Peasant and Land Reform in Indonesian Communism

Abstract

“A national front without the active participation of the peasants is like a bale of jute without contents, empty and light, and hence easily blown away toy the wind”. These words of Dipa Nusantara Aidit, Central Committee Chairman of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia – PKI), on the occasion of the party's “National Peasants' Conference” in April, 1959, may serve as an index to the theoretical and tactical importance assigned to the Indonesian peasant's role by the Indonesian Communist movement. Increasingly in the past few years the peasant and the “agrarian question”, i.e. “feudalism”, “landlordism”, debtor bondage and the problem of increasing agricultural productivity, have begun to figure prominently in the PKI program and the “essence of the Indonesian Revolution” is now described by the party as the “agrarian revolution”.