The discussion of events in Malaya during the Second World War is interesting for two reasons. First, how did it happen that a country that was supposed to be a bastion of British influence in the Pacific was occupied by Japan in a short time, and the seemingly unshakable system of colonial administration collapsed like a house of cards? Second, what factors during the military operations in Malaya and during the Japanese occupation set in motion the forces that, after the war, turned a quiet country that was barely affected by the anti-colonial struggle into one of the hot spots of the post-war national liberation movement?

There were three types of colonial possessions in Malaya at the beginning of World War II:

1. Straits Settlements ("Straits Settlements") - crown colony, which included settlements: the island of Singapore at the southern tip of the Malacca Peninsula; Penang, which included the island of the same name off the north-west coast of Malaya, where the administrative center of the settlement was located - the city of Georgetown, and the Province of Wellesley-the territory on the opposite shore of the Strait of Malacca; Malacca located in the southwestern part of the Peninsula.

2. The Federation of Malay States (FMG), which united the sultanates of Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang with the center in Kuala Lumpur.

3. Non-Federated Malay States (NMG) - non-Federal sultanate principalities: Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu and Johor.

All these possessions together formed the colony of British Malaya, the administrative center of which was the city of Singapore. At the head of the colony was Governor Straits Settlemente, who was also the Federation's high commissioner. The English retained the power of the sultans, but the real government in the principalities was carried out by English residents and advisers.

Malaya was a supplier of two main products to the world market - tin and rubber, in the production of which British capital had a decisive position.

The national-class structure of colonial Malaya society was specific. Malays, who made up just over 42% of the population (2,278,000 in 1941), were mostly peasants. The size of the Malay pre-proletariat and bourgeoisie was insignificant. The Malays formed the aristocratic elite in the sultanates, which formed the bureaucracy that filled the lower and middle levels of the colonial apparatus in the FMG and NMG.

Chinese - 43% of the country's population (2379,000 in 1941) - lived mostly in cities, forming the majority in the Straits Settlement and on the west coast, where tin mines and rubber plantations were located. Urban areas-

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Most of the workers were Chinese. The bulk of the local bourgeoisie was also Chinese. A significant layer of the Chinese intelligentsia was present.

Indians and Ceylonians (744 thousand people in 1941) were the largest group of plantation workers; they also worked in urban economy, transport, communications, health care, and served in the police. There was an Indian-Ceylon small and middle bourgeoisie, but less significant than the Chinese [Tyurin, 1980, p. 143-144].

The presence of three ethnic groups associated with different sectors of the economy, the fluidity of immigrant flows (most Chinese and Indians, having earned money in Malaya, left for their homeland); orientation of the majority of Chinese and people from India and Ceylon to their countries; weak connection between the traditional sector, in which the majority of Malays were employed, and modern plantation economy and industry; the division of the country into different types of colonial possessions and the existence of sultanates; the special interest of the British colonialists in Malaya in terms of economy and imperial strategy - all these factors had an impact on the pre-war national liberation movement in Malaya, which developed at a slow pace, somewhat accelerated only under the influence of the world economic crisis of 1929-1933. which has hurt the Malay economy.

Before the war, there were weak nationalist organizations of the Malay official elite, religious reformers and various intelligentsia. Of the equally weak political organizations of the Indian and Ceylonese populations, the most significant was the Central Indian Association of Malaya, established in 1936 and closely associated with the Indian National Congress. The Kuomintang of Malaya exerted influence on the petty-bourgeois part of the Chinese population, acting mainly through Chinese schools. The new factor was the workers 'and Communists' movement. In 1930, the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) emerged and began organizing trade unions and strike action in the mid-1930s [Cheah Boon Kheng, 1992, p. 15].

From the very beginning, the anti-colonial movement was divided along ethnic lines, and despite the CPM's attempts to unite in its ranks and in the ranks of the General Workers ' Union of Workers of All Nationalities, it extended its influence only to a part of the Chinese proletariat and the Chinese intelligentsia. Since 1937, an anti-Japanese movement developed among the Chinese population of Malaya, and the CPM began working in the National Movement for the Salvation of Overseas Chinese, and the General Workers ' Union became a section of the Movement [Tyurin, 1980, p. 155].

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR TO THE JAPANESE INVASION

The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 immediately affected the situation in Malaya. The changing global economic environment - the increasing demand for strategic materials such as tin and rubber - brought the Malay economy out of its pre-crisis state and contributed to a new economic boom. Restrictions on the extraction and export of tin imposed in 1937 were lifted, and as early as 1939, 82,000 tons of tin were exported from Malaya, compared with 61,000 tons exported in 1938.In 1940, Malaya exported 131,000 tons of tin. Rubber exports also increased sharply, reaching 549 thousand tons in 1940, which brought an income of about 500 million mal. USD - almost twice as much as in the previous year. Not only the export volume increased, but also the prices of tin and rubber (Tyurin, 1980, p.157).

The main market for Malay exports was the United States, which accounted for 70% of rubber exports and 50% of tin exports. In 1940 alone, Malaya's exports to the United States gave England $ 264 million. [Rudnev, 1959, p. 36-37]. Although Anglo-American rivalry in malay-

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The economic decline that began in the 1920s continued, but it weakened significantly after the outbreak of war, when Britain was interested in supporting the United States, and the latter-in the unhindered flow of strategic goods. Under the terms of the Anglo-American trade agreement of 1939, duties on American motor vehicles and electrical equipment imported into Malaya were reduced, and the United States opened its domestic market to such Malay goods as canned pineapples, copra and fruit juices.

Despite the clearly looming threat from Japan, which occupied French Indochina in the fall of 1940 and established its influence in Thailand, the British government did not prohibit the export of important strategic goods from Malaya to Japan. The iron ore produced in Johor continued to flow to Japan and played an important role in its steelmaking industry. Thanks to the production of manganese ore in Terengganu established in 1934-1938, Japan received 30 thousand tons of ore annually from there. The export of bauxite to Japan from Malaya increased from 36 thousand tons in 1936 to 66.7 thousand tons in 1939 [Zherebilov, 1962, p. 31.]. Until July 1941, the British government did not take any measures to restrict the export of strategic materials from Malaya to Japan.

