The early years of the Lao revolution (1945-49): Between history, myth and experience

South East Asia Research

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 403-430

  Pholsena, Vatthana ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

Author keywords

Historiography; Laos; Memory; Narrative

Indexed keywords

DOCUMENTARY SOURCE; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; LITERATURE REVIEW;

ASIA; EURASIA; LAOS; SOUTHEAST ASIA;

EID: 33845650581     PISSN: 0967828X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5367/000000006778881609     Document Type: Review

References (77)

1. The inspiration for this article's analytical structure is obviously drawn from the three approaches of 'event, experience, myth', which Paul Cohen applies illuminatingly in his study of the Boxer uprising in China: Paul A. Cohen (1997), History in Three Keys. The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, Columbia University Press, New York. Cohen explains his framework as follows: 'Experiencers of the past are incapable of knowing the past that historians know, and mythologizers of the past, although sharing with historians the advantage of afterknowledge, are uninterested in knowing the past as its makers experienced it. In other words, although the lines separating these three ways of knowing the past are not always clear (historians do, as we are well aware, engage in mythologization, and the makers of the past are entirely capable, after the fact, of turning their own experiences into history), as ways of knowing they are analytically distinct'.
2. Paul Cohen (2003), 'Three ways of knowing the past', China Unbound: Evolving Perspectives on the Chinese Past, RoutledgeCurzon, London, p 205 (emphasis in the original).
3. See, for instance, Bernard B. Fall (1966), Vietnam Witness 1953-1966, Pall Mall Press, London;
4. Gerald C. Hickey (1982), Sons of the Mountains: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands to 1954, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT;
5. Mark McLeod (1999), 'Indigenous people and the Vietnamese revolution, 1930-1975', Journal of World History, Vol 10, No 2, pp 353-389;
6. Clive J. Christie (2000), 'Loyalism and "Special War": the Montagnards in Vietnam', A Modern History of Southeast Asia. Decolonization, Nationalism and Separatism, I. B. Tauris Publishers, London, pp 82-106;
7. and Oscar Salemink (2003), The Ethnography of Vietnam's Central Highlanders. A Historical Contextualisation, 1850-1990, RoutledgeCurzon, London.
8. Christie, supra note 2, at p 94.
9. Paul F. Langer and Joseph J. Zasloff (1970), North Vietnam and the Pathet Lao. Partners in the Struggle for Laos, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, p 37.
10. Two other versions of the events in the aftermath of the Second World War will not be discussed in this paper: the nationalist (ie non-communist) and revolutionary Lao historiographies. The differing versions of the events of 1945 are insightfully analysed in Bruce M. Lockhart (2003), 'Narrating 1945 in Lao historiography', in Christopher E. Goscha and Soren Ivarsson, eds, Contesting Visions of the Lao Past. Lao Historiography at the Crossroads, NIAS Press, Copenhagen, pp 129-155.
11. I borrow the phrase from Paul A. Cohen, supra note 1.
12. Grant Evans (2002), A Short History of Laos. The Land in Between, Allen & Unwin, Crow's Nest, NSW, p 84.
13. Clive J. Christie (2001), Ideology and Revolution in South-East Asia, 1900-1975, RoutledgeCurzon, London, p 117;
14. see also Lockhart, supra note 5, at p 154.
15. Jean Deuve (1999), Le Laos 1945-1949. Contribution à l'histoire du mouvement Lao Issala, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier, pp 246-247.
16. Christopher E. Goscha (1999), Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution, 1885-1954, Curzon Press, Richmond, pp 148, 151 (quotation);
17. see also MacAlister Brown and Joseph J. Zasloff (1986), Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930-1985, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, CA, pp 28-33.
18. Goscha, supra note 10, at p 340.
19. A coup d'état in November 1947 in Bangkok ousted the government of Pridi Phanomyong and his Seri Thai allies from power. The rise to power of Phibun Songkram, the new strongman of Thailand, heralded the beginning of the end for communist support networks outside Indo-China in South East Asia, although it took two more major events before the Vietnamese reorientated their war operations eastwards, namely the rapidly increasing American involvement in Thailand and the Chinese communist victory of 1949. For more details on the Vietnamese communists' military strategy and operations at the regional level in Laos and Cambodia during that period, see the very informative Christopher E. Goscha (2003), 'La guerre pour l'Indochine? Le Laos et le Cambodge dans le conflit franco-vietnamien (1948-1954)', Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, No 211, pp 29-58.
20. Motoo Furuta (1992), 'The Indochina Communist Party's division into three parties: Vietnamese Communist policy toward Cambodia and Laos, 1948-1951', in Takashi Shiraishi and Motoo Furuta, eds, Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s, Cornell Southeast Asia Program, Ithaca, NY, p 147.
