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Preface
1. On 28 March 1963 President Sukarno issued Decree No. 53/1963 recognizing Tan Malaka as a hero of national independence (for a complete text of this decree see Introduction, n. 93). The tenuousness of this belated recognition is indicated by the fact that no monuments or highways bear his name: I have found only an alleyway in South Jakarta and a back street in Padang. Tan Malaka is yet to be the subject of any of the myriad biographies of heroes published in Indonesia.
2. Sekolah Rakyat (People’s School). For details of these schools, the first of which was established by Tan Malaka in Semarang in 1921, see Volume I, pp. 58-59.
3. Persatuan Perjuangan (Struggle Front): the name of the united front established by Tan Malaka in January 1946 to advocate the course of perjuangan (struggle) for the Indonesian revolution, as opposed to the course of diplomasi (diplomacy) pursued by the government. For details see Volume III, chapters 9 to 14.
4. For details of the Partai Murba, see below, pp. cxiii-cxv. For discussion of the term murba and its relationship to the term “proletariat,” see below pp. xci-xcv.
5. For details on this romantic body of literature relating to Tan Malaka, see below, pp. lxxii-lxxiii
6. See, for instance, his farewell to Hong Kong, Volume II, p. 52.
7. PARI (Partai Republik Indonesia: Republic of Indonesia party). This was the political party founded by Tan Malaka in June 1927, following the destruction of the PKI in the wake of the 1926-1927 uprisings (see Jarvis, Partai Republik Indonesia (PARI), and Poeze, Tan Malaka, chapter 10).
8. Letter from Hasan Sastraatmadja, 3 October 1981. According to Paramita Abdurrachman, Tan Malaka was a proficient typist and used a Baby Hermes. She herself typed the manuscript of Madilog and recalls typing some episodes from Tan Malaka’s life story, presumably sections of this text, although she does not recall the details (interview, Sydney, 26 May 1982).
9. Interviews with Paramita Abdurrachman, Jakarta, 24 October 1972, and Sydney, 26 May 1982.
10. See Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 416-17. This point has been subsequently pursued in personal discussions and correspondence. Poeze (letter, 19 December 1980) quotes Panghulu Lubis of Yogyakarta (who apparently was involved in the publication of the stencilled versions of Tan Malaka’s writings) to the effect that Tan Malaka saw the published books and that it is not possible that any substantial part was lost. I stand by my interpretation of the lacuna.
11. Discussion in Jakarta, September 1980; Tan Malaka, Thesis.
12. Suzuki, “The List of Writings of Tan Malaka.”
13. In referring to the different editions I have used the following codes: Solo, Wakaf Republik, Widjaya and DT (copy with Djamaluddin’s annotations).
14. This widespread occurrence of poor typography was hardly surprising in a country experiencing revolution and occupation and emerging from a period of wartime scarcity of resources. With Jakarta under Dutch control through much of the revolutionary period, even less access to existing printing facilities was available to the burgeoning number of political writers anxious to get their ideas into print. Lack of skilled personnel only exacerbated the situation.
15. Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, pp. 150-62.
16. Robert Halsbrand, “Editing the Letters of Letter-Writers,” in Art and Error: Modem Textual Editing, ed. Ronald Gottesman and Scott Bennett (London: Methuen, 1970), p. 130.
17. Here discussed only as regards the problems of translation. For further comment on Tan Malaka’s use of language and his style, see below, pp. xxxiv-xxxvi.
18. For an exposition of various issues involved in the development of modern Indonesian, see Alisjahbana, Language Planning for Modernization, esp. pp. 66 and 90-91 on affix differentiation.
19. Figures of the literacy rate in the 1940s are not available, but the 1930 census estimated literacy in the roman script on Java to be at 6.5 percent. Considerable advances were made after that date, particularly the mass basic education campaigns during the Japanese occupation. Nevertheless, it is incontestable that the audience for a book such as this represented a small segment of the population consisting of people who had received a formal education, generally including some Dutch language instruction, or those who had come to literacy and political consciousness through the nationalist movement, which used Dutch terminology for abstract and modern concepts not catered to in the traditional Malay language from which Indonesian was developing. Some of these Dutch terms were later assimilated into Indonesian (e.g., nasionalisme, partai, fakultas). Others were replaced by new Indonesian terms (e.g., djoernalis by wartawan, bibliotheek by perpustakaan) (see Alisjahbana, Language, esp. pp. 67-81).
Introduction
1. Aslia was Tan Malaka’s term, coined to express the future political entity combining Southeast Asia and northern Australia. For details of this concept see below, pp. xcvi-xcix.
2. Soetomo, Kenang-kenangan, p. 6, cited in Benedict Anderson, “A Time of Darkness and a Time of Light: Transposition in Early Indonesian Nationalist Thought,” in Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Reid and Marr, p. 224.
3. While we have no direct evidence that Tan Malaka read Pellico’s work, the combination of his voracious appetite for reading and the popularity of the book as a political romance and as an inspiration for those resisting authority make it likely that he did, possibly during his frequent browsings in the bookshop near where he lived in Haarlem in 1915-1916. Since its first publication in 1832 it has averaged six Italian editions a year. It was translated into a number of European languages, including Dutch in 1841 (Sylvio Pellico, My Prisons).
Pellico was arrested in 1920 and charged with being a member of the Carbonari, one of the secret societies aiming to drive the Austrian authorities out of Italy. The group organized a number of uprisings between 1815 and 1848. Pellico’s involvement with the Carbonari was short-lived and marginal. Activists in the group criticized his book for its meek Christian resignation to suffering.
4. See Benedict Anderson, “The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture,” and Taufik Abdullah, “Modernization in the Minangkabau World: West Sumatra in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century,” both in Claire Holt, Culture and Politics in Indonesia; for a discussion of the concept as it relates to Tan Malaka and the Minangkabau culture, see Rudolf Mrázek, “Tan Malaka: A Political Personality’s Structure of Experience.”
