Indonesian Communist Party Research Articles

Causes of lingering communist movement after Indonesia’s September Thirtieth Movement: the case of border area between Sarawak and West Kalimantan

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the communist movement on both sides of the border in Sarawak and West Kalimantan around 1965 when the September Thirtieth Movement (abortive coup) took place in Jakarta. The people in Sarawak were seeking independence and opposed to being integrated into the Federation of Malaysia in the first half of the 1960s. However, after the September Thirtieth Movement, the communist movement in Sarawak started losing support both domestically and internationally (especially support from Indonesia). Nevertheless, even with the persecution by Suharto’s army, the Sarawak guerrillas and the Indonesian Communist Party in West Kalimantan cooperated in their struggle for a few years after 1965. This situation was aided by the remoteness of these areas from the centers of the nation-states (Malaysia and Indonesia) and also by the cooperation between the guerrillas and the local Chinese in West Kalimantan.

Menertawakan Fobia Komunis di Era Reproduksi Digital

Abstract. In May-June 2016 issue of the rise of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the latent danger of communism appeared again. Excessive fear of PKI and communism continues propagated. That is what is referred to as a communist phobia. But, the issue is considered sensitive that it gave birth to criticism. The phenomenon is the presence of a number of memes comics whose contents laugh hammer and sickle symbol and three communist iconic figures, namely D.N. Aidit, Tan Malaka, and Mao Zedong. Meme comics containing parody to show incongruities that can only happen to the era of digital reproduction. The idea of meme comics can be traced to the thought Walter Benjamin about the works of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In that era, aura was declining. The crisis and the disappearance of aura increasingly occurs to the time of digital reproduction.

Glimpses of Indonesia's 1965 Massacre through the Lens of the Census: Migration and Refuge in East Java

The anti-Communist violence that followed the kidnapping and assassination of senior Indonesian generals on the morning of October 1, 1965, marked the beginning of the most traumatic period in modern Indonesian history. Prior work on this subject focuses almost exclusively on the killings themselves rather than on any movements of population that may have occurred as the violence unfolded. This paper presents evidence of widespread migration associated with the violence using estimates of one-time changes in population based on data from three Indonesian censuses that were taken shortly before or after the killings. Specifically, this paper demonstrates that information about locations in which cadres of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) were regrouping in the wake of the killings, as identified by the intelligence apparatus of the Indonesian military, coincide with locations for which there is substantiation, based on census data, of a large, one-time in-migration during 1965–66. These destinations tended to be located in established PKI strongholds, which the army was unable to effectively penetrate, and where refugees could expect to find shelter among like-minded people. The findings of this paper also provide clues about district-level locations in East Java in which researchers may find additional information about such movements of people and about the 1965–66 killings more generally from survivors and witnesses.

GERAKAN 30 SEPTEMBER 1965 DALAM PERSPEKTIF FILSAFAT SEJARAH MARXISME

The Thirtieth of September Movement 1965 (G30S 1965), is a movement which is very influential in the history of Indonesian society until today. After G30S 1965, freedom of ideology began to be restricted in Indonesia. In addition, the slaughter of millions of human beings, with the reason to eradicate communism, began to take place after G30S 1965. A restriction on freedom of ideology is also touching the academic life. Based on TAP MPRS No.. XXV/1966, the study of Marxism-Leninism ideology is limited. This resulted in the lack of alternative and scientific thought in the academic world in Indonesia. The Thirtieth of September Movement 1965 (G30S 1965), is the manifestation of class contradictions in the Indonesian capitalist society. G30S 1965, emphasize the class contradictions in Indonesian society. Social classes in Indonesian society is a military bourgeoisie represented by the TNI (Indonesian Armed Forces), the proletariat, as represented by the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party). President Sukarno, was the one who stand in the middle of the contradiction between the army and the PKI. And then, G30S 1965, used as an excuse by Suharto and the army to stage a creeping coup against President Sukarno and slaughtered millions of cadres and sympathizers of the PKI. After the G30S 1965, the New Order regime of Suharto opened the door wide open for international capitalism to exploit the natural resources of Indonesia. Suharto's New Order regime improves Indonesian capitalism.

