Communist Party of Thailand

Communist Party Of Thailand

The Communist Party of Thailand - CPT (Thai: พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย, abbreviated พคท.) was a Marxist-Leninist political party in Thailand active from 1942 until the 1990s. Initially known as the Communist Party of Siam the party was founded officially on 1 December 1942, although communist activism in the country began as early as 1927. In the 1960s the CPT grew in membership and support and by the early 1970s was the second largest communist movement in mainland South-East Asia (after Vietnam). The party launched a guerrilla war against the Thai government in 1965. Even though the CPT suffered internal divisions, at its political peak the party effectively acted as a state within the state. Its rural support is estimated to have been at least four million people; its military support consisted of 10-14,000 armed fighters. Its influence was concentrated in the North-Eastern, Northern and Southern regions of Thailand. Following a series of internal party disputes, changes in international communist alliances, successful counter-insurgency policies of the Thai government including a widely accepted offer of amnesty for party cadres, and, ultimately, the end of the Cold War, the party disappeared from the political scene in the early 1990s.