Sukarno (Islamic Studies)

Introduction

Sukarno (1901–1970) was the defining political leader of 20th-century Indonesia. He was a leading figure of the anti-colonial and nationalist movement after 1927 and, after proclaiming the independence of Indonesia, the face of the Indonesian Revolution (1945–1949). From 1945 until 1967 he was the first president of the Indonesian Republic, the symbol of Indonesian independence, both inside and outside the country. He rose to prominence in the late 1920s, giving shape to a secular nationalist movement that strove for merdeka, complete freedom, from Dutch colonialism. He emphasized Indonesian anti-imperialism, political unity, revolutionary action, and social justice for the poor. He grew up in the Javanese Islamic tradition although there is no evidence he was a devout Muslim; he nonetheless used Islamic symbols and terminology when it suited him politically. During his entire political career, his political charisma, displayed most prominently through his oratory, sought to create a unified and revolutionary nationalist society. He consistently emphasized the unique nature and qualities of Indonesian revolutionary nationalism even as he acknowledged the influence of European leftists. The path toward Indonesian freedom and prosperity that he envisioned in the early 1930s continued to animate his political actions and writings even as they developed in new directions in response to his lengthy internal exile in the 1930s, the Japanese occupation, and the Indonesian Revolution. He was at the center of the Proclamation of Independence on 17 August 1945, and served as president throughout the revolution and into the national period. After the Indonesian Revolution began, and continuing into the 1950s, Sukarno’s power was eclipsed by others. In the late 1950s he cultivated new allies internally, and raised his stature internationally, staging a political comeback. After 1959 he governed as a dictator, and under the banner of Guided Democracy, he ruled by maintaining a tenuous balance between the mutually antagonistic army and Communist Party. He was caught off guard by the 1965 coup, and although he managed initially to remain in power, Suharto’s crushing of the coup leaders allowed the army to destroy the Communist Party and their leaders, and to dismantle the structures of Guided Democracy. By March of 1966 Suharto had largely sidelined Sukarno. He was formally removed as president in 1967. In the years after his death, Australian and US-based scholars published broadly about the life and works of Sukarno, although it was not until a decade after his death that Indonesians began to process his legacy.

General Overviews and Biographies

Sukarno, sometimes addressed as nationalist brother Bung Karno, shaped his own story in Sukarno 1965, and although it requires critical distance, it remains invaluable as the only autobiographical text. Dahm 1969, the first book-length study to examine the roots of Sukarno’s political career in the 1920s and 1930s using primary documents, remains indispensible. The best full-length biographies were written by Australian-based scholars shortly after Sukarno’s death: the most readable account is Penders 1974, while the best treatment of his entire political career is in Legge 1985. Hering 2002 provides an exhaustive and dense narrative of Sukarno’s political development, focusing on the influences of late colonial Dutch policies and other Indonesian nationalists and activists. Giebels 1999 and Giebels 2001, a two-volume biography in Dutch, is valuable for its inclusions of newer scholarship and Sukarno’s relationship with the Dutch. The original Indonesian-language biography (Nasution 1951), first published at the beginning of the revolution, is still important for stories and anecdotes about Sukarno’s childhood. Use Bung Karno to track down Indonesian-language writings not cited here.

Bung Karno: sebuah bibliografi memuat daftar karya oleh dan tentang Bung Karno. 4th ed. Jakarta, Indonesia: Haji Masagung, 1988.
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Bibliography of writings by and about Sukarno. Especially useful for tracking down less-well known writings and speeches of Sukarno, and for memoirs and other appraisals of Sukarno published in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s.
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Dahm, Bernard. Sukarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969.
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This translation from German remains the best guide to understanding the development of Sukarno’s vision for achieving freedom from imperial domination. Dahm’s analysis of Sukarno’s non-cooperation movement, the role of Javanese political culture in structuring his leadership, and the development Marhaenism—a variant of class-analysis fit to the Indonesian case—make up the scholarly consensus. Although the book-length study ends in 1945, Dahm argues that the ideologies and practices he developed before the revolution remained consistent during his subsequent presidency.
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Giebels, Lambert. Soekarno: Nerderlandsch onderdaan, Een Biografie 1901–1950. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1999.
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Sympathetic biography by Dutch politician turned historian. Relies on secondary literature for much of the book, especially for Sukarno’s life and writings prior to 1932. Giebels drew upon sources from the Dutch colonial archives that had been neglected by US and Australian scholars, perhaps the reason he choose the controversial title suggesting Sukarno was a Dutch subject or citizen. Original and useful synthesis of his writing and thinking during exile (1934–1942), in particular the place of religion in Indonesian nationalism.
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Giebels, Lambert. Soekarno: President, een biografie 1950–1970. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2001.
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Second volume by Giebels, which uses a biography of Sukarno as a lens to reflect on the first two decades of full Indonesian independence. Like the first volume (Giebels 1999), largely dependent upon secondary literature, with important doses of Dutch archival material and numerous interviews. More important than the first volume, because Giebels provides an original synthesis of the first twenty-five years of independent Indonesia, highlighting the importance of Sukarno’s leadership.
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Hering, Bob. Soekarno: Founding Father of Indonesia, 1901–1945. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV, 2002.
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Rather than proposing a new synthesis—there is neither introduction nor conclusion—Hering leaves no stone unturned following breadcrumbs left by other biographers. Hering’s goal is to probe deeply, using oral interviews, Dutch archival sources, and extensive analysis of Sukarno’s writings, in trying to answer questions raised by Sukarno’s autobiography, provide an exhaustive context for his politics, and at times wage battles of interpretation with other Sukarno scholars.
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Legge, John. Sukarno: A Political Biography. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1985.
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Legge’s revised edition of his 1972 biography is still the best scholarly effort to balance the strengths and weaknesses of Sukarno’s politics, especially after independence. The book is comprehensive in treating the entirety of Sukarno’s career, however it is most valuable for its effort to judge Sukarno’s legacy through careful examination of key moments in his political development: the late 1920s, the Japanese occupation, and the transition to Guided Democracy.
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Nasution, M. Y. Riwajat Ringkas Penghidupan dan Perdjuangan Ir. Sukarno. 7th ed. Jakarta: Aida, 1951.
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Original biography published shortly after the proclamation of independence in 1945, which until the 1970s was the main source about his family and childhood.
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Penders, C. L. M. The Life and Times of Sukarno. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1974.
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The most readable and accessible of the biographies, and the shortest. Largely based upon published sources, its strength is a discussion of Sukarno’s revolutionary leadership in the 1940s, including his contentious relationships with other nationalists, and his insightful discussion of what Penders calls Sukarnoist thinking. The book treats the last ten years of Sukarno’s political career as tragedy, highlighting his pettiness, his demagoguery, and his ultimate failure to create a unified and prosperous Indonesia.
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Sukarno. An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
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Invaluable autobiographical account by Sukarno. Although mediated by an American journalist, who spent almost a year interviewing the president, Sukarno’s voice predominates. Filled with a combination of anecdotes about childhood, first-person accounts of the dramatic political events he was part of, and modest score settling (especially with Sutan Sjahrir, the Indonesian socialist politician and nationalist leader during the revolution), it remains very readable. The core narrative ends in 1949, with the achievement of merdeka, although four concluding chapters cover material from independence.
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Speeches and Writings

