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National Liberation Struggle Of The Peoples Of Malaya

CRISIS OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM ; NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES OF EAST ASIA

Reports Presented in 1949  to the Pacific Institute of the Academy of Sciences, U.S.S.R.

National Liberation Struggle Of The Peoples Of Malaya

 By G.L. Bondarevsky Candidate of Historical sciences

 The tremendous interest of British finance Capital in Malaya in the course of the recent decades in generally well-known. British capital investments in the Malayan rubber industry alone amount to 200 million pounds sterling. Of no less significance for the British financiers is also the tin industry of Malaya where, at the present time, as well as before the war two huge firms—the British Tin Investment Corporation and the London tin Corporation—dominate exclusively. The British financiers were also guaranteed their monopoly position in the world rubber and tin market before the Second World War by their influence in Siam, and by their big investments in the Indo-Chinese and Indonesian rubber industry. The whole of the tin extracted and the rubber produced in Siam was exported to outer markets through Malayan ports—Penang and, in the main, Singapore. Thus, in the field of these two most important forms of strategic raw materials, until the Second World War the British imperialists emerged as monopolists on the world market, while the U.S.A. is the main consumer of tin and rubber. The attempts of the American financiers and industrial circles to break the British monopoly through the construction of tin-smelting factories in the U.S.A. (the entire tin ore of Malaya and Siam was smelted in the British factories in Malaya), and to create a rubber base in Brazil and Liberia, Were not crowned with success.

 During the period of the Second World War, the position changed considerably; the Americans who were cut off from the main sources of tin and rubber as a result of Japanese occupation, invested nearly 800 million dollars in the construction of factories for the production of synthetic rubber in the

U.S.A. In 1946, nearly 75 per cent of the rubber needed by American industry was obtained through synthetic methods, while till the war, 90 per cent of American requirements of rubber were provided for by Britain by way of supplies from Malaya. In the war years, the American Government financed the construction of a big tin-smelting plant in the town of Longhorn. In 1947, this plant manufactured 30,000 tons of tin ore of which a considerable part breaking the former British monopoly, came directly from Siam, where in the post-war period the Americans had strengthened considerably their economic positions and political influence.

 

British monopoly in the sphere of rubber and tin was considerably undermined. True, not completely because the synthetic rubber produced by the U.S. plants was more expensive than natural rubber and the tin mines of Siam were not able to fully provide for the requirements of American industry. Therefore, already in 1946 as a result of prolonged Anglo-American negotiations, the Americans once again began to purchase Malayan rubber and tin. In 1947 alone, the U.S.A. imported 457,000 tons of rubber and more than 20,000 tons of tin from Malaya. The cost of Malayan exports to U.S.A. amounted to 346 million dollars, which exceeded by 166 million dollars the cost of the entire British export to U.S.A. in 1947. Therefore the British Press with full justification called Malaya the “dollar arsenal” of Britain. One can understand the tremendous economic significance of Malaya in the strained balance of payment of “Marshallised” Britain.

 

Taking into account the general rise in the prices of raw materials, the British monopolists looked forward to considerably greater profits in 1948 than they had received in 1947. However, the British financiers had reckoned without the master. Wall Street did not in the least intend to increase the dollar cash of the British bank and lessen Britain’s dependence on the U.S.A. Therefore, the American monopolists by threatening their British competitors to take to artificial rubber, to increase the purchase of rubber Indonesia (the great activity which Americans are displaying there is not without reason) and also to extend the extraction of tin in Siam, not only did not allow a rise in prices of tin and rubber but also as was pointed out by the Diplomatic Correspondent of the Daily Worker of July 26, 1948, it even secured a considerable lowering of prices of the two most important types of raw materials.

The British monopolists, who were compelled to subordinate themselves to American pressure as a consequence of the causes that have been pointed out as well as, as a result of the general intensification of Britain’s dependence upon the U.S.A., attempted to transfer the costs of the unsuccessful struggle against their competitors across the ocean on the shoulders of the toiling masses of Malaya by lowering their wages, which were already very low.

