Issues in Southeast Asian Security

ARMED COMMUNIST MOVEMENTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES
Hong Mui Kong Terrace, Singapore 0511

Established as an autonomous organisation by an Act of

Parliament Bt" the Republic of Singapore in May .
the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies is a regional re-
search centre for scholars and other specialists concerned
with modern Southeast Asia. The Institute's research interest
is focused on the many-faceted problems of development
and social change in Southeast Asia.
The Institute is governed by a twenty-two member Board
of Trustees comprising representatives from the National
University of Singapore, appointees from the government,
as well as representatives from a broad range of professional
and civic anisations and groups. A ten-man Executive
Committee &versees day-to-day operations, it is chaired by
the Director, the Institute's chief academic and administrat-
ive officer.
Armed Communist Movements
in Southeast J

Edited by _.
LIM JOO-JOCK
m
VAN! S.

Issued under the auspices of the

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

Gower
© 1984 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore
First published 1984

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, ansmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic; mechanical, photocopying, recording or other-
wise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies.

Published by
Gower Publishing Company Limited
Gower House
Croft Road
Aldershot
Hampshire GUI 1 3HR
England

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Armed Communist movements in Southeast Asia
-(Issues in Southeast Asian Security)
1. Communism-Asia 2. Asia, Southeastern-Politics
I. Lim, Joo-Jock II. Vani, S. III. Series
322.4'2'0959 DS518.1

ISBN 0 566 00698 7

Contents

Foreword vii
Ker rial S. Sandhog

Introduction xi
Lim Joo-Jock with Vani S.

PART I INDONESIA I
Armed communism in Indonesia: Its history and
future 3
Dorodj stun Kuntjoro-Jakti
Phoenix supine: The Indonesian Communist Party
and armed struggle 29
Donald E. Weatherbee
Comments 46

PART II MALAYSIA

communism in Malaysia -
Violence at the periphery: A brief survey of armed

Zacharia Hajj Ahmad and Zacharia Hamid

Comments
49

S1

66

V
PART III

movement _
PHILIPPINES
Rectification process in the Philippine communist

Francisco Nemenzo
Comments
69

71

102

PART IV SINGAPORE 107

The communist open united front in Singapore,
1954-66 109
Lee Ting Hui
Comments 128

PART v THAILAND 131

The revolutionary strategy of the Communist Party
of Thailand: Change and persistence 133
Kanok Wongtrangan
Comments 183

CONCLUDING COMMENTS 187

Chandran Jeshurun

Index 199

to
Foreword

The well-being of Southeast Asia is inextricably linked with the chang-

mg
' forces and circumstances determining regional and international
politics and security. The Great Power interests and the various 'checks
and balances' that govern overall international security, as well as
the factors that a f f e c t regional stability, are even at the best of times
in a state of flux, if not actually ridden with uncertainty. Analysis
of such developments has largely been either on a global basis, and
undertaken primarily outside the region, or limited to localised,
national, operational research carried out by government ministries
and associated organisations. Yet at a time when security considera-
tions -- not merely of a military nature - in the Southeast Asian
region are becoming more pressing than ever, much of the expertise
on security issues is located in the developed world.
It was considered, therefore, that there was an urgent need (1) to
supplement global concepts and methods of analysis with a closer
understanding of the actual realities in the region; (2) to ensure that
much of this is done in the region and with as much input as possible
by Southeast Asians themselves, thereby leading to the creation of a
body of expertise on security issues resident in the region, and (3) to
ensure that, in terms of Southeast Asian participation, there would
be greater involvement of the different strands of Southeast Asian
opinion and expertise, including not only government and military
personnel, ' , a c the academic community, mass media and, as
" opportunity aarises, the business and commercial sectors. The
eventual objective is to encourage, in the region, constant study and
vii
monitoring of the various security issues and developments affecting
the area, as well as to educate the general public about security issues
through discussions/seminars and publications.
Accordingly, a group of Southeast `Asians came together to design
and establish a Regional Strategic Studies Programme (RSSP) to be
based at the Institute under the overall charge of its Director, Professor
K.S. Sandhu, with Dr Chai-Anan Samudavanija of Chulalongkorn
University as the Programme Planner, Mr Lim Joo-Jock of ISEAS as
Programme Co-ordinator, and Miss Vani Shanmugaratnarn as Pro-
gramme Research Associate. It was generally agreed that the initial
focus of the Programme should, though not exclusively, be the socio-
economic issues affecting regional security with particular reference to
the internal sources of instability in the various Southeast Asian coun-
tries. The selection of the first group of core areas for investigation
under the Programme included the changing strategies and tactics of
armed Marxist-Leninist and other (for example, separatist) movements
in Southeast Asia; religious militancy and fundamentalism in the region,
the "coup" as a recurrent feature in Southeast Asia, and ethnic minority
tensions and demands in the region.
It was platted, J the cluster of issues relating to each core
area should be covered in a series of specific projects and studied as
distinct phases, or projects, of the Programme. These projects would
be spread over a period of time and would cover the nature, bases,
emergence and persistence of the various phenomena in each core
area. The underlying assumption in all this research is that regional
security cannot be attained until regional and national instability is
eradicated.
The first phase of the Programme concerned the nature and bases
of revolutionary, radical resistance, separatist and Mar1dst~Leninist
movements in Southeast Asia and their implications for regional
security.
The first project in this phase involved research into the problem
of armed communism in non-communist Southeast Asia. It focused
on the issues underlying Communist Party grievances, its political
platforms, changes in strategies and tactics, change, if any, in ideo-
logical stance, attitudes towards foreign communist parties, and so
forth. The drafts of the papers were completed in November and
presented at a workshop in Singapore on 17-19 November 1982.
The papers stimulated considerable interest and discussion among
the participants, who included academics as well as professionals from
relevant government and related organisations. It is these papers and
the brief summaries of the main discussion centred around each of
them, together with the concluding comments that form the basis
of this volume, the inaugural number of the Programme's new annual
series, Issues in Southeast Asian Security.

viii
 The second project focuses on the endemic problem of violent
separatist movements in Southeast Asia, and it.is now under prepara-
tion. While not neglecting the link with ideology, it will examine
the following factors in some detail: ethnicity, language, religion,
the economic basis for dissent, including all the implications of develop-
ment, and external involvement, in particular the legacy of colonialism
and the Japanese Occupation. For this purpose a series of papers by
researchers from both within and outside the region will be discussed
M workshop scheduled for December 1983. As in the case of the
Workshop on Armed Communism in Southeast Asia, those presenting
papers will be joined by academics and government officials in order
that a more thorough discussion and interaction can take place. All
the papers will be edited and published as the second number in the
series, Issues in Southeast Asian Security .
The regional Strategic Studies Programme has benefited immensely
from the co-operation it has received from colleagues within and
outside the region, and from the financial support provided by the
Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, in the form of two separate but
linked grants of US$50,000 and USS30,000 respectively, for a period
of eighteen months each. These grants are currently being reviewed
both for a possible time extension and for a significant increase in
the funding involved. The Institute in the meantime would like to
record its appreciation of all the assistance and support received to
date, and to express the wish that the various numbers of Issues in
Southeast Asian Security will circulate widely amongst all concerned
with problems of stability and security in the region. Responsibility
for facts and opinions expressed in the work that follows rests ex-
clusively with the individual authors, and their interpretations do not
necessarily reflect the views or policy of .the Institute or its supporters.

May 1983 Ker rial S. Sandhu

Director
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

ix
Introduction

The purpose of these papers is to examine the theories that have been
put forward to explain why communist or communist-inspired armed
uprisings have taken place in Southeast Asia. Although so-ch uprisings,
particularly during the colonial era, have been largely Maoist, that is,
launched from rural areas, there are significant indications of an
emergent ideological strand of Marxism-Leninism. This advocates
a shift in focus to include urban activities and has a nationalist orienta-
tion that seriously questions the strategies upheld by the established
Maoist leaders. Such a situation currently exists in Thailand, as can
be seen from reports of factional calls to can'y the struggle to Bangkok
with an emphasis on possible parliamentary or 'peaceful' means of
capturing the political initiative on a mass or 'national' scale. In the
early 1970s in Malaysia there was also a similar attempt by a Marxist~
Leninist faction to carry out sabotage and assassinations in some of
3 major towns, contrary to the rural guerrilla policy of the Com-
munist Party of Malaya (CPM). Most Communist Parties (CPs) in
Southeast Asia are split over the crucial issue of the method of struggle
by which party goals are to be achieved in the post-colonial context.
At the centre of these debates are the realities of significant changes
in, for example, the dominant class structures in Southeast Asian
politics, the levels of foreign capital and control in national economies,
and the nature and penetration of counter-insurgency operations.
All of these have a direct bearing on the applicability of the theories
of social conflict, and hence strategy, for revolutionary change pro-
moted by the various CPs.
xi
The debate on rural vs. urban strategies

Although the normal pattern in Southeast Asia has been for insurrec-
tions to take place using the countryside as a base, the general lack
of success in the application of Maoist principles in the post-colonial
period has led to disillusion and intra-Party post-morterns of the relev-
ance - even validity - of that model in advancing the revolutionary
cause.
The rural orientation of most Southeast Asian CPs was often neces-
sitated by the intensification of colonial or national government opera-
tions in urban areas. It also resulted from the training in the 'jungle'
experienced by most of the armed cadres and CP leaders who had
participated in the national resistance to Japanese Occupation during
the Second World War, and against colonial rule in the subsequent
pre-independence era. To some extent the dramatic spread of urban-
isation since then has given younger cadres a different experience more
in tune with prevailing realities - though this in no way implies on
their part a heightened consciousness of the nature of class conflict
or dynamics in their respective societies.
Is it then only a matter of time before the currently prevailing
concentration in the countryside, and consequent separation from
mainstream post-colonial political development, is replaced by an
attempt to move back to the cities? Can this observable split in most
of the movements - often expressed in ideal ogical terms, but in fact
essentially an argument over analysis and consequent choice of tactics
and 'methodology' - be related to the age or even ethnicity of the
leaders concerned? For after all, the struggle launched from the coun-
tryside is only a means of strangling the city before taldng it over.
Can this split also be related to the changed experiences or ethnic com~
position of the contempt orary cadres and resistance? Or, is the desire
or need for changed tactics, with or without an ideological ration-
alisation, related to the scope and direction of government counter-
insurgency programmes? More broadly, is it related to the current
stage of socioeconomic development that characterises the now inde-
pendent Southeast Asian nations? To answer these questions it is
necessary to understand the Marxist analytical tools used in communist
manifestos, for example, the concepts of capitalist class formation
and dependent capitalism, as well as the theories of conflict which

revolutionary programmes. _.. _____

they suggest and, by implication, resolve in the implem entation of

Since the end of the second World War, the emphasis has been on
armed struggle. The example of Aidit's PKI (Communist Party of
Indonesia) attempt to enter into the open political arena, although
supported by Beijing, clearly stands as an exception to the otherwise
dominant subscription to Mao's thesis of an armed struggle launched
xii
from the countryside. In Indonesia President Sukarno seemed at
times to show favour to the PKI in a balancing act to keep the military
in its place. Under what seemed to be uniquely favourable circum-
stances of limited patronage, the PKI paid little attention to the Maoist
imperative for lengthy clandestine preparation for protracted war.
Instead they concentrated on seizing power through manipulation
of what was left of the parliamentary process and through infiltration
of the army.
In Southeast Asia how valid is the Maoist assertion that an urban
armed struggle is unlikely to succeed because of the superior strength
of government power and intelligence concentrated in the cities? The
early attempts by the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) in the
Bangkok area during the 1940s, and by the CPM in its post-Second
World War united front struggle in Singapore and the towns of Penin-
sular Malaysia, were squashed in the manner that Mao had predicted.
In other CPs this experience was compounded by the difficulty of
achieving a momentum beyond strikes and other disruptions on the
part of urban workers, who constituted a minority in a largely rural
Southeast Asia. Prior to the present levels of economic penetration
of much of rural Southeast Asia, the jungle-based guerilla arms of
the various CPs have, in comparison, boasted of relatively greater
success. Thus, at least for the period before the 1970s, a pattern
appears to have been set, namely, that of communist armed efforts
on a Maoist guerilla war model. These have generally been sporadic
and relegated to the countryside, often the remotest and practically
uninhabited mountains and forest lands. On the other hand the towns
and cities of Southeast Asia have been quiescent.
However, this strategy of isolation in remote areas and rural armed
struggle with no clearly identified political targets or 'enemies' is
now openly admitted to be self-defeating in post-colonial Southeast
Asia. Is the 'revolution' therefore in its death-throes with the guerilla
fish cut off from the water of the masses? Although the reasons for
the continuing durability of various contemporary rural-based com-
munist armed activities have perhaps not been thoroughly investigated
or clarified, the peaks of the armed communist-led struggles in the
region were during periods of generalised hostility towards an external
enemy. For example, the dynamic growth of the PKI from the 1950s
to the mid-1960s occurred when the Indonesian nation was in a state of
permanent confrontation against the Dutch, then during the confronta-
tion and the period against the old established forces. In Burma and
Malaya, the peaks were during the anti-colonial period of resistance by
patriotic movements, and in Thailand during and after World War
II. CPT activities against US military and economic intrusions were
also at a peak particularly prior to the post-Vietnam withdrawal of
forces. In the Philippines the current mobilisation against the presence

xiii
of the US military bases and Japanese economic penetration is also
a striking example of accelerated agitation embodying a patriotic
or nationalist motivation. It explains the current failure of armed
struggle as the main basis for motivating a civil war. The fact that
this method is most successful at a certain stage of total political
agitation when there is a strategic need for it has not been understood
or digested in most Southeast Asian CP theory. The outstanding cur~
rent exception is the experience in the Philippines where the Com-
munist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is using armed struggle as part
of a wider revolutionary programme that includes the anti-imperialist
dimension but also specifically covers ground~level mobilisation around
concerns that vary within the archipelago. The basis of their belief
centres on the scope of the rural platform as a national one and the
potential or necessity of participating in the national political process
or institutions. In short, it involves an intimate understanding of the
forces and tensions that preserve or weaken particular societal forma-
tions that are perceived or felt to be inherently and fundamentally
contradictory or exploitative.

The environmental issue

In popular and some specialist writings, the reason most often given
for the growth of communist uprisings in developing countries is
the 'poverty' of both the country as a whole and economic deprivation
of the rural popul ation in particular. More precisely identified as a
basic cause of popular uprisings is the failure of economic growth
to meet the 'rising expectations' 01' even the basic needs of the popula-
tion. Deprivation in China at the onset of the communist revolution,
which has been widely documented along with other examples drawn
from the Third World, are used to support this argument. Some other
environmental conditions of relative deprivation generally cited include
a severe shortage of opportunities for employment and upward mobil-
ity, a lack of transport, medical services and schools, economic and
social discrimination exemplified in the lack of farm credit facilities
...-

and the subjection of farm workers and poor peasants to the excesses
of landlordism, and a general inadequacy of institutional infrastructure
that perpetuates ignorance and what can best be called degradation.
The Marxist mainstream will say that all these are but mere symptoms
of the exploitative structures which typically underpin Third World
countries locked in the vicious cycles of dependent capitalist growth.
Others would argue that the afflicted countries do not yet possess the
cultural attributes necessary for the institutional infrastructure that
is a precondition of industrialisation and higher development. Hence

xiv
they are not sufficiently immunised against the peasant-type com-
rnunist-inspired armed opposition so persistently witnessed in South-
east Asia. According to such arguments, because of historical accidents
the process and benefits of the 'inevitable' attainment of high material
and industrial development have not as yet reached these temporarily
vulnerable countries. Exponents of capitalist economics and free
trade involving ostensible mutuality of exchange and complementary
industrialisation tend to see such development as the answer for these
countries, which would then enjoy the kind of industrialised economic
take-off that the West and Japan have experienced .
There is no doubt that poverty, ignorance and exploitation must
be taken very seriously as they seem to surface so often in both suc-
cessful and unsuccessful uprisings. But then, how do we explain the
higher 'tolerance' for poverty among some societies than others? Is
there any basis to the assertions that some cultures are more 'resistant'
in coping with inherited and relative deprivations? What are those
values in religion or institutions which might account for this"
Although all these factors of poverty, exploitation, culture, and so
forth, are said to promote or retard subscription to armed communist
or other movements, their existence has neither prompted nor pre-
vented the gestation or growth of ideals and mobilisations that lead
to Lenin's 'fires in the backyards of Imperialism'. In support of Marx's
dictum about religion being .the 'opiate of the masses', it has been
claimed that strong Muslim and Buddhist values have contributed to
in Indonesia,
'insurrection

the relative lack of success Pf communist

Malaysia and Thailand E t h e y did not do so in immediate post-
war Burma, or Thailand in the 1970s or Malaysia today, as some
reports suggest.
In parts of Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the world Marxist-
Christian, Marxist-Islamic and ethnically motivated separatist move-
ments have fuelled the momentum of regional communist movements.
Their emergence demonstrates that theories of deprivation and cultural
explanation tend to be flouted without rigorous substantiation or,
perhaps, where other explanations are not found. After all, in China
before 1949, the entrenched traditions and values of the clan systems,
feudal structures and hierarchies, filial piety, Confucianist beliefs,
and so forth, could hardly be construed as conducive to 'infiltration'
by communist ideals. The view that uncritically accepts poverty or
other deprivations as direct causal factors encouraging communist
movements has been further reinforced by the growing preoccupation
with the moral conceptions or rights of the poor or the peasantry
and, hence, by enquiry aimed at establishing the thresholds of depriva-
tions that can or cannot be tolerated by society. Many scholarly and
policy studies urge attention to the problem of those falling below
a specific threshold or poverty line. However, the actual instances
xv
and patterns of armed rebel movements in much of Southeast Asia
do not confirm these hypothetical generalisations. For example, the
hotbed of the Huk movement in the Philippines, central Luzon, is
probably the most prosperous area - that is, the most prosperous
rather than impoverished peasants look to arms. Numerous writings
advance the theory that the Huk debacle in the 1950s was precipitated
by the then President Magsaysay's socioeconomic development pro-
grammes, which solved the supposed problem of poverty. And yet,
studies of the actual impact of these programmes on the village com-
munities revealed none at all. Similar assumptions in explaining the
failures of a S55 .
II
L'1111 . m1 ents in various Southeast Asian
countries are equally characterised by a lack of substantiating empirical
studies or, ii many cases, by the existence of empirical data that
indicate trends to the contrary. Theoretical hypotheses on the bases
n political .-movements in Southeast Asia have,
"

for the most part, yet to be verified.

Such mechanistic ideas of behavioural motivation are increasingly
disproved by research suggesting that revolutionary or radical actions
by peasants or other 'underdogs' are related to the acquisition of a
consciousness of an alternative form of organisation or of their ability
to improve their prevailing status. In other words, much more import-
ant than economic or other deprivations themselves are the way people
perceive that poverty, why and how they conform to or deviate from
those beliefs, and how they attempt to resolve the situation. The
question to be asked of previous or current involvements in armed
and niral communist movements in Southeast Asia is: What are the
factors that break down the cultural superstructure that supposedly
enabled peasants in the past to 'cope' with poverty, or to justify or
accept their 'fate'? Additionally, from the Marxist perspective: What
is the nature of the classes constituting the Southeast Asian nations?
What are the dynamics of the conflicting interests within and between
those classes? What are the conditions that promote a popular con-
sciousness of these? In disputing or dismissing the ideological rationale
of Marxist~inspired movements, answers to these crucial questions
that explain the very existence, bases and development of exploitative
orders in the class structures of Southeast Asia must be attempted.
Were the historical realities of colonialism, and the successive world
political and economic crises of the First and Second World Wars and
the Cold War, in conjunction with international strategic conflict,
crucial in encouraging the release of relatively localised tensions in
Southeast Asia? If so, does external support - moral or material -
continue to be a necessary condition for bolstering indigenous com-
munist movements? The break-up of the centrally controlled leading
forces of the international communist fraternity, and the correspond-
ingly significant levels of indigenisation in some of the region's armed

xvi
communist movements, suggest that a more nationalist orientation
has evolved .--as with the existing political institutions of the region
since the winning of formal political independence. Are we then in-
creasingly confronting armed movements that profess an ideological
rationale but which are in the process of developing and responding
to other radical reference points?

The question of political participation

A simple military response to containing Maui

has certainly proven ineffective and, at times, counter-productive.
Furthermore, various CP statements imply that 'peaceful' participation
in the parliamentary process is now a n - 1.
I . j1
u

rent. In a country where the CP has organised programmes for armed

agitation, united front and general civil welfare activities, does the
introduction or strengthening of democratic institutions remove the
motivation or rationale of the communist cause or does it create
more channels for the extension of Marxist orientations in policy
or popular aspirations?
Many scholars and officials view a lack of democracy, or at any
rate a significant degree of mass participation in determining national
goals, as the factor promoting or sustaining communist sympathies.
In Malaysia, where post-independence communist activities have thus
far hardly assumed the dimensions of those witnessed at the height
of the 'Emergency', the desires of nationalism and democracy are
believed to have been met when Britain relinquished power to the
Alliance Government. On the other hand, participation in no way
implies or guarantees support for or the legitimacy of the 'national'
interests upheld by those institutions in question. They sdnotiva-
tion of armed communist or other countervailing movements needs
to be further studied, as do the correlated issues of governmental
and institutional responses to armed communist organisation and the
nature, bases and resolution of the wider issue of patriotism 1 .
'national' interests.
Thus the subject is very large. No single factor, or set of factors,
can describe the evolution of armed communist movements in the
region as a whole. The various communist movements, viewed as a
contemporary form of opposition or protest, seem to embody various
methods of political action, broadly guided by Marxist theories of
societal conflict.
What needs to be examined then are the common threads in the
observations and analyses of communist uprisings throughout South
east Asia, in conjunction with the situation in each country, in order
xvii
to isolate and evaluate what may be relatively exotic features, each
in their own strategic environment. To do this it is important to arrive
at a consensus when distinguishing between fundamental or structural
causes, contributory for situational causes and necessary conditions
of armed revolution in Southeast Asia.

Lim Joe-Jock with Vani S-

Editors

xviii
 PART I
INDONESIA
Armed communism in
Indonesia: Its history and futurebe
DOFIODJATUN KUNTJORO-JAKTI
UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIA

Global developments following the Second World War have demon-

strated the growing ability of communist movements everywhere to
adapt themselves to widely differing local situations, and to overthrow
governments, relying almost exclusively on violent methods, per-
petrated either from without or from within, from above or from
below. The Soviet sweep through Eastern Europe, and the subsequent
setting up of communist regimes there, became a classic example of
the use of the "Revolution from without and from above". The cases
of Yugoslavia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola and re-
cently Nicaragua, on the other hand, became examples of the use of
the "Revolution from within and from below".
So pervasive is the communist experience in the use of violence,
in particular with various forms of 'internal wa_r', that over the past
decades a multitude of theoretical and practical materials has become
available to students of revolution, to be used either as strategic blue-
x
prints or tactical manuals. It is thus not quite unexpected, as the
history of recent decades itself has so firmly demonstrated, that the
option of violence continues to be of major importance to communist
l
strategy.
So prominent is the importance of this option in their ideology
that Cyril Black - an expert on communist armed movements -
stated almost two decades ago :

* N.B. The views presented do not represent those of the Institute where the author cur-
rently works. They are the sole responsibility of the author.

3
 If they now wish to turn to non-violent methods, whether from
below or from above, they have no successful experience to
draw on except for the rather ambiguous case of Cuba, and they
will have to rely largely on theory and on experiments in coun-
tries in which they have had little operational experienced
This short review of the communist movement in Indonesia, that is,
the PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia) and its affiliates, will cover its
use of violence in the period from the national revolution of 1945 -49
up to the New Order. During this period of almost four decades, the
PKI has alternated erratically between the 'parliamentary way to
socialism' within the fold of a united front strategy and the use of
violence. The PKI resorted to violence for the first time in 1948, in
the midst of the revolution, in the putsch of Madiun. Almost two
decades later, in 1965, under the Guided Democracy of President
Sukarno, it tried to launch a coup d 'ez'at --aajthe Gestapu coup attempt
- in the capital city of Jakarta. Finally, in 1967, following the debacle
of Gestapu and its bloody aftermath, the PKI tried to launch a 'people's
war' a Za China and Vietnam in the poverty-ridden :Blitar Selatan area
in East J eve.
Contrary to the rather doctrinaire analysis of the PKI, which a~
bounds in its 'self-criticism' of the post-Gestapu period,2 or the typical
observations presented by Western journalists and political analysts,3
in this article, I shall attempt to demonstrate that the failure of the
use of violence by the PKI stemmed less from the failure of political
strategy than from various objective factors peculiar to Indonesia,
which do not easily lend themselves to the launching of such action.
Based on this hypothesis, I shall then take a short, tentative step into
the future, by discussing the prospect for the rise of another PKI
armed movement in Indonesia.

From radium 1948 to Blitar Selatan 1967

In her typically strong and systematic fashion, Ruth McVey explained,
almost two decades ago,4 the historical facts that led to communist
rebellions all over Southeast Asia between 1948 and 1949, starting
with the Hull Rebellion in the Philippines and ending with the PKI
Madison rebellion in Indonesia. According to her analysis :
At various points between 1945 and early 1948, the Communists
in Burma, Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines passed up what
in retrospect appeared to be their best chances of claiming the
initiative over the postwar situation.5

4
In this short period, following the liberation of Southeast Asia by the
Allies from the grip of the Japanese military occupation, the com-
munists of Southeast Asia came victoriously forward as an integral
part and legal member of the united fronts which fought the Japanese.
In all cases outside Vietnam, however, the nationalists were in a clear
position of leadership, in an arrangement accepted and endorsed by
the Cominform since the war broke out in Europe several years earlier.
By the time the movements for national independence emerged in
these Southeast Asian colonies, the communists were trapped in a
difficult strategic dilemma, in view of their clear ambitions to set up
the process leading not only to independence but, ideologically, also
to socialism. As McVey aptly put it, the communists had then to
decide whether to continue the fight within the nationalist-led united
fronts as subordinates, or wrest the power from the nationalists and
set up communist-led united fronts. The solution was not far in sight
as, in September 1946, the Cominform came out with its famous
'Zdanov Doctrine', which clearly opted for the second alternative.6
It was following this decision and the outbreak of communist re-
bellions in Burma, Malaya and the Philippines - which marked the
clear split of the communists from the united fronts - that the PKI
came increasingly under pressure from its own rank and file to step
up its political manoeuvres to wrest the independence movement
from the nationalist leaders of the newly proclaimed Republic of
Indonesia. In a move demonstrating its confidence and - to some
extent - real strength, the PKI began to oust rightist elements from
its organs, steered the left-wing coalition away from the control of
the socialists, and offered stiff resistance to the plans of the new
Republic to rationalise the military organisations. As a sign of their
strong determination, members of the PKI central leadership called
mass meetings, in which they openly attacked, and even challenged,
the nationalist leaders of the Republic and their 'erratic' stance re-
garding the fight against the returning Dutch.
With PKI influence and control in various Republican military
units and para-rnilitary organisations, and the countering challenge
from the 'Rasionalisasi' programme of the nationalists, the situation
escalated into a heated confrontation. Skirmishes erupted in some
instances between the PKI»influenced or controlled units and the
Republican troops, which were then strengthened by the better armed
Divisi Siliwangi units just withdrawn from the West Java front.7 It
was in the midst of this growing chaos that the PKI local leaders in
the city of Madison staged a putsch with the help of pro-PKI troops
and its own para-military units. The situation erupted so quickly
that the PKI central leadership had no choice but to take over the
'Soviet' government of Madiun and call for arms.
With the surrounding areas still under the control of the Republic,
5
in particular the guerrilla warfare~seasoned troops of the Republic,
and the popular support which remained strongly for the Sukarno-
Hatta national leadership, Ethe rebellion was brutally ended. Much
of the PKI leadership was decimated, and its apparatus destroyed.
Sporadic efforts at guerrilla warfare were initiated, but with no pre-
paration in advance they were easily dealt with by a combined sweep
of troops and loyal village population. The Madison rebellion thus did
not evolve into a protracted civil war, or 'class war', as the PKI leader-
ship envisaged.
As McVey succinctly stated in parts of her conclusion, the com-
rnunists in Southeast Asia were taught the following 'lessons' by the
PKI rebellion in Madiun, together with the BCP (Burmese Communist
Party) rebellion in Burma, the MPAJA (Malayan People's Anti-Japanese
Army) rebellion in Malaya and the Hukbalahup rebellion in the Philip-
pines:

1. the task of transforming the insurrection of a group into a full-

blown civil war [is] no simple one to accomplish, and certainly
not when undertaken by movements whose position [is] on the
wane,
2. revolutionary initiative, once lost, is not easily regained by
violence, [and] rebellion will not necessarily create [or] revive
a revolutionary situation, and
3. [violence as a way to seize power is difficult to be applied when ]
the communists build the organisation and formulate the public
policies [not] with a mind to their direct usefulness for the
seizure of power.8
Another lesson of utmost importance which the PKI seemed to forget
in the period preceding Gestapo in 1965 was the danger of involving
non~PKI armed elements - be they of the military or para-military
organisations and whatever their degree of political militancy
it was clear that the PKI itself was not ready with its own capability
to undertake the decisive step in a conflict involving the use of arms.
The Madiun episode taught that, in a heated atmosphere, such elements
are bound to lose patience and prematurely call the rebellion, exposing
the Party and its affiliates to provocations from its opponents.
For the PKI in particular of more critical importance perhaps than
these 'lessons' is the fact that the Madison rebellion has given commun-
ism and the communists in Indonesia a permanently bad image. Not
only has the Madison episode left the PKI with an aura of a bloody
civil war, no matter how short a duration it was in reality, but it is
also equated with 'national treachery' of the worst kind. The Madison
rebellion took place in the midst of the war of independence. That
it actually preceded only by weeks the second Dutch aggression to the
6
Republican territory -- this time directly to the capital city of Jogyak-
arta - made the Madison episode an immoral act of a stab in the back.
Partly pressured by objective necessity, and partly by learning the
lessons of the days of the revolution and in particular of Madiun, the
new leadership of the PKI started the reconstruction of the party in
1950 by moving back to the idea of the united front, this time how-
ever of a limited and more strategic type. In a move to break the
post-independence isolation of the PKI and create a legal political
status for its activities, and in accordance with the emerging doctrine
of 'national democracy', the PKI openly courted an alliance with the
'anti-West' element in Indonesia, in particular with the increasingly
militant President Sukarno and the PNI (Partai Nasionalis Indonesia).
The anti-Dutch campaign over the disrupted territory of Irian was
used as a political staging point to create a radica1~nationalist move-
ment,9 which could be increasingly imbued with the PKI's Marxist
ideas.
Circumstances of the period seemed to be moving in the right direc-
tion for the PKI, especially when the Soviet Union came aggressively
forward with military aid to buttress Indonesia's strength visa-vis
the Dutch in Iran and when Sukarno moved to nationalise all Dutch
assets in Indonesia. In this period of growing militancy, the PKI suc-
ceeded in increasing its members from 10,000 in 1951 to about 1
million in 1961, and finally 3 million with 20 million supporters in a
mass organisation by 1965. These groups included the trade union
organisation SOBSI with about 3.5 million members, the Indonesian
Peasant Front (BTI) with 9 million members, 1.5 million members
in the youth organisation Pemuda Rakyat and an equal number in
the women's organisation Gerwani.10 All this indicated a clear jump
from the dismal picture of the PKI in the pre-Madiun days and was
perhaps, in the minds of the PKI, a sign of the growing acceptance
of the PKI and the erosion of the Madison stigma.
By insisting on numbers along a mass line, the PKI forced 'other
classes to pay attention to us', which otherwise presumably would
not have occur:red.l 1 By using nationalism over Marxism, and by
organising for elections and not for violence, the PKI succeeded in
strengthening its position in parliament. The PKI also quite willingly
assisted the government by frequently breaking worker and peasant
militancy. For doing all this the PKI believed that, in return, President
Sukarno was going to defend the Party from attacks by rightist ele-
ments, in particular the army, while it continued to gain support for
expansion.
Of course, as a result of the growing need for military preparedness,
the Indonesian military likewise grew in strength. Various political
emergencies at the national and, in particular, regional levels boosted
further the non-military role of the military, so much so that a triangle
7
of power - the so-called 'Sukarno-Army-PKI' triangle - began to
emerge and be rapidly institutionalised in all comers of government
and society 2
It was at the height of the power of this triad in 1964 when a factor
of instability grew rapidly within it and created tensions between the
army and the PKI. This factor was the growing uncertainty of President
Sukarno's health. It was then that the PKI, according to the Marxist
journal World Revolution 1
1. acted to convince Sukarno to neutralise the predominantly
anti-communist army leadership ,
2. tried to instil militancy in their own followers by organising
the peasants to seize lands and the workers to seize foreign-
owned factories, and
3. tried to train and arm members of the youth organisation.1 3
This influential Marzdst journal reported :
Sukarno was uncooperative, but younger officers in the armed
forces (an estimated 30 per cent of the junior officers were PKI
sympathisers) provided training programmes and some weapons.
The army command organised itself against the PKI threat and
reportedly established a 'Council of Generals', which planned
an anti-communist coup for the second week in October 1965.
Allegedly this coup plan was discovered by the head of the press
dental bodyguard, Lt. Col. Untung, a PKI sympathiser. He organ-
ised a counter coup and planned to strike first. According to
this account, he consulted with Aidit after developing his plan.
Aidit supposedly advised him not to strike first, but to wait in
readiness, prepared to mount a crushing counter-blow after the
generals struck so that public opinion would be with him. Untung
reportedly rejected the advice and on l October, 1965 took over
Djakarta r and announced a 'Revolutionary Council' was
assuming power to forestall a soup. The six leading generals
were arrested and immediately executed. The PKI wavered but
soon came down in support of the 'Revolutionary Counci.l'.1 4
What followed this hotly debated communist account of the Gestapu
Affair was not so dissimilar to what followed the Madiun rebellion of
1948. The camouflaged PKI move fizzled under the blows of a rapid
counter-attack by the army, led by the remaining central leadership,
the most important of which were Generals Suharto (the present
president) and Nasution. No PKI mass l a b o r strikes emerged, no
peasant rebellion --.. not even in the PKI/BTI areas where land conflicts
were at their worst - and the regional apparatus of the PKI was in

8
confusion and Mostly on the run. Again, as in Madison, the PKI was
easily destroyed, despite the millions of members and sympathisers
it claimed, which included parts of the armed forces and, this time,
the Palace Guards. .
With no help QQ* sihlft rom Fteéiaent Sukarno, and the continuing
sweep by the army directed against the Party and its affiliates all
over Indonesia, in 1967 the PKI tried to recover, and attempted to
prepare a base for what it claimed would be a long protracted guerilla
struggle 6? la China and Vietnam. Several of its surviving top leaders
abandoned the cities and moved to the 'safe' rural areas of central
and east Java urging Party members to do the same. It was then ex-
pected that the base at Blitar Selatan, in the isolated area of south-
east Java, would be built into a formidable PKI fortress, while the
Party instigated and directed strikes and mutinies in the cities and
rural areas of Java, to subvert the rising 'Suharto~Nasution fascist
government' .1 5
While hasty preparations were undertaken to convert the area into
a base for the newly created People's Liberation Army (Tentara Pem-
bebasan Rakyat or TPR), complete with its guerrilla structures, and
while the training and arming of cadres and peasants had just begun,
some units of the PKI acted too hastily and were caught in firefights
with local armed village militia. The result was obvious: the armed
forces quickly launched its 'Operasi Trisula' with the objective to
destroy the Blither Selatan base. The operation was an easy success
because again, as in the Madison Affair of 1948, the PKI did not obtain
the expected support from the rural masses in this supposedly tradi-
tional PKI area, and the PKI cadres were caught mostly unprepared,
organisationally as well as militarily. With the destruction in 1968
of the planned base and its infrastructures, including the decimation
of many of the surviving PKI top leadership, another PKI attempt
at armed struggle was crushed. Smaller-scale efforts emerged from
time to time following Blitar Selatan, the famous one being the Pur-
wodadi Affair of 1973,16 but most of them were easily detected by
the military intelligence and thus immediately flushed out.
The PKI's bitter experiences with attempts at launching an armed
movement in the period of Gestapu 1965 up to Blitar Selatan 1967-
68 basically confirmed the validity of what McVey had in 1964 al-
ready concluded as 'lessons' for the PKI. The failures of 1965-68,
however, demonstrated either the PKI's unwillingness to heed those
'lessons', or perhaps its strong conviction of the correctness of its
choice for the 'peaceful road to power' and of the strength of appeals
to nationalism as a political tool in Indonesia and thus the need of
the PKI to adjust accordingly. The growing militancy and belligerence
towards the West of President Sukarno and his Guided Democracy
had for quite a long enough time from 1957 to 1965 - also given
-..

9
the PKI the necessary platform for rapid expansion as befitted a mass
party of a radical nationalist or Marxist persuasion, transforming the
PKI into one of the largest CPs in the world - definitely the largest
outside Russia and China.
What the PKI neglected (or rather misconstrued) in its political
strategy was the higher risk involved in the buildup of such a huge
mass party in such a short time, especially when appeals to nationalism
were widely used in tandem with the support of the charismatic figure
of President Sukarno. Long before Gestapu of 1965, McVey mentioned
at least two such risks in her analysis of the early sixties of the PKI :
l . The fluid lines between the communists and the [nationalists]
deceive not only the nationalists [as the communists would like
to see] but also the communists. As McVey put it: 'This fluidity
made the communists less aware of the need for an organisational
base on which they could firmly rely, and they derived little idea
of how much popular support they could muster in a contest
with the non-communist national leaderships 7
2. The buildup of a mass party resulted in the absorption of less
and ideologi cally motivated people, causing the Party to
lose its militancy. The long parliamentary struggle to power, in
the of a determined pressure and provocation from the
Party's oppositions, can easily bring in more apathy than anger,
and resignation than the cry for revolution.1 8
One certainly can add other factors as the causes that led to the quick
demise of the PKI, as both the PKI itself and outside analysts are still
doing. It is my contention, however, that such discussions on political
strategy neglect other no less important factors, some of which are
unique to Indonesia, which are discussed in the following analysis.

Other factors contributing to the PKI failures

Analysis of the strategy and tactics that the PKI followed in its bid
for power, which as we have seen culminated 'erratically' into armed
movements, is a valid exercise and must be given continuing attention
by analysts of Southeast Asian, or even Third World, communism.
It is my contention, however, that such discussions tend to neglect
factors of environmental importance, which have in reality probably
time and again hampered the PKI's bid for power, in particular when
it chose to resort to violence.
One such crucial environmental factor is the fact that the PKI,
despite its modern origins and ideology, remained a 'Javanese' party.

10
The PKI drew most of its members and sympathisers from areas of
central and east Java, where traditions of anti-West 'Messiahnism'
have been the deepest and most pervasive among the strongly 'Hindu-
istic' and the Muslim majority. As such, the PKI shared the structural
weaknesses of the other Java-based 'national' parties, such as the
PNI or the NU (Islam Scholars) the two other leading parties of
-.-.

Sukarno's Guided Democracy. It faced tremendous difficulties in its

efforts to cross the formidable ethnic, religious, or regional lines of
loyalty, which traditionally separated J eve from the outer islands.
Therefore, where the PKI was able to set up bases in the outer islands,
it was always firstly among Javanese people who had settled there
as labourers, plantation workers, lower-ranking officials or as part
of government-sponsored transmigration projects.
'Organic isolation' also prevailed where the PKI was able to i17.ll1lt1°ate
the military and the bureaucracy, that is, the infiltrated organisations
tended to be dominated by Javanese, mostly of nominal Muslim origin
(abangan).1 9 This was further compounded during the Guided Democ-
racy by the frequent use of .T avanese symbols and mythologies by the
charismatic President Sukarno, even when he appealed to his most
modern and radical political ideas. The ability of the PKI to expand
so rapidly during that period perhaps owed more to this 'Javanese'
factor than to the realities of the declining economic conditions of
that period or to other objective factors such as the growing 'prolet-
ariatisation' of the Javanese peasants and the widening urban-rural
gap,
This situation was a logical consequence of long historical standing,
as the two lava provinces have the largest populations and the highest
educational level in Indonesia, and both suffered the longest history
of Dutch colonialism and its accompanying harsh exploitations. But
these facts of objective value, which contributed greatly to the PKI's
strength in Java, also represented its Achilles heel. Java is one of the
oldest and strongest bases of Islam in Indonesia, and the Javanese
Muslim safari communities can be found throughout this overpopulated
and small island, providing by accident a ready natural counterbalance
against the PKI-oriented abangan. These communities are also highly
organised, centring around pesantren - Islam's counterpart to the
Hindu-Buddhist ashram - with their traditional hierarchy of religious
leaders, the kiyai. 2 0
From the accounts and analyses of the Madison rebellion, the after-
math of Gestapu, and in particular the Blitar Selatan rebellion, it is
clear that the PKI eventually failed in launching armed movements
exactly because of its isolated position in this pluralistic society. This
isolation made it almost impossible for the PKI to use the rural areas
for guerrilla warfare, since these could be easily cordoned off. Worse
still, the best areas for such a protracted war tend to be populated
11
by staunch Muslim with their pesantren. Java is also a small island
that can be easily blockaded from the sea. Furthermore, arms smug-
gling along the northern coastal areas is difficult as these coasts are
dotted with thousands of predominantly Muslim fishing villages,
while the southern areas are unsuitable due to the turbulent nature
of the Indian Ocean.
To compound these 'natural obstacles', the PKI in Java also had
to confront the best of the Indonesian army divisions: the Brawijaya
in east Java: the Diponegoro in central J eve: and the Siliwangi in
west Java - the last being famous for its traditional anti-communist
stance. Worse still for the PKI, these divisions had been involved in
the war for independence as guerillas, roaming and organising the
rural areas of Java against the Dutch in the revolution of 1945-49-
Java, thus, was an open book for them. Moreover, this tradition is
handed down to the younger generation of officers and soldiers by
intensive anti-guerrilla training using better arms technology and
intelligence methods. _
__ ... ._ - _ _ _ . .

All these factors eventually- posed formidable obstacles to the PKI,

and proved fatal to its attempts at an armed movement. The PKI
leaders of course recognised that guerrilla warfare was a slow process
of cadre arming, training and combat involvement. The PKI leaders,
however, seemed to underrate the fact that, in the light of these for-
midable obstacles, this slow process was risky as both the armed forces
and the Muslim communities could mount an immediate counter-
attack of immense proportion, as was ewldent in the days following
Madison, Gestapo, and also when the Blither Selatan base was detected
earlier on by army intelligence. A slow process, in the face of such
obstacles, can also be easily demoralising for the cadres.
It is perhaps to overcome this grave objective situation that the
PKI adopted the alternative strategy of infiltrating the military, then
trying to use officers and/or military units 'sympathetic to the PKT
to achieve its objectives, and to build up a heated political environ-
ment designed to provoke its opponents to take the first step. The
PKI did that in the preparation of the Madison putsch of 1948, the
Gestapu coup attempt of 1965, and then the Blitar Selatan rebellion
of 1967.
In all these attempts at an armed movement, however, the PKI
was more successful in infiltrating and influencing what amounted
to basically 'Javanese' units, frequently using a ploy that the Republic
was in danger of being subverted by the Western imperialists and
their domestic allies. In the Madison Affair the PKI relied on these
types of units based in the city of Madison, as its main opponent 4-
the Divisi Siliwangi was at that time probably the most hetero-
geneous, and thus a truly 'national', military organisation of the Re-
public, even though its ranks were heavily filled by Sundanese from

12
West Java. In the 1965 Gestapu, the PKI managed only to gain support
from units of the "Javanese" Divisi Diponegoro from Central Java and
the Divisi Brawijaya from East Java, as well as from Lt. Col. Untung's
units of the Palace Guard, this time with the ploy that President Suk-
arno was under the threat of a coup d'état by the army general staff.
Under the clever tactics typical of the region, in particular using the
tradition of Eapak (literally 'Father') and Anakbuah (literally 'Sons~
cum-Followers'), General Suharto, himself a former Cornniander of
Divisi Diponegoro, succeeded in persuading some of these units to
abandon the movement, drastically dismantling the coup force in a
matter of hours. The Blitar Selatan rebellion was definitely the worst
of these attempts, as the basically urban-based PKI had to recruit,
arm, trajan and indoctrinate Javanese peasants from the deep hinter-
land of Java, this time with no institutional links to - and thus support
-
from sympathetic military units of the Repubiie?1
In the light of these bitter experiences, it became clear that this
alterative of a 'short cut' was no less risky than that of long, tiring
and protracted guerrilla warfare in the rural areas of Java.
The other no less formidable environmental obstacle to the PKI
attempt at an armed movement arises not from the socio-cultural
or physical aspect, which we have already discussed, but from the
ideological aspect of the environment. Indonesian nationalism is the
oldest driving force behind the anti-colonialism movement, and later
on behind the effort at nation-building. Contraiy to what the PKI
leaders, time and again, seemed to believe, it is not something that
can easily be belittled as a mere object of ideological manipulation.
Nationalism in Indonesia does receive quite large dosages of Marxism
at the second stage of its growth, but even then the Indonesian nation-
alists remained basically independent and drew on many sources,
Marxist and non-Marxist alike, to develob their ideas regarding various
aspects of strategy and tactics in the struggle for independence.22
This can be proven, for example, by the development of Sukarno's
and the other nationalists' political thinking of that period.
Furthermore, throughout its growth process under colonialism,
and in particular under the harsh conditions of the Japanese military
occupation, Indonesian nationalism had been able to create a dynamic
multi-dimensional Weltanschauung. In its wake it left a modern Bahasa
Indonesia - the national language - with its rapidly growing infra-
structure of intellectual activities in art and literature, in education
and in the mass media, an ideology, which later on developed into the
state ideology of Pancasila and the political document, the 1945
Constitution of the Republic, and a new 'Indonesian' style of life
on top of the myriads of the traditions of the primordial groups. |
Throughout this formative period the PKI tried to infuse Marxist
radicalism into the rising nationalism, in particular by trying to intro-
13
duce a 'class consciousness' into the struggle for independence. Were
this line accepted In goto by the nationalists earlier on, there is no
doubt that the struggle for independence would have been directed
not only against the Dutch, or the West as a whole, but also against
Indonesians who, by design or by default, stood on the wrong side
of the class line. In the then Indonesian context of rabid political
pluralism this would also mean the probable inclusion of whole pri-
mordial groups, either as what the PKI called kava (allies) or Zawan
(enemies or opponents), and thus at once transforming the national
struggle neatly into a platform for the divide and rule games of the
Dutch. Taldng their cue from this understanding of Indonesia's plural-
ism and the danger of a premature breakup 9.1; ,the ;jrati.o.nalist move-
ment, the nationalists instead chose % compromise, settling on the
traditional way of solving conflict, that is, gotong-royorzg (mutual
self-help) and musyawarah-mufakat (mutual consultation for con-
sensus), for the domestic side, while mobilising the movement for
the struggle against the Dutch.
This political alternative worked so well in this difficult period,
especially during the fight against the Dutch in 1945 up to 1949,
that eventually it was accepted as a national doctrine and much later
was elevated by President Sukarno as part of a national ideology
in the context of Guided Democracy and Guided Economy, and
was introduced into all aspects of national politics 3
The PKI of the pre-Madiun and pre-Gestapu incidents thus found
itself in an almost perpetual and awkward position of having to defend
its aggressive posture of 'class war' as befitted a Marxist-Leninist
party, while at the same time propagating itself as a national party
fighting the imperialist powers of the West. By maintaining this position
the PKI isolated itself further in Indonesian politics, this time ideologic-
ally, it thus compounded the problem of socio-cultural isolation it was
already facing. On top of this, the PKI's claim to be the most pro-
gresif revolusfoner of the political groups in Indonesia, immediately
put itself in frequent competition, if not conflict, vis-a-vis the nation-
alist and, worse still, the Islamic parties.
Various factors that emerged before the Madiun Affair forced the
PKI to dare its ideal ogical isolation and openly challenge the newly
established Republic in a clear bid for leadership over the Revolution.
As indicated earlier, with popular support and the military quickly
consolidated behind them, Sukarno and Hatta - the Duumvirate of
the Republic - ordered a counter~attack, which was then canned
out to its end in a matter of weeks.
By leaning from the bitter lessons of Madiun, and particularly in
recognition of the fact of the dynamism of Indonesia's nationalism, the
new leadership of the PKI tried a more sophisticated approach to break
out of this ideological isolation." In this effort to 'Indonesianise

14
Marndsm-Leninism' Aidit tried basically to depict the PKI as the legitim-
ate heir apparent of the Revolusi 1945, as it was only the PKI, accord-
ina to the new leaders of this party, who were still loyal to the ideals
of the Revolusi, that is, the total overhaul of the society.25 Looking
back into the critical years of the decline of constitutional democracy
and the rise of Sukarno's Guided Democracy of 1957-59, and then
the period of Guided Democracy and Guided Economy of 1959-65,
it is obvious that Aidit's political manoeuvre consisted basically of the
following steps:2 6

1. accept the national leadership of President Sukarno;

2. capitalise on Sukarno's growing conviction that 'the Revolution
is still unfinished' (Revolusi b l u m selesai), especially as the
Dutch still controlled the economy and the territory of West
Iran, and the Dutch continued to subvert the nation by foment-
ing secessionist movements and other troubles,
3. initiate political coalition with the anti~West elements in and
out of the government, in particular the radical nationalists, and
accelerate the movement to oust the Dutch from the country,
if necessary by the use of force ,
4. mobilise the Party and its infrastructure to win elections and to
expand Party membership ,
5. support President Sukarno's efforts to create a new ideology
for the nation, while introducing Marxist-Leninist ideas into
it and into a wider audience in and out of the government,
including the armed forces and the bureaucracy,
6. continue efforts to isolate the kontra-Revolusf elements in and
out of the government, while pressuring President Sukarno to
execute steps towards the building of demo krasi nasional, and
at a later stage Sos falirrrt e Indonesia ,
7. all during this effort, convince the Party rank and file to uphold
the strategy of the united front .
Events of the last years of the Guided Democracy indicated how close
the PKI was to its target of overthrowing the Republic using the strat-
egy of political infiltration, encirclement and domination. It was
only the continuing opposition provided by the army and the other
so-called kepala Batu (hard-headed) 'right' elements that hampered
the PKI efforts to enter the government, based on its legal status
and also victories in the elections. Therefore, confident that the PKI
already controlled the nation's ideology with growing support from
President Sukarno, the PKI launched aksel sefhak in the rural areas
of Java and Sumatra, to provoke the opposition into the open in what

15
looked like the beginning of a 'class war'. The
Sul<arno's worsening health accelerated this process,
the sudden Gestapu Affair and its bloody a t e in which the
PKI was comprehensively destroyed b_y its opponents, This quick
rise and quick demise demonstrate the unstable political base created
by Aidit during his political manoeuvres of a decade and a half. Most
importantly, they also show how the PKI was unable actually to
escape from ideological isolation, despite its closeness - if not simi-
larities - to the ideology of Sosialisrne Indonesia developed by Suk-
arno. During the PKI's effort at Indonesianisasi the PKI's opponents
were not convinced of the PKI's flaunted nationalism, and they refused
to believe that the PKI had forever abandoned the idea of a 'class war'
as a method to complete the total overhaul of the nation - or 'to
complete the Revolution' as President Sukarno would phrase it. Also,
it is now clearly understood that the Aidit PKI was able to escape
ideological isolation only temporarily, that is, by relying totally on
the personal favours of President Sukarno. This the PKI would rather
forget - as proven by the lack of mention of the crucial role played
by President Sukarno in its rapid growth during the Guided Democracy
period, in the lcritik-otokritik which abounds following Gestapo.
Thus, following Gestapo, when Sukarno was faced by mounting pres-
sure from the army and its political allies and declined to fight back
for whatever reasons, it was no wonder that the PKI's doom was then
sealed.
This ideological isolation, which compounded the PKI's long-standing
problem of socio-cultural isolation, and the fact that lava does not
provide the desired terrain and base for a protracted armed movement
must have been quite a painful realisation to the PKI rank and file.
It is probably through the understanding of such a formidable
situation, aside from the total destruction it suffered in the aftermath
of Gestapu, that the PKI up to now seems to refrain from undertaking
new steps towards an armed move . whatever the rhetoric from
its exiled leaders indicate .

The future

The book edited by Black and Thornton on communist strategy and

the use of violence reveals that there are three conditions that guar-
antee communist success :
1. a critical weakening of the authority of the incumbent govern-
ment,
2. the ineffectiveness of alternative political reform movements, and
.

16
 3. E111 international balance of power favourable to the commun-
i5t.27

The identification of these prerequisites certainly confirms what is

already known among communists and non-coinmunists alike as a
political dictum, that is, that a movement, and even more so an armed
movement, leading to a revolution cannot be created out of nothing.
A sociologist famous for his work on 'collective behaviour theory',
Neil Smelser, had reiterated as early as 1962, in an exhaustive and
conclusive analysis, that 'revolutions' are the most sophisticated and
most difficult type of 'collective behaviour' to create.Z8 As a type of
a 'value~oriented movement', revolutions demand the existence of
the more rigorous and comprehensive set of pre-conditions of 'struc-
tural conduciveness Part of these structural conditions relate to
Black's first and second conditions mentioned above. Smelser, how-
ever, was clearer in his understanding of the uniqueness of this 'col-
lective behaviour', when he gave the highest 'rank' to revolution as
a type of a 'value-oriented movement' over other types of 'collective
behaviour' such as 'panic', 'craze', 'hostile outburst', and 'norln~oriented
movement'.
Also, quite different from the fatalistic (or 'historical deterministic')
Marndsts, Snielser did not preclude the possibility for a 'value-oriented
movement' to actually move away from the choice of revolution and
instead
' to seek to institutionalise itself as a 'revolutionary party', for
example. Via an exhaustive socio-historical comparison of cases, Smel-
ser came to an understanding of the tremendous difficulties faced
by efforts first to transform 'generalised beliefs' into a 'value-oriented
movement', then into a 'revolutionary party', and from this into the
next stage of launching a 'revolutions This problem, mentioned earlier,
was faced several times by the PKI in its bid to power and created
frequent internal party conflicts with regard to strategy and tactics
among its rank and file.
Let us now use Black's analysis of the pre-conditions for a successful
communist revolution, and the more intricate analysis of Smelser
regarding the tremendous difficulties faced in efforts to transform
'generalised beliefs' into the calls to revolution, to see what the pros-
pects are for the revival of a PKI armed movement in Indonesia in
the near future. In this exercise, however, we will leave aside the
problem of 'international balance' put forward by Black and dwell
more on the domestic side of the problem.
From recent publications and pronouncements of the military in
Indonesia," it is evident that their main worry at the moment seems
to be directed at the possibility of a PKI reactivation of the thousands
of recently released Gestapu political prisoners (Tapol Gestapo). Many
of them are card-canying members of the PKI or its affiliates (such as

17
SOBSI, BTI, Gerwani, Pemuda Rakyat, HSI and Lekra). Many others
are members of groups sympathetic to the 'radical nationalism' of
the PKI, while a smaller number are actually members of the Indo-
nesian bureaucracy or military who supported or were implicated in
the Gestapu Affair of 1965. The worry seems to be justified because
the numbers of released Tapols, and the estimated PKI members or
sympathisers murdered in the aftermath of Gestapo, are much below
the PKI-claimed numbers of its members and syrnpathisers.
That the PKI will not stop in its efforts to subvert the Republic,
and eventually overthrow the government, is obvious and is also proven
by the continuing and recent arrests of its members and/or sympathis-
ers, even though the frequency seems to have decreased quite drastic-
ally in comparison with the early 1970s. However, following Black
and Smelser, it is clear that the PSI cannot by itself and will not be
able at the moment to call to arms its remaining members and sympathy
isers - certainly not at this lowest ebb of its strength, and not at a
time when the anti-communisfs of Indonesia can deliver a quick re-
sponse to such efforts at a come-back, both in rural and urban areas,
in J eve as well as in the outer islands. Furthermore, the current situa-
tion is also not conducive to supporting such action.
Therefore, the PKI also will probably be willing to wait for a situa-
tion of 'structural conduciveness', during which time it will try again
to create 'a united front of all revolutionary classes and groups which
are against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic-capitalisrn', in
close combination with efforts to create 'a capability to wage an
armed struggle based on the working class'.30 To understand whether
such a structural condition has appeared already to facilitate an embry-
onic stage for the PKI's long journey to revolution, we must study
the present situation in Indonesia.
Looldng into various analyses of contemporary Indonesia, it is
evident that despite the exhilarating growth of the economy in the
last fifteen years of the New Order, and despite also the fact of political
stability - disregarding the question of 'quality' of this stability - it
seems that Indonesia in the 1980s will carry many of the structural
characteristics that the PKI described as 'feudalism' and 'bureaucratic-
capitalism'. If growing interdependency and foreign participation in the
economy is taken as a sign of strength of 'imperialism', then the Indo-
nesia of today may also be said to carry such structural problems in its
economic growth. Perhaps more disturbing than these more abstract
national phenomena are practices that confront the majority of Indo-
nesians in their day-to-day dealings with the government, for example,
corruption, nepotism, patron-client relationships, delaying practices,
authoritarianism, tendencies to oligopolistic and monopolistic practices,
disregard for a participatory approach, and many of the other native
characteristics of bureaucracy easily found in the Third World .

18
 Al£ _ - Eine majority of the population is the inequity
in the distribution of income and expenditure, and the recent appear-
ance of inequity in the distribution of assets -- in particular, land -
in the face of growing consumerism of the upper-income groups and
the stagnating plight of the absolutely poor. It is in the degree of
the differences between these strata of income (or expenditure or
assets) that the possibility of 'class forlnation', and therefore of 'class
struggle', will depend. As Hirschman indicated in his interesting article
on 'development disasters',3 I it is the 'fluidity' or 'rigidity' of such
'class lines' that determine whether 'tolerance for inequity' will be
maintained or will disappear in a society during the process of develop-
ment. The destabilising effects of economic development or modern-
isation demand that such 'tolerance' be maintained for as long as
possible, lest a 'disaster' occur prematurely as has been experienced
already in Nigeria, Pakistan and, more recently, Nicaragua and Iran.
Nowhere in Indonesia today is the probability of such a 'disaster'
as high or as explosive as in the crossing points of the so-called SARA
problems and the problems of economic inequity, issues relating
to this are illustrated by sectoral, regional and socio-economic imbal-
ance. Despite sharp differences in opinions regarding how critical
these structural problems are, most economists tend to agree that
the rapid economic growth taldng place under the New Order - in
particular since 1969, the beginning of the Five~Year Plans - is marked
by an unfortunate characteristic of growing disparities between sectors
(mainly rural-traditional vis-Z1-vis urban-modern sectors), regions (in
particular Java vis-Zi-vis most of the outer islands), and socioeconomic
groupings (mainly pribumi [natives] vis-d-vis' non-priburni [Chinese
or foreigners in genera1]).33 The military, being more sensitive to
internal security issues, latent or otherwise, consider the primordial
problems of ethnicity (or regionalism), religion and race as the main
triggers for open internal conflicts in the present Indonesia. Events
in the history of the Republic, however, have demonstrated how
the two sets of problems have to converge before triggering an open
conflict of threatening magnitude in one of various forms: a regional
rebellion, for example, the PRRI-Permesta rebellion of 1958-60 which
broke out in the islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi, a secessionist
movement, for example, the Achehnese Daryl Islam rebellion in the
early 1950s, a religion-linked rebellion, for example, the Daiul Islam
rebellions of West Java and South Sulawesi, which extended through-
out the 1950s to the early 1960s, or the mass anti-Chinese urban riot-
ings that broke out in 1963 in West Java and 1981 in Central Java.34
It is at these crosspoints, therefore, that such 'tolerance' towards
inequity will be critically tested in the Indonesia of the 1980s - a
period which is already acknowledged by many as one that has to bear
the main brunt of Indonesia's long-term problem of rapid population

19
growth and its accompanying economic, social and political problems.
As already indicated by events in the history of the Republic, the
probability of a large-scale ethnic»linked regional rebellion or conflict
has now declined to practically nil. In the face of growing hetero-
geneity and organisational sophistication of the military and bur-
eaucracy, it is now becoming almost impossible for any ethnic~cum-
regional political groupings, of whatever persuasion, to drag parts of
these important national institutions to support their secessionist
objectives. The growing decay and isolation of the Aceh Merdeka
(Free Acheh) movement in the westernmost part of the country and
the OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka or Free Papua Movement) in
the easternmost, strongly demonstrate this point.
It is rebellion that is linked to religion that poses the greatest danger
for open internal conflict, as was proven once by the protracted Darul
Islam guerrilla warfare in west Java, south Sulawesi and Acheh, during
the 1950s and early 1960s. Not even the PKI, which boasted the
largest number of card-canying members and millions of followers
in the urban as well as rural areas, was able to mount such a large-
scale and protracted challenge to the government of Jakarta. Various
cases demonstrated furthermore how this type of religion-linked con-
flict can easily spill over to the latent racial issue, which sits squarely
astride the main line of contention in the problem of economic in-
equity.
Such open conflict can also be triggered by a reverse event, that is,
where flareups of racial overtones spread to become a religion-linked
conflict with a strong political overtone. This indeed happened at
the beginning of the 20th century when growing competition between
Dutch-supported 'Chinese fgaders .and Indonesian Muslim traders sparked
incidents which evolved, in giiort span of time, into a full-blown
nationalist movement with a strong Islamic flavour. By a twist of'
irony, this movement of traders later on became the cradle not only
of Islamic parties, but also the PKI, and even led to the PKI rebellion
of 1926-27.3 5
Other incidents in Indonesian history have also demonstrated how
this type of reverse event, especially when it takes an explicit anti-
foreign (West) overtone, §g@sily spread to the sensitive problem
area of sectoral imbalance, thus triggering the possibility of a collision
between the rural and urban population, leading perhaps to a type of
a 'class war', early part of the Indonesian Revolution, and then
the PKI-dominated anti-Dutch and anti-foreign campaigns during
much of the Guided Democracy era, clearly demonstrate this possi-
bility.
All these cases indicate, therefore, that the potential for a 'develop-
ment disaster' to occur in the Indonesia of the 1980s does exist, even
though no-one can predict the combination of events that would have

20
to emerge to trigger such an upheaval. There are however many who
believe that whatever the combination of events emerging, such an
upheaval is perhaps highly probable in the Indonesia of the 1980s,
but this view is held mostly by 'critics' of the present policies of the
New Order. They assert that Indonesia, for the first time in its modem
history, is facing growing open unemployment in the urban as well
as rural areas, and that this is taking place when the country is facing
a worsening of income distribution. Sooner or later this is going to
create more tension in society, probably leading to conflict. 6 Even
though such trends have been proven to exist, I believe that, in the
face of Indonesia's political pluralism, such critical trends will not
easily be transformed into a neat pattern of 'class formation and
antagonism' leading to open 'class conflict', and thus opening the
way for the reactivation of a radical movement or of the PKI.
Such 'development disasters' do not automatically lead to the rise
of an armed communist movement, as shown in the case of Nigeria,
Pakistan or Iran. However, in the case of Indonesia, the communists
thrice took a chance at such and other similar destablising moments
to launch their bid for power via the use of violence: for example,
in the 1926 rebellion directed against the Dutch, the 1948 rebellion
directed against the newly created Republic, and the 1965 coup attempt
again against the Republic. In those instances, the PKI rebellion essenti-
ally followed a period of legal activity, which was subsequently used
by the PKI to agitate and foment seeds of rebellion. In all three cases,
however, the PKI failed exactly because of its unpreparedness in the
use of arms in an organised fashion, as the PKI did not start its armed
struggle earlier on to parallel its legal activities.
It is my contention, thus, that a real threat from the PKI will again
emerge in the near future only if the PKI cadres succeed in initiating
an armed movement in a process that parallels its efforts to create
a united front. Such an action, however, can only be successful if
it is based upon real grievances of a group in the society. Strategically,
such a group should probably be one which enables the launching of
an all-embracing political movement, for example, the rural peasantry,
or -- which is almost impossible - the majority of Muslims. Further-
more, based on past experiences, it seems such a movement cannot
be started in the island of Java. In terms of logistics, and also the new
geopolitical line-up in the region, it appears better for the PKI to
start such a movement in areas adjacent to the new communist states
of Southeast Asia, for example, west Kalimantan, Riau, Aceh or any
of the eastern coastal provinces of Sumatra.
But, as experiences elsewhere have demonstrated, whatever the
strategy picked by the PKI, the situation of conflict will be arduously
slow in the malting. FurtherMore, as Indonesia is an island nation of
immense proportions, such an effort will be a long process and in all
21
probability demoralising for the cadres, especially as they will con-
tinually be facing the risk of isolation and annihilation.
Meanwhile, the bleakness of the PKI's prospect is also strongly
indicated by the growing dualism evident in the organisation and
ideology of the remaining PKI movement. While the PKI as an organ
is still active abroad, and has succeeded in mobilising Me remaining
leaders and cadres by using the socialist countries as its base and as
its main source of support, financial or otherwise, the 'underground'
PKI in Indonesia -.- the so-called PKI Madam - is being reduced to
the most primitive level, in both its organisation and ideological life.
It is now evident that the rhetorical sophistication of the highly edu-
cated leaders and cadres abroad is moving ever onward to the abstract
level of debates on 'strategy and tactics, while the underground PKI
muddle with great difficulty through the down-toearth problems
of sure°val. This they do by continuing efforts at cell building at the
rural and urban mass levels as well as simplifying the Mar§dst»Leninist
ideology into terms that can be readily understood by these masses.
It is therefore striking that while the PKI intellectual émigrés debated
matters of strategy and tactics, frequently in accordance with the
political perspective of their host -.. the Russian, Chinese or Albanian
CP - the underground PKI in a haphazard and disorganised fashion
distributed hand~printed pamphlets or 'manuals' exhorting simple print
couples for survival, such as the 'R-3', the '8-Musts' or the '3-Taboos'.3 7
Thus, it is no wonder that while the PKI abroad was frequently badly
split by rifts among the major CPs, the underground PKI in Indonesia
barely managed to regroup its scattered followers after the debacle
of Blither Selatan.
Nor does there appear to be any attempted communication between
the PKI movement abroad and in Indonesia. This is probably the
main reason behind the continuing silence of the underground PKI
in Indonesia regarding the Blitar Selatan debacle, in which incident
the remaining PKI Central Committee members were either captured
or killed in action. In spite of the fact that such debates continue
to rage abroad between the Chinese-oriented PKI and the Russian-
oriented PKI, after Blither Selatan no kritik-otokritik appeared within
Indonesia. After the Gestapo debacle such information and analyses
were drawn up by the surviving PKI Central Committee members,
and this sort of work is considered highly important to any CP.
Despite this obvious sign of deep political crisis suffered by the
PKI, the Indonesian military, however, have ever since the Gestapu
Affair pursued the doctrinaire line that the PKI is still active, only
this time it has resorted to the supposedly more sophisticated tactics
of the OTB (Organisasi Tampa Bentuk or Organisation Without Form).
In the n'dlitary's perception, such tactics include manifold efforts by
surviving PKI members or sympathisers to infiltrate and subvert other

22
political groupings or organisations, even those which are basically
anti-PKI but, for example, are critical of the works of the present
government of the New Order.3 8
Evidence from the field demonstrates, however, that since the
Blitar Selatan debacle no new PKI leadership has emerged in Indonesia
to continue the struggle. Without it, OTB tactics amount to no more
than an indication of persistent efforts by the scattered PKI cadres
to survive by using the most rudimentary political method, where
violence is usually shunned.
In contrast to this dismal picture of the organisational, ideological
and environmental situation of the PKI, and despite the criticisms
on the 'quality' of political life under the New Order, it is agreed by
many that this 'r pressive-developmentalist regime' of military and
civilian technocrats 9 has been able to revive growth in the economy,
following the severe stagnation and even decline during the Guided
Democracy. On balance it can also be said that while the New Order
government is unable to stop corruption which accompanies the rising
tide of 'bureaucratic-capitalism',40 so far it has managed to come
out with many social and administrative reform programmes to ease
the plight of the low-income population in the urban as well as rural
areas.41 In terms of authority-maintenance, thus, the New Order
government can be said to be quite successful, and this is partially
borne out by the long period of political stability that the country
has enjoyed a feat unmatched by any period since Indonesia's In-
..-.

dependence.4 2
It is in the way of providing alternatives to political reform move-
ments that the record of the New Order is desperately inadequate.
In many instances the military have been quite unable to differentiate
between various types of critics and/or opposition, and therefore have
found themselves forced to execute their own hardline rhetoric, short
of accusing the critics and/or opposition as representing the PKI's
orB.43 The result is obvious: the number of critics and/or opposition
has diminished drastically over the past few years. But this, of course,
does not solve the basic problems, that is, the problems that are raised
by those critics and/or opposition concerning rapid economic growth.
In many instances, the New Order government has picked up the
slogans of the critics and/or opposition and used them for its own
political purpose, therefore giving the impression that the problems put
forward by the critics and/or opposition are being dealt with. So far,
the use of this tactic, the rapid economic growth, and the concessions
given in the form of various ad hoc reform programmes, in combina-
tion, have enabled the government to buy time for itself. In the face of
the continuing isolation and jeopardy of the PKI, this seems to be
working very well, also in the face of the continuing buoyancy of the
economy it promises to hold fast for quite some time in the future.

23
 ..
seen 'From various angles of the vantage point of 1982, the
PK1's prospects for the future are indeed bleak. A change in its plight
is probable only Fe as has been proven elsewhere in the Third World ...-.
if a non-communist conflict of a large proportion erupts, for example,
a military coup d 'éz'at (as in Ethiopia), civil war (as in Nicaragua) or
bloody civil strife (as in Iran).

Notes

1. Cyril E. Black, 'The Anticipation of Communist Revolutions', in

Cyril E. Black and Thomas P. Thornton, eds., Communism and
Revolution: The Strategic Use o f Political Violence (New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1964), p.425.
2. See T. Soedarso, 'Lessons from a Defeat', in Joseph Hansen, The
Catastrophe in Indonesia: Three Articles on the Fatal Consequences
o f Communist Party Policy (New York: Merit Publishers, 1966);
PKI Central Committee, 'The New Program of Indonesia's PKI',
World Revolution II, no. 1 (January-March 1969), and 'Indonesian
Message' (Speech by the Chairman of the Indonesian Communist
Party Delegation on behalf of the PKI Central Committee to the
Fifth Congress of the Albanian Workers' Party, 4 November 1966).
3. See Arnold C. Brackman, The Communist Collapse in Indonesia
(New W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1969), Rex Mortimer, 'Class,
Social Cleavage and Indonesian §Comlnunisln', Indonesia, no. 8
(October 1969); Donald Hindley, Political Power and the October
1965 Coup in Indonesia', Journal of Asian Studies XXXVI (Feb-
ruary 1967), and W.F. Wertheim, 'Indonesia Before and After the
Untung Coup', Pacific Affairs XXXIX (Spring~Summer 1966).
4. Ruth McVey, 'The Southeast Asian Insurrectionary Movement',
in Black and Thornton, ed., op. cit.
Ibis., p.l68.
Ibid., pp. 145-6.
5.6.7. The Divisi Siliwangi and pro-Republic para-military units were
withdrawn from West Java under the terms of the 'Renville Agree-
ment', signed several months earlier between the Dutch and the
Republic of Indonesia, in a move by the Republic to consolidate
its de facto status and gain international recognition. See George
MeTurnan Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1952), pp.272-303.
8. McVey, op. cit., p.184, various alfnéa.

24
 9. For a short but systematic account of this pre-Gestapu PKI
buildup, see Ruth McVey, 'Indonesian Communism and the
Transition to Guided Democracy', in A. Doak Barnett, ed., Com-
munist Strategies in Asia: A Comparative Analysis of Government
and Parties (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963).
10. See 'Indonesia's PKI: Background Report', World Revolution II,
no. 1 (January-March 1969).
Ibid.
Daniel S. Lev, 'The Political Role of the Army in Indonesia',
Pacific Affairs XXXVI (Winter 1963-4).
13. 'Indonesia's PKl', op. cit., p.50. See also Margo L. Lyon, Bases
o f Conflict to Rural Java (Berkeley: Center for South and South-
east Asia Studies, University of California), Research Monograph
No. 3, December 1970, especially Part II, for a detailed account
of the conflict over land.
'Indonesia's PKI', op. cit., p.S0.
'The New Program of Indonesia's PKI', op. a t. , 'Indonesia's
PK_I', op. cit. See also the very instructive analysis regarding this
episode in KOPKAMTIB (Command of Operation of the Restora-
tion of Law and Order), Gerakan 30 September PKI [The Septem-
ber 30 PKI Movement] (Jakarta, 1978), especially pp.190-226.
16. See 'Gerilla Merak di Purwodadi' [The Red Guerrillas of Pur-
wodadi] , Tempo (3 March 1973), pp.26-31.
17. MeVey, 'The Southeast Asian Insurrectionary Movement', op. cit.,
p.l00.
18. McVey, 'Indonesian Communism and the Transition to Guided
Democracyl op. cit., pp.175-80 and 188-9.
19. See Margo L. Lyon for a detailed analysis of this 'organic link'
between the PKI, its activities, and the Javanese abangan popula-
tion of Central and East Java.
20. Zamakhsyari Dhofier, Tradisi Pesantren [Pesantren Tradition]
(Jakarta: LPSES, 1982).
21. See the following publications for detailed accounts of the military
aspect of the attempts at an armed movement of the PKI: for the
Madison Affair, Arnold C. Brackman, Indonesian Communism: A
History (New York: Praeger, "', and Karin, op. cit., in partic-
ular the chapters on this rebellion, for the Gestapo coup attempt,
Arnold C. Blackman, The Communist Collapse in Indonesia (New
York, W.W. Norton, 1969), in particular oh. 6, and Benedict R.
Anderson and Ruth McVey (with the assistance of Frederick P.
Burrell), A Preliminary Analysis o f the October I , 1965, Coup in
Indonesia, Interim Reports Series (Ithaca, N,Y.: Cornell University,
1971); and for the Blitar Selatan Affair, KOPKAMTIB, op. cit.,
especially pp.202-20. The publication by KOPKAMTIB also
presented the military version of both Madison and Gestapu.

25
22. For a detailed historical account of this process, see John Ingle-
son, Perhirnpanan Indonesia and the Indonesian Nationalist
_
Movement I928'~__ _ Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, No. 4
7

(Melbourne: Monash University, 1975).

23. Herbert Feith, dynamics of Guided Democracy', in Ruth
McVey, H, Indonesia (New Haven: Yale University with HRAF
Press, 1963).
24. See Rex A. Mortimer, Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno:
Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965 (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1974), for a sympathetic look into this political manoeuvre.
25. D.N. Aidit, The Indonesian Revolution and the Irnrnedfate Tasks
o f the Co rnrnanzfst Party o f Indonesia (Beijing: Foreign Languages
Press, 1964).
26. See Donald Hindley, The Communist Party o f Indonesia, I95/ -
1963 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1966), Justus van der Kroef, The Communist Party o f fndonesia
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1965), the two
books by Blackman, op. cit., also Rex Mortimer, op. cit.
Black in Black and Thornton, eds., op. cit., pp.425-31.
Neil J. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behaviour (New York: The
Free Press, 1962).
29. See KOPKAMTIB, op. cit., also, 'Wawancara dengan Pangdam
V/Jaya' [Interview with the Commander of the Jakarta Garrison] ,
Merdeka (1 October 1982).
'The New Program of Indonesia's PKI', op. cit., p.59.
Alberto O. Hirschman, 'The Changing Tolerance for Income
Inequality in the Course of Economic Development', Quarterly
Journal of Economics LXXXVII, no. 4 (November 1973), p.5S3.
32. 'SARA' is an acronym formed from 'S' o f Sukubangsa (ethnicity
or regionalism), 'A' o f Agama (religion), 'R' of Ras (race) and
the last 'A' o f Altar-Golongan (inter-gioup). In Javanese, how-
ever, Sara means 'misery'. Thus, with this acronym the military
wants to imprint in the minds of the majority of Indonesians -
the Javanese - the high risks involved in playing with these issues.
The acronym was introduced by KOPKAMTIB. For its use in
analysis the Indonesian situation, see, for example, 'Menum-
buhlcan Penangkal terhadap Bahaya Sara' [Creating a Deterrent
Force against Sara], Informasi, October 1981, and 'Kalau ada
Sara' [When Sara Occurs], Topic, no. 130 (December 1980) --
both of which are special editions of the anti-Chinese sentiments
and the riotings which broke out in Central Java.
33. For a summary of these pro and con positions, see Bruce Glass-
burner, 'Political Economy and the Soeharto Regime', in Bulletin
of lndonesian Economic Studies XIV, no. 3 (November 1978).
34. For a summary of these rebellions and movements, see MacArthur

26
 F. Corsino, A Communist Revolu tionary Movement as an Inter-
national State Actor: The Case of the PKG-Aidit (Singapore:
Maruzen Asia, 1982), especially oh. 3 on 'The Partai Komunis
Indonesia and Indonesian Political Pluralism', pp.47-73.
35. See Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1965).
36. Many of such critical writings have been presented in several
Jakarta-based journals, such as Prisca, Wawasan, Topic, Focus
and Tempo. One such writing was by Adisasono: 'Indonesia
Dari Ekonomic Terpimpin be Kapitalisme Terpimpin' [Indonesia :
From Guided Economy to Guided Capitalism] , Prisca XI, no. l
(January 1982). The views presented by the Ekonorni Pancasila
[Pancasila Economy] proponents from the Gadjah Mada Uni-
versity, in many ways are also of the same sentiment.
37. See 'Keuanganz Tanda-Tanda Rawan' [Finance: The Signs of
Restlessness], Tempo (24 February l9'73), on 'R-3', which is an
abbreviation of 'Rapet, Rap if, Rampung' [Secrecy, Discipline,
Thoroughnessl. While on the '8-Musts' and '3-Taboos', see Prof.
A.Z. Abiding and Baharuddin Lopa, SH, Bahaya Komunisme
[The Danger of Communism] (Penerbit Bulan Bintang, Jakarta),
especially pp.230-32. These precepts are similar to those used
by Mao Zedong during the guerrilla warfare in mainland China,
for the same objective of winning 'the hearts and minds of the
people'.
38. See KOPKAMTIB, op. cit., for a detailed analysis of OTB, in
particular pp.23.8~43. _
39. For an analysis of the ndrome 'repressive-developmentalist
regime', see Herbert Feith, Repressive-Developmentalist Régimes
in Asia: Old Strength, New Vulnerabilities' (Paper presented at
the Conference of Indonesian Class Formation, Monash University
August 1979).
40. Robison provides a detailed analysis of this trend. See Richard
Robison, 'Culture, Politics and Economy in the Political History
of the New Order', Indonesia (Cornell Modern Indonesian Pro~
ject, Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1981 ).
41. For a complete record of these programmes, see various issues of
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, in particular the rubric
of 'Survey of Recent Developnientsi
42. On the 'quality' of this political stability, see Ulf Sundhaussen,
'Regime Crisis in Indonesia: Facts, Fiction, Predictions', Asian
Survey XXI, no. 8 (August 1981).
43. For an analysis of such criticisms and opposition and their plight,
see R. William Liddle, 'Indonesia 1976: Challenges to Suharto's
Autllority', Asian Survey XVII, no. 2 (February 1977), Herbert
Feitli, 'The Indonesian Student Movement of 1977-l978',
27
(Melbourne; Monash University, unpublished). Herbert Feith,
'Legitimacy Questions and the Suharto Polity', in
Irzdonesies Australian Perspectives (Canberra: ANU Press,
1981), and Ulf Sundhaussen, QP- cit.

28
Phoenix supine: The
Indonesian Communist Party
and armed struggle
DONALD E. WEATHEFiBEE
UNIVERSITY OFSOUTH CAROLINA

$2
'If I die, it does not mean that the Indonesian L_-___-______E' ' -
also die. Far from it. Although the PKI has been disinembered and
ripped to shreds, I am convinced that this is owe "WW
in the course of history, the PKI will return. With these challenging
words uttered before the Special Military Court (MAHMILUB) that
would send him to his death, Sudisman, the fourth-ranking member
of PKI's Politburo sought in 1967 to give inspiration to Indonesia's
fugitive Marzdst-Leninists. I aiwii of Gestapo, M politically
shattering coup attempt of , the PKI was crushed, its leadership
decimated. Followers went to ground fearing for their lives. The party's
structure was smashed; its political and legal existence terminated.
Nevertheless, bolstered by the conviction of the historical inevitability
of eventual communist revolutionary triumph, Sudisman at his trial
promised that the PKI would revive and come forth again with even
greater vigour. After all, twice before in 1926 and 1948, the party
was staggered by the consequences of ill-fated resorts to force, but it
reemerged phoenix-like with its revolutionary élan undampened by
adversity and the seemingly insurmountable task of rebuilding.
The PKI's pattern of birth, florescence, premature revolt and ex-
tinction has., been viewed as culturally congruent with Javanese con-
cepts of cyclical history. such cultural explanation is really new
essary for a secular historical determinist. Nor does the outside analyst
sensitive to the structural inequalities persistent in the social and
economic fabric of Indonesia need go further than empirical data on
contemporary conditions to conclude that many of the same inequities

29
that led to the PKI's former recruitment success still exist. The present
author wrote in 1969 that: 'The PKI articulated and aggregated real
interests and demands. The functions it performed will have to be
performed by other parties or non-party structures or those demands
will enter into the transactions of the political system in extra-legal
and probably violent forms'.3 Similarly, Silverman, in his 1967 dis-
sertation, stated: 'the fact that the PKI has been officially outlawed
is politically less significant than the existence of a base from which
it can be rebuilt, as it has done twice before'.4 Expectations about
a potentially recrudescent PKI were founded on the presumption that
its once million-strong mass base was still available for rem obilisation
in support of the same kinds of revolutionary political demands en-
countered elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
The PKI under Aidit enjoyed phenomenal success as a mass party
operating in a quasi~parliamentary setting. Although in post facto
criticism characterised as 'rightist opportunism compounded by modem
revisionism', the seeming correctness of Aidit's political strategy,
bringing the party into close association with (and eventual dependence
on) President Sukarno, did appear to bear out his analysis that the
struggle for 'People's Democracy' could be effected through the par-
liamentary systern.5 At the 1951 plenum of the Central Committee,
the Party was reborn after the post-Madiun revolt. The political line
then laid down was formally endorsed by the 5th Party Congress
(1954) and called for unity with the national bourgeoisie in an anti-
imperialist united front and the building of a 'bolshevised' CP with a
broad mass character. A decade later when the PKI demanded inclusion
in a NASAKOM or Gotong Royong Cabinet,6 Aidit boasted of the
strength of the progressive forces enrolled in the national front and
particularly of the PKt's nation-wide strength of 3.5 million com-
munists and communist youth Rejecting dogmatism, including an
uncritical attitude towa.rds the experiences and programmes of fraternal
parties, Aidit called for the 'flexible' application of Marxism-Lenlmism,
that is, 'to apply the principles of Marndsm-Leninism to the concrete
conditions in our country, in other words to "lndonesianize" Marxism-
Leninism, and on this basis we creatively determine the policy, tactics,
form of struggle, and form of organisation of our party'.8 Responding
to the danger of 'leftist adventurism' Aidit argued the differences
between Indonesia and China in questions of political development.
The armed struggle did not feature as the PKI's form of struggle.
This does not mean, however, that the PKI eschewed political violence.
Certainly intimidatory violence was practised and the PKI's involve-
ment in Gestapo was violent, but the Aidit line did not include 'peo-
ple's warfare' as a correct strategy for Indonesia and the party was
not organised and disciplined to an armed struggle. Post-coup com-
munist criticism condemned Aidit for malting the party and prolet ariat

30
appendages of the national bourgeoisie. Because the leadership did
not prepare for the possibility of a non-peaceful road to power in its
abandonment of Marxism-Leninisin for modem revisionism under
the guise of Indonesianising, it was defenseless against the counter-
revolutionaries. Hindley, in his detailed analysis of Aidit's PKI, pre-
sciently concluded in 1964 that :
A communist rebellion is out of the question in the foreseeable
future. The character of the communist mass support won under
the national united front policy is such that few Indonesian
communists would support insurrection against the authorities.
The few who might come forward would be readily decimated
by the modernised armed forces and police acting in conjunction
with the anti-communists and the large body of present non-
communists who would be expected to become anti-communist
in such a situation. The very few who might survive would be
without friendly frontiers in their rear to afford supplies and
refuge.9
How could it happen then that the party's leadership would involve
itself in a coup attempt that exposed its vulnerabilities and led to the
PKI's political ruin and death or imprisonment for thousands of its
members? What was to be gained? There is little doubt but that senior
party officials were associated with the so-called 'progressive officers',
although argument continues over the exact nature and extent of their
anning the coup 0 'Where dm m l n l
.m
participation
I
I

stem from?'L--~d the Moscow-oriented Ami. 'Marxist-Leninist

Group' of the PKI, 'Or has it been preordained that such a tragic
fate should have befallen us? Did we have to pay for the revolution
so dearly and in vain?11 1 Their answer, also the answer of the China-
exiled PKI survivors, was that the leadership of the PKI at the time
must be held responsible. The party had engaged in a 'left adventure'.1 2
The sharpest, most bitter response came from surviving leadership
cadre desperately seeking to pick up the pieces of the wreckage. Sudis-
man, in the months before his capture in December 1966, tried to
salvage the remains of the organisation and set the party on a new
course. Together with Rewang, Central Java party chairman, and
Sukatno, secretary-genera] of the communist youth organisation,
Pemuda Rakyat, Sudisman issued a 'Statement' on 17 August 1966,
followed by a 'Self-criticism' in September 1966. They were issued
in the name of the PKI's Politburo, of which Sudisman was the only
mem"b& at large. m....m. documents criticised the Aidit line and em-
phasised that the PKI's future path to power was via an armed struggle
by the peasants in the context of agrarian revolution.1 3
The 'Statement' condemned the theoretical shortcomings of the old

31
PKI and its inability to make the proper analysis of the problem of
class and state power in the 1945 revolution. The signal mistake was
the illusion that 'People's Democracy' could be achieved within the
framework of state ruled by the bourgeoisie, a theoretical fallacy
called the 'theory of two aspects in state powglé, denying thereby
Marxist-Leninist teaching in state and revolution .
The 'Self-criticisln', directed inter alia that, 'In building the party,
the Indonesian Marxist-Leninists must direct their attention to the
creation of conditions under which to lead an armed peasants' agrarian
revolution, which is the basic form of struggle for a democratic victory
by the Indonesian people'. It called on Indonesian Marzdst-Leninists
to pay special heed to the Chinese revolutionary experience and Mao
Zedong Thought, calling tor a protracted acned struggle from the
countryside to encircle and seize the towns. In laying down the line
of armed struggle, -criticism' is as significant in its own way
in marling new departures for the party as was the outcome of the
January 1951 plenum l i f e Central Committee and the emergence
of the Aidit leadership that directed the party to the debacle of 1965.
The document is the authoritative reformulation of the PKI's strategy
and tactics, in which the party theoretically sought to adapt to a
changed environment in which the party was outlawed (Presidential
Decision, 1-3-1966, 12 March 1966) as well as physically dispersed
and demoralised. McVey suggested that the tone of the denunciation
of the Aidit line reflected the more militant members of the Sudisman
group, perhaps airing misgivings that had been expressed but sup-
pressed in earlier pre-coup party discussions." Between March and
August 1966, Sudisman had at least .six clandestine meetings with
other communist leaders in Jakarta. It is interesting that the Sudisman
group, not withstanding their call for armed struggle in the country-
side, remained tied to urban Jakarta. Sudisman and the others who
raised the flag of armed struggle in Indonesia assailed past adventurism
on the part of leadership. This climaxed the mistakes of the line of`
'right opportunism' that developed into modern revisionism.
When the deviation to the right had become overall and complete,
another tendency that was quite opposite emerged, namely a
'leftist' tendency. The 'leftist' tendency manifested itself in the
overestimation of the strength of the party, the working class
and the rest of the people's struggle and underestimation of
the strength of the reactionaries' 'Self-criticisln'.
The PKI leaders were caught up in their own successes, impressed by
. ` s, blinded by subjectivism, personality cult and
modern revisionism. Without adequate preparation and misled by their
own exaggerated assessments of an; 3 ver ripening revolutionary situa-

32
son', they entrusted their fate to petit-bourgeois military men, pushing
forwards into a 'left E mistake, "§¢vllich dragged the party leadership
into adventurism that has brought such a great disaster to the party
and the revolutionary movement in general'. The new PKI was called
upon to abandon the errors of the past, to undergo rectification and
to return to a revolutionary line as expressed in the slogan of the
'Three Banners of the Revolution' :
1. The 'banner' of building of a Marxist-Leninist party that is free
from subjectivism, opportunism and modem revisionism ,
2. The 'banner' of armed people's struggle, which in essence is the
armed struggle of the peasants in an anti-feudal, agrarian revolu-
tion under the leadership of the working class, and
3. The 'banner' of revolutionary united front based on the worker-
peasant alliance under the leadership of the worldng class.
Although certainly drawing their lessons about the armed struggle
from Chinese experience, the PKI cadre at large in Indonesia in 1966
and 1967 were not blind mouthpieces of Maoist jargon. This was
left to the PKI 'Delegation' in Beijing, whose spokesman was Jusuf
Adjitorop. Adjitorop, who had been named to full membership in
the PKI's nine-man Politburo in 1963, was in the Chinese capital when
the coup occurred. Other prominent Indonesians sheltering there
included Djawoto, one-time Indonesian ambassador to China who
became a kind of liaison or adviser linking the up-to-700 Indonesian
refugee leftists to the Chinese government, Sukrisno, former Indonesian
ambassador to North Vietnam, and Ali Hanatiah, ex-ambassador to
Ceylon. Adjitorop emerged as the ex.ile voice when he delivered an
address to the Fifth Congress of the Albanian Workers' Party in Tirana
in late 1966, in which he enthusiastically endorsed the Maoist model
of 'people's war' as both appropriate and historically necessary for
Indonesia?5 He was periodically identified as the source of statements
laced with Maoist phrases and slogans in praise of the armed struggle
in Indonesia. These statements from the 'Delegation' of the Central
Committee of the PKI appeared on Indonesian and Chinese party
anniversaries and disseminated through Chinese media, the New China
News Agency and Peking Review, as well as being transmitted on the
clandestine broadcasts of the Voice of the Malayan Revolution. The
first such statement seems to have been that of 23 May 1968, the
Forty-eighth Anniversary of the Party. The statement was entitled
'Solidly United Under the Great Red Banner of Mao Zedong Thought
the Communist Party of Indonesia is Leading the Indonesian People
to March Onward on the Road of People's War!'16 Casting aside the
PKI's past, the PKI in curdle affirmed that 'From their own experiences,
the Indonesian Marrdst-Leninists regard Mao Zedong's Thought as the

33
sole guiding ideology of the PKI in building itself anew into a Marxist-
Leninist party capable of leading the Indonesian Revolution'. The
rhetoric of the PKI 'Delegation' differed little from their fraternal
émigré brothers in Beijing, Thai, Malaysian and Burmese.
It is unclear what connection, if any, there may have been in terms
of co-ordination and liaison between the Beijing 'Delegation' and the
remnant PKI cadre in Indonesia, although both groups articulated
the new line of armed struggle. The PKI's Albanian publishers of the
Indonesia Tribune and the youth journal Apt were editorially respons-
ive to Beijing. What is clear is that the political status in China of the
Beijing-based PKI 'Delegation' was tied to broader Chinese policy
objectives in Southeast Asia in general and Indonesia in particular,
first, awaiting the outcome of Sukarno's struggle to maintain his
position in the domestic contest that followed the coup, and then
concern with the problem of protection for the ethnic Chinese in
Indonesia. A July 1967 editorial in Hongqi approvingly cited the
PKI's 1966 'Statement' and 'Self-criticism', noting that the Indonesian
revolution to be victorious must follow the road of the Chinese revolu-
tion.1 '7 On 17 August 1967, Indonesia's national day, Chinese sources
openly hailed the outbreak of the Indonesian people's armed struggle.1 8
This followed the sacldng of the Chinese embassy in Jakarta on 5
August, which led to the final break in diplomatic relations. More
recently, however, in the wake of the ASEAN-Chinese political alliance
and Chinese promises with respect to non-intervention in the political
affairs of friendly states, the PKI 'Delegation' has become invisible.
Its last major statement occurred on the occasion of the PKI's 58th
Anniversaly, 23 May 1978.l 9 Signed as usual by Adjitorop, the mes-
sage, 'Unite and Carry on the Struggle to Smash the Fascist Dictator-
ship and Build a Free and Democratic Indonesia', stated :
As the domestic and international situation is continuously
developing in the direction favourable to the revolution, Indo-
nesian communists have steadfastly struggled to continue the
implementation of the party's Three-Banner task. Overcoming
mounting difficulties and bringing into full play the spirit of
daring to sacrifice for the people's interests, Indonesian com-
rnunisfs have waged a protracted revolutionary armed struggle
for rebuilding a powerful Communist Party of Indonesia, which
is armed with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and
which takes its roots among the masses of people. And for arous-
Mg, organising and mobilising the masses of peasants in the rural
areas Indonesian communists have continued to work diligently,
tenaciously and bravely in order to unite all patriotic forces in
the struggle to overthrow the Suharto fascist military clique
and build a free and democratic new Indonesia. (Italics in original)

34
Indonesian government sensitivity to sponsorship of exile Maridst-
Leninist groups did not deter Chinese bacldng for the efdle PKI until
the requirements imposed by the Sino-Vietnamese conflict determined
a new course. Although Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang did not include
Indonesia in his August 1981 tour through the ASEAN region, the
assurances he gave his various hosts along the way were meant for
Jakarta as well: 'The CPs in various countries are purely internal mat-
ters of these countries. How each and every country handles suc a
matter is an affair of its own, and China does not want to interfe;re.'@
One of the Indonesian criteria for normalisatiogi of relations
the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been a cessation of Chinese
support and propaganda for the PKI .
For the pro-Moscow Indonesian communists: 'The adventurism of
the abortive September 30 Movement and its epilogue proved to be
the inevitable result of the accumulation of the party's past mistakes,
its confused ideological, political and organisation line, all of which
caused the party to be punished by the objective development of

_
history'.21 The party's leaders took a 'rash' decision at a time when
there was no revolutionary situation in evidence:
The primary cause of the defeat of the September 30 Movement
was not that the enemy confronting us was too strong, or that
we lacked courage, or that our fighters lacked courage. The
subjective causes he in recldessness on the part of some leading
party quarters, in the ideological, political and organisational
muddleheadedness, which was the objective result of the petty-
bourgeois ideology of revolutionist, in excessive revolutionary
a desire to achieve P" " *ck victory, in forcing the develop-
ment of the revolution h miscarried, in gambling on the
balance of forces, in indulgence in adventurist fantasies, etc.
Indonesian Marxist-Leninists were warned from East Europe against
those would attack party leadership from the ultra-left. It was
suicidal leftist policies for which the revolution paid 'a dear and un-
necessary price'. Instead, party should return to the correct road
of building a bolshevised mass party devoted to the programme of
the Fifth Party Congress (1954) which specified the Aidit line. Despite
generally correct relations with the Soviet Union, occasional Russian
attention to its PKI in exile will stir Indonesian anger. The most recent
example was Moscow radio broadcast in Indonesian to Indonesia
of the birthday greetings of the so-called Central Committee of the
PKI to Brezhnev, 19 December 1981.22 A minor storm of protest
arose in Indonesia, where the Soviet Union was accused of interfering
in Indonesian domestic affairs by plotting to rebuild the PKI. A small
demonstration by the KNPI (Indonesian Youth National Committee)

35
was held in front of the Russian embassy and a protest note was handed
over to the Soviet Foreign Ministry by the Indonesian ambassador in
Moscow. Most of the statements by the Russian-oriented PKI exiles
have been devoted to criticism of the Chinese strategy and the PRC
hegemonic ambitions in Southeast Asia. This group seems to be as
much a creature of Soviet policy as the Beijing group is of Chinese
_policy.23
~& "program" for the Indonesian 'People's was purportedly
laid out in a long statement or manifesto of the PKI's Central Corn-
mittee's Politburo. This, if authentic, in original appearance in
Tirana, suggests or »

exile in inspiration.
.~¢=g
A ,,
Xmas Following the Maoist
"We it argues that the first task IS to establish safe revolutionary base
areas from which a peasant army can be recruited. In fact, the first
task of the Indonesian communists after the coup was literally to
save themselves. In what the PKI calls the 'White terror' of the coup's
aftermath hundreds of thousands of Indonesians died. The ascendant
army moved quickly on a nation-wide basis to arrest members of
the party and its mass organisations. The Indonesian Internal Security
Command (KOPKAMTIB) admits to the detention of 570,000 alleged
communists in the post-coup round-ups, although others have put
the total as high as 750,000. No real data-based figure for the dead
in the national bloodbath is available. The generally accepted estimate
of total deaths is about 500,000, a figure that is informally accepted
by KOPKAMTIB. How many of the dead were in fact active members
of the PKI is, of course, a matter of conjecture. Most of the PKI's
claimed three million or more members (and thga fifteen million in
the front groups) melted away, seeldng political and physical cover.
The analysis of the 'Self-criticism' and Handley's assessment of the
party's revolutionary weakness were correct. The party was not pre-
pared for the attack on it. Its supporters were not able or willing to
resist, Leaderless and powerless, the party as a force in Indonesian
politics was destroyed.
Sudisman and the other suviving cadre desperately tried to regroup
and refashion a PKI structure that would now perforce be both clan-
destine and committed to the armed struggle. The initial stage of the
strategy, as outlined in the 1967 programme placed the PKI on the
strategic defensive, in which the basic operational unit would 'be the
small guerrilla force whose objective would be self-preseivation and
development. Doctrinally this covered what seemed to be improvised
and uncoordinated acts of local armed resistance and terror by small
bands of PKI rallied by lower-level PKI leadership although Indo-
.--

nesian military sources describe more systematic and centralised organ-

isational activity led by Syam, the erstwhile head of the PKI's Special
Bureau before his capture.
Sporadic contacts with what the government came to call the 'Night

36
PKT (PKI Milam) occurred in all regions of Java. The different bands
operating under Eolourftd names such as 'Iceberg', 'Red 18lag', and
'Black Cat' engaged in localised incidents and fire fights. Army reports
of terrorism by resurgent PKI activists justified the continued arrests
of suspected PKI sympathisers and the purges of the state bureaucracy.
In the Kaliinantan border areas the basically ethnic Chinese partisans
of the PGRS (Sarawak People's Guerrilla Movement) and the PARAKU
(North Kalimantan People's Army) created spots of insecurity through
mid-l969. Although historically autonomous polite-military organisa-
tions, they were linked by the Indonesian army to the broader PKI
threat until detleated.25
In early 1967 more systematic efforts were made by PKI cadre
to implement the new line of the 'Self-criticism' in the region south
of Blitar in east Java. The beginnings of a guerilla base area for a
'People's War' were established with reference not only to the Chinese
but also to the Vietnamese model. A new PKI Central Committee
was constituted with a four-man Politburo: Ruslan Widjaj asastra,
East Java party chairman, Oloan Hutapea, prominent in the old Central
Committee, Rewang, Central Java party chairman, and Muniz, another
Central Committee member. By mid-l968, the rudimentary infra-
structure for an armed struggle was in place. Army intelligence, per-
haps as a consequence of betrayal, was able to pin-point the activity.
In the summer of 1968 the Brawijaya Division's Operation 'Trisula',
a six-week, full-scale military campaign, swept through the incipient
guerilla zone. In KOPKAMTIB's words, 'All illegal activities in South
Blither were totally crushed.926 Up to two thousand alleged PKI fighters
were killed or captured, including ten members of the Central Com-
mittee. Oloan Hutapea was lolled and the other three members of
the Politburo were captured and eventually brought to trial." Other,
more limited, efforts to create guerilla bases in Boj onegoro, the moun-
tain complex of Lawn and Boyolali in central Java were similarly
rolled up by the army. In the intelligence follow-up to the Blither
campaign a new eighteen-month wave of arrests and purges took
place whose targets included several hundred suspect army officers.
If the new PKI had put a clandestine network in place, it was ripped
apart.
The new PKI's disaster in East Java was a source of satisfaction to
those who wished to see the party return to the pre-coup programme.
Pravda crowed that the plan to build the basis for a People's War in East
Java had been an irresponsible adventure inspired by Maoism. The
senseless loss of life confirmed again, according to Moscow, the perils
of the Chinese policies.28 This is the line that has been maintained
consistently. Accusing Beijing of inciting the PKI to rash and recldess
action, a recent Moscow commentary criticised the erroneous Maoist
policies that led to the rout at Blitar. It had been such 'adventurist'
37
policies that 'provided Indonesia's reactionary military with a pre-
text for discrediting the country's CP in the eyes of the Indonesian
peoples as we have seen, Chinese-based spokesmen for
the PKI may invoke the glorious victories achieved by the armed
struggle in Indonesia, the Russian version of what has happened on
the ground seems more accurate, irrespective of theoretical questions:
the PKI's 'work is being carried out under difficult underground con-
ditions. ala revolutionary forces have been greatly weakened and
disorganised by anti-communist terror campaigns and the continuing
onslaughts of the reaction'.3 0 "

The Yearbook of International Communist Affairs, 1982 stated:

'Communism in Indonesia is of negligible significance' This does
not mean that the alarms have not been rung since 1968. KOPKAMTIB
warnings of sinister political forces of the left - PKI's system of form-
less organisation (Organisasi Tampa Bentuk or OTB) - are an ever-
present background against which opposition in Indonesia is measured.
In the OTB the PKI adherents who have melted into the wider popula-
tion are claimed to have as their current task the incitement of opposi-
tion against the government in preparation for mass action. They
continue to pose part of the 'latent danger of leftist subversion'.3
As late as autumn 1981, the leader of the pro-government GOLKAR
parliamentary faction could charge that the bureaucracy was still
penetrated by the PKI. It would appear that in addition to ultra-
sensitivity to the potential for a PKI come-back, the army elite has
tended to exaggerate the spectre of the PKI threat to internal security
in order to warn off a wider band of dissent. Despite alertness to a
PKI threat, most responsible officials in Indonesia would agree that
there is no organised PKI resistance in Indonesia that even begins
to resemble an armed struggle. The PKI phoenix has not arisen. It
is supine. Armed communism is no present threat in Indonesia, nor
does it appear that an armed struggle can be mounted there on the
.basis of the 'Self-criticism's' change in strategy. From a comparative
perspective, however, it might appear that the social, economic and
political environment in Indonesia, when viewed against the Philippines
or Thailand, does contain revolutionary potential. The post-coup PKI
in its propaganda sought to link its new programme to the political
grievances of Indonesian social groups disadvantaged by the uneven
developmental process inherent in Suharto's New Order's planning,
but it made little or no headway. Why has the PKI been unable to
re-emerge as a contender for power in the Indonesian state, as it did
twice before?
Part of the answer to the question can first be sought in the experi-
ence of the old PKI. Why was it that the Aidit strategy 'Indonesianised'
Maridsm-Leninism? The PKI tried to adapt itself to the pattern of
Indonesian politics in which the vertical lines of social divisions in-

38
 1

formed the mass base of the party, not class consciousness. PKI pol-
itics was aliran politics. According to Rex Mortimer, the PKI's doctrine
was diluted to be consistent with Indonesian perceptions. The PKI
was 'nedtraditionalised'.33 This is the dilemma of any successor PKI.
To be successful, the temptation is to be Javanised, which is not mob-
ilising revolutionary potential. But to mobilise revolutionary potential
in the setting of alirans and cultural pluralism is, as McVey has pointed
out, to run the risk of communal conflict." Blackman suggested
more than a decade ago that there was evidence indicating that the
PKI was trying to overcome its Javanese orientation. He cited pur-
ported PKI documents to the effect that the party was trying to de~
velop an 'ethnic' or 'regional' policy, placing emphasis on mobilising
the non-Javanese mino1*ities.3 The PKI 'Delegation's' New Year
(1976) message had as one of its themes the 'chauvinistic ethnic fav-
ouritism' (that is, Jainism) of the Suharto regime. A specifically
ethnic appeal does not appear to have borne fruit over time. In any
event it would have been a high-risk strategy. Rather than building
a revolutionary base, such an emphasis might have exacerbated existing
ethnic tensions, malting for a separatist rather than a revolutionary
response.
Another explanation of the PKI's failure to mount a successful
armed struggle is geostrategic. The fragmented geography of the archi-
pelago increases the obstacles to building revolutionary bases and
the absence of sanctuaries. In this environment significant advances
can be made only on Java where other inhibiting factors are at work.
The forest and mountain areas of Java are easily accessible to counter-
revolutionary forces. In the Philippines, however, both in theory
and practice geographical fragmentation became an advantage to
the New People's Army with the policy of centralised leadership
and decentralised, fluid and mobile operations.36 The PKI has ad-
dressed the issue in its 1967 manifesto :
One of the fundamental opportunist and revisionist errors of the
old party leadership was the disbelief that the necessary con-
ditions for the building of revolutionary base areas in the pro-
vinces, as bases for the launching of a long-term guerilla war,
erdsted in Indonesia. The old party leaders gave overweighted
consideration to geographical factors, limiting their views to
Java to the exclusion of other islands. . . . On the other main
islands the forests are still quite extensive, there are mountains
and the road situation is far worse than in I eve. . . . Indonesia
as a whole meets every condition required for successful revolu-
tionary guerrilla warfare. In a country covering nearly two million
square miles communications are a difficulty, and this factor
poses problems for a central leadership guiding the People's War

39
 throughout the nation. But such a situation also has aclvantages
for the People's armed forces scattered over every island, since
it is difficult also for the reactionary powers to exercise effective
local control throughout the country, and makes it difficult
for them to launch military operations.
Indonesian authorities have been alert to the possibility of PKI activity
in the wider archipelago, not inattentive to their own guerilla war
tradition. Their purge of the party machine was conducted as thor-
oughly and ruthlessly in the provinces beyond Java as on Java itself.
The war against the PGRS and PARAKU was seen as part of the general
archipelagic contest. Moreover, the complex interactions of com-
munism, geostrategy, archipelagic security and ethnic dissidence made
Jakarta's decision~makers especially sensitive to the possible emergence
of a left regime in an independent East Timor. This is particularly
true given the championing of FRETILIN's cause (FRETILIN is the
Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor) by the PKI in exile:
'Indonesian communists and revolutionary peoples resolutely support
the just struggle of the East Timor people. The heroic struggle waged
by the East Timor people and the victories they have won in the
fighting against Suharto's invading] troops have considerably promoted
the Indonesian people's st1'uggle.'3
Another factor limiting the ability of the PKI to mount an armed
struggle may be psychological constraints deriving from the national
trauma of the mass violence subsequent to the 1965 coup attempt.
In the vengeful frenzy and savagery of late 1965-early 1966, hund-
reds of thousands died: sometimes whole families at a time. Although
impossible to prove, it is likely that the horror of such a massive dis-
ruption of the social order would leave at least latent internalised
inhibitions against approval of a new PKI call to armed struggle. Some
observers believe that this inclination for a peaceful social order stems
from the 'Indonesian' or, more narrowly, Javanese culture
supports a social environment that is incompatib& with extremism
and conflict. This, of course, begs the question of what actually hap-
pened in Indonesia in 1965-66. The contemporary ideological em-
phasis on the cultural context of Indonesian politics, what some might
term the Javanisation of the Pancasila, is not intended to explain,
but to further 'de-legitimise' by 'de-Indonesianising' potential opposi-
tion.
Another factor contributing to the PKI's continued inability to
rise up from the ashes was the death and arrest of its leading figures.
The suggestion is that the leaderless party, dispersed in the so-called
OTB, cannot regroup. OTB activity, if eidstent, has been decentralised
without a command hierarchy to implement the PKI's new strategy.
This explains why the Indonesian government is seriously concerned

40
that release of its political detainees, the tapol (Saharan polftfk),
might fill the ranks of a resurgent PKI. It was more than a decade
after the coup before the goventment undertook an orderly pro-
gramme for the release of the more than 100,000 tapol alleged to
have been directly involved in the coup. Despite claims of rehabilita-
tion and the passage of time ex-rapol are considered suspect. Official
'Upgrading Courses' regularly appeal for vigilance against renewed
subversive penetration of the state apparatus. KOPKAMTIB com~
mender, Admiral Sudomo, denies that government policy is exag-
gerated alarmism, in his words, 'seeing a ghost in broad daylight'.
As evidence of this assertion he alludes to the history of resurgent
communism, the unknown number of PKI 'remnants' still at large,
the presence of a PKI cadre abroad, and the "remnants" of the FRETI-
LIN "gang" in East Tilnor.3 8
None of the variables noted above is fully satisfactory as an ex-
planation of the failure of the PKI to mount a successful armed strug-
gle. Environmental factors and internal weaknesses of the party itself
provide only a partial statement of why the PKI has not reemerged
in Indonesian politics. Other important elements are to be found in
the capabilities of the New Order incumbent elite, both in its develop~
mental aspects and in its pervasive intelligence and coercive structures
of repression. The most obvious obstacle to the PKI's recovery is
the role of the army. Eckstein believed that an analysis of internal
war capabilities has to focus as much on the incumbents as on the
insurgents. 'It goes without saying,' he wrote, 'that by using repression
the established authorities can lessen the chances of w`olent attack
upon themselves, or even reduce them to nil.339 But to be competent
repression, it must be based upon extremely good intelligence, and
sensible, ruthless and continuous application. This brings us to KOP-
KAMTIB, BAKIN (State Intelligence Co-ordinating Body) and the
territorial organisation of the Indonesian Armed Forces. The social
units of the archipelago are caught up in a web of interlocldng in-
telligence and repressive structures that make difficult, if not impos-
sible, the covert mobilisation and organisation of any armed obbosition
movement. This points to the central dilemma for Indonesian politics.
To quote Eckstein again: 'The relaxation of authority is a part of the
pre-revolutionary syndrome, no less than other forms of social amel-
ioration, in that sense repression in societies with high internal war
potential is little more than a narcotic.940 The ability of the govern-
ment to make good on some of the promises of the series of five-year
plans that have been the framework of economic planning in the
New Order ..-.. that there has in fact been some 'triclde down' - has
helped make the coercive aspects of the political system less domestic-
ally unpopular. Nevertheless, as the cautious media critics of the
government point out, unrest in the population ezdsts because of
41
inequitable distribution of land, labour injustices, foreign capital
penetration, corruption and the widening rich-poor gap. There there-
fore erdsts a 'fertile ground for the dissemination of the gornrnunist
seeds later on'.4 1 Even though the PKI as a political party may bear
the permanent stigma of Gestapu, unlikely again to be a legitimate
contender for power, there probably still abound in Indonesia po-
tential supporters of parties of the 'left' if the political system should
open up. This would be particularly true if current economic reverses
become chronic. The demand in Indonesia for a liberalisation of the
New Order regime continues to be heard. Speculation about succession
is rife. Indonesian decision-makers are aware of the course of politics
in Thailand during the post-1973 period of democracy, and they
seem determined to prevent a legal political structure that would
legitimate politics of the 'left'. To do this may require larger rather
than smaller doses of coercion. Therefore the next generation of
army leaders, 'rather than attempt to mediate social and political
tensions might be tempted to greater coercion, replacing the olig-
: thoroughgoing praetorianisrn'.'*2 If relatively
should be transmuted into a truly oppressive
regime, then today's KOPKAMTIB warnings could turn out to be
self-fulfilling prophecies.

Notes
1. As cited iui Tri-Continental 7 (1968), quoted by Deirdre Griswold,
Irzdorzesia: The Second Greatest Crime of the Century (New York:
World View Publishing, 1970), p.78.

_
2. Ann Ruth Will fer, 'The Communist Phoenix and the Indonesian
Garuda', World Politics XIX, no. 3 (April 1967), pp.S00-20.
3. Donald E. Weatherbee, 'Interpretations of Gestapu: the 1965
Indonesian Coup', World Affairs 132, no. 4 (March 1970), p.316.
4. I.S. Silverman, 'Indonesianizing Marxism-Leninism: The Develop-
ment and Consequences of Communist Polycentrism' (Ph.D .
dissertation, Claremont University, 1967)_,_p.3
5. For clarification of the programme se# , The Road
To PeopleS Democracy for Indonesia (General Report on the
Political and Organisational Situation, delivered at-the Fifth
National Congress of the PKI, March 1954), (Jakarta: Iajasan
'Pembaruan', 1955).
NASAKOM was Sukarno's acronymic conception of the revolu-
 tionary unity of the three main forces in society: nationalism,
religion (agama) and communism, the political application of
the Indonesian principle of gotong royong (mutual self-help
and co-operation) .
7. For the PKI's analysE see D.N. f
E are, Dare, and Dare
Again (Political report presented on 10 February 1963 at the
First Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Indonesia), (Beijing: Foreign Languages
Press, 1963).
Ibid., p p . 6 8 9 .
8.9. Donald Hindley, The Communist Party of Indonesia, I 95] ~]963
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), pp.30l-2.
10. For discussions of the growing coup literature and interpretations
see, inter alia, Weatherbee, op. cit., Justus van der Kroef, 'Origins
of the 1965 Coup in Indonesia; Probabilities and Alternatives',
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies III, no. 2 (September 1972),
pp.2'7'7-98, Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), oh. 4, B.R. O'G Anderson
and Ruth McVey, A Preliminary Analysis o f the October I, 1965
Coup in Indonesia (Cornell University Modem Indonesian Project,
1971). The most recent authoritative Indonesian discussion is
the 1978 KOPKAMTIB publication, Gerakan 30 Septemberl
Partai Komunis Indonesia (C.30.S/PKI). [KOPKAMTIB = Kom-
ando operas Pemulihan Keanianan dan Ketertiban] .
11. 'For a Sound Indonesian Revolution', World Marxist Review,
Information Eulletin, no. 106 (1967), reprinted as 'Lessons from
the Setback in Indonesia', Political Affairs (March, April, May
1968). The full text is also given in the documents section of
Yearbook o f International Communist Affairs, 1998 (Stanford,
California: Hoover Institution Press, 1969), pp.908-19.
12. For the émigré views, see Rex Mortimer, 'Indonesia: Emigré
Post-Mortems on the PKI', Australian Outlook 22 (December
1968), pp.347-59.
13. For the political background to the documents see Ruth McVey,
'PKI Fortunes at Low Tide', Problems of Communism XX, no.
1-2 (January-April 1971), p.39; also KOPKAMTIB, G.8'0.S/PKI,
op. cit., pp.198-9. They were illegally circulated in Indonesia.
Publication outside Indonesia first occurred in vol. I of the Tirane
PKI (Chinese-sponsored) organ, Indonesian Tribune. The 'State-
ment', the full title of which was 'Take the Road of Revolution
to Realize the Tasks Which Should Have Been Accomplished by
the 1945 August Revolution' was excerpted in the 14 July 1967
issue of the Peking Review. The 'Self-c1*iticism', known in Indo-
nesia as the Kritik Oto Krftik or KOK, was entitled in full 'Build
the PKI Along the Marndst-Leninist Line to Lead the People's

43
 Democratic Revolution In Indonesia', was excerpted at
length in the 21 July 1967 Peking Revive. The two documents
were published in the pamphlet, Peon of Indonesia, Unite
and Fight to Overthrow the Fascist Regime (Beijing: Foreign
Languages Press, 1968). Yearbook of I .. " . "; . r

Affairs, 1968, pp.896-907, contains the 'Self-criticisnt'.

14. McVey, 'PKI Fortunes at Low Tide', op. cit., p.29 and note 9.
15, Peking Review NQ. 48 (25 November 1966), 1120
16. The text of the statement as given in English by the New China
News Agency can be found in United States Consulate General,
Hong Kong, Survey of the Current Mainland Press, no. 4189
(3 June 1968).
Reprinted in Peking Review, no. 29 (14 July 1967), pp.l8-20.
Commentary, 'Jen-min Jib-pao, New China News Agency', 18
August in. . as @Ported in United States Consulate General,
Hong Kong, Survey o f the Current Mainland Press, no. 4006
(22 August 1967).
19. As transmitted over the Voice of the Malayan Revolution, 8 June
as reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service:
Daily Report Asia and the Pacific (hereafter cited as FBIS: AP),
(22 June 1978), pp.n-l ff.
20. FEIS: Daily Report, China (10 August 1981), p.E-5.
21. 'For a Sound Indonesian Revolution', op. cit.
22. FEIS: Daily Report, Soviet Union (21 December I98l), p.L-17.
23. The irregularly appearing journal Tekad Rakyai is the organ of
the pro-Moscow PKI group. Its pages are occasionally taken up
in more widely circulated Marxist-Leninist journals sympathetic
to the Russian line. For example, the editorial article, 'Advance
Under the Banner of Marxism-Leninism' was first published in
Tekad Rakjvai I (1972) and reprinted in the World Marxist Review
10 (May 1972), pp.65-9. The name most frequently appearing
as the publicist for the Moscow 'group' is that of Tomas Sinuraja,
who was not a leader of the old PKI. See also McVey, 'PKI For~
tunes at Low Tide', op. cit., pp.35-6.
24. The 'Manifesto', dated September 1967, is printed in full in the
Australian journal, Paczfc Community (June 1969), pp.83-92,
continued in September 1969, pp.163-84.
25. For post~coup PKI activity, see McVey, 'PKI Fortunes at Low
Tide', op. cit., Justus van der Kroef, 'Indonesian Communism
Since the 1965 Coup', Paeijie Affairs (Spring 1970), pp.34-60,
KOPKAMTIB, G80.S/PKI, op. cit., pp.I97 ff.
KOPKAMTIB, G.30.SlPKI, op. cit., p.214.
Munir and Russian Widjajasastra were reported in October 1982,
to have appealed against their death sentences to the Indonesian
Supreme Court.
44
 Pravda, 14 December 1968.
R. Aslanov aNd B. Bolotin, 'Defeat of Maoism in East and South-
east Asia', Far Eastern Affairs 1 (1981), p.115.
30. Loc. cit.
31. Yearbook o f International Communist Affairs, 1982 (Stanford,
Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1982), p.I89.
32. Admiral Sudomo, Head of KOPKAMTIB, as quoted in Kornpas
(11 August 1982).
33. Rex Mortimer, 'Traditional Modes and Communist Movements:
Change and Protest in Indonesia', in John Wilson Lewis, ed.,
Peasant Rebellions & Communist Revolutions in Asia (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford .University Press, 1974), p.100.
34. Ruth McVey, troduction' in Sukarno, 'Nationalism, Islam
and Marxism',l %butlleast Asia Program: Modern Indonesia Proj-
(Translation Series), mimeographed (Cornell University,
Department of Asian Studies, 1970).
35. Arnold C. Braekman, T72 e Communist Collapse in Indonesia
(New York: W.W. Norton Company, 1969), p.2l3,
36. Amado Guerrero [Jose Sissonl, Specific Characteristics of the
PcopIe'5 War in the Philippines (Oakland, Calif.: International
Association of Filipino Patriots, 1979).
37. 'Unite and Carry on the Struggle .. .' FBIS (22 June 1978), op.
cit.
Sudomo, as quoted by Kornpas (12 August 1982).
Ha1Ty Eckstein, 'On the Etiology of Internal Wars', in Ivo K.
Feierabend et al., eds., Anger, Violenee, and Politics (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice~Hall, 1972), p.17.
40. Ibid., p.24.
41. 'Not only from outside', Merdeka, Editorial (3 August 1982),
see also the Editorial in Journal Ekain (16 September 1982).
42. Donald E. Weatherbee, 'Indonesia's Armed Forces: Rejuvenation
and Regeneration', Southeast Asian Affairs 1982 (Singapore:
Heinemann Asia for Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1982),
p.162.

45
COMMENTS

Views on PKI revival, following its political annihilation after the

1965 Gestapo debacle, generally fall into two broad categories: one
asserts that fundamental or deterministic communist ideology is not
compatible with Islam, and the other that reincarnation of the com-
munist movement is an ever-present possibility. The former stems
from certain notions of Indonesian culture, the latter from the di-
mensions of socioeconomic pressures.
Western political analyses of Indonesia are often criticised as prone
to oversimplifications - even distortions - of Indonesian socio-ideol-
ogy. In general, they ignore the links that cut across ideological groups
and, as a result, overlook the syncretic tendencies that are variously
interpreted as a source of strength or weakness in sustained political
mobilisation. Some Indonesian scholars have suggested three main
ideological streams: the national ideology or Pancasila, the funda-
mental Islamic ideology, and the modern secularist ideology. In reality,
however, the distinction between the various adherents does not
eidst.
Similarly, the distinction between saran' and abangan is generally
applied only to Muslim circles, whereas in reality the s a f a r i refers to
any fundamentalist and the abangan to the non-fundamentalists or
relative democrats. It is possible, for examble, to speak of Muslim,
Catholic, Christian or even PKI abangan and safari. endemic
and opposed inclinations that' e>dsted within the PKI - for example,
the resistance o we e a anGan' 'to extremist or absolutist formulations
-..are very seldom considered when questioning the historical failures
46
of PKI mobilisations.
From this viewpoint, the possible reactivation of the PKI platform
has never been dismissed in Indonesian military circles because of
the difficulty in distinguishing between communist and all other
radical nationalist rhetoric. The current st% and form of the PKI
remains unanswered, although millions of sympathisers are thought
still to e>dst, there are continuing indications of the presence of Or-
ganisasi Tampa Bentuk (OTB) agitprop as well as PKI Special Bureau
members in the army. latter were recruited by Aidit and were
supposedly responsible only to him.
, however, often pointed out that the minimum programmes
111:1!

: -.al

of the PKI have been orbed into easting national development

programmes, thus seeming to remove the rationale for a potential
PKI reactivation. However, a similar situation in the Philippines cau-
tions against such a presumption. After it was similarly assumed that
the communist movement had been crushed in the wake of the imple-
mentation of the minimum PKP programme by the Magsaysay govern-
ment, a vigorous resurgence of the communist movement occurred
fifteen years later, in 1965. .
Similarly, economic data and recent trends do not give cause for
optimism. The structural tensions within the system persist despite
the continuing economic growth of the last fifteen years, and regional
imbalances, the main factor underlying the regional rebellions of the
late 1950s, are still manifest. The plight of peasants and levels of land
concentration are worsening: the Gini coefficient of land distribution
in several parts of Java approaches 0.5, while that based on expenditure
data reveals, in income or expenditure terms, levels in the region of
0.34-0.35. For the first time, unemployment rates in Indonesia sug-
gest critical open unemployment in urban and, increasingly, rural
areas. Worse still, data from the 1980 census indicated a net population
growth of 2.3 per cent, which was above the commonly used 1976
projection up to 1985 of 1.8 per cent to 2 per cent increase.
It is therefore clear that while the goals and aspirations championed
by the PKI are also of mutual concern to all the major political parties,
the need and urgency for socioeconomic reform is gathering moment-
um. Together with the pressures for open political competition, a
substantial number of people are evidently attracted to parties of the
left. However, even in anticipating the emergence of a legal left with
the advent of political liberalisation, it remains to be seen whether
the PKI will ever be able to resume its platform as a leading contender
among the Marxist-inspired wing of the political spectrum .

47
-|
 PART II
MALAYSIA
Violence at the periphery:
A brief survey of armed
communism in Malaysia
ZAKAFRIA HAJI AHMAD AND ZAKARIA HAMID
UNIVEHSITI KEBANGSAAN
The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement
of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest
form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of
revolution holds good universally, for China and for
all other countries
Mao Zedong
'Problems of War and St1~ategy',
cited in a CPM M-L document,
C. 1974

Introduction

In April 1980, the Communist Party' of Malaya (COM) celebrated its

golden anniversary. As its founding in 1930 had merely superseded
the Nanyang Communist Party formed a few years earlier, it can lay
claim to be the oldest political organisation in Malaysia. Successive
Malaysian governments have devoted considerable effort and resources
to its elimination, even though the challenge posed by the CPM and
the armed struggle it currently wages (through what the authorities
label the Communist Terrorist Organisation or CTO) can only be
regarded as peripheral to the political system. The CPM, although
the major one, is not the only communist movement in Malaysia.
Both it and the NKCP are armed, both are proscribed.
The CPM has two splinter groups: the CPM Marxist-Leninist (here-
after referred to as the CPM M-L) and the CPM Revolutionary Faction
(CPM The CPM together with its splinter groups are ensconced
in bases in southern Thailand from where they conduct operations
into the Malaysian Peninsula (or what was formerly Malaya). Some
observers; consider these as three separate organisations but, for the
purposes of the discussion here, they are considered as one movement.
The activities of the other movement, the North Kalimantan Com-
munist Party (NKCP) are currently restricted to Sarawak, but earlier
they had extended to other parts of the island of Borneo (or Kalirnan-
tan) as well. The exact organisational structure of the NKCP is nebulous
in that it may represent a nucleus of groups, but its present name

51
prevails over its previous ones of Sarawak Communist Organisation
(SCO) and Clandestine Communist Organisation (CCO) .
Of the two, the challenge of the CPM is more important, albeit
both are regarded as 'serious' by the Malaysian government. Some
liaison is said to have eidsted between the CPM and the NKCP during
the latter's i`ormation,3 but no such links are known at present, the
two must thus be regarded as separate entities. Some observers believe
that the struggles of the two are interrelated in that both oppose
the Malaysian government and recognise each other's separate sphere
of territorial activity, however, this is not an organic relationship.
The CPM is also supposed to operate organically with its elements
in Singapore but our discussion here focuses only on its Malaysian
activities.
Throughout their e>dstence, both movements have displayed several
enduring characteristics. Both have been committed to the overthrow
of the governments in power (first the colonial, then the post-colonial),
and neither recognises either the existence of the federation of Malaysia
(including Sabah and Sarawak) or the separate and independent status
of Singapore. For the seizure of power both movements have dis-
played an adherence to a Maoist strategy of armed revolution while
continuing to infiltrate public/political and social organisations as
part of a united front strategy.
Because the leadership and rank and file of the CPM and NKCP
have been largely made up of Chinese, their appeal in multiethnic,
race-conscious Malaysia, with the parameter of a Malay-dorninant
governnlent,4 has been highly circumscribed. The CPM has been able,
to a very limited extent, to draw some Malays and Indians to its ranks
but continues to be predominantly Chinese in membership such that,
coupled with its historical origins, it tends to be regarded as an alien
rather than a national or indigenous movement.
Despite such continu'mg handicaps, however, the CPM and the
NKCP still persist and are undergoing changes in terms of organisation,
strategy, tactics and composition. Operating outside the legal political
process, these movements are peripheral but still capable of posing
challenges to the legitimacy of the national political system. The
CPM figured predominantly at an important time in Malaysia's modern
history when it waged an unsuccessful insurrection. During this Mal-
ayan Emergency from i 948 to 1960, the effects of CPM activities
within the political systems were profound,5 and the authorities are
anxious that such an event is not repeated. (None the less, since 1960
the 'shooting war' between the CPM and tlle authorities has continued.)
Being peripheral and reduced in numbers and capacities, the CPM
and the NKCP are continuing examples of armed communism in a
Southeast Asia divided ideologically between non-communist and
communist systems. This being the case, their existence is of conse-

52
queue in regional bilateral and foreign relations. The problems of
armed communism in Malaysia are therefore discussed against this
picture of changes and continuities and their ramifications.

Objectives and approaches

The CPM and its two splinter elements are committed to the estab-
lishment of a Malayan People's Republic. This objective was reasserted
in its 1972 constitution, which replaced the one adopted in 194'7.
Another 'HSE constitution' declared in 1980 repeated the call for a
Malayan Republic, which was first made in the nine-point
programme of 1943. The CPM regards Singapore as an integral part
of the Malayan Republic and holds that Sabah and Sarawak should
be allowed 'national self-determination' (and not be part of Malaysia
as they are now). Thus, there has been no basic change over the last
four decades in the CPM's objective of Malaya as a political unit as
understood in the pre-Second World War usage of the term.
To achieve this objective, however, the CPM has been split into
and in fact vacillated between two views that reflect the fundamental
schisms in orientation based on the Soviet and Chinese models. The
Soviet approach, essentially non-violent in nature, emphasises labour
agitation and infiltration of various groups and movements, whereas
the Chinese approach (or perhaps more correctly the Maoist approach)
calls for rural-based guerrilla warfare and armed struggle. Although
these two approaches are analytically discernible, it is clear that both
have actually been utilised by the CPM in some mixture or other.
Looking back at the CPM's activities since 1945 it is possible to con-
clude that, even while guerrilla war was being waged, united front
activity was being carried out, and that, when agitating the labour
unions, more often than not such activities ended up with (violent)
clashes with the police.
This dual approach was very important because it reflected a leader-
ship struggle within the CPM, specifically between Loi Teck and Chin
Pens, rather than an ideological split. Party statements issued even
as late as 1970 had need to blame Loi Teck for his 'deviationist' and
"revisionist" policies. Although such evidence establishes ideological
reasoning, that the point has to be continually made also indicates
some kind of running policy debate within the party hierarchy.
A CPM document issued in 1951 admitted that its policy of violence
would not be successful,6 and this was only three years after it began
an insurrection (the Malayan Emergency of 1948-60). Along with
other developments (such as the 1952 and 1955 elections) that pointed
to the inevitability of Malaya's political independence from British

53
colonial rule, the CPM had, in the period prior to independence, to
embark on a policy of going along, as it were, with the fighters for
independence led by Turku Abdul Rah ran. This culminated in the
unsuccessful 1955 Baling talks between the latter and Chin Pens.
When Malaya gained independence in 1957, the CPM issued a mani-
festo promising to take part in various activities using 'democratic
means within constitutional limits even though it would still con-
tinue its guerrilla activities.
None the less, it is clear that the Maoist line has been the hallmark
of the CPM's activities since 1948, although its retreat to jungle sanc-
tuaries in southern Thailand from 1980 onwards led to somewhat
reduced activities. A 1968 declaration stated that 'the time has come
for the launching of an all-out militant united front campaign in which
all pretence of outward compliance with the constitution will be
abandoned, in order to clear the path for an ultimate seizure of bower
by violence and bloodshed'.8 This was manifested in the bold acts
of violence by the CPM and its splinter elements as recently as 1974-
76, which illustrates the continued emphasis on an armed strategy.
Typical of a communist party, the CPM's organisational set-up
reflects the Marxist-Leninist principle of 'democratic centralism' with
the strong role of the leadership (the Central Committee and in par-
ticular the post of secretary-general) being important and indeed the
continuing aspects of the CPM's constitution. The various point
programmes' issued every now and then have not failed to outline
the 'popular' objectives to be achieved, such as the removal of core
ruption, control and ownership of property by imperialists and capital-
ists, and a faulty agrarian system, as well as the repeal of unjust laws.
In turn, development of a 'patriotic mass culture' is claimed. As the
CPM has moved even more solidly behind the Chinese, it has not
failed to attack Soviet 'revisionism' and 'deviationisrni
Unlike the CPM, the NKCP has not indicated any split in terms of
approach towards its objective. It has been very militant since 1960
after a period of subversive acts. In the 1950s and 1960s its recruits
were drawn largely from schools and youth and farmers' associations.9
However, it is not clear what the NKCP means by 'North Kalimantan'
- that is, whether it is Sarawak, Sabah, Brunei or some combination
of these entities. Its activities, however, have been almost wholly
concentrated in Sarawak. The NKCP was considered highly successful
in infiltrating and influencing the Sarawak United People's Party
(SUPP), but this is now believed to have been dealt with through
the authorities' amnesty offer in which many NKCP operatives gave
up their struggle." Until 1973 when the government launched the
Sri Aman amnesty programme, the NKCP had engaged in violent
clashes with government security forces - clashes that were then
considered very serious. However, with its capacity now reduced,

SO
the NKCP is regarded merely as a force capable of guerrilla acts rather
than widespread underground subversion.

Leadership and organisational changes

Of the two november only the CPM has undergone fundamental

changes in leadership and organisation. eed, it could be suggested
that the NKCP lost its leadership impetus with the surrender during
the Sri Aman programme of Bong Kee Chok, leader of its Pasukan
Rakyat Kalimantan Utara (PARAKU or North Kalimantan People's
Army), a guerrilla arm of the NKCP. The CPM, however, has been
led almost continually by the same two personalities, namely, Loi
Tech and Chin Pong.
The CPM's changes in approach are related to its internal leadership
struggle. Since Loi Teck's removal in 1947 the CPM under Chin Peng
has by and large waged an armed struggle. In 1974 it was revealed
that two splinter groups had broken ranks with the CPM, namely,
the CPM M-L and the CPM RF , the latter haw'ng broken off in l9'70.
The leaders of these two breakaway factions have not yet been made
known, but it is said that both sought to be bolder in their guerilla
actions, thereby asserting their claim over the leadership of the CPM.
Sources indicate that there were three reasons for the split of the
CPM M-L (which actually was the l 2th Regiment of the CPM guerilla
arm, the Malayan National Liberation Army or MNLA) and the CPM
RF (the Sth Regiment) :
l. a refusal to abide by the MCP's Central Committee directive
to liquidate all new recruits above the age of 12 who joined
after 1 9 6 2 ; _
2. a distrust (especially by the 8th Regiment) that operational
plans had been leaked to the Security Forces, thus explaining
their heavy losses,
3. a generational and tactical conflict with Chin Peng's leadership.
In spite of such changes within the CPM, certain continuities in organ-
isational structure persist. The leadership within the main body con-
tinues to exercise a tight grip: some observers believe that scions of
present leaders are being groomed to take over the reins of the party.
Second, the post of secretary~genera1 of the CPM continues to be
ever-important, this position having been held only by Loi Teck and,
after his ousting in 1947, Chin Pong. Chin Peng's existence itself re-
mains a mystery - one source even claims he is dead, while ex-chairman
Musa Ahmad has claimed he is in Beijing11 - but the fact that his

55
whereabouts and existence are uncertain only testifies to the import-
ance of the position. Third, whatever the putative significance of
other positions on the CPM Central Committee, including that of the
post of chairman which is not even stipulated under its constitution,
it would appear that such positions are merely cosmetic.

Strategy and tactics

strategy and tactics of both the CPM and the NKCP are based
on the Maoist theory of armed revolution, and the model for both
has been the Chinese experience. Whatever its failures in the Emergency
(l948- the CPM has stuck to this model, explaining that the
approach was correct then but that its analysis was not sufficiently
cognizant of the imrslities in the Malayan situation." Since 1968
party documents have indicated its commitment to the Maoist strategy
of 'encircling the towns from the countryside'. The NKCP is also
understood to be following this line.
The armed strategies of the CPM and NKCP are, more properly,
implemented by their fighting arms, an important distinction in com-
munist revolutionary doctrine and practice. The CPM uses its Malayan
National Liberation Army (MNLA), sometimes also referred to as
the Malayan Revolutionary Liberation Army (MRLA). The CPM RF
refers to its fighting units as the MRLA, as does the CPM M-L, which
has led, as noted by van der Kroef, to a confusing scenario of nomen-
clatures.1 3 Indeed, the MNLA's previous name was MPLA, which the
CPM dropped once the CPM M-L also started using it. These designa-
tions would seem to be quite important to the image of the CPM
and its splinter groups; according to the historical context, the name
of the CPM's fight'mg force has changed from the Malayan People's
Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) to the Malayan People's Anti-British
Army (MPABA), then to the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA),
and finally to the present designation (MNLA). The fighting units
of the NKCP are the Pasukan Gerila Rakyat Sarawak (Sarawak People's
Guerrilla Army or PGRS) and the Pasukan Rakyat Kalimantan Utara
(North Kalimantan People's Army or PARAKU).
CPM operational tactics for pursuing the Maoist strategy are given
in directives issued from time to time. In 1968, the call was made for
the establishment of 'assault units' and 'armed work forces'. In 1973,
orders were issued for a direct confrontation with the Security Forces
(SF) by acts of assassinations (espe cally of police Special Branch
officers) and the provoking of tactical clashes between assault units
and the SF. At the same time, it was directed that base areas and food
dumps should be established. These tactics have the intention of

56
shaking public confidence in the SF and allowing for greater opera-
tional activity of the CPM.
At the same time, underground activities such as infiltration of
public and socio-political organisations were carried out. To unite
with all groups opposed to the government, and agitate against the
government on popular grievances, some documents indicate the need
to influence Malay and Indian people and organisations - an import-
ant factor for the mainly Chinese CPM.
During the period between 1974 and 1977 the CPM - or more
likely the splinter groups became more 'open' in its armed activities
--.

by shifting to urban areas, but since 1977 it seems to have retreated

to the jungle. There is no reason to believe that the CPM has been
able to establish bases anywhere in Peninsular Malaysia, although it
is able to move about in deep jungle areas in Pahang, Kelantan, Ked ah,
Perlis, Perak (especially in the Betong salient) and the Malaysian-Thai
border area. Continued SF harassment operations and the increasing
vigilance of the authorities, however, have meant that the CPM is
usually 'on the run'. As for the NKCP, their operations appear con-
tained in a zone known as the Rajang Security Command (RASCOM).
The CPM seems to have become increasingly adept at jungle war-
mu using techniques which can be considered quite innovative. Two
of these techniques, Einbush and land mines (booby traps), have been
'inflicting

successful in terms of SF casualties, but it is also believed

that the SF have begun to take effective counteraction. Quite a number
of food dumps have been discovered by both Malaysian and Thai
Security Forces over the last half decade which may indicate that
the CPM's fighting and support units have been assiduous in carrying
out party directives, but how all this fulfils the thesis of encircling
the towns is yet to be determined.
The CPM has also resorted to psychological warfare, using its clan-
destine radio network from somewhere 'north of the Malaysia-Thai
border' to broadcast messages and propaganda. This network, first
beamed in the Suara Revolusi Malaya (Voice of the Malayan Revolu-
tion or VOMR), now known as the Suara Demokrasi Malaya (Voice
of Malayan Democracy or VOMD), is of dubious effectiveness. From
1974 to 1976, the Suara Revolusi Malaya did broadcast relatively
accurate information about events, including predicting future ones
(such as impending transfers of government personnel), although
such information contained little strategic value. On the whole, how-
ever, such broadcasts tell a great deal more about the CPM itself,
where documents are not available.
That the guerrillas of such a movement, according to the Maoist
thesis, have to rely on the people (the 'fish and water' nexus) is of
course salient. Because the CPM is basically a Chinese movement,
it had been thought that the non-Chinese (read the Malays) would

S7
not provide support. However, it is alleged that some CPM units in
the mid-l970s were able to obtain Malay village support, although
this is now 1'1O longer tenable. The authorities, in turn, have not devi-
ated much from Templer's advice about the 'battle for the hearts
and minds of the people' and have introduced the strategy of KESBAN
(meaning security and development). Space does not allow for a com-
prehensive evaluation of the continuing contention between KESBAN
and Maoist approaches, but the CPM has been more conscious of
the need to deflect the upper hand of the government, at least on
the Malaysian side of the Malaysian-Thai border.
The militancy of the CPM using daring guerilla tactics, especially
in the mid-1970s, may have been encouraged by the current success
of Vietnamese communist forces against the Americans, but it is
worth noting that the strategy followed since 1948, with whatever
hiatus, has been based on the Chinese experience. Yet, it remains
unclear if the CPM has learnt the lessons of the Emergency and has
accordingly made a more detailed analysis of the suitability of the
Chinese model to Malaysia- The political broadcasts and documents
of the CPM have taken note of the political developments and socio-
economic programmes of the government, but it seems obvious also
that the racial circumstances of Malaysian society and politics have
been underrated in favour of a class analysis of the situation. Opera-
tionally, particularly since the late 1970s the CPM and the NKCP
have always had to be on the move because of constant harassment
from the ss. According to information made known in 197734 it
was stated _that.the CPM's military units (the Sth, 6th and 8th Assault
Units of the 12th Regiment, the 10th Independent Combat Platoon
from the 10th Regiment and the Asal group [aborigines] from the
Sth Regiment) operated east of the Sungei Patani area; the CPM M-L's
units from the Second District of the l nth and 10th Regiments oper-
ated west of Sungei Patani, and the CPM RF with no known regular
formations operated in the Sadao area of southern Thailand north
of Betong. Apart from its military units, all factions of the CPM also
had their support and subversive units: the Malayan National Libera-
tion Front (MNLF) and the Malayan National Liberation League
(MNLL) of the CPM, the Malayan People's Liberation League (MPLL)
of the CPM M-L, and the Malayan People's Liberation Front (MPLF)
of the CPM RF.1 5

Ethnic composition and following

Throughout their' struggles, both the CPM and the NKCP have been
led and staffed m the ranks mainly or even wholly by Chinese, this

58
also largely explains their failure at a national revolution. That the
Chinese model forms the basis of party doctrine also makes it difficult
for winning over the hearts and minds of the non-Chinese. However,
intelligence reports indicate that the membership composition of the
CPM and its splinter groups, or more appropriately the CTO, now
also includes (non-Chinese) aggrieved Thai nationals from that coun-
try's southern region. Additionally, the discovery of some influential
or well-placed Malays as communists and CPM sympathisers over the
last decade has raised alarm in Malaysia's Malay ruling circles. In Sara-
wak, however, the NKCP has been unsuccessful at recruiting non-
Chinese in spite of forming two front organisations - the North Kali-
mantan National Liberation League and the North Kalimantan Iban
Brotherhood Party - to attract bans and other indigenous groups.
Documents of the CPM and its splinter groups have been quite
explicit on the necessity of attracting Malays and Indians into their
ranks. Religion has also been used as a means of attracting support.
The front organisations that have been established are the Partai Per-
saudaraan Islam (Islamic Brotherhood Party or PAPERI), the Barisan
Tani Malaysia (Malaysian Peasant Front or BTM) and, more recently,
the Malay Nationalist Revolutionary Party of Malaya (MNRPM). Of
the three, probably only the first has a strong platform, as religion
'increasingly

has become an important issue amongst the important

Malay rural electorate over the last few years. Malay support for com-
munism has become a sensitive matter for the authorities, but it is
most likely to be limited only to fringe individuals and intellectuals
in Malay society.
None the less, in the mid-1970s, unconfirmed reports emerged of
the CPM having been able to 'buy-off' retired Malay army personnel
(at the NCO level) to help train cadres in jungle warfare. It was also
revealed that a few leading Malay figures and politicians had become
communists or communist sympathisers. The government took a
serious view of these developments. ' subsequent events that
were 'anti-government', and student demonstrations, were regarded
as communist-inspired, if not communist-led. In 1981, the authorities
gave much publicity to the return of CPM chairman Musa Ahmad
from Beijing. However, while the government remains concerned
about Malay involvement in communism, such cases are not yet really
salient. The loth Regiment of the CPM is a Malay unit, but its num-
bers (roughly 200 or so) are dwindling and those in it are more a group
of romantics or disaffected individuals who have opted to become
guerrillas. (It has also been pointed out that some are really of Indo-
nesian origin.) Furthermore, Malay CPM leaders such as Musa Ahmad
and the better known Rashid Mydjn are also thought to be 'insignific-
ant' in terms of power and influence in the CPM. It has also been sug-
gested that the motivations of CPM recruits may be less ideological
59
and more a response to the problems of individual modernisation,
as was argued by Pye about Chinese CPM members.1 6
That the CPM has been exploiting Islam as 'being compatible with
communism' is a new challenge for the authorities. One reason for
the success of the governlnent's counter-insurgency efforts in the
Emergency period was its ability to portray to the Malay population
the anti-Islamic nature of the CPM this was easy since the latter
was mainly non-Malay and as such non-Muslim. Eowever, in recent
years, the ruling government has had increasingly to counteract charges
made by its opposition (mainly the Islamic Party of Malaysia) that
it is or was not 'Islamic enough'. If the CPM is able to use this charge
with some success, then the II I E nism may become
even more difficult, notwithstanding the govelnlnent's present attempts
to ban the issue of religion from politics and utilise other 'hard' mea-
sures.
The infusion of Thais into the ranks of the CPM will to some extent
colour the range of CPM's activities and will almost inevitably lead
to new approaches to counter-insurgency in terms of Malaysian
combined operations. But, over the next few years, the CPM will still
be mainly a 'Chinese' movement.

Ideological orientations

Prior to 1947 the CPM under Loi Teck did adhere to the Moscow
line but, as has been mentioned, this approach was discarded in favour
of the Maoist line. CPM documents point to 'Marxist-Leninism - the
Thought of Mao Zedong' as the party's ideological foundations and
expound the need for a 'new democratic revolution' in Malaya. It
cannot be established here, however, if the 'new democratic revolution'
is connected to the phase of 'new democracy' in the events leading
to the 1949 Communist Chinese take-over. But from a historical
viewpoint, at least up to 1943, most of the CPM's pronouncements
and actions were a reflection of the events taking place in China. It
was therefore not 'Malaysian' in orientation. Recent CPM calls for
the establishment of a 'democratic coalition government composed
of representatives of various patriotic and democratic parties and
individuals who are opposed to the Government' may however only
signify the CPM's interpretation of a 'new democracy' phase (from
the Chinese experience) for Malay(si)a and thus further denote its
alien features. The 'new democratic' phase had been called for as
early as 1946 at the 8th Enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee,
indicating a continuing thread in the basic objectives of the CPM .
That the People's Republic of China (PRC) is now led by a post-Mao
60
generation less enamoured with Maoist teachings does not seem to
have affected ties between the CPM and the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP). Indeed, the PRC has indicated that it will not break off
its support for the CPM ('party-to-party') despite at the same time
having ties with the Malaysian Government ('government-to-govern-
ment'), a continuing source of irritation in Sino-M alaysian relation-
ships. The PRC has argued that any break in its ties with the CPM
will lead to the latter 'turning to the Soviet camp', which presumably
is a valid point given Sino-Soviet rivalry in Southeast Asia and the
ability of communist movements change orientations. For their
part, the Soviets have been known to exploit some Malays and play
on Malay racial sentiments about the CPM being Chinese. However,
it is more plausible to forecast that the CPM will continue with its
Chinese orientation. The argument that the CPM may turn to the
Vietnamese for ideology or support also seems to have been proved
groundless by developments since 1975, when conceivably the Viet-
namese themselves may have wanted this. Equally, this stance may
well be a function of the CPM wanting to be on the Chinese side,
since the latter is now anti-Vietnamese.
As for the NKCP, it did have some ties with the Indonesian Com-
munist Party (PKI), especially in terms of training, during the early
l 960s, but that orientation then and now was principally Chjnese-
oriented.

International implications

The existence of the CPM and the NKCP has international ramifica-
tions, and it is clear that the former has not passed up the chance
to exploit this fact. The activities of the NKCP were related to the
question of Indonesian-Malaysian relations but, since the end of Con-
frontation in 1966, the NKCP is being hunted down by the SF of
both those countries. The CPM, since it operates in the Malaysian-
Thai border area, remains an important issue in recent bilateral rela-
tions between these two countries.
At the level of bilateral relations, the issue is also complicated by
the ongoing separatist movement in southern Thailand calling for
the establishment of the independent state of Patani. This movement,
spearheaded by the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO),
has in turn taken up arms against the Thai authorities. The Malaysian
government, which regards this separatist movement as an internal
matter of Thailand, is interested only in the CPM guerrillas and, it
is believed, thinks the Thais pay much less attention than is warranted
to the CPM as they do to the PULO. The Thais, on the other hand,
61
argue they are doing as much against the CPM guerrillas as the Malay-
sian government, and they have a lingering suspicion that there is
Malaysian support for the Patani movement. Operationally, the Malay-
sians were allowed limited access ('hot pursuit rights') into Thai tem't-
ory until 1976, when this was dramatically changed, and the resulting
redrawn agreement greatly affected Malaysian operations. Observers
believe the CPM was able to exploit Thai sensitivities on this issue
and thereby influence the resulting border pact. Since then, border
operations undertaken independently by Malaysian or Thai SF or
in combination have been viewed by the Malaysians as less than satis-
factory.
Although it has been suggested that the CPM has been able to collude
with the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT), this has not been veri-
fied. However, it seems clear that the CPM has sanctuary in Thai
territory, that Thai nationals are involved in CPM activities, and that
the CPM has been able to exploit the issue of Thai nationalism and
the question of Patani separation. This complex scenario will not
alter very much but will mean that the threat from the CPM will
complicate Thai-Malaysian relations, which are otherwise quite good.

Concluding remarks

This brief summary of armed communism in Malaysia cannot expound

all the facets of a rather intriguing political challenge to established
government. Success and failure of the two movements, the CPM
and the NKCP, are and have been a question of the response and
will of the adversary they have thrown their weight against, that is,
the government of Malaysia and its precursors, the British. While it
is fair to say the authorities have, at least up to this point, won, still
the battle continues. The following observations are in order.
At the end of the Second World War when the British started to
reestablish their colonial authority, the CPM was the strongest political
movement in Malaysia and certainly had the aimed capacity to use
its anti-Japanese guerrilla army (which was British-armed) for a take-
over. When it subsequently resorted to labour agitation between 1946
and 1948, and infiltrated the PUTERA-AMCJA political coalition,
it also acquired strength, one estimate stated that it controlled 'three-
quarters of the organised labour t`orce'.17 With such forces at its
disposal for the seizure of state power, it missed the single, most
important opportunity ever presented to it.1 Q
The failure of the CPM can certainly be attributed to its overtly
Chinese membership, leadership and ideological orientation. Indeed,
not only can the CPM/Malaysian government challenge be seen in
62
radical terms, but that the CPM initiated violence and the period of
Sino-Malay clashes shortly after the Japanese surrender (the 'three-
star' period) may also have imprinted for ever in the Malay psyche
the alien danger represented by the CPM. , it could be said that
the CPM and the NKCP were 'indigenous yet alien'. As long as this
is so, they will not make much headway in Malay-dominant, ibeit
multi-ethnic, Malaysia. "

Although the CPM and the NKCP do not seem to have the upper
hand in their present battle with the Malaysian government, their
presence and challenge is salient and has preoccupied the authorities.
The current strength of the CPM and the NKCP is debatable, as assess-
ments of their membership have ranged from a few hundred to a
few thousand strong. The latest official figure given by the government
in 1977 put the CPM strength at 2,054 people. 9 An important feature
of the current struggle is that whilst the communist challenge is 'poli-
tical', the response of the authorities is more 'administrative' in nat-
ure;20 there is thus little likelihood of there being a successful chal-
lenge. On the other hand, total elimination of the CPM may well
nigh be impossible. It also seems pertinent that, although the cadres
may be reduced in number, the fact that they are still in existence
indicates a certain amount of support, unwilling or otherwise.2 1
Groups that are really peripheral may have only peripheral support,
such as that from the prang ash (aborigines or Asal as the CPM calls
them), but even so a whole phalanx of government legislation and
counter-Msurgency measures will have to stay in effect.
Lastly, the fact that the CPM and NKCP are peripheral may explain
why they may be aspiring to political objectives that are no longer
tenable under present circumstances, such as a return to 'Malaya' and
a 'North Kalimantan'. Their persistence may be remarkable (though
not uncommon given the history of most communist movements),
but this may also mean that both have been swept ('withered"?) away
by the forces of circumstance in a rapidly changing Malaysia and
Southeast Asia.

Notes

Genera! Note: The study of Malaysian communism is not as arcane

as may be believed. Although the subject is 'sensitive' in that open
public discussion is not yet possible, there exists substantial literature
on the subject. Access to material is not really possible in Malaysia:

63
the CPM and NKCP are outlawed organisations and are threats to
public order, and some documents made available to the authors
are embargoed for security reasons.
Although some works have not been cited, they have been used as
primary reference texts. These include, inter A l f a , A. Short, The Com-
munist insurrection in Malaya (New York: Crane, Russak, 1975),
not publicly available in Malaysia, the excellent annual series edited
by Richard Starr in the Hoover series, Yearbook on International
Communist Affairs' (hereafter YICA), various White Papers issued
by the Malaysian government, as well as various CPM and NKCP docu-
ments.
1. account of the breakaway factions, see 'Malaysia' in
. _ . _ - _ - . , YICA, 1976 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press,
._ " ' ° ° ; '

1976), pp.330-46. I
2. Such as Justus M. van der Kroef in his report on Malaysia in YICA
1982, p.207.
3. See Justus M. van der Kroef, Communism in Malaysia and Singa-
pore: A Contemporary Survey (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1967), p.40.
4. On the racial parameters of the Malaysian political system, see
Zacharia Hajj Ahmad, 'The Political Structure', E. Fisk and Osman
Rani, eds., in the Political Economy of Mafay5ia (Kuala Lumpur:
The Oxford University Press, 1982), pp.88-103.
5. Zacharia Haji Ahmad, 'Political Violence in Malaysia: The Malayan
Emergency and Its Impact', Proceedings o f the 7th International
Association o f Historians o f Asia (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn
University, 1979), volume 1, pp.169-91 .
6. See van der Kroef, Communism, pp.10-12, and G.Z. Hanrahan,
The Communist Struggle in Malaya, reprinted (Kuala Lumpur:
University of Malaya Press, 1971).
van der Kroef, Communism, p.13.
7.8. Reported in The Path of Violence to Absolute Power (Kuala
Lumpur: Government White Paper, 1968).
9. Sarawak Government Information Service, The Danger Within:
A History o f the Clandestine Communist Organization in Sarawak
(Kuching: Government Printer, 1963).
YICA, 1977, p.339.
Rodney Tasker, 'Mystery in the Jungle', Far Eastern Economic
Review, (24-30, September 1982).
12. van der Kroef, Communism, p,l0.
13. YICA, 1977, p.338 .
14. Far Eastern Economic Review, (2 September 1977), p.42.
15. Ibid.
16. Lucian Pye, Guerrilla Communism in Malaya (Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1956). Zakaria Hamid is currently research~

64
 ing into the background and motivations of Malay members of
the CPM.
17. van der Kroef, Communism, p.7.
18. For an account of this important period and the weaknesses
of the CPM and the PUTERA~AMCJA, see Khong Kim Hoorn,
'Three Early Political Movements' in Zacharia Haji Ahmad, We
Readings in Malaysian Politics and Government (Kuala Lumpur:
Oxford University Press, in press).
19. As reported ir1 the Far Eastern Economic Review, (2 September
$9'77), the CPM's strength is as follows :
BY Nationality By Race
Malaysians
732 Chinese 1,416
107 Malays 616 of whom 509 are Thai
Muslims
Indians
36 Chinese Muslims 22
Aborigl
1,177 Thais
2 Japanese
2,054 2,054

Note: (a) The Japanese are believed to be Second World War

hold-outs.
(b) All 2,054 are registered (by name).

