The article was published on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the August Revolution, National Day, and the upcoming 13th National Party Congress.

Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong

For nearly a century (90 years since the establishment of the Communist Party of Vietnam), the National Party Congress has always been a significant and meaningful event that marked a new development step of the country. The 13th National Party Congress is taking place at the time the international and regional situation is having very fast, complicated and unpredictable developments; the country faces many advantages, opportunities and difficulties, and challenges many new problems. Our cadres, party members and people have high expectations of correct, strong and wise decisions of the Party.

With the motto: Solidarity - Democracy - Discipline - Innovation - Development, the upcoming National Party Congress not only reviews the implementation of the Resolution of the 12th Congress but also looks back at 35 years of Doi Moi (renovation), 30 years of implementation of the Platform 1991, 10 years of implementation of the revised Platform 2011, the Socio-economic Development Strategy 2011-2020; sets out the directions and tasks for the term 2021 - 2026, defines goals and orientations to 2030 (celebrating the Party’s 100th anniversary) and national development vision to 2045 (celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam).

Therefore, this will certainly be an important milestone in the development process of our Party, our people, our country, and has a sense of future orientation, continuing to comprehensively and synchronously promote the cause of Doi Moi, integration and national development.

The draft documents submitted to the upcoming Congress have been prepared in a very meticulous, methodical and thoughtful manner; thoroughly grasping the principle of cleverly combining between theory and practice, between consistency and innovation, and between inheritance and development, on the basis of maximizing democracy, listening to the opinion of scientists, officials, party members and people; selecting, refining, referring to the enthusiastic and responsible proposals; crystallizing the wisdom and creativity of the entire Party, the entire people and the entire army.

The political report is the central document of the Congress, together with the Summary Report on the implementation of the 10-year Socio-Economic Development Strategy 2011 - 2020, building the 2021-2030 Socio-Economic Development Strategy; Report on evaluation of the implementation of socio-economic development tasks for the 2016-2020 period and directions and tasks of socio-economic development for 2021 - 2025; and Summary Report on Party building work and implementation of Party Charter.

The documents submitted to the Congress show major views, policies and directions, the Party's vision and strategic thinking, the nation’s development aspirations and the political determination of the entire Party, entire people, and entire army in the cause of firmly building and defending our country – the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – a strong country of rich people, democratic, and civilized society. The recent grassroots-level congress considered and discussed all draft documents of the National Party Congress. I know that the grassroots congresses received diverse, multi-dimensional opinions of different angles and different approaches.

The Document Drafting Subcommittees have received, summarized these opinions to supplement and complete the reports. At the upcoming congresses of the central-level Party committees and the National Party Congress, delegates and delegations will continue to participate in the discussion. I will not go into details of the reports but some major and important issues for further consultation of the Congress.

I- Looking back at the 12th term, we are happy to see that the whole Party, the entire people, and the entire army have promoted the spirit of solidarity, demonstrated bravery, intelligence, creative efforts, overcome many difficulties and challenges, successfully implemented the key objectives and tasks, obtained many very important achievements; The country has continued to develop rapidly and quite comprehensively, with positive changes and many outstanding hallmarks:

- At a time global economy and trade declines and then falls into a serious crisis due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, our economy still maintains a relatively high average growth rate (6%) to be one of the fastest growing economies in the region and in the world. The quality of growth is improved; the macro-economy is still fairly stable; major economic balances are guaranteed; financial discipline of the State budget is strengthened.

Social investment, production and business capacity increase sharply. The economy's potential, size and competitiveness continue to be raised. The society is basically stable, people's lives have been increasingly improved (the household poverty rate fell from 58% in 1993, 9.88% in 2016 to less than 3% in 2020). The fields of social security, health, education - training, science - technology, protection of environmental resources, cultural development, Vietnamese people building, etc. have many positive changes.

- The work of building and regulating the Party and the political system is particularly of interest, carried out comprehensively on all aspects of politics, ideology, morality, organization and personnel, making prominent hallmarks. The fight against corruption, negative phenomena and wastefulness has changed and carried out drastically, methodically, making a breakthrough and achieving many specific, clear and positive results.

