'Communism' and History in Singapore

Episode 25: Questions and Answers II

"‘How real or exaggerated was the communist threat in Singapore in its early years?’

I presume he means in the 50s and 60s.

‘Recent contrary accounts say that the threat has been grossly exaggerated. But I heard recently at the funeral of the ex-Principal of Zhong Zheng High in the 1950s, many old boys turned up and admitted that they were influenced by the communists to cause unrest, although they themselves were never card carrying members’...

The crux of your anecdote is that you assume that these are mutually opposing positions, right? That students could be influenced by the communists, and that the threat could be grossly exaggerated. But these are not mutually opposed positions. You see, the fundamental problem is that we today tend to project backwards what we know today on to the people of the past. We forget that the past is actually in many ways, a very alien place. It had different values, different beliefs. Most of all, we have the benefit of hindsight, and they don't. We have the benefits of, well, historical researchers like myself, who go into the archives, and are able to point out what was going on at the time from all these different angles…

We need to understand this idea of communism, right? In order to understand this anecdote. So really, I think there are three important points I want to make. First of all, when we talk about being influenced by the communists. Well, the thing is, everyone was influenced by the communists back then, right? Socialism was the future of humanity, the future of mankind. See, following the excesses of the 1920s, and particularly the failures of unrestrained capitalism. And then the rise of fascism in the 1930s, leading to war in the 1940s, right? Humanity was absolutely sick and tired of these. And of course, a lot of these forces were caused by colonialism and imperialism.

So after World War Two, a lot of people said, we need to find a new way of living. We need to reshape the way we live our lives. Because the the powers that we possess, have grown so large, that we threaten the entire world, if we go too far. And the most optimistic said, we need to reshape human society, we need to arrange our lives to be better people to take care of each other. And this whole spectrum, this whole idea that we can change our society was basically what we think of the left, right? We need to change our society to be better to avoid all these problems that the right wing, right, the conservative capitalist forces caused. So opposed to that is the left wing. And this was a huge spectrum, ranging from the people who felt that, you know, it was inevitable that we would rearrange, but you need to slowly, cautiously move forward. You know, people like the Fabian socialists, who sought to encourage the reshaping of society through gradual processes, all the way to the extreme left, who sought to use all sorts of extreme methods to reshape society, including violence and terror, right.

So the 1950s then were shaped by two forces, okay. The first, of course, was what I talked about. Socialism, all the way stretching to what you might call violent communism, and it took on all these forms later that we think of Maoism, Stalinism. Okay.

And in its milder forms, we see its impact on Europe. The UK, for example, after the war tries to… create a new state. It tries to create the NHS for example, the welfare state saying that if during the war, we can have full unemployment, you know, why can we do it after the war? Why can't we take care of all of our people and all these are manifestations of socialism. In the US, you know, we have FDR and his new deal followed by Truman, and so on and so forth.

So socialism was on the rise throughout the world, people saw it as inevitable that we had to change the way we lead our lives. And so this was the rise, also, this led to the rise of communism in the USSR, in China, right, in these new ideologies, which, you know, sought to end exploitation.

Now, alongside this was nationalism and self determination, anti colonialism because these go hand in hand, right? Colonialism was fundamentally in many places as much about capitalist exploitation, as it was about territorial occupation, especially for Singapore, for the British Empire. Singapore was fundamentally about exploitation, economic capitalist exploitation. That was what the Empire was, was trying to achieve via Singapore, via Malaya. So these two forces, anti colonialism and socialism go hand in hand. They are in some ways, almost the same thing, they are closely allied with each other.

And so it is because of these that, we see that anti colonial movements were also fundamentally about reshaping society to end capitalist colonialist exploitation. So my point is that, as in the, what I have been discussing throughout this podcast, right, when people have debates about what is the future of Singapore? What is the future of Malaya after independence? A lot of times the answer is, well, it cannot be the same society we've had before. It cannot be this colonial capitalist exploitative system, it's got to be something that's fair, it's got to be something that takes care of people, that recognizes that people are human beings, not capitalist digits to be exploited. And it has to recognize the fundamental rights of people.

So very often this new idea, socialism was something that was put forward to be taken, to be part of our new identity. And, of course, this was very much of the appeal of the People's Action Party. And later, you know, the PAP and the Barisan, both of whom were staunchly socialist parties, right.