The economic boom has led to increased demand for labor and increased employment. The number of workers employed in tin mining in the FMG, for example, increased in 1939 from 53,000 to 73,000. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War (1937), the migration of Chinese workers who stopped going home sharply decreased, which replenished the reserve of local labor.

Despite the economic upswing, foreign companies have struggled to keep workers ' wages at the low pre-war levels. But the trade unions, which for the most part operated under the leadership of the CPM, managed to use the strike struggle to raise wages in a number of industries and force the authorities to issue laws that laid the foundation for workers ' legislation. The strike movement organized by the Communist Party of Moldova and the trade unions continued unabated in the country. During the year (October 1939 - September 1940), a record number of strikes occurred in Malaya - over 150. On May 1, 1940, the CPM organized a powerful demonstration in Singapore, where participants demanded an end to the persecution of workers who participated in the demonstrations [Blaschke, 1949, p.11].

Since the summer of 1940, the threat to the British and Dutch possessions in Southeast Asia from Japan has become increasingly real. Taking advantage of France's defeat in the war with Germany, Japan in September 1940 began the occupation of North Vietnam, creating a springboard for an attack in the southern direction. At the same time, the triple pact was concluded between Germany, Italy and Japan, encouraging the latter to aggression in the countries of the South Seas. Japan carefully prepared for an attack on the British possessions in Malaya. Naval maneuvers and exercises were conducted off the coast of Malaya, Japanese aircraft flew over and photographed ports and air bases. The country was flooded with Japanese spies.

According to British strategists, the key to the security of British positions in the Far East and Southeast Asia should have been the Singapore naval base. Its construction began in 1923, when the conservative government allocated 11 million pounds [Turnbull, 1977, p. 163] 1. On February 14, 1938, the base was officially opened, although the work was finally completed by 1941 [Miller, 1942, p. 123]. Immediately dubbed (especially by the Australian press) the "Gibraltar of the East", the "Gateway to the East", and the "Bastion of British Power", the Singapore base was designed to

1 Funds for the construction of the base were also received from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and FMG. The latter in 1926 allocated 2 million US dollars from its budget for this purpose. [Mills, 1942, p. 90].

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It served a large fleet and had the most modern technical facilities. It was located on the northern side of the island (the city was located in the southernmost part of it). In addition to the previously built floating dock, a huge King George VI dry dock was built in 1938 to accommodate the largest ship of the time. The base was served by various workshops, its own power plants and a radio station. Airfields were built in the vicinity of the base, in Tengah and Sembawang, and mangrove swamps in Changi were drained to build a fort with heavy guns and anti-aircraft artillery to defend the base from sea and air. The Selarang barracks housed the battalion that served the base. A separate water supply line (in addition to the city one) was installed through the dam connecting Singapore Island with the Peninsula to supply the base with water from Johor (Miller, 1942, p.118-119; Chaphekar, 1960, p. 23-24).

The base could indeed have played an important role in the war in the Pacific, if not for two circumstances, the first of which was entirely related to the dogmatic thinking of the British military, and the second was caused by the strategic situation at the beginning of the Second World War. Assuming that the main military actions in the event of a collision with Japan would take place at sea (besides, the ruling circles of Great Britain did not abandon the hope that Japan would strike north, against the USSR), none of the politicians and military personnel of England, with rare exceptions, believed in the possibility of landing enemy troops in Malaya.

However, there were rare exceptions. In 1937, the commander of the British forces in Malaya, Major General William Dobby, and his chief of Staff, Arthur Percival, tried to draw attention to the possibility of a Japanese landing in the Kra Isthmus and an attack on Malaya from the north: in this case, the Singapore base, defenseless from the Peninsula, would be practically useless. Dobby also expressed doubts about the ability of the British fleet to relocate from European waters to the Pacific Ocean in 70 days, as envisaged in the Admiralty plan. Dobby's proposal to build defensive lines in North Malaya and Johor was rejected by the British War Office (Swinson, 1970, p. 33).

The second factor that reduced the importance of the Singapore base to a minimum was the situation that developed during the Second World War after the defeat of France. England was forced to concentrate all its efforts in Europe and North Africa and to abandon the promise of W. Churchill, which he gave to Australia and New Zealand as the first Lord of the Admiralty, that the Pacific theater would have an advantage over the Mediterranean [Turnbull, 1977, p. 165.].

In November 1940, the new commander of British forces in the Far East, Air Marshal Robert Brooke-Popham, a 62-year-old general pulled out of the reserve, poorly oriented in the situation, arrived in Singapore, and in May 1941, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, who had once fought bravely on the fields of the First World War, was appointed commander of troops in Malaya. wartime soldier who had distinguished himself during the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1921, who had served in Malaya in the late 1930s, was a staff man who did not know how and did not like to communicate with soldiers. Both commanders were restricted in their actions: the navy, civil defense, and the entire field of civil administration fell outside their purview. Although Australian and Indian units began arriving in Malaya in February 1941, they were not enough, and most importantly, they did not have tanks; the air force had only 140 obsolete aircraft instead of the necessary at least 350 [Swinson, 1970, p.39].

Both the civil authorities and the generals (with rare exceptions) were optimistic. Governor Shenton Thomas, who had arrived in Singapore from Africa in 1934, had become a familiar figure in the local community, and was just a stone's throw away from an honorable and secure retirement, radiated complacency and confidence. When assigned

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The chief military engineer, Brigadier General Ivan Simeson, horrified by the almost complete lack of defensive structures, asked Cooley for fortification work, but Thomas refused, saying that priority should be given to the development of a peaceful economy [Swinson, 1970, p.38; Turnbull, 1977, p. 169]. With the outbreak of the war, there was a boom caused by the increasing demand for Malay tin and rubber in the United States, there were not enough workers (in 1938, immigration to Malaya was banned). Monopolies, entrepreneurs, and merchants were greedily and insatiably enriched by the encouragement of the colonial administration. Europeans in Singapore and Georgetown lived as if there had never been a war in Europe, let alone a war in the Pacific.

