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Indonesia Years of Living Dangerously
During the Guided Democracy years, Sukarno played a
delicate
balancing act, drawing the armed forces and PKI into an
uneasy
coalition and playing them off against each other while
largely
excluding Islamic forces (especially modernists as
represented by
the prohibited Masyumi) from the central political arena.
Two other
features of his political strategy were an aggressive
foreign
policy, first against the Dutch over West New Guinea
(Irian Barat,
or later Irian Jaya Province) and then against the newly
created
state of Malaysia; and demagogic appeals to the masses. A
flamboyant speaker, Sukarno spun out slogans and
catchwords that
became the nebulous basis of a national ideology. One of
the most
important formulas was Manipol-USDEK, introduced in 1960.
Manipol
was the Political Manifesto set forth in Sukarno's August
17, 1959,
independence day speech, and USDEK was an acronym for a
collection
of symbols: the 1945 constitution, Indonesian Socialism,
Guided
Democracy, Guided Economy, and Indonesian Identity.
Another
important slogan was Nasakom, the synthesis of
nationalism,
religion, and communism--symbolizing Sukarno's attempt to
secure a
coalition of the PNI, the Nahdatul Ulama (but not
Masyumi), and the
PKI. In a manner that often bewildered foreign observers,
Sukarno
claimed to resolve the contradiction between religion and
communism
by pointing out that a commitment to "historical
materialism" did
not necessarily entail belief in atheistic "philosophical
materialism."
Indonesia's ailing economy grew worse as Sukarno
ignored the
recommendations of technocrats and foreign aid donors,
eyed
overseas expansion, and built expensive public monuments
and
government buildings at home. In late 1960, an eight-year
economic
plan was published, but with its eight volumes, seventeen
parts,
and 1,945 clauses (representing the date independence was
proclaimed: August 17, 1945), the plan seems to have been
more an
exercise in numerology than economic planning. Ordinary
people
suffered from hyperinflation and food shortages. Motivated
by
rivalry with the pro-Beijing PKI and popular resentment of
ethnic
Chinese, the army backed a decree in November 1959 that
prohibited
Chinese from trading in rural areas. Some 119,000 Chinese
were
subsequently repatriated, a policy that caused
considerable
economic disruption. Although Washington and the
International
Monetary Fund
(IMF--see Glossary)
sought to encourage
rational
economic policies, Sukarno resisted. A major reason was
that IMF
recommendations would have alienated his millions of
popular
supporters, especially those in the PKI.
PKI power in Java's villages expanded through the early
1960s.
In late 1963, following Sukarno's call for implementation
of land
reform measures that had been made law in 1960, the PKI
announced
a policy of direct action (aksi sepihak) and
began
dispossessing landlords and distributing the land to poor
Javanese,
northern Sumatrans, and Balinese peasants. Reforms were
not
accomplished without violence. Old rivalries between
nominal
Muslims, the
abangan (see Glossary),
many of whom
were PKI
supporters, and orthodox Muslims, or
santri (see Glossary),
were exacerbated
(see Religion and Worldview
, ch. 2). The
PKI
membership rolls totaled 2 million, making it the world's
largest
communist party in a noncommunist country. Affiliated
union and
peasant organizations had together as many as 9 million
members.
PKI leader Aidit pursued his own foreign policy, aligning
Indonesia
with Beijing in the post-1960 Sino-Soviet conflict and
gaining
Chinese support for PKI domestic policies, such as
unilateral and
reform actions. Some observers concluded that by 1964 it
appeared
that a total communist takeover was imminent.
Data as of November 1992
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