Sukarno’s public writings and speeches are the main primary source for understanding his political development and career. Most of his well-known speeches and writing are available in excellent English translations with scholarly annotations and introductions, as seen in Sukarno 1960, Sukarno 1970, Sukarno 1975, and Sukarno 1978. Starting in the late 1950s, the Indonesian government published numerous collections of his writing and speeches, such as Sukarno 1961, Sukarno 1964, Sukarno 1965, and Sukarno 1966, including some in English translation. A useful collection of speeches about Guided Democracy is Sukarno 2001.

Sukarno. Marhaen and Proletarian. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1960.
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Translation of his July 1957 speech on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Indonesian Nationalist Party. It recapitulates the major elements of Sukarno’s political philosophy, and includes an explicit criticism of parliamentary democracy in Indonesia. As such it is one of speeches that foreshadowed and anticipated the establishment of Guided Democracy.
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Sukarno. Towards Freedom and the Dignity of Man. Jakarta, Indonesia: Department of Foreign Affairs, 1961.
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Includes five of his most famous and important speeches, including his Pancasila speech of 1945, his address to US Congress in 1956, his independence-day speech of 1959 explaining the ideology of Guided Democracy, his 1960 independence-day speech summarizing a year of progress, and his address to the United Nations in 1960. In this final speech he sought to establish himself as international leader of Asia and Africa, and proposed that the UN charter be changed to dilute the powers of the West.
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Sukarno. A Year of Living Dangerously: Address by the President of the Republic of Indonesia on 17th August 1964. Jakarta, Indonesia: Department of Information, 1964.
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Sukarno borrowed the title-phrase “Vivere Pericoloso” from Italian, perhaps thinking of Mussolini, for his 1964 Independence Day speech. Sukarno exhorted Indonesians to complete their revolution five years after the beginning of Guided Democracy, by struggling against enemies external and internal.
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Sukarno. Di Bawah Bendara Revolusi. Vol. 2. Jakarta, Indonesia: Publication Committee, 1965.
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Second volume covers his speeches, mostly, from the 1940s through the early 1960s. Includes most of his important independence-day addresses including those of 1961 and 1962.
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Sukarno. Under the Banner of Revolution. Jakarta, Indonesia: Publication Committee, 1966.
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First volume of collection of Sukarno’s essays, letters, and speeches, first published in 1963. Includes his most famous essays published at the end of the 1920s in Suluh Indonesia Muda, speeches associated with his leadership of PNI and Partindo, and letters and essay written while in exile on Flores in the 1930s, the period in which he thought and wrote most extensively and seriously about Islam.
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Sukarno. Nationalism, Islam, and Marxism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1970.
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Good translation of Sukarno’s essay from 1926 in the journal of the Bandung Study Club, which helped establish him as a leading nationalist advocating for unity among the different streams of Indonesian nationalism. Excellent introduction by Ruth McVey which ranges widely in discussing Sukarno’s ideological development.
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Sukarno. Indonesia Accuses! Soekarno’s Defence Oration in the Political Trial of 1930. Edited by Roger K. Paget. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
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Complete translation from Dutch of Sukarno’s most famous speech, his lengthy oral defense at his trial for disturbing the public order and treason against the state. This includes his carefully argued indictment of imperialism, which drew heavily upon European socialist thinkers, as well as his frank admission that the nationalist movement strove for independence and freedom. Includes good introduction and extensive annotations.
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Sukarno. Sukarno’s Mentjapai Indonesia Merdeka. Edited by B. B. Herring. Townsville, Australia: James Cook University, 1978.
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Complete translation, with introduction and annotation, of Sukarno’s Indonesian-language pamphlet “To achieve Indonesian freedom,” from 1933. This is the mature statement of his revolutionary politics, which introduces to Indonesian readers not only to the economic analysis of imperialism, but a discussion of Marhaenism, the struggle of the Indonesian proletariat farmer, and its future role in a mass movement against the Dutch. Publication of this pamphlet caused great alarm among the Dutch colonial officials, and led to his internal exile in Flores.
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Sukarno. Bung Karno, Demokrasi Terpimpin, Milik Rakyat Indonesia. Edited by Wawan Tunggul Alam. Jakarta, Indonesia: Gramedia, 2001.
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Collection of the key speeches from 1956, 1957, and 1959 outlining Sukarno’s developing thinking leading toward Guided Democracy in 1959 when he abolished the Constituent Assembly, which since elections in 1955 had been tasked with rewriting the provisional 1950 constitution but deadlocked on whether Pancasila or Islam was to be the basis of the state.
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Memoirs

In the absence of autobiographical material or personal letters, memoirs by political colleagues are invaluable. Sukarno was such a large force that some, such as Hanifah 1972 and Martowidjojo 1999, are about the relationship of the memoirist to Sukarno. Harsono 1977 and Malik 1980 are interesting for their insider accounts of Guided Democracy. Sjahrir 1949 is important for understanding the differences between Sukarno and Sjahrir’s allies. Jones 1971 is a sympathetic portrait of Sukarno by the long-term US ambassador to Indonesia. Adams 1967 is the companion to Sukarno’s autobiography.

