The history of the Republic of Indonesia, which this year marks the 65th anniversary of its independence, is full of the drama that accompanied the development of the peoples who found freedom after the Second World War. Many, like Indonesia, were on the verge of the expected collapse, but not all, like Indonesia, managed to avoid it. On August 17, 1945, a community consisting of hundreds of ethnic groups, carriers of different cultures, followers of at least five world faiths, who inhabited thousands of islands of the world's largest archipelago, who stood at various stages of development-from modern cities and industrial centers in Java and Sumatra to Stone Age cannibals in New Guinea, gained independence.

Keywords: Indonesia, Sukarno, Suharto, kabirs, new order, Berkeley Mafia, Habibi, ASEAN.

The founder of Russian Indonesian studies, A. A. Huber, believed that a single Indonesian nation did not develop until the end of Dutch colonial rule. He believed that this process was still going on in the late 1960s. However, colonial rule provoked an increase in the pan-Indian struggle against it and determined the process of nation formation [Huber, 1970, p.22].

At all stages of the history of independent Indonesia, there is a conflict between ethnocentrism and national unity, and the final victory has always been reserved for the latter. A sense of spiritual unity is an important, often decisive factor in the fractures of the fate of independent Indonesia.

While the Indonesians were waging a political and then from 1945 to 1949 armed struggle against the Dutch, everything was relatively clear: the enemy is the colonialists, and all the troubles and hardships, moral, political and social, all the deformations of social existence come from them. With the acquisition of sovereignty, with the transition to State, national and economic construction, Indonesians were faced with the need to overcome the costs of the colonial heritage. "We were not ready for independence and had no idea what we should do. There was no serious talk about what our country would be like after independence, " one of the most active participants in the anti-colonial revolution told a Hong Kong magazine reporter in 2002. His companion will add :" We started fighting first and only then did we start thinking" [McBeth, 2002, p. 46-47].

It was necessary to unite ethnic groups, tribes and social strata with different political cultures, sometimes opposing ideas about power, personality, society, state, social justice, etc. 1. The colonialists deliberately preserved the traditional patriarchal-feudal system of values, and Indonesians were not prepared to enter the world of capitalist values, competition, and bourgeois lifestyle. The dominant Javanese culture in Indonesia assumes the priority of the spiritual over the material, neglecting the spiritual.-

1 To some extent, this task still remains.

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attitude to money-grabbing. This is indirectly related to the principle of "not through money to power, but through power to money", which, in turn, later became the ground for corruption.

As A. A. Huber pointed out, in comparison with other colonial countries, the initial conditions for the formation of a national bourgeoisie in Indonesia were extremely unfavorable. Thus, the spheres of economy and production, where initial accumulation usually takes place, were largely closed to Indonesians [Huber, 1976, pp. 73-74]. Another feature of the colonial heritage is the uneven economic and social development of the country's regions. This factor took on a particularly explosive force, superimposed on ethnic, racial and religious differences. Capitalism in the Netherlands Indies was perceived by the local population as an attribute of the colonialists.2 It was assumed that the relations of exploitation would disappear of their own accord, along with foreign domination. Freedom from colonialists was associated with the triumph of the idea of equality and justice.

The leaders of the liberation struggle seemed to stand above social differences. The first was Sukarno, who managed to find and formulate a platform that initially ensured the unity of the prevailing part of the political and social spectrum of society. The five principles put forward by Sukarno included faith in one God, just and civilized humanism, Indonesian unity, democracy through consultation and representation, and social justice. These principles fit perfectly into Sukarno's own concept of Marhaenism. Its essence was that Indonesian society is alien to such phenomena as the exploitation of man by man, the possession of large private property. The social ideal was the primordial relations within the rural community, based on equality and mutual assistance.3
The very vagueness of the concepts of Indonesian populism, which became a state doctrine, created an umbrella under which, under the parliamentary system that had existed since 1950, all political forces-from Western liberals to communists, and from orthodox Muslims to secular nationalists - could operate relatively freely for a while. The reasons for the bankruptcy of such parliamentarism deserve separate consideration. Here we will outline the main ones. First of all, it should be noted that the political ethics of Javanese in particular and Indonesians in general do not imply open public discussions and rivalries inherent in parliamentary activities.

