From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
took place through the oppression and exploitation of the monopoly system, the culture system, the Dutch capitalist system, and the Japanese kenpeitai (secret police) system.
The murba group is the most oppressed and exploited of all in Indonesian society. Due to their situation, according to the theory of dialectical materialism, the murba group is the one that must be the firmest and strongest of all antiimperialist groups in Indonesia in the fight for genuine independence and common prosperity.
In the struggle against fascism, imperialism, and capitalism, it is fitting that the murba group should be the motive force, since it is indeed the largest and the most oppressed and exploited. This theory becomes reality only when it is implemented successfully.
In forming an organisation of Indonesian murba, disciplined as steel in carrying out the tactics and strategy appropriate to the struggle and the nature of the Indonesian murba, it is hoped that the Indonesian murba will succeed in playing out the historical role assigned them; that is, to organise and mobilise all the revolutionary energy of the Indonesian people with the aim of destroying and obliterating capitalist-imperialist aggression of all kinds, and to lay the foundation stone of socialist society on the soil of Indonesia.
Only if all this is accomplished can the Indonesian murba be called the leaders of the struggle for (political and economic) independence of the Indonesian people. And only then will the Republic of Indonesia have the right to lead the struggle for (political and economic) independence of all the colonial and semi-colonial countries.
With the development of the murba concept, Tan Malaka has defined the “motive force” as including not only the true proletariat but also the “potential” proletariat, or what Marx called the lumpen-proletariat, Lumpen (meaning “rags,” “shabby”) is clearly the source for the distinguishing feature djembel of the final two categories of murba: the city murba and intellectual murba. In this development, Tan Malaka has retained the essential element of the Marxist category of the proletariat “owning nothing but its brains and labour power” but he has bypassed consideration of its present relationship to the means of production.81
In all likelihood it was Sukarno’s popularization of the term marhaen that led Tan Malaka to use murba. Sukarno, from at least as early as 1930, had started to use the term marhaen for the common people of Indonesia, consciously rejecting the Marxist category of proletariat, along with the whole concept of class struggle.
Sukarno himself explained the origin of the term marhaen as follows:
on a certain day I was walking in the rice fields to the south of Tjigereleng, and I came across a man hoeing the field, and I asked him: “Brother, who owns this field?” “Gaduh abdi” (I own it) he said. And so he participated in ownership of the means of production, owning that rice field. “And the hoe, who owns that?” “Gaduh abdi.” “These tools, who owns these?” “Gaduh abdi.” “But, brother, you live in poverty?” “That’s right, I live poorly.” And I thought to myself then, this man clearly and certainly is not a member of the proletariat, he is a pauper, he is poor, he suffers much, he has not a lot to live on, but he is not a member of the proletariat, for he does not sell his own labor power to another without participating in ownership of the means of production. His rice field is his own property, his hoe is his own, his sickle is his own, his rake is his own. Everything is his own property; the crop of his rice field is for his own use. But he is still a pauper, he is poor. Nevertheless he is not one of the proletariat, he is a small farmer, a very poor farmer, barely making a living. . . . He said that his name was Marhaen. I had an inspiration: Now, this name I will hold to; I will use this name to describe the destitute people of Indonesia. (Marhaen and Proletarian, p. 7)
The marhaenist is a person with small means; a little man with little ownership, little tools, sufficient to himself. Our tens of millions of impoverished souls work for no person and no person works for them. There is no exploitation of one man by another. Marhaenism is Indonesian socialism in operation. (Sukarno: An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams, p. 63)
The difference between the two concepts is obvious, both in content of the categories and in the intent of their advocates: Tan Malaka developed his term to adapt and explain the Marxist category in the Indonesian environment; Sukarno’s aim was precisely to cut across and paste over class categories.82
Tan Malaka did not use the term murba in his prewar writings, nor even in his philosophical treatise Madilog, written in 1942. The first use of the term I have come across is a statement issued by the Komite Nasional Indonesia Pusat on 29 August 1945:
as soon as possible after the international situation (which influences our fate) is stable and favourable, the Komite Nasional will prove our appreciation in concrete terms to the murba people, by improving and looking after the wellbeing of the whole people, particularly as regards daily needs. (Nasution, Sekitar, vol. 1, p. 238)
The date of this statement coincides with the time that Tan Malaka identified himself to Subardjo, the foreign minister and member of the KNIP. It is possible that Subardjo took the term from his discussions with Tan Malaka, and it was through him that it was included in the KNIP statement. On the other hand, perhaps Tan Malaka himself picked up the term from this statement or from others made by members of the KNIP and incorporated it into his own writings.
From Manifesto PARI Djakarta, written on 7 September 1945, Tan Malaka uses the term frequently, and it was brought forward publicly in connection with his name in the article written by Muhammad Yamin in Merdeka, 26 December 1945, which was the first announcement for many people that Tan Malaka was back in the fray. He and his followers used the term constantly, from this time, to refer to the group in society they were counting on to lead the revolution and also as the name for their newspaper, their publishing house, and, ultimately, their party. Tan Malaka was given the epithet “father of the Indonesian murba.”83
The murba, broadened somewhat though it was from the true proletariat, still was, in Tan Malaka’s view, too small to make the revolution on its own. Crucial to success was the forging of alliances with sections of the nonproletariat.
The core of the revolution (at least in Java) must be formed by the industrial and agricultural workers. The principal political fortresses of Dutch economic imperialism can be assailed only by the workers. Around the workers stand the petty bourgeois, who lack direction and decisiveness. (As to the bourgeoisie—they will follow the revolution only when they know it will succeed, only at the last minute, and even then only if they wish to do so. More than that cannot and should not be hoped from them). (Massa actie, p. 45)
In a colonial country such as Indonesia, the peasantry was the section of the petty bourgeoisie with which the proletariat had to ally if there was any chance of carrying out a revolution. The question of how to form such an alliance, and its changing nature during the unfolding of a revolution, has been a continuing concern-for the Russian Bolsheviks in 1917 and for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas today. It is in this context that Tan Malaka’s murba must be seen—to differentiate within the mass of the petty bourgeoisie those elements likely to be the closest allies of the tiny genuine proletariat.
In Tan Malaka’s analysis, the distinguishing feature of Indonesian society compared to many other colonized nations was the virtual absence of a national bourgeoisie.84 Tan Malaka maintained that this feature severely hindered the possibility of imperialism reaching a moderate solution or a compromise in Indonesia. Unlike India, Egypt, or the Philippines, in Indonesia there was no real indigenous bourgeoisie to whom political power could be handed over. The insignificant size and strength of the Indonesian bourgeoisie also had implications for the nationalist movement. In Tan Malaka’s view, there was little likelihood of a “revolutionary” bourgeois movement like the Indian Congress emerging, and the truly revolutionary elements were more likely to assume the leadership of the fight for independence (From Jail to Jail, Volume III, pp. 183-85; Menudju ‘Republik Indonesia,’ pp. 7-8; Massa actie, pp. I-IV).
Tan Malaka devoted special attention to describing the role of intellectuals in