With the urgent need for revolutionary organisation highlighted by the presidential elections, our French comrades announced on 10 Union proposed over a year ago in the Accords on Laos was formally established earlier this month, Two previous attempts at establishing such a Government, in 1957 and 1962, ended in disaster for the liberation forces, the Pathet Lao. So what are the chances that this one will lead to a more favourable outcome?
The first thing to note is that the signing of the Accords represented a public acknowledgement by the US that it had found itself incapable of halting the revolutionaries. The thousands of Thai mercenaries who made up the backbone of the Royal Lao Army were withdrawn, as were all US servicemen. US bombing missions over Laos aiso stopped POLITICAL STRUGGLE This retreat of the US changed the emphasis of the struggle from the military to the political. At the same time, both sides saw it as a victory for the Pathet Lao morale was boosted in the liberated areas, while the effect on the right wing was to shatter it into several quarrelling factions.
Since then the implementation The coalition Government of National of the Acconds has further strengthened the Pathet Lao's position. They now have a firm foothold in the previously unreachable capital cities of Vientiane and Luang Prabang: indeed, they even have more soldiers there than the Royal Lao Army. In contrast, the Royal Lao Government is unable to send any of its agents their already dispirited army is being demoralised still further by the free movement of so many armed Pathet Lao cadre.
There remains, howaver, the question of the coalition. While it is true that the bourgeois representatives have entered the Government Pathet Lao, and that it formalises a situation in which the revolutionaries hold all the initiatives, there are nevertheless great dangers in this situation.
The main problem lies with the programme of the Pathet Lao, in which such an alliance with the national bourgeoisie is seen as a necessary "democratic" stage on the -in which it has been shown conclusively that socialism can only he won through a struggle against the national bourgeoisie - is thos ignored, the Pathet Lao cadre as to the real nature of the struggle; it also downsoviet-type organs of workers democracy at the base.
thus depend to a large extent on the of this programmatic straitjacket. What will they do when the right attempts to move against them, as it certainly will" What will be their response when the US and other road to socialism. The whole experience of the last twenty years in Laos coalition?
This not only severely miseducates tions here.
grades the importance of developing FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS Future developments in Laos will ability of the Pathet Lao to break out take the hint. capitalists cut off all aid? Will they move against the national bourgeuisie -or will they give up the gains they have won in order to maintain the The answers to these questions will be all-important for the struggle, and the imperialists have welcomed the present stabilisation as a chance to test out the Pather Lao's intenBut Laos's main importance for imperialism has always been its strategic position, They are hoping that the Cambodian and Vietnamese insurgents can be persuaded to follow the example of their Laotian comrades and enter an alliance with the local puppets-a move which would compromise the Vietnamese NLF and Cambodian FUNK far more than it has compromised the Pathet Lao. So for, however, there in no indication that cither intends to