After the withdrawl of the US from the conflict in S.E. Asia in the 1970s, the countries that comprised the former French Indochina were swiftly taken over by communist insurgencies: in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Yet that was as far as it went; Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Bangledesh, etc. did NOT become communist, much less India. So apparently simply being a poor third world former colony ruled by autocrats did not automatically guarantee a successful Marxist revolution.
So why the difference? Was it simply that North Vietnam served as a “base” for the Vietcong, with Laos and Cambodia being almost a side-effect of the Vietnam struggle? Or is there some deeper political or social reason? I remember reading that there was a serious guerilla movement in Indonesia, but that it was successfully suppressed. Why did they fail?
To a some extent, yes. That’s an oversimplification, as the Pathet Lao and certainly the Khmer Rouge weren’t exactly North Vietnamese puppets. And the Viet Cong, from the Tet Offensive on, were a decreasing factor, the bulk of the fighting after that point being born by the NVA.
But the ready source of re-supply ( North Vietnam AND China - just eliminating North Vietnam, even if possible, wouldn’t have done the job ), terrain advantages, very strong committment and suuport from significant segments of the populace, good organization, and on the part of the NVA, very good leadership, made the difference.
I dare say the Viet Minh/NV/Viet Cong in particular, but also the Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao to a slightly lesser extent, had far more popular support than that enjoyed in other surrounding countries.
On the immediate borders of Indochina, communist ideology did not seem to be terribly strong in Thailand ( perhaps due to the survival of well-respected monarchy that had strong romantic appeal to the majority Thai and perhaps due to the lack of borders with China ), except in border areas in the south and north, where they never gathered much steam. In Burma the communists were highly fragmented into rival groups and wereovershadowed by purely ethnic nationalists, especially among the Karen, Kachin, Shan, Chin, Mon, and Arakanese.
Not so much in Indonesia, in the sense of communist insurgents. Indonesia was dominated by the first from folks with good revolutionary ( not necessarily communist ) credentials and communism, where adopted in any form, was mostly prevalent in certain political circles which were pretty thoroughly weeded out in a coup.
Malaysia, on the other hand, had a significant communist insurgency 1948-1960 ( and attacks continued for decades after ). But here good British/Malay government tactics ( especially building local support ), communist lack of success in recruitment, and internal divisions doomed the insurgency. It is telling that in the entire course of the 12-year struggle, fewer than 7,000 insurgents and under 6,000 military and civilian lives were lost ( the economic disruption was a bit greater ). This was never a conflict on the Indochina scale.