A Communist Indonesia

CaliGuy

Banned
What if that 1965 Communist coup attempt would have been better planned and organized and thus the Communists would have taken power in Indonesia in 1965?

What would have happened afterwards?
 
This may depend on whether you buy the "official" Suharto version of the attempted PKI coup. There is an alternative hypothesis that the PKI did not want a coup and that a "premature Communist coup" was provoked so as to enable the army to strike decisively at the left-wing forces in Indonesia. According to this theory, the PKI's leader Aidit walked into a trap prepared by an associate who was really a double agent. http://www.antenna.nl/wvi/eng/ic/pki/bayang2.html If this is true, then probably the failure of September 30 was sealed in advance...
 

CaliGuy

Banned
This may depend on whether you buy the "official" Suharto version of the attempted PKI coup. There is an alternative hypothesis that the PKI did not want a coup and that a "premature Communist coup" was provoked so as to enable the army to strike decisively at the left-wing forces in Indonesia. According to this theory, the PKI's leader Aidit walked into a trap prepared by an associate who was really a double agent. http://www.antenna.nl/wvi/eng/ic/pki/bayang2.html If this is true, then probably the failure of September 30 was sealed in advance...
What about if you'll have this double agent be killed in an accident shortly before this coup attempt, though?
 
Here's one scenario:

The coup attempt (assuming it was a coup) succeeds in eliminating the reactionary officers (which is what those attempting to carry it out claimed), and as a result the right is weakened and the Communists continue to play a significant role in Indonesian politics. Alternatively, if the coup was a frame up by rightists in the army their plot is exposed and they are arrested. After Sukarno dies this creates a power vacuum in Indonesian politics where the Communists are able to rally left-leaning nationalists and moderate socialists to their side. After this they then turn on the Islamists and Conservatives, accusing them of perverting Sukarno's vision and plotting a pro-US coup (maybe they are maybe they aren't). The result is either a civil war or a swift and brutal coup resulting in a left-wing dictatorship that ruthlessly suppresses the right and insists that it is continuing Sukarno's ideal of Guided Democracy and Nasakom just without the Islamists (basically a reversal of OTL).
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Here's one scenario:

The coup attempt (assuming it was a coup) succeeds in eliminating the reactionary officers (which is what those attempting to carry it out claimed), and as a result the right is weakened and the Communists continue to play a significant role in Indonesian politics. Alternatively, if the coup was a frame up by rightists in the army their plot is exposed and they are arrested. After Sukarno dies this creates a power vacuum in Indonesian politics where the Communists are able to rally left-leaning nationalists and moderate socialists to their side. After this they then turn on the Islamists and Conservatives, accusing them of perverting Sukarno's vision and plotting a pro-US coup (maybe they are maybe they aren't). The result is either a civil war or a swift and brutal coup resulting in a left-wing dictatorship that ruthlessly suppresses the right and insists that it is continuing Sukarno's ideal of Guided Democracy and Nasakom just without the Islamists (basically a reversal of OTL).
What would the policies of an Indonesian left-wing dictatorship be, though?
 
What about if you'll have this double agent be killed in an accident shortly before this coup attempt, though?

Well, to put it in a simple way, Indonesia in 1965 was a powder keg waiting to ignite. 3 ways power struggle between communist, army, and islamist. 100%+ economic inflation per annum since 1961, peaking at 650% at 1965 while Sukarno as her leader embarked on (pretty much pointless) adventurism to pump Indonesians with "revolutionary spirit"

I think the communist lost and got slaughtered OTL because 30th September event create a situation where the army and islamist could successfully release the tensions that had been builted up within the last few years at the communist. (Although I still need better elaboration on this hypothesis, anybody here could help me?)

If 30th September event didn't happen...well, the tension within the country will continue to rise because as far as I know, beside horrifically exploding as OTL, I don't know any other attempt to release this tensions peacefully. The winner? I honestly don't know. The guns certainly are in the army, themain anti-communist actor in the game. Some element in the armed forces could be communist sympathizer, while navy and air force were generally loyal to Sukarno if not communist sympatizer (I think).

The thing is, while increasingly close to the communist in the 60's, Sukarno himself was no communist. The communist got closer to Sukarno because they were the main supporter of Sukarno's adventurism.

I think we could ended up with civil war if thing goes longer and Aidit succeeded at creating a "fifth force"(armed forces got 4 branches:army, navy, air force, and police. Aidit wanted to create another one, which was " armed workers and peasants"). But, it got stiff resistance from the army (for obvious reason) and Sukarno himself was pretty much hesitant to let Aidit create his own army. Regardless, progress were underway when 30th september happened, and pro-communist elements in the armed forces could help building/fostering it.


Yeah, Indonesian history at that moment was quite complex, partly because there's still too many uncovered truth surrounding her. Although it will be extremely interesting if somebody write a TL about a communist victory.
 
