Eighty years, how much love there was!
On the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Party on February 3rd this year, two veteran Party members, both senior officials of the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee, were awarded the prestigious 80-year Party membership badge and both have reached the age of 100. These are comrades Nguyen Dinh Trien and Ngo Xuan Lan.
Ngo Duc TienMarch 26, 2025
On the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Party on February 3rd this year, two veteran Party members, both senior officials of the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee, were awarded the prestigious 80-year Party membership badge. These are comrades Nguyen Dinh Trien and Ngo Xuan Lan.
Comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien was born in 1925 into a poor peasant family in Thuong Xa village, Nghi Loc district (now Nghi Xa commune, Nghi Loc district). Inheriting the patriotic and revolutionary traditions of his family, with his father and brother being revolutionary fighters active in the Nghe Tinh Soviet movement of 1930/1931, Nguyen Dinh Trien joined the secret Viet Minh organization early in 1945 and actively participated in the uprising to seize power during the August Revolution of 1945. Immediately after the August Revolution, he participated in resistance activities from the commune to the district level. In 1953, he was transferred to work as a lecturer at the Nghe An Provincial Cadre School, the predecessor of the Nghe An Provincial Party School. In 1959, implementing the Central Committee's policy, the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee established the Provincial Party Committee's History Research Committee, and he was transferred to the Party History Committee. When it was first established, the committee had only a few staff members. Comrade Vo Thuc Dong, the Provincial Party Secretary and former political prisoner of Con Dao, served as the concurrently Head of the Committee. Comrade Phan Dinh Dong, also a former Soviet soldier of Nghe Tinh, served as the Deputy Head, Comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien as a Committee Member, and a few other staff members assisted. In 1962, Comrade Phan Dinh Dong retired, and Comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien became the Deputy Head of the Committee.
During the years of the resistance war against the US for national liberation, the Provincial Party Committee's offices were evacuated to many places. Under the leadership and guidance of the Provincial Party Secretaries, Comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien directly established the Party History Research Committee, collecting documents and compiling and publishing works recording the revolutionary struggle traditions of the Nghe An Party Committee, especially the exemplary figures of the Party's pioneering communists who were also outstanding sons and daughters of Nghe An, such as President Ho Chi Minh and comrades Le Hong Phong, Phan Dang Luu, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai... serving the propaganda work of the Party Committee.
In early 1976, the two provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh merged, and Comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien was appointed Head of the Party History Research Committee of the Nghe Tinh Provincial Party Committee. From 1976 to 1988, in his capacity as Head of the Committee, and with the leadership of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, Comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien built and trained a team of specialists and cadres for the committee, which at times numbered over 20 people. Many of them became management cadres and specialized writers on historical topics, such as Chu Trong Huyen, Bui Ngoc Tam, Tran Huy Tao, Nguyen Sy Dam, Nguyen Van Dinh, Ngo Duc Tien... Major works such asHo Chi Minh's childhood, the Nghe Tinh Soviet, the history of the Nghe Tinh Party Committee.andCommunists in their homeland of Nghe Tinh...and hundreds of memoirs of party members active during the Party's clandestine period from 1930-1945. All these works bear the mark of the Head of the Department, who enthusiastically collected, summarized, researched, and compiled them. For topics not yet compiled into books, he sent staff to large archives in the South and North to collect, copy, and store them in the department's archives. He himself also directly recorded, researched, and compiled the information.
With a basic knowledge of both Nôm script and Quốc ngữ (Vietnamese alphabet) acquired from his parents before the revolution, but with an extraordinary memory, he taught himself and researched independently, becoming a "living archive." Whenever anyone asks him about events or figures involved in the Party's founding movement (1925-1930) or the period from 1930-1945 in Nghệ Tĩnh, he can recount them in detail and with clarity. Since retiring in 1988, he has directly assisted the Nguyễn Đình clan in collecting and compiling the family genealogy of Cương Quốc Công Nguyễn Xí, of whom he is a descendant.
With his old bicycle, he cycled to the branches of the Nguyen Dinh clan, encompassing over 150 major sub-branches in Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa, and other provinces. Connecting the lineage horizontally and vertically, he, along with Professor Nguyen Dinh Chu, journalist Nguyen Thanh Tien, and others, compiled the Nguyen Dinh clan genealogy, one of the most extensive and well-documented genealogies of a large clan with a glorious 600-year history. This work summarizes decades of historical research by the veteran comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien.
On the day he was honored with the title of Pre-Revolutionary Cadre, his devoted wife was present. However, by the time he was awarded the 80-year Party membership badge, she had passed away. He placed the badge and certificate of recognition respectfully next to her photograph, to commemorate the wife who helped him achieve these high honors bestowed upon him by the Party.