And, of course, Singapore itself has certain circumstances. Remember, after World War Two, the big heroes that came out of world war two were the Malayan Communist Party. The Malayan communist party were, they may have called themselves communists. But if you look at the kind of things they proposed, right, they were nowhere as radical as communists elsewhere. Fundamentally, they were a nationalist party which sought to end colonialism. And sought so to bring about the independence of Malaya. And they were the big heroes of World War Two and the Japanese occupation, because they were the only real effective resistance against the Japanese. So to many people in Singapore, communism slash socialism, right, you fell somewhere on this spectrum. It was the way of the future. It was inevitable. It was what was necessary. But it also was a product of world war two, it was patriotic, it was anti colonial.

And because of the big success of communism, of the Malayan Communist Party, initially during the Emergency, and also before that in organizing labor, right. And then when they were driven underground, nobody actually knew who was and wasn't communist.

So this is my second point, right, that a lot of people will say, oh, yes, I was influenced by the communists but they don't actually know for sure that they were interested influenced by the Malayan Communist Party or simply other people who were claiming to be communist. And this is again, something you see a lot in Special Branch files. That they admit that there is no direct link to the Malayan Communist Party which for all intents and purposes after 1950 was irrelevant in Singapore because the leadership had been totally arrested. They were smashed, their lines of communication, their networks. They were, they existed, but they were irrelevant. The only person really still active in Singapore after 1950 was Eu Chooi Yip, their propaganda Chief, who was later withdrawn in the mid 50s, right. And then the plan was inserted…
But you see, it wasn't just the MCP, anyone who wanted to claim the mantle of the MCP could simply say, I am part of the Malayan Communist Party. And I actually have this whole underground behind me and so you should work with me. And so there were a lot of groups which tried to set up these cells and claim that they were part of the Malayan Communist Party who had absolutely no link to the Malayan Communist Party. But were just trying to tap into the reputation of the Malayan Communist Party. And so Special Branch investigates all these people and finds you know, that there's all these anti colonials who simply want to resist, resist the British, get rid of the British, push forward independence, you know, they wanted freedom.

And the quick and easy way of rallying people to their cause in the 50s was to say, oh, we are linked with the Malayan Communist Party. Because that not only tapped into the great reputation, remember the MCP are still heroes at this point, right. But also that would then imply oh, we have all sorts of resources that you don't know about, that no one knows about. So there were plenty of all these random people who were anti colonials who just claimed they were MCP and there's no way no one you and I meeting them and they say, oh, I'm MCP or whatever. How would you verify right? And this is one scenario probably that happens to these old boys. You know they receive documents for example or they might meet people who go oh I’m Communist Party and you should do this and you should, let's fight the British you know and these are young impressionable kids right and these are people trying to impress young impressionable kids. You know people in their, who are in school, school children and so they say oh we’re Communist Party...

So you can see here how these kids could have been influenced by the communists, by the idea of the Communist Party without actually having been influenced by the Malayan communist party itself which was basically irrelevant at this point in time.

But the third point I want to make is what is a communist? And I've said this before and it's very important but any definition of say the Barisan Socialists or Lim Chin Siong right. Any definition of a communist that says the Barisan Socialists or Lim Chin Siong is a communist would also then define Lee Kuan Yew as a communist… because the two of them were so similar, right. Their main difference was not about communism, it was about things like the use of the Internal Security Act. It was about internal party democracy in the PAP. It wasn't about their fundamental economic beliefs, you know, it wasn't about socialism. Both were socialists right? So for example, if you say oh, a communist is someone who colludes with the Malayan Communist Party underground right. Well, Lee Kuan Yew did that and he openly admits it in his autobiography. He admitted it at his radio talks in 1962. He collaborated with the MCP underground to win elections, he openly admits it and in fact, he's the only person, the only one of the major leaders of Singapore's political parties at that time whom we have definitive evidence that he collaborated with the communists.

So why was he not detained? Because this was a political situation, not a security one. If it was a security situation where the communists were a threat to Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew would have been detained straight away. But it wasn't, it was a political situation in which the British were trying to figure out which of these Singapore politicians would be the most trustworthy that they could hand power over to which would provide a stable Singapore and reliably pro British Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew was that man.

