Left-Wing Extremism in Southeast Asia

Abstract

How did Communist Parties in Southeast Asia rise to the forefront of anti-colonial, then national politics? The confluence of clear programs of action, inclusionary recruitment strategies, and opportunism positioned Southeast Asian Communist Parties as leading nationalists. To create Popular Fronts, Indochinese and Indonesian Communist Parties recruited peoples from varied ideological, ethnic, and social backgrounds and worked with, and within, competing factions. Communist Parties in Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines emerged from World War II as national heroes, but failed to devise clear programs of action that appealed to majority/minority ethnic and urban populations. I chart the rise of Communism in Southeast Asia by examining pre-and post-World War II processes whereby Communist Parties either seized leadership of the nationalist struggle, or as a secondary movement worked with or against post-independence regimes.