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Ibrahim Simabua Datuak (posthumous) Sutan Malaka also known as Tan Malaka (2 June 1897 – 21 February 1949) was an Indonesian statesman, teacher, Marxism, Philosophy, founder of Struggle Union ( Persatuan Perjuangan) and Murba Party, independent guerrilla and spy, Indonesian fighter, and national hero. Tempo credited him as "Father of the Republic of Indonesia" (Indonesian: Bapak Republik Indonesia).
His father was Haji Muhammad Rasad Caniago, an agricultural employee, and his mother was Rangkayo Sinah Simabua, a daughter of a respected figure in the village. As a child, Tan Malaka lived with his parents in Suliki, and studied Islam and trained in the pencak silat martial arts. In 1908, Tan Malaka attended the Kweekschool, a state teacher's school, at Fort de Kock. At the Kweekschool, Tan Malaka studied the Dutch language and became a skilled football player. According to his teacher, G. H. Horensma, although Malaka was sometimes disobedient, he was an excellent student. He graduated in 1913, and returned to his village. His return would be ceremonialized by the conferment on him of a high adat title of datuk and the offer of a fiancée. However, he only accepted the title. He succeeded in getting money from the village to continue his education abroad, and he sailed for Rotterdam that same year.
He also began reading the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, who became one of his early political role models. During this time, Tan Malaka grew to dislike Dutch culture. Instead, he was more impressed at the cultures of German culture and the United States. He even enlisted for the German Army, but was rebuffed, as the army did not accept foreigners at the time. In the Netherlands, he met Henk Sneevliet, one of the founders of the Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging (ISDV), the precursor to the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). Tan Malaka also became interested in the Sociaal-Democratische Onderwijzers Vereeniging (Association of Democrat Social Teachers) during this time. In November 1919, Tan Malaka graduated, and received his hulpacte diploma.
Tan Malaka went to Batavia (now Jakarta) when his old teacher, G. H. Horensma, offered him a job as a teacher; however, Tan Malaka rejected the offer. As he wanted to establish his own school; to which his old teacher accepted the reason and supported him. In 1921, Tan Malaka was elected to the Volksraad as member of the Left-wing grouping, but resigned on 23 February 1921. He subsequently left Batavia and arrived at Yogyakarta in early March 1921, and stayed as the house of Sutopo, a former leader of Budi Utomo. There, he wrote a proposal for a grammar school. In Yogyakarta, he participated in the Sarekat Islam organization's 5th congress and met with a number of prominent Islamic figures, including H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, Agus Salim, Darsono, and Semaun. The congress discussed the topic of double membership of both the Sarekat Islam and the Communist Party (PKI). Agus Salim, and another figure, Abdul Muis, forbade it, while Semaun and Darsono were both PKI members.
In June 1921, Tan Malaka became the chairman of the Serikat Pegawai Pertjitakan ("Printing Workers Association"), and served as the vice chairman and treasurer of the Serikat Pegawai Pelikan Hindia (SPPH; "Indies Oils Workers Association"). Between May and August his first book, Sovjet atau Parliament? (" Soviet or Parliament?"), which was serialized in the PKI's journal, the Soeara Ra'jat ("People's Voice"); his other works, including articles, were published in another journal and PKI newspaper, the Sinar Hindia ("The Hindia Star"). In June, he was one of the leaders of the Revolutionaire Vakcentrale ("Revolutionary Trade Union Federation"), and in August he was elected to the editorial board of SPPH's journal, the Soeara Tambang ("Miner's Voice"). Tan Malaka then replaced Semaun, who left the Dutch East Indies in October, as the chairman of PKI after a congress on 24 – 25 December 1921 in Semarang. Differences can be seen from their leadership styles, as Semaun was more cautious, whilst Tan Malaka was more radical. Under his leadership, the PKI maintained a good relationship with Sarekat Islam.
In Berlin, he met with Darsono, an Indonesian communist who was related to the West European Bureau of the Comintern, and possibly met M.N. Roy. Tan Malaka then continued to Moscow, and arrived in October 1922 to participate in the Executive Committee of the Comintern. At the Fourth World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow, Tan Malka proposed that communism and Pan-Islamism could collaborate; however, his proposal was rejected by many. In January 1923, he and Semaun were appointed correspondents of Die Rote Gewerkschafts-Internationale ("The Red Union International"). During the first half 1923, he also wrote for the journals of the Indonesian and Dutch labor movements.
He also became an agent of the Eastern Bureau of the Comintern as he reported on the ECCI plenum in June 1923. Tan Malaka then went to Guangzhou (now Guangzhou), arriving in December 1923, and edited the English journal, The Dawn, for an organization of transport workers of the Pacific. In August 1924 Malaka requested the government of the Dutch East Indies to allow him to return home because of illness. The government accepted this, but with burdensome terms to be imposed; he did not return home. In December 1924, the PKI began to collapse, as it was suppressed by the Dutch government. As a response, Tan Malaka wrote the Naar de Republiek Indonesia ( Towards the Republic of Indonesia), which was published in Canton in April 1925. It explained the situation in the world, from the Netherlands which suffered an economic crisis, the Dutch East Indies which had opportunities to carry out a revolution by nationalist movements and PKI, to his prediction that the United States and Japan would "settle with the sword which of them is the more powerful in the Pacific."
