HỒ QUANG PHƯƠNG
The Politburo has just issued Regulation No. 377-QĐ/TW on personnel work, which includes provisions for considering the dismissal of cadres who are bureaucratic and alienated from the people. On numerous occasions, the malady of ‘alienation from the people’ has been singled out and named as one of the risks causing a decline in the people’s trust, even affecting the survival of our State. However, currently, among a segment of cadres and party members, this malady persists, displaying very worrying manifestations.
When watching films, viewing pictures, reading stories, or listening to songs about President Hồ Chí Minh, we are often moved to tears by his compassionate heart, his love for the people, and his lifelong dedication to the nation and its people. It is no coincidence that the Vietnamese people, from the elderly to young children, respectfully call President Hồ Chí Minh ‘Uncle Hồ’. This is due to his immense contributions and his profound closeness; everyone sees him as a member of their own family, of their own village.
Uncle Hồ dressed simply, even wearing patched clothes, often appearing like an elderly farmer. On official trips, upon seeing fellow citizens bailing water or transplanting rice, the State President would not hesitate to roll up his trousers, wade into the fields, and join them in bailing water or transplanting rice. Seeing a child, Uncle Hồ would pick them up, give them candy, let them kiss his cheek, and gently stroke his beard. Songs about Uncle Hồ always express his vast affection: “Uncle cherished the elderly…, Uncle cherished the young children…, Uncle cherished the volunteer laborers sleeping in the forest tonight, Uncle cherished the soldier standing guard on the frontier…”
In Hồ Chí Minh’s ideology, the word ‘People’ holds sacred and enduring value. Therefore, he emphasized that the essential nature of our State is that it is ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’. President Hồ Chí Minh always particularly emphasized and educated public officials to respect the people, be close to the people, and serve the people; only then could the revolution be made, and that was the very purpose of the revolution. President Hồ Chí Minh often taught: “Government agencies from the national level down to the villages are all public servants of the people,” and cadres are “the truly loyal servants of the people.” Accordingly, the greatest virtue of a revolutionary cadre is to wholeheartedly and zealously serve the people. Therefore, all manifestations of alienation from the people and causing troubles for the people constitute a serious violation of the morality of a revolutionary cadre.
According to incomplete statistics, over a 10-year period, from 1955 to 1965, Uncle visited localities, grassroots units, and went to the people over 700 times. His trips were often unannounced, simple, and did not cause wastefulness or expense for the local units. He often brought packed meals, eating with his security detail to avoid inconveniencing the locality. He paid great attention to visiting fields, construction sites, canteens, sanitation areas, and the sleeping quarters of workers and laborers. Even in the final moments of his life, lying on his sickbed in the sweltering Hanoi heat, when a nurse brought him a fan, Uncle Hồ said: ‘I am cool enough here; in my garden, there are plenty of trees. Our compatriots are in the fields all day under the scorching sun, where would they get a fan? Please take this fan to the wounded soldiers at the convalescent camp…’
Given his immense contributions to Vietnam and the Vietnamese people, and his profound closeness and affection, even though Uncle Hồ has passed away for over 56 years, remembering him, thinking of him, still evokes deep emotions within us.
We are vigorously promoting the movement to study and follow the moral example of Uncle Hồ. However, the malady of alienation from the people among a segment of cadres is not only evident in their working style but, more dangerously, also manifests in their purpose of work and their purpose in life.
Some manifestations of the ‘alienation from the people’ malady can be listed as follows:
First, it manifests in a bureaucratic, mandarin-like, authoritarian, imperious, and extortionate working style, causing troubles and not properly fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of a cadre.
Second, cadres do not delve deeply or stay close to reality; they are detached from the masses, working based on documents and reports from subordinates while lacking practical verification and failing to listen to the people's opinions.
Third, cadres suffer from a 'achievement disease', fabricating figures detached from reality, being deceitful, and paying no heed to the difficulties and hardships of the people.
Fourth, promulgated policies and guidelines do not accurately reflect the interests of the people, sometimes even running counter to the people's rights.
Fifth, a lack of empathy for the hardships of the people.
Even worse are the practices of embezzlement and corruption, pilfering from the people, leading to a lavish lifestyle with multi-million dollar villas and mansions, supercars, and personal items sometimes worth the lifetime earnings of many hard-working laboring families. Through various legal cases and instances of party discipline in recent times, the public has been startled by the level of extravagance among a segment of cadres. With ‘servants’ like these, how can the people not lose their affection?
