Soviet-Indonesian relations in the first postwar decade (1945-1954)
by Ragna Boden

General remarks

The history of Soviet-Indonesian relations began at the level of the Communist parties in 1920. In the first decade after WWII, then, bilateral party contacts were extended to the international relations, before the state level dominated from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. After the Indonesian massacre of leftists in 1965/66 and the military coup by Suharto in 1966/67, Soviet-Indonesian contacts were reduced to minimal activities for 20 years until the relationship between the states was revived during the Gorbachev era.

This essay focuses on the second of the aforementioned periods, which was characterized by Indonesia’s struggle for independence from the Netherlands, its search for allies, the long process that finally led to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the USSR, and the re-establishment of direct links between the Soviet and the Indonesian Communist parties.

The documents cited here are of Soviet origin. Material from Indonesian state institutions is not (yet) accessible, whereas the archive of the CP of Indonesia (PKI: Partai Komunis Indonesia) was destroyed and scattered in the wake of the purges against the Indonesian Communists. [1] The most relevant Soviet collections for diplomatic and party policy are kept in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVP RF) and in the archive of the VKP(b)/CPSU [2] (the RGASPI archive). The papers in the AVP RF come from the foreign ministers and their deputies, as well as from the Indonesian, Southeast Asian, and legal departments. [3] Most of the party documents cited (and published) here are part of the Stalin collection (fond 558) in RGASPI. Some of them bear Joseph Stalin’s handwriting in the form of comments. The documents reveal the interests and mechanisms of the Soviet party elite in one of the most active and promising CPs of the newly decolonized states. Major topics of Soviet-Indonesian communications included the overall strategy of the PKI in questions of domestic and foreign policy.

The state level: the struggle for independence and international recognition

Soviet interest in Indonesia in general and even in PKI activities remained low until the 1950s. Despite Soviet propaganda, which suggested a special concern of the USSR for anti-imperialist movements in the colonies, there was little practical support for Indonesia’s independence movement. One reason for this is to be seen in the fact that those who proclaimed Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945, namely Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta, were not Communists, even if Sukarno sympathized with Socialist ideas. Hence, requests from Indonesian exile groups and even from the Indonesian government for Soviet support of independence met with reservation on the Soviet side. [4] When Indonesian prime minister and foreign secretary Soetan Sjahrir directly appealed to the Soviets in 1947, stating that the Republic of Indonesia (RI) was in desperate need of support, followed by a public Indonesian declaration of intent to establish diplomatic relations with the USSR, the Soviet foreign ministry for the first time seriously examined the legal and practical possibilities and consequences such a step would have for the USSR. [5]

The Soviets were anxious not to violate international law and weighed the two contrasting positions of the Netherlands and Indonesia against one another. Both countries were negotiating with the USSR and trying to convince its representatives to take their respective side. [6] The responsible departments of the Soviet Foreign Ministry drew up reports concerning the question whether or not the Indonesian government was authorized at all to establish international relations without Dutch consent, and which consequences would result from a Soviet recognition of the RI. Although the Southeast Asia section as well as the legal department strongly recommended de-facto recognition and the establishment of direct contacts with the Indonesian government, the foreign minister and his deputies hesitated. [7] Consequently, several states, among them the UK and the US, recognized Indonesia before the USSR had come to a decision.

The constantly changing international and domestic situation concerning Indonesia also caused Soviet-Indonesian relations to oscillate during the following years. Once the USSR had brought itself to recognize the RI and publicize the decision to establish consular relations in May 1948, [8] it turned out that the recently established Indonesian government under Hatta rejected all agreements that had been concluded during the period of office of his predecessors – including those with the USSR. Soviet official reactions blamed this affront on Dutch and US influence. [9]

The following events in 1948 once more complicated the situation, as intra-Indonesian power struggles as well as a Dutch military offensive in Indonesia challenged Soviet loyalties. The attempt by the PKI in 1948 to expand clashes within the armed forces into an outright revolution, the so-called “Madiun Affair”, failed. It was brutally suppressed by Indonesian nationalist forces backing Sukarno and left the PKI deprived of its leaders and with a bad reputation among the Indonesian population. It was claimed that the Communists had weakened the national liberation movement at a time when all forces had to unite against the Dutch. Contrary to earlier suspicions, Moscow had nothing to do with the Communist rebellion.

