“Heirs to What Had Been Accomplished”: D. N. Aidit, the PKI, and Maoism, 1950–1965

Abstract Why did the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) pursue a nonviolent, collaborative, and parliamentary path to power? How did it secure major electoral successes? The answers to both queries have much to do with the PKI's adaptation of Maoism. Although scholars recognize that Maoism was influential on PKI theory and praxis, they have hitherto underevaluated the extent to which PKI leaders, notably Dipa Nusantara Aidit and Muhammad Hatta Lukman, engaged with Mao's ideas and how such ideas informed policy. Through textual exegesis of PKI leaders’ writings and speeches, our article argues that the PKI's “Indonesianization” of Marxism–Leninism drew from several Maoist texts, but differed in its composition in a number of important ways. “Indonesianization” entailed cross-class alliances, the political agency of the peasantry, willingness to cooperate with parties across the political spectrum, and, most innovatively, a nonviolent agenda. The PKI also demonstrated an adaptive willingness to learn from all, while remaining beholden to none. Our goal is to show how PKI leaders spoke back in their dialectical engagement with Maoism, as Maoism, for them, did not constitute a static, orthodox, or monolithic “thing.” Instead, Maoism was for Aidit and Lukman an ideological system within which lay an ideological discourse, critical interpretive paradigm, historical revolutionary experience, military strategy, and blueprint to socialist development against which to juxtapose their ideas and grand visions.