Corruption, degradation, self-transformation within the Party and political system has been gradually restrained. Many economic and corruption cases, especially serious ones, were discovered, investigated, prosecuted, trialed in a strict manner, with no restricted areas, no exceptions, creating great deterrence and alertness, and being welcomed, highly appreciated and supported by cadres, party members and people.

- In the face of complicated developments in the world and the region, the hostile forces’ opposition, our national defense and security have been strengthened. Political security, social order and safety were maintained. Foreign affairs and international integration have been promoted, constantly expanded and developed in depth, contributing to consolidating a peaceful and stable environment for development; resolutely, persistently maintaining independence, sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and strategic interests of the country; Vietnam's prestige and position in the international arena have been continuously improved.

- In 2020, thanks to the sensitive and correct leadership of the Party and State, the drastic and timely direction and administration of the Government, the synchronous and active participation of the whole political system, the agreement, response and strong support from the people of the whole country and our people abroad, we have basically controlled and prevented the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic in the community, minimizing the damage and losses caused by the epidemic, ensuring security and social welfare for the people, step by step restoring production and business, striving to complete the socio-economic development tasks of 2020 and the whole period 2016 – 2020 at the highest level. Vietnam has become a bright spot in controlling and preventing the Covid-19 pandemic, has been recognized and highly appreciated by the world, through which the people's confidence in the Party, the State and the socialist regime has been strengthened.

The achievements obtained in the past 5 years have both objective and subjective reasons, the most important of which is the proper leadership and direction of the Central Party Committee, the Politburo, the Secretariat and Party committees at all levels in implementing the Resolution of the 12th Congress, promptly and effectively solving many new problems that have arisen in practice; drastic and sensitive management and administration by the Government and the authorities at all levels; the National Assembly's efforts to renovate the contents and modes of operation; the unity and synchronous coordination of the whole political system; the promotion of patriotic traditions and strengthening of great national solidarity; the efforts of cadres and party members; the active, creative and responsible labor spirit of the people; the trust, consensus and support of the international community.

These achievements are the products of creativity, the result of a process of persistent and continuous efforts in many terms of the entire Party, the entire people and the entire army, contributing to the creation of great achievements with historical significance of our country.

I have said many times that, with all humility, we can still assert: Our country has never had the career, potential, position and international reputation as we have today. From a small, poor, backward country, with very low education, almost no name on the world map, today Vietnam has grown to become a country with a population of nearly 100 million people, a developing country with middle income, establishing relationships with most countries in the world, joining almost all international organizations and being a responsible member and partner of the international community.

So that we have more faith, excitement and pride, and continue to affirm that our path is correct, in accordance with the laws of objectivity, in line with Vietnamese practices and the trend of development of the era; the policies of our Party are right, creative; the leadership of the Party is wise and the leading factor determining all the victories of the Vietnamese revolution; The Party's political platform continues to be the flag of ideology and theory that leads our nation to firmly promote the renovation and the foundation for our Party to continue perfecting the way of building and defending the Fatherland in the new era.

Five years of implementing the Resolution of the 12th Congress was a very lively practice for us to continue to affirm, supplement and deepen the lessons learned from the previous terms:

Firstly, the Party building work (organization and personnel building) must be implemented comprehensively, synchronously and regularly in terms of ideology, politics, morality, organization and personnel. Consistency and stability on the basis of the Party's ideology go hand in hand with the Party's organizational apparatus building and a really streamlined political system operating effectively.

To be deeply imbued with President Ho Chi Minh’s thought "cadre is the root of all works"; "all works that succeed or fail are due to good or poor officials". Therefore, the organization and personnel work must be a breakthrough, a "key" of the "key" tasks, related to the Party's survival and the regime's destiny, the country’s rapid and sustainable development. Paying attention to building and cleaning the contingent of cadres, especially building a contingent of strategic-level cadres who are qualified, capable and reputable, who are on a par with their duties; promoting the responsibility of setting the example of cadres and party members; the higher the position, the more exemplary they must be.

