The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

eal decision-making centre. In this new historic period, which later on was analysed as being the period of ‘state
capitalism’ (see below), elections appeared as a way of diverting the workers from the revolutionary path by
preserving all kinds of mystification about ‘bourgeois democracy’. This question of the function of
parliamentarism went well beyond the problem of ‘leaders’ substituting themselves for the activity of the
masses.
Because it failed to analyse the new function of parliamentarism in depth, the Dutch Left did not really respond
to the core of Lenin’s arguments. It mainly criticised the latter’s ‘pragmatic’ arguments. The first of these was
that it would be “useful” to carry out propaganda in parliament “in order to win over the non-communist workers
and petty bourgeois elements”. But, as Gorter stressed, this was a fallacious argument, since the latter “ordinarily
learned nothing through their newspapers” about the content of the intervention of workers’ deputies. They could
learn much more about revolutionary positions through communist “meetings, pamphlets and newspapers”.
Lenin’s second argument – using parliament in order to exploit the divisions between bourgeois parties, and
even to make ‘compromises’ with certain of them – was the most dangerous, even if he was only referring
circumstantially to the case of Britain. Lenin’s tactic was in effect an attempt to make up for the lack of a real
workers’ party in Britain: “in the interest of the revolution, to give a certain parliamentary support” 513 to Labour,
in order to weaken the bourgeoisie. But, as Gorter replied, the divisions within the bourgeois political apparatus
were “insignificant”. This tactic could only lead to the pitiful example of Paul Levi, who during the Kapp Putsch
(March 1920) proclaimed his “loyal opposition” to the social democratic government. This policy, instead of
exposing the unity of the whole bourgeoisie against the proletariat, merely instilled the belief that it was still
possible to make compromises “with the bourgeoisie in the revolution”. Any parliamentarist policy inevitably
led to a policy of compromise with the bourgeoisie, culminating in the formation of “workers’ governments”.
The result was a political regression for the revolutionary movement: in a period in which “reformism” had
become impracticable, Lenin’s tactic would lead the proletariat back to the reformist terrain of the 2 nd
International. And instead of breaking with the old democratic system, the communist parties would be
transformed into legalistic organs regressing back towards social democracy: “the Communist Party is changing
into a parliamentary formation, with a legal status identical to that of the others, plunged in the same quarrels, a
new version of the old social democracy, but with extremist slogans...”
The Dutch Left took its arguments no further. For lack of historical experience, it did not deal with the problem
of whether it were possible for the communist parties to become a new version of social democracy.
Furthermore, if the communist parties did become ‘social democratic’, in the manner of the German SPD, this
could only mean one thing: that these parties had become parties of the left wing of the ruling class.
‘The meridian argument’
The whole argument of the Dutch Left was based on Western Europe. Did this mean that the tactics of the left
communists did not apply in the economically backward countries? Was the tactic of supporting national
liberation struggles elaborated since the Baku Congress in September 1920 valid for these countries? 514 The
response of the Dutch left was somewhat contradictory. Gorter and Pannekoek differed in their analyses. Gorter
seemed to see the possibility of proletarian revolution only in Western Europe and – stretching a point – in North
513 Lenin, Left Wing Communism, chapter IX, ‘Left Wing Communism in Great Britain’.
514 Complete record of the Baku congress, in: To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920, First Congress of the Peoples of the East (New
York: Pathfinder, 1996). This congress was held at the same time as the Soviet government began to support Mustafa
Kemal in Turkey, who did not wait long before massacring the Turkish communists. The congress, regrouping more than
2,000 delegates, was the occasion for a nationalist, even islamist demagogy, on the part of Zinoviev: “Comrades! Brothers!
The time has now come when you can set about organising a true people’s holy war against the robbers and oppressors. The
Communist International turns today to the peoples of the East and says to them: Brothers, we summon you to a holy war, in
the first place against British imperialism!” (Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East, First Session, September 1). The
interests of the Russian state were beginning to predominate over those of the Communist International.
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