The Malayan Communist Party as Recorded in the Comintern Files

Thus, in North Malaya the number of members of the mass organizations starkly decreased
in these several months.
Another serious problem is that our Party has no organizational base in the material
production sections of the imperialist.
The Center calls upon all comrades, especially comrades of the three North Malayan States,
to discuss these shortcomings at various Party conferences.
(2) How to lead the Chinese
1. The first force. Among worker-peasant masses of our forces, the Chinese are about
10,000 only. Economically they are entirely Malayanised. This is because the
majority of them emigrated from China and were bankrupted middle-class farmers,
poor farmers and agricultural employees of villages, the bankrupted petit
bourgeoisie of the towns and lower-class workers in China. After the World
Depression of 1929, many among the local petit bourgeoisie were bankrupted and
reduced to the proletariat one after another. The great majority of the worker class,
the main revolutionary force of the Malayan Chinese masses, cannot yet possess
pure proletarian consciousness. Although there are presently tens of thousands of
workers and they have been trained in economic struggles under the Party’s
revolutionary influence, the majority of the masses retain strong nationalistic
consciousness. Leading a dog’s life under the cruel rule of BI, their enthusiasm and
resolution to thoroughly liberate their home country grows ever more solid. This
force stands on the side of firm anti-enemy war, unity and progress. But our Party’s
capacity to unify the struggle of this force is not yet universal. Backwardness
generally remains.
2. The second force. Urban petit bourgeoisie, students and intellectuals. They make up
a considerable proportion of the Chinese. Under BI’s aggression for years, almost all
national capital ( 民 族 资 本 ) collapsed. As the imperialist war expands presently,
they are further disappointed in Malaya. They are very eager to invest in the home
country and hope they might gain opportunities in the anti-enemy-war nationbuilding
( 抗 战 建 国 ). They agree with the anti-enemy war and support unity and
progress. But they are pessimistic over the present situation or want to wait for it to
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