From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
that these Tuan Besar saw Dr. Janssen, who had proposed the setting up of schools for Senembah Mij., as an idealist, an ethisch, and a stupid person, and that they ridiculed him behind his back.
In the time of Tsarina Katharina in Russia, if I am not mistaken, there was a prime minister by the name of Potemkin. In answer to the Tsarina’s questions he would simply say, “The people are happy, the crops are flourishing, hai Tuanku.”61 If the Tsarina wanted to see with her own eyes the happiness of the people and their economic progress, Potemkin would take her to a beautiful village, specially prepared beforehand. This beautiful village decorated for the Tsarina’s visit was known as Potemkin village. The Tsarina was kept in Potemkin’s pocket to keep her from seeing the dirty and miserable villages, and was brought out only to admire this decorated one so that to her it seemed true that “The people are happy, the crops are flourishing.”
In Senembah Mij. there was also a Potemkin village and a Tsarina Katharina. Potemkin was incarnated as the Tuan Kebun and the Tsarina as Herr Dr. Janssen enthroned in the Netherlands. The Potemkin village in Senembah Mij. had been set up at Dr. Janssen’s request for the contract coolies who had worked for a long time. They had their own houses and gardens. Now, aside from the Potemkin village, we had a Potemkin school to warm the heart of the idealist ethisch Dr. Janssen. The Tuan Kebun kept Dr. Janssen in his pocket (read, his Chrysler auto) to see and admire only the Potemkin village and school.
[64] I knew that not long afterwards Dr. Janssen would be returning to the Netherlands. I, his protege, would be left alone among the Tuan Besar who hated my skin color, my political views, and even my work. My main objectives had already been achieved. I had gained experience among the contract coolies and I had earned enough money to repay the debts to my village and to my former teacher. In fact a large part had already been repaid, and the reserve funds I had been putting away would be sufficient to erase the rest if necessary.62 I had been shutting my eyes and ears too long to the situation in this unfortunate society. Once it seems I went too far in writing of the behavior of the Dutch on the plantation, particularly towards the women contract coolies. A written response came from a woman whom I had known as Miss Mathilde Elizas, an educator, now the wife of Horensma, my former teacher.63 The short message read: “If you don’t like it there, then come back to us. Really, there is enough other work to do.”
After the meeting of the Tuan Besar, Dr. Janssen invited me to take a stroll with him. I was no longer hesitant to make the decision, and I said, “You’ve seen for yourself the atmosphere on the plantation, particularly toward me as an Indonesian. When you leave Deli shortly, the school for the coolie children will be turned into a school for hoeing. It’s better that I ask permission to leave from you personally.”
I do not remember what Dr. Janssen said; perhaps he made no comment at all. How could someone as sensitive as he not understand my course in life, my struggle, and the difficulties I faced? That night Dr. Janssen invited me to the house of Dr. Pel.64 Also present was Professor Schuffner, the prominent malaria expert. This was the night of our parting. Dr. Janssen had already instructed the office to pay me two months’ salary and to purchase a first-class ticket to Java for me.65
From my friends I heard, “By inviting you to the meeting of the Tuan Besar and by wishing you farewell, Dr. Janssen has shown his appreciation and has restored your honor, which has all this time been trampled on by the Tuan Besar.” But Bookkeeper No. 1, who had been the first to reject my request to become acquainted over two years ago, was whispering right and left: “What’s the use of buying a first-class ticket for that inlander Tan Malaka? He probably won’t even enjoy it (how could an inlander appreciate good things?).”
