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The Netherlands and the decolonisation of Indonesia

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the Dutch king's apology for colonial violence in Indonesia is a calculated diplomatic gesture, not a genuine reckoning. Its central thesis is that apologies from capitalist states serve to smooth over historical contradictions in order to facilitate continued exploitation in the present. The real continuity between the VOC's slave-trading, the Cultivation System, the "police actions" of 1947–48, and contemporary Dutch investment in Indonesia is the drive of Dutch capital to extract surplus value from Indonesian labour. The article insists that the only meaningful resolution lies not in royal remorse but in the expropriation of Dutch capital, which would serve the common interests of Dutch and Indonesian workers alike.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the classical Marxist theory of imperialism and primitive accumulation. It draws directly on Marx's account of the VOC in Capital, chapter 31, where the "rosy dawn" of capitalist accumulation is shown to rest on conquest, enslavement, and genocide. The article deploys this not as historical background but as a structural claim: the wealth that financed Dutch industrialisation — including the Twente textile industry and the banking sector — was accumulated through the violent extraction of surplus from Indonesian peasants under the Cultivation System.

The argument also engages with the Marxist tradition on the national and colonial question. It situates itself within the revolutionary wing of Dutch social democracy, tracing a lineage from Henk Sneevliet through the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (RSAP) to the Fourth International. This tradition is distinguished from the Stalinist Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN), which abandoned the demand for immediate independence in 1938 under pressure from Moscow's Popular Front line. The article thus positions itself within the Trotskyist tradition's insistence on unconditional support for colonial liberation struggles and its rejection of "stages" theories that subordinate anti-colonial movements to alliances with "progressive" bourgeois nationalists.

The treatment of the South Moluccan and Papuan questions draws on the Marxist analysis of national minorities as pawns of imperialist geopolitics. The article argues that Dutch imperialism used these groups instrumentally — promising autonomy, then abandoning them when rapprochement with Suharto's regime proved more profitable — and that genuine self-determination can only be secured through working-class struggle, not appeals to the Dutch state.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in June 2020, shortly after King Willem-Alexander's apology during a state visit to Indonesia in March 2020. It situates this gesture within the broader trajectory of Dutch-Indonesian economic relations. The apology is read as a response to the needs of Dutch capital in the present conjuncture: the Netherlands is one of Indonesia's top five investors, the largest European importer of Indonesian goods, and Rotterdam serves as the entry point for Indonesian products into the European market. The "smoothing over" of historical grievances is a precondition for the continued flow of investment and trade.

The article also connects the apology to the longer arc of post-1965 Indonesian history. It notes that the Dutch ruling class rapidly normalised relations with Suharto's murderous regime after the 1965–66 counter-revolution, prioritising debt repayment and new investment opportunities over any concern for the million-plus victims of the anti-communist purge. This is contrasted with the far harsher Dutch response to the Bouterse regime in Suriname, demonstrating that Dutch moral outrage is calibrated entirely to economic and geopolitical interests.

The West Papua question is brought up to date with reference to the 2019 mass protests against Papuan discrimination, and the article points to the work of Indonesian Marxists who struggle for self-determination within a framework of working-class unity across ethnic lines.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several threads open. The most significant is the question of how a socialist revolution in Indonesia might actually be achieved. The article asserts that the Indonesian working class is "more powerful than ever" but does not analyse its current level of organisation, the balance of class forces, or the legacy of the PKI's destruction after 1965. The reader is directed implicitly toward the work of Indonesian Marxists (referenced in the text) for contemporary analysis of the Indonesian conjuncture.

The treatment of the South Moluccan question also points beyond the article. The claim that "the question of the RMS has not been finalised" and that only the organised working class can resolve it invites further elaboration on the relationship between national self-determination and socialist strategy in the Indonesian archipelago.

The article's broader theoretical framework — the Marxist analysis of imperialism, the national question, and the role of apologies and symbolic politics under capitalism — is developed in other IDOM articles and Against the Stream episodes dealing with colonial legacies, imperialist war, and the politics of "decolonisation" within the institutions of the metropolitan countries.

Connections

  • Marx, Capital, chapter 31: The article's epigraph and theoretical anchor. Marx's account of the VOC's "treachery, bribery, massacre, and meanness" provides the historical and moral foundation for the argument that capitalist accumulation is inseparable from colonial violence.

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The article's understanding of imperialism as a system of capitalist expansion driven by the search for investment opportunities and super-profits is broadly Leninist, though the article does not explicitly invoke Lenin's text.

  • Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution: The article's rejection of "stages" theories of national liberation and its insistence on the independent role of the working class in colonial struggles reflects the permanent revolution tradition, particularly as developed in relation to the colonial and semi-colonial world.

  • Henk Sneevliet and the RSAP: The article positions itself within the revolutionary Marxist current in the Netherlands that consistently supported Indonesian independence. Sneevliet's work in founding the ISDV (precursor to the PKI) and his later leadership of the RSAP are presented as the authentic tradition of proletarian internationalism, in contrast to the Stalinist CPN's capitulation to Popular Front politics.

  • Remy Limpach, The Burning Kampongs of General Spoor (2016): The article cites Limpach's research to establish that Dutch violence during the "police actions" was structural and systematic, not a matter of isolated "excesses."

  • KITLV study (2020): The estimate of over 97,000 Indonesian deaths from Dutch violence during the independence struggle is drawn from this study, providing a quantitative basis for the article's condemnation of the "police actions."

Key Quotes

  1. "The king has now apologised for the violence used during decolonisation. That violence, however, was only a means. What was the end? All the politics of reacquiring Indonesia after the Japanese occupation is being left out of consideration. If the Netherlands could have achieved this end without violence, would everything then have been fine? No, because that would have meant that the imperialist exploitation and oppression could have continued as a result of deceiving the Indonesians."

  2. "The so-called 'police actions' to restore Dutch authority in Indonesia with two military expeditions were evidently criminal, imperialist acts of desperation, intended to force the genie back into the bottle and secure profits for Dutch business and the plantation owners. They cannot be considered separately from the 350 years of domination and exploitation of the population of modern Indonesia."

  3. "Contrary to the propaganda of the nationalists (and their mirror image, the ideas of the postmodern 'de-colonial' thinkers), the working class fundamentally had nothing to gain from colonialism, but rather shared a common enemy with the colonial population: Dutch capital."

  4. "The rapprochement with Suharto shows that the Dutch ruling class only uses the question of 'human rights' when it is opportune. Let us, for example, compare the attitude towards Suharto with that towards another former Dutch colony, Suriname... Suharto was someone who improved relations with the West, while Bouterse was an element who wanted to pursue a domestic and foreign political course that was more independent from the Netherlands and the US."

  5. "The Dutch ruling class has historically changed its strategy several times in relation to Indonesia. The apologies for the violence during decolonisation simply mark the end of a certain period, with eyes on the continuation of the relationship between Dutch and Indonesian capital."

  6. "Only by expropriating the Dutch capitalists, whose riches are built on the centuries-long exploitation of both the Indonesian and the Dutch working populations, can we use the socially created wealth to build a better world for everyone and definitively put an end to the cruel prehistory of humankind."