The value of Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts on building the current socialist rule of law state of Vietnam

Firstly, ensuring the constitutionality and “law-respecting” of the State.

As early as 1919 when the country was still under the yoke of colonial invaders and colonial imperialism was dominant in the world, on behalf of the Association of Vietnamese patriots, leader Nguyen Ai Quoc sent to the Versailles Conference the “Claim of the people of Annam”, asking the French colonialists to guarantee the minimum rights of the indigenous people, such as “reforming the legal system in Indochina by giving the natives the same legal guarantees as Europeans; completely abolishing the special courts used as tools to terrorize and oppress the most honest section of the Annamite people”; “replacing the decree-making regime with the law-making one” and many others.

President Ho Chi Minh 

After many years in Western countries, leader Nguyen Ai Quoc approached the ideology and model of the rule of law state, which he realized to have outstanding advantages compared to the totalitarian one that ruled for thousands of years in various countries including Viet Nam in the feudal and semi-colonial, semi-feudal periods. Since then, his thoughts on building a rule of law state gradually took shape. In his poem named “Viet Nam’s song of requirements”, he wrote:

“Seventh, constitution is asked to be promulgated

Since anything is decided upon it”

Regarding the state power, as early as 1930, leader Nguyen Ai Quoc asserted that power should be delegated to the people rather than in the hands of a few. Only then would suffering reduce and the people be happy.

The 1945 August Revolution was successful, giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. Stemming from the requirement to protect the newly established government and to organize the construction of a new society in the “hung-by-a-single-hair situation”, especially in face of the intervention of external forces, and at the same time to win the support of international friends and build the consensus among the people, right at the first meeting of the Provisional Government (September 3, 1945), President Ho Chi Minh suggested that Viet Nam have a democratic constitution and that the government organize a general election by universal suffrage as soon as possible to establish the National Assembly, and on that basis to establish the Government and state agencies and apparatus, demonstrating the people’s supreme power, ensuring the constitutionality and legitimacy of the State organized and operated under the Constitution, the laws and international practices. Accordingly, all activities and subjects operating within the framework of political institutions must be constitutional and legal. The law-respecting spirit must be deeply ingrained in social life, regulating all relationships and activities in the State and society. President Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts on the constitutionality, legitimacy, and law-respecting spirit of the State of Viet Nam have so far become the guiding ones and have been realized universally, in line with the new international and national contexts.

In the law-respecting spirit, ensuring social discipline to continue creating a driving force for rapid and sustainable development, the Documents of the 13th Party Congress emphasized that it was necessary to perfect the legal system, mechanisms, and policies aimed at strongly promoting socialist democracy, the people’s right to mastery; and at the same time, strengthen the rule of law and ensure social discipline. First and foremost, emphasis should be laid on abiding by the law and practicing socialist democracy by party committees, authorities, Fatherland Front, socio-political organizations at all levels, and by each cadre and party member. The nature of the socialist rule of law state’s power in Viet Nam is that it belongs to the people. Therefore, it must be guaranteed by a complete and scientific legal system; law serves as a means of practicing democracy and a tool to protect socialist democracy.

Secondly, building a socialist rule-of-law State – a development serving and constructive state

The idea that ​​the state serves and constructs development was initiated by Ph. Engels as he claimed that when reaching communism, the governing and managing functions of the state will shift to the ones of directing the production process and creating a favorable environment for social development. He once put it “when the state, in the end, truly becomes the representative of the whole of society, it will itself become redundant. State intervention in social relations will turn out to be redundant and will gradually fade away. The management of people will give way to the management of things and direct the production process”. The state role of serving and constructing development is manifested in the creation of an institutional framework with an appropriate system of policies and laws, creating the most favorable conditions for dealing with economic, political, cultural, social, national defense, security, foreign affairs problems to serve people most effectively.

Creatively applying the Marxist-Leninist perspective, President Ho Chi Minh especially emphasized the idea of a serving state and considered it as a prominent feature of the new state that Viet Nam must obtain. In fact, suggestions about a constructive state were also mentioned and implemented by him while he was holding the position of the State leader, although he did not directly use this term.

President Ho Chi Minh held the view that democracy was both a goal and a feature of the socialist regime that Viet Nam built. Therefore, In the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, all power belonged to the people; all benefits were made in the interest of the people. Authority belonged to the people. Power and strength were in the people’s hands. Accordingly, state agencies and state cadres had to wholeheartedly serve the people, be the people’s servants, and shoulder the common burden for the people. When seizing power, in the face of numerous difficulties, as the head of state, under the Party leadership, President Ho Chi Minh, together with other members of the Government, focused on reforming the old society and building a new one in all fields through sound and timely decisions. That the new government well performed its constructing role created a drastic social driving force and won the high consensus from the whole people in the course of national construction.

In the period of renewal process, creatively applying Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts as well as absorbing modern theories on the rule of law, serving and constructing state, the Communist Party of Viet Nam affirms that a socialist rule of law state of the people, by the people, and for the people led by the Communist Party is one of the characteristics of the socialist society built by the Vietnamese people. The socialist rule of law, serving, and constructing state requires an acting government and a contingent of virtuous, talented, and politically capable public cadres, willing to sacrifice themselves for the people, and for the country.

