Modern Thai Radical Thought: The Siamization of Marxism and Its Theoretical Problems 9745721808

Citation preview

■

MODERN

THAI

RADICAL

THOUGHT ;

THE SIAMIZATION OF MARXISM AND ITS, THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

by Yuangrat

(Pattanapongsej

Wedel

3

MODERN THAI RADICAL THOUGHT t THE SIAMIZATION OF MARXISM AND ITS THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

Yuangrat (Pattanapongse) Wedel Research Series No. 4 ISBN 974-572-180-8 July, 1982

Thai Khadi Research Institute Thammasat University Bangkok, Thailand

180

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS »

I would like to express my gratitude to the Institute of Thai Studies for their generous financial support for the research in this thesis.. Without that support the research involved in this project would have been more difficult and might not have been completed.

I

would also like to thank the Institute for its patience in this research and its willingness to give this recipient of their research grant complete academic freedom in bringing that research to its conclusion

t

I would also like to thank Professor Chai -anan Samudavanija, Ajaan Boonruang Niamhom and Paul Wedel who have each given me useful suggestions and much help during the research and writing of this paper.

*lna ywnu(iwiwwif)

• ■■ MWIUB

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

.....................

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS’........................... .... INTRODUCTION . .....................................

ii ill 1

CHAPTER I,

THE HISTORY OF THAI RADICAL THOUGHT

9

The Forerunners The Sakdina System The Beginning of Western Influence Socialism. Becomes a Factor Pridi Panomyong — After the 1932 Coup The "Draft Economic Plan The Institutionalization of Anti-Communism The Mainstream of Thai Marxism Lardyao — Incubator of Communism The Radical Students — Neo--Thai Marxists II.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS—

THE SIAMIZATION OF MARXISM 137

The Radical Approach to Thai History Problems with the Radical Interpretation Class and the Class Struggle The State Religion: Buddha and Marx People 1 s Art and Literature Thai Woman-r-Obj ect of Oppression Revolution and the Party The Ideal Society III.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THAILAND . ■

365

A History of the Communist Party of Thailand The influence of Mao The CPT arid the Modern Thai Radical CONCLUSION

,.............................

APPENDIX ' BIBLIOGRAPHY

401 416

...............

423

LIST

FIGURES

OF

Figure Theoretical Schematic of Revolution ...... 304

i

v

INTRODUCTION

Marxism has been given different meanings many of them far from what Marx envisioned - depending on the time, place and culture in which they were expressed.

While Marx was still alive even he was

surprised (and dismayed) by the varied interpretations his writings were given.

He dissociated himself from

his more dogmatic followers, saying that if the follower were "Marxists" then “All I know is that I am no ’Marxist’." Marx was upset -by the superficial understanding of his theories and their distorted and dogmatic application to unintended areas.

But after

his death the distortions and dogmatism grew at an even faster pace.

In part at least it was a tribute to the

richness of his ideas; in part it was due to terrible problems of the world and the desperation to find radical solutions.

The number of ’’Marxists" increased

and the altered ideas of Marx were spread -to alien* cultures and situations.

Whether this is good or bad

I shall not attempt to judge, but it is an important phenomenon, worthy of serious study in detail.

I hope

to present a close, careful look at this process in one small but not unimportant country. Radicals all over the world -have used Marxist theories in many different ways to suit their societies. Modern Thai radical thinkers are no exceptions to this

1.

2 \

general tendency. They have borrowed extensively from Marx and have tried to adapt the ideas to fit Thailand. This process of adaptation to Thailand in all its facets and features, both intended and unintended, I have called "the Siamization of Marxism. " This process of intellectual transmission and transformation has not, however, drawn the attention of scholars despite its important, indeed dominant role in twentieth century Thai thought.

The purpose of* this thesis

is to show how and why modern Thai radical thinkers have ’’Siamized".Marxist theories.

It will also point out the

difficulties that this process entails.

The study will

show the ways in which adaptation has become distortion, the ways in which the Thai radicals sometimes unknowingly contradicted Marx and in many cases the ways in which the radicals were forced to distort Thai history and culture to make it fit what they, thought were the forms demanded by Marxism. Generally the adaptation of Marxism is done by the combination of adapting Thai beliefs and ideas to Marxist forms and adapting Marxist ideas to fit Thai forms. This happened both consciously and unconsciously. It was done consciously and intentionally when Thai radical thinkers , realizing the many differences, set out to integrate the two. It was done unconsciously when they misinterpreted Marxism by seeing it totally through eyes and minds conditioned by traditional Thai culture.

Because all

modern Thai radicals were born, educated and raised in Thailand, their ways of thinking have been formed to Thai models. Hence, when they try to interpret any new ideas, they unconsciously interpret them to fit, however,' uncomfortably with the beliefs and values they already held so deeply. ' In this thesis the term radical must be given a

’vJuj-17.*'£?'U ’-■*' ■’' v '■'

’

* forward in the epics of kings going bravely to war.

The

contrast between the poetic ideal and the harsh reality he found outside the capital must have fired his indignation so that he forgot the dangers of criticizing the royal - order.

Tim may al o be seen as one of the first exponents

24

of a rising middleclass who accepted to' some extent the myths of royalty but at the same time was beginning to feel its own competence and was shocked to find many "nobles" less noble than themselves . "Nirad Nongkhai" though written to protest particular misdeeds in a single military campaign r still showed the most thoroughgoing radical analysis of Thai class society of privilege and power.

It manifests Tim’s

suspicion that the immorality of the high officials on rhat campaign was perhaps typical of how the high treated the ✓ low everywhere in Thailand. The picture of the poor, lowranking soldiers compared to their luxury-loving superiors supports this point.

Another was the misery of villagers

suppressed by high officials. Tim seems to have thought, however, that the king was unaware of the abuses and his aim in describing the situation was to draw the king's attention to the cry of the poor and to stimulate the political consciousness of those among the ruled who could read (not a very large number at that time) ,

His style

seems to indicate this split’ of intentions, with the classic form adopted to get the attention of the welleducated king, but with the bluntness and starkness of the descriptions to stimulate popular feeling almost certainly causing royal anger.

So at least in part, Tim's method

and intention was similar to .those of Engels in describing 21 "The condition of the working class in England" in 1844. Tim and Engels each gave a graphic account of the miseries of the exploited and both (Tim less explicitly) blamed it oh the class that owned the means of production since in Thailand at that time all land was owned by the King and awarded to relatives and officials. Tim appeared to be showing that the economic system allowed the ruler and his servants to exploit the people without limit.

The system required people to pay

25

tribute to the royal army without condition.

Whenever

the army passed a Village it would collect as much rice as possible from the people', even if the people were starving. High military officials took advantage of the wars and natural disasters they were supposed to protect the people from to loot them even more thoroughly and acquire a vast amount of rice when the price was the highest.

Tim described military officers returning from

the campaign loaded with booty though they never won victories and never left the land they were supposed to protect.

To Tim, this process was plainly theft.

The

villager received only an immaterial return - security (and was obligated to give his sons to fill the ranks) . So the Thai peasant, at least when within reach of the king’s officers was worse off than the industrial proletariat described by Marx, and Engels.

Thai officials

did not depend on surplus value to become wealthy, but had rights to the total labor of the villager any time they could collect it.

Perhaps the major alleviating factors

were that the land was rich and the roads were bad. People came to pl’ead with the head of the army that the draft division was mistreating them, That rice was scarce and expensive. But the division still wanted to collect from every house. The officers said it was for distribution to the army But they just kept it for themselves. Those officers, those tricky minded people asked too much. The villagers said "They just wanted to suppress us." The commander listened to the story, Then investigated. Khunsri was nominated to be the judge. The draft division was so afraid So they admitted that they collected too much rice. Khunsri ordered that the rice be returned

i

,26

And the villagers came to get their rice And paid respect to him, Then carried their rice home. 22 (For Thai script see appendix No. 13) This was the only case that corruption was caught and no punishment was ordered. But many other cases were simply ignored. Tim’s critique covered the social aspects and remarked on the tradition at that time jwhich allowed the ruling class to have a harem. The radical works mentioned above are not the I

** -

only ones which show attempts to break out from the traditional forms of Thai classical literature.

There

are other radical passages mocking the king and sympathetic to the poor which can be found scattered in some writings which were not actively suppressed by aristocratic authority.

The ones that I have mentioned here are those

whose radical nature caused trouble to the authors . Sriprard was executed. Tim was thrown into prison. Clearly these works were considered intolerably radical for their times .• Although Sriprard, Phramahamontri and Tim lived in different periods of time, they shared some similarities.

They were commoners or lower ranking

nobility who were elevated to serve the king because of their talent. The* instrument they used to express themselves was similarly the poetry of the class they attacked.

Their radical ideas were not only forcefully

suppressed while they were alive, but almost completely eradicated from the history of the period.

Sriprard ’s

non-radical verses survived, of course, to make him famous, •

r

but the names of Phramahamontri and Tim were not wellknown or highly praised in Thai literature textbooks despite the excellence of their poems.

Even though their

I 27

works were printed in the early years of the National Library editions of the Thai classics, they were intentionally ignored in later periods by Thai scholars who mostly 'belonged to the aristocratic class.

It was not

until ‘the early 1950 ’s that their works were brought to wider public attention by Jit Pumisak. In his book ’’The Critique of Literature in the Sakdina 'Period’’, Jit praised these forerunners

highly.

It was during this period that their names and their works were re-examined and re-introduced by less traditional scholars and teachers. But the brief renaissance of these radical forerunners was abruptly ended with a government crackdown that banned Jit’s book and prevented circulation of the old radical .poetry.

The

poetry was still kept in the Thai Classical Library but it was not allowed to be seen by the general public. For ■ all their radical views of the class sytem none of them ever quite got beyond criticizing the individuals to attack the system as a whole. They blamed the abuses they saw on the evil of particular people, and never took the further step of Marx and Engels of systemic analysis that would suggest the replacement of the system by something else.

One possible reason for this is that

none of these forerunners had any experience of a society different from the one they were dissatisfied with. They had nothing to compare it with except its own idealized image reflected in the traditional literature. So their ideas had their genesis solely from Thai tradition and their own personal experiences. This is the major difference between these early thinkers and those that followed.

But’it also makes it much more important to

understand them because these early radical thinkers and the purely Thai society they came from can be used to understand the effect of western influences on the writers •

28

who

followed

these

them.

forerunners

protestors

age

system

that

system

the main

understand

The

for

was

armies

along

period

and

back

land

"sak"

does

not

imply

use of the king

of King system

Rama

closeness with

great

individual’s

the

sole

of birth

precision rights,

society

traditional

criticism the

Thai

Cambodia

and we must

attacks

on it.

status

and

his

could

Because

by land". The

it

right to

but the

land

t h e reign

until

In the

his

The was

determined

political

his

and

of status

is an was ♦

ranked an

power,

relationship

was

sakdina

by his

relationship

Thailand

t*he measure

But

to the k i n g ,

and

”na"

t o status,

tlie status

state

Sukothai

be translated

i s determined

wealth,

Thai

King

the word

century.

of that

The

late

ownership.

or service

because

in the under

of the 19th

a t all.

by victorious

of war

according

late

to the

but- the

r

social

was

status

owner

importance

of society.

agricultural

the

people

of land

given

V in the

and

it clarify

does

So sakdina

right

was

the

responsibilities whole

means

an individual’s

relationship

the

or ’’status as shown

land

remained

before

not

spoils

or ricefield.

as ’’land status"

.1

in Thailand

established 24 (1448-1488) ,

word

forgotten?) at the

firmly

Baromtrailoganard .The

was

from

other

became

other

SYSTEM

that

influence

with

many

t h e basis of traditional 23 ' • four 'hundred years and still

than

brought

how

of

look

understand

SARD INA

system

more

strong

system

means

a deeper

of radical

we can

sakdina

knows

‘ N o t only

THE

of t h e works

completely

existed

target

it before

maintains

who

origins, of all Thai

was

life

few

been

to take

of westernization,

intellectual

Thai

(and

have

be useful

economic

impact

survive

of the

So it would and

'Unfortunately

his

to the .

measured r

29

in units of ricefields or farmland - the ’'rai”. When used solely to measure land, one rai was equivalent to about ' .4 acre, but in the sakdina system it meant much more, and did not precisely measure the amount of land a person controlled.

It*"was rather a limit to what he could control.

For example a prince might have a sakdina status of 40,000 rai.

He would have many more rights and

responsibilities’ than a nobleman with a status of 10,000 rai.

But the prince would not necessarily control 40,000

rai of farmland nor the nobleman 10,000. The ’’Sakdina 25 X ’ Directory”, written under King Baromtrailoganard , showed . the precise number of status units (rai) assigned to each member of the court.

The total amount of land added up

to more than the amount of cultivated land that exists in Thailand even today, and the Thailand of 500 years ago had far less farmland. The. sakdina status of an individual translated quite directly into political power since it denoted ail individual’s closeness to the throne.

With particular

levels of sakdina went certain amounts of executive authority, The brother of the king, for example, was given a status of 200,000 rai and the king's son 150,000 raii

This was because under the Thai system the line of

royal succession did not necessarily go from father to son, but often from one brother to another, especially if the son were very young or not very capable.

Sakdina status

also translated directly into military power since sakdina status denoted the upper limit of the number of soldiers a -lord had the right to enlist (this also had a financial impact since civiiians drafted into the army could buy their way out).. When in the late 15th century King Taisra was planning a campaign to try to regain control of Cambodia records show -that one lord, Phra Pichanarong, with * G a status of 5,000 rai, was allowed to enlist 5,000 men.

30

Phraya Gosatipbodi

t

with 10 r000 rai was ordered to recruit

10,000 crewmen for the navy.

These limits1 on their armies

were also limits on their part in th£ victories that could be won, the spoils brought back and the increased favor , gained from the king. In times of peace, when kings wished to build a palace, temple, road or canal, they ordered their noble officials to draft corvee labor according to their status. In those times control of labor was direct control over the means of producing wealth, whether through bribes paid to avoid the labor or a percentage of the produce or royal favor- created by the labor.

The level of sakdina

status also corresponded roughly with the size and wealth of the region the official was assigned to administer.

It

also measured judicial powers within their areas with high status officials given near absolute powers of punishment of those under their control. Legal rights depended on sakdina status. 27 A person with a status of 400 rai or more had the- right to hire a lawyer to represent him in a legal dispute.

At least that status was required for the

right to pay personal

homage to the king in the court.

Status also implied obligations to the king both in war and peace.

High status individuals were supposed to have

higher standards of conduct and punishments for certain offences were heavier the higher the status of the offender . There is one explicit resemblence between the Sakdina system and European feudalism - that each individual typically '’belonged” to a person of high rank, to whom he owed service and loyalty and from whom he in turn received protection and sustenance. But in general there were many marked differences between the sakdina system, etc. There are clearly many differences between the sakdina system in Thailand and the feudal system that

31

evolved in Europe,

V 28 Many Thai radical thinkers, saw in

the marxist analysis of the European feudal system a ready made understanding of the sakdina system that ignored the substantial differences.

The central similarity which

later led to much misunderstanding

is simply that both

the feudal and sakdina system give to certain sharply defined and numerically very small classes of people the right to control both the means of production r- the land and the labor needed to make it fruitful.

Thai officials

could do just about anything with the land they were given control of -by the king they wanted to except sell it.

So

most Thai officials became landlords by renting their rights to the land to the peasantry for a .certain percentage of the crop. The official, because of his political role, also had control of the labor of the people under his control, Among the differences is the fact that status • 29 among officials without royal blood was not inheritable. When the official died all his land reverted to the monarchy. Even among the royal family status could not be inherited on a constant level, but dropped a notch with each generation.

So a son of a- king was given the rank of

Phra Ong ’Chao and if he did not rise to the throne his son would be of the slightly lower Mom Chao rank and his son in turn would be only a Mom Ratchawong whose son would be a Mom Luang whose son would not inherit any rank at all. So in five generations the progeny of a king would become commoners again. With this system, it is clear that the powerful hereditary lords of European feudalism would have more difficulty in maintaining themselves since power and rank stemmed directly from the present king.

In the late

Sukothai period with growing influence from the Hinduized kingdom of the Khmers the Thai monarchy became even more

32

centralized'

in the

absorbed

the

from

the

original

king

of Thailand

Brahman

contemplate.

made

period

system.

The

existence

ruled

in Thailand

and

other

tropical

low

in relation

worthless great

although always

was

sakdina

too

ruler

royal

birth, and

the

were

despite

kept

of France

got

of course

some

and resoluteness officials always

rose

through

the

also

of ruler

numbers

was

raising

Malaria

of people

in feudel land

kings

was

to have

others) great

the king,

not

feet

of

put

up with

there

there

undoubtedly

were

the

peasants

many

of them

became

own

a

were

few

thoroughly. of noble

personal

armies

in a way

were.

of the power

Though

it

king

with

sometimes

(though

less

skill

noble

influence

in Thailand,

from

outside

some

that

So as the

bureaucratized,

that

if

and communication

control

,

his

the reason

never

exercised

peasant

option

to the king

personal

than

with

than

of travel

or Britain

of the

the Thai

The

their

accountable

and

power,

rather

though

modernized

out

forests

Europe,.

of voting

officials,

from

the

never

protests

In Thailand

great.

the difficulties

grew,

in feudal

tighter.

who milked

royal

remained

system

radical

in Thailand, while

forest

recorded

generally lords

too

probably

officials

These

and

and codified

relations

had kept

option

were

into

some

formalized

political

effective

revolts

of kings

under-utilized

that

land

formal

disappearing

peasant

from

diseases

oppression

terrible

quickly

someone to clear i t , fashion it with / paddy fields and make it produce. So

without the

divinity

in the power

relatively

into

had

were

of vast,

to the

without

labor

monarchy

and dre.w the first

difference

land

of the

beliefs

and

Europe,

Thai

L concept of the king as father, the .Thai became a demi-god too fearful even to

the

a sharp

The

ideas

These

in trie Ayuthaya against

palace.

power

it was base

33

.as was true of European feudal lords. The accepted instrument for enforcing the forms of respect and behavior within the court was the "Palace Law". 3° The law consists of rules and stipulated punishments for misbehavior. For instance, article 58 31 states that "whosoever speaks while he should be paying respect to the king deserves instant punishment of death." 32 Article 7 5 states that officials of status level 1,600 rai to 10,000 rai were forbidden to form close associations or meet secretly.

All associations were to be vertical,

with duty and allegiance owed to the king, Unusual closeness among the middle ranking officials was suspected of being disloyal to the king and execution was one punishment. The ten punishments stipulated in the palace law seem today to be extraordinarily severe.

The

punishments included decapitation,' being trampled by an elephant, cutting out the tongue and jamming a coconut into the mouth, whipping and jailing, chaining hands and feet in public and confiscation of all property. These harsh measures,

coupled with the mythology of respect for the

king, were powerful means to prevent the establishment of any resistance to the monarchy. The king’s power was consolidated with absolute control (as far as anyone could exercise it) over all the means of production in the country. Under the Sakdina system the king was the "Chao Paen Din" or "lord of the land". He owned all the land in the country according to the law and gave it out to those who served him well. In addition the Thai king used different kinds of tax systems to obtain revenue. Some of these were on merchants both importing and exporting goods from the country.

Others

were on the lords given control of land and people. So the lords and the merchants in turn had to get extra money or extra work out of the common people.

This

i

§

S «:

34

indirect system of exploitation has become a tradition in Thai society.

■

x

The total power the king exercised in the sakdina system created a society characterised as "Oriental 33 Despotism" by Wittfogel, It created traditions of subservience and obedience that persisted strongly as radical Thai thought slowly began to develop - usually in revolt against those traditions. The sakdina system "also inhibited the growth of any horizontal organizations among people of the same social class. Everything was organized vertically with, the king as the head and his officials as the direct instruments of his will.

So there was a clear-

cut two class society «- the rulers (the king and his bureaucrats and the ruled (the peasants who tilled the land) .

Both were rigidly locked into place by tradition

t

belief and harshly enforced law. Traditional Thai society in the sakdina was a closed system of obligations'; beliefs; power relations 'and' functions that not only worked; but seemed to allow little possibility of fundamental change.

We have seen that the

few. radical voices lifted in protest against the system ■ were lonely shouts of personal frustration that were quickly suppressed and nearly forgotten.

But trade and

contact with the outside European world had been gradually increasing from its beginnings in the 17th century. The .

rising volume of foreign trade began creating a middleclass. But most of- this new middleclass

were Chinese who had

little intellectual influence on the Thai society around them;. They were looked down upon even by the much poorer Thai peasants.

But financially the Chinese middleclass

f

was quickly growing in power as foreign capitalism drove .a wedge into ,the sakdina system.

Foreign influence began

to accelerate in the 19th century as treaties with first Great Britain, then the United States, the Netherlands and ■ ■

35

* 34 Portugal were signea. and Chinese,

Though foreigners, both European

controlled the trade, Thais were inevitably

brought, into it.

On the upper levels Thai officials had

to deal with the strange foreigners and try to keep them under control.

On the lower levels Thai workers saw smart

and- hardworking Chinese amass sizeable fortunes without traditional service to the king (except in paying high taxes).. They also worked on the trading ships, seeing different societies, different systems and bringing back strange ideas. Thailand’

kings were farsighted enough to see the

system’s inadequacy in the face of the trade and military «...

work together is

common.

Everyone

product. The w i l l to cooperate and disunity The c o n f l i c t s among

men will disappear. . I f there i s c o n f l i c t , i t will solved e a s i l y because o f the sense o f c o o p e r a t i o n " ,

be oo

he wrote. Phraya of workers" of competing royal

Suriyanuwat

in those

means to bargain that

the

working that

Phraya Thai

is

hours should still

riot

not

Despite his ideas less with

and give it in relation

-• merchants

were

the traffic' independent threatened at

court

aroused

that

force

the

in this

7 5 years

high

rank

matter

the

first

•

and good reputation

did not find much favor with other government o f f i c i a l s . to put H i s ideas by nationalizing

into the

the

opium

government

franchises

to regulate

in their own areas in conjunction with semi, government officials. With their interests the officials and merchants used their influence Phraya

Suriyanuwat

to r e s i g n .

Even his writings in the years that followed anger in the court.-' King Rama VI asked Phraya and

-

later.

can be considered his

best

capitalist 8 w a g e s " . 4 He added

interfere

accepted

the

the power to determirie and c o l l e c t to it. Under the old system independent

given

to force

Suriyanuwat. series

"to

and i n c r e a s e

When in 1906 he began to try practice, however cautiously, trade taxes

an " a s s o c i a t i o n

to suggest

strike

Suriyanuwat

socialist.

as a diplomat king and even

days)

was the

government

something,

proposed

to bargain with capitalists as a unit instead ' among themselves.. He even went so far (for a

'official

to. decrease

also

to stop

writing

criticized

it

the

himself.

controversial The king

"Sapsat" wrote

58

"In Thailand nobody is higher than anyone else, except the king. Everyone is qual. In Thailand we do not have super-millionaires

or even millionaires like in

Europe. But.we also .do not have the poor like in Europe either". 85 The king added that Thailand could not follow western examples because: "Thai people donate things to poor relatives and friends.

That is in the Dharma.

We learn by being Buddhist in distributing to each other. Hence it is not necessary to teach one side to be possessive and the other side to confiscate others’ property..'These are all the lessons to be found in "Sapsat".

We men do not have to be separated into

different cliques and made to hate each other.

Why begin?"

’’Sapsat" was banned and Phraya Suriyanuwat was forbidden to return to government. After ‘the example made of such a high official for unorthodox economic thinking few lesser men had the courage -to write- about any economic theory.

But government

fear of its influence led to King Rama VII passing a law banning any form of economic teaching.

But, unsurprisingly

the ban only encouraged distorted and fanciful ideas of what socialism was.

Both supporters and opponents were

hurt by the- enforced silence, as brief as it was, and more important they were unable to see their areas of agreement or resolve their differences of idea. Then on 87 June 26, 1932 a small group of civilians and disgruntled military officers -with careful planning and more than a little luck swept aside the absolute monarchy that had dominated Thailand for seven centuries..

59

PRIDI

There remains

PANOMYONG

is no point

the most

the 'overthrow

of the

Thai

and

was

direct

focus

developed

constructing

two-fold.

the

swept same

monarchy

away time

most

from

that

was - later "used against

system

by* those- who

Second,

.and’simply

had the

z

differing

’brought He was

forward

1932

by the

driving

point

of the jobs

program.

people’s

will

reflected

not the

importance

to set

allow

of economic

power

The

first

of Thai

life.

efforts

and

set

basic- pattern

the -means

In many and

ways

arguments

for the

and

care

by providing economic

It set

the

revolution

to "take

economy

of the monarchy

aspects

the

the

Panomyong.

or People ' s Party

up a national

to go beyond

and

thinker

behind

pledged

factors.

power.

change

was Pridi

Raat

.

that

conflict.

force

starvation"

r

opened,

radical

the

at

symbol

former

radical

revolution

and

But

plan

program

party ' s and Pridi *s understanding

. Pridi’ s efforts the absolute

open

program

happiness

for .everyone,

which

The

that

to change

system

more

group , Kana

this

forces

wishing

the

was

monarchies.

leading

ideological

coup

which

from

Undoubtedly

in the

into

the

arid drafted- the six

opinions

the king

the king’s

of much

Unquestionably

the

major'

an untouchable

inherited

briefly-, -the possibility brought

its

political

those

change

- both

thought

him.

