The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (41 page)

I had several other preoccupations. Lim Yew Hock now knew that his standing with the voters had been badly damaged, and that he and Chew Swee Kee would find it difficult to survive the communist onslaught against them for the purges they had mounted. But they continued to commit so many blunders that they seemed doomed. I tried to dispel Lim Yew Hock’s fears of sudden political death and assured him I would not press him to hold the early election he had foolishly promised, and that given time his political fortunes could change. I found reasons for him to postpone the polls: registration of new citizens, redelineation of constituencies from 25 to 51, changes to the election law to make voting compulsory and forbid the use of cars to carry voters to polling stations. I convinced him that it would be unwise to let voting remain voluntary, for the communists were better organised and better able to mobilise their followers, and the wealthy parties would find themselves supplying cars only to provide transport for the supporters of their left-wing opponents. Time was needed for the details to be worked out and legislation drafted and passed. He accepted these ideas gratefully because they prolonged the life of his government.

I did not tell him that I myself needed time to clean up the PAP, reorganise it, and select active, young Chinese-educated cadres who could be fielded as candidates but who were not committed Marxists or
communists. We wanted a balanced multiracial slate. While we could find English-educated Chinese, Malays and Indians who would be totally dependable and non-communist, it was difficult to identify good Chinese-educated candidates who would remain loyal when the communists opened fire on us, such was their hold on the minds of the Chinese-educated.

I started cadre-training classes to talent-spot idealistic Chinese-speakers with political convictions that were not left-wing, but we were fishing in the same pond as the communists, who exploited both Chinese nationalism and Marxist-Maoist ideas of egalitarianism. The most energetic and dedicated of the Chinese were already imbued with these ideals. I had to swing them over to democratic socialism, to get our own political concepts across to them in my inadequate Mandarin – and then read the papers they wrote in Chinese running script, which is far more difficult to decipher than printed characters.

I believe the experience taught me more than it taught them. Their mental terms of reference were Chinese history, Chinese parables and proverbs, the legendary success of the Chinese communist revolution as against their own frustrating life in Singapore. None of this helped them to understand what I was propounding to them – a parliamentary, democratic, socialist, non-communist society in a multiracial Singapore and Malaya established through peaceful, non-violent and constitutional means. Their whole background led them to believe that a communist society should be brought about both by open persuasion and by clandestine subversion and revolutionary force. I later discovered to my dismay that there were quite a few converted hard-core communists even in the group I had picked. There was no way to filter them out. They were like radioactive dust.

One day in March 1958, a Chinese male in his late 20s came to Lee & Lee, my law firm in Malacca Street, and told Choo that he would like
to speak to me personally. It was about 11 am, a busy time of the day when many other young men in short-sleeved shirts and slacks were coming and going, but after checking with me, Choo let him through. He said he had an important request. Would I meet a person who represented his organisation? – meaning, without saying it, the communist underground. I said, Yes. He stressed that the meeting must be secret. I proposed a rendezvous on the road between the Empress Place government offices and Victoria Theatre. This would be safest for me. I could take him to the select committee room in the Assembly House just a few yards away. It was quiet and secluded; I knew it was not going to be used for any meeting on the day I suggested, and that there would probably be no Members in the House since it was not sitting that morning.

When the day came, I walked from my office to the rendezvous and looked out, as instructed, for a slim, fair-skinned person with a pair of spectacles in his shirt breast pocket and carrying a Chinese newspaper. He was there, shorter than me, and leaner. We exchanged passwords and walked to the Assembly House as agreed. There was an air of stealth and furtiveness about him, a nervousness and jumpiness, as of a man on the run. The pallor of his face, arms and hands was that of a person who had not seen sunshine for many months. I felt that I was dealing with someone truly “underground”. He had a high forehead with a receding hairline, a long clean-shaven face, a long pointed nose and straight black hair combed back in the style of Chinese middle school students. He was very fair, and I guessed he could not be a Hokkien, but was possibly a Hakka or a Teochew. He was younger than me by some three to five years. He spoke softly, as if not wanting to be overheard, but in a firm voice. He soon impressed me as quick-witted and determined. He started the conversation in Mandarin, so I responded in Mandarin, but I repeated the important parts of what I had to say in simple English to make doubly sure I had made myself clear. From his expression, I knew he had understood me.

He said he represented the MCP in Singapore, and wanted to see me in person in order to establish cooperation between the communists and the non-communists in the PAP. He regretted very much that the pro-communist cadres had attempted to capture the party in 1957. He urged me to believe that that was not communist policy. They were over-enthusiastic young people who meant well and wanted to help bring about a revolution in Malaya. He asked me to believe in his sincerity, that his offer of cooperation in a united anti-colonial front was genuine.

