Communist Party of Burma Totally Explained

Everything about The Communist Party Of Burma totally explained

The Communist Party of Burma (; CPB) is the oldest existing political party in Myanmar (Burma). The party is unrecognised by the Burmese authorities, rendering it illegal; so it operates in a clandestine manner, often associating with insurgent armies along the border of China. It is often referred to as the Burma Communist Party (BCP) by both the Burmese government and the foreign media.
On 15 August 1939 at a secret meeting attended by seven men in a small room in Barr Street, Rangoon, the Communist Party of Burma was founded. They were:

Thakin^*Aung San
Thakin Ba Hein
Yèbaw†Ba Tin aka H N Goshal
Thakin Soe
Thakin Hla Pe (later Bo Let Ya)
Yèbaw Tun Maung aka Dr Nath and
Thakin Bo
Its leaders in its long history of nearly 70 years were:
1. Thakin Aung San - secretary general
2. Thakin Soe - secretary general
3. Thakin Thein Pe (later writer and journalist Thein Pe Myint) - secretary general
4. Thakin Than Tun - chairman
5. Thakin Zin - chairman
6. Thakin Ba Thein Tin - chairman
7. Yèbaw Kyin Maung - current secretary general(External Link)

^*Thakin is Burmese for master - members of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association) put Thakin in front of their names proclaiming that they were the true masters of Burma and not the British.
†Yèbaw means Comrade.

Fight for freedom

The CPB had played a very significant leading role in the struggle for independence from Great Britain and against imperialism. Between 1942 and 1945, the party prepared for and organised resistance against world fascism, which took the form of the Japanese Occupation of Burma in the region.
   While in Insein prison in July 1941, Thakins Soe and Than Tun had co-authored the Insein Manifesto which identified world fascism as the major enemy in the coming war and called for temporary cooperation with the British and the establishment of a broad coalition alliance that should include the Soviet Union. The struggle for national liberation against imperialism woud be resumed after the defeat of fascism. It followed the Popular Front line advanced by the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov at the Seventh Comintern Congress in 1935. This was against the prevailing opinion of the Dobama movement including Thakin Aung San who had secretly left Burma with a group of young men, who later became known as the Thirty Comrades, in order to receive military training from the Japanese and founded the Burma Independence Army (BIA), later renamed the Burma Defence Army (BDA) and subsequently the Burma National Army (BNA).
   A puppet administration was set up during the occupation by the Japanese on 1 August 1943. Soe had gone underground in the Irrawaddy Delta to organize armed resistance soon after the invasion, and Than Tun as Minister of Land and Agriculture was able to pass on intelligence to Soe. Other communist leaders Thakins Thein Pe and Tin Shwe made contact in July 1942 with the exiled colonial government in Simla, India. In January 1944 at a secret meeting near Dedaye in the Delta, the CPB successfully held its First Congress chaired by Soe.
   The Communists were in the forefront of armed resistance which subsequently became a national uprising on 27 March 1945 led by the BNA under the command of General Aung San. The communist commander Bohmu Ba Htoo of the northwest command based in Mandalay started the rebellion three weeks earlier on 8 March. The CPB together with the BNA and the People's Revolutionary Party (PRP, later renamed the Socialist Party), had formed the Anti-Fascist Organisation (AFO) at a meeting in Pegu in August 1944; it was transformed into the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) a year later after the defeat of Japan and the return of the British colonial administration in order to continue the fight for freedom. The party that had started with a small group of men now became a major legal political party from 1945 until 1948 when Burma gained independence from Britain.

Peace offensive

In 1963 Ne Win as head of the Revolutionary Council government launched a peace offensive starting with a general amnesty on 1 April. Bo Ye Htut, a member of the Thirty Comrades and central military committee of the CPB who had been to Rangoon on a secret peace mission before the 1958 AFPFL split, took the offer together with Bo Ye Maung and Bo Sein Tin. The KNU split in the same month between the KNUP and the Karen Revolutionary Council (KRC) led by Saw Hunter Tha Hmwe. The first insurgent group to arrive in Rangoon was the Red Flag delegation in June later joined by Thakin Soe himself from Arakan in August. After just three meetings the talks were abruptly ended by the RC on 20 August and the Red Flag communists were flown back to Sittwe.

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