Pathet Lao

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The Pathet Lao ( Lao ປະ ເທດ ລາວ , "Land of the Lao " or "Laotian Nation" ) was a Laotian military resistance movement with a communist orientation. It was founded in 1950 after the split in the Lao Issara independence movement with the support of the Vietnamese Việt Minh and initially fought against the French in the First Indochina War , later in the Lao Civil War , a secondary theater of the Vietnam War , with supportNorth Vietnam against the United States- backed Royal Laotian Army . Head of the Pathet Lao was the “red prince” Souphanouvong , but the most influential person with the growing North Vietnamese influence became increasingly Kaysone Phomvihane . The Viengxay caves in northeast Laos served as headquarters . In 1956 the Neo Lao Hak Sat ( Laotian Patriotic Front ) was founded as a mass organization and political wing ; In 1965, the Pathet Lao Armed Forces were renamed the Lao People's Liberation Army . In 1975, the Pathet Lao took over power in the country, proclaimed the People's Democratic Republic of Laos and dissolved through conversion into several state organizations.

designation

The Pathet Lao took over the flag of the short-lived Lao Issara government as a symbol. It has been the state flag of Laos since 1975 .

The term “Pathet Lao” originated in August 1950 at the First Resistance Congress, which was organized by the Lao Issara successor organization Neo Lao Issara ( Front for a Free Laos ) , an event organized by those parts of the Laotian independence movement that rejected the autonomy agreement concluded with France and the It was preferred to continue the resistance with the support of the Vietnamese communists. At this congress a 12-point manifesto was passed, which was signed with “Pathet Lao”, ie “Land of Lao”, since the Resistance Congress claimed to speak for the entire Laotian nation liberated from France. The term was quickly adopted as the name for the entire movement as a result. In the western world, “Pathet Lao” was later mostly used as a synonym for “Laotian communists”. “Pathet Lao” was actually just a generic term and not an organization (that was the Front Neo Lao Issara or from 1956 the Neo Lao Hak Sat and later the Lao People's Liberation Army), but in fact the terms are so inextricably linked that the Pathet Lao is widely regarded as the Laotian resistance organization.

history

Prehistory to 1949

After France had been defeated in Europe in World War II in 1940 , the Japanese Empire occupied the French colony of Indochina in September of the same year . As a result, the Japanese military and Vichy-loyal French colonial officials had dual rule. In March 1945, however, Japan imprisoned the French (no longer considered loyal due to the war situation) and urged the Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian monarchs to declare their independence, whereupon in the case of Laos Sisavang Vong , King of the Protectorate Luang Prabang , on April 8th proclaimed the independence of the Kingdom of Laos . After Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 , independence movements like Hồ Chí Minhs Việt Minh in Vietnam or Prince Phetsarath's Lao Issara in Laos took advantage of the power vacuum and proclaimed independence again, while the Laotian king when the first British, Chinese and French arrived Occupation troops again submitted to France. The First Indochina War (mainly fought in Vietnam) broke out between the independence movements and France.

Prince Phetsarath's younger half-brother, Prince Souphanouvong , was at the time of the Japanese surrender in Vinh , Vietnam , where he was building bridges as an engineer employed by the colonial administration . He went straight to Ho Chi Minh and - although he had never been politically or militarily active before - declared himself ready to lead a Laotian independence movement. With Vietnamese support, Souphanouvong then returned to Laos, where he organized the resistance against the advancing French and, shortly afterwards, became minister and military commander-in-chief of the Lao Issara government , which was founded in his absence . The Lao Issara had no chance against the French army, however, in the only open field battle near Thakhek in March 1946, the Laotians were crushed. Most of the Lao Issara, including the wounded Souphanouvong, now fled to Bangkok , where a government in exile was established, and a smaller part to northern Vietnam. During his time as Commander in Chief in exile, Souphanouvong cooperated closely with the Việt Minh, for which he was strongly criticized by other members of the government in exile who were hostile to the Vietnamese for historical reasons or to socialism, whereupon Souphanouvong finally left Lao Issara in May 1949 . After France had made substantial pledges of autonomy and issued an amnesty with the French-Laotian General Convention in July of the same year , the remaining Lao Issara finally dissolved and most of the members returned peacefully to the Kingdom of Laos, where many of them held political offices in the ( pro-French) royal government . Phetsarath, who saw his honor insulted because the king had withdrawn his title, stayed in Bangkok, his role as leading Lao politician was soon taken over by his younger brother (and Souphanouvong's older half-brother) Souvanna Phouma .

Foundation in the Indochina War

After leaving the Lao Issara, Souphanouvong announced the formation of a Lao Liberation Committee to continue the resistance. Other important members of the independence movement were also unwilling to accept the French conditions: the Lao Issara members, who fled to northern Vietnam in 1946, had founded a committee for Laotian resistance in the east with the help of the Việt Minh , whose leader was Nouhak Phoumsavan . Another member of this committee, Kaysone Phomvihane , son of a Vietnamese father and a Laotian mother, had set up the Latsavong Brigade in January 1949 , from which the Pathet Lao Armed Forces and the Laotian People's Liberation Army would later develop. The Neo Lao Issara ( Front for a Free Laos ) was created as the successor organization to the Lao Issara .

Souphanouvong reached Tuyên Quang Province in autumn 1949 , where he met for the second time with Hồ Chí Minh and with General Võ Nguyên Giáp . From August 13 to 15, 1950, the so-called First Resistance Congress of the Neo Lao Issara took place in northern Vietnam (according to other, more unlikely statements in the northeast Lao province of Houaphan ) with massive support from the Việt Minh , which is considered to be the founding event of the Pathet Lao. At this congress, which was presumably attended by around 150 people, the eponymous 12-point manifesto (see section description ) was adopted, in which the movement, now known as Pathet Lao, aims to include “expulsion of the French colonialists, prevention of international imperialist interventions, the formation of an independent and united country of Laos and the creation of a coalition government, the realization of democracy, freedom and equality of ethnic groups and fraternization with the peoples of Vietnam and Cambodia ”. Furthermore, a National Resistance Government was set up as a counterpart to the pro-French royal government in Vientiane , which included Souphanouvong Kaysone Phomvihane, Nouhak Phoumsavan, Phoumi Vongvichit , Souk Vongsak , Faydang Lobliayao and Sithon Kommadam - the latter two important minority leaders . The Neo Lao Issara continued to exist and, as a mass organization, should form the central component of the Pathet Lao in the future. A central committee was elected to which 19 people belonged, including all ministers of the opposing government.

Militarily, the Pathet Lao did not yet play a role in the First Indochina War. The Pathet Lao armed forces initially comprised only about 300 primitively armed guerrilla fighters , but their number rose slowly but steadily until the end of the war. Even compared to the small French garrison in Laos (3,000 French and 12,000–13,000 Laotian auxiliaries), the Pathet Lao was militarily insignificant; in total, both the French army in Indochina and the Việt Minh Army (including auxiliaries and irregulars ) each comprised around 400,000 men.

Since the forced displacement of the Lao Issara in 1946, no major fighting had taken place in Laos. Only after the Việt Minh had consolidated their core areas in the Vietnamese-Chinese-Laotian border area by winter 1952/53 did they begin an invasion of the Laotian territory . The aims of the attack were to consolidate the previously "liberated" areas, occupy the strategically important passes in the border area and tie up French troops in the otherwise unimportant Laos. In December 1952, numerous border posts were overrun, the main invasion then started in April 1953 and, after the annihilation of the garrison of Muang Khoua, led to the occupation of the province of Houaphan and parts of the neighboring provinces as well as an advance to shortly before Luang Prabang . In December 1953 the Việt Minh advanced against Thakhek and the Attapeu province in southern Laos, and in the following month they conquered the northern Phongsali province .

The numerically small Pathet Lao fighters played only a less active role in the invasion and mostly stayed in the background, where they took over the administration of the conquered areas together with the Việt Minh. However, the Pathet Lao was important for the justification of the attack: Officially, the advance was a separate action by the Pathet Lao, which was only supported by a few Việt Minh volunteers. After the conquest of the provincial capital Sam Neua , the Pathet Lao counter-government moved there, later the nearby caves of Viengxay became the headquarters of the Pathet Lao. To better support (and control) the Lao resistance, the Việt Minh created the geschaffenoàn (group) 100 .