So on the other hand if we say oh communists has to be a card carrying member of the Communist Party and therefore Lee Kuan Yew is not a communist. Well we know for sure Lim Chin Siong was not a communist. Fong Swee Suan was not a communist. Devan Nair was not a communist...

This is way before the excesses of China were well known, before the Soviet Union, the excesses of Soviet Union were well known. Communism was a very different thing in the 50s. And it was a very wide spectrum of beliefs, you know, peaceful action, violent action, constitutional action, non-constitutional action, you know. Nationalization… retention of a capitalist system. It's important to remember, as I keep saying that the Barisan Socialists were economically, socially to the right of the British Labour Party at that time, and you never call the British Labour Party a Communist Party...

Why is history so important to Singapore?... The Singapore government tells a very specific narrative of history that has the purpose of trying to legitimize first the idea of Singapore, the state of Singapore, which we have to remember, is a very unnatural thing, Singapore has always been part of Johor, it was never meant to be split off from the Malayan mainland, but because of politics was split off in 65. And so you need to construct narrative of history to justify this split, right, the existence of Singapore is to try and make it seem inevitable in the minds of its inhabitants.
And also you need a narrative of history that justifies your policies, the PAP’s monopoly of power, the authoritarian policies, there, the fact that they suspend the normal rules of democracy, that we don't have free and fair elections, and so on and so forth. Right. So our history is designed to do to do all these things. And so when a historian comes along, who disagrees, then obviously, you know, that historian is a threat…

First of all, you have to understand the history of how history has been taught in Singapore. And right after separation, the PAP faced a quandary, right? They couldn't teach Malayan history anymore, because Malayan history emphasized Singapore as part of Malaya but now we were split off from Malaya. And you couldn't teach Chinese history because that was not only just politically inconvenient, but the the main opposition to the PAP was from the Chinese schools, you know, the Chinese University Nantah and the PAP didn't want to emphasize that so instead they took a different tack. They said, oh, we have no history. Rajaratnam said something like history starts now. Ong Pang Boon said history has no practical use, and the government didn't encourage any new research. Any new studies of history. Textbooks from the 1960s which still, which gave Singapore as part of Malaya continued to be used in Singapore's official curriculum well into the 1980's.

Lee Kuan Yew said, you know, it's more important to know where you're going then where we've been, right and he wanted to de-emphasize the Malaysian period… the Malayan aspects of our history.

So also, this enabled him to say a lot of things and do a lot of things, to make assertions without being checked. So in the 80s, he would say things like, oh, Singapore was a swarm and PAP built it up. And there were no historians who could then point out, wait a moment in 1961 or so, you gave a speech where you said Singapore today is the richest country in Asia, it has the highest per capita income in Asia, you know, and this is all due to the PAP. Well, it can't be a rich country in 1961. And then now you say it's a you know, in the 20 years later, you say, Oh, it was a swamp in 1960, and the PhD built it up today in 1980 to a rich country. These are mutually opposing facts.

So when the government has a monopoly over history, then people who don't produce inconvenient facts that contradict its reading of history. And then from this government's reading of history, it can then justify its policies.

Now, in the 1980s and into the 90s things changed in Singapore and. Ane of the major things was that Singapore went to a change of leadership, it went into a change of the electoral system. It went through a period where people started demanding more accountability and democracy and the PAP turned, sort of its focus turned backwards rather than forwards, right. So no more do you have this forget about the past, we need to look to the future.

Because once the PAP’s vote began declining, once opposition politicians began to be elected into parliament, the PP increasingly became a party that looked back on its glory, on its former glory rather than towards the future. And especially of course, the retirement of Lee Kuan as Prime Minister meant that its glory days were now in the past.
So from the mid 90s, you see this new National Education, the Singapore story which sought to entrench in people's minds this idea that the PAP has done great things for Singapore and that you need to understand where we've come from, right, the PAP wanted to create this idea of gratitude to the party in order to then promote their continuation in power and continue to justify their hold on power. So we have seen a lot of this in the past 20 years…

SG50 and the 2015 elections for example, the election’s focus is very much on the past right. The manifesto of the PAP quite amazingly had no promises for the future. It was all about the past. SG50, Lee Kuan Yew, SG50, Lee Kuan Yew over and over again. And so they need to control the history in order to be able to continue to campaign on it in order to continue to justify their policies based on it."