What has erupted in Thailand is the first stage of a class struggle. Bitter political infighting in the Thai ruling elites over the past four years has opened the door for the entry of sections of the rural and urban poor into political life.
The Thai military is poised to move
The army has declared two areas of the capital to be “live fire zones”.
“Red shirt” demonstrators are confronting heavily armed troops. that have broad significance for workers throughout the region and internationally
demands for immediate elections, deeper social concerns over poverty and unemployment have begun to intrude.
The “Red Shirt” protests backed by ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, billionaire businessman
far from homogeneous, but come from the country’s poorer rural areas, obvious signs of sympathy among the military’s lower ranks, drawn from the same social layers.
she added. “They [are] always rich, we always poor. That is not democracy”.
extravagant riches of a tiny elite have continued to multiply even as the global economic crisis has brought greater hardships
“democracy” goes well beyond demand of Thaksin and protest leaders for new elections
basic social right to a decent standard of living
top 20 percent of the population controls 69 percent of the nation’s wealth as compared to just 1 percent for the lowest 20 percent.
the bottom 20 percent is $US45 a month—the official poverty line.
economy contracted by 3.5 percent, credit dried up, small farmers, businessmen and vendors, along with the working class. Resumption of economic growth and booming share prices have not alleviated.
harbinger of class struggles throughout the region and globally.
small minority who enriched through speculation and exploitation of cheap labour
throughout Asia
The divide in China and India is also socially explosive.
Thailand point to political problems. anti-government movement dominated by the Thaksin-backed United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) who are exploiting the demonstrations for the economic and political interests of a section of the Thai elite.
in power between 2001 and 2006, Thaksin also to ride roughshod over democratic rights as his opponents.
He limited handouts to stimulating the economy and reviving Thai businesses after the 1997–1998 Asian economic crisis.
His programs cut across long-established systems of patronage which alienated the army, state bureaucracy and the monarchy
if these urban and rural poor remain under UDD leadership, they will be betrayed.
last April when the demonstrations went out of their control, Thaksin and the UDD ended the campaign.
This is confirmation of Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. The organic incapacity of any section of the bourgeoisie to satisfy the democratic aspirations and social needs of working people
Only the proletariat is capable of genuine democratic rights, agrarian reform and rouse the rural masses into a struggle for a workers and farmers’ government based on socialist policies
Thailand is the tenth largest auto exporter with half a million workers
working class has yet to make its presence felt. Like its counterparts around the world, the working class in Thailand has no mass political party of its own that represents its class interests on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. It has limited trade unions that function as tools of government and the corporate elite
Stalinist Communist Party of Thailand, based on the bankrupt Maoist perspective of rural guerrilla action, dissolved.
Former student radicals from the 1970s have joined pro- and anti-Thaksin camps of the ruling class.
Unless they become independent of all factions of the capitalist class, the working class faces great dangers.
There are discussion in ruling circles about the military coup and the unleashing of tanks and troops to restore order which is driven by sharp falls on the share market
disaster for the tourist industry, amid a global economic climate of continuing instability and crisis
