Overview

This edited volume highlights the work of a new generation of scholars who have reignited the study of the Indonesian left, and the PKI in particular, across continents and disciplines. It reinterprets the Indonesian left and its associated organisations not simply as a local and national phenomenon but as a force of global relevance. Historiographically, the history of the left has always been constructed in conversation and contestation with, on the one hand, the colonial and postcolonial state and, on the other, the communist epicentres of Moscow and Beijing. Moving beyond party-centered narratives, the chapters in this volume demonstrate how diverse global networks and ideologies were translated and transformed within very local and situationally-specific environments. In doing so, they foreground the contributions of people and organizations often relegated to the margins of the PKI, illuminating the Indonesian left as a dynamic site of transnational and local interaction. 

Full Product Details

Author:   Lin Hongxuan ,  Klaas Stutje ,  Rianne Subijanto
Publisher:   Leiden University Press
Imprint:   Leiden University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.40cm
ISBN:  

9789087284398

ISBN 10:   908728439
Pages:   310
Publication Date:   15 April 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents 1. Introduction: Restaging PKI within the broader Indonesian left - Lin Hongxuan, Klaas Stutje, and Rianne Subijanto 2. Saminism and the spectre of anarchism in the Netherlands East Indies, 1906–1926 - Klaas Stutje 3. Women in Motion: How Perempoean Kromo Transformed the Red Movement in 1920s - Rianne Subijanto 4. Merantau in Solitude: Tan Malaka's Exile in China, 1927–1936 - Kankan Xie 5. Indonesian Marxism outside the PKI: The Political Evolution of Roestam Effendi - Lin Hongxuan 6. Socialist Culture and Transnational Anti-Imperialist Solidarity: Lekra Activism in the Afro-Asian Writers' Movement - Wildan Sena Utama 7. Explaining the PKI's Dark Defeat of 1965-66 - John Roosa 8. Dutch views of the rise and destruction of the PKI - Alex de Jong 9. Researching the history of Gerwani under New Order restrictions - Saskia E. Wieringa 10. Archival Custody and Hidden Narratives: Problems of Activating the Indonesian Left Archives in the Netherlands - Rika Theo About the Contributors Index

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Author Information

Lin Hongxuan is an assistant professor with the department of Southeast Asian studies, National University of Singapore. His first monograph, Ummah Yet Proletariat: Islam, Marxism, and the Making of the Indonesian Republic was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.  Klaas Stutje is senior researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam. He moves between the fields of cultural history, with a focus on colonial museum collections and issues of restitution, and Indonesian political history of anticolonial nationalism, communism and anarchism. Rianne Subijanto is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Baruch College, The City University of New York. She is the author of Communication against Capital: Red Enlightenment at the Dawn of Indonesia (Cornell University Press, 2025). 

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