Outstanding activities and contributions of comrade Dao Duy Tung to the Vietnamese revolution

Hometown, family, activities and contributions in the pre-uprising period
Comrade Dao Duy Tung was born on May 20, 1924, in Co Loa commune, Dong Anh district, Hanoi city, in a family of patriotic Confucian scholars. Comrade Dao Duy Tung's grandfather was Mr. Dao Duy Anh, a teacher and a physician. "Confucianism, family medicine", lived a very pure life, always using intelligence and virtue to pass on to his students and descendants. He left behind two outstanding thoughts: "Respect for virtue, past and present, and preserve the descendants", "Noble people before and after, the family's customs". Comrade Dao Duy Tung's father was Dao Duy Khai, who sympathized with the revolution, so from the end of 1943, 1944, he let all three sons participate in the revolutionary movement when they were 18 and 19 years old. On August 17, 1945, the Viet Minh Co Loa organization led the people to a successful uprising, established a revolutionary government, and Mr. Dao Duy Khai was elected Vice Chairman of the Commune Administrative Committee. Comrade Dao Duy Tung's mother was Mrs. Le Thi Tit. Mrs. Le Thi Tit's family was a revolutionary base of the Security Zone (ATK1). His wife's parents' house was where comrades Le Dinh Thiep and Tran Dang Ninh opened training classes to train key cadres for the revolutionary movement in Co Loa, Dong Anh during the pre-uprising period.
Comrade Dao Duy Tung was born and raised in a land with a rich history, culture and revolutionary tradition (Co Loa, Dong Anh). Around the 6th to 3rd century BC, the ancient Vietnamese people here adapted and developed intensive agriculture with 2 rice crops per year, growing fruit trees; developing handicrafts such as weaving, pottery, carpentry, etc. Along with a diversified agriculture, Co Loa, Dong Anh was a prominent area of ​​the Bronze Age, a metallurgical center of the ancient Vietnamese. In addition to bronze casting, iron metallurgy (forging) also began to develop. The large bronze drum cast in Co Loa 500-600 years BC (discovered in 1982) belongs to the oldest and most beautiful group of bronze drums of the Dong Son civilization.
With its prominent role as a region of intensive and diversified agriculture and a center of prosperous bronze metallurgy and the beginning of the transition to iron forging techniques, Thuc Phan, after unifying Lac Viet and Au Viet into Au Lac, decided to establish the capital in Co Loa and build Co Loa into the capital, military citadel, and first city of the Vietnamese people. In 938, Ngo Quyen defeated the Southern Han army at Bach Dang River, completely ending the thousands of years of domination, opening a new era - long-lasting independence and brilliant development of the country; Ngo Vuong decided to establish the capital in Co Loa to continue the ancient national tradition of An Duong Vuong. Co Loa was reborn as the "imperial land" that began the national and cultural revival in the 10th century.

In the revolutionary cause of national liberation under the leadership of the Party, the people of Co Loa promoted their tradition and patriotism, and soon accepted the light of the revolution and the Party. The revolutionary movement in Co Loa, Dong Anh developed at a turning point after the 8th Central Conference (May 1941). This historic conference was chaired by leader Nguyen Ai Quoc. The conference completed the strategic and tactical shift of the revolution, to concentrate the strength of the great national unity bloc for the goal of gaining independence and freedom for the entire nation. The conference decided to establish the Vietnam Independence League (abbreviated as Viet Minh). The conference determined the revolutionary method of “the Indochina revolution ending with an armed uprising”, therefore the conference decided: We must promote the preparation of an armed uprising, when the opportunity comes “with available forces, we can lead a partial uprising in each locality and can also win victory to pave the way for a great General Uprising”1. After the conference, the Central Committee advocated building a safe zone in some areas around Hanoi. At the end of 1941, Co Loa and the communes of Dong Anh district, the south of Kim Anh district, Yen Lang district (Phuc Yen) were included in the official ATK1 of the Central Committee, managed by the Central Committee’s Special Task Force. At the end of 1943, comrade Le Dinh Thiep, a member of the Central Task Force, was sent to Dong Anh and then to Co Loa to build revolutionary bases, developing revolutionary organizations into a revolutionary movement in Co Loa.
