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Searching for: History of Thailand (1932-1973)?
The history of Thailand from 1932 to 1973 was dominated by the military dictatorship which was in power for much of the period. The main personalities of the period were the dictator Phibun, who allied the country with Japan during the Second World War, and the civilian politician Pridi, who founded Thammasat University and was briefly prime minister after the war. A succession of military dictators followed Pridi's ousting — Phibun again, Sarit and Thanom — under whom traditional, authoritarian rule combined with increasing modernisation and westernisation under the influence of the U.S. The end of the period was marked by Thanom's resignation, forced after a massacre of pro-democracy protesters who were led by Thammasat students.
Military rule
The military came to power in 1932, and retained it (with intermittent periods of civilian rule) until the failed coup of 1992. The army's dominance can be attributed in part to its role as an avenue for advancement for ambitious young Siamese when the Chinese dominated the business world and the educated middle-class was still small.
The new regime of 1932 was led by a group of colonels headed by Phraya Phahonphonphayuhasena and Phraya Songsuradet. In December they produced a constitution, Siam's first, with a National Assembly half appointed and half indirectly elected. Full democratic elections were promised when half the population had completed primary education - expected to be sometime in the 1940s. A prime minister and Cabinet were appointed and a facade of constitutional rule maintained.
Once the new government had been established and the constitution put into effect, conflict began to erupt among the members of the new ruling coalition. There were basically four major factions competing for power. 1: The older conservative civilians led by Phraya Mano; 2: A senior military faction led by Phraya Phahon; 3: The junior army and navy faction led by Luang Plaek Phibunsongkhram; 4: The young civilian faction led by Pridi Phanomyong.
The first serious conflict arose in 1933 when Pridi was given the task of drafting a new economic plan for the nation. It was a radical plan which called for the nationalisation of large amounts of farmland as well as a policy of rapid industrialisation which would be directed by the government. His plan also called for the expansion of higher education so that entry into the bureacracy would not be completely dominated by royalty and the aristocracy. Pridi's plan was instantly condemned by all the factions in the government as being communist.
Because of its attack on private property, the conservative clique were the ones that were most alarmed by Pridi's economic plan. They urged the Mano government to adopt policies that would reverse the course of the "revolution". When Phraya Mano attempted to do this, Phibun and Phraya Phahon launched a second coup that toppled the Mano government. Phraya Pahon became prime minister, and the new government that was formed excluded all of the royalists.
A royalist reaction came in late 1933 when Prince Bovoradej, a grandson of Chulalongkorn and one time Minister of Defence, led an armed revolt against the government. He mobilised varios provincial garrisons and marched on Bangkok, capturing the Don Muang aerodome in the process. The Prince accused the government of disrespecting the King and of promoting communism, and demanded that the government leaders resign. He had hoped that some of the garrisons in the Bangkok area would join the revolt, but they remained loyal to the government. In the meanwhile, the navy declared itself neutral and left for its bases in the south. After heavy fighting in the northern outskirts of Bangkok, the royalists were finally defeated and Prince Bovoradej left for exile in Indochina.
A few months later in 1934, King Prajadhipok, whose relations with the new government had been deteriorating for some time, went abroad to recieve medical treatment. While abroad, he still tried to retain some influence on the government's policies, but finally gave up when it became clear that the government would not relinguish its increasingly dogmatic nature. In March 1935, while still in Europe, he announced his abdication. The government then chose Prince Ananda Mahidol, who was then in school in Switzerland, to be the next king. For the first time in history, Siam was without a resident reigning monarch and was to remain so for the next fifteen years.
The new regime carried out some important reforms. The currency went off the gold standard, allowing trade to recover. Serious efforts were made to expand primary and secondary education. Elected local and provincial governments were introduced, and in 1937 democratic development was brought forward when direct elections were held for the National Assembly, although political parties were still not allowed. Thammasat University was founded, at Pridi's initiative, as a more accessible alternative to the elitist Chulalongkorn, and became a hotbed of radicalism. Military expenditure was also greatly expanded to 30% of the national budget.
The military, now led by Field Marshal Phibun as Defence Minister, and the civilian liberals led by Pridi as Foreign Minister, worked together harmoniously for several years, but when Phibun became prime minister in December 1938 this co-operation broke down, and military domination became more overt. Phibun was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and his regime soon developed some fascist characteristics. In early 1939 forty political opponents, both monarchists and democrats, were arrested, and after rigged trials eighteen were executed, the first political executions in Siam in over a century. Phibun launched a demagogic campaign against the Chinese business class. Chinese schools and newspapers were closed, and taxes on Chinese businesses increased.
Phibun and Luang Wichit, the government's ideological spokesman, copied the propaganda techniques used by Hitler and Mussolini to build up the cult of the leader. Aware of the power of mass media, they used the government's monopoly on radio broadcasting to shape popular support for the regime. Popular government slogans were constantly aired on the radio and plastered on newspapers and billboards. Phibun's picture was also to be seen everywhere in society, while portraits of the ex-monarch King Prajadhipok were banned. At the same time he passed a number of authoritarian laws which gave the government the power of almost unlimited arrest and complete press censorship.
Also in 1939, Phibun changed the country's name from Siam to Prathet Thai, or Thailand, meaning "land of the free." This was a nationalist gesture: it implied the unity of all the Tai-speaking peoples, including the Lao and the Shan, but excluding the Chinese. The regime's slogan became "Thailand for the Thai."
Modernisation was also an important theme in Phibun's new Thai nationalism. From 1938 to 1942 he issued a set of 12 Cultural Mandates. In addition to requiring that all Thais salute the flag, know the National Anthem, and speak the national language, the mandates also encouraged Thais to work hard, stay informed on current events, and to dress in a western fashion. At the same time, Phibun worked rigourously to rid society of its royalist influences - traditional royal holidays were replaced with new national events, royal and aristocratic titles were abandoned (ironically, he retained his aristocratic surname). Even the Sangha was affected when the status of the royally sponsored Thammayuth sect was downgraded.
In 1940 France was occupied by Germany, and Phibun immediately set out to avenge Siam's humiliations by France in 1893 and 1904. Luang Wichint wrote a number of popular dramas that glorified the idea of many ethnic groups belonging to one greater "Thai"empire and condemned the evils of European colonial rule. Irredentist and anti-French demonstrations were incessantly held around Bangkok, and in late 1940 border skirmishes erupted along the Mekhong frontier. In 1941, the skirmishes became a small scale war between Vichy France and Thailand. The Thai forces dominated the war on the ground and in the air, but suffered a crushing naval defeat at the battle of Koh Chang. The Japanese then stepped in to mediate the conflict. The final settlement thus gave back to Thailand a number of the disputed areas in Laos and Cambodia.
This caused a rapid deterioration of relations with the United States and Britain. In April 1941 the U.S. cut off oil supplies to Thailand. Thailand's campaign for territorial expansion came to an end on December 8th 1941 when Japan invaded the country along its southern coastline. The Phibun regime allowed for the Japanese to pass through the country in its advance into Burma and Malaya. Convinced by the Allied defeats of early 1942 that Japan was winning the war, Phibun decide to form an actual alliance with the Japanese.
As a reward, Japan allowed Thailand to invade and annex the Shan States in northern Burma, and to resume sovereignty over the sultanates of northern Malaya. In January 1942 Thailand actually declared war on Britain and the U.S., but the Thai Ambassador in Washington, Seni Pramoj refused to deliver it to the State Department. Instead, Seni denounced the regime as illegal and formed a Seri ThaiMovement in Washington. The regent Pridi led the resistance movement inside Thailand, while Queen Ramphaiphannee was the figurehead of the movement in Great Britain.
Secret training camps were constructed, most of which were set up in the northeast of the country by the populist politician Tiang Sirikhanth (there were a dozen camps alone in Sakhon Nakhon Province). Secret airfields also appeared in the northeast, where RAF and USAAF planes brought in supplies, as well as SOE, OSS, and Seri Thai]] agents; while at the same time evacuating out POWs. By early 1945, Thai air force officers were performing liasion duties with South East Asia Command in Kandy and Calcutta.
