9 - World War II and Thailand after Sixty Years: Legacies and Latent Side Effects

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Unlike its neighbours in Southeast Asia, Thailand emerged from the ravages of World War II relatively unscathed. Although the government of then-Prime Minister P. Phibunsongkram (henceforth Phibun) officially sided with Japan and exploited irredentist claims of territories in Malaya, Laos and Cambodia from Great Britain and France, Thailand was forced to pay only minimal war indemnities. Owing to an influential anti-Japanese Seri Thai [Free Thai] underground movement, led by Pridi Bhanomyong, Thai leaders at war's end were able to secure American support in the face of British reparatory, punitive demands for Thailand's wartime efforts against the Allies. Spectacularly victorious after the war, the United States government persuaded its British counterpart to soften its stand on Thailand. The leaders of Seri Thai were also able to negotiate the release of financial assets in Japan and the United Kingdom for domestic economic recovery and revitalization. Notwithstanding the relatively favourable post-war settlement, the domestic political scene in the wake of the war was tumultuous, fragmented and fractious.

Following the downfall of Phibun's wartime government in July 1944, a series of shortlived and unstable democratic governments spearheaded by Pridi and his associates came to power over the next three years. During this period, the civilian leadership under Pridi drawn from political parties with socialist and leftist leanings as well as from the Seri Thai movement held sway, as the military and conservative élite under Phibun were in retreat. However, the threat of communist expansionism associated with Pridi's socialist ideas and crucial domestic developments, including the Supreme Court's exoneration of Phibun and his associates on war crimes charges in April 1946, the mysterious death of the young King Anand two months later for which Pridi was held accountable by the public, and Pridi's genuine support for anti-colonial nationalist movements in Southeast Asia, undermined the former Seri Thai leader's political legitimacy.

Soon thereafter, the brief post-war interval of parliamentary democracy came to an end.