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‘We want the people of the whole world to stand by the side of the people of Burma’
KENNY COYLE talks to a representative of the Communist Party of Burma about its current priorities in the wake of the coup d’etat earlier this year

IN THE 1930s, a group of young, educated Myanmar radicals, who became known as the Thakins, emerged within the broader nationalist movement Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association).

Marxist ideas and literature had circulated in British-ruled Burma since the early 1930s, often as a result of Myanmar students in Britain making contact with the British Communist Party and the League Against Imperialism. A Red Dragon Book Club was set up in 1937 modelled on Britain’s Left Book Club. 

In August 1939, a small group of the Thakins, including Aung San, held the founding congress of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). 

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