Lim Chin Siong
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Lim Chin Siong AM |
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| 林清祥 | |
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| Assembly Member for Bukit Timah |
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In office 22 April 1955 – 31 March 1959 |
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| Preceded by | Hollupatherage James Caldera Kulasingha (as Legislative Councilman) |
| Succeeded by | Ya'acob bin Mohamed |
| Secretary-General of the Barisan Sosialis | |
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In office 3 October 1961 – 21 July 1969 |
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| Chairman | Lee Siew Choh |
| Preceded by | Post created |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 28, 1933 |
| Died | February 5, 1996 (aged 62) |
| Political party |
People's Action Party (1954-1961) Barisan Sosialis (1961-1969) |
Lim Chin Siong (Alternative spelling: Lim Ching Siong; Chinese: 林清祥; pinyin: Lín Qīng Xiáng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lîm Tshinn-siông; 28 February 1933 – 5 February 1996) was an influential leftwing politician and trade union leader in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s. He co-founded the People's Action Party in 1954, and galvanised many trade unions in support of the party with his popularity. He remains the youngest parliamentarian of Singapore to be elected. However, Lim's political career was cut short by two detentions without trial after being labelled a Communist: first, in 1956 to 1959, when under Lim Yew Hock he was arrested; and second, from 1963 to 1969, under Operation Coldstore. He was released in 1969 after he attempted suicide in prison, on the condition that he renounce politics for good.
Lim was born in 1933 to Lim Teng Geok (Chinese: 林廷玉; pinyin: Lín Tíngyù) and Ang Kee Neo (Chinese: 洪柿娘; pinyin: Hóng Shìniang) in Singapore, along Telok Ayer Street, and was the second child in a family that would eventually have 13 children, although one did not survive the Japanese occupation. The Great Depression had a profound impact on the global economy, even in Singapore. The Lims were forced to move to peninsular Malaya from Singapore in search of a better life when Chin Siong was 3 years old. Lim and his family eventually settled in Pontian Kechil, in Johor, where Chin Siong would spend his childhood.
Lim enrolled in Pei Chun Primary School in Pontian (today known as ) in 1939. It was a time when numerous events leading up to World War II were happening both at home and globally. The Marco Polo Bridge incident had only happened two years ago in 1937, while Lim also recalled in a manuscript that was published posthumously that his father's only brother, heeding the philanthropist Tan Kah Kee's call to arms, had volunteered to fight against the Japanese in China:
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