-

practical

retarding

the monarchy

5

history

and

system

the

still

advancing

of the world's

it made

Its

it removed

supply

Thai

and varied

in political

and

what

-

enormous

of the

COUP

over

monarchy.

First

to, support

1932

in going

, both

of criticism

saved" the Thai have

been

But

THE

event, of modern

absolute

has

development.

impact

here

important

effect "on Thailand liberating

- AFTER

the steps

of the

stage

for

of removing

transform

all

Pridi’ s thoughts, used

against

him

struggle* of the radical

60

thinkers who followed him. One observation

needs to be made before continuing.

Until the 1932 revolution, however despised or distrusted or persecuted they were, radical and socialist thinkers •were not lab led communists. Phraya Suriyanuwat ’s economic plan was in .some ways not too different from the plans being put into effect in Soviet Russia, but he was not called a communist. Thailand’s isolation from the intellectual and political ferment of Europe may be one reason for this.. But by 193.2 the fears of other nations and information about the violent changes in Russia were 4 * well known to the Thai elite. The struggles in China, however, were much -.closer to hand and had a much deeper impact. In 1929 .the Kuomintang government purged the communists, killing many arid raising shrill anti-communist propaganda against its former partners.

Not only did the

• propaganda reach Thailand, but the strong passions were ref lected ’in the size'able Chinese community.

Running for

. their lives, some of the Chinese communists even fled to Thailand.

Some of these set up the first communist party 89 .in Thailand in 1931. This created fear of Communist expansion among Thai .officials, encouraged, perhaps, by the pro- Kuomintang merchants in Thailand. The victims of the heightened feelings, however, were not the members of the fledgling party,' but as was to be the case for the next 45 years/ the victims were ..the radical thinkers with no party affiliation. In the Thai sense a communist began to mean, anyone influenced by Marxist-Leninist thought. -The first victim of this classification was Pridi, * but at least- when' he started Pridi showed rather a superficial knowledge

of Marxism.

Like many of those who

considered’ themselves his followers, h.e was much more Thai than Marxist.

The work that brought him the label . ' 90 > of communist was his ’’Draft Economic Plan" written in

61

1932 and revealed in 1933.

It was.hardly a "communist

manifesto of Thailand" and not very Marxist.

It wasn't

until he was banished from .Thailand in 1949 and took upresidence in China and France that Pridi had the chance Jt

for extensive study of Marxism.

It was then he began

what was certainly a systematic attempt to Siamize the thought of Marx. 91 Pridi was born in 1900, into a well-educated middle.-class family in the province of Ayuthya, just north of Bangkok.

His father was a public health officer,

apparently one of the more modern thinking men in the province, which was then quite rural - o n e of the major rice growing provinces in the country.

He seems to have

been torn between the modern thinking of his father and the traditional Thai beliefs of his grandmother.

The

household, under the influence of the old woman, was very Buddhist.

Buddhist acceptance must have clashed

with the forward-looking ideas of his father.

In school

as well Pridi was influenced by teachers who questioned the absolute monarchy.

The radical side of Pridi was

•further encouraged during his studies of law and politics in yParis.

He clashed sharply there with the aristocratic

and autocratic ambassador but made some of the contacts that were later to grow into the Kana Raat.

As intellec-

tual leader of the party he drafted the national economic plan that envisioned major changes in the Thai economy and society.

Branded a communist Pridi left the country

under pressure in the spring of 1933 for a brief exile in Singapore.

He returned in 1934 when the 'political

climate improved and he was cleared of communist allegations.

He served in a number of top level government

posts including Foreign Minister, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Finance.

He never was able to muster the

political support to risk pushing ahead his ideas for

62

transforming Thailand and the 1932 coup remained an uncompleted revolution.

During the Japanese occupation

Pridi, acting secretly with Allied intelligence services, f

helped to set up the Thai Seri resistance force.

When the

war ended with the Japanese defeat, his political opponents in the military who had cooperated with the Japanese were in eclipse and his influence increased until in 1946 he became Prime Minister arid regent for the young king Ananda, newly returned after spending the war years in Switzerland.

The rise of Pridi* s power and the growing

likelihood that he would be able to implement some of'■ his ideas came to an abrupt halt with the tragic death 92 of Kind Ananda under mysterious circumstances in ,1946. Because Pridi was rumored to have Republican sentiments and because he was both regent and Prime Minister a t the time of the death he was vulnerable to allegations encouraged by his political enemies .

Pridi was forced

to resign and left for a trip abroad to let emotions cool. But while he was gone the discredited pro-fascist elements in the Army began to gather their forces for a comeback. •Pridi returned from his travels in 1947 when his enemies overthrew the government and again forced Pridi to flee. Pridi returned to Thailand briefly in 1949 as the politically more liberal navy attempted a coup.

The

attempt fell flat when the Prime Minister escaped capture and navy ships were trapped and sunk in the Chao Phya River.

Pridi again fled and took shelter with the. newly

victorious communist regime in Peking. his attention to theoretical works.

Here he turned

He remained an unseen

force within ’Thailand, but was never directly associated with the Communist Party of Thailand which was growing more powerful in the countryside.

Pridi left .China in

1970 for Paris where he has remained a magnet for Thai students and intellectuals travelling abroad.

In both

63

Peking and Paris Pridi wrote many articles, both in French and Thai, developihg his ideas more systematically than when he was in or close to power.

His later writings

became more Marxist influenced, but they were also conscious attempts to change and adapt Marx to fit the Thai situation and consciousness.

Buddhist philosophy

also grew in importance and ,his article "Kwam Pen Anijjang 93 Khong Sangkhom‘' ("The Impermanence of Society") was a systematic effort to integrate the two. / THE DRAFT ECONOMIC PLAN Although his later work was more systematic, more scholarly and more radical, Pridi’ s importance for Thai radical thought depends to a great extent on the "Draft Economic Plan" which he devised when he was only 32. Written in the afterglow of the successful revolution and amidst grand hopes for radical change in Thailand, the ' plan is in many ways naive and idealistic.

But Pridi was

realistic enough to begin by declaring that he did not want to impose any political or economic system on Thailand.

Speaking to Lord Louis Mo.untbatten much later,

in 1970, he said that "the purpose of the plan was to lay down guidelines that would be suitable for Thai society and begin to eradicate the age-old exploitation of the people.

Because as long as there was exploitation,

society would never have justice.

And a society that lacks 94 justice would never- be able to find peace". In the

introduction to the plan) Pridi wrote: The new government promises to promote the economic welfare of its citizens by providing remunerative employment for everyone and by promulgating a national economic policy designed to end poverty. 5 5

64

. Pridi said that the only way to better the standard of living was that’ the government must undertake to administer a national economic policy by which the economic system will be sub-divided into diversified . 96 co-operative associations,. Pridi ' s plan borrowed a number of aspects that Phraya Suriyanuwat had borrowed in turn from the Utopian socialists of Europe. aware of the precariousness

But Pridi,

of rural existence from his

boyhood in Ayuthaya, wanted the government to guarantee social welfare.

It was not only to solve economic

problems that the government should monopolize the economy, but to give the people “social insurance" which •Pridi said was "better than the accumulation of wealth" .

97

Pridi wrote that social insurance was important because of the instability of the present economic system which would make existence very uncertain for everyone - the poor, the middle class and even the rich.

So, he said,

the government should consider it as its duty to provide "social assurance »to the people"-. Why not let the people 'manage for themselves?

Pridi wrote:

It is beyond the scope of privately operated companies to issue such insurance as this. Or if they do so, people must pay- a heavy premium for the protection. And where can people secure money enough to pay for it? No, only through government can it be done. Because a government does not have to collect premiums directly from its citizens. A government can work out some method other than the insurance premium one. Thus it can increase the productive power of the people and then collect indirect tax which amounts to so little per day that the people will scarcely feel it. 98' Pridi seemed to see the government as a' paternalistic organization separated from the people. He did not seem to notice or address the usual contradiction of democratic socialism that politically

v

65

depends on the wisdom of the people and economically acts to take care of the people as if they were children. Government should, he proposed, distribute enough money to the people to insure they could buy the necessities of life.

Money to Pridi was to be used- like a credit

card - to exchange for products produced by the cooperative unit. Pridi’ s ways of nationalizing the economy were much more similar to those of Robert Owen than to those of Karl Marx.

Owen, of course, tried in his socialist

experiments to use a credit card system.

It is not clear

whether J?ridi was aware of the failure of the Owen efforts, but was, in any case, clearly in favor of repeating them in Thailand. In order for the government to have enough money to insure the necessities of life for the people, Pridi wanted the "government to assume control of most of the economy. Pridi went on to point out the most crucial factors of such control. I.1

Land,, which included the wealth in, on and under the land.

2. Labor. 3,. Capital." Pridi- suggested methods to manage the three key elements.

He pointed out that Thailand had been "losing

labor”. It was because, he said, Thailand’s labor force was not. being fully utilized. He said that the average Thai farmer spent only six months working and six months doing nothing.

Labor was further wasted because of the

unsuitable economic system which allowed people to work separately - duplicating efforts, and underutilizing farm equipment. If, he said, farmers would work in cooperatives, they could save time and labor. Still more labor was wasted because of crude methods of farming.

66

• Machines/ Pridi said/ were not used because so few farmers could afford them.

Government should buy farm machinery

to increase the efficiency of labor.

Finally labor was

being lost because of social parasites. the government

Pridi proposed

take complete control of most of the

country's labor force in one swoop, by making everyone a government civil servant. He excepted only the liberal professions such as writers/ lawyers, teachers and doctors and only those in the professions who did not want to , .. , 100 work for the government.

y

No ’unfortunate results are ,to be anticipated from having the majority of the people become government employees. On the contrary the results may be expected to be excellent; the potentialities of the people for productive- labor will be fully and efficiently employed.- After deducting holidays the. people as a whole will be provided with work for the entire year. The fact that at present the farmers are idle for six months of every year need worry us no longer for they will all have full-time employment. 101 Pridi wrote. The idea of controlling the population’s labor

was one not too far from totalitarianism.

Pridi simply

assumed that the Thai people would want to be civil servants under such a system and left little room for choice. • So by making everyone civil servants Pridi seemed to think He would be making them happy.

Pridi ignored

the real reasons that people wanted to become civil servants - to become part of the elite that ruled the people, to have prestige from being one of a select group - and to have the chance -to supplement the small government salary through corruption. ■ of course, those motivations

Under Pridi 's scheme-, would quickly cease to exist.

Once everyone was required to become a civil servant privilege would soon disappear. In dealing with the key aspect for an agricultural society, use and ownership of land, Pridi again suggested'1

67

massive government 'intervention. 'He suggested’ that the « government buy all the land from the people. Because, he claimed, 99%1 °2 o f the f ann ers did not own the land they tilled, .they were not developing it to the fullest extent,. The question was, of course, where to get all the money’. Pridi proposed the government issue a' bond "to the landowners to the amount of the value of their . 103 land". Countering some of the objections he thought would be made, Pridi said that people would love their

.

country and continue to be patriotic even after they sold their land to the government. For the last key element of economic development, Pridi classified two kinds of capital: 1.

2.

Capital to be invested in machinery and manufactured products which the government could not as yet produce itself. *104 Capital for the payment of wages.

In considering the various, methods for gaining control over the nation’s capital supplies, Pridi . '■ explicitly rejected what h e saw. as communist methods: &

" reasons.

Siamese scholars who lean toward the social philosophy of communism advocated the expropriation of the wealth of the people to provide the necessary capital. Personally I am opposed to the expropriation of » 1 property . 105 This statement is interesting for a number of First he, does not quote Marx, Engels or Lenin

directly, indicating perhaps that he had not read them at this.- point, at least in any depth. show that his knowledge,

It also seems to,

or at least his expression of

what he knew, about Marxism was not very deep.

He seems

• to suffer from the same oversimplified view as his enemies had of him.

For Marx of course, simple,

expropriation of wealth was not an important means of controlling capital and certainly not a tactic to be used

68

leading up to a communist revolution. property was to be simply

Expropriation of

a side effect of the proletariat

gaining control over the means of production and was not necessarily to include all property of all people but to concentrate on the bourgeois hold over the means of production. As Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto, "The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property” ."LOG it i s also possible Pridi was deliberately mis-stating the communist position in order to distance himself from it in the face of what he obviously knew would be bitter opposition to his ideas. Pridi' s plan contained a number of rather* conservative elements along with the radical ones. He insisted' the government

should balance its budget and

opposed, the imposition of price controls.

The government

should balance the budget and keep prices low through encouragement of production.

Pridi was so confident that

tremendous- productive forces would be unleashed by more rational use of labor and collective utilization of capital that he depended on it to answer all problems. Foreign trade would be balanced simply by the export of surplus production.

Increasing and improving the products

manufactured internally would remove the incentive, Pridi thought, to buy foreign products. But at the same time he suggested the restriction of imports by the 4 government to prevent a trade deficit. Pridi obviously 'realized that he would face emotional and misconceived opposition to his plans for such a tremendously expanded role in the lives of the people and for his support of collective production units. To defend himself in advance he wrote:

69

Readers with a preconceived antipathy for this policy may conclude immediately that, when the government controls the whole economic system, the people will be reduced to the level of animals, i.e. : women will become common property, family life will be destroyed, interest in progress will cease, etc. 'This type of criticism is ill-grounded. It is true that I have said that all the people are to become government employees with the same privileges and prequi sites which officials now enjoy, salaries in exchange for their' labor, and pensions for their old age. I have taken care that none of the provisions of this plan shall reduce man to the level of the beasts. I want man to be more’ of a man than he is at present, harrassed by the worries and anxieties implicit in the competitive system of private enterprise. I reverence the family. I do not make women common property. I honour very deeply the ties of kinship which exist between grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers and their descendants. . The marriage laws -will not be repealed. The people are '' to continue to have their own homes, the only difference being that the homes will be better homes. . 1 believe tha t the people will strive to advance the wheels' of progress as the government officials do today. If it were true, true that the mere fact of employment by the government destroys initiative, why would present day government officials strive with all their might for the sake of national progress as they do? There are some whp declare that the enactment of this policy will mean the end of scientific research. This certainly is adverse criticism in an exaggerated form. Scientists will be encouraged to continue their programs of . research by rewards offered by the government. Their inventions will continue to be purchased by the government as they are today. So please d o not go around saying that after this .policy is in force there will be nothing left for men to do except to live in a hole and eat , his rice put of the frying pan. If you will ask critics who make remarks of this sort

70

. what books they have been reading such ideas as these, and will let me know,- . I shall consider it an act of kindness . Pridi was clearly aware of the ideas about communism then current in Thailand, and these are what he was defending his plan against.

To a certain degree,

though much more apologetic and less 'revolutionary, Pridi* s rhetoric- is reminiscent of Marx’s in some sections of the Communist Manifesto.

For Pridi was a humanist and

to the extent that Marx was a humanist they agreed that the aim is to free man from an oppressive system and allow himself to realize himself as a social being. Both insist they will not take away the hard-earned property of the workers, say the only culture to be swept away is that of class privilege, and declare they value the family (or at least, the family as it was before industrial change reduced the family to a relation based * 108 "on capital, on private gain"). * While Pridi may have shared some of Marx's goals and partly adopted his method of analysis, and while he also may have borrowed many of the cooperative devices of the Utopian socialists, was uniquely Thai.

the overall scheme he proposed

Unlike Marx, Pridi did not pretend

to prescribe solutions for the ills of the whole world. He was concerned only with Thailand and unlike most radicals at that time he was writing from the perspective of someone who has already won at least a measure of political power through revolution.

He was not exhorting

his people to rise up and throw off their chains. the first step of a revolution

In 1932

had been taken with

surprising s.uccess and Pridi wanted to consolidate it, to turn a political victory in Bangkok into an enduring radical change in the lives of everyone in Thailand. Having won control, momentarily, of the government, it was

71

perhaps natural that Pridi would use' the government as his tool fozt change*

But it was also very Thai.

Respect and

reverence for the power of the government were age-old in Thailand -where the power of < the kings was centralized early and no independent centers of strength were allowed to build up in more than six centuries. . So the most striking feature of the plan - making almost every working person a government employee fits in with the conception Thai people have the power of the government and the

* prestige of working for it (though that prestige might not

have lasted) .

But at the same time Pridi saw that rigid

control from the center would be cumbersome, especially for agriculture Striking,

where differences in local conditions are

His plan, like that of the Utopian socialists,

depends on small- cooperative units of production.

At the

same time Pridi took into account the importance of the family unit. in Thailand and proposed that each family live in separate houses following tradition.

He suggested a

system of municipal government that would both decentralize .some decision making while ty±ng>the localities into the national economic plans and maintaining centralized political contr o 1 . •The Pridi plan went on to recommend the types of product that Thailand should produce.

He said that Thailand

should develop both agriculture and industry to have enough self-sufficiency to withstand" foreign economic pressure. On this point he specifically disagreed with Adam Smith. He wrote: Adam Smith who has many devoted if erring followers, taught that the work of the world should be divided up among the nations , each nation- becoming a specialist in one thing. An agricultural nation, according to his philosophy, should engage only in agriculture and never in industry. This theory would be excellent in a world where nations were absolutely honourable in their treatment of

72

, >

each other and did not erect trade barriers or artificially lower prices. But at present this is hardly the case.l°9

- After attacking laissez faire economics, Pridi turned to express admiration for the western leaders who sought more government control over the economy of their countries - Hitler in Germany, MacDonald in England and Daladier in France. He suggested that these- countries were politically powerful because of government coordination

of the economy.

Pridi saw economic structure as the foundation of politics.

In holding up Hitler's national socialism

as a good example he seemed to be advocating totalitarian control of the economy, but in practice, he fought against the strong fascist and totalitarian sympathies in Thailand for a more popular based government. Economic management by government, Pridi wrote would "prevent problems caused by the conflict of interests between employers and employees". 110 He pointed to capitalist' 'countries where there had been conflict between workers and management.

This occurred because the government

did not have control and did not provide them with common interests. He wrote:

t

But when the government administers the entire economic system it will not matter whether the people are labourers or other kinds of government employee . For whichever they are, they will be equitably rewarded for their services on a basis of achievement. In a very real sense the government will be the representative of the people, which is the same thing as saying that the people themselves will own everything in the nation. When the profits of their joint enterprises are greatly multiplied, labourers and other government employees will share this prosperity equally. The government will have no reason to reserve the larger share, of the profits for any special class, for there will be no special class. m

&

73

Pridi.’s phrase "equitably rewarded for their

'

/

services .on a basis of achievement" is.,far from the classic Marxist formula "from each according to his 112 ability, to each according to his need" . Though clearly influenced by some Marxist ideas, .Pridi’s draft economic plan was even more clearly not, at heart, Marxist. Instead of the victory of. one class over the other - the dictatorship of the proletariat - Pridi seemed to be trying to put peasant and aristocract together in- one class ~ civil servants.

Like Marx he

saw economics as supreme over politics.

In the last

article of his "Social Assurance Act" he wrote "Besides, the political plan must follow the national economic plan"

But perhaps because the initial political

victory seemed to have been won so easily, Pridi seemed to lack the communist keen perception of power, the means to gain it and the means to retain it.

If he had read

Lenin, it appears he did not share the Leninist concern I and appreciation of the possibilities of a revolutionary party as the necessary agent- of radical change. Pridi appeared to have a particularly naive faith in the ability of economists’ to effectively plan the entire economy of Thailand.

Pridi seemed particularly

concerned with what he said was wasted labor.

He believed

that the Thai labourer did not work hard or long enough (quite a contrast from Marx) , therefore it should be the government’s role to regulate and motivate labor.

He did

< not seem to consider that effective employment of a labor force is something' a bit more complicated than simply telling people to work.

Thailand’s problem then,

as now, was more of a surplus of labor rather than a shortage.

Pridi seemed to want to have the government

force people to work even if they probably had nothing useful to do.

Thailand’s economic problems were more

1

complicated goods,

than

Pridi

introducing

new

lack

of infrastructure,

were

but

seem

to see

a few

difficulty

of the

that than

made

a number

manage

the

the its

In the

realized.

last

proper

shortage

of trained

problems quality

part

Pridi

was

personnel

of how

He didn’t

much

in developing

of his draft

more

a

nations.

economic the

for

management,

ignored.

of labor

of suggestions

economy

markets

industries,

quantity Z

Finding

plan,

government

Pridi

should

efficiently.

1. It will be necessary to investigate carefully and prepare estimates of the necessities of life required by the average citizens of a civilized nation in order to assure him a happy and prosperous, existence. Estimates should not be so low as to leave the people in a state of poverty.

*

2. When these various estimates and investigations have been completed, further estimates will be necessary to determine how much land, labor and capital will be necessary to produce them. 3'. When all the estimates have been prepared, it will be necessary to make further estimates of the land, labor and capital now available to the government either potentially or actually as a basis for the proposed economic system. 114 To use investigations of qualified of the the

this

people

faith

had plan

plan

for

its

changes,

in wealth

seemed

The

sharp

changes

the

old

sakdina

its

have

had

have.

any

estimates

needed

more

reaching its

Less

education

or a target

practical quick

would

not

seems

in planning

all

to do the research

it did

population The

with

, Thailand

things

school.

plan

like

corruption,

to offend

- exactly one

past

secondary

to absorb

petcent

an expression

Free its

and those

number

one

than

of

of Pridi *s

rather

than

enterprise

vast

Pridi* s sense

of modernization system

a large

to be sought goals.

and

a

with

discrepancies

of order.

the

inability

changes

must

of have

75

added to Pridi's desire to- impose order on Thai society from the top. „ A rationally,

internally ordered society

would eliminate the symptoms of drastic change in the old system.

Pr-idi wrote that it was only economic pressure

"which drives' honest men to theft, burglary, armed robbery,

etc. Now when the government guarantees the

prosperity of its citizens by undertaking to provide them with adequate food, clothing and shelter, this crime would largely disappear" .

In this sense he had an

outlook similar to the Marxist idea that productive activity determines social activity.

But as a commoner

who rose on his own abilities, he seemed to see no need to force equality on people, only to remove the special privileges under the sakdina system.

He quite clearly

intended to preserve differences in income both as incentive and as a matter of justice.

He wanted equality,

he wrote, but "not in ‘the sense that if a person possesses one hundred baht when the plan goes into operation, his one hundred baht will be expropriated and divided equally among one hundred people" /Like many radical thinkers in the west Pridi's feelings for social and economic change were a kind of religious feeling.

In the conclusion to the draft plan

he sounds like a mixture of utopian socialist and Baptist preacher: When the administration of the economic system by the government shall have brought (about the final consummation, of the aims set forth by the People’s Party in their six point platform, that state of prosperity and felicity which is the laudable desire of every heart and which in the classical „ language is call Sriaraya (Utopia) will have dawned. Shall we, who have opened the door of opportunity to the people, now hem and haw and fumble and hesitate to lead them to the place where they can gather the fruits of the tree of life?117

76

This might of course be dismissed as simply 1 rhetoric for a political purpose, but Pridi ’s constancy to his ideals through a long and tumultuous career make it more plausible that Pridi had a genuine and heartfelt vision of a different future for Thailand. VJhile many of his ideas may have 'been inspired by Marxist or Utopian Socialist thought, the way he put it together, the form of it and some of the innovations within it make the plan very much a product of Thai experience and culture. The key element, and I will go into this more fully later, is the integration of -traditional Buddhist thought with plans for the radical transformation of traditional society.

Some of the means may be taken from Marx or

Owen but the spirit seems to date back to Buddha.

Pridi

makes this quite explicit in the concluding section of the draft plan when he describes the new economic and social order to be brought into being:

*

There at last they will be able to feast on the fruits of happiness, adding prosperity to fulfillment of the Buddhist prophecy to be found in the religious story of Araya Mettaya. According to this prophecy every act of devotion on the part of the faithful followers of religion brings that golden age a little nearer. It is a common saying among the ’people that an oath made and honourably kept brings us closer to the age of Araya Mettaya, Religious ceremonies properly observed and in fact all acts of honesty and integrity" likewise bring nearer the dawn of that era. Now in this plan we have a system by which we can press “forward to this golden age. And yet there are some people who hesitate, who draw back so violently that one would suppose they want to return to the age before enlightenment 2,475 years 'ago when the Buddha had not yet come. U S Pridi seems to be suggesting that his plan and

’ all striving for economic and, social justice is a continuation, a n extent ion of the practice of Buddhism.

f

'

- 77

He relates it directly to'following the rule of Buddhism and performing its ceremonies. But more t h a n t h e .occasional good act dr ceremony, Pridi puts forward his plan as the creation of a system ‘of good works that will 119 lead to the golden age of Araya Mettaya. . < s * * So unlike Marx and his followers who have I. substituted the goals and means of revolution leading to communism for religion, Pridi has defined his radical goals in traditional religious terms .

