Abstract
At a fairly early stage of socialism’s penetration into the Afro-Asian world, a handful of European social democrats established an Indian Social-Democratic Association (ISDV). They did so in a country, Indonesia, that was economically little developed and far away from any of the centres of European socialism and Asiatic radical-nationalism. The ISDV was soon able to bring its influence to bear on sections of the urban proletariat and to build up an Indonesian revolutionary movement. This occurred in sharp competition with a nascent nationalist leadership, and then without the usual intermediary role played by radicalizing groups of native intelligentsia. In this way, Dutch social democrats laid the foundations for one of the first communist parties in Asia and Africa, a party which was destined to become one of the few communist mass parties of the Third World. However, in contrast to the major communist movements of China-Vietnam, this Indonesian party was to demonstrate a basic weakness: successive and catastrophic defeats.1
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Notes
See for the period up to 1927: McVey, Rise of Indonesian Communism. For later developments: Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia, pp. 158 ff, 256 ff, 282–303; van der Kroef, Communist Party, Hindley, Communist Party; Mortimer, Indonesian Communism; McVey, Indonesian Communism and China; Cayrac-Blanchard, Le parti communiste. For the significance of the European socialists: Tichelman, Henk Sneevliet, pp. 22–26.
Laqueur, Communism, pp. 74 ff; La deuxieme Internationale, pp. 443–463; Preuss, Labour Movement in Israel; Merchav, Die Israelische Linke. For the initial phases of the white trade union movement in South Africa: Walker and Weinbren, 2000 Casualties. For the beginnings of the independent black trade union movement: Kadaiie, My Life and the ICU. The socialist movement was purely a matter for the whites from 1909 until 1915 when a radical group seceded, which was interested in the black trade union movement; this International Socialist League later became the Communist Party of South Africa: Roux, Time, pp. 122 ff. Not until 1924 did the Communist Party in disappointment turn its back on white trade unionism: Benson, Struggle, pp. 47–48. For Algeria: Jurquet, La révolution nationale.
Laqueur, Communism, pp. 31 ff, 141, 207, 221; Harris, Origins, pp. 16 ff; Caquéri, Karl Kautsky (ms); Ravasani, Sowjetrepublik Gilan.
Overstreet and Windmiller, Communism, pp. 39,42 ff; Haithcox, Communism, Ch. 2; La deuxieme Internationale, pp. 55–56, 312–318.
Totten, Social Democratic Movement, pp. 23 ff; Kublin, Asian Revolutionary, pp. 129 ff.
Rose, Socialism, pp. 95 ff, 176 ff, 196 ff, 202 ff. Cf. Marxism, pp. 242–244.
Brimmell, Communism, p. 71 ff; Marxism, pp. 11 ff, 20 ff, 103 ff; Bastin and Benda, A History, pp. 99 ff.
Brimmell, Communism, pp. 92 ff, 97–98, 101 ff, 112 ff, 120–121; Overstreet and Wind-miller, Communism, Ch. 2, pp. 74–76, 82 ff; McLane, Soviet Strategies, pp. 102 ff, 113 ff, 131 ff; Pike, Viet Cong, pp. 21 ff. For China: Tichelman, Henk Sneevliet, pp. 37 ff.
Harris, Origins, Ch. 5; Overstreet and Windmiller, Communism, pp. 41 ff; Schwartz, Chinese Communism, pp. 31 ff, 175 ff; Swearingen and Langer, Red Flag, pp. 7, 9 ff; Beck-mann and Okubo Genji, Japanese Communist Party, Ch. 2. In Southeast Asia in general there was less talk of different groups as of an organizationally rather diffuse situation of radical nationalism from which the communist parties arose. See: Marxism, and Brimmell, Communism.
Harris, Origins, pp. 19 ff; La deuxieme Internationale, pp. 312–318, 393 ff, 395–402, 409 ff. See also note 5.
With regard to the more marginal position, particularly of the Eurasians in countries other than Indonesia, see: Gaikwad, Anglo-Indians, Ch. 1; Thompson and Adloff, Minority Problems, pp. 135 ff. For Indonesia: van der Veur, Introduction.
