The Minor Key: Indonesian Marxists Sojourning Abroad

Abstract

<jats:p xml:lang="en"> Abstract: The Communist Party of Indonesia has dominated scholarly attention to the historical phenomenon Indonesian Marxism. Scholars have generally neglected to study other currents of Indonesian Marxist thought and do not situate the transmission and evolution of Marxist ideas in a broader field of anticolonial discourse. This article contends that Indonesian Marxism was a broad discursive field—over which the PKI had no monopoly—and a rich intellectual tradition in its own right. This intellectual tradition was pollinated by sojourners who carried their hard-won knowledge back to Indonesia. This article traces the political evolution of three Indonesian Marxists, Semaoen, Darsono, and Iwa Koesoemasoemantri. It shows how their long sojourns abroad changed their political allegiances and visions for Indonesia, denying the PKI some of its most prestigious and recognizable leaders. By adapting the conceptual lens of sojourning, usually applied to the study of Indian and Chinese migrants to Southeast Asia, to the study of Indonesian Marxism, this article provides fresh perspectives through which the evolution of anticolonial activism can be better understood.</jats:p>