionary party”.

But the policy depends mainly on the Party's capacity, intelligence and theoretical level. Therefore, "fighting ignorance" becomes urgent. President Ho Chi Minh called ignorance an enemy: "Ignorance is also an enemy. The enemy of ignorance helps the foreign invaders. The enemy of ignorance attacks us spiritually, just as the colonial enemy attacks us by force. The colonial enemy relies on the enemy of ignorance to carry out the strategy of keeping people ignorant. The enemy of ignorance relies on the colonial enemy to lead our people into blindness" (2). "The enemy of ignorance" is also an "ally" of "the enemy of hunger".

To escape poverty and stand shoulder to shoulder with the world's great powers, one must learn how to get rich and defeat "ignorance". That is why President Ho Chi Minh stated that we must fight three enemies at the same time: "hunger", "ignorance" and foreign invaders.

The risk of making mistakes in policy has been identified as originating from: First, lack of political stability, not putting the interests of the nation and the people first. Second, narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness cause human resource policies to not be properly implemented, and to not recruit and make good use of talented people.

Meanwhile, the lack of talent policy and poor implementation are the reasons why the ruling party falls into a state of lack of knowledge, lack of theory, lack of understanding of the nature and development trends of the domestic and foreign situation, does not grasp the laws of action, does not know where it is, what path it is on and where it will lead.

Reality has increasingly proven that the above instructions of President Ho Chi Minh are correct.

Internal invaders

The internal enemy is individualism. President Ho Chi Minh pointed out that individualism has penetrated the Party body, it is an “internal enemy” because it is in each of us, right inside the body of our Party. Some manifestations of individualism have been identified as:

First, arrogance and pride. This manifestation appeared most clearly when the Party became the ruling party. President Ho Chi Minh pointed out that due to arrogance, lack of understanding and narrow-mindedness, the Party failed to gather and promote the positivity of the masses. Arrogance has appeared in different types of cadres.

Those who have gone through the hardships of the resistance war, been imprisoned and tortured by the enemy, and matured in the revolutionary struggle, rely on their achievements and experiences in the war to "put on airs". They lack modesty, are lazy to learn, are subjective, and despise theory. As for the cadres who have been trained in formal schools and have degrees, they are complacent, unrealistic, dogmatic, lack political courage, and lack creativity in solving problems. Both types of cadres mentioned above are in a situation where their abilities are not commensurate with their positions of power.

These diseases destroy the Party in all aspects: theory, ideology, politics, organization and ethics, including human ethics, civic ethics and revolutionary ethics, making the Party distant from the people and reducing the people's trust.

Second, localism. People with the disease of “localism” only care about, defend, and nurture their locality or department without thinking about the whole picture or the common good. When the State applies the modern management method of decentralization and delegation of power, in many places, selfishness and localism have had the opportunity to rise, causing harm to the common good of the country.

Third, factionalism, cronyism, and group interests. This disease often causes great harm, causing internal disunity, the Party to lose cadres, and ruin things. "Clanality" is a manifestation of factionalism, "If someone is your ally, even if they say something wrong, they will listen, and they will use you even if they have no talent. If someone is not your ally, even if they have talent, they will put them down, and they will not listen no matter how good they are" (3) or "There are comrades who still maintain the habit of "when one person becomes an official, the whole family benefits", putting relatives and friends in this position or that job, regardless of whether they can do it or not. If things go wrong, the Union will bear it, as long as relatives and friends have positions" (4). "Clanality" today has become the "group interests" of a not small number of Party members and cadres who influence policies, distort the principle of democratic centralism, and are a threat to the survival of the Party itself.

Fourth, bureaucracy and the worship of money. This is a disease with deep roots, persistent and causing great, long-term harm. People who are greedy for power often abuse the power they are given. They are arbitrary, flatter their superiors, bully their subordinates, rely on their position to be arrogant, unrestrained, do whatever they want, disregard public opinion, disregard Party discipline and State laws. People who are greedy for power often take advantage of their position for personal gain and to amass money.

The lifestyle of chasing money is reversing values, including the sacred values ​​of comradeship and brotherhood. “Money is a widespread distortion of personalities, a distortion that turns those personalities into their opposites... At that time, money also appears as a force that distorts... Money turns loyalty into betrayal, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, stupidity into wisdom, wisdom into stupidity...”(5).

Power is a factor that creates organizational discipline and social order. But the love of power and the abuse of power corrupt people, making officials delude themselves about what they do not have. The love of power is similar to the militaristic and bureaucratic mentality. "That "general" and "general" mentality has caused so much resentment and division, making superiors distant from subordinates, and organizations distant from the people" (6). The love of power is leading to the situation of running for positions, running for degrees, running for achievements and medals, running for projects and running for sentences... That "running" has transformed into an uncultured lifestyle, a "greasing" culture, a "envelope" culture; becoming an existing enemy that creates a direct risk of causing the Party to lose its ruling position.