Adams, Cindy. My Friend the Dictator. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967.
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Breezy memoir about her experience interviewing Sukarno in the lead-up to the 1965 coup, to be read in conjunction with the autobiography Sukarno 1965, cited under General Overviews and Biographies.
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Hanifah, Abu. Tales of a Revolution. Edited by C. L. M. Penders. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1972.
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Valuable memoir by Indonesian rival of Sukarno written in reaction to Sukarno’s autobiography. Much of the book is about Sukarno, and while critical at times Abu Hanifah acknowledges the large and complex role played by Sukarno in winning Indonesian freedom.
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Harsono, Ganis. Recollections of an Indonesian Diplomat in the Sukarno Era. Edited by C. L. M. Penders and B. B. Hering. St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1977.
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Memoir by one of Sukarno’s foreign policy insiders. Harsono, a generation younger than Sukarno, showed a talent for revolutionary PR during the revolution. After 1950 he quickly rose through the ranks of the Department of Foreign Affairs, including an important posting to the United States. He was a close advisor to Sukarno after 1955, serving to raise Sukarno’s global profile. Memoir includes quoted letters, documents, and press-releases, and has some contextualization by the editors.
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Jones, Howard P. Indonesia: The Possible Dream. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.
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Jones was US ambassador to Indonesia from 1958 until 1965, leaving just before the coup. Jones was close to Sukarno personally, and was only ever a mild critic of Sukarno’s politics. And the memoir is valuable for understanding the complex and sometimes contradictory US position toward Indonesia during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.
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Malik, Adam. In the Service of the Republic. Singapore: PT Gunung Agung, 1980.
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Memoir written by the nationalist who started as a radical, found favor in Sukarno’s Guided Democracy—including as the chief architect for late-Sukarnoist ideological formulations—and then made the transition to New Order. Written while Malik was vice president of Indonesia under Suharto, it nonetheless remains a valuable insider account to Sukarno’s Guided Democracy.
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Martowidjojo, H. Mangil. Kesaksian tentang Bung Karno, 1945–1967. Edited by Julius Pour. Jakarta, Indonesia: Gramedia Widiasarana, 1999.
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Memoir by the police colonel who had been the head of presidential security for most of the Sukarno presidency. One of the earliest Indonesian memoirs by a former associate, which did much to establish the genre, focusing on his private life, with political events, from the proclamation to the coup, as the backdrop.
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Sjahrir, Soetan. Out of Exile. Translated by Charles Wolf. New York: John Day, 1949.
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Translation of Dutch-language book based upon letters Sjahrir wrote in the 1930s while he was in internal exile, living far from Sukarno physically and intellectually. This English edition includes a short addendum written in 1947, a still useful narrative about the events leading up to the Indonesian proclamation of independence, which suggested that Sjahrir was the force of the revolution, with Sukarno serving as front-man.
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Early Nationalist Politics

Sukarno was initiated to nationalist activity while finishing high school, when he lived in the house of the Sarekat Islam leader Tjokrominoto, whose career is covered in Shiraishi 1990. When Sukarno moved to Bandung to attend the Technical College he completed his apprenticeship in nationalism, where he interacted with numerous older nationalists, including communists studied in McVey 1965. Ingleson 1979 expands upon Dahm’s classic 1969 study and shows Sukarno in the context of expanding nationalist activity from the founding of the Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI) in 1927 until his exile in 1934. Kwantes 1981, largely a collection of primary documents but with extensive annotations, provides the colonial state’s perspective, and also includes a number of key letters Sukarno wrote while in internal exile. Blumberger 1987, originally composed in 1931, remains valuable nonetheless because of the author’s excellent access to colonial source material. Abeyasekere 1976 provides important context for understanding Sukarno’s return in 1942. Pringgodigdo 1967 is the original Indonesian-language treatment of the nationalist movement, written before the revolution ended. Idenburg 1984 is useful for orienting scholars to Dutch memories of Indonesian nationalism after the end of the decolonization period.

Abeyasekere, Susan. One Hand Clapping: Indonesian Nationalists and the Dutch, 1939–1942. Clayton, Australia: Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1976.
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Study of nationalist “collaborators” just before the Japanese invasion, while Sukarno was in internal exile, and non-radical nationalists had the initiative. Important for understanding the nationalist movement just before Sukarno returned under Japanese sponsorship.
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Blumberger, Petrus. De Nationalistische Beweging in Nederlandsch-Indië. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris, 1987.
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Account written shortly after Sukarno’s trial, which emphasized that different streams of nationalist thought had created distinct and un-unified political movements. It includes an important chapter about the PNI which culminated in Sukarno’s trial. Meant as a policy manual for managing nationalist activity.
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Idenburg, P. J. A. “Het Nederlandse antwood op het Indonesisch nationalisme.” In Balans van Beleid: terugblik op de laatste eeuw van Nederlansch-Indië. Edited by H. Baudet and I. J. Brugmans, 121–151. Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1984.
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Useful overview of Dutch reflection of Sukarno and Indonesian nationalism, written by a former senior colonial scholar-official, from the vantage point of 1960.
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Ingleson, John. Road to Exile: The Indonesian Nationalist Movement, 1927–1934. Singapore: Heinemann, 1979.
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Best account of the founding of the PNI, stressing the importance of the Study Clubs and the collapse of the communist movement. Ingleson draws an excellent portrait of Sukarno, using a wide array of sources, Dutch archival material and private papers, as well as the nationalist publications.
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Kwantes, R. C. De ontwikkeling van de nationalisticsche beweging in Nederlandsch-Indie, 1928–1933. Groningen, The Netherlands: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1981.
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Collection of primary source material from the Ministry of Colonies archives in The Hague, covering the rise of the PNI and it immediate successors. Running more than nine hundred pages, with excellent annotations and short English summaries, this collects primary texts originating from the colonial archive, reflecting the colonial state’s efforts to appraise and manage Sukarno and the nationalist movement.
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McVey, Ruth. The Rise of Indonesian Communism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965.
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Sukarno was not part of the communist movement but in the 1920s he moved in some of the same circles as these radical nationalists, providing important inspiration for his socialist populism.
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Pringgodigdo, A. K. Sedjarah Pergerakan Rakjat Indonesia. 6th ed. Jakarta, Indonesia: Pustaka Rakjat, 1967.
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In the absence of other definitive treatments of the Indonesian nationalist movement, this remains a useful account originally composed in the late 1940s, which places Sukarno centrally in the larger movement.
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Shiraishi, Takashi. An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
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Definitive treatment of the nationalist movement before Sukarno, which examines the origins of a unified movement. Shiraishi shows that the radical nationalists who preceded Sukarno created a discourse and movement build around unity and popular radicalism. Concludes that Sukarno’s effort to unify the nationalist movement had strong precedents.
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The Indonesian Revolution

