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The End of Sukarno: A Coup That Misfired: A Purge That Ran Wild
In the early morning of 1st October 1965, six high-ranking generals of the Indonesian Army were murdered under grisly circumstances.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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114 people want to read
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John Hughes
6 books1 followerR. John Hughes, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 22, 2017
This book won the Pulitzer prize. And it is an interesting look at the time period. But I believe that we learn just as much about the American political situation and worldview of the writer as we do about the fall of Sukarno. The conflict between President Sukarno and the general Suharto is a fascinating piece of history.
Unfortunately, John Hughes is an incredibly biased observer. He spent some time in Indonesia, but never learned the language. So everything we read is through the filter of an interpreter. Often a military interpreter. A couple of simple examples will suffice. John Hughes makes it very clear that he believes that Sukarno was causing a pro-Communist student movement. However, he believed the anti-Communist movement was entirely spontaneous. Even though the anti-Communist movement openly reported to the military, and the pro-Communist movement had no ties to anyone (officially). That sounds awfully credulous for a reporter.
A second example, of the torture of the generals by high school girls and boys (among others). Well, Hughes says, it doesn't really make sense. But, even though Hughes was interviewing high-school girls in a military prison under direct observation by their captors, he was sure that the standard story was true. That the generals' execution was a scene of "savage, revolting, and bloody frenzy." Why? Because they are Communists, of course. And the military would never make up a story to enrage the people to overthrow Sukarno and put themselves in power.
I feel like I understand more about Indonesia after reading this book. A lot of things have stayed the same. I just watched the same political trial for Ahok that Hughes watched for Subandrio in 1965. Were the results just as rigged? Who know? Hughes doesn't even consider the possibility. A later observer also has the advantage of watching Suharto getting taken down exactly the same way that Sukarno was brought down, by the student movement and religious groups, but this time with a different cover story - the military bringing in people to rape and loot lots of things in Jakarta.
We may never know what really happened or why in 1965 in Indonesia. But we do know that Hughes was dead wrong about American involvement, and Sukarno was right. The American CIA did provide logistical assistance for the destruction of the Communists in Indonesia. It's clear in declassified documents. It's also clear that the Suharto that Hughes paints so magnanimously was still holding 40,000 people prisoner without trial more than a decade later for being accused Communists. It's clear that Hughes' minimization (and rationalization!! - if the army didn't murder all the communists, then the communists would have murdered them) of the purge to "just" include 180,000 victims isn't even half of later estimates. We can't blame Hughes for not having access to those facts at the time.
So, it's an interesting book about a fascinating time. There are some interesting facts (for example more than 20% of Indonesia's teachers disappeared after the purge), but most of the interpretation is pretty worthless.
Unfortunately, John Hughes is an incredibly biased observer. He spent some time in Indonesia, but never learned the language. So everything we read is through the filter of an interpreter. Often a military interpreter. A couple of simple examples will suffice. John Hughes makes it very clear that he believes that Sukarno was causing a pro-Communist student movement. However, he believed the anti-Communist movement was entirely spontaneous. Even though the anti-Communist movement openly reported to the military, and the pro-Communist movement had no ties to anyone (officially). That sounds awfully credulous for a reporter.
A second example, of the torture of the generals by high school girls and boys (among others). Well, Hughes says, it doesn't really make sense. But, even though Hughes was interviewing high-school girls in a military prison under direct observation by their captors, he was sure that the standard story was true. That the generals' execution was a scene of "savage, revolting, and bloody frenzy." Why? Because they are Communists, of course. And the military would never make up a story to enrage the people to overthrow Sukarno and put themselves in power.
I feel like I understand more about Indonesia after reading this book. A lot of things have stayed the same. I just watched the same political trial for Ahok that Hughes watched for Subandrio in 1965. Were the results just as rigged? Who know? Hughes doesn't even consider the possibility. A later observer also has the advantage of watching Suharto getting taken down exactly the same way that Sukarno was brought down, by the student movement and religious groups, but this time with a different cover story - the military bringing in people to rape and loot lots of things in Jakarta.
