Tan Malaka and Anti-Colonial Messaging during the Indonesian National Revolution.

AbstractIn the throes of the Indonesian National Revolution Dutch intelligence services were not backward in their attempts to decode anti-colonial messaging. The writings of national-communist Tan Malaka received special attention, alongside a range of ad hoc guerrilla organisations, many only loosely affiliated with the Republican regime. To this end, they assiduously collected pamphlets, graffiti, and documents and anything that could throw light on their adversaries. These materials survive in the Dutch archives. This article gives particular prominence to one of Tan Malaka’s little-studied prison writings, <italic>Gerpolek</italic>, his self-described handbook for political and military struggle, which is couched in highly populist language. The balance of the article discusses a range of guerrilla posters falling into Dutch hands, some mimicking the Tan Malakaist line and others of Islamic inspiration. As this article reveals, by lampooning the Japanese, Dutch, and British, these were powerful statements of a counter-narrative fast in the making, and with defence of independence and speedy defeat of the attacking Dutch forces the bottom line. While some of the material is also suggestive of “social revolution,” as the article concludes, it is a latent theme and largely outside of Marxist rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]