General Secretary To Lam visits the Traditional Room of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission_Photo: VNA
New Era - A Turning Point Era
On November 25, 2024, at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, General Secretary To Lam directly discussed with the class of strategic-level cadres on the topic "New Development Era - The Era of Rising of the Vietnamese Nation", presenting views and theoretical perspectives on the "new era" of our country. The General Secretary emphasized the nature and goals of the new era as the era of development, the era of prosperity, the era of prosperity under the leadership and rule of the Communist Party, successfully building a socialist Vietnam, a rich people, a strong country, democracy, fairness, and civilization. All people have a prosperous and happy life, are supported to develop and get rich; contribute more and more to the peace , stability, and development of the region and the world, to the happiness of humanity and global civilization. In particular, the top priority is to successfully implement the strategic goals until 2030, with a vision to 2045; strongly arouse national spirit, spirit of autonomy, self-confidence, self-reliance, self-improvement, national pride, aspiration to develop the country; closely combine national strength with the strength of the times.
General Secretary To Lam oriented the starting point of the new era as the 14th National Party Congress. From here, all Vietnamese people, hundreds of millions of people as one, need to take full advantage of opportunities and advantages, push back risks and challenges, and bring the country to comprehensive and strong development, breakthrough and take off. The General Secretary analyzed the overall basis for positioning the goal of bringing the country into a new era and affirmed that the world is in a period of epochal change, from now to 2030 is the most important period to establish a new world order, this is also a period of important strategic opportunities, the final stage of the Vietnamese revolution to achieve the 100-year strategic goal under the leadership of the Party, creating a solid premise to achieve the goal of 100 years of founding the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (1) .
It can be affirmed that with the great achievements after nearly 80 years of founding the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, with the position and strength that have been accumulated, with new opportunities and fortunes, the time to start the "new era" that our Party and General Secretary To Lam determined has gathered enough conditions and is facing a historic opportunity to bring the country to a new page; is the time to converge the total advantages and strengths for the country to enter the era of rising up, following the era of independence, freedom, building socialism and the era of innovation and breakthrough.
Entering a new era, the world situation is constantly changing rapidly, complicatedly, and unpredictably; armed conflicts, energy crises, trade wars, and high-tech crimes are increasing, seriously affecting security, economy, and geopolitics. Competition between major countries is extremely fierce; the BRICS group (2) and emerging economies are rising rapidly; the US, the European Union (EU) and Japan are strengthening technical barriers, especially regarding intellectual property rights, to maintain competitive advantages. In recent times, the world situation has changed a lot, moving into a new phase with many major shocks, such as the financial crisis, the UK's exit from the European Union (EU) (also known as Brexit), trade wars, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The world is more fragmented, globalization is changing its form towards reducing dependence on supply chains, reconnecting regional economies, promoting integration, bringing production back to the country of origin or neighboring countries, cooperating with countries with good relations to flexibly adapt to the new context. This is placing increasingly strict requirements on all countries, including Vietnam.
After nearly 40 years of implementing the renovation process, Vietnam has achieved great achievements. The Party, the State and the whole society are demonstrating political determination to realize the aspiration of developing a strong and prosperous country; effectively mobilizing the participation of the political system and the participation of organizations, the business community and the people in the process of implementing the country's development goals so that by 2030, our country will become a modern industrialized country with high average income and by 2045, become a developed country with high income; striving to achieve double-digit growth in the coming time to escape the middle-income trap in the context of traditional economic growth reaching the threshold and finding it difficult to exceed the limit of 7% per year. This is a big and difficult goal, requiring a breakthrough in awareness, organization, implementation and social governance.
The new era will be an era of challenges and overcoming all development limitations with the highest political determination to seize opportunities, promote internal strength, maintain courage, self-control, self-respect, self-reliance and act decisively, without hesitation, without waiting, all for the strength and development of the country. The new era places very high demands on the art of handling time and situation, opening up strategic vision, making correct political decisions, gathering large forces, finding appropriate, comprehensive, synchronous and strong enough implementation solutions, creating a remarkable development speed for the country in the context of the general development of the world. Among them are many particularly great tasks, revolutionary and of epochal significance, deciding the future of the country in the coming decades, specifically: 1- Rearranging administrative boundaries and local governments; Building a lean, strong, efficient, effective and efficient Party apparatus and political system at all levels, along with perfecting the system of policies and laws so that the new organizational model can operate according to the motto of serving, creating development, taking people as the center...; 2- Focusing on prioritizing the synchronous construction of development institutions, removing bottlenecks, unblocking, mobilizing all resources to create momentum for breakthrough development of the country; 3- Continuing to promote the building and rectification of the Party and the political system to be clean and strong in all aspects in the new development conditions of the country; 4- Continuing to promote the development of a modern socialist-oriented market economy, international integration, meeting the requirements of developing new productive forces; 5- Continuing to synchronously perfect and make strong breakthroughs in the construction of economic and social infrastructure...
