Throughout the 1950s, efforts by both the government and the military to root out corruption put some of Indonesiaâs most prominent financial and economic policymakers behind bars. In a large round-up of corruption suspects carried out by the military in 1957 many prominent policymakers, including Bank of Indonesiaâs first governor, Jusuf Wibisono, and economists such as Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, Ong Eng Die, and Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, were implicated.1 Throughout the nationâs history, the position of policymakers has been precarious. Only during the New Order did the offices of those in charge of determining Indonesiaâs policy direction become relatively safe from scrutiny. A strong state was what was needed to create this âsafe spaceâ, something that was achieved by both the colonial and the New Order regimes.
How to ensure bureaucratic authority in an open and politically active society was the big question of the 1950s. The priyayi class formed the Javanese bureaucracy, and its claim to rule was based on traditional notions of authority and the support of the Dutch colonial state.2 However, the roots of its authority were deteriorating by the 1950s. The anti-feudal rhetoric of the nationalists attacked core priyayi privileges, while their support from the general populace weakened. The miracle, perhaps, was how they managed to survive relatively well as a group into the 1950s and 1960s. In an analysis of the countryâs elite in the early New Order period, Donald Emmerson showed that the fundamental classification of the Indonesian elite remained the same until the early 1970s, with abangan3 in control of the bureaucracy and santri4 in control of Parliament, and both aliran having an equal share of control of the military.5
As a social group, the priyayi had institutional assistance in overcoming the difficulties of transitioning to a modern Indonesian state. They had two main strengths. First, they monopolized the local administrations. Nationalists, most of whom hailed from a priyayi background, did not inherit or develop a bureaucracy to counter the official bureaucracy of the colonial state. Suggestions of destroying the priyayi bureaucracy early on in the independence year of 1945 came to naught, as most of the state leaders, including Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta, and Sjahrir, understood that they were dependent on the Pangreh/Pamong Praja (indigenous bureaucracy).6
Second, their access to state power allowed them access to education.7 Their near-monopoly on higher education meant that they could equip themselves to meet the needs of the modern state. Even more importantly, they were able to obtain the power needed to determine stateâsociety relations through the new authority that they acquired from education: the authority of experts. The modernization theory model based on the authority of experts, crafted by development economics, sociology, scientific management, and public administration specialists, was a model of modernity that the priyayi found inherently attractive. The most important aspect of the model was the monopolistic position of the managers as a special group of educated supermen.
Yet it would be a mistake to think that a mere diploma was enough to confer the magic of authority on these newly graduated students. Javaâs pre-colonial bureaucracy employed gangs of jago (strongmen) and hoodlums as tools of societal control. As Heather Sutherland has remarked, in pre-colonial times, âunder Mataram [rule] terror and torture had been essential instruments of control; under the Dutch, in theory, there was the rule of law. In practice, many priyayi had recourse to intimidation and bribery.â8 Discussions of the criminality of the state and the role of strongmen and gangsters (preman) as clients or extensions of the state illustrate the inherent flaw in abstracting the state as a specific set of bounded institutions with specific authorities. In fact, the state extended beyond its legal boundaries.9 This dichotomy of the official, legal, professional, and modern against the other side â the unofficial, illegal, unprofessional, and traditional â continued in the post-colonial state. The Pangreh Praja, the indigenous bureaucracy that originated from Java but was assigned to positions throughout the archipelago, arose from a pre-colonial bureaucracy whose claim to authority was based on military power.10 Its accession to being part of the state was based on a prior demonstration of real military power. Robert Cribb showed that this notion of violence as conferring legitimate authority was what caused many of the members of Jakartaâs underworld to fight in the revolution.11
Although the Dutch prided themselves on their ability to enforce the rule of law in the archipelago, there continued to be something of a modus vivendi between the priyayi bureaucrats and the criminal elements/local bullies who kept order in rural society. The local bureaucracy had to have protection from above and collaboration from local strongmen. These two long arms of the bureaucracy would increasingly be provided by the military, as both the overseer of the state and its enforcer on the ground.
The history of the modern Indonesian state is thus a history of its bureaucracy and, by extension, the nationâs priyayi elite. As Professor James Mackie contends, Indonesiaâs elite and growing middle class were âessentially bureaucratic elites or, as in the Sukarno era, a party-political elite. To the extent that an Indonesian middle class has been emerging over the last three decades, it is primarily a salaried and professional middle class, not an entrepreneurial or propertied [one].â12 This is, of course, a simplification of the reality. First, although the majority of Indonesian bureaucrats were Javanese, there were large numbers of non-Javanese who became important members of the elite; this was particularly true for the military.13 Many of the economists that were to play an important part during the New Order, such as Emil Salim and Frans Seda, were not Javanese.14 Second, the priyayi class itself, as a result of education, was undergoing significant changes.
Franklin Weinstein divided Indonesiaâs twentieth-century elite into three groups based on their respective generations: 1928, 1945, and 1966. The 1928 generation had enjoyed a good colonial education and furthered their studies at Dutch universities. Their world view was highly influenced by the works of Karl Marx and other European social theorists, and although initially they had a positive view of the United States, the âbetrayalâ of America during the revolutionary struggle made them wary of the US.15
The second group was the 1945 generation. The majority of this generation joined student or youth militias set up and led by the Japanese during the Second World War. Some of the Japanese propaganda determined their world view after the war. Unlike the 1928 generation, the 1945 generation did not receive a full colonial education. The governmentâs reduction of the education budget in the 1930s, owing to the Depression and the increasing availability of ânationalistâ schools that competed with Dutch education in the colony, affected their outlook.16 Aside from becoming soldiers and participating in the war, many youngsters also had the chance to become low- and mid-level civil servants before going off to universities in Indonesia, with some continuing with post-graduate study in the United States. Although less Marxist in their outlook in comparison to many of the nationalists of the 1928 generation, they were generally open to the ideas of the left. Their involvement in the Indonesian state as administrators or army officers and their formative educations abroad were important factors that meant that they had a different view of stateâsociety relations to the earlier generation, which had had little opportunity to work in managerial government services, had received an almost exclusively Dutch education, and were Dutch-speaking.17
The 1966 generation was the one that grew up during the Guided Democracy and cheered at the ending of Sukarnoâs regime and the rise of the New Order.18 This generation was generally deeply anti-Marxist, if not apolitical, but for our purpose will not be referred to further because of its limited relevance to the discussion.
The shift from the democracy of the 1950s to Guided Democracy and the New Order can be seen in terms of the shift from the 1928 generation to the 1945 generation. The gradual control of the bureaucracy and state by the 1945 generation occurred under the aegis of the 1928 generation. The Guided Democracy was a period of transition and many in the 1928 generation saw their powers being eroded. The younger members of the generation, just graduating from American universities, were able to obtain government positions but saw their influence as highly limited to middle management or academic positions.
Yet, the Guided Democracy was anything but under the full control of the 1928 generation. Many of its influential policymakers espoused ideas that were a reaction against the upstart 1945 generation. In an age where the iconic image of the white-collar office leader or plant manager was a man employing mathematically inclined science and social science,19 even in such an underdeveloped society as 1950sâ Indonesia, the old elite was educationally inadequate. In the face of the new perspectives on efficiency and its associated managerial tools, the old elite came from another time. They came from a period when leadership was earned through revolutionary capabilities, and where history and literature, rather than the graphs of economists, the analyses of psychologists, and the theories of sociologists guided the workings of human society and the paths of nations; a period in which understanding how the state worked and how government functioned meant studying the law, instead of time-motion or other Taylorist tools.
There is no continuity between the Guided Democracy non-party elite segment and the technocrats of the New Order. The very nature of the two segments differs. The technocratic segment contains a high number of professionals for whom politics is a secondary career begun after success was achieved in their primary occupation, whereas for most of the Guided Democracy non-party elite politics was their primary career.20
This difference, as we will see, resulted in a deep distrust of the new generation of expert social scientists. According to MacDougal, âtheir emergence in policy making roles represents a fundamental shift in the nature of the ruling eliteâ.21 It was this inherent tension between what Roeslan Abdulgani termed the âprofessionalsâ and âunprofessionalsâ, Herbert Feith called the âadministratorsâ and âsolidarity-makersâ,22 Pye called the âadministratorsâ and âpoliticiansâ in Burma,23 and Franz Schurmann called the âexpertsâ and âredsâ in China,24 or indeed amongst Indonesians themselves that worried the authorities.25 The bureaucracyâs authority was made possible due to an international protocol that was determined by educational and ideological status. To understand the Indonesian state and society without considering this important international dimension would omit a basic component in determining the reasons why a certain group of people, who were American-trained, came to dominate policymaking in what was essentially a military dictatorship.
