At that instant the new brand of colonialism of the United States leaped in
to take the place of the old form of colonialism of the French. This neo-
colonialism of the United States represented the basic policy of the United
States (which took it upon itself to be the international policeman), to
substitute for the form of colonialism which was crumbling, to suppress the
national liberation and independence tide, to block progress toward social-
ism, and to bully the former colonies into remaining in their old subjugated
status. For the nearly 20 years that followed, the neocolonialism of the
United States, which reached its peak as the "Nixon Doctrine," was brutal
and savage. It cleverly incorporated what they had gathered from the suc-
cesses and defeats of every "doctrine" of the previous colonial countries.
They experimented with all of these things in Indochina but still they were
quietly vanquished. Nevertheless, even though it was dealt the severest

of blows, the United States persisted with its neocolonialism and drifted
toward a test of strength in Indochina and elsewhere. History will clearly
assess the defeat of this vile doctrine of the United States, and it will
assess the nature of its first blows (which it received from the peoples of
Indochina). These were violent blows, and they could represent death blows
for them.

This victory of the peoples of the three nations of Indochina was a great
event and its reverberations are being felt around the world at the present
time. This event developed according to theory. It represents only one
cluster in a forest of great changes and events which are mutually related
and mandatory in accordance with the relationship between cause and effect.
To gain a clear comprehension of the nature of this principle, let us take
another look at the history of the causes of war and aggression waged by
the capitalists, colonialists, and imperialists and the continuous series .
of defeats which they have suffered since the beginning of this century.
That at which we should take a closer look is the attack by 14 imperialist i
countries against Russia when the first socialist revolution in the world

was being carried out. This event has special historical significance be-

cause it was a total victory for socialism in spite of the fact that at

that time it was just getting on its feet. The complete victory of the

socialist revolution in the Soviet Union marked a new step for mankind.

It is the-most important episode in the history of our era.

The second great historical episode during our era occurred also in the
first socialist nation of the world. This was the great patriotic war
fought by the people of the Soviet Union when these brave people joined
with the rest of mankind to defeat world fascism and from then on to lib-
erate the countries of eastern Europe. After that the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China came into being in
Asia, So a new social system came into the world, that is, socialism.

This was the great change in our era which moved the world from a situation
wherein it was entirely controlled by the imperialist system and produced
a new world in which there were two systems that opposed each other while
existing side by side. The result of the Chinese revolution tilted the
balance of world forces, that is, forces of peace and revolution on the

one hand and the reactionary forces on the other, toward those of socialism,

17



the Vientiane Agreement and then the Vientiane Protocols which encouraged
the advancement of national concord by establishing the Provisional Govern-
ment of National Union and the National Political Council of Coalition.
This opened the curtain on all the victorious and glorious events that have
been and are happening to our nation.

These things do not mean that imperialism in general and U.S. imperialism

in particular have changed their aggressive, warmongering, destructive na-
ture in any way! They still seek every method of opposing the work of peace,
independence, unity, democracy, and permanent prosperity in our country. In
fact, they are still using their ultrarightist lackeys in our country to op-
pose us in various more cunning and evil forms. But all their insane ac-
tions and plots are being watched closely by our people and are countered
suitably in order to preserve and defend our fatherland which is our sacred
duty.

The defeat of the U.S. imperialists in our country is not hard to understand.
No matter how strong their forces or how large, their cruelty and injustice
ran counter to the progress of history and their defeat was inevitable. The
U.S. imperialists were the new big imperialists but no matter how much they
sharpened up on-or how much they studied lessons on the successes and de-
feats of colonialist imperialists who preceded them and no matter how skill-
ful they were, they became a lesson for the unjust and were behind the trend
of history. That unjust power met resistance from a nation which had had an
extremely. long history before the birth of the United States and which made
use of the basic conditions of the era which was one of revolutionary fervor.
That nation was an integral part of a big, strong alliance which believed in
uniting to back and assist the people's struggle in the three countries of
Indochina. If the U.S. imperialists had strength and lessons in oppression
and aggression, we, too, had strength and lessons in resisting oppression
and powerful aggression, lessons that were constantly expanding and multi-
plying. Our strength is our children who are growing up. The thing which
was difficult for the U.S. imperialists to forecast was that, although they
were rich and strong, the more they attacked, the more their wealth and
power became limited and the stronger the resistance became. The more we
attacked, the stronger we got. That is a principle of revolution and of
progress, a special symbol of an era in which the people rose up in struggle
to liberate themselves. Their great sin was that the limitations on the
U.S. imperialists lay within the United States itself. This means that at

a time when they were being attacked by us and by the whole world, the
peace- and justice-loving American people launched all kinds of attacks from
within their fortress. At the same time within the ruling circles of the
United States there was dissension and among imperialists there was inces-
sant confusion, wrangling, and dispute. In the last phase of the war of ag-
gression against Vietnam and Laos, the U.S. Congress issued a report of a
study on that war which made some truthful observations as it said that this
war "taught" the United States that "in the last half of the 20th century,
white men (French colonialists and U.S. imperialists) with lots of weapons
in their hands cannot decide the fate of countries in the Third World" and
"the United States cannot be the permanent guarantor of stability in a world

38



The intervention and aggression in our country by the U.S. imperialists
since the signing of the 1962 Geneva Agreement has been intervention and
aggression of utmost savagery and efficiency. Every time they encountered
defeat their insane striving made them increase the savageness and cruelty
even more. By crouching beneath the deceptive labels of "aid" and "close-
ness" as well as the falsities of "cooperation," "charity," various "cul-
tural" activities, and interference and intervention in economy and finance,
neocolonialism has become an agre in our country using every ruse and using
U.S. and non-U.S. organizations, working through organizations set up by
countries allied with or subordinate to the United States and working
through the involvements of individual Americans or individuals of other
countries present in large numbers such as Japanese, Thai, Filipinos, etc.
They have done this in order to conceal easily the real U.S. face until
they gained control of the markets in the towns and villages in their zone
of control which extends into highland or remote tribal areas and into the
southern part of our country. Everywhere there are reflections of the
United States and their lackeys. If we compare it with the former French
administration in our country which initially comprised less than 100 peo-
ple and expanded to 100 and then 200, the current invasion of U.S. neocolo-
nialism, besides weapons, war materials, commercial goods, and other mate-
rials, speaking solely of the personnel invasion, the number is enormous
and appears countless compared to the former colonialism.

U.S. neocolonialism which the world describes as "The United States: The
Silent Partner," might order various penetrations but instead merely uses
secret silent partner signals which have the capability to direct all
phases of the work of ruthlessly destroying our country. If buying or
hiring doesn't work they threaten. If threats don't work they kill patri-
otic neutralists who have exposed themselves by taking part in peace, inde-
pendence, and neutrality movements in our country such as the open assassi-
nation of the noted patriot, Quinim Phonsena, who is mourned and missed by
the people even today. For the United States, to change lackey governments
is no different than to change clothes. Every time the U.S. policy of in-
terference and aggression meets defeat, they make even more cruel, destruc-
tive attacks on our homeland, concentrating on the patriotic forces and the
liberated areas. In these areas vegetation and animals of all kinds became
targets for burning and destruction by U.S. bombs, shells and poisons. From
today to succeeding generations, our children and our history will remember
deeply the terrible crimes against our territory committed by the U.S. im-
perialists who were determined to destroy our beloved homeland and wreaked
havoc on our land for a long time. Four-fifths of our country (the lib-
erated areas) have been contaminated by poisons which will long be a danger
to trees, grass, and farmland, and every family among Laos' 3 million people
have suffered the misery of being separated and having loved ones killed.
How many families no longer live together in warmth and love? How many of
our compatriots' families were flown from the liberated areas in U.S. C-130's
and imprisoned and tortured in places they called "refugee camps"? How many
people died of starvation and disease? This was the case at the Na Louang
concentration camp behind the Long Cheng base. Our compatriots who were de-
tained in this place died by the thousands from communicable diseases and

3h



the U.S. imperialists to let the factions in Laos sit down together at the
negotiating table and implement national concord. How do they understand
the overwhelming landslide vote of the people in the areas controlled by
the French colonialists which later came under the more effective domination
of the oppressive machinery of U.S. neocolonialism when they were trained
and directed by noted U.S. schools, policemen, spies and oppressors. Even
though the Lao people were "illiterate" and "not capable of understanding
the word democracy," they demonstrated their decisive determination not to
give in and their courage in the face of U.S. bayonets and spit on the "se-
duction" of the U.S. dollar, and resolutely cast their votes for the best
representatives of the patriotic and resistance forces.

That was fortunate! Today, many American scientists have pointed out that
human understanding and intelligence cannot be measured only by intelligence
quotient level; high or low levels of knowledge and understanding do not
come only from textbooks. Even though textbooks are very efficient things
for human understanding, our people's understanding and intelligence derive
from their patriotic spirit and their courageous determination not to give
in which have been inherited from our forefathers. No matter who the peo-
ple, when they gain a national consciousness, they gain patriotic spirit and
conduct their lives under the banner of correct and watchful leadership of
the revolution. Their just strength is that no one can defeat them, and
the more the aggressors close their eyes and ears and inherently despise
and look down on them, the bigger and heavier their defeat.

While Dr [Hayert], the American colonialist general, was displaying his in-
herent limitations and ignorance before the U.S. Congress, that was the time
that the simultaneous uprising of the Lao masses erupted violently and
spread throughout the country in firm opposition to the plots and actions
of the United States and its lackeys who destroyed the first national con-
cord when they falsely imprisoned our leaders who had joined the coalition
and expected to blockade, capture, and wipe out the liberation armed forces.
The flames of simultaneous uprising spread and became the conflagration of
war heaped up by the people as revenge on'the enemy. From then on, upris-
ings, the great crop planted by our people, flowered and bore fruit every
day throughout the next period of struggle and became models of heroism and
bravery for our country.

U.S. colonialism along with the brutal propaganda horns of other imperial-
ists could not slander or twist the truth of the brave, decisive spirit and
actions and the finest results of our people's struggle. The deceitful at-
titude of the U.S. colonialists could not slander or twist our people's
firm and idealistic spirit to struggle to save the nation. This was not
likely an isolated or temporary occurrence as according to the reactionary
propaganda of the imperialists' propaganda horns. Rather it was the es-
sence of nation-saving and building and of a spirit of hatred of national
enemies from ancient times. It arose from a deep awareness about national
rights and interests and of each person's struggle in the face of the des-
tiny of the fatherland.

43



than one billion people have been completely liberated. One thing that we
should point out is that since the October Revolution, national revolution—
ary movements have emerged in successive waves, building up their forces

to the strength of a storm. This great storm of revolutionary forces shook
the oppressive social system of the world to its foundation, a social system
heretofore believed to be permanent because of its longevity but character-
ized by monopoly, oppression, exploitation, warmongering and a yoke on the
pack of all mankind. All this was changed by the explosion of the October
Revolution in Russia. The revolution demonstrated that the course of his-
tory has changed in direction as well as in its characteristics. With the
revolution, the era of liberation had begun with a giant step forward.

When the world was still under the grip of the imperialists, mankind could
only dream about independence and freedom. Poverty was explained away as
misfortunes in life. Injustice was blamed on fate. People were told to be
content with their destiny. Today, on the other hand, things are differ-—
ent. Peace, independence, freedom and happiness are real. They are real
to a nation as well as to the everyday life of its people. The history of
a nation must be built by its own people. The struggle for liberation and
to be master of one's own destiny has become part of mankind's thinking and
consciousness. This struggle has become the movement of mankind and thus,
naturally, it will decide the course ‘of history.

A Concentrated Force Which Nothing Can Divide

At the present time, mankind has sufficient strength for the struggle to
liberate itself and to develop national independence. This is a concen-
trated force which nothing can divide, which has expanded everywhere and
which has compressed the imperialist capitalist system by its expansion.

The present total world population is about 3.8 billion people, of which
more than 1.2 billion are united under the socialist system; more than 2
pillion people in about a hundred countries have not yet reached socialism
but do not belong to the imperialist capitalist system. Within this group,
there are some countries which are still carrying on the struggle for
their own liberation. The majority of them have achieved liberation, have
established a regime of national independence and are.concentrating on
strengthening themselves. This tremendous and ever-growing strength is
clearly related to the socialist system, and there are many points in which
they are not in harmony with the imperialist capitalist forces, many in-
stances and areas where they are in direct opposition. Many hundreds of
millions of the people are still under the imperialist capitalist system,
the majority of whom are workers, farmers, laborers and intellectuals.
These have united into a massive revolutionary force. Their struggle
within the home base of capitalism itself, together with the efforts of
the socialists, of all national liberation forces has appeared in the form
of three gigantic waves of revolution, which grow from day to day in ever-
increasing tremendous force, in guerrilla resistance, and which clearly
will move onto the stage where they will overthrow the doctrine of capi-
talism and imperialism, which is the final danger to mankind.

11



forces, in the police, among civil servants, and in state organizations at
all levels, besides the big, strong, Patriotic Forces that are prepared to
join in and support the difficult struggle for the peace, independence, and
unity of our country. We have sufficient conditions for destroying evil
capabilities since we have the Provisional Government of National Union and
the National Political Council of Coalition, the highest institutions of
the state. We have also begun to develop effective national administration
under the guiding light of the political program which people of all classes
and nationalities throughout the country are increasingly studying, discuss-
ing and expressing their opinions about methods of implementation. This is
central to having true total national unity of thought and action.

The Entire Nation: A single Aspiration, A Single Will

After decades of a difficult and arduous struggle, our nation is now uni-
fied. We have a National Political Council of Coalition, a Provisional
Government of National Union, and a political program for the entire nation
which has been declared to be in effect and has received lively debate
throughout the country.

The political program reflects the aspirations and the collective will of
our entire nation, each and every one of us, to strengthen the peace we
have won, to strengthen national concord, to strengthen independence and
democracy, to implement free, democratic rights for the people, to try to
make our nation prosperous and civilized, and to play a part in working for
peace, independence, democracy, and justice in the world.

All of us know that our national enemy is extremely obstinate and that they
are likely to continue to plot to invade and oppress our people and enslave
them. Until the time when they are forced to stop the war of aggression
against our country and to withdraw their military forces and military per-
sonnel from our country the U.S. imperialists, now or in the future, will
continue to plot to place the yoke of Pax Americana on the necks of our
people. Even the top leaders of the United States have stated openly many
times that they would like to force the world into a condition of "not war
but not peace." That is the world-famous Pax Americana.

Our nation's task of strengthening peace depends on the revolutionary con-
sciousness of each of us in the entire nation to the enemy's plots of de-
struction and of launching wars of aggression. If we want to protect our
bright, clever, revolutionary spirit and the determination to actively de-
fend peace in our country, we must rely on a foundation of national concord.
If our entire nation combines into a single block, united in hearts and
minds, and serving the work of independence and prosperity of the father-
land, no reactionary force will destroy it and our peace will be true,
beautiful, stable, and lasting.

Peace is the overwhelming desire of all our people. We have had to sacri-
fice flesh and blood from one front to another to obtain it. But peace

can be won and made stable only on the foundation of our nation being in-
dependent, our peoples being in harmony, a11 our people being free and the

53



ultrarightest lackeys in Laos tried to conceal them, for example, the re-
sistance to implementation of the Vientiane Agreement and Protocols, includ-
ing U.S. placement of military disguised as civilians in civilian organiza-
tions in the two neutralized cities, and carrying on such activities as es-
pionage, commando actions, psychological warfare and spy warfare. In addi-
tion the pro-U.S. ultrarightist generals and colonels in our country tried
to create a military force by taking (former and current) divisions and
royal combat units and turning them into a system of local battalions with
the good-sounding name of "development units." They did this, in fact, to
oppress the masses. The local development battalion system combined with
the system of semiarmed "civilian soldiers" of Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon,
which were to lie low in villages organized into districts under the former
Vientiane authorities under the guise of "discharged soldiers returned home"
plus hundreds of aircraft of all kinds, including combat and transport air-
craft and aircraft subordinate to the central headquarters and to the vari-
ous military regions are for the purpose of creating a U.S. mercenary force
in our country to prepare for the insane U.S. plot to renew the war against
the forces of peace and independence in our country when conditions are
right. No matter how the White House, the Pentagon, the U.S. Department of
State, and the CIA try to conceal it, the U.S. command system and Thai "ad-
visors" are bound to be closely attached to the Lao military structure like
meat sticks to the bone. These preparations are in the orbit of U.S. ag-
gressive "doctrines" in Asia.

Alongside war plots the United States very determinedly carried out peace
plots. Their plots along this line meant involvement in every field be-
tween the United States and the host country including diplomatic (embassy
and consulates), economic, and political relations, U.S. aid, and U.S. wel-
fare activities in either a "charity," "cooperation," or "mutual assistance
vein." U.S. aia ("USAID"), propaganda, and cultural organizations such as
the U.S. Information Office ("USIS"), literature teams, newspaper delega-
tions and the American and non-American tourist groups were used by the
United States to collect government secrets. The effect of psychological
warfare and spy warfare was to sow suspicion and division to decimate the
ranks of patriotic, revolutionary, and progressive forces. The U.S. im-
perialists tried very hard to make our people's true thoughts and actions
for revenge go astray, especially to separate our people from the people of
our fraternal neighbor countries, and to make every effort to put road-
blocks or difficulties in the path of our revolution and our strengthening
of national concord. They dominate and threaten our independence and neu-
trality in order to attain their objectives of making our country a U.S.
base of aggression and new type of colony.

Nevertheless, present conditions differ from previous ones. Over 10 years
ago when they had to abandon the factions of Laos to work out a Lao coali-
tion, the U.S. imperialists still stubbornly continued the war of aggres—
sion in South Vietnam and still had self-deluded hopes of "winning victory"
in Vietnam. Therefore, they made every effort to destroy our people's task
of national concord, Moreover, later on the Nixon administration did away
with the independent and neutral state of Cambodia in an attempt to escape
defeat in South Vietnam.

51



is a low-risk, economical way to replace directly related U.S. military
forces." Here we jump back to the famous slogan of Ho Chi Minh, the former
president of our fraternal Vietnam, which might be the slogan of every coun-
try which sticks to the objectives of its struggle. It is, "Nothing is more
precious than independence and freedom."

A system of independence which is master of its own economy does not mean
it will rely solely on its own strength. Such a state may still rely on
aid and cooperation from abroad, to include fraternal, friendly countries
far and near, with regard to investment, technical assistance, and perhaps
even labor. That is the case in our country which is a small country with
a small population. The more aid and cooperation we can get in the areas
mentioned, the better off we will be. But one immutable principle must be
guaranteed. Foreign countries may not interfere in our internal affairs in
any form. Such aid and cooperation must concentrate on building a founda-
tion for an independent economy and mastership of our country and no other
objectives. Since we are building a basis for economic independence and
mastership of the country under conditions of deprivation and backwardness
while we have plenty of untapped resources, we should take every opportunity
to barter our resources for capital, technology, and labor from abroad.
Based on our full ownership of our mineral deposits we should make our
country one with advanced industry to ensure that we are self-sufficient
and are strengthening ourselves. Cooperative exchanges with other countries
will be based on equality and mutual advantage, with neither domination by
one side nor inequality in the relationship. We will definitely counter
and expose plots which hope to make our country a source of brainpower, raw
materials, and goods for other countries seeking war or to exploit us and
our country into a dependency of a country granting us aid.

We must think about what shape our fatherland will be in in the future based
on actual conditions, the capabilities of our nation and of the era, and
the efforts and capabilities of all our people to play a part. Our country
lies in a region of the world that is blessed with abundant resources espe-
cially highly valued metals which have not been exploited. That is why old
and new colonialism looked with desire and fought a very cruel and savage
war for decades hoping to gain control of our country. Now it is clear
that when nations in this area are democratic and independent and their
people are free, this part of the world can have stability and the stub-—
bornly greedy, no matter how hungry, must understand that the age of using
aggressive force to seize control of mineral deposits in other countries
has passed and will not return. If they acknowledge the right to national
independence, including the right of ownership of mineral deposits, after
establishing relations and cooperation, no door will be closed to them. In
fact in our era there are several examples of relationships free of coloni-
alism. Among these is "the proper cooperation between industrialized coun-
tries and developing countries which is mutually beneficial." Therefore,
even though many obstacles still lie ahead of us, our people and our nation
are determined to advance into a new era where peace is preserved, national
independence is strengthened, and our country and neighboring countries take
part in an economically prosperous area of the world. Then our rich re-
sources will be used for the benefit of peace, friendship, and wealth of

5T



Our nation has extensive, excellent cultural works and beautiful customs,
many noted temples and architectural works, carved designs in relief which
one encounters at every step on our land, bright folk literature, poetry,
singing style, classical music, plenty of dances including marvelous ones
with definite national characteristics and beats which reflect the working
people. and the strong self-improvement nature of the nationalities. We have
drawings, paintings, and sculptures, but unfortunately there are few related
to antiquities, our museum, and other cultures. For a very long time they
have not been gathered completely for research, comparison, and evaluation.
All of these things implore us, especially culturalists, scientists, schol-
ars, and politicians, to conduct research with great force and intelligence
in order to preserve our glorious cultural heritage for the purpose of play-
ing a real role in the brilliant history of our nation as well as playing a
role in creating our nation's future and in the civilization of Indochina,
Southeast Asia, and the world.

In the struggle on the cultural front we must try to raise the substance
of cultural thought which is our glorious national heritage and combine it
with progressive cultural content of the era and use the moral force of na-
tional culture to educate our people and, for example, to educate our
younger generation in depth and to become models. At the same time we will
direct affairs and resolutely destroy the content and the occurrence of
U.S. reactionary culture. The substance of our progressive national culture
is love of country, countrymen, and all men; belief in our own strength and
that of our united people; love for the hills and plots of grass throughout
our territory; national pride; firm will to be victorious over the corrupt
and immoral; respect for justice; elimination of belief in acquisitiveness
and of decadent customs; etc.

