Curing Arrogance in the Party

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To effectively treat arrogance in the Party, it is necessary to have full awareness, find out the cause, correctly assess the current situation and seriously implement practical solutions, thereby contributing to building a truly clean and strong Party.

1According to the Vietnamese dictionary: "Arrogance is overestimating oneself, showing contempt for others". For cadres and party members, arrogance will manifest in their perception, attitude, words and actions. In perception, it is the assessment of one's own qualities and abilities that is too high compared to reality, thinking oneself the best, unmatched; only seeing one's own advantages but not the advantages of others, only seeing what one can do but not what others can do, only seeing the shortcomings of others but not seeing one's own shortcomings.

In attitude, they always act like masters of others, look down on their comrades, often flaunt their own strengths and achievements, and consider other people's words and actions to be less valuable and meaningful than their own. In conferences, people with arrogance often do not acknowledge the reasonable opinions of others, always thinking their own opinions are perfect. At work, when having to make a decision, they always follow their own decision even though it is not reasonable. In summaries and final reports, they often think that their contribution is very great, even higher than the collective.

The disease of arrogance is not new in the Party. This disease has always been a problem that President Ho Chi Minh paid great attention to preventing and combating during the process of building and training our Party. Right from the time of preparing to establish the Party, in lectures for cadres of the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association, when talking about the qualities of a revolutionary, he affirmed: “One must: Be frugal. Be peaceful without being selfish. Be determined to correct one’s mistakes. Be careful without being timid. Ask often. Be patient (hard-working). Be studious and thoughtful. Be selfless. Be not greedy for fame, and not arrogant.”⁽¹⁾Later, when the August Revolution and the resistance war against France succeeded and before passing away, he always attached special importance to the work of Party building and always reminded and required the cadres and Party members to cultivate and practice moral qualities, lifestyle, and prevent and fight against arrogance.

In practice, after many years of renovation, by the 13th National Party Congress, along with other aspects, the work of Party building and rectification has achieved important achievements, which is the "key" reason for the comprehensive achievements in the country's renovation. Besides, the work of Party building and rectification still has limitations and shortcomings that need to be thoroughly overcome, especially the state of degradation in political ideology, ethics, lifestyle, "self-evolution", "self-transformation" within the Party, with 27 manifestations pointed out by the Resolution of the 4th Central Committee of the 12th Party Congress.

Arrogance is one of those manifestations. That is: “Voluntarism, imposition, conservatism, only doing things one's own way; not willing to learn, listen, and accept reasonable opinions from others”; “In self-criticism, still hiding, not daring to admit shortcomings”. In recent years, with determination, perseverance, and drasticness in synchronously implementing many solutions, the work of Party building and rectification has contributed to fighting and preventing an important step in the degradation of the Party, contributing to making the Party cleaner and stronger. However, the degradation of political ideology, ethics, lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation” continues to occur, and arrogance in some cadres and Party members has not ended.

2. The disease of arrogance in the Party is caused by many reasons. First of all, the negative influence of the market mechanism along with the pragmatic, hedonistic, and individualistic lifestyle is affecting the awareness, attitude, and behavior of cadres and party members every day and every hour. Without courage and without regular self-cultivation and training, it is easy for goals, ideals, and perceptions to fade and for people to have incorrect assessments of themselves. Along with that, loopholes in the legal system and negative aspects in work have created a number of cadres and party members with "very good records and resumes" but lacking accumulation, self-cultivation, and training in practice, thereby causing them to misunderstand and have illusions about themselves, giving rise to hundreds of diseases, first of all, arrogance. Besides, there is the flattery and adulation of dishonest cadres and party members along with a weak Party Committee and Party organization that does not properly implement the criticism and self-criticism regime. Accordingly, cadres and party members living and working in an environment of "little truth" find it difficult to perceive themselves correctly and easily become arrogant.

Subjectively, arrogance originates from the lack of self-cultivation and training of cadres and party members, leading to individualism, ambition, and fame-seeking. This was mentioned by President Ho Chi Minh in his work “Reforming the way of working”. He affirmed that individualism gives birth to hundreds of dangerous diseases, including arrogance: “There are a few party members who are bound by individualism and become arrogant, self-righteous, and conceited.”⁽²⁾.

