In the celebration of the Lunar New Year celebration and as a form of solidarity, we need to pay tribute to and recognize the struggles of the Chinese community of Nusantara and their contributions to the Indonesian revolution. Solidarity between the Indigenous marhaen and the Chinese marhaen is a class solidarity that bridges ethnic divisions against a common enemy, namely colonialism, imperialism, and capital.
What is the true character of the Chinese community in contrast to the bourgeois stereotype? Why is an understanding of the history of the Chinese community in the archipelago important for our struggle as the masses? The Chinese group originally arrived as sinkek (新客), a group of newcomers who were often hard workers, as well as contract laborers or small traders. However, nowadays there is almost no more migration; instead, they have formed new groups or peranakan groups called kiaoseng (华侨生). As a form of solidarity with the Chinese group in our revolutionary struggle, we must also know the history of their arrival and the struggles of these Chinese-descended migrants. Although the idea of a marhaen, or Marhaenism itself, focuses on small farmers and local laborers, sociologically, Chinese groups—more specifically those who were part of the sinkek group and contract laborers—resonate with the definition of a marhaen.
Who has become the parasite of the Chinese community and who has become the basis of progressive power? It is true that there were Chinese groups such as the kapitain der chinezen, or parts of the aristocracy or bourgeoisie from the zhuwang (竹網) bamboo networks, yet this does not negate that there were also (the majority of) Chinese groups working as small artisans, dockworkers, or peasants or miners. Some of these Chinese marhaen groups owned their own means of production. However, just like all Marhaen groups, they lived with high dependency due to systematic exploitation that hovered at the limits of their survival. They bore the same fate as their Indonesian brothers as a marhaen. Historically, the majority of the Chinese group were formerly small farmers, contract laborers, and small artisans. Thus, they were also victims of the colonial economic structure that privileged the Dutch or European colonial circles. A sinkek laborer was strangled by the poenale sanctie (from the koelie ordonnantie 1880), namely the use of physical punishment for contract laborers who did not comply with Dutch colonial contracts. Thousands of sinkek coolies worked on the Deli tobacco plantations, making them the backbone of production alongside Javanese laborers. One case was when Maatschappij Jacob Nienhuys cruelly whipped seven Chinese coolies to death. Sometimes, landowners deliberately strangled sinkek laborers through gambling addiction, to the point where they were indebted to the company, forcing them to extend their contracts indefinitely. It did not stop there; Chinese laborers were often abused by company tandils. To know and understand the Chinese marhaen and their fate is very important to understanding the contributions and struggles of the Chinese group in the Indonesian revolutionary struggle under the same oppression.
Within the Chinese community, there were also sociological contrasts within their own community. For instance, the stereotype of the Chinese as a bourgeois group originated from a small portion of the Chinese elite from the Zhuwang network, who chose the path of compromise with the bourgeoisie and the colonial system as economic intermediaries. However, the absolute majority of the Kiaoseng group remained tied to the marhaen group. They, the urban working class constantly threatened by poverty, were forced to work harder. The divergence that strengthened the sociological contrast of the Chinese community was driven by colonial policies that encouraged some Chinese groups to become colonial agents (kapitain) for the Dutch. Nevertheless, the fate of the sinkek and the indigenous remained united in the same destiny. Often, they lived in slums, sharing their burdens and miseries together due to the colonial system at the time.
The history of the struggle of the Chinese community does not stop with their experience of sharing the same fate as indigenous laborers, but also their revolutionary struggle. In 1920-30, more precisely the era when Indonesian nationalism was at its peak, the political situation of the Chinese community was split into its own branches. Such as Sin-Po and Chung Hwa Hui. CHH itself was a pro-Dutch movement by Chinese elite circles that sought to equate the legal status of the Chinese community with Europeans. Fundamentally, as Dutch sycophants, they participated in pushing for the political integration of the Chinese ethnic group in the Dutch East Indies. However, on the other side, there was also the Indonesierschap from Liem Koen Hian. Liem Koen Hian's ideas and struggle contradicted the CHH, siding instead with the Indonesian marhaen. Liem Koen Hian instead pushed for the integration of the Chinese ethnic group with Indonesian politics.
A crucial point in the struggle of the Chinese as brothers of the revolution was the formation of the Partai Tionghoa Indonesia (Indonesian Chinese Party) in Surabaya. The party was formed by Liem Koen Hian and featured important figures such as Kwee Thiam Tjing. PTI upheld integration with Indonesia and participated in the struggle for Indonesian independence against Dutch colonialism at that time. PTI also upheld socialist values, identical to revolutionary Marhaenist values. The thesis of Indonesierschap remained a large part of PTI. By proclaiming the "Indonesian-ness" of PTI, it was the same as surrendering their privileges as foreigners/orientals in order to stand with the Indigenous marhaen to fight together against the Dutch colonial hierarchy. According to Liem himself, Indonesia was not an identity of blood descent or ethnicity, but a shared destiny and fate, as well as a commitment to the movement and the nation's revolutionary struggle. As long as someone lived with the fate, commitment, and values of an Indonesian, then they were Indonesian. That is what differentiated PTI from other Chinese groups that built their foundation on solidarity rather than primordial barriers.
