Nusantara Ep. 3 – Japanese Occupation, Indonesian Revolution

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These introductions are rather lengthy, but I suggest that you listen to them. They will help orient you as we move through a complex historical discussion.

The Japanese military was initially greeted as a liberatory force when it occupied the Dutch East Indies during World War two. European colonialism was, at least for the meantime, over, and it was over thanks to the industrial and military capacity of a fellow Asian nation. Japan presented its expansionist militarism as a vehicle for Panasianism to make, quote, Asia for Asians. Indonesians' appraisal of their new rulers would soon sour.

But the Japanese occupation, which lasted only from March nineteen forty two through Japan's surrender to the Allies in August nineteen forty five, it profoundly altered Indonesian society. and set the nation on the path to independence.

The Japanese soon made clear that they exceeded even the Dutch in brutality. Arrests, torture, executions, forced labor, mass starvation, But the Japanese Empire required labor and resources. Toward that end, they tapped key nationalist leaders like Sakarno and Hata and mobilized Islamic organizations. all to set the masses into motion. Sukarno's role as the head of Putra, Pusat Nagarakiat, center of people's power, was to mobilize the Indonesian masses to support the Japanese war effort.

This included collecting rice for the war and sending thousands of Indonesian peasants, often to their death, to do forced labor, Romusha, in the archipelago and other theaters of war across Southeast Asia. This position allowed Socarno to develop relationships with state bureaucrats and to position himself as a symbolic leader of the republic. Japanese government education and propaganda reached far deeper into Indonesian society than the Dutch colonial government ever had.

This for the first time swept huge numbers of people into feverish political thought and action. whose lives were previously shaped by outside forces only indirectly, were now consciously drawn in to national and global conflict.

The Japanese also mobilized the Islamic traditionalist organization Nadlatul Ulama or NU and the Islamic Modernist group Mohammadiyya. In fact, they joined the two into a united organization called Mashumi, or the Indonesian Muslim Consultative Council. Islamic organizations that had once avoided politics were now deeply politicized, and have remained so quite consequentially through the present.

As we discussed in episode two, the Dutch had created a formal distinction between the political Islam of Sarakat Islam and the non political Islam of the NU or Muhammadiyya. The Japanese occupation abolished that distinction. Anticipating an Allied invasion, the Japanese also decided that they required the people of the East Indies to mobilize as an armed mass, leading to the organization of major militias known as the Pamuda or Youth.

and Pata, or Defenders of the Homeland. Those forces alongside soldiers professionally trained in the KNIL or Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, they would wage the revolution against the Dutch and form the TNI, or Indonesian National Armed Forces.

Other major anti-colonial figures like Amir Sharafuddin and Sharir rejected collaboration with the Japanese on anti-fascist grounds. They rejected the approach of Sukarno, Hata, and others, who collaborated with a regime that imposed catastrophic death and misery upon the Indonesian people. That collaboration nonetheless did pay off. Putting Sakarno and Hata in a position to lead the revolution once the Japanese surrendered in nineteen forty five.

Sakarno and Hata, under pressure from youth activists who had kidnapped them, They declared independence on August 17, 1945, just two days after the Japanese Emperor surrendered. But the Dutch had other plans. With the Axis powers defeated, they moved to reassume control over their erstwhile colony, but instead the Dutch, alongside British and other Allied forces, they immediately faced ferocious armed resistance from Indonesians.

The Republic established its headquarters in the city of Jogyakarta, one of Java's four principalities. They fought the Dutch until nineteen forty nine. Here are some key events and concepts and personalities to keep in mind when thinking about the Revoluci or Revolution.

As the Japanese began to lose the war, they understood that they needed to woo the masses to their side, and created two preparatory bodies looking forward to independence. Amidst this work, Sukarno, various nationalists, and Islamic leaders also began to work on Indonesia's constitution. Adopted after the Japanese surrender, it called for a powerful presidency.

and outlined the Republic's territory as encompassing then British colonies across Malaya and the northern side of Borneo, or Kalimantan. It also marked the first promulgation of the doctrine of Panchasila, Five principles that would guide both Sukarno's guided democracy and Saharto's New Order reaction against it. belief in God, nationalism, humanitarianism, social justice, and democracy. Under pressure from Islamic leaders, it was rephrased as belief in one God.

The anti-colonial revolution against the Dutch was immediately also a social revolution within Indonesian society. Violent class conflict with a comprador native elite, such as the widespread massacre perpetrated by indentured laborers and peasants in East Sumatra against the regional aristocracy.

The armed struggle was accompanied by a diplomatic track, whose first conclusion was the November nineteen forty six Lingur Jati Agreement, that called for the establishment of a federated United States of Indonesia. various puppet states across the archipelago, with only Java and Sumatra under control of the Republic of Indonesia. And the United States of Indonesia, in turn, would form part of a Dutch Indonesian Union led by the Dutch Queen as head of state.

This led to increasingly sharp divisions within the Republic, with the military opposing concessions to the Dutch alongside various radical currents that advocated 100% independence.

The Dutch proved the skeptics of negotiations right by launching a bloody invasion of Republican held territory in July nineteen forty seven, euphemistically described by the Dutch as the first police action. Indonesians call it the military aggression. Its formal name was Operation Product, because it sought, above all else, to capture key economic infrastructure like oil. In january nineteen forty eight, the Republican Dutch signed another accord,

the Renville Agreement, named for the US naval ship where it was signed under US pressure. That agreement was even more tilted toward Dutch colonial power. requiring Republican military forces to retreat into central Java around the revolutionary capital of Yogyakarta.

During this period, Sakarno remained president, and would remain so until Saharto's coup. Meanwhile, cabinets representing the major currents of Indonesian politics. Formed and dissolved under different prime ministers, the first government was led by Sharir, a strong candidate for the role because his anti-fascist refusal to collaborate made him more palatable to the Western Allied powers. Collaborating nationalists like Socarno were viewed with intense suspicion.

Sharer's government fell because it prioritized diplomacy to achieve independence, resulting in the controversial Lingarjati Agreement. Sharer's government faced opposition from the left, Opposition led by Tan Malaka, who had broken with the PKI to found the Persatuan Prajwangan, or struggle union, later the Murba Party, which demanded one hundred percent independence. without ceding an inch of Indonesian territory to the Dutch.

Next, in July 1947, leftist Amir Sharafuddin became the prime minister, but he quit in January nineteen forty eight amid bitter conflicts once again over the capitulatory Renville Agreement. Meanwhile, communist leaders like Musso had reentered the country. Renville heightened conflict between maximalists and negotiators. It also led to the eruption of the Darul Islam Rebellion in West Java.

Darul Islam was led by Carto Surio, who, as you might remember, had as a young boy, like nationalist Sukarno and Communist Musso, passed through the house of Sarakat Islam leader Jokro Aminoto. The Darul Islam Rebellion, a rebellion against Dutch and Republic alike, that rebellion emerged to fill the vacuum left by the Republican Silwangi Division's evacuation from West Java under the terms of the Renville Agreement.

The emergence of the Darul Islam Rebellion was also driven by the Indonesian military's Reconstruction and Rationalization Programme, or RIRA, implemented by Hata and supported by Nasushin, commander of the Silwanji Division. Or as General Suterman, the commander of the armed forces, had an unmatched, symbolic, almost mythic quality to his leadership. Nusushin was perhaps more powerful in terms of directing actual military organization and operation.

Rira aimed to remove many popular militias from the military organization and as a result was opposed by the right wing militia Hezbollah, which Carto Sowerio later reorganized into Darul Islam.

the Indonesian Islamic Army. Ri-Ra was also opposed by left-wing groups that led the Madjun Rebellion of 1948. In the city of Majun, PKI aligned forces with the People's Democratic Front seized control in September 1948. The PKI leadership had not initiated the revolt, but soon joined it. Including Amir Sharafuddin, who announced that he was in fact a PKI member, Republican forces, led by the relocated Silowanji Division, quickly put it down, killing many communists.

Including important leaders like Musso and Amir Sharifuddin, who, again, had until only recently been the prime minister. This marked the second of the PKI's three historic defeats. The first, which we discussed last time, was in 1926. The final, one of history's worst mass murders, would take place in nineteen sixty-five.

The Republican military forces melded together former soldiers and officers from the colonial KNIL and the Japanese created Pemuda and Peta militias. But the merger of these disparate forces was not easy. Some former KNIL soldiers who received professional military training from the Dutch military academy in Bandung, they became the architects of the Reconstruction and Rationalization Program, RERA.

That put them into conflict with former PETA soldiers, who had received only brief military training from the Japanese, and with other militias that had received no military training whatsoever from anyone. From the get go, the military was self organized and only intermittently deferential to civilian authority. Officers elected Suderman, the first commander of the armed forces, without asking for Sikarno's permission.

The lack of clear civilian oversight of the military would generate frictions and crises throughout Socarno's presidency, and it would make possible the 1965 coup that ended it. The military would gradually become an increasingly powerful state within the state until it just took over the entire state.

Amid the so-called Madiun affair, the Dutch launched a direct invasion of what remained of Republican territory, a military aggression they euphemistically called their second police action. It forced a Republican retreat from the revolutionary capital at Jogyakarta. This time, however, the Indonesian resistance was assisted by the diplomatic power wielded by the United States, which pushed the Dutch to stop its assault and to negotiate.