This is an era in which our Party, State and people must solve many new problems, "running and lining up at the same time", taking advantage of opportunities to develop Vietnam in a breakthrough and accelerated manner in an increasingly uncertain world. To do so, ideological work must be pioneered, done well, done correctly and accurately right from the first stage of the new era.
The challenges are
Ideological work is a unique feature and outstanding advantage, playing the role of the lifeblood in all activities of the Party. Our Party always pays attention to and places ideological work in the top position, considering it an indispensable part of the country's overall strategies. Resolution No. 16-NQ/TW, dated August 1, 2007, of the 5th Central Conference, Session X, "On ideological, theoretical and press work in the face of new requirements" affirmed: "Ideological and theoretical work is a particularly important component in the entire activities of the Party; is a key field for building and fostering the political foundation of the regime, propagating, educating, mobilizing and organizing the people to carry out revolutionary tasks, affirming and enhancing the Party's pioneering role in politics, theory, intelligence, culture and ethics; demonstrating the role of going ahead and paving the way in the cause of building and defending the Fatherland... playing an important role in protecting and developing Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh's thought, the Party's viewpoints and guidelines, making the ideology of the Party, of the working class, socialist ideals, good values in the national cultural tradition, the quintessence of world culture occupy the dominant position. "Religion in social and spiritual life" (3) .
Faced with the current situation of degradation in political awareness and ideology, fading revolutionary ideals, decline in moral qualities, bureaucracy, corruption, waste, individualism, opportunism, and pragmatism that tend to develop among a significant number of cadres and party members and threaten the survival of the Party and the regime (4) , Party documents consistently affirm the important role of ideological work. The 13th Party Congress documents emphasized: “Extremely important to building the Party in terms of ideology . Firmly and firmly on the foundation of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh thought, while constantly supplementing, creatively developing, and adapting to Vietnamese reality” (5) .
Ideological work is the most important part of Party building work, of the task of socio-economic development, and is a factor ensuring the success of all tasks and political goals of the country. History and practice have proven that "success or failure depends largely on ideology" (6) ; only when the role and function of ideological work are fully promoted, will the cause of economic, cultural and social construction and development form a strong driving force and spread vitality, promote development and achieve great results. President Ho Chi Minh advised: "Ideological leadership is the most important... If in the Party and outside the Party, from top to bottom, from inside to outside, there is unity of thought and unity of action, then no matter how heavy the task, no matter how difficult and complicated the work, we will definitely win" (7) ; "we must resolutely fight against the habit of taking ideology lightly" (8) ...
Ideological work plays an important role in the practice of Party building and national governance, and is the Party's leadership method. This factor reflects the Party's deep awareness of the function and strategic position of ideological work. Through ideological work, our Party has united and led all classes of people to strive to fulfill their tasks in different historical periods, opened up great paths, created great careers and achieved important achievements. Ideological work has contributed to unifying thoughts, building social consensus, arousing the spirit of solidarity in realizing the country's development goals, contributing to building new socialist people, cultivating knowledge, capacity, intelligence, nurturing more determination, strong will, sincere feelings and noble lifestyle for the people; at the same time, it is a sharp tool to fight all sabotage plots from hostile and reactionary forces on the ideological and cultural front.
Our country is in a period of strong and profound innovation in all fields, requiring the implementation of a very large amount of work, with a wide scope, with the nature of a comprehensive "revolution" to create many breakthroughs when entering a new era, putting ideological work in front of unprecedented challenges and difficulties. Specifically:
The diversification of subjects, components in the economy and distribution methods leads to an increasingly clear differentiation in the structure of interests of social groups; accordingly, the relationship of interests between groups is becoming more complicated, the income gap, the rich-poor gap, the differentiation of interests between industries and occupations, the difference in living standards between regions are potential causes leading to conflicts in society. The spiritual life of the people has also become more diverse than before. This reality increases the complexity of the work of orienting public opinion, increasing the difficulty of ideological work.
