THE SOVIET VIEW
OF THE INDONESIAN REVOLUTION
RUTH T. McVEY
INTERIM REPORTS SERIES
MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT
Southeast Asia Program
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
Price — $2.50A Note Concerning the Interim Reports Series
One of the distressing aspects of contemporary scholarship is the substantial interval that often intervenes between
the completion of field research and the first appearance of writings descriptive of its findings. American scholarship
relating to Indonesia has been no exception, and here this delay has been particularly regrettable inasmuch as the
extent of research being undertaken is so limited. With respect to much of the research carried out in post-revolu-
tionary Indonesia there has been a lag of two to three or more years between the termination of research and the
first publication describing its results. From this situation stem a number of unfortunate consequences. Scholars and
others having a serious interest in the country, Indonesians as well as Americans, are sometimes required to wait so
long before seeing the results of such research that when finally available its importance to them has appreciably
diminished. Moreover, because they are kept for so long in the dark as to the course and character of this earlier but
as yet unreported work, they frequently are obliged to spend time in unnecessarily laying foundations their predeces-
sors have laid but not yet divulged and in undertaking analysis of data similar to that already collected and analyzed
or largely analyzed. Thus all too often contemporary students of Indonesia waste much precious time and effort in
duplicating or roughly duplicating what has already been done or is in the process of being completed, instead of
utilizing such materials, building on them, and possibly refining them. Parenthetically it might be observed that some
of those perfectionists who insist that their name appear in print only when attached to a body of material wherein
each word has been given its final polish are deprived of what might well have been healthy and useful criticism
by those who would have been interested in reading their work at some earlier stage of its processing. Also this
reluctance to publish findings sooner sometimes puzzles Indonesians, because frequently for several years they look in
vain for some published account of research for which they smoothed the way or in which they actually participated.
Consequently some of them tend to doubt the usefulness of American scholars undertaking research in their country.
The object of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project’s Interim Reports Series is to avoid insofar as possible the
situation described above. Wherever feasible those undertaking research in connection with our project will prepare
preliminary reports concerning salient aspects of their study well before publication of their relatively finished mono-
graphs or articles. Our object, then, is to make available in provisional form what we believe to be some of the more
important of our findings soon enough to be of maximum usefulness to others engaging in studies relating to Indo-
nesia or having a serious interest in the topics with which our work is concerned. It is our hope that by doing so we
will be of help both to interested Indonesians and to students of Indonesia in the United States and other countries.
In thus submitting Interim Reports for early publication the members of our group will generally be doing so prior
to command of all relevant data or before this data has been completely analyzed. Certainly they will be submitting
them without having had an opportunity to cast them in finished written form. It should therefore be emphasized
that these preliminary reports are to be considered as explicitly tentative and provisional in character. It is our
expectation that most of them will be followed by later publications bearing on the same subject of a less tentative
and more solid character. We hope that our Interim Reports will elicit candid and open criticism from interested
persons reading them. For we believe that thereby we will benefit, and that in many cases such criticisms will point
the way to better analysis of the data in hand and/or further research on facets of the subject so far not adequately
covered. Thus we cordially invite and welcome such criticism. We would appreciate it if those inclined to offer it
would write to the author in question, c/o Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell Uni-
versity, Ithaca, New York.
George McT. Kahin
DirectorTHE SOVIET VIEW
OF THE INDONESIAN REVOLUTION
A Study in the Russian Attitude
Towards Asian Nationalism
Ruth T. McVey
INTERIM REPORTS SERIES
Modern Indonesia Project
Southeast Asia Program
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
1957
Second Printing 1962
Third Printing 1969PREFACE
Although in recent years there have been an
increasing number of studies of the Indonesian Communist
Party and of the Indonesian revolution (1945-49), there has
been relatively little attention paid specifically to the
role of the party in the revolutionary period and its
relationship during that period with the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, virtually no studies have been made of the
perceptions of the Soviet Union of the character of the
Indonesian revolution and the level of sophistication and
understanding which its Indonesian specialists brought to
the study of Indonesian affairs of this period. We believe
that with this Interim Report Ruth McVey has made an
important beginning in overcoming our ignorance of this
most important subject. Her study makes a significant
contribution both to our understanding of Indonesian Com-
munism and of Soviet relations with Asian Communist parties
in the critical period after World War II.
From 1954 to 1956, Miss McVey undertook intensive
research on Soviet materials available in the United States
and Western Europe and on Dutch Communist and Indonesian
Communist publications available in the Netherlands and at
Cornell. This study, first published in 1957, is based on
her analysis of these documents and covers the period
1945-1950.
Miss McVey received her M.A. in 1954 from the
Harvard Soviet Area Program. Subsequently under the auspices
of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project she carried on research
for fifteen months in the Netherlands and England, and it was
following this that she wrote this Interim Report. After
further graduate work at Cornell, Miss McVey was awarded a
Ford Foundation fellowship for additional research in the
Netherlands and Indonesia. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell
University in 1961.
Continuing demand for Miss McVey's study has led
the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project to issue this Third
Printing.
ITHACA, NEW YORK
November 15, 1969
George McT. Kahin
DirectorV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
PREFACE	iii
INTRODUCTION	1
1945:	HESITATION	3
1946-47:	APPROBATION	11
THE TWO CAMP DOCTRINE	24
CALCUTTA AND THE INTRANSIGENT LINE	38
THE SURIPNO AFFAIR	47
REVISION AND REBELLION	58
REPUDIATION OF SUKARNO; ENSOREMENT OF MAO
711
Introduction
We in the West, nervously observing current Soviet overtures
to uncommitted Asia, tend sometimes to forget that the Communist
path in the East has not always been a straight and purposeful one
and that it has been marked by inconsistencies at least as great
as those manifested by American policy in that part of the world.
For the USSR has found it no easy task to make the choice with
which it has generally been faced in its Asian dealings: whether
to sacrifice local Communist interests in an attempt to gain the
friendship of the nationalist movement, or to push Communist efforts
to gain power at the risk of alienating Asian nationalism.
This study is an attempt to trace the Soviet attitude towards
one manifestation of Asian nationalism—the Indonesian revolt
against Netherlands rule—in an effort to show the development
of Soviet thought on this problem in the opening years of the cold
war. As such, it will restrict itself largely to Soviet doctrine
and will avoid, wherever possible, a discussion of Indonesian
domestic politics of the time. The reader should therefore bear in
mind that a greatly over-simplified view of the Indonesian politi-
cal scene is presented here, and that this paper is in no way a
guide for developments in that sphere. It should also be noted
that the Left referred to here is the political grouping which
came to identify itself with the international Communist line; but
the term has little meaning beyond this, for Indonesian politics
cannot be neatly divided into a pro-Soviet Left and an anti-Soviet
Right.
This caveat in mind, we shall turn back a decade to the end
of the Second World War, when, amid the myriad other problems of
that troubled moment, the Soviet Union found itself faced with the
task of adopting a policy towards the rising wave of Asian national-
ism. For some ten years, except for the brief period of Nazi-Soviet
friendship, the USSR had urged an extremely moderate program in the
East, calling for cooperation with the colonial powers against
the greater danger of fascism. Now the Axis threat to Soviet exist-
ence had been removed. Should the moderate course continue to be
pursued, and if so to what degree? Should there be cooperation
with the non-communist (’’bourgeois") nationalists, and if so on
what basis? How much should events in Europe be allowed to deter-
mine the Communist attitude in Asia?
Soviet experience in the pre-war period did little to answer these
questions. Before the Second World War, the Comintern had responded
to the colonial problem in one of two ways, which had been applied
Largely in. reflection of Soviet policies in Europe. The first of
these was the "united front from above." This strategy, first out-
lined by Lenin at the second Comintern congress in 1920, envisaged
Communist collaboration with the leadership of non-communist move-
ments for purposes considered common to the interests of both. In
the Asian situation, this policy meant Communist support of bour-
geois nationalist movements against the imperialist powers. It
was not felt necessary that the Communists lead the cooperative2
venture, although usually political differences between the two
groups were so wide as to result in disagreement and a subsequent
struggle for power. This policy reached its most extreme develop-
ment during the Chinese revolution of the 1920’s in the theory of
the "bloc within." At that time, on the argument that the Kuomintang
represented an anti-imperialist bloc of workers, peasants, and
petty and middle bourgeoisie, the Chinese Communists entered that
movement and gave it their complete support.
The second strategy, that of the "united front from below,"
was adopted by the sixth Comintern congress in 1928, at which time
the Communist attitude towards non-communist movements underwent
a thorough revision. The bourgeois nationalists were now con-
sidered to have sold out to imperialism, and it was declared that
the only true representatives of the national liberation movement
were the Communists themselves. Cooperation with non-communist
nationalist movements was therefore abandoned, and efforts were
made to win away their following. In general, this policy tended
to rely more on the urban proletariat and less on the peasantry
and on nationalist sentiment; it was more radical, though not
necessarily more violent. The un^sfeetd front from below was followed
until the Comintern’s adoption of the Popular Front in 1935 heralded
not only a return to cooperation with non-communists but even
collaboration with the colonial powers. (1)
The use of these alternative policies by the Communist parties
was, as we have already mentioned, largely a reflection of Soviet
policies in Europe. Even in China, where Soviet interest was con-
siderable in the 1920’s, the Russian attitude was determined more
by events in Europe and by the Stalin-Trotsky feud than by the
situation in China itself. In spite of the frequently-expressed
Leninist claim that the capitalist chain would break at its weak-
est link—the areas under imperialist oppression—the USSR saw
Europe as the main area of its diplomatic and ideological concern.
As for the Comintern’s policies in Asia, they met with almost com-
plete defeat. The colonial governments were still too powerful and
had no mind to tolerate Communism; while in countries like Turkey
and China, where nationalist revolutions did take place, the
nationalists used the Communists for their own ends and then dis-
posed of them, Stalin had alaimed the Communists would squeeze
the Kuomintang like a lemon and then throw it away: but it was
the other way round in reality. No since the failure of the
Comintern in the Chinese revolution had a Soviet-directed Asian
Communist party played a role of even minor political importance
for the Soviet Union. In view of this manifest failure, it is
small wonder that the USSR did not step forward at the end of the
war with a clearcut Asian policy.
(1) For an excellent discussion of these policies see John
H. Kautsky, Moscow and the Communist Party of India,
Cambridge, 1954, pp. 8-14.3
1945; Hesitation
August 17, 1945: Indonesia, under Japanese occupation since
1942, declared its independence from Dutch colonial rule. In the
months following this action, the new republic remained largely cut
off from the rest of the world. Only the Dutch had any degree of
knowledge about the situation there; and they, not unnaturally,
did their best to discredit the new government by labelling it a
Japanese creation. The Indonesians vigorously denied this and
emphasized their republic’s democratic ideals. The rest of the
world, busy with the countless other problems created by the ending
of the war, quite understandably paid little attention to the newly
founded state. Meanwhile, as Allied troops began to replace the
Japanese on the islands, conflicts broke out between Indonesian
and European forces. By the middle of October the situation had
become quite serious; but still there was little excitement out-
side Holland.
The Soviet Union, too, took no immediate stand. The first
report on Indonesia to appear in Pravda after the independence
declaration came on September 12, 1945. It discussed the English
occupation of Timor, which island, it noted, was half Portugese and
half Dutch: no mention of an Indonesian Republic. On October 24
came the first statement in Which the new government was noticed:
Pravda reported that fighting in the "Dutch East Indies" was
taking place between Netherlands troops and forces of ’Vslie Indo-
nesian government formed here under the leadership of Dr. Soikarno
/sic/."
More reports concerning battles between the Indonesians and
Allied troops followed; the country was now referred to as Indonesia
rather than as the Dutch East Indies. On November 4 came the first
critical comment: Pravda asked why the English, Americans, and
Dutch, having declared that their countries stood for peace and
universal human rights, saw fit to support colonial wars against
the Vietnamese and Indonesian peoples. The United States, Pravda
noted, took no further action against Dutch and British use of tlS
lend-lease weapons than to request that the US labels be taken
off the guns. By now, evidently, the USSR had decided to adopt a
less-than-neutral stand on the issue, though Soviet comment had not
gone so far as to take the part of the Sukarno government directly.
It was not until December 3 when, quoting a Reuters dispatch,
the Soviet paper indirectly recognized the Republic’s claim to
legitimacy by referring to Republican premier Sjahrir as the
"Prime Minister of Indonesia." From this time on, the Republic’s
government was consistently denoted as the rightful government of
Indonesia, while the Netherlands Indies regime was considered merely
as an arm of the Dutch occupation effort, (2) in the frequent short
(2) It might further be noted in connection with the early Soviet
attitude towards the Republic that Sukarno had sent a telegram
to Stalin on the 1945 anniversary of the October Revolution,
reportedly eliciting a response by Radio Moscow which declared:4
reports on Indonesia which appeared during the last two months of
1945, Russian comment was mostly restricted to facts concerning
military operations and the spreading of the revolt; it was critical
of the Dutch and British actions and of the American ”hands-off"
attitude, but did not go beyond what might be described as a liberally
anti-colonial point of view.
It is interesting to note that the Soviet stand was consider-
ably more cautious on the Indonesian question than was that of
either the Dutch or the Australian Communist parties. The Austral-
ian party, doubtless influenced in part by those Indonesian Com-
munists who had spent the war in that country, had taken a strong
position behind Sukarno’s Republic by early October; the Dutch
Communists placed themselves fully behind the Indonesians a few
weeks after this, as the fighting between British and Indonesian
forces grew more serious. The Soviet Union was, of course, much
less immediately concerned with the Indonesian situation than the
Communists in either of these other countries; but it might also
be noted that there were other important considerations making for
a cautious stand on the Soviet side. Russia’s wartime allies in
Europe were the major imperial powers: to enter the lists against
them on the colonial question would nave been a significant step
towards the ending of the Alliance. The Soviet leaders, even if
they were already convinced that the Allied cooperation would not
long survive the war, may well have hesitated for other reasons to
bring up the colonial problem at this time. In East Europe they
had an enormous new sphere of influence which they desired to con-
solidate and have recognized by the other powers; in West Europe
there was hope of Communist electoral victory, especially in colony-
owning France. It is therefore perhaps not so strange that in the
autumn of 1945 the Soviet Union did not choose to add the colonial
issue to the agenda of its debate with the West.
In the few times that the colonial question was discussed in
the early postwar period, Soviet comment seems to have been strongly
influenced both by the relatively gradual approach of the Popular
Front and by a sense of the tremendous revolutionary ohanges that
had been brought about by World War II. There is a fluidity about
Soviet analysis of the world situation in these days which is in
striking contrast to the doctrinaire approach of the Comintern or
the fierce partisanship which was to come a year or two later under
the two camp doctrine.
’’Allah grant that all the noble aims of the Indonesian people
be sucessfully achieved.” (Radio Moscow broadcast in Indonesian
on November 15, 1945; as reported in Merdeka, November 16,
1945). Sukarno’s message had read in part”In the name of
the Republic of Indonesia I congratulate you and the entire
Russian people on the anniversary of the most important event
in Russian history... We are conviced that Russia, which had
striven for justice, freedom, and humanity, will, having be-
come one of the four greatest powers, continue to remain true
to its ideals.” (Merdeka, November 12, 1945).5
In the wartime and early postwar periods the leading politi-
cal-economic theorist in the Soviet Union was Eugene Varga, known
best as the proponent of a relatively moderate stand in dealing
with the West. Varga, impressed by the weakening of West European
power during World War II, analyzed the colonial situation in a
manner extraordinary for a Communist. He declared his belief that
"A completely new fact, without precedent in the history of im-
perialism, is the almost universal lessening of the financial
dependence ox the colonies and dependent countries oh the empire,
converting some colonies from the debtors to the creditors of the
imperialist metropolis. This course otJ development, Whicn nas
been almost impossible to stop since the war, bears witness to
far-reaching changes in the relationships between the colonies
and the metropolis." (3)
Since Soviet Marxism had heretofore been accustomed to view
the colonial scene as devoid of any hope for release from imperial-
ist bondage short of revolution, this claim is remarkable indeed;
for if the economic grip of the colonial power could be so loosened,
then, in Marxist reasoning, its political hold would also weaken.
Varga did qualify his statement a few pages later, though without
denying its most important implication. "With the ending of the
war, this process is clearly coming to a halt," he explained. "II?
is evident that within a few years after the war—with the appear-
ance of the expected agrarian crisis—the indebtedness of the
colonies and agrarian countries to other countries and especially
to the United States will once again rise. However, the economic
dependence of the majority of the colonies on their metropolis
will never again be as strong as before the war." (4)
As to the political situation in the colonies, V&rga noted
that the war had given rise to tremendous political changes even
in those countries which had not undergone Japanese occupation.
There was a new upsurge in the anti-imperialist movement in the
colonies, a new sharpening of the Asian crisis. The following
factors had brought this about;
"a) the economic development of the colonies strengthened the
native bourgeoisie and the native proletariat—exactly those classes
which generally take a leading position in the struggle for inde-
pendence;
”b) both warring camps made wide use in the war of native
armed forces, which heightened the self-confidence of the colonial
peoples;
"c) the defeat by the Japanese of the former rulers (English,
American, French) shattered the belief of the colonial peoples in
(3) E. Varga, Izmeneniia v ekonomike kapitalizma v itoge vtoroi
mirovoi voinl (Gospolitlzdat, 1946), p. 219. Author's em-r
phasis. (Hereafter cited as Izmeneniia.)
(4) Varga, Izmeneniia, p. 223.6
the durability of white rule;
"d) the war made it possible for a large number of natives to
obtain weapons." (5)
The most interesting point in this list of factors is Varga’s
reference to the bourgeoisie along with the proletariat as a leading
element in the colonial revolution. This is an analysis on the
lines of the "united front from above" policy, as we have seen it
in our brief review of Communist policy before 1928. Coupled with
the theory that the colonial countries were after the war economi-
cally less dependent on the metropolis, it made easy the acceptance
and support of a bourgeois nationalist movement as the vehicle of
a colonial revolution. In Varga's theory, then, there was no
reason for the Soviet Union or the Indonesian Communists to oppose
the Republic.
In addition to the internal pressure of a rising anti-imperi-
alist movement, Varga saw the external force of United States
policy applied against the colonial regimes. The US, he maintained,
supported independence for the colonies because it hoped to gain
from them the free hand for the economic penetration it had already
obtained in South America and China. (6) Faced with such opposition
from within and without, the colonial powers would be forced to
make concessions, though giving them as little real content as
possible. "The colonial powers," he argued, "will be forced to come
towards the demands of the colonial population. New, transitional
forms of colonial oppression will arise, with a final transforma-
tion to formally complete political independence with the preserva-
(5) Varga, Izmeneniia, p. 224. A comparison of this listing with
one made in 1953 by Varga is interesting as an illustration
of the increasing emphasis on the role of the proletariat
and the Soviet Union which was to take place after 1947. In
his later analysis Varga declared the factors behind the
postwar rise in anti-imperialism to have been:
"1. the victory of the Soviet Union—the fighter for the
liberation of the peoples from the imperialist yoke—over the
three mighty imperialist powers Japan, Germany, and Italy.
"2. the development of industry and the development of an
industrial proletariat, which took place in the war period in
a numbex· of colonies.
"3. the defeat in the course of the second world war of
the older colonial powers...by Japan;...
"4. the mass arming of the colonial peoples during the war. .
"5. the presence at the end of the war of a large amount
of weapons in the hands of the colonial peoples, which made
possible the creation of regular revolutionary armies." (Varga,
Osnovie voprosi ekonomiki i politiki imperializma (posle
vtoroi mirovoi voini), (Akademiia Nauk SSSR, Institut ekonomiki;
Gospolitizdat, 1953), p. 293.)
(6) Varga, Izmeneniia, p. 225.7
tion of economic dependence.” (7)
This seemed to apply, howevert only to the smaller dependent
areas, such as Trans-Jordan. (C) To the greater dependencies,
larger concessions would have to be made· ”In relation to the
more powerful colonies, especially India, the English bourgeoisie
will be forced to make considerable concessions, up to the granting
of dominion status.” (9) Varga does not immediately esq? lain Just
how much real independence this enhanced position would contain,
but later he declares that "China and India, two countries whose
populations compose about half the population of the globe, can
under certain circumstances carve out for themselves the position
of world powers." (10)
This statement, along with Varga’s previously cited opinion
on the relative economic independenee of the colonial countries in
the postwar period, has considerable importance when connected with
the impending transfer of sovereignty over India. Pakistan, Burma,
and Ceylon by the British. Since previous Soviet doctrine on the
colonial question had maintained that no peaceful weakening of the
imperialist economic and political grip was possible, the indepen-
dence of these countries could only be looked on as a farce and
the new governments rejected as puppets of the imperialist power.
Varga’s view, however, gave a doctrinal opening for a more favor-
able attitude towards the ex-colonies’ independence and thus
towards the new Asian governments. To be sure, Varga did not go so
far as to draw openly the conclusions that were latent in his theory;
it may be he felt this would be climbing too far out on a political
limb for comfort. Nonetheless, his statement that India could
become a world power certainly indicates a feeling that that
country's coming independence could have more than formal signifi-
cance.
Towards the end of 1945, the colonial question was raised by
the chief Soviet journal on foreign affairs. In this discussion
revolutionary movements in Indonesia and Indochina were awarded
considerab1 praise. However, it was declared that: ’’The defeat
of Japanese imperialism, which tried in vain to create an enormous
colonial empire in Asia, served as a signal to the exploited
peoples of Southeast Asia to bring forward their just demands—
for the guaranteeing of elementary democratic rights, for the
(7)	Varga,	Izmeneniia,	p.	318.
(8)	Varga,	Izmeneniia,	p.	226,
(9)	Varga,	Izmeneniia,	p,	226.
(10)	Varga,	Izmeneniia,	p.	318. It might be noted here that the
China referred to in Varga’s work is always Nationalist China,
considered a semi-colonial country in the Soviet view.8
securing of the opportunity for free political and economic develop-
ment.” (11) Not a word about sovereignty or immediate independence:
the demands voiced here are still those of the popular front and
the wartime alliance. The author warns—with apparent reference to
Indonesia and Viet Nam—that a mere declaration of independence
does not bring actual sovereignty; only freedom from the economic
control of the metropolis will guarantee this. Can such liberation
be achieved only through revolution? Not necessarily, apparently;
for the author points to UN trusteeship as a possible alternative
to colonial domination:
The Charter of the United Nations envisages concrete
possibilities for the progressive development of the
colonial countries under the direction of an international
organization. This direction, realized in the form of
trusteeships, is to give the essential guarantees for
the gradual development of the territories under trustee-
ship, "to promote the political, economic, social and
educational advancement," to promote "the progressive
development? of the population "towards self-government
or independence."
This formula, clearly insufficient, was justly sub-
jected to criticism at the San Francisco conference.
All the same, trusteeship is capable of speeding up the
progressive development of the colonies on the road to
complete independence and is in any event able to secure
the granting of elementary rights to the local population.
Trusteeship does envisage control on the part of the UN,
and, in particular, the presence in the Trusteeship
Council of representations of UN members which do not
participate immediately in the governimg of trustee
territories as well as those which do. The international
character 0f trusteeship is aimed to a large degree at
paralyzing the selfish tendencies which could be mani-
fested by certain colonial circles should they desire to
rule one or the other trustee territory "in the old-
fashioned way." (12)
(11)	E. M. Zhukov, "Porazhenie iaponskogo imperializma i national’no
osvoboditel’naia bor’ba narodov Vostocfenoi Azii," Mirovoe
khoziaistvo i mirovala politika, (No. 23/24, Nov./Dec. 1945),
p.	Zhukov, probably the leading authority on Far Eastern
politics in the USSR Academy of Sciences, has frequently
been given the task of formulating the doctrinal interpreta-
tion of Soviet Far Eastern policy.
(12)	Zhukov, Porazhenie, p. 87. In connection with this, it might
be noted' that the Soviet Union was then engaged in an effort
to secure four-power trusteeship over Korea, a project which
may have influenced the USSR’s attitude in this aspect of
the Indonesian question. Cf. Max Beloff, Soviet Policy in
the Far East, (London, 1953) pp. 159-163. ——————9
If this was representative of the Soviet attitude, there is
little wonder that the European Communist parties did not take a
stronger stand on the colonial issue. Neither the British, French,
nor Dutch Communists asked for immediate independence for their
country’s colonial possessions in the autumn of 1945. Within the
colonies, the gradualist slogans of the wartime period also re-
mained:	cooperation with the nationalists on the basis of a
united front from above was advocated for the colonial Communist
parties, and a moderate attitude on the independence issue was
stressed. ”Our Party,” declared the Indian Communists, ”is entering
the electoral contest not to fight one or both of the Congress or
the League, but to stand in the middle and fight the flame they
both light by ourselves putting forward a plan of Indian freedom
that embodies their just demands, but repudiates the unjust claims
of both...." (13)
The Indonesian party, which had been re-established in October
1945 after a period of illegality lasting since the Communist-
sponsored uprisings of 1927, took a less cooperative view. Under
the leadership of the previously unknown Mohammad Jusuf, its in-
sistence on uncompromising demands for immediate independence and
its rejection of the republican government’s relatively moderate
foreign policy brought it by early 1946 into sharp contrast with
the Communist line abroad and into conflict with the Indonesian
government at home. It is thus not surprising that when former
party leaders returned from wartime exile in Australia and the
Netherlands, they undertook a purge of Jusuf’s followers and laid
down a policy of cooperation with the government and support of
the negotiations with the Dutch. (14)
(13)	"For a Free and Happy India," World News and Views, (XXV, 47),
December 1, 1945, p. 391. Quoted in Kautsky, Moscow and the
Communist Party of India, p. 42.
