Fachrul Baraqbah

Fachrul Baraqbah (1925–1980) was an Indonesian politician who was a member of the Kutai Sultanate royal family and was a mid-level leader of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) until his arrest in 1965 during the anti-communist repression preceding the Transition to the New Order. As an aristocrat, he was considered an anomaly for supporting the Indonesian National Revolution, renouncing his royal title, and joining the PKI.

Life Fachrul Baraqbah was born in town of Tenggarong, East Kalimantan, Dutch East Indies in 1925. He was of mixed Kutai and Arab-Indonesian descent, and was considered a Sayyid or descendant of Muhammad. At that point he disowned his own aristocratic status and no longer used it in public to refer to himself. During that time, the Kutai Sultanate royal family was supportive of a return of Dutch rule despite popular grassroots support for independence. Therefore, Fachrul became a prominent opponent of aristocratic rule in Kalimantan. He fled to East Java in 1947 when nationalist uprisings in Kalimantan were mostly suppressed and joined the guerrilla war against the Dutch there.

In Yogyakarta, he helped found Pesindo (Indonesian Socialist Youth) and became active in FDR (, People's Democratic Front).

Legacy According to Burhan Magenda from Cornell University, Fachrul was an anomaly among Arab-Indonesians, especially with his title as Sayyid. In Antropologi Indonesia magazine, he wrote that it was rare for Arab-Indonesians to became communists, as they often belonged to Islamist parties. Despite being a communist, according to East Kalimantan media Prokal, he was still a devout Muslim and never abandoned his Sayyid title.

He was regarded by people of East Kalimantan as an "unfortunately misguided figure", choosing communism to oppose return of colonialism and to liberate the Indonesian people of East Kalimantan.