The Pathet Lao was the name given to communists from Laos, who were responsible for taking over the Kingdom of Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. Similar to the Viet Cong in neighboring Vietnam, they were backed by North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and in 1975 they took over Laos.
History[]
Pathet Lao prisoners on the Mekong, February 1968
The Pathet Lao were founded as a communist insurgent organization in 1950, and they assisted Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh in taking over control of French Indochina. In 1959, the newly-created North Vietnam, a communist republic led by Ho Chi Minh, invaded the Kingdom of Laos to aid the Pathet Lao guerrillas in seizing power for communism. The Pathet Lao were assisted by the North Vietnamese Army in their wars with Laos, South Vietnam, and the United States, and in 1968-1970 American attempts to defeat the Pathet Lao failed. The Pathet Lao guerrillas won Operation Lam Son 719 against the allies, and in 1973 they gained momentum as the USA signed a ceasefire with the communists, ending their role in the Vietnam War. In 1975, Laos fell to the Pathet Lao, and the current Lao People's Democratic Republic is a communist government.