So according to Chin Peng the meeting recommenced after Chinese New Year, and
finally decided Lai Teck had been wrong to halt the armed struggle. Hence they called
a March Central Committee meeting to discuss it. He further argues that the ‘internal
situation’ predominated at the 17–21 March meeting, by which time they knew of the
Government’s proposed new Trade Union legislation (the 31 May Ordinance).21 He
acknowledges, as we will see below, that they also discussed international changes,
particularly the Indian Communist Party’s change to a more militant line (taken at
its Second Congress in February to early March). However, he interprets these as
not the primary concerns.
He argues also that the MCP’s decisions, taken in March and then at the May
1948 Central Executive Committee meetings, were fundamentally ‘defensive’ and
reactive. For instance, he turns on its head the orthodox Cold War interpretation
of Australian communist leader L. Sharkey’s attendance at the MCP’s March
1948 meeting. The orthodox interpretation was that Sharkey – the leader of the
Communist Party of Australia – transmitted Comintern instructions on the ‘two
camp’ thesis and the need for armed revolt. While Sharkey, en route from Calcutta
to Australia did attend the March MCP meeting, Chin Peng argues that he did not
transmit any instructions received in Calcutta. Instead, Sharkey’s most effective contribution
was to suggest a solution to the MCP’s labour failures based on Australian
experience. Indeed, if taken literally, Sharkey becomes almost the main culprit for the
Malayan Emergency. In Chin Peng’s words:
We launch many strikes but every time we failed. Either suppressed by the police, or
because we lacked funds to continue. So we were discussing whether we could adopt certain
forms of violence to deal with the scabs. In that meeting, if Sharkey was not there to
provide certain advice to us, we would not have adopted the tactic to get rid of the scabs.22