agents, who had not left my side since Semarang, increased in number and vigilance.48 But I had considered all the possibilities before leaving for Semarang, and I was prepared to accept all the consequences of my actions. My fate would be consistent with my beliefs, words, and deeds, which I felt had not departed from the road of truth and honesty in any way. In such a situation, then, my motto was simply to submit to fate. As the old proverb says: it is the fate of a husk to float and of a stone to sink.49
Here I want to make a light aside. In all my wanderings I have experienced many surprising events that could not have been anticipated. I shall mention some of these, so that people do not think that my views are based on insufficient experience. Not a few people believe that whoever visits Borobudur will suffer a misfortune, for instance having to leave Java.50 And, in fact, on my way from Yogyakarta to Semarang I stopped at this famous temple. Similarly, last year, before I was arrested in Madiun, I visited the site.51 I shall leave it to the experts in superstition to relate these visits to my exile in March 1922 and my arrest in Madiun in March 1946. It is true that such strange occurrences are common in Indonesia. But for those who rely on rational explanations, I shall present only the facts regarding the struggle in which I was involved on those two occasions.
Chapter 8
ARREST AND EXILE
[77] How happy and proud I was to see the second Sekolah Rakyat in Bandung. It was a large, clean house surrounded by spacious grounds, really too good for the children of the proletariat compared with what they had in Semarang.1 On Sunday, 13 February, a date that has been associated with misfortune not a few times in my life, I was wandering from one room to the next, seeing what was lacking and admiring what was good, while at the same time pitying the Semarang children, who were not so lucky.
I did not know that in one of the rooms there were several members of the Bandung branch of the railway union VSTP, apparently discussing the possibility of a strike. Suddenly I bumped into a Dutch PID agent who asked me to leave, since, he said, there was a VSTP meeting going on.2 I was astounded and absolutely refused to be thrown out of our own school building. After we argued for some time I said, “In point of fact I have the right to throw anyone out of here, since we own this building.” Finally peace was restored by my agreeing not to go into the closed meeting being held in one of the rooms. Of course I had absolutely no intention of attending the meeting, which I had not even known about.
At about 12 o’clock, while I was chatting with some friends, a car drew up in front of the school. The same Dutch agent got out of the car. Respectfully and with apparent sadness, he showed me the warrant for my arrest and invited me to get into the car. Inside were two high-ranking officers. One, of colonel rank, suggested I sit in the middle. When I asked why I was being arrested, they both shrugged their shoulders, indicating that they knew nothing about it. I was first taken to the police station, and from there straight to Bandung jail.3
[78] The first news I got from outside was from Nyonya and Tuan Horensma. Only the night before, I had visited my teacher at his house in Bandung, where he had recently been transferred from Jakarta.4 I still remember his words: “When you have a go at them, don’t forget me. I can still do something.” But he had apparently been somewhat disoriented on hearing of my sudden arrest, for in his letter he said that I was making things difficult for him.5 However, his wife seemed to be of a different opinion. Several times she asked the authorities to be allowed to meet with me inside Bandung jail, but she was always refused. Finally she was able to send me an open postcard, full of allusions, whose contents were different from her husband’s attitude. She did not blame me and even attacked those who had arrested me, saying: “Who knows what a great man lies within you.”
One morning I was taken to Bandung station, to be transferred to Semarang jail.6 In the station yard waited the Dutch PID agent who had tried to throw me out and who had presented me with the arrest warrant. He parted from me with the words, “We did have an argument the other day, but I regret your leaving because . . . the pupils need you!”
I think it would be useful to quote here again from the Encyclopaedie, to provide readers with an impression of the context of the arrest and the considerations and official decision of the Dutch East Indies government.7 On page 532 we see:
The Christmas 1921 Congress (of the P.K.I.) also was used to organise ties among the branches of the Communist S.I. that, following the decision regarding party discipline (taken by the Central S.I.) expelling them from the central organisation, had for some time been linking themselves on an ad hoc basis to the Semarang district committee. There was definitely a current that wanted to reconcile the two, but it came up against various obstacles just as was the case in the trade unions with the split between the two sides (Communist and Muslim). Finally both sides accepted in principle that they should work together in the future, while retaining their own organisational independence. The Communist S.I. branches were later to affiliate with the Persatuan Serikat Islam—as opposed to the Partai Serikat Islam led by Tjokroaminoto. The Congress also decided to send a cable to the Indian National Congress, which happened to be meeting at the same time. The cable was sent on behalf of the S.I., the C.S.I. and the Vakcentrale.8
[79] At the beginning of 1922 the Semarang communists stepped up their actions markedly. While at first they had concentrated on strengthening their organisation and tightening their connection with the Comintern’s E.C.C.I., with the outbreak of the pawnshop workers’ strike in January 1922 the leaders Bergsma and Tan Malaka considered that the time had come to realise the principles of communist actions in deeds.9 It was they in particular who spread the word that if the government did not rehire the striking pawnshop workers, the other trade unions, like the railway and harbour workers’ unions, would be mobilised. This action was given further weight by the manifesto issued by the leadership of the Vakcentrale on 18 January 1922, in which active support to the pawnshop strike was urged.10 This proved that the leaders accepted all the consequences of being communists in deed, wanting to carry out point by point the so-called Moscow Program. (See De Tribune for May, June, and July 1921, and Bukharin’s speech on the Program of the Communist International in De Communistische Gids, 1923, p. 480).11 In particular they set themselves the task of drawing the working class into revolutionary action through communist means, in accordance with the principles of the Comintern—to carry out the revolutionary struggle in deeds as well as words until the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In a pluralistic society like that of Indonesia, such undermining of authority cannot be tolerated (See statement of 1 January 1922 in Kol. Verslag 1922, Chapter B, headed Pawnshop Workers’ Strike, p. 18). Government Decisions Nos. la and 2a of 2 March 1922 imposed on Bergsma and Tan Malaka the administrative procedures of externeering en interneering [exile and internal exile respectively].12 Tan Malaka, who for some years had specialised in providing education and instruction to young people on the basis of the principles of the Communist International (in the Malaka schools), had Kupang [Timor] assigned as his place of residence. He requested to leave the Dutch East Indies, and this request was granted in Government Decision No. 2 of 10 March 1922.13
As mentioned above, a Dutch Communist, Bergsma, was arrested along with me. I consider it to be a point of national honor to recognize the services of someone from another nation, even if that other nation is seen as the oppressor and exploiter.
[80] The final syllable, “ma,” in Bergsma’s name reminds us of the “ma” in a name I have frequently mentioned here, that of my teacher Horensma. They were both Frisians, well known as an obstinate people, de koppige Fries [the stubborn Frisians]. In the Netherlands, even though they have been united with the Holland, Drente, Brabant and other peoples for hundreds of years, Frisians still use their own language when speaking among themselves. I recall that in Amsterdam they had their own club. But in addition to their characteristic stubbornness, which was apparent indeed in those two individuals, they were also endowed with
