Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the relative potential for revolutionary action against the colonial and post-colonial state to be found among the peasantry and labour during the period of the nationalist movements in Malaya and Indonesia.
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Notes
Karl Marx, The Class Struggle in France, 1848–1850, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972 p. 112
Friedrich Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, p. 10.
See, for example, Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965, p. 42.
V. I. Lenin, ‘The Development of Capitalism in Russia,’ in idem., Collected Works, Vol. 3, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972, p. 33.
Mao Tse-Tung, ‘Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan,’ in Mao, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967, p. 24.
Mao Tse-Tung, ‘A Report of the Front Committee to the Central Committee of the Party,’ in Stuart Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-Tung, New York: Praeger, 1976, p. 259.
For an account of the views of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao on the peasantry see Anne E. Lucas-Rouffignas, The Contemporary Peasantry in Mexico: A Class Analysis, New York: Praeger, 1985, pp. 1–16.
Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.
Hamza Alavi, ‘Peasants and Revolution,’ The Socialist Register, London: Merlin, 1965, pp. 241–77: p. 244.
James C. Scott, ‘Hegemony and the Peasantry,’ Politics and Society 7, 3, 1977, 267–96: p. 289.
Eric R. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, New York: Harper & Row, 1969, p. 290.
Theda Skocpol, ‘What Makes Peasants Revolutionary,’ Comparative Politics 14, 3, 1982, 351–75: p. 363.
Jeffery M. Paige, Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture In the Underdeveloped World, New York: The Free Press, 1975.
Shahril Talib, After Its Own Image: The Trengganu Experience, 1881–1941, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1984. According to Kershaw, however, ‘the idea of the 1928 revolt as a would-be precursor of peasant liberation movements begins to feel a little brittle’, citing lack of evidence and other points as reasons.
See Roger Kershaw, ‘Difficult Synthesis: Recent Trends in Malay Political Sociology and History’, Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 16, 1, 1988, 134–58: p. 144.
Tan Ban Teik, ‘The Tok Janggut Rebellion of 1915 in Kelantan: A Reinterpretation,’ in Cheah Boon Kheng, ed., Tokoh-tokoh Tempatan, Pulau Pinang: Universiti Sains Malaysia, 1982, pp. 97–113.
For case studies see Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements in Rural Java: A Study of Agrarian Unrest in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Virginia Thompson, Labour Problems in Southeast Asia, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947, p. 103.
Ibid., p. 105. See also J. Norman Parmer, ‘Chinese Estate Workers’ Strikes in Malaya in March 1937,’ in C. D. Cowan, ed., The Economic Development of Southeast Asia: Studies in Economic History and Political Economy, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1964, pp. 154–73.
Kamaruddin M. Said, ‘Mogok dan Konflik lndustri di Malaysia: Suatu Pembicaraan Awal,’ Jurnal Antropologi dan Sosiologi 7, 1979, 75–108: p. 95.
Lucian Pye, Guerilla Communism in Malaya: Its Social and Political Meaning, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956.
George M. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952, p. 86.
See J. Th. Blumberger, De Communistische Beweging in Nederlandsch-Indie, Haarlem: Tjeen Willink, 1935,
and Shelton Stromquist, ‘The Communist Uprisings of 1926–1927 in Indonesia: A Re-Interpretation’, Journal of Southeast Asian History 8, 2, 1967, 189–200.
For more on union activities see J. Ingleson, In Search of Justice: Workers and Unions in Colonial Java, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolution: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
B. Gunawan, ‘Political Mobilization in Indonesia: Nationalists Against Communists’, Modern Asian Studies 7, 4, 1973, 707–15: pp. 709–710.
Michael Adas, ‘From Avoidance to Confrontation: Peasant Protest in Precolonial and Colonial Southeast Asia,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 23, 2, 1981, 217–47: p. 217.
See also James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986;
James C. Scott & Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, eds, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in Southeast Asia, London: Frank Cass, 1986.
Mohd. Noordin Sopiee, ‘The Penang Secession Movement, 1948–1951’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 4, 1, 1973, 52–71.
