Lao Dong Newspaper respectfully introduces the full text of the speech of General Secretary and President To Lam at the working session with the Standing Committee of the Steering Committee summarizing 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution (1930 - 2030), orienting the leadership of national development in the next 100 years (2030 - 2130) and summarizing 40 years of implementing the Platform for building the country in the transition to socialism period.
Dear comrades in the Standing Committee of the Steering Committee,
Dear comrades attending the meeting,
After a serious, scientific and effective working session, the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Steering Committee summarizing 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution (1930-2030), orienting the leadership of national development in the next 100 years (2030-2130) and summarizing 40 years of implementing the Platform for building the country in the transitional period to socialism has completed the proposed contents. The opinions expressed a high sense of responsibility for the particularly important summary task of the Party. I highly appreciate the spirit of preparation, research, and comments of the comrades; especially acknowledge the great efforts of the Editorial Team, the Standing Agency of the Steering Committee - Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, the Central Theoretical Council and relevant agencies in urgently preparing documents to serve today's meeting.
In conditions of not long time, large workload, wide scope of summarization, political, theoretical and practical requirements are all very high; initially forming draft documents, especially completing the Draft of two detailed outlines is a very commendable effort. The documents have shown the spirit of closely following the direction of the Central Government, initially establishing a framework of content, major orientations, and some issues that need to be further researched, as a basis for the Standing Committee of the Steering Committee to exchange, contribute opinions, and orient for improvement. These are just initial results, but very important; because from these initial results, we have a basis to see more clearly the direction, ways of doing things, approaches and things that need to be continued to be implemented in the coming time.
However, there are still many contents that need to be further revised; supplemented, elevated, and improved in terms of directing ideology, structure, methodology, expression, and persuasiveness. The immediate goal is to complete one step of the documents to submit to the Central Executive Committee for comments. Therefore, I propose that the Editorial Team fully and seriously absorb the opinions of comrades in the Standing Committee of the Steering Committee; on that basis, urgently revise and complete the documents with a spirit of receptiveness, science, responsibility, not avoiding difficult issues and dissatisfaction with initial results.
Based on the opinions of comrades, I suggest 7 contents that need to be thoroughly grasped.
First, it is necessary to firmly grasp the guiding viewpoints, requirements and summary methods. Summarizing 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution is a particularly important task. The summary must firmly adhere to historical truth, respect history, and originate from history; but not stop at recounting history, not listing events in the style of chronicles. More importantly, from history, it is necessary to summarize the issues, conclusions and major lessons, and throughout laws; thereby clarifying the Vietnamese revolutionary path, the leadership role of the Party, the strength of the people, the great national unity bloc; and the future development of the nation.
This year's summary must create new values, new contributions, and new perceptions compared to previous summaries. If only gathering what has been, adding old reports together, and rephrasing them in a new form, it does not meet the requirements. It is necessary to answer the question, after this summary, in which points is the development of our Party's theoretical awareness over 100 years deeper; in which points is the country's development path clearer; which lessons learned are summarized at a higher level; which theoretical issues are supplemented and creatively developed; what vision and strategic direction for the next 100 years are established based on grounds and persuasively.
Second, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between the summary of 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution and the summary of 40 years of implementing the Platform for building the country in the transitional period to socialism. These are two major contents, with very close but inconsistent and inseparable relationships. As I have discussed with comrades, the summary of 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution is a summary of the entire historical journey of the Party's birth, revolutionary leadership, construction, development of the country and defense of the Fatherland, leading the renovation and building of socialism. The summary of 40 years of implementing the Platform is a summary of a very central content, associated with the process of awareness, supplementation, and development of the country's construction guidelines in the transitional period to socialism.
Therefore, it is necessary to clearly define the method of combining these two contents. Do not make them mechanically disjointed and parallel; nor do they mix and blur the core focus of each report. Summarizing 40 years of implementing the Platform must be placed in the flow of 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution; at the same time, focus on evaluating the implementation of the goals, directions, and tasks stated in the Platform. It is necessary to clarify the contents of the Platform that have been proven to be correct in practice, the contents that need to be further supplemented and developed, and the new issues that theory must lead, overcome, and guide; contributing to deepening awareness of socialism and the path to socialism in Vietnam.
Third, summarizing must emphasize the great achievements over 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution. These are achievements in the struggle for national independence and national reunification; building and protecting the Fatherland; carrying out renovation; socio-economic development; building a socialist rule-of-law state; promoting socialist democracy; ensuring national defense and security; expanding foreign affairs, international integration; enhancing Vietnam's position and prestige in the international arena... It is necessary to clarify the historical value, the significance of the era, the theoretical value and practical value of those achievements; clarify the historical stature of the achievements that have changed the destiny of the nation, changed the country's position, and consolidated the people's belief.
