Anticommunism: An excuse for hypocrisy and murder
Throughout human history, empires have relied on ideological legitimacy in order to sustain themselves, both at home and abroad. Even as far back as Rome, oligarchs would fabricate stories of security threats coming from their neighbors, all in order to justify preemptive wars of aggression to their own people. However, empires have also often imposed their ideological hegemony onto the peoples they have conquered. For empires, conquering hearts and minds was just as important as military might in order to subjugate nations and deter revolts. From President Salvador Allende in Chile to Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, throughout the Cold War and even today US imperialism has deposed countless democratically elected leaders and replaced them with military dictatorships. In those cases, along with the barrel of a gun invariably came western ideology to indoctrinate the people, an ideology which places supposedly free-market values above all else, even above political freedom and human rights. In the case of Indonesia, everyone involved in carrying out the US-sponsored mass-killings, from wealthy elites to the gang members that worked for them, echoed those same vaguely defined platitudes of “freedom” even while killing their political opponents and dismantling their country’s democracy. One documentary film, The Act of Killing, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, and co-directed by Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian, follows several of the perpetrators of the mass-killing in the present day. The film shows from an up-close perspective how those perpetrators rationalize and justify their actions, demonstrating an eerie similarity to western anticommunist ideological hegemony.
However, in order to better understand the film, it’s first necessary to outline some context. After Indonesia had fought for and won its independence from its colonial shackles, the country had democratically elected the independence leader Sukarno as its first president. Sukarno was a unifier of his country’s diverse political factions and a nationalist, not a communist. However, he allowed the country’s communist party, the PKI, to participate in the country’s elections, an unforgivable sin in the eyes of Washington. Despite even the US ambassador, Howard Jones, repeatedly telling Washington political elites that Sukarno wasn’t a communist, both they and the US press continued to view him as such (Bevins ch. 2). Although it’s true that the PKI itself was made up of committed communists, they were supporters of Indonesia’s democratic government and participated peacefully within the system. They explicitly disavowed armed conflict and even supported first uplifting their newly independent country before attempting to build socialism (Bevins ch. 3). Together with the country’s other political factions, both Sukarno and the PKI actively worked with everyone in order to collectively reach compromises. Despite Indonesia’s healthy democracy, the United States decided to actively support a military coup to depose Sukarno and establish a military dictatorship. In 1966, this military dictatorship carried out a massacre that killed between 500,000 to 1 million suspected communists and anyone remotely left-wing (“Indonesia: US documents released”), and as accounts from the perpetrators in the film also detail, had also carried out a campaign of intimidation and extortion throughout the country that would target many uninvolved people, especially ethnic minorities, that cemented a rule of fear throughout the country (The Act of Killing 32:38–33:14).
Despite the atrocities of the US-supported regime, today there are many who either downplay or even openly champion the killings that took place. For example, one author, Amitav Acharya, when commenting on the aftermath of the military dictatorship, had written that “Indonesia has made a painful yet unmistakable transition to democracy, whereas at the time of the Bandung conference [under Sukarno’s presidency] it was sliding into authoritarianism.” (87). In other words, for authors like Acharya, in order to combat the perceived threat of authoritarianism that the PKI posed, a paranoid fear to begin with, it is necessary to put into place the actual authoritarianism of a brutal military dictatorship. Eventually, according to them, the country can transition back to democracy once the dictator dies of old age.
Although in reality neither Sukarno nor the PKI posed any threat to the country’s democratic institutions, Western dogma posited that the stigma associated with the word “communist” alone was justification enough to depose them and make their party illegal, regardless of the content of the beliefs that the PKI or even the non-communist Sukarno actually advocated for. In addition, far from Indonesia having an “unmistakable” transition to democracy, those same authors turn a blind eye to the fact that the legacy of the military dictatorship has inflicted lasting damage on Indonesia’s democratic practices. As Oppenheimer’s film demonstrates, Indonesia’s democracy today is rife with corruption. One of the candidates that Oppenheimer interviewed, who was also one of the perpetrators of the mass-killings during 1965–1966, had openly bragged about how if he won the election for a seat at parliament, he would use his authority to extort people by telling them that he would have the government evict them and tear down the buildings where they lived or operated if they didn’t pay him money (The Act of Killing 1:18:00–1:18:58). As those interviewed in the film pointed out, such practice was very common in parliament (The Act of Killing 1:19:06–1:19:18). In addition, organizations associated with the military dictatorship and the mass-killings continue to hold much power to this day, with the far-right paramilitary organization Pancasila Youth holding 3 million members, including several high-profile politicians such as the vice president Jusuf Kalla (The Act of Killing 35:30–36:05). However, such membership should not be mistaken for broad support. As several of the perpetrators of the mass-killings in the film pointed out, many people only show up to their rallies for a paycheck (The Act of Killing 1:22:41–1:23:53).
