The Dangers of Communism for Indonesian Democracy (12)

Indeed, when a Vice-President turns up at a neighbourhood night-watch, it is tempting to file the episode under “community outreach” and move on. Yet the spectacle of Mas Wapres arriving at several pos ronda in Jakarta this September reads rather differently when placed next to a freshly issued circular from the Ministry of Home Affairs urging the reactivation of community patrols. The visits were real—the Vive President was photographed and filmed inspecting pos ronda in Kembangan and Pesanggrahan, handing out torches and small provisions to volunteers.

Call it what you will: a genuine attempt to stabilise neighbourhood security after recent protests, or a polished PR vignette with props and a script. The official line stresses community safety and continuity of siskamling; government bulletins note the visits aimed to reassure the public and supply simple equipment to patrol teams.

Seen from an investigative angle, however, the optics invite a few inconvenient questions. Why does the revival of pos ronda suddenly attract high-level attention? Why are national figures making a point of showing up where local volunteers have long done the rounds? Those who trade in political stagecraft will tell you that optics are policy: the photograph replaces the policy paper, and the handshake replaces the white paper.

There is nothing new about leaders seeking proximity to citizens — politics has always preferred faces over footnotes — but the context matters. When a minister issues a nationwide nudge to revive the ronda and, almost concurrently, the vice-president is seen on late-night patrols, the pattern resembles choreography rather than coincidence. The question for the curious is whether the patrol is a security response or a campaign tableau.

To be clear: Mas Wapres’ late-night rounds included practical gestures—torches, coffee sachets, a cordial talk with residents—and locals reported feeling reassured by the visits. That is the script that reads well on television and in municipal newsletters. However, a glance at the political landscape reveals that spectacle can do the heavy lifting of persuasion without any substantial intellectual content: no policy debates, no manifesto clauses, just presence and goodwill. And when one’s cerebral cupboard is rather bare and competence is but a rumour, one must resort to a dazzling façade and enlist the digital town criers to sing one’s praises—preferably on loop and with emojis. Moreover, if it is added to the opinion of surveys which report that the popularity is increasing.

This is where an investigator’s eyebrow arches. In political environments where messaging is calibrated down to the last smile, community patrols can double as grassroots staging grounds. For a politician who benefits from being “seen as one of us,” walking among residents at night is a neat shortcut to popular intimacy. The effect is immediate: photographs circulate, headlines tally the visits, and a narrative of approachability accrues without the bother of argumentation.

Of course, not every photograph signals manipulation. But neither should every photograph be granted a presumption of innocence. When the national agenda is fraught — and Indonesia currently wrestles with heated political tensions and economic unease — the substitution of performative proximity for programmatic solutions is an insufficient remedy. A torch will not mend constitutional or economic gaps; a handshake will not fix judicial bottlenecks.

So what did the late-night Ronda Theatre deliver? It delivered images of a vice-president in the field, smiling and handing out small comforts; it delivered reassurance for some, and unease for others who suspect the moves are engineered. It also delivered a useful lesson in modern campaigning: when governance gets messy, staging gets busy. And in that lesson lies the risk — that the nation’s deeper dilemmas will be kept at bay by nightly patrols and nightly optics, while the structural work remains undone.

If nothing else, the episode is a reminder that politics nowadays is as much theatre as it is policy. For citizens inclined to think, that should be discomforting; for those who prefer to be amused, it is simply evening entertainment. Either way, the streets will keep their night watches, and the cameras will keep their close-ups. That, in short, is how you patrol a neighbourhood — and perhaps, how you patrol an electorate.

Back again to the cult of leaders in the Communist countries.

The cult of leadership in Communist regimes is often thought of as something unique, but in fact it shares much with authoritarian states of many kinds, whether Communist, Fascist, or even ostensibly non-ideological dictatorships. What unites them is the use of symbolic power, ritualised devotion, and controlled narratives to concentrate legitimacy in a single figure who becomes more than human.

In Communist states, the leader was portrayed as the embodiment of the revolution: Lenin as the prophet of Marxism, Stalin as the “man of steel” who industrialised and defended the Soviet Union, Mao as the great helmsman guiding China through storms of struggle, Kim Il-Sung as the eternal sun of the nation. This sacralisation turned political authority into a kind of secular divinity.

Fascist regimes showed similar patterns. In Nazi Germany, Hitler was not merely a chancellor but the “Führer,” presented as a saviour chosen by destiny to restore national greatness. Rituals such as mass rallies at Nuremberg, the Hitler salute, and the constant broadcasting of his image functioned like religious liturgies, binding the people into a single collective identity. In Fascist Italy, Mussolini was glorified as “Il Duce,” whose mere presence was supposed to embody the vitality and destiny of the Italian nation.

Even outside rigid ideologies, authoritarian states have often nurtured leader cults. In North Africa and the Middle East, rulers like Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein saturated public spaces with their portraits, staged vast rallies, and insisted on loyalty that bordered on worship. In contemporary times, some populist leaders use social media in much the same way, creating a continuous performance of charisma in which the leader becomes the unquestionable source of truth.

The parallels are striking. In all these systems, whether Communist or Fascist, the suppression of independent institutions—religion, media, civic associations—created a vacuum of meaning and authority. Into that vacuum stepped the leader, presented not simply as a politician but as the living symbol of destiny, truth, and unity. The difference lay in the ideological clothing: Communists claimed to be creating socialism, Fascists promised national rebirth, and authoritarian strongmen promised order and stability. But the underlying psychological mechanism was remarkably similar: transform politics into faith, and the leader into a secular god.

