Amir Sjarifuddin - Front Demokrasi Rakyat and The Madiun Affair

Front Demokrasi Rakyat and The Madiun Affair

The "Left Wing" coalition renames itself the "People's Democratic Front" (Front Demokrasi Rakyat) and denounces the "Renville Agreement", which Amir's government had itself negotiated. In August 1947, Musso, the 1920s leader of the PKI, arrived in Yogyakarta from the Soviet Union. Amir and the leadership of the People’s Democratic Front immediately accept his authority, and Amir admitted membership of the underground PKI since 1935. Adhering to Musso's Stalinist thinking of a single party of the working class, the major leftist parties in the Front dissolve themselves into the PKI.

Following industrial action, demonstrations, and subsequent open warfare between PKI and pro-government forces in the Central Java city of Surakarta, on 18 September a group of PKI supporters took over strategic points in the Madiun area. They killed pro-government officers, and announced over radio the formation of a new "National Front" government. Caught off guard by the premature coup attempt, Musso, Amir and other PKI leaders travel to Madiun to take charge. The following day, about 200 pro-PKI and other leftist leaders remaining in Yogyakarta were arrested. Sukarno denounced the Madiun rebels over radio, and called upon Indonesians to rally to himself and Hatta rather than to Musso and his plans for a Soviet-style government. Musso replied on radio that he will fight to the finish, while, the People's Democratic Front in Banten and Sumatra announced they had nothing to do with the rebellion.

In the following weeks, pro-government forces, led by the Siliwangi Division, march on Madiun where there was an estimated 5,000-10,000 pro-PKI soldiers. As the rebels retreated they killed Masyumi and PNI leaders and officials, and in the villages killings took place along santri-abangan lines. On 30 September, the rebels abandoned Madiun town, and were pursued by pro-government troops through the countryside. Musso is killed on the 31 October trying to escape custody.

Amir and 300 rebel soldiers were captured by Siliwangi troops on 1 December. Some 35,000 people were later arrested. It is thought perhaps 8,000 people were killed in the affair. As part of a second major military offensive against the Republic, on 19 December Dutch troops occupied Yogyakarta city and the Republican government was captured, including Sukarno, Hatta, Agus Salim, and Sjahrir. Republican forces withdraw to the countryside beginning full-scale guerrilla war on either side of the van Mook line. Rather than risk their release, the army killed Amir and fifty other leftist prisoners as it withdrew from Yogyakarta that evening.