Coup in Siam 1933
On June 20, 1933, there was a successful, bloodless coup in Siam , now Thailand . A group of junior middle-ranking officers led by Lieutenant Colonel Phibunsongkhram and Frigate Captain Suphachalasai overthrew the current government.
The coup followed a year after the Siamese Revolution , which had brought the country from absolute to constitutional monarchy . In the meantime there had been a rift between the revolutionaries of the time (“ People's Party ”). Prime Minister Phraya Manopakorn had dissolved parliament and partially suspended the new constitution in order to prevent the removal of his government by liberal forces.
The group of putschists took the fact that the military leaders of the revolution submitted their resignation as an occasion for the coup. The reason was fear of their careers. The commander in chief of the army, Phraya Phahon , became prime minister and the military rule in Siam was stabilized.
situation
The coup d'état of 1932, which was more than a coup but actually less than a revolution, was carried out by a heterogeneous alliance of various civil and military groups. They had only held together the common interest in the change of power. These groups fell apart after the coup. The more conservative forces of the bureaucracy that now sat in the government of Phraya Manopakorn and high-ranking military officials were already content with the shift in power in their favor. The liberal wing in the People's Party - namely the group around Pridi Phanomyong - strived for further changes. They wanted to change the social and economic conditions in the country permanently.
Pridi, who was finance minister after the revolution, had proposed an economic plan for this in January 1933. It envisaged the nationalization of all arable land, the industrialization of the land and state ownership of the means of production. All Siamese should become government employees, be paid by the government, supported in illness and old age and also take part in the administration. The nationalization of the companies should not take place through expropriation, but in exchange for state securities.
The prime minister and the conservative wing rejected this plan, as did King Prajadhipok , as "communist". Manopakorn's Conservatives, who controlled the government, then closed parliament fearing that they would be overthrown in a vote of no confidence by the Liberals, who made up the majority in the National Assembly, and pushed Pridi into exile. The cabinet declared a state of emergency and passed a "Law Against Communist Activities," although there was virtually no communist activity in Siam at the time. Rather, the regulation was directed against the reforms in Pridi's economic plan, which, according to the deliberately broad interpretation of the law, could be understood as “communist”.
The Prime Minister's group now only needed the support of the military to secure their power. However, the top four officers of the People's Party submitted their dismissal requests on June 10. In this situation, a group of younger officers agreed that they should put on a coup so as not to "die a slow death", that is, to be held up in their careers and ousted by power.
Actor
The coup was carried out by the younger and lower-ranking officers of the People's Party, even though Colonel Phraya Phahon, the leader of the 1932 revolution and acting Supreme Commander of the Army, ultimately - and rather reluctantly - sat at its head. The actual planning and execution of the coup was led by Lieutenant Colonel Luang Phibunsongkhram , the vice-commander of the artillery, and Luang Suphachalasai, the vice-commander of the navy.
motivation
In their declaration for the removal of the government, the putschists pointed out that the government had closed the parliament and suspended constitutional principles. They thus declared that the coup was in the “national interest”. After the success of the coup it was declared the victory of constitutionalism over autocracy.
The coup must also be seen against the background of the personal career interests of the putschists. The younger participants in the 1932 revolution threatened to be forced out of the circle of power after it. Colonel Phraya Song , one of the four military leaders of the People's Party, had tried several times to place Phibunsongkhram in a position less influential than that of vice-commander of the artillery. He also wanted to send members of the group of younger officers in the People's Party to study abroad in order to reduce their influence. In addition, after the resignation of the four military leaders in the 1932 coup d'état, their positions were filled with military men who did not belong to the People's Party, who could become all the more adversaries of the younger officers. They feared they would be returned to the old dignitaries against whom they had rebelled. And these would probably have tried to interrupt their careers.
Result
As a result of the coup, direct military rule was installed. Phraya Phahon, the army commander in chief, became prime minister. Some of the junior officers' group became members of the Cabinet. The members of the clique of higher-ranking officers in the People's Party - with the exception of Phahon - were not taken into account in the allocation of posts. Phibunsongkhram was promoted by leaps and bounds to deputy commander in chief. Pridi Phanomyong was allowed to return to Siam and was appointed interior minister to the cabinet. After the coup of 1933 the central role of the military, which the overthrow of 1932 had brought, was secured. It became the determining force in the country's government for the following decades.
See also
literature
- Volker Grabowsky : A Brief History of Thailand , CH Beck, Munich 2010
- Robert Patrick Kiener: The June 1933 Coup , in “ An analysis of the 1981 unsuccessful Thai coup ”, University of Hong Kong, 1983
- Martina Peitz: The Elephant's Leap: Rent-seeking, Nation Building and catch-up development in Thailand , LIT Verlag, Zurich 2008