National Union" (in 1957 and 1962) that were turned to the advantage of the right. Some of the personnel in the new government are identical to those of the two previous ones. But to see the extent to which the Wester diplomat's estimation was correct -- and to see how this third experience differs from the first two -we must take a look at the paradoxical situation of Loos. It is this paradoxical situation that pernits an understanding of the very particular place this country occupies in the Indochinese revolution. The Laotian paradox The strategic position of Laos has made it one of the principal battlegrounds of the world revolution and counterrevolution. A buffer state between French and British spheres of influence, it became the main hinge between the Indochinese revolution and the revolution in the rest of Southeast Asia. It borders on Cambodia, north and south Vietnam, China, Burma, and Thailand. This induced the leaders of the Pentagon, imbued as they were with the spirit of the "domino theory, " to assign a choice place to Laos in their plans to deal a decisive blow 24
Footnotes
1. The former head of the civilian division of the State Security Service and an advocate of a "centralist" orientation,
Rankovic was fired in 1966. He hed to pay the price of the
"liberalization" begun by the Reform of 1965. (Tito himself is said to have found that his office was bugged !)
2. There was an introduction by Roland Leroy: "At a time when the reactionary press is abundantly commenting every day in a malevolent and distorted manner about the slightest event in Yugoslavia,.. " We should remember with what
"malevolence" the press of the French Communist party "abundantly commented" on Yugoslav events at the time that Titoism was a synonym for "Hitlerite-Trotskyism. " time to the revolutionary process in Asia. The Plain of Jars and the Bolevens Plateau formed the best platiorm from which to observe and attack the rest of Indochina. The Annamite mountain range was supposed to "hem in" the Vietnamese fighters. John Foster Dulles dreamed of transforming Laos into an "antiCommunist bastion. " Consequently, per capita U.S. aid to Laos was higher than to any other country. And the American tactic of air escalation was in many respects tested first in Laos. When the first steps in the imperialist intervention against the Vietnamese revolution were taken, nothing in the history of Laos prepared the country for playing such on international role. On the contrary, of the three Indochinese countries, Laos appeared perhaps least "ripe" for revolution in its two combined processes of national liberation and social struggle. Its population, estimated at 3 million, was by for the smallest of the three countries (Cambodia having 7 million inhabitants and Vietnam having nearly 40 million), and the population density was especially low. Above all, is lack of homogeneity was extreme. Laotians are divided into three large ethnic groups (which are in turn divided into multiple subgroups) with distinct cultures and very different economic and social development. The oldest group, an Indonesion" type (including the Khas), is made up of the Lao Theung, who live on the slopes of the mountains, carry on a "burned earth" agriculture (growing maize and rice without irrigation), have a polytheistic theology, and only recently developed a written alphabet. The most recently developed group, of the "Chinese" type; including especially the Meos, are the Lao Soung, who live on the heights of the mountains and have an intermediary productive system based on maize, grazing animals, and poppies. The third group, which is dominant today, of the ThaiLao type, includes the Lao Loum, who occupy the Mekong plain and the principal valleys of the interior. Buddhists, they practice irrigated rice agriculture. The population of Laos is not only much more heterogeneous than that of Cambodia (the Lao Loum account for barely half
the total); in addition, each ethnic group, except on the Mekong plain, is dispersed along the mountain tops and slopes or in the valleys, broken up as on a checkerboard. It was consequently more difficult for "insurrectional zones" controlled for a long time by a minority (like the Shans regions in Burma, for example) to emerge in Laos -- regions from which a communist guerrilla movement could develop (as in Thailand) + Finally, the Lao Loum did not demonstrate the some sort of expansionist "dynamism" as did the Kinh, the dominant ethnic group in Vietnam. This problem is important. The Vietnamese revolution was able to tap a thousand-year-old tradition of popular struggle and an acute consciousness of belonging to a single people in order to redevelop the anticolonial and anti-imperialist Fight. The Laotion revolution had to create this national consciousness in the course of its development. To be sure, colonial Laos had seen a fair number of uprisings, but they remained regional in character. In fact, it was not until the holding of the "Lao National Congress" August 13-15, 1950, that a united line for the resistance emerged. Further in the post, a united kingdom had