Abstract
Buddy J.M. Janssen, United in Fear: Imperial anti-communist cooperation in interwar Southeast Asia (2019)
This thesis investigates the interwar anti-communist cooperation between the European colonial governments in Southeast Asia by examining its origins, functioning and underlying ideology and connection to the Cold War. In doing so, it connects the historical debates on the origin of the Cold War to imperial history. While ample literature exists on the crossroads between Empire and the Cold War with regard to decolonisation, literature that examines the imperial roots of anti-communism remains scarce. This thesis aims to fill that gap.
The first chapter analyses how the European colonial officials in Southeast Asia created a transnational anti-communist, information-sharing network. The impetuses for cooperation, both internally and externally, are central to this chapter. Starting at its origins in 1924, the chapter traces the build-up period of the cooperation until 1931. The second chapter follows chronologically on the first but delves into both the merits and limitations of the cooperation by focussing on the outdated imperial legal systems that ultimately prevented optimal cooperation. Finally, the third chapter analyses the underlying ideas and principles of the anti-communist imagined community. The chapter treats the construction of the false binary of communism/anti-communism and connects it to the imperial experience.
All three chapters combined provide unique insight into the creation and maintenance of the anti-communist transnational network in colonial Southeast Asia. It is argued that this network can be seen as a microcosm that prefigured both the later Cold War alliances and understanding of the Soviet Union as a subversive expansionist empire.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr Carolien Stolte whose ever optimistic and enthusiastic guidance in shaping this thesis has been instrumental to the final product. I would also like to thank Dr Gordon Barrett, with whom I had many interesting overtime conversations and whose insights helped form the ideas in this thesis. Never have I walked from their offices without having learnt something new.
My special thanks are extended to the coordinators of the Europaeum Programme. Their guidance throughout the programme has made this wonderful year possible. Whereas Dr Bart van der Steen has been of considerable help with everything non-study related, Dr Nicolas Vaicbourdt and Dr Tracey Sowerby have been a tremendous support in the times abroad.
I would also like to extend my thanks to my fellow students and friends of the Europaeum cohort of 2018/19. Without them, my time in Leiden, Paris and Oxford would not have been the same. My special thanks go out to Hannah Buchinger, whose encouragement and buoyancy I greatly appreciate. Finally, I would like to express my very great appreciation to my family for their continuous support during my years of study.
Buddy J.M. Janssen Oxford, 1 July 2019
United in Fear
Imperial anti-communist cooperation in interwar
Southeast Asia
Buddy J.M. Janssen
Europaeum Master European History and Civilization 2018/19
Universiteit Leiden – Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne – University of Oxford
Master thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Arts
Submitted 1 June 2019
Leiden Supervisor: Dr. Carolien Stolte Oxford Supervisor: Dr. Gordon Barret
i
Table of contents
Table of contents ... i
List of Abbreviations ... ii
Introduction ...1
I. A cold war before the Cold War ...7
Towards cooperation ...7
Communists at arms ... 11
Out of the shadows... 14
II. Novel cooperation, old empires ... 19
Reaping the rewards ... 19
A bitter harvest ... 23
III. Constructing the menace ... 31
The red scarecrow ... 32
A white man’s game ... 38
Conclusion ... 44
Bibliography... 46
Manuscript Sources ... 46
ii
List of Abbreviations
AC Affaires Communes
CADMAE Centre des Archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères, Paris
CO Colonial Office
FO Foreign Office
NA Nationaal Archief, The Hague
1
Introduction
In June 1931, the Singapore police arrested a man dubbed ‘Joseph Ducroux’, a French Comintern agent known to the police.1 A note in his pocket led to the uncovering of a Communist network that spanned from Europe to East Asia. By that time, officials from the British, French and Dutch Southeast Asian colonies had been vehemently collaborating against Soviet machinations for half a decade, which had involved espionage and counter-espionage, aliases and pseudonyms, trials, secret policing and violent suppressions. Although the Cold War would not start for another decade and a half, the similarities were remarkable. This thesis investigates this anti-communist cooperation between the European colonial governments in Southeast Asia by examining its origins, functioning and underlying ideology and connection to the Cold War.
An event as global and complex as the Cold War does not have a single all-purpose origin. Generally, scholar’s views on the subject are divided into three schools.2 Orthodox scholars argue that the expansionist Soviet Union was the main instigator.3 Crucially, this view was adopted as the official view by most Western governments and NATO as it aligned with their containment strategy and the Domino Theory, which entailed that the fall of Indochina would lead to widespread communism in Asia.4 The revisionist school was a response to the
orthodox school and blamed the US, which had acted out of economic self-interest.5 The two
1 ‘Joseph Ducroux, Alias Serge Lefranc, Is Unmasked’, The Straits Times, 27 April 1931, p. 16
2 G. Lundestad, ‘How not to Study the Origins of the Cold War’ in A.O. Westad ed., Reviewing the Cold War:
Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London, 2000), p. 1.
3 F. Herbert, From trust to terror: the onset of the cold war, 1945-1950 (New York, 1970); L. C. Gardner, The
origins of the cold war (Waltham, 1970); T. A. Bailey, America faces Russia: Russian-American relations from early times to our day (Ithaca, 1950).
4 J. P. D. Dunbabin, The Cold War: the great powers and their allies (Harlow, 2008) pp. 3–4.
5 W. A. Williams, The tragedy of American diplomacy (New York, 1962); D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and its
origins, 1917-1960 (London, 1961); G. Alperovitz, Atomic diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam : the use of the atomic bomb and the American confrontation with Soviet power (London, 1966).
2 views eventually synthesised in the post-revisionist school that looked for a middle ground between orthodox and revisionist historiography.6
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the debate moved on from questions of blame to placing the Cold War in the longue durée of the twentieth century.7 As a result, historians have started tracing the roots of the Cold War before the Second World War.8 Other historians have opted for a global approach by incorporating empire.9 However, the crossroads between empire and Cold War are dominated by studies on decolonisation and thus focus mostly on the period after 1945. Works that combine both trends by chronologically and geographically expanding the scope of research remain relatively scarce and often either focus on specific events or stay within national boundaries.10 However, the spread of Communism was an international phenomenon that, as this thesis shows, elicited an international counter-offensive. Therefore, this thesis connects imperial history to the origins of the Cold War by exploring the interwar anti-communist cooperation in Southeast Asia, a pivotal region of the Cold War that would witness the Vietnam War (1955-75) and the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement at the Bandung Conference of 1955.
Soviet machinations in Southeast Asia began in the years following the establishment of the Third Communist International (Comintern) in 1919, a Bolshevik-led organisation
6 D. W. Larson, Origins of containment: a psychological explanation (Princeton, 1985); D. Yergin, Shattered
Peace: The Origins of the Cold War (New York, 1990); J. L. Gaddis, The United States and the origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (New York, 1972).
7 V. Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet insecurity: the Stalin years (New York, 1996) pp. 3–4.
8 M. P. Leffler, The specter of communism: the United States and the origins of the Cold War, 1917-1953 (New
York, 1994); M. J. Carley, Silent Conflict : A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations (Lanham, 2014); O. A. Westad, The Cold War: a world history (New York, 2017).