As one of the first anti-colonial revolutions after World War II, the developments of the revolution excited sympathetic interest in the United States and Australia. The first systematic narrative of the revolution is Wolf 1948, followed shortly thereafter by the classic account in Kahin 2003, which introduced Sukarno and his revolutionary nationalism to the English-speaking world. The importance of the Japanese occupation to Sukarno’s rise to prominence is examined in Benda 1958 and Mark 2014, and from a Dutch vantage point Jong 1985. The exciting political developments leading up to the independence proclamation is in Anderson 1961. Revisionist accounts, which highlight the social revolutionary nature of the revolution, and cast Sukarno as an opportunist and figurehead, are Alers 1956 and Anderson 1972. Sukarno’s role in crushing the communist movement in 1948 is in Swift 1989. A good overview of the whole revolution is Reid 1974. For an introduction to new historiographic questions about decolonization, and Sukarno’s place in that narrative, see Raben 2007 and the collection of essays in Drooglever and Schouten 1997.

Alers, Henri J. H. Om een Rode of Groene Merdeka: 10 Jaren Binnenlandsche Politiek Indonesië 1943–1953. Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Vulkaan, 1956.
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Sympathetic and sustained treatment of Sukarno’s nationalist vision during the revolution in this early examination of the decolonization of Indonesia. Alers sees Sukarno as riding the revolution by balancing the struggle between revolutionary leftists and nationalist Muslims.
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Anderson, Benedict. Some Aspects of Indonesian Politics under the Japanese Occupation, 1944–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1961.
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Still the definitive narrative and analysis of the events at the end of the war leading up to the proclamation of independence.
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Anderson, Benedict. Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944–1946. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972.
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Revolutionary narrative which emphasizes the role of young revolutionaries, and the leadership of Tan Malaka, the Indonesian revolutionary and leftist who opposed Sukarno and Hatta during the early revolution and downplays the importance of Sukarno.
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Benda, H. J. The Crescent and the Rising Sun. The Hague: Van Hoeve, 1958.
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First scholarly treatment of Indonesian political Islam, which examines the development of reformist Islam during late Dutch colonialism, and the Japanese effort to build a political system around these reformist Muslims. Although not based on archival research, this study will be of interest to Sukarno scholars examining the development on nationalism at the end of the war.
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Drooglever, P. J., and M. J. B. Schouten, eds. De leeuw en de banteng. The Hague: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1997.
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Collection of essays, in Dutch and English, about new directions in the historiography of Indonesian decolonization. The emphasis is on a broader political and social history, and the scholarly consensus is that Sukarno was one of only many revolutionaries.
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Jong, L. de. Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de tweede wereld oorlog. Vol. 11b, (Nederlandsch-Indië II). Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985.
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This official history of the Netherlands during World War II included three volumes about the Netherlands East Indies. The writers did not feel constrained by the strict periodization, and this volume contains extensive material about the nationalist movement. Typical of an earlier Dutch official tradition, Sukarno is still labeled a collaborator with the Japanese.
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Kahin, George. Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2003.
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The classic narrative account of the Indonesian Revolution from the US scholar George Kahin, first published in 1952. Kahin credits the actions of the Westernized nationalists, including Sukarno and Sjahrir, in leading the revolution.
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Mark, Ethan. “The Perils of Co-Prosperity: Takeda Rintarō Occupied Southeast Asia, and the Seductions of Postcolonial Empire.” American Historical Review 119.4 (2014): 1184–1206.
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This important article, by an expert on the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, looks at Japanese-Indonesian cooperation from the Japanese vantage point, and although not explicitly about Sukarno, it shows that Indonesian nationalists were drawn to Japanese ideological formulations, and were not just purely opportunistic in their collaboration.
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Mrázek, Rudolf. Sjahrir: Politics and Exile in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1994.
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Definitive political biography which brings Sukarno into focus from the viewpoint of one his great rivals.
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Raben, Remco. “Hoe wordt men vrij? De lange dekolonisatie van Indonesië.” In Van Indië tot Indonesië. Edited by Els Bogaerts and Remco Raben, 13–29. Meppel, The Netherlands: Boom, 2007.
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Introduction to the new Dutch historiography which downplays the individual contributions of nationalist revolutionaries in favor of seeing a longer period of decolonization. Suggests we see Sukarno less as a revolutionary actor than scholarship suggests, while simultaneously supporting Sukarno’s ideological arguments of a prolonged revolution.
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Reid, Anthony. The Indonesian National Revolution. Hawthorn, Australia: Longman, 1974.
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This very readable survey of the entire archipelago treats Sukarno’s revolutionary activity as one component of a larger effort to achieve freedom.
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Swift, Ann. The Road to Madiun: The Indonesian Communist Uprising of 1948. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1989.
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The history of the conflict between Tan Malaka’s communist followers and the Indonesian revolutionary army, which ended in the destruction of the communist movement. Important for understanding Sukarno’s developing thinking about balancing the leftists and the military.
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Wolf, Charles. The Indonesian Story: The Birth, Growth, and Structure of the Indonesian Republic. New York: John Day, 1948.
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Wolf, US vice consul in Indonesia from early 1946 until mid-1947, introduced Sukarno and the other Indonesian revolutionaries to the United States in this pro-Indonesian account of the founding of the first three years of the republic.
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Sukarno’s Indonesia

Under the 1950 constitution Sukarno had a weak position, and the initiative passed to civil society and the political parties, originally studied in Feith 1962, but see Banda 1964. The 1950s saw the politicization of society into aliran, or different streams, epitomized by the 1955 elections, as elaborated in Feith 1957. For the communist aliran see Hindley 1964 and for the Muslim stream, Ricklefs 2012. Political developments outside of Java are treated in Legge 1961. Reading the essays in Hanna 1960 is still useful, and a good introduction to the dysfunctional economy in the 1950s is in Lindblad 2010, while Dick 2002 is more optimistic about its achievements. McVey 1963 is an excellent collections of essays about Sukarno’s Indonesia, and McVey 1994 shows how little still is known about Indonesia in the 1950s. The classic ethnography of an East Javanese town in the 1950s, and the source of so many of Geertz’s insights, is Geertz 1965. Lindsay and Liem 2012 is an extensive collection of how Indonesian art and culture helped shape Indonesia’s sense of identity during the Sukarno era.