 

But serious changes had taken place in Malaya during these past years. The organisation of the toiling people of the country had grown considerably. Nearly half a million members of the trade union had united in the all-Malaya federation of Trade Unions. Under the leadership of a militant Communist Party and the All-Malaya federation of Trade Unions, the working people of Malaya in alliance with the intelligentsia and the petty-bourgeoisie commenced an active struggle for their rights and their national independence. That is why the British rubber and tin monopolies decided to decapitate, with the help of the police and the armed forces, the national-liberation movement of Malaya before raising the question of lowering wages. Relying upon the agreement that had been secured in 1946 with the feudal top stratum of Malaya (expressed in the replacement of the so-called Malayan Union by the Malayan Federation and in the restoration of the rights of the Sultans of nine feudal princedoms) in London, they relied upon drowning the liberation movement in Malaya in blood, and on guaranteeing millions of super-profits for the rubber and tin monopolies.

 

The plans of the British imperialists found complete support and approval in Washington. In the measure of the growth of the national-liberation movement in the countries of S. E. Asia, the consolidation of the front of democracy and freedom in china and the weakening of the positions of Kuomintang reaction, the anxiety of the American politicians increased. It was particularly intensified in May 1948 when there appeared in Washington the alarming reports of American military experts on the catastrophic situation of Chiang Kai-shek’s army and on the possibility of an onrush of Chinese democratic forces to the South.

 

The situation in S. E. Asia was discussed in detail in June 1948 at a regular gathering of the joint Council of the Chiefs of Staff in Washington. The American representatives declared for the quickest organisation of a cordon sanitaire in S. E. Asia, which would have to prevent the growth of the influence of democratic forces in this part of the world in the case of the final defeat of the Kuomintang regime and the victory of democracy in China. According to the reports of the Telepress Agency dated 22nd June, 1948, at this gathering the American representatives demanded from the British the defeat of the democratic forces of Malaya, the bringing about of “order” there and the re-occupation of the country by a considerable number of British forces. The American generals and diplomats considered that these measures would not only finally resolve the question of providing American industry with strategic raw materials of S. E. Asia, but would also prevent in case of “extraordinary events”, the isolation of American military bases in the Far East and in the pacific ocean by ensuring at any time an approach of them from the side of S. E. Asia and would also guarantee control over Singapore.

 

Thus, on the Malayan question the interests of British and American monopolist coincided.

 

In realising the decisions of the Washington meeting of the Joint Council of the Chief of Staff the British Government in its turn adopted the decision of moving the main base of British Far East squadron from Hongkong to Singapore. There began simultaneously the accumulation of military units and armaments for the re-occupation of Malaya and for the destruction of the democratic forces in the country. The British bourgeois press of all shades and trends raised heart-rending wall about the “Communist” menace in Malaya and about the foreign intervention in the affairs of the country.

After so much of careful preparation, the British Colonial Power thought that in June, 1948, a most appropriate moment had been reached for dealing a blow to the communist party of Malaya and to the progressive trade unions which had joined the All-Malaya Federation of Trade Unions. At a signal from London and Singapore, all over the country there began raids upon communists, the smash-up of trade union organizations, the arrests and murders of democratic leaders.

 

It is clear that the bloody events in Malaya which began in June, 1948, and are continuing to this day, are not the result of the “Communist plot” as the British military and political leaders and the corrupt British Press are attempting to prove but are the consequence of pre-planned provocation, carried out at the dictates from London and Washington.

 

Even such a trumpet of imperialist propaganda as the Far Eastern correspondent of the London Times, Morrison, in his article published in the Far Eastern Survey (No. 24, December 22, 1948), is forced to state:

 

“An incontestable conviction is being developed that the Malayan communists were compelled to launch military operations earlier than they were prepared for them, i.e. it turns out (seems) as though they were drawn in the revolution.”

 

In preparing the attack against the toiling masses of Malaya, the British colonisers reckoned that they would be able within a few days to smash the Communist Party and the trade unions and finally to subjugate and enslave Malaya. However, the British imperialists had miscalculated seriously. They did not realise the serious changes that had taken place in S.E. Asia and in particular, in Malaya during the years that had elapsed. The years of struggle against the Japanese occupation had contributed to a considerable growth in the political consciousness of the peoples of Malaya and had assisted in the solidarity of her popular masses and given the first experience of partisan struggle. As a result, after the Japanese occupationists had been driven out of Malaya, the national-liberation movement already had a firm base among the masses of the people of Malaya, and was based on the political consciousness of the masses and possessed the experience of an armed struggle. If we bear in mind also the great influence of the communist Party, and influence which rose in the years of the anti-Japanese struggle, then the baselessness of the calculations of the British colonisers about dealing with the democratic movement in a short time becomes evident.

