SICKLE AND CRESCENT:
THE COMMUNIST REVOLT OF
1926 IN BANTEN
Michael C. Williams
MONOGRAPH SERIES
(Publication No. 61)
Cornell Modern Indonesia Project
Southeast Asia Program
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
not remove from Room 213,
640 Stewart Avenue
1982
Price: $6.00SICKLE AND CRESCENT:
THE COMMUNIST REVOLT OF 1926 IN BANTEN
Michael C. Williams
MONOGRAPH SERIES
(Publication No. 61)
Cornell Modern Indonesia Project
Southeast Asia Program
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
1982
Price:	$6.00© 1982, Cornell Modern Indonesia Project
ISBN 0-87763-028-3TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.	BACKGROUND TO THE REVOLT.............................. 1
II.	PREPARATIONS FOR INSURRECTION......................... 35
III.	THE OUTBREAK OF THE	REVOLT .........................    51
IV.	SIGNIFICANT FEATURES	OF THE REVOLT	IN BANTEN........... 59
V.	SEQUEL TO THE REVOLT.................................. 63
APPENDICES
I.	LIST OF PERSONS FROM	BANTEN EXILED	TO BOVEN	DIGUL ..... 69
II.	BANTENESE SENTENCED	TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT............... 80
III.	LIST OF BANTENESE EXECUTED............................ 81
MAPS
1.	ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS OF BANTEN IN 1930 ........... 34
2.	LABUAN-MENES AREA .................................... 50
iiiI.	BACKGROUND TO THE REVOLT*
"Alongside the crescent, the star of the soviets will be the
great battle emblem. ..."
Tan Malaka* 1
"Just as unclean cloth must be washed with soap, so an
impure world must be cleansed by blood."
Haji Achmad Chatib2
Twice in this century the people of Banten have risen in revolt against those
they considered to be their oppressors. On both occasions the leadership of the
revolts was largely religious and yet at the same time announced to all that it was
Communist. The revolutionary leadership successfully portrayed their ideology as
both past and future. In 1926 and again in 1945, revolt was to be the harbinger of
freedom from colonial rule and the dawn of a new era of social justice and prosperity.
These are familiar themes of Communist-inspired revolt, but the Bantenese revolu-
tionaries also delved deep into their past history to proclaim that the advent of Com-
munist revolt would also lead to the restoration of the Sultanate of Banten.
The Banten region illustrates strikingly that the movement from "archaic" to
modern forms of political protest is not lineal but dialectical. As Geertz has percep-
tively remarked, "there is in such matters no simple progression from 'traditional'
to 'modern,' but a twisting, spasmodic, unmethodical movement which turns as often
toward repossessing the emotions of the past as disowning them."3 This dialectical
connection between future, present, and past was evident not only in the ideology
of the two main revolts, but also in the social composition of the revolutionary lead-
ership. In both uprisings descendants of the former Sultans of Banten, called
tubagus, and others holding noble titles they had borne from old, played a promi-
nent role. Indeed one of the very first actions of the Indonesian Communist Party
(PKI) branch in 1925 was to demand compensation and pensions for all who bore the
title tubagus from a sultanate abolished nearly a century before. They rubbed
shoulders in the revolutionary leadership with other traditional leaders of peasant
* The author wishes to express his appreciation to Ruth T. McVey for her comments
on this text.
1.	Tan Malaka, "De Islam en het Bolsjewisme," De Tribune, September 21, 1922,
cited in Ruth T. McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism (Ithaca: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1965), p. 161.
2.	Statement to the Police of Diarman of Caringin, October 6, 1926, Mailr.637x/
1927, Vb April 13, 1928 06.
3.	Clifford Geertz, "Afterword: The Politics of Meaning," in Culture and Politics
in Indonesia, ed. Claire Holt et al. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), p.
328.
12
revolt, such as the Islamic teachers, the ulama, and the local men of violence, the
jawara, but also with more "modern" revolutionaries such as artisans, printers,
journalists, and trade unionists. In short, the uncompromising insistence on moder-
nity that was to be a hallmark of the PKI after 1951 was certainly not a prominent
feature of the movement in the 1920s or in 1945. The PKI of the 1950s and 1960s
made a rejection of the past a key part of its revolutionary image. This was not the
case in an earlier era. k
Islamic communism is seemingly a paradox. This is especially the case when one
considers that probably no religion has proved more resistant to the ideology of
communism than Islam. One common feature of both the Soviet Union and the Peo-
ple's Republic of China today is the persistence of strong Islamic minorities and
traditions despite decades of socialist rule. Yet at the same time we have to account
for the fact that in certain historical periods and in certain countries a social move-
ment has flourished which can aptly be called "Islamic Communism." This was pal-
pably the case in Indonesia in the 1920s and was also true of several of the local
Communist movements that appeared in the aftermath of the Japanese collapse in
1945.
Many early Indonesian Communist leaders, such as Tan Malaka, believed that
Islam could be harnessed to the revolutionary cause. 4 5 Others, such as HajiMisbach6
and the Bantenese leader, Haji Achmad Chatib, went even further and argued that
there was no fundamental incompatibility between Islam and communism. It was, of
course, somewhat easier to adopt such a position in a colonized Indonesia than it
was in the postcolonial Republic. In the early twentieth century the national bour-
geoisie as a social class was extremely weak in Indonesia and, more importantly,
foreign rule and capitalism were seen as one and the same thing. Moreover, at least
until the 1920s, Islam and Indonesian nationalism were so closely identified as to be
almost synonymous.7
4.	The PKI's stress on the theme of modernity in the 1950s and 1960s has been
pointed out by Ruth McVey in "Enchantment of the Revolution," in Perceptions of
the Past, ed. David Marr and Anthony Reid (Singapore: Heineman, 1980), pp. 340-58.
Informants in Banten, particularly those who had been active in the PKI in 1925-26,
often drew a distinction between the Communist Party of that period and the post-
1951 PKI led by D. N. Aidit. The differences that informants pointed out related
not only to the attitude Communists should adopt towards Islam, but also that the
PKI of the 1920s was far more tolerant of local traditions, hierarchies, and customs
than its latter-day counterpart.
5.	On Tan Malaka’s views of the need for an alliance between Communists and revo-
lutionary Islam, see Harry Poeze, Tan Malaka Levensloop van 1897 tot 1945: Strijder
voor Indonesia's Vrijheid (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976), pp. 138, 149, 225-26; Petrus
Blumberger, De Communistische Beweging in Nederlandsch-Indie (Haarlem: Tjeenk
Willink, 1928), pp. 65ff.; McVey, Rise, pp. 161-62; Jeanne S. Mintz, "Marxism in
Indonesia," in Marxism in Southeast Asia, ed. Frank N. Trager (Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press, 1959), p. 179.
6.	On Haji Misbach's views see his series of articles, "Islam dan Communisme,"
Medan Moeslimin, 1925-26, written by him in exile in Manokwari, New Guinea (text
in my possession). See also McVey, Rise, pp. 172-74; Blumberger, Communistische
Beweging, pp. 38ff.
7.	Deliar Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 1900-42 (Singapore:
Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 7 and passim.3
The spectacular development of the PKI in the 1920s was due in no small mea-
sure to the fact that it did not reject Indonesia's Islamic traditions. But, despite
this, the party was remarkably slow in developing a base in an area long known for
its Islamic orthodoxy and for a history punctuated with uprisings against Dutch
colonial rule. As late as March 1925, the retiring Dutch Resident could write: "The
population of Banten is extremely devout and staunchly conservative, so that commu-
nism will find no scope for development here."8 The reasons for this are not too
difficult to surmise. The economic and social development of Java during the nine-
teenth century had largely bypassed Banten, leaving it an isolated and neglected
region. Together with strong regional traditions and particularities, this made the
development of new social and political forces very difficult. Urbanization, for ex-
ample, had proceeded at a very slow pace. In 1925 in this region of approximately
950,000 inhabitants only one town, Serang, the residency capital, had a population
of more than 10,000. 9 As there were no factories and very few plantations in the
area, there was correspondingly almost no working class. The intelligentsia was
likewise remarkably small, while the European, Eurasian, and Chinese communities,
although they had grown significantly since 1890, were proportionately smaller in
Banten than in any other residency of Java. The overwhelming majority of the re-
gion's inhabitants were peasant smallholders, although increasingly in the early
part of this century very many of them ventured outside the region in search of
temporary work. The very poor were to establish themselves permanently in exile.
The peasantry had found social and political leadership traditionally in the
ulama or Islamic teachers. This religious elite was profoundly alienated from the
colonial order. A small section of the religious leaders had been partially integrated,
through their appointment as penghulu, the local heads of the mosque functionaries,
but generally in Banten these officials did not have the respect of the main body of
ulama or kiyai, or for that matter of the population as a whole.10 For the most part
the religious leaders remained in sullen isolation from the government, while still
enjoying enormous social prestige among the peasantry.
Although Bantenese society was exposed to social and economic change, it was
change of a different order from that which affected the rest of Java. The area
did not witness the emergence of industry and large-scale commerce as in the is-
land's coastal cities nor for that matter did it see the transformation of agriculture
which occurred in Central and East Java with the expansion of plantations and
sugar cultivation. Change had occurred with the development of some commodity
crops, especially coconuts, and with the demand for migrant labor in Batavia and
Sumatra. Peasants took advantage of these opportunities to relieve the new bur-
dens placed on them through population pressure and more efficient tax collection.
8.	Memorie van Overgave [hereafter MvO] van den afgetreden Resident van Ban-
tam, J. C. Bedding, March 24, 1925, p. 68.
9.	Volkstelling 1930, I (Landsdrukkerij: Department van Economische Zaken, 1933),
pp. 27-28.
10.	Harry J. Benda and Ruth T. McVey, eds., The Communist Uprisings of 1926-
1927 in Indonesia: Key Documents (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1960),
p. 38. This collection includes (pp. 19-96) the official report of the government
inquiry into the uprising in Banten (referred to hereafter as the "Bantam Report").
On the attitude towards penghulu, see also G. F. Pijper, "De Penghulus op Java,"
in his Studien over de Ceschiedenis van de Islam op Java, 1900-1950 (Leiden: Brill,
1977), pp. 63-96. Pijper makes the point (p. 65) that district and subdistrict peng-
hulu were a phenomenon of recent date, having been established in Banten only in
the years 1894-99.4
During the course of the nineteenth century the colonial state had only slowly
encapsulated the Javanese village within its realm. This process was even slower
when no overriding economic interests forced it to this course. Only at the begin-
ning of the twentieth century did the colonial government effectively establish its
presence in rural Banten, as the region had been little influenced by the major
socioeconomic developments of the nineteenth century, such as the Cultivation Sys-
tem or the opening up of the economy to private plantation development after 1870.11
It has been widely observed that where the nation state is unable to control
and integrate peripheral areas there is room for political middlemen or brokers who
are able to bridge the gaps in communication and to exploit them often to retain
their own position vis-a-vis the peasantry. In Banten, the religious elite, the
ulama, together with the jawara,did perform this role to some extent. Indeed had
it not been for countervailing developments, such as the emergence of powerful
secular political movements like the Sarekat Islam and the Communist Party, which
offered new opportunities to the ulama and the jawara, these groups might have
been gradually coopted into the colonial status quo.
The development of the new political forces led, at least for a limited period,
to a more adequate articulation of rural discontent, although this was not a clearcut
movement towards modern secular politics. Rather it was a process whereby those
modern political forces which had arrived on the scene adapted themselves to the
concrete realities of the local situation. The normal assumption in analyzing the
relationship between the community and the nation state is that the community, the
repository of the "Little Tradition," eventually succumbs to the "Great Tradition"
of the nation state.12 The process of political mobilization is said to be typified by
the mobilization of local leaders by national leaders and state institutions.13 How-
ever, it is possible that the process is reversible to some degree, as some writers
have suggested.14 In other words new emerging political forces, in order to gain
acceptance in peripheral areas, are often forced to make considerable concessions
and adaptations to the "Little Tradition" in order to gain the acceptance of the com-
munity .
Certain regions lend themselves particularly well to this resistance to state en-
croachment and the emergence of new political movements. The latter are only
accepted if they are willing to come to terms with the realities of local power. Mod-
ern history is replete with examples of regions with a long history of autonomy
organizing themselves politically to resist intrusion on their territory, resources,
and people. In the Mediterranean,Berbers, Kabyles, and Sicilians pursued this
strategy successfully for centuries.15 Tactical mobility and the skilled use of
11.	I explore the economic and political background to the revolt in a Ph.D. thesis
I am preparing on "The Social History of Banten in the Twentieth Century" at the
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
12.	Robert Redfield has made the classic statement on this, in his The Little Com-
munity and Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1965), passim.
13.	Peter Nettl, Political Mobilization (London: Faber & Faber, 1963), passim.
14.	Peter Schneider, Jane Schneider, and Edward Hansen, "Modernization and
Development: The Role of Regional Elites and Noncorporate Groups in the European
Mediterranean," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14 (1972), pp. 328-50.
15.	See E. R. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (London: Faber and
Faber, 1969), pp. 238-39, for comments on the Berbers; on Sicily, see especially
Anton Blok, Mafia of a Sicilian Village (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), passim.5
violence, together with a sparsely populated terrain, assist in this resistance. In
Indonesia, the Bantenese were among its most skilled practitioners.
Other significant processes of social change were at work. A growing number
of peasants in the Banten region, for example, were beginning to be involved in a
wider world outside the village boundaries as migrant workers in Batavia or Suma-
tra. Even here, however, the process of development was uneven. We find, for
example, that among the leaders of the Banten Communist movement exiled to Boven-
Digul after 1927 there were a number of peasants who had never been outside their
own village, let alone outside Banten. At the same time a new group of social and
political actors who had not been present in earlier Bantenese revolts, such as that
of 1888,participated in the 1926 revolt. These men were artisans or semi-intellec-
tuals, such as clerks, village schoolteachers, tailors, printers, and mechanics,who
had a definite, and sometimes prolonged, experience of life outside Banten, usually
in Batavia, as well as some formal education. They provided the necessary link
between the PKI as a national political force and the ulama and jawara of Banten.
Despite the arrival of this new group on the scene, it was essentially already exist-
ing "noncorporate groups"16 such as the ulama, who were the crucial motor both of
the 1926 uprising and of the social revolution of 1945.
But if, as we have argued, the evolution of political and social protest in Ban-
ten should not be seen merely as the "Little Tradition" responding to the "Great
Tradition," it should be noted that those elements of the community who did not re-
spond to the new imperatives found themselves to some extent isolated and subject
to a gradual undermining of their prestige and position. It is the young Haji Ach-
mad Chatib who willingly embraced both the Sarekat Islam and the PKI, who galva-
nized the Bantenese in both 1926 and 1945, and not his father-in-law the revered
ulama, Kiyai Haji Asnawi, who abstained from involvement with the new political
forces.
The meeting of the "Little" and "Great" traditions occurred at two levels. On
the one hand new political forces such as the Sarekat Islam and the PKI sought
local acceptance and, on the other, the effectiveness of the state machinery began
to have a growing impact on local society. At the same time economic circumstances
were changing. The peasantry were exposed to a new and bewildering environment
wherein they had to cope with the individualizing forces of the capitalist market
and with the slow and tortuous consolidation of the colonial state. When the avail-
able means of redress and of expressing grievances about these changes were
strictly limited, the appeal of new forces such as the PKI, which seemed to some
almost as powerful as the colonial government, was greatly enhanced.
16. Schneider et al. ("Modernization and Development," p. 334) have defined "cor-
porate" and "noncorporate groups" as follows: "A corporate group has legal status,
i. e., it is chartered, and controls property which is vested in the group per se.
Furthermore, the corporate group has a life of its own; it may well antedate and
survive any particular set of members. A non-corporate group is not chartered,
although there may well be an ideology, a common mentality, or behavioural gram-
mar which defines the routes of entrance into the group and regulates the conduct
of its members. Most important, the assets of a noncorporate group are not vested
in the group, per se. They remain the property of its individual members. In
short, the noncorporate group may be a coalition, clique or patron-client chain, in
which individuals pool resources and skills."6
The Legacy of the Sarekat Islam
In Banten the Sarekat Islam was dominated by the personality of Raden Hasan
Djajadiningrat, the younger brother of the Regent of Serang, R. A. A. Achmad
Djajadiningrat.17 Where possible he sought to select carefully the religious leaders
joining the organization, preferring those with a moderate outlook such as Raden
Mohammed Isa, the chief penghulu of Serang, to the more fiery and uncompromising
younger leaders such as Haji Achmad Chatib. However, Hasan's influence was not
sufficient to exclude altogether leaders such as Chatib. Where Hasan was more
successful in his activity as chairman of the Banten section of the organization,
however, was in specifically proscribing jawara and those with a criminal record
from the organization.
The death of Hasan Djajadiningrat in 1920 coincided with a toughening Dutch
attitude to the Sarekat Islam following the "Afdeling B incident" of the previous
year.18 As elsewhere, this caused the Sarekat Islam to lose much support,particu-
larly in the ranks of those in government employ such as lower ranking priyayi,
clerks, and schoolteachers. Those branches that were dominated by this group,
such as Serang or Rangkasbitung, the main town of Lebak regency, declined
rapidly as the Sarekat Islam came under increasing Dutch scrutiny. Elsewhere,
as for example in Labuan, Menes, Petir, Cadasari, and Cilegon, the organization
continued to enjoy a shadowy existence. Here leadership was provided by promi-
nent local ulama, whose attitude towards the government was one of marked hostil-
ity. By contrast the secular leaders of the Sarekat Islam, and especially Hasan
Djajadiningrat, saw the Sarekat Islam as a reformist organization that could win
significant reforms by putting pressure on the government and working alongside
17.	Hasan Djajadiningrat, born in 1883, was the third son of Raden Tumenggung
Djajadiningrat, Regent of Serang (1893-99) and younger brother of R. A. A. Achmad
Djajadiningrat, Regent of Serang (1899-1924). Like his elder brother, Hasan en-
joyed a Dutch education in Batavia. He was a fellow pupil and close friend of
Edward Douwes Dekker, the founder of the Indische Party. Hasan Djajadiningrat
was vice-president of the Banten branch of this party until it was declared illegal
in 1913. Later he became chairman of the Banten branch of the Sarekat Islam. In
August 1914 he was elected to the administrative committee of the Central Sarekat
Islam (CSI) where he henceforth allied himself closely with Tjokroaminoto and Guna-
wan against the radical wing of the party based in Semarang.
18.	The "Afdeling B Affair" concerned the discovery of an alleged secret society
within the Sarekat Islam in Garut in the Priangan in 1919. The so-called "Afdeling
B" was unearthed after a violent incident in which a prominent member of the group,
Haji Hasan, was killed by the police. See Noer, Modernist Muslim Movement, pp.
195-97; J. Th. Petrus Blumberger, De Nationalistische Beweging in Nederlandsch-
Indie (Haarlem: Tjeenk Willink, 1931), pp. 69-70; Robert Van Niel, The Emergence
of the Modern Indonesian Elite (The Hague: van Hoeve, 1960), pp. 148-51; Yong
Mun Cheong, Conflicts within the Prijaji World of the Parahyangan in West Java
1914-1927, Field Report Series No. 1 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies, January 1973), pp. 21-27; an extensive collection of documents from the
Dutch archives on the "Afdeling B" is included in R. C. Kwantes, De Ontwikkeling
van de Nationalistische Beweging in Nederlandsch-lndie, 1, 1917-20 (Groningen:
Tjeenk Willink, 1975), pp. 136-97, 209-12. Several hundred members of the Sare-
kat Islam were arrested in the wake of the affair, and Dutch inquiries extended to
Banten. The affair also led to the exodus of a considerable part of the SI member-
ship from the organization, especially those in government employ. In Banten many
junior civil servants and teachers left at this time.7
it. This strategy met with little success at either the national or local level, and
the organization proved singularly incapable of ameliorating peasant grievances.
By the end of 1919 the Sarekat Islam entered a period of serious decline. With
the close of the First World War and the threat of social revolution in Europe reced-
ing, the colonial government felt increasingly unwilling to compromise, and in the
ensuing crackdown many Sarekat Islam leaders began to turn to religious matters
as a basis for the organization, partly to avoid trouble with the Dutch authorities.
H.O. S. Tjokroaminoto, the most prominent Sarekat Islam leader, supported this
line, which found support too from Haji Agus Salim and from Haji Fachruddin, the
leader of the modernist Moslem educational and social welfare organization, Muham-
madiyah.19 The modernists advocated the purification of Indonesian Islam from
local traditions and its adjustment to the requirements of the time. This develop-
ment was anathema to the traditionalist or kolot Moslems of Banten and found no
response in the region. The Muhammadiyah's careful avoidance of anything that
smacked of political radicalism was viewed with open contempt in Bantenese quar-
ters.
But it was not only the Sarekat Islam's growing concern to avoid radicalism20
which met with disapproval in Banten. The Muhammadiyah, it will be recalled,
sought above all to purge Indonesian Islam of its local traditions, a development
that was viewed with the greatest hostility in Banten where much of the strength
of Islam lay precisely in its close connections with local traditions, passions, and
hierarchies. The death of Hasan Djajadiningrat merely served to hasten the antipa-
thy felt in the Sarekat Islam in Banten towards the new developments which found
no effective advocate in the region.
This disillusionment with the changed direction of the Sarekat Islam led the
party's local Bantenese sections to adopt a strictly neutral line in the quarrel which
developed within the organization between the conservative leadership based in
Yogyakarta and the PKI radicals in Semarang led by Semaun. Indeed such was
Bantenese resentment towards Tjokroaminoto and the rest of the Yogyakarta lead-
ers that, when the split between Semarang and Yogyakarta became absolute in 1923,
the Bantenese ulama urged the replacement of Tjokroaminoto by the PKI leaders
Alimin and Musso. 21
19.	On the decline of the Sarekat Islam after 1919 see van Niel, Emergence, pp.
157, 199-210; see also the report by J. J. Schrieke, the government spokesman in
the Volksraad to the Governor-General, A. C. de Graeff, October 12, 1927, in
R. C. Kwantes, De Ontwikkeling van de Nationalistische Beweging in Nederlandsch-
Indie, 2 (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1978), pp. 630-34. On the Sarekat Islam
in Banten see P. A. A. Djajadiningrat, Herrineringen (Amsterdam: Kolff, 1936), pp.
285-90; series of articles by Hasan Djajadiningrat entitled "De Politieke Stroomingen
In Bantam," De Taak [Amsterdam], January 28; February 4, 11, 18, 25; March 25,
April 8, 1922.
20.	On the swing by the Moslem trading class from the Sarekat Islam to Muhamma-
diyah , Benda notes, "Many people felt attracted to it [the Muhammadiyah] because
it did not propagate attacks on others, not even on Christians, or agitate against
imperialism." H. J. Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun: Indonesian Islam
under the Japanese Occupation 1942-45 (The Hague: van Hoeve, 1958) , pp. 45-46;
see also p. 56. On the conservative character of the Muhammadiyah see Ch. van
der Plas, "Neutraliseering en bestrijding van revolutionaire propaganda," in
Kwantes, Ontwikkeling van de Nationalistische Beweging, 2, pp. 712-13.
21.	McVey, Rise, pp. 302-303; "Kort Verslag van de Bestuursvergadering van de
PKI ende SI, 3 March 1923," Mailr 286x/23.8
Nationally and in Banten, the early 1920s saw the peasantry drifting away from
the Sarekat Islam as quickly as they had joined it at an earlier stage. They had
found that the Sarekat Islam was unable to redress their considerable grievances.
In Banten the failure of the nationalist organization found them turning again to
more traditional forms of protest. Where the Sarekat Islam survived, it either
adopted a militant stance, as in Labuan and Menes under the leadership of Haji
Achmad Chatib, or, as in Cilegon, it became a virtual secret society with distinct
criminal overtones.22 Elsewhere in the region the organization simply withered
away and a political vacuum existed which was eventually filled by the Communist
Party.
The Beginnings of Communism in Banten
The origins of Indonesian communism can be traced to the founding, in May
1914, of the Indische Sociaal Democratische Vereeniging (ISDV) by the Dutch Marx-
ist, Henk Sneevliet.23 The ISDV, the first Marxist party in Asia, although at first
dominated by Dutch socialists, developed close links with the infant Indonesian
labor movement, much of which grew up under the tutelage of the ISDV. In par-
ticular the party worked closely with the strongest and oldest Indonesian trade
union, the Vereeniging voor Spoor en Tramweg Personeel (VSTP), the railway and
tram workers' union. The VSTP formed the proletarian core of first the ISDV and
later of the Indonesian Communist Party, founded in May 1920.
The need to establish bonds with the wider mass of the Indonesian population,
however, led the ISDV to pursue from 1916 a "bloc-within" strategy inside the
Sarekat Islam. This strategy, the first concrete example of a Marxist party attempt-
ing to infiltrate another party and form cells within it as a means of developing its
own propaganda and contacts among the masses, was to pay large dividends for
the ISDV and later for the PKI. The strategy was possible largely because of the
decentralized character of the Sarekat Islam, resulting from the refusal of the
Netherlands East Indies government to sanction a national organization. As a con-
sequence of the Marxist infiltration of the organization, several local branches of
the Sarekat Islam fell wholly under the sway of the Semarang-based ISDV. It was
several years before a coherent right-wing trend emerged in the Sarekat Islam,
and the PKI was finally forced to abandon the "bloc-within" policy only in 1921.
The ISDV itself never established a branch in Banten, although two members
of its executive committee did live in the area, Hasan Djajadiningrat and the Dutch
Marxist, J. C. Stam. Despite their presence, there is little evidence that either of
them made any concerted effort to win the Banten Sarekat Islam to the radical posi-
tions propounded by the Marxists in Sernarang. Hasan Djajadiningrat's own politi-
cal views were decidedly moderate and not all that distinct from the liberal Dutch
22.	See "Bantam Report," p. 28; MvO, W. Ch. Thieme, June 1920, pp.
8-9.
23.	On the early years of the ISDV see McVey, Rise, pp. 7-75; Poeze, Tan Malaka,
pp. 114-66; Djamaluddin Tamin, Sedjarah PKI (mimeo, n.d.), 100 pp.; Djamaluddin
Tamin, Speech to Persatuan Pemuda Indonesia (Tokyo: mimeo, April 1967), 13 pp.;
Max Perthus, Henk Sneevliet: Revolutionair Socialist in Europa en Azie (Nijmegen:
Sun, 1976), pp. 89-201; Fritjof Tichelman, Henk Sneevliet: Een Politieke Biografie
(Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1974), pp. 22-26; Mintz, "Marxism in Indonesia," pp.
176-80; Lembaga Sedjarah PKI, Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama (Jakarta: Jajasan
Pembaruan, 1961), pp. 34-50; Michael Williams, "Sneevliet--A Comintern Odyssey,"
New Left Review, 123 (September-October 1980), pp. 81-91.g
"Ethici" reformers. He belonged to the minority reformist wing of the ISDV, and
in 1919 he resigned, declaring himself a follower of the German reformist socialist,
Lassalle rather than Marx.24
Stam, however, adhered to the revolutionary position proposed by Sneevliet
and most of the ISDV leadership. He worked as a schoolteacher in Banten from
1916 to 1919, first in Serang and then in Rangkasbitung. 25 Stam was a prominent
member of the ISDV and was often visited in Serang by other ISDV leaders such as
Sneevliet, Brandstedter, and Bergsma. He was a frequent contributor to the party
journal, Het Vrfje Woord, and in April 1918 founded the socialist teachers' paper,
De Indische Volksschool, with B. Coster and W. Snel. When the PKI was formed in
May 1920, he became a member of its executive committee and was later proposed by
the party as its candidate for the Volksraad (Peoples' Assembly).26
From the point of view of his impact on Banten, however, Stam seems to have
achieved little. He did occasionally address meetings of the Sarekat Islam on im-
portant national issues, such as the trial of Sneevliet in September 1917. 27 Stam
himself was acutely aware of his political isolation in the region and tried to get
round this by establishing debating clubs in Serang and Rangkasbitung. The
clubs attracted members, among junior priyayi, schoolteachers, and local officials
of the railways, pawnhouse, and irrigation services. However, I have not been
able to trace any link between the clubs and the later growth of the PKI in Banten.