Banda, Harry. “Democracy in Indonesia.” Journal of Asian Studies 23.3 (1964): 449–456.
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Influential review of Feith 1962 which challenges the relevance of democracy as a category of analysis for understanding Sukarno’s Indonesia.
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Dick, Howard. “Formation of the Nation-State, 1930s-1966.” In The Emergence of a National Economy: An Economic History of Indonesia, 1800–2000. Edited by Howard Dick, et al., 153–193. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
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Textbook treatment of the Indonesian economy, especially under Sukarno, that balances the modest results with the challenges of building a vibrant economy in the context of the challenges facing a postcolonial state.
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Feith, Herbert. The Indonesian Elections of 1955. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1957.
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Data and analysis from the national elections of 1955, showing the near-even vote split between the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), Sukarno’s Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI), the modernist Muslims, and the Javanese Muslim aliran.
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Feith, Herbert. The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia, 1950–1957. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962.
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Classic political history of the parliamentary democratic governments of the 1950s and the election of 1955. Feith sees Sukarno as one of the populists who sidelined the professional politicians of the 1950s. Although this interpretation is no longer broadly accepted, his careful analysis of the ebb and flow of party politics in the 1950s stands still.
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Geertz, Clifford. The Social History of an Indonesian Town. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1965.
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Ethnography of “Modjokuto,” a town in East Java, where Geertz and others did fieldwork in 1953 and 1954. Less well-known than his other books about Indonesia, this is an excellent portrait of the political, cultural and economic disruptions that the revolution initiated. An excellent set-piece, “A Village Election as a Social Document,” explores the complex social field of Sukarno’s Indonesia.
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Hanna, Willard A. Bung Karno’s Indonesia. New York: American Universities Field Staff, 1960.
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Wonderful collection of twenty-five analytical essays about the society and politics of independent Indonesia, most of them written in Indonesian in 1959 just at the beginning of Guided Democracy. Essays cover obvious political topics treated well elsewhere, but also social and cultural topics (such as sport and tourism) relatively neglected by subsequent scholarship.
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Hindley, Donald. The Communist Party of Indonesia, 1951–1963. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964.
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Exhaustive and descriptive account of the rise to prominence of the PKI, the Indonesian Communist Party, under D.N. Aidit’s leadership, especially in the context of PKI’s place within Sukarno’s political orbit.
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Legge, John. Central Authority and Regional Autonomy in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1961.
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Examines Indonesia’s 1950s local political leaders and institutions in light of weak colonial precedents. And in so doing Legge explains the prominence of Sukarno’s nationalist party outside of Java.
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Lindblad, J. Thomas. “Economic Growth and Decolonisation in Indonesia.” Itinerario 34.1 (2010): 97–112.
DOI: 10.1017/S0165115310000070Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Economic history of decolonization in the 1950s, which traces the recession to the policies and ideologies of Sukarno.
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Lindsay, Jennifer, and Maya H. T. Liem, eds. Heirs to World Culture: Being Indonesian, 1950–1965. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV, 2012.
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Cultural history of Sukarno’s Indonesia, with essays about theater, film, literature, dance, performance, and art. Contributors argue that in the early independent era, artists looked forward while engaging with global culture, while the arts allowed for a negotiation between global, national, and regional identities.
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McVey, Ruth, ed. Indonesia. New Haven, CT: Southeast Asian Studies, 1963.
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Summary of studies by humanists and social scientists about independent Indonesia, which is still valuable.
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McVey, Ruth. “The Case of the Disappearing Decade.” In Democracy in Indonesia, 1950s and 1990s. Edited by David Bourchier and John Legge, 3–15. Clayton, Australia: Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994.
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Short and accessible summary of the scholarship prior to 1994 about political Indonesia in the 1950s.
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Ricklefs, M. C. Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java: A Political, Social, Cultural and Religious History, c. 1930 to Present. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2012.
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Excellent treatment of the history of Islamic politics since the beginning of the nationalist period. While Sukarno figures only peripherally in Ricklefs narrative, this is the best recent summary of the emergence of aliran politics under Sukarno.
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Guided Democracy

Guided Democracy started with Sukarno’s presidential decree on 5 July 1959, dissolving the constituent assembly and ushering in an authoritarian regime. The best single introduction to this period is still Feith 1967. Lev 1966 looked at the breakdown of parliamentary politics and the return of Sukarno, and Nasution 1992 argues convincingly that democracy was undone by Sukarno’s grab for power in 1959. Mortimer 1974 explores how the communist movement benefitted from Guided Democracy. Moon 1998 and Goss 2011 explore the changing ideologies of science and development under Sukarno. For economic changes, start with Redfern 2010. Pauker 1965 predicted that the Indonesian political system was on the verge of collapse.

Feith, Herbert. “Dynamics of Guided Democracy.” In Indonesia. Edited by Ruth McVey, 309–409. Rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files, 1967.
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This is still the only comprehensive effort to survey the politics of Guided Democracy, as seen from Sukarno’s vantage point, with a focus on changes to political institutions and the implications of Sukarno’s ideology. Originally composed in 1962 and 1963, and thus largely about the beginning of the period.
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Goss, Andrew. The Floracrats: State-Sponsored Science and the Failure of the Enlightenment in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011.
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The last chapter examines scientific centralization under Sukarno’s Guided Democracy.
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Lev, Daniel S. The Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesian Politics, 1957–1959. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1966.
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Political history tracing the political changes that ended parliamentary democracy and brought in Sukarno’s Guided Democracy.
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Moon, Suzanne. “Takeoff or Self-Sufficiency? Ideologies of Development in Indonesia, 1957–1961.” Technology and Culture 39.2 (1998): 187–212.
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Examination of interaction between the United States and Indonesia in the area of agriculture and rice cultivation in the context of Sukarno’s transition to state-sponsored development before and after the transition to Guided Democracy.
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Mortimer, Rex. Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno: Ideology and Politics, 1959–1965. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.
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Excellent and unsurpassed analysis of the rise of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) in the early 1960s, focusing on the leadership and ideology of the party under Aidit. Mortimer emphasizes Aidit’s leadership in successfully adapting communism to Indonesian nationalist politics, including the PKI’s close working relationship with Sukarno.
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Nasution, Adnan Buyung. The Aspiration for Constitutional Government in Indonesia: A Socio-legal Study of the Indonesian Konstituante, 1956–1959. Jakarta, Indonesia: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1992.
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Revisionist history of the parliamentary history of the Indonesian constituent assembly that shows Sukarno undermined and then abrogated the parliamentary decisions despite the assembly almost producing a new constitution based upon democratic negotiations. Blames democracy’s demise on Sukarno’s power-grab, not on the failure of the democratic process.
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Pauker, Guy J. “Indonesia in 1964: Toward a ‘People’s Democracy’?” Asian Survey 5.2 (1965): 88–97.
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RAND scholar-in-residence of Indonesia, who in this article examines Sukarno’s overtures toward China. Pauker was a persistent and increasingly loud critic in the United States of Sukarno’s politics of emotion in the early 1960s, while cheering the anti-communist forces in the Indonesian military.
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Redfern, William A. “Sukarno’s Guided Democracy and the Takeovers of Foreign Companies in Indonesia in the 1960s.” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2010.
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Excellent unpublished thesis about the economic policies of Sukarno after 1959, in particular its anti-Western policies. Redfern explains the long-term deterioration of the Indonesian economy not only in terms of domestic policies, but in the increasingly anti-imperial foreign policy, especially after 1963.
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Sukarno’s Foreign Policy

