Since that autumn, the celebration of Independence Day has become an annual tradition, along with the Lunar New Year festival of Tet. In many families throughout the nation, besides the ancestral altars, there are also motherland altars with the national flags and portraits of President Ho Chi Minh. Country and home have become one. Since then, millions of Vietnamese people have fought heroically to defend the values of a young republic and to build an independent, free and unified Vietnam, with wealthy people in a strong, democratic, just and civilised nation.
That great turning point was the fruit of a resilient nation’s fighting spirit against invasion, domination, assimilation and exploitation by feudalism, colonialism and imperialism. That great turning point was marked with the leadership role of a true Marxist-Leninist political party born from the suffering of the people, growing from the summarisation of the reality of the struggle for national independence in a poor and backward semi-feudal colonised country, and existing thanks to its close connection with the people, fighting for the people, and establishing its legitimacy and reputation because of the people.
The first and forever lesson learned from the failure of patriotic movements and political trends in Vietnam in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and the collapse of socialist model in the 20th century is the lesson about a right political path suitable with the reality and people’s wishes; and about building a vanguard party of the class and nation, constantly renovating its methods of leadership and ruling over the political system.
The principle of “People are the roots” has been affirmed through the years of war and the joint efforts to overcome the post-war crisis, such that at its sixth congress, the Party called for looking directly at the truth, evaluating the truth properly and speaking the truth clearly to courageously abandon dogma and embark on the path of renovation.
During each period, behind the miracles in the resistance wars, nation building and international integration admired by the world are the intelligence, sweat, blood and tears of generations of Vietnamese people.
It is also the crystallisation of the process to renovate the economic growth model and develop the socialist-oriented market economy, the dual path of building and defending the socialist motherland’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity from when the nation is not yet in danger, and efforts to continue perfecting the theory of socialism and the path towards socialism in Vietnam.
During that journey, there were not without crises, debates and ideological struggles within the Party and there were times when the Party committed mistakes and then corrected them. There were times President Ho Chi Minh wiped his tears when speaking about the mistakes in the land reform, the political report presented to the sixth Party Congress had to be rewritten because it did not truly reflect reality; and General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was deeply emotional when mentioning the Party’s shortcomings in personnel work, remaining steadfast in the cause of Party building and rectification.
The Party’s efforts against ideological, political, moral and lifestyle degradation, and commitment to fight against corruption have been endorsed by officials, Party members, people and international friends. Since the start of the 13th tenure, eighteen Party Central Committee members have been dismissed, including seven Politburo members and one Secretariate member.
That battle is a relentless battle because the internal enemy is the threat to the survival of the Party, regime and revolutionary cause. During critical moments of the nation, we must remain steadfast on the goals but be flexible in solutions, using the reality as the standard to verify the truth.
That reality is nothing but the people’s well-being and the nation’s wealth. That reality is nothing but national interests, Vietnam’s enhanced position on the international stage, and a stable, developed and civilised society. That reality is the cause of building a law-governed socialist state where people and human rights are acknowledged, honoured and protected.
In a recent meeting with current and former Party and State leaders, General Secretary and President To Lam emphasised that Vietnam has never before been so extensively integrated into the world, with active contributions to world politics, the global economy and human civilisation. We do not lose vigilance against the four threats to the Party’s leadership role that generations of Party and State leaders have unanimously identified since 1994, requiring harmonious treatment of external relations with major powers.
This year, we celebrate National Day and recall the nation’s first independent National Day to see the long transition of history. From the Preliminary Agreement of March 6, 1946, to the Provisional Agreement of September 14, 1946; from the Da Lat Conference to the Fontainebleau Conference; from the Geneva Conference to the Paris Conference; from negotiations to join the United Nations, ASEAN and WTO to the signing of a series of new generation free trade agreements with important partners in the world, it can be said that external works and diplomacy have demonstrated the maturity, development, the correct direction and the intellectual mettle of Vietnam.
However, history also reminds us of lessons about internal and external strengths, the national position from the foreign policy, economic strength and defence capability. Vietnam has gone from a vulnerable country to both domestic and external threats, and from a country subject to embargo and isolation, to a country with high international reputation, a faithful friend, reliable partner, and active and responsible partner of the international community, boasting diplomatic relations with 193 countries, establishing strategic partnerships and comprehensive strategic partnerships with all five members of the UN Security Council and six of the G7 members.
The resolution of the 13th Party Congress targets GDP capita of 4,700-5000 USD by 2025. In the first six months of 2024, Vietnam’s GDP grew by 6.42%. Data by US credit ratings agency S&P in June 2024 rated Vietnam at BB+/B with a stable outlook, with GDP per capita projected to reach 4,500 USD by the end of 2024.
The reality shows that flexible policies in macroeconomic management, especially controlling inflation, managing interest rates, exchange rates, restructuring, handling weak credit institutions, and removing difficulties for businesses, especially breakthroughs in building and perfecting institutions, are what people and the business community expect.
In the anti-corruption sphere, the Central Steering Committee on Preventing Corruption and Negative Phenomena has discovered over 300 contradictory and overlapping items in hundreds of legal documents. The reality requires the 2024 Land Law to be quickly put into life and the Government is giving priority to building one new law and revising seven other laws in the financial sector to serve socio-economic development.
Towards important milestones: 5 years of implementing the resolution of the 13th Party Congress, 35 years of implementing the platform on national construction during the transition period to socialism, 40 years of the Doi Moi reform with valuable lessons and great achievements, the spirit of the Independence Day must be realised in all everyday tasks.
The principle of self-reliance, self-confidence, self-strengthening and national pride must become the material strength in the way forward. Uniting the nation, looking directly at the truth, properly evaluating the achieved results, pointing out the drawbacks and shortcomings, and removing the bottlenecks to development must be the nature of awareness and action.
The cause of Party building and rectification and anti-corruption is not to create discouragement, passivity and stagnation, but is a great cause that must be stepped up, regardless of difficulties and hardships, to clean up the apparatus, improve the investment environment, and strengthen people’s confidence. It is the motivation to inspire innovation, discover, nurture, protect and honour good actions, and affirm the values tested by reality.
The immortal spirit of National Day encourages and paves the way for us to move towards a new era of development for the Vietnamese nation, the Vietnamese people and Vietnamese culture!