Arriving in Singapore in September 1941, accompanied by his wife, Lady Diana, Churchill's Cabinet Minister Duff Cooper was optimistic about the situation in Malaya, hoping, like many in the political and military circles of the United States and Great Britain, that Japan would fall on the USSR in the critical days of the Soviet-German confrontation in the fall of 1941. In October 1941, Brooke-Popham loudly declared that Britain did not need American naval support (there were only a few old destroyers at the Singapore base at that time), and at a press conference in early December 1941, he announced that Japan would never dare to attack Malaya [Brown, 1942, p. 280]. The excitement and belief in the inviolability of British rule reached a peak on December 2, 1941, when Singaporeans witnessed what they thought was a demonstration of the might of the British Empire: the battleship Prince of Wales and the heavy cruiser Rivers arrived at the Singapore base. D. Cooper, S. Thomas, R. Brooke-Popham, A. Percival, and the city fathers were present at the magnificent meeting. Cooper gave a speech in which he assured the audience that the arrival of the ships "gave a sense of complete security" [Cooper, 1957, p. 300].

Despite the fact that the CPM stopped all anti-British activities in September 1940 and offered the authorities cooperation in the framework of the Anti-Japanese Overseas Chinese Mobilization Committee, in which the Communists collaborated with the Kuomintang, the colonial authorities of Malaya, in an effort not to irritate Japan, continued to persecute the Communists and suppress anti-Japanese propaganda, especially among Chinese school students.

COLLAPSE OF BRITISH MALAYA

On December 8, 1941, simultaneously with the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, Japanese troops landed in Southern Thailand and Kota Bharu, on the eastern coast of the Peninsula, and Japanese aircraft dropped the first bombs on Singapore.

The Japanese 25th Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Yamashita Tomoyuki, was launched against British Malaya. On the night of December 4-5, its three divisions (the 5th, 18th, and Imperial Guard divisions), with two regiments of heavy field artillery and a tank brigade attached, boarded military transports at the port of Sama on the island of. Hainan and, accompanied by a squadron (one battleship, seven cruisers, 14 destroyers), moved across the South China Sea to the Gulf of Thailand. Air support for the expedition was provided by the 3rd Air Division (459 aircraft) and naval aviation (159 aircraft). In the Gulf of Thailand, the Japanese forces split into five groups and proceeded to three landing sites: the first two - to Singora on the isthmus of Kra in Thailand, 120 miles from the border with Malaya, two - to Patani, 60 miles from the border, and one (brigade of the 18th Division) - to the center of the Sultanate of Kelantan, Kota Bharu, where the main British air force was stationed on the Peninsula [Swinson, 1970, p. 19-21].

By the evening of December 8, the Japanese captured the airfield near Kota Bharu, and the next day-and the city itself. Although the two brigades of the 9th Indian Division fought hard (the battle of Kota Bharu was perhaps the most energetic resistance of the British in all of Malai-

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They were unable to resist the Japanese, who had complete air superiority. On December 13, the British lost the airfield in Tanah Merah, and on December 19-in Kuala Kulai and lost all air bases in Northern Malaya [Masanobu Tsuji, 1962, p. 93-97]. In addition, by the evening of December 8, the main forces of the Japanese 25th Army, which the Thai government had allowed to use its territory, were ready to move from Singora to Alor Setar, the center of Kedah, and from Patani to Kroh, to Perak.

The behavior of the military and civilian authorities in British Malaya, since the first day of the war, has presented an amazing picture of confusion, helplessness, professional unfitness, and panic, not least due to the confidence that Singapore was impregnable over the years and the very atmosphere of white gentlemen living in a calm country.

The first day of the Malay war, December 8, 1941, brought all this to light with extraordinary clarity. The Sunday edition of Singapore's Malaya Tribune carried the headline on its front page: "Twenty-seven Japanese transports spotted skirting the coast of Cambodia." The article, based on a Reuters report, explained that the ships were heading west, towards Thailand or Malaya. Brooke-Popham immediately called the paper's editor-in-chief, James Glover, and attacked him: "I consider it unacceptable to spread panic rumors. The situation in no way corresponds to what the newspaper is shouting about." Glover later wrote that the general's mood was shared by the majority of the European population: when the journalist showed up at Singapore's favorite Sunday morning hangout of the "white" elite, the Sea View Hotel, he saw serene, self-satisfied businessmen and officials lounging on deck chairs with their ladies, who were served drinks by noiseless Chinese waiters and the orchestra played then-fashionable tunes from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [Swinson, 1970, p. 51].

The officers were absent from the esplanade, but they were not exactly zealous in the performance of their duties. When on December 6, the command received air reconnaissance information about the movement of the Japanese armada to the coast of the Peninsula, Brook-Popham, instead of implementing the Matador plan, which provided for moving troops to the Thai border from the north in case of danger to Malaya, crossed it and occupied the Kra isthmus, cutting off the landing sites of naval troops and taking control of the The control of the route to Southern Burma and Northern Malaya (Chaphekar, 1960, p. 44, 47) merely declared "first-degree readiness". Nothing changed the next day, December 7, when new news about the movement of Japanese ships arrived. And when A. Percival, having received information about the fighting in Kota Bharu by one o'clock in the afternoon, called Governor Thomas, who enthusiastically exclaimed: "Great, I hope that you will quickly put an end to these yellow runts!" [Percival, 1949, p.108]. At 16: 15, the first bombs fell on Singapore's chinatowns and the first civilian casualties appeared: 61 killed and 133 wounded [Swinson, 1970, p. 52]. They couldn't find Percival, who had gone to a meeting of the Straits Settlement Legislative Council for some reason. It was only in the afternoon that the commander of the 11th division, which was located on the border of Kedah and Thailand, received orders to retreat to Jitra, in the north of Kedah, where there was a theoretical defense line. But when the division retreated to Jitra, it was found that the hastily dug trenches were flooded with heavy rains, and the owners of rubber plantations strongly objected to the construction of fortifications on their territory. Meanwhile, Japanese units were rapidly moving towards the border, and pre-trained scouts and saboteurs from among the local Chinese, Malays and Thais were being transferred to Malaya.