Fifth, narrow-mindedness. Narrow-minded people often “make it easy for themselves and make it difficult for others”, taking advantage of Party and State policies to dismiss one person and recruit another according to their short-sighted views to climb up, gain positions and usurp power. Inherently narrow-mindedness leads to a gap between cadres who are party members and cadres who are non-party members. “They forget that: compared to the number of people, the number of party members is only minimal, for every hundred people there is only one party member. Without the help of the people, the Party cannot do anything” (7). A party member who is a cadre in charge has “narrow-minded thoughts, narrow-minded actions, many enemies and few friends. A narrow-minded person has few supporters. A narrow-minded organization cannot develop” (8).

Sixth, lack of discipline, lack of strict discipline, violating the law, disregarding the law. Right from the beginning of the Party's rule, President Ho Chi Minh warned of the situation that "in many places, comrades commit mistakes but are not punished appropriately. Some comrades are demoted from one place to another, but stay at the same level in another place, or are demoted only in form, but still work at the same level in the same department. Some comrades deserve to be punished, but because of feelings and respect, they only criticize and warn perfunctorily to get things over with. There are even places where they cover up for each other, forgive each other, deceive superiors, and hide from the Union..." (9). This situation has existed for quite a long time and is showing signs of getting worse, leading to the risk of Party discipline and State law being disregarded. That is a factor that is degenerating the Party, the risk of leading to the downfall of the regime.

Seventh, corruption. Historical facts from the past to the present show that corruption is an incurable disease of state regimes, it often appears with those who hold power. Therefore, when becoming the ruling party, the Communist Party must have a mechanism to control power, to inspect all party members and party organizations. If in the state apparatus, party members (most of whom hold key positions) are corrupt, the effectiveness of social management will be reduced; discipline and law will be disregarded and thus, invisibly, they themselves will be traitors, internal enemies against the people's State led by the Party.

President Ho Chi Minh distinguished between a true revolutionary party and all other parties in that “the Party is not an organization for officials to become rich.” Therefore, if Party members are corrupt, it means they are deforming the Party, turning into people who oppose the Party. Therefore, fighting corruption is not only a social issue but also a matter of Party building, a matter of maintaining the Party’s nature, a matter of fighting the internal enemies of the Party itself.

The Party rallies the people under the banner of justice, against oppression, exploitation, evil, and cruelty, and builds a new and better society, so it is trusted and followed by the people. Now, after gaining power, if the Party is "corrupted" (the word used by President Ho Chi Minh is synonymous with "degenerate"), and Party members take advantage of their positions to "steal" (President Ho Chi Minh called "embezzlement" "stealing"), the Party will fall into a state of "talking but not doing". If this situation continues, the Party will lose the trust of the people, so the risk of losing power is not just a warning. This lesson was clearly seen in the world socialist movement in the 90s of the 20th century.

In short, individualism is the enemy within, the “malignant cells” that infiltrate the Party’s body. Individualism undermines the Party’s ideology and organization, erodes the Party’s honor and prestige, and is a direct risk of the Party gradually losing its mass base. The risk of Party degeneration and corruption comes from the individualism that arises among Party members and cadres. Therefore, President Ho Chi Minh called on the Party to resolutely “wipe out individualism and improve revolutionary morality.”

Far from the people and gradually losing the masses

That is the danger of all dangers, the disaster of all disasters. Because of the importance of the relationship between the Party and the people, President Ho Chi Minh's thought on building the Party into a political organization closely connected with the people, trusted and respected by the people has become a principle in Party building work. Fighting individualism within the Party and the state apparatus; formulating correct policies; maintaining national sovereignty; developing the economy and culture, improving the material and spiritual life of the people; practicing democracy within the Party, expanding democracy in society, building a democratic and rule-of-law state is the only way to restore the people's trust in the Party.

Generally speaking, mistakes in policies, individualism, bureaucracy, and being far from the people are the biggest dangers for any party that has gained power. Therefore, during his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh always advised our Party to proactively guard against these dangers. These instructions are not only a political prediction or forecast, but also a truth that has been tested and confirmed by practice.

The current situation shows that President Ho Chi Minh's instructions are still urgent and timely. The Resolution of the 12th National Party Congress affirms that it is necessary to continue implementing the Resolution of the 4th Central Conference of the 11th tenure on Party building and seriously studying and following his ideology, morality and style, which is a demonstration of the Party's political determination in repelling the dangers of a ruling party./.

According to Communist Magazine