Thai CP begins to overcome its crisis
THE COMMUNIST PARTY of Thailand (CPT) went through a serious political and organizational crisis at the beginning of the 1980s. The Cambodian events and the explosion of SinoIndochinese confliets were the detonator. Briefly, the whole orientation followed by the CPT came under challenge: ideological references; international politics; the theory and practice of the united front; the strategy for taking power; the analysis of Thai society; and the internal funetioning of the party and mass work. In a few years, the CPT lost many members (perhaps the majority), its main guerrilla bases (those in the south being less hard hit than those in the north and north-east) and a large part of its influence.
The crisis was all the more serious because it hit a party that had experienced a very rapid growth in the 1970s and which had, for the first time, achieved a national presence at the head of the People's Liberation Army of Thailand, an armed-struggle movement which was growing rapidly.
Founded in 1942 after the disintegration of the Communist Party of Siam in the 1930s, the CPT was driven out of the towns by the repression. At the beginning of the 1960s, the CPT reaffirmed its support for "Mao Tse-Tung's thought" and rural armed struggle, which began in practice in 1965. It was after the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1973 by an extraordinary mobilization of the urban masses that the CPT became a national force. The bloody coup d'etat in 1976 led to an expansion of the armed struggle movement and the establishment of the Coordinating Committee of Patriotic and Democratic Forces (CCPDF), a united front between the CPT, other political formations and militants of the urban and rural mass movement. From 1980 to 1982 the crisis in the CPT exploded and spread and the CCPDF broke up.
In 1984 International Viewpoint published an analysis of the crisis. (1) Since then, according to a leader of the international relations section of the CPT's central committee, the most acute period of crisis has been overcome. In mid-1986 the CPT published an official translation of the documents adopted at its Ith Congress, held in April-May 1982. This congress, meeting in the midst of utter crisis, was marked by contested votes on all the basic questions. It was not able immediately to rectify the situation because the congress ended in confusion, accentuating the disappointment and despondency of many militants and sympathisers. The resignations continued. A
THAILAND polemic was opened on the interpretation given to the results of the congress by the national leadership and on the nature of the changes that had been announced.
However, the CPT today remains the main revolutionary organization in Thailand. The extreme-left political groups, set up in the early 1980s, have had to face major political difficulties, repression and material and organizational problems at a time when they only had very resources. It seems that they have not succeeded in consolidating new organizations of importance, either by recruitment or by their social implantation. Overall, the backlash of the crisis of the early 1980s has not yet been overcome. The militant generation of the 1970s remains largely disheartened and disoriented.
The documents of the CPT's IVth Congress, published here, testify to the evolution in the orientation of the party. Notable changes were made: in international policy an affirmation of independence, where previously the party had been heavily integrated into the pro-China bloc; in the analysis of Thai society, an abandonment of the traditional characterization of the country as "semi-feudal" and a recognition of its capitalist development; and in terms of a strategic framework, ditching the formula of "the jungle leads the villages, the countryside encircles the cities".
Although there remained an insistence on the rural armed struggle, greater weight was given to mass work, to political struggle and to work in the cities. The documents, which are succinct, still stick to general formulas.
Another development to be noted is the setting up of a new clandestine organization in April this year, the Thai Solidarity Group (TSG). Supported in particular by the CPT, the TSG has set the following objectives; "to act as an information and exchange center between popular movements in Thailand and abroad; to support the struggle of and cooperate with the popular movements in other countries; and to channel international support for the Thai popular struggle". (2)
The interview which follows, made in June 1986, is with a leader of the international section of the CPT's central committee who explains the significance of the publication of the documents of the IVth Congress and the present situation of the CPT. • PAUL PETITJEAN
"The crisis of the Communist Party and the left" by Paul Petitjean, 'International Viewpoint' No. 49, March 26, 1984. p.6. To contact the TSG write to them at Box 28, DK-2750 From the Thai Solidarity Group's leaflet. dated 1986, Ballurup, Denmark.
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