English expression, with all its peculiarities, such as his reference to the saying “It’s a long way to the prairie.” To differentiate Tan Malaka’s English from my translation, his English words appear in italics. I have added footnotes only where necessary for an understanding of his intent. I have retained the spelling used in these English expressions, since it is often unclear whether any errors were Tan Malaka’s or the printer’s. On a few occasions I have pluralized the word in order to make it fit the context. As to Tan Malaka’s use of Dutch, I decided to translate the foreign words without annotation. Tan Malaka would have assumed some knowledge of Dutch on the part of the majority of his readers. Illiteracy was high in Indonesia in the 1940s. Those people educated sufficiently to read such a book would have had enough knowledge of Dutch to understand the terms he used. Written and spoken Indonesian of that period frequently was punctuated with Dutch terminology; a decision to preserve Tan Malaka’s Dutch would, I believe, have introduced a barrier to understanding the text that was not encountered by the majority of its contemporary readers.19 Occasional exception has been made to this policy; for instance, a few Dutch proverbs and sayings have been retained with English translation in parentheses, as have a few terms, in particular inlander (native), the all-pervasive discriminatory epithet of colonial society, always used to separate and differentiate, hence better left in the foreign tongue in which it was uttered.
Some Indonesian words remain in the translation, principally where they have no direct English equivalent (such as Tan Malaka’s term murba) or where they were used in the revolutionary period with particular connotation and significance (such as pemuda, perjuangan, merdeka). In all such cases I have explained the term in a footnote on its first occurrence and have included it in the glossary, where other foreign words used more than once are also to be found. Proper names, principally those of organizations and parties, remain in their original language (mainly Indonesian), as do titles of publications referred to in the text and in footnotes. Where possible I have not retranslated Tan Malaka’s quotations of foreign-language material, but have sought the original or a published English-language translation for inclusion.
Tan Malaka’s text contains much that is strange to an English reader, leaning towards the Germanic style with frequent capitalization, particularly for abstract nouns, and the inclusion of a series of exclamation marks, question marks, and full stops. I have not included these in the English translation, where they would look quite out of place. I have reserved the use of square brackets for the rare occasions where I have felt constrained to introduce some interpolation to make the text meaningful. Parentheses have been used for Tan Malaka’s own interpolations in other quotations, for his parenthetical remarks in the text itself, and for translations of foreign terms, as explained above. Many of the copy-text’s small paragraphs have been amalgamated into larger portions of text, and occasionally very long paragraphs have been split. I have used the “new spelling” adopted in 1972 for all Indonesian terms, place names, and organizational names. I have retained the spelling of the time (whether prewar or 1945-1972) for personal names and names of publications with, as noted above, corrections of any errors contained therein.
My approach to the text can be summarized by saying that I have tried to remain faithful to the flavor and spirit of Tan Malaka’s writing, while at the same time presenting a readable English-language book. Where the two aims have been irreconcilable, the latter has prevailed. I believe my task has been more to present Tan Malaka and his ideas to the English-speaking reader than to attempt to render every idiosyncrasy of the text.
Annotation of the Text
From Jail to Jail as presented here in English contains over thirteen hundred notes. These annotations are of three categories. A number of notes relate to the text itself to explain errors and uncertainties in the text or to explain the meaning of a foreign word retained in the translation. Some provide sources for the many quotations scattered throughout the text. On occasion Tan Malaka himself has given the author, title, and page number of his quotations, but elsewhere the source has proved considerably more elusive, and occasionally all my attempts to track it down have proved fruitless. The majority of the annotations provide historical and contextual information on matters raised or referred to in the text. Many of the annotations explain events or concepts familiar to Tan Malaka’s contemporary readers but requiring explanation today, particularly for non-Indonesian readers. Since the story spans fifty years and two continents and refers to ancient and even prehistoric times, this task has been quite formidable.
I have prepared the translation to be read not only by Indonesianists, but also by people interested in the history of communism and nationalism in Asia and in political autobiography in general. I have, therefore, provided annotation that specialists in any one of those disciplines may regard as superfluous but that may be necessary to others for an understanding of the text.
Biographical and organizational appendixes give information on individuals and organizations integral to Indonesian history. Others have been dealt with in footnotes as they occur in the text. Such annotation has been limited to brief factual details relevant to the text, with reference to more comprehensive sources.
Research Program
This project took twelve years to complete. I began in mid-1972, acquiring photocopies of the copy-text from Cornell University. From July to September 1972 I studied the copy-text and some principal secondary sources on Indonesian history in order to start assembling a coherent picture of Tan Malaka and to chart the avenues of investigation I would follow. From September to December 1972 I was able to undertake research in Indonesia. This period was devoted mainly to recording interviews with people who had known Tan Malaka in his home village, concerning his schooling, his political activity, or his imprisonment, either as friend, relative, comrade, or political opponent. The interviews were conducted principally in Jakarta, but also in Serang and Bogor (West Java), Semarang (Central Java), and Padang, Padang Panjang, Bukit Tinggi, and Pandam Gadang (West Sumatra). They were mainly conducted in Indonesian, with one or two in Jakarta in English, and several in Pandam Gadang conducted through an interpreter in Minangkabau.
The remainder of my research period in Indonesia was spent in collecting material by and about Tan Malaka. In this regard, the Pustaka Murba archives held in Jakarta by Djamaluddin Tamim proved to be most valuable. The newspaper and periodical collections of the Perpustakaan Museum Pusat (now Perpustakaan Nasional) in Jakarta and Perpustakaan Negara in Yogyakarta were extremely rewarding.
Only after this research period was complete did I commence the actual translation in early 1973. Over the next eighteen months I prepared the first draft of the translation, working entirely from the copy-text. During 1974 and 1975 the draft was copy-edited for English expression and checked back sentence by sentence with the original. Beginning in 1975, regretfully, the project had to be completed as a part-time effort.
In 1976 I commenced annotating the translation. Further research into contemporary newspapers and other publications complemented the material I had gathered during my field work in Indonesia in 1972. Work in the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) in Washington, D.C., and in the Public Records Office (PRO) in London yielded archival material of considerable significance where Tan Malaka was considered to be impinging on the territorial possessions of these powers. The principal collection consulted in the United States was the Bureau of Insular Affairs records, particularly decimal file 856d.00 in record group 59, which proved extremely valuable for documenting Tan Malaka’s activities in the Philippines, particularly the events surrounding his arrest and deportation in August 1927. United States government interest in Tan Malaka did not vanish with his departure from the Philippines, however, and there is a small but significant body of intelligence reports concerning his role in the postwar period to be found in the State Department Research and Intelligence files. The principal collections consulted in the Public Records Office were those of the Foreign Office (FO 371 and FO 372), India Office (PZ), and Colonial Office (CO 273). Of particular importance were the Malayan Bulletin of Political Intelligence, throughout the 1920s, and the Malaya Command Intelligence
