The greatest ambition of Ho Chi Minh, the great hero of liberation of the Vietnamese people in the new era, was for the Fatherland to be liberated and for the people to be free and happy. In January 1946, when answering foreign journalists as Chairman of the Government, he said:
“I absolutely do not desire fame and fortune at all. Now I have to take on the position of President because my compatriots have entrusted me with it, so I must try my best, just like a soldier obeying the nation's orders to go to the front. When my compatriots let me retire, I will gladly retire. I have only one desire, an utmost desire, which is to make our country completely independent, our people completely free, everyone has food to eat, clothes to wear, and everyone can study”2.
President Ho Chi Minh visited Vinh Phuc in 1963.
That greatest ambition was the driving force that pushed Ho Chi Minh to venture into the paths of many countries in the world to survey and learn about revolutionary theories and experiences in order to build a comprehensive system of viewpoints on the Vietnamese revolution, meeting the development requirements of the nation and in line with the evolutionary trend of humanity in the new era. Ho Chi Minh's system of revolutionary viewpoints is the inheritance and development to a new height of the traditional spiritual values of ideology and culture of the nation, combined with the selection, synthesis and dialectical development of the values of Eastern cultural ideology, the cultural ideology of the European and American revolutions in the 17th and 18th centuries and especially the revolutionary doctrine of Marx and Lenin. That system of revolutionary ideological viewpoints has the historical stature of a doctrine of liberation and development for independence and freedom.
Implementing Ho Chi Minh's doctrine of independence and freedom in a country that was originally a colony, had a backward agricultural economy, poor industry, and a population mainly composed of farmers must take place over a long period of time, and in general, must be carried out through three successive revolutionary strategies, first of all, the national liberation revolution, through the people's democratic revolution, creating the premise for transition to socialism. To achieve victory in that revolutionary cause, first of all, there must be a revolutionary party armed with a creative revolutionary doctrine as the ideological basis and compass for revolutionary action, with a scientific revolutionary platform and line built in accordance with the history, country, and people of Vietnam, and the party must be scientifically and tightly organized, especially there must be a team of Party members with revolutionary ideals and ethics, steadfastly fighting for the interests of the Fatherland and the people.
The issue of revolutionary ethics of the Party members is related to the leadership role of the Party and the success or failure of the revolution. Ho Chi Minh once emphasized: Just like a river must have a source to have water, without a source the river will dry up. A tree must have roots, without roots the tree will wither. A revolutionary must have ethics, without ethics, no matter how talented he is, he cannot lead the people. Therefore, right from the time of preparing and founding the Party and throughout the stages of struggle, Ho Chi Minh constantly cared about building revolutionary strategies and educating and training the Party members to be truly exemplary revolutionary soldiers. The article "Qualities of a Revolutionary", the first lecture in the work "Revolutionary Path" at the cadre training class in Guangzhou, consisting of 13 articles, and the article "Exemplary Revolutionary" consisting of 12 articles, published only in September 1926, expressed the basic contents of the revolutionary ethics of Vietnamese communist soldiers. A revolutionary soldier must maintain a strong will to fight, always put the interests of the Fatherland above all else, be persistent and patient, dare to sacrifice himself for the great cause of the nation, disregard fame, position, and dishonest money. Thanks to building a team of exemplary revolutionary soldiers, the Party overcame all challenges and dangers, led our entire nation forward, leading to the success of the August Revolution in 1945, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a common state of the entire nation.
President Ho Chi Minh with officers and soldiers on a business trip, Tuyen Quang (1951)
The birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam opened a new era for the nation - an era of independence and freedom, turning the Communist Party of Vietnam - the Ho Chi Minh Party - from a secret party into a ruling party in the whole country. Entering a new historical period, under the revolutionary banner of Ho Chi Minh led by the Communist Party, our entire nation continued to consolidate the great solidarity bloc to carry out the task of resistance and nation building, with the slogan: "Nation above all! Fatherland above all". Becoming a ruling party, the Party has a state apparatus, a powerful tool to organize and mobilize the forces of the whole society to carry out the task of resistance and nation building. Along with leading the organization of the people's resistance against the re-invasion of French colonialism, the Party and the State must strive to build a new regime in a comprehensive manner in the context of the country facing countless difficulties, in order to "bring the people complete freedom and independence and let all elements of the nation enjoy that freedom and independence as all things enjoy sunlight"3.