Sukarno moved into the international arena with his hosting of the first conference of the nonaligned movement in Bandung in 1955, explored in Parker 2006. Sukarno was increasingly confident in his foreign policy, first targeting the Dutch, including their continued presence in West Irian, examined in Palmier 1962. Guided Democracy led to a more aggressive foreign policy, built around anti-imperialism, summarized by Bunnell 1966. Mackie 1974, Subritzky 2000, and Jones 2002 examine the multiple contexts for Sukarno’s Konfrontasi, or confrontation, with Britain and Malaya over the creation of Malaysia. Agung 1973 has insider insights into Indonesia’s thinking about Konfrontasi, the West Irian dispute and the non-aligned movement. Simon 1969 examined the relationships between Indonesia and the Chinese Communist Party. There is now an excellent literature about US policy toward Indonesia, including Brands 1989 and Simpson 2008, as well as Chinese relations with Indonesia, in Liu 2011 and Zhou 2015.

Agung, Ide Anak Agung. Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy, 1945–1965. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.
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Extensive description of Indonesia’s foreign relations during the Sukarno era, with the emphasis more on narrative than assessment. Although not a memoir, Agung was a senior Indonesian diplomat, and participated directly in many of the foreign policy initiatives from 1955 until his imprisonment by Sukarno in 1962. Agung was comfortable with the Dutch, and his study is particularly interesting for his insights into the nature of Netherlands-Indonesia relations.
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Brands, H. W. “The Limits of Manipulation: How the United States Didn’t Topple Sukarno.” Journal of American History 76.3 (1989): 785–808.
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Using State Department and other US government sources, Brands shows the American failure to control and manipulate events in Indonesia in the final years of Guided Democracy. Although the Brands thesis is generally accepted, Simpson 2008 adds significant nuance.
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Bunnell, Frederick. “Guided Democracy Foreign Policy: 1960–65.” Indonesia 2 (1966): 37–76.
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Good overview of Sukarno’s myriad foreign policy initiatives.
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Jones, Matthew. Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia 1961–1965: Britain, The United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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New narrative synthesis of Konfrontasi, which integrates earlier scholarship about Sukarno’s actions, with a special emphasis on Britain’s goals and actions.
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Kahin, Audrey, and George Kahin. Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia. New York: New Press, 1995.
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Indictment of Eisenhower’s late policy toward Sukarno and Indonesia, demonstrating how the US helped sponsor the separatist movements of PRRI-Permesta and actively schemed against Sukarno using CIA operatives.
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Liu, Hong. China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949–1965. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2011.
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Collective study of Indonesian observers of China, who used China as a metaphor for examining post-independent Indonesia. Liu devotes special attention to Sukarno’s engagement with China, arguing that after his visit to China in 1956, Sukarno constructed an idiosyncratic vision of Chinese strength and politics, which influenced Sukarno’s Guided Democracy.
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Mackie, Jamie. Konfrontasi: The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute 1963–1966. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press, 1974.
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The original political study of confrontation, which seeks to answer the question of why Indonesia pursued the conflict on the basis of careful analysis of Sukarno’s speeches and actions. Mackie argues that the ideology of newly emerging forces boxed Sukarno in, and led him continue to oppose the creation of Malaysia, even after it would appear to offer diminishing returns.
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Palmier, Leslie H. Indonesia and the Dutch. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
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Dated scholarship, but still valuable especially for its specific treatment of the tensions between the Netherlands and Indonesia after 1950, especially in the context of the Western New Guinea conflict.
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Parker, Jason. “Cold War II: The Eisenhower Administration, the Bandung Conference, and the Reperiodization of the Postwar Era.” Diplomatic History 30.5 (2006): 867–892.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2006.00582.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Demonstrates the importance of the Bandung Conference and Sukarno for the US outreach to the non-aligned world.
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Simon, Sheldon. The Broken Triangle: Peking, Djakarta, and the PKI. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969.
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Examination of the informal alliance between Indonesia and the People’s Republic of China in the early 1960s, with special emphasis on Sukarno’s effort to link Indonesia with world revolutionary movements. Relies largely on secondary sources for the Indonesian political context, but remains valuable for its careful study of CCP outreach to Sukarno and the PKI.
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Simpson, Bradley R. Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008.
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Best account of Kennedy and his successors’ efforts to not only undermine Sukarno, but to actively support the Indonesian military, and a military-led economic and political development. Analysis based on both US State Department and CIA archival material, as well as Indonesian sources.
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Subritzky, John. Confronting Sukarno, British, American, Australian and New Zealand Diplomacy in the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation, 1961–5. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000.
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International history of Konfrontasi, with an emphasis on the Cold War context of the conflict. Subritzky investigates the conflict from the Western powers’ point-of-view, using newly declassified documents. This approach allows him to delineate what separated the policies and strategies of the Western powers in confronting Sukarno. He seeks to explain British aggression, US non-involvement, the Australian shift after 1961 toward the British position, and New Zealand’s support for Malaysia.
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Zhou, Taomo. “Ambivalent Alliance: Chinese Policy towards Indonesia, 1960–1965.” China Quarterly 221 (2015): 208–228.
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741014001544Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article, based upon recently declassified document in the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archive, argues that Chinese diplomats’ negotiations with Sukarno competed with different initiatives meant to reach the Indonesian communists and ethnic Chinese in Indonesia.
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Sukarno, Military Politics, and the 1965 Coup