Not very long ago, the US had helped the Dutch impose the lopsided Renville Agreement. But, amid the onset of the Cold War, the Republic's repression of the Communists at Majun made the US see a potential partner in Sicarno, at least for the meantime.

Who were these revolutionaries? Benedict Anderson called this a youth revolution. It was a revolution carried forward overwhelmingly by young people in their teens, twenties, and thirties. Sakarno and Hata were the old guys. it wasn't a socialist proletarian revolution or a liberal middle class revolution.

It's true that the leaders of this revolution did come from the educated middle class, but the activists of the revolution were also Islamic boarding school students, Sentry, who joined Islamic militias, or rural youth. who joined leftist militias. Among those young people was the future dictator Suharto, who joined Peta and at the time was somewhat sympathetic to the leftist movement.

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Okay, here's Ryana Subyanto, Mara Supriatma, and Farabifaki for episode three of Nusantara, a series on the history of Indonesia. Rihanna Subionto is a professor of communication studies at Baruch College in the graduate center of the city of New York. She's the author of Communication Against Capital, Red Enlightenment at the Dawn of Indonesia, and a co-editor of The Indonesian Left in the Twentieth Century, Beyond the Rise and Fall of a Party.

She also serves as an editor for the Indonesian left media, Indoprogress.com. Mare Supriatma is a visiting research fellow at the Aziz Yusuf Ishak Institute in Singapore. He specializes in Indonesian politics, civil military relations, ethnic conflict, and state bureaucracy. Fara Bifaki is the head of the master's program in the history department at Gajamada University in Jogyakarta, Indonesia. He has worked on the history of the decolonization of the Indonesian state.

and is working on a manuscript on the history of natural resource management, particularly oil and gas.

How did the Japanese occupation transform the situation in Indonesia? What what did the conquest and consolidation of of Japanese power look like? How did Japanese rule combine propaganda and and consent with coercion to cement its power? And then lastly, what sort of rule was it over these these profoundly consequential three years of the Japanese occupation. How how did Japanese cruelty and exploitativeness compare to the Dutch colonialists?

My sense is that ordinary Indonesians initially welcomed Japanese as liberators, but that soon enough the bitter experience of of Japanese brutality and famine, Japanese imposed famine. really changed people's mindset.

uh right now, Rukunta Tanga, that's what we call it in Indonesia. This is become the uh the form of mobilization and control by the Japanese government. So um It has uh it's a very effective organization because the the the the head of the Neville Hoods Association will report directly to the the the Japanese military. So the new order revive this and then uh perpetuate this and we have it until now.

And the second thing, I think I want to reiterate that something is missing from our discussion is about Islamic groups. Japanese creating what they call it Supreme Islamic Council in Indonesia. Υπότιτλοι AUTHORWAVE Islamic organization. the the Japanese put it in one place, in one council, and it becomes a very, very powerful political party later on. It becomes the second largest party, it become uh Mashumi. in Indonesia in 1955.

Even though after that there's a crack in the Islamic movement. But never before I think the Islamic political forces are put into one basket and become very big.

Um, so yes, at first many Indonesians did welcome the Japanese because they thought that the Japan would accelerate independence, right? And also the Japanese used anti-Western, anti-imperialist rhetoric. They freed the nationalist leaders, uh, Sukarno and Hatta. Right? So how could these people, how could the Indonesians did not have a high hope on the on the Japanese to liberate them? Uh but that quickly, of course, confidence. shattered as well because the Japanese essentially, you know, were

immediately brutal, leading to death of Indonesians from starvation, disease, and forced labor. Right? So they mobilized, they combined propaganda, Asia, Asia for Asians. uh mass rallies, political organizations uh like Putra and then mobilization campaigns uh led by Sukarno, as well as coercion, you know, surveillance, torture, they're very torturous, more much more torturous than

uh than the Dutch, uh by the Campei Tai, which is the military police. Um also use forced labor or romusha. Actually it's only three years, but all of us know, remember what romusha means, right? We talk about it. all the time in schools and then suppression of dissent and uh force rights requisition. So they were much, much more c brutal and cruel.

One thing though that's also very important during the Japanese era is and this is written by uh Norman Joshua in his dissertation from Northwestern, and this is important for our discussion of Indonesia throughout to the present, which is this is the period of the beginning, where there was the beginning of milit the militarization of Indonesian society. Because you know, so because Japanese the Japanese rule was a military occupation.

Indonesia was divided into separate military zones governed by army commanders, and civil administration was subordinated to military priorities. And and there are two people I'm gonna mention that would be so important late later, who was actually trained uh militarily during the Japanese occupation. Aidit and Suharto. Right, so these people w come came out of this, they started their career during this time.

During the the Dutch colonial period the state was very far away. It was less uh imposing in in a lot of ways because they didn't really care about, you know, in the little villages and so forth, they cared about how to extract uh uh resources uh or labor. Uh in the during the Japanese period uh this changed because the state sort of went into the the most the nooks and claddies of society. So that's one thing. The second thing is that the Dutch

bureaucrats were all put into concentration camps, right? So the entire Dutch population was and so there's now this massive colonial apparatus of colonial capitalism, colonial bureaucracy and so forth. which isn't manned.

And so a lot of these are then being filled with Indonesians. So th they were all coming up into and taking over the railroads taking over the the oils, the the oil rigs taking so there was there was this accelerated modernization within indigeno society in which they took over a lot of the a lot of the colonial uh apparatus the police, the military and so forth. So so Indonesians were

were were being trained up to speed and then just sort of pushed into these roles which are at the managerial level or at the other levels. There were Japanese but they but there were in enough of them. So there were a lot more Indonesians in So a as a result of this expansion of traditional Indonesia into the state, right? Traditional Indonesia into all of these new uh sectors. Traditional Indian society for the first time I think met with

colonial bureaucrats, Indonesian colonial bureaucrats and with their indigenous. So they became office mates in a sense. You know, they they're now working in offices together. And so A and a a very important part in the Japanese spirit is is the creation of postcolonial elite. Because for the first time they had to They had to work together and so they had to make a pact, like what what kind of elite uh

from the traditional uh aristocracy, people from the traditional uh the European bu bureaucracy, Indonesian uh bureaucrats, and people from the from the uh the the radical nationalists. So they're now uh one elite in that sense. Uh they don't always agree together but they it's it's now it's much more uh concentrated.

at the grass roots level, something even more significant is is happening. As I said, because... The Japanese incorporated traditional society into the state. Uh this is something that's very fundamentally different from the colonial period. So a lot of the discussions previously, PNE and so forth, this represents a very, very tiny amount of Indonesian people.

uh you know, less than one percent, probably something like that. And and their enemies are you know, the the the fascist uh Europeans they're also less than it's it's just a really tiny part The vast majority of traditional Indonesia continued on their life as if nothing ha happened. But during the Japanese occupation, they were all suddenly catapulted into national participation.

So this resulted in in I think two things. First of all, the emergence of the Pamuda, the youth. So if we think of the youth, during the colonial period, the youth is actually a a Western educated European youth. They have no they're not really related to the traditional youth.

The traditional youth is not you know, they're they're too westernized. Like Sukarno is youth, but what does he know about being in the village, right? He's not he's he's uh uh he he's had a middle class life all throughout his life. force the youth into another form of benedict anderson wrote about this right about how the japanese took over japanese uh sort of

ritual for for young people to become adults, becoming of age from traditional institutions like Passantrad and so forth and integrated it into the state. So So what you had is that now the Indonesian youth, the youth, traditional youth became Indonesian youth. Suddenly you had Indonesians. Because now people weren't becoming if you were c coming of age in a in a Javanese village, you become a Javanese. You're you're you become you're part of that traditional society. But suddenly

You're not suddenly you're become you become Indonesian. So the ja so in in a sense the Japanese created that lower layer of Indonesian. as a citizenly, as a citizenship. On another level, the Japanese is so focused on developing Practices. You know, a lot of the national practices that we have today stems from the Japanese. So Either the Japanese meant or not, either it's an unintended consequence, the Japanese defined Indonesia's

performativity as a nation, right? Performativity as a citizen through the flag ceremony, through all of these stuff which didn't really exist during the colonial period. Now the Japanese introduced them and now it's become like the central tenet. To educate young people to become Indonesian as a as a so that's why at so much level at so many levels the Japanese sort of changed.

society radically at a fundamental level. And that's why the Dutch were so uh confused when they come came back to Indonesia after the war, because they couldn't understand the Indonesian people now.

It's radically different because they thought the Jeff the Javanese were these were these rural people were very, you know, happy and and they were very traditional and they had all these adat and they d they they don't and then when you and then when they came back in forty six you had this crazy Bermuda you know and and and they do

kind of thing. What did the Japanese do there? The Indonesians? So but they couldn't understand what was happening, I think. Fundamentally the ja the Dutch didn't understand what was happening. Yeah.

truly extreme. Um, I just wanna un cause you know there there they're texts that people can read to get the texture of this, and we're talking out more at higher levels of historical abstraction here, but I just wanna convey to listeners the level of the the violence and suffering.

let's let's turn to the collabor the subject of collaboration. Why did the Japanese decide decide to recruit nationalist and Islamist leaders into collaborating With their regime, the very sorts of people that the Dutch colonialists were so actively repressing. After all, as we've been discussing,

it's not because the Japanese were a less repressive system than the Dutch. So why did they recruit these people? And then why did nationalist leaders like Sukarno and Hata why did they decide to collaborate with the Japanese regime that was intent on making the archipelago part of its so called Greater East Asia co prosperity sphere. And then lastly, why was it that other nationalist leaders like Shareer and and Amir Sharifuddin that they refused cooperation with the Japanese very emphatically.

because they have a history with Chinese and it's a very hard hard time for the Chinese at that time. And then, secondly, and also if I remember the oral history, how do people have a memory about this time? At first, people are very happy with the Japanese because, you know, for a long, long time... uh we are uh the colonized We are being degraded. We are not human beings.

