The Malayan Communist Party as Recorded in the Comintern Files

(1) Name of the Party: for several years, the party was variously named. While it was a
branch committee of the CCP, it was also called the Malay Archipelago Communist
Party, the Malay (Communist) Party, or Chinese (Communist) Party of Malay
Archipelago. The name of Malay Party might have emerged because the relevant
persons of the Comintern could not distinguish Malay from Malaya. 27
(2) The General Committee (Standing Committee) should be the Presidium.
(3) The Party’s official assembly was also called by different names – Congress (which
was its own usage in English whereas scholars have tended to use Conference),
Plenum and Enlarged Plenum. Had the Party followed the Comintern system,
Congress (Conference) would have been the national representatives’ assembly
while Plenum would have referred to the assembly of the Central Committee or the
Presidium.
(4) The First Congress of the Party was held in 1927 and the Second in 1930. Yet, the
Third Congress was said to have been held before the Plenum of 2 July 1928 (1.-
(13)). It would appear that this “Third Congress” was the Enlarged Plenum of May
1928. In this, the sequence of officials meeting might have been confusing even to
the Party leaders themselves.
(5) The Russian spelling of a Chinese name followed the Mandarin pronunciation.
Likewise, the spelling of place names followed the Mandarin pronunciation of
specific Chinese names, not the original Malay names. In all likelihood, the authors
of the relevant reports were intellectuals familiar with Mandarin.
(6) Some names of the leaders in the Comintern documents can be reconciled with those
of leaders mentioned by past research. As Tables 2-1 and 2-2 show, one can
reasonably identify some leaders whose names differed somewhat depending on the
sources used by researchers.
(7) The Comintern documents provide a detailed picture of the structure of the Party
leadership at the Plenum of 2 July 1928, as shown below:
Presidium
Expelled: Huang Mu Heng (Wong Muk-han)
Resigned: Ma Ye Bing (Mah Yap-peng)
27