The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The other factor in the defeat of the German proletariat was above all ideological: the diversion of its struggle
onto the electoral terrain, the terrain of social democracy. It was the worst of defeats: the collapse of proletarian
strength without a fight.
“A defeat in itself is not severe, the working class will suffer frequent defeats if it struggles with insufficient
force against a stronger capital, and such defeats are the source of ultimate victories. But here, it was a collapse,
without struggle, because the workers only elected Social Democrats and had not learnt to fight in a
revolutionary way”. 754
Pannekoek’s political conclusion was clear: the road from Ebert to Hitler was the unfolding of the “Social-
Democratic catastrophe”. The social democracy could no longer be considered as part of the workers’
movement. Like the GIC however, Pannekoek hesitated to situate social democracy as a political fraction of the
bourgeoisie. This hesitation undoubtedly lies at the source of his later distinction between the “old” and “new”
workers’ movement: “Social democracy is an old dead branch of the tree of the workers’ movement and
underneath it, barely visible, until now stifled by it, new shoots are budding”. 755
The responsibility of the KPD in the defeat of the German proletariat was just as great. It is significant that
Pannekoek spoke almost exclusively of the adoption of union and parliamentary tactics and submission to
Russian state capitalism as the causes of the KPD’s bankruptcy in 1933. Denouncing the KPD’s “party
fanaticism”, Pannekoek ignored the decisive effect of its politics in the late 20s: the theories of “social fascism”
and of ‘German national liberation’, the united front with the Nazis in strikes. He noted, without deepening the
real causes of the defeat, that the communists thrown into concentration camps were “the victims of the false
policies of the KPD which could only lead to the impotence of the German working class”. 756
Proletarian autonomy: the remedy for defeat could not be found in the slogan of an economic boycott of
Germany, launched by the Dutch anarchosyndicalists. 757 By adopting this slogan, the workers could only
aggravate their defeat by reinforcing nationalism: a new 4 th August 1914, and a new war, would be the
ultimate consequence, “under the cover of fine humanitarian intentions”:
“The only result would be the following: in Germany, nationalism is reinforced and the struggle for communist
clarification hindered. We would win a second 1914 as soon as the workers in all the belligerent countries resign
themselves to the imperialist war-mongering of their own bourgeoisie and support it”. 758
The only proletarian line in the struggle against nazism is above all the struggle of the German and international
proletariat on its class terrain:
“The struggle against national-socialism is the struggle against big German capital. Only the German working
class can carry out this struggle. Hitler can only be defeated by German workers... Can the workers of other
countries, those of Western Europe or even America, do nothing to help their heavily oppressed comrades in
Germany? Of course they can. First and foremost by clearly and vigorously conducting the struggle against their
own bourgeoisie. Each example of a vigorous class struggle in one country has a stimulating and clarifying
effect on workers in other countries”. 759
The perspectives of the workers’ movement: Pannekoek and the GIC viewed the future of the German
revolutionary movement with certain optimism. They considered that the “spiritual force” of the old
754 Ibid.
755 Ibid.
756 Ibid.
757 This boycott campaign had been launched internationally by ‘left socialists’ and anarchist groups. It accompanied the
formation of ‘anti-fascist committees’.
758 (A. Pannekoek) ‘De omwenteling in Duitsland’, op. cit.
759 Ibid.
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