President Ho Chi Minh's thoughts on personnel work retain their value in the cause of innovation.

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Officials must have virtue and talent, but virtue is the root, virtue comes first.

Virtue and talent are the basic necessary and sufficient conditions for a cadre. Talent lies in virtue; virtue only becomes reality, becomes moral strength, and is demonstrated by talent. Without “depth”, how can one be “bright and rosy”. Virtue is not only politics, but also science and culture. Talent is not synonymous with degrees, titles, and honors, but must be equal to the real results of one’s work.

What President Ho Chi Minh often reminded us was: “practice what you preach”, “say less, do more”, “if you say something, you must do it”, “don’t just talk”… showing that it is the convergence of virtue and talent in the personality and actions of a revolutionary. We should not “politicize” it to the point of being narrow-minded and jealous of talent. Revolution is creation, and revolutionary cadres must have talent to create.

President Ho Chi Minh placed the relationship between Virtue - Talent and Talent - Virtue in an inseparable unity. The more we consider virtue as the root, the more we must also value talent. Because only those who are not narrow-minded, not stuck in personal thoughts can be passionate about their work, creative, and talented. Ethics is in action in life. A revolutionary must be knowledgeable, capable of action, and courageous. Obviously, talent lies in virtue; a talented person, in a positive sense, must be a virtuous person. Talent is expressed in intelligence, in scope, associated with the heart, unified in the relationship between talent and virtue. Virtue is the root, but talent is the nutrient that makes the moral root vital and purposeful. Virtue for action, for reaching out requires talent to be creative. Virtue - talent is expressed in social efficiency, in promoting development, serving the People and the Fatherland. The purpose of talent is to do what, to serve whom, that is virtue. “A tree must have roots… A revolutionary without morality, no matter how talented, cannot lead the people.” Therefore, morality is the root first and foremost.

Cadres are loyal servants of the people.

Revolutionary cadres come from the people, are trusted by the Party, and are entrusted by the people, so they must take care of serving the people, be devoted to the people; not be selfish, not corrupt, not be bureaucratic and arrogant, not "stand above the people". Cadres are assigned work by the people, so it is natural to take care of serving the people, devoting themselves to the people, and being servants to the people. But in reality, when they have power, a large number of them turn their backs on the people, "eat and sit on top of the people", and treat the people as nothing. Uncle Ho discovered this very early and saw it happening quite commonly in reality, so almost everywhere and at all times Uncle Ho advised cadres to be "servants of the people", the people are the masters, cadres must be "truly loyal servants of the people".

As a cadre, you must be exemplary.

Exemplary in action, in work, in life, not "empty theory". Uncle advised: "A living example is worth more than a hundred propaganda speeches". Of course, cadres must know how to propagate and persuade people to understand policies, but that is not enough, people look to see if cadres say as they do. When it was first established, the most noble thing that the Party had was the example of sacrifice, the actions of communists, cadres, and party members, of which Uncle Ho was a typical example. During the revolutionary process, facing many hardships and challenges, revolutionary cadres overcame them all, setting a shining example to rally the masses. Nowadays, with the renovation process, setting an example is even more necessary. In the market mechanism, facing many temptations and negativity, a good example of a cadre, especially a leader, has the power to persuade and influence the people, so that the people believe in the Party and the regime. Uncle Ho's life is a daily and familiar example for our entire Party and people to look up to and follow the revolutionary path he outlined. The generations of cadres today follow Uncle Ho and learn from him in the most practical way, by surpassing themselves, striving to cultivate and train, devoting themselves to the people and the country, setting a shining example as required by the Party.

Officials must be diligent, thrifty, honest, upright, impartial and selfless.

This is the basic, core, concise, and complete content for all cadres at all levels, in all sectors, everywhere, at all times, so that cadres can self-reflect and self-correct to see how far they have cultivated, trained, and implemented, whether they have been fair and impartial. Let's see if our cadres have devoted all their minds to their work, devoted all their hearts and minds to the people, or are they still irresponsible. Let's see if they have truly saved, or are they still wasting money, time, effort, and brainpower... Let's see if our cadres are truly honest, or are they still flaunting their achievements, lacking honesty, lacking transparency, lying in the performance of their work, in their behavior, still "greedy for money, greedy for position, greedy for fame... doing dishonest things". Uncle Ho advised: "We must be honest to be a model for the people".

Uncle Ho with Southern cadres. Photo archive

The contents that President Ho Chi Minh set for cadres are always encountered in daily life. Each cadre can easily remember, easy to do, easy to strive. The wonderful thing is that he did not talk about cadres in any lofty theories, wherever there is a time to seriously apply creativity, there will be success. In the development process of the Vietnamese revolution, the greatest lesson that Uncle Ho left islesson in using people. When the Party had not yet won power, he selected patriotic intellectual youths who were willing to sacrifice for the revolutionary cause to train and develop them into core cadres of the Party. When he had won power, under the banner of independence, President Ho Chi Minh advocated and selected virtuous and talented cadres from all walks of life to participate in the government; he gathered talented people not only from within the country but also from abroad, who gave up all their fame to return home to join hands in the work of resistance and nation building.

When building socialism, he said: "To have socialism, there must be socialist people", "We must improve revolutionary morality,wipe out individualism”. He paid great attention to education and training, expanding education and developing science and technology to train and foster talents; even during the war, he still advocated sending outstanding young people abroad to study and return to build the country. It can be said that generations of cadres, through revolutionary periods, strived to train according to the criteria set by President Ho Chi Minh, taking on and fulfilling their missions, making decisive contributions to the success of the Vietnamese revolution.

In the process of revolutionary development, our Party always upholdsHo Chi Minh's thoughts on Party rectification, especially creatively applying his cadre philosophy to the assessment, planning, training, fostering, and educating a team of cadres with enough heart, virtue, capacity, and confidence "truly capable and prestigious to match the task" to well undertake the important responsibilities assigned by the Party and the People.