20. See Lucian Pye, I Roots of Insurgency and the Commence-

ment of Rebellion .
i M Eckstein, ed., Internal War (New York:
The Free Press, 19@1, `11I3'"1"T'5"f-79.
21. Mention must be made here #Mae importance of communist
front organisations and ancillary movements. See note 15.

65
COMMENTS

The current activities of the communist movement in Malaysia are

a pale shadow of the level and scale of operations during the widely
documented insurgency, or Emergency period of 1948-60, which
coincided with the general left-wing anti-colonial unrest at that time.
The peak in the intellectual tone of the movement, which at the time
involved a considerable number of intellectuals and nationalists, sub-
sequently ebbed when the goal of self-government and parliamentary
democracy was achieved with the ending of colonial rule in August
1963. Not only had the CPM lost the support of those seeking inde-
pendence, by that time it had also been defeated militarily. Post-
Merdeka efforts, apart from scattered instances of now insignificant
urban terrorist action, are for the most part jungle guerrilla operations.
The main bulk of the party, which is estimated to number a little
over 2,000, is operating from southern Thailand, and there is also
an armed presence of about 300 in Peninsular Malaysia.
Despite its reduced membership, the threat and potential growth
of armed CPM activities remain as a serious problem. Armed counter-
insurgency programmes complemented by police and intelligence
surveillance continue. At the national level the priority of rural develop-
ment is also viewed by the Malaysian government as crucial in eradicat-
ing what is regarded as the likely base of support for the CPM, namely,
rural socio-economic deprivation. It is believed that the creation of
a bigger middle-class in society, through rapid economic development,
will weaken the tide of discontent that prompts communist sympathies.
In opening up the country with various development schemes such

66
as the FELDA schemes and the Tembeling dam project, potential
CPM sanctuaries, ~lines of communication and supplies have been
severely impeded. The Teinbeling dam, for example, has flooded
quite a few CPM operation areas and the East-West Highway has cut
across vital CPM communication lines from southern Thailand.
response, oadcasts over Suara Revolusi Malaysia have con-
sistently publicised and criticised the failures of national oral develop-
ment programmes, as was particularly noticeable in 1974-75 during
the Baling riots. What is significant in these and other current cam-
paigns to politicise disaffection in rural areas is the conscious effort
to rectify a previous Chinese ethnic bias in CPM organisation and to
involve and establish networks among the indigenous Malay-Bumiputra
population. Even from its earliest mobilisations, the CPM has stood
little chance of gaining national momentum given its insignificance
among the dominant Malay community. This is not to imply in any
way that the sympathies of Chinese communities throughout Peninsular
Malaysia support the Chinese-dominated CPM. In fact, the active par-
ticipation of those Chinese in the government's Special Branch, or
Chinese Affairs Officers, in counter-intelligence and counter-insurgency
warfare was, and still is, crucial to the success of the concerted fovern-
ment effort to contain communist agitation.
However, the population distribution of Peninsular Malaysia has
never suited the Maoist strategy of protracted rural-based warfare
adopted by the CPM. Furthermore as most of the rural areas were
predominantly Malay, the CPM was forced to operate only in non-
Malay areas. Even the guerrilla activity in the Malay-dominated state
of Kelantan was restricted to the southern part close to Pahang, an
area that was not Malay populated. Many land development schemes
cut across jungle tracks and supply lines used by the CPM between
1948 and 1960. Government surveillance in and around the recent
land development schemes has been reinforced by the deliberate
policy of allocating 20 per cent of the scheme placements to ex-army
personnel.
In the contemporary context of Malaysia, what scope exists for
the potential resurgence of the CPM's revolutionary goals or pre-
scriptions? It is clear that any movement in Malaysia has strategically
to include the Malays, Chinese and Indians and ultimately to transcend
racial criteria or aspirations for its eventual success. Herein lies the
challenge posed equally for the CPM agitprop and for the government
to be flexible when implementing policies for national unity and
poverty eradication, as targeted in the New Economic Policy (NEP).
Such a challenge will exist at least until 1990, the date set for the
successful completion of the NEP goal of 30 per cent Malay-ownership
in the national economy and the probable phasing out of the current
Bumiputra policy.

67
 PART Ill
PHILIPPINES
Rectification process in the
Philippine communist
movement
FRANCISCO NEMENZO
AUSTHAIJAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

The contemporary communist movement in the Philippines seems to

be a collection of squabbling sects. Despite the recent thaw in the Sinc-
Soviet conflict, the pro-Soviet and Maoist parties continue their savage
polemics, several independent Maridst-Leninist groups have joined
the fray with their own brands of heresy ; and within the Christian
Left there have emerged quasi-Marxist tendencies to complicate further
an already complex situation. Beneath the surface, however, there
exists a degree of cohesion to warrant treating these divergent organisa-
tions as integral parts of a single polycentric movement.
The most important cohering factor is the indisputable preeminence
of the Communist Party of the Philippines (Marxism-Leninism-
Mao Zedong Thought) and the corre spending decline of the old Partido
Komunista fig Philippines (PKP), which led the Huk Rebellion in the
1940s and l950s. Although critical of some aspects of the theory
and practice of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the
independent Marndst-Leninist groups disavow ambition b% re-
placing it as the effective leader of the national liberation movement.
Like the quasi-Maridst tendencies of the Christian Left, their military
strength is negligible and their mass following small. They perceive
themselves as pressure groups seeking to rectify the supposed errors
of the dominant parties. ._

Martial law has failed to reverse the phenomenal growth of the

CPP, on the contrary, it has considerably enhanced the party's stature
in Philippine politics. Under CPP l e a d e r s , the New People's Army
(NPA) now constitutes the most formidable threat to rég_1lme securit_y_,.

'71
and the National Democratic Front (NDF) has become the rallying
point of Underground opposition. Of the Maoist parties that sprouted
throughout the world in the 1960s, the CPP is the only one that has
thrived and flourished. in the ASEAN region, it alone seems to have
any prospect of bursting into the corridors of power.
This paper examines the split that gave rise to the CPP and en-
couraged the proliferation of heretical sects in Philippine communism.
Tracing the evolution of the ideological dispute in the context of
the practical struggle from 1967 to the present, it argues that the
breakdown of monolithic unity has advanced rather than retarded
the movement.

The origin of the CPP

Founded in 1930, the PKP was nurtured in the Stalinist norms of

party life and preserved a semblance of monolithic unity by smashing
even the slightest manifestations of organised dissent. For as long
as it commanded a powerful coercive apparatus to enforce 'iron dis-
cipline', influential party figures who lost out in power struggles at
the top were compelled either to seek refuge in state patronage (like
the best known Huk leader Luis Taruc),1 or meekly to accept their
expulsion and wait in the periphery for history to vindicate them
(like former secretary-general Pedro Castro).2 No-one dared to chal-
lenge party authority from a Marrdst position much less form a rival
communist organisation. The -split 1967 was therefore significant
because it was the first time that arrexpelled faction fought back,
claiming to be the authentic bearer of Maridsm and accusing the ori-
ginal party of betraying the revolution.3 A year later this faction
established a separate CP, setting the polycentric pattern of the move-
ment today.
What was the background of the men who founded the CPP? What
circumstances led them to revolt against the old party? And why did
the PKP fail to crush them in the traditional Stalinist style?
The PKP's capacity to enforce 'iron discipline', as hinted earlier,
relied heavily on physical threat rather than ideological persuasion.
The semblance of monolithic unity it was able to project depended
on the perceived strength of its military arm. In this connection it is
important to recall that during the Japanese Occupation the PKP
created a powerful resistance force called Hukbo fig Beyer Laban sa
Hap or (I-IUKBALAHAP or Huk), reputed to be the largest, strongest
and most ferocious in Luzon. The Americans and, after independence
in 1946, the national government tried to disband the Huk, but they
were strong enough to resist. For reasons that need not be recounted

72
here, the PKP remobilised its wartime guerrillas and reorganised them
in 1948 into the Hukbon Mapagpalaya fig Beyer (HMB or Huk).
Intoxicated by initial victories against a weak Philippine Constabulary
(PC), and inspired by a Soviet analysis predicting
' a world capitalist
crisis as well as the communist triumph m mainland China, the PKP
Politburo in January 1950 escalated the armed struggle in a bid for
power in two years.4 To meet this timetable, the PKP hastily merged
the small and mobile Huk bands into huge regular contingents that
were capable of positional combat. Cadres in the trade unions and
other mass organisations were ordered to join the HMB, thus abandon-
ing the legal front. Moreover, the party embarked on an ambitious
recruitment drive (designated as 'geometric expansion') to swell its
military arm by a factor of three in every quarter for two consecutive
years.5 In March and August 1950 the HMB displayed its strength
by simultaneous raids on major towns and cities (designated as 'dress
rehearsals of greater things to come').
These moves proved fatal. The so-called 'dress rehearsals' achieved
the tactical aim of demoralising the government, but they also invited
massive US military assistance. With the Joint US Military Advisory
Group (JUSMAG) playing an active role, the government thoroughly
revamped the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The main bur-
den of fighting the Huk was transferred from the inept and unpopular
PC to the more professional Philippine Army (PA), and the latter
was organised into Battalion Combat Terms instead of the smaller
PC companies. Intelligence operations were upgraded and AFP acquired
a psychological warfare component. In 1951 the PA launched a devast-
ating counter~offensive, and the large concentrations of Huk forces
became easy prey for encirclement and suppression. The 'geometric
expansion' programme opened up the HMB and the party itself to
infiltration by a revitalised Military Intelligence Service, and the low
ideological level of their members made the HMB and PKP extremely
vulnerable to psychological warfare. Before the year ended, the HMB
lost the military initiative and by 1954 the Huk Rebellion virtually
collapsed. . ...

The PKP's belated attempt shift course from armed struggle

to parliamentary struggle only hastened its disintegration. Since its
finest cadres were pulled out of the legal front in 1950, only third-
raters were left to implement the parliamentary struggle. Anticipating
that the party would redeploy its remaining cadres from the battle-
field to the legal front, the government in 1957 enacted the Anti-
Subversion Law imposing severe penalties for membership of the
CP or its mass organisations.6
By then, however, the situation of the party was so desperate that
it sought hope for survival in the Anti-Subversion Law itself, specific-
ally the clause offering amnesty for Huk who surrendered within a

73
Jesus Lava, urged all party members who were _
one-month 'grace period'.7 In June 1957 the secretary-general

charges in government courts to 'return to civilian life' (a euphemism

.

for surrender) and to conduct the parliamentary struggle through

nationalist and reformist organisations. In order to minimise exposure
and arrest under the Anti-Subversion Law, members were freed from
obligatory membership in party collectives. Every party member
would then operate individually, maintaining contacts with no more
than two other comrades: one from whom he receives instructions
and another to whom he transmits them. Lava called this arrangement,
a sharp departure from a cardinal Leninist principle, 'the single tile
policy'.
While this policy was enforced, the party desisted from recruiting
new members, The underlying assumbtion was that in an atmosphere
so uncongenial to revolutionary activity, only infiltrators would wish
to join the CP. Not until 1964 did the PKP officially terminate single
file and begin to reconstruct its shattered structure, infusing it with
fresh blood. This accounts for a generational gap in the PKP member-
ship during rebuilding: on the one hand, there were ageing veterans
of an ill-fated uprising who were afflicted by the hangover of defeat,
and, on the other, the young ones who were raring for a fight.
The old cadres tended to be bureaucratic, having been brought
up in a Stalinist tradition, which regarded obedience to higher auth-
orities as the supreme virtue. They were also excessively cautious,
fearful of renewed suppression. For example, in organising the peasant
federation called Malayang Samahan fig Magsasaka (MASAKA), they
carefully stayed within the bounds of legality and stressed that they
were acting in conformity width the govemlnent's agrarian reform
programme. To avoid suspicion, they invited government officials
to their meetings and public rallies. There were no appeals to class
solidarity, no waving of red flags, no raising of clenched fists. Instead
of recruiting new people, obviously a risky enterprise, they confined
themselves to reactivating their old comrades.
A vastly different atmosphere prevailed in the University of the
Philippines (UP) where a group of student leaders 1
1 `

were finding their way to Marndsm without party instigation m

guidance. The impetus in their political awakening came from inter-
national events, particularly the Cuban Revolution, -am murder of
Patrice Lumuzrnba, the deepening US involvement in Vietnam, the
leftward swing of Sukarno's government in Indonesia and, after 1966,
the Cultural Revolution in China.8 At first the PKP leaders were
wary of these self-made Marzdsts. It was an Indonesian communist
doing post-graduate studies at UP who initially contacted them and
assured the PKP that they were ripe for recruitment. As soon as they
joined, however, they posed a potentially ticklish problem, because

74
their expectations of revolutionary behaviour differed from the bureau-
cratic-authoritarian style of the old cadres. They were more daring
and innovative, whereas the latter tended to be overly concerned
with how the government might construe their intentions. Moreover,
the fresh recruits, mostly middle~class intellectuals, had a better grasp
of the Marxist classics and the Maoist adaptations, while the old cadres
derived their theoretical knowledge almost exclusively from Josef
Stalin's Foundation o f Leninism
This incipient generational conflict moved towards the verge of
rupture as the PKP prepared for a new congress. The young cadres
clamoured for a special document on party history. According to
them, a truthful and critical review of the past was essential to set
the party on a fresh track and preclude repetition of fatal errors.
But the old cadres were lukewarm to the idea of excavating an igno-
rninious past and warned that this would cause demoralisation. Since
no-one in the leadership appreciated the project, Amado Guerrero
(then head of the PKP Youth Section) volunteered to write a draft.
Unavoidably, his draft castigated the three Lava brothers who had
succeeded one another to the highest party post for over two decades.
Dr Vicente Lava (1942-44) was blamed for the wartime retreat-for-
defence strategy, which nearly decimated the HUKBALAHAP,10
Jose Lava (1948-50) for the aborted attempt to capture power in
two years, and Dr Jesus Lava (1950-64) for the single file policy. It
was a sober, tightly argued critique, using data supplied by the old
cadres themselves. But it hurt the pride of the Lava clan who immedi-
ately manoeuvred to have the draft shelved before it could be debated
in congress.
Undeterred by Lavaist objections, Guerrero discussed his draft
with the inner core of Kabataang Makabayan (KM), the party's youth
organisation. In the 1940s and 1950s, when the Lavaists had firm
control of a powerful HMB, this action would have elicited harsh
punitive measures. In the mid-I 960s, however, they were uncertain
of their hold upon the party machine. They realised that Guerrero
was not easy to dislodge because he enjoyed the fierce loyalty of
the young cadres, most of whom he had recruited and trained. More-
over, the Lavaists were doubtful of MASAKA support since the most
influential personalities in the Peasant Section had had serious differ-
ences with Jose Lava while they were together in prison.
It was a seemingly trivial incident that triggered an open split.
Some over-zealous KM activls°ts from UP visited a MASAKA village
in central Luzon early in 1967. With Mao badges prominently dis-
played on their shirts, they brandished the little red book like revivalist
preachers and loudly espoused anned revolution. This behaviour
shocked the old peasant cadres who at once lodged a protest with
the Provisional Central Committee. The Lavaists readily saw in this
75
a precious opportunity to mobilise MASAKA against the KM. Once
they convinced the Peasant Section that Guerrero might be an agent
provocateur, the Lavaists hurriedly and arbitrarily enlarged the Pro-
visional Central Committee, ostensibly to increase peasant participa-
tion in policy-maldng. Then assured of a firm majority, they issued
a waring to the KM National Council that adventurism must be
curbed. Sensing a neatly woven conspiracy, Guerrero and his loyal
followers in the Youth Section declared their intention to defy a
'mechanical majority'. Guerrero then took decisive steps to eliminate
PKP influence in the KM, the Progressive R*evzlew editorial board and
the Philippine council of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.
The PKP retaliated by expelling Guerrero and his men at the first
meeting of the regular Central Committee in April 1967.I 2 It was
also decided to pull out all children of MASAKA members from the
KM and form another youth organisation, the Malayang Pagkakaisa
fig Kabataang Pilipino (MPKP).
The supporters of Amado Guerrero felt strongly about the need
for a critical review of party history, but they were not anrdous to
force a split. They had informally discussed the draft document with
members of the Peasant Section to dispel their earlier apprehensions.
KM gflgnibefs were, therefore, confident of swaying the party con-
gress.
Viewing events in 1967 with the benefit of hindsight, they now
admit that the split was by no means unavoidable. They agree that
the behaviour of KM members in MASAKA villages was indeed repre-
hensible. Under different circumstances, they would have taken dis-
ciplinary action themselves. But suspicion of a Lavaist conspiracy
had been accumulating for some time. The abrupt reshuffle of the
Provisional Central Committee, Guerrero's removal as head of the
Youth Section, and the arrogant warning to the KM National Council,
confirmed their fears that the Lavaists were undermining the KM
and manipulating the forthcoming congress. With their hopes for
rectification crushed, they resolved to carry the fight beyond the
confines of a narrow circle which the Lavaists dominated.14

International connections
Since the split occurred at the peak of the Sino-Soviet dispute
was essentially a domestic affair acquired L_.. . m .1~ . m < I

Some observers, unaware of the intramural bickering in 1967, inter-

preted it as the local expression of a global trend.l- appears
credible on the surface because the CPP from the start employed
the language of the Cultural Revolution . after 1971, the PKP
76
openly aligned itself with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU). The truth, however, is that neither CPSU nor the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) had anything to do with what happened. Their
intervention aggravated rather than initiated the conflict within the
Philippine communist movement .
One feature that ought to be emphasised in trying to understand
the Philippine communist movement is its relative isolation. It was
never as sensitive to international factors as similar movements in
Asia. During the Comintern period, for example, the PKP was only
some sort of associate member, its participation was mediated by
the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and the CCP.
Unlike the parties in Malaysia and Thailand, the overseas Chinese
communists in the Philippines maintained an independent organisation.
Although the local branch of the CCP had representatives in the PKP
Central Committee and Politburo, the latter was by no means a satrap.
When this unique arrangement was terminated in 1948, the PKP oper-
ated in isolation from the international communist movement.
Despite its constant avowal of fidelity to Mao Zedong Thought,
the CPP to a large extent moved on its own steam, SO that the fall
of the 'Gang of Four' and the warming-up of Beijing's relations with
the Marcos regime did not noticeably set back the movement. There-
fore, it is groundless to believe that the contradictions among Filipino
communists are contingent on developments in China or the Soviet
Union.
, When the dispute erupted in 1967, the PKP had no direct links
with the CPSU. 6 It had loose relations with the CCP and the Com-
munist Part of Indonesia (PKI), but, when a military coup decimated
the latter in 1965, the CCP showed some interest in cultivating closer
ties with the PKP as another ally against the CPSU. Amado Guerrero's
group actively solicited Chinese blessings after their expulsion from
the PKP. They constituted a Provisional Politburo in whose name
they issued a May Day statement hailing the Cultural Revolution,
condemning Liu Shaoqi and the CPSU, rejecting the Japanese and
Korean parties' oposal for united action in support of Vietnam,
and depicting the 'Lavaite renegade clique' as the promoters of modem
revisionism PhilipPines.17 This statement first appeared in
Vanguard, the pro-Chinese newspaper of the New Zealand party, and
was later reported by Radio Beijing and Xinhua News Agency.
The co-option of more peasant cadres and Guerrero's departure
enhanced the influence of a pro-Soviet faction in the PKP Provisional
Central Committee. This hitherto unassertive faction vigorously de-
nounced the publicity accorded to the May Day statement in the
Chinese media. Ironically in retrospect, it was the Lavaists who de-
fended the CCP and opposed the proposal to align with the CPSU in
the international dispute. But their reaction to the May Day statement
77
revealed a failure to comprehend the meaning of the Cultural Revolu-
tion, which Mao had unleashed a few months earlier. They were con~
evident that the CCP, adhering to the Leninist principle of democratic
centralism, would recognise the majority in the leading organ of a
fraternal party. The Lavaists refused to believe that the Cultural Revo-
lution signified a departure from this principle and that CCP was
in fact supporting break-away factions all over the world.
The ensuing debate yielded a strange compromise. The Lavaists'
suggestion politely to inform Beijing that Guerrero's group had been
expelled was adopted by the PKP Central Committee. But it also
decided to refute the May Day statement through the Information
Bulletin, the collective organ of pro-Soviet parties published in Prague.
The pro-Soviet faction readily agreed to the compromise formula,
knowing full well that the Cultural Revolution Committee in Beijing
would be outraged by the use o f the information Bulletin as an outlet
for refuting the May Day statement.
As Chinese support for the Guerrero group became apparent, the
Lavaist position became increasingly untenable. PKP veered towards
the CPSU, but it was not until 1971 , when the fourth Lava secretary-
general was ousted, that PKP began publicly to attack Mao Zedong
Thought as a 'deviation from Marzdsm-Leninism' and follow every
twist and turn of Soviet foreign policy.1 8

Critique of Lavaism

Arr ado Guerrero and ten trusted disciples convened in a village some-
where in Pangasinan province on. 26 December 1968 ,Mao's 7 Sth
birthday) to formally launch the CPP. It was designated a 'Congress
of Reestablishment' to underscore their rejection of the present PKP
as legitimate heir to the party founded in 1930. They claimed that
the old PKP was "liquidated" in 1957 by the 'right-opportunist' single
file policy of Dr Jesus Lava, hence, the need to "reestablish" it on
the basis of Mao Zedong Thought, 'the acme of Marxism-Leninism'.
Among the documents adopted was a merciless critique of PKP history
entitled 'Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party', which was substantially
the draft that drove a wedge in the PKP the year before. It was re-
written in caustic style and packed with Mao~Lin Biao jargon.
Starting from the proposition that 'political power grows out of
the barrel of a gun', the document proc ¢
H
14
=~ @s
sacred right of all oppressed peoples and the only road towards social
and national liberation. lt accused Jose Lava an 1
'left-adventurism'
not because he had resorted to arms but for a putschist strategy aimed
at seizing power in two years. This error was attributed to his ignorance
78
of Mao Zedong Thought, and his failure to grasp the fundamental
law of people's war, that is, the stage-by-stage strangulation of enemy-
controlled cities from stable bases in the countryside. As a conse-
quence, the PKP 'overstrained the limited revolutionary forces, made
them leap over unstable areas, instead of advancing wave upon wave,
and impelled the imposition of bourgeois rules of war and sectarian
punishments on the overstrained cadres, soldiers and masses'.
The document also charged the Jose Lava leadership of working
on the un-Mar>dst theory that whoever controls Manila controls the
Philippines. This led the PKP to concentrate HMB forces in central
and southern Luzon, regions adjacent to Manila that were extremely
vulnerable to counter-attack by the larger and betterequipped govern-
ment troops. The PKP paid scant attention to organisation in the
other regions. Worst of all, the PKP Politburo directed operations
from Manila itself just because Jose Lava refused to leave his job
as ecpilomic analyst of the government-owned Philippine National
Bank.
According to the document, the Jose Lava leadership entertained
the illusion of beating the state machine by purely military means.
The PKP was blind to the political essence of a people's war. This
was illustrated by the 'dress rehearsals', whereby the HMB displayed
its military strength before the party could spread its base of support
beyond its traditional bastions. HMB commanders had a vague aware-
ness of the crucial difference between people's war and conventional
war. Trained to regard the struggle in strictly military terms, they
easily lost heart once they started losing one battle after another,
and the dream of early seizure of power vanished from their limited
horizon. They had neither the understanding nor the skills to continue
the political tasks of a protracted war.
Jesus Lava, a medical doctor who succeeded his brother as party
chief, committed the opposite error of 'right-opportunism' for aban-
doning the armed struggle at mid-stream and shifting to a parliament-
arist strategy. The document discerned that the same one-sided, un-
dialectical frame of mind, characteristic of the petite-bourgeoisie,
afflicted the Lava brothers, causing them to swhig from one extreme
to the other. However, the gravest political crime of Jesus Lava, accord-
ing to the document, was to impose the single file policy which 'liquid-
ated' the party in 1957. Single file constituted a culpable violation
of the Leninist principle, which requires every party member to belong
to a collective and be subject to its discipline. ..

79
The New People's Army

'Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party' not only drew a demarcation
line with the old party but also supplied a credible explanation for
the failure of the Huk. By demonstrating that disaster could have
been averted, the document evoked a renewed faith in the efficacy
of armed struggle. At the Pangasinan conference, however, that sense
of certainty was remarkably lacing. Four participants recalled in
recent interviews that Amado Guerrero alone was brimming with
optimism, the rest silently nursed a sense of futility. They could hardly
believe that their rag-tag army of student activists would grow into
a serious guerrilla force.
The real breakthrough came a few weeks after the conference, in
January 1969, when Commander Dante and his men, all practising
guerrillas with considerable combat experience, affiliated with the
newly established party. This group had just seceded from the HMB
faction under Commander Sumulong, which, five years earlier, fell
out of PKP control and quicldy degenerated into a crime syndicate.
Sumulong's gang in Angeles City, Pampanga, thrived on the rackets
outside the US Clark Air Base. It also provided protection for American
military construction projects at the height of the Vietnam War. For
a fee, it smashed a strike of Filipino civilian employees inside the
US base. As the depravity of the Angeles gangsters reached scandalous
proportions, the peasant roving bands became increasingly disen-
chanted. Dante was then the commander of Sumulong's outfit in
Tarlac province. When ordered to suppress the peasants who protested
against the construction of a Voice of America transmitting station,
Dante began to see through the counter-revolutionary nature of the
HMB faction to which he belonged. This also made him realise that
an armed group is doomed to plain banditry without the political
guidance of a Maridst party and in isolation from the broader mass
movement. The inevitable mam'age between Dante's army in search
for a party and Guerrero's party in search for an army gave birth
to the NPA on 29 March 1969.
The CPP Central Committee adopted another document that singled
out the following tasks of a revolutionary army :
L engage in party building ,
2. carry out the agrarian revolution, build rural bases and advance
the armed struggle, and
3. help construct the national united front.2 0
From this can immediately be discerned the crucial difference between
the NPA and its predecessor. Whereas the PKP conceived the HMB
as purely a fighting force, the CPP thought of the NPA as primarily a

80
propaganda apparatus. CPP stressed the political character of the
people's army and trained its members to conduct political work
just like a regular party cadre.
HMB and NPA also differed in their social composition. Whereas the
HMB combatants were recruited almost entirely from the peasantry,
the NPA's included many activists from urban universities. Qgntrary
to the assumption of PKP, these young intellectuals were quite easily
integrated in the peasant villages. There were initial difficulties, but
these were surmounted over time.
In fact, the 'bourgeois education' of some NPA soldiers enabled
them to play a role that the HMB never performed. NPA units were
welcomed by the peasants because they were not there only to fight.
They also taught the peasants new agriculture sldlls, herbal medicine,
acupuncture, makeshift irrigation and so forth. More effectively than
the local governments and field agencies of national ministries, the
NPA administered justice, maintained peace der, organised
small economic projects, ran adult education classes and, in the stable
guerrilla fronts, even implemented a 'revolutionary land reform pro-
gramrne'. NPA thus projected a more positive image, they were not
seen as parasites who fed on the meagre products of their farms.

Political function of armed propaganda

Civilian bureaucrats in the Philippines, especially during the budget

season, put forward the fashionable argument th . .
ency is primarily a socioeconomic rather than E i ,,.,,,..,,,
m m m m m

This is true in the sense that no amount of passionate agitation would

induce people to :revolt unless they already feel materially deprived.
However material deprivation alone is inadequate as a reason to risk
one's life. People must also believe in their own power to break the
system.
The anti-Huk campaign in the 1950s proved to be a monumental
success not because the socio-economic programme of secretary (and
later president) Ramon Magsaysay improved the condition of central
Luzon peasants, as gested by Alvin Schaff,21 but because the
la
" . aiiscalculations and the HMB suffered military
set-backs. Col. Edward Lansdale's psychological warfare crew capital-
ised on HMB's losses to erode popular faith in the prospect of revolu-
tion." Once they were paralysed by an overwhelming sense of power-
Iessness, it was easy to make them entrust the future to an amiable
strongman like Magsaysay.
Learning from the past, the NPA has sldllfully eluded a similar
predicament. By placing its forces in inaccessible areas, concealing

81
their presence until assured of local support, and maintaining maxi-
mum mobility, the NPA appears virtually indestructible. With such
tactics, the NPA may not have scored spectacular victories comparable
to the HMB's in the so-called 'dress rehearsals', but neither has the
AFP. A no-win, no-loss situation favours a guerrilla army engaged
in protracted war. At the early stage of strategic defensive, the NPA
has only to avoid encirclement. Small but successful sldrmishes suffice
to provide ammunition for the party's massive propaganda machine.
These are enough to keep the flames of revolution burning. The truly
decisive task is to build the party's capacity for mass mobilising out-
side the guerrilla zones, especially in the cities, in other words, gradu-
ally to improve its capability for launching simultaneous irisurrections
at some future date.
The NPA obviously has no illusion of beating the AFP in the battle-
field. It can only hope to seize power by simultaneous insurrections,
and armed struggle is probably viewed as a means to achieve this
strategic objective. Therefore, progress in the type of war the NPA
is waging should not be gauged by counting the NPA membership
or estimating the balance of military strength vis-ti-vis the APP?
More significant is the impact of armed struggle on the popular con-
sciousness and the territorial spread of revolutionary activities, both
military and non~military. On this criterion, the NPA is far superior
to the HMB in its days of glory.
Despite its propensity to romanticise guerrilla life, the CPP never
neglected the non-military aspect of the struggle. Even during martial
law, its best cadres were not concentrated in the army. A considerable
number were assigned to organising the masses. Without the armed
struggle, however, the party could never create a Sorelian myth, that
is, the sense of involvement in a larger and irrepre visible people's war.
The countryside provides ample water for the NPA fishes to swim
around, but it is in the cities and towns where the CPP can harvest
the richest bounty.
In the light of these considerations, the AFP made a gross error
of judgment by declassifying captured CPP and NPA documents,
and publishing them in a series entitled 'So the People May Know'.
In the 1950s, exposure of communist plans would have generated
support for an increased military budget. In 1970-72, however, free
publicity served the communist cause more than it served the military
establislnnent's. People had become cynical of the government. There
was mounting fear of militarisation in some sections of the ruling
class. Young Filipinos were questioning what their elders had taken
for granted, such as the benevolence of America and the malevolence
of China. The widely circulated exposes of CIA machinations in South
Vietnam and other Third World countries at that time changed people's
perception of the United States. Furthermore, the brazen use of public
82
funds, combined with frauds and terrorism, in the 1969 elections
undermined their trust in constitutional processes.
The AFP was therefore greatly responsible for projecting Com-
mander Dante as a folk hero and enhancing the power of armed pro-
paganda. As a consequence of the publicity accorded to NPA activities
in the mass media, the students were encouraged to emulate their
peers in America, France and China. A period of student militancy
was ushered in. This, in turn, fired the other disgruntled elements
of society. The PKP never expected this development. Traumatised
by their experience in the 1950s, the aging communists underestimated
such massive receptivity to radical agitation.` In fact, the CPP cadres
themselves were surprised. Some of them recently recalled that before
1969 they encountered only scepticism and indifference even in the
most destitute communities. But once the NPA began to hug the
headlines, people listened to them attentively and readily enlisted
in their mass organisations.24
The PKP had no inkling of the CPP's enormous strength until 26
January 1970. On that day President Marcos was going to deliver
his 'State of the Nation' address before a joint session of Congress.
The mass organisations of the PKP, CPP and the Christian Left held
simultaneous rallies that morning in various parts of Manila. In the
afternoon they all converged in front of the Congress building. While
taking turns in berating the Marcos government, the spokesmen for
rival factions also taunted each other. They were on the brink of a
fratricidal riot when the police suddenly attacked and, in a flash,
the demonstrators forgot their bickerings and fought as one .
A larger and more belligerent crowd marched to the presidential
'indignation

palace a few days later, on 30 January 1970, to express

at police brutality. This time they were met by units of the regular
armed forces, who fired their guns and threw tear gas bombs. The
crowd, however, retaliated with stones and pill boxes. Immortalised
as 'the battle of Mendiola', the fighting lasted until the next morning,
leaving four students dead and hundreds injured. That set the style
of mass activism in thesucceeding two years 5
The PKP, expecting this exuberant leftism to antagonise the people
and invite repression, ordered the MPKP to denounce the CPP-led
youth organisations and to raise a call for sobriety. But the movement
surged onwards, leaving the PKP behind. The mass actions - called
'parliaments of the streets' - grew larger and more ferocious. In the
process the "moderates" of the Christian Left swung to the CPP band-
wagon. 6 All PKP mass organisations were expelled from a united
front called Movement for a Democratic Philippines (MDP). Senators
and congressmen, probably the best political barometers, suddenly
turned into champions of civil liberties. The legislative chambers and
the ongoing Constitutional Convention were swamped with bills echoing

83
the 'parliaments of the streets'. All newspapers predicted that the
Laurel-Langley Agreement, a treaty which granted special privileges
to American capital in the Philippines, would be junked after it was
due to expire in 1974. Even the traditionally conservative Supreme
Court responded with two controversial decisions jeopardising future
American investlnents.2 7
Never before in Philippine history did the left make such a powerful
impact on the law-making process. The system of constitutional olig-
archy seemed to move in the direction of greater democracy because
the masses, hitherto mute and submissive, were organising themselves
and learning to articulate their grievances and aspirations. Ironically,
this unprecedented trend was inspired by an armed struggle led by
an illegal party. At that historic juncture, the CPP seized the initiative
and consigned the PKP to the political wilderness.

PKP's response to martial law

More concerned with averting martial law than preparing for its con-
sequences, PKP was caught on 21 September 1972 without a con-
tingency plan. Party branches in Manila, southern Luzon and the
Visayas as well as the Central Committee of the Young Communist
League (YCL) sought some guidelines on how to operate in the new
situation, but the PKP leaders had scampered for safety without leaving
a trace of their whereabouts. In this state of utter confusion, these
militant branches took the initiative and began acting on their own.
Between September and early December 1972 there was a flurry of
rank-and-file activities, which showed the enormous reserve of creat-
ivity and resourcefulness that the old party's bureaucratic structure
had stunted for years.
However, instead of greeting the spontaneous outburst of revolu-
tionary a r d o r , the leadership viewed it as a symptom of anarchism,
'

The secretary-general emerged from hibernation to promulgate a

political transmission entitled 'New Situation, New Tasks', which
asserted that martial law is not too bad because its main targets are
the Maoists, 'clerico-fascists' (that is, the Christian Left) and 'CIA
agents' such as Senator Benigno Aquino and Manila Times publisher
Chino Roces.
While it deplored the suspension of civil rights, the political trans-
mission applauded the land reform decree, the dismantling of private
armies, the campaign against loose firearms and other 'progressive
policies' of the martial law regime. In no uncertain terms, it warned
PKP and YCL members who called for a united front with the CPP
against Marcos: 'We should even help them [that is, the Marcos govern-

84
rent] to annihilate the Maoists'. Finally, it ordered all PKP-led HMB
units to avoid encounters with uniformed men, the mass organisation
to conserve their energies, and all party and YCL branches to observe
the new situation as it unfolded.
This official analysis of martial law provoked another wave of
splits, more threatening to party authority than the one in 1967. The
internal debates became SO acrimonious that the leadership resorted
to the familiar Stalinist technique of conflict-resolution, namely, to
kidnap, torture and execute the dissenters after forcing them to sign
false confessions.
Once it purged the alleged 'anarcho-Trotskyites', 'Che Guevarists',
'Marighellaists', 'crypto-Maoists' and miscellaneous heretics, the PKP
proceeded to negotiate a 'political settlement' with the martial law
regime. This process culminated in a nationally televised reconciliation
meeting at the presidential palace between President Marcos and the
secretary-general in October 1974. Stacks of rifles and piles of ammuni-
tion were turned over to the PC chief at public rallies in Nueva Ecija
and Laguna. Obedient party members then queued at the PC head-
quarters to be photographed and fingerprinted like common criminals.
However, there were also hundreds of others who hurriedly resigned
rather than submit to this supreme humiliation.
Part of the bargain was for the PKP to insert into its constitution
an explicit renunciation of armed struggle. As well, it publicly pledged
to co~operate with the régime. A statement explaining the political
settlement to fraternal parties declared with an air of triumph: 'In
this period of martial law the PKP again proved its readiness to eo-
operate with the government on areas which redound to the welfare
of the masses, particularly land reforn'1'.2 8
This indicated a new strategic line, some details of which the PKP
leadership had not articulated. But its theoretical underpinnings could
be surmised from a spate of justificatory pronouncements. For ex-
ample, an article by Jose Lava (the former secretary-general) in World
Marxist Review claimed that martial law modified the composition
of the Filipino ruling class, and that it represented the ascendancy
of the 'reformist national bourgeoisie over the state power structure
which used to be dominated by the feudal lords and compradors'.29
The PKP's 1977 programme charact erised this new hegemonic class
as an amalgam of discordant interests and, in these terms, explained
the inconsistencies of government policies :
In terms of overall development, five years of martial law have
yielded both positive and negative results and correspondingly
spawned contradictory trends in the general progression . . . of
Philippine society. To a certain extent, the national leadership
was able to steer the country along the path of increasing inde-

85
 pendence and self-reliance. However, there are at the same time
signs of greater economic penetration by foreign monopoly
capital, threatening to halt and reverse this positive trend of
an independent national development 0
From the above analysis one may infer that PKP entered into a political
settlement to intervene in the state's policy-maldng process at a critical
juncture, when the newly ascendant 'reformist national bourgeoisie'
was still groping for a definite orientation. A later document refined
this aim as one of reinforcing the positive tendencies of the martial
law regime while countervailing the negative :
When it entered into political settlement with the government
in 1974, the PKP emphasised that it was doing so with the end
in view of pushing economic, social and political reforms that
are favourable to the interests of the Filipino working masses.
It pointed out that its relation with the government is guided
by the following principle: 'As it has consistently done since
its founding, the PKP will attack, oppose, expose and condemn
every policy or program of government that, in whatever dis-
guise, strengthens the strangulation of the economy by foreign
monopoly capital, perpetuates the economic misery of the people,
continues to serve imperialist interests, or works hardship, oppres-
sion and exploitation of the working people'. It added that the
PKP 'will make and break alliances with any political group or
government or will support or oppose any 3govemment program'
based on the interests of the Filipino people. 1
This smart tactic apparently met W1`th difficulties. _An astute practi-
tinner of Machiavellian politics, Marcos could not be bothered with
admonitions from 'unarmed prophets'. Having coll ected the PKP's
guns and identified all its members, he knew he coold ignore its critic-
isms and advice. As the 1980 PKP congress sourly bewailed:
The government . . . failed to respond to the criticisms raised
by the PKP regarding the reforms. The PKP has since then become
increasingly outspoken in opposing government policies WW
actuations [sic] that led to the failure of the reforms, the growth
of corruption and the increased dependence of the country on
foreign monopoly capital 2
Even if the PKP failed to make the slightest dent in public policies,
it could still rationalise its action in 1974 on two pragmatic grounds.
First, the political settlement obtained the release of imprisoned
cadres, including Dr Jesus Lava. Second, it opened up the field of
legal organisation entirely to itself since the CPP and other leftist
groups were constrained by the continued suspension of civil liberties.

86
In fact, Marcos himself invited them to be actively involved in the
barangays (smallest political unit) and sangguniang rayons (Community
Councils). This would have been its precious chance to recover from
the splits, and it could have transformed these structures for mass
participation created by the régime itself into a means for exerting
pressures from below. But, alas, paraphrasing Machiavelli once more,
the goddess Fortuna despises a CP that lacks the Virtu to subdue
and dominate her! The PKP did not have enough competent cadres
to turn opportunities into political assets. .
. . .. . .. .

On balance, therefore, the cost of the political settlement far out-

weighed the benefits. The PKP never regained its pre-martial law
strength in many parts of central Luzon. In the trade unions, its per-
formance was more pathetic. It lost control of its own labour federa-
NE and tried to form another, which disintegrated soon after the
founding congress. Desperate for allies, the minuscule PKP-led unions
in the printing and gannets industries were forced to join an estab-
lished federation that they previously accused of racketeering.
When the PKP eventually broke with Marcos in 1980, it offered
the hand of friendship to other opposition groups: 'PKP is ready
to work with any and all groups in the continuing struggle against
imperialism and for the removal of all barriers to the realisation of
the popular will, national independence and social progress." How-
ever, none was willing to share the stigma that the PKP had earned
for itself. Even the rabidly anti»CPP Nagkakaisang Partido Sosyalista-
Demokratika fig Pilipinas (Soc-Dern) had a disparaging estimate of
the PKP: -

... the traditional, pro-Soviet [PKP] is heavily tainted with

disgusting subservience to the social imperialism of the Soviet
Union, and has irreparably compromised itself by collaborating
with the fascist Marcos regime.3 4
Discarded by Marcos and spurned by all opposition forces in the
Philippines, PKP has increasingly redirected its attention towards
international affairs, trying hard to impress the CPSU and pro-Soviet
CPs abroad with exaggerated claims of influence in the local revolu-
tionary movement. Its future is now rather bleak because discontent
and demoralisation continue to plague its ranks.

CPP's response to martial law

Whereas the PKP visualised the prospect of martial law as a catastrophe

to be avoided by restraining militancy, the CPP depicted it as the
inevitable consequence of the revolutionary upsurge. In the years

87
preceding its declaration, the CPP prepared the minds of people for
the impending emergency. It rehearsed its contingency plan when
Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus in August 1971. Thus,
martial law did not throw CPP into confusion.
Early in October 1972 the CPP Central Committee issued a directive
analysing the probable repercussions of martial law, defining the
tasks ahead, and prescribing appropriate steps. Unlike its old rival,
it urged heightened revolutionary activities: 'Despite what appears
to be the tightening of the situation due to the US-Marcos dictator-
ship . . . the entire country has been . `
for revolutionary seeding and growths
nate repression would drive thousagm of people underground, in
eluding those who were marginally associated with the movement,
it found an excellent opportunity to expand the NPA.
But the CPP also took great care not to repeat the PKP's mistake
in 1950 of pulling all cadres from the legal organisations and con-
centrating them in the armed struggle. The directive stressed the need
for clandestine members to maintain their legal covers and persevere
in the non-military arena. This prudent policy enabled the party cells
in Manila and other places to operate with minimum disruption. The
CPP's tactical objective in the early days of martial law was to keep
its mass followers active without unduly taxing their courage. Party
cadres in the universities, for example, devised subtle forms of protest
to feel out the boundaries of government tolerance. But these seem-
ingly puny gestures also preserved a sense of solidarity while the forces
of martial law were still on the offensive.
There was no dearth of issues to arouse bolder forms of protest
once people regained their composure: the wage freeze and strike
ban in the midst of rising inflation, the special privileges extended
to foreign capital, the attempts of private schools to raise tuition
fees, the spread of prostitution as the government promoted tourism,
the building of dams in sites sacred to ethnic minorities, the eviction
of slum dwellers, and so forth. Censorship also multiplied the efficacy
of underground newspapers as a medium for ventilating these issues.
The CPP took full advantage of every available opportunity, and it
had the personnel with the required sldlls and dedication.
To institute authoritarian rule in a country accustomed to elections,
political bargaining, due process of law and free expression of ideas,
the regime suspended the right of suffrage, disbanded all representative
assemblies, set aside the normal judicial procedures and silenced the
critical press. These actions in effect deprived a sizeable part of the elite
of a share of power. Politicians belonging to the two major parties
which had alternated in office since 1945 were displaced by teclmocrats
and military officers. The competitive system, which gave the Philip-
pines the semblance of democracy, gave way to government by decree.

88
 In this altered milieu the CPP was able to reach out to sectors that
were previously integrated in the power elite. It was the best moment
to create a united front. Thus, in April 1973, the CPP initiated the
formation of the National Democratic Front (NDF) with the object
of bringing together all forces hostile to what it called the 'US-Marcos
dictatorship'.36 The NDF has since become a country-wide apparatus
with branches in all provinces and cities. With the NPA as one of its
component organisations, the NDF is definitely a graver threat to
régime survival than the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
While the MNLF was militarily superior at the outset, it was always
confined to the Muslim provinces in the far south." Because of its
regional character, the MNLF at no time imperilled the seat of govern-
ment, whereas the NDF today makes its presence felt in Metro-Manila
and surrounding towns.
Despite its impressive achievements, the NDF has yet to become
a real united front because it consists almost entirely of party-led
mass organisations. Other revolutionary groups have stayed apart
and the few attempts to act jointly with them did not develop into
a lasting relationship for two main reasons :
1. its 'Ten-Point Programme' virtually echoes the CPP's political
lines, thus stirring up disputes over certain theoretical formula-
tions, and
2. its leading organ - the Preparatory Commission - is packed
with representatives of party-led mass organisations, thus pro-
voking fears in other groups that within its framework they
will have no meaningful participation.
But the new party leaders, supposedly more pragmatic than previous
ones, are said to be trying to curb these sectarian tendencies. According
to reports, the NDF is now revising the 'Ten-Point Programme'.38 If
the purpose of the exercise is to broaden the NDF and make it a
genuine united front structure, it may have to reconstitute the leading
organ as well. It is futile for the party to forge a 'united front' with
its own mass organisations. The objective should be to reunify what
is now a fractured movement. This is the logical next step to the
rectification process its founders initiated in 1967.

Development of people's war

Those who founded the CPP at the Pangasinan congress were very
young people. None of them belonged to the old party at the time
of its supposed 'liquidation Some joined just a few years before the
1967 split, and most were not even party members then. When its

89
Central Committee was* enlarged in March 1969 to accommodate
Dante's group, it included a lone veteran who was a middle-level cadre
of the PKP in the 1950s. Dante himself, like many of his sub-com-
manders, was only in his twenties when the NPA was formed. They
were recruited by remnants of the HMB long after the grand debacle.
The youthfulness of the CPP leaders was both their asset and liabil-
ity. It meant they were free from the bureaucratic habits that weighed
down the old party, and, more importantly, they were unaffected
by the hangover of defeat. But their youthfulness also meant they
had very limited experience in the Philippine revolutionary struggle,
making them dependent on the ideological crutches of Maoism. Con-
sequently, the rectification campaign negated the old party's right-
opportunist tendency, only to be replaced with an imitation of the
Chinese model, as this formulation of military strategy illustrates :
_ . . only by having stable base areas can the New People's Army
wage a protracted people's war. From these stable base areas,
it can advance wave upon wave against the enemy. By building
stable base areas to encircle the city, the biggest graveyard of
the enemy forces are created. It is here in the countryside that
the enemy becomes exhausted and defeated before the main
force of the New People's Army march in on the cities to seize
power, with the help of the workers in general strike or in general
uprising together with the urban petite-bourgeoisie 9
Following this manifestly Maoist formula, NPA concentrated its main
forces in northern Luzon, where a rugged mountain terrain and active
popular support made it look like an ideal site for the Philippine
Yenan. However, a powerful AFP drive during the first years of martial
law nearly shattered the backbone of the revolutionary army. This
and similar set-backs in the non-military field provided the impetus
for serious rethinldng on questions of strategy.
Today the NPA is not only stronger numerically but also more
sophisticated and original. While its doctrinaire propagandists may
continue rendering extravagant tribute to the 'universal truth of Mao
Zedong Thought', in practice it has truly indigenised the people's war.
In terms of years of combat experience it has already surpassed the
HMB, and because it has survived for nearly a decade and a half by
evading a frontal clash with the AFP and slowly building up its forces,
the NPA has been able to correct tactical flaws while evolving an
appropriate strategy.
Around the latter part of 1974 the CPP Central Committee revised
its initial perspective, discarding the idea of carving out a replica of
Mao's Yenan. The most authoritative presen_tation of the new strategy
is Amado Guerrero's Specific Characteristics o f PeopleS War in the
Philippines. The bulk of the book is a rehash of Maoist tenets, but the

90
chapter entitled 'Fighting in a Small Mountainous Archipelago' is
truly original and deserves serious study for the light it sheds on the
course the NPA has taken since the second half of the l 9'10s.
Guerrero enumerated three geographic features that define the
parameters of armed struggle in the Philippines: 'First, our countryside
is shredded into so many islands. Second, our biggest islands, Luzon
and Mindanao, are separated by such a clutter of islands as the Visayas.
Third, our small country is separated by seas from other countries."'* 0
In so many words but without baldly affirming a heresy, he concluded
that the concept of one liberated area from where the revolutionary
army would radiate its forces and eventually engulf the cities was
impossible to duplicate in the Philippines. His successors were even
more forthright. In a rare but extremely significant interview, the
present NPA leaders admitted deriving military ideas from Mao but
emphatically added that they have also learnt from Ho Chi Minh,
Vo Nguyen Giap and Le Duan of Vietnam, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-
Bissau, and other revolutionaries. 'We have no Yenan,' they said,
instead they have created several base areas scattered across the archi-
pelago.4 1
In his book Guerrero stressed that 'We have to fight within narrow
fronts. The war between us and the enemy easily assumes the character-
istics of being intensive, ruthless and exceedingly fluid'. Because the
territory is small and fragmented,
. . . itwould be foolhardy for the central leadership to ensconce
itself in one limited area, concentrate all the limited party per~
sorrel and all efforts there and consequently invite the enemy
to concentrate l'Jjs own forces there. It would have been fool-
hardy to underestimate the enelny's ability rapidly to move and
concentrate his forces in an island where communications are
most developed.4 2

Guerrero then explained the rationale for small, relatively mobile

bases in various parts of the country. Acknowledging that communica-
tions and transport are exceedingly difficult and risky in an archi-
pelagic terrain, he argued that it is impractical to direct and supply
the guerrilla fronts from a single centre. Each guerrilla front must
therefore be self-sufficient materially and autonomous politically.
To ensure that the dispersed guerrilla fronts would have the desired
political qualities, the CPP sent out its finest cadres - including mem-
bers of the Central Committee .-.- to lead the organising teams and
later to constitute the local party committees. As Guerrero said,
We must distribute and develop throughout the country cadres
who are sufficiently of high quality to find their own bearing
and maintain initiative not only within periods of as short as
91
 one or two months, but also within periods as long as two or
more years, in case the enemy chooses to concentrate on an
island 01° a particular fighting front and blockade it.'* 3
In this context, one can appreciate the concept of the NPA as a polit-
ical rather than a purely fighting force. For four to five years many
NPA soldiers tucked away their guns to perform regular political
work like any civilian cadre in the frontier areas. Not until the new
bases became sufficiently stable and enough civilian cadres were de-
veloped did they resume military work.
By decentralising, the party leadership virtually abdicated a powerful
instrument of control and allowed the regional party committees and
the party organs in the guerrilla fronts a wide latitude of autonomy.
The latter no longer needed to wait for instructions from above, but
they were encouraged to exercise utmost initiative in producing their
own resources and developing new methods of struggle. The central
leadership, however, retained the prerogative to lay down general
policies and set broad operational guidelines. Guerrero summed up
the new arrangement in the slogan 'Centralised Leadership, Decentral-
ised Operations'.
While the CPP was adapting to this new strategy, the level of NPA
activities sharply declined, giving the false impression that communist
insurgency was already under control.44 The AFP withdrew several
battalions from the NPA areas and deployed them against the MNLF
in Mindanao. Around 1981, however, the NPA units surprised every-
body by staging tactical offensives in different places, including those
with no previous record of communist insurgency like Samar and
eastern Mindanao.
Today the NPA claims to have guerrilla fronts in forty-three out of
seventy-two provinces. The AFIP's National Defence College estimates
that 20 per cent of the barangay have been infiltrated or controlled
by the NPA. PC Chief Lieut .-Gen. Fidel Ramos admits that all pro-
vinces have active NDF revolutionary committees. Last year the NPA
reckoned its own strength at 10,000 men, including 2,500 regulars.4 5
However, as argued earlier, a more meaningful index is the capacity
for mass mobilisation outside the guerrilla zones, particularly in key
urban centres and major towns. The NDF's accomplishments in this
field are even more spectacular.
1'
The decentralised structure has already demonstrated its merits.
In the first place, it enabled the CPP to attain a greater measure of
tactical flexibility. This factor is important in a country that is not
only geographically splintered but also divided along linguistic and
ethnic lines. Methods of politico-military work will have to vary from
region to region, from province to province, and even from one guerrilla
front to another. Lack of such flexibility was a prominent handicap

92
 l

of the highly centralised PKP. In the latter case, the leadership typically
issued detailed instructions to its branches on the basis of conditions
in central Luzon, a system that satisfied the unimaginative cadres but
provoked endless complaints from others.
Another benefit the CPP has derived from a decentralised structure
is the involvement of more cadres in political analysis and strategic
planning, thus preparing them for higher responsibilities. This partly
accounts for the remarkable resilience of the CPP despite the loss of
ranking leaders in the late 19705.46 Each time this happened, members
of the regional committees were simply elevated to national positions
with no visible signs of" discontinuity. The old PKP, by contrast, col-
lapsed once the first and second line leaderships were neutralised. The
abundant ineptitude of its current leaders is largely due to the fact
that they had been trained to obey, not to analyse situations and
formulate strategies.
These advantages of a decentralised structure ought not to blur its
dangerous implications from the standpoint of a CP. It could encourage
the rebellious ones to establish themselves as local war-lords and there-
by reduce the Central Committee into a powerless symbol. To date,
however, there has been no symptom of such a tendency. Regional
party cadres and NPA commanders have been reshuffled with no
instance of outright defiance. ... common ideology could be a suf-
ficiently strong centripetal force.
Due to the archipelagic nature of the Philippines, the only conceiv-
able way for the communists to seize power is by simultaneous insur-
rections in all the major islands. To achieve this capability, there has to
be an extended period for nurturing their forces in each island through
low-profile organising and educational work. As the Philippines has no
land bridge with neighboring countries (unlike the countries in main-
land Southeast Asia), they cannot count on external military aid.
They must procure material locally, which obviously is a slow and pre-
carious process. This fundamental difficulty explains the slow growth
of the NPA relative to the prodigious expansion of the CCP's non-
military organisations. Therefore, the end-game will most probably be
in the form of simultaneous insurrections combining military offensives
with decisive mass actions. Unless some colossal mistake halts or
reverses the current trend, it is not wild to speculate that the Philippine
communists will attain such capability before the decade ends. But
whether and when it will actually use this capability are political
questions that the CPP leaders themselves may not be able to answer
now. Unlike the PKP leaders in 1950, they are not so keen about
target dates.