 

In reply to the attack of the British imperialists, the toiling people of Malaya under the leadership of the communist Party and the All-Malaya Federation of Trade Unions rose in defence of their independence. The liberation movement developed into an armed struggle of the peoples of the country against the British colonisers. In June, 1948, as a reply to the provocative actions of the planters of Perak, who had formed bands of cut-throats for smashing up the trade unions in the central parts of Perak, the first partisan units in Malaya were created from among the former members of the “Anti-Japanese Army of the Malayan People.”

 

The bands of ruffians were defeated by the people’s detachments. In the clashes of 16th June, there Englishmen—managers of the rubber plantations were killed. The British Colonial Power in Malaya finally secured the long-awaited excuse for intervention. The British press of Malaya and Great Britain began to screech about Communist uprising while the Governor of the Malayan Federation, Ghent, had already on 17th June granted to the police of Perak and other States of the Federation the right to arrest without trial and even to shoot at sight all those who “resisted the actions of the police authorities.”

 

Thus, the most violent colonial terror against the Malayan people received “judicial” sanction. The fact that the murder of the three Englishmen, which served as an excuse for the terror of the

colonisers was in actual fact a provocation is also recognised by Morrison, whom we have already cited and who in the same article in the Far Eastern Economist writes:

 

“The murder of the three British planters did not enter into the plans of the Communist leadership and was an accident.”

 

In the middle of June, partisan detachments also began to be formed in the princedom of Kelantan and in a number of regions, where the local police had been particularly rowdy.

 

The planters and the colonial army units were frightened. They demanded of the British Government the employment of most resolute measures and the dispatch of military regiments. Already on 22nd June the British minister for Colonies, Creech Jones, speaking in Parliament reported that the government had decided to liquidate the disorder at any price. It granted extraordinary plenary powers to the British colonial authorities in Malaya and sent military units there.

 

On the very day, it was announced in the Federal capital of Kuala Lumpur that there was to be a state of siege in the four main rubber-producing regions of Malaya. After two days, the State of siege was also extended to Singapore although it was perfectly calm there. The British colonizers calculated on thus dealing a powerful blow to this centre of the National Liberation movement of Malaya.

 

As a result, from 20th to 24th June, according to the official figures alone more than 800 members of the Communist party of Malaya were arrested in the big centres of Malaya. In the end of June, the state of siege was extended to the whole of Malaya. The police and troops were granted the right of shooting at sight any one who was found in possession of weapons. The Malayan police widely employed the draconian rights granted to them and hundreds of democratically-minded Malayan, Chinese and Indian workers were tortured and shot down in the police regions.

 

However, already the first days of June saw a noticeably significant extension of the partisan movement, which embraced the regions directly bordering on Kuala Lumpur. On 3rd July, 1948, the group of representatives of the rubber planters and tin monopolies visited Ghent, the Governor of the Malayan federation. These real masters of the colonial administration categorically demanded form Ghent the employment of the most fierce measures against the rebels and also the immediate bringing into action of the big military units.

 

Literally on the very day, the big Conservative papers in Britain published editorials containing sharp accusations regarding the inefficiency and uselessness of the British colonial administration in Malaya. The Governor of Malayan Federation, Ghent, well-known for his opposition to the policy of the Minister for Colonies with respect to Malaya, was urgently summoned to London for the next instructions. However, he did not succeed in flying to Britain. He was killed in Switzerland in an air catastrophe, resulting from circumstances that have not been explained.

 

Frightened by the revival of the movement of the people in revolt and apprehending the beginning of a general uprising, the British colonizers began demanding immediate military reinforcements. Gurkha regiments, mine-fusiliers, Yorkshire, Inniskilling and Irish fusiliers regiments were sent to Malaya in the course of July 1948 from Britain, the Near East Malta, Ceylon and Hongkong.

