Editing U Ba Swe (section)

== Biography ==

Ba Swe was born on 17 October 1915 in Tavoy (Dawei), in the Tenasserim region of British Burma.<ref>"Ba Swe" (n.d.), biographical entry, cited in Butwell, Richard (1963). ''U Nu of Burma''. Stanford University Press, p. 152, and in subsequent reference sources.</ref> Eight years U Nu's junior, he was, like his contemporary Kyaw Nyein, a product of the University of Rangoon and its politicized student unions, though those who knew him described him as "a man of action rather than an intellectual or a planner."<ref name="butwell153">Butwell (1963), ''U Nu of Burma'', pp. 152–154.</ref> In the late 1930s he emerged as a leading agitator in the ''thakin'' movement, and in 1938 he and Thakin Ba Hein were arrested while leading a march of striking Yenangyaung oilfield workers on Rangoon, an episode that gave the young Ba Swe a national reputation as a labor organizer.<ref>Butwell (1963), ''U Nu of Burma'', pp. 28–29.</ref> He went on to become the "main moving force" behind the founding of the All-Burma Trade Union Congress in 1940.<ref>Butwell (1963), ''U Nu of Burma'', p. 29.</ref>

After the wartime Japanese occupation, Ba Swe was, together with Kyaw Nyein, one of the chief founders in September 1945 of the Socialist Party, built on the nucleus of the prewar Burma Revolutionary Party; he served as the new party's Secretary-General under its first president, the veteran nationalist Thakin Mya.<ref>Butwell (1963), ''U Nu of Burma'', pp. 51–52.</ref> Following Thakin Mya's assassination alongside Aung San and most of the cabinet on 19 July 1947, Ba Swe assumed the presidency of the Socialist Party, a position from which he governed as one of the "Big Four" of the ruling AFPFL, alongside U Nu, U Kyaw Nyein, and Thakin Tin.<ref name="butwell153" /> He subsequently served as Minister of Defense (1948–1958) and Deputy Prime Minister (1952–1956); as leader of the Trade Union Congress (Burma), he was an outspoken advocate of comprehensive nationalization of industry.<ref>Butwell (1963), ''U Nu of Burma'', pp. 153, 340 (bibliographical index).</ref>

When U Nu temporarily relinquished the premiership in June 1956 to devote himself to reorganizing the AFPFL after a disappointing election result, Ba Swe served as prime minister for nine months, until Nu resumed office on 28 February 1957.<ref>Butwell (1963), ''U Nu of Burma'', p. 108.</ref> Tensions between Nu, on one side, and Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein, on the other, over both policy and personal rivalry culminated in mid-1958 in the formal split of the AFPFL. Ba Swe, Kyaw Nyein, and thirteen other ministers resigned from the government on 4 June 1958 and tabled a motion of no confidence against Nu, which narrowly failed; the resulting political crisis led Nu to invite General Ne Win to form a "caretaker government" that October.<ref>Trager, Frank N. (1959). "Political Divorce in Burma". ''Foreign Affairs'' 37.2: 317–327, pp. 317–320.</ref> Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein's faction subsequently contested the February 1960 general election as the "Stable AFPFL," which was decisively defeated by Nu's "Clean AFPFL," reconstituted as the Union Party.<ref>"Stable AFPFL" (n.d.); "Union Party (Burma)" (n.d.).</ref>

Regarded as politically spent, a "dead tiger," by the time of Ne Win's coup of 2 March 1962, Ba Swe was not among the AFPFL leaders detained by the new military government, and he withdrew from active politics thereafter.<ref>"Ba Swe" (n.d.), biographical entry.</ref> He died in Rangoon on 6 December 1987.<ref>"Ba Swe" (n.d.), biographical entry.</ref>