HO CHI MINH NATIONAL POLITICAL ACADEMY NGUYEN THI THANH DUNG HO CHI MINH’ S POLITICAL THINKING - MAIN CHARACTERISTICS AND METHODOLOGY Major : Political Science Code : 62 31 20 01 A SUMARY OF PHD THESIS HA NOI - 2014 The thesis was compled at Ho Chi Minh National political Academy Academic Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Huyen First Reviewer: Second Reviewer: Third Reviewer: The thesis is to presented at the Academy coucil of Thesis Accessment, organised at Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy At , date month year 2014 The thesis can be found at National Library and The library of Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy 1 INTRODUCTION 1. The imperative of the topic Up to present, the researches on Ho Chi Minh in general and his political career in particular have mainly focused to clarify the creativity and the unique expressed in his political behaviour and ideology, which were accumulated, challenged and selected during a process to make it more and more improved. They were the result of a process relating to not only logic and experience, right-or-wrong experiment but individual aspiration and belief as well. To summary, what are the causes that lead to the creativity in political behaviour along with ideology of Ho Chi Minh? Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “The ancestor of every action is logic”. His words shows that every thought or action of the human beings originates from logic. The right logic will rule over the right thought and action and create the difference in each person’s thought and action. Above all, how excellent is Ho Chi Minh’s political logic to form the individual creativity in his own political ideology and behaviour? What are the features of Ho Chi Minh political logic that set up the political thoughts changing the world map in the 20 th century? Doi Moi policy was officially implemented in Vietnam from 1986 with the first and foremost reform in logic. In fact, it was the reform in political logic through economic, cultural and social perspectives. It become the foundation or orientation for the all-sided Doi Moi process in Vietnam. During this process, Vietnam Communist Party has incessantly applied the creativeness of Ho Chi Minh’s Marxism and used it as the argumentative base for the reform process. After almost 30 years, besides huge achievements, the revolution reality increases new requirements that demand the political system to enhance and to bring into play the people solidarity power as well as the Vietnamese’s skill, spirit, intelligence and uprightness to build a prosperous, democratic and civilized country. Above that, the Vietnamese need to exploit the heritages that Ho Chi Minh left so as to figure out the valuable guidelines for the current national revolution. Therefore, learning about the main viewpoints in Ho Chi Minh political thought not only decodes the origin of creativeness in Ho Chi Minh political ideology and action but also creates the argumentative foundation for the current reform process. This research supplements the profound knowledge of Ho Chi Minh’s political career and plays a role in the research of History of thought and Political Theory in Vietnamese Politics branch. For the above reasons, the topic brings about the huge reality and argumentative values. The necessary awareness of the research, the student chooses the topic “ Ho Chi Minh’s political thinking - main characteristics and methodology” for her PhD thesis. 2 2. The purposes and tasks of the thesis 2.1. Purposes On the argumentative base of Ho Chi Minh’s political ideology logic, the thesis aims to analyze the factors forming Ho Chi Minh political logic; to clarify the characteristics expressed in the content and method of Ho Chi Minh politcal logic along with the meaning of these characteristics with the political logic reform in Vietnam currently. 2.2. Tasks of the thesis To put the above targets into practice, the thesis will solve the following tasks : - Clarifying the argumentative matters relating to logic, political logic, Ho Chi Minh political logic and the factors forming Ho Chi Minh political logic. - Clarifying the main characteristics of content and method of Ho Chi Minh political logic. - Expressing the methodology of Ho Chi Minh political logic towards the political logic reform in the current political reform of Vietnam. 3. Targets and scope of the thesis 3.1. Researched targets - Main characteristics of Ho Chi Minh political logic. - Methodology meaning towards the current reform career of Vietnam. 3.2. Scope of the reseach From the perspective of Philosophy or Ho Chi Minh study, there have been a number of researches with different interpretation. This topic just does a research from the political philosophy perspective to discover the special features in Ho Chi Minh political logic. The thesis focuses on not only the general Ho Chi Minh ideology but also seeks for his political logic through the researches on his political thoughts and behaviour. However, Ho Chi Minh’s life always associated with politics; the political activities mainly governed other thoughts in different fields. Every thought of Ho Chi Minh of other areas in his life always aimed at his political purposes. It may be because his politics is humane politics; he always regarded the freedom and happiness of people as his targets. Above all, the direct scope of this topic may be narrow but it is implemented in large scale of Ho Chi Minh’s awareness, life, career and thought. For instance: - Mentioning the time, Ho Chi Minh political logic was established and developed in his abundant political life. It is a process that was gradually supplemented, developed and improved. Therefore, Ho Chi Minh’s political life should be considered carefully to identify the main viewpoints in his political logic. 