5. Shelly Errington, “Some Comments on Style in the Meanings of the Past,” in Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Reid and Marr, pp. 31, 36. It might be noted here that there is another explanation for the repetition in the text of From Jail to Jail. As mentioned above (Preface, pp. xi-xii), it seems likely that Tan Malaka wrote the text in sections and, under prison conditions, probably did not have the chance to look back over his previous work, already sent out of the jail for safekeeping.
6. Errington, “Some Comments,” in Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Reid and Marr, pp. 30, 39.
7. A. H. Hill, trans., The Hikayat Abdullah [by] Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi, preface, p. vii.
8. For Tan Malaka this was a highly unusual use of the metaphor of illumination, commonly used in other representations of the process of political awakening in early twentieth-century Indonesian accounts. See Anderson, “A Time,” p. 219.
9. Ruth McVey has referred to the early PKI writers’ aim of opening the boundaries of thought, for which “the relationship of new ideas to old modes of perception was necessary” (“Perception and Action in an Indonesian Communist Image of the Past,” in Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Reid and Marr, p. 346).”
10. Benedict Anderson, “The Languages of Indonesian Politics,” p. 103.
11. Matu Mona, Spionnage-dienst (Patjar Merah Indonesia) (Medan: Centrale Courant en Boekhandel, [1938]), pp. 112-18. Presumably it is this novel that Tan Malaka found on arrival in Medan in 1942 (Volume II, p. 116).
12. Reid, Indonesian National Revolution 1945-1950, p. 176.
13. Pemuda literally means “youth.” Since the “Youth Oath” of 1928 the meaning of the term was extended to mean activists and radicals, the “young in spirit” of whatever chronological age.
14. Details of such charges and countercharges are given in my note no. 21 to chapter 7 (Volume III, p. 227).
15. Sukarno, Autobiography, p. 238.
16. Quoted in Reid, “The Nationalist Quest for an Indonesian Past,” in Perceptions of the Past, ed. Reid and Marr, p. 281.
17. As Tan Malaka himself reports (Volume II, pp. 180-81) these themes also formed the repertoire for official theater companies during the war.
18. Mohammad Ali, “Historiographical Problems,” in An Introduction to Indonesian Historiography, ed. Soedjatmoko and Mohammad Ali, G. J. Resink, and G. McT. Kahin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956), pp. 21-22. It should be noted that the Pandangan hidup referred to is a republication of Volume III, chapter 1 of From Jail to Jail.
19. For a summary of the differing views on this subject, see Ali, “Historiographical Problems,” pp. 1-23; and his Pengantar ilmu sedjarah Indonesia. Ali presented an unusually favorable image of Tan Malaka, whom he described as “a consistent (konsekwen) communist” and whose views on Indonesian history he quotes extensively in this textbook for tertiary study of Indonesian history. See also Reid, “The Nationalist Quest for an Indonesian Past,” in Perceptions of the Past, ed. Reid and Marr, pp. 281-98; and Himpunan lengkap kertas-kerja.
20. Dirlik, Revolution and History.
21. Dirlik, Revolution, p. 29. One may note also the parallels in form of presentation. Dirlik remarks, “Their formulaic phraseology . . . imposed a mechanical and even diagrammatic quality on those ideas.”
22. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945, p. 316.
23. McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism.
24. Georges Gusdorf, “Conditions and Limitations of Autobiography,” in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 28-29.
25. Roff, Autobiography and Biography in Malay Historical Studies, p. 1.
26. Anthony H. Johns, “From Caricature and Vignette to Ambivalence and Angst: Changing Perspectives of Character in the Malay World,” in Self and Biography: Essays on the Individual and Society in Asia, ed. Wang Gungwu (Sydney: Sydney University Press for the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1975), pp. 40-41.
27. Wang Gungwu, Self and Biography, introduction, p. 4.
28. Hill, Hikayat Abdullah, introduction, pp. 26-27.
29. Over this forty-year period, the following titles are the only autobiographies by prominent Indonesian political actors that come to mind: Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup; Sukarno, Sukarno: An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams; Djojohadikusumo, Herrineringen uit drie tijdperken; Abu Hanifah, Tales of a Revolution; Ganis Harsono, Reflections of an Indonesian Diplomat in the Sukarno Era; Ahmad Subardjo Djojoadisuryo, Kesadaran nasional; Adam Malik, Mengabdi Republik; Mohammad Hatta, Memoir; and Sastroamijojo, Milestones on My Journey.
30. Tan Malaka as anti-Dutch was a constant theme of official and nonofficial Dutch publications alike during the revolution, perhaps best exemplified by William F. de Bruyn, The Rising Soviet Star over Indonesia (The Hague: National Committee for “Unity of the Kingdom,” 1947), pp. 8-9. A more recent expression appears in Mrázek, “Tan Malaka,” p. 26.
31. This facet of Tan Malaka’s personality has been remarked on by Benedict Anderson: “I can think of no other Indonesian leader of stature so willing to be publicly indebted to the Chinese, or so genuinely free of racial prejudice” (Java, p. 274, n. 17).
32. Shown to me during an interview, Sydney, 4 May 1978 (original in English).
33. For example Volume III, pp. 13-27, and, at greater length, his philosophical work Madilog (materialisme, dialektika, logika), especially chapter 7, pp. 276-410.
34. See especially Hamka’s introduction to Tan Malaka, Islam dalam tindjuan Madilog, pp. 3-4.
35. Mrázek, “Tan Malaka,” pp. 28-33 and p. 17, where he quotes (somewhat loosely) from Tan Malaka, Massa actie (1947), pp. 69-70.
