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Chapter 9

WHERETO?

[91] For the second time I left Padang bound for Europe. My first journey was undertaken in 1913, and now it was 1922. What a difference there was in the motivations of these two departures, and how different was my state of mind. Not even the journey itself was free from the controversy surrounding my world outlook, my politics, and my preceding two and a half years’ work.

Several Indonesian employees of the Dutch East Indies government were traveling in first class. (I was only a third-class passenger.) At first they tried to make contact with me, but the Dutch passengers, most of whom were Tuan Besar, soon put a stop to that.

Once, when the moon was full and calm waves were only faintly visible through evening mists, a student traveling with us to the Netherlands was telling me of his plans. We were approached by a sergeant of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indische Leger who butted into the conversation looking for an argument and began shouting loudly, apparently according to a plan.¹ We did not wish to answer him, let alone debate his challenges, particularly as his motives smelled strongly of gin. Suddenly, from out of nowhere a young, very tall Dutch sailor appeared. Grabbing the barracks bully, he said: “Don’t do that with Tan Malaka. It would be better to argue with me. But do not forget there’s an ocean down there.” The effect of this admonition was that for several days the sergeant did not appear on deck. He told his friends that a Dutch “Bolshevik” had wanted to throw him into the sea when he was “talking” with Tan Malaka.

[92] My tall young friend turned out to be a member of the NIS, a syndicalist trade union in the Netherlands.² Later another sailor, older but still strong, said to me: “We know about your situation. There are only four of us here who share your views. Most of the other sailors are social democrats. But even though we are only four, you have no need to fear.”

One night, after midnight, I was awakened by the student and asked to come up on deck. There I was met by several Chinese sailors who worked as stokers. Their leader offered me a jacket, saying: “Tomorrow morning we dock in Colombo. Wear this sailor’s jacket and go ashore. We will entrust you to our friends there. We frequently help Sun Man (Dr. Sun Yat-sen) in times of difficulty.”³ For a moment I stood there amazed at the steadfastness, solidarity, and readiness to help of these Chinese friends. Evidently they had noticed that I had been closely watched by Dutch and Indonesian police agents in the Jakarta and Padang harbors. And most Chinese sailors were faithful followers of Sun Man (Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s alias among the sailors). They immediately understood what had happened and were ready to aid a comrade in the struggle. Indeed, in later days I was helped more than once by the followers of Sun Man as I was traveling back and forth between China and Indonesia.⁴

I told the leader of the Chinese seamen: “Don’t think that I am to be jailed in the Netherlands. I am only being exiled there. From the Netherlands I shall try to find someone whom I have long wanted to meet, namely Sun Man. But thank you very much.”

Precisely on the first of May I arrived in Rotterdam.⁵ Dr. van Ravesteyn of the CPH (Dutch Communist party) suggested that I attend the May Day celebration in Amsterdam, which was being organized jointly by the Communists and syndicalists.⁶ Wijnkoop, the head of the CPH,⁷ gave me time to speak at the rally, and my analysis was well received by the crowd.⁸ Afterwards several members of the CPH proposed that I be a candidate for the party in the coming parliamentary elections. It would be the first time an Indonesian had run.

[93] The Netherlands elections are conducted on the basis of proportional representation, which means that representation accords to the number of voters supporting a given party. For instance, if every one hundred thousand voters are entitled to one representative, and if party A gets five hundred thousand votes and party B gets one million votes, then party A is entitled to five parliamentary representatives and party B is entitled to ten. The voters give their votes not to individuals, but to the party with which they agree, by voting for the party’s entire slate of candidates. It is the party that decides who shall be number one on the slate and therefore the party’s representative if it receives one hundred thousand votes, and so on down the list. The voters can, if they wish, cast a preferential ballot by assigning their votes to a particular candidate on the list. But if that candidate is number four or five on the list and if the party’s votes do not warrant that number of representatives, then the votes assigned to that particular candidate will be reallocated to help fill the quotas for the top candidates on the slate.

