Indonesian Political Exiles in the USSR

ABSTRACT

This article examines political exile as a particular form of migration, with reference to Indonesians living in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) when the military regime came to power in their homeland. With the rise in Jakarta of the New Order under Major-General Suharto after 1 October 1965, thousands of Indonesians in socialist and communist states abroad were effectively isolated. Faced with detention or execution if they returned home, Indonesian leftists and other dissidents who were scattered across some dozen states spanning the Sino-Soviet divide became unwilling exiles. Several thousand Indonesians were then studying in the USSR, where they were one of the largest foreign nationalities in Soviet universities and military academies. Many spent nearly half a century as exiles, struggling to survive first the vicissitudes of the cold war and then the global transformations that came with the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The most influential grouping of Indonesians who remained in the USSR after 1965 was known as the Overseas Committee of the Indonesian Communist Party. In China, a separate party leadership emerged, known as the Delegation of the Indonesian Communist Party. Mirroring Sino-Soviet rivalries, the Delegation urged Indonesian leftists in the USSR to join them in China. Hundreds did so. These rival factions were separated by mutual distrust until they each disbanded toward the close of the cold war. This article analyzes the changing fate of Indonesians caught in the contradictory relationship between New Order Indonesia and the USSR and in the tensions between the USSR and China as these unwilling exiles were buffeted by geopolitical transformations well beyond their influence.

Acknowledgments

The research upon which this article is based was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP0881132). An earlier version of this article was presented at the 7th EuroSEAS Conference, Lisbon, 2-5 July 2013, in the panel on “Migration and Identity.” I would like to thank various (anonymous) readers and Indonesian exiles for their valuable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts.

Notes

1. In researching the experience of Indonesian political exiles after 19651 have interviewed more than fifty Indonesian exiles in seven countries. Most were interviewed singly, but in a few cases I met with small groups. Their perspectives were complemented by interviews with seven Indonesians who had returned to Indonesia after studying overseas (and were subsequently detained). Some informants were interviewed on several occasions. Interviews commonly lasted for about three hours. Most were recorded with the permission of the informant with some requesting anonymity.

2. Lebang 2010, 1–9.

3. The most comprehensive study of Indonesia-USSR relations is Singh 1994.

4. Singh 1994, 172.

5. Lebang 2010, 15.

6. Among military officers undergoing such training were General Suhario Padmodiwiryo, who was at the Suvorov War College (Padmodiwiryo 2005,49) and Admiral R.P Poernomo, who was studying in the General Staff Academy in Moscow (Poernomo 10 October 2012). See also Lebang 2010, 103.

7. Alam 2006, 62. The official name of the university was Moscow State University, named after M.V Lomonosov (abbreviated to MGU). Intoyo was later joined by Saleh Iskandar Puradisastra (better known as Buyung Saleh) who was an exchange professor at Lomonosov University in 1962-1964.

8. I discuss the autobiographies of Ibarruri Putri Alam (Alam 2006) and Asahan Aidit (A. Aidit [2006?]; A. A. Aidit 2006) in Hill 2012. Ibarruri and her sister were studying at a special high school in Moscow, while their mother Tanti had studied at Lomonosov University but returned to Jakarta prior to the 1965 military putsch. In addition, another brother of D.N. Aidit, Murad, graduated with a master's degree in economics from Lumumba Friendship University, Moscow, but returned to Indonesia prior to October 1965. Ali (1967) provides a valuable contemporaneous account of this period by an anticommunist student.

9. Patrice Lumumba People's Friendship University was initially named after Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader. (The university's name was abbreviated in Latin-script to UDN, the acronym Indonesian students used.) After perestroika, it became the People's Friendship University of Russia. For its history, visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples’_Friendship_University_of_Russia.

10. Moeljono 2013, 213.

11. Lebang 2010, 21. I do not have official statistics for the number of Indonesians in the USSRduring the period discussed in this article. The figures quoted in this article are, therefore, estimates drawn from the various sources cited. Koesalah Soebagyo Toer (2003, 124) estimated there were more than 700 Indonesian (civilian) students in the Soviet Union in 1963. Waruno Mahdi (personal communication, 26 January 2014) estimated there were somewhat more than 800 Indonesian (civilian) students in the USSR in 1965, of whom more than 600 were in Moscow. Djamhari's five-volume history of Communism in Indonesia, published by the Centre for Armed Forces’ History and Traditions, notes only about 120 Indonesian Communist and Marhaenist students (2009, Vol. 5, 211), but this is likely to be a major underestimate for political reasons. Communist Party discipline means (former) cadre remain reluctant to disclose details, even decades later. For example, of the number who went to Vietnam to “study revolution,” Asahan Aidit (2006, 148-49) writes evasively: “How many of us were there in total? Secret or not, it is not important to give precise figures. Clearly, it wasn't two or three, but it was certainly not hundreds. Perhaps it was under or up to dozens.” Thus, in interviews, informants frequently provided only rough estimates.

