W.Minh Tuan
Why did President Ho Chi Minh only choose the position of President, not the position of General Secretary of Party?
Comrade General Secretary Truong Chinh once talked about this, saying that once, comrade Truong Chinh asked Uncle Ho why he did not become General Secretary of party? Uncle Ho answered subtly that he was a member of the world communist party, and did not know when the world communist party would call him to work in another country.
That was the answer of the scholar Nghe An, which had a profound meaning, not direct, but the listeners could guess and understand for themself.
We can understand that being the President represents the nation, the country, while being the General Secretary only represents the party, and the party is only historical in nature, who knows when the party will still exist, or not exist?
Furthermore, with Uncle Ho’s absolute prestige, even if he did not become General Secretary, it would be like being General Secretary, no General Secretary would dare to stand above him, so he did not need to be General Secretary of party.
In fact, there was a time when Uncle Ho held the position of General Secretary, when Mr. Le Duan from the South had not yet come to be General Secretary, President Ho also held the position of General Secretary. That is, the President cum General Secretary.
With General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, on the contrary, he held the position of General Secretary for the 3 years 2018-2021, because at that time, President Tran Dai Quang passed away, and a replacement could not be found immediately, so General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong also held the position of President-General Secretary cum President.
Now, Comrade To Lam’s situation seems to be similar to President Ho Chi Minh, that is, the President cum General Secretary, because General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong suddenly passed away due to the ineffectiveness of the Central Health Protection Committee. Because at the end of June, comrade Nguyen Phu Trong was still healthy enough to meet Russian President Putin, but just over a month later, comrade Nguyen Phu Trong passed away, showing that this Central Health Protection Board is not useful at all, it only destroys.
We know that in the US, the White House’s private physician council, protecting the health of the US President, because of its ignorance, had killed the first US President Washington in 1799, because they had more than 2 liters of blood drawn from the President’s body, to “treat” diarrhea, and gave him vinegar to “cleanse his intestines”. As a result, US President Washington passed away at the age of 67, still in good health, riding a horse to inspect the farm every day.
Therefore, the fact that our Vietnam’s Central Health Protection Board, because of its ignorance, may have killed General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is something that deserves to be examined and clearly concluded.
Returning to the matter of merging the two positions of General Secretary and President into one, the recent foreign trips of General Secretary cum President To Lam have shown that this merger is very necessary, convenient for both the party and the country.
General Secretary Le Kha Phieu had a bitter experience when visiting Western European countries in 1999, he held the highest position in the country, the General Secretary, because he was the leader of the ruling party, but when going abroad, the highest position in the country was the President.
Therefore, General Secretary Le Kha Phieu’s secretaries had to work very hard with the countries, to arrange a reception for the General Secretary worthy of being the head of the country.
Now, when comrade To Lam goes abroad in 2024, he does not have to make any difficult arrangements, he can properly meet with the leaders of the countries in his position as the President, the head of the Vietnamese nation.
But that is not just a matter of diplomacy, foreign affairs, and receiving guests, but of real power, of effective and convenience for leading the country.
All other communist countries have merged the two positions of General Secretary and President into one. China, Laos, Cuba, and North Korea have all merged, leaving only Vietnam, which does not dare to boldly merge, because it is necessary to balance regions, and to be sensitive to comrades who are about to retire.
For a long time, in Vietnam, because the General Secretary has real power, while the President is only a formal, social position, the position of President is often used as a stepping stone for those who are about to retire, for example, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang is about to retire, so he takes on the position of President.
Then Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is also about to retire, so he switches to the position of President to avoid disappointment, not to retire immediately.
But that is the wrong way of doing it, the wrong way of thinking, wrong perception.
Considering the position of President as just a stepping stone before retirement is a wrong perception, an insult to President Ho Chi Minh, an insult to the Constitution, an insult to the will of the people.
In addition, the habit of the General Secretary not being President comes from a very wrong concept within the party, that “the party does not do job replaycing the government“.
It sounds good, that our party is very democratic, very respectful of the Constitution, very respectful of the people. But if the party does not do government work, what does the party do? Does the party lead in the clouds, in the wind?
Is there a weekly Politburo meeting, just to discuss party issues? Not to discuss issues developing the country?
The General Secretary only does party work, not leading the country’s affairs?
With the perception that “the party does not work replacing the government”, most of the Politburo members are just heads of Party committees, such as the economic committee, the internal affairs committee, the inspection committee, the organization committee, the mass mobilization committee, the propaganda committee, etc., which are just positions in the clouds and wind.
But these leaders in the clouds and winds meet at the the Politburo office room every week to make decisions to lead the country.
Therefore, most of the Politburo’s resolutions are in the clouds and winds.
