Teaching Values of Islamic Communism in Surakarta: Issues in the First Quarter of the 20th Century

Abstract

This study explores teaching values of Islamic Communism in the colonial era in Surakarta Indonesia in the 20^th century. As Islam and communism are generally viewed as being incompatible, this looked at the distinctive and uncommon fusion of these two ideologies and the main ideas behind Islamic communism. Using content analysis this study examined three popular magazines in this era whose news affected political and social changes in the overall Java.  Four steps of historical methods were applied including: heuristic, source critic, interpretation, and historiography.  Results show that the history of the Indonesian movement and its ideologies included a blend of ideas from Islam and communism, which later led to the notion of Islamic communism. To achieve this, its proponents sought to find the matching  points between the two ideologies and erase any notion that might disassociate them allowing  syncretism ideology. The two ideologies, when combined, were employed in the struggle against capitalism and colonialism. Islam was perceived as defending the rights of the indigenous people being oppressed by colonialism. The emergent communists then claimed that their doctrine, which rejected colonialism and capitalism, was wholly in line with Islamic Jihadism idea in terms of fighting the negative effects of the above two ideologies.