Increasing poverty serves as a backdrop to an ever-deepening social unrest which, today, has attained as articulate and sophisticated an expression as anything obtaining elsewhere.
Peasant revolt and mass delinquency are not new in Indonesia. The century started with the Atchen war, just ended, with the Saminist peasant movement in Middle Java in full swing and with the shadow of the Bali insurrection threatening. The beginnings of depression in agriculture and the Chinese revolution of 1925–27 had their counterpart in the 1926–27 insurrections in Java and Sumatra. The depression saw the spread of rampok (dacoity) parties and tax strikes throughout the archipelago and especially in Java. Japanese occupation – originally greeted as liberation – met increasing resistance and guerrilla activity as the burden of obligatory deliveries of produce grew. The Indonesian Republican Government has had to repress by force a Communist insurrection in Madiun in 1948 and is still faced with civil war in West Java, in the Moluccas, in the Celebes and in parts of Sumatra.
But if social unrest is not new in Indonesia, subversion and the threat of overthrow are. Peasant jacquerie by itself has shown its impotence as an opposition to a centralised State [1], but when it is mobilised and given form by a political party, it can threaten almost any State, not least a newly formed, unstable one like Indonesia.
In this connection the history of modern Indonesia has been a steady permeation of imported political ideas and organisational forms into the inchoate substance of internally generated social unrest. This is true of all political parties and especially true of the Communist Party.
From its beginnings the Perserikatan Komunis di India (PKI – Indonesian Communist Party) has derived its direction and its policy from without rather than within the country. If, in its early stages, it collaborated with the Comintern [2], collaboration soon turned into the usual subservience to the Russian global gleichschaltung. [3]
Today the PKI evinces the normal pattern of Russian-controlled parties, with all their regimented and opportunist changes of policy. [4] But weak as it may seem when seen in the light of the coherence of its policy, or of its stand on principle, it combines two elements of strength which may well prove fatal to the unstable Indonesian Republic. Firstly, the conscious aim on the part of the Communist Party to attain power whether fairly or foully and no matter at what cost to the country as a whole; secondly, a magnificent lever in the shape of a growing mass of restlessness and spontaneous social entropy, willing to be channelled in any direction. [5]
The Republic is engaged on what amounts to full-scale war in four or five areas. It has already had occasion to ban strikes and impose severe penalties for inciting labour unrest (ordinances of February and September 1951). In August a number of arrests were made among the leadership of the SOBSI, the Communist controlled federation of trade unions, which claims 2.5 million members. [6] What the future holds for the political and social stability in Indonesia is tied up with the progress of Indonesian development. Unless steps are taken to alleviate the crushing poverty of the Indonesian population and reverse the trend to even greater depths of economic misery, to level up conditions throughout the archipelago without, however, strengthening the fissiparous tendencies that have become increasingly active recently, the chances of a stable Indonesia certainly appear to be remote. The activities – peaceful or not, open or subversive – of the PKI, will ensure that.
The PKI came to life once more after the Japanese occupation when some of its more important leaders returned from exile – Alimin from Russia, Sardjono from imprisonment in Australia. In accordance with the worldwide strategy of the Communist Parties of the time which demanded broad “united front” tactics with the Western Powers and, as a corollary, the muting of colonial movements for independence [7], Alimin was for an understanding with the Dutch and even persuaded President Sukarno to appoint an additional 180 left-wing members of the House of Representatives in order to push through Parliament the Linggadjati Agreement with Holland (March 25, 1947). Alimin became a member of the Central Committee of the House and, in July, 14 members of its PKI-led faction, Sajap Kiri (the Left Wing), held portfolios in the new Sjarifuddin Government.
Although the Sajap Kiri did not immediately participate in the right-wing Hatta Cabinet which replaced Sjarifuddin in January 1948, Alimin declared (May 27) that he would re-enter the Government and negotiations were being conducted for that outcome.