been formed in 1350, the Lan Xong ("kingdom of a thousand elephants"). But it was broken up after 1700, its territory falling under Siamese and Vietnamese rule. Colonization made the Mekong a frontier, dividing the population living along its banks. In fact, even today there are more Laotians in Thailand than in Laos. Furthermore, the French sow Loos, like Cambodia, as a "buffer state" and did not seek to exploit its resources, apart from tin and wood. (Even though Laos is rich in various minerals.) At the end of the second world war, there were only five miles of railroad in all Laos! The economy was in the hands of metropolitan capitalists and Chinese traders. The Laotian bourgeoisie was then nonexistent (with the exception of enterprises employing less than twenty persons); it was later to develop ever so slightly under the Americans, but in the form of a comprodor or bureaucratic bourgeoisie frequently tied to the Thai bourgeoisie. Above all, whereas in Vietnam a numerically small but concentrated proletariat soon emerged and rapidiy took on a very clear political role, the Laotian working class was to remain weak, composed largely of Vietnamese immigrants working in the mines and on the plantations. The economic and social integration of the various regions and ethnic groups was also to remain weak. And colonization tended to dissolve the old society without creating new classes that could have accelerated the process of permanent revolution. A strategic situation that made Laos a key battleground between the revolution and counterrevolution. A history that lagged behind this situation. This dichotomy between the "external" and "internal" dynamic of the Lao revolution is crucial. The Vietnamese revolution was the backbone of the Indochinese revolution. The two other countries of former French Indochina were integrated into it. The general rhythm of history then became common to them all: the August 1945 revolution, the anti-French resistance, the Geneva accords of 1954, the second Indochina war. Cambodia asserted the weight of its particular characteristics, notably through "Sihanoukism." Laos was also to experience a special, often exceptional, development. Today it is the only Indochinese country in which a cease-fire has gone into effect and a government of "National Union" has been set up. But regional and internafional factors weigh more heayily there than anywhere else.
1957 - 1962 - 1974 The Geneva accords of 1954 provide the clearest example of this. It was in Loos that they were most unfavorable to the revolutionary forces. They did not sanction the emergence of a new workers state os they did in Vietnam. Unlike in Cambodia, where the armed resistance was supposed to cease (but where the Procheachon, the Communist party, was weaker than elsewhere), a period of white terror opened up. The Lao revolution hod to pay the highest price for the "peaceful coexistence" in which the USSR and the Peoples Republic of Ching were engaging and for the choices made of the time by the Indochinese communist movement. The Pathet Lao forces regrouped in the two northeast provinces, Sama Neua and Phong Saly, largely abandoning the liberated zones where they had the longest-standing base. The administration of these two zones was handed over to the government of "Nofional Union" after its laborious formation in 1957. And the major part of the revolutionary troops was demob: lized. The repression was terrible. The Pathet Lao recognizes its gravity. "In the occupied zone between 1954 and 1957, wrote Phoumi Vongvichit, *they arrested and assossinated thousands of patriots, nearly all of them old resistance fighters. "(2) And, according to Wilfred Burchett, after Souvanna Phouma(3) was overthrown in 1957, "a slaughter went on in the two northeast provinces." "In Phong Saly.., not a single cadre of the Pathet Lao escaped. "(4) The Pathet Lao leaders who had been participating in the coalition government in Vientione (among them Souvanovong (5)) were arrested and survived only because they managed to escope. (They were able to recruit their joilors to their couse.) The two battalions that had kept their arms had to break out of their encirclement by Vientiane troops of a very heavy cost in order to withdraw-to the mountains. The First coalition goverment thus ended in disaster. The second one arose in 1962. By then, the Neo Lao Haksat (NLH, the Pathet Lao), had again taken up arms and had liberated two-thirds of Laos. It undertook its offensive before "taking account, " as Burcheft put it, "of the situation of the socialist camp and the general line of peaceful coexistence."(6) This time the NH kept its forces intact, but it still agreed to send some of its main leaders to Vientiane. They were supposed to be protected by the neutralist troops of Kong La.