In November 1919 Stam was transferred to Tuban in Central Java; two years later
he left Indonesia for good.
Stam was not the only important Dutch Communist to have lived in Banten.
Some years later G. J. van Munster was appointed a teacher at the Opleidings-
School voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren (OSVIA) in Serang. 28 But van Munster, al-
though a member of the PKI, was even more isolated in Banten than Stam had been.
His only real contacts seem to have been with his students, on whom he evidently
made a great impression. 29 In October 1924 he was expelled from Indonesia by the
Dutch authorities, earning the distinction of being the last Dutch Communist to be
thrown out of the country.30
24.	On Hasan Djajadiningrat's moderate political views see McVey, Rise, pp. 302
and 370, n. 17; see also Djajadiningrat, "Politieke Stroomingen"; van Niel, Emer-
gence, p. 128; D. M. G. Koch, Verantwoording: Een Halve Eeuw in Indonesie
(Bandung: van Hoeve, 1956), p. 101.
25.	On Stam see Perthus, Henk Sneevliet, pp. 165, 172, 176, 188, 193, 207, 479,
483; see also the document in Mailr 490x/19, Vb October 22, 1921 Zll/62.
26.	Stam left Indonesia in 1921. The following year he attended the Third Con-
gress of the Comintern in Moscow, representing the PKI. See Perthus, Henk
Sneevliet, p. 483 n. 175; Vb February 17, 1922 Tl/10.
27.	Perthus, Henk Sneevliet, p. 165; see also Vb April 21, 1921 P5. Although
Stam seems to have had little contact with religious leaders in Banten, it was later
reported that, while teaching in Banjarmasin, he had been working with local haji
to convince them the PKI was not opposed to Islam or the SI. See Mailr 80x/ Vb
November 5, 1925 B16; also Mailr 595x/1922.
28.	Mailr 789x/24, Vb December 22, 1924 T17; interview with Haji Gogo Sanjadir-
dja, May 1976, Serang. The informant was a former pupil of van Munster at the
Serang OSVIA.
29.	Interviews, Serang, 1975-76.
30.	Besluit lx October 1, 1924, Mailr 789x/24, Vb December 22, 1924 T17. See10
Although the ISDV had not established a branch in Banten, the railway work-
ers' union, the VSTP, had.31 The VSTP held a public meeting in Labuan in July
1922 at which the main speaker was the PKI leader, Semaun. The following year
the VSTP launched a railway strike throughout Java in support of a claim for bet-
ter wages and conditions for its members. Several meetings were held in Banten
during the course of the strike, a number of them addressed by the VSTP chair-
man, Sugono, attracting large audiences.32
The failure of the 1923 railway strike led to a wave of victimization against
those considered to be militant activists by the Dutch authorities and employers.33
Among those sacked was a Bantenese clerk working at the Tanah Abang railway
station in Batavia, Raden Oesadiningrat. Unemployed, Oesadiningrat, who was a
distant relative of Achmad Djajadiningrat, the Regent of Serang, returned to his
native Pandeglang where he found employment with the VSTP as a full-time official.
Although there was no PKI branch, or even membership in Banten, Oesadiningrat
did organize three public meetings in 1924 at which prominent PKI leaders spoke.
Ironically, Oesadiningrat, who was instrumental in these modest attempts by the
PKI to recruit a following in Banten, was eventually to play an important role as a
spy and police agent in the suppression of the 1926 insurrection.34
After the complete rupture between the PKI and the Sarekat Islam in 1923, the
Communist Party established its own mass organization, the Sarekat Rakjat. Al-
though the Sarekat Islam in Banten, or what was left of it, was hostile to Tjokro-
aminoto and Salim's leadership of the Sarekat Islam, the PKI made no attempt to
court the Bantenese Sarekat Islam or to establish branches of the Sarekat Rakjat
in the region. In August 1924 Oesadiningrat did chair a meeting in Pandeglang
organized by the VSTP, apparently with the intention of establishing the Sarekat
Rakjat in Banten, but from police reports it appears that nothing came of it.35
In October 1924 Oesadiningrat made another attempt to set up a branch of the
Sarekat Rakjat and invited the PKI leaders, Alimin and Musso, to speak at inaug-
ural meetings. The two leaders spoke on October 12 at a meeting in Pandeglang
attended by only fourteen people. The following day a meeting at Kadomas drew
a crowd of only nine. Nothing further came of the attempt to establish the Sarekat
Rakjat in the region, and soon afterwards Oesadiningrat left Banten for Central
Java to return only in 1926, this time as a police agent.36
also Vb May 13, 1922, Vb May 1, 1923 W5; De Banten Bode, October 4, 1924;
McVey, Rise, pp. 253, 454 n. 5, 471 n. 70. Van Munster was the former Director
of the Teachers' Training College in Blitar, then Adjunct Inspector of Native Edu-
cation in Aceh. His post in Serang was his last before his expulsion from Indonesia.
31.	"Bantam Report," p. 29, gives the membership of the VSTP in Banten as 240.
32.	Letter of Procureur-Generaal to Governor-General, March 2, 1923 in Mailr
216x/23, Vb October 1, 1923 E14.
33.	McVey, Rise, pp. 146-54; Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama, pp. 39-40.
34.	Report of Governor of West Java, W. P. Hillen, to Governor-General Fock,
March 8, 1926, G5/7/10 Mailr 296x/26.
35.	Ibid.
36.	Ibid. Interview Agus Sirad, November 12, 1975, Jakarta. Agus Sirad was a
mantri politie in Pandeglang in 1924. In 1975 he recalled: "I was detailed to follow
Alimin and Musso on their arrival in Pandeglang. They arrived on the evening
train. I thought at first they were well-dressed merchants. Alimin was short and
Musso fat; they reminded me of Laurel and Hardy."11
Such were the meager beginnings of the PKI in Banten. Given such an un-
promising start, the rapid growth of the party within a comparatively short period
was unexpected, and it certainly took the Dutch administration completely by sur-
prise. At the end of 1924 a government report found that there were only two
known members of the Communist Party in the residency of Banten.37 Only twelve
months later party membership was to number several thousand and was to grow
even more in 1926.
This startling change in the PKI's fortunes was brought about by a small num-
ber of men who moved to Banten in 1925. Some were Bantenese who had joined the
PKI in other areas of Java, others were itinerant artisans, and a few were full-time
party propagandists dispatched at the behest of the executive committee to estab-
lish a section there.
One of the Bantenese who returned to his home area in 1925 was Tubagus Ali-
pan. Born in 1902 in Pandeglang, Tb. Alipan was the son of a minor official and
had attended the HIS (Dutch language school for Indonesians) in Pandeglang. In
1917 he went to live in Temanggung in Central Java and eventually found work
there as a printer.38 He became active in the Printers' Union (Sarekat Buruh
Cetak), and in 1921 joined the PKI. Two years later he became a propagandist for
the party and was responsible for trade union work in the Temanggung area. In
1925, according to his own story, he was requested by the PKI chairman, Darsono,
to return to Banten to assist in establishing a section of the party. As he played
an important role in "the development of the revolutionary movement, it is interest-
ing to recall some of his life history in his own words.
"My first political experience was when I was still young and living in
Pandeglang. Tjokroaminoto came to the town to address a meeting of the
Sarekat Islam in 1916. I remember the excitement not only of us young-
sters, but throughout the town. Even though at the time I understood
little of the political content of the meeting, Tjokroaminoto to us was almost
a superhuman personality and symbolized the awakening of the Indonesian
people. ...
"Temanggung was a very different place from Banten. It was much more
open and I rapidly became politicized by the currents of the time. I began
working in a printing plant there and this became my vocation. The condi-
tions of the workers at that time were of course very poor. To try and im-
prove matters, I established with some other comrades a mutual benefit
society, 'Rukun Temanggung.' Soon afterwards, I joined the Printers' Union
and later the PKI."39
Alipan returned to Banten with Puradisastra, the future chairman of the Ban-
ten section of the PKI, in August 1925. Puradisastra was a Sundanese from Banjar,
near Ciamis in the Priangan.40 He had joined the PKI in 1923 and worked for the
party in West Java and also in Bengkulu in Sumatra, an area where many Bantenese
worked as migrant laborers. Puradisastra himself had married a Bantenese woman
37.	"Opgave van Ambtenaren en Beambten in Nederlandsch-Indischen Staatsdienst,"
Mailr 651x/24, Vb January 5, 1925 F3.
38.	Interview Tb. Alipan, Pandeglang, February 18 and 25, March 10, 1976; Ali-
pan's notes entitled "Riwayat singkat pribadi," in my possession. Temanggung
seems to have been a particularly active PKI area; see McVey, Rise, p. 332.
39.	Interview Tb. Alipan.
40.	Interviews Tje Mamat, Serang, May-June 1976.12
from Menes. His younger sister, Sukaesih, was one of the few prominent women
members of the PKI in the 1920s. In 1924 Puradisastra had worked closely with the
PKI leader Musso in trying to reactivate the labor unions in Batavia, particularly
the Printers' Union and the Drivers' Union.
Puradisastra and Alipan were assisted in their work by a number of other Ban-
tenese who had become PKI activists, the most prominent of whom was Achmad
Bassaif. 41 Bassaif was born in Serang in 1903, the son of an Arab father and a
Bantenese mother. His father was a comparatively wealthy trader and Bassaif him-
self was educated at the Al-Irsjad school in Batavia. He was recruited into the
PKI by Puradisastra. Bassaif became an enormous asset to the PKI because of his
background; he was fluent in Arabic and had a deep knowledge of Islam and its
scriptures, credentials which were to serve the party well in 1925 and 1926. He
quickly became a full-time activist and chairman of the subsection of the party in
Jembatan Lima, a neighborhood of Batavia heavily populated with Bantenese. In
1925 he became chairman of the PKI subsection in Tangerang, where he success-
fully allayed many local suspicions regarding the PKI's alleged hostility towards
Islam.1*2 In late 1925 he returned to Banten to help with the establishment of the
PKI's thirty-seventh section.
Another early member of the Banten Communist group was Mohammed Abdu
Rachmat.43 Like Tb. Alipan, he was a printer by profession. Born in Ceribon,
he had joined the PKI in 1923 and two years later moved to Serang, where he began
to work on De Banten Bode, a newspaper founded in September 1924 by Charles M.
Fritz.41*
"Not long after I arrived in Banten, Alipan and Puradisastra came to
see me, having been given my name by a comrade from Ceribon. They
spoke about the need to develop PKI activity in Banten and that I should
assist in setting up a party cell among the workers on the newspaper.
This I did, together with two other printers on the paper who had se-
cretly joined the party, Ishak, who was from Banten, and Atmodihardjo,
who was Javanese. My own political influence was quite limited as I am
not santri and there was little political work for me outside Serang."45
Abdu Rachmat, Atmodihardjo, and Ishak worked in close collaboration with
Djarkasih, another of the early Communists to be sent by the PKI to Banten.
Like Puradisastra, Djarkasih was Sundanese and had been active in the party in
the Priangan. Djarkasih moved to Serang in July 1925 and opened a cycle-repair
shop in the market. Here many of the first meetings of the small group of Serang
Communists were held in July and August 1925. Abdu Rachmat recalls those ear-
ly days:
"At first we worked entirely underground, partly because we wished
to establish a presence without the police being aware of our existence but
41.	Interviews Achmad Bassaif, April 14, June 6, 16, 1976.
42.	Ibid. See also Njala, September 6, November 7, 1925.
43.	Interviews Mohammed Abdu Rachmat, Serang, December 14, 1975, January 5,
1976.
44.	Ibid. The first issue of De Banten Bode appeared on September 17, 1924.
The paper was a weekly with articles in Dutch and Indonesian and appeared until
1942. A full run of the newspaper is kept in the National Museum in Jakarta.
45.	Interview Abdu Rachmat.13
also because we were apprehensive about what form party work should
take in Banten given that the area is a devoutly Moslem region."46
In this respect the group was to experience its most serious teething problem with
the behavior of its own leader, Puradisastra. The future chairman of the Banten
section of the PKI openly told those he encountered that he was an atheist, and he
committed the cardinal sin for Banten of drinking coffee in public during Ramadan
(the fasting month) . 47
Puradisastra's somewhat intemperate behavior was curbed by the timely arrival
in Banten of Achmad Bassaif, whom we have already met, and another PKI propa-
gandist with a distinctly Islamic background, Hasanuddin, who came from West
Sumatra.48 Evidently the PKI leadership in Batavia took rather more care in select-
ing its propagandists than in its choice of chairmen of local sections. Whatever the
case,the combination of Puradisastra, Bassaif, and Hasanuddin, together with the
small group of Serang Communists, most of whom we have now met, was to prove
remarkably effective in the closing months of 1925 in building the PKI's thirty-
seventh section.
But before we look in greater depth at the development of the Communist move-
ment in Banten, it is important to recall the context of the PKI's work in the re-
gion. Bassaif sets the tone for us,
"The keynote of our work was agitation. In Banten everything possible
was done to incite the people. The PKI's work there was different from
other areas. It was the last residency of Java where the party established
a section and this move virtually coincided with the Prambanan decision [to
launch an insurrection]. Thus, in Banten, the work of building a Commu-
nist base had to coincide with preparations for the coming revolt. In the
process the leadership, after some initial hestiation, naturally gave great
emphasis to the latter rather than to developing a solid core of Communist
cadres.
"Naturally a most important aspect of our work was the recruitment of
influential persons, especially militant ulama, but also jawara, to the revolu-
tionary cause. Our work was enormously aided by the great chasm of mis-
trust that existed in Banten between the people and the government. The
movement grew faster than any of us imagined."49
The PKI's Road to Revolt
Bassaif's remarks are a good point at which to take stock of the situation of
the Indonesian Communist Party on the eve of the commencement of its activities in
Banten in August 1925. By this date the PKI had eclipsed the Sarekat Islam as the
major political force on the Indonesian scene. From its Third Congress in June
1924 it had, moreover, increasingly isolated itself from other elements in the Indo-
nesian nationalist movement. The party's experiment with bloc-within strategy
inside the Sarekat Islam had long since been abandoned by its virtual expulsion at
the October 1921 Sarekat Islam conference.50
46.	Ibid.
47.	"Bantam Report," p. 45.
48.	Interview Tje Mamat.
49.	Interview Achmad Bassaif, April 18, 1976.
50.	McVey, Rise, pp. 103-4; Blumberger, Communistische, p. 29; Blumberger,
Nationalistische, p. 73.14
For some time thereafter the PKI still attempted to maintain a grip on many of
the Sarekat Islam's local branches, especially those in urban areas. As a result,
the Sarekat Islam became torn between the radical "red" (merah) PKI leadership in
Semarang and the moderate "white" (putih) leadership in Yogyakarta. This con-
flict found little reflection in Banten, partly because of the marked distrust of the
Bantenese towards the Yogyakarta modernists, but also because the Sarekat Islam
in the region went into steep decline after 1920. The PKI tried to organize its sup-
port in the "red" branches of the SI into a new organization, the Sarekat Rakjat,
but this new organization made no impact on Banten.51
After its 1921 expulsion from the Sarekat Islam, the PKI concentrated its atten-
tion for a time on the urban working class. This renewed interest in the labor
movement manifested itself in increased strike activity, culminating in the pawnshop
workers' strike of 1922 and the railway workers' stoppage of 1923. 52 The strikes,
however, achieved little and led to growing attempts by the colonial authorities to
curtail the Communist movement. In particular, some of the PKI's most able leaders,
such as Tan Malaka, Bergsma, and Semaun, were expelled from Indonesian in 1922-
23. 53
The difficulties the party had met in organizing labor unions led it from 1923
to turn again to expanding its work in the countryside and also in other areas of
Indonesia where it had previously been inactive.5<* In Java, prior to this date, most
of the PKI's activities had been concentrated in the Central and East provinces of
the island. The "capital of Indonesian Communism" had been Semarang, and the
PKI's organization in West Java was comparatively underdeveloped. In March 1923
a special congress of the PKI and of the "Red" Sarekat Islam had been held in Ban-
dung55 and increased efforts were made to expand party activities in the region.
The same year two men who were later to become important PKI leaders, Alimin and
Musso, were released from prison having served four-year sentences for their
alleged involvement in the "Afdeling B" affair of 1919.56
On their release from detention, Alimin and Musso joined the PKI and began to
play an important role in the increased party efforts in West Java. Alimin became
active in organizing seamen and dockers in Batavia's port, Tanjung Priok,57 and
Musso played a crucial role in reorganizing the Batavia PKI from March 1924. 58
51.	On the Sarekat Rakjat, see "Perserikatan Kommunist India. Sarekat Rakjat,"
report of Adviser for Native Affairs, R. A. Kern, to Governor-General Fock,
November 27, 1923 in Kwantes, Ontwikkeling, 2, pp. 46-50; S. Dingley, The Peas-
ants' Movement in Indonesia (Berlin: Prager, 1926), pp. 39-47. The latter is a
critique of PKI policies and, in particular, the absence of any specific program for
the peasantry.
52.	On the pawnshop workers' strike see McVey, Rise, p. 123; Poeze, Tan Malaka,
pp. 149-52. On the railway workers' strike see McVey, Rise, pp. 146-54; Poeze,
Tan Malaka, pp. 235-36.
53.	Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, p. 10; McVey, Rise, pp. 123, 153.
54.	McVey, Rise, pp. 181-83.
55.	Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama, p. 45; Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 235; McVey,
Rise, p. 155.
56.	Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, p. 3; McVey, Rise, pp. 41, 50. Interview Tje Mamat.
57.	Interview Achmad Bassaif; McVey, Rise, p. 168.
58.	Interviews Achmad Bassaif and Tb. Alipan.15
Throughout 1924 the PKI expanded in West Java, and after the party congress in
June of that year the PKI headquarters was transferred from Semarang to Batavia.59
At the same time, a Sundanese party official from Bandung, Winanta, became chair-
man of the PKI. 60
The June 1924 congress was marked by a distinct swing to the left for the PKI,
and this trend was confirmed by a special conference of the party in December 1924
at Kutagede, near Yogyakarta. The conference decided to disband the Sarekat
Rakjat, absorbing its membership into the PKI and virtually condemning the party
to a course that could only end in armed revolt. 61 Under the direction and influ-
ence of an executive now dominated by Aliarcham, the party effectively abandoned
the principle of "democratic centralism" in favor of federative centralism and reached
a decision to establish an illegal organization.62
The party’s new direction was further confirmed by a meeting of the PKI lead-
ership in March 1925. 63 As a result of decisions taken at this meeting there was
now almost no possibility of turning away from the path of armed revolt. Local
units of the party were to be granted greater autonomy and to be allowed to act
independently, as long as their decisions were in line with the PKI constitution and
by-laws. These units were to be based on cells of five members who, when suffi-
ciently trained, would recruit others to the organization.69 In order to avoid the
authorities' increasingly repressive measures, the party leadership advised its
branches to substitute small closed meetings for open public ones. 65 The PKI was
to be divided into major territorial units that would be responsible to headquarters
in Batavia. Former party branches would become subsections of these new units,
which were to expand in number to seventy-five.
One of the most interesting and relevant decisions to emerge from the March
1925 meeting as far as Banten was concerned was that "adventurist elements" were
to be recruited into the party. This decision was strongly argued by Alimin, whose
previous involvement with the "Afdeling B" and with Batavia labor unions we have
59.	Lembaga Sedjarah PKI, 40 Tahun PKI (Jakarta: Jajasan Pembaruan, 1960), pp.
20-23; see also the reports in "Communisme. Negende PKI--Congres," Kwantes,
Ontwikkeling, 2, pp. 151-68; Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, pp. 14-15; Sudijono Djojopra-
jitno, PKI—SIBAR contra Tan Malaka (Jakarta: Jajasan Massa, 1962), p. 18.
60.	McVey, Rise, p. 193.
61.	Ibid., p. 262; Djojoprajitno, PKI-SI BAR, p. 19; Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, p. 15.
See also report by R. A. Kern, Adviser for Native and Islamic Affairs to Governor-
General Fock, January 3, 1925, in Kwantes, Ontwikkeling, 2, pp. 264-67; Dingley,
Peasants' Movement, pp. 42-43; and reports on this conference in Mailr 74x/25.
There were no representatives from Banten at the conference.
62.	McVey, Rise, p. 274; Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 265-67.
63.	Interview Achmad Bassaif; McVey, Rise, pp. 298-99.
64.	Interviews Achmad Bassaif and Tje Mamat; McVey, Rise, p. 274.
65.	Report of Procureur-Generaal, D. G. Wolterbeek Muller, to Governor-General
Fock, August 14, 1925, and report of Procureur-Generaal, H. G. P. Duyfjes, to
Governor-General de Graeff, November 27, 1926 in Kwantes, Ontwikkeling, 2, pp.
330-46 and pp. 480-94; McVey, Rise, p. 291. Many reports on PKI strategy and
tactics in 1925 are contained in Mailr 7x/Vb June 21, 1927 A 10. PKI strategy after
the Kutagede conference of December 1924 was vehemently criticized by Tan Malaka,
inter alia in his "Semangat Moeda," pp. 57-65, cited by Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 296;
see also McVey, Rise, pp. 305, 316-19.16
already noted. During his work with seamen and dockers in Tanjung Priok, Alimin
almost certainly came into contact with Bantenese jawara gangs who were active in
labor recruitment and smuggling. 66 Alimin argued that such elements could serve
the party as well as fight against it, as they had done when they were enrolled
into the right-wing gangs of the Sarekat Hidjau.67 They were at present dis-
affected from most political organizations but they had a healthy contempt for
authority and the law and, when it came down to it, knew how to look after them-
selves .
This latter decision was to have important repercussions in Banten. The re-
gion was notorious for its unruly elements. The Sarekat Islam, under Hasan Dja-
jadiningrat's guidance, had sought to exclude them, though not entirely with suc-
cess. The’PKI, on the other hand, now deliberately chose to recruit them.
Although this decision had important repercussions and results elsewhere, its sig-
nificance in Banten was far greater, for at the time of the March 1925 meeting, no
party organization existed in the region and thus there was no corpus of experi-
enced party militants who would perhaps have been able to integrate the "adven-
turist elements" without allowing them too much influence on party structure and
tactics.
When the PKI began to establish a section in Banten in September 1925, it was,
then, already committed to a strategy that could only culminate in armed revolt.
Faced with the dismal failure of the strike wave of 1925 this became even more in-
evitable as the labor unions, with the exception of the VSTP, simply collapsed.68
However, as the party embarked on this disastrous course more and more of its most
capable leaders were removed from the scene. By the end of 1925 Darsono, Aliar-
cham, and Mardjohan had been expelled from Indonesia or were under arrest. 69 As
Ruth McVey has aptly noted: "[The] removal of top PKI leaders placed the party
in the hands of men whose desire to create a revolution was by no means matched
by their ability to plan one."70
The decision to organize an armed revolt was taken at a secret conference of
the remaining PKI leadership at Prambanan near Yogyakarta in December 1925,but,
before we come to that fateful decision and its outcome,let us return to the develop-
ment of the PKI in Banten.
Rukun Asli
The PKI's early moves in Banten, Puradisastra's coffee drinking excepted,
were marked by a genuine subtlety and delicacy in handling Bantenese suscepti-
bilities and sensitivities. Yet, with the exception of Achmad Bassaif, Tb. Alipan,
and Tb. Hilman, most of the early PKI leaders in Banten were not local people.
Despite this considerable handicap, in a region notorious for its distrust of out-
siders, in a comparatively short period of time the PKI successfully implanted itself
66.	Interviews Tb. Alipan and Haji Solichin, Serang, April 1976.
67.	See Blumberger, Communistische, p. 49; McVey, Rise, p. 295. On the utilization
of lawless elements by the Sarekat Hidjau see Heather Sutherland, The Making of a
Bureaucratic Elite (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979), p. 95. The Sarekat Hidjau was
an organization formed by priyayi in the Priangan to combat the growth of the PKI.
68.	McVey, Rise, p. 310; Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama, pp. 46-47.
69.	Kwantes, Ontwikkeling, 2, pp. 365-81; Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, pp. 14 and 21.
See also Tamin's speech "Persatuan Pemuda Indonesia," p. 2.
70.	McVey, Rise, p. 308.17
in Bantenese soil. At the same time the PKI conveyed to its Bantenese membership
the not easily accepted notion that they were part of a nationwide movement against
Dutch colonial oppression.
This was a significant departure from earlier protest movements in Banten.
The Cilegon uprising of 1888, for example, was local both in scope and leadership.
Indeed it was largely limited to the Serang regency. 71 Even the advent of the
Sarekat Islam in Banten did not mark such a distinct change as did the PKI in
1925-26. The Sarekat Islam's leadership was local in origin and, with the excep-
tion of Hasan Djajadiningrat, had few connections with the Central Sarekat Islam
and only a limited awareness of being part of a national movement. The virtual
rupture of relations between the Sarekat Islam in Banten and the CSI after 1920
amply demonstrated the latter point. Later developments in the Sarekat Islam, such
as the split between Yogyakarta and Semarang, the increasingly religious focus of
the CSI, and the growth of new organizations like the Sarekat Rakjat and the Sare-
kat Hidjau,had almost no impact in Banten.
The growth of the PKI in Banten was effectively to break the political isolation
of the region while at the same time developing some consciousness among party
members of belonging to a national movement. One should not underestimate the
significance of this point, because much of the success of the insurrectionary move-
ment that culminated in the November 1926 uprising can be attributed to the rebels'
widespread feeling that they were merely one front of a national revolutionary
struggle against colonial rule. They were in that sense a perceptible development
from traditional protest movements towards new forms of protest, although, as we
shall see, their movement contained many traditional elements. 72
Banten, as will be recalled, was the last residency of Java where a section of
the PKI was formed. In the neighboring Tangerang area of Batavia residency a
PKI subsection was set up in early 1925 under the able chairmanship of Achmad
Bassaif.73 The PKI had also developed a strong subsection in the Batavia neigh-
borhood of Jembatan Lima, an area of the capital where Bantenese traditionally con-
gregated. 7l* Bassaif and Puradisastra had been instrumental in establishing the
PKI in Jembatan Lima and had successfully recruited many Bantenese living there
who were later to be dispatched to their home region as propagandists.
According to Bassaif, the Batavia leadership of the PKI decided in June 1925
that a rapid spread of PKI activities to Banten was an urgent priority. 75 The im-
plementation of this decision was assigned to Puradisastra and Bassaif who enlisted
as lieutenants Tb. Alipan, Tb. Hilman, and Djarkasih. In the next two months the
71.	Sartono Kartodirdjo, The Peasants' Revolt of Banten in 1888 (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1966), pp. 233, 237.
72.	In this sense Shelton Stromquist is right to stress the break that the 1926 up-
rising marks with earlier local revolts against colonial rule. See his "The Commu-
nist Uprising of 1926 in Indonesia: A Reinterpretation," Journal of South East Asian
History, 18, 2 (1967), pp. 189-200.
73.	Interview Achmad Bassaif.
74.	Njala [Spark], the newspaper of the Batavia PKI, reported meetings of 600 party
members in Jembatan Lima in October 1925. See the issue of October 23, 1925. Njala
was published between September 1925 and April 30, 1926. A complete run of the
newspaper is kept in the National Museum in Jakarta.
75.	Interview Achmad Bassaif.18
group moved to Serang and began establishing a network of contacts there.76 Ali-
pan recalled this early and difficult period of organization,
"It was strange for me to return to Banten after many years absence. I
had regarded myself as a Communist for several years and was no longer a
practicing Moslem. In Java I had not used my title (Tubagus) because such
things were clearly feudal and 'kolot' [old-fashioned, conservative]. In
Banten, however, Bass [Bassaif] would insist on Hilman and myself using
our titles. 'You know full well what the title Tubagus means for the Ban-
tenese,' he would say. 'We must adapt ourselves to the way the people think
and then see what we can do from there.'" 77
Bassaif's advice to Alipan was indeed sound and, more importantly, it was to pay
handsome dividends in the following months.