 

Already in the middle of July these newly-arrived troops were directly from their ships, sent into action against the partisan detachments whose numbers had begun to grow and extend over the entire country. For reconnaissance and for dealing blows to the partisans from the air, the air force was widely utilised. For this purpose, several squadrons of destroyers and bombers were transferred from Ceylon to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

In the second half of July, over almost the whole of Malaya there took place many engagements between the partisan detachments and the British military units. The most serious engagement took place in central Kedah, in the region of Balito, where the battle between the partisans and army units went on for 16 hours on 15th July. Serious engagements took place in all the provinces of Selangor, Perak, Negri Sembilan. A particularly tense situation was created in Johore, nearby Singapore. In this princedom there began simultaneously with the struggle of the partisans a strike of the workers of almost all the rubber plantations.

 

The alarmed and frightened shareholders of Great Britain could now no longer be satisfied with fables about the conspiracy of a small number of Communist in Malaya. In spite of the obstacles placed by the British censor, it has become clear even to the ordinary readers that unrest embraces the whole of Malaya.

 

In order to somehow explain away the situation that was developing and to save the British authorities from reproaches the Reuter agency and a number of British papers began, as has been pointed out above, to publish reports about “Cominform activities” in Malaya, about the co-ordination of the Communist movement in Malaya and Burma, about the help which the Malayan Communists were supposed to be receiving from outside. The Bangkok fables about the activities of the mythical League of South East Asia were again let loose.

 

All this anti-Communist propaganda reached its climax on 23rd July, when at a session of the House of Commons, Creech Jones declared with shouts of approval both from the Conservative as well as from the Labourite members that the British Government had sanctioned the decision of the Malayan colonial authorities for the immediate banning of the Malayan Communist Party.

 

The Minister for Colonies pointed out that he wholly supported the assertion of the British authorities in Malaya that the Communist Party bore the main responsibility for the present happenings inside the country and that it had carried out all the preparatory work for an uprising.

 

The Communist member of Parliament, Gallacher, spike in reply to the Government, to the businessmen and officials of the colonies, who had gone to extreme lengths and to the conservative and Labour members who had let themselves go. He exposed “all this slander and attack against the working class of Malaya” and refuted the assertion that the Communist Party of Malaya was to blame for the disorders in Malaya. Gallacher pointed out that the disorders in Malaya are an expression of the frank and legitimate demand of the peoples of the country for the granting of independence to them. The events in Malaya, emphasised Gallacher, are a protest against the injustice done to toiling classes, who are demanding that the tin and rubber should be taken away from imperialists who control them and who exploit the people of Malaya.

 

As usual, the bourgeois Press attempted to blackout Gallacher’s speech. However, it reached Malaya and produced a very powerful impression there, as a symbol of the fraternal support of the British proletariat to the peoples of Malaya, fighting for their freedom.

 

Simultaneously with the banning of the Communist Party, the British authorities took the  decision to ban other progressive democratic organisations also—the league of democratic youth, the Ex- Comrades Association of the Anti-Japanese army of the People of Malaya, and the League of Youth for the Struggle for the National Independence of Malaya. During the month preceding this, the British colonial authorities had taken the decision to disband the All-Malaya Federation of Trade Unions which was so popular among the working people and so hated by the planters.

Having organised numerous provocations and having drowned Malaya in blood, the British colonial authorities executed the orders of the British tin and rubber monopolies and the task set up by the bosses of Wall Street; they disbanded and banned the progressive organisations of Malaya.

 

However, the plans of the British monopolists were realised only partially; the banning of the Malayan Communist Party and the anti-Japanese Army of the Malayan People did not in the least signify their liquidation. On the contrary, going underground the Malayan Communist Party raised aloft the banner of the anti-imperialist struggle by uniting around itself the toiling masses of Malaya and the members of the former Anti-Japanese army of the People of Malaya, and came forward in an active struggle against the British colonisers.

 

It was no accident that in the many proclamations and leaflets issued by this fighting organisation, it called itself not the anti-Japanese but the Anti-British Army of the People of Malaya. In the second half of July, 1948, the military operations continued to spread. The partisan detachments attacked a big centre of the coal industry—Baty Arang and a large number of coal pits were put out of commission. Serious battles took place in the area of the tin mines and rubber plantations to the South of Kuala Lumpur, where the British commander was forced to concentrate two columns of British troops with artillery, tanks and aeroplanes.

