Abdullah CD

Who is Abdullah CD?

Abdullah CD was the Chairman and currently General Secretary of the Communist Party of Malaya.

He was born in October 1923, in Parit, Perak. His involvement in politics was sparked by interests in the Maharajalela Wars against the British. As a young man, he joined the Kesatuan Melayu Muda, and became the secretary of the KMM in the Lambor district in Perak during the early stages of the Japanese Occupation. Abdullah CD eventually joined the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army to combat the Japanese.

After World War II, Abdullah CD was involved in the setting up of the Malay Nationalist Party in October 1945 with other early leftist Malay leaders such as Mokhtaruddin Lasso, Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy, Ahmad Boestamam, Ishak Haji Mohamad, amongst others. He was also responsible for organising the Malay labour movement, and was elected as the Vice-President of the Pan-Malayan Federation of Trade Unions.

Not long before the declaration of emergency in Malaya in June 1948 by the British colonial government, Abdullah CD, Dr. Burhanuddin Helmi and Ahmad Boestamam conducted a meeting to discuss the conditions and steps to be taken in the struggle for Malayan independence. When the British declared emergency, Abdullah led many members from the CPM, PKMM, API, AWAS and PETA into an anti-British guerilla revolution in the jungles of Malaya. In July 1948, he was captured in north Pahang, but he managed to escape.