36. Tan Malaka, “De Islam en het Bolszjewisme,” De Tribune, 21 September 1922, quoted by McVey, Rise, p. 161.
37. Interview with Ibu Hasan Sastraatmadja, Jakarta, 1 November 1972.
38. One may observe here a parallel with another revolutionary, as noted: “Lenin hoarded space as well as time, writing in a tiny script” (Mazlish, The Revolutionary Ascetic, p. 135).
39. Interview with Abdul Muluk Djalil, Jakarta, 1 November 1972.
40. Interview with Hasan Sastraatmadja, Jakarta, 1 November 1972 (underlined phrases spoken in English).
41. Interviews with informants in Bayah, 23 September 1980, and Anderson, Java, p. 275.
42. Poeze, Tan Malaka, chapter 2, “Op de Kweekschool,” pp. 18-32.
43. Quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 208-9.
44. J. de Kadt, Uit mijn communistentijd, p. 286, quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 243.
45. Recollections by Abdurrachman are from interviews in Jakarta, 24 October 1972, and Sydney, 26 May 1982.
46. Interview with Adam Malik, Jakarta, 6 October 1972.
47. Interview with Djajarukmantara, Jakarta, 26 September 1980.
48. Interview with Abdurrachman, Jakarta, 24 October 1972. In a later interview, Sydney, 26 May 1982, she reaffirmed this clandestine approach of Tan Malaka in Jakarta. Although living in the same house, he was still “Hussein” until she deduced his identity and confronted Subardjo with her suspicions. Likewise, Nelly Malik recalls that during the time they shared a house in Yogyakarta, Tan Malaka kept entirely to himself, suspicious of all strangers (interview, Jakarta, 6 October 1972).
49. On Tan Malaka’s instructions to his mother not to visit him in Padang, see Toendoek kepada kekoeasaan, tetapi tidak toendoek kepada kebenaran, p. 90; information on Tan Malaka’s mother came from interviews (including one with her second husband, Murin) in and around Pandam Gadang, November 1972.
50. Budiman Djaja, “Mengenang,” Tempo, 28 March 1963, and quoted in Anderson, Java, p. 276, n. 21.
51. Interview with Paramita Abdurrachman in Jakarta, 24 October 1972. The two previous romantic attachments referred to here are (1) the pressure placed upon him to marry his schoolmate Sjarifah Nawawi in 1913, to accord with the tradition that the holder of the title Datuk Tan Malaka be married; and (2) the Dutch socialist Fenny Struyvenberg, who spent some time with Tan Malaka during 1922 in Holland (see p. lxi above).
In my interviews I came across numerous allusions to allegations of Tan Malaka’s being homosexual, generally swiftly dismissed by the person being interviewed—whether genuinely rejected or pushed aside for fear of bringing ill repute to Tan Malaka, I could not know. The only place I have seen the issue discussed in print is in Budiman Djaja’s “Mengenang”: “his close friends give assurances that he was not gay (bantji) or someone who was ‘not normal’. He never organized a household for strong reasons-he was always on the run.”
52. If one wishes to categorize Tan Malaka according to political personality type, then he can perhaps be seen to fit closely the “revolutionary ascetic” model developed by Bruce Mazlish from the character of Lenin. Self-disciplined and self-restrained; simple in dress, speech, and personal tastes; thorough, fastidious, and punctual; complete dedication to work punctuated by bouts of extreme fatigue, perhaps depression; committed to energy and to work: the type certainly fits Tan Malaka closely, but did he also like cats? I cannot answer that question, but I am prompted to ask it by my own dissatisfaction with personality typecasting without reference to political persuasion.
53. Alimin, Analysis. See also Alimin’s views as recorded in an interview on 14 October 1946 by W. Ch. J. Bastiaans, Indonesia Merdeka.
54. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (1970), p. v.
55. Sol Tas, Indonesia: The Underdeveloped Freedom (New York: Pegasus, 1974), pp. 200-2.
56. M. A. Jaspan, “Aspects of Indonesian Political Sociology in the Late Soekarno Era. Part III. Counter-Revolution and Rebellion: An Interpretative Analysis of Events in the Period Sept. 1965 to June 1966,” in South-East Asian Journal of Sociology 3 (1970), p. 53.
57. See Philippines Free Press, 10 September 1927.
58. Anderson, Java, pp. 276-77.
59. Shigetada Nishijima, Shogen: Indoneshia dokuritsu kakumei, pp. 189-90.
60. Subardjo, Kesadaran nasional, p. 359.
61. Arnold C. Brackman, Indonesian Communism, pp. 27-28 and 39. See also William F. de Bruyn, The Rising Soviet Star over Indonesia (The Hague: National Committee for “Unity of the Kingdom,” 1947), p. 8, which states that Tan Malaka was a member of the Japanese secret service. Bastiaans’ October 1946 notes of an interview with Alimin refer to Tan Malaka’s political program as “the same as the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere of the Japanese” to Tan Malaka “working with the fascists” and threw in the question as to whether or not Tan Malaka was a British agent! Bastiaans, Indonesia merdeka, pp. 40-41.
62. Lazitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, p. 249.
63. Tan Malaka refers to such “false Tan Malakas” in Volume II, p. 130, and Volume III, pp. 9 and 106. Many of my informants corroborated the existence of these “Tan Malaka” propagandists for the Japanese (for example, interviews with A. B. Loebis, Jakarta, 30 October 1972; Adam Malik, Jakarta, 7 October 1972; Sjamsuddin Tjan, Jakarta, 8 October 1972; Mohammad Hatta, Jakarta, 29 November 1972; Chaeruddin, Jakarta, 28 November 1972). According to Sakti Arga, some eight Tan Malakas were reported in Jakarta alone! (Tan Malaka, p. 4). However, Japanese intelligence agent Shigetada Nishijima dismissed these reports as “rumours” without foundation (Shogen, p. 189).
