Commodifying Marxism Volume 3

This study reveals a process of cultural and political interaction resulting in a mutual transformation of exogenous Marxism and indigenous Thai culture. Tejapira traces the introduction of Sino-Vietnamese communism into Siam during the absolute monarchy in the late 1920s until the late 1950s when, under the military regime, it emerges as a particularly Thai cultural phenomenon. Marxism/communism entered the post-war Thai cultural market in the form of printed commodities, whose demand, supply and reproduction ebbed and flowed with the volatile and violent tide of international and domestic events. It was paradoxically diffused but dissolved by capitalist publishing, censored yet promoted by anti-communist authoritarian regimes. Through this process some Thai radical intellectuals translated Marxism/communism into the Thai language and rhyming verse.