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Like Comrade Nguyen Dinh Trien, Ngo Xuan Lan also came from a poor peasant family with a tradition of patriotism. In mid-1945, his uncle Ngo Xuan Ham, who had just been released from prison in Ban Me Thuot, contacted him and assigned him the task of writing leaflets, copying Viet Minh propaganda materials, and participating in the seizure of power in the locality. At the end of 1946, Ngo Xuan Lan was honored to be admitted to the Party and assigned to be the first Party cell leader in Vinh Tuy village.
In mid-1947, Yen Thanh district established the Le Doan Nha private high school. Ngo Xuan Lan enrolled and was assigned the responsibility of Head of the Youth Union (a position equivalent to the school's Youth Union Secretary). Throughout his three years of high school, Comrade Ngo Xuan Lan, along with the school's leadership, contributed to training intellectual youth to supplement the human resources for the resistance war against the French. In 1950, more than 50 teachers and students from Le Doan Nha school volunteered to join the army to reinforce the main army units. Due to his leg disability, Ngo Xuan Lan had to remain in the rear and was sent to study at a resistance teacher training course in Nghe An. After one year of study and graduating with honors, Ngo Xuan Lan was transferred back to work as a teacher at Le Doan Nha school.
In 1953, when Phan Chu Trinh High School relocated from Vinh and merged with Le Doan Nha High School, Ngo Xuan Lan was appointed Principal and concurrently Secretary of the Education Party Branch of Yen Thanh District. In 1961, Yen Thanh High School was established, and Ngo Xuan Lan was transferred to work as a teacher and was appointed the first Secretary of the Party Branch of Yen Thanh High School. In 1963, Yen Thanh High School was split into two schools, and Ngo Xuan Lan was transferred back to serve as the Party Branch Secretary, directly leading the school in building the teaching staff, developing infrastructure, and promoting excellent teaching and learning.
Here, he took the initiative to propose to the Party Branch and the Yen Thanh District Party Committee to cultivate and recruit outstanding 10th-grade students into the Party. In one year, the Yen Thanh 2 School Party Branch admitted 28 student Party members. Many of them later became successful officials such as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Tam Chien, Colonel - Doctor Tran Quang Chau, Associate Professor Dr. Dao Khang, engineer Dao Quang Hoa, Colonel - Doctor Tran Ngoc Khai, Standing Committee member of the Provincial Party Committee - Head of the Inspection Committee Ho Thi Ha, Secretary of the Yen Thanh District Party Committee Pham Xuan Hoi...
From the initiative of the Party cell of Yen Thanh 2 High School, the movement to train graduating high school students for Party membership spread to other high schools in Nghe An. From 1968, teacher Ngo Xuan Lan was sent to study long-term at the Nguyen Ai Quoc School, and later to the Philosophy Postgraduate program at the Nguyen Ai Quoc Advanced Party School. After completing his studies, he was transferred to the Propaganda Department of Nghe An province and assigned to be the Head of the Propaganda Department. As the main speaker of the Provincial Party Committee, with his extensive knowledge, combining theory with practice, his innate talent, and his exceptional memory, Comrade Ngo Xuan Lan cycled to Party branches, schools, battlefields, and construction sites... to disseminate the policies of the Party and the State. Everywhere he went, he was warmly welcomed by the people. In the overall victory of the Party Committee and the people of Nghe An in the cause of fighting against the US and saving the country, the outstanding contribution of the Party's propaganda staff, of which Comrade Ngo Xuan Lan was an outstanding figure, was evident.
In 1976, the two provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh merged, and the Tran Phu Party School was established. Comrade Ngo Xuan Lan was transferred to become the Head of the Philosophy Department of the school. Here, he demonstrated his abilities in teaching, conducting scientific research, and summarizing practical experiences to write articles contributing to the Party building section of newspapers from local to national levels, such as the Nghe Tinh/Nghe An Newspaper and the Communist Magazine. In 1989, he retired but continued to work as a speaker for the Dong Vinh commune Party Committee and assisted the Provincial Party Committee's Propaganda Department in writing a book.50-Year History of the Propaganda Department of Nghe An ProvinceUntil early 2024, he regularly attended Party branch meetings, listened to the radio daily, read newspapers and books, and wrote down his thoughts in his notebook.
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Comrades Nguyen Dinh Trien and Ngo Xuan Lan, in the spring of the Year of the Snake (2015), have both been blessed with the auspicious age of 100 and have been awarded the 80-Year Party Membership Badge. Prior to this, both comrades were recognized as pre-revolutionary cadres and were awarded the First Class Resistance Medal against the French/American War. This is a rare achievement. These two veteran cadres, Nguyen Dinh Trien and Ngo Xuan Lan, are exemplary figures in studying and following the moral example of President Ho Chi Minh, and are a source of pride for the Party committees where they once worked and contributed, as well as for the Party committees of Nghi Loc and Yen Thanh districts – their hometowns.