Around this time, the Netherlands started another offensive to crush Indonesian independence and arrested President Sukarno, Vice President and head of the cabinet Hatta, and other members of the government. [10] Confronted with this situation, the USSR had to decide in 1949 whether to continue to back the Indonesian government against the Dutch invasion, despite its brutal repression of the Communists. Moscow opted for a mixed solution: Soviet representatives condemned both the Dutch incursion into the territory of the RI and the violent suppression of the Communist rebellion by Indonesian forces. [11]

When the Netherlands and Indonesia finally agreed on the foundation of a “Republic of the United States of Indonesia” in December 1949, Moscow changed its attitude from disapproval to acceptance. This swing of opinion can probably be traced to Chinese influence, as Mao Zedong visited the USSR from December 1949 to February 1950. Although the hitherto known documents on Sino-Soviet talks of this period do not mention Indonesian affairs, it is very unlikely that this topic was excluded from the agenda. [12] The Indonesian press, at any rate, was convinced of a direct connection. [13] The argument seems all the more plausible taking into consideration the intensifying Soviet-Indonesian-Chinese party relations. The following Soviet-Indonesian negotiations concerning the establishment of diplomatic relations were again delayed by the unstable Indonesian domestic circumstances and a pro-Western line of some of the frequently changing governments. In the meantime, bilateral relations were more active at the level of the Communist parties.

The inter-party level: from intermediary to direct contacts

Soviet relations with the world’s third-largest Communist party, the PKI, were highly ambivalent and subject to several changes. They accompanied and sometimes even dominated bilateral relations between the states. During the mid-1940s, the Soviets had little direct contact with the PKI. Those Indonesian Communists who had been trained in the USSR had been killed, executed, or exiled in connection with the 1948 coup, and Soviet journalists who had at least irregularly reported from Indonesia in the 1940s [14] had obviously left the country. Contacts through the CP of the Netherlands (CPN), which had been intensive during the mid-1940s, were losing importance. Thus, for most of 1949, the VKP(b) maintained contacts through Indonesian intermediaries in Prague and India. [15]

However, the situation changed decisively after the Communist ascent to power in China in 1949. At that time, apart from Europe, Asia was the world region where Communist movements were most active and where the USSR was mainly involved in or affected in some form by their struggles, most prominently in China and Korea. When Soviet-Indonesian party relations intensified in 1951, the Chinese CP took on the intermediary role from the CPN. In this way, the VKP(b) delegated some of the communication and, more often than not, simply reacted to impulses from Indonesia rather than introducing genuine initiatives of their own. [16]

The first postwar years constituted a difficult period for the PKI. The party was not visible as a decisive force in the independence movement against the Netherlands; the revolts against nationalists and the non-Communist sections of the armed forces in 1948 were untimely and unsuccessful. Hence, the party was in need of support to regain strength and to develop convincing ideas for the newly independent state. Advice from experienced comrades in the USSR and China was therefore much in demand since the late 1940s.

The Chinese used their role as intermediaries in order to confer their own analysis of the Indonesian situation and to give advice on the basis of their own recent experience. In his telegram to the CC of the VKP(b), Liu Shaoqi of the CC of the CP of China left no doubt that he believed in a Communist take-over in Indonesia in the long-run. [17] He drew parallels between the Indonesian and the Chinese cases. So he opted for a strategic Communist union with bourgeois forces and for a revolutionary movement that would start to agitate in the countryside, gradually encircling the cities.

Stalin, who marked most of the documents with his comments, not only tolerated the Chinese analysis, but even requested more information on the general state of affairs in Indonesia. [18] He fully relied on Beijing’s assessments, on which he based a considerable part of his guidelines for the PKI. [19] The VKP(b) followed the Chinese suggestion of a united front of Communists and bourgeois forces with the aim of eliminating foreign and especially Dutch economic influence in the archipelago. Concerning the Chinese example, the VKP(b) did not see any chance for the PKI to imitate the Chinese “long march” because the landscape of the archipelago was not suitable for such actions. They also modified the strategy of concentrating activities in the countryside in favor of combined efforts in rural areas and towns. The VKP(b) criticized the PKI for having been too ambitious and therefore thrown away the possibility to gain real influence step by step. Instead of applying a gradual tactic – thus ran the argument – the PKI had tried to deal with all problems at once: with foreign imperialist influence as well as with the bourgeois government.

