ABSTRACT
The progress of events in Singapore and Malaya underlined the contrast between the techniques of urban and rural revolution. In Singapore the revolution was run by a very small cadre of party members, with a larger proportion of the people openly involved, but with very small loss of life. By contrast, the isolated rural Chinese such as the squatters and the rubber tappers at work had little answer and little hope of protection against the threat of murder, abduction and looting of their food stocks. The aim of the Malayan Communist Party in Singapore up till 1955 was to oust the British colonial government and substitute a Communist one, in conjunction with a similar aim in the Federation of Malaya. The arrest of the complete Singapore Town Committee in 1950 made the urban end of the revolution ineffective during the critical years of the guerrilla conflict in Malaya, and for some time afterwards.
