Within a week, what began as demonstrations with a semi-insurrectionary character have turned into an open revolutionary uprising which shows no sign of stopping. It is not only tearing down government buildings and police stations, but more importantly, it is shattering the mass stupor that has kept the people in chains. A revolution has begun.
Louis XVI: “Is this a rebellion?”
La Rochefoucauld: “No, Sire. This is a revolution.”
Scenes of burned parliamentary buildings, government offices, and above all, police stations have flooded the media. But most striking are the countless live broadcasts from the millions of demonstrators, which truly capture the revolutionary spirit of the moment. These images call to mind the scenes of the 1998-99 revolutionary period.
The first provincial parliamentary building to be set ablaze by the people was in Makassar, the day after the police killed a 21-year-old ride-share driver, Affan Kurniawan. This was quickly followed by similar scenes in Tegal, Solo, Surakarta, Bandung, and West Nusa Tenggara. In Pekalongan, the action began as a peaceful vigil where people mourned and laid flowers for Affan Kurniawan. But it immediately turned into a conflagration, as the furious anger of the masses burst forth.
The list grows longer by the day, as more demonstrations and escalations unfold. As we write these lines, the masses have already added Brebes, Pekalongan, Cilacap and Kediri to the list – we are struggling to keep up with the rapid developments, which are the very essence of a revolution.
Hundreds of police stations have been ransacked and burnt down. The police forces, who had been heavy-handed in their treatment of the demonstrators in the first few days, are now beating a hasty retreat. When faced with the youth, they displayed their brutality with great ‘courage’. But now, as vast layers of working people have entered the scene and overwhelmed them, they are suddenly the ones cornered and chased out. In some cities they have disappeared altogether.
To quell the mass anger that has spiralled out of their control, the government promised to investigate and prosecute the officers responsible for killing Affan Kurniawan. President Prabowo staged a media spectacle by visiting his family, embracing them, and gifting them Rp200 million and a house in an effort to calm the situation. But Affan’s father said that this gift did not soothe his grief: “This money in its billions cannot replace my son.” That sentiment is shared by the people.
In the end, seven police officers were ‘punished’ with 20 days of special detainment, meaning they would not be jailed but merely held in a police station. This is the equivalent of a high school detention. This mockery of justice further enraged the people.
While street battles continue to erupt nationwide, the media turned their cameras on the judicial proceedings of these suspects, attempting to lull the movement into believing that justice was being served. But it quickly became evident that the dish being served was cold and rotten.
The hatred of the masses toward the whole system is now being directed toward the parliament, the most public-facing political institution, whose rottenness is displayed daily without shame by its members. On Saturday night, the mansion of a hated member of parliament from the National Democratic Party, Ahmad Sahroni, was attacked and looted. Live-streamed videos showed his luxury items being carried away, including a $600,000 Richard Mille watch. His earlier provocative and arrogant statement – calling demonstrators “the stupidest people on earth” for demanding the disbanding of parliament – had come home to roost. Sahroni himself fled to Singapore to escape the rage of the people.
Fearing that Sahroni’s fate might soon be his own, another despised member of parliament, Eko Patrio – whose statements had also been provocative toward the demonstrators – hurriedly posted a video apology, almost in tears. This was to no avail. “This apology is just for show, let’s go to his house next,” said one comment. And true enough, within hours, his house was also raided. Soon after, another MP’s house, Uya Kuya’s, suffered the same fate.
As we write, yet another opulent home of this hated crop of politicians has been raided and looted – this time belonging to Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, the chief architect of the austerity that has strangled Indonesians. No one can escape the virtuous retribution of the masses any longer.
The media and the government have tried to portray demonstrators as violent looters and anarchists. But we would be remiss if we too condemned these lootings as though they were moral failings of a ‘pure’ revolution. For the masses, they are simply reclaiming the ill-gotten wealth of these corrupt politicians.
Some on the left have, in fact, begun calling on demonstrators to avoid looting the belongings of other citizens, with a warning that we ought not repeat what happened in May 1998 – the revolution that overthrew Suharto, which also involved rioting and looting. But such abstract moral preaching is the result of yielding to the pressure of bourgeois public opinion. For every condemnation from the regime and its media about these lootings, we must say a thousand times louder: the biggest looters of all sit in the parliament, in the Presidential Palace, and in the boardrooms of the corporations whose interests are loyally served by these politicians.
The hatred toward parliamentary members is so intense that not one of them has dared to directly face the movement, despite issuing endless press releases and social media statements promising to listen to the plight of the people. Rightly so, for should they appear publicly they would be torn to pieces. Everything they could possibly say would be wrong and would further exacerbate the situation. In the past, the regime could at least dispatch a few of the more popular parliament members, usually from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), to dialogue with demonstrators. Today, even that is impossible.