Fortunately for the PKI leaders in Banten, the executive of the party, as we
have seen, had decided in 1925 to grant considerable autonomy to local sections.
Rigid doctrinaire stances, particularly on such highly sensitive issues as the rela-
tionship between communism and Islam, were to be avoided. Instead considerable
attention and energies were to be devoted to the matters that directly concerned
the masses, their daily difficulties and grievances. Moreover, because of the great
importance of personal leadership in rural society in securing a popular following,
the party leadership set great store on recruiting local notables. 78 This was to
produce problems later, as those brought into the party often proved difficult to
control, but at least in the short run the results were wholly beneficial to the PKI
in Banten and elsewhere.
The first recruits to the PKI in Banten,however, came from a more orthodox
base of support for a left-wing party, the printing workers on De Banten Bode in
Serang. Three of their number, Atmodihardjo, Ishak, and Abdu Rachmat were to
become important local leaders of the PKI. These men, together with seven or
eight other workers from the Fritz printing works, Tb. Hilman, Tb. Alipan, Ali-
rachman, an employee of Hasan Djajadiningrat's widow, Lee Eng Hock, a local Chi-
nese trader, would meet secretly with Bassaif and Puradisastra at the cycle shop
owned by Djarkasih in Serang market.79 The meetings discussed,among other
things, how best to seek Bantenese support in the PKI's struggle with the colonial
government.
76.	Interview Tb. Alipan and Mohammed Abdu Rachmat. Tb. Hilman was already
living in Serang at the time of the start of PKI activities.
77.	Interview Tb. Alipan.
78.	See McVey, Rise, p. 277; interview Achmad Bassaif.
79.	According to Haji Solichin (interview Serang, March 6, 1976), Djarkasih's bi-
cycle repair shop was the venue for the first secret meetings of the PKI in Banten.
Most of the early members were workers at the Fritz Printing Works, the publisher
of the local newspaper, De Banten Bode. In addition to Djarkasih, the original
members appear to have been Ishak, Atmodihardjo, Solichin, Arman, Tb. Alipan,
Alirachman, Abdu Rachmat, and Lee Eng Hock. After a requisite number of cadres
were trained, "Rukun Asli" was established. "Rukun Asli" was variously described
by ex-PKI members to the writer as a kedok (mask) or batu loncaton (stepping-
stone). Two other early members of the secret PKI in Banten, Tb. Hilman and Tb.
Arif, put themselves forward, unsuccessfully, as candidates for the Regency Coun-
cil of Serang in August 1925. See De Banten Bode, August 22 and September 26,
1925. See also Njala, September 14, 1925.19
As an outcome of these early meetings, not only did Alipan and Hilman revert
to using their "feudal" titles but they set about contacting other descendants of
the former Sultans of Banten, with a view to petitioning the Dutch Governor-
General to obtain pensions. Indeed so successful were these intrepid Communists
in arguing for the rights of disinherited nobles that no fewer than 200 of them
signed a petition in August 1925 asking that all bearers of the title "tubagus"
(male descendants) and "ratu" (female descendants) be granted pensions. Such
were the beginnings of communism in Banten.80
Soon after this novel attempt at gaining support, Tb. Hilman, and Ishak, a
printing worker on De Banten Bode, announced the establishment of a mutual bene-
fit and burial society, Rukun Asli (Original Harmony). The first meeting of the
new association took place in the village of Kramatwatu, half way on the road be-
tween Serang and Cilegon, on August 22, 1925. The choice of Kramatwatu as a
venue for the first meeting may not have been fortuitous, for it had been one of
the villages most involved in the Cilegon uprising of 1888, and many of the sons of
the rebels still lived there. 81 Some eighty people attended the first meeting chaired
by Ishak, at which Tb. Hilman also spoke. The meeting elected as chairman, H.
Achmad Noer, a clerk in Serang who had recently secretly joined the PKI.82
Members of the new association were to be charged an entry fee of one guilder
which could be paid in ten monthly installments. Ishak announced that the primary
intention of the new society would be to relieve the hardship caused to members by
the deaths of close relatives by meeting funeral expenses. In time it was hoped
that the new society would be able to extend the range of benefits available to mem-
bers so that they would no longer be forced to sell or pawn their belongings in
times of hardship. Rukun Asli, Ishak continued, had no political objectives and
intended to abide by the laws of the land. Furthermore, the new association's in-
tentions and aims were fully in accord with the precepts of Islam, for the prophet
Mohammed had made no distinction between rich and poor. 83
The choice of such a platform as "Rukun Asli" to promote PKI aims was not as
unusual as it might seem at first. It will be recalled that Tb. Alipan had been in-
strumental, some years earlier, in establishing a similar society in Temanggung,
and the PKI had also used the idea in other areas.81* Moreover, peasant societies
have traditions of forming such associations as a way of coping with the modern
world and its demands. The PKI in Banten probably also had in mind that, as re-
cently as 1922, Haji Nawawi of the Cilegon Sarekat Islam had formed a similar
society.85
80.	De Banten Bode, August 15, 1925. On the origins of the titles Tubagus and
Ratu and other Bantenese titles, see L. W. C. van den Berg, Rangen en Titels op
Java en Madoera, 2nd ed. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1902), pp. 17-21.
81.	See Sartono, Peasants' Revolt, pp. 233-34. On "Rukun Asli," see also the re-
port of W. P. Hillen to Governor-General Fock, March 8, 1926, G5/7/10 Mailr 296x/
26. To party members the initials RAB (Rukun Asli Banten) were said to mean
Revolusi Anak Negeri Banten (Revolt of the People of Banten).
82.	Interview Tb. Alipan; De Banten Bode, August 29, 1925.
83.	De Banten Bode, August 29, 1925.
84.	See McVey, Rise, p. 291.
85.	See Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements in Rural Java (Kuala Lumpur:
Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 136-40. See also report by Achmad Djajadi-
ningrat, November 11, 1922, 70/2G, Mailr 252x/1923.20
It appears that the Rukun Asli soon won popular support in Banten and that a
number of religious leaders lent their support to the new organization. 86 Meetings
were reportedly held in villages in the Serang area in mosques and langgar. In
September a serious fire in Batavia, which left many homeless, prompted a large
meeting of the Rukun Asli in Serang attended by more than 300 people. 87 The
main speech at the meeting was delivered by Ishak, who declared that the tragedy
in Batavia underlined the need for the common people to come together to cope with
the many adversities that they had to face. Puradisastra himself then spoke, draw-
ing to the attention of the audience that it was indeed only through organizing
themselves that the common people of the world could overcome their difficulties.
This had now been proven by the Chinese who had formed new societies which en-
abled them to grapple with problems that had troubled their society for decades.
At this point the meeting was rudely interrupted by the police who objected to the
speaker bringing political (sic) content into his speech. Two days later the police
raided the homes of Tb. Hilman, Ishak, Atmodihardjo, and Djarkasih.
Rukun Asli had now served its purpose. The local PKI leaders decided that
the need for secrecy was no longer important and that Rukun Asli had fulfilled its
intention of preparing the ground for the PKI. Soon afterwards, on October 9,
1925, a public meeting was called in Serang to announce the establishment of the
Banten section of the PKI.88 The meeting elected Puradisastra as chairman, Tb.
Hilman as secretary and Djarkasih as treasurer of the 37th section of the Indonesian
Communist Party. Three commissioners for the party were also elected--H. Alwan,
Arman, and Mohammed Ali (Mamak). An office of the PKI was opened in Serang
market in a property owned by a Chinese member of the party, Lee Eng Hock.
From mid-October nightly meetings were'held in the office and also in a local Chi-
nese-owned cinema, the Banten Park.89 No sooner had the PKI opened its newest
section than Banten witnessed its first labor strike when the printing workers on
De Banten Bode staged a stoppage in a claim for higher wages, 90 Banten's own
modest contribution to the strike wave that swept Java in late 1925. 91
Unfortunately for the Banten PKI, the beginning of the party's activities in
the region coincided with growing repression throughout Indonesia as the colonial
authorities reacted to the strike wave. Darsono, one of the PKI's main theoreti-
cians, was expelled from Indonesia in September, and the same month Alimin left
the country for fear of arrest. 92 Aliarcham and Mardjohan were arrested soon
after.
Harassment of PKI meetings was widespread. There was a police presence at
all meetings which were frequently closed under one pretext or another. The local
86.	De Banten Bode, September 12, 1925.
87.	One of the first issues of Njala featured an article on Rukun Asli; see
its number of September 11, 1925; see also De Banten Bode, September 12,
1925.
88. Njala, October 14, 1925.
89. Ibid., October 21, 1925.
90.	De Banten Bode, October 24, 31, 1925; Njala, October 26, 1925.
91.	See McVey, Rise, pp. 309-10; Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama, pp. 45-46;
Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 300.
92.	McVey, Rise, p. 307. Alimin, like many Indonesian revolutionaries in the
1920s, left Indonesia via Banten, proceeding by boat to the Lampungs and thence
being smuggled via Palembang to Malaya. Interview Tje Mamat.21
administration in Banten took a particularly tough stance towards the PKI, after
initially being taken aback by its quick and rapid development. 93 A new govern-
ment regulation that no person under the age of eighteen could attend political
meetings was frequently used by the police to close meetings and arrest speakers,
who were held responsible for their being held.99 Party members in public employ,
especially in Serang regency, were dismissed. 95 Even more irksome for the local
PKI was the intimidating presence of armed police who would often refuse to allow
any who were not party members to enter the meetings. The weekly PKI meeting
in Serang on October 22, for example, was attended by three assistant wedana
(district official) and six policemen, who turned away many peasants because their
names did not appear on the PKI membership roll.96 Two weeks later,a meeting
that was to have been addressed by a PKI leader from Surabaya, Go Soei Hoa, was
closed because the speaker had not obtained individual permission from the local
Dutch Resident.97 Some days later, on November 8, Puradisastra received a month's
imprisonment and Tb. Hilman and Mohammed Ali (Mamak) ten days each for address-
ing a meeting at which two seventeen-year-olds were present. 98 Permanent police
guards were placed on the PKI office in Serang, and the party books seized by the
police on the pretext of examining alleged financial irregularities.99
Despite its constant difficulties with the police, however, by the end of 1925
the PKI had established itself on a firm basis in Banten. The meetings which the
party held every Wednesday in the Banten Park cinema in Serang drew regular
crowds of 300, and members were beginning to be recruited in the regencies of
Pandeglang and Lebak.100 A report by Dutch Resident de Vries in late November
estimated total PKI membership in the residency at 1,200, and the Resident noted
with concern that some religious leaders were being attracted to the party.101 The
PKI leadership evidently viewed their position in Banten with satisfaction, despite
the harassment from the authorities. An article in the Batavia PKI daily newspaper,
Njala, in December noted,
Comrades will understand that Communism has many roads. Although faced
with all the powers of reaction, our membership [in Banten] does not de-
crease, nor does the political consciousness of our members, but on the con-
trary it increases like fire igniting a dry field.102
But if there was room for some optimism at a local level, at least in Banten, at
a national level the fortunes of the PKI were far less happy. The strikes engineered
by the party in late 1925 had not only failed to produce any real improvement in the
93.	See report of Hillen, Governor of West Java, March 8, 1926.
94.	McVey, Rise, p. 292.
95.	See Njala, November 7, 1925.
96.	De Banten Bode, November 7, 1925.
97.	Ibid., November 14, 1925.
98. Njala, November 10, 1925; De Banten Bode, November 14, 21, 1925.
99. De Banten Bode, November 28, 1925; Njala, December 16, 1925.
100.	Report of Resident [of Banten] de Vries to Procureur-Generaal, No. 55, Novem-
ber 24, 1925 in Mailr 1245x/25. See also "Bantam Report," pp. 26, 37-38.
101.	Ibid. At the same time key recruits were sent by the PKI to Batavia for
training.
102.	Njala, December 16, 1925.22
workers' conditions, but they had also seriously undermined the PKI's proletarian
base. Key leaders had left the country or been arrested, and in late November
the Dutch authorities placed even further restrictions on political meetings.103
Henceforth all meetings, public or party, required a police presence and five days
notice to the authorities. In practice permission was now far more difficult to ob-
tain, the authorities using one subterfuge or another to deny the PKI the right to
hold meetings.
These measures only served to confirm the PKI in its intention to stage an armed
uprising against the government. As noted earlier, the critical decision was taken
at a secret conference of party leaders at Prambanan in Central Java on December
25, 1925.109 A secret illegal organization, the so-called DO (the Dubbel or Dicta-
torial Organisatie) was to be established to expedite the task, and the uprising was
tentatively fixed for June 18, 1926. Another meeting of the party executive in
Batavia on January 13, 1926 decided that any further legal political activity was im-
possible because of the repressive attitude of the authorities, and all local sections
of the party were told to act accordingly by letter on February 1.105
The Growth of PKI Support in Banten
Increasing government repression, however, does not seem to have diminished
popular support for the PKI in Banten. On the contrary the sense of crisis and of
impending rebellion became highly contagious, and the PKI executive in Batavia
was to face growing difficulties in keeping the Banten section in check.106 The
Dutch authorities, for their part, tried to keep the contagion under control, but
they were clearly not fully aware of how far the "old mole" had undermined confi-
dence in the government.107
Although public meetings of the PKI were now virtually forbidden, the party
in Banten continued to exist and indeed thrive. Propaganda was spread by means
of secret meetings, and elaborate ruses were resorted to in order to avoid police
interference. Meetings, for example, were frequently held in woods or PKI mem-
bers would give slametan or hajat (feasts), under cover of which a meeting would
take place.108 In fishing villages meetings would take place at dusk under cover
of the men drawing in the nets.109 In some places local stallkeepers who had joined
103.	De Banten Bode, December 5, 1925.
104.	See McVey, Rise, pp. 309, 311, 320, 324; Sudijono Djojoprajitno, PKI-SIBAR,
pp. 6-42; Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, pp. 20-21, 49; Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama,
pp. 50-53. The timing of the rising was fixed for June 18, 1926.
105.	McVey, Rise, p. 323. Tan Malaka was opposed to the projected uprising,
considering it to be "putschist" and doomed to failure. See McVey, Rise, pp. 316-
322; Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 307-11; Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, pp. 22-25.
106.	Interviews with Achmad Bassaif, Tb. Alipan, Afif (Chairman of Labuan PKI
in 1926).
107.	Interview with Professor G. F. Pijper, Amsterdam, May 27, 1974. In 1926,
Professor Pijper worked at the Office of the Adviser for Native and Islamic Affairs.
In this capacity he visited Banten on two occasions before the revolt and was fre-
quently told by the Resident, Putman-Cramer, that the PKI in Banten posed no
real threat to the colonial authorities.
108.	Interviews with Ayot Satriawidjaya, former Secretary of the PKI in Pande-
glang, January 1976.
109.	Interview with Haji Solichin.23
the PKI allowed their waning to be used for informal gatherings.110 In Serang
meetings took place in the Banten Park cinema, as before, but this time under
cover of films such as "Jack Dempsey."* 111 On other occasions football matches
were used as a venue for propaganda,112 and in Labuan the PKI chairman, Afif,
formed an association, Budi Kemulian, ostensibly to promote Arab gambus music
but which in fact served the purpose of advancing the revolutionary cause in the
Bantenese countryside.113 Such was the ingenuity of the local PKI that members
who found themselves the wrong side of the bars of Serang prison even organized
meetings for the other prisoners.114
But despite the seemingly endless ingeniousness of PKI propagandists, meetings
were sometimes closed by the police and arrests made. In February Tb. Hilman was
sentenced to one month's imprisonment for breaking the newly imposed ban on polit-
ical meetings. In Ciomas fourteen peasants were arrested for holding a secret PKI
meeting and sentenced to ten days' imprisonment each.115 By the end of February
twenty-seven PKI members were in detention in Serang prison, including Puradi-
sastra who received a two-month sentence for breaking the ban on meetings.116 On
February 20 thirty-five peasants, all apparently candidate members of the PKI,
were arrested in Ciruas for holding an illegal meeting, and two days later a further
eighteen peasants of the same district were taken into custody for the same of-
fense. 117
The local authorities, clearly alarmed by the degree of support for the PKI,
tried to cope with the situation by imposing heavier sentences. In March Haji
Aliakbar, a PKI propagandist in Serang, received six months' imprisonment, and
another local leader in Ciruas , Haji Mardjoek, received four months' imprisonment
for breaking the ban on meetings. The chairman of the now defunct "Rukun Asli,"
Haji Achmad Noer, was also sent to prison for five months.118 The police, particu-
larly in Serang regency, were reportedly becoming far rougher in their handling
of those arrested, and beatings of the detainees were not unknown.119 But de-
spite the increasing severity of measures taken by the authorities, the PKI's sup-
port continued to grow in Banten, a development which apparently caused some
110. Njala, January 14, 1926.
111. Ibid., January 29, 1926.
112.	De Banten Bode, June 12, 1926.
113.	Interview with Afif, former Secretary of Labuan PKI.
114.	Njala, March 1, 1926.
115.	De Banten Bode, February 20, 1926. The others sent to prison were Haji
Mu'min, Abdulmoeti, Nawawi, Kama, Rasidi al Saidi, Haji Oemar, Asmail, Srenda-
wiri, Ahmed, Mad Salah, Asnawi, Alikoesim, Ibrahim, and Alioesoep.
116.	Ibid., February 27, 1926; Njala, February 19, 23, 1926. Puradisastra used
his trial to denounce the court as "unfit to sit in an abattoir" and said the Gover-
nor-General had robbed the Indonesian people of their rights and therefore had no
qualifications to pass judgment on Indonesian Communists. See "Optreden tegen
eenige leden der Communistische Beweging in Bantam," no. 750 AP, April 24, 1926,
Mailr 464x, Vb July 1, 1927 Q10.
117.	Njala, February 26, 1926.
118.	Ibid., March 10, 22, 1926.
119.	Ibid., March 4, 1926.24
surprise even in PKI circles.120 The Banten correspondent of Njala wrote:
The people of Indonesia can see that Banten, the last district where Commu-
nism developed, has not been left behind. If we look at the development of
the movement in our country, there is no one who would have suspected
that the political struggle would develop so quickly in Banten.121
A measure of how far the struggle had indeed advanced in Banten was the enormous
increase in PKI membership. A correspondent of the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad, who
visited the region at the end of February 1926, estimated total PKI membership at
12,000 including 500 women members,122 a figure that was confirmed in March in a
report on the Communist movement by the Governor of West Java, W. P. Hillen.123
This was indeed a dramatic increase in the three-month period since November 1925
when party membership had been estimated at 1,200. But what was the social com-
position of the party? Even more pertinent, why and how had the PKI been able
to grow at such a rapid pace?
Recruitment and Leadership of the Communist Movement
The PKI's astonishing increase in membership came mostly from the peasantry
of Banten. With regard to those charged with breaking the ban on meetings, who
appeared before the Banten courts in March, the Banten Bode reported:
Yesterday morning when this correspondent attended the Serang district
court, we were amazed to see that those accused of breaking the ban on
meetings were nearly all peasants. They are simple people, illiterate and
gullible, of whom it cannot be said that they have any real understanding
of Communism. They had been told that if they hesitated to join the party
now, they could not join it later and would, therefore, not be exempt from
the capitation tax [hoofdgeld].124
Whether or not the peasants had any "real" grasp of communism, they were
clearly attracted by PKI promises that taxation would be abolished for those who
joined the movement. Taxation, as the Dutch Resident de Vries recognized in a
report on the PKI in Banten in November 1925, was one of the main causes of dis-
content among the peasants.125 Because hoofdgeld formed a very large part of the
taxes raised in Banten, resentment against it was very marked there. The tax was
inflexible, unlike the land tax (landrente), and was payable even when harvests
were bad. The inflexibility of the hoofdgeld bore particularly heavily on the peas-
ants of Banten, a district where harvests were frequently bad and markedly so in
the 1920s. The growth of local taxation and the increasing number of items on
which taxes were levied were also important causes of peasant discontent, and were
exploited by PKI propagandists. (I will examine the relationship between taxation
and the 1926 revolt in detail later.)
120.	Interview with Achmad Bassaif.
121.	Njala, March 1, 1926.
122.	Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad, February 23, 1926.
123.	This estimate was confirmed by Hillen in his report of March 8, 1926. See
n. 34.
124.	De Banten Bode, March 20, 1926.
125.	See report of Resident de Vries, November 24, 1925, no. 55 in Mailr 1245x/25.25
But equally important in attracting peasants to support the PKI was the great
impression made on them by the PKI as a movement. The Communist Party was far
more visible than the Sarekat Islam, and its organization and efficiency had a great-
er impact on the peasants than the SI at an earlier stage. The presence of far
abler leaders than the Sarekat Islam had been able to muster strengthened the im-
pression that the PKI was a movement that was not only here to stay but, indeed,
would inevitably take over from the Dutch.126 The comments on Puradisastra made
by Fritz, the editor of the Banten Bode, although they are somewhat exaggerated,
do nevertheless indicate the reaction of the peasantry towards the PKI leaders:
Everywhere he [Puradisastra] makes a great impact on the gullible peasants.
With his spectacles and briefcase the Bantenese consider him a man of great
importance. Peasants and ulama flock to "Rumah No. 13" where they see the
bold legend "Office of the Indonesian Communist Party--Banten Section."
Inside there are books, files, and newspapers everywhere. PKI "mantri"
come and go, naturally with their own spectacles and briefcases, and to the
peasants give an impression of a "shadow government." The arrogance of
the Communist officials in the face of the government has an undeniable
effect on the peasants and ulama.127
What passed in peasant minds for efficiency and modernity, were important for
developing the PKI's image as a counterforce to the government, adding strength
to the Communist contention that the rebellion could be successful. The PKI man-
aged to convey the impression not only that the rebellion would be successful but
also that the pergerakan (movement) was strong, inevitable, and irresistible. Even
the language and idiom of the PKI helped to reinforce an image of inevitability and
strength. In Banten, unlike elsewhere, every participant became a PKI member
possessing the mystical red membership card. Leaders were called promotor or
pemimpin. There were also kurier and mantri (junior officials). More senior lead-
ers were appointed commissaris (commissioners).
Indeed the PKI structure almost seemed to duplicate that of the central govern-
ment at all levels. Such an elaborate structure may have been one key to the at-
tractiveness of the Communist movement, especially to elements such as the ulama.
The religious leaders were excluded from the colonial regime by their own alienation
from its ethos and because they did not possess that essential passport, secular
education. With the establishment of an extensive Communist political structure,
many may well have seen an opportunity here to enter the political realm and, seem-
ingly, to participate eventually in the government that would surely replace the
"infidel" Dutch and their allies, the priyayi.
It did indeed become widely accepted that the end of Dutch authority was fast
approaching and that the PKI would soon take over from the colonial government.
The fact that the Communist movement seemed to be widespread throughout Indone-
sia and even to have important allies abroad only served to reinforce this impres-
sion. To a marked extent the PKI served as an alternative conduit for the expres-
sion of the peasant discontent and protest which had previously found expression
in Javanese traditions of the Ratu Adil (Just Prince) and in the Islamic concept of a
holy war (jihad') .128
126.	"Bantam Report," p . 50.
127.	De Banten Bode, March 6, 1926.
128.	G. W. F. Drewes, Drie Javaansche Coeroes (Leiden: Vros, 1925), p. 192;
"Bantam Report," p. 50.26
But if the peasants were clearly the foot soldiers, who were the officers of the
movement? In other words, who acted as intermediaries between the small group of
Communist artisans and intellectuals whose progress we followed earlier and the
peasants as a whole? The number of "conscious" Communists, a term actually used
by the rebel leadership itself,129 was very small and consisted of persons who were
largely, though not entirely, artisans,or who had enjoyed some elementary educa-
tion and/or who had spent some time outside Banten. Men like Bassaif, Tb. Hilman,
Ishak, Alipan, Puradisastra, and Djarkasih spring to mind. Alongside these men
there was another small group of tradespeople who also acted as influential PKI
propagandists.
There was, for example, Haji Santani, a tailor in Cilegon who never lost an
opportunity to entreat his customers to join the pergerakan. Some tradesmen were
like medieval itinerant journeymen, for example Ibing, a tailor who traveled the
whole west coast of Banten, urging people to join the PKI as he went along. Some-
times clerks in local government who joined the PKI managed to retain their posi-
tions. Their adherence was particularly useful, for it further convinced the rank
and file that the colonial regime itself was infiltrated and therefore ripe to fall.
Other benefits flowed from such people: a clerk in the bank in Pandeglang who
joined and thereafter saw to it that only PKI members received loans from the bank;
Soleiman, a PKI commissaris, was especially useful, for his work as a veterinary
officer brought him into contact with a wide range of people, including not only
peasants but also cattle dealers and butchers, a notoriously restless group in Ban-
ten whose activities were often tied up with the local jawara. Other tradesmen,
such as goldsmiths, watchmakers, and stallkeepers, were also enormously helpful
to the success of the PKI.130
The two groups, however, who figure most prominently as "intermediaries" be-
tween the PKI leadership and the peasantry were the ulama and the jawara. Of
course, not all ulama and jawara joined the PKI, but significant numbers did, and
their involvement was undoubtedly critical to the success of the revolutionary move-
ment in Banten in enlisting such large numbers. The PKI took great care to court
people it considered of importance and influence in local society precisely because
their entry into the movement would be a signal to others of the acceptability, and,
indeed, of the desirability of joining too.131
The religious leaders in Banten were already alienated from the colonial order,
and this divorce of an elite who were paramount in local "civil society" was pro-
foundly destabilizing for the region as a whole. A small number of religious teach-
ers had found a niche in the political order through their appointment as penghulu
or religious officials, but this group was not only small, but was also often the tar-
get of considerable resentment and hostility. Many, if not most, religious leaders
in Banten regarded acceptance of a position with an infidel government as haram
(forbidden by Islam) . Peasants disliked the penghulu because they had to pay them
fees on occasions such as marriages. The penghulu were also widely believed to
be spies for the local administration, a suspicion that was not without foundation.132
For the PKI the resentment of the ulama was grist for their mill. Propagandists
never ceased to point out that Islam could not be free under an infidel government,
129.	Ibid., p. 46; interviews with Achmad Bassaif and Ajot Satriawijaya.
130.	Interview with Achmad Bassaif.
131.	"Bantam Report," p. 41.
132.	Pijper, "De Penghulus op Java," pp. 63-96. Interview Kiyai Hassan, Pande-
glang, November 18, 1975.27
but that communism, which was rule by the people, would mean that religion would
be free and not subject to restrictions such as those imposed by the colonial regime.
Some PKI leaders, such as Achmad Bassaif and the Sumatran, Hasanuddin, them-
selves came from a religious background and were skilled in using dalil (quotations
from the Koran) or firman (Allah's commandments) in making their points,133 there-
by gaining easy access to religious leaders.