Building a serving and constructing state of integrity, which is sharp in thoughts and actions and proactive in running the country in all areas of social life, is an intermediate and long-term requirement for building a socialist rule of law state in Viet Nam. This is even more meaningful against the background that globalization, international integration, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and especially the COVID-19 pandemic are posing huge challenges to national development. In this new context, in order to successfully realize the goals of national independence and socialism, it is necessary to build a ruling Party clean, strong, and steadfast in its ideological stance and clear in its direction. It must be a socialist rule-of-law, serving and constructing state capable of making accurate and timely decisions in all situations, effectively solving problems arising in all fields for the sake of the nation and the people on the basis of the Constitution and the law, and dramatically promoting the strength of the national unity.

Thirdly, building a contingent of virtuous and talented public cadres serving as “public servants” of the people.

Whether a state apparatus is clean, strong, and effective depends greatly on the people in such an apparatus. Therefore, according to President Ho Chi Minh, building a new state must begin with training and fostering a contingent of virtuous and talented public cadres possessing political integrity and professional competence, and being loyal to the people. He once put it “public cadres are those who explain the Party and the Government’s policies to the people so that they can understand and implement them and at the same time, report the situations of the people to the Party and the Government so as to map out rational policies to meet the legitimate needs and interests of the people”. Public cadres are the root of all work. “With good cadres, everything is done. The success or failure of any work depends on cadres”. Therefore, “training public cadres is the core of the Party”. He then severely criticized a part of public cadres and Party members who were degenerated, corrupted, and dominated by individualism, staying away and failing to learn from the masses, but wanting to function as the masters instead, resulting in their bureaucracy, factions, subjectivity, corruption and wastefulness. Therefore, he asked each cadre and Party member to constantly practice self-study, self-cultivation, and self-correction in order to make constant progress. The cadre work must rely on the people, discovering and selecting public cadres from the people’s revolutionary movement. Also, cadres are required to penetrate into practical activities to be trained with the support and under the control of the people.

Currently, the market economy is exerting negative impacts, causing several public cadres and Party members’ degeneration, corruption, “self-evolution”, and “self-transformation. Some Party committees are poor in leadership and combat strength, violating the principle of democratic centralism. Although the state apparatus after various reforms and downsizing has become more dynamic, efficient, and effective, the inertia of the old mechanism, the lack of synchronization of the legal system, the weaknesses in the work of organization and management, the corruption, and harassment in public agencies remain obstacles to building a socialist rule of law state of the people, by the people, and for the people. To continue strengthening the state apparatus, drastically restructuring the management model and mechanism towards a serving and constructing state, it is necessary to build a contingent of public cadres and civil servants who are both virtuous and competent, being on par with task requirements, especially focusing on fostering moral qualities, revolutionary ideals, professional qualifications and skills for strategic-level public cadres. This enables them become patriotic and capable leaders of integrity, thus making landmark movements in the course of national development and construction following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, and successfully implementing the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress on “building and perfecting the socialist rule of law state, improving its capacity in management and administration and its construction capacity as well”.

Fourthly, focusing on measures to control state power

According to President Ho Chi Minh, to build a clean state, operate effectively and serve the people, controlling state power is an important task. He outlined several basic measures to exercise control over state power as follows:

Building a complete legal system serving as a tool to control state power

President Ho Chi Minh believed that a state for the people and effective in operation must be a state with a “constitution promulgated” and “must abide by the law”. This is a mandatory requirement for a rule of law state. In a socialist rule of law state, the law is both a tool to exercise the people’s power and a tool for the state to perform its functions. It also serves as a tool to control state power.

Mobilizing people to participate in the management and control of state power

Controlling state power is an important task. Therefore, President Ho Chi Minh always encouraged the people to criticize and supervise the operations of the State and the Government, hoping the people to help and urge, control, and criticize so that they can fulfill their mission of being a faithful and devoted servant of the people. Accordingly, to well control state power, it is obligatory to practice democracy widely and to attract people to participate in managing and supervising the state apparatus and state officials’ activities.

As a state leader, President Ho Chi Minh once had to make tough decisions to punish corrupted cadres, in a bid to respect the law as well as to protect the prestige of the Party and the interests of the people. He pointed out that the people would have the right to dismiss a deputy of the National Assembly and a member of the People’s Council if they proved to be unworthy of the people’s trust. He even said: “If the government harms the people, they have the right to expel it”.

Strengthening the work of inspection and supervision

President Ho Chi Minh once pointed out “Nine-tenths of the defects in our performance are due to the lack of inspection. If inspection is well organized, operation quality will improve tenfold”. He said: “if one wants to know who works hard and who just lets it go, there is only one way – inspecting wisely. With good inspection, defects will be highlighted and later be lessened”.

Over the past years, inheriting and applying Ho Chi Minh’s thought, the Communist Party of Viet Nam has led the whole political system and society to resolutely and persistently fight against, and prevent corruption and wastefulness drastically and effectively, thus scrupulously and promptly investigating and handling corruption and wastefulness cases in the spirit of without any restriction or exception; strengthening the work of inspection, supervision, auditing, investigation, prosecution, trial, and judgment execution; early uncovering and scrupulously handling corruption and wastefulness cases; strictly punishing public cadres who harass, extort, or trouble people and businesses; gradually building a complete, modern and humane legal system, taking the interests of the people and the country as its ultimate goal./.