1 Tensions in the Guided Democracy: The 1928 Generation and Their Ideology
Roeslan Abdulgani said that âwe are therefore faced with the peculiar situation where economists, stern anti-communists all, present us with a plan which politicians believe impossible without economic and social coercion along communist linesâ.26 What those of the older generation feared from economists and other social scientists was what they considered the inherently authoritarian nature of their ideology. The premise of both communism and Western social science was an authoritarian state wherein people of intelligence and good faith were excluded from participation and authority. This dislike was obviously shared by Sukarno. In his address at the Bandung Non-Alignment Summit (Konferensi AsiaâAfrika, kaa), he expounded: âI beg of you, do not think of colonialism only in the classic form which we of Indonesia, and our brothers in different parts of Asia and Africa, knew. Colonialism has also its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical control by a small but alien community within a nation.â27 The fear of authoritarianism seemed to be a peculiar irony, considering the fact that Guided Democracy itself limited the participation of parties and organizations it deemed dangerous, the most significant of which were Sjahrirâs Indonesian Socialist Party (Partai Sosialis Indonesia, psi) and the santri-based Masyumi Party. Both the psi and Masyumi were banned in 1960.
Yet, the attack on these parties was also explicitly an attack on the nascent technocracy, whose âliberalâ credentials had been built up through its control of the liaison institutions that connected the pools of financial aid and the educational opportunities of the international community with its Indonesian protégé. These institutions were often managed by the psi, whose members and sympathizers became prominent authorities in important bodies such as the National Planning Body (Badan Perantjang Nasional, bpn) and the Army Staff and Command School (Sekolah Staf dan Komando Angkatan Darat, Seskoad). The formation of various Guided Democracy institutions was intended to replace these bodies, which had become dominated by âadministratorsâ. There was one important and major exception: the Army Staff and Command School under General Abdul Haris Nasution. Although Nasution had little sympathy for the psi,28 he was considered a relatively able administrator.
Sukarno needed the support of the military, yet the development of the army in the 1950s resulted in the reduced influence of peta-based army commanders,29 who had similar ideological views to Sukarno and who were just as suspicious of the educated âprofessionalsâ.30 However, the group was initially successful in ousting Nasution from power after the attempted putsch of 1952.31 Despite this, after 1955, Nasution saw his star rise again. In fact, it was Sukarno who appointed him chief of staff of the army in 1955, thus placing Nasution at the head of a vast and growing military government that mimicked and then took over many of the administrative duties of civilian institutions within the state and the economy. Nasution thus, by the end of the 1950s, had control of both the military government and the military schools.32 As newly graduated Indonesian social scientists started to arrive from the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they found a state that was suspicious of receiving them but at the same time keen to benefit from their expertise. One major institution that opened its arms to incoming social scientists was Nasutionâs army. His successor, General Ahmad Yani, although loyal to Sukarno, kept the doors of the military open to these recent graduates.
The tension of the Guided Democracy can be understood, albeit simplistically, as a tension between Sukarno and Nasution, each representing an ideology produced from totally different eras. Nasution was born on 3 December 1918, seventeen years after Sukarno (6 June 1901). They came from different generations, maturing intellectually in different periods and under different social conditions. While Sukarno was a typical 1928-generation member, forming his ideas on stateâsociety relations during the colonial period, Nasutionâs formative period was during the revolutionary struggle. The revolution was a formative period that forged the 1945 generation. For instance, many of the people in the âBerkeley Mafiaâ, the notorious name coined for Suhartoâs cabal of technocrats, had been soldiers during the revolution.33
2 Sukarno
Sukarno was born in Surabaya in the year 1901. Unlike many of his fellow nationalists, he had never gone to Europe. He did, however, consume a large number of books written by European social theorists, from Marx to Weber. His father was Javanese and his mother Balinese, and despite his depiction of poverty in his autobiography, his family was wealthy enough as minor members of the priyayi.34 His father, being a theosophist, was deeply into the Javanese religion. Sukarno himself grew up within a Javanese milieu and would forever remain enthralled by the history and culture of Java.35 Although a follower of the Javanese religion, Sukarno was happy enough to venture into explorations of Islam during his period of banishments in the 1930s.36
A peculiar and enduring theme of Sukarnoâs belief was corporatism, the possibility of reconciling the fragmented divisions of Indonesiaâs aliran into one imposing unity. In a 1926 article, Sukarno expounded his Nasakom37 vision, which reasoned away the differences by stressing the commonalities of the major strands of Indonesiaâs radical political movements: radical nationalist, Islamic revivalist, and communist.38 The most significant commonality was their anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-liberal drives, and their calls for Indonesian independence.39 Sukarno was unusual in that the ideas he espoused never fundamentally changed throughout his life. Imprisonment and banishment had left him distrustful of both the state and its institutions, particularly the courts. Like many of his fellow nationalists, he was enthralled by the ideas of Marxists, who subscribed to the anti-colonial cause. Reading the works of Karl Kautsky, Rudolf Hilferding, Karl Renner and H. N. Brailsford, he came to equate colonialism, the state, and capitalism with each other.40 For him, the promise of technical and material progress made by the West/capitalism was a lie. Sukarno kept pointing to peopleâs suffering as a result of imperialism. He saw capitalism as a big pipe that drains the wealth and prosperity away from those on the negative end of the modern imperial project.41
Sukarno was suspicious of liberalism. Although the Netherlands espoused a social- democratic ideology, the liberal elements of the Dutch state were the mainstay that endured in the Netherlands throughout the inter-war period when many other European states turned to fascism or communism. The 1920s and 1930s saw many parts of Europe ending their experiments with parliamentary democracy and the rise of strongmen as the leaders of unified, racially purified nations â in the process displacing hundreds of thousands of people in Eastern Europe, and later, during the war, killing millions.42 Although the Netherlands never fell into extremism, its imperialist policies strengthened Sukarnoâs disdain for liberals. Here was a liberal, democratic, and enlightened European state and yet it was also the agent of Western capitalism, draining the wealth of the people of the Indies.
Growing up in the aftermath of the First World War, Sukarno believed in the Marxist criticism of capitalism and heralded the end of the liberal order as the result of the loss of political control over the masses. Sukarno, like many of his nationalist compatriots, had a much more positive view of the United States of America prior to Indonesiaâs revolution. There was thus a perception that democratic states were different from authoritarian ones. Sukarno grew up being explicitly anti-fascist in this regard: âThe Indonesian soul is the soul of democracy, the soul of the common people (kerakyatan), while the fascist soul is anti-democratic, anti-people.â43
We can no longer follow the politics of liberalism [â¦] our revolution is a multi-complex revolution, a summing up of many revolutions in one generation, all of which generates conflicts. Without the leadership in providing planning in each of the fields and complexity of this revolution, we will achieve a complexity in chaos. We must have a planned policy. This is the central idea of Guided Democracy. Our revolution is not a revolution for the sake of revolution, it is a highly planned, clear and certain type of revolution.46
In fact, the word âGuidedâ itself has a somewhat similar ring to the âexpert and manager-ledâ state and society. It is a rearrangement of the entire society, towards the creation of a âSocialism à la Indonesiaâ.47
Within the framework of Indonesian society, economic cooperation and collective action will be effective, not nineteenth-century Western individualism. In any case, the fact is that such individualism is outmoded, even in the West. It has been displaced by state enterprise and monopoly, which leave little scope for the idealized capitalism of an earlier day.48
If on the other hand we neglect the âsocialâ aspect, we shall fall into the heresy of efficiency for efficiencyâs sake and conclude that planning is simply the instrument of national power and national aggrandizement â the doctrine of fascism. Hitlerism took the name of national socialism. But the fact that it was not capitalist did not make it socialist: it approximated far more nearly to the conceptions of the American âtechnocratsâ or of Mr Burnhamâs âmanagerial revolutionâ â the cult of efficiency for the sake of power.49
As we will see, in the initial Guided Democracy state, there was a genuine effort to involve a variety of people within the state.50 This only lasted briefly and acted to strengthen the idea that the country needed the experts it once thought it could do without. The focus on planning or retooling, the institutional approach to revolution, and the centralization of power within bodies and experts highlights the difficulties of allowing âsocietyâ into the âstateâ while at the same time applying a planning programme that was to be meticulous, scientific, and efficient. In the words of D. H. Assegaff: âIn the practice of development, there needs to be firm leadership. Without leadership, the development would be shaky, and could even result in the failure of a well-thought-out plan.â51
This state-controlled idea, embodied in Keynesianism and communist industrialism, represented the Weltanschauung of the era. This explains why Guided Democracy was so successful in bringing together a range of widely disparate groups within the government. The application of Nasakom to Guided Democracy, which entailed giving equal roles to the three major aliran in the various institutions, transcended the ideological divide. It also meant that the nation-state could go either way: becoming a communist state or a military state. The real possibility of a communist takeover seemed slim, even in the middle of the 1960s. Yet, the fear of one was enough to push the army to position itself comfortably within the ever-expanding state institutions that were replacing the ânineteenth-century individualismâ of Indonesian liberalism. Many of the ideas of the army were established, or at least voiced, by its most important member, army chief of staff General Abdul Haris Nasution.
