General Aung San(Revolutionary Life)

Photo: Aung San and Japan Army Officers Thakin revolutionary In October 1938, Aung San left his law classes and entered national politics. At this point, he was anti-British and staunchly anti-imperialist. He became a Thakin ("lord" or "master": a title often used as an informal title for Westerners in Burma; the usage by Burmese proclaimed that the Burmese people were the true masters of their country) when he joined the Dobama Asiayone ("We Burmans Association"). He acted as its general secretary until August 1940. While in this role, he helped organize a series of countrywide strikes that became known as the ME 1300 Revolution. The name of this movement was based on the Burmese calendar year 1300: in the Western calendar this year occurred between August 1938 and July 1939. On 18 January 1939 the Dobama Asiayone declared its intention to use force in order to overturn the government, leading the authorities to crack down on the organization. On 23 January Police raided their headquarters at Shwedagon Pagoda, arrested Aung San, and held him in prison for fifteen days on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government, but these charges were dropped. Upon his release Aung San proposed a strategy of pursuing Burmese independence by staging countrywide strikes, anti-tax drives, and guerrilla insurgency. In August 1939, Aung San became a founding member and the first Secretary General of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). Aung San later claimed that his relationship with the CPB was not smooth, since he joined and left the party twice. Shortly after founding the CPB, Aung San founded a similar organization, alternatively known as either the "People's Revolutionary Party" or the "Burma Revolutionary Party". This party was Marxist, formed with the goal of supporting Burmese independence against the British. It survived and was reformed into the Burma Socialist Party following World War II. Aung San was not paid for most of his work as a student or political leader, and lived for most of this time in a state of poverty. He was recognized by his peers for his strong work ethic and organizational skills, but was sometimes criticized by them for having poor public relations skills or for a perceived arrogance. He never drank alcohol and abstained from romantic relationships. World War II Following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 Aung San helped to found another nationalist organization, the Freedom Bloc, by forming an alliance between the Dobama, the All Burma Students Union, politically active monks, and Dr. Ba Maw's Poor Man's Party.[16] Dr. Ba Maw served as the anarshin ("dictator") of the Freedom Bloc, while Aung San worked under him as the group's general secretary. The group's goals were organized around the idea of taking advantage of the war to gain Burmese independence.The organization, goals, and tactics of the Freedom Bloc were modeled on the Indian revolutionary group "Forward Bloc", whose leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, was in regular contact with Ba Maw.[18] In 1939, Aung San was briefly arrested on the grounds of conspiring to overthrow the government by force, but was released after seventeen days.Upon his release Aung San proposed a strategy of pursuing Burmese independence by staging countrywide strikes, anti-tax drives, and guerrilla insurgency. In March 1940, he attended an Indian National Congress Assembly in Ramgarh, India, along with other Thakins, including Than Tun and Ba Hein. While there, Aung San met many leaders of the Indian independence movement, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and Subhas Chandra Bose.When Aung San returned to Burma, he found the Burmese government had issued a warrant for his arrest, and the arrest of many other leaders of the Thakins and the Freedom Bloc, due to those organizations' efforts to organize a revolution against the British, at least partially with Japanese support. Besides his other warrants, the district superintendent of Henzada, a man named "Xavier", had issued a reward of 500 rupees for anyone who could capture Aung San. Some of Aung San's colleagues advised him to go to the Shanghai International Settlement and make contact with communist agents there, but he was in a hurry to leave and was unable to find passage on a ship travelling to that city.On 14 August 1939, Aung San and another Thakin colleague, Hla Myaing, boarded the Norwegian cargo ship Hai Lee to Xiamen, China.Neither Aung San nor Hla Myaing gave their real names, identifying themselves as "Tan Luang Shun" and "Tan Su Taung".They wandered the city for several weeks with no precise plan and little money, until they were intercepted by Japanese secret police who convinced them to go to Japan instead.The pair left for Tokyo via Taiwan and arrived in Japan on 27 September 1940.