We call upon and make arrangements for each person in our country who works
with his hands or with his brain to put his best creative thinking into the
building of our nation's economy and culture. Our working compatriots who
have a heritage of diligence and patriotism, i.e., farmers in the fields and
workers in factories, construction sites, garages, land routes, water
routes, air routes and every place of labor or enterprise, must work with
creativity and with all their strength to restore and build the fatherland
and to improve their own lives and those of their families.

We call upon and make arrangements for all entrepreneurs, big or small, in-
dividual or group, in our nation who ever were involved with U.S. or other
foreign economic, financial, or monetary organizations which, over a long
period of time, were inimical to the interests of our nation to wipe out
their past unsavory jobs and return to cooperate sincerely with us to heal
the wounds of our nation and build an economic, financial, and monetary
base which will serve the interests of our nation and people. This coop-
eration must be arranged in a spirit of mutual affection, openheartedness,
and national concord for the best interests of the nation and of each indi-
vidual.

61



Our people are now quite different from what they were previously, The
forces that struggled for peace, independence, and national concord will
never be as strong and firm as they are now. If princes of the royal fam-
ily, politicians, ministers, deputy ministers, directors of bureaus and de-
partments, civil servants, military officers, and true-spirited people have
clear minds, we will be able to ward off every destructive plot of the
traitorous warmongers. The Patriotic Forces always stick firmly to their
role of being the center pillar to protect things that are precious or sa-
ered such as all the fruits of our national struggle. The forces of peace
and national independence are presently firmly unified and the mass move-
ment is twice as big, strong, and clever as it was during the war. They
have won victory in war three times and currently have many capabilities
to do away with the destruction of warfare and aggression launched by the
U.S. neocolonialists and their lackeys.

What do the U.S. imperialists want now? In its words the United States
calls for the establishment of an "orderly world system." They want to
have "stability among nations" and want to bring these things into actuality
through "diplomacy" and "negotiations" from a position of "flexibility,"

but their objective remains "to build forces to put down or control revolu-
tion!" This is the Nixon-Kissinger style which people have heard until it
hurts their ears, since before these two leaders of the United States came
into power. Now a new pair, Gerald Ford and Kissinger, are using the old
style. It isn't enough that they add to their growth. Kissinger has writ-
ten clearly that the United States considers itself "a great power as usual"
which means that the United States, the superior great power, will not allow
the world to change its role as international policeman and its fundamental
strategy is "readiness to resist any change of a strategic nature" even
though they are concerned with the problem of "how to effect an advantageous
strategic change" for themselves.

U.S. leaders always stated openly that at a time when "the remaining em-
pires" (referring to the old colonialism of England, France, etc.) were de-
clining in Asia it was "in the U.S. interest" to encourage U.S. "advance to
the west" across the Pacific Ocean! They openly issued statements many
times that the United States must be "a great power in the Pacific Ocean,"
and the United States plots to use Japan and Indonesia as "allies," as for-
tresses of theirs in the Pacific Ocean, are in order to balance political
influence in that region. They think that they will never withdraw from
these lackey countries, just as they will not withdraw from their military
bases and new-style colonies in the Pacific such as South Vietnam, Thai-
land, the Philippines, etc. In these countries the United States has had
a "change in military doctrine" which is to use local mercenary forces in-
stead of U.S, military forces to wage wars of aggression in the colonial
interests of the United States. The use of local, mercenary troops has
several advantages such as in lessening the resistance of the American peo-
ple, concealing U.S. "involvement" abroad, reducing the opposition of the
people of the world by concealing U.S. aggression, as well as in allowing
their lackeys in various countries to raise the false banners of "indepen-
dence" and "democracy" in order to deceive their people. The use of local,

49



the advent of the crisis of economic decline in the United States the dollar
has been continuously dropping in value. In August 1971 after the dollar
had been the top currency in the capitalist world for decades, the Nixon
government, which always boasted of a "new economic policy," was forced to
devalue the dollar and take it from its world throne by announcing the can-
cellation of the agreement to exchange dollars for gold. The economic con-
ditions of the United States has made it increasingly clear that the decline
of the United States has reached the level described in the writings of the
noted American economist [Victor Perler] who said that unemployment and
hardship in daily life have reached epochal levels, affecting 51 million of
the 200 million people of the United States. According to the admissions
of the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education, and Wel-
fare of the United States, at the present time there are nearly 7 million
persons in the United States who have to live in "pigpens” and nearly 4 mil-
lion persons have to be treated for nervous disorders. However, the origin
of the decline of the U.S. economic base lies in the very structure of the
U.S. economy. The United States has wealth but the wealthy have always been
able to take this wealth to use for their debts. These debts have continued
to increase which means that. the.economic decline will go on and will in-
crease in severity. According to U.S. data, their debt was $605 billion in
1954. By 1964 this debt had increased to $1,151 billion and by 1974 it was
$2,792 billion. This was a twofold increase over the previous 10-year fig-
ure and a fourfold increase over the previous 20-year figure. At the same
time the debts of companies (over the 20-year period) rose sevenfold. The
debts of consumers in general increased sixfold and the debts of administra-
tive authorities from central to local level increased from twofold to six-
fold. The danger resulting from this indebtedness is that many persons will
not be able to find the money to repay their debts or to use for future en-
terprises. Generally speaking, the American people have to use 25 percent
of their income to repay debts.

The U.S. government owes debts to private persons amounting to $650 billion,
a 12-fold increase over the 1940 figure, but expenditures of the United
States in the next 30 months will exceed the budget by as much as $1 bil-
lion. This means that there will be a greater budget deficit than at any
time previously. However, the way they will compensate for this budget
deficit will be to take the necessary funds from the pockets of the Ameri-
can people, who for the most part are over their heads in debt already. At
the present time the U.S, imperialists have run into severe economic and
financial problems, as the famed financial economist Burns, director of the
U.S, Treasury, told a joint committee of the U.S. Congress at the beginning
of this year. He said that the United States is faced with six economic
and financial problems which it is not able to resolve: 1) The debts of
U.S. capitalist companies are pilling up into a mountain; 2) The companies
do not have capital for carrying out new expansion because their income has
been steadily decreasing (some companies are alleged to have had increases
put in fact these are only reflections of increased prices brought on by
inflation); 3) Inflation and the danger of inflation are factors in the
present decline in the U.S. economy and inflation is continuing to increase
at a pace of an emergency nature; 4) The figures for labor productivity are

a1



which is evolving and changing in many ways." The United States "must ac-
cept a period of local revolutions and local wars" including many things
that would be fearful to U.S, neocolonialist policy and that the United
States "does not have the power to prevent nor sufficient knowledge to re-
solve or eliminate" (U.S. Congressional Record, 1972).

Nevertheless, with unchanged character, after they signed the Paris Agree-
ment on Vietnam and permitted the Vientiane Agreement on Laos to be signed
the U.S. imperialists continued to place their greedy hopes in neocolonial-
ism in the Indochinese countries. They have plotted to revive their power
to dominate'the world by restoring the yoke of U.S. colonial administration
in western Europe and Japan while clinging to their narrow interest in
Latin America, the Far East, the Middle East, etc.

But it is obvious that the U.S. imperialist forces are no longer adequate
to carry out their insane dream! Western Europe which was temporarily sub-
ject to the United States for a period of time is turning its back on Amer-
ica. Among the underdeveloped countries that have strongly risen up in
struggle, 100 million Arabs in the Middle East raised the flag of struggle
for ownership of their own resources. Simultaneously they joined in armed
struggle to resist the expansionism and aggression policy of the United
States and Israel. The countries in Latin America repeatedly struck with a
heavy hammer against the oppressive and larcenous policy of the North Amer-
ican imperialists by various forms of their numerous, fierce and violent
struggles.

Meanwhile, the people of the two fraternal countries--Cambodia and Vietnam--
stood shoulder to shoulder with our people in the cause of struggle to bol-
ster their recently achieved peace and independence, to carry out national
reconciliation and build their countries into prosperous nations by marching
along their historical paths aimed at completion of the task of national
liberation by repeatedly throwing the fire storm against the dark forces of
the U.S, imperialists and their puppets in Phnom Penh as well as Saigon, de-
stroying thier strategy of the war "of Cambodia," "of Vietnam" and smashing
the last foundation of the American imperialists' present world domination
strategy. More important are the splendid and latest victories of the peo-
ple of Cambodia and Vietnam in the spring of this year which caused the
balance of forces in Indochina, Southeast Asia as well as in the world to
change in another most important step. They will certainly be major causes
of the further increase in revolutions in the world. During the period of
just over 20 months after the Paris and Vientiane agreements had been
signed, the various changes that took place in the revolution of the Indo-
chinese countries were strong and rapid. In particular, they hit like a
thunderbolt against the latest world aggression "doctrine" of the U.S. im-
perialists of domination of the world. As a matter of fact, during the pe-
riod of many decades of pursuing their intention to dominate the world, the
U.S, imperialists have never had any of their world domination strategies
wrecked so rapidly and abjectly as with the "Nixon Doctrine" which was based
on the direction of all his acts from the adoption of the policy of
"strength" to the policy of "shared responsibility" among the allies and

39



help all our fraternal people, far and near, study it thoroughly and to give
our nation one line of thought and one action in the task of saving and

puilding the nation.

Printing and Distribution Office
of the Lao Patriotic Front



administration which liked to use bold strokes of power around the world,
the U.S. imperialists still showed clearly their true essence as interna-
tional policeman. On the one hand, they obstinately maintained their anti-
revolutionary, world domination strategy of "massive retaliation"; on the
other hand, they began to play a new game called "peaceful change." In
fact, when it became necessary for them to let representatives of various
factions in our country sit down together "in harmony" in the first national
coalition government, they plotted "to trick the tiger into coming out of
the jungle," divide revolutionary forces, increase the strength of their
lackeys, and hurry preparations to destroy more cruelly and savagely the
work for peace, independence, and national concord. For this reason, 3
months after the supplementary elections, near the end of 1958, the United
States toppled Katai and replaced him with Phoui Sananikon in a cunning but
eruel plot to destroy the first government of national concord. They had
Phoui’ use the trick of "conferring rank" on the members of the integrated
Pathet Lao battalions in order to disarm them and "to transfer" them into
Phoui Sananikon's own army. But more daringly and audaciously they impris-
oned the leaders of the resistance who had integrated.

These various actions of the United States and Phoui Sananikon to destroy
national concord and peace were returned in kind by the people immediately.
The battalions of the People's Liberation Army including the brave Second
Battalion disobeyed the audacious and evil orders of Phoui Sananikon and
the chief rightist officers who demanded that the Second Battalion "lay
down its arms within 2) hours." The Second Battalion passed through the
encirclement of mercenary forces while safely maintaining their strength
and together with former resistance armed forces and people throughout the
country received orders to resume attacking the armed oppression of the
United States and its lackeys. When the U.S. policy of destruction and re-
newed warfare using a new playing card, Phoui Sananikon, met continuous de-
feat, the American imperialists "changed horses" all of a sudden. They
dropped Phoui Sananikon and set up Phoumi Nosavan to lead implementation of
a more fascist policy of suppression and destruction. The evil policy
change of the United States and its lackeys focused on the discontent which
was heating up among the people and within part of the armed forces of the
Phoui-Phoumi Nosavan clique itself. In less than 3 months after the mirac-
ulous, historic escape from jail by Prince Soupanouvong and the other re-
sistance leaders, the sparks spread all over the country and the flame of
struggle among the people rose up into a great conflagration throughout the
country and raised high the patriotic spirit among people of all classes,
even among the ranks of the other. side's soldiers. On 9 August 1960 part
of the "Voyal Army" known as the Second Paratroop Battalion staged a coup
d'etat in Vientiane after the officers and men of the battalion objected to
an order from Phoumi Nosavan, bringing the flames of war into the territory
controlled by the United States and its lackeys.

The war headquarters of the United States and Phoumi Nosavan, which openly
included Thai reactionary administrative authorities and troops and which
violated international law and the borders and territorial sovereignty of
our country, massed forces in hopes of putting an end to the uprising of

32



liberation, independence and peace. It must again be stressed that the
success of the revolution in China, which is a large country with a popula-
tion greater than any country in the world, following World War II helped
the peoples of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia in their resistance against the
war of aggression waged by the French colonialists, their first such resis-
tance, and raised wonderful hopes for the revolutions of liberation of the
Southeast Asian peoples.

The third great historical episode in our era is the success of revolution
in the Indochinese countries. The main pillar and force of decisive sig-
nificance behind this revolution was the Vietnamese revolution. This event
opened a period of new struggle which decided the fate of the old form of
colonialism. After that the severest of blows were dealt neocolonialism of
the United States, causing grave losses to that country. At the same time
the way was opened for the task of liberation in the weak countries and the
movement for liberation and national independence in the world expanded tre-
mendously and gained the strength of a real typhoon. This historical event
is one of extremely great significance for nations, particularly those na-
tions which have been exploited and oppressed, have backward economies, and
have been reduced to colonial status, semicolonial status, or dependencies
of world colonialism and imperialism for so long and which have now risen
up or are rising up to struggle for their own liberation.

From what we have seen in our review of events in the above section, the
most outstanding feature of our present era is the appearance and unceasing
expansion of the three revolutionary currents which have combined into a
single great cascade, the tip of which is concentrated in attacking world
capitalism and imperialism continuously. These three currents have been
decisive in determining the path of our era. The distinctive nature and
strength of these three currents is that they represent a position of at~
tack with superb coordination and mutual effect which constantly raises the
quality of the collective tasks of the peoples of the world.

In the face of this terrible calamity, that is the crumbling of the coloni-
alist system; world imperialism with the United States imperialists in the
lead had to devise a new world strategy, so in the middle of the 20th cen-
tury the imperialists of the United States decided to use their vastly su-
perior forcés to suppress and control the peoples of Indochina while car-
rying on intervention and aggression for 20 or more years. That was a
great historical event and it is a significant historical lesson for the
evil superpowers who were pillaging and oppressing the country. Once they
had gotten themselves into this great disaster in this way, the American
imperialists food themselves into believing that through the use of such
power as the imperialists had never used before they could reverse the
course of history and stop the expansion of the national liberation move-
ment which since the great Russian October Revolution had associated itself
with the waves of socialism, democracy and peace in the world. However, in
the face of the opposition of the new forces of the world, the U.S. imperi-
alists increasingly found themselves unable to carry out their desires.

And in fact this was the case. Once they had fallen into the quicksand of

18



to expand capital. But in the present crisis, as most of western Europe
knows so frightfully well, things are more complex and difficult in that
"if the inflated funds are not spent, there will be a worldwide decline,
but by trying to avoid this decline, they will cause the prices of goods to
increase dramatically."

The crisis of capitalism this time will be a full-scale one. It will in-
volve problems of labor productivity, raw materials, fuel, and money on
such a worldwide scale that capitalists will not be able to solve them. It
will mark the end of a "prosperous era" for imperialist capitalism in which
it has been able to accumulate wealth by seizing natural resources, raw ma-
terials, and fuel sources of the underdeveloped countries to appropriate
and exploit them at will. Now things have changed from what they used to
be. Whereas in the past the rulers of the capitalist countries could at
their whim increase production on the basis of resources and fuels of other
countries, now those countries which own those raw materials and fuels,
which are a life and death matter for large economies, have their own
plans, policies, and increasingly effective means for controlling their re-
sources. Thus, from now on the right to set prices and the right to sell
to whomever they desire will lie with the true owner. From now on it will
not be up to the old and new colonial rulers to decide as in the past be-
cause of the astounding growth of the revolutionary forces of national lib-
eration and national independence, and of the three revolutionary currents
of this century, which have repulsed and also multiplied the severity of
the full-scale crisis now being faced by world capitalism. This has
awakened the Third World and this strong awakening has forced a new divi-
sion of labor in the world. It has eradicated the basis of racial separa
tion and the division between rich and poor countries in international
trade, It has firmly and correctly fixed the system of commercial rela-
tionships and exchange on the basis of equality and advantage for all par-
ties. The Third World countries will operate on the basis of being the
rightful owners of their resources with fixed prices. Their struggle has
two meanings. One has to do with their awakening, a healthy development
for the peoples of countries which were slaves in the past. And on the op-
posite side of this coin is’ the decline and downfall of bloodthirsty and
greedy imperialism. No one will get excited when they hear the cries of
high ranking officials of the U.S. administration who complain that: "A
total embargo on the export of petroleum by the petroleum-selling countries
would be as much danger to the United States as a nuclear war!" (Statement
by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders on 14 February 1975 dur-
ing a report to a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Foreign
Affairs. )

It must also be said that the constant astounding inventions of science
and technology during the 20th century have helped to give world capital-
ists the means for their deceitful propaganda that they could bring unlim-
ited advances to the "health and wealth" of their countries. However, it
is clear that if you say that the great science and technology of this cen-
tury have helped the capitalists build health at some points science and
technology have also helped them build their own fortunes and exploit the

2h



class, in general, and of the rich, in particular, They have claimed to the
world the falsehood of "the great democracy of America," In fact it is a
place ruled by the dollar and by the rich, The country's entire system, in-
cluding its legislature, administration, and courts, is in the control of
the rich, from the highest to the lowest levels, The elections are gener-
ally of only a superficial nature. In reality they buy the votes of the
electorate with dollars. Each new election is but a competition among the
various wealthy groups using two political parties, the Democratic Party and
the Republican Party, as fronts. The same is true with the country's eco-
nomic structure. The U.S. capitalist system has reached the highest level
of monopoly, monopolistic capitalism. In politics the governing power of
the capitalists also reaches the high level of state monopoly. The wealthy
class uses this state monopolistic power to preserve their own monopolistic
rights in economic exploitation and political pressure. The various groups
of wealthy monopolists use every available trick to buy, defraud, intimi-
date, murder, and conduct other evil acts of the most extreme nature in or-
der to gain administrative rights and use exploitation in their quest for
wealth. Not long ago the Watergate affair occurred and gave the United
States a vile reputation around the world. The stench of the Watergate af-
fair revealed the true face of the monopolistic capitalist class, those
holding power in the United States. The group of monopolists on the oppos—
ing side took advantage of this affair to attack and overthrow President
Nixon. In fact, this affair simply points out that the U.S. social system
has reached the grave level of great crisis. The real reason for this cri-
sis reaching this grave stage is the Indochina war, or the stubbornness of
those holding power in the United States in pouring untold amounts of money
and arms into their Indochinese aggression. This resulted in serious, con-
tinuing defeats and a fall into an inescapable quagmire for nearly 20 years.
This insane obstinacy took the United States down into a deep abyss of eco-
nomic decline, political turmoil, social discord, fear and loss of confi-
dence, and loss of a monopoly position in the domination of the capitalist
world. The American people expressed their weariness and their loss of hope
for the state system of the United States through the political position
they took during the election of 5 November 1974; 62 percent, or about 95
million of the 145 million persons who were of voting age, did not vote.

The second thing which is clear is the economic decline of the imperialist
United States. On 20 April 1974 two powerful members of the U.S. Senate,
Edward Kennedy and Walter Mondale, made speeches alerting the American peo-
ple to the low output of U.S. production. They clearly pointed out that:
“The decline (of the U.S. economy) is continuing." And they observed that:
"This decline could endanger jobs, corporate income, and the well being of
all 200 million Americans." Ten months previously, the most powerful U.S.
bank, the First National City Bank, observed that: "the financial policies
of the United States could bring on a financial crisis as bad as the de-
pression of 1929-1933."

We should recall that the United States during its period of longest pros-

perity reported that it had gold bars stored as a guarantee and that the
dollar could be exchanged for its value in gold at any time. However, with

20



the officers and men of the Second Paratroop Battalion. However, the pa-
triotic forces responded on time to the call of the Second Paratroop Bat-
talion headquarters and for the first time there was close cooperation be-
tween a rebellious part of the "Royal Army" and part of the patriotic
forces in the struggle in Vientiane city. The coalition forces attacked
the U.S-Thai-Phoumi Nosavan forces and forced them to retreat. However, in
order to preserve their strength the coalition forces withdrew from Vien-
tiane along Highway 13 through Vang Viang, Meuang Kasi, and the Sala Phou
Khun road junction from where they headed to-seize control of the Plain of
Jars and Xieng Khouang. After that the rebel forces and people all over
the country rose up and changed the direction over to armed struggle. The
struggle was fierce, won victories from north to south, and forced the
United States and Phoumi Nosavan to ask for negotiations. Negotiations
lasted 14 months and took place in the Plain of Jars, Ban Namon, and Hin
Heup in Laos and outside of Laos in Zurich, Paris, and Geneva. The armed
struggle won an historic victory at Luang Nam Tha forcing the Americans and
their lackeys to sign the Geneva Agreement of 1962 which established the
second national coalition government.

The 1962 Geneva Agreement concerning Laos was signed 8 years after the 1954
Geneva Agreements and recognized the sovereignty, independence and terri-
torial integrity of Laos for the second time. This agreement underscored
an historic truth of the present era, namely that no matter how rich and
powerful the Americans are, in the present era, no matter how merciless and
efficient they are, and no matter how evil they are and how many tricks they
have to advance neocolonialism which they recently derived from the former
colonialists, they cannot use a gun-muzzle strategy or political and eco-
nomic neocolonialist tricks to subjugate a nation which believes in bravely
and determinedly standing up to them.

However, the 1962 Geneva Agreement on Laos was violated and destroyed imme-
diately because the interfering and aggressive nature and the cruel black-
heartedness of the United States had not changed. The world domination
strategy of "massive retaliation" of the Eisenhower-Dulles clique had crum-
bled; the Kennedy administration (begun in early 1961) had decided on a new
world domination strategy of "flexible response." At a time when they were
resolutely expanding nuclear weapons and preparing for nuclear war, they
also had a policy of "limited war" in which two nations fought using con-
ventional weapons, "partial war" (meaning warfare using U.S. forces abroad)
and "special warfare" (meaning a new form of war) in which U.S. forces had
only an advisory role and in time of necessity only a strictly limited por-
tion of U.S. forces would enter the war. On the ground they would still
use "special forces" with the U.S. Air Force providing key support, and lo-
cal troops would make up the fighting units on the ground. Local manpower
and resources would be mobilized to take part in the war. During that pe-
riod the Kennedy administration waged "special warfare" in South Vietnam

to suppress the historic mass uprising of the South Vietnamese people.
However, the war in South Vietnam was a test of the strategy and it was an
immediate failure, forcing the United States into intervening on a large
scale in South Vietnam.

