AHS 2026 HIST PRELIM P2 QP+MS

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2 Section A (Source-Based Case Study) Question 1 is compulsory for all candidates Study the background information and all the sources carefully and then answer all the questions. You may use any of the sources to help you answer the questions, in addition to those sources you are told to use. In answering the questions you should use your knowledge of the topic to help you interpret and evaluate the sources. 1 (a) Study Source A. Why was this source published? Explain your answer. [5] (b) Study Sources B and C. How far does Source C prove that Source B is wrong? Explain your answer. [7] (c) Study Source D. How useful is Source D as evidence about the Malayan Communist Party? Explain your answer. [5] (d) Study Source E. How surprised are you by this source? Explain your answer. [5] (e) Study all the sources. “The Communist threat was exaggerated by the British.” How far do the sources support this view? Use the sources and your knowledge to explain your answer. [8]

3 The Communist insurgency in Malaya BACKGROUND INFORMATION Read this carefully. It may help you answer some of the questions. The Malayan Emergency was a period of unrest following the creation of the Federation of Malaya in 1948. After World War II, the Federation of Malaya was formed through the unification of several former British territories, including Sabah and Sarawak. The negotiations included special guarantees of rights for Malays and the establishment of a colonial government. These developments angered the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and the party started a guerilla insurgency. On 18 June 1948, the government declared a state of emergency. Was the Communist threat in Malaya exaggerated by the British? Source A: A British colonial government propaganda leaflet produced during the Malayan Emergency (1948 – 1960), aimed at the Chinese-speaking population in Malaya. The caption says, “Do the achievements of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Malaya terrify you?”. The words on the skulls were the names of people killed by the MCP.

4 Source B : Adapted from Chin Peng’s memoir published in 2003. It was time the British quit, stop exploiting our resources and people to pay off her debts and maintain her Empire status. It was time for us to be independent in the land that belonged to us. The idea of British superiority was dashed the year the Japanese cycled down Malaya’s roads. Britannia ruling the waves became a memory when HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales sank. But the British would not face these realities. After WWII, they wanted to resurrect their glory days. They made concessions: open their ‘For Whites only’ clubs to some privileged natives, assign some locals to middle-level government jobs. But they would remain the masters and bullies. This is exactly what my comrades and I achieved. We made the British acknowledge that they had to listen to us. We forced them to the bargaining table long before they were prepared to sit there. Source C : Adapted from a 1957 report for the War Office Director of Operations, General Sir Roger Bower, who was the Malaya Command from 1956 to 1957. The Malayan Communist Party’s campaign in Malaya is part of a wider Soviet-inspired drive to obtain control of what is strategically and economically one of the most important areas in Southeast Asia. Its aim is to overthrow the Malayan Government and to set up in its place a Communist-controlled Peoples’ Democratic Republic. In June 1948, on the instructions of the Cominform issued at 2 conferences in Calcutta 4 months earlier, the MCP started a campaign of murder, sabotage and terrorism designed to paralyse the Government and develop into armed revolution. By mid-1949 the leaders had realized that a quick decision was not possible. They modified their methods with a view to wearing down the Government and in due course dominating selected centres of population. Source D : Adapted from a 1958 memoir published in London written by a British serviceman about his times during the Malayan Emergency. Both sides in Malaya could feel the threat of China. The terrorists drew their inspiration from Peking Radio, and the number of terror incidents increased noticeably after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. In Malaya we felt the French were fighting in the same war as ourselves. We saw this struggle as part of the same global struggle that had now erupted at different times in Korea, Indo-China, Greece and Berlin. ‘Containment of Communism’, as a phrase, seemed to hold particular meaning for us in Malaya. The terrorists had fought this war as an ideological war: their aim was to establish a Communist Government. They were terrorists. They carried weapons. They wore uniforms. They killed.

5 Source E : Adapted from a briefing conducted by Malcolm MacDonald, the British Commissioner-General for Southeast Asia, during a top-secret meeting with the British Cabinet on 14 October 1948. He was instrumental in persuading the British Government to outlaw the MCP in July 1948. The Malayan Communists had failed because they had not been extreme enough. Murder on a larger scale and sabotage of railways, mines and broadcasting stations might have been very successful. But the Communists were, in fact, amateurs drawn from the ranks of unskilled local Chinese bandits, not Moscow-trained revolutionaries. They do not possess the determination required to carry out such an ambitious plan. They had never been able to set up a central control of the insurrection. Arms and ammunition were running short and there were no fresh supplies of ammunition or recruits reaching the insurgents from outside the country. Six weeks would have been sufficient to defeat the uprising. At present British forces were engaged in exterminating the MCP in isolated groups. Source F : A 1949 account written by a British major reporting back from the frontline during the Malayan Emergency. External factors had caused a change of policy with instructions being issued, possibly from Moscow, that Communist activity was to be stepped up throughout Southeast Asia. Events in China must have inspired the Communists in Malaya. The actual choice of time at which to initiate open hostilities could, however, equally well be due to more extremist personalities gaining control of the MCP, together with a feeling of frustration caused by government restrictions on Communist-controlled trade unions. The extremist leaders, who gained control of the Party in 1947, decided in May 1948, with some external influence, that the time was now ripe to switch from covert politi