Published on January 31, 2005

When communism was a force to be reckoned with in Southeast Asia, Thailand – and especially Bangkok – became a Cold War hot spot. It’s been said that the capital was crawling with spies during the Vietnam War, in which the Thanom Kittikachorn government supported the United States.

By June 1972, there were more US troops in Thailand than in South Vietnam.

Washington forged a cease-fire with Hanoi in 1973, and its ally the government of South Vietnam was defeated militarily in April, 1975. By the end of that year, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were all under communist control.

In early 1976, the government of MR Kukrit Pramoj made an historic move, sending MR Kasem S Kasemsri to China to revive Thai-Sino ties. Prime Minister Kukrit had visited China in June 1975, shaking hands with Mao Zedong, who advised him to ignore the outlawed Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) and push ahead with democracy.

But by July 1, 1976, when MR Kasem signed an agreement re-establishing diplomatic links with China, the Kukrit government was gone and the conflict between Thailand’s left and right wings was at its peak. The tension snapped on October 6, 1976, when ultraconservatives, backed by the police and military, swept aside the pro-democracy movement and handed power to Thanin Kraivixien.

The October 6 bloodshed caused between 2,000 and 3,000 students, labourers, writers and intellectuals to join the CPT, which had begun as a small enclave but had been growing in strength.

In September 1978, however, His Majesty the King signed a decree absolving 18 student activists who had been in jail since the 1976 crackdown, along with all others who had fled into the jungles.

It is believed that China maintained ties with the CPT until Deng Xiaoping, then senior vice premier, visited Thailand in 1978.

Ideological disputes between the CPT and its activist allies had arisen in the meantime, and by the early 1980s, they had largely parted ways. Nithinand Yorsaengrat

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