Komunisme dalam Pergumulan Wacana Ideologi Masyumi

This article explores the relationship between Islam and communism in Indonesia, which could be learnt from the political-ideological struggle of Masyumi and PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) in the parliamentary democracy era. The ideological discourse of Masyumi on the Communism was supported by ideological setting when its establishment in the revolution nature and the politic ideological competition after the proclamation of independence on August 17, 1945, and the international situation of the Cold War. The nature of ideological setting was translated in the explaining system such as ideological interpretation of Islam by comparing Islamic superiority over capitalism and communism; religious-socialism and Marxian-socialism issues; and the fatwa (legal decisions) of anti-communism that crystallized in the Masyumi factions when they faced the communism issues.

Letter-writing and Transnational Activism on Behalf of Indonesian Political Prisoners: Gatot Lestario and his Legacy

ABSTRACTAmnesty International estimated in 1977 that between 600,000 and 750,000 Indonesians had been or were still imprisoned as a result of the Army-led anti-communist violence in Indonesia in the mid-1960s. This article charts the relationship between members of Amnesty International and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) with a political prisoner on death row in East Java, Gatot Lestario, a former leader of the Indonesian Communist Party. This article draws on the letters he wrote over a period of three years before his execution in 1985 and interviews with his pen pals. It traces the ways in which he encouraged his pen pals to advocate for human rights in Indonesia and their responses, as well as his own involvement in political prisoner advocacy. This case study illustrates the disappearance of Indonesia's previously close and solidary relationship with the socialist world and its replacement at the people-to-people level with human rights activism involving Western activists. This is particularly evident in the increasingly important role played by members of Amnesty International, the Quakers and other overseas organizations concerned with Indonesia. Finally, the article assesses Gatot Lestario's impact, after his execution, on the development of a long-term advocacy network for Indonesia's political prisoners.

Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows following the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia

ABSTRACTThis article explores the relationship between the derogatory social constructions and the sexual violence against janda in Indonesia with regard to the experiences of women who were widowed during the 1965 massacres. At that time an estimated 500,000 people were killed for their alleged ties to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Specifically, it examines how discourses which stigmatise janda as sexually available and/or promiscuous were compounded by the demonisation of women connected with the PKI as dangerous and sexually voracious. By examining the testimonies of women widowed by the death, disappearance or imprisonment of their husbands during the massacres, I argue that janda PKI were subject to two forms of stigmatisation, based on their status as janda and on their connection with the PKI. This was manifest in the sexually predatory behaviours from men in their communities, particularly from the local security forces and militia groups who had taken part in the massacres. By emphasising the political aspects of gender politics which congregate around the extremely derogatory constructions of janda PKI, I articulate how the gendered and sexualised bodies of janda were also politicised and, as a result of the Indonesian military's anti-communist propaganda, made abject in their sexualisation.

The United States and the 1965–1966 Mass Murders in Indonesia

On October 1, 1965, the teletype in the White House relayed the account of a supposed "coup" by a group of Indonesian army officers calling themselves the September 30th Movement. In Jakarta the movement, which had begun the night before under the alleged leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Untung with the kidnapping and killing of six generals of the Indonesian Army High Command, was already unraveling. The September 30th Movement was a relatively small-scale affair. It was poorly planned and so clumsily executed that it seemed almost preordained to fail. Major General Suharto…took control of the army, and blamed what he labeled a "coup attempt" entirely on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Within two weeks, a much more momentous army-led and U.S.-backed movement to exterminate the PKI and its supporters was under way. Working with Muslim organizations, student groups, and other anti-Communist organizations, the army proceeded over the next five months to murder hundreds of thousands of unarmed, alleged PKI members. The slaughter paved the way for the army's ouster of Sukarno in March 1966, its ascension to power, and the reconfiguration of Indonesian politics and foreign policy.… The liquidation of the PKI in Indonesia was "perhaps the greatest setback for Communism in the Third World in the 1960s" and an event with enormous implications for each of the Great Powers.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-7" title="Vol. 67, No. 7: December 2015" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

