Number of Delegates Elected to the People's Councils of Communes in 4

solemnly so that the guidance of voters to vote is orderly, quick and in accordance with the rules.

At exactly 6:00 a.m. on September 28, 1958, the people of the communes dressed neatly, enthusiastically and excitedly, and crowded to the polling stations. All classes of people in the communes clearly recognized their democratic rights and happily fulfilled their duties as citizens under the democratic republican government. Representatives of the Administrative Committee, the Executive Committee of the Commune's Unions, and the elderly cast their first ballots, further encouraging the enthusiasm of all classes of people in all communes to go to the polls. The cadres of the city, district, commune, the Election Council, the Election Committee and the support staff worked tirelessly day and night, encouraging the people to go to the polls, organizing the voting and counting of votes quickly and properly. On September 28, 1958, the election was held in all communes of the 4 suburban districts of Hanoi.

The Election Councils in the communes and the Election Committees assigned each other to go to the polling stations day and night, especially the members of the City People's Council also assigned each other to attend all the polling units and all realized that "not only did the voting take place in a jubilant, exciting, and orderly manner, but the voters' right to decide, the principle of directness, universality, and secrecy, and the voting rules were all completely respected. The ballot writing tables were generally placed far apart or separated to allow voters to vote freely and secretly. In the polling stations, there was absolutely no propaganda for any individual or any list. The election teams and support staff worked diligently, patiently guiding voters on the voting rules and absolutely did not have any attitude that affected the voters' right to choose freely" [179, 78].

At exactly 8:00 p.m., the vote counting began and was witnessed by dozens, hundreds of voters and candidates; the Election Committee worked until 1:00 a.m., counting votes, making minutes to post the temporary results the next day.

polling places. After directly hearing reports on the election of People's Councils of communes, Administrative Committees of suburban communes and after reviewing the minutes, the Hanoi City Administrative Committee announced the results of the election of People's Councils of suburban communes.

Table 1.4 Number of delegates elected to the People's Councils of communes in 4

Suburban District

Status

District	Number of delegates
District	Elected	Elected	Vote more
1	District 5	309	305	4
2	District 6	310	302	8
3	District 7	374	362	12
4	District 8	183	183	0
Total		1,176	1,152	24

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Source: File No. 57, 1958, Hanoi City People's Committee Archives, page 57

In total, the suburban communes had 85,326 voters, of which 81,746 people went to vote, a rate of 95.92%, the number of invalid votes was 573. The number of blank votes was

135. Most of those who did not vote were due to working far away, being too busy to return on time, being seriously ill, or having just given birth, and being unable to go and expressing regret. Thus, if we only count those who were absent without a clear reason, the voting rate is 99.82%.

Of the 1,841 candidates in 43 communes, 1,152 were elected with more than half of the valid votes. Thus, based on the population as prescribed by law, 43 communes were elected with 1,176 representatives, while 24 additional representatives will be elected on October 12 in 22 units in 16 communes because they did not receive more than half of the votes. Many were elected with more than 90% of the votes [179, 78-80].

After the successful election of the People's Council of the suburban communes. The People's Council of the suburban communes elected the Administrative Committee of the communes.

Commune and District Administrative Committees. Hanoi elected 101 members of the Commune Administrative Committees, including 52 women; 42 members of the District Administrative Committees, including 5 women and 3 Southern cadres.

The result of the election of the People's Council of the Suburban Communes was a great political victory. September 28 was a typical day for democratic activities, a great festival for the Suburban people. That victory demonstrated that the regime of North Vietnam was democratic and good, it encouraged the spirit of excitement, enthusiasm, and awareness of building a people's democratic government, building the Capital in all aspects.

The reason for this great victory was mainly due to the enthusiasm for the democratic republican social regime, the awareness of building a people's democratic government of the Suburban people, the leadership of the Hanoi City Party Committee of the Vietnam Workers' Party, the Administrative Committee and the relevant departments at all levels in the election. At the same time, it was due to the dedicated work of tens of thousands of cadres from the City and District to the grassroots, of the Party committees, authorities, organizations, Election Councils and Election Committees.

