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PREFACE

Tan Malaka is a name tied to the Indonesian revolution; though recognized as a “hero of national independence,” he is officially acknowledged only with embarrassment.¹ His story spans two generations of Indonesian nationalists, from the formative pre-1926 era to the military struggle for independence that followed World War II. It also spans two continents, from Western Europe, through the Soviet Union and China, to almost every country in Southeast Asia.

His countless escapes and his ability to survive while being pursued by all the imperialist powers in Southeast Asia have fired the imagination of many who have written about him. The very title of his autobiography, From Jail to Jail, conveys the spirit of adventure that surrounds him.

The extreme brevity of Tan Malaka’s overt and active political life in Indonesia—three periods totalling less than two of his fifty-three years—gives more than enough scope for confusion, ignorance, and intrigue in recounting his story. The year 1921-1922 marked the real beginning of Tan Malaka’s political career as he established the first Sekolah Rakyat at the same time that he moved into active work in the trade unions and in the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI).² His arrest in February 1922 put an end to all this, and the year stands more as a promise of political ability than as a chronicle of completed tasks.

Following Indonesia’s proclamation of independence on 17 August 1945, Tan Malaka emerged from his long absence from the Indonesian political scene, using his own name for the first time in twenty-three years. Seven months later, on 17 March 1946, he was arrested by the Sjahrir government and held without trial for two and a half years. Once again, he was able to initiate some impressive programs—the most notable being the establishment of the Persatuan Perjuangan-but arrest prevented him from bringing them to fruition.³

His release from prison on 16 September 1948 came only five months before the presumed date of his death, 19 February 1949. He spent his first two months of freedom in Yogyakarta assessing the impact of the Madiun uprising and founding the Partai Murba (Proletarian Party).⁴ The final three months of his life were spent in remote areas of East Java attempting to galvanize opposition to the Dutch. This final period repeated the pattern set earlier, as he formulated his ideas and established several organizations and proposals for action rather than actually accomplishing those goals.

Throughout his life Tan Malaka was a political outsider, the opponent of those holding power. He was constantly castigated by the Dutch East Indies government, his immediate enemy, and attracted the ire of many other groups. The established PKI leadership opposed Tan Malaka’s stand against the 1926 uprisings. His insistence during the 1945-1949 period on the policy of perjuangan led him into conflict with the views of the Stalinist rulers of the Soviet Union, the leaders of the PKI, and the social-democratic supporters of the policy of diplomasi, and, of course, with those who opposed independence altogether. All the many configurations constituting the various Indonesian governments from 1945 to the present day have shared at least one attitude—outright opposition to the ideas and methods of Tan Malaka. There has, in consequence, been little incentive within Indonesia for a careful and reasoned analysis of the man. Half-truths, inaccuracies, slander, and calumny have ruled the day. A subdued counterpoint to this approach has been the slight body of panegyrics written by his supporters and a series of romantic novels woven around his saga. Tan Malaka’s long disappearances and the reports and rumors of his spectacular appearances proved to be the right mix for the genre of romantic adventure stories popular in Indonesia in the immediate prewar period.⁵

Just as it has provided grist for the mill of romantic fiction, Tan Malaka’s colorful and adventurous life story has led also to rampant confusion regarding facts, let alone analysis, by many serious observers of recent Indonesia history, Indonesians and foreigners alike. In an example of art imitating nature the reader will note that the mystery/adventure genre may also have influenced Tan Malaka’s own perception of his exploits, as recounted in the pages of his autobiography.⁶

