'What Uncle Ho said about selecting cadres is still very new today'

“The article by General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong contains many new and profound ideas and can be considered a message that the head of the Party and State sends to us. It requires us to be serious and promote the spirit of responsibility to serve the people in order to select a team of high-ranking officials, especially the strategic team, who must be truly virtuous and talented” - Professor Hoang Chi Bao - former member of the Central Theoretical Council emphasized this when referring to the article by the General Secretary and President on personnel preparation for the 13th National Party Congress.

Full text of speech at the opening ceremony of the 12th Central Conference by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong

On the morning of May 11, the 12th Conference of the 12th Party Central Committee solemnly opened in Hanoi. General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong delivered an important speech to open the Conference.

According to the Professor, the standards and requirements in selecting personnel that the Party and State leaders have set out are also the will of the entire Party and the entire people. These standards are carefully considered and draw from valuable lessons, from mistakes and shortcomings in personnel work in the past, most specifically the recent Congress.

It can be seen that the standards for high-ranking officials are set very clearly: must have a strong political stance, have moral qualities and a pure, exemplary lifestyle, be trusted by officials, party members and people; not be corrupt; have intelligence, vision, strategic thinking and relatively comprehensive knowledge... In those very specific standards, the General Secretary and President especially emphasized the relationship between Virtue and Talent as well as the position and relationship between Virtue and Talent in the personality of officials. He emphasized: Officials must have both Virtue and Talent, in which Virtue is the root ("one Heart is worth three Talents").

Professor Hoang Chi Bao analyzed that Talent is necessary and very important, because without Talent, cadres cannot work, especially in the requirements of innovation, creativity, modernization of the country, and integration with the world as today. Talent here is not measured by degrees, because there are many cadres who have matured in practice, self-study to have a substantial amount of knowledge, these people are much more valuable than those who "decorate" with this or that degree but in fact cannot do the job. Not to mention the worse thing is that cadres use fake or deceitful degrees. Therefore, cadres' talent should not be considered by the mere index of degrees but measured by actual level, measured by practical capacity in solving work, whether it is effective, whether it has a positive impact on people's lives and especially in the area, field that the cadre is in charge of or not.

Talent is not the same as education. Talent must reach the level of creativity, courage to look at things to discover new things and be ready to innovate. Talent is important but is still governed by the orientation of morality. Therefore, virtue is the root, talent is important. This is also the great thought of President Ho Chi Minh, the consistent policy of our Party in selecting cadres.

It can be seen that Virtue and Talent are both important. Virtue cannot be separated from Talent and Talent cannot be separated from Virtue and it is even more important to avoid the situation of absolutizing Virtue and underestimating Talent or vice versa. During his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh once said: "Having talent without virtue is useless, having virtue without talent makes it difficult to do anything". Therefore, when selecting cadres, one must be very alert and clear-headed, do not "see chicken as a crow", do not "see red as ripe" but must look at the real things, and the real things are always simple, profound, and honest. Therefore, it is not by chance that Uncle Ho advised cadres: Honesty is the best, sincerity is the most precious, nothing can hide from the eyes of the people, so there is nothing better than sincerity and honesty.

“Our Party must learn from Uncle Ho’s profound thoughts to consider and select a team of cadres that is worthy, in line with the people’s wishes and aspirations. Because good or bad cadres will affect the movement. If cadres are good, the revolution will be victorious, but if cadres are bad, the revolution will face difficulties and even fail. Uncle Ho also said: Cadres are the capital of the organization. Only with capital can we make a profit. Any policy or work, if there are good cadres, will be successful, meaning there will be a profit. Without good cadres, the work will fail, meaning there will be a loss of capital” – Professor Hoang Chi Bao said.

According to the Professor, to find the right virtuous and talented cadres, there is nothing better than listening to the people's opinions. There must also be a mechanism for collecting people's opinions, such as the need to publicly announce the planned 200 Central personnel so that all people can know and contribute their opinions.

