---
title: คอมมิวนิสต์ หรือ เสรีภาพ (Communism or Freedom), Thai-language poster no. II, religion panel
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/communism-or-freedom-thai-religion-1966/
description: Two-panel colour poster with the Thai headline 'Communism or Freedom'.
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![คอมมิวนิสต์ หรือ เสรีภาพ (Communism or Freedom), Thai-language poster no. II, religion panel](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/communism-or-freedom-thai-religion-1966.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/communism-or-freedom-thai-religion-1966.jpg)

# คอมมิวนิสต์ หรือ เสรีภาพ (Communism or Freedom), Thai-language poster no. II, religion panel

Two-panel colour poster with the Thai headline 'Communism or Freedom'. On the left, armed men demolish a Buddhist shrine and lead monks away past a fire; the caption says communists are enemies of religion and aim to destroy Buddhism and the monkhood. On the right, villagers worship before a monk and a Buddha image in a temple. The harm is staged as imminent with one prescribed side (fear-appeal), and Buddhist imagery is attached to 'freedom' and its desecration to 'communism' (transfer).

- **Date:** 1966
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** U.S. Information Agency (USIA), Thai-language 'Communism or Freedom' poster series distributed in Thailand
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Johnson Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=johnson-administration)
- **Leader:** [Lyndon B. Johnson](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=lyndon-b-johnson)
- **Audience:** [Foreign public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=foreign-public)
- **Purpose:** [Demonize](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=demonize)
- **Themes:** [Religion](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=religion), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=cold-war)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (LOT 10536, transferred from the U.S. Information Agency)](https://www.loc.gov/item/95505049/), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (U.S. government work, transferred from the U.S. Information Agency; LOC: no known restrictions) U.S. Information Agency, c. 1966; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ds-17249

## Text on the object

Original (Thai) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
คอมมิวนิสต์ หรือ เสรีภาพ

[left panel caption, white lettering over the painting; the first words are partly obscured]
คอมมิวนิสต์เป็นศัตรูกับศาสนา จึงมุ่งทำลายพระพุทธศาสนาและ
คณะสงฆ์ให้สูญสิ้นไป

[right panel caption]
ศาสนาคือรากฐานแห่งความเป็นอยู่ของมวลชนชาวไทย

[lower left corner] II
[lower right corner, small printed mark] [illegible]
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
COMMUNISM or FREEDOM

[left panel caption]
Communists are enemies of religion, and so they set about destroying Buddhism and the monkhood until nothing is left.

[right panel caption]
Religion is the foundation of the way of life of the Thai masses.

[lower left corner] II
```

Read from the 1024 px Library of Congress image with enlarged crops of the caption bands. The first words of the left caption overlap the painted flag and are read with less confidence than the rest. The small printed mark in the lower right corner is too small to read.

[← Số hồi chánh viên tại Phú-Yên đã lên đến hơn 2400! (Ralliers in Phu Yen Have Risen to Over 2,400!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/chieu-hoi-phu-yen-2400-1966/) [Why should we help communists kill Americans? →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/mothers-crusade-help-communists-kill-americans-1966/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)