Then let us examine why the cult of leadership so often ends in tragedy. When a political leader is elevated to the level of a secular god, the normal checks and balances of human governance are stripped away. Criticism becomes treason, dissent becomes heresy, and the natural process of questioning and correcting mistakes is paralysed. What begins as devotion soon hardens into silence, fear, and blind obedience.

In such a climate, errors that would normally be challenged early are allowed to escalate into catastrophes. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, the unquestionable authority of the leader meant that disastrous agricultural policies, purges, and show trials continued unchecked, costing millions of lives. In Mao’s China, the aura of infallibility surrounding the Great Helmsman allowed the Great Leap Forward to spiral into famine, because local officials dared not report the truth about harvest failures. In Hitler’s Germany, the cult of the Führer transformed ideological fantasies into state policy, leading to genocidal war on a global scale.

This mechanism is not unique to Communism or Fascism; it is the general danger of unchecked personal rule. The leader becomes surrounded by flatterers who echo his words rather than challenge them, and the people become too frightened—or too enthralled—to resist. The result is a system where mistakes are magnified, suffering multiplied, and tragedy almost inevitable.

The irony is profound. The cult of leadership often begins with promises of liberation, unity, and destiny, but by silencing criticism, it creates the very conditions for tyranny and disaster. Instead of a godlike saviour, the leader becomes a mortal whose flaws now carry the weight of an entire nation. History shows again and again that when politics is turned into faith, the collapse of that faith is paid for in human lives.

One might think that cults of leadership belong to dictatorships of the past, yet their shadows still loom in contemporary politics. Even in open societies, where institutions are meant to constrain authority, the emotional pull of populism can recreate many of the same dynamics, though in subtler forms.

Populist leaders often present themselves not as mere politicians but as embodiments of “the people.” They speak in simple, absolute terms, reducing complex realities to battles of good against evil, insiders against outsiders. In doing so, they invite devotion rather than debate. The leader is no longer judged by policies but embraced as a symbol of identity. Criticism of the leader can then be dismissed as betrayal of the people themselves.

Social media intensifies this dynamic. In place of parades and statues, we now have viral videos, hashtags, and endless feeds where the leader’s face, words, and gestures circulate daily. The performance of charisma is constant, demanding attention, loyalty, and emotional investment. This creates a culture where questioning becomes harder, because loyalty is framed as personal and emotional rather than rational or institutional.

The risk is that democracy’s core—open criticism, institutional checks, and the peaceful rotation of power—can be eroded from within. Populist cults may not always produce the mass killings of twentieth-century revolutions, but they can hollow out accountability, polarise societies, and lead to reckless decision-making. The lesson of history remains relevant: when politics begins to demand faith rather than reason, when leaders are treated as saviours rather than servants, the seeds of tragedy are sown.

Then let us move to the antidotes, the ways in which democratic societies can resist the drift toward cults of leadership. The strength of democracy lies not in the perfection of its leaders but in the resilience of its institutions and the critical capacity of its citizens. When those capacities weaken, even free societies can slide into personalised rule.

The first defence is critical education. Citizens must be taught not only facts but habits of questioning, scepticism, and historical awareness. A population that can recognise the dangers of blind devotion is far less likely to surrender its freedom for the promise of simple answers. History taught honestly is itself a vaccine, showing how the worship of leaders in the past brought both fleeting glory and lasting ruin.

The second defence is independent media. In every cult of leadership, control of information has been key—whether through censorship, propaganda, or endless repetition of the leader’s image. A diverse and free press offers counter-narratives, exposes contradictions, and reminds citizens that no leader is above scrutiny. In the age of social media, this also means encouraging platforms where voices outside the ruling circle can still be heard.

In the twentieth century, Communist revolutions were not only political changes but also social earthquakes. They often sought to erase “old ideologies” such as feudalism, religion, nationalism, or liberalism, and in many cases this process led to mass killings.

The Soviet Union under Lenin and especially Stalin provides the first major example. The Bolsheviks eliminated the aristocracy, clergy, and landowning classes. In the 1930s, Stalin’s collectivisation campaign led to the Holodomor famine in Ukraine, where millions perished, and his Great Purge executed or imprisoned countless intellectuals, priests, and suspected “enemies of the people.”

In China, Mao Zedong’s campaigns targeted landlords during land reform, resulting in mass executions in the early 1950s. Later, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) unleashed violence against “old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.” Monks, teachers, and traditional leaders were humiliated or killed, and religious sites destroyed.

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot (1975–1979) carried this logic to the extreme. Attempting to wipe out capitalism, religion, and intellectual life, they executed monks, professionals, and anyone associated with the old society. Nearly two million people—about a quarter of the population—died.

Other Communist states also carried out violent purges. In North Korea, traditional elites were liquidated, and loyalty to the Kim dynasty replaced all other forms of belief. In Vietnam, there were executions of landowners and repression of religious groups, though on a smaller scale than in China or Cambodia. In Eastern Europe (for example, East Germany, Romania, Czechoslovakia), repression was often less bloody but still systematic: churches were restricted, dissidents jailed, and intellectual life heavily censored.

On the second part of your question, yes—there are cases where Communism failed to erase old beliefs or could not be fully entrenched. In Poland, the Communist regime never managed to eliminate Catholicism; the Church remained a powerful institution, culminating in the election of Pope John Paul II, which inspired resistance movements like Solidarity in the 1980s. In Afghanistan, when a Communist government backed by the Soviet Union tried to suppress traditional Islamic and tribal structures in the late 1970s, resistance was fierce. The Soviet invasion that followed (1979) failed, and Islam remained the dominant force. In Hungary and Czechoslovakia, despite years of Communist control, strong cultural and religious traditions persisted underground, resurfacing with force when the regimes collapsed in 1989.