 

In the last days of July when the unrest spread to the main centre of tin industry—Ipoh, the British command, on the demand of the tin concerns brought aerial descent units into action and mass attacks of “spitfires” were organised on the peaceful Malayan villages in the area of Ipoh, and big artillery reinforcements were ordered from the Near East.

 

The panic amongst the British planters and colonial authorities reached unheard of dimensions in the beginning of August. An all-Malaya meeting of the planters in Kuala Lumpur demanded the immediate despatch to Malaya of not less than two fresh divisions of regular troops, threatening otherwise to cease immediately the extraction of rubber with all the consequences for British export ensuing from it. And this being not enough, frightened by the unexpected result of their own provocation and machinations, the British colonial authorities demanded that the British Government should raise before the Australian Government the question of transfer of Australian troops from Japan to Malaya.

 

With the aim of working out concrete measures to crush the national-liberation movement, a big meeting was called in Singapore on 6th August of British military and civil authorities in S.E. Asia. The Commander-in-Chief of the British armed forces in Malaya—General Boucher and other top representatives of the British armed forces in S.E. Asia and also the Governors and representatives of the colonial authorities of all the British possessions in the region, took part in it.

 

On August 7th, the Times published an editorial devoted to the results of this meeting. In it, this organ of the City pointed out that the aim of the coming invasion of Malaya is “the suppression of the forces of the Communists in Malaya, which will mean a heavy blow to Communism throughout Asia. If a defeat can be inflicted on the Malayan communists, then al the forces which give rise to the unrest and disruption that is taking place at the present time in Burma, Siam and in the Dutch East Indies will receive a blow. This will clear the path for the economic and political rehabilitation of these countries, which is being carried on in collaboration with the Western Powers who expect aid and a balancing of their budgets from this part of the world.”

 

It is difficult to express more clearly the aims of the British monopolists. It turns out that the question is not of the mythical menace of Communism but of the desire to subjugate the peoples of S.E. Asia once again to their power, to convert this area into a vast reserve of raw materials and dollars for the Marshallised countries of Western Europe.

However, the bellicose declarations of the British generals and the still more bellicose articles of the British papers did not frighten the peoples of Malaya. In September, 1948, the partisan movement embraced two-thirds of the country.

 

The British Government adopted an extraordinary decision. Two-Guard brigades were sent to Malaya. Never before in the history of Britain have the Guards been sent to the colonies in times of peace. At that very time, two squadrons of the latest reactive-destroyers with rocket equipment were sent. The Attlee-Bevin “Socialist” Government decided to employ also other methods of fighting the people of Malaya. According to the report of the special correspondent of the Daily Worker, the British authorities acquired wolf-hounds, specially trained for hunting men in the Hitlerite concentration camps. These dogs were transported to Singapore to hunt down the partisans. But even this turned out to be inadequate for the Labourite colonisers who were running riot. The progressive public of the whole world was literally stunned by the report that, at a special directive of the British Government, the savage inhabitants of Borneo, the Dyaks, were conveyed in aeroplanes from Sarawak to Singapore. According to a report of the Reuter agency, the Dyaks were intended for the organization of special detachments which were to track down the partisans in the Malayan jungles. The main weapon of the Dyaks were the special blow-pipes, from which they released poisoned darts. This weapon was conveyed from Sarawak to Singapore by a special plane. From rocket destroyers and the latest tanks to wolf-hounds and poisoned darts—such were the methods of fighting employed by the British “Socialists” against the peoples of Malaya.

 

In order to frighten the population of the country, towards the end of September the British colonial authorities began to conduct mass public executions of the partisans who had been taken captive, employing the method of “psychological attack”, namely, one with British aeroplanes scattering tens of thousands of leaflets depicting the mutilated head of the murdered leader of the Malayan partisans, Liew- yau, who had proved himself to be a courageous fighter and a splendid organiser of the masses of people.