Even though in 1922 it was unlikely that the number two candidate of the CPH slate would get elected, I, who was to represent the sixty million Indonesian people, was placed number three on the slate. From the beginning we knew there was no hope of my being elected.⁹ And in any case I had no intention of remaining in the Netherlands. I only accepted the proposal to be a candidate because of the opportunity it presented to propagandize about the situation in Indonesia, to explain the arbitrary nature of the exorbitante rechten of the governor general of the Dutch East Indies, and to push the CPH into supporting Indonesia in its struggle against Dutch imperialism.¹⁰

The results of the elections were very satisfying, reflecting the concern of the Dutch proletariat and progressives for the Indonesian people. This concern was demonstrated by the fact that many voters assigned their votes directly to Tan Malaka. In fact I received more of these preferential votes than any other candidate in any of the parties.¹¹ And this was achieved even though my speeches were mostly limited to Amsterdam and Rotterdam.¹² But the number of votes for the slate as a whole was not sufficient to put me into the Dutch Parliament. As a pioneering experiment for future Indonesian candidates, however, the elections were indeed hopeful, and it was a good and practical example. Later on there were always Indonesians in the Dutch Parliament, and if I had been placed number two on the CPH slate in 1922, the first Indonesian would have entered it that year.¹³

[94] I continued my journey by going to Germany. Space does not permit me to describe all that I witnessed with my own eyes in “Deutschland über alles.”¹⁴ What a lot of bragging, humbug, and arrogance is in that slogan, but there is also a good deal of truth in it. Even though Germany has a population of only seventy million, or about 3 percent of the world’s population, it has twice threatened the entire world, and only the opposition of the whole world could defeat it. If one measured humanity merely on the basis of qualities of the mind—such as skill, willpower, and superiority in science, discipline, and organization—then it is the Germans who would have to get the laurels for achievements made in the last seventy-five years, especially in the fields of science, military science, and organization. But human beings need other qualities apart from those required to subjugate other nations, and the most needed quality is genuine humanitarianism.

When I was in Berlin, in mid-1922, the people were suffering greatly as a result of the policy of German militarism. Germany had lost the war; the Allies had heaped reparation debts on the country; the economy was falling into ruin; some regions were still under enemy occupation; finances had collapsed and the value of money fell day by day, until it had hardly any value at all. With this decline in German political and economic power, the morale of the Germans also fell, as could be seen from many standpoints, including that of the much boasted morality of German women. But with its healthy climate and strong, skillful, united, and optimistic people, with its existing basis in science and technology, Germany could not easily be pushed around by foreigners. The Germans bent under all the pressures put on them by their former enemies and patiently awaited the time for their re-emergence.

In Berlin there were lessons to be learned left and right, and all kinds of books available at ridiculously low prices. It was not surprising that this city captivated a young person like Darsono, who was eager for learning and knowledge. However, the shortage of revolutionary forces in Indonesia compelled him to leave his books, magazines, newspapers, and mass meetings. I spent two months with Darsono in Berlin, and then we parted and have not met again since.¹⁵ He left for Indonesia and I for Moscow.

Russia in 1922: it was not the Russia of 1927, with heated conflict between Stalin’s group and the opposition, Russia on the threshold of the Five Year Plan. And neither was it the Russia of 1941, during the outbreak of war with Nazi Germany in July [sic], when three successful economic plans had won the admiration of the whole world and had made all previous historical progress seem like child’s play. And, finally, neither was it the Russia of today, which has seen the Second World War annihilate a great part of what had been built up over the years with the sweat, tears, and even lives of the people.

[95] We can read any number of books, in almost any language, about Russian history, economics, sociology, and culture. On these small scraps of paper I could not and will not parrot what experts and plagiarists have already written. Neither am I able, in this present period of revolution and in this atmosphere of anti-imperialism and anticapitalism, to record my experiences in the different committees and conferences or in the Fourth Congress [of the Comintern] in November 1922, where I represented the PKI.¹⁶ Even in the revolution there are things to be told to one and all, things to be whispered from one comrade to another, and things that are best kept in one’s heart until the end. Therefore I shall mention only in passing some of my impressions from my year or so in Moscow.

In essence, Lenin’s greatness in the revolution of 1917 was comparable to that of Marx in economics or Charles Darwin in biology.¹⁷ It was Darwin’s good fortune to find or obtain and classify previously unknown plants and animals. On the basis of logic and the dialectic, he succeeded in drawing conclusions concerning the origins, development, and possibilities of life. Karl Marx’s application of dialectical materialism to all the economic factors analyzed by economists from Aristotle to David Ricardo successfully determined the origins, development, and future possibilities of capitalism. Similarly, Lenin, applying the dialectical materialist way of thinking to all the social forces in Russia, was successful in understanding the nature and strength of all the revolutionary groups in overthrowing feudalism and capitalism one after the other though almost simultaneously. These three thinkers approached their respective problems in a calm, courageous, and progressive spirit, taking into account all evidence in a context of “contradictions, details, clashes, building up and breaking down.”

