Tan Malaka

Tan Malaka

Tan Malaka (born June 2, 1897 in Suliki , West Sumatra , † February 21, 1949 in Kediri , East Java ) was an Indonesian teacher and writer, communist philosopher, anti-colonial thinker and nationalist activist against the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies .

overview

He was a staunch critic of both the colonial Dutch government and the republican government under Sukarno , which ruled the country after the Indonesian National Revolution . Tan Malaka was often in contact, but also often in conflict with the leadership of the Communist Party of Indonesia ( PKI ), a radical political party of the 1920s, which was initially banned in 1927 after an unsuccessful attempt at revolution against the Dutch colonial rulers and after independence at the Government was involved.

Due to the reprisals in the Dutch East Indies and in his role as a political outsider, Tan Malaka spent a large part of his life in exile and was constantly threatened by arrest by the Dutch authorities and their allies. Despite this apparent segregation and exclusion, he nonetheless played a key intellectual role in linking the international communist movement ( Comintern ) with the anti-colonial movements in Southeast Asia . He was posthumously declared a national hero by the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly in 1963 . In the following period of the anti-communist Suharto regime ( "New Order" ), however, Malaka's books were banned and memories of his achievements faded.

Early life and education

Tan Malaka was born in Suliki / Western Sumatra in 1897 as a member of the Minangkabau ethnic group . His name was "Datuk Ibrahim Gelar Sutan Malaka". However, he was called "Tan Malaka" both as a child and as an adult; an honorific name inherited from his mother aristocratically and matrilineally . From 1908 to 1913 he attended a teacher training college founded by the Dutch colonial government in Bukittinggi , the spiritual center of Minangkabau culture. Here he began to learn the Dutch language, which he later taught to Indonesian students. In 1913 he received a loan from the elders of his home village for further training in the Netherlands and was able to study there at the state teacher training school (Rijkskweekschool) in Haarlem until 1919 . During this stay he dealt with communist and socialist theories and came to the conviction that Indonesia had to be liberated from Dutch colonial rule through a revolution. In his autobiography, Tan Malaka cites the Russian Revolution of 1917 as a political awakening which heightened his understanding of the interplay between capitalism , imperialism / colonialism and the oppression of the lower classes .

As a result, he became seriously ill with tuberculosis , which he attributed to the cold climate and the unfamiliar diet in the Netherlands. This was the beginning of lifelong health problems that often prevented him from doing his job.

Rise in the communist party

After completing his studies in the Netherlands, Tan Malaka returned to Indonesia in November 1919. He took a job as a teacher for the children of day laborers ( coolies ) and also worked on a Swiss and German owned tobacco plantation on the north east coast of Sumatra near Medan . During his stay in Sumatra he worked with the Indies , a social democratic association (ISDV). It was later to become the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). During this time he published first articles in the newspaper of the ISDV. Malaka's critical mind often came into conflict with the plantation's European management, the curriculum for his students, his social-liberal political columns he wrote for the local newspapers, and his work as a union activist, particularly through a railway workers strike in 1920 .

Frustrated by his position in Sumatra, he went to Java in late February 1920 . He initially stayed in Yogyakarta but soon went to Semarang to set up an "elementary school" for the nationalist organization Sarekat Islam (SI). According to the SI, this school should provide a meaningful education and at the same time educate the students in national pride. Tan Malaka held several union leadership positions and wrote extensively for unions and PKI publications. His most prominent leadership role came in December 1921 when he was appointed chairman of the PKI in place of Semaun , the party's first chairman. During his brief tenure, the PKI attempted to forge links with the unions by assisting workers during several strikes. Tan Malaka's role in the PKI was viewed by the colonial government as a subversive activity. He was arrested by the colonial apparatus in Bandung in February 1922 and had to leave for exile in the Netherlands on March 24th.

exile

One of Tan Malaka's first steps on his arrival in the Netherlands was to have himself run as the third candidate on the list of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPH) for the elections to the Estates General of the Netherlands in 1922. This made him the first candidate from the Dutch East Indies colony. The third position on the list made his election under the system of proportional representation unlikely. His goal was to get a platform through the candidacy to talk about the Dutch measures in Indonesia and to persuade the CPH to support Indonesian independence. Although he did not win a seat, he still received strong support.

