Quest to Transform Southeast Asia } 225
and Vietnamese.^82 The CCP victory in China convinced the CPT that armed
struggle with a peasant base was the correct path for the CPT to follow.
Debate over how that should be done in Thailand—especially over the related
questions of whether a united front with capitalists was possible and whether
or not Thailand was truly independent—began in the early 1950s and did not
reach a conclusion until the military coups of 1957–1958. Some within the
party believed a peaceful transition to socialism was possible in Thailand.
CCP polemics against CPSU revisionism (the latter included the “incorrect”
position that a peaceful transition to socialism was possible) helped clarify
thinking within the CPT, and that Party increasingly aligned with the CCP to
oppose Soviet revisionism in the debates within the world communist move-
ment.^83 The CPT began armed struggle in 1961, but did not openly declare that
path for several years. A revolutionary army was formed in 1965, and the first
large-scale clash with Bangkok forces came in August of that year.^84
Beijing supported the CPT’s armed struggle. A Thai-language radio sta-
tion, the Voice of the People of Thailand (VOPT), operated by CPT cadres but
based in Yunnan, began operation in 1962. In March of that year, the station
broadcast the CPT’s embrace of a strategy of rural people’s war, and in August
1965 announced the formal beginning of that struggle.^85 By 1965, the VOPT
was broadcasting seven hours a day. In that year the CPT set up a united front
organization modeled after the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.
The new CPT organization had an office and representatives in Beijing, who
were feted frequently by CCP people’s diplomacy organizations and partici-
pated in various PRC-sponsored Afro-Asian activities.^86 When CP Malaya
leader Chin Peng arrived in Beijing in June 1961, he found that the CPT had
a small permanent staff stationed at the International Liaison Department
compound in western Beijing, and another “large group” of CPT cadres were
attending a “lengthy training course.”^87
Extreme caution was a key characteristic of CCP support for the CPT.
Scholars have found some evidence of weapons supply, but have also sug-
gested that there may have been a division of labor between Beijing and Hanoi
in this regard, with Hanoi supplying arms and material and Beijing supply-
ing training, territorial sanctuary, and financial support. One close study
noted that Chinese endorsements of the CPT insurgency were usually im-
plied rather than direct. Most commonly, endorsements came in the form of
republishing statements by Thai groups, reports of CPT activity, including
united front activities in Beijing, or in the form of commentaries in Renmin
ribao or Peking Review.^88
By 1973, the CPT had an estimated 5,000 people under arms—a fairly sig-
nificant guerrilla force.^89 Prospects looked excellent after the US abandon-
ment of South Vietnam. Military suppression of a prodemocratic student
movement in Thailand in 1976 produced a large number of student recruits
for the CPT. In 1975, the year Saigon finally fell to Hanoi, the CPT asked Hanoi