Artillery Brigade 675 (under the Artillery Corps) has rich tradition in combat as evidenced by many brilliant feats of arms; currently, it is tasked with training, combat readiness, regularity building, and other missions. In recent years, as the Brigade’s affiliates have been stationed in two different positions (more than 1,300 km far from each other) to perform their tasks, the work of management, command, and operation has been faced with a lot of difficulties. Families of several cadres and soldiers of the Brigade have been in unfavourable circumstances; complex developments of political security, social order, and social evils in its stationed areas have greatly impacted on its troops’ thought and sentiment as well as its task performance. Against that backdrop, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have taken comprehensive, synchronous, drastic measures, with importance attached to improving the effectiveness of law dissemination and education in order to raise troops’ law-abiding awareness and build an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Brigade capable of excellently fulfilling all assigned tasks.

Conference to review phase 1 of the Project on “promoting the role of the Vietnam People’s Army in law dissemination and education and encouraging the people to observe law at grass-roots level” held by the Brigade

First of all, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have exercised their close leadership and direction over law dissemination and education. It is worth noting that the Brigade is stationed in two distant locations; therefore, without drastic leadership and direction, it is hard to achieve good performance of tasks in general, law dissemination and education work in particular. Grasping resolutions, directives, and guiding documents by higher echelons, especially the Artillery Corps’ Party Committee and Command on law propagation, dissemination, and education, the Brigade Party Committee and its affiliated party cells have issued specialised resolutions, while offices and units have developed action plans on this work. Guidelines, tasks, contents, forms, duration, and target groups for law propagation and education have been clearly identified; law dissemination and education have been closely combined with political education. On a yearly basis, all cadres and soldiers have been required to write commitment to observing law, discipline, and safety regulations. Responsibilities for law dissemination and education have been delegated to collectives and individuals according to their functions and assigned tasks; the performance of law dissemination and education work has been seen as a criterion for assessments of party members and cadres as well as for commendation.

Addition to difficulties caused by the Brigade’s scattered operational areas, troops’ educational backgrounds are of various levels. Therefore, the Brigade has directed its units to flexibly apply forms and methods of law propagation and education in accordance with each group of troops and their task requirements and instil law-abiding awareness into all troops. The Brigade has organised deep and wide political campaigns, promoting the roles of its organisations and forces, particularly youth unions in various forms, such as youth forum and young officer talk show, effectively exploiting Law Bookcases within its offices and units, frequently providing new law-related books, newspapers, and documents, conducting rotation of books and documents among units for cadres and soldiers to study. On a monthly basis, while closely, seriously organising the “Legal Study Day” under regulations, the Brigade has showed its troops videos about violations of State and military discipline, such as desertion, absence without permission, and bodily harm with intent. Doing so has provided its troops with opportunities to democratically discuss, express their views, and draw lessons from legal stories and situations in accordance with their functions and tasks. Besides, the Brigade has effectively maintained and developed models, such as “one legal question on a daily basis”, “one article of law and one safety rule on a weekly basis”, and “5 proactive measures to carry out ideological work”, with a view to achieving a consensus and building up law-abiding awareness among its cadres and soldiers. In the process, the Brigade has proactively classified its troops into groups for propagation and education, while directing its offices and units to apply diverse methods of propagation and education, organise democratic dialogues via the Political and Cultural Day, promote the roles of “Three-strong teams”, “Psychological, medical, and legal consultation teams”, “Guard soldiers and mass mobilisation soldiers”, youth unions, women’s unions, and soldiers’ councils, carry out polls, and establish boxes of feedback to grasp and manage their cadres and soldiers’ ideology.

Law communicators and rapporteurs act as the core force in law propagation, dissemination, and education; therefore, the Brigade has frequently consolidated this contingent and improved their professional competence to meet their task requirements. It has regularly reviewed and sufficiently staffed the contingent of law communicators and rapporteurs at each level, with a focus on selecting cadres with comprehensive qualities and capabilities, great determination to overcome difficulties and improve their knowledge, skills, and hands-on experience, great capacity to access and use modern technical means, and proper methods of propagation. On a yearly basis, it has organised refresher courses to improve professional knowledge of the contingent of law communicators and rapporteurs, renewing forms, contents, and methods of law dissemination and education, intensifying inspection of operating regulations of this contingent. It has strictly maintained regulations on approving lesson plans to ensure that each propagation matter would be easy to understand, easy to remember, and easy to realise. Preliminary and final reviews at all levels have been carried out closely to seek new, effective approaches amid the dispersion of troops and limited facilities and means. Such reviews have also enabled the Brigade to multiply effective models and identify new guidelines and measures for dealing with weaknesses in the training of law communicators and rapporteurs.

To make a huge positive change in its troops’ law-abiding awareness, the Brigade has closely combined law dissemination and education with measures of discipline management and safety assurance. Under higher echelons’ resolutions, directives, and plans on adjustments in the organisational structure and stationed areas of the Brigade, many cadres have to work far from their families. To ensure absolute safety, enable troops to abide by law and discipline, and make cadres and soldiers keep their mind on their work, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have directed offices and units to raise the effectiveness of education work, build up motivation, determination, and self-consciousness of their cadres and soldiers towards the observance of discipline and regulations, and align political and law education with administrative measures. The Brigade has frequently correctly assessed the results of regularity building and discipline management to draw lessons and opportunely deal with wrongdoings, while stringently maintaining daily and weekly regulations within its offices and units. It has intensified measures to manage its troops’ social relationships, proactively grasping and anticipating ideological developments of its cadres and soldiers, particularly those performing new, difficult, complex tasks or working independently far from their units. At the same time, it has focused on building a healthy military cultural environment, proactively preventing and fighting against countercultural behaviours within its offices and units. Emphasis has been placed on closely managing troops to achieve a solid positive change in discipline management work.

Furthermore, the Brigade has combined regularity building and discipline management with emulation movements and campaigns, especially the 13^th Politburo’s Conclusion 01-KL/TW, dated 18 May 2021, on continuing to execute the 12^th Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW on “stepping up the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle” in tandem with the Campaign entitled “Promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s Soldiers in the new era”, in order to create widespread positive effects and orientate activities of organisations and individuals towards regularity building and discipline management. It has frequently collaborated with local party committees and authorities and friendly units in executing Project 1371 on “promoting the role of the Vietnam People’s Army in law dissemination and education and encouraging the people to observe law at grass-roots level in the period of 2021 - 2027”. Since early 2024, it has maintained coordination with relevant agencies to organise 7 specialised talk shows and develop 3 videos about law propagation, dissemination, and education with the participation of over 5,137 cadres, soldiers, and citizens. Notably, its troops deployed to new stationed areas have always kept their mind on their work; they have proactively surmounted all difficulties to successfully fulfil their assigned tasks.

Thanks to appropriate, creative, effective measures of law propagation, dissemination, and education, the Brigade has obtained positive changes in its troops’ observance of law and discipline. The rate of normal disciplinary violations has been below 0.2%, while there has been no serious violation of law and discipline. That has laid an important foundation for making the Brigade Party Organisation pure, strong and building an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Brigade capable of excellently fulfilling all assigned tasks.

Col. NGUYEN VAN THANH, PhD

Deputy Political Commissar of the Brigade