Social differences could be verbally denied, but they could not be prevented from growing in the face of the dire economic situation in the first half of the 1950s. In this situation, the left-wing part of the political spectrum, the Communist Party of Indonesia (CPI), was strengthened, combining the protection of the most disadvantaged strata of the city and village with very popular anti-imperialist slogans. The result of the 1955 parliamentary elections, which were quite democratic, was the emergence of a strong Communist faction. The CPI came in fourth place and successfully built on that success, coming out on top in local government elections in subsequent years. As it turned out, this was the only party with a more or less stable and developing social base and program, which the rest could not boast of. Maintaining the parliamentary system was becoming dangerous for the establishment.

However, the main reasons were the weakness of the elite, the lack of political will to introduce modern forms of the political process into the life of Indonesian society, and to act within these forms.

2 Through the "colonizer-native" lens, taking into account the special intermediary role of the Chinese ethnic minority in trade and usury: "native Chinese".

3 This system of views resembles the theories of the Russian Narodniks, with the difference that the latter were never at the helm of power.

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The structural and ideological weakness of most parties, which led to a ministerial leapfrog in 1950-1957, prompted Sukarno to seek a counterbalance to the left flank.4 Numerous coalition cabinets were unable to formulate and implement an economic program capable of ensuring development, preventing the landless peasants, increasing urban unemployment, and poverty. Development would inevitably reveal contradictions partly blurred by backwardness. At the same time, the country did not have a national force capable of leading development.

Attempts by radical Islamists to introduce development within the strict framework of Sharia law failed in the first days of independence, when proposals to introduce mandatory observance of Islamic laws for Muslims in the constitution were rejected. In Indonesia, where just under 90% of the population is Muslim, Islamic parties did not even cumulatively win half of the vote in any election. These are the characteristics of Indonesian religiosity. Islamist armed insurgencies in the 1950s did not find real support among the population, although they led to numerous casualties and destruction.

Under these circumstances, the army has moved to the political forefront with its inherent conviction of autonomy from the civil authorities since the days of the guerrilla war. The Army saw itself as an institution that transcended party, ethnic, social, and religious differences. Only the CPI could really compare with the armed forces in terms of organization in this respect.

At first, the activity of the military was expressed in the dissatisfaction of the officers with certain personnel appointments or in the disobedience of local military leaders to the central government. They motivated this by dissatisfaction with the strengthening of the left and the unfair distribution of income between the center and the regions.

Army riots, seriously destabilizing the situation, did not develop due to their separatist coloring - the unity of the country for most Indonesians was and remains the highest and indisputable value. For the same reason, the riots that were organized in the "outer islands" by the leaders of some fairly influential parties who were dissatisfied with the strengthening of left-wing forces failed. The fact that the separatists were supported by the United States and Britain, which considered this the most effective way to combat the "communist threat", for a long time and seriously undermined the prestige of the West in Indonesia. The destabilization of the situation was interpreted both by President Sukarno, with his populist ideas about Indonesian society, and by the officer corps, which saw itself as the most promising leading force in the country, as a result of the flawed Western-style parliamentary system.

In 1957, Sukarno proposed, and in 1959 legislated, reforms to establish the regime of his personal power. The main pillars of the regime were two antagonists. One of them was the Communist Party of Indonesia, whose leadership believed that Sukarno, with his vivid (and, we should add, quite sincere) anti-imperialist rhetoric, would become a useful ally of the party. Another pillar of the regime was the army. The generals assumed, not without reason, that Sukarno would not want to be held hostage by one party and would seek the support of a powerful and organized force.

Using the Communists ' opportunities to promote their political initiatives in every possible way, Sukarno did not allow them to reach real power, limiting them to representative functions. At the same time, the strengthening of the army's position was proceeding at an increasing pace. Under the cover of anti-imperialist rhetoric, a process was developing in the country that was to largely determine the direction and nature of development

4 His authority was strengthened by the rise of the state to the first position among the countries of the East, when the President of Indonesia became the architect of one of the most important events of the XX century-the conference of Asian and African countries in the Indonesian city of Bandung in April 1955. He enjoyed national support, but did not have a dedicated political group of his own.

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the whole society. Under the martial law imposed in connection with the mutinies mentioned above, officers controlled 5 companies that were nationalized in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Using this opportunity for personal enrichment (in addition to other corrupt channels), military and civilian officials entered the stage of initial capital accumulation. A class of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie was being formed (for more details, see [Andreev, 1966; Drugov and Reznikov, 1969]).