Thus, Communist revolutions could be brutally effective in destroying old elites and reshaping society, but they were never entirely successful in erasing deep-seated religious and cultural traditions. Where such traditions were tied closely to national identity—like Catholicism in Poland or Islam in Afghanistan—Communism could not fully supplant them, and this failure became a source of eventual resistance and collapse.

The third is civic participation. Democracy is not sustained by voting alone but by active engagement—citizens forming associations, debating policies, and holding leaders accountable through constant pressure. The more diverse the centres of loyalty—families, communities, unions, organisations—the harder it becomes for one leader to monopolise the people’s identity.

None of these defences guarantee perfection, but they create an environment where politics remains grounded in reason rather than faith, in institutions rather than charisma. The lesson of both the twentieth century and the present is clear: the best way to resist the cult of leadership is not to hope for a perfect leader but to build a society strong enough to survive imperfect ones.

Communism emerged in the twentieth century as a promise of liberation. It presented itself as the cure to inequality, exploitation, and humiliation, offering a vision of a classless society where history’s injustices would finally be overturned. For peoples struggling under feudal landlords, colonial masters, or corrupt regimes, its message was electrifying. It promised not merely reform but total transformation, the creation of a new human order.

The ideological heart of Communism rested on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who described religion as the “opium of the people” and capitalism as an engine of exploitation. In their vision, revolution was not optional but inevitable, for class struggle would tear down the old system and replace it with socialism, and eventually communism. By the twentieth century, revolutionaries from Lenin to Mao sought to make this prophecy real, treating Marxism not simply as analysis but as a guide to action.

Yet when Communism moved from theory to practice, it often unleashed terrible violence. In the Soviet Union, Lenin’s Bolsheviks dismantled the aristocracy and Church with ruthless force, while Stalin later pursued collectivisation and purges that claimed millions of lives. What had begun as a movement for justice soon became a machinery of repression. In China, Mao’s campaigns against landlords, intellectuals, and religious leaders followed a similar pattern, embedding class struggle into the daily fabric of life.

The logic behind these campaigns was consistent: the old world had to die so that the new one could be born. Feudalism, religion, and capitalism were not treated as rival systems but as cancers to be eradicated. This absolutism gave Communist leaders licence to eliminate opponents and silence traditions, claiming that such sacrifices were necessary for history’s advance. Violence was not an accident but a method.

The most notorious examples demonstrate the human cost of this method. Stalin’s collectivisation triggered famine in Ukraine, remembered as the Holodomor, where millions starved. Mao’s Great Leap Forward, fuelled by exaggerated reports and blind faith in mass mobilisation, produced one of history’s worst famines, again costing tens of millions of lives. In Cambodia, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge tried to erase all traces of the old society, murdering nearly a quarter of the population in less than four years.

Religion was one of the chief targets. Churches, mosques, temples, and monasteries were closed or desecrated, and priests, monks, and imams persecuted. Faith was recast as superstition, an obstacle to progress. Yet in destroying religion, Communist regimes often built a substitute: the cult of the party and the leader. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-Sung became figures of near-sacred authority. Portraits replaced icons, slogans replaced scripture, and mass rallies replaced festivals. The language of destiny and salvation endured, but its object had shifted from heaven to the state.

This cult of leadership magnified the dangers. When a leader is treated as infallible, mistakes become disasters. Stalin’s purges terrorised an entire generation of Soviets; Mao’s Great Leap Forward spiralled into famine because no official dared to report the truth; Hitler, though not Communist but Fascist, demonstrated the same mechanism, where unchecked devotion translated fantasy into catastrophe. The lesson is that any system which sacralises leaders risks turning politics into tyranny.

Despite its repressive power, Communism never fully succeeded in erasing old beliefs. In Poland, Catholicism survived underground, eventually fuelling the Solidarity movement and undermining Communist rule. In Afghanistan, attempts to impose atheism and socialism clashed with Islam and tribal traditions, provoking fierce resistance that helped bring down the Soviet occupation. In Hungary and Czechoslovakia, cultural and religious life endured beneath the surface, re-emerging with force once the regimes collapsed.

Thus, Communism revealed both its strength and its weakness. It could dismantle institutions, redistribute land, and silence opposition through fear. Yet it could not entirely extinguish the spiritual and cultural identities that gave people meaning. The very violence it deployed to destroy tradition often deepened resentment and created the seeds of future resistance.

Economically, the record was also mixed. While industrial foundations were laid in the Soviet Union and China, inefficiency, shortages, and rigid central planning stifled growth. The human costs of rapid industrialisation, combined with repression, undermined the legitimacy of the system. By the late twentieth century, many Communist states either collapsed or transformed into hybrid systems, abandoning ideology for survival.

The greatest danger of Communism lay in its moral arrogance. Believing itself the sole interpreter of history, it granted leaders the authority to annihilate the past and dictate the future. Dissent was not simply disagreement but betrayal of destiny itself. This absolutism turned politics into a battlefield of purity, where compromise was treachery and violence could be sanctified.

The tragedies of famine, purges, and cultural destruction all stemmed from this conviction. The attempt to build a “new man” by force ignored the stubborn reality of human diversity, culture, and faith. Societies are not machines that can be reset at will; they are living organisms with memory, tradition, and resilience. Communism’s failure lay in treating them as clay to be remoulded without cost.

Even today, the lessons are urgent. Democracy too can fall prey to cults of leadership and populist simplifications, though often by softer means. When leaders are elevated beyond scrutiny, when politics demands faith instead of reason, the old pattern threatens to repeat itself. History shows that the hunger for meaning will always persist; the question is whether it is channelled into open institutions or monopolised by a single authority.