93
Summary and reflections

I-Iege1's aphorism 'a party becomes real only when it is split' - cap-
-...

tures the paradox confronting the Philippine communist movement.

Monolithic unity has been an elusive goal, and the more ardently it
was pursued the deeper the movement sank in a morass of factionalism.
The old party was able to enforce 'iron discipline', but only so long
as it had a subservient coercive apparatus. In 1967, however, it pos-
sessed neither the power to coerce nor the ability to persuade. Led
by ageing survivors of a great defeat, who were more scared of the
past than inspired by a vision of the future, the PKP was thoroughly
drained of reality in the Hegelian sense.
There was, however, a prospect for regeneration represented by
a group of talented and energetic young intellectuals who joined the
party after the single-file period. In their concern for rectification,
they called for a critical review of the past. But the Lava clan and
their rabid supporters perceived this as a plot to discredit the previous
leaders. The Lavaists' reaction, in tum, aroused suspicions of trying
to manipulate the forthcoming congress in order to perpetuate dynastic
rule in the party. Instead of submitting the issue to general member-
ship debate, the Lavaists resorted to the old bureaucratic method of
manoeuvring at the top, hoping to impose their will on a servile rank
and file.
However the rectificationists refused to abide by a 'mechanical
majority'. Expelled from the PKP in April 1967, they formed a separate
CP in December 1968. Since their experience in the Philippine revolu-
tionary movement was then very limited, they turned to China for
inspiration
' and support, At the early stage of party construction,
Mao Zedong Thought provided their sole theoretical guide. All their
moves in the political and military fields were closely patterned after
the Chinese model.
The period 1970 to 1972 was crucial in the struggle between the
old and new parties. Two interrelated contradictions remolded Philip-
pine communism into what it is today. On the one hand, there was a
fierce struggle between the movement and the neo-colonial state,
and, on the other, an equally savage fight within the movement itself.
In the course of this, the CPP emerged as a force in national politics,
while the PKP dwindled into a puny sect tormented by continuing
dissensions.
Martial law further polarised these divergent trends. The reluctance
of the PKP leadership to resume the armed struggle completed the
alienation of its remaining militant elements. Once its ranks were
purged of dissenters, the PKP proceeded to negotiate a 'political settle-
ment' with the martial law regime. This cut off the old party from the
mainstream of the revolutionary movement without enhancing its

94
influence in the Marcos establishment. Now utterly ineffectual in
the Philippines, it has been specialising on international affairs.
The CPP, on the other hand, was thrust deeper into the political
underworld. Despite intensified repression and the withdrawal of
Chinese support, it continued gathering momentum. Its mass organisa-
tions have grown in size, ardour and political dexterity. Moderate
sectors, especially in the Catholic and Portestant clergies who had
illusions of achieving social refonrns through constitutional means,
have since gravitated towards the CPP.
The CPP-led NPA has spread out to more than three dozen guerilla
fronts in the major islands. In strictly military terms, however, the
NPA today may be deemed inferior to the HMB at its peak in 1950.
The Far Eastern Economic Review, citing unnamed foreign sources,
estimated that the NPA could not be more than 7,000 men, whereas
the HMB had at least 10,800 regulars when it embarked on its dis-
astrous bid for power. Moreover, the NPA today is contending against
an AFP that has grown at least six times since 1950, and the latter
is also much better equipped and trained.
However, the revolutionary potential of the CPP-led movement
should not be judged by the size of its armed apparatus alone. A
more meaningful criterion is its capacity for mobilising on a nation-
wide scale. On this basis, the CPP poses a graver threat to régime
security than the PKP in its heyday. Whereas the PKP-led Huk uprising
was confined to central and southern Luzon - its expansion teams
in northern Luzon, Bicol and the Visayas never got off the ground -
the NPA is now operating in forty-three out of seventy-two provinces.
NDF revolutionary committees are active in all provinces throughout
the country. If the current rate of expansion of NPA and NDF is sus-
tained, the CPP will have the capability of mounting simultaneous
insurrections by the end of the 1980s.
Notwithstanding its spectacular achievements, the CPP is beset by
serious problems the mishandling of which could reverse the tide,
It has been working within a schematic, oversimplified Maoist version
of Marxist social theory. Recent developments in the Philippines and
abroad (particularly in China) are baring the inadequacies of Maoism.
The CPP has yet to outgrow Maoism and evolve a Marxist perspective
that grasps the complepdties and peculiarities of the contemporary
milieux while reflecting the mode of consciousness and expressing
the aspirations of the Filipino masses.
Although it originated from a revolt against the Stalinist methods
of the PKP leadership, the CPP never chaff enged Stalinism itself. This
partly accounts for certain signs that the CPP has in fact inherited
the same tendencies that forced a split in 1967. Paradoxically, its
own history would attest that the CPP was most successful when it
did not follow the Stalinist style of work.

95
I.
 In 1970-72, for example, the CPP displayed tremendous vitality.
Its mass organisations attracted thousands upon thousands of young
people who were revolting against the authoritarianism of established
institutions. Without being ordered from above, the lower party organs
developed a rich repertoire of ideas and techniques of struggle. But
this heartening outburst of initiative and self-activity began to wane
in the early years of martial law, and dogmatism and sectarianism
reminiscent of the old party flourished. As a result, a number of very
good cadres who were drawn to the movement in 1970-72 subse-
quently dropped out. Most of them simply refused to be reactivated
after their release from prison, preferring instead to operate in revolu-
tionary groups independent of any party control.
The CPP's decision to decentralise vertically by granting broader
autonomy to its territorial subdivisions partially arrested this debilitat-
ing trend. The new structure sketched by Amado Guerrero, if applied
horizontally as well, could be the framework for reunification, because
it might be able to accommodate diverse tendencies rather Man impose
artificial uniformity in the guise of 'democratic centralism'. The party
has to find a format that would bring back the creative spirit of 1970-
72. Instead of acting like the command staff of a mindless army, its
Central Committee could then perform the essential task of integrating
and translating into broad policy guidelines the ideas that had been
thought out, debated and tested by the cadres who are directly im-
mersed in the everyday lives of the masses.
Maoism has ceased to be a positive force in the movement at this
stage. It, too, must be transcended through continuing rectification.
In fourteen years of struggle under the most trying circumstances,
the movement is already capable of this. It can already dispense with
ideological crutches. The CPP and other sect of that movement
have accumulated a wealth of experiences and insights to .aout
an appropriate strategic perspective for the Philippine revolution
within the general framework of Marxism.
In this process of rethinking, the independent Marxist groups have
much to contribute. Free from the rigidities of party discipline, they
have explored hitherto neglected dimensions of the Philippine political
reality. The party should treat their seemingly unorthodox positions
with respect, not with the haughty intention of converting them to
a predetermined 'correct line' but for the purpose of enriching and
sharpening the revolutionary outlook of the entire movement.
Liberation theology as it evolved in the Philippine context should
now be accepted as an integral part of the total Maridst tradition. It
has gone a long way from the idealist preoccupations of its original
exponents in Europe and Latin America. It has assimilated so much
of dialectical materialism since its Filipino adherents closely studied
revolutionary praxis. Having suffered from and responded to half a

96
 century of institutionalised brutality, the Filipino communists need
to rediscover the humanistic values of classic Marxism, which liberation
theology is bringing to the forefront.
The decision of the party to combat sectarianism within its ranks
and broaden the NDF is a development likely to advance the process
of rethinking. An NDF that embraces all organisations representing
the various left-wing tendencies will become the structure for con-
tinuing dialogue. If indeed it becomes that structure, the NDF will
eventually reunite a fractured movement on the basis of an indigenous
Marist ideology that draws the best from foreign sources and yet is
attuned to the objective and subjective conditions of the Filipino
people.
Although Filipinos to a large extent have overcome the anti-corn~
monist hysteria generated in the 1950s, they are still justifiably appre-
hensive about the possibility of experiencing repressiveness and bureau-
cratic controls, which characterise many socialist states today. These
odious features are not inherent in Marxism but the unfortunate
consequence of circumstances peculiar to their struggles for power
II and survival. There is absolutely no reason why the Philippine corn-
munist movement should identify itself with these distortions.
For this movement to earn the trust of the Filipino people, negative
propaganda against the basic problems of 'imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucratic-capitalism' is inadequate. Even its minimum programme
of 'national democracy' will hardly suffice. It has to come forward
with a Mar>dst critique of the bureaucratic and repressive distortions
of existing socialist states, explain their historical roots, and indicate
h_Qyr_ .the l2hili.p.pines might attain socialism without them. In other
. . . ... . . . . . .
. . . ... . . . .. . .. .

words, it is necessary for the vanguard party to spell out its maximum
programme. Its deliberate ambiguity on this subject has allowed its
countless detractors to portray the movement as a sinister conspiracy
of would-be dictators. The only way it can neutralise their scare tactics
is for the party itself to define in unequivocal terms the vision of a
humane, free and democratic society the movement aims to build.
US' imperialism, the military establishment and perhaps also the
church hierarchy will be the decisive factors in the immediate post-
Marcos rearrangement. Most probably they will try to restore con-
stitutional oligarchy. However, a restored constitutional oligarchy can
only have a short-run prospect. It was already floundering in 1972,
and the socio-economic changes that occurred under martial law
have further sharpened and deepened the contradictions within the
ruling class. In the forthcoming restoration these contradictions will
certainly recur in graver forms, and then another 'man of destiny'
will come forward 'to save the republic and reform society'.
What lies ahead of the Filipino people is a vicious cycle of repressive
authoritarianism and ineffectual constitutionalism. Unly a movement
97
with a socialist alterative can conceivably break this cycle. But such
a movement regime will only survive if it achieves power with a popular
support so massive and solid that Us imperialism and other reactionary
forces cannot prevail against it.

Notes

l . Luis Taruc was the commander of HUKBALAHAP during the

Japanese Occupation. When the PKP decided to resume the armed
struggle in 1948, he held a civilian post as secretary of the party's
National Organisation Department. But he continued to be the
public spokesman for the HMB, sporting the title of 'Huk Sup-
remo' (a non-erdstent position). Due to differences with Jose
Lava, Mateo del Castillo and Casto Alejandrino (the real HMB
commander), he surrendered in May 1954. He renounced com-
munism while in prison and today he is a member of the Batasang
Pambansa (National Assembly),
2. Pedro Castro, the leader of the National Tobacco Workers' Federa-
tion (FOITAF), was elected PKP secretary-general in 1946. But

_
he disagreed with the Central Committee on the policy towards
the national government. Deposed as secretary-general at the
Central Committee Plenum in 1948, he was subsequently expelled.
But he remained loyal to the communist movement.
3. CPP, 'Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party' (1968), and Report
to the Central Committee on Lavatre Propaganda for Revisforifsriz
and Fascism (Manila: Pulang Tala, 1971).
4. PB-PKP, 'Analysis of the Developing Situation _ , , Our Task'
(1950), and Renze L. Hoeksema, 'Communism in the Philippines:
A Historical and Analyticali i _ , m m _ . a_l * d the Com-
..,.,...............,._,_-...M

munist Party of the Philippines and Its Relations with Communist

_
Movements Abroad' (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1956),
pp.375-9.
5 . PB-PKP, 'The Overall Plan for Expansion and Development of
the Party, HMB and Mass Organisations' (1950) and 'Hasten the
Tempo of Our Organising Work' (1950). Interviews with Casto
Alejandrino, Luis Taruc, Peregrine Tame and Federico Bautista.
Officially known as Republic Act J 700 (J957).
6.7. Alfredo B. Saulo, Communism in the Ph zllippine5.' An Introduction
(Manila: Ateneo Publications Office, 1969), pp.69-'70, and
Conrado S. Sabelino, 'A Study of the Legal (or Parliamentary)
Struggle of the Communist Movement in the Philippines' (M.A.
Thesis, University of the Philippines, 1950).

98
 8. Interviews in 1961-64 with members of the Students' Cultural
Association of University of Philippines, who requested not to
be named.
9. This book was translated into Tagalog as Mga Saligan fig Len-
fnismo (Manila: Katubusan Publications, n.d.). It was used as a
textbook of the PKP higher party schools and a popular version
in catechetical format was used in the lower party schools. Old
PKP cadres still refer to Stalin's simplistic formulae whenever
they discuss strategic and tactical problems.
10. 'Retreat for Defence' was a tactical policy suggested by the
Chinese representative in the PKP Politburo but implemented
by Lava as his own, It dispersed the HUKBALAHAP units that
were encircled in Mount Arayat and their members were ordered
to try crossing the Japanese cordon individually. Several Huk
were captured and executed. For this mistake, Lava was removed
as secretary-general in 1944 and reduced to an ordinary Politburo
member.
11. This body was an expansion of the three~man Secretariat ap-
pointed by Jesus Lava before his capture. It was variously called
'Provisional Politburo', 'Executive Committee' and 'Working
Group'.
12. After the expulsion of Guerrero and his loyal supporters, the
'Provisional Central Committee' decided against convening a
congress. Instead it reconvened the members and alternate mem-
bers of the old Central Committee and co-opted new people.
13. Interview with participants who requested not to be named.
14. As for note 13 above.
15. Eduardo Lachica, Huk: Philippine Agrarian Society in Revolt
(Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1971), and Justus van der
Kroef, Communism in Southeast Asia (London: Macmillan Press,
1981).
16. Previously the PKP maintained links with Moscow through inter-
mediaries, that is, the Communist Party of the United States and
the Communist Party of China.
17. Mario Frunze, 'Marzdsm-Leninism and "Revolutionary" Quixot-
ism', Ang Komunista (February 1971).
18. 'Issues in the Ideological Dispute between Maoism and the Inter-
nationalist Movement', Ang Komunista (Special Supplement,
January 1972).
19. This charge is unfair. Jose Lava was preparing to go underground
when he was captured in October 1950.
20. CPP Central Committee, 'The New People's Army' (1969).
21. Alvin Schaff, The Philippine Answer to Communism (California:
Stanford University Press, 1955). See also Frances L. Starner,
Magsaysay and the Philippine Peasantry : Tire Agrarian Impact on

99
 _
Philippine Politics, 1953-56 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of
California Press, ¥96l), and Victor Lieberman, 'Why the Huk-
balahap Movement Failed', Solidarity (October-December 1966),
pp.22-30.
22. Edward G. Lansdale, In the Midst of War (New York: Harper &
Row, 1972); and 'Lessons Learned: The Philippines, 1946-l956'
in Alert 6-A (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1962).
See also Napoleon D. Valeriano and Charles T.H. Bohannan,
Counter-Guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience (New
York: Praeger, 1962).
23. This method of assessing the NPA apart from the total movement
led by the CPP is often used to belittle the prospect of a successful
revolution in the Philippines. One example is Philip Dion, 'Corn-
munism and Philippine Reality', Problems of Communism (May-
June 1982), pp.-43-8.
Interview with participants who requested not to be named.
For a vivid account of events in 1970-72, see Jose F. Lacaba,
Days o f Disquiet, Nights o f Rage: The First Quarter Storm and
Related Events (Manila: Salinlahi Publishing House, 1982), and
Ceres S.C. Alabado, [See Red in a Circle (Manila: n.p., 1972).
26. A good example was Edgar Jopson. Maligned by CPP activists as
a 'clerico-fascist' leader of the moderate National Union of Stud-
ents of the Philippines, he swerved to the left and became the
head of the CPP Mindanao Regional Committee. He was killed
in action in 1982.
27. I refer to the Supreme Court decisions in the Quasha case and
the Luzon Stevedoring case. Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, The
United States and the Philippines: as §'ludy o f Neocolonialism
(Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, l98l),

28. PKP Hof the Philippines Is a Truly Filipino

Part;/', Information Bulletin 15-16 (1976), pp.38-45.
29. Jose Lava, 'The New in the Philippines Orientation', World Marxist
Review (December 1977), pp.89-94.
30. PKP, 'The Philippine Path to Social Progress: Programme of the
PKP for an Independent and Democratic Philippines' (1977), p.96.
31. PKP, 'Political Resolution' (1980), p.84.
32. Ibid., p.8S.
33. Ibid.
34. NPDSP, 'Political Line of the Nagkakaisang Partido Demokratiko-
Sosyalista fig Pilipinas' (1979), p.5 .
35. CPP Central Committee, 'Tasks of the Communist Party of the
Philippines in the New Situation', And Beyer (12 October 1972).
36. 'The United Front', Southeast Asia Chronicle (May-June 1978),
pp.2-'7 a

100
41.
Dion, op. cit.

_
Newspaper reports on the capture and investigation of Horacio
Morales, alleged NDF chairman.
CPP Central Committee, 'The New People's Army' (1969).
Amado Guerrero, Specific Characteristics o f People's War in the
Philippines (Oakland, Calif.: International Association of Filipino
Patriots, 1979).
Sheilah Ocampo, 'The Communists' Growth Strategy', Far Eastern
Economic Review (21 August 1981). See also the interview with
Horacio Morales in the same issue.
42. Guerrero, op. cit.
43. Ibid.
44. Asiaweek (11 September 1981).
45. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1983 Yearbook (Hong Kong :
Far Eastern Economic Review, 1983).
46. Jose Ma. Sis of (alleged to be CPP chairman 'Amado Guelrero'),
Bemabe Buscayno (alleged to be NPA leader 'Commander Dante')
and Victor Corpuz (former lieutenant of the Philippine Con-
stabulaiy and instructor at the Philippine Military Academy
who allegedly defected to the NPA).

101
 COMMENTS

It is usual in histories of the communist movement in the Philippines

to emphasise the role played by foreign influences. In general, it
evaluation of communism as an alien rather than indigenous ideology
either states the obvious or affirms a theoretical bias. AH the dominant
ideologies in Southeast Asia today are alien to the region in the sense
that communism - even the Filipino 'nation' - is a product OT cOlonial'-
J ism. in order to understand the communist movement in the Philip-
pines, it is not necessary to study its origin. It is more important to
understand why Marxism has appealed to the insurgent sections of
Philippine society and how, like the ideology of the establishment,
it has been indigenised through proxies. In its broadest sense, this
perspective covers the process of nation-building and development
in which the new social forces and problems that are generated invalid-
ate traditional ideologies and prompt the adoption of ideologies more
relevant to their understanding. Often the process of modernisation
itself generates conditions that force a political response. For example,
the Kalingas, a tribal group in north Philippines, adopted Marxism in
the course of their revolt against the building of a dam to provide
electricity and are now one of the strongest units Of the NPA.
A close examination of the Philippine communist movement reveals
its roots in the indigenous culture beneath the Marxist verbiage. The
original PKP movement was an offshoot of developments in the trade
union movement, which in turn grew from the Katipunan movement at
the turn of the twentieth century. Attempts to form a radical workers'
party had therefore begun before agents started visiting

102
Manila. Unlike many CPs in the Third World the PKP was not the
handiwork of Westemised intellectuals s-- which explains why it de-
nunlulnmws it vetnent rather than an esoteric cult.
5 The Philippine movement also differs from the Thai and Malaysian
in that the Philippine branch of the CPC confined its activities to the
Chinese community and never attempted integration with Philippine
society or the PKP. JAfter its founding, it was the American cadres
of the Comintern who put the PKP in touch with this already existing
movement among the Chinese. Even during the Second World War,
the Chinese guerrilla organisation - often mistakenly depicted as a
unit of the Huk movement - took its orders directly from the Chinese
bureau or the local CPC branch. Until 1948, three seats in the PKP
Central Committee, one in the Politburo and one in the Secretariat
were reserved for representatives from the CPC Philippine branch.
This was discontinued when the CPC bureau supported the PKP fac-
tion, which opposed a resumption of armed struggle. Thereafter, the
principle that all non-Filipino communists in the Philippines should
submit to the discipline of the PKP was exercisin.l - as was the situation
in the rest of Southeast Asia.
Apart from intermittent links with the Chinese, Comintern cadres
played an active role in the PKP in the 1930s. Never attaining full-
membership status in the Comintern, the PKP was placed under the
tutelage of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUS) until
the crisis in the CPUS after the Second World War when the PKP
came under the CPC. When relations with China were severed by the
1948 decision, the PKP virtually isolated itself from the international
communist movement and, until 1960 or so, had no international
connections nor any form of foreign assistance at all. Contact with
the PKI in the early 1960s came to a quick end in 1965. Only in 1967
did the PKP establish direct relations with the USSR, receiving use
20,000 a year, which was barely enough to support its full-time cadres.
The CPP's initial political line and strategic perspective were almost
a replica of the ideology of the cultural revolution in China. While
it had been creating a mass base among peasants and workers, par-
ticularly in the post-19'75 period from which to launch its armed
struggle, its ideological perspectives have been and are undergoing
a process of indigenisation. This does not mean that the CPP has
consciously undertaken such an effort - on the contrary, its indigenisa-
tion has resulted from its local involvement and experiences among
the masses. Though it is true that material aid from China was a critical
factor in the early stages, that aid was in the form of financial assistance
and not in materials, as was the case for Thailand and Malaysia. Two
attempts to ship arms in 1972 and 1974 failed and, from 1975, aid
ceased altogether when the PRC cut its links with the CPP and the
NPA, and began cultivating closer relations with the martial law régime.

103
Broadcasts of NPA communiques on Radio Beijing were replaced
with favourable reports of the government's programmes. Despite
having possibly eight, but no more than twelve, of its NPA commanders
trained in China, the CPP at the 1975 Central Committee Plenum
proposed the deletion of the phrase 'Mao Zedong Thought' from the
name and documents of the party in favour of pursuing an independent
line similar to Vietnam's at the time, that is, befriending both the
PRC and USSR. The process of 'de-Maoisation' among the so-called
Filipino Maoists had therefore begun even before the downfall of the
Gang of Four, as the applicability of Mao Zedong Thought to the
Philippine milieu was increasingly questioned. Thus since 1975, the
NPA, deriving the necessary knowledge, partly by reading Mao's writ-
ings on military strategy but mainly by relying on improvisation in
practice, has emerged as a significant force in national politics and
has been totally self-reliant.
The significance of moral 01' psychological reinforcements from
overseas cannot be dismissed. For example, although the Philippines
has no relations with Cuba, the impact of the Cuban revolution on
the communist movement in the Philippines has been considerable.
Where movements are small or at an early stage of organisation (as
was the case of the CPP in the mid-l 960s), they typically identify
with and draw strength or direction from an external force or exemplar.
To a large extent, the contemporary Philippine communist move-
ment's survival is based on self-reliance. This clearly contradicts the
oft-made assumption that the Southeast Asia communist movements
survive because of external aid and, conversely, tend to collapse with
the withdrawal of such aid.
Another common conceptual error in analyses of armed communism
in the Philippines is the tendency to evaluate the armed component
of revolutionary struggles in isolation or as the crucial element.
In practice and theory there is no such thing as armed communism
as distinguished from unarmed communism. ma armed strategy of
the NPA is not to overthrow the present regime in the battlefield, or
to attempt to destroy the armed forces of the Philippines, _,._,," to
generate or reinforce mass mobilisation; outside the battle zones.
The armed struggle is therefore a proper U Ill . yes
as an inspiring symbol of the 'larger and more fundamental goals in
the political battlefield'. To gauge the progress of the movement by
the growth of NPA activities would therefore miss the point of the
impact, positive or otherwise, on the momentum of popular mobilisa-
tions.
The NPA currently consists of about 5,000 regulars and another
5 ,000 militia, engaged in guerrilla warfare against the 250,000-strong
armed forces of the Philippines. It is backed by a fairly dynamic mass
movement. The nature of the armed struggle in the Philippines is quite

104
different from the armed struggle in Malaysia and Thailand. Most of
the areas where armed struggle is going on, central Luzon for example,
are close to population centres End have no jungle or mountain re-
treats. Guerrillas live in villages and activity tends to be seasonal - as
their only retreat is to the sugar-cane fields, when the canes are tall.
In a fundamental modification of Maoist military doctrine --- although
this would not be admitted to readily - the NPA is working to build
up guerilla fronts in all the major islands and, around those, a mass
movement that should by the end .of the 19805 have the capability
to stage simultaneous mass uprisings in all the major islands. Although
the CPP justifies al] its innovations with Mao quotations, it is clear
that its experience has forced it to discard the Maoist strategy of rural
encirclement of the cities in favour of simultaneous insurrections far
better suited to an archipelago. The typically hierarchical structure
of the CPP was also modified around 1975, when the precepts of
archipelagic struggle were introduced. The Central Committee now
acts only when necessary, while day-to~day operations, planned by
regional committees, are based on encouraging those on the ground
to generate their own activities. The CPP has thus been able to achieve
a fairly high degree of tactical flexibility.
Of all the pro-Chinese groups that emerged in the 1960s, the CPP
is the only one that is still thriving. While many observers have noted
the increasing subscription to Marxism in the Church, others believe
that the CPP is possibly, as a result, becoming Christianised. If this
is correct, it will result in yet more adaptations of Maoism.
There is no doubt that the communist movement in the Philippines
has transcended considerations that concern sacrifices to any socialist
'fatherland'. It has strenuously adhered to the interests of its own
revolutionary goals, However, in anticipating a future in which it
can expect to be a serious contender for state power, party forecasts
imply that this eventuality is not likely to be in the immediate post-
Marcos era, but in the next decade.

105
 PART IV
SINGAPORE
The communist open united
front in Singapore, 1954-66
LEE TING HUI
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

'
This phase of activity by the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) m
Singapore between 1954 and 1966 has a special place in the history
of that party. One particular characteristic of CPM activities at that
time was its use of the united front tactic in the open and legal arenas.
| The CPM was founded in 1930. Since then, it has undergone various
periods of growth which can be differentiated according to the ways in
which the united front tactic was employed, that is, whether activities
through the united front were open or clandestine. According to the
CPM, the party has, since its inception, gone through four main periods
of growth: (1) 1930-41, (2) 1941-45, (3) I L " - 4 8 , and (4)
_

the present. The nature of the dominant united front activities

,. _ .
1.

during these periods is tabulated below.

Table 4.1
CPM United Front Activities, 1930-the present
Period Phases Nature Dominant
I 1930-41 (1) 1930-36 open/clandestine clandestine
(ii) 1936-41 open/clandestine open
2 1941 -45 open/clandestine clandestine
3 1945-48 open op en
4 1948-the present (1) 1948-54 open/clandestine clandestine
(ii) 1954-66*
(a) 1954-57 open/clandestine cland estine
(b) 1957-66 open open
(iii) 1966-the present clandestine clandestine
* Although this phase comprises two distinct tactical stages, the years 1954-66
are considered in continuity because all activities were devoted to the attainment
of the same sole objective, which is elaborated later in this paper.

109
 Before the Second World War, the CPM adopted Lenin's strategy
of urban insurrection in its attempt to seize power. However, during
the Japanese Occupation it followed Mao Zedong's strategy of 'the
countryside surrounding the cities and seizure of power through armed
struggle'. For the three years immediately following the Second World
War, the CPM resumed a peaceful urban struggle until 1948, when it
reverted to Mao Zedong's rural strategy. The Maoist armed struggle
launched in 1948 proved a failure within a few years. The return to
a peaceful struggle in 1954, in an attempt to share a platform with
its opponents, proved equally futile. Its opponents laid down the
pre-condition that the CPM dissolve itself before any of its members
were accepted as partners in the mutual quest for independence from
the British; this the CPM rejected. Nevertheless, the party was set
on a path of peaceful struggle even in the face of its enemies' armed
opposition H i existence. In Singapore, this state of affairs lasted
until 1966, when the party was forced to give up these urban activities
and carry on with an armed struggle. The phase of peaceful struggle
was not, however, directed towards assuming power via the ballot
box. As the strength of the party had been seriously depleted during
the latter part of the Second World War, the immediate aim of the
post-war period was to rebuild the strength of the party so as to be
able to resume an armed struggle. It was also hoped that peaceful
struggle would create the circumstances necessary for an urban insur-
rection and the capturing of state power. However, no such prospect
emerged during the period 1954-66, owing to the vigilance of the
government, and the peaceful struggle of that time became, from
beginning to end, only aN exercise in the rehabilitation of the ranks
of the movement.
There was a close relationship between the united front and the
method of struggle. The CPM's united front was a means to increase
the strength of the party and enhance the prevailing method of struggle.
There was another aspect to the relationship. In the case of Malaya, in-
cluding Singapore, the united front had to operate underground during
periods of violent revolution, and only came above ground when peace-
ful struggle was the chosen course of action. During -36, i s .
45, 1948-54, and at present, the clandestine rather than the open
sector of the united front was, and is, more important. From 1936 to
1941 open activities were possible and seemed to constitute an excep-
tion. However, during that time, the united front was directed more
against the Japanese rather than the British and, therefore, iwas per-
mitted by the latter to function in the open. The Japanese at the time
had invaded China, causing the CPM in Malaya to devote most of its
energies to promoting an anti-Japanese rather than an anti~British move-
ment. The membership of the CPM was largely Chinese. In 1945-48
and 1954-66, the main form of the united front was the open version.

110
 Between the two possible ways of operating the united front, the
CPM, as a principle, opted for the open approach. This was the choice
simply because this method brought about more results. If it ever
gave more emphasis to the underground rather than the open united
front, this was because of repression from its enemies. In times of
violent struggle, both sides hardened their attitudes. Therefore, the
united front had to be more clandestine. In times of peaceful manipula-
tion, antagonisms were less severe and the united front could come
above ground.
The communist movement in Singapore between 1954 and 1966
saw six stages of development. The first three were periods of growth,
and the next three periods of decline.
February 1954 to April 1955 saw the beginnings of the open united
front movement in Singapore. In February 1954, the British govern-
ment gave Singapore a new constitution, the Remodel Constitution, by
which it hoped to establish a new order, enjoying massive electoral
support in an alliance with a local political party, the Progressive Party
(PP), against the CPM. In order to implement the constitution, certain
freedoms had to be allowed, of which the CPM took advantage by
launching an open united front struggle. It exploited the resentment
of Chinese secondary school students against the British colonial
government over the imposition of National Service. Ng Meng Chiang,
the underground communist leader responsible for on-the,-spot opera-
tions in Singapore, created an open student movement that culminated
in the formation of the Singapore Chinese Middle School Students'
Union (SCMSSU). Labour disputes were also utilised and an open
legal trade union movement was fostered. The Singapore Factory and
Shop Workers' Union (SFSWU) and the Singapore Bus Workers' Union
(SBWU) appeared on the scene with open operatives. Lim Chin Siong
and Fong Swee Suan were in control. Then, giving support to certain
grievances of people liNing in the countryside, a peasant movement
was inaugurated through the Singapore Wooden House Dwellers'
Association (SWHDA). Finally, a political party that secured registra-
tion from the British government, the People's Action Party (PAP),
was formed with a group of Democratic Socialists led by Lee Kuan
Yew. Besides the PP and the PAP, the middle ground between the
British government and the CPM at the time included a number of
other political parties - the Democratic Party (DP), the Singapore
Alliance (SA), the Labour Front (LF) and the Singapore Labour
Party (SLP). Elections were held under the new constitution in April
1955. Both the British and the communists had expected the PP to
win, but the LF won instead. The leader of the LF, David Marshall,
assumed the position of chief minister and formed a government.
The British blushed aside their disappointment and soon prepared
to co-operate with the LF. The CPM viewed this party and the British
111
as enemies, and it therefore prepared to fight against both in the days
ahead.
While Marshall was chief minister the movement moved rapidly
forward. Strikes were widely promoted in the labour field so that
worldng men could be mobilised and organised into trade unions.
One strike at the Hook Lee Bus Company developed into a forcible
showdown between strikers and the police, which led to serious rioting.
Properties were damaged and lives were lost. The British authorities
wanted to use troops as well as the police to deal with the communists,
but Marshall stopped them. Marshall, at the same time, settled the
dispute in favour of the busmen. At that time, there was also a conflict
between employees and management of the Singapore Harbour Board.
Arising out of this, in the month following the Hock Lee disturbances,
large-scale sympathy strikes were staged by members of the SBWU
and other large organisations. these occasions, again, the British
wished to deploy sizeable forces to curb the communists and have
many of them arrested. But Marshall once more refused to co-operate
fully. He made only some token arrests and had the detainees released
or tried in court after oNly a short period. Regardless of Marshall's
behaviour, the readiness of the British to use force was clearly per-
ceived by the CPM. Consequently, instructions were soon given to
cadres to restrain extremism to avoid unnecessary sacrifices.
The SFSWU was the most important of all the left-wing trade unions.
Between 1955 and 1956, this organisation achieved an impressive
growth in membership. The communists next took steps to create
a unified command for all the unions. By 1948, when the CPM rose
up in arms against the British, a state of Emergency had been pro-
claimed in the country. A set of regulations, called the Emergency
Regulations, was drawn up to contain the communist threat. Marshall,
after assuming office, replaced the Emergency Regulations with a new
set of security laws, chiefly the Preservation of Public Security Ordin-
ance. The communists launched a protest campaign against the change
and in the process created the Singapore Trade Unions' Working Com-
mittee (STUWC), which assumed overall leadership of the left-wing
trade union movement. Marshall's party, the LF, also had a trade
union base - the Trade Union Congress (TUC). The STUWC made
efforts to assimilate the TUC.
In the Hook Lee incident, the strikers were massively supported
by students whom Marshall attempted to punish by closing two of
the leading schools - the Hwa Chong and the Chung Cheng. When
the students protested, Marshall backed down, reopened the schools
and appointed a committee of the Legislative Assembly to investigate
the problem of Chinese education. He later registered the SCMSSU,
which was a great Rectory for the open student movement.
A newcomer amongst the peasant organisations of this period was

112
the Singapore Farmers' Association (SFA) which, together with the
SWHDA, formed a joint committee to promote the welfare of rural
residents. Other mass movements that made an appearance only after
the general elections were a cultural movement, a women's movement
and a hawkers' movement. Included in the first were four types of
organisations: old boys' associations, fine arts societies, publishing
and educational bodies. Such organisations flourished and steps were
taken to bring them under a centralised control. TE ._ '

rent expressed itself in a Singapore Women's Federation (SWF) and

a Women's League in the PAP, and the hawkers' _ i
Singapore Itinerant Hawkers' and Stallholders' Association (SIHSA).
Also, after the general election, the PAP set up many branches and
engaged in a spirited drive for membership.
The extremist methods of the communists in the Hook Lee and
the Harbour Board incidents made the Democratic Socialists or non-
communists in the PAP apprehensive that government retaliation,
besides descending on the communists, would also come down on
them. In order to safeguard themselves they gave, for the first time,
clear public expressions of the fact that they were different from the
communists and did not subscribe to their line. They also prevailed
on the communist group not to field any candidates for the Central
Executive Committee election of the PAP in 1956, in other words,
not to have a share in the leadership of the party. The non-communists
were intent on using the communists as tools for their own purposes.
In its common front with the British authorities against the CPM,
the LF was a junior partner, a situation that Marshall found distasteful.
During his term of office, Marshall sought, first, to improve his status
within the framework of the Remodel Constitution and, second, to
provide for Singapore d new, improved constitution. He succeeded
in the first task but failed in the second, whereupon he resigned as
chief minister. The obstacle to the second was essentially the British
insistence that in g new order, as maintenance of internal security
in Singapore, vital in combating the communists, must remain in their
own handiae a demand Marshall refused to accept. The communists
gave full SUppOrt to Marshall in his twin struggles since Marshall's
victories would Nina.; better opportunities for the communist move-
ment to develop.
Lim Yew Hook, also from the LF, succeeded Marshall as chief
minister in mid-1956 and served for three years. During this time, he
twice attacked the communist movement, but the movement recovered.
The first offensive was mounted in September to November 1956.
Altogether, he arrested and neutralised 300 communist activists (in-
cluding Lim Chin Siong), and banned nine organisations and five
publications. The affected organisations were the SWF, the SCMSSU,
the SWHDA, the SFA and five cultural bodies. As a follow-up early

113
the next year, he deregistered the SFSWU. The elimination of the
leftist leaders and the prescription of organisations and publications
ended - or seriously crippled for the time being - the open women's
movement, the student movement, the peasant movement, the cultural
movement and even the workers' movement. After the SCMSSU was
closed and student leaders punished, the students of the two leading
Chinese schools camped in the school grounds for a prolonged period
to protest against the government's action with strong backing from
the workers and others. After some time, Lim Yew Hook had them
dispersed from t school grounds. This resulted in rioting all over
the island. This time, disturbances were more widespread and intense
than in 1955. There was greater damage to property and more lives
lost. Along with punitive action, Lim Yew Hock opened two govern-
ment Chinese schools and encouraged the formation of a large number
of small trade unions to draw students and workers away from the
influence of the CPM. The student and the trade union movements
were the two most important movements in the communist open
united front struggle.
This disaster made the CPM review its policies and situation. It
was found that the reason for the debacle was left-wing adventurism,
the main error being the focusing of attacks on Lim Yew Hook, who
was not the chief enemy, instead of on the British. The comrades
were told not to repeat this error. In its review, the CPM decided that,
for the security of cadres deployed in the open legal front, the Free»
dom News (FN) and the Singapore People's Anti-British League (SPA-
BL) must be disbanded. The FN was a party newspaper, which was
published and circulated clandestinely, and the SPABL was a secret
mass and united front organisation. It was also decided atNgMeng
Chiang should relinquish control of on-the-spot operations in Singapore
in favour of another comrade, Fong Chong Pik.
The communists soon rebuilt most of the mass movements. In 1957,
a Singapore General Employees' Union (SGEU) appeared to take the
place of the SFSWU. A new STUWC, with thirty-two affiliates, was
organised and at once resumed a course of subverting the TUC. The
Lim Yew Hock government~sponsored rural society, the Singapore
Country People's Association (SCPA), was infiltrated. As a Chinese
university, the Nanyang University had been opened in 1955, the focus
of the open student movement now shifted from the secondary schools
to this institution, where the Nanyang University Students' Union
(NUSU) was soon formed. In the PAP, a new propaganda organ was
set up to lead in the reconstruction of the cultural movement. Both
the Wolnen's League and the branches of the PAP registered progress.
In late 1957, Lim Yew Hock purged the communist movement
again. Scores were arrested: trade unionists, leaders of the PAP from
the communist group, and newspapermen. The STUWC had continued
114
to try to assimilate the TUC. The communist group in the PAP at
this time had nearly succeeded in capturing the leadership of that
party from the non-communists. Lim's assault on the communists
was a response to these two challenges. However, his attack on this
occasion, unlike in the previous years, was limited to persons and x
did not touch organisations. Unlike in 1956, too, this time there was
no retaliation from the communists, and there were no mass disturb-
ances and riots. On the part of the CPM, the policy of restraint was
sustained.
For the remaining duration of Lim Yew Hock's chief ministership,
from late 1957 to mid-l959, the left~wing trade unions continued to
progress steadily with an eye on the TUC. Another rural organisation,
the Singapore Rural Residents' ,Association (SRRA), was penetrated.
A step was taken to bring Nanyang University and University of Malaya
students together. The second university was an Englislvmedium
institution founded in 1949 and which admitted students mostly
from English secondary schools. The communists created a good
number of student societies on the Nanyang campus. Meanwhile,
the PAP set up many new branches. Although from mid-1956 to
mid-1959 the united front in the PAP broke up, it was later renewed.
From 1956 to early 1957, the communists, as against the Demo-
cratic Socialists, regained a minority representation in the central
leadership of the party and made an attempt to get the other group
to accept a new constitution for the PAP. This would enable them
to gain majority seating in the central leadership, and, as seen, secured
dominance in a newly formed central propaganda organ in the party.
In the footsteps of Marshall, Lim Yew Hock negotiated with the
British government for a self-governing constitution for Singapore.
This he achieved in early 1957. The proposed new constitution aimed
at building up a tripartite alliance of the British, the Malayan and
the Singapore governments against the CPM. Particularly important
was the suggestion to create an Internal Security Council, made up
of representatives from these governments, to deal with the communist
problem. Lee Kuan Yew participated in the talks and agreed to accept
the proposed new constitution. The communists abhorred tiNs. By
now, however, Lee had already made up his mind to break company
with them and so disregarded their feelings. Marshall sensed this fissure
in the erstwhile united front and moved to step into Lee's shoes. He
attacked the proposed new constitution, which pleased the com-
munists, and offered to fight Lee Kuan Yew in a byelection in the
latter's constituency to test the kind of new regime the electorate
wanted for Singapore. Marshall estimated that the CPM would jettison
Lee and change course to work with him. However, the CPM was not
yet in a position to dispense with the service of Lee. Therefore the
mass organisations were not instructed to switch support to Marshall.
115
As he could not count on sufficient votes to win, Marshall subsequently
withdrew from the electoral contest. During the byelection, the com-
munists offered Lee Kuan Yew assistance. Lee rejected the offer,
however, wishing to demonstrate the point that he was not dependent
on them for mass support, he won the by-election.
In the latter part of 1957, there was an election for a new Central
Executive Committee of the PAP. Both the communists and the non-
communists manoeuvred strenuously to seize I majority of seats in
this body. The first group prepared for the eventuality that, if they
failed in the venture, they would leave Lee Kuan Yew and form a
new united front political party with a different set of Democratic
Socialists. The fight ended in a tie, with each side winning six seats
in the twelve-seat body. In face of this, Lee and his close associates
refused to take up the leading positions in the committee, posts that
they had occupied in the past, to avoid becoming a mere cover for
the other group. The opponents, thereupon, assumed those positions
themselves. This together with the fact that the STUWC was trying
to assimilate the TUC, as observed, led Lim Yew Hook to purge the
communist movement a second time. After the purge, the entire
Central Executive Committee of the PAP returned to non-communist
hands, who at once proceeded to institute measures to secure the
committee against further CPM encroachments.
By this time, there were signs that Lim Yew Hook and Lee Kuan
Yew were coming together, which would have been disadvantageous to
the CPM. Marshall was also forming a new political party, the Workers'
Party (WP). To prevent a link-up between Lim and Lee, the CPM
decided to utilise Marshall and the WP to drive a wedge between them.
Consequently, men were infiltrated into the WP, which thereby became
a tool of the communists to carry out the mission.
In 1958, Lim Yew Hock, Lee Kuan Yew and others again went to
London to finalise talks on a new constitution for Singapore. Before
Lee's departure, Fong Chong Pik met him on several occasions and
re-established a united front with him on conditions of co-operation
that seemed to favour Lee more than Fong. Among other things, Fong
had to give up using Marshall and the WP against Lee. Fong accommod-
ated Lee for the sake of longer-term and larger interests.
After Lee had returned to Singapore, but before the general election
held under the new constitution in the following year, he did a number
of things that were detrimental to the communists. For example, he
insulated further the central leadership of the PAP from penetration
by the communists, through malting them ineligible to vote in or
stand for election to this leadership. Fong put up no opposition. By
this time, one of the political parties, the Partai Rakyat (PR), also
had communists among its membership. When the elections came,
they wished to stand in constituencies where there were also PAP

116
candidates. The CPM, however, required them to withdraw SO as to
demonstrate sincere co-operation with Lee Kuan Yew.
In 1958, the British .government gave Singapore a new constitution.
A year earlier, as part of the basic strategy for decolonisation, it had
given the island as more democratic iiiunicipal authority - the City
Council - which had the responsibility of administering the downtown
area in the city. At first, Kully nominated body, then it
became partially elected; and in 1957 it was made fully elected. After
the change, there" "8'ii Eb"t"i5lii. '"Tl'O°i'inerly, this authority was domin-
ated by the PP. Because it was expected that the LF would win the
elections, the PP merged with another right-wing party, the DP, into
the Liberal Socialist Party (LSP) to fight the LF. The battle was won,
however, not by the LF or the LSP, but by the PAP. The LF lost
because of Lim Yew I-Iock's purges of the communist movement and
his inability to solve social and economic problems properly or even at
all. The majority of the population in Singapore were Chinese-speaking
and the poorer classes. Part of the 1957 reform secured a larger and
more effective participation by this group in voting in the election.
They opted for the PAP. In the following year, there was a byelection
in one of the wards of the City Council. The LF and the LSP formed
a common front against the PAP by fielding a joint candidate to fight
it. The PAP won again, however.
The new constitution, which Lim Yew Hook had secured for Singa-
pore, was implemented in mid-1959. A general election was held.
The Ina in contenders for power were Lim himself and Lee Kuan Yew.
Lim had by now formed a new political party, the Singapore People's
Alliance (SPA), comprising former members of t , the LSP and
the WP. The SPA was defeated by the PAP, Lim Yew Hook lost again
because he was even more distant from the people than M 1957. In
addition to previous shortcomings, his administration was shown to
be corrupt. In contrast, the City Council under the PAP had brought
many benefits to the people. Both the British and the CPM found
the PAP victory acceptable.
The .first two years of the PAP in office saw the two wings of the
party, the non-communists and the communists, repudiating each
other. When the party assumed power, each side knew that a parting
of ways would finally come. The non~communists immediately adopted
a number of measures to build up their defences. An attempt was made
to persuade Tunku Abdul Rah ran to let Singapore merge with the
peninsula into one country. As the leader of the ruling political party
in Malaya, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the
Tunku could then assume sole responsibility for dealing with the
communists in Singapore, thereby sparing the non-communists from
having to eliminate them and thus losing electoral support. The base
of the UMNO was the Malay population in Malaya, whereas that of the
117
 PAP was largely the Chinese-spealdng Chinese in Singapore. The CPM
at the time had great influence over the people. Lim Chin Siong and
his immediate followers were released from jail, but were subjected
unrest to

'industrial
various restrictions. ]Lim's group had utilised
organise workers Was trade unions. Limitations were now put on
strategy. 'je, the two groups moved in harmony in a
drive to rationalise and unify all the trade unions on the island, but
was finally halted. A People's Association (PA), which carried
out activities among the masses, and a Works' Brigade (WB), which
provided employment for unemployed youth, were organised as fall-
backs in case the communists withdrew mass support for the party .
Early in 1960, a split occurred within the ranks of the non-com-
munists. Lee Kuan Yew's leadership was challenged by Ong Eng Guan,
who had been Mayor of the City Council and had built up extensive
mass support for the party through the administration of that author-
ity. Ong was expelled from both party and government, but in April
1961, won a byelection in his constituency against a candidate from
Lee's group, Hong Lim.
In his tussle with Lee, Ong appealed for the support of Lim Chin
Siong and his followers. The communists chose to support Lee rather
than Ong. However, in exchange, they wanted Lee to make the British
abolish the Internal Security Council or to grant Singapore independ-
ence, both of which would present better opportunities for them to
carry out their activities. Lee resisted the pressure .
By the time of the Hong Lim by-election, Lee Kuan Yew and his
group had decided to break with the communists regardless of the out-
come of the by-election. In the face of this, Lim Chin Siong drummed
the theme of left-wing unity, but Lee refused to listen. Instead, Lee
stepped up his efforts to get Turku Abdul Rah ran to accept Singa-
pore's merger with Malaya. By now, the idea of merging Singapore
with Malaya had widened to merging these with British possessions
in Borneo. The new country was to be called Malaysia. Tunku Abdul
Rah ran showed interest in the new concept, which made Fong Chong
Pik apprehensive.
After the Hong Lim by-election Lee Kuan Yew announced that
his party would resign from office. This made the Turku fear that if
Lu were to go, the communists would come in, and the communists
i feared that a .. .. .t-wing party would replace the PAP. The Turku
'inclined

