>>2615817Let me elaborate on my reply, he is practically forgotten from mainstream Marxist history, but he was of Vietnamese descent, and he was able to successfully diffuse ethnic tensions in Laos unlike what happened over in Thailand and Cambodia.
I interpret the Laotian civil war to have been three way, between communists, monarchists, and pro democracy activists, and his victory saw him stating that Laos would approach communism by skipping the capitalist stage but I could be making shit up. A lot of his efforts was alright in the short run, but Laos would later become pretty corrupt, much of the same families who ruled Laos back during the French era would still end up in the Communist party.
He liberalized the economy, but on a smaller scale than Gorbachev and Deng. It's going really well right now because it's a landlocked country and it got bombed a billion times. Most people in Laos are apolitical, and they are more friendly than their neighbors.
He saw it better off to not have infighting, and didn't want his own specific ideology, but his successors preferred him having his own.
A lot of the elites in Laos are from Vietnam, and a lot of stuff is sold to Chinese investment companies. Laos is more of a free country than Thailand or Cambodia right now, it's not that bad.
He also once purged 10% of the country since they were intellectuals. A lot of brain drain, too, but the fact not much is not known about the Hmong insurgency in Laos is proof that they're able to keep the country together.
https://www.mlreadinghub.org/articles/articles/kaysone-phomvihane-the-life-of-a-revolutionary