This paper was first presented at the Seventh European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, London, 7–11 July 1981. The author wishes to thank Dr. Ruth T. MeVey for her critical remarks on the text but he alone is responsible for all errors.

¹ Myin, Thēin Hpei, Tawhlanyēi Kalạ Naingnganyēi Ạtweịạkyunmyā [Political Experiences in a Revolutionary Period] (Rangoon: Yumana Sapci, 1956, reprinted 1967), p. 25Google Scholar. The system of transliteration of Burmese names used in this essay follows that found in Milne, Patricia M., The Collected Short Stories of Thein Pe Myint (Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Data Paper No. 91, 1973), pp. viii–xGoogle Scholar. Where Burmese names are already reasonably well known under the Hunterian system of transliteration, or when citing Burmese names found in English language published sources, the original and older forms are followed.

² However, British officials in London and Rangoon had begun to lay plans for limiting the power of an eventual communist-influenced government at least six years before the first incomplete efforts to form a Communist Party in Burma in 1939. Extract from a minute dated 24 Mar. 1933 by Mr. Monteath. India Office Archives, London, Burma Office File (hereafter referred to as BOF) P&J (B) 15, Pt. VII. In arranging the location of the Criminal Intelligence Department of the government of Burma within the Police Department and thus under the elected Burmese Home Minister according to the 1937 constitution, it was thought that at some date it might be necessary to remove it to the Military Department under the Governor's personal control “if the communist movement grows”, because there would be “more likelihood of a ministry with communist sympathies”. Letter, Sir Hugh Stephenson, Governor of Burma, to Mr. Monteath, 21 July 1934. BOF P&J (B) 700.

³ Thakin, literally “master”, was the title that Burmese used in addressing Europeans during the colonial period. In the 1930s, nationalist youth, disenchanted with the behaviour of older nationalist politicians, and encouraged by ideas of self-assertion and will as the means to political independence, took the label to themselves. The Thakin movement then came to evoke a new style in Burmese nationalism.

⁴ For a summary of the debates on Marxism and revolution in Asia, see d'Encausse, Helene Carrere and Schram, Stuart R., Marxism and Asia: An Introduction with Readings (London: Allan Lane The Penguin Press, 1969), pp. 22–62Google Scholar, 187–258.

⁵ Myiṇ, Sein, Hnit 200 Myanma Naingngan Thạmāing Ạbịdan [Dictionary of 200 Years of Burmese History] (Rangoon: Sapei Yatana, 1969), pp. 63–64Google Scholar; Htway, Tin, “The Role of Literature in Nation Building (With special reference to Burma)”, in Southeast Asia in the Modern World, ed. Grossman, Bernhard (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972), pp. 49–51Google Scholar, 54–55.

⁶ Sein Myin, Hnit 200 Myanma, p. 63; Pe, Tun, Sun Over Burma (Rangoon: Rasika Ranjani, 1949), p. 34Google Scholar.

⁷ Tin Htway, “The Role of Literature”, p. 51. No sooner had the Nạgānị Book Club started to publish its Nạgānị New Bulletin than the government recognized its revolutionary potential and demanded a security bond from its publishers. Burma Monthly Intelligence Summary No. 9 for Dec. 1937, 7 Jan. 1938. BOF I 37, Pt. 1.

⁸ Ibid., No. 6, 26 June 1939. BOF 1 358.

⁹ Not all of its publications were political in nature, but of the 57 Nạgānị books examined by Professor Dorothy Guyot, 25 were found to concern Burmese politics, Russia and Marxism, and China, Sun Yat-sen and communism. 21 other volumes dealt with other political topics such as Hitler, the Irish revolution and warfare. Guyot, Dorothy Hess, “The Political Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Burma”, Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Yale University, 1966), Table I, p. 15.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Indo-Burma Conflict (Rangoon: Nạgānị Saọk Thin, nd).

¹¹ The Capitalist World, with introduction and foreword by Thakin Soe and Thakin Than Tun (reprinted Rangoon: Pīnyạ, 1963).

¹² For details of the 1300 Revolution, see Dọ Bạma Ạsīayūn Thạmaing [History of the Our Burma Association] (Rangoon: Sapei Biman, 1976), Vols. I and II, pp. 257–466, and Yeinanmyei Thakin Bạ Tin, 1300 Pyị Ayētawpụn Hmattān [Record of the 1300 Revolution] (Rangoon: Myawati, nd).

¹³ From about this time peasant marches led by U Soe Thein, the head of the remaining “Boycott” General Council of Burmese Associations/wunthanu [nationalist] village associations of the 1920s, kept alive in the minds of the politically aware, including British officials, the unsettling appeal of communism to radical peasant movements. Burma Monthly Intelligence Summary No. 9 for Dec. 1937, 7 Jan. 1938. BOF I 37, Pt. 1.

