Raising communist specter may be ineffective

Raising communist specter may be ineffective

The government is working hard to find the perpetrators of the
recent riot in Tasikmalaya. It has hinted the riot was the work
of "intellectual actors" and that the masterminds were using the
Mao strategy. Political scientist J. Soedjati Djiwandono
grapples with the issue.

JAKARTA (JP): Since the communist coup attempt on Sept. 30
1965, we have been warned against the "latent communist threat".
We have been constantly urged to be vigilant. Such warnings and
exhortations were repeated constantly last year, in one of the
most violent and disturbed periods in the history of the New
Order.

Such warnings and exhortations may make little sense for the
generation of Indonesians born around 1965 and for the majority
of people they are confusing and boring. Yet the latest
suggestion there had been efforts to apply "Mao's theory" to the
violent event at Tasikmalaya on Dec. 26 is worth examining.

Mao's theory was, strictly speaking, that of Lin Piao, once
considered to be Mao's heir apparent. Lin Piao's theory was based
on a strategy that Mao applied in the last stages of the Chinese
communist revolution under his leadership to gain final victory
over the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek. The strategy had
nothing to do with either Marxist or Leninist theoretical
thinking. Rather, its application was necessitated by the force
of circumstances.

A series of alliances with the Kuomintang, especially under
the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek and at the advice and support
of Moscow was forged as an implementation of Comintern's strategy
(1922) of a "united front from above" in the face of Japanese
invasion. On most occasions, however, such an alliance between
the Kuomintang and the Communists ended with the destruction of
the latter, particularly in the big cities. This forced the
scattered and battered surviving Communists to flee to the
countryside for consolidation. The famous "long march" is to be
seen in this context.

Lin Piao wanted to make the experience of the victorious
Chinese communist revolution under Mao Zedong a "model" of
socialist revolution for the whole world. It was meant to be an
alternative to the Soviet model, which had gone through the
opposite process. In fact, no communist party the world over
seized power exactly after the Soviet or the Chinese model.

The late Arnold Brackman in his book The Communist Collapse in
Indonesia (1969) argued that Lin Piao's theory was in fact a
contribution made by Aidit, Chairman of the Indonesian Communist
Party (PKI). It was originally his idea to extend the application
of the Maoist experience to the global level in the context of
the world socialist revolution. Thus Asia, Africa, and Latin
America were to constitute the countryside, and the advanced
capitalist countries the cities of the world. For this
contribution Aidit was awarded honorary membership of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.

Since the beginning of his ascendancy to the leadership of the
PKI, after its near total destruction in the wake of the
unsuccessful revolt in 1948, Aidit consistently adhered to the
Comintern strategy of a "united front from above" by allying with
non-communist political parties. This reached its peak in the
form of the NASAKOM coalition before it hoped to be strong enough
finally to lead a socialist revolution employing the Comintern
strategy in the Chinese, not the Soviet model.

To suggest that there are now efforts to apply Lin Piao's or
Mao's doctrine in Indonesia should be backed by solid evidence.
So far the authorities are yet to find evidence that the
Tasikmalaya riot had any link with any solid forces in the
countryside.

One would also think that accusing anyone of being communist-
inspired or communist-influenced simply on the basis of similar
tactics sounds like an effort to find a scapegoat. Whether we
like it or not, communism or the communist system has had an
impact on the world at large. The idea of a planned economy, for
instance, was originally a contribution from the communists. It
was Stalin who first initiated a five-year development plan in
1923. It was the communists who first used the term "cadre" in
the sense that we commonly understand now, as differs from its
original meaning in the days of Napoleon.

Shouldn't we be honest and admit the possibility of mistakes?
We should accept the possibility that the victims of the recent
acts of violence are but intermediate targets, and that those
acts of violence may represent genuine grievances against
injustice.

One should also bear in mind that given the possibility of
popular grievances against injustice underlying the present
unrest, raising the communist specter would only create the
impression among the uninformed that the struggle for social
justice was only the struggle of the communists. This would be a
credit they would not deserve.

The writer is a member of the Board of Directors at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta.