“Dear Comrades,

The National scientific Conference entitled "80-year Outline on Vietnamese Culture - Origin and Motivation for Development" is a very meaningful activity to affirm and honor the document’s historical significance and role. Also, it inherits and promotes the sustainable values of the Outline on Vietnamese Culture in the development process of Vietnamese culture and the nation's revolutionary cause, contributing to the successful implementation of the viewpoints, orientations, goals and tasks of Vietnamese cultural and people development set out by the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress, thoroughly grasping the very important, profound and comprehensive guiding speech of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Cultural Conference 2021.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thang, Politburo member, Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council, and President of Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, delivered a speech at the conference.

The history of thousands of years of national construction and defense has been shaping a Vietnamese culture rich in identity, imbued with the precious national traditions, illustrating Vietnamese people’s quality, knowledge, intelligence, bravery and mettle. Originally, culture has become the soul, the fulcrum for the great and lasting strength of the people and the great unity of the whole Vietnamese nation in the struggle for maintaining and defending the national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Fatherland.

The patriot movements against the French colonialists since the mid-19th century, either peasant revolts or movements of feudal scholars, followed many different paths and directions but culturally they demonstrated the common goal of saving the country and the people i.e. fighting against the enslavement, oppression, and cultural destruction of the colonialism and fascism.

With a rich, creative and sensitive political vision, right from the book "Duong Kach Menh" (Revolutionary Path) to spread Marxism-Leninism into the reality of our country's revolution, leader Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) brought a completely new approach to building Vietnamese cultural and human values, firstly building the character of a true revolutionary person. With simple but emotional poems, he had lit up faith and pride in the nation's glorious tradition, calling on all Vietnamese people to unite and stand up to fight for independence, freedom for the Fatherland and happiness for the people.

The outline on Vietnamese culture issued in 1943 was drafted by General Secretary Truong Chinh, showing the vision and strategic thinking of our Party on the position, role and importance of culture in the revolutionary cause of the Party and the nation. Along with the new Marxist scientific stance and theory on culture, the outline was also a very important succession and supplement to Ho Chi Minh's thought, the Brief outline, the Brief strategy (February 1930), guidelines and summary of leadership practices in the cultural field of our Party through the climax of the revolutionary struggle since its founding.

The outline on Vietnamese culture carries the mission of opening up the sources of national culture in the context of promoting the anti-imperialist and anti-war, leading to the General Uprising in August 1945. It created a unity of awareness and cultural ideals for the people, especially the intelligentsia, passionate writers and artists. It fostered national pride, encouraged the spirit of commitment to the revolution and truly became a torch to light the way for the new cultural development.

Creatively applying Marxism-Leninism to the reality of Vietnam's revolution, the Outline concisely raised issues but prominently presented the theoretical viewpoint, showing the foresight on culture of a revolutionary Party which was then just over 13 years old; affirming that culture always existed and developed in a dialectical relationship with economy and politics as an objective law.

The view "culture is a front" written in the Outline established a special position of the struggle in the field of culture and the urgent task to "deny the culture of feudal, backward, enslaving fascism, culture of stupidity and fooling the people" in the struggle of the Vietnamese people against imperialism, fascism, colonialism and feudalism.

The Outline on Culture affirmed the special importance of building a new culture in the Vietnamese revolutionary cause, with the right awareness that the Party's leadership in the cultural field was both political and objective necessity. In order for the revolution to succeed, the new culture must definitely be led by the Party.

Besides, by leading the cultural movement, the Party can spread revolutionary ideas and create a far-reaching influence on society. The construction of a new culture must be associated with the national liberation revolution and the cause of building the socialist regime. The work of social reform, eliminating what is old and backward, and aiming to build a new and superior social regime can only be achieved when a new culture - a socialist culture-  is formed.

Looking back on the past 80 years, being imbued and crystallized in the guidelines of the Party, verified by the glorious victories in the revolutionary cause of the Party and our nation, the Outline on Culture Vietnam showed the core values of a political document.