What is a revolution and which phase are we in?
What we are witnessing is a revolution, unfolding with all the greenery of the tree of life. The masses have recognised it as such, as calls for revolution, especially from the youth, are increasingly being heard in these demonstrations. As Trotsky said, a revolution is “the forceful entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny”. It is indeed forceful, and it could not be otherwise. This is the first time that we have seen a mass movement of this scale since the 1998 Revolution (see Ted Grant’s Indonesia: the Asian Revolution has begun).
With this uprising, every a priori calculation of the regime has been thrown out of the window. Hence, the difficulties on the part of the regime to quell the movement with its usual tactics, as it had done with smaller mass movements in recent years like Indonesia Gelap (‘Dark Indonesia’) in 2025, Peringatan Darurat (‘Emergency Alert’) in 2024, or Reformasi Dikorupsi (‘Reformation is being corrupted’) in 2019 – all of which now pale in comparison with the present movement.
This also explains the difficulties many on the left have in orienting themselves toward this revolutionary movement. Many were initially shocked when the youth spontaneously took up the cry of “Bubarkan DPR” (“Dissolve the House of Representatives”), a demand they dismissed as ultra-left. “If we disband the parliament, what will replace it?”, “Wouldn’t this open the door for the president to be a dictator?”, “Disbanding the parliament is an irrational demand. We should demand new elections,” they say. Suddenly, these leftists sound exactly like the government.
When a revolution breaks out, we often, if not always, find the masses to be far more revolutionary than their leaders and the well-seasoned activists who are used to small struggles that are within their control. Confronted with an out-of-control movement – a feature of a revolution, especially in its first phase – these left activists quickly find themselves out of their depth.
But for the masses, the slogan ‘Dissolve the Parliament’ encapsulates their intense hatred for this corrupt institution, which they know has done nothing for them other than bring misery. It is around this demand that the movement has coalesced and continues to gather strength, as it continues to test this slogan in the forge of struggle.
Demands and slogans are not just a list of realisable and actionable goals. ‘Veteran’ activists and trade union bureaucrats have been well trained to formulate what they consider ‘reasonable’ demands, ones that they can extract from the bosses, given a favourable balance of forces in a relatively peaceful period. But a revolution is precisely a break from such a peaceful period, a rapid and violent break, long prepared beneath the surface through the molecular process of revolution.
Hence, when the masses put forward the slogan ‘Dissolve the Parliament’, the lefts, so accustomed to a period of peace – in fact they have never entertained the idea of revolution – were thrown off balance.
A revolution is not a one-act drama. The masses have only just discovered their power, astonishing themselves as much as they terrify the ruling class. Each time they realise how strong they truly are, they grow bolder, which in turn inspires and draws new layers of the working class into the struggle. The process then repeats itself, spiralling upwards and reaching new heights with each passing hour. With every surge, the masses discover that their power runs deeper still. For the first time in a generation, they have broken through the chains that have long bound their minds. It is no wonder, then, that this newfound power burst forth in a wild, explosive and chaotic way. Yet even so, its force has shaken the whole foundation of society. This is revolution in action.
After demonstrating day and night for over a week, burning police stations and regional parliament buildings, the masses will learn that this alone is not enough. These actions might be enough to display their strength and show the ruling class that they mean business, but it is not enough to achieve their ultimate goal: the fundamental transformation of their lives and society.
How long it will take them to learn this will depend on many factors, especially on the quality of their leadership. With good leadership, we can shorten the time needed for the movement to reach the necessary conclusions. Thus, we revolutionaries must continue to push for demands that keep pace with their consciousness and advance it, demands that connect with their anger and strive to give it the necessary organised political expression. But never underestimate how quickly the masses can learn from experience. In just seven days, they have learned more than in ten years of peace.
Those weak-kneed leftists who lament today that this revolution might fail and meet its bloody end because there is no revolutionary leadership as an excuse for abstaining from the movement are fools who long for a smooth revolution with a 100 percent guarantee. This so-called ‘realism’ of theirs is only a reflection of their own pessimism – a pessimism that becomes wholly reactionary precisely when the masses, for the first time, have found a noble cause to be optimistic about and are acting on it with all their revolutionary vigour.
There is no way to guarantee a perfect revolution. We will intervene in the process as it unfolds. The old habits of many on the left, of organising small strikes and demonstrations with carefully prepared logistics and schedules in advance, now clash with the living reality of a revolution that cannot be put in tidy boxes.
The government is moving heaven and earth to try to contain the uprising with a carrot-and-stick approach. Yet they are wary: if they give too many concessions, the masses could grow more confident and demand more; if they give too little, it could further enrage them.
