Sukarno's Guided Democracy 1957 to 1965, including the abandonment of parliamentary democracy, the role of NASAKOM (Nationalism, Religion, Communism), the West Irian campaign, and the deepening economic crisis

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain why Sukarno abandoned parliamentary democracy in 1957 to 1959, how NASAKOM balanced army and PKI within the new authoritarian framework, how the West Irian campaign and Konfrontasi expressed Sukarno's foreign policy, and how the economic crisis of 1965 brought the system to collapse.

The answer

The failure of parliamentary democracy

The 1950 to 1957 period produced seven cabinets and no stable majority. The 1955 elections, the only free elections of Sukarno's rule, returned four roughly equal parties: PNI (22 per cent), Masjumi (21 per cent), NU (19 per cent), and PKI (16 per cent). The Constituent Assembly elected in December 1955 deadlocked over Pancasila versus an Islamic state.

Sukarno made his "I have a dream" speech on 28 October 1956 setting out the principles of Guided Democracy ("Demokrasi Terpimpin"). He proposed a "kabinet kaki empat" (a four-legged cabinet) of PNI, Masjumi, NU and PKI. The Masjumi refused to sit with the PKI. The military, increasingly impatient with civilian politics, supported a stronger presidency.

The PRRI-Permesta revolts, 1958 to 1961

Regional resentments at Javanese dominance and at Sukarno's leftward tilt produced an open revolt. On 15 February 1958 dissident colonels in Sumatra (PRRI) and Sulawesi (Permesta), supported by Masjumi politicians including Sjafruddin Prawiranegara and Mohammad Natsir, proclaimed a "Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia." The United States CIA covertly supplied B-26 bombers and arms.

The TNI under General Nasution responded with combined-arms operations. Padang fell on 17 April 1958; Manado fell on 26 June 1958. The shooting down of CIA pilot Allen Pope over Ambon on 18 May 1958 exposed American involvement and embarrassed Washington. By 1961 the revolt had been crushed.

The political effect was decisive. The army emerged from the campaign as the dominant institution and as Sukarno's indispensable partner. The Masjumi was banned in 1960. The Outer Islands' political weight collapsed.

The decree of 5 July 1959

Sukarno dissolved the Constituent Assembly by decree on 5 July 1959 and restored the 1945 Constitution by presidential decree. The decree was endorsed by the army. The cabinet reported to the President, not parliament. The DPR (parliament) was reconstituted as a DPR-GR with appointed members; Sukarno's Manifesto Politik (MANIPOL, 17 August 1959) became the official state ideology.

USDEK (UUD 1945, Indonesian Socialism, Guided Democracy, Guided Economy, Indonesian Personality) was the slogan summary. The political vocabulary of the period became a propaganda system, with continuous mass campaigns of indoctrination.

NASAKOM

Sukarno's formula for political balance was NASAKOM: Nasionalisme (PNI), Agama (Religion, principally the Islamic NU), and Komunisme (PKI). The army was the unstated fourth pillar.

The PKI under D.N. Aidit grew explosively. From around 165,000 members in 1954 it reached around 3 million members by 1965, with another 17 to 20 million in affiliated organisations: SOBSI (trade unions), BTI (peasant farmers), Gerwani (women), Pemuda Rakyat (youth). It was the largest non-ruling Communist party in the world.

The army saw the PKI growth as a threat to be contained. Generals Nasution, Yani, and Suharto (who emerged as a regional commander in Central Java and East Indonesia) built up the army's own mass organisations and economic interests. The army took over the Dutch enterprises nationalised in 1957 and ran them as patronage networks.

West Irian, 1961 to 1963

The Round Table Conference of 1949 had deferred West New Guinea's status; Dutch retention had become a permanent grievance. Sukarno announced the Tri Komando Rakyat (Trikora, "Three Peoples' Commands") on 19 December 1961: defeat the creation of a Dutch puppet state, raise the Indonesian flag in West Irian, and prepare for general mobilisation.

The Soviet Union supplied around $1 billion in arms including Tu-16 bombers, MiG-21 fighters, and the cruiser Sverdlov. Indonesian paratroops landed in West Irian in 1962. The Vlakke Hoek naval engagement (15 January 1962) cost the Indonesian Navy a torpedo boat and the life of Commodore Yos Sudarso.