Up to a certain point, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie was interested in maintaining an atmosphere of external and internal political tension in the country, in economic chaos, restriction of freedoms, and minimal transparency of economic and political processes. The specifics of the formation of this class gave it birthmarks, including the lack of real entrepreneurial skills, the use of" administrative resources " to extract maximum income. A specific feature of kabir6 was their convergence with the Chinese ethnic stratum, which traditionally controlled a significant segment of corporate capital, finance and trade. By providing it with (very relative) protection from the hostility of the indigenous population, military leaders in the center and on the ground used "Chinese" capital, the entrepreneurial experience of the Chinese and their international connections. Social mimicry and anti-Western demagoguery were until a certain time the main tactics of military and civilian kabirs. The Army was an active and committed supporter, if not initiator, of the growing national campaign for reunification with the western part of the island of New Guinea7 in the adventurous military-political confrontation with neighboring Malaysia in 1963-1965. The latest campaign has caused the country severe economic and political damage.

In the conditions of an archaic and traditional society, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie deliberately concealed its choice - the transfer of the country to the rails of capitalist development. This was openly opposed only by the CPI8, which by the mid-1960s had an army of millions of supporters. Let's leave aside the peculiarities of the policy of the Communist Party leaders, for which they were later reproached, in particular, excessive support for the course of Sukarno, on the one hand, and the leftist slogans of the then Maoist leadership of the PRC, on the other. A clash between the Communists and the army as the vanguard of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie was inevitable.

It happened at the end of 1965. The pretext was a speech by a group of officers who accused the generals of corruption and plotting to overthrow President Sukarno. After physically eliminating several top military leaders, the protesters announced the transfer of power in the country to the hands of the Revolutionary Council. The KPI was neither the initiator nor participant of this poorly organized demonstration, although the KPI leaders were informed about it (for more details, see [Sumsky, 2009]).

The surviving generals, led by the Commander of the Strategic Reserve, Suharto, seized the initiative and declared the officers ' speech an attempted coup by the Communists. The most severe right-wing terror was launched, in which right-wing Muslim organizations actively participated under the leadership of army officers, who did not forgive the Communists for their struggle for agrarian reform.

Here we come to the blackest page in the history of Indonesia, about which Indonesians themselves still, after almost half a century, speak and write reluctantly, with pain and a poorly concealed sense of shame. The class and social causes of terror lie in

5 Dutch, and later British and Belgian.

6 An Indonesian acronym for the bureaucratic bourgeoisie.

7 Held illegally by the Netherlands from 1949 to 1962

8 Totaling 3.5 million people.

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It is based on it, but they cannot explain its mass character. As one of the explanations, the state of mass amok9 is given. It is possible to attribute all the horrors of 1965-1967, the death of about 2 million people due to the peculiarities of ethnopsychology. At one time, the author of this article was inclined to this explanation. In this case, the terror and the involvement of thousands of people in it as perpetrators could be explained by the fact that decades of deprivation and poverty have created a critical mass of negative emotions that were previously suppressed in accordance with Javanese and Balinese culture, 10 and this has provoked a devastating explosion that is inadequate for the causes that caused it.

However, as the American researcher Theodore Friend rightly points out, such an explanation ignores the careful and detailed planning of the massacre. He writes that the version of collective amok is an attempt at self-justification for those "who took people's lives under the cover of darkness and group anonymity, who allowed army officers, mullahs and politicians to involve themselves in these actions," or those who "organized or allowed mass killings to be organized to avoid complications for themselves.". Killing to reduce the threat to oneself was a terrifying solution to the civil crisis in Indonesia "[Friend, p. 121]. The US Embassy in Jakarta provided the military with lists of CPI activists in its possession (Friend, 2003, p. 118).

The terror also affected the left wing of the nationalist movement. The logical conclusion was the removal of President Sukarno in 1967, which hindered the country's full-scale transition to capitalist rails. It was for this purpose that the generals made a coup d'etat, becoming the political and organizational vanguard of this process. Sukarno offered almost no resistance, not wanting, as he later said, to cause a split in the nation and bloodshed.

The scale of the terror was explained not only by the struggle against the influence of the Communist Party, the only real obstacle on this path, but also by the need to eradicate the idea of social justice in society (even in a utopian, patriarchal sense). The main paradigms of the anti-colonial revolution were to be replaced by the opposite ones - the widespread attraction of foreign capital was an important component of the future economic strategy. The new owners of the country needed to plunge the nation into a state of shock, so that the upcoming changes would not cause active protest.

