For the communist, it has been said, the future is planned while the past changes every day, and the publication of Chin Peng's memoirs was regarded by his opponents as an attempt to manipulate history having abandoned the sword, he was continuing the struggle with the pen. From a very different perspective, the Committee for a workers' International welcomed My Side of History because the modern generation would learn from Chin Peng's mistakes to apply more appropriate methods for the achievement of "the new socialist future" 55 Yet others cast doubt on the significance of both him and his book: he was a "failed revolutionary" in a sideshow to the great super-power contest while his book was unreliable unoriginal and simply polemical