21. 'Pavat khong kan pativat khong khwaeng Sekong, 1945-1975' [History of the revolution in Sekong province, 1945-1975] (1991), unpublished manuscript, p 21. Many thanks to Khambay Nyundalat for sharing his unpublished manuscript with me. The document was initially written by a Vietnamese scholar and completed in 1991. Khambay translated the entire manuscript from Vietnamese into Lao and rewrote parts of it (I do not know which ones, however) in 2000-02. Sekong used to be part of the Eastern province (Khwaeng Tavaen-ok) until it was detached in 1984 to form a province of its own.
22. Ibid, pp 22-23.
23. See also Goscha, supra note 10, at p 343,
24. and Goscha, supra note 11, at p 35.
25. Interwar Zone Five coordinated activities in the Central Highlands (Tây Nguyên) and the lowland central region from Dà Nǎng to Nha Trang;
26. Ang Cheng Guan (2002), The Vietnam War from the Other Side. The Vietnamese Communists' Perspective, RoutledgeCurzon, London, p 165.
27. Goscha, supra note 11, at p 36;
28. Pavat khong kan pativat', supra note 13, at pp 24-25.
29. However, 'Lao-cizing' or 'de-Vietnamizing' the core of Lao radicalism proved to be an uphill task; according to a report submitted to the Second Congress of the ICP in early 1951, of the 2,091 Party members in Laos, only 81 were Lao, the rest ethnic Vietnamese (Goscha, supra note 10, at p 344).
30. See also Furuta, supra note 12, at pp 151-153.
31. Christopher E. Goscha (2003), 'Revolutionizing the Indochinese past: Communist Vietnam's "special" historiography on Laos', in Goscha and Ivarsson, eds, Contesting Visions of the Lao Past. Lao Historiography at the Crossroads, NIAS Press, Copenhagen, pp 289, 292 (quotation).
32. Pavat Khet Tai Lao [Narrative of Southern Laos] (2004), State Printing Press, Vientiane.
33. Lockhart, supra note 5, at p 144.
34. The book is Duangsai Luangphasi (1993), Sam Bulut Lek haeng Meuang Thakhaek [The Three Iron Men of Thakhek], Lao Committee for Peace, Solidarity and Friendship with the Nations, Vientiane.
35. Som Manovieng was a leader of the first unified anti-French resistance groups in southern Laos. Initially (in 1945) it included 50 'young Lao and foreign patriotic Vietnamese brothers', and carried out its activities in the southern province of Champassak along the Thai border. It expanded to over 100 members after the inclusion of 30 men from the 'Samsen Thai' unit sent by Phoun Sipaseuth from Savannakhet, and the remnants of the 'Sainyasetthathirath' group (including 'Isan people') led by Thao Bounkhon, which was disbanded in late 1946 due to its exactions against the local population. In May 1946, during a ceremony that took place in Ban Don, Muang Phimoun [or Phibun?] in Ubon province, the armed unit was named 'Sainyachakkapat' by Souphanouvong, then Defence Minister of the Issala government, and placed under the command of Sithon Kommadam (Pavat Khet Tai Lao, supra note 18, at pp 18-19). All three of these units bore the names of great kings from the early centuries of Lao history.
36. The narrative of these events is found in Pavat Khet Tai Lao, supra note 18, at pp 20-21. Strangely, the book dates these episodes a year earlier - ie May 1947 instead of May 1948, early 1948 instead of early 1949 - which is illogical, since the coup in Thailand that convinced the Lao resistance leaders to request help from the Vietnamese occurred in November 1947.
37. Langer and Zasloff, supra note 4;
38. Goscha, supra note 10;
39. Goscha, supra note 11.
40. Goscha, supra note 10, at p 289.
41. MacAlister Brown and Joseph Zasloff (1986), Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930-1985, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA, p 35,
42. quoting Vientiane KPL, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (in English), 24 March 1976, pp 1-5.
43. Ai Souliyasaeng et al (2004), Salub Songkham Pasason phaitai Kannampha khong Phak Pasason Pativat Lao 1945-1975 [Summary of the People's War Under the Leadership of the LPRP 1945-1975], Lao People's Revolutionary Party, Vientiane, pp 104-105.
44. Pavat Khet Tai Lao, supra note 18, at p 23.
45. Võ Nguyên Giáp (1999), 'Chien dau trong Vòng [Struggling while surrounded]', in Goscha, C. E., Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution, 1885-1954, note 130, pp 343-365;
46. see also Goscha, supra note 11, at pp 35-36.
47. 'The Khu Ha Lào consisted of Champassak, Salawan [sic] and Attapeu provinces... The Vietnamese involved in its creation were Pham Vân Dong, Nguyen Dình Bình (special delegate from the "Western Laotian Cadres Committee") and Nguyen The Lâm (Acting Commander of Interwar-Zone V)' (Goscha, supra note 10, at p 343, note 132).
48. Pavat Khet Tai Lao, supra note 18, at p 4.
49. Souneth Phothisane and Nousai Phoummachan (2000), Pavatsat Lao (Deukdamban-Pachuban) [Lao History (Ancient Times to the Present)], Ministry of Information and Culture, Vientiane, pp 742-744.
50. Pavat Khet Tai Lao, supra note 18, at pp 24-25 (suitability of plains) and 27 (disagreement and negotiation with Vietnamese; emphasis added).
51. Both quotations are from Pavat Khet Tai Lao, supra note 18, at p 28.
52. 'Le destin du Laos se forge ainsi, le long du fleuve, dans ces conciliabules and ces réunions lao-vietminh, dans ces villages, ces forêts et ces montagnes de l'intérieur' (Deuve, supra note 9, at p 248).
