The Malayan Communist Party as Recorded in the Comintern Files

In October 1935, Comintern restructured its system. All of the Regional Secretariats including the
Eastern Secretariat were abolished and, replacing them, nine Personal Secretariats were set up.
British and USA colonies came under the jurisdiction of the Marty 19 Secretariat. One of the main
reasons was that the former Regional Secretariats were ruled by party officials who were not
familiar enough with the conditions of respective foreign countries. In practice, the Communist
Parties of the colonies that had been under the jurisdiction of the ES were to be guided by the
respective suzerain countries’ Communist Parties. Nonetheless, after 1935 there was no evidence
that the Comintern guided the MCP or tried to establish connections with it. With this reformation,
Comintern’s principle relating to the party and the ethnicity also changed. Formerly any ethnic
groups in a country were to be equally affiliated to that country’s party. Under the new system,
each ethnic group was allowed to have specific connections with its original country’s party. 20
Notwithstanding with it, the MCP continued sending reports cum requests to the Comintern and the
Comintern kept on watching the movement of the MCP.
II 1936
(1) There was no document for this year. There was also no reference either to the 5 th Enlarged
Plenum of the CC of the MCP which was held in September 1936.
A Party document written in the 1950s said that by 1934 all CC members had been arrested one
after another. As a result of the enemy’s offensive, the party organizations were in chaos and
connections with the Comintern were cut off. In this confused situation, Lai Teck infiltrated the
Party at the end of 1934 or 1935 21 and joined the MCP pretending to be a Comintern representative.
C. F. Yong maintained that the leadership vacuum afforded the opportunity for Lai Teck’s election
into the CC and as the Deputy Secretary at the 5 th Representatives’ Conference in September
1936. 22
It was possible that Lai Teck deliberately severed contact with the Comintern in 1936 to prevent
the exposure of his true character before he had consolidated his position as Secretary of the Party
in 1939.
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