9 M. P. Leffler and D. S. Painter, Origins of the Cold War: an international history (New York, 2005); J. Darwin,
‘Diplomacy and decolonization’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, xxviii (2000) pp. 5–24; S. L. Bills, Empire and Cold War: The Roots of US-Third World Antagonism, 1945–47 (Basingstoke, 1990); V. Prashad, The darker nations: a people’s history of the third world (New York, 2007).
10 M. Louro, ‘The Johnstone Affair and Anti-Communism in Interwar India’, Journal Of Contemporary History,
liii (2018) pp. 38–60; H. Streets-Salter, ‘The Noulens Affair in East and Southeast Asia: International Communism in the Interwar Period’, Journal of American-East Asian Relations, xxi (2014) pp. 394–414; A. Best, ‘‘We are virtually at war with Russia’: Britain and the Cold War in East Asia, 1923–40’, Cold War History, xii (2012) pp. 205–225; C. Woods, ‘Seditious Crimes and Rebellious Conspiracies: Anti-communism and US Empire in the Philippines’, Journal of Contemporary History, liii (2018) pp. 61–88.
3 created for the promotion of world communism. Its underlying principles were derived from Lenin’s views on Marxism, which held that imperialism was the highest stage of capitalism and that the vanguard communist party was to provide the working class with the political education, organisation and revolutionary leadership necessary to overthrow the bourgeois oppression.11 Having succeeded in Russia, the Bolsheviks directed their gaze towards the horizon. At the Comintern’s second congress in 1920, it resolved to ‘overthrow the international bourgeoisie’ and abolish the state.12 Their fight against imperialism formed a part of this.13
Soon, the Comintern started recruiting and establishing communist parties throughout East and Southeast Asia, starting with the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis
Indonesia, PKI) in the Dutch East Indies and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921.14
Despite European attempts outlawing communist parties and arresting sympathisers, their numbers only grew. In 1925, communist parties emerged in India, Korea and the Straits Settlements. The following years saw further splits, giving birth to the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). To colonial authorities, this meant that every corner of the region was plagued by anti-colonial and revolutionary parties that were backed and advised by a well-organised and powerful foreign ally. Several communist-led rebellions, of which the PKI revolt of 1926-27 in the Dutch Indies and the larger Nghe-Tinh rebellion of 1930-31 in Indochina were the most serious, affirmed European fears of what came to be known as the ‘Bolshevik menace’ in official rhetoric.
While ample literature on the Comintern’s side of this story exists, only a few historians have ever studied international anti-communism in interwar Southeast Asia.15 Only one
11 V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Petrograd, 1916).
12 H. H. Fisher, The Communist Revolution: An Outline of Strategy and Tactics (Redwood City, 1955) p. 13. 13 J. Haithcox, ‘The Roy-Lenin Debate on Colonial Policy: a New Interpretation’, Journal of Asian Studies, xxiii
(1963) 93–101.
14 R. T. MacVey, The rise of Indonesian communism (Ithaca, 1965) p. 22.
15 W. J. Duiker, The communist road to power in Vietnam (Boulder, 1981); C. B. Kheng, From PKI to the
Comintern, 1924-1941: The Apprenticeship of the Malayan Communist Party (Ithaca, 1992); A. Belogurova,
‘Communism in South East Asia’ in S. A. Smith ed., The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (Oxford, 2014) pp. 236-248.
4 historian, Anne Foster, has comprehensively covered the whole period.16 Although Foster deals with the European side of the story, her work shows a strong focus on US involvement. However, the US neither initiated nor maintained the international collaboration and the question of why and how the European colonial governments decided to cooperate – certainly unusual at that time – remains largely unanswered.
This thesis, therefore, moves away from the US-dominated discourse and analyses how and why the anti-communist entente between the British, French and Dutch, the three major European powers in Southeast Asia, took shape and was able to persist throughout the interwar years. Going beyond mere observation of the necessary steps towards collaboration, this thesis explores the interactions between the architects of the anti-communist ‘imagined community’.17 The term, developed by Benedict Anderson to analyse nationalism, is here instead used as a tool to understand the transnational conservative community created by the colonial officials.18
A seemingly contradictio in terminis due to the conservative’s inherent nationalism, this thesis shows that the officials were well capable of imagining and creating a transnational network that protected their national values better than they could individually.
To best analyse this network an actor-centred approach is adopted that revolves around the various governors of the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, the Dutch Indies and Indochina, as well as other diplomats in the region. This thesis looks at the interactions between these individuals who shaped the transnational network, both inter- and intra-imperial. Transnationalism is understood as ‘the flow and pattern of relationships across national boundaries’.19 The term was chosen over international because the officials often operated on
16 A. L. Foster, ‘Secret Police Cooperation and the Roots of Anti-Communism in Interwar Southeast Asia’, Journal
of American-East Asian Relations, iv (1995) 331–350; A. L. Foster, Projections of power: the United States and Europe in colonial Southeast Asia, 1919-1941 (Durham, 2010).
17 B. Anderson, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. (New York, 2006). 18 M. Durham and M. Power, New perspectives on the transnational right (New York, 2010).
19 M. Ruotsila, ‘International Anti-Communism before the Cold War: Success and Failure in the Building of a
Transnational Right’ in M. Durham and M. Power ed., New Perspectives on the Transnational Right (New York, 2010) pp. 12-13.
5 purely regional interests, not always adhering to the law, and created a distinct transnational space that extended beyond their metropolitan government’s control. Furthermore, heed is taken of Dietze and Neumann’s call for a more nuanced approach to transnational actors by examining their inter-influencing roles in both transnational and national spaces.20
This thesis draws from a multi-archival source basis, incorporating material from the Dutch national archives in the Hague, the French diplomatic archives in Paris and the British national archives in London. Sources include telegrams, despatches, letters, reports and communiqués, which offer a thorough insight into the communication between officials from the colonial governments. These documents not only show how the officials created and maintained the network but also how they reflected upon them within their own governments. Moreover, these sources provide a unique insight into the ideological construction of the network, for they are usually filled with the ‘prose of counter-insurgency’.21 This concept,
coined by Guha, is used to denote the language that inherently supports the European view of affairs. However, by analysing this language critically the deeper motivations for cooperation are laid bare, turning vice into virtue. Finally, the names of cities and regions appear in their old colonial form in order to stay as close to the material as possible.
The first chapter analyses how the European colonial officials in Southeast Asia created a transnational anti-communist, information-sharing network. The impetuses for cooperation, both internally and externally, are central to this chapter. Starting at its origins in 1924, the chapter traces the build-up period of the cooperation until 1931. The second chapter follows chronologically on the first but delves into both the merits and limitations of the cooperation by focussing on the outdated legal systems. Finally, the third chapter analyses the underlying
20 A. Dietze and K. Naumann, ‘Revisiting transnational actors from a spatial perspective’, European Review of
History: Revue européenne d’histoire, xxv (2018) pp. 415–430.
