From 3rd World to 1st

Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs make one thing unmistakably clear: the entire project of taking Singapore from 3rd world to 1st was a hard-fought battle against communism. Lee recounts how his party initially formed a united front with the communists to gain mass support among the Chinese-educated population, only to later turn against them once in power. Independence itself was not the end of the fight; the communist threat remained a central preoccupation long after separation from Malaysia.