Born at a turning point in history, the Outline aroused patriotism and ignited the flame of determination of the entire Vietnamese nation as the appeal of President Ho Chi Minh: " whatever sacrifices we have to make, even if we must burn out the whole Truong Son mountain range, we resolutely have to gain our independence" (1), "taking our strength to liberate ourselves" (2), standing up, smash slavery, making the glorious victory of the August Revolution 1945, giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam - the first worker-peasant state in Southeast Asia.

With the view “Culture and art are also a front, artists and writers are soldiers on that front”, our Party gathered a large contingent of intellectuals, patriotic writers and artists who gave up their good living conditions to stand side-by-side with other classes of people to commit themselves to following the revolution, devoting their heart, talent and strength to the resistance war and national construction.

The Outline contributed to the formation of immortal truths, such as: "culture lights the way for the nation… culture leads the people to realize independence, self-reliance and build a foundation new culture“, "taking the happiness of the people and the nation as the foundation”" (3), "developing the economy and culture to constantly improve the people’s lives" (4), "Culture is the soul of the nation... A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive" (5) etc. They became the guidelines for our nation through two great and long-term resistance wars and in the construction of an independent, free and happy Vietnam after the reunification.

In 1943, when the Outline on Vietnamese Culture was issued, our nation had not yet gained independence, and our country had no name on the world map. After 80 years of steadfastly fighting for independence, reunifying the country, building and defending the Fatherland, and achieving great achievements of historical significance, our country has never had the opportunity, potential, position and international prestige as today. It must be clearly seen that, at any period, at any historical moment, our Party has always been interested in the field of culture. Our Party always inherits and promotes the core points, principles and issues of the Outline, constantly renewing cognitive thinking, supplementing theories, perfecting guidelines on building and developing Vietnamese culture and people.

From focusing only on the scope of three key areas of the country’s culture identified in the Outline (ideology, academia and art), we have set a new requirement for a synchronous and comprehensive construction of cultural elements, from ideology, morality, lifestyle to environment and cultural life; from cultural heritage, literature and art to cultural institutions. It is necessary to build and develop a new value system of an advanced Vietnamese culture which is imbued with national identity, based on the national value system and the goal of striving for peace, unity, independence, rich people, strong country, democracy, justice, civilization and happiness.

From the dialectical relationship between culture, economy and politics, we now have become more aware that: culture is the spiritual foundation of society, the goal, endogenous resources and great motivation for rapid and sustainable development of the country. It is necessary to arouse a great source of "soft" power, transform Vietnam's resources, cultural values, national values, family values into development values, making culture not only put on par but also penetrate deeper and spread more strongly in the economic, political and social fields.

From the requirement to implement three principles of "nationalization"; "popularization"; "scientificization" in the pre-insurrection cultural movement, our Party has supplemented and developed into the "people", "humanism" and "democratic" attributes of the culture. It contributes to harmoniously handling many complex relationships in the practice of today's cultural and human development, such as the relationship between conservation and development, between construction and resistance, between preserving national identity and promoting international integration, between tradition and modernity, between popular culture and elite culture,...

"80-year outline on Vietnamese culture - Origin and Motivation for Development”

The more we realize the importance and correctness of the points, principles and guidelines of the Outline, the more we see the need to inherit and promote positive values of the national culture, while promoting exchanges, acclimatization and selective absorption of the quintessence of human culture, affirming the identity and bravery of the Vietnamese nation in the process of international integration.

Originating from the Outline’s idea of "art for humanity’s sake", our Party today has formed the view that human development must be placed at the center and the goal of the cultural development process. We are building the culture of the people who are creators, transmitters, and beneficiaries of that culture values.

On one hand, culture must direct all creativity and all activities to serve the mass. On the other hand, it is necessary to cultivate artistic and cultural talents, to have authors with works of "top" value; resolutely resist all cultural aggression, eliminate all forms of hybrid culture, superstition, which adversely affect fine customs and traditions, strengthen resistance, and be immune to misrepresentation about history, revolutionary cause and fine tradition of our nation.