And then suddenly you you see I think I still remember part of the uh movie from Raiding the Tiger, uh the late father Magumi Jaya told the story about how what on earth this small people smaller than us line up and then parading in our cities and towns and they can destroy us all of the big uh Dutch people very easily. And yeah, that that kind of thing, it it creates a pride uh among uh the people in in in in this area before.

But at the same time also a later on after they found out that the Japanese required to do this and that and this and that. and then uh suddenly food become very source and then uh famine everywhere. People also have no choices except cooperate with the Japanese. But for the nationalists I think this is they knows the opportunity. This is the their chance to get into the system to build something probably that when the Japanese left, they will inherit this.

uh there's there will be no Dutch anymore. So there will be uh uh uh independence in Tunisia. That's uh and and the Japanese knows this. very well also. So they they give the uh chance for these people, for these nationalists to build their own uh state. And then, that's what happened. After three years, and then the Japanese profile paid away. uh set up a committee and then lap the inudition decide what what to do after the after they uh surrendered.

But I wanna address your question on why did Shahir and Am especially Shahrir and Amir refuse because they refused because refused to collaborate with the Japanese. They had a different view. For Shahir because he is anti fascist, he's deeply anti anti fascist. He saw Japan not as an Asian Asian collaborator, right, or an you know, a Asian liberator, but as more as a militarist empire that is aligned with the Nazi Germany.

So for him, if we collaborate with the Japanese, we are we would be morally compromised, right? And we would morally compromise the l legitimacy of Indonesian independence. And so Shahir actually believed that our independence would depend in fact on the Allied victory. the Allied won, you know, and they knew that Indonesian leaders had been collaborating with the Japanese, that would not be good for the Indonesian independence itself.

And this is actually true because after the declaration of independence, a few months later, a Shahril became prime minister because he was not tainted by the collaboration with the Japanese.

to support the the war effort. And uh exactly that's what uh and and labor that was sent to uh war fronts in Southeast Asia, uh which was supported by uh Suharto uh and and by by clerics and by other traditional leaders, they all sort of supported these which is actually I I mean it's it's it's basically a a huge crime against the Indonesian people, but they did do uh these things. Um

I think uh why they they uh accepted to do to do these things. So it's not just the nationalists but also uh you know, m various kings and and uh uh nobilities. and also religious leaders they all sort of supported uh the the the the Japanese uh project. But I think Anna has Anna has has uh explained that there's not much

option there, but also that, you know, uh by doing so they they did have access, as explained, to the state itself, right? So they had so in that sense, I think they're strategically they were thinking on those terms. I think Sukar Sukarno probably also was definitely saddened by that by that fact that that he sent so many Indonesians to their deaths.

uh a gradual controlled independence under Japanese supervision and a transfer of power that is was aligned with the Japanese strategic's interests. That's what they wanted and that's why they continue to like promise uh independence for Indonesia. And so national nationalist figures such uh like Sukarno and Hatta during this time, they were moved to the center of the political stage.

Uh, they're given greater public uh prominence, they're allowed to speak openly uh of independence within limits. Uh and they were also brought into formal consultative bodies. So in the early 1945, the J Japan actually established Bepe Upe Ki. uh BPUPKI, which is the investigating committee for preparatory work for independence. This is a body that's composed largely of Indonesian leaders to draft a constitution.

And this is also a period which uh competing visions of Indonesia's future were discussed, right? for instance the regarding especially regarding religion uh and the place of Islam, for example, vis a vis the state structure. So all of this began to s crystallize during this during this time.

But also what's really important, tying it back to our conversation just now, is that the Indonesian society at this point was also already deeply militarized and politically organized, right? We have expanded militia training, we have broader arming of the Indonesian auxiliaries. Let me just emphasize that during the Dutch time, Indonesian people were not were never armed. You know, the the Dutch would never ever du uh did that, right? Except for to be a part of the Dutch army, obviously.

But not for Indonesia, uh for Indonesian uh military. So then there is there was also, as Madh has mentioned before, the a greater nationalist rhetoric in public ceremonies, you know, the use of Indonesian language and then political education was also a frame around uh sacrifice and unity.

So what we're seeing is that as the Japanese militarily weakened, the Indonesian political organization was actually strengthened, right? And then when the atomic bombings uh occurred, and Japan surrender, this repressed energy, just imagine a pressure cooker, you know. uh this repressed energy exploded essentially right and this is why Japan wanted a gradual transfer of of of sovereignty but the in in Indonesia the Indonesian youth the Pamuda that Abi mentioned before

pushed for immediate independence. Right? And that's why Sukano Anhata was then uh, you know, later on was kidnapped and then he was um they they were forced to actually proclaim independence uh for Indonesia.

At the same time, in this very interesting uh time, there's uh a class not only between the revolutionary and the more thoughtful and deliberate older people like Sukarno and the people at the at the committee to prepare for independence. but also asserting a mob mobilisations of the youth what uh Abby talked before, of uh the the youth to carry out the revolution.

So these kind of things, I think the the class between these two powers, one is the elites, one is the masses, it will determine uh the futures of uh Indonesia.

So you see within the Japanese administration there were people who were committed to supporting Indonesian independence. So we we can't really see the Japanese as as just this monolith, but that there were parties in the government that were supportive. What's really interesting is that after the war in the 50s, Many of these people would come to Indonesia as a representative of Japanese capital actually to sort of uh negotiate for

for uh access to resources or investments and so forth. And they had a lot of uh context within the national government because of course these were the people that they were working together or that they were as a boss during the Japanese period. So I think that I think especially uh by the time of the late uh by by forty four to forty five

there was a general consensus among people in the Japanese leadership and Indonesia that they were gonna lose the war, right? It's it's very much obvious that there was no path towards uh victory and they were preparing for what comes next. So

So to support the the current Indonesian independence would be the most profitable uh route of action for them because then they would have people in the government. And that's really what happened afterwards, that they would then have access to because eventually the control a lot of Indonesian investments and you know industries. Uh you know, it's uh in this especially the sixties, seventies.

uh and up to today so much of uh i uh Indonesian economy is run uh by the j by Japanese companies, uh, you know, the Indonesian automotive sector and so forth. But what what's interesting is is th those personal relations that were developed during the Japanese occupation uh gave access to Japanese companies later on in the in the fifties.

First did not actually intend to create an independent Indonesia. They did destroy Dutch authority, mobilized the masses, arming Indonesians, train the administrators down to the village level, created this Indonesian um you know tr uh language, you know, or nationalist uh ritual, etcetera. Uh it made rapid independence possible and and in some ways yes uh Sokarnos Gamble did lay groundwork a lot of the groundwork, but it only succeeded because Japan lost.

Because the youth, the pe the Pamuda forced urgency. You know, Blimad has already said also how this older generation was reflective. They wanted to take their time, but the youth is like, no, you you gotta do this. So You know, the fact that the leadership moved decisively in a very narrow window of, you know, power vacuum, this is all the historical contingency because the Dutch would quickly come, you know, very quickly, uh to to gain back, you know, uh the archipelago.

deep underground or into exile under this severe repression. What what did it look like when they began to reenter Indonesian political life under the Japanese occupation?

Uh also uh during this time a lot of these leaders were either sympathetic to communism or actually they were socialists. I I think we m talk about it at the beginning of uh at the beginning that uh Hatta Shahir they were actually socialists. You know, Hatta in fact represented uh Indonesia in the league for anti imperialism that was

organized by the Comintern in Brussels in 1931. So a lot of these people a lot of these socialists and communists, because they were able to sojourn somehow in abroad, right? Uh they were very cosmopolitan, they're uh European educated. And and also even though they're not necessarily communists like Amir Sharifuddin and Shahir, they're uh anti communist and socialist, they have this also Sukarno, right? In some extents they were sympathetic to to the cause.

And so during this time in nineteen forty two there was already even before that there was already this underground movement. Amir Sharifuddin, because he was against the collaborationist of Sukano and Hata, he actually led the uh underground movement of the PKI in in fact in nineteen forty two to nineteen forty five.

So and then Tanmalaka returned and a lot of his sympathizers actually t the story of Tanmalaka returning was really interesting because for a long time he actually did not reveal that he was in fact Tanmalaka. listening d you know, to people talking about himself and his life without telling people that oh I'm the you know the legend the legendary revolutionary I'm back. You know he he didn't he didn't do that.

