Javanese Mystical and Marxist Dialectics - Paul Stange

to socio-economic change. 14 The key to success then lies in the cadres' capacity totranslate their general ideology into terms having meaning in the village context.Ultimately, the aim is to convince peasants that they have the power to transformtheir environment if they organize and present a united front to their oppressors.Ideology and organization then emerge as fundamental principles of power.Others have concluded, and my own work confirms, that the Aidit PKI leaders werethoroughly familiar with this international communist tradition. The general level ofideological rigor far exceeded that of the 1920s and Tan Malaka. The leadershiptightly controlled access to all communist literature, but strongly encouraged thereading of the “classics” and broadened awareness through extensive cadre trainingand the establishment of a People's University in 1958. 15 Mao and Lenin were themost frequently translated, but many others were accessible. 16 Aidit and Lukman,another major leader of the PKI, spent eighteen months in China and Vietnam justbefore rising to the head of the PKI, but as youthful representatives of a recentlydevastated party they received little attention. 17 At any rate, familiarity with thosemovements does less to explain subsequent similarities than parallels between themand the centrality of the peasant question in each case. Aidit continually stressed theneed for creative rather than dogmatic application of Marxist-Leninist theory -although parallels with China and Mao are clear, the over-all PKI strategy of a unitedfront from above was independent. 18 He affirmed thatin the struggle to create a united national front, both by cooperation withvarious political parties or by cooperation with peoples of various trends andideologies, the Party must not become merged with them - the Party mustpreserve its political, ideological, and organizational independence. 19At least on the surface, the Aidit PKI was neither a mindless mimic nor careless agentof Marxist theory - rather it seemed to be a creative, independent, and responsibleParty. In the face of tight restrictions, the triumvirate of Aidit, Lukman, and Njototransformed the PKI from a shattered remnant into the best disciplined and mostpowerful of Indonesia's parties.The new leadership concluded very early that the only viable route to power lay inacquisition of massive popular support. At the same time, geo-politicalcircumstances prevented consideration of an aggressive Yenan strategy. As Hindleysummarizes it