3 - For the space, Ho Chi Minh’s political life was very abundant. It was formed from his real experiences when he stayed in many countries all over the world, hence, the thesis bases on his activity process in different countries through many articles, speeches, stories about his career to find out the main points in his political logic. - Last but not least, mentioning the content, there is a wide scope in Ho Chi Minh political logic. The thesis does not review the structure or the functions of logic as psychological prospect, but limits and recognizes the speciality of Ho Chi Minh political logic under political philosophy outlook. 4. Argumentative basis and methodology - The thesis bases on the argumentative basis of Marxism, Ho Chi Minh ideology and Vietnam Communist Party about Vietnam revolution. - The methodology of the thesis is Dialectical materialism and Historical viewpoint. - Additionally, the thesis also uses the detailed methods like history and logic, comparison, analysis, synthesis, reality arguments, specialist interviews, document analysis, etc,. 5. Scientific contributions of the thesis 5.1. Scientific contributions - The thesis has played a role in clarifying and deepening the matters relating to logic, political logic, Ho Chi Minh political logic and the other factors affecting the formation of Ho Chi Minh political logic. - The thesis analyzes and generalizes the main prospects on content and Ho Chi Minh political logic methodology, hence, interprets that the origin of creativeness in Ho Chi Minh political thought and behaviour. - The thesis infers the scientific comments that contribute to the development of the branch of Vietnam political logic through the research on Ho Chi Minh political logic. 5.2. Contributions in reality perspective - On the general basis of the basic Ho Chi Minh political logic, the thesis analyzes, clarifies and affirms the values and the great stature of Ho Chi Minh through the application of Party and People during this current stage. - The date and knowledge of the thesis may be used as teaching material for classes with the aim to enhance the political logic ability and political behaviour of the leader officials or managers. 6. Argumentative and reality meaning of the thesis 6.1. Argumentative meaning The thesis’s result will contribute to create the theoretical frame of logic, general political logic and particular Ho Chi Minh political logic. It will become the base as well 4 as the tool to analyze and to deeply know the foundation and specific traits of Ho Chi Minh political logic. This content has never been researched systematically but it is very important to interpret the origin of political logic and behaviour among the human beings in general and towards Ho Chi Minh in particular. 6.2. Reality meaning The thesis will contribute to the main picture of researches on Ho Chi Minh and consider it as a typically economic circumstance to apply it into the current political status. The thesis will become the referenced document and suggestion for the future research on Politics, Ho Chi Minh study and related branches. 7. Structure of the thesis Beside the introduction, conclusion and reference index, the thesis also consists of 4 chapters and 9 sections. Chapter 1 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH RELATING TO THE THESIS 1.1. Group of the researches mentioning logic This is one of the most attracted trends for the researchers and has gained plenty of success. Through the sciencific projects, the authors have analyzed and explained the matters relating to the origin, nature, characteristics of logic and Dialectical materialism logic; the history of formation and development of Dialectical materialism logic; the relation between content and method, level and ability of logic, the regulations and rule of logic and Dialectical materialism logic; the relation between Dialectics logic and Formalism logic, etc,. Through that process, the authors have contributed to deepen the most common argumentative problems of logic and Dialectical materialism logic, used the foundation of world outlook and methodology to build the scientific logic methods in awareness and world transformation. Simultaneously, through these researches, the authors have led to many new problems that need to be concerned and continuosly resolved. On the other hand, logic researches associates with the reform career received the concern of many domestic scientists, especially from the Doi Moi process of our country in 1986 until present. Though these researches have the difference in the approaching method and content, they have the common point which is the resolution to the common argumentative matters on logic and Dialectical materialism logic must associate with the Reform career and Socialism construction in our country. The contributions of these researches have clarified the common arguments on logic transformation, functions of logic renewal towards the Reform process, Socialism construction, our current situations along with the problems of logic that need solutions along with their 5 causes. After the analysis of argumentative basis and reality, the authors have recommended some methods of our Party to improve the weaknesses in thoughts and activities of our officials so as to meet the demand of general Reform career and logic reform process particularly. Among these matters, all the authors have affirmed the scientific nature of Dialectic materialism to the officials is the best way to ỉmprove the weaknesses in our logic. 