February 3, 2024
94th Anniversary of Founding of Communist Party of Vietnam

Party Leader Charts Vision to Build Strong Vietnam

On the occasion of the 94th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the Party’s General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong wrote an article titled “Proud and confident under the Party’s glorious flag, determined to build a Vietnam more prosperous, powerful, civilized, heroic with a fine and long-lasting culture.” Posted below is an excerpt from the article, translated by the Vietnam News Agency, concerning the period from the founding of the CPV to the defeat of the U.S. imperialists in 1975.

Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

As we all know, the Communist Party of Vietnam was founded on February 3, 1930. This means that on February 3, 2025, our Party will be 95 years old and turn 100 in 2030. These are shining milestones of great historical significance to our Party, our country and our nation. At present, the entirety of our Party, people, and army are joining hands and taking every chance and advantage to weather every difficulty and challenge with a determination to successfully realize many policies, goals, and tasks included in the resolution of the 13th National Party Congress. At the same time, we are starting the preparations for Party congresses at all levels, moving toward the 14th National Party Congress.

The 14th National Party Congress will conduct a profound review and evaluation of the implementation of the 13th National Party Congress’s resolution, summarize the 40 years of implementing the national renewal process in the orientation to socialism and, on the basis of this, draw valuable lessons; determine the orientation, goals, and tasks for the entirety of our Party, people, and army for the next five years, spanning from 2026 to 2030; and continue to successfully implement the 10-year socio-economic development strategy (2021-2030).

The 14th Congress will be another important milestone in the development path of our country and nation, having future-oriented significance. It will encourage, inspire, and motivate the entirety of our Party, people, and army to continue persisting on the way to socialism; affirm that this is the righteous and clear-minded choice which is suitable to the reality in Vietnam and the development trend of the time; continue to comprehensively and concertedly push the renewal cause; firmly safeguard the Motherland; and strive to turn our country into a developing one with modern industry and a high middle income by 2030 when we mark the Party’s centenary.

To actively contribute to the celebration of the Party’s anniversary on February 3, instilling pride in the glorious Party, the great President Ho Chi Minh and the heroic Vietnamese nation; to further fortify confidence in the Party’s leadership and the bright future of our nation and people; and to further raise the sense of responsibility of officials and Party members across the entire political system, to continue bringing into play the spirit of patriotism and the revolutionary spirit of the entire nation, to stay determined to build our country as more and more prosperous, civilized, cultured and heroic, it is necessary for us to objectively and comprehensively review and assess the main outcomes, achievements, and lessons learnt throughout our Party’s historical stages.

These include:

(1) The Party’s inception, leading the revolution, and gaining of power (1930-1945);

(2) The nationwide resistance war and restoration of peace in the North (1946-1954);

(3) The building of socialism in the North, the struggle for liberation of the South, and the national reunification (1955-1975);

(4) Settling the consequences of war, safeguarding the territorial integrity of the Motherland, and gradually progressing towards socialism (1976-1985);

(5) Launching the renewal cause, building our country to be more modern and beautiful; expanding international relations, proactively and actively integrating into the global community in a comprehensive and extensive way, our country has never had such fortune, potential, status and international prestige as it does today (1986-now); and

(6) Looking ahead to 2030, the centenary of the Party.

On the basis of this, tasks and solutions can be worked out to continue raising the Party’s leadership and power-holding capacity; push concertedly and comprehensively the renewal cause; and successfully achieve the goals set forth by the 13th National Party Congress, which are to make our country increasingly prosperous, democratic, civilized, and happy in the direction toward socialism by 2025 and 2030. This article is one of the ideas in line with the spirit mentioned above and is presented in a structure comprising three main parts as follows:

Part 1
Our Party Came into Being, Led the Struggle for National Independence,
Liberation of the South, and National Reunification

The millennia-long history of our nation has proven that patriotism, defence of the country, determination to fight foreign aggressions, safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and unity are traditions of extreme value to our people. Continuing this tradition, from the mid-19th century when French colonialists invaded our homeland, our people repeatedly rose up, struggling through patriotic, persistent and strong movements in many ways with different trends, refusing to succumb to slavery. From the ways for national salvation provided by scholars to peasants’ uprisings and the bourgeoisie’s revolutionary paths — despite their staunch efforts, whole-hearted dedication and immense sacrifices — these movements failed to achieve success due to their historical limitations, especially the absence of a correct path. History demanded a new path be found.

In 1911, the young patriot Nguyen Tat Thanh [our beloved Uncle Ho] left the country to seek a new way for national salvation and the struggle for national independence. Driven by a burning aspiration to save the country, he approached Marxism-Leninism and found in this revolutionary doctrine the right path for national salvation — that of proletarian revolution. Throughout many years of intensive travels and activities overseas, he persisted in studying and creatively applying Marxism-Leninism and incrementally disseminated it to Vietnam, while strenuously preparing the conditions necessary for the establishment of a genuine revolutionary party.