It is more difficult to explain why millions of people allowed themselves to be killed, did not resist. T. Friend-explains this by the typical Javanese and Balinese resignation to fate inherent in the Indo-Buddhist worldview [Friend, 2003, p. 120]. This is possible, but there was also a surprise factor - the Communist Party was partly mesmerized by its political successes, its proximity to Sukarno, and did not prepare for armed clashes with the army, police, and civilian formations created by the army.

Military coups that resulted in the overthrow of the revolutionary democrats and the rise to power of the military are a characteristic feature of the development of the "third world" countries in the 1960s. Examples are Algeria (1964), Burma (1962), Ghana (1966), and others, although these coups had different political and ideological overtones.

The ideological justification for the sovereignty of the army in Indonesia was the concept of its so-called dual function, the roots of which the theorists of the "new order", as the generals did not hesitate to call the new regime by gloomy European analogies, found in the partisan past of the Indonesian armed forces. You can find them even deeper - in the Hindu layer of Indonesian culture with the special role of varna warriors - "kshatriyas".

9 The word itself is borrowed from the Malay language. "A sudden mental disorder (sudden agitation with aggression and senseless murders), described mainly in the aborigines of the Malay Archipelago" [Soviet Encyclopedia, 1979, p. 51].

10 It is on these islands that terror has become most widespread.

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The military structures assumed all political and ideological initiative, as well as personnel policy. Generals and officers formed the backbone of ministries, departments, and authorities in the center and in the field 11. The New Order's economic team was made up mostly of American university graduates, who were informally known as the Berkeley Mafia. The Party in power-an Organization of functional groups - ensured the legitimacy of power, which, in turn, did not shy away from funds, organized its victories in elections to government bodies that included impressive military factions appointed in addition to elections. Under the slogan "stability for development", political activity and freedom of the media were restricted.

At first, the Communists were seen as the main enemy of the regime, but soon the military discovered that the Muslim parties and structures that had strengthened their positions during the right-wing terror became their real rivals. Islam became a refuge for people who wanted spiritual sovereignty and social justice and found all this in the canons of the Koran.

The bloody genesis of the" new order " does not eliminate the need to analyze the results of the country's political, social, and economic development after 1965.Russian researchers note that, like some other Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia went through a period of modernization in the 1970s and 1990s, accompanied by export-oriented industrialization. At the first stage, mainly since the mid-1970s, priority development was given to industrial enterprises with labor-intensive technology that produced textiles, clothing, shoes, etc. for export. At the second stage, approximately from the second half of the 1980s, a transition to the growth of more technologically advanced production and a change in the export nomenclature was outlined. Industrialization has entered a new phase with high growth rates in the export of industrial products.

Average annual growth of GNP per capita in 1980-1993 GDP per capita, calculated on the basis of purchasing power parity of the national currency, reached $ 4,140 in 1996 (nominally - about $ 1,100). The average annual growth rate of consumer goods prices decreased from 21.5%in 1970-1980 to 5.7% in 1996 [Baryshnikova, Popov, Shabalina, 1999, pp. 21-23].

Annual GDP growth in the 1970s - 1980s reached 7.2%, in 1980-1993-5.8%. In 1995 and 1996 - 7.2 and 7.1%, respectively. In agriculture, growth was 3-4% per year, in industry in some years-over 9%, including in manufacturing - up to 14%, in the service sector-over 7%. GDP grew from $ 9.7 billion between 1970 and 1995. up to $ 198.1 billion. Distribution of GDP by economic sector: agriculture - 24%o in 1980 and 17% in 1995, industry-40 and 42%, respectively, including manufacturing-13 and 24%, services - 34 and 41% [Baryshnikova, Popov, Shabalina, 1999, p. 25, 36].

The number of students enrolled in schools and higher education institutions has increased dramatically. From 1969 to 1994, the growth in primary schools was more than 100% (from 12.8 million to 26.2 million people), in secondary schools of the first stage-almost 6 times (from 1.1 million to 6.4 million people), in the second stage-8 times (from 0.5 million to 4 million people), in in higher education institutions - 11 times from 1974 to 1994 (from 200 thousand to 2.2 million people) [Mayling, 1999, p. 210-213].

This gave rise to significant changes in the social structure of society, the system of values and guidelines. There was a growing middle class, which was economically less or completely independent of the authorities and needed for its development a more open political life, democratic freedoms, and stronger legal guarantees. At the same time, property differences are deepening and social tensions are worsening.-

11 Let us note here one feature of the thinking of the cadre military - a combination of craving for technical modernization with conservatism in politics.

