EXPLAIN THE TRAGEDY IN INDONESIA?
By Ernest Mandel
[the following article has been ‘translated from the May 14 issue. of the Belgian left- socialist weekly La Gauche. ae
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At the same time that we were reporting the terrible defeat of the Communist. and workers movement in Indonesia, both the pro- Soviet and pro=Chinese Communist parties tried to minimize the affair. Our conclusions were said to be "premature" and information "incomplete."
The Chinese press service, Hsinhua [New China], has just pub-" lished two reports, however, one on April 20, and another April 26 (in the English edition), which completely confirm our version of ine the catastrophe suffered by the Indonesian masses. ;
The first of these articles is signed by the editor-in-chief of Hsinhua himself. It is entitled, "Rightest reactionaries plunge Indonesia into a bloodbath," and it reports that the Indonesian reactionaries have transformed, "this magnificent and fertile nation of three. thousand islands into a hell of White terror. They have massacred hundreds of thousands of © atriots and innocent eople in Indonesia. Emphasis added. 7 : a
The article contains a long series of quotations from the reports of bourgeois journalists that have appeared in Asahi Shimbun, on the wires of Agence France Presse, on the wires of the Associated. Press, in the London Sunday Times, in -the Manchester Guardian, and in the New York Times, giving the horrible details of the massacres . in Indonesia. The editor of Hsinhua correctly characterizes these measures as fascist.
The ‘April 26 article quoted. extensively from the » Washington 7 Post. in the same general vein. ° :
It seems to be an established fact that the Communist party, the trade unions, the youth and women's organizations have been © decimated, the majority of their leaders and cadres murdered and a large part of. ‘their members | killed or imprisoned.
‘Rarely in “its history has the workers movement suffered such a vast and terrible’ defeat. The only two: historical precedents that can be cited in this connection are the massacres’ of the Chinese Communists in Shanghai and Canton in 1927. and the terror against: the German workers movement after the Nazis _ Ook power.
The crimes against humanity: that. have been committed in Indonesia cry out for vengeance. -
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Once again, we must denounce the hypocrisy of those who -in the name of the "rights of the human individual" -- loudly pro- : test the slightest violation of democratic rights in the countries that have abolished capitalism but stand silent and approving before the massacres of hundreds of thousands of human beings, including women, children and old people in Indonesia..
But having said this, we must repeat. with insistence the . questions that we posed in a previous article on this subject, which appeared in ‘the February 26 issue of La Gauche | ‘see World Outlook March 11.] Neither Drapeau Rouge [Red Flag -- the organ of. the pro- Moscow Belgian CP] nor Voix du Peuple [Voice of the People -~- organ of the pro-Peking CP] have been able to say a word in reply to the. following: 3
(1) How could the veightest reactionaries" take power ina
country where the CP had three million members and amass base of more than ten million men, women and youth?
(2). Why was there no real mass resistance to the fascist coup from the millions of Communist party members and sympathizers?
%) Why. dia the: arms with which the reaction.was able to inflict a bloodbath on: the Indonesian people come largely from the Soviet Union and to a-less extent from China?
(4) Why did the Communist. party of Indonesia sit for many years, and even after the fascist coup, in a coalition government. beside the principal planners and organizers of the coup, including the three present "vice presidents of the council" who are the real rulers of Indonesia today? .
(5): ‘Why have neither Moscow nor . Peking undertaken. the least. critical analysis of a political course which. ended. in such a. catastrophic defeat?
(6) Why does the Soviet.government continue to officially ignore the fascist massacre in Indonesia and maintain "excellent relations" with the fascist regime of Djakarta? It is organizing --. what irony! -- "an exposition devoted to the life of Lenin," while the prisons are bursting with prisoners who claim allegiance to his ideas and the rivers and streams are choked with thousands of bodies of those who considered themselves his adherents?
The argument that a workers party under attack by the class enemy cannot: be criticized is demagogic and unworthy of Marxism. The terrible repression of the Paris Commune did not prevent Marx _ from condemning what he considered to be errors or weaknesses in the policies of the Commune. Immediately after the victory of Hitler, all the parties and all the political tendencies in the international workers movement, carried on an extensive analysis . of the causes of a catastrophe of such a magnitude. A party or political tendency that does not dare confront a public criticism of the errors that led to a disaster as terrible as that suffered by the
Indonesian Communists is a party incapable of:correcting its errors and incapable of setting itself on the path: ‘to: victory.
As for us, ‘we have made our analysis.
The victory of reaction in Indonesia. was the result of the false and disastrous policy of subordinating the workers movement to the so-called “national” bourgeoisie in the underdeveloped world.
Instead 6f: maintaining strict independence» ‘with respect to-. this bourgeoisie =-—-which is incapable of carrying out the tasks of political independence, and even less those of national economic independence -- and limiting itself to critical support of its periodic anti-imperialist moods, the leadership of the Indonesian CP, with the approval first of Moscow and then of Peking, completely subordinated itself to Sukarno and the group around him and abdicated leadership of the Indonesian revolution handing it over to the bourgeoisie.
Instead of fighting for the conquest of power by the workers and poor peasants as the solution for the urgent social and. economic problems faced by Indonesia (decline in production, raging inflation, millions without jobs and housing, the state resources plundered by the "bureaucratic bourgeoisie," millions of small peasants crushed by the moneylenders and landlords), the leaders of the Indonesian CP formed a national front with the "national" bourgeoisie and the heads of .the army -- today the leaders of the fascist reaction! They contented. themselves with a policy « of pressuring Sukarno to achieve their’ ends -
They left the initiative to the right, which- struck hard blows, although it could have been isolated and eliminated by an increasing mobilization of the broad: masses in revolt.’against the misery to which they are still.doomed almost twenty! years after the independence of Indonesia.
As long as the workers parties. follow this course of subordination to the "national": bourgeoisie in the. underdeveloped world, defeats like’ thet: ‘in Indonesia: are inevitable.
MASS MURDER IN BALI ~
"We have had word from a reliable source in Bali. The horrors continue. The local police say they have crossed 66,000 homeowners off their lists; a further 100,000 have been ‘secured! (the euphemism for