THE
LESSON OF INDONESIA |
LThe following statement on the meaning of the catastrophic defeat suffered by the workers and peasants in Indonesia at the hands of indigenous counterrevolutionary forces and their foreign imperialist backers was issued March 20 by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938. ]
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-€1) The United Secretariat of the Fourth International vigor- . ously condemns the barbaric repression of the leaders, members .and sympathizers of the Indonesian Communist party unleashed by the re-_. actionary Indonesian army, the comprador and "bureaucratic" bourgeoisie and the clerical wing of the petty bourgeoisie. In this. repression, the lives of more than 100,000 Communists have been taken and tens of thousands of Communists and other left wingers have been imprisoned or fired from their jobs, which is often equivalent to condemnation. to starvation in face of the current mass unemployment. The Communist party press and mass organizations, including the largest trade-union federation in the country (SOBST), have been officially banned. Many leading Communist party cadres have been murdered, and Njono,:.the general secretary of the SOBSI and a member of the Political Bureau of the Indonesian Communist. party, has. been executed after a.farcical trial. All this was capped on March 12 with the official banning of: the. Communist party [PKI] throughout Indonesia.
The United Secretariat of the Fourth International asks the working-class organizations in'all countries to start a mass protest campaign, demanding the immediate release of all political prisoners, the immediate legalization of all working-class parties, including the PKI, the Partai Acoma and the Partai Murbah. It calls for establishment of an international working-class Commission of Inquiry to investigate the fate of the top PKI leaders, Aidit, Iukman and Njoto,: who, according to many sources, have been murdered by the military.
_ Out of solidarity, the international working class must be mobilized to the fullest extent to stop the dirty war being waged by the reactionary forces against the left in Indonesia!
(2) If it is now an elementary duty to defend the victims of reaction in Indonesia, this by no means signifies that. there is less need to analyze the debacle suffered by the biggest Communist party in any capitalist country, a party with three million members and millions of sympathizers in various "front" organizations, and to draw the proper lessons from it. The main: reasons for the tremendous defeat are as follows:
(a) The leadership of the. Indonesian Communist party. granted leadership of the Indonesian revolution to Sukarno, questioning that the state apparatus on which he stood was bourgeois in character; and, in contradiction to the Marxist-Leninist theory of the state,
presented this apparatus as a "people's state," a "national democ- Tracy" having "two sides".-~- "one for the people, one against the people. “ The PKI. accepted the theory. of. "revolution in stages," limiting the: "first stage" in reality to the anti-imperialist and antifeudal struggle; and in practice even abandoning the fight for a prole- tarian, Communist leadership during this stage although it is declared necessary, in theory at least, by the leaders of the Chinese Communist party and. even by Aidit himself in some of his writings. (1)
In fact, ‘the leadership: of the Indonesian CP went so far as to boast about its close collaboration with the Indonesian bourgeoisie, (2) and to openly express its support for Sukarno's ideology of the "Pant ja Sila" (five principles), although one of the five is "belief in a single god." The Aidit leadership stressed its position that the "union" of the ideology of the "revolutionary classes" (including the "national". bourgeoisie!) was needed by. the Indonesian revolution as long as Communism was not "eliminated" from the union! (3) (1)"The Indonesian revolution is at the present stage bourgeois-—-:: -
democratic in character and not socialist and proletarian. But the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Indonésia no longer belongs to. the old type, and is no longer part of the bourgeois-democratic world revolution; which belongs to the past; it is a revolution of a new type, which is part of the proletarian socialist world revolution, firmly opposed to imperialism...Given the fact that the Indonesian revolution is a bourgeois-democratic revolution of a new type, it is the historical duty of the proletariat to struggle to conquer its leadership." (D:N.Aidit: The’ Indonesian Revolution and the Immediate Tasks of the Indonesian Communist Party. pp. 15-16. Peking. 1965.
