In telling his story he rejects propaganda that portrayed him as a “callous terrorist which, of
course, I have never been”. Indeed, Chin Peng’s intention in participating in these publishing
ventures was to extirpate errors, bias and lies. For, mindful of the Chinese saying that “the
winners are kings and the losers are bandits”, he set out to persuade students who have been
misled by the history of the victors “that we were truly convinced of the morality of our
position”. He writes that his generation “dreamed of doing away with British colonialism in
Malaya. I am proud of this fact.” Thus, swashbuckling and sentimental by turns, Chin Peng
records the ‘journey of a man who opted to travel along a different road to pursue a dream
he had for his country’.16 What does he tell us about the outbreak and the outcome of the
armed struggle?