64. “Tan Malaka dan soal rechtspositienja diloear Indonesia,” Pewarta Deli, 1 July 1933, which captions Tan Malaka’s photograph with the words “Patjar Merah (the scarlet pimpernel) dalam pergerakan de Asia.” In the early 1930s, the Partindo journal Indonesian Berdjoang carried reports signed “Patjar Merah.” (Jacques Leclerc, “La clandestinité et son double,” p. 234.)
65. Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 487, noting that Emnast was the pen name of Muchtar Nasution.
66. Ratu Sukma, Tan Malaka, pp. 21-22.
67. Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel was first published in Indonesian translation by the government publishing house Balai Poestaka as early as 1926. As Indonesia was on the circuit for popular European films, one can assume that the many screenplays, from the first silent movie of 1917 to the first sound film of 1935, were screened in the main towns.
68. Benedict Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution, pp. 406-7.
69. Muhammad Yamin, “Tan Malacca, Bapak Republik Indonesia,” Kedaulatan Rakyat, 29 December 1945.
70. Muhammad Yamin, Tan Malaka, Bapak Republik Indonesia, p. 26.
71. Muhammad Yamin, Tan Malaka, Bapak Republik Indonesia, pp. 24 and 5 respectively.
72. See below, pp. xci-xcv.
73. This point is made earlier by Isnomo (p. 138), but the only reference is a brief mention by Sudijono Djojoprajitno in PKI-SIBAR contra Tan Malaka, p. 193.
74. For example Adam Malik, Mengabdi Republik, vol. 1, pp. 188-89; and Wasid Soewarto, Kita madju terus dengan adjaran Tan Malaka, Murbaisme, p. 5.
75. “Keputusan Presiden Republik Indonesia, No. 53, tahun 1963, 28 Maret, 1963”: “We, president of the Republic of Indonesia, considering that the late Tan Malaka should be given recognition by the state in consideration of his services as a leader of Indonesia in the past, in that throughout his life, urged on by a feeling of love for his people and his homeland, he led an organised movement to oppose the colonizer of Indonesia; bearing in mind Presidential Decision No. 217, 1957 concerning regulations for Heroes of National Independence, and Presidential Decision No. 241, 1958 concerning regulations on declaring Heroes of National Independence
Hereby declare
first, the late Tan Malaka as a Hero of National Independence; Secondly, that the provisions of Presidential Decision 217, 1957 apply concerning commemoration of the soul of the departed; thirdly, that this decision takes effect from the day of its proclamation” (included as appendix to Muhammad Yamin, Tan Malaka, p. 40).
76. Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 53-58.
77. Tan Malaka’s Naar de ‘Republiek Indonesia’ is given as the earliest mention of this concept by an Indonesian nationalist in R. C. Kwantes, De ontwikkeling van de nationalistische beweging in Nederlandsch-Indie, vol. 2, p. 484. Mohammad Hatta refutes Tan Malaka’s claim to be the first to call for a republic, claiming that Tjipto Mangunkusumo had done so in 1913 (Bung Hatta menjawab, p. 18). However, I have found no reference to a republic in Tjipto’s writings, and Savitri Scherer’s discussion of his views concludes, “at no stage did he ever consider that the system which bound colonial rule and the natives should be abandoned or ignored. This system was to be improved to benefit both sides” (“Harmony and Dissonance,” p. 169).
78. Sukarno referred to an “Indonesian Political Economic Republic” (Soekarno’s Mentjapai Indonesian Merdeka, p. 32). Hatta declared “An independent Indonesia must be a Republic. . . .” (“Kearah Indonesia merdeka” in his Kumpulan karangan, vol. 1, p. 117).
79. For a fuller discussion of PARI see Jarvis, Partai Republik, and Poeze, Tan Malaka, chapter 10.
80. PPTUS report 9 July 1931 from Dirja (Alimin?) to Alex, enclosed in letter from Dutch consul-general in Shanghai to Procureur General, 29 July 1931 in Mailrapport 1005x/31, quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 416. This rapprochement is referred to elsewhere: the British Consul in Batavia, Fitzmaurice, reported on 1 October 1931 that “according to seized archives, the well-known Netherlands East Indies communist Tan Malaka was to operate in Burma with one Dirja [Alimin] while Moeso was to form a liaison with these two in Shanghai. Sums of $45,000 and $50,000 respectively were voted by T.U.S.S. (Profintern) for Burma and Malaya” (Document PZ 7375, enclosure to Despatch 105 from Fitzmaurice to Secretary of State, India Office Records). See also “Tan Malaka dan Partai Republiek Indonesia” [by Muso?] in Mailrapport 146x/38, p. 8.
81. “By proletariat [is meant] the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live” (footnote by Frederick Engels to the 1888 edition of Manifesto of the Communist Party [Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing house, n.d.], p. 47, n. 2).
82. On this aspect of Sukarno’s views, the following assessments are instructive: (1) “neither through organization nor through an appeal for mass action was the People called on to move. . . . support of the People was used by Sukarno in practice as a lever for dealings which remained within the intimate sphere of capital [city] politics” (McVey, introduction to Sukarno’s Nationalism, Islam and Marxism, p. 6).
“Marhaenism was used specifically to distinguish between proletarianism, which is based on class struggle, as taught by Marx, and the union of people of different classes fighting against colonialism, as was experienced in Indonesia. It meant the union of the whole nation, which is broader than just the union of the proletariat” (Mangkupradja, “The Peta and My Relations with the Japanese,” p. 109).
