Murba Party

Murba Party (Indonesian: Partai Murba, Partai Musyawarah Rakyat Banyak, Proletarian Party) was a 'national communist' political party in Indonesia. The party was founded by Tan Malaka, Chairul Saleh, Sukarni and Adam Malik in 1948. The history of the party was largely intertwined with that of the powerful Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). Initially relations between PKI and the Murba Party were fluid, but gradually the two parties developed into each other's arch-enemies. The Murba Party continued to exist under the New Order, but was merged into the Indonesian Democratic Party in 1973.

The 1948 Madiun Affair had resulted in a severe backlash for the PKI. Across Java (except in Bantam), a political vacuum emerged on the political left. The followers of Tan Malaka sought to capitalize on this, and on 3 October 1948 the three main constituents of the Tan Malaka-led Revolutionary People's Movement (GRR); the People's Party, Poor People's Party and the Independent Labour Party of Indonesia, declared that they would merge to form the unitary Murba Party. The merger was to be completed on 7 November 1948, the anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The constitution of the party was declared on 12 November 1948. At the time of its foundation the new party had around 80,000 members. The GRR continued to exist separately though, with the Murba Party as one of its affiliates.

Whilst Tan Malaka was highly influential in the party, he wasn't formally the leader of the party. At the time of the merger a leadership was formed consisting of Sukarni (president), Sjamsu Harja Udaja (general secretary), Maruto Nitimihardjo (vice president), Sutan Dewanis (second vice president) and Pandu Karta Wiguna (secretary). The Murba Party published two official newspapers, Murba and Massa. Furthermore, there were guerrilla units linked to the party, which played an important role in the struggle against Dutch rule in West and Central Java.

Although far smaller than the PKI, the Murba Party constituted an important rival to it. The leadership of the Murba Party was largely made up by leaders of mass movements. The young men who led Murba had often been leaders of guerrillas or mass struggles against the Japanese occupation. The party appealed to ex-guerrillas and workers, who were dissatisfied with post-independence developments. Herbert Feith labelled the profile of the party as 'extreme nationalism and messianic social radicalism (whose inchoateness was only mildly tempered by the Marxist and Leninist theory to which it laid claim), it was a citadel of "oppositionism", the politics of refusing to recognize the practical difficulties of governments'.

The Murba Party was secular, and wary of the possibility of increased Islamic influence in government.

In March 1951 the party joined the Consultative Body of Political Parties, a broad coalition initiated by PKI that soon became non-functional. During the following year, PKI-Murba relations improved significantly. At the time, Murba guerrilla units still roamed in West Java and held some territories under their control.

In February 1952, the party supported a parliamentary motion calling for the opening of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

The Murba Party suffered a stark setback in the 1955 legislative election. The party obtained 199,588 votes (0.53% of the national vote), and won two seats from Java in the People's Representative Council (down from four seats prior to the elections). After the election, the Murba Party MPs joined the National Progressive Fraction, a body of ten MPs from Java. In the 1955 Constituent Assembly election, the party obtained 248,633 votes (0.66%) and four seats in the assembly.