This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Malaysia
Malayan Communist Party (MCP), also known as the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) until the 1960s was founded in Singapore in 1930, advocating for nationalism and nationhood for an independent Malaya, and carrying out armed resistance to the Japanese during World War II. From 1948 to 1960, its military arm, the Malayan Peoples' Liberation Army, practiced guerrilla warfare in the rural areas of peninsular Malaya with the support of underground organizations in the Malaya and Singapore. In the late 1980s, an estimated 500 guerrillas maintained themselves along with the party leadership led by Chin Peng and Fong Chong Pik in the jungles of the Malaysian-Thai frontier.
MCP was initially a small political party with a negligible membership, unable to compete with dominant communal political groups. In 1937, the invasion of China led by Japan prompted a sudden surge in the membership of MCP, reaching 5000 members by late 1930s. 'National Salvation Movement' and 'Save China' campaigns gave the communist party a suitable reason to mass recruit, citing that the core aim of fund raising to send aid back to the Chinese mainland. Japan invades Malaya in December 1941, and the MCP was regrouped as the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), and engaged in successive jungle guerrilla attacks on the Japanese military. MPAJA was funded, armed and trained by the United Kingdom and the British Commando Force 136. The guerrilla warfare gave the communists ample experiences and understanding the basic needs of the rural population, from which they received relatively strong support from the Chinese and non-Chinese rural population, who saw that the communists have protected them during the war while the British military and Malayan nationalist groupings were paralysed and at the mercy of the Japanese military.
MPAJA was partially disbanded in 1945 when the Japanese surrendered, and began to take actions against Japanese collaborators during the vacuum period between the withdrawal of Japanese forces, and the return of British forces. In September 1945, British returned to Malaya, and was surprised to have met with opposition by the MCP. MCP now demands independence and the entire withdrawal of British forces, to create a communist administration in Malaya. The British colonial forces began a series of occasional armed conflicts with the MCP, which began the Malayan Emergency.
MCP often heavily criticised for their attacks on the civilian population during the Malayan Emergency, and they were criticised by right-wing parties in Southeast Asia because they had sympathies to the communist ideology. This also brought displeasure from many of their leftist associates because such actions meant they were not following the ethics found in the Eight Points of Attention, a code of conduct of communist soldiers that was championed by Mao Zedong.
Due to the Chinese Civil War and the tensions between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang, members of the MCP attacked Kuomintang agents in Malaya.
The party was officially disbanded and gave up arms following its peace treaty with the governments of Malaysia and Thailand, signed on December 2nd 1989 at the Thai town of Haadyai.

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