Institute of Pacific Relations

Communist Leadership in Indonesia

Author(s): George McT. Kahin
Source: Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 18, No. 16 (Aug. 10, 1949), pp. 188-189
Published by: Institute of Pacific Relations
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Communist

in

Leadership
Many
young

BY GEORGE

veteran

leaders

nationalists
McT.

who

have
feel

been
the

Republican

hostilities
l ecent Dutch
against the Republic of
Indonesia have had a very great impact on the
leadership of the Indonesian Communist movements. Indirectly they have resulted in the death of some of the
ablest remaining Communist leaders. At the same time
they have brought about a situation in which a number

of able young intellectuals having a high leadership potential^ formerly opposed to Communism, are being attracted toward it and are almost certain to join one of
the two Indonesian Communist groups if the present
anti-Communist leaders of the Republic are forced to
make more concessions to the Dutch. Thus although
Indonesian Communism has sustained a very serious
loss in leadership during the past six months, the pos?

sibility exists that it may recoup its losses.

Although Republican military commanders had or?
ders to evacuate their 30,000 Communist prisoners with
them if they were forced to retire in the face of a
Dutch attack, they were in most cases unable to execute these orders because of the blitz nature of the
war begun by the Dutch on December 19, 1948. Only
a few of those alleged to have participated in the Com?
munist rebellion of 1948 had as yet been tried and sentenced. It was known that a large number of those
awaiting trial had either been forced to join the rebelling
Communist
Communist organization, the Indonesian

or had been completely misguided by

Party (P.K.I.),
of Dutch
its propaganda.
Thus with the approach
troops the tendency was frequently to give these peo?
ple the benefit of the doubt and to throw open the
doors of their jails and internment camps.
Leaders
Communist
Executed
The jailed leaders of the Communist rebellion did
not receive this treatment. A few important ones such
as Setiadjit, Abdul Madjid and Tan Ling-djie did manage to escape in the confusion. However, Colonel Gatot
Subroto, Military Governor of Surakarta, upon evacuating that city took with him all important Communist
leaders jailed there. The following day, December 20,
at a small town near by he ordered all eleven of these
Communist leaders shot. Together they comprised at
least two-thirds of the top-level P.K.I. Communist leadMr. Kahin recentlyreturnedfrom Indonesia, where he observed
current developments as a fellow of the Social Science Re?
search Council and correspondentfor Overseas News Agency.
188

but their places may be filled by

them.
has betrayed
government

executed,

KAHIN

Indonesia

ers not killed in the Madiun rebellion. They included

such top-ranking men as Amir Sjarifuddin, Suripno,
and Oei Gee-hwat. At
Maruto Darusman,
Harjono
of
second echelon P.K.I.
Magelang jail a large number

leaders were executed.

Organizational and operational leadership among the
P.K.I. Communists is now in the able hands of Setiadjit and Abdul Madjid, while the party's theorist is
Tan Ling-djie. Their followers have been able to recover some arms from those of its old caches which
the Republican government had not found. It is not

clear whether they have as yet done any fighting against

the Dutch but in a number of instances they have attacked Republican
Army units just as the latter retired to rest up after a heavy engagement with Dutch
troops. These attacks have netted them some Republi?
can equipment, but have increased the hatred of regu?
lar government troops for them. This hatred appears
now to have spread to include all Communists, includ?
ing the non-Stalinist nationalistic Communists who have
followed Tan Malaka.

of Tan Malaka
Malaka's
group has consistently opposed the
P.K.I. and did not join it in its rebellion against the
Government. During the last months before the Dutch
attack they had organized themselves as the Proletarian
and worked legally, above
Party (Partai Murbah)
Fate

Tan

ground, and within the democratic channels provided

by the political system that operated in the Republic.
Just after the Dutch attack Tan Malaka joined Major
Sabaruddin, an ideological follower of his, and one of
the battalion commanders of General Sungkono, top
Republican military officer in East Java. Sabaruddin
had established a record as one of the most able of the
commanders employed in suppressing the
Republican
P.K.I. Communist rebellion as well as one of the most
ruthless exterminators of such Communists. As such he
enjoyed the confidence of his commander, Sungkono.
However, a few days after the Dutch attack, Tan Mal?
aka made a speech over Kediri radio without permission of either General Sungkono or Dr. Murdjani, Re?
publican Governor of East Java, who were both out of
town at the time. This speech was a violent attack
against President Sukarno and Prime Minister Hatta
and was generally interpreted as an appeal to the peo?
ple to repudiate them and follow Tan Malaka. This
greatly angered General Sungkono, who up to that
FAR