We may never know what really happened or why in 1965 in Indonesia. But we do know that Hughes was dead wrong about American involvement, and Sukarno was right. The American CIA did provide logistical assistance for the destruction of the Communists in Indonesia. It's clear in declassified documents. It's also clear that the Suharto that Hughes paints so magnanimously was still holding 40,000 people prisoner without trial more than a decade later for being accused Communists. It's clear that Hughes' minimization (and rationalization!! - if the army didn't murder all the communists, then the communists would have murdered them) of the purge to "just" include 180,000 victims isn't even half of later estimates. We can't blame Hughes for not having access to those facts at the time.
So, it's an interesting book about a fascinating time. There are some interesting facts (for example more than 20% of Indonesia's teachers disappeared after the purge), but most of the interpretation is pretty worthless.
March 15, 2025
Excellent, well-researched book that plunges you right into the chaos of 1965- a year that decided the future of Indonesia, and whose reverberations are still being felt. There seems to have been a tragic miscalculation on the part of a small body of Generals, who either received faulty intelligence, or were misinformed about the extent of actual danger, but it was felt that there was going to be a Western-backed coup, effected by 6 senior army officers, who needed to be assassinated. While there really isn't clear evidence linking this directly to the COmmunist Party, the Generals, calling themselves the 30th September Movement, proclaimed allegiance to Sukarno. On one night, assassination attempts were made on 6 high ranking Indonesia military commanders-not all were successful. The ones who escaped made their way to a safe place, and the tragic events of the rest of the decade were sent into motion. Hughes' densely researched book describes each of these events, and you get the perspectives of the 30th September revolutionaries, and their opponents. Interestingly enough, a rather unimportant Major General whose name was Suharto, and who commanded a reserve Army division ( as mildly irrelevant as it sounds) was left off this list of possibly Western-backed army officers, as was his division-of the entire complex that housed the Army headquarters, his was left unoccupied by the 30th September uprising, and that quickly became the rallying point. As Hughes shows you, the plotters of the coup gained control quite quickly, but seemed to have failed to actually have proper follow-up plans of maintaining control ( that they already had-Sukarno was not an unpopular leader). Suharto was woken up in the middle of the night, informed about this and he hurried to his compound, mobilising his men. He then went personally, to the other buildings of the military compounds, and managed to convince the quite confused men there that the plotters were trying to kill Sukarno, and the real heroes were the ones against them. The messaging people were hearing was confusing-on the one hand , you were hearing from the radio that 6 ( or maybe more ) military commanders had been killed in their beds while they slept, in some cases their children falling victim to the bullets as well, but you were supposed to trust those people. It was confusing for soldiers as well, who felt more reassured by Suharto, who wasn't assassinating their leaders. By the evening, Suharto had regained control, and was broadcasting from the radio station, that the hard Left were trying to take over Indonesia, and that only the army could save them. Hughes implies that after that they had American support in this as well, though it really wasn't true. The rest of this utterly tragic history, with consequences that reverberate in Indonesia today. Sukarno's generals in Java weren't able to see any success there either, and the uprising was brutally crushed. In a very short span of time, it proved easy to convince people that Sukarno's speeches about American imperialism were hysterical (irrespective of how plausible that was, Nixons had given a speech where he remarked that democracy didn't seem 'natural' for Indonesia), and that Sukarno's party was a danger to the country. Unfortunately, the murders of the generals were emotive proof that some of Sukarno's supporters had carried out a pretty violent act, and this was used to stir up emotions when their bodies were displayed and given state funerals. Suharto took control, and Hughes describes how with the aid of lists provided by the CIA and MI6, was told that he would face no consequences if people were murdered on suspicions of being Communist, as long as he held power. Sukarno was placed under house arrest, and this towering man, so instrumental in achieving independence for his country and who was trying so hard to prevent it from being swallowed by one bloc, or another, was made irrelevant, dying a few years later.
Hughes documents the violence that happened after this-large scale slaughters, as they were, and the seeming ease with which people seemed willing to make their neighbours march with shovels to dig graves for themselves and then be shot. It seems like a collective insanity took over the country, for a few months, and then just stopped, to never be spoken of again-Bali, that saw among the highest numbers of murders, doesn't commemorate this period of its history ( for obvious reasons, I guess). This book makes for deeply distressing reading, and is a historical what-if I keep coming back to. While Indonesia isn't doing too badly now, the Asian economic crisis can be laid directly at the feet of Suharto's crony capitalism, events that had their starting point decades ago , in the 60s. What if the original sin of trying to assassinate right wing generals hadn't been carried out, and they had been dismissed in less violent ways, and Sukarno had been allowed to carry out the process of building an independent nation? That question haunts this book.
