Laos marked 30 years of communism today with a mass rally of 25,000 people and exhortations to modernise the economy of one of Asia's poorest and least developed nations.
In what was arguably the final act of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao communists who had overrun the landlocked southeast nation formally created the Lao People's Democratic Republic on December 2, 1975.
For the tiny nation of 5 million, and in particular its rulers, the date marks the start of a golden era of independence and stability after the trials of French colonialism in the first half of the 20th century and the horrors of the Vietnam War in the second.
"All the people of Laos should join together for the economy and development of the country," President Khamtay Siphandone told the rally of soldiers, students and workers outside Vientiane's white concrete parliament building.
"We should build our economy bigger and stronger, and we must defend our country and our culture."
With the hammer and sickle fluttering from shop windows in the sleepy city and communist anthems blaring from loudspeakers, official newspapers have been reporting "patriotic fervour" in the run-up to National Day.
Roads have been swept and government buildings repainted as top members of the Communist Party politburo did the rounds of state hospitals "to boost patient morale", the official Vientiane Times reported.
Despite the relative peace of the last 30 years, all is not as rosy as the state-run papers would have people believe.
With a tiny economy hamstrung by a lack of enterprise and investment, Laos remains one of the poorest countries in Asia, with many of its citizens living on around $1 per day.
It also has the dubious honour of being the most bombed country per capita in the world due to an estimated 2 million tonnes of US bombs dropped on the Ho Chi Minh trail, the jungle transport network used by North Vietnamese troops.
Human rights groups also say the government continues to prosecute a vengeful war against America's wartime allies, the Hmong ethnic minority known as the CIA's "forgotten army". The government has denied the allegations.