(14)	The new line for the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was
established at a party conference begun on April 30, 1946, in
Surakarta. For an account of the conference, cf. Merdeka
(the major Indonesian nationalist newspaper of the time),
May 3, 1946; and Indonesia (publication of the Perhimpunan
Indonesia), XVI, 49 (June 1, 1946), p. 3. The manifesto
issued by the conference, laying down the new line, is pub-
lished in the aforementioned issue of Indonesia and in Merdeka
of May 11, 1946.
At this conference Sardjono became chairman of the PKI; a
pre-war Communist leader, he had been long resident in the
concentration camp at Boven Digul, New Guinea, when World
War II broke out. With the approach of the Japanese, the
Dutch removed the inmates of Boven Digul to Australia;
and Sardjono, along with other Indonesian Communists, worked
for the Netherlands Indies government-in-exile during the
war. In March, 1946, he was repatriated to the Indonesian
Republic. Other Leftist leaders—notably Maruto Darusman,
Setiadjit, and Abdulmadjid—had been pre-war leaders of the
Perhimpunan Indonesia, an Indonesian student group in the10
Netherlands whose policies at that time were closely coordinated
with those of the Dutch Communist Party. They worked in the
anti-German underground during the war, and were repatriated
to the Republic on April 29, 1946; the Dutch government was
helpful in securing their return, apparently in the hope
that their moderate opinions regarding relations between
Indonesia and the Netherlands would have a favorable effect
on the Republic’s attitude in this matter.
In August Alimin, a prominent PKI leader who had fled abroad
after the Communist uprisings of 1926-27, returned to share
the leadership of the party with Sardjono. According to
Alimin, he had lived in the Soviet Union until 1940, at which
time he started back to Indonesia by way of China. He arrived
in Yenan, but was forced by the blockade around the Chinese
Communist forces there and the subsequent Japanese occupation
of Indonesia to wait until the end of the war. At the beginning
of 1946 he went to Hanoi by way of Chungking and Kunming; there
he met Ho Chi Minh, After two weeks in Viet Nam he crossed
the Mekong to Bangkok; from there he went to Malays, where he
remained from the spring of 1946 until his return to Indonesia
in August, Cf. Alimin, Sepatah kata dari djaoeh, (Djokjakarta,
1947), pp. 2-5.11
1946-47; Approbation
The Soviet attitude towards the Indonesian situation might
have continued to develop slowly in the pages of the Russian
press had not circumstances in the United Nations at the begin-
ning of 1946 led the USSR to come squarely to grips with the
Western powers on the matter. Since the end of the war there
had been a great deal of argument among the great powers over
the continued military occupation of various smaller countries,
the Soviet Union opposing British actions in Greece and the Near
East, and Britain objecting strongly to the continued Soviet
occupation of northern Iran. The Iranian question was brought
up in the UN Security Council at its first session in London. The
Soviet Union responded by introducing the matter of British mili-
tary presence in Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and Indonesia. Two
days after the Iranian problem was taken up by the UN, the Ukrainian
delegate, Manuilsky, proposed that the Council look into the
threat to world security presented by the Indonesian situation.
This was on January 21; on February 7 the matter was brought up
for debate. Manuilsky argued that the problem could hardly be
considered an internal affair of the Netherlands, since it in-
volved British and Japanese troops fighting against the Indonesian
people. He suggested that the United Nations send an investigating
commission to Indonesia. This suggestion was promptly turned
down, with only Russia and Poland supporting the Ukraine on the
measure. The Russian delegate, Andrei Vishinsky, then submitted
an amendment to an Egyptian proposal for the withdrawal of English
troops immediately after the disarmament of the Japanese in
Indonesia; he asked that the Council recommend the setting up of
a committee of investigation composed of the United States,
(Nationalist) China, the USSR, and the Netherlands. This was re-
jected, only Russia, Poland, and Mexico supporting it; and the
Egyptian resolution was likewise defeated. Meanwhile, the Indo-
nesians themselves had resolved to try and bring the matter be-
fore the UN, an intention concerning which the USSR declared its
hearty approval. (15)
Two points in these debates are worth our special attention.
One is the evident Soviet preference for UN handling of the problem.
No doubt one of the factors in this was, as we have previously
noted, a desire to embarrass the British and counter their move on
the Iranian question. If we keep in mind the Zhukov article of a
few months before, however, it would seem that there might be
more than this immediate tactical reason behind Soviet emphasis on
the UN. We might even speculate whether the Russians did not
quite realize in these early days how very circumscribed their UN
role would become with the alliance of the great majority of coun-
tries against the Eastern bloc. If they were not so sanguine as to
hope for some real say in trusteeship affairs, however, they seemed
at least to realize by this point that they could gain excellent
publicity in the Asian countries by championing the colonial cause
in the UN. This propaganda opportunity gained added point with
(15) Cf. ’’International Life," New Times, March 1, 1946, p. 15.12
the development of Soviet-American enmity, when the USSR found it
could use US hesitancy on the colonial issue as support for its
allegation that American anti-colonialism was only a myth.
The situation was well illustrated in the ensuing development
of the Indonesian issue, when the Soviet Union was able to gain
considerable advantage from its support of the Republic in the
Security Council. It is thus understandable that the USSR stead-
fastly supported UN jurisdiction over the Indonesian question so
long as the UN body handling the matter contained a representative
of the Soviet bloc. When, however, the problem was shunted off
to a UN commission which contained no East European representatives,
the Russians objected violently and concentrated their efforts on
getting jurisdiction over the matter returned to the Security
Council. The United States was not unaware of the situation
either; and much of its efforts to mediate between the Indonesians
and the Dutch arose from a desire to keep the question out of the
Security Council. (16)
The second point of interest in the UN debate is that neither
the Ukrainian nor the Soviet representative referred to an Indonesian
government or claimed that the Republic was an independent state.
Rather, they talked of a "popular movement," whose desires they
urged the colonial powers to consider. Since Soviet comment outside
the UN was by this time freely referring to an Indonesian govern-
ment, it would seem possible that the USSR may have hoped by its
moderation to reduce Western objections to UN handling of the
Indonesian question. If this thought was indeed entertained, it
was quickly dashed by the imperial powers, who proved exceedingly
sensitive to any attempts at bringing their colonial affairs under
international control, especially an international control in which
Soviet Russia participated In the end, the Russians had to con-
tent themselves with the thought that their action on the Indonesian
question had provided an embarrassing answer to the Iranian issue,
and they made the most propagandistically of the matter;
The declarations of the representative of the Soviet
Union disclosed to the entire world the way things really
were. Greece, Indonesia, Syria and Lebanon have in fact
been deprived of their national independence. This is
the result of the illegal presence of foreign armed
forces--English force, and in Syria and Lebanon also
French. The results of the discussion of the questions
of Greece, Indonesia, Syria and Lebanon in the Security
Council demonstrated with crystal clarity that the policy
defended by Mr. Bevin is of a distinctly anti-democratic
character. (17)
(16)	Cf. Paul Kattenburg, "Indonesia," The State of Asia (ed.
Lawrence K. Rossinger; New York, 1951), p. 418.
(17)	Pravda, February 24, 1946.13
Soviet relations with Great Britain, never very cordial even
during the wartime alliance, reached a low point in the year just
after the war, before the US-Soviet quarrel had really gained
momentum. Russian comment at this time pictured Britain as the
worst of the imperialist powers. This line was reflected in Soviet
discussion of Indonesia, which country British troops were occupy-
ing in preparation for the return of the Dutch. The English, it
was claimed, were not pulling the Dutch chestnuts out of the
nationalist fire for nothing; Britain hoped that by preserving
Dutch rule it could prevent English economic interests in Indo-
nesia from being displaced by American capital:
After the Second World War, when the USA became economi-
cally and financially the most powerful of all the capi-
talist countries, interested English circles were
particularly concerned for the conditions under which
their economic activity in the countries of Southeast
Asia would develop in the postwar period. It was evident
to them that only the consolidation of Dutch sovereignty
could serve in any measure to secure the position of
English capital in Indonesia. .... . .Another and not less
important consideration, which was closely connected not
only with Indonesia but with the colonies of England it-
self, also dictated the necessity of full English support
of Holland. The events in Indonesia were taking place
directly at the threshold of British colonies—Malaya,
Burma, and India. The liberation of Indonesia could
have seemed to them a too dangerous and contagious
example. (18)
"On the other hand," it was declared, "it seemed that suitable
possibilities for and even the actual achievement of political
independence by Indonesia could be extremely beneficial to the
economy of the USA, which did not need to fear, as did the other
colonial powers, the ’infectious’ consequences of independence in
Indonesia. From the point of view of securing the necessary condi-
tions for the unlimited penetration of American capital and for
more advantageous opportunities for competition with capital of
other countries, the broadest possible autonomy for Indonesia and
even its separation from the metropolis were of no little interest
to the USA." (19) It is apparent from such comment that the Soviet
(18) A. A. Guber, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie v
Indonezii, (Moscow, 1946), ρΊ 12. Public lecture delivered
on March 27, 1946, in the Moscow Lecture Hall. Professor
Guber, the present head of the USSR Academy of Sciences’
Pacific Institute, is the leading Soviet authority on Indo-
nesia. For other Soviet comments on the role of Great Britain
in the Indonesian question, see V. Vasil’eva, "Sobitiia v
Indonezii," Mirovoe khoziaistvo i mirovaia politika, (No. 1/2),
Jan./Feb. , 1946, ρξ 93; "International Life,’’ New Times,
August 15, 1946, p. 18; and I. Kopylov, "The Events in Indo-
nesia," New Times, (No. 19), October 1, 1946.
(19) Guber, Natsional'no-osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie, p. 18.14
analysts expected fairly strong US backing for the colonial inde-
pendence movements. When the United States proved considerably
more hesitant in supporting nationalism, this theory had to be
rectified, as we shall presently see.
Commenting on the internal situation in Indonesia, the Soviet
Union strongly advocated a broad united front from above. "The
distinguishing tendencies of this movement, which is develop±ng
rapidly but unevenly in all colonial countries," it was declared of
the national-liberation movement, "are, first, a definite tendency
towards the unification of the most varied levels of the population
and of the classes of these countries for the achievement of a
single, all-national task; and, secondly, the ever-increasing
weight of the masses in this movement. It is exactly these condi-
tions which give the present process in the colonial countries a
special strength and significance." (20) Insofar as the anti-
imperialist movement was not united, the Republic was criticized:
"...it is an indubitable fact that the Indonesian liberation move-
ment is subject to great internal difficulties as a result of the
absence of a single, firm leadership. ...In the leadership of the
national movement there are, it is apparent, hesitant, less conse-
quent elements as well as leftist groups. Sukarno himself has
followed a career typical for a bourgeois nationalist^" (21)
In spite of the doubt expressed here as to Sukarno’s revolu-
tionary steadfastness, the Soviet Union apparently considered that
the united front should remain under the leadership of the bour-
geois nationalist movement. To this end, very little emphasis was
placed on the failings of the Indonesian leaders: the above comment
is almost the only critical remark uttered before 1948. Moreover,
the collaborationist past of some of the more prominent Indonesian
nationalists was forgiven, a clemency the Soviet Union did not
lightly accord. "Th|s circumstance," it was considered, "was widely
utilized by the Dutch from the very beginning to brand the entire
movement led by Sukarno as one inspired by the Japanese"; (22) and
on the grounds that it served imperialist ends the charge was dis-
missed.
We may wonder why the Soviet Union chose to support the Indo-
nesian nationalists instead of encouraging leadership of the revolu-
tion by the pro-Coramunist Left, which by 1947 had become powerful
(20)	Guber, Natsional* no-osvoboditel* noe dvizhenie, p. 4.
(21)	Vasil’eva, Sobitiia, p. 91. Cf. also Guber, "The Situation in
Indonesia," New Times, February 15, 1946, pp. 9-10; and
O. Zabozlayeva, "Indonesia,” New Times, April 15, 1946, p. 26
for comments urging a broad united front from above in Indo-
nesia. In India, the same need for national unity was seen:
cf. V. Bushevich, "Bor’ba Indii za nezavisimost’," Mirovoe
khoziaistvo i mirovaia politika, (No. 9), Sept. 1946, p. 52.
(22)	Guber, Natsional'no-osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie, p. 10.15
enough to replace Sjahrir as premier with the left socialist Amir
Sjarifuddin. We cannot, of course, offer any certain answer to
this question, but can perhaps make a few suggestions as to possi-
bilities .
In the first place, it should be kept in mind that, until
1948 at least, the Soviet Union tended to advance the same strategy
in Asia as it did in Europe; and in Europe it was concerned at
this time with the development of a united front from above which
would give the Communists a strong place within the existing
governmental structure. It was in Europe, and not in Asia, that
the brightest chances for Communist success were seen; and such
statements as the following on Indochina are perhaps some indica-
tion of how much the Asian situation was made an adjunct of
developments in Europe: "The further growth of Viet Nam (23)
depends to a considerable extent on its connections with a demo-
cratic France, whose progressive, democratic forces would consist-
ently support the colonial liberation movement." (24)
Secondly, and no doubt of critical importance, was the advant-
age gained by the Soviet Union in the propaganda war through its
stand as the champion of Asian nationalism in the UN. In view
of the fact that the Indonesian question was dealt with by the
Security Council several times in the course of the revolution, it
is not difficult to see why the USSR might have considered it
the wiser course to forget that the Indonesian leaders were not
all that was desired.
Perhaps, too, the Russians were to a certain extent deceived
by the rapid rise to prominence of the Indonesian left wing. The
Sajap Kiri coalition of leftist parties formed during 1946 and
1947 the backbone of political support for the government’s rela-
tively conciliatory program vis-a-vis the Dutch. Sardjono, chair-
man of the PKI since his return from Australia in the spring of
1946, was appointed head of the National Concentration, an all-party
grouping set up under government inspiration. Due to sharp politi-
cal disunity, the organization existed almost solely on paper; but
the Russians, who gave every indication of being ill-informed about
the internal politics of the Republic, seemed unaware of this.
Again, the representation of the leftist groupings in the KNIP
(the Indonesian emergency parliament) was increased considerably
by President Sukarno in the beginning of 1947, partly because of
their growing popular support and partly because the government
leaders saw in the Left Wing’s more moderate nationalism a source
of support for their negotiations with the Dutch. The Communist
(23)	Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Nam. For the sake of uniformity and
brevity, this paper follows Communist usage and refers to the
Ho Chi Minh government as Viet Nam rather than Viet Minh.
(24)	V. Vasil'eva, "Viet Nam--indokitaiskaia demokraticheskaia
respublika," Mirovoe khoziaistvo i mirovaia politika, (No. 12),
Dec. 1946, p. 89.16
Party benefitted particularly, its representation going from one
seat to thirty-five.
By 1947, Soviet commentators apparently found the situation in
Indonesia favorable enough to make such statements as the following:
The democratic elements in tLe country have become a
major force. The Communist Party of Indonesia...is one
of the largest and most influential parties in the Indo-
nesian Republic. Although only one representative of the
Communist Party is participating in the Sjarifuddin
government, its influence in the country is great. The
Communist Party heads the National Concentration, an
organization which unites all Indonesian political
parties. The Communist Party is now numerically the
largest party in Indonesia. (25)
Such an optimistic assertion may of course be ascribed in large
part to propagandistic bluster. At the same time, however, it
should be noted that the only other Asian countries about which
the same attitude was expressed were China and Ho Chi Minh’s
Viet Nam, about which there was much better reason to consider
that the Communists might be able to take control of the nationalist
movement. In point of fact, Indonesia and Viet Nam were almost
always cited together as if the two republics were of the same
political nature. Viet Nam and Indonesia were leading a ’’true war
of national liberation,” it was declared; (26) and during 1946 and
1947 the two names were increasingly linked together in Soviet dis-
cussions of the colonial revolution. (27)
Could it be that, with their lack of information on the Indo-
(25)	V. A. Avarin, Politicheskie izmeneniia na tikhom okeane posle
vtoroi mirovoi voini (Moscow, 1947), p. 13.
(26)	Avarin, Politicheskie izmeneniia, p. 11; cf. also Guber,
Natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, p. 4; E. M. Zhukov,
‘’Velikaia Oktiabr’skaia sotsialisticheskaia revoliutsiia i
kolonial’nii Vostok," Bol’shevik, (No. 20), October 1946,
pp. 45-46.
(27)	In evaluating the extent to which the Russians were overly
sanguine in their hopes for the Indonesian situation it is,
of course, of critical importance to know whether or not cer-
tain of the supposedly non-Communist leaders of the Sajap Kiri
actually were secret members of the PKI at this time, as they
claimed a year later. If it is true, the major Left Wing
leaders, except for Sjahrir, were Communists; and from July
1947 to January 1948 Indonesia had a Communist premier (Amir
Sjarifuddin). Opinions as to the truthfulness of their
assertions have been many and strong; but unfortunately the
writer has been unable to find anything that might be viewed
as concrete proof one way or the other, and so we must leave
this vital portion of the picture a blank.17
nesian situation, the Russians were misled into a gross over-
estimation of pro-Communist strength in Indonesia? If the Soviets
were deceived by the Marxist terminology and the revolutionary,
anti-capitalist declarations of Indonesia's nationalist leaders,
it would not have been the first time in history they were so
taken in. We remember the Chinese revolution of the 1920's, when
the revolutionary Marxist bearing of the Kuomintang's leaders
helped lull the Russians into a belief that the nationalist leaders
were a good deal more sympathetic to the Communist cause than was
actually the case. Then, too, there was the fact of the Left
Wing’s increasing power and the dependence of the government on
its support: there was at least some good reason to hope that
after the independence of the country had been assured the Com-
munist-oriented political elements would be in a position to in-
fluence and perhaps take over the government. In this case, it might
have seemed unwise for the extreme left to press its cause too
far at this time; for if it failed, the non-Communist forces would
be alienated and its chances of later assuming power would be
seriously diminished; while if it won, the all-important American
pressure against Dutch military intervention would very likely be
removed. If this was indeed a Soviet consideration, then the
survival of the Republic was the most important task for the
Communists| at that time, and the interests of the nationalists and
Communists would run parallel for the duration of the revolution.
It might be appropriate to interject here some observations
on a dilemma which has always affected the Soviet attitude towards
Communist movements in other countries. It has frequently been
observed that the interests of Russian diplomacy are not always
identical with those of international Communism, as was well
evidenced during the pre-war period, when Soviet foreign policy
and the activities of the Comintern were all too often a source
of embarrassment to each other. That the Soviet Union tended to
value its state interest above the welfare of the other Communist
parties is reflected in the decline and eventual abandonment of
the Comintern.
When dealing with the colonial question, the matter was even
more complicated from the Soviet point of view. In the first place,
as we have previously noted, the USSR was well aware of the fact
that what went on in the colonies affected politics in the mother-
land, and it was careful not to push the colonial issue too
strongly when it wanted to preserve good relations with the
European power. Secondly, the Soviet Union showed, in actual
practice, a distince disbelief that the Communists could really
lead the national revolution in a colonial or semi-colonial country.
This may have been reflection of the general Soviet contempt for
the abilities of the other Communist parties, a disdain which be-
came increasingly evident as the years failed to produce another
successful Communist revolution. It may also have had its origin
in the experience of the Russian revolution, when Lenin had argued
to such good effect that the first task of the Bolsheviks was to
help the bourgeoisie gain power over the feudal regime, and that
only after the bourgeois-democratic revolution had been accomplished
were they to turn on their erstwhile allies and seize power from18
them. While this strategy was not made dogma for the Asian Com-
munists, it may have encouraged Stalin's disastrous belief that the
Communists could squeeze the Kuomintang like a lemon and then throw
it away; and the same psychology may also have been of some weight
in Soviet support of the Indonesian nationalists in the period
discussed in this paper.
It is perhaps superfluous to point out that the "lessons of
October," great as their prestige was in Soviet thought, were
actually applicable only to a certain, rather unusual revolutionary
situation. The Leninist analysis implied that only the bourgeoisie
(in the colonial case, bourgeois nationalists) would be strong
enough to lead the revolution against the feudal/colonial govern-
ment; but once they achieved power they would not have the strength
to maintain themselves or dispose of the Communists. On the other
hand, the Communists would not be strong enough themselves to
seize power from the feudal/colonial regime but would be able to
take it from the bourgeois nationalists. In the case of the
Russian revolution this was a perfectly valid assumption; but, as
Chiang Kai-shek demostrated in the 1920's, it was quite possible
that the nationalists would not only be strong enough to lead the
revolution but, having squeezed the Communists out like a lemon,
to ungratefully throw them away.
Whatever feelings may have underlain the Soviet scepticism
as to the prospects of Communist colonial victory, it had the
practical effect of strengthening Soviet support for anti-Western
nationalist movements in preference to emphasis on local Communist
victory. This found perhaps its earliest—and crassest—expression
in Russian support of Kemal’s Turkey even after its bloody purge
of the Turkish Left:
We know quite well that, for example, Communists are
murdered in just as base a manner in Kemalist Turkey as
in social-democratic bourgeois Germany. Naturally the
CI /the Communist International/ will battle most sharply
agaTnst such methods of struggTe and against the persecu-
tion of Communists in general. However, the CI will con-
tinue its support in cases where a really great revolu-
tionary movement—perhaps half-nationalist, but really
revolutionary--is in process, insofar as this movement is
directed against all imperialism;... (28)
What all this comes down to is that the Soviet Union was willing
to support a government, non-Communist or even anti-Communist,
as long as the foreign policy of that government was in line with
that of the Soviet Union We see this carried over into the postwar
period, when the Soviet Union backed the Indonesian Republic, which
was at odds with the Dutch, and exhibited grave doubts about the
Indian nationalists, who were coming to an agreement with the
(28) Zinoviev, at the third Comintern congress (1921). Protokolle
des III. Kongresses der Kommunistischen Internationale,
(Hamburg, 1921), p. 1010.19
British, although the leaders of both Asian groups held approxi-
mately the same views regarding Communism.
So far we have made very little mention of China in our dis-
cussion of the Soviet attitude on Asia in this period, though that
country was a busy center of Communist activity and Soviet interest.
In point of fact, however, there was surprisingly little mention
of the Chinese Communists and of the Chinese civil war in Soviet
comment during 1946 and 1947. Sometimes the Chinese conflict was
ranked alongside the Vietnamese and Indonesian struggle and some-
times not; certainly there was no general recognition of the
Chinese Communists’ distinctive views or consideration that they
formed the example for Asia. On the contrary, the patterns for
the Asian revolution appeared, if anything, to be Viet Nam and
Indonesia, which were "carrying high the banner of freedom, the
banner of struggle for independence, into the very heart of
Asia." (29) It seems fairly evident that until surprisingly late
in the game the Soviet Union was doubtful of Communist success in
the Chinese civil war. This attitude, which constitutes a striking
disbelief in the prospects of immediate Communist victory in Asia,
was reflected in the USSR’s reluctance to support the Chinese
Communists after World War II and its continued recognition of the
Kuomintang government as the legal government of China. (30) It
is doubtful if the Chinese Communists would have been so thoroughly
abandoned had the Russians realized that they were very soon to
become the masters of China; but all outward indications are that
the USSR still felt this an unlikely prospect.
It would, of course, be highly desirable to find some link
between Soviet comment and actual events in Indonesia, to check
whether, as in the case of China, Russian actions would correspond to
the attitude apparent in Soviet writings. There is such a link:
but unfortunately, as we shall see, it by no means constitutes a
water-tight proof.
Both Soviet comment and Indonesian Communist policy emphasized
the necessity of supporting the nationalist movement and preserving
the unity of Indonesian anti-imperialist forces during this period.
The Soviet press looked with considerable sympathy on the moderate
socialist premier Sjahrir right up to the time of his fall in
(29)	E. M. Zhukov, "K polozheniu v Indii," Mirovoe khoziaistvo i
mirovaia politika, (No. 7), July, 1947, p. 3.
