สำนักงานราชบัณทิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume IV - 2012 14  importance of Europe and became a ‘world power’ leading the ‘Western Democratic World’. The fact that the Alliance won the Second World War against Hitler’s Germany did not end the con fl icts in Europe, including Stalin’s socialist-communist regime, which continued to expand its political ideology. The situation led in the end to confrontation between countries with different political and economic ideologies, i.e., between democratic and socialist-communist lead nations in Asia, Europe and America. The ideological con fl ict in the twentieth century was sharpened after the establishment of the ‘Federal People Republic of Yugoslavia’ after 1948. The Cold War began. The world was then divided into two blocks with the United States of America on one side, the Soviet Union, and the People Republic of China, after its revolution in 1949, on the other. Many countries in the world, especially those in Southeast Asia including Thailand, fought against the Communists. The communist parties were active regionally. In Europe, the German Democratic Republic (Die Deutsche Demokratische Republik/ die DDR or East Germany) was established in 1949, also the Federal Republic of Germany (Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland or West Germany). The violent military expansions of the Soviet Union into East-block states (Poland, Hungary, and into East Germany 1950-1960, escalated the confrontation between the two ideologies. In 1950, the People Republic of China claimed Thailand as its former colony. The danger was clear and present. This alarming sign indeed accelerated Thailand to become a member of the United Nations in 1950. The government also showed solidarity with the UN by sending troops to the Korean War and gave shelter to the Chiang Kai-shek’s army of ‘Kuomintang’ in northern Thailand, near the boarder to China. 3 Laws against crimes that deal with communism were passed. Many Thai intellectuals showed sympathy with the communist ideology. Among them was Chit Bhumisak, a student of the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. The process of the communist expansion in Thailand after World War II, could be best demonstrated by the literary movement of Littérature Engagée developed in 3 The region is later known as the ‘Golden Triangle’ in northern part of Thailand with ‘Khun Sa’, known as “King of Opium” as leader. Members of this army were partly integrated with the hill tribes in the North, partly with the Thais. It is the projects of His Majesty King Bhumibol of Thailand in the sixties that gradually transferred this opium region into agricultural land. Queen Sirikit on Her Majesty’s State Visits in 1960 and 1962