Thakin Than Tun

Thakin Than Tun (; 1911 – 24 September 1968) was a Burmese politician and leader of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) from 1945 until his assassination in 1968. He was the brother-in-law of Myanmar's independence leader Aung San and the uncle of the former State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi.

Early life Than Tun was born in 1911 in Kanyutkwin, British Burma. He married Khin Khin Gyi, the elder sister of Aung San Suu Kyi's mother Khin Kyi.

Struggle for independence Than Tun worked as a school teacher after qualifying from the Teachers' Training School, Rangoon, and was influenced by Marxist writings. He joined in 1936 the nationalist Dobama Asiayone ("Our Burma" Association) and helped forge an alliance with Dr Ba Maw's Poor Man's Party to form the Freedom Bloc. He co-founded the Nagani (Red Dragon) Book Club with Thakin Nu in 1937, which for the first time widely circulated Burmese-language translations of the Marxist classics. He was imprisoned by the British in 1940 along with Thakin Nu, Thakin Soe, Dr. Ba Maw, and Kyaw Nyein.

When Ba Maw's pro-Japanese government was established in 1942, Than Tun served as Minister of Land and Agriculture, and he met and married Khin Gyi, sister of Aung San Suu Kyi's mother Khin Kyi. Aung San married Khin Kyi about the same time shortly after he became Minister of War; the BIA was renamed the Burma Defence Army (BDA). Than Tun could pass on Japanese intelligence to Thakin Soe who had gone underground in the Delta region in order to organise resistance against the Japanese Occupation. Thakins Thein Pe and Tin Shwe were sent to India to make contact with the British colonial government in exile at Simla. The next year, on 24 September 1968, whilst on the run from government troops, Than Tun was assassinated by a subordinate who later surrendered to General Ne Win's government. The assassin had joined the Communists just two years before as an "army deserter".

Legacy Than Tun was the only politician that nearly matched Aung San in status among his contemporaries and even the British noticed early on that he was the thinker behind Aung San. He first made his name as the schoolteacher who wrote powerful speeches in both Burmese and English. As a political organiser his skills were unequalled and he had played a pre-eminent role at every stage of Burma's struggle for independence. He was no mere ideologue but a man of extraordinary achievement and energy. Than Tun has come to be regarded as a fallen idol in the modern history of Burma.