Musso

Musso 

(pseudonym, Manavar). Born Aug. 12, 1898; died Oct. 31, 1948. Figure in the workers’ and Communist movement of Indonesia.

A peasant’s son, Musso completed secondary school and in 1919 joined Sarekat Islam (Islamic Union). Because of his involvement with a peasant uprising in West Java in 1920, he was arrested and sentenced to three years’ hard labor. In 1923 he joined the Communist Party of Indonesia (CPI). From 1923 to 1925 he was a member of the CPI Central Committee and led a trade union of postal workers. From 1925 to 1935 he lived abroad, living from 1933 to 1935 in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Musso was a member of the executive committees of the Comintern and Profintern (Red Trade Union International). In 1935 he returned illegally to Indonesia and led the reconstruction of the underground central leadership of the CPI, but in 1936 was forced to leave the country. In 1938–39 he lived in Belgium and from 1939 to 1941 was in a concentration camp in France. In 1948 he returned to Indonesia, and an August conference of the CPI adopted a resolution he drew up entitled “A New Path for the Republic of Indonesia.” In September 1948, Musso was elected general secretary of the CPI Central Committee. Musso was murdered during the Madiun events of 1948.

REFERENCE

“Manovar Musso.” In Zhizn’, otdannaia bor’be, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1966.