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.

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).

[3] However, the rift over strategy, whether to negotiate with the postwar colonial administration or to continue with the threat of general strikes and armed rebellion till full independence was achieved, came to a head after Aung San and others accepted seats in the Executive Council.

[1] Independence was declared on 4 January 1948, with the AFPFL, now dominated by the Socialist Party, in power, and U Nu became prime minister, now that Aung San had been assassinated along with most of his cabinet on 19 July 1947, commemorated since as Martyrs' Day.

Than Tun escaped and led his party underground in order to organize armed revolution, and established guerrilla bases in central Burma from the CPB stronghold at Pyinmana.

[1] The country had experienced this kind of treatment of their young only recently in the hands of Ne Win's army in the 7 July 1962 massacre of Rangoon University students during a peaceful protest on campus shortly after the coup d'etat of 2 March 1962.