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Jovan Čavoški, PhD
Institute for Recent History of Serbia
Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES AS THE FORMATIVE EXPERIENCE OF BURMA’S POST-WAR POLITICS

Vol. XLII, 2/2024, pp. 393-414
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2024.2.cav.393-414

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME:

This article deals with the effect that the Second World War and its immediate consequences had on the process of rise, evolution and eventual triumph of the Burmese liberation movement against the rule of the British Empire, one that finally led to the establishment of an independent Burmese state in January 1948. By relying upon diverse international literature and published collections of documents, one can witness in this article that very early on the Burmese liberation movement, irrespective of its frequent ups and downs, had gradually and steadily evolved in its consistent demands that Burma should be initially granted the dominion status within the British Empire, with an eye always being on attaining full independence in the near future. Naturally, such demands were often confronted by British rejections or even with the use of brutal force, nevertheless, the essence of the Burmese liberation movement could never be subjugated or altered by the colonial rulers. With the onset of the Second World War in Southeast Asia in 1942, this movement had been already closely involved with the Japanese, seeking assistance from abroad in its efforts to subvert British colonial rule in Burma. However, this never meant that the Burmese freedom fighters ever saw themselves as mere peons of Japanese ambitions on the Asian continent. In parallel, while striving to extort as many concessions as possible from the Japanese, the Burmese liberation movement maintained close clandestine contact with the Allies, eventually assisting the British in defeating the Japanese and driving them out of Burma. This put the new political force the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League as the main political force in the country, one which the British had to cope with in the immediate post-war period, painfully adjusting their colonial agenda. By skillfully manipulating British weaknesses, while mobilizing the entire nation behind its vociferous demands for independent Burma, the League had finally succeeded in compelling London to grant the country total independence in a year’s time with any additional conditions. What had been learned during the Second World War eventually came in quite handy for the Burmese achieving their goals without making many painful compromises.

 

KEYWORDS: Burma, World War II, struggle, colonialism, liberation, experience

 

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