He believes that the people are very close to life and close to the cadres, so they know who is real and who is fake, who is good and who is bad, who is devoted to the people, and who always says they are for the people but in fact are for themselves. The people help the Party select talented people through information, so in cadre work, we must listen to the people and rely on the people to build the Party.

Furthermore, to select talented people, the Party must promote the responsibility of the Party Committee, especially the leader. This idea has existed since our ancestors' feudal time. If anyone recommends a cadre and that cadre makes a mistake or is unworthy, the person who recommends must take joint responsibility. Therefore, in selecting personnel for the 13th Party Congress, the Party must take joint responsibility for the personnel it proposes and recommends. The selection of cadres must be fair and objective, not for personal reasons, not because of love for one person or hate for another, and certainly not because of factions, group interests, or "cronies" that put people who are suitable for them into the apparatus, while those who are truly virtuous and talented are eliminated.

Even if there are cadres that we “don’t like” but they are actually good people, good people, trusted by the people, beneficial to the revolution, we still have to use them and once we use them, we have to trust, rely on and respect them. Of course, there is a control mechanism to protect them, not letting them go down the wrong path.

“These things Uncle Ho said 70 years ago, since the beginning of the resistance war against the French, when applied to us today, we still see that they are very new. Therefore, we must rely on the people, rely on the Party internally, and promote responsibility to choose people with real virtue and talent. This requires being very alert, careful, and clear-headed, especially being impartial and objective, always taking the interests of the nation and the people as a measure, not for personal purposes” – Professor Hoang Chi Bao emphasized.

Referring to the new points in the article of General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong, Professor Hoang Chi Bao said that the head of the Party and State has been very straightforward in stating the truth, with very high and serious requirements, clear about virtue and talent, clear about the criteria and selection methods. The selection method here must be based on actual actions, on work, on efficiency, on prestige among the people and within the Party, not based on self-assessment, and certainly not based on qualifications.

The speeches of the General Secretary and President both directly and indirectly contained warnings and admonitions: "don't look at red and think it's ripe", don't just see "the appearance on the outside, it covers up the sloppiness inside"... this not only raises people's thinking and awareness, but also directly creates pressure on those responsible for designing the Party's personnel at all levels from local to central.

One thing that the General Secretary and President have repeatedly emphasized is to absolutely not allow political opportunists, power-hungry people, flatterers, lobbyists, corrupt people, those who lobby for personal, factional, or group interests; those who are not morally pure, who take advantage of their positions for personal gain, and those who allow their family members, relatives, spouses, or children to take advantage of their positions for personal gain... to enter the apparatus.

Recalling a thought-provoking fact that there has never been a term, although not yet 5 years, where the number of cadres under the Central management were disciplined as much as the 12th term, Professor Hoang Chi Bao said that although this reality is painful and expensive, it gives us a lesson that always in our thinking and actions, Virtue is the root, Talent is important, Virtue and Talent are inseparable, Virtue is in Talent and Talent is in Virtue. Virtue ensures the development of talent, while talent makes morality develop. Having Virtue without Talent, cadres are easily corrupted, without Virtue, talent cannot be used, even deformed into dissatisfaction, shrinking to take care of family and interest groups.

“The General Secretary himself is a model of morality, and he is also a scientist, with knowledge, experience, and a clean private life, which are the things that make up his great prestige among the people and the Party. With the sense of responsibility of a leader, responsible to the Party and the people, he had to plan specific steps, even science and art, to select the best team of cadres. But if only the enthusiasm and determination of the General Secretary is not enough, it must be transferred into the synchronous movement of the entire senior leadership, most importantly the collective of the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Central Committee. We have reason to believe that the 13th Congress, with such great determination, will have positive changes, to select sincere, clean, upright people, the best people, meeting the requirements compared to previous terms” – Professor Hoang Chi Bao said./.