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Joseph Daves' history of the Indonesian military From Revolusi to Reformasi mentions that before September 30, the US had made contingency plans for "overt military intervention on Java" [Daves, Vol 1, pg. 574] in the event of a post-Sukarno power struggle, and he considered their execution quite possible (though he does not go into detail on what those plans exactly involved). Keep in mind that the Vietnam intervention was just getting revved up at this time, so intervention there as well could have butterflies on that and US military history as a whole.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Since this is in 1965, and the US is really getting into Vietnam...can't say America would really let a communist Indonesia fly under they watch.
 
What if that 1965 Communist coup attempt would have been better planned and organized and thus the Communists would have taken power in Indonesia in 1965?

What would have happened afterwards?

It a situation like this, it seems to me like it would be necessary for the the Communists to have friends in the army (perhaps among the mid-ranking officers like the colonels and captains who in other countries proved susceptible to Communist ideology while also having the educations to be really dangerous and effective revolutionaries). A well placed major or colonel who had seen the paperwork for the (alleged) anti-Communist action could also provide the Communists warning of what was coming and enabling them to counter-act the army plot.

It would also be fun to see a TL about a Communist-Islamist alliance launching a coup and subsequently having to resist a civil war against the army (and whatever external pressure the US brought to bare). It's something I've found fascinating in Central Asia and the Middle East is how close Islamists and Communists came at some times (obviously, very different types of Islamism to that which currently makes the headlines today). A synthesis of the two into a theistic "Islamic Socialism" in Indonesia could be quite fascinating.

fasquardon
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
American and British Commonwealth troop intervention if the Communists look poised to hold any territory in Java or the major islands of the archipelago?

Maybe with two fronts in Southeast Asia, LBJ can never send as many troops to Viet Nam as OTL, he caps US troops at a lower ceiling (200k-?) and begins "Vietnamization" earlier. In Indonesia he and the Commonwealth try pretty much the same thing, probably with greater long-term success.
 
American and British Commonwealth troop intervention if the Communists look poised to hold any territory in Java or the major islands of the archipelago?

Maybe with two fronts in Southeast Asia, LBJ can never send as many troops to Viet Nam as OTL, he caps US troops at a lower ceiling (200k-?) and begins "Vietnamization" earlier. In Indonesia he and the Commonwealth try pretty much the same thing, probably with greater long-term success.

At risk of sounding Eurocentric, this would have interesting knock-on effects on Australian politics and pop culture. After all, Australian troops would be quite literally be fighting on Australia's border against an Asian Communist foe. Unfortunately might end up with even more pseudo-Yellow Peril feeling amongst anti-Communist publications as in OTL.
 
Suharto dies in a car crash somewhere in the 1963-1964 range. I personally believe the coup was his doing so I'm going at it from that frame of reference.

With Suharto dead the coup obviously doesn't happen. Indonesia continues in its state of affairs directly pre-coup with simmering tensions between the main constituencies in the country (Communists, the military, nationalists, and Islamists) remaining in conflict and Sukarno on top. The plan to create an armed peasant militia is enacted (I think Sukarno was leaning that way pre-coup), and creates a force of hundreds of thousands of armed PKI members (primarily). Interesting note: forming the peasant force was actually supported by the Navy and Air Force but not by the Army.

At some point there is an actual Communist coup led by mid and low-level officers who are PKI members. The PKI wins with the support of part of the military, the peasant militia, and the enthusiastic support of the Soviet Union. The Navy and Air Force grudgingly join in when it becomes clear the PKI will probably win. They may not be Communists themselves but are somewhat sympathetic to the left as shown by the fact that they supported creating the PKI militia and they don't want to be on the losing side.

Internally the new overlords either launch a spectacular genocidal cleansing of all Islamists, right-wing nationalists, and military members suspected of being disloyal or neutralize the most threatening elements while bringing the rest into line. Under Aidit, disastrous agricultural reorganizations, human rights abuses, industrial reorganizations for the purpose of boosting military capability at the expense of everything else, and the other typical parts of being a Communist dictatorship follow.

Konfrontasi with Malaysia and the Commonwealth is aggressively stepped up, possibly with actual wars occurring. It could be an Arabs-Israel thing where every six or so years there's a new war, with Jakarta trying to break the new federation. That could produce some interesting TL's. They would probably find a way to mess around in Papua New Guinea, too. In a place with that much tribal conflict there's going to be plenty of potential proxies.

The effects on the Indonesian military would be quite interesting. I suspect that they would go the route of Britain and to an extent Imperial Japan and have the Navy be the senior service. Island nations generally do that. They got quite a lot of naval aid from the USSR under Sukarno in OTL, including a cruiser.

For absolute maximum bonus points have this result in the Project 1153 OREL actually getting built. Brezhnev vetoed it because of the expense and because aircraft carriers were not seen as part of the Communist military vision. In their minds they were imperialist tools. Indonesia could change that by providing an example of a good Communist country that was also a naval and seafaring power. Add that to the Indonesians offering to enter the program and chip in part of the cost (say a quarter) in exchange for some hulls and you're golden.
 
If Indonesia goes communist, Australia is pretty much guaranteed to follow through with developing a true nuclear deterrence. Given the work and policies the Australian government followed OTL, it's not that far fetched.
 
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