By 1944 it was evident that the Japanese were going to lose the war, and their behaviour in Thailand had become increasingly arrogant. Bangkok also suffered heavily from the bombing raids. This, plus the economic hardship caused by the loss of Thailand's rice export markets, made both the war and Phibun's regime very unpopular, and in July Phibun was ousted by the Seri Thai-dominated government. The National Assembly reconvened and appointed Khuang Aphaiwong as Prime Minister. The new government hastily evacuated the British territories that Phibun had occupied and aided the Seri Thai movement while at the same time maintained friendly relations with the Japanese.
The British (the officials in Whitehall and not the officers at SEAC)were in favour of treating Thailand as a defeated enemy, but the Americans had no great sympathy for British and French colonialism and decided to support the new government. Thailand thus received little punishment for its wartime role.
Postwar Thailand
Seni Pramoj became Prime Minister in 1945, and promptly restored the name Siam as a symbol of the end of Phibun's nationalist regime. Pridi as regent was the real power in the new government, which held democratic elections in January 1946. These were the first elections in which political parties were legal, and Pridi's People's Party and its allies won a majority. In March 1946 Pridi became Siam's first democratically elected Prime Minister. In 1947 he agreed to hand back the French territory occupied in 1940 as the price for admission to the United Nations, the dropping of all wartime claims against Siam and a substantial package of American aid.
In December 1945 the young king Rama VIII had returned to Siam from Europe, but in July 1946 he was found mysteriously shot dead in the palace. Three palace servants were tried and executed for his murder, but Thai society has preferred not to dwell on the event rather than to investigate its causes. The king was succeeded by his younger brother Phumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), who was a schoolboy in Europe. In August Pridi was forced to resign amid suspicion that he had been involved in the killing. Without his leadership, the civilian government floundered, and in November 1947 the army, its confidence restored after the debacle of 1945, seized power. In April 1948 the army brought Phibun back from exile and made him Prime Minister. Pridi in turn was driven into exile, eventually settling in Beijing as a guest of the People's Republic of China.
Phibun's return to power coincided with the onset of the Cold War and the establishment of a Communist regime in North Vietnam. He soon won the support of the U.S., beginning a long tradition of U.S.-backed military regimes in Thailand (as the country was again renamed in July 1949, this time permanently). Once again political opponents were arrested and tried, and some were executed. There were attempted counter-coups by Pridi supporters in 1948, 1949 and 1951, the second leading to heavy fighting between rival army units before Phibun emerged victorious. In the 1951 attempt, led by naval officers, Phibun was nearly killed.
In 1949 a new constitution was promulgated, creating a Senate appointed by the king (in practice, by the government). But in 1951 the regime abolished its own constitution and reverted to the 1932 arrangements, effectively abolishing the National Assembly as an elected body. This provoked strong opposition from the universities and the press, and led to a further round of trials and repression. The regime was greatly helped, however, by a postwar boom which gathered pace through the 1950s, fuelled by rice exports and U.S. aid. Thailand's economy began to diversity, while the population and urbanisation increased.
Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn
By 1955 Phibun was losing his leading position in the army to younger rivals led by Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat and General Thanom Kittikachorn. To shore up his position he restored the 1949 constitution and called elections, which his supporters won. But the army was not prepared to give up power, and in September 1957 it demanded Phibun's resignation. When Phibun tried to have Sarit arrested, the army staged a bloodless coup on September 17, 1957, ending Phibun's career for good. Thanom became Prime Minister until 1958, then yielded his place to Sarit, the real head of the regime. Sarit held power until his death in 1963, when Thanom again took the lead.
Sarit and Thanom were the first Thai leaders to have been educated entirely in Thailand, and were less influenced by European political ideas, whether fascist or democratic, than the generation of Pridi and Phibun had been. Rather, they were Thai traditionalists, who sought to restore the prestige of the monarchy and to maintain a society based on order, hierarchy and religion. They saw rule by the army as the best means of ensuring this, and also of defeating Communism, which they now associated with Thailand's traditional enemies the Vietnamese. The young king Rama IX, who returned to Thailand in 1951, was happy to co-operate with this project. The Thai monarchy's present elevated status thus has its origins in this era.
