From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
contra Tan Malaka, p. 193.
74. For example Adam Malik, Mengabdi Republik, vol. 1, pp. 188-89; and Wasid Soewarto, Kita madju terus dengan adjaran Tan Malaka, Murbaisme, p. 5.
75. “Keputusan Presiden Republik Indonesia, No. 53, tahun 1963, 28 Maret, 1963”: “We, president of the Republic of Indonesia, considering that the late Tan Malaka should be given recognition by the state in consideration of his services as a leader of Indonesia in the past, in that throughout his life, urged on by a feeling of love for his people and his homeland, he led an organised movement to oppose the colonizer of Indonesia; bearing in mind Presidential Decision No. 217, 1957 concerning regulations for Heroes of National Independence, and Presidential Decision No. 241, 1958 concerning regulations on declaring Heroes of National Independence
Hereby declare
first, the late Tan Malaka as a Hero of National Independence; Secondly, that the provisions of Presidential Decision 217, 1957 apply concerning commemoration of the soul of the departed; thirdly, that this decision takes effect from the day of its proclamation” (included as appendix to Muhammad Yamin, Tan Malaka, p. 40).
76. Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 53-58.
77. Tan Malaka’s Naar de ‘Republiek Indonesia’ is given as the earliest mention of this concept by an Indonesian nationalist in R. C. Kwantes, De ontwikkeling van de nationalistische beweging in Nederlandsch-Indie, vol. 2, p. 484. Mohammad Hatta refutes Tan Malaka’s claim to be the first to call for a republic, claiming that Tjipto Mangunkusumo had done so in 1913 (Bung Hatta menjawab, p. 18). However, I have found no reference to a republic in Tjipto’s writings, and Savitri Scherer’s discussion of his views concludes, “at no stage did he ever consider that the system which bound colonial rule and the natives should be abandoned or ignored. This system was to be improved to benefit both sides” (“Harmony and Dissonance,” p. 169).
78. Sukarno referred to an “Indonesian Political Economic Republic” (Soekarno’s Mentjapai Indonesian Merdeka, p. 32). Hatta declared “An independent Indonesia must be a Republic. . . .” (“Kearah Indonesia merdeka” in his Kumpulan karangan, vol. 1, p. 117).
79. For a fuller discussion of PARI see Jarvis, Partai Republik, and Poeze, Tan Malaka, chapter 10.
80. PPTUS report 9 July 1931 from Dirja (Alimin?) to Alex, enclosed in letter from Dutch consul-general in Shanghai to Procureur General, 29 July 1931 in Mailrapport 1005x/31, quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 416. This rapprochement is referred to elsewhere: the British Consul in Batavia, Fitzmaurice, reported on 1 October 1931 that “according to seized archives, the well-known Netherlands East Indies communist Tan Malaka was to operate in Burma with one Dirja [Alimin] while Moeso was to form a liaison with these two in Shanghai. Sums of $45,000 and $50,000 respectively were voted by T.U.S.S. (Profintern) for Burma and Malaya” (Document PZ 7375, enclosure to Despatch 105 from Fitzmaurice to Secretary of State, India Office Records). See also “Tan Malaka dan Partai Republiek Indonesia” [by Muso?] in Mailrapport 146x/38, p. 8.
81. “By proletariat [is meant] the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live” (footnote by Frederick Engels to the 1888 edition of Manifesto of the Communist Party [Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing house, n.d.], p. 47, n. 2).
82. On this aspect of Sukarno’s views, the following assessments are instructive: (1) “neither through organization nor through an appeal for mass action was the People called on to move. . . . support of the People was used by Sukarno in practice as a lever for dealings which remained within the intimate sphere of capital [city] politics” (McVey, introduction to Sukarno’s Nationalism, Islam and Marxism, p. 6).
“Marhaenism was used specifically to distinguish between proletarianism, which is based on class struggle, as taught by Marx, and the union of people of different classes fighting against colonialism, as was experienced in Indonesia. It meant the union of the whole nation, which is broader than just the union of the proletariat” (Mangkupradja, “The Peta and My Relations with the Japanese,” p. 109).
