The Social Evolution of Indonesia

Book excerpt: At a fairly early stage of socialism's penetration into the Afro-Asian world, a handful of European social democrats established an Indian Social-Democratic Association (lSDV). They did so in a country, Indonesia, that was economically little developed and far away from any of the centres of European socialism and Asiatic radical-national ism. The ISDV was soon able to bring its influence to bear on sec tions of the urban proletariat and to build up an Indonesian revol utionary movement. This occurred in sharp competition with a nascent nationalist leadership, and then without the usual inter mediary role played by radicalizing groups of native intelligentsia. In this way, Dutch social democrats laid the foundations for one of the first communist parties in Asia and Africa, a party which was des tined to become one of the few communist mass parties of the Third World. However, in contrast to the major communist movements of China-Vietnam, this Indonesian party was to demonstrate a basic weakness: successive and catastrophic defeats. ! If we leave out Japan, the only non-Western country where a capi talist industrial revolution occurred, we see that foreign and particu larly Western minorities frequently did playa dominant role in the initial and formative phases of the socialist and workers' movements of the Afro-Asiatic world.