At 17: 35 on December 8, the commander of the British Fleet in the Far East, Admiral Tom Philips, also made a not very thoughtful act: he withdrew his squadron to

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The Prince of Wales, the Ripolz, and four destroyers were at sea to prevent Japanese troops from landing on the Peninsula (which took place in the early morning). Since the aircraft carrier accompanying the squadron was stuck in distant Jamaica due to a technical malfunction, and the Singapore planes did not represent any real strength, the squadron left without air support. Aimlessly plowing the waters of the Gulf of Thailand for two days, Phillips decided to return on the morning of December 10, but two Japanese air raids ended the British naval forces in the Pacific: at 12: 33, the "Ripals" capsized and sank, and a little more than an hour later the "Prince of Wales". A significant number of sailors were killed, including Tom Phillips and the commander of the Prince of Wales, John Leach [Churchill, 1991, p. 283].

In fact, the campaign in Malaya was lost to the British in the first two days: air control was lost, the Singapore base was emptied, the military command and civilian authorities were confused, 2 in confusion, poorly trained units began to withdraw from the border to the south.

Using tanks that the British did not have, the Japanese troops, some of which were specially trained for operations in the jungle, using the tactics of infiltrating secondary roads and trails on bicycles, landing troops on small ships and boats, began to move south, not allowing the enemy to gain a foothold and organize defense.

The 3rd Corps, consisting of two divisions, was unable to hold its position at Jitra, and the next day Japanese troops entered Alor Setar, the capital of Kedah. On December 13, the Japanese broke through a hastily organized defense at Gurun, south of the Kedah River, and a column moving from Patani captured Krokh on the border of Kedah and Perak on December 14. After that, crossing the Crian River, which separates Kedah from Perak, the Japanese entered the operational space, opening their way to Central Malaya. On December 16, Wellesley Province and Penang Island were occupied. The Penang administration, having managed to evacuate the "white" population, abandoned the local Chinese-subjects of the British crown to their fate and left the enemy many boats and vessels that were used by the Japanese in amphibious operations [Turnbull, 1977, p. 173]3. It took the Japanese another ten days to put an end to the resistance in Perak: on December 26, the British left Kuala Kangsar, and on December 28-Ipoh [Swinson, 1970, p. 80-81].

On New Year's Eve, British General Archibald Wavell was appointed commander-in-Chief of British, American, Australian and Dutch forces in the Far East (then this concept included Southeast Asia). It arrived in Singapore on January 7, 1942. On the eve of its arrival, the Japanese broke through the defenses of the 11th Indian Division at Kampara in Western Malaya and landed at Kuantan, on the east coast of Pahang, where the last British air base on the Peninsula was located. The brigades of the Indian division, retreating by rail from Kota Bharu to the interior of the country, joined with the main forces on the west coast, in order to leave the positions on the Slim River under the onslaught of the Japanese and withdraw to the last line before Sin-

2 Even after the first air raids in Singapore, the authorities did not build bomb shelters, and gas lamps on the streets of the city continued to burn at night: Governor Shenton Thomas, who had completely lost his sense of reality, said that the first degree of readiness should not plunge the city into darkness [Swinson, 1970, p.52]. When the Japanese entered Kuala Lumpur on January 11, 1942, they found in the Department of Land Surveying and Topography of the FMG maps of the country of all scales and types: automobile, geological, forest maps of sultanates, districts, villages, cities, islands, rubber plantations [Morrison, 1942, p. 116].

3 Although Singapore newspapers were forbidden to discuss this unpleasant topic for the authorities, the news quickly spread among the Singaporean Chinese. The radio station captured in Georgetown (the British did not disable it during the flight) gave the Japanese the opportunity to organize radio broadcasting to Singapore.

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Gapurom - Muar River in Johor, where the 8th Australian Division of General Gordon Bennett is already entrenched. Although reinforcements were brought to Singapore (the British 18th Division, an Indian brigade, and 51 Hurricane aircraft), this did not change the situation. The Moire front was breached. Individual successes of the Anglo-Indian and Australian units in Johor (the battle of Gemas, the defense of Endau) did not change anything, and on January 27, Wavell, who was in Java, gave Percival permission to evacuate troops from the Peninsula to Singapore Island, which he ordered to protect until the last opportunity [Turnbull, 1977, p. 178].

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On January 31, 1942, British units (30 thousand men) crossed the causeway from Johor to Singapore Island and joined up with its garrison, replenished by reinforcements that arrived in January. In total, there were over 100,000 British, Australian and Indian soldiers on the island [Churchill, 1991, p. 363], in addition, the Japanese were opposed by two Malay brigades and volunteer units of local Chinese [Turnbull, 1977, p.177]. Yamashita had only 30 thousand people. soldiers, but they were soldiers of a victorious army, while the morale of the British troops was greatly reduced as a result of the continuous retreat, accompanied by confusion, lack of clear leadership and simply panic.

Singapore has a population of one million, doubled by refugees. The evacuation of the civilian population did not begin until late January and was extremely slow. The city was subjected to daily air raids, and the corpses did not have time to clean up. Hospitals and hotels were overflowing with wounded and refugees. The authorities were completely taken aback. Shenton Thomas lost the last vestiges of his authority by making pompous speeches on the radio and not daring to impose martial law in the city (there was dancing at the Raffles Hotel at night, and cabarets and movie theaters were open until the eve of surrender). Percival, an intelligent staff officer, could not breathe the spirit of resistance into the demoralized troops. As an English journalist who witnessed the Malaya campaign noted, the general "in any plan saw difficulties first before he saw opportunities" (Morrison, 1948, p. 159). Percival organized the defense of Singapore, not believing in success from the very beginning.

