The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the founding and ruling communist party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Although it nominally exists alongside the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, it maintains a unitary government and has centralised control over the state, military and media. The supremacy of the Communist Party is guaranteed by Article 4 of the national constitution. CPV was founded in 1930; since 1954, it has been the ruling party of North Vietnam and then the Socialist Republic in 1976 after seizing power in South Vietnam. It controls the Vietnam People's Armed Forces.