The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

it impossible to develop an international platform which would give the communist left a structure on an
international scale.
Nonetheless, considering that “[the Third International] is a great step forward over the Second” 478 , Gorter left
for Moscow, with Karl Schröder and Fritz Rasch 479 , in November 1920. After long discussions, and given its
refusal to merge with the KPD and the left Independents, the KAPD became a ‘sympathising party’ of the 3 rd
International, with only an advisory status. Arthur Goldstein represented the KAPD during sessions of the
Moscow EKKI (Executive Committee of the Komintern) after December, and Adolf Dethmann was sent to
Moscow in February 1921 to assist Goldstein, as suppleant.
This adherence was welcomed by the minority of the CPH. It proved the falsehood of Wijnkoop’s claim that
“these people, such as Gorter, Pannekoek, Roland Holst and others have placed themselves outside the ranks of
the Komintern of their own accord”. 480 His aim was to show that the leaders of the Dutch Left were isolated,
even from the KAPD. The latter, he thought, would soon be an opposition. His hopes were quickly dashed.
Communist Left’s arguments against Lenin’s book Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder
When Appel, Jung and Willy Klahre arrived in Moscow, Lenin in person handed them copies of the manuscript
of Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, which had been written specially for the Second Congress. The
response of the Dutch left, which was the theoretical mentor of the KAPD, was not long in coming. The task of
replying to Lenin was given to Gorter, in a pamphlet published in Dutch, German and English. Gorter relied
heavily on a text by Pannekoek, published in the spring of 1920: World Revolution and Communist Tactics. 481
Gorter’s pamphlet, written in July 1920 – Open letter to comrade Lenin, A reply to “left-wing” communism, an
infantile disorder – served as a basis for argument against Trotsky at a session of the Executive Committee in
Moscow in November 1920. 482 It received no real reply. Trotsky brought out an argument that was to be used
many times again: how many of you are there defending these positions? He asserted that “Gorter only speaks
for a small group which has no influence over the western workers’ movement”. He tried to ridicule Gorter by
presenting him as no more than a sentimental poet: “Gorter speaks of the revolution like a poet”. Instead of a
political response, this was an unbridled attack on Gorter as a person: Gorter’s position was “essentially
individualist and aristocratic”. Gorter was “above all a pessimist who does not believe in the proletarian
revolution”. Gorter “is afraid of the masses”, etc.
478 H. Gorter, ‚Die KAPD und die dritte Internationale’, KAZ (Berlin), No. 162, Dec. 1920. His discussion with Lenin was a
huge disappointment for Gorter: “I was stupefied to find that Lenin only had Russia on his mind, and considered everything
else from the Russian viewpoint. He is not – though this had seemed to me self-evident – the leader of the world revolution;
he is Russia’s Washington.” [Jenne Clinge Doorenbos, in: Wisselend getij. Dichterlijke en politieke aktivieiten in Herman
Gorter’s leven (Amsterdam: Querido, 1964), pp. 44-52].
479 K. Schröder has written an account of his journey to Russia with Gorter and Rasch in the form of a novel [Die Geschichte
Jan Beeks (Berlin: Der Bücherkreis, 1929)]. Fritz Rasch, a Berlin worker, was one of the founders of the KAPD. He was
expelled from the KAP in October 1922; apparently left politics after 1923.
480 De Roode Vaan, No. 4, 1924, ‘Wijnkoop over de taktische stroomingen in de Derde Internationale’.
481 Although Pannekoek did not consider it necessary to reply to Lenin’s text, “which contains no new arguments”, his
pamphlet is inseparable from Gorter’s, who used large extracts from it. One of the most accurate versions of the German
original is the one published by Verlag-Association, Hamburg 1974 (Offener brief an den Genossen Lenin. Eine Antwort auf
Lenins Broschüre ‘Der linke Radicalismus – die Kinderkrankheit im Kommunismus). English version: Herman Gorter, Open
letter to comrade Lenin, A reply to "left-wing" communism, an infantile disorder, in: Workers’ Dreadnaught, London, 12
March-11 June 1921. New edition: “Wildcat pamphlet”, London 1989. French, German and English versions, on the ‘leftwing
communism: an infantile disorder?”; web site: .
482 Bulletin Communiste, No. 34, 18 th August 1921, ‘Réponse au camarade Gorter’, by Trotsky, 24 th Nov. 1920. Lenin was
more fraternal; at the end of a discussion with Gorter, he said to him “the future will show which one of us was right”. The
speech of Gorter was published only in the KAZ (Berlin), Jahrgang 1920-1921, No. 232.
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