Typed 'Transcript of a Lecture given by Mr. Douglas Hyde at the Special Branch School [Royal Malaysia Police, Kuala Lumpur], on 8 July 1960.' With section of 'Questions and Answers'.

60pp., foolscap 8vo. Dogeared, and with first and last leaf creased, otherwise very good on lightly-aged paper. With a few manuscript corrections (by Hyde?). The talk itself covers pp.1-22, and the session of 'Questions and Answers' pp.23-60. Typed notes in the text (Spelling?', 'Distorted', 'Indistinct') indicate that the transcription was made from a recording. Besides the questions in the latter section are pencil notes relating to the identity of the questioner ('Craig', 'Scott', 'Asian', 'Australian'). An interested, animated and vivid talk, with such comments as: 'Now I was talking some months ago to Luis Taruc who was Supreme Commander of the Hukbalahap, the Communist guerrillas in the Philippines.' and 'A couple of years ago they hoped that another economic recession was coming in America but it didn't come, and, as Harry Pollitt said to me, the contradictions are still there but they (the capitalists) keep on finding dodges for getting around them. He said it very regretfully and wistfully. Nevertheless, he was convinced that sooner or later the collapse must come because every economic system ends sooner or later. | I said, "Well, Harry, how long do you think it will be before it comes? My guess would be about 10 or 15 years, or at any rate that is what you are thinking so far as I can see from Communist policies." "Yes", he said, "that's right, we are working pretty well to a 10 to 15 year plan." [...]' Later on, in response to a question, Hyde recalls that 'a few years ago Harry Pollitt was seriously ill, he thought he was going to die - I don't know whether his doctors thought he was going to die but he certainly thought he was going to die, as he told me when I travelled out with him the other day. [...] He was hoping when he travelled out to Australia in April that this was, in fact, the first step to coming back into activity and becoming the first really active President that the British Communist Party had had. Instead of which, as you know, he died just as he was leaving Australia.' Hyde begins his response to the question from 'Scott' 'What responsibilities do the British Communist Party or the Australian Communist Party have towards this part of the world?': 'Well, both parties have had their fingers in the Malayan pie in the past with quite catastrophic consequences I would say. The importance of the British Communist Party to Moscow today, and for many years, has been I would say not so much that the British Communist Party is likely in the foreseeable future to turn Britain into a Soviet country, as that the British Communist Party has been responsible for steering the young Communist parties of colonial areas, throughout what was once the British Empire, over a long period of time.' Another ('Asian') question on Malayan matters reads 'In view that the C.P.M. comprises mostly of Chinese with a sprinking of Indians and Malays, what method should the P.K.I. adopt towards Malaya?' Hyde concludes by stating that he has 'now, literally, thousands of people on the way out of the Communist Party who have been in touch with me over the last twelve years - and in my experience almost always you find that people go into Communism for one reason and are held as time goes on for other reasons. [...] Very often when you probe into the life of a Communist you find, to his surprise, that Communism doesn't mean much to him [...] what, in fact, it means is that his pride is involved.' From the private papers of C. A. A. Nicol, who joined the Malayan Union Police Force in 1950, and served in the Royal Malaysian Police between 1957 and 1967, 'to assist in promoting and consolidating the successful transition to full independence. During this period the Special Branch played a vital role in maintaining peace and security in the country.'