The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

was more disastrous for the VKPD than for the KAPD: the former saw its numbers fall from 350,000 members
to 150,000 in several weeks. The KAPD, by contrast, remained stable: from 38,000 militants in April 1920, at
the time of its formation, it even grew to 41,000 militants in September 1921, according to the figures given at
its extraordinary congress (see below). It is certain that the KAPD remained, for many workers, the party of Max
Hölz, who was to enjoy an immense popularity in prison, directly proportional to the demoralisation among the
workers. Hölz’s individualist activism was itself the other side of the coin of the collective passivity of the mass
of workers. The publicity given by the KAPD to the person of Hölz, and which it received in return, could only
be of short duration: Hölz left the KAPD in November 1921 and immediately rejoined the VKPD. 549
More than the Kronstadt events, the March Action was to accelerate the split between the KAPD, and the whole
communist left in Holland, on one side, and the VKPD and the Komintern on the other. The KAPD opened a
lively polemic aided by Gorter against the attitude of the VKPD and the Komintern towards the March Action. A
pamphlet perhaps written for the last part by Gorter, was brought out specially: The way of Doctor Levi, the way
of the VKPD. 550 Levi had criticised the attitude of the Executive of the Komintern and the VKPD leadership
during the March Action in a pamphlet: Wider Putschismus (‘Against putschism’). For Paul Levi, the March
Action was “The greatest Bakuninist putsch in history”. The fact of having criticised his party and the Komintern
and then of bringing out a pamphlet without referring it to them, led to his exclusion. His criticisms were,
nevertheless, widely shared within the VKPD, by the right around Clara Zetkin, and by Lenin in the Komintern.
For Gorter, as for the KAPD, Levi’s pamphlet was all the more dangerous because its basis, the criticism of
putchism, was correct. This criticism could only bring back the old Social Democratic, pacifist and
parliamentarian, tactic by putting pressure not only on the leadership of the VKPD and the Komintern, but also
which was at the very heart of the problem on all minority and defensive insurrectionary class movements. Levi,
according to Gorter, abandoned all elementary solidarity with revolutionary minorities of the proletariat who
were prey to the capitalist offensive. 551
The pamphlet by the KAPD and Gorter was not a self-criticism of the party’s activity in the March Action. That
was never really made. 552 It was a defence of the minority movement of workers in central Germany, forced onto
the defensive. The KAPD showed that this movement was defensive over and above any offensive tactic
pronounced by the Komintern and the leadership of the VKPD. The common strike call by the two parties was
“exclusively an act of defence and solidarity faced with a counter-revolutionary attack”. 553
Gorter and the KAPD tarred Levi and the VKPD leadership with the same brush. The latter was the incarnation
of the “stupidity of the VKPD, the stupidity of the Executive Committee in Moscow, the stupidity of the 3 rd
International in the clearest way”. 554 The putschism of the VKPD, correctly emphasised by Gorter, could only be
549 Letter of 24 November 1921 from Max Hölz to Emil Schubert, „president of the KAPD“ (sic), mentioned in Maz Hölz,
Vom ‘Weissen Kreuz’ zur Roten Fahne (Berlin: Malik Verlag, 1927), p. 422. Hölz pretended that the KAPD “made
publicity with his corpse”. He found much better ‘publicity’ in the VKPD.
550 Der Weg des Dr Levi: der Weg der VKPD (Berlin: Verlag der KAPD, May 1921). The chapter 3 is perhaps Gorter’s.
551 Paul Levi ended by rejoining the social democracy: after forming in July 1921 the KAG (Kommunistische
Arbeitsgemeinschaft) – which published the periodical Sowjet, then Unser Weg –, in February 1922 he passed to the USPD,
then to the SPD, and committed suicide in 1930. [See: W. Abendroth, O. Flechtheim and I. Fetscher (eds.): Paul Levi,
‚Zwischen Spartakus und Sozialdemokratie’, Schriften, Aufsätze, Reden und Briefe (Frankfurt/Main: EVA, 1969]
552 A real critique was made, above all by Otto Rühle. The latter, although in disagreement with the March Action, had
yielded to the ‘revolutionary discipline’ of the AAU in Dresden, and had awaited the end of the combats to voice his
criticisms. He considered which is far from certain that the events of Kronstadt had pushed the Komintern into putschist
tactics in Germany. The March Action had overturned the course of the revolution in Germany: “A new defeat! A new
tragedy! Hundreds of the most noble combatants fallen, thousands thrown into penitentiary or prison for thousands of years:
the German bourgeoisie could not have wished for better... The vanguard of the proletariat has been annihilated, with the aid
of the VKPD! [... ] The revolution in Germany is lost for a long time” [Das Ende der mitteldeutschen Kämpfe, Die Aktion,
No. 15-16, April 1921]. Otto Rühle, like Pfemfert, was shamefully slandered by the VKPD: they were accused of having
handed Hölz over to the police, a lie against which Hölz protested energetically from his prison cell. [Cf. Die Aktion, No.17-
18, 30 th April 1921.]
553 Der Weg des Dr Levi: der Weg der VKPD, op. cit., p. 5.
554 Idem, p. 13.
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