(2)In a speéch at the School of Advanced Studies of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party in Peking, September 2, 1963, D.N.Aidit, chairman of the Indonesian CP made the following quite blunt statement: "The alliance with the national bourgeoisie has also been realized. The national bourgeoisie starts to return [!] to the side of the revolution, particularly since the party formulated a correct policy and overcame sectarianism in-its ranks...We have now collaborated with the: Indonesian bourgeoisie for nearly ten years, and the revolutionary forces have continually developed rather than grown fewer during this’ time, whereas the reactionary forces have experienced failure after failure. Even the public anti-Commun-. ist clamor of five or six years ago is officially condemned today as...against unity. President Sukarno has played an important role in the struggle against Communophobia and for national unity." (D.N. Aidit: ibid. pp. 82-82.) It would be difficult to find a better example of self-delusory opportunism paving the way for a ‘tragic defeat. (3)"Another concept which also reflects the unity of the nation and the unity of NASAKOM is expressed by the Pantja Sila or five principles: (1) belief in a single god; (2) humanitarianism or internationalism; (3) nationalism or patriotism; (4) democracy and (5). social justice. The Indonesian Communist party supports and sustains the. Pantja Sila, although [!] one of its principles is belief in a single god, in view of the fact that the Pant ja Sila, rather than being .an >
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(b) For these reasons, the Indonesian CP, concentrating on. "nass recruitment," and failing to provide adequate ideological | education and revolutionary training for most of its members, bowed to Sukarno's initiatives for many years, abstaining from any appeal -: to mass struggles that could decisively change the relationship of | social forces in the country. Sukarno arbitrarily suspended the con-. stitution and reduced the Communist party to thirty seats in his new "appointed parliament" of 260 members; when he suspended democratic freedoms and ordered all parties to register for government authorization, the PKI accepted these infringements of its rights and even agreed to participate in the various cabinets which Sukarno: subsequently formed... Included in these governments were such reactionaries as General A.H. Nasution, Hamengku Buwono, the sultan of Djokjakarta — and the leading bourgeois politician Ruslan Abdulgani. Today. they are the main political brains behind the counterrevolution and members of the counterrevolutionary Suharto cabinet. Yesterday the °PKI leadership treated them as "brother revolutionists" and "allies" -inside NASAKOM and Sukarno's cabinets. They even tried to use these arbitrary forms of Bonapartist government to eliminate some of their own competitors in the labor movement. But these very same rules and regulations have been used since October 1, 1965, to suppress the. © PKI itself. Discerning bourgeois observers have noted that the logic of the PKI policy was to leave the initiative with the anti- Communist forces. (4)
(c) At various times in recent years the Indonesian masses moved into action against the decliring standard of living due to mass unemployment, inflation, high prices, the plunder of state property by the army high command, rampant corruption in the state administration, etc. Again and again they seized imperialist property, occupied plantations and factories, sought to divide the holdings of the big landowners. Again and again, the Sukarno regime and its stooges, with the help of the army, drove out the masses and placed the’ administration of the properties in their own corrupt hands. Again and again, the PKI leadership refrained from supporting these mass uprisings, refrained from educating the masses and their vanguard in the spirit of preparing to fight for power. It even refrained from systematically denouncing the dangerous reaction looming not only in the religious organizations but also in the army high command in particular. Aidit referred over and over only to the parties suppressed by Sukarno -- the Masjumi and the Social Demo-
attempted substitute for the philosophy of all its supporters, combined (!] all existing ideological tendencies in society. The party is, however, resolutely opposed to those who seek to transform one L!] of the five silas into the leading dominant tendency." (D.N. Aidit: ibid. p. 85.)
(4)An American liberal bourgeois observer ,..Donald Hindley, correctly summed up the political situation in Indonesia resulting from Aidit's - tactics: "Meanwhile, however, the fate of Indinesia would be deter-_ mined largely by the action or inaction of the non-Communists.". (The Communist Party of Indonesia 1951-1963. p- 304. University. of California Press. 1964,
cratic ‘party -- as agents of imperialism and feudal reaction.(5)-As a result the military coup of. October 1-2, 1289, caught | the = masses completely by surprise.
-It. is true that a few months before. the: counterrevolutionary coup, “Aidit shifted his line somewhat to the left. He. began to call on Sukarno to arm the workers and peasants (which the Indonesian Bonaparte, of course, carefully refrained from doing). Aidit called on-the masses to "seize" the imperialist properties as well as the nationalized properties administered by the "bureaucratic bourgeoisie" or the army.’.(Speech.September 25, 1965, at the closing rally of the sixth congress of the plantation workers trade unions, reported in the. September 27-,,1965,. issue of the party's central organ Harian Rakjat..) It is true that in the same speech he warned the masses in an obscure and indirect way: "History has compelled the people and the working class of the entire world to choose between being .an anvil: and & hammer. If they become an anvil, they will be like the Indonesian working class at: present, suffering blow after blow [In his long report to the school. of: the Chinese CP's Central Committee, mentioned above, not a word is said about these blows! ] from the bureaucratic capitalists, embezzlers, grafters, and other exploiters and oppressors The workers, with back-breaking toil, earn barely enough in a month to last a week, while the bureaucratic capitalists, embezzlers and grafters. wallow in luxury, thanks to the blood and sweat of the working class..If they do not want: to be an anvil, they should become a hammer; not an ordinary hammer but a huge hammer. Therefore the Indonesian working class should adopt the following attitude: Boldness, boldness and boldness again! Take over, take over and take over again! Act, act and act again!"
