It was preceded by strikes and demonstrations over a whole range of issues like the cost of living, rural poverty, high petrol prices, U.S. and Japanese imperialism, abuse of power by the military and the destruction of the environment. However, the establishment of parliamentary democracy on its own, after 1973, did not begin to solve these deep-rooted social problems. Therefore the protests, strikes and factory occupations intensified. By 1975 Communist governments were in power in Lao, Vietnam and Cambodia and in Thailand rural insurgency by the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) was on the increase.