Thai Student Uprising of 1973
On 14 October 1973 hundreds of thousands of students and citizens demonstrated in Bangkok against the military dictatorship of Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn. After deadly clashes, the king withdrew support and Thanom fled the country, ending the ruling junta. The democratic opening of 1973-76 proved brief. Amid Cold War anxieties heightened by communist victories in neighbouring Indochina and a CPT insurgency in the Thai countryside, right-wing forces and the military staged the 6 October 1976 massacre of students at Thammasat University and restored authoritarian rule. Structurally the 1973 uprising was a popular revolution that overthrew the military regime, the dominant rupture in the Thai polity of the period.
- Year: 1973 CE
- Category: Political
