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An extract from the ThinkCentre : ''Comet in Our Sky : Lim Chin Siong in History''
In a startling and revisionist essay, Dr Greg Poulgrain of Griffiths University observes that the British Governor of Singapore and his Chief Secretary in their reports to London had admitted that the police could find no evidence to establish that Lim was a communist.
Poulgrain claims it was actually Singapore's then Chief Minister, Lim Yew Hock, who had deliberately "provoked" the bus and other industrial workers and Chinese middle students to riot in 1956 in order to have Lim Chin Siong arrested.
Lim Yew Hock's own admission to responsibility for the riot appears in an official report to the British Government which Poulgrain found in the Colonial Office records in London which are now open to researchers.
"Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock," adds Poulgrain, "in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the subversives ban in making it illegal for former political detainees to stand for election."
In 1959, while Lim was in prison, the PAP won the general elections under which Lee became Prime Minister, and Singapore was granted self-government by the British in all matters except for internal security, defence and external affairs.
Although Lim and other leftist political detainees were released from prison, their co-operation and alliance with Lee ended in 1961 due to disagreements over policies and strategies.
Until then the media presented the PAP as a leftwing party, indicating the pervasive and dominant influence of Lim's faction within and outside the party. Their rivalry was intense and ideological. Lee finally resorted to arrests to remove Lim and his faction.
When Lim and other political detainees such as Fong Swee Suan and S. Woodhull were released, they were appointed Political Secretaries. But the honeymoon was soon over.
The PAP split in 1961 saw Lim taking away with him almost the entire PAP branches and personnel to form and lead a new party, the Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front).