Secondly, in leadership, administration, implementation and organization, there must be very high determination, great effort, dynamism, creativity, focusing on creating breakthroughs for development; attaching great importance to the quality and practical efficiency of the work and upholding the responsibility of the leader. Overcoming weaknesses and delays in leadership, administration, and implementation of guidelines and policies. Maintaining discipline in the implementation of laws, policies, and public service; at the same time protecting cadres and party members who have a high will to fight, to set example in the implementation of the Party's principles and discipline and the State's laws, who dare to innovate, dare to think, dare to say and dare to do, dare to take responsibility, dare to face difficulties, challenges and are determined in action.

Thirdly, in the implementation of the tasks, it is essential to pay special attention to synchronization and comprehensiveness in order to both meet the urgent and immediate objectives, to completely solve the weaknesses, congestion and backlog while building a synchronous development institution to realize the long-term, fundamental and sustainable goals of the country in the direction of ensuring harmony between economic reform and political, cultural and social reform; between economic growth and cultural and human development, realization of social progress and justice; between solving social problems well, and protecting natural resources and the environment; between socio-economic development and national defense and security assurance; between independence and autonomy with strengthening foreign affairs, international integration; and really attaching importance to and promoting the role of education and training, and science and technology in the new conditions.

Fourthly, in ensuring national defense, security and foreign affairs, it is necessary to proactively study, grasp and forecast the correct situation to make proactive plans; handle properly and effectively relationships with major countries, strategic partners, traditional friends and neighboring countries; to pay attention to improving the country's reputation and image while being very wary of increasingly sophisticated and plots and tricks of hostile, reactionary forces that have aggressively opposed our Party, State and people, especially in the field of politics and ideology.

Fifthly, in all the work of the Party and State, always defining "the people as the root", truly believing, respecting and promoting the people's mastery; persistently complying with the principle: "people know, people discuss, people do, people check, people supervise, people benefit". People are the center, the subject of the renovation; all guidance and policies must really come from the aspirations, rights and legitimate interests of the people.

The Party must take full care of the life and interests of the people; build close relationships with people; rely on the people to build the Party, take the results, satisfaction and trust of the people as important criteria to evaluate the quality of the organizational apparatus and the quality of cadres and party members.

In order to consolidate the people's confidence in the Party, it is necessary to be determined and proactive in cleaning the Party's cadres, overcoming the phenomenon of deterioration of the quality and lifestyle of a part of cadres, and Party members; consolidate and build clean and strong party organizations, making the Party truly the leader and loyal servant of the people.

Those valuable lessons are an important basis for our Party to continue to apply and promote in leadership and direction, helping us to gain more courage and confidence in the face of many new and severe difficulties and challenges due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic downturn when entering the 13th term.

II- The directions and tasks of the 13th Congress term and the coming period:

It is forecasted that in the coming years, the international and regional contexts will continue to have many complicated, rapid and unpredictable changes. Under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world has fallen into a serious crisis in many aspects, in terms of health, economy, society and governance. Strategic competition, economic competition, and trade war continue to be fierce.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has strongly developed, creating breakthroughs in many fields, creating both opportunities and challenges for all countries. Countries strive to adjust development strategies and modes to adapt to the new situation. The Asia-Pacific region has an increasingly important strategic position. In Southeast Asia, the security environment and sovereignty disputes in the East Sea continue to be complicated. Climate change, natural disasters, epidemics and other non-traditional security issues have made increasingly strong impacts in many ways, seriously threatening the stable and sustainable development of the world, the region and our country.

Meanwhile, despite achievements, our country still faces many difficulties and challenges. Economic growth is not commensurate with the potential, after the continuous high growth in the first 4 years of the term, it is a sharp decline in 2020, perhaps with a growth rate of only 3%; the quality of growth is low and facing many negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Autonomy and resilience of the economy are not high.

