'Building' a steadfast ideological foundation to 'resist' malicious intrusion

Hostile and reactionary forces use many means and increase their activities of distortion, spreading false information, and lowering the prestige of the Party, the State, and cadres and party members on cyberspace. That places higher demands on the work of protecting the Party's ideological foundation and combating peaceful evolution in the 4.0 era.

“Peaceful evolution" is a strategy carried out by imperialism and reactionary forces with many actions aimed at overthrowing the political regimes of socialist countries by non-military means. For Vietnam, hostile forces have been using many sophisticated, diverse, and dangerous plots and tricks to sabotage and weaken from within.

Fighting against the strategy of peaceful evolution is a long-term, persistent, challenging and arduous process of our Party and People. In particular, the first priority is to regularly carry out Party building work, train revolutionary moral qualities, fight against individualism, opportunism, pragmatism, "group interests", manifestations of degradation in political ideology, ethics, lifestyle, "self-evolution", "self-transformation" within the Party.

Resolution No. 35-NQ/TW dated October 22, 2018 of the Politburo clearly stated: Firmly protecting the Party's ideological foundation is a fundamental and vital content of Party building work; is the top important task of the entire Party, the entire army, and the entire people, in which the propaganda force at all levels is the core; is the voluntary and regular work of Party committees, Party organizations, authorities, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations at all levels; of each locality, agency, unit, and of each cadre and Party member.

The document of the 13th National Party Congress clearly stated: “A number of cadres and party members have unstable political will, have degraded political ideology, are skeptical and vague about the Party's goals and ideals and the path to socialism in our country; a few are confused, wavering, and have lost confidence; some even deny Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh's thought and the Party's renewal policy”.

Therefore, improving the ethics of cadres and party members is an urgent and important task. The fight against the "peaceful evolution" strategy must first be on the ideological front, a struggle of awareness within each cadre, party member and people. The best way to "fight" the infiltration of toxic ideologies is to "build" for oneself a steadfast, solid ideological foundation that does not waver in the face of any temptation. In particular, leaders must be role models in the fight against and prevention of the plots and activities of hostile forces.

Taking advantage of the development of social networks, hostile forces are trying to sabotage Vietnam in all fields. Politically, they propagate, distort, falsify, and deny Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, with the plot to eliminate the Party's leadership role in the Vietnamese revolution. Economically, they distort and sabotage our country's socialist-oriented market economic development path. Culturally, they exploit ethnic, religious, democratic, and human rights issues to sabotage the Vietnamese revolution; spreading the ideology of worshiping Western lifestyles and cultures. In diplomacy, they seek to prevent Vietnam from expanding international relations; on the other hand, they attract and bribe partners from outside to put pressure and influence the country internally; distort Vietnam's foreign policy of independence, autonomy, peace, friendship, cooperation, and diversified and multilateral development...

Much information, images and video clips on the Internet have negatively impacted the thinking and awareness of a number of cadres, party members and people; caused confusion and suspicion, undermined trust in the country and the role of the Party, and caused internal disunity...

Comrade Pham Ngoc Canh - Deputy Head of the Propaganda Department of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee said: The people are not only the subjects to protect the Party and the regime, but the people are also the objects that hostile forces aim to incite, entice, and oppose the government. Therefore, propaganda work and raising awareness must be carried out regularly and continuously, so that each citizen when participating in social networks becomes a "smart" citizen, knowing how to identify what is official information, what is bad and toxic information. From there, the people will become soldiers to protect the Party's ideological foundation, fight against wrong and hostile views; build a solid position and citadel to protect the Party and the regime...

In the face of strong sabotage by hostile forces, our Party and State have had many fundamental solutions to fight and prevent. Strengthening the work of inspection, supervision, disciplinary action, prevention and fight against corruption, waste, negative manifestations, degradation of political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle within the Party, especially for cadres and party members with positions and powers. Strengthening the Party's leadership over cadre work, ensuring the principle of democratic centralism, ensuring the rights, obligations and responsibilities of cadres and party members.

Strengthening propaganda, political and ethical education for cadres and party members, raising awareness, consciousness and responsibility in the cause of building and defending the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland. Raising self-awareness, self-training, self-examination, self-criticism and criticism of cadres and party members, especially leaders and managers at all levels. Creating conditions for cadres and party members to study, research, update knowledge, skills, and effective and creative working methods to meet the requirements of work in the new situation.

At the same time, combine with building a civilized, democratic, fair, transparent, respectful, trusting, and cohesive working environment between cadres and party members and with the people. Strengthen solidarity, cohesion, support, assistance, encouragement, reward, dialogue, listening, accepting opinions, reflections, and recommendations of cadres, party members, and the people. Promote the spirit of solidarity, unanimity, and companionship of cadres and party members in carrying out assigned political tasks.

Hostile and reactionary forces are carrying out “peaceful evolution” using many tricks, attacking in all fields. Therefore, every cadre and party member must always be vigilant, proactive, active, and determined in detecting, preventing, fighting, and eliminating the plots, tricks, and activities of hostile forces, especially in the political and ideological fields. Cadres and party members must always maintain political ideology, revolutionary ethics, a healthy lifestyle, and connect with the people, not allowing themselves to be drawn in or divided by the plots of hostile forces; thereby, affirming their faith in the Party, the State, and the socialist regime.