Uh but again during the Japanese era, especially 1945, a lot of the Dighool externees, uh internees sorry, uh were they returned, they came back, and then they would then quickly revive PKI. Uh so PKI, the Indonesian Communist Party was actually revived in October, I think, uh, of nineteen forty five, just a few months after the proclamation of the independence

but partly by the boat the Digoul the Digoul graduates and also uh and also this uh people who are already moving underground. And so what we are seeing in here is that how there was a connection between 1927 and later PKI movement in the independence era, in a way that the PKI was both revived by the DeGuul people

and also and so the older generation and also the newer generation who have been reviving the memory and also the re revolutionary zero of PKI through throughout the the repressive era of nineteen thirties and and early 1940s. Also important to mention that Musso actually returned. So Musso was another PKI leader. we talk about it when we talk about chokroaminoto's house right he actually returned he has been in russia for the whole time he after he fled in 27

But he um he returned to the Indies in nineteen thirty five to try to revive P.K. I and then went back and then later he came back in nineteen forty eight. And we'll talk about him more, uh I think during when we talk about Madiun affairs.

Fish out of water, in a sense, because they didn't position themselves as leaders uh during the Japanese occupation. So I think they had a problem with legit legitimacy. Obviously it's it's much more complex than that and then and then you'll have the Marion affair. But it's an interesting point that a lot of these people would be killed by the by the nationalists, by Sukarno, uh Hata, by the groups there primarily because they don't have the fealty of the army.

It might have been crucial for the communists to have been in Indonesia to the communist leadership to have been in Indonesia during the Japanese occupation so that they could have occupied a much more legitimate legitimate position So it might explain why there was such problems during the rev the Revolutionary War.

There was a a congealing of leadership, of national leadership, uh which allowed even communists like Amashari Fuddin to be part of it. But not people like uh Musso or Tan Malaka because they weren't part of that occupation government. Um and they they returned later and then they had a m much more difficult place to put within the National Pantheon. Uh even though they they their their big names

uh during the the uh the colonial uh national uh movement. But when they came back in the forties, in the late forties they were nothing and they and then they were killed by the national army. So in that sense Again it it's to emphasize how important the Japanese period is in in that uh relation, I think. Yeah.

so many techniques of the Japanese authorities at the time in order to subjugate or to control Indonesian society later on. But it's very interesting that probably because of the compressions to the communists the Communists were unable to infiltrate this homeland uh defenders militia. And then also I think the second historical mistake that they did was that in 1948, during the revolution.

They launched uh rebellion in my deal. That we will talk about that quite long. But if you look at the what the main act the the actors of the revolutions uh from nineteen forty five to forty forty nine. Yeah, some of the leftists were there, but I think the leaderships were in the hand of this the leadership the the militia were kreated by the by the Japanese uh authorities. The communist was unable to infiltrate.

in this kind of uh in this uh uh military structures. That I think the the biggest mistakes of the uh communists is unlike the communists in China, unlike the communists in Vietnam who uh infiltrate the commun the the the military and create the their own militia. The Indonesian communist has a very A mixed feelings towards the uh military. So then later on, they become the victims of the military.

But again, Indonesians had declared declared independence, rejecting that very return of colonial governance.

And so in that sense it's a much more democratic nationalism, but it's also a much more messy, messier nationalism, uh one in which the indigenous elite also has never really fully controlled. And we'll we'll see that in the revolution is that Yes, there's an Indonesian republic, but the but it's actually composed of various republics.

It's actually a messy and it's actually and and and you know, people were fighting amongst one another and so forth. And uh it's it's an interesting phenomena in which a huge amount of people Participated and not just took over the state, but participated as the state. You know, and then you you you know you have then the sort sort of a rush of people into the state.

This is something which which would have been horrifying for a Dutch uh colonial administrator to have seen, but they're not there at the moment. But this is something that's so fundamentally different and it's something that remains one of the key differences in a sense at of indigenous colonial state is that constant sort of much more expansive participatory relations with uh society uh to the state.

Was Sukarno right? Did his quite morally compromised decision to collaborate with the Japanese indeed, successfully lay the groundwork for independence? And then what, by contrast, were the consequences for the left wing figures and forces who had refused collaboration.

Now what did the collaboration achieve, right? So the nationalist leaders gained mass visibility and political legitimacy through cooperation. The Japanese authorities a d allowed mass mobilization, propaganda and political training of Indonesians. Also and because of that, the collaboration, uh through the collaboration, we were able to create youth organizations, militias, and administrative networks that later supported the revolution.

Now on the other hand, uh the anti-collaboration camp, they are able to achieve through their underground movement, they're able to achieve or maintain probably maintained moral credibility. an anti fascist legitimacy. And this is very important later when uh Japan was defeated, right? But what's really interesting that is is that after independence of nineteen forty five,

These different wartime strategies created political divisions, right? That will actually get uh carried on until later among the nationalist leaders that later uh you know it shaped early conflicts within the revolutionary government and then it carried over later about you know between these two camps of collaboration, non-collaboration.

So in practical term to answer your question then, um Zukarno's collaboration did help create political infrastructure and mobilize the population that made rapid independence possible, but it came with moral compromise. and and lasting political controversy, right? That we will see later with Madiun, for example.

And and how but with the left? Well the left went underground. And the left was also politically, how do you call it? Separated and conflicted. Uh and then I think I would li I we will discuss this later a as we talk about uh about Madion.

It w it benefited him because then it would allow him to to maintain his centrality throughout the revolution and afterwards. But whether for instance uh had he not been in that position, other uh alternative political powers or politicians like Tamalaka or the Pekai would have been a much greater uh threat to him. But whether

That position was central to Indonesian independence. That's something which is a bit I I can't say for sure. It could have gone either way. Uh but what was more important is that his position during the Japanese occupation cemented his position as the the leader or as the founder of the republic, right? As the founder of Indonesian independence. And so he has a symbolic centrality in Indonesian uh uh ideological discourse.

So that's why he could maintain his position all the way up to sixty five.

or command any of them. So he preferred to, you know, as as a leader, he preferred to above the fray, above all of the groups. So he belongs to all of the groups. but he didn't control any of them. So this is this is this is a very, very uh unique Indonesia, I think uh all of his career, Soekarno, even until he became president, he put himself away. It's above all of this. He represents the nation. He represents the unity. He's on the top but at the same time he didn't control anything.

uh below him so many groups and so many ideologies that n cannot be reconciled with each other. So there's a a huge infighting among among these groups. There's a communist there's a semi-communist, there's a nationalist, there are leftist uh nationalists, there's a Muslim, there's a Muslim communist, and etc. It's so many, not to mention the languages, not to mention the tribe.

And this is a very typical Indonesia, I think. Uh if when we inherit that when we talking about the modern era, how the leader in Indonesia try to become not only controlling one party system, but try to be above all. uh uh uh above all but not controlling really control one one group except later on in the when the military took over the power.

that had been formed among the Indonesian masses with the aim of resisting a possible Allied invasion. These militias were were called peta, but nonetheless zealously militant armed groups known as Pemuda soon formed and spread all across the archipelago, and at the same time regular military units began to take shape and they were led by veterans of of Dutch and Japanese colonial forces.

Meanwhile, some Japanese commanders in this very new situation of sudden surrender, some helped the Indonesian cause and provided weapons, and some would even stay behind to fight. the Revolutionary War, but in other places Pamuda and Japanese troops came into bloody conflict. How did both the Pamuda militia and formal nationalist military units get formed so quickly at such A giant scale after independence was was declared. How do we understand, on the one hand, the Pamuda, who

forces that would lay the groundwork for for what would ultimately become a decisive And ultimately decisively reactionary force in Indonesian national politics, the Indonesian National Armed Forces, or TNI.

uh or the students in the military academy in Bandum. But then the Japanese uh occupation uh happened and then he uh quit from that school. and then uh come back, making a comeback. It's a very young at the time, making a comeback during the revolution era, with the thinking about uh organizing uh one what's that one uh professional army, but not just a professional army because he was he saw uh firsthand how uh easily to mobilize the youth.

Even it becomes a doctrine of Indonesian military until now that we have a doctrine of people's war. Yeah, this is not done by only the professional army, but also by the people. In Indonesian, it's called Pertahanan Raya Semesta, which is the The all of resilience of the uh country dependent on on the people. So it's uh because The the the reason is very simple. Uh Indonesia is very poor and at that time, even until now, we don't have uh much

uh wealth to buy arms, we cannot compete with other power. So but we have the manpower who are dedicated to the uh uh the independence of our country. So based on that idea, Indonesian military forces comprise on so many elements at first. As I said before, there are PETA, and there are Dutch officers, and there are a lot of Pombodas. A lot of jihadists also participated in that. This is kind of a... Later on, it became a warlordism, but that it was organized locally.

uh along religious line, along ethnic lines, along uh but I think the most unique uh features of Indo Indonesian revolutions that there's also mobilisation across age. uh across generations. That's called Tomuda, the the youth. How can you uh define it? It it it's really a a fluid concept. Yeah, it's the temporary concept. You are not becoming a youth forever, you only in in certain time of uh your life. Uh that's that's uh I think the the unique phenomenon of uh of uh

Indonesian Revolution and the start of uh uh Alicean military. And things uh and because of that, it's really hard for the civilian government at the time to control the military. Of course they say that, well, we are uh uh taking orders from the from the government. That's the military would say that. But at the same time if uh the order from governments like is not in line with their interests. They're just disobeyed that, uh just like in the uh Renfill uh agreement.

