The Malayan Communist Party as Recorded in the Comintern Files

Even among the overseas Chinese, the Party's influence was not extensive. In many
factory areas (Terengganu, Selangor and Johor), Party organizations were extremely
weak.
The member recruitment activities among the Malays and Indians were very
inadequate.
Among the cadres of various organizational levels, those from the worker class were
extremely few. Cadres were principally Chinese. The Party virtually did not tackle
the problem of appointing, nurturing and deploying non-Chinese cadre-candidates.
The Party did not make an effort to raise the ideological and political standard of the
members.
Propaganda and agitation work based on the fundamental principles of Marxism-
Leninism among the Chinese was weak. Among the Malays, Indians and other
nationals, it was entirely insufficient. 13
3. What policies were criticized by the reviewers here?
(1) Since the Sino-Japanese War of 1937, the MCP had merely concentrated on the
Anti-Japanese struggle. To that extent, the decisions of the Third SC Conference of
13 June 1939 might have been targeted.
(2) Important slogans were erroneously replaced with others such as “Abolition of all
illegal activities”, “Collaborative work with bourgeoisie”, and “Collaboration with
Britain”. In this context, the SC Conference of 13 June 1939 might again have been
targeted.
4. Probing the change of viewpoints since 1938
The viewpoints of the Comintern and the MCP can fundamentally be classified into three: ○1
revolutionary class line and Anti-BI (leftist line); ○2 moderate conciliatory line (rightist line); and ○3
Chinese nationalistic, anti-Japanese line. The Chinese nationalistic viewpoint might be comparable
to the non-class line and, therefore, be classified as the rightist line. But this line was in fact
regarded as the most effective revolutionary line immediately before the Pacific War. The above
viewpoints may also be distinguished by reference to their source or origin, as follows:
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