by Norman Lowe
(a) Independence and civil war
Laos, the third country in former French Indo-China, was organized as a French protectorate with its capital at Vientiane. After the Japanese occupation during the Second World War, the French gave Laos a measure of self-government under King Sisavang Vong, but all important decisions were still taken in Paris. Many of the Lao leaders were satisfied with limited independence, but in 1950 the convinced nationalists formed a new movement known as the Pathet Lao (Land of the Lao People), to fight for full independence. The Pathet Lao worked closely with the Vietminh in Vietnam, who were also fighting the French, and they were strong in the north of the country in the provinces adjoining North Vietnam.
The 1954 Geneva Accords, which ended French rule in Indo-China, decided that Laos should continue to be ruled by the royal government. However, it also allowed what it called regroupment zones in northern Laos, where the Pathet Lao forces could assemble. Presumably the intention was that they would negotiate with the royal government about their future. But the outcome was inevitable: the Pathet Lao, with its strong left-wing connections and its continuing links with communist North Vietnam, was unlikely to remain at peace for long with a right-wing royalist government. In fact a fragile peace did survive until 1959, but then fighting broke out between left and right, and continued off and on until it became part of the much larger conflict in Vietnam. During these years Laos was divided into three groups:
the Pathet Lao – mainly communist, backed by North Vietnam and China;
the right-wing anti-communists and royalists, backed by Thailand and the USA;
a neutralist group led by Prince Souvanna Phouma, which tried to bring peace by creating a coalition of all three factions, each of which would be left in control of the areas that they held.
In July 1962 a fragile coalition government of all three groups was formed, and for a time it seemed that Laos might be able to remain neutral in the developing conflict in Vietnam. The USA was unhappy with this situation because it meant that the communist Pathet Lao controlled key areas of Laos which bordered on Vietnam (and through which the Ho Chi Minh trail would later pass). The Americans poured in vast amounts of financial aid for the Laotian Royal Army and in April 1964 the neutralist coalition government was overthrown by the right, with CIA backing. A new government of mainly right-wingers and a few neutralists was formed; the Pathet Lao were excluded, although they were still strong in their areas. Since they were well organized and well equipped, they soon began to extend their control further.
As the war in Vietnam escalated, Laos began to suffer the same fate as Cambodia. Between 1965 and 1973 more than two million tons of US bombs were dropped on Laos, more than were dropped on Germany and Japan during the Second World War. At first the attacks were mainly on provinces controlled by the Pathet Lao; as support for the Pathet Lao increased and their control extended further, so the American bombings spread over more of the country. An American community worker in Laos later reported that ‘village after village was levelled; countless people were buried alive by high explosives, or burnt alive by napalm and white phosphorous, or riddled by anti-personnel bomb pellets’.
Peace returned to Laos only in 1973 with the withdrawal of the Americans from Vietnam. The three factions signed an agreement in Vientiane setting up another coalition, with Souvanna Phouma as the leader. However, the Pathet Lao gradually extended their control over more of the country. In 1975, when the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnam, and the Khmer Rouge gained control in Cambodia, the right-wing forces in Laos decided to throw in the towel and their leaders left the country. The Pathet Lao were able to take power, and in December 1975 they declared the end of the monarchy and the beginning of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
(b) The Lao People’s Democratic Republic
The communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), which took control in 1975, stayed in power for the rest of the century and still seemed secure in 2004. For 20 years before they came to power, their leaders had worked in close co-operation with their allies in Vietnam, and it was only to be expected that the two governments would follow similar paths. In Laos the communists introduced farming collectives and brought trade, and what little industry there was, under government control. They also imprisoned several thousand political opponents in what were called re-education camps. The country and the economy were slow to recover from the ravages of the previous 15 years, and thousands of people – some estimates put the total at around 10 per cent of the population – left the country to live in Thailand.
Fortunately, the government was prepared to compromise its strict Marxist principles; in the mid-1980s, following the example of China and Vietnam, the collectivization programme was abandoned and replaced by groups of family-run farms. State control over business and industry was relaxed, market incentives were introduced and private investment was invited and encouraged. UN statistics suggested that by 1989 the economy of Laos was performing better than those of Vietnam and Cambodia in terms of Gross National Product per head. The Party still kept full political control, but after the introduction of a new constitution in 1991, people were allowed more freedom of movement. The fact that the government, like those of China and Vietnam, had abandoned its communist or socialist economic policies raised the interesting question of whether or not it still was a communist regime. The leaders still seemed to think of themselves and describe themselves as having communist political systems, and yet their economic restructuring had left them with very few specifically socialist attributes. They could just as well be called simply ‘one-party states’.
At the end of the century Laos was still a one-party state, with a mixed economy which was performing disappointingly. In March 2001, President Khamtai Siphandon admitted that the government had so far failed to bring about the hoped-for increase in prosperity. He outlined an impressive 20-year programme of economic growth and improved education, health and living standards. Impartial analysts pointed out that the economy was precarious, foreign aid to Laos had doubled over the previous 15 years, and the International Monetary Fund had just approved a loan of $40 million to help balance the budget for the year.
