revolutionary. (Volume I, p. 26)8
It [The Bolshevik revolution] gave certainty to my spirit, which was still caught up in the struggle between thesis and antithesis. (Volume I, p. 25)
Tan Malaka was well aware of the tensions developing within him as a result of gaining knowledge and skills in an alien culture and society. He wrote as follows:
But I no longer had the will to continue my studies to become a head teacher in the Netherlands. If in Dutch eyes I had Europeanized myself enough, I could have attained the same level as Dutch head teachers. (Although I would naturally remain a European inlander.) Then I would have had the right to teach Dutch children. Further, as a European inlander, I could have Europeanized all the inlanders’ children. But I was not prepared to do this. (Volume I, p. 26)
Indeed, as Tan Malaka became more politically conscious, and aware of the damage done to Indonesian society through colonialism, his resolve was strengthened to use his teaching skills to bring new pride and self-confidence to his people and to have them look into their own past for inspiration and models. At the same time, he was fiercely determined to be treated as an equal by those Europeans with whom he worked. The anger he felt at expressions of white superiority was a dominant feature of his recollection of life in Deli plantation society. He wrote as follows:
Skin color! This feeling of being “different from the inlanders,” as reflected in the difference in skin color, would not vanish as long as the white Dutch people monopolized the position of capitalist colonizers over the brown colonized inlanders. The arrogance was coated with “politeness,” but if it had been left entirely to Dutch “politeness” we would still feel humiliated. We always had to be ready to bare our teeth and, if necessary, to attack. (Volume I, p. 51)
As to the effect this tension had on him, Tan Malaka gives a vivid description of the problems he faced in 1921, when he left the society of the colonizers:
It often happens that when we are spurred on by strong desires we forget that our physical beings are subject to the laws of nature. When my body was adjusting to the European environment, its climate, and my shortage of necessities, my health was severely threatened. It was restored only when I adjusted myself to the lifestyle there, one which I continued in Deli, in fact to an even greater degree.
At first I was not aware that I was now in Java, in a physical situation as different from Deli as the earth from the sky. I did not notice that houses in Java were not like those in Deli or Bussum, and neither was the food. Nor was I aware that the climate in Semarang was different from that of the other places. I forgot all this because I was in a new context, one in which I could speak freely to my comrades in the struggle.
Our bodily organs are not able to endure sudden major changes. Just as glass plunged into boiling water will certainly break, so even a strong body will fall ill if suddenly put into a different situation. But as glass will not break if it is slowly lowered into the boiling water, so this mortal human body must be gradually acclimatized to new and different surroundings. (Volume I, p. 64)
The autobiography is uneven throughout—in language and terminology, in writing style, and in content. At times it is a textbook, at times stirring propaganda, at times a wistful reverie or bittersweet reminiscence.
Didacticism in From Jail to Jail
The didactic sections are composed in a textbook style, tending towards simplistic explanations or renditions of Marxist analysis. It is clear that Tan Malaka had in mind an audience relatively unfamiliar with Marxism, or with non-Marxist Western “scientific” interpretations of history and human development. With frequent resort to analogy, Tan Malaka addresses considerable effort to relating Marxist concepts to a perceived “tradition,” making them both less inscrutable and less alien, for instance in the following:
When reading Engels’ book, I have been struck frequently by the number of similarities between (Indian) the original American society and that in several regions of Indonesia. As one example, let me mention in passing that I see little difference between ancient Minangkabau society, in the dawn of its existence, and this “self-acting armed organization of the population.” (Volume III, p. 48)9
To this end Tan Malaka makes frequent use of proverbs and myth, both from Indonesian (especially Minangkabau, his own ethnic group) and from European (especially Dutch) tradition. He uses terms with great traditional weight from these traditions cheek by jowl one with another: for example Adil dan Zhalim (Arabic for “justice and tyranny”) and seija-sekata (the Minangkabau concept of consensus) with “imperialism” and “capitalism.” Sometimes he makes unfamiliar ideas clear by analogy, such as explaining the legal expression non bis in idem in terms of the Minang customary law as kata dahulu ditepati, kata demudian ditjari-tjari, or the concept of separation of powers in terms of Minang or American history.
Tan Malaka also employs language conventions from the traditional Malay chronicle. He refers to himself in the third person as sahibul hikajat ini (the scribe of this chronicle), and concludes a section with the punctuating demikianlah (so it is), serving to provide a familiar reference point for his readers in the midst of the new concepts he is seeking to impart.
In most cases Tan Malaka seems content to use Marxist terminology without further explanation. “Capitalism,” “feudalism,” and “imperialism” are used right through the text in Indonesianized form (kapitalisme, feodalisme, imperialisme) but with no further definition. Some terms are given a translation into Indonesian, for instance, “surplus value” is explained as nilai lebih, and dialectical materialism as dialiektika berdasarkan benda (dialectic based on objects).
While by the late 1940s certain of these terms were in common usage in Indonesia, others would have been used only by the political elite, among whom Dutch was still prevalent during the revolutionary period. As Benedict Anderson puts it,
Since it [Dutch] was the school language of this whole generation of intellectuals which grew up before the Japanese Occupation, it remained the inner language of elite discourse, especially between nationalists of different ethnic groups. It was the medium for thinking about and absorbing ideas and institutions from the West (including Russia) which promised to liberate and elevate the peoples of Indonesia from the grip of their white masters. It also built up elite cohesion vis-a-vis the Dutch and the indigenous masses.10
The difficulty is to ascertain what meaning the readers of this text would have ascribed to these terms, either with or without an Indonesian “translation.” To that end, a text such as From Jail to Jail must be read against contemporary historical accounts of political actions. Today’s readers of the text, particularly Western readers of the English translation, must struggle against the tendency to project their own interpretation into the terms. Tan Malaka appears to have regarded two key Marxist concepts as requiring special attention. He uses the term “proletariat” very sparingly and developed his own term, murba, for use in the Asian political context (see below, pp. xci-xcv). The concept of class is clearly a problematic one throughout the text. At times he uses the Dutch word klas and at other times the Indonesian terms golongan or kaum occasionally even within the same paragraph. The following passage is an example:
A state can flourish as long as the old property- and power-holding class (kaum jang berpunja) is able to institute progress (technical, social, political, and cultural). This old state will fall and a new state arise, when the old is no longer capable of progress and the new, formerly oppressed, class is able to organize, struggle, and replace the old and carry out progress in all fields of society. (Volume III, p. 51)
Adventure and the Pacar Merah Myth
A strong feature