“Bung Karno’s message is: not class struggle within the nation, but national unity to oppose Dutch colonialism. In Indonesia, class struggle in essence reduces to race struggle. For this reason Bung Karno’s cry is not ‘workers of the world unite’, but rather ‘marhaen of Indonesia unite’” (Abdulgani, “Perkembangan tjita2 sosialisme di Indonesia,” p. 25).
David Reeve, however, maintains that Sukarno wavered on the question of class divisions in Indonesian society, at times arguing “that Indonesia was virtually an entire oppressed class fighting foreign capitalism and imperialism. Sukarno certainly aspired to lead the entire nation in ‘mass action’ against this imperialism rather than to cater for what he perceived as sectors of that nation. He developed a set of ideas which allowed him to avoid a firm commitment to class struggle within the future independent state while still claiming to be a Marxist as well as a nationalist and a Muslim. Nevertheless, while others of Sukarno’s ideas have a distinctive clarity, restated in almost identical terms from essay to essay, from year to year, he returns frequently to the class struggle with differing emphases, reworking the ideas, giving a sense of uneasiness in his rejection of what he knew to be a fundamental part of Marxist theory” (“An Alternative to the Party System in Indonesia,” pp. 59-60).
83. See, for example, Pacific, 8 November 1948.
84. This view was not his alone: see for instance Indonesia Accuses: Soekarno’s Defence Oration in the Political Trial of 1930, pp. 97-98.
85. See Sheila McGregor, “Muhammad Yamin: An Examination of his Political Thought,” for a discussion of this and other elements dominant in Yamin’s philosophy.
86. See Roff, The Origins of Malay Nationalism, p. 89, and “Indonesian and Malay Students in Cairo in the 1920’s.”
87. Cheah, “The Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 1941-45,” p. 88, provides much of the information used as the basis for this paragraph. See also Ahmad Boestamam, Carving the Path to the Summit, trans. William R. Roff (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979); Khoo, “The Beginnings of Political Extremism in Malaya 1915-1935”; I. K. Agastya (Ibrahim Yaacob), Sedjarah dan perdjuangan di Malaya; Yaacob, Sekitar Malaya Merdeka; and McIntyre, “The Greater Indonesia Idea of Nationalism in Malaya and Indonesia.”
88. See, for example, Cheah, “A Contest for Postwar Malaya,” p. 20.
89. Cheah, “Japanese Occupation,” p. 112; Kanahele, “The Japanese Occupation of Indonesia,” pp. 210-11, 319; McIntyre, “Greater,” pp. 80-81.
90. See Jarvis, Partai Republik.
91. Interview with Djamaluddin Tamim, Jakarta, 6 October 1972.
92. Enthusiasm and great expectations on Muso’s arrival were expressed in the major article “Apakah kita harapkan dari Muso?” Moerba, 14 August 1948, which concluded “Welcome, comrade Muso!”
93. Partai Murba, Anggaran dasar Partai Murba and Anggaran rumah tangga.
94. Gerakan Revolusi Rakyat (Revolutionary People’s Movement). See Appendix B, p. 368.
95. As he says himself, “Over this period of thirty years or more, my analysis of the character of Dutch capitalist imperialism has not changed at all; neither has my political and economic objective; nor my analysis of the means by which the Indonesian people have to achieve that objective” (Volume III, p. 151).
96. See Philippines Free Press, 3 September 1927.
97. For example, Officiële bescheiden betreffende de Nederlands-Indonesische betrekkingen 1945-1950, vol. 2, p. 561, and vol. 3, pp. 197 and 342; Charles A. Livengood (U.S. consul general in Batavia), Despatch to Secretary of State, 25 February 1949, NARS Record Group 59, file 856E.OOB/2-2549, box 6306.
98. For specific reference to the Tito parallel see Soewarto, Hakekat situasi dan perkembangan luar dan dalam negeri dan sikap