From 1954 to 1975, the Party led the resistance war against the US to liberate the South and unify the country, while continuing to bring the revolution in the North to a new era. The 30-year struggle for revolutionary war, both resistance and nation-building, required the Party to promote creative intelligence in formulating policies while continuing to educate and train Party and State cadres, uphold the revolutionary ideal of independence and freedom, maintain the will to fight, uphold revolutionary ethics, and wipe out individualism, because individualism will degrade the qualities and ethics of the cadres holding the state power apparatus. Individualists always think of their own interests, are afraid of hardships, are corrupt, wasteful, greedy for fame, profiteering, arbitrary, authoritarian, disregarding the law, disregarding the people, etc. Therefore, while persistently pushing forward the resistance to defeat the invaders, we must at the same time eliminate individualism in each person, first of all the cadres and party members working in the Party and State apparatus, making all cadres and party members exemplary revolutionary soldiers. The training and education of party members and cadres is carried out regularly in many diverse forms, through practical work and combat, through activities of Party organizations and unions, through political study, especially with specific planned study sessions, strict guidance, need to raise awareness, both self-criticism and criticism, and have plans to correct shortcomings, promote strengths, and amend working methods such as the study session of the work Amendments to Working Methods organized in 1947, when the resistance war was fierce and fierce to fight against the strategy of quick attack, quick victory of the French invaders. The work stated 12 points about the character of a true revolutionary party, He clearly stated that party members and cadres must put the interests of the nation and the Fatherland above all and first. Enthusiastically training and volunteering to be a volunteer soldier, they voluntarily joined the Party. Therefore, each Party member must strive to be worthy of being one of the representatives of the nation, "especially cadres and leaders, must be worthy of the trust of the Party and the nation. They must set an example for all Party members and all the masses to follow"4.
From mid-1965 onwards, the resistance war against the US to save the country took place increasingly fiercely in both parts of our country, requiring the entire Party, the entire army, and the entire people to further promote revolutionary heroism, determined to fight to bring the cause of building the North and fighting the US to liberate the South, and unify the country to complete victory. It was in that context that on September 10, 1965, Ho Chi Minh wrote his extremely valuable historical Testament. Those were his last instructions, his feelings and beliefs for the entire Party, the entire army, and the entire people fighting on all fronts and for the future generations of Vietnam, to forever hold high the sacred flag of national independence, freedom and happiness for all people... To realize and maintain the ideal goal of independence and freedom, first of all, there must be a revolutionary Party to lead. That is the Communist Party of Vietnam, which he founded and trained. His Testament wrote:
“Unity is an extremely precious tradition of our Party and our people. Comrades from the Central Committee to the Party cells must preserve the unity and consensus of the Party as they preserve the apple of their eye. Within the Party, practicing broad democracy, regularly and seriously self-criticizing and criticizing is the best way to consolidate and develop the unity and solidarity of the Party. There must be comradely love for one another.” Our Party is a ruling party. Each Party member and cadre must truly imbue revolutionary ethics, truly be diligent, frugal, honest, upright, impartial and selfless. We must keep our Party truly clean, worthy of being the leader and loyal servant of the people.”5
Grasping the ideal goal of independence and freedom, the Party must be united from the Central Committee to the Party cells. The Party members must wholeheartedly serve the Party, serve the people, and serve the Fatherland, so they have led and organized the entire people to unite and fight to advance and gain victories for the nation.
On the path of development of the struggle against the great imperialists, it is inevitable that there will be stumbles and mistakes. At that time, the Party must maintain unity and consensus, practice broad democracy, self-criticism and criticism are the best ways to unite, together contemplate and explore policies and methods, ways of implementation to overcome difficulties, continue to fight and bring the revolutionary cause to complete victory.
In the historical context of the resistance war against the US to save the country in both regions from 1965 onwards, which was extremely difficult and full of sacrifices, Ho Chi Minh pondered and wrote reasonable and emotional advice with the belief that the Party would unite and unify, the Party's fighting strength would continue to be strengthened as the nucleus for the national solidarity bloc, ensuring the revolutionary cause of the Vietnamese people to complete victory.
Ho Chi Minh's Testament, written in June 1965, was a top secret document and was not made public until September 1969. However, during the resistance war against the US to save the country, he was constantly concerned with the task of Party building, educating cadres and party members about fighting spirit, revolutionary ethics, and preventing ideological degradation and falling into individualism.
In June 1968, during a working session with a number of Central Party Propaganda officials on the work and publication of the book "Good People, Good Deeds", Ho Chi Minh warned about the risk of degradation that could happen to a nation, a party, and a person.