The naval base, from which the last warships left, was emptied. On the day that British troops crossed the causeway to the island, most of the base's personnel were evacuated to Ceylon, and the depopulated docks became a symbol of the failed British strategy: there was no need to defend the main military facility. The northern coast of the island was unprotected: the English plan did not provide for an attack on Singapore from the Peninsula. Percival positioned his troops along the entire length of the northern coastline, and he did not guess the direction of the enemy's main attack, placing the stronger units in the northeast, while Yamashita struck from the northwest side. In addition, the British command did not create reserves behind the first line of defense.

On the morning of February 8, British positions began to come under heavy artillery fire, and in the evening of the same day, two Japanese divisions on armored landing ships transferred from Southern Thailand crossed the Strait of Johor between the Kranji and Jurong Rivers. On February 10, the Japanese captured Tengah Airfield, and on February 11, the last British plane took off from Kallang airfield [Swinson, 1970, p. 140].

On February 13, when a battalion of the Malay Regiment, after a stubborn resistance, was knocked out of positions on the Pasir Panjang hills, the last natural barrier to the city, and the water reservoirs were in the hands of the Japanese, the British situation became completely hopeless. On February 14, A. Wavell telegraphed W. Churchill: "I received a telegram from Percival, who indicates that the enemy has approached the city itself and that his troops are not capable of further counterattacks" [Churchill, 1991, p. 363]. At Churchill's behest, Wavell gave Percival a free hand. On the morning of February 15 (Chinese New Year's Day), Percival held a final council of war. The day before, the remaining ships left Singapore harbor, taking away European women and children. The landing was carried out in confusion, and Japanese aircraft continuously bombed the berths. Of the 44 ships, only four passed the "Bomb Alley", as the Sunda Strait was then called, and most of the three thousand people who tried to escape at the last moment died. At the military council, Percival said that fuel and ammunition supplies were running out, water was only enough for 24 hours, hospitals were being moved.-

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When they are full, soldiers desert by the hundreds and roam the streets of the city in disarray. Senior officers said that of the two possible solutions - counterattack or surrender-the first is beyond the power of exhausted and demoralized troops.

On the same day, Percival went to Yamashita headquarters and accepted the demand for unconditional surrender. Yamashita agreed that Japanese troops should enter Singapore the next day. In the afternoon, the gunfire stopped, and Japanese planes stopped appearing over the city. In the evening, Singapore was quiet, only patrols circled the waiting metropolis.

On the morning of February 16, units of the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, appeared in Singapore, and the next day the entire European population was rounded up in the square and then sent to the Changi, Selarang, and Seletar camps on the island, where prisoners of war were also taken (with the exception of some Indians who agreed to serve in the pro-Japanese Indian National Army) [Turnbull, 1977, p. 191]. A new, albeit short, but very significant period in the history of Malaya (and Singapore) began - the time of the Japanese occupation.

The reasons why Japan so easily took over Malaya , one of the main British colonies in Asia, were primarily due to the policy pursued by Great Britain and other Western powers in the Pacific in the 1930s. In an effort to direct the tip of the impending Japanese attack against the Soviet Union, the Western countries pursued a short-sighted policy of "appeasing" the aggressor, believing that concessions on their part would encourage the Japanese imperialists to strike north against the USSR. For this reason, Britain, France, the United States, and the Netherlands continued to supply Japan with strategic raw materials from their colonies located in Southeast Asia, and after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Western countries did not strengthen their colonies in this area, trying to emphasize their peace-loving and friendly relations with Japan.-

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to blame the Japanese militarists for their benevolent attitude towards aggression in the northern direction. Ultimately, they underestimated the possibility of a major war in the Pacific and left their colonies virtually defenseless.

The colonialists were afraid to involve the people in the defense of the country, although the CPM made suggestions about the participation of the population in resisting the imminent aggression. Only on December 31, 1941, did the authorities allow the establishment of the Chinese Mobilization Committee in Singapore, in which Communists released from prison took an active part. About eight thousand people volunteered, and two thousand of them formed the Singapore Battalion of the Straits Settlement Volunteer Corps. The rest were assigned to medical, fire and air defense units, as well as served in the police service (Turnbull, 1977, p. 177). After some hesitation, Shenton Thomas allowed Lieutenant Colonel John Dalley, who served in the FMG police, to form the Singapore Anti-Japanese Volunteer Battalion, known as" Dalfors", a significant part of which was made up of Communists. The battalion, along with the Malay Regiment, provided the most fierce resistance to the Japanese in the battles for Singapore [Purcell, 1967, p.246].

With the help of the CPM, Lim Bo Seng, a Fujian businessman and former student at Singapore's Raffles College and Hong Kong University, established the Chinese Civil Defense Committee in Singapore, which established contacts with trade unions and mobilized workers to build defenses and clear rubble in the city after the Japanese bombings.4
JAPANESE OCCUPATION POLICY IN MALAYA

The Japanese occupation lasted three and a half years. It was a difficult time for the country's population, which fell under the rule of the new colonialists.

Malaya's economy was completely paralyzed. The economy of the country was greatly damaged by Japanese bombing and destruction caused by retreating British troops. Mines and tin smelters were shut down, power plants and a few industrial enterprises were shut down. Japan was not interested in Malay tin and rubber, which it received in abundance from Thailand and Indonesia. The remaining equipment from the tin mining and smelting industry was taken to Japan for remelting, and workers were left without work. Unemployment also affected rubber plantations and rubber-processing industries. As a result of the suspension of food imports, a massive famine broke out in Malaya. Attempts by the occupiers to force the Malay peasantry to increase the production of food crops ended in failure: the population did not want to grow rice for Japanese requisitions or sell it for devalued currency. 5 Fleeing from hunger, the urban population and mine workers went into the jungle, where they cleared small areas where they grew cassava, sweet potatoes, vegetables, raised pigs and poultry. Plantation workers were engaged in growing food crops on abandoned plantations. This population, called Squatters, reached half a million people by the end of the war.