33



means." This means that the search for profits comes before all else. Re-
gardless of how evil and dirty the means of obtaining money and wealth, a
system that looks only to money and profit like this, that tramples on mo-
rality like this, no matter what it does it can think only of dividing up
the real wealth and happiness for this country or that. A system which
thinks only of itself like this will do anything to think up "providing as-
sistance to friendly countries" in order for these small countries to de-
velop. It is unquestionable that these concepts and actions are not likely
possible. With their astuteness, Karl Marx and Engels made a very clear di-
vision between menial labor and those who labor with their minds, all of
whom serve the capitalists. The slogan "Proletariat of the world, unite"
which both men raised high more than a century ago is becoming more and
more true, and the labor force of the era is shining ever brighter. At the
beginning of this century, Lenin expanded Karl Marx' and Engels' slogan,
and called on "all oppressed nations and proletariat of the world to
unite." That is the slogan of struggle which is welling up with life, and
is the symbol for the united labor force of the era; it opens the way and
induces people everywhere in the world to join the vanguard of the struggle
against imperialist America, the infiltrator and aggressor, which practices
neocolonialism under the banner of the "Nixon Doctrine," which is a "doc-
trine" of brutal, savage and obdurate aggression, which the Ford-Kissinger
administration continues to follow.

Today, when the world isn't boiling over with the three waves of revolution-
ary struggle there are the peace movements which have attracted a billion
people in various countries, to drive out all those countries headed by
capitalist chieftains waging war and intervention in other countries.

The U.S. imperialists, who are deceitful, greedy, and bloodthirsty, tremble
with fear in the face of revolutionary and progressive forces in the world
which are attacking them constantly, and in the face of the solid coordina-
tion between the revolutionary and progressive forces throughout the world.
From their screaming and bellowing about war and aggression, they have
reached the point of talking of "forgiveness" and "cooperation" wtihout
let-up. They portray themselves as always having a role in carrying the
banner of peace and began to make appeals for the doctrine of building of
"health and wealth" and "the future of mankind." Their intent is to use
lies and deceitfulness to conceal their true and continuing thoughts of war
and aggression which are an unchanging inherent characteristic. And their
"forgiveness" involves "forgiving" the United States in its weak and sick
state, This "forgiving" is only a trick aimed at putting the revolutionary
and progressive forces off guard and getting these forces to quit fighting.
It is a trick to stop military actions so that they can gain time to re-
build their forces and concoct new schemes to attack the revolutionary and
progressive forces. Events in Chile (Latin America) and Cyprus (southern
Europe) have made it quite clear just what the U.S. demons are up to and
what lies beneath the mask of this deceitful "forgiveness." These events
show that the U.S, imperialists would use devious trickery or armed force
as they see fit to achieve their own evil and vile ends. For the personal
gain of U.S, imperialists in Latin America, the United States laid plans to

15



regulations for implementing democracy must elevate the responsibilities of
each person, respect for the public interest, and concern for the free,
democratic rights of the people. Each person must try to be honest and
pure, to love and respect the people, and to strive mightily to effect
changes in the ugly evils of the old order such as: forms of punishment,
squeezing and irritating the people, corruption, and suppression of the
people's free, democratic rights. In addition, our people will develop the
right to be one's own master in order to struggle uncompromisingly against
any apparent opposition to free, democratic rights, and we will do every-
thing to block strictly all such mistakes. Truthfully speaking, democracy
may be fully implemented when every one of us, every citizen, has a firm
grasp and joins in the work to set up the machinery, a force to guarantee
the security of democracy. That is the urgent need of all our people. We
should know that when the free, democratic rights of our people are guaran-
teed, the energy to build our nation will be raised high and all difficul-
ties and obstacles will be eliminated. Then the sacred work of our nation |
will be accomplished rapidly and magnificently.

It is clear that national independence, freedom, democracy, and patriotic i
spirit are abstract ideas, but they are also real issues. National inde-

pendence must be shown in actuality in thoughts and actions to preserve and

protect the territories of our fatherland and to make it ever more secure.

Freedom of every person must be demonstrated by their working for the fa-

therland and for their fellow compatriots, by their doing everything to in-

crease their intelligence and their capabilities based on mutual thinking

and effort, and by participating in the work of the fatherland, not by in-
dividualism and destruction of our territory for individual benefit and

prosperity.

The patriotic spirit of each of us must be demonstrated by both thoughts
and actions. That is true patriotic spirit, true national consciousness,
and the will to protect and develop our beloved fatherland.

Based on the peace and independence recently gained we have begun to develop
the foundation for freedom and democracy, which must be developed beauti-
fully and as different as water and fire or heaven and earth from what is
called freedom and democracy in capitalist countries such as the United
States. That kind of freedom and democracy is reflected in U.S. elections.
They are like political plays in which the actors are the people with wealth
or special power who use gigantic propaganda machines in attempts to defeat
each other. Or they are like gambling in which the losers are not the gam-
blers but the American working people and taxpayers who let the bankers use
modern vehicles to compete for supreme power in order to exploit the people
and reduce their living conditions to hardship levels. The capitalists get
richer every day and compete with each other for domestic and world markets.

But this era of ours is one which will replace capitalism according to the
laws of human society, with a new social system more progressive than the
old crumbling system. Beginning with the Russian October Revolution social-
ism has replaced decaying capitalism in a portion of the world. The glori-
ous socialist path is wide open to any nation which has gained independence

59



all their lives. Thus, capitalism was the stage in the development of the
human race which built the foundation of mass production and attained a
high level of culture and science and technology in its early period but
the more capitalist society developed the more it generated within itself
all kinds of serious conflicts and legal disputes which were like lots of
explosions leading to its own destruction. Their oppression and savage
suppression caused higher human qualities and values to disappear, caused
natural resources to be wasted, and increasingly hindered severely the
progress of human society.

On 7 November 1917 the revolution of the working class exploded in Russia
(according to the Russian calendar it was 25 October; hence it was called
the October Revolution). It was the greatest revolutionary explosion which
shook the whole world to its foundations. Russian capitalism and feudal-
ism, the weakest links of world capitalism, were destroyed. The power of
the czar and the capitalist class was overthrown. Administrative power of
the proletariat was established with workers, peasants, and intelligentsia
ruling under the leadership of the working class. The capitalist imperial-
ist interests of the world, led by England, the United States, Germany, and
France, put a brutal cordon around the new Soviet state in hopes of stran-
gling to death the first true, liberating revolution. But the progressive
forces, although weakened a little, were able to climb back, which is a
principle of life and of history. Using its own power and the strong sup-
port of the masses, the first socialist state in the world became firmly
established. After that, it expanded by leaps and bounds and created the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics comprised of 15 republics united in
heart and mind with equality and mutual affection on a territory lying in
both Europe and Asia and comprising one-sixth of the area of the world.

The Soviet Union extended its aid to Mongolia, a close neighbor. The peo-
ple of Mongolia followed that same glorious path and established the
world's second socialist state after the Soviet Union.

But the imperialist interests had not learned their lesson after suffering
a great blow in their invasion of the world's first socialist state.
Twenty-two years later when world fascism, the stepchild of imperialism,
which had been born big, bad, and troublesome, launched World War II in
order to redistribute world markets, they picked the first socialist coun-
try as the target for an invasion in hopes of destroying the Soviet Union,
the fortress of independence and freedom. Hitler, the fascist leader, ar-
rogantly announced to the world that his “iron" and "panzer" divisions were
comprised of hundreds of units that would swallow up the Soviet Union
within a few weeks. But on the contrary the world has seen that the So-
viets were not swallowed by the fascists. In fact it was the three fas-
cist ogres, Germany, Italy, and Japan, who were wiped out. The victorious
socialist system helped to liberate the countries of Eastern Europe from
the yoke of fascism and to become progressive, socialist peoples' democ-
racies, Later a number of socialist countries were established in Asia,
namely the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the People's Republic of
China, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Republic of Cuba
was established in Latin America.



hardships were still not at an end, but our inherent strength and the ep-
ochal forces of revolution expanded with utmost speed and strength. Our
enemy and his ranks, including those in his own ghetto, had subsided into
exhaustion, trembling and shaken to the roots. The historical truth of
this is clear and it has become the truth of the era. It is a standard for
revolution: From nothing to something, from little to plenty, from weak to
strong. When a people has dared to revolt, then it will find no obstacle
too great, and there is nothing it cannot do.

The Greatest Experiment in Our History

We had just achieved victory over the old colonialist French only to have
to confront the new U.S. colonialists. In fact, the U.S. imperialists had
had their eye on our country for a long time, and had begun to share in ag~
gression against us even in the French era. In January 1944 when fascism
was near defeat, the American imperialists devised a trick to insert them-
selves in place of the French colonialists in Indochina immediately by set-
ting themselves up as an international police force in the area. With re-
gard to the Indochina problem, a memorandum from Roosevelt, then president
of the United States, to the British government stated on this point that
"France has dominated this area (Indochina), inhabited by. some 30 million
people, for nearly a century, but the people there have fallen into even
greater hardship than before. They are entitled to a better fate." In
May 1950, Dean Acheson, secretary of state to Roosevelt, declared that:

the American government had agreed to provide both military and economic
aid to the "countries of Indochina" and to France, with the intent of "re-
storing security and furthering true nationalism" in Indochina. In Septem-
ber 1953, Dulles, U.S. secretary of state, issued a statement that the war
in Indochina "has affected the vital interests of the United States in the
Pacific." What "vital interests" are these? U.S. politicians and journal-
ists made it clear that: if the United States should "lose Indochina, the
United States would become an island in a sea of communism," and the United
States would lose "the gateway to raw materials necessary to her industry,"
as well.

In July 1964, Dean Risk, U.S. secretary of state, addressing the Senate Ap-
propriations Committee, said, "Our (United States) desires and our (United
States) abilities in the area of aid to the ‘lawful government' of Laos is
a vital matter in our (United States) mission to advance freedom, just as
we are trying to achieve that mission in South Vietnam." In February 1966,
U.S. President Johnson stated that, "Laos is an important link in America's
defensive chain," His words caused some to recall Dulles' statement of
some 10 years earlier which called Laos "a key point in the American strat-
egy of containment."

In order to illustrate more clearly the evil intentions and policies of the
U.S. imperialists toward our country, we should reiterate the statements of
an American professor named [Almond] who taught in England, was an expert
on Laos and Indochina, and had visited our country several times. He re-
cently wrote in a leading West European magazine that Laos is the "first

30



cloaked in skillfully concealed neocolonialism, they are not able to pull
the wool over the eyes of our younger generation. The new generation is
the primary target of the imperialist colonialists' efforts to cut them off
from their glorious heritage. Therefore, the enemy tries to spread the U.S.
gangster life style into our country to replace our honest, easy-going, and
strong way of life. They explain the "American way of life" through the
theories, philosophy, psychological research, and theology of the Austrian
Freud who believed that the libido was the fundamental and sole rule of
life. From that it is quite normal that behavior must flow from base crav-
ings which lead people to various actions wrapped up in the greed for money
until they are crazed to the point of opposing their compatriots, their na-
tion, and humanity. The "libido" theory of capitalist imperialism has be-
come a product advocated by neocolonialism which encourages our people to
plunder, murder, and intimidate with animal ferociousness. To elevate co-
habitation between men and women in policy! They encourage worship of a
way of life where one seeks personal benefit at the expense of others and
believe that this is the highest purpose of each person; in this they want
to change the way of life that we have inherited from our forefathers, in
which if we have anything we share it, both joys and sorrows. They have
brought in a way of life with burglary, robbery, prostitution, displays of
nakedness in the streets and in suggestive "dark room" dancing arousing
dirty images. All of this is to drug our young people to make them forget
their nation and concentrate on responding to their "cravings!" They want
to wipe out the quality, beauty, and virtue of Lao women that have existed
since ancient times and anything shining and clean. Most of all they are
trying to do away with the shyness of women through living and dress styles,
relationships between men and women, and the evil of nakedness. They are
spreading this way of life out of desire to do away with the beautiful image
of our women, of our gracious mothers and grandmothers who love their child-
ren and husbands, and of our sweet, fragile wives and sisters, and of our
men who are diligent, honest, and pure, who have complete respect for their
parents, who love their brothers, sisters, children, wives and friends, and
who are the pillars of their families, villages, and the nation.

These cultural activities of the U.S. imperialists have interfered in our
country and come from using propaganda and cultural vehicles which receive
their "orders from far away" across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans or from
a nearby country on the other side of the Mekong River. This interference
in our country is for no other purpose than to counter and wipe out our na-
tional consciousness and glorious heritage which enable us to preserve and
develop ourselves.

The American "way of life" aroused greed for money in order to draw our peo-
ple where? Nowhere other than to dishonesty and fraud for money, to sell
oneself, one's friends and relatives for money, and to murder for money.
This is to serve the U.S. imperialists' policy of recruiting mercenary
troops and to serve their plans and policies of aggressive war. When we
have defeated the enemy in the war of aggression and have actually real-
ized the establishment of national concord, our way of life is to build the
fatherland, to strengthen and expand patriotic spirit, to think of our com-
patriots and the people as our shared ideal. It definitely is not an ideal

66



struggles between systems of thought are extremely fierce and long. While
the U.S. imperialists and their allies have been forced to give up their
armed aggression against our country, they have not abandoned the psycho-
logical and philosophical war against our nation or against fraternal peo-
ples in Indochina and throughout the world. This is an area in which the
U.S. imperialists have concentrated the most interest and massed the great-
est forces, and, the more they suffer war defeats, the more effort they put
into the psychological and philosophical war against our nation specifi-
cally and mankind in general. As a result at this time more than any other
all of us must raise our sense of responsibility for protecting and expand-
ing our beautiful Lao national consciousness to make it a more fervent rev-
olutionary wave in our daily lives, in our struggle and in production. We
must make it a new life force in every aspect of life in our nation. Happi-
ness is not just a picture for us to look at, not just a song for us to sing
and dance for relaxation. We must make it a new force capable of moving
mountains to the sea, of building vast wealth for our nation, of creating
new capabilities for the fatherland, and of being a force to completely
block and wipe out every unjust force which attacks us from the surrounding
reactionary powers. National consciousness which is valued by our Lao peo-
ple must be transformed into effective action in our nation-building task
and play a role in the happiness and development of mankind. Ordinarily.
the thoughts and values of a nation or a person cannot be transformed into
truly effective action through debate alone unless it goes through organi-
zation. Each of us has the duty to serve the fatherland and the people
voluntarily and with dedication to duty.

We must have significant documents which specify the duties of individuals
and organizations and sets procedures, and systems so each organization and
citizen can contribute their strength and intelligence to the work of the
fatherland and of revolution. Our country and society will have organiza-
tion and planning. We know well that when consciousness soaks into the
masses and when the masses want to take action for themselves, then that
consciousness and that spirit will become a power that no one can defeat.
That power lies in action. Each person in our entire nation will act vig-
orously and in unison to improve the fruits that we have won and to expand
and broaden them to make our entire nation progress.

In the immediate future we must encourage and join the broad, deep movement
to support national concord which supports the task of national concord and
constitutes collective action. This is the Provisional Government of Na-
tional Union, the National Political Council of Coalition and the entire
operating program of our nation. We might raise the slogan, "Struggle
resolutely for peace, independence, and national concord." This will be a
hard, broad struggle to eliminate the destructive plots and tricks opposing
the sacred work of our fatherland. None of us forgets for a moment that we
should pour all of our efforts into the national task and not forgive any
enemy actions aimed at destroying the tasks of our fatherland. We think in
concert and act in concert. It is certain that along with the urgent work
of the immediate future, nothing can limit our efforts and intelligence to
take part in other great, long-term work related to the work of our nation.

68



In Lieu of a Summary

We are living in an era of rapid and amazing change. Socially, in only half
a century nearly one-third of mankind has escaped from countless generations
of slavery and suffering and is building a completely different new society.
The whole world is rising up in the three waves of revolutionary struggle
and is encouraging historical change and building a new era. In science and
technology, new people are inventing great things in mankind's present era.
If we think back 10 years or less there have been new discoveries that have
meant qualitative change for our knowledge and the well-being of mankind.
Countless old knowledge and concepts have been overturned. Mankind today
can see with their own eyes the changes of the era which have shaken the
foundations of old, reactionary, backward, and crumbling systems, institu-
tions, and organizations.

Our three million people are extremely honored to have climbed up to the
level of the era and have played a small role in changing the course of his-
tory. The old, outmoded ways of thinking, attitudes, and work methods must
be erased and replaced with new thinking, attitudes, and work methods. The
evaluation of a nation or an individual should not depend on knowledge and
understandings that have eroded away or on phenomena that have degenerated.
Superficial, external phenomena must be derived from the history, heritage,
and true physical conditions which determined the progress and growth of a
nation or individual, because in this marvelous age of ours a nation or in-
dividual who was unknown yesterday but with its accumulated strength and un-
tapped mineral deposits may today raise itself and gush out like a mighty
river and be capable of destroying old thinking and reactionary influences
and of writing a glorious new page of history. We understand well the thou-
sand and one difficulties which are and will be obstacles to the glorious
but difficult progress of our nation. However, it is clear that past glory,
present power, and the future bright progress of our nation and each indi-
vidual place a heavy burden on us. Each one of us within his own job status
must accept the responsibility before history and the era; understand more
clearly the duties of our nation and era; eliminate old concepts and ways of
thinking; strive to learn the truth and train and temper himself; concen-
trate his strength and intelligence in order to participate in his group and
his nation; and strive to reform himself in order to take part in the great
work of the nation, of leading our beloved fatherland to higher advances and
brighter progress as befits our heritage and the great accomplishments our
nation has achieved and as befits our great era. Everyone in our nation
must do like the famous Prince Phonnuvong of ancient Lao mythology who
bravely crossed volcanoes and boiling rivers to get to his beloved. Our
beloved is our Lao fatherland, peace, independence, neutrality, democracy,
unity, and lasting prosperity. In this glorious era we will continue ad-
vancing to new and brighter heights.

Lao New Year, 1975

- END -
8947
cso: 906

69



During the time when the French colonialists made Laos a colony, the resis~
tance to their oppression and exploitation went on continuously everywhere,
from north to south. Nearly every race and tribe rose up to fight in large
or small movements. One movement went on for a quarter of a century; that
was the one in the south under the leadership of Ong Keo and Kommadam.

Each of the movements which arose included armed movements. They used
flintlocks, percussion rifles, and bows and arrows. They skillfully used
tuerrilla tactics, which they had learned from antiquity, very expertly.
All of the people took part in the fight, the old, young, women, and men.
People from entire villages, communes [taseng], and districts abandoned
their fields and homes. They went into the jungle, taking their cattle,
buffalo, pigs, dogs, ducks, and chickens with them. They made the jungle
their fortress. People from an entire tribe, or all members of an ethnic
group, and sometimes everyone within a broad area went. There was solidar-
ity and good relations among the Lao Loum, Lao Theung and Lao Soung. It
was an all-out, long-term struggle.

From the time that the colonialists arrived to trespass on our territory, a
fierce, long-term struggle movement sprang forth in the central and south-
ern regions of our country. It began with the People of Virtue movement of
1901, which first resisted the oppressive yoke of the Thai and then became
a movement to resist the French colonialists. Even older is the movement
of the people of central Laos under the leadership of Chief Kaduat, a brave
hero who was the son of a Savannakhet farmer. Beginning with a march to
welcome the People of Virtue, it was transformed into a force to occupy
camps and posts. Then there was the struggle movement of the Lao Theung
and Lao Loum of southern Laos under the leadership of Ong Keo and Kommadam.
This was a vigorous, persevering, long-term movement which went on for 35
years. People in the mountains from Saravane to the Cambodian border and
from the banks of Sekong to the Mekong River, were included. Their area of
movement was the Boloven Plateau and they had positions on various mountain
chains. They relied upon their fellowship with the mountain and plains
peoples. This movement in the south created much harrassment for the co-
lonial administration in Indochina. The colonialists had to bring in a
large force to cope with it, and were forced to change their strategy.

They had to resort to evil, deceitful political trikery and economic block-
ade. This movement was one of the thorniest problems that the colonialists
had to face during the history of their colonialism in Indochina.

In the middle of World War I in north Laos there were tremors at many
places involving many groups. There were uprisings of the Lu, Ko, Khmu,
Aka, and Ho in northern Phong Saly and of the Thai of Sam Neua from 1915
to 1930. Of particular note was the extremely fierce uprising of the Lao
Sung in the three provinces of Xieng Khouang, Sam Neua, and Luang Prabang
from 1919 to 1922. These uprisings created extreme problems for the French
colonialists in Indochina and they were forced to bring in large forces to
withstand them.

eT



years. This period of war ended in a victory unprecedented in the history
of our nation. It forced the opposite side to sign an agreement at Vien-
tiane on 21 February 1973 and the Vientiane Protocols on 14 September 1973,
after which the Provisional Government of National Union and the National
Political Council of Coalition were formed on 5 April 1974 and Vientiane
and Luang Prabang were neutralized.

That was a great victory with historic and contemporary aspects. That vic-
tory was the great accomplishment of the resolute revolutionary struggle,
of willingness of the people to make all kinds of sacrifices for the sake
of winning independence and freedom. It built up pride and confidence
which never before existed in our peoples. It opened up a wondrously hope-
ful outlook by our people concerning the work of bolstering peace and im-
plementing independence, national harmony, democracy, unity, and lasting

prosperity. But the great historic victory went beyond national boundaries.

It had contemporary aspects as well since it was a victory of the Indochi-
nese people united in a life or death struggle against a common enemy,
namely the biggest imperialist, aggressor and gang leader which appointed
itself policeman of the world under its imperial yoke and which intended to
use Indochina, the center of revolution, as a testing ground for the de-
structive might of the U.S. superpower in suppressing revolutionary forces
and in imposing neocolonialism throughout the world.