The City People's Council - the highest organ of the city has continuously promoted its effectiveness and exercised its powers and duties in all aspects of the Capital's work. In 1958, the Council met 11 times to discuss and pass resolutions on major work policies: plans, budgets, comprehensive tasks as well as to mobilize all levels of the Capital's people to make efforts to implement them. The delegates of the People's Council truly reflected the people's aspirations to the Administrative Committee and actually started working to contribute to the construction of the Capital. The works of digging ditches, building dykes, preventing pests, fighting drought as well as political struggles were all widely participated by the delegates. The subcommittees of the Council operated regularly (some subcommittees were less active) and went to the grassroots to closely monitor the situation. Therefore, many leaders

The work plan has been clearly reflected, helping the City Administration Committee to assess the situation more quickly.

However, through its activities, the People's Council also revealed some shortcomings in its work: the number of delegates was too small, not representing all sectors, all groups, and all activities of the city. In general, the delegates tried their best, but there were still some who had not closely connected with the masses to fully express the voices and aspirations of voters, and had not proactively reported on the Party and Government's policies, the work of the People's Council and themselves to voters. In daily relations with local authorities and voters, they often did not use their names and positions to promote the responsibilities and roles of the city's authority.

Under the leadership of the Hanoi Party Committee, the city government has been consolidated and strengthened. The campaigns to elect group leaders and deputy group leaders, representative committees, and neighborhood protection committees in the inner city, and the campaigns to elect People's Councils and People's Committees of communes and districts in the suburbs have raised the awareness of city ownership among the people of all walks of life, while strengthening the grassroots government apparatus, providing more forces to undertake heavy tasks. The city government has truly reflected a truly democratic government, in form a people's democratic government, but in essence a proletarian dictatorship, because that government is based on the worker-peasant alliance under the close leadership of the Hanoi Party Committee, and actively implementing the policies of the Party and the Government.

* *

During the years 1954-1960, under the direction of the Central Committee, the Hanoi Party Committee led the construction of the Hanoi government organization system.

through two stages of economic restoration (1954-1957) and socialist transformation (1958-1960). Each stage has its own circumstances, characteristics, and tasks, but in general, under the leadership of the Hanoi Party Committee, a system of government from the city to the grassroots has been formed and consolidated. In the inner city, a two-level government has been formed: city - neighborhood, in the suburbs, a three-level government has been formed: city - district - commune.

However, in the administrative work, the City Party Committee has a shortcoming in that when electing the City People's Council, it has not fully recognized the nature of our government, which is essentially a proletarian dictatorship. Partly due to lack of experience, the composition of the People's Council tends to be representative rather than practical. The City Party Committee has not paid due attention to strengthening the City Administrative Committee and improving its work, so the City Administrative Committee is still weak, the role of the Administrative Committee is not prominent, and it has not performed its functions properly.

The organizations of the Neighborhood Administrative Committee, District Administrative Committee and Commune-level government have been formed and put into operation to effectively serve the cause of building the country towards socialism. However, the system of government organizations at all levels is often not complete, the direction from top to bottom is not tight, the Party committees at all levels do not distinguish the boundary between the direction of the Party and that of the government, often covering up the work of the government, only letting the government do administrative and business work.

In the new situation, when the city's general work is increasingly developing strongly and the city is expanding, the issue of building and consolidating the system of government organizations at all levels needs to be implemented promptly to ensure that the city government can closely manage all aspects of work in the new period.

Chapter 2.‌‌

The leadership of the Hanoi Party Committee in building the government organization system during the implementation period

first five-year plan (1961 - 1965)

2.1 Historical context and general policy of Hanoi Party Committee on building a government organization system

2.1.1 Historical context

After 3 years of economic restoration from 1955 to 1957 and after the socialist transformation plan from 1958 to 1960, Hanoi achieved great achievements. The land reform in Hanoi was successfully completed, liberating the working peasants, permanently abolishing the feudal land ownership regime, and implementing the slogan "land to the tiller". Hanoi overcame difficulties, restored and developed the economy and culture, healed the wounds of war, and completed the socialist transformation. The socialist transformation of private capitalist industry and commerce was carried out quickly, without major mistakes, and was successfully completed (499 industrial establishments, 421 commercial establishments, and 137 water and land motor transport establishments were organized into public-private joint ventures, with the main means of production worth nearly 14 million VND). For small-scale producers, low-level cooperativization was also basically completed.

From a former consumer city, Hanoi is transforming into an industrial city, with production developing at a rapid pace. The total value of industrial output in 1960 increased 5.5 times compared to 1955, with local industry and handicrafts alone increasing 3.7 times. The ideological and cultural revolution has achieved great success. The material and spiritual life of the people has improved markedly.

In September 1960, the Third National Congress of the Party held in Hanoi from September 5 to September 10, 1960 set out the path of transitioning the North to socialism and the path of national democratic revolution in the South, unifying the country, and at the same time set out the direction and tasks of the first five-year plan 1961-1965 for the North. Within 5 years, we must strive to carry out a step of socialist industrialization, build the initial material and technical foundation of socialism, and at the same time complete the socialist transformation in the North, bringing the North to advance rapidly, strongly, and steadily to socialism.

Faced with the new situation, the Hanoi city government organization system has been built from the city to the grassroots with a two-level government organization system in the inner city and three-level in the suburbs. However, there are still many limitations that need to be overcome and improved.

Entering a new phase, when the city's common work is growing stronger and stronger, the city is expanding more and more, the tasks are increasing, requiring the Hanoi Party Committee to have many policies and directions to build a strong Hanoi government organization system to successfully complete the first 5-year plan 1961-1965.

2.1.2 General policy

During the years 1961-1965, the work of perfecting local government was given special attention by the Party and the Government. On the one hand, due to the increasingly high subjective demand for expanding the people's right to participate in State management, on the other hand, due to the extremely difficult and vast task of building and developing the economy, culture and society, it was necessary to mobilize and promote the role of the people. Moreover, the local government apparatus at this time had not changed or been perfected according to the new Constitution, and some aspects of organization and operation were no longer suitable.

That situation poses the task of continuing to improve and resolutely implement the expansion of authority for localities, and implement comprehensive and gradually solid decentralization of management.

In response to that requirement, the Party and the Government have advocated decentralization of management and consolidation of local government, clearly defining the nature, characteristics and basic tasks of each level. The general principle of decentralization is to expand the power of local government levels on the basis of ensuring leadership in terms of general principles and policies, major financial plans and targets, and specific tasks assigned to localities. Implementing the Central Government's policy, in 1961, the Ministry of the Interior developed a project on decentralization of management and consolidation of local government, supplementing and amending the Law on Organization of Local Government to replace Law 110-SL/L12 dated May 31, 1958. The Ministry of Home Affairs also implemented many other projects to strengthen and perfect local governments such as: Project on decentralization of management and improvement of local government organization, project on district-level organization, project on perfecting the organization and working style of commune-level government, project on strengthening and improving the commune-level government apparatus after basically completing socialist transformation of agriculture with the scale of village-wide cooperatives, project on guiding the promotion of activities of People's Councils at all levels, guiding the number and assignment of Administrative Committees at all levels...

On May 9, 1962, the Prime Minister issued Circular No. 51-TTg on improving the organization and working style at the commune level and the treatment regime for commune cadres. The content of improving the organization and working style of the commune government includes: simplifying the commune apparatus, sending cadres to work in hamlets and cooperatives; rationalizing specialized committees at the commune level; abolishing village and hamlet chiefs and arranging cadres who have worked in hamlets and villages. To ensure the motto of organizing a compact and highly efficient local government apparatus, on July 16, 1962, the Ministry of the Interior issued Circular No. 53/NV guiding the tasks, powers, and organization of the commune government.

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