Imagine, for a moment, that Osama bin Laden were to remain alive, if not especially active, for some decades in remote sanctuaries on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Then (to continue the hypothetical scenario) he admits defeat, negotiates immunity from prosecution and emerges from seclusion, looking more like a mild-mannered and moderately prosperous businessman than a fanatical terrorist. With the aid of a couple of western journalists, he writes his memoirs, consulting the archives of the governments against which he directed his attacks. In the book he candidly admits to mistakes and errors of judgement, but also responds vigorously to many of the assertions made against him, both by political leaders at the time he was active and by historians during the intervening decades.

Historical analogies are never perfect, but that scenario will give some idea of the impact, at least on some people of a certain age, of the notion that Chin Peng has written a book to present his 'side of history'. In the early 1950s, during the Malayan Emergency, he was 'Public Enemy Number One' to the British colonial authorities fighting the insurgency led by the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) of which he was Secretary-General.

After the Emergency was declared over in 1960 (minor guerrilla activities petered on in Southern Thailand and northern Malaysia until the early 1980s), he based himself in Beijing. His forces remained on the Thai-Malaysian border until 1989 when they finally laid down their arms. In 1999 he came to Australia as part of the process of writing these memoirs, carrying out research in the Australian War Memorial and participating in a fascinating workshop at the Australian National University with a number of historians working in relevant areas.

The book is as easy to read as a spy novel, but more satisfying for being non-fiction. The principal source is Chin Peng's memory, which must be extraordinarily powerful if every detail in this book is accurate. But it has an authentic ring, and the book gains credibility both from its balanced tone and from its willingness to admit tactical errors and false judgements. Specialists will find it frustrating that there are no footnotes. Thus, when Chin Peng (or, to give his real name, Ong Boon Hua) criticises 'western historians' for this or that claim, as he frequently does, his targets are not clearly identified. But it is hard to not be impressed by his assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of major players on both sides.

Among the leading British politicians and soldiers, for example, Malcolm MacDonald emerges as a scheming manipulator and Gerald Templer as a choleric egotist, but Lieutenant General Sir Harold Briggs, author of the Briggs Plan, is generously acknowledged as the principal architect of the CPM's defeat. Robert Thompson, the official whose reputation as an expert in counter-insurgency took to him to leadership of the British advisory mission in Vietnam, is not even mentioned.

For Australian readers, perhaps the most interesting passage relates to the 1948 visit to Singapore by Laurence Sharkey, head of the Australian Communist Party, on his way back to Australia from a communist congress in Calcutta. At the time, the British argued, Moscow had directed communist parties around the world to adopt a more militant line, and Sharkey had carried this message to the comrades in Malaya. The outbreak of the Emergency therefore showed that the British were fighting against global communism, not an anti-colonial insurgency.

Chin Peng's account dismisses the 'Calcutta Conference' approach to the outbreak of the Emergency. He portrays the CPM as motivated by nationalism, rather than by adherence to Moscow, and insists that he had virtually no contact with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The book, especially its last chapters, presents an authentic picture of the relations between communist parties, especially the balance between independence and subservience that the CPM had to display towards Beijing.

But there is an extraordinary aspect to Chin Peng's account of the Sharkey visit. The CPM leaders, it is said, asked the Australian how he dealt with non-union strikebreakers. Sharkey, admired as a strong and effective communist leader, says: 'We get rid of them'. He explains that he means that the Australian communists kill strikebreakers, but only in rural and mining areas. According to Chin Peng (p.204), 'Sharkey's words sent a rush of reinforced fervour through our gathering'. Sharkey was almost certainly indulging in braggadocio, but he may well have encouraged the CPM on a path that led to many more Chinese than Europeans being killed in this supposedly anti-colonial uprising.