21 R. Guha, ‘The prose of counter-insurgency’ in N. B. Dirks, G. Eley, and S. B. Ortner ed., Culture/power/history:
6 ideas and principles of the anti-communist imagined community.22 The chapter treats the construction of the false binary of communism/anti-communism and connects it to the imperial experience.
22 For a similar approach, see: M. J. Selverstone, Constructing the monolith: the United States, Great Britain, and
7
I. A cold war before the Cold War
European anti-communist movements existed from the very moment the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917. Its roots went deep into the late nineteenth-century opposition to democratic socialism and progressive liberalism, which had over the decades converged conservative ideologies throughout the continent. This made it ideologically relatively easy for conservatives across the European nations to translate these aversions into a common front when the Bolsheviks arose. 23 Bolshevik ideas, with its denial of private property and the free-market, class struggle and call for revolution, were the polar opposite of theirs.
Unlike with the earlier liberal and social-democratic opposition, conservative leaders agreed that Bolshevism had to be combated and overcome not only through counterpropaganda, education and pre-emptive social reforms but also through combined military force. However, commenced in 1918, the Allied intervention in Russia had failed by 1919 due to clashing national interests and criticism from the Left at home.24 While the Allies kept hoping for an
opportunity to one day resume the attack, the interwar period saw no more state-led collaborative action against Bolshevism in Europe.
Towards cooperation
In Southeast Asia, however, the situation was different as the Comintern expanded its grip on the region. The Dutch were the first to recognise the threat due to the early development of the PKI. By 1923, Dutch officials were struggling to keep out communist influences and to find legal ways of deporting communist agitators, both native and Chinese. In an effort to curb the influx of ‘Bolshevik Kuomintang’ propagandists, they tried to open a dialogue with the British about the possibility of common action against their spreading.25 Since the alliance between the
23 Ruotsila, ‘International Anti-Communism’, pp. 12–16.
24 I. Moffat, The Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918-1920: The Diplomacy of Chaos (New York, 2015) pp.
265-275.
25 J. Woltring and A. F. Manning, Documenten betreffende de buitenlandse politiek van Nederland 1919-1945.
8 CCP and the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), China had been the centre-stage of the struggle against Bolshevik influence. By 1926, tensions would run so high that the Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir William Tyrrell, stated that Britain was ‘virtually at war with Russia’.26
However, the British proved unwilling as they saw ‘neither in that organisation nor the person of Sun Yat-sen such danger as the Dutch Indies government’.27
In April 1925, the Governor-general of the Dutch-Indies, Dirk Fock, reached out to the governments of Indochina, the Straits Settlements and British India with the request for a reciprocal exchange of intelligence on communist propaganda in the Far East.28 The answers were positive, save for a few adjustments to the proposed methods of exchange. The Governor-General of Indochina, Martial Merlin, cautiously responded that the French agreed but that they also thought the main problem lay in China. Despite this, the French Minister of Colonies, André Hesse, was particularly enthusiastic and immediately sent a telegram to Aristide Briand, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, explaining the necessity and value of such an agreement.29
While hitherto lacking in the Southeast Asia colonies, the idea of information sharing to contain Bolshevik influence in itself was not new. Already in 1924, the Belgians had approached the Dutch with regard to cooperation in the colonies and had also expressed the need for similar agreements with the United Kingdom and France.30 Hesse explained in his telegram that, as a result of the Belgian initiative, the French Lieutenant-governor of Dahomey, a French protectorate in Africa, was already authorised to exchange information with the Belgians.31 In fact, the French had been taking anti-communist measures in their African
26 Best, ‘We are virtually at war’, p. 210.
27 Woltring, Documenten, 253-254: ‘niet in die Vereeniging, noch in den persoon van Sun Yat-sen, zulk een gevaar
ziet als de Nederlandsch-Indische regeering’. All translations are done by the author unless otherwise stated.
28 NA, 2.10.36.02, 11 Apr. 1925 (a); NA, 2.10.36.02, 407x/25, 11 Apr. 1925 (b); TNA, FO 371/11775, 1 Dec.
1926.
29 NA, 2.10.36.02, 11 Apr. 1925 (b); CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 5 June 1925. 30 CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 18 July 1925.
9 colonies since 1922.32 Hesse concluded that ‘France [was] disarmed in the face of this new threat’ and that an agreement between the colonial governments could not come soon enough.33
Crucially, Hesse emphasised that it was of utmost importance to keep such an accord strictly limited to the colonial areas to ensure that the Bolsheviks would not mistake it for an anti-Russian collaboration. He explained that if the cooperation would be kept on extra-European territory and explicitly against the Comintern, which according to him, was not an integral part of the Soviet state, such a situation could be prevented.34
After Briand agreed with Hesse that some form of cooperation was necessary, he assessed who could be invited to a security conference.35 Having initiated the process, Dutch
attendance was a certainty. Meanwhile, the British also started seeing the possible dangers for their own possessions and Briand held no doubts they would be interested. The British Consul-General in Batavia, Josaiah Crosby, later wrote that countries neighbouring the Dutch Indies would not enjoy ‘immunity from this infection’ much longer.36 Moreover, the British authorities had received reliable information that the Soviet government was setting up secret intelligence centres throughout the world and that Singapore was used as a Communist hub for Southeast Asia.37 They thus gladly partook in the conference.
For the United States, things were different. In a ministerial note it was remarked that ‘although American domination in the Philippines is far from being as soft as it is represented in Washington and police services are being developed more than anywhere else, public opinion in the United States may not admit taking at least seemingly imperialistic measures’.38 Briand
32 M. Terretta, ‘‘In the Colonies, Black Lives Don’t Matter.’ Legalism and Rights Claims across the French
Empire'. Journal of Contemporary History 53 (2018) pp. 12–37.
33 CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 18 June 1925. 34 Ibid.
35 CADMAE, E, AC, 7 Aug. 1925. 36 TNA, FO 371/11698, 26 Nov. 1925. 37 TNA, CO 273/534/1, Dec. 1925.
38 CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 7 Aug. 1925: ‘quoique la domination américaine aux Philippines soit loin d'etre aussi
douce qu'on le représente à washington et et que les services de police y soient développés plus que partout ailleurs, il se peut que l'opinion publique aux Etats-Unis n'admette pas qu'on se concerte pour prendre des mesures d'apparence au moins imperialists.’
10 did therefore not expect the United States to attend and he was largely right: until at least 1929, the Americans remained aloof. As for the Japanese, the French assumed they would not attend because they were only interested in monitoring Korea and because of their Pan-Asian ideals that opposed European colonial rule.
The next step was organising the conference, which presented the practical problem of finding a host-city. France and Britain both refrained from hosting because both countries maintained a special relationship with Russia.39 Hosting the conference in either country could
be interpreted as an act of conspiracy against the Soviets, a situation that had to be avoided at all costs. In the end, it was decided that the conference be held in Brussels.40
Although no records remain of the conference, it is clear that a collaboration started to take shape between the British, French and Dutch colonial governments in Southeast Asia over the subsequent months.41 However, the fear of antagonising the Bolsheviks refrained them from
entering any truly official agreements. Briand pointed out that such an official declaration would become particularly problematic if its existence were ever to be leaked to the press as such actions would easily be regarded as an outright attack on the people’s liberty.42 His preferred method would see the colonial police forces continue their current work and have them meet periodically in a designated village. The British later agreed to Briand’s ideas, but only after stressing once again that a purely administrative character should be conserved.43 Albeit highly careful, the foundations for cooperation had been made.