3 Nasution
In many ways, Nasution was the opposite of Sukarno. Unlike Sukarnoâs Javanese credentials, Nasution was a Batak, a term referring to a people living in the interior of North Sumatra in the Lake Toba region. He was thus an âOuter Islanderâ. Unlike Sukarnoâs abangan religious beliefs, Nasution was a devout Muslim and continued to be so throughout his life.52 Sukarno was brash and impulsive; Nasution was reflective and pragmatic. He studied to become a teacher at the Training School for Indigenous Teachers (Hogere Inlandse Kweekschool, hik) in Bandung in 1935. Sukarno and other nationalists influenced Nasution in the 1930s, as he was reaching intellectual maturity.53 Nasutionâs essentially pragmatic character saw him deciding to join the colonial army at the outbreak of the Second World War in what he ironically considered to be a nationalist gesture.54
When the Netherlands capitulated to Germany in May 1940, Nasution volunteered as a cadet officer and was admitted, along with five other Indonesians, to the newly created Royal Military Academy (Koninklijke Militaire Akademie, kma) in Bandung. Nasution specialized in infantry studies. After the fall of the Netherlands East Indies to Japan in 1942, Nasution went into hiding in various places on Java. After three months, he returned to Bandung when the Japanese released all Indonesian Royal Netherlands Indies Army (Koninklijke Nederlands-Indisch Leger, knil) soldiers. Knowing full well that the Japanese would ultimately be defeated, Nasution worked with a number of his knil colleagues, university students, and youth leaders. He did this initially by joining the paramilitary organizations created by the Japanese. Instead of joining peta, he joined the Priangan Soldierâs Aid Society (Barisan Pemuda Priangan) and was elected to the governing board. He also worked as an army instructor for the Seinendan, Keibodan, and other organizations. During the first year of the revolution, Nasution was promoted from an army instructor to commander of the Siliwangi Division (Komando Daerah Militer Siliwangi) (1946). He would then rise to commander-in-chief of the armed forces in Java (1948) and chief of staff of the army (1949â1952 and again 1955â1963).55
Many of his ideas concerning stateâsociety relations were formulated during the revolutionary period, especially during the military emergency of the Second Dutch Aggression (19 December 1948â5 January 1949), which, as he was chief of operational staff at the Army Headquarters (Markas Besar Tentara), resulted in the publication of his guerrilla instructions. Because of a lack of focus on the part of the political leadership, the army was not able to form a conventional ground force before the arrival of the Dutch. Nasution blamed this indecision squarely on the bickering politicians. In contrast, he resented the ability of the Dutch to create, from scratch, a functioning army within a short period of time that was able to be deployed to the Indies.
For the early part of the revolution, Nasution was busy trying to create a professional army within his West Java Siliwangi Division. The division was to become the most professional part of the army. Based in Bandung, it also contained most of the knil military elements that had decided to join the Indonesian revolution. There were plenty of military thinkers and strategists within the division, which enabled the sharing of ideas. Nasutionâs main ideas somewhat resembled those of Mao Zedong and can be summed up by Maoâs statement about the military being a fish and the people being the water. A fish out of water is akin to an army without the peopleâs support.56 As mentioned above, the idea of a guerrilla war was put forth and executed by Nasution during his tenure as commander-in-chief of the armed forces in Java, when he also published a pamphlet on guerrilla warfare. As a military strategist, Nasution saw the implementation of âtotal warâ as a central component of Indonesiaâs current and future security strategy.
Nasutionâs 1948 guerilla strategy reduced the whole of stateâsociety relations to within the dictates of a military strategy. As he phrased it: âIn this framework of total warfare, the leadership could recruit and plan a strategy of the whole people for one aim.â57 During the 1948 aggression, Nasution created a âguerrilla administrationâ, in which civilian administrators, who were not keen on cooperating with the Dutch administration, left for the countryside and recreated the state. The experience reduced the legitimacy of the politicians and the assertion of their necessary presence to the functioning of the state. In Nasutionâs words: âThe leadership is held by civilian authorities, with the assistance of the âterritorialâ forces, but in its relationship to war, everything must be brought under the supervision of the military leadership.â58
Conforming to this idea, a military administration was created to mirror the civilian one. Guerrilla warfare was based on decentralized leadership and, in essence, had to be conducted on a local basis.59 Much of this was modelled on the German military district or Wehrkreise system, with the formation of seven independent military district (Tentara & Territorium).60 The military district was a product of militarized states such as America and Britain during the Second World War, and the Chinese and Vietnamese variants that continued after the war. Thus, a Military Sub-District Command (Komando Onder-District Militer, kodm) was created at the kecamatan (or sub-district) level; a Military Region Command (Komando Distrik Militer, kdm), at the kabupaten (or district) level; and a Military Sub-Territorium Command (Sub-Territorium Militer, stm), at the residency (karesidenan) level, with a commander appointed in every province. This idea was continued during the Guided Democracy under the Tjatur Tunggal61 system.
The assumption of territorial decentralization limited the national leadership to coordinating and directing. As Nasution explained, âThe military, political, psychological, economic and social wars are conducted on a regional basis. Complete decentralization is an essential feature of a guerrilla war.â62 Basic schooling, with the aim of eradicating illiteracy, and mobile health clinics were envisaged as being provided by the military administration.63 The militarization of the administration would allow a degree of decentralization within the bounds mandated by the armyâs vertical command structure. While decentralization offered flexibility, it was predicated on the highly reduced roles of civilian politicians and the civil administration. This âterritorializationâ of command allowed the central military authority to have greater control of the regions. For Nasution, the village had proven to be the most important component in guerrilla warfare. The territorial structure started from the village level. The lurah (village leaders) were integrated into the lowest level of military government. It was thus also in the villages that much of the social and economic development work carried out by the guerilla administration occurred.
4 The Idea of Guided Democracy
Both the ideas of Sukarno and Nasution focused on the state as the provider of action. In Sukarnoâs case, as a leadership that guides society on to the path to revolution; in Nasutionâs, as an extension of the military, whose tentacles embraced the village and community. These ideas tried to solve the problem, outlined at the beginning of this chapter, of how to ensure the authority of the bureaucracy during the tumultuous years of revolution and parliamentary democracy in the 1940s and 1950s. On the one hand, revolution, as an ideological banner, inadvertently became a way to legitimize the guiding authority of the bureaucracy. As Sukarno stressed over and over again, Guided Democracy was a planned policy to enact a corporatist, national plan.
Nasutionâs idea of total and territorial warfare elevated the role of the military to that of an essential component of state bureaucracy. The Guided Democracy state experienced the extension of military, that is, army, involvement throughout the bureaucracy and the economy. One might cynically surmise that this was an effort to spread corruption on a grand scale. Yet, that would be to miss the more important point about state authority and control. The military presence at the village level was an affirmation of the authority of the bureaucracy-cum-military state leadership. The armyâs deep relationships with parts of civil society, students, criminals, labour organizations, and so forth not only competed with those of its communist counterpart during the Guided Democracy; it was also used to regulate a specific kind of stateâsociety relationship in which society was to be fully subordinated through these civil society clienteles that were, in effect, extensions of the military.64
In the New Order, the army would thus provide the two things that the colonial state had provided, but which had been lost during the revolutionary and the pre-New Order period. The first was the safety of bureaucratic legitimacy and authority. The army as the purveyor of power would convey authority to the bureaucracy through its power to protect them from state and non-state civil actors, such as Parliament and political parties. It also conveyed legitimacy through the implementation of a state ideology that put these bureaucratic experts on a pedestal: the ideology of development. Today, we think of development as inherently different from Sukarnoâs revolution; yet, this is purely a result of the failure of Guided Democracy.
The second was the bureaucratic extension of control to rural areas. During the colonial era, the state used traditional authority and its local-bully clientele to provide this control.65 In the post-colonial period, this job was taken on by the army, along with its clients, to ensure state control at the lowest levels, thus leaving the bureaucracy with the job of planning development.
