A. H. Hill, trans., The Hikayat Abdullah [by] Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi, preface, p. vii.
8. For Tan Malaka this was a highly unusual use of the metaphor of illumination, commonly used in other representations of the process of political awakening in early twentieth-century Indonesian accounts. See Anderson, “A Time,” p. 219.
9. Ruth McVey has referred to the early PKI writers’ aim of opening the boundaries of thought, for which “the relationship of new ideas to old modes of perception was necessary” (“Perception and Action in an Indonesian Communist Image of the Past,” in Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Reid and Marr, p. 346).”
10. Benedict Anderson, “The Languages of Indonesian Politics,” p. 103.
11. Matu Mona, Spionnage-dienst (Patjar Merah Indonesia) (Medan: Centrale Courant en Boekhandel, [1938]), pp. 112-18. Presumably it is this novel that Tan Malaka found on arrival in Medan in 1942 (Volume II, p. 116).
12. Reid, Indonesian National Revolution 1945-1950, p. 176.
13. Pemuda literally means “youth.” Since the “Youth Oath” of 1928 the meaning of the term was extended to mean activists and radicals, the “young in spirit” of whatever chronological age.
14. Details of such charges and countercharges are given in my note no. 21 to chapter 7 (Volume III, p. 227).
15. Sukarno, Autobiography, p. 238.
16. Quoted in Reid, “The Nationalist Quest for an Indonesian Past,” in Perceptions of the Past, ed. Reid and Marr, p. 281.
17. As Tan Malaka himself reports (Volume II, pp. 180-81) these themes also formed the repertoire for official theater companies during the war.
18. Mohammad Ali, “Historiographical Problems,” in An Introduction to Indonesian Historiography, ed. Soedjatmoko and Mohammad Ali, G. J. Resink, and G. McT. Kahin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956), pp. 21-22. It should be noted that the Pandangan hidup referred to is a republication of Volume III, chapter 1 of From Jail to Jail.
19. For a summary of the differing views on this subject, see Ali, “Historiographical Problems,” pp. 1-23; and his Pengantar ilmu sedjarah Indonesia. Ali presented an unusually favorable image of Tan Malaka, whom he described as “a consistent (konsekwen) communist” and whose views on Indonesian history he quotes extensively in this textbook for tertiary study of Indonesian history. See also Reid, “The Nationalist Quest for an Indonesian Past,” in Perceptions of the Past, ed. Reid and Marr, pp. 281-98; and Himpunan lengkap kertas-kerja.
20. Dirlik, Revolution and History.
21. Dirlik, Revolution, p. 29. One may note also the parallels in form of presentation. Dirlik remarks, “Their formulaic phraseology . . . imposed a mechanical and even diagrammatic quality on those ideas.”
22. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945, p. 316.
23. McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism.
24. Georges Gusdorf, “Conditions and Limitations of Autobiography,” in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 28-29.
25. Roff, Autobiography and Biography in Malay Historical Studies, p. 1.
26. Anthony H. Johns, “From Caricature and Vignette to Ambivalence and Angst: Changing Perspectives of Character in the Malay World,” in Self and Biography: Essays on the Individual and Society in Asia, ed. Wang Gungwu (Sydney: Sydney University Press for the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1975), pp. 40-41.
27. Wang Gungwu, Self and Biography, introduction, p. 4.
28. Hill, Hikayat Abdullah, introduction, pp. 26-27.
29. Over this forty-year period, the following titles are the only autobiographies by prominent Indonesian political actors that come to mind: Hamka, Kenang-kenangan hidup; Sukarno, Sukarno: An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams; Djojohadikusumo, Herrineringen uit drie tijdperken; Abu Hanifah, Tales of a Revolution; Ganis Harsono, Reflections of an Indonesian Diplomat in the Sukarno Era; Ahmad Subardjo Djojoadisuryo, Kesadaran nasional; Adam Malik, Mengabdi Republik; Mohammad Hatta, Memoir; and Sastroamijojo, Milestones on My Journey.
30. Tan Malaka as anti-Dutch was a constant theme of official and nonofficial Dutch publications alike during the revolution, perhaps best exemplified by William F. de Bruyn, The Rising Soviet Star over Indonesia (The Hague: National Committee for “Unity of the Kingdom,” 1947), pp. 8-9. A more recent expression appears in Mrázek, “Tan Malaka,” p. 26.
31. This facet of Tan Malaka’s personality has been remarked on by Benedict Anderson: “I can think of no other Indonesian leader of stature so willing to be publicly indebted to the Chinese, or so genuinely free of racial prejudice” (Java, p. 274, n. 17).
32. Shown to me during an interview, Sydney, 4 May 1978 (original in English).
33. For example Volume III, pp. 13-27, and, at greater length, his philosophical work Madilog (materialisme, dialektika, logika), especially chapter 7, pp. 276-410.
34. See especially Hamka’s introduction to Tan Malaka, Islam dalam tindjuan Madilog, pp. 3-4.
35. Mrázek, “Tan Malaka,” pp. 28-33 and p. 17, where he quotes (somewhat loosely) from Tan Malaka, Massa actie (1947), pp. 69-70.
36. Tan Malaka, “De Islam en het Bolszjewisme,” De Tribune, 21 September 1922, quoted by McVey, Rise, p. 161.
37. Interview with Ibu Hasan Sastraatmadja, Jakarta, 1 November 1972.
38. One may observe here a parallel with another revolutionary, as noted: “Lenin hoarded space as well as time, writing in a tiny script” (Mazlish, The Revolutionary Ascetic, p. 135).
39. Interview with Abdul Muluk Djalil, Jakarta, 1 November 1972.
40. Interview with Hasan Sastraatmadja, Jakarta, 1 November 1972 (underlined phrases spoken in English).
41. Interviews with informants in Bayah, 23 September 1980, and Anderson, Java, p. 275.
42. Poeze, Tan Malaka, chapter 2, “Op de Kweekschool,” pp. 18-32.
43. Quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 208-9.
44. J. de Kadt, Uit mijn communistentijd, p. 286, quoted in Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 243.
45. Recollections by Abdurrachman are from interviews in Jakarta, 24 October 1972, and Sydney, 26 May 1982.
46. Interview with Adam Malik, Jakarta, 6 October 1972.
47. Interview with Djajarukmantara, Jakarta, 26 September 1980.
48. Interview with Abdurrachman, Jakarta, 24 October 1972. In a later interview, Sydney, 26 May 1982, she reaffirmed this clandestine approach of Tan Malaka in Jakarta. Although living in the same house, he was still “Hussein” until she deduced his identity and confronted Subardjo with her suspicions. Likewise, Nelly
