The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

“Don’t you feel, little by little, with events, that you are sitting on a volcano [...] The epoch of the bourgeois
governmental system is over. Now the working class, the new rising force, asks you to leave to the place [...] We
are not your friends, we are your enemies, we are, so to speak, (sic) your most resolute enemies.” 387
Had Troelstra become an eleventh hour ‘revolutionary’? In fact, he was speaking a double language. Behind the
closed doors of a meeting of the SDAP leadership, on 2 nd November only three days after his impassioned
outburst in Parliament, Troelstra baldly admitted that his tactic was to forestall action by the revolutionaries,
encouraged by the revolution in Germany: “In these circumstances, the contrasts will accentuate in the working
class, and a growing number of workers will place themselves under the leadership of irresponsible elements”. 388
Troelstra considered the revolution inevitable, and proposed to neutralise an eventual ‘Dutch Spartakism’ by
adopting the same tactics as the German social democracy in the workers’ councils: take over the leadership in
order to destroy them: “We are not now calling for the revolution, but the revolution calls us... What has
happened in those countries that are undergoing the trial of revolution makes me say: as soon as it comes to that,
we must take the leadership.” 389
The tactic adopted was to call for the formation of workers’ and soldiers’ councils on 10 th November, should the
German example spread to Holland. “Wijnkoop must not be the first” declared Oudegeest, one of the SDAP’s
leaders.
But on 10 th November, the SDP was the first to call for the formation of soldiers’ councils, and for strikes. It
declared for the arming of the workers, and the formation of a popular government on the basis of the councils. It
also demanded the “immediate demobilisation” of conscripts, which was an ambiguous slogan, since it meant
disarming the soldiers, and therefore the workers to whom the soldiers might ‘give’ their weapons.
This slogan was taken up by the SDAP, with precisely that aim in view. It added the programme of the German
social democracy, to defuse the revolutionaries’ demands: socialisation of industry, complete unemployment
insurance, and the eight-hour day.
But events were to show that the situation in Holland was far from ripe for revolution. On 13 th November, there
was indeed a beginning of fraternisation between workers and soldiers in Amsterdam; but the following day, the
demonstration clashed with hussars, who fired on the crowd, killing several. The strike called by the SDP for the
following day, to protest against the repression, passed unheeded by the Amsterdam workers. The revolution was
thoroughly crushed before having been able to develop fully. The call for the formation of councils only had a
limited success; only a few groups of soldiers formed councils, in places isolated from the capital – in Alkmaar
and Friesland. These councils had no future. In a skilful way, the Dutch government demobilised on November
13 the soldiers and increased the food rations of the population.
So ended the ‘week of the dupes’ (“de week der dupes”), to use the expression of the caustic Marxist Pieter
Wiedijk (Saks).
While the situation was not yet ripe for revolution, it must be said that the action of the SDAP was decisive in
preventing any strike movement in November. More than 20 years later, Vliegen, a leader of the SDAP
confessed baldly: “The revolutionaries were not wrong to accuse the SDAP of strangling the strike movement in
1918, for the social democracy quite consciously held it back”. 390
But, while the SDAP’s policy aimed at preventing revolution, that of the syndicalists in the NAS and the RSC –
to which the SDP also belonged – helped to create confusion in the ranks of the working masses. During the
events of November, the NAS moved towards the SDAP and the NVV, with the aim of establishing a common
387 Quoted by S. de Wolff, op. cit., p. 158.
388 Quoted by Burger, op. cit., p. 114.
389 See: P. J. Troelstra, Gedenkschriften IV. ‘Storm’ (Amsterdam: Querido, 1931), p. 245.
390 W. H. Vliegen, Die onze kracht ontwaken deed. Geschiedenis der SDAP in Nederland gedurende de eerste 25 jaren van
haar bestaan, Vol. 3 (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1938), pp. 416-457. With Schaper, Vliegen led the most ‘antirevolutionary’
tendency inside the SDAP in 1918-1920.
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