Hughes documents the violence that happened after this-large scale slaughters, as they were, and the seeming ease with which people seemed willing to make their neighbours march with shovels to dig graves for themselves and then be shot. It seems like a collective insanity took over the country, for a few months, and then just stopped, to never be spoken of again-Bali, that saw among the highest numbers of murders, doesn't commemorate this period of its history ( for obvious reasons, I guess). This book makes for deeply distressing reading, and is a historical what-if I keep coming back to. While Indonesia isn't doing too badly now, the Asian economic crisis can be laid directly at the feet of Suharto's crony capitalism, events that had their starting point decades ago , in the 60s. What if the original sin of trying to assassinate right wing generals hadn't been carried out, and they had been dismissed in less violent ways, and Sukarno had been allowed to carry out the process of building an independent nation? That question haunts this book.
September 14, 2023
As Australia's nearest neighbour, the fourth-most populous country in the World, and despite sporadic attempts to engage the public, the knowledge of Indonesia's people and history by Australians is pitifully small. It is not a subject dealt with either at schools or universities in Australia (with some minor exceptions), and Indonesians do not form a large population grouping in Australia, so little knowledge comes via osmosis. Most Australians know Indonesia via Bali, a popular holiday destination; but Bali, a majority Hindu island, is not typical of the wider Indonesian culture, which is overwhelmingly Muslim.
Australia's relationship with Indonesia goes through regular tense moments, most recently over the independence of East Timor, and previously through the Confrontation over Malaysia, in which Australian troops took part.
I am no different to the majority of my countrymen, knowing little of the archepelago to our north; and while I knew that the first great national leader of Indonesia, Sukarno, was overthrown by the military headed by Suharto, I knew little of the detail. John Hughes - a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist working for the Christian Science Monitor - has written a blow-by-blow account of the coup and following struggle that led to what was a major change in direction for the country. The book is based on his journalism at the time, when he was correspondent in Jakarta.
The overthrow of Sukarno was anything but a typical coup d'etat: in fact it is hard to know even now exactly what was going on during the initial attempted coup. On the night of the 30th of September 1965, squads of army soldiers left the Halim Air Force Base to capture six of the country's top generals. Two were killed resisting capture, and the others were taken back to Halim where it seems they were tortured before being murdered. As well as the insurrectionist army troops, there were thousands of Communist activists at the base ready to fight.
So far, so standard coup. But it was the events that followed that were extremely odd. Sukarno himself left his palace and went to Halim, where he spoke to officers involved in the coup, and seemed to understand, if not condone, the events of that night. Sukarno had over the previous years been moving more and more towards communism, and had become particularly close to China. The Indonesian Communist Party was one of the largest in the world at the time, and had some representation in cabinet, although no real power. It's possible that the Communists thought that if they "decapitated" the army, it would give Sukarno freedom to move more definitively to the left.
Sukarno however, wiley politician that he was, played for time, waiting to see how the coup played out. He didn't have long to wait: the plotters had not planned the next stage of the coup - perhaps they thought Sukarno would come out vocally in their favour - and the army, led by Suharto, quickly regained control of the situation.
Then came the massacre - the army let loose the anti-communist forces in society, and over the next few months hundreds of thousands of communists, suspected communists, or merely the unlucky, were slaughtered. The left had been destroyed, and Suharto took over the reins of government, although Sukarno had not been removed.
By the mid 60s Indonesia was in a sorry state economically - people struggled to feed themselves, and infrastructure was collapsing. Sukarno had for many years blamed outside forces for this state of affairs, but now, after the coup attempt, the populace and in particular the students, found their voice and increasingly laid the blame for their plight at the feet of the President.
As Suharto and his allies increased their control over government affairs, Sukarno was progressively sidelined, until, a year after the coup attempt, he was removed from the post of president, which Suharto claimed after an election.
This book, published just after Suharto became Acting President, gives an on-the-ground account, in a slightly breathless style, of how all this came about. As a work of great political insight it's not fantastic, but as a primer of the course of events it is useful.