The coup of 30 September 1965, known in Indonesia by its acronym GESTAPU or G30S, started with the killing of six of the top army generals—the coup or putsch was broken by a counter-coup led by General Suharto, which led to violent killings of hundreds of thousands of suspected leftists; it also led to Sukarno’s downfall, starting on 11 March 1966, when Sukarno signed over most political and military authority to Suharto, establishing the New Order. No serious scholar has implicated Sukarno in either the coup or the counter-coup, but explaining and interpreting his actions has been one of the questions for scholars. Sundhaussen 1982 charts the rise of the Indonesian army from the beginning of the revolution. Hughes 1968 is a very readable, and influential, narrative account by a Christian Science Monitor journalist, based on his Pulitzer Prize–winning reporting from Indonesia after the coup. Much less satisfying reporting is Vittachi 1967. Still the most readable account of the army’s move toward power, at the expense of Sukarno, is Crouch 1988. Anderson and McVey 1971 and Wertheim 1978 present theories of the coup which are kind to Sukarno. Most recently Roosa 2006 argues persuasively that the original plan to abduct the generals, and present them as trophies to Sukarno, went awry, leading to the chaos of 1 October. McGregor 2007 examines New Order constructions of the military past, and their particular challenge of representing the legacy of Sukarno.

Anderson, Benedict, and Ruth McVey. A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965 Coup in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1971.
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Text of the original so-called Cornell Paper written originally in 1966. Anderson and McVey argued on the basis of Indonesian newspaper reports, including the communist daily Harian Rakyat, that the movement against the generals was an internal army affair, led by junior officers from Central Java against the Jakartan leaders of the military. They exonerated both the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and Sukarno from involvement in the coup. Although this interpretation has few supporters now, the research from the papers remains valuable.
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Crouch, Harold. The Army and Politics in Indonesia. Rev. ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
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Crouch argues that prior to 1965, Sukarno supported the PKI as a bulwark against the growing power of the army. Guided Democracy was not an ideological formation, but a system for balancing power. This structures his interpretation of the coup: progressive elements in the army took the initiative, but were able to convince individual communists to help blow up the system. Crouch’s analysis of the army’s consolidation of power after 1965, and their success sidelining Sukarno, remains unsurpassed.
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Hughes, John. The End of Sukarno. London: Angus & Robertson, 1968.
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Appeared under the title Indonesian Upheaval in the United States. Hughes had excellent access to military sources in 1965 and 1966, and had prior to the coup interviewed communist leaders. He is highly critical of Sukarno, arguing that he despoiled the country’s resources and drove it toward ruin. Despite effusive praise for the Indonesian military, the book is filled with insights and nuances, and he questions and refutes numerous parts of the New Order’s narrative of the coup.
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McGregor, Katharine E. History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007.
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Book that examines the New Order’s construction of the military past—not only does the author show the challenge of integrating Sukarno into the past, but the analysis is driven by a comparison of Guided Democracy and New Order representations of Indonesian history.
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Roosa, John. Pretext for Mass Murder:The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s Coup d’État in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
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Most recent effort to solve the puzzle of the 1965 coup, using court testimony from Brigadier General Supardjo, heretofore neglected. Roosa builds on Crouch’s interpretation of Guided Democracy politics, but argues that it was the PKI and Aidit who planned the coup, in an effort to pre-empt and sideline the army, and seize the political initiative from Sukarno.
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Sundhaussen, Ulf. Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics, 1945–1967. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press, 1982.
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Institutional military history of the Indonesian army, and its intentional movement toward politics, from the beginning of the revolution until the downfall of Sukarno.
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Vittachi, Tarzie. The Fall of Sukarno. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967.
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Hurried and error-filled account by a Sri Lankan journalist. Largely based upon newspaper accounts, it is most useful for quick access, in English, to the official New Order narrative of the coup, which strongly indicted both Sukarno and the PKI eliminating the army’s top leadership and thus almost destroying the country.
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Wertheim, W. F. “De schakel die ontbrak: Suharto’s rol bij de staatsgreep.” In Indonesië van vorstenrijk tot neo-kolonie. By W. F. Wertheim, 193–205. Meppel, The Netherlands: Boom, 1978.
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First scholar to raise in 1970 the possibility that Suharto knew about the initial coup, and perhaps had even planned it. Although this link has never been proven—in terms of evidence it rests on Suharto’s actions the night before the coup—it has remained persistent as a way of explaining Suharto’s quick reaction on 1 October.
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Sukarno’s Political Ideology and Leadership

Sukarno’s persuasive oratory, and its importance to Indonesian political history, is rarely doubted; judgments of his ideology, and its effect on political developments, have been much contested. Kroef 1965 examines Sukarno’s cult of personality, and Feith and Castles 1970 is an excellent introduction to Indoneisa’s varied ideologies, with Sukarno’s contrasted with his contemporaries. Alisjahbana 1966 was an early Indonesian critic, living in exile, of Sukarno’s demagoguery. Kroef 1965 was an acute observer of Sukarno’s romantic revolutionary style, despite being blinded at times by his staunch anti-communism. The official ideology of early Guided Democracy—Manipol-USDEK—is Abdulgani 1960, written by then Minister of Information and one of Sukarno’s chief ideological lieutenants. Geertz 1968, Anderson 1990, and Bishku 1992 explore the cultural salience of Sukarno’s political charisma. The implications of Sukarno’s linking of nation and state through the ideology of Pancasila is explored in Elson 2008, and through the lens of religion, in Menchik 2016.

