New Light on the Revolutionary Press in Indonesia: Translation in the First Stage?

Prior to the failed 1926–27 rebellions and the suppression of the anticolonial movement, the print revolution, such as it emerged in the Dutch colony in the first two decades of the twentieth century, offered a powerful vehicle for the expression of ideas around emancipation, not excepting anticolonial nationalism. By way of introduction of several of the key protagonist-authors, and with special reference to former Soviet archival sources, this article focuses on the advent and development of the revolutionary press in Indonesia, outstanding in the sense that it predated cognate developments in Vietnam and even China. Moving beyond the mere printing and local circulation of this press, and with certain works produced on the outside under Communist International sponsorship, the article also seeks to assay its readership and impacts notwithstanding colonial censorship. As the article argues, in an environment of low literacy and with the development of a shared language still in the making, the actual translation into print of the Marxist canon into local idiom remained little advanced in this first stage although, at the same time, translation/transliteration in literary production or oral communication did become part and parcel of the revolutionary press process.