Prior to the massacre, thousands of leftists, including students, workers and others, had been holding ongoing demonstrations against the return of exiled former Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn to Thailand since mid-September.

On 19 September 1976, Thanom returned to Thailand, was instantly ordained at Wat Bowonniwet Vihara, and was visited by the King and the Queen, resulting in anti-Thanom protests and demonstrations.

On 5 October, the protesters were accused of lese-majeste following a mock play which led to right-wing allegations that its actor looked like the Crown Prince; the police and rightist paramilitary groups then gathered outside the university.

[citation needed] In response to Praphas's return on 17 August 1976, thousands of students demonstrated at Thammasat University for four days until a deadly clash with Red Gaur and Nawaphon.

[4]: 149  However, one month later, on 19 September, Thanom returned to Thailand and headed straight from the airport to Wat Bowonniwet Vihara, a temple heavily associated with royalty, where he was ordained as a monk in a private ceremony.

Massive anti-Thanom protests broke out as the government faced an internal crisis after Prime Minister Seni Pramoj's attempt to tender his resignation was rejected by the Thai Parliament.

"[4]: 70–1 On 24 September, in Nakhon Pathom, a small city just west of Bangkok, two labor activists posting anti-Thanom posters were attacked and beaten to death, their bodies then being hung from a gate.

The following day, as Seni struggled to put together his cabinet, a Thai language newspaper, Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม), published a photograph of the mock hanging on its front page,[8]: 90  pointing out that the student at the end of the noose allegedly bore a resemblance to Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.

[4]: 26  Army-controlled radio stations promptly accused the student protesters of lèse-majesté and coordinated royalist and rightist paramilitary forces: the Village Scouts, Nawaphon, and Red Gaurs, to assemble.

Winner of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for spot news, it illustrates the brutality and lynch-mob mentality surrounding the event, and has since become a symbol for the massacre, and has inspired numerous works of art.

[16][17] On the afternoon of 6 October after the massacre, the major factions of the military which formed the general staff agreed in principle to overthrow Seni, a plot that King Bhumibol was aware of and did not oppose, which ensured the success of the coup-makers.

Later that evening, Admiral Sangad Chaloryu, the newly appointed supreme commander, announced that the military, under the name of the "National Administrative Reform Council" (NARC) had seized power to "prevent a Vietnamese-backed communist plot" and to preserve the "Thai monarchy forever".

Most were released without charges except for 18 protest organizers, who were accused of rebelling against the state, causing public unrest, attempted murder of government officials and affiliating with communist acts.

[citation needed] Benedict Anderson argues that the massacre and subsequent support for the return to dictatorship represented "withdrawal symptoms" by the middle class who favored stability and peace above democracy.

He oversaw a massive influx of financial aid from anti-communist countries, such as the United States and Japan, fuelling the Thai economy, as well as increasing American cultural influence.

They lacked political experience and so had no real idea of the consequences of ending the dictatorship, which was simultaneously blamed both for failing to exact fuller commitments from its allies and for excessive subservience to Washington.

[citation needed] King Bhumibol had supported student protesters in their demonstrations in 1973 that led to the downfall of the Thanom regime and resulted in the period of "chaotic democracy" from 1973-76.

By 1976, he had turned against the students and, according to many scholars, played a crucial, if not the most important, role in bringing about the massacre and a return to military rule after a three-year flirtation with democracy.

One of the main features of the network monarchy was that the monarch intervened actively in political developments, largely by working through proxies such as privy councillors and trusted military figures.

[23]: 169–170  In order to deal effectively with the "communist" threat that would undermine his rule and status, in addition to deploying governmental forces such as the Thai military and police, Bhumibol, through his network monarchy, also encouraged three paramilitary forces—the Village Scouts, Nawaphon, and Red Gaurs—to use violence against protesters from 1973 to 1976, culminating in the Thammasat massacre.

After an Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) takeover, the Village Scouts metamorphosed into a fascist-style mass political movement that would play a major role in the ensuing massacre.

It was inaugurated by Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit who returned regularly even after Kittivudho began to make incendiary speeches about the need to deal with student protesters and communists.

[29] The Red Gaurs were ex-mercenaries and men discharged from the military for disciplinary infractions mixed with unemployed vocational school graduates, high-school dropouts, idle street corner boys and slum toughs.

Bhumibol and the royal family took part frequently in Village Scout activities and attended ceremonies at Kittivudho's college and Red Gaur training camps, thus illustrating their close ties with these three paramilitary forces.

[citation needed] According to Ron Corben, the Thammasat University massacre continues to be a "...scar on the Thai collective psyche..."[30] The government has remained silent over its role, and that of the king, in the killing of student protesters.

In addition, by emphasizing the theme of healing and reconciliation in the remembrance, the Thai state, and by implication the king, have sought to make clear that the commemoration had no interest in and would not be involved in any talk of retribution.

Tyrell Haberkorn, a Thailand scholar, speculates that the death of Bhumibol may have made it even more difficult to name the perpetrators as Rama IX's reign becomes more idealized.

[35] Thammasat University has been known to host annual commemoration events of the massacre, presenting lectures by historians, interviews with survivors as well as round table discussions, short films and live performances.

[38] A short film called Song Phi Nong (The Two Brothers, สองพี่น้อง) presents the stories of the two activists whose lynching was portrayed in the student play that incited the massacre.

He and Vichai borrowed their friend's motorcycle and went out to put posters to protest the return of General Thanom, who was exiled three years earlier after the student uprising of 14 October 1973.