Indonesian Upheaval: Sukarno and Aidit : Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

 Indonesian Upheaval: Sukarno and Aidit

Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

The Pioneer (09-10-2020)

The month October was infamous in Indonesian History. What happened then is still fresh in the memory of those who either lived then or read about. John Hughes was the first American correspondent went to Jakarta after the murders, and one of the few Western correspondents to be an eyewitness to the drama that unfolded in the ensuing months. For his dispatches, Hughes was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The book Indonesian upheaval by John Hughes had become a classic historical record of those times.

This is the story of the dramatic events that brought about the downfall of Indonesia’s then national hero, Sukarno, who was the leader of the Indonesian struggle for independence from the Dutch Empire. He was a prominent leader of Indonesia's nationalist movement during the Dutch colonial period and spent over a decade under Dutch detention until released by the invading Japanese forces in World War II. He was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. 

Sukarno was born June 6, 1901. His father was a Javanese school teacher and his mother Balinese. He thus represented a mixture of the Islamic Javanese and Hindu Balinese Malay subcultures. He went to a secondary school in which most of the students were Dutch. He thus not only got a good education but became imbued with a fierce desire for Indonesian independence.

In the early morning of I October 1965, six high-ranking generals of the Indonesian army were murdered under grisly circumstances. This act was to set in motion a chain of events that broke the Indonesian Communist Party amidst the slaughter of hundreds of thousands and ultimately led to Sukarno’s eclipse. Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) was a communist party in Indonesia during the mid-20th century. It was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world before its eradication in 1965 and ban the following year.

The Blog ‘A View Over the Bell’, recently wrote a book review on this.

The overthrow of Sukarno was anything but a typical coup d’état. On the night of the 30^th September 1965, squads of army soldiers left the Halim Air Force Base to capture six of the country's top generals. There were thousands of Communist activists at the base ready to fight.

Sukarno himself left his palace and went to Halim, where he spoke to officers involved in the coup. Sukarno had over the previous years, been moving more and more towards communism, and had become particularly close to China. The Indonesian Communist Party was one of the largest in the world at the time, and had some representation in cabinet, although no real power. It's possible that the Communists thought that if they "decapitated" the army, it would give Sukarno freedom to move more definitively to the left.

Sukarno however, shrewd politician that he was, played for time, waiting to see how the coup played out. He didn't have long to wait: the plotters had not planned the next stage of the coup - perhaps they thought Sukarno would come out vocally in their favour - and the army, led by Suharto, quickly regained control of the situation. Then came the massacre and over the next few months hundreds of thousands of communists, suspected communists, or merely the unlucky, were slaughtered. The left had been destroyed, and Suharto took over the reins of government, although Sukarno had not been removed.

As Suharto and his allies increased their control over government affairs, Sukarno was progressively side-lined, until, a year after the coup attempt, he was removed from the post of president, which Suharto claimed after an election.

In the Indonesian Upheaval one important character that the world should recall was that of Dipa Nusantara Aidit popularly known as Aidit of Indonesian Communist party or the PKI. Born on 30 July 1923 and died on 22 November 1965 Aidit was a senior leader of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). He was nicknamed ‘Amat’. Aidit was educated in the Dutch colonial system.

During the Japanese occupation, Aidit and his friends received political lectures from Sukarno. In 1943, Aidit first met MH Lukman. They were members of Gerakan Indonesia Merdeka while Aidit as the chairman of political council of the organization and Lukman as his member. In 1944, they were elected as the member of Barisan Pelopor Indonesia, the 100 men who were most loyal to Sukarno. About one year before Indonesian independence, Aidit and M.H. Lukman along with others, studied politics.

In early September 1945, Angkatan Pemuda Indonesia was formed. Aidit was appointed as the chairman of API section Jakarta Raya. On 5 November, Aidit along with other API members attacked Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger's post but eventually were arrested. They were then exiled to Onrust island. After seven months, Aidit and Lukman were released.

In March 1947, Aidit was appointed as chairman of a PKI faction. In early 1948, Aidit, Lukman, and Njoto were assigned to translate ‘The Communist Manifesto’ into Indonesian. In August, the three became members of the Central Committee. The three later became members of the new PKI Politburo formed on 1 September 1948. Aidit and Lukman managed to escape to China and Vietnam and took shelter there. 

After the 1948 affair, in January 1951 Aidit was appointed as the secretary general of the party, which was later renamed as chairman, while Njoto and Lukman as his deputies. It was said that, in return for his support of Sukarno, Aidit rose to the position of Secretary-General of the PKI. Under his leadership, the party became the 3rd largest Communist party in the world, behind those of the Soviet Union and China. In the next decade, the PKI became a leftist rival to conservative elements among the Muslim political parties and the Army. By 1965, the PKI had become the largest political party in Indonesia, and Aidit became bolder in overtures towards power.

After the attempted coup on 30 September 1965, later officially blamed on the PKI, Aidit fled to Boyolali, where he was shot on 22 November by pro-government forces led by General Suharto during the bloody 1965/66 anti-communist purge. According to sources, on 22 November Aidit was arrested by a search group in a house in a village. At the early morning, Aidit was brought to Boyolali and eventually was executed.

Aidit’s political stance derived from Stalinism and Maoism. Aidit thought that Indonesian society is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial one. Therefore, it is important for the proletariat and peasantry to ally themselves with the national bourgeoisie. Aidit supported Sukarno’s concept of Marhaenism. He considered Marhaenism is the application of Marxist Socialism in Indonesian society. Aidit was also anti-imperialist.

This book, published just after Suharto became Acting President, gives an on-the-ground account, in a slightly breathless style, of how all this came about. As a work of great political insight, it's not great, but as a primer of the course of events it is useful.

Fifty-Five years have passed, and still there is a pall of silence over the massacres and other dark activities that occurred at that time. Suharto - who ended up as much of a dictator as Sukarno - has gone, and Indonesia is a democracy with a growth rate that many other countries would envy. Indonesian upheaval is a good journalistic writing covering a vital piece of Indonesian history.

(Source: Book by John Hughes, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist)