Aung San (Burmese: အောင်ဆန်း, MLCTS: aung hcan:, pronounced [àʊɰ̃ sʰáɰ̃]; 13 February 1915 – 19 July 1947) was a Burmese politician, independence activist and revolutionary. He was instrumental in Myanmar's struggle for independence from British rule, but he was assassinated just six months before his goal was realized. Aung San is considered to be the founder of modern-day Myanmar and the Tatmadaw (the country's armed forces), and is commonly referred to by the titles "Father of the Nation", "Father of Independence", and "Father of the Tatmadaw".
Devoted to ending British Colonial rule in Burma, Aung San founded or was closely associated with many Burmese political groups and movements and explored various schools of political thought throughout his life. He was a life-long anti-imperialist and studied socialism as a student. In his first year of university, he was elected to the executive committee of the Rangoon University Students' Union and served as the editor of its magazine, Oway. He joined the Thakin Society in 1938 and served as its general secretary. He also helped establish the Communist Party of Burma in 1939 but quit shortly afterwards due to vehement disagreements with the rest of the party leadership. He subsequently co-founded the People's Revolutionary Party (later the Burma Socialist Party) with the primary goal of Burmese independence from the British.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Aung San fled Burma and went to China to solicit foreign support for Burmese independence. During the Japanese occupation of Burma, he served as the minister of war in the Japan-backed State of Burma led by Dr. Ba Maw. As the tide turned against Japan, he switched sides and merged his forces with the Allies to fight against the Japanese. After World War II, he negotiated Burmese independence from Britain in the Aung San-Attlee agreement. He served as the 5th Premier of the British Crown Colony of Burma from 1946 to 1947. He led his party, the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League, to victory in the 1947 Burmese general election, but he and most of his cabinet were assassinated shortly before the country became independent.
Aung San's daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, is a stateswoman, politician, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She was Burma's State Counsellor and its 20th (and first female) Minister of Foreign Affairs in Win Myint's Cabinet until the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.
Aung San was born in Natmauk, Magway District, on 13 February 1915 during the British Raj. The family was considered middle-class. He was the youngest of nine siblings; he had three older sisters and five older brothers. Aung San's name was given to him by his brother Aung Than. Aung San received his primary education at a Buddhist monastic school in Natmauk, but he moved to Yenangyaung in grade 4 because his eldest brother, Ba Win, had become the principal of the high school there.
Aung San rarely spoke before the age of eight. As a teenager, he often spent hours reading and thinking alone, oblivious to those around him. In his youth he was generally unconcerned with his appearance and clothing. In his earliest articles, published in the "Opinion" section of The World of Books, he opposed the ideology of Western-style individualism supported by U Thant in favour of a social philosophy based on the "standardization of human life". Aung San later became friends with U Thant through their mutual friendship with U Nu.
After Aung San entered Rangoon University in 1933, he quickly became a student leader. He was elected to the executive committee of the Rangoon University Students' Union (RUSU). He then became editor of the RUSU's magazine Oway (Peacock's Call). Aung San was described by contemporary students as being charismatic and keenly interested in politics.
In February 1936, he was expelled from the university, along with U Nu, for refusing to reveal the name of the author of an article he had run in the student newspaper called "Hell Hound at Large", which criticized a senior university official. The expulsion led to the three-month long Second University Students' Strike, after which the university authorities reinstated Aung San and Nu.
The events of 1936 had a profound effect on the future of Aung San. Before 1936, he was not well known outside of Rangoon University, but during the student strike, his name and image were published and discussed in daily newspapers, and he became known nationwide as a nationalist revolutionary and a student leader. He also served in his first student leadership positions, first as secretary of the student boycott council and second as the student representative for the government's University Act Amendment Committee, which the government formed in response to the strike. Later in 1936, after the student strike was over, he was elected the vice president of the Rangoon University Student Union. Because of his participation in the student strike, he was not able to sit for the examination in 1936 and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1937.
After his graduation, Aung San began studying for a law degree. His intention at the time was to "take a shot at the examinations for the Indian Civil Service ... and go into politics". Along with other student leaders he founded the All Burma Student Union (later known as All Burma Federation of Student Unions) in 1937, in which he was elected general secretary. In 1938, he became the president of both the All Burma Student Union and the Rangoon University Student Union, but his pursuit of these commitments did not leave him enough time to study, and he failed his examination in 1938. After 1938, he resolved to abandon the pursuit of a conventional career and committed himself to revolutionary politics.
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 perceived arrogance. He never drank alcohol and abstained from romantic relationships.
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. 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. 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.