Rok 1965 w Indonezji w spektaklach Papermoon Puppet Theatre z Yogyakarty i filmie Scena zbrodni Joshuy Oppenheimera

1965 is the date that has been disregarded in the recent history of Indonesia and the world. Gerakan 30 September (30th September Movement), self-appointed organization consisting of representatives of the Indonesian army carried out a failed coup on October 1, 1965, killing six generals. The same day evening the Movement fell and Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party) was blamed. In the following weeks communists and their supporters began to be removed from public life being arrested and murdered. The 1965 purges have been read in the West as a victory over communism. In Indonesia they remained taboo for almost half of the century. The paper focuses on showing how the events of 1965 are shown in today's Indonesia and in the word. For Papermoon Puppet Theatre 1965 is a key to understand the past, present and future of their homeland. For Oppenheimer meeting with former criminals has provided an opportunity to make the film about the political system in which genocide was erased from the collective memory of those who survived, and the offenders remain unpunished. Keywords : Indonesian studies, Indonesian history, 1965 and its aftermath, theatre, puppet theatre, Papermoon Puppet Theatre, The Act of Killing, documentary film, Joshua Oppenheimer

Notes from the Editors, December 2015

<div class="buynow"><a title="Back issue of Monthly Review, December 2015 (Volume 67, Number 7)" href="http://monthlyreview.org/product/mr-067-07-2015-11/">buy this issue</a></div>In this issue we feature two articles on the 1965–1966 mass killings and imprisonments in Indonesia. The army-led bloodbath was aimed at the near-total extermination of members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), then a highly successful electoral party with a membership in the millions.… In all, an estimated 500,000 to a million (or more) people were murdered. Another 750,000 to a million-and-a-half people were imprisoned, many of whom were tortured. Untold thousands died in prison. Only around 800 people were given a trial—most brought before military tribunals that summarily condemned them to death.… The United States…was involved clandestinely in nearly every part of this mass extermination: compiling lists of individuals to be killed; dispatching military equipment specifically designated to aid the known perpetrators of the bloodletting; offering organizational and logistical help; sending covert operatives to aid in the "cleansing"; and providing political backing to the killers.… [T]he mass killings…[were carried out with the active] complicity of the U.S. media.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-7" title="Vol. 67, No. 7: December 2015" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

SESUDAH 50 TAHUN KITA HARUS BERANI MENGHADAP APA YANG TERJADI

The author gives a personal account of the 1965/1966 mass slaughter of so-called communists in central Java where he was living at the time, and more generally in Sumatra, Java and Bali. He continues with a detailed analysis. He then calls for fellow Indonesians to face up to the truth of the massacre, which until now has been erased from the collective historical memory of the nation.
 
 Kata-kata kunci: historical truth, Indonesian Communist Party, General Suharto, Accepting Responsibility, Reconciliation.

MERAH BERPENDAR DI BRANG WETAN: Tegangan Politik 65 dan Implikasinya terhadap Industri Musik Banyuwangen

This article discusses (1) creativities and complicated-tragic problems of Banyuwangen musicians, especially they who involved in Lekra (People Cultural Institution, the cultural organization of Indonesian Communist Party), during 1965 and some years later and (2) the development of Banyuwangen music industries after the bloody 1965. In Orla (Old Order), most of Banyuwangen musicians joined, culturally and ideologically, Lekra that had ideal promises to strengthen and empower people arts and cultures as the base for Indonesian culture. At post-1965, they experienced tragic life caused by regime’s surveillance mechanism towards cultural activities that were re assumed having relationship to communism. Fortunately, their friends from another cultural institutions helped and saved their life by arguing the government that they are cultural assets and very important for New Order regime. After 1965, the government to ensure disappearance of Leftist ideology guided Banyuwangen music industries. This development led to private music industries that produced and published Banyuwangen music in Melayu and kendang kempul instrument as the base of the recent development of Banyuwangen music industries. Key words: Lekra, communism, Banyuwangen music, recording industries