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concerns forced the middle class to compromise with the authorities, which they saw as their protection from the poor. The flow of information from outside significantly affected the educated strata of society, in particular the students, generating a thirst for democratization of the country, a desire to change the political system.

Indonesia is an example of limited authoritarianism as a form of government designed to facilitate and secure the development and consolidation of a new social formation and new economic relations. By ruthlessly suppressing all real and potential opponents, the army has created a regime unable to adapt to the social changes generated by its own policies. As early as the beginning of the twentieth century, V. I. Lenin wrote that "a normal capitalist society cannot develop successfully without a solidified representative system, without solidified political rights of the population" [Lenin, vol. 20, p. 68]. We have seen that with all their previous historical experience and cultural heritage, the majority of Indonesians were not prepared for a representative form of government. For a people with such a colonial past, the road to this goal was still far away. The ruling army could not but be conservative in terms of power-society relations, and lacked the political will and, if you will, the courage to modernize these relations. And although there were reform-minded people among the generals, they remained in the minority. Moreover, the course and outcome of Gorbachev's reforms in the USSR did not strengthen their position.

Apart from some "cosmetic" operations, the new order regime has come to its end as authoritarian as it was in the beginning, corroded by the inevitable diseases of neglected authoritarianism - corruption, illegal deals, nepotism.12 The whole country knew that President Suharto's family was profiting the most from this. 13 Force, state violence not limited by any laws, created a hothouse atmosphere for the development of these ailments. The population suffered from illegal levies, removal from the land in the interests of big business, and other negative phenomena. At the same time, citizens were convinced that force is the decisive argument in protecting interests, in relations not only with equals, but also with those in power. The period of the "new order", especially its last years, is marked by clashes between the embittered poor and the security forces, anti-Chinese pogroms (for more details, see Drugov, 2000; Legacy of Violence..., 2002).

As Burhan Magenda, a prominent Indonesian political scientist, pointed out in the late 1970s, "because customary law, adat, and traditional beliefs continue to play an important role, and because contact with modern institutions is delayed, the local political system in many parts of Indonesia, especially outside Java, remains heavily influenced by traditional political practices." cultures... Local political life has its own dynamics and culture" [Magenda, 1979, p. 27]. New trends in conditions of authoritarianism, state violence and, so to speak, state corruption often reached the population in a rude and offensive form, generating an instinctive rejection.

The period of the "new order" was marked by a sharp increase in the role of Islam in the country, contrary to the course of the ruling elite. Religion became a sphere where ordinary citizens ' ideas about equality before the Almighty, social justice, spiritual sovereignty and independence from secular power were realized. This phenomenon in its development led to excesses in the form of anti-government sermons, speeches and even terrorist acts.

As a result of the decadence of the regime, it was Indonesia that suffered more acute and far-reaching consequences of the 1997-1998 financial and economic crisis than the United States.

12 In this context - nepotism.

13 Who was accused of illegal enrichment of many billions of dollars (from the point of view of Javanese political culture, self - interest is an unforgivable sin for a ruler, depriving him of heavenly grace).

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other Southeast Asian countries. As the Jakarta Post reported on February 12, 1998, the crisis "was rooted in corruption, backroom deals at the highest level, and nepotism and favoritism that undermined the fundamentals of the economy and ultimately led to the collapse of the national currency and stock market shares." One of the economic reasons for the crisis was the growth of external debt from $ 101.8 billion in 1995 to $ 133 billion by 1998, of which two-thirds were due to be repaid within 12 months [Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 11.11.1998]. The situation was complicated by the fact (and this is already a political component) that borrowers received government guarantees for many private loans using various tricks, putting national interests at risk.

Mass protests against the regime in mid-May 1998 in the wake of the financial and economic crisis represented two strata of society. One, the democratic one, consisted mainly of young students, students. She demanded the resignation of the president, the withdrawal of the army from its role as the ruling political organization, and the fight against corruption, illegal transactions, and nepotism. As a result of clashes between students and troops, there were killed and wounded. The second layer of protesters is the urban lower classes, who, in the conditions of destabilization, began pogroms in rich, primarily Chinatowns. The pogroms were accompanied by violent and cynical acts of violence, arson, and looting. According to some well-founded assumptions, the rioters received the assistance of the army. Its purpose was to show that without the leadership of the military, the country would plunge into bloody chaos.

