Communist Party of Thailand พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | CPT |
| Governing body | Central Committee |
| Founded | 1942 (1942) |
| Dissolved | Inactive since the early 1990s |
| Split from | South Seas Communist Party |
| Newspaper | Mahachon |
| Military wing | People's Liberation Army of Thailand |
| Radio | Voice of the People of Thailand |
| Membership | 5,000–12,000 (estimated) |
| Ideology | Marxism–Leninism Maoism Proletarian internationalism People's democratic revolution People's war |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Party flag | |
 | |
TheCommunist Party of Thailand (Abrv: CPT;Thai: พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย,RTGS: Phak Khommiwnit Haeng Prathet Thai) was acommunist party inThailand active from 1942 until the early 1990s.
The CPT was officially founded on 1 December 1942, althoughcommunist 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 inmainland Southeast Asia, following the success ofVietnam. The CPT launched aguerrilla insurgency against theThai government in 1965. At its peak, the party operated semi-autonomously inrural 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 innortheastern,northern, andsouthern 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 theCold War. By the early 1990s, the party had largely ceased to exist as an organized political force.
The origins of thecommunist movement inThailand can be traced to the Siam Special Committee of theSouth Seas Communist Party, established around 1926 to 1927[1] The arrival ofleftist activists fleeingChina after the 1927split 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.[1][2]
During its early years, the Communist Party of Siam remained a smallorganization, primarily composed ofintellectuals inBangkok. By early 1948,British intelligence described reports claiming the party had 3.000 members nationwide as “exaggerated.”[3] The party was briefly legal between 1946 and 1948.[4] Its secretheadquarters were located in a wooden building onSi Phraya Road inBangkok.[5]
Key figures during this period included Udom Srisuwan, the party’s principaltheorist.[6]
In February 1951, a CPT delegation attended the second national congress of theVietnam Workers’ Party (VPW) inTuyên Quang.[7]The CPT subsequently held its second party congress in 1952.[8]
Another prominent leader wasPhayom Chulanont, a formerThai Armygeneral and Member ofParliament for Phetburi. In 1957, he defected to go underground, adopting thenom de guerreComrade Too Khamtan (สหายตู้คำตัน).
He later became a member of the CPT’sCentral Committee andChief of Staff of the People's Liberation Army of Thailand. His son,Surayud Chulanont, would later become a general andpolitical leader inThailand.
In 1960, the party attended theInternational Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties held inMoscow.[9]
The CPT held its third party congress in September 1961.[8] 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 inYunnan, southern China in March 1962.
In theSino-Soviet split, the CPT sided with theChinese 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.[10] Ideologically, the party aligned withMaoism and formulated a policy of armed struggle along the lines of the Chinese experience, which was made public in 1964. The party condemned theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union asrevisionist andsocially imperialist. As of 1966, relations with theCommunist Party of Vietnam began to deteriorate, as the CPT criticized the CPV for failing to take a clear pro-CCP stance.[4][11][12]
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 theunited front in the triangular setting of thepeople's war strategy (party-army-front).[4][10]
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 theNa Kae District ofNakhon Phanom Province. At the time it was estimated that the party had around 1,200 armed fighters under its command.[11][4][10]
During this time, a notable CPT figure wasChit Phumisak, a revolutionary and intellectual.[13] He had translatedThe Communist Manifesto into Thai in the 1950s, and had been jailed from 1957 to 1963 under theSarit 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.[14]
In February and August 1967, the Thai government conducted a number of counter-insurgency raids inBangkok andThonburi, arresting 30 CPT members including secretary-general Thong Chaemsri.
Opposition to US military presence in Thailand was a key element of the CPT during theVietnam War. The CPT alleged that Thailand was aneocolonial country under US control. Emphasis was thus given to the struggle for national independence.[10] 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.[8]
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.[15]
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.[10] The armed struggle had spread to various districts in the north in thePhetchabun Mountains and thePhi Pan Nam Range. The armed forces of the party had also established a presence along the border withMalaysia, in the areas were the armed forces of theCommunist Party of Malaya was based.[12]
In July 1969, nine CPT members were arrested, including a high-rankingCentral Committee member. The arrests were presented by the government as a crucial victory over the party.[16]
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 onUS Air Force bomber bases in the country.[12]
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, andvolunteer defence forces committed theRed 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'sCommunist 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, usedoil 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 the14 October 1973 movement came mass protests by farmers and their allies such asstudents andprofessional classes who challenged the ruling elite to improve the lives of farmers.
Led by the newly formed Farmers Federation of Thailand, the revolt antagonizedlandowners and state officials. In response,activists were harassed and murders were to follow. Between March 1974 and September 1979, 21 FFT leaders wereassassinated with the killings concentrated in theChiang Mai region. The assassination of FFT leaders created an environment of pervasive fear in thecountryside and ended therevolutionary efforts of the group.
During Thailand’s democratic period between 1973 and 1976 many groups were radicalised and socialist groups such as theSocialist Party of Thailand, theSocialist Front, theNew Force Party and theLabour Party were all able to get members elected to the country’s parliament.
In the aftermath of the6 October 1976 Massacre atThammasat 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 theSocialist Party of Thailand (SPT) whose leaderBoonsanong 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 inLaos. Instructors were Thai, Lao, and Vietnamese.[4][17]
The political folk-rock groupCaravan also fled to the jungles to link-up with the CPT at this time. Another who fled wasPhumtham Wechayachai, who some 50 years later served as Thailand's acting prime minister.[18]
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.[17]
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.[4]
The entry of leftist intellectuals to the party strengthened its capability to pursue united front policies. Following the expansion of its membership, the CPT began to stretch out a hand to wider sections of Thai society for forming a broad democratic front. On 7 May 1977, the SPT declared that it would cooperate in armed struggle with the CPT. On 2 July, the two parties declared the formation of a united front.
On 4 October, VOPT declared that the formation of the Committee for Coordination of Patriotic and Democratic Forces had taken place on 28 September. The nine-member coordination committee consisted of
Also allied to the CPT at the time were the Thai Moslem People’s Liberation Armed Forces and the National Student Center of Thailand, which was led bySeksan Prasertkul.[11]
The military and political growth of the party would however be hampered by developments wider afield. The party depended on support from states and communist parties in neighbouring countries, and as international alliances shifted the CPT found itself vulnerable.
In late 1978, the Sino-Soviet split developed into armed hostilities in Southeast Asia aswar broke out between Vietnam and Kampuchea, two countries that supported the CPT. Laos, a country which hosted many PLAT bases, sided with Vietnam in the dispute. In January 1979, the CPT and PLAT were expelled from Laos by the government, a military setback for the party. Bunyen Worthong and a small section of other ex-student leaders and intellectuals broke with the party leadership and on 22 October 1979, they formed theThai Isan Liberation Party (generally calledPak Mai, the 'New Party') inVientiane.Pak Mai was a communist party that supported Vietnamese-Laotian positions and was based in Laos.[11][19][20]
Initially, the CPT adopted a neutral stance in the conflict between Vietnam and Kampuchea, causing relations to deteriorate with both the Chinese and the Vietnamese parties. However, as Vietnam intervened militarily in Kampuchea, the CPT condemned the Vietnamese action in a statement issued on 7 June 1979.[11]
As diplomatic and trade relations between Thailand and China improved, and Thai and Chinese governments found a common enemy in pro-Soviet Vietnam, moral and logistical support for the CPT by the Chinese declined sharply. The Chinese Communist Party began advising the CPT to tone down their revolutionary discourse against the Thai government in their radio broadcasts and to supportDemocratic Kampuchean forces against the Vietnamese.[12] On 10 July 1979, VOPT declared that it would cease to its broadcasting service. On 11 July, the last VOPT broadcast was transmitted.Renmin Ribao carried a congratulatory message from the CPT on the 30th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on 30 September, which called for militant unity between Thai and Chinese communists, but thereafter news about the CPT in Chinese media became scarce.[11]
In 1980, the Thai government adopted a government order, "66/2523", encouraging CPT cadres to defect.[21] Communist cadres were eventually granted amnesty.
In March 1981, the Socialist Party of Thailand broke off relations with the CPT, claiming that CPT was controlled by foreign influences.[11]
In April 1981, the CPT leadership sought talks with the Thai government. The government responded that CPT fighters had to demobilize before any talks could be initiated.[11] In a declaration on 25 October 1981, Major GeneralChavalit Yongchaiyudh, the director of the Thai Army Operations Department, said that the war against CPT armed forces was approaching its end as all major bases of the PLAT in the north and northeast had been destroyed.[19]
In 1982, the government, under Prime Minister GeneralPrem Tinsulanonda, issued another executive order, 65/2525, offering amnesty to CPT-PLAT fighters.[22]
In 1982–1983, CPT experienced mass defections of its cadres, and its military potential was severely reduced.[21] Many of those who defected in the early 1980s were the students and intellectuals who had joined CPT after the 1976 massacre. The defectors generally rejected the Maoist ideological positions of the CPT, arguing that Thailand was emerging as an industrial nation and the peasant war strategy had to be abandoned.[19]
Damri Ruangsutham, an influentialpolitburo member, andSurachai Sae Dan, a leading figure of the party in southern Thailand, were captured by state forces at that time.[19]
There have been no reports of CPT activity since the beginning of the 1990s. The exact fate of the party is not known, and it remains banned to this day.[23]
Before the2019 election, a group filed documents to establish a party with the name "Communist Party of Thailand" (CPOT) but this was denied by theElection Commission of Thailand due to the name indicating undemocratic ideology.[24][25]
As of the 1970s, the party was led by a seven-memberpolitburo, elected by a 25-memberCentral Committee. Under the Central Committee were various provincial (changwat) committees and under them district (amphoe) committees. At the local level there weretambon (subdistrict) andmuban (village) party structures.[20]
Information on the leadership of the CPT is scarce. The CPT itself was always secretive about the identity of its leaders. According to a 1977 Kampuchean document, it was claimed that the General Secretary of the CPT wasKhamtan (nom de guerre ofPhayom Chulanont).[26] Other sources mention "Comrade Samanan" (Jaroen Wanngam) as the party leader during the same period.[11]
Prior to the formation of the Communist Party of Siam, the Chinese Communist Party had an active exile branch working amongethnic Chinese in the country. The party obtained legal status in 1946, and had a major influence ontrade unions and Chinese students. The party had around 2,000 active members and another 3,000 sympathizers in Siam.[3] After the establishment of thePeople's Republic of China in 1949 most ethnic Chinese communists in Thailand joined the CPT.[4] From 1949 until 1976, the party membership was largely ethnically Chinese. Following the rapid expansion of the party following the1976 massacre, ethnic Thais came to constitute the majority of party members.[17] There was also a strong presence of other ethnic minorities in the party ranks. While manyHmongs in neighbouringLaos tended to side with anti-communist forces, the CPT was able to build a strong base among Hmong people in Thailand.[27]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