That historic victory was a victory of the Lao people of all nationalities.
It was a victory of the spirit of self-improvement and the belief in unity
of all people to resist external aggression. It was a victory of the inde-
pendent-minded desire to be one's own master and to resist aggression, di-
vision, and betrayal which has continued since the days of our grandpar—
ents. It was a brave and daring struggle in which people of all nationali-
ties and tribes participated in every place and in every occasion under
many forms: sometimes silent, sometimes noisy; combining armed struggle
and other forms of struggle by people of all classes in rural areas as well
as in the towns. Clearly, there was participation by large numbers of
youth, students and intellectuals in the capital city of Vientiane, and the
royal capital of Luang Prabang, as well as in many other towns before and
after the signing of the Vientiane Agreement. Among the masses there was
a festive atmosphere good for displaying their strength and willpower.
People in the two neutralized cities rejoiced in the victory and gave an
enormous welcoming salute to the chairman, Prince Souphanouvong, and other
leaders of the Lao Patriotic Front on their entry into the two neutralized
cities from the liberated areas. After that the struggle for the achieve-
ment of national concord and bolstering peace and independence, which had
just been attained, was raised to a steady, strong stream. That was one of
the beautiful results of national consciousness and the spirit to struggle
for peace, independence and national concord of the people in the two capi-
tal cities and throughout the country. This showed the strong desire for
free, democratic rights, the right to life, and legal and moral justice for
all our people and their determined will to realize their aspirations. We
inherited this consciousness and spirit from our ancestors. They control
the thoughts and actions of each and all of us. They are the loud, brave,



Thousands of years ago we Lao established our homes and remained on the In-
dochinese Peninsula which in ancient times was called the Golden Peninsula
(or Heavenly Land) and was filled with fantasy and amazing legends. Our
people were rich in diligence and the land was full of abundant rice paddy
plains, plateaus as broad as the eye can see, great, magnificent forests,
rich resources in land and water, and masses of mountains attesting to
their enduring and firm strength. They constantly struggled with and were
victorious over various perils and passed through trying situations and
many difficult stretches of road in order to continue to survive and grow.
The belief in construction and preservation of the nation by peoples of all
nationalities developed strongly beginning with the time of Prince Fa Ngum,
the clever hero, who unified territories into one entity and established
the majestic kingdom of Lan Xang.

The history of our nation is a history of many generations of Lao people
who followed one another in the task of building a homeland with their own
sweat and blood and who fought resolutely and bravely to preserve the land
of the Lao under the leadership of national heroes of exceeding virtue,
such as Sam Sen Thai, Phothisalat, Setthathilat, Suriyavongsa, and Prince
Anu, as well as the revolutionary heroes of the present era who have made
glorious marks on the brilliant, heroic pages of history. In the present
era of the great wave of revolution the history of Laos is a history of a
nation without extensive land, with a small population, and a backward
economy, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fraternal nations, united
in a single destiny of pulling themselves up to the level of the era with
an amazingly strong and daring power of self-improvement and winning vic-—
tory over the biggest, richest, and strongest imperialists in the capital-
ist world who are more wicked and profoundly and thoroughly corrupt than
ever before in history.

Those are events which have taken place in the last nearly one-third of a
century. Our people have made their choice and have decided to travel
along the glorious path of the era. Each step is one stage in the great
victory on the path to Utopia. After World War II ended in complete vic-
tory for the forces of socialism, nationalism, democracy, and peace who de-
feated the fascist forces of the world, our people in concert with neigh-
boring fraternal peoples rose up and liberated ourselves and declared the
independence of our respective nations. But at a time when the people of
the world were boiling with a sky-high spirit of revenge to punish the fas-
cist aggressors, the old-style colonialists returned to invade, conquer,
and seize control of Indochina once more. Our people and the people of
fraternal countries rose up and boldly carried on wars of national salva-
tion for a second time and won the acknowledged historic victory which was
recognized in the Geneva Agreements of 1954 concerning Indochina. But be-
fore long the U.S. imperialists began to interfere in and invade our coun-
try, replacing the French colonialists, in hopes of making our country
into a base for aggression and a new type of colony of theirs. However,
our people did not give in even a little when it became necessary to wage
war once again. This time it was war against U.S. neocolonialism. It was
an extremely miserable and difficult struggle over a period of almost 20



overthrow the progressive government of Chile headed by President Allende.
It was also the United States who caused the bloodshed of the people of Cy-
prus as a way of responding to their long-held designs to make this stra-
tegic island a base from which to wage war and aggression in the Middle East
and the Near East at a time when the revolutionary current of the peoples in
these regions was reaching a high level and appeared to be going counter to
the policies of the United States aimed at appropriating raw materials and
fuel, which are abundant in the Middle East and Near Fast. This revolution-
ary current was combined with armed struggle against the Israelis, the sur-
rogate forces of the United States. "Peace" as the United States means it
is to have others remain under the yoke that the United States places around
their neck. As for what they mean by "cooperation" and "wealth and health,"
‘oth are used to conceal neocolonialism. There is no way in which imperial-
ism is going to tolerate revolution and progress. The truth is that they
have not reduced in the least their attacks on revolution and progress. For
that reason, revolutionary attacks of every form represent the correct and
appropriate direction and methods for revolution. The collective strength
of revolution derives from being on the offensive. On the road of revolu-
tion each nation has a clear consciousness of its fate; it has a clear-
sighted vision in making the decision to embark upon its path in accordance
with the principle of struggle and of contributing its strength to the three
waves of revolution. The path of the era which involves combining the
strengths of the revolutionary and progressive forces is a glorious path,
even though it is filled with hardship and difficulties, the ups and downs
of struggle, the overcoming of adversity to attack and destroy the enemy
who is a most vicious, evil, and obstinate adversary. The strength and
continuing attacks of the masses in the revolutionary waves and the peace
movements which release pent-up strength together form a supremely victori-
ous strength which nothing can stop.

A Principle Which Cannot Be Reversed

The times helped our people and the peoples of Indochina defeat the United
States. The victorious resistance of the Indochinese peoples has also
played a role in the progress of the era. The fact that this era advanced
to total victory in Indochina at this particular time is not at all acci-
dental. Indochina is comprised of three nations--Laos, Vietnam, and Cam-
podia--and they represent one of the centers in which epochal changes for
the world have been taking place since antiquity. The reason for this is
that this region has been a crossroads of civilized thinking and of politi-
eal concepts from every corner of the world. It is likewise no accident
that Indochina was the birthplace of the movement of the masses who were
oppressed and rose up to fight in the August Revolution of 1945 at a time
when the colonialists and the imperialists were on all four sides. After
that the Indochinese rose up against the war of aggression of the French
colonialists for 9 years until victory was reached. Thus, 10 years after
World War II Indochina conquered the old form of colonialism which used
troops brought in from outside in the hope of extinguishing the courageous
national revolutionary movement, which although it was majestic and coura-
geous, was still in its infancy.

16



These new aims conformed with the historical development of human society
and opened the way for all oppressed and backward people to push forward.
However, regardless of the extent to which this historical development fit
circumstances and was facilitated, it could not be projected and altered
for any particular country. Glory and honor in that country's history de-
pended on the ability to see the situation clearly, act decisively and
bravely and organize the struggle to seize the people's rights to self-
determination and to build the history of our nation. It is clear that our
indomitable patriotism, our national solidarity and our people's determina-
tion to struggle with great courage under correct and wise revolutionary
leadership were the decisive factors in our victory.

In the atmosphere of the great historic victory of our people, which was
also a victory for all mankind, we must look back at the path along which
we passed before in order to see clearly and scientifically that the road
ahead, no matter how difficult, is full of bright hope.

Part One

The True Path of the Era: An Immutable Principle

A New Era: The Era of Mankind's Struggle for Liberation

The path on which our nation is traveling is one which the era opened up
half a century ago. For several hundred years capitalist countries with
advanced industries in Western Europe, such as England, France, Italy,
Holland, Spain and Portugal organized overseas exploration and aggression
and quickly seized control of countries with backward economies in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America and spread their suppression and exploitation
throughout the world. The French capitalist colonialists set up “protec-
torates" over far-away countries, established thousands of bonds, erased
even the names of the countries, and forced people to forget their nation-~
ality. At the same time, revolutions in the French homeland demanding
democratic rights for Frenchmen were bloodily suppressed. As for England,
they were acknowledged as rulers of the world in one périod and they
poasted that, "The sun never sets on the British Empire." Not only did
the capitalist imperialist interests intimidate and enslave economically
backward countries but they also intimidated the relatively developed
countries and expanded their influence and power until it could be said
that they decided the fate of people all over the world. In the 15th and
16th centuries, after having discovered America, the capitalist interests
of the western world explored and built huge fortunes in North America.
Later they established the largest country in North America, namely the
United States of America. Those capitalist interests concentrated on ac-
quiring the abundant resources of North America and carried out extremely
wicked and systematic oppression and exploitation of the natives who were
regarded as slaves as well as of the slaves who were bought cheaply from
Africa (the ancestors of the more than 20 million black Americans today
who comprise 10 percent of the American population). At that time the
masses were deeply immersed in the hell of slavery, suffering, and hardship



falling; 5) Taxes are increasing at a disastrous rate: 25 years ago a
worker paid no more than 1/100 of his income in taxes, whereas in 1974 that
worker had to pay as much as 13 percent of his income to taxes; 6) The dol-
lar is rapidly losing its value.

The decline of the U.S. political system and its economy and finances has
caused a corresponding decline in the U.S. society and in the spirit of the
American people. It is not necessary to cite much evidence of this because
the United States already has a strong reputation for the deteriorated and
rotten society. The turmoil is moving, and will continue to move, toward
the final climax. To give an example, at the present time every week in the
United States there are young people numbering in the tens of thousands who
are leaving home, and among the women of the United States their struggle
slogan, and it can almost be said to be reality, is abortion on demand and
without cost. In U.S. society where the dollar reigns supreme the struggle
for life follows the rules of the jungle. The big fish eat the little fish.
There are ethnic divisions, robbery, killing, and violation of individual
freedom, an outstanding example of which was the wicked Watergate affair
which revealed all too clearly this "life style" which is immoral, dishon-
est, and deceitful, characteristics which are common to those holding power
in general, even the president of the United States himself.

A third clear example of the decline of the U.S. imperialist nation is the
vile manner in which it has behaved toward those countries friendly to it
and subordinate to it. The decline of the dollar and the financial and eco-
nomic base of the United States has not only adversely affected that coun-
try, but it has also dangerously affected the allies and colonies of the
United States. An example is that the U.S. dollar's inflationary loss of
value is a danger to the "growth" of U.S. allies and colonies. It is for
this reason that we see what is happening in West Germany, France, and Ja-
pan where many people are getting rid of the dollar or avoiding the dollar
like people avoiding those with contagious diseases. That is one of the
sources of friction which will create discord between the United States and
its allies in western Europe and Japan, where these countries compete among
themselves over markets, trade, raw materials, and investments. Beyond
that, Western experts have even gone so far as to say that "the most dan-
gerous threat to the power of the United States in the world from now on
will come from Japan or from western Europe, or from both Japan and western
Europe together."

It was not long ago, on 6 August 1971, when Nixon, the U.S. President, pub-
licly admitted that America had lost, without any doubt, power and influ-
ence in western Europe and Japan.

So it is easy to see that the largest of the capitalist and imperialist
countries is going steadily downhill. When one considers various compara-
tive data, it can be seen that in a quarter of a century the peak indus-
trial output of the United States, in comparison to that of the western
European countries, has changed from where U.S. output once greatly ex-
ceeded that of the European countries to where it is now only about equal

22



JPRS 69570

9 August 1977

TRANSLATIONS ON SOUTH AND EAST ASIA
No, 731
Laos Is MARCHING FoRWARD ALONG
THE GLORIOUS PATH OF THE ERA

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In the nearly one-third of a century just passed the bright, clever, correct
and clearsighted leading organizations raised high the banner of mass soli-
darity to resist external aggression. The efficiency of a leading organiza-
tion rests on firmly grasping the banner of mobilizing the masses and on
whether its policies and struggle methods are correct. The banner of the
Free Lao Front at the time of the anti-French resistance and the present-day
banner of the Lao Patriotic Front closely combined our people's patriotic
struggle movement with the patriotic struggle movements of the fraternal
peoples and close neighbors of Vietnam and Cambodia, with the aid and sup-
port of socialist forces, of democratic and socially progressive forces in
the capitalist-imperialist countries, and of national liberation and inde-
pendence movements around the world, which put our national salvation strug-
gle in the mainstream of the wave of national liberation and independence
and heaped spearpoints on the U.S. imperialist aggressors. The path and the
steps mentioned determined the present magnificent victory of our nation.
That was the way of self-help and strengthening the nation ourselves, of
pouring out an inner strength as well as using it to the fullest for self-
expansion for decisive victory in the era of human liberation. At present
the fate of a nation, no matter how small or how far away or elusive, is
tied up with the fate of the world as a whole. This differs from the pe-
riod when our grandfathers fought so bravely around the beginning of the
century when the curtain had not yet been raised on the glorious new era
which now makes it more convenient. Among the difficulties faced by the
peoples of the world who are still on the path of self-liberation, the

first is probably the element of decisionmaking, that is, leadership of the
struggle. The people who lead movements in "finding the way" and in mobi-
lizing the masses, while they possess the know-how and the capability to
organize the mobilization of the entire nation to decide to struggle for
their own liberation, also know to grasp firmly the basic opportunities of
the era and are apt to lay out a proper, clearsighted line.

In fact when a nationality has ranks of leadership and its leaders have a
clear, scientific line, that nationality has everything: revolutionary
masses, revolutionary forces, and other fundamental things for victory.
Among the ranks of revolutionary leaders in our country is the person of
Prince Souphanouvong who is a prince of the royal family and an intellec-
tual who has trained and tempered himself into a courageous revolutionary
and who, along with his fighting comrades, has selected the correct path of
national salvation for his nation. Along with his fellow leaders he united
with the fraternal peoples within the country and the peoples of the Indo-
chinese Peninsula and leaned heavily on the world revolutionary movement to
lead the national task forward to our current glorious victory. The event
in which the people of the two neutralized cities and people of other
places throughout the country welcomed the chairman, the leader of their
nation, with very deep and strong affection when he entered the two neu-
tralized cities to prepare for the creation of national concord showed
truly the national spirit of affection and strong solidarity. It also
demonstrated the decision of our entire nation for the long-term task of
strengthening peace and implementing independence, national concord, democ-
racy, unity, and permanent prosperity in our fatherland.

45



exists and points its revolutionary spear toward Latin America, the "back-
yard" of the United States and long under its control. In the Middle East,
the United States used Israel as its forward force to intimidate and
threaten the Arab countries with the aim of exploiting these countries' oil
resources at will. However, today in this region the United States is fac-
ing great difficulties because of the strong opposition from the Arab coun-
tries. Its weakening position from the Eisenhower-Dulles administration,
through the Nixon administration and today, to the Ford-Kissinger adminis—
tration forced the United States to adopt a "compromise" policy. From a
stance of worldwide aggression as "policeman of the world" it has come down
to today being the first among equals exercising "shared responsibility."
Following the end of World War II, from the Truman administration through
the Eisenhower-Dulles administration, the United States adopted the strat—
egy of "brinkmanship" based on the theory of "total retaliation" using nu-
clear weapons to conquer the world. However, the Korean war defeat, the
loss of its nuclear monopoly, the growth of socialist strength, the growth
of labor and proletariat strength in capitalist countries and the United
States forced the Kennedy administration to adopt the "flexible response"
strategy using "limited war" tactics. By this they meant two types of con-
ventional warfare, "regional warfare" and "special warfare," with which to
oppose liberation and independence movements around the world. Meanwhile,
the United States pushed ahead with its preparation for nuclear warfare.

During the Nixon administration, the U.S. imperialists declared so-called
"Nixon Doctrine" having as its stratagem the domination of the world in op-
position to all revolutionary forces using a show of force, especially nu-
clear weapons, as a shield. They sought “allied forces" in a region to
"share the load" of the U.S. role as "policeman of the world." The United
States thus could "negotiate from a position of strength." This strategy
was completely smashed by the U.S. defeat on the battlefields of Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia.

In Laos, the American aggressive war was a full application of the Nixon
Doctrine. However, after suffering continuous and increasingly severe de-
feats, the United States was forced to accept the Vientiane Agreement,
tantamount to an acceptance of failure in its aggressive and colonialist
aims in Laos, in the face of the firm determination of the Lao people in
our struggle for independence, liberty and national reconciliation. In
South Vietnam, when it was defeated even after using the most terrible
weapons such as the B-52 heavy bombers, the United States signed the Paris
Agreements on Vietnam, rolled up its "stars and stripes" and withdrew its
more than one-half million military forces from Vietnam. However, this
setback did not deter the U.S. imperialists from making further aggressive
schemes. They continued with their neocolonialist aims with a new strat—
egy under the guise of warfare among the Vietnamese people. It was these
dark schemes of aggression that pushed the U.S. imperialists to a complete
and shameful defeat for all the world to see. At the same time, the Nixon
Doctrine did not fare any better in Cambodia. There, the U.S. imperial-
ists were steadily heading toward the day when the U.S. war chieftains had
to take their lackeys and their families with them in precipitant withdrawal.



The extermination of fascism meant huge losses for the capitalist imperi-
alists. After its demise the U.S. imperialists who had gotten fabulously
rich from the war took on the role of international policeman. For this
reason, in the final stages of World War II, even though the Soviet Red
Army was rapidly advancing eastward wiping out the strategic reserves of
the Japanese fascists in northeastern China and ending all effective Japa-
nese resistance, the U.S. imperialists still used their atomic bombs on
two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With a vengeful anger, the
U.S. impeialists took advantage of their monopoly of nuclear weapons to
use these weapons to intimidate the people of the world. Less than 8 years
following World War II, as the people of the world were barely recovering
from the tragedy brought upon them by fascist forces, the U.S. imperialists
started their aggression in Korea. Obsessed with the power of nuclear
weapons, President Truman declared openly that with this power "The United
States with the total destructive power of nuclear weapons in its hands can
change the course of history and civilization!"

However, things did not turn out as the U.S. imperialists had hoped for.
Even with their superiority in military power and nuclear weapons, the U.S.
aggressors could not turn back the wheels of history. Facts clearly showed
that their claims of "changing the course of history" only revealed their
insane and egregious intentions. Meanwhile, history progressed on course
and in the direction opposite to the wishes of the U.S. imperialists. Ev-
ery attempt made by the U.S. imperialists, the successors of fascism in
threatening the world, to change the course of history was met with severe
punishment by the people of the world. Finally, the U.S. aggressors had to
agree to sign the Korean armistice agreement. One year later, the French
colonialists were forced to sign the Geneva accords ending the Indochina
war. However, the lessons of Korea and Vietnam were not enough to wake up
the U.S. imperialists. They managed to jump into Indochina to replace the
French with great enthusiasm and arrogance. The changes in Indochina in
the previous 20 years were not to the liking of the U.S. imperialists.

They were nevertheless forced to review their world strategy. Compared
with their situation 20 years earlier, the U.S. position has progressively
worsened, in its own country and in the world arena. In the relatively
short time since they took over the role of the fascist powers the United
States has suffered serious reversals. It has had to change its strate-
gies for taking over the world four times through six presidents. The
most obvious setback was in their assumed role as the world policeman.

They were criticized every step of the way. Each time they were forced to
make a backward step, their position and their power clearly diminished.
Since 1917, the successful October Revolution in Russia has wiped out im-
perialist and capitalist power in an area one-sixth of the world. Follow-
ing the defeat of the fascists at the end of World War II, the emergence
of socialism in the world helped expel capitalist imperialist regimes from
areas amounting to one-third of the world affecting one-third of the world's
population. The U.S. imperialists' position suffered the most severe set-
backs in this period. Thirty or 40 years ago who would dare imagine that
the U.S. imperialists would give in to a small country with only one twenty-
fifth the population of the United States. This was Cuba which gloriously



each nation and of all mankind. Our country will eradicate poverty and
backwardness, and increasingly move up to science and technology, and take
part in the advance of culture in the world.

