Lyla Lindsey
Australia, Thailand, India, and Vietnam have all experienced communist influences in their history, but none of them are currently communist states. Vietnam is the closest to being a communist country, as it is a socialist republic with a one-party system led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The CPV was founded in 1930 and became the ruling party of all of Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Australia had a Communist Party that was active from its founding in 1920 until its dissolution in 1989. Thailand also had a Communist Party that was active from 1942 until the 1990s and launched a guerrilla war against the Thai government in 1965. India has a large number of Marxist parties, including the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Number of countries that are communist | 5 |
| Communist countries | China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam |
| Country that was partitioned into communist and democratic halves | Vietnam |
| Countries that fought in the Korean War | North Korea, South Korea, China, United States |
| Country that is not communist but has a communist party | India |
| Country that had a communist insurgency | Thailand |
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What You'll Learn
Communist Party of Australia (CPA)
Australia has never been a communist country, but it did have a Communist Party (the CPA). The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), also known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was founded in 1920 and existed until around 1991. The CPA was heavily involved in the labour movement and trade unions, and its membership and influence grew significantly during the interwar period. In 1945, it reached its peak with a membership of slightly above 22,000, making it the largest communist party in Anglophone countries on a population basis.
The CPA was founded at the Australian Socialist Party Hall in Sydney by socialists inspired by the Russian Revolution. Among the party's founders were prominent Sydney trade unionists, suffragettes, and anti-conscriptionists. The CPA was also supported by most members of the then-illegal Australian section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), although the IWW soon left the party over disagreements with the direction of the Soviet Union and Bolshevism.
The CPA's relationship with the Soviet Union and the Communist International (Comintern) was complex. In 1929, the CPA leadership fell out of favour with the Comintern due to Joseph Stalin's turn to radical revolutionary rhetoric. The Comintern denounced the CPA's relationship with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as "opportunist". This led to a change in CPA leadership and a period of strict centralisation and obedience to Moscow. However, the CPA continued to face challenges, including the expulsion of some of its leaders and conflicts with the Comintern over strategy and ideology.
The CPA contested federal and state elections, receiving its highest vote total of 81,816 votes (1.93-2.00%) in the late 1930s. Despite this success, the party's popularity declined in the late 1960s, and it fell into single-digit numbers. The party experienced a brief spike in the mid-1970s but was effectively stagnant by the mid-to-late 1980s. The old CPA was dissolved in 1989 or 1991, and a new party with the same name was formed in 1996 by the Socialist Party of Australia (SPA).
The current CPA, founded in 1971, is a traditional Marxist-Leninist communist party that aims to transform Australian society and establish socialism. It maintains relationships with communist and socialist parties overseas and participates in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (IMCWP). While the CPA has not had significant electoral success in recent years, it continues to endorse candidates and promote its values, including support for workers' rights, universal healthcare, education reform, and international solidarity.
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Thai Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC)
Thailand was one of the few countries in Southeast Asia without an anti-colonial movement and an elite that was instinctively anti-communist after World War II. As a result, US officials decided to make the country a bulwark against communism. In 1950, Thailand sent troops to the Korean War and started receiving US aid. In 1954, it joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to become an active American ally in the Cold War.
In 1964, the Thai Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC) was established with US assistance to coordinate counterinsurgency and counterintelligence operations. The CSOC was implicated in several atrocities in its 1970s war against leftist groups, including the Red Drum Massacre, where southern Thai activists were burned alive in gasoline drums.
The Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) was a communist party in Thailand active from 1942 until the 1990s. In the 1960s, the CPT grew in membership and support, and by the early 1970s, it was the second-largest communist movement in mainland Southeast Asia. The CPT's influence was concentrated in northeastern, northern, and southern Thailand. The CPT's armed forces, the People's Liberation Army of Thailand (PLAT), received significant logistical support from China and Vietnam.
The communist insurgency in Thailand, also known as ""the people's war" from the leftists' perspective, was a guerrilla war lasting from 1965 until 1983, fought mainly between the CPT and the Thai government. The war began to wind down in 1980 following an amnesty declaration, and in 1983, the CPT abandoned the insurgency entirely, ending the conflict.