With the starting point from the Outline on Vietnamese Culture in order to build a new culture and the aspiration to revive and develop Vietnamese culture, I suggest scientists, delegates focus on discussing and deepening the following key issues during this Conference:

1. We have to affirm the scientific, political, historical significance and sustainable values of the Outline in the nation’s revolutionary cause and the development process of Vietnamese culture. In particular, both theoretically and practically, it is necessary to focus on explaining the content and ways to inherit and promote the value of the Outline in the cause of comprehensive construction and development of Vietnamese culture and people in the spirit of the Document of the 13th Party Congress.

On the basis of summarizing the practice of 40 years of Doi Moi (Renovation), especially the practice of developing the country's culture, we should continue doing research, supplementing and perfecting the theory of cultural development, new people in the discussion on our Party's Doi Moi policy. Also, it is necessary to build and implement the value system of an advanced Vietnamese culture, imbued with national identity, associated with the following characteristics: nation, democracy, humanity and science; meeting the urgent requirements of the new context, new development platform and new awareness.

2. We have to continue renewing our thinking and raising awareness about the role of culture in the development. It is necessary to look directly at the fact that culture sometimes has not been properly placed, not really worthy of socio-economic development strategies and plans in many places. There is even a misconception that preserving and developing culture requires large investment resources but brings low economic efficiency.

From the cultural dialectical viewpoint of the Outline along with new guidelines and policies of the Party, we are more aware of the role and contribution of achievements in cultural development, in which investing in culture means investing in development. On that basis, we have to develop strategies, master plans and projects to ensure synchronous, overall and comprehensive development in all fields: economy, politics, culture, society and the environment, with priority given to the responsibility of preserving the cultural and natural heritage of the country.

3. Institutions, laws and policies have to be improved to create an environment for cultural activities and mobilize resources for cultural and human development. The new ideas of the Outline are sources of encouragement for us to develop and promulgate new regulations, policies, and management models to promote cultural and artistic activities for active, positive development that is suitable to the conditions of application of advances in science, technology and innovation. All aspects of national culture, such as political culture, business culture and business ethics, behavior culture in family and society, have to be synchronously developed.

In particular, it is necessary to have a determination to remove bottlenecks and obstacles in mobilizing and allocating resources from the State and society, especially in terms of mechanisms of decentralization, public-private cooperation. Businesses and people should be encouraged to participate in the conservation and development of culture and art, etc. to overcome the situation of scattered, dripping and prolonged investment. Moreover, we need to  formulate, organize and effectively implement programs, plans and projects on cultural and human development in the coming period.

4. We must take care of building a team of cultural workers with quality and professional capacity commensurate with the requirements and tasks of the new situation. The Outline showed the importance of building a team of cultural cadres who have a heart, vision and responsibility in opening up and paving the way for the development of the country's culture.

Along with the requirements of training, fostering and improving skills and professionalism, cultural workers need to be respected, encouraged, motivated, treated and honored, and built an open and flexible mechanism in terms of recruitment and salary, creating conditions for this team to promote their talents, creativity, and contribute to the cause of cultural and human development.

5. We have to promote the development of cultural industries and cultural markets. This is an urgent requirement posed in the new development context of the country. It is necessary to have synchronous mechanisms and policies for developing high-quality human resources, focusing on investing not only in technical infrastructure such as traffic infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and urban infrastructure, but especially in socio-cultural infrastructure, strengthening the promotion of national image and brand.

It is also important to improve institutions, promote the role of the market mechanism in mobilizing and allocating rationally and efficiently resources for cultural development. Moreover, we have to well handle the relationship between the State, the market and society in cultural development. Comprehensive attention should be paid to management subjects, creators, practitioners, and cultural transmitters along with promoting the role of the people as the center of creativity and beneficiaries of cultural values.

On the 80th anniversary of the Outline on Vietnamese Culture, we have the responsibility to honor, spread and promote the value of the document bearing the Party's Platform on culture, contributing to the success in the cause of comprehensive development of Vietnamese people and revival, building a Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity in the new period.

Thank you very much, comrades.”