The challenges facing ideological work are increasingly complex and diverse. The introduction of foreign culture, fierce resistance from hostile forces, ideological factors, traditional and modern culture, indigenous and foreign culture, advanced and backward, positive and negative, orthodox and unorthodox are all intertwined and difficult to separate clearly.
The rapid development of the internet and core scientific and technological achievements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as artificial intelligence, big data, internet of things, blockchain, 5G network... have profoundly changed all economic activities.
societies of nations as well as people's lifestyles and social interaction habits. Many new production methods, consumption methods and entertainment methods have emerged and people's spiritual lives have become more diverse than before. Network technology has been integrated into the spiritual and material life of society, inseparable from social production, profoundly changing the economic, cultural, social and global security model. The continuous development of digital technology and Internet applications has created a new space - cyberspace, bringing many development opportunities as well as challenges to all areas of social life of nations (9) .
In ideological life, the combination of cyberspace and real space leads to more vibrant social exchange activities, more diverse social thoughts, and more complex public opinion. The Internet and digital technology have changed the ecosystem of social interactions and public opinion in an unprecedented way, profoundly changing the way public opinion is created, disseminated, and oriented; thereby leading to changes in the environment for political and ideological activities in the new era. Accordingly, many new situations and new problems in the ideological field continuously arise and increase in cyberspace; wrong, hostile views, reactionary, and extremist ideologies are also created and "fermented" in this space (10) .
Hostile and reactionary forces constantly distort and deny the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws in order to eliminate the ideological foundation in Vietnam; focus on attacking and criticizing socialist ideology, and conducting reactionary propaganda to deny the Party's leadership role and eliminate the socialist regime in our country... Hostile and reactionary forces constantly promote propaganda and encourage the import of non-Marxist, extremist, populist, and pragmatic ideological trends from the outside, combined with inciting individualism, opportunism, factionalism, and hedonism from within, in order to promote "self-evolution" and "self-transformation" within. At the same time, they constantly preach and promote Western ideology, wearing the guise of "academic objectivity", "culture, civilization" to promote the so-called "Western values" (11) .
Entering the new era, the above challenges make ideological work and promoting national solidarity face many difficult challenges, especially in the context of strong impacts of scientific and technological achievements; the ideological struggle also becomes more complicated; the task of consolidating and developing socialist ideology becomes more arduous than ever.
Member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Propaganda and Education Commission Nguyen Trong Nghia with delegates visiting the book exhibition at the National Political Publishing House Truth_Photo: VNA
Strengthening the comprehensiveness, systematization and scientific nature of ideological work in the new era
Vietnam is embarking on a new journey in the process of building and defending the socialist Fatherland. Our country is facing many opportunities, with potential, position, high international prestige and confidence, self-esteem and national pride to move closer to its great goals; at the same time, it must face countless unprecedented difficulties and challenges, requiring great political determination, the participation of all social sectors and efforts to overcome challenges to realize the country's aspiration of "becoming a Dragon" in the new era.
In that context, enhancing the effectiveness of ideological work is closely related to the future and destiny of the Party, the long-term stability of the country, and the solidarity and consensus of the nation. This is an inevitable requirement to promote the cause of building and defending the Fatherland, so that the nation can firmly enter the era of prosperity, strength, and development. It is necessary to fully promote the vital role of ideological work to ensure a solid ideological foundation and great spiritual strength for building and developing the country in the new era. Accordingly, ideological work in the new era must be increased in its comprehensiveness, systematicity, and scientificity with the following contents:
Firstly, it is necessary to clearly perceive the importance and core task of ideological work in the new era, which is to promote Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, and the Party's theory of innovation in the new era to penetrate deeply into the people's hearts. It requires ideological work to have unity in perception and action with the Party's correct and timely policies and guidelines, while seriously and effectively implementing the above-mentioned core political tasks.
Ideological work needs to be deeply integrated into the economic, political, cultural and social fields, in order to maximize the role in gathering people, training human resources, nurturing talents, spreading cultural values, building comprehensive strength and enhancing the national image, actively contributing to the common cause of the Party and the country. It is necessary to go deep into the activities of the grassroots, urban and rural communities to widely propagate the great significance and main content of the comprehensive national renovation in the new era; clarify the goals, tasks, programs and strategies for building and developing the country; spread the efforts of all classes of people towards a better life; arouse the spirit of lifelong learning, guide people to study, constantly deepen theory and practice, apply theory to the practice of national renovation in the new era.