He also seems

to be saying that the traditional ideas of Buddhism were incomplete and needed a social gospel - a plan for nirvana -on earth within the.foreseeable future and by means of plans and science, work and administration than meditation and devotion.

rather

Clearly Pridi, unlike Marx, -

saw religion as a significant element, not just of the' common practice \Law'’to- J cbmpe'T p'eople

government

.

and a l s o

from- - individual* r

But Pri*di

pushed ‘fo’r appatehtiy'

p§a§arits .

expropriation

the

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x

J

r ;

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r

rs

:r v

the desir-e?$

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X

, -28

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a gradual’ bsxtifpe'i

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mucH-i-ednsideratidri

1

vonom

laiTd’p'iajri'd&nd'j e sensitive

Lenin had favoured

1

transition? without

o f peasant’

-uhe YSfi 1’and according

Engels

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Malrx' wafetr-'athe

feeiihg- ' f o r ther lSnd.

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of© ‘Js&til tifh’dir

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v

radi£ai

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wa’s a ’meashr e breg ectfed? riby? /Marx J EHeJiprop’o'sfed

" t h e -passing

th§

value

cofitirG)T-l fed- . a l l the inmates

many

to

he

abolish

>to

from

time

There

newspaper.

When disappeared

The

visit

up

the

the

release. taught

to

even

crimes

activity

reporting

learned

-;and

.for common

successful. I more than 100

he

1

set

less

had

time

in

by .Sarit.

to

determined

Marxists

theories.

more

this

s organized

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cells,

actions

■i ♦ pr’ison was

Amantagul

arrested

a

draftin

inyited

"attempts ■ 1

in

But

.cooperatively.

eventually Some

his

term

They

lines. their

was

n- an'd became

e,~;was

use,. ' Pluang

Isara

prison.

including

hq

?

7p.ld hg !"’‘wa‘S prorainent

who- were

t o good

Pumisak

Ipctioris

:

communist

first.

of , colleagues

prison Jit

the

- United

"and -.China. J.- When. die returned

s second

and >

*.s4 Peace

pf\-Sur

In '

with

his

"Pi tupoum"

;

charged

Pluang* painful

1

specif ied ‘were . „ 160 / act",

communist

Ip

cancer.

expressing

t±cfipated? ;-in/the

.-the? law.

, India

and

the

province

debates';

U.S.S.R.

"People

H.e p.

rejected

(chronic

d i d ,not- stop

tparty,

home

from

t h e newspaper

. , In

his

Parliamentary the

out

Parliament!

government

gr’e t &isery but

put

organized for

in

some £hey schemes

prison.

‘from

educations a Chinese

taught:

English

%

was

released

countryside

in

1966

where

h e immediately he

joined

the

101

Communist Party- of Thailand.

He was later elected a

member of the central committee. 161 Isara Amantagul was another- radical writer who became acquainted with P.luang in prison. •from a middle class/ Muslim background.

Isara came

Like Pluang

he went to Thammasat University/ but did not graduate before being arrested 'in 1958. While still in university he won a reputation as a novelist, poet and translator. His arrest was for violations of the anti- communist act in his written works . , He had many pen names .

The' most

.famous was Rerng Apirom which he used in jail for his novels.

He also had. a newspaper column under the name

of Frank Freeman.. His friends in prison said Isara lived quietly reading, playing music and writing. He taught English to % * ’ ’ 162 the other inmates and was respected as a big brother. Like many of the other Thai Marxists imprisoned for their writings Isara continued to work in journalism, producing a left wing newspaper until he died of cancer some years

later.

163 '.Asani Ponlajan was the son of a well-to-do, high-ranking civil servant. His father was titled ”Pra” (Lord) and provided the best education possible for Asani.

He graduated from the leading high school

in Bangkok, Suan Gularp, and attended Thammasat University He received his law diploma in 1940 and continued the writing career he had begun while he was still in- high school.

His most well-known pen name was Nai Pii

(Mr. Ghost) .

According to the editor of the paper he

worked with, Asani was knowledgeable at writing poems and had a very critical mind. justice.

His works aimed at social

He could write and read French, English, Chinese

Urdu, Pali and Sanskrit.. After graduating from Thammasat he worked as an attorney in several different provinces.

102

In 1953, when Marshal Plaek began arresting radical z writers , Asani disappeared and did. not surface again until 1957.

But when Sarit started another communist

purge he disappeared again and has not been seen or heard from since.

Some suspect he was quietly

assassinated by police or went underground with the communist party and is operating under a nom de guerre. But his works have not disappeared from the literary scene.

His poems are among the most influential for

the student radicals of the 1970 's. 164 ’Seni Saowapong x or Sak Bamrungpong was the only Thai Marxist who has worked with the government. Born in 1918 to a farmer family Sak was a good student and after finishing primary school he moved to Bangkok to continue his education.

In Bangkok Sak stayed with

his oldest brother, a .translator who collected all kinds of books,

Sak read many of the books which opened his

eyes to a Wider world and to the faults and injustices of Bangkok. Thammasat

After he finished high .school Sak entered

University and worked as a journalist.

other Thai radicals,

Like

he became well known under his pen

name of Sani Saowapong.

But unlike most other radical

thinkers in his group he did not remain in journalism, but entered the civil service and worked with the commerce ministry. While working, he won a scholarship to study in Germany, .but he never had -the chance to reach Germany because World War II broke out and he was turned back from his intended route through Manchuria. Sak then applied to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He has

kept working as a diplomat until now and is currently with the embassy in Burma.; Even though he worked for the government his writing did not change. cause of the common people.

He championed the

He saw laborers and farmers

as the most important factors in the development of

103

society.

i X.

He wrote many novels about them and tried to

make the reader aware of the exploitation in society, such as in his novel "Piisart" (The Ghost) .

His works

were vividly antagonistic to the sakdina class, but he considered himself more .a moralist writer than a political agitator. Perhaps because his works were all ostensibly works of’ fiction and .he did not present a political threat, Sak was never subject to the arrest and harrassment that was the common fate of other progressive writers. Also he was often out of the country when the .anti-communist suppression drives were sweeping the country. During Sarit ' s crackdowns he was safely in the Thai embassy in Argentina.

He had also protected himself by following

the proper procedures in getting his superiors ' permission to continue writing his novels. So even though he was as radical in his writing as some of the others he never suffered for it. Sak served in Russia, France, India, • A Austria, England and Burma, so he had a wide knowledge of .political ideas in other parts of the world. He was also careful to use foreign settings for some of his most radical works. When he was asked how he could live the elegant life of a diplomat for the Thai government in such contrast to his ideology, he answered, “We have to know the appropriate time, the appropriate person and the appropriate opportunity for action.

Waiting is an

art. Our lives consist of many different factors. Nobody 5 ever fulfills all their’ wishes" . * 166 Jit Pumisak, today perhaps the radical writer most quoted by students, was born,in Prajantakarm, a small town in Prachinburi province.

His father was a clerk.

He finished secondary school in Prachinburi and then moved on to Bangkok like so many other bright students to continue his education.

He attended a famous high school,

"Triam Udom Suksa” where he was known as a -prodigy in

«■

104

literature,

writing his own encyclopedia of Thai letters.

He passed the entrance exam to enter the faculty of Humanity at Chulalongkorn

University, the most prestigious

university in Thailand, generally meant for the children •

I

of the upper class.

It was 1950 and the ideas of the

older radical thinkers were being talked of, even at aristocratic Chula.

Jit involved himself with Thai

literature and poetry.

His interests in language and

literature were reinforced by Dr. William Gedney, a post doctoral, student doing research on Thai language and literature with whom Jit lived for a few years. Jit had developed

his own independent thought.

However, But his

independence of thought and critical views of accepted Thai traditions made'- him distinctly unpopular on campus. Biting essays in the University Journal on corruption among Buddhist monks 'and the irresponsibility of women as mothers' during his .third year, made his fellow students furious. ' They punished him in a traditional form of hazings, Yon Bok., or tossing him until he hurted his back. He was 'further punished by the university forcing him to stop his studies for two years.. During his enforced absence from the university, Jit worked with several radical newspapers and taught in a high school .

H e resumed

his studies' in 1955 and graduated in 1957, but shocked

#

the university again when he refused to receive his diploma from the King 1 s hand . After graduation he worked as a teacher at a teacher training school while studying for his masters degree.

He also wrote many books, articles' and poems

attacking the sakdina system.

The most important were

"The Face of Thai Sakdina" ? and "Art for Life, Art for 168 People?. In 1958 when Marshal Sarit started his sweep against the

radicals Jit was one of < those1 picked up and sent to Lard Yao prison. He was in jail for six years.

105

Like other radical thinkers* Jit was further radicalized in prison and used his time to write more books and articles expressing his increasingly revolutionary views. When he was released in 1958 he joined the communist insurgency.

He was in charge of mass propaganda.

Jit was

shot and killed on May 5-, 1966 by Thai border patrol police while he was searching for food in the small village of Ban Laoyai.

He was 35 years old.

But even after his death Jit’s reputation brilliant rebel continued to grow.

as the

His works on the

role of women, Thai history, and political theory are central to the thinking of later generations of radical students.

There were of course, many other writers and

thinkers in this, mainstream of Thai Marxism, but they have not had the lasting influence of those described. Among them are Supot Darntragul,

a loyal disciple of

Pridi, Supa Sirimanon, a Marxist scholar, Banjong Banjerdsilp, who tried to translate the worlds of Marx not simply into the Thai language, but to rewrite them in the Thai cultural context, Amnat Yuthawiwat, who went into the jungle after a brief career as a writer and joined the communists and Krong Jandawong,

a political

activist who was eventually executed by the government. All shared similar humanistic ideals with a somewhat fuzzy idea of Marxism, but were gradually educated and hardened by the repression of the Sarit government and long stretches in prison.

With Sani Saowapong the only

significant 'exception, none of these middle-class intellectuals followed the usual path to success (as did Pridi) of entering government service and working ’their way up.

Instead, after early scholastic success most of

them turned to the stimulating world of Bangkok journalism at that time, spreading their talents to poems, political tracts, novels, newspaper columns and regular reporting.

106

All of them became interested in Marx, Lenin and Mao as a tool of analysis of Thai problems,' stimulated by Mao's successful revolution in China and by the American support for. the right-wing dictatorships

that ruled Thailand for

most of the time after the 1932 Revolution. LARDYAO- INCUBATOR OF COMMUNISM As.has been mentioned before, many Thai Marxists were jailed in 1958. In 1960 they were transferred to a prison outside of Bangkok called Lardyao where most political prisoners were kept. Here the Thai Marxists tried to put some of their ideas of communes and cooperatives into action.

Tongbai Tong Pao, one of the prisoners ’ 169 describes their efforts in his book "Lardyao Communists" .

The Lardyao Commune was set up to.help poor prisoners. "It was not an imitation of the Chinese communes ....

*

they called it a commune because this name was popular among. us, that's all".

The Lardyao "commune", however,

was organized systematically:

It had a committee which

consisted of nine elected prisoners. Pluang Wannasri was one of the committee members along with Jit Pumisak and Isara* Amantagul.4

The basic idea of the commune was

to cooperate and share daily life activities.

Everything

was to be common ’property. Food, money Relive red by the families of commune members and anything else was to be put into the care of the commune. The members increased from 29 to 118 within one month. into four different divisions. 1.

The commune set up work They were:

The 'division of production responsible for providing food.

The members grew vegetables, reared chickens,

ducks, and fish. 2.

The division of education.

Its duty was to educate

members in various fields such as languages (English,

107

French, Khmer, Lao and Chinese) , vocational knowledge including journalism, poetry writing, economics, politics and law.

The lecturers were all ex-professors

such as Pluang, Jit and Thep, or, like Chatinur'ct, a former judge and lawyer. 3.

The division of welfare dealt with medication and nursing the sick because the* prison's doctor was very slow in coming to cure sick prisoners.

4.

Tne division of sport and music provided musical instruments and organized sports competitions for the prisoners. The performance of the commune was criticized

by the warden, but the members wrote a petition to the supervisor.

Finally they were allowed to continue their

organizing.

The commune lasted three years.

dissolved in 1962.

It was

The main cause of the disappearance

of the commune was disagreement over ideas.

One side

wanted to write a petition to the court for their release, but the other side did not want to.

Other causes were

the creation of private property and lack of a spirit of sacrifice. of production.

The first problem arose in the division Some of the members raised fish in their

own separate fish ponds and ignored the commune's.. In general there were problems in getting all members to contribute to the commune both financially and physically. The creation and then dissolution of the Lardyao commune reflected the prisoner’s idealism and the problems inherent in most communal schemes.

Though not

all its members were Thai Marxists, the commune was initiated and carried on by the radicals.

It appears

that their major motive in setting up the commune was more to help the poor prisoners than to prove a political point.

The way they organized the commune showed that

they did not follow Marx blindly.

They divided labor

108

according to ability with the less wjell educated prisoners taking care of food production with the better educated ones serving in the other divisions.

The Lardyao

commune’s failure might have been seen as an indication of the impracticality of Marxist ideas, but it wasn't. The members of the commune seemd to feel that personal and political differences got out of control and split the commune.

The lesson they seemed to draw was that

such a communal society needs a strong central control. Though individually they may have worked hard and struggled for the common good, they were not powerful • enough to maintain discipline within the commune. They had no forcing power.

Instead of dismissing

socialist, communal ideals they seemed to believe in them as much as ever, with, as their works and actions in this period show, increased importance placed on the role of the party as a central controlling device. In short they became communists in the sense that Lenin saw the communist party as the small, efficient generator and controller of revolution.

A number of the Thai

Marxists who had gone into Lardyao as idealistic thinkers came out and immediately went into the jungle and joined the communist party in the armed struggle. Certainly their fear of further suppression and determination never to be imprisoned again must have been the major reason -for this. .JBut it also seems true that after experiencing the power of the Thai government and the weakness of their well intentioned efforts to organize the oppressed to help themselves, they saw 'the need for a tough, tightly organized party.

.

109

THE RADICAL STUDENTS - NEO-THAI MARXISTS By the end of the 1960’s the mainstream Thai Marxists had all fallen victim to the oppressive power of the state. They were either dead, in the jungle with the insurgents or cowed into silence. A new. generation of radical thinkers was 'coming up without personal contact with the intellectuals they admired. Their main contact with, the ideas of the Thai Marxists was through a few smuggled copies of their books and pamphlets which the police of Thanom and Prapat were never able to completely suppress.

The radical education of these would-be rebels

was therefore sparse and superficial - a few poems, a translation of Mao, a novel or two, all passed on and often distorted in heady conversations.

But the radicalizing

agent for the students of the 70s was not so much their Marxist forebears as the clumsy misgovernment and broken promises of the Thanom-Prapat regime. The uprising on 172 October 14, 1973 that ended that regime came about as much by accident- as anything else. A student organization was allowed by the regime to become active because it seemed to be supporting the government’s efforts to get better trade and financial deals from the Japanese. The students organized a ’boycott of Japanese goods that drew approving smiles from the generals.

But it quickly

turned against the regime, backed by dissatisfied military , factions, shopkeepers and intellectuals fed up with the regime. A series of events raised emotions and the arrest of 13 student and radical leaders for demanding the constitution the government kept delaying touched off massive demonstrations of the regime 'to flee.

that forced the central figures

The period that followed was

one of the freest in Thai history.

The police and

military were disgraced and dared not take action against

110

the students.

A weak interim government led by a devoutly

Buddhist professor

t

Sanya Thammasak-, the former rector of

Thammasart University allowed the students to do pretty much as they 'pleased.

One of the main activities of the

students was to begin publishing the'works of the Thai Marxists that had been suppressed.

The books of Jit

Pumisak, Pluang Wannasri and Nai P’ii. were on every bookstand.

Translations of Marx and Mao .were easily

obtainable for the first time.

The result was a new and

decidedly confused, contradictory and unoriginal -collection of ideas became prevalent among the students who still wielded significant power In the country while the government, the military and' the right-wing groups were shaking off the ’’effects of the Oct. 14 uprising. The students whom I shall label Neo-Thai Marxists not unsurprisingly mixed in hatred and distrust- of the military to the mixture of ideas they picked up from the mainstream Thai Marxists.

The students adopted t the .mainstream Thai

Marxists approaches to .analysing society.

Many of ttheir

concerns and opinions were derived from the earlier generation.

Jiranan, for example, followed Gularp closely .

in her criticisms of the exploitation of women also borrowing ideas from Jit in her article for the book "Women".- So while few of the radical students were original thinkers they were able to- adopt and transmit the ideas of the mainstream Thai Marxists to a much larger audience.

To understand' the impact of the radical

students it is necessary not only to appreciate the power they held briefly in 1973 to 1976 t but to take a look at the history of the student movement’ * in Thailand. The first university of Thailand was established 773 during the reign of King "Rama VI ± (1910-19 25) but it was not until the next reign that a. university education was generally available to commoners outside of the royal

Ill

palace.

The first group of students who had an opportunity

to study abroad who were not .from the royal family still had to depend on scholarships from the King., Many of these belonged to the middle class'- they were bright and could compete academically with the children of the top officials and royalty who had gone abroad previously. Among those first middle-class students to be educated abroad were Pridi and’ Pray a Pahon - who were later to rebel against the Thai monarchical system. The first European educated student group came back to help organize the 1932 revolution while they served as professors and lecturers.

But in addition to

leading the move against the absolute monarchy they were passing on their ideas for a rapid transformation of Thai society to their students.

Democracy was a radical

idea then and it won support among the students .

When the

first Prime Minister Praya Manopakorn ,illegally dissolved parliament in 19 33-, the first known student protest was made -by -law students who sent petitions and distributed leaflets describing the illegality of the government 174 action. The protests were unsuccessful. In 1940 the. first student rally took place supporting the government’s efforts to reclaim parts of Indochina taken by France years before.

But for the next ten years the students

were quiet and passive.

Students were still the children

of the elite with bright futures in government awaiting them and the violent events of World War Two' must have seemed far beyond their ability to have any effect. But their self-interest was involved in 1951 when the government of Marshal Plaek announced its intention -to abolish 'Thammasat University by selling its land to the Thai Army.

The students rallied and protested, eventually

persuading the government to back down.

But when the

threat to their interests subsided so did interest in

112

radical student movements.

They had not as yet established

any organization that could provide continuity and movements took place dnly at .intervals. But the radical writers and thinkers of the 1950s were attracting attention on the -university campuses.

Pluang Wannasri,

Nai Pii, Seni Saowapong and others were read by small groups of students. Students protested the election rigging in 1956, but had no organization nor determined leadership to have much effect.

Under the Sarit regime

the students were kept under even tighter check and could do little against the powers of martial law. Almost unnoticed, however, students' got together from various universities to set up a united student journal called "Social -Science Journal" in 1955.

It gave the

students from different universities the 'opportunity to get together, organize discussion groups and other activities including "volunteer camps" to develop rural areas.- The Sarit government did not pay much attention to this activity since it aimed at social development. It was not until 1968 when Thanom and Prapat allowed the return to limited democracy that students became more active . Thammasat students ran in several districts but all failed to win election against the well-organized and funded government party, but the .elections involved students directly in the political process and student journals proliferated and the antigovernment content increased. New journals were "The Movement of Economists", "Lorn Fang".

"Villager", "Big People" and

The oldest of the journals, the Social

Science Journal, became -more- and more critical of the government. In, 1970 the student centre of Thailand was .established.

The centre organized- many activities

aimed at political, economic and social change and was the bridge joining the dispersed university students of

*?

113

the country. speeches.

They organized seminars, conferences and

However, most of the activity was non-po-litical,

aimed at social betterment of the poor.

In 1972 Thirayut

Boonme became president of the center and its activities gradually became more political.

Other student

organizations were formed such as the "Law Study Group" , "Thama-Economics Group", the "Dome Congress" and others. The radical students became more arid more involved with the writings of the Thai Marxists and at the same time with the radical movements among students in the United States and'Europe whiph were’ highly active.

Thirayut

carefully chose a theme supported by the government- for the Student Centre's first public political demonstrations. It was a protest against the domination of the Thai economy by Japanese government and gave the government •useful leverage against the Japanese in its talks seeking a more even trade balance and more investment.

The

experience gained in organization during the anti- Japanese campaign was to prove valuable later.

»

Then in early 1973 a group of Thai military officers and movie stars used government helicopters to go into a national forest preserve for a luxurious few days of illegal hunting.

The misdeeds came to light

when one of the helicopters, overloaded with illegally slaughtered game, crashed.

The government tried to cover

up the escapade claiming implausibly that the hunting trip was the cover for a secret mission to the Burmese border. The students of several universities put out a special i 175 booklet entitled "Top Secret from Tung Yai", considerably embarassing the government.

Not much later

Thanom broke with traditional practice to delay his retirement from the military and extended his f control for another year.

In another journal the students then

wrote that "The Congress of -Tung Yai has agreed to extend * '

T

114

the

life

of the beasts

unreliable

his

nine

year

because- of the

situation both inside and outside the 176 parodying the -justification Thanom used

country", delay

to another

retirement. 1

students

out. of the banned.

These

responsible

for

university.

The

direct

few

"Top attack

political

consciousness

satiracal

attacks

to return

to ’school.

increased

the

lines

the

resulted

journal

Secret

in the

being

from

Tung

on the students

to

thrown Yai"

was

heightened

in the universities

“and anonymous

became increasingly £ frequent. Rallies against the expulsion of the students i] grew in. intensity and' finally the university allowed them

target

was

supposed leaders

the

to pave

countered

with

the

schools

time and

The that

for

government

the

student

the violent

Thirteen

of the

leaders

the cra.ckdown only

provoked

more

students

from people

the vocational joined

with

school's,

the

Small rallies snowballed until 177 500,000 demonstrators were swarming

through

the streets

release, of the

military

Prasertkul,

of Bangkok

student

government.

The

leaders Thanom

units

into

the student

the

to apply

preparing

printing

students.

13 nearly

over

accusations

next

Student

and

constitution.

ordinary

by Oct.

armed

usual

but

' This

university

the

the

only

which- was

new elections.

of the- government.

arrested,

high

for

down

The

constitution

demonstrations

were' communists

unrest.

new

the way

for

backing

of the students.

organizing

calling

overthrow

government’s

oft-delayed

pamphlets

were

The

confidence

began

leaders

on the government

leadership more

the King’s overzealoush

pressure

palape

and

to appeal

or- perhaps

but

-not just

the

the resignation

of

government the city.

who

of the

demanding

with

ordered,,heavily The

fiery

next

d a y Seks.an

speeches

growing

demonstration

ordered

the

for his

panicked

crowd

support.

in the face

had

taken

decided

to march

to

Guards of

the huge

115

crowd started beating and shooting the students.

The

students infuriated by the attacks struck back with handguns, sticks, rocks and molotov cocktails. Running battles continued through the day, but when the government ordered more troops into the city, military leaders led by Gen. Kris Sivara refused to comply. The King helped resolye the crisis by accepting the resignations of the two most hated leaders who shortly afterwards left the country with their families. About 70 people were dead and the government was in the hands of Prof. Sanya Thammasak.- He was to. produce a new constitution to elections and a return to democracy.

leading

It was the first

time in Thai history that students and ordinary people had overthrown a government - though Kris's acquiescence was crucial it was little noted.

The heroes were the

students and they hurried to move into the vaccuum of power left by the discredited military and government leaders. x Having succeeded so far beyond their expectations with the instruments of propaganda and public demonstrations,

the students continued to use these

weapons to bully the government into following their wishes.

They were unable, or did not try to reach an

accomodation with the military or the bureaucracy . did not organize for party politics.

They

They seemd to see

themselves as public watchmen over all the other institutions of the society. But continued demonstrations and protests wearied the generally order-loving Thai people and paved the way for the military’s return to power.

Youthful idealism and impatience, along perhaps

with the realistic assessment that they were unlikely to have power for very long were probably behind the haste for change that kept Bangkok constantly embroiled in controversy and disorder.

The backlog of injustice left

116

from the years of dictatorship added to the problems. -But in addition many of the student leaders were much more radical than the bulk of their followers. They hoped for the radical changes-.advocated by the Thai Marxists. After the elections Prime Minister Kukrit Pramot was able to patch together a loose coalition of small parties that held power but was too weak to exercise very much. The students remained important and their demonstrations

put

heavy pressure on the government. .When the government yielded to the pressure ft looked even weaker and rightist ■elements began moving for the reinstatement of the military. .The sudden death of Kris Sivara, new elections and the installation of a still weaker government led by Kukrit* s brother Seni made it eas.ier. A campaign of terror by the right against radical leaders combined with the continued protests from the students and dissensionwithin his party made the government drift helplessly. The return of Thanom and Prapat -created crises that the government could not handle. When right-wing activists and police attacked Thammasat University where several thousand students were protesting the return of Thanom the government was helpless to stop a bloody riot. Military leaders followed up later the same day with a military coup that ousted Seni and his party from power. The military government ordered the. arrests of thousands of students and radicals in the univercities, the farmers groups and the labor unions.

Books suspected of being

leftist oriented were seized and burned.