Fifty years have passed, and still there is a pall of silence over the massacres and other dark activities that occurred at that time. Suharto - who ended up as much of a dictator as Sukarno - has gone, and Indonesia is a democracy with a growth rate that many other countries would envy.
Indonesian Upheaval is good journalistic writing covering a vital piece of Indonesian history.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Australia's relationship with Indonesia goes through regular tense moments, most recently over the independence of East Timor, and previously through the Confrontation over Malaysia, in which Australian troops took part.
I am no different to the majority of my countrymen, knowing little of the archepelago to our north; and while I knew that the first great national leader of Indonesia, Sukarno, was overthrown by the military headed by Suharto, I knew little of the detail. John Hughes - a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist working for the Christian Science Monitor - has written a blow-by-blow account of the coup and following struggle that led to what was a major change in direction for the country. The book is based on his journalism at the time, when he was correspondent in Jakarta.
The overthrow of Sukarno was anything but a typical coup d'etat: in fact it is hard to know even now exactly what was going on during the initial attempted coup. On the night of the 30th of September 1965, squads of army soldiers left the Halim Air Force Base to capture six of the country's top generals. Two were killed resisting capture, and the others were taken back to Halim where it seems they were tortured before being murdered. As well as the insurrectionist army troops, there were thousands of Communist activists at the base ready to fight.
So far, so standard coup. But it was the events that followed that were extremely odd. Sukarno himself left his palace and went to Halim, where he spoke to officers involved in the coup, and seemed to understand, if not condone, the events of that night. Sukarno had over the previous years been moving more and more towards communism, and had become particularly close to China. The Indonesian Communist Party was one of the largest in the world at the time, and had some representation in cabinet, although no real power. It's possible that the Communists thought that if they "decapitated" the army, it would give Sukarno freedom to move more definitively to the left.
Sukarno however, wiley politician that he was, played for time, waiting to see how the coup played out. He didn't have long to wait: the plotters had not planned the next stage of the coup - perhaps they thought Sukarno would come out vocally in their favour - and the army, led by Suharto, quickly regained control of the situation.
Then came the massacre - the army let loose the anti-communist forces in society, and over the next few months hundreds of thousands of communists, suspected communists, or merely the unlucky, were slaughtered. The left had been destroyed, and Suharto took over the reins of government, although Sukarno had not been removed.
By the mid 60s Indonesia was in a sorry state economically - people struggled to feed themselves, and infrastructure was collapsing. Sukarno had for many years blamed outside forces for this state of affairs, but now, after the coup attempt, the populace and in particular the students, found their voice and increasingly laid the blame for their plight at the feet of the President.
As Suharto and his allies increased their control over government affairs, Sukarno was progressively sidelined, until, a year after the coup attempt, he was removed from the post of president, which Suharto claimed after an election.
This book, published just after Suharto became Acting President, gives an on-the-ground account, in a slightly breathless style, of how all this came about. As a work of great political insight it's not fantastic, but as a primer of the course of events it is useful.
Fifty years have passed, and still there is a pall of silence over the massacres and other dark activities that occurred at that time. Suharto - who ended up as much of a dictator as Sukarno - has gone, and Indonesia is a democracy with a growth rate that many other countries would envy.
Indonesian Upheaval is good journalistic writing covering a vital piece of Indonesian history.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
December 11, 2021
I eagerly purchased this book because I have always been curious about of the fourth member of the infamous five personalities (Nkrumah, Nasser, Nehru, Tito and Sukarno) that chaired the Bandung Conference in 1955.
I honestly thought I was getting a very unbiased recounting of the events of that fateful botched Oct 1965 coup that effectively set-off the chain reaction culminating in Sukarno's fall from power by 1967. Instead, what I got was the account of an author who literally grew more bias and ahistorically subjective as the narrative dragged on.
Hughes obviously had his very own strong opinions regarding Sukarno but sadly couldn't separate that from his retelling and just squandered the priceless opportunity (Hughes was one of few foreign reporters in Jakarta at the time of the coup) to set the record straight in regards to this pivotal trajectory altering moment in Indonesian history.
