Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno: Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965

461 Pages·2006·33.17 MB·English

by  Rex Mortimer

INDONESIAN COMMUNISM UNDER SUKARl'lO
Ilkology and Politics, 1959-1965

EqUINOX PuBUSHING (AsIA) PTE LTD
No 3. Shenton Way
# 10 -05 Shenton House
Singapore 068805
www.EquinoxPublishing.com
Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno
Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965
by Rex Mortimer
@1974,2oo6RexMonimer
First Equinox Edition 2006
Originally published by
Corndl University Press. Ithaca, NY in 1974
with ISBN 0-8014-0825-3
Printed in Indonesia on 100% postconsumer waste recycled paper.
No trees were destroyed to produce this book.
13579108642
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monimer, Rex, 1926-1979.
Indonesian communism under Sukarno : ideology and politics, 1959-1965 I Rex
Mortimer.
1st Equinox ed.
Jakana : Equinox Pub., 2006.
464 p. ; 23 em.
ISBN 9793780290
Includes bibliographical references (p. f442j-456) and index.
I. !lanai Komunis Indonesia.
2. Indoncsia-Polilics and government-1950-1966.
2007306454
All righu reserved. No pan of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmined in any form or by any means, electrOnic,
mechanical, photocopying. recording or otherwise without the prior permission
of Equinox Publishing.
For Mary, who understands, and Michael,
who may one day comprehend as we cannot,
that we are all victims