The regimes of Sarit and Thanom were strongly supported by the U.S. Thailand had formally become a U.S. ally in 1954 with the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). While the war in Indochina was being fought between the Vietnamese and the French, Thailand (disliking both equally) stayed aloof, but once it became a war between the U.S. and the Vietnamese Communists, Thailand committed itself strongly to the U.S. side, concluding a secret agreement with the U.S. in 1961, sending troops to Vietnam and Laos and allowing the U.S. to open airbases in the east of the country to conduct its bombing war against North Vietnam. The Vietnamese retaliated by supporting the Communist Party of Thailand's insurgency in the north and northeast.
The Vietnam War hastened the modernisation and westernisation of Thai society. The American presence and the exposure to western culture that came with it had an effect on almost every aspects of Thai life. Before the late 1960s, full access to Western culture was limited to a highly educated elite in society, but the Vietnam War brought the outside world face to face with large segments of the Thai society as never before. With US dollars pumping up the economy, the service, transportation, and construction industries grew phenomenally. The traditional rural family unit was broken down as more and more rural Thais moved to the city to find new job. This led to a clash of cultures as Thais were exposed to Western ideas about fashion, music, values, and moral standards.
The population began to grow explosively as the standard of living rose, and a flood of people began to move from the villages to the cities, and above all to Bangkok. Thailand had 30 million people in 1965, while by the end of the 20th century the population had doubled. Bangkok's population had grown tenfold since 1945 and had trebled since 1970.
Educational opportunities and exposure to mass media increased during the Vietnam War years. As bright university students learned more about ideas related to Thailand's economic and political systems resulting in a revival of student activism. The Vietnam War period also saw the growth of the Thai middle class which gradually developed its own identity and consciousness.
Economic development certainly did not bring prosperity to all. During the 1960s many of the rural poor felt increasingly dissatisfied with their condition in society and disillusioned by their treatment by the central government in Bangkok. Efforts by the Thai government to develop poor rural regions often did not have the desired effect in that they contributed to the farmers' awareness of how bad off they really were. It is interesting to note that it was not always the poorest of the poor who joined the anti-government insurgency. Increased government presence in the rural villages did little to improve the situation. Villagers became subject to increased military and police harassment and bureaucratic corruption. Villagers often felt betrayed when government promises of development were frequently not fulfilled. By the early 1970s rural discontent had manifested itself into a peasant's activist movement.
The peasant's movement got started in the regions just north of the central plains and the Chiang Mai area (not the areas where the insurgency was most active) When these regions had been organised into the centralised Siamese state in King Chulalongkorn's reign, the old local nobility had been allowed to grab large tracts of land. The end result was that by the 1960s close to 30% of the households were landless. In the early 1970s university students helped to bring some of the local protests out on to the national stage. The protests focused on land loss, high rents, the heavy handed role of the police, corruption among the bureaucracy and the local elite, poor infrastructure, and overwhelming poverty. The government agreed to establish a committee to hear peasant grief. Within a short time the committee was flooded with more than 50,000 petitions, way more that it could possibly handle. Officials called many of the peasants' demands unrealistic and too far-reaching.
The political environment of Thailand changed little during the middle '60s. Thanom and his chief deputy Praphas maintained a tight grip on power. The alliance between these two was further cemented by the marriage of Praphas's daughter to Thanom's son Ranong. By the late 1960s, however, more elements in Thai society had become openly critical of the military government which was seens as being increasingly incapable of dealing with the country's problems. It was not only the student activists, but also the business community that had begun to question the leadership of the government as well as its relationship with the United States. Thanom came under increasing pressure to loosen his grip on power when the King commented that it was time for parliament to be restored and a new constitution put into effect. After Sarit had suspended the constitution in 1958, a committee was established to write a new one, but almost ten years later, it had still not been completed. Finally in 1968 the government issued a new constitution and scheduled elections for the following year. The government party founded by the military junta won the election and Thanom remained prime minister.
