CONTRIBUTION BY THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF VIETNAM

AT THE 21TH INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF COMMUNISTS

AND WORKERS’ PARTIES

(Izmir, October 2019)

Dear Presidium,

Dear comrades and friends,

1. The Communist Party of Vietnam would like to express our fraternal greetings and solidarity to the communist and workers’ parties. We would like to give special thanks to the Communist Party of Turkey and Communist Party of Greece for their great efforts in creating favorable conditions for our meeting today.

2. We meet right on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist International. The foundation of Communist International has a special significance, as it had profound impact on the contemporary world history. It was a glorious milestone in the development history of the international communist and workers’ movement. After nearly a quarter of a century, the Communist International has brought about long-lasting values, especially the important contribution to the formation of the system of socialist countries in the world. It served as inspiration for the struggles of the liberation and independence in colonial countries. It was also the ideological flag for progressive forces in the struggle to protect social welfare, democracy, peace, independence, freedom, and socialism in the world. Those values ​​and contributions by the Communist International have made a big progress in the development of humankind.A century has passed, mankind has witnessed many incidents, vicissitudes of history, but the values ​​of the Communist International will live forever and spread on to the activities of the working class and working people all over the world today, for the purpose of the liberation of class, nations and societies from oppression, exploitation and injustice.

Comrades,

3. The current international and regional situation are in a period of profound transition with rapid and complicated developments, containing great challenges in politics, security, economy, law, international trade. These are geo-political and geo-economic uncertainties and hotspots in all regions. It is the rise of nationalism, populism, pragmatism, and powerism. It is the rise of arms race, terrorism; the increase the deepening rich-poor gap and social inequality. These complicated developments have posed great challenges to the protection of peace, national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity of nations, equitable and sustainable development.Vietnam was once the battle field of wars of invasion by imperialist forces. The Communist Party of Vietnam had led the Vietnamese people through 30 years of valiant struggles to complete victory in our fight for national independence and reunification. Millions and milions of Vietnamese died because of the wars and the brutal consequences of those wars are still inflicting on us until today. More than anyone, we understand the values of peace and we do our best to protect peace.

In this complicated international situation, more than ever, we need to uphold our spirit of fighting for peace, basic principles of international law, the UN Charter, people’s right, social welfare and democracy. We need to strengthen the solidarity, coordination, tighten the ties among communist and workers’ parties and progressive forces. We need to enhance the sharing of experiences on our political ideology, party building, theoretical work and together shed light to the theoretical aspect with the path to socialism in each country. The Communist Party of Vietnam stands ready to cooperate and share experiences with you.

Comrades,

4. The Renewal process of our party and people is entering a very important stage, aiming to make Vietnam basically become an industrialized country. Although facing with many challenges, we continue to achieve quite comprehensive results. GDP growth in the past years and this year was over 7%. Our Party continues to record achievements on sustainable poverty reduction; improvement of the quality of education, health and public services, and social progress and justice. We attach special importance to party building and rectification, enhancing the leading and fighting capacities of our party.

The practical results of the renewal in Vietnam over the past time have affirmed the superiority of socialist-oriented development, reinforcing the people's belief in our Party and the path to socialism.

At present, our Party is actively preparing for the XIII National Congress scheduled for early 2021. Our upcoming congress has a very special importance. We will review 10 years implementation of the Platform for national construction in the transition to socialism, assessing the 30 years implementation of the 1991 Platform in order to have practical base and scientific arguments in identifying directions, tasks for the next 5 years and beyond. At the same time, identify the strategic vision of the country by 2030, which marks the 100-year of founding the Communist Party of Vietnam, and by 2045, which marks the 100-year of the country foundation.

In preparing the documents of the Congress, we have been always persistent in the goal of national independence and socialism on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh thought; focusing on mastering and handling well the relationships between inheritance and development, between consistency and renewal, between theory and practice; attaching importance to reviewing our practical work, indentifying new and difficult issues in order to find out big solutions for the new development period.

On this occasion, the Communist Party of Vietnam would like to express its sincere thanks, deep gratitude to the communist, workers’ parties, progressive forces all around the world for their valuable support, sharing and help in our past struggles for national independence, reunification, as well as in our national construction and defense today. We look forward to continuing to receive your feelings, support, encouragement and solidarity in the new period of the development of our Party and country. We reaffirm our close solidarity with the international communist and workers parties.

Wish our Meeting great success.

Thank you comrades and friends./.