It can be said that in the field of culture, Truong Chinh is the most brilliant disciple of President Ho Chi Minh. It’s because, only a person with such profound cultural knowledge, having absorbed the quintessence of the nation and mankind like him, was able to comprehend and acquire Ho Chi Minh’s deep and comprehensive thoughts on culture.

Celebrating the centenary of Truong Chinh’s birth, and trying to comprehend his contributions to Vietnamese culture, it’s our primary task to interpret the role of culture in politics, economics and to place culture within all activities of a nation and an individual.

Cultural Programme Programme for Vietnam compiled by Truong Chinh in 1943 forged a close link between political and cultural thought. Politics would only be successful when it is organised and steered by a Marxist – Leninist vanguard theory that encourages the spiritual strength of all people and is joined by the bulk of intellectuals with a voluntary and creative spirit. On the contrary, culture will only be significant when it is linked to the people’s noble political task and serves that very task.

In the draft Programme, Truong Chinh both demonstrated the theories and practical experience obtained by the Party in cultural activities since its birth and forecast the future of the nation’s culture and the socialist revolution in the field of culture.

Since then, the Programme helped the cultural circle of Vietnam  have a unification on a firm theoretical basis and precise orientations to implement glorious tasks for the sake of the people who had been suffering for years of foreign aggression.

As soon as it was completed, the Programme drew  attention in particular from intellectuals and ordinary people who studied and adapted to practical situations in science, education and art. Cultural viewpoints and thought stipulated in the Programme have been revised through different stages of historic development. Several books and newspaper articles have continued analysing and scrutinizing the Programme. The most significant events were major seminars marking the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of the Programme in 1983, 1993 and 2003.

In this document, Truong Chinh summed up the most important issues of culture in its most basic aspects: ideology, terminology and art or more currently, ideology, science and art.

Ideology is a component lying within culture. If today we separate it into two: ideology and culture, it only means that we lay stress on the ideological side in culture.

Due to their social status, cultural workers find it hard to rid themselves of the illusion of culture being independent of economics and politics or the illusion of absolute freedom of thought and creativity. Some intellectuals, especially those working in the cultural and art sector believe that they live in the pure realm of philosophy, theology and morality without realising that the very realm was established and exist within the boisterous struggle of economics and politics. Throughout his life, Truong Chinh strove to clarify this viewpoint and unceasingly fought all biased views about this matter.

From the standpoint of the masses who were suffering from oppression and exploitation, righteous Marxist – Leninists deemed it their primary task to topple the oppressing rulers and wrest back power for the people. This is a prerequisite for an economic and cultural revolution.

During the function marking the 40th anniversary of the Cultural Programme, Truong Chinh dwelt on the three major principles of cultural campaigning as highlighted by the Programme then. These principles include: nationalization, scientification and popularisation, which are inevitable for a new type of culture during the people’s national, democratic revolution.

Dealing with cultural revolution’s tasks for that stage of development, Truong Chinh focused on the three most fundamental objectives: Developing new ideology, developing a new type of culture and fostering a new type of man which were regarded as the most important guidelines to review past experience and to work out new obligations for the ideological and cultural front.

In his report on Marxism and Vietnam’s culture (1948), Truong Chinh, as a Marxist theorist, for the first time made a systematic evaluation of Vietnamese culture in a creative and convincing manner. The report geared all cultural and art activities towards the great war of resistance of the nation and assisted those fighters in the cultural front to grasp all rules of life and rules of artistic creativity.

According to Truong Chinh, the fighter on the cultural and art front should fully comprehend and forge a firm cultural stance in the people’s national democratic revolution:

Socially, it takes the working class as the core

Politically, it takes national independence, people’s democracy and socialism as the root.

Ideologically, it takes Marxism-Leninism as the base.

As far as literary and art creativity is concerned, it takes socialist realism as the formation.

Some may say it was a fairly rigid stance but I think is must be so, otherwise writers and artists can be sidetracked, ideologically lopsided and thus will commit errors and mistakes in their awareness and creativity.

Socially, in order for the national liberation revolution to succeed and to advance with the socialist revolution, it is crucial to  judge things from the stance and viewpoints of the working class and in a broader sense for the sake of the oppressed masses. The working class comprises the staunchest and most clear-sighted people, who would liberate themselves by liberating the whole of society. Therefore, taking the stance of the working class and that of labouring people, one can avoid falling into individualism and selfishness and would know how to place common, long-term interests above individual, immediate interests.

Under the Party’s leadership and through the class nature of culture, it should become second nature for artists to uphold a high sense of responsibility. Before writing one should ask oneself: What am I going to write? Who am I writing for? And what is my writing for?

On the other hand, Truong Chinh also criticised rigid thinking in terms of class and party expression. The party character in literary creation not only requires a high sense of ideology but also a high artistic value. This characteristic of the Party requires the literary work to reach high standards in its creation. That’s why, it does not accept mediocre novels or those written with rigid formulas or cliche.