Inflation was rampant in the country, secondary schools were virtually shut down, and the pre-war healthcare system was eliminated. Malaya, from which the four northern sultanates (Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu) were torn away,

4 It was only with the help of the Lim Bo Seng-controlled quarry workers ' union that the dam connecting the mainland and Singapore Island was blown up on January 31, 1942 (Turnbull, 1977, p. 178).

5 Occupation money in Malaya was called "banana" or "coconut": these fruits were depicted on them.

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transferred in August 1943. Thailand, along with Sumatra, was administered by the Japanese military administration centered in Singapore.

In the early years, the Japanese colonialists, intoxicated by their success on the front lines, did little to build a foothold in local society, acting with terror and intimidation. The Chinese population was particularly severely repressed. Only after the capture of Singapore were thousands of Chinese accused of supporting the British or of belonging to the Communist Party and the Kuomintang physically exterminated. The Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, were given the most extensive powers, and sophisticated tortures and executions were carried out. Throughout the entire period of occupation, terror, excessive taxation, and forced borrowing were common policies against the mass of the Chinese population.

Outwardly submissive to the Japanese, the middle strata and even a significant part of the rich strata of the Chinese population secretly opposed them in one form or another. Cooperation between Chinese businessmen and the occupiers was not widespread, and the Japanese administration's attempt in mid-1944 to establish Chinese clubs in the Straits Settlement to discuss economic problems was not successful [Andaya, Andaya, 1982, p. 251].

Japanese propaganda about the creation of a "Great East Asian Sphere of Mutual Prosperity" and the liberation of Asia from "white" colonialism in Malaya was successful mainly among Indians. Even before the invasion, the Japanese had launched propaganda among Indian soldiers in Malaya. Captain Mohan Singh, having joined the advancing Japanese, assembled a unit from Indian prisoners that took part in the battles on Singapore [Lebra, 1971, p.36]. On February 17, 1942, the Japanese assembled Indian prisoners of war in Singapore and announced the formation of the Indian Independence League (LIN) in Malaya, 7 and offered to enlist in its combat wing, the Indian National Army (INA). Almost half of the soldiers (20 thousand people out of 45 thousand). prisoners of war) responded to the call: a minority, believing that they would participate in the liberation of the motherland from colonial oppression, the majority - from the instinct of self-preservation.

But the first experience of creating an INA was unsuccessful. The Japanese were in no hurry to organize it, preferring to include Indian units in Japanese units. Mohan Singh, who showed dissatisfaction, was placed under house arrest in December 1942, and attempts by Rash Behari Bose, who had lost contact with his homeland (he had been in exile in Japan since 1915 and became a subject of the emperor), to activate LIN were unsuccessful. In addition, since the organizers of the LIN in Malaya were the leaders of the pre-war Central Indian Association of Malaya, who were closely associated with the Indian National Congress (INC), the Indian Muslims of Malaya took a hostile and wait-and-see attitude [Ampalavanar, 1981, p.7].

The situation changed with the arrival in Singapore in July 1943 of the pre-war leader of the left wing of the INC, Subhas Chandra Bose, who fled to Germany at the outbreak of the war. The mass of the Indian population of Malaya responded to S. C. Bose's appeal. Already at the end of 1943, the INA consisted of two divisions. Women's, youth and children's organizations were created within the framework of the LIN, rich Indians donated significant sums to its foundation, and many families gave away family jewels. Subhas Chandra Bose, called Netaji ("the Chief"), became a cult figure among the Indians of Malaya (Sivaram, 1966, p.133-134).

6 Colonel Watanabe, head of the Singapore Military Administration (gunseikan-bu), in March 1942 demanded that the rich Chinese raise 50 million small dollars within a month. as a" gift " to Japan. 10 million were collected by the Chinese of Singapore, and 40 million were collected by the Chinese of the Peninsula (Purcell, 1976, p. 252).

7 The Indian Independence League was founded in Japan in 1921 by radical expatriate Rash Behari Bose.

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But gradually hope gave way to disappointment. In January 1944, the Bos moved its headquarters to Rangoon, and INA was sent to the front. As soon as it reached the borders of India, a new wave of enthusiasm broke out among the Indians in Malaya, but the defeat at Imphal and the refusal of the Indian population to support the INA buried the hopes of Bose and his followers.

The bulk of the Indian population in Malaya was severely affected by the Japanese occupation. Unemployed Indian plantation workers went (as well as prisoners of war) to build the "road of death" - a railway from Thailand to Burma, where they died in huge numbers (out of 60 thousand workers, only 20 thousand returned) [Gullick, 1969, p.96].

The Malay peasantry was much less affected by the changes in the colonial regime than the urban Chinese and Indian populations. As for the feudal-landlord strata and the feudal-bureaucratic elite, the Japanese initially launched an offensive against them, since they were closely connected with the British. State councils in the sultanates were destroyed, and even the question of eliminating the power of the sultans was raised. But very soon the Japanese administration in Malaya took a course to attract the feudal-bureaucratic circles to cooperate, trying with their help to keep the Malay peasantry in subjection and compensate for the lack of social support in the city. Already in January 1943, the Japanese confirmed the status of sultans as religious heads in their principalities and established their former salaries, and in December 1943 they restored the state councils [Andaya, Andaya, 1982, p. 248]. The Malay bureaucracy not only retained its position in the lower and middle administrative apparatus, but also strengthened it by taking over the posts left vacant by the British flight.

NATIONAL MOVEMENT AND ARMED STRUGGLE IN MALAYA

The peculiarity of the national liberation movement in Malaya during the Second World War was the weakness of those forces that could operate legally under the Japanese occupation, and the absolute predominance of the armed struggle that took place under the leadership of the CPM.

At first, the Japanese authorities generally discouraged any hopes of independence for the nationalists in Malaya, as they did in Burma or the Philippines. Regarding the national movement in Malaya as insufficiently active and organized, the occupiers did not find it necessary to take it into account. However, after the fall of Singapore, they allowed the leaders of the pre - war Nationalist Union of Young Malaya, released from prison-Ibrahim bin Haji Jacob, Ishaq bin Haji Mohammad, and Ahmad Bustaman-to re-establish the organization, but in June 1942 they banned it [Bedlington, 1978, p. 63].