So a lot of um the the military said, Well, yeah, uh uh we we don't acknowledge that that agreement. So that's actually they're uh rebelling again. the civilian government. But then there's always tensions between the military and the civilian until later on they become autonomous, uh semi autonomous uh institution or we can call it the state, uh within the state they are becoming uh bigger and bigger and uh stronger. and then they eventually took over the power. That's a another story.

Asian anti colonial militaries like let's say the Tatmada in Burma. Is is the Indonesian is the TNI unique or is this a pattern that we see elsewhere?

uh Tan Malaka also have a an an ambition to create an an army, but it failed. Yeah, because he cannot control. He's uh he ha he only mobilized a small number of people. But then I don't know, somehow because of the spirit of the revolution, a lot of participate in this and then they must find a channel and they automatically organize themselves first as uh because there's some professional uh soldiers also inside this this movement.

So they organized themselves regionally. And then they elected their own commanders. That's also happened in the local level and then at quote-unquote at the national level. So this is uh uh the army that creating uh itself out of uh uh a lot of components inside it. And then after that, as a consequence, after just a few years after independence, when they tried to reorganize the army, then rationalize the army.

and they have to get rid a lot of people who are not qualified as the military. That it's it's it's start the trouble. yeah, the uh uh start the rebellion everywhere because, you know, uh well we are in this together and then after this become the former army, you kick me out from this organisation. So uh you see a lot of regional rebellion everywhere. One of the biggest is in West Java by Darul Islam and Tentara Islam Indonesia, the Indonesian Islamic Army.

There is a bit of a compromise, especially between these two forces, between the peta, which uh represented by Sudirman. And Sudirman has a special position because he he's within a position as a as a spiritual uh symbol of the army. Uh so he holds that spirit, you know, that there's there's a strong uh element of of radical spiritual uh nationalism that's uh within the army.

And partly this is because of the experience w during the Japanese period. So within the Peta they've sort of honed in a very strong ideological position of of warrior like bushido kind of spirit uh that permeates the peta ideology. Uh now within the the the more uh formal, more professional bandung uh uh segment of the army, they're more

uh experience in the tradition of European uh professional uh army. Uh and but but these two sides sort of sort of converged. Uh they will have a problem later on in the fifties, but during this period they sort of represent the army. Um and if you look at what happened in the forties

So the army was shedding a lot of so you know you had of course the the Madion Rebellion, you also had the the Darul Islam, these are actually infighting within the army itself, right? Because it's it's defining who is part of the army and who isn't. And so uh

the emergence of the national army by the nineteen fifties was the result of shedding uh Islamist elements and shedding communist elements. And so, especially after Madion and after Darul Islam, the army was specifically right wing, specifically uh professional. And it has imbued within this sort of Japanese almost Fascist tradition of of uh of warrior spirit.

Now, why exactly is the state unable to counter that? I think the the period of the the social revolution is central to this. Because during this time, uh this There was a period of lull where there was no state authority. But it wasn't just that there was no state authority, there was a an effort by Pamuda groups, by various parts of society to destroy any form of state authority. So uh during the social revolution there's this term called pendaulatan, which means to enforce sovereignty.

Uh and it's a form of say of the people saying, We are taking over sovereignty from from your authority. So and and in in Sumatra and other places that meant violence against the nobilities, against officials. Uh but what happened is that effectively the state crumbled even further in the early year in the first year of the evolution. And so that sort of opened the field for the army to take.

to to go into and take over a lot of these institutions, including companies, including uh uh you know so various sectors of the state, of society, of government were taken over by people of the Pamuda, a lot of them affiliated with the army, but some also affiliated with the communists and other other uh elements.

But basically this the state was sort of taken over by society in that sense. And And this is something which we grapple with even today, this this collapse of authority, of state authority in the early uh Republican period, in the early revolutionary period has a very long uh ramification up till today. So I guess in in that context probably first of all uh the expansion of participation uh during the Japanese period, uh coupled with Japanese sort of uh Bushido spirit.

Which imbued uh the PETA uh but also not just PETA, but a lot of elements in Indonesian society. And then later on the collapse of authority, of state authority. position the army in a very unique way in Indonesi in Indonesian history. And so that's why they've maintained a very strong independence w which remains even up till today to an extent, you know. The the big effort the big question of Indonesia has always been about civil supremacy towards the military.

And that has been uh the question which remains relevant up till uh the present period.

published by different authorities during that period. And in a lot of places in Java, the collapse of authority meant that in some places the military sort of took over. So the military actually functioned as the state. uh they they tax, they you know they do all these public services. And that's also the same case in other uh areas in which other uh groups uh like the PKE or other groups they sort of took over and

uh and took over government. So the state itself is is somewhat of a fiction, uh, in that sense that there is no unified republic. And you know, uh if you think about uh because in in nineteen forty six the the capital of the republic moved from Jakarta to Jokjakarta, right? The reason why that's the case is because the Sultan of Jogyja was able to maintain its traditional bureaucracy. So within Indonesia, one of the few places or within the Republic, one of the few places where

And so it strengthened the the position of the but what what what what uh that meant was that Jogya was really one of the few stable places where government was was present. But if you look at what happened in Jogya it's it's actually just a a place for for government officials to

go in, you know, and show themselves it's a revolving door really of'cause peop people like Sukarno, they were traveling all over the place in Indonesia. Uh a lot of the Indonesian leaders were travelling all over the place. Uh so Jokja is also somewhat symbolic but uh but it was much more uh substantial than other places in the Republic where authority collapsed. So

Uh and then of course you had the the other uh side is the the Dutch part of the Republic of Indonesia when the Dutch expanded. So Batavia was under the Dutch control in forty Jakarta was under the Dutch control in forty six and other places were not Dutch control and they were normal places. So there there were places where the Dutch were saying this is what government looks like. But Jokja was an important place for for uh Indonesia for the Republic to show that we can also

We can also do this normal state business. Uh but outside of Jobja, it's not really the case. It's really much more fragmented and there's less authority, uh there's less structure that that was present.

instead of central command. But I wanna ha just highlight that the winner not the winner, but what we're seeing is actually get gaining strength is the military. The military was able to actually um, you know, join forces quickly. Uh of course, not uh in a coherent way, but the movement in uh in terms of central command, uh getting uh for example the ch the the elec the choice of Sudirman as commander in chief, you know.

uh these military commanders, they without direct approval from civilian leaders, they could make decisions. Be and this is actually reflecting how uh is it's a reflection of how they see themselves as revolutionary institution independent from the government. They saw themselves as the guardian of the revolution, not just as a subordinate state institution. So the this created an uneven relationship between the Republican government on the one hand,

and the military leaders from the very beginning. And this will actually continue, right? Um, until until later. So because the army emerged through revolutionary struggle rather than civilian control, it retained a strong sense of this autonomy and later became a major political force in Indonesian politics.

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that was already in motion when the Japanese surrendered and independence was declared. And this first constitution it called for a strong presidency and envisioned a state that would encompass then British territories in Malaya and the northern side of Borneo, or Kalimantan. which will become very consequential later on. It also it also laid out the doctrine of Panchasila, five principles that would shape both Socarno's time in office and Suharto's new order reaction against it all.

The five principles were belief in one God, nationalism, humanitarianism, social justice, and democracy, and And to appease Islamic leaders, an earlier version of Panchasila had included quote belief in one God with the obligation for adherents of Islam to carry out Islamic law, but

But the final version of the Constitution, adopted alongside the Declaration of Independence in august nineteen forty five, it was somewhat softened to just belief in one God. Nonetheless, That version of Panchesila made official this deeply consequential bias. in favor of Abrahamic religions and against non monotheistic religions, traditional beliefs, and atheism.

What was this rather idiosyncratic, ideological matrix that the revolution put forward to explain and legitimate itself and How did it draw on various political currents, the various political currents that we've been discussing throughout this series? What was the emerging political project? that it all functionally was responding to.

So Panjasila is a state ideology. It consists of five guiding principles that meant to unify Indonesia's diverse society. uh one to believe in God and then nationalism, second nationalism, third humanitarianism, fourth democracy and five. social justice. And Panchasila was actually designed as a compromise ideology that incorporated the three major ideological streams in Indonesian politics.

uh you know, there is the secular nationalism, the Islamic politics, the left-leaning social justice ideas, right? And the first uh principle is actually a compromise, right? Because the the early draft included the so called Dijakarda Charter, which added the phrase requiring Muslims to follow Islamic law. And so this was meant to the Jukara chapter was meant to appease Islamic leaders.

you know, that they wanted the state to be uh to follow Islamic uh Islamic law, right? Uh but later this was softened to maintain unity among Indonesia's religiously diverse population. Uh so so that first one belief in God is a is this negotiation, right? To s you know, to make sure that we're still able to maintain the unity of the religious diverse population, but also still uh somehow uh accommodate the needs. the requirement or the demand of the Islamic leaders.

Now this ideological metrics, right, you asked about the political por purpose, so the ideological metrics was actually a response to the central uh challenge that's facing the revolution, which is how can we build, we talk about this, how can we build a unified nation state from a highly diverse archipelago? with many religions, ethnicities and political traditions, right? This is a vast archipelago with disparate politician and the different languages, ethnicities and histories.

that were w that was never united in this way before. So so this is a way to unite this vast and diverse na uh archipelago into a nation and to a modern nation state. So Panchasila became this shared ideological language of Indonesian politics and actually later Sukarno would use this as a pretext or as a you know as a basis for guided democracy. And Suharto during the New Order era would also use this to justify national unity and political authority that replaced the Sukarnos.