Although the core leadership of the Guided Democracy displayed a lack of coherence over key issues regarding the Guided Democracy state and ideology, there was one person who succeeded in becoming Sukarnoâs main ideologue, a person who was capable of translating âHis Masterâs voiceâ with fidelity. This man was Roeslan Abdulgani, politician par excellence and former minister of information, who was, on several occasions, accused of corruption and who, along with Nasution, was one of only two members of Sukarnoâs inner circle to have made the transition to the New Order alive and well. It is difficult to gauge the sincerity of Abdulganiâs words during this period. Yet, there is no doubt about his influence on Sukarno and the regime as a whole. Casper Schuuring claims that âRoeslan had a âsteering handâ in the so-called guided democracyâ.66 Sukarno entrusted him with producing important papers and information on the Guided Democracy and Economy, and it was Roeslan who was asked to confer with Professor Djokosoetono to develop a constitutional order for the new state.67
Perhaps one of the most enduring features of early Guided Democracy thought was the deep distrust of so-called experts. There was a particular distrust of Western economists. In the words of Abdulgani: âI am no economist, and I have reservations about the purely professional approach of the economist. Particularly, I have reservations about the purely professional approach of the non-Indonesian economist, who, while putting his great skill and knowledge at our disposal, is still outside the stream of our life, our hopes and desires.â68 Roeslan Abdulganiâs explicit dislike of economists can be summed up in another of his quotes. Siding with what he called the âunprofessionalsâ as opposed to the professional experts, he said, âit was these unprofessionals who created and forwarded the Indonesian Nationalist Movement which proved capable of leading the country to shake off the bonds of colonialism [â¦] There is no reason why such persons should be any less successful in the task of continuing the revolution.â69
It is here, in connection with this effort to attain perfection, there lies the appropriateness of my recommendation to always âthink and rethinkâ, âshape and re-shapeâ [â¦] and not to immerse ourselves in textbook thinking alone, not to immerse ourselves in only swallowing everything stuffed down our throats from the outside, not just to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of Hollandsdenken â Dutch way of thinking.70
Perhaps the plans have failed, and perhaps they have not even been applied, because they run counter to certain basic truths about our country. They are plans based on Western conceptions, and do not necessarily have validity in another political and social environment. I am prepared to admit that, in the realm of pure economics, they are certainly ideal, but no economic planning can exist in a vacuum. It is dealing with people living in a society. I know of no reason to support the idea that Indonesian people will react in the same way to the same incentives as Western people do.71
To solve the economic problems of a nation that has been already formed, especially for nations that are called nations arrivés, perhaps the person of outstanding skills in the routine of economics would be required, very precise knowledge of economic science would be required, very highly technical, very âexpertâ, knowledge of economics would be required. But praise be to God, I know that our economic problems do not have to be solved in a routine fashion.72
The revolutionary character of the Guided Democracy was to be placed in the hands of what he termed the ânon-professionalâ â those who had had experience in the real world, with a broad education and broad interests: âGovernment by experts is no substitute for democracy, any more than good government is any substitute for self-government. Again, that pattern of thinking shows a deplorable lack of faith in the good sense and intelligence of the people.â73
This belittling of the professional was a major theme of Sukarnoâs speeches, in which he often attacked those âbald headed non-political individuals and text-book thinking teachersâ.74 This sentiment was to be displayed by the Depernas, which was to be composed of ordinary people, with a smattering of intellectuals. As Abdulgani phrased it: âDiffering from the planning and development boards of the past, who restricted their membership to the expert-intellectuals, the Depernas will supply its membership from the golongan karya,75 who are rooted and live in the community, without ignoring the advice and opinion of the experts.â76
Expert-intellectuals are motivated only by careerism and professionalism, which, according to Abdulgani, was the root problem of modern bureaucracy. Instead, the membership of the Depernas was to be comprised of the cultivated man, being âa person who has a general education and a wide and forward-looking perspective, who may not be or has not yet become a specialist, but who is not yet infected by the disease of modern bureaucracyâ.77
Thus, the assumption of the Guided Democracy must be seen as an appeal for collectivism and the raising of the Indonesian masses as participants in its development. As discussed previously, the true âsocialism à la Indonesiaâ incorporated the masses as political subjects in the development process. In a speech in front of the Depernas in August 1959, Sukarno said: âWithin management there must be decentralization and the democratization of control.â78 The state was to be decentralized and democratized by opening up its management, which had previously been strongly monopolized by the experts. By empowering the non-professional, the people, that is, the masses, were empowered. Socialism à la Indonesia was not merely a means to reach the goals of the nation-state: it was the goal itself. It required deep and wide-ranging changes within the Indonesian psyche.
The need to balance Western rationality and Indonesian spirituality was a touchy subject: âThe scientific/rational way of thinking is something new to us Indonesians, because previously our culture has placed an emphasis on spiritual issues. This rational way of thinking is the result of Western culture, where a harmonious relationship has been achieved between rationality and the core values of Western culture.â79 Because of the divide in Indonesian culture between belief and rational thought, it was important that the school system did not purely focus upon rationalism. The intellectualist foundation of the colonial education system had resulted in the estrangement of its Indonesian pupils from their own culture, leading them to consider their own culture worthless. This had led to the formation of a Westernized man: individualistic, materialistic, capitalistic, liberal, and intellectual, thus differing from the Eastern man, who was a collectivist and a socialist, with a sense of family (kekeluargaan), and a focus on harmony and giving weight to spiritual matters.80
The main appeal was thus to Indonesiaâs newly educated youth, that is, the future elite of the nation. The universities therefore had a very important role in the process. Instead of liberal theories, they were expected to cultivate the ideas of scientific socialism. The universities thus were not expected to confine themselves to producing experts; they were also to produce militant, revolutionized youths between the ages of 20 and 25 years. They were not to be a sanctum sanctorum saevis tranquillis in undis, an island of peace amongst the revolutionary upheaval, producing cynical, sceptical, hyper-intellectual, and hedonistic young people. Universities were not to be ivory towers that allowed the importation of ideas that would become barriers to progress and socialism.81 Sukarno reiterated the dangers of these types of intellectuals: âCynicism would appear. The faith in the ability of their own nation would be shaken. The inlander souls would look down upon their own nation and praise to high heavens the foreigners. Especially amongst the intellectuals.â82
Abdulgani used the image of the helmsman assisted by experts to depict the Indonesian âeliteâ under Guided Democracy. The experts would thus be relegated to the position of assistants to the more broadly cultivated elite. In speeches to the National Council (Dewan Nasional) conferences during the early years of Guided Democracy, Sukarno never once used the term experts (ahli); instead, he used the word âintellectualsâ. In comparison, Djuanda and Nasution both used the word âexpertsâ in a positive light. Sukarno reiterated several times the experimental nature of the revolution and asked students and intellectuals to fill in the blanks: âIt is you, the youths who are pursuing knowledge, the experts, the professors, all those with intelligence of the mind, that I ask to enrich my ideas.â83 The idea of having intellectual supremacy over the more technical experts was, of course, an elite conception that would allow the position of the 1928 generation to continue despite the onslaught of the new generation. By positioning the politician as the helmsman in a boat, helped by the experts, the politician, as the purveyor of the revolution, would still have a role to play.
It is not to be denied that the development in the Peopleâs Republic of China is a development under the policy of a New Democracy or a Peopleâs Democracy, a type of stateâsociety relations (ketatanegaraan) that is in accordance with the character of the Chinese nation. This is similar to the Guided Democracy, which we are implementing today in order to replace a worn and outdated liberal democracy. The wish of the people to be directed so as to participate in the development with efficiency of funds, time and forces should be made real.84
Since ancient times, Indonesian society has been averse both to dictatorship and to the individualism of liberalism. The old system of government was based upon musjawarah and mufakat (consensus) with the leadership of a single central authority in the hands of a âsesepuhâ or elder, who did not dictate, but led and protected.87
Guided Democracy was not an Aristo-democracy or a Demo-aristocracy [â¦] This is because the term Guided Democracy is not a combination of the term Demos with Aristos, or the Kawulo with the Gusti. In other words, the Demos is not combined with Hero, Führer, Held or Il Duce, but with the idea of social justice; it is the synthesis between Democracy and Socialism.88
The body politic of the nation was to be pictured within the harmonious image of the family. In Abdulganiâs words: âGuided Democracy is the democracy of the family system, without the anarchy of liberalism, without the autocracy of dictatorship.â89 Sukarno, though, rarely used the image of himself as father of the revolution for his position in Indonesian society. In comparison to Suharto, who fashioned himself as the father of development, Sukarnoâs depiction of himself was as an active man, who was part of the youth.90 Thus the leadership of the Guided Democracy was actually the leadership of an idea, of the nationalist ideology of Pancasila. Perhaps the most peculiar of the ideas that were discussed surrounding the Guided Democracy was its stated ideal of democracy. By extension, it was coupled with keeping a healthy distance from the military. Obviously, the period in question was to see a greater increase in military participation in all walks of life, but within the writings of its main ideologues, with the exception of Nasution, the military was always assumed to be a state apparatus.