Up until then, the Dutch had been effective in subduing any communist action with relative ease. They had practically banned all communist organisations and communist press by May 1926 and promulgated restrictions on assembly, which proved to be a powerful tool for
39 CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 10 Aug. 1925. 40 Ibid.
41 CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 30 Dec. 1925. 42 CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 19 Oct. 1925. 43 CADMAE, E, AC, 34, 28 July 1926.
11 the Dutch authorities. A British report remarked that the application of this law and the arresting of communist leaders were attended with ‘almost magical results’. According to the report, the strikers lost heart and interest in the movement without their chiefs and the mutual support that could be derived from assembling, proving ‘how artificial the agitation had been from its inception’.44 But despite this optimism, the British and French officials kept closely observing
and periodically reporting every bit of news with regard to communism in the Dutch Indies.
Communists at arms
In November 1926, a PKI-led uprising against the Dutch government erupted, confirming European suspicions. The revolt consisted of two uprisings. First, a limited revolt took place in Bantam on the night of 12 to 13 November. Several hundred men attacked and kidnapped a native official in his home, killing a policeman that stood guard and wounding two others.45 Because the police had intercepted a coded message the day before they had ample of time to arrest several leaders which prevented the revolt from spreading to Central and East Java.46 Only Batavia saw a failed attempt of rebels to storm a prison in the hope of freeing the inmates. The Dutch quickly overwhelmed the poorly armed and disorganised rebels and fighting seized in most places after only a day.47 The second revolt took place on Western Sumatra on 1 January 1927, much later than planned due to internal quarrels.48 A few colonial officials were killed,
one of which was European, and some railroad tracks and telephone lines were sabotaged. Again, the rebels, often only armed with swords and, in a few instances, revolvers proved no match for the superior forces of the Dutch police and army.49 Within two weeks, order was fully restored.50
44 TNA, CO 273/534/8, 5 May 1926.
45 M. C. Williams, Communism, religion, and revolt in Banten (Athens, 1990) pp. 121–122. 46 Foster, Projections of power, 27.
47 Williams, Communism, religion, and revolt in Banten, 128–129. 48 NA, 2.10.36.15, 40, May 1927.
49 Foster, Projections of power, 27–28.
12 Whereas the Dutch had suffered only a few casualties, the death toll on the rebels’ side ran into the hundreds. Around 13.000 people were apprehended for participating in the revolt or otherwise aiding the PKI. In some cases, being in the vicinity of the action was reason enough to be arrested. While some of the arrestees were released after interrogation, about 4.500 were sentenced to prison and 1.300 others were sent to the purpose made internment camp Boven-Digoel deep in the jungles of New Guinea.51 The camp, deliberately shrouded in mystery by the Dutch, was a model concentration camp that, according to Dutch historian Klaas Stutje, was built a theoretical basis similar to Theresienstadt.52
Immediately after the rise, the Dutch colonial government requested a report on the PKI. The result was the Politieke Nota over de Partij Kommunist Indonesia (Political Note on the Indonesian Communist Party). This report presented the revolt as the ‘strict implementation’ of decisions taken at earlier Communist conferences in Djocdja and Moscow and called for a hard hand against all Comintern agitators. 53 Two versions of the report were made, one public but limited edition for the Volksraad (People’s Council) and one more extensive and secret version, which was circulated among officials and English translations were given to officials of selected foreign governments such as France and Britain.54
Upon receiving the report, Crosby wrote that it was ‘a document of unusual interest and great value, for it indicates conclusively how the hand of Moscow is to be traced in the late disturbances’. However, earlier British assessments of the West Javan rebellion showed a slightly more critical approach.55 Most alarming was the fact that the PKI had been able to keep the rebellion a secret until 24 hours before its commencement. At the time, the British saw ‘no
51 Larson, Prelude to revolution, p. 132
52 ‘Hoe Nederland zijn strafkamp in Nieuw-Guinea trachtte te vermommen’,
[https://decorrespondent.nl/8020/hoe-nederland-zijn-strafkamp-in-nieuw-guinea-trachtte-te-vermommen/3214246561460-d2195119] (accessed on 5 May, 2019).
53 NA, 2.10.36.15, 40, Jan. 1927: ‘strenge doorvoering’ 54 TNA, FO 371/12696, 30 Mar. 1927.
13 cause for any real uneasiness’ in the near future as long as the Dutch army remained loyal, but at the same time assured the Governor-general of the Dutch Indies that the Straits Settlements would cooperate as closely as practicable with their neighbours.56
A British report made up after both rebellions had a more serious tone, stating that the recent disturbances pointed to the existence of a highly efficient organisation, exemplified by its ability to organise concerted risings at ‘widely distant spots’ and remain completely secretive while doing so. Moreover, the Dutch had been fortunate because ‘had [the outbreak] been postponed and had the communist organisation been further perfected, the outbreak would have assumed much more serious proportions than was actually the case’.57 The Governor-General
of the Straits Settlements, Guillemard, realised that communism was just as hostile to the British government as to any other government and that ‘the weapons directed against the Dutch to-day may be turned against [Britain] to-morrow’.58
Overall, the PKI rebellion proved to be a strong incentive for the European nations to start cooperating more seriously. If not out of fear of what had happened, then certainly out of fear of what might happen. A letter of a French envoy in China to Briand who comments on the split between the KMT and CCP in 1927 showed that disquietude emanating from the threat of the Bolshevik spectre ran deep. The rupture and the subsequent purge of Chinese communists by the KMT was a disaster for Moscow’s plans in the region, virtually ending its influence in China. Yet, the envoy merely stated that the success of General Chiang Kai-shek gave a ‘misleading impression of greater security’ with regard to anti-imperialist propaganda and that he expected that the KMT’s communist branches in Indochina would pose no less of a threat.59