(30)	It has also been pointed out that another reason for the
Soviet effort to maintain good relations with the Nationalist
government may have been a desire to prevent further American
intervention in the Chinese civil war: cf. Max Beloff,
Soviet^Policy in the Far East (London, 1953), p. 43. Beloff
shares the opinion that the Soviet Union at this time
apparently did not believe the Chinese Communists could gain
power by themselves (Ibid., p. 36).20
June 1947, (31) giving him probably more favorable coverage than
any other Indonesian leader up to that time. In that month, how-
ever, Sjahrir found it necessary to make considerable concessions
to the Dutch in the face of a Netherlands ultimatum. The more
radical Left Wing leaders—Tan Ling Djie, Abdulmadjid, Wikana,
Amir Sjarifuddin—refused to sanction these concessions and by
withdrawing their support from Sjahrir brought about his resigna-
tion. On the same day that these events took place, Setiadjit, a
prominent Left Wing leader, returned from Europe, where he had
been attending a conference of the Communist-oriented World
Federation of Trade Unions in Prague. He immediately met with the
other Sajap Kiri leaders, and "in an excellent speech he gave an
exposition of his experiences of the W.F.T.U, conference in Prague
and the general situation in Europe-1947, thus stressing to them
that Mr, Sjahrir’s view on the Indonesian issues and the relations
of the big powers with regard to it, is just! We may safely
assume that Mr. Setiadjid’s argumentation has evidently caused
the sudden change of view of the Left Wing,..." (32) The Sajap
Kiri leaders, on hearing Setiadjit, reversed their position and
asked Sjahrir to return to office. Sjahrir did not resume his
post; but when Sjarifuddin took up the job in his stead he proved
willing to grant even more concessions to the Dutch than Sjahrir
had.
It seems fairly safe to assume that Setiadjit, who was import-
ant but by no means the final authority in the Left Wing grouping,
was backed by more than his own personal opinion if he was to
cause such a complete shift on the part of the other Sajap Kiri
leaders. He, Sjarifuddin, Wikana, Tan Ling Djie, and Abdulmadjid
all claimed a year later to have been secret members of the Communist
Party at this time; (33) if we accept their claim the question of
"orders from Moscow" naturally arises in the matter of the June
reversals. It must be noted that there is no definite proof of
these leaders’ actually having been party members before 1948; but
all of them were far from unsympathetic to Communism in the period
at hand and would doubtless have given considerable weight to
European Communist opinion. Here, however, we face the problem of
not knowing in how far Setiadjit, if he had tried to transmit the
European Communist view, was rendering an accurate interpretation
of it, for the specific events to which his actions were related
(though only Sjahrir’s fall, not the Dutch ultimatum or his reaction
to it) occurred only after Setiadjit had left Europe, and so he
could have received no direct reaction to them. Again, we might
note that Setiadjit spent some time in the Netherlands on his trip;
and the possibility should not be excluded that he there came to
(31)	Cf., for example articles in Izvestia, June 4, 1947; and
Trud, June 13, 1947.
(32)	The Voice of Free Indonesia, June 1947, p, 548, /An Indo-
nesian government publication /.	—
(33)	Cf. George McT. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia
(Ithaca, 1953), p. 273.	——21
appreciate the Dutch intention to attack at the slightest provoca-
tion. It may be that the radical Left Wing leaders had not pre-
viously been aware of the extreme gravity of the situation and that
they reversed their position and made further concessions in the
hopes of staving off a Dutch attack. Lastly, we cannot be sure
that Setiadjit, if he was influenced by European Communist opinion,
was not transmitting the Dutch Communist view rather than the
Soviet attitude. In view of our present inability to answer these
important questions,therefore, we cannot point to the Sajap Kiri’s
reversal as tangible evidence of Soviet policy in Indonesia. (34)
In considering the Russian position, it should be kept in
mind that Soviet comment on the Indonesian situation never openly
urged compromise on the part of the Indonesians; and indeed it was
patently not in the interests of the USSR to play the role of
discourager of the Indonesian revolution. What support it lent to
the moderate view was of a passive sort, consisting mostly of praise
for the moderate Republican leaders, especially Sjahrir. Similarly,
the Soviet press voiced no objections to the Indonesians' conclu-
sion of the Linggadjati Agreement with the Netherlands at the end
of 1946, except for some well-founded doubts as to whether the
Dutch intended to keep the truce it entailed.
The July "police action" by the Netherlands against the
Republic led to a sharp Soviet denunciation of the Dutch and a
condemnation of Netherlands perfidy in breaking its agreement with
(34) It should be noted that some later criticism of the Sjahrir
concessions was voiced on the Soviet part, the following
version of the cabinet's fall being given:
Notwithstanding the fully understandable indignation of
the Indonesian people at the aggressive policy of Holland,
the Republican government of Sutan Sjahrir took a concilia-
tory position. It still hoped to avoid the outbreak of a
bloody war. Indignation at the Dutch ultimatum was shown
in the Indonesian parliament and in the political parties
whose leaders had entered into the Sjahrir government.
A resolution sharply criticizing the conciliatory posi-
tion of the Sjahrir cabinet was introduced into the
Indonesian cabinet.
Late in the evening of the same day, June 26, Sjahrir
handed President Sukarno the cabinet’s resignation. ...
After a stormy debate in parliament, the resolution
against the Sjahrir cabinet was taken back. However, the
cabinet was not able to renew its work in its former com-
position.
(A. Guber, Voina v Indonezii (Moscow, 1947), p. 16. Public
lecture delivered August 7, 1947, in the Moscow Lecture Hall.)
Since, however, this analysis was made after the failure of
the Sjahrir and Sjarifuddin concessions to prevent the Dutch
from attacking, the likelihood is too great that it is an
ex post facto criticism for us to accept it as evidence of the
original Soviet attitude to the concessions; and, unfortunately,
the writer has so far found no Soviet opinion on the matter ex-
pressed before the Dutch attack.22
the Indonesians. "All this bears witness to the fact that the
Linggac^ati Agreement was for the Dutch forces only a maneuvre taken
to gain time," Izvestia declared. As for the reason behind the
attack, the paper contended that "It need only be remembered that
up to this time Dutch interests have been selling Indonesian
’futures’ to the American monopolists, who are covetous of the
rubber, tin, oil and other riches of Indonesia. Having received
such solid euipport, the Dutch colonizers went over into open
military action against the Indonesian people," (35)
Note that in this analysis American imperialists have re-
placed the British as the power supporting the Dutch. This
change, which had been developing since the latter part of 1946,
can be explained specifically in the Indonesian case by the fact
that by late 1946 the British troops had left Indonesia. However,
the substitution of the American imperialist menace for the British
was a general phenomenon in Soviet comment on the colonial question
at this time, and it seems quite safe to l>bel it a product of the
gathering cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Since America had shown much less inclination to take sides
with the colonies against their European masters than Soviet
analysis had originally prophesied, the Communists also began to
revise their theories on the American attitude towards the colonial
situation. The United States was afraid to go all the way in
supporting the independence movement, it was considered: for the
American imperialists feared the colonial masses, once freed of
foreign domination, would not allow themselves to be exploited by
American interests. Therefore, the analysis ran, the United
States sought to work through the colonial powers in cases where
the nationalist movement seemed too independent for American tastes.
Thus, it was alleged, the United States stood behind the Dutch in
their police action and tried to keep the Security Council out
of the picture:
...the government of the USA has done everything in order
that, in the first place, the UN might be kept from han-
dling the Indonesian question, and, secondly, to demon-
strate to the Dutch government that it could wholly rely
on American cooperation in its war against the Indonesian
Republic.
The *good offices^' /offered by the US to both sides
after the Dutch attack/, which the American officials
bedeck with talk abouT the defense of independence and
the democratic rights of the people, serve to encourage
the Dutch colonizers in their efforts to put down the
liberation movement in Indonesia. Former Indonesian
(35) Izvestia, July 25, 1947, Cf. also articles in the Izvestia
issues of August 1 and 27, 1947; 0. Chechetkina, "In Indonesia,
New Times, July 20, 1947, pp. 18-24; and "The War in Indo-
nesia," New Times, July 20, 1947, pp. 1-2, for reactions to
the Dutch attack.23
premier Sjahrir was perfectly justified in stating at a
press conference in Washington that "the American position
in relation to the independence won by the Indonesians
has been deeply disappointing.V (36)
We have previously discussed the Soviet desire to keep the
Indonesian question under the jurisdiction of the Security Council
and the probable motives underlying it. However, when in August
1947 the Council voted to set up a Committee of Good Offices, with
no East European representation, to observe the cease-fire arrange-
ments in Indonesia, the Russians did not invoke their veto. No
doubt a factor in this restraint was a realization on the Soviet
side that to do so would mean that no action at all would be taken
by the UN and that responsibility for this might be placed on the
USSR. (37) No love was lost by the Russians on the committee,
though, and for the rest of the revolution the Soviet Union made
every effort to get the Indonesian problem back under the direct
supervision of the Security Council, where the Eastern bloc could
also make its voice heard.
(36)	Izvestia, September 25, 1947
(37)	The Soviet Union took an exemplary stand in the UN discussions
from the Indonesian point of view. It supported an Australian
proposal calling for an immediate cease-fire and arbitration
by a third party; this was defeated when the US threw its
weight against it. The Russians called for the withdrawal of
Dutch forces to pre-attack positions; only Poland voted for
this. They then supported an American compromise proposal
calling for a cease-fire. When Sjahrir arrived to plead the
Indonesian case at the UN and called for a return to the
original Australian proposal, with a return of Dutch troops
to their prior positions, he was supported only by the USSR
and Poland. A Soviet proposal to establish a commission of
Security Council representatives to watch over the execution
of the cease-fire order was supported by most Council members,
including the US, but vetoed by France. The French, no doubt
with the Indochina situation in mind, would only allow the
commission to observe, not superintend, the cease-fire, and
demanded that the commission consist of representatives of
governments having career consuls at Batavia. This automati-
cally excluded the East European members of the Council,
Russia and Poland, plus two other pro-Indonesian countries,
Colombia and Syria (Cf. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution,
p. 217, note 13). Finally, the Americans proposed a Committee
of Good Offices, of which one member would be elected by
each of the two sides and the third member by the two thus
chosen. This proposal was finally accepted, over Russian,
Polish, and Syrian abstention.24
The Two Camp Doctrine
So far, the Soviet attitude towards Southeast Asia had developed
fairly gradually towards a firmer support of the revolutionary in-
dependence movement. In the fall of 1947, however, the Soviet
world view underwent a drastic revision which was to have great
significance for the Indonesian revolution. The change was not
without portent, since for some time Soviet-Western relations had
been growing rapidly worse, and it was obvious that the popular
Front tactics and the postwar attempts to win parliamentary power
in West Europe were long outmoded. The widening gap between the
two points of view left less and less room for any compromise or
any neutralism.
In Asia those countries which, like Indonesia, were at daggers
drawn with the colonial powers did not feel at first any adverse
effects of this change; if anything, it was to their advantage, for
it meant stronger Soviet opposition to the colonial powers. For
India, Burma, and those other colonies which were finding a peace-
ful road to independence, the case was quite different. We remember
Varga’s theory that since World War II the colonial countries had
been economically much less dependent on the metropolis. This
analysis had given a doctrinal opportunity for deviation from the
old Marxist argument that no imperial power would peacefully grant
real independence to a colony, so that if the Soviet Union chose
to adopt a favorable attitude towards the new Asian governments,
here was its excuse. The Soviet Union, however, did not choose to
do so. During 1946 and early 1947 Russian comment on the Indian
question was hesitant, apparently not yet having detexnnined on an
attitude towards the new state and its leaders. In that time, the
march of events elsewhere in the world made it less and less likely
that the USSR would look with favor upon any nation which tried
to straddle the gulf between East and West.
Gradually, Varga’s theories lost their authority. In dis-
cussions of the colonial question, the optimistic view expressed
by him on the colonies' economic position was replaced by arguments
that the colonies had gained nothing, not even as a result of the
war:	"In the vast majority of the colonies there was not created,
even as a result of the Second World War, the basic pre-requisites
for their economic independence: they lack every industry, do not
produce the means of production, do not have machines." (38) On
this count, it was declared, the colonial powers could feel safe
in allowing them formal independence and the development of some
light industry; for the imperialists would remain in real control
of the economy, and they would "calculate that, being the bosses
of the colonies, they will be able to direct the process of their
capitalist development and, at the proper moment, will be able
to call a halt to this development, as they did after the First
World War.” (39)
(38) V. Vasil’eva, Noveishie tendentsii v politike imperiali*uaa,"
Mirovoe khoziaistvo i mirovaia politika, May 1947, p. 64.
(39) Vasil’eva, Noveishie tendentsii, p. 64.25
Such a pessimistic view augered ill for Soviet sympathy to-
wards Britain's former colonies. Other developments in Soviet
colonial theory were also pointing to a less compromising view
towards the Asian nationalists. In the spring of 1947, the
Economics Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences held a
session to discuss the Varga doctrine. As was to be expected,
Varga's theories were vigorously condemned. On the colonial
issue, however, no new dogma had apparently been decided on:
and there took place one of those rare events in Stalinist Russia,
a political argument. I. A. Shneerson, who presented the main
denunciation of Varga, developed in his exposition the thesis that
the development of two opposing political camps had affected the
colonial situation by sharpening the conflict between the imperi-
alist powers and the national-liberation movement; in Indonesia,
Viet Nam, and China, he noted, it had come to open combat. "On
the other hand, such a considerable growth of working class
strength has frightened the colonial grande bourgeoisie, so that
it is willing to come to an agreement with any imperialism—
English or American. The national bourgeoisie of a number of
colonies has completely and irrevocably entered on the road of
national betrayal. Hegemony in the national-liberation movement
of the colonial peoples has in a number of colonies passed into
the hands of the working class. Together with this, conditions
are being created for the realization of reforms of a socialist
character alonside those of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist
nature, conditions for a struggle of an original sort for a people's
democracy." (40)
A number of the other delegates found themselves unable to
accept the far-reaching implications of Shneerson's thought.
The economist Lemin argued that "in a number of colonial countries
a united popular front is still possible to a certain extent with
progressive segments of the bourgeoisie." (41) China specialist
Maslennikov shared this objection: "Naturally there exists in
the colonial countries a radical, democratically inclined bour-
geoisie, which must not be completely alienated from participation
in the national-liberation movement." "However," he added, "its
role must not be overestimated." (42)
At the bottom of this discussion lay a basic problem of Com-
munist tactics in the colonial world. Communist policy in this
area had, since the 1920's been formulated in terms of the role
played by what came to be called the "national bourgeoisie"—an
ill-defined group that included local entrepreneurs, civil ser-
vants, intellectuals, and so on. The national bourgeoisie was a
class located, in the Communist analysis, somewhere between the
(40)	"Poslevoennoe obostrenie obshchevo krizisa kapitalisma,"
Mirovoe khoziaistvo i mirovaia politika, (No. 6), June 1947,
ρΊ 10?. (Hereafter referred to as Poslevoennoe obostrenie).
(41)	Poslevoennoe obostreniej p. 111.
(42)	Poslevoennoe obostrenie, p. 115.26
petty aoux ,ί eoisie, which could be counted on to support the colonial
revolution, and the compradore bourgeoisie, a segment of the grande
bourgeoisie which identified its interests with those of the im-
perialists. The national bourgeoisie generally supported the inde-
pendence movement, but it was unreliable since, if the working class
movement became too strong within the revolutionary camp, it was
likely to desert the national cause on the theory that the imperi-
alists presented the lesser of two evils. Now all this sounds like
an abstruse bit of Marxist dialectic until we realize that the
Communists almost invariably identified the national bourgeoisie
with the non-Communist nationalist movement, and that when it was
decreed that the national bourgeoisie had gone over to the imperi-
alist camp it meant the end of Communist cooperation with the
nationalist movement. Thus it was decided in 1923 at the Sixth
Comintern Congress that the national bourgeoisie had deserted the
revolution, and Communist parties were instructed to oppose the
nationalist movements as traitors to the revolution. It is this
position towards which Shneerson leaned and towards which Maslennikov
and Lemin were not yet willing to go. The function of the Soviet
political scholar being less to develop his own analysis than to
provide a doctrinal justification for the policies of the State,
this breach in the monolithic unity of Stalinest political thought
would seem a fair indication that the scholars concerned were as
yet unaware of any clear-cut Soviet policy on the question at hand.
Reflecting the apparent fact that no decision had been
reached regarding the colonial situation, the Soviet attitude
towards India continued to show no clear line. The Nehru-inspired
Inter-Asian Relations Conference was viewed by the Soviet as
playing "a conspicuous, progressive role in the life of the Asian
countries'^; it was hoped the meeting would make for greater Asian
solidarity against the imperialist menace. (43)
About the same time, however, E. M. Zhukov came forth with
an analysis of Indian politics in which he abandoned all tolerance
towards the Indian nationalbocixg coisie and declared that "the
activity of the Indian working class, its leading role in the
struggle against English rule, is pushing the grande bourgeoisie
more and more strongly into the imperialist camp, causing it to
take an anti-national position." (44) It is the grande bourgeoisie,
he considered, that formed the backbone of Ghandism, which it saw
(43)	Izvestia, May 31, 1947.
(44)	E. M. Zhukov, "K polozheniiu v Indii,'·* Mirovoe khosiaistvo
i mirovaia politika, (No. 7), July 1947^ ρξ	This version
is not IJhukov's original report, which was delivered before
the Academy of Social Sciences on May 11, 1947, but an abridge-
ment of it made by Zhukov. We do not know, of course, whether
the rapidly changing political situation at that time caused
him to alter the emphasis of the report before publication.
Not too much significance can therefore be attached to the
exact date; and we should probably best consider it simply
as coming from the late spring or early summer of 1947.27
as a philosophy that would dull the popular political conscience
and lead it from the fight against the imperialists. Neutralism
was no policy of true impartiality but was a tactic adopted by
the bourgeoisie to justify its collaboration with British capital-
ism against American economic penetration of India: "...in Indian
bourgeois circles there is a wide-spread ’theory’ of the necessity
of observing ’neutrality’ in a conflict which might arise due to
American expansion. In point of fact, this ’theory’ of neutrality
serves to justify a policy of collaboration with English capitalism,
a policy of establishing closer contact between the Indian bour-
geoisie and English capital." (45) In the face of this discouraging
picture, Zhukov expressed the now-familiar hope that the Indo-
nesian and Vietnamese examples would not be without effect on
India. (46)
In June, the USSR Academy of Sciences held a joint session
of the Pacific Institute and the Institutes of History, Philosophy,
Economics, Law, and Language and Literature to discuss the sub-
ject of India. In the political discussions, opinion was again
divided on the role of the Indian national bourgeoisie, but the
voices supporting the Indian nationalists were noticeably weak.
Soviet Indian specialist Mel’man presented the thesis that
the Indian bourgeoisie had been considerably strengthened during
the war due to the rapid development of Indian industry at that
time. This class nursed a strong resentment against the English,
who sought to prevent the increase of native capitalist competi-
tion. The grudge was forgotten, however, when the Indian masses
showed signs of becoming too strong for bourgeois tastes. There
thus came about a rapprochement between the English imperialists
and the Indian bourgeoisie, which found its expression in the
peaceful granting of formal independence by the British to a
Congress-led India. (47)
Mel’man's thesis was generally supported by A. M. D’iakov,
who denounced the British-Indian independence agreement as the
result of collaboration between the imperialists and the Indian
bourgeoisie. However, he suggested, a part of the bourgeoisie,
chiefly those belonging to the ethnic minorities which were afraid
of being swallowed up by the majority group, might join in the
(45)	Zhukov, K polozhenilu, pp. 6-8.
(46)	Zhukov, K polozheniiu, p. 3.
(47)	"Izuchenie Indii," Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR, (No. 8), 1947,
p. 86. This article is a summary of the reports to the
conference. The reports of Balabushevich, Mel’man, and
D’iakov, the speakers most opposed to the Indian national
bourgeoisie at the meeting, are given in full in Volume III
of the Uchennie zapiski of the Pacific Institute. However,
since this volume was not published until 1949, there is a
possibility that the full reports may have been somewhat
altered to bring them politically up to date.23
fight against the agreement. (43)
According to V. Balabushevich, the Indian bourgeoisie was
trying to throw off the colonial yoke, but since at the same time
it was attempting to serve its own interests by maintaining a
colonial living standard for the workers and preventing the rise
of a powerful labor movement, not too much could be expected of
it. (49)
We might wonder, in view of this unenthusiastic attitude ex-
pressed towards nationalist India, if there were any conditions
under which a more friendly Soviet view towards India could develop.
In his report to the conference, A. A. Guber suggested that there
were, if the Indian nationalists followed the example of the Indo-
nesians. Guber explained that whereas just after World War I the
Indian National Congress had given inspiration to the Indonesian
nationalists, after World War II Indonesia formed an example for
India to follow. He emphasized that "although the attitude of
the /Tndian7 bourgeoisie to the Indonesian independence struggle
was a reserved one, it was the democratic masses of India which
looked to the example of Indonesia, where it had proved possible
to combine the struggle for national independence with a struggle
for a radical social reform." (50)
Guber's remarks, which unfortunately we have only in their
condensed version, (51) are interesting to us on three counts. In
the first place, we see the Indonesian revolution again put forth
as an exemplary type of national independence struggle. Secondly,
we note that the reason given for the Indonesian Republic’s superior
nature was that the revolution was aimed not only,at independence
but a far-reaching social reform. The question naturally arises as
to whether Guber considered, contrary to the normal pattern of
Communist thought, that the bourgeoisie itself was leading a
struggle for radical reform, or whether he felt that the far Left,
rather than the bourgeois nationalists, had control of the revolu-
tion. Unfortunately, the summary of Guber’s report which is
available to us does not deal with this; but, as we shall see,
Soviet comment came increasingly to assume that the latter was
the case and eventually reached the surprising conclusion that
Indonesia was a people’s democracy. Guber*s statement on the
matter is of particular interest because it referred to an Indonesia
still governed by Sutan Sjahrir, who, though the radical Left was
well represented in his cabinet, was clearly not pro-Communist
himself.
(48) Izuchenie Indii, p. 88.
(49)	Izuchenie	Indii,	pp.	88-89.
(50)	Izuchenie	Indii,	p.	91.
(51) His discussion was omitted—understandably in view of what
happened in 1948—from the publication of the full reports
two years later.29
We might well inquire as to the nature of the "radical social
reform" being pushed by the Indonesian Republic. If we do, we will
be hard put to find any. Neither the Sjahrir nor the Sjarifuddin
governments payed very much attention to internal reforms in this
period, for the very good reason that they had their hands full
with securing the Republic against the Dutch. No major land re-
form was carried out, large land-holdings being anyway almost wholly
restricted to the princely territories of Djogjakarta and Surakarta.
Foreign enterprises and land under lease to foreign-owned estates
had been guaranteed by the Indonesian government under the
Linggadjati Agreement, a concession supported by, among others, the
Indonesian Communists. We must thus either assume that the Soviet
political analysts were quite badly informed on the Indonesian
domestic saene--which is by no means unlikely, to judge from the
whole course of Soviet comment on Indonesia during this period—
or look elsewhere for the real reason behind Soviet approval of
the Republic.
There seem to be two obvious points at which the Indonesian
situation differed from that of India. In the first place, the
pro-Communist Left enjoyed what was apparently a much more favorable
position in the Indonesian government than in the Indian. Secondly,
Indonesia was engaged in a difficult and sometimes bloody struggle
against its colonial master, whereas India had come to terms with
Britain—a most suspicious act in Soviet eyes, and one which did not
suit Russian interests at all. It is probably useless to ponder
which of these two elements formed the basis of Soviet preference
for the Indonesian over the Indian pattern; most likely both of
them entered into it.
The conferences discussed above cannot be considered policy-
making events, of course; but, inasmuch as Soviet political theory
serves primarily to reflect and justify government policy, they
seem symptomatic of the Soviet attitude towards the colonial
question. The fact that they did not display the monolothic unity
of argument so rigidly enforced in Stalinist Russia, and the fact
that the differences in thought continued for some time are per-
haps some indication that the Soviet policy-makers themselves did
not know what line to take. Perhaps they found it unimportant,
for the parts of Asia which this problem concerned were still a
long way off in the Soviet view of things, and for a long time no
decision was taken.
One of the few major points on which Soviet comment on
Southeast Asia seemed to be agreed was its favorable view of Indo-
nesia and Viet Nam. Sometimes Maoist China was added to the two
republics as a major force in the Asian revolution; we learn that
"only the growth of the national-liberation movement among the
colonial peoples of Asia (especially in China, Indonesia, and the
Indochinese peninsula) is a stumbling-block to the victory of the
US monopolies in this continent.” (52) In retaliation for Indo-
(52) B. M. Shtein, "Poslevoennaia ekonomicheskaia ekspansiia SShA v
Azii," Vestnik Lenmgradskogo universiteta, (No. 10), October
1947, p. 64.30
nesia's opposition to American economic designs, the US was doing
everything to destroy the Republic:
American government officials and diplomats are bending
every effort to place the yoke of imperialist slavery
once more on the Indonesian people and to assert them-
selves conclusively in this richest part of the g/Lobe.
