(VOVworld)- Vietnamese people are celebrating the 68^th anniversary of the August Revolution, which paved the way for the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the first state of workers and farmers in Southeast Asia. Over the past 68 years, lessons about seizing opportunities and promoting national unity learned from the August Revolution remain valuable for Vietnam’s development.

The quick success of the August Revolution in 1945 was due to the strength of the national unity bloc. The Communist Party of Vietnam based itself on people’s interests, demands and aspirations to form a revolutionary force. Former President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Pham The Duyet said that at that time, the Party had not publicized its leadership. With more than 5,000 Party members, through the Viet Minh (Vietnamese Communist) Front, the Party gathered more than 20 million people to join the unprecedented revolution in history. The strength of the national unity bloc was reflected at the People’s Congress, which was chaired by Ho Chi Minh, two days before the August Revolution. Present at the meeting were representatives of political parties, people’s organizations, ethnic minority groups, religions, and the three regions of Vietnam: the north, central and south as well as overseas Vietnamese. Delegates at the congress strongly supported the General Uprising launched by the Party and they elected the Vietnam National Liberation Committee, which was the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by President Ho Chi Minh.

The biggest lesson learned from the August Revolution of 1945 was the building, consolidation and promotion of the national unity bloc. Associate Professor Doctor Nguyen Trong Phuc, former Director of the Party History Institute of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration, says that the national unity strength prodded people to rise up to liberate the nation. “Since it was founded, the Indochina Communist Party has consistently pursued a strategic stance of promoting national unity strength and so did President Ho Chi Minh. The August Revolution was an uprising of all people- workers, farmers, intellectuals, culture activities and even rival soldiers. The General Uprising represented the strength of the nation and the national unity bloc under the leadership of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh”, said Mr. Phuc.

The success of the August Revolution was also attributable to other subjective and objective factors, one of them being the timing, which was decided by the Communist Party of Vietnam. Doctor of History Pham Xanh says: “The surrender of the Japanese fascists on August 13 created a golden opportunity for Asian countries to rise up. However, only the Communist Party of Vietnam took this opportunity to liberate their country. If we had launched the revolution before August 15, we would have failed because at that time, we had to face France, Japan and many other camps. If we had launched our revolution after September 5, under the Alliance Treaty, alliance troops would have disarmed the Japanese troops, and so we would had to face many other enemies and as a result, our revolution would have had no chance to succeed. We were successful because we launched our revolution at the right time, between August 15 and September 5^th and we implemented our scenario brilliantly. This was a lesson about seizing opportunity”.

Thanks to promoting the strength of national unity and promptly seizing a golden opportunity, the August Revolution of 1945 quickly succeeded in creating a crucial turning point in Vietnamese history. The victory of the August Revolution paved the way for Vietnamese people to defeat the Japanese fascists, overthrow the French colonialists, wipe out thousand years of feudalism and from slaves become masters of the nation.