Sweet Potato Dreaming: Development, Displacement and Food Crisis in South Blitar, East Java, 1968

In the transition to Suharto's New Order regime in the province of East Java, fugitives from the political Left, members and sympathizers of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI), came to the south of the province to set up a rural base from 1967 to regroup and resist the military-dominated regime. The military responded by mounting a counterinsurgency operation, the Trisula Operation, in 1968, against what they alleged were underground guerrillas in the area. Using food as a lens, this article traces the effects of counterin-surgency operations on food cultivation and consumption patterns in South Blitar, East Java. Changes to food cultivation and land use as a result of the operation coincided with shifts in thinking under the New Order regime in relation to food and local economy, despite both sides of the conflict agreeing on the desirability of modernization and development for the area. Food consumption and production therefore became a site of struggle for legitimacy and a mirror showing the shifts in power in East Java during the early New Order period.

Reading the mass violence in Indonesia 1965–1966 as a form of primitive accumulation

A human rights perspective is compromised in its ability to understand and respond to the mass violence that took place in Indonesia, largely against members and supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) from 1965–1966. In “Indonesia's Original Sin: Mass Killings and Capitalist Expansion, 1965–66,” Hilmar Farid makes the point that a human rights standpoint is limited when capital or its various actors, are involved in propagating and/or perpetrating mass violence. In starting to fashion an alternative reading, Farid proposes Marx's notion of primitive accumulation. While Farid's position is suggestive, I contend that his analysis is marred by a number of theoretical weaknesses, which I attempt to sublate in this article. As such, I will offer an alternative reading of primitive accumulation perceived through a multi-dimensional local/global dialectic.

Film dan politik di Indonesia 1957-64; Hambatan peredaran "Pagar kawat berduri" dan "Anak perawan di sarang penjamun"

This study attempts to discuss the offensive policy taken by Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party) in cultural sphere, especially in film during the period of Demokrasi Terpimpin (1957-64). One of the implementation of the policy was the decision to stop the circulation of two films, Pagar Kawat Berduri and Anak Perawan di Sarang Penyamun, written by Asrul Sani and Usmar Ismail. By analyzing varios written and audio-visual sources, this study concludes that the reason were more political. Film was not seen as a form of art, but was suspected as a threat to the political power of the party.

Indonesian Political Exiles in the USSR

ABSTRACTThis article examines political exile as a particular form of migration, with reference to Indonesians living in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) when the military regime came to power in their homeland. With the rise in Jakarta of the New Order under Major-General Suharto after 1 October 1965, thousands of Indonesians in socialist and communist states abroad were effectively isolated. Faced with detention or execution if they returned home, Indonesian leftists and other dissidents who were scattered across some dozen states spanning the Sino-Soviet divide became unwilling exiles. Several thousand Indonesians were then studying in the USSR, where they were one of the largest foreign nationalities in Soviet universities and military academies. Many spent nearly half a century as exiles, struggling to survive first the vicissitudes of the cold war and then the global transformations that came with the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The most influential grouping of Indonesians who remained in the USSR after 1965 was known as the Overseas Committee of the Indonesian Communist Party. In China, a separate party leadership emerged, known as the Delegation of the Indonesian Communist Party. Mirroring Sino-Soviet rivalries, the Delegation urged Indonesian leftists in the USSR to join them in China. Hundreds did so. These rival factions were separated by mutual distrust until they each disbanded toward the close of the cold war. This article analyzes the changing fate of Indonesians caught in the contradictory relationship between New Order Indonesia and the USSR and in the tensions between the USSR and China as these unwilling exiles were buffeted by geopolitical transformations well beyond their influence.