The Anglo-American reactionaries have sabotaged all the
proposals of the Soviet representative and the represent-
atives of other countries in the Security Council for a
cessation of hostilities in Indonesia and for the granting
to the Indonesian people of the right to arrange their
own governmental existence as they see fit.·’ (53)
In September 1947, with the establishment of the Cominform,
the Soviet Union buried the last remnants of its wartime alliance.
At the founding session of this body, it was stated that:
While the war was on, the Allied States in the war
against Germany and Japan went together and comprised one
camp. However, already during the war there were dif-
ferences in the Allied camp as regards the definition of
both war aims and the tasks of the post-war peace
settlement. ..	..Two diametrically opposed political lines
took shape: on the one side the policy of the USSR and
the other democratic countries directed at undermining
imperialism and consolidating democracy, and on the
other side, the policy of the United States and Britain
directed at strengthening imperialism and stifling
democracy......
Under these circumstances it is necessary that the anti-
imperialist, democratic camp should close its ranks,
draw up an agreed program of actions and work out its
own tactics against the main forces of the imperialist
camp, against American imperialism and its British and
French allies* against the right-wing Socialists, pri-
marily in Bi · ain and France..
This imposes a special task on the Communist Parties.
They must take into their hands the banner of defense of
the national independence and sovereignty of their
countries. If the Communist Parties stick firmly to
their positions, if they do not let themselves be
intimidated and blackmailed, if they courageously
Safeguard democracy and the national sovereignty, liberty
and independence of their countries, if in their struggle
against attempts to enslave their countries economically
and politically they will be able to take the lead of
(53) "Razgrom Iaponskikh imperialistov i bor’ba za mir i bezopasnost
narodov na Vostoke," Bol'shevik, (No. 17), September 15,
1947, p. 6.31
all the forces that are ready to fight for honour and
national independence, no plan for the enslavement of
the countries of Europe and Asia can be carried into
effect. (54)
This "two camp doctrine" was propounded in greater detail by the
Soviet spokesman, Andrei Zhdanov, who declared that:
This /anti-fascist7 camp is based on the USSR and the
new democracies. —It also includes countries that have
broken with imperialism and have firmly set foot on the
path of democratic development, such as Rumania, Hungary,
and Finland. Indonesia and Viet Nam are associated with
it; it has the sympathy of India, Egypt and Syria. The
anti-imperialist camp is backed by the labour and demo-
cratic movement and by the fraternal Communist parties in
all countries, by the fighters for national liberation
in the colonies and dependencies, by all progressive
and democratic forces in every country. (55)
The lack of importance ascribed to the Asian situation by
Soviet thought at this time seems clearly evidenced in Zhdanov's
speech, which, except for the above passage and a short paragraph
observing the weakening hold of Western imperialism on Asia, ig-
nored the colonial problem completely. His lengthy analysis of
the two camp division does not supply us with any indication of a
clear-cut Soviet attitude towards Asian nationalism. The special
position of Indonesia and Viet Nam and the ignoring of China may
seem familiar to us, but Zhdanov's view of India, Egypt, and Syria
appears much more sympathetic than that expressed by most Soviet
analysts at that time. The most likely explanation for Zhdanov’s
mentioning of these three countries would seem to be that they
were all engaged at the time in disputes of varying seriousness
with Great Britain; that the statement had no real policy impli-
cation would seem indicated by the fact that Soviet journalistic
comment on India did not shift towards a more favorable attitude.
Zhdanov's speech, it would seem, gave an authoritative outline
of the two camp doctrine only for Europe; and the formal adapta-
tion of the concept to Asia was still to come.
(54)	"Declaration of the Conference of Representatives of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the Bulgarian Workers' Party
(Communists), the Communist Party of Rumania, the Hungarian
Communist Party, the Polish Workers’ Party, the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), the Communist Party
of France, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and the
Communist Party of Italy on the International Situation,"
For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy, (No. 1),
November 10, 194?, p. 1.
(55)	A. Zhdanov, "The International Situation," For a Lasting
Peace, for a People’s Democracy, (No. 1), November It), Γ947,32
With the adoption of the two camp doctrine, the moribund Varga
theory was formally denounced, (56) thus severing all ideological
connections with the wartime alliance. Still, however, no hard
and fast line for Asia was laid down. Then, in November, the
Pacific Institute of the Academy of Sciences held a conference on
the influence of the October Revolution on the countries of the
East. As might be expected, most of the meeting’s time was devoted
to a portrayal of the Soviet Union as an inspiration and example
for the Asian revolutions. Two reports, however, are worth ob-
serving in some detail.
An analysis of the Indonesian situation was presented by
A. A. Guber, who apparently felt that he need have no hesitation in
stating to which of the two camps the Republic belonged. "Today,”
he declared, "Indonesia belongs to the anti-imperialist front;
the ideas of Lenin and Stalin have directed the Indonesian people
in the struggle for independence and true democracy." (57) These
are quite strong words, but, as we shall see, they were not atypical
for the Soviet view of the Republic at this time.
Of considerably interest, too, is a report by G. V. Astaf’ev,
who spoke on the Chinese concept of New Democracy. The political
system of the new China, he explained, was original in that it
consisted of a bloc of all democratic parties under the leadership
of the Communist Party; and its economic system called for the
existence of capitalist forms under socialist control, at least for
the first period of revolutionary rule. Astaf’ev concluded that
"the new democracy in China is a phenomenon of the universal develop-
ment in the capitalist world of new, transitional systems, which,
while retaining capitalist forms under public cemtrol, work towards
the maturing of socialist elements with the goal of public owner-
ship and collective forms of labor." (58)
Here is one of the first occasions in which the uniqueness and
importance of the Chinese example was publicly observed in Soviet
political analysis. It was important not only because it denoted
a gradual appreciation of Chinese Communist power, but because it
meant a break with the traditional view of the Communist role in
the Asian revolution. As we have seen in Astaf’ev’s analysis, the
Soviet Union saw the key to Mao's New Democracy in the hegemony of
the Communist Party over a broad united front which included
various other anti-imperialist parties. Such an analysis combines
a friendly attitude toward the national bourgeoisie—hitherto a
characteristic of the united iron from above—with the demand that
the revolutionary movement be under the leadership of the Communists—
(56)	The November 1947 issue of the Kon’iunkturnii biulleten’
mirovogo khoziaistva i mirovoi politiki is devoted to this
denunciation.	“
(57)	"Velikaia oktiabr’skaia revoliutsiia i strani Vostoka," Vestnik
Akademii Nauk SSSR, (No. 1), January 1948, p. 41.
(58)	Velikaia oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia, p. 41.33
a feature of the united front from below. (59) In effect, the new
line was a declaration that the Communists themselves could lead
a nationalist revolution based on a non-proletarian program of
national independence, land reform, and economic modernization.
The further doctrinal differences between the Maoist and
previous Soviet theories on the colonial question are too abstruse
to tackle here, and one wonders whether or not they have any real
significance. The major contribution of Maoism to Communist
revolutionary thought is, it would seem, a matter of spirit more
than of theory. We have observed the Soviet tendency to discount
in actual practice the ability of Communists in colonial and semi-
colonial regions to gain control of the nationalist movement and
successfully lead the anti-imperialist revolution. Mao, however,
had demonstrated that this was possible: relying on nationalism
and the peasant's desire for land reform, he had seized the leader-
ship of the Chinese revolution from a Kuomintang which could not
answer the popular demand for equality, modernity, and swift,
economic progress.
The realization that the Communists could in fact become the
spokesmen for nationalism had, of course, a tremendous impact on
the Soviet view of Asia and the role of the Communist parties in
that area. It is this new self-confidence and assumption of the
nationalist robe which, more than any other factor, has been the
distinguishing mark of Asian Communism since the Chinese victory.
It was, however, by no means a universal solution to the Communist
tactical problem in underdeveloped areas. We have already remarked
that the Soviet interpretation of the Maoist revolutionary strategy
taught that the Communists should encourage nationalism and court
the national bourgeoisie. On the other hand, however, it implied
that the Communists must and could take control of the nationalist
movement, either bringing the nationalist parties under their
influence or destroying them. This program might be eminently
successful inz countries where the ruling nationalist movement was
weak and corrupt, as in China; but it presented a dilemma of no
mean proportions in areas like India or Indonesia, where nationalist
leadership was still strong and popular.
The Soviet interpretation of Maoism—which came to be known as
the "national front" strategy—was not adopted by the USSR immedi-
ately upon its appreciation by some Russian political analysts;
not until 1949 was the "Chinese way" officially declared the proper
road for Asian Communism. Meanwhile, there remained two schools
of thought. One, typified by China expert V. Maslennikov, pointed
out the value of the Chinese example for the Asian revolution;
"The peoples of Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, who have not yet freed
themselves from foreign dependence and the threat of colonial en-
slavement, who have not yet resolved the most important problems
of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, are studying and putting
(59) Cf. Kautsky, Moscow and the Communist Party of India, jp. 17-24, for a
further discussion of the difference between Chinese and
Soviet Communism.34
into practice the magnificent experience of the construction in
China of a new type of state." (60) Others, however, continued
to look to the united front from below, with its rejection of the
national bourgeoisie, for the proper Communist course in Asia. The
two tendencies had one thing in common: both rejected collaboration
with the leadership of non-Communist movements except on the basis
of Communist domination. In practice, this meant that Communist
tactics in the colonial countries began to turn sharply to the
left, away from cooperation with the nationalist leaders.
The implications of the two camp doctrine for the Asian
situation were first worked out authoritatively in an article by
E. M. Zhukov which appeared in the party organ Bol’shevik in
December, 1947. Zhukov showed himself to be an advocate of the
Maoist line; he called for a broad front of revolutionary elements
led by the Communist party. Indonesia, he felt, was an excellent
example of a state based on these tactics;
In a number of colonial and dependent countries a people's
anti-imperialist front has been formed, consisting of
a coalition of parties having the struggle for liberation
as their platform, under the leading participation of the
Communist Party (Indonesia, Viet Nam). The political
program of such a coalition envisages complete inde-
pendence from foreign imperialism and broad democratic
reforms, laying the foundations for the economic and
political independence of the country. Such a program
must be aimed not only against imperialism, but also
against its internal social backers—the landlords and
that national bourgeoisie which is connected with foreign
capital. It is well known that democratic forms have
already been successfully put into practice in large
areas of the liberated parts of China, in the unoccupied
territory of the Indonesian Republic, and in the inner
regions of the Republic of Viet Nam. (61)
Indonesia’s progressive character and its similarity to Viet Nam
are repeated frequently;
/The national liberation movement/ encompassed Asia and
Africa, and took especially sharp forms in such countries
as China, Indonesia, Indochina.... In Indonesia and
Indochina there were born in the battle against imperial-
iam new governmental forms—democratic republics.·«.··The
Indonesian Republic has just the same progressive, demo-
cratic character /as Viet Nam/. It, too, was born in
the fire of the struggle agaTnst Japanese imperialism.. ...
(60)	V. Maslennikov, "Bor'ba kitaiskogo naroda za natsional'nuiu
nezavisimost’ i svobodu," Mirovoe khoziaistvo i mirovaia
politika, (No. 12), December 1947, p. 2S.	“
(61)	E. Zhukov, "Obostrenie krizisa kolonial'noi sistemi," Bol’shevik,
(No. 23), December 15, 1947, p. 57.35
In the same manner, the 90 million inhabitants of Indonesia
and Viet Nam have refused to bow further to the system
of colonial exploitation. They are courageously defending
their right. ... (62)
Comrade Zhdanov remarked in his report that Indonesia
and Viet Nam are associated with the anti-imperialist
camp. ...The intervention of the imperialists, pursuing
colonial wars which have as their goal the destruction
of the Indonesian Republic and Viet Nam, is an expression
of the terror of the imperialists before the contagious
strength of the examples of Indonesia and Viet Nam for
other colonial peoples, (63)
Indonesia was thus placed firmly in the democratic camp. The
picture painted here of an Indonesian revolution "under the leading
participation of the Communist Party" is a strange one, but, as
we have seen, it was a view voiced several times earlier on the
Soviet side. This optimistic attitude towards the Republic reached
its high point in an article in the foreign affairs journal
Voprosi ekonomiki in the beginning of 1948. Here it was ex-
plained that "Hie broadness, strength, as well as the achievements
of the national liberation struggle in each separate colonial
country are determined by internal as well as external factors,
to wit, the relationship of the moving forces of the national
liberation movement to those which form the leadership of that
movement at a given stage. The peoples of Indonesia and Viet
Nam, entering into the advance guard of the liberation struggle
of the colonial peoples, have formed people’s democratic repub-
lics ." (64)
The idea of Indonesia as a people’s democracy is at first
blush extraordinary; but it is in effect what Zhukov had implies
in his analysis. The concept of people’s democracy as it was
developed to apply to the countries of East Europe called for
the achievement of control over the bourgeois democratic revolu-
tion by Communist-led forces, so that the new state formed by the
revolution would be not a bourgeois-democratic, capitalist one but
a semi-socialist state which would develop under proletarian
leadership towards socialism ·
This term was later applied to post-revolutionary Communist
China, creating some confusion, since the East European and
Chinese situations differed considerably in some respects. At
any rate, the application of the term to Indonesia would imply
that the Indonesian revolution was considered to be proceeding
under Communist hegemony; and it is made clear in the article
(62)	Zhukov, Obostrenie krizisa, p. 52.
(63)	Zhukov, Obostrenie krizisa, p. 57.
(64)	V. Vasil’eva, "Bor’ba za demokraticheskoe razvitie
Indonesiiskoi respubliki," Voprosi ekonomiki, (No. 1), 1948,
p 81.36
under discussion that this is precisely what is intended:
The decisive role in this first stage has been played
by a united national front on the broadest democratic
basis, which was formed in the course of the struggle
in Indonesia. All those parties and groups supporting
the Republic have formed a coalition—the ''National
Concentration'*--under the leadership of Sardjono, a
prominent, active Communist, leader of the Communist
Party.
The Indonesian united national front is not only a
union of political parties and organizations, but is
a very broad alliance of workers, millions of landless
and land-poor peasants, the urban poor, craftsmen, and
a part of the national bourgeoisie. (65)
We might well wonder, with an eye to what was to come in the
near future, whether the Soviet Union rejected all compromise
between the Indonesian people’s democracy and the Dutch. This is
not apparent, however, from Soviet comment at that time. The
above-quoted article observed that the conclusion of the
Linggadjati Agreement had been necessary in its time: "The
signing of the Linggadjati Agreement between Holland and Indonesia
in March 1947 established, though it by no means satisfied the
Indonesians, a new order in Dutch-Indonesian relations. This
agreement created an opportunity for the Republican government of
Indonesia to engage to a considerable degree in the realization
of practical plans of reconstruction." (66) Less sympathy was
expressed for the Renville Agreement, which had just been
negotiated with the aid of the UN Good Offices Committee; it was
viewed as having been forced upon the reluctant Indonesians by
United States pressure and the threat of renewed Dutch attack.
This attitude was apparent in Soviet press comment during negotia-
tion of the agreement, though it was nowhere declared flatly that
the Indonesian government should not sign.
In large measure, the Indonesians shared the Soviet objections
to the Renville Agreement; but, since the United States had indi-
cated at the Renville discussions that it was likely to wash its
hands of the Indonesian affair unless the Republic agreed to it,
the Sjarifuddin government considered that the only choice was to
sign. (67) In this it was supported only by the Left Wing: the
major non-Communist parties, desiring stronger opposition to the
Dutch and fearing growing Leftist strength and orientation towards
Moscow, withdrew their support of the government and brought
about Sjarifuddin's resignation (January 1948).
(65)	Vasil’eva, Bor'ba, pp. 81-82.
(66)	Vasil’eva, Bor'ba, p. 75.
(67)	Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia,.p, 228.37
Immediately on Sjarifuddin’s loss of the premiership, President
Sukarno appointed Vice President Mohammad Hatta to form a cabinet
responsible to the President and not to Parliament, until some
measure of political unity could be achieved. The new cabinet
contained no representatives of the Sajap Kiri: what was more, a
part of Sjarifuddin's own Socialist Party split off under the
leadership of the right socialist Sutan Sjahrir, forming a new
group (the Indonesian Socialist Party—PSI) which supported the
Hatta government. Sjahrir's defection meant that the Sajap Kiri’s
parliamentary strength was severely cut and that it lost its
former majority in the powerful Working Committee of Parliament.
A revolution was thus achieved in the formal power relationships
of the Indonesian parties; at one blow the Indonesian Left had
lost its strength within the governmental structure, though
outside the government its strength had been little affected.
If the USSR had considered Indonesia safely on the side of
the Soviet camp—and Russian comment on the Republic had
certainly given that impression—this sudden turn of events must
have come as an unpleasant surprise. This was so at least for
the author of the last-quoted article, who apparently learned the
bad news just in time to attach the following paragraph to the
account of Indonesian people’s democracy:
The latest events taking place in Indonesia—the resig-
nation of the Indonesian government and the formation of
the rightist government under Mohammad Hatta, the majority
of the members of which are of pro-American sympathy—
bear witness to the direct intervention of Wall Street
into the internal affairs of the Indonesian Republic.
The Americans are attempting to unite reactionary groups
from the Masjumi and National parties and are relying
on them in their expansionist policy; but the mass of the
people, the working class of Indonesia, is carrying on a
struggle against the provocations of American imperialism.
They are demanding the replacement of the pro-American
government and the return of the government of the
socialist Amir Sjarifuddin. (68)
(68) Vasil’eva, Bor'ba, pp. 84-85.38
Calcutta and the Intransigent Line
In January 1948, a writer in the Soviet Communist journal
Party Life gave assurance that "The Republican government and the
democratic parties of Indonesia, including the Communist Party, do
not cherish any illusions in regard to the mediating activities of
the Commission of Three, and place their hopes instead on their
people and the moral and political support of democratic forces
the world over. ...In the face of the danger threatening the
country from the side of the imperialists, the Communist Party of
Indonesia, the people, and all the democratic forces of the country
are exerting all their powers for the repulsion of the interveners
and are honourably defending the freedom and independence of their
republic." (69)
A few weeks later, just before the announcement of the forma-
tion of Hatta’s cabinet, the TASS correspondent from Djakarta was
to report that*
According to information from journalistic circles, the
situation in Indonesia has become increasingly difficult
as a result of the intervention of reactionary US circles.
They point out that the fall of the Sjarifuddin govern-
ment took place under the direct influence of Wall Street.
Through their representative in the Three Power Commis-
sion, the Americans are trying to bring together reac-
tionary groups from both the Masjumi and Nationalist
parties in order to create in t hem a base from which to
introduce the expansionist policy of Wall Street into
Indonesia. They draw attention to the fact that the
American representative in the Three Power Commission
has recently been holding lengthy discussions with
Masjumi leaders, in particular with Sukiman, and also
with leaders of the Nationalist Party whose pro-American
attitudes are well-known. The Americans are trying to
remove from political activity the left socialists,
Communists, and members of other democratic organiza-
tion. <70)
The Americans succeeded in their "plot," apparently, for on Feb-
ruary 2 Pravda, found itself forced to announce the creation of a
cabinet composed of pro-American elements, formed under the in-
fluence of the Three Power Commission, which was personally
directed by Graham, the American member of the committee." On
February 6, the paper declared that "the situation in Indonesia
(69)	I. Plishevskii, "Kommunisticheskaia partii Indonezii borbtsia
za svobodu i nezavisimost' svoei strani," Partiinaia zhizn’,
No. 1, January 1948. The article was presumably written
sometime in January, since it refers to events taking place
in the beginning of that month.
(70)	Pravda, January 30, 1948.39
has become strained since the American imperialists succeeded in
removing the government of Amir Sjarifuddin and creating a cabinet
of extreme rightist pro-American elements," and it spoke of mass
demonstrations in the Republic demanding Sjarifuddin’s return.
Sjarifuddin did not regain his post, however; and both the
Soviet Union and the Indonesian Communists found themselves faced
with the problem of reviewing their attitude towards the Indonesian
government. Heretofore support of the Indonesian government,
defense of the Republic, the struggle against the imperialist camp,
and the drive for Communist hegemony in Indonesia could be seen as
one, for they were not patently incompatible aims. Now, however,
that unity had broken down, and the Communists had to develop a
system of priorities for its various components. The struggle
against the "imperialist camp"—the Western bloc—was of course
the prime concern for the Soviet Union. Since the USSR was
gaining considerable propaganda benefits from its support of the
Republic in the UN, it faced the problem of whether it should con-
tinue to support the Indonesian government even at the expense of
sacrificing Indonesian Communist hopes for power. If the Communists
were to oppose the regime, on the other hand, how far should their
criticism of the government go: should it be a loyal opposition or
should it take a more drastic form?
These were fundamental questions of policy and, even though
Indonesia was not a problem of major importance to the Soviet
Union, they were not likely to be solved in a day, the more so
since it was not at all clear for some time after Hatta had come
to office that his government was anything more than a temporary
makeshift which would remain in power only until some sort of
agreement had been reached among the contending major parties.
Nonetheless, there has been considerable speculation that the
Indonesian Communist uprising of September 1948 had been ordered
by the Soviet Union within a few weeks after the formation of the
Hatta government, when the USSR was supposed to have commanded the
various Southeast Asian Communist, risings which were to take place
that year. The central argument of this theory focuses about a
Communist-sponsored Southeast Asian youth conference held in
Calcutta in February; here, it is claimed, "orders from Moscow"
were passed to the Southeast Asian Communists dictating the rebel-
lions in Indonesia, Malaya, and Burma and the increased unrest in
the Philippines and Viet Nam which occurred later in 1948. The
writer is not adept enough at distinguishing fact from fancy to
attempt a discussion of the secret liaisons of international
Communism in this paper; but since the theory concerning the
Calcutta conference had received considerable acceptance, it might
be well to devote some space to that meeting and its possible sig-
nificance for the Indonesian question.
The major contacts between the Indonesian Left and international
Communist-oriented organizations were through the World Federation
of Trade Unions, to which the Indonesian labor federation SOBSI
had belonged since the spring of 1947, and the World Federation
of Democratic Youth (WFDY), to which the general Indonesian youth40
organization, the BKPRI, was affiliated. (71) In February 1947,
four WFDY representatives arrived in India; they were to travel
through various Southeast Asian countries to survey the colonial
situation there and make contacts with youth organizations in the
area. (72) The commission was able to take advantage of the Indian-
sponsored Inter-Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi to make
contact with Southeast Asian representatives to that meeting. In
April, the WFDY group held a meeting with some of the younger
delegates to the conference; it was attended by eight Indonesian
representatives, including Suripno and Maruto Darusman. (73) It
was decided at this discussion that a full-scale Asian youth con-
ference should be hedd in the near future. (74) The Indonesians,
under Suripno*s leadership, volunteered to play host to the pro-
jected meeting, and the conference was duly scheduled to be held
in Indonesia some time in November. (75)
(71)	The first congress of the WFDY, held in London in November,
1945, was attended by nine Indonesian students who had been
in the Netherlands throughout the war; they included Maruto
Darusman and Suripno, who not long after rose to important
posts in the Indonesian Communist Party. Suripno was made a
member of the WFDY Council at that time. Indonesian repre-
sentatives also attended the founding congress of the Inter-
national Union of Students, held in Prague in 1946. It should
be noted, however, that neither these organizations nor the
WFTU were frankly Communist at their inception, though pro-
Communist elements quickly gained control of them. Most of
the non-Communist members dropped out during 1946 and 1947;
and after the Czech coup in February 1948 there was practically
no non-Communist European membership. Since the leadership of
the WFDY, IUS, and WFTU passed into Communist hands quite soon
after their establishment, the views of these organizations in
the period we are dealing with expressed quite consistently
the International Communist line.
(72)	According to the WFDY, the commission was supposed to set off
in November 1946 but was delayed by the outbreak of hostilities
in Viet Nam and the refusal of the French authorities to
grant permission to enter Indochina. The delegation finally
consisted of four representatives, Olga Chechetkina, a Soviet
journalist who has specialized in Southeast Asia, Jean
Lautissier, a WFDY leader who later played a key role in the
Calcutta Conference, Rajko Tomovic from Yugoslavia, and M. 0.
Oleson from Denmark. (Report of the WFDY Commission to South
East Asia, WFDY, mimeographed, n.d. /1948/, p. 1)“.
(73)	WFDY Information Service, May 15, 1947, p. 2.
(74)	According to the WFDY, the conference was proposed by the Bur-
mese representatives (Report of the WFDY Commission, p. 1),
though this does not, of course, preclude the possibility that
the WFDY delegation had had this in mind itself or encouraged
the Burmese in their proposal.
