The Conference of Youth and Students of Southeast Asia Fighting for Freedom and Independence, also referred to as the Southeast Asian Youth Conference, was an international youth and students event held in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
on February 19–23, 1948.
[Abstracts of Comber, Leon, ]
Origins of the Cold War in Southeast Asia: The Case of the Communist Party of Malaya. A Special Branch Perspective
'' and Efimova, L.M., ''New Russian Evidence on the Calcutta Youth Conference (February 1948) and Soviet Policy toward Indonesia'' It was co-organized by the
World Federation of Democratic Youth
The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) is an international youth organization, and has historically characterized itself as left-wing and anti-imperialist. WFDY was founded in London in 1945 as a broad international youth movement, o ...
and the
International Union of Students
The International Union of Students (IUS) was a worldwide nonpartisan association of university student organizations.
The IUS was the umbrella organization for 155 such students' organizations across 112 countries and Territory (administrative ...
. It has often been claimed that the conference was the starting point for a series of armed communist rebellions in different Asian countries.
[Lintner, Bertil. ]
The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB)
''. Southeast Asia Program series, no. 6. Ithaca, N.Y.: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1990. pp. 12–13
Preparations
In 1947, a four-member delegation of WFDY travelled through different Asian countries. The delegation consisted of Olga Chechetkina (Soviet Union, journalist specialized in Southeast Asian affairs), Jean Lautissier, Rajko Tomović (
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
) and M. O. Oleson (
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
). The purpose of the fact-finding tour was to survey the colonial situation and establish links with Asian youth movements.
[McVey, Ruth T. ]
The Soviet View of the Indonesian Revolution: A Study in the Russian Attitude Towards Asian Nationalism
''. Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, 1957. pp. 55–58 The mission had initially been scheduled for 1946, but delayed due to the conflict in
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
and the refusal of French authorities to issue permits for the delegation to enter Vietnam.
The delegation arrived in India in February 1947. They made contacts with different delegations that attended the Inter-Asian Relations Conference in
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
. In Delhi, they discussed with Indonesian representatives the possibility of holding a pan-Asian youth conference in Indonesia in November 1947. In May, the WFDY team visited Indonesia and met with several high-ranking leaders (such as
Sukarno
Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967.
Sukarno was the leader of ...
,
Hatta, etc.). In June 1947 the WFDY executive decided to go ahead with the plans, but limit the scope of the conference to Southeastern Asia. The Indonesians began preparations to host the conference in
Madiun
Madiun ( jv, ꦑꦸꦛꦩꦝꦶꦪꦸꦤ꧀, translit=Kutha Madhiun) is a landlocked city in the western part of East Java, Indonesia, known for its agricultural center. It was formerly (until 2010) the capital of the Madiun Regency, but is now adm ...
. However, in July 1947 (following the
World Festival of Youth and Students
The World Festival of Youth and Students is an international event organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the International Union of Students after 1947. History
The festival has been held regularly since 1947 as an eve ...
), the WFDY executive decided to move the conference to Calcutta and postpone it to February 1948, as Indonesia was considered unsafe after Dutch attacks. The decision greatly disappointed the prospective Indonesian hosts.
Attendance
The conference was attended by delegations from
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
,
Malaya
Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia:
Political entities
* British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...
,
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
, the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
.
Indian organizations present included the
All India Trade Union Congress
The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) is the oldest trade union federation in India. It is associated with the Communist Party of India. According to provisional statistics from the Ministry of Labour, AITUC had a membership of 14.2 milli ...
, the
All India Students Federation
The All India Students' Federation (AISF) is the oldest surviving student organisation in India, founded in 1936.
Pre-independence
AISF was founded on 12 August 1936, with guidance and cooperation from the Indian independence movement. The ...
, the
All India Kisan Sabha
All India Kisan Sabha ( AIKS; lit. ''All India Farmers Union'', also known as the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha), is the peasant or farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 19 ...
, the
Socialist Unity Centre of India
The Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) or SUCI(C), previously called the Socialist Unity Centre of India and "Socialist Unity Centre", is an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist communist party in India. The party was founded by Shibda ...
, the Andhra Youth Federation and a sector of the All India Students Congress.
[McVey, Ruth Thomas. ]
The Calcutta Conference and the Southeast Asian Uprisings
''. Ithaca, N.Y.: Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Dept. of Far Eastern Studies, Cornell University, 1958. p. 8
Malaya was represented by Lee Song.