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The first Sila uh was actually not uh uh the belief in God, but the belief in one God. And I think the the idea was uh the Islamists wanted only uh a monotheistic uh position, uh What they wanted in a sense was to because th there was a lot of b traditional belief systems in Indonesia and uh they wanted to sort of uh regulate the mode of religion by pushing forth monotheistic forms of religion.

Uh and in fact if you think about Hinduism and Bud Buddhism, for instance, in Indonesia, uh had to also uh recreate itself into somewhat of a monotheistic religion because the idea pushed forth by uh letter the Islamist was a form of monotheism. than to reduce the variety of faith in Indonesia. And uh ultimately was to sort of strengthen or enforce or push people to enter into Islam uh or Christianity, but uh basically monotheistic kind of faith.

of our d of our d diversity and it has a uh social justice in there because the structure of the society is a very uh not level in Indonesia. Uh uh feudalism is still very, very strong and then also uh uh the inequalities are very high. That's the most problematic uh of all is just uh believing one God. believe in one God, it's uh as Abby has mentioned, it's it it just pushes uh people to think about uh only one God, yeah, uh monotheism. Uh meanwhile people in

there's a so many uh belief system in Indonesia which is not really belief in one God. Uh Hindu has to invent uh a word for that. It does Sanya Vidivasa, which is one God actually. There out of so many gods. If you it it's probably strange if you compare to Hindu in India. Uh you know, they will the if you to talk about Hindu in India about God, and they will ask you which God?

Yeah, because uh there's so many of them in Indonesia also, like that. This is the result of uh compromise uh among the uh founders of the nations. And uh until now I think uh people just uh people accept it. Uh but also at the same time people don't obey it. Yeah. We we have an ideology, that's fine. But uh when we have to follow that well Well it's not really also acceptable. No no nobody knows exactly uh what kind of society that we want to create out of this ideology.

against Indonesian Pamuda led by Sutomo, a really important radio propagandist, during the Revolution. The Dutch were during this period figuring out how to recolonize their former colony. But before Dutch troops arrived it was mostly it was mostly British troops who

began to secure control of cities like Jakarta. The the first mission was to release the large number of Europeans and Indos interned by the Japanese, but of course this was also the first stages of paving the way for the return of Dutch colonial rule. Meanwhile, Pamuda, as was mentioned earlier, committed mass violence against European Indo, Chinese and other civilians.

there was this widespread localized violent conflict, sometimes described as social revolution that that Abi was discussing earlier and that we'll get into more detail on in a few moments. Meanwhile, Amir Sharafuddin and Sutan Sharir formed the Socialist Party or PS, Tan Malaka, no longer a PKI leader, formed an organization called the Struggle Front, and later a group called Morba. Sharer became Indonesia's first prime minister and Amir would become its second.

After the Dutch retook Jakarta, the revolutionary Republican government moved into the interior of Java, establishing its capital in Yogyakarta, one of the four central four central Javanese principalities. Meanwhile, there's this whole other diplomatic track that's extremely important with the Dutch, which results in the signing of the Lingarjati Agreement. And that agreement, it would have led to this creation of a federated United States of Indonesia, this collection of states.

that would include this Republic of Indonesia comprised of just Java and Sumatra, and then a United States of Indonesia of the rest of the Dutch East Indies that would all together form part of a Dutch Indonesian Union with the Dutch Queen as head of state. And all of this led to intensifying conflict between those seeking compromise and those seeking 100% independence.

Take us through the first couple years of the revolution right up to November nineteen forty six, right up to before the signing of the Lingarjati Agreement.

and uh ordinary people cannot eat and something like that. So we have to go into order and then we have to uh get a deal. Uh this is a professional politician. That's their positions. This is the normal uh people inside the state who are managing the state at the time. But at the same time, you have the radicals, the revolutionaries, people like Tan Malaka, people like all of the remnants of the pemuda, people who are organizing.

the the Pomuda, the Jihadis, the Laskar, or uh different kind of militia. That one that Tan Malaka put it aptly merdeka 100% or 100% independent. So these kind of people, no compromise. We will we will uh fight. until the end. We will spill our blood everywhere. It doesn't matter. We have a lot of people to defend our independence. We are not being controlled by any power in the in the world.

So this kind of uh uh different uh thinking, different quote unquote ideologies will shapes uh a lot of Indonesians uh futures, which uh the professional politician will really want to organize the uh the state into a normal state and the radicals wanna do all out uh revolutions. And then I think where is the the most interesting thing in Indonesian episode, this episode of history is that where the Indonesian military put their side. uh at that at that time the military put their side on the

uh hundred percent independent. So uh do anything we can. Uh mobilize uh if you don't have uh guns. So use spare bambu in order to confront the enemies. So and then these kind of cultures, uh people's war, even until now pi uh uh the military still think themselves as a people's army that also justified their intrusion into the all the civilian life. I think I remember even though uh Sutyon at that time, uh even though he coming from uh a professional army background.

he created a doctrine is wrote a book about the poko poko grilla or the substance of the gorilla. He has positioned himself as a politician instead of the army general. That kind of things I think at the time, at the crucial period of uh Indonesian independence uh or the revolutionary era that will influence Indonesia's state later on.

some parts of state structure were being developed. So we're we're seeing sort of the formation of uh the foundations of the state, the the army uh for one thing, but also another important component which is uh the the the foreign ministry or the diplomatic front uh of Indonesia. Which also developed uh during this period as well. So we can see this. first two years as a period of sort of consolidation and relative unity.

in which later on in forty seven, forty eight and forty nine, uh would erupt into civil war, would erupt into uh more discrete sort of tensions amongst the various factions.

Why did the revolution against the Dutch also unleash all these conflicts? within Indonesian society and and does the term social revolution do a good job describing what was going on?

you know, many peasants and rural workers they had deep resentment against the local aristocrats. uh landlords and officials who were a fo associated with the colonial rule, right? So the revolutionary moment it gave them an opportunity to challenge these hierarchies. And then in rural Java, we uh have uh if you still remember the Santri versus Abangan, right, since uh nineteen twenties, uh these conflicts also uh occurred, you know, especially because

the Abangan peasants are often linked to the leftist or communist networks. So there were conflicts among the Santri and Abangan. And these divisions reflected this uh broader tensions between Islamic reform movements and the secular or the left wing politics. Then there is the regional examples of social upheavals in this case. Um there is in Aceh uh Islamic leaders Ulama, they led revolts against the Dutch aligned aristocratic Ulubalang um Ulebalang class.

And then in each in East Sumatra we have plantation workers and local militants who attack aristocratic rulers. that then killed several members of the Malay elite. Actually there was there is a poet, Amir Hamza, who was also killed then. And so why did the revolution trigger these conflicts, right? That's also an important question. So the nationalist revolution did not just challenge colonial rule, it destabilized existing social hierarchies.

you know, the you know, the class hierarchies, the religious hierarchies, the regional hierarchies, it destabiliz stabilized all of them. And so it allowed uh local actors to actually pursue their own vision, you know, of justice or revenge. There's no longer this uh, you know, large a structure that that somehow put this all together, di you know, like colonialism, for example, despite how exploitative it is, it's all erupted. So all of these versions came came out.

Now so does the term social revolution really capture this? The the term fits um, you know, because m in partly because many uprisings involve uh attacks on aristocracy, landlords and colonial collaborators. But it also oversimplified, right if you think about it, because the events were also highly localized. There is no media at the time, so they cannot really coordinate and and and network. So it's actually

It's an an immediate response and and reactions, an immediate reaction. So it's very highly rocal localized and also shaped by very by diverse motivations like religion, ethnicity, and personal vendettas essentially. as much as class politics. So if you think if we think about Indonesian revolution, We need to think of it not only as a national anti-colonial struggle, but it is all it was also a period of internal social upheaval because of this uh rupture uh or destruction of the old.

Essentially, the old structure.

has uh against the Dutch, uh because there's no Dutch anymore. So they directed it to the aristocracy, not not only in the region that you mentioned, but also in was the northern coast of Java, the area around Tegal, Perbes, Pekalongan, and something like that. And even also in Bali, the entire caste movement. anti-aristocracy movement is very very strong especially especially from the leftist The corporate, actually, the left at that time against the feudal class, the aristocracy.

And in North Sumatra I think it's more clearer people, Batak Karu, the leftist Batakaros and the Javanese uh ex uh indentured uh labor over there. Uh they or kick out from the uh from from from the land, which is uh uh before all of the companies that operated in in that area has to pay rent to the local ruler. So, and then this is the revolution's open, create a window of opportunity to seize this land.