Before the election results were announced, Tan Malaka moved to Berlin for several months , then to Moscow in October 1922 . There he dealt intensively with the politics of the Communist International (Comintern). He fought vehemently and with literary emphasis for the support of the communist parties of Europe for the nationalist liberation struggles in colonial Asia. His theses on the compatibility of communism and religion in his Islamic country of birth, Indonesia, led to controversy among the anti-clerical European communists. Nevertheless, at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) in June 1923, he was appointed its representative for Southeast Asia.

During this time he wrote several books, including on the political and economic situation in Indonesia, which were published in Russian in Moscow in 1924. As a representative of the Comintern, he went to Canton in China in December 1923 . Tan Malaka's assignment was to publish a newspaper for Southeast Asia in English: a task that proved difficult because he knew little English and printing machines for the Latin alphabet were difficult to find in China at the time.

In July 1925 Tan Malaka moved to Manila , Philippines , where he found work for a newspaper and actively followed and wrote about the situation in Indonesia. At this point the PKI was taking steps towards an open rebellion against the power of the Dutch in East India . However, the action led to defeat by the colonial government. Tan Malaka saw this action as a bad strategy of a still weak party unprepared for a revolution. In his autobiography, he described his frustration at the difficulty of getting information about events in Indonesia from the Philippines and lamented his lack of influence over the PKI leadership. He argued that, as the Comintern's representative for Southeast Asia, he was empowered to reject the PKI plan, a claim that has been subsequently denied by some former PKI members. At the time, he persuaded some PKI leaders in the country that an armed uprising was not in the party's best interests, but PKI groups in West Java and West Sumatra gave the go-ahead for an armed uprising, which the Dutch government used as an excuse to fight vigorously the party, including the execution of several party leaders.

In the Philippines he made friends with members of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas , especially Crisanto Evangelista , as well as some government representatives such as President Manuel Quezon and the former President and General Emilio Aguinaldo , without them suspecting that he was a leader of a communist party that was illegal at the time . In December 1926, Tan Malaka traveled to Bangkok . Here he founded the Partai Republic of Indonesia (PARI), distanced himself from the Comintern and also criticized the PKI in the new party's manifesto. PARI had few members within the country and never grew into a large organization, but since the PKI went underground, it was the only organization in the late 1920s that publicly demanded Indonesia's immediate independence. Tan Malaka returned to Manila in August 1927, but was soon arrested by American police at the request of the Dutch. The charge of illegal entry into the Philippines became a point of conflict for national feeling in the Philippines. Universities went on strike in protest, and Filipino politicians raised funds for his defense. He was represented by Jose Abad Santos , but instead of going to court, he agreed to be deported.

Leaving the Philippines by ship, he expected to be arrested again by the Dutch as soon as he landed in China. Therefore he escaped with the help of the Filipino ship crew. While the ship was moored in the port of Amoy ( Xiamen ), he was hiding in a nearby village. The details of the next few years of his life are unclear; there is a large void in his autobiography for that period. After spending around two years in the village of Sionching, he moved to Shanghai in 1929. In 1931 he returned to work for the Comintern. Abidin Kusno argues that this stay in Shanghai should be seen as an important phase in the design of Tan Malaka's later actions during the Indonesian revolution of the late 1940s. When Japan occupied Shanghai in September 1932, Tan Malaka fled south to Hong Kong in disguise and using a pseudonym . However, almost immediately upon arrival, he was arrested by the British authorities and detained for several months. He was hoping for a chance to defend his case under UK law and possibly obtain asylum in the UK. After several months of interrogation, his banishment from Hong Kong was decided without charge.

After considering several options for a place of exile outside the reach of Dutch influence, Tan Malaka chose Amoy , where he had friends in the village of Iwe. Here his health deteriorated and he was ill for several years until Chinese medicine restored him to health. In 1936 he began teaching English, German and Marxist theory at a school. In August 1937 he fled again from the Japanese military south, first to Rangoon , Burma via Singapore for a month, then south again to Singapore via Penang. In Singapore he found work again as a teacher. When fascist Japan occupied the Malay Peninsula in the course of World War II and drove the Dutch from Indonesia in 1942, Tan Malaka decided to go back to Indonesia after an absence of almost twenty years.

Return to Indonesia

Tan Malaka's return to Indonesia began with a journey of several months. He stayed in Penang for a while before crossing to Sumatra, then visited Medan, Padang, and several other cities before arriving on the outskirts of Japanese-occupied Jakarta in July 1942. Most of the time he was then busy writing and researching in Jakarta's libraries. When his Singapore savings ran out, he took a job as a salesman at a coal mine in Bayah, South West Java. On Bayah he campaigned for the slave laborers who were sent here by the Japanese from all over Java to work in the mine and build railways.

