The Soviet View of the Indonesian Revolution: A Study in the Russian Attitude Towards Asian Nationalism

Although in recent years there have been an increasing number of studies of the Indonesian Communist Party and of the Indonesian revolution (1945-49), there has been relatively little attention paid specifically to the role of the party in the revolutionary period and its relationship during that period with the Soviet Union. Furthermore, virtually no studies have been made of the perceptions of the Soviet Union of the character of the Indonesian revolution and the level of sophistication and understanding which its Indonesian specialists brought to the study of Indonesian affairs of this period. We believe that with this Interim Report Ruth McVey has made an important beginning in overcoming our ignorance of this most important subject. Her study makes a significant contribution both to our understanding of Indonesian Communism and of Soviet relations with Asian Communist parties in the critical period after World War II.

From 1954 to 1956, Miss McVey undertook intensive research on Soviet materials available in the United States and Western Europe and on Dutch Communist and Indonesian Communist publications available in the Netherlands and at Cornell. This study, first published in 1957, is based on her analysis of these documents and covers the period 1945-1950.

About the Author

Ruth McVey received her M.A. in 1954 from the Harvard Soviet Area Program. Subsequently under the auspices of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project she carried on research for fifteen months in the Netherlands and England, and it was following this that she wrote this Interim Report. After further graduate work at Cornell, McVey was awarded a Ford Foundation fellowship for additional research in the Netherlands and Indonesia. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1961.