(7) But he was corrupted and his battalions were infiltrated. On April 1,1963, the minister of foreign affairs, a neutralist who proved to be incorruptible, was assessinated and Nosovan, the leader of the far right, launched battles against the neutralist troops who remained faithful to the alliance with the Pathet Lao. Souvanovong, Phoumi Vongvichit (leaders of the NLH), Colonel Deuane and Khamsouk Keola (neutralist leaders loyal to the NLH) withdrew to the liberated zones. Once again all out war erupted. Thus, two very bitter experiences preceded the signing of the February 21, 1973, accords and the establishment of the third coalition government on April 5, 1974. When the Pathet Loo leaders speak of the accords of 1954, 1957, and 1962, it is generally to present them as "glorious victories. " But a closer reading of the most basic work published in a foreign language and produced by Vongvichit, a leader of the Lao Revolutionary party (the Lao Communist party), shows that his judgment is rather more "nuanced. "(8) "The imperialists combine military, political, and diplomatic procedures in a Machiavellian
- When they are in difficulty and experiencing setbacks, they perfidiously resort to political and diplomatic
•. They even went so far as to sign the Geneva Accords of 1962... - "(9) "Then, (after 1954), because of the demobilization of the majority of the troops of the Lao Patriotic Front (the NLH), the relationship of forces between
LAOS the revolution and the counterrevolution was temporarily in favor of the latter. Thus, on the strategic level, the imperialists had the initiative in their operations against the Lao revolution. "(10) In these pages, Phoumi Vongvichit well explains why the Americans were led as a last resort to participate in the accords of 1962. He does not explain so well why the Neo Lao Halsat was led to do the same. It is not simply a matter of writings. From 1954 to 1957 the Laotian resistance accepted a major retreat -- and paid a very heavy price for it. In 1962 it suspended its offensive, allowing the enemy to reorganize its forces, and once again exposed some of its main leaders in Vientiane, where they were protected by unreliable troops. It then had to relaunch its fight in a much less favorable situation and was subject to significant risks. But it did not give up anything of what it hod won. In 1973-74, for the first time, the accords favor a positive shift in the material relationship of forces. The content and context of the accords have changed. The division of the right Not that the policy adopted in 1973 and 1974 by the NLH deserves no criticism. But to understand the character and importance of the criticism it is necessary to concede that the process that has led to the formation of the third coalitian goverment is in several respects opposite to the process that led to the formation of the first two. • On the military level the NH, by accepting the ceasefire of February 21, 1973, has obviously refrained from launching a generalized offensive that could have enabled it, according to most observers, to take over the last occupied zones. But the signing of the accords was accomponied on the one hand by a real military disengagement (even if not a total one) with the United States: halt of the bombing, weakening of the "special forces" of Vang Pao and the Thai forces, decrease in the number of "advisers, " even the ones disguised as civilions. Abave all, the "neutralization" of Vientiane (seat of the new government and administrative capital) and of Luang Prabang (seat of the mixed National Polifical Council and royal capital was at least partially realized. This time, NLH soldiers preceded the ministers into Vientiane. More than 2,000 Pathet Lao froops with modern weaponry are in Vientiane and about a thousand are in Luang Probang. The NLH has thus won the battle with the right as to the number of soldiers authorized to penetrate the puppet zone. The police patrols will be mixed, and while it is not certain that the right hos effectively withdrawn all its forces in excess of those of the Pathet Loo from the region, the "commander of the forces of bipartite defense" has ordered (under penalty of arrest) all armed forces not included in the accords to withdraw ten miles from the center of Vientiane. The NEH will launch no generalized offensive. But it commands the means to block any resort to force on the part of the right. * The NLH no longer represents a small minority in the governmental bodies, in which the principle of bipolarity is strictly adhered to (even in the number of cabinet ministers, each of which is "seconded" by a secretary of state from the "other side"), and the fiction of Souvanna Phouma's "neutralism" has been abandoned. The National Political Council (presided over by Souvanovong) has been scrupulously set up with the same weight as the government (presided over by
Souvanna Phouma). In reality it has replaced the "National
26