The cause of the ‘alienation from the people’ malady is the moral degradation among a segment of cadres and party members. The situation of pursuing positions and power, craving power, and being power-hungry also leads to the consequence of this malady. This is because some cadres, who advance within the public apparatus not due to competence or dedication to the people, the Party, or the country, only focus on forming cliques and interest groups and busy themselves with personal gain instead of caring for the people. Such cadres, lacking both ability and virtue yet craving power, view the Party organization merely as a tool for career advancement and enrichment. They grant themselves the right to live luxuriously and pleasurably, readily using schemes to embezzle and fall into sin, thereby becoming increasingly alienated from the people, straying from the principle that cadres are servants of the people, and losing the qualities of a party member. The malady of alienation from the people, even contempt for the people, also stems from cadres not understanding the role, mission, and power of the masses in history.
Coupled with this, limitations and weaknesses in the legal system, state management organizational mechanisms, and the relatively low understanding among a segment of the populace regarding their own role have also led to the ineffective prevention of the ‘alienation from the people’ malady among a segment of cadres and party members.
The consequences of this malady are that the Party’s guidelines and policies, and the State’s laws, may be correct, but their implementation yields poor results; or, more dangerously, it manifests as ‘policy corruption’, embedding vested interests during the law-making process. The malady of alienation from the people, bureaucratic and imperious working methods, cause discontent and risk eroding the people’s trust in the Party and the State, creating opportunities for hostile forces to exploit information to attack the Party and the State. The reason it can be affirmed that ‘alienation from the people’ is the primary manifestation of degeneration is that a cadre alienated from the people is certainly not a ‘truly loyal servant of the people’. Such a cadre will propose policies detached from the people, not serving the people’s interests, thereby posing a risk of altering the nature of the government, the nature of our State.
To cure the malady of alienation from the people, emphasis should be placed on implementing the following:
One: Enhance the awareness of cadres and party members regarding the moral character of a revolutionary cadre, following the example of President Hồ Chí Minh.
Two: Effectively implement self-criticism and criticism to detect and prevent all manifestations of alienation from the people within agencies and organizations.
Three: Ensure democracy and objectivity in the work of discovering, selecting, training, fostering, planning, and using cadres to choose those with sufficient virtue and talent, who genuinely enjoy high prestige among the people.
Four: Effectively implement votes of confidence and no-confidence, strengthen inspection and supervision work to promptly remove cadres afflicted with the malady of alienation from the people from the ranks.
It’s great to see discussions like this coming out of Vietnam. The CPC’s anti-corruption campaign was an attempt (mostly successful by the looks of it) to address and solve very similar problems in the PRC.
I’m beginning more and more to be of the opinion that socialist societies need something like a kind of, well…not “Permanent Revolution” in the Trotskyist sense but “Recurring Revolution”. A sort of revolutionary rejuvenation and revival of the revolutionary spirit at periodic intervals of perhaps every 50 years or so, a sort of “spring cleaning”, a purging of the accumulated filth of decades, of the moral rot and bureaucratic complacency, and an infusion of the society with renewed revolutionary elan and zeal, with idealism (in the colloquial sense, not the Marxist philosophical sense) and youthful enthusiasm for building a better society.
Usually it takes some kind of serious upheaval of society, like wars or natural disasters, to trigger such a revival, but ruling vanguard parties that have not lost touch with the people can and should be able to achieve this kind of national awakening and mobilization even in times of peace and relative tranquility if they a) rigorously enforce discipline and practice self-criticism within the party and b) correctly employ the power of education and grassroots social organization in the rest of society.
I agree. Your point about a ‘recurring revolution’ being possible in peacetime through party discipline and grassroots work is exactly right.
It makes me think that the mechanism for that isn’t just a top-down purge, but something more organic: it’s how you build the next generation of cadres.
The ‘spring cleaning’ you’re describing can’t just be about removing the old, corrupted elements. It has to be about continuously growing new, healthy ones. And that only happens when you ensure young cadres are forged not in conference rooms, but through direct, hands-on responsibility for real-world problems.
The revolutionary spirit isn’t passed down through books and resolutions alone. It’s passed down through shared, practical struggle. It’s about putting them in situations where they have to face the direct consequences of policy, where they are accountable to the people they serve, not just to their superiors. That friction with reality is what burns away bureaucratic thinking and builds a genuine, embodied loyalty.
So in practice, this ‘recurring revolution’ is a constant cycle of ensuring the next generation doesn’t just manage the system, but truly feels the weight of it, and the weight of serving within it. It’s a system that uses real responsibility as the ultimate teacher, ensuring the spirit is continually renewed through direct, empathetic engagement with the people.
The ‘spring cleaning’ you’re describing can’t just be about removing the old, corrupted elements. It has to be about continuously growing new, healthy ones. And that only happens when you ensure young cadres are forged not in conference rooms, but through direct, hands-on responsibility for real-world problems.
The revolutionary spirit isn’t passed down through books and resolutions alone. It’s passed down through shared, practical struggle. It’s about putting them in situations where they have to face the direct consequences of policy, where they are accountable to the people they serve, not just to their superiors. That friction with reality is what burns away bureaucratic thinking and builds a genuine, embodied loyalty.
I completely agree. Very well put!
