14th National Party Congress’s opening: Great aspirations, steady steps

Party General Secretary To Lam, head of the Documents Subcommittee, on behalf of the 13th Party Central Committee, on January 20 presented its report on the documents submitted to the 14th National Congress, highlighting key issues and new points in the draft documents for the congress to consider, discuss and decide upon.

The draft documents include the draft Political Report of the 13th Party Central Committee; the draft Report reviewing a number of theoretical and practical issues related to the socialist-oriented renewal process over the past 40 years in Vietnam; and the draft Report summarising 15 years of implementation of the Party Statutes (2011 2025), together with proposals and orientations for amending and supplementing the Party Statutes.

Notably, the draft Political Report integrates in a coordinated manner three reports - the Political Report, the Socio-economic Report, and the Report reviewing Party building work - into a unified and comprehensive whole, with clear focus and priorities, concise presentation, and content that is easy to understand, remember, and implement.

According to the report, in just one month, nearly five million officials, Party members and people contributed more than 14 million opinions submitted to the Documents Subcommittee. These inputs were carefully reviewed and earnestly incorporated, helping to shape a Political Report that is the crystallisation of the people’s intellect and strength, a harmonious convergence of the Party’s will and the people’s aspirations, truly serving as a “guiding torch” and a “handbook for action” for the entire Party, people and army.

The comprehensive outcomes of the 13th Congress term have continued to reaffirm the Party’s leadership role and reputation. Public confidence in the Party, the State and the regime has been steadily strengthened, creating an important foundation for the country to enter a new stage of development with renewed momentum, determination and aspirations.

Looking back on 40 years of renewal with great achievements of historic significance, including the notable contributions of the 13th Congress term, Vietnam has full grounds to affirm that the Party’s renewal guideline is entirely correct, consistent with the country’s realities and aligned with the development trends of the times. This guideline clearly identifies the people as the centre and the subject of the revolutionary cause; steadfastly upholds the goal of national independence associated with socialism; and consistently builds and perfects three foundational pillars: a socialist-oriented market economy, a socialist rule-of-law state, and socialist democracy.

Hallmarks of 13th National Party Congress term

From the reality of leading the revolution over the four decades of renewal, the report points out five valuable lessons.

First, remaining steadfast in, and creatively applying and developing Marxism Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s Thought; persisting with the goal of national independence linked with socialism, the Party’s renewal policy, and the Party’s organisational and operational principles; pursuing development to ensure stability and maintaining stability to secure sustainable development; continuously working to improve the people’s living standards; placing the highest priority on national interests; firmly safeguarding independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, and protecting the Fatherland early and from afar; proactively and actively pursuing intensive and extensive integration into global politics, the international economy and human civilisation, while combining the strength of the nation with that of the times.

Second, firmly upholding and strengthening the Party’s leadership, governing role and combat strength is the decisive factor in all victories. Building and rectifying the Party and the political system, making it pure and strong; ensuring a streamlined, efficient, effective and capable apparatus; resolutely and persistently preventing and combating corruption, wastefulness and negative phenomena; and building a contingent of cadres, especially those at the strategic level, with sufficient qualifications, competence and prestige, commensurate with their tasks, as well as grassroots-level cadres who stay close to the people, serve the people and are fully capable of fulfilling their duties. Underscoring the responsibility and exemplary role of cadres and Party members, especially heads of agencies.

Third, thoroughly grasping and fully practising the viewpoint that “the people are the roots,” bringing into full play the People’s role as the subject and their central position. Strengthening, consolidating and harnessing the power of the People and the great national unity bloc. Genuinely trusting, respecting and promoting the People’s right to mastery; and practising the principle that “the people know, the people discuss, the people act, the people inspect, the people supervise, and the people benefit.”

Fourth, closely adhering to reality and making accurate forecasts of the situation; adopting proactive, flexible, timely and appropriate policy responses; exercising decisive, focused and prioritised leadership, direction, administration and implementation; clearly defining roles, responsibilities, authority, timelines, and expected results; conducting rigorous inspections and supervision; improving the quality of institutions; removing bottlenecks, unlocking and effectively utilising all resources for national construction, development, and defence.

Fifth, continuously renewing the mindset, especially strategic mindset; remaining consistent and steadfast in strategy while being flexible and adaptive in tactics; respecting objective rules; and preventing and combating subjectivism, voluntarism, dogmatism, opportunism and conservatism.

The report also highlights the core principles guiding the drafting of the documents: an open-minded, scientific and action-oriented spirit.

Strategic decisions

The Congress’s slogan, “Solidarity Democracy Discipline Breakthrough Development,” is both a rallying call and a command of responsibility before history. The overarching objective of the report is to safeguard a peaceful and stable environment; rapidly and sustainably develop the country; comprehensively improve and raise people’s living standards; enhance strategic self-reliance, self-strengthening and confidence, and strongly advance into a new era of the nation; successfully realise the goal of becoming a developing country with modern industry and upper-middle income by 2030; and fulfill the vision of becoming a developed country with high income by 2045 and a peaceful, independent, democratic, strong, prosperous, civilised and happy socialist Vietnam. Efforts will be made to achieve an average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 10% or higher during the 2026 2030 period, with GDP per capita reaching around 8,500 USD by 2030.

To realise the above objectives, the Political Report identifies 12 major orientations; six focal tasks and three strategic breakthroughs. The Action Plan has detailed tasks that can be implemented immediately. The core spirit is condensed in eight important areas, clearly demonstrating the requirement for: Choosing correctly implementing quickly doing it thoroughly measuring by results.

