Marxist Attitudes to Social Revolution 1946-1948

Abstract

For the PKI leaders in the 1950s, the failure of the Indonesian revolution was partly attributable to the failure of the communist party itself, In the period prior to the adoption of the Jalan Ba:t'U policy of August 1948, the party had trusted too much in the Indonesian national bourgeoisie and too little in the international forces of socialism; it had lost its freedom of organization and failed to stress sufficiently its work among peasants and its activity among soldiers and workers in the Dutch-occupied zone. (1) This judgement might appear posthumously to justify Tan Malaka's policies, and to sustain the view that a more radical PKI line might have succeeded in resolving Java's rural problems along lines analogous to China or Vietnam.