What he was proposing meant that Lim Chin Siong and Fong should be free to do what they had been doing before they were arrested in 1956 – to mobilise the workers, the students, the teachers, the cultural groups, the petty bourgeoisie and friendly nationalists, and to form a powerful united front, which the MCP would lead and control through its cadres planted within their organisations. I did some quick thinking and said I did not know who he was, and had no way of knowing if what he said was true. He said I would have to trust him. I blandly asked him for some proof, not of his identity, but of his authority over communist and pro-communist cadres in Singapore as a true representative of the MCP. He smiled at me confidently, looked me in the eye and again said I had to take his word for it.

I named Chang Yuen Tong, who had won the City Council seat for Kallang. Chang was vice-president of Marshall’s Workers’ Party and president of the Electrical and Wireless Employees’ Union. I was fairly certain from his appearance, behaviour and speeches in the City Council that he was a pro-communist cadre. This time I looked him in the eye and said I believed the communists were using Marshall and his Workers’ Party to fight the PAP. They had not only put up Chang in Kallang, but had also fought the PAP candidate in the Jalan Besar division in the City Council election in December. (I did not remind him that the Workers’ Party candidate had lost.) I said he could prove he was a real representative of the communist command in Singapore and had spoken in good faith
when he said that the MCP did not wish to attack the PAP, by instructing Chang to resign from the Workers’ Party and the City Council.

Without any hesitation, he said, “All right, give me some time. I shall see that it is done. If he is a member of our organisation, it will be done.” We had talked for an hour. He was assessing my character and my political position, and I was returning the compliment. He was taking a risk in seeing me. But so was I. Because if he was indeed a communist leader and I was caught with him, I would have some explaining to do. I was prepared for that, however. I would say that he had wanted to see me on some constituency matter, and I had met him near the House and taken him to the Assembly to listen to his problem. So I took care to part company with him in the committee room, walking ahead of him down the stairs and out of the main door without turning back to see which way he went. I did not think I would see him again. I did not know who he was and did not want to know. I had to protect my position as the leader of the opposition.

I told only Keng Swee about the meeting, and he was as intrigued as I was to see what the outcome would be. We called the man “the Plen”, the plenipotentiary. We knew he must be someone important in the MCP, but how important? And what were their real intentions and potential?

My next major engagement was in May 1958, the third constitutional conference. I flew to London and from the airport went straight to the House of Commons to meet Lennox-Boyd. As we travelled together to the conference, he asked for my assessment of future developments in Singapore and about Lim Yew Hock’s chances in the next election. I said they had been sinking by the month. Lim Yew Hock had a weak team, and several of his ministers had poor reputations for honesty and integrity. This made him vulnerable to the smear campaigns the communists had
mounted against him and Chew Swee Kee. I expected the PAP to win, and having defended the proposed constitution in the Tanjong Pagar by-election in June a year ago, I asked for nothing more than what had already been agreed. I referred in particular to the Internal Security Council, the safety net that would ensure that the communists could not take over. With a Malayan representative holding the casting vote, any detention order it issued could be better defended politically and would not so immediately compromise an elected Singapore government.

All that remained for the conference to do was the serious but politically quiet business of settling the details. Both on the Singapore and the British sides, there was by now an unspoken acceptance that the PAP was likely to win the coming election, so that what I said carried more weight than the chief minister’s views. I had to examine the details carefully to make sure I could work the constitution that was now being reduced to legal language. But I remember only one issue that was mildly sensitive and could render us vulnerable to attack in Singapore.

The British government wanted all pensions for officers appointed by Her Majesty’s Government, local or expatriate, to be guaranteed against any future devaluation of the Singapore currency. Only later did I understand that they had to insist on this guarantee to keep up the morale of their colonial service officers in other territories that were heading for independence. But ironically it was the pound that was to be devalued, and by 1995 it had dropped to Singapore $2.20, a quarter its worth in 1958. The officers who had asked to have their pensions paid in sterling were unlucky. How were they to know that Singapore would not go the way of other former colonies?

One afternoon, while still in London, I read on the front page of the
Straits Times
that Chang Yuen Tong, vice-president of the Workers’ Party, city councillor, and president of the Electrical and Wireless Employees’ Union, had resigned “because the demands of his employment made it impossible for him to find sufficient time for council work”.

The Plen had given his orders and had been obeyed. He had proved that he was in charge. I found it unnerving. I thought it might happen, but not so quickly. Here was a man on the run, wanted by the police, probably in hiding in some cubicle or attap hut somewhere in Singapore. He had contacted me through a cut-out, who had given me his business card with the address of a bicycle shop in Rochor Road in case I wanted to get in touch with him. And I was sure the cut-out would not be able to lead the police to the Plen. Yet in a matter of eight weeks, his orders had been relayed to Chang and faithfully obeyed. It was an impressive demonstration of the discipline of the MCP organisation.

These were not men to be trifled with. So many were with them because people expected them to win and therefore climbed on the bandwagon. Since “history was on their side”, why be so stupid as to fight them? Yet here was I, with my few English-educated friends, ignorant enough to have the temerity to take on a movement that had established its credentials with successful revolutions in Russia and China.