1.2. Group of researches mentioning the political ideology and political logic This is the content that has not attracted much attention in both domestic and international arena. The researches on this content have brought about many different viewpoints on political logic, but in general they are both unanimous that political logic is a process gathering and transfering information to form the viewpoints based on the knowledge of political issues. The authors have distinguished the political logic with the logic of politics. Politics is an important factor of political logic. The logic of politics wants to mention the sustainable matters on ideology and morality that mention the political languages. Political logic wants to express a system of logic - reality relating to the collective actions, to distinguish with the art logic, historical logic, moral logic. However, political logic consists of at least 6 characteristics : i) Arranging the meaning of social targets, requirements, processes and structures according to the importance or emergency level; ii) Mobilizing the support by accepting, defending, criticizing or objecting to the collective entity, procedure and its activities; iii) Reflecting the stability or instability through the calculation of cooperation plans, divergence, disputes over the arguments of groups; iv) Making decision and policies through the construction plans and collective guidance and common outlook; v) Holding the power of words through the convincing skills, making speech, expressing feelings; vi) Making the topics for present : dividing and adjusting the different fields and the authority boundary among the social fields along with maintaining the political privilege in the limitation. On the other hand, the researches also deal with the structure of political logic, political logic method and factors affecting the formation of individual as well as community political logic. Moreover, it also affirms the influence of political logic on the nations’politics along with the relation between political logic and political culture. 1.3. Groups of researches mentioning logic, Ho Chi Minh political logic Although the scientific researches has turned into a unified conclusion of existing Ho Chi Minh political logic, they have just stopped at bringing about a problem or methodology, not the specialized research of Ho Chi Minh political logic to apply into real situation in our country. These researches have provided the authors with all-sided 6 approaches so as to form the tool and specialized knowledge when doing the thesis. The researches within and outside the country have had the contributions to the process that explores logic and human brain’s activities. They also mention a kind of human logic at the first level : political logic. However, the number of researches on Ho Chi Minh political logic is not really high. It causes the disadvantages to the authors when researching, but also creates the new characteristic for the targets and approaching methods. Therefore, this topic will take part in fulfilling the range of Ho Chi Minh study as well as Politics research. Interpreting a topic which has not been chosen in thesis topic creates many disadvantages in using the directly related researches. It will make some troubles when researching, especially a thesis with the limitation of time as well as the legal standards. However, awareness is a process in which the more the targets are researched, the more we figure out that our knowledge is quite limited. Moreover, fully understanding of human is out of ability towards anybody, especially when researching a great historical character like President Ho Chi Minh. The thesis desires to open some aspects of the general picture. It is essential to understand a person comprehensively and totally and it also contributes to add more knowledge to the enormous scientific library. Chapter 2 THEORETICAL ISSUES ABOUT POLITICAL THINKING AND ELEMENTS FORMING HO CHI MINH’S POLITICAL THINKING 2.1. Theoretical issues about thinking, political thinking and Ho Chi Minh’s political thought 2.1.1. The concept of thinking Thinking is a complex concept with many different commentaries in many ways, depending on the philosophical viewpoint, researching area, specialized research, But different concepts of thinking have something in common, it is: human thinking process must be accompanied with awareness, from realistic feeling to analysis and judgment to objective reality (including judgments, judgment is an expression of thinking, it determines the true or false value of the object man is thinking) under the logic necessary to deeply recognize objective reality (through language, signs and images) and find a direction and