What is the evidence of PTI and Liem Koen Hian's commitment to supporting integration and Indonesian political sovereignty against Chinese elites? In the exchanges between PTI and CHH, PTI explicitly rejected CHH ideas as capitalist ideas. PTI itself was the opposite of CHH, where PTI represented the wong-wong cilik (the little people)/marhaen compared to the land-owning bourgeoisie or colonial elites. Liem Koen Hian weaponized his Sin Tit Po newspaper to criticize the capitalist foundations of Oei Tiong Ham as the "Sugar King of Java." Liem Koen Hian posited that the Chinese elite group was a parasite to both the Indigenous and Chinese marhaen, and the liberation of the Indonesian marhaen was the only path to the liberation of the Chinese marhaen. PTI also formed an alliance with GAPI and participated in supporting the formation of the Indonesian parliament and the May 1939 movement.
Chinese marhaen also participated in the guerrilla war (war for independence) 1945-49 in the form of militias or self-defense forces. They were the children of mine workers and farmers who pledged Indonesian independence at all costs. Chinese fighters participated in battles in Tangerang, Medan, and Surabaya, as marhaen and not as Chinese elites. Under the imperialist boots of Japan, the Chinese community bore the same suffering as their indigenous brothers under the guise of 3A and Romusha. Countless Chinese marhaen chose to rebel and chose the path of the Indonesian left movement. Entering the war of independence (post-1945), many Chinese marhaen were involved in the 1945-1949 rebellion. Despite standing on two thorns—suspected by Republican forces and targeted by Dutch forces—Chinese fighters continued to contribute to the war of independence in logistics, such as smuggling weapons and resources. Not a few Chinese fighters used their small businesses to support Republican forces by funding independence fighters or smuggling supplies past Dutch defenses. Despite the many sacrifices of their blood and assets to uphold sovereignty and the liberation of the people, their sacrifices unfortunately often exist only as footnotes in official history.
Post-independence, many in the Chinese community faced the polemic between: Assimilation with Indonesia? Integration with Indonesia? However, we also need to distinguish the difference between assimilation and integration. To assimilate the Chinese community into "Indonesia," a large-scale erasure was required. Agencies like LPKB pushed the idea of a melting pot or erasing Chinese identity (in name, belief, language, or culture) for the sake of uniting the Chinese community with "Indonesia," much like a Javanese or Sundanese. Meanwhile, integration pushed for the political and civil unity of the Chinese community with Indonesia. For example, in political action and legal spheres, they are Indonesians, without eradicating their identity as Chinese people. Forcing Chinese citizens to stop being "Chinese" is a violation of equality in the revolution, where they also contributed politically and shed blood in the struggle for independence.
In 1950-60, the BAPERKI (Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia) movement led by Siauw Giok Tjhan pushed for the integration of the Chinese community with Indonesia without having to surrender their Chinese identity. Discrimination itself is a product of imperialism, and only under socialism can Indonesia be liberated from discrimination. Under URECA (Trisakti), Baperki built education as a tool of revolution, where these schools were not just for the Chinese community but for all Indonesian citizens. Baperki itself had a rivalry with opposing institutions like LPKB under Kristoforus Sindhunata and Harry Tjan Silalahi, which at that time were supported by military forces and Catholic groups. LPKB believed that the existence of a Chinese identity was itself a racial provocation. To overcome such provocation, they believed in dissolving Chinese identity into the Indonesian melting pot. Baperki stood on the side of the "masses," namely the marhaen class, Chinese laborers. This is in contrast to LPKB which stood for the Chinese elitis as a bourgeois escapism. However, Chinese mass movements were eliminated by the New Order post-G30S PKI, with the imprisonment of Siauw Giok Tjhan and the takeover of URECA into Trisakti. LPKB eventually won because their model of assimilation was made state policy under the New Order.
So the question is, what is the ultimate goal of the Marhaenist in fighting stratification between groups and ethnicities in their struggle?
While we must keep in mind integration as championed by Baperki as a movement of resistance against forced identity erasure, we also need to be realistic that integration—merely coexisting without any effort to mutually dissolve—can produce subtle primordial barriers that seed racial chauvinism or divide et impera which hinders marhaen solidarity. Total harmony can be formed without LPKB-style assimilation that pushes for cultural dominance, because of their failure to understand that identity is an organic result of history. The effort to mutually dissolve that I mean is a collective and active synthesis, not the dissolution of one nation into Indigenous culture (like Chinese and Indigenous unilaterally), but a process of dialectical melting, until the cultures between groups such as Chinese, Arab, Indigenous, whether Javanese or Celebes, interact and dissolve primordial identities into a new vessel of "Indonesian-ness" culture. The goal is to create a horizontal culture without the cultural stratification of newcomers, indigenous, or even eastern and western indigenous into a new "Indonesian-ness" identity. Only in pure class consciousness can a Chinese marhaen and an Indigenous marhaen see identity, culture, and ethnicity not as boundaries but as marhaen comrades in the Marhaenist struggle.
Therefore, it is necessary for us to know the long history we have passed not merely as yellowing papers, but as the dialectics of a class struggle that has not yet been resolved. The Chinese community, despite the "rich Chinese" stereotype, does not obscure the history and fate of misery for Chinese marhaen who rejected the bourgeois way of life, or quite simply, were oppressed by capitalism. The unity of Chinese and Indigenous marhaen is the weapon most feared by imperialists, comprador bourgeois, and bureaucratic-capitalist elites who want Indonesia to remain divided. Thus, the liberation of the people, including people of Chinese ethnicity, will not be realized outside the liberation of the Indonesian marhaen; truly, there is no integration under an exploitative system.