Peace, independence, and lasting prosperity must have the people as their
source and master. The foundations of democracy and freedom, which have
long been the dream of all our peoples, must be implemented strictly and
resolutely and made real. We are most grateful for the king's concern about
the people's true rights and benefits. In a letter dated 28 May 1974 to
Prince Souphanouvong, chairman of the National Political Council of Coali-
tion, the king commented briefly on the political program that the council
had passed saying, "We can only hope that in the near future free travel
will be possible throughout the country so each person may feel deeply that
it is his own land for which he must dedicate his efforts to make it pros-
perous and must sacrifice his life and blood to defend forever." This is
true, the dream of each of us and within our own duties we each use all of
our powers to implement quickly freedom, democracy, and the other sacred
things for all our compatriots. The political program specifies that, "The
people are the foundation of the nation. The nation will be independent
when the people are free." That means freedom for each person and each or-
ganization working to defend and build up the fatherland. Specifically,
this means the right to earn a living and to work, freedom of thought and
expression, the right to protect the lives and property of individuals and
organizations, freedom of movement and place of residence, freedom to join
organizations for personal benefit, and especially the right to vote, to
stand for election to any institution of the state, and to work for imple-
mentation of national policies of defending the peace and social order, of
developing the national economy, and of preserving and expanding culture,
education, and fine arts, as well as freedom of marriage and family, freedom
of person, the right to health protection, and the right to protect and
foster material and spiritual in living conditions for all our beloved peo-
ple. To sum up it means that every one of our people of all ethnic groups
and tribes, all regions and classes, all occupations, and all leanings has
free, democratic rights. These are true free, democratic rights in all
areas, political, economic, and social, and there are guarantees that
these rights will actually be implemented. Laborers in a truly democratic,
independent system must be a relatively highly valued source of wealth and
must be protected, fostered, and respected as a larger and more precious
source of wealth than any other. This is in the context of our desire to
make our fatherland prosperous and strong. Big and small entrepreneurs who
are the people who play roles in building the economy of a nation must be
guaranteed freedom of enterprise and occupation in order to contribute to
a just prosperity for themselves as well as for the nation. On the other
hand the nation must be guaranteed creation of strong, viable enterprises
by these entrepreneurs. People who make a living in free enterprise, civil
servants, and military and policy officers and men are all caught up in the
machinery of the state and must be guaranteed free, democratic rights, free-
dom to carry out their duties, and guaranteed living conditions. On the
other hand the state has entrusted them with performing jobs to guarantee
democracy. The conditions for guaranteeing democracy and legal systems and

58



nation and the people, and who steadfastly organized the masses to rise up
and resist the plots and wicked actions of U.S, neoimperialism which tried
to change the essence of our people, to make them lose their spirit and
Dpecame slaves. Our courageous, concerted struggle found heroic groups and
individuals arising out of their everyday duties: neither armed combatants
nor combatants who carried rakes and plows could disregard the enemy bombing
and shelling but they protected the high grasslands, rice, and yams to feed
all the people fighting the enemy. All the women of Laos, our mothers,
wives, and sisters all over our country, were interested in and worried
about our cadre and combatants. Teachers and students in each canton and
villages, even under the threat of shell bursts, carried out. their teaching
and studying duties in addition to producing enough food to feed themselves,
and training to be strong in national defense and to have a high level of
social awareness. Countless fathers, mothers, brothers. and sisters, youth,
students, intellectuals, degree holders, civil servants, and important vil-
lagers from the plains as well as the towns and in the capital did not dis-
regard the enemy's pressure, but they still had a firm spirit of patriotism
and mutual assistance and took appropriate opportunities to display boldly
and openly their spirit to struggle for peace and democracy for everyone.
Among groups and individuals bearing arms and drawing salaries from the
United States and its lackeys there were cases of brave demonstrations of
opposition to the enemy aggressors and traitors; there were military units
which the United States created, supplied and commanded which rose up to
fight against the United States and its lackeys; there were police and mil-
itary police units formed by the United States and charged with guarding
prisons for revolutionary leaders but which, after having been awakened,
acted in accordance with a patriotic Lao sense of justice and protected and
led revolutionary leaders out of prison and through the enemy encirclement;
and there were civil servants, including high ranking ones, who bravely and
boldly openly stood up to protect the banner of independence and national
concord. Among our group and individual national heroes an especially deep
source of price in our brave struggle was the role of Buddhist priests.
Large numbers of priests and novices combined the just qualities of Buddhism
with a high spirit of patriotism and national solidarity to play an impor-
tant role in the work of saving the nation. The nearly one-third of a cen-
tury old struggle of our Lao peoples attained and currently has had and is
having its highest achievement in the vast revolutionary forces among whom
each person and each unit has set examples as Lao people who are passing on
the heritage of our forefathers and achieved the highest things of the era,
namely: to conduct their lives themselves, honestly, purely, and radi-
antly; to respect and honor friends and relatives; and to be big-hearted
and generous toward visitors. Individual conscience, the honor of the fa~
therland, and the conscience of the era combined to make our people into a
type with the strength to struggle hard and bravely with no thought of back-
ing down in the face of adversity, Our people were born and grew up close
to heroic mountains, jungles, rivers, market towns and villages that became
strongholds of resistance and revolution whose names are deeply entrenched
in history, from the fields and mountains along the Mekong River, from the
northernmost provinces to Sam Neua and the glorious Plain of Jars, across
heroic Highway 9 down to the southern plains and plateaus, as well as the

a



Front to urge on the people of the three countries to advance the work of
resistance until complete victory,

After that the struggle movement of the people of the three nations jumped
to a high level and launched campaigns.one after another. We liberated Houa
Phan Province and expanded liberated territory throughout the country in a
continuous north-south belt.

After the historic victory of the brave Vietnamese people over the French
Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu (May 1954) the French government had to sign
the Geneva Agreements (July 1954). Thus, after over 60 years of living the
life of slaves, losing our homeland, and suffering hardship, difficulty,
sickness, and lack of education; after several decades of continuous strug-
gle, and 9 years of resolute mass resistance to the French colonialists'
war of aggression, we forced the French government to recognize the sover-
eignty, independence, and territorial integrity of our country. This vic-
tory brought a halt to conditions of suffering in our nation and marked our
nation's historic progress since the beginning of this century, in an era
in which mankind was launching self-liberation struggles.

When, in August 1945, along with fraternal peoples and nations, we rose up
in revolt, we were, in fact, in some ways already prepared to counter the
aggression of the French colonialists. While fighting the French, we still
were not thinking realistically and completely about a greater and many
times more difficult test with the American imperialists, who were in the
next stage harsher, more vicious, and more tenacious. However, from our
1945 revolt and victory over the French colonialists (1946-1951) we were
able to draw the strength for victory over the American imperialists (1955-
1973). The initial struggle prepared us for the final fight and each bat-
tle multiplied the people's strength. In our life and death struggle with
an enemy who always outnumbered us, it was normal that we could not avoid
losses and sacrifices. However, the great victory that we achieved, the
fruit of the revolution, and the lessons we learned in the struggle, was
indeed a great one.

During the years that our people sought this elusive opportunity, one which
comes once in a thousand years, when we first rose up after World War II to
fight off both the French and the Japanese, then we had only our two bare
hands. But once we had established a new administration and had to conduct
resistance against the French colonialists for 9 years, our patriotic forces
grew as if by supernatural powers. These powers sprang from no other source
than patriotism, determination to liberate the nation, and the revolutionary
guidelines we drew from the unbroken spirit of our forebearers and of those
who served the revolution coupled with revolutionary theory and practical
application, It was found in the fraternal solidarity between the Lao, the
Vietnamese, and the Cambodians. It was known in the strongholds of our
mountains and the majesty of the Mekong River. The more our patriotic
forces attacked, the tougher they grew; the more they attacked, the more
they were victorious, Then we had to confront the imperialist aggressors,

a greater foe than any in our history, and our own strength and our deploy~
ment increased several times. Following this victory, our difficulties and

29



Our Indochinese Peninsula has produced not a few intelligent, capable and
clearsighted leaders and has contributed the physical effort involved in
this task of the peoples of the peninsula. We long for Chairman Ho Chi
Minh, the teacher and father of the fraternal Vietnamese revolution, who
was also the greatest, closest friend of our people and those of Indochina.
Now people all over the world know clearly that he left his beloved country
before the Russian October Revolution to seek a way to restore his nation.
He went to the land of the invaders of his country and of Indochina. He
saw that the Soviet Union, the first socialist country in the world, was
the birthplace of world revolution. After that he encouraged small, weak
peoples to struggle to liberate themselves. Chairman Ho Chi Minh spoke
most accurately about patriotic spirit. He said, "The true, correct patri-
otic spirit is completely different from the reactionary imperialists’ nar-
row spirit of nationalism. A patriotic spirit is a part of an international
spirit."

That is the strongest point of all national liberation and independence
movements and a very dangerous blow feared by imperialist aggressors and
theri reactionary lackeys. Therefore, the imperialists and their lackeys'
wheels of propaganda, psychological warfare, and war of espionage scream
ceaselessly day and night and take every opportunity to slander and falsely
accuse us and to twist our actual activities and our extremely correct rev-
olutionary policies including our solidarity with the peoples of Indochina
and international solidarity. This solidarity is essentially different
from the conspiracy of the cpaitalist imperialists and their lackeys. Be-
cause peoples who have suffered or are suffering oppression are not likely
to oppress or aggress against friends who are in the same unfortunate con-
dition. Moreover, the essence and form of organization of the socialist
system and the people's democratic system definitely does not have an op-
pressive or aggressive character. Karl Marx said a century ago that, "A
nation which oppresses another is itself not free." No matter what capi-
talist imperialism says in its propaganda, there probably is not freedom in
its own countries, particularly among the majority of the masses. If there
is freedom, then it is only for the minority of oppressors. The nations
which have risen up victoriously against oppression and aggression defi-
nitely must have freedom and certainly have contentment.

We are proud and happy to believe in the banner of our nation's correct and
clearsighted revolutionary leadership, the banner of national solidarity,
Indochinese solidarity, and international solidarity. It is the banner of
victory in battle at any time and guarantees the glorious and grand progress
of our nation even if-we meet sizable difficulties or obstacles. We are
deeply proud of our people, of our nation's brilliant history which has tem-
pered us into a brave, strong nation, definitely not weak, and of our clear-
sighted, correct leadership. Currently our nation and banner of leadership
are joining in the forward phase of the great victories of the era of revo-
lution. We understand clearly that when consciousness for independence and
the will to be our own masters are aroused in each of us, they will become
strong resources, capable of gaining victory over all enemies, no matter
how big and strong those enemies are. We also understand clearly that if

h6



The brave, strong, persevering uprisings of the Lao people of every race
and ethnic background against the oppression and exploitation of the French
colonialist system showed the great spirit and patriotism of our people.
They showed that they had a strong will to fight and to endure steadfastly
every torture of the enemy without giving up.

Although these uprisings were not successful because of many factors having
to do with their origin and nature, it is certain that they had a profound
effect upon the spirit and thinking of all the Lao people. They built up
the nation's hatred of the enemy and turned the spirit of struggle into an
extremely inflammable fuel.

This truth helps to clearly explain the large revolutionary uprising at the
end of 1945, _

After the end of World War II our people and the peoples of fraternal na-
tions rose up in the August Revolution of 1945, seized power, and announced
our independence on 12 October 1945. This proclamation was widely known.
Thus, throughout the two-thirds of a century that they were under the con-
trol of the French colonialists, our people did not let up in their resis-
tance to the French. And because we did not let ourselves be taken in by
the wicked policies of the French that kept our people ignorant we joined
shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of fraternal countries and rose up to
fight the French colonialists and the Japanese fascists, thereby opening
one of the most glorious times of our nation.

The French colonialists hastily fell back upon the power of the U.S. and
British imperialists and other international reactionary forces to launch
a war of aggression against our country and other countries on the Indochi-
nese Peninsula, The historical battle of Thakhek on 21 March 1946 fostered
the willpower of our brave soldiers and the courageous spirit of resistance
of our army and our people from beginning of battle to end. At that time
we could almost say that we had only our bare hands. The enemy had again
brought in large numbers of troops from outside and they greatly outnum-
bered us. The enemy had tanks, artillery, and air cover but they were
still firmly repulsed by our forces. Once again the French colonialists
sullied the history of France by using bombs and bullets against our peo-
ple, killing over 2,000 of our brethren, burning homes, sinking boats, and
even stuffing small children into sacks and dropping them into streams.

The savagery, oppression, and killing only etched more deeply the spirit
of revenge and aroused even more our peoples' spirit to struggle for na-
tional salvation. In early 1949 the first unit of the liberation army of
the resistance was formed. It was the Latsavong Unit, formed on 20 Janu-
ary 1949 which has become the anniversary date of the founding of the Lao
People's Liberation Army. Then in early August 1950, the first great con-
ference of free representatives from all over the country was assembled.
The conference unanimously passed the resistance policy of the Free Lao
Front and the Resistance Government. Later in the spring of 1951 the In-
dochinese People's Congress established the Lao-Vietnamese+Cambodian United

28



Mekong River of which who would dare to say that crossing or going upstream
is easy.

Because the U.S, imperialists fear our national consciousness they concen-
trate on attacking and destroying it, especially our consciousness and in-
telligence which know how to identify our enemies and to muster our strength
to attack them. At the same time we know how to choose our friends. In
battle the first problem is to know who are your enemies and who are your
friends. The enemy tries every evil method to make us confuse friends and
enemies, to consider enemies as friends and friends as enemies. They slan-
der our glorious task of national independence with every base, evil ex-
pression.

Our people have an apt proverb, "Fall among vultures and be a vulture; fall
among crows and be a crow." Westerners have a similar proverb, "Tell me
whom you play with and I'll tell you what kind of person you are." How can
we have friendly ties with the U.S. lackey administration, with the Thai
reactionaries who have handed over Thai territory to the United States to
use as a platform for carrying out their world-domination strategy in Indo-
china and Southeast Asia and supplied the tens of thousands of Thai merce-
nary troops who have come to beat, kill, and harrass our people, launched
aggression against our country, inserted a thick espionage network of offi-
cers to direct the war, military instructors, and spies who even now are
spread through every military region, and infiltrated deeply into our coun-
try from our political machinery to parts of our economy. As for our close
friends, they stood shoulder to shoulder in the struggle with us in the same
foxhole, shared our joys and sorrows, and had the same objective of mar-
shalling our strength to let the people of each of our countries save their
own nation from extermination. The U.S. imperialists and their lackeys
ceaselessly make false accusations trying to divide us and our friends and
to sow suspicions and quarreling.

The national consciousness of Laos does not merely seek quiet and protection
from abroad. Definitely not. It respects the peace and happiness of oth-
ers, is very openhearted toward people, and is hospitable to strangers but
for these reasons will fight bravely without fear of sacrifice to attain na-
tional sovereignty, the right to life, and the freedom and honor of every
individual.

This will to struggle has been passed down from one generation to another.
The magic of the rivers, mountains, and forests and the blood of our fore-
fathers are deep in our veins, bones, flesh and blood. This will has re-
ceived encouragement from all the wills of this era of fervent struggle for
human rights about which the enemy aggressors obstinately wanted to go
against the current of history, and in the end were embarrassingly de-
feated. Some people are suspicious of the awakening of our younger gener-
ation. They either want to turn their backs or they pretend to deny the
continuous nature of our national consciousness, but they cannot deny the
seething life force and the actions of the current era that are influencing
our younger generation. They are our enemies. Even though they are

65



glorious answer of people of all classes including young people and stu-
dents in the towns and villages.

The events which are presently occurring are not happening by accident.
They pass through a progressive development of sprouting, growing and
bursting into bloom in the same way that the grains of rice that we eat ev-
ery day are the product of a long progressive development from sowing, to
transplanting, to fertilizing, to harvesting while enduring the effects of
weather and environment. All the great historic victories of our nation
are the highest collective achievements of our national strength from the
time our homeland was first established until now as well as of the era in
which we live. This era is one of very fierce struggle between two forces.
One force is composed of the people of all the countries which have been
liberated and are strengthening and expanding their independence and last-
ing prosperity, namely, the socialist countries, the nationalist countries,
and the oppressed countries faced with aggression which are conducting en-
ergetic struggles in one form or another. The other force is composed of
the capitalist powers, the imperialists, and the colonialists of which
fascist Germany, Italy and Japan were formerly the worst and for several
decades the imperialist United States has been the leader.

We are traveling on the correct path of the era, the path on which the hu-
man race is carrying on a struggle for self-liberation and for peace, na-
tional independence, freedom, and justice. This path of the era helps us
t- pull ourselves up without fearing any obstacle and to march straight
into a bright and shining future. We march firmly and are capable of per-
forming brilliantly our national duties these days. The path ends in
prosperity and glory. It is the path being followed by the fraternal
countries of the Indochinese Peninsula. It is also a path on which bil-
lions of people in the world are united and moving forward. This path is
now enjoying a more favorable period than ever before in history. Looking
back several decades, Laos faced a host of obstacles, much more than we
are facing today. At the beginning of this century, several sons of Laos
such as Pho Kaduot, Ong Keo, Ong Kommadam, Chao Ounkham, Chao Khambang and
Chao Pachai led the people in their uprisings against the French colonial-
ists, from the north to the south of the country. Their struggle caused
panic among the French colonialists making it necessary for them to con-
tinually move forces in from other areas, changing their tactics many
times and using the worst tricks.

In our. nation's history, when our homeland was lost to France, the most
notable of the French colonialists was Auguste Pavie who boasted that he
"conquered our homeland by winning the hearts and minds of the people."

Today, patriotic and nationalist forces in Laos have increased millions of
times, while the enemy's position has grown weaker. The liberation and
development forces evolved in tune with the changes of the era which have
moved and are moving in the new direction of the liberation of all nation-
alities and the establishment of independence, freedom and justice.



special warfare and regional warfare in Indochina, the U.S. imperialists
found themselves attacked by their enemies on many sides. To the front they
had to engage in a head to head fight against the strength of the peoples of
Indochina. From the rear they found themselves increasingly incapacitated
in the face of the exploding socialist revolution, which for the first time
occurred in Latin America, their own backyard, in the form of the Cuban rev-
olution waged by the brave Cuban people. And during the final episode of
the vile aggression of the U.S. imperialists in Indochina, when they were
faced with the liberation revolution of the people of eastern Pakistan who
had established the new state of Bangladesh, the United States hastily sent
warships of their 7th Fleet into the Indian Ocean but they were unable to

do anything. Another important event was the "October 1973 War" waged by
the people of the Middle East, who combined the use of the oil weapon in
their simultaneous attack on the Israeli aggressors serving as cannon fod-
der for forces of the U.S. imperialists in that area. At the same time the
economic blow of the "oil embargo" came crashing down upon the U.S. imperi-
alists and their gang. In the past the imperialists had resorted to what
they called "the heavy artillery policy" but this time they thrashed about
and made threats but no one was afraid of them. The times had changed in
accordance with the rules of history, and that is a most significant fact.
The present decline and retreat of the U.S. imperialists, while amply clear
from the military viewpoint, is even more apparent politically. We should
recall that after World War II the U.S. imperialists, who had a monopoly on
atomic weapons and vast economic wealth far and above that of every other
capitalist and imperialist country, took it upon themselves to be the po-
liceman of the world, threatening the world with its strategy of "massive
retaliation." Now this huge imperialist country is finding itself humili-
ated by small countries in a way that the people of the world would not have
dreamed possible in the past.

The decline of the imperialist United States is primarily a matter of po-
litical decline deriving from that country's own politics. As is known, the
United States of America, which was established 200 years ago, experienced
a great birth and expansion accompanied by the great sins of the white-
skinned capitalists who sought to annihilate the "red-skinned" natives and
to plunder the natives' land and property for their own use, through the
exploitation of the black-skinned people that they bought in Africa the way
one would buy animals and brought over to be used in large-scale agricul-
ture and industrial expansion, and through the exploitation of the workers
and laborers of every nationality and race which involved millions of peo-
ple. This massive movement also involved a war between the capitalists of
the northern and southern parts of the country and wars with other coun-
tries, such as with Mexico, to seize territory and raw materials, and with
Spain to seize colonies and gain vast markets and trade.

From that it can be seen that American society, which is a capitalist soci-
ety, grew at a tremendous pace based upon the special wealth of the coun-
try, the lessons in enterprise learned by the European capitalists, the ex-
ploitation of labor, and the large-scale application of science and tech-
nology. Social administrative authority was in the hands of the capitalist

19



our capability to create new social, political and economic structures and
organizations in our countries which we decide on for ourselves and which
are in line with our realities. We also must clearly recognize that the
path on which we are proceeding for our existence and for history is one
which we and we alone are creating with our own intelligence, our own hands,
and our own hearts...."

That is really true. The path along which we are moving to build our coun-
try's economy must be a national democratic path, a path in which the peo-
ple's capabilities and sources of energy alone unearth and bring into use
better and to a higher degree than anyone else. That con-rasts with the
wicked plots of neocolonialism which hides itself under labels like "aia"
and "cooperation" and employs all kinds of extreme economic and financial
actions to serve policies of war, aggression, concealed espionage activi-
ties, exploitation of natural resources, and interference in the internal
affairs of countries that receive the "aid." We say clearly that the "aia"
from USAID to our country over a long period has done nothing to aid our
economy but has been to make our country continue to exist under the oppres-
sion of the U.S. neocolonialist system. The state has money to spend. The
people have goods to use. But everything is dependent on the United States.
Halt U.S. "aid" and the state which has been fed by the United States will
not be capable of continuing to exist. The unfortunate result of exploit-
ing national resources such as forests, paddy fields, and plantations with-
out people's organizations is that raw materials and products are exported
at cheap prices for the benefit of U.S. war needs and immoral riches of a
number of U.S. lackeys.

Who would not feel hurt when they see with their own eyes the devastation

of the jungles due to exploitation for profit with no conservation practiced.
Looking around the environs of Vientiane is enough to see the cruel results.
This has also caused the beautiful, thick jungles with which nature has
adorned our land to become eroded and dried out. When we say that our coun-
try is beautiful and rich that is quite true. We are sitting on a mountain
of gold but we will be rich only in the future. Now we are still very poor.
In order to make these future riches of ours come true all of us, whether

we work with our hands or our brains, must work diligently and intelligently,
with a strong patriotic spirit and sacrifice, but without fear of problems
in order to overcome obstacles and arrive at our final objectives of a
beautiful and abundantly rich future for our children and their children

and all succeeding generations.

In any economic system we must insist on guaranteed political independence
for our nation. However, that is not compatible with the objectives of
U.S, aid. In fact, several U.S. administrations have stated this clearly
each time they have concluded aid agreements with foreign countries. U.S.
presidents and secretaries of state from one administration to another have
taken turns to assure the U.S. Congress that "U.S. aid to other countries
is in the United States' own interest." Besides U.S. economic aid there is
U.S. military aid about which every U.S. secretary of defense has clearly
said, "The military aid that the United States gives to various countries

56



The youth and students who are the younger generation filled with the power
of our nation feel an obligation to carry on the work of the nation in a
timely fashion. Therefore they have bravely displayed their desire for
personal progress within the national effort. For example, they have played
a fitting role in winning peace and national concord. They are the main
support for the furtherance of the great, difficult, national task. They
study tirelessly and train themselves to become progressive people and mod-
els for the country in order to carry out the responsibilities of restoring
and building the nation, to take part in increasing the ranks of intellec-
tuals, scientists, technicians, and artists, the highest flowering of the
nation, and to guarantee a bright future for the country. The younger gen-
eration is always the symbol of the progress of the fatherland. The reality
of the robust revolution in our country and the critical changes in western
societies should help our younger generation have facts for comparison in
order to increase their pride in the glorious task of their nation, and to
know how to escape from an evil path or from the dangers of snares set by
the national enemy to catch our youth. Our country which has peace, inde-
pendence, and unity has its greatest hope in the younger generation which
is clever and has a brave spirit for building the country. Our younger gen-
eration must make efforts to increase their knowledge in order to have the
cleverness to continue the highest aspects of the nation and eliminate old
blemishes unsuitable for the times as well as to adopt new things that are
really good and chase away "new" things from foreign civilizations that are
filled with the evil substance of neocolonialism.

