History of Laos Since 1945 - Communism in Laos

Communism in Laos

The Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) was founded by Ho Chi Minh and others in Hong Kong in 1930. Its membership was at first entirely Vietnamese, but, as its name indicates, it was given responsibility by the Communist International in Moscow for the whole of French Indochina. During the 1930s it recruited a handful of Lao members, mainly teachers and other middle-ranking civil servants with some western education. But Laos offered few opportunities for communism. It had few wage labourers apart from some in the tin-mining industry. There was no "agrarian question" in Laos: more than 90 percent of Lao were rice-farmers who owned their own land. There were no landlords as in China and no landless rural proletariat. The only grievance the communists could exploit was colonial rule, but, as has been seen, until 1940 most Lao regarded the French as a necessary protection against the Siamese and Vietnamese, and when Lao nationalism did emerge it was under the leadership of aristocrats such as Phetxarāt and Suvannaphūmā. The fact that communism in Laos was closely associated with the Vietnamese did not recommend it to most Lao.

Nevertheless, by the late 1940s the ICP had recruited a core of activists, some of them part-Vietnamese, such as Kaisôn, others married to Vietnamese, such as Nūhak Phumsavan. The discrediting of the French and the failure of the Lao Issara government gave them their opportunity, because after 1949 the struggle against colonial rule could only be carried on from bases in Vietnam and with the support of the Vietnamese communists. In August 1950 the communists established a "front" organisation, the Free Laos Front (Naeo Lao Issara), under the presidency of Suphānuvong. This in turn formed a "Resistance Government of the Lao Homeland." The phrase Pathēt Lao ("Lao Homeland") thus became established as the general name of the Lao communist movement until 1975. The communists shrewdly promoted representatives of the upland ethnic minorities to leadership positions in the Free Laos Front. These included Faidāng Lôbliayao, a leader of the Hmong people of the north, and Sīthon Kommadam, son of the southern rebel Ong Kommadam and a leader of the southern Lao-Thoeng. Since the communist base areas were mainly inhabited by minority peoples, this helped consolidate support in these areas. But the communist leadership remained firmly in Lao-Lum hands. When in 1955 a separate Lao communist party was created (the Lao People's Revolutionary Party or Phak Paxāxon Lao), with Kaisôn as General Secretary and Nūhak as his deputy, all the members of the Politburo were Lao-Lum.

The Lao communist party remained under the supervision of the Vietnamese party, and throughout the following twenty years of warfare the Pathēt Lao was dependent on Vietnam for arms, money and training. A large number of Vietnamese forces fought alongside the Pathēt Lao, and Vietnamese "advisors" usually accompanied Pathēt Lao military commanders. The anti-communist Lao government always accused the Pathēt Lao of being Vietnamese puppets, but this was an over-simplification. The Lao and Vietnamese communists were fighting for the same goals - first the eviction of the French, then the establishment of socialism, and the Lao knew they could not achieve either of these objectives on their own. Communist ideology taught that "proletarian internationalism" was a duty of all communists. The Lao communists freely accepted Vietnamese leadership as the quickest and indeed only way to achieve their aims. Even after they had overthrown the government, the Pathēt Lao depended on Vietnamese soldiers and political advisors to keep control of the country. Their government had a relationship with Vietnam similar to that of the Eastern European Communist governments to the Soviet Union. The price they paid for Vietnamese support was the hostility of the majority of the Lao-Lum, who disliked the Vietnamese more than they did the French. It was not until the later 1960s that the Pathēt Lao began to gain support in the Lao-Lum areas.