Military History Lecture & Dinner

Military History Evening

Thursday, 7 November 2024

Topic: Malayan Communists before the Emergency

Guest Speaker: Professor David Lockwood

By 1945, the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) had become one of the most successful of its kind in Asia. From foundation in 1930, despite fierce British repression (albeit with grudging co-operation during the Japanese occupation), it built up a membership of some ten thousand, mainly among Chinese and Indian workers in Malaya. It forged a mass trade union movement which it led into battle against the colonial authorities and employers. Against the Japanese it organised the only effective resistance and emerged at the end of the war as virtually the only national political entity. When the British returned, the Party launched a mostly legal and highly effective campaign for a better life for Malayans and for independence. In 1948, the MCP surrendered these achievements and took most of its members underground or…