Maoist PKI Criticisms of the PKI Policies under Aidit
In retrospect, the Indonesian Maoists were very critical of the leadership of the PKI under D. N. Aidit between 1951 and 1965. One of the most important documents embodying this criticism was the so-called otokritik or self-criticism, issued when the Maoist faction Politburo was still functioning in Indonesia in 1967. Its presumed author was Sudiaman, “a prominent Politburo member who was subsequently arrested and executed.”[764]
A key part of the Otokritik claimed, “The Party leadership went so far as to accept without any struggle the recognition of the Bung Karno (i.e. Sukarno) as the Great Leader of the Revolution and the leader of the ‘people aspect’ in the state power of the Republic of Indonesia. In the articles and speeches of the party leaders it was frequently said that the struggle of the PKI was based not only on Marxism-Leninism, but also on the ‘teachings of Bung Karno’ and the PIC made rapid progress because it realized Bung Karno’s idea of Nasakom unity (i.e. the unity of nationalist, religious and Communist political forces in Indonesia). Even the people’s democratic system in Indonesia was said to be in conformity with Bung Karno’s main ideas. … Thus the Party leadership did not educate the working class and the rest of the working people on the necessity to place the leadership of the revolution in the hands of the proletariat and their Party, namely the PKI.”[765]
The “self-criticism” document even alleged that in the 1951—1965 period the PKI had veered away from being a Leninist type of party. It said, “The line of liberalism in the organizational field was shown in the tendency to make the PKI a party with the largest possible number of militants, a soft organization, which was called a mass party.”
The document went on to say, “The mass character of the Party is not manifested principally in the great number of its militants, but in its close relationship with the masses, in its political line which defends the interests of these, or in other words in its application of the line of the masses. And the Party can persist in the line of the masses only if it adheres firmly to the requirements which determine the role of the Party as the vanguard detachment, if there are formed in it the best elements of the proletariat and it arms itself with Marxism-Leninism. Consequently, it is impossible to constitute a Marxist-Leninist party with a mass character without paying attention to Marxist-Leninist education. … During recent years, the PKI followed a line of Party building opposed to the principles of MarxismLeninism in the organizational field.”[766]
Professor van der Kroef wrote, “The culmination of the PKI’s allegedly erroneous line under Aidit, in the Indonesian Maoists’ perception today, was the party’s participation in the coup attempt. This participation resulted from the overconfidence in the party’s strength (a ‘leftist tendency,’ according to the Otokritik), and from ‘an exaggeration of the results of the people’s struggle,’ which led the PKI leadership in the course of 1965 to believe… in a ‘ripening revolutionary situation’ in the country.”
In passing, Professor van der Kroef said, “The point to note here… is that the Indonesian Maoists (and indeed their pro-Soviet opponents in the Indonesian Communist movement as well) concede direct PKI involvement in the attempted… coup. The readiness with which the Indonesian Communists of whatever hue admit such involvement seems at variance from the position of some Western academic commentators on the… affair who appeared to seek to minimize PKI involvement as much as possible or else assert that the party was somehow duped into participation in the attempted coup.”[767]
Professor van der Kroef added, “Since the publication of the September 1966 otokritik, authoritative statements of the Indonesian Maoists have reasserted the failure of the August 1945 Revolution, and of the PKI erroneous line in the next decade and a half under Aidit’s leadership, as something given—a defined doctrinal position no longer in need of further explanation. … During the 1951-1965 period, one reads in a 1976 editorial in the Indonesian Maoists’ main journal,… the PKI leadership pursued a path of ‘Right opportunism,’ while, simultaneously, ‘revisionist’ influence made itself felt in their party. This ‘opportunist-revisionist’ tactic did immense harm to the PKI, as well as to the source of the unfinished Indonesian Revolution.”[768]
Conclusion
For almost a decade and a half in the 1950s and 1960s, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was the largest and most powerful Communist party among those that were not actually in power. As the Sino-Soviet split developed, the PKI tried desperately to remain “neutral,” and called on the two rivals to join forces for the sake of the world Communist movement in general.
It was only after the PKI’s participation in an abortive military coup in 1965, which led to a countermove by the Indonesian armed forces that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Communist members and sympathizers, and virtual obliteration of the party on Indonesian soil, that Maoism became a recognized factor among what remained of Indonesian Communism. For a short while, Maoists were able to maintain some organization within Indonesia, although that was soon destroyed. Thereafter, Indonesian Maoism was represented by exile groups in Beijing and Albania. By the 1980s, the Sino-Albanian quarrel and the general lack of interest in International Maoism on the part of the post-Mao Chinese party further limited the role of the Indonesian Maoists.
Iranian Maoism
In the decade and a half before the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, there were two Iranian Maoist groups, the membership of which consisted principally of exiles from the Shah’s regime living in Western Europe and the United States. One of these was the Revolutionary Tudeh Party or Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party, which was established in 1965 by a group of people who had been expelled from the pro-Moscow Iranian Communist Party, the Tudeh. The other was the Organization of Marxist-Leninists or Organization of Communist Marxist-Leninists, which was organized in 1967 by two members of the Central Committee of the Tudeh Party.[769] Following the overthrow of the Shah, there were at least two active Maoist groups inside Iran.
According to the Teheran newspaper Kayhan International, published during the Shah’s regime, the Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party originated among Iranian students in California. The writer noted that “this organization was established mainly in the United States, expanded there and its activities in the United States among Iranian students is much greater than other Iranian communist groups.” Members of this Maoist group were reported to dominate the 23rd Congress of the Federation of Iranian Students in the United States, in which their principal opposition came from the Trotskyites.[770]
The Revolutionary Organization published a paper, Red Star, and by the middle 1970s it was also putting out a magazine, Communism. The Kayhan International noted, “This organization’s publication, ‘Communism,’ is being regularly printed on good paper. It had a large circulation and a sizeable [sic] consignment of this is sent to Iran.”
766
769
James A. Bill,
770