solution to modify objective reality in order to bring benefits to the people and communities. The thesis neither studies thinking as a complex psychological process as psychology approach does nor as a process dissect the activity of neurons in psychoanalytic research Thinking, here, is studied as activities that occur in human brain with distributed operations analysis, synthesis, comparison, compare to form 7 opinions, thoughts, words, actions to improve objective reality. It is an advanced stage of cognitive processes including acquisition, processing information and generating new knowledge in operations analysis, synthesis, comparison to create the awareness and improve the world through practical activities of man. Thinking occurs when practical problems arise, in other words, it is practical problems that require thinking. When the practice impacts, knowledge transfer into human brains, meanwhile, takes place in the brain’s process of analysis, synthesis, comparison, comparison they are the manipulations of thinking that take place to address management information. The result of this process will be reflected in language (including speech and writing, gestures). In this process, knowledge and practical circumstances should be regarded as raw materials, inputs of thinking. From the knowledge about things that people take actions accordingly. In turns, the real action was to provide evidence for a new thinking process. So, the consideration of thinking should include the content of thinking, the way of thinking and the product of thinking. The content of thinking is the practical situation and it will be reflected throughout the process of thinking, through the manipulation analyze, synthesize, compare, compare to create the products of thinking they are thoughts, views, behavior. Products of thinking is knowledge (knowledge about the objects, phenomena). Knowledge is manifested through thought, perspective, human behavior. So thoughts, views, behavior are the expression of man's understanding of the objective world, which is the product of the process of analysis, synthesis, comparison and matching taking place in man’s brain. Therefore, learn about thinking (as a process) is different from exploring thoughts (as a result of the thinking process), although they have anintimate, inseparable relation. Thought, under any form of public expression ( concepts, categories, perspectives, politics are the results of thinking. Correct thinking leads to right thought, action and vice versa, incorrect thinkings leads to wrong thoughts and actions. * Thinking Classification: There are many ways to classify thinking, based on different criteria: - Based on the level of thinking: there are experient thinking and theoretical thinking. Experient thinking is a stage of cognitive rationality, in which people draw the knowledge about the material, objective phenomenon, primarily through the older generalizations, inductive materials experience. Theoretical thinking is rational cognitive stage, in which knowledge is drawn on the basis of an overview of the achievements of the previous periods. - According to thinking area: there are: political, economica, scientific, philosophical, art, militaristic, cultural, religious thinking 8 - According to the form of thinking, there are dialectical thinking, metaphysical, logical thinking, non- logical, integrated thinking, analysis, creative thinking, dogma, thinking positive, negative etc The taxonomy is only relative because they're interwoven, blended together. Using the same kind of thinking for many different areas and vice versa when thinking about a field that can simultaneously use various types, many different forms of thinking. Therefore, in each subject, the type of thinking, thinking forms blend to create unity and distinctive in the minds of every person. Thus, "political thinking" is a kind of thinking based on the field of social development. Political thought has some commons in the concept of "thinking" but also has some features, with specific characteristics to distinguish them from thinking in other areas. This characteristic is dominated by political activists. 2.1.2. Political Thinking Political thinkingis the activities of human brain to receive, process and produce knowledge about how to win, to hold and to exercise power to help human percept, plan and implement political decisions. In other words, political thinking is thinking about political matters in a certain way. In this sense, political thought appeared with the emergence of state, owned class nature and dominated by class stance. Products of thinking process are the ideological point of view or the "technology" to resolve conflicts in political reality. Political thinking of each person depends on many factors: the objective factors are: the practical conditions, the value in the history of thought, ideology and dominant orthodoxy; the subjective one is the capacity of man. In the same practical circumstances, the same living conditions, the same class standpoint, the same ideological, but the way of thinking is different from man to man. Therefore, each person's way of thinking primarily due to subjective specified factors. Subjective elements are formed from innate qualities, are trained through practical activities with the capacity, quality and mettle to metabolize certain objective factors on subjective prism of each person. Political thinking has close relationship and has a dialectical impact to political ideology. Ideology and political systems reflect the views of political and economic relations between classes, between nations and between peoples around the issue of winning, keeping, and organizing and implementing state power. Political thinking always arises from a socio - economic conditions of acertain society. Thus, political thinking and political ideology have close relationships and interactions. Thinking is the process of political concern, think about the political issues, and ideas are the results of that process. To understand the political thinking of a person, [...]