Comrade Le Dinh Thiep quickly met and enlightened progressive youths in Co Loa. The first generation of youths in Co Loa were enlightened into the National Salvation Youth Organization. The revolutionary movement in Co Loa developed strongly. Comrade Le Dinh Thiep organized nearly a dozen outstanding national salvation youths and organized the Viet Minh in Co Loa. Comrade Dao Duy Tung was one of the first members of the Viet Minh Organization in Co Loa. Under the leadership and direction of the Central Party Working Group, directly led by Comrade Le Dinh Thiep, the Co Loa Viet Minh Organization promoted propaganda, enlightenment, construction, and development of many revolutionary bases and revolutionary masses, successfully completing the tasks of ATK1 such as: transporting and protecting many Central comrades to ATK for meetings, consultations, and directing the revolutionary movement, printing the Liberation Flag Newspaper, Party documents, and the smooth and safe operation of communication stations from ATK1 to the Viet Bac base and localities nationwide. At the same time, the Viet Minh organization in Co Loa actively promoted the development of revolutionary forces such as the National Salvation Youth, National Salvation Farmers, National Salvation Women, National Salvation Elders, National Salvation Children, and especially educated and motivated the National Salvation Youth Union members to join the local militia and self-defense forces. Organized struggles against tax collection, conscription, jute cultivation, and punished local tyrants. On March 9, 1945, Japan staged a coup against France, and a number of French military camps in Co Loa and Dong Anh were in disarray or fled. Under the leadership of the Central Working Party, the Viet Minh in Co Loa commune organized its self-defense forces to storm French military camps to seize weapons (guns, grenades) and collect weapons from fleeing French soldiers. Most of the captured weapons were handed over to the Working Team to send back to the Viet Bac base, while the rest were equipped for local self-defense forces.
In May 1945, due to the new requirements of the revolutionary movement, comrade Le Dinh Thiep selected a number of capable grassroots cadres to open a training course to train them to become defected cadres. Comrade Dao Duy Tung was one of 10 local grassroots cadres to attend the 7-day training course. Comrade Tran Dang Ninh was the one who directly taught three contents of the world situation: especially the situation of the Soviet-German, Japanese-French fronts in Indochina, the 10 policies of the Viet Minh, and the ethics of revolutionary cadres. After the class, comrade Tran Dang Ninh selected comrade Dao Duy Tung and three comrades out of the 10 students to introduce and provide additional training on documents on Marxism-Leninism, communism, and the Party Charter.
In early August 1945, responding to the policy of Resolution 8 of the Central Committee and the directive of the Central Standing Committee "Japan and France are fighting each other and our actions", the Viet Minh Co Loa Organization, based on the revolutionary forces and movements of the masses and the actual situation of the enemy forces in the locality, held a meeting to discuss the plan for an uprising to seize power in Co Loa. The conference set August 17, 1945 as the uprising date (previously, the Central Working Group decided to start the uprising in Dong Anh on August 21, 1945). Reporting and receiving the consent of comrade Le Dinh Thiep and the Central Working Group, on August 17, 1945, comrade Dao Duy Tung and the Viet Minh Co Loa Organization led the uprising to victory and established a revolutionary government in Co Loa called the Provisional Liberation Revolutionary Committee. On August 21, 1945, the Co Loa Viet Minh Organization mobilized the revolutionary forces of the commune to advance to Dong Anh district town along with forces from several other communes. Under the direct command of the Central Working Team and the Dong Anh District Uprising Committee, the self-defense forces attacked the Japanese army in the district town and successfully seized power in Dong Anh district.
On September 3, 1945, comrade Nguyen Trong Vinh - Secretary of Dong Anh District Party Committee, returned to Co Loa to announce the establishment of the Indochinese Communist Party cell in Co Loa commune and appointed comrade Dao Duy Tung as the cell secretary. He was then promoted to become a district cadre and sent to build a revolutionary government and mass organizations in communes in the district. From June 1946 to December 1952, as a member of the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee, Chairman of the Viet Minh of Kim Anh District, Secretary of the Kim Anh District Party Committee, Member of the Provincial Party Committee, in charge of the Propaganda Department of the Phuc Yen Provincial Party Committee, Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Viet Minh of Phuc Yen Province, Deputy of the People's Worker Mobilization Board for the Border Liberation Campaign, Deputy Secretary of the Cao Bang Provincial Party Committee, he and the collective of the District Party Committee, Provincial Party Committee of localities led the local army and people to make important contributions to the resistance war and national construction.
