Labour Monthly
Source : Labour Monthly December 1945, p.360-363
Publisher : The Labour Publishing Company Ltd., London.
Transcription/HTML : Ted Crawford/D. Walters
Public Domain : Marxists Internet Archive (2012). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
In his Road to Calvary Alexei Tolstoy writes of 1918: “Who expected that Central Russia, cut off from the seas, from the fertile districts, from the coal and oil, a Russia starving and poverty stricken, burning with the fever of typhus, would not submit, would clench its teeth and again and again send its sons into the fearful battles? A year before, the same men had abandoned the fronts and fled. The country seemed transformed into a chaotic, anarchic swamp -- but, in fact, it was not so. Mighty forces of unity emerged in the country and a dream of justice rose above the purely animal instinct of self-preservation.”
While in no way attempting to draw a parallel it nevertheless worth having this passage in mind when considering recent events in Indonesia, for there, too, “dream of justice” is awakening.
Discerning events only through the inadequate eyes of hostile correspondent, one nevertheless gets glimpses of the mighty forces at work in Indonesia.
In the cold words of The Times correspondent (November 10, 1945):
“Certain facts emerge quite clearly. First, the landing of large Dutch forces in Java will provoke mass uprisings. Secondly, the ‘re establishment of law and order in Java,’ or if one prefers it, ‘the reconquest of Java,’ will be major military operation requiring large numbers of trained, equipped, and steady troops and modern machines of war. Thirdly, the Dutch will not have sufficient forces to think of undertaking such an operation on their own until well on into next year and even then, they require considerable British assistance.”
But the correspondent of The Times, attempting to be sober, is none the less “optimistic.”
For example, Java is not Indonesia, but only one part of it. The Dutch conquest of the islands began in the sixteenth century. It was not concluded till the third quarter of the nineteenth, when the Dutch were still trying to destroy the independent republics of the Chinese gold miners in Borneo. If today the forces of imperialism are better armed than in those days, the same can be said for the Indonesian Array, with the addition that it now faces the invaders a national army and not just as a series of armed bands of petty princes and potentates.
Concentrating attention an Java, the wealthiest most populous and politically developed of the islands, correspondents forget that Sumatra, Madura and the outer Islands stand completely with the Javanese. It is the Indonesians, not the Javanese, who are a nation.
The aim of some sections of Dutch governing circles, with the support of some sections of the British, to create a division between Java and the other islands, will not succeed.
The present Indonesian Prime Minister, Sjarir, and the Minister of the Interior, Sjarifuddin, are both Sumatrans. The Indonesian Governor of Sumatra and the Indonesian armed forces there have both long ago proclaimed their loyalty to the Indonesian Republic.
Similarly, with the other islands. Even in Ambon, which the Dutch have long used as the special recruiting ground for their “Indonesian” armed forces and between which island and the rest they have long exerted themselves to sow division, the same process is at work. It of the utmost importance that in the Government of Premier Sjarir there is an Ambonese Minister.
Therefore those who talk only of Java, and whose military calculations proceed no further than the coasts of that island, merely delude themselves. The reconquest of Indonesia will be a military task of the utmost magnitude in which the reconquest of Java would be not even half the battle.
The Times correspondent writes further of the Indonesian armed forces: “These young Indonesians, aged from 14 to 24, still have not the slightest idea of what modern: fighting implies.” Other correspondents have been inclined to laugh at the spears and bows and arrows with which some of the Indonesians have been armed.
Yet in north China, when the Japanese invaded, guerilla bands were often formed around a few men with rifles, the rest having only spears. After eight years of war, against a modern army numbering up to one million, these same guerrilla bands, grown into armies, liberated the greater part of north China from Japanese control. Today the Indonesians, have arms for at least 100,00 men.
It is the experience of war and especially of revolutionary wars, that the green enthusiasm of newly raised forces soon hardens in battle, grows in military experience, develops military leaders and its own suitable tactics, provided only that its vision of justice is sufficiently widespread and powerful
The Times correspondent, also refers to the need for large numbers of steady troops if Indonesia is to be “reconquered.” One may legitimately ask, Where will these troops be found?
In Holland? The correspondent admits that the Dutch will not be able to provide any number of them until next year. It is doubtful whether they will be found even then. While there are hot headed elements in Holland who care nothing for the reconstruction of their country and the immense jobs to be done to remove the last traces of the Nazi occupation, that is not the mood of the great majority of people. The people of the Netherlands, by and large, are thinking of improving conditions of life there, not of fresh and costly foreign wars. Nor are the reports of desertions from Dutch forces now on their way to the Far East without foundation and significance.
As for the British soldiers, their feeling has been summed up by the Daily Herald correspondent in Batavia. He wrote: “The average British soldier wonders what it is all about. His view, rather naturally, is this:
“We’ve had six years of our own war; why the hell can’t we keep out of this mess? Why not let the Dutch and the Indonesians fight it out between themselves?”
“He is afraid that this turn out to be a repetition of the Greek business, although he is assured officially that we are not here for political reasons.
“Explanations of this sort do not placate a man who has served for three or four years overseas, and is due for repatriation or release, when he may have his head blown off any moment in a fight which he thinks does not concern him.”
Thus for official policy, both British and Dutch, between the desire and the deed there are many stumbling blocks.
Undoubtedly, ruling circles in both Britain and Holland underestimated the strength of national feeling and also the power of national movements in the Far East. That military and political contempt of Eastern peoples, which has lost all meaning in the modern world, has led them into a position from which there is no way but retreat, and retreat is what they are most loath to do.