Margo L. Lyon, Bases of Conflict in Rural Java Rex Mortimer, The Indonesian Communist Party and Land Reform 1959-65

Margo L. Lyon, Bases of Conflict in Rural Java Rex Mortimer, The Indonesian Communist Party and Land Reform 1959-65

Jafar Suryomenggolo. Organising under the Revolution: Unions and the State in Java, 1945-48. Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2013, xiii+215p.

Organising under the Revolution: Unions and the State in Java, 1945-48 Jafar Suryomenggolo Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2013, xiii+215p.Visitors to Lawang Sewu might be confused as to the building's significance. Situated in the heart of Semarang on the north coast of Central Java, the building is Indonesia's most famous haunted house; hence the crowds of domestic tourists. In addition to ghosts, the massive colonial era build- ing is also home to conflicting and competing historical narratives. Once the center of the Dutch East Indies Railway Company, Lawang Sewu was an important site in the history of imperialism and the struggle for independence. Today, as in most of post-colonial Indonesia, the public history monuments in Semarang speak to the role of the military and other state institutions in the revo- lution. For over three decades, Suharto's New Order promoted this army-centric narrative as the only acceptable story of the revolution. The Suharto regime explicitly rejected the contribution of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), unions, and other workers' organization to the fight for merdeka, freedom and independence. In Semarang, the Diponegoro Division army museum and a generic phallic nationalist obelisk dwarf Lawang Sewu's small brick memorial to the railway workers who died fighting in 1945. Nowhere is there a mention of history of Semarang as center for union and PKI organization. Indeed, one has to be extremely attentive to find mention of Indonesian workers in the national revolution. Jafar Suryomenggolo's Organising under the Revo- lution: Unions and the State in Java, 1945-48 is an important effort to reframe the narrative and write the worker in the revolution.Organising under the Revolution is ostensibly a work of labor history. However, the implica- tion of Suryomenggolo's well-researched and carefully argued book go far beyond the specifics of these four years of union activism. This work calls for a reconsideration of the Suharto era paradigm of the army and the state being the primary actors in the Indonesian revolution. He persuasively demonstrates that workers, organized more often as local syndicalist groups rather than in a nation- ally controlled movement, made independent and significant contributions to both the struggle for merdeka and to the creation of a new socio-economic order. Reminiscent of E. P. Thompson's argument that the English working class was at its own making and actually played a role in creat- ing its own identity, Suryomenggolo offers a strategic intervention that situates the Indonesian workers as active players in their own history.While based upon primary research into the details of labor activism in Central and East Java, Organising under the Revolution is also theoretically sophisticated. From the opening sentence the author acknowledges his inspiration came from a reading of Benedict Anderson's Java in a Time of Revolution (1972). The influence of Anderson's critical, politically engaged, and intellectually rigorous approach to Indonesian history can be seen throughout Suryomenggolo's work. Both authors recognize the crucial impact of the revolutionary events on the construction of post- colonial Indonesia. Their concern with the details of the revolution is to reinsert the Indonesian workers into a narrative dominated by the state-centric approach. As both the introduction and chapter one, Organised Labour and the Postcolonial State, make clear, what is at stake is not simply getting the details of history right but rather putting the people's agency back into history. Doing so would return labor's political credibility, something Suharto successfully destroyed. The implications of the book's opening argument are that rescuing the lost history of Indonesian labor would help to revitalize contemporary Indonesian labor activism and organizations. Suryomenggolo's de-centering of the state and de-militarizing of the historical narrative, thus has direct implications for issues of social justice in Indonesia's post-colonial socio-economic order. …

An Introduction to Radicalism of Civil Society Movements in Indonesia: Intersection and Shifting Ideology between Socialists and Jihadists