At the same time, summarizing must frankly recognize the limitations, shortcomings, unsuccessful issues, lessons, bottlenecks that need to be further removed. Mentioning limitations is not to lighten achievements. The issue is to have scientific, objective, dialectical, historical - specific methods; recognize the true nature, true causes, and true stature of each issue. Only then can the lessons of the past help improve the leadership and ruling capacity of the Party in the future.
Fourth, it is necessary to clarify the core and overarching issues throughout 100 years of the Party leading the Vietnamese revolution, such as: The Party has led the country through historical turning points; on choosing and steadfastly advancing the development path; on handling the relationship between strategic goals and specific strategies; on promoting the strength of the people and the great national unity bloc; on combining national strength with the strength of the times; on building and rectifying the Party, innovating leadership methods, improving the Party's ruling capacity; on protecting independence, sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, maintaining political stability, building the foundation for national development... It is necessary to answer why our Party can lead the Vietnamese revolution from one victory to another, in extremely difficult and complex conditions.
At the same time, it is necessary to highlight the lessons learned that are rule-based, such as: steadfast in the goal of national independence and socialism; continuous innovation and creativity on the basis of maintaining principles; the people are the root; building a clean and comprehensively strong Party; properly handling major relationships... Lessons learned must be filtered and summarized at the theoretical level, avoiding general, familiar but not sufficiently orienting comments.
Fifth, especially attach importance to determining the vision and leadership direction of national development in the next 100 years. This is a very difficult content. Summarizing the past is already difficult, but forecasting and orienting the future is even more difficult. The future always contains uncertain factors; the world is changing very rapidly; science - technology, innovation, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, data economy, green economy... constantly creating profound changes; strategic adjustment and competition between major countries are increasingly complex; traditional and non-traditional security are intertwined. Therefore, determining the vision and leadership direction of national development in the next 100 years cannot be a subjective desire, but must have a theoretical basis, practical basis, scientific basis, forecasting methods and long-term strategic thinking.
The vision for the next 100 years must continue to show the aspiration for development of the Vietnamese nation. It is necessary to answer big questions: what kind of developed country does Vietnam want to become in the next century; what foundations must be maintained; what are the new development drivers; what breakthroughs must be outlined; what risks must be faced; what values must be protected and promoted. The vision must have the height of aspiration, the depth of reasoning, closely follow the country's reality and the trends of the times, and improve the organizational capacity for implementation.
Sixth, besides professional content, it is necessary to pay close attention to the organization of implementation. The work is very large, the requirements are very high, and the time travels very quickly, so if the organization of work is not good, it is difficult to ensure progress and quality. I propose that the summary groups must be deployed immediately, without waiting for each other. Each group must proactively develop plans, clearly define products, clearly define deadlines, clearly define responsible people, clearly define coordination mechanisms, and clearly define the destination of each stage. It is necessary to regularly review progress, promptly remove obstacles, adjust working methods, and ensure that intermediate products are of quality, so that when preparing a summary report, they are not passive and do not push work into the end of the period.
Seventh, it is necessary to especially value the issue of documents, data, historical witnesses and valuable information sources. Summarizing 100 years cannot only rely on administrative reports. It is necessary to mobilize the intelligence of the entire Party, research agencies, scientists, experts, practical cadres, historical witnesses, veteran revolutionaries, generations of leaders and managers through periods. This is a very valuable source of knowledge, experience and documents. Some issues are only clarified when combining archival documents with the memories of witnesses, with the research of scientists, with the experience of practical cadres and with objective and multi-dimensional analysis.
It is necessary to promote and use well the archives of historical documents and data, existing research works, domestic and international archived documents, thematic summary results, industry, field, and local summary results. For conditional documents, it is necessary to study mechanisms for exploitation, declassification, and appropriate and proper use, serving the summary work. This must be done seriously, strictly, scientifically, both ensuring security requirements and meeting research and summary requirements, clarifying historical issues that need to be concluded.
There are historical issues that are clear, so they must be definitively affirmed. There are issues that still have different opinions, so they must be researched and analyzed thoroughly. Issues that need to be concluded must prepare a solid basis for conclusion. Do not avoid difficult issues; but also do not be hasty, simplistic, or subjective in conclusions. Historical conclusions must have basis, methods, and responsibility; conclusions to unify awareness, consolidate trust, and protect the ideological foundation of the Party.
Comrades,
I request the Editorial Board and relevant agencies to urgently deploy the next tasks immediately. Fully absorb the opinions of the Standing Committee of the Steering Committee; review the entire structure of documents; clearly identify the contents that need immediate correction, the contents that need further in-depth research, the issues that need to ask for opinions from competent authorities; carefully prepare documents to ask for opinions from the Steering Committee and the Politburo before submitting to the Central Government; make great efforts to have a summary work truly worthy of the 100-year history of the Party's leadership of the Vietnamese revolution and with the aspiration to develop the country in the next 100 years.
Thank you very much, comrades.
(* The title of the speech was set by Lao Dong Newspaper)
