Sorenson described the denouement of this attempt to organize a guerrilla underground movement by pro-Chinese remnants of the PKI. He wrote, “Last summer the Indonesian army initiated a six-week campaign against the PKI. Acting on a tip some say came from the Soviet diplomatic mission, the Army swept into newly prepared guerrilla bases in the dusty Eastern Javan hills around Blitar and destroyed them. What first appeared only a minor skirmish turned into a major political victory. Eight of a 10-man new politburo were killed. Olean Autopea, the reputed successor to Aidit, was the chief victim. From 1,000 to 2,000 Communists were reported killed or captured.”[750]
The Blitar guerrilla effort apparently was the last that the Maoist Indonesian Communists were able to undertake in the heart of the country. Thereafter, there was Communist guerrilla activity only in the “boundary area between Indonesian West Kalinantan and the Malaysian state of Sarawak.”[751] It was reported in 1974 that “Little is known of the direct relationships of any existing underground in Indonesia and the exiled groups, although it is believed by Indonesian military intelligence that the ethnic Chinese communist insurgents in West Kalimantan (Borneo) maintain more or less regular contact with the ‘Delegation of the Central Committee of the PKI’ in Peking.”[752]
The Exile Maoist PKI
In 1973, Justus van der Kroef sketched the nature of the pro-Chinese PKI exile groups. He wrote, “In Peking, the ‘Delegation of the Central Committee of the PKI’ is led by Jusuf Adjitorop, who before the 1995 rising was a member of the party’s Politburo and who being then in Peking for medical treatment remained there, thus escaping the anti-communist purge. Djawoto, the former Indonesian ambassador to Peking, is now secretary general of the Peking-sponsored Afro-Asian Journalists’ Association in the Chinese capital. He links the ‘Delegation’ with other ‘Delegations’ or Chinese party front-groups, most of them little more than paper organizations, like the ‘ Federation of Indonesian Students’ and the ‘ Indonesian Organization for Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity,’ the latter headed by Ibrahim Isa. The total Indonesian community in and around the ‘Delegation’ now numbers at the most around 300. It includes students, former diplomats and officials and their families, journalists, and PKI front-group cadres who have escaped since 1965.”
Professor van der Kroef also commented on the Indonesian Maoist group in Albania. He wrote, “In Tirana, Albania, there are about 40 Indonesian Communists, of whom about half are connected with a largely paper organization, the ‘Indonesian Students Association in Albania.’ The Albania-based group frequently appears to act as a spokesman for the Peking-domiciled PKI faction.”[753]
In 1980, Professor van der Kroef commented about the PKI group in Albania, “A few still live in Tirana, where the faction’s principal journals, Indonesian Tribune and API, are published. Some members, because of the current strain in Sino-Albania relations, have left Tirana, and this has affected the frequency of the group’s publications.”[754]
By 1977, the ‘Delegation’ of the PKI in Beijing had dropped that title, and referred to itself only as the Communist Party of Indonesia. It had begun to publish a new periodical, Voice of the People of Indonesia.[755]
The Indonesian Maoists frequently attacked their pro-Soviet counterparts. Thus, in a statement on May 23, 1974, commemorating the PKI’s fifty-fourth anniversary, Jusuf Adjitorop issued a statement in which he said that the party was “faced with a ‘handful of Indonesian revisionist renegades’ who were being ‘manipulated by the Soviet modern revisionist clique’.” He added, “The Indonesian revolutionaries would ‘resolutely rely on their own efforts,’ guided by ‘Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung.’”[756]
In the following year, in a statement celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Indonesian declaration of independence of August 17, 1945, Adjitorop alleged that “the ‘Indonesian revisionist clique’ was… taking a stand ‘identical to that of the bourgeoisie’ who are trying to sabotage the PKI and the Indonesian revolution.”[757]
The Indonesian Maoists supported the international line and policies of the Chinese regime. Thus, on May 23, 1979, a statement was issued in the name of the “Central Committee of the PKI” that “claimed that ‘the Indonesian communists and people’ are opposed to the Vietnamese invasion of ‘democratic Kampuchea’… and in which Hanoi was abetted by the ‘Soviet hegemonists.’” This statement also expressed opposition to the Vietnamese “provocations and violations” of the frontier with China. It applauded the “‘great efforts of the Chinese people’ led by the Communist Party of China in its program of modernization and ‘socialist development.’”[758]
As for the Chinese Communists, although they continued to support their Indonesian allies, the intensity of this support seems to have varied from time to time. In 1977 it was reported that “Although in principle Peking remains supportive of the pro-Mao PKI ‘Delegation,’ Chinese media now only occasionally carry reports or statements of the ‘Delegation,’ compared with their coverage five to ten years ago. At the same time, the clandestine radio transmitting of the Peking-oriented Communist Party of Malaya, the ‘Voice of the Malayan Revolution,’ is increasingly being used to disseminate policy statements or congratulatory messages of this faction.”[759]
On the other hand, in May 1977, Hua Kuo-feng and the Chinese Politburo and Central Committee “had a well-publicized meeting with and tendered a banquet to Adjitorop described as ‘Secretary of the PKI Central Committee.’… It was the first time in many years that such an official gesture of approbation had been given the Maoist PKI faction.”[760]
In 1982, Justus van der Kroef noted that Jusuf Adjitorop was still the leader of the pro-Beijing faction of the PKI and that “The Chinese faction’s publications, Indonesian Tribune and API, originally published in Tirana, have become steadily less frequent as a result of cooling Sino-Albanian relations. Beijing does not appear to encourage their publication.”[761]
Three years later, in 1985, Jeanne S. Mintz reported, “The PKI remains a shadow party with no known organization inside Indonesia, and information about its adherents abroad is extremely limited. … The Beijing wing of the party appears to have more opportunity for impact on events in Indonesia through contact with the numerous Indonesian visitors to China. However, although the Indonesian government remains suspicious of PRC assistance to Communists in Indonesia, nothing is heard of the PKI leadership in Beijing.”[762] Late in the 1980s, Jusuf Adjitorop was still listed as Secretary-General of the PKI group based in Beijing.[763]
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