Indonesian Communist Party

The Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) was an Indonesian political party founded in 1920. It became one of the world’s largest communist parties outside the ruling bloc before being destroyed after the 1965 political crisis.

Social Democratic Association of the Indies: A socialist organization founded in the Dutch East Indies in 1914 by Dutch radicals and Indonesian associates. It was the colonial-era organization from which the PKI emerged.
Nasakom: Sukarno’s political concept combining nationalism, religion, and communism within Indonesian public life. The PKI used this framework to claim a place in Sukarno’s political order.
Sukarno: The principal leader of Indonesia’s independence movement and the country’s first president. His accommodation of the PKI enabled its growth while keeping it dependent on presidential support.
Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966: A wave of mass killings in Indonesia after the 30 September Movement, targeting people accused of communist affiliation. The killings accompanied the destruction of the PKI and its social networks.
Henk Sneevliet: A Dutch socialist who helped establish the Social Democratic Association of the Indies and organize labor in the Dutch East Indies. His organizing helped introduce Marxist politics into the PKI’s early milieu.
Guided Democracy: The Indonesian political system under Sukarno from 1959 to 1965, marked by centralized authority and managed political competition. The party expanded within a system that depended on Sukarno’s balancing of political forces.
Suharto: An Indonesian army officer who took power after the 1965 crisis and ruled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. His rise brought the campaign that dismantled the PKI and its affiliated organizations.
30 September Movement: A 1965 Indonesian movement whose attempted seizure of power and killings of army generals triggered a political crisis. The PKI was blamed for the movement, a charge that became the basis for its suppression.
Indonesian National Revolution: The armed and diplomatic struggle from 1945 to 1949 that secured Indonesian independence from the Netherlands. Independence transformed the political setting in which the PKI rebuilt after repression.
Indonesian legislative election, 1955: Indonesia’s first national legislative election, held in September 1955. The PKI’s strong fourth-place result demonstrated its growing electoral reach.

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