Moneta, Die Kolonialpolitik, pp. 11 ff, 37 ff, 68 ff; Ageron, Politiques coloniales, pp. 192–215.
Van Niel, Emergence, pp. 50; Furnivall, Progress and Welfare, p. 79; Blumberger, De nationalistische beweging, pp. 183 ff; Hoekstra, De Perhimpoenan Indonesia, pp. 7 ff; McVey, Rise of Indonesian Communism, pp. 233, 240–241, 244, 315. It is typical that student organizations in the Netherlands retained a mixed character. Jonkman (Memoires, I, pp. 32 ff) deals with the initial politicization in the years after 1917–1918.
Vliegen,Die onze kracht, II, pp. 583–584.
Brugmans, Geschiedenis van het onderwifs, pp. 285 ff, 305, 344–348; Het onderwijsbeleid, pp. 244, 257, 288 ff, 421 ff; Hall, A History, pp. 736, 761 ff.
Communist Revolution, pp. 10 ff.
Outside the Afro-Asian sector of the Third World, the Chilean Communist Party in the 1920s had the greatest influence. Alba, Politics, pp. 86 ff; Angell, Politics, pp. 87 ff. At the same time, it was a communist party which showed a somewhat rare degree of continuity with the social democratic movement which had preceded it.
For 1926–27: McVey, Rise of Indonesian Communism, Ch. 12, The communist uprisings; for 1948: Kahin, Nationalism, pp. 284 ff; for 1965: Mortimer, Ideology, Ch. 9;Gunawan, Kudetd.
The best analysis of the Javanese/Indonesian stagnation that is available at this time is still that by Geertz, Agricultural Involution.
Balans van een beleid (Balance of a Policy) may serve as an example.
This applies to the best of the socialist anti-colonial works published prior to World War II: Rutgers and Huber, Indonesia, 1937.
For a critique: Levine, History and Social Structure.
See: Geertz, Development; id. Agricultural Involution; Legge, Indonesia; and Benda, Continuity and Change; and with Bastin, A History.
Benda on van Leur: Benda, Continuity, pp. 140.
Geertz, Development, pp. 6 ff; id. Agricultural Involution, pp. 47 ff; id. Islam Observed, pp. 39–40; id. Social History, pp. 3 ff, 45 ff, 53, 55–56. See also: Entrepreneurship, pp. 5, 38; Legge,Indonesia, pp. 57, 195–106; Benda, Continuity, pp. 137–138.
Higgins, Indonesia, p. 54; Geertz, Peddlers and Princes, pp. 1 ff, 76 ff, conclusion; Entrepreneurship, p. 5.
Many authors show this tendency, though mostly indirectly. Among the political scientists and sociologists are Feith, Decline, Conclusion; id., ‘Dynamics’ in: Indonesia, pp. 309–409; Geertz, Agricultural Involution, pp. 153–154; id., Social History, pp. 150–152. The economists include Higgins, Crisis; Paauw, ‘From Colonial to Guided Economy’, in: Indonesia, pp. 155 ff; Fryer, Emerging Southeast Asia; Glassburner c.s. in: Economy of Indonesia.
Van Leur,Indonesian Trade, pp. 135 ff, 197–200; Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian Trade, pp.5–9, 25, 240 ff; Zeilinger, Kapitaal; Castles, Religion, pp. 10 and passim; Bastin and Benda, A History, p. 79.
See for example: van der Kroef, Communist Party, pp. 293 ff; James, Undeclared War, pp. 187–188; Sutter, Two Faces of Konfrontasi’, in: AS, VI, Oct. 1966, pp. 534 ff; Pauker, ‘Indonesia’, in: AS, VII, Feb. 1967, pp. 140 ff.
For example: Schlereth and Bintang, Indonesien; Gavi, Konterrevolution, pp. 57 ff; Smoso, Indonesie.
For Benda, continuity and change were a very important pair of concepts. It is thus fitting that they were used posthumously for the title of the collection of his articles: Continuity and Change in Southeast Asia.
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Tichelman, F. (1980). Introduction. In: The Social Evolution of Indonesia. Studies in Social History, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8896-5_1
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