However, as the Japanese authorities failed at the fronts, they made some concessions to the local bourgeoisie and feudal lords, trying to enlist their support. In addition to the Indian Independence League, they began to encourage other organizations of the Indian and Chinese populations that were under the control of the Japanese administration. However, the influence of these organizations was insignificant and they did not play a serious role in the political life of the country.8
Somewhat more important were the activities of the Malay nationalists, who saw their cooperation with the Japanese as an inevitable political maneuver leading the country to independence. Their main bet was on an alliance with Indonesia, hoping to create a single Malay-Indonesian state. Ibrahim

8 The most notable organizations of this kind were the Overseas Chinese Association and the Indian Benevolent Association (both in Singapore).

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Bin Haji Yacob became a lieutenant colonel of the Defenders of the Fatherland (Pembela Tanah Air - PETA) paramilitary organization formed according to the Indonesian model, intended, according to the invaders, to be used as a territorial defense force. Since September 1944, when the Japanese government promised to grant Indonesia independence in the future, he and his followers have demanded that Malaya be granted independence as part of Indonesia. The idea of creating a Greater Indonesia ("Indonesia Raya"), free from the colonial yoke, where the leading role will be played by the peoples of the Malay-Indonesian ethnic group (Bedlington, 1978, p.63-64), has come to the fore.

In July 1945, a conference of the heads of the Japanese military administration in Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi (Celebes)was held in Singapore and in Malaya, where the concept of Greater Indonesia was discussed. By supporting this idea, Japan wanted to win over the sympathies of the occupied population at a critical moment. Following this, the Japanese allowed the creation of a nationalist organization in Malaya - KRIS-Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenanjung (Unification of the peoples of Indonesia and the Peninsula). This was followed by a meeting of CDIP leaders and Indonesian envoys Sukarno and Hatta in Taiping (Perak) [Bedlington, 1978, p. 64]. On August 17-18, 1945, the founding conference of the CDIP was held in Kuala Lumpur, attended by 20 representatives of various organizations. By this time, Japan had agreed to surrender, and Indonesia's independence was declared. The Founding Conference of the CDIP decided to continue the struggle for independence of Malaya, which should then join Indonesia. Retaining the abbreviation, the name of the organization changed: it became known as Kekuatan rakyat istimeva (Special Power of the People) [Andaya, Andaya, 1982, p. 250]. After Ibrahim bin Haji Yacob left for Jakarta, Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmi took over the leadership of the CDIF, under whose leadership the organization operated until September, when it disbanded after the British returned. The CRIS played a role in consolidating the forces of the Malay petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, becoming the foundation of the Malay Nationalist Party (MNP) after the war.

The national movement of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois type in Malaya during the war years was much weaker than in other countries of Southeast Asia. The Communist Party of Malaya became the true leader of a broad liberation movement in the form of armed struggle.

The terror of the occupiers, the difficult economic situation, the merciless extortion of taxes and supplies for the Japanese army-all this contributed to discontent in the country. The CPM, which had called on the people to defend the country from the very beginning of the Japanese invasion, went underground again after the fall of Singapore. In 1942, the first Communist-organized guerrilla groups appeared in the jungles of Malaya. Their numbers grew rapidly at the expense of Chinese workers, to a lesser extent-Indian plantation coolies and Malay peasants. In 1943, the Anti-Japanese Malay Peoples ' Army (AANM) was created on the basis of these detachments [Kroef, 1967, p.24]. It had a single command and a clear structure, divided into regiments, companies and platoons. Each unit was headed by two people: a commander and a political leader [Miller, 1954, p. 40-41]. The AANM followed guerrilla tactics, sabotaging communications, attacking individual units of the Japanese army, and killing collaborators.

By 1945, the AANM had developed into a serious force, numbering about 7,000 people in its ranks. It began larger military operations, such as in Johor, where fighting lasted for two weeks (Kroef, 1967, p.24). The AANM relied on the support of a mass organization , the Anti-Japanese Union of the Peoples of Malaya (ASNM), or po-ki-

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Thai, Min Yun. By the very name of the army and ASNM, the organizers wanted to emphasize the national and multinational composition of participants in the anti-Japanese struggle.

The anti-Japanese movement was popularly known as the" Three Star Movement " - the three main nationalities of the country. By the end of the Second World War, it had spread its influence to a significant part of Malaya, especially the Western sultanates and Johor, numbering, according to some authors, more than 300 thousand people in its ranks (Purcell, 1967, p. 258). The movement included a large part of the working class of Chinese nationality, representatives of the Chinese small urban bourgeoisie, and some people in the liberal professions. The mainstay of the movement in rural areas was the squatters. Most of them were Chinese, a small part were Indians, and there were almost no Malay squatters. By the end of the war, the number of squatters (with families) exceeded half a million. Scattered throughout the sultanates of the West coast and Johor, the squatter settlements served as guerrilla bases, sources of food and information, and reserves for resupplying guerrilla units.

Most of the partisan detachments were purely Chinese in their composition. Only a small number of Malays who worked in the tin mines of Northern Perak and Kedah took part in the guerrilla movement since the end of 1943 (Gullick, 1969, p. 97; Kroef, 1967, p.247). The majority of the Malay peasantry, which traditionally followed the sultans who were loyal to the Japanese, and also traditionally disliked the Chinese they encountered - shopkeepers and money lenders-remained outside the military and political struggle. The Japanese sometimes managed to use Malay (and Indian) police officers to fight the guerrillas, to which the Chinese guerrillas responded by attacking Malay villages and police stations. Although such cases were not widespread, they left their mark on the Malay-Chinese relations.

