Siamese Revolution of 1932
A group of about a hundred officers and officials ended absolute monarchy in Siam in a few hours on 24 June 1932. The People's Party had been formed by Thai students in Paris in 1927 — among them Pridi Banomyong, a law student, and Plaek Phibunsongkhram, an artillery officer — and had spent five years recruiting. The context was fiscal. The Depression had halved the price of rice, the government had cut salaries and dismissed officials while the royal household budget was protected, and the commoner bureaucracy that Chulalongkorn's reforms had created was blocked from the top posts by princes. The coup was almost bloodless. Troops were assembled on a pretext, senior princes were arrested at dawn, the telephone exchange was seized, and a proclamation was read announcing that the king would remain if he accepted a constitution. Prajadhipok, at the seaside at Hua Hin, accepted within two days and returned to Bangkok. A provisional constitution was promulgated on 27 June and a permanent one in December, with an assembly half elected and half appointed. What followed was not democracy. The two wings of the party fell out over Pridi's economic plan, which was denounced as communist; a royalist revolt was defeated in 1933; Prajadhipok abdicated in 1935; and Phibun became prime minister in 1938 and ruled as a nationalist military strongman. Thailand has had some twenty coups since, which is more than any other country, and the 1932 template is what each of them uses. The name of the country was changed from Siam to Thailand by Phibun in 1939 as part of the same nationalist programme. The plaque marking the spot where the 1932 proclamation was read disappeared from the Royal Plaza overnight in 2017 and was replaced by one about loyalty to the monarchy.
- Year: 1932 CE
- Category: Political