(75)	WFDY Information Service, May 15, 1947, p. 2; July 1, 1947, p. 4.41
At the Delhi meeting, the Indonesians extended an invitation
to the WFDY commission to visit their country, which it did in
May. (76) The delegation was treated impressively by both govern-
ment and general populace, the Indonesians being eager for any
chance to gain sympathy for their cause. The WFDY representatives
met with Sukarno, Hatt^., Sjarifuddin, Wikana, and a number of other
political and labor leaders. (77) Their enthusiasm was apparently
aroused, for the report they made to the June 1947 meeting of the
WFDY executive in Moscow stated that "freedom and democratic rights
have been brought by the young Republic," (78) and that progressive
youth was playing a major role in Indonesia’s affairs. "We saw
their enthusiasm and that of the whole nation, when we accompanied
the President of the Republic on one of his journeys to the West
of the country," the delegation declared. (79)
Following the Delhi meeting, the WFDY and IUS sent a joint
invitation to all youth and student organizations in the Far East
to attend the Asian youth conference. (80) At the June executive
meeting it was, however, decided to limit the scope of the confer-
ence to Southeast Asia. We shall not go into the further details
of the conference's preparations, save to note that the Indonesians,
having made plans to hold the meeting in the Javanese city of
Madiun, found themselves disappointed when, in an executive meeting
held after its World Youth Festival in July 1947, the WFDY decided
that the Dutch attack on the Republic, which had taken place
several weeks previously, made the situation too uncertain to hold
a conference there. It was therefore decided to hold the meeting
in Calcutta and, finally, to postpone it until the middle of
February, 1948. (81)
It thus came about that the Southeast Asia Youth Conference
was the first international Communist-oriented public meeting at
which the Southeast Aaian countries were represented after the
promulgation of the two camp doctrine, From the published reports
of the conference, it is clear that a very strong emphasis was
placed on the two camp concept. It should not, however, be assumed
that this meeting was necessarily the first time the Southeast
(76) Cf. Charles Wolf, The Indonesian Story, (New York, 1948),
pp. 85-86; Suripno^ "Indonesian Students and International
World," Merdeka, New Delhi, (No. 26), February 21, 1948, p. 9;
and the Report of the WFDY Commission. The Danish delegate,
Μ..O..Oleson, did not accompany the rest of the WFDY group to
Indonesia.
(77)	Report	of	the	WFDY	Commission,	p.	2.
(78)	Report	of	the	WFDY	Commission,	p.	12.
(79)	Report	of	the	WFDY	Commission,	p.	13.
(80)	Jeunesse dumonde, (WFDY), (No. 6), 1947, p. 23.
(81)	Cf. WFDY Information Service, October 1, 1947, p. 6.42
Asian Communists were made aware of the new line; the Indian party,
for example, had already adopted it in a meeting of its central
committee held in December 1947. (82)
Whether or not the conference’s analysis was something new for
the Southeast Asian Communists, it is of considerable interest to
us here as an example of the developing international Communist
attitude towards nationalism and colonialism:
The end of the Second World War saw the biggest revolu-
tionary upsurge in the countries of South East Asia,
symbolized in the setting up of the Republics of Viet
Nam and Indonesia. In other countries like India,
Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon, the imperialists, unable
to crush the postwar revolutionary upsurge changed their
tactics and with the help of right wing leadership an-
nounced concessions, which was nothing more than a sharing
of power with local reaction and compromising leadership.
In those countries, the Government, dominated by the
right wing and acting as the trustees of the vested
interests, are calling upon the people to concentrate
on reconstructing the country, and in the name of recon-
struction are busy in giving all help to vested interests
and suppressing the democratic struggle of the people for
better living and for land. (83)
’’Neither reforms nor so-called reconstruction within the framework
of colonial exploitation” would be enough it was asserted; what
was necessary was the "total defeat of imperialism and its
allies." (84)
From these excerpts we can draw several important conclusions.
First of all, it is apparent that the Communists had by now decided
that the "neutralist" countries of Asia were to be placed in the
imperialist camp, and it was therefore the duty of the Southeast
Asian parties to oppose them and their attempts at internal reform.
Secondly, it is clear that the Indonesian Republic was not consider-
ed to be in this neutralist category. Quite the contrary; it was
(82)	Cf. Kautsky, Moscow and the Indian Communist party, pp. 82-89.
(83)	Hands Off South East Asia. Conference of the Youth and
Students of South East Asia--Fighting for Freedom and Inde-
pendence, Calcutta, February 19-28, 1948. Special bulletin of
the Colonial Bureau of the I. U. S., (No. 1), Praha, April 1948
p. 29.
(84)	"Quittez l'Asie! Lachez prise," La Jeunesse Combat le
Colonialisme, (Colonial Bureau of the WEDY), X'Ko. 1), 1948,
p7 5Σ A Wi’uY report on the conference.43
declared that ’’the peoples of South East Asia desire their total
independence; ...the Vietnamese and Indonesian Republics are
living examples before their eyes.” (85) The secret of Indonesian
and Vietnamese success seemed in total, armed opposition to the
imperialists:	"In Indonesia and in Viet Nam the highest form of
armed struggle has been attained. The people of these countries
have known the meaning of foreign domination and, having once
tasted independence, cannot tolerate a new enslavement. Partisan
warfare has been organized and is everywhere in progress." (86)
This emphasis on armed action had been growing in Communist
accounts of the colonial situation since the promulgation of the
two camp doctrine; we see it, for instance, in a previously cited
article of January, 1948, praising the Sjarifuddin regime.
Fully characteristic for Indonesia is that situation about
which comrade Zhdanov spoke in his report when he empha-
sized that the peoples of the colonies do not wish to live
as they did before, that the ruling classes of the metro-
polis can no longer run the colonies as they did before,
and that the attempts of the imperialists to suppress
the national liberation movement by military might is
meeting up with a steadily growing armed resistance by
the colonial peoples, giving rise to protracted colonial
wars. Such a war is indeed taking place right now in
Indonesia. (87)
If this praise of armed revolution is to be interpreted as
a Soviet hint to the Southeast Asian Communists—which may be
stretching the point a bit far, just as American praise of the
recent Hungarian revolt did not necessarily indicate US encourage-
ment of the rebellion—it would naturally have serious implica-
tions for Communist parties in colonial countries like Malaya, or
in countries whose governments were living on friendly terms with
the Western powers, such as India, Burma, and the Philippines.
It cannot be applied directly to the Communist rebellion that
took place later in Indonesia, however, for, as we have seen, the
Republic was specifically declared at this time to be on the side
of the angels.
(85)	Jean Lautissier, Arrachons a griffe etrangere.’" Jeunesse du
Monde, (No. 8), 1948, p. 12. This is a report by the chief
WFDY delegate to the conference. Cf. also Lautissier, "A la
vielle de Conference d'Asie du Sud-Est,” Jeunesse du Monde,
(No. 7), July 1948, p. 8.	-------------------
(86)	"Rapport principal concernant la situation de la jeunesse en
Asie du Sud-Est et son combat qu'il mene contre 1’imperialisme,
pour la liberte, 1’independance, la paix, contre le danger
d'une troisieme guerre mondiale," La Jeunesse Combat le
Colonialisme, (No. 1, 1948), p. 11” The main report Fo the
conference, presented by the Vietnamese delegation.
(87)	Plishevskii, Kommunisticheskaia partiia Indonezii, p. 65.44
We cannot give any certain answer as to why the Calcutta
meeting did not place Indonesia in the same category as India,
Burma, and the Philippines, since an unfavorable attitude would
seem indicated by the gloomy Soviet comments on the Hatta govern-
ment. It may be that the leaders of the conference, none of whom
were major Communist figures, were still following the line of
several weeks before, when the Hatta cabinet was still unformed.
It may also have been caused by a Soviet decision to play down its
disapproval of the new cabinet in view of its propaganda investment
in Indonesia in the United Nations. Indeed, the Indonesian ques-
tion was even then being debated in that august platform for
political harangues, Gromyko roundly condemning the Committee of
Good Offices report to the Security Council on the Renville Agree-
ment and defending the Republic at inordinate length against what
he considered to be the machinations rrf the Western imperialists.
That a conscious effort was made to de-emphasize Russian
differences with the Indonesian government would seem indicated by
the fact that, after its first flurry of indignation at the estab-
lishment of the H&tta government, the unfavorable Soviet comment
ceased. The last critical remarks in Pravda were made on Febru-
ary 29, when the paper noted that "as a result of lengthy secret
pourparlers with bourgeois nationalists in Indonesia, Graham was
able to name a new cabinet, into which entered ministers of
pro-American sympathy." After that, directly unfavorable comment
on the Republican government was laid aside until August, 1948; in
the interim, both the Soviet and Dutch Communist press devoted
their coverage of Indonesia to praise of the Republic in its struggle
against the Dutch. The Indonesian government itself was carefully
ignored:	attention was instead devoted to the Republic as a
symbol of the anti-colonial struggle. In this manner the Soviet
Union managed to support the Republic in the name of anti-colonial-
ism without explicitly supporting the Republic’s non-leftist
government.
This division was clearly an artificial one, a makeshift that
was likely to prove unstable, particularly in view of the increase
ingly strict interpretation of the two camp doctrine voiced by the
Soviet Union. That dogma's rejection of all compromise with im-
perialism had an immediate effect on the Communist view of the
Republic’s negotiations with the Dutch. The main resolution of
the Calcutta Conference declared that "Thanks to the American-
dominated 'Good Offices Commission’ of the United Nations, the
Dutch have succeeded in imposing an agreement on Indonesia which
ensures the continuation of the Netherlands colonial regime over
the people of Indonesia, and at the same time, opens the door to
American penetration." (88) The Indonesian delegates to the
meeting announced their opposition to the agreement and their de-
sire to continue combat against the Dutch, (89) at which sentiments
the conference expressed its satisfaction: "The prestige of Indo-
(83) Hands Off South East Asia, p. 32.
(89) Lautissier, Arrachons a griff e etrang’ere.’, p. 12.45
nesia, won through two and a half years of heroic struggle against
the Dutch went up, when the Indonesian delegate in unequivocal
terms declared that Indonesian youth will continue the fight for
final independence despite the truce, signed between the Indonesian
and Dutch Governments, under pressure of the Three Powers Commis-
sion, dominated by American imperialism." (90)
Whether or not the Calcutta Conference served any important
function in passing along Soviet directives to the Southeast Asian
Communist parties, it would seem fairly safe to consider the views
propounded in its resolutions as expressive of the international
Communist attitude towards the Southeast Asian situation; if we
accept this, we come to the conclusion that what was being advocated
by the USSR was not direct opposition to the Republic and its
government as such but a sterner attitude towards negotiations
with the Dutch. Some evidence for this would seem to be provided
by the subsequent absence of Soviet criticism of the Hatta govern-
ment and by the fact that shortly after the Calcutta meeting the
Sajap Kiri, re-organizing itself into the People’s Democratic
Front (FDR), denounced both the Linggadjati and Renville agreements,
for which it had previously been the principal Indonesian advo-
cate . (91)
While this emphasis on a more militant stand against the
Netherlands may not have been directly aimed at destroying rela-
tions between the Indonesian government and the Left, it did have
this effect in the long run. Nearly any responsible Indonesian
government, realizing the precarious international position of the
Republic, would find itself forced to deal with the Dutch and to
recognize the need for concessions, even as Sjarifuddin and
Sjahrir had previously. With the country splitting more and more
decidedly into pro-Soviet and non-Soviet blocs, such a government
might very well view with alarm the expansion of an aggressive
Left Wing whose very entrance into the government might tip the
scale of US opinion against the Republic and thus lose Indonesia
its vitally needed American sympathy in the UN. The pro-Communist
Left, for its part, found itself forced by the two camp doctrine
(90)	Hands Off South East Asia, p. 4.
(91)	While one is naturally inclined to consider the reversal of
the Leftist line to be a reflection of the new Communist
attitude towards compromise with the Dutch, it should in
fairness be noted that, since the concessions were generally
unpopular, there was a natural tendency for the parties out
of power to oppose them. Thus, while the Sjarifuddin govern-
ment had been defeated ostensibly because it concluded the
Renville Agreement, the opposition parties, on coming into
power, realized the Republic had no alternative and supported
the pact, while the Sajap Kiri/FDR took the more popular but
irresponsible position of opposing it. The interpretation
of the FDR’s change in attitude as being a reflection of the
international Communist line should therefore be accepted with
certain reservation.46
and the deepening cold war to insist with increasing emphasis on
the necessity for the Republic’s alignment with the Soviet bloc and
on the government’s firm resistance to the Western imperialists.
When the Hatta government refused this and showed no desire to
allow any increase in the Left's voice in the government, the
Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) had to reconsider: should the
fiction of a Republic engaged in an uncompromising fight against
Western domination be preserved, or should it be acknowledged that
the Indonesian government was no more satisfactory to the Communists
than was the Indian? The decision was a long time in coming, and
it was so bound up with the course of events within the country
that it is impossible to say where the domestic power struggle
ended and the international one began. In increasing measure,
however, the conflicts within the Republic were determined by
the deepening of the cold war, and compromises became less and
less possible as the country divided into two alien camps. In the
end, the conflict which was so disadvantageous to both sides was
brought about; and to this extent perhaps the cold war and the
two camp doctrine can be considered to be responsible for the
September rebellion.47
The Suripno Affair
During the spring of 1943 the two factions into which Indo-
nesian political forces had divided made strenuous efforts to
arrive at some sort of compromise, for they were wfell aware of
the danger of not presenting a united front to the Dutch. By May
there were signs that an agreement might indeed be achieved: it
was announced that the government would be re-organized on the
basis of a broad National Program that had been accepted by all
parties. Hatta would remain premier, but the Left would enter the
cabinet; Alimin announced that the Communists would take part in
the government. On May 26, however, the Soviet Union made an
announcement that buried for good all hope of an effective com-
promise .
As we have previously noted, Soviet public comment on the
Indonesian situation had carefully avoided any criticism of the
Republic after the end of February. True, there was some mention
of American intrigues with "reactionary circles" in Indonesian
politics, but these were not specifically identified with the Hatta
regime. The only sign of any change in the Soviet point of view
was Indonesia’s absence, from February on, from the front ranks
of the national liberation movement in Russian and Cominform
comment. Vietnam^ and, increasingly, China were cited as the
pattern for the Asian revolution, while the Republic faded into
the background.
The Soviet Union, however, had apparently not taken the Left’s
reversal in Indonesian politics as lightly as its public attitude
would suggest: for on May 26 it suddenly announced that an agree-
ment had been initialled between the Soviet Union and the Republic’s
representative in Prague for an exchange of consuls between the
USSR and Indonesia. (92) The first reaction on the part of the
Indonesian government was surprise; the next was shock, as the
implications of the announcement for the Republic’s domestic and
international position became clear. The story of how the
agreement came to be made is still very much a mystery; but from
the reports which have been pieced together, the following—
perhaps inaccurate--account emerges,
Suripno, who initialled the agreement on behalf of the
Republic, was a member of the PKI Central Committee; he had left
(92) Cf. Pravda, May 26, 1948; De Waarheid, May 26, 1948; Lukisan
Revolusi, p. 326. Some other sources, such as the Christian
Science Monitor, Jply 23, 1948; S. P. Derita, Lima Minggu
sebelum Madiun~Affair (Medan, n.d.), p. 8; and Virginia
Thompson and Richard Adloff, The Left Wing in Southeast Asia
(New York, 1950), give the date as May 27; this very likely
refers to the date the announcement became known in the
Republic.48
Indonesia for Prague in the summer of 1947 to attend a V/FDY con-
gress. (93) With the authorization of Foreign Minister Hadji Agus
Salim, he remained in that city as Indonesian envoy to East Europe
and set up a Republican information office there. <94, In
November he approached M. A. Silin, the Soviet ambassador to
Czechoslovakia, in an effort to secure Soviet recognition of Indo-
nesia; he also brought up the matter with representatives of the
governments of the people's democracies, (95) The response of the
Soviet representative was encouraging, and Suripno requested author
ization from the Republic to conclude an agreement with the Soviet
Union. On December 25, Sukarno granted him authorization to come
to an agreement with the Soviet government for the establishment
of consular relations. (96)
By January 13, Suripno had received the Republic’s instruc-
tions, and he immediately opened negotiations with Silin (97)
Agreement was reached quickly, and in the same month a pact for
the exchange of consular representatives was initialled by the
two negotiators. Suripno then asked the Republic for further
instructions. At that time, however, the Sjarifuddin government
(93)	Statement by Hadji Agus Salim, Radio Jogja broadcasting in
Indonesian, May 27, 1948; Netherlands radio (Bilversum),
broadcasting in Dutch to Indonesia, May 27, 1948*
(94)	Statement by Hadji Agus Salim (Radio Netherlands Hilversum,
broadcasting in Dutch to Indonesia, May 27, 1948)# In this
statement, the Foreign Minister emphasized that he had not
authorized Suripno at that time to conclude any agreements
on behalf of the Republic.
(95)	Mirajadi, "Tiga Tahun Provokasi Madiun," Bintang Merah
(VII, 12/13), August/September, 1951, p. 49^ This is the PKI
version. According to Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution,
p. 268, Suripno told him that he had approached the Soviet
ambassador in January 1948, It would seem likely, however,
in view of the apparent fact that Suripno requested and re-
ceived authorization from the Indonesian government in Decem-
ber 1947 to conclude consular exchange agreements., that he
had had some contact with the USSR concerning the matter
prior to this.
(96)	Pravda, June 8, 1948; De Waarheid, May 28, 1948; Christian
Science Monitor, July 23, 1948. The Indonesian delegation to
the discussions then taking place between the Dutch and
Indonesians at Kaliurang announced that Suripno had been
given a general mandate in December 1947 to establish consular
relations with Central and East European countries in connec-
tion with the threat of resumed Dutch military operations
against the Republic (Radio Jogja, English language broad-
cast, May 29, 1948).
(97)	Statement to the press by Suripno (Radio Jogja, August 13,
1948).49
was in the midst of the Renville discussions, and it was felt by
the Indonesians that an agreement with the Soviet Union at that (
point would have an unfortunate effect on the negotiations, espe-
cially as regards the American attitude towards them, The pact
was thus shelved; and the succeeding Hatta government refused to
bring the matter back to life. The Soviet government finally
decided to take things into its own hands, however, and on May 22
it informed Suripno that it had ratified the consular agreement. (98)
We do not know what the motives of the Soviet government were
in so suddenly bringing to a head the consular issue, though
several reasonable explanations are available. It may perhaps have
been that Russia,.-having observed the fall of the SJarifuddin
government and the subsequent unfavorable political development of
the Republic, may have felt a need for closer contact with the
Indonesian situation. Consular representation in the Republic
would serve to keep the Soviet Union better informed of develop-
ments in Indonesia, and a closer guidance of Communist activities
there would be possible. In addition, Soviet relations with the
Republic might serve as a counterweight to that country’s dependence
on American good will and would strengthen the Soviet Union’s
claim to be the true defender of the Indonesian cause. It is also
possible that the Soviet Union, which by now had lost all tolerance
of Asian neutralism, had decided that it was high time to call a
showdown with the Republic and demand that the Indonesians declare
themselves as allies or enemies of the Russian camp.
(98) Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution, p. 268; citing an interview
with Suripno. The official Soviet version is given in the
announcement of the agreement:
’’Some time ago the special representative of the Government
of the Indonesian Republic, Minister Plenipotentiary Suripno,
addressed himself in the name of the Government of the
Indonesian Republic to the Soviet Government through the
Embassy of the USSR in Prague with a proposal for the estab-
lishment of relations between the Soviet Union and the Indo-
nesian Republic
”As a result of discussions taking place in Prague between
the two Governments, an agreement was concluded for the estab-
lishment of consular relations and an exOhange of consuls
between the Soviet Union and the Indonesian Republic.
’’The agreement that had been reached was ratified by an
exchange of letters between USSR Ambassador to Prague M. A.
Silin and Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of
the Indonesian Republic Dr. Suripno.
’’The exchange of letters took place on May 22 on the pre-
mises of the Soviet Embassy in Prague.” (Pravda, May 26, 1948.)
According to a statement made by Suripno on returning to
Indonesia, he had opened negotiations directly on receipt of
the Republic’s mandate,but "owing to unforeseen circumstances"
the agreement could not be signed until May 22 (Radio Jogja,
August 13, 1948).50
Whatever the Soviet motives may have been, the USSR's announce
ment placed the Hatta government in a most embarrassing position,
as the Russians must have known it would. Officially, the Indo-
nesian government was committed to an independent foreign policy
and had declared it would welcome diplomatic relations with all
nations. Refusal to accept the agreement would further alienate
the Left and could be used by it to persuade the people that the
Hatta government was, after all, a puppet of the United States.
On the other hand, the government realized that the Republic was
to a great extent dependent on American good will, which it feared
would be transferred to the Dutch if the US considered the Indo-
nesians were in danger of becoming too friendly to Communism. The
Dutch, for their part, found the situation an ideal barrel over
which to place the Republic, and they loudly proclaimed that the
Renville Agreement--which they interpreted to forbid an extension
of Indonesian foreign relations--had been violated and that the
Republic had now given proof of its Communist leanings.
We shall not describe the Indonesian attempts to deal with
the situation beyond remarking that, after a confusing round of
denials and explanations, the government called Suripno home from
Prague on the grounds that it desired a further explanation of
the agreement. Until then, the question of relations with the
Soviet Union was to be shelved. It was quite obvious, however,
that the government, in spite of its brave declarations on the
independence of its foreign policy, was somewhat less than enthusi-
astic about concluding an agreement with the Russians* Hatta, in-
deed, went so far as to state publicly that any agreement Suripno
had made would not be submitted to Parliament if it involved an
extension of Indonesia's foreign relations. (99) In this the
government was supported by the Masjumi and Nationalist parties,
while the FDR, having at first hailed the agreement as a political
triumph for the Republic, bitterly condemned Hatta's stand.
From this point on, the problem created by the polarization
of Indonesian political life began to assume a hopeless aspect.
Attempts were still made at achieving a compromise; but it was
increasingly evident that they were mere gestures, made to absolve
one faction or the other from the guilt of sabotaging the revolu-
tion. In all too short a time it became apparent that, unless a
solution were somehow achieved, relations between the government
and opposition would break down completely.
Curiously enough, the Soviet Union did not react to its re-
jection by the Republic by roundly condemning the Indonesian
government, though, since the Russians had given considerable pub-
licity to the oomclusion of the consular agreement, the situation
must have been somewhat embarrassing for them. Publicly, at least,
the Russians excused the Republic on the grounds that it had been
forced to abandon an agreement it actually wanted, as a result of
Dutch and American pressure;
(99) Christian Science Monitor, July 23, 1948; Radio Jogja, English
language broadcast, June 1, 1948.51
These are the facts. They clearly point out who is
trying to hinder the establishment of friendly relations
between the USSR and the Indonesian Republic. Completely
clear, too, are the motives lying at the root of the
base behavior of the representatives of the USA and
Holland in Indonesia. They are prepared to allow only
those foreign relations to the Indonesian Republic which
they would keep under their control. (100)
This tolerant attitude is all the more striking in view of the
fact that Communist dogma had by this time lost all sympathy for
Asian neutralism and had at times identified it bluntly with
black reaction. In the Cominform journal of the time one could
read of "the reactionary governments of Spain, Greece, Portugal,
Argentina, India, and others·"(101)
While no certain statement can be made as to the reason for
this f orebearance, it may perhaps be seen as some evidence for the
argument that the Soviet Union intended the consular agreement
less as a showdown with the Indonesian government than as an
attempt to gain some sort of outpost in the Republic. {102) There
were, of course, the considerable benefits gained by Soviet propa-
ganda from the United Nations situation as another factor militating
against a Soviet quarrel with the Republic. And it may be that
Russia considered something might still be salvaged for the Com-
munist cause in Indonesia; though by now it should have been dis-
(100)	Pravda, June 8, 1948.
(101)	Guiseppe di Vittoria, "WFTU—Results EC Meeting," For a
Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy, No. 11 (14),
June.T,"T94B, p. 5.--------------------
(102)	Further evidence for this thesis may possibly be found in the
fact that Suripno, on his return to Indonesia, declared that
the agreement did not imply de jure recognition of the Re-
public by the Soviet Union. The question of whether the con-
sular agreement would represent such recognition had been a
source of concern to the Republican government, since a re-
fusal of recognition, while it would have been necessary if
the promise not to expand Indonesian foreign relations were to
be kept, would have been extremely unpopular. A consular
exchange without recognition could possibly take place within
the limits of the Dutch interpretation of the Renville Agree-
ment, though it would not have as much value as far as propa-
ganda towards the Indonesian people was concerned. This might
thus indicate that the Soviet Union was more interested in
actually obtaining a consular arrangement than in propaganda.