[96] This was a scientific method that recognized motion, upheaval, change, and revolution in seemingly permanent facts and truths. They laid aside neither methods of science in compiling all relevant facts nor logical methods of comparison, induction, deduction, and verification. The logical method was indeed used to the fullest, but within the context of contradictions (the dialectic) and of reality.

Darwin was a revolutionary regarding living things. Marx was a revolutionary in economics (and philosophy). They both tore down the old and built up the new; they both thought in a revolutionary fashion. But Lenin was an expert in the strategy of revolution itself. He can be said to have been a revolutionary revolutionary.

Just as the first task of every expert is to examine all relevant facts, so a revolutionary must first gather together facts relating to all the social forces that are to be examined for their character and direction and to be coordinated and mobilized against the class to be eliminated (feudal or bourgeois). This must all be done according to the dialectical materialist method, while relying on one’s instinct in understanding the psychology of the masses in motion.

Since the social factors in Indonesia or India are going to be different in character and history from those in Russia, for example, the conclusions reached by Indonesian or Indian revolutionaries will certainly differ from those reached by Russian ones. The only similarities will be in the method of thinking (dialectical materialism, the spirit of inquiry); in the revolutionary element; in the one requirement for a leader of the masses, to know the psychology of the masses; and, finally, in the basic principles which we share as communists—proletarianism, mechanization, collectivism, and so on.

To adopt holus bolus such terms as feudal, bourgeois, or proletarian and apply them with all their corresponding characteristics, motivations, and history to the feudal, bourgeois, or proletarian classes in Indonesia or India would be uncritical and undialectical. Likewise, swallowing whole all the decisions made by Russian revolutionary thinkers in 1917 or those made by Marx in the mid-nineteenth century, and applying those decisions to a different time and place, such as Indonesia, without analyzing, testing, and weighing the situation here, would be as unreasoning as a parrot’s echo. “Marxism is not a dogma, but a guide to revolutionary action.”¹⁸

The revolution in Indonesia, as well as the conclusions that determine revolutionary strategy in Indonesia, should be considered on its own merit.

[97] We must not forget the weakness of the science of revolution, a weakness shared by all the social sciences. They all have to take account of the uncertain factor, the “x” factor: human behavior. Bourgeois economics is supposing that all human beings (farmers, laborers, clerks, traders, professors, and so on) buy and sell according to certain economic laws and that those laws always apply. For example, if they have little money they will first buy food, the most important thing, and only after that will they buy clothes and then a bicycle, car, gramophone, cinema ticket, and so on. The theory presupposes that human beings do not buy wrongly. There is no one who needs clothes more than rice or who needs opium or a cinema ticket more than money for the children’s schooling or the rent. Similarly, revolutionaries are forced in broad terms to generalize the behavior of all members of a given class. For instance, the stand of the oppressed and exploited workers against capitalism and imperialism is considered in theory to be stronger than that of the middle bourgeoisie against the same actions of capitalism and imperialism. All the members of the exploited and oppressed proletariat are considered to share the same attitudes and behavior. None are regarded as betrayers of their own class. That is the theory. The generalization is necessary, as it is in most sciences, and in broad terms it is correct. But let us not forget the differences between theory and practice.

The weaknesses of theory can be avoided or minimized through practical experience. First-rate economists must be experienced in some branch of the economy or must attend closely to the facts of everyday economics. Similarly, practical experience can aid revolutionaries in more accurately assessing the revolutionary mood of the masses. In addition to studying the science of revolution, revolutionaries must associate themselves with the masses, or at least be able to understand the psychology of the masses in motion. It is, therefore, essential to know well the atmosphere of the society being studied: the climate; the prevailing technology; existing economic, social, and political regulations; and the history, skills, desires, behavior, feelings, political outlook, ideals, and organization of the members of that society. It is best if this is accompanied by direct personal experience.

