The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

members were often denounced by the Dutch CP as ‘trotskyists’ and ‘fascists’ in the same breath, above all in
the 30s. 669 Outside the unemployed milieu, the activity of the GIC remained limited. The small number of its
militants, but above all an atmosphere which was more and more unfavourable to the development of
revolutionary ideas, the pressure coming from the threat of war and the prevalence of antifascist ideology – all
this condemned council communism to a profound isolation. This isolation was parallel to the experience of the
Italian Communist Left in France and Belgium. 670
But the influence of Dutch council communism was far from negligible in the political milieu to the left of the
CP in the Dutch-speaking sphere. The GIC press was widely read in Sneevliet’s RSAP, who saw the council
communists as the “monks of Marxism”. 671 The same was true in the anarchist milieu, even though – as with the
RSAP – the GIC was severely critical of anarchism, especially after the Spanish events. In 1933 the links were
strong enough for a joint conference to be held between council communist groups and various anarchist groups,
but they did not last. Rejecting the anti-fascism and pacifism of the anarchist groups, the GIC broke off any
connection with them in 1936-37. But it still remained a point of reference for many Dutch libertarians.
But the most astonishing thing was the real influence that the council communist current had in the Dutch CP
itself, resulting in the formation of an internal opposition. In December 1933, this took the name
Communistische Partij, Oppositie (CPO). Composed of individualities excluded from the CP, or their
sympathisers – and even of CP members! – it published a review from January 1934 called De Vrije Tribune.
This group – led by the Hungarian Richard André Manuel (pseudonym: Van Riel), a veteran of the 1919
Hungarian revolution, J. Gans (1907-1972) and later on F. J. Goedhart (1904-1990) – called for the reform of the
party. Like the trotskyist current, it demanded the reestablishment of ‘democratic centralism’ in the party,
through the election of party officials and delegates to the congresses of the Komintern. To this end it demanded
an extraordinary congress and the reintegration of those expelled. 672 Politically, it proposed combating the
‘opportunism’ of the CPH and hoped for a ‘united front’ with the SDAP and the OSP, a left split from the latter.
At the outset, then, the CPO stood half-way between the CPH and left socialism. But events moved very quickly.
Within the CPO, two currents confronted each other, one led by Van Riel and Jacques Gans which was moving
towards trotskyism and Sneevliet’s RSP, and the other led by Goedhart, supported by the section in The Hague,
which was moving towards council communism. The result was the departure of Van Riel and his fraction,
which attached itself to the trotskyist International Communist League and joined the RSAP, which had been
newly formed on 31 st March 1935 on the basis of the OSP and the RSP. The remaining majority of the CPO
pronounced itself against parliamentarism, and for the struggle against the unions. The influence of the GIC was
very evident, to the point where it published articles from the Persmateriaal. 673 At its congress in Easter 1935,
669 Thus in 1938 the Paul de Groot (1899-1986), Daan Goulooze (1901-1965), and Ko Beuzemaker (1902-1944) CPN waged
a violent campaign of slander against the GIC and Proletenstemmen, which was being given out free at the unemployment
offices in Amsterdam. The GIC was accused of being ‘fascists’. Cf. the CPN daily Volksdagblad, 25 April 1938, ‘Sluipend
fascisme’.
670 See our work: La Gauche communiste italienne, 1980 (English translation).
671 Quoted by Cajo Brendel, op. cit., in Jahrbuch 2.
672 De Vrije Tribune, No. 1, Jan. 1934.
673 For the history of the CPO, cf. H. Riethof, ‘De Communistische Partij Oppositie. 1933-1935’, in: Mededelingenblad
(NVSG), No. 38, Dec. 1970, pp. 28-46.
The ‘councilist’ programme of the opposition was published in De Vrije Tribune No. 1, 15 July 1935. The GIC mentioned
the CPO, opposing the ‘Leninist’ line of the minority and supporting the ‘councilist’ majority: PIC No. 3, March 1935.
See also: the biography of Jacques Gans, communist, secretary of the Dutch association of proletarian writers ‘Links
Richten’, trotskyist, member of the RSP, writer and novelist, journalist in Paris, columnist of De Telegraaf, by W. Maas,
Jacques Gans. Biografie (Amsterdam: De Prom, 2002); and the notice on Frans Goedhart in: BWSA 8 (2001). This last one
was journalist. During World War II, he was a main builder of the socialist illegal newspaper Het Parool, 1941-1945. He
was one of the 23 suspects to be brought to trial before the German magistrate in the first Parool trial in December 1942.
Seventeen death sentences were pronounced and thirteen Het Parool workers were executed by a firing squad in February
1943. Goedhart managed to obtain a reprieve, escaped from his lager in August 1943. After the war, he became member,
but also MP, of the PvdA till 1970, which he eventually left. Partisan of the American camp during the Cold War, he had
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