From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
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fact it quoted from the official source, the Comintern organ Internationale Presse Korrespondenz. But, apart from drawing a few conclusions of its own, the Encyclopaedie saw only the surface and was not able to discern what went on beneath.
[114] Actually, I was happy that the Dutch East Indies government in its Encyclopaedie did not see what was happening beneath the surface, because I myself was down there. There are still other similar matters that cannot yet be disclosed, but that I was in charge of the Canton Bureau was an open secret in the Philippines and made things difficult for me there. In fact it was not really a secret any longer. And the existence of the Profintern and its older sibling, the Comintern, was already a fact of history.
I had only just arrived in Canton with the two delegates from Indonesia after an exhausting trip and had not yet had time even to catch my breath, when I went to meet two representatives from the center. One was the Comintern representative who was in contact with me at that time, and the other was the Profintern representative with whom I was to be connected in the future and whom I had known well in Moscow.25 (I call them representatives, because they were responsible to those two bodies of the International. Alimin’s statement in his book Analysis that I was appointed as a Comintern and Profintern representative by two “functionaries” is a great insult to these two organizations of the International.26 This illustrates Alimin’s longstanding characteristic of indifference and irresponsibility even to his comrades in arms when his interests are at stake. I may remind the reader of Alimin’s attitude toward his former leader, the late Tjokroaminoto, in the Afdeling B trial of Sarekat Islam in 1928.27
The meeting went as one would expect between close friends. Before I had even sat down, the Profintern representative began. “Comrade,” he said, “the central leadership of the Profintern has decided to establish a Bureau of Transport Workers, to be located here in Canton. You are to run this bureau, organizing whatever is necessary. A newspaper or magazine shall be published and you are to be in charge of that too. In addition, you must be prepared to speak at the Transport Workers Conference this evening. Your future position as head of the bureau is an independent one, and you will report directly to us in Moscow.”
I was astonished. After recapturing my breath and my thoughts, I worked out a few questions. “Isn’t there anyone else to head this bureau? Aren’t my responsibilities to the Comintern enough in themselves? How can I be in charge of an English-language magazine when I know only enough English to ask directions?”
“We have already taken all this into consideration and have reached the decision unanimously,” answered the comrade from the Profintern.
[115] “We don’t have a shortage of people, do we? In China alone there are several professors among our comrades . . .” I added.
The comrade from the Profintern gave me a short answer that put an end to all my reservations: “As a disciplined Communist, you surely will accept the decision.”
The Transport Workers Conference went very smoothly. At first Dr. Sun was scheduled to appear, but it was decided that politically that would be unwise, so he was represented by Liao Chung-k’ai. On the first day the Profintern representative chaired the sessions, and the second day I was in the chair, and on the third day a Chinese delegate, and so on. In the election for the head of the bureau I was chosen.28
At the close of the conference the delegates returned to their homelands. The Indonesian delegates left Canton. I was alone, left with the task of printing and circulating the speeches and resolutions to all corners of Asia.
Chapter 11
PRINTING PROBLEMS
[116] At that time (1924) Canton had some two million inhabitants. In Western Europe or America a city of that size would have been modern, with giant factories operating up-to-date machines, trams, and surface and underground railways, and with printing presses run by steam or electricity.
But one would try in vain to find such things in Canton in those days. Canton’s only claims to the term “city” were the post office, some electric lighting, and three main roads. A large part of the land traffic consisted of hundreds and even thousands of pedicabs. The streets were dark and narrow, twisting and turning between gold and diamond stores and noodle stands. They were traversed by millionaires and beggars, professors and illiterates, and people shouldering bridal litters, vegetables, and even some of the refuse and waste generated by two million people every day. Neither buses nor pedicabs could enter these tiny crisscrossing Chinese streets. Alongside the main roads adjacent to the river that divides Canton in two were docks for the ships that plied the seaways between Canton and Hong Kong and Macao. On this same river, night and day one could see the tens of thousands of sampans that were the equivalent of the pedicabs on land. It was said that some eighty thousand people lived on these sampans. If one looked out over Canton from the Hotel Asia, the tallest building, one could see but a single smokestack—from the cement factory, which was, I think, on the other side of the Pearl River: only one small smokestack in a city of two million.1 That was the situation in Canton when I started to look for a press to print the English-language magazine for which I had chosen the name The Dawn.2 It was a huge city filled with shops and businesses run on feudal lines, lined by narrow, dark streets and overflowing with pedicabs and sampans.
[117] It’s true, as the adage goes, that “everything new comes from Canton.”3 Had not the social and political revolution started there? Not many years later Canton was to become a really modern city, but The Dawn was born before all that.
While I was sitting wondering how I could possibly carry out the decision of the Canton conference, a Chinese comrade who spoke English well came to take me to meet the veteran revolutionary T’an P’ing-shan.4 T’an P’ing-shan could understand only a little English, but he was considered an educated person in the traditional sense.
All my remarks about the difficulties I was facing in my work and my daily life as a non-Chinese-speaking foreigner and the particular problem of finding a press with Latin letters (there were many with Chinese characters) were answered by his inimitable smile and the words: “All that is true, but don’t give up. Look at our difficulties in every field.”
To help me, T’an P’ing-shan found a professor who ran his own college. Formerly he had been an English teacher at one of the missionary schools, but he had gone on strike and finally walked out, taking some of his pupils with him. Gratefully I went with the man, Professor Huang, into the city of Canton, through the main roads and into the alleys.5 Finally we arrived at a “printshop.” After talking to the printer for several minutes, whispering, shaking his head, and smiling, Professor Huang turned to me and said: “This printer is one of our friends. We can entrust major jobs to him. Even The Dawn can be printed here. The only problem is that he hasn’t got enough letters . . . Anyhow, this is the only one to be found in the whole of Canton.” Professor Huang laughed in a way uncharacteristic for a Chinese intellectual, as if to say: “This in itself is extraordinary for Canton, so what can we do? We’ll just have to have it done here.”
[118] I felt relieved. At least one of my important tasks could be carried out. I saw the magazine as a tool with which to reach out to one section of the Asian workers. Without the magazine it would be hard to carry out my other tasks. It was the first step. My other tool for reaching out was a language of communication. Even though I had something to say, without a sufficiently mastered means of communication all my efforts would be in vain. And the language was to be English. I thought that if, after two or three months of studying hard, I had been able to write and make speeches in simple German and had even addressed the International’s congress, why shouldn’t I have the same results with English? So I convinced myself.
My plan was ready to put into action. I focused my study on grammar. I tried to keep up with day-to-day events in China, both to improve my English and to know what was going on. I had neglected to consider several factors, however. First, when I had studied German I was surrounded by Germans, while I was now forced to learn English in the middle of a society of Chinese. Second, and more important,