These plans proved abortive, however. Moscow had changed her tactics. Co-existence gave way to Cold War. The first sign of the change was the inaugural Cominform Conference held in Poland in September 1947, where Zhdanov pronounced that “Anglo-American Imperialism” which, during the war years and immediately after had been “prisoners in the camp of the people” had now managed to escape from the people’s camp. [8] An immediate result of this change of line was Moscow’s recognition of the Republic of Indonesia (May 27, 1948) in contravention of the Renville Agreement, signed between the Republic and the Netherlands East Indies Government on January 17, and supported by the PKI. The full meaning of the Zhdanov Thesis did not reach Asia immediately, however. In February, 1948, a regional meeting of the World Federation of Democratic Youth was convened in Calcutta to make the message plain. It met immediately after the Second Congress of the Communist Party of India. At both these meetings the green light was given to insurrection. The drawn-out negotiations of the Chinese Communist Party for coalition with Chiang Kai-shek were broken off and civil war begun; the new Ranadive leadership of the Indian Communist Party started preparing the Telengana uprising; the Communist Parties of Britain, France and Holland switched round to supporting insurrectionary activities in Burma, Malaya, Indochina and Indonesia. The Communist Parties of these latter territories stopped working within the framework of established governments [9] and tried to disrupt the framework.
It took some time for the new line to affect the PKI. It was only when Muso returned from Moscow with Soeripno on August 12, 1948, that the PKI acknowledged its “past mistakes” and turned around on the agreements with the Netherlands which they had helped to formulate. On the 18th September, the first fruits of the Zhdanov line were gathered – the Madioen coup was staged in Eastern Java. The coup failed, Muso was killed and a number of other leaders, including ex-premier Sjarifuddin, executed.
Another shift in policy took place in 1949. As early as the Second [World] Trade Union Congress in Milan (June-July 1949) the Madioen uprising was subtly repudiated as having been “provoked by Hatta”. [10] The new line of popular front was given formal recognition in Liu Shao-chi’s address to the Asian and Australasian Trade Union Conference in Peking (November) in which he said: “The experience of the victorious national liberation struggle of the Chinese people teaches that the working class must unite with all classes, parties, groups and organisations…and to form a broad, nation-wide front, headed by the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party”. At the same Conference, Ali Sardjono, the Indonesian delegate reported that “sixty-five million dollars were spent by Wall Street for the so-called ‘Communist Insurrection’ in Madioen”. [11] The new policy was given the final stamp of official authority in the editorial the Cominform weekly For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy (27/1/49) entitled Mighty Advance of the National Liberation Movement in the Colonial and Dependent Countries which stressed the United Front as the correct tactic in present circumstances. However, the editorial also specifically included Indonesia as one of the countries where internal conditions for the formation of National Liberation Armies and armed struggle against Imperialists and their Collaborators exist.
Since then the PKI has turned increasingly to legal, constitutional activity. They joined hands with the PNI – centrist nationalist party – in overthrowing the right-wing Sukiman administration (April 1951–February 1952) on the issue of American military aid administered by MSA. The new constitution adopted by the PKI-controlled trade-union organisation (SOBSI) at its third national congress in Djakarta (Autumn 1952) dropped all reference to the “proletarian dictatorship” and the “democratic dictatorship” in a pronounced shift from direct action to political manoeuvring. [12] The PKI supported and kept alive the Wilopo government (April 1952–June 1953) during the “Autumn Days” of threatened coups and held the keys to the Sastroamidjojo majority in Parliament throughout its considerable – in Indonesian terms – existence (August 1953–July 1955). Most reports agree that during the latter period the PKI expanded considerably in numbers and influence within the State administration, a view which received some corroboration in the results of the October, 1955, elections in which the PKI polled some 20 percent of the votes.
That the PKI has not given up the use of force entirely can be seen in the links between it and guerrilla bands operating in West Java as revealed when a number of members of the Bambu Rintjing band were taken and interrogated by the not unfriendly Sastroamidjojo authorities early in 1954 [13], or by the PKI bid to arm its para-military organisation Perbepsi, as a militia to supervise the general election of 1955. [14]
P.S. The end of the 1945–55 decade has seen Russian foreign and the PKI’s domestic polices turn full cycle. United fronts, collaboration with governments and between governments have returned. Sukarno is feted in Moscow and Peking, not Aidit. Sukarno returns advocating the abolition of all parties and substituting a presidential cabinet; Aidit confirms his support. It is not too much to believe that the cycle with all its dangers to the unstable equilibrium of the Indonesian state might start yet again with, possibly, the single change in the locus of influence – Peking, not Moscow.
1. Not least by its lack of an alternative for a centralised State, which, especially in an artificial-irrigation country performs services for the peasantry which no other body could or would. How weak peasant jacquerie is can be seen by the fate of the Saminist Movement which, as soon as it offered armed resistance, was stamped out entirely, without it having left any basis – ideological or organisational – for continuity (see Saminisme in Encyclopaedia van Nederlandsch Indie).