L
became more towards accepting a merger. The communists,
for their part, persuaded Lee to remain in office hut wished him to
let them share in decision-maldng in the party. For instance, the merger
enterprise was undertaken without them having been consulted. At
the same time, in the event of Lee's resignation, they prepared another
group of non-communists headed by Dr Lee Sieve Choh to step into
his shoes and take over the government. Lim Chin Siong sounded

118
out the British to see if Dr Lee would be acceptable to them.
In May 1961, Fong Chong Pile had a meeting with Lee Kuan Yew
and questioned him on the proposed merger. Fong suggested that
both Lee's idea of merging Singapore with Malaya and his own idea
of getting the British to allow Singapore to become independent on
its own be dropped. Only the abolition of the Internal Security Council
should be pursued. He also requested various freedoms be allowed,
so that he would have greater opportunities to build up his various
mass movements. Lee Kuan Yew made no commitments.
Later that month, Tunku Abdul Rah ran made an announcement
to the world press that he was interested in the forming of Malaysia.
Following this, Lim Chin Siong and others issued a public statement
to demand that the PAP fight for the abolition of the Internal Security
Council. In exchange Lim would give mass support to Lee in a by-
election scheduled for the Anson constituency. (The assemblyrnan
for that ward had just died.) In reply to Lim, Dr Toh Chin Chye, a
non-communist and chairman of the PAP, declared that the party
would pursue a merger. Then Lim made a further statement that
various freedoms already mentioned by Fong Chong Pik to Lee Kuan
Yew in their private meetings should be allowed. At the same time
as these statements and counter-statements were being issued, the
communist group in the PAP first told Lee Kuan Yew that he must
consult them on the merger proposal. However, when these talks
proved unsatisfactory, the group attempted to force Lee to step down
as prime minister in favour of Dr Toh or another leading non-com-
munist, Dr Goh Kong Swee. Failing this, the whole Lee cabinet should
resign in favour of Dr Lee Sieve Choh and his friends. This was also
ignored. The Anson by-election came in July, Marshall challenged the
PAP non-communist candidate. The communists mobilised all their
mass organisations to support Marshall, and won the fight. Although
the non-communists monopolised the Central Executive Committee,
the communists had control over most of the party branches. After
the Anson by-election, Lim Chin Siong's group tried to get Lee Kuan
Yew to face the PAP branches in a meeting. Simultaneously, they
tried to persuade as many PAP Legislative Assemblymen as possible
to side with them and abandon Lee Kuan Yew. They also had another
meeting with the British to confirm that Lee Slew Choh's group could
take over the government from Lee Kuan Yew's group.
Lee Kuan Yew refused to have a conference with the party branches.
Instead he called the Legislative Assembly into session and requested
it to vote on a motion of confidence in his government. The motion
was carried, with Dr Lee Sieve Choh's group of PAP Assemblymen
abstaining. Lee Kuan Yew dismissed Lee Slew Choh, his associates
and a number of other -L We®arty. These and other
left-wing PAP members formed a new political party of their own, the

119
Barisan Sosialis Singapura (BSS). The BSS clamoured for a general
election to be held, but was ignored. The united front between the
non-cormnunists and the communists in the PAP thus came to an
end.
As in the PAP, so in the various mass organisations, the non-corn-
rnunists and the G0mlnaaist.s.. a.t.t';rst worked together but finally split.
During the time of co-operation, the various organisations 'became
more unified and also achieved numerical growth.
Immediately upon coming into power, the PAP took steps to unify
the trade union movement. This consisted of dissolving all small unions,
having the rest regrouped into a limited number of categories each
represented by a federation, and finally getting the federations to be
affiliated to a reorganised TUC. The second part of the effort had
only just begun when in May 1960 the non-communists stopped it
on discovering that control over the communists was not certain.
Between mid-1959 and mid-l96l, the unions managed to get a larger
percentage of the working population on the island to become mem-
bers. Membership growth was the most remarkable in the SGEU. In
July 1960, after the two wings in the PAP had separated, the govern-
ment dissolved the TUC. Following this, the communists together
with some of the Middle-of-the-road unions on the one hand, and
the pro-PAP unions on the other, each organised their respective new
central leaderships. "these were the Singapore Association of Trade
Unions (SATU) and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).
.-up . = . . . .
FL: :H
S
S within SATU also secretly formed a Worldng
Committee amongst themselves so as to better influence and control
SATU.
In the peasant field, the SCPA and the SRRA attempted to promote
unified action between themselves by setting up a joint committee.
After the PAP split, they aligned themselves with the BSS. In the
hawkers' movement, the SIHSA also increased in size after the PAP
had come into power. Later, due to schisms, some leaders left this
organisation and founded an Association of Singapore Hawkers (ASH)
and a Hawkers' and Petty Traders' Union (HPTU). After mid-1961,
the SIHSA lined up with the BSS, and the HPTU with the PAP.
In the student field, there was an effort to bring together Chinese-
stream and English-stream students in all the tertiary institutions. A
central organisation for all students was planned and a joint committee
of various political societies in the institutions was formed. In the
cultural movement the important events were the appearance of the
Guild of Nanyang University Graduates (GNUG) and the National
Union of Journalists (NUI), which, after mid-1961, opted to follow
the BSS.
The PAP rnernbership increased with its rise to power, and soon
it had fifty-one branches. The great exodus of left-wing members

120
following the split enabled the BSS to begin its activities with thirty-
three branches. The PR grew in size and after mid-l961 also gave its
support to the BSS.
The BSS was a united front between communists and non-com-
munists, the former led by Lim Chin Siong and the latter by Lee
Slew Choh. The two groups co-operated on much the same grounds
as Lim and Lee had done previously in the PAP. After the Org-Lee
rift had developed in the PAP, the CPM decided also to utilise the
PR as a united front weapon against the PAP.
Between mid-1961 and the end of 1966, the CPM was preoccupied
with two tasks. One was to send cadres away from Singapore to escape
impending capture and the other was to strive to prevent the process
of merger, during which the movement was severely decimated .
The purpose of the communist struggle was to accumulate strength.
If, however, a merger and Malaysia came about, there would be destruc-
tion. Therefore, cadres sought refuge mainly in Indonesia. This with-
drawal exercise was a drawn-out affair but most cadres escaped. The
movement in Singapore was thus deprived of adequate leadership,
which bred disunity .
The campaign to stop the merger and Malaysia concerned a dis-
agreement over the terms of the merger. The PAP and the UMNO
offered one set of terms while the :BSS countered with another. In
essence, the PAP and the UMNO position sought to enable the latter
to assume sufficient power to purge the communists in Singapore
while leaving the dominance of the PAP in Singapore unaffected
by the ascendance of UMNO in the Malay peninsula and vice versa.
The BSS advocacy, on the other hand, aimed not only to preserve
the CPM in Singapore but sought also to oust the PAP in Singapore
and the UMNO in Malaya.
After the PAP and the UMNO solution was finalised, it was put
before the Singapore Legislative Assembly and endorsed. The PAP
felt that Legislative Assembly approval was an insufficient vindication
of its stand and. therefore went one step further to ask the people to
state directly in a referendum what type of merger they wished to have.
The communists knew that they would lose in the referendum and
proposed instead that the people should show their feelings through
Gallup polls. The PAP and the communist movement manoeuvred
extensively to mobilise support for the referendum and polls battles.
Especially important, in the ease of the PAP, was a series of radio
talks by Lee Kuan Yew. These aimed to expose the CPM's utilisation
of the open and legal front for its machinations and convince the
people that the terms of merger it was offering were the best obtain-
able. The communists, on their part, tried to paralyse the two mass
bases of the PAP -- the PA and the WB - by getting their staff to go
on strike, but this move was thwarted by the PAP. The communists
121
also sought to promote industrial unrest among both Chinese-speaking
and English-spealdng workers, which was countered by PAP unions
using the strike weapon to draw workers to their side and by police
action. At this time, the communist trade unions remained the stronger
of the two groups of unions. Next, the communists tried to stir up ill
feelings against the PAP over an issue that concerned Chinese second-
ary schools. At this time, Chinese secondary education consisted of two
parts, three years Lower and three years Higher Secondary. Govern-
ment policy was now converting this to four and two years to fall
in line with practice in the English-medium schools. The change was
regarded as interference in Chinese education, and there was sub-
stantial discontent when the first Lower Secondary IV examination
took place, in accordance with the reform. The communists urged
students to boycott the examination as a mark of protest. The cam-
paign, however, was prevented by the government. An attempt among
Cheese secondary students to restart the open movement. which had
become extinct with the death of the SCMSSU, ultimately failed, too,
The communists next tried to make the Chinese Chamber of Com~
rnerce fight the PAP over the terms of merger on which the Singapore
electorate obtained Malaysian citizenship. This manoeuvre also led
nowhere. Finally, the BSS teamed up with four opposition political
parties in the Legislative Assembly to oppose the PAP.
During the referendum on the merger most people voted for the
PAP. Gallup polls were conducted by the communists before the
referendum in the two most important PAP constituencies Lee
.--

Kuan Yew's and one other. The polls registered a result against the
PAP. The victory of the PAP in the referendum was therefore a great
morale booster when viewed against the party's previous failures in
the Hong Lim and Anson by-elections.
During the course of these struggles and before the referendum
and the gallup polls, Lim Chin Siong had also sought a personal meet-
ing with Tunku Abdul Rah ran on the merger issue, but he was re-
fused.
Because of the referendum results the communists were forced
on to the defensive. They therefore made certain adjustments to
strengthen the unity between SATU, which was rw4 .. I -.»

and unions that were not, in order to meet the PAP onslaught. They
also exploited yet another grievance over Chinese education, namely,
the decreasing enrolment in Chinese primary §c'liooIS. At this time,
it was uncertain whether the PAP or the commuNist movement was
stronger. Because of this, a byelection that was due in Sembawang
was not held.
As the proposed merger of Singapore with Malaya included the
suggestion that the two territories be united with British possessions
in Borneo to form Malaysia, the conflict in Singapore widened to

122
include all interested political parties throughout the proposed Malaysia
and even in the Malay archipelago. Aligned with the PAP, the UMNO
and the British were groups supporting the formation of Malaysia.
With the communist movement were forces opposed to such a project.
Two vast warring camps came into existence. The left-wing parties
throughout the territories concerned held two conferences in Malaya
to forge greater unity among themselves. As a socialist party, the PAP
attended the first of the meetings but was expelled from the fraternity.
The two camps even went all out to gain the support of the Afro-Asian
countries. mum cember 1962, one unit in the left-wing camp, the
Partai Rakyat of Brunei, took up arms to seek redress. Another mem-
ber in the same camp, Indonesia, declared that it would confront
Malaysia and the Philippines, yet another unit in that alliance also
came to the assistance of the Partai Ralf/at. The response of the con-
tending alignment was to meet force with force. As a consequence,
in February 1963, the communist movement in Singapore was badly
mauled. This had far greater consequences for the CPM than that
suffered in the 1950s. On previous occasions, most personnel elimin-
ated by the government were only members of the various open organ-
isations, for instance trade unions, and not simultaneously CPM mem-
bers. This time, however, a great number were actual communists.
This deprived the open movements of adequate leadership.
The federation of Malaysia was proclaimed on 31 August 1963.
Following this, Indonesia stepped up confrontation and declared a
'Crash Malaysia' campaign, which brought terrorism to Singapore.
Then Singapore held a general election in which the two in air con-
tenders for power were the PAP and the BSS, the PAP won. As a
government, the PAP had already to some extent solved the social
and economic problems on the island. The previous downward trend
of the PAP as manifested in the byelection defeats in 1961 had been
arrested by the 1962 referendum. The election triumph further streng-
thened the position of the PAP.
Immediately after the elections, the central government of Malaysia
proceeded to wind up the communist movement. First, student leaders
in the Nanyang University were arrested. This evoked protest among
the students, who criticised the government both for its security
actions and for proposing the reorganisation of the university in an
attempt to change the Chinese character of the university. Eventually,
the government managed to defuse the movement. A complete end
was also put to the peasant and hawker movements. Finally, the con-
frontation moved to the labour field. The seven most important trade
unions in the SATU group, including SATU itself, had been served
with notices to explain why they should not be deregistered. SATU
decided to try to stop the deregistration, and mass demon titrations
by students and former members of the banned peasant and hawker
123
organisations were planned. The government met the challenge by
having a number of union leaders arrested, the strike declared illegal,
and pickets dispersed by the police. The seven unions were deregistered
and SATU was also told that its application for registration was re-
jected.
From 1964 to 1966 the communist movement was plagued with
disunity. Chen Hook Wah, a CPM member, took charge of the com-
munist movement from Fong Chong Pik, because the latter had fled
to Indonesia. On the issue of the government requiring youths to
undergo National Service, there was dissension between Lee Sieve
Choh and Chen, whose view prevailed. Fong, however, agreed with
Hint and gave ructions to the movement to follow Lee, which
assuaged Lee's m a and Lee returned to the BSS. A campaign to
boycott the call-up was then launched, leading to street demonstrations
and a large number of people being arrested by the police. Not only
did the boycott fail to earn support from affected young men but
the initial conflict between Chen and Lee, and then Chen being cor-
rected by Fong, resulted in a great deal of confusion among the rank
and file in the various organisations.
After the federation of Malaysia had come into existence, a great
conflict broke out between the PAP and the Alliance Party, each
trying to undermine the other's influence in its respective home teni-
tory. The communist movement also became involved in the conflict
and was thoroughly divided. A leader in the left-wing trade unions,
supported by some members of the CPM, advocated that Singapore
should secede from Malaysia to avert further struggle between the
two. Opposing him was Lee Slew Choh who, with the support of
other members of the CPM, proposed that Malaysia should instead
be crushed. CPM headquarters backed Lee and so the dispute was
resolved, although it had bewildered many in the movement .
On 9 August 1965 , Singapore left Malaysia and became independent.
Lee Slew Choh refused to recognise the island's new status, declaring
it to be phooey. CPM headquarters supported him as did most in the
communist organisation, except Lim Chin Siong.
After this, the question arose as to whether or not the left-wing
should continue to operate within the parliamentary system. On the
issue of whether or not to boycott future elections, Lee Slew Choh
and the top leadership of the CPM opted for a boycott, but some
communists who were members of the Central Executive Committee
of the BSS or of the Legislative Assembly considered the policy unwise.
Moreover, as Lee Slew Choh had not discussed his stand with the BSS
branches he was attached by some for being undemocratic. The trade
union opinion was split. When the new parliament rnet, Lee Sieve
Choh persuaded all BSS representatives to boycott the sittings. CPM
headquarters considered him right in doing this. However, the decision

124
caused those who had disagreed with him - either on recognising
Singapore's independence or on the idea of boycotting future elec-
tions - to resign from both parliament and the BSS. The trade unions
were again divided. Because of the BSS MPs who had resigned from
parliament, by-elections had to be held. Lee Sieve Choh persuaded
the BSS to boycott these elections, and the CPM headquarters agreed.
Eventually, Lee Sieve Choh had the rest of the BSS MPs resign from
parliament. Henceforth, the BSS was committed to extra-parliament-
ary struggle. Although this decision was supported by CPM head-
quarters and almost the entire communist movement, some of the
MPs who resigned never visited the BSS again, which was an indication
of their break with Lee Sieve Choh.
In the 1965 by-election in the Hong Lim constituency, only the
PAP and the BSS took part. The PAP won, which further confirmed
that, since the 1963 general election, the BSS had been losing more
and more support. §(The Alliance Party of Malaysia, for its own reasons,
had given support to the BSS to ensure the defeat of the PAP, but
the PAP still won.)
' The government continued to wind up the open student movement
in the tertiary educational institutions. In 1964, a Nanyang University
Student Fellowship and a 'Pro tem Committee' were set up as a rival
to the NUSU and the GNUG. Later on, a Democratic Socialist Club
also appeared in the University of Singapore to rival the Socialist
Club. In the same year, an agreement was reached to reorganise Nan-
yang University. One important item allowed for increased government
representation in the University Council. Opposition from the NUSU
and other interested quarters led to the government arresting a con-
siderable number of student leaders. The students then went on a
hunger strike. This lasted for a few days and resulted in the government
expelling nearly a hundred students, including almost all who were
arrested earlier. Arther student agitation was also defused and the
NUSU was suspended.
In 1965 the university authorities issued new regulations to govern
the management of the remaining student societies to prevent CPM
manipulation. Strong protest from these societies was overcome. An
Economics Society was formed to rival the communist-dominated
Social Science Society. Later in the year, also as part of the reorganisa-
tion programme, recommendations were made for changes in the
curriculum, including the closure of three departments, the University
degree structure and staffing. This again aroused a protest from stud-
ents, who claimed that the recommendations would anglicise the
university, and from those of the now-closed departments. The Vice-
Chancellor, who tried on a number of occasions to explain the recom-
mendations to the students, was physically attacked. Nearly a hundred
students were dismissed, which led to a boycott of classes lasting for

125
more than three weeks. Eventually, the police broke up the boycott,
and student leaders called a halt to the agitation. In this campaign
the students had; received extensive assistance from the other parts
of the communist movement.
One year later, when the prime minister opened a new university
library, which had also been part of the reorganisation programme,
left~wing students seized the occasion to renew their agitation. There
was a demonstration at the opening ceremony and a continuing protest
movement. The university authorities responded by dismissing sixty
students, which again led to a boycott of classes. More students were
dismissed and a number were detained by the police. Finally, the
disturbances died down and classes were resumed.
As well as Nanyang University, another place with a communist
open student movement was the Ngee Ann College. At the end of
1966, recommendations were also made for this institution to be
reorganised. This antagonised the student population. Their objections
were that the college would not immediately develop into a university,
as promised when it was founded, and that more English instruction
was to be used. A protest campaign was launched, including a boycott
of examinations and classes, a camp-in, and two marches to the prime
minister's office, during the second of which there was a clash with
the police. The police eventually dispersed the camp-in and arrested
more than a hundred students. Also, nearly a hundred students were
expelled and the college union was dissolved. When the trouble was
over, classes were resumed.
In the labour movement, the communist unions continued to lose
members to the NTUC unions and their strength had shrunk to only
slightly more than a third of that of their rivals. Central union leader~
ship was constantly broken up by the government. When SATU was
aborted, a Worldng Committee replaced it. After some time, this gave
way to a Fireman Committee, which in tum gave way to the Singapore
Trade Unions Liaison Secretariat (STULS) in the demonstration against
National Service. In later }aga. ,spigg§ of the members of this body
were arrested while the rest went underground. A few months later,
a new STULS was created and half a year later, following May Day
celebrations, this body was again crushed. A Welfare Committee soon
appeared, which was afterwards substituted by a Singapore Trade
Unions Working Committee (STUWC). This group was involved in the
disturbances in Nanyang University and had to into hiding.
attempt to start another STUWC with self-appointed leaders failed.
Some kind of organisation replaced it in due course.
In the cultural movement, it was the school alumni who were pun-
ished. In 1964, to restrict their ability to foment trouble, the alumni
were required to prohibit membership to people who were still students
or who had not yet started worldng life. In 1965 when they involved
126
themselves in a big way in the student agitation in Nanyang University,
the government deregistered eleven of them.
From mid-1966, the communists who had earlier fled Singapore
began to return to the island. Their mission was to go from Singapore
to the Malay peninsula to help restart the armed struggle. In practical
terms this signified the end of the open united front struggle in Sing-
apore.
The present policy of the CPM emphasises 'the countryside sur-
rounding the cities and seizure of power through armed struggle'
method of revolution as against all other methods. This being so, the
united front functions in a clandestine manner. ._..

It is therefore not by; choice but because and legal oppor-

tunities are denied it that the CPM resort to underground and illegal
united front operation. In fact, even the rural strategy of seizing power
is itself an unavoidable option. If possible, the CPM would prefer to
operate in the open and take advantage of the law. This preference
is easily explained: it is much easier to build up strength and expand
through legal and open channels. Hence, whenever and wherever such
opportunities arise, the CPM would use them. Therefore, even when
the basic strategy is Maoist warfare, open and legal activities will be
pursued wherever possible.
It has been explained that between 1930 and 1936 CPM activities
were clandestine rather than open but from 1936 to 1941 the reverse
was the case. The change came about because in 1936 an anti-Japanese
movement could be launched without interference from the British
government and this afforded abundant opportunities for open and
legal work. During the period 1945 to 1948, too, attention was focused
on the open and legal arena because the British government tolerated
it. From 1954 to 1966 legal and open activities again took precedence
over the clandestine and the illegal, as another instance of the utilisa-
tion of freedoms accompanying the constitutional transformation
begun in earnest by the British government .
For the moment, there are indications of CPM intentions to take
advantage of every open and legal opportunity that presents itself.
Sometime in 1976, a party directive to underground organisations,
which was recovered, incorporated this renewed emphasis in the con-
tinuing struggle :
Carry out all forms of struggle to co~ordinate with the armed
struggle directly and indirectly. Take underground organisations
as the key link while malting use of the open and legal ones;
concentrate on the workers and peasants while extensively uniting
with people of other walks of life, and place emphasis on the
countryside while attaching importance to the towns, factories
and enterprises.

127
COMMENTS

The communist movement in Singapore, essentially an extension of

the CPM, has always operated within the context of a larger political
reality. The ideology of the post-war nationalist demands for consti-
tutional freedom - first as an island-colony under the British, then
as part of the Malaysian federation from 1963 - faced a very different
situation after the separation from Malaysia in August 1965. As else-
where, nationalist concerns in the post-colonial period overwhelmingly
centred around internal developments in self-government and political
infrastructure, utilisation of resources and economic independence, and
establishment of social justice in the country. These concerns, together
with rapid changes in the immediate post-war and post-independence
periods, particularly the emergence of an export-oriented economy
and industrial growth highly responsive, and hence vulnerable, to the
priorities and fluctuations of the world economy, so increased the
variables affecting the environment that the revolutionary formulations
of the CPM have been unable to adapt. The present movement includes
remnant underground organisations such as the Malayan National
Liberation League and the Malayan National Liberation Front, each
consisting of only a few members, in total amounting to about 100.
The high point of CPM activities in Singapore began in 1954 when
open united activities were made possible with the freedoms and rights
that were granted in the transitional period prior to self-government.
Political parties and trade unions could be openly constituted and
organised, and these could serve as united front platforms. In Singapore
the communist movement of the 1950s and l960s consisted of a proxy

128
political party - the People's Action Party (PAP), later, the Barisan
Sosialis Singapura - and trade unions, student, peasant, cultural
and women's organisations. The defeat of ' movement began in
the 1960s when the non-communist faction of the PAP succeeded
in gaining leadership and control of the united front effort to acceler-
ate the end of British colonial rule. The PAP has remained in power
since 1965. In the initial tussle for power, the PAP faction led by

_
Lee Kuan Yew rode t . . . . in the one hand, and on
the other co-operated with the British in negotiations for a new Sing-
apore constitution. This included the Internal Security Council, com-
prising representatives from the Singapore, Malaysian and British
governments. The Internal Security Council was specifically set up
to deal with the communist movement in Singapore, it also undertook
a Leninist-type campaign of political consolidation, also in the service
of non-communism.
In Singapore there was an urban political equivalent of the pre-
occupation with and emphasis on land reform in rural areas in other
Southeast Asian countries in the post-colonial period. This is evident
because 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the population own their own
homes under the public housing policy launched after independence.
This fact, of a property-owning working population, in a society where
mobility and educational access have thus far been rapidly on the rise
has, to some political analysts, invalidated the existence or appeal
of a mass communist movement in Singapore.

129
 PART V
THAILAND
,
The revolutionary strategy of
the Communist Party of
Thailand: Change and
persistence
KANOKWONGTHANGAN
CHULALONGKORN UNIVERSITY

Introduction

Recent developments in regional politics and the domestic environ-

ment in Thailand, resulting in significant strategic losses for the Com-
munist Party of Thailand (CPT), have produced doubts and uncer-
tainties regarding the persistence of its existing rural Maoist strategy,
and its 3 .. . m in tactical mobilisations on oral and,
particul' so"f, urban fronts. Recent publicity and statements by govern-
IT

Rx"
\
1

ment and counter-insurgency officials have portrayed the CPT as a

greatly weakened and disintegrating force, unlikely to constitute
a serious threat to the domestic socio-economic order in the foresee-
able future. Admittedly, amidst the now-publicised intra-party con-
flicts, the continuing debates and splits on ideological lines, and the
problems of adjusting to the strategic losses of external support from
and via neighbouring Indochinese countries, the CPT is obviously
assuming a much lower profile than that of the late 1970s. However,
as is being suggested in this paper, there is evidence to indicate that
the CPT has been reviewing its ideological and organisational settings
and is in the process of adapting its revolutionary strategy, and especi-
ally tactics, to the altered conditions inhibiting the progression of
its national-democratic revolution in Thailand. On the basis of the
observable direction in which such changes are occurring, this paper
will discuss the existing problems and prospects of the CPT's revolu-
tionary strategy and tactics in contemporary Thailand.

133
 I

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My 1: Location of the CPT's base areas

o an guerrilla zones in 1977

Base area Guerrilla zone

Source
.co
'Gas _ I
-@% _'

'The State of the CPT Revolutionary

Movement between 6 October 1976
-Q
/

.I
and 20 October 1.977', Internal
Southern Region / I"*J Security Opera sons Command.
3,000 PLAT Soldiers Bangkok, 77 January 7978).

Source: 'The State o? to; §__iRevo1utionary Movement between

6 October 1976 and 20 October 197'1F; Internal Security
Operations Command (Bangkok, 1 January 1978).

134
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(
,._)
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Northern Region
4,430 PLAT Soldiers ~»
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1,870 PLAT Soldiers I

350 PLAT
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Map 2: Location of the CPT's base areas

w and guerrilla zones in 1978

1]
K
Base are a

u
5 .- Guerrilla zone
90

95 Source: _._ ___ * _ _ _

-Q 'The State o f the CPT Revoiurionary

Southern Region f' Movement irr 1978; Infernal
/ /*J Security Operations Command
4,500 PLAT Soldiers
(Bangkok, 1'Jarruary, 1979,'

Source: 'The State of the CPT Revolutionary Movement in I978',§

Internal Security Operations Command (Bangkok, 1 January
1979)

135
Recent set-backs for the CPT

During the years 1977-78, CPT activity was at a peak, having spread
to fifty-two out of the seventy-two provinces in Thailand. At that
juncture, some observers were even ready to concede that the party
had moved beyond the preparatory defensive stage of its revolution,
and that it was poised to move on to the next, stalemate, stage of
actively confronting government troops and seriously eroding govern-
ment legitimacy. However, the 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Kampu-
chea constituted a major strategic set-back for the CPT. Its sanctuaries
in Vietnam and Laos were withdrawn and this necessitated an evacua-
tion of CPT training schools, hospitals, supply stockpiles and personnel
stationed in those areas. Additionally, the main external supply line
from China running through Laos was abruptly terminated. These
set-backs effectively forced the CPT to relinquish its permanent base
areas in Tak province, Chiengrai province and in the north-northeast
sector.
This sudden halt in momentum was further aggravated by the his-
torical intra-party p1'o~PRC and nationalist schism revived by the
changed PRC attitude of friendly relations with the Thai government
in the wake of the Vietnamese action. Coinciding with this was the
controversy stirred up by the much publicised 'return from the jungles'
of progressive intellectuals and former students who took refuge with
the CPT after the bloody military coup of October 1976. Equally
well publicised were disclosures by CPT 'returnees' of disagreements
within the CPT itself on a variety of issues. These ranged from the
pro-Chinese bias of CPT leadership and the continued viability of
the CPT's singular reliance on a rural Maoist strategy to contentions
over specific points of theoretical understanding. As a result of these
disputes, the validity and persistence of CPT leadership, ideology,
and revolutionary strategy and tactics are being seriously questioned
and challenged, by student and intellectual sympathisers in particular.
The continuing triclde of defectors is seen as an indication that these
conflicts over ideology and strategy within the party have yet to be
resolved. Internal and public debate further question the adequacy
of the CPT analyses on the semi-feudal, mi-colonial nature and
dynamics of Thai society, given the tremendous socioeconomic
changes over the last twenty years, notably the incursions of capitalist
development in contemporary rural Thailand. However, while con-
tinuing doubts and disagreements challenge the applicability of the
CPT's avowedly Maoist strategy of Thai society, the notion of the
universal truth of Marxism-Leninism underlying the CPT's ideology
is neither called into question nor dismissed. More recent criticism
by detectors and concerned outsiders also conforms to this pattern.
In an immediate and adaptive response to the mounting debate

136
over its ideology, and the Eorresponding challenges to the viability
of its rural maquis strategy, 'the CPT issued a call to its members in
the early 1980s for a study and evaluation of various aspects of its
revolutionary formulations.*F The CPT's adoption and launching of
a rura1~based strategy of protracted warfare in 1961 and 1965 respect-
ively, while fashioned after the revolutionary experiences of China
and Vietnam, were also directly engendered by the urban counter-
insurgency campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s. They were undeniably
responsible for ensuring the party's survival despite the virtual decima-
tion of urban activities, and US aerial bombing in the northern base
areas during the Indochina war. However, the emergent ideological
and strategic reappraisals of the 1980s now favour a correcting of
the twenty-year lapse in both urban mobilisations and now-vital urban
supply lines. Accordingly, the 4th Party Congress, reportedly con-
vened in June 1982, confirmed the CPT's armed revolution employing
the Maoist strategy of a 'people's war' with revolutionary bases in
rural areas, with an increased significance on urban-oriented tactics.
While the 1982 party resolution indicates a continuity in revolutionary
strategy, it also reflects an adaptation in line with the changed assess-
ment of the increasingly capit alis characteristics of Thai society.
Notwithstanding shifts in its political analyses, the CPT will obviously
continue to regard armed struggle as an inevitable and crucial expres-
sion of popular movements towards its objectives.
In order to evaluate the potential persistence of the CPT's revolu-
tionary strategy, and by implication its national objectives, it is neces-
sary to understand their analyses of the nature of Thai society on
which the strategy is formulated, and hence, the socioeconomic
dynamics from which it derives. But first, and equally necessary, is
an assessment of the strategy and effect of Thai counter-insurgency
programmes aimed at eradicating both the CPT and the sources of
the communist threat to the nation.

The evolution of contemporary Thai counter-insurgency priorities

Counterinsurgency undertaldngs from the immediate post-war period

of US involvement in the Vietnam war were an extension of US-Thai
so-operation in the overall war effoH.2 As US involvement in Indo-
china deepened, such counter-revolutionary campaigns in Thailand
were successively upgraded and eventually institutionalised, with the
setting up of a centralised command network in Bangkok in 1965.3
The Communist Suppression Operations Command, later known as
Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), emphasised 'hard'
military policing to deter and eliminate CPT and other left-leaning
137
 activities and sympathisers.4 It was similar to that oi- the US pro-
gramme in South Vietnam. As the Indochina war escalated, these
Sbecame intensely ideological, lpresageful of
right kill left ethos that culminated in the October 1976 coup.5
The strategy behind such containment measures portrayed communists
as those intent on destroying national institutions, and communist
sympathisers as those misled into allegiance because of their lack
in material welfare. In the 1970s the thrust of the Nixon Doctrine
of a diminished US presence in Southeast Asia, together with the
final withdrawal of the US from Indochina, led to a substantial de-
crease in US materiel support and aid to Thailand. This 'forced' a
shift towards a more self-reliant national counter-insurgency pro-
gramme which had, till then, been heavily dependent on US financing
and direction.6
A growing number were dissatisfied with the ineffectiveness and
increasingly poor results of the "hard" approach of Thai containment
policies, in particular the staff and associates of General Prem, then
commander of the 2nd Army. They were therefore given the oppor-
tunity to introduce an alternative approach that took into account
the socio-economic correlatives that induced and supported the per-
sistence and growth of the CPT and other radical groups throughout
the l9'70s. The practical experiences of this group in rural operations,
which exposed them directly to the roots of rural problems and dis-
affection, and the fact that the 2nd Army was somewhat removed
from the perceptual biases of the competing clique interests of Bang-
kok politics that obviously dominated ISOC operations, also greatly
influenced the evolution of the concepts and priorities contained in
the 1980 Order.'7

The communist threat redefined

current assessment of the underlying threats to security in Thai-
land is spelt out in Prime Ministerial Order No. 66/2523 adopted
on 23 April 1980.8 Popularly dubbed prime minister Prom's 'Struggle
to Defeat the Communists' policy, the 1980 Order incorp orates many
of the previously censored views of Thai society and politics that had
emerged and gained legitimacy in the successive aftermaths of the
October 1973 civilian overthrow of the Thanom regime, the withdrawal
of US involvement in Southeast Asia by the mid-1970s, the October
1976 military coup, and the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea in
1978. Whereas all counter-revolutionary programmes since the post-
war period had emphasised the threat to internal security posed by the
existence of the CPT, and liberal and left-wing agitation and demands,
i

138
the 1980 Order advanced that the major underlying threat to stability
in Thailand resulted from the absence of a democratic régime in Thai-
land. According to this new theory, it is the conditions perpetuated
by dictatorial rule in Thailand - such as economic exploitation, cor-
nuption, narcotics abuse and crime - that sustain the existence of
cornmundst and other insurgent groups.
According to Lt. Gen. Harn Linanon, a proponent of the changed
perception and leader of the Democratic Soldiers Group (DSG), which
is the main supporter of the 1980 Order :
The contemporary political problem in Thailand is the presence
of a dictatorial regime or a regime which represents only a minor-
ity, leaving the majority of the people at a disadvantage . . . _10
The dictator and the land capitalists endanger the society, officials
are delinquent and special privileges abound. Freedom and liberty
are limited by the existence of a deceptive dictator. The society
is under the influence of foreigners and a foreign enemy threatens
our .. .

When a society is ruled by a dictatorship, it will be corroded by

the influence and power of the dictator and become weak and
unstable. If the people resist and fight dictatorial power and are
suppressed, the society will move towards upheaval. If the people
are strong, rioting, insurgency and guerilla we will emerge. In
short, problems of freedom and democracy weaken political
stability in Thailand. Eventually, these conditions will lead to a
change of régime being effected by the comlnunists.1 2
Implicit in the foregoing views is the recognition of nascent civil war
in Thailand. Prior to the l9'73 civil uprisings, such an admission, par-
ticularly at official level, would have been unimaginable. Similarly
couched pronouncements and literary sentiments from liberal and
left-wing opposition to the increasingly pervasive denials of popular
interests and freedoms through dictatorial repression were then severely
censored and suppressed. 0111 this point of view, the changed per-
ception of internal problems in Thailand not only contrasts with the
previous one but legitimises, and even shares, several assumptions of
radical left-wing and CPT critiques of Thai society. The similarity
between I-Iarn's analysis and CPT thinking on the exploitative interests
prevailing in Thai society has been attributed to Prasert Sapsoonthorn,
a member of the CPT Central Committee who defected. Observers
believe Prasert is the 'brain' behind the DSG led by Ham. The DSG
is a gathering of military personnel who uphold the view - also held
by Prasert - that the most important cause of instability, particularly
the problem of insurgency, is the absence of democratic rule in Thai-
land. Prasert has strongly maintained that a victory over the CPT can
139
be achieved by bringing about democracy in Thailand.13 Similarly,
Ham believes that the CPT's stated objective, of initiating a demo- I
cratic revolution in Thailand through a civil or national war under its I.g
leadership, can only be preempted by eradicating the grievances that 3 I
could encourage such an eventuality.1 4
Although the stated objectives of both the 1980 Order and the CPT
are for the establishment of democratic rule in Thailand, the govern-
ment and the DSG believe that the CPT will not stop after winning
the 'race' .for leading the democratic revolution in Thailand, but will
continue to advance towards a socialist revolution that will place
the country under communist rule, an eventuality unacceptable to
both the government and armed forces. Therefore, in proposing that
the armed forces assume a leading role in supporting the democratic
movement in Thailand, the 1980 Order contains the proviso that :
The separation of ideas within the democratic movement, par-
ticularly the interest in the victory of the democratic revolution
by the proletariat, is an important contemporary situation 5
While the democratic priorities of the 1980 Order continue to receive
wide-ranging criticism and have yet to be supported by the whole
counter-insurgency establishment, another area of contention con-
cerns the 'homecoming' policy of welcoming back CPT defectors.
First started by the Kriangsak government in 1978, this policy has
been continued by the Prem government in Order Nos. 6612523 and
65/2525. The latter Order contains a clear directive to all government
personnel and agencies to encourage returnees to consider participation
in the national development and political process. This particular
prong of the present counter-insurgency programme is especially
relevant, given the continuing conflicts and ideological disillusionment
within the CPT, However, the credibility of this welcome-back policy
has yet to win the recognition and confidence of recent and potential
defectors.
Part of the suspicion stems from the fact that the policy directive
still awaits an official consensus. It is hardly surprising that returnees
are cautious about the persuasions for political involvement, given
the conflicting and divided perceptions within the counter-insurgency
establishment on the issue of returnees. One view holds that defections
are prompted by ideological or personal conflicts with the party.
Hence, to take advantage of such disaffection, returnees should be
given the chance to live, work and actively participate within the
existing system. The opposing view, prevalent among ISOC personnel,
holds that 'returnees' have not left the party, but have been instructed
to return to 'the town' with specific revolutionary tasks. While this
view is supported by evidence that the CPT intends to expand its

140
activities in urban areas, it probably also reflects the vested interests
among such personnel for the continuation of counter-insurgency
progrannnes, especially on urban fronts, `given the decline in CPT
rural activities. These internal clique disagreements are a prevailing
obstacle to a coherent and co-ordinated counter-insurgency programme
directed towards the sources of instability in Thailand, as outlined
in the 1980 Order.
`"°" summary, an assessment of the relative successes of the new
counter-insurgency approaches cannot be made from the number or
extent of Royal Thai Government (RTG) victories in physically ex-
terminating or flushing out CPT base areas or activists, nor from the
number of returnees from the jungle. However an assessment can be
made on the basis of progress made in socioeconomic development,
political reform and the dismantling of the corruption that seems to
endemic within the Thai bureaucracy and continues to plague
efforts towards such goals. To put it differently, the implementation
of these policy priorities is more important than the policy directive
itself. »= W

The CPT's theoretical analyses of Thai society and the 'foes' of its
revolution

The CPT's call for a national-democratic revolution is derived from

its analysis of Thailand as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society subject
to exploitation by imperialists, feudalists and bureaucratic capitalists,
and to suppression by reactionary ruling class interests. Essentially
its revolution is geared to the seizure of state power and the establish-
ment of a democratic régime under CPT leadership in order to advance
towards socialist revolution in Thailand .
The processes that are seen to have conditioned Thai history and
resulted in the present contradictions are described in the Statement
of the Central Committee on the 30th Anniversary of the party on
l November 1972:
In the past one hundred years, imperialist expansion caused
Thailand to be transformed from a feudal society into a semi-
feudal society step by step. The foundations of a "natural" or
self-sufficient economy were gradually destroyed. Even though
national capital was stimulated to expand in conjunction with an,'
expansion of a commodity (commercial) economy, imperialism;
and feudalisrn prevented and suppressed that expansion. The
feudal exploitation of peasants by landlords still dominated the
mainstream of the economy. Imperialism controlled the heart

141
 of the financial economy, politics and military of the country
through dictatorial state power, the big landlord class and bureau-
cratic-capitalists. The oppre§"§'5'"l1""i "WY TmpeHaFsf§` "`a'ilid feudalists
caused the vast majority of people, particularly peasants, to be-
come poor and insolvent and without any political rights.1 6
CPT analysts also note that capital expansion has been limited to
urban areas v and hold that 'true' (independent) capitalism will never
develop if foreign capital prevails over national capital expansion
resulting in the dependence of the national economy on 'foreigners'
or ilnperialists.1 s To perpetuate their internal penetration, imperialist
powers support and supply ruling Thai reactionaries with material
reinforcements against their own people, thereby increasing imperialist
control over Thai 'political and military establishments and eventually
the Thai economy. 9
Implicit in this, and any CPT analyses, is the identification of the
'l`riends' and "foes" of revolutionary change in Thailand. The CPT's
identification of 'friends' and "foes" of the envisaged national-de1no-
cratic revolution is crucial to the revolutionary process, as it is their
perception of the interrelationships and interactions between the
various classes in Thai society, which ultimately determines the nature
and potential of revolutionary forces in Thai society and the direction
and targets of their revolutionary strategy .

'Foes' of the revolution

Imperialist economic interests in Thailand are maintained and repre-

sented by the Thai comprador class, which manages the commodities,
raw materials and cheap labour necessary for imperialist export inter-
ests. The compradors also import industrial products from imperialist
countries into Thailand, splitting the profits accruing from these
importexport transactions with the imperialists. As some of these
compradors hold governmental positions, they are therefore seen as
bureaucratic capitalists, using state power to uphold their interests.
These bureaucratic capitalists are also categorised as feudal, in so far
as thug seem to ally themselves with feudalists in exploiting the peas-
ants.
Feudalists own the majority of land in rural areas and still hold
power over peasants, who form the greater part of Thai society, ex-
ploiting them through high interest loans and rents, whether in cash
or kind. However, feudal interactions and conceptions are seen to
extend beyond rural areas to pervade the Thai superstructure (struc-
ture of government and consciousness of populace within it) as typified

142
by the patron-client hierarchies supporting the positions of the mon-
archy, landlords and so forth. The CPT advance that certain peasant
beliefs, such as reincarnation or the karmic law (barb-bun), originated
as feudal control mechanisrns.2 1
Therefore, the CPT conclude, as a semi-colonial semi-feudal country,
Thailand can achieve neither independence in its external affairs, be-
cause of imperialist oppression, nor democracy and freedom in its
internal affairs, because of feudal oppression.22 Since these controlling
classes, by virtue Of their vested interests, are assumed to be explicitly
opposed to the goals of the CPT revolution, they are therefore counter-
revolutionary forces or 'foes' of revolutionary change. The exoteric
message of the CPT therefore urges a national-democratic revolution
(not a socialist one) against the external imperialist enemies and the
internal feudalist and bureaucratic-capitalist enemies, for the achieve-
ment of true national independence and democracy in Thailand.

The role of the party and 'friends' of the revolution

The CPT, as with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), adopted the
framework of the Bolshevik party on its founding on 1 December
1942, during the period of the 3rd International. The CPT maintains,
as did Lenin and Mao, that regardless of the degree to which oppression
predisposes particular groups to revolutionary endeavour, no group
can effect or accomplish a revolution without the leadership of the
party. The initiating and concluding forces of the revolution are gen-
erated by those- within the CPT, and all other forces, regardless of
their social class, can only be principal or temporary supporting forces.
From its criteria for recruitment, however, the CPT promotes itself
not as a vanguard party but rather as a mass party, giving more weight
to the individual 'standpoint' and personal outlook (life~style, con-
fidence in the party and its revolution) than ideological training. A
mistake in revolutionary morality is considered more serious than one
in ideological understanding, because the personal behaviour of CPT
members is expected to be of greater importance than their Marxist
understanding in winning over and convincing the masses, particularly
peasants.
Conversely, the underlying patron-client syndrome that pervades
Thai communal relations also manifests itself both in party relations
with the masses and within the CPT hierarchy. This typically Thai
feature is reinforced by the intrinsic assumption in the Leninist-Maoist
view that the proletariat and peasants are incapable of an independent
development or acquisition of political consciousness without the
party, Logically, CPT intelligentsia are therefore viewed as having
143
a distinct initiatory and revolutionising role in relation to the masses.
Translated into practice, the masses are subordinate to CPT members
or personnel (mostly peasants) who, in turn, are subordinate to their
leaders and so on up the ladder. Within the CPT hierarchy, this patron-
client structure tends to be maintained by family ties with negative
consequences for internal democracy and communication between
senior party leaders and younger activists and intellectuals.23

'Friends' of the revolution

'Friends' or revolutionary forces outside the party module are classi-

fied into two categories -.-. leading and supporting forces.24 Theoretic-
ally, the leading force is the urban proletarian class of Thailand. CPT
reasoning is as follows: without a property base the proletariat are
forced to survive by selling their labour power and are therefore the
most oppressed and the most inclined to persevere in revolutionary
efforts, they represent and are in contact with the most advanced
form of production relations in Thailand, they are the most advanced
class in having their own political party the CPT, and, finally, since
most proletariat originate from the ranks of insolvent peasants they
therefore have firm revolutionary links with peasants, 5 who con-
stitute the fighting forces of the revolution2 (People's Liberation
Army of Thailand) and the backbone of the national economy.
Theoretically, peasants are not an ideal leading force as they embody
contradictory class characteristics: while laboring under the three-fold
exploitation by imperialists, feudalists, and bureaucratic capitalists
on the one hand, they are, on the other, tied as small producers to a
backward economy and often own some means of production. Their
mobilisation is also hindered by their being settled in diverse areas 7
When speaking of peasants, the CPT refers mainly to poor wageeaming
peasants and poor peasants (60 per cent), and middle peasants (30
per cent). Rich peasants (10 per cent), although they own more land
than middle peasants, hire poor and wage-earning peasants and loan
them money at high interest rates, nevertheless still work as fanners
unlike landlords. They can, therefore, be regarded a revolutionary
force in so far as they are susceptible to the three-fold exploitation
by imperialists, feudalists and bureaucratic capitalists.;8
However, it is the poor peasants who embody the second-most
potent revolutionary force, after the urban proletariat. Because their
land is insufficient for subsistence, they too are driven either to selling
their l a b o r power or to renting land for farming, and can be called
a rural or semi-proIetariat.29 Middle peasants own enough land for
their own farming," but, being severely exploited, are considered

144
the most faithful revolutionary allies of the urban and rural proletariat .
Other supporting forces are the petite-bourgeoisie (intellectuals,
students, small merchants, handicraftsmen and independent profession-
als),31 the national bourgeois class, and patriotic and democratic-
loving people (in that order). The petite-bourgeoisie, because of ex-
ploitation by the three enemy forces, are likely to be driven towards
bankruptcy and will hence support and join the revolution as a depend-
able ally of the proletariat The national bourgeoisie, although pre-
vented by the three enemy forces from developing capitalism in Thai-
land, are naturally wary of the petite-bourgeoisie, peasants and pro-
letariat, whom they themselves exploit. Together with all patriotic and
democratic-loving people, they are expected to be temporary allies in
the revel utionary process, switching sides when their interests are
threatened.3 3 .
conclude, Pf the four social classes (the proletariat, peasants,
petite-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie) that in theory are held to
be supportive revolutionary forces against the targets of its revolution,
the alliance among the first three contains no fundamental conflict of
interests and is therefore regarded as a permanent and lasting revolu-
tionary force. The alliance between these three, the national bourge-
oisie and all patriotic democratic-loving people is temporary, as it may
not extend to the final socialist stage of the national-dem ocratic revolu-
tion,34 depending mostly on how the balance of power and policies
between these two categories shape their attitudes.3 S
However, in practice and reality, the forces leading the revolution
are predominantly petite-bourgeoisie, not proletariat, while the forces
engaged in armed struggle are those of peasants and minority hill tribes.
As internal debates now acknowledge the substantial increase in capit-
alist growth in Thailand and the importance of urban activities, the
anticipated changes in CPT revolutionary strategy are likely to lay
more substantial roles for the petite-bourgeoisie and urban workers.

The three magic weapons of revolution

The essential organisations, 01' the 'three magic weapons of the revolu-
tion', providing the dynamics for the first national-democratic stage of
the CPT's 'people's war' in Thailand are: party organisations, the
People's Liberation Army of Thailand (PLAT) and the united fronts.3 6
These 'weapons' are the practical extension of the CPT's understanding
both of the problematic nature of Thai society and the specific issues
and interests constituting it, and of the revolutionary inclinations
of identifiable social forces or groupings resulting from their particular
experience of Thai realities. The strategic and pedagogic tasks of the
three 'weapons' draw on these 'givens', and thus change accordingly.
145
Recent changes in party organisations

The changes and challenges to the CPT's practical ideology of effecting

change through armed struggle have not resulted in significant adjust~
merits to its organisation. Basic' party structures as described in Figures
l and 2 remain unaltered, except for expansions or reductions. Major
adjustments have been administrative and forced by the political
environment.
' The first major change occurred in relations between rural party units
and those in urban areas, particularly Bangkok, in 1970.3 r Prior to this,
the CPT branch of the Central Committee in Bangkok, through which
all rural -urban contacts had to pass, was responsible for all CPT urban
activities, primarily because most of these were centred in the Bangkok
at'ea.3 8 The administrative rationale of having one central command for
urban activities was to ensure a unity in activities that included political
rnobilsation in Bangkok, propaganda and intelligence, and the supplying
of information, materials, medicine and personnel to CPT rural bases.3
These were not totally self-sufficient, so a secure and stable flow of
supports was of key importance. But, when Prasert Eyo~shai, a Central
Committee member was arrested by the Thanom government in l 9'10,'* 0
most of the network of CPT urban activities was exposed when the
Centre's documents were found and other personnel arrested. Urban
activities were disrupted and supports to rural areas reduced. The CPT,
therefore, rearranged its urban-rural administration structure to pro-
tect better the flow of urban supports to revolutionary bases. The
changes in this structure are depicted in Figures 3 and 4.
An obvious advantage in the post-1970 structure, where each rural
base established its own supply representative in urban areas (primarily
Bangkok) was the reduced risk to urban-rural supplies as each direct
line was independent of the other. The equally obvious disadvantage
resulting from this tactical dispersion of the urban command network
was the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of unity in urban activities
and the accompanying muddling or overlapping of activities, which re-
duced administrative efficiency. Because this has finally led to disunity
of activities and command, the CPT is reportedly considering re-
establishing an HQ for urban activities,4 l probably one that also in-
corporates better security measures. _. .._-....

The second major organisational change was necessitated by the

1978 Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea, which completely altered
the basis of relations between rural and urban areas on the one hand,
and between rural areas and neighbouring-country (the rear line)
sanctuaries on the other. Before 1978, supports from urban areas were
still minor sources when compared with the rear line supports from
other CPs, particularly China, channelled through Thailand's Indochin-
ese neighbours. These flows are compared in Figure 5.
146
 National Congress of Deputies
I

Central Committee ;-Party Affairs (Young

l Communist League)
Politburo
l -Military Affairs
Standing Committee of Politburo
or Secretariat -L-p01i£i0a1 Affairs

Branch of Central Committee -Propaganda Affairs

of the Northern Region
-Liaison Affairs
Branch of Central Committee
of the Central Region -Executive Affairs in
liberated bases
Branch of Central Committee
of the Southern Region -Economic Affairs and others

Branch of Central Committee

of the North-Northeastern Region

Branch of Central Committee

of the South-Northeastem Region

Party Committee of Bangkok

Party Unity at the VOPT

Party Activists in the CCPDF

.

Liaison Officers to other Communist Parties

Figure 1 : Party structure of the Communist Party of Thailand
Source: 'The State of the CPT Revolutionary Movement in 1978',
Internal Security Operations Command (Bangkok, 1 January
1979).
13]

[2] [I] [2].