At virtually all its meetings the PKI made frequent appeals to parallels and
precedents in Islamic history to engender among the ulama and the peasants the
feeling that the coming revolutionary struggle was not only inevitable but would be
victorious because it had God's blessing. Frequent reference was also made to more
contemporary struggles, such as that of the Moroccan people under Abd el Krim
against infidel Spanish and French rule. 13“* Indeed, even Lenin and the Bolsheviks
were portrayed as defenders of Islam and founders of "a state which was just and
prosperous and blessed by God [Negeri yang adil dan makmur dan diridai Allah] ."135
For their part the ulama, regardless of any doubts that they may have enter-
tained about communism and the PKI, were impressed by the Communists' determi-
nation and organization, which did indeed seem to lend credence to their arguments
that the downfall of the Dutch was at hand. This theme is one,that was often ad-
vanced in conversations I had in 1976 with several elderly religious leaders who
had participated in the 1926 revolt. As one recalled,
"Some of us understood that communism was really opposed to Islam, but
the important thing was that the PKI was the only organization that was will-
ing to fight for independence. This we respected. The Sarekat Islam was
as good as dead and only the PKI seemed to offer a path to religious and
political freedom."136
To most religious leaders the argument of the PKI that it was the successor to the
Sarekat Islam was quite convincing, and it is noticeable that, with few exceptions,
all those who had previously been active in the Sarekat Islam unhesitatingly went
over to the PKI.137
To many religious leaders the PKI offered, or seemed to offer, admission to a
political realm from which they had been rigidly excluded by the imposition of colo-
nial rule. The troublesome and repressive restrictions the Dutch had placed on
religious teaching would be done away with forever. Another informant, also a re-
ligious teacher, recalled a PKI leader entreating him to join the party:
"[Hasanuddin] said that the aim of the PKI was to do away with perintah
[command, government]. When Indonesia was free there would be no need
for taxes, no need for rodi [compulsory village-guard duty], no need to beat
the beduq [drum to call the faithful to prayers]. Nor would there be any
133.	Interview Achmad Bassaif. Bassaif, as we have noted, had a Modernist edu-
cation at the Al-Irsjad school in Batavia but in his propaganda work in Banten he
tactfully emphasized his Arabic heritage rather than his education.
134.	Interviews with Achmad Bassaif and Tb. Alipan. See also McVey, Rise,
p. 315.
135.	Interview with Haji Solichin.
136.	Interview with Haji Mohammed Tahir, Serang, May 9, 1976. The informant
was a former leader of the PKI in Serang in 1926.
137.	See "Bantam Report," p. 28.28
need for the police. All would be felt to be responsibilities. [Semua akan
dirasa kewajiban.]"138
It was indeed enticing for religious leaders to foresee an end of the restrictions
imposed by the infidel government, such as the need for religious teachers to ob-
tain a teaching license and keep registers of students.139 These regulations were
seen as a check on their freedom. Tabligh (sermons) were always observed by the
authorities, especially when they dealt with such sensitive matters as jihad and the
struggles of the Prophet Mohammed or of Islamic heroes. In April 1926 the passage
of article 153 of the Dutch colonial legal code, under which any statement that was
likely to disturb the public order was made punishable by a prison sentence, was
skillfully used by the PKI to frighten ulama in Banten into joining the revolutionary
movement, although, in fact, the article was not intended to be applied to the utter-
ances of religious teachers.190
The relationship between the PKI and those religious leaders who joined the
revolutionary movement was to some extent mutually beneficial. For the Communist
leadership in Banten the adherence of important ulama meant that the PKI reached
a much larger audience than otherwise would have been the case. For the ulama,
entry into the PKI seemed to give them a recognition that the colonial government
refused to accord. Moreover, it also seemed to reinforce their position in local
society and to assure their continued prominence at a time when the advances of
the "Great Tradition" seemed to be increasingly eroding the "Little Tradition" of
which they were an -important part. The PKI offered a chance to redress the bal-
ance.
One of the most important religious leaders to join the PKI was Haji Tb. Achmad
Chatib, President of the Sarekat Islam in Labuan and son-in-law of Kiyai Haji Asnawi
of Caringin, the most influential ulama in Banten at the time. Chatib brought with
him an enormous number of his followers in the Labuan-Caringin area, including all
the former Sarekat Islam members, and his close companion and son of Kiyai Asnawi,
Tb. Haji Emed. Haji Emed later recalled to the police their first meeting with Pura-
disastra, the PKI chairman, in Caringin:
"Puradisastra came to visit us around Djamadi'l-awal 1344 [October 1925] .
He praised my brother-in-law for the work he had done in the Sarekat Islam,
but said the time of the Sarekat Islam was now past. The aim of the PKI was
to obtain the independence of Indonesia. In the struggle to achieve this aim
the people of Banten had been left behind. Soon the PKI would take over the
government from the Dutch. As I remember,the conversation proceeded as
follows:
Puradisastra: What is the basis of the Sarekat Islam?
Chatib: Islam.
P:	I too am a Moslem, but I am also chairman of the PKI in Banten.
C: What sort of organization is the PKI?
P:	It is a section of the International.
138.	Interview with Haji Solichin.
139.	Noer, Modernist Muslim Movement, pp. 175-76; Pijper, "De Penghulus op
Java," p. 77.
140.	Interview with Kiyai Haji Abdulhalim, Pandeglang, December 14, 1975. See
also Makmun Salim, "Suatu Tindjauan tentang peranan adjaran Islam dalam Pembe-
rontakan 1926 di Banten," Seminar Sedjarah Nasional II (Yogyakarta, 1970).29
C: What do you mean by International?
P:	Well, An International is an organization that makes no distinction of
race or religion. Anyone can be a member whether he is Indonesian,
Chinese, or European.
C:	But what is the purpose of the organization?
P:	The granting of mutual help in both worldly and religious matters.
Members must consider each other as brothers and comrades.
C: If the protection of religion is one of the aims of the PKI, then I am of
accord. Of worldly affairs, however, I have little understanding.
Puradisastra then said that he had no wish to pressure anyone to join the
PKI; he only requested help and support." lt>1
Whatever other promises the PKI made, and certainly its propagandists were
extravagant, it is interesting to note that, unlike Sarekat Islam, it did not claim
that it was an Islamic organization, merely that it would respect and protect reli-
gion. This comes over strikingly in another interview which the writer recorded
with a kiyai who had participated in the revolt. "The Communist movement did not
consider religion or race of importance. Everyone was the same, for it was said if
we paid attention to race and religion this would weaken our cause and our aims
would not be achieved." 142 As the insurrectionary movement gathered momentum,
however, this distinction was frequently lost, especially on the rank and file.
The recruitment of Haji Tb. Achmad Chatib and Tb. Emed to the PKI led many
other ulama to join, together with their followers.11,3 Of all the ulama who partici-
pated in the PKI, Chatib had the most political experience as a result of his years
in the Sarekat Islam. Moreover, he was a fiery speaker and a man of considerable
charisma. Although only thirty years old in 1926,he already had a small madrasah
of his own and possessed wide influence because of his position as son-in-law of
Kiyai Asnawi. This relationship was widely interpreted in Banten as a sign that
the Kiyai of Caringin was at least neutral or even well disposed towards the revolu-
tionaries. The PKI certainly did not seek to disabuse people of this impression.
Other ulama soon followed Haji Chatib's lead. Kiyai Moekri of Labuan together
with Kiyai Madoen and Kiyai Tb. Ichyar brought with them a considerable number
of their santri (students). In Petir, in Serang regency, Kiyai Emed and Kiyai
Jahja were recruited to the Communist cause. When Kiyai Abdulhadi of the vil-
lage of Bangko near Menes joined, he brought with him almost the entire local popu-
lation .lhk
It was a masterstroke on the part of the Communist leadership to attract these
influential ulama to the PKI, for not only did this make it far more likely that large
numbers of peasants would join the insurrection, but it also opened up new chan-
nels of communication to the Communists at a time when harassment by the authori-
ties was making public agitation impossible. Henceforth,meetings were held in
langgar (village prayer houses), mosques, and pesantren, and the santri of the
ulama often became couriers for the rebels. Several religious leaders, it seems,
141.	Police interrogation report of Haji Tb. Emed, October 23, 1926 in Mailr
786x/1927.
142.	Interview with Kiyai Haji Abdulhalim.
143.	Interview with Ajot Satriawijaya; see also Njala, March 20, 23, 1926.
144.	Interview with Haji Afif.30
simply ordered their following to join the PKI. Djarman, a fisherman from Caringin,
recalled to the police the following conversation he had with Haji Chatib:
"In the month of Rowah [March 1926] Haji Chatib approached me several
times to join the PKI. One day as I was about to go to Labuan Haji Chatib,
who was sitting at the warung of Tb. Emed, called me over and said, 'Djar-
man, you must join the PKI soon [mesti lekas jadi lid kommunis] because its
purpose is to achieve independence [kemerdekaan] for all.' I asked Haji
Chatib what was meant by this. He replied that after independence all would
be freed from taxation. Because Haji Chatib was an influential man in Cari-
ngin I trusted him. When I went to Labuan that day I went to see Afif,
bought a membership card, and became a Communist."11,5
As Djarman was remarkably frank in his testimony to the police about other mat-
ters, there is no reason to doubt his account. Djarman, who was also a former san-
tri of Haji Chatib, entered the PKI in a manner which was not at all unique; indeed
it was fairly typical of hundreds of others who followed the lead set by their reli-
gious teachers.
Of course, not all ulama joined the PKI. On the contrary,the majority of reli-
gious leaders in Banten probably abstained from any direct involvement in the in-
surrectionary movement, either waiting to see how things developed, or, like Kiyai
Asnawi, abjuring entanglement in worldly affairs and confining their hostility to
the kafir (unbeliever) to the spiritual realm. However, it is remarkable that very
few religious leaders in Banten were willing to speak out against the PKI.146 One
of the few who did was Kiyai Jasin of Menes, the only prominent figure of the Sare-
kat Islam in Banten not to go over to the PKI.147 Kiyai Jasin did warn people
against the incompatibilities between the PKI and Islam but he seems to have found
little response. In February 1926 he organized a meeting at Labuan at which Tjo-
kroaminoto himself was the main speaker. But it was perhaps an indication of which
way the wind was blowing that Puradisastra, who arrived to denounce the veteran
Sarekat Islam leader as a lackey of the Dutch, was better received by the crowd.148
Thereafter Kiyai Jasin took a back seat and made no further forays against the PKI.
The Jawara Element
Second only in importance to the ulama in the revolutionary alliance shaped by
the PKI for the uprising in Banten were the jawara, the local men of violence. The
jawara often dominated the markets and auctions of the region, and they alone were
able to offer effective protection in the countryside. Skilled in martial arts and the
use of the golok (machete) and parang (short sword), they also played an active
part in recruiting labor for Batavia and Sumatra. Indeed, it was probably in this
latter context that the PKI first came into touch with the jawara, for they were
very prominent in Tanjung Priok.
Like the mafioso of nineteenth century Sicily, the jawara of Banten exploited
the gaps in communication between the peasant village and the larger society. They
thrived on these gaps and reinforced their position by systematic threats and use
145.	Police interrogation report of Djarman, January 4, 1927, Mailr 868x/27, Vb
April 13, 1928 06.
146.	"Bantam Report," pp. 48-49.
147.	Ibid.
148.	Njala, February 8, 9, 26, 1926.31
of violence.149 The word jawara itself denoted someone who was prepared not only
to defy the laws of the land but was also ready to force others to do his will. They
are an intriguing local phenomenon and have survived up to the present day. In
1976 I asked a prominent religious personage who had had many dealings with the
jawara during the 1945 revolution to define their role for me.
"Jawara is a Bantenese term for those who are clever in silat [kind of
fencing, taught also in pesantren in Ban ten] but who also possess other
definite skills. Jawara are not synonymous with robbers or thieves, but it
is the jawara who are able to guarantee safety and security in the desa
[village] because people respect them. In general the jawara are very obe-
dient to the ulama. Their spirits find guidance from the ulama. Of course
there are those who are negative in their conduct, but they can usually be
overcome by other jawara."150
It is obvious that the jawara would be very attractive to a PKI now firmly com-
mitted to a revolutionary course. In sharp contrast to the Sarekat Islam, the PKI,
then, actively sought their assistance. In February, the correspondent of Njala
in Ban ten, "Roodebril" (Puradisastra), noted approvingly the great change that
had taken place among the jawara of Banten and how they were now firmly com-
mitted to the people's cause.151 Another prominent PKI member in Banten related
to me that Pandeglang prison, which in 1925 had been full, by March 1926 con-
tained only three prisoners. The implication was not that the jawara had radically
mended their ways but that their energies had been channeled elsewhere ("disalur-
kan ke PKI").152 The success of the PKI in recruiting large numbers of jawara
played a vital part in the eventual outbreak of insurrection.
The Spread of Revolutionary Fervor
The entry of both the ulama and jawara into the PKI had an enormous impact on
the local peasantry, for the acceptability of the Communist Party to these two "in-
termediary" groups ensured that large numbers of the peasants also joined the
preparations for revolt. The peasants, of course, had their own grievances, par-
ticularly, as we shall see, regarding taxes. But the absence of any specific peas-
ant program in the PKI strategy meant that the peasants could only have been won
to what was an essentially Jacobin appeal through the mediation of groups such as
the ulama and jawara.153 Their hold and influence on Bantenese society secured a
mass base for the revolutionary movement.
Revolutionary fervor was mounting throughout Banten in the first six months
of 1926, when evidence of the spread of PKI activity seemed to appear everywhere.
Alarmed by the number of ulama joining the movement, the authorities began to
withdraw the teaching licenses from those it was certain were members of the PKI.151*
149.	For Sicily, see Blok, Mafia of a Sicilian Village, passim.
150.	Interview with Kiyai Haji Abdulhalim.
151.	Njala, February 9, 1926; see also "Bantam Report," pp. 23, 29.
152.	Interview with Tb. Alipan. Achmad Massaif, who temporarily replaced Pura-
disastra as the leader of the PKI in Banten, frequently dressed as a jawara himself,
clothed in black and carrying a golok.
153.	On the absence of any specific PKI peasant program, see the critique of
Dingley, Peasants' Movement, pp. 33-50; McVey, Rise, pp. 269, 278, 288.
154.	De Banten Bode, April 3, May 1, 1926.32
But many ulama joined secretly, and the PKI itself had now become a largely under-
ground organization. In Serang it was discovered that three prison warders at the
local jail had joined the PKI, one of them promising his comrades at a PKI hajat that
they need fear no discomfort if they should end up in prison.155
Initially, PKI activities were largely centered in Serang regency, the most pop-
ulous region of Banten, but by March and April 1926 they had spread rapidly into
Pandeglang regency and the Rangkasbitung area of Lebak regency. To Dutch ob-
servers the situation seemed to be rapidly getting out of hand, a commentator in
the Banten Bode noting:
Whole villages, whole districts of our previously quiet region have become
restless. A restlessness that has been imported by a small group of arro-
gant agitators who call themselves Communists. There is almost no village
in our region, from which at least one man is not, or has not been, in pris-
on . Men who earlier never came into contact with the law, can now be seen
every Monday and Friday sitting in the Serang district court. They have
been promised everything and such is their lot in life they have believed it.156
Although this observer may have been prone to panic at the spread of Commu-
nist influence, it was nevertheless clear that in many Bantenese villages whole
populations had gone over to the PKI, and this solidarity provided further proof
to members of the invincibility of the revolutionary movement. Much of the soli-
darity was probably enforced through rigorous boycotts employed in some "desa
komonis" against nonmembers,157 and, particularly in villages where jawara were
active, the refusal of assistance and the threat of maltreatment were powerful in-
centives for joining the PKI. In Bangkayung village, Cening subdistrict (Pande-
glang regency), peasants who would not join had their trees cut down and they
found themselves boycotted at desa feasts.158 Those who refused to conform ran
high risks, in some cases being physically molested. In 1976 Bassaif related:
"Yes, of course, such things were not so uncommon. You must under-
stand that in 1926 the people of Banten saw for the first time a chance to
assert themselves. Nobody was quite sure, even the leaders, how events
would develop, but all of us had to work against the deadline of impending
revolt. For the first time, too, it seemed as if Banten would not be alone.
This was not simply an uprising of peasants led by ulama as in Cilegon [in
1888]. Everyone felt that we were part of a national movement whose chance
of success seemed to us reasonable. . . . Solidarity was necessary. Those
who were not with us were henchmen of the Dutch [kaki tangan Belanda] ."159
In the villages the spirit of rebelliousness increased throughout 1926. Posses-
sion of the red membership card signified that one belonged to the new society and
was assured of a place in the new revolutionary order. To some, the membership
card assumed a mystical character, possession of it endowing them with properties
of invulnerability and invincibility, normally associated with amulets (jimat). To
others, it meant more practical things, such as freedom from taxation after the
revolt. In some cases the restlessness in the villages manifested itself in a funda-
155.	Ibid., May 8, 1926.
156.	Ibid., March 20, 1926; interview with Haji Solichin, who estimated PKI mem-
bership in Banten by June 1926 as in excess of 20,000.
157.	"Bantam Report," p. 47.
158.	De Banten Bode, April 10, 1926.
159.	Interview with Achmad Bassaif.33
mental rejection of the existing order. For example, in villages near Labuan mar-
riages took place without the presence of the penghulu,160 while in other villages
peasants prolonged their fasting and refused to celebrate Lebaran (the feast fol-
lowing Ramadan, the fasting month) on the day stipulated.161 Officials who inves-
tigated villages which were reportedly under PKI influence met with a wall of
silence. In Labuan regency, the regent himself, R. A. A. Kartadiningrat, held
meetings in villages in the Caringin and Cening areas, and called on the peasants
not to support the PKI,162 but with the PKI now underground the extent of the
support for the revolutionary conspiracy remained largely hidden.
In the village of Taktakan, near Serang, which was a PKI stronghold, the local
PKI propagandist was said to be endowed with magical powers and if any govern-
ment official passed the village he would be immediately paralyzed.163 In some areas
large sales of red cloth were reported as peasants made red trousers for themselves
to denote their loyalty to the PKI.164 In another village the peasants refused to
elect a new jaro (headman). When the wedana of the area visited the village, vil-
lage elders refused to see him, and he was later abused and addressed contemptu-
ously in low Javanese. One villager told him bluntly: "The government may well
need a jaro, but we do not. If we are not afraid of death, why should we be of a
jaro."165
The unrest in the countryside sometimes showed signs of breaking out in prema-
ture violence. In April a policeman was badly beaten up at night in the village of
Bojong, near Menes; The same week a Chinese trader in the village of Tanjangda-
lang, near Caringin, was beaten and robbed.166 Some weeks later when a Dutch-
man traveling near Menes was involved in a car accident, he was attacked by a
hostile crowd.167 Elsewhere, Chinese traders and moneylenders were forced to con-
tribute to PKI coffers.168
By the end of May 1926 revolutionary expectations were high in Banten. The
seeming inability of the government to counteract the growth of the PKI strength-
ened its members' feeling of invincibility. The alliance forged by the PKI with a
considerable number of local ulama and with the jawara, coupled with peasant griev-
ances, were already providing an explosive mixture.
160.	De Banten Bode, May 1, 1926.
161.	Interview with Haji Gogo Sanjadirdja, Serang, October 27, 1975.
162.	De Banten Bode, June 26, 1926.
163.	Ibid., February 27, 1926.
164.	"Bantam Report," p. 47.
165.	De Banten Bode, August 9, 1926.
166.	Ibid., May 1, 8, 1926.
167.	Ibid., June 12, 1926. The village near which the Dutchman was attacked
was a stronghold of the PKI.
168.	Ibid., May 8, 29, 1926; interview with Haji Afif. In Cilegon many Chinese
traders seem to have contributed to PKI funds.MAP 1. ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS OF BANTEN IN 1930
i#
Source:	Volkstelling 1930, Vol. 1. Native Population in West-Java (Batavia:
Landsdrukkerij, 1933). The original spelling has been retained.II. PREPARATIONS FOR INSURRECTION
Although the Prambanan conference of the PKI leadership had taken the deci-
sion to stage an insurrection in 1926, effective measures to implement this were not
taken until the middle of the year, because of the lack of preparedness of the party
and the need to develop the illegal organization--the Dubbel Organisasi or "DO."
News of the Prambanan decision was communicated to the PKI section in Banten by
Sukrawinata, one of the leaders of the Batavia PKI, in early 1926. 169 Sukrawinata
met with all the important leaders of the Banten PKI, including Bassaif, Puradisas-
tra, Haji Chatib, Kiyai Moekri, and Entol Enoh.170 At the same time other partici-
pants at the Prambanan meeting traveled around Indonesia informing party sections
of the fateful decision.171
Such was the state of disorganization among the PKI leadership, however, that,
having communicated this historic decision, they left local sections entirely to their
own devices regarding its implementation.172 Sections were instructed to establish
their own "DO" and encouraged to collect funds for the purchase of arms from
abroad. Apart from this, they were to await further orders from the PKI execu-
tive. Given the considerable autonomy already granted to local sections in 1925
under the rubric of "federal centralism," it was not a recipe for creating a tight
and disciplined revolutionary organization. As the exiled PKI leader Tan Malaka
pointed out, it rather had all the makings of a "putschist" adventure.173
With local sections of the PKI in Banten and elsewhere already creating the ille-
gal "DO" organization in preparation for the revolt, the leadership of the party was
rapidly descending into complete disarray. The trade unions had virtually collapsed
169.	Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama, p. 53; interview with Achmad Bassaif.
170.	Entol Enoh was a former leader of the Sarekat Islam in Banten. He was jaro
(headman) of the village of Tegalwangi, near Menes, for twenty-two years but was
dismissed in 1925 after a dispute with the local wedana. When he joined the PKI it
seems he took the majority of the membership of Sarekat Islam in the district with
him. Entol Enoh had a wide influence in the Menes area, comparable with that of
Haji Chatib in Labuan. He had close ties with local jawara and would appear to
have used them to maintain order in the area. He gave the lead to many other vil-
lage heads, particularly it seems regarding matters such as tax collection. The
circumstances of his dismissal in 1925 as a jaro are not clear, but apparently were
related to large sums of overdue taxes for his district which he had tried to dis-
charge in some cases from his own pocket. See letter of Achmad Djajadiningrat,
undated, appendix 7, in Vb July 4, 1939-19; see also reports in Mailr 172x/27,
Vb July 1, 1927 T10; "Bantam Report," pp. 28, 42, 48.
171.	Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama, p. 53.
172.	Interviews with Achmad Bassaif and Tb. Alipan.
173.	See his Massa Actie (Jakarta: Pustaka Moerba, 1947) [originally published in
1926], passim; see also Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 313-14; McVey, Rise, pp. 316-22.
3536
after the 1925 strike wave, and between January and April 1926 almost the entire
leadership of the PKI left Indonesia, most of them to Singapore.17^ At the same
time, the Dutch authorities were clamping down with increasing severity on the
party, making any legal activity impossible. In April the PKI daily, Njala, in-
structed all units of the party not to communicate with the executive because of
continual police raids on the Batavia headquarters office and interception of the
mail.175 At the end of April the Dutch colonial government delivered the coup de
grace to legal PKI activity by adding two new regulations to the legal code, Article
153 bis and ter, which effectively prohibited revolutionary literature and organiza-
tion.176 As a result, all party newspapers and journals were forced to close on
April 30, and three days later the PKI leadership formally disbanded all units of
the party and the Sarekat Rakjat. In May the rump of the PKI leadership in Bata-
via, faced with police harassment and the whittling away of its local support, de-
cided to move to Bandung.177
The authorization to establish illegal underground organizations to prepare for
the insurrection seems to have been given to local sections in early 1926. These
proceeded largely independent of the PKI leadership, and only in April and May
did the latter make some attempt to coordinate and control the local "DO"s. As a
result, the problem the PKI faced in some areas was not that of developing a revo-
lutionary potential but rather of keeping local hotheads and militants from taking
premature action.178 This was exemplified in Banten, where the "DO," once set
up, was soon thirsting for action.
In Banten a major part of the PKI's appeal had lain precisely in the fact that
it seemed an organization geared for action. The "pergerakan" had been formed
for a definite purpose, namely the overthrow of the existing order. To a marked
extent, therefore, it dovetailed with existing millenarian traditions that had previ-
ously found embodiment in Islamic beliefs of the jihad or perang sabil (holy war).179
At a later stage the fervent words, jihad and perang sabil, began to spread among
the revolutionary movement in Banten and, increasingly as the revolt approached,
victory was to become associated with the establishment of an Islamic state, some-
times even in the form of the restoration of the Sultanate of Banten. This tendency
for the planned revolutionary action to become identified with Islamic millenarian
traditions was exacerbated by two circumstances. First, almost from the beginning
the PKI's development in Banten coincided with plans for the uprising, and second,
174.	McVey, Rise, p. 474, n. 95.
175.	Njala, April 6, 1926.
176.	Ibid., April 13, 1926; 40 Tahun PKI, p. 25; McVey, Rise, pp. 326-27; inter-
view with Professor G. F. Pijper.
177.	McVey, Rise, pp. 326-28.
178.	According to Tamin (Sedjarah PKI, p. 27), the executive of the PKI in April
1926 consisted of Suprodjo, Kusnogunoko, and Gunawan. The "DO" was set up in
April with Suprodjo as chairman. Dutch archival sources also indicate that the
"DO" was set up in this period, with Banten as one of its first bases. See "Beknopt
Overzicht van de Communistische Ongeregeldheden in Ned.Indie," Vb December 13,
1926 D19.
179.	See Sartono, Peasants' Revolt, pp. 165, 168-69, 180, 186. In some respects
the revolutionary organization, the "DO," seems to have taken the role that tarekat
played in earlier revolts in Banten. There is no evidence of any involvement of
tarekat in the 1926 revolt.37
well before that uprising got under way the majority of the secular leaders of the
PKI in Banten were already behind bars.
The early organization of the "DO" in Banten seems to have been entrusted to
a committee that consisted of Puradisastra, Tb. Hilman, Bassaif, Haji Chatib, Kiyai
Moekri, Entol Enoh, Tb. Alipan, and Soleiman.180 Two of its members, Entol Enoh
and Soleiman, had extensive contacts with Banten jawara, and they used these to
good effect in shaping the "DO." One of its first meetings was arranged by Haji
Mohammed Arif, the jaro of Dalung, near Serang, who fortunately provided the
police with a very full account of the meeting during his interrogation after the re-
volt. Arif had been recruited to the PKI in March 1926 by Tb. Hilman,who told
him that the purpose of the PKI was to force the government to make concessions
to the people over taxation. Later Hilman impressed upon him that he had joined a
powerful, awe-inspiring organization whose ultimate aim was to replace the Dutch
colonial government.181 There was no doubt as to the eventual outcome of the
struggle, for the PKI had even infiltrated the police and army to ensure victory.
In the month of Silih Sawal (May) Hilman visited Arif and asked him to organize
a meeting in Dalung at which many ulama would be present and important decisions
would have to be taken regarding the future of the PKI. This Arif proceeded to
do:
"I agreed to hold a slametan as a cover for the meeting. Because my
house was too.small, the meeting took place at the house of a widow, Nji
Arwi, who was in Batavia at the time.
"Before the start of the meeting Arman placed a large red flag with
hammer and sickle on the speakers' table. There were more than forty peo-
ple. Those I remember were Haji Achmad Chatib, Hilman, Hasanuddin, Bas-
saif, Arman, Soleiman, Ishak, Alirachman, Haji Ay ip Achmad, Kiyai Moekri,
Kiyai Haji Achmad [of Petir], Haji Adung, Haji Mardjuk, Tje Mamat, Haji
Mohammed Ali, and Doeldjawad. Haji Chatib, Hilman, Soleiman, and Hasa-
nuddin sat behind the speakers' table while the rest of us sat on chairs or
on the floor.
"The meeting was started by Haji Chatib reciting a prayer in Arabic.
After the blessing Hasanuddin spoke. He began by saying that the purpose
of the meeting was to discuss further the organization of the DO. For this
purpose it was essential that as many jawara [golongan jawara] as possible
join, for only they were brave enough to meet the demands the PKI would
make of them. He went on, 'We must choose those who are brave enough to
guarantee the safety of the PKI so that if a member of the party is ill-treated
by the police then that policeman will be killed by the DO. The DO will also
have to look for money by any means available including theft.' Soleiman
then followed Hasanuddin, stressing the importance of developing the DO and
of collecting money for the purchase of arms.
"Haji Chatib spoke next, beginning by explaining the hadith Djichnad
which showed that the Prophet Mohammed when he advanced the cause of
Islam faced all manner of difficulties but he did not shrink from the use of
war to propagate Islam. 'Therefore,' he continued, 'my hope is that we all
180.	Pemberontakan Nasfonal Pertama, p. 60; interviews with Achmad Bassaif, Tb.
Alipan.