In conclusion, the dangers of Communism were not limited to failed economics but stretched into the moral sphere. By demanding absolute conformity, suppressing faith, and enthroning leaders as secular gods, it created systems capable of both fleeting achievements and enduring tragedy. Its legacy is a warning: utopian promises, when pursued through absolutism, often lead not to liberation but to suffering.

[Part 13]
[Part 11]

Bahasa

The Dangers of Communism for Indonesian Democracy (11)

The newly appointed Indonesian Finance Minister, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, has announced plans to release a staggering Rp200 trillion of government funds currently parked at Bank Indonesia into six state-owned banks, collectively known as Himbara. The move is designed to bolster liquidity, stimulate credit distribution, and invigorate real economic activity.

By easing liquidity constraints, banks will gain greater capacity to extend loans to households and businesses, particularly in labour-intensive sectors such as affordable housing, construction, and rural micro-enterprises. The hope is that this credit flow will catalyse job creation, raw material purchases, and business expansion.

This injection of capital carries the potential to increase the money supply (M2), reduce the cost of funds, and accelerate economic growth—provided the disbursement is guided by clear targets and robust governance.

The government intends to channel these funds through national banks, including BRI, Mandiri, BTN, BNI, and two sharia-compliant institutions, such as BSI, ensuring the money is circulated as credit rather than merely used to purchase government securities.

However, there are risks to consider. Concentrating such a large volume of short-term funds in a handful of banks—while expecting long-term credit commitments—could pose threats to financial stability.

Ultimately, the success of this policy hinges on the responsiveness of the real sector and the appetite for credit among business actors. Should the economy remain sluggish and credit demand weak, the overall impact may be limited.

In essence, this initiative seeks to unlock idle government funds at Bank Indonesia and redirect them into the productive veins of the economy—accelerating growth and employment, so long as the credit is managed and targeted effectively.

The principal beneficiaries of the Rp200 trillion liquidity injection into the banking sector are labour-intensive and real economy sectors that absorb significant numbers of workers. These include, most notably, the construction and affordable housing sectors, which require financing for new projects and business expansion.

Equally poised to gain are manufacturing industries such as textiles and textile products, which rely heavily on bank credit to scale operations and boost production. Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries are also earmarked for credit support, aimed at enhancing productivity and employment in rural areas.

Trade and transportation sectors stand to benefit as well, given their role in absorbing labour and sustaining supply chains for raw materials and distribution networks. Tourism and the creative economy, with their high potential for job creation, are likewise expected to receive a boost.

The credit channelled into these sectors is anticipated to generate new employment opportunities, raise household incomes, and strengthen domestic consumption—one of the key pillars of Indonesia’s GDP. However, the success of this initiative hinges on complementary policies that ease business operations and a strong appetite for credit among entrepreneurs. Without these, the funds may remain idle, and the intended impact on the real economy could be muted.

Among Indonesia’s labour-intensive sectors, manufacturing stands out as the one with the greatest demand for credit. This includes industries such as food and beverages, textiles and garments, ready-to-wear clothing, leather goods and footwear, furniture, and children’s toys.

Major banks—BNI, Mandiri, and BCA—have recorded substantial credit disbursements to these manufacturing segments, with figures reaching into the hundreds of trillions of rupiah. Bank Mandiri, for instance, reported an 18.6% year-on-year growth in credit to the processing sector, amounting to approximately Rp178 trillion.

To further support these industries, the government has introduced the Labour-Intensive Industry Credit Programme (KIPK), offering loans ranging from Rp500 million to Rp10 billion, with a 5% interest subsidy. The initiative is designed to enhance productivity, expand employment opportunities, and strengthen the competitiveness of domestic industries.

In short, the manufacturing sector—particularly food and beverages, textiles, clothing, footwear, and furniture—represents the backbone of Indonesia’s labour-intensive economy and is the primary target for large-scale credit support. The combination of bank lending and government-backed programmes aims to energise these sectors, ensuring they continue to absorb labour and contribute meaningfully to national growth.

The newly appointed Finance Minister’s decision to inject Rp200 trillion of government funds into the banking sector has sparked both support and criticism.

Supporters argue that the policy could swiftly strengthen banking liquidity, thereby giving financial institutions greater flexibility to extend credit to the real economy. This, in turn, could stimulate new projects, business expansion, and measurable job creation. Enhanced liquidity is also expected to lower the cost of funds, making borrowing more affordable for businesses—particularly micro, small, and medium enterprises, as well as labour-intensive sectors.

The scheme obliges banks to channel the funds into productive credit rather than park them in passive financial instruments such as government securities, ensuring the impact reaches the real economy. Many view this as an innovative step by the government to accelerate liquidity expansion and spur economic growth, especially amid global economic headwinds.

However, critics warn of several risks. Chief among them is the potential concentration of large-scale funding in a handful of banks, which could threaten financial stability if long-term credit is financed by short-term deposits. If credit demand remains weak due to sluggish economic conditions, the additional liquidity may fail to stimulate real growth and instead inflate the money supply—raising the spectre of inflation.

There is also concern that the rupiah could weaken if banks deploy the funds without a sound framework, particularly as inflationary pressures mount. The success of the initiative hinges on tight regulatory oversight and robust governance to ensure the funds are directed toward genuinely productive credit and not misused.

Moreover, some fear the scheme could undermine the independence of Bank Indonesia’s monetary policy if the funds are used to directly finance government development programmes. In sum, while the policy holds considerable promise for boosting the economy and creating jobs, its effectiveness depends on transparent mechanisms and careful management—lest it trigger inflation or destabilise the financial system in the medium term.