Souvanovang in Vientiane. Assembly" of Vientiane, which is dominated by the for right and whose cabiner has decided unanimously (the rule for all decisions) not to meet even though the accords do not require that. On this question the NLH made a gain between the signature of the accords and the belated formation of the govemment. At the beginning, the mixed Political Council was to be a subordinate body• In a general manner, the signature of the accords and the formation of the government deeply divided the Laotion right. The "National Assembly, " dominated by the "great families" and particularly by the Sannanikone family, was opposed to what Souvannd Phouma was doing. In fact, Souvanna Phouma had to block an attempted coup d'etat fomented in August 1973 by General Thao Ma, who was supported by the Thai military and the Laotion far right. In spite of the participation of the Champassale, Insisiengnal, and Sannanikone families in the goverment, this division is continuing and constantly weighs on the situation, while the Pathet Lao, as we shall see, is maintaining the initiative. The process now under way excludes any stabilization. There con be no "concord" between the puppet zones subject to the domination of neocolonialists and the traditional great families on the one side and the liberated zones on the other. A basic compromise could have been reached through a disguised northsouth division of Laos. Thailand could have controlled the left bank of the Mekong and the Pathet Lao (which holds fourfifths of Laotian territory) could have taken the highlands, protecting the Vietnamese frontier. But the interpenetration going on today, the fraternization that is occurring between the ranks of the armed forces and the population, the effort the Pathet Lao is making to multiply contacts between the two zones, the right's inability to stop all this, and the political initiatives that the Pathet Lao is undertaking in Vientiane and Luang Probang all demonstrate that there has been no such de facto division. The NLH wants to win the political battle. It knows that it won the elections in 1958 -- Souvannavong in Vientiane got more votes than anyone else. This time the NLH has the mears to control the process, or to be in position to react immediately. The choice of "political struggle" made by the NLH and above all the establishment of the coalition government illustrates the change in context that has occurred in Indochina and the desire of the NCH to align itself as far as possible with the choices made by the Vietnamese CP. From its refusal to sign the Geneva accords of 1954 until very recently, Washington had supported the far right of the Vien-
tiane regime (Nosovan, Sannanikone). This time Washington allowed Souvanna Phouma to crush Thao Ma's attempted coup in August 1973. This switch cannot be understood in terms of Washington's regional choices. Loos continues to occupy a strategic position, for it borders certain important insurrectional regions in Thailand (and today the Vietnamese and Laotian communists are very much stressing the octivity of the Thai CP). Furthermore, oil deposits have just been discovered in Laos. Should they prove to be extensive, imperialism's interest in economically exploiting Loos could be reawakened. But in the search for new "lines of defense" in the region, American imperialism has visibly decided to give priority to Saigon and Phnom Penh. The reason is understandable. The military relationship of forces in Loos is such that it would have required considerable U.S. investment -- ond probably direct intervention -- to resist a possible general offensive by the Pathet Lao. And that sort of investment of energies was made that much more difficult in that the political crisis of the puppet regime was cleor and Souvanna Phouma appeared as a political figure of some vigor. Shartly after the signing of the February 21 accords, Washington bombed positions in the liberated zones in the southern part of the country. This was probably a final test of the capacities of the puppet army. And the puppet army seems to have flunked. The American government today has opted for o political test: the evolution of Loos will clarify the orientation of each party throughout Indochina. This certainly does not mean that American imperialism has now renounced any intervention. It is not victory "We are going to help this side (Vientione) win the elections, " a member of the U.S. Agency for International Development brazenly declared to Marc Filloux. (11) Souvanovong, president of the Central Committee of the Pathet Lao and of the new National Council, did not fail to stress: "The Americans have not given up their neocolonialist aims in Laos, and the reactionaries are ready to do anything to preserve their privileges: "(12) And the NLH is raising all sorts of womings. The strategic position of the NLH is favorable. But the presbehind the apparent concord a struggle is continuing... ent situation remains indecisive, susceptible to being turned around. The February 21 accords transformed the context of the struggle; they did not represent the final victory of the Lao revolution over all the territory of Laos. It is in this framework that a critique of the Pathet Loo's orientation is necessary, for that orientation rests on a twafold hypathesis about the course of the Lao revolution. First, it intensifies the dependence of the Lao revolution on the development of the Indochinese and world situations. This dependence is in the first place objective, linked to geographic proximity, common history, and the