From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
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of his dialectical interpretation of what happened to him. Alfian puts his finger very neatly on some of the problems that plagued Tan Malaka: the effect of his long exile in distancing him from the other political leaders, so that in 1945 they were suspicious of or at best simply unfamiliar with Tan Malaka, making it extremely difficult for him to communicate with them; and what Alfian terms Tan Malaka’s underestimation of the charismatic appeal of Sukarno, perhaps as a result of his negative attitude to Hindu-Javanese culture (stressed by Mrázek). He also accepts Mrázek’s analysis of Tan Malaka’s emphasis on the power of ideas to change society, asking pathetically, however, who today even reads Tan Malaka’s work?
In analyzing Tan Malaka’s role in Indonesian history, Alfian adopts a dialectical approach, presenting Sjahrir’s diplomasi as thesis, Tan Malaka’s perjuangan as antithesis, and Sukarno and Hatta’s kompromi as the synthesis that ultimately prevailed. He asks the question, what would Indonesia have become if Tan Malaka’s vision had been fulfilled?
Indeed it is difficult to say. Perhaps the revolutionary vision closest to Tan Malaka’s was that of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. As can be seen, the consistent implementation of that vision succeeded in brilliantly defeating two great capitalist-imperialist powers, France and the United States. The spirit of nationalism and belief in self-reliance, as shown by the Vietnamese people, proves that in the end a total revolutionary vision can be brought to victory even by people who are weak in weapons and materiel. Such a revolution goes on for a long time and takes many victims.
The Indonesian independence revolution has long since come to an end, and Tan Malaka was not able to see its conclusion. If he were still alive, would he think that his revolutionary vision had been achieved, in all its manifestations? In short, whether the “100% independence” he desired has been achieved? If my interpretation of Tan Malaka is correct, then he would answer “not yet.” If that were indeed his answer, then we would see a figure embroiled in controversy; a figure who seems unable to remove himself from conflict. (pp. 171-72)
After reviewing the image of Tan Malaka that has emerged in the broad corpus of political commentary on the Indonesian revolution, with particular emphasis on the five works of significance to concentrate on Tan Malaka, I turn now to my own interpretation, reached initially on the basis of the text of From Jail to Jail, and enhanced from interviews with people who knew him and from an examination of his other writings.
Tan Malaka as a Marxist
In his autobiography Tan Malaka recounts the evolution of his political ideology, first to revolutionary nationalism and then to communism while he lived in Holland during the First World War and the Russian revolution.
At that time, my thoughts had not yet developed to the stage of dialectical materialism and to an analysis of the slogan Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité in the context of capitalism and imperialism. My outlook did not yet include an image of bourgeois and proletarian classes alongside colonized and colonizing nations. Such a development came only as a byproduct of my search for a satisfactory understanding of the Russian communist revolution, which shook the world like a bomb in October 1917. It was only then that the old books on Marx and Engels’ philosophy came alive for me. . . . (Volume I, p. 27)
In 1918, on being greeted by a friend with the words “Hello, Mr. Bolshevik,” Tan Malaka comments, “It was then that I became conscious of the change that had taken place within me” (Volume I, p. 32). As discussed in Volume I, chapter 5 and my annotation, before he left Holland in November 1919, Tan Malaka had the opportunity to meet some of the Dutch socialists and communists, as well as other Indonesians active in the cause of Indonesian independence, and he made a number of speeches and wrote several articles in which he stood defiantly for Indonesian independence, making scathing criticism of the “socialists” whose “internationalism” counted for little since they did nothing to protest the colonial hold on Indonesia. By implication Tan Malaka was praising the communists who had come out for independence, but there is no contemporary evidence of a clear communist position on Tan Malaka’s part, even though he spent considerable time in communist discussion groups during 1919. It was these friends whom he met on his last day in Holland for a farewell rijsttafel meal.76
During the following fifteen months Tan Malaka worked as a teacher of “coolie” children on a Dutch tobacco plantation in East Sumatra. “A land of gold, a haven for the capitalist class, but a land of sweat, tears, and death—a hell for the proletariat” is his description of the scene he went into (Volume I, p. 43). Tan Malaka soon became known as a radical for his attitudes expressed on the class and colonial divisions on the plantation, and for his involvement in the Deli railway strike of 1920. He made his first contacts with the PKI, founded in May 1920, and wrote several articles on the strike for the PKI newspaper Het Vrije Woord. His convictions were clearly becoming stronger, for in June 1920 in Deli he wrote his first substantial work, “Sovjet atau Parlemen,” in which he came out clearly calling himself a communist, and dismissing all hope of reliance on the parliamentary road to achieve socialism. The first part of this work was published in installments in the PKI newspaper Soeara Ra’jat in May-August 1921.
He chose to leave Deli for Java in early 1921, believing that the atmosphere there might be more conducive to setting up “an educational system suited to the needs and spirit of the masses” (Volume I, p. 63). This offer was received warmly by the PKI members who formed the left wing of the Sarekat Islam, and he was asked to set up Sekolah Rakyat (People’s Schools). Tan Malaka’s endeavors were not long restricted to the educational field, however, for skilled party members were a scarce resource. At the end of June 1921 he was elected chairman of the Serikat Pegawai Percetakan (Printing Workers Association). He also held the positions of vice-chairman and treasurer of the Sarekat Pegawai Pelikan Hindia (Indies Oil Workers Association), and was on the executive of the Revolutionaire Vakcentrale (Revolutionary Trade Union Federation). In the latter half of 1921, after PKI president Semaun left Indonesia, Tan Malaka played an increasing role in party affairs, devoting most of his attention to trying to save the rapidly fading coalition with Sarekat Islam. At the December Congress he was elected Chairman of the PKI (Volume I, chapter 7).
Not for long was Tan Malaka able to experience open work as a communist leader. In February, after involvement in the pawnshop workers’ strike and the establishment of further Sekolah Rakyat, he was arrested and exiled under the governor-general’s Extraordinary Powers (Volume I, chapter 8). For the next twenty years, Tan Malaka’s contribution to the Indonesian revolution was made from afar.
Tan Malaka arrived in the Netherlands just in time for the May Day celebrations of 1922, at which he spoke. Shortly afterwards he became the first Indonesian candidate in the Tweede Kamer (Lower House) elections in Holland, running as the number-three candidate on the Dutch Communist party ticket. He received a higher vote than the number-two candidate, but not enough to be elected. Following the election he travelled to Berlin and spent several months with the Indonesian veteran communist, Darsono, attached to the West European Bureau of the Comintern.
By October 1922 Tan Malaka had arrived in Moscow, where he was to spend the next year participating in activities of the Comintern: the Fourth Congress in November 1922, the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), the Commission on the Eastern Question, and the Profintern’s Second Congress. He wrote a book on Indonesia for distribution in Russian translation.
Tan Malaka’s participation in the debate on communist strategy in the colonies at the Fourth Congress centered on the issue of communist support for nationalist and pan-Islamic movements, which he saw as having progressive and anticapitalist aspects. In this debate he took the opposite position to M. N. Roy, who was concerned with the dangers such movements posed to the communist objective. Tan Malaka’s intervention at the Fourth Congress, and in meetings of the Eastern Commission, have been regarded as leading to some modification of the previously more negative line of the Comintern. They are discussed in some detail in Volume I, chapter 9,