If the exchange were accepted, Suripno declared, other East
European countries would propose consular exchanges. The
agreement, he said, represented a first step towards achieving
trade and economic relations with the Soviet bloc, with de
jure recognition as the eventual goal. (Suripno, in a press
interview, as reported in Merdeka, August 14, 1948, p. 1).52
illusioned as to the government's willingness to allow any consider-
able growth in Soviet influence. At any rate, both Soviet and
Dutch Communist press comment returned after the Suripno affair
to the same line of comment thay had carried before it; and for
another two months no clouds appeared to trouble the bright blue
sky of Soviet admiration for Indonesia.
While all this was going on, however, developments were taking
place in the ideological field which were to have an important
effect on the Soviet view of Indonesian nationalism.
In China, as 1948 wore on, the Communist forces scored increas-
ingly important victories over the tottering Nationalist regime.
Given the standstill to which Communism was brought in Europe in
that year, we would expect that the Soviet Union would have devoted
particular attention tb the rising red star in the East. There was,
indeed|, increasing publicity given to the Chinese Communist vic-
tories, and sometimes speeches by Chinese Communist leaders were
reported at length in the Cominform and Soviet press; but on the
whole it appears that the Soviet Union was extraordinarily cautious
in accepting the implications of the Chinese revolution.
It has been claimed by some—most notably by Mr. Khrushchev
in his denunciation of Stalin at the twentieth CPSU congress—
that a factor behind the USSR’s hesitancy regarding the Chinese
Communists was that, in Stalin's eyes, Mao’s independence from
Soviet tutelage represented a threat to Russian pre-eminence in
the Communist world. Whether this was the case or not, the USSR's
attitude in 1948 towards movements independent of the Soviet orbit—
Communist or otherwise—was unfavorable indeed. We have seen how
the two camp doctrine was interpreted more and more stringently,
until there was no room left for a nation to be "democratic" and
still independent of the Soviet camp. Then, in June 1948, the
USSR’s position as autarch of the Communist world was struck a
blow which brought the Cominform to declare itself even more
strongly against that force which impelled most strongly towards
independence:
The Resolution of the Information Bureau of the Communist
Parties declares that the roots of the mistakes made by
the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia must be
sought in the undoubted fact that nationalist elements...
dominate in the leadership, and that the leadership of
the Yugoslav Party, having broken with the international
traditions of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, has
taken the path of nationalism. (103)
Tito's break with the Cominform came as a deep shock to the
Soviet Union: it had not been thought possible that even so popular
a leader as he would be able to defy the Russian will successfully.
(103)Vasile Luca, "Petty-bourgeois Nationalist Outlook of Yugoslav
Communist Party Leadership," For a Lasting Peace, No. 15 (18),
August 1, 1948, p. 3.53
The Soviet reaction was immediate and hysterical in its suppression
of independent elements in other East European Communist parties.
Some, like Poland’s Gomulka, were lucky enough to be imprisoned;
others, like Hungary's Rajk, were not permitted to live to benefit
from a future change in the party line.
It was not only in East Europe, however, that the purge o>
Titoist elements was carried on; nationalism everywhere, whether
within or without the Communist movement, was declared anathema:
Nationalism as the ideology of the bourgeoisie is the
enemy of Marxism. They /the Titoists/ must realize that
Marxism-Leninism cannot reconcile itself with nationalism,
or with any nationalist deviation in the Communist
Parties; that it must destroy nationalism in whatever
form it arises for the sake of the interests of the
working people, for the sake of the freedom and friendship
of the peoples, for the sake of the victorious building
of socialism. (104)
The Communist parties must be internationalist; as leaders in
the proletarian struggle they cannot compromise with nationalism,
for "the class content alike of opportunism and nationalism, is
one or another form of agreement or rapprochement with the bour-
geoisie." (105) And the key to true internationalism is allegiance
to the Soviet Union:
The Bolshevik Party has always considered that the inter-
ests of building socialism in the Soviet Union completely
merge with the interests of the revolutionary movement
in all countries. ...
Bourgeois nationalism is manifested in the strivings to
we&hen the bonds of friendship with the Soviet Union: it
reflects the influence of foreign imperialist reaction
and the class enemy inside the country. The attitude
toward the Soviet Union is now the test of the devotion
to the cause of proletarian internationalism, of willing-
ness to put the Lenin-Stalin doctrine on the national
question into practice for this doctrine is an integral
part of the general question of socialist revolution. (106)
(104)	Pravda, September 8, 1948; quoted in For a Lasting Peace,
September 15, p. 2. Cf. also For a Lasting Peace, September 15,
1948, p. 3; December 1, 1948, p/ Tj December 15, 1948, p. 2.
(105)	Boleslav Beirut, "For Complete Elimination of Right and Nation-
alist Deviation," For a Lasting Peace, No. 18 (21), September 15,
1948, p. 3.	-------------------
(106)	"Struggle against Bourgeois Nationalism—Most Important Task
of Communist and Workers’ Parties," For a Lasting Peace,
No. 23 (26), December 1, 1948, p. 1. Another version of the
same theme: "In view of the growing polarisation of forces
on a world scale between the imperialist and anti-imperialist54
This argument, frank to the point of brutality, brought the
two camp doctrine to the extreme towards which it had been pro-
gressing during the year of its existence. It was not the social-
ist nature of a country's economy nor its refusal of alliance with
the West that mattered; the sole criterion was subservience to
the Soviet Union. As can readily be imagined, such an interpreta-
tion applied to Indonesia would make support of the Republic by the
Communists impossible except at terms that would mean civil war.
The condemnation of nationalism brought with it the necessity
of evaluating anew the relationship of the Communist movement to
the class struggle in the colonial countries. Only a year or
two before, we will remember, the bourgeois nationalists had been
viewed as allies of the Communists in the struggle for national
liberation in colonial areas. As we have seen, however, Communist
sympathy for the nationalist bourgeoisie had died since that time
in those countries where the nationalist governments had come to a
peaceful agreement with the colonial powers Indonesia remained
the only Asian country where the Communists had continued to
support a bourgeois nationalism that was not under their control.
That support was already badly strained, however; and the declara-
tion against nationalism in the summer of 1948 forced the PKI to
break with the nationalist cause entirely or somehow reconcile it
to the new Soviet dictum.
There were two possible approaches on the basis of the demand
for loyalty to the USSR to the problem presented by bourgeois
nationalism. The first possibility was a return to the strict
class approach of the classical left strategy, with its complete
rejection of the nationalist bourgeoisie. This interpretation
would seem supported by the emphasis placed in Soviet and Cominform
writing of the period on the necessity of combining the proletarian
struggle with the fight for national liberation: "Just like the
exponents of the ’third force’, Tito’s petty-bourgeois, nationalist
group confuses--in a bourgeois sense--the interests of the working
class and the working peasantry with the interests of the nation;
it ignores the existence of antagonistic classes and the sharpening
of the class struggle in Yugoslavia and thus denies the danger of
the rebirth of capitalism in the country." (107)
This view was expressed with particular frequency in comments
on the Indian situation, the Soviet Union having come to take an
especially sour view of that country’s nationalist movement: "The
Indian masses are now convinced on the basis of their experience
that the bourgeoisie does not desire and is not capable of achieving
camp, now more than ever before, the attitude toward the USSR
becomes the touchstone of genuine internationalism, of loyalty
to the cause of socialism, and, at the same time, the firm
and sole bulwark of our independence and sovereignty." (Boleslaw
Beirut, For Complete Elimination of Right and Nationalist
Deviation, p. 3).
(107)Luca, Petty-Bourgeois Nationalist Outlook, p. 3.55
in a consistently democratic manner the complete independence of
the country, the elimination of all vestiges of the feudalism which
is shackling its development, and the solution of the national
/minorities/ problem." (108)
The second possibility was that propounded by Mao Tse-tung,
who was urging at that time a united front composed of "workers,
peasants, artisans, professional people, intelligentsia, the liberal
bourgeoisie and a part of the gentry who have split off from the
landlord class. This we call the ’broad mass of the people'." (109)
Far from being repudiated, the national bourgeoisie was courted;
the Communists emphasized the "importance of extending both public
and private economy in the liberated territories, and urged the
public sector to give more help to the private enterprises." (110)
There was, however, one condition which the national bourgeoisie
must meet to be considered part of the democratic movement--it must
accept the leadership of the Communist Party. This would mean a
struggle against bourgeois democratic groups which refused Commu-
nist leadership and an insistence that the nationalist bourgeoisie
resign from control of the national revolution. The bourgeoisie,
with the whole of the liberation movement, must "lean to one
side," in Maoist parlance: it must declare its allegiance to the
Soviet camp.
No attempt was made to resolve the important doctrinal differ-
ence between the interpretations offered for the Indian and Chinese
situation; (111) but as far as Indonesia's immediate future was
concerned, it made little difference. Both the Maoist and the
orthodox leftist views demanded Communist leadership of the revolu-
tion; both rejected cooperation with non-Communist movements on a
basis of equality. Either interpretation, injected into the
(108)	A. M. D'iakov, Natsional'nii vopros i angliiskii imperializm
v Indii (η.p., T948), p. 3ΤΊ
(109)	Mao Tse-tung, "Agrarian Policy of the Communist Party of China,”
address to cadres of the Shansi-Suiuan Liberated Area, For a
Lasting Peace, No. 13 (16), July 1, 1948, p. 6.
(110)	"Progress of Industry and Trading in Liberated Territories
in North China," For a Lasting Peace, No. 17 (20), September 1,
1948, p. 2.	--------------------
(111)	On the contrary; Cominform and Soviet pronouncements in reac-
tion to Tito and in support of the East European collectivi-
zation drive at times took what might seem to be an anti-Maoist
line:
Concerning the leading role of the working class, the
leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party, by affirming
that the peasantry is the "most stable foundation of the
Yugoslav state" are departing from the Marxist-Leninist
path and are taking the path of a populist, kulak
party. Lenin taught that the proletariat is the "only56
Indonesian situation in the summer of 1948, was bound to have ex-
plosive consequences.
There was another sense in which the reaction to Tito was to
have an important effect on the political situation in the Republic
Following Tito’s desertion, the Soviet Union, apparently fearing
the infectious influence of nationalism, laid heavy stress on the
demand that the Communist Party dominate any mass movement in which
it might participate. Such a requirement would be bound to have
important consequences for the Indonesian leftist coalition, where
the Communists shared control with elements that could not be
relied on to follow the Soviet line. Consider the Cominform’s
criticism of the Yugoslav People's Front; it might well have been
applied to the FDR by some irate proletarian puritan:
The Information Bureau considers that the leadership of
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia is revising the Marxist-
Leninist teachings about the Party. According to the
theory of Marxism-Leninism, the Party is the main, guiding
and leading force in the country, which has its own,
specific programme, and does not dissolve itself among
the non-Party masses. The Party is the highest form of
organization and the most important weapon of the working
class.
In Yugoslavia, however, the People's Front, and not the
Communist Party, is considered to be the main leading
force in the country. The Yugoslav leaders belittle the
role of the Communist Party and actually dissolve the
Party in the non-party People's Front, which is composed
of the most varied class elements (workers, peasants
engaged in individual farming, kulaks, traders, small
manufacturers, bourgeois intelligentsia, etc.) as well
as mixed political groups which include certain bourgeois
parties. The Yugoslav leaders stubbornly refuse to
recognize the falseness of their tenet that the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia allegedly cannot and should not have
its own specific programme and that it should be satis-
fied with the programme of the People's Front.
The fact that in Yugoslavia it is only the People's Front
which figures in the political arena, while the Party
and its organizations does not appear openly before the
class in contemporary society which is revolutionary
to the end...must be the leader in the struggle of the
entire people for a thorough democratic transformation,
in the struggle of all working people and the exploited
against the oppressors and exploiters. ("Resolution
of the Information Bureau Concerning the Situation in
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia," For a Lasting
Peace, No. 13 (18), July 1, 1948, p.~TT------------
Tito, of course, relied on the peasantry much less than did
Mao.57
people in its own name, not only belittles the role of
the Party in the political life of the country, but also
undermines the Party as an independent political force,
which has the task of winning the growing confidence
of the people and of influencing ever broader masses of
the working people by open political activity and open
propaganda of its views and programme. (112)
It is interesting to note that this viewpoint, while it had no
other relation to Maoism, had the effect of bringing the Soviet
line closer to the Chinese on an important principle: the neces-
sity of Communist hegemony over the mass movement.
With these developments in mind, we shall turn to Indonesia
in August 1948 and the return of one of its prodigal sons.
(112)"Resolution of the Information Bureau Concerning the Situation
in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia," For a Lasting Peace,
No. 13 (18), July 1, 1948, p. 1. Cf. also "The Communist
Parties--the Vanguard Detachment of the Working People," For
a Lasting Peace, No. 11 (14), June 1, 1948, p. 1.	---58
Revision and Rebellion
On August 11, Suripno finally arrived back in the Republic.
No doubt the Indonesian government had awaited his arrival with
some misgivings, but they certainly did not bargain for what they
got. With Suripno, disguised as his secretary, came an Indonesian
Communist leader who had been living in the Soviet Union since his
flight from the Indies nearly twenty-five years before. His name
was Musso; he had been one of the early leaders in the revolution-
ary movement, and as such had considerable prestige among the
Indonesians. In addition, he claimed to have returned to Indonesia
in 1935 for a year in order to establish an underground Communist
Party; if his claims to this and to the illegal organization’s
membership are true, he was already the acknowledged leader of a
number of the more prominent figures in the FDR.
Musso immediately took command of the PKI and announced a
major revision of its composition and policy, a change which was
carried out with far-reaching effects on the Indonesian political
situation. We have generally avoided a discussion of internal
Indonesian developments so far, but since Musso had undoubtedly
returned to the Republic at Russia’s behest and with a. program
outlined in Moscow, a general discussion of his reform should be
of no little interest to us here. (113) It should be kept in mind
(113)Since documents dating from this period of Indonesian history
are few and far from reliable, it might be well to note
briefly here the sources used in reconstructing Musso’s program.
The major statement embodying the Communist leader’s ideas is
Djalan Baru untuk Republik Indonesia (The New Road for the
Indonesian Republic), a resolution passed by the PKI Politburo
in. August 1948 in response to Musso's criticisms of the Party/
It was first printed in the September 1948 issue of Bintang
Merah, the Communist Party journal. Unfortunately, the
writer has been unable to obtain a copy of this issue and has
had to rely on later reprints of the speech issued by the
Indonesian Communist Party. It is possible, of course, that
these have been subjected to some revision from the original,
though so far I have found no evidence of this.
The second principal source for Musso’s program is Lima
Minggu sebelum Madiun Affair, a collection of speeches and
press interviews, almost ail by Musso, as reported in Republi-
can newspapers of the period. It was published in Medan in
1949 by an Indonesian calling himself S. P. Derita. Where
it has been possible to check the articles reprinted in
Derita’s booklet with those from newspapers of the time there
has been no sign of any alteration in content. On the whole,
both Djalan Baru and the reports in Lima Minggu sebelum Madiun
Affair do not seem to deviate from available accounts of PKI
policy published at the time of Musso’s activity in the Repub-
lic; however, the writer has tried to give references, when
relying on these or other later sources, to newspaper accounts
contemporary to Musso’s reform. Unfortunately, this has not
been possible in the case of some of the more theoretical59
by the reader, however, that we cannot be sure Musso did not add
to or alter his Soviet instructions after arriving in Indonesia;
and therefore we cannot consider the policies instituted by him as
an absolutely reliable indication of the Soviet program for the
Republic,
Musso’s arrival in Indonesia was greeted with mixed feelings
on the part of the non-Communists, if we may judge from reports of
the period. On the one hand there was, of course, a feeling that
his coming meant trouble. On the other side, a hopeful segment of
opinion expressed the thought that he might be a deus ex machina
who would somehow resolve the alarming domestic conflict. And at
first it did appear as if Musso had this in mind: one of his
first actions was to criticize the FDR-sponsored strike wave, which
had just led to a serious clash between government and pro-Communist
forces; "At a time like this, when reaction is gathering its
forces to attack our Republic, it must be considered that from the
point of view of unity such actions must be prohibited, in a way
which will remove the factors dissatisfying the workers. And this
problem must be settled in a peaceful manner, for the enemy can
make use of every absence of peace in the country." (114) On being
asked by President Sukarno to lend his support to the Republic and
its revolution, he is said to have replied, "Indeed, that is my
task. I have come back to set things straight." (115)
It was very soon apparent, however, that Musso’s ideas on how
to set things straight differed considerably from those of the
Indonesian government. He came forth with a program which he quite
points—understandably, since the Indonesian newspapers were
chiefly interested in Musso’s views on foreign policy and the
inter-party struggle. For the theoretical issues, and unfor-
tunately these are among the most important for this paper,
the reader will have to let his own judgment be his guide.
(114)	"Robah kabinet sekarang djadi kabinet Front Nasional," Suara
Ibu Kota, August 14, 1948; in Derita, Lima Minggu sebelum
Madiun Affair (Medan, 1949), p. 28.	C±'. also Musso’s inter-
view with the newspaper Buruh,as reported in Merdeka (the
chief nationalist newspaper of the time), August 16, 1948,
p. 2; "Communist and Socialist Parties Merge," Merdeka (No. 42,
September 5, 1948; this journal Merdeka was a publication of
the Indonesian Republic information office in New Delhi), p. 8;
"Communist Rising in Indonesia," Merdeka (New Delhi, No. 44),
September 25, 1948, p. 5.
(115)	Aidit Accuses Madiun Affair (Djakarta, 1955), p. 26. Accord-
ing to another PKl source,Musso made his reply in good coloni-
al Dutch; "Ik koni hier om orde te scheppen." (Buku Putih
tentang peristiwa Madiun (n.p., 1954), p. 7.)	CT-.-'also' Merdeka,
August 16",'1948, p. 2.-- --------------------------------------60
frankly labelled his "Gottwald Plan," (116) aimed at a peaceful
assumption of power by the Communists in the manner of the Czech
coup. His first action was to re-organize the PKI along lines
which, as we shall see, were in conformity with the Cominform
criticism inspired by the Titoist revolt. The Communist Party, he
maintained, should be the leading force in the national revolution
but the PKI had allowed itself to drift with the nationalist tide
and as a result had lost control of the revolution. This was the
same mistake that the West European Communists had made after
World War II; like them, the PKI had submitted to bourgeois domina
tion and had not asserted itself as the leader of the proletarian
movement. The PKI's Politburo, outlining Musso’s program towards
the end of August, declared;
In the field of foreign policy, the Politburo meeting is
of the opinion that the great mistakes made by the Indo-
nesian Communists during these three years have not been
accidental but have had their roots in the events follow-
ing the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of our
homeland by Japan; later they were influenced by the mis-
taken policy of our brother parties, namely the West
European Communist parties (France, England, and the
Netherlands). ...After World War II had ended with the
defeat of the three fascist countries, there was no
longer any reason for the Communist Parties in the
capitalist and imperialist countries and for the re-
volutionary forces in the colonial lands to continue to
cooperate with their governments. This was even more
true after it had become clear that the bourgeoisie had
begun to take steps to suppress the liberation movement
in the colonial countries.
The mistake of the French and English Communist Parties,
and also of the Netherlands Communist Party, which was
influenced by the Communist Party of France, arose from
a failure to understand the great transformation which
had taken place in international politics since the world
war, especially as regards the liberation struggle of
the peoples of the colonial countries.*...
Because of its failure to understand this change in the
political situation, the CPN (the Dutch Communist Party)
held the view that the struggle of the Indonesian people
could not go beyond the limits of dominion status; and
because of this they claimed the slogan best suited for
Indonesia was "Union ties," or, in other words, that
Indonesia remain within the Dutch "Commonwealth" sphere.
There Indonesian people were thus to continue to "cooper-
ate" with Dutch imperialism. This was the same stand-
(116)Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution, p. 275. Suripno also used
the Czech example in referring to the PKI's new course
(speech to the BKPRI, August 14; as reported in Merdeka,
August 17, 1948, p. 2).61
point taken by the French Communist Party toward the
Vietnamese liberation struggle. ...
This reformist policy was put into practice by comrades,
former members of the CPN who came to Indonesia; they did
this automatically and without careful consideration, and,
moreover, without adapting it to the objective situation
(the independence proclamation of August 17, 1945), with
results that have endangered the success of our National
Revolution.
It must be stated that this imported reformist policy
gave a clear opportunity for the spread of the reformist
wing, which took over the foreign policy of the Republic
under the leadership of the right socialists (Sutan
Sjahrir). (117)
Instead of forming a single working-class party after World
War II, the Indonesian Communists had allowed the leadership of
the Left to be spread over a number of loosely united groups, which
weakened the party’s position and confused the people. All this
must now be remedied by a major organizational reform:
In connection with the mistakes in the principle of its
organization mentioned above, and taking good notice of
the lesson provided by events in Yugoslavia, the meeting
of the PKI Politburo has decided to institute a radical
change which has as its aim:
1.	the return of the PKI to its position of leader of the
working class as soon as possible.
2.	the swiftest possible return of the good PKI tradi-
tion of the period before and during World War II.
3.	the achievement by the PKI of HEGEMONY...in the
leadership of the National Revolution. (118)
The proposed organizational revision took the form of a
proposal to merge the components of the FDR—the Socialist Party,
Labor Party, Socialist Youth (Pesindo), and the trade union federa-
tion SOBSI—into an enlarged Communist Party. Sjarifuddin,
Setiadjit, Wikana, Abdulmadjid, and Tan Ling Djie, the key leaders
of the non-Communist FDR groups, now announced they had been
(117)Djalan Baru untuk Republik Indonesia (Djakarta, 1953), pp. 15-19
C±. also ’’Kongres Koreksi Serikat Buruh Gula," Solo, Septem^
ber 8, 1948; in Derita, Lima Minggu, p. 37; also reported in
Merdeka, September 13, 1948, p. l. Statement of the central
executive of SOBSI, Buruh, September 3, 1948; quoted in Kahin,
Nationalism and Revolution, pp. 279-280. Buruh, September 14,
1948, p. 1. Declaration of the Socialist Party on joining the
PKI, as reported in Merdeka, September 1, 1948, p. 1.
(llS)Djalan Baru, p. 11. Cf. also Merdeka, September 1, 1948, p. 1;
Buruh, September 14, 1948, p.“Τζ62
secret members of the PKI all along; (119) luckily, we shall not
have to enter here into a discussion of the various theories as to
whether or not they really had been. The various FDR components
began to hold meetings and rallies to ratify their entrance into
the Communist Party and to gain support for their action. It was
clear that, once the re-organization had been completed, the
Communist Party would emerge as an immensely powerful force and,
as far as the government was concerned, a threat of no mean propor-
tions .
What was even more menacing, however, was the revolutionary
program which Musso proclaimed for the Republic. The Communist
Party, he declared, must hold the leadership of the national revolu
tion. It had been a grievous mistake for Amir Sjarifuddin to have
so peacefully laid down the reins of government:
A very important error was the fact that the Amir
Sjarifuddin cabinet resigned voluntarily, without offer-
ing any resistance whatsoever. The Communists at this
time did not remember the admonition of Lenin; ’’The
primary question in any revolution is the question of
state power." With the fall of the Amir Sjarifuddin
caoinet the way was opened for elements of the compradore
bourgeoisie to seize control of governmental leader-
ship and thus of the leadership of our National Revolution,
while the Communists isolated themselves in the opposi-
tion. It may be said that from that movement on our
National Revolution has been in great danger, a danger
that has grown with the passing of time. Since that
moment our National Revolution has been more and more
clearly sinking into the pit of capitulation to Dutch
and other imperialisms, a result of the very reactionary
policy of compromise followed by the Indonesian bour-
geois elements which took over governmental leadership. (120)
The Communists must regain control of the government and the
revolution; and as a vehicle for this, the PKI proposed the
establishment of a National Front, a broad coalition to be headed
by the Communist Party:
The PKI is convinced that at this moment the Party of
the working class cannot alone accomplish the bourgeois
democratic revolution, and for this reason the PKI must
work together with other parties. The Communists have,
of course, taken action to achieve unity with the members
of other parties and organizations. The sole /acceptable/
form of this sort of union is the NATIONAL FRONT. The ~
PKI must take the initiative in forming it, and the
PKI must also play the leading role in it. This in no
(119)	Cf. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution, pp. 272-275.
(120)	Djalan Baru, pp. 19-20. Cf. also Merdeka, September 13, 1948,
p; I (report of a speech by Amir Sjarifuddin to the congress
of the Sugar Workers' Union, Solo, September 7).63
way means that the Communists will force other parties
or individuals to follow them, but, on the contrary, the
PKI must patiently convince all honest people that the
only road to security is the formation of a National
Front which is supported by all progressive and anti-
imperialist people. Every Communist must be truly
convinced that without a National Front victory cannot
be achieved. ..»
