PANO – 70 years ago, implementing the Instruction of Leader Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnam Liberation Armed Group, the predecessor of the Vietnam People’s Army, was established on December 22nd, 1944, in between the two jungles of Hoang Hoa Tham and Tran Hung Dao, Nguyen Binh district, Cao bang. Being educated, trained and led by the Party and President Ho Chi Minh during the process of building force, fighting enemies and growing up, the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) has always kept carrying on the Party’s goal and ideal, fighting for national independence and socialism. Over the time, VPA together with the Vietnamese people has won splendid victories, functioned as a sharp weapon and a faithful political force of the Party, State and people, and the core force for the people in the liberation wars against invaders as well as the current Fatherland protection cause.
General Phung Quang Thanh inspecting the repair of weapons and equiopment at Factory Z113 of the General Department of Defence Industry
On the first days of its foundation, VPA was composed of only 34 soldiers and armed with very simple weapons but it achieved the Khai Phat, Na Ngan deeds of arms, creating the tradition “determined to fight and determined to win” of the army. Less than one year later, VPA played a key role in the whole nation’s uprising to create the great August 1945 Revolution, wining national independence and laying foundations for the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the first democratic people’s republic in South East Asia.
In the resistance war against the French colonists, VPA grew up very fast in terms of force, weapon and warfighting experience. In the people’s warfare posture, VPA launched a number of increasingly large scale operations, particularly the Winter 1953-Spring 1954 Strategic Campaign and won the decisive victory in the globally resounding Dien Bien Phu Campaign.
During the resistance war against the American invaders, VPA made a great development. It organized the army into military services and arms, and armed military units with comparatively modern weapons and equipment. Especially, in the end of the war, VPA formed several mobile regular army corps. Meanwhile, the military arts of the Vietnamese people warfare in the war were developed to the highest level, particularly war-fighting arts in the operational and strategic levels and the leadership in coordinating operations among various battlefields. In the North, the army joined the whole people in building socialism on one hand, and defeated the destructive war waged by the US Air Force and Navy, firmly protected the Northern great rear and provided reinforcements to the great front of the South on the other hand.
In the South, the army played the core role in military operations; well combined between military and political struggles and diplomatic front; conducted operations of regular army corps with local people warfare; fought the enemy with the three spearhead attack: combat and political struggle and agitprop among enemy troops; and attacked the enemy in all the tree strategic zones: towns, countryside and mountainous areas. All of these created comprehensive force, brought to ruin the enemy’s strategies “Special Warfare”, “Joint Warfare” and “Vietnamization”, put an end to the American invasion of our country by conducting the Spring 1975 General Offensive and Uprising with its peak of the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign.
The end of the war has meant the country has become united and the whole nation has begun to implement the two strategic missions: construction and protection of the Fatherland. VPA has now served as the core force alongside the whole nation to firmly protect the Fatherland’s independence, unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and socialism, and continued the struggle to defeat any schemes and attempts of hostile forces on the label of “peace evolution.” Apart from the main task, VPA actively participates in overcoming the aftermath of the war preventing natural disasters, protecting people’s lives and assets; educates and mobilizes people to implement the Party’s guidelines, instructions, State’s policies and laws; builds and consolidates basic political systems in localities; backs local people in economic development, hunger elimination and poverty reduction, social safety and building the new rural area model and so on. Via these activities, VPA contributes to the building of the “people’s heart” defense posture, cementing people’s confidence in the Party and State. In economic terms, VPA with defense-economic units, defense plants and factories actively participates in material production and joins national efforts to accomplish industrialization and modernization, to improve lives of people and to increase national security and defense capabilities in strategic areas of border, sea and island. Over the time, VPA has successfully fulfilled not only the nation-assigned tasks but also the nation’s noble international duty calls to assist the Lao and Cambodian peoples in the past wars.
General Phung Quang Thanh inspecting the line-up regulation practice of naval troops
During the past 70 years of building the force, fighting the enemies and growing up, VPA’s officers and soldiers of generations have developed its good nature and traditions “Royal to the Party, dedicated to the people, ready to fight any enemy and make sacrifices to the Fatherland’s independence and freedom and socialism. Accomplishing any task, overcoming any difficulty, defeating any enemy” as President praised, brightening the image of the “Uncle Ho’s Soldier” and deserving to be in the heroic army of the heroic Vietnamese people.