Women who number about half of the citizens of our country are a great force
urging on social progress. Our countless grandmothers, mothers and sisters
who have gone before have been models as generous, reserved mothers and sis-
ters who have taken strong interest in their brothers and sisters, children,
and husbands in their personal lives as well as in production work and work |
for the nation. During the resistance against external aggression our moth-
ers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters showed the brave spirit of the nation
by fighting directly and indirectly alongside their children, husbands, and
brothers or by participating in various social tasks in every aspect of pub-
lic life, political life, and life in general in the areas temporarily con-
trolled by the United States and its lackeys, and by definitely proving
their capabilities. Our new image of women has destroyed old concepts and
customs such as restricting women to work in the home, steaming rice and
fetching water. In fact Lao women who have now gained victory must be women
who take a more determined part in the work of the nation. Our mothers'
spirit of love and caring for their children and husbands must be broadened
to love of nation and close attention to political work, social work and
national work. Our mothers are not just those who give birth to heroes,
scientists and artists but themselves may be cadre, scientists and artists
of high intelligence. Thus, our entire nation is compared to a paradise in
which all our citizens, both male and female, are like gorgeous flowers;

all have distinctive colors and are developing their occupational skills,
experience, and capabilities to higher levels.

63



oppression in times when their magic spells and attractions are no longer
effective.

Operation Ku Kiat, which was an invasion into the Plain of Jars and Kieng
Khouang beginning in August 1969, showed that the United States and its
lackeys in our country at that time were making a tremendous effort. They
massed a force of the U.S. CIA's heartless mercenaries, or "special forces,"
under the direct command of the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane and the U.S, mili-
tary advisors. The U.S. newspapers described in detail how every morning

in Vientiane in the war room of the so-called U.S. "diplomatic" organization,
the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. ambassador himself sat listening to reports, per-
sonally making marks on the battle map and issuing orders to each air squad-
ron, to each mobile commando team, and even to each battlefield, launching
savage infantry and air attacks into the liberated areas, while also taking
part in "diplomatic" activities to create pressure and carrying on psycho-
logical warfare among people of all classes in the areas temporarily con-
trolled by the United States and its lackeys.

U.S. neocolonialism revealed its cruel, heartless, war-loving nature by hur-
rying about using every modern trick, stratagem and tactic. The U.S. Embassy
was more powerful than the French Governor's Office and had a mechanism for
directing the war, an intelligence mechanism (CIA), and a huge supply orga-
nization (USAID), whose chief was considered "the second prime minister" of
Laos. In addition the CIA organized, fed, and commanded Lao-Thai mercenary
fighting forces who were protected by the U.S. Air Force.

At that time the Nixon administration was trying to lift up U.S. interests
which had gone bankrupt in South Vietnam since the days of the Eisenhower,
the Kennedy, and especially the Johnson administrations. But what kind of
magic spell could U.S. imperialism and the "Nixon Doctrine" have that would
redeem their so-called interests which had been shaken to their foundations!
On the battlefields of South Vietnam, the Nixon administration was not able
to find a solution in order to meet the gallant, forceful offensive of the
patriotic forces which were under the leadership of the National Front for
the Liberation of South Vietnam. In our country even though Operation Ku
Kiat caused enormous losses to the people of the Plain of Jars and Xieng
Khouang, the first test of the "Nixon Doctrine" was unable to achieve its
objectives which were to eliminate our patriotic armed forces and halt the
momentum of the high wave of the Indochinese people's armed struggle. Be-
cause of this, in the last days of defeat of Operation Ku Kiat in the Plain
of Jars and Xieng Khouang the Nixon administration committed a new crime
which will be long remembered in the histories of the United States and of
Indochina, the coup d'etat overthrowing the independent, neutral Kingdom of
Cambodia under the leadership of chief of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk,
and later escalated the war by pouring hundreds of thousands of U.S. and
Saigon puppet troops into Cambodian territory. Thus, the Nixon administra-
tion audaciously spread the fires of the U.S. war of aggression to all parts
of the Indochinese Peninsula which was a risk that previous administrations,
including the Eisenhower administration, had not dared to take.

36



But the "Nixon Doctrine" immediately brought serious dangers to its instiga-
tors with great leaps in the expansion of resistance in Indochina. At a
time when the U.S, imperialists had set a trap for themselves in Cambodia
and were foundering in the wars in Cambodia and South Vietnam, our people
liberated many areas including strategic locations long held by the United
States and its lackeys, such as the Dong Laven Plateau area, and the "spe-
cial warfare" strategy of the United States was dealt an extremely heavy
blow on the Plain of Jars-Xieng Khouang Plateau in a battle which wiped out
many units of the Vang Pao "special forces" and Thai mercenary forces that
participated in Operation Ku Kiat.

But Operation "Ku Kiat" was neither more dishonorable nor a bigger defeat
than other "Nixon Doctrine" operations in our country. After their ex-
tremely risky military venture in Cambodia the U.S. war command in Indo-
china launched another risky operation which was larger than any other and
which ended in greater defeat than any other. It was the pinnacle of their
military effort and at the same time marked the beginning of their decline
which they were unable to halt in the U.S. war of aggression on the battle-
fields of Indochina. This was Operation "Lam Son-719" into which they
poured the greatest number of U.S. and Saigon puppet forces, together with
a portion of the Vientiane puppet military forces, in an invasion along
Highway 9 adjacent to South Vietnam and in the eastern part of our coun-
try's Savannakhet Province. As everyone knows, it was an operation in which
the United States massed both U.S. and Saigon puppet combat-seasoned troops,
especially Saigon military units which the United States built into their
fighting force on the Indochinese battlefields to attack places they con-
sidered important in the "solar plexus" of resistance in Indochina. This
extraordinary effort which was carefully calculated in detail met complete
defeat. That began a decline from which they were unable to extricate
themselves for the United States and its puppets on the battlefields of In-
dochina, Everyone knows well that after this extraordinary effort of the
United States was smashed to bits, even though Nixon used particularly well-
conceived and intense diplomatic and political methods, he was unable to
prevent the Lao-Vietnamese-Cambodian resistance forces in Indochina from
launching offensives, each in their respective territories, to win final
victory. One clearer than the rest and of a decisive character was the
general spring offensive of 1972 by the South Vietnamese Liberation Army on
all battlefields in South Vietnam which forced the U.S. government to ne-
gotiate more seriously with the victorious opposition in Vietnam. These
negotiations had dragged on for a long time since they began after the vic-
tory of the People's Army of South Vietnam in the spring offensive of 1968.
On this occasion they played every evil trick and angle to deceive the Viet-
namese resistance forces, including the highly risky strategic neak attack
using B-52 strategic bombers to bomb Hanoi, Haiphong, and other cities in
North Vietnam after Nixon's top advisor, Henry Kissinger, had announced that
peace in Vietnam was "within arm's reach!"

When the U.S, monster was forced to back down and lose face in the Paris ne-
gotiations, to sign the historic document ending the war of aggression in
South Vietnam, and to withdraw all of its military units, the bilateral ne-
gotiations in our country advanced more birskly. The two sides arrived at

3T



But the situation in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam did not change in accor-
dance with the insane, stupid, self-deluded U.S. desires. On the contrary
they developed in a most favorable direction for the people of the Indochi-
nese countries and for the Indochinese révolution, and currently play a big
part in the revolutionary task in Southeast Asia and the world.

The forces of peace and national independence in the world as well as in
our country are strong enough to destroy the evil expansion instigated by
U.S. imperialists. The U.S. imperialists wasted $600-700 billion and mil-
lions of American and lackeys' lives in the war and they poured one-half to
two-thirds of their army, navy, and air forces into a very small area of the
world. But in the end they had to sign peace treaties with the revolution-
ary forces. These facts reveal clearly their overall weakness in sources
of energy, of ability to wage war, and of their antipersonnel weapons. Do
they dare start another war anytime soon? When the United States takes a
balanced look at its forces it will have to return to using a plan of "tol-
eration." In the face of dissension and a multitude of difficulties within
the United States and between the United States and members of its faction
and in the face of the growth, strength, and high alertness of the peace and
national independence forces the U.S. imperialists must consider the coun-
terblows they will receive if they risk launching a new war of aggression,
even if it's a "limited war."

Nevertheless, in order to destroy their capabilities for evil, we must keep
tabs on all the plots and actions of imperialists in general and of U.S.
imperialists and their lackeys in particular. The changing situation in
our country from the time that the Vientiane Agreement and Protocols were
signed until now shows clearly that the U.S. imperialists, even though they
always keep themselves concealed, and their lackeys are not likely to give
up counterattacking us with words as well as with actions and murky plots.
Therefore, if our thinking on this matter is vague or too short-range, we
will lose the chance to play a part in blocking the occurrence of capabili-
ties for evil. But we are all aware of the strength of the revolutionary
forces and of our peoples in raising high the consciousness of struggle to
maintain the great fruits that our nation has won. Acting in time to block
a number of coup d'etat plots both before and after the establishment of
the Provisional Government of National Union and the National Political
Council of Coalition required acts of alertness and dedication by our
forces of law and order and of the people of towns and cities to block and
punish the risky, insane plots of the United States and its ultrarightist
lackeys in our country as well as reactionary Thai who are on the U.S. pay-
roll. There are mysterious struggles of a more or less faceless character
that occur constantly in the ranks of the national armed forces, one fac-—
tion of which consists of warmongering generals and colonels who are U.S.
lackeys and the other of the majority of officers and men in the armed
forces who display the tendency to stop or oppose maliciousness or conspir-
acies to destroy national concord, peace, and order in our country.

The situations in the past show the immense capability of the revolutionary
forces and of the people. These include forces of the masses in the armed

52



peoples of various countries. At the same time, science and technology in
this era have also bolstered the drive toward the inevitable annihilation
of the capitalists. Furthermore, there is no "sacred object" of any kind
that the capitalists might have which could reverse this course of history;
things which are outdated must give way to those things which promote prog-
ress and development just as the young generation takes over from the el-
ders, and the sprout shoots up to replace the old plant that is about to
die.

During our time, for several decades we have known and have heard and seen
with our own ears and eyes the birth, growth, and demise of an imperialist
country stronger than any others. It is certain that this era will see the
climax of the full-scale crisis for capitalism. This crisis will bring
capitalism tumbling down in a rapid collapse.

From the victory of the Indochinese peoples in which they conquered two co-
lonial imperialist countries, there is special significance in the defeat
of the U.S. imperialists, the aggressors and successors. The historical
events of this era brought an end to an era. The course of history since
the beginning of the 20th century has given us good grounds for forecasting
that in the not too distant future, perhaps even within our generation, man-
kind will take fast steps forward in improving the quality of life. The
world in which we live will progress in the direction required by the course
of history; there can be no other way. This means that the task of liber-
ating mankind must be totally victorious over those forces of war and ag-
gression. The forces of right and justice must win over those of immoral-
ity and undemocratic ways. Socialism, which is the social system that will
replace the outdated capitalist system, will surge ahead on a wave of last-
ing prosperity.

Part Two

Historical Periods of Noble Majesty and Things Which Have Been Confirmed in
Actual Practice Through Struggle; Nature of the Origin of the Struggle and

Its Unrelenting Character

These days each of us has a countless number of things passed down by our
ancestors for which we are grateful, namely the initiative to rise up and
press ahead unrelentingly on the glorious path of the era.

The history of the Lao people goes back to ancient times. For untold gen-
erations our people have pitted their strength against nature to build
their homes, fields, and gardens. Through their labors they built a close,
tightly knit relationship among the various tribes and races in every re-
gion. This led to the emergence of many regional districts [merging] under
the rule of local princes. Examples of these are Meuang Soua (the old name
for Luang Prabang), Meuang Phainam (the old name for Vientiane), Meuang
Sikhottabong, Meuang Champassak, etc. Each of these districts were the re-
sult of a combining of groups of people with a common advantage in joining
together and a common sense of patriotism for their local region. Each

25



when you have independence, you have everything. When our nation became
independent politically, all. of our citizens, whatever their position and
duties, developed their capabilities in order to take part in the common
tasks of the fatherland. At the same time they took part in the lives and
special well-being of every individual and of each of our families.

Before gaining our current historical victory our nation had never been
truly independent. Several times the old colonialism proclaimed what it
called "granting independence" to our nation. This independence was a
false "independence," a false commodity not lacking in the capitalist mar—
ket. Neocolonialism knows more about applying cosmetics. It propagandizes
about what it calls "independence" with much more clever and dangerous
tricks than the old colonialism. Distinguishing between the true and the
false when it comes to sacred national rights is not difficult. Merely
consider whether, in relations between two parties, each party is equal and
its own master and whether or not each party is sovereign. Neocolonialism
also has "many more forms" than 01d colonialism. When old colonialism
pulled this trick they were capable of "granting independence" to their
subordinate countries. When neocolonialism gives false independence to its
"allies" it brings in its retinue and lackeys in droves to compete for and
fight over that country with sharper and more clever tricks.

Political independence must be coupled with economic independence. This is
an extremely difficult task because we must begin with our two bare hands
under the very severe condition in which we have been left by the old and
new colonialist systems. Now and in the future, as long as capitalism and
new and old colonialism remain in the world, reactionary interests will try
ceaselessly to crush or block our efforts to build an independent economy
and to be our own masters.

The economy in areas controlled by the Patriotic Forces, even though there
is deprivation and the level is low, is based on an independent foundation
and being our own masters with a system of strong, democratic control to
serve the interests of the people. This contrasts with the economy in
areas administered by neocolonialism which is facing tremendous difficul-
ties because it is tied to outside countries. These include standard of
living, employment, the poor, greed, corruption, illegal and immoral occu-
pations, and pursuit of personal interests at others' expense. While con-
ditions are quite unsatisfactory for reviving and expanding production and
neocolonialism is acting to embed itself dangerously in our economic under-
pinnings, particularly through U.S. "aid" and the economic infiltration of
a number of Thai, Japanese and other foreign capitalists, they present
great obstacles for our capability to right everything in a short time.

In this we agree wholeheartedly with the statements of Juan Velasco Alva-
rado; president of Peru, after the ceremony to sign the historic “Ayacucho
Communique" of the Latin American continent in the latter part of 197}.

He said, "Our nations will have full freedom when they are masters of their
own fate.... This means that our countries must decide on the path toward
being our own masters, without any pressure or interference from abroad.

It means that our boundless resources must be surveyed and we must recognize

5D



In the days to come our country will not only do completely away with old
mutual hate and suspicion but will also eliminate all kinds of selfishness
and devisiveness inherited from the old regime. All of us march to a single
beat in participating in the life of the nation and of the era. From work-
ers, intellectuals, the highly qualified, civil servants, and priests to
soldiers bearing arms, everyone has one collective goal, to maintain na-
tional independence, democracy, and national well-being, and from there to
ereate true closeness and harmony between the army and the people, and elim-
inate the atmosphere of mutual antagonism instigated by the enemy. All of
these things are for the purpose of protecting the Lao nation as well as the
royal household, the royal capital, the good works of Buddhism, and the
prosperity and happiness of our kingdom.

The Entire Nation Acts in Unison

National consciousness has created in each of us patriotism, national
spirit, and a national character of which we are very proud. From there it
has created the strength to struggle for self-preservation and self-devel-
opment. It is through national consciousness under the banner of clever,
clearsighted leadership on the correct path that the spirited national
struggle movement has attained its present wonderful achievements.

The enemies of our nation fear this national consciousness and always con-
sider it a target for destruction by every means such as propaganda and
psychological warfare. Throughout the progressive movement's long struggle
of the past nearly one-third of a century our nation's enemies sought thou-
sands of tricks and plots to pressure our national consciousness into dis-
solving and to suppress our national heritage in order to serve their murky
plots of aggression.

Our country is not big. It has a small population and a deprived, backward
economy. But the difficulties through which generations have passed have
forged a national spirit to be a strong, brave, decisive, unyielding force
and have created solidarity and bright, clever, capable national heroes to
lead everyone to victory over our enemies and to progress. Our history is
one of a small nation with a big task. In the past our nationalities
passed through periods of advanced civilization as well as low periods of
overthrow and invasion. But the progressive movement of our people's strug-
gle has created a national consciousness as the highest determinant of na-
tional progress. If history confirms that nations which have a period of
glory are likely to decline or are extinguished, there have also been quite
a few nations which have risen from backwardness and lowliness to the
heights of human civilization.

Based on our struggles in the past as well as at present, we have been
forged into a type of people who are easygoing, durable, friendly, honest,
and who like others. But when we struggle against an enemy we are ex-
tremely resolute, strong, and brave. The Lao people's outward easygoing
nature hides an inner strength which has accumulated over thousands of
years and which tends to erupt in torrents like the cascading waters of our

6h



JPRS 69570
9 August 1977

TRANSLATIONS ON SOUTH AND EAST ASIA

No. 731

Laos-Is MARCHING ForWARD ALONG
THE GLORIOUS PATH OF THE ERA

Vientiane PATHET LAO PHOUAM KAO DEUN BON SEN TANG AN SA-NGA
NGAM KHONG GNOUK SAMAI in Lao 1976 pp 1-227

[Book by Kaysone Phomvihan]
[Text] Foreword

In a political thought training session in December 1974 Kaysone Phomvihan,
vice chairman of the Lao Patriotic Front Central Committee, addressed cadre
and combatants concerning the principles underlying the profound changes in
the structure of the world in the present era and the principles underlying
the leap forward in the development of Laos which have come up to par with
the high level of this era.

The contents of this address are pertinent to the situation which has come
into being in Laos and to the new and urgent duties of Lao people of all
nationalities in the current period. Using clear analysis and broad synthe-
sis, the address seeks to create recognition on a scientific basis of the
principles of change and the necessary direction of development of human so—
ciety in general and of Lao society in particular; from that foundation to
bolster the belief by cadre, combatants, and all our people in the certain
victory of the path of the revolution and the glorious future of the Lao na-
tion; and to promote perseverance in each of us to mold ourselves into new
people with sufficient qualities and qualifications to take part in the
great work of our nation with all our strength and abilities.

This address was broadcast by radio in December 1974. Since then new devel-
opments in the situation in the world, in Indochina, and in Laos itself
prove even more clearly the major observations which Kaysone Phomvihan
raised as being significant in this address.

With the approval of Kaysone Phomvihan, the Printing and Distribution Office
of the Lao Patriotic Front has printed the address in book form in order to

[III - ASIA - 107]



How did the colonialist mind explain the show of strength which was charac-
terized by "sounding out the opinion" of the public. young people and stu-
dents in Vientiane, Luang Prabang, various towns, and many other places all
over our country on the day on which Chairman Souphanouvong and other rep-
resentatives of the Laos Patriotic Front from the liberated zone were wel-
comed on their entry into the two neutralized cities to make preparations
for the establishment of the Provisional Government of National Union and
the National Political Council of Coalition? How can they explain the stu-
dent movement in Vientiane in which revolutionaries of a more counterrevolu-
tionary mentality were not able, with their strong military forces and all
their cruel but ingenious tricks to attract, buy, or coerce, to affect the
willpower or the decisiveness of the younger generation toward working for
peace and national concord or their complete trust in the patriotic forces
and the leaders of the nation? This show of strength was an insurance pol-
icy for the work of strengthening peace and implementing independence and
national concord. Anyone who continually denies the reality of the strong
patriotism and determination not to give in handed down from our forefathers
to this younger generation cannot understand our nation and falls into the
same kind of self-delusion as U.S. neocolonialism and old French colonial-~
ism. In fact it stands on the point of view and the understanding of a
group with a policy of "foreign fear and intimidation" which is a kind of
"foreign policy" of gangster robbers who force their victims to "volun-
tarily" hand over their wallets. Such a group could certainly not under-
stand a people's awareness and the brave spirit of struggle for national
salvation. As a result, the previous old colonialism and the present neo-
colonialism merely took turns drowning in a mud puddle. When they light
the flames of aggression against various countries they light the flames of
their own destruction.

Moreover, when speaking about our people's brave and glorious resistance,
the imperialist chieftains still twist the truth saying that it is not true
that our people struggled wholeheartedly for national salvation against the
United States but rather that it was external forces. One thing which ex-
poses and unmasks these fabrications is to talk about the second cause which
brought about our people's decision to take on the task of national salva-
tion against the United States. That cause is our leadership.

When twisting our people's glorious and brave national salvation task, the
U.S. and pro-U.S. psychological warfare specialists tried not to mention
the historical truth that our people have had a spirit of nation-building
and saving which from time to time we have produced national salvation he-
roes. During the lengthy period of the old system our people produced such
nation-building and saving heroes as Fa Ngum, Setthathilat, etc. It is to
be expected in the present era in which mankind has launched an era of lib-
eration, the historic steps forward look really bright. The fact that our
people rose up in 1945 and established one of the first independent states
in Southeast Asia means that this great historical event did not lack the
element of leadership and the element of correct, clearsighted, national
leading personnel and organizations.

My



mountains along the borders with friendly countries. All over the country
there were patriotic, revolutionary places which were really fortresses in
the resistance against the United States.

These are priceless resources that we have created and turned into the in-
creasing strength of all of us. It is the growth of a people with a heri-
tage of decisive uprising, not weak surrender, who also are members of the
present seething revolutionary era.

Deeper Feelings

The path which our nation has traveled has been really bent and twisted but
extremely glorious, especially the path of our difficult struggle, filled
with sacrifice, to resist the interference and aggression of U.S. imperial-
ism. We are extremely proud and happy to carry on in the glorious foot-
steps of our forefathers and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the whole
world marching fervently on the revolutionary path of the era. From actual
struggle we have amassed many priceless lessons, but among these we might
and must confirm some deep trials, not only in order to understand the past
but for use in the present and the future.

Above all our people's will to struggle decisively, courageously, enduringly,
and steadfastly is the root of the strength of our great national solidarity
and the origin of the hidden strength of a people.

