Counter insurgency was initially unsuccessful due to poor
understanding of the cpt’s strategic objectives as well as divisions
within the military. Economic and social underdevelopment in
peripheral provinces, especially in Isan, coupled with the repression
and intimidation of local communities by the armed forces,
had the result of increasing support for the cpt: in the mid-1970s it
had some 8,000 members. The political activism of university students
alerted the cpt leadership to the need for re-establishing a
rapport with the urban intelligentsia. From the early 1970s radical
literature again circulated freely after two decades of censorship;
and between 1974 and 1976 the Socialist Party of Thailand elected
deputies to the parliament. After the fall of Saigon, Phnom Penh
and Vientiane, which made a communist takeover in Thailand
seem more likely, there was a re-compacting of conservative and
reactionary forces, including a large sector of the Sangha and paramilitary
associations (the Red Gaurs and Village Scouts) established
over the previous years. The ferocious acts of violence perpetrated by the police forces and the armed mob that stormed Thammasat
University on 6 October 1976, including the lynching and burning
alive of students, can only be explained as a result of the dehumanization
of leftist militants by military propaganda and the sermons
of monks such as Phra Kittiwuttho, which were aired on the army controlled
radio stations