 

However, nothing helped. The movement against the colonisers continued to grow. The British colonisers attempted to mobilise Malayan feudal reaction against the peoples of the country. There appeared at the courts of all the nine Malayan Sultans, special representatives of the ministry for Colonial Affairs. They promised the Sultans a number of additional concessions, granting some of their demands in exchange for support for the struggle of the colonisers against the national-liberation movement. The reactionary Muslim clergy mobilized and it began to set the Malayan Muslims against the Chinese. It was with this very same aim that the experienced provocateur, the former Commissioner of the Palestine police, Gray, was sent to Malaya. He began immediately to operate in the Palestine style by organizing clashes between the Malayan and Chinese groups of the population. In accordance with the agreements with the feudal rulers, Gray and his henchmen set about organizing a band of provocateurs, who distributed themselves amongst the partisan detachments. These traitor cut-throats were set the task of establishing contact with the partisans and thus betraying the location of the partisan detachments to the British command.

 

In October, 1948, with the arrival of the Guards, the total number of British troops in Malaya exceeded 50,000 and thus the British were compelled to employ against the peoples of Malaya considerably more forces than they had employed in their time against the Japanese in this very theatre of military operations. The number of partisan ranks towards the end of 1948 did not exceed twenty thousand members even according to the figures of the British bourgeois press. But all the same, the British colonisers were not able to achieve any decisive successes.

 

In February, 1949, it became evident that in spite of the extensive military operations of troops supplied with modern arms, the British colonisers were not able to defeat the partisan detachments of the Malayans and the Chinese and at the price of considerable sacrifices, could only squeeze the fighting

units of the Malayan patriots out of the southern part of Malaya and in particular out of Johore into the central and north-western part of the peninsula. A debate in the House of Lords was held in February, 1949, on the situation in Malaya. The Labourite Lord Elibank was forced to admit that the situation in Malaya had deteriorated. He emphasised that “our prestige and our positions in the Far East are at stake.” The Conservative Lord Shankfort declared: “It is difficult to understand what is happening in Malaya to- day. One thing is clear—we are not winning.”

 

In concluding his speech, he emphasised that the military operations in Malaya cost the British exchequer 35,000 pounds daily. Lord Hurley (Independent) was also forced to admit that “there were almost no successes in Malaya.”

 

A still more concrete declaration on the state of affairs in Malaya was made in the House of Commons on 8th February, 1949 by the Labourite Longden, who pointed out that “the Malayan population was more favourably inclined towards the rebels than towards the Government.”

 

A no less pessimistic appraisal of the situation of the British colonisers in Malaya was given by the newspaper Yorkshire Post, which is closely connected with the leadership of the Conservative Party. In its leading article, devoted to the situation in Malaya (19th February) it noted that although the total number of British troops and police in Malaya had risen to 70,000 they had not succeeded in winning victory over the partisans. The article pointed out that the partisan detachments had the opportunity of making up for their losses by considerable reinforcements from the local population.

 

The Singapore correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, Buckley, also testifies to the fact that the losses of the partisans in the military operations against the British armed forces were not great. In an article published on 16th May, 1949 he estimates the possible losses of the partisans to be 20 per cent of their total number. He emphasises that the only result, achieved by the British Command at the end of a year’s struggle against the partisans and at the cost of heavy human and material sacrifice is that the main forces of the partisans were forced to retreat to the central part of the peninsula, mainly in the direction of the Siamese border. Thus, the first five months of 1949 did not bring any victory to the British imperialists in their struggle for the enslavement of the peoples of Malaya. Being unable to achieve victory in the struggle against the partisans the British colonisers began employing ruthless repression against the defenceless, peaceful inhabitants of the peninsula. According to the figures of Lim—the Editor of the bulletin, The Malayan Monitor—during the one year of war operations in Malayan, the British imperialists hanged 75 and shot down more than 500 fighters for freedom. Two thousands three hundred Malayans and Chinese were exiled form Malaya only for being suspected of sympathising with the partisans. On that very same charge, eleven big villages were burnt down by the British colonisers; nearly 7,000 Malayans are languishing in concentration camps. The British colonizers in their hatred towards the democratic forces of Malaya went to this extent that from 1949 they began to exile and to hand over the families of the Chinese settlers who were fighting in the ranks of the partisans to the Kuomintang authorities.

 

However, neither the gallows nor torture can break the will of the Malayan people. The manifesto published recently by three organizations participating in the struggle for national liberation—the Organisation of the Fighting Youth, the Peasants’ Union and the Women’s Federation—points out:

 

“British imperialism has completely exposed its fascist character by shooting down the village population by the bombardment of the countryside and the driving away of people from their homes.”