And the conflict on earthland is going on even until now. If you look at the agrarian conflict in North Sumatra or East Sumatra, most of the conflicts has a roots in this period. people want to confiscate or people want to seize the land which once belonged to the aristocracy. And also in Bali and also I think in some part of Jafa is also it's it's it's unsolved problem.

even until now. But the basically this is the again this is the revolution. This is a social revolution because people really want to have an agrarian reform. People really want the means of production for their of their own. Not a lot like uh the aristocracy had before, but uh just enough for for them to live.

uh within the colonial system. And, you know, so a lot of the victims during this period are people who uh were considered associated with being uh part of the old regime uh colonial regime and part of the sort of capitalist uh extraction And and this of course also uh thus has its racial dimensions and ethnic dimensions, but it isn't purely it isn't an expression of racial racism, for instance, or an expression of it's really much more an expression of class. uh dis discussed storage.

Uh parts of indigenous society that were competitors to Dutch capitalism. So this does include, for instance, does. uh attack on the Chinese communities, attacks on the Indo-Europeans, attack on people associated with with authorities, as we've discussed, right, with uh with uh government officials and so forth. but primarily i it's put forth within the context, within the frame of uh class analysis.

And you know, it's part of that tradition, a long tradition of Indonesian ideology of Indonesian nationalism that is very much affected by this perspective that is Marxist and that is class-based.

that sought to maintain the colonial status quo, even though this agreement in so many ways was so tilted toward the Dutch position from the get go. But that's just how unwilling, how resistant Dutch political culture was to any sort of change in the colonial status quo. Meanwhile, on the ground in South Sulawesi, Raymond Westerling led a brutal, brutal Dutch counterinsurgency campaign that involved widespread civilian massacres.

And basically the Dutch were all o were constantly proving Indonesian skeptics of negotiation right, as these massacres were taking place across South Sulawesi. the Dutch colonial authorities unilaterally began to create puppet states, first in eastern Indonesia and West Kalimantan, and then on july twentieth, nineteen forty seven, they launched a direct military assault on the Republic. an assault that they characterized in really classic colonial euphemism as the first police action, which

Indonesians more accurately described as military aggression. Really a truly quite brutal, murderous aggression that among other things, aimed to to bring key economic enterprises back under Dutch control. At the same time the Dutch continued to create these new puppet states, additional new puppet states, South Sumatra, East Java, East Sumatra, ultimately fifteen states in all.

How did the Lingarjati Agreement come together? And then how did it so spectacularly, so quickly fall apart, take us from Linger Jati to the eve of january nineteen forty eight, when yet another agreement, the Renville Agreement, would be signed between the Republic and the Dutch.

And the second Shahir's uh cabinet would uh would arise from that. And that would then uh result in Amir Sharifuddin uh emerging as the the next Prime Minister of Indonesia.

uh state had achieved in the early two year periods, right? This because uh after that it showed an increasing level of distrust within the factions in the Republic, uh, in particular for instance, between the military and uh the the the political leadership, the politician, uh but also with with the more uh radical elements there. Linga Jati is seated

the the the the civil war to come in a sense and the and the collapse of the kind of unity that that it has achieved uh in the earlier periods. Uh the development of uh puppet states was not really um So the Dutch tried to develop puppet states, but they they really didn't have depth to to them. Uh and I think that would later on be shown after nineteen forty-nine, when a lot of the puppet states decided to disband themselves.

So um within the Dutch they uh again they they they don't understand the Indonesian uh situation very well. They don't understand the level of the depth of nationalism that has been achieved in such a short period of time. They don't understand that uh so a lot of their their maneuvers uh really was was not going uh anywhere because the development of puppet seas, for instance, uh was at surface level.

But that's the latter period. But this is the start of this first, not only the army, but also the elements in the region, especially toward the central government in Jakarta and Yogyakarta at the time.

It also prompted Amir to resign as Prime Minister, who was then replaced by Hata. In in West Java, the Indonesian Islamic State, Darul Islam We've discussed it a few times or referenced it a few times. this began to take shape as Republican forces, namely the Silwangi Division,

and that's an important military force to remember, the Silwangi Division will be a recurrent character in this history. They withdrew from West Java under the terms of the Renville Agreement, which was even more tilted toward the Dutch than Lingarjati had been. And so the Silawangi division of the Republican military withdraws from West Java. In its place emerges this Islamic revolt against both the Dutch and the Republic.

Led by Islamic radical and mystic Carto Surwirio, a man that we discussed earlier in the series. because he, alongside nationalist Sukarno, Communist Musso, various other important leaders, they all spent their childhood years at the very same boarding house in Surabaya

run by Sarakat Islam leader Jokro Aminotto. So just to reemphasize in e again and again how sort of specific the layer of Indonesian society it is that's forming the leadership class of all of these conflicting political currents. in this giant country. It's really quite remarkable. Anyhow, how did the Renville agreement, again, even more tilted toward Dutch power than Lingarjati had been? How did it get made? And more specifically, what does Renville reveal about?

about the US's orientation towards Dutch colonialism in Indonesia at this time, because that orientation would quite radically change in the years to come. due to Cold War considerations. But at this time, they're on a US naval ship under US pressure signing a very, very pro Dutch agreement. And then lastly, why did the signing of Renville and its implementation, why did it lead to such intense conflict among these Indonesian political forces?

which is a very small place, I think it becomes the centre of uh Indonesia. With that agreement, all of the Indonesian military has to be transferred into Jukjakarta. uh this is what they call it in in the military, they uh as a long march. من باندون إلى باندون إلى باندون إلى باندون إلى باندون إلى باندون إلى باندون إلى باندون And at the same time, because Bandung has a void of security forces, especially in the military, entered the Darul Islam movement.

the Indonesian Islamic uh army movement led by Kaspar Swiri. uh that's that's the start. And then looking at that also in the because uh Bainung is on the southern part of Java, in the eastern part of Java in the city of Mahdiut There's uh another movement also because of the uh void of the military, the pockets of resistance have to move to Juja Karata. following the Winfell agreement into the territory of the Republic.

uh that's also for it uh so the leftists also try to make something in there. That kind of situation. And I think uh uh the the US Until at this point, I think it's interesting to see the United States of Indonesia. But then after that they realize that this is this is not right because of the the dynamics, disorder the dynamics. first-hand. They saw that Indonesian nationalism is actually

it's quite big and spread evenly in the archipelago. So l later on they change the course. But I think during the Renfall, uh the United States think that Indonesia should be like Like the US where you have so many states and uh uh interstate uh relationship was uh determined by commerce, you have the central government and and something like that. But uh it didn't work. Yeah.

And you see the all of the all of the radicals, especially the the rights in form of the Islamic movement, uh explode in West Java and Acheth. also uh starting uh at that time and then it spread to Kalimantan to Sulawesi and then the leftist in Madiun but after that uh Madiun they can crush it but the Islamic rebellion is really hard to douse it.

It would also result in the collapse of Amir Sharifuddin's cabinet and the rise of uh Muhammad Hatta. And this is also very important. Prior to Renville, The Indonesian state Uh, the Indonesian government had no specific ideology in that sense, right? Because it was always a compromise between different uh factions. between Islamist and with communist and uh leftist and and and the and you know they try to uh create this sort of uh hybrid uh government, uh hybrid ideology.

But as a result of this, the Dutch actually told the world, especially the US, that the Republican government is essentially a communist government. So Americans have always seen uh the uh uh especially after uh uh forty five, the the the the emergence of i of the republic as a leftist and a communist movement.

uh because the Dutch told them uh that and they believed that to a large extent. Uh so uh that's why uh within the American perspective they were trying to enforce uh a sort of anti-communist policy by pushing Dutch colonialism back to Indonesia, which they thought would reduce the chance of Indonesia falling into communism. So the the split between uh the centre national with the communist and the the and the more radical Islam was actually an opportunity.

for the Republic to say to the Americans that we're not communist. Of course that would then uh be supported by Madiun the by the Ma by the by the Madiun affair. At the same time during this period Indonesia's first diplomats went to New York.

and they had started developing a relationship with American government, with American society. I think one important component is that uh Sumitlu Juhedikusumo, who is the father of the present president uh Prabobo, he was part of the delegation of Indonesian diplomats posted in the UN. And he uh made an agreement called the Fox Agreement, uh with someone called Matthew Fox with Uh an executive at the motion picture, the Fox motion picture. And the agreement was that.

If Indonesia become independent, the Americans would get a lot of share for for for economic opportunity. And so uh during the forty seven he uh forty seven to forty eight. But especially after forty eight, this notion that Indi the Republic was communist was gone. But also on the other hand, the Americans saw this as an opportunity to replace Dutch capitalism in Indonesia. So uh uh that's why the shift happened

after Ranville. It was it was a very uh important uh uh change in in the revolution, uh but it was uh it was a win diplomatically for for the for the centre national uh government.

In that September, PKI supporters who were part of an organization called the People's Democratic Front, or FDR, launched a revolt in the Javanese city of Majun. In response to that revolt, Republican military units, namely, once again, the Silwangi Division, put down the revolt, made huge numbers of arrests. and executed Amir, Musso, and other PKI leaders. This is pretty dramatic. Musso's an incredibly important leader of the PKI. Amir had just been the Prime Minister.

The left was divided over this revolt. Figures like Tan Malaka and Sharir opposed it. Meanwhile, in December, as that conflict internal to the revolution was playing out, the Dutch launched their second so called police action, seizing Yogyakarta, forcing the Republican military to withdraw from its capital, as Sukarno and other leaders were captured. Dutch troops during this period, it's important to emphasize, committed widespread atrocities against Indonesians.

as the territory under control of the Republican government was besieged and rapidly shrinking. How did this communist rebellion come about? And what were its consequences for the PKI and more generally for the course of the revolution?