Regarding the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme, a number of findings from recent evaluations suggest that the initiative requires careful reassessment and targeted improvements to enhance its effectiveness and acceptance among students.

One of the key concerns is that many pupils do not enjoy the MBG menu due to differences in taste preferences. This highlights the need for greater menu variation that aligns with children's palates and local dietary norms. Distribution issues have also been flagged, with reports of spoiled food pointing to weaknesses in the supply chain and hygiene standards—both of which demand urgent attention.

It is essential to involve nutritionists in designing the meals to ensure they meet age-appropriate nutritional standards and caloric needs. Beyond simply providing food, the programme must also strengthen nutritional education for students and the wider community, fostering a deeper understanding of healthy eating habits.

Community participation—including schools, families, and local businesses—is critical in both planning and implementation to ensure the programme is well-targeted and genuinely welcomed. Some schools have even expressed a preference for reallocating MBG funds toward educational infrastructure, citing logistical challenges and students’ lack of enthusiasm for the meals.

Surveys and monitoring efforts are ongoing, conducted by government bodies and relevant institutions to generate data that will inform future decisions and programme adjustments. Overall, MBG holds significant promise for improving student nutrition, health, and educational continuity. However, a comprehensive evaluation of its menu design, distribution mechanisms, stakeholder engagement, and educational components is necessary to optimise its impact and ensure it evolves into a programme that is both beneficial and embraced by its intended recipients.

It is indeed appropriate to conduct a thorough review and consider alternative models or refinements to make MBG more effective and responsive to students’ actual needs.

Recent evaluations of the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme have revealed several underlying factors contributing to dissatisfaction and rejection from both students and parents. Chief among these concerns is the suboptimal quality and safety of the food provided, with reports of food poisoning linked to inadequate implementation of food safety standards such as HACCP.

A significant portion of the MBG menu consists of ultra-processed items high in sugar, salt, and fat—falling short of nutritional guidelines and raising long-term health concerns. This has led many parents to prohibit their children from consuming the meals altogether.

The lack of menu variety and its misalignment with children's taste preferences have also been cited as major issues. Many students find the food unappealing or unfamiliar, and catering providers often struggle to tailor meals to the diverse palates of individual schools.

Oversight and governance of the programme have been criticised for their shortcomings, including the absence of a safe and responsive complaints mechanism for students and parents. Reports of military involvement and pressure on those voicing criticism have further complicated public trust.

In some cases, the meals provided consist of raw ingredients or packaged snacks that are perceived as unhealthy and inconsistent with the programme’s nutritional objectives.

Taken together, the rejection of MBG menus appears to stem from concerns over food safety, nutritional quality, menu diversity, and poor programme management. These findings underscore the urgent need for a comprehensive review and reform to ensure the initiative is both effective and genuinely beneficial to students.

The evaluation of the reasons behind the rejection of the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) menu reveals several primary factors underlying the dissatisfaction and refusal by students and their parents. A critical concern is the suboptimal quality and safety of the food, including incidents of food poisoning linked to the meals provided. This issue is associated with the inadequate implementation of food safety standards such as HACCP within the MBG programme. Moreover, many MBG menus contain ultra-processed food products high in sugar, salt, and fat, which do not align with nutritional guidelines. Consequently, these foods are perceived as unhealthy and capable of producing long-term adverse effects on children, prompting parents to forbid their children from consuming the MBG offerings. Additionally, the menu’s lack of variety and misalignment with children’s tastes lead to widespread discontent, as many children either dislike or are unaccustomed to the flavours offered. This limitation in menu variation is partly due to caterers’ challenges in accommodating the individual preferences of numerous students.

Furthermore, there is insufficient oversight and governance of the programme, including a lack of secure and responsive complaint mechanisms for students and parents. Such shortcomings are compounded by reports of military involvement and pressure on those who critique the programme. Some of the foods distributed consist of raw ingredients or packaged snacks that are deemed less healthy and inconsistent with the programme’s nutritional objectives. In sum, the rejection of the MBG menu is heavily influenced by issues of food safety, nutritional quality, menu variety, and programme management, necessitating comprehensive evaluation and improvement to render the programme acceptable and beneficial to its recipients.

Alternative programmes to which the funds allocated for the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) scheme could be redirected have been identified from various sources. One possibility is to divert some of the MBG budget to other initiatives that have a more significant impact on the community, such as social protection programmes, the construction of educational infrastructure, or more targeted health programmes. Indeed, several schools have proposed the reallocation of MBG funds towards building facilities that support educational activities. Another strategy involves adopting a blended finance scheme that combines government funding (APBN) with resources from other sources, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives from state-owned enterprises and private companies, or by increasing revenue from progressive taxes and windfall taxes, thereby supporting child nutrition programmes without fully burdening the national budget.

Additionally, it has been suggested to reduce the frequency of MBG provision, for example, scaling back from five days per week to three, to conserve budgets and align with the limited capacity of existing programme infrastructure. There is also consideration of replacing the MBG with conditional cash transfers, which would grant beneficiary families the autonomy to choose the best nutritional options for their children, while still addressing nutrition and health objectives.

Optimisation of local food potential and menu diversification are also encouraged as cost-effective means to enhance programme sustainability and acceptance. Further integration of the MBG programme with other government ministries and local government initiatives through digital monitoring could ensure more precise targeting and greater programme impact.

In conclusion, MBG funds can be redirected to alternative programmes aligned with the goals of improving child nutrition and education, employing a variety of alternative financing approaches and implementation efficiencies. However, any reallocation must be supported by in-depth evaluations and community participation to maintain the integrity and benefits of such programmes.

