Singapore’s Struggle Against CPM: What if the Barisan Sosialis Had Won?

 

 

 

“Barisan Sosialis Communist-Controlled”

The ensuing struggle within the PAP between the non-Communists and the Communists/pro-Communists culminated in the Big Split over the issue of the proposed merger with the Federation of Malaya in July 1961. The CUF was flushed into the open with the Barisan Sosialis as its leading edge. CPM Secretary-General Chin Peng himself publicly acknowledged that the Barisan was influenced by the CPM.

 

Originally skeptical British officials in Singapore concurred, conceding in confidential dispatches to London by December 1962 that ‘conclusive evidence’ had been unearthed that the ‘Barisan Sosialis are Communist-controlled’ and that ‘the Communists seem to be sufficiently entrenched to control policy and action’.

 

Coldstore was thus mounted to decimate the CUF because among other things, Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman did not want a CUF-dominated Singapore inside the Federation.

 

The second hard fact is that the pro-Communists only portrayed themselves as peaceful Progressive Leftists for instrumental purposes. Their internal communications made it clear that if they were strong enough and the opportunity presented itself, they would consider employing violence to secure power. In fact between 1950 and 1970, about 27 ordinary Singaporeans – including factory workers, bus drivers, merchants, and police – were killed by CPM hit squads.

 

Shootings, bombings, arson, grenade and acid attacks were not unknown. A plot to assassinate the Singapore Commissioner of Police in December 1976 was foiled. The Malaysian Inspector-General of Police had been murdered two years earlier.

 

A Barisan Option B? Think Again

An Option B with the CPM-influenced Barisan in charge of Singapore after 1963 would hence have been anything but peaceful and successful. Such an assessment is only reinforced by the evident abject failure of doctrinaire Communist governance worldwide by 1989.

 

Moreover, while the life histories of dedicated, if tragically misguided, CPM members may deserve retelling, should they not also acknowledge accountability for their own past errors? Do the next-of-kin of the victims of CPM violence – unknown to most Singaporeans today, except to their bereaved loved ones – deserve less consideration?

 

The long struggle against the CPM will always be an integral part of the Singapore Story. It is however important that the conflict be remembered accurately, with due regard especially for the sacrifices of those Singaporeans who suffered and even perished as a result of Communist violence. To do any less would be a travesty.

 

 

Kumar Ramakrishna is Associate Professor and Head of the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He is the author of Emergency Propaganda: The Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds (2002) and Editor of Freedom News: The Untold Story of the Communist Underground Publication (2008). His new book on Operation Coldstore will be published in early 2015. A version of this commentary appeared earlier in Today.