The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Coerman and Jan Appel, were to form the Group of International Communists (GIC), the only group truly to
embody the ‘spirit’ of the Dutch Communist Left. With the GIC, the Dutch Communist Left once again took up
the torch of international left communism, which had been seriously shaken by the German split in 1922. The
GIC represented the triumph of the Berlin KAPD current.
The mistake of Gorter and his supporters was to proclaim the KAI artificially, when there still remained within
the Komintern left fractions which could have been regrouped into an international left communist current. This
error weighed heavily on the German revolutionary movement. What was needed was not a new International,
but a regroupment of left communist fractions or new organisations, both in and outside the Komintern. Only,
perhaps, such a regroupment could have made it possible to continue the struggle in the Komintern to the end.
The decline of the world revolution, which was evident in Europe by 1921, hardly allowed the formation of a
new International. Thinking that the course was still towards revolution, with the theory of ‘capitalism’s mortal
crisis’, there was certain logic in the Gorter and Essen current’s proclamation of the KAI. But their premises
were wrong. Trotsky, who in 1921 made fun of an eventual 4 th International, was to do the same thing in 1938,
when he proclaimed his own 4 th International. On the eve of the World War, when the whole revolutionary
movement had been swept away by the stalinist and fascist counter-revolution, when it was “midnight in the
century” (Victor Serge).
Shortly before his death in 1927, Gorter had come much closer to the Berlin KAP. He had devoted the last years
of his life to unsuccessful efforts, in his own name, to regroup the divided forces of the communist left. His last
political act was to warn the Berlin KAP against the euphoria which gripped the party after the integration of
2,000 militants from the Entschiedene Linke, who came from the KPD: “While we welcome the growth of
revolutionary forces, who have passed from the Entschiedene Linke to the KAP, we must keep our eyes open.
The KAP is something great. It is great to the extent that it is able to keep itself pure from attempts to gain
immediate success. It is the beacon of the class struggle, pure and without compromise. Maintain this purity and
you will save the revolution.” 653
This came down to declaring the Berlin tendency the only existing revolutionary focus; that it, more than the
Essen tendency, had conserved the revolutionary heritage of the KAP. It was a clear message for new
revolutionary generations: the revolutionary organisation is something difficult to preserve. Gorter repeated this
“message” until his death, whenever it were born “times of reaction”. 654
Swinderen, P. van der Wal, D. Roodzant, Bernard Verduin, G.J. Christenhusz, Arie J. Bom, W.J. Scheffer (?-1924),
F. Willems, Gerard J. Geers, Piet Coerman, Catho van der Meer-Maassen and her husband Barend Luteraan, Theo Maassen
(1891-1974), brother-in-law of Luteraan, and Manus Korper, Lo Lopes Cardoso, J. Wiertz, J.J. Janssen, J. N. Nugter, Jan
Bos, A. Slagter, F. Agter-Nekkers. The KAPN had some territorial sections: Enschede, Hengelo, Amsterdam, Weesp,
Bussum, Twente, Zwolle, Leiden, The Hague, Rotterdam, and few militants: 200 members. The ‘party’ published De
Kommunistische Arbeider, and De Baanbreker (‘The Pioneer’), organ of the KAPN Youth, in 1922-25. This last paper (400
copies) was edited by Bernard Verduin (1898?-1980?). In May 1923, the Korporatie (family Korper and followers went out
of the “party’ to give birth in Amsterdam to a ephemeral ‘Kommunistisch Arbeiders Groep’, before ‘reintegrating’ the
organization, under pressure of the KAI. Some militants, sick of the sectarian and family pathology, became militants of the
GIC. Bram and Manus Korper committed suicide as the German troops marched into Amsterdam on 15 th May 1940.
653 Kommunistischer Arbeiter, organ of the KAPD Opposition, No. 1, 1927, ‘An der Genossen der KAPD’, a letter from the
Dutch GIC of 16 th October 1927. An opposition appeared within the KAPD against the too rapid integration of the
Entschiedene Linke, and in protest at Schwarz’s refusal, agreed by the KAPD, to abandon his seat in parliament. The
opposition finally rejoined the party in April 1928.
654 Before his death, Gorter was strongly aware of the need to regroup council communists. More lucid than the KAPD, he
was yet more convinced of this necessity by his conviction that the revolutionary wave was finished, and that “the time of
reaction had come”. This is what he said to Jacques de Kadt, who had come to see him in the name of the BKSP (see note
above) [De Kadt, Uit mijn communistentijd, op. cit., p. 386.]
Jacques de Kadt (1897-1988), writer, joined the CPH in 1920, and was the main founder of the BKSP (1924-27). He soon
left the terrain of communism, in 1928 joining the SDAP, and becoming a leader of its left-wing which was to give rise to
the OSP in 1932. Founded in 1932 by himself, P.J. Schmidt and Salomon Tas (1905-1976), the OSP was a typical
expression of “left socialism”. He sustained the mutiny of the battleship ‘Zeven Provincien’ in Feb. 1933, and for that
remained 3 months in prison. But he left the OSP in 1934, with his friend Sal Tas, after the uprise of the Jordaan workers’
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