Javanese Mystical and Marxist Dialectics - Paul Stange

the peasants, not to undermine the authority of heads of households, and not to takenotes in front of the peasants. Conversely, there were four “musts”: to hold to the“three togethers”, to be humble and well groomed and to enjoy learning from thepeasants, to know the language and local customs, and to carefully analyze theproblems of household heads in order to agree with and support them. Cadres wereenjoined to carry concern for the immediate interests of the villagers to the point of“changing the diapers of the peasants' children.” 72One accomplishment of the project was the identification of seven “village devils”,the major enemies of peasants: landlords, money-lenders, tax farmers, middlemen,bureaucratic capitalists, authorities, and bandits. 73 Then there was confirmation thatrural landlords were the most serious oppressor. In his report on the research in westJava, Kaum Tani Mengganjang Setan2 Desa, that landlords were the key to thecountryside, that they controlled it in a very real sense. 74 He found that frequentlylandlords were also hadjis who used religious rationalizations in defending theirwealth. Then, the PKI argument was that there may not have been vast scalelandlord monopolies, but that the land was rich enough to make small holdinglucrative and that it was the small scale of landlord holding which accounted forparticular viciousness. 75 At the same time, the researchers pointed out that apparentsmall scale in holdings was belied by the common practice of placing land underrelatives names to evade redistribution.The problems of village economics were blamed on this economic oppression ofpoorer peasants and the only solution according to the PKI lay in peasant revolutionand land redistribution. While research indicated that peasants were far too tolerantof their oppressors, Aidit still saw considerable prospect for an agrarian basedmovement. As poor peasants were the main productive force, he felt they hadconsiderable power and could ally with others opposing the status quo, like thesquatters on government lands. 76 Growing discontent was aided by deterioration oftraditional culture under the impact of urban sprawls and rampant inflation. Aiditpointed out that customs such as the selametan and figures such as the dalang werelosing their grip - people took them less and less seriously. 77 Then in the rural areas,the PKI had inherited the spirit of the 1945 revolution and could draw on traditionalfolklore for propaganda. 78Nowhere in this analysis is there any reference to the santri-abangan split as such;instead the PKI reports were consistently phrased in class terms. While there was