Dipa Nusantara Aidit (photo inset) was born in Belitung Island in Sumatra to santri

Muslim parents in 1939. His given name was Djafar bin Nuh Aidit; he later adopted
the more theatrical title Dipa Nusantara. He identified himself as an Indonesian
Communist. Aidit was a brilliant political strategist who overhauled the Communist
Partys image based on a platform of nationalism, land reform and labor rights. He
attracted landless peasants through promises of land redistribution. Implanting
itself in the labor union movement, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) took over
the largest national labor union, the All Indonesia Labor Union Federation (Sobsi),
and infiltrated rival parties, including the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI) and
Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI), in a deliberate tact to advance its left wing agenda.
Aidit was a twenty-four-year old PKI cadre at the time of the September 1948
uprising in Madiun, East Java. Along with two other young PKI leaders, twenty-eightyear old Lukman and thirty-three-year old Wikana, he reportedly fled the country
after the Madiun rebellion. Aidit returned in 1950 and became PKI Chairman the
following year with Lukman as his deputy and Wikana as a Central Committee
member. Rising from virtual oblivion, by the time of its March 1954 national
congress the PKI claimed 150,000 members. Following a vigorous campaign, the PKI
received six million votes (16 percent) in the 1955 election, making it the fourth
most popular party nationwide and the dominant party in Central Java. During Java
regional elections in June and August 1957, the PKI emerged as the strongest party,
with 27.4 percent of the vote. Although Sukarno indefinitely postponed national
elections under Guided Democracy, many thought the PKI would have earned a
nearly 50 percent share if the 1959 elections had been held. [1]
The PKIs advances reflected public disillusionment with the central government.
Kept outside the government largely due to army and Muslim objections, and
therefore untainted by the other major parties record of corruption and
incompetence, the PKI grew rapidly. The party adhered to the Moscow line during
the Revolution and early-1950s, but under Aidit pursued a more independent policy.
With generous political support and financial assistance from the Chinese
Communist Party, Aidit and the PKI (along with Sukarno) gradually tilted toward
Peking as the decade progressed.
By the early-1960s, communist influence was felt in every sphere of Indonesian life.
The PKI launched its own grass roots civic action program, organizing various mass
organizations, including the two million strong Pemuda Rakyat (Peoples Youth), the
Barisan Tani Indonesia (Farmers Party) with several million members, Gerwani
(Gerakan Wanita, Womens Movement) with two million members, the huge Sobsi
labor union with more than three million members, Sarbupri (Sarekat Buruh
Perkebunan Republik Indonesia, Estate Workers Trade Union) and Lekra (Lembaga
Kebudayaan Rakyat, Peoples Culture Institute). Lekra sponsored cultural
performances at universities and mass entertainment shows at village-level.

Aidit and the PKI professed support from 20 percent of Indonesias 100 million
citizens three million party members and an additional seventeen million in
affiliated organizations. The PKI leader also claimed substantial support in the
Armed Forces, especially among Javanese service members. In his report to the PKI
Central Committee in 1963, Aidit wrote, Understanding is increasing and eventually
we will harvest a lot of sympathy among the green suits; 30% of them belong to
the PKI already. [2]
The PKI aligned itself with Sukarno to gain strategic position. Aidit pursued an
openly accomodationist policy, skillfully pandering to the Presidents ego. Although
the PKI was admittedly atheistic, Aidit declared the party had nothing against
religious freedom and maintained there was no conflict if party members were
believers. Aidit was devoted to Sukarno, loyally endorsing his decisions, policies and
programs including Pancasila, Nasakom, Guided Democracy, and the West Irian
and Malaysia military adventures. In 1948, Sukarno had ordered the Army to crush
the communist uprising in Madiun, yet during the Guided Democracy period,
Comrade Chairman Aidit became his principal cheerleader.
Sukarno embraced the PKI and frequently warned against communist-phobia. In
Aidit, Sukarno found a priest of the faith who was prepared to support his ruler in
exchange for the royal patronage. This caused considerable dismay to the old
guard of the PKI, who had conceived their mission as one of remedying social
injustice. They learnt this aim was to be pursued only when it did not embarrass
Sukarno. [3] Aidit and the PKI refrained from criticizing Sukarnos policies or
protesting the skyrocketing prices for basic essentials and the countrys disastrous
economic situation. PKI leaders became increasingly confident and increasingly
militant as the party grew and made dramatic political advances.
The Army was physically and ideologically opposed to the PKI. Most army leaders
saw Sukarnos Nasakom ideology as superficial and communism as incompatible
with Pancasila. By the late-1950s, the Indonesian Army had become deeply
entrenched in the state apparatus, while the PKI increasingly enjoyed Sukarnos
favor. In early-1961, Sukarno banned the principal anti-communist parties, Masjumi
and the PSI, ostensibly because party officials had been involved in the PRRI and
Permesta regional rebellions. That bold action gave the PKI a tremendous
advantage. Sukarno appointed the top three PKI officials Aidit, Lukman and Njoto
to positions in the National Front political coalition in 1960. In March 1962, he
brought Aidit and Lukman into the cabinet as ministers without portfolio (essentially
personal advisors). Njoto was a presidential speech writer.
Relative to its size and popularity, the PKI was still underrepresented in the cabinet
and government bureaucracy. The party position depended to a great extent on
Sukarnos patronage and was therefore precarious. Despite frequent comparisons to
Vietnam, the PKI was virtually unarmed and unprepared to wage a protracted
guerilla struggle. The symbiotic relationship with Sukarno was based on the

Presidents leftist ideological affinity and desire to outflank the increasingly powerful
Army. Sukarno relied on the PKI to support his Confrontation policy and to provide
the enthusiastic audiences at his rallies and speeches. In turn, the PKI needed
Sukarno to protect it from the Army. The President negotiated a delicate balancing
act between those two powerful and opposing elements.
Together Sukarno and PKI leaders embraced a Jakarta-Peking axis, confrontation
between the Oldefos (Old Established Forces, a code word for the West) and Nefos
(New Emerging Forces), aggressive land redistribution measures, and a Fifth Force
of armed peasants and farmers to carry forward the Revolution.
Army leaders vigorously objected to a Fifth Force for obvious reasons. It would
provide the PKI its own armed force, absent since the Revolution, when military
leaders had destroyed or demobilized leftist units after the Madiun rebellion in
September 1948. By 1964, the PKI had launched a national campaign targeting
Army and Islamic leaders, depicting senior officers as corrupt and unsupportive of
the Malaysia Confrontation. The communists attacked Muslim leaders and
organizations like the Nahdlatul Ulama and the Muslim Student Association
(Himpunan Mahasiswa Indonesia, HMI) for their opposition to land reform measures.
Even after army leaders were brutally murdered on October 1, 1965, an affair in
which PKI leaders were implicated, Sukarno refused to denounce his Communist
Party comrades.
[1] Howard Palfrey Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream (Singapore: Mas Aju, 1973),
p. 160.
[2] Cited in Antonie C. A. Dake, In the Spirit of the Red Banteng: Indonesian
Communists between Moscow and Peking 1959-1965 (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), p.
232.
[3] Leslie Palmier, The 30 September Movement in Indonesia (Cambridge: Modern
Asian Studies, 1971), p. 19.
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