Victors do not always write history. To date our knowledge of how the Pathet Lao seized power in Laos in 1975 has been based on accounts from those who witnessed events but who were not privy to the thinking and planning behind them. After the violent fall of Cambodia and Vietnam, the slow, relatively peaceful and seemingly dilatory takeover of power they observed did not equate with the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party’s assertion that its seizure of power was due to the “creative application of Marxism-Leninism to Lao conditions”. This work attempts to determine the accuracy of the Lao Party’s claim by using LPRP documents and written and verbal accounts, which reveal the strategic thinking and tactics behind the Lao Revolution. The piecing together of information drawn from many and varied sources that were directly involved, at last sheds some light on how a small, weak movement overthrew a government almost without violence. It also reveals that the LPRP carefully and deliberately planned and executed the peaceful formation of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in December 1975 in a revolution that was unprecedented in the history of Marxist-Leninist revolutions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/279148 |
| Creators | Desley Goldston |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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