Tan Malaka and Indonesia’s freedom struggle

In January 1946, over 140 Indonesian nationalist and workers’ organizations came together to form the Struggle Front (Persatuan Perjuangan). The goal was to fight for complete independence from Dutch colonialism. The formation of the Struggle Front was in many ways the crowning achievement in the life of Indonesian revolutionary Tan Malaka. Thanks to political persecution by a number of imperialist governments, forcing him to work underground and in exile for much of his political life, Tan Malaka’s role in the world working-class movement is not well known. Even in Indonesia, his place in the independence struggle is marked only by a small street sign in Padang. His three-volume autobiography, “From Jail to Jail,” was only translated into English in 1991 and received little attention in the English-speaking working-class movement.