"An ordinary but good party member has more prestige than a corrupt cadre"

General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong (photo VNA).

According to the report, in recent years, Party committees at all levels have paid attention to and focused on leading and directing the building, consolidation and improvement of grassroots Party organizations, and the development and improvement of Party members' quality. By the end of 2017, the entire Party had 4,921,129 Party members, operating in 270,046 Party cells belonging to 57,794 grassroots Party organizations.

The work of admitting new party members has achieved many important results, the number of newly admitted party members has increased rapidly. From 2011 to 2017, the whole Party admitted 1,461,701 party members, an average of 209,572 party members per year.

The review, screening, and removal of those who are no longer qualified as Party members from the Party are carried out regularly and seriously by Party committees at all levels. From 2011 to 2017, the entire Party screened and removed 50,938 Party members from the Party by deleting their names, of which 38,519 Party members were deleted due to violations, not to mention 12,499 Party members who were disciplined and expelled from the Party. The review, screening, and removal of those who are no longer qualified as Party members from the Party has an increasing trend: in 2011, there were 6,005 Party members, in 2013, there were 7,413 Party members, in 2015, there were 6,458 Party members, and in 2017, there were 9,822 Party members.

In his concluding remarks at the meeting, General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong stated that party member work has many stages: education, training, management, and screening. For a long time, cadre work has been discussed a lot, but party member work has been discussed less.

The General Secretary and President recalled that after the August Revolution in 1945, our country had a population of 25 million people, of which there were 5,000 party members, but the Party led the revolution successfully. Now the whole country has more than 90 million people, of which there are about 5 million party members. The fact that the population is large but not strong is due to the quality of party members.

Therefore, Resolution 4 of the 12th Central Committee has raised the issue of improving the quality of party members, this is a very necessary and urgent issue.

The General Secretary and President said that it is necessary to improve the quality of Party membership admission; to screen, review, and resolutely remove from the Party those Party members who are no longer qualified, have impure motives and purposes, and join the Party not to fight and sacrifice, but to be promoted, have a salary increase, or advance in position...

The General Secretary and President stated that if we want the Party to be strong, first of all, each Party member must be good. To do so, we must do a good job of educating and training Party members, screening and handling Party members who violate the law, and preventing degradation in political ideology, lifestyle ethics, and manifestations of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation" within the Party.

According to the General Secretary and President, first of all, we must pay attention to political and ideological education, training of moral qualities and lifestyle. Because political and ideological degradation is more dangerous than negative corruption.

We must arouse and promote the spirit of "party members taking the lead", a good and average party member is more prestigious and loved than a corrupt cadre. At the same time, we must continue to improve the regulations and rules on improving the quality of party cell activities to suit the specific situation and conditions of the locality, agency, and unit on the basis of the regulations and instructions of the Central Committee.