2 - The Formative Years (July 1910 to December 1941)

Summary

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Julius Caesar(I, 1)

Despite his more than six decades in the public eye, relatively little is known about General Ne Win's youth and the formative years before he launched the military and political career whence his legend stems. There is much speculation about various aspects of his early days, as is to be expected of one who lived a long and controversial life. He provided little assistance to would-be biographers and kept the private information revealed about his life limited. Consequently, rumours and allegations abound but hard facts are rare. Even his date of birth remains wrapped in mystery, as there are several in circulation.

According to Dr Maung Maung, his only official biographer and a close associate from the 1940s until his own death in 1994, General Ne Win, named Shu Maung at birth, was born on 24 May 1911, a Wednesday, at Paungdale in Paukkaung Township and Pyay District of what is now Bago Region (Maung Maung 1969, p. 26). Who's Who in Burma 1961 places his birth date ten days earlier, on 14 May 1911, a Sunday, as does Ne Win's entry in the list of candidate members of the Central Committee of the Burma Socialist Programme Party at the 1971 Party Congress. The former date was generally favoured in most English-language international media accounts of his life. However, his younger brother, U Thein Nyunt, himself born in 1927, states that his sibling was born on 6 July 1910, on the 15th day of the month of Waso, 1272, in the Burmese calendar, also a Wednesday, just after six o'clock in the evening. His children concur with their uncle on the date, 6 July. U Thant also records that baby Shu Maung was born in 1910, not 1911. It is universally agreed that he arrived in a little village then called Aung Thwe Ma Sha, now known as Kyaung Su, a short walk from Paungdale. Kyaung Su is a small settlement which has since moved further from Paungdale, but the original site still has a small Buddhist pagoda and a now dry well, as well as a new railway station for Paungdale.