53. Christopher E. Goscha (2004), 'Vietnam and the world outside: the case of Vietnamese communist advisers in Laos (1948-62)', South East Asia Research, Vol 12, No 2, p 152; the longer quotation is from p 151.
54. Ibid, p 153.
55. Particularly important are the memoirs by Nguyên Chính Câu and Doàn Huyên, two long-time and high-ranking political and military advisers in Laos. Câu was the head of the Resistance Committee in Trung Bô (central Vietnam), the sister organization to the Resistance Committee in southern Laos, while Huyên served as Sithon Kommadam's deputy commander ('Pavat khong kan pativat', supra note 13, at pp 24-25).
56. Goscha, supra note 33, at pp 156-157.
57. I was then part of a team involved in a research project funded by the Toyota Foundation, which aimed at collecting the life stories of former revolutionaries noted for their 'heroic' actions during the Indo-China Wars. Sekong was one of the three provinces, together with Savannakhet and Saravane, which the team visited in 2003 and 2004. Our visit to Mr Bouanyeung took place in December 2003; all quotations are from this interview.
58. Originally those people referred to today as 'Katu' were known among their highland neighbours as the 'people who live in the mountains'; J. Le Pichon (1938), 'Les chasseurs de sang', Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué, No 4, p 363.
59. Ibid, p 360.
60. This policy was defined as the 'oilspot-method' (tâche d'huile), which 'combined military repression of the rebellion with the political and social organization of the region... First a fort would be constructed in a strategic site in the fractious region, from which the surrounding population(s) would be militarily pacified. Then the infrastructure would be developed - roads, military posts and supervised markets constructed. When this area would be entirely controlled, a neighboring area would be pacified. Thus, this "structural pacification" would spread like an oil spot. The political leadership in the area would be more or less respected, if the local leaders would formally submit to French authority' (Salemink, supra note 2, at p 63).
61. Le Pichon, supra note 37, at p 361.
62. Le Pichon notes (p 359, note 1) that part of this region was inhabited by an ethnic group, which he refers to as 'Dié; this would seem to be the Mon-Khmer-speaking minority now known as 'Gié, officially classified together with another group as 'Gié-Triêng';
63. Dǎng Nghiêm Van, Chu Thái Son and Lyu Hùng (1986), Les ethnies minoritaires du Vietnam, Éditions en Langues Étrangères, Hanoi, p 121.
64. Le Pichon, supra note 37, at pp 402-403.
65. The ethnic groups of Laos are often informally divided into three broad categories: Lao Lum (lowland Lao and some other Tai-speaking groups), Lao Theung (MonKhmer-speakers living at higher altitudes) and Lao Sung (minorities inhabiting the highest altitudes, mainly Hmong and Yao). Vietnamese, on the other hand, generally make a two-way distinction between Kinh (lowland ethnic Vietnamese) and Thurong (highlanders). Bouanyeung's terminology seems to reflect a fusion of the two sets of classifications.
66. Ho Chi Minh, edited by Bernard B. Fall (1967), On Revolution. Selected Writings, 1920-66, Pall Mall Press, London, p 164.
67. Brown and Zasloff, supra note 24, at p 15.
68. Oscar Salemink notes that 'the attraction of the Catholic religion did not lie in its theological qualities, but rather in the practical advantages offered to new converts in economic and political fields. Already the former Governor-General De Lanessan noted in his Les missions et leur protectorat [written in 1907] that conversions were more often than not economically motivated, and tended to disjoin individuals from their family and community, resulting in great social tensions' (Salemink, supra note 2, at p 57).
69. 'Pavat khong kan pativat', supra note 13, at pp 38-39.
70. The marketing of salt was a state monopoly in French Indo-China; during the Japanese occupation, its annual production reached almost 250,000 tonnes (249,128 tonnes in 1945) in order to meet the increasing needs of Japan's war efforts. Le Manh Hung (2004), The Impact of World War II on the Economy of Vietnam 1939-45, Eastern University Press, Singapore, pp 29, 166. My thanks to Tobias Rettig for pointing out this reference to me.
71. Pavat khong kan pativat', supra note 13, at pp 45-47.
72. Quotations from Goscha, supra note 33, at p 156.
73. A somewhat unsettled Hickey wrote that 'talking through Mr. Phuong, the chief expressed dissatisfaction at having "Frenchmen" in the village, saying the "Viet Minh" would not like it. He noted there were Viet Minh in the forest, adding that his brother, who "had gone north" [presumably North Vietnam] was now with them';
74. Gerald C. Hickey (2002), Window on a War: An Anthropologist in the Vietnam Conflict, Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, TX, pp 73, 75.
75. Pavat khong kan pativat', supra note 13, at pp 47-48.
76. The account of these developments is from 'Pavat khong kan pativat', supra note 13, at pp 41-44.
77. Catherine Merridale (2005), Ivan's War. The Red Army 1939-1945, Faber and Faber, London, p 342.