None of this made any difference to the National Assembly elections held in February 2002. There were 166 candidates for the 109 seats, but all except one were members of the LPRP. The state-run media reported that there had been a 100 per cent turnout and the Party continued blithely in power. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with the lack of progress was beginning to cause some unrest. In July 2003 an organization called the Lao Citizens’ Movement for Democracy held demonstrations and mini-uprisings in ten provinces. In October another group, calling itself the Free Democratic People’s Government of Laos (FDPGL), exploded a bomb in Vientiane and claimed responsibility for 14 other explosions since 2000. They announced that their aim was to overthrow ‘the cruel and barbarian LPRP’. The pressure was on for the Party to deliver reform and prosperity without too much delay. In 2006 a new leader came to power: Choummaly Sayasone was chosen as Communist Party general secretary and president of Laos.
FURTHER READING
Buzo, A., The Guerilla Dynasty: Politics and Leadership in North Korea (I. B. Tauris, 1999).
Chandler, D. P., A History of Cambodia (Westview, 4th edition, 2007).
Dae-sook Suh, Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader (Columbia University Press, 1995).
Hayton, B., Vietnam: Rising Dragon (Yale University Press, 2011).
Kiernan, B., The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia (Yale University Press, 3rd edition, 2008).
Liefer, M., Dictionary of the Modern Politics of South-East Asia (Routledge, 1996).
Service, R., Comrades: A World History of Communism (Macmillan, 2007).
Short, P., Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (John Murray, 2005).
Stanley, T., ‘A Question of Identity’, History Today (July 2011).
Stuart-Fox, M., A History of Laos (Cambridge University Pre
ss, 1997).
QUESTIONS
Explain how Korea came to be divided into two separate states during the period 1945–53.
‘Half a century of disaster for the people of North Korea.’ How far would you agree with this verdict on Kim Il-sung’s period of rule in North Korea?
What problems faced the government of Vietnam in the years following its unification in 1976? How and with what success did the government’s policies change after 1986?
Assess the contribution of Prince Sihanouk to the development of Cambodia in the years 1954 to 1970. Explain why he was overthrown in March 1970.
Trace the steps by which Cambodia/Kampuchea became a victim of the Cold War in the period 1967 to 1991.
Explain why and how Laos came under communist rule in the period 1954 to 1975. How successful had the government been in rebuilding Laos by the end of the twentieth century?
There is a document question about Cambodia and Prince Sihanouk and their relations with the USA on the website.
Part IV
The United States of America
Chapter 22
The USA before the Second World War
SUMMARY OF EVENTS
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the USA experienced remarkable social and economic changes.
The Civil War (1861–5) between North and South brought the end of slavery in the USA and freedom for the former slaves. However, many whites, especially in the South, were reluctant to recognize black people (African Americans) as equals and did their best to deprive them of their new rights. This led to the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, although it had very little success until the second half of the twentieth century.
Large numbers of immigrants began to arrive from Europe, and this continued into the twentieth century. Between 1860 and 1930 over 30 million people arrived in the USA from abroad.
There was a vast and successful industrial revolution, mainly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The USA entered the twentieth century on a wave of business prosperity. By 1914 she had easily surpassed Britain and Germany, the leading industrial nations of Europe, in output of coal, iron and steel, and was clearly a rival economic force to be reckoned with.
Although industrialists and financiers did well and made their fortunes, prosperity was not shared equally among the American people. Immigrants, blacks and women often had to put up with low wages and poor living and working conditions. This led to the formation of labour unions and the Socialist Party, which tried to improve the situation for the workers. However, big business was unsympathetic, and these organizations had very little success before the First World War (1914–18).
Although the Americans came late into the First World War (April 1917), they played an important part in the defeat of Germany and her allies; Democrat President Woodrow Wilson (1913–21) was a leading figure at the Versailles Conference, and the USA was now one of the world’s great powers. However, after the war the Americans decided not to play an active role in world affairs, a policy known as isolationism. It was a bitter disappointment for Wilson when the Senate rejected both the Versailles settlement and the League of Nations (1920).
After Wilson came three Republican presidents: Warren Harding (1921–3), who died in office; Calvin Coolidge (1923–9) and Herbert C. Hoover (1929–33). Until 1929 the country enjoyed a period of great prosperity, though not everybody shared in it. The boom ended suddenly with the Wall Street Crash (October 1929), which led to the Great Depression, or world economic crisis, only six months after the unfortunate Hoover’s inauguration. The effects on the USA were catastrophic: by 1933 almost 14 million people were out of work and Hoover’s efforts failed to make any impression on the crisis. Nobody was surprised when the Republicans lost the presidential election of November 1932.