[98] A real revolutionary from a given country must, like experts in any science, keep an open mind towards revolution in other countries. This was the case with most of the prominent leaders when I was in Russia (in 1922). They did not dictate to the various Asian leaders their own viewpoint regarding the nature of the revolutionary movement in Asia (Indonesia, India, or China) and the stand that should be taken in those countries. They were conscious of the existence of the “x” factor in those countries and of the fact that the people there experienced a different situation from that of Russia, where they themselves had been born and educated and where they had entered the struggle. For this reason there was extensive discussion and debate in the congress and the committees of the Comintern. We did not need to be afraid that this or that “great leader” would be offended if we put forward a particular criticism.¹⁹ Criticism was regarded as important in the same way that carbolic acid is needed to cleanse away dirt or a torch is needed to light the darkness. All parliamentary democratic rights could be exercised among those comrades in the struggle and were the only limits on speech. As a result, all decisions made in such discussions or debates were generally felt to be satisfactory. They were followed, since all objections and reservations had already been raised, and a revolutionary Communist has to understand that decisions arrived at democratically are valid and have to be carried out faithfully, even though they may not accord with one’s own opinion. The dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean a dictator dictating to the proletariat, let alone to the proletarian party.

I still consider myself to have been fortunate to know those leaders from Russia (and other countries) whose names were always appearing in foreign newspapers. Lenin, who was clearly in the last stages of the illness that was to bring about his death, was still able to speak at that Fourth Congress. Stalin also frequently attended the congress although he was known to be in charge of and preoccupied with internal state and party affairs.

Trotsky was still in charge of the Red Army, and he often spoke in the meetings. Zinoviev was the chairman of the congress and was assisted by Bukharin and Radek. Outside the congress meetings one often heard names like Kalinin, Rykov, Kamenev, and so on.²⁰ I knew many of the great, medium, and small (less important) leaders of the army, trade unions, and youth groups, and I was happy to know people who led unprecedented historical events. According to what I have read in the papers, none of those leaders, with the exception of Stalin, is alive today. And Lenin was the only one to die “in his bed.” The others were murdered in the conflict between Stalin’s faction and the opposition within the Communist party itself. So it was that the revolution in Russia, just as in France previously, “devoured its own children.”²¹

[99] History does not know regret or “if only.” What history has done cannot be undone. One cannot reexamine the good and the bad, the fair or the unfair in order to replay the actions of the revolution. They are the reality, facts, and actual events. What we consider to be correct must be tested first by history, by events. We can only learn from the past so as to avoid the wrong and follow the right.

When I was in Moscow there was indeed opposition to the New Economic Policy (NEP). But the democracy within the party or—what was clearer to me—within the Comintern was not disturbed by this.

The Encyclopaedie VI, Supplement takes note of my work during the Fourth Congress. We can read on page 531:

The Congress was attended by Tan Malaka. On 12 November, in the name of the P.K.I. and with the interests of “the thousands of millions of oppressed from the East” before his eyes, he gave an interesting speech on the Communist standpoint on the national boycott movement and on so-called Pan-Islamism; specifically, whether or how far the Communists should support these movements. In an engaging manner he explained the difficulties that the P.K.I. had experienced with Serikat Islam. When, in public meetings, the SIers had asked whether the Communists believe in God, he had answered: “Wenn ich vor Gott stehe, dann bin ich ein Moslem, wenn ich aber vor Menschen stehe, dann bin ich kein Moslem, weil Gott gesagt hat, dass es unter den Menschen viele Satane gibt.” [When I stand before God, then I am a Muslim, but when I stand before men, then I am no Muslim, for God has said that there are many Satans among men.]

Then Malaka characterized Pan-Islamism as in practice nothing but a form of struggle for national independence. What, then, should be the Communist position towards this Islamic current? In a later session he heard from a delegate from Tunis that the same problems occurred there. In each case he characterized Pan-Islamism as nothing but the joining together of all Muslims against their oppressors, and therefore this movement must be supported. A Commission was set up to consider the Eastern Question and to draft a program on that question to bring before the Congress. Tan Malaka was appointed to this Commission.

Aside from the part written in German, the above note is a [Dutch] summary of a speech, which I delivered in German to the Comintern. This speech was not the cause of my being placed in the commission, however. On the contrary, it was because of my contributions to the discussion in the Eastern Commission that I spoke in a meeting of the highest body, the Comintern plenary.²²

[100] Non-participants have never known the real course of the discussions within the Eastern Commission. Neither am I going to elaborate on it here, but the main thrust of the excerpt from the Encyclopaedie is indeed correct, since it was taken from my speech, which was published in a Comintern magazine outside Russia.²³

The central question was the attitude of Communists towards nationalist movements in the colonial countries, which in China and India took the form of the boycott movement and in India and the Arab countries as well as Indonesia took the form of Pan-Islamism.