The Indonesian delegation consisted of two persons, Francisca C. Fanggidaej and
Supeno
Supeno (June 12, 1916 – February 24, 1949) was the Minister of Development/Youth at First Hatta Cabinet. He died while still serving in the department as a result of the Dutch Military Aggression II. Supeno is now regarded as a National Hero of ...
.
[Kahin, George McTurnan. ]
Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia
''. Studies on Southeast Asia, 35. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2003. p. 258 From Pakistan the Pakistan Federation of Democratic Youth was represented, amongst others.
The Soviet delegation consisted of
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
ns, amongst whom there were no high-ranking officials.
Jean Lautissier was the main WFDY representative at the Conference.
Most of the participating delegates at the Conference were non-communists.
[Olsen, Mari. ]
Soviet-Vietnam Relations and the Role of China, 1949–64: Changing Alliances
''. Cass series--Cold War history, 10. London: Routledge, 2006. p. From India there was a delegation of the youth of the
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
, and from Burma a delegation from the
AFPFL
The Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), ; abbreviated , ''hpa hsa pa la'' was the dominant political alliance in Burma from 1945 to 1958. It consisted of political parties and mass and class organizations.
The league evolved out of ...
youth. Both of these delegations reacted sharply to statements condemning 'sham independence' in India and Burma, and left the Conference in protest.
Pro-Congress elements attacked a house where a reception was held for the Soviet delegation to the Conference. Two Indian youth leaders, Sushil Mukhopadhyay and Bhabamadhav Ghosh, were killed in the attack.
Mass rally
A mass rally, with around 30,000 participants, was held in connection with the Conference. In the rally a Chinese delegate carried aloft a blood-stained shirt, from a Chinese communist fighter who had been killed in battle.
Starting point for insurgencies?
The conference was held in the same month as the second congress of the
Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925.
H ...
, which also took place in Calcutta.
[Bayly, Christopher A., and Timothy Norman Harper. ]
Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire
''. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2007. p. 405 Some historians argue that these two events were utilized by the
Cominform
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
(then a newly founded body) to organize a large-scale armed communist rebellion across
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
.
Sir Francis Low writes (in ''Struggle for Asia'') that "
e signal for action was given by the so-called South-East Asian Youth
Conference which met in Calcutta in 1948 and was in reality a gathering of international Communist agents. There issued from the meeting a programme for insurrection and civil war which was carried, with dire results, to all the countries of South-East Asia." ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine wrote in October 1948 that "
e new plan was devised last March. Communist delegates attended a "Southeast Asia Youth Conference" in Calcutta. A planeload of experts from Moscow came to give them their orders. ... After Words, Deeds. The plan worked out at Calcutta called for simultaneous revolts in Burma and Malaya. Three months after the outbreak of the Malayan revolt, Indonesia's Communists were to strike. As coordination center for the drive a 26-man Soviet Legation, largest in Southeast Asia, was set up in
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
."
SOUTHEAST ASIA: The Plan
'', in ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'', October 4, 1948
However,
Bertil Lintner
Bertil Lintner (born 1953) is a Swedish journalist, author and strategic consultant who has been writing about Asia for nearly four decades. He was formerly the Burma (Myanmar) correspondent of the now defunct ''Far Eastern Economic Review'', and ...
argues that there is no proof of any direct linkage between the Conference as such and the initiations of armed insurgencies in different Asian countries.
Ruth McVey Ruth Thomas McVey (born October 22, 1930) is an American scholar of Indonesia and Southeast Asia known especially for her writings on Communism and the Indonesian Communist Party. With Benedict Anderson, she co-wrote the Cornell Paper, a 1966 work ...
states that whilst the Conference was the first public meeting of Southeast Asian communists after the Soviet declaration of the two-camp theory (that the world was divided into two camps, imperialism and socialism, and that confrontation between the two was unevitable), Asian communist were already aware of the new line prior to the Calcutta meeting. The Communist Party of India had adopted the new line of confrontation in December 1947.
Mari Olsen claims that it is unclear if the Calcutta conference would have been used to convey Soviet directives to Asian communists, as there were no senior Soviet representatives present.
References
{{Authority control
1948 in India
1948 conferences
Political conferences
World Federation of Democratic Youth
Marxism–Leninism