... Thi Thanh Dung (2013), Political Thought of Ho Chi Minh - the impact of the fact-finding process of American society (191 2-1 913 ), Journal of Theory, No 5 5 Nguyen Thi Thanh Dung (2013), Features in the form of expression of Ho Chi Minh s political thought, Journal of Political Theory and Communications, October number 6 Nguyen Thi Thanh Dung (2012), Traditional home with the formation of Ho Chi Minh s... creation of ideological and political activity of Ho Chi Minh - what makes unique, not duplicated in any of the thinker, the great leader of the world species people - political style of Ho Chi Minh From the research, exploration and generalization of creative thinking in the political content of Ho Chi Minh, we can draw the main characteristics of Ho Chi Minh s political thinking That is the principle, the... Chi Minh s political thinking In addition to practical origin, Ho Chi Minh s political thinking also based on the inheritance theoretical achievements in the history of human thought * Thinking - reasoning factors - The typical political thinking of Vietnam: community; humanity - rooted - Typical Eastern political thinking: "People - rooted" toward finding an ideal king to state power The village community... Information, No 4 7 Nguyen Thi Thanh Dung (2013), Constitutional thinking of Ho Chi Minh and its implications for the amendments and supplements to the Constitution 1992 in Vietnam now, Journal of Political Information, No 3 8 Nguyen Thi Thanh Dung (2013), Political Thought of Ho Chi Minh - the influence from American, Front Magazine, October number 9 Nguyen Thi Thanh Dung (2013), The fundamental characteristics... Minh s political thinking was formed With his receptive, creative application, Ho Chi Minh contributed an additional steps, methods to develop, enrich Marxism - Leninism with new arguments, drawn from the practices of the country and its people Economic context - domestic and international political factors, along with the source argument on objective, were all impacted to the formation of Ho Chi Minh s... of considering the history of Marxism - Leninism Systemic thinking had helped Ho Chi Minh formed the opinion, thought, way, method, force, the role of the organization to win, keep and enforce the rights of the people of Vietnam It is also the hallmarks to dominate the process of political thinking of Ho Chi Minh 3.2.2 Promoting practices and anti-dogmatism Ho Chi Minh is a typical Marxist; he creatively... Humanity in the political thinking of Ho Chi Minh means actually to think about people, people-centered and for all people This type of thinking of Ho Chi Minh had been confirmed and practiced skillfully and cleverly made the culture in Ho Chi Minh s politics The humanity of his behavior had raised him to a higher level of culture It was the political culture of Ho Chi Minh had shown both in thought and action... salvation, liberation of Ho Chi Minh not only met Vietnam's political reality, but also reflected the trend of the world revolutionary movement It reflected the scientific revolution of Ho Chi Minh s political thinking Thus, the economic - political - society conditions of the homeland, the country, and the time was the first ground that affected the formation of Ho Chi Minh s political thinking In addition... Chi Minh applied Marxist dialectical method but inherit both the East - West values to create something of his own Political thinking of Ho Chi Minh is one kind of successor, developed a creative thinking and can be called "beyond gross" on Vietnam national identity Ho Chi Minh is the hyphen between Vietnam and the world, between tradition and modernity 2.2 Factors affecting the formation of Ho Chi Minh s... intellecture in the state apparatus - Marxist - Leninist political thinking - materialistic dialectical method of thinking This is the typical method of thinking, covering most dominant thinking in all areas In certain aspects, the method of thinking is another concrete manifestation of dialectical thinking Thanks to the dialectical method of thinking, Ho Chi Minh recorded, total - integrated and creative applicated . HO CHI MINH NATIONAL POLITICAL ACADEMY NGUYEN THI THANH DUNG HO CHI MINH S POLITICAL THINKING - MAIN CHARACTERISTICS AND METHODOLOGY Major : Political. following tasks : - Clarifying the argumentative matters relating to logic, political logic, Ho Chi Minh political logic and the factors forming Ho Chi Minh political logic. - Clarifying the main. Marxism - Leninism, Ho Chi Minh s political thinking was formed. With his receptive, creative application, Ho Chi Minh contributed an additional steps, methods to develop, enrich Marxism - Leninism