State economy, especially state-owned enterprises, are still operating ineffectively, facing many difficulties and congestion. The private sector and the foreign-invested economy have developed rapidly but not yet sustainably. The socio-economic leadership and state management, ensuring of political security, social order and safety, and protection of environmental resources have many shortcomings, causing social frustration. The fight to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity remains complicated. Historical values, cultural traditions of the Vietnamese nation and people have not been fully promoted.

Institutional building capacity is limited; the quality of laws and policies remains low. The leadership capacity and methods, the fighting strength of many party organizations and party members are not on par with the task. The power control mechanism in the Party and State is inadequate and synchronous, with low effect and efficiency. These difficulties and shortcomings require the entire Party, the entire people and the entire political system of our country to have high determination, make great efforts and act more drastically to overcome.

Continuing to promote renovation, our Party must be truly firm, maintain its revolutionary and scientific nature, stick closely to the people, be trusted and loved by the people, to overcome all difficulties, challenges and lead the successful realization of the goal of building and defending Socialist Vietnam.

The guiding thought of the entire Party, the entire people and entire army is steadfast and creatively applying and developing Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought; consistent with the aim for national independence and socialism; steadfast in the Party's renewal line to build and protect Socialist Vietnam. This is a matter of vital significance to our regime, a solid foundation of our Party.

It is necessary to master and handle well the relationship between consistency and renovation, creative application. If only being "steadfast" in a mechanical way, it is easy to lead to being dogmatic, rigid and conservative, while if carrying out renovation in an unprincipled way, it is very easy to fall into Revisionism, losing direction and "changing color". Therefore, it is necessary to understand clearly and to correctly apply the dialectical method of Marxism-Leninism: Consistency must be associated with creativity and creativity must be on the basis of consistency in accordance with reality, with requirements of renovation, integration and development of the country.

Our country's overall development strategy in the coming period is rapid and sustainable development, ensuring close connection and synchronous implementation of tasks, in which: Socio-economic development is center; Party building is key; Cultural development is the spiritual foundation of society; Ensuring that national defense and security is critical and regular.

The driving force and resources for national development in the new period are to strongly arouse patriotism, the will of national resilience, and promote the synergy of both the political system and of cultures and Vietnamese people; combine national strength with the power of the times.

It is a precious national tradition which has been used creatively by our Party during the 90 years leading the people to fight for national independence, unification and to build socialism. It is of extremely important significance when the country is at a historic turning point, to mobilize great material and spiritual resources to continue to break through and rise.

Our containment and control of the recent Covid-19 pandemic is an eloquent example that affirms the superiority of our regime, the tradition of solidarity, patriotism, humanitarianism and determination of our people. We should not be complacent, subjective, or negligent; the more difficulties and challenges, the more these qualities and traditions must be promoted, the more they must be multiplied.

The decisive factor for the success of the cause of building and developing the country and defending the Fatherland is strengthening Party building, improving leadership, the ruling and fighting capacity of the Party; building a clean, strong, streamlined State and political system, with effective and efficient operation; building a contingent of cadres and party members, especially a contingent of strategic-level cadres, who are qualified, capable and reputable, on a par with their tasks, and have close ties with the people.

With a genuine, clean, strong revolutionary party, with enough bravery, wisdom, experience, and prestige like our Party, and with all the trust and support of the people, we will have great strength to overcome all difficulties and challenges; no forces can prevent our people from going up, making new miracles in the cause of building and developing the country.

Promoting the will and strength of great national solidarity, in the coming Congress, we need to have a vision to the middle of the twenty-first century: Strive to turn our country into a socialist-oriented developed country, set specific goals and tasks to be accomplished for each journey; clearly demonstrate inheritance and development, continuity and completeness in the process of building socialism in our country; the enthusiasm, wisdom and belief, the "will of the Party, the heart of the People" must be merged with the desire, aspiration and will to reach a bright future of the country and the entire nation.

The political report presented to the Congress this time sets out the general goals as follows: Enhancing leadership, the ruling and fighting capacity of the Party; building a clean, strong, comprehensive Party and political system; consolidating the people's confidence in the Party, the State and the socialist regime; promoting creativity, will, and aspirations for the development and strength of great national solidarity, combined with the power of the times; promoting comprehensively and synchronously the cause of renovation, industrialization, modernization, and rapid and sustainable development of the country; firmly protecting the country, maintaining a peaceful and stable environment; striving for becoming a developed country, following the socialist orientation by the middle of the twenty-first century.