Outstanding contributions of comrade Dao Duy Tung in more than 30 years in charge of ideological and theoretical work and nearly 10 years as a senior leader of the Party
After completing his studies at the Marxist-Leninist Theory School in Beijing, China, from May 1955 to December 1986, he worked in ideological theory at central agencies in the following positions: Deputy Head of the Department, Head of the Training Department (1955-1962); Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department (1962); Deputy Head of the Department, Editor-in-Chief of the Study Magazine, now the Communist Magazine (1965-1980); Standing member of the Central Theoretical Research Department (1965-1980); Director of the Marxist-Leninist Institute (1980-1982); Head of the Central Propaganda Department (1982-1986). From 1986-1998, he was a senior leader of the Party as a member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Party Central Committee in charge of ideological work, science and education (1986-1991), member of the Politburo, Standing member of the Secretariat, Standing member of the Politburo - Secretariat (1991-1996). During these more than 40 years, comrade Dao Duy Tung, with his belief in revolutionary ideals, solid moral foundation and high intellectual level, tirelessly strived to excellently complete all tasks and responsibilities assigned by the Party. He made the following outstanding contributions:
Contributing greatly to the cause of political theory education in the Party and society, building and developing the system of political schools at all levels from the central to provincial, municipal and district levels, both full-time and part-time; Training and developing a team of political theory lecturers, forming and perfecting the system of textbooks on the subjects of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh thought, and Party history. In the 6th term, as Chairman of the Compilation Council, Comrade Dao Duy Tung directly directed the organization of the construction and completion of the compilation of national standard textbooks on the subjects of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh thought, and history of the Communist Party of Vietnam; as the first Chairman of the Publishing Council of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Selected Works; Ho Chi Minh Complete Works, and Complete Party Documents. These are classic political theory books, the foundation for studying, thoroughly grasping, steadfastly applying, and creatively developing the Party's ideological foundation.
During nearly 43 years of working at the Central Committee, he devoted most of his time, intelligence and enthusiasm to theoretical research, summarizing practices, propagating and educating political theory and the Party's policies and guidelines, discovering and spreading new models and factors, and fighting seriously and effectively against views that are contrary to the Party's policies and guidelines. As a theorist with innovative thinking, he always closely linked theoretical research activities with summarizing practices, spending a lot of time going to the grassroots to listen to the voices of the people, cadres, party members and intellectuals, so he promptly discovered and supported new factors when they were still in their infancy and had not yet been officially recognized.
At the end of 1970, when the product contract appeared for production teams and cooperative members in Vinh Phuc, then in Hai Phong, although not yet officially recognized, but with the responsibility of Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, Editor-in-Chief of the Communist magazine, Standing member of the Central Theoretical Research Department, comrade Dao Duy Tung and a number of cadres went to Vinh Phuc and Hai Phong many times to directly examine and listen to the voices of cooperative members, cooperative cadres, district cadres, provincial and city leaders, then proactively coordinated with the leaders of Nhan Dan Newspaper, Dai Doan Ket Newspaper and Hai Phong leaders to organize a scientific seminar on product contract in Hai Phong, moving towards organizing a national agricultural conference in Hai Phong. From the above activities, comrade Dao Duy Tung came to the conclusion: Product contract to groups and workers is an economic management model that creates motivation, because this management model has directly linked the interests of each worker. This conclusion is one of the scientific and practical arguments that contributed significantly to the Central Secretariat of the 4th tenure issuing Directive 100 CT/TW on January 13, 1981 (commonly known as Contract 100), with the new contract mechanism along with the State's investment in irrigation, fertilizers, seeds... our country's agriculture initially overcame the prolonged stagnation and weakness, and had steps of development, in the years 1981-1985, increasing by an average of 4.9% per year. The country's food output increased from 15 million tons in 1981 to 18.2 million tons in 1985. The average food per capita increased from 273kg in 1981 to 304kg in 1985, in the North, more than 80,000 hectares of abandoned land were restored!
