From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
Indonesian leader of stature so willing to be publicly indebted to the Chinese, or so genuinely free of racial prejudice” (Java, p. 274, n. 17).
32. Shown to me during an interview, Sydney, 4 May 1978 (original in English).
33. For example Volume III, pp. 13-27, and, at greater length, his philosophical work Madilog (materialisme, dialektika, logika), especially chapter 7, pp. 276-410.
34. See especially Hamka’s introduction to Tan Malaka, Islam dalam tindjuan Madilog, pp. 3-4.
35. Mrázek, “Tan Malaka,” pp. 28-33 and p. 17, where he quotes (somewhat loosely) from Tan Malaka, Massa actie (1947), pp. 69-70.
36. Tan Malaka, “De Islam en het Bolszjewisme,” De Tribune, 21 September 1922, quoted by McVey, Rise, p. 161.
37. Interview with Ibu Hasan Sastraatmadja, Jakarta, 1 November 1972.
38. One may observe here a parallel with another revolutionary, as noted: “Lenin hoarded space as well as time, writing in a tiny script” (Mazlish, The Revolutionary Ascetic, p. 135).
39. Interview with Abdul Muluk Djalil, Jakarta, 1 November 1972.
40. Interview with Hasan Sastraatmadja, Jakarta, 1 November 1972 (underlined phrases spoken in English).
41. Interviews with informants in Bayah, 23 September 1980, and Anderson, Java, p. 275.
42. Poeze, Tan Malaka, chapter 2, “Op de Kweekschool,” pp. 18-32.
43. Quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 208-9.
44. J. de Kadt, Uit mijn communistentijd, p. 286, quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 243.
45. Recollections by Abdurrachman are from interviews in Jakarta, 24 October 1972, and Sydney, 26 May 1982.
46. Interview with Adam Malik, Jakarta, 6 October 1972.
47. Interview with Djajarukmantara, Jakarta, 26 September 1980.
48. Interview with Abdurrachman, Jakarta, 24 October 1972. In a later interview, Sydney, 26 May 1982, she reaffirmed this clandestine approach of Tan Malaka in Jakarta. Although living in the same house, he was still “Hussein” until she deduced his identity and confronted Subardjo with her suspicions. Likewise, Nelly Malik recalls that during the time they shared a house in Yogyakarta, Tan Malaka kept entirely to himself, suspicious of all strangers (interview, Jakarta, 6 October 1972).
49. On Tan Malaka’s instructions to his mother not to visit him in Padang, see Toendoek kepada kekoeasaan, tetapi tidak toendoek kepada kebenaran, p. 90; information on Tan Malaka’s mother came from interviews (including one with her second husband, Murin) in and around Pandam Gadang, November 1972.
50. Budiman Djaja, “Mengenang,” Tempo, 28 March 1963, and quoted in Anderson, Java, p. 276, n. 21.
51. Interview with Paramita Abdurrachman in Jakarta, 24 October 1972. The two previous romantic attachments referred to here are (1) the pressure placed upon him to marry his schoolmate Sjarifah Nawawi in 1913, to accord with the tradition that the holder of the title Datuk Tan Malaka be married; and (2) the Dutch socialist Fenny Struyvenberg, who spent some time with Tan Malaka during 1922 in Holland (see p. lxi above).
In my interviews I came across numerous allusions to allegations of Tan Malaka’s being homosexual, generally swiftly dismissed by the person being interviewed—whether genuinely rejected or pushed aside for fear of bringing ill repute to Tan Malaka, I could not know. The only place I have seen the issue discussed in print is in Budiman Djaja’s “Mengenang”: “his close friends give assurances that he was not gay (bantji) or someone who was ‘not normal’. He never organized a household for strong reasons-he was always on the run.”