“Bung Karno’s message is: not class struggle within the nation, but national unity to oppose Dutch colonialism. In Indonesia, class struggle in essence reduces to race struggle. For this reason Bung Karno’s cry is not ‘workers of the world unite’, but rather ‘marhaen of Indonesia unite’” (Abdulgani, “Perkembangan tjita2 sosialisme di Indonesia,” p. 25).
David Reeve, however, maintains that Sukarno wavered on the question of class divisions in Indonesian society, at times arguing “that Indonesia was virtually an entire oppressed class fighting foreign capitalism and imperialism. Sukarno certainly aspired to lead the entire nation in ‘mass action’ against this imperialism rather than to cater for what he perceived as sectors of that nation. He developed a set of ideas which allowed him to avoid a firm commitment to class struggle within the future independent state while still claiming to be a Marxist as well as a nationalist and a Muslim. Nevertheless, while others of Sukarno’s ideas have a distinctive clarity, restated in almost identical terms from essay to essay, from year to year, he returns frequently to the class struggle with differing emphases, reworking the ideas, giving a sense of uneasiness in his rejection of what he knew to be a fundamental part of Marxist theory” (“An Alternative to the Party System in Indonesia,” pp. 59-60).
83. See, for example, Pacific, 8 November 1948.
84. This view was not his alone: see for instance Indonesia Accuses: Soekarno’s Defence Oration in the Political Trial of 1930, pp. 97-98.
85. See Sheila McGregor, “Muhammad Yamin: An Examination of his Political Thought,” for a discussion of this and other elements dominant in Yamin’s philosophy.
86. See Roff, The Origins of Malay Nationalism, p. 89, and “Indonesian and Malay Students in Cairo in the 1920’s.”
87. Cheah, “The Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 1941-45,” p. 88, provides much of the information used as the basis for this paragraph. See also Ahmad Boestamam, Carving the Path to the Summit, trans. William R. Roff (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979); Khoo, “The Beginnings of Political Extremism in Malaya 1915-1935”; I. K. Agastya (Ibrahim Yaacob), Sedjarah dan perdjuangan di Malaya; Yaacob, Sekitar Malaya Merdeka; and McIntyre, “The Greater Indonesia Idea of Nationalism in Malaya and Indonesia.”
88. See, for example, Cheah, “A Contest for Postwar Malaya,” p. 20.
89. Cheah, “Japanese Occupation,” p. 112; Kanahele, “The Japanese Occupation of Indonesia,” pp. 210-11, 319; McIntyre, “Greater,” pp. 80-81.
90. See Jarvis, Partai Republik.
91. Interview with Djamaluddin Tamim, Jakarta, 6 October 1972.
92. Enthusiasm and great expectations on Muso’s arrival were expressed in the major article “Apakah kita harapkan dari Muso?” Moerba, 14 August 1948, which concluded “Welcome, comrade Muso!”
93. Partai Murba, Anggaran dasar Partai Murba and Anggaran rumah tangga.
94. Gerakan Revolusi Rakyat (Revolutionary People’s Movement). See Appendix B, p. 368.
95. As he says himself, “Over this period of thirty years or more, my analysis of the character of Dutch capitalist imperialism has not changed at all; neither has my political and economic objective; nor my analysis of the means by which the Indonesian people have to achieve that objective” (Volume III, p. 151).
96. See Philippines Free Press, 3 September 1927.
97. For example, Officiële bescheiden betreffende de Nederlands-Indonesische betrekkingen 1945-1950, vol. 2, p. 561, and vol. 3, pp. 197 and 342; Charles A. Livengood (U.S. consul general in Batavia), Despatch to Secretary of State, 25 February 1949, NARS Record Group 59, file 856E.OOB/2-2549, box 6306.
98. For specific reference to the Tito parallel see Soewarto, Hakekat situasi dan perkembangan luar dan dalam negeri dan sikap kita, p. 2; interview with Rustam Effendi, Jakarta, 23 November 1972; and Angeles, “The Man Who Brought Communism to the Philippines.” This characterization was advanced, with perhaps more accuracy, regarding the Partai Murba as it developed in the late 1950s and 1960s by Soedarso, “Indonesia: PKI and Trotskyist.”
99. As well as Reid (discussed below), see for example Howard Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream, p. 157; Caldwell and Utrecht, An Alternative History of Indonesia, p. 72, which opts for the description “so-called ‘national communist’ or ‘Trotskyite’”; Penders, note 58, p. 47 of Abu Hanifah’s Tales of a Revolution, and on p. 299 a reference by Abu Hanifah himself to Tan Malaka as “leader of the so-called ‘National Marxists’”; and Suzuki, “Tan Malaka: Perantauan and the Power of Ideas,” in People and Society in Indonesia, p. 31.
100. Nowhere in his writings does Tan Malaka allude to being at the Sixth Congress, nor indeed to returning at all to the Soviet Union after 1923. In interviews with Ruth McVey in 1959, both Semaun and Darsono denied that Tan Malaka attended the congress. From Ruth McVey’s account (Rise, p. 436, n. 18), it appears that Alphonso was actually one Mohammad Tohir (known more widely as Tadjudin according to Harry Poeze [Tan Malaka, p. 407]). “Alphonso” achieved some notoriety at the congress by disagreeing vehemently with Bukharin’s presentation of the theses on the colonial question, claiming that they advocated the same cooperation with bourgeois nationalists that had proved so disastrous in China. Bukharin retorted, in the fashion of Stalinist bureaucrats, by denouncing Alphonso as a “Trotskyite.” Since Tan Malaka had in fact criticized the theses at the Fourth Congress in 1922 and had disagreed sharply with the course of the PKI in 1926, it is easy to understand how people assumed that he was Alphonso and that he had earned the sobriquet. Even after the publication of McVey’s book in 1965, the assumption that Tan Malaka was Alphonso persists. Benedict Anderson, whose Java in a Time of Revolution does more than any other book on the revolution to place Tan Malaka’s role in perspective, simply repeats the assertion (p. 274) without mentioning McVey’s refutation. And Charles McLane, writing in 1966, even cites McVey in his assertion of Tan Malaka’s presence at the Sixth Congress (“Alphonso . . . was beyond much doubt Tan Malaka”), and annotates thus: “Most students of Indonesian Communism so assume—see Kahin and McVey—the only reason for questioning this judgement is Tan Malaka’s own testimony, in an autobiography written in the 1940s, that he did not return to Russia after his departure in 1923. . . . The autobiography, however is not noted for its accuracy” (Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia, p. 99).