On the principle of ensuring scientific, feasible and practical features, inheriting and supplementing in accordance with changes in each development stage of the country, and learning from experiences of other countries and the general development standards of the world, we define specific goals towards the important development milestones of our country:

- By 2025: Being a developing country with modern industry, surpassing the low middle income level.

- By 2030, celebrating the Party’s 100th anniversary: Being a developing country with modern industry and high average income.

- By 2045, celebrating the country’s 100th anniversary: Becoming a developed country with high income.

The general and specific objectives set by the Congress are a very important basis for determining directions, tasks and solutions for national construction and development and national defense; ensuring consistency and feasibility, meeting both long-term requirements and focusing on strategic breakthroughs; creating a unity from awareness to action of the entire Party, people and army in the period from now to the middle of the twenty-first century, specifically:

Firstly, continue to strongly innovate thinking, build and complete institutions for sustainable economic, political, cultural, social development, environmental protection, etc., arousing all potentials and resources, creating a new driving force for the country's rapid and sustainable development.

First of all, focus on perfecting comprehensively and synchronously the socialist-oriented market economy on the basis of unifying the perception that this is our country's general economic model in the period of transition to socialism. To attach importance to building and perfecting institutions and policies to effectively and harmonize the relationship between the state, the market and the society.

In particular, institutional breakthroughs must be created to solve practical and specific problems such as: Mobilizing, managing and effectively using resources for development, dealing with corruption, wastefulness and negative aspects in the management and use of land, public resources and property; accumulating and concentrating land for high-tech agricultural development; developing synchronously and creating linkages between economic entities and types of production and business organizations; renewing and improving the operational efficiency of the state economic sector and state enterprises; encouraging and facilitating the development of the private economy to turn it into an important driving force of the economy; removing inconsistencies, contradictions and overlaps in law construction and enforcement, strategies, planning and plans that are hindering the development and operation of a modern and complete market economy and international integration.

Secondly, strongly renovating the growth model, restructuring the economy, promoting industrialization and modernization, improving growth quality, labor productivity and economic competitiveness based on the awareness that this is a basic, important and decisive task for the realization of the country's rapid and sustainable development goals.

To create a fundamental shift of the economy to a growth model on the basis of efficient use of resources, scientific and technological advances and innovation, promoting the potential and advantages of branches and fields, localities and the country. To step up breakthroughs in the construction of modern and synchronous infrastructure, creating a foundation to promote the development of new industries and fields, especially digital economy, digital society and digital government.

To build a strong national industry; develop large-scale agricultural commodity production and high-tech application; strongly develop the service sector based on digital economy and apply modern technology and science achievements. To consistently implement the policy of considering science and technology as the top national policy, the most important driving force to develop modern production forces, to renew growth models, improve productivity, quality and efficiency and the competitiveness of the economy.

To create a strong breakthrough in the development of human resources, especially high-quality human resources through fundamental and comprehensive innovation, synchronous education and training; in which to attach importance to building synchronous institutions and policies, synchronously renovating objectives, contents, programs, modes and methods of education and training towards modernization, international integration, to build a healthy education environment, resolutely overcoming the achievement syndrome, strictly handling the negative aspects in education and training.

Thirdly, to properly and fully implement the issue of sustainable social development management; to harmonize beneficial relations in society. To effectively handle the relationship between practicing democracy along with strengthening legislation, ensuring social discipline. To ensure social progress and equity; focusing on ensuring sustainability in population and development policies and social policies, especially social welfare, social security and human security, towards sustainable employment and comprehensive development of the social security system, towards universal coverage through reforming a sustainable, multi-layered social insurance system based on the principle of pay-benefit.

To build and promote cultural values and strength of Vietnamese people; complete and implement the building of the national value system, cultural value system and human standards associated with promoting the will and aspirations for development and the strength of Vietnamese people in the new period; implement strong and breakthrough solutions to effectively prevent the deterioration of morality and lifestyle, and repel social negativity and social evils.