 

In conclusion, the Manifesto says that although the struggle against imperialism will be a prolonged one “victory is with us because British imperialism is getting weaker and becoming more and

more isolated, while we are becoming stronger, since our struggle is a revolutionary war for the liberation of our country and our people.”

 

Being unable to achieve the defeat of the democratic forces through military methods, through terror and intimidation, the British imperialists made an attempt to disrupt the national-liberation movement by compromising with certain circles of the Malayan and in particular, the Chinese petty and middle bourgeoisie. Already on November 10, 1948, during a debate in the House of Lords on the Malayan question, Lord Listowel acting for Creech Jones reported on a number of reforms which the British Government intended to introduce in Malaya. As one of these, he pointed to the possibility of a unification of Singapore and the Malayan Federation. The separation of Singapore from Malaya was one of the most important aims of the British colonisers at the time when they had put forward the plan of forming a Malayan union and later the Malayan Federation. Now the British Minister for Colonies was forced to raise the question of a possible unification of Singapore and the Malayan Federation. It is perfectly evident that it was only the growth of the national-liberation movement in the country which compelled the British imperialists to change their stand on this question. A characteristic proof of the people’s successes in Malaya is the speech (20th April, 1949) made at a meeting of the London branch of the League of Young Conservatives by Mancroft, a prominent leader of the Conservative party who had recently returned from Malaya. Mancroft declared: “We will be glad to see Malaya within the Commonwealth of Nations as an independent dominion.” Surely this is an indication of the anxiety of British imperialism for its position in Malaya. Such a declaration testifies to the fact that the British ruling top stratum, having sustained defeat in its policy of employing the knout in respect of Malaya is now attempting to pursue the policy of honeyed words.

 

The British colonisers made the usual attempt to split the trade union movement in Malaya and through this make the struggle of the Malayan proletariat more difficult. At the end of February, 1949, at the dictates of the British authorities a conference of the representatives of yellow trade unions was called in Kuala Lumpur. The leader of the Malayan feudal reaction, Dato Onn Bin Jaffar, who had secured from the British the post of Prime Minister of Johore spoke at this conference. Jaffar pointed to the necessity of uniting within a new Federation of trade unions all the “moderate” elements in the working class and trade union movement. Jaffar’s speech was the beginning of a big campaign of provocation by the British colonisers. In order to further this campaign “trade union advisers” were sent from Britain who had actively joined in all measures directed towards splitting the trade union movement.

 

However, no quislings were found among the Malayan working people. The yellow unions were boycotted and the All-Malayan Federation of Trade Unions which was disbanded by the British and had gone underground enjoyed tremendous authority and popularity as before. The British made attempts to physically wreak vengeance on the leaders of the All-Malaya Federation of Trade-Unions. In March, 1949, the President of the All-Malaya Federation, Ganapathy, an Indian was captured, put under arrest and tortured. Ganapathy’s arrest and the sentence of death passed on him for alleged possession of a revolver, evoked tremendous indignation of the public in the countries of the East and in particular in India. This compelled the Indian Government, after fruitless efforts at securing from the British authorities in Malaya commutation of the sentence, to turn with a corresponding request to the Minister for Colonies in London. In spite of the promise of the Minister for Colonies to consider this question, Ganapathy was executed on 3rd May. Ganapathy’s execution evoked a still greater outburst of indignation. In India there began mass protests and it is characteristic that the Indian public connected the disdainful attitude of the British authorities to the request of the India Government in respect of Ganapathy with the lowering of India’s prestige, brought about by Nehru’s acceding to allow the country to remain within the British “Commonwealth of Nations.” The Acting-General Secretary of the All-India Trade Union Congress, Manek Gandhi, declared on 5th may, at a crowded meeting in Bombay that Ganapathy’s execution is “the first result of the fact that the Nehru Government was subservient to British imperialism and had agreed to retain India within the “Commonwealth of Nations.” A prominent member of the

Socialist party of India, Ashok Mehta declared: “The tragedy of Ganapathy hangs like a load in the Commonwealth chain recently forged in London.”