From Jail to Jail reveals much about the man who has remained one of the greatest enigmas in modern Indonesian history. But it also leaves a lot unsaid. At times Tan Malaka concentrates on extreme detail when recounting the narrative side of his autobiography: the layout of Canton in 1923, the social structure of a South China village in the late 1920s, or the history of the Philippines nationalist movement. But on the really burning political issues, more often than not he slides off into allusion and evasion. Time and again he states his reluctance to reveal the course of political events, citing as his reason the continued strength of Western imperialism and its efforts to push back the colonial revolution and the readiness of his enemies to use his words against him. However, he did not live to see the end of the physical struggle for independence and the relative peace of the 1950s, when he could have filled in some of those gaps, such as the identity of his contacts and protectors in China in the 1920s and 1930s, the activities of Partai Republik Indonesia (PARI), and details of his supposed rapprochement with the Comintern in 1931.⁷ The autobiography is, above all, a tantalizing work, leaving the reader with more questions than answers, but with the exhilarated feeling that comes from putting down a good detective novel; and this is appropriate too, for Tan Malaka was always on the run.

From Jail to Jail is an apt title for the manuscript although, apart from his two-and-a-half-year imprisonment by the republican government, his actual periods in jail were not lengthy, consisting of brief detentions prior to deportation by the Dutch East Indies government in 1922, by the United States administration of the Philippines in 1927, and by the British government of Hong Kong in 1932. The intervening periods were dominated, however, by the threat of detection and arrest and by the overwhelming difficulties of survival. The weight of this struggle, combined with the specters of sickness and poverty that haunted him continuously, form the backdrop to Tan Malaka’s life story, itself written in jail.

The text of From Jail to Jail is on the whole an honest account. Tan Malaka indicates where he is holding back (for instance Volume I, pp. 88 and 99, and Volume II, pp. 77 and 108) and cannot fairly be accused of deceiving or misleading the reader. My investigations in archives, newspapers, and other contemporary accounts, and my interviews with Tan Malaka’s family, friends, comrades, and political opponents, have thrown up few factual inaccuracies in the manuscript. This reliability is remarkable considering the circumstances under which it was written, when Tan Malaka was in jail, without access to books or files.

Bibliographic History of the Text

From Jail to Jail is itself a product of jails. The text was written entirely in various jails of the republic (with the exception of the introduction to Volume III, written in Yogyakarta, October 1948). Tan Malaka commenced the work in Magelang jail, where he was detained from March to July 1947, and continued working on it after his moves to Ponorogo and Madiun.

From what I have been able to ascertain, the text was written by hand: Tan Malaka himself refers to obtaining pencil and paper for the work. Section by section, it was collected by visitors and taken to Yogyakarta for safekeeping and transcription.⁸ The irregularity in the flow of the narrative, omissions, and overlapping of sequences can be explained principally by this fragmented approach, which was occasioned by changing political and physical conditions. Moved to different jails, sometimes held alone, sometimes with his comrades, sometimes under threat of physical attack, sometimes suffering extreme cold and recurring bouts of illness, Tan Malaka produced a text that retains a surprising coherence. The less coherent nature of Volume III may well stem from the fact that he had no chance to develop the manuscript after the initial theoretical chapters beyond merely assembling existing articles intended for further elaboration.

Writing a book of this magnitude in jail without access to a library or to personal files created its own problems. Although the text is scattered with references to a wealth of sources, particularly in the fields of history and Marxism, few are in the form of exact quotations. Visitors were able to bring him some books and maps, and the quotations reveal the nature of these publications: the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie, John Gunther’s Inside Asia, Hallet Abend’s The Pacific Charter, and Stalin’s History of the CPSU.⁹ Other references such as those to Hegel, Marx, Engels, and Lenin are quoted from memory, an ability for which Tan Malaka was well known during his days in Holland.

