The British React to a Global Communist Threat

Popularly, the Red Scare of the 1950's is considered to be a phenomenon unique to United States history. However, such an assumption is far from the truth. In truth, this fear of communism crashed like a tidal wave onto the shores of Allied nations following the dropping of the last atomic bomb in World War II. Specifically, the communist threat was observed in the British-controlled nation of Malaya, mere weeks after Japan was defeated in the war.

Prior to Japan's defeat, Malaya was under control of the Japanese. The people of Malaya were resistant to Japanese rule, and formed a communist party named simply the Malayan Communist Party (MCP).

Much to the surprise of both the Japanese as well as the Malayans, Japan was unceremoniously defeated during the war. Thus, Malaya fell under control of the British.

However, the British were tardy about exerting their interests in Malaya. They did not arrive to occupy the area until September 3, 1945, following Imperial Japan's surrender on August 16th, 1945. This span of weeks provided Malayan resistance forces with a sufficient opportunity to establish control.

Thus, the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) began to exercise civil authority in many important areas of the nation. Although their resistance was initially directed against the Japanese, they continued to express resistance even after the British took control.

At first, the British didn't know what to make of this movement. In some ways, they even tried to support it, allowing MPAJA soldiers a stipend and service opportunities. Nevertheless, the power of the MPAJA began to expand beyond the scope of British control. Eventually, the British were forced to counteract this movement.

Initially, results were not favorable. General Sir Harold Briggs complained that "the problem of clearing communist banditry from Malaya was similar to that of eradicating malaria from a country (Report on the Emergency in Malaya, p. 242)." Malaya was compared with an "empty vessel, a vacuum waiting to be filled by the communists (The Round Table Vol. 42, p. 235)." In fact, Malaya's resistance movement was depicted by scholarly analysts to be in direct correspondence with a massive, global communist movement: "Pains have been taken to present the Malayan situation as part of a world liberation movement, which in South-east Asia erupts in force of arms in Indochina, Burma, Indonesia, China and to some extent in India (Anatomy of Communist Propaganda, July 1948-December 1949, p. 315)."

Following strong resistance from the MPAJA, the British were able to crush insurgency in Malaya. However, they devoted over a decade to the establishment of control in this Asian nation. Not until humbling losses were suffered on behalf of US forces in the Vietnam War did global superpowers finally begin to reassess the wisdom of exerting undue time and energy to stifle the communist menace.

Source: Dialogues with Chin Peng, by Peng Chin, C. C. Chin, Karl Hack