Abstract
It is well known that authoritarians have frequently stifled democracy movements in modern Thailand, and that impunity for murder is a long-standing privilege they have exploited to crush dissent. Less understood is that the tyrants often react out of weakness rather than strength, and fear instead of calm, when faced with strong opposition. This article examines the murders of several men in the late 1940s and early 1950s that resulted from the "Peace Rebellion," a protest against a growing despotism that shook the government. It argues that Thailand's young democratic movement at that time threatened a military junta by embodying a moral-political legitimacy the government lacked, one based on social welfare and independent foreign policy.