Background
The PKI was the 3rd largest communist party and the largest non-ruling communist party in the world, leading up to the Indonesian politicide of their party members, real or suspected, during 1965 to 1966 (“Anti-Communist Massacres,” 2025). The PKI was reported to have 3.5 million members in 1965 and at least 15 million in affiliated groups (“The Indonesian Communist Party,” 1966). The PKI had an affiliated trade union federation, the Indonesia Central Organization of Labor (SOBSI), which had 50% of Indonesia's unionized workers among its members; the PKI had built the makings of a prefigured society with not only a federation of trade unions but also education programs, choirs, sports teams, et cetera (Hindley, 1964). This would not be enough after the entire PKI and China were framed by the Indonesian Army, headed by Suharto, for an assassination plot and coup attempt by the 30th of September Movement, led by then-President Sukarno’s bodyguards (“Telegram A-673,” 1966; Lashmar et al., 2021).
In this attempt, the movement targeted seven of the top generals who were deemed anti-communist; all but one was killed (Lashmar et al., 2021). This was likely done out of fear that an ailing Sukarno's death would leave a power vacuum that would be filled by the mostly anti-communist army. The General Secretary of the PKI, D. N. Aidit, likely had a similar fear, as he wanted to raise a people’s militia called the Fifth Force that would be trained by the more progressive air force (Zhou, 2014). After the coup failed to secure power, the air force, Fifth Force, and leftist battalions of the PKI were overrun by the Indonesian Army, culminating in the capture of the Halim air force base (Zhou, 2014). The politicide and genocide that occurred would leave up to a million killed by the Indonesian Army and its death squads, with assistance from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan (Kim, 2002).
Lessons
To preface this, there are situations where conditions are so difficult that there is no decisive solution for the communist movement. These lessons are not meant to disrespect our fallen comrades, but to respect them by trying not to share their fate. Some of these lessons include what the PKI got right or slightly right. I will primarily be applying these lessons to the United States, as I understand their conditions the best compared to other countries. Someone in the comments could add some of their own applied to the country or countries they are knowledgeable about.
- Join or form socialist self-defense gun clubs as soon as possible.
- Do not concede the military to the capitalist class. A vanguard party should continue to educate, agitate, and organize within the military.
- Prefigure society, even on the most local level.
- Understand the importance of organized labor, but know its weakness when the unionized working class is unarmed.
- Do not have the revolutionary movement practically hanging by the string of the administration of the nationalist anti-colonial president.
- In nearly all or every case, do not trust any top military leader to be part of a socialist coup.
- Do not engage in “decapitation plots” of anti-communist generals when most of the rank and file soldiers are still anti-communist.
- If in a very religious society, do not allow the movement to become and/or be labeled as strictly atheistic.
Please comment any other lessons we can learn from the PKI.
