From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
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priority. Ironically, it may well have been this association with Sabaruddin that brought about his death.
On Tan Malaka’s initiative, a conference was held on 14 December in Blitar, East Java, in which leaders of the various pro-perjuangan militias discussed coordination of resistance to the anticipated Dutch attack and established a body known as the GPP (Gabungan Pembela Proklamasi-Group in Defense of the Proclamation; after the Dutch attack it was renamed Gerilya Pembela Proklamasi—Guerrillas in Defense of the Proclamation).39 A number of militias were involved, including “Sabaruddin’s battalion, Isman’s TRIP, Warouw’s 16th Brigade, Abdullah’s TLRI. Tan Malaka was the GPP’s nominal leader, and others involved included Abidin Effendi, Sjamsu Harya Udaya, and Djokosutopo.”40 A sympathetic biographical sketch of Tan Malaka describes the GPP as “the strongest and best organised resistance force facing the Dutch in East Java. At that time the GPP had possession of a radio transmitter, but this instrument was later sabotaged and destroyed by another armed group.”41
Djamaluddin Tamim relates that he was dispatched by the conference to seek parts for a printing press that the GPP was to set up in Blitar. On 18 December he was making his way to Yogyakarta by train. Along the route the train was stopped by streams of refugees heading out of Yogyakarta—the Dutch had attacked.42
The Dutch concentrated their initial attack on the airport, starting at about 5:30 A.M. Almost the entire government leadership was taken into custody when the troops entered the city proper and occupied the palace in the midafternoon. The government’s disarray and unpreparedness are described most graphically in the first-hand report of Deputy Chief-of-Staff T. B. Simatupang.43 The ministers gathered at the palace at about 10:00 A.M. to draft speeches to the population urging resistance, but they did not manage to broadcast these addresses before the radio station was seized by the advancing Dutch.44 The government did send a message to Sjafruddin Prawiranegara in Bukit Tinggi, formally handing over governmental power, but this message was apparently never received. Sjafruddin established the emergency government on his own initiative when he heard of the Dutch seizure of the main government.45 Simatupang states that government leaders did discuss the possibility of fleeing Yogyakarta with the army, but that Sukarno adamantly opposed such a move, convinced they could not hold out for long and would soon be captured. He held the view, which he defended also after the event, that a president under Dutch arrest was of greater propaganda value than a guerrilla leader in the jungle.46 Whatever the merits of this strategy, it did not preclude the proper organization of the rest of the government to carry on in his absence and under occupation of the capital.
Five ministers did decide to join the guerrilla troops, and they managed to hold out and establish the rudiments of a civil administration, which functioned throughout the occupation in the immediate vicinity of Yogyakarta. At first they considered themselves to be the emergency government but, on hearing of Sjafruddin’s government and the decisions of the final cabinet meeting, they abandoned that role and settled on functioning as the regional commissariat when finally, in May 1949, they established contact with Sjafruddin.47
Even the military evacuation of the capital was conducted in a haphazard and ad hoc manner. Simatupang, who was at the negotiation site of Kaliurang at the time of the attack, did not know where army headquarters had moved themselves and was not able to establish contact with the army command until 12 January. No radio link was made with the emergency government on Sumatra until the end of January.48
It was under such circumstances, with a virtual collapse of the republican government in the face of the long-expected Dutch attack, that Tan Malaka made a speech on Radio Kediri on 21 December 1948. While the alleged contents of the speech were used, both at the time and subsequently, by his opponents as another example of his attempting to seize power,49 most of the evidence suggests otherwise. Prorepublican newspapers are scarce from this period when the capital was occupied and the Dutch led forays into other republican-held territory, and I have found no contemporary report of the speech from the republican side. However, the U.S. consul, Charles A. Livengood, quoted a press statement from the republican delegation in Jakarta in a report transmitted to Washington on 23 December 1948:
Tan Malaka strongly condemned the policy of negotiations pursued respectively by Sjahrir—resulting in the conclusion of the Linggardjati Agreement which eventually led to colonial war I which started on July 21, 1947; by Sjarifuddin—of which the outcome was the Renville Agreement—and by Hatta who continued Amir’s inheritance and the ultimate result of which was colonial war II.
He further urged the Indonesian people always to keep in mind the Independence Proclamation of August 17, 1945, and the sacrifices of lives and properties given by the Indonesian people for that purpose. “For that reason, we must carry on the struggle,” thus said Tan Malaka.
In conclusion, Tan Malaka gave the following advices [sic]:
(1) To annul all inventions as Linggardjati, Renville and Hatta’s aide memoire.
(2) To root out all puppet states created by the Dutch with the help of their henchmen.
(3) To recapture every patch of ground occupied by the enemy’s troops.
(4) To seize all foreign property.
(5) To restore self-confidence and annihilate all fifth columnists.
(6) To ignore all truce regulations.
(7) To reject any negotiations if not based on complete independence as proclaimed on August 17, 1945.
(8) To unify all parties and fighting organizations and maintain the people’s army.50
According to Moh. Padang, of Sabaruddin’s Battalion 38, who was apparently there at the time, Rustam Effendi proposed the declaration of a Socialist Republic of Indonesia with Tan Malaka as president, but Tan Malaka refused, holding to the political line of unity around basic perjuangan demands until independence was truly won.51
Even after this second Dutch attack, the diplomasi line still prevailed among official republican representatives, who hoped that international pressure and intervention of the United Nations would push back the Dutch. It seems, however, that the Dutch, the federalists, and the republican representatives outside Indonesia alike regarded the diplomasi position as vulnerable to the militant perjuangan line advanced by someone like Tan Malaka.
Sin Po reported that the internment of the republican leaders had resulted in a decline of support for the conservatives and in increased support for leftists who opposed negotiations.52 And the pro-federalist newspaper Warta Indonesia editorialized as follows:
recalling the fact that Tan Malaka has proclaimed himself leader of the Indonesian people, and that the communists are now paramount in the Republic, is this the right moment to call for a cease-fire? To obey this order would mean to give a new opportunity to the destructive elements who have always threatened all attempts to come to an understanding with the Netherlands. It means not only backing Tan Malaka and his communist following, but preparing most effectively for the undoing of Indonesia.53
And Soedjatmoko, deputy leader of the republican mission to the United Nations, was reported as saying on 14 January 1949 that “failure of a speedy settlement of the Indonesian problem would open possibilities for Trotzky to the Indonesian Tan Malaka ‘to exploit once again the fundamental longings of the Indonesian peoples for freedom.’”54
Through the early months of the Dutch occupation of the republic, regular military reports referred to continuing action by “terrorists” and “armed groups” in Central and especially East Java, specifying which areas and roads were still “unsafe.”
Besides these military reports of activity around Kediri, which could possibly have referred to Tan Malaka and his followers, there is little contemporary documentation of his activities after the Dutch attack. A reconstruction of his movements after leaving Yogyakarta on 12 November up until his death comes, of necessity, mainly from later recollection of the participants.
The Dutch occupied Kediri on Christmas Day, 1948.55 Tan Malaka and Sabaruddin,