The U.S. imperialists' interference and aggression against our country was
an extremely embarrassing mistake to acknowledge. But at the same time,
with their colonialist mentality and their feelings of racial superiority,
which have long been characteristic of them, they really looked down on our
peoples the most, to the point that a general in command of U.S. aggressor
war forces in our country who was the on-the-scene director of the special
warfare as a testing place of the world domination strategy of "tactical
response," General [Hayert], PEO commander, while reporting to the U.S. Con-
gress told the Congress to "take note of" and "not forget that ... Laos is
87 percent illiterate" and they do not understand the meaning of the words
"democracy" and "communism" at all.

How can it be? The U.S. neocolonialists despise a people about whom out-
wardly they say without a catch in their voices that they are "friends" and
"promise to aid" them on the basis of "equality" and that they have a "close
relationship." How can it be like that? Based on the disdain for our peo-
ple already mentioned they, therefore, used the left-over mercenary troops
which the French transferred to them and estimated that 5 days after having
set up their lackeys in administrative power in our country, they would
eliminate resistance and patriotic forces of our people like a thunderbolt.
But when they stuck their heads into the two regroupment provinces, not
only did they get their heads broken and battered on the battlefield, they
were also unmasked by the uprisings and struggles of the people of the re-
maining 10 provinces in the country. These were solid support movements
supporting the forces resisting the U.S. imperialists. Later on we forced

ke



of pursuit of money, personal fun, and wicked self-indulgence. Socrates,
the great ancient Greek philosopher of famous maxims spoke sarcastically
about the people who consider gold to be more valuable than knowledge. The
great German physicist, Einstein, speaking to his contemporaries around the
turn of the century, said, "It would be better for you to shine shoes than
to teach physics in a university merely to earn a living." Capitalist im-
perialism which generally means U.S. imperialism, which is exceedingly
guilty of genocide, has made an effdért to use every propaganda vehicle in
order to make our people believe that money is more valuable than anything
and accept the "objective" of seeking money by any means! The culture and
ideals of our nation and era firmly oppose and repel this dirty culture,
propaganda, and education.

As for us, we are born to "struggle for life and freedom." As the noted
German poet and thinker, Goethe, wrote in his greatest work, "Faust," to
illustrate the most splendid ideals, "When war rages, I ask first to be a
soldier."

The great English poet, Shakespeare, declared through his famous character,
Hamlet, "A person--a marvelous creation!" That is really true. Real peo-
ple from birth live in the midst of love and affection. Later they have to
struggle against enemies who threaten, exploit, and enslave them simply to
protect their lives and their right to love. People who live under capi-
talist imperialism have dishonestly fabricated claims that revolutionaries
are people who condone murder and war as their reason for life. However,
they are people who wreak misfortune, injury, suffering, and death on peo-
ple while cloaking themselves in the fiction of saving people, "preserving
peace," and creating happiness for the whole world. In fact they have tried
and are trying every method of dirty propaganda and deception to distort the
good essence of revolutionaries who are people who love and cherish life,
protect love among people above all else and, by protecting people's lives,
protect love among those people. Revolutionaries have sacrificed even their
lives to win the valuable things sacred to mankind such as the right to a
life of love and happiness. From a deep awakening about the meaning and
purpose of life, revolutionaries temper themselves to have the strength to
fight and the will to defeat the enemy, guaranteeing that the revolution
will be completely victorious. In fact when all people wake up to the true
ideal of life, they will live to serve the nation, the people, and mankind.
This is the most splendid quality of man. This splendid quality is honor-
able and prideworthy and our forefathers and our compatriots have sacri-
ficed their flesh and blood to give it and posterity to us.

The past nearly one-third of a century of struggle with old and new colo-
nialism has been a struggle on all fronts. Besides the armed and political
struggles there has been the struggle between two systems of thought: the
colonialist imperialist system of thought always confronts and attempts to
wipe out the system of our national heritage which has been strengthened by
the era. Besides the great and historically significant victory in the
armed and political struggles, our national system of thought has won vic-
tory over old and new colonialist systems of thinking. However, ordinarily

67



The cycle of history is unlikely to turn back on itself. Beginning with
the very origin of its birth, mankind has passed through many regimes; new
systems evolved which progressed further and changed the preceding system
which had become outmoded. The great Lenin wrote in one of his books at
the beginning of the century, and confirmed scientifically and unarguably
that "the doctrine of imperialism will supersede and destroy the doctrine
of capitalism." At the time when capitalism superseded feudalism, which
had become outmoded, the capitalist system pushed forward the progress of
mankind; more and more property, materiel and goods were produced, and with
these, civilization was brought to mankind. However, the capitalist sys-
tem, in the same manner as the feudalist system which it had replaced, car-
ried within itself its own inherent contradictions which could not be re-
solved. This, because it is a system in which man exploited man, in which
a small minority exploited the great majority; this majority was made up of
laborers and those who were producing the materiel and the goods for soci-
ety in ever-increasing quantities. The assets produced under this system
did not belong to the laborer, who formed the great majority, and who pro-
vided the foundation for production of this magnitude, but this very great
number of producers again and again fell under the control of the few ex-
ploiters. This contradiction (as a point of conflict between labor, becom-
ing an ever larger characteristic of this widespread society, that is, the
workers, and the seizure of goods that they produced and its conversion to
the ownership of private individuals, a small number of capitalists) lies
in the restraint against the self-development of the people. For this rea-
son, change is necessary because this is not proper to the level of devel-
opment of society; clearly it must be replaced by a new socialist system.
This new system will have the capability to organize; it will be able to
encourage and mobilize the strength and intelligence of every individual
and enable entrance into large-scale production. The various goods pro-
duced must then be shared among the consumers. This consumption continues
to increase in each stage, up until the time when society has the ability
to produce the various goods and materials needed to enable it to respond
to each individual's needs. The decisive comparison between the socialist
system and the capitalist system lies in the means of production by social-
ism; it is the joint property of the society and not the property of any
individual. When the means of production has become joint property, then
clearly the system of man oppressing man is ended. Production by society
is completely organized and planned. Organized and planned production
will develop continuously and will constantly evolve for the better on a
foundation of increasingly higher technique. The system of allotment and
distribution is implemented according to principle of "from each according
to his ability, to each according to his need." The very great value of
the new socialist system has been demonstrated in its strength; no one has
been able to achieve victory over the socialist countries, of which the
first in the world is the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union not only was
victorious over the fascist system of Germany and Japan in World War II,
but it. was still able to provide widespread assistance to other socialist
regimes in becoming the world's primary system, and in national liberation
of which it has become a special symbol of a new era.

12



masters of the country, and together working to make their fatherland pros-
perous and solid.

By continuing our glorious national heritage of unity and mutual love and
assistance, a heritage of fighting bravely for national defense and to
build the nation based on justice and the strengths of the era, we have de-
terminedly wiped out old transgressions and suspicions and built solidarity
with sincerity and cooperation among all people without distinction as to
who stood yesterday among the ranks of the United States and its lackeys
but today have been awakened to concern for the fate of the nation and have
returned to live among the national brotherhood with mutual love, to erase
the last vestiges of U.S. neocolonialism, and to work for peace and inde-
pendence. Our fatherland absolutely must be a single, complete entity. We
Lao people from north to south, no matter from what family, nationality, or
tribe, must be a single, unified whole. Former divisions and enmities will
gradually fade away as hot water slowly cools. Liberated areas controlled
by the Patriotic Forces appeared and exist out of the national salvation
movement which is filled with obstacles. They still must be strengthened
continuously because our nation's enemies have not abandoned their murky
plots. However, progress for liberated areas is progress for our nation in
national concord, solidarity, and unity.

We are extremely proud to read the shocking words and spirit of national
concord and independence in the text of the political program. We must
concentrate our strength and intelligence on making this program a reality.
This historical document is a declaration which calls to action, shows the
way, and explains the ways we should think and act.

We are indescribably happy and contented to have gained the right to think
for our own country and of the duties related to its destiny, the tasks and
future of our own nation, the expansion of patriotic spirit, brotherly love
throughout the nation, and new ideas for improving the peace, independence,
and freedom which we have recently achieved.

That is a true feeling of independence and freedom. This is independence
and freedom which we can clearly see and can breathe the air of indepen-
dence and which we are beginning to improve and develop, not just dream
about. We should remember the words of a Russian writer of a century ago
written at a time when his nation was submerged in slavery. He wrote that
his people were "a miserable people, an enslaved people and from the hills
to the plains everyone is a slave." (Essay "Lesson in a Title" by the
great Russian democratic revolutionary, N. Chernyshevsky)

That is really true. When a nation is not independent, no person of any
class in that nation is free and independent. The poor and the laborers
will not very long submit to oppression and exploitation. Certainly, if
they are not independent, people of powerful rank or vast riches cannot
likely be independent. On the contrary, when a country gains independence
all of its people are free and independent. Independence and freedom will
create well-being, solid and true wealth, and general happiness because,

5h



and built true freedom and democracy in order to advance to prosperity,
well-being, and lasting prosperity. It is the path that many nationalist
countries have chosen to move from slavery and poverty and to liberate them-
selves and choose the direction of progress. This is particularly true of
Africa which old and new colonialism had drowned in a sea of blood and
tears, but which rose up to travel the path of glory. Its leading country
is the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria which is the pride of the
"Third World." In Latin America, behind the banner of independence and
self-mastership of the People's Republic of Cuba, the path traveled by Peru,
Panama, and others shows the progressive direction which must be followed
in our era: socialism.

We support the articles on culture in the political program. Our nation
has an excellent cultural heritage. We must research, preserve, and develop
the highest things in our national culture that were abandoned by our fore-
fathers in order to expand the unique, valuable customs and traditions of
our nation. At the same time we must be exact, thorough, and precise in our
detailed examination to eliminate foreign influences which are dangerous to
science and progress as well as to our nation's spirit of self-respect, of
self-support and of making ourselves strong.

Our nation is one composed of many nationalities and tribes. Therefore,

our duty is to respect highly the valuable unique and general points of each
nationality and tribe and combine and elevate them as the unique foundation
for the Lao national culture. At the same time we are receptive to the best
things in world culture in order to make our national culture full and rich,
but we definitely will not be receptive to the infiltration of the evils of
foreign cultures. We do not have a narrow antiforeign attitude but we are
determined to resist all infiltration of colonialist, imperialist culture,
especially "the American way of life," which for many years has gradually
infiltrated into the lives of people in a number of towns and other areas
that were controlled by the former administration. This is a type of cul-
ture which seduces, coaxes, and persuades one to be greedy for money and

be crazed for lust. It makes the little people grope for things which harm
the national struggle effort, and the living conditions and health of the
people. In fact the U.S. espionage or commando "teams" in cultural affairs
tried to establish a culture that would supplant our ancient national cul-
ture.

A progressive, national culture has a duty to preserve and develop good
customs among the people as well as resolutely to drive out the decadent
customs of which not a few remain among the people of all our nationalities
and are dangerous to the beliefs of the people and to national pride. They
are obstacles to building a spirit of love of study and mutual love and
concern as well as to progress of our peoples. Among the decadent customs
remaining today, the most decadent came from American culture and "way of
life" which seeped in quickly among our youth primarily to separate our
younger generation from. our beautiful national heritage. We must be ex-
tremely alert for the appearance of U.S. neocolonialism and must make plans
to gradually eradicate it completely from our lives through our beautiful
Lao customs.

60



States one source of the wealth and the temporary expansion of capitalism
in North America was from natural resources and from labor. Later on, they
drew on the intellectual resources of their colonies and dependencies. The
great difficulty which has become critical throughout the imperialist world
is the oil and fuel crisis which the U.S. imperialists and all other capi-
talist-imperialist countries have recently met head on with great distress
and difficulty and it is still a serious problem. But the force which will
cause capitalism to go bankrupt is in the ghetto of its own regime, a force
which has drastically increased, i.e., the working class. As Karl Marx and
Engels observed so ably more than a century ago: "The capitalist class digs
its own grave." Lenin wrote, "The imperialist era is the period in which
capitalism will reach the stage of exhaustion and decay; it will have
reached its limit and will be stretched out at the mouth of its grave."

As of today, capitalism has been shaken to its roots thanks to the struggle
of the workers and the laborers in the very ghettos of all those countries.
Because capitalism is increasingly exploiting the workers and the laborers
in order to grab as much profit as possible, the workers and the laborers
have to resort increasingly to struggle to seize their right to life. This
can be clearly seen from statistics: after World War II, that is, between
1956 and 1960, the number of people who went on strike in the capitalist
world was 150 million; from 1960 to 1972 the number nearly quadrupled (more
than 550 million people). After they were heavily defeated and lost their
advantage in their war of aggression in Vietnam and Laos, and after they
had to sign the Paris Treaty and the Vientiane Agreements, the U.S. capi-
talists were seriously attacked in the very ghetto of the United States by
the greatest wave of struggles of workers and laborers all over the United
States that had occurred in the nearly 200-year history of the United States
of America. It was truly a heavy blow to the rich people and the powerful
organizations of the United States. The outstanding feature of the struggle
movement of U.S. workers and laborers is that it is the same as those of
workers and laborers of other capitalist, imperialist countries of the
world. All these movements are becoming more closely intertwined with the
struggle to liberate their countries and to protect the independence in all
countries in the world.

The violent and continuing storm of the various struggle movements formed
by workers and laborers in the capitalist countries has now definitely con-
firmed that all the peoples of the world have a high degree of awareness of
nation and class, together with their proven capability to organize the pro-
duction of goods and materials of all kinds for society. However, the la-
borers still receive the bare minimum; coming more and more to an impasse,
they increasingly question the system. This truth refutes the lies of "peo=
ple's capitalism" and the vague theory described as "white-collar workers,"
meaning that officials and other hired intellectuals will become capital-
ists! Their slavish capitalist system is exploitation; those who exploit
are the minority, which is becoming ever smaller in number, while those who
are being exploited are the majority, which is becoming ever greater. The
tempo of the insane competition for profit is increasing without any regard
for morality; as in.the slogan of the robber barons, "the end justifies the

14



BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA |!- Report No. 2.
SHEET i JPRS69570

3. Recipient's Accession No.

T. Title and Subtitle
TRANSLATIONS ON SOUTH AND EAST ASIA, No. 731
Laos Is Marching Forward Along

the Glorious Path of the Era

Wepor Date
9 August 1977

6.

7. Author(s)

8. Ferforming Organization Rept.
jon

9. Performing Organization Name and Address

Joint Publications Research Service
1000 North Glebe Road

Arlington, Virginia 22201

10, Project/Task/Work Unit No.

11, Contract /Grant No.

Tz, Sponsoring Organization Name and Address

As above

Td. Type of Report & Period
Covered

15. Supplementary Notes

Y6, Abstracts

The report contains information on political, economic, sociological, and
technological developments in the countries of South, Southeast, and East
Asia, with greater coverage of Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia.

[W9Key Words and Document Analysis, 40. Descriptors

Propaganda ___Inter-Asian Affairs
Political Science ___Australia
Sociology ___Bangladesh
Economics ___ Brunei
Culture (Social Sciences) ___ Burma
Ethnology ___Cambodia

___India

Indonesia
_x_bLaos

17b. Identifiers /Open-Ended Terms

17e. COSATI Field/Group 5D, 5C, 5K

__ Malaysia
Nepal

Pakistan

___ Philippines
___Republic of China
___Singapore

___Sri Lanka
___Thatland

TE-Avallability Statement
Unlimited Availability

Springfield, Virginia 22151 i

15 Becuriey Clave (Tile

Report) > 93
Sold by NTIS t re ASL ASSLEHED Secur ky Clase (rate FS, Price
age

Fi No. of Pages

ORM NTIBAS REV B78) THIS FORM MAY BE REPRODUCED

Nivcuassizie Poy

USCOMM.OC 1488a-P78



poisons. Their story filled with pitiful cries and moans was printed in
the newspapers in Vientiane during the dark days of Operation Ku Kiat (Au-
gust 1969) which was the first operational test of the "Nixon Doctrine"
just 1 month after Nixon had announced that world domination strategy at
Guam in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. If the French colonialists killed
our people slowly through deprivation, ignorance, and division in the war
of conquest over our homeland, U.S. neocolonialism killed many times more
of our people with exceedingly evil and cruel designs. The special warfare
strategy of the United States made use of buying, pulling, or bullying young
Lao highlanders to become "special forces," "secret soldiers," and commando
units (teams) which were scattered among various villages to create trouble
and launch destructive and murderous attacks. But they still were heavily
defeated and tens of thousands of them were wiped out.

Another terrible crime committed by the United States was to bring the Amer-
ican "way of life" into the’ zone controlled by their lackeys. They created
a number of lackeys who held the dollar and U.S. goods higher than the fate
and honor of the nation. These people gave their bodies and souls to serve
the objectives of U.S. neocolonialism in our country. At the same time
they poisoned the younger generation into becoming discontented and going
in the wrong direction through the American "way of life," which holds that
wealth and possessions are the big things and that individual benefit is im-
portant and which is rotten, degenerate, and crumbling, instead of the mu-
tual love, care, and assistance way of life, the old, bright way of life
with justice and friendship which we inherited from our grandfathers. This
is the greatest danger about U.S. neocolonialism. They know well that only
to use invasion and intimidation of a nation and to make its people slaves
with bombs and shells, and with cruel material subjugation is only old co-
lonialism and is not enough. They also make efforts to erase the customs
and traditions which have existed in a nation since ancient times. They
then can "change" a nation easily based on dividing them and leading one
part astray by forgetting their nationality and caring only about following
in U.S. footsteps. In addition they use dissatisfaction to eliminate the
good nature of men. In the present era, one in which national conscious-
ness and individual consciousness to be one's own master have been elevated
higher than at any other time, the thing U.S. neocolonialism hopes for is
for people to become animals, to succumb to theri materialistic wants and
their base desires so their nations can be intimidated into becoming slaves.

However, in this era in which the consciousness for human and national lib-
eration has been raised higher than at any other time, U.S. neocolonialism
has no evil spirits and no supernatural powers even though they have the
power to go to the moon and the planets. But in our world people are still
the decisive force for their own preservation and the development of their
societies. People still have clever, clearsighted intellects and resources
with which to decide right and wrong, to preserve their good qualities and
their nations, and to protect peace, freedom, and justice. Also, U.S. neo-
colonialism is like the aggressors throughout history, who not only use
bribery, temptation, and trickery but the essence of all the aggressors is
that they always resort to the use of force in cruel and daringly open

35



to theirs. As for exports, in 1973 the exports of the United States were
only 14 percent of the entire capitalist world's exports while the exports
of western Europe reached 51 percent. West Germany alone had exports
nearly equal to those of the United States. In finances, the cash and gold
reserves of the United States fell from 70 percent of those of the capital-
ist world ($24.6 billion in 1949); now the value of West Germany's gold re-
serves alone is $30 billion (78 billion marks) while the gold reserve of
the United States is only $11.6 billion. One thing which is of special
significance is that now the United States is required to buy technology
from western Europe and Japan.

Indeed, the truth of the conspiracy and, at the same time, the conflict be-
tween the U.S. imperialists and other imperialists at present lies in the
fact that while U.S. power and prestige have been greatly diminished, espe-
cially following the long demise the United States has suffered as a result
of successive defeats in the Indochina war, U.S. imperialists still stub-
bornly long to be ruler of the world. The main thrust of the "Nixon Doc-
trine" was that the capitalist countries have to "share responsibility"
with the United States, and it has become ever clearer that the U.S. scheme
is to compel these other countries to work more closely with it so the
United States can proceed with its actions and strategy to take over the
world. The relationship between the United States and the other capitalist
countries is only a U.S. trick to weaken and pull them down, not to assist
them in any way. Because of this policy, the United States has been caught
in a painful trap by these countries' efforts to hold their own against the
United States and to protect themselves.

At the same time there was no imperialist capitalist country capable of
escaping from the cycle of increasingly severe crises. Examples are Italy
with its constantly changing governments, France with its ongoing social
upheavals, and the feverish interventions of Japan and West Germany. Al-
though these countries have done all they can to resolve these problems,
they have been unable to escape political crises and economic perils. Even
in the stubbornness of the Portuguese imperialists to maintain the status
quo they were unable to escape the deterioration or the adverse effects of
the loss of worldwide influence of the U.S. imperialist chieftains. Crisis
is a basic element of the capitalist system, like blood in one's body.
Capitalism has involved cyclical crises since its origin and this will be
the case until capitalism disappears. With each period of capitalism there
follows a decline. Then comes a period of recovery and new expansion which
leads to yet another crisis. But this does not mean that each cycle is the
same as the preceding ones. Each cyclical crisis is more severe, harder to
overcome, and brings more disorder until the point of full-scale crisis is
reached and capitalism in its cancerous state gives way to a new social
system, i.e., socialism, in accordance with the laws governing the growth
of human society. The factors underlying the present full-scale crisis in
which capitalism finds itself, according to wealthy circles, are worse than
the great crisis of 1929-1933. And there are elements which are different
and more dangerous. In past such crises world capitalism was able to make
temporary corrections by spending inflated money to limit unemployment and

23



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Headlines, editorial reports, and material enclosed in brackets
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processed. Where no processing indicator is given, the infor-
mation was summarized or extracted.

Unfamiliar names rendered phonetically or transliterated are
enclosed in parentheses. Words or names preceded by a ques-
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original but have been supplied as appropriate in context.
Other unattributed parenthetical notes within the body of an
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given by source.

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a nation's leadership banner is made up of a clearsighted group, that na-
tion will have enough strength to carry out the great revolutionary task
that that nation's people are waiting for.

All the great accomplishments that our nation has gained from the national
salvation struggle movement against the United States are due to the part
played by the flesh and blood, sweat, and brains of our peoples who carry
on the heritage and the lessons of our forefathers together with valuable
lessons from world revolutions. In addition our flesh and blood, sweat,
brains and valuable lessons play an honorable part in the task of world
revolution. Brian Manfred of the American International Volunteer Service
(IVS) in Laos wrote in the "Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars at the end
of 1970 that the U.S. "special war" in Laos was one kind of war which the
United States intended to become "a model for all U.S. efforts in the fu-
ture, concentrating on counterguerrilla warfare in each area" so that "in
the next 10 years, when the United States intervenes in the Third World,
their actions will come from the lessons in Laos rather than repeating the
lessons of the defeat in Vietnam."