¹⁴ Thein Hpei Myiṇ, Tawhlanyēi Kalạ, p. 27. The idea of finding an external source of arms and military training was not new to Burmese nationalists in 1939. Ten years earlier, Saya San, the leader of the 1930–32 peasant rebellion, heard with great interest an offer by a Chinese Buddhist abbot from Peking to provide arms and training for Burmese nationalists to fight the British. Maung, Lei, Myanmạ Naingnganyēi Thạmaịng [History of Burma's Politics] (Rangoon: Sapei Biman, 1974), Vol. I, pp. 316–17.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For a summary and analysis of Tet Hpụnkyī, see Mendelson, E. Michael, Sangha and State in Burma, ed. Ferguson, John P. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), pp. 214–21.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Patricia M. Milne, “Introduction”, to The Selected Short Stories of Thein Pe Myint, p. 2; Sein Myiṇ, Hnit 200 Myanma, p. 64.

¹⁷ Burma Defence Bureau Intelligence Summary No. 4, 26 Apr. 1938. BOF I 358.

¹⁸ Myint, Thein Pe. Critique of the Communist Movement in Burma (Rangoon: mimeo, nd [1967?]), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid.; Sein Myiṇ, Hnit 200 Myanma, pp. 65–66. The latter source gives the name of the Bengali organizer as Purnanda Das Gupta.

²⁰ Thakin Thein Pe himself was not involved in the formation of the Party as he had at that time fallen out with his Thakin colleagues either because of differences over political strategy (as suggested by Milne, “Introduction”, p. 2) or because of accusations against him of being in league with present and past ministers of the government (as claimed in Burma Defence Bureau Intelligence Summary No. 3, 27 Mar. 1939. BOF I 358).

²¹ Telegram, Governor of Burma to Secretary of State for Burma, 28 Feb. 1941. BOF 2611/40, Pt. 3.

²² Home Secretary's Fortnightly Letter, 1st half Feb. 1941, 24 Feb. 1941. BOF P 39, Pt. IV.

²³ Among those detained were B.K. Dey and K.S. Narayana. At the time of his arrest, Dey was 19 years old. A Rangoon-born Bengali, his father worked as an auditor in the office of the Accountant-General, Burma. Upon graduating from the Bengal Academy in Rangoon in 1937, Dey had gone into business establishing the firm of Jubilee Cooker and Co. He had been active as an old boy in a strike at his former school in 1940 and was also a leader of sawmill and dock strikes in 1940–41 along with Ghoshal and one M.C. Munshi. Action by the police against Dey was first taken after his father reported him to the authorities, saying he had been misled by Ghoshal and Munshi. After his first arrest and release at the end of January 1941, he participated in further strike agitation with other Indian radicals who included, besides Ghoshal and Munshi, A.K. Roy, A.N. Dey, B.K. Sen, S. Bhowmick, and K.S. Narayana. In early March, he was elected secretary of the Bombay-Burma Trading Company Sawmill Workers Union and was arrested finally on March 6 for distributing leaflets in Telegu urging striking workers to remain out. Letter, Commissioner of Police, Rangoon, to Secretary to Government of Burma, Home Department, 8 Mar. 1941. BOF 78A/40.

Narayana was also detained under the Defence of Burma Rules at the same time. Seven years older than Dey, also born in Rangoon, he had worked for the Burmah Oil Company (BOC) where he had contacted Thakin Sen Gupta, Ghoshal, and Munshi, in July 1940, for assistance in establishing a labour union. Later that year, at about the time that Ghoshal was elected President of the Rangoon Sawmill Workers Union, he was elected President of the BOC Workers Union. The police considered him to be the conduit through which Ghoshal relayed his instructions to various Indian workers in Rangoon. (Ibid., but a separate letter.) At the time of these arrests, the government was taking action to ensure that labour unrest did not effect war production in Rangoon and at the oil-fields. Letter, R.M. MacDougall, Secretary, Home Department, to Commissioner, Magwe Division, 20 Mar. 1941. BOF 78A/40.

²⁴ Burma Defence Bureau Monthly Intelligence Summary No.6 for June, 28 June 1941. BOF I 358. From papers seized from the jailed Thakins, it was apparent that they had been studying the Russian Revolution and had had serious discussions with Buddhist monks over the role of religion. Ibid., No. 7 for July, 31 July 1941.

²⁵ Burma Defence Bureau Intelligence Summary No. 3, 27 Mar. 1940. Ibid., No. 4, 27 Apr. 1940. BOF I 358.

²⁶ Hpei Myiṇ, Thēin, Sitạtwịn Hkạyịthe [War Time Traveller] (Rangoon: Chịn Twịn, fourth printing, 1974), p. 70.Google Scholar

²⁷ Letter, Thakin Kyaw Sein to Governor Dorman-Smith, 24 Oct. 1945. Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office File (hereafter referred to as FO) 643/30/2E2/GS45.

²⁸ Burma Monthly Intelligence Summary No. 9 for Dec. 1937, 7 Jan. 1938. BOF I 37, Pt. I.

²⁹ San, Aung, “The Resistance Movement” in Aung San, Burma's Challenge (Burmese and English edition; South Okkalapa: Tathetta Sapei, 2nd ed., 1974), p. 17.Google Scholar

³⁰ Home Secretary's Fortnightly Report for 2nd half Dec. 1939, 10 Jan. 1940. BOF P 39, Pt. II.