At present, the Vietnamese people are implementing the two strategic missions of developing and protecting the Fatherland in the context, where global political situation sees quick and complex changes, containing unpredictable elements and posing both alternate opportunities and challenges. The Asia-Pacific region continues to develop in a dynamic manner but also contains destabilizing factors. In the region, the strategic competition between major powers continues to be fierce and disputes over territories, seas and islands are increasingly complicated.
Our country, after nearly 30 years of renewal, has reached great, historic achievements, had increasing power and potential. Vietnam’s status and reputation has increased on the international arena, which serves as a good premise for continuous, fast, sustainable development in the new period. However, our country still faces many complex challenges. Hostile forces continue to carry out their schemes “peace evolution”, attempts to overturn the Party’s leadership, and resort to the labels “democracy”, “human rights” in the aim to change the political system. In this context, the mission of protecting the socialist Fatherland has new developments and increasing high requirements.
Today, to protect the socialist Fatherland meaning firmly protecting national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the Party, State, people and socialist system as well as keeping peace and political stability to comprehensively develop the country, is the crucial mission of the whole Party, people and army, in which the Vietnam People’s Army and Vietnam People’s Police play the main role. To accomplish the assigned mission, PVA has to make more effort. First, it should continuously study and grasp the Party’s viewpoint, goal, thoughts and guidelines on protecting the Fatherland that have been displayed in the Party’s Resolutions, Instructions, particularly the Resolution of the 11th Party Congress, Resolution of the Party Central Committee of the 11th tenure on the strategy for protecting the Fatherland in the new context. Next, it should continue to improve the comprehensive strength, quality and combat readiness of people’s armed forces, with the core of building a people’s revolutionary, standardized, elite and gradually modern army.
Facts from the struggles for national liberation and Fatherland’s development and protection prove that VPA is a revolutionary army of the people and for the people. In the current complex situation, VPA, more than ever before, must conserve and augment its revolutionary nature; frequently educate the Marxism, Leninism and Ho Chi Minh thoughts, revolutionary ideal, its goal to fight, national historical traditions, as well as improve revolutionary virtues, political will and abilities for its officers and soldiers. This should be seen as the first and foremost basis, ensuring that the army is always loyal to the Party, State, and people, and that it is ready to take and successfully fulfill every assigned task.
The revolutionary nature of the army is to persistently try to reach the goals: national independence and socialism; always study and follow the Party’s political creed, policies and stance as well as perceive the two revolutionary strategic tasks; strictly execute resolutions and instructions of the Party and State and assigned tasks, and well perform its functions in fighting, working and production. VPA’s nature is also highlighted in its close relations with people like flesh and blood, its origin from people and fighting for people.
In the current profound economic globalization process and international integration, VPA must correctly distinguish its partners and targets; perceive cooperation along with struggle as well as opportunities alternate with challenges. It therefore should always put on the alert, exactly predict the future situation, grasp every happening related to defense and security, especially in the strategic localities and directions, in order to draw up appropriate and timely plans, actively coordinate with forces and along with the whole people to effectively combat any attempt, activity undermining the revolution, violating national sovereignty, territory and interests. As the key and core force in protecting the Fatherland, VPA should actively provide good consultancy on defense policies, regimes and laws to the Party and State; perfect the mechanism of the Party’s leadership over the army and the whole people’s defense; give good advice to the making of the legal system, strategies, plans so as to closely link defense with socio-economic development, particularly in key localities. On the subject of defense industry, it should ensure essential equipment for the army; in terms of the whole people’s defense, it should strengthen the whole people’s defense posture in conjunction with the people’s security posture, building cities and provinces as strong defensive fortresses. VPA also has to actively provide good and timely consultancy on responding policies to the Party and State in order to successfully address defense, security and diplomatic emerging issues, to preserve friendly relations with neighboring countries, major powers on one hand and maintain political stability at home on the other hand, creating a peaceful, stable environment for national comprehensive development.
Alongside preserving and bringing into full play the revolutionary nature of the army, building the standard order and discipline of the army becomes objective and urgent requirements. Building the standard order and discipline aims at creating united thought, will and action throughout the army, ensuring that the army has close organization, is united in uniform, exemplary in conduct and manner, and has strict discipline and scientific combat coordination. Building the standard order and discipline includes various contents and involves every military organization and uniform personnel. Therefore, VPA should considers the comprehensiveness on one hand, and focuses on key and breakthrough contents in building the standard order and discipline in order to make a big and firm improvement in each content, laying a basis for the building of the comprehensively strong unit. In the coming time, VPA should improve the regularity in training, combat readiness, personnel and equipment management, and implementation of regulations and functions. It should closely combine between the building the standard order and strictly follow military disciplines and civil laws.