France now tried to force a decisive battle and therefore had the Vietnamese town of Điện Biên Phủ near the Laotian border occupied and expanded into a fortress. The Việt Minh accepted the challenge and began the siege battle in March 1954 . During the siege, a second (diversion) attack was carried out on Luang Prabang, but the city was held after reinforcements by French-Lao troops. On May 7, 1954, Điện Biên Phủ capitulated, thus sealing the French defeat in Indochina.

The next day the Indochina Conference began in Geneva on the end of the war and the independence of the Indochinese states (the diplomats were already in the city due to negotiations on the Korean conflict ). In addition to the colonial power France and the great powers United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union , the still young People's Republic of China and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam were occupied by Việt Minh (later North Vietnam), the pro-French state of Vietnam under Bảo Đại (later South Vietnam ), the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos participated. Nouhak Phoumsavan traveled to Geneva as a member of the Việt Minh delegation and tried to have the Pathet Lao (and the Cambodian Khmer Issarak ) recognized as separate negotiating factions, but his request failed because the majority of the diplomats present Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak - at this point quite rightly - were viewed as insignificant small puppet organizations, completely dependent on the Việt Minh, with no popular support. Not even China or the USSR were ready to diplomatically recognize the opposing governments.

It was agreed relatively quickly that the Kingdom of Laos (like the other states of Indochina) should be neutralized independently and permanently . The main point of contention became the Vit Minh troops in Laos: The basic requirement for Laotian sovereignty and neutrality was the withdrawal of these units from the country, while the Việt Minh wanted their conquests - meanwhile the communists controlled considerable parts of Laos - not without it Give up consideration. As a compromise, the two provinces of Houaphan and Phongsali were legitimately awarded to the Pathet Lao, in return it should leave the other controlled areas and withdraw the Việt Minh completely from Laos. As in the case of Vietnam, elections for an all-Lao coalition government should then take place within x years.

This result represented significant progress for the Pathet Lao, as it made it a de facto recognized territorial power.

Organization and ideology

The Pathet Lao saw itself as the direct and legitimate successor organization of the Lao Issara and adopted both their flag and October 12, 1945 - the day the Lao Issara government was founded - as the anniversary of independence. However, they did not consider the struggle for independence to be over and therefore continued the resistance, initially against the French, who were still present in the country, later against the royal Laotian government - from their point of view a neo-colonial puppet regime of the USA. A decisive factor in the success of the Pathet Lao was the fact that it managed to convince the population as a patriotic movement and portray its Vietnamese allies not as foreign occupiers but as friendly supporters, while at the same time the royal government was defamed as a foreign-ruled regime.

Ideologically, the Pathet Lao, like the model Việt Minh, represented both communist and nationalist views. Communism, however, found it difficult to gain a foothold in Laos, which had neither a political tradition nor a working class or an organized peasantry. Politically educated Laotians came almost exclusively from the (often aristocratic) upper class and therefore could hardly do anything with communist ideology; even about Souphanouvong it was speculated that he really understood little about communism. With increasing military and logistical support from the Việt Minh and North Vietnam (in the form of Group 100/959 ), extensive communist indoctrination of the Pathet Lao members took place, especially after North Vietnam after the pluralistic initial phase from the mid-1950s onwards. Years more and more developed into a conformist socialist unitary state. In 1955, the Lao People's Party, a clandestine Marxist-Leninist cadre party, was founded. The Vietnamese influence increased significantly from 1958, when Souphanouvong and other leadership members, who were considered to be more nationalistic-moderate, took part in the first coalition government in Vientiane and were imprisoned there shortly afterwards, so that in their absence the Pro-Vietnamese Pathet Lao wing under the half-Vietnamese party -General Secretary Kaysone Phomvihane took over the administration of the conquered territories. Until the 1973 armistice, the Pathet Lao was then brought entirely to the line of North Vietnam.

