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The SDP leadership and the Russian Revolution
In 1917, the party that Lenin, at the beginning of the war, had considered – with the Bolsheviks – the most
revolutionary and the most capable of working towards the foundation of a new International, was singularly
remote from Bolshevism.
This was true at least for the majority of the party, whose leadership was completely dominated by the trio of
Wijnkoop, Ravesteyn, and Ceton. After Gorter’s departure and Luteraan’s elimination from the SDP leadership,
the minority was isolated. Nonetheless, backed by the moral authority of Pannekoek and Gorter, it conducted the
most determined struggle to support Bolshevism and defend the proletarian nature of the Russian Revolution. In
fact, this attitude was common to all the lefts, which formed as oppositions or fractions in the various socialist
parties.
The majority’s suspicion of the Bolsheviks was a direct result of their pro-Entente positions in international
politics. It first appeared when the Bolsheviks crossed Germany to return to Russia. This journey was
condemned by De Tribune, which saw it as a compromise with Germany. 363 In reality this mistrust was only a
figleaf covering a policy of support for Kerensky’s policy, which in July 1917 led to the military offensive
against Germany. To justify this support, Van Ravesteyn – in De Tribune 364 – did not hesitate to compare
Kerensky’s Russia to the revolutionary France of 1792. Ideologically, the position of Van Ravesteyn and
Wijnkoop was identical to that of the Mensheviks: this was a bourgeois revolution, which should be exported by
military means, to crush the ‘feudal and reactionary’ German empire.
This implicit support for the Kerensky government provoked a violent reaction from the opposition in the SDP.
Through the writing of Pannekoek and Gorter, the latter sided resolutely with the Bolsheviks, denouncing both
the Russian bourgeois democracy, and the idea that the Russian revolution could be compared to 1793 in France.
For Pannekoek, this was no ‘bourgeois’ revolution on the march, but a counter-revolutionary and imperialist
policy. His standpoint was identical to that of the Bolsheviks in 1917: “Any war [...] conducted with the
bourgeoisie against another state is a weakening of the class struggle, and consequently a betrayal of the
proletarian cause”. 365
The SDP leadership went no further down this slippery slope. When the councils’ seizure of power became
known in November, De Tribune, unlike the anarchists, greeted the news with sincere enthusiasm. 366
However, the minority grouped around Gorter, Pannekoek, and Luteraan, expressed justified doubts as to the
leadership’s sudden revolutionary enthusiasm. By refusing to take part in the third (and last) conference of the
Zimmerwald movement 367 , held in September in Stockholm, it revealed its refusal to commit itself resolutely to
the road towards the 3 rd International. A verbal radicalism, used once again to condemn ‘opportunism’, barely
363 This was reported by Gorter in his pamphlet Het opportunisme in de Nederlandsche Communistische Partij (Amsterdam:
J.J. Bos, 1921). This important text for understanding the history of the SDP/CPN is available in French in: La Gauche
communiste en Allemagne, edited by Denis Authier and Jean Barrot [Gilles Dauvé] (Paris: Payot, 1976), pp. 286-312.
364 De Tribune, 14 th June 1917, p. 2, col. 2.
365 De Nieuwe Tijd, 1917, pp. 444-445.
366 De Tribune, 12 th November 1917. The papers editorial committee sent a telegram of congratulations to Lenin. The
attitude of anarchists like Domela Nieuwenhuis was by contrast mitigated. In December 1917, Domela Nieuwenhuis wrote
in De Vrije Socialist that Lenin’s new regime was no better than its predecessor. But in November 1918, alongside
Wijnkoop, he took part in a demonstration to celebrate the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, jointly organised with the
SDP [See: De Vrije, anarchistisch maandblad, No. 11-12, 1987, pp. 27-29.]
367 Despite opposition from Lenin, who wanted to found the 3 rd International immediately in April 1917, the Bolsheviks sent
delegates [Vaslav Vorovsky (1871-1923) and Dr. Nikolai Semashko (1874-1949)] to the ‘Zimmerwaldian’ Stockholm
conference (5 th September). This should not be confused with the conference of parties belonging to the 2 nd International,
which was supposed to take place in the same place (15 th May). It did not do so, because French ‘socialist-patriots’ refused
to sit with German ‘socialist-patriots’ and because too the governments refused to give passports to the delegates. [See:
J. Humbert-Droz, L’Origine de l’Internationale communiste. – De Zimmerwald à Moscou (Neuchatel: La Baconnière,
1968), pp. 215-232.]
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