Fourthly, synchronously, creatively and effectively implementing foreign affairs; building a modern diplomacy for the interests of the nation, taking the people and businesses as the center of service; proactively and actively integrating into the world in a comprehensive and extensive manner. Resolutely and persistently defending the independence, sovereignty, sovereignty right, unity and territorial integrity of the country; protecting the Party, State, people and the socialist regime.

To build the regular, elite, revolutionary armed forces, targeting step-by-step modernization. Actively preventing risks of war and conflicts; detecting early and promptly handling adverse factors, especially those that can cause mutations; struggling to defeat all the plans and activities of hostile forces.

Fifthly, to strengthen the building and rectification of the Party, State and the entire political system in a clean, strong, streamlined manner, operating effectively. Strengthening the protection of the Party's ideological foundation, resolutely and regularly struggling to criticize and reject wrong and hostile views; fighting, preventing and repelling the deterioration of political ideology, morality, lifestyle, and "self-evolving" and "self-transforming" manifestations internally. To be resolute and persistent in the fight against corruption, wasteness, and negativity, with higher determination, acting more aggressively, more effectively, with no restricted zones, no exceptions.

Continuing to focus on building a contingent of cadres at all levels, especially those at strategic levels, with full qualities, competence and reputation, on par with their tasks. Highlighting the spirit of self-discipline to cultivate, practice ethics, and the responsibility to set the example of cadres and party members; the higher the position, the more exemplary the cadres should be. To combine between strengthening discipline and rule of law, building a strict Party with education, fostering revolutionary personality and ethics to effectively prevent and fight against diseases of individualism. Complying well with regulations on power control in personnel work.

Strictly and synchronously handling both party discipline, administrative discipline and legal violations against cadres. To strongly innovate, improve the effectiveness and efficiency of inspection, supervision and party discipline in the direction of close and synchronous coordination among inspection, audit, investigation and prosecution agencies and state management agencies, the Fatherland Front, socio-political organizations.

The process of 35 years of implementing renovation, 30 years of implementing the Platform, including 10 years of implementing the revised Platform (2011), the 2011-2020 Socio-Economic Development Strategy and 5 years of implementation of the Resolution of the 12th Congress, shows that it is necessary to have a deeper awareness, continue to supplement, develop and improve the quality and effectiveness of resolving large ideological relationships, making decisions, removing barriers and obstacles, continuing to develop the country quickly and sustainably, with special emphasis on better handling of the relationships between: innovation, stability and development; economic and political innovation; obeying the laws of the market and ensuring a socialist orientation; production force development and construction, step-by-step improvement of socialist production relations; state, market and society; economic growth and cultural development, realization of social progress and equity, and environmental protection; building socialism and defending the Socialist Fatherland; independence, autonomy and international integration; the Party leads, the State manages and the people as the owner; practicing democracy and strengthening the legislation, ensuring social discipline. These are major relationships reflecting the dialectical laws, core theoretical issues about the innovation direction in our country, requiring the entire Party, the entire people, and the entire army to fully realize, thoroughly grasp and perform well and effectively.

The 13th National Party Congress is coming. The workload is very large, while the time is not much, so Party committees at all levels and members of the Party Central Committee must further promote their responsibilities to the Party and the people, striving to successfully complete the targets that the 12th Congress Resolution and the resolutions of the Party Congress at all levels for the term 2015 - 2020 have set out.

In this important moment, we must think about President Ho Chi Minh’s words: "The Party Congress is very related to the revolutionary future of our Party and our people. The Congress will make our united Party to be more united and our unanimous thoughts and actions to be more unanimous."

The whole Party, the entire people and the entire army must be in consensus to prepare well and carry out the 13th Party Congress, bringing the country to a new stage of development for the goal of "rich people, strong country, democratic, equal, civilized society", successfully realizing the wishes of the great President Ho Chi Minh and the wishes of the entire nation.

Secretary General and President Nguyen Phu Trong