Party organizations and party members need to clearly understand that in the new era, ideological work must always be strengthened, innovated and developed; ideological work is the task of the entire Party, the entire people, and the entire political system, first of all, cadres, party members, leaders, and core forces who work in ideological, theoretical, information and communication work. This requires a high sense of responsibility, proactiveness and creativity in smoothly combining ideological work with political work. Only by constantly improving and innovating can ideological work meet the development requirements of the country.
Second, focus on perfecting the ideological work system and mechanism in the context of an environment, ideological orientation and education methods that are different from before. Traditional methods are increasingly showing limitations when relying on only one program, force or means, as well as lacking coordination, leading to fragmentation and a decline in overall strength. Therefore, it is necessary to build and perfect the ideological work system and mechanism suitable for the new era; strengthen and expand international cooperation and support from the international community. Close coordination between components in the ideological work system helps solve important issues of ideological work, improve the effectiveness of educating and orienting the people's ideology.
It is necessary to maximize positive factors and minimize shortcomings in the current implementation of ideological work; maintain balance and harmony in the implementation of tasks. Effective and synchronous implementation will contribute to improving the effectiveness of ideological work, improving management capacity and quality of activities, towards the core goal of building people with ethics, knowledge and responsibility in the new era of national development. In addition, it is necessary to establish a mechanism for leadership, operation, evaluation and ensuring the flexibility as well as the stability and consistency of the system. This mechanism will play a fundamental role, helping ideological work operate effectively and adapt quickly to all changes in the new context.
Third, it is necessary to strengthen scientific thinking and methods in the Party's ideological work. To do so, it is necessary to ensure innovation in line with the development of the Party and the country, while inheriting the nation's fine traditional values. This requires a firm grasp and correct application of scientific laws and methods, thereby promoting ideological work to go deeper and achieve higher efficiency. It is necessary to link the resolution of ideological problems with the resolution of practical problems; the explanation of general principles must go hand in hand with the resolution of specific problems in practice. This is the way to make ideological work more practical and effective. It is necessary to apply flexible methods, suitable for each subject and circumstance. The strategy, program, and goals of ideological work need to be built based on the specific characteristics of each target group, such as intellectuals, businessmen, workers, farmers, state agencies, and the social community in general. The implementation of ideological work must ensure time, location, and people, thereby ensuring suitability and improving efficiency in each specific case. These methods not only help ideological work to be organized and implemented scientifically, meeting political requirements and tasks, but also create a solid foundation for building a comprehensive ideological education and orientation system, meeting the development requirements of society.
Border Guard officers and soldiers, along with union members and youth, disseminate the law to the people. Photo: VNA
The core task of ideological work in the new era
Ideological work needs new momentum and new actions to meet practical requirements. In the coming time, ideological work needs to focus on implementing a number of key tasks as follows:
Strengthening orientation and education of ideals and beliefs, arousing patriotism, striving consciousness, spirit of self-reliance, self-strengthening, self-respect, and national pride for all classes of people; encouraging people to resolutely pursue great aspirations for a bright future, strong development, and prosperity of the nation with the following basic issues:
Strengthening orientation, education, fostering ideals and beliefs for cadres, party members and people to consolidate, develop and deepen the ideology and mainstream and orthodox cultural foundation; creating solid spiritual strength, strong momentum and strong aspirations in the cause of building a rich, prosperous and developed socialist Vietnam.
Orient and motivate people to build and maintain confidence in the regime, the Party's leadership, the State's administration and the path of comprehensive national renewal in the new era through propaganda work, orienting public opinion, on mass media channels. Strengthen democratic and public exchange and dialogue with people on issues related to the above contents.
Diversify measures to guide, propagate and mobilize cadres, party members and people to promote the good traditional qualities of Vietnamese people, such as patriotism, diligence, hard work, creativity, humanity, and continuous learning, thereby actively applying science, technology, innovation and spreading a strong entrepreneurial spirit, so that all people have a prosperous and happy life, are supported to develop, enrich and are ready to contribute, put the interests of the nation and people above all, first of all to realize the great goals of the country in the era of development.