A major problem with the text concerns a possible chapter missing between Volumes I and II: Volume I ends in late 1929, with Tan Malaka leaving the village of Sionching, and Volume II opens in early 1932, with Tan Malaka in the middle of the Japanese attack on Shanghai. There is no explanation of how he found himself there nor of his activities over the previous two years. It seems likely to me that a section was lost in the process of transfer and transcription. Considerable political significance attaches to this period, however, and a missing section is not the only explanation of the lacuna. Harry A. Poeze, who has written a biography of Tan Malaka up to 1945, is of the opinion that Tan Malaka has deliberately omitted a discussion of this period of his life in order to conceal a reconciliation in August 1931 with the PKI leader Alimin, representing the Comintern, and his agreement to work for the Comintern again.¹⁰

In view of the fact that Tan Malaka does refer to the “obligation I had to discharge in India” (Volume II, p. 30) and that elsewhere he states “that in 1932 I still had the confidence of the Comintern” (Thesis, p. 63), it is hard to believe that he wanted to cover up this reconciliation. Poeze maintains that his aim in writing From Jail to Jail was to distance himself from the PKI, while at the time of Thesis he wanted to draw closer.¹¹ While this argument may reflect his intentions at the time he wrote Volume I (late 1947), by the time the volume was published in mid-1948, Tan Malaka was hoping to establish close relations with the PKI. Above all, however, in my view it is highly unlikely that Tan Malaka would attempt to cover up in such a clumsy fashion by dropping two years from his life story and leaving such a break between Volumes I and II. If the omission was deliberate, and done with political intentions, perhaps it was someone else along the way from writing to publishing who took the action.

From Jail to Jail has appeared in a number of different editions, each covering only a part of the work and none bearing its date of publication. Untangling the resultant bibliographic confusion has been a process based on deduction from reports of publication, hazy recollections of people involved, and internal evidence from the manuscripts themselves.

On 18 June 1948 the Solo newspaper Moerba announced the recent publication of Dari pendjara ke pendjara. This edition is almost certainly the ninety-nine page stencilled edition of Volume I. Although it bears no imprint whatsoever, its foreword is dated Solo, 17 April 1948. Subsequently, Tan Malaka’s longtime friend Anwar Sutan Saidi of Bukit Tinggi (West Sumatra) published a printed version of Volume I and the first part of Volume II as four separate parts (numbered I, II, III, and IV). This edition, published by the Wakaf Republik Press, could have appeared later in 1948 or in 1949. The third edition of Volume I, published by Lutan’s Widjaya Press of Jakarta, was numbered “first part, volumes I-II-III,” indicating its derivation from the Wakaf Republik edition. Considering that Jakarta (then Batavia) was under Dutch control until the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, it is unlikely that a work of this nature would have been published there until 1950 at the earliest.

The only complete edition of Volume II is that published by Pustaka Murba in Yogyakarta, probably between July and November 1948. Pustaka Murba was established by Djamaluddin Tamim, on Tan Malaka’s instructions, in April 1946. Djamaluddin was under detention from July 1946 to July 1947, and it was most likely on his release that work began on the original stencilled edition of Volume I (published in June 1948); publication of Volume II would have followed as soon as practicable. Djamaluddin left Yogyakarta in November 1948. The Dutch occupied the city from December 1948 to December 1949, making publication during that period in Yogyakarta unlikely.

Volume III has appeared only in stencilled form. It was published with a typeset cover by Pustaka Murba, Jakarta, so it is unlikely to have been published before 1950. Indeed one source maintains that it was not published until 1956.¹² The stencilled copy bears stamped repagination for the second half. Pages 53-143 are stamped over page numbers 1-91, indicating previous issue, or planned issue, in two parts. I was fortunate enough in 1972 to obtain access to another typescript copy in the possession of Djamaluddin Tamim, which probably was the manuscript used for production of the stencilled version.

As copy-text for my translation I have used the Widjaya edition of Volume I and the Pustaka Murba editions of Volumes II and III. All three were obtained in 1972 from the Wason (now John M. Echols) Collection of Cornell University Libraries. All the other editions mentioned above have been used as comparison texts to reconcile problems appearing in the copy-text. Variations discovered in this process are indicated in the annotations to my translation.¹³

Several parts of From Jail to Jail have been published separately, including the following: Pandangan hidup (Weltanschauung) (Djakarta: Widjaya, 1952); Dari Ir. Soekrnao sampai ke Presiden Soekarno (Djakarta: Yayasan Tjahaja Kita, 1966); and “Tan Malaka’s Manila Memoirs,” in the Philippine journal Solidarity 1 (no. 1, 1966). A Japanese translation by Noriaki Oshikawa is now underway, Volume I having appeared in 1979. Excerpts from the autobiography also appear in a number of secondary sources on different periods touched on in the autobiography.

