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When, where and how did the idea of Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) come about? Who brought the ideas of communism to Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore (then collectively called Malaya)?

Two post-Cold War and therefore more balanced monographs stand out among others as the latest and more dispassionate discourses on these questions.

One is From PKI to the Comintern 1924-1941: The apprenticeship of the Malayan Communist Party (New York, Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1992), compiled and edited by Cheah Boon Kheng, a retired historian of Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Chinese-language sources

The other one was Yong Ching Fatt's The origins of Malayan communism (Singapore, South Seas Society, 1997). Yong's research was sponsored by various Australian universities and research foundations and is distinguished by his masterly use of the Chinese-language sources, including interviews conducted in China with Malayan communists of the 1930s.

There are fine academic points disputed by Yong and Chin on, for example, whether the origin of Malayan communism was Chinese or 'Indonesian' (before 1945, Indonesia has yet to exist its islands were Dutch colonies collectively named Dutch East Indies).

However, for all practical intents and purposes, by mid-1920s, there were already in British Malaya communists, albeit loosely organised, from both China and Dutch East Indies, especially Sumatra and Java.

There were also communist agents from Europe, such as French Marxist Joseph Ducroux @ Serge Lefranc and Dutch Marxist Henk Sneevliet @ Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet.

Both Ducroux and Sneevliet were high-powered communist agents assigned by Moscow to organise communist parties in Southeast Asia, including Malaya. They appeared in various parts of Malaya in early 1920s to survey the political landscape as well as popular sentiments.

Proto-Marxists

While Sneevliet, also an adviser to the founders of the Chinese and Indonesian communist parties, finally went back to the Netherlands and ended up elected as a member of Parliament (but was later shot to death by the invading Nazis), Ducroux was detained by the British secret service in 1931, jailed and later died in Singapore in 1932.

However, the bulwark of Southeast Asian Marxists were still Chinese and the Dutch- or Malay-speaking Sumatrans and Javanese.

On the Chinese side, the earliest proto-Marxists were the anarchists like Goh Tun-ban who was arrested and tried in the Pudu jail in Kuala Lumpur in 1919 for 'sedition'. They published newspapers and leaflets, organised evening adult literacy classes for the workers and lower-income groups, and taught in schools.

Their numbers increased tremendously in Malaya after 1927 because many Chinese communists attempted to escape persecution from the right-wing nationalist government which had just broke off the alliance with the Chinese Communist Party. The details of their personalities and backgrounds, as well as activities, are well-documented in Yong's monograph.

Although Yong also recorded many details about the Malay-speaking Sumatran and Javanese Marxists who came to Malaya to spread their new ideas and to attempt to organise their followers, it is Cheah's monograph which provides more insights into their activities. Two of them are classic cases, namely Tan Melaka and Mas Alimin.

Comintern agent

Tan Melaka (1894-1949) was born in Minangkabau, Sumatra. In 1919, he returned from Europe as a Marxist. He first chose to be a teacher but soon in 1920, he founded the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) with Sneevliet's help.

However, in 1922, he was appointed as an agent of the Communist International (Comintern) to oversee the setting up of communist organisations in Southeast Asia and Australia. He travelled far and wide to Singapore, various parts of Peninsular Malaysia, China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.

According to Western intelligence reports now de-classified and compiled by Cheah, it was Tan Melaka who wrote a letter circa 1927 to the Comintern Far Eastern (Asian) bureau in Southern China, recommending the establishment of CPM.

Later, Tan Melaka broke with PKI and engaged in his own political activities. In 1944, he went back to Indonesia to join the independence movement. For a brief moment in 1946, Tan Melaka was appointed prime minister in the post-independence government of Sukarno, but the appointment was rescinded later.

Two years later, he led a communist uprising in Kendiri, Java, but failed. Tan Melaka was killed by Sukarto's nationalist supporters on April 16, 1949.

Foreign students

Besides Tan Melaka, another 'mastermind' behind the setting up of CPM was a Javanese named Mas Alimin. According to de-classified British security intelligence compiled by Cheah Boon Kheng, Alimin came to Muar in Johor in as early as 1920, and spread Marxism among Malays and anti-colonialism among migrant workers from the Dutch East Indies.

In 1924, Mas Alimin was again spotted in Singapore attempting to organise a communist party. Later, he went to Canton in China for a Asian communist meeting. He was arrested by the British in 1926 but somehow managed to free himself later.

In 1928, Mas Alimin established contact with Malay students studying in Al-Azhar University in Egypt to promote anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. Two students' publications, namely Pilihan Timor (The choice of the East) and Seruan Azhar (The call of Azhar) are said to be influenced by Alimin.

Mas Alimin was named in William R Roff's The origins of Malay nationalism (Kuala Lumpur, University Malaya Press, 1980) as one of the influential forerunners of modern Malay nationalism. (p 222-225)

Internationalists

According to Chin Peng, whom this writer met in Bangkok in 1998, in the 1930s and early 1940s, Alimin was working in Moscow and China as a full-time agent of Comintern. In 1946, Alimin came back to Malaya and met Chin Peng in the jungles requesting his Malayan comrade to make arrangements for him to go back to his hometown in Java.

Alimin died in Java in 1964.

The origins of the CPM were indeed highly cosmopolitan, involving highly educated communists from France, the Netherlands, Indochina, Indonesia (Dutch East Indies) and China.

To these internationalists and grand idealists who believed in a global ideology of the oppressed and downtrodden, the revolution was going to be worldwide and should not be impeded by race, nationality or religion.

After struggling for about 10 years, the separate organisations led or influenced by communists in Malaya finally met in April 1930 in "a Chinese ruber estate, north of the Buloh Kesap railway station on the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur truck line".

The first ever modern political party that aspired to be multi-ethnic in the history of Malaysia, and styled itself 'Malayan', was thus born. It was a party bent on bringing about a revolution in the Malayan society. After all, it was a revolutionary time all around the world.

Chin Peng was then only six years old, living with his family who owns a bicycle shop in Sitiawan, a coastal town in Perak.

This is the fourth of a seven-part series on the 'Life and times of Chin Peng', exclusively for malaysiakini subscribers.

Previous stories:

The rise of communist leader Chin Peng

A date with the 'terrorists'

Village of ex-communists finds new hope

Chin Peng's memoirs to be released this year

Chin Peng and other ex-communist leaders not coming home

'We did not praise Mahathir': ex-CPM leader Chin Peng

Ex-communist leader says Bernama report misleading