THE INDONESIAN REVOLUTION WILL
FIGHT AND WIN UNDER THE REVOLUTIONARY BANNER OF TAN MALAKKA
By Fernand Charlier
The February 1967 issue of the magazine Indonesian Tribune, which presents "news and views" on Indonesian current affairs and which has been published since November 1966 in Tirana, Albania, contains a slanderous attack on Trotskyism and in particular on Tan Malakka, the founder of the Indonesian Communist and Trotskyist movements.
This attack is contained in an article by M. Alamsjah devoted to "The First Heroic National Insurrection in Indonesia (1926)."
Indonesian Tribune reflects the opinions of the leading group in the Indonesian Communist party which is still subject to persecution in Indonesia itself.
Tan Malakka, like many of the militants in the PKI (Partai Kommunis Indonesia] today, was persecuted, arrested and eventually murdered by the troops of the Indonesian government, in the beginning of the fifties. The exact moment of his arrest and death is not even known today.
Why does the Indonesian Communist party leadership, or at least its representatives in Albania, feel compelled to attack and to slander the memory of a militant to whom they should, on the contrary, pay tribute? Malakka fell as a victim of the same type of reactionary forces which torture and kill members of the Indonesian Communist party today.
Before answering this question, it is necessary to give a brief summary of the attack on Tan Malakka, pages 10, 11 and 12 of Volume I, No. 4, of the Indonesian Tribune:
The article begins by describing the possibilities for revolution caused by the rising tide of the struggle of the workers and peasants against Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, resulting from the economic conditions prevailing during and after the economic crisis of the early twenties, and under the influence of the 1925-27 Chinese revolution.
At the end of 1925, the PKI leadership organized a national party conference called the "conference of Prambanan" which decided to launch an armed revolutionary action.
A date for the revolution was even decided: It should start approximately in June 1926. A special committee was set up to prepare the insurrection. The two principal leaders, Musso and Alimin, were sent to consult the Far Eastern Executive Committee of the Communist International.
But, according to the article, "one of the leading members of the central committee, Tan Malakka, who was found out later to be a Trotskyite who had wormed his way into the leadership of the PKI, did not agree with the plan to stage the insurrection."
Thus Tan Malakka is depicted as a right-wing communist -- in the same way that Chen Tu-hsiu, the founder of Chinese Trotskyism, was attacked as a right-wing opportunist by the ultra-left leadership at the time of the adventurist Canton insurrection in China in 1927. According to Alamsjah's article, "the armed insurrection scheduled for June, 1926, could not be realized as originally planned...because of Tan Malakka's treacherous attitude that split the concentration of energy of the central committee." The insurrection was postponed until November 1926.
On November 12, the insurrection broke out in Djakarta and other places. It was drowned in blood. No less than 20,000 were arrested. In many places, as a result of difficult communications, the insurrection was launched long afterwards when the movement had already ended in the places it had begun earlier. The armed insurrection ended, for instance, Novenber 14 in Djakarta, lasted until nid- December in the Bantam region, and could not be begun until early 1927 in Sumatra. In many places the colonialists todk precautionary actions which prevented the uprising from being carried out.
The insurrection was a complete defeat. But the author of "The First Heroic National Insurrection in Indonesia" devotes just one line to explain that the insurrection "was suppressed," without any explanation. Of course, he also does not give the reasons why Tan Malakka had been opposed to the insurrection.
If he had done so, Alamsjah would have been obliged to admit that the reasons for Malakka's opposition were that the insurrection was doomed to defeat. Instead, Alamsjah seems to imply that the defeat was due to Malakka's opposition, although he never says so in so many words. He says, "since the very beginning, Tan Malakka, who had wormed his way into the leading body of the PKI, opposed the launching of an armed struggle, decided by the Prambanan conference. By adopting such an attitude, Tan Malakka had betrayed the revolutionary ranks of the Indonesian
people."
True, at the end of his article, Alamsjah admits that the PKI "put forward leftist slogans," but he doesn't explain which slogans he means. Rather, he quotes Mao Tse-tung on the "Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society" to the effect that "one has to distinguish his friends from his enemies" and that one must not resolve "all problems at once." And this passes for a concrete analysis of the indonesian situation...
Now what were Tan Malakka's actual positions? Far from being a betrayer who had “wormed his way" into the PKI leadership, Tan Malakka had been,and, remained until his death, an uncompromising revolutionary fighter. He did not "worm his way" into the PKI. He was one of its first members.