Methodology

The Text

The manuscript of From Jail to Jail presented many difficulties, not the least of which was the large number of typographical errors, characteristic of Indonesian publications during the 1940s and early 1950s.¹⁴ While it might be expected that Volume III in stencil form would have a particularly high number of errors, this holds true for Volume II also, although, appearing in printed form, it clearly did not benefit from the same standard of proofreading as Volume I. Overall, I have identified over four hundred typographical errors, an average of one per 7.36 translated pages in Volume I, one per 1.88 pages in Volume II, and one per 1.57 pages in Volume III. These errors fall into a number of different categories. Some 4.3 percent related specifically to the printing process, as opposed to typing or copying errors. These in many cases proved the most obvious errors, but were among the hardest to correct. Lines of type, and occasionally whole paragraphs, were dropped from the text or transposed. In all these cases, I have indicated in footnotes the error and, where possible, have attempted to rearrange the text into a meaningful form. As mentioned above, I have had the benefit of alternative texts with which to compare my copy-text and have indicated where these have been used to resolve difficulties.

Not unexpectedly, foreign words and names account for a high percentage of the errors (18.2 percent and 8.7 percent, respectively). While some of these may be Tan Malaka’s, a large number reflect absolute unfamiliarity with the language or name being used, making it extremely likely that the copyist or typographer made the mistake. The fact that many foreign words are spelled correctly in one place and incorrectly in another strengthens this hypothesis.

Punctuation errors abound throughout the text, accounting for 12.3 percent of total errors. Almost invariably these involve something as insignificant to understanding as a full stop substituted for a comma, a sentence commencing with a lower-case letter, or quotation marks omitted from conversation. I rarely found it necessary to draw attention to these errors in a note.

The remaining typographical errors fall into the categories of addition (8.7 percent), omission (17.7 percent), substitution (23 percent) and transposition (6.8 percent) of letters, syllables, or entire words. Many of these were obvious and easily corrected (for example, menudjud = menudju; dn = dan; atau = atas; tenutlah = tentulah) and I have not indicated their occurrence in a note. Where the error gave rise to substantial uncertainty of meaning in the text, I have given in a note either a full explanation of the reconstruction or simply the word as it appears in the manuscript and as I have reconstructed it (for example, disetudjui = ditudjui). These errors are the standard types encountered in text editing and can have occurred either in the printing process or at any stage in the copying of the manuscript or even in Tan Malaka’s original manuscript itself.¹⁵

Handling all these textual errors and inconsistencies necessitated the construction of a detailed set of guidelines and policies. While at times I was tempted to document every error in the manuscript, and did in fact prepare footnotes to this effect, finally I decided to pull back from this course and document only those errors substantial enough to involve reconstruction and even guesswork on my part. This decision was influenced partly by the essay of Robert Halsbrand “Editing the Letters of Letter-Writers” in which he says,

I believe, perhaps naively, that the exact reproduction of a manuscript is impossible. Even if we used a photoprocess, we should then begin to worry about the color of the ink, the quality of the paper, the manner of folding the sheet, and so on. When we decide to reproduce it by means of typography, we have made a great concession; and once having made it we need not be stingy as to its extent. No reader of the book will be fooled into thinking he has a manuscript in his hand.¹⁶

How much more unattainable is the goal of an “exact reproduction of a manuscript” when one is dealing with a translation. Footnotes documenting every single typographical error could perhaps stand in a parallel text, but they seem quite out of place in presenting the manuscript in translation.

