International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

The communist movement was first established in Siam (renamed Thailand in 1939) mostly in the Chinese ethnic migrant communities, then proliferated in the seemingly disparate surrounding regions in the North, Northeast, and South of the country. Following a long, difficult period of transition, the Thai Communist Party (CPT), once an urban party, retreated to the jungle and engaged in armed struggle. Its national expansion, during the 1970s, occurred while the kingdom was transformed into a US base for military intervention in the Vietnam War . The party eventually saw its decline during the Sino-Indochinese conflict of 1978–9 and disappeared from sight in the mid–1980s. In Siam the formation of the CPT was dependent upon its strategic geopolitical position, a social formation characterized by a three-way segmentation of the population (town-province, center-outskirts, migrant-Thai), and also by the gap between a Chinese political orientation and the realities of life in Thailand. Thailand also benefited from its geographical position and avoided the colonization suffered by its neighbors. By creating ties with Germany, who helped form its army, and navigating a balance between the French and British imperial influences in the region, Thailand became a buffer zone between the possessions of the French in the East and Great Britain in the South and West. The communist movement in ... log in or subscribe to read full text