But these warnings, voiced on the very eve of the army's counterrevolutionary coup, then already in full preparation, came without any previous or accompanying measures for broad mass mobilizations, without preparation for a general strike , without prepa-~ retion for arming the masses, without concrete warnings about the impending army coup. The warnings could only heighten the determination of the counterrevolutionaries to strike immediately. They could not create adequate means to prevent or to reply to the counterrevolution. It is not surprising under these conditions that - the only concrete response this belated warning evoked was the desperate action of a small group around Lieutenant Colonel Untung and not a mass uprising.
It should be added that while’ the PKI leadership at first expressed solidarity with this desperate attempt to stop the counterrevolutionary generals from taking over the country,(6) they reversed (5)D. N, Aidit: ‘ibid. p- 85.
(6) Hari jan Rakjat, the central organ of. ‘the PKI, wrote in its October 2, 1965, issue: "Whatever the pretext may have been, the coup d'état which the 'Council of Generals' wanted to perpetrate was in any case a-counterrevolutionary action. which must be condemned, The people...are convinced that what the. September 20 Movement did , to save the revolution and the people was a correct action...The:
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their stand a few days later -- after the counterrevolution won its. first decisive battle -- and disowned Untung's actions, thereby increasing the general confusion among their own followers.(7) As for the Kremlin, it denounced the September 30 events as a "provocation" without mentioning by a single word the preparations of the reactionary generals to pull a coup d'état. (8)
. According to a dispatch released February 15, 1966, by the Indonesian news agency Antara, the trade-union leader Njono, a member of the Political Bureau of the PKI, stated during his trial that the impending counterrevolutionary coup of the Indonesian generals was discussed in the Political Bureau as early as July 1965. Njono . declared that opinion was divided on whether it would be better to react before the coup or immediately after it took place. In any case it was decided to leave the initiative up to the "progressive officers" who were prepared to act within the army against the generals. While it is possible that Njono's torturers falsified this. report before executing him, his courageous and dignified stand during the trial, in which he publicly denounced his torturers and the counterrevolutionary generals, lends credit to this version of the facts.
(d) The strategy of the PKI was not to conquer power by mobilizing the masses, but to slowly "transform" the character of the state and the government by infiltrating sectors of the army and administrative cadre. Under this illusion, they gave completely uncritical support to Sukarno, hoping to take over when he died. This explains why they relied on Sukarno instead of mobilizing the broad masses in defense of the revolution and the PKI, not only before the reactionary coup of October 1-2, but even after the coup.
(3) These grave political mistakes of the PKI leadership were reinforced and magnified by the opportunist policies of the Kremlin and Peking, both governments supporting Sukarno uncritically, presenting him as the prototype of the "noncapitalist" leader of "national democracy," the world leader of the "newly emerging forces" and. similar empty, misleading formulas.
For diplomatic reasons -- ‘Sukarno! s temporary posture against September 30 Movement will enjoy the. support and the sympathy of the people.
(7)The October 5, 1965, issue of Hari jan Rakjat disowned the _ September 30 Movement. -(8) "The. fact that the Communist. party of Indonesia, as early as October 5, published an official declaration in which it dissociated itself from the organizers of the unsuccessful conspiracy and characterized it as ‘an internal affair of the army' is being conmpletely ignored. Even if we assume that individual members of leftwing organizations lent themselves to the provocation and had something to-do with the events of September 30, nevertheless this can in no way justify repressions against the Communist party of Indo-:. nesia." (Pravda, October 26, 1965.) :
Anglo-Dutch imperialism in the West Irian and. Malaysia affairs -- the Kremlin gave full uncritical support to the Sukarno regime, not only . internationally but even on the domestic level, supplying his army with ‘many of the weapons now being used to kill the cadres and menbers of the PKI.. After the October 1-2 military coup, the Kremlin. leaders continued this criminal policy, even trying to blame "putschist" and "adventuristic" elements in the PKI for the defeat and.calling repeatedly for the "unity" of the Indonesian "revolution" around NASAKOM; i.e., for "unity" between the butchers and their victims. On October 12, after Sukarno had already called for a thorough purge of those involved in the "September 30 affair" and had permitted PKI | leaders to be arrested and murdered in Djakarta, Brezhnev, Mikoyan . and Kosygin sent him a special message in which they wrote: "We and our colleagues learnéd’ with great joy [!] that your health has: improved...We have with interest heard about your radio appeal to the Indonesian people to remain calm: and prevent disorders...This appeal will meet with profound. understanding [!]" (Pravda, October 12, 1965...) Not until December 26 did the Soviet press publish a clear condemnation of the anti-Communist regime in Indonesia. Before then reporting on the events in that country was limited to reproducing short items. from the bourgeois press agencies coupled with "regrets" about. the "anti-Communist measures." And at the Tricontinental. Conference in Havana, the Soviet delegation displayed a shameful attitude, trying in every way to-block public condemnation of the counterrevolutionary terror raging against the Indonesian Communists,. an attitude which won public praise from the counterrevolutionists in Djakarta. (9)
As for the Peking leaders, out of similar diplomatic consider-