56 TNA, FO 371/12696, 27 Nov. 1926. 57 TNA, FO 371/12696, 7 Feb. 1927 58 TNA, FO 371/12696, 30 Apr. 1927.
14 While Tyrell’s ‘war’ might have ended on Chinese territory, it certainly continued beneath Southeast Asia’s surface.
Out of the shadows
In 1928, the entente caught the eye of the public. The official newspaper of the Soviet Ministry of Defence, Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), published an article that claimed to expose a colonial entente between France and the United Kingdom.60 According to the article, the alliance not only aimed at oppressing the colonial peoples but was also preparing for war with Russia. The French ambassador in Moscow, Jean Herbette, noted in a letter to Briand that these facts were only based on articles from newspapers and magazines and other press extracts ‘interpreted in the most tendentious manner’.61 Pravda (Truth), the official newspaper of the Soviet
Communist Party, picked up on this story and headed with ‘French-English Colonial Entente’, stating that it was strange that France and Britain, after having made compromises on naval, political and financial affairs, would neglect to compromise on ‘one of their most important domains: colonial affairs’.62 The newspaper claimed that in order to ‘keep the colonial peoples in the noose of military imperialist occupation’, the French and British would create a joined expeditionary force to smother the revolutionary movements in their colonies.63
Herbette, clearly alarmed by these ‘alleged revelations’, underscored that this proved that the campaign conducted in Moscow against all possible forms of Franco-British collaboration was not merely inspired by polemics.64 Continuing his fulmination, Herbette
concluded that France should not allow itself to be neither intimidated nor exasperated by such publications. Instead, he belaboured the inescapable necessity for a strict internal and external regulation of propaganda, starting with cooperation between France and England. The irony of
60 CADMAE, E, AC, 38, 28 Oct. 1928.
61 Ibid.: ‘interprétés de la manière la plus tendancieuse’.
62 Ibid.: ‘Entente colonial franco-anglaise’, ‘l’un des domaines les plus importants pour eux: le domaine colonial’. 63 Ibid.: ‘tenir les peoples coloniaux dans l’étau de l’occupation militaire impérialiste’
15 this proposal must have eluded him as he proclaimed that ‘[France and Britain] must and will have to employ an even stronger will, an even more precise method, even more information and a unity even more complete than those which the Communists are and shall be demonstrating’.65
Soon after, non-communist newspapers also started to react to rumours of cooperation, effectively taking it out of the shadows of absolute secrecy. The widely read Dutch newspaper, the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, elaborated on ‘the task of France and the Netherlands in the East’ after receiving news of a visit by the governor-general of Indochina, Pasquier, to Batavia. The article praised the exchange of ideas in the light of the nation’s duty of educating the Asian.66 An article in the Indochinese newspaper Le Courrier Saigonnais mentioned that the governments of Indochina, the Dutch-Indies, the Straits Settlements and Siam were coming close to an agreement with regard to a severe control on communist propaganda and a reporter in the Dutch Algemeen Handelsblad concluded that something ‘special’ was being prepared in the Pacific.67 The fact that French officials had purposefully cropped or copied and circulated
these and similar articles shows that this sudden attention was not taken lightly.
The publicity also sparked a need for clarification on the exact nature of the existing cooperation. Upon request, Briand informed his ambassador in the Netherlands that an official accord between the Dutch and French governments against the Bolshevik menace would bring more inconveniences than advantages. The cooperation should stay decentralised and maintained by the two colonial governments, an opinion that was shared by the Minister of Colonies.68 The Dutch also agreed to this approach but did request to extend the sharing of
65 CADMAE, E, AC, 38, 28 Oct. 1928: ‘nous devons et nous devrons employer une volonté encore plus forte, une
méthode encore plus precise, une information plus etendue et une unite encore plus complete que celles don’t les communistes font et feront preuve’.
66G. G. van den Hoeven, ‘Frankrijk’s en Nederland’s taak in het Oosten’, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 12 Apr.
1929, p. 1.
67 CADMAE, E, AC, 39, 4 May 1929: ‘bijzonders’
16 propagandist material to include the Soviet Union, for they had no official representation in Moscow after 1917, to which the French obliged.69 This show that the cooperation also went
beyond its regional core.
By 1930, the pressure of communist influence was increasingly felt. Communist parties had spread like wildfire through Southeast Asia and after the Dutch, the French now too were dealing with rebels in the form of the Nghe-Tinh Soviets. This rebellion, much grander in scale than the PKI revolt had ever been and a thorn in the side of French officials, who had responded with harsh suppressive violence.70 With all colonial powers in the region on edge, communism was now widely regarded as one of the biggest problems in the entire Far East. The new Governor-general of the Straits Settlements, Sir Cecil Clementi, expressed the intention of entering relations with Siam and the neighbouring European colonies, with the goal of undertaking preventative measures.71 The Dutch press rejoiced at his visit to Batavia and
emphasised the importance of this voyage for the fight against communism.72 The need for cooperation thus seemed to become increasingly accepted among the officials of all the colonial governments.
For Briand, this was enough reason to take the initiative as Indochina had been ‘the first to draw the attention to the neighbouring foreign possessions to the necessity of an agreement between the governments concerned for the maintenance of order and peace in the Far East’.73
The Indochinese government subsequently organised a meeting between the security delegates of Siam, Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements, the Dutch-Indies and the Philippines to reinforce their collective efforts. Once again, the meeting was kept strictly technical and discreet.74 Every
69 CADMAE, E, AC, 40, 18 Sep. 1929.
70 M. Bernal, ‘The Nghe-Tinh Soviet Movement 1930-1931’ Past & Present, xcii (1981) pp. 148-168. 71 CADMAE, E, AC, 88, 1 Aug. 1930.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.: ‘la première attire l’attention des possessions étrangères voisines sur la nécessité d’une entente des
Gouvernements intéressés en vue du maintien de l’ordre et de la paix en Asie Orientale’.
17 precaution was taken to make sure that this gathering was in line with the normal activities of the security branches of the different governments as not to raise suspicion among neither the Soviets nor the colonial population. For the French, this meant that the Governor-general could not be involved too deeply; the management of the Indochina Union would have to address the gathering security delegates.75 Nevertheless, the French vigilance constituted a stark contrast with the earlier French mindset.76 In 1925 they had left any initiative in the hands of the British, by 1930 they had come to consider themselves in the vanguard of anti-communism.
On 2 June 1931, a conference among French colonial officials was held to assess the threat that communism posed in the Southeast Asian countries in light of the Nghe-Tinh rebellions. One of the speakers was Paul Reynaud, then Minister of Colonies, who explained that the recent troubles related to the largely similar troubles that were experienced in China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, the Dutch-Indies, Siam, the Straits Settlements, India and Burma. Having connected the dots, Reynaud concluded that these were multiple manifestations of a vast movement, directed by Moscow.77 According to Reynaud, the only solution was a complete
cooperation on diplomatic level.
Over the course of six years, the position of all three major European powers in Southeast Asia towards international cooperation had dramatically shifted. While initially uninterested in Dutch alarmist calls for cooperation, France and Britain increasingly saw the dangers that communism posed to their own territories and thus the merits of cooperation. Over time, outbreaks of communist-instigated violence kept reinforcing the fear of a seemingly ungraspable enemy. By 1931, the French had even adopted the role of anti-communist champion in the region, going as far as claiming to have pioneered the cooperation and stealing
75 CADMAE, E, AC, 88, 7 Aug. 1930. 76 CADMAE, E, AC 35, 19 Oct. 1925. 77 CADMAE, E, AC, 89, 2 June 1931.
18 the Dutch official’s thunder.78 However, officials from all three nations understood that the Bolshevik problem could only be addressed collectively.
The developments of the necessary transnational network only went gradual as the colonial officials were constantly forced to walk a fine line between reinforcing cooperation and avoiding antagonising the Soviets. Although the various governors were the chief architects of the network, the space they created floated between official and officious and was mostly populated by lower officials and police personnel that met in secret. When European liaisons were then forced out of the shadows, the game became less ambiguous. Reynaud suggested that, for the next ministerial meeting, the possibility of official diplomatic cooperation should be examined.79 Although the network would continuously be tightened, such an arrangement was never made in the remainder of the interwar period. A major reason might have been the fact that the cooperation soon started to yield promising results.
78 CADMAE, E, AC, 88, 1 Aug. 1930. 79 CADMAE, E, AC, 89, 2 June 1931.
19
II. Novel cooperation, old empires
Up until 1931, the cooperation consisted mostly of tracking the whereabouts of communist individuals and occasional extraditions. As the previous chapter has shown, the lack of success and growing fears brought the European officials ever closer together. But in 1931, the Singapore police made a discovery that had extensive consequences for the hunt on communists. This chapter examines this turbulent episode and its aftermath, revealing both the effectiveness as well as the limitations of the transnational network rooted in empire.
Reaping the rewards
On 1 June 1931, the British authorities in Singapore arrested a Frenchman named Joseph Ducroux (alias Serge Lefranc) and two members of the MCP. He had arrived in Singapore on 27 April and quickly began attracting attention as he met with known Communists and sent coded telegrams to Shanghai, Paris and Brussels. The British police soon discovered the man claiming to be LeFranc was, in fact, Ducroux, whose communist activities around the globe had made him notorious. After watching his activities for a month, the Singapore police arrested him in his rented office.80
Immediately afterwards, the police not only located but also raided the headquarters of the MCP, arresting seventeen people in the process.81 Ducroux was convicted on 22 June by a
Singapore court, receiving a sentence of eighteen months imprisonment on the ground of assisting in the management of an unlawful society. The true nature of Durcroux’s mission was connected to the replacement of the earlier South Seas Communist Party, which was a branch of the CCP, and to further extend the influence of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern (FEB) throughout Southeast Asia.82
80 Streets-Salter, ‘The Noulens Affair’, pp. 397–399. 81 Ibid., 399.
20 Crucially, Ducroux carried with him the telegraphic address for ‘Hilanoul, Shanghai’. The address was registered by Hilaire Noulens, who lived at 235 Szechuan Road. He was arrested by the Shanghai municipal police, aided by the French concession police, on 15 June 1931. An immediate search of his apartment yielded nothing but a key to an apartment on 49 Nanking Road.83 There, however, they struck gold: hundreds of reports, letters, financial records and other correspondence of the FEB and the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) in Shanghai, two separate but closely cooperating Comintern-led organisations, stored in three steel boxes.84 These documents laid bare the connections between their main agencies, two in China and one in Japan and their dependencies in the British, French, American and Dutch colonial possessions.
The biggest blow to the FEB came from the fact that the confiscated material contained the pseudonyms of Comintern agents in East and Southeast Asia, payroll documents that indicated which members of the European police and Chinese government were Comintern agents as well as the key to decoding enciphered documents.85 The discovery of the Noulens’
files enabled the British authorities to arrest 276 alleged Communists, make 95 further raids on communist posts in Shanghai and seize 815 kinds of Communist literature yielding a total of 963,601 copies.86
When the police forces of the colonies started to puzzle together the uncovered evidence, it became clear that the FEB was an important central post for the Comintern in East and Southeast Asia. After the Comintern’s defeat in China, it had decided to change course as the KMT was no longer regarded as a viable vessel to lead the revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia. While European officials had been aware of this, they had little knowledge on
83 TNA, FO 1093/92, 7 Mar. 1932. 84 CADMAE, E, AC, 92, 20 Nov. 1931.
85 F. E. Wakeman, Policing Shanghai, 1927-1937 (Berkeley, 1996) p. 148. 86 Streets-Salter, ‘The Noulens Affair’, 400.
21 the Comintern’s organisational structure.87 Together with the Profintern, or Red International of Labour Unions, and the PPTUS, the FEB took over the organisation of the communist parties in the region in 1929.88 Communications with Moscow went through complex enciphered telegrams and a series of post boxes in Shanghai that received information from a set of shifting residences in Berlin. From Shanghai onwards, the communication lines consisted of couriers, whose main routes ran from Shanghai to Japan, Shanghai to Hong Kong, Saigon, Bangkok, Singapore and the Rangoon, from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Formosa and Manila and from Singapore to Batavia.89 The main objective of the Bureau was to keep the communist efforts in the region in harmony with the Comintern’s vision. Although China constituted the main focal point of the organisation, it was clear that it also had plans to reinforce the role of the Comintern in Southeast Asia.90 The uncovering of the bureau thus confirmed Moscow’s subversive role in the region.
The Noulens Affair, as it came to be known, spurred an international debate among the left-leaning institutions and individuals and their more conservative counterparts. The chief propagandist of the Comintern, Willi Munzenburg, started an international campaign and demanded that Noulens, who was arrested and held captive by the Chinese government, be extradited to European territory to be tried there.91 The initiative quickly gathered support from
famous socialists all over the world, including Clara Zetkin, Henri Barbusse and Albert Einstein. But while their efforts generated significant labour union support, ranging from unions of railway personnel to hairdressers, the Chinese were not prompted to let him go.92
87 CADMAE, E, AC, 37, 15 Aug. 1928; CADMAE, E, AC, 37, 17 Aug. 1928.
88 N. A. Bootsma, Buren in de koloniale tijd: de Philippijnen onder Amerikaans bewind en de Nederlandse,
Indische en Indonesische reacties daarop, 1898-1942 (Dordrecht, 1986) p. 73.
89 FO 1093/92, 7 Mar. 1932. 90 Ibid.
91 CADMAE, E, AC, 92, 20 Aug. 1931.
22 Meanwhile, Noulens went on a hunger strike as his own form of protest which only slightly delayed the trial. What did complicate the trial were the numerous aliases they used. The police found eleven different passports in the apartment, and the authorities never got their identity right.93 Noulens, who was eventually trialled as the Swiss ‘Paul Ruegg’, was only in 1994 revealed to be the Ukrainian Jakob Rudnik.94 In August 1932, ‘Ruegg’ was sentenced to death which was immediately abated to life-long imprisonment.95
While the bust at 49 Nanking Road was a major victory over the Comintern, it did not ease the minds of the European colonial officials. In fact, it only enhanced the spectre of a vast underground network. The affair attracted much publicity, but the French, British, Dutch, American and Chinese newspapers often emphasised the danger that communism still posed.96 The official British report on the affair concluded that ‘it would be unwise to take too optimistic a view’ when assessing the beneficial effects of the arrests.97 While it acknowledged that the
substations of the Comintern had been crippled for the moment, it mostly lamented the fact ‘the main power-house in Moscow and its sub-agency in Berlin […] remain[ed] supremely unaffected’. The official report of the French concession police in Shanghai echoed this message, stating that the Comintern was without doubt already reorganising the Far Eastern Bureau and that it was more than certain that Noulens’ successor was already in Shanghai to re-establish the destroyed connections.98
The bust also reaffirmed the danger of Russia’s machinations in the East. The British report summarised that ‘If there is one lesson more clearly to be learned from the Noulens Case than any other, it is the utter dependency of oriental Communist organisations upon Moscow
93 CADMAE, E, AC, 92, 31 Oct. 1931.
94 His identity was revealed in: F. S. Litten, ‘The Noulens Affair*’, The China Quarterly, cxxxviii (1994) 492–
512.