181.	Police interrogation report of Haji Mohammed Arif, October 25, 1926, in Mailr
67x/1927, Vb April 13, 1928 06.38
defend the PKI by any means possible.' Then he explained the meaning of
the perang sabil which was to be waged against all non-Moslem peoples. He
ended by saying that, just as 'unclean cloth had to be cleaned with soap, so
an impure world had to be cleansed with blood [karena kain kotor mesti
dibersihkan dengan sabun, demi dunia yang kotor mesti dibersihkan dengan
darah].'
"Towards the end of his speech I remember Haji Ayip Achmad intervened
to say that Ishak [the printer on the Ban ten Bode] was unfit to be a leader
as he was not a true Moslem and therefore unacceptable. Haji Chatib rose
angrily to his feet and said, 'I am not afraid of being hanged or of being
exiled for defending Communists. All who are have no place in the PKI.'
"The meeting then proceeded to discuss finances. Haji Chatib was angry
to learn that there was very little money in the coffers of the PKI in Serang,
'In Labuan,' he said, 'the PKI has already collected more than 2,000 guilders.
We are ready to wage war on the government. I have had enough of [saya
sakit hati kepada] the government because the people are crushed by taxes.
If this continues the people will die from hunger. For me it is better to die
in war than from starvation.'
"Hasanuddin then spoke again and said that Haji Chatib was correct in
saying that it was vital now that as much money be collected as possible for
the coming struggle. Funds were needed to buy arms and to pay for the ex-
penses of propagandists and couriers. Then with his right hand Hasanuddin
pointed to his stomach, and continued by saying, 'If my stomach is fat, then
my hand will be too. It is the hand that passes the food to the stomach just
as it is the priyayi who support the raja [ruler]. If the ruler is rich, then
so are the priyayi. But we must remember that the wealth of the ruler and
the priyayi are derived from the people. Because of that all rulers must be
killed by the PKI.' After Hasanuddin finished everybody applauded loudly
and threw their hats into the air. Then Haji Achmad of Pancur spoke to
close the meeting, 'We must remember, brothers, not to be too hasty. This
is not an easy business. Remember the hadiths we have learned. We must
be fully prepared for a jihad. Hasty work is Satan's temptation. Slow but
sure work is God's desire.'"182
The meeting concluded by electing a new executive for the Banten PKI. In
part this was prompted by the departure from Banten of Puradisastra and of Ach-
mad Bassaif, who was to continue as a linkman between the Batavia PKI and Banten,
and partly because of the need to accommodate the new "DO." In future there was
to be an executive of the PKI and a separate executive for the "DO." As President
of the PKI Banten section the meeting elected Ishak, with Haji Mohammed Nur as
secretary and Arman as treasurer. For the executive of the new "DO," which was
also called the "golongan jawara," Hasanuddin was appointed president, with Solei-
man as vice-president. Two commissioners of the "DO" were also selected, Tb.
Hilman and Alirachman. In addition, Haji Achmad Chatib was given leadership of
the "golongan ulama" (religious section) with the title "Presiden Agama PKI Sectie
Banten" (Religious President).183
In practice, of the two new executives, that of the "DO" was increasingly to
become the more important, as any legal activity by the PKI was now impossible.
In the weeks and months after the May meeting in Dalung, however, even the "DO"
182.	Ibid.
183.	Ibid.39
executive was to face difficulties as more and more leaders of the Banten PKI were
taken into police custody. As we shall see, this allowed leadership of the revolu-
tionary movement to fall into the hands of an ad hoc committee led by Haji Achmad
Chatib which was composed almost entirely of ulama.
Already before the May meeting, the PKI in Banten had begun collecting money
for the purchase of arms from its membership. An extensive network of contacts
was established for this purpose which seems to have been particularly effective in
Serang and Pandeglang regencies. Tb. Haji Emed was appointed treasurer of the
DO in Pandeglang regency and proved an efficient and capable administrator of the
finances of the revolutionary organization. Undoubtedly Tb. Emed's prestige as
the son of Kiyai Asnawi of Caringin greatly assisted the PKI in its fundraising ac-
tivities. Often the collection of monies for arms was accompanied by the spread of
fantastic rumors regarding the coming revolt. In the police interrogation of Djar-
man, the fisherman in Caringin, he later told them that he had collected money for
the purchase of arms because Haji Chatib had told him that Japan was ready to
assist with the forthcoming revolt .184 Others gave because they were told that the
money was to pay for the transportation of soldiers from Soviet Russia who would
arrive in the bay of Banten in a giant fleet.185 In the village of Ciomas, Serang
regency, the local PKI leader, a peasant called Martadjani, proclaimed that those
who did not contribute would not be considered as true Moslems by the Sultan of
Banten after the revolt and would have their property confiscated.186 In a neigh-
boring village to Ciomas, Barugbug, H. Mu’min, a PKI propagandist, said that all
who did not contribute to the revolutionary coffers would be robbed and killed
after the revolt.187
Such rumors of aid from overseas and also intimidation were clearly partly re-
sponsible for the monies that began flowing into the PKI coffers. But there is also
little doubt that in many cases peasants gave freely, sometimes even going to the
length of pawning coconut trees, land, buffalo, or the money they had saved to
make the pilgrimage to Mecca.188 The fact that they gave so generously and in
such large numbers indicates the growing millenarian atmosphere that accompanied
the preparations for revolt. This atmosphere was largely the PKI's creation, as its
organization and efficiency left the peasants impressed if not awe-struck. Members
of the "DO," which both in the popular mind and in practice became indistinguish-
able from the PKI, were to be regarded as soldiers of the party. Villages where
the PKI commanded overwhelming support either developed a counter administration
with PKI-appointed "civil officials" and "military officials" (penghubung militair or
penghubung desa), or the existing village administration with the jaro at its apex
went over to the PKI.189 As this new "administration" promised to abolish taxation,
184.	Police interrogation report of Djarman, October 6, 1926, Mailr 67x/1927, Vb
April 13, 1928 06. Djarman was instructed by Tb. Emed to collect fl20 from each
party member. The sum could be paid in installments of 12 cents per month for
ten months. Elsewhere PKI collectors instituted a sliding scale of payments of con-
tributions for the revolt according to the means of the party member.
185.	De Banten Bode, June 5, 1926.
186.	Report of Resident of Banten, Putman-Cramer, August 29, 1927, in Mailr
523X/27.
187.	Ibid.
188.	Interviews with Tb. Alipan and Achmad Rasyidi, Serang, February 18, 1976.
189.	"Bantam Report," pp. 42-43.40
to institute an Islamic state, and even to provide free cigarettes and train rides,
it is understandable why the peasants were so willing to contribute to the organiza-
tion, which also had the support of many influential ulama and jawara.190
But if preparations for insurrection were proceeding apace in Banten, the local
leaders found to their consternation that developments elsewhere left much to be
desired. In May, after the meeting to establish the "DO" in Dalung, Haji Chatib
and Hasanuddin left Banten for Bandung where the PKI executive had recently
moved from Batavia. The two leaders went to discuss the purchase of arms and
the coordination of the various sections of the PKI for the planned insurrection.
They discovered, however, that the leadership in Bandung had done nothing to
implement the Prambanan decision of December 1925 and were even unable to help
with the arms shipments. Hermawan, a leader of the PKI in the Priangan, told Haji
Chatib and Hasanuddin that there was considerable dissension among the PKI lead-
ership regarding the planned revolt. There was no chance of an uprising in June
or for some months to come, as the illegal "DO" was insufficiently developed. Her-
mawan told the two Bantenese leaders that confidence in the PKI executive among
many local sections was minimal because of the indecisiveness at the top. The Pri-
angan leader concluded by advising Haji Chatib and Hasanuddin that every section
must make its own preparations for the revolt.191
Dismayed by their reception, Haji Chatib and Hasanuddin returned to Banten to
decide on their next step. Hasanuddin now apparently tried to procure arms from
Malaya through PKI-contacts in West Sumatra. Little seems to have come of this,
but it did unfortunately attract the attention of the Dutch authorities. On May 19
the recently appointed Resident of Banten, F. C. Putman-Cramer, informed the
Regent of Pandeglang, R. A. A. Kartadiningrat, that intelligence reports from
Medan indicated that weapons were to be sent from Sumatra to Java via Labuan and
that the family of Kiyai Asnawi was involved.192 Kartadiningrat replied to Putman-
Cramer by arguing that there was no evidence of the involvement of Kiyai Asnawi
of Caringin in the PKI or of his son-in-law, Haji Chatib.193 Kiyai Asnawi had per-
sonally assured him that no one in his family was a member of the PKI. Kartadini-
ngrat was prepared to accept this assurance, as the kiyai had abstained from in-
volvement in worldly affairs for many years and had refused to join or approve of
the Sarekat Islam. Indeed the only danger Kartadiningrat feared from the family
of the kiyai was if they were plagued by police spies or agents provocateurs.194
Protected from immediate arrest by the assurances of the regent, Haji Chatib
continued energetically to raise support for the coming revolt. Meetings of the
rebels now took place in mosques or langgar to avoid police spies, or at night in
woods with jawara posted to look out for spies. The rebel leaders, thwarted in
their attempts to procure arms through Bandung (the PKI headquarters), now
looked to assistance from Batavia. The PKI leadership in the capital was, like that
in Banten, firmly committed to the Prambanan decision to stage an armed revolt and
190.	Ibid.
191.	Report of Resident of East Priangan to Hillen, Governor of West Java, Decem-
ber 21, 1926, no 486/zg, Vb July 1, 1927 T10; interview with Achmad Bassaif.
192.	Hillen to Governor-General, unnumbered, November 26, 1926, Mailr 1181x/26,
Vb July 1, 1927 S10.
193.	Ibid. It was fortunate for Haji Chatib that he had joined the PKI after it had
gone underground.
194.	Ibid.41
was also growing increasingly impatient with the executive's postponement of ac-
tion. In late May a meeting of the "DO" executive in Banten took place in Caringin.
Those present at the meeting, who included Haji Chatib, Tb. Emed, Hasanuddin,
and Afif, the chairman of the PKI in Labuan, decided that the Banten PKI should
coordinate its actions more closely with the Batavia section. The revolt should pro-
ceed as soon as possible, one suggested date being August 31, the birthday of the
Dutch Queen Wilhelmina.195 Afif and Hasanuddin were dispatched to Batavia to
meet with PKI leaders there. They took with them 250 guilders to buy arms from
Djojpranoto, a PKI leader who Bassaif had promised could obtain guns. The Bata-
via meeting was evidently more promising than the earlier trip to Bandung, for in
early June Afif and Hasanuddin returned to Batavia with a further 1,865 guilders
for the purchase of arms.196
In the meantime, senior PKI leaders had met in Singapore in April and had de-
cided to proceed with the implementation of the Prambanan decision. Alimin and
Musso were dispatched to Moscow to secure the approval of the Comintern for the
revolt while the other PKI leaders--Sardjono, the chairman, Budisutjitro, Winanta,
and Sutan Said Ali--returned to Java to prepare the party for the revolt.197 On
their return after several months' absence the PKI leaders were alarmed to discover
that, while some sections were ready for immediate action and were growing impa-
tient with what they regarded as indecisive leadership, other sections were unpre-
pared for revolt or were even opposed to the idea.
To try and bring some coordination and leadership to the party, Sardjono, the
PKI chairman, called a meeting to discuss the Prambanan decision in Bandung in
late June. Prior to this he hurried to Banten to meet with local PKI leaders. In
Caringin he met with Haji Chatib, Tb. Emed, Soleiman, Hasanuddin, Tb. Hilman,
Ishak, and Sardjono. The PKI chairman appears to have visited Banten with two
purposes in mind. First, Sardjono was concerned to prevent any precipitate action
by the Banten PKI and seems to have assured the Bantenese that the PKI leadership
was determined to implement the Prambanan decision. Second, he went to raise
more money for the PKI. Here too he was not to be disappointed, and he returned
to Bandung with a further 1,000 guilders raised from the Banten PKI.198
Because of Sardjono's trip to Banten, the Bandung meeting was delayed, and
it did not finally begin until June 22. It took place in a pondok in a rice field at
Andir, on the outskirts of the city. Thirteen PKI leaders were present, including
Sardjono, Budisutjitro, the PKI secretary-general, Kusnogunoko from Batavia,
Marsudi from Surabaya, Djamaluddin Tamin from West Sumatra, Magas from South
Sumatra, and Gunawan, also from Batavia. The conference lasted for four days
until June 26 and, despite the fact that of the PKI's thirty-seven sections only
four--Banten, Batavia, Priangan, and South Sumatra--pronounced themselves
ready for revolutionary action, Sardjono managed to persuade the other delegates
195.	Interview with Afif. Statement of Djarman to the police, October 6, 1926,
Mailr 67x/1927, Vb April 13, 1928 06.
196.	Ibid.; statement of Tb. Emed to the police, September 13, 1926, Mailr 868x/
27, Vb April 13, 1928 06.
197.	Pemberontakan Nasional Pertama, p. 54; see also "The Governor-General's
Report of 1927" in McVey and Benda, Communist Uprisings, p. 8.
198.	Statement of Djarman of October 6, see n. 195. Banten seems to have been
one of the chief sources of funds for PKI arms purchases. See also "testimony" of
Ongko D, in Djojoprajitno, PKI-SlBAR, p. 65; Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, p. 30.42
present that there was no future for the PKI except by resorting to armed re-
volt.199
The Arrest of the Serang PKI Leaders
Sardjono's visit to Caringin in June and the outcome of the Bandung conference
seem to have convinced the Banten PKI leaders, at least temporarily, of the neces-
sity of coordinating any revolutionary activity in Banten with action elsewhere. In
July, when Djojopranto of the Batavia PKI visited Caringin to request money from
Haji Chatib and Tb. Emed, he was met with a frosty reception and the reply that
the Banten PKI now recognized the PKI executive (hoofdbestuur) in Bandung as
the sole source of authority in the party. 200 A similar reply awaited two PKI dele-
gates from Buitenzorg (Bogor), Mochtar and Haji Sinting, who visited Haji Chatib
in the first few days of August and apparently asked him to consider launching an
insurrection on August 31. Haji Chatib refused, pleading that while the Banten
section of the PKI were ready and willing to participate in the coming revolt, they
would loyally await instructions from the Bandung executive before taking such
action.201
However, Haji Chatib and the Banten PKI's trust in and loyalty to the PKI
executive under Sardjono in Bandung was to be shaken by events in August.
Throughout 1925 and 1926, as the PKI drifted inexorably towards armed revolt,
the movement found itself increasingly weakened by the removal of key leaders
through arrest or exile. This process was also at work at a local level in Banten.
Already in May Puradisastra left Banten for Garut in order to evade arrest. At
the same time Achmad Bassaif also left Banten and became preoccupied with the
preparations for revolt in Batavia. At the beginning of July, Hasanuddin, who
had replaced Puradisastra and Bassaif as. the effective leader of the PKI in Banten,
was arrested by the police in Batavia. 202 The loss of these three leaders was only
the prelude to a more disastrous series of arrests in August.
Throughout the month of July tension had been mounting in Banten. Peasants
in many areas who had joined the PKI eagerly awaited the anticipated day of retri-
bution, when all Dutchmen and servants of the "infidel" government were to be
killed. The leadership of the revolutionary movement found it increasingly diffi-
cult to keep a grip on events. Zealous propagandists had recruited peasants to
the PKI with the promise that the revolt would not be long in coming. 203 Delay ran
the risk that either this support would be dissipated or the revolutionary movement
would be weakened through arrests or premature moves by the rebels.
The tension was further fueled by rumors which seemed to indicate that the day
of revolt was fast approaching. Foreign troops were widely expected to arrive from
Soviet Russia or from Turkey. A pronouncement by Kiyai Asnawi of Caringin that
199.	Tamin, Sedjarah PKI, pp. 30, 49; McVey, Rise, pp. 328-29, 481 n. 31. See
also "Beknopt Overzicht van de Communistische Ongeregeldheden," Vb December
13, 1926 D19.
200.	Interview with Haji Afif.
201.	Ibid.; statement to the police of Djarman, October 6, 1926, Mailr 67x/1927,
Vb April 13, 1928 06.
202.	De Banten Bode, July 10, 1926.
203.	Interviews with Achmad Bassaif, Afif and Achmad Rasyidi, and Ajot Satria-
wijaya.43
prospective pilgrims should not undertake the haj to Mecca in 1926 because of the
uncertain political situation in Arabia, was widely interpreted as a sign from the
kiyai that Bantenese should remain at home to witness a great event.204 The mount-
ing unrest gave rise in some villages to fasting by the rebels and to several inci-
dents of violence. On July 16 roadblocks were instituted near the village of Kadu-
hejo (Menes) and several days later a wealthy haji and moneylender was robbed and
shot dead in Petir. 205 The authorities began to receive alarming reports of fasting
and the purchase of white cloth that were said to signal the imminence of a general
uprising in Banten. 206 Even more alarming was a report received from the police
in Semarang who had intercepted a letter between two PKI leaders in the city indi-
cating that Kiyai Asnawi would support the PKI in any uprising against the Dutch.207
The reports caused sufficient concern to the Dutch authorities for them to de-
cide that preventive action was urgently needed. On August 13 the police raided
the house in Serang of a PKI member called Michnar and uncovered plans for fo-
menting unrest, including the sabotage of the railway lines between Batavia and
Banten. The Resident, Putman-Cramer, requested additional assistance from the
authorities in Batavia and on August 15 police reinforcements arrived. The follow-
ing day a company of Menadonese troops was sent to Banten under the command of
Captain Becking to carry out military exercises. 208
In the days after the raid on Michnar's house most of the leaders of the PKI in
Serang regency were arrested. First among them were Soleiman, Atmodihardjo,
and Alirachman, who were holding a meeting at Michnar's house at the time of the
raid. To the alarm of the authorities an officer of the Fieldpolice, Mohammed Saleh,
was also present and was found to be involved in the PKI. They were soon followed
into custody by other leading members of the Serang PKI, including Djarkasih, the
cycleshop owner, Haji Ayip Achmad, "the jago of Serang," Arman, and Haji Moham-
med Nur, the former chairman of Rukun Asli and secretary of the "DO." Several
arms caches were also discovered by the police. In the village of Dalung, where
the headman, Haji Mohammed Arif, was a member of the PKI, six revolvers were
found hidden in a well. In the village of Ciruas, also in Serang regency and like-
wise a PKI stronghold, 800 golok were discovered that had been forged especially
for the forthcoming revolt . In the villages of Pabuaran, Pancur, and Gunungsari,
all in Serang regency, Mauser pistols, Beaumont rifles, and considerable quanti-
ties of white clothing were unearthed in police searches. The police also discovered
that some 10,000 guilders had been reportedly collected in Banten for the purchase
of arms and the funding of the revolt. 209
204.	Letter of W. P. Hillen, Governor of West Java, to Governor-General de Graeff,
December 31, 1926, G5/48/3 Mailr 868x/ Vb April 13, 1928 06.
205.	De Banten Bode, July 17, 24, 31, 1926.
206.	"Verhoogde Communistische Actie in het Bantamsche," Report of Governor of
West Java Hillen, to Governor-General Fock, August 16, 1926, G/5/25/17, Mailr 808x/
26, Vb July 1, 1927 Q10; see also Blumberger, Communistische, p. 59; Soerabaaisch
Courant, August 21, 1926.
207.	Report of Hillen to Governor-General, December 31, 1926, G5/48/3, Mailr
868x/27, Vb April 13, 1928 06.
208.	Interview with M. Padmadisastra, Rangkasbitung, December 23, 1975; the in-
formant was a mantri-politie in Serang in August 1926. See also Bataviaasch Nieuws-
blad, August 17, 1926; De Banten Bode, August 21, 28, September 4, 1926.
209.	Algemeen Indische Dagblad, August 17, 1926; Nieuwe Soerabaaische Courant,
September 1, 1926; "Verklaring Mas Wiria di Koesoema," De Landsdienaar, 3, 9,44
The wave of arrests and the seizure of rebel arms supplies left the PKI in Ban-
ten severely exposed and weakened. This was particularly the case in Serang re-
gency. Two key leaders who escaped the first police dragnet, Tb. Hilman and
Ishak, were arrested in September, 210 Tb. Hilman having been tracked down by
the turncoat Raden Oesadiningrat, who was now in the service of the police in Ban-
ten. Puradisastra, "the father of Bantenese communism," was arrested by the
police in Garut and brought back to Serang for questioning. 211 By the end of Sep-
tember some 200 arrests had been made, nearly all of them in Serang regency al-
though arrests were also taking place elsewhere in Banten now. In Rangkasbitung,
in Lebak regency, the four main leaders of the local PKI--Tjondroseputro, Atjim,
Salihun, and Tju Tong Hin--were arrested in late September. 212
For their part the Dutch authorities were confident by the middle of September
1926 that they had averted a serious threat of revolt in Banten through the timely
arrest of nearly all the known PKI leaders in the area. The troops who had been
sent to Banten in August were withdrawn in September, after having carried out
military exercises in the Serang regency.213 Clearly the PKI in Banten had suf-
fered a critical reverse. Of the leaders elected to executive positions in the PKI
and the "DO" at the meeting in Dalung in May, all were in police custody by the
end of September, with the exception of Haji Achmad Chatib. Those arrested in-
cluded all of the original band of Communists who had established the Banten PKI a
year earlier in August and September 1925. Of that group only Bassaif remained at
large, feverishly making plans for the insurrection in Batavia. Thus what might be
termed the "secular Communists" were now all behind the bars of Serang prison.
The leadership of the PKI was now left entirely in the hands of ulama and jawara
and it was they who were to lead the peasants in revolt in November.
The Eve of the Revolt
Although the PKI executive at its meeting in Bandung in June had decided to
proceed with plans for an armed revolt, the party leadership still remained hesitant.
It still faced difficulties in controlling local sections many of whom, like Tegal, were
in favor of immediate insurrection. The Banten PKI which had supported Sardjono
and the executive in June was by August becoming sharply critical of the lack of
leadership from Bandung. 211* At the end of July one of the executive leaders who
favored revolt, Winanta, was detained by the police in Bandung.215 Many of the
September 1927, pp. 459-61. The arrests apparently took place as a result
of the PKI being infiltrated by another agent of the field-police, Harunadjaja. The
latter was murdered in 1946. Interview with Haji Solichin, Serang, March 6, 1976;
De Banten Bode, September 4, 1926.
210.	De Banten Bode, September 25, 1926.
211.	Java Bode, September 18, 1926; De Banten Bode, September 18, 1926.
212.	De Banten Bode, September 25, 1926.
213.	See report of Governor of West Java Hillen, to Governor-General, September
8, 1926, G 5/27/19, Mailr 1059x/Vb July 1, 1927 S10; report of Hillen to Governor-
General, October 26, 1926, G/5/33/18, Mailr 1059x/26, Vb July 1, 1927 S10. See
also report of Gobee, Adviser for Native and Islamic Affairs, "Politieke Toestand
in het Gewest Bantam," H60 October 29, 1926, Mailr 1053x/26, Vb July 1, 1927 S10.
214.	Interview with Achmad Bassaif.
215.	McVey, Rise, pp. 329, 481 n. 31; Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 318.45
remaining leaders, such as Subakat, Suprodjo, Kusnogunoko, and Djamaluddin
Tamin, were beset by doubts and were increasingly won over to the position of
Tan Malaka who, from his exile in the Philippines and Singapore, had delivered a
trenchant critique of the PKI's planned revolt.216 The militant local sections led by
Tegal and Pekalongan used the replacement of Governor-General Fock by the re-
portedly more liberal A. C. De Graeff, to press for an immediate revolt. On August
22, in a now rather desperate attempt to control the situation, the executive sent
representatives to local sections to consult on the proposed revolutionary action.
They were warned not to go over to immediate revolutionary action and told that
"federative centralism" was to be replaced by democratic centralism in strict Lenin-
ist fashion.217
These belated moves on the part of the PKI executive, however, were doomed
to failure. In August three sections in Central Java refused to support postpone-
ment of revolutionary action any longer. 218 The PKI leader in Ceribon, Abdulmun-
talib, sought support for this position in Banten, where he was received by Haji
Chatib. Haji Chatib's arguments against revolt when he had met with Sardjono in
June had receded, and he now favored revolt at the earliest possible date. Indeed
the Banten PKI had seen its strength seriously dissipated as a result of the wave
of arrests in August. To delay any longer could risk the total collapse of the PKI
in Banten.
At the beginning of September Bassaif and Sukrawinata, the vice-chairman of
the Batavia PKI, held further discussions with Haji Chatib, Kiyai Moekri, Tb. Haji
Emed, and Afif in Caringin. It was agreed that the Banten PKI would support the
initiative of the Batavia section in forming a committee to coordinate the insurrec-
tion.219 Afif followed Bassaif and Sukrawinata back to Batavia a few days later
with the news that the situation was deteriorating in Banten and the number of
arrests was increasing daily. It was feared that Haji Chatib and other leaders in
Labuan and Menes would soon follow the Serang PKI leaders into detention. Meet-
ing with the Batavia PKI leaders in the Hotel Borneo in Weltevreden Afif promised
the support of the Banten PKI in the revolt but pleaded that there should be no
further delays. The revolutionaries in Banten could still muster substantial mass
support particularly in Pandeglang regency, but to wait much longer might prove
fatal.220
Soon after Afif's departure from Batavia, the leaders of the PKI in the capital
set up a committee to coordinate the insurrection. The committee, formed on Sep-
tember 13 and called the Komite Pemberontak (Insurrectionary Committee) or the
Komite Penggalang Republik Indonesia (Committee of Support for the Indonesian
Republic), sent out messengers to all sections to obtain recognition as the organiz-
ing committee in preparing the revolt. Despite the fact that only five sections were
willing to do this--Padang, Tegal, Priangan, Batavia, and Banten--the committee
proceeded in its intention and fixed the day of the revolt for November 12.221
216.	Poeze, Tan Malaka, pp. 317-22.
217.	Ibid., p. 323; McVey, Rise, p. 330; interview with Achmad Bassaif.
218.	Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 325; McVey, Rise, pp. 331-33, 340.
219.	Interviews with Achmad Bassaif and Haji Afif.
220.	Ibid.
221.	McVey, Rise, pp. 340-44; Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 327; Pemberontakan Nasional
Pertama, p. 53; interview with Achmad Bassaif, who is the unidentified person in
the photograph on p. 52 of Pemberontakan. The members of the Komite included46
As the day of the revolt approached the rebels in Banten began to make fever-
ish last-minute preparations despite further debilitating arrests and some deser-
tions from the revolutionary cause, ironically often among those who had been
longest in the PKI. 222 Returning from his meeting in Batavia with PKI leaders,
Afif was startled to see at Tanah Abang railway station, a police officer from Menes,
Mangoendikaria. Realizing he was probably being followed, he became anxious
about communicating the results of the Batavia meeting to Haji Chatib:
"I got back to my house at 2 p.m. My wife had food prepared but I
couldn't eat a thing because I was too nervous. About 2.30 the Assistant
Wedana (Mas Wiriadikusumah) called. We had known each other since school
days. He warned me that the Veldpolitie from Pandeglang would probably
arrest me that day. After he left I hurriedly wrote a note to Haji Chatib and
destroyed some papers I did not want to fall into police hands. About 4 p.m.
the police arrived and I was taken to Pandeglang for questioning." 223
Unluckily for Afif he was less circumspect about disposing of ammunition he had
hidden in his house, and the police became interested again in the underground PKI.
The arrest of Afif, who was the PKI chairman in Labuan, was prompted by the
renewed attention of the Fieldpolice (Veldpolitie) to PKI activities in Pandeglang
regency. The Veldpolitie, unlike the local administrative police, were commanded
by Dutch officers and were directly responsible to the Dutch Resident and not to
the regents. They were a well-armed motorized force that in the politically charged
atmosphere of the 1920s spent much of their time in checking the activities of the
Sarekat Islam and the PKI. Frequently, it seems, they aroused the resentment of
regents because of what was seen as their encroachment on one of the traditional
preserves of Java's priyayi, maintenance of law and order in native society. This
is amply illustrated in the dispute which developed between the Regent of Pande-
glang, R. A. A. Kartadiningrat, and the Resident of Banten, F. C. Putman-Cramer,
over the danger posed by the PKI in Banten.