ations and maneuvers -- such as supporting Sukarno's walkout from the UN and. trying to pit the "newly emerging forces" against the "old established forces" -- they likewise gave full and uncritical support to the Indonesian regime. Even after the October 1-2 military coup, they went ahead in Djakarta with the World Conference Against Foreign Bases, and without protest stood by as their Indonesian comrades were arrested in the conference hall itself! It is true that they began to denounce the counterrevolutionary activities much sooner than the Kremlin press. But even then they carefully refrained from any open and clear-cut criticism of Sukarno, trying to present things as if Sukarno had. systematically opposed the repression of the PKI,
(9)In a dispatch from Djakarta February 14, the Indonesian news agency Antara gave the text of three resolutions adopted by the Indonesian. parliament February 11. One deals with the Tricontinental Conference. After denouncing the refusal of the Preparatory Commission to seat the official delegation sent by the Indonesian govern-. ment, the resolution states in point No. 5: "Expresses full appreciation [!] of the efforts of the delegations of Nepal, Mongolia, the Soviet Union and others at the Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, who successfully neutralized [!] the efforts of the counterrevolutionists [!] of the socalled September 30 Movement, and their protectors: and leaders, to intervene in the internal affairs of Indonesia and: to induce: among the other delegations a hostile attitude toward the people and government of Indonesia."
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whereas in reality he covered up the repression in good part, merely~ trying to limit it in order to maintain his own Bonapartist. position,
Today some "friends of Peking" maintain that the Chinese CP leaders were in fact critical of Aidit's policies, but they did not. want to criticize his party publicly in view of the fact that they were for internal discussion among all the Communist parties that refrained from publicly attacking the Chinese CP and its friends. ; But this is no valid excuse for remaining silent about a problem of . outstanding importance to the international Communist movement; it is only additional proof of the basically opportunist attitude of the Chinese leaders towards the Indonesian question.
(4) The events of recent weeks -- the elimination of General Nasution from the government, Sukarno's declaration that "the revolution is again embarking on its left-wing course," the public collision between Sukarno and the ultraright-wing forces of the Islamic students organizations (more or less passively tolerated by the army) -- inspired new illusions in official CP circles that the pre-—October situation could somehow be restored. Sukarno, a typical. Bonapartist figure, representing the "national". and "bureaucratic" bourgeois forces in Indonesia, balanced between the "left," represented mainly by the PKI and its mass proletarian and peasant organizations, and the "right," represented mainly. by the army and the clerical Moslem . organizations, spokesmen of the comprador bourgeoisie and semifeudal landowners. The October 1-2 military coup delivered a shattering blow to the left, leaving them leaderless and dispersed (while far from completely destroying them), thereby fundamentally upsetting the equilibrium on which Sukarno depended for his leading position. Naturally he then tried.to bolster his position by looking for ways and means to somehow reduce the strength of the army high command and to divide its ranks. These leaders preferred not to take over rule immediately after October 1-2; in the first place ‘because they were not yet sure of the support they could muster in the countryside, where Sukarno remained very popular; and. in the second place because they did not want to assume responsibility. for the mismanagement of the economy, the complete failure of the so-called "heavy... rupiah" and the raging inflation plaguing the country. Therefore they left Sukarno in power for another six months although he retained only the shadow of his previous Bonapartist strength. When he tried in desperation to reestablish the equilibrium by ousting General Nasution from his cabinet, they permitted the students to stage mass demonstrations - (paradoxically, the ultraright- wing Islamic student associations could now appear to stand in the forefront of. the fight against inflation and corruption due to the extreme weakening of the forces led by the PKI.) In conjunction with pressure from the- army high command, these demonstrations compelled Sukarno to turn over the leading role. in:the government to the army's "strong man," General hoped :
(5) It is: extremely unlikely, however, that the. counterrevolutionists now in power in Djakarta will be able to stabilize the situation for any length of time. The country's economy is stripped; and American imperialism, while able to shore up the new regime | with a heavy underpinning of credits, cannot move in: on such-a scale
- as.to generate any real momentum in economic growth. The army leaders themselves will not readily give up their nationalist, anti-imperialist verbiage which reflects real conflicts of interest with British imperialism andthe ruling comprador bourgeoisie and. semifeudal landowners of Malaysia... A, large. part of the budget.will therefore continue to be squandered: in:maintaining.a huge military establishment and in undertaking costly: experiments. like the. attempt to make an Indonesian: nuciear bomb. The masses, although, leaderless and deeply shaken, have not lost all fighting: potential, particularly in the countryside. It will prove impossible to get the thousands of squatters to evacuate the imperialist-owned or "nationalized" plantations managed by corrupt army officers,.or to. compel the thousands of plantation and oil workers to revert: to the "normal" working conditions of colonial times. And without.such a shift to "normalcy," the Indonesian economy will not be able. to develop in accordance with the neocolonial pattern. The incapacity of. the military leaders to | achieve some social and economic stability. will undermine the count— errevolutionary dictatorship politically... This could even occur in | the near future if the military prove unable to cope with the problem of inflation.