Within a few

days the military coup leaders stepped back and allowed a civilian government to be installed under Thanin Kraivixien. But the former Supreme Court justice turned out to be even more repressive than the military and he continued the anti-communist campaign. The result of the events of October 1976 was that

117

»

• thousands

o f ordinary

people

became Marxists

and peaceful

into

to

It

the

jungle

join

was a simultaneous

intellectuals

that

elections.,

public

the month by six party

"

clande'stine

the armed communist point

struggle

demonstrations to f i g h t . prominient radio

progressives

intellectuals in the

writing,

and other

legal

I n a broadcast

at

activists

the

they

explained

'

o f many

previous

through

over

went

insurgency. lives

made them abandon" their

less’ peaceful

up weapons

Marxist

turning

o f more or take

were r a d i c a l i z e d ,

the

paths

means, and e nd of

communist

wh y:

The youth and. students, o f Thailand have always fought for independence', democracy, and the b a s i c needs o f the poorest in s o c i e t y in a peaceful w a y , within the letter o f the law and constitution. Although o u r friends were t brutally threatened, k i l l e d and a r r e s t e d one by one we have always be e n p a t i e n t , but our sincerity ha s been answered with shameful lies. Our p e a c e f u l struggle .has b e e n m e t w i t h but- bombs and b u l l e t s .... We have been arrested, assassinated one by one and finally hung and burned a l i v e . I t i s now the en d o f the p e a c e f u l struggle ' with bare hands a g a i n s t armed p o l i t i c a . l ga ngs ters I t is now the end of the legitimate struggle' abiding by laws f ixe d by the reactionary ruling c l a s s which p l a c e s .itself outside • those l a w s . . The hard l e s s o n learned with s b 'much blood and p a i d for with s o many lives i s that independence and democracy for our people can never b e obtained b y reforms within an. u n j u s t and corrupt society. We, the people have no other, choice but to unite f o r c e s to d e f e a t the power o f the reactionary s t a t e and establish a new popular and revolutionary state .... We mu st figh t the enemy w i t h ’ a rms, we must accelerate the development o f ’ our f o r c e s in the countryside .... We must go to the workers »and peasants and a l l those who are suffering to broadly u n i f y a l l p o ssible f orce s and pursue t h i s st r a te g y in the countryside and surround the, c i t i e s in order to fin'ally take them. 178

.

118

Thus the pattern of the mainstream Thai Marxists was confirmed at a stroke by their young followers. Crammed 'into:only a few years the students' moved from intellectual **questioning, theoretical dissent, to radical convictions, and finally to armed revolution.

Because

their time of public exposure was so short, because their ideas changed as rapidly as their circumstances it is difficult to firmly define the attitudes and ideas of t

these Neo-Thai Marxists so this will be left to the analysis of Part 2.

But it is helpful to take a brief

look at the personal histories and characteristics of the people involved.

The variety alone is significant since

it suggests that the ideas and actions of the Neo-Thai Marxists did f not result from their class origins, but more from the ideas they picked up .in the books of the mainstream Thai Marxists and from their treatment by the government and ruling, institutions first in the events of 1973 and then of 1976. The. impetus which led the students to borrow Marxism was both political and intellectual.

As American

influence in Thailand grew rapidly in the 1960’s with the construction of seven large airbases and the stationing of nearly 50,000 troops, Thai Marxists began to pay increasing attention to Lenin’s ideas of imperialism.

Earlier Thai Marxists had not seen this as

so important because Thailand had avoided outright colonization.

But Chinese and Vietnamese communists had

shown how growing nationalist sentiment could be harnessed to their cause by using the battle cry of anti-imperialism.

Since in Thailand there were no

colonial masters the Marxists focused on the more subtle complex of inducements and influence the United States used on Thai leaders.

When U.S/ airforce personnel were

•stationed in Thailand the difficulty to understand (for

119

the Thai peasant) "evil" of. U.S. economic and political influence was replaced with the much more obvious symbol of subservience - foreign soldiers.

The campaign against

the American troops continued throughout the war in Vietnam but did not ever really catch on outside of the universities and the ranks of the already committed. Pragmatic Thais saw the troops as sources of income for impoverished north eastern towns and offered Thailand some protection from more aggressive neighbors. Besides, many Thais were not upset to see American power used against the Vietnamese, their traditional competitors for *supremacy in Southeast Asia. But when the war ended with defeat for the American-backed government and the U.S. government made it clear it wanted to

*

dismantle most of the bases, the anti- imperialist views of the radicals suddenly gained greater popularity. After Vietnam the Americans didn’t look like such good protectors and seemed to serve only to agravate the Vietnamese. Because the anti-imperialist' line resulted in success, the expulsion of the U.S. forces in 1976, it became an important part of radical rhetoric in the late 70’ s in a way it had never been before.

This difference,

stimulated by politically different situations, was the main difference between the radicals of the seventies and their ideological teachers, the mainstream Marxists of the 1950’s. But this was not really a difference in philosophy, simply a difference in the vehemence and volume in which it was expressed. NEO-THAI MARXIST PERSONALITIES. OF 1976 Chonthira Satayawatana

179

was a brilliant

scholar born into a middle class family in Bangkok -

120

Thonburi.

An honours student at Chulalongkorn University

she continued her studies at- the same university seeking her Masters Degree in Thai literature.

She worked as a

lecturer and was well known as a literary critic.

Her

interest in radical ideas did not really begin until after the 1973 student uprising when she worked on a study of the works of Jit Pumisak.

As right-wing action stepped

up against farm leaders and labor unionists Chonthira became convinced by the Marxist viewpoint of Jit.

Her

poems, other writing and speeches took the Marxist viewpoint increasingly.

Her book "Literature of the

Masses" became popular among the student radicals. Her commitment to the struggle apparently extended to her personal life and she divorced her husband. After the October 1976 violence she went underground only to surface with an announcement over the Thai Communist radio that l she was committed to the armed struggle. She was still only about 30 years old. ' 1 80 came to public notice when Seksan Prasertkul he- led the demonstrations in 1973.

that toppled the government

In a sense it was the government itself that

gave him this opportunity because if the top leaders had not been arrested and out of action, Seksan probably would not have taken the lead of any student action. But once he did he seemed ideally suited for the task. Although not a top student in university (possibly because so much of his time was taken up with student activities) he was sharp in debate and an excellent speaker.

Tall for

a Thai he had an unusually commanding presence for one so young.

He had the self-confidence

to make difficult

decisions quickly, but after his success leading the demonstrations he was unable to work smoothly with other student leaders.

He broke away from the university

oriented Student Center of Thailand to form the

121

Federation of Independent' Students of Thailand that attempted to form .links with the vocational students who had done much of the actual fighting and dying during the Oct. 14 riots.

Seksan though from a lower middle class

family in the province of Chonburi, just southeast of Bangkok, had* more travel and international experience than most of the student radicals through a year as an * A exchange student in the United States.. Arrogant and selfish at times,, he could also be persuasive and charming when he wanted to.

He attracted followers, but

had difficulties working in groups of which he was not 'the- leader .

He read, widely 'and eclecticly and showed

independence of thought, though once he had decided what he. thought about something he was difficult to change. ;

Jiranan Pitpreecha

x

was the daughter of a wealthy

merchant family from the southern province of Trang. She was .blessed with brains and.-beauty, elected Chulalongkorn University Queen and winning prizes for public speaking. She became involved in the women ’sorganization and met Seksan whom she married in 1974. She wrote mostly about women’s issues and became a spokeswoman for the radical movement on the issue though most of her ideas were borrowed from Jit and Gularp. Both she and Seksan rep'ortedly joined the Communist Party of Thailand in 1977 after making their way back from France* where they had gone on a fellowship. 182 Thirayut Boonme came from a poor family; his father was an Army sergeant. But the slightly built * Thirayut was a brilliant’ student and took first place ,in the nationwide secondary school graduation exams. 'He enrolled in the -faculty of engineering at Chulalongkorn University., H e built up the- organization of the Student Centre of Thailand with his campaign against Japanese

"

economic imperialism and then switched his target to the J: *

t

> V-?

. •• .

"""

F. .‘J 1

122

Thanom government.

His term was up at the end of the

1972-73 school year but he continued to be active in student affairs and was one of the 13 radicals arrested in October that sparked the overthrow of the government. He married a wealthy upper class girl whose father was a senior government bureaucrat. CPT sponsored Coordinating and Democracy-Loving

He became a member of the

Committee of Nationalistic

Forces and despite a reported session

of self-criticism for revisionist

views has been mentioned

several times on the Communist Party radio, and has been active as a propagandist. 183 • Boonyen Worthong was from a poor rural family from Ubon Ratchathani in the arid northeast of Thailand. Working his way through law school at Thammasart by driving a tricycle

fsamlor) Boohyen maintained close,

emotional connections with his lower class, northeastern, origins.

But at the same time his intellectual powers

brought him his law degree and then a masters degree in public administration with honors .

He won a schlorship

to Indiana University and got another masters degree there before returning to be a professor at the National Institute for Development

Administration.

-He gave up his

secure position in 1969 to run for election from his home province and won.

But after a brief lifespan, the

government dissolved the troublesome parliament in 1971 with a bloodless coup d’etat.

He joined the Socialist

Party of Thailand in 1974 but preferred to work behind the scenes and did not stand for election again.

Three

months after the military coup of 1976 he announced over the. communist radio that he had joined the armed struggle. Another of the older radicals was Anut Arpaprrom who graduated from Chulalongkorn in the early 60s.

The

scholarly and bookish Anut joined a publishing company but at the same time became active in intellectual

123

discussion groups- that became more and more radical as the heavy handed rule of P.rapat and Thanom wore on and promises of new constitutions and elections* were broken. After the 1973 overthrow Anut became much more active and became editor of Withayasan Barithat, a progressive weekly. He organized public discussions at several universities during the 1973-76 open period and was known for his active views. After the bloody attack on Thammasat in October he disappeared, but was charged in absentia with communism in court. Other leading radicals included Wisa Khanthap,. a poet, Thanya Chunchadathan, a journalist, Sithon Yawtkanta a farmer leader, Therdphum Jaidii, a labor leader and Pridi Boonsue, a top student leader.

All

joined the communist party and continued the struggle in the jungle. Once in the party it becomes impossible to distinguish their individual views and actions. The party line determines what is publicly known of the position of the CPT and democratic centralism, means that word of disagreements rarely reach the outside. The situation is farther obscured by the Thai government’ s practise of using agents provocateurs to encourage disputes within the party or to spread rumours about such disputes even if they do not occur. Because it is so important and because s individual viewpoints cannot be discerned, the Thai Communist Party will be treated separately in Part 3.

But with''regard to the Thai

Marxists and their next generation followers it is interesting and significant to note that the CP.T has been the final resort of many of them.

So the period

before they come under party discipline is interesting and their thoughts and convictions in this period may well effect the future dire.ct.ion of the CPT as the new converts move up within the’ party power structure.

124

The next section will provide .a detailed examination of Hie writings of both the Thai Marxists who developed their ideas from the 1932 revolution through the early 60s and- the next J generation of Neo-Thai Marxists who so briefly swung to prominence

in 1973 to 1976.

125

Footnotes

to Chapter I

PalLegois, (the foreign priest who lived in Thailand during the 19th century) wrote in his notes that "There are a large number of books in this period. There are thousands of Tipitaga (Buddhist Scriptures) about 250 literatures ‘and 10-20 plays and fictions". For details see Nitaya Ganjanawan, Ayudhaya Literature (Wannagam Ayudhaya)' (Bangkok; Rankamhaeng University Press, 1977). 2 Rong Syamananda. A History of Thailand. (Bangkok: Thai- Watana Panit Co., Ltd. 1977), p. 71. 3. For more details on Sriprard's poems see M.L. Manich Jumsai History of Thai Literature. (Bangkok: Chalermnit Press, 1973), pp. 162-167. 4 Ibid. , p. 167. Sompan Lekapan Literature in Early Bangkok Period (Wannagam Samai Ratagosin Tonton) (Bangkok: Ramkamhaeng University Press, 1979), pp. 179-180. g

For Thai version see Jit Pumisak The Analysis of Literature in Sakdina Period (Bot Wikro Wannagam Yuk Sakdina) (Bangkok: PikaneVPub . , 1959), p. 36. 7 Raden Lundai Ibid., pp. 36-37. g Plaeng Yao Batsontae in Ibid., p. 55. 9 ’ibid. , p. 63. 10

Ibid.

11 LX

■ Ibld. , p. 64.

12 xz

13 i4

15 13 16

Ibid., p. 171. Nirad Nongkhai in Ibid., p. 202. Ibid. , pp. 177, 190-191. Ibid. , p. 244. Ibid. , pp. 244-245.

1

■

126

17 X/

Ibid.,

pp. .223-224.

18

Ibid.,

p. 230.

9

Ibid.,

p. 2 3 1 . ’

20

In t h e Announcement Concerning Nirad written by King Rama V in November P. 214. 21

(New

Robert York: W.W. 22

Pumisak

C. Tucker (edited) The Norton & Company Inc., op.cit.,

Palace Law which legitimized between 1458 to 1932. 24

Syamananda,

Marx-Engels 1963), pp.

Readers 429-435.

p.223.

23

Used

Nai Tim Wrote 1878 in Ibid.,

op.cit.,

Sakdina

system

was

p. 37.

25

For details about Sakdina Directory see Chai-anan Samudavaniia'-Sakdina and the Development of Thai Society (Sakdin Kap Pattanagan Khong SangkhomThai) (Bangkok: HiG.H. Nam Agsorn -Garn Pirn, 1976), second supplementary pp. 9-144. 26

Ibid. , pp.

65-66.

27

See. Kukrit Pramot Foreign (Bangkok : Gao Nar , 1961), p. 224.

Sakdina

(Farang

Sakdina)

28

Pridi mentioned this in The Impermanence of Society (Qwam Pen Anij jang Khong Sangkhom) . J i t Pumisak equated Sakdina society with Western Feudal Society in The Face of Thai Sakdina (Chomnar Sakdina Thai) . Amat Yutawiwat. did the same in The Research of Thai Society (Wij'ai Sangkom Thai) . 29

See

Samudavani

30

j a , op.cit. , p. 68.

For more details History (Prawatsart Thai) pp5 150-154. 31

% Samudavanij

32

Ibid. , p, 84.

see Paitoon Meeguson Thai (Bangkok: Preda Garnpim, 1978),

a ,op.cit . , p. 85.

127

33

Yale

Karl Wittfogel University Press,

Rong

34 .For the Syamananda,

Oriental 1957).

Despotism

names and details of each op.cit., p p , 121-124.

(New

Haven

treaty

:

see

35

Ibid., pp. 118-145. *5 °For more details on his biography see Suriyin Tien wan (in Thai) (Bangkok: Raum Sarn, 37

Ibid.

38

See some Samudavanija Tien Tienwan) (Bangkok: 3 9

Ibid.

40

Ibid.,

41 HX 42

selections of this book in Chai-anan Wan's Selected ,Works. ''(Sarnnipon Khong Po Sarm Ton, 1974), pp. 87-231.

p, 120.

Ibid. , pp. Suriyin,

115-116.

op.cit.,

43

Ibid. , p. 267.

44

Ibid.,

45 *°Ibid.,

47

Ibid. , p. 280.

50 51

Samudavanija,

" * op.cit., p. 6 4 .

Ibid. Suriyin,

op.cit.,

Ibid.,

p. 230.

ibid.,

p. 231.

53

Ibid.,

p. 367.

54

Ibid. , p. 82.

52

259-90.

p . 282,

Ibid.

49

pp.

p.‘ 64.

46

48

Sang op 1952) .

pp.

225-226.

128

55

Ibid., p. 156.

5€

Ibid., p. 157.

57

Ibid., p. 236.

’°Tbid. , p, 138. 59

Ibid. , p. 144.

60

Ibid. , p. 296.

61

Samudavanija,

op.cit., pp. 126-134.

62

Tawee Muennikon "The Thai Ideal Society” (Lok Pre Brian Khong Thai) The Critique of Literature (Aksornsart Pijarn) ILJto, 11-12 (April-May,, 1975), p. 47. 6-

■’He would be considered a reformer rather than a radical as far as his method was concerned. But though the-,proposed a peaceful way of changing the political and social system*, in the Thai frame of reference, especially for that’ time, he was indeed a radical. Then anything that was different from the Sakdina system was radical. The 'system had been the basis of Thai life. .So for his attacks, on it we must consider Tien Wan a radical even though by western standards of the time he seems mild. 64

66

Ibid. , p. i. k

Wichai Bamrungrit (edited) The Memoir of T h a i Revolutionaries (Bantug Nag Pattiwat Thai) (Bangkok: Jarernwit Garnpim, 1974), p.. 123. 66

Ibld. , pp. 122-1’23.

67

Chai-anan Samudavanija "Tienwan" The Social Science Review (Sangkhomsart Paritat) , November, 1972, p.' 70, ’ 68

It was in late 70* s that these authors reviewed Tienwan 's works. Chai-anan set up The Study Group of Tienwan ‘s..Philosophical Works (Glum Suksa. Pradyanipon Khong Tienwan') in 1974. He admits that he is Tiehwanist Sangop “Suriyin collected most of Tien Wan’s major works in 1977 Tawee mentioned Tienwan with high respect in his works.

129

eg Ch'aftip Nardsupa n The Economic Thought of Phraya Suriyanuwat*1 (Qwamkid Tang Setagit Khong Phraya Suriyanuwat) -Social Science Review, September, 1974, p, 46. —70 ■ For- more details on his biography see Ibid., pp. 46-48,. 7-1 Phraya Suriyanuwat The Custom and Traditions of foreign -Royalty (Kanop Thamniem Rachagarn Tang Pratet) (Dhonburi: Damirongdham, 1937) 72

Phraya Suriyanuwat The Science of Property (Sapsart) (Bangkok: Pikanet, 1975) 73

75 z

Sapsart, in Nardsupa, op.cit., p. 27.

xbid. , p. 28.

76

Ibid. , p. 29.

77

Ibid. , p. 30.

* 7 8 Ibid. , p. 31. ■ ■

7 9

Ibid., p. 32.

80

Ibid ,, p. 33.

81

Ibid.

82

Ibid., p. 34.

83

Ibid. , p. 35.

84

Ibid.

85

Ibid. , p. 43.

86

Ibid.

87

For more’ details on the June 26 Revolution see Thak. Chaloemtiarana Thai Politics 1932-1951 (Bangkok: Thammasat ‘"University Printing Office, 1978), pp. 1-96. &8 Supot Darntragul Luang Pradidmanutham 1 s Draft of Economic Plan (Raokrong Garn Settagit Khong Luang

130

Pradidmanutham)

(Bangkok:

Pra ja k

Garnpim,

1974),

p.5.

89" ' ?I±%was -f ormed -under the name o f the Chinese Cc«munjfst;'?P>rEtyof' Thailand worked c l o s e l y with the Youth Leaguebxsj s&lam-See-Sittarn Rugpratet The Knowledge, on the CommunieS'gParty o f Thailand (Qwamroo Rueng Pak Communist Maeng Jpratet 7 Thai) (Bangkok: Amnouyrat, 1 9 7 6 ) . 90 ' Darntragul , op.cit. . 91 • -Bor more details on- his biography s e e Duern BtHmaqAjPridi jThe Senior Statesman (Tarn P r i d i Rataburut Arwusd)?./ (Bangkok:. Po Sarm Ton, 1 9 7 4 ) . '

4

-'92' ' - B o r -more details about King Ananda M a h i d o l ’ s death see San-jai Saengwichien and Wimolpan Peetatawatchai The Case df 'thexKing 1 s Death June 9 , 2 4 8 9 (Goranee Sawannakot’ 9 Mitunayon 2 4 8 9 ) (Bangkok: Grung Siam, 1 9 7 3 ) . 93

Pridi Panomyong The Impermanence o f Society ( Q w a m P e n Anij gang Khong Sangkom) ( B a n g k o k : Rungreungdham, 1968.) . 94

Darntragul,

*95

National in-’ Chaloemtiarana, 96 97

98

op.cit,, Economic op.cit.,

Darntragul, Ibid.,

p.

op.cit.,

op.cit.,

op.cit.,

Chaloemtiarana,

103

pp.

44-47.

p . 115.

p . 117.

looDarntragul, 102

Policy of Luang Pradidmanutham p , 113.

8.

Chaloemtiarana,

"ibid,,

p. 6.

Darntragul,

op.cit.,

op.cit.,

Chaloemtiarana,

104

Ibid, , p . 130

105

Ibid. , p . 131.

p.

33. pp. 129-130.

p. 13.

op.cit.,

$

p» 1 2 3 .

a

131

106

Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Frederick' Engels Selected Works V. I (Moscow. Progress Publishers, 1969), p. 120. ■L°7 Chaloemtiarana, 108

Selected Works V.I. p. 123.

109 Chaloemtiarana, 110 Ill

op.cit., pp» 134-135.

Darntragul,

op.cit., p. 138.

op.cit., p, 49.

Chaloemtairana,

op.cit., p. 139.

112 - Critique of the Gotha Programme in Marx and Frederick Engels Selected Works, V , III p. 19. ■

Darntragul , op.cit., p. 83. Chaloemtiarana,

op.cit., pp. 140-143.

115

Ibid.., p. 146.

il6

Ibid. , p. 147-148.

117

Ibid., p. 149.

118

ibid., p. 149-150.

•

119

In his work ’’The Impermanence of Society" Pridi described that ’In the age of Araya Mettaya humanity would live together with love. Everyone is equal. When going outside their homes, no one can distinguish one from another. There would be most convenient communication. Society provides all biological needs perfectly. Like there was ’Gulapaprug tree’ (magic" tree) from which anyone can pick up the fruit he desires. Panomyong, op.cit., p. 7. •

IOC

They were 1.
19-7 3- January 2 6 , 1 9 7 8 (Garn Wikror Wat 'W suef Pa’Era'' 'Thai Giew-Gap Garn Mueng Tee Jad i T g aE Wanteew-14..- Tulakom 2516 Tung Wantee 2 6 Mokrakm Graduate

School,

Chulalongorn

University,

4:9

Ibid..

$. &

-

< *-

TPridi5 .papers at a meeting o f the Committee for p &o r/poifdbical science knowledge, Department o f fio td-cal SPience'/Thammasat University, 1978. ‘ . ’Fo ino re d eta ils see Jaras Rojanawan Gularp .LifeVand Struggle%.(Chewit Garntorsoo Khong Gularp Saipradid) (Bangkok: Praj ug Garnpim, 1 9 7 4 ) ' 1S6 Ibid

,..p.

1

s

44.

15 Ibid,y p . 4 8 . » 1S8 • -gSee Rungwit Suwanapichon "Plua ng Wannasri a Revolutionary-:. Poet " (Pluang Wannasri Gawee Nagpatiwat, Pudhuchon-jNo-, . 8 „• (October , 1 9 7 5 ) , p p. 6 0 - 7 9 .

~15

Ibld.,

160

Ibid.

161 (Bangkok i6

p.

63.

, p.

72.

See‘Tongbai Tongpao Communist Lardyao Po. Sam Ton,. 1 9 7 4 ) , * p p . 2 7 8 - 2 9 9 .

?Ibid.,

p. 285.

( i n Thai)

135

v

163

Sriintarayuth The Art of Poetry (Silapa Haeng Garpglon). (Bangkok: Jaruenwit Garnpim, 1978), p. 87. 164

See Interview by 'Book World' (Lok Nungsue) Book World No. 11 (August 1978) , pp. 44-60 165

Ibid. , p. 52. ’■

166

*•

K

■See Suchart Sawadsri (edited) Jit Pumisak (in Thai) (Bangkok: Pikanet, 1974) . 167

Somsamai Srisootarapan The Face of Thai Sakdina (Chom Nar Sakdina Thai) (Bangkok: Agsornsampan, 1976) . 16R

*

°Teepagorn Art for Life Art for People (Silapa Pur Chewit Silapa Pur Prachachon) (Bangkok: Srimueng, 1974). 16 9 m _ .. Tongpao, op.cit. 170

Ibid. , p. 619.

171

Ibid. , pp. 30-35.

172 For more details see Wittayagorn Chiengul (edited) The Movement of Thai Students from Past to Present (Kabuangarn Nugsugsa Thai Jarg Adeed Tung Paj juban, 1974) . 173 174

Sayamananda, op.cit., p. 146. Chiengul, op.cit., p. 5.

175

Bantug Lub Jak Tung Yai (The Secret Record from Tung Yai) (Bangkok: Bapit , 1973). l

Chiengul, op.cit., p. 50. *

177

Ibid. , pp. 144-145.

178 David Morell and Chai-anan Samudavanija "Thailand's Revolutionary Insurgency : Change in Leadership Potential" Asian Survey (No. 4 April 1979) , p. 325. , 179

See Ibid., p. 326.

180 ' ' Ibid. , p. 321 The author was studying in the same Department with him at Department of Political Science, Thammasat University and had an opportunity to discuss

-136

with

him. 181

I b i d . , p.

182

I b i d . , p . 321.

183

Ibid.

, p.

1 8 4

Ibid.

, p . 326..

320.

328.

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL ANALYSIS - THE SIAMIZATION OF MARXISM

*

The second part of this thesis deals with the nature of Thai radical thought, concentrating on the period after World War II up to 1977.

This includes the

thoughts and writings of Pridi Panomyong,

the radical

journalists of the 50s - the mainstream Marxists and the rebellious students of the 70s. The communist party of Thailand will be considered separately.

These radicals

range from quite moderate to those engaged in armed revolution. Sometimes the same individual has moved through the whole range of positions within a very short time.

