The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The workers’ reaction was immediate: a 24-hour strike (called by the RSC) was followed by 20,000 Amsterdam
workers. The mass strike spread like wildfire to most of Holland’s major cities. 355 But in both Amsterdam and
other towns, the army and police fired on the workers. For the first time since the beginning of the war, workers
fell to the bullets of the bourgeoisie’s forces.
Vliegen, but above all Wibaut 356 , bore a heavy responsibility for this bloody repression. Wibaut had no
hesitation in distinguishing between the demonstrators and unemployed, whom he saw as nothing but a
‘debauched youth’ 357 , and the ‘modern workers’ movement’ organised in the unions and the SDAP. In an article
in Het Volk, he even justified the repression, which he described as ‘limited’, and called for ‘other methods of
maintaining order’. Such language, which the SDAP leadership did not disavow, was that of the ruling class.
Even if the SDAP hesitated to support Wibaut officially 358 , Dutch social democracy initiated a policy which was
fully developed in Germany during 1919 by Noske and Scheidemann. On a small scale, Troelstra’s party opened
the way to collaboration with the bourgeoisie against the revolutionary movement.
The ‘Week of Blood’ clarified the difference between the revolutionary SDP and the SDAP, which had become a
traitor to the working class; the SDP could thus call on the workers to “separate themselves completely from the
traitors to the working class, the modern Judas, the lackeys of capital, the SDAP and NVV leadership”. 359
These events in The Netherlands unquestionably followed in the wake of the Russian Revolution. The latter
encouraged, not only strikes and demonstrations in the proletariat, but also agitation in the army. Although
limited, October 1917 saw the beginning of the formation of soldier’s councils in several places, and the
development of a whole movement against military discipline. 360
Undoubtedly, the SDP benefited from the situation. By participating fully in the strikes and demonstrations, and
by suffering from the repression with several of its militants in prison 361 , the SDP appeared as a true
revolutionary party: not a party of sectarian word mongering, but an active militant organisation. 362
This activity broke clearly with the SDP’s ambiguity in foreign policy, towards the Entente, and especially
towards the Russian Revolution. It was as if the party’s own development were pushing it, out of a concern for
its newly acquired ‘popularity’ amongst the workers, to make opportunist concessions in order to strengthen the
influence it had won in 1917 on the electoral terrain.
355 The movement lasted from 2 nd to 6 th July. The mayor and Wibaut banned all workers’ demonstrations. De Tribune
campaigned against both of them. See Burger, op. cit., p. 86.
356 F. M. Wibaut (1859-1936) joined the SDAP in 1897. He was a member of Amsterdam city council from 1907 to 1931,
and alderman from 1914 to 1931. Vliegen (1862-1947) was one of the SDAP’s founders in 1894. [See: G.W.B. Borrie, F.M.
Wibaut, mens en magistraat (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1968), and Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland I (The Hague,
1979.]
357 Het Volk, 10 th July 1917. Quoted by Burger, op. cit., p. 91.
358 In his Memoirs (Gedenkschriften), published between 1927 and 1931, Troelstra cynically supported Wibaut’s repressive
policy as a policy of the party: “A few weeks later, Wibaut wrote an article in Het Volk where he described this violence as
inevitable, but he insisted strongly on the deplorable fact that a democratic city council should have to intervene in this way
against the population. In his article, he expressed an urgent wish that the police professionals should come up with a nonviolent
means of preventing such looting. In my opinion, one cannot be guided by such sentimentalism, which he gives such
a weight in his arguments. If we social democrats have conquered such an important position of strength, then it is in the
interests of the whole working class, and consequently such a position of strength should be defended by any means,
including violent ones if necessary. [Gedenkschriften, Vol. IV (‘Storm’) (Querido, Amsterdam, 1931), pp. 72-73.]
359 De Tribune, 23 rd July 1917.
360 These soldiers councils were called by the RSC.
361 Including Louis de Visser (1878-1945), a future leader of the stalinist CPN in the 30s.
362 In 1921, Radek claimed that the Dutch Left had never experienced revolutionary movements in Holland. According to
him, the Dutch militants’ theories “came from a country where, to date, there have never been any mass revolutionary
movements” [Der Weg der kommunistischen Internationale (Hamburg: Carl Hoym, 1921), p. 19].
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