In relation to Buddhism ubiquitous in Laos , the Pathet Lao adopted a double strategy: On the one hand, Souphanouvong, himself a devout Buddhist, visited numerous Buddhist monasteries and assured them of his support. His selfless and hardship full of privation was admired by many monks, so that the monasteries offered the Pathet Lao significant support, which they used to further spread their political goals. On the other hand, numerous mountain peoples (so-called Lao Theung and Lao Soung ) fought on the side of the Pathet Lao , who adhered to animistic traditions and wanted nothing to do with the Buddhism of the ethnic lowland Lao. In order to get their support, the Pathet Lao supported the repulsion of Buddhist influences in the villages of the minorities, which resulted in the expulsion of monks and the destruction of temples.

Eminent Pathet Lao members

literature

  • N. Adams, A. McCoy, A. (Eds.): Laos: War and Revolution. Harper Colophon Books, New York 1970.
  • TL Ahern, jr .: Undercover Armies: CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos 1961–1973. Center for the Study of Intelligence, Washington DC 2006. ( online ( January 4, 2010 memento on the Internet Archive ))
  • M. Brown, J. Zasloff: Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930–1985. Hoover Institution Press Publication, 1986.
  • J. Deuve: Le royaume de Laos 1949–1965: Histoire Événementielle de l'indépendance à la guerre américaine. Publications hors série de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, Travaux du Center d'Histoire et Civilization de la Péninsule Indochinoise, Ecole Française d'Extrême Orient, Paris 1984.
  • AJ Dommen : Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization. corr. Edition. Praeger, New York 1971.
  • M. Stuart-Fox , M. Kooyman, J. Woronoff (Eds.): Historical Dictionary of Laos. (= Asian Historical Dictionaries. No. 6). Scarecrow Press, Metuchen 1992.
  • J. Zasloff: The Pathet Lao - Leadership and Organization. 1973, ISBN 0-669-86744-6 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ The gender of the term “Pathet Lao” is not uniform in German literature. Depending on the text, the articles “der” , “die” or “das” are used, in some cases the term is also understood as a plural tantum (ie exclusively plural form) . In this article, the feminine singular form ( "which is Pathet Lao" ) is used consistently .
  2. ↑ The occasional founding date of 1944 is definitely wrong, at that time there was no organized independence movement in Laos and Souphanouvong was not yet politically active.
  3. ^ AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, p. 70.
    Pathet Lao. In: M. Stuart-Fox et al .: Historical Dictionary of Laos. 1992, p. 103.
  4. ↑ M. Stuart-Fox et al .: Historical Dictionary of Laos. Section “Chronology” (xxxii – xxxiv) and lemmas Souphanouvong. S. 142ff and Lao Issara. P. 73f.
  5. ^ Souphanouvong. In: M. Stuart-Fox et al .: Historical Dictionary of Laos. P. 142ff. and Free Laos Front. P. 45f. as well as appendices 9 and 10, pp. 245f.
    Michael Schultze : The History of Laos. (= Messages from the Institute for Asian Studies. 236). Hamburg 1994, p. 123.
    AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, p. 69/70, Objectives of the Pathet Lao taken over from p. 70, there again based on A Chronicle of Principal Events Related to the Indo-China Question, 1945–1954. World Culture Publishing House, Beijing 1954.
  6. ^ Martin Windrow : The French Indochina War 1946-1954. Osprey Publishing, London 1998, pp. 11, 23.
    Colonialism. In: Stanley I. Kutler (ed.), Jean Delmas: Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1996, p. 139.
  7. ↑ Vietminh Invasions. In: M. Stuart-Fox et al .: Historical Dictionary of Laos. 1992, p. 164f.
    AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, pp. 39-43.
  8. ^ Geneva Agreements of 1954. In: M. Stuart-Fox et al .: Historical Dictionary of Laos. 1992, p. 49.
    AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, pp. 51-57.
  9. ^ AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, p. 70.
  10. ^ AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, p. 364/365.
  11. ↑ see AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, p. 23: "How familiar he [Souphanouvong] is with Communist dogma, however, is to this day a mystery. He prefers Greek classics to Marxist-Leninist texts as reading matter. "
  12. ↑ on the political development in North Vietnam see Marc Frey : History of the Vietnam War. Pp. 105/106.
  13. ^ AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, p. 139.
  14. ^ AJ Dommen: Conflict in Laos. 1971, p. 91/92.

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