Role in war

In August 1945 after the Japanese surrender, he first traveled to Jakarta and then on to Java. He was convinced that Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, the heads of state and government of Indonesia, were too forgiving of the Dutch attempts to regain control of the archipelago. In his autobiography, he says that most people in Indonesia are ready for immediate full independence. After a few months of discussion, the Persatuan Perjuangan, a coalition of about 140 smaller groups, was formally formed at a congress in Surakarta (Solo) in mid-January 1946. The minimal program stated that only complete independence was acceptable, that the government had to consider the wishes of the people and that foreign-owned plantations and industries should be nationalized. Tan Malaka said that all foreign forces must be removed from Indonesia before negotiations.

The Persatuan Perjuangan had great popularity and support in the Republican Army, where General Sudirman was a strong supporter of the coalition. In February 1946, the organization forced the temporary resignation of Prime Minister Sutan Syahrir, and Sukarno consulted with Tan Malaka to gain his support. However, Tan Malaka was apparently unable to bridge the political divisions within his coalition in order to take them into concrete political responsibility, and Syahrir returned to Sukarno's cabinet. In response to this defeat, the Persatuan Perjuangan refused to support the current composition of the republican government and opposed any negotiation.

Imprisonment, release and death

In response to persistent opposition from Persatuan Perjuangan, the Sukarno government arrested most of the coalition leaders, including Tan Malaka in March 1946. He remained in prison until September 1948.

During his detention, the PKI turned out to be the government's strongest critic. The translator of his autobiography, Helen Jarvis, noted that Tan Malaka and the other Persatuan Perjuangan leaders appeared less threatening than the opposition PKI. Tan Malaka had become thoroughly alienated from the PKI; he was hated within the party for his harsh criticism in the 1920s. He himself mistrusted the strategic decisions of the current PKI leadership.

After his release he worked in Yogyakarta from the end of 1948 on to form a new political party, the Partai Murba (proletarian party). When the Dutch arrested the government in December 1948, he fled to rural East Java, where he hoped to be protected by the anti-Republican guerrillas. He lived in Blimbing, a village surrounded by rice fields, and joined Sabarudin, leader of Battalion 38. According to Malaka, Sabarudin's force was the only armed group that actually fought against the Dutch. However, Sabarudin had conflicts with all other armed groups. On February 17th, the TNI leaders in East Java decided to arrest Sabarudin and his companions and to condemn them militarily. On the 19th they captured Tan Malaka in Blimbing. On February 20, the notorious Dutch Corps Speciale Troepen , known as Operation Tiger, started from the east of the Javanese city of Nganjuk. They advanced quickly and brutally. Poeze (2007) describes in detail how the TNI soldiers fled to the mountains and how Tan Malaka, already injured, came to a TNI camp and was executed on February 21, 1949. No records or reports were made, and Malaka was buried in the forest.

Books by Tan Malaka

• Soviet Atau Parlemen (Semarang, 1921)
• Tunduk Pada Kekuasaan Tapi Tidak Tunduk Pada Kebenaran (Berlin, 1922)
• Indonesia I Ejo Mesto Na Probuzjdajusjtsjemsja Vostoke (Moscow, 1924)
• Gutji Wasiat Kauem Militer (Saigon, 1924)
• Naar de "Republiek Indonesia" (Menuju "Republik Indonesia") (Canton, 1925, main work)
• Semangat Muda (Manila, 1926)
• Massa Actie / Aksi Massa (Singapore, 1926)
• Locally dan Nasional Aksi di Indonesia (Singapore, 1926)
• Pari dan PKI (Pari dengan PKI) (1927)
• Rencana Ekonomi Berjuang (1945)
• Politics (1945)
• Thesis (1946)
• Madilog (= Materialisme, Dialektika, Logika) (Jakarta, 1948, main work)
• Islam dalam Tinjauan "Madilog" (Jakarta, 1948)
• Dari Pendjara ke Pendjara (From Jail to Jail) (1970, autobiography)

literature

• Harry A. Poeze: Tan Malaka - Pergulatan Menuju Republic. Volume 1 and 2, Jakarta 1988.

swell

• Tan Malaka: From Jail To Jail. Ohio Univ. Center for International Studies, 1970.
• Harry A. Poeze: Tan Malaka - Pergulatan Menuju Republic. 1988.

Web links

• Malaka Archive (English)