# The banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) is secretly reviving to seize power, with covert communists, including President Joko Widodo, working from within the state

**Verdict: Contradicted.** There is no organized Indonesian Communist Party to revive. The PKI was destroyed in the 1965-66 mass killings, banned in 1966, and communism has been outlawed ever since; no party, membership, or structure exists. The recurring claim that a secret "kebangkitan PKI" (PKI revival) is under way, and that public figures are hidden communists, is a political bogeyman, deployed most heavily around the 2014, 2019, and later elections. It rests on fabricated "PKI symbols," doctored images, and false readings of hammer-and-sickle motifs, all catalogued by Indonesian fact-checkers and scholars. A 2017 SMRC national survey found about 86.8 percent of Indonesians did not believe the PKI was reviving, and 75.1 percent rejected the smear that President Joko Widodo was linked to it. This file reports the accusation only to rebut it. It never asserts that any living person is a covert communist, and it keeps the real, documented history (the ban, the New Order's propaganda, the 1965-66 atrocities) separate from the false present-day revival claim.

Category: Government & Intelligence · Era: 2010s · First circulated: A recurring narrative rooted in the New Order's Cold War propaganda about a "latent danger of communism" (bahaya laten komunisme), revived as an electoral weapon from Joko Widodo's 2014 presidential run, escalated through 2017 anti-communist panics and the 2019 campaign, and recycled since. Documented as disinformation by Indonesian fact-checkers, by the SMRC survey, and by scholars writing for ISEAS-Fulcrum, the Asian Journal of Political Science, and university platforms. · Believed by: Pushed by hardline political and religious actors, anti-communist campaigners, and viral social-media networks, and amplified around elections to smear opponents. Surveys show most Indonesians reject it: SMRC's 2017 poll found roughly 87 percent did not believe a PKI revival was happening. No credible historian, security body, or fact-checking network has found evidence of an organized PKI; researchers classify the revival claim as a manufactured political panic.
URL: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/pki-revival-hoax

## Summary
The Indonesian Communist Party, once the largest communist party outside the socialist bloc, was annihilated in the 1965-66 mass killings, banned in 1966, and has not existed as an organization since; Indonesian law still criminalizes communism and the spread of Marxist-Leninist teaching. Yet a persistent conspiracy theory holds that the PKI is secretly resurging to seize power, and that prominent figures, above all President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), are covert communists. This "kebangkitan PKI" narrative surges around elections. It flared in the 2014 and 2019 presidential races, in a 2017 wave of anti-communist scares, and has recycled since, driven by fabricated "PKI symbols," doctored photographs, and false alarms over hammer-and-sickle imagery that Indonesian fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked. A 2017 SMRC national survey found about 86.8 percent of respondents did not believe the party was reviving, and 75.1 percent rejected the claim tying Jokowi to it. This file treats the revival claim as what scholars and fact-checkers describe: a political bogeyman with no organized party behind it, tied to the state's decades-old "latent danger of communism" doctrine and used to justify denial of the 1965 atrocities. It reports the smear to rebut it, and it does not assert that any living person is a hidden communist.

## The claim
That the outlawed PKI is covertly rebuilding and preparing to seize power in Indonesia; that hidden communists have infiltrated the government, media, and civil society; that public figures, including President Joko Widodo, are secret PKI sympathizers or agents; and that reported sightings of communist symbols, art events, and activism are evidence of an organized communist resurgence that the state and "leftists" are concealing.