But to some extent or another all of them have

been influenced by the writings of Marx or what they believe to be the ideas of Marpc. At the same time all of them- have integrated, intentionally or not, Thai and Buddhist elements into their writings. The results in all 'their variety have been a unique kind of Siamized Marxism. The theoretical approach of the radicals , armed with their greater or lesser understanding of Marx, to the situation of Thailand is generally of two kinds: 1. The application approach. This means that modern Thai Marxists simply applied' a Marxist approach in interpreting Thai political , economic and social systems and the problems with them. They have also adopted Marxist analysis for their consideration of Thai history and culture.. They found in Marxism a powerful tool to

137

1'38

overturn the traditional Thai view they no longer felt comfortable with, and felt compelled to rebel against. Some did not quite understand .the tool they were using. Others applied it here and there wherever it seemed to fit. One of the most powerful and persuasive applications of Marxist analysis was Jit Pumisak *s analysis of Thai history, written under the pen name of Somsamai Srisootarapan, Sakdina) . 2.

"Chom Naa Sakdina Thai” (The Face .of Thai The integration approach.

None of the Thai

Marxist thinkers was able to take a completely Marxist view, eliminating his/her Thai origins, but some of them consciously tried to integrate what they found best in their traditions,, especially Buddhism, with the ideas of Marx. . This approach was shown most clearly in Pridi Panomyong’s

"Qwam Pen Anijjang Khong Sangkhom" (The

Impermanence of Society) and in a more simple approach, Sriburapa’s "Buddatadsana Khong Sri Burapa'- (Sriburapa’s Buddhist View) . 1

In using these two approaches, Modern Thai

radicals had to deal with certain crucial problems.

Thai

society and way of thought are so very different from those' of Marx that whoever wants to apply or integrate the two traditions faces a risky and difficult task. It is risky in the sense that it may lead to a distortion of the original ideas or of the new ideas or of the facts in order to make the two fit.

It is difficult in that the

writer must have a clear understanding of both original ideas and the new ones.

Added to this was the difficulty

of remaining objective when the authorities suppressed those who had any Marxist elements to their writing. their efforts, whether conscious or unconscious,

In

to

Siamize Marxism, the Thai radicals first had the. not-sosimple task of learning and understanding Marx at a, time

139

when

few

books

translated apply

were

into

Thai.

or integrate

situation

available Just

how* successful in the. following part.

RADICAL

To- the modern written

according

since

it was

mostly

about

really

the

the

of that

history.

Jit

clearly

Pitakchon

in his

of only

class

as if they explained

convincingly

this under

Hence

sakdina

were

was

in the

class.

people.

Thai

be analyzed

history

happened

the

to

HISTORY

Thai

Sakdina

of the Thai

Pumisak and

actually

effort

to the

will

TO THAI

were

the

ideas

were

radical,

by the

history

history

heroism

most

to what

written

they

fewer

made

Thai

APPROACH Thai

even

how they

-Marxism with

and

THE

and

not

past it was

class,

not

It described the

creators

view

of Thai

the pen

book .’’Critique of Thai

Art

name and

the of

history of Silp

Culture”.

•The sakdina class tried to persuade that not only were they the masters of the peoples ' lives, they were also the “masters of the land” (Chao khong paen din) or "the masters above the heads of all’ 1 (Chao nua hua) . They (wrote in their histories that) everything happened because of their supernatural power , their high capability and their talent, even though it was created by nature, or by slaves or serfs who may have had to sacrifice their lives. In building towns, the people and labourers were the ones who put sb much work into it, but it was written in history that this town existed because of the nobles and sakdina class. For- example we often find in legend that that prince built that town, this prince built this town, that particular king rescued people, etc. In fact, it was the people who accomplished such works,... Nowadays we see that this idea still exists, for instance the reports of a project will imply that because o f a certain person's supernatural power the project was successful . . . People who- have this backward view may assume

.

140

that "heroes create his.tory" or that "history is the result of the hero's decisions" .1 •Thai history, the radicals wrote, was distorted from the original facts.

One of the second rank of Thai

Marxist writers, Saitai Turdchutham, put the general view quite clearly: History was the story of human class struggle. While the majority of humans who were being suppressed, tried every way to throw off the suppressor, the minority of humans who were superior in wealth, power and strength attempted to use their power and weapons to destroy them in order that the latter can maintain their system and process of suppression as long as possible. 2

'

For f many Thai .radicals the first sentence of the Communist Manifesto - that history was the history- of the class struggle - gave them an important tool for their new look at Thai history, a dramatic change from the deeply entrenched traditional view.

But the

liberating effect of the Marxist viewpoint did not last long and soon the Marxists were trying to force Thai history into an ideological strait jacket as binding as that of the traditional adulation of kings.

Some of them

took the surface appearances of the Marxist analysis more seriously than its underlying logic. It was a commonplace for the Thai Marxists that history should be divided into five different periods.

Pridi expressed this

view strongly: ,

If we trace back and study the history of mankind, we will find that human social systems began originally from the primitive period,, then the slave system, then the feudal -system and then capitalism (with socialism to follow) -. 3 Jit, writing under the pen name of Teepagorn,

agreed with Pridi that: The history of mankind is the history of the class struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed. The process of the long history

141

of mankind began from primitive period, then slavery period, feudal and capitalis period up to the highest- period of capitalism which is imperialism then the socialist period. This process is the development process that the new thing, brighter, prettier will take the place of the old things. / Jit went a further step in interpreting history: < he tried to apply a dialectic method to history'. But his formulation was too simple and too superficial to really be an adaptation of the Marxist method. -Another radical of the 1 1950’ s , Amnat Yuthawiwat tried to maintain the same point of view tha.t society was developing because of class conflict but like that of Jit, his explanations were too superficial to really be Marxist, they would more aptly be called Marxist influenced. An example: As a matter of fact, social systems do not stand still. They exist, develop and disappear. Primitive systems existed, developed and then dissolved. Then slavery system took the place of the primitive system. It passed through a developing period, then dissolved. The feudal system took the place of slavery, developed then dissolved. Capitalism took the place of the feudal system, -developed then dissolved. Socialism will take the place of capitalism. 6 7 8 Supot Darntragul, ' Anut Arpapirom and Anand • q Pan-iam all expressed similar formulae for the development of social-economic systems, but none of them explained the dynamics of the process in relation to the ‘ Thai situation.

None of them went into the why of the

changes so the five periods of history for most Thai Marxists was more an article of - faith than the. result of the application of the Marxist analysis to Thailand. They took it, once they discovered Marx, as a matter of evident truth, in opposition to the evident falsehood of the traditional view of history, that Thailand developed through the five periods in the -same way as the areas

142

of the world - Europe - that Marxist thought had treated. It was however, a matter of some debate exactly where in the process Thailand stood.

Most agreed it was in an

era of transformation from feudalism to capitalism. The Thai Marxists attempted to interpret the history and the present reality of Thailand by imitating Marx’s approach to western history as presented in “The German Ideology” .

Jit Pumisak and Amnat Yuthawiwat were the

most diligent in this effort and are the most quoted by the later generations of radicals. Sakdina Thai” Thai Society)

0

Their works "Chom Nar

and "Wijai Sangkom Thai" (Analysis of were more systematic and more complete

than the others ( ) .

As a matter of fact, Jit, writing

under the pen name Somsamai, was the first Thai writer to give a full treatment of the new interpretation of Thai histo'ry. Most other radicals followed the trail he laid down.

But it is somewhat questionable how

thoroughly Jit and his followers understood the materialist conception of history in a Marxist sense and whether they were successful in analysing Thai history as determined by "historical materialism" . To try to evaluate the Thai Marxist understanding of Marx's historical materialism one has to examine their works concerning this topic.

Pridi Panomyong expressed

his understanding of historical materialism in "Patiwat Rataprahan, Wiwat, Apinat" (Revolution, Coup d'Etat, Evolve, Evolution) .

An example:

The transformation of economic systems which is the foundation of society could be done by developing or changing "productive forces" . Productive force consists of the "instruments of production" and individuals who invent and use the instruments, has to change first, then we can change "the relations of production" in economics to suit the ‘new productive force. If we do not change the relations of production to suit the productive forces, economic crisis will take place. 12 r *

i

143

•

From the above statement, Pridi seemed to

indicate that the relation of production constitutes the’economic -.structure of society.

Hence change in the

relations of. production constitutes change of economic structure. Pridi seemed to follow Marx’s view in this seiise. - Marx wrote /that "the sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of 13 society".. Pridi also interpreted Marx correctly in the cause of economic crisis. stage of development,

Marx saw that "At a certain

the material productive forces

of- society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or, - what is but a legal expression for the .same thing - with the property relations within which 'they have been at work hitherto.

From forms of development

of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense.-superstructure is more or less rapidly -•id *transformed / , Pridi seemed to- understand Marx's ideas well, though his own ideas and his use of Marxist ideas- were more simplified.

Although Pridi did not point out

directly that the changing of economic structures also causes the changing of social systems, his description of the changes of social systems implied this view clearly.

He wrote that:

The social system has five main types which are primitive system, the slavery system, the feudal system, capitalism and socialism .... In the era: when men used crude stone and metal .as their instruments , they had the relations of production of a primitive type. • Then later men developed their means of production to be more efficient step by step. Their relations of production were changed to start the slavery system, then the feudal system. And when men invented machines that use steam power, they changed their relations of

144

production to Be capitalism. The development * of means of production, along with science and* technology never stops, as we see today. The* relations of production of capitalism have shown that the capitalists, who are a minority, h'ave-monopolized the capital whereas the . majority of people became the oppressed. The production-* of society is not enough to *• meet .popular demand. So. economic crises have- taken place. Therefore it is essential to let society be the owner of the means of production so that the distribution of products would be Justly done, that is, to each according* -to his ability. Or to put it in other ‘words, it is necessary to change the relations of;production of capitalism to be relations of production of socialism. When the relations of production which is the substructure 'changes, the political system, which is the superstructure will cha'nge as well. But if the economic system still. remains the same, people who are radical may unite together to ’change the political system in order to change the relations of production to suit the j'productive forces" because it is the only way to stop economic crisis. 15 Here

Pridi

to be -confused. of the- social the

He was

structure

development

sometimes actual

narrowed

lord,

not wrong

handmill

the steam

mill

give

the

change with

of production.

Poverty

will

tended

of procut ion

the determining

In "The

materialism

in relating

instruments

down

instrument.

on historical

or relations

of the

he ■wrote-,, "the feudal

s view

factor

Marx to the

of Philosophy" you

a society

a society

with

the

with

the

industrial

capitalist', Generally., the Thai idea

of ‘the key

of’ history. their

The

points

had a fairly

of the materialistic

following

understanding,

Marxists

Anut

quotations wrote

quite

are

clear

conception examples

typically

of of the

groups The- foundation of society is production. Production creates the human relations and relations between man and nature. These relations'- create social, consciousness

145

lit was created systematically. It did not exist independently. One born into a -particular society will have his particular social consciousness. 1?

> AnutAs expression appears like the,repetition of

Marx’ s as he wrote that "The mode of production of material life 1 conditions the social, political and intellectual life? process ini general.

It is not the consciousness of

men 'that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness".

18

Marx's above idea was repeated by Supot Darntragul In "The-Class Struggle" but put in a simple statement:Everywhere and in every epoch, ideas and institutions originated from man ’s behaviour. Man’s first behaviour was the production for subsistence which includes food, clothes and living places. In every past community of every epoch since tribal society, slave society, feudal society and capitalist society, the relations among members and classes depend upon the mode of production in that particular society. Institutions are not invented in advance, but exist and develop from men’s behaviour. All institutions such as laws, ethics and other ideas derive from tradition, and tradition has a close direct relation with the mode of production in that particular society. In short, all institutions are the results of and connected with the mode >of production. Institutions and ideas do not exist independently . 19 Note that nowhere in this expression of Marx’s ideas 'nor -elsewhere in his works does Supot explain exactly how the mode of production affects all institutions or give examples from Thai history to prove the point. He simply takes Marx’s word for it and apparently expects his readers to do the same. Other Thai Marxists have a similar lack, even,. for example in, the otherwise fairly lucid writing of Anand Pan-iam: The productive force and the sum total of relations of production are the foundation

146

of 'everything in society. This foundation is called the economic base. All relations in the system are subordinated to this economic base. Political systems, art or culture exist and develop according to the economic foundation.. In ancient times, men had to use their labor to fight with nature in order to. survive. Their lives were directly devoted to production. As human society developed life became more complex. Division of labor created differences between- work that used physical labor and that which used the brain. The establishment of private' property- brought the concentration of. large amounts of land in a few hands. People had to- be.hired to work7 the land. This ‘was the beginning of the ruling system. Men suppressed men. Men exploited men. The demand to develop productive forces created the development of science. People ■who worked hard wanted to relax and people who were idle and rich wanted to spend their lives in extravagance. So they both, for their ■separate reasons, created culture. Certainly the culture of the oppressor and the culture 6f the oppressed were completely different - like black and white. From this we know that political systems', laws, sciences, arts, religions, habits, , ethics and so on are all determined by their economic foundations. They are called the "superstructure", In any society, -in any period of time, the content of society or the various phenomena in society belong to superstructure which are determined’ by ’’substructure” or the economic basis. O t The above statement was more or less a summary of ’’German Ideology" in crude form, but again the lack of actual application of the Marxist analysis is obvious. Clearly Marx’s ideas on the development of society had a tremendous influence on the Thai radicals and this 1 influence was increased with the number of translations of Marx ’s and. Engel ’s works by Gularp including Engel’s "The Origin of Family, Private Property and 'the-State" , "In the Light of the Researches of Lewis

147

H.Morgan”

21

in 1954.

But surprisingly enough, not many of the Thai Marxists attempted to actually use Marx's approach in analyzing Eastern, specifically Thai society.

They were

generally content to try to explain how Marx’s conclusions about Europe- were also valid,for Thailand without actually going through a 'Marxist analysis.' As previously mentioned*,the closest approaches to a truly Marxist analysis were done by Jit Pumisak and Amnat.

Jit writing

under the pen name of Somsamai produced the breakaway from the traditional treatment of Thai history. In the past, the history of Thailand was often based on legends, court poems and the lineage of the noble families. •Thai history began being studied with a more modern approach 'during, the beginning of western influence which came strongest under Kihg Rama IV and Rama V because the kings, themselves were involved in history writing . The first important Thai historian, Grompraya Damrong lived 'during this period. He is regarded as the father of Thai history. He was the first who studied Thai 'history by using other evidence such as linguistic evidence, culture, beliefs, stone scripts and foreign ’records.

He tried to reach the facts of Thai history

instead of relying on the oral tales or semi-fictional poetry of generation after generation.

However the Thai

history written by him- emphasized personal behaviour rather than events. This approach influenced subsequent historians such as Luang Wijitwatagan, Praongchao Julajakapong and Dr. Prasert Na Nakorn, The period of Thai history was separated according to the change in location of -the capitals or the change of dynasties. Since Thailand was ruled by kings, Thai historians in general saw that the changes of history were accomplished solely by 'Thai kings.

Therefore Thai history was generally

148

accepted to have five different periods due to the 22 changes in its capital. (Nanchao* - 1238, Sukothai , 1238-1438, Ayuthaya 1350-1767, Thonburi 1767-1782 and Bangkok 1782-present) .

Or history could be divided by the

changes in kings from King Rama 'I to the present King 23 Rama IX. A few scholars divided Thai history according to the political system in use which were absolute monarchy, nominal democracy (1932-1973), democracy (1973-1976) and dictatorship (1976-1977) . 2 4

All in all,

the history of Thailand was never seen as the history of class struggle - a new interpretation that Jit made explicit for the first time in 1957. 2 Jit realized that if Thai history was to be interpreted as the history of class struggle, he had to prove that Thai history had experienced the same phenomena as western society in the Marxist analysis. Thai history, different

then, had to be proved to have passed four

eras.

According to Jit, they were the

primitive slavery , feudal and capitalist period, in keeping with Marx’s conclusions for the west. Jit therefore had to overthrow the usual conceptions of Thai history which did not have a true slavery period or at least had*the beginning of the time when slaves were held coming after the development of the feudal system. Generally Thai historians wrote that the sakdina system, which- Jit’ interpreted as being equivalent to the feudal system In Europe, began to flourish at the beginning of the-Ayuthaya period without- the required (according to _ 26 the Thai Marxist interpretation) period of slavery first. Jit began his new interpretation by trying to prove that -Thai society had developed from a primitive

* According to both Chinese and western historians, however, Nanchao was never a Thai Kingdom.

149

period in steps according to Marx to capitalism.

He tried

o to show that Thailand actually passed through a slavery period around 500 years ago in the late Sukothai period or -even before, in the period when Thai scholars,

'

including Jit, thought Thai tribes were still in Nanchao. Jit wrote that: The feudal system could not just exist. It was not the system that was set up by one king who thought that it was a good thing to have and so wanted to have the fun of setting up this system. The feudal system could exist only after it had developed its system of production step by step. Without the development of its productive system, feudal systems could not exist. This is the rule with no exceptions. Certainly, feudal systems could not exist without having slavery systems as the preceding foundation. 27 Slaves, Jit wrote, were brought to Thailand because of war. When Thailand conquered its enemies, the leader captured them and made them slaves instead of killing them. ’•Hence," Jit wrote, "those prisoners were made to be slaves and were an important means of production. Because of this a slavery class existed". 28 For the same reasons and by the same methods slaves were . acquired and kept in the Sukothai period (1238-1438) Jit declared. He deduced the existence of slavery in the Sukothai period from stone scriptures by Paw Khun Ram Kamhaeng ,, the third king of the period, citing the use of a particular pronoun by the king: There.,was a part of a stone scripture that described the inheritance laws saying that when anyone died his property such as ’praifaanaasai 1 .(literally ’bright faced people'), house, rice barns, elephant hooks, wife and children will be passed on to his heirs. Please- notice the word “praifaa" does not mean "people" as generally understood. Because how can anyone give "people" to his heirs as his property. Praifaa in this context means slaves that belong to the deceased .... In another part, the word is

150

i

used in the description of war between Paw Khunsri Intaradit and Khun Sam Chon when they had a dispute. It says during the fighting "praif aanaasai " fled away. This word also means royal slaves, not people. In addition in the - law on elopement in the Ayuthaya period, » slaves were mentioned. 25 Jit referred to several parts in the stone script to support his ideas and then concluded that: The history of society could be traced, by linguistics because spoken language that was passed on systematically. If Thailand had not passed through a slavery period this pronoun (praif aa) could ’■not exist. 30 .... the reason I tried to look for evidence to prove that there were slaves in Thai history before the feudal system was that I wanted to erase the false ideas that there ’was never any slavery in the Sukothai system. This belief does not abide by the laws of social development. 31 -Amnat used different evidence to prove this point. He attempted to show that Thailand had passed through a slave ry.;period because tof the discoveries of differing means of/production in several places in Thailand: The discoveries in Thailand that proved that • Thailand had passed through four age’s are: -(1) old, ancient age - the discovery of stone ■instruments as old as 10,000 to 50,000 years of .Kanchanaburi. (2) Middle Stone Age - the "discovery of bones, skeletons of animals, instruments made from stone at Kanchanaburi, 'grinding stones, fossils and pottery which are .10,000 to 8,350 years old at Mae Hong Sawn. J (3-)?? New Stone Age the discovery of skeletons, pottery, stone axes and decorations' which ‘.are about 7 ,000 to 2 ,000 years old at Ban Chien , Sakon Nakorn and Chantaburi. (4) Metal age the- discovery of a number of metal things at Sakon Nakorn, Nakorn Panom, Khon Ken and Udornthani. These discoveries prove that ’Thailand had passed through primitive society and—slavery society because in primitive society -men developed their instruments from old stone to use new stone and from using new stone to using some types of metal instruments.

*

151

Men. also developed their ways of seeking food from. hunting to rearing animals, from collecting fruit to planting food. They also developed their way to protect themselves from fierce animals by using their instruments. a

They developed their way of life from living together to live separately in.family form. Thus because of the development of production they developed politically from having a community leader to having a ruler.

'

,

,

•Because of the development of the means of production, the methods of production changed from communal to private. The way of life changed from having a commune to living in families. The distribution of production changed from communal to private. The system of private property gradually took the place of common property. The class society gradually took the place of the classless society. The leader of society changed from using selection to passing on the leadership role by inheritance or by exploitation of power. The poor and war prisoners became slaves, leaders of communes became owners of slaves. The commune system dissolved. The slave system took its place. Ruling by leaders disappeared and the state took its place. 32 Amnat’s amateurish attempts at anthropology are

quoted at length there to show the efforts some of the 1

•

Thai Marxists went to in order to "prove’’ the truth of their assumptions. The point is that they were assumptions.

The radicals assumed that Marx’s conclusions

were true and furthermore that they were true for Thailand and then tried to cut the material to fit the pattern. They began with Marx's conclusions and tried to work back using what means they could think of to justify them.

For the most part the Thai Marxists did

not make a truly Marxist analysis of Thai history*. They did not go back and examine in detail the various means of production and relate them to social and political changes.

The lack of material certainly would

152

have made -this a formidable

task.

Even the most

sophisticated of the Marxists, Pridi and Jit, tended to use Marx this way.

Jit becomes involved in his rather

sophisticated linguistic evidence for the existence of

'

slaves before the development of the sakdina system and ignores the.main task which .should have been to show how slaves were involved in production and how this relation of productive forces affected the social and political system.

Both Jit and Amnat put all their emphasis on

the simple existence or non-existence of slaves. they are wrong or right, however main point.

Whether

interesting is not the

What Marx meant by slave system did not

simply mean that there were some slaves in that society, but that there was. major use of slave labor introduction, or that slave labor was the main means of production. Jit mentions this idea, but left out any full consideration, much less proof -of it,

Amnat attempted to prove

that the instruments of production determined that there must have been a slave period in Thailand, but his simple enumeration of the historical periods of Thai history with the instruments used in each, of course, doesn’t prove anything.

He never really touches upon the

interesting and significant relationship, between tools and 'the.development of society.

He simply summed up and

translated the conclusions of Marx’s "German Ideology". So -neither Jit nor Amnat proved that there was the use of slave labor on a large scale in production in Thai history,, or to. put it more precisely, even their attempts to prove, the existence of slaves did not come close to proving the existence of a slave system determining the development of society in the Marxist sense. Actually even traditional Thai history admits that there was slavery in Thailand from early times. J But ..there have.been arguments about when the slaves were

153

brought Unto

Thailand .

"The Encyclopedia of Thai History "

states .that there* were seven kinds of slaves: 1.

Slaves* by debt (those who sell themselves in order to. pay back a debt) .

2.

Slavesby house) ■ »

birth (born of slave parents into a master’s

3.

Slaves given by their parents,

4.

Slaves given. by others .

-5.,: Slaves in gratitude to benefactor saving them from disaster, 6,

Slaves* in gratitude for saving them from, misery (such

as starvation) . 33 '7. Slaves by war. The usage of all seven types of slaves as means of -.production was not clearly explained by any of the traditional*;historical works. They appear, however, to have: been used mostly for household work. The reason was •that Thai .landlords usually rented their lands out and.received.products

back in return,

it was not in the

Thai tradition to.farm a lot of land and to use slave labor in ..farming. Besides there was no great demand for surplus, agricultural products from outside .the country since Thais did not have extensive trade with the outside the -country since Thais did not have extensive trade with -the.-outside- world at that time. 34 Therefore, agriculture

was adopted -and because

neighbors

stronger by the

of

the

especially

the

The way o f l i f e that the Thai people, ’adopted came from the 'heed to fight with th e natives for la nd, or the wars t o get the slaves from th e Khmer. These were the m a j o r conditions for the development o f the Thai productive system. That was from a primitive sy'stem t o a completely slave system. The i n c r e a s i n g of land and slav es made i t unnecessary toproduce in communes like in the primiftive era. Farmers had enough la n d a nd slaves

156

I Ik

| i

t

j !

to produce on their own. Hence production by individuals took place and developed because of the exploitation of slave labor, 3 8

*

Note that Jit wrote that the productive system was changed because of the increasing of land'through war and the acquisition of slaves, because of political conflicts. The changes in the productive system did not cause the .beginning of slavery so it seems Jit was rather inconsistent in applying Marx's main ideas on the economic causes of change.

Marx wrote that "relations of production

correspond to a definite stage of development of their 39 material productive force". Or to put it another way, the relations of production (slaves-masters) would exist only when the productive force (activity of the means of production) developed up to a certain stage. In his eagerness to show .the Marxist conclusions about history to apply to Thai history, Jit assumed that the existence of slaves and land meant that. the slaves, were working the land in a productive system.

But in doing

-

so he had to explain -the cause of slavery as wars or association with the slaveholding Khmers . I think there is good reason to consider the first assumption incorrect and the explanation as. non-Marxist . Jit explained that Thailand was in a slave period for at least 400 years, However, slave society was demolished because of the defection by Khmer troops who conquered Thai families and confiscated all slaves. Some slaves escaped to set up their homes in different areas, he wrote. The slaves then were free and set up their own communities but they were not strong enough so they were often invaded by bigger tribes. The same has happened in Europe when the nomads invaded free men, the latter escaped to set up their own towns. The Thai slaves who became free then sought for protection by association with powerful groups and subordinated

____

157

themselves to the big towns. Then existed the feudal system. For the slaves that were under the Khmer could not bear their oppression, rose up against their masters and joined powerful Thai leaders such as Paw Khun Sri Xntradit at Sukhothai where the Thai people were united. The same thing happened at the other big towns of the time such as Chieng Mai, Payao, Suwanapoum, Chud. Sb every big town was a center of free men. The nature of society in Thailand was similar to Europe during the feudal system. 0 The Thai at Ayuthaya had already formed a feudal system. When King Utong moved his people from the plague and settled at Ayuthaya, he had already adopted the feudal system from the Khmer. When he arrived at Ayuthaya he made an announcement that he was the "god of the land" no one else could, have any right to own land. Hence the people were treated as the subordinates of the king, not the partners as initiators of a new town . 4 1 Again J i t can only point to political and social causes for the beginning of the feudal system in Thailand. The slave system was destroyed because of war.

