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).
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1966
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- U.S. Information Agency (USIA), Thai-language 'Communism or Freedom' poster series distributed in Thailand
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Johnson Administration
- Leader
- Lyndon B. Johnson
- Audience
- Foreign public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Themes
- Religion, War and the military
- Event
- Cold War
- 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), 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]
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.