Chandran Jeshurun, ‘Government Responses to Armed Insurgency in Malaysia, 1957–82,’ in idem, ed., Governments and Rebellions in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985, pp. 134–65: p. 136.
For example, the Samin and Samat movements in Java. See The Siauw Giap, ‘The Samin Movement in Java: Complementary Remarks’, Revue du Sud-est Asiatique 1, 1961, 63–78; The, ‘The Samin and Samat Movements in Java: Two examples of Peasant Resistance’, Revue du Sud-est Asiatique 1, 1968, 107–14.
Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘Separatist Movements in Indonesia’, Southeast Asian Spectrum 4, 4, 1976, 9–19;
S. Soebadi, ‘Kartosuwiryo and the Darul Islam Rebellion in Indonesia’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 14, 1, 1983, 109–33;
R. J. May, ‘Ethnic Separatism in Southeast Asia’, Pacific Viewpoint 31, 2, 1990, 28–9: pp. 28–43;
Bilveer Singh, East Timor, Indonesia and the World: Myths and Realities, Singapore: Singapore Institute of International Affairs, 1995.
Clifford Geertz, Agricultural Involution: The Process of Ecological Change in Indonesia, Berkeley, Los Angeles, & London: University of California Press, 1963, p. 89.
J. H. Boeke, Structure of the Netherlands Indian Economy, New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1942, p. 26.
Benjamin White, ‘“Agricultural Involution” and its Critics: Twenty Years After Clifford Geertz’, Institute of Social Studies Working Paper Series 6, The Hague: Institute of Social Studies, 1983; Joel S. Kahn, ‘Indonesia After the Demise of Involution: Critique of a Debate’, Critique of Anthropology 5, 1, 1985, 69–96;
Alec Gordon, ‘Economic History versus “Agricultural Involution”: Towards a Usable Past for Southeast Asia’, in Peter Limqueco, ed., Partisan Scholarship: Essays in Honour of Renato Constantino, Manila & Wollongong: JCA Publishers, 1989, pp. 131–51;
G. R. Knight, ‘Capitalism and Commodity production in Java’, in Hamza Alavi, P. L. Burns, G. R. Knight, P. B. Mayer, and Doug McEachern, Capitalism and Colonial Production, London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1982, pp. 119–58.
Svein Aas, ‘The Relevance of Chayanov’s Macro Theory to the Case of Java’, in E. J. Hobsbawm et al., eds, Peasants in History: Essays in Honour of Daniel Thorner, Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 221–48: p. 238.
R. E. Elson, ‘Sugard Factory Workers and the Emergence of “Free Labour” in Nineteenth-Century Java’, Modern Asian Studies 20, 1, 1986, 139–74: p. 145. See also Elson, ‘The Cultivation System and Agricultural Involution’, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies Working Papers No. 14, Melbourne: Monash University, p. 29.
Jennifer Alexander & Paul Alexander, ‘Shared Poverty as Ideology: Agrarian Relationships in Colonial Java’, Man 17, 1982, 597–619.
Jeff Kingston, ‘Agricultural Involution Among Lampung’s Javanese?’, Southeast Asian Studies 27, 4, 1990, 485–507.
Ravindra K. Jain, South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaya, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1970, p. 295.
Clifford Geertz, The Social History of an Indonesian Town, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965, pp. 127ff.
W. F. Wertheim, ‘From Aliran Toward Class Struggle in the Countryside of Java,’ Pacific Viewpoint 10, 2, 1969, 1–17.
Martin Rudner, ‘Malayan Labor in Transition: Labor Policy and Trade Unionism, 1955–1963’, Modern Asian Studies 7, 1, 1973, 21–45.
James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1976, pp. 57–8.
Martin J. Murray, The Development of Capitalism in Indochina (1870–1940), Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 1980, p. 272.
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© 1997 Syed Farid Alatas
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Alatas, S.F. (1997). Peasant and Labour Opposition to the Colonial and Post-colonial State. In: Democracy and Authoritarianism in Indonesia and Malaysia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230378544_4
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