Laos 1976: Faltering First Steps toward Socialism
1977; University of California Press; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2643469
ISSN1533-838X
AutoresMacAlister Brown, Joseph J. Zasloff,
Tópico(s)Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
ResumoTHE FORMATION OF the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR) on December 2, 1975, marked the emergence of the semi-secret Communist party, the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP), as the self-acknowledged leader of the national democratic revolution. The two top party leaders, Kaysone Phomvihane, now the Prime Minister, and Nouhak Phoumsavan, the Minister of Finance and President of the Lao Trade Union Federation, nonetheless made only rare public appearances after their move from their cavern headquarters in the liberated the more open capital at Vientiane. Though no personality cult was evident, the Party trumpeted its brilliant and wise leadership in achieving its great victory. The Central Committee expressed pride in its correct tactic of having joined with the Vientiane side during certain periods and under certain condition and of having used the time to consolidate and expand the revolutionary forces. A Party history issued on the 21st anniversary of its founding revealed a number of relationships that had hitherto been masked. The Party, for example, took credit for having set up the Lao Patriotic Front in 1956, at a time when the Party had around 300 members. Following the application of political, armed, and legal struggle in various combinations, the Party seized the favorable opportunity by the forelock after the victories of the peoples of Cambodia and Vietnam in April 1975. The subsequent bloodless seizure of power in the rightist zone and establishment of the LPDR ushered in the next phase of revolution, the advance, step by step, socialism without going through the stage of capitalist development.1
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