THE SITUATION TODAY
•The following report from Jakarta by Comrade Ibnu
Parna casts some fresh light upon Soekarno's adventures in "guided democracy."
The failure of the national bourgeoisie in its struggle to create a national capitalist society in Indonesia has not yet reached the stage where the working class comes the forefront. This situation offers the possibility for leftwing bourgeois groups to maintain themselves legally power by means of a return to the Constitution of, 1945, under the leadership of President Soekarno.
The legal powers invoked are those which are placed in the hands of the President in a situation where the country is already declared to be in a state of war. The armed forces become and are constituted as the main sup-
Every proposal by Soekarno as a command from the President as Chief of the Armed Forces, the highest military authority, who must be obeyed. On the other hand, high officers in the Armed Forces a compensation, are given the opportunity to exercise ortant civil functions in the sphere of economic organizations. There are now Soekarno's cabinet, ind many highly placed members o he Armed Forces have obtained posts as directors of stat while several military men have been named governors of provinces.
have been put under heavy pressure, andone - now forbidden to high civip here has, beat peatonet of state and semi-state enterprises, to be members of politi-
----- photo credits and running heads -----
*-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL cal parties. It has also been decided that the President has the power to demand an investigation into the administration and finances of the parties. Several measures have been taken to liquidate existing small parties, and certain conditions set up for a party's obtaining legal recognition. On March 6th President Soekarno took measures even to put an end to the activities and functions of memparliament. It has, furthermore, day news when newspapers undergo the fate of being banned for a certain period.
Confronted by these measures of President Sockarno, the big parties, such as the PNI (National Party of Indonesia), the Masjumi, the NU (Nahdatul Ulama),, and the PK I (Communist Party of Indonesia), are a loss. This fact heightens the prestige of President Soekarno and lowers that of the four above-mentioned big parties. Around this strong position President Soekarno is directly assembling what is called "the 1945 generation" (the forces which took the initiative of launching the Declaration of Independence at the beginnin Jational revolution), who want to be the nucleus of the Front, which — according to what it is being said — will be led directly by Soekarno himself. By these steps Soekarno will evidently cause internal contradictions in the karno's position. Several times Soekarno exalted Khrushchev as a symbol of world peace, of the anti-colonial struggle, of the struggle of society on its way to justice and prosperity. continually called President Soekarno his friend and gave him a guarantee that the Soviet Union is on his side in all eventualities.
In short, in the upper social layers, authority is shifting from the leaders of the big parties to President Soekarno. In the lower social layers, on the other hand, the economic difficulties which confront the mass of the people with rising prices, and the production shortage, provide Soekarno's enemies with perfect material for agitation. In the present stage, the people of Indonesia tace absolute power in the hands of President Soekarno, which afterwards will be followed by or combined with internal contradictions in the Soekarno bloc — as a result of the practical concerning particulary the economy, that have to be overcome. These contradictions existed from the beginning, but a w have begun to emerge more clearly.
As of today the position of our Partai Acoma is not yet
71 strong enough so that it can hope to intervene to produce a change in the decreasing influence of parties; we seeking the way to put a stop to the attempt to liquidate the small parties — a liquidation that Sockarno is carrying out within the framework of what is called "simplification of the party-system." It is certainly not impossible that at any moment President Soekarno could appear with a decree to abolish parties. The A B C of Communism can give us in fact sufficient suggestions as to what ought to be done in this situation in the immediate future.
In order to consolidate workers' policy and to social consciousness, the Partai Acoma is putting forward a transitional programme. In so doing, it is fully conscious of the decreasing influence of the big parties, ano of the increasingly wide-scale concentration of power ir Soekarno's hands accompanied by the development of internal contradictions in the Sockarno bloc. Some of the main pontive thied democracy, based on the poi
"guided democracy, " based on the personal influence of President Soekarno, up to the level of a democracy based on the mass of the people.
2) To transform the "guided economy," ruled by the bureaucrats, into a genuine planned by a Production Council, where the technical and political know-how of the workers can be combined and developed
3) To put an end to the authorities' habit of trying to overcome social contradictions by means of exclusively administrative solutions.
4) To engender revolutionary initiative by killing the germs of the personality cult, l the natiord, and byistics of "super-authority" and "the war and by eradicating "bapakisme," the custom of obediently following "the" leader.
5) To set up one single Trade-Union Federation, an authentic labor organization free from the influence of the nationalist bureaucracy, an organization that can be critical of and take corrective measures against, the authorities and functionaries during the rise towards a socialist society
5) To spread the slogans that bring the working people together in the spheres of politics, economics, and defense
7) To link the militia up with the fate and well-being of production in order to protect economic objects in town and village, by means of guarding and strengthening • the resources of the working people that are being potential brought into question. Jakarta, March 1960
Uruguay