The Thai ruling class’ desire to destroy the further development of the socialist movement, especially in urban areas, can be understood by exploring the political climate at the time. Three years earlier, on 14th October 1973, a mass popular movement for democracy, led by students, had overthrown the military, which had been in power since 1957. This mass movement was the peak of a wave of protests against social injustice that gradually accumulated over the period. It was heavily influenced by the 1968 events in the West and the Vietnam War. 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.