The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

the Dutch theoretical review Radencommunisme expressed this withdrawal from international work. 664 The
numerous pamphlets brought out in Dutch, often in editions of several thousands (see the Bibliography) could
not make up for the absence of a theoretical review in German. In fact the press of the GIC was not at all ‘pure
theory’. Certainly it accorded a great importance to the debates within the international council communist
movement (factory organisations, the economic crisis and theories of the crisis, the period of transition). It was
also propagandistic, even though the GIC displayed so much distrust towards the idea of the party: antiparliamentarism,
wildcat strikes and the anti-union struggle, the denunciation of anti-fascist ideology, of
stalinism and social democracy, the struggle against war – these were political themes that were constantly being
raised in the PIC. The rejection of politics, understood as ‘party politics’, was more a characteristic of the
council communism of the period after World War II, of the 50s and 60s.
One of the most curious traits of the GIC press was the importance it gave to the Esperanto movement. The
members of the GIC devoted part of their time to learning Esperanto. The Esperanto movement was certainly
very strong in the 20s and 30s, particularly in Holland, but it had an intellectual flavour, despite the hopes some
had in creating a ‘proletarian Esperantism’. This illusion was widespread among the council communists, who
saw it as an essential vehicle for propagating their ideas internationally. This expressed itself in the enormous
energy devoted to the translation of texts into Esperanto. There was the somewhat naive hope that by
propagandising in favour of Esperanto, the ‘world language’ 665 , it would be possible to encourage
‘internationalist tendencies’ within the proletariat. With this in mind, between 1936 and 1939 the GIC brought
out a review in Esperanto: Klasbatalo (Class Struggle), an organ of theory and discussion of the problems facing
the new workers’ movement. This effort soon fell through. 666
Intervention in the class struggle and the GIC’s audience
It is a little known fact that the class struggle in Holland in the 1920s and 30s remained at a high level. In 1920
there were 2.3 million strike days as opposed to 400,000 a year between 1901 and 1918. 667 In that year the
strikes had been particularly powerful in the ports and the transport sector. In 1923-24 there was the big textile
strike in Twente. In 1929, it was the turn of the agricultural workers, who embarked on their biggest ever strike.
But with the great economic crisis, and up until the war, it was the unemployed who were at the centre of the
social stage (almost 20% of the active population of Holland were unemployed in 1936). 668 The action of the
unemployed culminated in July 1934 with the uprising in the Jordaan district of Amsterdam (see Chapter 7). But
as in many countries, the factory proletariat remained passive at this time, intimidated by the threat of layoffs.
In these conditions, as with Mattick’s group in the USA, the intervention of the council communists was directed
above all towards the unemployment offices. They seem to have had a positive reception, since the GIC
664 There was a periodical called Internationaler Beobachter, produced between 1938 and 1939 in Amsterdam, but this
publication, supported by the GIC, was for information purposes only, and is without theoretical interest.
665 Esperanto had been created at the end of the 19 th century by the Polish linguist Zamenhof. In 1921 the Esperantist
movement was set up in Prague, under the name of the World Union of the Nationless (SAT), which continues to exist
today. It had lost its original neutrality: many members of the Third International belonged to it but left it in 1930. All that
remained were anarchists, trotskyists, social democrats, CPH sympathisers and council communists. This interest in the
Esperantist movement parallels the council communists’ interest in the free thinkers’ movement (Freidenker), particularly
in Germany.
666 200 copies of each edition of Klasbatalo (1936-39) [eldonatan de grupo de revoluciaj (proletaj) Esperantistoj –
“published by the group of revolutionary (proletarian) Esperantists”] – were produced and were distributed above all in the
international anarchist milieu. The attempt to produce a council communist review in Esperanto was renewed by the
Spartacusbond in the 1950s [cf. PIC, No. 6, March 1937, ‘Esperanto in de klassenstrijd’).
667 See: I. Cornelissen, G. Harmsen and R. de Jong, De taaie rooie rakkers. Een documentaire over het socialisme tussen de
wereldoorlogen (Utrecht: Ambo-Boeken, 1965), pp. 41-74, on the class struggle in Holland in the 1920s.
668 Cf. AA. VV., Winkler Prins geschiedenis der Nederlanden. Vol. 3: De Lage Landen van 1780 tot 1970, and I.J.
Brugmans, Paardekracht en mensenkracht; sociaal-economische geschiedenis van Nederland (1795-1940) (The Hague,
1961). In 1935 there were 500,000 unemployed, as opposed to 18,000 in 1929.
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