The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Pannekoek’s great clear-sightedness here should be compared with Gorter’s conceptions, which were at times
‘factoryist’ 466 and even ‘educationist’: the Unionen would educate the conscious workers in the idea of the
councils, while the communist party would educate those workers who possessed a superior degree of
consciousness. 467 It is true that even here, Pannekoek tended to identify the factory councils with the soviets
(other categories than factory workers being regrouped in territorial councils in the town and countryside), of
which they are only a part. This was a frequent mistake in the revolutionary movement at the time, and should be
seen as a moment in the understanding that the factory councils are the soviets’ revolutionary centre of gravity.
Pannekoek’s other critique concerned the presence of the ‘national-bolshevik’ current within the KAPD. This
current was a monstrous aberration in the party. Its anti-Semitism brought it close to the worst forms of
nationalism. In particular, Pannekoek denounced the Hamburgers’ anti-Semitic attacks on Paul Levi: “because
Levi is a Jew, he will play the card of Jewish finance capital”. Although the KAPD’s critique of national-
Bolshevism was correct, Pannekoek considered it still “much too gentle”. This current had to be eliminated from
the party:
“You under-estimate the damage done [by National-Bolshevism] in undermining communism’s most
fundamental principle. In my opinion, you will not be able to cohabit with Wolffheim and Laufenberg. If the
KAPD wants to become a leading force, orientating Germany’s revolutionary masses by its firm clarity, it is
necessary to put forward a clear viewpoint, precisely on the national question: the next Party congress must
settle the issue.” [Pannekoek’s emphasis.]
There was no ambiguity on this question in the KAPD. The congress held in Berlin between 1 st and 4 th August
1920 ended with the complete elimination of National-Bolshevism’s supporters. 468 This necessary decantation of
the party, urged by Pannekoek, was finally completed a few months later with the departure of the federalist
elements, closer to revolutionary syndicalism than to Marxism, and hostile to centralisation and above all to
membership of the 3 rd International. 469
Pannekoek’s letter concluded on the question of membership of the Komintern. The Dutch-German current –
“our current”, as Pannekoek wrote – should engage a merciless struggle within the International against
opportunism, should the latter become the “international tactic of communism”. Under these conditions, the
Dutch and Germans should “prepare themselves, as a radical minority, to be in opposition”.
The turning point of the 2 nd Congress: infantile or lethal disorder of communism?
The 2 nd Congress of the Komintern took place in the midst of the Red Army’s ‘revolutionary war’ against
Poland, which the Bolsheviks hoped would inevitably draw Germany, and then the whole of Western Europe,
into the revolution. In this context, the Russian Bolsheviks’ weight in the International was enormous. Lenin’s
466 “In the factory, the proletarian has some significance. There he is a fighter, because he is a worker. There he can express
himself as a free man, as a free fighter. There, he can be active every day and every hour in debate, in the struggle. There,
because the revolution comes from the factories, he can truly fight, arms in hand.” [H. Gorter, Die Klassenkampf-
Organisation des Proletariats (Berlin: Kommissionsdruckerei der KAPD, 1921)].
467 “The factory organisation gives its members the most general knowledge of the revolution, for example knowledge of
the nature and meaning of the workers’ councils (soviets), and of the proletarian dictatorship. The party regroups workers
who have a greater, more profound knowledge” (idem, text republished by H.M. Bock, op. cit., pp. 228-246).
468 See the proceedings of the Congress devoted to the question of national-bolshevism: Protokoll des 1. ordentlichen
Parteitages der KAPD vom 1. bis 4. August 1920 in Berlin, republished by Clemens Klockner (Darmstadt: Verlag für
wissensschaftliche Publikationen, 1981). Those Hamburg militants who left the party with Wolffheim and Laufenberg were
to return to the KAPD later, but on an individual basis.
469 After the departure of Rühle and his ‘Saxon tendency’, it was the turn of Pfemfert and his friends to leave the KAP. See
C. Klockner (ed.), Protokoll des ausserordentlichen Parteitages der KAPD vom 15.-18. Februar 1921 im Volkshaus zu
Gotha (Darmstadt 1981).
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