The Communist Party of Thailand (Abrv: CPT; Thai: พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย, RTGS: Phak Khommiwnit Haeng Prathet Thai) was a Marxist-Leninist and Maoist party in Thailand active from 1942 until the early 1990s. Following the Fall of Phnom Penh, Saigon and Vientiane to Marxist–Leninist forces like the Khmer Rouge (Cambodian Reds), Viet Cong and Pathet Lao. Thailand found itself entirely bordered by the three communist nations, drastically escalating the geopolitical stakes in Southeast Asia.
The CPT was officially founded on 1 December 1942, although communist activism in Thailand began as early as 1927. In the 1960s, the party expanded its membership and influence. By the early 1970s, it had become one of the largest communist movements in mainland Southeast Asia, fueled by the rise of Marxist-Leninist takeovers through Indochina in 1975 such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. The CPT launched a guerrilla insurgency against the Thai government in 1965. At its peak, the party operated semi-autonomously in rural areas, with an estimated 10 to 12,000 armed fighters and a significant network of sympathizers, possibly numbering in the millions. Its influence was concentrated in northeastern, northern, and southern Thailand. The CPT declined following a combination of internal divisions, changes in international communist alliances, effective counter-insurgency campaigns by the Thai government (including amnesty programs for party cadres), and the end of the Cold War. By the early 1990s, the party had largely ceased to exist as an organized political force.
Early years The origins of the communist movement in Thailand can be traced to the Siam Special Committee of the South Seas Communist Party, established around 1926 to 1927 The arrival of leftist activists fleeing China after the 1927 split between the Communist and the Nationalists further bolstered communist activity in Thailand. Sources indicate that between late 1929 and early 1930, the Communist Party of Siam was formally established, laying the foundation for later communist organization in the country.
During its early years, the Communist Party of Siam remained a small organization, primarily composed of intellectuals in Bangkok. By early 1948, British intelligence described reports claiming the party had 3.000 members nationwide as “exaggerated.” The party was briefly legal between 1946 and 1948. Its secret headquarters were located in a wooden building on Si Phraya Road in Bangkok.
Key figures during this period included Udom Srisuwan, the party’s principal theorist.
In February 1951, a CPT delegation attended the second national congress of the Vietnam Workers’ Party (VPW) in Tuyên Quang.Nhân Dân: CPV led the resistance war, while continuing nation building The CPT subsequently held its second party congress in 1952."An internal history of the Communist Party of Thailand". Journal Magazine
Another prominent leader was Phayom Chulanont, a former Thai Army general and Member of Parliament for Phetburi. In 1957, he defected to go underground, adopting the nom de guerre Comrade Too Khamtan (สหายตู้คำตัน).
He later became a member of the CPT’s Central Committee and Chief of Staff of the People's Liberation Army of Thailand. His son, Surayud Chulanont, would later become a general and political leader in Thailand.
Insurgency
The CPT held its third party congress in September 1961. Shortly afterward, Ruam Wongphan, one of the leaders, was arrested and executed.
The Voice of the People of Thailand (VOPT), a CPT radio station, was established in Yunnan, southern China in March 1962.
In the Sino-Soviet split, the CPT sided with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In October 1964, its position was made clear in a congratulatory message on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. Ideologically, the party aligned with Maoism and formulated a policy of armed struggle along the lines of the Chinese experience, which was made public in 1964. The party condemned the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as revisionist and socially imperialist. As of 1966, relations with the Communist Party of Vietnam began to deteriorate, as the CPT criticized the CPV for failing to take a clear pro-CCP stance.Sison, Jose Maria. "Notes on People's War in Southeast Asia"
The party launched the Thai Patriotic Front (TPF) on 1 January 1965. The TPF had a six-point programme for peace and neutrality. The Front called for the formation of a patriotic and democratic government, and opposed the Thai government and US troop presence in Thailand. The TPF was poised to fill the role of the united front in the triangular setting of the people's war strategy (party-army-front).
Low intensity armed struggle began in August 1965 when the party declared through VOPT that "an era of armed struggle had begun". Concomitantly, the party began armed actions in the Na Kae District of Nakhon Phanom Province. At the time it was estimated that the party had around 1,200 armed fighters under its command.
During this time, a notable CPT figure was Chit Phumisak, a revolutionary and intellectual. He had translated The Communist Manifesto into Thai in the 1950s, and had been jailed from 1957 to 1963 under the Sarit dictatorship. Upon his release he joined the party and took part in its struggle in the Sakhon Nakhon Province. He was killed by government officials on May 5, 1966 but went on to become an iconic figure in Thailand's left-wing movement.
In February and August 1967, the Thai government conducted a number of counter-insurgency raids in Bangkok and Thonburi, arresting 30 CPT members including secretary-general Thong Chaemsri.