After 1959, however, around 6 years before the coup, it is true that the country had started to become more undemocratic. But it wasn’t Sukarno per se that was the one dismantling the country’s democracy, although he did play a role in it that would later inadvertently lead to the fall of his government. In response to CIA bombing campaigns and a CIA-sponsored armed uprising against the country, Sukarno had implemented a new system he called “Guided Democracy.” This step back from democracy had significantly weakened the ability of political parties, especially the PKI, to participate in the system since they could no longer directly run in elections. Although this new system of “Guided Democracy” had explicitly kept Sukarno in power as president, he wasn’t the only one that benefited. Ironically, the same military that would later carry out the coup against him had also seen a substantial increase in its own power within the new system, since before that point it was the political parties that had kept the army in check. In fact, the military had been the one to force the cancellation of the vote planned for 1959 (Bevins ch. 6).
With the US’s “Civic Action Program” under Kennedy and Johnson providing the Indonesian military with resources and training, the army had continued to become increasingly powerful within the country both politically and economically. Another result of their partnership was that the army had come to mirror the anticommunist and neoliberal ideology of the United States, even more so than previously (Bevins ch. 6). The US had also intervened in other ways to undermine the Sukarno government. For instance, the CIA had spent a million dollars trying to control the outcome of the 1955 election by funding the staunchly right-wing Masjumi party, undermining Indonesia’s democracy by artificially elevating the influence of their preferred faction (Bevins ch. 2). In other words, the anticommunist ideology of the army, which would later spread to the rest of society through their propaganda, did not primarily have its roots in Indonesia. It had largely been an import from the United States.
The anticommunist impulses reminiscent of the Red Scare were largely nonexistent in Indonesia before the coup. The PKI was the third largest communist party in the world, only behind the USSR and China, and had three-million members. In addition, organizations affiliated with the party, including the Central All-Indonesian Workers Association, LEKRA, the Farmers Alliance, People’s Youth, and Gerwani (Women’s Movement), together had around twenty million members, roughly a quarter of Indonesia’s population. In addition, a third of the country’s voters registered themselves as PKI affiliates (Bevins ch. 6). In 1955, the PKI had come in fourth in parliamentary elections, winning 17 percent of the vote (Bevins ch. 2), and British intelligence had even estimated that if votes were held in 1958, the PKI would have come first (Bevins ch. 4).
It was only after the coup that things began to change. In addition to the campaign of fear throughout the country, the military dictator Suharto (not to be confused with the former president Sukarno) had launched a propaganda campaign that, in a quite literal sense, demonized the communists, whose party had become illegal under the new regime. In response to the kidnapping and execution of several generals by the September 30th Movement, a group within the military with murky origins, Suharto had pinned the blame on the PKI despite no evidence linking them to the group. According to the regime’s propaganda, the communists had brought the kidnapped generals to Halim Air Force Base and performed a demonic ritual where members of Gerwani, the women’s movement, had danced naked, mutilated their genitals, and gouged their eyes out. The western press had even echoed the same propaganda points of the military, attempting to give international legitimacy to their narrative. However, Suharto’s regime had already performed an autopsy on the generals, which showed that all of them were either shot or stabbed, far from the outlandish torture the regime alleged. In addition, no members from Gerwani had participated in the killings (Bevins ch. 6).
Working closely with the military, the Indonesian press had also done its part to spread propaganda. As newspaper publisher Ibrahim Sinik had attested in Oppenheimer’s documentary, whenever their group interrogated communists, “Whatever we asked we’d change their answers to make them look bad … As a newspaper man my job was to make the public hate them … after we captured the communist youth and beat them to a pulp, we gave them to the army, but the army wouldn’t take them. They said ‘Just dump them in the river’” (The Act of Killing 21:15–21:52).
