Leninism, Asian Culture and Singapore (Part 3) posted on Monday, December 20, 2004
Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of Singapore's ruling People's Action Party,
started his involvement in politics while studying law at Cambridge,
by getting together with other Singaporean students sharing anti
colonial sentiments. As a young barrister, he made his name by his
legal defence of trade unionists and student activists arrested for
sedition against the British colonial government, while at the same
time impressing the British as a promising native leader who was both
capable and well educated, thus offering good prospects of effective
post-independence government along a generally pro-western line.
These were good credentials for an aspiring leader, but to
successfully capitalize on such assets, he needed a mass organization
that could appeal to the majority Chinese population, who were mostly
poor and illiterate. They not only spoke no English; even the Chinese
they spoke was provincial dialects rather than the official Mandarin.
Cambridge trained barristers were not their idea of anti-British,
anti-colonial leaders. To overcome this problem, Lee and his British
educated associates went into coalition with other activists whose
main motivations were Chinese chauvinism and communist revolution. The
partnership suited both sides well, with one side well versed in the
thinking of the colonial powers and familiar with the
legal/parliamentary tactics used in the overt struggle for
independence, and the other side undertaking the street organization,
mass campaigns and underground work.
Everyone realized that Lee was riding a tiger: it was only a few years
earlier that the Chinese communists of Malaya were engaged in a
guerilla war against the British, who had the support of the feudal
Malay rulers, and a little earlier against the Japanese. They were
defeated only after strenuous efforts through the implementation of
the "strategic hamlet" policy that effectively cut the guerrillas off
from the rural population, a policy which the Americans were to repeat
without success later in Viet Nam. The communists still had an
extensive underground network in both Malaya and Singapore, and could
easily mobilize a large population of sympathizers in trade unions and
schools.
But Lee succeeded in caging the tiger, though the fight was very close
indeed. Shortly after self government was granted by the British and
Lee was elected Chief Minister, his People's Action Party split into
two, with the anti-Lee left wing taking virtually the whole
organizational machine out of PAP to form the new Barisan Socialis
(Socialist Front), and Lee's government survived in the Legislature by
just a one vote margin(including one vote from a sick member who had
to be dragged out of hospital to take part in the division). However,
the Barisan soon destroyed itself by its inept campaigning against
Singapore's move to join Malaysia in 1962, and by its illogical
attempt to emulate the Cultural Revolution that took place in China in
the late 60s, while its power bases were successfully weakened by
selective detentions of key members, the establishment of rival trade
union organizations, closure of propaganda channels, and the
redirection of student energy towards career goals and other
non-political pursuits.
So working with the communists gave Lee Kuan Yew the political start
he required, but perhaps even more importantly for the future, it gave
him and his associates a useful lesson on their effective organization
methods, whereby a small, tightly linked minority can direct a much
larger, and not necessarily sympathetic or comprehending, majority.
The question is whether the methods can, on a long term basis, be
applied to a country without resulting in the kind of dead hand
totalitarian society that was, even in the 60s, already quite
obviously on the verge of failure in both Russia and China. In other
words, whether one could invent a new, better kind of Leninism for the
capitalist and technocratic society. To do that requires an amenable
cultural base that was found to be already in existence among the
populace.
--
3. PAP and the Communists
Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of Singapore's ruling People's Action Party,
started his involvement in politics while studying law at Cambridge,
by getting together with other Singaporean students sharing anti
colonial sentiments. As a young barrister, he made his name by his
legal defence of trade unionists and student activists arrested for
sedition against the British colonial government, while at the same
time impressing the British as a promising native leader who was both
capable and well educated, thus offering good prospects of effective
post-independence government along a generally pro-western line.
These were good credentials for an aspiring leader, but to
successfully capitalize on such assets, he needed a mass organization
that could appeal to the majority Chinese population, who were mostly
poor and illiterate. They not only spoke no English; even the Chinese
they spoke was provincial dialects rather than the official Mandarin.
Cambridge trained barristers were not their idea of anti-British,
anti-colonial leaders. To overcome this problem, Lee and his British
educated associates went into coalition with other activists whose
main motivations were Chinese chauvinism and communist revolution. The
partnership suited both sides well, with one side well versed in the
thinking of the colonial powers and familiar with the
legal/parliamentary tactics used in the overt struggle for
independence, and the other side undertaking the street organization,
mass campaigns and underground work.
Everyone realized that Lee was riding a tiger: it was only a few years
earlier that the Chinese communists of Malaya were engaged in a
guerilla war against the British, who had the support of the feudal
Malay rulers, and a little earlier against the Japanese. They were
defeated only after strenuous efforts through the implementation of
the "strategic hamlet" policy that effectively cut the guerrillas off
from the rural population, a policy which the Americans were to repeat
without success later in Viet Nam. The communists still had an
extensive underground network in both Malaya and Singapore, and could
easily mobilize a large population of sympathizers in trade unions and
schools.
But Lee succeeded in caging the tiger, though the fight was very close
indeed. Shortly after self government was granted by the British and
Lee was elected Chief Minister, his People's Action Party split into
two, with the anti-Lee left wing taking virtually the whole
organizational machine out of PAP to form the new Barisan Socialis
(Socialist Front), and Lee's government survived in the Legislature by
just a one vote margin(including one vote from a sick member who had
to be dragged out of hospital to take part in the division). However,
the Barisan soon destroyed itself by its inept campaigning against
Singapore's move to join Malaysia in 1962, and by its illogical
attempt to emulate the Cultural Revolution that took place in China in
the late 60s, while its power bases were successfully weakened by
selective detentions of key members, the establishment of rival trade
union organizations, closure of propaganda channels, and the
redirection of student energy towards career goals and other
non-political pursuits.
So working with the communists gave Lee Kuan Yew the political start
he required, but perhaps even more importantly for the future, it gave
him and his associates a useful lesson on their effective organization
methods, whereby a small, tightly linked minority can direct a much
larger, and not necessarily sympathetic or comprehending, majority.
The question is whether the methods can, on a long term basis, be
applied to a country without resulting in the kind of dead hand
totalitarian society that was, even in the 60s, already quite
obviously on the verge of failure in both Russia and China. In other
words, whether one could invent a new, better kind of Leninism for the
capitalist and technocratic society. To do that requires an amenable
cultural base that was found to be already in existence among the
populace.
--