[8] Furthermore, there were guerrilla units linked to the party, which played an important role in the struggle against Dutch rule in West and Central Java.

The young men who led Murba had often been leaders of guerrillas or mass struggles against the Japanese occupation.

Herbert Feith labelled the profile of the party as 'extreme nationalism and messianic social radicalism (whose inchoateness was only mildly tempered by the Marxist and Leninist theory to which it laid claim), it was a citadel of "oppositionism", the politics of refusing to recognize the practical difficulties of governments'.

[7][4]: 52 The Murba Party was secular, and wary of the possibility of increased Islamic influence in government.

At the time, Murba guerrilla units still roamed in West Java and held some territories under their control.

[4]: 21, 102–103 In February 1952, the party supported a parliamentary motion calling for the opening of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

[11] When President Sukarno introduced Guided Democracy in 1957, the Murba Party was the first to declare its outright support to the plan.

[3] The Murba Party politician and Minister of Education Priyono, became the head of the Guided Democracy Committee.

[15] Adam Malik, one of the founding leaders of the Murba Party, was named as the Indonesian ambassador to the Soviet Union and Poland.

The Murba Party, on its behalf, began calling for the inclusion of the Soviet Union into the Afro-Asian fraternity.

These contacts were aided by the fact that the Murba leader Adam Malik had been stationed as ambassador in Moscow.

[16] In April 1964 the Murba Party proposed that a one-party system be introduced in Indonesia, seeking support from President Sukarno for the idea.

In its anti-price hike mass campaigns the PKI singled out the Murba Party ministers Adam Malik and Chaerul Saleh as responsible.

[29] After the New Order fell in 1998, a reincarnation of the party participated in the 1999 Indonesian legislative election, but only received 62,006 (0.06%) votes and once more failed to win any seats.