# Communism or Freedom: a USIA poster for Thailand sets forced labor against free work

Poster IV of the U.S. Information Agency's Thai-language "Communism or Freedom" series, about 1966, sets a column of men carrying loads under guard against Thai villagers farming and building. The captions say communists force people to work like slaves and that Thais are free to choose their work.

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- Communism or Freedom: a USIA poster for Thailand sets forced labor against free work

      คอมมิวนิสต์ หรือ เสรีภาพ (Communism or Freedom), Thai-language poster no. IV, labour panel

      Communism or Freedom: a USIA poster for Thailand sets forced labor against free work
      A c. 1966 USIA Thai-language poster, "Communism or Freedom" no. IV, contrasts guarded forced labor with Thai villagers free to choose their work.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Fear appealTransfer
      Date1966Made byU.S. Information Agency (USIA), Thai-language 'Communism or Freedom' poster series distributed in ThailandMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeJohnson AdministrationSourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (LOT 10536, transferred from the U.S. Information Agency) , retrieved October 2, 2026SourcePublic domain (US government work, USIA transfer; LOC: 'No known restrictions on publication.') U.S. Information Agency, c. 1966; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-3584
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Poster IV of the U.S. Information Agency's Thai-language "Communism or Freedom" series, about 1966, sets a column of men carrying loads under guard against Thai villagers farming and building. The captions say communists force people to work like slaves and that Thais are free to choose their work.

## What it shows

The poster is split down the middle under one headline. On the left, a long line of men carries baskets slung from poles while two uniformed guards watch. On the right, villagers farm with a pair of buffalo and raise a house. Each side has a caption. A roman numeral in the lower left corner marks it as number four in the set.

คอมมิวนิสต์ หรือ เสรีภาพ

คอมมิวนิสต์บังคับเกี่ยวเข็ญราษฎร ให้ต้องทำงานหนักเหมือนทาส

ประชาชนชาวไทย มีอิสระเสรี ที่จะเลือกงานทำมาหาเลี้ยงชีพ ได้ตามความปรารถนา และตามความจำเป็นของแต่ละคน

FRAME transcription. FRAME's English rendering: "Communism or Freedom"; left, "Communists compel and drive the people to have to work hard like slaves"; right, "The Thai people have independence and freedom to choose work to earn a living as they wish and according to each person's needs" (machine-assisted, not verified by a fluent reader). Full record at propagandaarchive.org.

## Who made it

The maker line is the U.S. Information Agency, for its Thai-language "Communism or Freedom" series distributed in Thailand. The Library of Congress holds the sheet in LOT 10536, transferred from USIA, as LC-USZC4-3584, item 95505042, retrieved 2 October 2026, with "no known restrictions on publication." The date is given as about 1966. Other panels in the series, on food, religion, education, travel, and family separation, are separate records and are not described here.

## How to read it

FRAME tags it fear appeal and transfer. The method is the split screen: a picture of coercion against a picture of choice, with the viewer asked which side to stand on. The left caption makes a factual claim about communist rule and cites nothing for it. The right caption makes a claim about Thailand and cites nothing either.

Forced labor under communist governments was not an invention, and the poster is not wrong to name it as a danger. Its weakness is that it is a comparison with no evidence on either side, and that the free half flatters the government of the country where the poster hung. A Thai villager did not need an American agency to tell him whether he chose his own work; he could look around. The poster is most persuasive to a reader who already agreed with it.

The principle it states on the right, that people should choose their work and earn their living as they wish, is a good one. It is worth holding the poster's sponsor to it as well. Another USIA sheet from these years, the Alliance for Progress health poster, used the same show-only-the-good method in Spanish.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Communism or Freedom, Thai-language poster no. IV, labour panel, c. 1966. U.S. Information Agency. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LOT 10536, LC-USZC4-3584, item 95505042, retrieved 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work, USIA transfer).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/communism-or-freedom-thai-forced-labor-1966/