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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).