Then the

feudal system existed because of the need for security. Had there not been a political war, these systems, presumably, would not have come into being.

Jit might be

less contradictory of basic Marxist principles if he pointed out the cause of the war between- the Thais and the Khmer showing that it was from economic interest. But he seems to either ignore or forget about Marx’s theory of economic determination. Amnat also followed Jit's explanations for the change from slave society! In. slave society, metal instruments were widely, spread.- The leaders of the community changed- their status to be slave owners. The big slave owners changed to be kings. Each king tried to enlarge their boundaries. Slaves were treated as animals who could speak. Their masters had ‘the right to sell,

158

rent and kill. The slave society lasted thousands of years, it was finally abolished mainly by an uprising of slaves, 4 2 What Amnat did was simply to repeat Jit’s ideas adding rather- unusual assertions about the distant past without any proof. development in society tiated.

t

He seemed to try to relate the

of the means of production to the changes ‘but his ideas were not connected or substan-

His work is simple and crude.

He talks about

the spread of the use of 'metal .instruments but never explains exactly what relationship this had to changes in the economic system.. • Again his explanation for the end of the slavery period and the beginning of the feudal period "uprisings by slaves" shows political rather than economic determinism. Both of these writers seem to ignore the fact that slavery continued throughout the sakdina period with vestiges remaining even today. Apparently this did not fit into the neat scheme of five periods they accepted on faith from Marx. The last part of Jit’s (and Amnat's) interpretation of Thai history 'is devoted to describing the nature of the feudal system and its use, go further than the feudal

Jit, however, did not

period.

He emphasized the

methods of exploitation used in the feudal period more than anything else. First, he characterized the feudal system in the Ayuthaya. period as follows: 1.

The king was the owner of all land, r He had absolute power over land and people.

2.

The people did not have the right to own land.. They had to rent the land and pay back with high rates.

3.

The right to rent land was limited only in the capital. The exploitive relationship was between landlord and serf.

4.

The distribution system appeared clearly. The king often gave land, horses, buffaloes and men to his officials so they could exploit common men like the king.

’

*

159

5.

The occupying of land in the capital 'and out of the capital was done by cutting ' down forests. It could be done voluntarily f■ or by drafting people to do it (corvee. »' labor) . But after the land was cleared only the king or officials had the right to rent it out to the 4 serfs. 43

It was during the Ayuthaya period that the feudal system reached its full development.

King Baromtrailoganard

was the key revivor of this Khmer system. feudalism continue within Ayuthaya?

But how did

Jit gave the answer

that the,kings decided to create the- feudal system by distributing their land to .their relatives, high officials and princes.

But it was not from kindness.

Jit gave the

reasons that the king let others control what was; theoretically at least, land that belonged to the crown: 1,

The economic conflicts among the. feudal classes. The leaders of small groups who cooperated with the king in forming' Ayuthaya, such as volunteering to fight or offering their manpower, expected things ' in return. These leaders certainly' wanted to control some land. Their demand for land might have led to political conflict. So in order to prevent their riots or revolutions the kings were willing to sacrifice some of their;- land. The kings, in preventing conflicts';gave some land to their supporters on the condition that they had to show their obligation by giving a levy such as treasure or pr oduc t s annu ally.

2,

The political conflicts among the feudal classes. The King also stated that the political power each individual had according to the amount of his "sakdina units’’. This was to define and limit the political power of each feudalist.

3,

The development of the productive system. The productive system in the slave period was completely destroyed when the slaves were freed. The only means of production that the big princes or kings could use in their own interest was land. They had

s-

/

/

160

to distribute land because they did not have manpower. In doing this they created a new system of exploitation. Instead of exploiting slaves directly they exploited the serfs through the feudalists. 4 4 In short the feudal system that existed in the Ayuthaya period was created by the kings for their own interests. The main, purpose was to maintain their political and- economic power. The distribution of land among nobles according to their titles was officially written in the reign of King Baromtrailoganard as a law. It was called ”Pra Ayakarn Tamnaengna Tahan Lae 45 Ponlaruan" in 1455". Jit concluded that the distribution of land, especially in the period of King Baromtrailoganard was for the purpose of "preventing coups and revolutions that could be caused by ambitious officials. At the same time it was done for limiting the power of the older feudalists.

That is, to limit political power by

controlling economic power.

The third purpose w s to

seek interest from land because the king did not have 46 slaves to work for him". Jit’s analysis appears quite* correct here, but it is also rather non-Marxist. He repeatedly wrote that the feudal system in Thailand was introduced as a means for political ends.

It was created by the kings who had

absolute political power and wanted to keep it.

So in

describing the origins of Thai feudalism Jit had to turn Marx’s economic determinism upside down.

Instead of

seeing economic structures as the most important factor for political change he had to turn to political explanations for economic changes.

He indicates that

the goal in creating the feudal or sakdina system was to limit the political power of the lesser feudalists by, in Marxist, terms limiting their means of production (1’and) and putting the amount and tenure of their hold

•

161

over those means of production in the hands of the king. Jit divided the feudal class into major feudalists (the king and his court) and the minor feudalists (officials 47 appointed, by 'the king and their relatives).. Thei feudal system was a means to limit the minor feudalists and tie them to.the major feudalists.

To repeat, instead of

the Marxist doctrine that political changes follow alterations in the system of production, Jit was really arguing that changes in the productive system were made for political reasons by those holding political ’power. Jit also spent much of his book describing theexploitive methods of the sakdina class. „ He put special emphasis on the various taxes and levies imposed upon the people.

He enumerated the different taxes the people had

to pay. 1.

Land rent.

Farmers who rented land from the feudal

class had to pay around 30% of their production. 2.

Interest.

Farmers who could not pay back the rent / because of natural disasters or other causes had to borrow

money from the feudal class.

This gave the feudalists

another chance to exploit them.

Interest was stated in

the law and it was very high - between 37% to 50% per 48 year. The feudal

class did not just exploit their

serfs, according to Jit; they exploited the people in general.

The feudalists passed laws to set up four

different kinds of taxes: 1, - Sony - a tax paid in money or produce by- everyone for the right to live in the domain of the king.

This could

also be paid in labor which was used for building temples or palaces.

Often they had to perform extra labor to

avoid being drafted into the army. 2.

Rucha - a fee the. feudal class got from people who

used the services of the government such as using the court.

162

. 3. the

Janggaup country.

size 4.

- a tax This

of the Akorn

from

- a fee

wood

ended

his

exploit

people.

show

that

exploitation

question

because and

was

it was

every

set

according

people

to the

who made money

as from, farming, 4g 1 liquor .

the His

of the

feudal aim

has

history

class

appears

existed

catching

used

to suppress

to have

been

throughout

such

as indirect

whether

taxes

were

a kind

even

was

applied

socialists.

to

Thai- history

means

a sys.tem that

of

taxes. exploitation

by every Jit

fish’,

of Thailand

indirect

government

within

means.

analysis

that

and

The

usually

or on trade

such

making

various

goods

received' from

and

the methods

through

was

resources

Jit with

tax

transportation

natural

cutting

on exported

society

answered

that:

If one doubts whether the tax systems is a form of exploitation or h o t , one should consider Jthe basic problem, that is, who owns the means of production. In the .feudal system, the feudal class owns the means of production i.e. the land. When they own (it, they have economic power to seek for political power by taxing the land as they want. When the'y. receive- the money or produce, they use it for themselves leaving the people to .suffer. Hence, the tax system is the major means for exploitation especially in land'. The tax 'system under capitalism is also a form of capitalist exploitation. The tax system in a socialist society in which people are the owners of the means of production is not a form of exploitation, however, because when people own the means of production together, they have political power together. And whatever they get from their taxes will be used for their own benefit. 5° From that power

seems

above

to, follow

or controls

political and

the

power

economic

statement

Marx

the means as well.

exploitation

- that

Jit

expressed

is, whoever

of production So the

way

his has

would

to destroy

is by letting

view

economic control political

t h e people

own

163

the

means

of production

Jit Thailand. the

stopped Amnat,

development

period part

feudal

analysis

however,

period

of' this

analysis

history

and

went

further. from

following

'the changes

in Thai

was Thai

to show

that

Thai

period

much

longer

it common

primitive

from

The most

Amnat? s comparison

than

At the

the

period,

continued feudal

interesting, between

same

had remained European

in

He described

rhe

society

history.

period

J it,, but then

century.

history

to all.

at the feudal

history

up. to the..mid 20th

western tried

his

of Thai

up to the feudal to analyze

or to make

time

he

in the

society:

When Thailand was in the feudal period which was 'in the Sukhothai period, capitalism in Europe .was already declining. During the period BE 2031-2065 (1488-1522 A.D.) the Spanish and the Portugese sailed around the Cape'- of Good Hope .13 times. - They discovered the American continents and new routes to India and China*. These discoveries created 'four big changes: 1) The development of trade •• which led to the development of handicrafts. 2) The. cultural exchange between far off nations and those nearby. 3) European influence increased rapidly because of the progress of .productive forces, 4) The conflicts between nations ,increased because of the robbery of the capitalists in the early period. Later they developed to be liberal capitalists and then imperialists , In the Ayuthaya period, while feudalism was fully developed in Thailand, it was in chaos in Europe. Farmers rose u p , monarchy faced difficulties; there was a reformation of religion. The war to colonize other .countries spread all over the world. From the Thonburi' period up to the reign of King Rama II of this continued, in Europe there was t Bangkok the industrial revolution. There was the invention of the power loom, the use of coal in factories, the invention of the steam boat and the establishment of industries. • Light industries developed to become heavy industries. The big change in Europe led to the changes in politics. So the revolution

164

took place everywhere, both in Europe and in America. Since the end of the reign of King Rama III, liberal capitalism has developed fully in Europe and the United States. The age of imperialism renewed with more violence and more sophistication. To 'conclude, during 600 years of Thai feudalism Europe had passed through two systems -.feudalism and capitalism. 51 Amnat ’s intention in comparing. Thai historical periods with European was to show that Thai history developed the same way as European, simply not as far. The only thing was that Thailand had taken longer to pass through the feudal period. But Thailand to Amnat did'not develop to be a capitalist society like Europe, Thailand was still in the process of becoming a capitalist society.

This transforming society was characterized as 52 "semi- feudal and semi-colonial" . The semi-colonial part was shown by the .privileges given to foreigners.

These privileges were first introduced by the first trade . treaty Thailand made with Britain in 1855.

It stated

that 1) People under British, control did not have to go to Thai courts when there was a trial, but to British court. 2) People under British control would be protected in business. 3) Thailand could tax imports only 3% and export taxes must be agreed to by the British. 4) Abolition 54 of the royal cargo tax. According to Amnat these privileges made Thailand semi-colonized to the British. The other events he cites were the periodic loss of territory to France and Britain - Laos, parts of Cambodia, the northernmost parts of Malaysia were all taken away from Thailand.

Because of these events, Amnat argued

that Thailand was in an inferior position to foreign countries and could not deal with them as equals. According to Amnat the semi-feudal character of Thailand was determined by the economic system with the

165

king tending to l.ose his economic power to a new class of minor capitalists and imperialists.

But, he wrote,

nobles still retained great economic power, though they were now wielding it through the bureaucracy and the military.

The nobles cooperated with the capitalist class

in exploiting the peasants and the laborers who are also a new class.

During' this period, Amnat wrote, there were

many types of class struggle that- is: ’’between the peasantry and the landlords, between the people and the capitalists and nobles, between the nation and the imperialists and between the proletariat and the •55 capitalists". Therefore, Amnat wrote, Thai society even in the 20th century still had not developed to become a fully capitalist society.

Imperialism had caused Thailand

to develop to be a semi-colony first- therefore restricting its further- development.

But the factors Amnat cites to

explain Thai history did not exist within society or stem from changes in the means of production,

The way he

tells it, they came from the outside and originated from political causes rather than economic causes.

It could

be concluded that Amnat,, like Jit, seemed,to downplay the theory of economic determinism as emphasized by Marx, Both Jit and Amnat deemed that Thailand followed in Europe’s footsteps as far as historical development was concerned.

Most .of* all, they tried to show that

Thai history could be divided into five periods the same way as European history.

Thai history, then, was a

history of class struggle - the struggle between two classes from the beginning.

But Thailand did not reach

the modern capitalist period yet so the class struggle at present was still at least partly in the feudal period.

Though no other Thai radicals wrote so

systematically or extensively about Thai history,

166

references to it in their work show they generally accept the outline and conclusions of Jit and to a lesser extent of Amnat.

This view of Thai history was an important

factor in the development of the radical Thai view of other things as well, as we shall see in later sections, PROBLEMS WITH THE RADICAL INTERPRETATION The new interpretation of Thai history expounded by Jit was regarded as standard by other modern Thai radicals including the radical students.

The references

tp Thai history in such radical works as "Sangkom Thai" (Thai society) , "Sangkomniyom" (Socialism) , "Kit Yang Yaowachon Mai" (Think as a New Generation) "Serm Tidsadee" (Amendment to Theory) and many others, follow closely in the path set by Jit. The radical interpretation of Thai history is clearly an attempt to apply the Marxist approach to Thailand. We have seen in the first part of this section that most of the modern Thai radicals showed a rather superficial understanding of Marx’s materialist conception of history even though they were clearly familiar with its terms and conclusions. It appears one -of the most influential Marxist works was Marx’s "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy".

Superficially,

■9-

■»

at least, the Thai Marxists adopted Mdrx’s view that the * transformation of society depended upon economic foundations., i.e. the modes of production which consisted of productive forces and relations o£ production.

The

Thai radicals also agreed with Marx that social change derived from the conflicts between productive forces and the relations of production because in normal society the two develop in harmony. to one another.

Or, they develop in accordance

But if the productive forces developed

167

so much faster than the relations of production and the latter could not- catch up with the former, then this was the cause of revolution and socio-economic and political change. But there are -many times when the Thai Marxists seemed to ignore the theory of economic determinism especially when they applied, it to Thai history.

Their assumption of Thailand having experienced

the same periods as Marx described for the West seemed to have induced them to have abandoned any efforts to go painstakingly through Thai history and show the relations of changes in substructure and changes in superstructure. They seemed more intent on proving that Thai history fit the conclusions of Marx than on using the Marxist analysis to better understand Thai history, Their treatment of slavery is typically confused. First of all they reverse the normal procedure of arguing from facts to establish a pattern or a theory.

Instead

they accept as given the Marxist pattern of development and further assume that it must apply to Thai- history . From this flimsy start they begin looking for proof and it must be remembered, that even flimsy theories have resulted in the discovery of new and unexpected facts . Therefore Jit’s clever linguistic arguments for the existence of a slave period are interesting, though far from conclusive.

Amnat’s ramblings .about the means of

production used in various period are never brought into a coherent argument and it seems hard to understand why he thought they "proved" anything.

Further, neither was

able to show the relation of social and economic changes to conflicts between the means of production and the relations of production in the establishment of their so-called slavery period.

Then they also leave

unanswered how the Marxist analysis can explain the ’slave uprisings" that were supposed to have ended the

168

period, and begun feudalism.

There is also no explanation

along Marxist lines for the repeated wars between the Thai tribes and their neighbors though these wars are sometimes cited as the reasons for social and economic change. When the Thai radicals come to the establishment of the sakdina system again they are forced to rely on political-explanations saying it originated from the .' king’s,,des ire 1 to control his relatives, nobles and high officials.- Even the development from the feudal system to a semirf eudal , semi-colonial system was explained by reference to outside forces - the imperialists.

This

failure to,use the Marxist analysis for a really radical view of Thai history is curious.

Perhaps one reason

for it is the simple lack of information about the economic relations of early Thai history.

Another

possibility is that the economic arrangements of the east and Thailand in particular simply didn’t fit very well into the theories developed by a German intellectual.

But also

it seems likely that the writers* own early training and thinking had some influence. Given the emphasis of Thai Buddhism on lists of key points - the three jewels, the five principles for daily life, the eight forms of bad behavior, the 227 rules for monks

- it is'not surprising

that the Thai radicals were struck by Marx’s enumeration of five historical periods. This may explain a bit of the determination with which almost every single Thai Marxist tried .to substantiate the existence of the five Marxist periods in Thai history - lack of evidence notwithstanding.

At the same time the analytical process

of Marxist thought seems much more foreign to Thais. Education has traditionally been through the memorization of lists or facts without much emphasis on original or analytic thought. In addition we have seen that Jit and Amnat often attribute the cause of a social or political

169

change, to the king* though they are consciously rejecting the old interpretation of history that concentrated

*

solely on the kings. So, it seems they have not quite, shaken off the effects of their Thai education and Thai values.

As much as they praise the common man and reject

the idea of the Kero as history maker, they sometimes revert- to these explanations to prove a desired point. Their problems are compounded by the fact that the terms of Marx are not always very useful , and worse are sometimes misleading when applied, to the 'Thai situation.'' It is -difficult to apply the terms of economic determinism especially in the modern period as new means of production were introduced from abroad, but only in some areas and to. certain classes. If Marx meant that the change of society' is due partly to the type of means of production in society as a whole, then Thailand, even today spans several eras. The methods and means of production in some parts of Thailand, such as the northeast are still the ancient ones. Tools are often made by the user from local materials. Methods of agriculture are still those of 2000 years

ago with perhaps a. more modern

type of plow, in some places new insecticides, in others fertilizers

dr artificial rain is used while the crops

are still harvested by hand with a small knife, one stalk cut at a time.. Sometimes small factories are : manned by the children of poverty stricken peasants who sold them to the factory owners, much more like the slavery that Marx referred to than the household slaves of the Sukhothai period. So a truly Marxist analysis of the development of Thai history is an immensely complicated task in which it would probably be necessary to invent new terms and categories to fit situations Marx knew little about.

But at the same time one should not

overemphasize the importance of the Thai Marxists failure

170

to follow Marx’s idea of economic determinism devoutly. Even Engels expressed his doubts about this idea-. One year after Marx’s death, Engels criticized Marx’s interpretation of history saying it "proves only how incomplete our knowledge of economic history still was at that time". 57 In 1890 Engels wrote to Bloch to explain that although economic structure was the essential element in the transformation of history, it was not the only element that determined the transformation. The various elements of the superstructure, political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit, constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc. juridical forms and then even the reflexes of all those actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their •further development into a system of dogmas also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. 5 8 It is unlikely Jit or Amnat knew about the Engels letter or they would likely have used it to justify their departures from the economic determinism of Marx. But it is possible that they knew of the idea third or fourth hand through some other source or commentary on Marxism.

It seems more likely, however, they had to use

political causation and the influence of individual kings to explain historical developments with a higher purpose in view - to show that Thai history fit the Marxist mold. So the attention of most radical Thai thinkers was focused on the five periods of development both,for reasons of training and turn of mind, but also for tactical revolutionary reasons. Let us not forget that none of these thinkers was really an historian; t they were revolutionaries waging a struggle that was aimed at a new future.

-

*

So the periods of history that Marx spoke of

171

were attractive explain

to them because

the

four

to Thailand,

the

periods

of

reward

however

the

could

and how they

if

one could, show

was that

So the the

Thai

But that J.it

true

distortions

to resort

does

make them

to examine

the

major

some

problem

-

. •

o f Marxism and o f Thai

had

not

applied

then it would seem o f the fifth period

in Thailand

Marxists

worthwhile For

come

to

past

T h a i l a n d ’ s past to fit the- pattern much more likely that the promise socialising

difficult;

history

to become understandable/

any less

d i st o r ti o ns .

of them in greater with

getting

Thai

It

is

detail. history

to

fit the Marxist pattern was that slaves a s recorded in traditional history appeared only, in the sakdina period and then were not particularly significant economically . He needed to show that a period o f a slave economic system preceded the sakdina period. But the sla ve society in M a r x ’ s sense take

a close

did

look

not actually

at

its

exist

nature.

M a r x ' s sense

was a society

basis

o f the

whole

force

had to depend

in -Thailand

The slave

if

society

we

in

in which

productive on slave

"slavery remained the 59 system" . The productive

la b or.

The slave-owner

had

to receive a l l benefit from the production of the s l a v e s . In Thai society, though slave labor was u s e d , i t was not an important the

factor

"basis"

Sukhothai

for

in the

the

period

productive

whole system.

and later

in the

system much l e s s

Sl a ve s

in both

Ayuthaya

the

and Bangkok,

periods from all available evidence seem to have a rather limited r o l e in s o c i e t y . They primarily served their

masters

rather

than

in the being

from thos e

general that

slavery

have

distinguished

in Europe.

o f the

absolute

or in

the

used a s a m ajor force

Marx himself orient

household

orient

power.

the

royal

*

of production. slaves

The d i f f e r e n c e was dominated

The nature

court in the was. that

by s t a t e s

of society

was

the

172

hydraulic society so the leaders of society in. the orient were not in the same position as the West,

The slave labor

was' mainly used in personal or public service such as building or repairing palaces or temples. There is also a problem when Jit tried to characterize the sakdina system as the feudal system. Many arguments have been made about whether the Thai sakdina system was comparable to the European feudal system.

Arguments have centered around the question of

whether the unit of land in the sakdina system meant the number of units of land an individual could own, or whether it was only an indicator of the political and social power of the individual. Professor Saneh Jamarig, one of the most influential students of Thai political systems, argued that "From surveying historical evidence, I tend to understand that sakdina does not simply mean status in terms of land.

Because the distribution of land could

actually be done.

'The number of the population was so

small that there was no problem of a land shortage (in the reign of King Rama III there were about three million people) but later there was an increase in the population that forced Sakdina to be changed to status in terms of land.

This is not unusual.

The sign of sakdina in the

past was the land of old nobles which was passed down to their next generations as still can be seen today" . Dr. Chattip Nardsupa, another leading political scientist, presents the same view in the "Evolution of the Thai Economic System" .

He wrote that the "Thai

economic system had been evolved to be the sakdina system since the Sukhothai period.

Thai kings had divided their

lands and given it to relatives and .off icials . then rented the land (from them) . the rent by souy or products.

Farmers

The farmers paid back

The Royal Laws of Land

173

Distribution

in 1912 gave land to the Pra Maha Uparat

(title of the king to be, crown prince) as much 'as 100,000 rai.

Other positions were given land according

to their status. Normal farmers get some part of the land 62 from the royal family, but not more than 13 rai”.

0

However, the fact that Thai nobles and officials probably did get to own the amount of land according to their sakdina rank is not enough to conclude that the Thai sakdina system was the same as the feudal system. There -were many other elements that could be brought up. The most detailed study of the sakdina system has been made by Dr. Chai-anan Samudavanija a leading contemporary political scientist.

In his book ’’Sakdina and the

Development of Thai Society” 63 Chai-anan compared the similarities and the difference between these two systems. The differences

were firstly that Thai kings did not give

any right to own 'land to nobles or officials. take it back anytime that he wanted to.

He could

Secondly, in the

sakdina system, the king had absolute political power. There was no other power that could challenge him. So the king could gather benefits from the land both directly and indirectly through the nobles and through the people. But in the European feudal system, kings did not have such absolute political power.

Popes and other religious

leaders sometimes challenged the king’’s political power. Strong nobles firmly based on hereditary estates that they ruled with a free hand -.were a threat to kingly power with, their ability to control serfs and raise armies themselves. They had economic power they could exercise without the king •s interference in great contrast to the nobles of the Thai court who were almost completely dependent on royal favor. Thirdly, in the sakdina system and from the past there was a .clear distinction between religion and politics.

Kings usually dominated the


• style and in favour of the saxdina class. -3-03 f Seni’s idea are of course far from original and they almost certainly represent a Thai rephrasing of 4

■

Marx’s statement, in "German Ideology": The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. 104 The radical thesis of the value dominance of the values of the sakdina class has some support from empirical research.

Herbert P .Phillips, for instance,

did research on values of Thai peasants in a small village (Banchang) in the central region. His conclusions were that Thai 'peasants had a high degree of loyalty for the king, respected their social superiors, tried to avoid conflict,, believed that their poverty and sufferings were the result of karma and put individual .happiness ahead 105 of any group goals. Thai scholars, Dr, Paitoon .Kruageo and Dr. Narong Sinsawaddi wrote "the Nature of Thai Society "106 an £ ''problems of Thai Democracy "1° coming to similar conclusion. CLASS STRUGGLE IN THAI HISTORY I

As we have seen the Thai Marxists based their understanding of history oh the idea of continual class struggle.

As one .radical writer, Atikom Rungarun put it,

"the history of Thailand, that included changes in the royal family, the wars for independence from Burma, and 108 others was a history of class struggle”. We have

197

already reviewed the radical conception of Thai history, but it is worth taking a quick look at the writing of Saital Turdchutham who tried to establish class struggle as -just about the only motivation for the events’of Thai history in his book ”Chom Naa Mai Khong Prawatisat 109 Thai”. In this book Saitai tried to analyse all of the wars and conflicts of Thai history on the basis ,of two competing classes.

