The Malayan Communist Party as Recorded in the Comintern Files

MCP and the so-called “Comintern apparatus” in Shanghai were allegedly severed with the
dissolution of this apparatus in mid-1935, no further ties between Moscow and the Malayans are
reported (even by Malayan police officials, who are normally eager to claim them)”. 4
It apparently does not mean that the SB could not detect letters, but in the first place the
Comintern did not send letters after 1936. Kurihara’s observation (see Chapter VI) endorses this
situation.
On the contrary, the MCP continued sending letters until April 1940. These letters sent
between 1939 and 1940 were not intercepted by the SB.
7. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the MCP laid emphasis on the anti-
Japanese national (“national” meaning China) salvation movement and succeeded in expanding the
Party’s influence among the Chinese in Malaya. Since the Comintern had, until the German- USSR
War, all along directed the CPs of the colonized countries to intensify its anti-Imperialist struggle,
the “Reviewers” of the Comintern criticized the MCP for ignoring the concrete, practical Malayan
situation while being entirely devoted to China’s war against Japanese imperialism. The German-
Soviet Non-aggression Pact of August 1939 seemed to have strengthen anti-British stance of the
Comintern. With the invasion of the USSR by Germany on 22 June 1941, however, the Comintern
changed its policy and directed various Communist Parties to fully launch anti-Fascist movements
and conditionally collaborate with the Allied countries, including Britain. Though in 1935 the
Comintern was said to have allowed various ethnic groups (nationals) of the Communist Parties to
have specific connections with their originated countries, the “Reviewers” retained very critical
stand against this situation. It is not known which stand of the Comintern had been conveyed to the
MCP since 1936. Nonetheless the Comintern’s (actually USSR’s) foreign policies were widely
known to the world. Without official instructions, the MCP might feel bound to the change of the
policies. These policy twists and turns could have perplexed the MCP. Firm anti-British stand of
the MCP’s Central Politburo of September 1939 and the Anti-Fascist United Front policy adopted
at the 7th Enlarged Plenum of the MCP held on 28 July 1941 (which supported UK-USSR’s anti-
German Alliance) 5 might have reflected the changes of the Comintern (Stalin). But, as noted above,
it is not known that the MCP directly received such directives from the Comintern.
8. The political line and instructions of the Comintern (or Stalin’s actually) were not consistent.
Sometimes the stance taken was too radical and sometimes too moderate. For instance, the three
reviewers of the Comintern criticized the MCP in February 1942 for mechanically and
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