Party Congress held in Viet Bac War Zone, February 1951.

On February 3, 1930, a conference on merging communist organizations was convened in Kowloon, Hong Kong (China), chaired by leader Nguyen Ai Quoc. It was decided to merge the then communist organizations in Vietnam into a single party which was named the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is an historic turning-point that put an end to the protracted crisis in the organization and guidelines of the Vietnamese revolution. The birth of the Communist Party of Vietnam was the result of the convergence of Marxism-Leninism and the workers’ and patriotic movements, showing that the Vietnamese working class had matured and had sufficient capacity to shoulder the historic mission of leadership over the revolution. The Party’s first Political Platform, adopted at this founding conference, identified the fundamental path for the Vietnamese revolution that met the urgent demand of the Nation and the impassioned aspiration of the People.

Within a mere 15 years following its founding, with a flesh-and-blood bond with the population, and enjoying their full support and trust, our Party led the national liberation struggle and conducted three revolutionary high-tides. The 1930-1931 high-tide culminated in the Nghe Tinh-Soviet movement. The 1936-1939 high-tide demanded social welfare and democracy, and the 1939-1945 high-tide of the national liberation revolution. In 1945, when the time for the revolution was ripe, the Communist Party of Vietnam led the entire Vietnamese nation to the landslide victory of the August 1945 Revolution and the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945 (the 80th anniversary of which will be celebrated in 2025).

Hardly had the Democratic Republic of Vietnam been born when the revolution was to face numerous difficulties and challenges, among them the simultaneous confrontation with a three-fold enemy, namely hunger, illiteracy and foreign invasions. In such a time of great peril, the Party led our people through the situation in which the revolutionary gains were “hanging by a hair,” unyieldingly safeguarding and building the nascent government, while proactively making all-round preparations to embark upon the war of resistance against the French colonialists.

Following the direction of an “all-people,” “all-sided,” “long-term” and “essentially self-reliant” war of resistance, and building on the tradition of national unity and patriotism, our Party led the people to successively defeat all of the enemy’s schemes and plans of aggression. Of special significance was the victory of the 1953-54 Winter-Spring Operation. Its culmination, the historic Dien Bien Phu victory, “resounded over the five continents and shook the globe,” and drove the French colonialists to sign the Geneva Accords in 1954, thus ending their war of aggression against Vietnam.

From 1955 to 1975, our country was divided into two parts. Under the leadership of the Party, the North exerted great efforts to build socialism and fight the war of destruction conducted by U.S. imperialists. while devoting all of its energy to fulfilling the duty of providing a great rear to the great frontline in the south. The people of the South continued their undaunted struggle for national independence and reunification. Imbued with the spirit “We would rather sacrifice all than surrender our country and be enslaved” and “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom,” following the Party’s sound and creative guidelines, and thanks to the entire nation’s combined strength, our armed forces and people successively defeated the American imperialists’ war strategies, completely liberated the South, and reunified the country on April 30, 1975. This victory will “be written in the history of our nation eternally as one of most glorious pages and a bright symbol of a complete victory of revolutionary heroism and Vietnamese people’s wisdom; and go down in world history as a great feat of the 20th century and an event of pivotal international importance and profound epoch-making magnitude.” (We will celebrate the 50th anniversary of national reunification in 2025.)

On April 30, 1975, tanks of the Vietnam People’s Army enter the Presidential Palace, the last stronghold of the Saigon puppet regime, marking the end of the resistance war against the U.S.

While having to work to urgently address the extremely grave situation in the aftermath of the war, the Vietnamese people continued to confront newly staged wars. Under the Party’s leadership, our armed forces and people focused on socio-economic restoration while fighting to defend our borders and safeguard our sacred national independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty. All the while, we succeeded in fulfilling the international duty of helping the Cambodian people escape from genocide and revive their country.

Looking back at the 1930-1975 journey, we are very proud, confident and deeply grateful to the sound leadership of the Party and the great Uncle Ho that led the Vietnamese revolution from one resounding victory to another, continuing to write brilliant golden pages in the history of the civilized and heroic Vietnamese nation, which is admired and appreciated by the world: Successfully carrying out the resounding August Revolution, helping people gain power and taking our country out of colonialism in 1945; The long resistance war against the French colonialists ended with the Geneva Agreement and Dien Bien Phu victory that resounded over the five continents and shook the globe; Building socialism and fighting against the destructive war of U.S. imperialism in the North, while engaging in the resistance war to save the country, liberate the South, and re-unify the country, ending with the Dien Bien Phu in the air and the historic Ho Chi Minh campaigns.”

To read the complete article, click here.

(English translation slightly edited for style and grammar by TML. Photos: Vietnam News Agency.)

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