Quest to Transform Southeast Asia } 213
Malaya
The Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) was formed in 1930 under Comintern
guidance. The abrupt surrender of Japanese forces in August 1945 combined
with delay in the arrival of British forces created a power vacuum which the
CPM seized to expand their control, especially in ethnic Chinese communities
of Malaya, constituting roughly one-third of the total population. With the
return of British colonial authority, the CPM-led anti-Japanese wartime resis-
tance organization was dissolved, but a secret section of that organization was
held in readiness. That secret organization’s first task was burial, rather than
surrender, of stocks of arms and ammunition.^34 The Federation of Malaya was
established under British tutelage in January 1948. (It became independent in
August 1957.) Two months later, in March 1948, the CPM Central Committee
endorsed the Cominform’s recently promulgated view of the division of Asia
into “two camps” and the corollary need for armed struggle against the impe-
rialists. According to this new analysis, the Federation of Malaya was a pup-
pet of imperialism in need of revolutionary overthrow. Militancy by CPM-led
labor unions spiraled. Colonial authorities responded in June 1948 by pro-
claiming a state of emergency and arresting CPM militants. Communist sur-
vivors fled to jungle areas and began setting up base areas along the model of
the increasingly successful Chinese communist model.
The CCP’s drive toward victory in China’s civil war led to a rapid reorien-
tation of the CPM away from Moscow and toward China. CPM leaders were
mostly ethnic Chinese. Many of them had been drawn into political struggle
by China’s struggles against Japan and intensely identified with China’s revo-
lutionary quest. According to long-time CPM Secretary General Chin Peng,
in late 1948 CPM leaders discussed “at length” the CCP’s mounting victory,
and decided to push ahead “even harder with our military program.”^35 By
December 1948, the CPM had worked out a strategy of armed struggle “with
a high expectation of success.”
Close liaison with the CCP was part of the CPM’s military program. The
CPM set up a system of secret communications with the CCP via courier
through Hong Kong, and used this system in late 1948 to request medical
treatment in China for eight senior CPM cadres. Beijing agreed and proposed
that after medical treatment the CPM cadres remain in Beijing and enroll
in a three-year training course on communist “theory and practice, military
and political.”^36 By the time the Korean War began in June 1950, ten senior
CPM cadres were studying in Beijing. In December 1949, PRC Vice President
Liu Shaoqi gave an important speech on the revolutionary situation in the
Far East in which he specifically endorsed the “liberation war” underway in
Malaya. Over the next several years, according to a British intelligence report,
there was “ample proof that a considerable amount of printed propaganda
material of all kinds has reached the CPM from China.”^37