David_A1965

#History #indonesia #Communism 100 years ago: Indonesian Communist Party leads uprisings  On November 12, 1926, the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) led revolts by workers and peasants in Batavia (now Jakarta), Padang, Bantam and Surabaya against the Dutch colonial government which had ruled the southeast Asian island nation since the 18th century. The PKI had been active among workers, especially railway workers, in 1925 and led a series of strikes, most of which were broken by the Dutch colonial government. In places like Padangpandang, Emmahaven, and the Ombilin coal-mining hub, railway employees organized under the Railway and Tramway Employees Union (VSTP) served as underground liaisons and organizers. However, their action was continually hampered by police measures and preemptive dismissals by the railway.  During the 1926 revolt, armed insurgents from the PKI launched coordinated assaults in Batavia. Militia stormed the main telephone and telegraph exchange, attempting to paralyze intercity communications, and marched toward the central government buildings, police posts and Glodok prison to free political prisoners and seize weapons. Government street patrols and local garrisons responded with rifle fire, repelling the insurgents after localized shootouts. Colonial forces foiled attempts to sabotage railways and prevent the transport of troops. The armed actions in the urban center such as Batavia and Surabaya, however, failed to mobilize the working class. The PKI had already retreated from the urban working class and focused its work in the countryside, where the uprisings of 1926 proved to be largely isolated revolts. The forces that rose up were not organized factory workers, but peasants, rural traders, village youth and Muslim religious fanatics mobilized against land-tax surveys and livestock head-taxes. On the day of the rebellion, Islamic rebels allied with the PKI across Bantam, a predominately rice-growing region on the western tip of Java, put on white religious garments to signify martyrdom and assembled in small units near major mosques and communication junctions, carrying bludgeons, cutting weapons and homemade explosives. These revolts, too, were quickly suppressed by the better-armed colonial police and military. The administrative and judicial apparatus followed up with mass arrests, summary dismissals, and administrative exile to the Boven-Digul penal camp. The PKI organization was almost completely destroyed and did not re-emerge as a major, legal open party until after the Japanese occupation and the onset of the Indonesian National Revolution in 1945, by which time it had become thoroughly Stalinist. Later it become responsible for the much greater defeat of 1965. [IMAGE: A meeting of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) Batavia commissariat, in present-day Jakarta, 1925 ]