A lesson from the Dien Bien Phu victory

These days, the whole country is joyfully celebrating the 70th anniversary of the historic Dien Bien Phu victory, "famous throughout the five continents, shaking the earth".

There were many reasons for that glorious victory, including the outstanding military strategy and sense of responsibility of General Vo Nguyen Giap in his highest position at that time as Party Secretary and Campaign Commander.

Before going to the front, Uncle Ho told the General that "the general is abroad", he has full authority to decide, only fight when sure of victory, and not fight when not sure of victory. When the General arrived at the front, the campaign staff had already built a plan and completed preparations with the motto "fight fast, win fast". Based on the practical situation and with high responsibility before the Party and the People, the General saw that the plan of "fight fast, win fast" did not ensure the principle of "sure of victory". Therefore, before the opening fire, General Vo Nguyen Giap ordered a temporary delay, pulled the artillery out; ordered the troops to retreat to their positions to prepare again and switched to the motto "fight sure, advance sure".

Later, when recounting the incident, the General once said that this was the most difficult decision in his military career. And with "...the motto of fighting surely, we advance..." as in the lyrics of the song "Liberating Dien Bien", after 56 days and nights of "digging mountains, sleeping in tunnels", the historic Dien Bien Phu campaign was completely victorious. It can be said that the decision to postpone the attack (although the preparation work was completed), changing the combat motto was a brave and wise decision, demonstrating the high responsibility of the leader to properly implement the guiding ideology of the Party and Uncle Ho that only when we are sure of victory can we attack...

Time has passed 70 years, but the image of General Vo Nguyen Giap with the historic victory of Dien Bien Phu still shines, leaving many lessons for the entire Party, the entire army and the entire people in general and cadres and party members of Ninh Binh province in particular to learn and follow.

Currently, the Party Committee, army and people of Ninh Binh province are striving to successfully implement the Resolution of the 22nd Provincial Party Congress and the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress. The immediate task is to effectively implement Resolution No. 16-NQ/TU dated August 23, 2023 of the Provincial Party Executive Committee on the arrangement of district and commune-level administrative units in Ninh Binh province for the period 2023-2030 and strive to successfully complete the socio -economic development task in 2024.

Promoting the spirit and lessons from the historic victory of Dien Bien Phu; to successfully complete the set goals and tasks, requires the Party Committee, army and people of Ninh Binh province to uphold the spirit of solidarity, firmly grasp and steadfastly pursue strategic goals, overcome difficulties, be proactive, creative, resolute, dare to think, dare to speak, dare to act for the common good.

From the lesson of changing the combat strategy of General Vo Nguyen Giap in the Dien Bien Phu campaign, relating to the reality of Ninh Binh province today, we see similarities when implementing the working theme of the Provincial Party Committee in 2023 and 2024: "Maintaining discipline, enhancing responsibility, innovation, creativity, and real efficiency".

Therefore, when implementing Resolutions, Directives, Plans... it requires cadres at all levels from the province to the grassroots, especially leaders, to grasp the goals, requirements and clearly define responsibilities, and at the same time be proactive and creative to achieve goals with the highest results.

70 years ago, in the Dien Bien Phu campaign, General Vo Nguyen Giap's decision to change the way of fighting brought victory and reduced the sacrifices of soldiers. Today, when carrying out any task, each cadre in the position of head of an agency, locality, or unit needs to clearly understand the work, see all the advantages and difficulties to find the optimal solution to achieve the highest efficiency while still ensuring compliance with the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's laws, and more importantly, save time, money, and the people's efforts.

The profound and long-term lesson is still the arrangement and assignment of positions for cadres. Reality shows that some cadres will perform well in one position, but promoting and assigning them to another position is not good, even violating Party discipline and State law.

We are arranging administrative units at district and commune levels and further preparing personnel for Party congresses at all levels for the 2025-2030 term. Lessons learned from the Dien Bien Phu victory can help us select cadres and employ people to plan and successfully implement future goals. On the path to building Ninh Binh to basically meet the criteria of a centrally-run city by 2030 and to become a centrally-run city by 2035 with the characteristics of a Millennium Heritage City and a center for innovation, there will be many advantages, but there will also be many difficulties and challenges. Whether that goal is achieved quickly or slowly? Whether great achievements are achieved or not? ... that depends a lot on the subjective efforts and determination to strive along with the creative and effective ways of working of the cadres at all levels and sectors of Ninh Binh, especially the leaders...

The 70th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu victory (May 7, 1954 - May 7, 2024) is an opportunity to review history and be proud; to pay tribute to the contributions of heroes and martyrs; and at the same time, to give us lessons to live, study and work in a way that is worthy of the generation of fathers and grandfathers who made "the golden history" - Dien Bien Phu.

Nguyen Dong

Source