The Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA) had established a series of bases along the Malaysian-Southern Thailand border. Between 19, the MCP underwent a period of streamlining, retraining, and re-indoctrination of the communist ideology. The first Malayan Emergency ended on 31 July 1960. The independence of the Federation of Malaya on 31 August 1957 removed the major cause for the communists as the Federation had gained full autonomy from the United Kingdom.

4 The Security and Development Programme (KESBAN)ĭuring the first Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the MCP launched an unsuccessful insurrection against the Federation of Malaya.

Besides the fighting on the Malay Peninsula, another communist insurgency also occurred in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in the island of Borneo, which had been incorporated into the Federation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963. This coincided with the Revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of several prominent communist regimes worldwide. The insurgency came to an end on 2 December 1989 when the MCP signed a peace accord with the Malaysian government at Hatyai in southern Thailand. Instead of declaring a ' state of emergency' as the British had done previously, the Malaysian government responded to the insurgency by introducing several policy initiatives including the Security and Development Program (KESBAN), Rukun Tetangga (Neighbourhood Watch), and the RELA Corps (People's Volunteer Group).

Despite efforts to make the MCP appeal to ethnic Malays, the organisation was dominated by Chinese Malaysians throughout the war. In 1970, the MCP experienced a schism which led to the emergence of two breakaway factions: the Communist Party of Malaya– Marxist-Leninist (CPM–ML) and the Revolutionary Faction (CPM–RF).

While the Malayan Communist Party received some limited support from the People's Republic of China, this support ended when the governments of Malaysia and China established diplomatic relations in June 1974. The conflict also coincided with renewed domestic tensions between ethnic Malays and Chinese in Peninsular Malaysia and regional military tensions due to the Vietnam War. Hostilities officially re-ignited when the MCP ambushed security forces in Kroh–Betong, in the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia, on 17 June 1968. Following the end of the Malayan Emergency in 1960, the predominantly ethnic Chinese Malayan National Liberation Army, armed wing of the MCP, had retreated to the Malaysian-Thailand border where it had regrouped and retrained for future offensives against the Malaysian government.

Insurgency workshop