paradoxical relationship of "internal" and "external" factors in the revolutionary development of the country. The dependence is also reciprocal and nurtures the solidarity that unites the various components of the Indochinese Revolutionary Front. But, Tust the same, it is what determined the attitude of the NEH in 1954, 1957, and 1962, and is determining it today. The Lao revolution adjusts its rhythms to those of South Vietnam (and not to those of Cambodia), where they are slower. In this the NLH accepts a threat that is very probably justified less by the danger of American re-escalation than by the policy of the Soviet Union and China. The Khmer Rouge have not desired to link the course of their revolution to South Vietnam in this mannerSecond, this political choice is not unrelated to the character of the future Laotian workers state. It is probable that such a state will emerge at the conclusion of the process now going on. But while the NH has liberated four-fifths of the territory of Loos, half (two-thirds according to Vientiane) of the population remains in the zone controlled by puppet troops. This is especially true of the big concentrations of population. The experience of revolutionary struggle among this important section of the population threatens to be very limited. Refugees returning to the liberated zones will be integrated into the existing NLH administration while a revolution "from the top down" will unfold in the areas of population concentration, at least unless a more violent reaction from imperialism or the right triggers a proliferation of insurrectional processes. Here again, the Laotian situation differs from the Cambodian one, in which the struggles even in Phnom Penh are quite numerous. Under these conditions, the development of ex-
27
periences in proletarian democracy, especially in the "cities," will be more difficult. And this can only introduce bureaucratic deformations into the future workers state. There again, the choices made by the Indochinese communists are not the are not the sole factor. The extreme economic backwardness of the country, the extreme gravity of the destruction caused by the war ("From North to South, there is no longer a single village standing" in the liberated zones, Soth Pethrasy told Marc Filloux(13)), and the world situation, over which the Indochinese communists have no control, will be above all responsible for these bureaucratic deformations. But the orientation of the NH partially adapts to these difficulties instead of fighting them systematically. This is not a particular problem of governmental formula, but one of the consequences, one of the most serious aspects of the orientation of the Indochinese communist movement as to the nature of Stalinism, the place of soviets in the socialist revolution and the workers state, the internal regime of the party, and so on. These are weaknesses of orientation that today are bolstered by the bureaucratic deformations of the Democratic Republic of The key question remains that of the attitude of the NLH toward the armed forces and the regime. From 1954 to 1957 "National Union" was purchased at the price of abandoning the liberated zones and demobilizing the liberation army. in 1962 it allowed the proimperialist forces to catch their breath. But in 1973 and 1974 it seems that the NH will not content itself with maintaining its existing forces, but is seeking to decompose the bourgeois army and to erode the foundations of the puppet regime in its last bastions. But even under the assumption that this is the perspective of the NH, and taking account of past experience in Laos, the intensification of the dependence of the Lao revolution on the regional and worid context, like the implications of the policy of "National Union" on the emergence of soviet forms of power illustrates why the Trotskyist movement as a matter of principle is against any coalition gr nment with bourgeois formations, oven when the cooli nes not necessarily prevent the victory of the revolut Finally, on e ional scale, the orientation of the NLH makes - ult the education of the new revolufionary gene: ilitates the job of the petty-bourgeois nationalist on it leaderships in other countries and derails the so novements. Here again, it is not a matter of an isc cose, but of a particular aspect of the dichotomy that c is between the objective lessons of the Indochinese revolution and the capacity of its leaderships to fully draw these lessons for the benefit of the world workers movement. Since April 5 The development of the situation in Laos since the formation of the coalition government confirms both the position of strength of the NLH and the road that remains to be traveled. The response of the population was immediately favorable. When Souvanovong arrived in Vientiane he received a triumphant welcome, tens of thousands of demonstrators massing along the road between the airport and the city. Even before the formation of the new govarnment the student movement in the provinces had for the first time massively demonstrated agoinst the puppet regime. The declarations of the