³¹ Than, Ba, The Roots of the Revolution (Rangoon: Director of Information, 1962), p. 10.Google Scholar

³² Thēin Hpei Myiṇ, Tawhlanyēi Kạla, pp. 37–38; see also Aung San, “The Resistance Movement”, pp. 27–30.

³³ See Thēin Hpei Myiṇ, Sitạtwīn Hkạyēthe, pp. 198–202.

³⁴ Aung San, “The Resistance Movement”, pp. 36–37.

³⁵ Thein Pe Myint, Critique, pp. 5–6.

³⁶ Ba Than, Roots of the Revolution, pp. 40–41; Thein Pe, What Happened in Burma (Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1943); Aung San hid the underground communist leader Thein Pe from the Japanese in Mandalay, as the latter recalls in Thēin Hpei Myiṇ, Sitạtwīn Hkạyīthe, pp. 63–68.

³⁷ Ibid., pp. 14–16.

³⁸ Minutes of the First Meeting of Foreign Affairs Committee for Offensive and Defensive Political Warfare Against Japan, 24 Mar. 1942. FO 898/273.

³⁹ Kheng, Cheah Boon, “The Social Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya (1942–1945)”, in Southeast Asia Under Japanese Occupation, ed. McCoy, A.W. (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Monograph No. 22, 1980), p. 94.1Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Private information from a British participant in this work. See also the suggestive remarks in Sweet-Escott, Bickam, Baker Street Irregular (London: Methuen, 1965), pp. 120, 228.Google Scholar

⁴¹ For aspects of this see Overstreet, Gene D. and Windmiller, Marshall, Communism in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), p. 206Google Scholar; Masani, M.R., The Communist Party of India (London: Derek Verschoyle, 1954), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

⁴² Overstreet and Windmiller, Communism in India, pp. 199–200.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 231; see also Thēin Hpei Myiṇ, Sitạtwīn Hkạyīthe, pp. 148–153.

⁴⁴ Ibid., pp. 152–53.

⁴⁵ With an introduction by the American author Edgar Snow, the book was completed by the end of September 1942, but was not published until April 1943. Initially the British authorities were hesitant about allowing the book to be distributed, but once its propaganda value within India had been positively assessed, the government of Burma in Simla gave its approval. The publisher, Kitabistan of Allahabad, was chosen because of its reputation for publishing only the strongest leftist anti-British tracts and it was hoped this would increase the veracity of the text in the eyes of its Indian audience. Subsequently, given the huge success of the book, many people have claimed to have had a key role in its publication, none of whom Thein Pe himself credits in his account in ibid., pp. 153–54. For claims to have been of assistance, see that of the Governor of Burma, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, in Collis, Maurice, Last and First in Burma (London: Faber and Faber, 1956), p. 195Google Scholar; and Spate, O.H.K., “DOBAMA, Life, Morals and Politics in the University of Rangoon, 1937–1941”, Unpublished paper (Canberra, 1978), p. 8Google Scholar. At least two persons interviewed in connection with this research made a similar claim. One of them, Sir Leslie Glass, does seem to have been responsible for its ultimate appearance.

⁴⁶ Donnison, F.S.V., British Military Administration in the Far East, 1943–1946 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1956), p. 348.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Pye, Maung Maung, Burma in the Crucible (Rangoon: Khittaya, nd [1951]), p. 84.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ From a copy sent on 2 Oct. 1944 by Colin Mackenzie, Commander of Force 136, to Governor Dorman-Smith, in BOF Simla 9A18.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ See Taylor, Robert H., “Burma in the Anti-Fascist War”, in Southeast Asia Under Japanese Occupation, ed. McCoy, , pp. 159–90.Google Scholar

⁵² Guyot, “Political Impact of the Japanese Occupation”, Table 21, p. 376.

⁵³ Thēin Hpei Myiṇ, Sitạtwīn Hkạyīthe, pp. 320–21.

⁵⁴ Letter, the General-Secretary, Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (Burma Patriotic Front), to Admiral Louis Mountbatten, through Chief Civil Affairs Office, Burma, 25 May 1945. BOF Simla 9C1–GS45.

⁵⁵ Ibid., but through HQ, Force 136, Burma, 28 May 1945.

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷ Ibid., but 29 May 1945.

⁵⁸ SAC's 12th (Misc) Meeting, 16 June 1945, Minutes. BOF PR/C–1, Pt. II.

⁵⁹ See note 47.

⁶⁰ Thēin Hpei Myiṇ, Sitạtwīn Hkạyīthe, pp. 386–94.

⁶¹ Thein Pe Myint, Critique, pp. 19–20.

⁶² Thēin Hpei Myiṇ, Tawhlanyēi Kala, pp. 83–91.

⁶³ Ibid., pp. 95–96.

⁶⁴ Nu, , U Nu — Saturday's Son (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), pp. 119–23.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ This possibility was suggested to the author by a former BCP member in 1978. He claimed that at the time of Aung San's murder, he and Than Tun were negotiating a political settlement and that is the reason for Aung San's death.