This study is the first known academic study on the intergroup dynamics relationship between Indonesian Marxists and jihadists. The appearance of jihadist language within the group context raised questions if the ideological motivation and group orientation between the militants is eroding and a new set of militants emerging in the Indonesian terrorist tapestry. Since 2011 an unheard of new phenomenon appeared in the militant milieu of the Indonesian radical scene: the Indonesian communist inspired terrorist. With the political sensitivity, cultural and political taboo, the political leadership, policy officials, law enforcement, intelligence services, academia, and the general public have not addressed contemporary violent Indonesian Marxist-Leninist actors. Most of the studies are instead based on historical accounts and viewed through the lenses of the 1965 Indonesian Communist Party period or set in the context of preman (gangster) or an underground fringe movement (Brown, Wilson, 2013). And although the new Indonesian Marxists are aligned with political powers of the incumbent presidential candidate, little research if any, focuses on the emergence of Marxist inspired violence and terror in Indonesia. Often, the debate quickly turns emotionally charged by either side, speaking for or against the Marxist causes. Little credible research is undertaken to study the contemporary socialist groups in Indonesia.Therefore the study by Prof. Hamdi Muluk, Dr. Mirra Noor Milla, Wahyu Cahyono M.Si, and other contributors identifies complex interrelated issues such as the role of foreign non-state actors contributing to the rise of violence and the justification for violence because of ecological disasters. A motif not normally associated with Marxist revolutionary slogans. Interwoven in the narrative, the study identifies the potent mix of Marxist ideologies, jihadist themes, and contemporary fears promoted by militant civil society groups. The study also identifies the relationship between foreign non-state/Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and militants. Compelling evidence suggests the external factors and interaction with foreign inspired propaganda triggering fears of the militants contributed to the violence and eventually to the murder of a forestry concession worker, an attempted murder, and multiple arson attacks on private and governmental offices and assets, including setting fire to forest concessions as a method to negotiate, as well as agitating communal unrest. As recently as August 2014, Riau continues to experience arson and ‘anarchist provocateurs’ targeting communities. The study also shows a consistent pattern or eroding ideological delineation of belief structures replacing and blurring purist ideologies in the broader context of the Marxist struggle for regaining credibility. Within the hard, inner core of Marxist or jihadist terrorist cells, the revolutionary freedom fighter or Takfiri still continues to exist but the new Indonesian Marxists, as the case study shows, are as violent and deadly as their jihadist not-so-distant cousins and displaying a lower threshold for the use of violence. Viewed by the offenders as enemies of no difference, the process of dehumanizing the victims in the context of the Indonesian Marxists is in the early stages of the militants’ evolution. However, left unattended the movement that was responsible for the first premeditated bombing during the days of reformasi in 1998 was also the first NGO-inspired Marxist organization that was found guilty of premeditated murder in a Marxist inspired politically motivated killing in the name of the environment.

Incitement to Genocide against a Political Group: The Anti-Communist Killings in Indonesia

Genocide and mass atrocities can be seen as the culminative result of extreme social exclusion. Two of the critical steps on the path to genocidal persecution are the isolation and exclusion of a particular group and the mobilisation and incitement of perpetrators. This paper examines the case of the 1965-1966 massacres in Indonesia in light of these two incipient stages of genocide. First, I discuss the Indonesian killings of 1965-1966 by situating them within the conceptual and legal understandings of genocide and argue that those persecuted belonged predominantly to a defined political group, that is, members and associates of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). I argue that the exclusion of political groups from the legal definition of genocide given in the UN Convention on Genocide is unsupportable when examined both within the context that it was created and the greater conceptual understandings of genocide studies. To support this argument, I then outline the political situation in Indonesia prior to the 1 October 1965 coup and explain how the country went through a process of political pillarisation, effectively creating the conditions for the creation and then eradication of the Left in Indonesia. In the final part of the paper, I examine how these killings were incited. I argue that hate propaganda was used against the PKI and its supporters by the main perpetrators of the massacres, the Indonesian military, to incite a popular, genocidal campaign. As a result of this hate-propaganda campaign, Leftists in Indonesia experienced extreme forms of dehumanisation and social death which, in turn, facilitated their eradication.