[1]
/
[1] \[u( E ul/ E E11
\\€S1; / 1 ;|\ /masses
I v/ itmasses
Figure 2 Basic organisational structure

147
Rural revolutionary
base I 1
Urban operations

Rural revolutionary v- The Centre of

base II / urban activities_
s
Urban operations

Rural revolutionary / \ .
base III Urban operations

Figure 3: The CPT's urban-rural administrative relations, prior to 1970

Rural revolutionary Rural revolutionary

base I base IV
Rural revolutionary \
l»
Urban I -1 Rural revolutionary
base II activitie S 'U base V

Rural revolutionary Rural revolutionary

base III base VI

Figure 4: The CPTs urban-rural administrative relations, after 1970

Prior to 1978
Urban areas - - -v»Revolutionary bases -I The rear line
(supports from inside) (supports from outside)

After 1978
Urban areas Revolutionary bases- - --The rear line
r

(supports from inside) (supports from outside)

major supply line

- - minor supply line

Figure 5: Comparison of supply line to CPT revolutionary bases

148
CCP attempts to reactivate former members living in various parts of
Thailand,4 to act as alterative supply agents,43 were revealed by
a government source, who noticed ongoing mobilisations of former
CCP members in the eastern provinces,44 and they were confirmed
by Pin, a former CPT Politburo member. Pin also added that the
Chinese embassy in Bangkok played an important role in that mobilisa-
tion.45 In effect, supped originating in China passes through its
embassy in Bangkok to former CCP members in urban areas, finally
reaching CPT rural bases, as shown in Figure 6.

_Chinese embassy Former CCP members

u-
China (CCP) in Bangkok living in urban areas
I

CPT revolutionary bases

Figure 6: Supply line from China to CPT revolutionary bases

Increase in such supports is unlikely and their continuity uncertain

in view of the present Chinese policy of co-operation with the Thai
government over Kampuchea. To further its own Southeast Asian
interests, the Chinese require the approval of the Thai government
in order to send logistical supplies through Thai territory to Pol Pot's
bases in Kampuchea. Meanwhile the CCP continues some support
for the CPT, contrary to the opinion that aid had been discontinued
after the Voice of the People of Thailand (VOPT) was closed down
in 1979.46 Despite this CCP support, the now-critical role of urban
supports to sustain rural guerrilla warfare make it imperative for the
CPT to expand its urban activities. Certainly this fits in with the pre-
viously mentioned indication that the CPT is working to improve unity
between urban activities and command, and with the emergent priority
of expanding urban bases of support through viable united fronts,
as mentioned below.

The 'country encircles the town' strategy

Since the adoption of iv; Miéiae the actual launching

of this strategy by the CPT Politburo in September 1965, there have
been no significant adjustments to the Maoist 'countryside encircles
the town' strategy for a specific long-term CPT objectives of
149
destroying the foundations of reactionary state power and seizing
state power.4 8 ,A

The three most crucial aspects of CPT strategy concern the targets
of the revolution, the direction of attack and the mobilisation of
supporting forces. These are incorporated in the choice and imply
meditation of the 'countryside encircles the town' strategy. Briefly,
this Maoist strategy is a call: to mobilise peasants in rural areas for
armed revolution, to establish revolutionary bases in rural areas and
expand them to encircle towns; and, finally, to take over the towns
and destroy the foundations of reactionary state power. It is important
to distinguish between strategy and tactics. Strategy refers to the
guideline determining the direction and stages of all revolutionary
activities (political and military) in a coherent revolutionary process
towards long-term objectives. It exists and persists in direct relation
to certain fundamentals of society. Tactics, on the other hand, are
simply the methods used to accomplish particular or immediate ob-
jectives in progressing the revolution and maintaining political solidarity
against the target groups preventing change.
In explaining the applicability of the 'countryside encircles the
town' strategy, CPT analyst Cham Krasanaibura points to :
1, the tactical advantage since: ...... -*

'The town is the centre of reactionary forces, control by the

rulers is overwhelming, transportation and communication are
efficient, on the contrary, the vast countryside is an Wee in
which reactionary forces are weak and dispersed, control by
the rulers is less than in the towns a end,
and, logically, is favorable to armed struggle by oppressed
people', 9 and ........

2. the relevance in direction stating :

'Countryside encircles the town is our route of armed struggle.
We have to fight our enemies protractedly in oral areas. And
the nature of democratic revolution is to destroy feudal exploita-
tion, to solve land problems of peasants. Therefore peasants
are the owner and major troops of the revolution. Most of the
revolutionary armed forces are peasants in military uniform'.5 0
Of the prevailing challenges criticising the applicability of this strategy
in Thailand, Tianchai Wongchaisuwan's is the most explicit. Tianchai
argues that, unlike the Chinese situation, capitalist expansion into
Thai rural areas is predominant over more uneven economic develop-
ment. As a result, rural areas depend upon urban areas (towns) eco-
nomically, politically and culturally and, therefore, the independent
potential of rural revolutionary bases is doubtful. Since Thai peasants
have never previously experienced or contemplated revolutionary war,

150
they cannot be relied on to r. aglialian. revolution. Further-
more, the CPT is mistaken in its analysis, which posits problems of
land and landlords as the crux of agrarian transformation, as these
issues have been displaced by rapidly increasing capitalist interests
and the attendant problems of exploitation by middle-men, crop
prices and bank interest rates. Physically, alilna. the terrain in rural
Thailand is not suited to armed struggle, Ss being much smaller
than China, the expansion of revolutionary war can be easily limited
by the mobile armed manoeuvres of the enemies.5 1
Tianchai's arguments ignore the existing weakness of government
control in rural areas, which impairs their counter-operations
pacification programmes. Also denied is the revolutionary potential
of peasants, because of their experience of hardship. In dismissing
the strategic value of rural bases, Tianchai omits the fact that their
dependence on towns is offset by their relative self-sufficiency in
food, a crucial factor in sustaining an independent armed struggle.
The CPT very readily admits that the refuge and support offered by
rural bases and forces have been essential for its continuing existence.
However, Tianchai's conclusion, that the 'countryside encircles the
town' strategy cannot by itself lead to a CPT victory in seizing state
power, can be more relevantly directed towards recognising the limita-
tions of the strategy and the need for a compensating or comple-
mentary urban strategy. In fact, many CPT personnel clearly recognise
this. This emergent urban revolutionary front will be discussed later.

'Without the People's Liberation Army, nothing belongs to the people'

(CPT)
A revolutionary army (PLA) is more than a mere fighting force.
As an 'army of lahour', it performs economic functions and
engages in production activity. As a 'cultural army', it performs
propaganda tasks. The function of 'education' is to imbue the
masses with proletarian ideology and to fan their revolutionary
.
enthusiasm. . . A11 forms of activity, however, must be judged
by political criteria. Military operations must have concrete
political aims.5 2
In theory, the CPT holds the Maoist view that all revolutionary activ-
cities have political consequences. mum a
political commissar is ap-
il.1s!=l\lI\=g

pointed to the armed forces to discuss and be responsible for ensuring

that military operations advance the revolutionary, political and ideo-
logical causes, - . is reflected in the dynamics
of PLAT operations .
151
 In conducting the initial, national-democratic phase of its revolu-
tion, CPT military strategy is based on the three progressive stages
that led to the CCP victory: defensive, stalemate and offensive.S 3 The
main objective of the present defensive stage is for units to penetrate
various rural areas, expanding in the process, while mobilising peasants
to take up armed revolution. During this period of insemination,
attempts are made to undermine government activities and standing
in an area, by reinforcing preeidsting prejudices or criticising the
government, while introducing CPT ideals and policies.
To consolidate territorial control during the defensive stage, CPT
forces aim to create 'guerrilla zones' and 'political revolutionary bases'.
In guerrilla zones, CPT units engage in armed attacks with government
forces only whenever they are sure of victory, and they work to eradic-
ate government influence and legitimacy from the area. A political
.. .... . . . . . .. . . .

revolutionary point is a small area occupied by a relatively large num-

ber of insurgent forces, both politically and my Le
the party, and is therefore not readily abandoned. When expanded,
it becomes a permanent revolutionary base containing a large stockpile
of food, arms and personnel, and is determinedly defended and main-
tained. These base areas grow as the people's war develops, that is,
using the countryside to surround towns. In such localities, revolu-
tionary state power eventually supplants local government administra-
tion. Usually located in isolated areas, bases provide a suitable atmos-
phere for training members. As in the party slogan 'Pa Num Ban' (the
jungle leads the village) members are sent from the jungle to organise
villagers, ultimately forming a party nucleus, which helps in providing
food, medicine and information, as well as in recruiting more members
and sympathisers.
The PLAT was established on I January 1969 and is composed of
two types of soldiers, permanent (full-time) soldiers and village soldiers.
The permanent force is composed of principal forces that can be
mobilised in any area, are well trained, equipped with modem weapons
and usually stationed with and led by a provincial committee. Local
forces remain in a particular area and collaborate with guerrilla units
in mobilising the masses.
Most soldiers in the PLAT are poor peasants and hill tribesmen,
particularly the Hmong. The CPT perceives these groups as oppressed,
but predisposed by their experience of oppressive situations both to
overcome the inhibiting pull of traditional values such as Buddhism
and animism, and to attain a political consciousness sufficiently height-
ened to motivate an armed fight against the forces of oppression. The
CPT has a long history of good relations with these tribesmen, especi-
ally the Hmong who are reborted to be among the best FLAT forces,
However, because the hill tribesmen are considered foreign or alien by
lowland Thai peasant communities, the PLAT's attempts at revolu-
152
tionary mobilisation in the lowland and central areas have been un-
successful. Furthermore, the terrain of the central region of Thailand
is largely low and flat and thus unsuited to protracted warfare, in
contrast to the northern mountainous areas, which afford greater
protection and are difficult for government forces to penetrate.
In 1979, the CPT also established the Muslim People's Liberation
Army (MPLA) in the south. Historically the physical, religious, lin-
guistic and administrative isolation of the south from other regions of
Thailand has fostered an animosity in this area towards Thai authorities
and officials (the majority of whom are ethnic Thais). Most areas
in the south, especially in the deep south, are predominantly Muslim.
This Muslim-official cleavage, ,___*the
aréunus fact that for many years the
Muslims have tried, unsuccessfully, to get their Arabic dialect recog-
nised as the official language of the southern provinces, are the major
reasons for the existing high degree of organisation of the southern
separatist movement in fighting against officials and resisting RTG
troops.55 It is this failure of government forces and the generally
abusive treatment from officials in this region that have greatly con-
tributed to CPT successes in mobilising southern villagers. CPT opera-
tions iii.Ill stand as a model of self-reliance. Arms and
supplies are obtained from periodic raids on government bases, and
food and medicine are donated by supporters and sympathisers in
the area. However, the MPLA's efforts at capitalising and building
on these existing prejudices were hampered by limit ations. Precisely
because of the religious and linguistic differences in the south, the
pro-Chinese image and character of the CPT there exclude the possi-
bility of establishing a CPT stronghold.
Full support from communist Indochina during the period 1975 to
1979 helped the CPT Q expand dramatically its defensive military
activities. This support included not only military supplies but also
access to secure rear bases at which to train cadres and soldiers and
to hospitalise the wounded. The withdrawal of these and the closure
of the established logistical line from China significantly contributed
to the PLAT's retreat at the time particularly in the south northeast
and north northeast regions. Reportedly, PLAT troops were sent to
join the Pol Pot forces in Kampuchea in fighting the Vietnamese
aggressors.S 5 Reacting swiftly to these unexpected blows to its per-
sistence, the PLAT, in its Commemoration of the 34th Anniversary
of the Armed Struggle, issued a call on 31 July 1979 for increasing
self-reliance and continuing the armed struggle to the end.5 6

153
The launching of 'armed propaganda units'

Now that it is having to operate at such a disadvantage because of

escalating RTG operations, the CPT is unlikely to expand its existing
revolutionary base areas. Party experience has shown that the strength-
ening, or even maintenance, of these bases also entails responsibility
for ensuring welfare and proper administration of the activities of those
areas, for example, agriculture, education and law enforcement. Until
viable urban supports and supply lines are realised, such undertakings
require a diversion of more resources than the CPT can afford to spare.
As an adaptive requisite, there are indications that, while it will con-
tinue to maintain only a limited number of vital bases, the CPT will
concentrate instead oils the Strategic priority of initiating mass political
support campaigns, complemented by exposes of government mis-
conduct, and of continuing guerilla warfare at village level.
However, the edge of the set-backs incurred by the recent drop in
matériel supports has, to a certain extent, been blunted by the strategic
possibilities in the present political climate. The Thai government is
taldng seriously the possibility of a Vietnamese invasion an eventu-
--.-

ality currently reinforced by the presence of Vietnamese troops and

armed skirmishes along the Thai-Kampuchea border. A consequence
of this government perception has been a stirring of nationalist feelings
among Thai people. This situation is reminiscent of that during the
Japanese Occupation of Thailand during the 1940s, when the CPT
had joined the fervour for national independence by strongly support-
ing and joining the Free Thai resistance movement led by Seni Pramoj,
ambassador in Washington at the time. However, the opportunities
for canvassing support amidst the spirit of nationalism and resistance
had been short-lived, ending with the Allies' recognition of Thailand's
independence after the war. This was the first time the CPT had taken
up weapons, and the post-war abandonment of armed resistance was
later on perceived by the party to be a mistake.
In preparing to take the lead under the banner of national deface
against the Vietnamese, the CPT has adopted the 'armed propaganda
unit' successfully employed by the CCP in the 1940s when mobilising
the Chinese against Japanese troops. Each tactical unit has six to
twelve activists, who have four major duties: propaganda (ideology),
medical services (barefoot doctors), entertainment and self-defence.5 7
At each village, unit activists assume their respective tasks, each unit
being responsible for, and travelling among, about ten villages. The
armed propaganda unit primarily aims at politicising villagers and
eventually creating a party nucleus there.5 The strengths of this
tactic are; it is a multi-capacity unit and therefore efficient in mobilisa-
tion, it is small enough to move rapidly and avoid detection by govern-
ment troops, once it is familiar with local terrains and villagers it can

154
effectively expand its activities and influence, and it currently operates
..

11'1favourable conditions as villagers are often in conflict with the

authorities, seldom receiving adequate assistance. The weaknesses
of the tactic are: its deface capability is limited if reached by govern-
ment forces, during the early period of mobilisation, the government
can launch pre-emptive measures to bridge its gap with villagers, and,
for the present, the large number of units lacking in proper experience
leaves much to be desired in the overall coherence and monitoring
of efforts." Therefore, it would seem that the revolutionising per-
formance of the units depends on both CPT activists and Thai counter-
insurgency officials. Available evidence so far indicates particular
successes in the south, an area characterised by intensive government
forces operations where anti-government feeling is high.60 The CPT's
South branch has historically been self-sufficient in materiel supplies
and serves as a model for study by other regional branches.
I Anticipating a Vietnamese invasion, and capitalising on the current
mood of nationalism, the PLAT, in its 35th Anniversary in 1980,
reiterated its tactical principle towards attaining national-democratic
independence in Thailand - 'in order to fight against the common
enemy of the country, we will unite with all patriotic forces, people
from all strata, and resolutely fight'.61 This echoes the 'Seek the
Cominonalities, Avoid the Differences' maxim underlying CPT united
front formations, and it serves as a prelude to the growing CPT interest
in the emergent considerations for an urban revolutionary strategy.

The urban areas as an emergent revolutionary front

The end of support from Indochina, the decrease in support from

China and the prevailing opportunity for increasing support for its
goal of national independence and integrity in facing Vietnam, have
prompted the CPT to consider a strategic adaptation that will em-
phasise additional forms of struggle to complement its ongoing rural
armed struggle strategy. As already mentioned, the tactical burden on
urban supports to replace those that were previously obtained outside
has reinforced this immediate strategic requirement. Noting this wider
strategic concern, with its very likely increase in urban activities, par-
ticularly in Bangkok and other major cities, the CPT's initial interests
focus on urban workers, intellectuals and students. The role of patriotic
and democratic forces will be mentioned when examining the CPT's
united front efforts.

155
 The role of the urban proletariat and labour unions

As a Marxist party, the CPT upholds workers as the leading force of

its revolution. Like workers in other colonial, semi-colonial, semi-
feudal countries, Thai workers are also exploited and reduced to
I
poverty, thus increasing their susceptibility to Marxism.6 2 The priority
for advancing the revolution among urban workers was discarded in
1961, in favour of the strategic inspiration gained from observing the
Chinese victory of 1949. This twenty-year absence, together with the
apparent success of past Thai governments' 'divide and rule' strategies
within the workers' movement, have excluded options for an easy
reactivation of a CPT support base. Furthermore, before 1973, Thai
worker organisations, even when allowed to exist legally, have been
strictly prohibited from political involvement.
However, the democratic atmosphere following the 1973 uprising
encouraged political workers' activities. The 1975 labour law trans-
formed all employee associations into labour unions. Later on, the
various labour unions merged, forming the Labour Congress of Thai-
land (LCT).63 However, LCT leadership is fragmented into three
camps: those affiliated with the government, especially with the army,
those who sympathise with the CPT, and those whose primary con-
cern lies with workers' interests, not with politics.
Between 1973 and 1976 the CPT achieved a high degree of recogni-
tion among some workers' leaders. However, those leaders who joined
the CPT after the 1976 coup have recently defected because of ideo-
logical disagreements. Present-day labour unions largely involve e t
ployees of state enterprises and are, expectedly, government strong-
holds. Since 1980, establishment efforts within labour unions have
been intensified, involving even military participation, in a concerted
move to eradicate and alienate Marxist or left-wing sympathisers.
Workers' rights are enthusiastically supported as long as protest is
limited to purely economic issues. Some outspoken l a b o r leaders,
like Sewed Rookdote and Ahmad Khamthetthang, openly identify
with conservative military factions. Given this unpromising headway,
and cautioned by previous experiences of urban suppression, CPT
worker activists can only hope to infiltrate local unions gradually.
CPT activists are now aware of the increased numbers of factory
workers, particularly in the percentage of rural migrants. This greater
concentration of workers in urban areas is expected to receive more
attention in future CPT political mobilisations.64 For the present,
urban workers will probably act as a political catalyst, creating con-
ditions supportive of the CPT's armed rural struggle, like campaigning
against government suppression, brutalities and abuses of power in
rural areas.

156
The role of intellectuals and students

The CPT was very.succ.esstlul in mobilising intellectuals and students

when the student uprising of 1973 provided Thais, particularly young
students, with an opportunity for exposure to Marndsm. After 1974,
most university student unions were dominated by progressive students
with CPT sympathies, who were active in politics, for example, helping
workers and peasants in demanding higher wages and rent controls.
These young intelle ctuals were ideal for spearheading political mobilisa-
tion. They were romantic and idealistic towards change, capable of
placing complex phenomena into perspectives it campaigning
political objectives, sensitive to issues and had no family responsibilities
and therefore a lot of free time. The role of the student movement
in stirring up popular support for democracy, and creating an aware-
ness of foreign domination (especially the presence of American
.
troops
. ... .. ... ..

and bases, »= Japanese economic exploitation) in Thailand", cannot

5 overstated. Popular support was forthcoming, primarily because
students were seen as motivated by an altruistic interest in the people
and country. §'onically CPT united fronts during that period were
severely hampered by their popular image as an appendage of the
CPT.
The thousands of students and intel ectuals who joined the CPT's
armed struggle in 1976 helped significantly to improve productivity,
medical services and education in CPT revolutionary bases. They also
played a vital role in upgrading CPT revolutionary culture by creating
more revolutionary songs, plays, novels and other art, and by encourag-
ins intra-party debates on ideological issues. The disproportionate
increase in the membership of the PLAT after 1976 is also most con-
vincingly related to the enrolment of young intellectuals who had
fled to the jungle. However, after a worldng experience of the CPT
and the harsh living conditions in revolutionary bases, many have
opted out and openly challenged CPT ideology and strategies .
The revolutionary potential of students and intellectuals is per-
ceived by the CPT to be two-sided. While they could potentially lead
CPT political mobilisation, they are seen to lack patience, discipline,
and frugality of life-style, and so tend to have personal and ideological
conflicts with the CPT. Students are therefore perceived as political
catalysts, not as principal revolutionaries.
The ideological challenges of former student CPT members com-
bined with the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea have polarised
opinions and generated confusion among new students as to whether
the CPT really represents the people's interests, and whether socialism
truly ezdsts. Arguments continue about whether students are involved
in politics for popular interests or for none beyond their own studies.6 5
No guiding consensus on the role of students is given by CPT activists
157
responsible for the student movement.6 6 Although the CPTwoulEl un~
doubtedly encourage students staying politically active, after the recent
defections it is not likely to try to co~opt them into the CPT revolu-
tionary mould but rather be content to reap the advantages of the
political situations and contributions that these young people create.

The role of CPT united fronts

The CPT's greatest weakness on the urban front lies in its mobilisation
//
of support among all patriotic and democratic-loving people through
its united front policy, as these efforts continue to be hampered by
government suppression and proscription. The persistence of the
CPT's rural-based organisation depends on the formation of a united
front in 'the uniting of all friends to defeat the foes of revolution 7
for its progression beyond the defensive stage of its national democratic
revolution.
After the 1976 coup when thousands of people fled to join the
CPT, the CPT, the Socialist Party of Thailand (SPT), the Socialist
United Front Party (SUPP), and various groups of patriotic and demo~
cratic peoples held a joint meeting during 26-28 September 1977.
They established the Committee for Coordinating Patriotic and Demo-
cratic Forces (ccpDF),68 The meeting elected the CCPDF's first
committee, comprising eight members:6 9
Udom Srisuwan (CPT Politburo Member) Chairman
s§u__--im--L.
Bunsen Worthong (SPT Member)
Mongkol Nanakom (CPT Member)
Samara Cbalikun (SUPP Member) Committee Member
Therdphum Jaidee (former labour leader) J

'E ,H,g
a

Sithon Yotkantha (Vice Chairman of the

Farmers' and Planters' Federation of
Thailand) Committee Member
Chamni Sakdiset (former SPT Member of
Parliament)
Thirayut Bunni (former National Student
Centre of Thailand's Secretary General) and Secretary

The CCPDF considered itself as :

a front organisation in a transitional period. It serves as a coordin-
ating body for the struggle of each of its particular members on
the basis of equality, independence, mutual respect and fraternal
consultation. The Committee also studies appropriate policies
which best serve the interest of the Thai people's struggle.7 0
158
 FL
. v
F

Like the previous two united fronts E- the Thailand Independence

Movement (TIM), 1964, and the Thailand Patriotic Front (TPF),
1965 - the CCPDF supported the CPT's advocation for armed struggle,
which also limited its popular support.@ Initially, the CCPDF met
with some success, particularly! I as 'Thai progressives
outside Thailand, as indicated by the various public greetings issued
to the CCPDF from, for example, the Communist Party (Marxist-
Leninist) of the United States, the Leftist Socialist Party of Norway,
the Co-ordinating Committee for Solidarity with Thai People in
Europe, the Swedish Peace Committee, and the Supporting Committee
of the Struggle of Chilean People. Undoubtedly, these expressions
of solidarity between 1976 and 1978 also resulted from the publicity
at that time of the brutality and suppression of human rights in Thai-
land.
The 1979 Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea generated three con-
flicting views among CCPDF members: pro-Vietnam, which argued
that the CCPDF should accept aid from Vietnam and the Soviet Union,
pro-CPT and pro-China, and neutral, which proposed to accept aid
from all sides. 2 As a result, activities were disrupted until the recent
establishment of the first post-box in a non-communist country (Den-
mark), although this was no indication of leadership consensus or
unity on the Indochina issue.
The CCPDF News Service, the official organ of the CCPDF, sum-
marised the factors inhibiting CPT united front work prior to 1965 :
1. Until then the Thai revolutionary movement had no solid base
among workers and peasants. The alliance between these two
classes are the very basic [sic] for the creation of any united
front. It serves as a springboard for an eventual alliance with
other classes.
2. There was no viable political environment under which people
could gain their political experiences. Political development in
the country was often interrupted by coups and frequent changes
in governments. Any united front activities that existed some-
times could not be channeled through lawful means.
3. The various fronts that e>dsted were primarily illegal. There
was no opportunity under which they could organise large-scale
political activities, this was an objective factor. In addition, US
imperialists' indirect control in Thailand was not very obvious
to the people, therefore, there was no condition under which
patriotic fronts could organise massive anti-US activities.7 3

This article then argued that the political environment between 1973
and 1976 had increased popular recognition of the nature of foreign
influence, military dictatorship and the role of the CPT in the united
159
front. Many CPT observers also agree that the CPT's role in fighting
against imperialism and dictatorial rule has been recognised, but point
out that it does not follow that Thai people in general accept armed
struggle as the major means to end these iriflumi~il Possibly one
of the most crucial miscalculations thus far has been the CPT's
erroneous expectation that all patriotic and democratic people had
to agree with or accept armed struggle against imperialism and dictator-
ship.
Another reason for the failure of united fronts is that they lacked
independence from the principles and policies of the CPT. (Compare
the TIM and TPF programmes in Appendices C and D with the CPT's
1968 and 1976 programmes in Appendices A and B.) According to
Nopporn Suwanpanich, a CCPDF Committee Member, the CPT actu-
ally selected many individual members of the CCPDF." Therefore
the support base of the CPT and its united fronts has been generally
the same, and representation in the united fronts ultimately stemmed
exclusively from the CPT," in contrast to the CPT 30th Anniversary
statement on 1 December 1972, which delineated the relationship
between the CPT and its allies: 'Different attitudes can exist between
allies. We do not demand our allies to be like us in all respects. For
us, however, we have to maintain our freedom and self~reliance in the
united front'.77 In practice, the CPT also tended to erase the differ-
ences of its allies and finally recruit united front personnel into its
organisation - Mongkol Nanakorn and Phantom Chulanon are ex-
amples of TIM and TPF members who eventually became CPT mem-
bers. A recent mimeograph of a party unit also recognised that the
united fronts were dependent on the CPT, had no freedom and had to
speak like the CPT?0
It is clear that the CPT is aware of the need to rectify policy mis-
takes in over-controlling its fronts. While the CCPDF has been dis-
solved, it is expected to be replaced with a new united front, which will
keep a substantial distance between itself and the CPT in order to
broaden its supporting base, and will attempt to legalise its organisation
and activities, which are at present proscribed by the Anti-Communist
Act.

The contemporary challenge

The changing thinking of Thai counter-insurgency and the CPT noted

in this paper suggest that both these contending parties are poised to
enter a new phase in their respective strategies towards the same ob-
jectives of effecting a national-democratic revolution i.n Thailand.
As already mentioned, the new counter-insurgency priorities have yet

160
to be accepted by the various cliques within the establishment for the
purposes of implementation as national policy. Although the new pro-
posals refleéi m re realistic assessment of the sources of popular
discontent that have resulted from a continued dictatorial monopoly
of political power in Thailand, 5 ey are not directed towards the
sources or interests perpetuating that dictatorial rule.
In contrast, the CPT understands dictatorial rule and the access
to political power in Thailand as a function of vested ruling class
preference in conjunction with imperialist-capitalist penetration.
Whereas the 1980 Order regards the absence of democracy in Thailand
as the root cause of instability, the CPT understands it as the outcome
of a more fundamental conflict of interests within Thai society. The
various outcomes of CPT political and military mobilisations, and
the persistence of its strategy, to a certain extent imply the degree to
which this understanding is popularly shared .
Officials recognise that a communist insurgency in Thailand will
be favoured by continued dictatorial rule. They also believe that the
present climate of nationalism aroused by the fear of a Vietnamese
presence in Kampuchea, will favour CPT mass mobilisations and united
front activity in support of its proposed national war for independence
from both the external and internal 'enemies' of Thai society. In
preventing this possibility in Thailand, the Policy Section of the 1980
Order explicitly states :
In order to struggle to defeat the communists soon, a consistent
political offensive is needed emphasising all operations which
weaken/destroy its united front movement and armed forces to
end all revolutionary situations. It is necessary to stop the creation
of national war with a neutral foreign policy and take this oppor-
tunity to change the armed struggle to a peaceful struggles 1

The immediate and mutual foreign policy priority of the Thai and
Chinese governments for a Vietnamese withdrawal from Kampuchea
has, as mentioned, led openly to a shift of Chinese policy away from
the CPT and towards the Thai government. The pledge for support
against Vietnamese aggression and a reduction in supplies to the CPT
were iterated by prime minister Zhao Ziyang during his February 1981
visit to Thailand. 2 For the CPT, this changed situation has added to
the urgency of resolving the criticisms of its ideology (see Appendix E)
and analyses of Thai society, as well as the question of establishing
internal, particularly urban, supply networks to sustain its strategy
of armed revolution.
Party reports indicate ongoing discussions geared to questioning
and increasing the validity and adequacy of CPT analyses of the con-
temporary socio-economic conditions in Thai society.83 Through

161
these discussions, CPT activists have recognised the remarkable expan-
sion of capitalism, particularly agricultural capitalism, the increasing
influence of banks and crop pricing on peasants' financial status
and the parallel adaptation of Thai feudal classes, who now tend to
occupy capitalist roles in banking, industry and so on.85 However,
as Thai capitalist expansion is still seen as dependent on imperialist
capital, Thailand remains, for the CPT, as a semi-colonial country.
With regard to the semi-feudal nature of Thai society, even though
feudal exploitation has decreased, feudal conceptions in Thai culture,
especially among peasants, remain strong.8 6
The persistence and outcome of CPT tactics depend on a better
understanding of the changing dynamics in Thai society, with con-
sequences for identifying the scope and direction of CPT mobilisations,
and an access to survival supports, and also depend on opportunities
generated by the political environment. A recent adaptation to exist-
ing strategy is the current tactic of employing the 'armed propaganda
unit' to maintain the momentum of revolutionary mobilisations in
rural areas. Should the fear of Vietnamese aggression escalate (or that
eventuality actually materialise) and result in an increased spirit of
nationalism or resistance, developments in the political climate in
Thailand could greatly facilitate the CPT's garnering of support for
its essentially nationalist cause. However, this strategic gain will be
episodic, rather than contributing to the CPT's revolutionary per-
sistence, unless tangible progress is made on urban and united fronts.
'inflicted

Thus, to conclude that the set-backs by regional political

changes, internal challenges and a certain degree of popular disenchant-
ment mark the beginning of the end of the CPT's revolutionary strategy
is also to overlook and underestimate the party's demonstrated willing-
ness and capacity for adaptability. It would be more realistic to argue
the contrary: that the CPT is in a process of adapting its revolutionary
strategy to the conditions inhibiting or enhancing the progression of
its national-democratic revolution in Thailand.

Notes
1. After 1978, on various occasions the CPT called for more study
of the contents of its revolution among its personnel. The Resolu-
tion of the CPT Politburo in January 1980 calls for studies on
party ideology and revolutionary strategy.
2. The Thai government did not have an organisation specifically
162
 designed to deal with communist actiidties until 1962. Prior to
that, policies were guided by up First Anti-Communist Act 1952,
which gave additional powers' to""the authorities, particularly
the police, to contain communist activities. However, it should
be noted that the CPT did not announce its aim to launch an
armed struggle until 1961.
By 1962, the Dean Rusk-Thanat Khoman agreement of 6
March assured Thailand of the same protection enjoyed by Saigon
against external and internal threats.
See Thailand Fact Sheet (1932- 76), prepared by the Thailand
Information Project, Cornell University (18 October 1976), p.4.
'In 1962, the Military Assistance Command-Thailand (MAC-
THAI) was established under the Military Assistance Command-
. ovide operational combat
assistance for Thailand should the need arise in the context of
IL&OS.

The US role in assisting Thai counter-insurgency is thoroughly

covered in George K. Tanhaln, Trial in Thailand (New York:
Crane, Russak & Co. Inc., 1974), pp.l 15-50, especially p.123 .
3. US ambassador Graham Martin played an important role in urging
the Thai government to prepare for an overt insurgency in the
early 1960s. On 14 December 1965 , prime minister Thanom
Kittikachorn ordered the setting up of a central organisation to
deal specifically with the communist problem, namely, the
Communist Suppressions Command (CSC). On 30 May 1969,
CSC was renamed the Communist Suppressions Operations Com-
mand (CSOC) to implement government policy through the co-
ordinated and combined forces of the civilian, police and military
organisations. CSOC was later renamed ISOC on 10 May 1974,
under the Sonya Dhammasakdi government. u s

4. 'To meet the threat of communist subversion and aggression,

thereby presenting the country's independence and integrity,
is Thailand's most important task, and has been the principal
motivation of the Thai foreign and domestic ii Q with ern-
phasis on the modernisation of equipment, mobility and spe-
cialfsed training Fo increase the capacity o f the Thai security
jbrces to control insurgency. '
Pre$ release, _ J military Assistance to Thailand (Bangkok:
US MACTHAI, 23 July 1969), cited in John D. Caldwell, 'Revo-
lution and Response: The Conflict in Northeast Thailand' (Dis-
sertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 1973),
p.20.
5. The right-wing backlash following the 1973 overthrow of the
163
 Thanom regime was considerably heightened when, in the space
of weeks during sprin 1975, Vientiane, Phnom Penh and Saigon
all fell to the communists. Right-wing media offensives, building
up to the October 1976 military coup, included such slogans as
'Right Kill Left', and were launched over state-controlled media
by General Pramarn Adireksan, head of the Chat Thai Party.
At the time, the military alone owned more than half of the radio
stations in the c o u n t and all but one of the TV stations in
Bangkok. See The National Anti-Fascist Front of Thailand,
'Three Years of Thai Delnocracy',; W Ehailand Information
Resource, no. l (May 1977), p.3. I
During this period, the Thai government also launched an anti-
communist campaign on Q massive scale with the support and
advice of the US. Thousands of posters with slogans were posted
in various villages, especially in the Northeast. In 1974, the author
interviewed many older villagers about their attitudes towards
the communists. A typical response was: I have never seen a com-
munist, but I know that I don't like him.
6. Under the Sanya Dharnmasakdi government, the first attempts
were made, through the renamed ISOC on 10 May 1974, to em-
phasise political measures - the 'hearts and minds' approach,
and to use physical force only when necessary, in counter-insurg-
ency actions. Prime minister Sanya saw the need to bridge the
gap between the people and the government, and to reduce the
injustices in society. However, there was no changed understand-
ing of the goals of the CPT nor the motivations of their sympath-
isers, beyond that of protesting against material deprivations. See
the Order of the Directing Board of Communist Prevention and
Suppression of Thailand No. 2/2517, signed by prime minister
Sanya Dhammasakdi on 10 May 1974 (in Thai).
7. The Znd Regional Army was responsible for counter-insurgency
programmes in all the sixteen Northeastern provinces, an area
where the CPT had been active for more than fifteen years at
the time. Under General Prem, who became its commander
in the early 1970s, and Lt.Gen. Ham Linanon, Prom's chief of
staff, the 2nd Army began to develop a new counter-insurgency
approach that understood insurgency as a political problem that
had to be solved by political means, primarily in the launching of
campaigns and organisations that aimed at working with the
people and in ending the misdeeds of officials.
8. Order of the Prime Minister's Office No. 66/2523, the 'Struggle to
Defeat the Communists', signed by prime minister Prom Tinsu~
anon on 23 April 1980.
Harm Linanon, 'The Next Step for Thai Society', pp.52-56.
Ibid., p.52.
164
11.
12.
13. Surayan (Prasert's pseudonym), Democrarism (Bangkok:
Taw au Mai Press, 1978) (in Thai).
14. Ham Linanon, op. cit., p.60.
15. Order of the Prime Minister's Office No. 66/2523, Clause 1.2.
16. The Statement of the Central Committee of the CPT on the 30th
Anniversary of the Founding of the Party, December 1972 (in
Thai). For further treatment of how CPT analyses shape its
revolutionary practice, see Kanok Wongtrangan, 'Communist
Revolutionary Process: A Study of the Communist Party of
Thailand' (Dissertation, John Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Maryland, 1981).
17. 'History and some experiences of our party', CPT Mimeograph,
surfaced in 1978, p.9 (in Thai).
18. Ibid., p. 10.
19. Thai' Society and How Thailand Became a Semi-colonial Country
(Bangkok: Kong Na Press, 1976) (in Thai), p.21.
20. Ibid., p.17.
21. Ibid., pp.16-1'7.
22. Ibid., p.l 1.
23. See Sakesan PrasertkuI's interview in Siam Nfkorn, vol. 173
(18 October 1980) (in Thai).
24. Their' Society, op. cit., p.29.
25. Ibid., pp.30-31.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., p.34.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., p.33.
31. Ibid., p.35.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p.37.
34. Cham Krasanaibura, 'Some thoughts on problems of united
front', Problems o f Democracy and United Front (Co-ordinating
Committee of Patriotic and Democratic Forces), pp.38-9 (in
Thai).
Party activist, personal interview (20 August 1980). It was learned
'a revolution will only be successful when it has three wea-
pons, namely, the united front, the army and the party'. These
three weapons are known as the 'three magic weapons of the
revolution
Pin Bua-on, personal interview, Bangkok (August 1980).
Ibid.

165
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. CPT urban activist, personal interview, Bangkok (July 1980) .
42. Police officer whose work is directly involved with communist
problems, personal interview, Bangkok (August 1980) .
43. Pin Bua-on, op. cit.
44. Police officer, op. cit.
45. Pin Bua-on, op. cit.
46. In 1979 the Voice of the People of Thailand (VOPT), which
had been using transmitters in southern China for its broadcasts,
was closed down. Later, Nopporn Suwanpanich disclosed that the
CCP had confronted the CPT with this 'unavoidable suggestion'
in light of its changed policy towards the Thai government. The
CPT was even advised to soften its attacks on the Thai govern-
ment and to prepare for an alliance with the government in the
expected eventuality of a Vietnamese invasion. Noppom Suwan-
panich, personal interview, Bangkok (June 1980). Nopporn said
that he was at the meeting between the CPT and the CCP in
Beijing at which this was conveyed.
47. For a discussion of the notion of revolutionary war, see Cham
Krasanaibura, 'War within the country', Sarnakkee Surob III,
no. 6 (August 1978), pp.12-31 (in Thai).
48. R. Roengyut, as pre's War: Introduction to the People's Libera-
of Thailand', Samakkee Surob III, no. 6 (August 1978),
p.27.
49. Cham Krasanaibura, 'War within the country', op. cit., p.19.
50. Ibid., p.I8.
51. Yuk Sri-araya, 'The Fourth Rebel's Memoir: Criticisms of the
CPT's revolutionary strategy and tactics', Thai Nikorn (3 Septem-
ber 19 79 ), pp.36-8 (in Thai). .__ _.__

52. Mostafa Rejai, Mao Tse-tung on Revolution and War (Garden

City, NY: Anchor Books Doubledain ., 1970), p.232.
53. Mao Zedong, 'A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire', January
1930, from Selected Works, vol. I (Beijing: Foreign Languages
Press, 1964), pp.210-19.
' Mao explains these three stages of
revolutionary strategy m detail.
According to CPT projections, the stalemate stage will be
reached when the CPT has adequate forces to confront RTG
troops at the battalion level and the ability to mobilise mass
support, developing into a real threat to government legitimacy.
Drawing from the experiences of Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea,
the CPT calculates that if the government is unable to contain
the communist revolution within the first, defensive, and second,
stalemate, stages, it is unlikely to prevent victory in the third,
offensive, stage. At that stage, the CPT should be able to take
166
 over small towns and control or cut off major highways. When
troop levels are adequate, a decisive strategic offensive will be
launched against the government, and massive support will, at
this time, be expected from other communist countries. Again,
inferring from the experiences of Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea,
the CPT could expect a successful conclusion to the revolution
within a few years of launching the final attack, during which
time negotiations with the government to form a national coali-
tion are unlikely. ....... .

54. For further information on the Muslims in southern Thailand,

see M.T. Fraser, Jr., Fishermen of South Thailand: §f'ze Malay
Villagers (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1966).
55. Nopporn Suwanpanich, personal interview, Bangkok (29 May
1980).
56. The Political Commissar of PLAT announced its ten slogans on
the Commemoration of the l 4th Anniversary of Armed Struggle
on 31 July 1979.
57. See 'UO Kong Tui: Cut Thai Feet to fit Chinese Shoes', Tawanmai
III, no. 126 (4 August 1980), pp.18-20 (in Thai).
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid., pp. 19-20.
60. Pin Bua-on, personal interview, Bangkok (July 1980).

_
61. 'The Commemoration of the 15th Anniversary of the Armed
Struggle of Thai People' (7 August 1980), pp.6~'7 (in Thai).
62. Cham Krasanaibura, 'Proletariat r The leading force of Thai
revolution', Samakkee Surob II, no. 4 (April-May 1978), p.38
(in Thai). In this article Cham clearly explains why the proletariat
is the leading force of the revolution.
63. Arom Pongpangan, Workers (Bangkok: Bop it Press, 1979), p.l07
(in Thai).
64. 'Report of a Seminar on Problems of Thai Revolution', CPT
Mimeograph (July 1980) (in Thai).
65. Group of university students, personal interview, Bangkok (July
1980)
CPT activist, personal interview, Bangkok (July 1980) .
Cham Krasanaibura, an outstanding theorist of the CPT, dis~
cusses the notion of the united front in a pamphlet, 'Some
thoughts on problems of united front', p.27 .
68. 'Interview of Thirayut Bun mi, Secretary of the Committee for
Coordinating Patriotic and Democratic Forces', Samakkee Surob
II, no. 7 (September-October 1978), p.32 (in Thai).
69. 'The State of the CPT Revolutionary Movement Between October
6 1976 and October 20 , Internal Security Operations
Command (Bangkok, 1 January 1978), p.73 .
70. CCPDF News Service II, no. 1 (November--§ecember 1980).
167
71. 'The State of the CPT Revolutionary Movement', op. cit., p.68 .
72. Nopporn Suwanpanich (June 1980), op. cit.
73. 'Development of the Thai United Front', CCPDF News Service
II, no. 1, p.6.
74. University professors, personal interview, Bangkok (August 1980).
75. Nopporn Suwanpanich (June 1980), op. cit.
76. See CCPDF News Service, op. cit., pp.5-7, in which the CCPDF
admitted its isolation from the masses.
77. Statement of the CPT on its 30th Anniversary, delivered over
VOPT (1 .December 1972) (in Thai) .
Nopporn Suwanpanich (June 1980), op. cit.
It is not certain whether Mongkol or Phayom, who played pro-
minent roles in the TIM and TPF respectively, were already CPT
members before they became leading party members, particularly
Mongkol, who is believed to be a CPT Central Committee mem-
'Biography of Mongkol no Nakorn', Samakkee Surob
II, no. 5 (June-July 1978), p.19 (in Thai).
80. "Directional Problems of the Thai Revolution', CPT Party Unit
Mimeograph (in Thai). _
SI. Order of the Prime Minister's Office No. 66/2523, Section 3.

_
1~. ~
82.
,;
an

83. E of Thai Revolution', op. cit.

84. 'Report of a Seminar on Revolution in Thailand by a Study
Group', CPT Mimeograph (June 1980).
"new

168
APPENDIX A
Ten~point programme of the Communist Party of
Thailand (1 December 1968)

1. Resolutely carry out people's war, drive U.S. imperialism out of

Thailand, and overthrow the fascist dictatorial and traitorous
government of the Thanom clique which brings ruin to the people
and to the country. Establish a people's government which consists
of repre§enfat'ives of"The working class, peasants, petty bourgeoisie,
national bourgeoisie and of the patriotic and democratic personages
and which genuinely carries an independent and democratic
policy.
2. Abolish all laws, notices, orders and regulations detrimental to the
people and the country. The people .have the rights of freedom of
speech, writing, publication, holding meetings, organizing associa-
tions, holding demonstrations, of security of employment, main-
taining religious belief, and preserving their custody and habits
and livelihood which are not harmful to the people and the country .
3. Confiscate all property and land of the U.S. imperialists, the
Thanom clique, counter-revolutionaries and tyrannical landlords,
and distribute them for the benefit of the people and the nation.
Resolutely punish counter-revolutionaries and reactionaries who
have done evil deeds to the people according to the seriousness of
their crimes; opportunity to tug; over a new leaf will be given to
those who have done evil deeds and admitted them and are willing
to repent. ... ... ...,... »..a

4. Abolish all traitorous and unjust agreements and treaties, unite

with all the countries which support the Thai peoples' revolution;
together with the world revolutionary people, oppose imperialism,
169
 modern revisionism and all reaction, support the just struggle of
the oppressed peoples and nations the world over, promote
friendly relations with various countries on the basis of equality,
mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
5. The various nationalities shall en oy the right of autonomy within
the big family of Thailand; they shall enjoy equal rights, respect
each other, support and help each other, religions which are not
harmful to the people shall be respected, oppose national oppres-
sion and racial discrimination, economy, culture, education and
public health shall be developed generally in the areas Of all the
nationalities.
6. Abolish the feudal system of exploitation step by step, reduce
rents and interest, abolish all unjust debts; the agrarian revolution
shall be carried out according to the conditions of various places,
so that peasants shall be given land to earn a livelihood. Develop
irrigation, improve production, raise the standard of living, and
bring the role of the peasants into full play in the revolutionary
movement.
7. Promote and develop state industrial and commercial enterprises,
protect private industrial and commercial enterprises which are
not detrimental to the national economy; assist handicraft and
small commercial enterprises which are still beneficial to the
people.
8. Ensure the workers' employment, wages and security, workers
doing the same land of work and with the same productivity shall
get the same wage without distinction of sex, age and nationality.
9. Women shall enjoy equal rights as men in the political, economic,
cultural, educational and vocational fields; bring the role of
women into full play in l revolutionary movement and pro-
duction, promote fully welfare work among women and children,
ensure education and work to the youth.
10. Weed out the reactionary and corrosive U.S. imperialist and feudal
cultures which poison the spirit of the people, promote and
develop revolutionary culture, inherit critically the cultural herit-
age of the nationalities of Thailand and of other countries, pro-
mote and develop education which is patriotic, democratic,
scientific and of a mass character, promote and develop public
health, especially in the entire countryside .

170
~APPENDlX B
Ten-point programme of the Communist Party of
Thailand (1 December 1976)

1. Consolidate the forces of workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie,

national capitalists of all nationalities, as well as all patriotic and
democratic-loving political parties, organizations and people.
Expand H . people's war, eradicate U.S. imperialist influence,
topple to reactionary, cist and traitorous regime. Set up a
People's Government composed of representatives of the entire
revolutionary forces. Build up an independent, democratic and
prosperous new Thailand .
2. Abrogate all anti-popular laws, announcements, orders, rules and
regulations. Release all the patriotic and democracy-loving detainees.
Grant the people freedom of speech, writing, printing and publica-
tion, assembly, demonstration, strike action, freedom of religion
and the setting up of associations and political parties. The people
must be entitled to vote and stand for election at the age of 18.
3. Confiscate the assets of the U.S. imperialists, the atrocious traitor-
ous reactionaries and the hooligan landlords and appropriate them
for the benefit of the people and the country, and bring to justice
the counter-revolutionaries and reaction aries who have perpetrated
crimes against the nation and the people in accordance with their
wrong-doings. Those who have perpetrated crimes and come to
repent and correct their misdeeds will be shown leniency .
4. Carry into effect the foreign policy of independence and sov-
ereignty, revoke all traitorous and unjust treaties, conventions and
agreements, oppose imperialism, especially the hegemonism of the
two super-powers, establish friendly relations with all countries

171
 on the basis of equality, respect for each other's sovereignty and
territorial integrity, facilitate mutual benefits, unite and cooperate
with, support and assist the just struggle of all oppressed peoples
and nations throughout the world .
5. The people of various nationalities in Thailand shall enjoy equal
rights, should respect, support and assist each other, shall be
entitled to using their own languages and scripts and preserve their
fine traditions, customs and cultures, oppose any discrimination
against and oppression of all nationalities. In nationality regions,
autonomous administrations will be accorded under the big family
of Thailand. Economic, educational and public health develop-
ment must be implemented thoroughly and universally.
6. Abolish the oppressive system of feudalism; carry out agrarian
revolution with differences in treatment on a stage-by~stage basis
in accordance with the condition in each locality, allow all peas-
ants and planters to possess their own land, oppose all usurers,
annul all unjust debts and loan contracts, develop agricultural
production, and improve the livelihood of all agriculturalists.
'1. Safeguard national resources, develop the industry, commerce and
other enterprises of the state, protect the industry and commerce
of national capitalists, and assist manufacturing and trading bene-
ficial to the people.
8. Guarantee employment, wages and welfare of workers and office
employees. Equal wages will be paid to all persons for the same
work with equal production, irrespective of sex, age and nation-
ality.
9. Women and men are entitled to enjoy equal rights in political,
economic, cultural, educational, and working opportunities.
Enhance the role of women in carrying out the revolution and
production, guarantee the welfare of women_a;3.d.. cl_dren,..
Education and employment of youth will be ensured; youth
will be encouraged to love their nation, democracy, people do!
manual labor and dare to sacrifice for the common good,
participate energetically in the revolution and the building of a
new society.
Relief and welfare will be provided for disabled revolutionary
soldiers and persons, the families of those persons who have
sacrificed their lives for the revolution and the families of revolu-
tionary soldiers.
10. Make a clean sweep of the culture and education of the imperial-
ists and feudalists, promote the revolutionary culture and educa-
tion which is national, democratic and scientific in its character,
critically carry on the culture of the Thai nation and critically
adopt foreign culture, and thoroughly and universally expand
medical and health work, specifically in the rural areas.

172
APPENDIX C
Manifesto of the Thailand Independence Movement
(TIM)*

1 Drive the U.S. imperialists from Thai territory.

2 Overthrow the dictatorial reactionary government of Thant and
form a government composed of men of political parties and
groups are patriotic, love democracy, and follow a policy
of neutrE.lTfy and peace. .

3. Lead the struggle for the implementation of genuine democracy

for the people.
4. Lead the struggle for a policy of neutrality, peace, prosperity,
and the well-being of the people.

* The Tim was proclaimed on 1 November 1964 (it is believed in Beijing). In November
1965 the Central Committee of the TIM adopted the resolution to become a member
organisation of the TPF (see Appendix D).

173
APPENDIX D
Six-point programme of the Thailand Patriotic Front
(TPF) announced on 1 January 1965

1. Struggle for national independence, the cancellation of the military,

economic, and technical aid agreements between the United States
and Thailand •
2. Struggle for the democratic rights of the people, for overthrowing
the ultradictatorial U.S. puppet government, for lifting martial law
and the release of political prisoners.
3. Apply the policy of peace and neutrality, withdraw from the
SEATO bloc, stop interfering in neighbors' internal affairs, refrain
from joining any military bloc, and establish friendly relations with
all countries.
4. Develop the national economy, encourage agricultural production,
develop irrigation networks, prevent the occurrence of natural
calamities, and guarantee that peasants can sell their products at
good prices.
S. Improve the living standards of the people, impose heavy punish-
ment on corrupters, and work out land reforms in order to give
land to the peasants.
6. Develop education and health projects, oppose the rotten culture
of imperialism, and support our fine national culture.