Opposition to US military presence in Thailand was a key element of the CPT during the Vietnam War. The CPT alleged that Thailand was a neocolonial country under US control. Emphasis was thus given to the struggle for national independence. As of 1968, the theory of neocolonialism was rejected by large sections of the party, who were inspired by Maoist positions arguing that Thailand was a semi-colonial country.
As of 1968, the CPT guerrilla network consisted of less than 4,000 armed fighters, scattered across the northern mountains and other periphery regions. The CPT guerrilla had limited links to outside support.
In 1969, the Supreme Command of the People's Liberation Army of Thailand was formed, marking a new phase in the build-up of guerrilla forces. The armed struggle had spread to various districts in the north in the Phetchabun Mountains and the Phi Pan Nam Range. The armed forces of the party had also established a presence along the border with Malaysia, in the areas were the armed forces of the Communist Party of Malaya was based.
In July 1969, nine CPT members were arrested, including a high-ranking Central Committee member. The arrests were presented by the government as a crucial victory over the party.Neher, Clark D. "Thailand: Toward fundamental change" . Asian Survey, Vol. 11, No. 2 (February 1971), pp. 131–138
Peak From 1970 on, the People's Liberation Army of Thailand (PLAT) received significant logistical support from China and Vietnam. PLAT forces intensified their operations, including attacks on US Air Force bomber bases in the country.
The Thai government deployed over 12,000 troops to the country's northern provinces in January 1972, carrying out a six-week operation in which over 200 militants were killed. The government's casualties during the operation amounted to 30 soldiers killed and 100 wounded.
In late 1972, the Royal Thai Army, police, and volunteer defence forces committed the Red Drum killings of more than 200 (unofficial accounts speak of up to 3,000) civilians who were accused of supporting communists in Tambon Lam Sai, Phatthalung Province, southern Thailand. The massacre was probably ordered by the government's Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC).
It was only one example "of a pattern of widespread abuse of power by the army and enforcement agencies" during the brutal anti-communist operations of 1971–1973 that took an official death toll of 3,008 civilians throughout the country (while unofficial estimates are between 1,000 and 3,000 in Phatthalung Province alone).Those killed were accused of working with the CPT. Until that point, communist suspects arrested by soldiers were normally shot by the roadside. The "red oil drum" technique was later introduced to eliminate any possible evidence. Suspects were clubbed to a point of semi-consciousness before being dumped in gasoline-filled, used oil drums and burnt alive. The 200 litre red drums had an iron grille divider with a fire below and the suspect above.
In the wake of the 14 October 1973 movement came mass protests by farmers and their allies such as students and professional classes who challenged the ruling elite to improve the lives of farmers.
Led by the newly formed Farmers Federation of Thailand, the revolt antagonized landowners and state officials. In response, activists were harassed and murders were to follow. Between March 1974 and September 1979, 21 FFT leaders were assassinated with the killings concentrated in the Chiang Mai region. The assassination of FFT leaders created an environment of pervasive fear in the countryside and ended the revolutionary efforts of the group.
During Thailand’s democratic period between 1973 and 1976 many groups were radicalised and socialist groups such as the Socialist Party of Thailand, the Socialist Front, the New Force Party and the Labour Party were all able to get members elected to the country’s parliament.
The year 1975 was a watershed moment in geopolitical history, marking the collapse of Western-backed governments and the rise of Marxist–Leninist regimes in Indochina. Following the departure of French colonial power and the subsequent defeat of the United States intervention, the communist movements successfully seized control of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge (Cambodian Reds) in Phnom Penh, Vietnam by the Viet Cong in Saigon and Laos by the Pathet Lao in Vientiane. Thailand's neighbors had fallen to socialist regimes as the Asian Domino theory, which then borders Thailand and surrounded by three communist nations such as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRV) backed by Moscow from the Soviet Union (USSR) and Beijing from China.
In the aftermath of the 6 October 1976 Massacre at Thammasat University and in the climate of increasing repression after the military take-over of the country, the CPT was able to expand its membership base.
Many of the new recruits were students, workers, intellectuals, farmers or cadres of the Socialist Party of Thailand (SPT) whose leader Boonsanong Punyodyana had also been murdered on 28 February 1976.
More than 1,000 students joined the party, including most elected campus representatives throughout the country. A large section of the newly recruited members received political and military training in PLAT camps in Laos. Instructors were Thai, Lao, and Vietnamese.
The political folk-rock group Caravan also fled to the jungles to link-up with the CPT at this time. Another who fled was Phumtham Wechayachai, who some 50 years later served as Thailand's acting prime minister.
In many cases, students accustomed to urban life had difficulties adapting to the harsh realities of guerrilla struggle, and thus the party decided to place many of them in villages rather deep in the jungle. The new student recruits were divided into groups of five to ten, which were distributed along the approximately 250 "liberated villages" of the country.
By 1977, the party had an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 armed fighters, and about a million sympathizers. Half of the provinces of the country were declared "communist infiltrated" by official Thai sources at the time.