The resignation of President Suharto on May 21, 1998 was the first stage of the fall of the" new order", although outwardly everything looked like a constitutional transfer of the powers of the head of state to Vice-President B. Y. Habibi. The specific nature of the situation was that in the depths of the authoritarian regime, no opposition force was formed that could independently or in coalition with other movements or parties create an alternative power structure. The all-powerful administrative and bureaucratic apparatus remained intact, and the army initially remained virtually untouchable, although its role was disputed.

The decision of the new President B. Y. Habibi to lift the 30-year ban on the formation of new parties, which was necessary in itself, in the conditions of Indonesia at that time, led to the emergence of dozens of small parties, whose unification was often based not on the programs or interests of social or ethnic groups, but on the ambitions of individual figures. The main difficulty faced by all the presidents and cabinets of post-Suharto Indonesia was the fragmentation and disunity of the political spectrum, which did not allow them to find the necessary support for urgent democratic transformations and overcoming the legacy of decades of authoritarianism. This legacy is marked by the following points (as of 1998). In the first place is the alienation of power from the population as the primary basis of the political culture of Indonesian society. This alienation did not always exclude the popularity of a particular regime or even the sacralization of power or its leader (for example, Sukarno). It only assumes that its real source is outside the limits of the will of citizens. During the years of the military-authoritarian regime, the institution of power was discredited by terror, state violence, corruption, and arbitrariness.

The "New Order", along with its undoubted achievements in the economic sphere, not only did not solve some of the long-standing problems of the Indonesian state, but also drove them deeper, effectively excluding them from the sphere of public discussion. The new cabinets inherited the uneven development of individual regions, as well as the growth of racial, ethnic and interfaith tensions caused by thoughtless demographic policies, as well as latent centrifugal trends in some regions. As the army's iron grip loosened, these tendencies broke out in the form of open separatist movements in Aceh Province in north Sumatra and Irian Province

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Jaya 14, clashes between indigenous people and migrants from overpopulated Java in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and the Moluccas 15. Only in the north of the Moluccas archipelago, the number of victims of clashes between Muslims and Christians exceeded a thousand. Sectarian conflicts also occurred in Java and other islands. The bureaucracy and law enforcement agencies had almost no experience of political settlement of such situations, traditionally relying on force.

The biggest blow to national sentiment was the secession of East Timor Province, a former Portuguese colony annexed by the Suharto Government in 1975. This annexation has never been recognized by most countries of the world. A referendum held in 1999 by the Government of B. Y. Habibi showed that, remaining part of Suharto Indonesia for almost a quarter of a century, the Timorese did not feel the Indonesian national feeling. They expressed their support for secession from the Republic, despite severe repression by the military structures.16 In Indonesia, there were concerns that the example of East Timor might be contagious. However, his departure did not have such an impact on the internal processes in the country.

The sense of national humiliation at the departure of East Timor overlapped with the loss of Indonesia's de facto leadership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, where it has been the region's largest State since the establishment of ASEAN in 1967. Combined with persistent reminiscences about the former greatness of medieval kingdoms on the territory of modern Indonesia, this now creates a sharp reaction of the Indonesian public in matters related to relations with neighboring states, in particular with Malaysia, where from time to time acute conflicts arise, sometimes on the most insignificant occasions.

The necessary democratic reforms carried out by Indonesian Presidents over the past 11 years pave the way through the interweaving of opposing interests, outdated traditions, and the cultural, civilizational, and confessional differences discussed above. The four sets of amendments to the country's constitution adopted in 1999 - 2002 were a significant breakthrough in establishing balanced relations between the branches of government.17 New bodies were created: the Council of Regional Representatives as the second house of Parliament, the Constitutional Court, the Anti-Corruption Commission, etc. The electoral legislation has been changed: now the president, vice-president, governors and vice-governors, heads of districts, mayors of cities and their deputies are directly elected by the population.

A chapter has been added to the Constitution that treats human rights in detail at a completely modern level. But there is still much to be done to ensure that these rights are actually demanded by at least the majority of the population, and that power structures are formed that are ready to ensure these rights in practice. After all, until now, the leader, the head of state, in the view of many, is the messiah, endowed with heavenly grace, and accordingly, the demands placed on him are great, and it is very disappointing if for some reason these requirements are not met. Suffice it to say that a major earthquake in Sumatra in October 2009, immediately after the election of President S. B. Yudhoyono for a second term, raised doubts in the grassroots that heaven favored him, especially since a tsunami hit Sumatra after his election in 2004.

