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compulsory education. He converted the Thai calendar to Western models and promoted nationalism with a royalist tinge. In 1917, the new tricolour national flag (red, white and blue representing nation, religion and king respectively) was designed for the Thai contingent sent to fight on the side of the Allies in the European war. Thai people were required to use surnames. The Thai government feared that the Chinese in Siam would become involved with the politics of China, and was concerned about the spread of republican and revolutionary ideas, so it passed the 1913 Nationality Act allowing descendants of Chinese immigrants to become Thai citizens.

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The People’s Party originated from a group of Thai students (including Phibul and Pridi) in Paris in the 1920s who shared a vision of a future democratic Thailand based on Western models.

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DEMOCRATIC THAILAND

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The 1932 Revolution

In 1932 a group of young officers and bureaucrats calling themselves Khana Ratsadon (People’s Party) mounted a successful, bloodless coup which transformed the government into a constitutional monarchy and Siam into a democratic state with parliamentary representation. The leaders of the group were inspired by the democratic ideology they had encountered during their studies in Europe. After the abdication and voluntary exile to the UK of King Prajathipok (Rama VII) in 1935, the new democratic government promoted his 10-year-old nephew, Ananda Mahidol, to the throne as Rama VIII. Successfully suppressing royalist reactionaries, in the years after the coup the two factions within the People’s Party engaged in their own internal struggle. The military faction was led by General Phibul Songkhram, the civilians by Pridi Phanomyong.

Pridi Phanomyong (1900–83) was a French-educated lawyer, a civilian leader of the 1932 Revolution, figurehead of Seri Thai and Thai prime minister. His work on democratic reforms in Thailand was based on constitutional measures and attempts to restrict by law military involvement in Thai politics. He supported nationalisation of land and labour, state-led industrialisation and labour protection. In 1934, he founded Thammasat University. Attacked for being ‘communist’, his direct role in Thai politics ended in the mid-1950s. He was named one of Unesco’s great personalities of the 20th-century world in 2000.

By command of force, Phibul dominated the contest. His regime, which coincided with WWII, was characterised by strong nationalistic tendencies centring on ‘nation’ and ‘Thai-ness’. In 1939 he changed the English name of the country to Thailand, the land of the Thai – the free people.

During the WWII Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia, the Phibul government sided with Japan, hoping to increase its negotiating power in international politics, especially in reclaiming territory from France. Thailand intended to declare war on the US and Britain. Eventually, the anti-Japanese Thai Liberation Movement, Seri Thai, led by Pridi, forced Phibul’s resignation. Since Seni Pramoj, the Thai ambassador in Washington and a member of Seri Thai, had refused to deliver the formal declaration of war, Thailand was saved from bearing the serious consequences of defeated-nation status.

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In 1950, Thailand was the first Asian country to offer troops to support the US in the Korean War. In 1954, it joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a US-led international organisation for collective defence.

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The post-war democratic governments were short-lived. Pridi’s government passed the 1946 Constitution, which created a fully elective legislature. In that year, young King Ananda Mahidol was shot dead – the circumstances of his death are still unclear. His younger brother became King Bhumibol (Rama IX). In 1947, elements in the military who felt threatened by the liberal and socialist approach of the government overturned it, sending Pridi into exile. Phibul became the head of a new, more radical anti-communist government.

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In 1988 the Royal Project