It is also acknowledged that many students do not favour the MBG menu, emphasising the need for a comprehensive evaluation. Findings reveal the necessity for menu improvements to increase variety and adapt to children’s tastes, enhancement of food quality and safety, and engagement of nutrition experts and communities in ensuring the programme’s appropriateness and maximising its benefits. Through these improvements, the MBG programme could be transformed into a form more widely accepted and effective.

The rejection of the MBG menu is attributed to poor nutritional and safety standards, incidents of food poisoning, lack of menu variety and misalignment with children’s tastes, and weaknesses in programme governance including inadequate supervision and ineffective complaint mechanisms, which have led to resistance from students and parents.

The role of suppliers and caterers in the MBG programme is vital. Suppliers are responsible for providing quality and nutritious raw materials, while caterers prepare and distribute meals adhering to hygiene and nutritional standards. Both must be managed professionally and supported by adequate financing and training to ensure programme continuity and quality, while also empowering local micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Alternative programme strategies for MBG fund redirection include shifting funds to social protection or more urgent educational infrastructure projects, employing blended financing involving government funds and CSR or progressive tax revenues, reducing MBG provision frequency, and substituting MBG with conditional cash transfers. Collaboration among local governments can additionally provide supplementary funding solutions to sustain and target the programme effectively.

Now, back to our topic about Communism.

A collection of Mao Zedong's classic writings on politics and philosophy previously published in Selected Works of Mao Zedong by several publishers, to be more contemporary, these writings are brought together again in one edition that opens with a wacky introduction from the controversial Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, the format is more like an editorial project than the new book by Mao, published by Verso in 2017, entitled On Practice and Contradiction.

It begins with Žižek’s essay, in which he situates Mao as a radical interpreter of Marxism, one who insisted on contradiction, rupture, and relentless struggle rather than reconciliation or synthesis. Žižek does not present Mao as a mere continuation of Marx and Lenin, but as a thinker who transformed Marxism by mobilising the peasantry and by radicalising the logic of contradiction into an almost cosmic principle.

The chapters that follow are selections from Mao’s corpus. The first, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, presents Mao’s insistence that revolution may begin in the most marginal of places and yet ignite an unstoppable movement, thereby challenging the orthodox expectation that change must erupt from advanced industrial centres. In the second essay, Oppose Book Worship, Mao attacks dogmatic reliance on texts and theory detached from lived struggle, insisting that truth emerges from practice rather than blind recitation.

According to the collection On Practice and Contradiction, Mao Zedong’s understanding of contradiction, action, and mass mobilisation is woven throughout his essays, though most explicitly in On Contradiction, On Practice, Combat Liberalism, and On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People. For Mao, contradiction is not merely a philosophical abstraction but the very pulse of life, society, and politics. He argued that every process, from natural change to social transformation, is driven by opposing forces. Yet he insisted that in any given moment, there is always a principal contradiction that defines the direction of struggle, and one must focus on this rather than dispersing energy across secondary disputes.

In On Practice, Mao linked theory and action in a circular process: knowledge must come from experience, and experience must in turn be tested against theory. He dismissed dogmatic reliance on books alone, arguing instead that real understanding is born when ideas are forged in the crucible of struggle and then refined through continuous practice. For him, to act was not merely to apply theory, but to engage in a dialectical back-and-forth between learning and doing.

With regard to mass mobilisation, Mao consistently argued that the revolutionary force was not an enlightened minority but the broad masses, particularly peasants. He believed that correct ideas come from the people themselves, crystallised through their lived struggles. The role of leadership, therefore, was to gather, clarify, and concentrate these dispersed insights into a conscious movement. His famous phrase “from the masses, to the masses” captured this method: listen to the people, distil their ideas into policy, and then return those policies back to the people for further testing in practice.

In Combat Liberalism, Mao warned against half-heartedness and opportunism, stressing that mobilisation required discipline and resolve rather than indulgence in personal comfort or individualistic thinking. And in On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People, he differentiated between contradictions with enemies, which demanded harsh confrontation, and contradictions within the people, which could be resolved through persuasion, debate, and democratic methods. This framework reflected his conviction that the vitality of revolution lay not in suppressing contradiction, but in recognising, directing, and utilising it to maintain momentum.

The next two chapters, On Practice and On Contradiction, are his most famous philosophical statements. In them, Mao redefines Marxist materialism as a dialectic of constant testing between knowledge and action, and he elevates contradiction as the driving force of history, stressing that one must always identify the principal contradiction in a given situation rather than clinging rigidly to universal formulas.

Other texts, such as Combat Liberalism, expose Mao’s impatience with half-hearted commitment, urging militants to reject compromise and face struggle directly. The Chinese People Cannot Be Cowed by the Atom Bomb and US Imperialism Is a Paper Tiger demonstrate Mao’s bravado, minimising external threats by framing them as mere appearances that cannot halt the historical tide of revolution.

Further chapters deal with his engagement with Stalin, notably in Concerning Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR and Critique of Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, where Mao both critiques and reinterprets Soviet orthodoxy, emphasising the political role of the peasantry and the superstructure. On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People then applies his dialectical logic to governance, distinguishing between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions and proposing different strategies for each.

The later essays, such as Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? and Talk on Questions of Philosophy, continue his theme that ideas must be generated through the lived experience of the masses, not abstract speculation. They reinforce the core motif of the collection: contradiction, practice, and the refusal of static dogma.

Taken together, the book is not a seamless theoretical treatise, but a carefully curated series of interventions, each born from a particular historical moment, and each tied together by Žižek’s introduction, which re-reads Mao not as a relic, but as a provocative figure whose insistence on struggle continues to resonate within political thought today.