Promote the development and implementation of social ethical standards. One of the core values of socialism is truth, goodness, and beauty. The development and implementation of social ethical standards, which include the core values of truth, goodness, and beauty, is not only the responsibility of individuals, but also the common mission of the whole society. To achieve this, ideological work needs to focus on synchronously implementing solutions such as:
Strongly promote the pioneering role of education; integrate moral education, legal education, and ideological education into all levels of education and cultural spaces from families, schools, factories, offices, etc. to the entire community, helping members of society to raise awareness and consciousness, regularly practice social ethical standards, create civilized and ethical habits and lifestyles, and build a solid ideological stance.
Strengthen the exemplary role of cadres and party members, especially leaders, prestigious people, famous people, and influential people in implementing social ethical standards. These role models help promote and spread positive and good social ethical values, promote the building and shaping of a correct ideological life in society.
Focus on perfecting the legal system, harmoniously and synchronously combining legal standards and ethical standards. The core ideological values of socialism must be institutionalized, integrated into laws, regulations on professional ethical standards, village conventions and codes of conduct in everyday life. Only then will the core ideological values of socialism be present in every aspect of daily life.
Building and maintaining social ethical standards is not easy, but it is the inevitable path to building a good society where compassion and spiritual beauty are honored.
Highlighting ideological orientation in the process of solving practical problems. Ideological work always requires a comprehensive approach, in which the issue that needs to be focused on is the needs and aspirations of all classes and components in society arising in the process of practical activities. This content not only helps eliminate the root causes of negative psychology, emotions, and attitudes of the people, but also creates a foundation for sustainable development and a stable ideological and spiritual life of society. It is necessary to focus on implementing specific solutions such as:
Priority should be given to solving essential problems related to employment, health care, and education. All solutions must focus on the interests of the people, care for people's lives, and aim to build social consensus. Communication policies must go hand in hand with practical actions, contributing to orienting public opinion and strengthening national solidarity.
Proactively grasp and carefully analyze "hot issues" and "hot spots"; organize dialogues, actively propagate and promptly overcome social conflicts by enhancing democratic, public and transparent exchanges and dialogues, contributing to the formation of positive thinking, creating a foundation for sustainable development.
Closely grasp the work of ideological communication through many measures and forms; increase the reception of opinions, reflections and aspirations of the people through many channels, listen to the people's voices in many ways, prevent the emergence and spread of negative emotions and social psychology./.
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(1) See “General Secretary To Lam discusses the topic “New development era - The era of rising up of the Vietnamese people””, Government Electronic Newspaper , November 25, 2024, https://baochinhphu.vn/tong-bi-thu-to-lam-trao-doi-chuyen-de-ky-nguyen-phat-trien-moi-ky-nguyen-vuon-minh-cua-dan-toc-viet-nam-102241125190606526.htm
(2) Currently, there are 10 countries participating in BRICS including: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Indonesia.
(3) Complete Party Documents , National Political Publishing House Truth, Hanoi, 2018, vol. 66, p. 420
(4) See the Complete Works of the Party, op. cit. , vol. 61, pp. 310 - 311
(5) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Delegates , National Political Publishing House Truth, Hanoi, 2021, vol. I, pp. 40-41
(6) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, National Political Publishing House Truth, Hanoi, 2011, vol. 7, p. 415
(7), (8) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, op. cit., vol. 8, pp. 554 - 555, 279
(9) (10) See Vu Trong Lam: “Building a safe and healthy cyberspace, ensuring good service for information, propaganda and social opinion orientation activities”, Electronic Communist Magazine , December 4, 2022, https://www.tapchicongsan.org.vn/web/guest/van_hoa_xa_hoi/-/2018/826445/xay-dung-khong-gian-mang-an-toan%2C-lanh-manh%2C-bao-dam-phuc-vu-tot-hoat-dong-thong-tin%2C-tuyen-truyen-va-dinh-huong-du-luan-xa-hoi.aspx
(11) Nguyen Thi Trang: “Social media and challenges to ideological security in our country today”, Electronic Communist Magazine , January 6, 2023, https://www.tapchicongsan.org.vn/web/guest/van_hoa_xa_hoi/-/2018/826932/cac-phuong-tien-truyen-thong-xa-hoi-va-nhung-thach-thuc-doi-voi-an-ninh-tu-tuong-o-nuoc-ta-hien-nay.aspx#
Source: https://tapchicongsan.org.vn/web/guest/chinh-tri-xay-dung-dang/-/2018/1103603/ky-nguyen-moi-va-nhung-van-de-dat-ra-doi-voi-cong-tac-tu-tuong.aspx
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