 

However, the British colonisers were not content with the vengeance wrought against Ganapathy. In the beginning of May, the Indian, Veersenan, who succeeded Ganapathy to the post of President of the All-Malaya Federation of Trade Unions was shot down.

 

Neither the repression of the British imperialists, nor the provocation of British agents, nor the military operations of the British armed forces could break the resistance of the working people of Malaya. The armed struggle against British imperialism is continuing. In the beginning of November, 1949, more than 40 per cent of the territory of Malaya was an arena of fierce battles between the partisan detachments and the British armed forces. In the princedoms of Pahang, Perak and particularly in Kelantan and Keddah, vast territory is under the direct control of the Malayan partisans.

 

It is true that the partisans have not succeeded in forming a contiguous territory of liberated regions. Nevertheless, the British armed forces, numbering more than 75,000 and equipped with the most up-to-date fighting technique were not able to defeat the partisans of Malaya in a year.

 

It is difficult to describe the brutality let loose by the British colonisers. The correspondent of the reactionary American paper, Christian Science Monitor, writes in an article published on 1st April 1949: “The troops bombard, machine-gun and raid villages, inhabited by the peaceful natives, if there is suspicious that Communists are hiding in the village. The troops shoot down men carrying prohibited weapons, they throw into prison the inhabitants suspected of radical leanings (for this no proof is demanded) and banish the population of entire Chinese villages by directing the inhabitants into Kuomintang China.

 

The struggle continues. The heroic Malayan partisans—Malays, Chinese, Indians—enjoy the widest support of the entire population of the country. This explains the surprising fact that for more than one year 20,000 partisans have been resisting the British armed forces, which exceed their number by many times and are defeating all the provocations of the British colonisers and local Malayan reaction.

 

In Malaya, the people’s liberation war is taking place against British imperialism. The leader of the anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples is undoubtedly the heroic proletariat of Malaya, whose numerical strength as distinct from the other countries of S. E. Asia, is quite big and amounts to (along with the workers of the rubber plantions) 10-12 per cent of the country’s population.

 

The most important reasons determining the success of the struggle of the peoples of Malaya against the British colonisers are the solidarity and organisation of the proletariat of Malaya and in particular of the workers of the mining industry, the tremendous authority and popularity enjoyed inside the country by the Communist Party of Malaya, which has been able to rally not only the industrial proletariat but also tens of thousands of farm labourers, and permanent and seasonal workers of the plantations. The correct policy of the Communist Party of Malaya on the agrarian question and the national question contributes in no small degree to the successes of the democratic movement and to drawing in the broad masses of the peasantry in it, and uniting for the first time in the history of Malaya, the Chinese, Malayan and Indian population inside the country.

 

Of course, one must not think that the British ruling circles have given up the idea of enslaving the peoples of Malaya. On the contrary, at present with the tremendous growth of the national-liberation movement over the whole of S.E. Asia and in particular with the remarkable victories of the democratic forces in China, the British and the American imperialists who are standing at their back (on the Malayan question, they act in conjunction) will exert all their forces in order to suppress the national-liberation

movement of the peoples of Malaya. In acting jointly with the American imperialists against the national- liberation movement in Malaya and creating a cordon sanitaire on the borders of China, the British colonisers are pursuing their own aims in Malaya. Behind the clamour of a struggle against Communism on the north-west borders of Malaya, the British by establishing contact with the reactionary regime of Pibul Songgram in Siam, are attempting to strengthen their positions in that country, positions which have been shaken as a result of the growth of American influence. This tendency became particularly noticeable very recently when British military experts visited Bangkok and numerous British “Liaison Officers” appeared in the regions of Siam bordering on Malaya.

 

It is necessary to point out also to the economic background of the events in Malaya. One of the reasons of the Malayan conflict was the attempt of the British ruling circles to secure a considerable reduction of wages and of the living standards of the toiling masses and, at the same time, to increase the profits of the British rubber and tin monopolies after defeating the democratic forces in Malaya.

 

Such is the situation in Malaya. Inspite of all the measures of a military and political character, British imperialism has not succeeded and will not succeed in breaking the will for victory of the peoples of Malaya. The struggle of the peoples of Malaya for the freedom and independence of their country which they are wagging under the leadership of their Communist Party and with the support of progressive people all over the world, is continuing and has all chances of complete success.

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