It's quite frankly very insulting to us the readers, the depths at which Hughes goes to exonerate the role of the West in the orchestrated downfall of the Sukarno. I personally found it so amusing that as painstakingly pedantic as he was in giving every tiny and even at times mundane details regarding the preparation of the coup plotters in 1965. Hughes somehow lacked that fastidiousness in his analysis of how Suharto out of the blue felt entitled to virtually move in after the coup begun to fall. Why was it particularly Suharto that became the man of the hour? Suharto, a lowly insignificant General in charge of KONTRAD all the way outside the capital. So irrelevant that the coup plotters felt no need to target him in their killing squads. Yet this man acted so boldly in his conviction and entitlement to take charge after the coup. This is where pertinent analysis was needed! Of course not, Hughes rightfully knows he couldn't do that as it obviously magnifies the role the CIA played in pushing Suharto and the disloyal army generals on in stripping Sukarno of his authority and mandate.
Was Sukarno perfect? Obviously not yet Hughes was out here painting him in the same canvas as Stalin (yes an actual comparison he made). What about the economic milieu that precipitated the discontent and angst amongst the masses. Why not talk about the intentional strangulation of prices meant to punish Sukarno?
All in all, this book is outright pro-Suharto and anti-Communist propaganda meant to justify the takeover of Indonesia by Suharto in 1967 while pandering to the crowd that asserts the innocence and lack of complicity of the CIA and other Western nations. This is literally the very purpose of this book and nothing more.
How bias this book is truly astounding in all levels! No arguments whatsoever were made in Sukarno's defense even for the sake of objective devil's advocate. If this book isn't republished anytime soon by Hughes before his death to finish the story with how Suharto's government came to a disgraceful end in 1998. I predict that this book would really age very badly. The Suharto he praised back in 1967 makes the Sukarno he admonished around the same time, look like a god in pale comparison by 1998 and counting.
Simply put, unabashed Western propaganda at its best.
I honestly thought I was getting a very unbiased recounting of the events of that fateful botched Oct 1965 coup that effectively set-off the chain reaction culminating in Sukarno's fall from power by 1967. Instead, what I got was the account of an author who literally grew more bias and ahistorically subjective as the narrative dragged on.
Hughes obviously had his very own strong opinions regarding Sukarno but sadly couldn't separate that from his retelling and just squandered the priceless opportunity (Hughes was one of few foreign reporters in Jakarta at the time of the coup) to set the record straight in regards to this pivotal trajectory altering moment in Indonesian history.
It's quite frankly very insulting to us the readers, the depths at which Hughes goes to exonerate the role of the West in the orchestrated downfall of the Sukarno. I personally found it so amusing that as painstakingly pedantic as he was in giving every tiny and even at times mundane details regarding the preparation of the coup plotters in 1965. Hughes somehow lacked that fastidiousness in his analysis of how Suharto out of the blue felt entitled to virtually move in after the coup begun to fall. Why was it particularly Suharto that became the man of the hour? Suharto, a lowly insignificant General in charge of KONTRAD all the way outside the capital. So irrelevant that the coup plotters felt no need to target him in their killing squads. Yet this man acted so boldly in his conviction and entitlement to take charge after the coup. This is where pertinent analysis was needed! Of course not, Hughes rightfully knows he couldn't do that as it obviously magnifies the role the CIA played in pushing Suharto and the disloyal army generals on in stripping Sukarno of his authority and mandate.
Was Sukarno perfect? Obviously not yet Hughes was out here painting him in the same canvas as Stalin (yes an actual comparison he made). What about the economic milieu that precipitated the discontent and angst amongst the masses. Why not talk about the intentional strangulation of prices meant to punish Sukarno?
All in all, this book is outright pro-Suharto and anti-Communist propaganda meant to justify the takeover of Indonesia by Suharto in 1967 while pandering to the crowd that asserts the innocence and lack of complicity of the CIA and other Western nations. This is literally the very purpose of this book and nothing more.
How bias this book is truly astounding in all levels! No arguments whatsoever were made in Sukarno's defense even for the sake of objective devil's advocate. If this book isn't republished anytime soon by Hughes before his death to finish the story with how Suharto's government came to a disgraceful end in 1998. I predict that this book would really age very badly. The Suharto he praised back in 1967 makes the Sukarno he admonished around the same time, look like a god in pale comparison by 1998 and counting.
Simply put, unabashed Western propaganda at its best.