On September 6 at a monthly serba (meeting of the Resident with the three
local regents), Putman-Cramer told Kartadiningrat that the Veldpolitie had received
intelligence reports of increased PKI activity in Pandeglang regency including fas-
ing (pati geni) and the purchase of white cloth. Kartadiningrat replied that he had
instructed his subordinates to keep a strict watch for such activities, but he him-
self felt that there was a chance that the PKI threat was being magnified. 224 In
Kartadiningrat's view too many arrests were taking place, and it was this and the
activities of police spies that were fueling social discontent in Banten and not the
PKI. The frequent appearance of the heavily armed Veldpolitie on their motor-bikes
in the countryside was having a disturbing effect on the peasants. Two days after
Sukrawinata, Baharuddin Saleh, Mahmud Sitjin alias Mohammed Jusuf, Samudro,
Hamid Sutan, and Herojuwono.
222.	A number of PKI members went underground in Batavia or fled to Sumatra.
In some cases they left the PKI altogether, while in others they left Banten some-
times fearing their own ability to control the rebel movement there. Interview with
Achmad Rifai, Chairman of the PKI subsection in Pandeglang in 1926. Others who
fled included Mohammed Ali (Mamak), an important Bantenese Communist in the
revolution of 1945.
223.	Interview with Afif.
224.	Report of Hillen to Governor-General, unnumbered, November 26, 1926,
Mailr 1181x, Vb July 1, 1927 S10.47
the meeting when Afif was arrested in Labuan, Kartadiningrat judged this action
of the Veldpolitie to be unnecessary despite the discovery of ammunition in Afif's
home. 225
The ill feeling that developed between the Regent of Pandeglang and the Dutch
Resident of Ban ten undoubtedly protected the underground PKI, and it was notable
that when revolt broke out in November 1926, resistance was concentrated in the
Pandeglang regency. On September 13th, for example, Kartadiningrat received a
report from the Wedana of Pandeglang of unrest in the village of Cadasari. Fasting
was alleged to have taken place, and a local kiyai, Haji Soegiri, was said to have
imposed a levy on villagers for the purchase of arms. Kartadiningrat himself ques-
tioned Haji Soegiri about the reports and, when the kiyai steadfastly denied the
allegations, decided that there was no need to send him to Serang for further ques-
tioning by the Veldpolitie there. As was to become evident later, the regent
gravely underestimated the strength of the PKI. To a warning from the ill-fated
Wedana of Menes about the deteriorating situation in his area, Kartadiningrat was
reported to have replied scornfully, "You are as frightened as a woman."226
Kartadiningrat did not hide from visiting Dutch officials who he felt might be
sympathetic, his views with regard to the Resident and what he saw as the under-
mining of his own authority by the activities of the Veldpolitie. In September when
G. F. Pijper, an official of the Office for Native and Islamic Affairs, visited Banten
to meet local ulama, he was surprised to hear Kartadiningrat be so free and out-
spoken about Putman-Cramer and Lueardie, the Commander of the Veldpolitie in
Banten. Two weeks later Pijper received a letter from the regent in which he com-
plained bitterly of the "latest outrage of the Veldpolitie." 227 In his letter Kartadi-
ningrat recounted the arrest by the Veldpolitie of Ishak, the Communist printer on
De Banten Bode, on the pendopo (front verandah) of the kabupaten in Pandeglang
without the regent even being informed. Clearly, the incident revealed again that
the Resident and the police officers directly responsible were singularly lacking at
times in the respect that a man like Kartadiningrat felt that he deserved . Yet at
the same time the incident illustrates strikingly the rift that had developed between
the regent and the populace that he administered, and his almost blind inability to
see the social and political changes that were occurring among the Indonesian peo-
ple. The regent's remark to Pijper that "the man is well known to me for he is the
son of my former magang. I am sure Ishak would have reported to me voluntarily
had I so requested" demonstrates, as we shall see later, how Kartadiningrat's per-
ception of events in Pandeglang regency was dramatically out of touch with reality.228
The rift that had developed between the Resident and the regent did enable
the underground PKI in Pandeglang to survive more or less intact up to the Novem-
ber revolt. In Serang and Lebak, where the PKI was anyway largely limited to the
town of Rangkasbitung, the rebels suffered crippling blows through the arrests in
August and September. There were arrests in Pandeglang, but not on the scale of
those in the other two Bantenese regencies. To a great extent the social composi-
tion of the underground PKI in Pandeglang assisted the party. As we have seen in
Serang regency, the leadership of the PKI tended to consist of artisans and
225.	Ibid.
226.	Report of Hillen to Governor-General, no G 13/9/12, December 29, 1926,
Mailr 172x/27 Vb July 1, 1927 T10.
227.	Interview with Pijper. Kartadiningrat's letter is included as an appendix to
his letter of February 7, 1939 to the Governor-General, Vb July 4, 1939 - 19.
228.	Ibid.48
clerks and some skilled workers, although there were of course ulama and jawara
as well. In general, the same was true for the PKI in Rangkasbitung. Such people
made very easily identifiable targets for the police to follow and eventually to pick
up. In Pandeglang regency, on the other hand, leadership of the PKI was almost
wholly in the hands of ulama and jawara who were far more able to play the role of
"fish in water" than the leaders in Serang. The police faced enormous difficulties
in unearthing the PKI underground in Pandeglang precisely because of the hold of
the ulama and jawara on local villages.
Following the arrests in Serang regency in August and September and that of
Afif in Labuan, however, the Veldpolitie were increasingly turning their attention
to Pandeglang and making arrests over the heads of the local priyayi, most of whom
were too afraid to defy Kartadiningrat. In late September the police arrested Haji
Barahim of the village of Bangkujung, Cening, and two other important ulama who
had joined the PKI, Kiyai Haji Atje and Kiyai Haji Ilyas of the village of Torogong
near Labuan. 229 Other wanted leaders managed to go underground and evade ar-
rest, such as Haji Doelhadi of the village of Bangko who was one of the key leaders
of the "DO."230
In the meantime Haji Chatib, satisfied that the PKI was at last determined to
lead a revolt under the leadership of the Batavia "Komite Pemberontak," worked
frantically to prepare the PKI/DO in Pandeglang and also to salvage something of
the organization in Serang. This he accomplished, though not without arousing
increased police suspicion of his involvement. Partly to deflect police attention,
on September 15 Haji Chatib and his brother-in-law, Tb. Haji Emed, reported volun-
tarily to the police in Serang. They were both released after questioning, having
disclaimed any continuing connection with the underground PKI. 231 To some extent
Haji Chatib and Tb. Haji Emed enjoyed a greater freedom as a consequence of their
relationship to Kiyai Asnawi, at that time* one of the most influential religious teach-
ers in West Java, whom Kartadiningrat was exceedingly anxious not to alienate from
the government. Indeed, this was a concern shared by even senior Dutch officials.
The Governor of West Java, W. P. Hillen, had once written to Putman-Cramer that
"great care must be taken that nothing should be done to upset the Kiyai [Asnawi]
and his family." 232 By October, however, the Resident felt that there was suffi-
cient evidence to justify arresting Haji Chatib and Tb. Emed. Under questioning
in September, Tb. Emed had admitted that he had collected money earlier in the
year knowing it was destined for the PKI, and at the monthly serba on October 6
Putman-Cramer asked Kartadiningrat whether he would agree to proceed with the
arrest of the two men. The regent resisted, saying that he feared this would pro-
voke widespread social unrest in Banten. 233 Several days later Putman-Cramer
complained of the regent's obstructive attitude in a letter to the West Java Governor
229.	De Banten Bode, October 2, 1926. See also "De Onrust in het Bantamsche,"
Java Bode, October 20, 1926.
230.	Haji Doelhadi was eventually arrested in early November in Batavia, De Ban-
ten Bode, November 6, 1926.
231.	"Verklaring Mas Wiria di Koesoema," De Landsdienaar, 3, 9 (September 1927),
pp. 459-61.
232.	Report of Hillen to Governor-General, G13/1/21, January 24, 1927, Mailr 172x/
Vb July 1, 1927 T10.
233.	Statement of R. A. A. Kartadiningrat, April 3, 1927, Mailr 705x/27, Vb July
4, 1939.49
Hillen. 234 In advocating extreme caution Kartadiningrat had a formidable ally, how-
ever, in the Adviser for Native and Islamic Affairs in Batavia, E. Gobee. At the
end of October Gobee wrote a report on the political situation in Banten for the
Governor-General's office which strongly criticized the actions of the Resident and
of the Veldpolitie. 235 There was a dangerous lack of cooperation between the Dutch
and Indonesian administrations in Banten which was not the responsibility of the
latter. The knowledge of the priyayi regarding the local situation had to be re-
spected, the adviser argued, if public order was to be maintained in the area.
The Resident, however, had already decided that there was now more than
sufficient reason for detaining Haji Chatib, and on October 23 a large contingent
of Veldpolitie were sent to Caringin to arrest him. Tb. Emed, who was not taken
into custody, hurried to Batavia where he saw Gobee. In a clever ploy aimed at
taking advantage of the disagreements within the colonial administration, Tb. Emed
admitted to the adviser that he and Haji Chatib had joined the PKI but that this
was only because they had felt it was the best organization to promote and protect
Islam. 236 Gobee, however, was unable to intervene, and in any case his report
was soon to be rudely overtaken by events. The Batavia Komite Pemberontak was
now making last-minute preparations for revolt, and on November 6 the final green
light was given. 237
234.	Report of Hillen, January 24, 1927, see n. 232 above.
235.	"Politieke Toestand in het Gewest Bantam," H60, October 29, 1926, Mailr
786x/27.
236.	See report of Gobee, "Klachten over het optreden van de politie in het Ban-
tamsche," October 31, 1926, H/61, Mailr 786x/27.
237.	McVey, Rise, p. 341; Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 328. The executive of the PKI
in Bandung did make one last desperate attempt in November to regain its control
over the local sections. At the beginning of the month it sent a circular to all
branches calling for purification of the party and a return to centralized leader-
ship by the executive. This initiative was only supported by the Priangan section.
See McVey, Rise, p. 342; Poeze, Tan Malaka, p. 328.MAP 2. LABUAN-MENES AREAIII. THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLT
The last few days before the revolt were marked by frantic activity on both
sides. Haji Achmad Chatib's arrest on October 23 had been a bitter blow for the
rebels, depriving the PKI of the most important of its leaders still at liberty, while
at the same time giving the police fresh leads for their inquiries into the under-
ground PKI in Pandeglang regency. In pursuit of the latter, an officer of the
Serang Veldpolitie, Mangoendiwiria, and five policemen were dispatched to Labuan
in early November to assist the local police. 238 Several arrests were made and on
the morning of November 12 four suspects were sent back to Serang, accompanied
by the turncoat former PKI leader, Oesadiningrat, and another policeman, Djaimoen.
Only the hapless Djaimoen returned to Labuan that night; Oesadiningrat remained
in Serang, thereby escaping almost certain death. 239
Meanwhile, on the rebel side, Haji Hasan had returned on the evening of Novem-
ber 9 from a meeting with the Batavia PKI leader, Sukrawinata, in the capital. On
the way back to Labuan he broke his journey in Serang and Pandeglang to give
final instructions to rebel leaders there. The day after his return Haji Hasan vis-
ited Tb. Emed in Caringin. Since the arrest of his brother-in-law, Haji Chatib,
Tb. Emed had apparently grown increasingly apprehensive about the approaching
revolt. On November 9 he had been summoned to Serang once again for question-
ing, and he now feared he would soon follow Chatib into prison. Sensing Tb.
Emed's growing unease over the planned insurrection, Haji Hasan dispatched an-
other rebel leader, Haji Saleh, to visit him on the morning of November 11. Haji
Saleh's revolutionary credentials were impeccable: his grandfather had been killed
in the Haji Wachia revolt of 1850, and his father in the Cilegon revolt of 1888. Haji
Saleh outlined the rebel plans to seize first Labuan, Pandeglang, and Serang and
then, in order to counter the PKI's numerical weakness in Rangkasbitung, to ferry
rebels there by train to take the town. All priyayi and Europeans were to be ar-
rested and those that resisted killed. Once Banten was freed from Dutch rule, the
rebels would gather in Caringin, because Kiyai Asnawi was the most influential and
important religious leader in the region, and there await further instructions from
the PKI insurrectionary committee in Batavia.21*0 Despite these last-minute attempts
to try and secure Tb. Emed's participation, however, Kiyai Asnawi's son refused
to take any further active role in the imminent revolt.
238.	Interview with Mohammed Djen, one of the policemen referred to in the text,
Jakarta, August 20, 1975. Report of Resident of Banten, Putman-Cramer, to
Hillen, Governor of West Java, June 27, 1927, no 205G, Mailr 832x/27, Vb Septem-
ber 2, 1927 N14.
239.	Report of Hillen to Governor-General de Graeff, January 24, 1927, G13/1/21,
Mailr 172x/Vb July 1, 1927 T10.
240.	Report of Gob6e to Governor-General, December 23, 1927, no. 1/500, Mailr
1484x/27; see also statement of Tb. Emed to police in same report.
5152
On the morning of November 12 the Labuan market was exceptionally busy as
local people stockpiled provisions. For days increased sales of salt and white cloth
had been reported throughout Banten,and there were also reports of widespread
fasting. That evening several hundred peasants, led by Kiyai Moekri and Kiyai
Ilyas, gathered at the village of Bama. Arms which had been stored for months
were distributed and duties allocated for the attack on Labuan. The meeting con-
cluded with a "Sembahyang Perang" (war prayer) before the rebels set off for
Labuan.21,1
Another large meeting, attended by more than 700 people, had taken place in
the village of Pasirlama, near Caringin. The rebels from there, led by Haji Moesta-
pha, were detailed to attack the residence of the Assistant Wedana of Cening.21*2
The attack on Menes was to be led by Haji Hasan and Entol Enoh with apparently
almost total support from the villages in the area. 21,3
Meanwhile, in Serang and Pandeglang rebel bands were also gathering, though
not with the same degree of cohesion and planning as in Menes and Labuan. In the
former towns PKI strength had been fatally weakened in the months preceding the
revolt, and Menes and Labuan were to be the center of insurrectionary activity in
1926.
The Attack on Labuan21*1*
In Labuan the revolt began just after midnight with an attack by several hun-
dred armed men on the assistant wedana's residence. The assistant wedana, Mas
241.	De Courant, January 6, 1927; "Beknopt Overzicht van den actueelen toestand
in Bantam," December 9, 1926, G 5/41/15, Mailr 1235x/Vb July 1, 1927 RIO.
242.	Interview with Kiyai Abdulhalim; Makmun Salim, "Suatu Tindjauan," pp. 20-21.
243.	Interview with Mohammed Djen.
244.	For the course of the 1926 uprising in Banten, besides interviews, I have
used the following written sources: Report by Resident of Banten, Putman-Cramer,
"Communisten Relletjes in Banten," December 17, 1926, no 412/G, Mailr 45x/27, Vb
June 21, 1927 A10; see alsp the account written by Captain Becking in MvO, J. S.
de Ranter, 1934, pp. 67-108; "Verslag over de Relletjes in Menes en Laboean,"
Report of Regent of Pandeglang, November 14, 1926, appendix 6 to letter of
Governor-General to Minister of Colonies, no 395/2 May 22, 1939, Vb July 4, 1939
no 19; "Vervolg van het verslag over de Relletjes in Menes en Laboean," November
29, 1926, Report of Regent of Pandeglang, appendix 9 to preceding document;
Mailreports 1101x/26 and 1110x/26 in Vb July 1, 1927 S10 also contain reports by
the Governor of West Java, W. P. Hillen, on the 1926 uprising. Of the press cov-
erage of the time I have relied heavily on reports that appeared in De Banten Bode,
Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad and De Courant [Bandung]. Where I have used other
newspapers I have indicated this in the text. An invaluable series of articles ap-
peared in the journal De Landsdienaar throughout 1927 under the heading of "Zaak
Mas Wiria di Koesoema." The relevant articles appeared in volume 3, no. 2 (Febru-
ary 1927), p. 129; no. 6 (June 1927), pp. 319-20, 328-29; no. 7/8 (July/August
1927), pp. 375, 377, 387-90; no. 9 (September 1927), pp. 456-63; no. 10 (October
1927), pp. 505-6; no. 11/12 (November/December 1927), pp. 541-42. Other written
sources that are useful include "Bantam Report"; Blumberger, Communistische Be-
weging, pp. 74-77; Djojopranoto, PKI-SIBAR, pp. 45-49; Pemberontakan Nasional
Pertama.
A number of articles of interest on the uprising also appeared in the interna-
tional Communist press of the time. See inter alia "L'insurrection sur Java et ses53
Wiriadikoesoemah, and his family were taken prisoner by the rebels. A policeman
guarding the residence was killed and two others seriously wounded in a gun battle
with the rebels.
Following their successful attack the rebels split into two groups. The first
supervised the removal of Mas Wiriadikoesoemah to Caringin, while the second
searched the streets of Labuan for policemen. This group went first to the house
of Haji Ramal where three policemen from the Serang Veldpolitie were lodging. The
men, however, had been alerted by the sound of gunfire in the street and escaped
to the beach where they hid until morning. Three other policemen who had just
returned from Serang were less fortunate. Arriving just after midnight they ran
straight into a large rebel band which left two of them, Djaimoen and Haji Entjeh,
dead, and the third, Koesen, severely wounded. The same rebel band attacked
the house of Mas Mohammed Dahlan, a clerk who had provided information on the
underground PKI to the police, leaving him seriously wounded.
In Menes,the night of revolt claimed even more victims. The main rebel targets
were the wedana, Raden Partadinata, the local railway supervisor, Benjamins, and
the police. The attack on the wedana's residence began about one o'clock in the
morning and involved some 300-400 men. The wedana and a solitary policeman on
duty shot several rebels before they were overwhelmed and killed. Another group
of rebels had meanwhile seized the railway station and captured Benjamins, the
only Dutchman living in the town. Although Benjamins tried to save his life by
indicating his willingness to convert to Islam, the mob after some debate decided
to take his life, and his severely mutilated body was later found near the railway
track. 245 Two policemen were also killed that night, and an attack was made on a
retired patih. In the village of Cening, midway between Menes and Labuan, an-
other policeman was killed and the assistant wedana shot and wounded.
The Reaction of the Colonial Authorities
Following the attacks on the authorities in Menes and Labuan the initiative in
the revolt passed from the hands of the rebels. In the subsequent hours and days,
while the rebels remained in control of much of west Banten, their resistance as-
sumed an increasingly reactive character. Although the PKI leadership left at large
in Banten in November 1926 had given considerable thought to coordinating their
attacks on the police and local government, they had made few plans with regard
to what they would do once these actions were completed.
In some cases even the initial rebel attacks were thwarted by timely action on
the part of the authorities. For example in the villages of Cadasari and Baros from
where rebel bands were to launch their assault on Pandeglang, the arrival of a
causes profondes," Le Drapeau Rouge [Bruxelles], December 18, 19, 20, 1926;
Semoan (Semaun), "International Imperialism and the Communist Party of Indone-
sia," Communist International, no. 17, 1926; Gerard Vanter [van Munster], "The
Insurrection in Java," International Press Correspondence (Inprecorr), vol. 6, no.
80 (November 25, 1926); G. J. van Munster, "The Background and History of the
Insurrection in Java," Inprecorr, vol. 6, no. 87 (December 16, 1926); Gerard Van-
ter, "The Revolts in Indonesia," Inprecorr, vol. 7, no. 5 (January 13, 1927); P.
Bergsma, "The Persecution of Revolutionaries in Indonesia," Inprecorr, vol. 7, no.
55 (September 29, 1927); Samim, "The Situation in Indonesia,"Inprecorr, vol. 8,
no. 68 (October 4, 1928); Kiyai Samim, "Dutch Imperialist Terror in Indonesia,"
Inprecorr, vol. 8, no. 57 (August 31, 1928).
245. Interview with M. Padmadisastra, Rangkasbitung, December 23, 1975.54
large police force at ten in the evening of November 12, prompted local rebel lead-
ers to postpone their action. Even more damaging to the rebels' chance of success
was their failure to sever immediately all telephone lines from Labuan and Menes.
This resulted in the Regent of Pandeglang being informed of the uprising soon
after one in the morning. Ironically, soon after the critical call to Pandeglang had
been made, the telephone lines were cut. The authorities in Batavia, however,
had already been alerted, and before 4 a.m. a preliminary force of 100 soldiers un-
der Captain Becking had already left for Banten.
In the meantime, Kartadiningrat, the Regent of Pandeglang, together with the
local Veldpolitie commander, Martens, and nine policemen, had already left for
Menes and Labuan. On the way, the party came under fire from a group of rebels,
but they were soon repelled, and the regent's party was able to proceed to Menes.
Arriving in the town they found the wedana's residence gutted and Raden Partadi-
nata and three policemen dead. The regent's party now split into two, with Karta-
diningrat and Martens and four policemen proceeding to Labuan. There, they made
contact with the wedana, who had managed to escape from his residence prior to
the rebel attack, and the three police officers, who had spent the night hiding on
the beach. Despite some cursory skirmishes with rebel bands throughout the morn-
ing no major engagement took place; indeed, Kartadiningrat's small group was even
able to carry out some arrests. Around midday the Assistant-Resident of Serang,
Westenberg, arrived in Labuan, together with twenty soldiers. The rebels, led by
Kiyai Moekri, who had been grouping throughout the morning for an attack on the
regent's party now found themselves faced with a more substantial force. Their
attack was beaten off and many of them were killed.
Late on the afternoon of November 13 further military reinforcements led by
Captain Becking arrived in Labuan. One of the captain's first acts was to dispatch
a patrol to Caringin to locate the captured Assistant-Wedana of Labuan, Mas Wiria-
dikoesoemah, and to arrest Tb. Emed. The patrol, led by Lieutenant van der Vinne,
found the assistant-wedana guarded by only one man who offered no resistance.
As the patrol approached the house of Tb. Emed, however, they came under heavy
gunfire from a nearby warung. In the ensuing battle seven of the rebels inside the
hut were shot dead by the soldiers. One rebel appeared to surrender,but, as he
approached the patrol, he suddenly attacked them with a long parang, and was shot
dead by van der Vinne. The man was later found to be the rebel leader, Haji Saleh.
Soon after the engagement the troops left Caringin, returning to Labuan without
Tb. Emed, whom they had been unable to find.21*6
The Engagement on November 15
The center of rebel activities from the morning of November 14 was the mosque
of the village of Bama, on the outskirts of Labuan. Hundreds of rebels from neigh-
boring villages congregated there from midday on November 14, in expectation of
the attack on the Dutch military encampment in Labuan. In speeches to rally their
peasant supporters, Kiyai Moekri and other leaders argued that an attack had to
be launched on the Dutch in Labuan to avenge the deaths of those who had already
fallen in battle.
Throughout that day the rebels made desperate efforts to rally their remaining
forces. Kiyai Moekri, who had emerged as the principal rebel leader after the ar-
rest of Haji Chatib, visited Caringin in the morning in an attempt to meet with Tb.
246. Police interrogation report of Haji Fadil, son of Kiyai Asnawi, November 20,
1926, Mailr 868x. See also "De Relletjes te Laboean," De Landsdienaar, 3, 6 (June
1927), pp. 319-20.55
Emed. However, this final effort to secure Tb. Emed's adherence to the rebel cause
was doomed to failure. Kiyai Asnawi had ordered all his family to remain within his
own home and had strictly forbidden Tb. Emed to have any further dealings with
the rebels. 247
The rebel leaders also tried to enlist support for the revolt in villages where it
had thus far been lukewarm. Haji Sirad, for example, delivered a letter to a promi-
nent local ulama in the village of Palembang, indicating that Kiyai Asnawi was leading
the revolt.21*8 Haji Soebari, to whom the letter was delivered, refused to go along,
retorting that the villagers had no weapons and the Dutch could not simply be blown
away. Elsewhere rebel envoys met with more success. Villagers in Pagelaran joined
the revolt and killed two local policemen. In the village of Kadugadung a local ulama,
Haji Lambri, told his peasant followers that their duty was to support the uprising,
for this was not the time to think who was a Communist and who was not, but the
rebels should be assisted because they were "our people and Moslems."249
Despite the arrival of Dutch reinforcements, the rebels still hoped to overrun
Becking's detachments in Labuan, and then to march on to take Pandeglang. During
the day of November 14 plans were made for an attack on the Dutch military position
in Labuan. In the afternoon the rebels successfully delayed a motorized brigade
traveling from Pandeglang as it attempted to enter Labuan. There was a fierce gun
battle, but, fortunately for the Dutch, a patrol arrived from Labuan. Attacking
the rebels from the rear, it succeeded in dislodging them.
That night the rebels prepared for their second attack on Labuan. They de-
stroyed the bridge over the river Bama and built barricades on either side of the
river. Telephone lines out of Labuan were once again cut, and the roads out of
the town, east via Menes and north over the Caringin river, were blocked by noon
the following day. The rebels also tried to block the railway line.
On the afternoon of the 15th, however, the rebels were caught off guard when
their main group of 500 men, making their way to link up with other bands, encoun-
tered a patrol led by Becking himself. The rebels were dressed entirely in white
with the exception of a black-clothed flag-carrier, a man called Djapar from the vil-
lage of Bama. Over seventy years of age, Djapar bore a flag with a quotation from
the Koran, "With God's help everything can be achieved." 250 The rebels had only a
few firearms and were no match for the Dutch soldiers with their fast-firing car-
bines. Despite heavy losses the rebels made a futile attempt to surround the mili-
tary patrol and attack it from two sides, a maneuver which failed due to the Dutch
soldiers' tactics of picking off rebel leaders and those with firearms. The rebels
247.	Police interrogation report of Haji Fadil.
248.	Police interrogation reports of Saingga, November 19, 1926; Kandani, Novem-
ber 22, 1926; Haji Isa, November 19, 1926; and Sapiri, November 22, 1926 (all from
the village of Palembang) in Mailr 868x/27.
249.	Police interrogation reports of Mirdja, April 14, 1927, and Soedira, December
5, 1926, from the village of Kadugadung, in Mailr 868x/27.
250.	See Becking's account, in Kanter, MvO, pp. 91-94. A Communist commenta-
tor, noting the fact that the rebels were dressed in white, ascribed this to their
dedication until death to the cause of the international proletariat; see Vanter,
"Insurrection on Java."
On November 15 there were strong rumors of an impending attack on the town
of Cilegon. One brigade was sent there, together with a heavy machine-gun unit.
See report of Hillen to Governor-General, November 16, 1926, no. Gl, Mailr lllOx,
Vb July 1, 1927 S10.56
were forced to retreat after some twenty-five minutes. 251 They were now complete-
ly exhausted and dispirited, having failed in their attack and with many of their
leaders dead.
Late the following day, November 16, the Dutch lifted the siege of Labuan when
the Governor of West Java, W. P. Hillen, arrived with two more brigades of troops.
Further reinforcements came the next day, including an engineering section to re-
pair the bridges. At the same time a gunboat from Batavia with a detachment of
marines anchored in Labuan harbor. It spent the subsequent days patrolling the
Sunda Straits to prevent the rebels fleeing to Sumatra, an effort which was not en-
tirely successful.