One infamous piece of propaganda, for a long time annually screened on public television every September 30, to this day still screened by the army, is a film that depicts the regime’s version of events. The film is three-hours long and depicts the communists raiding the generals’ homes at night and slowly torturing them with blades, with the generals having their genitals mutilated by what the regime portrays as “demonic, sexually depraved communist women” (Bevins ch. 6). As one of the perpetrators of the regime’s mass-killings had attested,
From elementary school on all children had to watch this film. Every year, they had to come to the cinema to watch this. I remember because I worked at the cinema. The kids were divided in two groups, the youngest sat in the front row. Some children were traumatized by the film. But deep inside, I was proud because I killed the communists, who look so cruel in the film. And I went beyond anything in the film. (The Act of Killing 37:48–39:00).
Even the people that directly carried out the mass-killings admit that the communists were not the cruel ones by any measure. For the regime and its killers, that was just a cover. Even before the military dictatorship, corruption and patronage had plagued Indonesian politics, but the PKI was one of the few major parties that delivered on their promises, especially to peasants and the poor. The country had gone directly into the countryside to carry out a program that directly met the needs of the people there (Bevins ch. 3). As even the perpetrators of the regime’s mass-killings had attested, the communists had given land, fertilizer, seeds and farming equipment directly to the country’s rural population (The Act of Killing 45:09–45:15). One of the perpetrators in Oppenheimer’s documentary film had even worried that “If we succeed in making this film it will disprove all the propaganda about the communists being cruel. And show that we were cruel! … not everything true should be made public. I believe even God has secrets” (The Act of Killing 1:04:32–1:04:47).
Today, the paramilitary Pancasila Youth, which had directly participated in the killings, continues to echo rhetoric reminiscent of western individualism. Members of the organization, even high-profile members like the governor of North Sumatra, Syamsul Arifin, describe themselves as gangsters, repeating the same platitude that the word ‘gangster’ derives from the word ‘free man,’ and that people should have the freedom to what they want even if it involves directly hurting other people (The Act of Killing 14:31–14:48). That favorite catchphrase of Pancasila Youth has a striking similarity to some pro-market ideologies in the United States, that argue that as long as someone owns a private enterprise, they have the right to do whatever they want with it, even if it means refusing to pay their employees a living wage or disregarding any form of consumer protection. In other words, freedom for the powerful to exploit the rest of society. The vice president of Indonesia and Pancasila Youth member Jusuf Kalla makes the metaphor comparing gangsters to private corporations even more obvious, having said in a speech that
This nation needs ‘free men’! If everyone worked for the government we’d be a nation of bureaucrats. We’d get nothing done. We need gangsters to get things done. Free, private men who get things done. We need gangsters who are willing to take risks in business. (The Act of Killing 36:08–37:02).
The legacy of the military dictatorship and mass-killings has left a scar on Indonesia that has not faded even to this day. When looking at the atrocities that the Indonesian military and paramilitary forces had carried out against their own people, it’s very important to remember that they hadn’t done so alone. Guided by fanatical anticommunism and wealthy interests, the biggest perpetrator was the United States, which had effectively used the Indonesian military to carry out its own dirty work. Not only had the US set the stage by providing the Indonesian military with the training and resources it needed to overthrow the country’s democratically elected government, it had actively encouraged and even directly aided them in carrying out the killings. For example, with the help of CIA analysts, the US embassy political officer Robert Martens had prepared a list of thousands of suspected communists and handed it directly to the army for them to be killed. Martens had even gone on record saying, “I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad.” (Bevins ch. 7).
Works Cited
Acharya, Amitav. The end of American world order. 2nd ed., Polity Press, 2018.
Bevins, Vincent. The Jakarta Method : Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World. PublicAffairs, 2020. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=2501939&site=ehost-live.
“Indonesia: US documents released on 1965–66 massacres.” Human Rights Watch, 17 October, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/18/indonesia-us-documents-released-1965-66-massacres.
The Act of Killing. Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, co-directed by anonymous and Christine Cynn. Signe Byrge Sørensen, 2012. Hulu.