101. Pemberontakan, p. 123.
102. Some indication of the wide range of writers assigning the “Trotskyist” tag to Tan Malaka may be gleaned from the following references: Chaudry, The Indonesian Struggle, pp. 117-18; Kattenburg, “The Indonesian Question in World Politics, August 1945-January 1948,” p. 362 (which introduces Tan Malaka as a “pseudo-trotskyite”); Dahm, History of Indonesia in the Twentieth Century, p. 118; Thompson and Adloff, The Left Wing in South-East Asia, p. 285; Roeder, The Smiling General, p. 106; Caldwell and Utrecht, Alternative, p. 72 (“so-called . . . Trotskyite”). The principal source for these hand-me-down characterizations appears to be Kahin’s Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia, long regarded as the most authoritative account of the 1945-1949 period of Indonesian history. Kahin himself does not describe Tan Malaka as a Trotskyist, but refers (p. 85) to the PKI leadership’s use of the label.
103. Peringatan sewindu hilangnja Tan Malaka.
104. PARI Manifesto in Mailrapport 446x/36, quoted in Jarvis, Partai Republik, app. 2, p. 2.
105. I have examined Writings of Leon Trotsky, 14 vols. (New York: Pathfinder, 1969-1979), and have also asked his translator, George Saunders, to check the recently opened “Trotsky Archives” in the Harvard University Library. He has found no reference to Tan Malaka.
106. Max Perthus, Henk Sneevliet: revolutionair-socialist in Europa en Asie; Fritjof Tichelman, Henk Sneevliet: een politieke biografie.
Indeed, without the apparatus of the Comintern, from which Sneevliet split in 1927, how was he to go about tracking down Tan Malaka, hidden in a remote village in southern China? Sneevliet himself was to split with Trotsky in 1938, and was executed on 13 April 1942 after leading the famous February 1941 strike of Dutch workers against the Nazis. The Fourth International, not formally founded until 1938, would have been in no position to launch such a search. Small in size, and in an isolated position during the rise of fascism and World War II, only the barest and most sporadic contact was maintained between Trotskyists of different countries until after the war.
107. See for example Wout Tieleman, “The Main Political Tendencies in Indonesia.” This article, written in July 1946, contained the following (p. 253): “About the beginning of February, we received the first reports in the Netherlands of the formation of a ‘People’s Front’ in Indonesia under the leadership of the ‘Trotskyist’ Tan Malakka. Despite the restrictions on communications from the interior of Java the report has now taken on more concrete form. The exact composition of this ‘People’s Front’ is not yet known. It was reported, however, that this ‘People’s Front’ included 140 different parties and groups. It is also not fully clear whether the ‘People’s Front’ is a coalition of the exploited classes with some of the owning classes as was the case with the People’s Front in Spain and France. However in view of the demands of this ‘People’s Front’, it seems sure that what was involved was a united front of the exploited masses. . . . According to latest reports, the ‘People’s Front’ also carried on propaganda for a change in the social structure of Indonesia, including the abolition of the Indonesian nobility and the division of the big estates.” This positive view of Tan Malaka in the Fourth International press continued, as in the following article written when rumors of his death reached Europe: “If confirmed, the assassination of Tan Malakka by the Indonesian republican government will take its place on a par with such political crimes perpetrated against the revolution as the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in 1919 and Leon Trotsky in 1940. . . . Although documentary material on the political history of the Indonesian Republic from 1945 to 1949 is still extremely inadequate, and although we only know of the activity of Tan Malakka through notes, letters and articles in periodicals which are often garbled, we can nevertheless retrace the essential states of his activity from the revolutionary leadership of the Indonesian People’s Front Organization, through the constitution of the People’s Revolutionary Movement to the formation of the Proletarian Party. The very names of these three organizations clearly illustrate the political evolution of Tan Malakka and the whole Indonesian revolutionary vanguard from the beginning of the Indonesian revolution to the present day” (Steen, “Tan Malakka—Revolutionary Hero,” pp. 274-75).
In September 1951, believing that Tan Malaka had not been killed, Fourth International published the first English translation of Gerpolek, with an introduction by Maurice Ferarez, who said (pp. 139-40), “After his break with the Comintern in 1927, Tan Malakka stood alone in establishing his line of conduct on the basis of revolutionary Marxist convictions. On many questions he arrived at conclusions approaching, or identical with, those of the Fourth International. . . . If the news [that he was not killed] is correct, we can hope to see the reappearance of Tan Malakka, the greatest and ablest of the Indonesian revolutionists in the struggle for complete Merdeka (Freedom) for the Indonesian people.” A French translation also appeared in Quatrième International, 9, no. 5-7 (Mai-Juillet 1951), and 10, no. 1 (Janvier 1952).
108. In 1967 Les Evans of the U.S. Socialist Workers party gave the following summary assessment: “Tan Malakka had never formally been a member of any Trotskyist organization, although certainly he was an outstanding revolutionary whose politics were ‘Trotskyist,’ i.e. revolutionary socialist, in the broad sense” (“Who Is Adam Malik?” p. 177). This assessment was reiterated in a fascinating article written by a member of the cadre of the PKI who took refuge in Europe following the 1965-1966 destruction of the party by the Indonesian military (Soedarso, “Indonesia”).
