Communist Party of Thailand

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The Communist Party of Thailand (in Thai: พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย) was a political party in Thailand. Initially, CPT was known as Communist Party of Siam. The party was founded in 1942, but communists had been working in the country clandestinely since 1927.

In 1952, the party was banned, after a few years of legality. In the late 1950s the party started organizing an armed movement in northern and north-eastern parts of the country. Another front was opened in southern Thailand, on the border with Malaysia.

The membership of CPT was largely ethnically Chinese, but the party also gained support Thais as well as several ethnic minorities.

The armed wing of CPT was called the People's Liberation Army of Thailand (PLAT).

In 1962, a CPT radio station, Voice of the People of Thailand, started broadcasting.

In the Sino-Soviet split (beginning in the late 1950s), CPT clearly sided with the Communist Party of China.

In 1964, CPT launched a broad leftist front.

The brutality of the massacre at Thammasat University, in October 1976, made it possible for CPT to gain mass support amongst students. By the end of the 1970s, CPT was a major force, and there were sections of the CIA who feared that CPT might seize power in the country. By 1979, PLAT had around 11,000-12,000 fighters.

But CPT faced a crisis, however, when, after Mao's death, the People's Republic of China established relations with the Thai government, and decided to withdraw its support from the CPT. Another deep crisis for the party was in 1979, when Khmer Rouge-run Democratic Kampuchea was invaded by Vietnam. Thus CPT lost its main ally and safe-haven, and suffered a blow to its general morale.

The CPT's demise came with Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda's 1982 declaration of amnesty for all CPT members, including the PLAT. Thousands of PLAT fighters – many of them Thai students – surrendered their arms and returned home. By the mid-1980s, with the PLAT's rank and file depleted, the remaining hardcore PLAT in Phitsanulok Province were militarily defeated.

There have been no reports of CPT activity since the beginning of the 1990s. However, the exact fate of the party is not known, and it remains banned to this day.^[1]