2. Thus, for example, Tan Malaka, Indonesian delegate to the Fourth Congress of the Comintern (November–December 1922) managed to reverse a decision of the Second Congress which stressed the importance of the democratic movement in colonial territories and which stated explicitly that “a struggle must be conducted against Pan-Islamism and similar institutions ... (as they) strengthen the position of the landowners like the Khans, Mullahs and others”. (Quoted by Blumberger, pp. 16–17). Tan Malaka maintained that Pan-Islamism meant “the national struggle for freedom” and inserted the following into the General theses of the Fourth Congress: “In Moslem countries the national movement reveals its ideology at first under the politico-religious slogans of Pan-Islam ...” (ibid., pp. 27–28). Of course the change was in the direction of the “consolidation” policy of the Soviet Union and the Comintern of that time; nevertheless it showed some initiative on the part of the PKI delegate.
3. One sequence of events will illustrate this point clearly. At the Fifth Congress of the Comintern (June–July 1924) emphasis was placed on the control of trade unions by Communist Parties. At the parallel Pan-Pacific Labour Conference in Canton, held under the auspices of the Comintern and attended by the PKI leaders Alimin and Boedisoetjiro the same thesis was underscored – Communist Parties must concentrate on the working class. Later that year, in December, at a joint Sarekat Rakjat-PKI Conference at Jogja, the Central Committee of the PKI tried to dissolve the Sarekat Rakjat and create in its stead a peasant-co-operative organisation. The ostensible reasons for the proposal were that peasant middle-class influences were infiltrating the PKI from its front organisations, that the peasantry was politically backward and only interested in economic matters. The motion was rejected and a compromise reached whereby the Sarekat Rakjat would be left to die a natural death by freezing the number of its branches and by attracting proletarian elements. The Comintern decided in 1925 to drop the Sarekat Rakjat, but in the event, as both PKI and SR were declared illegal by the colonial Government and their leaders exiled, nothing came of the resolution.
4. See the section Note on the PKI and Moscow 1945–55.
5. The PKI is not the only extremist party in Indonesia. Darul Islam, sections of the Army Officer Corps (which seems to operate along party political lines) and smaller groups can be mentioned. The “advantage” of the PKI over the latter is that it can call upon other than local resources.
6. World Trade Union Movement, May 1–15, 1953; New York Times 20/10/51; Christian Science Monitor 20/10/51. 12 Members of Parliament were among the 15,000 people arrested in connection with riots in Djakarta and Medan.
7. Significantly, Ho Chi-Minh could elicit no support from the French Communist Party who, on the contrary, voted in the National Constituent Assembly (4/4/46) for a message congratulating the troops of the French Expeditionary Force in the Far East “on the morrow of the day in which their entry into Hanoi sets the seal on the success of the government of the Republic’s policy of peaceful liberation of all the peoples of the Union of Indo-China”.
8. Zhdanov’s address is contained in The International Situation, Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1947.
9. Until then they worked actively in suppressing dissident “Trotskyite” elements in Indochina, in Indonesia – Tan Malaka and Partai Murba – and in Burma – the Red Flag Communists – in conjunction with the Government.
10. Proceedings, p. 653.
11. NCNA, November 20, 22, 1949.
12. See MG 30/12/52.
13. Brackman in Christian Science Monitor 12/5/54.
14.Ibid., 10/11/54.
Blumberger, J.T.P. 1928. De communistiche beweging in Nederlandsch Indie, The Hague.
World Federation of Trade Unions. 1949. WFTU, Second World Trade Union Conference Proceedings, Milan.
1. The bibliography used by Kidron is an abbreviated one – not all articles quoted from seem to be individually listed.
2. For a later instance of Kidron writing on the subject of the PKI see Indonesian Communists in International Socialism journal, No. 30 (Autumn 1967): https://www.marxists.org/archive/kidron/works/1967/xx/indonesia.htm
This text is extracted from Chapter III Population Problems and Corollaries (pp. 142–149) of Mike Kidron’s unpublished thesis:
Kidron, Michael. 1957. Problems and patterns of development in overpopulated backward countries with special reference to Indonesia. M.Litt. University of Oxford, Faculty of Social Studies, Balliol College, 289pp.
Last updated on 10 April 2020