Politically, Truong Chinh underscored the need to take national independence, people’s democracy and socialism as the roots. This is a clear and resolute political orientation. A fighter on the cultural front must abide by that orientation and work towards it. So the statement of literature and art in the interests of politics clarifies this meaning, not the commonly mistaken understanding that cultural activists must obey political activists. Any misinterpretation of the concept of literature and art serving politics would give rise to leftist or rightist bias.

Ideologically, Marxism-Leninism is regarded as the roots. Marxism – Leninism provides a clear look to distinguish between right or wrong, true and false, a situation analysis, a past evaluation and a future forecast. These are extremely important for cultural activists and artists. Marxism – Leninism is very different from rigid formulas and dogmatism and therefore, is vital, dynamic, growing and creative. Having applied Marxism-Leninism creatively and without dogmatism, President Ho Chi Minh grasped all the characteristics of an Eastern society and these specific to Vietnam and therefore led Vietnamese revolution correctly, without blindly copying any other models. Following President Ho Chi Minh’s example, Mr. Truong Chinh grasped Marxism – Leninism in all his political and cultural activities. Writers and artists resort to Marxism-Leninism  as a spotlight for their vivid and complex activities for past, present and future.

With regard to literary and artistic creations, Truong Chinh  requested taking social realism as the root. This follows that artists should centre themselves around realities and dig deep into realities and then, from the colourful and lively developments of life, it is possible to discover the nature of the matters and forecast the inevitable historic trend being socialism.  If he had comprehended socialist realism as a handful of rigid principles, he would have never asked writers and artists to adopt such a position.  He himself with the penname Song Hong, would have never acted that way.

Always highlighting the pioneer role of culture for social development, Truong Chinh would meet and encourage intellectuals, writers and artists to use all their wisdom and talent to fight for national independence and people’s freedom and happiness.

Accordingly, Vietnamese intellectuals have come up with wonderful inventions and innovations in different sectors of science and technology. Writers and artists have created splendid literary and artistic works to help enhance heroic acts of Vietnamese people throughout the two wars of resistance.

Providing righteous awareness of the nature of life and the rule of culture for writers and artists, Truong Chinh offered them the most important conditions for creativity. He also pinpointed how to improve and polish culture and art and nurture talents in this sector. He would remind that favouring towards talent over awareness in creation would spoil one’s talent and his future artistic career.

Truong Chinh required all writers and artists to study, survey, collect, and sympathise with the masses, to engage in movements and to share the good and woes with labouring people in their creative work. To this end, the Party organised for writers and artists to study and take part in production and fighting campaigns. Through practical work, writers and artists become aware of the future of the nation, their personal responsibilities and find creative inspirations.

As a cultural activist and leader, Truong Chinh himself demonstrated the virtues of a great cultural personality.

1.      As a great intellectual of the nation he had profound and versatile knowledge of different fields. Following Ho Chi Minh’s example, he devoted his entire life to studying and acquiring new knowledge and intellectual advances of mankind. He gathered around him highly qualified experts and specialists who would update him with the latest information for analysis, thinking and creativity.

Out of his democratic work style, he would take all opportunities to share opinions with other leaders and specialists of assorted fields. His cultural virtue was primarily characterised by comradely  intellect.

2.      As a cultural activist, he excelled himself in documentation, writing books, newspaper articles and composing poems. Literary style reflects human personality. The personality of Truong Chinh is obvious in his writings: sharp, highly discerning, erudite, clear and concise as well as resolute.

3.      Regarding arts, he would be sensitive to all healthy and progressive sense of aesthetics. Although he modestly referred to his poems as not having adequate artistic polish and skills, they have actually contributed significantly to Vietnam’s literature due to their perfect harmony of noble ideas of a politician and delicate inspirations of a cultural personality.

4.      Regarding ethics, he was a great role model of President Ho Chi Minh, exercising the President’s virtues of diligence, thrift, honesty, righteousness, being just and unprejudiced in his everyday life. He possessed no individual ambition for money and position.

5.      Executing President Ho Chi Minh’s teaching regarding the building of a new life, Truong Chinh would criticize backward customs and habits left behind by old social regimes, as well as any signs of superstition or a sense of self-enjoyment among cadres.

It can be said that Truong Chinh inherited all the fine customs and traditions of his native place. However these advantages were inadequate to establish a solid ground for such a comprehensive personality. As a human being is a full combination of social relations, it doesn’t mean that society directly creates virtues of a human being but rather inter-related links between the human being and society create that personality.

Mankind has embarked on a new millennium in the context of globalisation and a knowledge-based economy. All nations are poised between major advantages and difficulties on their path of integration and development.

More than ever before, the matter of culture is becoming a decisive factor for the vitality of a nation and the whole of mankind.

The whole ideological system of Truong Chinh on culture as a valuable heritage, on this occasion continues to be a  motivation source for us in our thinking and creativity.

In all aspects,  including economic, social, political aspects, Truong Chinh’s life and career, ideology and ethics continue to be an example and a valuable lesson for the entire Vietnamese people.

                                                By PROF. VU KHIEU