ARI Working Paper Series

Decolonisation often involved picking from competing nationalist visions for the shape of the postcolonial nation-state. The visions which lost out are no less important for their impact on decolonisation and the nation-state, but they are often poorly understood. In Singapore, the rise of Singapore’s “progressive left” gave the opportunity and drove the timing for the merger of Federation of Malaya and Singapore in 1963, before its leadership was removed by Operation Coldstore. However, the nature of the progressive left – their values, motivations, and goals – has never been adequately understood. It is usually attributed to some degree of Communist subversion, and Operation Coldstore presented as the solution to a security problem. Using vernacular sources and newly declassified documents, this article analyses Singapore’s progressive left. It deconstructs the origin of the progressive left as a generational unit, reconceptualises the events of merger from their perspective, and re-evaluates their role and impact on the process of merger. In resituating the progressive left in the narrative of merger, it expands our understanding of Singapore’s decolonisation.