A second major challenge in the manuscript was that of language.¹⁷ Tan Malaka’s Indonesian often reflects more the style used in the 1920s, when he left Indonesia on his long exile, than that predominant in the revolutionary period. In a language evolving as quickly as modern Indonesian, this means that considerable differences exist between Tan Malaka’s style and that of the period in which he wrote the book and, even more so, that of present-day Indonesian. In large part these difficulties could be overcome by reference to contemporary dictionaries and native speakers of Indonesian. The differences from modern Indonesian are principally those of variant spellings (bergumandang for berkumandang), the relative lack of differentiation between various affixes (memindjam kepada for memindjamkan kepada), or consonant changes (mempastikan for memastikan).¹⁸

In addition to these archaic and irregular forms of Indonesian, From Jail to Jail presents problems created by the frequent appearance of foreign words and expressions from a wide variety of languages. Dutch, English, German, French, Latin, Minangkabau, Chinese, and Japanese terms appear throughout the text. With the exception of Dutch, I have retained all Tan Malaka’s foreign vocabulary, in most cases giving the English translation in brackets and where necessary a footnote explanation. This policy was adopted in order to retain the cosmopolitan flavor that pervades From Jail to Jail; eradication of these expressions would, I believe, have detracted considerably from the text. In particular, I considered it important to preserve Tan Malaka’s own English expression, with all its peculiarities, such as his reference to the saying “It’s a long way to the prairie.” To differentiate Tan Malaka’s English from my translation, his English words appear in italics. I have added footnotes only where necessary for an understanding of his intent. I have retained the spelling used in these English expressions, since it is often unclear whether any errors were Tan Malaka’s or the printer’s. On a few occasions I have pluralized the word in order to make it fit the context. As to Tan Malaka’s use of Dutch, I decided to translate the foreign words without annotation. Tan Malaka would have assumed some knowledge of Dutch on the part of the majority of his readers. Illiteracy was high in Indonesia in the 1940s. Those people educated sufficiently to read such a book would have had enough knowledge of Dutch to understand the terms he used. Written and spoken Indonesian of that period frequently was punctuated with Dutch terminology; a decision to preserve Tan Malaka’s Dutch would, I believe, have introduced a barrier to understanding the text that was not encountered by the majority of its contemporary readers.¹⁹ Occasional exception has been made to this policy; for instance, a few Dutch proverbs and sayings have been retained with English translation in parentheses, as have a few terms, in particular inlander (native), the all-pervasive discriminatory epithet of colonial society, always used to separate and differentiate, hence better left in the foreign tongue in which it was uttered.

Some Indonesian words remain in the translation, principally where they have no direct English equivalent (such as Tan Malaka’s term murba) or where they were used in the revolutionary period with particular connotation and significance (such as pemuda, perjuangan, merdeka). In all such cases I have explained the term in a footnote on its first occurrence and have included it in the glossary, where other foreign words used more than once are also to be found. Proper names, principally those of organizations and parties, remain in their original language (mainly Indonesian), as do titles of publications referred to in the text and in footnotes. Where possible I have not retranslated Tan Malaka’s quotations of foreign-language material, but have sought the original or a published English-language translation for inclusion.

Tan Malaka’s text contains much that is strange to an English reader, leaning towards the Germanic style with frequent capitalization, particularly for abstract nouns, and the inclusion of a series of exclamation marks, question marks, and full stops. I have not included these in the English translation, where they would look quite out of place. I have reserved the use of square brackets for the rare occasions where I have felt constrained to introduce some interpolation to make the text meaningful. Parentheses have been used for Tan Malaka’s own interpolations in other quotations, for his parenthetical remarks in the text itself, and for translations of foreign terms, as explained above. Many of the copy-text’s small paragraphs have been amalgamated into larger portions of text, and occasionally very long paragraphs have been split. I have used the “new spelling” adopted in 1972 for all Indonesian terms, place names, and organizational names. I have retained the spelling of the time (whether prewar or 1945-1972) for personal names and names of publications with, as noted above, corrections of any errors contained therein.

