III. Tapping the source of strength of the culture of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”, remaining steadfast in building a politically strong Army in the new situation
To continue to build a politically strong Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) capable of meeting its task requirements in the new situation, the 12th Military Party Congress identified the promotion of the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era as one of its important breakthroughs. Accordingly, tapping the source of strength of the culture of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and remaining steadfast in a politically strong VPA in the new situation requires a focus on effectively implementing the following key solutions.
 |
| Gen. Phan Van Giang encourages military medical staff prior to their covid-19 prevention and control mission in the South (photo: qdnd.vn) |
First, turning the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” into the thread running through the building of a politically strong VPA. The Military’s political and spiritual strength stems from the political zeal, faith, qualities, and willpower of each soldier; it is nurtured by the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. Therefore, these values must be put into troops’ daily life and become standards guiding the perception and action of every officer and soldier.
Agencies and units across the Military should continue to thoroughly grasp and strictly execute the “two-steadfastness, two-acceleration, two-prevention” principle set by General Secretary, State President To Lam; in this regard, remaining steadfast in building a politically strong VPA is a requirement of vital importance to maintaining the Military’s revolutionary nature, goals, and combat ideal. At the same time, they should step up the study and practice of Ho Chi Minh’s thought, ethics, methodology, and lifestyle in line with the effective implementation of Directive 676-CT/QUTW, dated 20 June 2026, by the Central Military Commission Standing Board on strengthening leadership and direction to promote the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era, as well as emulation movements and campaigns launched by the Party, State, and VPA. It is important to heighten the responsibility of party committees, party organisations, key commanding officers, cadres, and party members, bring into full play the pioneering role of members of youth unions and mass organisations in spreading the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”, closely combine the promotion of the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” with Party building and rectification and the building of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong agencies and units; “building” and “combating” must be carried out in a synchronous manner, with “building” being a fundamental, strategic, long-term mission while “combating” serving as an important and urgent task.
Political education and ideological orientation must continue to be renewed to raise troops’ awareness and sense of responsibility. Self-improvement according to the standards of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era must be linked with the national value system, cultural value system, family value system, and Vietnamese human standards; it must gradually become an intrinsic need, self-awareness, and a routine practice among officers, party members, and the masses. Patriotism, self-reliance, self-confidence, autonomy, resilience, and national pride together with the VPA’s heroic tradition must be strongly aroused, while the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” must be promoted as an internal driving force for ensuring that the VPA will always remain politically strong.
Second, continuing to concretise the cultural value system of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” into standards for revolutionary soldiers in the new era. Humans are the subjects and key factor determining the vitality of the culture of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” and directly creating the VPA’s political - spiritual strength. Therefore, these values need to be concretised into a system of standards for revolutionary soldiers, suited to the VPA’s construction and combat requirements in the new era.
Accordingly, it is necessary to focus on developing and perfecting a system of standards for revolutionary soldiers on the basis of the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. Standards concerning political zeal, absolute loyalty to the Fatherland, Party, State, people, and socialist regime, together with resolve, sense of responsibility, moral qualities, lifestyle, sense of discipline, internal unity, military - civilian solidarity, international unity, readiness to undertake and successfully fulfil every assigned mission, must be concretised into practical requirements associated with each position, task, and working environment. These standards must become criteria for every soldier’s self-review, self-correction, and self-improvement, as well as benchmarks for assessment, emulation review, and the building of clean, strong party organisations and mass organisations.
 |
| Vietnam’s military units deployed to United Nations peacekeeping missions in Abyei region and South Sudan (photo: qdnd.vn) |
Greater importance should be attached to building a healthy, democratic, disciplined, humane military cultural environment, enabling the positive values to be spread, the good deeds to be honoured, and the right things to be protected. Moreover, the promotion of the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” must be linked with the fight against individualism, opportunism, pragmatism, and deterioration in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle. Deviations from the standards in perception and behaviour must be detected and prevented early and from afar; contentment with mediocrity, reluctance to perform difficult, arduous tasks, and any decline in self-improvement and task performance must be resolutely handled. This process must be carried out regularly, persistently, while education and persuasion must be closely combined with inspection, supervision, and strict handling of violations, thereby fostering troops’ political zeal, faith, willpower, and sense of responsibility towards the Fatherland, Party, State, and people.
Third, cementing the close-knit bond between the Military and the people, creating a firm political - social foundation for building a politically strong VPA. This is an important foundation for nurturing and spreading the VPA’s noble cultural values. Agencies and units across the Military should fully grasp the viewpoint that “the people are the root”, effectively implement the Project entitled “Field marches combined with mass mobilisation by the VPA and the Militia and Self-Defence Force in the new situation”, and renew the content, forms, and methods of mass mobilisation work to be relevant to local characteristics, target groups, and their task requirements. All mass mobilisation activities must aim to cement the people’s trust in the Party, State, and VPA and translate the Party’s lines and the State’s policies and laws into daily life. In mass mobilisation work, the qualities and image of revolutionary soldiers must be affirmed by concrete actions, a sense of responsibility, and dedication and closeness to the people. This is a direct way to spread the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” throughout social life, serving as a firm social foundation for continuously building a politically strong VPA.