109. On the activities of the Indonesian exiles in Australia, and the support movement for the Indonesian revolution built in Australia, see Bondan, Genderang proklamasi di luar negeri; and Lockwood, Black Armada. An interesting illustration of the depth of feeling among the PARI exiles against the Trotskyist tag assigned them by the PKI exiles is the strident letter by Djamaluddin Tamim (“J. Tamin”) on 13 February 1946 to the editor of Tribune, the CPA’s new newspaper, asking, “I sincerely hope you will be good enough to write in your organ the real standing of Tan Malacca and clearing him of that Trotskyite accusation.”
110. Brackman, Indonesian, p. 72.
Postscript
1. See Volume III, chapter 15.
2. See, for example, Kreutzer, The Madiun Affair, pp. 1-7.
3. On the Madiun Affair see Kreutzer, Madiun; Aidit, Aidit menggugat; David Anderson, “The Military Aspects of the Madiun Affair”; Kahin, Nationalism, chapter 9; and Nasution, Sekitar, vol. 8.
4. While Kahin (Nationalism, p. 266) gives June 1948 as the date of the establishment of the GRR and Nasution (Sekitar, vol. 7, p. 111) gives April 1948, the newspaper Moerba refers to the body as early as 19 February 1948.
5. The history of the PKI in the immediate postwar period has not yet been studied in depth in the way that the party of the early 1920s was studied by Ruth McVey, and the later periods by Hindley (The Communist Party of Indonesia 1951-1963) and Mortimer (Indonesian Communism under Sukarno). For some discussion of the shifting positions and leadership of the PKI during the period 1945-1949 see Benedict Anderson, Java, pp. 216-19 and 343-47; Palmier, Communists in Indonesia, pp. 116-45; Brackman, Indonesian Communism, pp. 44-136; and Kahin, Nationalism, pp. 158-61 and 256-303. For an overview of literature on the PKI see Tichelman, The Communist Party of Indonesia: A Bibliographical Impression of the Main Trends.
6. Guntur, 31 August 1948, reported Muso’s words to this effect during a press conference held in Yogyakarta, 22 August 1948, and responded to in Moerba, 28 September 1948, “Siapakah sesungguhnja Trotskyist?” See also Soerjono, “On Musso’s Return.”
7. AKOMA, established in June 1946, was also often spelled ACOMA. For details see Appendix B.
8. Kahin, Nationalism, p. 294, quoting from Front Nasional, 20 September 1948.
9. Nasution, Sekitar, vol. 8, p. 260.
10. See, for instance, Pacific, 6 and 8 November 1948.
11. Moerba, 5 October 1948.
12. Aneta, 30 October 1948.
13. Moerba, 25 October and 4, 6 November 1948; Pacific, 29 October and 6 November 1948; Nasution, Sekitar, vol. 8, p. 395.
14. Isnomo, “Perdjoangan,” p. 145.
15. Peranan gemilang Murba Indonesia dalam revolusi kemerdekaan, p. 33.
16. See Tan Malaka, “Keterangan ringkas”; and Partai Murba, Anggaran dasar Partai Murba and Anggaran rumah tangga Partai Murba.
17. See, for example, Peranan gemilang, p. 3, which describes Tan Malaka as “pendiri” (founder) of Partai Murba. Kahin (Nationalism, p. 313) puts it this way: “Actually the party’s behind-the-scenes mastermind was Tan Malaka himself.”
18. Interview with Hasan Sastraatmadja, Jakarta, 31 October 1972.
19. “Keterangan Ringkas.”
20. Aneta, 8 November 1948; and Kahin, Nationalism, p. 313 (citing the pro-PNI newspaper Rakjat, 12 November 1948).
21. Nasution, Sekitar, vol. 8, p. 396; although by that stage their support was less direct (Harry Poeze, letter, 30 August 1983).
22. Pacific, 25 November 1948. Further, Arnold Brackman (Indonesian, p. 104) reports that the newspaper Moerba was banned on 1 December 1948, and that the GRR radio station had its license revoked on the same day. I have been unable to verify this report from contemporary sources. The last issue of Moerba held in the Perpustakaan Negara, Yogyakarta, is no. 137, 13 November 1948.
23. Kahin, Nationalism, p. 323.
24. Antara, 14 December 1948, cited in Kahin, Nationalism, p. 324; Nasution, Sekitar, vol. 8, pp. 396-97.
25. Aneta, 16 December 1948 (original English). Pacar (Patjar) Merah (Scarlet Pimpernel) was a popular name for Tan Malaka in romantic novels of the 1930s; see above, pp. 20-24.
26. Quoted in Aneta, 16 December 1948. Articles in a similar vein appeared in Jakarta’s Star Weekly in late 1948/early 1949, which added the view that Tan Malaka differed from Muso only in timing; he, too, would launch a revolution after independence was achieved (10 October and 5 December 1948). See also Merdeka, 15 January 1949.
27. Tamim, “Dua puluh satu tahun,” part 1, p. 9.
28. Kahin, Nationalism, p. 392.
29. This testament (surat warisan or surat wasiat) was a document signed by Sukarno and Hatta naming Tan Malaka and others as the people to whom the leadership of the revolution was to be handed over in the event that the government leaders were removed from the struggle by Allied forces. See above pp. xlv-xlvi and Volume III p. 227, n. 24 for one version of the testament and for a discussion of the debate surrounding this document.