In the new context, the building of an elite army aims at well performing not only the functions and tasks of the combat army, but also the functions and tasks of the working and producing army. The most important content in the building of an elite army is to build a politically strong army. This should be viewed as the key to the improvement of the comprehensive quality and fighting strength of the army. To fulfill the task, VPA should actively renovate and promote the quality of Party work activities, political work in the army to ensure that all servicemen have firm political will, persistently follow the objective and ideal of fighting for national independence and socialism, highly agree and well implement the Party’s guidelines, State’s policies and laws. Next, VPA should further carry out the mobilization “Learning and following the moral mirror of Ho Chi Minh” in a profound and practical manner; well organize the movement “determined to win”; make good weaknesses and overcome limitations, prevent negative phenomena, backwardness, political and moral degradation, and bad lifestyles among some uniform personnel. At the same time, VPA should continue to study and well implement Resolution 51-NQ/TW issued by the Politburo, protect the principle on the Party’s leadership absolute and direct toward the army, focus on building a strong military Party organization, especially improving the capacity to organize the learning and implementation of higher-level resolutions and instructions, as well as strictly checking and supervising the performance of lower-level organizations. It is necessary to combine between the building of the strong and clean Party organization and the building of the strong and comprehensive unit; between the building of the officer corps and the lineup of party members; between commanders and Party committees.
General Phung Quang Thanh on his inspecting visit to Regiment 692, Division 301, the Hanoi Capital Command
To ensure that the army has excellent knowledge and high operational capacity, and that troops are expert in profession, skills and expertise, VPA should raise the quality of military training and education. Leaderships and commands at all levels should accelerate an overall renewal in the spirit of Resolution 765 issued by the Central Military Commission on improving the quality of training in the 2013-2020 period and the next years. It is also necessary to closely follow the motto “basic, practical and sustainable” by paying attention to training troops in depth and in a synchronic manner, close to the real battlefield, missions, operational areas; suitable for the organization and staff, the development of weapons, equipment and Vietnamese military arts as well as the requirements for operations using hi-tech weapons. In operational-level and strategic-level training, abilities of thinking, analyzing, summarizing and assessing situation as well as methods of organizing, leading and executing must be improved for operational- and strategic- level officers, which helps sharply increase the quality and level of their leadership and staff work in all combat environments: in the air, on ground and in the sea. In war-fighting training, units should continuously renovate the contents and methods of training, train troops to master weapons and equipment in hand, to grasp tactics, in order to improve their operational and combat abilities. Alongside war-fighting training, units should also conduct training and exercises on search and rescue, natural disaster prevention and anti-terrorism to successfully address any situation and accomplish all assigned tasks.
At the 11th Congress, the Party defined the direction as follows: to gradually build VPA as a modern army. This is a correct decision in accordance with the country’s economic conditions. Receiving the special support from the Party and State, VPA drew up and exactly implements the direction, roadmap and set plans, and has achieved important results, including some breakthroughs. Still, VPA should accelerate the process of building it into a modern army, at the same time, it should take advantage of and bring into full play the country’s economic development, scientific and technological advancements, fruits of modernization and industrialization in order to further modernize the army. First and foremost priorities must be given to the Navy, Air Defense, electronic warfare and communications, while other forces should be modernized step by step in line with the country’s economic capacity.
While modernizing the army, it should mainly rely on the country’s strength by enhancing research and production of weapons and equipment, modern and advanced military technologies. Units also echo the Movement “Managing, exploiting, using weapons and equipment in a good, durable, safe and economical manner, and traffic safety”; and actively propose initiatives, technical innovations, raise the quality, effectiveness and use capacity of in-hand weapons and equipment.
The celebration of the 70th founding anniversary of the Vietnam People’s Army (December 22nd, 1944 – December 22nd, 2014) and 25th anniversary of the Whole People’s Defense Festival (December 22nd, 1989 – December 22nd, 2014) is an important political event of the army and nation. This serves as a chance for all Vietnamese servicemen across the army to look back at the historical pages, feel proud of the glorious traditions of the heroic army and heroic people. We strongly believe that all the staff of the army, with the high national pride and traditions of the heroic Vietnam People’s Army, will continue to do their best alongside the whole Party and people to build a revolutionary, regularized, battle-hardened and gradually modernized VPA, really deserving to be the core force to firmly protect the Fatherland of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the new situation.
Written by Defense Minister, General Phung Quang Thanh Translated by Thu Nguyen
Đăng ký: VietNam News