52. If one wishes to categorize Tan Malaka according to political personality type, then he can perhaps be seen to fit closely the “revolutionary ascetic” model developed by Bruce Mazlish from the character of Lenin. Self-disciplined and self-restrained; simple in dress, speech, and personal tastes; thorough, fastidious, and punctual; complete dedication to work punctuated by bouts of extreme fatigue, perhaps depression; committed to energy and to work: the type certainly fits Tan Malaka closely, but did he also like cats? I cannot answer that question, but I am prompted to ask it by my own dissatisfaction with personality typecasting without reference to political persuasion.
53. Alimin, Analysis. See also Alimin’s views as recorded in an interview on 14 October 1946 by W. Ch. J. Bastiaans, Indonesia Merdeka.
54. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (1970), p. v.
55. Sol Tas, Indonesia: The Underdeveloped Freedom (New York: Pegasus, 1974), pp. 200-2.
56. M. A. Jaspan, “Aspects of Indonesian Political Sociology in the Late Soekarno Era. Part III. Counter-Revolution and Rebellion: An Interpretative Analysis of Events in the Period Sept. 1965 to June 1966,” in South-East Asian Journal of Sociology 3 (1970), p. 53.
57. See Philippines Free Press, 10 September 1927.
58. Anderson, Java, pp. 276-77.
59. Shigetada Nishijima, Shogen: Indoneshia dokuritsu kakumei, pp. 189-90.
60. Subardjo, Kesadaran nasional, p. 359.
61. Arnold C. Brackman, Indonesian Communism, pp. 27-28 and 39. See also William F. de Bruyn, The Rising Soviet Star over Indonesia (The Hague: National Committee for “Unity of the Kingdom,” 1947), p. 8, which states that Tan Malaka was a member of the Japanese secret service. Bastiaans’ October 1946 notes of an interview with Alimin refer to Tan Malaka’s political program as “the same as the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere of the Japanese” to Tan Malaka “working with the fascists” and threw in the question as to whether or not Tan Malaka was a British agent! Bastiaans, Indonesia merdeka, pp. 40-41.
62. Lazitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, p. 249.
63. Tan Malaka refers to such “false Tan Malakas” in Volume II, p. 130, and Volume III, pp. 9 and 106. Many of my informants corroborated the existence of these “Tan Malaka” propagandists for the Japanese (for example, interviews with A. B. Loebis, Jakarta, 30 October 1972; Adam Malik, Jakarta, 7 October 1972; Sjamsuddin Tjan, Jakarta, 8 October 1972; Mohammad Hatta, Jakarta, 29 November 1972; Chaeruddin, Jakarta, 28 November 1972). According to Sakti Arga, some eight Tan Malakas were reported in Jakarta alone! (Tan Malaka, p. 4). However, Japanese intelligence agent Shigetada Nishijima dismissed these reports as “rumours” without foundation (Shogen, p. 189).
64. “Tan Malaka dan soal rechtspositienja diloear Indonesia,” Pewarta Deli, 1 July 1933, which captions Tan Malaka’s photograph with the words “Patjar Merah (the scarlet pimpernel) dalam pergerakan de Asia.” In the early 1930s, the Partindo journal Indonesian Berdjoang carried reports signed “Patjar Merah.” (Jacques Leclerc, “La clandestinité et son double,” p. 234.)
65. Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 487, noting that Emnast was the pen name of Muchtar Nasution.
66. Ratu Sukma, Tan Malaka, pp. 21-22.
67. Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel was first published in Indonesian translation by the government publishing house Balai Poestaka as early as 1926. As Indonesia was on the circuit for popular European films, one can assume that the many screenplays, from the first silent movie of 1917 to the first sound film of 1935, were screened in the main towns.
68. Benedict Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution, pp. 406-7.
69. Muhammad Yamin, “Tan Malacca, Bapak Republik Indonesia,” Kedaulatan Rakyat, 29 December 1945.
70. Muhammad Yamin, Tan Malaka, Bapak Republik Indonesia, p. 26.
71. Muhammad Yamin, Tan Malaka, Bapak Republik Indonesia, pp. 24 and 5 respectively.
72. See below, pp. xci-xcv.
73.