5 The Ideology of the 1945 Generation
Selo Soemardjan, secretary to Sultan Hamengkubuwono ix and one of the pioneers of sociology in Indonesia, explicitly divided the elite into three groups: the aristocrats, the religious leaders, and the intellectuals. Differing from Geertzâs broad classification of the abangan and santri, Soemardjan placed greater emphasis on the third group, whose legitimacy was created purely through education and technical capabilities: âIt can even be said without exaggeration that a university degree in modern Indonesian social life functions in the same way as did the now de-socialized aristocratic titles before the 1945 revolution for national independence and democracy.â91 It is of no little irony, though, that many of the Indonesian intellectuals were those men who had fought during the revolution and had the good luck of being family members of bureaucrats.92
There were two reasons for this. First, the revolutionary credential was an important component of legitimacy. Several of Suhartoâs most important economic policymakers, including Widjojo Nitisastro, Mohammad Sadli, and Subroto, were active in the war in a student battalion.93
Second was the American educational experience. For the top policymakers, America represented a formative influence that was not only important because it helped to determine the kinds of ideas that they had for the nation and the state, but more importantly, because their stay in the usa was punctuated by an increasing sense of togetherness and a feeling of solidarity and common goals. In terms of economic policymaking, it was in the dormitories of the University of California, Berkeley and in the halls of the Army Staff and Command School that the ideas for a future Indonesian economy were thought out. The head of the school, General Suwarto, often asked the economists to stay the night at the compound to discuss the Indonesian economy.94 Widjojo Nitisastro came to be the natural leader of the small team of economists (seventeen people in total) that determined policymaking during the entire New Order period.95 The American experience also underscored the importance of a university education as a binding force among the group. As Gregory stated, âThe technocratic elite led primarily academic lives, before and after the completion of their degrees.â96 The universities represented a mechanism for elite recruitment and for forging solidarity, just as the officer school and the military legal school reflected the military side of the equation.
As David Bourchier and Vedi Hadiz explained, the New Order national discourse seemed to be a mishmash of ideas that at first sight appeared to clash with one another. On the one hand, the state was seen to be organicist,97 that is, stateâsociety relations were seen through familial, nativist, and organic metaphors, with the state or elite being the father and the nation being the children. In line with Eastern ideals of family relationships, the emphasis was on harmony: the children were obliged to respect and follow the orders of the father. The roots of this organic notion were plucked from the ideas of the noted legal scholar Soepomo and then carried over into the New Order under Brigadier General Soetjipno and the Military Law Academy (Akademi Hukum Militer, ahm).98
The second strand of stateâsociety relations was the emphasis on the communitarian and agricultural basis of Indonesian society, which came from the armyâs experience during the revolution and their anti-communist strategies at the end of the 1950s and 1960s, when they actively created and promoted civilian organizations that were extensions of the army in various sectors of society. Fearing social revolution from the agrarian population as a result of communist agitation, the armyâs main aim was to develop and create programmes that would involve the military in rural areas on a more-or-less permanent basis.99
What we mean by the New Order is not a political, economic or societal order that is totally different from the Old Order [â¦] What we want is to do away with some of the Old Order way of thinking and social system that would be a hindrance to our goals of achieving our national dream.100
As Bourchier and Hadiz wrote, âthe regimeâs managerial and developmentalist character grew partly out of Soehartoâs close relations with Lieutenant-General Suwarto, the man who brought together Indonesiaâs first generation of US-trained economists and senior officers at the Army Staff and Command School (Seskoad)â.101 According to Koentjoro-Jakti, âthe culmination of these trends emerged when all the ideas finally appeared as an ideological package under the authoritarian systems of Guided Democracy, and later, the New Orderâ.102 The traditionalist ideas of New Order organicism and rural bias had been developed earlier, as part of the revolutionary war or even as part of the effort by Indonesian intellectuals to understand the nature of Indonesian society during the colonial period.103 What Sukarno called a ârevolutionâ was what many of the New Order intellectuals termed âdevelopmentâ: its modernist and planned character, its managerial component, and its need to control and change society.
In 1965â1966, several conferences were held at Seskoad and the University of Indonesia (Universitas Indonesia, ui) to discuss what the change in regime meant for Indonesian stateâsociety relations. Reading the speeches given at these conferences, one gains an insight into a project that entailed moulding a traditional society into its modern form. A persistent theme of many of the papers given at this conference was the almost logically assumed position of the military within a leadership position. Thus Emil Salim stated that there was good reason for the launching of the Guided Economy by Sukarno because âeconomic activities cannot be left to the mercy of market powers alone, but would need to be controlled and commandedâ.104 The Guided Democracyâs effort at militarily controlling the economy and Sukarno awarding military ranks to himself and the stateâs economic policymakers, such as Abdulgani, Soebandrio, and Chairul Saleh, were seen not so much as a break with the perceived normal route towards modernity but as a lack on the part of the leadership to orient themselves with development. Thus, Sarbini Sumawinata contends: âOnly a leadership that was âdevelopmentally orientedâ could face the challenges of development. A leadership that failed to orient its goals towards development would fail to maintain stability within the community.â105
The doyen of the technocracy, Widjojo Nitisastro, based his support for a militarized economy on the natural quality of military leadership: âThe raw determination to overcome economic difficulties in a responsible and disciplined manner can only be achieved if all of the governmentâs apparatus can work as one harmonious team with an effective âunity of commandâ in the economic sector.â106
Nitisastro would actually run a relatively tight ship within his group of technocrats and so his reference to a âunity of commandâ was to a large extent aimed at technocratic policymakers. Yet, the militarized language conceded the necessity of a military-run state, one which the technocrats would eventually, hopefully, help in directing towards development.
The goal of political stability should be a dynamic stability, in which social forces should neither be suppressed nor equalized, but should be channelled and guided toward positive and productive activities. This type of stability is not in âstatic equilibriumâ, but must be understood as a type of control and supervision, in which all tensions and conflicts are resolved in a peaceful manner, without killing its dynamism.108
The people as the masses were seen as being in opposition to the nurturing and managing capability of the elite. In fact, the military elite was seen as the opposite of the masses. Kartomo Wirosuhardjoâs article paints the inevitable picture of societal harmony. If each group knows where it belongs within the pyramidal structure of social stratification, then peace and harmony will reign in the body politic. This traditionalist and static view of society was couched within a depiction of modern transition.
In fact, the top tier of the pyramid should be filled with a combination of three groups of elites. First, the military elite with their âdiscipline, initiative, militancy, and earnestness in doing their dutyâ. Second, the secular intelligentsia, which are those âpeople who have obtained an expert education, for instance doctors, economists, lawyers, engineers, agricultural experts, educational experts, journalists, and others. This is a group of people who use science and technology in their line of work. They have expertise in their field but sometimes lack the push to conduct real change.â The third group consists of the entrepreneurs, who are âcreators or people who use new ways to obtain great profits. They are drivers of industry and trade and are composed of people who are always searching for greater success.â109 These three groups working together would strengthen modernity among the masses. The people, on the other hand, required the guiding hands of disciplined experts and creators. In fact, instead of power, the masses would be given culture.
In other words, the role model of the past requires only tut wuri handayani, which means pushing their influence from behind. But now role models within Indonesiaâs modern society are expected to take the lead and fulfil their role as ing ngarsa sung tulada, i.e. to lead by example. The appreciation of society in todayâs democratic age for their role models would surely increase if they also situated themselves as ing madya mangun karsa, which is to live in society and work together with society to build a strong spirit in an effort to create societal happiness and state magnificence.111
What is significant about Soemardjanâs imagery is again the deeply feudal form taken from Javaâs long feudal past, something that the nationalists, leftists, and many Islamists in Indonesia abhorred. Soemardjan, though, himself an aristocrat and a loyal follower of, and personal secretary to, Sultan Hamengkubuwono ix, must have had few qualms about painting this picture of modern Indonesian society through an aristocratic Javanese frame of reference. Even more significant is, of course, his credential as the âfather of Indonesian sociologyâ. His American education did not conflict with what he saw as a rational way of ordering society. Wirosuhardjoâs ideas on indoctrination are also rooted in his time spent studying in America. A modern take on Indonesian culture thus primarily took the form of feudal revivalism.
6 Conclusion
The development of Indonesian ideas about authority and stateâsociety relations evolved during the Guided Democracy. The change was partly brought about by a generational shift from the 1928 generation to the 1945 generation (terms I have borrowed from Weinsteinâs analysis). More importantly, the roots of these changes were entwined with the developments of the 1950s and the expansion of education, which will be discussed in Chapter 5. The clash of ideas between Sukarno and expert economists represented a conflict over authority. The expert elite of the 1950s was considered a threat to Sukarnoâs corporatist ideas. What Sukarno wanted was not to destroy and eliminate the experts, professionals, and economists but merely to discipline them and force them to conform to his ideas of stateâsociety relations.