30. Aneta, 16 December 1948.
31. Interview with Tamim, Jakarta, 9 October 1972.
32. Tan Malaka, Menudju, p. 49.
33. Tamim, “Dua puluh satu tahun,” part 1, p. 9.
34. Interviews in Jakarta with Djalil, 1 November 1972, and Rustam Effendi, 23 November 1972.
35. Sam karya bhirawa anoraga, pp. 154-60; Kahin, Nationalism, p. 299.
36. On Sabaruddin’s personality and life history, my summary is based on interviews conducted in Jakarta in October 1972 with, inter alia, his brother Djalaluddin Nasution, with Paramita Abdurrachman, Hasan Sastraatmadja, Djalil, Djamaluddin Tamim, and Mai Muna. Benedict Anderson (in discussions in Ithaca, 1972, 1973, on the basis of interviews he had in Jakarta) presented Sabaruddin as a psychopath. Others, while asserting that he could be brutal, saw this as excessive zeal in pursuit of his principles, rather than as a desire to hurt and kill. Some idea of the type of stories that have circulated concerning him can be gained by reading Mangaradja Onggang Parlindungan, Pongkinangolngolan Sinambela gelar Tuanku Rao.
37. Centrale Militaire Inlichtingendienst (C.M.I.), document no. 5743, p. 4 (Bijlage I to C.M.I. Document 6995).
38. Djalaluddin Nasution, as reported by Harry Poeze to me in Jakarta, September 1980.
39. David Anderson, letter to the author, 21 May 1974; Budiman Djaja, “Mengenang”; interview with Rustam Effendi, Jakarta, 23 November 1972. Tamim, “21 tahun,” part 1, p. 9, refers to this body as Badan Pertahanan Rakyat.
40. David Anderson, letter, 21 May 1974.
41. Budiman Djaja, “Mengenang.”
42. Tamim, “Dua puluh satu tahun,” part 1, p. 9; Aneta, 30 December 1948, reporting the attack on Yogyakarta, refers to a train loaded with “whole printing outfits waiting to be carried away.”
43. Simatupang, Laporan dari Banaran, pp. 16-30.
44. Kahin, Nationalism, p. 336.
45. Reid, Indonesian, p. 154; Simatupang, Laporan, p. 219.
46. Nasution, Sekitar, vol. 9, p. 207.
47. Reid, Indonesian, p. 154.
48. Simatupang, Laporan, p. 41.
49. See for example Warta Indonesia, quoted in Aneta, 27 December 1948.
50. Charles A. Livengood (U.S. consul general in Batavia), Despatch to Secretary of State, 23 December 1948, NARS Record Group 59, file 856D.00/12-2348, box 6293. This report tallies largely with the official Dutch report “Rede van Tan Malaka,” Bijlage III to Regeerings Voorlichtingsdienst, Paleisrapport, Batavia, 22 December 1948.
51. Moh. Padang, as reported by Harry Poeze to me in Jakarta, September 1980.
52. Aneta, 24 December 1948.
53. Aneta, 27 December 1948 (English original).
54. Aneta, 15 January 1949 (English original).
55. Aneta, 27 December 1948.
56. Blimbing is an extremely common place name in East Java. The kabupaten of Kediri has four villages with this name within its boundaries. It seems likely that the site of the headquarters was the Blimbing located in the Gurah subdistrict of Kediri (Daftar nama2 pedukuhan kotamadya). However, Gringging is given in some sources as the location of Sabaruddin’s headquarters, e.g., Sam Karya, p. 178.
57. Interview with Subadio Sastrosatomo, Jakarta, 24 October 1972; Abu Hanifah, Tales, pp. 299-300.
58. Nasution (Sekitar, vol. 10, pp. 137-38) has reproduced the text of two orders issued by Colonel Sungkono, military governor of East Java, on 17 February 1948, relieving Sabaruddin of his command and dissolving Battalion 38 due to “refusal to carry out orders.”
59. Tamim, “Dua puluh satu tahun,” part 1, p. 10; Tamim, “Kematian Tan Malaka,” p. 21.
60. Tamim, “Dua puluh satu tahun,” part 1, p. 12; Tamim, “Kematian,” p. 21.
61. Tamim, “Dua puluh satu tahun,” part 1, p. 12.
62. “De terechtstelling van Tan Malaka,” p. 2.
63. C.M.I. document no. 5743, p. 4. This source alleges that Tan Malaka was detained in Kediri before the Dutch attack, escaped during the attack, and was then re-arrested.
64. C.M.I. document no. 6995, p. 2.
65. C.M.I. document no. 6995, p. 2; Star Weekly, 25 May 1949, reports rumors of Tan Malaka’s having been shot by Colonel Sungkono.
66. I have been unable to obtain this issue of the paper and so have had to rely on the account given by Tamim in “Kematian,” pp. 20-21.
67. Interview with Abdurrachman, Jakarta, 24 October 1972.
68. Interview with General Sungkono, Jakarta, November 1972.
69. Interview with Mohammad Hatta, Jakarta, 29 November 1972.
70. Peringatan, p. 22; Tamim, “Kematian,” p. 22.
71. Interview with Sukatma, Jakarta, 2 December 1972.
72. Interview with Djalaluddin Nasution, Jakarta, 30 November 1972.
73. According to David Anderson (letter, 21 May 1974), the Terpedo Berjiwa (Living Torpedo) was described by Kretarto (one of Sungkono’s commanders) “as part of the tidying up of irregular forces” after Madiun.
74. However, Tamim (“Dua puluh satu tahun,” part 1, pp. 1-2) refers to Sukatma as being among the thirty-five who went from Yogya to Kediri with him.
75. The official history of the East Java Brawijaya Division records this role of the Macan Kerah company in “cleaning up the Gringging area, specifically catching and detaining Sabaruddin and his friends” (Sam Karya, p. 178). Nasution (Sekitar, vol. 10, p. 138) gives the name as Macan Merah.
76. Bapak (father) is a term of respect used generally for a man of greater age or status than the speaker.