The Revolt in Serang Regency
Although the uprising of November 1926 was largely confined to the Pandeglang
regency, the rebels had also planned to attack the town of Serang. Despite the
arrests of the Serang PKI leadership in August-September, there was still wide-
spread unrest around the residency capital in November. On the night of Novem-
ber 12 several hundred peasants gathered on the outskirts of the town. The
rebels were led by Haji Solichin, Mohammed Tahir, and two well-known jawara,
Abdullah and Ayub Achmad. They planned to seize the Resident's office, the po-
lice barracks, and the railway station. Although poorly armed, many of the rebels
wore "jimat" and had carried out invulnerability rites. They were to await a signal
that was to be carried by a messenger on a train from Rangkasbitung. The messen-
ger, however, never arrived,and, after waiting until early morning, the rebels dis-
persed. Some fifty of them under the leadership of Mohammed Tahir, left for La-
buan, but they got only as far as Cimauk before having to hide in the woods to
avoid the troops who had arrived from Batavia.252
The most serious incident in Serang regency occurred at Petir on the night of
November 13. 253 The PKI was strong in the area, and had been relatively unaffect-
ed by the earlier arrests, unlike the situation in most other regions of Serang re-
gency. As in Pandeglang regency, the local PKI leaders were nearly all religious
leaders. Most important among them were Kiyai Emed, Haji Soeeb, Haji Artasik,
and Haji Satra. The Petir leaders postponed their action for two days because of
the failure of the attack on Serang but they now decided to proceed with their at-
tack on the residence of the Assistant-Wedana of Petir before marching on to Serang.
Unknown to them, however, acting on a tip a Dutch military patrol had already ta-
ken up positions in Petir and it fought off the attack after a gun battle in which
four of the rebels were killed. The rebels' failure at Petir led them to cancel their
plans for a general attack on Serang itself and signalled the end of the revolt in
the regency.
251.	See Becking's account in Kanter, MvO, p. 94.
252.	Interview with Haji Mohammed Tahir (one of the PKI leaders in Serang in
1926), Serang, December 9, 1975.
253.	Police interrogation report of Moekri of the village of Petir, undated, Mailr
868x/Vb April 13, 1928 06. Petir was a former stronghold of the Sarekat Islam in
Banten; see Neratja, August 1, 1918, and Djajadiningrat, "Politieke Stroomingen."57
The Last Days of Resistance
After the street fighting in Labuan on November 15, there was no further seri-
ous engagement between the rebels and the Dutch forces, and by November 17 it
was clear that the rebel attempt to besiege and overrun the Dutch forces in Labuan
had failed. By that date, too, no serious resistance was being offered by the PKI
elsewhere in Java. Nevertheless, for several days in Banten some of the rebel
groups remained at large, evading arrest and spreading alarming reports in an
attempt to maintain some sort of momentum. On the night of November 17 Pande-
glang was put on full-scale alert because of widespread rumors of an imminent
attack. But the Dutch had now received fresh reinforcements while the rebels had
suffered heavy defeats and lost many of their important leaders.
Four brigades of troops left Labuan on November 18 to search the territory
south of the town for remaining rebel bands. A fresh brigade of Menadonese troops,
which had arrived that day, came under fire near the Bama river bridge. They re-
turned the fire and pursued the rebel group into a nearby village. Most of the
rebels escaped, but some took refuge in a mosque which the Menadonese troops
stormed. Mopping-up operations continued in the area for the next two weeks,
but, at the end of the month two armed rebel bands were still apparently in exis-
tence, one west of the Pandeglang-Menes road and the second to the east of the
road. On the night of December 4 the first of these bands was responsible for set-
ting fire to, and destroying, the house of the headman in the village of Cidolas
near Caringin and for beating up a policeman in Cening. Some nights earlier the
residences of the assistant-wedana and of the headman of Pagelaran were burned
down while their occupants were on patrol outside the village. No further incidents
of violence occurred after this. (A mood of sullenness descended on Banten as the
population waited apprehensively for Dutch retribution.)
The Revolt outside Banten
The revolt of 1926 was more protracted and assumed a more popular character
in Banten than any other region of Indonesia, with the exception of West Sumatra.
In other areas of West and Central Java isolated incidents of violence occurred on
the night of November 12 and for a few days thereafter, but nowhere did resistance
assume the proportions it did in Banten. Even in the Tegal area of Central Java,
where local militants had been virulent in their advocacy of armed revolt, arrests
by the authorities and the absence of any real plan by the rebels meant that the
Communist Party's organization was easily broken and resistance was minimal. 25lt
In the East Priangan residency of West Java, the PKI mounted a number of attacks
on local priyayi and policemen, but on a minor scale compared to the actions in
Banten.255
Apart from Banten and West Sumatra, the revolt was most serious in the capi-
tal, Batavia. Indeed, it was only in these three areas that the rebels appears to
have acted on the basis of a concerted plan. 256 It is also apparent that many
254.	On Tegal, see "Communistische onlusten te Tegal," Mailr 122x/27, Vb June
21, 1927 A10; Djojoprajitno, PKI-SIBAR, pp. 49-56.
255.	On the disturbances in the Priangan, see "Beknopt overzicht van de Commu-
nistische Ongeregeldheden," Vb December 13, 1926 D19; "Communistische Ongere-
geldheden," Vb November 13, 1926 X17.
256.	For Batavia, see Djajadiningrat, Herrineringen, pp. 332-41; interview with
Achmad Bassaif, who led the attack on Glodok prison.58
Bantenese played an active role in the revolt in Batavia. Rebel leadership was in
the hands of Sukrawinata, Dahlan, Ibu Sukaesih, and Achmad Bassaif. Bassaif had
succeeded in recruiting many jawara and jago elements into the PKI from the dis-
tricts of Jembatan Lima, Tanah Abang, and Kampung Karet, traditional haunts of
Bantenese in the capital. The rebels' main targets were in the Kota area of the
city, and consisted of Glodok prison and the city telephone exchange, both of which
were subjected to a sustained assault. Several policemen were also killed by the
rebels in clashes near Tanah Abang railway station and in Mangga Dua. The rebels
also captured the telephone exchange for several hours, later escaping by means of
the city sewers. 257 However, even in Batavia, resistance was crushed by late on
November 14 and a period of arrests and repression ensued.
257. See the account of the trials of the leaders of this attack in Bataviaasch
Nieuwsblad, January 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, and 28, 1927.IV. SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF THE REVOLT IN BANTEN
Certain significant features of the 1926 uprising should be commented upon,
although the reasons for the PKI's failure lie largely outside the scope of this study.
The revolt in Banten was part of a comprehensive design by the PKI for a concert-
ed attack on the colonial government throughout the Dutch East Indies. Earlier we
traced the process by which the Communist Party found itself abandoning all hope
of legal political activity in favor of an armed uprising.
It is important to note that the PKI succeeded in Banten in establishing an ex-
tensive underground organization that encompassed the regencies of Serang and
Pandeglang and the Rangkasbitung area of Lebak regency. This was no mean feat.
The degree of revolutionary organization in Banten was more widespread geographi-
cally and more encompassing socially than in any other area that participated in the
1926 revolt, with the possible exception of West Sumatra. Compared with the Cile-
gon revolt of 1888, the degree and extent of organization in 1926 was far greater.
In the Cilegon uprising, by far the most serious revolt in Banten during the nine-
teenth century, the rebel organization was confined to the western half of Serang
regency, and the rest of the region was completely unaffected. 258 By contrast, the
revolutionary organization in 1926 enveloped almost the whole of the residency of
Banten with the exception of the regency of Lebak. Lebak was the most sparsely
populated regency in Java and, outside the environs of the town of Rangkasbitung,
where the PKI was well entrenched, the peasantry were engaged almost wholly in
slash and burn (huma) rice production. The rubber plantations in the regency
were worked by a labor force that was almost entirely drawn from Central Java.
Even in Lebak, however, the insurrectionaries intended to make good their lack of
strength by transporting rebels by train from Labuan to Rangkasbitung after La-
buan had been captured.
The area of the actual revolt was, as we have seen, largely limited to the re-
gency of Pandeglang, in particular to the Menes-Labuan area, and to the Petir dis-
trict of Serang regency. But it is clear that a serious insurrection would have
occurred in Serang regency had it not been for the crippling wave of arrests that
took place in August and September. If we examine the list of Bantenese exiled to
Boven Digul (see Appendix I) we can see that most of those recommended for in-
ternment without trial were arrested before the revolt, and the majority came from
Serang regency. The Dutch authorities themselves were very clear about this.
The Governor of West Java, W. P. Hillen, wrote to the Governor-General, A. C. D.
de Graeff, in April 1927:
If one thinks [of the situation] in North Banten, the inclination and propen-
sity to revolt was much greater than in Pandeglang, and if it were not for
the timely and strong reaction of the administration the results would have
been much worse than now in Pandeglang. 259
258.	See Sartono, Peasants' Revolt, p. 233.
259.	Hillen to Governor-General, April 8, 1927, G13/4/8, Mailr 705x, Vb July 4,
1939.
5960
It is evident, then, that social and political unrest in 1926 was far more widespread
than the acts of rebellion in which it eventually manifested itself. As the Committee
of Inquiry into the revolt noted, the important fact about the unrest of 1926 was
not so much that there was a revolt in Labuan, Menes, and Petir, but that in a far
greater number of places a large number of people were prepared to revolt. 260 In-
deed, it is striking that there were fewer members of the PKI in the rebellious areas
of Labuan, Menes, and Petir than in the region of Serang-Taktakan-Gunungsari
which did not join the uprising. Anyer and Cilegon were also important centers of
PKI activity which did not participate in the final uprising.
The loss at a late stage of the single most important rebel leader, Haji Achmad
Chatib, also probably limited the extent of rebel violence. Chatib's arrest, together
with the last-minute faint-heartedness of Tb. Emed, seriously weakened the PKI
leadership in Banten. Chatib's participation alone, despite the earlier arrests in
Serang, might have still galvanized the rebel ranks in that regency into joining with
the Pandeglang rebels. As a commentator noted after the revolt:
No one can have any doubt that the rebellion would have had a much more
serious character had it not been for the arrests that took place before
November 12. This is particularly so when one looks at Achmad Chatib.
If, as the rebels planned, he had led the revolt it would have been much
more extensive and would probably have spread throughout Banten.261
With Chatib's participation, the rebels might well have succeeded in their plans for
the seizure of Labuan and Menes followed by a joint march on Pandeglang, where
they would have been assisted in their attack on the town by bands, led by Kiyai
Madun of Petir, advancing from the north and northeast, and by others, led by
Kiyai Achmad of Pancur (Serang).
It is virtually impossible to ascertain the total number of adherents to the rebel
cause. The police estimated that there were approximately four thousand PKI mem-
bers in Banten, but this figure was far smaller than the number of people who had
bought membership cards and who considered themselves to be part of the revolu-
tionary organization. 262 As early as February 1926, as noted earlier, Dutch intel-
ligence reports estimated PKI support in Banten at more than twelve thousand.
Indeed, Captain Becking, the military commander during the revolt, estimated that
as many as fifteen thousand rebels were active in the Menes-Labuan region alone.
It is true that the number of rebels involved in the attacks on the residences of
civil servants was in fact never more than several hundred, a feature that also
characterized the uprising of 1888, but this had as much to do with poor mobiliza-
tion of the rebel supporters as anything else. From other sources it is clear that
the total number of peasants who considered themselves to be members of the PKI
exceeded fifty thousand throughout Banten.263
An examination of the social composition of the rebel forces reveals a number of
interesting points. First, the group of artisans and clerks who had so much to do
with bringing the PKI to Banten, and who provided the first cadres for the party
in the region, did not participate in the November insurrection. This group, small
in number, and probably the only group with any serious understanding of the aims
and ideology of the PKI, had almost all been arrested in August and September 1926.
260.	"Bantam Report," p. 40.
261.	De Courant, January 5, 1927.
262.	"Bantam Report," p. 40.
263.	Interviews with former members of the PKI as well as with local priyayi.61
The few individuals who escaped arrest, such as Achmad Bassaif, had left Banten
for Batavia. Although this group of secular Communists had been instrumental in
establishing the PKI, and also the illegal "DO" organization, in Banten the leader-
ship of both passed to the traditional practitioners of rebellion in the region, namely
the ulama or religious leaders. In that sense the leaders of the final revolt in No-
vember 1926 were not markedly different from the leaders of earlier rebellions in
Banten in the nineteenth century. What was different was that the religious lead-
ers were coopted into a revolutionary organization that was not of their making or
design and which for the first time not only encompassed the whole of Banten but
also had wide-reaching connections throughout Java and Sumatra.
It is clear that, in addition to the ulama, the jawara played an important role
in the revolt. Indeed, the large number of policemen who died in the November up-
rising may well have been due, in part, to a settling of old scores by some of the
jawara. Their participation in the revolt, given their scant regard for the authori-
ties and the laws of the land, is perhaps not surprising. What is noteworthy, how-
ever, is that the PKI had been able to coopt them into the revolutionary organiza-
tion, when in other contexts and in other countries such elements have proven far
too individualistic to be drawn into political or social movements. There was in Ban-
ten, as we have pointed out before, a long tradition of brigandage and social ban-
ditry, which, although it contributed to the unruliness of the region, did not lend
itself easily to participation in acts of rebellion. Although, for example, the 1880s
was a decade in which banditry appears to have been quite widespread in Banten,
there is almost no evidence that these bandits were drawn to the 1888 Cilegon up-
rising. The majority of participants in the 1926 revolt were, of course, ordinary
peasants. Visitors to Banten after the revolt were struck by the fact that whole
villages in the Menes and Labuan areas had simply been deserted by their peasant
dwellers.
The most obvious targets of the rebels were the priyayi. In particular, it was
police officials who were killed unsparingly by the rebels. Against civil servants
as a whole the rebels were more selective. The Wedana of Menes, Raden Partadi-
nata, who was not Bantenese and who had a reputation for being repressive, was
killed by the rebels as the Assistant-Wedana of Menes would almost surely have
been if he had been apprehended. In Labuan, however, the assistant-wedana
merely kidnapped and held captive. A number of factors were probably involved
in the sparing of Mas Wiriadikoesoemah's life. He was a local man and seemingly wide-
ly respected. Moreover, as we noted earlier, in September he had warned one of
the local PKI leaders, Afif, of his impending arrest. Popular resentment against
the civil service also found expression in the course of the revolt in the destruc-
tion of government archives and the houses of officials.
The only Dutchman to be killed in the course of the revolt was Benjamins, the
railway supervisor in Menes. Benjamins was one of the few Europeans living in the
Menes-Labuan area and was unpopular locally for an allegedly hostile attitude to-
wards the PKI and also towards the Sarekat Islam earlier. Additionally he upset
local values by living openly with a Bantenese woman to whom he was not married.
Against local Chinese there was no visible hostility in the course of the insurrec-
tion, as had also been true in the Cilegon uprising of 1888. Although there had
been some attacks on Chinese in August and September, this was not repeated in
the actual rebellion of November 1926. In this respect social unrest in the Banten
region was markedly different from that in neighboring Tangerang. 261t On the morn-
ing of November 13, when the rebels were gathering their forces for an assault on
264. See Rapport over de Tangerangsche Ratoe Adit Beweging, 1924, passim (in
my possession).62
the Dutch military position in Labuan, the Chinese population left the town en masse,
indicating that they may well have been forewarned by the rebels. There is also
considerable evidence that Chinese traders in Banten, and particularly in Menes
and in Labuan, had sold arms and ammunition to the rebels, in some cases knowing
the purpose to which it would be put. There were also at least two local Chinese
who were prominent members of the PKI. One of them, T ju Tong Hin, had belonged
to the PKI in Rangkasbitung and was later exiled to Boven Digul.
The absence of any attacks on the Chinese who monopolized much of local trade,
especially in the coconut-growing area of Labuan, would seem to indicate the ab-
sence of class conflict as a specific theme of the revolt. Many of the rebels them-
selves reportedly belonged to the ranks of rich peasants and others were traders.
This did not prevent them from participating in the rebellion or from considering
their objectives to be the same as those of the other participants in the revolt. But
it should be noted that in August and September there had been pressure, and in
some cases attacks, on Chinese and wealthy haji and, in Petir at least, one murder
of a well-to-do trader by the underground PKI.
Before examining the outcome of the revolt we should note the achievements of
the rebels, temporary and short-lived though they were. In the first place, at
least briefly, the insurreetionaries effectively held the Menes-Labuan area. In La-
buan they successfully isolated the troops sent to suppress the revolt for a few
days and almost succeeded in overrunning their positions. The rebel forces, how-
ever, were almost entirely composed of ordinary peasants who were not prepared to
see a long campaign through. Moreover, the peasants' leaders had no far-reaching
plans of what to do next. The most they hoped for were instructions from the ex-
ecutive revolutionary leadership in Batavia. Only as long as no effective armed
force stood against them could they maintain their position. In actual armed clashes
the rebels inevitably conceded defeat, often after a desultory exchange. To some
extent they were undoubtedly blinded by their conviction that they were invulner-
able in waging the jihad against the infidel Dutch, being fortified in this conviction
by the belief that they were part of a nationwide insurrection against colonial rule.
For the first time Banten had risen in revolt, not in isolation but as part of a na-
tional movement against colonial oppression.V. SEQUEL TO THE REVOLT
Tension remained high throughout the region in the weeks after the revolt be-
cause of the wave of arrests, and it was fueled further by rumors of a new revolt.
New insurrections were supposed to break out on the night of December 6. Other
rumors suggested that the wedana and assistant-wedana would not have sufficient
money to pay the soldiers, who would therefore withdraw to Batavia, leaving the
priyayi once again exposed to new murderous assaults. 265 Despite the arrests and
the rumors, by the end of the first week of December most of the villages in the
Menes-Labuan area were repopulated, though still with a significant absence of men,
many having apparently fled to Batavia or across the Sunda Straits to the Lampungs,
either because of their participation in the revolt or from fear of arrest.
Up to November 13 the authorities in Banten had made sixty-seven arrests in
connection with the underground PKI, fifty-six in Serang regency, five in Lebak,
and five in Pandeglang. Between November 13 and December 8, there were a fur-
ther 916 arrests, 134 in Serang regency, one in Lebak, and 781 in Pandeglang.
These figures, however, do not include many hundreds more detained for interro-
gation and released after several days or, in some cases, weeks. 266 As the total
arrests throughout Indonesia in connection with the 1926 revolt was 13,000, the
Banten figure of approximately 1,300 accounted for 10 percent of these. Even given
that Banten was one of the main centers of the revolt, this was a very high percent-
age when it is remembered that the population of the district at the time was 900,000
out of a total Indonesian population of some 60 million. Indeed, as the total number
of arrests in all of West Java was just 3,000, Banten's proportion was extremely
high. By contrast, the number of arrests in West Sumatra, a much wider area, was
2,000.
Nevertheless, many of the rebels were in fact lucky. Many who had simply
been ordinary party members or who had participated in the revolt managed to
escape arrest, provided they were not betrayed by spies or by comrades under in-
terrogation. 267 Of the important figures in the insurrectionary movement, there
are three whose escape we should note. One was Kiyai Moekri who, after the arrest
of Haji Chatib, assumed leadership of the revolutionary movement in the Labuan
area. Kiyai Moekri fled first to Ciruas, east of Serang, where he was sheltered by
another ulama who had taken no direct part in the revolt, Kiyai Rafiuddin. From
there he made his way to Surabaya in East Java and eventually, disguised as a
265.	See the report of the Governor of West Java, W. P. Hillen, "Beknopt verslag
van den actueelen toestand in Bantam," December 9, 1926, G. 5/41/15, Mailr 1235x/
26, Vb July 1, 1927 R10; Bataviaasch Nfeuwsblad, December 4, 1926. These rumors
persisted into 1927. In May of that year, police received reports of a new under-
ground PKI emerging in Banten. See "Maandlijksche Politieke Overzicht April-May
1927," Mailr 677x and 930x, Vb August 24, 1928 H14.
266.	Hillen, "Beknopt verslag."
267.	Interview with Haji Solichin, Serang, March 14, 1976.
6364
pilgrim, fled to Mecca where he adopted the name Sech Kabir. He returned to Ban-
ten only in the 1960s at the invitation of President Sukarno, 268
Another group of Bantenese rebels, about ten in number, fled via Palembang
to Malaya, where they lived for many years. 269 The most prominent among them
were Tje Mamat, chairman of the Anyer PKI subsection, and Tb. Alipan. In Malaya
Tje Mamat and Alipan were to fall under the influence of the newly established PARI,
a breakaway Communist political group founded by Tan Malaka, Subakat, and Djama-
luddin Tamin.
Apart from Kiyai Moekri and the small group who escaped to Malaya, most of
the other rebel leaders faced retribution from the colonial authorities. Many were
brought before the courts to receive long prison sentences and in four cases the
death penalty. 270 Some 700 men were sentenced to imprisonment, ranging from two
years to life.271 Another group, ninety-nine in number, against whom there was
not sufficient evidence to prefer charges in open court, were interned indefinitely
in the notorious camp at Boven Digul in New Guinea (see Appendix I). Some would
never leave there alive and others had to wait for nearly twenty years, until 1945,
before they were able to return to their homes and families in Banten. Among those
interned in Boven Digul were all the important PKI leaders in Banten, including
Haji Achmad Chatib, Puradisastra, Achmad Bassaif, Tb. Hilman, and Agus Solei-
272
man.
What is perhaps most striking in examining the list of ninety-nine Bantenese
who were exiled to Boven Digul (see Appendix I) is the close identity between com-
munism in Banten and religiont Eleven out of the ninety-nine interned were reli-
gious teachers, while twenty-seven out of the ninety-nine, nearly one-third, were
haji. This was a very high proportion, particularly when we bear in mind that out
of the first thousand persons exiled to Boven Digul from all over Indonesia only
268.	Interview with Kiyai Turmudi, son of Kiyai Rafiuddin, Serang, May 11, 1976.
Kiyai Moekri was reported to be in Jeddah in October 1927, together with another
Bantenese rebel Haji Tajib, by the Dutch consul, van der Meulen. The Netherlands
Indies authorities contemplated seeking their extradition but Gobee advised against
this. See his report, No I/457a, November 21, 1927, Mailr 1377x/27. Kiyai Moekri
returned to Banten in 1964 and died in Menes in February 1967.
269.	Interviews with Tje Mamat and Tb. Alipan. See also Tamin, Sedjarah PKI,
pp. 43, 52.
270.	The four men executed were Haji Asikin, Doelsalam, Jamin, and Jas'a. Haji
Asikin was found guilty of the murder of two orderlies of the Assistant-Wedana of
Menes; Doelsalam and Jamin received the death penalty for their part in the killing
of Benjamins, and Jas'a was found guilty of the murder of the Wedana of Menes.
The executions were carried out in Pandeglang prison on September 16, 1927. See
De Banten Bode, September 17, 1927.
271.	See report of Gobee to the Director of Justice, February 8, 1928, No 5/49 G,
Mailr 868x/1928; Blumberger, Communistische Bewegfng, p. 111. In May 1927 some
300 detainees in Banten were released for lack of evidence against them; see De
Banten Bode, May 21, 1927.
272.	Puradisastra first served a prison sentence of five years and ten months and
Bassaif an eight-year sentence before being exiled to Boven Digul. For Puradisas-
tra's trial see De Courant, January 14, and De Banten Bode, January 15, May 21,
1927. For Bassaif's trial for leading the attack on Glodok prison in Batavia, see
Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad, January 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, and 28, 1927.65
fifty-nine were haji. 273 Even more relevant is that, of the twenty-seven exiled
haji, seventeen had spent at least a year in the Holy Land and some two or three
years. This group included Haji Achmad Chatib, who had spent three years in
Mecca, Haji Abdulhamid (Adung), Haji Asgari, Haji Artadjaja, Haji Emed, Haji
Soeeb, Haji Abdulhadi, Haji Akjar, Haji Mohammed Arif, Haji Mu'min, Haji Aliasgar,
Haji Mardjuk, Haji Santani, Haji Achmad, and Haji Enggus. Haji Mohammed Arif
had spent a total of five years in Mecca. Achmad Chatib's younger brother Haji
Abdulhamid (Adung), in addition to two years in Mecca, had spent a further year
at the Al-Azhar school in Cairo. While this was already not so unusual in many
parts of Sumatra, Haji Abdulhamid was one of the very first Bantenese to go to
the famous Islamic educational center in Egypt.
Nearly all the ninety-nine internees were local people, only eight coming from
outside the region of Banten. Of them, three were important PKI leaders, Puradi-
sastra (No. 14), Hasanuddin (No. 51), and Atmodihardjo (No. 87) who was from
Yogyakarta in Central Java. The other five outsiders were Mohammed Ali (No. 21),
who had been born in Banjarmasin (Kalimantan); Tju Tong Hin (No. 37), the only
Chinese to be interned from Banten who, despite his ethnic background, had been
an important PKI leader in Rangkasbitung; Tjondrosaputro (No. 70), a trader from
Central Java who had been chairman of the PKI subsection in Rangkasbitung; Sali-
hun (No. 73), a shoemaker from Batavia, who had been an important PKI propa-
gandist in Banten; and Mohammed Saleh (No. 86), a policeman from Purworejo in
Central Java, whose arrest in August had sparked off a purge of the Serang PKI
leaders. Seventy-nine of those arrested were resident at the time in Serang re-
gency (thirteen in Pandeglang regency, and five in Lebak regency), and another
two had already fled from Serang to Batavia. The disproportionately high percent-
age of internees from Serang regency reflects two things: first, because the revolt
was centered in Pandeglang regency, many of the PKI leaders there were tried in
open court rather than being sent for indefinite detention to Boven Digul; second,
it also reflects the sweeping wave of arrests carried out by the police in August
and September 1926.
What is very clear, however, is the breadth of the PKI organization in the Ban-
ten region. Nearly every district in the residency is represented in the list of
exiles. The only districts conspicuously absent are the sparsely populated south-
ern regions of Lebak and Pandeglang. It is evident from the list, then, that the
PKI underground was well established throughout Banten and was not limited to
those districts where an actual armed revolt occurred on the night of November 12,
1926. Indeed, it is of interest to note that more than half of the ninety-nine men
interned in Boven Digul had been arrested by the authorities before November 12.271*
With what sort of picture of the social composition of the Communist movement
in Banten does the list of internees present us? The close ties between the PKI in
Banten and local religious leaders have already been noted. It is not surprising,
then, that nine of those interned were prominent local ulama. Also present on the
list are a significant number of artisans, some of whom had joined the PKI outside
Banten. This group is represented by five clerks, two printers, three tailors, a
shoemaker, a bricklayer, a barber, and an auctioneer. The most numerous occupa-
tional groupings, however, are peasants (fifty-four) and traders (thirteen).
These occupational categories, however, are often rather deceptive. This is
often the case with the traders. If we look more closely at the police interview
273.	W. M. F. Mansvelt, "Onderwijs en Communisme," Koloniale Studien, 12, 2
(April 1928), p. 218.
274.	For the dates of the arrests see Appendix I.66
records we come across lives that were precarious, involving shifts from one area
to another and from one job to another. Frequently an individual moved from one
occupation to another or even tried to carry out two or more at the same time. Haji
Enggus (No. 9), for example, was a small-time trader in copra, yet at the same
time he also ran a retail shop and gave religious education to youngsters in his vil-
lage. Surabaita (no. 64), although only a young man of twenty, had already worked
as a clerk in Ceribon, and had then moved to Buitenzorg (Bogor) where he found
work as an apprentice mechanic; he had finally opened a small tobacco-store in
Pandeglang. Dulah (No. 60), aged 35, had spent the larger part of his working
life as a peasant, but he had apparently been forced to sell his lands and had then
worked successively as a sharecropper, a hawker, and a bricklayer. As with many
of the others, however, Dulah often moved back and forth between these occupa-
tions. This occupational precariousness seems to have been as marked among the
educated PKI leaders as among their peasant following. Arman (No. 15) had at-
tended a local school in Serang and then taught as a village schoolteacher in Pon-
tang, worked as a clerk in Telukbetung, and then as a tobacconist in Serang.
Thirteen of the internees listed their profession as trader. This term, "hande-
laar" in the Dutch police record, tells us little, however, of the person's wealth,
the success of his enterprise, and the degree to which he was engaged in commer-
cial activity. For some of the group we have somewhat more detailed information.