14 Now-Papua, western part of the island of New Guinea.

15 In the last two cases, these clashes have taken on an inter-religious dimension.

16 Or perhaps partly as a result of these reprisals.

17 Previously, the benefits of the executive branch were simply overwhelming.

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Over the past decade, Jakarta and the regions have been decentralised, with a significant portion of administrative and financial prerogatives being transferred to local authorities. But it will take time for local officials and self-government bodies to acquire the necessary sense of responsibility and use these prerogatives without compromising the interests of the regions themselves and the country as a whole.

In a sense, Islam, as a religion and as a socio-political factor, has benefited most from the fall of authoritarianism. Muslims did not have their own party (apart from the Unity and Development Party created in 1973 by the New Order), but they had tens of thousands of mosques and educational institutions, including boarding schools, and a huge army of clergymen and preachers. In the context of a certain amorphous and disjointed political forces that came to the fore after May 1998, Islam was an integral and familiar system of views and values, which had a chance to become an alternative to the bankrupt system.

New attempts by Islamic radicals to pass through parliament the obligation for Muslims to legally comply with Sharia law were rejected by the majority of deputies, as this would exacerbate sectarian tensions and risk splitting the country along religious and ethnic borders. All the Muslim parties that managed to get their representatives into Parliament in 2009 received less than 30% of the vote together. But this should not lead to a conclusion about the low popularity of Islamic ideas in society. This was due to the lack of bright, charismatic leaders of Islamic parties. Radical Islamism flourished in the regions, Muslim schools and mosques. Here, religious intolerance and radicalism are generated and exacerbated by social and property differences, and preachers of extremist views on the role of religion in the state, on the relationship between "believers" and "infidels", and on the permissibility of any means of establishing the canons of Sharia as the highest law often gain moral and political weight. Taking advantage of the expansion of the prerogatives of local authorities, the radicals seek to adopt by-laws based on the norms of Islamic law, which significantly restricts the rights and freedoms of a part of the population. There are also frequent clashes between Muslims and Christians. The authorities, realizing the danger of the situation, do not dare to take serious measures, however, for fear of losing the support of a part of the Muslim electorate. Recently, the influence of radical Islamists is beginning to be reflected in some laws adopted by the central parliament.

The image of an army detached from the levers of power, but still influential, continues to hang over all this complex of problems. The generalitat, especially its older generation, does not hide its critical attitude to the ongoing reforms, carefully avoiding the fact that it was the military's policies in 1966-1998 that ultimately created or worsened the problems that post - Suharto governments are trying to cope with. Even the head of state, retired General S. B. Yudhoyono, who was elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2009, is subjected to veiled and sometimes explicit criticism from his former colleagues for actually "forgetting" the interests of the military. Attempts to officially recognize the bloody crimes of the Suharto regime and restore the historical truth about the events of 1965-1967 are met with fierce resistance. Too many current politicians, including the military, are closely associated with the former regime and do not want to be exposed.

The twelve years that have passed in Indonesia under the slogan of democratic transformation is not a very long time, given the scale of the attitudes in the consciousness and way of life that have to be overcome. None of the presidents who have held office since May 1998 has escaped the reproach of being slow and indecisive. At the same time, they forget that their governments were formed out of necessity from representatives of such a wide range of political forces that they were called "rainbow", and suffered from inter-ministerial contradictions. Indonesian reformers need to-

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It is necessary to overcome the archaic not only in the country and in society, but also in oneself. As the Indonesian political scientist Budi Hardiman points out, traditional political culture, which emerged during the colonial period, remains the main obstacle to Indonesia's path to democracy, preventing the formation of independent personalities [Kompas, 17.07.2006].

The listed problems and difficulties cannot obscure the undoubted achievements as a result of reforms, which, including institutional ones, can now be said with more confidence than even two or three years ago. The constitutional reform has made the political process more transparent and open. Three times (in 1999, 2004, and 2009) parliamentary elections were held, and in the last two cases the president was also elected, not without rough edges and complaints from the losers, but without the mass clashes and bloodshed that regularly occurred under the "new order", without the former cynical use of"administrative resources".