My approach to the text can be summarized by saying that I have tried to remain faithful to the flavor and spirit of Tan Malaka’s writing, while at the same time presenting a readable English-language book. Where the two aims have been irreconcilable, the latter has prevailed. I believe my task has been more to present Tan Malaka and his ideas to the English-speaking reader than to attempt to render every idiosyncrasy of the text.

Annotation of the Text

From Jail to Jail as presented here in English contains over thirteen hundred notes. These annotations are of three categories. A number of notes relate to the text itself to explain errors and uncertainties in the text or to explain the meaning of a foreign word retained in the translation. Some provide sources for the many quotations scattered throughout the text. On occasion Tan Malaka himself has given the author, title, and page number of his quotations, but elsewhere the source has proved considerably more elusive, and occasionally all my attempts to track it down have proved fruitless. The majority of the annotations provide historical and contextual information on matters raised or referred to in the text. Many of the annotations explain events or concepts familiar to Tan Malaka’s contemporary readers but requiring explanation today, particularly for non-Indonesian readers. Since the story spans fifty years and two continents and refers to ancient and even prehistoric times, this task has been quite formidable.

I have prepared the translation to be read not only by Indonesianists, but also by people interested in the history of communism and nationalism in Asia and in political autobiography in general. I have, therefore, provided annotation that specialists in any one of those disciplines may regard as superfluous but that may be necessary to others for an understanding of the text.

Biographical and organizational appendixes give information on individuals and organizations integral to Indonesian history. Others have been dealt with in footnotes as they occur in the text. Such annotation has been limited to brief factual details relevant to the text, with reference to more comprehensive sources.

Research Program

This project took twelve years to complete. I began in mid-1972, acquiring photocopies of the copy-text from Cornell University. From July to September 1972 I studied the copy-text and some principal secondary sources on Indonesian history in order to start assembling a coherent picture of Tan Malaka and to chart the avenues of investigation I would follow. From September to December 1972 I was able to undertake research in Indonesia. This period was devoted mainly to recording interviews with people who had known Tan Malaka in his home village, concerning his schooling, his political activity, or his imprisonment, either as friend, relative, comrade, or political opponent. The interviews were conducted principally in Jakarta, but also in Serang and Bogor (West Java), Semarang (Central Java), and Padang, Padang Panjang, Bukit Tinggi, and Pandam Gadang (West Sumatra). They were mainly conducted in Indonesian, with one or two in Jakarta in English, and several in Pandam Gadang conducted through an interpreter in Minangkabau.

The remainder of my research period in Indonesia was spent in collecting material by and about Tan Malaka. In this regard, the Pustaka Murba archives held in Jakarta by Djamaluddin Tamim proved to be most valuable. The newspaper and periodical collections of the Perpustakaan Museum Pusat (now Perpustakaan Nasional) in Jakarta and Perpustakaan Negara in Yogyakarta were extremely rewarding.

Only after this research period was complete did I commence the actual translation in early 1973. Over the next eighteen months I prepared the first draft of the translation, working entirely from the copy-text. During 1974 and 1975 the draft was copy-edited for English expression and checked back sentence by sentence with the original. Beginning in 1975, regretfully, the project had to be completed as a part-time effort.

In 1976 I commenced annotating the translation. Further research into contemporary newspapers and other publications complemented the material I had gathered during my field work in Indonesia in 1972. Work in the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) in Washington, D.C., and in the Public Records Office (PRO) in London yielded archival material of considerable significance where Tan Malaka was considered to be impinging on the territorial possessions of these powers. The principal collection consulted in the United States was the Bureau of Insular Affairs records, particularly decimal file 856d.00 in record group 59, which proved extremely valuable for documenting Tan Malaka’s activities in the Philippines, particularly the events surrounding his arrest and deportation in August 1927. United States government interest in Tan Malaka did not vanish with his departure from the Philippines, however, and there is a small but significant body of intelligence reports concerning his role in the postwar period to be found in the State Department Research and Intelligence files. The principal collections consulted in the Public Records Office were those of the Foreign Office (FO 371 and FO 372), India Office (PZ), and Colonial Office (CO 273). Of particular importance were the Malayan Bulletin of Political Intelligence, throughout the 1920s, and the Malaya Command Intelligence Notes.