A genuine National Front must be formed from below; all
members of parties which have agreed to the National
Front must enter it individually. In addition, an oppor-
tunity is given to the thousands of progressive people
who are without party affiliation to participate in the
National Front. The committees of the National Front,
both locally and at the center, must be elected from
below in a democratic manner. In this way the National
Front, once it is founded, will not easily fail, since it
will no longer be overly dependent on the desires of
the party leaders. In this way, the National Front will
also make possible a lessening of political differences
and will reduce opposition to a minimum.
At the same time, the PKI must do its best to see that
the present government is replaced as quickly as possible
with a responsible NATIONAL FRONT government which is
based on the national program. (121)
The structure of the National Front was familiar enough to those
who knew something of the Communist-led "coalitions" which existed
in East Europe and China at the time; needless to say, the leader-
ship of the major non-Communist parties in the Republic showed no
enthusiasm for it.
The PKI laid down a number of demands on the government in
behalf of its new mass movement, the most important of which, from
the point of view of the non-Communists, was the desire that the
government be purged of all elements that were not "truly anti-
colonial ." (122) Most interesting for our study, however, is the
(121)	Djalan Baru, pp. 31-33. Cf. also "Usui Kompromi Mesti
Ditolaky Suara Ibu Kota, August 14, 1948; in Derita, Lima
Minggu, p. 2b; "Saja Datang, Saja Lihat, dan...?" Madjallah
Merdeka (I, 35), September 11, 1948, p. 6; and Musso^ inter-
view with the newspaper Revolusioner, reported in Merdeka,
August 16, 1948, p. 2. For a more detailed outline of the
structure of the National Front organization, cf. "Usul2
tentang Front Nasional," Buruh, August 16, 1948; in Derita,
Lima Minggu, pp. 25-27; and Musso, interview with Revolusioner,
August 14, as reported in Merdeka, August 18, 1948, p. '2Γ.
(122)	For a listing of the various PKI National Front demands, cf.
Djalan Baru, pp. 26-30; Merdeka, August 18, 1948, p. 2; a
resolution adopted by the SOBSI, in Buruh, August 23, 1948,
quoted in Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution, pp. 277-278.64
attitude towards the different economic classes expressed in the
new doctrine; for in this we can perhaps see whether Musso’s pro-
gram tended towards the orthodox leftist line or the Maoist
analysis.
The Communists declared that the Indonesian revolution was a
"NATIONAL REVOLUTION or BOURGEOIS DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF A NEW
TYPE, a preparatory step to a higher form of revolution, the
Socialist or Proletarian Revolution.” (123) The phraseology
sounds Mao%$t, for the idea that a Communist-led national revolt
constituted a new type of bourgeois-democratic revolution was
first put forth by the Chinese leader. But let us continue before
drawing any conclusions as to Musso's orientation.
Although the revolution is a bourgeois democratic one, Musso
considered, the bourgeoisie cannot lead it because of its tendency
to defect to the imperialist camp: "The leadership of this revolu-
tion, although /The revolt/ is still bourgeois in nature, cannot
rightly be in tKe hands oT bourgeois elements, but must be
controlled by the workers. ...The existence of the countries of
the new democracy in East Europe and the rise of the national
revolution all over Asia points out clearly that the national
bourgeoisie is no longer capable of leading a consistent anti-i»-
perialist liberation movement." (124) However, this does not mean
that the bourgeoisie should be eliminated:
Our revolution is at the present time of a NATIONAL type.
It is truly a bourgeois democratic revolution. It still
contains bourgeois elements. In certain cases, moreover,
it may find itself forced to encourage the growth of
these elements in order that with their help it may fur-
ther the development of the country's economy. This does
not mean, however, that capitalism should be allowed to
progress to the extent that it can go over to the forma-
tion of cartels or trusts, so that in the end it will be
able to control the economic and political life of the
country. Capitalism can exist, and moreover in the be-
ginning must exist, but only under State control and with
its development checked so that it cannot return the
country to a capitalist state. It is quite essential
to allow the development of such a controlled capitalism.
This is required because an agrarian land like Indonesia,
which at the beginning of the revolution does not yet
have sufficient means of production to stand alone, can-
(123)	Djalan Baru, p. 31.
(124)	Musso, "Sifat Revolusi Rita," Revolusioner, September 5, 1948;
in Derita, Lima Minggu, p. 21. Cf. also "Pemerintah
Repoeblik moengkinkah didjatoehkan oleh golongan Kommunis?”
Santapan Rakjat (I, 100), September 4, 1948, p. 1, citing
Keng Po of August 23, 1948; statement by the SOBSI executive,
Buruh, September 3, 1948, quoted in Kahin, Nationalism and
Revolution, p. 279; Buruh, September 14, 1948, p. TL65
not, without the aid of such controlled private capital,
improve the economy of the country so as to establish
the basis for the higher revolution, the proletarian or
socialist revolution. (125)
This would seem » distinctly Maoist interpretation, an impres
sion which is further strengthened by Musso's analysis of the role
of the various economic classes in the national revolution. He
seemed to have doubts, however, about the present revolutionary
value of the national bourgeoisie;
Other groups /besides the proletariat/ which are demo-
cratic in nature are the peasants, especially the poor
peasants and small peasants. The middle peasants must
also be considered to be of a democratic nature. Among
the rich peasants there were also some who at the be-
ginning of the revolution held anti-imperialist sentiments.
Among the national bourgeois elements, too, there were
those who at the beginning of the revolution were of
anti-imperialist feeling. (126)
As regards the peasant question, Musso took a clearly Maoist
line in urging that the poor peasant be given land, that the
middle peasant's rights be defended, and that the land of the
rich peasants be confiscated completely if they have opposed the
revolution and in part if they have supported it. Such a system
of reform had been carried out, he asserted, in China and
Czechoslovakia. (127)
(125)	Musso, Sifat Revolusi, p. 19.
(126)	Musso, Sifat Revolusi, p. 21.
(127)	Musso, Sifat Revolusi, pp. 19-20. Cf. also the SOBSI resolu-
tion of August 22, Buruh, August 23, 1948; quoted in Kahin,
Nationalism and Revolution, p. 278; and Merdeka, August 24,
J948, p. 3/ The PKI resolution, Djalan Baru, However, ex-
pressed a viewpoint that can only be explained as an addition
by the Indonesian Communists to the imported theory;
The PKI policy for the peasants in all Indonesia is;
"Land for the peasantry." Thus every peasant must be
given land, so that he can really feel to have gained
by the revolution. However, the Communists must
understand that at present and for some years to come
it will not be possible to carry out this slogan be-
cause of the shortage of land on Java and Madura, and
the excessively large number of peasants. Therefore,
for the time being, the peasantry will be better
helped by not dividing among them the lands which
accrue to them as a result of the abolition of feudal
forms in the agrarian sector. Rather, this land will
be handed over to the village, and it will be the
village which will regulate the allocation of this
land and decide on the requests of the peasants
/Tor the use of the land/ in a manner which will bene-66
It would seem,,then, that Musso’s program, if it was not
consciously Maoist in its inspiration, was at least sufficiently
similar to the Chinese line to ensure a general conformation on
important theoretical points. We may speculate as to whether
Musso's advocacy of a rather Maoist program indicates that the
Russians, sending him back to Indonesia, had sufficient interest
in the non-quite-accepted line to charge him with implementing it
in Indonesia; it must remain, however, only a speculation.
As was to be expected in the light of Soviet policy in the
summer of 1948, Musso’s arrival brought no more pliable attitude
on the part of the Left as regards negotiations with the Dutch.
The Communists' prior support of the agreements was labelled the
product of a mistaken continuance of the wartime policy of coopera-
tion with the West, and it was emphasized that even under the most
favorable circumstances the PKI vzould refuse to adopt a concilia-
tory attitude:
The Communists repudiate the Linggadjati and Renville
agreements, not because Holland has proved unfaithful to
them and has trampled these agreements to the ground.
No! By no means.’ The Communists repudiate the Linggadjati
and Renville agreements on principle, because these agree-
ments, if put into practice, would create a state which
in reality would be under foreign domination, which would
differ from India, Burma, the Philippines and other
foreign-dominated lands only in its name. Because of
this the PKI firmly puts forth as its slogan; "Complete
independence." (123)
fit them. (Djalan Baru, p. 29).
This would seem to be a response by the Indonesian Communists
to the traditional Javanese communal control of land, which
appeared so much closer to the Communist goal than did the
prescribed slogan of land to the individual peasant. No
doubt the PKI did feel somewhat at a loss in adapting inter-
national Communist ideas on the peasant question, since there
was little large landownership in Indonesia, nor was there a
significant class of rich peasants. At any rate, the Indonesian
Communists, while they have admitted the prime importance of
the peasantry to the national revolution, have down to the
present time tended rather to slide over the agrarian problem
when it came down to practice.
It might also be noted that the FDR/PKI was quite explicit
in denying accusations that it desired the nationalization
or socialization of the peasants’ rice-lands (Cf. Buruh,
September 14, 1948).
(123)Djalan Baru, p. 23. Cf. also the SOBSI resolution of August 22,
in Buruh, August 23, 1948, and quoted in Kahin, Nationalism
and Revolution, p. 278, and Merdeka, August 24, T948, p. Γ767
"We must now struggle like the Greek Communists, like the
Chinese Communists, and that is in a consistently anti-imperialist
manner. We do not want an independence like that of Nehru’s
country," Setiadjit declared. (129) Such resolutions could only
mean an all-out military struggle with the Dutch, and the Communists
made it clear that they fully recognized this implication:
The weakness of our revolution has been in general that
it has been of a defensive nature from the very begin-
ning. According to FRIEDRICH ENGELS, a very great re-
volutionary strategist, a defensive revolution has no
possible hope of success.
In the long run, therefore, a revolution must be of an
offensive nature; though it is true that a defensive
revolution can achieve successes on a small scale.
People MUST NOT continually complain, "We have no
weapons." There are weapons enough in the hands of
the Dutch. Because of this we will, I hope, act
according to the admonition of DANTON: "Courage,
courage, and yet more courage." (130)
It would probably not be unreasonable to attribute at least
part of the inspiration for the program of all-out offense to
Soviet encouragement, since the USSR had already made it clear
that its admiration for the Republic lay in the fact that it was
fighting the Dutch. Both from the point of view of military
harrassment of the West and of general propaganda value, the
Soviet Union stood to gain by a break-down of the Indonesian-
Dutch truce; while, to judge from the Russian estimate of neutralism
at that time, the USSR would have preferred to see a vanquished
but restive Indonesia to a Repuhlic on the lines of Nehru’s
India. Nonetheless, it would be stretching things a bit too far
to maintain that the whole idea of an offensive against the Dutch
was a result of "orders from Moscow," There was a not inconsider-
able body of public opinion in the Republic itself which, weary
of unsuccessful negotiations and the chaos caused by war conditions
and the Dutch blockade, was desperate enough to desire a showdown.
It was this group to which the opposition in the Republic had
generally appealed And to which the Left itself had turned since
its fall from office. The government, however, felt it had
something more to fear from the Dutch than fear itself; and it
(129)	"Nasionalisir zonder Kompensasi," Jogja, September 11, 1948;
in Derita, Lima Minggu, p. 42.
(130)	Musso, "Untuk zelfkritik dalam Revolusi Nasional," Buruh,
August 16, 1948; in Derita, Lima Minggu, p. 25. Cf~ also
Saja Datang, Saja Lihat, dan...?, p. 6;' speech by Musso
before the Jogja association of university students, as re-
ported by the Antara (Indonesian nationalist))news service,
September 6, 1948; interview between Musso and the newspaper
Revolusioner, as reported in Merdeka, August 16, 1948, p. 2.68
could only have been deeply alarmed at Musso’s insistence on an
immediate all-out offensive.
There remained the very important question of the Republic's
foreign policy under the two camp doctrine; and the PKI lost no
time in stating its position. Alliance with the Soviet bloc was
essential:
The Communists who allowed the growth and domination of
this reactionary /neutralist/ policy, both following it
and giving it support, have-made two mistakes:
a.	They have forgotten the teachings of our revolutionary
theory, to the effect that the anti-imperialist
National Revolution has in the present day become a
part of the world Proletarian Revolution. ...The
USSR, as the largest and strongest anti-imperialist
force, must be looked on as a base, as a mighty
fortress, or as a leader and vanguard in the anti-
imperialist struggle all over the world. For there
are only two camps in the world, which are opposed
to each other, the imperialist and the anti-imperialist
camps. For the Indonesian National Revolution there
is no other place than the anti-imperialist camp"!
b.	The second mistake is that they have not understood
well enough the relationship of power between the
Soviet Union and Anglo-American imperialism in the
time since the Soviet Union's swift success in occu-
pying all Manchuria. It was already clear then that
the position of the Soviet Union as the strongest
force on the Asian continent, with a greater military
power than US, English, and Australian imperialism,
presented a good opportunity for the Indonesian
people to begin its revolution. At this time the
Indonesian Communists exaggerated the strength of
Dutch and other imperialisms and underestimated the
strength of the Indonesian Revolution as well as that
of the other anti-imperialist forces. (131)
The Republic should not be so fearful of America, the Communists
declared; the US was a paper dragon, and both the PKI and Indonesia
as a whole had been fooled by American propaganda into making
(131)Djalan Baru, pp. 15-19. Cf. also the statement of the SOBSI
executive, Buruh, September 3, 1948; quoted in Kahin, Nation-
alism and Revolution, pp. 279-280; "Rusia Tidak Mengakui
Kedaulatan feelanda," Suara Ibu Kota, August 14, 1948, in
Derita, Lima Minggu, pp. 32-33; Musso’s reply to Hatta’s
speech before Parliament of September 2, as reported by
Merdeka, September 6, 1948, p. 1.69
unnecessary concessions. (132) if, however, the Republic allied
with the Soviet Union, it would find a support the imperial powers
would not dare defy:
In its policy towards the Soviet Union, the PKI most
strongly urges the establishment of direct relations
between the Indonesian Republic and the Soviet Union in
all areas. The Soviet Union is an indispensable ally
for the Indonesian people against imperialism, for the
Soviet Union is the vanguard of the struggle against
the imperialist bloc, which is led by the United States.
It is clear enough that the United States is helping and
making use of the Netherlands to smash our democratic
Republic. The PKI must explain to the masses that
Soviet recognition is an unmixed blessing, for the
Soviet Union as a workers’ state cannot have other than
an anti-imperialist standpoint. The Soviet Union there-
fore has no interests as regards Indonesia other than
helping it in its'antirimperialist struggle. (133)
Considerable emphasis was placed on the benefits of Soviet
friendship by the Indonesian Left in the National Front campaign.
The USSR itself reportedly contributed to the pressure for the
establishment of connections between Indonesia and Russia by
approaching Indonesian representatives in Bangkok through its
legation there with suggestions for trade between the two
countries. (134) Whether this is true or not, the idea that the
USSR would send ships through the Dutch blockade and thus relieve
the Republic’s desperate economic situation was certainly not dis-
couraged by the Indonesian Communists; "As for Holland, a country
as small as that will not dare to stop Russian ships; and America,
too, will have respect for the Republic if it knows that behind
the Republic stands Soviet Russia." (135) It can easily be under-
stood that, in a country which had its back against the wall and
was sorely disillusioned with the Western powers, such an argument
might have considerable appeal.
(132)	pjalan Baru, p 9; Musso, speech at a PKI rally in Jogja,
August 22, reported in Merdeka, August 24, 1948, p. 1.
(133)	Djalan Baru, p. 24 Cf. also Usui Kompromi Mesti Ditolak,
P 30; ’’pernjataan Mr. Amir Sjarifuddin," Santapan RakjaT
(I, 102), September 11, 1948, p. 2; declaration of the
Socialist Party on entering the PKI, Merdeka, September 1,
1948, p. 1; Suripno, in a speech to the BKPRI on August 14,
reported in Merdeka, August 17, 1948, p. 2; Musso, speech to
students in Jogja, reported in Merdeka, September 7, 1948, p. 1.
(134)	Cf John Coast, Recruit to Revolution (London, 1952), pp. 187,
210-215.	-------------------—
(135)	Musso, in a speech to a PKI rally in Jogja, August 22; quoted
in Merdeka, August 25, 1948, p. 1.70
Armed with this program for the Indonesian revolution, the
Communists now set out to organize a National Front movement which
would serve as the mass base supporting their demands on the
government. At the same time, they offered to negotiate with the
other parties for the forming of a "National Front" cabinet, in
which all major political groupings would take part. It was far
too late, however, for any compromise between the Communist and
pro-government forces, least of all on Communist terms. We shall
not go into the details of the events leading up to the complete
breakdown of relations between the Communists and the Republican
government, save to remark that on September IS pro-Communist
troops in the city of Madiun, under government orders to demobilize,
revolted and declared a National Front government. Musso and some
of the other PKI leaders, on a tour to propagandize the National
Front, immediately went to Madiun and declared against the Jogja
government. The rebellion was disorganized, and within a month
it had been put down by the government forces; its leaders were
either killed in the fighting or executed.
The Indonesian government has claimed that the revolt had been
planned by Musso from the beginning; the PKI has maintained that
it was provoked by the government, which was bent on crushing the
Communists. The truth of the matter may never be known in view
of the paucity of documents and unpartisan views on the subject,
and it is anyway beyond the scope of this paper to go into the
rather elusive evidence as to the revolt’s beginnings; but the
writer is inclined to give most credence to the view that the
fighting was started by lower-echelon Communist leaders in Madiun
who became alarmed at the government’s attempts to demobilize
their troops and at the growing number of incidents which were
sapping Communist strength. The PKI leadership, on hearing of the
rebellion, decided that the die was cast and that if they did not
join in the struggle the government would dismember their forces
piece by piece. (136) As for the actual intentions of the govern-
ment and the Communists, it is perhaps sufficient to remark that
it was apparent to both before the rebellion that the likelihood
of civil war in the near future was exceedingly great; and it would
have been foolish for either of them to refrain from making plans
for such an eventuality.
(136)Cf. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution, pp. 284, 294; Henri
Alers, Qm een rode of groene merdeka (n.p., 1956), pp. 188-
196. Alers maintains, quite reasonably, that it was probable
an eventual revolt had been planned by the Communists to
center around Madiun, and that it no doubt seemed better to
the PKI leaders to go along with the premature rebellion than
to see all their plans collapse.71
Repudiation of Sukarno;
Endorsement of Mao
In spite of the ominous developments in Indonesia during the
late summer of 1948, the August mood of the Soviet press was one
of friendship as usual. "The Republic of Indonesia is courageously
defending her independence against encroachments by the Dutch be-
hind whom loom the monopolists of Wall Street, eager to gain
possession of Indonesia’s vast natural wealth," the foreign affairs
journal New Times reported. "The Soviet representatives in the UN
systematically expose the real purpose of the intrigues of the
colonial imperialists and invariably support every measure aimed
at securing genuine independence for the Indonesian people and the
territorial integrity of their Republic." (137) So far, all was
right with the Soviet world.
The Russian press did not report the arrival of Musso in
Indonesia, and it gave very little publicity to the changes that
took place in the Communist Party as a result of his efforts.
What coverage was given to Indonesia—TASS had a correspondent in
Djakarta and another in The Hague—was devoted to a reporting of
the various Dutch sinnings against the Republic and the cause of
peace. On August 25, however, Pravda reported briefly on the SOBSI
conference of three days before, declaring that the labor federa-
tion demanded a cabinet which would carry out the National Program;
Hatta, the article noted, was considered by the conference to be
dealing too closely with the imperialists.
This was the first report unfavorable to the Indonesian govern
ment since February 29; but it was not followed by any campaign of
criticism and thus is probably not of great significance. On
September 2, Pravda remarked tha decision to form an enlarged
Communist Party composed of the old FDR components; and on Septem-
ber 5 it noted the formation of a new PKI Politburo. Meanwhile,
the usual reports on the threat of Dutch aggression were kept up.
If the Soviet Union knew beforehand that the Indonesian Com-
munists were going to fight the Republic’s government, it certainly
showed ho sign of it publicly. Izvestia and Pravda did not mention
the Republic between September 17 and 25; on the latter day the
rebellion was first announced. Pravda’s report began as follows;
"Numerous and contradictory reports are appearing here /Tn The
Hague/, from which the only clear thing that can be gathered is
that the situation in Indonesia has lately become worse." This
cautious beginning made, the paper continued:
On West and East Java armed skirmishes between Dutch
troops and Indonesian are continuing. At the same time
it is reported that in the Republican area a conflict is
taking place between the Communists and the rightist
"National/Tst/ Party."
(137)"The Struggle of the Colonial Peoples," New Times (No. 32),
August 4, 1948, p. 2.72
The agency ANP /The Dutch wire service/ has transmitted
a report from Batavia asserting that The Communists have
seized power in a large Republican center in West /sic/
Java—the city of Madiun. According to the ANP reporT,
Sukarno, speaking over the radio, called for the arrest
of Indonesian Communist Party Secretary General Musso.
The Hague, September 21, 1948 (TASS). Dutch newspapers
are publishing accounts of the development of events
in Indonesia. According to these reports, the radio
station at Madiun yesterday transmitted an appeal by
Communist Party leader Musso to the Indonesian people,
summoning them to join the battle for the independence
of the country.
According to the newspapers’ assertion, it was stated in
a declaration to the public in Madiun that the Sukarno-
Hatta government, which is betraying the national inter-
ests of Indonesia, must be removed and replaced by a
new government answering to the interests of the people.
The Hague, September 21, 1948 (TASS). It is reported
that all communications between Djogjakarta and Madiun
have been cut off.
The Hague, September 21, 1948 (TASS). Numerous cable-
grams are continuing to arrive from Indonesia, on the
basis of which, however, it is impossible to obtain a
clear picture of the events taking place there.
It is reported that the police, in compliance with
orders from the Hatta government, have arrested two
hundred members of democratic organizations in
Djogjakarta. Among the arrested were trade union
leaders. (138)
We have presented the entire coverage on Indonesia from the
September 22 issue of Pravda because it illustrates quite well the
tenor of Soviet reporting throughout the rebellion. The accounts
were short, confused, and, for Soviet journalistic standards, re-
markably cautious, it being constantly reminded that they were
second-hand reports and that the situation was too donfused for any
concrete conclusions to be drawn. In this way Pravda, while it
reported news sympathetic to the rebels, did not declare itself
openly in support of them, nor did it attack the Hatta government
save in a manner which attributed the unfavorable opinion to
other sources. Contrary to its treatment in the Dutch Communist
(138)Izvestia's report on the outbreak of the revolt was the same
as that in Pravda; it subsequently presented less coverage of
Indonesian events than the party newspaper, those reports which
did appear being generally the same as those published in
Pravda. This was true as a rule of Izvestia’s accounts of the
Republic throughout the Indonesian revolution.73
press, the rebel government was not referred to by Soviet newspapers
as the true government of the Republic. Such abstinence from edi-
torializing is not characteristic of Soviet journalism in general,
and it is in striking contrast to the opinion on Sukarno and Hatta
expressed throughout 1949 by the Russian press.
On the whole, one receives the impression that Pravda consider-
ed the whole matter to be a most untoward development, which it
preferred to treat gingerly if at all. Pravda's caution cannot be
laid entirely to a lack of information, since the Dutch Communist
press gave the rebellion detailed coverage and almost immediately
took a strong stand in favor of Musso and against the Republican
government. We cannot know, of course, whether Soviet public
comment on the revolt had any relation to the actual attitude of
the Russian government; but it is interesting to note that the
USSR did not consider it politic to come out openly in support of
the rebellion while it was in progress.
While it was hesitant in expressing its opinion on the Indo-
nesian situation during the revolt, the Soviet press did not com-
pletely preserve an attitude of business as usual concerning the
Republican government. The first note of the attitude which was
to be expressed with increasing virulence in the coming months
appeared in Pravda on October 15, citing as its source the Dutch
Communist newspaper--appropriately enough, since the Dutch Commu-
nists were the first outside of Indonesia to take this stand;
The organ of the Communist Party, the newspaper "De
Waarheid," writes that at the present time certain in-
fluential circles in Washington are placing greater
stakes on Hatta than on van Mook and Holland’s protege,
Abdul Kadir. The large American concern "Fox," the
newspaper pointed out, has concluded a contract with the
Hatta government in accordance with which the Americans
will gain control of the richest sources of raw materials
in Indonesia. "The bosses of Wall Street," the newspaper
concludes, "figure that they will reach their goal more
quickly if they do business with Hatta and not with the
Dutch. By its conduct, the Dutch government has made
it possible for the American imperialists to gain a firm
foothold in Indonesia and in Holland. The Hatta govern-
ment and the Netherlands have now become putty in Ameri-
ca's hands. (139)
This interpretation served to explain the fact that the Republican
leaders, while they were tools of imperialism, continued to be at
odds with the Dutch.