The defeat suffered by the PKI is of such depth that certainly no quick change in the situation can be forecast. It will take years to regain revolutionary possibilities as excellent as those lost in 1964-1966 due to the opportunist policies of the PKI leadership. However, what remains of that leadership along with the surviving party cadres -- especially. the best educated, those steeled by the. terrible experiences they went through in the past six months -will have taken the road of guerrilla war, if only out of selfdefense. If they succeed in regrouping and in regaining a mass following in some regions of the countryside by calling on the peasants to immediately take over the land held by the landlords, the plantations and army administration, they could gain on a progressive scale due to the inability of Indonesian reaction to solve the.country's basic economic. plight and due to the divisions in the ranks of the army which that inability will undoubtedly provoke. It will become possible to link this peasant base to the working class when, under pressure of economic necessity, the urban masses overcome the stunning effect of the defeat and once again take the road of action. Such a comeback, involving a renewal of organized influence among the workers, is still possible -- provided that all the main lessons of the terrible defeat are analyzed and assimilated.
(6) The main lessons to be drawn from this tragic defeat, which the Indonesian revolutionary Marxists must continually hammer home while energetically participating in all attempts by revolutionary PKI elements to start armed resistance against the military dictatorship, are as. follows:
(a) While it is correct and necessary to support all antiimperialist mass movements, and even to critically support all concrete anti-imperialist measures taken by representatives of the colonial bourgeoisie like Sukarno, for colonial revolution to be victorious it is absolutely essential to maintain the proletarian organizations strictly independent politically and organizationally
from the "national" bourgeoisie, to instill among the masses a spirit of distrust towards this bourgeoisie and a spirit of self-reliance, to lead the masses towards organizing independent organs of power (committees, workers and peasants militia, etc.) as requisites for the victory of the revolution. The Indonesian events have proved once again that the theory of the capacity of the "progressive" forces. of.: the "national bourgeoisie" to lead a "consistent" fight against imperialism as the "embodiment of the whole nation" -- the theory of a "national democratic state" and a "bloc of revolutionary classes" —leads only to defeat.
(b)} While it is correct and necessary during the first phases of the revolution in backward countries to place the main stress on the problems of winning national independence, unifying the country | and solving the agrarian question (i.e., the historical tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution which constitute the most burnin tasks in the eyes of eighty to ninety per'cent of the population), it.is indispensable to understand that the solution of these tasks is only possible when the working class, in alliance with the poor peasantry, has conquered leadership of the revolution, establishes the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poor peasantry and pushes the revolution through to its socialist phase. The Indonesian events once again confirm that the theory of "revolution by stages" -- the first stage being a victory under a "national front" led by the "national bourgeoisie" -- only paves the way to defeat. Hither defeat under "national" bourgeois leaders or victory through the conquest of power and the establishment of a workers state -- this is the dilemma that faces all colonial revolutions.
(c) While it is necessary to win the broadest possible mass base in. the countryside, a revolutionary party capable of applying that policy must be based upon a hardened proletarian cadre thoroughly trained in Marxist theory and revolutionary practice, without illusions about a "peaceful transition" to socialism or "national democratic states," a party that relies mainly on mass mobilizations and mass struggles instead of intrigues and infiltration for achieving its historical goals.
Cnly by thoroughly assimilating these lessons can the Indonesian Communists and revolutionists overcome the results of the present defeat and avenge the victims of the counterrevolutionary terror by organizing and leading the workers and poor peasants in their fight for power in Indonesia!
GORDON LAYS DOWN THE LAW TO