The wars with Burma were initiated

by western imperialism and won or lost because of. internal class struggle.

The Burmese sack of Ayuthaya in 1767,

Saitai wrote, was due to the misbehavior of -the ruling class who" were concerned only .with sex, luxury and ’political power. He points to scandals over the, adultery of court ladies and attempted coups by court officials. This, he insisted, was part of the class struggle and weakened Ayuthaya ’s power. But most important, he said, was the mistreatment of the people by the Ayuthaya kings who ruthlessly drafted people to build palaces or organize • massive elephant hunts for the king,

“At that time

there was a heavy flood so the people had to walk in water day and night to build camps. affected. move. '

They suffered a lot.

Their feet were

Some were too ill to

Some starved to death", Because of the king’s lack of consideration

for his subjects the people felt, little loyalty to the king when the Burmese invaded,

Saitai concluded that:

The real cause of the fall of Ayuthaya was from within the society. The bad behavior of the ruling class was the main thing. The aggression of the Burmese was not the real cause; it was only the outside stimulus to conditions from within. H l Besides the struggle between the ruling classes of nations, Thai history was also the long struggle between the ruled and rulers though it was not so well

198

recorded in the history books, Saitai said.

He mentioned

a number of episodes from Thai history including the "people's army of Bangrachan". 112 But as Saitai admits the people's army did not fight their Thai rulers but against the invading Burmese.

The evidence of class

struggle, Saitai ’wrote was that the court was fearful of the people's army especially after their initial success in stopping a Burmese invasion.

The court therefore

refused to send the artillery that the army needed desperately as the Burmese regrouped for another attack.. The lack of cannon led to the defeat of the Bangrachan army, Saitai said that Thai history was full of clashes between the people and their rulers.

He wrote of five

uprisings which he said were evidence of the class struggle. 113 But the incidents were rather minor, one occurring when Burmese attacks had caused great hardships to the- Thai people, one seeming to involve .more personal ambition than class struggle and the others began with superstitious beliefs of a great messiah bringing a life of ease for all. While there has clearly been more strife between rulers and the ruled in Thailand than court historians have written of, there is also not much evidence for the radical thesis that the class struggle is the most important factor in Thai history. Saitai went on to argue that the conflict with foreign imperialist powers' was the other main cause of Thai historical events.

He reviewed Thai history from

the reign of King Narai (1657-1688) saying that Thai kings were repeatedly forced into unfair and damaging treaties 114 by England and France. In making his claims Saitai was forced to expand and distort the definition of class and class conflict outlined by Jit Pumisak.

And he had to abandon' (or perhaps

199

never .really understood) Marx’s conception of class struggle as arising from the evolution of productive ■ ■spiritual side of those realities while Marxism is ■concerned with the material side (rib matter how stirring

218

to the spirit his visions of.revolution and a new communist society might be to some) . But since, as religions go, Buddhist is rather more logical and practical than most, despite the distortions of superstition and animism, the radicals were tempted to show that Buddhist p'hilosophy was based on materialist assumptions like Marxism. Supot Darntragul, one of the mainstream Thai Marxists of the 50s wrote that for both Marxism and Buddhism, The only truth is that which we can touch. Ideas are the product of matter. 143 This theory, which was called the sensual theory, states that emotion (a particular movement of mind) was -created by the internal organs which are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and brain. These organs touch the external world through substance , sound , order , taste and things that the body can feel like cold, heat, heardness and softness. This leads to the materialist view of Marxism that the mind is determined by the surroundings.

For example eyes meet a substance and

this creates an emotion of like or dislike, or indifference. Then mind would express by speech or action and interact with the substance and sensation created and so on in a continuum of interaction. To be able to touch, see, smell or feel, one must have good organs and must be healthy. Hence the cause of all emotion was matter which can be interacted with. Supot continued that this theory also holds that mind dominates body, but mind is related to the brain, or the product of the brain.

Hence, all action and

emotion must be created by a material object, the brain. This is the Buddhist view and this is a materialist view, so Buddhism should be classified as a materialist 144 theory instead of as a spiritual theory.

219

Nearly 20 years later student leader Seksan 2Prasertkul was urging the same understanding of Buddhism and Marxism. Buddhism, is not spiritualism. Buddhism places a great importance' on the mind. Mind can perceive things, but Buddhism is not spiritualism because spiritualism means that men behave according to thoughts preconceived by the mind and uninfluenced by environment .... Buddhism points out the relations between mind and matter. Mind depends bn physical organs which are not determined before they experience the world. Then when things meet with these *• organs, this leads to perception. Perception leads to action. 45 The radical attempt to show that the epistemology of materialism was the same as that for Buddhism seems initially attractive because, compared with the religions of the west, Buddhism in its purest form involves nothing of the supernatural, relies, for the most part on material explanations for certain phenomena and proceeds logically from cause to effect to solution in its examination of the suffering of the world.

But the'

emphasis of Buddhism was not on the material nature of the brain- or perception, but on the methods of controlling them to eliminate suffering.

The point of Buddhism is

not in its theoretical explanations but in the practice of meditation and the leading of a moral life.

A great

contemporary monk, Pra Acharn Buddadassa, teaches Buddhism without its hinduist or animist trappings, but without falling into the materialism that. the Thai radicals espoused. .Like many Buddhist practf oners before him he urges people to "empty your mind" to., eliminate suffering and .craving.

Buddhists, explain that happiness

come not from -outside but from within. .man’s own creation.

Buddhism is

For. Buddhists it is the mind that

controls the body, including the brain.;. The training

of

220

the mind through meditation leads to salvation.

But Marx

Was not interested in the training of the mind, but rather in the alteration of the environment which would in turn change man. The sensual theory described by Supot comes from the segment of Buddhist scripture known as the 146 "Paticcasamuppada 12" . (published by the religious department of Thailand) . This section describes the twelve factors which create life and -allow it to continue. It is not necessary to go into great detail, but it is worthwhile to point out the key idea. According to Paticcasamuppada 12, the cause of all phenomena is Avijja (maya or ignorance) . Because of ignorance men do not see things as they are but see them as they think they are or should be. Hence emotion takes place because of avijja, not really by internal organs as Supot put it. The organs, according to the paticcasamuppada principle are only the channels to -receive all currents, like wireless receivers. So they are only the instruments of man. To Buddhists, they are not the main element in creating emotion, or perception, They are "salayatana" or the six; organs which man mistakes for conduits to reality and the means of perception. But in fact,

147

according to Buddhism, Avijja is the cause of perception and emotion. Without Avijja, Salayatan (the organs) would have no. place. Therefore, emotion originated from the abstract element, ignorance, not from matter as Supot described.

What Supot quoted was only part

of the* phenomenal process.

The cause of the "sensual

theory" is more complex and wider than Supot describes. He did not go deep enough into Buddhist theory.

So what

he did was to bring in only a segment of Paticcasamuppada and tried to equate it with Marxist materialism. point was even more questionable.

Seksan's

He said that man’s

221

action was the result of perception.

But the Buddhist

scriptures are clear that it is v avijja,. ignorance that is the key of all phenomena.

'

\

The modern Thai Marxists also tried to convince 1"

f

their readers that Marxism and Buddhism had the same materialist, scientific approach., Sriburapa wrote: Dharma of the Buddha is the science derived •from scientific experiment. It is the fruit of the Buddha’s observations and experiment for six years Buddhism srtresses the importance of practice like the scientific teaching of „ Marx in order’ to cure or improve life and. society. For instance, the poor who are exploited, if they want to abolish exploitation, according.to scientific teaching they have to unite together and fight the exploiter. They have to take action. If they only cry and plead for help separately they will never be free of exploitation .... Buddhist teaching is the same. It •emphasizes self-reliance and self-practice. 139 Sriburapa drew his conclusions without much substantiation because the equation of Buddhist and Marxist teachings would have been of such immense* propanganda value to the radicals.

But if we look a

little bit more closely we can see that his conclusions are not well-founded.- He never shows how the Buddha’s "scientific experiments" were done.

The Buddha spent

six years of his early monkhood searching for truth. Most of his searching was mind practice - meditation. So he did not make any experiments in a.concrete or material way.

"Practice" in the Buddhist sense was not

action in the radical sense.

The Buddha was not

interested in improving" the physical world by making a revolution by a group of underprivileged people.

But he

rather wanted an individual to perform good acts so the society as a whole would be improved.

"It is an

222

outstanding feature of Buddhism that 150 war”, according to one well known Buddhism,

Bhatta

professor

of

Charya.

To Sriburapa goal

it has. abolished

in spreading

the

their

Buddha

and

Marx

had

the

same-

teachings.

Both carried on their responsibilities in order to abolish human misery. Both worked for humanity as a whole. Whoever understands the teaching of both Buddha and Marx correctly would be able to put their teachings into- practice. He would be able to integrate both principles and make both useful for his daily life and for his .society . 151 Sriburapa were

written

directly

not

pay

The

happiness

of all

attention

the

to other

the

while

prime

The

classes

Marx

condition

sense

saw

for

the

But

Marxists

Buddha

way.

wanted

covered

that

did

representative

the

leading

the

theories

in a practical

Buddhism saw

step

Marx’s

as the

goal.

Buddha

first

that

proletarian.

proletariat

In this

of "people.

happiness,

the

was Marx’s

all.

.happiness- was

to forget

for

of the

society

to rescue group

seemed

the

a larger

individual’s

to societal

happiness

of one

well-being

class

of society

as

as a

whole. Furthermore, as supermundane,

the

a more

The, goal, ,of Marxism in .which 'everyone Marxist

,social

together

.reach

action

and

society to. share can both

ideal

goal

world

is a communist can

join

revolution. the

as long

as they

ideal

is an individual

phenomenon

Buddhism the

anyone

become

unless

that

an enlightened

and

Marxism

cause

of the

had the misery,

good

society

By contrast,

with

of man - nirvana.

Everyone,

Marxist

is characterised

society,

revolution.

himself

misery,

Buddhist’s

an environment follow and

bad can

through

mass

Buddha’s which

person

ideal

it is impossible

as an individual

one. same

the

It is true impetus

however,

and

that-

- man’s the

way

to

223

According' to it are much different. 152 the human miseries (tukkha) are 4”

escape' from I "Ariyasataya

aging I illness are

more

the

death.

and

But to Marx,, the

bad standards

of living

birth,

miseries

- poverty,

long

l

hours

of work,

men,

bad health

not .all living

miser/

originates

or alienation.

beings from

are miserable

exploitation

Buddha,

by contrast,

saw

every

insects

- as sharing

the

same

causes

of misery

ignorance.

to Marx,

workers' is capitalism. path

to abolish

conduct

human

(right

mental

right

(right

concentration) .

cure

In short,

different a longer efforts Thai and

sighted to win

radicals equate One

the two

view

craving,

the

anger

and

of the" misery suggested

the

of the eightfold

right

right (right

mindfulness

and

thought

right

a social

revolution

Buddhist world

that

view.

view

to . is

Or t h e Buddha/has

of Marx.

for ‘the theories to ignore, the

and

But

in their

of Marx

great

the

differences

two.

of t h e most

philosophies

"Buddhism

and

different

aspects.

v

tried

To Buddha

livelihood),

world

than

followers have

the

Marxist

animal,

action,

1’arx proposed

than' the

- man,

ethical

wisdom

the

The

by performing

effort,

and

understanding) misery.

Buddha

misery

speech,

discipline

right

The

creator

men's men.

miseries. are

the

and

only

by other

being

(samuhadaiya)

But

To Marx,

was

Marxism".

systematic done

comparisons

by Patana

He divided

between

Ramyasut

his topic

in

into

four

First., philosophical aspect. Buddhism holds that everything that existed in the past or exists now could be divided into two kinds concrete and abstract. The philosophy of socialism and communism similarly view that everything could be divided into matter and mind. So both have the same philosophical view. 153

224

Patana seems to overemphasize this aspect because many philosophical schools, though different in other ways, divide the world into two aspects as' did Marx and the Buddha. . Second, in the world view aspect. Buddhist philosophy holds that everything, both abstract and concrete has the same nature which is called "trailak" (three fold nature) they are anijjang, tukkhang and anatta. 1. Anijjang means everything as in a state of flux so everything changes from one quality to another quality all the time. This process never ends .... 2. Tukkhang means everything has conflict . both from within and from without . . . , 3. Anatta means everything, when analyzed closely, does not really exist. The philosophy of socialism and communism holds that everything has a dialectical nature which is: 1. Everything is in a state of flux. Nothing is static (Anijjang) . 2. The above changes begin from the change of quantity and when that reaches a certain stage it will become a change of quality (the stages of anijjang) . 3. In the stage of changing in quantity, things will gradually change, but when things change in quality, they will rapidly change (the stages of anijjang) . 4. Everything is in conflict between the - old forces and.the new forces of the same content. Finally the new forces will win. Then it will itself became an old force to enter into conflict with another new force. The new force will win. This process continues forever. The new force is the result of conflict. It is a developed stage (Tukkhang) . 5. Everything is related and depends on each other. Nothing is perfect in itself or can be alone by itself. 154 (Anatta). Patana 1 s attempt to equate various points of Buddhist and Marxist philosophy is interesting because

225

its: extent- shows how hard the radicals tried to link the two -and how important it was to them, even though by Marxist standards they -should have been attacking religion or ignoring' it as an instrument of oppression. But the problems that Patana tried to gloss oyer are great and indicative of the problems all.the radicals faced in their treatment of Buddhism and Marxism. Even though both Marx and the Buddha taught that "everything is in flux", nothing is permanent arid only l in transition, there is a fundamental difference between the two.

As Bhattacharya points out: For Buddha, change may not issue from contradiction, but only out of cooperation of the- constituents of a thing or social phenomenon. Marx- does take the various factors into account, but he puts them in an antagonistic pose ,3-55 Moreover "the Marxist interpretation of the

Buddhist doctrine of universal change and impermanance was rather awkward since the meaning of this doctrine was understood by most Buddhists to be quite different from the way Patana described it. -According to the ' * ** 156 Sanyuttanikaya Sagathavagga 18/1 anijjang means impermanance, but it does not simply mean change andcertainly not only revolution as Patana implied. The Sanyuttanikaya describes anijjang as simply change and not any particular- kind of change. But the dialectic theory describes specific kinds .of changes and has them taking place in different stages. By the same token, Tukkhang, to Buddhists means unhappiness. Generally such unhappiness exists because of natural change - birth, aging, illness and death. Tukkhang does not exist only because of old forces clashing with new forces.

The process of 'life, even

without conflict, might still lead to Tukkhang.

226

And lastly, annatta, simply means no self.

It is

4

hard to see any parallel in Marxist theory with annatta. Patana 's equating the Buddhist world view with Marx's dialectic has some other weaknesses. According to the dialectic as a theory of creation as Professor Meyer sums up, "is to dwell on the emergence of new qualities and to differentiate qualitative from ’ ' 157 quantitative change" and "a new quality, so-called, X5 8 is inevitably a progressive step". Hence, Pattana’s equation of the second and third steps of Marx’s dialectic to anijjang is questionable. For anijjang in Buddhism does not consist of such a process. Qualitative and quantitative change is not mentioned in Sanyuttanikaya Sagathavagga.

Anijjang

simply means "continuous changes in an infinity of forms, feelings and consciousnesses". 159 Patana faces the same problem when he equates the fourth step of the dialectic with Tukkhang. The cause of this process is the opposite force within the same content. This step shows that "motion and development’ is seen as the result of a struggle- or conflict of opposites contained in unity within each thing". 6°

Hence, in order to see that this

conflict exists, one has to presumably see that "everything has within itself its own opposite, or everything has within itself struggling opposites and motion is caused by ’ 161 (or takes the form of) this contradiction". But the Buddhist view of Tukkhang does not in any way parallel with this view.

Everything that exists in this world is

considered as Tukkhang or misery.. This Buddhist term denotes the ethical character of Buddhist thought rather than the mechanical or materialist nature that Patana tried to ascribe to it.

Most of all, Patana equates the

last step of Marx's dialectic with anatta. is not the result of tukkhang.

First, anatta

This idea exists

221

independently.

Second, anatta is not the combination

of anijjang and tukkhang, nor is it a "progressive step". Finally anatta means no self.- It is the Buddhist view to see things as "souless" because they change and' this constant change is misery. The Buddha's doctrine covered a wider ground of moral and psychological understanding than Marx’s dialectic which also tried to characterize the nature of change, the cause of change and the stages of change in society. Marx believed, writing in the 19th century, in progress. Buddha, teaching five centuries before the birth of Christ believed in the possibility of change leading to progress and tried to show how to make that come about, but not in its inevitability.

Change, for

Buddha, could and most often did, lead only into a recurrent cycle of misery. But Patana was determined to equate the two philosophies in every aspect.

He continued:

Third in its epistemological aspect., the Buddhist philosophy holds that true knowledge can be obtained by perception of physical things, sound, odor and taste. This leads to consciousness, perception, feeling and co-ef f icients of consciousness. These phenomena altogether are called knowledge. The knowledge that derives from prediction is not real knowledge. The philosophy of socialism* and communism also holds -that science derives from existing realities. Ideas are not real knowledge. True knowledge comes from matter. 162 Again Patana changed the meaning of Buddhist knowledge. What was described was not considered as knowledge according to the Buddhist definition.

It was

the theory of the five aggregates' that describes the existence of self which men mistake as real. So all knowledge received by the aggregates is unreal. to the Buddhist view:

Accordin.j

223

The so-called individual is nothing other than these llama and rupa, or in other words, the -five* aggregates (khandhas) which are (1) rupa - material form (2) vedana - feeling (3.)' samjna - perception (4) samskara - the • co-effic tents of consciousness and (5) vijnnana consciousness 1. When these are analyzed and the temporary collection of material and spiritual forces examined, there is nothing behind them which can be taken as "I" Atnan or self or any immutable abiding .substance.164 It was clear that Patana’s understanding or true knowledge

in the Buddhist sense was confused (perhaps

'intentionally) with the theory of the five aggregates. There was no place in Buddhist theory that referred to the five aggregates as true knowledge. They only are the phenomena * that man experiences in everyday life. True knowledge to Buddhists is the knowledge without doubt, (kangkhawitaranayana) . The method of obtaining such 166 true knowledge is by following Bodhipakkhiyadhamma 37 % the doctrine of the enlightenment . This principal doctrine contains 37 methods which are based on spiritual and behavioral practice.

By following these practices

one can reach the highest goal of Buddhism - Nirvana. Thus Nirvana is an individual state in which man’s soul, after being cleansed of selfishness, hatred and lust, has become a habitation of the truth, teaching- him to distrust the allurements of pleasure and to confine all his energies to attend to the duties of life. 167 But Patana disregarded the differences and went on to the last aspects: Fourthly, for the purposive aspect, the Buddhist "teaching consists of two levels, » the mundane level and the supermundane level : 1,) Mundane level. This aims to make men understand the relations between men and other animals, It teaches men to restrain from bad acts and to do only good things .

229

. It also trains men to have good hearts., believe in morality in order to be a good member of society. 2) Supermundane level. This teaches men * to purify their hearts, to do without lust, craving and illusion, so men can be frtee of all compulsions. At this stage men.'s minds are clean, enlightened and peaceful..

T

■
the

all

of women? hard

ideas and"- the liberation pf’-theTwholejiSOciaiist-communist

■

society

o f oppression. Culture then be concluded then that the final

ih„women and>the?oppressibn • *

communist

means of oppression.

Why were *

utopian

*translated

were

Private -'and

influenced Property re-phrased

by E n g e l s '

and S t a t e " into

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305

■first-published a- speech'- at which

in 1954.

Thammasat

mainly

For

years

University

consisted

of the ‘family.

Two

Gularp

on the

"Status

ideas

on the

of Engels'

example,

earlier

Gularp

made

of Women" origin

said:

-Some philosopher has observed that the transformation of polygamy to monogamy' was. based on. economic conditions, that is, the order of communal property was limited to a small number- of people and then developed .to be private property. 367 According to history, monogamy did - not exist as a compromise between the two • sexes, on the contrary , it manifests the cpmplete oppression of one ;sex by " another. It was the declaration of a struggle between the ’two sexes which the -barbarian never knew before. 36 8

*■

, ‘ These

remarks

are

very

similar

to the

ideas

of

Engels 'who wrote: . The origin of monogamy was the first form ;of the family based not on nature , ‘ -but- on economic conditions, namely, on the' victory of private property over ‘originally, naturally developed, common ' ownership .3 6 9 and

»

Thus, monogamy does not by any’ means make -its appearance in history as the reconciliation of man and woman, still less as the highest form of such reconciliation. •On'the. contrary , it appears as the subjection of one sex by the other, as the -proclamation -of a conflict between two sexes entirely unknown hitherto* in prehistoric ‘times'.3/0.Gularp’ was. simply

putting

own. mouth.

“In later

eff ect- and

a -major' influence

Jir anan,- 4Panadda Engels*

ideas

, Woman®., remembered

years

, Srisak

in their

Thpugh that

Engels * words

his translation

and

had

on women -radicals Suksan

articles

who

under

they

tended

many

of the women

into

his

a similar such

as

reflected

the

to be imitative radicals

name

of

"Korat

it must were

be

still

in

306 v

'

t

*

Mt

. ‘ «- 41» ,> their twenties and only beginning to try to think differently from what they had been taught a l l their lives in-.school and at home. Had n o t . events intervened and stopped them from writing and speaking they may well have gone beyond simple .reformulations o f the 'ideas >of previous 'male Thai and western .thinkers and produced*. their own original thought born from the? struggle against the oppression of Thai women. Another reason for the r a d i c a l ’ s interest in woman’s role could be just the- attempt to attack the sakdina class. It seemed that the radical approach •• i , was to find some ‘weaknesses > disadvantages or shortcomings of Thai culture- and traditions. Then attacking, the sakdina c l a s s for creating those problems was.useful propaganda. They applied the same approach % when they -attacked the state, religion, art and liter attire.' So it seemed that any disadvantage of Thai society would build a better case for the need for a revolution. They wanted to tie the desire and need of the. Thai people including women, to eliminate old traditions no longer useful and to modernize Thai society with the idea of a socialist revolution. Another impetus of the Thai Marxists in concentrating on the role o f women was the influence of women’s liberation in the w e s t . In the early 7 0 s women’s liberation movements were active in Europe and the United States and gained wide publicity ( i f little understanding - at least from Asian people reading the reports) 4 The Thai radicals were against any influence coming, from countries they saw as imperialist, decadent and capitalist, but the examples must have stirred them and must have given them some idea of a universal problem that they could unite with. The Thai women Marxists in fact tried to influence womens’ liberation

307

organizations

that

we stern --model.

set j

to them. more

that

Thai The

most

and

• of women

methods

iri claiming

more

their

Group,

the

quite

‘educated

women

These

Such

of Thai

society

to listen were

to the peaceful

groups

Volunteer

as the

group

to organize government

were

not open

and this

the

were

unwilling

preferred

rights.

groups

for

and richer

directly

They

Women’s

by the

organizations

, Women Writers Group worked mostly * - meetings and seminars to urge the 'legal --changes.

was

older

limited

as women.

from

organizations

of these

the

received

This

were

and 'were

approaches

concerns

who

after

the appeals well

of those

women

Marxists

conservative

Women .Lawyers

that

in Thailand.

u p b y upperclass

than- the

in Thailand

riot particularly

organizations

simple- reason

begun

Bvit it appears

the .radicals' were .women’s

were

or the

lectures, to make

to the

offended

less the

of the radicals. The fact that the “J-class, consciousness members of the women’s liberation movement tended also to be members- of the .attempts

sakdina

to -win them

to -support some liberation

j

over

of the

-movement,

divergent.

wanted

being 'the ruling

class

class

idea

stemming political The

of women from

the

with

and the other

radical's

radicals

projects

final

to share

the modern

wanted

of the

aims

were

men the wanted

rather

than

from

totally

fruits

of

to destroy

and Lenin

of reasons

worth

was

still

young

former.

radicals

economic

stating

knew

or

struggle. the

again

the power

and it was

who

stress

oppression

stressed

First

strong

radicals

the class

Engels

the

Thai

of sexual

stemming

emphasized

to the

that

tradition

oppression

tradition

irksome

' The

individual

as an object

Thai

But .for a number

Thai

seen

works -of Marx,

Marxists

made

entirely.

We have the

futile.

but their

One

that

class

latter. the Thai of

especially

about

the

308

tremendous

freedom

countries. in this

by young

Second*, as I have

thesis,

bultural

enjoyed

the Thai

and social

people

argued

radicals

in several

generally

institutions

than

Marxj

The

Thais,

many

of the

radicals,

and

cultural

factors

establishment extremely

of class

important

Thailand. personal

were

extremely

oppression

of society,

be' strictly

justified

works

of Marx

Engels.

