Who they were
A statesman and scholar (1900–1983), Pridi took a doctorate in law in France and became the leading civilian founder of Thai democracy.
What they did
He co-founded the People’s Party (Khana Ratsadon) and was the civilian brain of the Siamese Revolution of 1932. He drafted early constitutional texts and an ambitious 1933 economic plan that was rejected after opponents denounced it as communistic. In 1934 he founded Thammasat University as an open university of law and politics, and he served as a senior minister through the 1930s and 1940s. As regent for the absent King Ananda during the Second World War, he led the underground Free Thai Movement in cooperation with the Allies — commonly assessed as a key reason Thailand was treated leniently after the war. He was briefly prime minister in 1946. After King Ananda Mahidol’s unexplained death by gunshot in June 1946, political enemies used the case against him. The November 1947 coup drove him into exile, and a failed counter-coup attempt in 1949 ended his political road. He spent his last decades in China and then Paris, where he died in 1983.
Legacy
Rehabilitation came late: in 2000 UNESCO joined the centennial commemoration of Pridi as a great personality of the 20th century. He is honored as a father of Thai democracy and of Thammasat University, though his reputation remains politically charged in Thailand.