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Communist Party of India
None of Australia, Thailand, India, or Vietnam are communist countries today. However, Vietnam was formerly divided into communist North Vietnam and non-communist South Vietnam.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) is a political party in India that was founded on December 26, 1925, at the first Party Conference in Kanpur (then known as Cawnpore). The CPI was formed through the unification of various communist groups that had been established by Indians with foreign aid in different parts of the world. The party's first General Secretary was S. V. Ghate.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, the CPI was poorly organised, and the British colonial administration's ban on communist activities further hindered its growth. Despite these challenges, the CPI gained momentum after India gained independence in 1947. The party advocated for social equality, universal suffrage, nationalisation of private enterprises, land reforms, social justice for lower castes, and the right to protest through demonstrations and strikes.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the CPI was the main opposition party in India. In 1957, the CPI formed the first non-Congress government in the state of Kerala, introducing reforms such as land distribution and education. However, violent protests against these reforms led to the dismissal of the CPI government by central authorities.
In 1964, ideological differences within the CPI, stemming from the split between the Soviets and Chinese communists, resulted in a significant faction breaking away and forming the Communist Party of India (Marxist). This new party eventually became larger than the original CPI. Despite these setbacks, the CPI has continued to play a role in Indian politics, including as part of the ruling United Front government from 1996 to 1998.
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Vietnamese Communist Party
Currently, Vietnam is one of the five countries in the world with an official communist government. The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), also known as the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), is the founding and only legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The party was founded in 1930 by Ho Chi Minh, who also led the Viet Minh and played a significant role in Vietnam's independence movement against French colonial rule.
The history of the VCP can be traced back to 1925 when Ho Chi Minh established the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League, commonly known as the Youth League. The Youth League aimed to end French colonial rule in Vietnam and sought social and political objectives, including national independence and land redistribution to working peasants. In 1929, the Youth League was forced underground after their headquarters in Canton (present-day Guangdong), China, were destroyed by the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party). This led to the emergence of several Vietnamese communist groups, including the Communist Party of Indochina, the Communist Party of Annam, and the Communist League of Indochina.
In February 1930, Ho Chi Minh convened a "Unification Conference" in British Hong Kong, where these factions merged to form the united Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The party later changed its name to the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) at the request of the Comintern. Despite its small size, the ICP gained influence in Vietnam due to the social unrest caused by poor harvests and debt crises. During its early years, the ICP faced rivalry from other nationalist and left-wing groups, including Trotskyist organisations.
During the Cold War, Vietnam was divided into communist North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh and the VCP, and capitalist South Vietnam, led by Ngo Dinh Diem and his Catholic coalition. The United States played a significant role in maintaining this division, using the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) as a justification for refusing to reunify Vietnam. SEATO, which included countries like Australia, Thailand, and the United States, was formed to prevent the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.
After the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, the VCP became the ruling party of all of Vietnam. The VCP maintains centralized control over the state, military, and media in Vietnam. While the party nominally exists alongside the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, it is institutionalized as the sole source of leadership in the country's constitution. The VCP is organized based on democratic centralism, a principle conceived by Vladimir Lenin, with its highest institution being the party's National Congress, which elects the Central Committee.
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Vietnam's third Constitution
Vietnam is one of the five countries in the world where communism is the official form of government. The country became independent on September 2, 1945, and has had four constitutions since then. The third constitution of Vietnam, adopted on December 19, 1980, comprised 147 articles in 12 chapters, dealing with numerous subjects, including the basic rights and duties of citizens.
The 1980 Constitution guaranteed citizens' rights to freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, and the freedom to demonstrate. However, these rights were subject to the caveat that no one could "misuse democratic freedoms to violate the interests of the state and the people." The party and the government had considerable latitude in determining what was in the best interests of the state and its people.
The 1980 Constitution was formulated after the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976. The reunification provided the impetus for revising the 1959 Constitution, which was a fully communist document. The revisions emphasized popular sovereignty and promised success in "revolutions" in production, science and technology, culture, and ideology. The 1980 Constitution was also influenced by the Đổi Mới market reforms adopted by Vietnam beginning on December 18, 1986, and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc.
The 1980 Constitution was replaced by a new constitution in 1992, following the adoption of market reforms and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The 1992 Constitution was amended in 2001 and remained in effect until the current constitution was adopted in 2013. The current constitution, known as the 2013 Constitution, contains a preamble and 11 chapters, and it is the fundamental and supreme law of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
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