Material uncovered in the United States and British archives revealed the extent of intelligence cooperation among the various colonial powers. Continual exchange of information regarding the presumed activities of Tan Malaka and other “dangerous elements” took place throughout the 1920s and 1930s. From these sources I established a solid basis of Dutch intelligence and government material connected with Tan Malaka. This was complemented by the thorough documentation provided in Harry Poeze’s work. I have been fortunate enough to consult many of the documents obtained by Poeze and other scholars when consulting the Dutch archives for research on periods and events that incidentally touch on Tan Malaka. The principal collections of such material are those of the Algemeene Secretaris and the Ministerie van Koloniën, held in the Algemeene Rijksarchief (ARA).

Large amounts of information came from the Mailrapporten (mail reports from the Netherlands Indies), which contain intelligence reports, letters, and transcripts of interrogations of political prisoners. These sources have provided the principal documentation on the Partai Republik Indonesia (PARI). In 1976 I was also able to consult the collections (in particular serial collections) of the Library of Congress and the British Museum, and to do some follow-up research at Cornell University—both in the library and in the private collection of Professor Benedict Anderson. A short visit to Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia in late 1976 also enabled me to follow up a number of leads uncovered over the previous few years.

Between 1977 and 1980 I finished the translation, with reference to the comparison texts and to experts in Indonesian and the other languages in the text. I then undertook a detailed analysis of textual errors and problems. I spent considerable time in basic research on the Philippine national revolution and the Chinese revolution of the 1920s in order to be able to annotate Tan Malaka’s substantial pieces on those historical periods. These were not in my own field of study and I sent these chapters, with preliminary annotation, to experts in these fields for comment and guidance as to further sources for study. Also during this period, I prepared a first draft of my introduction.

In 1980 during a visit to Manila I consulted with Philippine scholars of the labor and communist movement of the 1920s and did some research into contemporary material held in the National Library. I was particularly fortunate in finding a book of 1927 newspaper clippings on Tan Malaka collected by the Filipino nationalist historian Carlos Ronquillo.

A holiday visit to Indonesia also in 1980 enabled me to renew old contacts and to make an unexpectedly rewarding journey to Bayah, on the south coast of West Java, where Tan Malaka stayed during most of the Japanese occupation. I happened to be in Jakarta at the same time as Harry Poeze, who was undertaking research for his continuing work on Tan Malaka, and so we decided to travel together to Bayah. It was our intention merely to look at the place in order to provide a context for Tan Malaka’s description of it. To our surprise, our host, on hearing of our interest in Tan Malaka, informed us that there were still a number of people in the town who remembered him. Our host made immediate arrangements for us to meet these people and to hear their reminiscences, and they took us around the town pointing out landmarks referred to in the autobiography. It was on this visit to Indonesia that I managed to discover the area of Jakarta where Tan Malaka lived at the beginning of the Japanese occupation and to meet some people who remembered him there.

My principal sources both for the annotation and my introduction were my interviews and Tan Malaka’s own writings, as well as newspaper reports and archival documents. I used secondary sources principally in the documentation of events referred to in the text, but they are not central to an understanding of Tan Malaka himself. Several exceptions to this are the handful of secondary sources used as principal documents for different parts of my study. These sources are Ruth T. McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism; Benedict R. O’G. Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944-1946; George McTurnan Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia; and Harry A. Poeze, Tan Malaka, strijder voor Indonesie’s vrijheid: levensloop van 1897 tot 1945. I used other secondary sources principally as points from which to diverge in reaching an analysis of Tan Malaka.