The Comintern (Oriental Section) presented a thesis declaring that Communist parties in the colonial countries should assist and work together with nationalist parties against imperialism. This thesis was presented and defended by Russian and Indian Communists.²⁴

Naturally everyone agreed to help and to work with the nationalists, at least in theory, but how this should be done in practice, how concretely to implement this assistance and cooperation, had not been determined before I departed for Indonesia.²⁵ When I left Moscow the Comintern leaders were leaving this question to be decided on the basis of local conditions and policies.²⁶

In fact I was involved in a debate that had raged for some time between the defenders of the thesis and its opponents. One night when it was rather late and I was returning from a visit to a factory on the outskirts of Moscow, a Japanese Communist, the late Sen Katayama, who was debating one of the articles of the thesis, deferred to me to continue the debate.²⁷ He said: “Here comes Tan Malaka. I hand over the defense of my position to him. He is still fresh from the field of the anti-imperialist struggle in Asia.”

“Wait a minute,” I answered. “What article is being debated, and what are the respective positions?”

[101] The difference of opinion that had seemed slight in the beginning appeared great after we descended from the abstract, airy heights of theory to the real and concrete world. When I turned the debate to actualities, to the boycott or non-cooperation and to Pan-Islamism, the chasm between the abstract and the concrete, between theory and practice, became visible. For example, the British Communists objected to the boycott of British goods by the Indian people, because it would lead to unemployment in Britain. How could they ask the British workers to cooperate with the boycotters in India? Apparently previous Comintern congresses had regarded Pan-Islamism as an old-fashioned form of imperialism.²⁸

The debate, which had begun calmly, eventually became quite heated and went on, if I am not mistaken, for three days straight. Finally the Comintern representative, assuming charge of the thesis, forbade me to speak.²⁹ In reply, I registered a strong protest against this way of handling a question that was difficult and unfamiliar to the Western delegates.³⁰

Not until I met a dead end in the commission did I query the chairman of the Comintern, Zinoviev, and the head of the Eastern Section, Radek, in the congress meeting mentioned in the Encyclopaedie excerpt. I asked whether the nationalist movement in the form of the pan-Islam boycott was to be supported, and if so in what way? What I wanted to determine was how assistance and cooperation would be implemented in terms of program, tactics, strategy, and organization. I still got no answer, in spite of the fact that my speech received a satisfying response from the floor. I began to be uneasy and to question my own ability. I asked to be sent to a school, but was only laughed at by a friend, who said, “We haven’t got a professorial chair open for you.”

Only after the congress had ended, when the delegates from all parts of the world were packing to go home, did the question arise as to where I should go. All my friends returning home just bade me farewell, saying “Work hard.”

I was not long in a state of doubt. The new head of the Comintern Eastern Section approached me, saying: “I agree with you. The thesis that you opposed several days ago is indeed too abstract and theoretical. Now I am Radek’s deputy in charge of the Eastern Section. The defender of the thesis has resigned. I hope that we will be able to work together on Asian affairs on a clearer basis.”³¹

[102] What I want to show the reader here is that this cooperation was like parliamentary democracy. When a Cabinet fails and no longer has the confidence of the Parliament, the prime minister must willingly resign the position. A leader must never hold on to his position until the masses are outside Parliament screaming: “Chamberlain must go.”³² The defender of the thesis was not angry with me, nor did he decline to speak to me or order the Cheka [secret police] to arrest me as a “wrecker” or a “saboteur” of his position. On the contrary, he continued to treat me as a comrade in the struggle. There were still plenty of other jobs of no less importance for him, and he was a young man who had already given great service to the Russian party and proletariat.

The Comintern, naturally with the agreement of Zinoviev and Radek, instructed me to write a book on Indonesia. Its forms and content were left up to me, and the necessary material was ordered from the Netherlands. I decided to confine the book to the history and statistics of the area, and the population, industry, agriculture, and government of Indonesia. I felt I should let the comrades from that cold country construct their own theories and draw their own conclusions on the basis of the facts. Such was my attitude.³³

It would take too long to describe the people of Russia, let alone all my other observations. In the year I spent there I was able to mix with different groups-not only the Comintern leaders, but also the youth, who at that time still considered me to be one of them. With them I often visited factories, villages, plays, and selamatan, getting to know soldiers, workers, peasants, and students.³⁴ My room in a former hotel was open night and day for my friends and for students. Even when I was sleeping at night it was usually available for two or three students who were anxious to pass their exams, since the room was spacious and quiet enough for studying. In fact, I had been given this large, quiet room so that I could write my book.