Because the Politburo does not include the ministers of the Government, which are the ministries that are running all the socio-economic activities of the country.
The members of the Politburo are only 2 ministries, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Public Security, which are Government agencies, while the other ministries are not members of the Politburo.
Therefore, the Politburo’s decisions are not deeply practical for the socio-economic situation, mainly for national defense, arrest, trial, discipline, that is, the Politburo is mainly about ANTI-FIGHTING, not BUILDING.
That perception needs to be changed, we must bring Ministers such as the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Science and Environment, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the governor of State Bank into the Politburo members, then we can have thorough discussions on economic and social development issues.
Is the Head of the Mass Mobilization Commission as important as the Minister of Health?
Is the Head of the Central Propaganda Commission as important as the Minister of Culture, the Minister of Education?
Is the Head of the Central Economic Commission as important as the Minister of Industry and Trade, the State Bank?
Is the Chairman of the Father Front as important as the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Labor?
And with the Minister of Public Security already in place, why do we need two extra positions: head of the inspection committee and head of the internal affairs committee?
Can the inspection committee search houses and arrest lawbreakers?
Can the internal affairs committee investigate and question suspects?
All the work of those two useless committees, the inspection committee and the internal affairs committee, must rely on police investigation documents, so is just one Ministry of Public Security enough.
Therefore, merging the two positions of General Secretary and President must be accompanied by a re-awareness of the party’s work, “the party must do government work“.
All political parties in the world compete with each other to seize power, to do government work, but the Communist Party of Vietnam is a straw hero who loudly says “the party does not do government work”.
Are Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris in the US competing to take power, to do the work of the US government, or just to do the work of building the Democratic and Republican parties in the US?
The work of the party cannot be as important as the work of the country, so Russian President Putin does not even bother to represent any party, he only stands alone to run for the position of President of Russia, because he will work to serve the Russian fatherland, not to work to serve the party.
Therefore, the ruling party in Vietnam today must publicly announce that the party works to serve the fatherland, to serve the Vietnamese people, not just to build the party, not that “the party does not do the work of the government”.
The party does not do the work of the government, it sounds good, but in fact it is very stupid.
During the subsidy period before Doi Moi, the whole country lived under the State’s subsidy distribution, everything was distributed according to coupons and rice books, but it was not fair at all, so the humorous Vietnamese people made the following rhyme to mock the party leadership during the subsidy period:
“Every shit is divided,
-But when divided, it is divided like shit”.
Now the work of party building, appointing cadres, but the cadres have just been trained and appointed by the party, like President Vo Van Thuong has just been appointed as president, but soon was discovered to have been corrupt, accepting envelopes; the director general of the General Department of Police accepted bribes, the deputy director general of the General Department of Security – the son of the deputy minister of public security- accepted bribes,,, was tried, and sentenced to prison.
So the humorous Vietnamese people made a new rhyme as follows:
“Every shit is the party,
-But the party is like shit”.
Therefore, merging the two positions of General Secretary and President is to change the party’s leadership, from the leadership in the clouds-winds, “the party does not do replacing the government”, to real leadership, leadership with real power, concrete leadership at the scene, not leadership in Politburo meeing.
And at the local level, the two positions of Secretary and President must be merged into one, also so that the party can lead directly, lead at the scene, not the leadership in the clouds at Party committee meetings.
There must be a clear perception that any party can lead the country, as long as that party must serve the Vietnamese fatherland, serve the Vietnamese people, not serve the party’s own interests, not put the party’s interests above the interests of the nation, of the country.
The ancients had the following verse:
-“The country is lost, but the mountains and rivers remain,
-In the spring, over ruined castle will overgrown with weeds”.
That is to say, the regimes, states, and political parties will change and may disappear, but the nation, the mountains, rivers, and the fatherland will last forever.
Therefore, the political parties and the states established by those parties are only of a temporary historical nature. The Ly Dynasty was lost, and the Tran Dynasty was replaced; the Tran Dynasty was lost, and the Le Dynasty was replaced; the Le Dynasty was lost, and the Nguyen Dynasty was replaced; the Nguyen Dynasty was lost, and the communists were replaced.
If the communists do not serve the interests of the nation well, one day the communists will also disappear, and another one will replace them.
In 1946, President Ho Chi Minh once mentioned the possibility of establishing a Vietnamese national party, which means that President Ho Chi Minh clearly understood that the interests of the party must be placed after the interests of the nation and the fatherland.
Therefore, we wish General Secretary-President To Lam good health, long-term service to the Fatherland, worthy of being an exemplary student of President Ho Chi Minh, worthy of being an exemplary leader in the entire history of more than 4000 years of the Vietnamese people.///