12. Koesalah's account of his time in the USSR is given in his memoir (Toer 2003, esp. xii).

13. Sukarno's political philosophy was referred to as “Manipol/USDEK,” an acronym for his Political Manifesto, the 1945 Constitution, Indonesian Socialism, Guided Democracy, Guided Economy, and Indonesian Identity.

14. Toer (2003, xiii) provides full details of this agreement.

15. Ali 1967, 24. Mahdi (personal communication, 24 January 2014) regards this figure as “grossly exaggerated” even if (as is presumably the case) Ali is including the Marhaenists and left-wing Nationalists in this category,

16. As a youth delegate, Suroso had visited Chile, Korea, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Morocco, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Ghana, Germany, Romania, Denmark, Finland, Poland, and Albania, representing the Pemuda Rakyat as Vice President of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), established in 1945 and headquartered in Budapest, Hungary (Nurdiana 2008, 177-78).

17. Asahan Aidit describes his time in the USSR in A.A. Aidit 2006. On his scholarship, see p.11. Tutuka (2003, 106-7) compares his ninety ruble scholarship with the monthly wages of a lawyer (sixty-five rubles) and mining workers (seventy to eighty rubles).

18. Toer 2003, 61.

19. On 21 December 2006 the film Gerimis Kenangan dari Sahabat Terlupakan (Suyono 2006), which presents interviews with more than a dozen Russian Indonesianists about the bilateral relationship, received the Indonesian Film Festival jury's award for best documentary film. The film can be viewed online atvod.kompas.com/read/2009/12/24/104200/Film.Dokumenter.Gerimis.Kenangan.dari.Sahabat.Terlupakan.bagian.1.

20. Toer 2003, 147.

21. In the case of the Indonesian Zemlyachestvo at Lumumba Friendship University, the “senior teacher” was a fluent Indonesian speaker who had worked formerly in the Soviet Embassy in Jakarta and the Consulate in Surabaya (Ali 1967, 52).

22. Ibid., 25–26.

23. Ibid., 13.

24. Moeljono 2013, 213.

25. Padmodiwiryo 2005, 80.

26. Ali 1967, 33.

27. Tri Tunggal 2009.

28. Singh 1994, 224.

29. Ali 1967; Padmodiwiryo 2005, 83.

30. After his return to Indonesia, Jasin became commander of the Indonesian Army's Brawijaya Division in East Java for the infamous “Trisula” (Trident) operation, when the military routed communist remnants in South Blitar during June-September 1968 (Hearman 2010, 66). He recounts his experiences in Jassin 1998.

31. Mahdi 2001, 57.

32. Moeljono 2013, 28. Moeljono notes in his diary some of the many other Indonesian graduates from Soviet universities who were also swept up in the detentions (ibid., 213).

33. Ali 1967, 37.

34. Ibid., 38.

35. Padmodiwiryo 2005, 104.

36. Ibid., 112.

37. Ali 1967, 38. Zainur Ali does not indicate whether he was a member of this “screening committee,” but his account is clearly sympathetic to, and well-informed by, the pro-New Order grouping in Moscow at that time. The term “mengamankan” (making safe, securing) in New Order parlance came to mean “arresting,” although the actual legalities of this in the USSR context are unclear in this source.

38. Alam 2006, 121.

39. Interviewees spoke of their suspicions that any information provided to the authorities could be used against others (e.g., MD Kartaprawira, Den Haag, 23 May 2009).

40. Tutuka 2003, 121.

41. I would like to thank Sulistyo Dewi, whose name also appears on the document and who is the widow of Thomas Sinuraya, for permitting me to copy this document (Pengumuman No. Peng. 852/R/1966) during our interview at her home in the Netherlands (Sinuraya, 28 September 2012). Regarding the internal tension within the embassy, Mahdi, for example, wrote “the Indonesian Embassy Military Attache forced the Ambassador to declare our passports invalid” (Mahdi 2001, 58).

