The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

‘old enemy’ Paul Levi. 650 Dethmann (1896-1979) rejoined the KPD in 1925, according to the KAPD. The KAI
Executive was thus considerably weakened, only to be shaken by conflicts leading to further splits, the most
decisive of which took place from 1923 onwards: that year, the sections in Central Germany left the KAI to form
a local group, the anti-intellectual and workerist Kommunistischer Rätebund’ (‘Council Communist Union’).
Proclaiming the need to ‘liquidate’ the KAP, and rejecting wage struggles in favour of a hypothetical ‘Union of
revolutionary enterprise organisations’, this group revealed clear councilist tendencies. In 1929, the
‘Kommunistischer Rätebund’ survived in Leipzig, as a little local sect (‘Ernst Joël-Gruppe’). Finally, in 1925
Emil Sach, a very active worker and one of the Essen tendency’s few remaining theoreticians, split in his turn:
his Berlin periodical Vulcan calmly presented itself as the organ of the KAI. Berlin thus had two KAIs, one
publishing the KAZ for the Essen tendency, the other publishing Vulcan! What was left of the Essen tendency
only survived as a sect after 1929. 651
The KAI was a stillborn pseudo-International. In its collapse, it dragged down militants who quickly gave in to
discouragement. Gorter’s effort revealed itself as a disaster for left communism in Germany, as well as in other
countries.
d) The birth of a Berlin current in the Dutch KAP
Gorter’s party was not spared by Germany’s internecine struggles. The KAPN, which had rallied to the Essen
tendency, was infected with the same splitting virus, though to a lesser extent. The KAPN demonstrated a great
sectarianism towards the Berlin tendency. When the latter wanted to send delegates to its April 1922 Utrecht
Congress, it refused to hear them. However, the KAPN did not follow Essen in its refusal to intervene in the
proletariat’s economic struggles; it was active in the class struggle, and set up struggle organisations, which took
the name of ‘Unions’ (Algemeene Arbeiders Bond, or AAB) and were modelled after the German AAU. It was
above all the KAPN’s attachment to the KAI which provoked a reaction within the organisation: the exclusion of
the Utrecht section in 1922, then of a large part of the Rotterdam section in 1923, did not suffice to silence the
pro-Berlin tendency, which was based on the youth sections (KAJ), and a strong opposition in Amsterdam and
other sections. The exclusions seriously weakened the KAPN numerically, but it was rivalries between clans that
were to prove disastrous. On one side was Luteraan, on the other the ‘Korporatie’ (corporation) of the Korper
family, locked in struggle for control of the party. This struggle between cliques caused immense confusion: the
Korper family left the KAPN in 1923, only to return shortly afterwards and take control of the organisation
again. For his part, in 1927 Luteraan declared himself ‘autonomous’ and published his own journal De Roode
Vaan.
Many militants, possessed of a minimum of political seriousness, refused to take part in these clan struggles and
resolved to continue revolutionary work on a healthier basis. This was the case with Henk Canne-Meijer, who
left the KAPN in October 1924 out of disgust for “an organisation which has become a political sporting club”,
or a family sect divided between followers of the Korpers or the ones of Luteraan. 652 Around Canne-Meijer, Piet
650 By contrast, Schwab, who left the KAPD in 1922 for personal reasons, refused to follow Schröder’s KAI and remained in
contact with the Berlin KAPD. He became journalist and economic writer, he also wrote articles on the questions of
architecture. But after 1928, he participated without formal engagement to the SWV (Sozialwissenchaftliche Vereinigung),
Berlin, which taught, since 1924, under the leadership of Paul Levi and Arthur Goldstein, young socialists. The SWV had
been the real matrix of the Rote Kämpfer. He published in 1930 a book on the new architecture: Das Buch vom Bauen
(reprint: Bertelsmann, 1973). In jail in 1933, after Hitler’s coming to power. In 1934, with Franz Jung, he published a
Wirtschaftskorrespondenz for the banks and economical papers. After 1934 until the destruction of the RK by the Gestapo
in 1936-37, he was the main leader of the group and the main editor of the illegal publications.
651 Emil Sach survived nazism, and remained a militant. In 1952, he was publishing in Leverkusen his own periodical Stirn
und Faust (‘Brain and Fist’) [see: F. Kool, op. cit., p. 606].
652 Letter of resignation of Canne-Meijer, on Oct. 26 1924, addressed to the KAPN [Canne-Meijer Archives, map 25/5). In
the 20s some KAPN names of active militants appear in the Collection Canne-Meijer: Rosa Reens (?-1928), H. Schouwink,
M. Secrève, P.F. Hoorn, C. Wijnveldt, Rosa Korper (1905-1997?) and her husband Frits Kief, Bram Korper (1893-1940)
with his brother and sister Emmanuel [Manus] (1885-1940) and Sara Korper (1902-1997?), Gerrit Jordens, A. Rot, D. van
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