Malaya

Abstract

The pattern of Communist activity in the Malay Peninsula in recent years, particularly since the official end of the “Emergency” in 1960, has involved four principal elements: (1) the Party Rakyat and the Labour Party, until December, 1965, loosely united in the socalled Socialist Front, with its ancillaries of Chinese students and other youth groups, (2) the Pan Malayan Islamic Party, (3) the remnant of the “Malayan Races Liberation Army” of the “Emergency,” now numbering some seven hundred hardcore Malayan Chinese Communists and a smaller number of recent recruits operating along the Thai-Malayan border, and (4) a complex of Indonesian agents, para-military and terrorist elements, until September 1965, generally working closely with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), its fronts and emissaries in the Malayan area. The relative effectiveness of Malayan Communism has almost entirely depended on the degree of coordination between these component elements and, in accordance with long standing party directives¹, on the extent of infiltration of other parties.