42. Surya 2012, 14–19.

43. The Indonesian Embassy circulated these lists to other diplomatic representations in the USSR in an attempt to prevent any use of their passports by Indonesian exiles. Mahdi 2001, 58.

44. Ali 1967, 44.

45. Ibid., 40-41.

46. Walters 1970, 208.

47. Ibid., 41-42.

48. Suharto, Adam Malik, and Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX effectively functioned as a triumvirate in ousting President Sukarno, with the presence of the civilians legitimizing the military takeover. For Malik's interpretation, see Malik 1980, 252.

49. Padmodiwiryo 2005, 92. General Suprayogi served as the minister of public works and manpower in the final Sukarno cabinet known as the Dwikora Cabinet (August 1964-February 1966); then as Suharto was strengthening his control over power, Suprayogi continued as chairman of the State Supervision Body in the second Revised Dwikora Cabinet (March-July 1966).

50. For a succinct explanation of the Sino-Soviet split, see Gill 2013.

51. Sedjati 2013 (202) provides a summary of these positions.

52. As examples, Asahan Aidit went to Vietnam (Aidit 2006), while Ibarruri Aidit spent a year practicing medicine with the Burmese People's Army (Alam 2006, 223-59). On the secrecy regarding the number of Indonesians in Vietnam, see note 11 above and Asahan Aidit 2006, 148-49). The Indonesians sent to Burma traveled in separate small groups, rarely meeting up, making it impossible to determine precise numbers. Syarkawi Manap, for example, who lived in Burma longer than most Indonesian exiles, staying six years, entered in a group of eleven, and only encountered other small groups of Indonesians (2009, 144, 149, and 165).

53. “On the Expulsion by the Soviet Government of Comrade Anwar Dharma, Harian Rakjat correspondent, from Moscow: Statement of the Political Bureau of the CC-PKI,” Indonesian Tribune (Tirana) 1 (3): 30. January 1967.

54. Ali 1967, 39-40. Ali (1967, 44) estimated that by December 1966 about twenty-four graduates had left Moscow for Beijing, but multiple interviewees had the impression ultimately more relocated to China than remained in the USSR (e.g., Sudibyo, Moscow, 14 September 2012; Anonymous, Moscow 21 September 2012; Waruno Mahdi, Berlin, 25 September 2012; Arman Anwar, Amsterdam, 27 September 2012).

55. Padmodiwiryo 2005, 111.

56. Malik 1980, 288.

57. Boden 2007, 518.

58. Ibid., 520.

59. Ibid., 520-21.

60. Ibid., 522.

61. Alam 2006, 107.

62. Singh 1994, 229.

63. Quoted in ibid., 230-31.

64. Boden 2007, 514.

65. Severino Jr. 1971, quoted in Singh 1994, 9.

66. Quoted in Singh 1994, 235.

67. Singh 1994, 251.

68. Ibid., 263–64.

69. Singh (1994, 265) cites the Indonesian Observer, 7 February 1970, as the source of this information.

70. He remains in China today. Nurdiana 2008, 178.

71. Alam 2006,124–28. It should be noted that the recollections of Alexey Drugov, the CC-CPSU's liaison officer with the Indonesians, regarding his dealings with Ibarruri in this period vary considerably from Ibarruri's published account. He depicts himself as prioritizing Ibarruri's own interests, with the Soviets offering greater stability and better welfare for her than available in China (Drugov 2012).

72. Chanafiah and Pane 2010,315. Chanafiah was one of several Indonesian ambassadors, including Djawoto (China and Mongolia), A.M. Hanafi (Cuba), and S. Tahsin Sandjasudirdja (Mali), appointed by President Sukarno who chose exile rather than alignment with the New Order.

73. Sedjati 2013, 201 and 209.

74. Discussion with four exiles, Amsterdam, 28 September 2012.

75. Tri Tunggal 2009.

76. Sudibyo 2012; and Gasch 2012.

77. Lebang 2010, 112; and Supartono and Rachman 2001.

78. Sedjati 2013, 201–5.

79. I would like to thank Timur Sinuraya, the son of Thomas Sinuraya, for his wide-ranging discussions with me regarding his recollections of his father and the Overseas Committee, both in Moscow and in the Netherlands in September 2012 and for providing me with documents and photographs. Needless to say, he would not agree with many of the criticisms made of his father by other sources used in this analysis. According to one informant involved, the group operated for several years from at least 1967 without a formal name. They formalized the term “Comite Luar Negeri” only on 23 May 1969, the Party's forty-ninth anniversary (Tri Tunggal, 19 May 2009).