95 CADMAE, E, AC, 92, 26 Oct. 1931. 96 Streets-Salter, ‘The Noulens Affair’, 403. 97 TNA,CO 323/1931, 7 Mar. 1932.
98 CADMAE, E, AC, 92, 26 Oct. 1931: ‘plus que certain que le successeur de Noulens était déjà à Shanghai ces
23 and upon Moscow’s confidential agents’.99 Without those agents, Communism was deemed
unlikely to cause any trouble in the region. With the ‘conspirative genius’ and financial support of Moscow at its back and the ‘whole stock-in-trade of the trained Communist missionary at its elbow’, the report continued, it could not but remain a ‘constant lurking danger both to prosperity and stability’.100
Additionally, the bust had provided limited results in the eyes of the European officials because only three well-known ‘missionaries’ had been laid to heels. The founding of the FEB had meant that the communist movements were now under the direct supervision of Western ideologists instead of the KMT. The former were considered to be much more dangerous, as most of the Chinese were nationalist at heart.101 It was this group of trained Communist organisers, of which eleven names are given in the report, but that included many more unidentified members, that had become the Power’s primary target. Since they were ‘relatively few’ and ‘[took] time in the making’, identifying and apprehending them was seen as the best way to achieve permanent results.102 This was, however, not an easy task as the Comintern had
elevated forgery to a ‘fine art’ which had reduced visa and passport systems ‘to futility’.103 The
British report thus called for an even more rigorous cooperation between the colonies. Despite the fact that the Comintern would never fully recover from this strike.104 The affair had only
fuelled fears of the elusive and quick-witted enemy.
A bitter harvest
While officials were fully focussed on catching fugitive Communists abroad, surprisingly little thought was given on what should happen afterwards. In the long term, the inadequacy of the separated legal systems in keeping the agitators detained proved to be a much more critical
99 TNA, CO 323/1931, 7 Mar. 1932. 100 Ibid.
101 Bootsma, Buren in de koloniale tijd, 73. 102 TNA, CO 323/1931, 7 Mar. 1932. 103 Ibid.
24 issue. The European officials first realised this when two Indonesian communists, Alamin and Moeso, were arrested on British soil in 1927.105 Both had ties to the PKI and the revolt earlier
that year and were wanted in all European territories.
However, after an exhaustive enquiry was held by the Executive Council of the Straits Settlements and the matter had been discussed, the Council advised by a majority of 4-3 that the orders for banishments should not be carried out. The majority, including the Attorney General, held the view that, in the circumstances, the banishment of these men was not ‘necessary for the public safety or welfare’, which was a legal precondition for banishment. This view was dictated by the fact that the political activities of the detainees were directed to the subversion of the government in the Dutch Indies and not of the British Government, against which they could find no evidence of a hostile act or intent on their part.106 The two were released in April and left on the steamer ‘Awamaru’ for Canton, where they went off the radar despite efforts by both French and Dutch police forces to trap them.107 Whereas the British willingness for international police cooperation had led to the swift arrest of the two PKI leaders, the dated legal machinery had quickly undone all progress.
Although the Dutch expressed their gratitude for the Straits Settlements Government’s desire to cooperate against the ‘communist menace in this part of the world’ and appreciated the legal difficulties, they regretted ‘in the most friendliest and courteous fashion’ the lack of British provisions to ensure the mutual surrender of communist propagandists and pressed for the adoption of ‘common measures for the averting of a common peril’.108 The British
Consul-General Crosby agreed with the Dutch officials and sent the request to Laurence Guillemard, the Governor of the Straits Settlements. He also proved sympathetic to Dutch sentiment and proposed amending the law, arguing that, with regard to the international character of
105 Foster, Projections of power, 32. 106 TNA, FO 371/12696, 30 Apr. 1927.
107 CADMAE, E, AC, 36, 30 May 1927; CADMAE, E, AC, 35, 14 May 1927. 108 TNA, FO 371/12696, 8 Apr. 1927.
25 Communism, ‘it is idle to ignore the fact that Communism is as hostile to the British Government as to any other established Government and that the weapons directed against the Dutch to-day may be turned against [Britain] to-morrow.’109
The British Home Office replied that it was willing to adjust a few lines so that it would correspond to the Aliens Order of 1920. The existing Ordinance that authorised banishment only in cases where this was ‘necessary for the public safety or welfare’ was amended to where the Secretary of State ‘deems it conducive to the public good’.110 However, John Pedder, who
wrote the confirmation, also added that the new law should be used very carefully and could not be called upon to get rid of just any persona non grata. Moreover, he reminded the Secretary of State that, in the United Kingdom, a deportation order did not require the alien against whom it is made to proceed to any particular country – which the Dutch had expected – and that it had been decided by the High Court that it could not do so under any circumstances. In practice, it was necessary to ascertain to what country the alien belonged, since no other country could be called upon to receive him. Once the alien had left UK soil, however, the Government was not concerned to see that he reached his destination and had, in fact, no means of doing so if he could not be sent via direct sea route. Pedder concluded that this practical point might not have been of much importance in the current situation, but that it might arise when it would concern ‘nationals of other countries or of aliens deported from other colonies in the far east’.111 While
none seemed to be bothered by the seemingly small issue, Pedder’s warning would prove to be of almost clairvoyant quality.
On the same list carried by Ducroux that had led them to Noulens, the police also found an address near Kowloon City. There, Nguyen Ai Quoc, a famous Indochinese Communist, was discovered on 6 June 1931. Just as with Noulens, he was detained without a warrant and
109 TNA, FO 371/12696, 30 Apr. 1927. 110 TNA, FO 371/12696, 30 May 1927. 111 Ibid.
26 without evidence of having committed any offence. In both cases, the offences amounted to subversion from a safe haven but only if they could be substantiated. However, the Hong Kong officials were willing to take the risk. Although Hong Kong may have harboured political refugees, it was not keen on having its territory abused for inciting unrest in neighbouring countries.112
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Briand, immediately reacted, stating that they wanted Nguyen either extradited to French territory or, in case that would not be possible, have him detained in a remote British colony. When instructing the French ambassador in Hong Kong on this, he mentioned that he should ‘orally indicate’ that, in September 1930, the Governor of Chandannagar assisted the Governor of Bengal in dealing with Hindu terrorists and that the Governor of French Guinea gave similar support to the Governor of Sierra Leone in February 1931.113 Formulating the request as an act of reciprocity and emphasising the fact
that Quoc also operated in the British territories, both Briand and the Minister of Colonies had high hopes that Britain would comply.114 Moreover, the French ambassador emphasised that
Quoc was ‘a danger to all European possessions in the Far East’.115 The Governor of Hong
Kong, Sir William Peel, had to refuse nevertheless, despite confiding that he was ashamed to do so. 116 The main reason was that the situation lay beyond his legal powers. When the French
ambassador reminded him that the actions at Chandannagar also were not ‘completely legal’, he replied that the current situation was different. Quoc had already been officially arrested and had consulted a lawyer.117 The French thus had to await the outcome of an official trial.