The U.S. defeat in their "special war" in Laos was a defeat of a textbook
strategy of using ground forces (comprised of the puppet troops of the
"Royal Lao Army," "special forces (CIA-Vang Pao)," and Thai mercenary
troops) plus. the U.S. Air Force in the "Nixon Doctrine" methods of using
force which completely crumbled. This, therefore, raises the question
whether or not this still is "a model for all U.S. efforts in the future"
in other countries. The lessons of the Lao victory over the "special war"
and U.S. neocolonialism will certainly have an honorable place in the na-
tional liberation movements of the world. Moreover, the lessons of Laos
are lessons about creating an extremely solid force united in struggle and
dedicated to victory. It is one of the highest, most beautiful examples
in this era of revolution. These lessons were collected in the joint com-
munique of the Indochinese people's summit conference as follows: "The
glorious battlefield victories of the three Indochinese nations have
smashed the boastful arrogance of the U.S. imperialists, the leader of the
imperialist band, the cruelest enemy of mankind, and made them encounter
extremely widespread difficulties within the United States and in the world.
The glorious battlefield victories of the three Indochinese nations attest
to the fact that the U.S. imperialists used all of their cruel powers, yet
they got what they deserved when they violated the sacred right to life of
nations that were united and determined to fight to their utmost in order
to gain independence and freedom for their fatherlands. The glorious bat-
tlefield victories of the three Indochinese nations play an important part
in and are a great encouragement to the struggles of other nations for in-
dependence and peace throughout the world."

4T



country in the domino theory" which is an infamous U.S. theory of aggres-
sion. It holds that, although U.S. imperialism has never been driven out
of any country in the world, when they are driven from one country many
U.S. strategists fear deeply that they will steadily lose the military
bases and neocolonies necessary for their world domination strategy.

The changing events of the past 20 years show quite clearly the malicious
intentions, the tricks, and the actions of the American imperialists in
their interference in and aggression on our country.

After the signing of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 concerning Indochina,
carrying out its provisions the resistance forces regrouped in the two
provinces of Hua Phan and Phong Saly. Not long afterward, in early 1955
or, more specifically, only 5 days after the Katai government was formed,
the first pro-U.S. government in our country, the U.S. neocolonialists
massed 10 battalions of mercenary troops (two-thirds of the total forces)
which had been turned over to them by the French and attacked our areas in
hopes of wiping out the resistance forces and eliminating the two regroup-
ment provinces.

During this period even though the U.S. imperialists had just been defeated
in the Korean War (1950-1953), it did not reduce their obstinate pride and
they still displayed their power by resorting to force of arms. Their arms
included nuclear weapons and, even though they no. longer -had a monopoly on
them, they stubbornly adhered to a strategy of "massive retaliation." It
was in this period that the United States established the Southeast Asia
aggressor bloc (SEATO) which then U.S. Secretary of State Dulles always in-
sisted extended something called a "protective umbrella" over Laos, South
Vietnam, and Cambodia.

However, our people's initial test of strength in the neocolonialist war of
aggression, waged with U.S. arms and tactics by former French mercenary
troops commanded by U.S. officers, showed definitively the limitations of
U.S. capability. Not only did the military forces and people defeat the
Katai-U.S. mercenary forces in the two regroupment provinces, but people
throughout the country angrily resisted the enemy. As a result they forced
Katai and the United States to halt the fighting, sign the Vientiane Agree-
ment of 1957, agree to implement a policy of national concord and to estab-
lish the first national coalition government. Later, at the time of the
supplementary elections of 1958, even though our people were directly under
the yoke of the U,S. neocolonialism, they once again bravely and resolutely
showed their spirit of national concord. The number of seats which the
former resistance forces were honored to win in that election attested to
the complete victory of justice and of our people's will to struggle for
peace, independence, and national concord in the initial struggle with the
U.S. neocolonialism.

U.S. interference in line with its world domination strategy caused prob-

lems not only in our country but throughout Indochina and in the world as
well. Even though this period was at the end of the Eisenhower—Dulles

31



jis henchmen to the use of hard "negotiations." Also, more important are

the triumphal and complete victories of the Indochinese countries' revolu-
tion in the decade of the seventies of this century which have caused the
so-called "backbone," the "threat" of the U.S. imperialists’ aggression and
intervention "doctrines" to shatter. This has really been the truth since
the time of the Truman doctrine which came into existence in the decade of
the forties of this century and was based on the principle of "threat" to-
ward the world by means of nuclear weapons. By the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger
era, this was based on the principle of “actual threat" through nuclear
weapons and other strong weapons and measures of various types. Despite
that, up until the present day, the giant of the world imperialist forces
not only could not “threaten” anyone but also it turned out to pe the re-
verse; by the same token they were knocked down, "flattened," by each small
country! This clearly confirms that the world situation nowadays is under-
going various great and new changes and that the latest aggression and in-
tervention “doctrine” of the U.S. imperialists has been outmoded. The
latest U.S. imperialist aggression and intervention "doctrine"--the Nixon
Doctrine--of utilizing the Indochinese countries as the first testing point
was likewise destroyed by the Indochinese countries themselves. Phasing
out the "doctrine" created an opportunity for the whole world to destroy
the foundation of the U.S. imperialists’ world domination strategy which
was filled with greedy but weak and impoverished hopes that have been com-
pletely dashed throughout the world.

As for our side, after struggling for nearly 20 years under extremely aif-
ficult conditions, including times when the difficulties seemed insurmount-
able. our nation endured inflictions and irreparable damage to the nation
as a whole, to each family, and to each individual and made great sacri-
fices. That was the greatest test in the history of our nation. However,
the results we attained are of incomparable value. They are the maturation
of a nation with a consciousness for independence, the will to liberate it-
self and strength in unity which has been tempered and tested repeatedly
and which no force has been able to destroy. The national spirit of inde-
pendence has created heroic groups and individuals who in the days to come
will make our nation stronger and have it march far along the path of world
prosperity. They are the beloved children of our fatherland who have the
power to protect its territory and which force of arms will be able to
force to surrender; they are the prave, glorious Lao combatants who on the
summit of Phu Kut endured savage enemy pombing and artillery barrages with-
out retreating and, on the contrary, unleashed a fire storm on enemy troops
each time they attempted to breach our heroic northern gate to the Plain of
Jars; they are our combatants who held firmly, as strong as steel, at Ban
Dong on Highway 9 which collected the bodies of a division of U.S. fighting
forces in Indochina and which signaled the decline of aggressor forces
which had received backing under the "Nixon Doctrine." They are the

prave, splendid Na Kae (now Meuang Viang Sai) unit who unleashed fire on
the lords of thunder, the U.S. “nonsters," who violated the air space over
our revolutionary strongholds, and shot them down. They are our countless
heroic units and individuals who struggled night and day for over 7,000
days in the enemy's belly, who demonstrated their spirit of loyalty to the

ho



region contributed its strength and-spirit in the struggle to maintain and
expand itself, From that beginning, once we Lao became united our will to
fight to protect our regional territories was gradually transformed to a
will to fight to protect the territory of our country.

From the time that King Fa Ngoum and the people established the independent
Lao kingdom of Lan Xang in the middle of the lth century to the beginning
of the 18th century, we Lao had been independent for about 350 years. We
then always fought viciously and bravely against outside aggressors to pro-
tect our country's independence. For about 100 years after that, the re-
gional rulers fought among themselves to take over the throne and the king-
dom of Lan Xang was divided in two. Our independence from outsiders also
suffered a setback. Nevertheless, regardless of the times or the situa-
tions, our people have always manifested the willingness to fight, which is
part of the integral spirit of our nation.

The self-preservation and development of the newly born Lao kingdom of Lan
Xang took place in an atmosphere of continuing struggle. On the one side
was the internal struggle to prevent the breaking away of some of the re-—
gional rulers to protect the unity of the nation. On the other side was
the fight against kings from neighboring countries to preserve the indepen-
dence of the kingdom of Lan Xang.

History has clearly shown this to be true. After the time of King Samsenthai
the independence of Laos underwent a big test. In each period the heroes
who appeared were those who extolled the spirit of the Lao people which has
become a symbol of the will and patriotism of our people.

During the time of King Setthathilat the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang became a
strong and thriving country on the Indochinese Peninsula, with its new capi-
tal city named Ventiane Sisattanak.

The history of present-day Laos is still one of skillful and brave struggle
by the Lao people. They resisted aggression carried out by the kings of
Burma on numerous occasions and from numerous routes. Winning victories
also included varying periods of highs and lows and our people took very
seriously their role of keeping their country free in the face of the danger
of aggression from outside. They did this under the leadership of outstand-
ing heroes who received support from the people. Some of these were
Phothisalat, Setthathilat, and Sensulin who led armies.

From the beginning of the 18th century until 1828, even though the kingdom
of Laos was divided into two parts, it was not destroyed and the kingdom of
Ventiane Sisattanak still fiercely and bravely fought against Thai aggres-
sion. At the end of the 18th century the peak of this struggle came under
the reign of King Anu. The history of Laos, the chronicles, and the leg-
ends of the various localities and also the poetry and literature of our
land all tell of the gallantry, bravery in battle, the loyal spirit, the
strength, and the pride of such heroes as Latsavong Ngao and Phagna Nalin,
who manifested their brave ancestry in such a brilliantly outstanding way.

26



As the U.S, imperialists were writhing in agony in Indochina, their allies,
beneficiaries of the American Marshall Plan and long-time lackeys of the
United States, disregarded the American appeal for “shared responsibili-
ties." They also took advantage of the deteriorating position of America
in order to snatch markets and exploitive industries from U.S. control as
the United States had done in the past. The United States went ahead with
the Nixon Doctrine in its aggression in Indochina by using the "negotia-
tion" card, but not from a position of strength as envisaged by American
planners. The Americans had to carry on the negotiations from a position
of defeat in order to salvage whatever they could possibly save. The world
had clearly changed greatly since the days when the U.S. imperialists
threatened other countries at will in the manner of "the elephant stepping
on the bird." Had the United States not been thoroughly and soundly de-
feated in Vietnam and Laos, it would never have accepted the Vientiane
Agreement on Laos, and would never have signed the Paris Accords on Viet-
nam. Cambodia was another good example of the stubbornness of the U.S.
imperialists. As an example of their stubbornness, in the face of the
courageous struggle of the Khmer people for their national liberation, the
Americans still propped up the Lon Nol clique hoping that these traitors
would be able to put up a big show for "negotiation" with the National
United Front of Cambodia and the Royal Government of National Union of Cam-
podia. But the revolutionary forces knew full well that the U.S. imperial-
ists and their lackeys were in a hopeless situation, therefore they re-
jected all overtures for negotiation and they pushed ahead with their
struggle to the point of dealing unconditional defeat on the enemy.

In the Middle East, the "embargo" stratagem was devised by the United
States decades before to contain socialist countries, to restrict their
economies and to plot political overthrows. Now, however, these "weak"
countries, branded as "savage" by the United States, are using this same
weapon against the United States, dealing a severe and protracted blow to
its influence and financial power in this region. The brave Syrian people
used artillery, rockets, tanks and jets and the force of the consciousness
of national independence forces to challenge the U.S. "negotiation" strat-
agem. Today, as United States imperialism is suffering a terrible crisis
of decline, the unelected Ford-Kissinger administration still blindly fol-
low the Nixon Doctrine for the control of the world--without Nixon. On
this road, they got themselves even more entangled and suffered still fur-
ther defeats, The imperialist United States and other capitalist states
are being pushed to the brink of disaster with crises breaking out all over
the capitalist world. Meanwhile, revolutionary forces in the world are
pushing ahead on the glorious and victorious road marked by history.

Only a little more than half of a century has passed since the October Rev-
olution in Russia, the world has changed so vastly that the course of his-
tory has undergone a qualitative change never witnessed before. The world
had gone through several changes in social systems. But the October Revo-
lution in Russia opened up a new era--the era of struggle for the libera-
tion of all mankind. This is a fact. Compared with the several million
years of human history, it is only in the last 50 years or so that more

10



Our political program pays attention to developing our nationalities in ev-
ery way. This development must be based on true unity and mutual help among
the nationalities so that each nationality in our big national family can
develop its own heritage to a high level and at the same time accept and
develop common national characteristics. It is like a valuable forest in
which both large and small trees receive concentrated attention and daily
develop into a vast national forest. The small trees follow the big ones
using sunshine, light and other necessities to produce blossoms and fruit
and to grow a hundredfold. Our forest daily plays a fitting role in the
fate of the world.

Our nation since ancient times has played an important role in the lasting
prosperity of Buddhism. Priests and novices have been respected by the peo-
ple and, now facing our fatherland's destiny with a political program which
points the way, we will play a role in the forces building the fatherland.
In our religion besides a religious base, increasingly there is a Lao base
and a patriotic base. The existence of our nation, a small one, depends on
a spirit of diligent labor, and a spirit of mutual human affection and hos-
pitality toward strangers. This has increased the spirit to struggle bravely
for self-preservation and to build and preserve the nation. This has also
increased and strengthened the historical heritage and the current glorious
task of our nation which is to strengthen peace and national concord, build
@ prosperous economy, and to develop our cultural base and high social
qualities.

The task of any nation, big or small, advancing or declining, is to be re-
sponsible for getting the intelligentsia and highly qualified people to use
their intelligence and creativity to raise their own knowledge in order to
play a more fitting role in building the national economy and culture.
These things are not possible in a country governed by another and, if at- i
tempted under conditions of continuous war, they necessarily will be sharply
restricted. Currently, peace and national concord have widened and beauti- '
fied the horizons for intellectuals and the highly qualified to use their

ideas and creativity in our nation's progress, in the direction and methods

of reviving and expanding the economy and raising the level of culture and

education based on the realities of our land in terms of current natural

resources, and in doing whatever it takes to enable our country to advance

quickly and solidly on the path of building a unified and abundant nation.

A part of the intellectuals who work in offices of the state, administra-
tions, top officials, and civil servants are responsible to the people for
solving and eliminating the remaining evils and dangers in the administra-
tive machinery that dehumanize people and for wiping out experiences in the
old ways of making a living in the previous era. In the new environment all
comrades will have opportunities to display their patriotic spirit and the
extent of their knowledge about the times in order to change both the method
of government and the machinery of the state and to play roles in bringing
about changes in our country on the path to independence and self-mastery.

62



Part Three

Support _and the Frenzied Tempo of Life in the Nation and the Era: The Fight

to Eliminate the Growth of Evil

In the nearly 20 years of the progressive movement for national salvation
against the United States our nation had gained peace and national concord
twice; now is the third time. The two previous times we arrived at peace
and established national coalition governments did not last very long and
ended in the wicked betrayal of the enemy.

From the signing of the Geneva Agreement in July 1962 until last year the
Patriotic Forces and our people had to face extremely large-scale, cruel
aggression in order to advance to the present great victory.

When we look back at these historical events superficially, perhaps every-
thing will be like it was and the outcome may be the same as it is. We are
not fortune tellers but we must analyze events scientifically to find the
causes that led to breakdowns the previous times in order that we might
have clear observations about current and future conditions.

Through the generations that we have held firmly to the struggle for inde-
pendence and freedom, the thing that our people desired most was peace, the
true peace of an independent country whose people are not slaves of foreign
aggressors. Certainly this kind of peace was not likely to be satisfactory
to either old or new colonialists. It is not necessary to talk about the
crimes and tricks of the old colonialists. However, speaking solely of the
current U.S. neocolonialists, they are not likely to consent to a peace
which is contrary to their evil intentions. And when they are preparing to
renew war or when they have started or are starting it, they never forget
to use the trick, which was the most exhausted, of brandishing clubs while
concealing their hand and branding the people they are aggressing against
and their allies as "agitators" and "aggressors." The colonialists take
the position of raising their tattered banners of "peace" and falst "close-
ness."

A sovereign and independent nation definitely must create solidarity among
all classes of people and must build harmony in the nation. This is even
clearer for a small, united, slowly developing country. But these things
which the colonialists "could not accept" were the causes that led to evil
directions of development before, not that it won't happen again now. WNev-
ertheless, the balance of forces has changed; our capability to restrain
the enemy is absolutely greater than before, and we are watchful and alert.
The lessons of the two previous periods of peace and national concord warn
us that we must be careful and alert and must be firm and united with re-
newed belief and vigor. We know how to maintain and expand the strength
and reputation of the revolution and progressiveness and to constantly in-
crease the benefits attained from them. We will never lack watchfulness
and will not forgive the dangerous, risky tricks of the enemy. If you play
with fire, you get your hand burned. Hasn't starting war three times been
a painful, bitter lesson for the destructive influences who started it?

48



mercenary troops has advantages in speaking a common language and knowledge
of the terrain for carrying out "antiguerrilla" activities better than U.S.
troops. Economically it reduces outlays (as U.S. secretary of defense in
1969, Clifford, said, the money it takes to support one Asian mercenary
soldier is only one-fifteenth of the money it takes to support one American
soldier). That is+the essence of what the United States and its lackeys in
Indochina and Southeast Asia call "cooperation" and "regional alliance."

The phrase, "withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Asia mainland" is not likely
to mean U.S. withdrawal from the Asia mainland at all. The "Nixon Doctrine,"
which is the newest doctrine but a defeated one, talks that way and Ford and
Kissinger are presently continuing that policy. The "doctrines" for the
U.S. domination of the world all contemplate use of mercenary troops to
fight wars of aggression for the United States while the United States uses
its forces to "support" them. These forces consist of forces stationed on
the seas, on aircraft carriers, on other combat ships, on submarines equip-
ped with missiles with nuclear warheads and of forces stationed on islands
in the middle of the ocean to the mainland from Guam in the mid-Pacific to
islands in Japan, Subic Bay (Philippines), Sattahip Navy Base on the Thai
coast and on Thai territory and are the U.S. strategic backbone. Currently
the United States uses Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean and Masira
Island in the Arabian Sea and there is the possibility for the United
States to use Egypt's Suez Canal which is open and operating smoothly and
other bases that are aligned with the United States, England, or other U.S.
"allies" in the Mediterranean Sea, the Near Fast, the Middle Fast, and
along the shores of the Indian Ocean. The recent bloodshed in Cyprus and
the continuing crisis of change is the unfortunate product of nothing other
than U.S. imperialist criminal interference in an attempt to do away with
the neutrality of a democratic Cyprus led by Archbishop Makarios. This was
a plot to make Cyprus become a base for aggression and for launching war by
the United States and the U.S. faction (North Atlantic bloc--NATO) in the
Mediterranean Sea, the Near East, and the Middle East. In fact, in carry-
ing out the new U.S. nuclear strategy, they are also carrying out and will
continue to carry out their greedy, lustful objectives such as moving deep
into the Indian Ocean and staying there in order to guarantee the seizure
of major U.S. interests in Southeast Asia, on the Asian continent, and in
the Indian Ocean. In Southeast Asia, in particular, the United States gets
85 percent of its raw rubber and 80 percent of its lead. The United States
is still looking for a huge oil field in Southeast Asia. In 1971 alone,
the United States invested $10 billion in the Indian Ocean area. One of
the strategic and economic duties of the United States is to guarantee a
response to all commercial activity and to supply raw materials and equip-
ment to the United States.

1

The U.S. neocolonialist policy toward South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and
their policy of building bases of aggression and a new type of colony in
Thailand and using the administrative power of their lackeys to resist
strengthening peace and national concord in Laos, were clearly evil direc-
tions to take, forever threatening the just actions of our country. These
dangers lay within our own country even though the United States and its

50



The power of the forces of national liberation and independence lies first
of all in the power of the mind, the power of the will; cherishing indepen-
dence and freedom, it is the power which grows from the perseverance of the
great majority of the people. This is the source, condition of struggle
movements for national liberation and independence. When national con-
sciousness links the people of all nations together, when they have the
will for independence, then they are nations which have everything: the
power of solidarity in struggle to lead the revolution toward progress and
to build the capability to solve difficult problems of all types. Regard-
less of the magnitude of these difficulties, solidarity will build the ca-
pability of achieving victory over any foe. When two boxers meet in a box-
ing ring, it is normal that the winner will be the stronger of the two, the
one with the more daring punches and is not likely to be the one who wants
victory but is weak and less skilled. On the contrary, however, when any
people rise up together in struggle, and continue struggling in an era
which provides new basic conditions favoring the nation regardless of how
few in number they are, if they are determined to rise up and seize inde-
pendence, then this determination will be the force for total victory.

This is because these people have united and formed a courageous and brave
unit with correct thought and clearsighted intelligence, know how to aug-
ment and use their inherent strength to its utmost. These strengths con-
sist of deep decisiveness and the intelligence of all the people, not the
goods or materiel which the enemy seized from the people, but which now are
changed to weapons to strike at the enemy's head. The entire world and new
era work together on the side of those who are the true leaders. When the
situation is like this, it is clear that the mental strengths of the people
will evolve into material force for victory. The fact is that it is actu-
ally like this, historical truth, which is appearing in this era. Our
group consists of those countries which have been liberated and attained
national independence, countries which capitalists and imperialists had
previously exploited to enrich themselves and maintain a rich life style,
living off the labors of others. Today, these countries have caused deep-
ening difficult crises in all aspects of capitalism and imperialism. They
will certainly be one of the strengths, and crucial battle line in elimi-
nating the final danger to mankind--that is, the imperialist system must
disappear.

At the present time, if in any country whatsoever there is a movement for
liberation and national independence, there is still a desire to stop, to
hesitate, to vacillate, or to be uncertain, a desire to turn back to an-
other time. There is a resemblance to the short-lived stormy weather which
rages in the middle of the dry season and passes into the sunny weather of
the struggle. Regardless of how fiercely the influential forces of reac-
tion will storm eventually the sun of justice and knowledge of the truth
will shine clearly once again.

The capitalists and imperialists have been able to exist, to develop their
abundant riches. to maintain their dominance and to expand, based upon the
exploitation of labor within their own country and the exploitation of la-
bor in their colonies or dependencies. In the very ghetto of the United

13