Firstly, building the armed forces as the core in the cause of defending the Fatherland is an objective necessity.

Imbued with the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint on building revolutionary armed forces, inheriting the lessons of our ancestors on building military organizations in the history of national defense, and at the same time deeply analyzing the nature of colonialism, President Ho Chi Minh soon pointed out that: "The colonial regime, in itself, is an act of violence by the strong against the weak." Therefore, for colonial peoples who want to defeat the brutal enemy, there is no other choice but to "use revolutionary violence against counter-revolutionary violence, seize power and protect the power."

President Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap visit a rehearsal of the Northern armed forces (1957). Photo: Archive

In the specific conditions of the Vietnamese revolution, he affirmed: “To liberate, we must fight the Japanese and French fascists. To fight them, we must have military forces.” Therefore, organizing and building the armed forces is an objective necessity in the period of struggle for revolutionary power as well as in building socialism and defending the Fatherland.

Second, building political forces, revolutionary organizations and unions as the basis for building the people's armed forces.

According to President Ho Chi Minh, revolutionary violence in Vietnam must be organized mass violence under the leadership of the Party. That violence includes the political force of the masses and the people's armed forces, with two forms of struggle: political struggle and armed struggle. Of which, the political force is the foundation of the revolution and the basis for building and developing the people's armed forces. According to President Ho Chi Minh's concept, the political force includes all people in all classes and strata who have been enlightened, gathered through revolutionary organizations and unions under the leadership of the Party. Building the political force of the masses is the top concern of President Ho Chi Minh. He pointed out: "To have an armed army, we must first have a propaganda and mobilization army, a political army, so we must do it immediately, so that the political army becomes more and more numerous. We must have politically enlightened masses who voluntarily take up arms in order to win."

To build the armed forces in the conditions of Vietnam, President Ho Chi Minh determined that it was necessary to soon form national salvation organizations, through the activities of those organizations and organizations, select the most outstanding people to establish self-defense teams and guerrilla teams; through the activities of self-defense teams and guerrilla teams, "select the most determined and enthusiastic cadres and team members... to establish the main force". He called for: "Our people must quickly reorganize. Farmers must join the "Farmers' National Salvation Association". Youth must join the "Youth National Salvation Association". Women must join the "Women's National Salvation Association". Children must join the "Children's National Salvation Association". Workers must join the "Workers' National Salvation Association". Soldiers must join the "Soldiers' National Salvation Association". Wealthy writers and writers must join the "Vietnam National Salvation Association". From those associations, the masses are awakened and trained on the path of struggle, gradually organizing the revolutionary armed forces.

Organized and built on the basis of the revolutionary struggle movement of the masses under the leadership of the Party, the People's Armed Forces, although newly established and young, with a small organizational structure, rudimentary weapons and equipment, and simple military training, have grown rapidly thanks to their constant adherence to and expansion on the basis of the strong political force of the masses, and the protection and nurturing of revolutionary organizations and unions, and have become a leading shock force in the struggle for national independence as well as in building a national defense to firmly protect the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland.

Third, the revolutionary armed forces must be built up comprehensively and firmly, with political strength as the foundation.

According to President Ho Chi Minh, building a revolutionary armed force in the context of Vietnam being a colonial and feudal country with a small working class requires attaching importance to comprehensive and strong building, taking political building as the foundation. This is both a basic requirement and a matter of principle in building a revolutionary armed organization. At the same time, this is a great creativity of President Ho Chi Minh in applying the Marxist-Leninist theory on people's war and building a military organization of the proletariat to meet the requirements of the Vietnamese revolutionary practice.

Based on the functions and tasks of the Vietnamese revolutionary armed forces, President Ho Chi Minh determined that it was necessary to attach importance to building the comprehensive strength of the people's armed forces. Because according to him: "If the ideology is strong, the politics is strong, the techniques are good, and the body is healthy, then victory is certain", but if "politics are good, but the military is poor, or politics and military are both good but the body is weak, then victory is not possible". The strength of the Vietnamese people's armed forces is the comprehensive strength of the revolutionary nature and the ability to be ready to fight and fight to victory. But for the revolutionary armed forces in a country that was originally a semi-feudal colony, the process of building forces from nothing to something, from small to large, comprehensive strength, according to President Ho Chi Minh, can only be achieved on the basis of political strength. He always determined that politics is the "root", an important foundation for building and developing the revolutionary armed forces, "Military without politics is like a tree without roots, useless and harmful". The process of building the armed forces politically is essentially the process of strengthening the working class nature, ensuring that the armed forces have the working class nature, are absolutely loyal to the Party's revolutionary goals and ideals, and to the interests of the people and nation...

Researching and applying Ho Chi Minh's military thought to building the people's armed forces in the current situation has profound theoretical and practical significance. This is an inevitable objective law, a scientific principle in building the revolutionary people's armed forces, contributing to the Army's excellent completion of the two strategic tasks of building and firmly defending the socialist Fatherland of Vietnam in the new situation.

NGUYEN HUU LAP ,

    Source: https://www.qdnd.vn/quoc-phong-an-ninh/nghe-thuat-quan-su-vn/tu-tuong-ho-chi-minh-ve-xay-dung-luc-luong-vu-trang-828768