A team of lawyers, sent by the Red Aid organisation and led by a young solicitor from Hong Kong, Frank Loseby, stepped in on Quoc’s behalf. The French tried to have Quoc
112 Duncanson, ‘Ho-Chi-Minh In Hong Kong’, 89–90. 113 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 10 June 1931.
114 Ibid.
115 TNA, CO 129/539/2, ‘Précis of case of Sung Man Cho, alias Nguyen ai quoc’. 116 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 27 July 1931.
27 banished in the usual way.118 Since he was a native to Indo-China, he would be deported to the French colony according to the regulations. However, he was not able to produce any proof of identification. Because this was often the case with Asians, ‘banishment inquiries’ in which the detainee’s identity and place of birth were established by an administrative officer with magisterial powers, had become a common practice.119 Since Quoc only claimed to be the Cantonese ‘Sung’, the procedure was initiated.
At the inquiry, Nguyen stated that he was born in a Chinese border town to Tonkin. He did not, however, speak Chinese but English during the entire procedure. He denied being Nguyen Ai Quoc and told the interviewers that, although he had visited France, he had never been to Russia. Moreover, he declared himself a nationalist with no ties to the Comintern, stating that the ICP did not exist. He did admit that he signed a postcard for Ducroux but denied knowing him personally. Instead, he insisted that the correspondence was meant for his alleged landlord, ‘T.V. Wong’. When the interviewers showed him a picture of the wanted Nguyen Ai Quoc, he again admitted that it was him in the picture but that he had never worn a hat like the one in the photograph.120 These bewildering responses were strategically used by Quoc to sow confusion, a technique employed by many of his Comintern colleagues.
To overcome the technical issues raised by Quoc, the French tried to have him deported to Shanghai. However, Loseby protested this because it would allow the French to capture him after all, therefore practically making it a disguised extradition.121 After the Hong Kong court
rejected an appeal for a writ of Habeas Corpus, Quoc finally was to be deported to Saigon.122 To this, he himself protested, stating that he would be sent to his certain death.123 Moreover, Quoc’s solicitors found that the deportation was not valid under Hong Kong law, and they
118 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 13 June 1931.
119 Duncanson, ‘Ho-Chi-Minh In Hong Kong’, 91. 120 Ibid., 91.
121 Ibid., 93.
122 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 12 Sept. 1931. 123 TNA, FO 371/15644, 23 Sept. 1931.
28 appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London mere days before the deportation.124 On 23 October 1931, the Secretary of State announced that the decision was
postponed until the results of the appeal were known, resulting in a delay of a year.125 In the end, the court decided he would be banished, but that he would be left to his own devices in making the arrangements. He was given 250 pounds to help him on his way.126 The French repeatedly asked for his destination, but the Foreign Office never gave in.127 Quoc had used the exact loophole that Pedder had pointed out in 1927. Even after amending its laws, the British legal system proved to be the greatest hindrance to international cooperation.
Quoc was released in disguise on 28 December 1932 and ordered to leave within 21 days. Before leaving and as an act of diversion, Loseby spread the message that he had died in the hospital as a result of tuberculosis.128 The French consul in Hong Kong did not fall for the trick but nevertheless advised the Minister of Foreign Affairs to bring further requests to a halt. The consul feared that they might otherwise push the British, who had been ‘good-willing and courteous’ up until then, to the limits of their ‘traditional thinking’.129 Moreover, the Comintern
followed France’s every move in the affair, giving them more reason for a new revolt by the day.
After accidentally being arrested and immediately released again by the Hong Kong immigration authorities, all in utmost secrecy, Quoc made it to Vladivostok where he boarded the Trans-Siberian express and set off to Moscow.130 Although Quoc had avoided French
jurisdiction, all precautions that were taken by him and the British were not enough to obscure his movements from French eyes. Before long, they knew that he was at large again. The
124 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 22 Oct. 1931. 125 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 28 Oct. 1931.
126 Duncanson, ‘Ho-Chi-Minh In Hong Kong’, 97. 127 See for example: CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 6 Aug. 1931. 128 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 11 Aug. 1932.
129 CADMAE, E, AC, 90, 13 Aug. 1932: ‘de bonne volonté et courtois’, ‘pensée traditionnelle’ 130 Duncanson, ‘Ho-Chi-Minh In Hong Kong’, 98–100.
29 Governor of Hong Kong, furious about what had happened, wrote that ‘the police of this colony had in their hands two of the most dangerous of Moscow’s agents in the Far East’ but [had] been powerless to do anything’ and that ‘in this present case [Britain had] actually been obliged to assist in getting the agent back into touch with his Russian principals’.131 The other was Tan
Malaka, a notorious Indonesian Comintern agent, who was arrested in Hong Kong in 1932 and deported to Amoy from where he too had escaped.132
The string of arrests that occurred in 1931 was the apotheosis of the new anti-communist cooperation in Southeast Asia. Every arrest had been a form of collaborative effort between Dutch, French, British and Chinese police forces. But each of the arrests had either damaged European colonial prestige or led to the inevitable release of the enemy. In Quoc’s case, it even had been both. This was possible due to two underlying reasons.
First, the agents, backed by the Comintern and the Red Aid, had simply outwitted the European officials by using their own system against them. Quoc, as well as Alamin and Moeso, had used the law to their advantage and had created for themselves a situation from which they could easily escape. Moreover, the agents intently shrouded themselves in mystery and ambiguity, both by the use of numerous aliases and vague answers, often baffling interrogators and considerably complicating legal procedures. Second, Britain could not afford a scandal. The British rule of law was central to the functioning of its empire and could not be compromised, or British cultural superiority would be undermined.133 Not adhering to their own
laws would have severely damaged their already fragile authority. The Comintern exploited this dilemma by gathering as much publicity as possible whenever one of its members was arrested, leaving only two options for the colonial authorities: play along or create another martyr for the Communist cause.
131 TNA, CO 129/539/2, 31 Jan. 1933.
132 T. Malaka and H. Jarvis, From Jail to Jail (3 vols., Athens, OH, 1991), ii, pp. 33-52.
133 See: M. J. Wiener, An Empire on trial: Race, murder, and justice under British rule, 1870–1935 (Cambridge,
30 The Noulens case report had hinted at the need for enhanced capabilities to identifying and arresting Comintern agents.134 But in the end, it was the dissonant, outmoded legal systems
of the European empires that had truly prevented effective cooperation. Although Governors Guillemard and Peel were clearly sympathetic to the respectively Dutch and French requests, their embeddedness in their national space withheld them from furthering transnational ambitions. Had the officials given this output side of the cooperation some more thought, history might have looked very different. But as it was, Tan Malaka would live on to become the mythical founding father of an independent Indonesia and Nguyen Ai Quoc, who refashioned himself as Ho Chi Minh, would become the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