If arrogance is not prevented, it will lead to wrong decisions of the leader, causing losses to the organization. Arrogant people often consider themselves the best, always above everyone, even above the collective, thinking they are right, giving rise to subjectivity, voluntarism, often not respecting the collective, not promoting collective intelligence. Meanwhile, reality is always moving, task requirements are increasingly high, many complex problems arise. To make accurate and timely decisions, leaders and managers must have comprehensive qualifications, capacity, and qualities, especially the capacity to unite, promote collective intelligence, and promote the human factor. However, arrogant people cannot unite, cannot promote collective intelligence, and cannot promote the human factor, thereby easily making wrong decisions.

Arrogance is always associated with flattery, flattery, associated with regression and dissatisfaction. Arrogance is an illusion about oneself, not having a correct perception of oneself leading to subjectivity, voluntarism, often making mistakes in work and behavior. The collective will realize that, straightforward people often exchange and contribute ideas. Arrogant people, due to not having a correct perception of themselves, easily lead to denying sincere contributions and from there have an attitude of hatred and suppression of straightforward people. On the contrary, arrogant people like people who flatter and flatter them. Because of arrogance, they do not understand themselves, do not have a correct perception of their own strengths and weaknesses, so they cannot promote their strengths, cannot correct and overcome their weaknesses, do not really try to self-study, self-cultivation, self-training to perfect themselves, so they gradually fall behind, gradually will not meet the requirements of the task. This creates a feeling of discouragement and negativity, thinking that the group has not recognized them, leading to dissatisfaction with the organization.

Arrogance gives rise to factions and disunity. When being arrogant, people often think they are right, so they dismiss sincere, reasonable, and logical opinions from others, which creates conflicts in their own thoughts. In particular, for cadres and party members with positions and power, when being arrogant, they often use their power to force others to acknowledge them, using their words and actions to defame, distort, and lower the prestige of those who do not share their views. In the collective, groups with opposing views will form, gradually causing conflicts, creating a suffocating, gloomy atmosphere. The quality and efficiency of the agency's and unit's operations, the leadership capacity, and the fighting strength of the party organization will gradually decline.

If arrogance is not warned and prevented, it will lead to “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”. Arrogance gives rise to self-indulgence, leading to the illusion of demanding preferential treatment, honor and status. When not satisfied, they turn to dissatisfaction, blame the organization, even follow and encourage reactionary and opportunistic elements to blacken the truth and sabotage the Party and the regime. That is the path to “turning the tables” and “transforming” from revolutionary to reactionary. In reality, there have been many cadres and party members who were heroes and had contributed to the revolution, but later, due to arrogance and meritorious deeds, became traitors to the Party, the Fatherland, the people and the regime.

3. To effectively treat the disease of arrogance in the Party, it is required that Party committees, Party organizations and each cadre and Party member deeply understand and seriously implement the Resolution of the 4th Central Committee of the 11th, 12th and 13th tenures on Party building and rectification, preventing and combating degradation in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, "self-evolution", "self-transformation". From there, there is a solid basis for identifying, self-criticizing, self-cultivating, self-training to improve one's political capacity, moral qualities and lifestyle. At the same time, there is a basis for fighting and combating the phenomena of degradation in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, "self-evolution", "self-transformation" and arrogance in the collective.

Along with that, it is necessary to promote the role and responsibility of organizations and forces in preventing and combating ideological, moral and lifestyle degradation, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation”, individualism and arrogance. The responsibility for prevention and combat lies first and foremost with Party committees and Party organizations at all levels, with cadres and Party members, and with the entire political system. Therefore, it is necessary to seriously deploy and organize the implementation of resolutions, directives, programs and specific plans on Party building and rectification; to effectively carry out the work of educating, managing, training, inspecting, supervising and disciplining Party members, and to take the exemplary role of heads of agencies and units. At the same time, it is necessary to effectively implement the regime of self-criticism and criticism, combat formalism in the implementation process, and promote democracy in Party activities. Each cadre and party member needs to clearly perceive their position, role, responsibilities, and tasks, correctly assess their own qualities and abilities, be truly modest, open-minded, resolute, and persistent in preventing and combating degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, “self-evolution,” and “self-transformation.” Fight against the ideology of meritorious service, empiricism, “star disease,” and “covering one’s ears” in all work.

Lieutenant Colonel, PhD NGUYEN HUU TUAN -Head of Department, Faculty of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, School of Political Officers

(1) Ho Chi Minh, Complete Works, National Political Publishing House, 2011, volume 2, p.280

(2) Ho Chi Minh, Complete Works, National Political Publishing House, 2011, volume 11, p.608

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