Laos
Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a country in Southeast Asia. It was a French protectorate from 1893 to 1953, briefly a Japanese puppet state in 1945. It became independent from France in 1953 near the end of the First Indochina War with support from the Viet Minh, though under a constitutional monarchy. From 1959 to 1975, Laos had a civil war between the communist Pathet Lao, supported by the Soviet Union, and the royalist government, with the communists winning and abolishing the monarchy soon after the Vietnam War ended. Following this, Laos came to depend on Soviet military and economic support until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Economy
Historically, Laos never got far and was a terribly underdeveloped country before the revolution. It has a tough geography, with three-quarters of it being mountains and thickly-forested hills, and is on record for being the most heavily bombed country per capita in history;[1] in this respect being hard to develop, let alone apply socialism to. Despite this, Laos has one of the highest rates of development in the world, having for one an average annual real GDP growth of 7.25% from 2013 to 2018[2] — the sixth highest of any country in that period — although this is largely due to the effect that poorer nations observe where they benefit by adopting existing technology, along with receiving outside assistance from more developed countries. Laos, like Vietnam, describes itself as a "socialist-oriented market economy"; that is, it has not yet built socialism and is instead focusing on economic development as a precondition for it.
Relations
Laos was very closely allied with Vietnam until the early 1990s, dating back to Viet Minh support for it during its war for independence. After this it began developing closer ties with China and the US.
The Red Prince
Prince Souphanouvong was one of the "Three Princes" of the Lao royal family of which he was the only leftist. His mother was a commoner that married the King of Laos, and he led the Pathet Lao through over two decades of guerilla war against the rightist government led by his half-brother, Prince Souvanna Phouma. The other Prince, Boun Oum Na Champassak, was an anti-communist who was exiled in 1975, leaving for France and never coming back. That same year Souphanouvong became the first President of the LPDR while Kaysone Phomvihane was Prime Minister, with the Presidency being a mostly ceremonial role.[3]