The Political Report is a summary and evaluation of the results of what we have done in the last five years in a comprehensive way, both good and bad aspects. In the past five years, through my acknowledge and observation of the operation of our society, my biggest concern is the human being.

Chapter 7, entitled "Cultural development and people building" of the report assessed the overall situation of this task. Of the six key tasks, the 6th mission or the last is about promoting the human factor. Thus, Chapter 7 and the "6th task of the 6 tasks" refers to building people.

And this is the part that I am concerned and worried about the most, in the current situation of our society in the current period. Because, ultimately, the "cause of all causes," success or failure, is decided by the human factor. We must understand that a lot of things we have been unable to accomplish were due to  not building the necessary people yet.

Looking at the society that we are living in, I think that placing the missing “building people” at the last position in the report is unsatisfactory.

The thing that we have not accomplished and which is the biggest worry is not economic issues, but the construction of man! I would say frankly that it's is failure, not degradation, as the draft report said!

Perhaps the image of our nation has never been as degraded seriously as it is today. Keeping an eye on the local media, you can see many murder cases in which the murderers killed someone very easily and simply. A person who had never committed a crime before could kill four people at once, including children, without any fear. Or a young boy could kill his grandmother, a man could kill his father...

What could we see through these cases? We are destroying the biggest natural resource, the most powerful strength, the most decisive factor! It is worrying that the draft political report did not show any solution to solve this matter.

President Ho Chi Minh said: "To build socialism, there must be socialists". However, I feel like we are not confident, we don’t dare set the direction even though socialism is very far. We are building people of a society that has not yet formed, not yet existed, so can we do that?

Yes, we can! Whether socialism has yet to come, we can still visualize the qualities of the people of the new society. But to do so, these people must preserve the traditional qualities of the people who have been forged over the years, and these people have to know how to absorb the essence of that time. Who are these people? The draft report completely lacks that direction. As long as we do not point out this, all the current social conflicts willremain unresolved!

In summary, it is clear that humans and human issues must be at the forefront, not at the final position as in the draft report!

Where are the noble, humane qualities?

There was a time when foreigners commented about our society with the saying "seeing heroes everywhere". That's the truth and that was not what we talked about ourselves. When a renowned Australian journalist saw the photo featuring a female guerrilla escorting an American pilot, he exclaimed: "The rifle is longer than her height, the victories are more than her age"! There was a time the Vietnamese people were so bright they could solve huge problems that history posed for the Vietnamese people at that time.

They were not ideal or unreal human beings. They were absolutely real, who lived for their family and their children. We absolutely have every reason to believe that we can make a strategy that both keeps and builds the new Vietnamese people. The new people must have the nature of old ones: loving the nation, neighbors, other people and being eager to work and be responsible for the country.

In the years 1970 - 1971, I witnessed a meeting on the street, with US prisoners being escorted from the Hoa Lo Prison to the Hang Day stadium. A lot of people stood along the street. When the prisoners passed by, people only saw the prisoners in silence. Occasionally, someone shouted: "Down with US imperialism" in a very spontaneous way. Thinking about the humanity of the Vietnamese people, I was very anxious when I saw the picture of two old men in local newspapers. They were caught in the act of stealing a chicken. The two old men were beaten to bleeding from their mouths and were forced to hold the dead chicken in their mouths. I was just shocked and asked myself: "Is this the act of Vietnamese people?"

But then when I thought about the meeting in the past, I felt proud of my nation. American soldiers killed many Vietnamese people, including relatives of those who stood along the road. But when US prisoners passed away, they just looked at them, with generous attitude. Vietnamese people at that time were very decent, civilized, compassionate, generous, and with that position, we could defeat US imperialists.

So where are these people now? Where are their noble qualities, humanity even with their enemies now? When we cannot create material values yet, we have to maintain such great dignity and even have to multiply it out.

The Party is confirming its leadership, so the Party must do that task. I also want to emphasize the criteria related to the people. That's the unemployment and job creation criteria.

Employment is very important to each person. Having a job makes a profound impact on them, not just the material but also spiritual life, including moral, culture and human rights. People have the major right – the right to work to earn their living. So for the ruling party, one of their goals is to bring the unemployment rate down.

What does unemployment mean? It is not only the necessities of life but also social security. The incidents occurred recently, I think, were because we did not meet human rights yet, ie the right of employment, which then causes degradation of humans.

The degradation of officials is another perspective, because they have access to so many interests but they do not hold themselves. The degradation in society in general is due to poverty and unemployment.

How is the unemployment rate of Vietnam at present? We do not have accurate and official figures, but I personally think that unemployment is not below 15-17%. And the unemployment rate and job creation indicators have never been mentioned in the report of the Government or the Party's political statements. From this basically wrong thing, many other matters arise.

Actually if the Party can solve these problems, then the party’s leadership is clearly proven. We made a very strong impact on the people to mobilize human and material resources for the war, in which there were great differences of physical strength between the US and Vietnam. What pushed the physical strength on a par to win the US?

People have summarized that it is impossible to use the power of spirit to win the power of material, only the power of material can win the power of material. So what in Vietnam in that moment pushed this little material into the great material to confront the enormous material? The spirit is only part of that concept. To do that, they must be all blended together to create the true material to withstand.

In the new society if we can do so, even with low income, we can still push the quality of life to a higher level as the quality of life of high-income countries. When we started innovation, we avoided touching the new socialists, were afraid to mention it, and saw it as old-fashioned, obsolete matter. If we build the socialists in this market economy, then that is the true orientation, the assertion of socialism.

The socialists master the market economy, why not? That's the real difference. The Government takes care of economic development, and the party must take care of the people, building the people. Holding the people is holding the core of the issue, holding everything and controlling what we want to affirm: the socialist orientation. 

Van Chung