SUMMARY
CPM (Communist Party of Malaya) was a Malaysian rebel group that first fought against the United Kingdom for an independent Communist Malaysia 1948-1957 and then, following the independence of Malaysia, against the Government of Malaysia for the establishment of a Communist regime between 1957 and 1981.
The group was formed in April 1930, and it drew considerable inspiration from Maoist ideology, as well as Marxist-Leninism; it claimed to represent Malaysia’s rural population, and propagated a peasant uprising to achieve its revolution. However, it drew most of its support from the ethnic Chinese population, which comprised approximately 35 percent of Malaysia’s total population. Having comprised the backbone of the resistance against the Japanese invasion of Malaysia during the Second World War, CPM launched its armed struggle against the United Kingdom after the creation of the Federation of Malaya ruled by a British colonial government, in 1948. The British authorities successfully suppressed the CPM by undermining its support base, by providing economic and political concessions to the Chinese population.
The end of British colonial rule in 1957 did not appease CPM, which claimed that the newly independent Government of Malaysia was still under British control. The group subsequently claimed that its goal was to achieve “complete” independence. At this point, in order to bolster its own support base, the CPM adopted the claim that it also represented the Malayan aborigines, and not only the Chinese minority population; both these groups were largely rural, and thus instrumental to the CPM’s revolutionary modus operandi.
The long-standing Secretary General of CPM was Chin Peng. The group also maintained an armed wing, which was initially called the Malayan People’s Anti-British Army (MPABA); it was later renamed the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA). During the initial phase of fighting the British in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the CPM fielded around 15 000 fighters. The number of troops did however become significantly lower during the conflict against the Government of Malaysia, numbering 1600 in 1975, and around 2000 in 1981; a peace agreement signed in 1989 stipulated that 1188 CPM fighters should disarm.
CPM suffered two major splits: in 1970, the Communist Party of Malaya Marxist Leninist (CPMM-L) was created by a break-away faction from the group and in 1974, the Communist Party of Malaya – Revolutionary Faction (CPM-RF) was formed the same way. These two groups later merged in 1983 to create the Communist Party of Malaysia (MCP). Prior to this merger, CPM also clashed with CPMM-L in Thailand in 1982.
China was the CPM’s major external supporter. It did for example fund and operate the “Voice of the Malayan Revolution”, a radio channel dedicated to the COM; the broadcasts were discontinued on 1 July 1981. The Chinese support to the CPM was described as “moral”, and is unclear whether the country provided any actual material support to the group. Chinese support to the CPM decreased during the 1970s, due to improved relations between Malaysia and China. The CPM also maintained bases in Thailand, which were used primarily for the training of the group’s fighters.
After 1981, the group’s violent activities subsided almost completely. The CPM officially ended its armed struggle on 2 December 1989, when it signed a peace agreement with the Malaysian government in Haadyai, Thailand. As part of the agreement, the group disbanded its armed forces, and CPM ceased to exist as an organization.