Stalin’s recommendations reached the PKI too late to influence the 1951 party program, as it turned out later. [20] This was partly due also to a change in the PKI’s leadership, so that his suggestions were taken up only more than a year later. Here again, the Chinese leaders were better informed about events in Indonesia than the Soviets and explained to Stalin why he had not received any reply from the PKI.

The new PKI leadership under Secretary General Dipa Nusantara Aidit was the most influential (and durable) incarnation of the party since 1945. They formed the party’s policy during a period when it was in the prime of its significance and influence. The PKI gained influence in parliament and government and became a party of the masses with an alleged membership of two million and 20 million followers in its mass organizations, lasted until 1965.

In their letter of reply to their Chinese comrades, the CC of the PKI rejected some of the VKP(b)’s conclusions. [21] They stressed the importance of fighting against domestic bourgeois as well as foreign imperialist influences and even extended the radius of action to a new field by annexing West New Guinea, which was still held by the Netherlands, as part of Indonesia. They admitted, though, that these goals were not to be achieved simultaneously. The earlier, over-ambitious aims, they said, had been due to a lack of supply of Marxist-Leninist material, whereas now PKI was familiar with the classics, including Mao’s works. These remarks indicate that the PKI was influenced not only by the practical suggestions from Beijing, but also by Maoist theory. This tendency, one could argue, had been intensified by Soviet willingness to rely on Chinese expertise. Nevertheless, the VKP(b) was partly aware of the problem that it risked losing its leading position in the Communist world movement to the Chinese. This might have been the reason why Moscow decided not to fall in with the PKI’s plan of a trilateral Sino-Soviet-Indonesian conference. [22]

The relative Soviet ignorance of Indonesian economic conditions provoked a rejection by the PKI of the Soviet call to struggle against the well-to-do landowners because, unlike in revolutionary Russia, in China, or in India, there were hardly any such landowners in Indonesia. The Soviet misinterpretation of the situation reveals that Moscow had no deeper insight into the overall situation in the archipelago – a premise that provoked false comparisons and conclusions with regard to future strategies and tactics. In contrast to their criticism of some major aspects, the PKI was ready to follow Soviet advice in other fields, such as the suggestion to combine armed revolution in the countryside with activities in the cities.

As a reaction to the reply from the PKI’s secretary general, Stalin felt free to criticize the somewhat elaborate ideas concerning the RI’s future economic and social development, despite the lack of detailed information on the Indonesian state of affairs. It is not likely that the PKI ever received notice of Stalin’s desk copy and thus fortunately remained ignorant of the harsh and patronizing tone of his disapproval. Stalin’s condescending manner eventually caused frictions, not least with Mao himself when he visited the Soviet Union in 1949/50. [23]

Stalin’s disapproval was mainly provoked by two aspects: He criticized those of the Indonesian suggestions, first, that referred to circumstances he did not understand because he was not sufficiently informed, and second, those that he regarded as being too unspecific. Aidit’s formula for fighting corruption and oppression was an example of the latter and was consequently condemned as a “phrase!” by Stalin, [24] just as was Aidit’s demand that the land should be owned by those who cultivate it. Where Aidit called for a withdrawal of foreign troops, he left Stalin at first wondering if there were any left in Indonesia, then reacting more scornfully (“Haha!”). The Soviet leader did not understand that this was – among other things – an indirect reference to the question of West New Guinea.

Despite the discrepancies between the Soviet and Indonesian perceptions and interpretations of the situation in Indonesia, the PKI continued to seek advice from Moscow. The PKI secretary general took up some of Stalin’s suggestions and theoretical assessments and used them for his own reflections on the future of Indonesia. Such ideas can be traced in Aidit’s leaflet on the history of the PKI, which was published in 1955, although he did not explicitly mention Stalin in this context. [25]

