The Marxists and the Angkatan 45

Abstract

Bujung Saleh in 1953 already showed a Marxist standpoint when he formulated the difference between Pudjangga Baru and Angkatan 45 in another way. “Pudjangga Baru is a clear illustration of a bourgeois literary phase in, a state of development.”⁷⁰ With this he contrasted the literature of today, which more and more “tends to deal with concrete problems, which are the problems of the people, of the nation and of the world in general” ⁷¹ which undoubtedly will cause art to move more and more towards the side of l’art engagée, in other words seni berisi (meaningful art). But Bujung Saleh also had an eye for the differences in post-war art—he himself called it heterogeneity: beginning with the individualism-anarchism of Chairil Anwar it ranged as far as Protestantism and Catholicism, and from Islamism it ranged as far as literature of the people guided by socialist realism. So in fact he objected to the term Angkatan 45 which without further specification is kabur (vague) and admits the danger of misconceptions. A danger which becomes still greater when we see how literary associates of this writer begin to speak of an Angkatan 45 which is finished (mampus) in contrast to a genuine Angkatan 45, consisting of those who sided with the ordinary people, with the majority group in the nation, without abandoning their function as sastrawan (literary men).