Surprisingly, the Assembly was not totally tame. A number of MPs (mostly professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and journalists) began to openly challenge some of the government's policies, producing evidence of widespread government corruption on a number of large projects. As a new budget was being debated in 1971, it actually appeared that the military's demand for more funds might be voted down. Rather than suffer such a loss of face, Thanom carried out a putsch against his own government, suspended the constitution and dissolved the Parliament. Once again Thailand had been returned to absolute military rule.
This strongman approach which had worked for Phibun in 1938 and 1947, and for Sarit in 1957-58 would prove to be unsuccessful. By the early 1970s Thai society as a whole had developed a level of political awareness where it would no longer accept such unjustified authoritarian rule. The King, using various holidays to give speeches on public issues, became openly critical of the Thanom-Praphas regime. He expressed doubt on the use of extreme violence in the efforts to combat insurgency. He mentioned the widespread existence of corruption in the government and expressed the view that coups should become a thing of the past in the Thai political system. Furthermore, the junta began to face increasing opposition from within the military itself. Being preoccupied with their political roles, Thanom and Praphas had become more removed from direct control of the army. Many officers felt outraged by the rapid promotion of Narong and the fact that he seemed destined to be Thanom's successor. To these officers, it appeared that a political dynasty was being created.
In the end it was the students that played the decisive role in the fall of the junta. Student demonstrations had started in 1968 and grew in size and numbers in the early 1970s despite the continued ban on politcal meetings. In June 1973, nine Ramkhamhaeng University students were expelled for publishing an article in a student newspaper that was critical of the government. Shortly after, thousands of students held a protest at the Democracy Student demanding the reenrollment of the nine students. The government ordered the universities shut, but shortly after backed down and allowed the students to be reenrolled.
In October the situation became more serious when another 13 students were arrested on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government. This time the student protests were joined by workers, businessmen and other ordinary citizens. The demonstrations swelled to several hundred thousand and the issue broadened from the release of the arrested students to demands for a new constitution and the replacement of the current government.
On October 13, the government yielded to the public's demand and the detainees were released. Leaders of the demonstrations, among them Saeksan Prasertkul, called off the march in accordance with the wishes of the King.
As the crowds were breaking up the next day, the historic October 14th, many students found themselves unable to leave because the police had attempted to control the flow of the crowd by blocking the southern route to Rajavithi Road. Cornered and overwhelmed by the hostile crowd, the police soon responded with violence by lauching barrages of teargas and gunfire. Within minutes, a full scale riot had erupted.
The military was called in, and Bangkok witnessed the horrifying spectacle of tanks rolling down Rajdamnoen Avenue and helicopters firing down at Thammasat University. A number of students commandeered buses and fire engines in an attempt to halt the progress of the tanks by ramming into them, with disastrous results.
With chaos reigning on the streets, King Bhumibol, ignoring the safety concerns of his immediate security staff, ordered the gates of Chitralada Palace opened to the students who were being gunned down by the army.
Despite orders from Thanom that the military action be intensified, army commander Kris Sivara had the army withdrawn from the streets.
Then, for the first time in modern history, Thailand's constitutional monarch openly involved himself in the transition of politcal power. He condemned the government's inability to handle the demonstrations and ordered Thanom, Praphas, and Narong to leave the country.
At 06:10PM, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned from his post as Prime Minister.
An hour later, the King appeared on national television, broadcasting the following speech:
"Today is a day of great sorrow that will be. . . recorded with the utmost grief in the history of our Thai nation. For the past six or seven days, there have been various demands and negotiations that have culminated in an agreement between the students and the government. But then bottle bombs were thrown and tear-gas was fired, causing some clashes in which many people were injured. Violence then escalated all over the city until it became a riot that has not ended until now, with over a hundred of our Thai compatriots having lost their lives.
I beseech all sides and all people to eliminate the causes of violence by decidedly suspending any action leading in that direction, in order that our country can return to a state of normalcy as soon as possible.
Furthermore, in order to remedy the present disaster, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned from the post of prime minister earlier tonight. I have consequently appointed Nai Sanya Dharmasakti as prime minister. . . ."''
The junta had fallen, at the cost of 1,577 lives.
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