Preface
The history of Indonesian Communism has been fatefully con
sistent in its tragedy. In three distinct periods. the Indonesian Com
munist Party (PKI) has risen from obscurity to prominence with the
amazing rapidity of that "prairie fire" whose image Mao Tse-tung
evoked to describe the peasant upsurge in central China in 1925, only
to be engulfed each time by a torrent of violence, The pattern of the
period with which this book is concerned differs from the others only
in the magnitude of the party's expansion and of its disaster.
Much of the fascination of this movement, for this writer at least"
lies in the paradoxes associated with this extraordinary cycle of fortune
and misfortune. The obligation to adopt a detached and ba1anced ap
proach in analyzing the processes making up the Communist saga in
Indonesia need not blind ODC to the poignant hUMan implications of
the party's fate. ]t is estimated, for instance. that somewhere between
half a million and one million Communists and purported CommunislS
perished in the reprisals which followed upon the "coup attempt" of
October I, 1965. Yet this ghastly massacre, visited alike upon Com
munist leaders and hundreds of thousands of followers whose only
crime was that they found in the PIa sustenance for their needs and
aspirations. aroused remarkably little notice and concern in the West.
Viewed by many with relief and satisfaction as the removal of a bane
ful threat to Western interests, and by others as a regrettable and
embarrassing, but understandable, resolution of a nonnegotiable politi
cal impasse, the killing of countless innocents has attracted far less
humanitarian attention than other occurrences of considerably smaller
dimensions in otber parts of the world.
We find echoes here of that deep-seated feeling among Westerners
that the taking of life in "tbe East" is of less consequence than in
10 Preface
otber contexts. Additionally, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that
the bland unconcern shown over tbe Indonesian massacres was caused
in no small degree by their occurrence at the height of tbe Vietnam
war, when tbe intcrests of Americans, Austr3llans, and Europeans in
Soutbeasl Asia appeared threatened as never before. I feel that tbe
apathy evinced in prevailing attitudes toward the killings would have
been less bad their significance for thosc most closely involved, either
as perpetrators or as close kin and neighbors of victims, been ex~
plored more thoroughly. Unfortunately, not only has this dimension
been barely touched upon by scholars, but in addition, and regrettably,
neither political scientists, sociologists, nor ethnologists have ever
given the Western reader much insight into tbe world of the kinds of
people the Communists appealed to and spoke for.
Academic attitudes toward the PKI have been affected in more
direct ways by the climate of opinion created by the events of
1965-66. At the time I was .gaining my first acquaintance with In~
donesia and the PKI, in 1964, Western scholars were engaged in a
debate about the character of Indonesian Communism and its pros
pects for gaining power. On the one band there were those who, like
Guy Pauker and Justus van der Kroef, saw the rapid progress in
organization and influence of tbe PKI as presaging a likely Commun
ist takeover in conditions of economic chaos, political instability,
and a declining will on the part of the Indonesian clite to resist the
Communist steamroller. Different estimates were made, notably by
Donald Hindley and Ruth McVey, on the basis of an interpretation
of Indonesian politics that stressed the determination of those in
power, especially the army leaders, to keep the Communists out, the
unsuitable nature of the large but loose Communist organization for
engaging in any real struggle for power, and in Hindley's case the
degree to which the Communist leaders had been "domesticated" by
Sukarno. One attitude that most of the disputants sbared, however,
was a considerable respect for the qualities of the PKI leaders and
cadres, for their political capabilities, attention to the interests of the
workers and peasants, realistic assessment of the workers' situation,
and relative freedom from the taint of corruption.
The events following the coup attempt resolved this controversy
but at tbe same time gave rise to a tendency on the part of many
Western academics writing about Indonesia 10 denigrate the PKJ's
Pre/ace 11
role in indonesian national life. As a result. certain stereotypes of
Indonesian Communism have emerged that obstruct a balanced under
standing of its political role. Of these stereotypes, three in particular
are highly misleading.
The first comes close to suggesting tbat millions of Indonesians
Hocked to the PKI banner only to give expression to the cries of pain
that they, as victims of social change. were impelled to utter. This
explanation allots no significance either to any rationally conceived
interests on the part of those concerned or to the character of tbe
Communist movement in Indonesia. Considering tbat, even when Su
kamo's protection offered some security, adherence to the PKI always
involved rislcs. it seems far more likely that masses of workers, peas
ants, leachers, and low-level officials found in this movement the one
_significant political force displaying a devotion to their interests and
seeking, under difficult circumstances, to give them an entree onto a
political stage dominated by the neotraditional elites and the swanky
"modem" suburbs of Djakarta. Bandung, and Surabaja. However the
contrast between the Old Order of Sukamo and the New Order of
General Suharto may be drawn, the role of champion of the masses
formerly filled by the PKI has now been eliminated. with the political
vacuum thereby created being justified on the groun~ tbat the lower
orders constitute a "floating mass" to be insulated from tbe unsettling
and potentially subversive effects of participation in party politics. In
this respect alone, then, tbe immolation of the PKI bas led to the
reversal of an important trend of earlier postindependence politics;
the impact on power concentration, social stratification, and in par
ticular the position of the worker and peasant may well prove of the
greatest consequence.
Nor, despite the seeming plausibility given to the argument by the
PKJ's stance over the 1963 economic stabilization plan, can the con
tention be convincingly upheld that the Communists deliberately
promoted or connived at the economic chaos of the later years of the
Sukarno era in. order to rise to power on the wreckage. The point is
dealt with specifically in the corpus or this study, but it is at least
arguable from a more general standpoint that the PKJ represented the
most hopeful prospect for a reconstruction of Indonesian society that
would have made J'Ol'sible sustained development combined with at
tention to mass social welrare and the elimination of the gross in-
12 Prefoce
equities and bureaucratic vices that plague the country. We can only
speculate on the form these changes might bave taken, and the sacri
fices they would have· involved, but the time is surely past when we
must assume that Communist prescriptions for economic and social
development are uniform or predictable in the degree of ruthlessness
with which they ace pursued. There is no doubt that the PKI leadcrs
could be ruthless and singleminded in pursuing their objectives, and
tbat many would have suffered intensely bad they attained them. But
ruthlessness was never a Communist monopoly. The ruthlessness of
men in power exists in plenty in Indonesia today, in the methods em
ployed to deal with critics and questioners in the arena of national
politics, and above all in tbe burdens which misery and powerlessness
lay daily upon the mass of the people. Only by comprehensively com
paring the present witb a hypothetical Communist future, or that
part of it whose shape we can deduce from the clues that the PKl's
ideology and actions provide, could we assess the relative benefits
and costs of each for the bulk of the population.
Again, fears and prognoses expressed in the West that a Commu
nist Indonesia would have ushered in an era of Chinese domination
over Southeast Asia or gravely threatened the security of non-Com
munist nations in the area are open to serious question, The PKI did
indeed promise, as did Sukarno, that "the lifeline of imperialism was
destined to be cut in Southeast Asia"; but the examination of PKI na
tionalism and the roots of its jealously guarded independence.under
taken in these pages wilt, I believe, show this fear of Chinese domina
tion to bave been in large part hyperbole. The impact of a Communist·
Indonesia on the future of tbe Southeast Asian region is a subject for
judicious evaluation and debate, but apocalyptic judgments are as out
of place as were the dire forecasts made only a few short years ago
about the threat represented by China.
For obvious reasons, we have had very few opportunities since
1965 to balance the views of tbe present Indonesian government and
those that prevail in Western writing with the PKI's own interpreta
tion of events and its role in them. For this reason, mention sbould
be made of onc case where such comparison can be made for the light
it throws on the appeal and characteristics of the movement. In a
dignified and moving speech to the court that sentenced him to death
in 1967 for bis alleged part in the 1965 coup, Sudisman, general