After nearly 2 years of implementing the Resolution of the 6th Congress, as a member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, in charge of ideological and scientific work, he devoted a lot of time and enthusiasm to the spirit of innovative thinking, looking straight at the truth, telling the truth and evaluating the truth to direct and organize theoretical research activities, summarize the practical experience of 5 years of implementing Contract 100, 2 years of implementing the guidelines of the 6th Congress and made outstanding contributions in forming the draft Resolution of the Politburo No. 10-NQ/TW dated April 5, 1988 on innovation in agricultural management.

This Resolution assessed the positive impacts of the implementation of 10 policies and guidelines of the 4th Central Resolution (August 14, 1977), especially the policy of contracting out final products to groups and workers, and notably, a number of good models and new factors have emerged. At the same time, the Resolution pointed out that our country's agriculture is developing slowly, the commodity rate is low, many regions have not yet escaped self-sufficiency, fragmentation and monoculture, food production has decreased, forests have been seriously destroyed, the ecological environment is not protected, superstitious practices and social evils tend to develop.
The Resolution pointed out that the main cause of the above situation was that the leadership and direction had the following main shortcomings: There was no correct strategy for socio-economic development to gradually create a reasonable industrial-agricultural structure, there was no proper focus on the leading front of agriculture, especially for food and foodstuff development, there was no close combination of agriculture, forestry and fishery, there was no association of industry with agriculture, especially the industry of producing means of production for agriculture and the processing industry, there was no adequate investment in scientific research and application of advanced techniques in production. Direct investment in agriculture was wasteful and ineffective. In reorganizing production and transforming socialism, agriculture had a simple perception of socialism and the first stage of the transition period; it did not grasp the law that production relations must be consistent with the nature and level of development of productive forces; Not having a firm grasp of the natural, economic and social characteristics of each region and not thoroughly implementing the principles of voluntariness and democratic management. Being subjective and hasty in reforming and forcing farmers into cooperatives, production groups, and thoroughly collectivizing the means of production. Mechanically applying forms of organizational management to different regions and cooperatives. For a long time, there was a lack of encouragement for household economy, no policy on properly using individual and private economy, no good organization of association and joint ventures between economic sectors... no synchronous policy to consolidate and strengthen socialist production relations in agriculture, forestry and fishery in all three aspects of ownership relations, management relations and distribution relations. Maintaining the centralized bureaucratic subsidy mechanism and the egalitarian distribution regime for too long. There were many mistakes in major policies for agriculture such as incentive policies for food crop growers, policies on the relationship between the State and cooperatives and farmers. The material supply system is slow to be reformed, and its organization and operation methods have many negative aspects. The management organization system from the central to the grassroots level has many unreasonable aspects, becoming increasingly cumbersome, bureaucratic, and ineffective. The agricultural science and technology staff has not been properly arranged and used. The management staff at the grassroots level is weak and slow to be trained and developed.
From the correct assessment of the situation and causes above, Resolution 10 decided to strongly innovate agricultural economic management to achieve the following 4 requirements:
- Truly liberate production capacity, promote all potentials of economic sectors, regions, and agricultural specialties.
- Properly resolve interest relationships, especially ensuring the legitimate interests of producers, first of all for rice growers, constantly improving people's lives, contributing to the accumulation of the cause of building socialism.
- Expand democracy, promote the rule of law, build new countryside.
- Innovate the organization of cadres to suit the new economic structure and management mechanism. Purify and enhance the fighting capacity of Party organizations, cadres and party members.
To achieve the above requirements, Resolution 10 has identified 4 major policies with a system of synchronous and feasible solutions to strongly and effectively innovate in agricultural economic management. Resolution 10 of the Politburo on innovation in agricultural economic management, which we often call "Contract 10", is truly a comprehensive and synchronous innovation decision in the key stage of the agricultural economy, helping to create a comprehensive strength, a new economic management model, in which the driving force is to harmoniously resolve three interests: the State, the collective, and the workers. Resolution "Contract 10" is truly a breakthrough for the remarkable development of agriculture, rural areas and farmers in Vietnam.