He described in his autobiography his frustration with his inability to secure information about events in Indonesia from his place in the Philippines, and his lack of influence with the PKI's leadership. As Comintern representative for Southeast Asia, Tan Malaka argued that he had authority to reject the PKI's plan, an assertion which was, in retrospect, denied by certain former PKI members. Tan Malaka sent Alimin to Singapore to convey his views, and ordered him to organize an impromptu meeting between the leaders. Seeing no progress, he went to Singapore himself to meet Alimin and learned that Alimin and Musso had traveled to Moscow to seek help to carry out a revolt. In Singapore, Tan Malaka met Subakat, another PKI leader, who shared his views. They decided to thwart Musso and Alimin's plan. During this period he wrote the Massa Actie ( Mass Action), which contained his view on Indonesian revolution and nationalist movements. In this book, he proposes Aslia, a social federation between Southeast Asia countries and Northern Australia. The book was intended to support his effort to reverse the direction of PKI and gain support of the cadres on his side.
The police of the Kulangsu (Gulangyu) International Settlement, were notified of Tan Malaka's passage to Amoy, waited for him in the harbor with the intention of arresting him for extradition to the Dutch East Indies, as the Dutch wanted to apprehend him, and send him to the Boven-Digoel concentration camp. But he managed to escape as the sympathetic captain and crew protected him, entrusting his safety to a ship inspector. The ship inspector took Tan Malaka to a guest house from where he made his way to Sionching village with newly made acquaintances. Tan Malaka then traveled to Shanghai in the end of 1929. Poeze writes that Malaka may have met Alimin there in August 1931, and made an agreement with him that Malaka would work again for the Comintern. Malaka moved to Shanghai in September 1932 after the attack made by the Japanese forces, and decided to go to British Raj, disguised as a Chinese-Filipino and using an alias. When he was in Hong Kong in early October 1932, he was arrested by British officials from Singapore, and was detained for several months.
He hoped to have a chance to argue his case under British law and possibly seek asylum in the United Kingdom, but after several months of interrogation and being moved between the "European" and the "Chinese" sections of the jail, it was decided that he would simply be exiled from Hong Kong without charges. He was then deported again to Amoy. Tan Malaka then escaped once again, and traveled to Iwe village in the Southern China. There, he was treated with traditional Chinese medicine for his illness. After his health improved in the beginning of 1936, he traveled back to Amoy and formed a Foreign Language School. Abidin Kusno argues that this stay in Shanghai was an important period in shaping Tan Malaka's later actions during the Indonesian revolution of the late 1940s; the port city was nominally under Chinese sovereignty but was dominated first by European nations with trading concessions in the city, and then by Japan after its September 1932 invasion.
The oppression of the Chinese he saw under both of these powers, Kusno argues, contributed to his uncompromising position against collaboration with the Japanese or negotiation with the Dutch in the 1940s, when many prominent Indonesian nationalists were adopting a more conciliatory stance. In August 1937, he went to Singapore under a fake Chinese identity and became a teacher. After the Dutch surrendered to Japan, he returned to Indonesia via Penang. He then sailed to Sumatra arriving in Jakarta in mid-1942, where he wrote Madilog. After he felt he had to have a job, he applied to Social Welfare Agency and was soon sent to a coal mine in Bayah, on southern coast of West Java.
The coalition adopted a "Minimum Program", which declared that only complete independence was acceptable, that government must obey the wishes of the people, and that foreign-owned plantations and industry should be nationalized. The Persatuan Perjuangan had widespread popular support, as well as support in the republican army, especially Major General Sudirman. In February 1946, the organization forced the temporary resignation of Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir, a proponent of negotiation with the Dutch, and Sukarno consulted with Tan Malaka to seek his support. However, Tan Malaka was apparently unable to bridge political divisions within his coalition to transform it into actual political control, and he was arrested shortly thereafter, with Sjahrir returning to lead Sukarno's cabinet.
Sabarudin, however, was in conflict with all other armed groups. On 17 February, the TNI leaders in East Java decided that Sabarudin and his companions were to be captured and convicted following military law. On the 19th, they captured Tan Malaka in Blimbing. On 20 February, the Dutch Korps Speciale Troepen (KST) happened to start an offensive named "Operation Tiger" from the East Javanese town of Nganjuk. They advanced quickly and brutally. Poeze describes in detail how the TNI soldiers fled into the mountains and how Tan Malaka, already injured, walked into a TNI post and was promptly executed on 21 February 1949. Malaka was fatally shot at the foothills of Mount Wilis, Selopanggung, Kediri Regency after an arrest and detention in Patje village. According to Poeze, the shot was ordered by Second Lieutenant Sukotjo of Sikatan battalion, Brawijaya division. No report was made and Malaka was buried in the woods.
Tan Malaka's best-known written work is his autobiography, Dari Pendjara ke Pendjara. He wrote the three-volume work by hand while imprisoned by the republican Sukarno government in 1947 and 1948. The work alternates between theoretical chapters describing Tan Malaka's political beliefs and philosophy and more conventional autobiographical chapters that discuss various phases of his life. Volume three has an especially loose narrative structure, containing commentary on Marxist historiography, his positions on the ongoing fight with the Netherlands over Indonesia's independence, and reprints of sections of key documents related to the struggle. Dari Pendjara ke Pendjara is one of a very small number of autobiographies set in colonial Indonesia. The translated book, From Jail to Jail (1991), attracted the English speaking labor movement's attention.
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