Two things happened. The major decision-makers of the 1950s were sidelined, and, more importantly, a new generation of experts was brought in to develop the new Guided Democracy state corporate discourse. As we will see in Chapter 7, their study of communist institutions increasingly drew them closer to the military managerial elites. The development of the military in relation to the corporatist state was an essential part of the Guided Democracy and one that cemented Indonesiaâs long-lasting twentieth-century military rule. The coalescence of experts and the military elite was a side effect of Sukarnoâs anti-expert ideology. The Guided Democracy thus had a profound role in moulding this emergent elite.
Keng Po, 28 March 1957.
Heather Sutherland, The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite. The Colonial Transformation of the Javanese Priyayi (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979), 144â51.
Javanese Muslims who practise a syncretic form of Islam.
Javanese Muslims who practise an orthodox form of Islam.
The military elite, though, was by the early 1960s overwhelmingly Javanese (60â80% of the officers). Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 37. These figures changed from the 1960s onwards as access to education expanded. See Theodore M. Smith and Harold F. Carpenter, âIndonesian Students and Their Career Aspirationsâ, Asian Survey, 14/9 (September 1974), 807â26.
Sukarno very much supported the Pangreh Praja and extolled their virtues in many of his speeches to the corps during the revolution. The republican elite gave priority to the Pangreh Praja for the top echelon posts during early independence, for instance. Anthony Reid, Indonesian National Revolution, 1945â1950 (Hawthorn: Longman, 1974), 32.
Thomas R. Murray, A Chronicle of Indonesian Higher Education, the First Half Century, 1920â1970 (Singapore: Chopmen, 1973), 90.
Sutherland, The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite, 26.
The jago and preman element as part of the state-extension in society is discussed in all periods of Indonesian history. See, for instance, Schulte Nordholt and Sutherland for the colonial period, Barker for the New Order, and Lindsey for the post-New Order period. Henk Schulte Nordholt, âThe Jago in the Shadow: Crime and Order in the Colonial Stateâ, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 25/1 (Winter 1991), 74â91; Joshua Barker, âState of Fear: Controlling the Criminal Contagion in Suhartoâs New Orderâ, Indonesia, 66 (October 1998), 6â43; Tim Lindsey, âThe Criminal State: Premanisme and the New Indonesiaâ, in Grayson Lloyd and Shannon L. Smith (eds), Indonesia Today. Challenges of History (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001), 283â97.
Henk Schulte Nordholt, âA Genealogy of Violenceâ, in Freek Colombijn and Thomas Lindblad (eds), Roots of Violence in Indonesia: Contemporary Violence in Historical Perspective (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2002), 33â61.
Robert Cribb, Gangsters and Revolutionaries. The Jakarta Peopleâs Militia and the Indonesian Revolution, 1945â1949 (North Sydney: Allen Unwin, 1991), 89â99.
J. A. C. Mackie, Property and Power in New Order Indonesia (n.p.: n.n., 1983), 1.
Ann Gregory has noted, though, that the number of Javanese occupying important government positions increased during Guided Democracy and the New Order. Ann Gregory, âRecruitment and Factional Patterns of the Indonesian Political Elite: Guided Democracy and the New Orderâ, PhD dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1976, 108.
Many of the technocrats were also non-Muslim, including the Catholic Frans Seda and J. B. Sumarlin and the Protestant Radius Prawiro, among others. Hamish McDonald, Suhartoâs Indonesia (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1981), 76.
Franklin Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976), 42â65.
A process of politicizing the teachers in government-owned Indonesian schools also occurred during the period, signifying the increased attention being paid to participatory pedagogy, which Agus Suwignyo has termed âpublic intellectualityâ. This process appeared again as part of the participatory discourse of Indonesian nationalism, which will be discussed further in the next chapters. Agus Suwignyo, âThe Breach in the Dike: Regime Change and the Standardization of Public Primary-School Teacher Training in Indonesia, 1893â1969â, Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Leiden, 2013, 152â207.
Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy, 42â65.
Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy, 42â65.
C. Wright Mills, White Collar. The American Middle Class (New York: Galaxy, 1956), 142â60.
Gregory, âRecruitment and Factional Patternsâ, 349.
John James MacDougall, âTechnocrats as Modernizers. The Economists of Indonesiaâs New Orderâ, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1975, 15.
Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy, 24â6 and 113â22.
Lucian W. Pye, Politics, Personality and Nation-Building: Burmaâs Search for Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 97â109.
Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 163â7.
For instance, in the discussion on the creation of expert manpower and the university system in the 1960s, which emphasized the creation of both âredsâ and expert cadres. See Bachtiar Rifai, Perkembangan Perguruan Tinggi selama 20 Tahun Indonesia Merdeka (Jakarta: Departemen Perguruan Tinggi dan Ilmu Pengetahuan, 1965), 26.
Roeslan Abdulgani, Beberapa Soal Demokrasi dan Ekonomi. Buah Karangan Roeslan Abdulgani dalam âThe Far Eastern Surveyâ dan âUnited Asiaâ (Jakarta: Dewan Nasional, 1958), 33. Of course, Abdulgani was a politician first and a thinker second. He was to survive the transition to the New Order and become part of the new regime, one that was to be dominated by those professional, textbook thinkers he had once derided. Whatever his belief, his position as a spokesperson of the Guided Democracy state gave credence to his announcement, if not purely of his own devising, then as a perfectly capable filter from which the state produced its discourse.
Quoted in Simpson, Economists with Guns, 18.
clm Penders and Ulf Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution. A Political Biography (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1985), 125â6. Sjahrir calling the headquarters of the army âa fascist military clique headed by Nasutionâ further distanced him from this party.
peta stands for Pembela Tanah Air (Defenders of the Homeland).
In an article in Vrij Nederland, the Dutch journalist J. Eijkelboom called Abdulgani a parrot. The parroting nature of the elites of the Guided Democracy may point to the weakness in saying that there was a whole generation of pro-Sukarnoist elements, but it is undeniable that there was a coterie of people within the elite who risked their fortunes on supporting Sukano throughout the entire Guided Democracy.
Penders and Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution, 82.
Splits within the army elites occurred at the regional level instead of the national level, with regional commanders opposing Nasutionâs rationalization policies. Crouch, The Army and Politics, 32.
For instance, Suhadi Mangkusuwondo joined the Student Army of the Republic of Indonesia (Tentara Republik Indonesia Pelajar, trip) militia in Malang, Emil Salim was active in the student army in Palembang, and Subroto joined in the fight with the peta army. Those who had not been active in fighting during the revolution, amongst them Mohammad Sadli and Sarbini Sumawinata, were slightly older and thus were more intellectually active. See Suhadi Mangkusuwondo, âRecollections of My Careerâ, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 31/1 (April 1996), 34â5; Subroto, âRecollections of My Careerâ, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 34/2 (August 1998), 68â70; Emil Salim, âRecollections of My Careerâ, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 33/1 (April 1997), 47; Mohammad Sadli, âRecollections of My Careerâ, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 39/1 (April 1993), 36; and Sarbini Sumawinata, âRecollections of My Careerâ, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 28/2 (August 1992), 34â5. Lastly, the doyen of the Berkeley Mafia, Widjojo Nitisastro, also took part in the revolutionary war for independence. Peter McCawley and Thee Kian Wie, âIn Memoriam: Widjojo Nitisastro, 1927â2012â, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 48/2 (2012), 275.
Leslie H. Palmier, âSukarno: The Nationalistâ, Pacific Affairs, 30/2 (June 1957), 101â19.
His Nasakom vision was influenced by Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemoâs Taman Siswa philosophy. clm Penders, Life and Times of Sukarno (Rutherford: Farley Dickinson University Press, 1974), 24. Mangoenkoesoemo, according to Dutch administrator Charles van der Plas, played an important role in Westernizing Sukarno. Bob Herring, Soekarno: Founding Father of Indonesia, 1901â1945 (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2002), 132â4.
Lambert Giebels, Soekarno, Nederlands onderdaan. Een biografie, 1901â1950 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1999), 214â18. Also see Sukarno, Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, Vol. I (Jakarta: Panitya Penerbit Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 1964), 325â455.
Nasionalisme-Agama-Komunisme â Nationalism, Religion, Communism.
Herring, Founding Father, 95.
Penders, Life and Times of Sukarno, 30.