Abdulgani, H. Roeslan. Pendjelasan Manipol dan USDEK. Jakarta, Indonesia: Departemen Penergangan, 1960.
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Sukarno’s political manifesto of permanent revolution, which established the ideological rules of Guided Democracy, proclaimed that Indonesia’s development would be guided through socialist principles, and that key sectors of the economy would be need to be “retooled.” Available in slightly different English edition under the title Manipol-USDEK in Question and Answer (Jakarta, Indonesia: Department of Information, 1961).
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Alisjahbana, Takdir. Indonesia: Social and Cultural Revolution. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1966.
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Collection of essays by Indonesian novelist and intellectual, ranging from religion to arts to politics. A number of essays deal squarely with Sukarno’s late presidency, comparing him to other 20th-century demagogues, and criticizing him for loosing touch with the people and building monuments to his own greatness.
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Anderson, Benedict. “The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture.” In Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia. By Benedict Anderson, 17–77. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
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Classic essay, originally published in 1972, analyzing the political culture of Indonesia using a Weberian model of charisma and power. Although conceived of as a more-general meditation on the modern and nationalist iteration of a Javanese tradition of politics, Sukarno is the prime example, as Anderson seeks to explain the power he exerted over Indonesian citizens.
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Bishku, Michael B. “Sukarno, Charismatic Leadership and Islam in Indonesia.” Journal of Third World Studies 9.2 (1992): 100–117.
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Bishku examines Sukarno’s views on Islam systematically, asking how it contributed to his political leadership, a question neglected by other scholars. Bishku shows that Sukarno’s study of Islam after 1933, and his comparative interest in Middle Eastern Islamic politics, structured his nationalist ideology and leadership.
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Elson, R. E. The Idea of Indonesia: A History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Elson argues that the first generation of Indonesian nationalists developed a notion of an ethnically defined Indonesia, which Sukarno further elaborated on in building his nationalist movement around the idea of an Indonesian civilization with a defined territory. Elson shows how this development marginalized Islamic discourse in Indonesian nationalism, in particular in the ideology of Pancasila.
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Feith, Herbert, and Lance Castles, eds. Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945–1965. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970.
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Accessible collection of political speeches and essays spanning the entire Sukarno period, including excerpts from Sukarno’s key speeches. Also includes valuable introductions and annotations.
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Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.
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Sukarno plays a large role in Geertz’s accessible classic where he expounds on the analytical richness of doing a sociology and ethnography of religious practice. Geertz explicitly situates Sukarno’s “syncretistic theatricalism” (p. 115) in the religious history of Indonesia. In so doing, he provides an excellent overview of the development of Sukarno’s ideology, placing emphasis on the Indic tradition and not Islam.
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Kroef, Justus M. van der. “Indonesia: The Mystique of Permanent Revolution.” South Atlantic Quarterly 64.1 (1965).
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Introduction to Sukarno’s effort to establish a cult of personality, written by one of the loudest academic critics of Sukarno in the West. Kroef’s anti-communism blunted some of his interesting insights into Sukarno’s “mystagoguery.”
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Menchik, Jeremy. Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781316344446Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Excellent new book about religious politics in Indonesia which examines the origins of modern religious politics in the nationalist movement. Menchik provides a nuanced discussion of the origin and operation of the Pancasila ideology, as well as a discussion of Sukarno’s turn toward the Islamic world at the end of his presidency.
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Legacy

While the 1970s was the heyday of Sukarno scholarship in the West, in Indonesia, Sukarno’s Old Order was a taboo subject then, and there was public silence about Sukarno and his legacy. This changed when the New Order decided to memorialize him by building his tomb in out-of-the-way Blitar, which opened up a flood of memories and new myths, analyzed in Labrousse 1993. Katoppo 1981 began the intellectual reappraisal in Indonesia. Kwantes 1987 looks at Sukarno’s letters from 1933 offering to give up the fight, and the controversy that caused in Indonesia. Western critics of Suharto’s authoritarianism in the 1990s did see Sukarno’s Indonesia as a model for change, for reasons outlined in Liddle 1992. Sukarno’s daughter Megawati’s presidency changed some of this, and McIntyre 2005 is an effort to rethink Sukarno, this time in comparison with his multiple successors. Hering 1992 tried to rehabilitate Sukarno, and should be read in conjunction with Hering 2002 (cited under General Overviews and Biographies). Legge 2002 is a modest beginning to a rethinking of Sukarno.

Hering, Bob. “Soekarno, the Man and the Myth: Looking Through a Glass Darkly.” Modern Asian Studies 26.3 (1992): 495–506.
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00009884Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Effort to rehabilitate Sukarno and his ideology by re-evaluating the achievements of the Guided Democracy period.
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Katoppo, Aristedes. 80 Tahun Bung Karno. Jakarta, Indonesia: Sinar Harapan, 1981.
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Twenty-two essays, many by public figures, reassess Sukarno, opening up a new intellectual space in Indonesia for discussing the first president.
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Kwantes, R. C. “Ir. Soekarno’s Vier Brieven.” Bijdragen to the Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde 143 2/3 (1987): 293–311.
DOI: 10.1163/22134379-90003329Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of the four letters written in 1933 by Sukarno to the governor general, offering to retire from politics if his exile to Flores was ended. Although Sukarno’s request to withdraw from the nationalist movement had been long known (including to his followers in 1933), these four letters, when discovered in the late 1970s in the Dutch archives, became a source of considerable controversy in Indonesia, as it challenged the official memory of Sukarno’s brave and principled stand against Dutch colonialism.
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Labrousse, Pierre. “The Second Life of Bung Karno: Analysis of the Myth (1978–1981).” Indonesia 57 (1993): 175–196.
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Fascinating analysis of the creation and recreation of myths about Sukarno in Indonesian public culture, including in particular his sexual prowess, at the time his tomb was being built in Blitar.
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Legge, John. Sukarno in Retrospect. Clayton, Australia: Monash University Press, 2002.
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All-too-rare scholarly effort to bring Sukarno back into focus. Thin but interesting volume, with most contributions from scholars who began their careers in the 1960s.
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Liddle, R. William. “Indonesia’s Democratic Past and Future.” Comparative Politics 24.4 (1992): 443–462.
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Against the backdrop of the New Order authoritarian regime in the early 1990s, Liddle analyzes the legacy of the democratic era of the 1950s, arguing that the cultural and ethnic fragmentation during the Sukarno era, and the concomitant electoral cleavages, had left the impression among Indonesian elites that democracy created weak and ineffective rulers.
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McIntyre, Angus. The Indonesian Presidency: The Shift from Personal toward Constitutional Rule. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
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The return of democratic rule has renewed interest in the legacy of Sukarno’s politics, although few fresh insights. McIntyre’s book has original material about Sukarno, in his effort to understand Megawati Sukarnoputri’s presidency, by comparing her with her father.