The most precious gift to Uncle Ho

75 years - Uncle Ho's call for emulation echoes forever

This June marks the 75th anniversary of Uncle Ho's call for patriotic emulation (June 11, 1948 - June 11, 2023). 75 years have passed, but his call for emulation remains intact in value, always a call to arms, attracting, motivating, and urging the Vietnamese people to strive to compete, contribute human and material resources to the cause of building and defending the country. On this occasion, the Journalist & Public Opinion Newspaper has a series of articles: 75 years - forever echoing Uncle Ho's call for emulation.

Compete to "help eliminate all difficulties and all enemy plots to achieve final victory"

In August 1945, the August Revolution succeeded, ending nearly 100 years of colonial rule by French colonialists and Japanese fascists on the S-shaped land. On September 2, 1945, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the first worker-peasant state in Southeast Asia, was born. Vietnam, which had no name on the world map, became a free and independent country, and the working people were liberated from the miserable life of slavery, becoming citizens of a free and independent country.

President Ho Chi Minh met with delegates attending the National Congress of Heroes and Emulation Fighters in the Agricultural and Labor Exchange Sector in Hanoi on May 23, 1957. Photo: VNA

But besides that great joy, there were countless difficult challenges: internal enemies, external enemies, hunger, ignorance. The construction of a government to protect the achievements of the revolution was in a "thousand pounds hanging by a thread" situation. In that difficult context, the most important thing was the people's hearts and determination. Clearly recognizing that, also to encourage and motivate our entire Party, people and army to successfully carry out the long-term, all-people, all-out resistance war, following the initiative of President Ho Chi Minh , on March 27, 1948, the Party Central Committee issued a Directive launching the patriotic emulation movement, in which it was determined: "The purpose of patriotic emulation is to make the resistance war quickly victorious, and construction quickly successful".

On June 1, 1948, President Ho Chi Minh signed Decree No. 195 establishing the Patriotic Emulation Movement Committee with comrade Ton Duc Thang as its Head. The Decree consists of 6 Articles, stipulating the establishment of the Patriotic Emulation Movement Committee from the Central to the regional, provincial, district, and communal levels and the composition of the Movement Committee, and also stipulating the tasks of the Patriotic Emulation Movement Committees at all levels.

On the occasion of the 1,000th anniversary of the Southern Resistance War, on June 11, 1948, President Ho Chi Minh issued a Call for Patriotic Emulation, launching a nationwide patriotic emulation movement, encouraging compatriots and soldiers to promote the tradition of patriotism to carry out urgent tasks against hunger, illiteracy and foreign invaders, contributing money and labor to the cause of national construction and defense. "Like that: The resistance war will definitely win. National construction will definitely succeed." According to him, patriotic emulation will help us to overcome all difficulties and all enemy plots to achieve final victory.

The "proclamation" is very convincing

According to many researchers, President Ho Chi Minh's Call for Patriotic Emulation is truly a persuasive "proclamation" with a concise, clear, concise, easy-to-understand, easy-to-remember, easy-to-implement writing style, clear, simple, rustic language... containing many great ideas about patriotic emulation. In just a not-too-large vocabulary, President Ho Chi Minh comprehensively mentioned the issues that need to be focused on directing and organizing the implementation of a patriotic emulation movement, from the purpose to the role, meaning, requirements, content, methods, forces, results and spread of the patriotic emulation movement.

President Ho Chi Minh's call for patriotic emulation.

Right at the beginning of the Appeal, President Ho Chi Minh stated: “The purpose of patriotic emulation is: To eradicate hunger, illiteracy, and foreign invaders”. With only 10 words, President Ho Chi Minh went from a profound analysis and assessment of the three “disasters” – hunger, illiteracy, and foreign invaders – that were threatening the survival of the newly established and young revolutionary government. and proposed three urgent tasks that must be focused on solving: eradicating hunger, illiteracy, and foreign invaders. President Ho Chi Minh also pointed out that we must focus on eradicating hunger first to take care of people’s lives . “To do great things, we need to have a warm stomach” . Next, we must eradicate illiteracy to make “the whole people know how to read and write” , only then can we work, produce, and fight foreign invaders. When we have food and education, we will have the strength and quickly defeat the French colonialists.

After the goal is the “way of competition” . President Ho Chi Minh stated specifically and concisely with 8 words: “relying on: The people’s strength, the people’s spirit, to bring: Happiness to the people”.

Regarding the object of the emulation movement, President Ho Chi Minh pointed out: "Any scholar, farmer, worker, merchant, soldier; whatever they do, they need to compete with each other" . He requested emulation with a spirit of urgency and efficiency, not to do it quickly without paying attention to quality, to do it quickly but to ensure good quality, at the same time creating a lot of wealth for society "doing a lot" .

In particular, in the appeal, President Ho Chi Minh immediately reminded: “the duty of the Vietnamese people, regardless of whether they are scholars, farmers, workers, merchants, or soldiers, whatever they do, must compete with each other”; “Every Vietnamese person, regardless of age, gender, or gender; regardless of rich or poor, big or small, must become a fighter on the fronts: Military, Economic, Political, Cultural. Implement the slogan: “All people fight, all-round resistance. In the patriotic emulation, we: Both fight and build the country”. Thus, the emulation force is very large, regardless of composition, age, or profession, “any old, young, male, female, regardless of rich or poor, big or small”… All have the responsibility to participate in the emulation movement in all fields with the spirit of both fighting and building the country. He affirmed: “In short, everyone competes, everyone participates in fighting and building the country. The movement is vibrant. Patriotic emulation will be deeply rooted and spread to all aspects and all classes of people.

Finally, President Ho Chi Minh emphasized the “results” of the emulation: “The whole people will have enough to eat and wear. The whole people will know how to read and write. The whole army will have enough food and weapons to kill foreign invaders. The whole country will be unified and completely independent. So we will achieve: National independence. People’s rights and freedom. People’s happiness.”

Also on June 11, 1948, President Ho Chi Minh wrote a letter praising many outstanding examples such as soldier Tran Van Dien, the "hero of fighting landmines"; Mr. Nguyen Van Dan, " an old man, but still studied hard, passing the exam first among the elderly" ; Ms. Pham Thi Phuong, who was active in popular education; Ms. Pham Thi Ty - who ranked second in the national language exam.

A year later, on June 11, 1949, in an interview with a reporter from the National Salvation Newspaper, in response to a question about the people celebrating his birthday, Uncle Ho said: “ The most precious gift for me is the reports on the achievements of the Patriotic Emulation Movement such as: soldiers and militiamen competing in killing enemies; people competing in increasing production and studying; government officials and organizations competing in changing their working style; landlords competing in reducing land rent and donating land; women competing in volunteering to contribute funds to the resistance war; children also enthusiastically competing; people in enemy-held areas competing in resistance in a quiet but glorious way; overseas people also competing in resistance in many forms”. He added: “But I am sure that gift is only a small part, if our people and soldiers continue to try, I will receive a much bigger gift, that gift is called: The General Counter-Offensive with complete victory”.

Ha Anh

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/bai-1-mon-qua-quy-nhat-voi-bac-ho-post247228.html