175
APPENDIX E
Problems of leadership and ideology

Most of the ideological disputes and leadership struggles within the

CPT hierarchy have been the outcome of the increasingly evident
historical struggle between the 'pro-Chinese line' and the 'nationalist
line' in formulating its practical ideology (strategy). The pro-Chinese
line represents the orthodoxy of Mao's revolutionary strategy, that is,
a singular reliance on the 'countryside encircles the strategy
of armed struggle, and most of its proponents are certainly ethnic
Chinese. The nationalist line questions the relevance of a purely Maoist
strategy to the Thai situation and is opposed to the Chinese domination
of the CPT. Although no concrete ideology or strategy has been artic-
ulated, its proponents emphasise the need for the concrete realities
of Thai society to form the basis of revolutionary strategy. Since 1978
the public voicing of this nationalist challenge from former personnel
and concerned outsiders makes it likely that the CPT's political line
might be redirected so as to resolve the now crucial issue of the pro~
Chinese image of the party and its leadership and to regain and enlarge
ideological support from intellectuals in particular.

The struggle for a political line

It has been said that 'the birth of the CPT was conceived in the womb
of the CCP21 History indicates that from its official founding on 1
December 1942 until 1961 the external element, namely, the CCP,

177
was of predominant influence, leading some observers to argue that
the CPT was, in part, under the influence of Chinese foreign policy.
During this period the CPT had yet to establish its revolutionary
ground and formulate a clearly identifiable strategy. It relied heavily
on the analyses of Thailand undertaken by members of the CCP-Siam
branch,2 its predecessor, and especially on the writings of Mao Zedong.
In order to raise the consciousness of workers in the Bangkok area,
the CPT simply combined diverse forms of activity - open or secret,
legal or illegal. To mobilise general support, the CPT participated in
various popular movements such as the anti~Japanese and peace move~
merits.3 Some CPT members and sympathisers were members of
parliament in the late l950s, for example Prasert Sapsoonthorn, MP
for Suratthani province, who later became a CPT Central Committee
member.4 ._ .__. kg .
During the 1 9 , ideas of armed revolution in rural areas, par-
ticularly those of Mao Zedong that guir.led the victory of the Chinese
Revolution in 1949, greatly influenced CPT leaders.5 Predictably,
the only and major explicit adoption of a CPT practical ideology was
the decision, to switch from urban to mal bases for launching an
armed revolution supported by peasant forces, made at the 3rd
National Congress in 1961. At the time, this choice of a Maoist 'coun-
tryside encircles the town' strategy owed much to the perception that
the revolutionary conditions within both Thai and Chinese societies
were similar enough to logically guarantee a similar success. Essenti-
ally, the political thought of Mao Zedong can be described as 'one
which united the universal truths of Marxism-Leninism with the prac-
tice of revolution and construction in China'.6 In other words, in the
explicit adoption of Mao's prescription for armed struggle in its en-
tirety, the CPT also subscribed to the universal truths propounded
in Marxism-Leninism at the level of pure ideology. This distinction
will serve to clarify the nature of the contentions over party line as
well as the issue underlying leadership struggles.
Dissension over the adoption of armed struggle became evident
in the mid-1950s. Prasert Sapsoonthorn, a CPT Committee member
who was a leading opponent, argued that struggle within the demo-
cratic process would attract more mass support.i" Following the official
adoption of armed struggle by the 3rd National Congress in 1961,
Prasert was purged from the party as a traitor, ostensibly for admitting
that he had contact with government leaders during his period in
prison from 1958 to 1964.8 Observers viewed this political purge
as an indication of the pro-Chinese nationalist line struggle. In 1967,
Pin Bua-on, a CPT Politburo member, claimed that his arrest was a CPT
set-up for his support of the nationalist line.9 Pin had been actively
urging the party establishment to develop and emphasise the Thai
character of CPT leadership, membership and support. A few years
178
later, he was expelled from the CPT. After the 14 October uprising in
1973, Pin propounded a political line called 'Long live the October
14 direction' as well as a struggle against imperialism within the demo-
cratic process, that is, the building up of progressive forces in parlia-
ment to strengthen bargaining with the ruling classes. The CPT severely
denounced Pin as a pseudo-Marxist. It had become clear that the
Chinese line not only controlled the CPT but was identified with
the concept of armed struggle in rural areas. ._ . *=

Another intra-party struggle over party not generally known

publicly because there were no overt purges or defections, occurred
during 1969-70. It involved the criticism of Deng Xiao-ping by the
Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution in China between 1966
and 1969.1 0 The struggle within the CPT involved criticism by CPT
leaders at the Three-Provincial Revolutionary Base (Khet Sam Chang-
wat) of leaders at the Two-Provincial Revolutionary Base (Khet Song
Changwat), the two oldest and largest bases, where important CPT
leaders reportedly reside. Tianchai Wongchaisuwan, a former student
leader and recent defector, explained this struggle in his article 'Rebel's
Memoir':
A current most powerful comrade (of the CPT) is a close friend
of Deng Xiao-ping and another one is a close friend of Chang
Chung-chiao (a member of the Gang of 4). . . . While the Gang of
4 severely attacked Deng Xiao-ping, the party's centre was split
into two camps. Huts in (the Three-Provincial Revolutionary
Base) invaded and aimed at suppressing the Two-Provincial Revo-
lutionary Base (CPT HQ) with forces.1 1
This struggle was not resolved until 1976, according to an untitled
CPT Mimeograph, when it surfaced with the replacement of Song
Noppakhun, an ethnic Chinese, by Mitr Samarkand, a native Thai from
the northeast, as the new first secretary-general of the CPT. Although
this suggested a compromise between the pro-Chinese and nationalist
lines within the CPT hierarchy, whereby the nationalist line seemed
to have gained some ground, Pin and many other observers still believe
that the Chinese character of CPT leadership has remained." Their
assessment agrees with reports that the person actually in control
of the CPT is Politburo member Virat Angkathavorn (Thai alias Com-
rade Thain, Chinese alias Chang Yuan), an ethnic Chinese.1 3

The failure of leadership

Contributing to the pro-Chinese line of the CPT's revolutionary strategy

is the ethnicity of CPT leaders and their reportedly close relations to
179
the CCP. The present CPT Politburo is composed of seven committee
members: Mitr Samarkand, first secretary-general, Virat Angkathavorn,
Thong Jar sri, Prasit Tapiantong; Song Nappakhun, Durnri Ruang-
suwan and Udom Srisuwan. Four of these seven (Virat, Song, Dumri
and Udorn) are hines heritage and are described as Chinese
sympathisers who maintain a close relationship with the ccp.1'* This
information has recently fuelled the strong criticisms of the CPT as
lacing Thai character and being heavily dependent on the CCP. More-
over, it is charged, these leaders have been living in the jungle for more
. . . . .. .. . ..

than twenty years. They seem oblivious to the rapid changes in Thai-
land,l 5 in particular the pervasive growth in the capitalist method
of production over the last ten years, and the possible challenge from
the changed thrust of government counter~insur ency tactics. General
Prom's Order of 1980, namely, the 'struggle to win over colnmunists',
is reported as being dismissed by CPT leaders as a superficial change
or, at least, one at only the conceptual level, with no spillover into
practice. The CPT continues to believe that the ineffectiveness of
government counter-insurgency and the corruption of its organisation
and its personnel cannot be resolved.
An equally crucial handicap contributing to the perceived alienation
of CPT leaders from Thai people is that the CPT has never succeeded
in recruiting a leader with a potential for national recognition as a
symbol of real change or new hope. Again, the reason seems to lie
Ni the infleydbility and radicality of the CPT's practical ideology of
upholding armed revolution by peasants as not only the principal
means, but the only means, for revolution in Thailand. This proposition
has been unacceptable to many of the older Thai intellectuals whom
the CPT has attempted to recruit: for example, Pridi Phanornyong
and Dr Prey Ungpakorn, who are both highly recognised and respected
among intellectuals and bureaucrats. So, it is up to the young intel-
lectuds who joined the CPT after October 1976 to work towards
achieving some degree of national recognition and respect in filling
this vacuum. Without the emergence of such leadership, the momentum
of CPT support among the masses, particularly intellectuals, as well
as an imminent CPT victory are unlikely .

The current impasse

While the entry of intellectuals after l9'76 introauceé new ideological

lines on Thai society and revolution, greatly encouraging discussion
and study groups within the party, recent
intellectuals contain the strongest stimulus for a redirection in politics_
line. In June 1979, Boonsong Chalethom, a former student leader who

180
joined the CPT after 1976, appeared in Bangkok and attacked the
CPT as a follower of the Chinese, a non-Maridst party, and a petit-
bourgeois and peasant party, in Thai Nikorn, a weekly magazine.
Shortly after, Yuk Sri-araya (pseudonym of Tianchai Wongchaisuwan)
wrote in his 'Rebel's Memoir' a similarly inclined criticism. The
thrust of these criticisms is that the CPT does not have its own ideology
and consequently will not progress its revolution very far, and that
the CPT alienates itself from Thai society,
Following Boonsong and Tianchai, several other leading figures
defected, such as Somphong Srawakee, Thongpak Piangkate, Kongkietr
Kongka, Sakesan Prasertkul, Jiranan Pitpreecha and Vichai Bumringrit.
Their criticisms have reportedly had a strong impact on young intel-
lectual sympathisers of the CPT and former students within the move-
ment. This is the first time that the CPT has been publicly criticised
or challenged. Two circumstantial factors that encouraged and seem-
ingly legitimised these ideological attacks were the termination of
materiel support from the Indochinese countries and the changed
Chinese foreign policy of friendly relations with the Thai government
and the consequent reduction of support given to the CPT.
While this current lack of a credible leadership and crisis in ideo-
logical relevance is not over, there is an observable concern over the
need to prevent further defections by paying closer attention to speci-
fically Thai privations, traditional values and indigenous aspirations.
in December 1980, the Statement of the 38th Anniversary of the
CPT explicitly echoed this directionz- creation and strengthening
of a democratic atmosphere within the party, interest in studying
all aspects of the Revoluiif'r and self-reliance and self-determination
in revolutionary practice.

Notes

1. Nopporn Suwanpanich and Kraisak Choonhaven, 'The Communist

Party of Thailand and the Conflict in Indochina', presented at the
seminar, 'Vietnam, ocarina and Southeast Asia: Into the 80's',
) »

organised by the Institute for Social Science, 29 Septembe1°~3

October 1980 at The Hague, The Netherlands, reprinted in TIC
News (31 October 1980), p.5.
2. Ibid., p.6. The authors state, 'The very first radical analysis of Thai
society was in fact known to be written in Chinese entitled: "Draft
Statement Analysing the Government and Economy of Siam and
181
 Procedures for the Association, Approved by the Special Enlarged
Committee", it was a superficial view of the prevailing Thai
society. One author, apparently a CCP-Siam Branch member, drew
his analysis quite heavily from Mao's Analysis of the Classes in
Chinese Society (1926), to the extent that Chinese and Thai social
structures seemed almost indistinguishable
3. 'A Brief Introduction to the History of the Communist Party of
Thailand, 1942-77', in The Road to Victory: Documents from
the Communist Party o f Thailand (Chicago: Liberator Press).
4. 'Who is Prasert Sapsoonthorn and where did he come from?',
Thai Nikorn (21 April 1978), pp.6-13 (in Thai).
5. According to a 1977 official CPT account :
The victory of the Chinese peoples' liberation war and the
foundation of the People's Republic of China on October l ,
1949, provided very great encouragement to oppressed nations
and people all over the world, and demonstrated the correct
path for the liberation of all semi-colonial, semi-feudal countries.
From Nopporn Suwanpanich and Kraisak Choonhaven, op. cit.,
pp.5-6.
6. Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist
China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p.29. -
7. Prasert Sapsoonthorn, personal interview, Bangkok (9 August
1979). For further details on this struggle over political line, see
his interview in Thai N f k o r n (12 April 1978), pp.6~12 (in Thai).
8. Ibid., p. 13. Reportedly, Prasert still maintains contact with
government leaders, particularly military leaders. It is believed
that he is the brain trust of the DSG,whose members, for example,
Lt. Gen. Ham and Maj. Gen. Ravee Warper, are closely associated
with the prime minister and commander-in-chief of the army,
Prom Tinsulanon.
Pin Bua-on, personal interview, Bangkok (June 1979).
Chi Hsin, Tend Hsiao-pirzg: A political biography (Hong Kong:
Cosmos Books, 1978), directly discusses the political life of Tend,
particularly in Parts 2 and 3.
I I . Yuk Sri-araya, 'Rehe1's Memoir: I came out to challenge the CPT's
sacredness', Thai Nikorn (1979), p.l6 (Xerox) (in Thai).
Pin Bua-on, op. cit.
For more information on Virat Angkathavorn see 'Chang Yuan:
First President of Thailand', Thai Nikorn (9 July 1979), pp.16-
20 (in Thai).
Thai Nikorrz (9 July 1979) (in Thai).
'Criticize the CPT: Changes in 36 Years', Siam Nikorn (12 Decem-
ber 1978) (in Thai).
16. Yuk Sri-araya, op. cit., pp.l5-18.

182
COMMENTS

The most commonly held view of the CPT over the last two years is
that the movement has been 'crushed', 'defeated' and reduced to the
level of scattered 'trouble-maker' or bandit group. This stems from
the perception of a sharp drop in armed clashes between the army
and CPT fighting forces. However, this evaluation ignores the sup-
posedly continuing intensity of CPT political and civilian organisations.
What has been reduced is therefore the scope of revolutionary activities.
It is also known that camps or base areas destroyed or captured
by the military were generally those that had been vacated, whereas
num strongholds in the three provinces remain and are likely to do so,
because of the terrain.
"'I"'..in successful suppression of the CPT is also assumed from the
recent numbers leaving the party - the majority being the 3,000-
4,00() students who fled to the 'jungle' after the 1976 October military
coup. An estimated 80 per cent to 90 per cent of them have 'returned'.
However, most of these returned students, who also accounted for
the dramatic increases in CPT membership after 1976, were not com-
mitted to the CPT cause in the first place. Those that were are still
working for the party, and university students have even numbered
among CPT Central Committee members. Significantly not many PLAT
soldiers, for example, are thought to have 'returned'. It is also under-
stood that it was, in fact, the CPT's intention to rid itself of most of
the student members to reduce the strain on material supplies. There-
fore the evaluation that the party is severely weakened or diminished
in committed forces is a superficial one.

183
 The ideological splits within the party often cited as another weak-
ening factor, also tend to be misunderstood. For example, osten-
sibly prompted by the present Vietnamese border conflicts, the CPT
has started on a nationalist programme to rally popular support against
the Vietnamese. Gathering support for wider revolutionary goals
under this cover is, however, not the only aim. Coinciding with the
Sino-Vietnamese conflict, pro-Vietnamese cadres are thus also eased
out of the party. The extent of the influence of the pro-Vietnam
faction is considerable. Although the leaders of the CPT received most
of their ideological training and have spent most of their lifetime in
China, many leaders and cadres at the village level were trained in
Laos and Vietnam. Therefore, the surfacing of internal struggles at
particular historical junctures can also be viewed as attempts at streng-
thening the coherence of the party line. .
The much publicised shift in government counter-insurgency strategy
as clarified in the Prime Ministerial Order Nos. 66 and 65, which
attempted a national mobilisation for development and participatory
politics, is unlikely to be put into effect in the near future. Influential
rightist groups within the government have thus far effectively blocked
any implementation of urban participatory channels, pointing to the
fact that Order No. 66, being written by a former CPT Central Com-
mittee member worldng closely with influential military and govern-
ment circles for over twenty years, will probably encourage the activa-
tion of CPT agitation in the urban areas. This veto is likely to continue
unless the military assumes a dominant role in government decision-
making. .
Following the changed CPT-PRC-Vietnam relationships, there have
been, both within and outside the CPT, attempts to form a splinter
movement. The main effort is said to come from a Marxist-oriented
movement called the Committee for Preparations of Democracy in
Thailand. It is heavily dominated by ex-personnel of the CPT from the
south northeastern region. It is clear, however, that the Chinese line
still prevails within the party, although the outcome of the 4th Party
Congress reflected some adjustments to the faction favouring a greater
degree of reliance on peaceful struggle as well as the pro-nationalist
line. Others outside the CPT are beginning to weigh the pros and
cons of working with the party or functioning as independent' agents
in the process of national social reform. Certainly, among the majority
of those who returned, the disaffection with the CPT has in no way
invalidated their belief in the need for either 'revolutionary change'
or the eradication of exploitation in Thai socioeconomic structures.
Taldng a wider perspective, the emerging ideas and methods of the
still-desired revolutionary change in Thailand have yet to be clarified.
With regard to the continuity and persistence of the appeal of the
CPT, there is growing recognition that significant adaptations in party

184
agitprop have enhanced its relevance in popular aspirations. Much of
this occurred after 1976 with the sudden influx of intellectuals. For
example, prior to that, CPT propaganda had ignored the appeal of
Buddhism and other traditional notions in Thai society. However,
before the closure of the VOPT, preachings of Buddhist monks were
broadcast every fortnight. Similarly, all through the 1960s and early
1970s there was hardly any criticism of the Thai monarchy, even
though the CPT regards it as a symbol of feudalism, which they neces-
sarily oppose. Although the strength of that institution in popular
beliefs constrained ideological denouncements, the CPT has attempted
to fashion a case, pointing out that the monarchy was not functioning
for the benefit of the people by using information and critiques gained
from the young intellectuals, for example, the extent of royal pro-
perties and rent levies. Still, given the sensitivity of this issue and the
realisation that other circles are already exposing facts that they do not
have access to, it is still a party inclination not to go overboard in an
area that will restrict scope for united front activities on the
broadest possible scale. The popularity of revolutionary songs using
folk song tunes and the projection of propaganda through folklores
or folk plays are also increasingly acknowledged.
In triers to picture the future, it is unlikely that either the strength
of the CPT will be reduced to that of a marginal protest group or that
democratic rule in Thailand is an imminent possibility. The protracted
struggle between government and CPT forces - as well as their re-
spective factional elements - for popular support is likely to continue.

185
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
CHANDRANJESHURUN
UNIVERSITI MALAYA

Although there has thus far not been an outbreak of a world war on
the scale of the Second World War, there has, nevertheless, been no
end to conflicting or violent relations between and within nations.
In Southeast Asia in particular, an endemic as well as a long-standing
form of armed extra-parliamentary opposition has been the communist
insurgency that practically every nation-state in the region has had
to face. The existence of armed communist movements has thus been
considered one of the main challenges in the security and development
of Southeast Asia during the last four decades.

Selected aspects

There is, naturally, a problem in separating the general from the more
specific and particular issues that have arisen in the various national
environments that are described and analysed in the foregoing pages.
During the informal discussions centered around the various papers,
however, some attempt at generalisation had to be made in order to
alive at a better understanding of the underlying factors sustaining
armed cominunisin in the region as a whole. ....

The apparent liiNis between the various country studies of armed

communism in Southeast Asia became even more obvious when certain
common themes in the experiences of individual countries were
observed. It was generally seen that the phenomenon of armed
187
communism was of relatively recent historical origin as the grouping
of such movements into (1) the 1920s to the outbreak of the Second
World War, and (2) the post-war period clearly demonstrated. Indeed,
a vital subject of debate was the need to categorise further the latter,
as a third phase had begun to emerge as the indigenous governments
became more capable of countering the strategies of existing CPs.
Although no specific dates could be agreed upon, the consensus was
to limit the post-Second World War period to about the mid-1970s
and to recognise the start of a new period from then onwards. What
was of far greater significance, however, was the awareness that armed
or militant opposition movements in many instances were not novel
phenomena in a region that had witnessed historical precedents such
as peasant revolts and rural protest movements, as well as the more
recent nationalist independence movements and struggles. In this
regard, there was due recognition of the relevance of such existing
historical works for those studying armed communist struggles in
Southeast Asia. Treating armed communism in Southeast Asia during
the contemporary period without sufficient appreciation of populist
tendencies and movements in the history of the region would be a
somewhat imperfect exercise that would mistakenly present it as a
historical episodic affair.
An obvious historical feature common to armed 6 l
msiilew
merits in Southeast Asia that was confirmed during discussions con-
cerned their strategic bias. With the single exception of Singapore,
it was recognised as a universal feature of such modern insurgencies
that they tended to be largely rural-based movements with the bulk
of their folio , particularly fighting forces, being drawn from the
peasantry. This perception more than borne out by the simple
fact that the prevalently adopted Maoist strategy of guerrilla warfare
was based on the assumption that the main potential popular forces
were to be found in the majority, that is, the rural population. As
this movement was primarily directed against first the colonial, then
the new governing elites or the 'bourgeois-capitalist' groups generally
located in the urban centres, it was apparent that the foci of develop-
mental studies and those covering the problem of armed communism
both converged on the need for rural development efforts. Indeed,
much of the work done in such major disciplines as geography, eco-
nomics, and anthropology or sociology has made a vital contribution
to the study of the persistence of' rural-based armed communism in
Southeast Asia. There was no denying that the whole process of rural
development and modernisation - which must of necessity accompany
the variety of development schemes among the countries of the region
-.-. impinged directly on the reasons for the support for armed com-
munism in Southeast Asia,
Yet another broad area of shared experience in Southeast Asian
188
communist movements concerned the element of leadership in insurg-
ent movements. Here again the rule of the historical process was evid-
ent: in a number of cases the strong nationalist character of the leader-
ship, which controlled armed communism, was clear in both the initial
pre-Second World War and subsequent post-war phases of development.
Indeed, the whole question of the degree of nationalist motivation
of armed . \ r , together with the involvement of intellectuals

within the movement, required careful scrutiny in understanding the

successes and failure in inned mobilisations and the agitprop for
mass support. There was also a strong consensus that more should
be done to study the experience of Vietnamese communism in par-
ticular to understand better the tactical juxtaposition of nationalist
and ideological imperatives in the study of armed communist struggles
in Southeast Asia. The victory of the Vietnamese communists was
also perceived by many CP factions as an exemplar in revolutionary
mobilisation. Interestingly enough, many of the accounts of armed
communism in Southeast Asia came up with a common pattern of
fellow-traveller operatives. It was immediately pointed out that in
societies that have lacked a firm political base the emergence of fellow-
traveller elements at particular historical junctions was not unique
to communist movements by any means. Finally, the debate over the
nature of the leadership of Southeast Asian CPs examined the question
of etlmicity as a variable explaining the relative successes in achieving
popular appeal on a national scale. This phenomenon has, in fact,
been widely recognised in several earlier studies of rural communist
or protest movements in several Southeast 7%i§r countries, for ex-
ample, the Chinese character of the CPT and CPM or the Javanese
character of the PKI. The extent to which this has actually resulted

minority interest deserved an empirical study. _ _

in particular contemporary CPs being regarded as an exclusive or

A recurrent conclusion in most of the studies was that, without

exception, CP propaganda professed the long-term eventuality of
their revolutionary goals. However, it became clear that the majority
of the indigenous CPs, though in many cases quick to seize or perceive
opportunities to launch immediate uprisings in circumstances that
appeared ideal for the sudden capture of political power, had all
equally been characterised by a lack of systematic planning or analyses
of wider national realities and equally, therefore, of a strategic 'ripe-
for-revolution' theory underlying mass mobilisation efforts. In many
cases it was also recognised that continual and considerable faction-
alism within the CPs themselves was a related factor. It would be
difficult to determine how, or whether, these disputes have been re-
solved in the Southeast Asian context as a whole. However there was
ample evidence to show that an influential section of many of the
local CPs subscribed to the long-term opportunistic perspective in
189
 progressing towards their goals and admitted to set-backs - major
or minor - but never to failures. Communist movements in Southeast
Asia were committed to exploiting the inevitable or emergent weak-
nesses of ruling regimes, and it was this orientation that suggested
an alternative perspective for the study of armed communism in the
region, namely, from the viewpoint of the CPS. For example, how did
CPs perceive the conflict over the relevance or failures of their armed
struggle? How were they responding to or resolving the challenge of and
need for an alternative strategy and, hence, theory of social change?
In short, how did they intend to reforinthe future of their societies
and the revolutionary process?
None of the armed communist movements in Southeast Asia could
be said to have survived without active or passive international or ex-
u
ternal support, and the seeds of this situation were to be found from
the days of the Cornintern and the inception of Southeast Asian CP
branches. However, in appreciating the adaptive capacities of the
prevailing CPs, it was important to distinguish between the actual
.origin of the CP and its development thereafter. Nevertheless, this
'traditional dependence has been a common feature of Southeast
Asian CPs in differing degrees, although the degree to which revolu-
tionary activities have been constrained as a result was not as well
known. The consideration of this aspect of armed communism led
to some interesting and novel prognoses, ranging which was the view
that indigenous : . . " ,Southeast Asia have ex-
ploited their international benefactors or supporters for the purposes
of only temporary expediency, although the Vietnamese CP did not use
such behavior, Admittedly, the Sino-Soviet split had a crucial role
in shaping the political orientations of armed communist movements
in Southeast Asia and, in many cases, determined their strategic plan-
ning. However, the long-standing split between the two communist
giants, which prompted ideological, factional and tactical disputes
within individual CPs in the region, has more often than not served
as the pretext for latent and simmering differences within the party
leadership and its followers to be 'resolved' - often in open intra-
party conflict and subsequent defections or purges. Arguably, it was
too simplistic to view intra-party dissension as a direct outcome of the
PRC-USSR power struggle. It was also suggested that consideration
of this external dimension had to be viewed in the context of the
external support extended to the régimes in the region, for the purpose
of counteracting communist and other armed dissident movements.
On the whole question of external support, too, there was a need to
be more definitive, as this has variously consisted of materiels, training,
financial or simply moral support depending on changing alignments
within the 'fraternity'.
A major area of interest in the studies of armed communism in
190
Southeast Asia was the observable change in CP tactics and strategy
to
' response to changes in political, social and economic environments
in Southeast Asia over the past twenty-five years or so. As the initial
rise of armed communism was directed to undermining the legitimacy
of colonial and, later, newly established or 'neo-colonial' ruling groups
in Southeast Asia, it would clearly be pertinent to determine whether
régime legitimacy continued to be an issue sustaining ongoing com-
munist struggles. This poser was itself closely linked to the modernism
son process, in particular to the social and economic development
of rural communities towards which governments in Southeast Asia
have invested a great deal of publicity and resources. As these schemes
for socioeconomic development were aimed directly at the very same
historical sources of deprivation and near deprivation that armed com-
munist movements ostensibly sought to eradicate, it remained an
important consideration to evaluate what changes if any had occurred
as a result of governmental effort or capitalist penetration in that
sector of society. While conventional CP analyses of their societies
as semi-colonial, semi-feudal formations were obviously outdated,
there was now a need to understand the nature of the socio-political
tensions that have emerged in the newer conditions in rural and urban
areas, and whether these might conceivably have given dsc to modifica-
tions or revisions of the traditional strategy of armed communism
in what appeared to be a concerted effort at indigenising the rhetoric
and forms of contemporary CP ag__pr_0_p. In a sense then, while Marxist
rhetoric continued to be used as a symbolic rallying point, in opera-
tional terms, communist movements were being indigenised -- even
drawing on religious concepts, as in the Philippines and were operat-
........

Mg through local mobilisations or opposition groups. Thus, the strategy

of surrounding and capturing the towns from the countryside had in
some cases seen considerable adaptation as conditions of popular
unrest were increasingly more prevalent in the more heavily populated
towns.
Finally, closely related to the change in both insurgent strategy and
its environment were the much more fundamental pressures of ethnic-
ity that pervaded Southeast Asian politics in general. Undoubtedly,
the ethnic element has produced varying consequences in different
countries and its vital relevance to the development of armed com-
munist movements must necessarily be studied in the wider context
of the position of political minorities as a whole. For example, in
Vietnam a majority movement attempted to absorb minorities within
its fold after the seizure of state power, whereas in the cases of Thai-
land, Malaysia and Indonesia essentially ethnic movements had
attempted to survive in the face of larger ethnic majorities. Once again 4+

there were found to be strong historical arguments for this particular

phenomenon. While each individual study of armed communism in

191
particular countries did recognise this as a problem, it was nevertheless
felt that the perceived limitations of ethnic domination were forcing
efforts and tactics to transcend the ethnic factor if the momentum
of armed communist struggles in Southeast Asia was to be maintained.
An allied question was the foreign policy orientation of prevailing
ruling groups in the region, particularly where it involved the opening
of relations with external communist or revolutionary governments.
It was thus perceived that regional stability was also dependent on
such government-to-government diplomatic contacts or negotiations.
The question that naturally arose was the tactical and strategic position
of armed communism at local and international levels. There was
every likelihood that while future trends in the strategies of armed
communism in Southeast Asia would continue to be influenced by
the international situation and post-1975 regional diplomatic develop-
ments, particularly with the USSR, PRC and Vietnam, an important
aspect in the evolution and comparative studies of the various move-
ments was that of the relationships between CPs in the region. Al-
though such transnational liM<s have been observed, for example,
between the CPT and CPM, the CPT and BCP, this was regarded as an
area deserving further inquiry and additional information.

Selected themes

In a wide-ranging review and discussion of the phenomenon of armed

communism in Southeast Asia it was not always possible to categorise
systematically its many features and particular significance in individual
countries. Nevertheless, the deliberations did manage to identify
important areas in the study of this particular challenge to the security
or legitimacy of ruling governments. One such aspect was the character
and organisational structure of indigenous CPs in the region. It was
apparent, for example, that there were significant variations observable
in the ideological doctrines that such parties adhered to. What was
particularly interesting was the extent to which their historical origins
had shaped their peculiar leanings within the Marxist-Leninist ideo-
logical matrix. Similarly, their tactical doctrines were the direct result
of influences to which the party leadership had been exposed, especi-
ally in the course of establishing their external sources of moral and
ideological support and while undertaking training or education.
Moreover, each of the CPS of Southeast Asia has had to grapple with
changing circumst onces that have affected the current strategy of the
party at any given time. In general it could be demonstrated that none
of the CPs had an absolute commitment to particular tactics. On the
contrary, one of the principal features of armed communist movements

192
in Southeast Asia was the degree of flexibility that individual parties
showed when choosing the appropriate tactical posture, without any
ideological predetermination of the ultimate course of action. Out of
this analysis emerged the obvious conclusion that subversive action
was by no means a monopoly of the CPs in Southeast Asia, as the
ethnic and socio-economic variables inherent in the regional societies
had lent themselves to exploitation for various reasons. The imple-
mentation of communist tactical doctrines had also faced tremendous
obstacles owing to an underestimation and lack of thorough analyses
of the strength and prevalence of the socio-cultural restrictions, tradi-
tional values and intlle>dble social norms in their own societies.
At the level of organisational structure, the strength of indigenous
communist movements was to a large extent dependent on the nature
of party leadership. Thus a distinct change from the earlier founding
fathers' syndrome, which most local CPs laboured under, to the gradual
rise of newer and indigenous elements influencing party policies was
becoming increasingly evident. Certainly, it could not be denied that
a younger generation of post-nationalist cadres, who had in several
instances moved up into the higher echelons of party leadership, had
brought with them rather different nationalist and intellectual per-
ceptions on tactics, strategy and propaganda in the promotion of
communism. To some extent these revisions of earlier classical models
of armed insurgency were the product of both the Sino-Soviet and
CCP factional rifts. In this connection much discussion was focused
on open united front activities and there was a consensus among most
authors and participants that this particular strategy had stood the
test of time as one of the most relevant activities of armed communism
in Southeast Asia. In the unique case of Singapore the united front
strategy has been historically the most consistent and effective strategy
of the CPM, and the potential of such open political operations was
o f great significance in the rapidly intensifying process of political
participation that all Southeast Asian nations were currently under»
going.
inevitably, the examination of armed communism in Southeast
Asia was concerned with the formal responses of the governments in
power, as their counter-insurgency policies were directly shaped to
a f f e c t the future of armed communism itself. For example, an under-
standing of the forms of collaboration in which armed communist
movements in Southeast Asia have indulged with other protest move-
ments could only emerge out of a clearer picture of the effects of
government policy and actions regarding rural underprivileged, urban
exploited and other generally deprived groups within Southeast Asian
societies. In many instances it could be shown that consciously clari-
fied government strategies towards particular sections of its population
or various economic undertaldngs were partly if not wholly responsible

193
for the discontentment and nonce-operation that eventually was
mobilised or politicised by the respective CPS. Therefore, a more
serious look was needed into the effects of modern capita.list~oriented
government development programmes, particularly those primarily
directed at traditional and isolated rural communities, although the
urban arena was fast developing as the more crucial.
By the same token, the military or para-military response of ruling
régimes to armed communism required careful study for it has taken
v a n g levels of intensity and modes of implementation in different
countries in the region. The fact, nevertheless, remained that these
different forms of military response to or retaliation against armed
communism have never been crowned with total success. Indeed,
as some of the studies have suggested, the very nature of military
counter-insurgency policy may itself well result in aggravating the
problem by the disruption and hardship it could conceivably cause
to the ordinary citizen, be he a rural farmer or an urban worker. It
was pointed out that in Malaysia, for example, there has been official
recognition of the disadvantages of purely military operations, to the
extent that the military establishment itself has had to work hand-in-
hand with its civilian developer ental counterpart in such programmes
as KESBAN (Keselamatan dan Pembangunan or Security and Develop-
ment). Another related consideration was the obvious tactical advant-
age that communist guerrilla warfare enjoyed against conventional
military forces of the government except in severely restricted terrain
or geo-political conditions. The primary concern in the discussion of
this subject was to create a greater awareness of the limits of official
militaristic response and its possible counter-productive results for
the legitimacy of national order-
.There were two other factors which were closely related to both
the CPs and their prime targets, the ruling governments. It was import-
ant 'to recognise, as has been pointed out earlier, that the ethnic com-
position and bias of individual CPs have had a determining influence
on the relative success or otherwise of armed communism in Southeast
Asia. None OE -.f indigenous communist movements of the region
has been able to escape from the pressures of ethnicity and, despite
exhortations to the contrary, have all succumbed to the domin-
ance of one or another ethnic group through numerical strength.
Such blatant ethnic manipulation of party leadership or membership
orientation has invariably been E reflection of the prevalent ethnic
patterns of the society `Vvithin which armed communism has had to
operate. Consequently, . ts of so many decades of ethnically
tainted militancy and subversion have had a debilitating effect on the
credibility of the communist programme of national liberation -
not to speak of internal splits within the party itself. Thus, so long
as ethnic rivalries continue to thrive in the political arena of indigenous

194
politics the communists themselves are unlikely to rise above them
and unite on purely ideological grounds.

Selected conclusions

The experience of armed communism in Southeast Asia hitherto ~f"'""

clearly suggested that the seizure of state power by armed struggle
through the Maoist strategic doctrine of surrounding the towns from
A
.I
£
w' ;
the countryside had so far been a failure in this region. The reasons
for this could be found in a number of variables common to most
Southeast Asian societies. Foremost among them was the ethnic ques-
tion where, as in the cases of Burma, Thailand and Malaysia in par-
ticular, the early CPs were active especially among ethnic minority
groups within the country. Similarly, even the experience of the PKI
in Indonesia demonstrated that the effectiveness of harnessing essenti-
ally Javanese support was never realised because of the failure to
understand or accommodate the complexities of social stratification
within that same community, and in the end this failure had brought
about the party's downfall. In contrast, the singular success of the
Vietnamese case indicated how different the situation could be when
the majority ethnic element was directly involved in what could be
construed as a struggle that was national in scope.
The role of intellectuals, too, has had a determining influence on
the course of armed communism in Southeast Asia. For both historical
and tactical reasons, indigenous intellectuals have been tolerated
within party structures but at levels far unequal to their real strengths
or potential contributions in terms of support and planning. It was
therefore pertinent to an if the low intellectual content of armed
communism in Southeast Asia, particularly in the post-independence
era, has been a reason for its relative success or failure. On the whole,
the experience of the individual communist movements examined
seemed to suggest that intellectuals as a group were generally regarded
as hindering the longer-term goals of the struggle for, as a group, they
have been prone to ideological or personal dissensions, which weakened
the main consolidating effort of CPs. On the other hand, it may be
said that the post-colonial situation in several countries has tended
to offer new areas of exploitation by communist movements. For
example, the establishment of US military bases in the Philippines
and the ever-increasing penetration into the national economy. by
Japan have both been popular intellectual concerns and fully exploited
as targets of military and economic imperialism by various dissident
groups. Thus, the earlier bases of communist strategy have had to be
replaced with readily available information on sources of public
195
 grievance and were easily incorporated into the ideological campaign
of armed communism.
One cogent trend of thought in the examination of armed com-
munism in Southeast Asia led to the conclusion that the majority
of in! communist movements in the region had apparently missed
the . E speak. In other words, it was felt that the immediate
post-war years offered possibly the most ideal political, socioeconomic
and nationalist climate during which the communists could have
grasped the leadership of national patriotic movements, turned it to
their advantage and accelerated their armed rural-based struggle in the
context of a wider and total political struggle. An examination of
revolutions that succeeded, such as in Cuba and Vietnam, seemed to
suggest that it was invariably in the wake of a nationalist war for
independence or 'liberation' that communist revolts succeeded in
dominating the political process. This suggested a need for some sort
of external enemy to provide the negative reinforcement for hastening
revolutionary struggle to achieve power. In the light of this analysis,
since the end of the Second World War the chances of armed com-
munism ever succeeding in Southeast Asia have grown progressively
dimmer - initially, with the attainment of independence and more
recently with the withdrawal of US troops from the area following
the victory of the Vietnamese. A close scrutiny of CP directives and
programmes in the immediate post-war years revealed that ideological
slogans were consistently preferred to nationalist slogans, somewhat
the reverse of the successful agitprop in China and later Vietnam.
A great deal of discussion was devoted to an understanding of the
actual form that communism has taken in Southeast Asia, particularly
in the ideological sense, in the present post-1975 era. Undoubtedly
strong and vibrant cultural variables inhibit the articulation of purist
Marxist ideological principles. Particularly in Thailand and Indonesia
I. lit was perceived that the religious-cultural constraints have worked
against an immediate response to enunciations of communist ideology.
Conversely, the history of the CPP is a standing testimony to the
indigenisation of a Marxist ideology with a strongly nationalist char-
acter. The discussions came full circle when it was proposed that at
a certain point in the communist struggle in Southeast Asia the move-
ments may cease to be ideologically communist in substance as they
acquired a more nationalist orientation and became more open to the
influences of other radical movements, including religious ones. This
was all the more relevant in the light of the central transformations
that have occurred in the heartlands of communism and, more import-
antly, the fragmentation of the international movement in recent
years, and the likely effect that they have had and will continue to have
on the ideological perceptions and continuity of indigenous CPs in
Southeast Asia. It may even be that a nationalist radicalism will

196
eventually emerge as the main intellectual thrust of Southeast Asian
CPs. This has come about in other parts of the Third World in the
form of such faiths as the Booth Party and Nasserism. In such an
event, what will emerge out of the history of armed communist struggle
in Southeast Asia could well be an admixture of many other non-
Marzdst radical sentiments in which even religion might be incorporated
and synthesised. Basically, it would mean that the conventional and
Cold War view of communism as a monolithic ideology will give way
to a recognition of its present-day div-érsity and fragmentation in
content and inspiration. Admittedly, 11 potential for a model of
Vietnamese comrnunis111.."l evolve, or even be actively propagated
as Vietnam adapts to pressing economic and diplomatic demands,
will have a determining effect on the nature and future of communism
in the rest of Southeast Asia. This does not imply the dilution of
communism, as Marzwdsts have always been the first to acknowledge
the relevance of dynamism in their ideology and to uphold dialectical
materialism as the progenitor of philosophical resilience.
In the final analysis it was recognised that there were active elements
that have inhibited the popularisation of CP ideological goals over
the past four decades. These included significant changes in the political
economies and the socio-cultural traditions of the societies that make
up Southeast Asia, which have remained a fundamental challenge
to the rationalisation of Marxist ideological frameworks. Since the
emergence of indigenous ruling regimes after the Second World War,
the changing value system and the slow but steady process of shifting
norms in political and social beliefs have transformed the scope of
the fundamental issues to a degree that communist movements in the
l2
region have not kept pace with. Finally, in coping with the ever-present 5
effects of modernisation and the transformation of traditional societies,
armed communism was but one contending response among a multi-
tude of others in the continual search for viable solutions to the socio-
economic and political issues that, ultimately, constituted the problem
of stability in Southeast Asia.

197
Index
Adjitorop, Jusuf 33-4
Aidit, D.N. 8, 15-16, 30-2,
38, 47
Analysis of the Classes in
Chinese Society (Mao
Zedong) 182
Angola 3
Anti-Communist Act (Thai-
land) 160, 163
Anti-subversion Law (Philip-
pines) 73-4
Baath Party 197
Baling talks (1955) 54
Bangkok ix, 146, 149, 178
Beijing 33 ._
Bertrand Russel Peace Founda-
tion 76
Black, Cyril 3, 17-18
Blither Selatan 4, 9, 11-13,
22-3
Boonsong Chalethorn 180-1
Borneo 51
Buddhism 185
Burma xi, xiii, 195
Burmese Communist Party
(BCP) 6, 195
Castro, Pedro 98
Chain Krasanaibura 165-7
Chen Hock Wah 124
China xii, xiii, 3, 177-80
Chin Pong 53-5
CIA 82, 84
colonialism 1 1, 191 ;
legacy of vii
Cominform 5
Comintern 103, 190
Committee for Coordinating
Patriotic and Democratic
Forces (CCPDF) 158-60;
CCPDF News Service 159,
167-8
Communist Party of Indonesia
(PKI) x, xi, 3-24, 29-42,
47, 61, 77; future 16-24,
history 3-16, 29-42
Communist Party of Malaya
(CPM) ix, xi, 51-64, 66-7,
109-29; ethnic composition
199
 and following 58-60,
ideological orientations
60-1, international impli-
cations 6 l -2 , leadership
and organizational changes
55-6; objectives and
approaches 53-4,strategy
and tactics 56-8, united
front in Singapore 109-29
Communist Party of the Philip-
pines (CPP) xii, 7 1 9 8 ,
102-5, critique of Lavaism
78-9, development of
People's War 89-93,
international connections
'76-8, New People's Army
80-3, origin of 72-6 ,
political function of armed
propaganda 8 l -4
Communist Party of the Philip-
pines (PKP) (founded 1930)
71-88, 93-5, 103
Communist Party of Thailand
(CPT) xi, 133-62, 183-5,
defectors 136, friends of the
Revolution 144-5, ideology
177-81, leadership 177-81 ,
Maoist strategy 136-7 ,
organization 146-9, recent
set-backs 136-7 , role of
intellectuals and students
157--8, role of the party
143-4, strategy 149-Sl, 155,
ten-point programme ( l Dec
68) 169-70, (1 Dec 76)
l'1 l -2 , theoretical analysis
of Thai society 141-2 ,
trade unions l 56 , united
fronts 157-61 , urban
strategy 155
Communist Party of the United
States (CPUS) 103
compradors 142
consumerism 19
200
(CPM RF) 51 _
CPM Marxist-Leninist (CPM
I M-L) 5 1 l l l l l l l l l l
CPM Revolutionary Faction
'Crush Malaysia' campaign
123
Cuba 3, 104, 196
Cultural Revolution in China
179
Dante, Commander 80, 83 ,
90
'de-Maoisation' 104
Democratic Soldiers Group
(DSG) (Thailand) 139-40
Deng Xiao-ping 179
deprivation xii-xiv
dialectical materialism L
Dutch 7,
East Timor 40-1
economic growth xii
education 122, 170, 172
Emergency Regulations
(Singapore) 112
ethnicity vi, 189, 191, 194
fella w-traveller elements 189
feudalism 170, 172
First World War xiv
Fong Chong Pik l 14) 116,
118-19, 124
Free Acheh movement 20
Freedom News (Singapore)
114
FRETILIN 40
Gallup polls 121-2
'Gang of Four' 77, 104, 179
Gestapu coup attempt 4, 6,
8-13, 16-18, 22, 30,
aftermath 16, 29, 42, 46
Great Power interests V
Guerrero, Amado 75-8, 80,
90-2, 96, 99, 101
guerrilla warfare 20, 194 Kampuchea 149, 153, 161,
Guided Democracy (Indonesia)
_
Vietnamese invasion 136,

_
_ 1 6 , 20, 23 138,146,153
Guided Economy (Indonesia)
Labour Front (LF) (Singapore)
111-13
Ham Linanon, Lt. Gen. 139, landlordism xii
164 Laos 136, 184
Hatter 14 Lava, Jesus 74-5, 79, 86, 99
Hindley, D. _ _ Lava, José '15, 79, 85, 99, 100
Hmong tribesmen 152 Lavaist§ 75-9, 94
Ho Chi Minh 91 leadership 177-81, 193
Hock Lee Bus Company 112-13 Lee Kuan Yew 111, 115-19,
Hong Lim 118, 122, 125 121,129
Hongqz' 34 :up as
Lee Slew Choh 118-19, 121,
Huk movement xiv, 4171-3, 124-5
95 liberation theology 96-'V
. .. . .. . . .. . ... . Lim Chin Siong 118 --We 121 -2
ideology 177 Lim Yew Hook 113-W
income, distribution of 19, 21 Loi Teck 53, 55 I
Indonesia xi, xiii, 1-=€3=li§= -42, Luzon xiv, 87, 90, 93, 95
46, 191, l§-6,5ee also
Communist Party of Indo- McVey, Ruth on communist
nesia Ann
rebellions in Southeast Asia
Indonesian Internal Security 4-6, 9-10, on Indonesian
Command (KOPKAMTIB) communism 25, 32, 39, 43,
mlq!ll!n-I
45
Indonesian Peasant Front (BTI) Madiun, putsch of 4-9, 11,
7, 8 12, 14
Indonesian Youth National
Magsaysay, President xiv, 47,
Committee (KNPI) 35 8l
Indonesia Tribune 33 Malaya xi, see also Malaysia
intellectuals 157, 195 Malayan Emergency (1948-
Iran 7 l 960) 52, S3
Islam I I , 20, 46, 60, 153 Malayan National Liberation
Issues in Southeast Asian Army (MNLA) 55-6
Security vii
Malayan People's Anti-Japanese
Jakarta 4, 32 Army (MPAJA) 6
Japan xii, xiii Malayan People's Republic S3
Japanese Occupation vii, x, 5, Malaysia ix, xiii, xv, 5l~64,
72,110 66-'7, 191, 194-5,for1nation
Java 9, 11-13, 15-16, 19-20, of 118-19, 121-3,5ee also
37, 39-40; land distribution Communist Party of Malaya
47,terrain 16, 39 Manila 83
Jogyakarta 7
201
Manila Times 84
195
_ _
Maoism 95 , see also Mao
I Zedong Thought
Maoist strategic doctrine 150,
Mao Tse-rung on Revolution
and War 166
Mao Zedong 110, 178;
Selected Works 166
Mao Zedong Thought 33 -4,
7'7-9, 90, 94, 104
Marcos, President 83, 85-8
Marshall, David 111-13, 115,
119
martial law 84-9, 96-'7
Marxist-Leninist ideology 22,
an
Marxist-Leninist journals 44
Marxist-Leninist movements
I vi, 14, 15, 29
Mortimer, Rex 39
Mozambique 3
Musa Ahmad 59
Muslim People's Liberation
Army (MPLA) 153
Nanyang University 1 14-15,
123, 126-7
Nasserism 197
Nasution, General 8
National Democratic Front
(NDF) (Philippines) 89
New China News Agency 33
New Order (Indonesia) 18-19,
23, 38, 41-2
New People's Army (Philip-
pines) 71, 80-3, 89-90,
95,104,105
free Ann College 126
Nicaragua 3, 19
Nixon Doctrine 138
Nopporn Suwanpanich 166,
168, 181
North Kalimantan 54, 63
North Kalimantan Communist
202
Party (NKCP) 51-2, 54-8,
61-4
Ong Eng Guan 1 18
organisational structures of
Communist parties 192
Organisation without Form
(OTB) 22-3
Pancasila 13
Patani movement 61
Peking Review 33
People's Action Party (PAP)
(Singapore) 111, E _ .1 1
Jae
People's Liberation Army
(TPR) (Indonesia) 9
People's Liberation Army
(PLAT) (Thailand) 145,
151,155,157,183
Philippines xiv, 4, 39, 47,
71-98, 102-5, Huk move-
ment xiv, 4, '71-3, 95,
martial law 84-9, university
74; USA bases xi-xii, 195;
see also Communist Party of
the Philippines
Pin Bua-on 178-9
political participation xv
Pol Pot 153
poverty xii-xiv
Prasert Sapsoonthorn 139,
178, 182
Pravda 37
Prem, General 138, 164, 180
propaganda 189
psychological warfare 57, 81
Rashid My din 59
referendum (Singapore) 121 -3
Regional Strategic Studies
Programme (RSSP) vi, vii
religion vi, xiii, 59-60,
169-71, 197
Remodel Constitution (Singapore)
111,113
 153, 154 _
Renville Agreement 24
Royal Thai Government (RTG)
-,
rural VS. urban strategies
Rusk, Dean 163
Sabah and Sarawak 52-4
Sanya Dhammasakdi 164
SARA problems 19, 26
Sarawak 51
Sarawak United Peop1e's
Party (SUPP) 54
X
SEATO 175
Second World War x, xiv, 3,
103, 110, 187-9, 196
separatist movements
Marxist-Christian xiii,
Marxist-Islamic xiii
Silverman, J.S. 30
Singapore 52-3, 109-29,
Anson by-election 1 19,
122, Chinese education
122; City Council 117,
independence 124, new
constitution 1 17
Singapore Bus Workers'
Union (SBWU) 111-12
Singapore Factory and Shop
Workers' Union (SFSWU)
111,114
Singapore Harbour Board 112-13
Singapore Labour Party 111
Singapore Trade Unions'
Working Committee (STUWC)
112,114,126
single file policy 7 4 ,
Sino~Soviet split 190, 193
Smelser, Neil .
Socialist Party of Thailand
(SPT) 158
Soviet Union 7, 35
Specific Characteristics o f
People's War Fri the philip-
pines (Guerrero) 90
Sri Aman amnesty programme 54, 55 United Malays National
Stalinism 95
Sudisman 29, 31 Si M
-16, 30, 34 -
. .. .
Suharto, General 8, 13, 38-40
Sukarno, President xi, 4, 7 ~ ] 1,
'Sukarno-Army-PKI' triangle 8
Sumulong, Commander 80
Tapols 17-18, 41
Tembeling dam project 67
Templer, Field Marshal 58
Thailand ix, xi, xiii, 133-62,
i
177-8, 191, 195-6, com-
munist threat 138-41,
comprador class 142,
counter~revolutionary
campaigns 137~8, feudalists
142, 144, 162, 185, Toes'
of the revolution 142-3 ,
Japanese Occupation 154,
monarchy 185, national
bourgeoisie 145, patron-
client syndrome 143 ;
peasants 144-5, petite-
bourgeoisie 145; proletariat
144-5 , see also Communist
Party of Thailand
Thailand Independence Move-
ment (TIM) 159-60, 168,
l 73
Thailand Patriotic Front (TPF)
l1iilih.iil--l
Thant regime 164, 169
Three Banners of the Revolu-
tion (PKI) 33, 34
Tianchai Wongchaisuwan
150-1, 179, 181
trade unions 87, 102, 111-12,
115,118,120,122
Turku Abdul Rah ran 54,
117-19, 122
unemployment 21, 47
203
 Organisation (UMNO)
null-
Untung, Lt. Col. 8, 13
urban activities ix-xii

Vietnam 3, 84, 191, 196

West Iran 15 l
women 170, 172
World Marxist Review 85

Yugoslavia 3

'Zdanov Doctrine' 5
Zhao Ziyang 35, 161

204