Sukarno, âSwadeshi dan Massa-Aksi di Indonesiaâ, in Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 121â57. His own idea, which led to the coining of the term Marhaenism, was rooted in the Marxist ideas of Karl Kautsky and Bakunin. Giebels, Soekarno, Nederlands onderdaan, 80â1. Although borrowing from many Western thinkers, he did not bind himself to a single Western frame of thought. Herring, Founding Father, 102.
Sukarno, Indonesia Menggugat (Jakarta: Departemen Penerangan, 1961), 55.
Mazower, Dark Continent, 1â75.
Sukarno, âIndonesia versus Fasisme. Faham jang bertentangan dengan Djiwa Indonesiaâ, in Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 457.
Sukarno, âBeratnja Perdjoangan melawan Fasisme. Perlunja Menarik Simpati Kaum Kleinburgertum dan Kaum Tani di Djermanâ, in Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 549. All translations in the book is made by the author.
Sukarno, âBeratnja Perdjoangan melawan Fasismeâ, 549.
Sukarno, Handbook on the Political Manifesto, 31.
Sukarno, Handbook on the Political Manifesto, 31.
Abdulgani, Demokrasi dan Ekonomi, 38.
Quoted in Rantjangan Dasar Undang-undang Pembangunan Nasional Semesta-Berantjana Delapan Tahun: 1961â1969, Buku ke I, Djilid ii: Sosialisme Tripola Pembangunan, 236. Carr was quoted in Dutch and Abdulgani omitted the line âHitlerism took the name of national socialismâ to avoid any comparison between socialism à la Indonesia and fascism. E. H. Carr, The Soviet Impact on the Western world (London: MacMillan and co., 1946), 27.
This was also Leninâs policy in his attack on the bureaucracy and his wish to draw the masses into the direct management of state affairs. Carr, The Soviet Impact, 17â19.
D. H. Assegaff, âAspek Management dalam Pembangunan Semesta Berentjanaâ, Manager, 30/3 (September 1962), 274.
Penders and Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution, 3.
A. H. Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, Jilid I: Kenangan Masa Muda (Jakarta: Haji Masagung, 1990), 38â40.
Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, Jilid I, 64â5.
Penders and Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution, 8â11.
Penders and Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution, 47â50.
Abdul Haris Nasution, Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare (London: Pall Mall Press, 1965), 26.
Nasution, Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare, 89.
In fact, â[t]he most salient characteristics of the army was its local characterâ. Gregory, âRecruitment and Factional Patternsâ, 242.
Penders and Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution, 55.
Tjatur Tunggal literaly means rour-in-one, a regional system of government in which the executive is replaced by a four-section committee; composed of the governor, the military commander, the police head and the head of the regional parliament. The system was dominated by the army.
Nasution, Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare, 52.
Nasution, Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare, 144.
Loren Stuart Ryter, âYouth, Gangs and the State in Indonesiaâ, PhD dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle, 2002.
Schulte Nordholt, âGenealogy of Violenceâ, 33â63. Schulte Nordholt argued that the colonial state was a violent state and that âcriminal elementsâ such as the jago were an integral part of the stateâs expression of power.
Casper Schuuring, Abdulgani. 70 jaar nationalist van het eerste uur (Zutphen: Walburg Press, 2003), 47. âRoeslan had een âsturende handâ gehad in de zogenoemde geleide democratie.â
Sukarno, âPidato Presiden Sukarno tentang âDemokrasi Terpimpinâ dalam Sidang Dewan Nasional Ke-VIII Tanggal 23 Djuli 1958â, in Demokrasi Terpimpin, 2.
Abdulgani, Demokrasi dan Ekonomi, 36.
Roeslan Abdulgani, âThe Lessons of Indonesiaâs Experience of Planningâ, in Politik dan Ilmu (Jakarta: Prapantja, 1962), 159.
Sukarno, The Resounding Voice of the Indonesian Revolution. Supplements: Manipol-Usdek and the Birth of Pancasila (Jakarta: Department of Information, 1965), 34. The dislike of economists was obviously also well known amongst economists themselves. Widjojo Nitisastro commented that âthere was a strong view among the public at the time that the science of economics was totally useless textbook thinking. Some even viewed this as something that could harm the way of life of the people.â In Widjojo Nitisastro, The Indonesian Development Experience (Singapore: Institute of South East Asian Studies, 2011), 3.
Abdulgani, Demokrasi dan Ekonomi, 36.
Sukarno, The Resounding Voice, 44.
Abdulgani, Demokrasi dan Ekonomi, 19.
Selo Soemardjan, The Changing Role of Intellectuals in Indonesian National Development: A Socio-Historical Interpretation (n.p.: n.n., 1976), 14. The particular attack on the Economics Faculty of the University of Indonesia after the prri rebellion and Sumitroâs role was directed by the leftist element and President Sukarno. The facultyâs relationship with Berkeley and the Ford Foundation made it an even easier target. John Bresnan, At Home Abroad. A Memoir of the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, 1953â1973 (Jakarta: Equinox, 2006), 41. For more on the prri rebellion, see Chapter 2, fn. 33.
Golongan karya (or Golkar) functional groups are groups of associations based on their role in society (youth, women, farmers, journalists, intellectuals, and so forth), which in Sukarnoâs ideal society were to replace political parties as the main components of political participation. Golkar was continued under the Suharto regime as a method of political control and became the main political party of the New Order.
Roeslan Abdulgani, Sosialisme Indonesia (Jakarta: Jajasan Prapantja, 1963), 63. âBerbeda dengan dewan2 perantjang dan pembangunan jang dulu2, jang menitik-beratkan keanggautaannja kepada para intelek-ahli dan intelek-expert, maka Depernas mengutamakan keanggautaannja untuk golongan2 karya jang berakar dimasjarakat dan ditengah-tengah rakjat tanpa mengabaikan nasehat dan pendapat para ahli dan para expert.â
Abdulgani, Sosialisme Indonesia, 63. âseorang jang berpendidikan umum, dan berpandangan luas serta djauh kemuka, jang mungkin tidak ada atau belum gespecialiseerd, tetapi tidak kena tularan kesempitan pandangan dari penjakit birokrasi modern.â
Quoted in Runturambi, Problim Management Ekonomi di Indonesia (Jakarta: Sumber Tjahaja, 1963), 8.
Rantjangan Dasar Undang-Undang Pembangunan Nasional Semesta-Berentjana Delapan Tahun: 1961â1969, Buku ke iii, Bidang Mental/Ruhani dan Penelitian, Jilid V: Pola Pendjelasan, Bidang Kebudajaan dan Pendidikan (Jakarta: Dewan Perentjanaan, 1960), 1024. âTjara berfikir setjara ilmiah/rasionil ini merupakan sesuatu jang baru bagi kita di Indonesia, karena sebelumnja kebudajaan kita lebih menekankan pada soal2 spirituil. Tjara berfikir setjara rasionil ini adalah hasil kehidupan kebudajaan di Barat, dimana telah tertjapai harmoni antara tjara berfikir setjara rasionil itu dengan dasar2 kehidupan kebudajaan bangsa2 Barat itu.â
Rantjangan Dasar Undang-undang Pembangunan Nasional, Buku Ke iii, Jilid v, 1024.
Abdulgani, Sosialisme Indonesia, 98.
Sukarno, âPenemuan Kembali Revolusi Kitaâ, in Tudjuh Bahan2 Pokok Indoktrinasi (Jakarta: Dewan Pertimbangan Agung, 1962), 103. âSinisme lantas timbul. Kepertjajaan kepada kemampuan bangsa sendiri gojang. Djiwa inlander jang memandang rendah kepada bangsa sendiri dan memandang agung kepada bangsa asing muntjul disana-sini, terutama sekali dikalangan kaum intellektuil.â
Rantjangan Dasar Undang-Undang Pembangunan Nasional, Buku ke iii, Djilid v, 202. âKepadamulah, hai pemuda-pemudi jang sedang mengedjar ilmu, kepada Saudara2 ahli2, mahaguru2, kepada semua orang jang mempunjai intelligensi untuk berfikir, berusaha memperkaja ide saya ini.â
Rantjangan Dasar Undang-Undang Pembangunan Nasional, Buku Ke I, Djilid I: Pendahuluan, 22. âDan suatu kenjataan jang tidak dipungkiri ialah, bahwa pembangunan di rrt tersebut, adalah pembangunan dengan rentjana keseluruhannja dibawah pimpinan kebidjaksanaan daripada Demokrasi Baru atau Demokrasi Rakjat, jaitu suatu bentuk ketata-negaraan jang sesuai dengan kepribadian bangsa Tionghoa, seperti Demokrasi Terpimpin ditanah Indonesia jang akan kita laksanakan dewasa ini untuk menggantikan Demokrasi liberal jang telah usang dan tidak memenuhi tuntutan zaman. Terutama hasrat Rakjat jang dikerahkan tenaganja untuk ikut membangun dengan melihatkan tendens untuk berhemat pembiajaan, waktu dan tenaga, hendaklah diperhatikan benar2, supaja ditimbulkan pula pada Rakjat membangun: berhemat biaja, waktu dan bahan.â
Roeslan Abdulgani, Manipol and usdek in Questions and Answers (Jakarta: Department of Information, 1961), 36.