Next, on February 3, 1969, Ho Chi Minh published the article: “Improving revolutionary morality, wiping out individualism”. He praised the cadres and party members who were brave and exemplary in combat and production, hardships came first, enjoyment came later. However, besides those comrades, there were also a number of party members who were morally inferior, possessed strong individualism, corruption, degeneracy, waste, fame-seeking, profiteering, and fond of power and position. They were arrogant, conceited, looked down on the collective, despised the masses, were out of touch with reality, bureaucratic, commandist, disunited, disorganized, lacking a sense of responsibility, did not comply with the Party and State's policies and guidelines, and harmed the interests of the revolution. Therefore, we must make every effort to strengthen education on ideals and revolutionary ethics, resolutely wipe out individualism, and improve revolutionary ethics.... This is a necessary task to make all party members and cadres worthy of being revolutionary vanguard soldiers, to contribute more to the cause of building the North, and to promote the cause of resistance against the US, to save the country, overcoming all difficulties, which may last for several more years, and our people will have to sacrifice many lives and properties. In any case, we must be determined to fight the US invaders until final victory. Our Fatherland will definitely be unified, and our mountains and rivers will be reunited.
Khi Đảng trở thành một đảng cầm quyền, mỗi cán bộ đảng viên và đặc biệt là cán bộ lãnh đạo cao cấp phải thấm nhuần đạo đức cách mạng, cần kiệm liêm chính, chí công vô tư và như Di chúc Người đã căn dặn.
Hãy giữ vững lời thề của toàn Đảng, toàn quân, toàn dân ta trước anh linh của Người, trước hết là những cán bộ đảng viên của Đảng và Nhà nước phải “suốt đời học tập đạo đức tác phong của Người, bồi dưỡng phẩm chất cách mạng, không sợ gian khổ, không sợ hy sinh, rèn luyện mình thành những chiến sĩ trung thành với Đảng với dân…, nguyện ra sức trau dồi mình thành những con người mới, làm chủ đất nước, làm chủ xã hội mới, mang lá cờ bách chiến bách thắng của Hồ Chủ tịch tới đích cuối cùng”6.
Học tập và làm theo Di chúc của Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh, toàn Đảng, toàn dân và toàn quân ta đã vượt qua bao nhiêu khó khăn, đã hoàn thành thắng lợi sự nghiệp chống Mỹ, giải phóng miền Nam, thống nhất, đưa lịch sử dân tộc Việt Nam tiến vào một kỷ nguyên mới.
Giữ gìn và nâng cao đạo đức cách mạng, loại trừ chủ nghĩa cá nhân là một yêu cầu thường xuyên của toàn Đảng, toàn dân, trước hết là cán bộ đảng viên, nhất là khi Đảng đã trở thành một đảng cầm quyền.
Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh đã cảnh báo: “Một dân tộc, một đảng và mỗi con người, ngày hôm qua là vĩ đại, có sức hấp dẫn lớn, không nhất định hôm nay và ngày mai vẫn được mọi người yêu mến và ca ngợi, nếu lòng dạ không trong sáng nữa, nếu sa vào chủ nghĩa cá nhân… Mỗi con người đều có thiện và ác trong lòng. Ta phải biết làm cho phần tốt ở trong mỗi con người nảy nở như hoa mùa xuân và phần xấu bị mất dần đi, đó là thái độ của người cách mạng…”7.
Lời cảnh báo của Hồ Chí Minh năm 1968 đang có giá trị thực tiễn nóng hổi, nhắc nhở toàn Đảng, toàn dân ta, trước hết là đội ngũ cán bộ đảng viên của Đảng và Nhà nước từ Trung ương đến cơ sở hãy tiếp tục học tập, thực hiện Di chúc của Người, nâng cao đạo đức cách mạng, quét sạch chủ nghĩa cá nhân, loại ra khỏi hàng ngũ của Đảng và Nhà nước sự tha hoá, biến chất về tư tưởng, đạo đức… để đẩy lùi nguy cơ lớn đang đe doạ sự sống còn của Đảng, của chế độ.
Phải đổi mới, chỉnh đốn Đảng, nâng cao năng lực lãnh đạo và sức chiến đấu của Đảng, xây dựng Đảng thật sự trong sạch, vững mạnh về cả chính trị, tư tưởng về tổ chức, đoàn kết nhất trí cao, gắn bó mật thiết với nhân dân có phương thức lãnh đạo khoa học, có đội ngũ cán bộ, đảng viên đủ phẩm chất và năng lực. Đây thực sự là nhiệm vụ then chốt và cấp bách có ý nghĩa sống còn đối với Đảng và sự nghiệp cách mạng của nhân dân ta hiện nay.
2Ho Chi Minh:Full set, Nxb. Chính trị quốc gia, Hà Nội, 1995, t.4, tr.161
3Ho Chi Minh:Full set, Sđd, t.4, tr.45
4Ho Chi Minh:Full set, Ibid, vol.4, p.253
5Ho Chi Minh:Full set, Ibid, vol.12, pp.497, 498
6Ho Chi Minh:Full set, Ibid, vol.12, p.519
7Ho Chi Minh:Full set, Ibid, vol.12, pp.557, 558