The new Democrat president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, introduced policies known as the New Deal to try and put the country on the road to recovery. Though it was not entirely successful, the New Deal achieved enough, together with the circumstances of the Second World War, to keep Roosevelt in the White House (the official residence of the president in Washington) until his death in April 1945. He was the only president to be elected for a fourth term.
22.1 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
The American Constitution (the set of rules by which the country is governed) was first drawn up in 1787. Since then, 26 extra points (Amendments) have been added; the last one, which lowered the voting age to 18, was added in 1971.
The USA has a federal system of government
This is a system in which a country is divided up into a number of states. There were originally 13 states in the USA; by 1900 the number had grown to 45 as the frontier was extended westwards. Later, five more states were formed and added to the union (see Map 22.1); these were Oklahoma (1907), Arizona and New Mexico (1912), and Alaska and Hawaii (1959). Each of these states has its own state capital and government and they share power with the federal (central or national) government in the federal capital, Washington. Figure 22.1 shows how the power is shared out.
The federal government consists of three main parts:
Congress: known as the legislative part, which makes the laws;
President: known as the executive part; he carries out the laws;
Judiciary: the legal system, of which the most important part is the Supreme Court.
(a) Congress
The federal parliament, known as Congress, meets in Washington and consists of two houses: the House of Representatives
the Senate
Members of both houses are elected by universal suffrage. The House of Representatives (usually referred to simply as ‘the House’) contains 435 members, elected for two years, who represent districts of roughly equal population. Senators are elected for six years, one third retiring every two years; there are two from each state, irrespective of the population of the state, making a total of 100.
The main job of Congress is to legislate (make the laws). All new laws have to be passed by a simple majority in both houses; treaties with foreign countries need a two-thirds vote in the Senate. If there is a disagreement between the two houses, a joint conference is held, which usually succeeds in producing a compromise proposal, which is then voted on by both houses. Congress can make laws about taxation, currency, postage, foreign trade and the army and navy. It also has the power to declare war. In 1917, for example, when Woodrow Wilson decided it was time for the USA to go to war with Germany, he had to ask Congress to declare war.
There are two main parties represented in Congress: Republicans
Democrats
Map 22.1 The USA between the wars
Source: D. Heater, Our World This Century(Oxford, 1992), p. 97
Figure 22.1 How the federal government and the states divide powers in the USA
Both parties contain people of widely differing views.
The Republicans have traditionally been a party which has a lot of support in the North, particularly among businessmen and industrialists. The more conservative of the two parties, its members believed in:
keeping high tariffs (import duties) to protect American industry from foreign imports;
a laissez-faire approach to government: they wanted to leave businessmen alone to run industry and the economy with as little interference from the government as possible. Republican Presidents Coolidge (1923–9) and Hoover (1929–33), for example, both favoured non-intervention and felt that it was not the government’s job to sort out economic and social problems.
The Democrats have drawn much of their support from the South, and from immigrants in the large cities of the North. They have been the more progressive of the two parties: Democrat presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–45), Harry S. Truman (1945–53) and John F. Kennedy (1961–3) wanted the government to take a more active role in dealing with social and economic problems.
However, the parties are not as united or as tightly organized as politi
cal parties in Britain, where all the MPs belonging to the government party are expected to support the government all the time. In the USA, party discipline is much weaker, and votes in Congress often cut across party lines. There are left- and right-wingers in both parties. Some right-wing Democrats voted against Roosevelt’s New Deal even though he was a Democrat, while some left-wing Republicans voted for it. But they did not change parties, and their party did not throw them out.
(b) The President
The President is elected for a four-year term. Each party chooses its candidate for the presidency and the election always takes place in November. The successful candidate (referred to as the ‘President elect’) is sworn in as President the following January. The powers of the President appear to be very wide: he (or she) is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, controls the civil service, runs foreign affairs, makes treaties with foreign states, and appoints judges, ambassadors and the members of the cabinet. With the help of supporters among the Congressmen, the President can introduce laws into Congress and can veto laws passed by Congress if he or she does not approve of them.
(c) The Supreme Court
This consists of nine judges appointed by the President, with the approval of the Senate. Once a Supreme Court judge is appointed, he or she can remain in office for life, unless forced to resign through ill health or scandal. The court acts as adjudicator in disputes between President and Congress, between the federal and state governments, between states, and in any problems which arise from the constitution.
(d) The separation of powers
When the Founding Fathers of the USA (among whom were George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison) met in Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up the new Constitution, one of their main concerns was to make sure that none of the three parts of government – Congress, President and Supreme Court – became too powerful. They deliberately devised a system of ‘checks and balances’ in which the three branches of government work separately from each other (see Figure 22.2). The President and his cabinet, for example, are not members of Congress, unlike the British prime minister and cabinet, who are all members of parliament. Each branch acts as a check on the power of the others. This means that the President is not as powerful as he might appear: since elections for the House are held every two years and a third of the Senate is elected every two years, a President’s party can lose its majority in one or both houses after he or she has been in office only two years.