One day before I had left [the Netherlands] for Indonesia, I received an envelope containing money to cover my expenses and to serve as a mark of appreciation for a lecture on the institutions and traditions of a certain region in Indonesia, which I had been asked to give by Tuan Boissevain of the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce.66 This was a normal enough event. But what happened afterwards was unusual indeed. As I was traveling on the train from Bussum to Amsterdam, an old man sitting beside me in the third-class carriage asked, his eyes sharp as he spoke: “Are you Tan Malaka?” I acknowledged this with a little hesitation since I did not know the man. “I am Janssen,” he said. “I have received a report on schools for the coolie children in the Deli plantation. Why don’t you take a look at it?” When I began to read he said, “Just put it aside for now, and read it when you get home. After that I would like you to come to my office in Amsterdam to give me your views on it.” So it was that in his Amsterdam office Dr. Janssen offered me the job of working with Tuan W in Deli to develop an educational system suited to the conditions there.
[65] After parting from Dr. Janssen, and after being in Semarang several months, I received a letter from my teacher Horensma, which contained greetings from Dr. Janssen. The letter also said that Dr. Janssen was still extremely interested in me. And, in fact, after I arrived in the Netherlands, having been exiled from Indonesia at the beginning of 1922, I heard from my friends that he was present at one of my talks on education. And in one of the meetings during the campaign for the election to the Netherlands lower house, for which I was a candidate, I saw a relative of his.67 But I never met Dr. Janssen again. (His son, P. W. Janssen, is well known as a Dutch philanthropist.)68
Although possessing such noble ideals, he was sufficiently intelligent to sense the wide chasm between our political positions. It was not only on this occasion, nor only with white people either, that I was to experience the playing out of this tragedy of life: that you can go through good and bad with someone, eat and drink together, and yet be on opposite sides of the barricades.
Chapter 7
SEMARANG—THE RED CITY
[66] In July 1921, Semarang was known as Indonesia’s Red center. The present revolution, May 1947, has yet to overturn that characterization. In 1921, Semarang was the headquarters of the VSTP, the Vereeniging van Spoor en Tramweg Personeel [Union of Railway and Tramway Employees], the best-organized union in the whole of Indonesia. The VSTP was established in 1904; by 1921 it had reached a dues-paying membership of 17,000, had branches everywhere, and had a modern and well-organized printing press and newspaper.1 Semaun was the head of the union, aided by several Dutch employees who had had strike experience in the Netherlands and who can be said to have been the pioneers of the trade union movement in Indonesia.2 Apart from the VSTP there was also the PKI (Partai Komunis di India, formerly known as the ISDP, Indische Sociaal Democratische Partai), established by Dutch revolutionary socialists in 1914.3 When I arrived in Semarang, Semaun was the head of that party too. The Dutch leaders like Sneevliet and Baars had long been exiled.4 In 1922, after being recognized as a section of the Third International, the ISDP changed its name to PKI5 and issued the publications Het Vrije Woord and Soeara Ra’jat.6 The latter was headed by Darsono, the deputy head of the PKI. The PKI can be regarded as a cadre organization, while the party of the common people was the Red Sarekat Islam of Semarang, severed from the center by discipline imposed by the Central Sarekat Islam.7 To round out the picture of Semarang at that time, I must mention the Nationaal Indische Partij (NIP), which included among its leaders Dr. Douwes Dekker (now Dr. Settiabuddhi), Dr. Tjipto Mangunkusumo, and Suwardi Surjaningrat (now Ki Hadjar Dewantara).
[67] In 1921 the atmosphere throughout Indonesia approached that during the period from 1913 to 1919. The world economy had reached the peak of its upturn (in 1920) and was beginning to decline again. Except for its Deli branch, the NIP, the oldest national party, no longer made its voice heard.8 However, Sarekat Islam, at its third congress in Surabaya, had claimed eighty-seven branches and 450,000 members.9 According to the Dutch newspaper De Gids, Sarekat Islam had at one time during World War I been able to call out six million members and sympathizers to its general meetings throughout the islands. But this was all brought to an end because of the conflict with the Semarang group. The Jambi war in which the SI had taken part, the riots in Toli-toli in Sulawesi, and the Garut disturbances over Afdeling B were all ancient history.10 The actions of Dutch revolutionaries in the Soldaten-Bond, led by Sneevliet and Brandsteder, had shaken