A DURIAN FOR SUN YATSEN: INTERWAR COMMUNISM IN BRITISH MALAYA (1926-1942) by ANNA BELOGUROVA B.A., Moscow State University, 1998 M.A., Taiwan Cheng Chi University, 2003 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2012 © Anna Belogurova, 2012 ABSTRACT The Malayan Communist Party (MCP) is known because of its insurgency against the British government in the 1950s, the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). This dissertation is about early history of the MCP, in the 1920s and the 1930s. It examines the unintended consequences and contingencies of the revolutionary connections between China, Southeast Asia, and the third Communist International (Comintern) in the shaping of the MCP. This dissertation is based on little-studied MCP sources deposited in the Comintern archive in Moscow. It examines the MCP as a hybrid of communist party and a Chinese association and in the context of interwar ideological globalization that had distinct indigenization and internationalisation trends. By 1930, the unintended consequence of this indigenisation and internationalisation, as shaped by Comintern participation, was the emergence of the discourse of the Malayan nation that the Communists sought to lead to liberation. The ambiguity of the meaning of the Chinese word minzu, at once nation, nationality, and ethnic group, provided the discursive foundation of this MCP nation as the Comintern promoted the establishment of “national” communist parties. This “nation,” i.e. the MCP support base, was taken away from the MCP by its radical language by 1940. The rise of the MCP was conditioned on the anti-Japanese propaganda of the Chinese Nationalist Party (the Guomindang, GMD) in Southeast Asia and Japanese war atrocities against Chinese population of Malaya. This dissertation offers fresh light on the internationalist aspects of the Chinese revolution, the role of the Comintern in the Southeast Asian nationalism, the early Chinese communist party’s relation with Chinese overseas, and the political participation of overseas Chinese (huaqiao) in their host countries. The story of the MCP is a showcase that the history of ii China is inseparable from the history of the Chinese communities overseas -- and that of the world. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. vii A NOTE ON ROMANIZATION ............................................................................................ viii GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS ................................................................................................. ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................1 HISTORIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................... 8 Kuhn’s Sojourning Networks ....................................................................................................... 19 Contributions to Historiography ................................................................................................... 23 SOURCES......................................................................................................................................... 31 THE STORY ..................................................................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 2. MAKING REVOLUTION IN THE NANYANG: THE FOUNDATION OF THE MALAYAN COMMUNIST PARTY (1926-1931) .................................................................... 40 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 40 CHINESE REVOLUTIONARIES IN THE NANYANG ................................................................... 45 An Overview (1921–1941) .......................................................................................................... 45 Need to Indigenize: the Origins of the Discourse of the Emancipation of the Oppressed Minzu .... 64 Chinese Intellectuals in Malaya ................................................................................................... 70 THE COMINTERN’S POLICY TOWARDS MALAYA ................................................................... 77 The Establishment of the Malayan “National” Communist Party: the Emerging Discourse of the Malayan Nation ........................................................................................................................... 87 Malayan National Party’s Nation and Nanyang Peoples ........................................................ 93 Internationalization ............................................................................................................ 104 PAN-ASIANISM AND INTERWAR GLOBALIZATION .............................................................. 110 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 114 CHAPTER 3. THE MALAYAN COMMUNIST PARTY AS A CHINESE ASSOCIATION, 1930-1934 ............................................................................................................................... 120 STRUCTURE AND SPACE: TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION, MEMBERSHIP, AND DISOCNNECTION FROM THE MASSES ..................................................................................... 121 Membership and Constituency ......................................................................................................... 122 Membership ....................................................................................................................... 123 iv Mis-connections with the Constituency .............................................................................. 136 The MCP and the Labour Movement .................................................................................. 146 EVERYDAY COMMUNISM: GOALS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE MCP ................................... 158 Goals: Adaptation and Political Representation of Chinese Migrants .......................................... 158 CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE ALIEN REGISTRATION ORDINANCE AND FOR THE AID TO CHINA SOVIET REVOLUTION: THE MCP AS A CASE OF INTERWAR GLOBALIZATION, INDIGENIZATION AND INTERNATIONALIZATION ................................................................ 168 The Campaign against the Alien Registration Ordinance ............................................................ 168 The Campaign to Aid the Soviet Revolution in China ................................................................ 172 Indigenizing the Chinese Revolution .......................................................................................... 178 Advancing Malay Civilization through the Chinese Revolution .......................................... 178 Indigenizing Chinese Revolution through the Malayan Nation ............................................ 180 Party Decline and Indigenization through Internationalism ................................................. 184 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 187 CHAPTER 4. THE MCP, CHINESE NETWORKS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, AND THE COMINTERN, 1930–1939 ..................................................................................................... 193 CHINESE NETWORKS ................................................................................................................. 194 Chinese Maritime Networks ...................................................................................................... 194 The MCP Regional Network ...................................................................................................... 197 THE COMINTERN’S WORLD ...................................................................................................... 206 Comintern Policy towards Malaya and the Chinese Networks in 1930–1931 .............................. 206 The MCP in the Civic World of International Communism, 1930–1934: Establishing Connections .................................................................................................................................................. 213 A Seaman .......................................................................................................................... 216 The Comintern’s Directives and Agents ............................................................................. 222 INDIGENISATION AND REGIONAL CONNECTIONS ............................................................... 232 The Comintern, the CCP, and the MCP in 1932–1936 ................................................................ 232 Establishing Connections with Java and Indochina ..................................................................... 238 In the Corridors of Minzu Guoji: Money, Culture, and Communication .....................................