The ASNM and AANM were an attempt to create a united anti-imperialist popular front in occupied Malaya. But the Three Star Movement has not become such a front either in terms of national or social composition. It was led by one party, whose attempts to attract the Malay Kuomintang to cooperate were not successful [Purcell, 1967, p. 257-258], and sporadic links with Malay radicals from PETA [Andaya, Andaya, 1982, p. 250] were of no significance. The main backbone of the movement was made up of Chinese workers, i.e., a part of Malay society that was isolated from the rest of the population (and even the Chinese bourgeois and petty-bourgeois). The CPM failed to take the anti-Japanese resistance beyond the movement of the Chinese proletariat and (partly) the Chinese petty bourgeoisie.

The CPM's anti-Japanese program, adopted in 1943 and published shortly before the end of the war, was of a general nature, indicating that the CPM leadership was disconnected from the situation in the country and did not understand its political culture. According to this program, KPM set the following goals::

"1. The expulsion of the Japanese fascists and the establishment of the Malay Republic;

2. The creation of a National organization composed of representatives of various nationalities, elected by universal suffrage, to govern and protect the Motherland. Ensure the sovereignty of the people. Improve living conditions, develop industry, agriculture and trade to make Malaya a harmonious, free and happy country;

3. Providing the people with freedom of speech, press, and organizations. Repeal of all old repressive laws, release of all prisoners and prisoners of war;

4. Improving the living conditions of the people, providing for the unemployed and refugees, and raising wages. Lower taxes and eliminate usurious interest;

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5. Reorganization of anti-Japanese partisan detachments into the National Defense Army. Showing special care for the soldiers of the anti-Japanese resistance, helping the families of those who died for the freedom of Malaya. Caring for wounded and maimed soldiers.

6. Free education in the native languages of various nationalities;

7. Confiscation of the property of German, Italian and Japanese fascists and traitors and its nationalization. Return of property confiscated by the Japanese to Malay residents or citizens of friendly nations.

8. Tariff autonomy. Conclusion of agreements and establishment of trade relations with friendly countries;

9. Unification with Russia and China and support for the struggle for independence of the oppressed peoples of the Far East. Rendering assistance to the Japanese people in the struggle against fascism "[Miller, 1954, p. 43-44].

As we can see, the program primarily served the interests of participants in the anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle and the urban population, i.e. the Chinese ethnic group in Malaya, leaving aside problems related to Malays and even Indians (nothing was said about plantation workers).

After the Japanese surrender, the influence of the CPM and its armed forces increased markedly. The fact is that the Japanese army in Malaya, having surrendered, refused to disarm, waiting for the appearance of allied troops, i.e. the British. The Allied Command in the Pacific, although it sent scouts to Malaya and supplied the partisans with weapons and technical equipment on a small scale, could not have a real impact (like the Kuomintang detachments in the north of the country) on the situation in Malaya until September 1945, when British units began to land on the Peninsula and Singapore. In August-September 1945, the AANM in a number of places forced the Japanese to lay down their arms and began to establish people's committees - executive bodies-in some cities and towns on the west coast, i.e. in places where the bulk of the Chinese population lived. In a number of places, the people's committees apparently tried to carry out some kind of transformation, the scale of which was inflated both by anti-communist propaganda and Soviet historiography of the 40s and 60s of the XX century.9
More serious consequences were caused by the interethnic clashes that began during the activities of the People's Committees in Johor and Selangor, when Chinese guerrillas began to persecute Malays who did not want to cooperate with the AANM or served in the police during the occupation [Tregonning, 1964, p.286]. Such actions began to be perceived by the village community-patriarchal world as an encroachment of the armed Chinese on the "Malay" nature of this world.

The period of Japanese occupation was a milestone in the history of Malaya. The British returned to another country.

list of literature

Gordeev V. V. National Question in Malaysia, Moscow, 1977.
Zherebilov V. A. Rabochy klass Malaya [The Working Class of Malaya], Moscow, 1962.
Rudnev V. S. Essays on the modern history of Malaya, 1918-1957. Moscow, 1959.
Tyurin V. A. Istoriya Malaysii [History of Malaysia]. Short Essay, Moscow, 1980.
Churchill W. The Second World War. Vtoraya Book, Moscow, 1991.

Andaya B. W. and Andaya L. Y. A History of Malaysia. London and Basingstoke, 1982.

Ampalavanar R. The Indian Minority and Political Change in Malaya, 1945 - 1957. Kuala Lumpur, 1981.

Bedlington S. S. Malaysia and Singapore. The Building of New States. Ithaca, 1978.

Blaschke W. Freedom for Malaya. Sydney, 1949.

Brown C. Suez to Singapore. N. Y., 1942.

9 For the best description of the August-September 1945 period in Malaya in Russian literature, see [Gordeev, 1977, pp. 31-33].

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Chaphekar S. G. A Brief Study of the Malayan Campaign 1941 - 42. Poona, 1960.

Cheah Boon Kheng. From PKI to the Comintern, 1924 - 1941. The Apprenticeship of the Malayan Communist Party. Selected Documents and Discussions Compiled and Edited with Introduction. Ithaca, 1992.

Cooper D. Old Man Forget. L., 1957.

Gullick J. M. Malaysia. L., 1969.

Lebra J. C. Jungle Alliance. Singapore, 1982.

Kroef J. M. van der. Communism in Malaya and Singapore. The Hague, 1967.

Masanobu Tsuji. Singapore: The Japanese Version. L., 1962.

Miller E. Strategy at Singapore. N. Y., 1942.

Miller H. Menace in Malaya. L., 1954.

Mills L. A. British Rule in Eastern Asia. A Study of Contemporary Development in British Malaya and Hong Kong. L., 1942.

Morrison J. Malayan Postscript. L., 1942.

Percival A. E. The War in Malaya. L., 1949.

Purcell V. The Chinese in Malaya. L., 1967.

Sivaram M. The Road to Delhi. Tokyo, 1966.

Swinson A. Defeat in Malaya: The Fall of Singapore. L., 1970.

Tregonning K. G. A History of Modern Malaya. Singapore, 1964.

Turnbull C. M. A History of Singapore, 1819 - 1975. Kuala Lumpur, 1977.

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