December 28, 2013
The book is quite credible with many citations to improve his arguments. Although filled with facts, He couldn't hide his anti-communist bias and sometimes wrote his own derogative opinions on Indonesian communists, although He still didn't try to hide the violence and the torture the communists received from the Indonesian. He also wrote optimisticly regarding Soeharto, which is kinda weird, especially if you're reading this in post new order (Soeharto regime) era.
January 25, 2025
Book Review: The End of Sukarno
Reading The End of Sukarno was an emotional journey—one that left me shaken, enraged, and deeply introspective. The author’s vivid descriptions of the generals’ killings and the savagery of the Cakrabirawa guards made me weep, not just for the victims, but for the horrifying capacity of humans to harm one another.
As I turned the pages, I began to see Sukarno in a harsher light. The leader who once united a nation in the fight for independence now presided over its disintegration, dancing in the palace while his people suffered and bled. His cavalier attitude—especially when learning of the gruesome slaughter of his generals—was chilling. How could a leader so indifferent to human life continue to command loyalty?
For me, this story hits close to home. My father, only nine years old in 1965, lived through the horror in Tegal. Growing up, I thought the chaos of Jakarta felt distant from his small town. But through our conversations, I learned that the darkness of 1965 reached far beyond the capital. Communism had deeply entrenched itself in places like Tegal, and my father remembers it vividly: Colonel Untung, one of the coup leaders, hailed from Tegal. My father’s neighbor, whose son-in-law was a communist, witnessed the unthinkable. The entire family was massacred outside their home, their bodies discarded in the river beside my dad’s house. He saw it all, at the age of nine.
This book also connected me to a documentary I watched recently during the Ubud Writers Festival, exploring the lives of Indonesian students sent abroad to study in Russia, China, and Europe during Sukarno’s reign. When the regime labeled them communists, they were exiled for decades, denied the right to return home. Thirty years of statelessness because of an assumed association. One of these students was DN Aidit’s brother.
I think of my dad’s cousin, who studied in Russia and managed to return because he was cleared of ties to communism. It made me wonder—did those who couldn’t return have lingering ties? Or were they victims of an unforgiving government, punished for affiliations they never chose? Regardless, stripping someone of their homeland because of belief—or mere suspicion—is a tragedy in itself.
This book didn’t just inform me—it consumed me. Anger, sadness, confusion, and endless questions about justice and morality overtook me. What is right? What is wrong? How do we reconcile with a history that tore families and communities apart?
If there’s one thing this book taught me, it is this: violence will never be the answer. No child deserves to carry the sins of their parents. And we must never judge a person solely for what they believe.
I wholeheartedly recommend The End of Sukarno for inclusion in our education system. It is a vital resource for understanding the truth from all sides and recognizing that two wrongs will never make a right. As a nation, we must confront our history—not to dwell on guilt, but to learn, empathize, and heal.
Reading The End of Sukarno was an emotional journey—one that left me shaken, enraged, and deeply introspective. The author’s vivid descriptions of the generals’ killings and the savagery of the Cakrabirawa guards made me weep, not just for the victims, but for the horrifying capacity of humans to harm one another.
As I turned the pages, I began to see Sukarno in a harsher light. The leader who once united a nation in the fight for independence now presided over its disintegration, dancing in the palace while his people suffered and bled. His cavalier attitude—especially when learning of the gruesome slaughter of his generals—was chilling. How could a leader so indifferent to human life continue to command loyalty?
For me, this story hits close to home. My father, only nine years old in 1965, lived through the horror in Tegal. Growing up, I thought the chaos of Jakarta felt distant from his small town. But through our conversations, I learned that the darkness of 1965 reached far beyond the capital. Communism had deeply entrenched itself in places like Tegal, and my father remembers it vividly: Colonel Untung, one of the coup leaders, hailed from Tegal. My father’s neighbor, whose son-in-law was a communist, witnessed the unthinkable. The entire family was massacred outside their home, their bodies discarded in the river beside my dad’s house. He saw it all, at the age of nine.
This book also connected me to a documentary I watched recently during the Ubud Writers Festival, exploring the lives of Indonesian students sent abroad to study in Russia, China, and Europe during Sukarno’s reign. When the regime labeled them communists, they were exiled for decades, denied the right to return home. Thirty years of statelessness because of an assumed association. One of these students was DN Aidit’s brother.