They imagined that a few reassuring remarks, plus a show of force would be all that was required to reduce nations to their ancient subjection and they made a major political mistake.
Undoubtedly, too, they miscalculated the depth of democratic feeling in such countries as Australia, Britain and Holland that has its finest expression in the deeds of the Australian dockers. The days, are past when the common man of such countries considers democracy as something only for himself and not for his fellow-workers of another and colour.
The miscalculations, and the gap between the desire and the deed, largely explain, the contradictions and the vacillations in British policy, and the odd relationship between the Netherlands Government and its representative on the spot, the “Lieutenant-Governor of the Netherlands East Indies,” Dr. van Mook.
First we learnt from Mr. Attlee that, the speech of Mr. Lawson, Secretary of State for War, reported in the Daily Herald, in which he told British soldiers serving in the Far East that they would not be required to fight for the French in Indo-China and the Dutch in Indonesia, had not, in fact, been made.
Then we were told that the speech of General Christison, in which he promised co-operation with the Indonesian authorities on landing in Java had been badly reported.
Then, whenever Dr. van Mook suggested meeting the Indonesian President, Soekarno, the Netherlands Government repudiated the statement, without, however, venturing to recall van Mook. Having done this once or twice, they suddenly issued a statement saying that Dr. van Mook had reported to them and was carrying out their policy!
With such political contortions in Britain and Holland can be contrasted the steady expansion of authority of the Indonesian Government.
Owing its origin to the Declaration of Independence issued by Soekarna and Hatta on August 17, two days after the Japanese surrender, a fairly representative, government was soon formed and preparations were made for holding a National Convention of representatives from all Indonesia which met in October, approved the formation of the Republic and adopted a democratic programme, called for elections and social and economic reforms. The National Convention made it clear that Indonesia desired friendly political and economic relations with such countries as Britain the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Holland and Australia, that welcomed the formation of the United Nations Organisation and desired a place in it. Its demands were reasonable and moderate, but the were firm.
The Convention elected a National Committee and a Working Committee to act on these policies and the chairman of the Working Committee, Sjarir, on November 13 became the Prime Minister and formed a new Cabinet. While Soekarno remains President and Hatta Vice-President, their positions are now more honorary, while effective leadership of the movement is in the hands of the new Cabinet.
As has been pointed out, this Cabinet is representative of all sections of Indonesia, and that is one of its great sources of strength. Equally important, Sjarir and Sjarifuddin both have excellent records of anti-Japanese resistance, as have other Ministers. Both, too, are Socialists and leaders of the Indonesian Socialist Party, now the largest party in Indonesia. Sjarifuddin, well known as a Socialist in the years before the war, was one of the three Indonesian leaders who united all sections, of the national movement in 1939 when the movement was beginning to recover from earlier crushing blows struck at it by the Dutch.
The leaders have thus experience in politics and in uniting diverse trends. In addition, they and Soekarno have been touring the villages of Java and are assured of the utmost support.
Thus the picture from Indonesia is one of firm and developing policy and growing strength.
Naturally, hostile correspondents, seeking to justify the efforts of foreign powers to destroy the new Republic, conduct a propaganda campaign against it. Just as the tale of Japanese direction was invented (and later had to be officially denied, e.g., Lawson Secretary of State for War, in House of Commons, November 11, 1945: (“There is no direct evidence that the present disturbances in Java have been started by the Japanese”) so now tales of “wild extremists,” uncontrollable by the Sjarir Government, are being invented. Naturally Dutch and British provocateurs are trying to divide the national movement; equally naturally sections of that movement, through inexperience, make mistakes. But the essential thing is that here are 75 million people on the move, a people nearly twice as numerous as the British. To write the history of their strivings in terms of “extremists” is to indulge in self-delusion and cheap propaganda which is as false as Goebbels’ tales of wartime Britain.
Nor is there today hope of starving Java out. In the past Java was a large food importer. Under the Japanese the great rubber and other plantations were largely a liability and it became necessity for the peasants to grow food instead. Today, therefore, Java and the other islands are more self-supporting in food than at any time in the last fifty years.
Ranged against the vital and forward looking forces of Indonesia there are two governments willing to wound but, if not afraid to strike, at least uncertain, despite their desire to destroy the Indonesian Republic, as to the wisdom of bearing the burden of full scale involvement on their own shoulders. Each, too, is bent upon its private gain.
For Britain the naval base of Sourabaya occupies a central point in the plans of power politics of ruling circles. But can such plots succeed? And even if Sourabaya falls to British arms can it be held?
Ultimately one force stands in the way of Indonesian democracy: the great trusts, the big monopolies, the Anglo-Dutch Shell Oil Company, the Unilever Combine, the tin, and rubber companies. These are the real extremists who are frustrating a peaceful settlement.
The mass of mankind, desiring peace and prosperity, as do the Indonesians, realising that democracy, like peace, is indivisible, stands behind the Charter of the United Nations Organisation declaring that “All members shall refrain from the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations,” the second of which is “To develop friendly relations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
Those words are unambiguous, and Britain cannot afford to ignore them. The fight of the Indonesian people is the fight of the United Nations for prosperity, democracy and peace.
Recognition of, and Co-operation with, the Indonesian Republic and its Government is the sole way in which “law and order” to which Bevin so frequently refers, can be, established.