I am not going to describe the Russian people of today. The new generation has grown up in a politico-economic atmosphere as different from the one when I was there as night is from day. I shall just make a few observations about the people at the time when Russia was economically and socially at the crossroads of feudalism and capitalism and was being led toward socialism by the revolutionary proletariat.

[103] We can see how the efficiency of Russian industry compared with that of Western Europe at the time by contrasting the steel factory in the city of Nizhni with the Spandau machine factory in Berlin. We would not get a clear picture through a simple comparison of labor concentrations, for with 10,000 workers at Nizhni Novgorod and 30,000 workers at Spandau the ratio is only one to three. But as regards the overall efficiency, I would not be afraid to say that a comparison of Russian workers (including the 450,000 industrial workers of pre-war Petersburg) with German workers would show the productivity ratio was more nearly one to eight. In terms of scientific and technical progress, organization of enterprises, and the methods and skills of workers, Russia is still far behind the country that had written on its paper money, at that time deteriorating in value daily, the words “Arbeiten können wir besser als andere Völker.” [We can work better than other peoples.]³⁵

In the organization of political parties and trade unions, Germany was also superior to Russia. This did not mean that the Russian people were left behind by the West in every respect. Prior to 1917 people such as Pavlov in psychology, Minkovsky in mathematics, Mendeliev in chemistry, and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gorky, and Pushkin in literature, were giants of world stature in their time and their respective fields. Above all in their ability to assess the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat, to lead them toward open or clandestine actions, to draw up demands and slogans able to captivate and move the masses, even today the Germans have a lot to learn from the “old Bolsheviks,” leaders of the November 1917 revolution.

There was no difference between leaders like Lenin, Stalin, Bukharin, Kalinin, or Tomsky, and Petroff, a worker in an iron factory. The leaders felt themselves and the people to be equals or placed themselves on a par in their daily contacts. And neither did the workers feel hesitant or afraid to confront their leaders, even Stalin or Lenin. Titles like “your excellency” or similar honorifics were never heard at that time. Everyone was called comrade, tovarich. Naturally the way workers would say tovarich Lenin differed from the way they would say tovarich Petroff, for Petroff was a forger of steel, while Lenin was a forger of a revolutionary party, the Bolshevik party. Respect for one’s fellow human beings will remain as long as there is human interaction. But real respect grows out of, and is in accordance with, services a person has rendered to that human interaction. And genuine respect does not rest on obeisance or on utterances, but rather on one’s inner feelings.

[104] We Asians from colonial countries could not see any difference between the attitudes towards us of Petroff, the steelworker, and Lenin, the revolutionary worker. Perhaps because of a mixture of some Asian blood, or because they lived in a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist atmosphere as in Asia, the movements, voices, and faces of the Russians were generally more in tune with ours than were those of the West Europeans. The Russians still had a sense of equality and camaraderie in their behavior as we do. There was as yet no trace of uppishness, setting oneself apart, and acting in a “businesslike” manner (for one’s own advantage). Unrestrained laughter still prevailed, welcomes were warm and were reflected in the face, and joy and sadness were clearly expressed and not hidden or feigned.

This was what made me sad to part from the Russian people of that time. I say “of that time,” since I cannot know whether the technical, political, and economic changes over the past quarter century have not brought changes in the behavior of the Russian people as well. Today’s generation never knew the knout, the wooden stick of the Tsar. They live in the atmosphere of socialism, albeit still at the first stage, experiencing many deficiencies and surrounded by capitalism. They are no longer under the same political pressure as the old Bolsheviks, who could regard our wounds as their own, since they themselves were experiencing the blows of the oppressor. The old Bolsheviks could also share our hopes for the future, since they too had long hoped for the dawn to break on their darkness.

Finally, in mid-1923, the Comintern entrusted me with the supervision of existing Communist parties and those which were to be formed in the area that we knew as the “south” during the Japanese period and that I have termed ASLIA—Burma, Siam, Annam, the Philippines, and Indonesia.³⁶ So it was that one and a half years after leaving Indonesia, I had traveled through the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, and China and was returning to my home base.

But long after I returned to Asia I carried with me a clear picture of the climate and landscape of Russia, and of its people: peasants, workers, students and, last but not least, the Old Bolsheviks.