I think of my dad’s cousin, who studied in Russia and managed to return because he was cleared of ties to communism. It made me wonder—did those who couldn’t return have lingering ties? Or were they victims of an unforgiving government, punished for affiliations they never chose? Regardless, stripping someone of their homeland because of belief—or mere suspicion—is a tragedy in itself.
This book didn’t just inform me—it consumed me. Anger, sadness, confusion, and endless questions about justice and morality overtook me. What is right? What is wrong? How do we reconcile with a history that tore families and communities apart?
If there’s one thing this book taught me, it is this: violence will never be the answer. No child deserves to carry the sins of their parents. And we must never judge a person solely for what they believe.
I wholeheartedly recommend The End of Sukarno for inclusion in our education system. It is a vital resource for understanding the truth from all sides and recognizing that two wrongs will never make a right. As a nation, we must confront our history—not to dwell on guilt, but to learn, empathize, and heal.
April 20, 2024
The End of Sukarno is the story of Indonesia's founding father's last days in power and how he hung on before eventually being discredited and overthrown.
The subject was quite intriguing for me given I know precious little about Indo history being the larger picture despite living a 30 min ferry ride from there.
The narrative has been pieced together by an American journalist and it shows. It is very clear that John Hughes is blatantly biased in his worldview about democracy and communism. Use of phrases like "but then communists will be communists" and the highly negative tone applied whenever there is reference to either China or communism would most likely make any serious, non partisan reader take his narrative with a pinch of salt. Towards the end he also goes onto a brief passage on American foreign policy and how to stop communism spreading.
On the positive side the book is very well written and it shows that Hughes knows how to captivate reader's attention. However, on the negative side, that makes this account which he might have wanted to be taken as a journalistic one read more like a thriller novel. Actually, if you think about it, the most apt description of this is probably as a Hollywood-ish account of a historical event. Americans are heroes, Brits are the nice guys but not to be taken seriously, Chinese/communists are the villains and anyone else (Indonesians in this case) are mere dude actors in their own story.
I would have rated this a 3 on account of all the above but then we do like Hollywood thrillers so there's an extra star for the entertainment value!
The subject was quite intriguing for me given I know precious little about Indo history being the larger picture despite living a 30 min ferry ride from there.
The narrative has been pieced together by an American journalist and it shows. It is very clear that John Hughes is blatantly biased in his worldview about democracy and communism. Use of phrases like "but then communists will be communists" and the highly negative tone applied whenever there is reference to either China or communism would most likely make any serious, non partisan reader take his narrative with a pinch of salt. Towards the end he also goes onto a brief passage on American foreign policy and how to stop communism spreading.
On the positive side the book is very well written and it shows that Hughes knows how to captivate reader's attention. However, on the negative side, that makes this account which he might have wanted to be taken as a journalistic one read more like a thriller novel. Actually, if you think about it, the most apt description of this is probably as a Hollywood-ish account of a historical event. Americans are heroes, Brits are the nice guys but not to be taken seriously, Chinese/communists are the villains and anyone else (Indonesians in this case) are mere dude actors in their own story.
I would have rated this a 3 on account of all the above but then we do like Hollywood thrillers so there's an extra star for the entertainment value!
December 4, 2017
As a journalist, John Hughes tried to give logic and balanced arguments of who are responsible in 30th September 1965 event of Indonesian generals murder through descriptive storytelling. Of course as an American himself, in some spots in the book he wrote the circumstances around the event from US government perspective, especially the denial of CIA involvement in the coup. The writer also gave some snippets of several Indonesian important people's view of Sukarno from his deep investigations and first-hand interviews.
July 14, 2017
a very well-written, of the moment take on the coup that brought down Sukarno, readers should be warned that some of the book's conclusions have been proven to be untrue, and its predictions for the Soharto regime certainly failed to come through, but its a very valuable look at the view of the time, and a quick and enjoyable read
May 6, 2025
Written in the late 1960s, it leaves out the later revelations about US and British complicity in the mass killings of suspected communists. But it's a good overview of the mood in Indonesia and the kind of messaging the New Order aimed to present to the outside world.
January 4, 2020
The thesis really falls down and disintegrate when you have read other works regarding the subject phenomenon.
April 14, 2023
A LOT of the American stuff has aged very poorly, especially with what we all know now, but as a document produced in the immediate aftermath it is fantastic.
