Introduction to:
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We present our readers with two new articles on Indonesia. They were written before the impeachement of President Wahid at the end of July. Nevertheless these articles maintain their validity and political sharpness.
The first article deals with the convulsive development of the young workers' movement in the archipelago. Giving a panoramic view of the different, old and "new" trade unions the author goes on to explain how the ideas of socialism can be linked to the ongoing day to day struggles of the workers. Focusing on the labour protests which rocked the main industrial centres in June he details the demands brought forward and examines them from a Marxist point of view.
Those protests in June were probably the biggest outburst of industrial protest since the fall of Suharto. In that sense they marked a new turning point in the process of the building of a mass democratic workers' movement.
The article does not share the confusion and pessimism common to the majority of the left about the so-called "economistic " consciousness of the workers in Indonesia. Many left activists complain about the "limited" consciousness of the workers and about the fact that they are "indifferent" to politics. They claim that workers are "only" interested in their economic interests and in immediate reforms. This idea is particularly echoed among student activists and isolated (ex) workers and organisers.
Let's be clear on this question: there exists no fixed and static consciousness amongst the workers corresponding to some kind of "economism" or even to some inherent reformism. The need for broadening the struggle in the factories to the struggle against the capitalist system and its state arises from the day to day experience. In reality the need to change society rises precisely out of the workers' experience, because the bosses cannot accept the implementation of these "economic" demands. Even if they are forced to accept the workers' demands under pressure, they will not tolerate those concessions for very long. The bosses will undermine them by all kinds of means at their disposal. This experience in the struggle for the day to day demands is the basis for the development of a socialist consciousness. Reform and revolution, economic and political demands, are not separated from each other by an unbridgeable Chinese Wall.
The Russian Revolution of October 1917 found its way to the masses thanks to the simple demands of "Bread, Land and Peace". The Indonesian socialist revolutionaries will find the ear, first of all of the workers activists and later the masses thanks to the same approach.
This approach is summarised in the method of the Transitional Programme outlined by Leon Trotsky, by which demands are formulated as bridges to revolution. It needs to be studied by the young worker activists in Indonesia.
The second article is an interview with Muhamed Ma'ruf of the Democratic Socialist Association. With great clarity he sets out the real meaning of the intense infighting in the Indonesian ruling oligarchy which was to lead to the coming to power of Megawati Sukarnoputri at the beginning of August.
More importantly he criticises the majority of the left, the Democratic People's Party in particular, for their policy of collaboration and coalition with the old President Wahid.
Despite the denials of the PRD leadership, their actions, articles and campaigns have built up the image of Wahid as a potential democratic reformer who deserves "critical" support from the left.
This policy is really shameful for a party that had once succeeded in attracting some of the finest and the most radical and committed young fighters against the Suharto dictatorship. Is has been a big mistake on the part of the PRD leaders to channel the energy and hopes of those young fighters into a systematic effort to mobilise support for Wahid and his followers. Instead the party should have been concentrating on building the independent workers' movement and the youth.
Wahid has always been a bourgeois, a capitalist politician. The liberal or democratic character of a bourgeois politician is not a matter of principle or a question of personal commitment. The only main principle which guides the actions of a bourgeois politician, and the faction of the oligarchy he or she leads, is power, privileges and wealth for him, his family, his friends, his political group and for his social class. Bourgeois politicians can move from democracy to dictatorship and back again in the same way that an Indonesian man or woman changes his or her sarong.
This was also the case with Wahid who started out as a "democratic" reformer and ended his short presidency as an autocrat in both manner and content. In a sense it can be said that in the last period there was even less freedom and "democratic space" under Wahid than under Habibie, Suharto's crony who took over the presidency after May 1998.
Wahid typically balanced between different factions and social forces. By flirting with the PRD , the NGO's and the democratic movement he was just covering his left flank. The pledges of reform and of mobilisation against the military and the return of the New Order elements prepared new betrayals of previous "promises".
Now the PRD is lashing out at Wahid, after having promoted him as a reformer. Yes, they admitted, he was a bit inconsistent, but he just needed to be pushed a bit to the left so that big democratic gains could be made.
The PRD now declares that Wahid betrayed the democratic movement. Yes, but he only betrayed the illusions of the PRD leadership and the NGO's in Indonesia. He did not betray his inherent bourgeois nature.
PRD activists should draw a more general conclusion from this experience which is a basic postulate of Marxism: the bourgeois are incapable of playing any democratic or progressive role; only the working class in alliance with the poor peasants are truly democratic. True democracy and the tasks of the democratic revolution can only be carried out by the workers taking power and overthrowing the capitalist state. Only a policy of complete class independence can give the left a future. This is the essence of Mar'uf's comments.
The new government of Megawati is a temporary coalition of elements of the New Order, the military and some of the most reactionary factions. It represents an attack on democratic rights. International capital seems more satisfied by this new regime in the sense that it will give them or promise them more stability to exploit the human and natural wealth of the archipelago.
But Megawati's honeymoon will be short lived. Very soon she will face the same problems Wahid has faced. All of these problems derive fundamentally from the deep crisis of Indonesian capitalism. The euphoria will rapidly be followed by moods of depression, by renewed infighting and by presidential balancing exercises between the bourgeois factions in parliament and the social classes as soon as this reality comes knocking on the door of the government.
President Megawati will be put on a new collision course with parliament and maybe also with the military. But more importantly, she will face the growing tide of social revolt and national aspirations. The multitude of the downtrodden of the cities and the countryside, the factories and the paddies, the streets and workers' quarters will become the new protagonists of Indonesian politics. They will push aside all these pathetic figures who have been at the forefront up until now. However, despite the protracted character of the Indonesian revolutionary process it does not give the left unlimited time to build a Marxist party with a real programme of class independence. It has to be done now. Because without a party there can be no successful socialist revolution in Indonesia or in any other part of the world.
by Jean Duval, August 22, 2001