Standing Deputy Secretary of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee Hoang Nghia Hieu: Promoting the spirit of self-reliance, self-strengthening, the will to overcome difficulties and dare to think and dare to do

On the afternoon of May 18, in Vinh city, the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, the Central Propaganda and Education Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee and the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee jointly organized a national scientific conference: "President Ho Chi Minh - A noble symbol of the will and aspiration for national independence, freedom and happiness for the people".

At the workshop, comrade Hoang Nghia Hieu - Standing Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Council of Nghe An province presented a speech: "President Ho Chi Minh's will and aspiration for national independence and national unification - Historical value and contemporary significance".

Comrade Hoang Nghia Hieu emphasized that during his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh always affirmed: "I have only one desire, an ultimate desire, which is to make our country completely independent, our people completely free..." - that was not only an emotional declaration, but also the guiding principle for the entire revolutionary journey that he led.

The theme of today's workshop: "President Ho Chi Minh - a noble symbol of the will and aspiration for national independence, freedom and happiness for the people" has a very profound meaning, not only for us to remember and show gratitude to him, but also to continue to study, apply and promote the value of Ho Chi Minh's ideology in the current cause of building and defending the Fatherland.

President Ho Chi Minh was born in Kim Lien, Nam Dan, a rural area with a rich tradition of studiousness, patriotism and revolution. His father – Vice-Chancellor Nguyen Sinh Sac – was a patriotic Confucian scholar, loved the people, had great will, and always aspired to revive the nation.

Growing up in a country that had lost its sovereignty, witnessing the misery and hunger of the people under French colonial rule, along with the profound influence of family education, the patriotic tradition of the homeland soon instilled in the young man Nguyen Tat Thanh a spirit of patriotism, national pride and the will to devote himself to a great cause. He was always troubled by the question: "How to save the country and save the people?"

That question urged the young man Nguyen Tat Thanh to leave home to find a way to save the country at the age of 21 and was also the motivation for him to overcome all difficulties and hardships during his 30-year journey abroad.

During that journey, he came into contact with many ideological trends and studied major revolutions in the world, including the Marxist-Leninist doctrine. He realized that only the proletarian revolution, only socialism was the true path to regain national independence and bring happiness to the people. And from then on, he devoted his whole life to fighting for national independence, freedom, and happiness for the people along the path of the proletarian revolution.

That path led the Vietnamese people to the success of the August Revolution and subsequent victories. President Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence before the nation, solemnly announcing to the world the birth of the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam and expressing his determination to “spend all our spirit and strength, lives and property to maintain that freedom and independence!”

Immediately after the Geneva Agreement in 1954, although the country was temporarily divided into two regions, Ho Chi Minh firmly declared: “Vietnam is one, the Vietnamese people are one. Rivers may dry up, mountains may erode, but this truth will never change.”

For him, national unification was not only a territorial requirement but also the highest expression of the spirit of national independence and national sovereignty.

When the French colonialists plotted to invade Vietnam again, Ho Chi Minh, with his courage, intelligence and strategic vision, proactively negotiated peace with France to prolong the time to prepare forces, but at the same time, he was determined not to lose the country a second time. When war was inevitable, he affirmed: "We would rather sacrifice everything than lose our country, than become slaves."

That spirit became a call for the entire nation to enter a protracted resistance war, ending with the resounding victory of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 - resounding throughout the five continents, shaking the globe and continuing to be the guiding principle for the resistance war against the US to save the country and unify the country to final victory.

Although he did not have time to witness the day of total victory, in his sacred Testament, he wrote: “The resistance war against America may still be prolonged… but our people will definitely win, our Fatherland will definitely be unified, and our compatriots in the North and South will definitely be reunited under one roof.”

To maintain independence and unity, Ho Chi Minh always affirmed that we must follow the path of proletarian revolution and always need a genuine revolutionary Party, strong in organization, ideology and morality. And he devoted his whole life to building and training our Party to be truly clean, strong, moral and civilized...

Party building is not only an urgent task in the struggle for power, but also a prerequisite for maintaining revolutionary achievements, building a new society, and developing the country. At the same time, he always paid attention to nurturing the next generation of revolutionaries to protect the future of the nation. He advised: "Cultivating the next generation of revolutionaries is a very important and necessary task."

It can be said that President Ho Chi Minh's will and aspiration for national independence and unification is the red thread running through the Vietnamese revolutionary cause.

From the first days of his search for a way to save the country until he wrote his sacred Testament, he always steadfastly pursued one goal: to gain independence and unification for the Vietnamese people. That ideology led our Party to overcome countless difficulties, step by step leading the Vietnamese revolution from one victory to another.

Not only stopping at ideals, President Ho Chi Minh realized that will through vivid revolutionary struggle practices. He constantly pondered, researched, learned, and flexibly applied Marxism-Leninism to the specific circumstances of Vietnam to come up with a suitable path to national liberation.

With his great courage and intellectual stature, he crystallized and connected the nation's patriotic tradition with the revolutionary spirit of the times, creating a great spiritual strength - that is the aspiration for independence, freedom, peace and national unity.

That ideology is still relevant today and is a great spiritual driving force in the work of building and defending the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland.

In the current era of globalization, protecting national independence is no longer just about preserving territory and sovereignty, but a comprehensive struggle on many fronts: economy, culture, technology, cyberspace, environment, and non-traditional security. This poses new requirements for the application of Ho Chi Minh's thoughts on independence, autonomy and sustainable development.

Lessons from Ho Chi Minh show us that: National independence must always be associated with people's happiness, with people's mastery and with comprehensive development.

Therefore, in the process of national development today, it is necessary to continue to promote the spirit of self-reliance, self-strengthening, the will to overcome difficulties and dare to think and dare to do. At the same time, we must proactively integrate internationally, improve our economic and scientific-technological strength, and arouse the aspiration to rise up and stand shoulder to shoulder with the world powers as Uncle Ho once wished.

To promote that spirit and aspiration in national development in the new era, to enable Vietnam to "stand shoulder to shoulder with the world powers", we must strongly arouse the spirit of patriotism, self-reliance, self-reliance, and the desire to contribute in the whole society, especially in the young generation. At the same time, it is necessary to promote new development drivers: innovation, digital transformation, green economic development - digital economy, and improving the quality of human resources.

In the context of the country entering a new stage of development - the era of national development, with the goal of becoming a developed nation by 2045 - inheriting and promoting the will, spirit and aspiration of President Ho Chi Minh is of even more urgent significance. That is the ideological and spiritual foundation for building a strong, prosperous and happy Vietnam.