The New Order

The New Order
[edit] Transition to the New Order
Main article: Transition to the New Order
See also: 30 September Movement and Indonesian killings of 1965–1966
Described as the great dalang ("puppet master"), Sukarno's position depended on balancing the opposing and increasingly hostile forces of the army and PKI. Sukarno's anti-imperial ideology saw Indonesia increasingly dependent on Soviet and then communist China. By 1965, the PKI was the largest communist party in the world outside the Soviet Union or China. Penetrating all levels of government, the party increasingly gained influence at the expense of the army.

On September 30, 1965, six of the most senior generals within the military and other officers were executed in an attempted coup. The insurgents, known later as the 30 September Movement, backed a rival faction of the army and took up positions in the capital, later seizing control of the national radio station. They claimed they were acting against a plot organised by the generals to overthrow Sukarno. Within a few hours, Major General Suharto, commander of the Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad), mobilised counteraction, and by the evening of 1 October, it was clear the coup, which had little coordination and was largely limited to Jakarta, had failed. Complicated and partisan theories continue to this day over the identity of the attempted coup's organisers and their aims. According to the Indonesian army, the PKI were behind the coup and used disgruntled army officers to carry it out, and this became the official account of Suharto's subsequent New Order administration. Most historians agree that the coup and the surrounding events were not led by a single mastermind controlling all events, and that the full truth will never likely be known.

While the PKI's role in the events of the night of 30 September-1 October remains debated, the effects on it were devastating. The PKI was blamed for the coup, and anti-communists, initially following the army's lead, and encouraged by Western embassies,[31] went on a violent anti-communist purge across much of the country. The PKI was effectively destroyed,[32] and the most widely accepted estimates are that between 500,000 and one million people were killed.[33] The violence was especially brutal in Java and Bali. The PKI was outlawed and possibly more than 1 million of its leaders and affiliates were imprisoned.[34]

Throughout the 1965-66 period, President Sukarno attempted to restore his political position and shift the country back to its pre-October 1965 position but his Guided Democracy balancing act was destroyed with the PKI’s destruction. Although he remained president, the weakened Sukarno was forced to transfer key political and military powers to General Suharto, who by that time had become head of the armed forces. In March 1967, the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) named General Suharto acting president. Suharto was formally appointed president in March 1968. Sukarno lived under virtual house arrest until his death in 1970.