student movement in Vientiane since then confirm the tendency of this milieu to move toward the camp of the Pathet Lao. Further, the soldiers of the NH ore multiplying their initiatives: setting up a free hospital in Luang Prabang, participating in works of construction and agriculture, etc. The mixed Political Council has just adopted a program calling for the fusion of the armies to create an integrated army that will participate in production and be self-sufficient. More than 50, 000 28 refugees (10 percent of the estimated total) have returned to the liberated zones so far. On the governmental scale the success of the Pathet Lao has not been limited to sweeping aside the "National Assembly" (which was provoked by King Savang Vathana's disapproval of this body). The ten-point action program quickly adopted by the government was presented by Phoumi Vongvichit and is of clear Pathet Lao inspiration. The eighteen-point program that has just been adopted by the mixed Political Council reproduces, sometimes verbatim, the theses of a speech given a short while ago by Souvanovong. A majority of the Council seems to be leftist. Generally speaking, journalists see Souvanovong becoming the most important leader of the regime and Vongvichit as the number two governmental personality able to replace Souvanna Phouma, and they wonder if the mixed Political Council is not in process of supplanting the government. Nevertheless, confrontation seems to be inevitable on three questions: * On the nature of international aid. The United States is making no secret of its desire to make use of its economic power and Loos's extreme need to bolster the "Vientione side." The NLH has not failed to detail the mandatory conditions under which international aid can be accepted. "Those who give us aid, " Phoumi Vongvichit told François Nivolon, "must not pose political conditions or impose projects on us ... or force us to buy everything from the donating countries or demand control over our utilization of funds. "(14) Conflict threatens to develop between the two parties over the problem of concrete control of the funds received. * On the recognition of the PRG. The South Vietnamese PRG has demanded recognition from the new government. Souvanna Phouma immediately answered that "the time was not ripe. " Phoumi Vongvichit, however, replied that the government had not yet discussed the question but that he was favorable to recognition of the PRG. There is little chance, however, that the real conflict will develop on * On the foreign troops stationed in Loos, It is on this decisive question that the first public confrontation has just occurred. On June 4 the Pathet Lao published a communiqué indicating that important problems had not been resolved, especially that the withdrawal of Thai and American forces had not been carried out in time. On the contrary, "the U.S. special forces in Laos have not been dissolved but strengthened, " aided in this by the return in civilion guise of soldiers who had left the country while the United States was continuing to use military bases in Thailand against Laos. Hanoi protested officially and violently, demanding the dismantling of these bases. The (puppet) minister of defense counterattocked, denouncing the presence of North Vietnamese troops (not mentioned by the accords of February 21) on the Ho Chi Minh trail and along the Mekong. What surprised journalists was that the Pathet Lao took for granted the presence of North Vietnamese forces. For example, Phoumi Vongvichit told the Paris daily Le Figaro: "We have no reason to be suspicious of the North Vietnamese. They are also fighting against the Americans. They and we are fighting together in accordance with the conclusions reached ot the summit meeting of Indochinese revolutionary movements held in April 1970. If the Thais and the Americans are really withdrawn, I could guarantee that not a single foreign soldier would remain in Laos. "(15) The situation in Laos, as in the rest of Indochina, is unstable. Behind the apparent "concord" a struggle is continuing that must result either in the birth of a socialist federation of states of Indochina or in a serious retreat for the Asian revolution. The analysis of the development of the situation must set supporting that struggle as its highest priority.
thousands at funeral for
Footnotes: 1. Far Eastern Economic Review, June 3, 1974, p. 28. 2. Phoumi Vongvichit, "Le Laos et la lutte victorieuse du peuple lao contre le néo-colonialisme américain. " Editions du NLH, Hanoi: 1968. French edition, p.121. 3. Souvanna Phouma: member of a princely family, participated in a resistance government at the end of the war, then rallied to Vientiane. Supposed to represent the "neutralists, he was to become the main political leader of the puppet regime. 4. Wilfred Burchett, "La seconde guerre d'Indochine. " Sevil. French edition, p. 144. 5. Souvanovong: Souvanna Phouma's half-brother. Joined the resistance following the disintegration of the postwar resistance govemment. Participated in the National Union govnews burker movemen and the fourth Interaticnal