Sometimes people call it the Madun Affair or the Madun revolt or the Madun Provo provocation. It all depends on which interpretation and perspective you're you're taking. And then another important fact that we need to remember as a start is that Madiun at this time is the third largest city under the Republican control after Yogyakarta and Solo. Now, throughout the course of the Indonesian Revolution against the Dutch, there are splits between the communist and the socialists.

One split was between nationalist communists such as Tanmalaka, who opposed any negotiation with the Dutch, and on the other hand the so-called Stalinists, who were more open to negotiations with the Dutch. Then there is another split between the left and the right socialist that's represented by Amir on the left and Shahir on the right.

And in 1948, the leftist socialist influence in the cabinet was greatly reduced because of the disagreement over Amir's decision to support the Renville Agreement that we just discussed. The Madjun Affair, just like repeat it again. So the Madjun Affair occurred within the backdrop of this political crisis that's created by the Renville Agreement. The Renville Agreement, as we just uh re uh talked about before.

uh in january forty eight allowed the Dutch to keep all areas within the so called Fanmook line, right? That includes two thirds of Java. So it's reduced the r the Republicans was reduced only uh to a third of Java. And as a consequence of this, it forced um Republican troops, right, to withdraw from many areas. and confined it to a s much smaller territory in Java. And this resulted in um economic hardship and political tensions within the revolutionary state.

Now the left wing coalition, Sayab Kiri, which had dominated the government under uh Amir Sharifuddin, collapsed after he signed. The agreement. Amir resigned his from his position, and as we talk about, the Vice President Muhammad Hatta formed a new cabinet that's actually dominated by conservative forces. uh including the Islamic Party Mashumi and the nationalist and it it uh it excluded um willingly those on the left you know so as a result the left

uh which is this both the socialists and the communists they all lost access to state power and moved into opposition. So in response of this the leftist organizations, including the the PKI. So there are many leftist organizations. There is PKI, there is the armed youth organization, there is Pasindo, the Pamuda Socialist Indonesia, the Indonesian Socialist Youth.

uh the Labour Party and the Stalinists in the Socialist Party, they all for uh form the Front Democratie Rakette, FDR, the People's Democratic Front. uh as an opposition coalition. And they tried for the next few uh months they tried to secure a new cabinet uh with a representation. Now, as you mentioned then in your question, in August 1948, Musso, a veteran uh communist leader who had spent years in the Soviet Union after he went in exile, you know, following the 1926-27.

communist revolt, he returned to Indonesia. He actually returned to Indonesia also briefly in 1935, as we remember in our previous episodes, right? So Musso proposed a new revolutionary strategy for the Indonesian left and he re reorganized the PKI around a more militant line. Now, so there is Musri turning, there is this coalition between the among all of the with the FDR. Now, the left also at the same time felt increasingly threatened by uh Hata's government's policies.

The because the government, you know, what they did, they they initiated a program called Military Rationalization. This military rationalization er is a restructuring and downsizing of armed forces that have been hinted a little bit before by Blimada.

and this program targeted many irregular militias and units that's associated with the left including the pesindo So naturally this created intense anxiety among the left-leaning troops and militias and they all feared disarmament, dismissal, repression. And these military tensions were particularly intense in Central and East Java, where Republican forces, militia groups and politically affiliated units, they all competed for power.

Now conflicts between left leaning forces, especially the Pacindo units, and regular army units, intensified. Right? In places like Solo and Madiun you would see kidnapping, killing. You know, and then clashes between the different factions of this revolutionary military. Now, this is the context of Madhyun. In this context, local FDR and Pacindo leaders, they seized control of the city of Madyun on September the 18th, 1948.

The revolt was actually not originally planned by the PKE leadership. It it began locally, but then later it was supported by the party once the events escalated. Now, in response to that, President Sukarno he immediately denounced the uprising and demanded the population to choose, you know, between on the one hand Sukarno Hatta government and the on the other hand musus pki remember pki didn't actually initiate it but now it becomes the pki you know uprising

And so and then following this, uh Sukano was speaking on radio. I I I don't think we have touched this before, but radio was such an important media at this time. point, right, at this time from Jap Japan until today. So Sukarno was uh saying this and then so f as a response to this, the Republican forces moved quickly to suppress the revolt. So the Republican army actually crushed the uprising within weeks. Moussault was killed while fleeing government forces.

Amir Sharifuddin were and other leaders who were captured and executed. Actually Amir was still wearing his pajama when he was arrested and he was uh executed within months, within in Febru in by November he was executed. And then thousands of Pekai members and sympathizers were arrested and killed. What are the consequences of the Madiun affair for the PKE and the revolution?

Well, one, the rebellion resulted in the death of many leaders and widespread repression of communist supporters. This is why it's often called the second, you know. First Ki was killed in twenty seven, now it's killed again in Madiun. This is what it means. Uh the suppression effectively destroyed PKI as a political force for a few years. It will rise up again later um in the fifties.

But what's also important is that this episode created hostility between the PKI and other political forces, especially the Islamic groups such as, you know, Mashumi. And then the second consequence is that the defeat of the Pekai actually consolidated authority between Sukarno, Hata and the Republican army. Uh so it allowed them to present the republic uh Abby has mentioned this allowed them to present the republic as anti-communist and politically stable, right?

Because here is the thing, Washington has been involved, right? I mean, since the beginning, uh, has been initially supported the Indonesian cause because of shared anti-colonial sentiments. But after Madun the US began to view Indonesia through the lens of the Cold War, right? As a potential ally against the communist bloc. So it is interesting that the year

nineteen forty eight began with the US fully backing the Netherlands. R we just remember with the at the end of 1948 the US was actually warning the Netherlands not to engage in military action Uh and the US actually told the Dutch that, you know, we will we will stop the Marshall Plan eight i if you if you you know, continue the military action.

So when the Dutch launched a major if offensive on in december forty eighth and captured Djokarta, the Republic actually survived politically and militarily. And ultimately interna international pressure, uh this is again with the US, you know, starting to supporting Indonesia, forced the Dutch to recognize Indonesian independence in nineteen forty nine to nineteen fifty.

So we must remember that even though the Republic moved closer to the United States in 1948 though, okay, this actually did not produce a lasting alliance. So we need to remember this also, right? What is lasting and consequential from Madiun is the event is that the event strengthen anti-communism among the military and Mashumi supporters. that then deep deepen the left-right wing divide that shaped Indonesia's Cold War politics.

So they understood that that the colony was was not going to happen, but that they needed a a way in which to ensure that Dutch capital would remain in Indonesia. Also, uh during the the round table agreement, the Indonesians were forced to take over

the debt of the Netherlands Indies. That was an an amazing uh transgression on our sovereignty, uh, but which uh Hatha uh agreed to uh and so we've been paying for uh uh Netherlands Indies uh uh death up until the nineteen nineties I think, including the death that was incurred during the revolutionary period. So the money that was used by the Dutch to fight against Indonesians uh during the forties were then uh forced onto us to so that they uh we pay for them.

The Dutch was very uh uh their approach was very economic from the start, right? So the the this the first military action was called Operasi Product. uh or pro uh operation product which is mainly to secure uh major installations of Dutch capitalism, primarily in the oil sector and then also in uh plantations. So it was always uh within uh the Dutch perspective is very much uh pushed by

capitalist perspective and was pushed by l lobby lobby groups in the Netherlands by Dutch multinational corporations. But now they're they're competing against uh American uh capitalism So Matthew Fox the one I I uh discussed earlier. He wasn't part of the American government but he was a lobbyist. And I think he was very successful in lobbying Washington, this idea that Indonesia was an Eldorado to

To be open for uh American capitalism. Now, he didn't uh succeed in developing that contract or that agreement, but I think they cemented this notion that Indonesia was this this potential, this big potential, which again uh would animate America's interest in Indonesia for a quite uh long period of time afterwards.

And then now China, which is much bigger than Indonesia itself and also and neighboring countries, I think that's also uh changed the calculations of the American power and also the Dutch uh in in interest in in in Indonesia. I think that's the best that they can get is that you pay the the debt of the East Indians to us. That's the best deal uh they they can get. But other than that, I think uh it's it's become the dynamics of uh Indonesian politics, inside Indonesian politics.

Which is uh uh same complicated as the geopolitics in the regions.

Red Enlightenment at the Dawn of Indonesia, and a co-editor of The Indonesian Left in the Twentieth Century, Beyond the Rise and Fall of a Party. She also serves as an editor for the Indonesian Left Media, Indoprogress.com. Mara Suprayatma is a visiting research fellow at the Isaias Yusuf Ishak Institute in Singapore. He specializes in Indonesian politics, civil military relations, ethnic conflict, and state bureaucracy.

Farabifaki is the head of the master's program in the history department of Gaja Mada University in Jogyakarta, Indonesia. He's worked on the history of the decolonization of the Indonesian state and is working on a manuscript on the history of natural. and natural resource management, particularly oil and gas.

Thank you for listening to The Dig from Jacobin magazine. As Marx once said, after noting, The question is, can mankind fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? Well other podcasts have only interpreted the world. Ways. Our point is to change it. We're posting new episodes most weeks. The dig was produced by Alex Lewis. Our associate producer is Jack.

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