Censorship in Thailand the existence of the Communist Party of Thailand, books pertaining to communism and socialism (references to Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, or Mao Zedong) and associated publications, e.g., the Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital were banned—to the extent of not using and/or teaching it in social sciences courses nor to sociology majors. This also extended to publications involving proletarian revolution usually associated with Maoist organizations associated with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. Individuals in possession of communist literature (books, print/electronic media, academic journals, audio, video footage) would be found guilty of treason against the Thai government. The press has also
The Communist Manifesto in theory; Marxist works such as the "Manifesto" or "Das Kapital" were read primarily by party theoreticians. On the other hand, small, dedicated militant parties and Marxist sects in the West took pride in knowing the theory; Hobsbawm says "This was the milieu in which 'the clearness of a comrade could be gauged invariably from the number of earmarks on his Manifesto. Following the October Revolution of 1917 that swept the Vladimir Lenin-led Bolsheviks to power in Russia, the world's first socialist state was founded explicitly along Marxist lines. The Soviet Union, which Bolshevik Russia would become a part of,