N. Aidit, D.

D. N. Aidit was born in Medan, North Sumatra, on 30 July 1923. As a young man during the Japanese occupation in Indonesia, he was involved in Angkatan Baru, an Indonesian youth group engaged in legal political education as well as clandestine activities against the Japanese. He joined the PKI in 1943. In September 1948, when the PKI was banned after the party was associated with the Madiun, he fled to China and Vietnam to avoid arrest by Indonesian Republican forces. He returned in 1950 and with several other younger PKI leaders, took over the reins of the party from Alimin and Tan Ling Djie. From 1959, he became the chairperson of the Indonesian Communist Party. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of his death, but he is thought to have been shot in Central Java by the military shortly after the 30 September Movement.

FEITH, Herbert and CASTLES, Lance (eds.), Indonesian Political Thinking 1945-1965 , 1970, Ithaca and London: Cornell University