EASTERN

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SURVEY

time had not been sure where Tan Malaka stood. Tan
Malaka thenceforth stayed clear of Sungkono. He continued, however, to receive Sabaruddin's protection.
In late March or early April 19495 both Sabaruddin
and Tan Malaka were arrested on orders of General
Sungkono and placed under house arrest at Njandjoek,
a town near Madiun.
During a Dutch attack they
both escaped but Tan Malaka was rearrested shortly
afterward at Blitar and on April 16 was executed on
orders of Sungkono. Tan Malaka
was the foremost
figure in the nationalist Communist coalition. His lead?

ership, nationalist sentiment, and hatred of the proStalinist P.K.I. Communists were the three things that
bound its constituent groups together. It is doubtful
whether any of the present leaders of the nationalist
Communists can ever attain the preeminent position of
Tan Malaka, whose extensive writings will continue to
influence the policy of his successors. It seems likely
that leadership may fall to two close associates of Tan
both in their middle thirties, Sukarni and
Malaka,
Maruto Nitimihardjo, who were respectively chairman
and vice-chairman of the Partai Murbah.
Frustrated

Nationalism

Both of these men were a few years ago moderate

socialists and followers of Sjahrir. They became Com?
munists not because of their Marxism but because of
their nationalism. Frustration of their nationalist hopes,
and specifically what they termed "appeasement of the
Dutch'5 by the leaders of the Republican Government,
were the factors which turned them to nationalist Communism.
To understand this is to understand a great deal
about the political potential of Communism in Indo?
nesia. That potential is strong, particularly among
young intellectuals, in direct proportion to the frus?
tration of hopes for real national independence. Wheth?
er this frustration drives them toward the nationalist
Communism of Tan Malaka, or the Stalinist variety
of the P.K.I.,
depends upon whether they feel that

genuine colonial emancipation can be achieved only

after Soviet Russia has defeated America (as do most
adherents of the P.K.I.),
or whether they believe with
the nationalist Communists that independence can be

attained by Indonesia's own efforts, particularly that

of her guerrillas, and that Communism must be developed in Indonesia free of any interference by Soviet

Russia.1 But the gravitation in either direction is aided

by the same powerful force, frustrated nationalism.
The Rum-van Royen Agreement of May 7 was wide-

1 In this connection, Tan Malaka had cautioned that in

the struggle for independence Indonesians must not substi?
tute a new colonial relationship with Russia for the old one
with the Netherlands.
AUGUST

10,

ly hailed in the American press as an important step

toward a solution of the Netherlands Indonesian prob?
lem. In Indonesia it was generally regarded, rightly or

wrongly, as a serious defeat for the Republican cause,

engineered by strong American pressure on the Repub?
lic' s leaders. Most educated Indonesians strongly oppose
the agreement and criticize their leaders for having
accepted it. Many of them maintain that the terms of
the agreement call for a surrender of Indonesian inter?
ests which, when coupled with past concessions made
by the same leaders under UN and particularly Amer?
ican pressure, adds up to such a total capitulation to
the Dutch as to discredit completely the present pro-

American, anti-Communist leaders of the Republic.

Many Indonesians have, since then, been looking elsewhere for leadership. A few have already drifted toward
one or the other of the two Communist camps, and many
more would have done so had not an alternate channel
of protest against the Government's policy been opened
up. This occurred when Soetan Sjahrir, former Prime

Minister of the Republic, and probably the most influential leader among young Indonesian
intellectuals,
went into strong opposition against the May 7 agree?
ment. Indonesians were thus given a chance to oppose
the agreement and the policy it represents without join?
ing the Communists.
Sjahrir's Alternative
But this safety-valve cannot long divert the forces of
frustrated nationalism from flowing into the channel
of opposition offered by the Communists. For Sjahrir's
action was one of loyal opposition to the Republican
Government. He has not opposed the leaders of the

Government, only their policies. If the leaders of the

Republic of Indonesia are further discredited, if their
trust in the impartiality of American policy is be?
lieved by their followers to have been futile, Sjahrir
will be unable to provide an alternative to Communist
leadership by a policy of loyal opposition. To compete
with the Communists for leadership of those who have
lost faith in Sukarno, Hatta and other pro-American,

anti-Communist leaders, Sjahrir will have to repudiate

these leaders as well as their policies, and he will be
forced to compete with the Communists in denouncing
the United States. In such a contest the Communists
would have an advantage over Sjahrir and over such
men as Mohamed
Natsir and Sjafruddin Prawirane-

gara (leaders of the progressive wing of the Masjumi,

a Mohammedan
political organization which was the
largest political party in the Republic). Under such circumstances both Communist groups would doubtless
be able to recruit new leadership material which would
more than compensate
recently sustained.

them for the losses they have

I 949

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189