From the second decade of the twentieth century, the intelligentsia had found the means to communicate with the masses. Recognizing the misery of the masses, the high-sounding ideas of kemadjoean inherited from previous decades lost their magnetism. In the face of increasing social dislocation, it became important to translate ideologies into practical programmes of action and to resist colonialism.

The deterioration of the post-war Indies economy and the great economic depression of the 1930s provided a fertile soil for rampant radicalism. In the growing spirit of political resistance, many former proto-nationalist associations abandoned their socio-cultural aims and became more concerned with the adoption and formulation of political-ideologies. In response to contesting political ideologies, the less-structured proto-nationalist social movements’ of the early two decades of the twentieth century began to be transformed into structured “political parties”.

As political radicalism spread, the ethical policy became a faltering creed. In the first decade of the twentieth century, members of the Ethici such as Snouck Hurgronje publicly vowed: “We cannot rest content with measures which serve to strengthen our rule by preventing discontent and opposition. Our goal is not the quiet, formerly so valued, but progress.” In the early 1920s, however, mainstream Dutch public opinion regarded progressive Indies intellectuals as disturbers of colonial public order. To curb this potential public disobedience, the regime of rust en orde [tranquillity and order] was even more strongly enforced by the colonial administrators. Rather than encouraging the rule of law, rust en orde was a euphemism for the deployment of a repressive colonial state apparatus that negated the idea of due legal process.