Inter-communal tensions in the "hot spots" of Kalimantan and Moluccas have undoubtedly been reduced, and this has been achieved mainly through political means. The most troubled region remains Papua, where separatist armed groups continue to operate, but their actions do not pose a real threat to the integrity of the country. The situation in Aceh is more complicated. The central government made a deal with the separatists, allowing them to introduce Sharia law in full, including the most brutal types of punishments. This step is criticized by secular nationalists and human rights activists. In the first years of the reforms, restrictions on political and civil liberties imposed by the New Order on Chinese people were lifted.

After a series of major terrorist attacks in the early 2000s, the Government managed to bring the situation under control, and for four years Indonesia was relatively calm until the summer of 2009, when two explosions occurred in Jakarta, apparently intended to destabilize the situation before the elections.

The government of S. B. Yudhoyono seems to have seriously addressed the problem of corruption, without stopping at the prosecution of officials at the highest level, although, of course, it would be unrealistic to expect rapid success in this matter. Perhaps the biggest achievement of the government of S. B. Yudhoyono can be considered the fact that Indonesia passed through the global economic crisis without shocks in 2008-2009. In the first quarter of 2009, GDP growth was 4.4% [Kompas, 15.06.2009]. The reason, in our opinion, is not only that the Indonesian economy has discovered some internal potential, in particular, the capacity of the national market, but also a rather high level of political stability in the country - the authorities did not find any influential opponents who could and would like to use the crisis to their advantage.

Indonesian society is overcoming political fragmentation. While representatives of 17 parties were elected to Parliament in the 2004 elections, in 2009 there were only nine, and they accounted for 82% of the votes cast. If we compare the presidential campaigns of the same years, in 2004 the gap between the level of electoral support for the Democratic Party (10.4%) and its candidate for president, General S. B. Yudhoyono (about 61%), was significantly larger than in 2009: 21 and 61%, respectively. However, it is still difficult to predict whether this means that the PD is becoming a more modern type of party, or whether its success stems from the personal authority of its leader.

President S. B. Yudhoyono had reason to say in his speech to Parliament on August 14, 2009, that the reforms that began in 1999, despite all the difficulties, setbacks, excesses and even resistance, have significantly changed Indonesia. Tasks that include-

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In his opinion, the challenges that the country faces in the next 10 to 15 years are: first, to preserve and strengthen Indonesia's independence, 18 second, to achieve a high level of competitiveness, and third, it is necessary to bring the nation to a new level of civilizational development [www.indonesia.go.id/id-INDONESIA (14.08.2009)].

list of literature

Andreev M. A. Indonesia: the State sector and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie // Peoples of Asia and Africa, Moscow, 1966. N2.
Baryshnikova O. G., Popov A.V., Shabalina G. S. South-East Asia: people and labor. Moscow, 1999.

Guber A. A. Osnovnye osobennosti natsionalno-osvobozhitel'nogo dvizheniya v Indonesiatsii do vtoroi mirovoi voyni (instead of introduction) [Main features of the national liberation movement in Indonesia before the Second World War (instead of introduction)].
Guber A. A. Izbrannye trudy [Selected Works], Moscow, 1976.
Drugov A. Y. Mass violence in Indonesia: social, cultural and political roots. 2000. N 6.

Drugov A. Yu., Reznikov A. B. Indonesia in the period of "guided democracy". Moscow, 1969.

Lenin, V. I. Disagreements in the European labor movement. Poly. Collected works vol. 20.

Nezavisimaya gazeta. 11.11.1998.

Soviet Encyclopedia, Moscow, 1979.
Sumsky V. V. General Suharto and the dark page of Indonesian history // International life. 2009. N 8.

Friend Theodore. Indonesian Destinies // The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusets and London, England, 2003.

Kompas (Jakarta). 17.07.2006; 15.06.2009.

Legacy of Violence in Indonesia II Asian Survey (Berkeley). 2002. N 4.

Magenda Burhan. Aspek Keadilan Sosial dalam Kebudayaan Politik Indonnesia: Beberapa Pendekatan Teoretis // Ismid Hadad Editor. Kebudayaan Politik dan Keadilan Sosial. LP3ES. Jakarta, 1979.

Mayling Oey Gardiner. Educational Developments. Achievements and Challenges // Indonesia Assessment. Population and Human Resources. Singapore, 1999.

McBeth John. Why Did We Fail? // Far Eastern Economic Review (Hongkong), 2002, N 30.

www.Indonesia.go.id/id-INDONESIA (14.08.2009).

18 Literally: "We must not fall into the trap and become hostages of global capitalism, which brings us all injustice, we must not capitulate to it."

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