The most outstanding contribution of the theorist Dao Duy Tung was his responsibility as a leading member of the Editorial Team of the Political Report presented to the 6th Congress. Comrade Dao Duy Tung made an important contribution to the development of 3 economic viewpoints: On economic restructuring, On socialist reform and On management mechanism. With this responsibility, comrade Dao Duy Tung not only contributed to the Editorial Team's proposal to the Document Subcommittee to be presented to the Politburo for discussion, but also made an important contribution to the drafting of the conclusions of the Politburo Conference on September 20, 1986 on a number of issues related to economic viewpoints. Under the direction of comrade Truong Chinh, comrade Dao Duy Tung was assigned to direct a group of members of the Editorial Board to directly draft the Politburo's conclusions on a number of important issues, especially on economic viewpoints, in order to clarify one step of our Party's strategic guiding ideology on building socialism in general and leading the development of the economy in particular. When the Politburo of the 5th tenure approved this conclusion, it opened a breakthrough for the revision and completion of the Political Report to be submitted to the 6th Congress for approval. This was a milestone in our Party's initiation and leadership of the cause of comprehensive national innovation, first of all innovation in the economic field.
And in the 6th Session, with the responsibility of being the Standing Member of the Subcommittee to draft the Platform for National Construction in the Transitional Period to Socialism, Comrade Dao Duy Tung made outstanding contributions, recommending that the Politburo select talented theorists and leading experts in the fields of politics, economics, culture, society, national defense, security and foreign affairs to participate in the Editorial Team, organize democratic discussions and recommend that the General Secretary and the Politburo approve: The name of the Platform, the structure and main content of the Platform; assign editorial groups to be in charge of drafting each content of the Platform based on a thorough summary of 15 years of building socialism in the North and 10 years of building socialism nationwide. When organizing the discussion of the Draft, each content of the Platform strongly promoted freedom of thought with the motto of looking straight at the truth, speaking the truth, evaluating the truth correctly. When there are different opinions on the concepts and viewpoints of each issue, it is necessary to frankly and objectively state the arguments of each viewpoint, without prejudice or stereotypes. One must calmly listen to opinions that are different from one's own. Even opinions that one thinks are wrong also suggest many thoughts for oneself, or opinions that one thinks are incorrect, one must calmly consider whether there are any reasonable factors.
The first draft was nearly 200 pages long, the Standing Committee of the Subcommittee directly discussed with each member and finally edited and summarized it into nearly 20 pages: When reporting to the Politburo of the 6th tenure, the Standing Committee focused on presenting a number of options for the name of the Platform, assessing the revolutionary process and lessons learned, presenting scientific arguments to identify each characteristic of socialism that our people built, the basic directions of the process of building socialism in our country, along with major orientations on economic, cultural, social, national defense, security and foreign affairs policies. After receiving comments from the Politburo and the Central Executive Committee, the Drafting Subcommittee completed Draft Platform 91 to submit to the 7th Congress. The 7th Party Congress discussed and voted on each issue and finally unanimously approved this historic Platform - the Platform for national construction in the transitional period to socialism, which is a very special step in developing our Party's theoretical thinking on socialism and the path to socialism in Vietnam.
In nearly 40 years of ideological and theoretical work, in addition to hundreds of outstanding political articles, comrade Dao Duy Tung has devoted much effort, intelligence, and enthusiasm to writing many political theoretical works with profound and long-term effects, as General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong wrote: “In more than 50 years of revolutionary activities, comrade Dao Duy Tung has spent more than 30 years doing ideological and theoretical work. This is a very difficult and complicated field, but it is in this field that comrade Dao Duy Tung has made great contributions and left very good and deep impressions. We, the later generations, the students of comrade Dao Duy Tung, have learned many good things from comrade Dao Duy Tung. I have read comrade Dao Duy Tung's works such as: "The revolutionary and scientific nature of our Party", "The process of forming the path to socialism in Vietnam", "Some issues on our ideological work" ... these theoretical works are the result of a the process of deeply summarizing the Vietnamese revolutionary practice, especially the years when he was a Standing Member of the Politburo - Secretariat, traveling with General Secretary Do Muoi to many places, summarizing and discovering many problems. I can say that he lived simply, spoke simply, wrote simply but contained a high level of intelligence and contained a very profound viewpoint, very emotional towards the nation and the country”./.
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Note
1. Chronological history of the Communist Party of Vietnam, volume 2. National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2008, volume 2, p. 739