## Origin and timeline
- 1966: In the aftermath of the 1965-66 mass killings, the Suharto-led army bans the PKI and, through the provisional legislature (TAP MPRS XXV/1966), outlaws communism, Marxism, and Leninism. The party ceases to exist as an organization. The prohibition remains in force in Indonesian law to the present day.
- 1967-1998: Suharto's authoritarian "New Order" builds an entire ideological apparatus around anti-communism, teaching a "latent danger of communism" (bahaya laten komunisme): a doctrine that communists, though defeated, are perpetually plotting a return. State schools, the mandatory film Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI, and official history entrench the idea of an ever-present hidden enemy.
- 2014: During the presidential campaign, opponents circulate a false narrative that candidate Joko Widodo is of Chinese descent and secretly linked to the PKI, casting him as the "communists' candidate." The smear is a fabrication; Jokowi, born in 1961, could not have been a party member, and no evidence ties him to communism. It nonetheless spreads widely online.
- 2017-05: A wave of anti-communist panic spreads on social media. Fabricated stories recast ordinary events, including art gatherings, as covert PKI activity. In one episode, viral hoaxes about a communist revival help incite a mob that attacks a legal-aid office in Jakarta, an early, concrete example of the narrative producing real-world violence.
- 2017-09-29: The pollster SMRC releases a national survey on the "PKI revival" issue: about 86.8 percent of respondents say they do not believe the PKI is reviving, and 75.1 percent reject the claim that President Joko Widodo is connected to the party. SMRC concludes the issue is being deliberately mobilized by particular political forces rather than reflecting a real resurgence.
- 2016-2020: A recurring pattern of "hammer-and-sickle" scares plays out: police and military detain people over T-shirts, drawings, or logos that resemble communist symbols, and viral posts present these incidents as proof of a revival. Researchers document that most involve misidentification, hoaxes, or the criminalization of activists rather than any organized PKI.
- 2019: The revival narrative returns full force in the Jokowi-Prabowo presidential rematch. Memes, doctored images, and fabricated "leaks" again allege the incumbent is a communist agent. Indonesia's large network of fact-checkers, coordinated through the cekfakta initiative, debunks a steady stream of these hoaxes during the campaign.
- 2020-2026: The bogeyman persists. Periodic bills and rumors (over regulations perceived as "reviving" communism, or annual scares around 30 September) keep the narrative alive, even as no organized party materializes and surveys continue to show most Indonesians do not believe a revival is happening.

## The evidence, claim by claim
- Claim: The PKI is secretly reorganizing and preparing to seize power.
  Evidence: There is no organized party to reorganize. The PKI was destroyed as an institution in 1965-66, banned in 1966, and communism has been illegal in Indonesia ever since; there is no membership, leadership, or structure that any investigator, security service, or scholar has documented. Fact-checkers and academics who have examined the claim, including analysts writing for ISEAS-Fulcrum, describe it as a manufactured panic, not a finding. A resurgence with no party, no members, and no evidence is not a hidden movement; it is an absence.
- Claim: Ordinary Indonesians recognize the communist threat is real and rising.
  Evidence: The opposite is true in the polling. SMRC's 2017 national survey found roughly 86.8 percent of respondents did not believe the PKI was reviving, with only about 12.6 percent thinking it was. SMRC's director concluded the issue was being mobilized by specific political forces rather than welling up from public experience. Far from a broad recognition of a threat, the revival claim is rejected by the large majority of the public it is aimed at.
- Claim: President Joko Widodo is a covert communist or PKI sympathizer.
  Evidence: This is a false accusation, and it is reported here only as one. Jokowi was born in 1961, four to five years before the party was banned, so membership was chronologically impossible, and no credible evidence links him to communism. The same 2017 SMRC survey found 75.1 percent of Indonesians did not believe the claim and only 5.1 percent accepted it. Scholars analyzing the 2014 and 2019 campaigns document the "Jokowi is PKI" line as a fabricated smear fused with anti-Chinese racism, not a fact about the man.
- Claim: Sightings of hammer-and-sickle symbols prove communists are active.
  Evidence: The documented cases point to misidentification, hoaxes, and the criminalization of activists, not an organized party. Researchers cataloguing the "hammer-and-sickle" episodes describe students detained for campus drawings, vendors arrested over T-shirt logos, and viral posts recasting unrelated imagery as PKI insignia. Indonesian fact-checkers have repeatedly traced specific viral "PKI symbol" claims to doctored images or invented context. A recurring symbol scare, endlessly re-shared, is evidence of a moral panic, not of a communist network.
- Claim: The state and "leftists" are covering up the revival, which is why there is no proof.
  Evidence: This inverts the actual power balance. Indonesia's laws still ban communism, its security forces act against perceived communist symbols, and its official culture spent three decades teaching that communists are forever plotting a return. There is no institutional incentive to conceal a genuine PKI, and considerable incentive to expose one. The "cover-up" claim is unfalsifiable by design: the absence of evidence is recast as proof of concealment, which is the signature of a conspiracy theory rather than an investigation.

