Laos–Vietnam relations refers to the current and historical relationship between Laos and Vietnam. Laotian relations with Vietnam had secretly set the strategy for the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) during the struggle to achieve full power, and the "sudden" opportunity to establish the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1975 left no leeway to consider foreign policy alignments other than a continuation of the "special relations" with Vietnam. The relationship cultivated in the revolutionary stage predisposed Laos to Indochinese solidarity in the reconstruction and "socialist construction" phases and all but ensured that relations or alignments with China and Thailand would be wary and potentially unfriendly. Further, the LPRP, unlike the Cambodian communists under Pol Pot, was f