The Party, along with the leading role of President Ho Chi Minh, has left an enduring imprint on the Vietnamese revolution. For each nation, nothing is more important than choosing the correct road to the future. National independence and socialism is the sole correct choice to decide the destiny of the Vietnamese nation, working class and people.c

The French colonialists began to invade Vietnam in the middle of the 19^th century by launching an armed attack on Da Nang naval port. After subduing Vietnam by force, they economically exploited the country and culturally enslaved the nation. However, the Vietnamese people rose up fiercely against their exploitation and oppression in the cause of national independence. Many political organisations and parties were set up to lead the national movement. However, these national movements that were under the influence of bourgeois democracy all failed. As a result, in the first decades of the 20^th century, Vietnam lacked a way forward to save the country.

Unable to bear the sight of the country losing its independence and his homeland in ruins, the young patriotic Nguyen Tat Thanh (later Ho Chi Minh) went abroad to find a way to save the country and wrest back national independence, freedom, prosperity and education for the people. In July 1920, after reading the first draft of Lenin’s thesis on national and colonial issues, Ho Chi Minh realised that proletarian revolution was the only way to save the country and liberate the nation. As an envoy of the Comintern, he took the initiative by holding a conference in Hong Kong to merge all communist organisations existing in Vietnam at that time. On Feb. 3, 1930, the Communist Party of Vietnam was established and adopted its brief political platform, strategies and statutes which were drafted by Nguyen Ai Quoc himself. The Party took Marxist-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideas as its ideological foundation and plan of action. The Party has been built to be politically, ideological and organisationally strong in close touch with the people. It has always renewed and improved itself to meet the needs and tasks of the revolution in all periods of time.

Immediately after its establishment, the Communist Party launched the Soviet Nghe Tinh revolutionary movement. Fifteen years later, the Party, with 5,000 members successfully led the August 1945 Revolution and set up the first people’s democratic state in Southeast Asia. After that it continued leading the Vietnamese people to defend the country for 30 years and defeated French and American imperialists. Since the country’s reunification in 1975, the Party has led the people to restore the national economy and rebuild in the aftermath of war. While the former Soviet Union and many socialist countries in eastern Europe were bogged down in crisis and eventually collapsed, the Communist Party of Vietnam courageously criticised itself and received criticism. It worked out a policy to renew the country and was aware of the major tasks of national construction that must be taken in the transitional period to socialism. The national renewal process over the last 20 years has brought Vietnam major successes and led the country out of an economic and social crisis to join the World Trade Organisation.

The successful national renewal process initiated and led by the Party has confirmed that the revolutionary route which Vietnam has followed is correct. Renewal does not mean to deny socialism, but to make socialist construction more transparent and effective. It does not mean to abandon Marxist-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought, but to correctly understand and creatively apply them, taking them as guidelines for our revolutionary activities. Correct Party leadership is the primary factor to ensure the success of our revolution. The Communist Party of Vietnam has no other interests than to serve the country and people. It firmly grasps and develops Marxist-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought and continuously enriches its wisdom, political will and organisational capacity to meet the needs of the new situation and realise new tasks.                                                                                   

In celebrating the anniversary of the Party’s birth and welcoming a new Spring, we promote the strength of our entire nation, positively integrate into the world economy and accelerate the national renewal process to modernize the country, enrich the people and realise an equitable, democratic and civilised society. That is the country’s vitality.