Tan Malaka

Tan Malaka, whose full name was Ibrahim Simabua Datuak Sutan Malaka, was born on 2 June 1897 and died on 21 February 1949. He worked as a statesman, teacher, Marxist, and philosopher in Indonesia. He established both the Struggle Union (Persatuan Perjuangan) and the Murba Party. The publication Tempo referred to him as the "Father of the Republic of Indonesia." He is also remembered as a national hero, guerrilla fighter, and spy.

His given name was Ibrahim, but he was commonly called Tan Malaka, an honorary title from his mother’s aristocratic lineage. He was born in what is now Nagari Pandam Gadang, Suliki, in West Sumatra, then part of the Dutch East Indies. His exact birth year is uncertain, with sources placing it between 1894 and 1897.

His father, Haji Muhammad Rasad Caniago, worked in agriculture, and his mother, Rangkayo Sinah Simabua, was the daughter of a respected village figure. As a child, he studied religion and trained in pencak silat. In 1908, he entered the Kweekschool, a state teacher training school in Fort de Kock, where he learned Dutch and became a skilled football player.

His teacher, G. H. Horensma, noted that while Malaka could be disobedient, he was an excellent student. He graduated in 1913 and returned to his village, where he was offered a high adat title of datuk and a fiancée, but accepted only the title. He secured funds from the village to study abroad and sailed for Rotterdam that same year.

Time in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, Malaka experienced culture shock and underestimated the cold climate, contracting pleuritis in early 1914 from which he did not fully recover until 1915. He developed an interest in revolution and its theories, inspired by De Fransche Revolutie, a book given to him by Horensma that covered the French Revolution. After the Russian Revolution in October 1917, he grew interested in communism, socialism, and reformist socialism, reading works by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. He also read Friedrich Nietzsche, who became an early political role model.

Malaka disliked Dutch culture, preferring German and American cultures, and even tried to enlist in the German Army but was rejected because it did not accept foreigners. In the Netherlands, he met Henk Sneevliet, a founder of the Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging (ISDV), which preceded the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). He also became interested in the Sociaal-Democratische Onderwijzers Vereeniging. He graduated in November 1919 with a hulpacte diploma.

Teaching and journalism

After graduating, Malaka returned to his village and accepted a job from Dr. C. W. Janssen to teach children of tea plantation coolies in Sanembah, Tanjung Morawa, Deli, East Sumatra. He arrived in December 1919 and began teaching in January 1920. He created subversive propaganda for the coolies, known as the Deli Spoor, and learned about the decline of indigenous people. He also made contact with the ISDV and wrote for the press, including a piece called "Land of Paupers" in the March 1920 issue of Het Vrije Woord and articles on coolie suffering in the Sumatera Post.

When his old teacher Horensma offered him a teaching job in Batavia, Malaka declined, wanting to start his own school instead, and Horensma supported this plan. In 1921, Malaka was elected to the Volksraad as a member of the Left-wing grouping but resigned on 23 February 1921. He then left Batavia for Yogyakarta in early March 1921, staying at the home of Sutopo, a former Budi Utomo leader. There, he wrote a proposal for a grammar school.

He attended the 5th congress of the Sarekat Islam organization and met prominent Islamic figures like H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, Agus Salim, Darsono, and Semaun. The congress debated whether members could belong to both Sarekat Islam and the PKI; Agus Salim and Abdul Muis opposed it, while Semaun and Darsono supported it. This split the organization into the White Sarekat Islam, led by Tjokroaminoto, and the Red Sarekat Islam, led by Semaun in Semarang. After the congress, Semaun invited Malaka to Semarang to join the PKI, and he accepted.