## Why people believe it
- It was manufactured by the state and never dismantled. For over three decades the New Order taught a "latent danger of communism," the idea that defeated communists are permanently scheming to return. Generations were schooled in it through mandatory films and official history, so the reflex to see a hidden PKI everywhere was deliberately built into the culture and outlived the regime that created it.
- It sits on a real and terrible history. The 1965-66 mass killings and the genuine former existence of a huge PKI mean the party was not imaginary; it was real, and its destruction was real. That authentic past gives the false present-day revival claim a surface plausibility it would never have if invented from nothing.
- It is electorally useful. Branding an opponent a communist is a low-cost, high-impact smear in a country where communism is both illegal and culturally taboo. Around the 2014 and 2019 elections the label was deployed precisely because it is hard to disprove quickly and easy to weaponize, which is why analysts track its surges to campaign calendars.
- The taboo makes it self-sealing. Because communism is banned and stigmatized, few will publicly defend anyone accused of it, and denials can be spun as exactly what a hidden communist would say. The social cost of the accusation does the work, so the claim spreads even where the evidence is absent.
- Fear travels faster than correction. A doctored image of a hammer and sickle or a fabricated "leak" is vivid and shareable; the fact-check that dismantles it is slower and drier. The asymmetry lets each new scare circulate widely before it is debunked, and the residue of suspicion lingers after the specific hoax is exposed.

## Open questions
- How to reckon with 1965 without feeding the bogeyman is genuinely unresolved. Honest public discussion of the mass killings is routinely attacked as evidence of a "revival," so the revival panic actively obstructs the accountability Indonesia has never delivered. Squaring open historical debate with a legal ban on communism is a real, unsettled tension in Indonesian public life.
- The line between banned symbols and legitimate expression stays contested. Because communist imagery is illegal, scholarly study, art, and even accidental resemblances can trigger detention. Where lawful expression ends and a prohibited symbol begins is a live legal and civil-liberties question, independent of whether any PKI exists.
- Whether the anti-communism law itself should change is an ongoing debate. Some argue the standing ban on communism and Marxism-Leninism keeps the bogeyman available as a political tool; others defend it. That policy question is separate from, and does not depend on, the false claim that an organized party is reviving.

## Sources
- The 'Revival' of PKI: Bogeyman Tactics, Fulcrum (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute) (2021): https://fulcrum.sg/the-revival-of-pki-bogeyman-tactics/
- The communist imaginary in Indonesia's 2014 and 2019 presidential elections, Asian Journal of Political Science (2023): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02185377.2023.2270947
- New Indonesian Anti-Communists Seek Elusive Enemies, Voice of America (VOA) (2017): https://www.voanews.com/a/indonesian-anti-communists/4091794.html
- SMRC: 87% of the Public Disagrees With the Issue of a PKI Revival, Databoks (Katadata) (2017): https://databoks.katadata.co.id/en/political/statistics/01617372af03198/smrc-87-of-the-public-disagrees-with-the-issue-of-a-pki-revival
- Why Indonesia can still not cope with the specter of communism, Asia News Network (2020): https://asianews.network/why-indonesia-can-still-not-cope-with-the-specter-of-communism/
- Indonesia: Mob Attack in Jakarta Tied to Fake News Condemned, BenarNews (2017): https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/indonesian/indonesia-communists-09182017190146.html
- Hammer-and-sickle cases: The communist bogy that never goes away, Indoleft / Indonesia at Melbourne (2020): https://www.indoleft.org/analysis/2020-06-03/hammer-and-sickle-cases-the-communist-bogy-that-never-goes-away.html
- The Spectre of Hammer and Sickle, International People's Tribunal 1965: https://www.tribunal1965.org/en/the-spectre-of-hammer-and-sickle/
- "What You Share Defines You": Indonesia Has World's Biggest Fact-Checking Network, Jakarta Globe (2019): https://jakartaglobe.id/news/what-you-share-defines-you-indonesia-has-worlds-biggest-factchecking-network

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