First: Perfecting development institutions and the rule-of-law socialist State: Taking implementation as the measure of success.

Second: Establishing a new growth model: knowledge-based economy, digital economy, green economy, circular economy.

Third: Science technology, innovation, and digital transformation: The central driving force of development.

Fourth: Culture and people: The spiritual foundation of society, the intrinsic strength, resources, and driving force for the country's development.

Fifth: National defence security and diplomacy: Maintaining peace for development, and securing development to strengthen the overall national strength.

Sixth: Building and rectifying the Party and political system to make them pure and strong in all aspects; the personnel work is the "key of all keys".

Seventh: Building a healthy, disciplined, civilised, safe, and developed Vietnamese society.

Eighth: Great national solidarity: The foundation of national strength.

The three strategic breakthroughs identified at the 13th National Party Congress are significant for the entire 2021 2030 period, but in the term of the 14th National Party Congress, the requirement is to implement them strongly, quickly, and thoroughly, because these are the decisive levers for the country's breakthrough. They are a breakthrough in institutions and implementation, a breakthrough in human resources and a breakthrough in synchronised and modern infrastructure.

The overarching idea in the document, and also the source of strength for the Vietnamese revolution, is that “the People are the foundation". The People form the centre, the key player, the goal, the driving force, and the resource of development. All guidelines and policies must aim to improve the material and spiritual lives of the People; ensure the People's right to mastery; respect, listen to, and rely on the People. The Party must be closely connected with the People, wholeheartedly serve the People, be subject to the People's supervision, and be accountable to the People for all its decisions.

The People's trust in the Party does not come from words, but from actions, from the impartiality and integrity of officials, from the efficiency of the apparatus, from fairness in benefit enjoyment, from the effective protection of rights and legitimate interests, and from the timely and thorough resolution of legitimate grievances of people and businesses.

Entering a new phase, it is a must to pay even more attention to building a strong foundation of public support. A strong foundation of public support leads to strong national defence and security; a strong foundation of public support ensures that reforms can be carried out thoroughly. With a strong foundation of public support, any difficulty can be overcome, and any challenge can be resolved, just as Uncle Ho taught: "A hundred times easier without the people's support, nothing can be achieved; a thousand times harder with the people's support, everything can be accomplished."

The biggest weakness is that many policies are correct but their implementation is not up to par. Therefore, this Document emphasises the need for action; highlights the responsibility of each level, each sector, and each cadre; resolutely addresses the situation of "talking much but doing little", "saying well but doing poorly", or even "saying one thing and doing another"; lacking inspection and supervision; setting high goals but implementing them slowly and with low effectiveness.

To turn determination into results, it is necessary to focus intensely on five groups of tasks.

"First, the Documents should be concretised into programmes and plans with clear objectives, measurable targets, deadlines, and specific responsibilities; every task must has persons held accountable to the end; we must avoid situations where "everyone's responsibility is no one's responsibility" or "responsibility is passed from one person to another".

Second, we must establish mechanisms for regular and unscheduled inspections, monitoring, and evaluations; resolutely address inertia, avoidance, and shirking of responsibility; promptly reward those who perform well; and effectively protect those who dare to think, dare to act, and dare to take responsibility for the common good.

Third, we must mobilise and utilise resources efficiently; practice thrift and combat wastefulness; make focused and prioritised investment; avoid spreading resources too thinly; not blindly follow trends; and prevent losses and wastefulness that erode social trust and resources and slow down the country's progress.

Fourth, we must adopt a culture of public service that is incorruptible, professional, and scientific; make the satisfaction of citizens and businesses an important criterion; use data and results as the basis for evaluation; resolutely prevent negative phenomena; and increase transparency and accountability.

Fifth, it is necessary to improve the information and communication work to secure social consensus. Deep and wide-ranging reforms will inevitably affect vested interests, therefore, transparency, attentive listening, thorough explanation, and persistent persuasion are essential; together with resolutely combating all forms of abuse and distortion; and at the same time, respecting constructive feedback and promptly addressing any inadequacies in implementation."

Implementation must be linked to discipline. Party discipline must come first. The rule of law must be strictly enforced. All power must be controlled. All responsibilities must be clearly defined. All wrongdoings must be dealt with, and all genuine efforts for the people and the nation must be recognised and protected.

"Inheriting the glorious tradition under the glorious flag of the Party; with the unanimity and joint efforts of the entire Party, people, and armed forces; with the will of self-reliance, self-strengthening, and aspiration for progress of the nation; with the strategic vision and groundbreaking policies identified in the Documents presented to the 14th National Party Congress; we will certainly create a strong and substantive transformation, bringing the country to groundbreaking development, fully realising Uncle Ho's sacred wish: 'My last wish is that the entire Party and people unite and strive to build a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic, and prosperous Vietnam, and make a worthy contribution to the world’s revolutionary cause," according to the report.

"We are entering a new stage of development with the glorious traditions of our nation, the achievements of 96 years under the Party's leadership, 40 years of renewal with valuable lessons, the strength of great national solidarity, and the support of the people. We have every reason to believe that with high ideological unity; decisive action; strict discipline; and with the People truly at the centre, we will certainly turn our aspirations into reality; leading the country to advance strongly and steadily in the era of the nation’s rise, progressing towards Socialism."

Then, Politburo member and Standing member of the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat Tran Cam Tu presented a report reviewing the leadership and direction of the 13th-tenure Party Central Committee./.