Now, let us trace how Mao Zedong actually applied his philosophy of contradiction, action, and mass mobilisation in two very different historical settings: the War of Resistance against Japan and the later Cultural Revolution.

During the anti-Japanese war of the 1930s and 1940s, Mao insisted that the principal contradiction had shifted from class struggle within China to the national contradiction between China and Japanese imperialism. In his essay On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People, he made clear that when foreign invasion threatened the survival of the nation, all internal class disputes had to be temporarily relegated to secondary importance. This was not a denial of class struggle, but rather a tactical redirection: by first uniting the broadest possible front against Japan, including workers, peasants, petty bourgeois, and even parts of the national bourgeoisie, the Communists could strengthen the position of the revolution. Mass mobilisation during this period relied on patriotic fervour, guerrilla warfare, and the principle that victory would come not from elite armies but from the will and resilience of millions of peasants, each small action like a spark contributing to the prairie fire of resistance.

By contrast, in the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, Mao applied the same logic of contradiction in a far more radical and destructive manner. He argued that even within a socialist society, new bourgeois elements were constantly arising within the Communist Party and state institutions, threatening to restore capitalism. The principal contradiction, therefore, was no longer external but internal—between the revolutionary masses and those he labelled as “capitalist roaders” inside the party. His call to “bombard the headquarters” mobilised students and workers against their own leaders, igniting waves of Red Guard activism that turned society upside down.

In both cases, Mao relied on the method of mass line: identifying the main contradiction, defining it in terms that resonated with ordinary people, and then unleashing the masses to act upon it. But the consequences were strikingly different. Against Japan, this strategy fostered unity and resilience in the face of foreign occupation, strengthening the legitimacy of the Communist Party. In the Cultural Revolution, however, the same principles unleashed chaos, division, and violence, as the people were set against one another in the name of perpetual revolution.

When Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in 1949, he framed the new state as the culmination of decades of revolutionary struggle, and this meant a deliberate break with the ideologies and structures of the old order. The first target of erasure was feudalism, which in Mao’s analysis represented centuries of landlord power, clan hierarchies, and Confucian traditions that kept peasants bound in obedience. Alongside this, he denounced imperialism, the semi-colonial dominance of foreign powers over Chinese ports, industries, and trade. Equally, he sought to crush the influence of bourgeois liberalism, which he associated with the weak republican regimes that had failed to unify or modernise China.

In their place, Mao and the Chinese Communist Party planted the foundations of a socialist ideology rooted in Marxism-Leninism, but transformed by Mao’s own reinterpretations. He stressed the centrality of the peasantry rather than the urban proletariat, presenting rural mobilisation as the true revolutionary engine. He elevated the dialectic of contradiction as the key to understanding and acting in politics, and he insisted that the Communist Party must embody the mass line, drawing its legitimacy from the will and experience of ordinary people.

At a cultural level, Mao attempted to supplant Confucian and traditionalist thought with a new socialist consciousness, encouraging collectivism, egalitarianism, and loyalty to the revolution. Nationalism was also woven into this ideological fabric: the new China was not merely socialist but proudly independent, freed from foreign domination and humiliation. By combining socialism with a strong sense of anti-imperialist patriotism, Mao established an ideological framework that sought to erase the legacy of feudal submission and colonial exploitation, while embedding a vision of perpetual revolution, class struggle, and mass participation at the heart of the state.

The most immediate and dramatic initiative was the land reform campaign, in which the old landlord class was dismantled. Millions of hectares of land were seized from landlords and redistributed to poor peasants. This was not merely an economic measure but an ideological act: it symbolised the destruction of feudal relations and the empowerment of the rural poor as the backbone of the revolution. The campaign was accompanied by “struggle sessions,” in which landlords were denounced, humiliated, and often executed, embedding class struggle into the very fabric of daily life.

Soon after came the suppression of counterrevolutionaries, a broad campaign targeting former Nationalist officials, intellectuals suspected of liberal leanings, and anyone considered disloyal to the new regime. This was paired with the so-called Three-Anti and Five-Anti Campaigns, which were directed against corruption, waste, tax evasion, and other behaviours associated with bourgeois and capitalist tendencies. These movements were not simply about law enforcement; they were mass mobilisation campaigns designed to reshape behaviour and consciousness, forcing people to prove loyalty to the socialist cause.

Economically, Mao pursued collectivisation. After the redistribution of land, peasants were gradually encouraged—and later compelled—to join cooperatives and then communes. This shift reflected Mao’s belief that socialism required collective ownership and production, and it also allowed the state to channel agricultural surplus into rapid industrialisation.

Culturally, Mao attacked traditional Confucian hierarchies and promoted new socialist values. Education was reoriented towards Marxist thought and revolutionary history, while art and literature were enlisted to serve political goals. Campaigns such as the later Anti-Confucius Movement symbolised his determination to uproot old thinking and replace it with a consciousness of struggle, equality, and loyalty to the Communist Party.

Nationalism and independence were also key. Mao’s government broke decisively with Western powers, aligned initially with the Soviet Union, and proclaimed that China had “stood up” after a century of humiliation. The slogan “lean to one side” encapsulated the ideological direction: socialism at home and solidarity with anti-imperialist movements abroad.

All of these measures—land reform, suppression of enemies, collectivisation, cultural campaigns, and nationalist assertion—were part of a single ideological project. They aimed to destroy feudal, imperialist, and bourgeois influences while planting socialism, class struggle, and perpetual mobilisation as the new guiding principles of the nation.

Let us now consider the long-term consequences of Mao Zedong’s ideological and policy framework, which carried both undeniable achievements and catastrophic failures.