1970s

was- still

of men

and

a very

and women

separated. always

were

The

apparent

and

more

Xet

there

even

interest were

and

have

particularly

it must

educated Sexual

women

hoping

oppression

them

and

must

have

was

the. young seemed

formulations that

been

they

of -means

those

teachings

views

on- Thai

their

viewpoint

would- not

much

learned

from and

about

Marx.

women

was- based

they

more

vital

changed

Marx,

too

central

and

to young

see

around so it

the "dry economic

paid

private

property

obeisance

to justify

of women if they

view

roles.

of behavior

of them, "but

much

education

personally,

and

tried

were

society.

felt

They

roles

customs

could

than

oppression

radical

on the

-

of production

in* terms

on the

So the

radicals

sometimes

society

have

something

women

more

painful a new

the

and women

old ways

to- create

the

in the

and

of law,

of the

than

only

traditional

forces

many

to a more

even

men

of their

in

and strictly

achieved

enforcing

therefore

society

defined

institution

in the

followed

between

strong

social

view,

society,

traditional

outside

still

Siamized

Thai

as women

that

tended

if they

differences

was

of most

important

Marxists

strictly

view

level

of a revolution

a more

would

higher

and were

in the making

Third > the Thai view

innate

places

placed

on a much

of consideration including

in other

to

their

much

of

probably

had not

known

of the oppression

importance

of

of tradition

309

which created social and cultural institutions of oppression that the Thai radicals felt personally. REVOLUTION AND THE PARTY In many ways the focal point of all Marxist * t radical thought in Thailand was the revolution, justifying,

preparing for, carrying out and consolidating

(hopefully) the.revolution

was the material of much

of the thought and writing of the Thai radicals. They did not- always agree on how or when the revolution should occur, but their desire for the revolution as in the words of one radical poet, the rice waits for rain, was the- identifying mark of the modern Thai radical others might have been progressive reformers or liberal democrats or even socialists, but if they did not hope for sudden extensive change - revolution - then in this thesis at least they cannot be considered radicals. The radicals did not always agree whether the revolution would come

armed might of the ruling class.

But the examples

they cite were all small-scale, sporadic and; considering the scope and* length and violence of Thai history they are insignificant.

t

,

Many of these so-called. "uprisings"

were fired by superstition, and as -even the,radicals point out, led -by middle or upperclass: adventurers with a thirst for power. In modern Thai history there seems to be little evidence of the masses being ready to rise up. The first laborers in the sense of a proletariat did not exist .until 1858 when some Americans set. up, the first •

*»

*

J

>

f

rice mill in Thailand that* used ethnic Thai people as laborers.

Before that all labor was done by.foreign

workers, mostly Chinese. The' first labor union was not set up until 1947 with most laborers in Thailand not eligible to join because they were aliens. The government used the. Communist Act to discourage labor unionism, but it was hardly necessary since- the vast majority of Thais still preferred to live by farming.

It was not until

the 1970s. that Thai laborers began to act in a coordinated fashion to present their demands.

{

Thai farmers were even less militant and slower to organize. -w

They did not begin to organize to press

their demands effectively until the 1970s. During the time that the mainstream Thai Marxists, such as Jit and Asani were writing about the revolutionary spirit of the farmers and their ability to unite and rise up against oppression, there was really very little happening among them.

Even the Thai Communist Party at that time was

having little success among the farmers, except in the >

poverty-stricken northeast.

For -the most part the party

still depended on Sino-Thai or hill tribe recruits (as we shall see in Part III) .

After the 1973 overthrow of

the military government, however, the farmers organizations

323

began

to make

attention farmers

organizational

with

demonstrations

groups,

still' weak

wing

or landlord

and a series groups

for

an uprising

farmers and

nor

writers

laborers.

but

in Bangkok.

most

readily

fact

these

Prapat

and

all

in 1973

were

So up to a point

for

the

the

of the Thai

by the rural ,farmers , supported

laborers,

written

revolution of the

were

radical

was

left

writings

of the revolution,

into

effect.

comprised

The

radical

Thais

about

an active

still and

concerted many

laying

thinking

function. from

steps

about

away

part

from

plans

for

The

defining

they

(though

knew

hopes

the

function

their

actually

government they were

to make

were sharply

time

own

lives

w,ere really

terms They

it

entirely

first

their

the

bring

almost

radicals

could

*

or outline

the

a takeover.

a revolutionary

Realistically stage

for

wage

of the

designed

in changing

how a revolution

or how

that

thinking

mass- action.

actual

in Thailand

way

start

a mass

most

to actually were

rioting.

for

by the

because

writings

and

radicals

to direct

less

and

whose

and exhortations

conservative

through

much

of promises

taking

not

in

Thanom

The means

unclear

was

and

calls

intellectuals

in Bangkok.

often

path

romantic

and

responded

overthrow

uprising

audience

who

uprising

almost

receptive

neither

studied

demonstrations

vague

calls

students e from the

were

remained

by urban

to the

people

helped

writing

entirely

1975-76.

were

lived,

a rural

street

1

the

the radical

of them

ones, who

through

laborers

of them

These

the

from group

were

Many

to the calls were

a year

These

almost

of Thailand ; by right-

disrupted

receptive

of farmers

themselves.

provinces, worked

most

the '

of assassinations

within

the

But

Federation

effectively

organizations Actually

and to attract

in Bangkok.

ledby the, Farmers 1

were

farmers'

progress

precisely spent

little

succeed would. still

a long

raised

324

after the surprising 1973 uprising) .

The thought of the

Thai radicals might have developed in a very interesting manner had the radicals been allowed to continue their peaceful struggle through speeches and poems.

But here

the Thai* government played a crucial role by keeping continual pressure on the radicals with arrests, imprisonment and surveillance. Almost all of the mainstream Marxists spent some time in prison.

This

,

suppression served to speed the increasing militancy of the. Thai Marxists and led them to make contacts with the Thai. Communist Party. So one by one, when the suppressive pressure of the government grew intolerable the Thai Marxists of the 50s fled into the jungle to join in the armed struggle. The same thing happened in 1975 and 1976 as right wing forces lashed back at the students and radicals that had helped oust Th'anom and Prapat, culminating in large scale escapes to the jungle after the bloody police riots at Thammasat on Oct. 6 ,

The effect

of this suppression was to cut off the natural line pf development of Thai radical thought and force it into the limited channels of the Communist Party. Once -the radicti ’-fled into the forest, it is impossible to trace their individual thoughts or development. One can only give a sketch of the theoretical positions of the party ’

t

as a whole and this is done in Part. III. The point to make here is that Thai’radical thought, especially on the subject of revolution and the party was not allowed to develop to its conclusions - it was forced into the straitjacket of the communist theories of Mao Tse-tung through the Communist Party of Thailand- which was the only organized force that could protect the radical thinkers physically from the wrath of the Thai government. In the writings of the Thai Marxists before they joined the armed struggle, it is possible to discern two-

325

conflicting, patterns of thought about the revolution and the party.

The first pattern was both theoretical

and emotional. Believing in the Marxist prophecy of the inevitability of world revolution the radicals' saw their role as simply pointing to and hopefully hastening the revolution that was certain to come anyway. So the exact ways and means of the revolution were not outlined in detail.

Once the masses of the people were aroused

their overwhelming numbers would make the success of the revolution

almost automatic.

The role of the party

was not seen as a crucial one. Thai individualism is a strong force beneath outward conformity of Thai society and by their very nature the radicals were among the most individualistic of Thais. Seksan’s image of a flock of birds being released from their cage 'is a good metaphor for this 'pattern of thought.

The revolution was seen as

a release from bondage that would come -suddenly and the birds as individuals would find their own ways. The second pattern of thought about the revolution and the party was a result of Thai conceptions of leadership, government repression and the example of the Chinese Communist Party, While the poetic radicals would have liked to think of the revolution as a glorious, spontaneous freeing of the people, their experiences with arrest, imprisonment and persecution forced them to see the strength of the rulers, the importance of organization and the necessity of discipline. The Thai idea of leadership came down from the ancient warrior kings who were strong, decisive'- and sometimes brutal. This Siamese image of the effective leader began being applied to the party as the leader of the revolutionary classes.

Because

of this image of leadership, the Thai Marxists were more inclined, especially when under pressure, to accept the Maoist image of the party.

Superficially it might seem

326

like the debate was- between the original Marxist image df the party as an organ of communication and the Maoist version of the party as the disciplined controller of the. armed revolution (and almost every other aspect of life)-. But i think it is more useful and more accurate to see - the*'dichotomy in terms of the Thai radical desire, which as shown in Part i goes all the way back to the, middle..ages, to be free from the constraints of Thai class society,, the desire to be free as, Thais of ten, point out ,that the word Thai itself means- free. -This individualism is/

desires" are probably the and therefore the most


ia. Teepagorn,

op.cit.,

Witoonterasarn

Tawanyor 13, 1971,

p. 134,

, op.cit.,

Saengrayap p. 15.

p. 5-6.

in Economics

Journal

No . 3

356

273

Teepagorn,

Art for Life Art for People, op.cit.

p. 197. 274

Ibid.,.p. 198.

275 ' i b i d . , p. 199, 276

Ibid.

t

277 'ibid., pp. 199-200. 278

Ibid., p. 202.

279

Ibid., p. 203.

28

°Ibid.,

p. 207.

281

Ibid., p. 88.

282

Ibid., p. 219.-

283 Intarayuth, op.cit., pp. 110-111. 284

Ibid. 2 QE Witoonterasarn, op.cit,, p. 4. 286 Srung Pruggorn in Poet ’s View (Teetadsana Nak Prapan) (by The Art Group, Humanity Department, Chiengmai University) (Bangkok : Jaroenwit Garnpim, 1974), p. 135. 287

Gladyu People’s Literature, op.cit., pp. 235-236,

288

Ibid., p. 236.

289

Ibid.

29C

Ibid. , pp. 238-239.

291

Ibid. , p. 240. •

292

Ibide, p. 242.

293

Ibid. , pp. 257-258.

294

✓

Ibid. , p. 259. ** 295Teepagorn, op.cit*, pp. 260-261,

357

296

Witoonterasarn, op.cit. p, 18.

2 93 7

'ibid. 298 Teepagorn, z2 9 9

”lbid.

300

301 302

303 JUJ 3O4

305

op.cit. p. 14,.

, pp. 23-24.

Ibid.., p. 28, Teepagorn,

op.cit., p, 30,

Ibid., p, 38'. .

*

•».,

-,-»■«

•»

j--, «- ■«

*

Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., p. 53. The Poet’s View, op.cit., p. 160.

306 , ,. . Ibid., p. 163. 307

See M.L, Manich Jumsai History of Thai Literature (Bangkok : Chalermnit Press, 1973), p, 199. 308

See Boonrveng, Niamhom The Analysis of Thai Political Books between Oct. 14, 1973 - January 26, 1974, A Masters Thesis submitted to Department of Library Science, Chulalongkorn University in 1976, _pp, 44-46. 309

* See Paitoon. Kruageo The Nature of Thai Society (Laksana Sangkom Thai) (Bangkok : Bapit, 1975) . ® 3

In "What is to be done" Lenin wrote ’The history of all countries bears out the fact that, through their own power alone, the working class can develop only trade-union conscious* quoted by Alfred G. Meyer Leninism (New York : Frederick A.Praeger, Publisher, 1967), p. 29. 3

? The Manifesto of the Communist Party in Marx & Engels Selected Works V , I, p. 124. 312

Gularp Saipradit and Jit Pumisak A History of Thai Woman (Prawattisart Satri Thai) (Bangkok : Chomrom Nangsue Saengdao, 1976), p. (3). • 313., . Ibid . , p. 4 *.

* 325 3 333 27 29 31

358

314 '

Wipaporn

wrote

315

Ibid;

316

Ibid.,

p. (5).

317

Ibid.,

p. 7.

318 History"

Intarayiith -'The Woman in Ibid., p. 64.

319

Ibid.

32O

Ibid.,

321 Property

in preface

pp.

in Ibid.,

* Status

p. (6).

According

to

21-22.

Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private and the State Selected Works V . Ill, p. 240.

322

Saipradit

323

Engels,

, op.cit,, op.cit.,

pp? 35-36.

p. 247,

324

May

Gularp made a speech at Thammasat University 4 , 1952 from Saipradit, op.cit., pp. 41-42. 325

Engels

Engels Collected

Principles of Communism Works Vol. VI, p. 354.

32

Saipradit,

327

Ibid.

op.cit.,

in Marx

on

and

p. 85.

378

A speech Jiranan gave at Thammasat University on May 5 , 1974 from The Poor (Khon Jon) Journal Bangkok, 1974, p, 39. 329

33

Jiranan

®The

in Putuchon,

Poor,

op.cit.,

Vol.

1 , March,

1975., p. 41.

p. 36.

331

Wanna "The Value Capitalism gives to Women" in The Alternative (Tang* Lurg) by The Woman Group of Thammasat (Bangkok : Rong Mit Siam, 19.74), p. 8. '

,3 3 2 intarayuth 333

in Saipradit,

Ibid, , p. 32.

op..cit,/ p. 67.

359

334

Ibid.,

p. 102.

335

The Alternative, op.cit., p.- 40. *336 * Somchai Preecha jaroen "The Past Present and the Future of Thai Woman.’’ in Saipradit, op.cit., p. 107. 3 J3 7 O

'

'lbid., pp. 110-rlll.

338

339

Ibid. , p. 48. The People’s View, op.cit., p. 233.

340

Suwattana "The Liberation of'Womari" in The Alternative op.cit., p. 40. 341 Inta ray uth The Thought from Literature (Kor Kid Jark Wannakadi) (Bangkok : The -Center of Thai’ Student, * 1950), p. 198. 342 Ibid. According* to the Law concerning husbands and wives King U-Thong passed in 1361, there were two kinds of paramour. The lovers that have- love affairs, before getting married and couples/ that have affairs outside their marriages. The. Law stated that a husband was given the right to kill both .his wife and her paramour if he happened to discover their making love right before him. It. stated further that if he did not kill his wife he would be fined some small amount of money. But if his wife- escaped, she would be punished according to the law. The punishment for women who committed adultery ■» was to condemn them publicly, such .as by dressing her up in a funny way .and force her to walk after the gong man ’ for three days. If -she still,carried on her adultery she would ,be shaved, put on the cross and beat 20 times in public. If this did hot stop her, she could live : * with her paramour but she would be tabooed with a picture , of man- and woman on her cheek. All these punishments could- be paid with a large amount of money if she could , afford- it. From Thai Rat June 18, 1980. J

Suda tip "Do Women have Dark Power?" in Critique -of Literature",journal (Aksorn Sart Pi jam) No. 2, January 1974, p. 15. - * •» 344

-

Jiranan "Does Nature Create Women to be Fragile?" -in- Women (Poo Ying) by Korat Women"Group (Bangkok : Trasue Garnpim) , p. 45.

_______

/

360

345

Speech by Jiranan in The Poor op.cit.,

346

Ibid.

347 348

p. 36.

Pitakchon, op.cit., p

36.

Jiranan., in The Poor, op.cit.,

349

p. 37.

Ibid.

3

Thailand went relatively unnoticed while the competition for power was going on among the elite in Bangkok. 9 In 1938 the Plaek government cracked down on some of the Chinese communists, but this was more because they were Chinese than communist in an intensely nationalistic period. During World War Two the Thai government was dominated by the Japanese who had policies of suppressing Chinese as the most likely to oppose them in Southeast Asia.

As indigenous Thais began organizing to resist

the Japanese the Chinese communists joined them. The "Free Thai” movement gave the communists an opportunity for the first time to spread some of their ideas outside of the Chinese ethnic community. Since Pridi and his followers were among leading elements in the ’’Free Thai" movement, the communists found at least some people already familiar with Marxist ideas.

Their

369

efforts

were

in the

guise

apparently

somewhat

of the

movement. Oh; December 1 •» ■i’l’ a of the Communist Party' *bfA Thailand

1 9 4 2 the

first

was held

to e s t a b l i s h

of ethnic the

* section

Chinese

members from the After

the

party

and was

it

divided

and a Thai

ethnic

the

.especially

anti-Japanese

Congress

Chinese

successful

was s.tiU,l'

sections 1* -1 *?> • **■£ to try/J'tp iri.

into

two

section

.Thais.

war the

' X, r

f"

party

composed

got a, boost

t.

from .Abroad J,

when the Soviet Union insisted on the abolishment .of . * * w the anti-communist laws in Thailand as a •Condition' for Thailand's

entry

the

Union,

Soviet

held

a veto.

after it

the

a period

published

Nations

remained

the

the. party

above

ground

wake of accusations

communists

were

underground

is sue s

before

pre-dominently

arrested,

already

and the

the

communists IT Vietnam spread suzereignty.

Thai

elite

for

to victory events

under

Pridi

death

including

some

party,

etill

intact. guerrillas

Indochina,

in China.

were

Burma, I n d o n e s i a , led

The conflict’

had long been

freightened

and made them turn

of

and

In 194.9 -Mao Tse-tung

to Laos which These

coup

stunning

communist

Philippines.

organization

a military

leadership

remained

power in

double

radicals,

the

the

of the

o f Thailand

fighting

Malaysia

but

Sino-Thai,

Outside

'the

over

man.

and brought

Many r a d i c a l s ,

organization

invited party

But the wisdom o f the 12 in 1 9 4 8 when Plaek staged

young King Ananda.

But

o f the

Parliament.

scattering

it

side

the

in the

and ran

them as a kind o f front

the- " M a s s e s " weekly

to power,

Prasert

underground.

a journal,

to return

council,*

south,

Communist Party

of some confusion through

which

of the .security

party with

over

from the

the

real

to cooperate

was proved

t

United

a s a member

registered

while

Prasert

the

An intellectual

Supsuntorn, himself

into

the.

in ’ under, Thai

conservative yt ** even more avidly *to < the

370

‘ west at a time when the cold war between the United
•

These -

.three. 'stepsJapanese,

k

'to*use

on

o f the

’.in. -the

? tactics was .surroundsMshe

big unit tactics when the stronger than the enemy. 6 2 ? tactics appeared almost identically

three

*

-;ih‘ .Mab *s>wri ting

A

tactics when both enemy are equal, in

the

protracted

Chinese

protracted

same ananner,

63

Mao analyzed

war with

Another

the

form of military

the- classic Mao tactic that "the countryside . town” . ' T h e CPT borrowed the C h i n e s e i d e a

3jft>Tha-iland

the.rc.it±es-.were

and stuck more

ripe

to i t

for

, Mab1 wrote, that

countryside..

war.

C C P ’ s duty. . i s . not, t o

fight

the "for

legally

even when i t revolution China,

seemed

than

basically

i n order

the the

to make w a r ,

’.and 'it; isynot to seize the towns before the rural a r e a s ; T 64 it i s vice versa” . The Chinese communists openly urged this," said:

tactic •

on- the

Thai

party.

A Radio Peking

broadcast

41

The most important factor o f the expansion of revolutionary force in Thailand is the CPT‘ which i s the leading revolutionary force.. It holds Marxism-Leninism highly. I t follows Mao,’ s revolutionary tactic o f forests surrounds the town and the confiscation of state power by the b u l l e t . This includes the.opposing o f the Soviet new r e v i s i o n i s m . . - ' TheyCET’ has performed i t s task by following Chairman M a o ’ s advice for revolution all over: the* world which i s that political power ,£ ±s-held only by the barrel o f the g u n , 6 5 ;

The*CPT

adopted

every aspect . ’ Most betweenl928-T969.-,. 4

works

into-Thai

. be c a m e t h e C P T ’

Mao ’ s tactics

o f i t s ideas come The CPT translated

including manual

Military

bn war in nearly from M a o ’ s works most o f those

Selected

for making w a r .

Works which

388

"The

CPT

translations

Thai.

such

Awkward

extent

that

zone,

of lit era.1

are mystifying

translations

as liberated

for

contradiction,

vanguard,

reactionary

others

difficult

to understand

were

especially

putting

these

simplifying

its into

them

comprehensible the>’leaders

closeness common

in any

to the of the

This

way

that

people

who

simply.

It was The

/'revolution topped

Changes but

in China

identity

-from this

little

-

The

of its

CPT

THE

worked

time

it also

tdxtranslate,

In Thailand

f irst--greatinf * helping' them vas

censorship

luence become

especially and

police

training

with for have

THAI

shown

already

the

extent

language,

on the Thai the

of the period

control

Mao

to but the

1

ideas 1973

of literature

at CPT

s works .

was difficult

in the Thai

with

begun,

RADICAL

distribute

literature

f amilar

any

Maoism.

extent, to which

and

and

hardly

the

of the CPT

true

of the

of Mao Tse-tung,

publish

scarce

fighting

ideas

showed

-where radical

find' and- especially

This

the

has

and

so far.

MODERN

section

can

being

China

except

CPT

party

to that

CPT

’

z

deep-rooted

of the

may well

AND

which- the; CPT -followed same

own

surfaced

to be

on the

the

or

them

influence

extensive

has

preceding

make

long-lasting,

with left

or altering

peasants.

similar

situation

evidence

THE

th®

ways

the

avoided

supposed

from

many

and

the Thai

supplied

...in.-a ■•situation in some

ideological

were

combination

of Sino-Thais,

'indoctrination

would

united and

ideas

terminology

revolution,

and:>were “abl'e at various times to join the party in the struggle.- It seems there was, at, least until..recently , = no major dispute between the two -groups each 'was left to its major sphere - the'CPT to the armed struggle,,and the radicals to working in the cities to arouse interest and support for the revolution.

Since the CPT were so

‘..closely tied to Chinese communism it was left to the Thai Marxists of the mainstream to do most of - the adapting — o f Marxism to Thailand. This process of what I have called the "Sidmization of Marxism" is similar to the changes that other philosophies and systems have gone through. "Thai Democracy" is a phrase that is used with a smile to explain a system in which there are frequent elections, but the Prime Minister does not have to be elected, where there are constitutions, but they '’include "unlimited power" clauses and where' governments usually change not when the voters show their disapproval with their ballots, but when the.military tanks.

votes in a new.,government with its

Thai democracy is affected- by many of the same

factors that forced the Siamization of Marxism, and “•other institutions and systems re’ceive the same ‘alterations - capitalism,

education, justice, etc.

But, as-,shown "earlier; this is not so much because of

412

strong outward expression of Thai nationalism. It is more- because of a strong inward sense of Thai values that -transform any. foreign idea that is absorbed "combined with a flexibility of mind that allows the acceptance (though in altered form) of a large number of foreign ideas.

This flexibility is one reason for the

lack of factionalism (at least one an ideological basis) among the Thai Marxist thinkers . If ever 'the Thai Marxists

0

come close to achieving power, this may well change. About ideas and theories Thais tend to be rather pragmatic.

They do not worry about sticking strictly

to the letter of the law or ideology.

They change when

it seems needed and change back again without worrying too much about the contradictions.

Thus they can proclaim

economic determinism and then j.ustify its conclusions wholly on social and political grounds.

Without much ado

they can forthrightly adapt the* most atheistic of political, economic creeds to fit with Buddhist beliefs. Thais are typically attracted to a charismatic leader for his personal characteristics not for his_ ideas. Or more precisely leaders are appreciated for the broad appeal of their characters and vision, not for the detailed or logical thinking out of that vision. Riggs * observed the tendency of Thais to attach themselves to ;a superior and -depend on him without much questioning. In a sense the- Thai Marxists have adopted this clientpatron relationship intellectually with Marx. Marx is ■-assumed'to be right., the Thai Marxists only had to do 'a-little- trimming and patching to make the relationship "more comfortable. This may explain too some of the Thai •‘’Communist Party's success and failure. On the one hand --'the- party?-adopts- th® .position of the unquestioned leader

,:

\of 'the -revolution that all must obey.

But on the other

'hand 'the •party has failed to come up with a charismatic «... *

'•i

413

personality

like

the

The

party.

leaders

are

Idea

than

the- party

the

Thai, belief

in Thai

belief

clashing

and Thai

Marxism.

process

radical

of the

the

their

from

group

specific

be useful

those

outside

intellectual

-or the

outside

Each

society

and

this

(Marxism) Thai

country t h e process

would

and

on it of each

quickly

And the

Similar

of Marxism

I am equally

shovzs, that

by

a r e themselves

or Cubanization

in pattern.

study

process

differ, of course.

I am -sure; yet

it

a traditional

influence

of democracy

be similarities

as 'I'believe

will

Burmization

Siamizatibn

the

it of

But

influence,

influences

of affecting

/taany differences. -would

under

process

of ideas

modern

of one

in the

of. the

evolution

in understanding

changes

years

with 'those

(the

circumstances

culture

studies

of the

in

I hope

set of ideas

of people

any

set

pattern.

of the

particular

particular

coming

study

by one

society.

important

the detailed

of one

altered

this

world.

adaptation

how

how

more

of

an

of the

of the

which

that

of its

for

relationship

the

some

rest

possible

will

of this

Thai body

in the

understanding

the

out

of

this

to see

happen

body

called

to judge

be even

of factors

unique

I have

history

elements

and

to fit

the

to point

It may

is also

(Thailand)

its

allegiance

complex

It is important

as they

absorbed

radicals)

that

recent

a fuller

in Thailand

created

tried

successes.

clearly

ideologies

has

I have

events

ideas

of

appeal.

won more

whole

my intention

understanding

provide

This

thought

occurred.

will

and

no personal

has

power

As- pointed out earlier 4 in the millenium plays an important part

has

to see

with

structure.

understanding

the

by a committee

of revolution

combining

and

to personify

of revolution.

though

•failures

is run

figures

It is not

thought,

or Mao

party

shadowy

' The

modern

Lenin

reveal sure

all would ideology

there show, in itself

414

■ 1977 .

S.Blainoy' The Encyclopedia Prawattisart Thai)

of Thai History (Saranikrom Bangkok: Band id- Garnpim., 1973.

S . Siararak