US President Kennedy, anxious to keep Indonesia out of the Soviet orbit, pressed the Dutch to negotiate. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker brokered the New York Agreement (15 August 1962). The Dutch transferred West Irian to UN administration (UNTEA) in October 1962 and to Indonesia on 1 May 1963. The Act of Free Choice (Pepera, July to August 1969) confirmed annexation by a stage-managed selection of 1,025 elders.

Konfrontasi

The British plan to combine Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore with Malaya in a federation of Malaysia (September 1963) was treated by Sukarno as "neo-colonial encirclement." The Ganyang Malaysia (Crush Malaysia) campaign ran from 1963 to 1966. Indonesian special forces and volunteers infiltrated Borneo; small raids reached the Malayan peninsula. Australia, Britain and New Zealand deployed forces in defence of Malaysia.

Konfrontasi drained the budget. Combined with the West Irian campaign, defence absorbed up to 75 per cent of state expenditure in some years.

The economic crisis

The price was paid in the rupiah. Inflation reached 27 per cent in 1961, 100 per cent in 1962, 130 per cent in 1963, 600 per cent in 1965. Foreign reserves collapsed. Foreign-owned enterprises (Dutch in 1957, British in 1963, US in 1965) were nationalised; many were captured by army officers as patronage assets.

Sukarno withdrew Indonesia from the United Nations on 7 January 1965 in protest at Malaysia's election to the Security Council. His "Tahun Vivere Pericoloso" speech (17 August 1964, "Year of Living Dangerously") signalled a more radical leftward turn. The PKI demanded a "fifth force" of armed workers and peasants alongside the four military services, alarming the army.

Timeline

Historiography

M.C. Ricklefs (A History of Modern Indonesia) treats Guided Democracy as Sukarno's failed attempt to substitute personal charisma and balance for the institutions parliamentary democracy had not delivered.

Harold Crouch (The Army and Politics in Indonesia, 1978) is the canonical account of the army's expanding political and economic role under Guided Democracy.

Adrian Vickers (A History of Modern Indonesia, 2013) stresses the rural radicalism produced by PKI land-reform campaigns ("aksi sepihak," unilateral actions) in 1964 to 1965, which sharpened the polarisation behind the September 1965 violence.

Daniel Lev (The Transition to Guided Democracy, 1966) is the contemporary American account that emphasises the parliamentary deadlock and the role of the army.

How to read a source on this topic

First, distinguish Sukarno's rhetoric from the system's substance. MANIPOL-USDEK is propaganda. The substance is who appoints officers, who runs the nationalised enterprises, and who eats. The army does.

Second, weigh the PKI's growth against its weakness. Three million members made it the largest non-ruling Communist party in the world, but it had no armed wing, no provincial governments, and no army officers. It had Sukarno; when Sukarno fell, it had nothing.

Third, read the inflation numbers. Hyperinflation does not just impoverish the population; it transfers wealth to those (the army, in this case) who control physical assets and currency-denominated debts. By 1965 the army owned the economy.

Common exam traps

Treating Guided Democracy as a coherent ideology. It is a slogan system masking a balance-of-forces arrangement. The substance is the army-PKI-Sukarno triangle, not the speeches.

Forgetting the PRRI-Permesta revolts. These (1958 to 1961) made the army indispensable to the central state and discredited the Masjumi.

Confusing the Trikora and Dwikora speeches. Trikora (19 December 1961) launched the West Irian campaign. Dwikora (3 May 1964) launched the escalation of Konfrontasi.

Misdating the West Irian transfer. Administrative transfer was 1 May 1963; the Act of Free Choice was 1969.

In one sentence

Sukarno's Guided Democracy of 1957 to 1965, born of parliamentary failure and regional revolt, framed by NASAKOM and MANIPOL-USDEK, sustained by the West Irian victory and the Konfrontasi mobilisation, drove Indonesia to 600 per cent inflation by 1965 and produced the army-PKI polarisation that the 30 September coup attempt would resolve violently.