On the positive side, Mao’s early campaigns transformed China from a fragmented, semi-colonial state into a unified, sovereign nation. Land reform broke the centuries-old power of landlords, redistributing resources to millions of poor peasants and giving them, at least initially, a sense of dignity and empowerment. His emphasis on self-reliance and independence freed China from the grip of Western imperialism, allowing it to claim a position of dignity on the global stage. Industrialisation, though often uneven and chaotic, did lay the foundations for China’s later rise as an economic power, and mass campaigns spread literacy, public health, and basic education to corners of the countryside that had never seen schools or clinics before.

Yet these gains came with staggering human costs. The push for collectivisation and rapid industrialisation culminated in the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), a campaign in which Mao attempted to overtake Western industrial powers by harnessing sheer willpower and mass mobilisation. Peasants were driven into communes, small furnaces sprouted across villages, and agricultural production was reported with wild exaggeration to satisfy quotas. The result was catastrophic: famine swept the country, with estimates of deaths ranging from twenty to forty million. This tragedy revealed the danger of Mao’s faith in mass enthusiasm overriding practical constraints.

Later, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) inflicted further upheaval. In his drive to root out “capitalist roaders” and “old ideas,” Mao unleashed students and workers against intellectuals, party officials, and even families, producing chaos, violence, and persecution. Schools and universities were paralysed, cultural treasures destroyed, and countless lives upended. While Mao intended the Cultural Revolution to preserve the vitality of socialism, it left deep scars, weakening the economy, eroding trust in institutions, and traumatising an entire generation.

Nevertheless, the long-term trajectory of China cannot be separated from Mao’s legacy. His insistence on independence created the conditions under which later leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping, could pursue economic reform without fear of foreign domination. His stress on mass mobilisation and egalitarianism also left a cultural imprint, shaping the ethos of collective responsibility that endures in Chinese political life. But the disasters of famine and ideological extremism showed how a commitment to perpetual revolution could devour its own people.

In short, Mao’s project both made modern China possible and imposed immense suffering on it. His policies broke the chains of feudalism and imperialism, but in their most radical moments, they also shackled the population with new forms of control and destruction.

When countries shifted toward Communism—whether in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, or elsewhere—the leaderships often believed that they were not simply changing governments but remaking the entire fabric of society. To them, religion and traditional belief systems represented old hierarchies, loyalties, and ways of thinking that stood in the way of creating a new socialist order.

Communist ideology, drawing on Marx’s famous claim that religion is “the opium of the people,” treated faith as both a symptom of exploitation and a tool used by ruling classes to keep people passive. Churches, mosques, temples, and shrines were seen not just as places of worship but as rival centres of authority, loyalty, and cultural identity. By this logic, erasing or suppressing religion was presented as a necessary step to liberate people from what Communists regarded as superstition and to ensure their loyalty to the party and its new ideology.

At the same time, Communist revolutions often took place in conditions of violence and civil war. In such moments, the line between ideological transformation and brutal repression became very thin. To break the power of landlords, aristocrats, or traditional leaders, regimes frequently used violence, both to eliminate resistance and to terrify others into submission. Religious leaders, because they often represented an alternative moral authority, became prime targets.

In China under Mao, monasteries were closed, temples desecrated, and believers forced to hide their practices. In the Soviet Union, priests, imams, and rabbis were arrested or killed, and atheism was taught as state doctrine. In Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Buddhist monks were executed and entire religious communities destroyed. The pattern was not accidental but deeply rooted in the Communist conviction that building a “new man” required the destruction of old beliefs, even at terrible human cost.

However, it is worth noting that in later decades, some Communist states softened their approach. For instance, after Mao’s death, China gradually permitted limited religious practice under state supervision, and the Soviet Union during World War II even revived the Orthodox Church to mobilise patriotism. These compromises showed that complete suppression of belief was never fully sustainable, because spiritual traditions ran too deep in human societies.

Indeed, one of the most striking features of Communist regimes was that even while they tried to abolish religion, they often ended up creating something very much like it in another form: the cult of the party and the cult of the leader. This was not accidental but deeply connected to the structure of belief itself. Human societies, throughout history, have always needed symbols of ultimate meaning, rituals of belonging, and figures of authority that embody ideals. When traditional religion was suppressed, those needs did not vanish; they were redirected.

Marxist theory claimed that faith in God should be replaced by faith in humanity and history, with the Communist Party as the conscious vanguard guiding the people toward liberation. In practice, however, this often slid into a new kind of devotion, centred on leaders like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or Kim Il-Sung. Portraits replaced icons, party slogans replaced scripture, and mass rallies replaced religious festivals. The language of eternal struggle and ultimate victory functioned very much like a secular eschatology, promising salvation not in heaven but in a classless society.

In China, Mao’s Little Red Book was treated almost like scripture, carried everywhere, memorised, and cited in daily life. In the Soviet Union, images of Lenin and Stalin filled public spaces, and loyalty to the party became the measure of moral virtue. In North Korea, the cult of the Kim family reached explicitly religious intensity, complete with myths of miraculous birth and divine guidance. These patterns showed how the attempt to erase spiritual life often reproduced it in a different key: the sacred was redefined as revolutionary struggle, and the leader became a living symbol of destiny.

At the same time, this substitution served political purposes. By demanding ritualised loyalty to the party and leader, regimes sought to ensure unity, suppress dissent, and channel the energies of millions into collective projects. But the danger of such a system was that it often slid into blind obedience, stifling creativity and silencing genuine diversity of thought. Paradoxically, the Communist fight against religion revealed just how much human beings crave faith, ritual, and transcendence, even if those are directed toward earthly leaders instead of heavenly gods.

Let's continue the matter of the Communist leadership cult in the next section, okay?

[Part 12]
[Part 10]

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