The indirect party contacts were followed by direct ones. The first opportunity for a direct meeting was the 19th CPSU congress in 1952, the first one since 1939. As a rule, the CPSU congresses attracted Communists from all over the world. This was a platform where the participants could gather first-hand experiences of the state of affairs in the first Communist country, meet the Soviet party elite, and exchange opinions and experiences. The 19th congress was interesting for another reason as well: It was here that the CPSU officially changed the line it had adopted in 1947, according to which co-operation between Communist and nationalist forces in favor of a more conciliatory policy was excluded. This was what Stalin had already expressed in his letters to Aidit in 1951/52, and the new principle was an important signal also for the Communists from colonies and newly independent countries. The PKI had sent two representatives who were to establish direct contacts with the CPSU: Asmu and Iskandar Subekti. In their report before the CC of the CPSU, they gave an overview of the situation in Indonesia, so that for the first time in many years, the Soviets received first-hand information on this topic. [26] They also pointed out that the PKI had already translated into action the VKP(b)’s suggestions made in the letter of 1951. Now, according to Asmu and Subekti, the PKI was hoping for more impulses in view of the upcoming PKI congress in 1953.

The two PKI activists were joined by Aidit and Njoto of the inner party circle in December 1952. All four PKI representatives had a meeting with Stalin on 6 January 1953, [27] a fact that long remained unknown. [28] Since the summit took place just two months before Stalin’s death, in hindsight it was a unique chance to relate to him personally the matters of the Indonesian Communist party and to receive direct guidance from him. The meeting contributed to a general understanding between the parties and helped to smooth out disagreements concerning the future tasks and strategies of the PKI. It also prompted further direct correspondence between the general secretaries. They reached agreement on matters of agricultural policy and co-operation with nationalists. Stalin approved of the PKI’s plans for a two-step agrarian reform, according to which peasants should first receive land as their private property, whereas the nationalization of land should be postponed. This procedure should also help to convince peasants of the PKI’s policy in general. As Indonesia was a predominantly agrarian country, the success of Communist policy vitally depended on the peasants’ support. Stalin also seized the opportunity to correct a misunderstanding relating to possible coalitions. He did not, as Aidit put it, opt for an alternative of an alliance with either workers and peasants or other parties. Consequently, Stalin marked the respective part of the document with the comment “I haven’t said that”. Aidit once again suggested a meeting between Soviet, Chinese, and Indonesian CP officials, but due to Stalin’s death on 5 March, and probably also for reasons named above, these plans were not realized. A further bilateral party meeting was also planned, [29] but it was never held.

Thus, at the end of his life, Stalin personally conveyed his views to the new PKI leadership who were to form party policy for the next 15 years. During the early period, he had repeatedly criticized the PKI for its “left-wing deviation”, and not only after the failed coups in 1926 and 1948. Now he saw the chance to warn the new PKI leadership of repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.

The documents commented on here show how the Soviet-Indonesian relations developed at the party level. During the period of little direct contact in the immediate postwar years, the two countries stayed in touch through intermediaries from the CPN, PKI members in Czechoslovakia and India, and finally and very intensely, intermediaries from the CP of China. As some of the new PKI generation had received training not in the USSR like the first generation, but in China and Vietnam, [30] this seemed only natural, especially after 1949. As soon as the new PKI leadership was established and the CPSU congress provided the opportunity for a meeting, PKI representatives re-established direct contact with the CPSU. This was important as a counter-balance to the Chinese influence in theory and practice. It could not, however, prevent the growing drift of the PKI and of Indonesian President Sukarno towards China in the 1960s. From Aidit’s later remarks, it becomes clear that the immediate contact with Stalin even increased the PKI’s disagreement with key ideas of the Khrushchev era. [31] Among the clearly unpopular measures was Nikita Khrushchev’s open criticism of Stalin, whom Aidit had addressed in his letter as “great teacher and leader of mankind”.

Stalin himself had changed his tone when addressing the PKI from a patronizing disposition to a milder attitude. He did not live to see the establishment of diplomatic relations. It would be wrong, however, to interpret his death as a precondition for the establishment of relations at the state level. The delay was rather due to Indonesian domestic instability. In mid-1953, at first the parliament and then the Sastroamidjoyo government advocated the opening of an Indonesian representation in Moscow. Indonesian Foreign Minister Sunario in particular approached his Soviet colleague Molotov on repeated occasions and stressed the firm intention of the RI to open an embassy in Moscow as soon as possible. [32] After Molotov had communicated to Sunario the USSR’s consent two weeks later, the exchange of diplomats finally took place in 1954.

