The Unruly Past: History and Historiography of the 1932 Thai Revolution

ABSTRACT

The monarchy and the country’s military dominate discussions of Thai political history. The country’s democratic history meanwhile is much less well known. To many people, historiography – the history of the writing of history – is a dull affair that only concerns academics. But the changing representations of the origins of democracy in the 1932 revolution that ended the absolute monarchy show the politics of history as a continuous problem that still shapes Thai society. The interpretations have been bound to the bitter partisanship that has accompanied a history of political instability. This article examines the changing interpretations of 1932 in their historical contexts and demonstrates the central antagonism towards the ideal of popular sovereignty, despite its long history in the country, that is still held by the military and monarchic elite.

KEY WORDS:

• Thailand
• 1932 revolution
• democracy
• historiography
• authoritarianism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The real “mental revolution,” Seni wrote, occurred when the shock news of King Ananda Mahidol’s 1946 death was made public and people realised the danger of the People’s Party.

2. At the time of the Thammasat protests, Seni Pramoj (1974, 130) styled the monument “concrete trash that blocks the way on Ratchadamnoen Avenue.” Evocative imagery indeed: democracy’s remembrance as concrete trash on the king’s way.

3. Morakot Jewachinda’s excellent survey of Pridi’s changing image, published for the centenary in 2000, lists nearly 40 books and articles that Suphot wrote from the early 1970s to around 1990 (Morakot 2000). Suphot continued writing such books into the twenty-first century (see, for example, Suphot 2000).

4. Marxist writing emerged first in the sporadic periods of relatively open politics from the end of the war until Sarit’s dictatorship (Kasian 2001). Aran Phromchomphu (Udom Sisuwan), a journalist in the 1940s and 1950s and then a CPT member, wrote the landmark Marxist history of Thailand Thai keung muang kheun (Thailand: A Semi-Colony) in 1950, in which he asserted that 1932 was a coup that failed on its democratic promise because it did not break the economic power of the old elite. After 15 years of intellectual darkness under Sarit and his henchmen, Marxist study and politics re-emerged from 1973 to 1976, and into the 1980s a thriving debate took place over nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Thai social formations (Reynolds and Hong 1983). In general, the 1970s Marxists did not accord 1932 much significance (Chatthip 1984, 551–562; Sangsit 1983). The Marxist-inspired debates in the 1970s and 1980s also lost their lustre fairly quickly with the demise of radical politics within and without the country. The debates produced a confusing melange of terms and positions, which now seem arcane. They also fell by the wayside amid the healthy buoyancy, undeterred by 1976, of the democratic king myth.

5. There are a plethora of accounts of the events and tensions of the 2000s that toppled democracy – the 2006 coup, royalist fears over the future of the monarchy after an old king has passed, the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 2009 and 2010 and the second coup of 2014. See, for example, two special issues of the Journal of Contemporary Asia associated with lead articles by Connors and Hewison (2008) and Veerayooth and Hewison (2016) as well as Montesano, Pavin, and Aekapol (2012); Siam Freedom Fight (2010); People’s Information Center (2012); Pavin (2014); Marshall (2014); and Anonymous (2018).