February 16, 2025
Many have been written on the subject. What I like is on the ground, first hand journalism reporting that makes me feel as I were there myself.
November 12, 2021
The book reads very well like a novel-not surprising as it won the Pullitzer prize for international reporting in 1967-painting lucidly the profiles of the characters and circumstances of this tumultuous event with far reaching consequences in the Indonesian history. While the book must be read within the context of the period with all the information that were available to the writer at that time (including sources coming from the military), it is nevertheless very well written and the writer was able to gain some first hand primary testimonies from the characters and even went to the extra mile of visiting the sites of the communist massacres (including D.N. Aidit's hideout in Central Java). It provides a very important perspective of how the events were interpreted globally when it happened.
October 12, 2023
That didn't age well.
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This book is a stain on this Pulitzer prize winning journalist's record. This is not journalism, this is public relations for Suharto, a puff piece which would be more appropriate for the recently drafted pitcher for a baseball team, and not a coverup for one of the bloodiest coups in history, in fact the bloodiest that the United States has every been involved in.
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This book is a stain on this Pulitzer prize winning journalist's record. This is not journalism, this is public relations for Suharto, a puff piece which would be more appropriate for the recently drafted pitcher for a baseball team, and not a coverup for one of the bloodiest coups in history, in fact the bloodiest that the United States has every been involved in.
August 16, 2014
The most important thing about this book is that it was written in the late sixties, pretty much immediately after the coup and subsequent fall of Sukarno. At the time, Vietnam was still raging, Communism was still a viable threat, and Suharto had barely begun his rule. So the context is a little weird, but the author's knowledge of the subject is extraordinarily thorough. He was one of the few western reporters on the ground, and used his experience in the region and country to gain access where others couldn't -- before, during and after the events covered in the book. I'm not sure how much is written about the subject having only read this, but it seems to be the standard of reporting on the event, and even won the author a Pulitzer. That said, there are issues. The text is a little dry, the author repeats himself, and the diction is dated and redundant. I have only come across the phrase "at loggerheads" about twenty times in my life, and fifteen of them are in this book. I think this guy was in the right place at the right time, and was good at being a reporter. Maybe not a book author. Anyway, I'm still glad to have read it and feel pretty informed about what happened, when, and why.
June 23, 2015
This is an "on the ground" account of the events that brought about the fall Sukarno in Indonesia in 1967 including; the "coup" of October 1 1966, the bloody purge that followed, and the gradual degradation of Sukarno's status.
The events of the coup are well covered considering what was known at the time, (The book was published in 1967), however information on the purges was not as complete. I think that the author can be forgiven this given that the purges were not terribly well documented and covering this topic could have jeopardized the author's personal safety. Hughes's insights really shine as he follows the events that degraded Sukarno's mythical status in Indonesia to that of a troublesome figurehead who had lost touch with his country' new reality.
For a more detailed investigation of the "coup" of October 1 1966, check Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'Etat in Indonesia.
The events of the coup are well covered considering what was known at the time, (The book was published in 1967), however information on the purges was not as complete. I think that the author can be forgiven this given that the purges were not terribly well documented and covering this topic could have jeopardized the author's personal safety. Hughes's insights really shine as he follows the events that degraded Sukarno's mythical status in Indonesia to that of a troublesome figurehead who had lost touch with his country' new reality.
For a more detailed investigation of the "coup" of October 1 1966, check Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'Etat in Indonesia.
December 11, 2007
The American John Hughes who won the Pulitzer Prize for his daily reports from Jakarta in October 1965 was just one of only three foreign journalists who managed to stay in Indonesia throughout the "misfired coup" that happened. Vital for anyone interseted in the modern history of this country
Want to read
November 20, 2013Buku bertanda tangan penulisnya, John Hughes, diberikan kepada Adam Malik, dengan ucapan "With respect and best wishes, Djakarta, August '68".
Buku ini menang Pulitzer Prize tahun 1967 untuk kategori Reporting on International Affairs.
Buku ini menang Pulitzer Prize tahun 1967 untuk kategori Reporting on International Affairs.
May 30, 2011
Very good account of events around Gestapu and the immediate aftermath.
August 31, 2011
interesting accounts but becomes conflicting with the report and analysis made by the Cornell University (Ruth Mc Vey). but anyhow the coup it self is still covered by uncertainty.
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December 1, 2016nice
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