In addition, the VPA’s role in fostering socio-economic development, reducing poverty, building new-style rural areas, and assisting the people in remote, isolated, border, sea, island, ethnic minority areas should be brought into greater play. It is vital to effectively implement national target programmes, the movement on eliminating temporary and dilapidated houses, as well as “paying debt of gratitude” and social security activities. In natural disaster and epidemic prevention and control, search and rescue operations, the VPA must always be the core, vanguard force, present in the most difficult, dangerous places. It is through these tasks that the qualities of “serving the people”, the sense of responsibility, and the spirit of sacrifice among troops are most clearly demonstrated, thereby cementing the people’s trust in the VPA.
In the face of increasingly sophisticated schemes and tactics of hostile forces, communication, mass mobilisation, and activities to strengthen military - civilian solidarity and political bases must be intensified. It is necessary to proactively detect and combat activities that exploit ethnic, religious, democratic, and human rights issues to separate the Party from the people and the VPA from the people, thus contributing to firmly protecting the Party’s ideological foundation and increasing the VPA’s political and spiritual strength.
 |
| Military - civilian solidarity (photo: qdnd.vn) |
Fourth, raising each soldier’s self-awareness in practising the culture of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. The cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” can only truly demonstrate their vitality when they are transformed into self-conscious, regular behaviour in practice. This is a process through which each soldier cultivates their political zeal, qualities, willpower, and sense of responsibility. Therefore, the practice of the culture of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” must be linked with one’s responsibilities, tasks, and position; every officer and soldier must regularly self-review, self-correct, and self-improve; troops’ task performance, sense of discipline, sense of responsibility, attitude towards the people, and capacity to surmount difficulties and challenges must be seen as benchmarks for their efforts. Doing so will help develop a sense of self-discipline, self-reliance, and political responsibility among each soldier and contribute to building a politically strong VPA.
Furthermore, methods of managing and educating troops should continue to be renewed towards the promotion of individual initiative and responsibility; organisations’ management should be combined with self-management, while units’ education should be aligned with self-education. In all activities of the unit, conditions should be created for officers and soldiers to make their contributions, affirm their own value, and receive due recognition. This process itself will create sustainable spiritual motivation and turn the preservation of the qualities of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” into a natural need in military life and activities.
Additionally, significance should be attached to detecting, developing, and replicating outstanding examples in study, training, combat readiness, labour, work, and mass mobilisation. When exemplary individuals are honoured, cultural values will be more deeply ingrained in the lives of troops and become standards of conduct and motivation for self-improvement; the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” will be transformed into self-consciousness and concrete actions, contributing to firmly consolidating the VPA’s political foundation from grass-roots level and from each soldier.
Fifth, ensuring consistency between VPA modernisation and the preservation and promotion of the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. Building a revolutionary, regular, elite, modern VPA is a strategic policy of the Party and an objective requirement of the cause of Fatherland protection in the new situation. However, VPA modernisation is not merely about modernising organisational structure, weapons, equipment, science and technology, etc.; above all, it must be underpinned by political strength and the comprehensive development of the human factor. Hence, in every step of the modernisation process, the viewpoint “men first, weapons later” must be thoroughly grasped; the building of a politically strong VPA must serve as the foundation, while the synchronous development between material strength and spiritual strength, between the level of modernity and the VPA’s revolutionary nature and glorious tradition must be ensured.
Accordingly, the viewpoints and lines of the Party and the Central Military Commission on VPA building in the new era should continue to be concretised; the goal of modernisation should be linked with the requirements to preserve and promote the qualities and image of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. The principle of the Party’s absolute, direct leadership over the VPA in all aspects must be upheld; the VPA’s working-class nature, people-orientated character, and national character must be maintained to ensure that the VPA will develop in the right direction and will not deviate from the objectives and combat ideal set from the very first days of its establishment.
Efforts should be devoted to ensuring that the cultural values of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” continue to be present and exert their effects in the new operational environment of a modern VPA. Mastering high-tech weapons and expanding defence cooperation and international integration necessitate officers and soldiers possessing professional qualifications and modern working styles as well as maintaining their political zeal, loyalty, sense of discipline, and sense of responsibility towards the Fatherland and people.
Amid the country’s increasingly intensive and extensive international integration, it is necessary to proactively and selectively absorb the quintessence of humankind’s culture, experience and advanced military art of other countries, and preserve the identity of Vietnamese military culture and the cultural value system of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. These efforts will enable the VPA to be modernised and maintain its revolutionary nature and absolute loyalty to the Fatherland, Party, State, and people. This is also a fundamental condition for building a politically strong VPA, laying a firm foundation for improving its overall quality, combat strength, and task performance in all situations. (The end)
PHAM TUAN - MINH DUC - DINH BANG - GIA DONG
