The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

shreds”. 706 But significantly, the Dutch group saw in the internal crisis the result of “leader politics” practised by
the KAPD leadership.
This critique of “leader politics” quickly led the GIC to call into question the political function of the party as
defended by the KAPD. In a letter to the KAPD written in February 1928, Canne-Meijer reproached the KAPD
with passing from “class politics” to “party politics”. 707 He not only criticised the opportunism of the politics of
“little advantages” but the fact that the party “concentrated nearly all its activity on disputes with the KPD and
its different offshoots”. The political struggle led finally to a division of the party: those who “know” and those
who “carry out”, “lower down” the political line. Moreover, “the centre of gravity of the activity of the party
[should be] in the factories” but also in the AAU and the “construction of factory organisations”. As the response
of the KAPD to this letter noted it was to misjudge reality, where the struggles of parties are “inevitable and
necessary” and meant doing without the “weapons of criticism” to “push back the obstacles to the development
of revolutionary ideology”. 708 Above all, it meant encouraging the political indifference of the workers, by
withdrawing from the terrain of political struggle. Finally to call for the creation of factory organisations of
struggle was merely a “war cry”: such organisations could only be born from the struggle itself and “created by
the workers”. The KAPD forcefully rejected any ‘anti-political’ vision expressed by the GIC or by any part of
the ‘Unionist’ movement. It was the function of the revolutionary party which was at stake.
In a text published in Proletarier in the same period, under the pseudonym of Karl Horner; Pannekoek posed the
questions more clearly. 709 His vision was far removed from any ‘anti-leader’ ideology, and thus somewhat
different from the GIC’s. It was a question of placing the KAPD’s activity within the present historic course.
In ‘Principles and Tactics’ Pannekoek showed that the world revolutionary wave had finished in Europe. The
defeat was due in the first place to the proletariat’s immaturity: “The defeat of the revolution [...] The proletariat
showed it was hardly at the level of its historic mission, while the bourgeoisie knew how to exploit its
deficiencies to the full. The power of the bourgeoisie is due essentially to the lack of maturity, to the fears, to the
illusions of the proletariat, to the absence within it of class consciousness, a clear vision of its goals, of unity and
cohesion.”. 710
Unlike the KAPD and the AAU, Pannekoek – and the same was true of the GIC before 1929 – saw the new
period as one of economic and political stabilisation, and denied any possibility of a ‘mortal crisis of capitalism’.
Two years before the crisis of 1929, he refused to envisage a crisis of overproduction. According to him,
capitalism still had substantial possibilities for expansion: “It is absolutely not impossible for capitalism to
enlarge production and thus to overcome an extremely unfavourable conjuncture”. 711 On the contrary, the
economic recovery was possible – as in the 19 th century – thanks to the discovery of new outlets. Asia offered a
new field of accumulation for capital, thanks to its promotion to the rank of an “autonomous element of capitalist
production” on the world level. This signified that “capitalism is far from being at its last gasp”. Pannekoek
postponed the crisis and the revolution to a distant future:
“We are only at the foot of the mountain. It is difficult today to foresee economic evolution in the short term. If a
phase of expansion is coming, it is equally certain that it will be followed by a crisis of comparable proportions.
And with the crisis the revolution will reappear. The old revolution is over; we must prepare the new one.” 712
It followed that the function of the KAPD and the AAU should be modified. Unlike the GIC Pannekoek did not
yet reject the political function of the revolutionary party; he did so progressively under the influence of the GIC,
at the end of the 1930’s (see below). In 1927, Pannekoek was still faithful to the positions he expressed in 1920
in World Revolution and Communist Tactics. He recalled the classical position of the left communists: “it is not
706 Ibid.
707 KAZ (Berlin), Nos. 17 and 18, March 1928, ‚Vermeintlicher oder tatsächlicher Opportunismus?’.
708 KAZ (Berlin), No. 13, March 1928, ‚Eine Erwiderung’.
709 Proletarier, Nos. 7 & 8, July and August 1927, K. Horner, ‘Prinzip and Taktik’.
710 Proletarier, No. 7, July 1927.
711 Idem.
712 Idem.
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