Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 39, 27 September 1923, p. 2.
Transcription/HTML Markup: 2022 by Einde O’Callaghan.
Public Domain: Joseph Hansen Internet Archive 2022. This work is in the under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists’ Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
Tan Malaka, imprisoned since 1946 by heads of the Indonesian Republic on the charge that he supports the revolutionary socialist program of Leon Trotsky, has been released, according to a Sept. 16 United Press dispatch from Batavia. Well-known as a leader among Javanese Communists when the Third International was a genuine revolutionary organization, Tan Malaka had broken with Stalinism years ago.
Premier Mohammed Hatta of the Indonesian Republic, who announced the release of Tan Malaka, said he “would call upon Mr. Malaka to help strengthen the Government’s anti-Communist bloc,” What this meant was not made clear in the dispatch.
In Surakarta, largest city in the territory held by the Republic, fighting was reported to “have broken out between Stalinist and Trotskyist Communists.” The relative size of the two groups, their programs and the exact differences between them was not given. Likewise unclear was a Sept. 17 Associated Press dispatch that a “three-way battle among Trotskyite and Stalinite Communists and Army and Navy units in Surakarta had spread” and “paralyzed” the city.
These confused and garbled reports were followed by news that a Soviet-type government had been set up in Madiun under leadership of Musso, alleged to be a “Moscow-trained Communist leader.” Musso returned to Indonesia in Aug. 20, according to the story, and within a few weeks united the Stalinists, the Socialist Party, the Labor Party and SOBSI, the Trade Union Federation.
Musso’s program was said to include “confiscation of all industrial enterprises by the Government, placing a military force in the hands of the people and setting up of internal security committees” as well as “Land for those who till it.”
In response to the event’s in Madiun, the Indonesian Provisional Parliament granted unlimited powers to President Soekarno. A decree banned “all left wing newspapers.” Trade union and Communist Youth Movement headquarters were raided and hundreds of persons arrested. Martial law was proclaimed “for all workers throughout the Indonesian Republic” and Soekarno called for the “recapture of Madiun as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, the Dutch Government decreed “communistic action” in Indonesia to be a “criminal offense,” and rushed its colonial governor van Mook by plane to the Far East. The Dutch have sought to crush the Indonesian Republic by military force.
In Washington, the State Department declared it was “watching closely the Communist movement in Southeast Asia.” Such companies as Goodyear, General Motors and Standard Oil have big holdings in this fabulously wealthy colonial area.
The State Department has consistently backed Dutch imperialism in its war on Indonesia. Without American arms, dollars and supply lines, the Dutch colonial despots could not have successfully invaded Indonesia. Part of the Dutch forces were even trained in the United States.
While it is impossible to pierce the heavy smoke-screen of censorship, and draw exact conclusions about the particular happenings in Indonesia; the general course of events is clear.
The nationalist heads of the Indonesian Government betrayed the Republic and the cause of independence by giving up militant struggle against the Dutch. Consequently, the Indonesian people began seeking more militant leaders to replace them.
This leadership can be found only in the working class. There, in turn, the search for leadership brings to the fore the most dynamic and revolutionary forces.
Last updated on: 18 October 2022