The Downfall of Indonesian Communism

Abstract

Few major occurrences in recent history have been so quietly passed over as the violent destruction, in the past three years, of the world's largest non-governing communist party, three million strong and regarded by many in the first half of the sixties as the most likely candidate for leadership of the next communist power. The drama and dimensions of the bloodbath which accomplished this event have failed to draw to it either sensation or concern of a pronounced kind. It is natural enough that Western governments, anxious to maintain and enhance the prestige of their new "stabilizing force" in Southeast Asia, should rejoice quietly in the acquisition and turn a blind eye to the methods by which it was secured. But the communist governments and press have been scarcely more vocal. In the case of the U.S.S.R., state interests (including a substantial financial stake in Indonesia) have dictated a mild reaction to the sanguinary liquidation of what after all was not a "brother party", but an adherent of the rival Chinese camp. The uncharacteristically muted protests of the Chinese Communist Party, on the other hand, may stem from preoccupation with the Cultural Revolution and may also indicate embarrassment in the ranks of the dominant party faction at this most spectacular failure of China's hopes of creating a new international grouping.