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Guide to the Asian Collections at the International Institute of Social History Emile Schwidder & Eef Vermeij (eds) Guide to the Asian Collections at the International Institute of Social History Emile Schwidder Eef Vermeij (eds) Guide to the Asian Collections at the International Institute of Social History Stichting beheer IISG Amsterdam 2012 2012 Stichting beheer IISG, Amsterdam. Creative Commons License: The texts in this guide are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 license. This means, everyone is free to use, share, or remix the pages so licensed, under certain conditions. The conditions are: you must attribute the International Institute of Social History for the used material and mention the source url. You may not use it for commercial purposes. Exceptions: All audiovisual material. Use is subjected to copyright law. Typesetting: Eef Vermeij All photos & illustrations from the Collections of IISH. Photos on front/backcover, page 6, 20, 94, 120, 92, 139, 185 by Eef Vermeij. Coverphoto: Informal labour in the streets of Bangkok (2011). Contents Introduction 7 Survey of the Asian archives and collections at the IISH 1. Persons 19 2. Organizations 93 3. Documentation Collections 171 4. Image and Sound Section 177 Index 203 Office of the Socialist Party (Lahore, Pakistan) GUIDE TO THE ASIAN COLLECTIONS AT THE IISH / 7 Introduction Which Asian collections are at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam? This guide offers a preliminary answer to that question. It presents a rough survey of all collections with a substantial Asian interest and aims to direct researchers toward historical material on Asia, both in ostensibly Asian collections and in many others. The present guide is by no means an exhaustive resource on the subject. Obtaining information concerning the holdings through the information service of the IISH therefore remains necessary. A short history At the beginning of the 1930s the political situation in Central and Eastern Europe was worsening. Hitler’s seizure of power and developments in the Soviet Union threatened people of all convictions within the labour movement, as well as their documentary collections. At the initiative of the Dutch professor of economic history N.W. Posthumus, who was dedicated to saving the endangered papers of the international labour and trade union movement, the IISH was founded in Amsterdam in 1935. Before the outbreak of World War II, the Institute rescued numerous collections from all over Europe and had them transported to the Netherlands. The most important collections acquired in the period 1935-40 were the archival legacy of Marx and Engels, the Bakunin manuscripts, and the records of the Spanish 8 / INTRoduction syndicalist trade union CNT and the anarchist organization FAI. Libraries and archives of Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries who had fled Russia were also brought to safety to Amsterdam. Shortly before the Nazis occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, a part of the most valuable archives, including the Marx and Engels papers, were brought to a subsidiary of the Institute in Oxford, Britain, for safekeeping. During the war, however, parts of the IISH holdings were confiscated and shipped to Germany to be used for a variety of purposes by the German bureaucracy. In 1946, most of this material was rediscovered and returned to Amsterdam. The return of papers located in the Soviet Zone of Europe was far more gradual and tedious: the archive of the Dutch Social Democratic Party (SDAP) was ultimately sent back from Poland in 1956-57. In 1991, following the failed coup in Moscow, other IISH materials proved to have been preserved for years in a separate archival institute in the Soviet capital. After the Second World War and throughout the 1950s, IISH worked to reestablish order in the archive and library. After that period, IISH continued to pursue its rescue activities in Europe and it remained an indispensable repository for the archives and libraries of persecuted people and organizations. Reflecting Asia’s enlarged role on the world stage, both economically and politically, IISH’s interest in saving material now extended beyond Europe. In the 1980s, IISH staff sought a safe haven for the collections of Turkish political parties, trade unions, and individuals. Established in 1987, the IISH Turkey Section, has assembled an impressive collection. From 1995 on IISH extended its activities beyond the East of Turkey to include Iran, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Another example of the rescue operations run by IISH concerns the unique documentation on the Chinese democratic movement in the spring of 1989. Participants in the events in Beijing collected this material with the assistance of IISH staff on the spot. This Chinese People’s Movement Collection of pamphlets, posters, photographs, newspapers, and the like has found a refuge in Amsterdam. In 1996, the IISH finally decided to foreground Asia in its activities and established an Asia Department. In addition to Southe ast Asia (Indonesia) and East Asia (China) both longstanding interests of IISH South Asia was selected as an area of special interest. Since its founding the IISH Asia Department has already acquired several collections from Bangla desh, India, and Pakistan. From 1999 on IISH also developed a growing interest in documents on Burmese social history as well as current affairs. Since 2011 the Asia Department has been divided into two region desks with their own staff: South Asia (Ranchi, India) is concentrating on Bangladesh, Pakistan, Northeast India, Nepal and Sri Lanka and the Southeast Asia desk Bangkok) collects materials from Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, GUIDE TO THE ASIAN COLLECTIONS AT THE IISH / 9 Thailand Hong Kong and the Philippines. The regional desks are not active in the rest of Asia but are open to any offers from there. Other IISH region desks are on Africa (sub-Sahara), Eastern Europe and Russia, Latin America, Middle East and Central Asia. Since the late 1970s, the Institute has worked within the framework of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Scien ces. Its library, archives and other collections, however, are owned by the independent Foundation IISH. The holdings The IISH now holds over more than 3,000 archival collections, some 1 million printed volumes and about as many audio-visual items. The IISH collections on modern Asian history comprise archive, library, and audio- visual materials with a thematic emphasis on social, progressive, and emanci- patory movements. Most of the IISH material on Asia has not been collected intentionally, but came along with European, mainly Dutch collecti ons. As a result Indonesia and the European vision on Asia dominate the documents. The archive of the Dutch inter national revolu tionary Henk Sneevliet is a clear example. The unique collecti on of Japanese anar chistic and socialist maga zines from the begin ning of the 20th century is an interesting exception. The extensive archives of the international trade union and political organizations (like the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, ICFTU, and the Socialist International, SI) at the IISH were hardly unlocked on their Asian dimen- sion. The pre sent guide provides selected descrip tions of these interna tio nal collecti ons. In recent years the Asia Department has been able to acquire many documents from both South- and Southeast Asia. Among these is a large collection of political and cultural periodicals in Bengali and English, covering the period since the 1940s. With regard to Indonesia personal collections, such as those of Poncke Princen, Suparna Sastra diredja, Oei Tjoe Tat and Wim Wertheim, were acquired. Apart from the usual ways in which IISH collections are acquired, the Asia Department has been active in creating and preserving non-written sources, particularly audio and audiovisual ones. To this end, several oral history projects have been initiated. The interview projects on political exiles from Indonesia (In Search of Silenced Voices), the Naxalbari movement (a Maoist uprising in India) and progressive movements in Bangladesh are examples. Tape recordings of the interviews were delivered to the Image and Sound Department of the IISH. The IISH building accommodates other documenta ry instituti ons as well. In addition to the IISH collections, users may consult the archives and the library of the Netherlands Economic History Archive (NEHA) and the Netherlands Press Museum, which have papers relating to Asia (mainly 10 / INTRoduction Indonesia). Their material is included in the IISH catalogue. Informa- tion about these collections appears in the “Gids van de collec ties van het Nederlandsch Economisch-Historisch Archief” and the “Overzicht van de archieven van het Nederlands Persmuseum”. The guide The present guide is an up-date of the 2007 edition. This new volume differs in some respects from the 2007 guide. For this edition we have left out the overview of Asian periodicals and that of the Annual Reports of IISH and NEHA. The total number of collections listed in the Guide grew from 286 for the 3rd ed. to 366 for this 4th ed. (174 personal and 192 organizational collections) The guide describes the IISH archives and collecti ons (including NEHA and Press Museum (PM) collections on Asia) consisting entirely or partly of original documents. The descriptions summarize a selection of the most important documents relating to Asia found in the archives listed below. Each­­­ summa ry is preceded by a condensed bio grap hy or history. Like the “Guide to the International Archives and Collections at the IISH, Amsterdam” (edition 1999), the entries in this Asian guide are divided into two groups: the section on the archi ves and collecti ons of individuals is followed by one on the organizations. Both groups have been arranged alpha betically and by number for easy reference.is followed by one on the organizations. Both groups have been arranged alphabetically and by number for easy reference.

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