So far, many soothing words have been offered. But nothing concrete has been delivered in terms of cancelling all the taxes that have been suffocating the masses, or even winning justice for Affan Kurniawan. In fact, it is doubtful if these concessions would suffice to stem the tide of revolution, as the demand to abolish the corrupt parliament has already crystallised further. Indeed, on Sunday, the government announced that it was cancelling allowances for parliamentary members, but this has not calmed the movement.
At the same time, they are stepping up repression. The government has begun deploying the army to major cities and strategic points. But unleashing the army may backfire, as the memory of the New Order military regime are still fresh in the minds of the masses.
The Indonesian revolution has just begun. It would be a fatal mistake to confuse its first phase with its last – but that it has begun cannot be denied.
After almost three straight days of demonstrations, the movement took a brief respite on Sunday, with only minor clashes in some areas. But it would be wrong to think that this signals stagnation or decline. Revolution, like life itself, has its rhythm. The masses are now taking stock of what has happened, of what they have achieved, and just as importantly, of the reactions of the government. They are absorbing the lessons of their own actions. In fact, demonstrations have already been planned for the following days in many major cities.
The role of the working class
The working masses have demonstrated their power on the streets. Yet they have not taken mass collective action as a working class vis-à-vis their power over the means of production. A mass strike is, by far, the ultimate weapon of the movement that has yet to be unleashed. All efforts must now be directed toward mobilising for a general strike.
The trade union leaders have proven themselves to be not only incapable of providing any leadership but also actively aligned with the government. As such, in all likelihood, calls for a general strike will not come from the unions. On the one hand, trade unions represent only a small fraction of the working class. Union membership has, in fact, fallen over the past 10 years, as the labour movement hit its lowest point under the incompetent leadership of these class collaborators. They are widely despised by the youth.
On the other hand, the cumbersome structures of the trade unions are hardly adequate for the political expression of a revolution that is unfolding very rapidly, which requires a much more agile, flexible, and responsive structure. Even the best of the trade unions will not be adequate, as evidenced by the paralysis of even the most left-wing unions in Indonesia. None of them have called for strikes.
At present, the movement is being organised spontaneously through social media channels and groups in neighbourhoods, schools, universities, etc. These informal structures would need to be strengthened into action committees, into democratic organs of struggle that can deepen and focus their energy toward the realisation of their slogan: dissolving the parliament and overthrowing the regime. These action committees could also serve as the embryo of organs of power.
The youth is currently the most organised layer of this revolution. They must build a bridge to the working class by visiting factories, industrial complexes, workplaces, and workers’ neighbourhoods to disseminate the call for workers’ action committees and to explain the necessity of strikes. Once the potential power of the working class is channelled into a mass strike, the revolution will enter a new, higher phase.
The steps forward
A revolution cannot stand still. Its inherent law dictates that it must either move forward toward victory or roll back – often with very dire consequences. This revolution cannot be completed until it does away with capitalism, or else it would suffer the same fate as the 1998 revolution. At the core of the people’s anger is the crisis of capitalism, the burden of which has been placed on the backs of the masses. Its final goal can only be the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society.
To bring the revolution closer to this goal, we call on the working people and the youth:
Dissolve the Parliament and oust Prabowo! This so-called democratic institution and the presidency have never reflected the will of the working people and the poor. Instead, they are the source of all our misery. They must be done away with.
To replace these rotten institutions, form a revolutionary government of the working class and the poor! This will be a government like none before, one that will serve the interests of workers, peasants, the urban poor and the youth. It will exercise workers’ democracy, and not the sham democracy of the rich.
Immediately form action committees as the democratic organs of the people’s struggle. Establish them on campuses, in schools, workers’ neighbourhoods, factories, motorcycle taxi bases, coffee shops, and elsewhere. These action committees will deepen, extend and direct this revolutionary conflagration toward the overthrow of the regime. They will serve as the embryo of workers’ power, the foundation of the revolutionary government of the working class and the poor.
The reason the ruling class remains powerful is because their control over the economy and their wealth remain largely untouched. Our most powerful weapon is the working class itself, who alone drive the economy and create society’s wealth. Therefore, through action committees, we must mobilise for a general strike! This will deal a significant blow to the regime and bring us closer to victory.
Whatever the fate of this revolution, which will be determined by a real living struggle in the streets and factories, it is a watershed moment, and nothing will ever be the same again.
Long live the Indonesian revolution!
Dissolve the Parliament!
Down with Prabowo!
Form a government of the working class and the poor!
Form action committees as democratic organs of struggle of the working people and youth!
Launch a national strike! Stop the wheels of production!