Ibing (No. 24), for example, who was a PKI propagandist in Menes, had earned
his living first as a sailor, then as a fisherman, and finally as a tailor. His final
occupation made him a "tradesman" in the Dutch records yet, as with many of the
others, it should not be taken as indicating that the PKI in Banten reflected the
emergence of a commercialized section of the peasantry, as has been argued for
West Sumatra. 275 On the contrary, the "traders" often seem to have been landless
peasants who had moved to Batavia or Sumatra and entered a trade there, which
they later tried to pursue in Banten. Mohammed Nur Fas Nani (No. 36), who owned
no land, had left Banten as a young man to work as a laborer in Batavia. Finding
times hard in the early 1920s, he returned home to work with his father who owned
a small tobacco stall in Serang. The stall, however, did not make sufficient money
to maintain both Nani and his father, so went back to Batavia to seek work as a
coolie. After a few months he returned again to Banten, and this time he found
employment as a servant in Serang. Even the one Chinese from Banten to be in-
terned, Tju Tong Hin, seems to have become a trader only when he could find no
other employment. Tju Tong Hin had previously worked as a laborer in the railway
workshops in Meester Cornelis, then as a small trader in Tangerang before return-
ing to Batavia to find work as a tinsmith. After a few years in the capital he moved
to Banten, earning his living as a fisherman. But it seems that this occupation
also brought him little more success than his previous jobs and, taking advantage
of a loan from a relative in Rangkasbitung, he opened a small stall in the market
town.
The impression one gets of the Bantenese traders who joined the PKI is that
many of them had engaged in trade at a time when economic expectations were rising
as a result of the post-World War I boom. When economic conditions began to de-
teriorate, as they did markedly after 1920, many of the newcomers to trading activ-
ities found themselves exposed to the cold wind of depression. Haji Achmad Chatib,
for example, had earned his living by trading in cloth and timber between 1919 and
275. See the Introduction by Harry Benda and Ruth T. McVey, to their Communist
Revolts of 1926-27, pp. xi-xxxi; B. Schrieke, "The Causes and Effects of Commu-
nism on the West Coast of Sumatra," Indonesian Sociological Studies, Pt. 1 (Ban-
dung: van Hoeve, I960), pp. 83-167.67
1922. It seems, however, that he always had great difficulty in making ends meet,
and in 1922 he went bankrupt. Two years later he tried to resume his trading ac-
tivities, this time dealing in hides, but apparently with no more success. A similar
picture emerges from the story of the life of Abdul Kahal bin Haji Osman, a Ban-
tenese Communist arrested in West Sumatra. At the age of fourteen he had followed
his brother to Muara Amin in West Sumatra. At the age of sixteen he became a
small trader in the Lampungs but after nine months he gave up, returning first to
Ban ten and then, unable to find work, to Menggani on Sumatra's west coast. He
stayed here for one year working as a share-cropper and then moved back to Ban-
ten, where he lived with relatives for a further two years. In 1923 he returned to
West Sumatra and began trading in kain. Because this did not provide him with a
reasonable living, he eventually again gave up trade and became a peasant near
Muara Amin.276
Peasants, however, formed the largest single occupational group among the in-
ternees. This was a cause of concern to senior Dutch officials, and Hillen, Gover-
nor of West Java, wrote in September 1927 of his misgivings to the Governor-
General:
What is most striking is that the majority of the rebels belong to the mass
of the population. There are few intellectuals or semi-intellectuals. More
than half of the rebels have received no education . . . most noticeable is
the very large number of peasants.277
Hillen noted that only twenty-two of the internees from Banten had received any
form of secular education. Of this number only seven had attended the elementary
school in Dutch (HIS). 278 Hillen feared that the large number of Bantenese peas-
ants would be too easily influenced by the "Batavia and Bandung intellectuals" in
Boven Digul. As the ninety-nine detainees had already spent almost a year in
prison, the Governor felt that some of their number might be sentenced to some
form of conditional or suspended internment. This idea, however, was firmly op-
posed by the Resident of Banten, Putman-Cramer. 279 The Resident argued that
the internees must be measured not by their education but by their degree of in-
fluence in their native villages. Although Hillen still had strong misgivings, which
were supported by Gob6e, they were overruled by the objections of Putman-Cramer
who was energetically supported by the powerful Director of Justice, Rutgers.280
The fifty-four peasants who were eventually interned were nearly all illiterate.
It seems from the police records of their interviews that most had worked on their
fathers' fields, sometimes until they were quite old. This accounted for the fact
that at least eight of them had never been outside their village. Others, whose
parents were perhaps too poor to support an extra hand on the fields, had moved
276.	Mailr 1051x/27.
277.	Hillen to Governor-General, September 24, 1927, G 5/74/14, Mailr 637x/28.
278.	These included Tb. Hilman, Afif, Achmad Rifai, Ishak, and Surabaita.
279.	Putman-Cramer to Hillen, October 21, 1927, No 500/G, Mailr 637x/28; Hillen
to Governor-General, November 1, 1927, G 5/85/14, Mailr 637x/28.
280.	In October the Procureur- Generaal advised against any conditional or suspend-
ed internment order but felt there was a strong case for some of the Bantenese to
be released on the grounds that they were not an immediate danger to the public
order. See Procureur-Generaal to Governor of West Java, October 7, 1927, No
2349 AP. This proposal was supported by Gobee in a letter of February 8, 1928
to the Director of Justice Rutgers, No 5/49 G, Mailr 637x/28.68
to Batavia as young men to seek laboring work. They returned when they had
amassed a little money and then sought some land to buy or engaged in share-
cropping.
The peasants were all asked during their interrogation why in fact they had
joined the Communist Party. Although one must treat their answers with a certain
degree of reservation, it is striking how many refer to the burden of taxation
and/or to the examples set by others in their village. Thus Bakri (No. 95) joined
"because most of my neighbors had done so."281 Haji Mohammed Jaisin of Anyer
joined the PKI because "many of my fellow villagers had bought cards and I didn't
want to be left out." Another joined the party as he otherwise "feared that some
calamity would overcome me," while another plaintively confessed that he had be-
come a member of the PKI "because life was so difficult and I hoped in this way to
get myself out of difficulties." 282
In the other residencies few peasants were interned. Indeed, one of the main
conclusions that Mansvelt drew in his study of the social origins of the detainees
was that they had enjoyed a better education than was normal and came from com-
paratively affluent backgrounds. 283 "The Communist leaders," he wrote, "belong
not only to the thin upper layer [of Indonesian society] who have received some
education, but more specifically to the even smaller group who have attended the
second-class school and enjoyed Western lower education. If there is a certain con-
nection between a definite education and political militancy, then it is the native
second-class school -which was attended by 447 of the Communists [of the one thou-
sand examined]2ah In Banten, as we have seen, only a tiny minority of the Com-
munist movement fitted the picture described by Mansvelt.
The detainees from Banten, then, were on the whole less well-educated and
from lower-class backgrounds than those from other areas of Indonesia. Indeed,
the majority of internees from Banten were ordinary peasants. This finding is con-
sistent with the fact that the revolt of November 1926 had a more popular base in
Banten than any other region, with the exception of West Sumatra. In other areas
of Java and Sumatra, the PKI mass base had been progressively whittled away
throughout 1925 and 1926, leaving it a thoroughly emaciated body. The events of
November 1926-January 1927 showed convincingly that the party no longer pos-
sessed any degree of mass support except in those two areas most tested by revolt,
Banten and West Sumatra.
281.	Mailr 1105x/27.
282.	Ibid.
283.	Mansvelt, "Onderwijs en Communisme," pp. 203-25. Mansvelt's study was
based on 1,000 of the detainees of whom eighty-eight were Bantenese. By the end
of 1927 some 1,300 political prisoners had been interned in Boven Digul because of
their alleged involvement in the 1926-27 uprisings, ninety-nine of them Bantenese.
284.	Ibid., pp. 211-12. See also reports in Mailr 359x/27.APPENDIX I
Name
1. Tb. K. H.
Achmad Chatib
2. Tb. H.
Abdulhamid
(Adung)
3. K. H. Mohammed
Gozali
4. Tb. K. H.
Abdulhadi
5. K. H. Alijasin
LIST OF PERSONS FROM BANTEN EXILED TO BOVEN DIGUL
Age Occupation
Place of Birth Residence
31 Religious
teacher
Gajam,	Caringin
Pandeglang
23 Religious Idem
teacher
Cikondang,
Pandeglang
38 Religious
teacher
Sanding,
Pamarayan
Sanding,
Pamarayan
39 Religious
teacher
Sidangsari,	Bangko,
Pamarayan	Caringin
40 Peasant	Pabuaran,
Ciomas
Pabuaran,
Ciomas
Particulars
Chairman of Sarekat Islam-Labuan;
Assistant Chairman of the PKI-
Section Banten; Religious President
of the PKI Banten (President Agama).
Son-in-law of Kiyai Asnawi. Studied
three years in Mecca. (Arrested
October 22, 1926.)
Brother of H. Achmad Chatib. Both
sons of K. H. Waseh. Spent one
year at Al-Azhar (Cairo). Urged
his followers to fast for five days
and annointed them with holy water
to make them invulnerable.
Influential local leader of PKI; col-
lected 200 guilders for the purchase
of weapons; told his followers the
purpose of the revolt was the mur-
der of Europeans because of the
burden of taxes on the people.
Brother of Kiyai H. Emed of Petir.
Influential kiyai: pupil of Kiyai Emed
of Petir. Told his followers to fast
for twelve days, annointed them with
holy water, and made them recite 300
times the "Fatekah" and fourteen
times the "Ahjat Korsi," to make them
invulnerable.
Sought by the police in August 1926.
Fled to Ceribon. Arrested February
1927.	Name	Age	Occupation	Place of Birth
6.	H. Abdullah	32	Peasant	Koran ji, Serang
7.	H. Mohammed Arif	30	Village head	Karundang, Serang
8.	H. Mohammed Jaisin	35	Peasant	Labuan, Anyer
9.	H. Enggus	48	Trader	Baru, Cilegon
10.	H. Santani	25	Tailor	Jombangwetan, Cilegon
11.	H. Soeeb	35	Peasant	Petir, Pamarayan
12.	H. Artadjaja	25	Peasant	Pancaregang, Ciomas
13.	H. Ayip Achmad	26	Small trader	Lontar, Serang
14.	Puradisastra	35	Clerk, journalist	Cisompet, Negara (East Priangan)
15.	Arman	30	Clerk/ trader	Karegnen, Serang
Residence
Koran ji,
Serang
Dalung,
Serang
Labuan,
Anyer
Warnasari,
Cilegon
Kebonsari,
Cilegon
Petir»
Pamarayan
Pancaregang,
Ciomas
Lontar,
Serang
Serang
Sopeng,
Serang
Particulars
Arrested October 12, 1926.
Dismissed as village head because he
was a Communist agitator. Active
member of the "Dubbel Organisatie"
(DO). His brother H. Mohammed Ali
was killed in the fighting of Petir.
Arrested November 26, 1926.
PKI courier; influential propagandist
visited houses after evening prayers
Arrested March 10, 1927.
Arrested February 1, 1927.
Arrested February 11, 1927.
One of the leaders of the attack on
Petir. Also collected support for an
attack on Serang.
Declared in his village that all civil
servants from village head to Resi-
dent should be killed. Arrested
November 4, 1926.
Leading member of PKI-DO.
"Father of Bantenese Communism."
Chairman of PKI-Section Banten.
Established Printers' Union and
Drivers' Union in Batavia in 1924.
Self-educated.
Brother of Alirachman (see below).
Collected 470 guilders for the pur-
chase of firearms.16.	Alirachman	28
17.	Tb. Hilman	27
18.	[Agus]	36
Soleiman
19.	H. Radi	40
20.	Dulhamid	45
21.	Mohammed Ali	38
22.	Sen tot	24
23.	Wajut	32
24.	Ibing	30
25.	Kasan	40
26.	Moechamad	30
Noer
Auctioneer	Idem
Clerk-- Landrent Office	Mengger, Pandeglang
Clerk	Rancapare, Serang
Peasant	Kepuh, Anyer
Peasant	Pabuaran, Ciomas
Peasant	Banjarmasin (Kalimantan)'
Peasant	Sudimampir, Anyer
Peasant and trader	Idem
Tailor	Murui, Menes
Peasant, ex-village head	Kosambironjok Anyer
Clerk	Sudimampir, Anyer
Serang	Secretary PKI-Section Banten; Com- missar PKI-DO. Arrested August 16, 1926.
Kaujon, Serang	Educated Serang HIS . Established Rukun Asli; Commissaris PKI- Section Banten. Arrested Septem- ber 24, 1926.
Idem	Commissaris PKI-Section Banten. Arrested August 15, 1926.
Kasambironjok, Anyer	Close associate of Tje Mamat, secre- tary of PKI chapter in Anyer. Urged peasants to revolt because of the tax burden. Arrested Decem- ber 13, 1926.
Pabuaran, Ciomas	Arrested November 6, 1926.
Bandulu, Anyer	Arrested December 13, 1926.
Sudimampir, Anyer	Former sailor; PKI propagandist. Adjutant to Tje Mamat, PKI leader who fled abroad after revolt. Arrested October 13, 1926.
Idem	Well-known gambler and jawara. PKI propagandist. Arrested October 12, 1926.
Murui, Menes	PKI propagandist, using as a cover his tailor's shop and main gambus (Arabic dancing) . Arrested Octo- ber 12, 1926.
Gunungsih, Anyer	PKI propagandist. Arrested October 12, 1926.
Sudimampir, Anyer	Clerk at the PKI office in Serang. Arrested October 12, 1926.Name
27. Daud
28. Abdulroalik
Age Occupation
50 Peasant
and trader
56 Trader
Place of Birth
Petir,
Pamarayan
Idem
29. Ibrahim	40 Peasant	Pancaregang,
Ciomas
30. Dulmuin	45	Peasant	Idem
31. Durakim	40	Peasant	Gunungsari, Ciomas
32. Soleman	28	Peasant	Ciomas
33. Umar	39	Peasant, ex-village head	Kaduagung, Ciomas
34. Kasiman	23	Peasant	Sindangmandi, Ciomas
35. Martadjani	25	Peasant	Pabuaran, Ciomas
Residence
Petir,
Pamarayan
Idem
Pancaregang,
Ciomas
Kadugenep,
Pamarayan
Gunungsari,
Ciomas
Idem
Kaduagung,
Ciomas
Sindangmandi,
Ciomas
Kadubeureum,
Ciomas
Particulars
PKI propagandist. Took part in the
attack on Petir. Former leader of
Sarekat Islam in Banten. Arrested
December 20, 1926.
Former leader of Sarekat Islam in
Banten. Owner of a stall that was
used for propaganda purposes.
Arrested December 20, 1926.
PKI propagandist, encouraged
people to fast in preparation for the
revolt. Arrested November 2, 1926.
Influential PKI activist among the
peasants. Former Sarekat Islam
activist. Fasted one month before
revolt. Participated in Petir attack.
Gathered men for attack on Wedana
of Pamarayan's residence. Arrested
March 8, 1927.
PKI promoter. Arrested October 7,
1926.
PKI promoter. Well-known jawara.
Recruited by Tb. Hilman and
charged with ensuring security of
secret PKI meetings. Arrested
October 22, 1926.
Arrested October 23, 1926.
Arrested November 6, 1926.
PKI promoter. Collected money for
the purchase of firearms. Proclaimed
that those who were not members of
the PKI would not be considered36.	[Mohammed Nur Fas] Nani	35	Tobacco stallkeeper	Kagunungan, Serang
37.	Tju Tong Hin	35	Trader	Pasar Baru, Batavia
38.	Sawiri	25	Peasant	Labuan, Anyer
39.	Ali Achmad	36	Peasant	Idem
40.	Ali	45	Peasant	Sangiang, Anyer
41.	Tohir	20	Peasant	Labuan, Anyer
42.	Djakaria	40	Peasant	Sigedang, Anyer
43.	Samaden	50	Peasant	Sangiang, Anyer
44.	Moeslik	20	Peasant	Pabuaran, Ciomas
45.	Mohammed Amin	45	Peasant	Sindangmandi, Ciomas
Moslems by the Sultan of Banten and
would have their property confis-
cated. Arrested November 6, 1926.
Kagunungan, Serang	Arrested March 1, 1927.
Ciunjung, Rangkasbitung	PKI promoter among Chinese and local community in Rangkasbitung. Close confidant of Tjondrosaputro q.v. Arrested September 24, 1926.
Waringin, Anyer	PKI courier. Held meetings in the mosque after prayers. Arrested February 3, 1927.
Labuan, Anyer	PKI courier. Together with Sawiri (No. 38) close aide of Tje Mamat. Arrested March 4, 1927.
Sangiang, Anyer	PKI courier. Arrested March 4, 1927.
Labuan, Anyer	Arrested March 10, 1927.
Idem	Arrested March 10, 1927.
Pasirbatang, Anyer	Arrested March 4, 1927.
Pabuaran, Ciomas	PKI fundraiser; some peasants pawned their coconut patches to contribute monies to him. Arrested March 4, 1927.
Sindangmandi, Ciomas	Former village clerk of Sindangmandi. Told local peasants that all who worked for the government were to be killed, including his own brother who was the village headman. Arrested February 28, 1927.Name
46. H. Usman
Age Occupation	Place of Birth
50	Peasant	Silebu,
Ciruas
47. Salikin
38 Religious	Pancur,
teacher	Serang
48.	Djari	42	Trader	Jalupang, Ciruas
49.	H. Asgari	26	Religious teacher	Gunungsari, Ciomas
50.	Afif	27	Village clerk	Jombang, Cilegon
51. Hasanuddin	26
Maninjau,
W. Sumatra
52. H. Emed
30 Religious Caringin
teacher
53. Tb. H. Arifin 55 Peasant
Cikeusal,
Pamarayan
Residence	Particulars
Silebu, Ciruas	Influential PKI propagandist. Held meetings in langgar and mosques after evening prayers. Was appoint- ed insurrectionary leader for the attack onWalantaka, then Ciruas and Serang.
Pancur, Serang	Arrested September 1926 and sen- tenced to three months' imprisonment for the sale of amulets. Bathed many rebels in Serang area and afterwards dressed them in white. Also anointed others with holy oil to make them invulnerable.
Idem	
Gunungsari, Ciomas	Urged his followers to revolt because of the burden of taxes.
Labuan, Caringin	President PKI subsection Labuan. Commissaris PKI-DO. Went with Hasanuddin (q.v.) to purchase weapons in Batavia. Arrested September 8, 1926.
Jambatan Lima, Batavia	Replaced Puradisastra as Chairman of PKI Banten section. Went with Afif to buy arms in Batavia. Arrested 1926.
Caringin	Son of Kiyai Asnawi. Treasurer of PKI section Banten. Arrested November 17, 1926.
Cikeusal, Pamarayan	Told the peasants of his village to gather on the night of November 12 for an attack on Serang.54. Tb. Moh. Isa	35	Peasant	Petir, Pamarayan
55. H. Jahja	42	Religious teacher/ trader	Idem
56. Mohammed Isa	32	Trader	Sumurpecing, Serang
57. Tb. Mardjuk	36	Trader	Cikeusal, Pamarayan
58. Mad Saleh	35	Peasant	Pabuaran, Ciomas
59. Abdullah	55	Peasant	Sumurpecing, Serang
60. Dulah	35	Bricklayer	Batavia
61. Alikasim	18	Peasant	Cirangkong, Pamarayan
62. Mohammed Jusuf	25	Foreman, Public Works Department	Pabuaran, Ciomas
63. Mohammed Sis	48	Trader	Kaujon, Serang
64. Surabaita	20	Trader	Keboncau, Pandeglang
65. Achmad Rifai	20	Clerk	Pandeglang
Petir,
Pamarayan
Idem
Sumurpecing,
Serang
Cikeus’al,
Pamarayan
Pabuaran,
Ciomas
Serang
Idem
Cirangkong,
Pamarayan
Kadubeureum,
Ciomas
Ciberang,
Pandeglang
Keboncau,
Pandeglang
Sawah Besar,
Batavia
One of the leaders of the attacks on
November 14 on the residence of the
Assistant-Wedana of Petir.
Idem
Arrested October 18, 1926.
Son of H. Arifin (No. 53). PKI
propagandist. Arrested November
25, 1926.
PKI propagandist. Collected money
which he told people would be used
to hire a boat to convey arms from
the Soviet Union. Arrested October
16, 1926, sentenced to ten months’
imprisonment for assault.
Arrested October 18, 1926.
Arrested October 18, 1926.
Arrested October 9, 1926.
PKI courier. Arrested December 4,
1926.
Influential PKI propagandist. On
the night of November 12 gathered
men in Kampung Pabrik for an attack
on Pandeglang. Arrested December
4, 1926.
Secretary PKI subsection Pande-
glang. Arrested December 4, 1926.	Name	Age	Occupation	Place of Birth
66.	Mu'min	35	Peasant	Barugbug, Ciomas
67.	Umar	39	Peasant, ex-village head	Kaduagung, Ciomas
68.	H. Akjar	28	Peasant	Tejamari, Ciomas
69.	Ishak	26	Typesetter, printing worker	Pandeglang
70.	Tjondrosaputro	40	Trader	Central Java
71.	Tb. Mohammed Hasjim alias Entjim	32	Agent, Singer Sewing- Machine Co.	Ciujung, Rangkasbitung
72.	Kamim	35	Peasant	Pabuaran, Ciomas
73.	Salihun	35	Shoemaker	Cililitan, Batavia
74.	Sera	35	Peasant	Malangkarsa, Ciruas
75.	H. Mardjuk	36	Peasant	Silebu, Ciruas
Residence
Barugbug,
Ciomas
Kaduagung,
Ciomas
Tejamari,
Ciomas
Serang
Rangkasbitung
Ciujung,
Rangkasbitung
Pabuaran,
Ciomas
Ciujung,
Rangkasbitung
Malangkarsa,
Ciruas
Kubang,
Serang
Particulars
PKI propagandist with much influ-
ence apparently because of his
wealth and charisma. Said that all
who did not contribute to PKI cof-
fers would be robbed and killed.
Arrested October 23, 1926.
Arrested October 23, 1926.
Sentenced four times for breaking
the ban on public meetings.
Arrested November 12, 1926.
Chairman PKI subsection Serang.
Arrested January 13, 1927.
Chairman PKI subsection Rangkas-
bitung. Collected 200 guilders for
arms purchases. Arrested late
September 1926.
Commissaris. PKI subsection Rang-
kasbitung. Arrested October 15,
1926.
Arrested December 25, 1926.
PKI propagandist and commissaris.
Arrested September 24, 1926.
PKI propagandist sentenced to one
year and nine months'imprisonment
for robbery. Arrested October 19,
1926.
Arrested February 5, 1927.76. H. Hasan
27
77. Ayot	26
Satriawidjaja	
78. Mohammed	23
Toha	
79. Tb. Saleh	30
80. K. H. Achmad	46
81. Entol Enoh	40
82. Nawi	35
83. Mohammed Arif	39
84. Amir	32
85. Achmad Bassaif	23
Peasant	Sajar, Serang
Peasant	Kadugadung, Pandeglang
Trader	Palanjar, Pandeglang
Peasant	Kudahandap, Pandeglang
Religious teacher	Kaujon, Serang
Peasant, ex-village head	Nyamplong, Menes
Peasant	Sukalaba, Ciomas
Peasant	Kapandean, Serang
Barber	Sumurpecung, Serang
	Kaloran, Serang
Pancur,
Serang
Kadugadung,
Pandeglang
Palanjar >
Pandeglang
Kudahandap,
Pandeglang
Pancur,
Serang
Tegalwangi,
Menes
Sukalaba,
Ciomas
Kapandean,
Serang
Sumurpecung,
Serang
Batavia
PKI propagandist. Demanded one
guilder from everybody he initiated
into invulnerability rites. Arrested
March 14, 1927.
PKI courier. Arrested December 1,
1926.
Arrested December 11, 1926.
Arrested December 10, 1926.
Religious teacher of great influence.
Arrested April 20, 1927.
Well known for his contacts with
jawara. Leader of "semi-criminal”
associations. Arrested December 4,
1926.
Arrested November 6, 1926.
Arrested October 23, 1926.
Arrested October 18, 1926.
Arab father, Bantenese mother.
Educated Al-Irsjad School, Batavia.
Chairman PKI subsection Jembatan
Lima, Batavia; chairman PKI subsec-
tion Tangerang; Acting Chairman
PKI section Banten. Linkman be-
tween DO Banten and DO Batavia.
Led attack on Glodok prison, Bata-
via. Arrested November 19, 1926.
Sentenced eight years' imprisonment.
Sent to Boven Digul, 1936.Name	Age
86. Mohammed Saleh	--
87. Atmodihardjo	--
88. Asmail	32
89. H. Mohammed Salim	30
90.	Karis	29
91.	Aliakbar	36
92.	Rujani	28
93.	H. Aliasgar	36
94.	Entjang	32
95.	Mohammed Bakri	35
96.	Abdulkarim	30
97.	H. Aehmed	40
Occupation	Place of Birth
Policeman	Purworejo, Central Java
Printing worker, journalist	Yogyakarta
Peasant	Pabuaran, Ciomas
Penghulu	Babakanlor,
(religious official)	Caringin
Peasant	Rancapare, Serang
Laborer	Passar, Serang
Tailor	Rancapare, Serang
Peasant	Pancangan, Serang
Peasant	Cilanggawe, Caringin
Peasant	Karunang, Ciomas
Peasant	Pancur, Serang
Peasant	Rancapare, Serang
Residence	Particulars
Serang	Arrested August 15, 1926.
Serang	PKI commissaris. Organizer of strike on De Banten Bode. Arrested August 15, 1926.
Kadubeureum, Ciomas	Arrested October 7, 1926.
Babakanlor, Caringin	Recruited into the PKI by Haji Achmad Chatib. Key leader of the revolt in Menes. Detained by the police in Serang for questioning on November 11, but released in time to catch the last train home to par- ticipate in the revolt. Arrested January 14, 1927.
Rancapare, Serang Passar, Serang Kagunungan, Serang Silebu, Ciruas	Arrested October 22, 1926. Arrested October 22, 1926. Arrested March 3, 1927. Arrested February 5, 1927.
Cilanggawe, Caringin Karunang, Ciomas	Arrested March 10, 1927. Arrested November 6, 1926.
Ciliwong, Serang Rancapare, Serang	Arrested April 20, 1927. Arrested March 10, 1927.98. Andung		35 Peasant	Pabuaran,	Pabuaran, Arrested October 22, 1926.
			Ciomas	Ciomas
99. Hardjosuparto		22 Trader	Ran gkasbitun g	Rangkasbitung Arrested October 22, 1926.
Abbreviations:	K.	Kiyai		
	H.	= Haji		
	Tb.	= Tubagus (male descendant of Sultans of Banten).		
Sources:	Vb March 4, 1927; Report of Resident of Banten, August 29, 1927 in Mailr 523x/1927; Mailr			
1966x/1927; Report of Resident of Banten, December 23, 1927 in Mailr 1074x/28; Mailr 113x/
1928; Mailr 637x/1928.
Interviews with the following ex-Digulists: Afif (No. 50), Achmad Rifai (No. 65), Ayot Satria-
widjaja (No. 77), Achmad Bassaif (No. 85).APPENDIX II
BANTENESE SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT
Name	Place of Residence	Occupation
Salija	Bonjongjanar, Menes	Peasant
Kadiman	Idem	Idem
Marsani	Bangko, Labuan	Idem
Idris	Kalumpang, Labuan	Idem
H. Hasan	Tarogog, Labuan	Idem
Saleh	Jiput, Labuan	Idem
Salman	Idem	Idem
Rasiman	Idem	Idem
Djasiin	Pagelaran, Labuan	Idem
80APPENDIX III
LIST OF BANTENESE EXECUTED
	Name	Place of Residence	Occupation
1.	JasTa	Kenega, Menes	Peasant
2.	Jamin	Idem	Idem
3.	Doelsalam	Tegalwangi, Menes	Idem
4.	H. Asikin	Cipueung, Menes	Idem
81