D.N. Aidit: A tragically misunderstood PKI leader

D.N. Aidit: A tragically misunderstood PKI leader

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Dipa Nusantara (D.N.) Aidit, the doomed leader of the
Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), was demonized by the New Order
regime as the ruthless mastermind of the Sept. 30 coup attempt, a
bloody event blamed on the communist party.

At the height of former president Soeharto's dictatorial rule,
his specter was raised every year to guard against the
reemergence of communism in the country.

In the New Order propaganda film Pemberontakan G30S PKI (The
Sept. 30th PKI Rebellion) directed by filmmaker Arifin C. Noer,
he was portrayed as being diabolical -- a power-hungry man who
single-handedly stage-managed the bloody coup.

In the film at least -- based on historical accounts drawn up
by New Order historians -- he was incriminated because he was at
Halim Perdanakusumah airbase, while PKI youth wing organization
Pemuda Rakyat and women's organization Gerwani were present at
the murder scene of six military generals and an officer.

According to the film, he was present at the location where
the generals were tortured before finally being killed. The
generals' faces were sliced with razors and their eyes were
gouged out before their bodies were dumped into a hole. Aidit,
therefore, was deemed responsible for the heinous crime.

Thanks to the propaganda film, such a portrayal is now deeply
ingrained in the minds of most adult Indonesians and, for a long
time, no one dared offer an alternative view on Aidit.

Now, more than seven years since the demise of the Soeharto
regime, a small number of people who are knowledgeable about the
PKI leader have begun to speak out in his defense.

Murad Aidit, the younger brother of D.N. Aidit, said that his
sibling was an ordinary man who stuck to his principles and, in
the end, was victimized by those who disagreed with him.

"There's no way that a person such as Aidit, a quiet, soft-
spoken person, could have masterminded such a bloody plot," Murad
said in a discussion to commemorate the G30S PKI rebellion last
Saturday.

Murad's view on Aidit has also served to challenge the notion
that his older brother was a firebrand, as depicted in Arifin's
film.

He said that Aidit turned into a firebrand only when he talked
of imperialism.

Rebellious father

Murad grew up with his older brother in Belitung, an island
off the South Sumatra coast, a place where both were born.

D.N. Aidit was born Achmad Aidit in Belitung, on July 30,
1923, to a devout Muslim father.

His father, Abdullah Aidit, was the leader of a youth
organization that fought against the Dutch colonial government.

Abdullah, who, in the early 1940s founded a Muslim
organization, Nurul Islam (the light of Islam), was a member of
the House of Representative during the early years of the
Republic.

Achmad changed his given name to Dipa Nusantara, meaning "the
nation's guardian", in the early 1950s, when he sensed that he
would soon become an important figure.

Budiman Sudjatmiko, former leader of the Democratic People's
Party (PRD), who has read extensively about the history of the
country's communist movement, said that Aidit came close to
accomplishing something that could have changed the course of the
nation's history.

For better or worse, the PKI could have won an election and
ruled the country had there been no G30S PKI coup attempt.

"The turnaround was accomplished simply by means of his
youthful spirit and perseverance," Budiman told the Saturday
discussion.

Indeed, Aidit's rise to the PKI leadership was a stunning
accomplishment.

Assuming the party leadership at the very young age of 24,
Aidit went against all the odds to rejuvenate the PKI while it
was in disarray.

With only 8,000 members at his disposal, Aidit rebuilt the
party to become a robust political grouping that commanded three
million members in the years leading to the first parliamentary
election, held in 1955. It was one of the largest communist
parties in the world, along with those in the Soviet Union and
China.

The death knell first tolled for the PKI in the wake of a
bloody insurgency in 1948 in the East Java town, Madiun.

The PKI was blamed for the incident and the administration of
premier Mohammad Hatta embarked on a nationwide witch-hunt
against PKI members.

More than 35,000 of them were arrested and a number of its
leaders were executed.

During the pogrom, Aidit fled to China and waited for better
times.

He returned to the country in 1951 and quickly assumed the
party leadership, aided by other young turks such as Alimin,
Njoto and Sudisman.

However, soon after he took the party's helm, the
administration of prime minister Sukiman launched another purge
against the PKI after it sponsored a nationwide strike.

The PKI survived the "Sukiman Razzia" and continued to build
its political strength.

Such perseverance paid off when the PKI came in at fourth
place in the 1955 parliamentary election, winning over six
million votes.

A reluctant participant?

Joesoef Isak, owner of left-leaning publishing house Hasta
Mitra, who was also a political commentator and journalist in the
1950s and 1960s, said that Aidit was one of the best
administrators the country -- or even the world -- ever had.

Despite its new-found political leverage, the PKI was always
excluded from the government; to maintain its existence it had to
build an alliance with president Soekarno, who sought an
alternative political force to counterbalance the growing power
of the Indonesian Military.

Soekarno accommodated the PKI to a point when he adopted
communist ideology as one of three components of his concept,
Nasakom (Nationalism, Religions, Communism), as guiding state
principles.

In the mid 1960s, Soekarno appointed Aidit as one of his
coordinating ministers.

For his children, it was during this period that their father
became an extremely busy person.

"Despite his activities, he always spent time with his family.
He always took us to places like Puncak, Cilincing and Anyer,"
Aidit's son, Ilham, said, referring to three recreational sites
located around Jakarta.

Also in the months leading up to the Sept. 30 event, Aidit
showed no indication that he was up to something as cataclysmic
as the bloody coup, Ilham said.

If Ilham's view of his father's role in the coup is considered
inaccurate, a legion of analysts may support his account.

Historian Bernhard Dahm wrote in his book, The History of
Indonesia in the Twentieth Century, that he did not see the role
of Aidit as more than that of a reluctant participant in the
plot.

"It is hard to suppose that Aidit, the brilliant PKI
theoretician, took part in planning the clumsy and abortive
coup," Dham wrote.

Dutch historian W.F. Wertheim offered a more convincing view
about Aidit's possible role in the coup attempt.

"It is by no means certain that the leadership of the PKI or
members of its central committee played a role of any importance
in the preparation and execution of the putsch," Wertheim said in
The Killing of The Communists.

Their views were to support what was known as the "Cornell
report", a preliminary account of the event drawn up by academics
Benedict R. O. Anderson and Ruth McVey from New York-based
Cornell University.

The report reached the conclusion that the coup was the
outcome of an internal army affair stemming from a small clique
in a certain division, which attempted to use both Soekarno and
the PKI leadership for its own ends. The report has been in
circulation since early 1966.

History, apparently was not on Aidit's side.

In the coup's wake, Aidit lived on the run until he was
apprehended and executed on Nov. 22, 1965.

He remained defiant until the very end.

Aidit was given half an hour before being executed and made
use of the time to deliver a speech.

The passion with which he spoke made all who heard him very
angry; they were unable to control their emotions, so the rifle
triggers were pulled.

The precise location of Aidit's burial place remains unknown
to this day.

-- Profile of Ilham Aidit on page 20