80. Included in the documents collected for Sinuraya's funeral was a speech written by Suhaemi “In Memoriam Thomas Sinuraya,” in which these remarks appear.

81. Sudibyo 2012. Sudisman was one of five members of the Politburo Working Committee (Dewan Harian Politbiro) (Roosa 2006, 147). He was captured in the aftermath of 1 October 1965, tried by a special military court, sentenced to death, and summarily executed in 1967. His defense speech became a major PKI position statement. See Sudisman 2000 and 1975.

82. Drugov, 19 September 2012.

83. Alam 2006, 107-28.

84. Tri Tunggal 2009.

85. Singh 1994 (249) quotes P. Afanasyev, “Valiant Son of the Indonesian People,” Pravda 30 June 1968.

86. Chanafiah and Pane 2010, 322.

87. Ibid.

88. Problems of Peace and Socialism (1958–1990) was often referred to by the name of its English-language edition World Marxist Review (WMR). For a summary background, visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problems_of_Peace_and_Socialism.

89. Others active within the Overseas Committee included Muntoha, Munir Shahrul, Yukhadi, Zubir Leylo, and Kodrat Sunarto. I would like to thank Timur Sinuraya for providing these details in an email dated 28 September 2013.

90. Sulaiman 2012.

91. Sedjati, 2013, 203.

92. Joint Publications Research Service 1983, 1–2, which translates “East German Publicity Given to PKI Protested,” Merdeka, 24 June 1983, 1, 11.

93. I would like to thank Professor Alexey Drugov for his willingness to discuss this period with me in an interview in Moscow, 19 September 2012. Ali Chanafiah, former Indonesian ambassador to Sri Lanka, who sought asylum in the USSR, mentions Drugov specifically as greeting him at the airport on his arrival in Moscow (Chanafiah and Pane 2010, 310).

94. Alam 2006, 107.

95. Anonymous 2012 (12 September); Anonymous 2012 (21 September); Drugov 2012.

96. Mortimer 1974, 395.

97. Sulaiman 2012.

98. Indonesia 1969.

99. I would like to thank Waruno Mahdi for information on his involvement in such publications (email, 26 June 2013) and for numerous comments and corrections he made on earlier drafts of this article.

100. This view was expressed in interviews with various exiles who had been in Moscow during these years, most emphatically in a confidential interview in Moscow, 21 September 2012.

101. Comments made in Suparna Sastradiredja's handwritten notes, dated 29August 1990, regarding his conversation with Isak Dharmawan and held in the International Institute for Social History (IISG), Amsterdam.

102. Mahdi 2001, 61.

103. Singh 1994, 303.

104. Sinuraya 2012.

105. I was unable to track down any remaining archive of Overseas Committee materials, despite raising this question in numerous interviews with those formerly involved.

106. Interviews with several of the Indonesians who chose to remain in Russia, including Sudaryanto (12 September 2012), Sudibyo (14 September 2012), and Sukirno (19 September 2012).

107. Sudaryanto 2012, and Surya 2012, 14–19. On Tatiana Sudaryanto, see, for example, www.sudaryanto.ru/en/about.html and indonesia.rbth.com/discover_russia/2014/01/10/sudaryanto_made_in_russia_22997.html.

108. Lebang 2010, 122.

109. Shain 1990.

110. Lebang 2010, 35.

111. It is not appropriate here to venture into the burgeoning literature on the somewhat vexed concept of “diaspora.” For a general introduction to the issues, see Cohen 1997; Braziel and Mannur, eds. 2003; Tölölyan 2012, and more generally Diaspora: AJournal of Transnational Studies.

112. Some exiles I interviewed in Russia and the Netherlands remain critical of the opposing faction in the pro-Beijing versus pro-Moscow split within the PKI or are still bitter about their treatment by the party leadership. More commonly, exiles from the former party factions have come together in broader Indonesian community organizations in the countries of final settlement, for example, Persaudaraan (Fraternity) in the Netherlands (Gurning 2011, 57–59).

113. In February 2010, 422 Indonesian citizens were living in Russia (Lebang 2010, 75), of whom about 200 were Indonesians studying in Russian universities (Pudjiastuti 2013).