(139)By one of politics' ironic twists, this view was also expressed
by the right-wing Dutch press, particularly after the news
of the Fox contract appeared. Pravda, in fact, several times
quotes Trouw (the organ of the Anti-Revolutionary Party) as an
authority on the American influence in the Hatta government.74
A whole series of intrigues between the Americans and the
"Hatta-Sukarno clique” were discovered in explanation of the defeat
of the Left:
/US member of the Good Offices Commission/ Graham managed
To strike a deal with the Indonesian Right-wing groups—
Sukiman and Sjamsuddin, leaders of the Moslem Masjumi
Party, and A. K. Gani and Ali Sastroamidjojo, leaders
of the Nationalist party. With the help of backstage
machinations the Americans were able to secure the down-
fall of the government of Amir Sjarifuddin which enjoyed
the support of the mass of the Indonesian people.
The Hatta government appeared on the scene. ...The aura
of mystery surrounding him vanished, however, as soon
as he included representatives of the Right-wing nation-
alist parties in the cabinet and began to negotiate with
the American government for a loan. ...
Indonesian dissatisfaction with the policy of making
deals with the colonizers, pursued by the Hatta govern-
ment, has latterly assumed the proportions of a popular
uprising. The struggle for genuine independence of the
Republic has become the focal point of political life.
Treacherous elements are attempting behind the backs of
the people to come to terms with the American and Dutch
imperialists. But the mass of the Indonesians are deter-
mined to carry on the fight against the enslavement of
the country, for national independence and liberty. And
the struggle continues. (140)
This remained the tenor of Soviet comment on Indonesia for
the rest of the Indonesian revolution. The Madiun Affair was re-
ferred to as a ’’provocation” rather than a revolt; it had been
crushed, but the Indonesian people would not accept the Hatta-
Sukarno version of independence and were continuing the armed
struggle for liberty. (141) On a more theoretical level, it was
asserted that the Hatta government’s suppression of the Leftist
(140)	G. Afrin, "In Indonesia," New Times (No. 45), November 3, 1948,
pp. 30-32. cf. also Berezhkov, **ϊη Indonesia," New Times,
January 1, 1949, pp. 8-9; Steklov, "Imperia'list Aggression in
Indonesia," New Times, November 16, 1949, p. 6.
(141)	Cf. K. Gavrilov, "Rumatsia ustoi imperializma v koloniakh,"
Bloknot Agitatora (No. 24), August 1949, p. 46; V. Ia.
Vasil’eva, Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba v stranakh
Iugo-Vostochnoi Azii~ (Moscow, 1949), p. 227
"this sympathy for all manifestations of continuing conflict
led the Soviet Union eventually to praise the activities of
some movements whose policies were otherwise far removed from
those of Communism—such as the Moslem terrorist Darul Islam.
(Cf. Izvestia, January 15, 1950).75
movement represented a defection by the bourgeoisie from the revolu-
tionary movement: under American pressure, and afraid of the con-
sequences of a thoroughgoing revolution, the bourgeois nationalists
had deserted the popular camp and allied with the imperialists. (142)
The Soviet interpretation of the Madiun revolt left no hint as
to what attitude the USSR would take towards the Indonesian ques-
tion in the UN. Since the Republic was now considered to be in
reactionary hands, there was no compelling reason why the Soviet
Union should defend it; on the other hand, to abandon the cause
would release America from its embarrassment at being forced to
appear favorable to the colonial viewpoint. The matter was put to
the test soon enough; on December 19, 1948, the Dutch attacked
the Republic in the second of their "police actions"; in short
order they occupied all of Java and arrested the Republic’s leaders.
The affair was immediately brought up in the Security Council,
where Jakob Malik declared unreservedly that the Dutch attack
was an unprovoked aggression and a breach of the international
peace. (143) The US-sponsored resolution on the attack was, he
considered, not strong enough. The Russians, it seemed, were pre-
pared to ignore the untoward events of the past months when it
came to the UN and world propaganda.
On the whole, the Communists could look back on 1948 as a
year in which their ambitions had been checked in the West, while
in the East the revolutionary outlook had considerably brightened.
The Indonesian Communists had come to a sad if temporary end, but
this was more than compensated for by the imminent Communist con-
quest of China and the active Communist rebellions in Viet Nam,
Burma, and Malaya. Clearly, it was high time for a renewed
Russian interest in the possibilities of the Asian situation and
the development of a uniform theoretical line towards it.
In June a joint session of the Learned Councils of the In-
stitute of Economics and the Pacific Institute of the USSR Academy
of Sciences was held to discuss the problem of the national-libera-
tion movement in the colonial and dependent countries. (144) Here
(142)	cf. Pravda, December 26, 1948; I. L. Khaliuta, Indoneziia
(Moscow, 1949), pp. 11-13.
(143)	Cf. also Pravda, January 19, 1948.
(144)	A report of the proceedings of the conference was published in
the October issue of the foreign affairs journal Voprosi
Ekonomiki ("Narodno-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba v kolonial’nikh
i polukolonial’nikh stranakh posle vtoroi mirovoi voini,"
Voprosi Ekonimiki (No. 10, 1949). The major reports presented
at the meeting were also reprinted in Voprosi Ekonomiki during
the fall of 1949 and, in somewhat revised lorm, appeared in a
book issued that year (fcrisis kolonial*noi sistemi, Izdatel’-
stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moscow, 1949). Most of the articles
in the latter book were translated into English and published
by the Indian Communist Party as Crisis of the Colonial76
at last a unified and detailed analysis of the Asian situation was
worked out. Since the conclusions reached here were to form the
theoretical background of Soviet policy towards the colonial ques-
tion for the next few years, we shall give a fairly detailed out-
line of their content.
The reports presented at the June conference showed a decision
to abandon the classical theory of the united front from below and
to adopt the assumptions of the Maoist line. That is not to say
that the Chinese theory was taken over unaltered; the "National
Front" urged here was clearly a Russian view of the Chinese way.
The general theoretical outline was provided by E. M. Zhukov,
who reviewed the development of the Asian situation in the postwar
period in the light of the new doctrine. Since World War II,
Zhukov declared, "American imperialism, heading the anti-democratic
camp and aspiring to world domination, has become the leader of the
colonial powers, the chief gendarme./and thus has/7 attempted to
defeat the national-liberation struggle~in all the colonies and
semi-colonies." (145) Since the rapid growth of the independence
movement made it impossible for the imperialist powers to maintain
their policy of direct rule, they made a bid for the support of
feudal and landlord interests. They were successful not only in
achieving this but also in winning to their side the national
bourgeoisie, which had become alarmed at the mass character of the
national-liberation movement. Bourgeois nationalism and its off-
spring, neutralism, were thus enemies of the popular movement in
the East:
Bourgeois nationalism in the colonies and semi-colonies
has already procured the support of the masses under the
ideological-political leadership of the grande bour-
geoisie in the majority of the colonial countries which
have gone over to the imperialist camp. Bourgeois nation-
ism is especially directed against the affiliation of
the people’s liberation movement in the colonial and de-
pendent countries with the anti-imperialist, democratic
camp. ...
Similar to the development in the capitalist countries
of an attempt by the right socialist betrayers of the
working class to spread the rotten notion of the possibi-
lity of some sort of "third," middle, road between
System. The National Liberation Struggle of the Peoples of
East Asia (People's Publishing House, Bombay, 1951); unfortun-
ately , the report on Indonesia was not among those included in
the translation, which concerned itself mostly with parts of
Asia formerly under British rule.
(145)E. Zhukov, "Voprosi natsional'no-kolonial'noi bor'bi posle
vtoroi mirovoi voini," Voprosi Ekonomiki (No. 9), September
1949, p. 56.	------------------77
communism and capitalism, which fallacy in fact serves
the forces of imperialist reaction, which are plotting a
war against the USSR and the people’s democracies, the
national-reformists in the colonial and semi-colonial
countries are deceitfully chanting about their wish to
"stand aside" from the struggle of the two camps, about
their "neutrality" as regards what they call the "ideo-
logical conflict" between the USSR and the USA, while
actually, allied with the reactionary bourgeoisie, they
slander the USSR and actively help the imperialists. (146)
In spite of these dire developments, the desertion of the
revolutionary cause by the national bourgeoisie has brought one
great advantage, for it has placed the leadership of the indepen-
dence movement in the hands of the proletariat, which is the only
class capable of successfully and consistently leading the colonial
liberation struggle. It means, moreover, that control of the
newly independent state will not be in the hands of the bourgeoisie,
with a resulting bourgeois-democratic regime, but will belong to
the masses, so that a people's democracy can be directly estab-
lished:	"The leading role of the proletariat in the anti-imperial-
ist struggle, as well as old and recent—postwar—historical ex-
perience, combining to unmask completely bourgeois democracy's
incapability of guaranteeing the achievement of complete indepen-
dence and its failure to carry out effective democratic reforms,
gave the national-liberation movement the character of a struggle
not for bourgeois democracy but for a people’s democracy." (147)
If the bourgeoisie could not lead the revolution, it might
usefully contribute to it, however, for considerable elements of
that class sympathized with the anti-colonial revolt: both the
petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie were potential allies
of the workers in this respect. (148) The revolutionary movement
in the East could thus be organized on a broader basis than in the
(146)	Zhukov, Voprosi natsional’no-osvoboditel’noi borbi, pp. 57-58;
cf. also G. V. Astaf’ev, ”0t poiukolonii k narodnoi demokratii,
Krizis kolonial’noi sistemi, pp. 82-83; V. Vasil'eva,
"Leninsko-stalinskoe uchenie o natsiiakh i natsional'no-
kolonial’noi revoliutsii," Voprosi Ekonomiki (No. 12),
December 1949, p. 104; V. Balabushevich” "Novii etap natsional'
no-osvoboditel'noi bor’bi narodov Indii," Voprosi Ekonomiki
(No. 8), August 1949, p. 44.
(147)	Zhukov, Voprosi natsional'no-osvoboditql'noi bor’bi, p. 59.
Cf. also Zhukov, ’’Obostrenie krizisa kolonial'noi sistemi posle
vtoroi mirovoi voini," Krizis kolonial’noi sistemi, p. 23;
As taf ' ev, Ot poiukolonii, pp. 82-83; "Narodno-os vobodi tel ’ naia
bor'ba v kolonial’nikh stranakh posle vtoroi mirovoi
voini," Voprosi Ekonomiki (No. 10), October 1949, p. 93;
Vasil’eva) Leninsko-stalinskoe uchenie, p. 118.
(148)	Zhukov, Voprosi natsional’no-osvoboditel'noi bor’bi, p. 59;
Balabushevich, Novii etap, p. 47Ί78
capitalist countries;
In the East, in the colonial and semi-colonial countries,
it is naturally possible to have a broader National Front
against the imperialist forces than in the West. It can
without doubt include those sections of the bourgeoisie
which are suffering from the ruination of local industry
as a result of the dumping of goods from the metropolis.
However, the basis of this front is the same as that in
European countries; that is, the bloc of working
classes—the proletariat, the peasantry, and the urban
petty bourgeoisie—under the leadership of the proletariat.
The struggle for a new, popular democracy in the East has
its own peculiar features, reflecting the particular
nature of the colonial countries in which it takes place.
Insofar as the colonial and semi-colonial countries are
concerned, a tremendous number of problems of a bourgeois-
democratic nature, demanding immediate consideration,
stands before the people’s democratic authorities. Con-
sequently, the victory of the people’s democracy in the
colonies and dependent countries cannot immediately lead
to the tackling of socialist tasks on the scale that this
is taking place in the people's democracies in Europe. (149)
The prototype for an Asian people's democracy of the type envisaged
above was, according to this theory, Communist China. (150)
It is apparent from the above outline of the argument pre-
sented at the June conference that the chief concern of the Soviet
analysis of the Chinese revolution centered about the role of the
bourgeoisie rather than the peasantry, though most non-Communist
observers would probably credit the latter group with far more
importance in securing Mao's victory. The fact that the peasantry
was an extremely important ally of the proletariat was acknowledged
by the Russians, and land reform was considered a major aim of the
national liberation movement; but the role of the peasantry did
not seem to form a central theoretical question. Possibly the
Soviet theoreticians were influenced in this by the general
Marxist tendency to discount the peasantry as an active revolution-
ary forcej perhaps, too, they felt that any considerable emphasis
on the Chinese Communist handling of the agrarian question at that
time would be unpolitic in view of the then current collectiviza-
tion drive in East Europe. Nor must we forget that the Soviet
analysts could not deny the dogma of the revolutionary leadership
(149)	Zhukov, E. M., Obostrenie krizisa kolonial'noi sistemi, p. 23.
Cf. also Zhukov7 Voprosi natsional’no-osvoboditel’noi bor'bi,
p. 60; Vasi1’eva,Leninsko-staiinskoe uchenie, p. il9.
(150)	Zhukov, Yoprosi natsional'no-osvoboditel'noi bor'bi, pp. 60-61;
Cf. also Astaf'ev, 0t polukolonii, pp. 82-86; Vasil’eva,
Leninsko-stalinskoe uchenie, p? 116; Balabushevich, Novii etap,
p. 3979
of the proletariat: to give the peasantry the role it deserved in
the Chinese revolution would have been to destroy the theory on
which the legitimacy of Communist rule was based. The Chinese
Communists themselves seemed to share this feeling, for, as their
prospects of victory increased, so did their emphasis on the
leading role of the proletariat.
This may do something to explain the lack of emphasis on the
peasantry; but we are still confronted with the relative importance
granted the bourgeoisie, In dealing with this question it would
be well to keep in mind the thesis, introduced earlier in this
paper, that the Soviet discussion of the national bourgeoisie was
at heart a translation into Marxist terms of the problem of
nationalism. Since for the Communists all ideologies are the ex-
pressions of class interest, there had to be an economic group
whose interests were served by nationalism and in terms of which
the Communist response to Asian nationalism should be formulated.
The Chinese had demonstrated that the Communists themselves could
become the spokesmen for nationalism; this was explained in terms
of Communist theory by claiming that in the colonial revolution
the Communist-led front represented the interests not only of the
proletariat but also of the native bourgeoisie struggling against
foreign competition. The Soviet emphasis on the national bour-
geoisie reflects, according to this theory, a recognition of the
importance of nationalism in the Asian revolution and, finally,
an acceptance of the Chinese analysis of the Communists’ role in
regard to it. Just where the theory was merely a justification
in terms of Communist doctrine for a phenomenon seen differently
on the practical level and where, on the other hand, it actually
formed the basis for practical decisions is not generally clear;
but it would be difficult to suppose that the dogma could be kept
so separate from actual policy discussions as to have had no
influence on them. The substitution of a class interest for
nationalism obviously presents considerable opportunity for dis-
tortion and over-simplification; but such pitfalls are all too
often the price of a system which seeks to explain man in terms of
a single principle, and Communism has certainly not been free from
them.
The report on the Indonesian situation, delivered at the June
1949 Academy of Sciences conference by A. A. Guber, a long-time
Indonesia expert and one of the leading figures in the Academy’s
Pacific Institute,, is worthy of some special attention here.
Essentially, it is a discussion of the revolution from the point
of view of the new Soviet doctrine; and as such it contains a
criticism of the PKI’s policies during that period. Since the
failings of Communist parties are usually conveniently forgotten
in Soviet accounts of the world situation, the report’s outspoken-
ness makes it one of the major Soviet documents on Indonesia.
Briefly, Guber’s criticism of the PKI’s past policies is this:
The Indonesian Communist Party, though it had gained in
prestige through its leading role in the anti-Japanese under-
ground, lost control of the revolution to the bourgeoisie, largely
because of a lack of available Communist leadership. The Left’s80
position was strengthened by the formation of the Socialist Party
under Sjarifuddin and the Labor Party under Setiadjit at the end
of 1945, but this in itself was a tactical error, since there should
have been but one party representing the Communist point of view.
(Guber, of course, takes the stand that Setiadjit and Sjarifuddin
were Communists at the time.)
The Communists took a conciliatory attitude regarding rela-
tions with the Dutch and approved the Linggadjati Agreement, on the
theory that this would give them a breathing space in which to
strengthen the Republic’s position. This shows, Guber argued, that
the PKI did not have an adequate knowledge of imperialist tactics
after World War II; in fact, much of their faith in the workability
of the Linggadjati compromise was based on a belief that the
Philippines had actually been granted complete independency by the
United States. Only the right wing—the Masjumi and the PN.I—
opposed the agreement; and they did so because they were tools of
the American imperialists, who were aiming at securing Indonesia
for themselves.
Another serious mistake on the part of the Indonesian Commu-
nists was their refusal to participate openly as a party in the
first three Republican governments and their assumption of a very
minor post in the Sjarifuddin cabinet: the Communists should have
gained a firm grip on the governmental machinery, and once having
obtained it should have refused to let go. The PKI did not differ-
entiate its policies sufficiently from those of other Indonesian
movements, and even when the Sjarifuddin government was in power no
major reform measures were taken. The Left thus failed to secure
itself either in the bureaucracy or among the masses.
Meanwhile, the Americans had come to see in the Indonesian
nationalist movement a means of replacing Dutch economic control
over Indonesia with their own. That the Left did not see through
the US machinations and was persuaded to approve the Renville
Agreement was a sign of its inexperience in pdlitical affairs and
the influence of the petty-bourgeois element that existed in the
Left Wing. The rightist nationalists, too, began to see in
American an alternative to the two "horns of their dilemma—the
Left and the Dutch. The Communists, however, failed to point out
to the masses the Right’s loss of revolutionary fervor, a mistake
which hindered the fight for the unification of the people and
weakened leftist influence on the masses. Even after the fall of
frhe Sjarifuddin government, the left wing did not sufficiently
differentiate itself from the government’s policies. Although it
criticized the Hatta regime and demanded another cabinet, it took
no important steps that might displease the government, since it
did not desire a permanent alienation from the Right.
All these mistakes were not corrected until the late summer
of 1948, when, driven by the reactionary policies of the Hatta
government, the leftist parties united in an enlarged PKI and
began to expose the iniquity of the Right. By then if was too
late, however; the Katta government responded with police measures
which,could only be answered by revolt. Since the previous weak policy81
of the Communists had left the populace unprepared to take arms
against the government, and since the uprising was badly organized,
the revolt was easily crushed by the forces of reaction. (151)
A biased viewpoint, to say the least, Its main interest for
us is that it is in its main points the same criticism of the PKI’s
past policies as that given by Musso a year before. Indeed, if
we compare the doctrine presented at the June conference with the
policies propounded by Musso, we can see a remarkable similarity.
Again , we may speculate whether the Soviet policyt-makers, on out-
lining a policy for their emissary to Indonesia, chose in favor of
the version of Maoism which the Soviet Union was developing but
had not yet quite accepted.
A day after the opening of the Academy of Sciences conference,
Pravda undertook the publication in full of Liu Shao-chi's Inter-
nationalism and Nationalism, (152) a work setting fortli, the
Chinese view on the nationalist question and pointing out the im-
portance of an "anti-imperialist alliance with that section of the
national bourgeoisie which is still opposing imperialism and which
does not oppose the anti-imperialist struggle of the masses of the
people. Should the Communists fail to do so in earnest, should
they, to the contrary, oppose or reject such an alliance, it would
also constitute a grave mistake. Such an alliance must be estab-
lished in all sincerity even if it should be of an unreliable, tem-
porary and unstable nature " (152?)
(151)	A, A. Guber, "Indoneziiskii narod v bor'be za nezavisimost’,"
Krizis kolonial’noi sistemi, pp. 151-177. A minor item—but
of curiosity in view of 'the present Communist feud with the
Islamic party—is Guber's assertion, referring to the Indo-
nesian situation in 1947, that it would have been possible
for the Communists to infiltrate the Masjumi: "The parties
of the left bloc had a significant opportunity to broaden
their influence within the larger Moslem party—the Masjumi.
Although the leadership of this party represented the more
conservative wing in the Republican camp, and its leaders,
particularly Agus Salim, had shown themselves eve» ‘before the
war to be capitulators to Dutch imperialism, the mass member-
ship consisted of peasants, craftsmen, and petty bourgeoisie."
As for the PNIr "Up to a certain time the petty bourgeois
part of the leadership of the National Party, and ever, its un-
official leader—President Sukarno—not only did not hinder
the activities of the left bloc, but to a significant degree
relied on its support against the rightist elements in the
Masjumi and in the National Party itself." (pp 162-163)
This did not, however, prevent Guber from taking as unfriendly
a view towards Sukarno as did the general line of Soviet cont-
inent after the Madiun Affair,
(152)	June 7, 8, and 9, 1949. Cf. Kautskv, Moscow and the Communist
Party of India, p, 175.
(153)	Liu Shao-chi, Nationalism and Internationalism. (Peking, n.d.),
p. 47. Tie pamphlet was first published in December 1948.82
Following this, a rash of articles by Chinese and on the
Chinese revolution appeared in the Soviet and Cominform publications.
Whereas the keynote message at the 1948 anniversary of the October
revolution had contained no mention of China in its survey of the
Asian situation, (154) the 1949 speech devoted its Asian section
entirely to the accomplishments of the Chinese Communist Party:
"Under the tried guidance of its leader Mao Tsi-tung (tumultuous
applause), it organised and rallied workers, peasants, intellectuals,
and all the patriotic forces of the nation. ...The victory of
Chinese democracy opens a new page not only in the history of the
Chinese people, but also in that of all the peoples of Asia, the
Pacific and of the entire colonial world, has reached a new and
considerably higher level. The triumph of democracy in China sig-
nifies a serious strengthening of the positions of the world demo-
cratic anti-imperialist camp fighting for a lasting peace." (155)
The high mark of Chinese prestige came in November, when the
Communist-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions held a con-
ference of Asian and Australasian countries in Peking. There Liu
Shao-chi declared in the keynote address that "The course followed
by the Chinese people in defeating imperialism and its lackeys and
in founding the People’s Republic of China is the course that should
be followed by the peoples of the various colonial and semi-colonial
countries in their fight for national independence and people’s
democracy(156) And he went on to explain the Chinese concept of
a broad anti-imperialist front, led by the Communists and, contrary
to the neutralists, whom he roundly denounced, leaning towards the
Soviet camp.
The apparently complete endorsement of the Chinese line by
the Soviet Union at the end of 1949 was to be considerably quali-
fied in the following years. Probably the USSR, having gotten
over its first admiration for the Chinese Communist victory, had
some second thoughts on the advisability of praising too highly a
potential rival for Asian Communist allegiance. Again, a growing
Soviet appreciation of the force of nationalism probably contributed
to the lessening insistence that the Asian Communists reiterate
publicly their loyalty to Moscow or Peking.
(154)	V. K. Molotov, "31st Anniversary of the Great October Social-
ist Revolution," Report at a Celebration Meeting of the Moscow
Soviet, November 6, 1948, For a Lasting Peace (No. 22),
November 15, 1948, p. 3.
(155)	G. M. Malenkov, "Thirty-second Anniversary of the Great October
Socialist Revolution,” Report delivered at the anniversary
meeting of the Moscow Soviet, November 6, 1949, For a Lasting
Peace (No. 26), November 11, 1949, p. 2.	~
(156)	"The Trade Union Conference of Asian and Australasian Coun-
tries," World Trade Union Movement (WFTU journal), (No. 8),
December 1949, ρΊ ΡΓ83
The theory itself also underwent a change, as the USSR began
to realize that Asian neutralism could work to its own advantage.
The question was now no longer one of Communist victory in an Asian
revolution, but of the relationship of Communist parties to bour-
geois nationalist governments whose friendship the Soviet Union
desired. Obviously, the principle of Communist hegemony over the
nationalist movement, which the USSR had seen in the beginning as
the most important contribution of the Chinese experience, had no
place here. National interest fought with ideology, and, as is
usual in politics, national interest won out. More and more the
all-inclusive, nationalist aspect of the National Front was em-
phasized, the need for Communist hegemony toned down; so that the
present day Communist line for Asia bears very little resemblance
to the militant dogma of 1949.
Things had not gone this far by the end of the Indonesian
revolution, however. After long and weary quarrelings id The
Hague, Indonesia's independence was conceded by the Dutch on
December 27, 1949. The Soviet Union immediately recognized the
Republic, but made it quite clear that the USSR did not approve
of the new nation’s rulers:
The first steps taken by the so-called "government" of
Hatta-Sukarno after the Hague deal prove that this
clique is ready to serve its real masters—the American
imperialists—faithfully and well. Feverish military
preparations on the part of the imperialists and their
parasites have been brought about by the fact that they
have not succeeded in deceiving the Indonesian people
by the false "self-determination" which Indonesia received
in The Hague, and /The people/ are continuing the struggle
for their genuine independence. (157)
On this cheerful note, the Soviet Union took up relations with an
independent Indonesia. It would be a long time before Sukarno
would be a welcome visitor to Moscow.
(157)Izvestia, January 15, 1950.