Abdulgani, Sosialisme Indonesia, 12.
Abdulgani, Manipol and usdek, 40.
Roeslan Abdulgani, Resapkan dan Amalkan Pantjasila (Jakarta: Jajasan Prapantja, 1964), 110.
Abdulgani, Manipol and usdek, 39.
Instead of father of the revolution, he was its mouthpiece, signifying vigour and participation. This was inherently different from Suharto, who looked on with the benign and concerned visage of the father, or the sultan from his throne.
Soemardjan, The Changing Role of Intellectuals, 4.
Gregory, âRecruitment and Factional Patterns, 52. The technocrats and the military came from the highest social-status origins (97% and 71% respectively).
Gregory, âRecruitment and Factional Patternsâ, 327â57.
Emil Salim, âTanpa Tedeng Aling-alingâ, in Ekonomi Indonesia di Era Politik Baru: 80 Tahun Muhammad Sadli (Jakarta: Kompas, 2002), 6.
Ahmad Helmy Fuadi, âElites and Economic Policies in Indonesia and Nigeria, 1966â1998â, PhD dissertation, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2012, 75.
Gregory, âRecruitment and Factional Patternsâ, 334.
David Bourchier and Vedi R. Hadiz (ed.), Indonesian Politics and Society. A Reader (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 27; see also Anthony Reid, âPolitical Tradition in Indonesia: The One and the Manyâ, Asian Studies Review, 22/1 (March 1998), 23â38; Barry Turner, âNasution: Total Peopleâs Resistance and Organicist Thinking in Indonesiaâ, PhD dissertation, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, 2005, 1â28.
Bourchier and Hadiz (eds), Indonesian Politics and Society, 27.
Guy Pauker, âPolitical Consequences of Rural Development Programs in Indonesiaâ, Pacific Affairs, 41/3 (Autumn 1968), 386â402.
Sarbini Sumawinata, Amanat/Pidato, Prasaran dalam Seminar AD Ke-II, 1966 (Jakarta: Pertjetakan Negara, 1967), 3. âJang kita maksudkan dengan Orde Baru bukanlah suatu tata politik, tata ekonomi atau tata masjarakat jang sama sekali berbeda daripada jang dinamakan Orde Lama. [â¦] Jang kita mau buang djauh2 dari Orde Lama adalah beberapa tjiri tata fikir dan tata kehidupan jang tidak mungkin dapat membawa kita ketudjuan nasional jang kita idam-idamkan dahulu.â
Bourchier and Hadiz (eds), Indonesian Politics and Society, 27.
He defined the trends as technocracy, elitism, populism, and nationalism, all of which were at some variance with each other similar to Bourchier and Hadizâs analysis. Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti, âThe Political Economy of Development: The Case of Indonesia under the New Order Government, 1966â1978â, PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1980, 29.
To what extent the rural bias of the army was a fully Indonesian invention is open to doubt. Although generally speaking the roots of the armyâs Civic Action programme were attributed to Ibrahim Adjieâs Siliwangi Divisionâs efforts to develop the community after a successful counter-insurgency programme against the di/tii rebels, it is also possible that it had American roots.
Emil Salim, âPolitik dan Ekonomi Pantjasilaâ, in Widjojo Nitisastro (ed.), Masalah-masalah Ekonomi dan Faktor-faktor Ipolsos (Jakarta: Terbatas, 1965), 103. âOleh karena itu kebutuhan untuk melansir konsep Ekonomi Terpimpin. Kegiatan ekonomi tidak dapat dibebaskan pada kekuatan2 didalam pasar semata akan tetapi perlu dikendalikan dan dipimpin.â
Sarbini Sumawinata, âMasalah Stabilisasi Politikâ, in Amanat/Pidato, Prasaran dalam Seminar AD Ke-II, 1966 (Jakarta: Pertjetakan Negara, 1967), 48. âHanjalah leadership jang âdevelopment orientedâ-lah jang akan menghadapi tantangan2 tersebut. Suatu leadership jang orientasi-nja kearah segala sesuatu jang bukan pembangunan, pasti akan gagal mempertahankan stabilitas.â
Widjojo Nitisastro, âPersoalan Ekonomi-Tehnis dan Ekonomi-Politis dalam Menanggulangi Masalah2 Ekonomiâ, in Masalah-masalah Ekonomi dan Faktor-faktor Ipolsos (Jakarta: Terbatas, 1965) 13. âKebuletan tekad untuk menaggulangi kesulitan2 ekonomi dengan konsekwen dan dengan penuh self-discipline hanjalah dapat dijadikan kenjataan apabila alat2 pemerintah bisa bergerak sebagai satu team jang serasi dengan âunity of commandâ dibidang ekonomi jang effektif.â
Barli Halim, âMassa dan Mediaâ, in Widjojo Nitisastro (ed.), Masalah-masalah Ekonomi dan Faktor-faktor Ipolsos (Jakarta: Terbatas, 1965), 64. âMassa bersifat sementara dalam hubungan diantara para anggautanja, sedangkan tiap anggautanja lebih banjak beremosi dan kurang rationil. Berdasarkan ini massa mempunjai perasaan âlebih kuat dan lebih perkasaâ dari orang/golongan lain, atau massa itu tjepat menjalahkan golongan lain walaupun bukti2 tidak tjukup lengkap dan sebagainja.â
Sumawinata, âMasalah Stabilisasi Politikâ, 47. â[S]tabilitas politik jang harus ditjapai ialah stabilitas jang dinamis, dimana kekuatan sosial tidak ditekan ataupun diimbangkan, melainkan harus dapat disalurkan dan didjuruskan ke arah kegiatan2 jang positif dan produktif. Stabilitas jang demikian ini bukanlah suatu âstatic equilibriumâ, melainkan harus diartikan sebagai suatu penguasaan dan pengawasan keadaan, dimana semua ketegangan2 dan konflik2 dapat diselesaikan setjara damai, tanpa mematikan dinamiknja.â
Kartomo Wirosuhardjo, âMasalah Kekaryaan ABRIâ, in Sarbini Sumawinata, Amanat/Pidato, Prasaran dalam Seminar AD Ke-II, 1966 (Jakarta: Pertjetakan Negara, 1967), 197. âGolongan militer mempunjai disiplin, inisiatif, militansi dan kesungguhan dalam melaksanakan satu tugas.â [â¦] âGolongan seculer intelligentsia ini terdiri dari orang-orang jang mendapatkan pendidikan keahlian, jakni dokter, sardjana ekonomi, hukum, teknik, pertanian, pendidikan, wartawan dan lain-lain. Golongan ini terdiri atas orang-orang jang dalam pekerdjaannja mengetrapkan ilmu dan tehnologi modern dalam praktek. Mereka ini mempunjai ketjakapan dalam bidangnja tetapi sering kurang mempunjai dorongan untuk perubahan-perubahan jang njata.â [â¦] âGolongan entrepreneur ini merupakan pentjipta-pentjipta atau orang-orang jang menggunakan tjara-tjara baru untuk memperoleh keuntungan atau hasil-hasil jang lebih besar.â
Kartomo Wirosuhardjo, âRe-Thinking dalam Indoktrinasiâ, in Widjojo Nitisastro (ed.), Masalah-masalah Ekonomi dan Faktor-faktor Ipolsos (Jakarta: Terbatas, 1965), 40â41.
Selo Soemardjan, âSifat2 Panutan didalam Pandangan Masjarakat Indonesiaâ, in Widjojo Nitisastro (ed.), Masalah-masalah Ekonomi dan Faktor-faktor Ipolsos (Jakarta: Terbatas, 1965), 53. âDengan perkataan lain, para panutan dalam zaman dahulu tjukup mengambil peranan âtut wuri handajaniâ, jaitu memberikan pengaruh dari belakang. Tetapi sekarang para panutan didalam masjarakat Indonesia modern diharapkan tampil kemuka dan menempati kedudukan âing ngarsa sung tuladaâ, jaitu tampil kedepan untuk memberikan contoh. Penghargaan masjarakat dalam zaman demokratis sekarang terhadap para panutannja akan memuntjak tinggi apabila mereka itu djuga menempatkan diri âing madya mangun karsaâ, jaitu hidup ditengah-tengah masjarakat dan bersama-sama dengan masjarakat membentuk semangat madju terus kearah kebahagiaan masjarakat dan kebesaran negara.â