Conclusion

Soviet-Indonesian relations during the late Stalin period were impeded by the instability of conditions in Indonesia and on the international stage, as well as by the absence of Soviet strategy as to how to deal with independence movements in general and with Communist parties in colonies in particular. However, both subjects were interconnected. The question of how, when, and under which circumstances to establish diplomatic relations with Indonesia caused some uncertainty and disagreement among Soviet foreign policy experts. This was not least due to the changing attitudes of the Indonesian governments and the relations between Indonesian nationalists and Communists. While bilateral relations at the state level to some extent stagnated from 1950 to 1953, those between the VKP(b) and the PKI intensified instead. The CPN lost its intermediary function to the CP of China during this time, and the latter was replaced again by direct connections. All those relations had a certain impact on PKI policy formation. The direct influence of Stalin’s recommendations, but also the impact of the Chinese CP can be traced in PKI theory and practice. It was characteristic of the PKI, though, that it tried to remain independent of excessive influence from outside and to pursue its own path of development, which came to be known abroad as “Communism à la Aidit”.

Thus, the period examined here laid the foundations for future Soviet-Indonesian relations on both levels. It paved the way for the most active phase of bilateral contact during the Khrushchev-Sukarno-Aidit period, when the PKI became the third-largest CP world-wide (after the CPSU and the CP of China) and Indonesia became the USSR’s second-most favored recipient of economic and military aid among the developing countries. [33]

[1] The IISG in Amsterdam holds collections on the PKI, including material of CPN-PKI relations and interviews with PKI members. Documents from other Communist parties concerning Soviet-Indonesian party relations are also partially available, e.g., from the East German SED in the SAPMO-BArch archive and in Romania. For Romania, see the PHP documents at: http://www.php.ethz.ch/collections; for the SED, see: Ragna Boden, “Moscow and the ‘Gestapu’ events of 1965 in Indonesia – New evidence from Russian and German archives,” in: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 163 (2007): 507–28.

[2] All-Soviet Communist Party (bol’shevik). The party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1952.

[3] Unfortunately, and in contrast to the party material, no permission was given to publish the documents from the AVP RF.

[4] For examples of such appeals, see: Osman Raliby, ed., Documenta Historica. Sedjarah Dokumenter dari pertumbuhan dan perdjuangan negara Republik Indonesia (Djakarta 1953), 91.

[5] Soetan Sjahrir to the Soviet delegates at the international Asian conference in New Delhi in 1947, cited by Prichodov, head of the Southeast Asia department of the Foreign Ministry: Prichodov to the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Ya. Malik, 24 May 1947, AVP RF, F. 091/Op. 1/Pap. 1/D. 1/Ll. 6-8, here l. 7; Kozyrev to Vyšinskij, 15 May 1947, AVP RF, F. 091/Op. 1/Pap. 1/D. 1/Ll. 2–5, at l. 5.

[6] On the details of inter-state relations, see my Die Grenzen der Weltmacht: Sowjetische Indonesienpolitik von Stalin bis Brežnev (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006), ch. I.2; Efimova, Larisa Michajlovna, “Towards the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the Republic of Indonesia, 1947–48,” in: Indonesia and the Malay World, vol. 26, no. 76 (1998): 184–94; id., “New evidence on the establishment of Soviet-Indonesian diplomatic relations (1949–53),” in: Indonesia and the Malay World, vol. 29, no. 85 (2001): 215–34; Marc Frey, “The Indonesian Revolution and the Fall of the Dutch Empire. Actors, Factors, and Strategies,” in: id./Ronald W. Pruessen/Tan Tai Yong, eds., The Transformation of Southeast Asia: International Perspectives on Decolonization (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2003), 83–104; Bilveer Singh, Bear and Garuda. Soviet-Indonesian Relations from Lenin to Gorbachev (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1994), ch. 2 (Soviet-Indonesian relations under Stalin).

[7] Prichodov to Ya. Malik, 24 May 1947, AVP RF, F. 091/Op. 1/Pap. 1/D. 1/Ll. 6-8.

[8] “Ustanovlenie konsul’skikh otnoshenii mezhdu Sovetskim Soyuzom i Indoneziiskoi Respubliki”, in: Pravda, 26 May 1948, 2.

[9] Ya. Viktorov: “Ustanovlenie konsul’skikh otnoshenii mezhdu SSSR i Indoneziiskoi respublikoi”, in: Pravda, 8 June 1948, 4.