In 1914 he participated in the first activities of the Indonesian Social- Democratic Association founded by Brandsteder, H.W.Kekker and Henk Sneevliet, the last, the Dutch revolutionary leader who was assassinated 25 years ago, in 1942, by the Nazis.
The Indonesian Social-Democratic Association was the forerunner of the Indonesian CP, founded on May 23, 1920. Later, Malakka participated in the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in 1922, the last congress held in Lenin's lifetime.
Tan Malakka wrote several books advancing a program for the Indonesian revolution. In one of them, Toward the Republic of Indonesia, published in 1925 shortly before the Prambanan conference, Malakka develops his ideas on the "strategy for the conquest of power." These ideas are all the more interesting, because they constitute a sharp warning against the "putschist" tendencies of a section of the Indonesian Communist party leadership. Malakka distinguishes between three successive stages in the struggle against Dutch imperialism:
(1) Winning over the majority of the advanced proletarian masses, concentrated in the Valley of Solo, on the island of Java.
(2) Destroying the most important Dutch military forces concentrated in the district of Preanger.
(3) Taking political power by destroying the state institutions of Bata-~ via.
The leftist tendency in the party leadership, unlike Malakka, wanted to launch the insurrection before the majority of workers had been won over. In November, 1926, on the eve of the insurrection, Malakka warned, "We must not base ourselves on the exaggerated hopes of revolution of these leaders. First of all, we must be sure of the revolutionary spirit of the masses." ‘
After the defeat of the 1926 putsch, Tan Malakka broke with the inept party leadership in 1927 and founded a new party, the PARI Prarty of the Indonesian Republic], in Bangkok, Siam. Although Malakka stood alone in establishing this organization on the basis of his own revolutionary Marxist convictions, on many questions he arrived at conclusions approaching or identical to those of the Fourth International. Malakka's development in this direction is well known to the leadership of the PKI.
What makes the question most pertinent at the present time, however, is the disastrous course of the PKI's policies which led to the blood bath of 1965 and 1966. As these policies have been and are being reexamined by yo Indonesian revolutionaries, it is inevitable that the long-standing Trotskyist criticisms of the PKI must be raised. (See, for example, "An Indonesian Communist Analyzes His Party's Defeat," by T. Soedarso, World Outlook, September 16, 1966.)
This is particularly true since the leadership of the PKI is undergoing "selfcriticism" which on certain points parallels the criticisms already raised by the Fourth International.
Ironically enough, at the very time that they are attacking Tan Malakka, the PKI leadership is "criticizing" itself for errors along the same lines Malakka attacked the leadership of 1926: for ultra-left adventurisn!
In "Build the PKI along the Marxist- Leninist Line to Lead the People's Democratic Revolution in Indonesia," (Indonesian Tribune, Volume I, No. 43, January 1967), the Political Bureau of the PKI states "the PKI leadership had been engaged in adventurism. Violating organizational rules they had easily involved thenselves in the September 430 Movement that was not based on the high consciousness and conviction of the masses. And therefore they had caused the isolation of the Party from the masses of the people."
The September 30 Movement, led by Colonel Untung, was the desperate action of a group of left-wing officers in the Indonesian army to prevent and destroy the counterrevolutionary military coup while it was still in preparation. When the September 30 Movement was crushed, it was not possible to ascertain with certainty whether it had the support of the PKI leadership. (Apparently Harian Rakjat, the central party organ, greeted the September 30 Movement as revolutionary in the October 25, 1965, issue.)
What was certain was the opportunistic character of the September 30 adventure. The action was carried out without any preparation of the masses or any participation by the masses. They were caught completely by surprise. Taught to expect a "peaceful road" to revolution, they were unprepared for the bloody struggle which actually occurred. The slaughterous results are well known.
Today, the Political Bureau statement reveals that the party leadership of that time gave its support to the Septenber 30 Movement. We have no reasons not to believe this. It confirms that adventurism is often the companion of opportunism. It by no means, however, lends credit to the "analysis" of the 1926 events by M. Alams jah.
If anything, readers of the Indonesian Tribune will note the contradiction between the two. Malakka's warning against the ultra-left character of the 1926 putsch serves equally well for the PKI leadership's ultra-leftism in 1965.
The path of the Indonesian revolution can never be that of adventurism and opportunism. It must be that of Tan Malakka.
WIDE