[10] George McTurnan Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970), 336-339. For Hatta’s offices, see: Susan Finch/Daniel S. Lev, Republic of Indonesia Cabinets, 1945–1965 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965), 14.

[11] For Soviet protest at the UN, see: Vneshniaia Politika Sovetskogo Soiuza. Dokumenty i materialy 1948, vol. 1, 294–304, 312–15; for the criticism of Sukarno, see Pravda, 4 September 1949, 4.

[12] For the Sino-Soviet talks, see: “Talks with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, 1949–53,” with commentaries by Chen Jian, Vojtech Mastny, Odd Arne Westad, and Vladislav Zubok, in: CWIHP Bulletin 6–7 (1995/96); Odd Arne Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms. The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2000), Supplements IV–VIII, 314–29. Efimova, “New evidence”, 226 also suggests that the topic of Indonesia was included in the talks.

[13] See the collection of articles in: AVP RF, F. 091/Op. 6/Pap. 3/D. 3/ Ll. 9–11.

[14] See the articles in: Pravda, 22 September 1948, 4 and 25 September 1948, 4: “Sobytija v Indonezii”. See also: L. Efimova, Stalin i Indonezija. Politika SSR v otnoshenii Indonezii v 1945–1953 godach: neizvestnye stranicy. Monografiia (Moscow: Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi institut mezhdunavodnykh otnoshenii, 2004), ch. 3.

[15] RGASPI, F. 17/Op. 137/D. 149, Ll. 51, 54, 63–156.

[16] Boden, Grenzen, 81.

[17] Liu Shao-qi’s telegram to Roshchin; Roshchin’s telegram to Stalin (Filippov), 10 and 11 October 1950 respectively, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 313, Ll. 2–12.

[18] Stalin (Filippov) to Liu Shao-qi, 25 October 1950, RGASPI, F. 558/ Op. 11/D. 313/ Ll. 13–14.

[19] CC VKP(b) to the Indonesian comrades, dated by hand January 1951, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 313/ Ll. 45–50.

[20] Aidit’s letter to Stalin, 13 January 1953, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 316/Ll. 2–6.

[21] CC of the PKI to the CC of the CP China, 20 March 1952, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 314/Ll. 1–3, at l. 1.

[22] Report on the documents concerning the question of the PKI, [November/December 1952], RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 315/Ll. 16–18, at l. 16.

[23] Odd Arne Westad, “Introduction,” in: id., Brothers, 1–46, at 31.

[24] “Doklad o polozhenii v kommunisticheskoj Partii Indonezii”, PKI to CC CPSU, 25 October 1952, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 314/Ll. 7–35, at l. 34.

[25] D.N. Aidit, The history of the Communist Party of Indonesia (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1955).

[26] The delegates of the PKI, Asmu and Iskandar Subekti, to the members of the CC of the CPSU, 25 October 1952, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 314/Ll. 5–6, at l. 6.

[27] The meeting is referred to in the following correspondence: Aidit’s letter to Stalin, 13 January 1953; Stalin’s letter to Aidit, 16 February 1953, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 316/Ll. 2–6, 8–13.

[28] Rex Mortimer, Indonesian Communism under Sukarno. Ideology and Politics, 1959–1965 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), 332, states that Aidit visited the USSR only after Stalin’s death; there is no hint of any personal encounter either in Arnold Brackman, Indonesian Communism. A History (New York: Praeger, 1963), 181; Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press: 1965), 370.

[29] Stalin’s letter to Aidit, 16 February 1953, RGASPI, F. 558/Op. 11/D. 316/Ll. 8–13, at l. 8.

[30] Françoise Cayrac-Blanchard, La Parti Communiste Indonésien (Paris: Colin, 1973), 189.

[31] See Boden, Grenzen, ch. II.7.

[32] Molotov to the presidium of the CC [December 1953], AVP RF, F. 091/Op. 9/Pap. 6/D. 1, l. 9; Sunario to Molotov, 30 November 1953, AVP RF, F. 091/Op. 9/Pap. 6/D. 1/Ll. 13.

[33] For the matter of economic aid, see my “Cold War Economics: Soviet Aid to Indonesia,” in: Journal of Cold War Studies 10 (2008): 110–28.