The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

In 1895, Troelstra declared at a party meeting that his aim was “above all to form an organized workers’
movement which can take its place, as an autonomous party, alongside those of the bourgeoisie”. 14
Finally, the split was premature. A growing minority of the SDB, shortly to become the majority, was coming
around to the electoral strategy. In 1897, the SDB – the largest workers’ party, with 2,000 militants – put up
candidates, gaining several seats on the town councils and even one in Parliament. This new orientation, which
marked the separation with the anti-electoral anarchist current, rendered the SDB’s separate existence pointless.
The SDB was shaken to the core by the loss of its militants, who left to join either the SDAP or the libertarian
current. In June 1900 it decided to dissolve, and its remaining 200 militants decided to join the SDAP and accept
the programme of the 2 nd International.
The evolution of the SDB – known as the ‘Socialistenbond’ after 1894 – was no accident. It was made easier by
the departure in 1897 of Domela Nieuwenhuis and his supporters, who declared themselves to be anarchists. The
latter abandoned the organised workers’ movement: in 1896, Domela Nieuwenhuis had walked out of the
London Congress of the International, when the latter decided to exclude the anarchists from forthcoming
congresses.
Domela Nieuwenhuis’ split proved sterile. Together with Christiaan Cornelissen (1864-1943) – one of the future
theoreticians of European revolutionary syndicalism – he founded the newspaper De Vrije Socialist (‘Free
Socialist’), and a short-lived organisation: the ‘Federation of Libertarian Socialists’ (Federatie van Vrije
Socialisten). But with the formation of a socialist movement in The Netherlands, the role played by ‘political’
anarchism faded into the background. Dutch anarchism became almost exclusively syndicalist, with a strong
influence in the economic struggle. In 1893, on the initiative of Cornelissen and the SDB, the ‘National Labour
Secretariat’ (Nationaal Arbeids Secretariaat, or NAS) was formed. As in France, anarchism took refuge in the
unions. But Cornelissen split with Domela Nieuwenhuis, who remained reticent about union activity, and under
his influence the NAS increasingly turned towards revolutionary syndicalism rather than anarcho-syndicalism.
Exiled to France, from 1900 onwards Cornelissen became one of the theoreticians of the revolutionary
syndicalist wing of the CGT. In fact, the NAS played an important part in the Dutch workers’ movement, despite
its limited membership. It was to symbolise the militant attitude necessary to the development of the class
struggle in its economic form. This was unlike the social-democratic union, the NVV (‘Dutch Confederation of
Trade Unions’), created by the SDAP in 1905 to counter the influence of the NAS, and often to oppose or even
sabotage the workers’ strikes (see below). The NAS took a determined part in all the great strikes, especially in
the 1903 general strike in the transport industry (see below). Little by little, the NAS moved closer to the radical
Marxist current, to the point where at times it appeared to be the union organisation of the Tribunist current, then
of the Communist Party in 1920, and of Sneevliet’s RSAP from 1927-1940.
Domela Nieuwenhuis and the roots of ‘councilism’
Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis’evolution towards anarchist positions does not alter the fact that he was a
precursor and organiser of the emerging workers’ movement in The Netherlands. He remains a great figure of
the international workers’ movement, in an epoch when Marxists and anarchists could coexist within the same
organisation. Active against the threat of war, he was more a pacifist and anti-militarist than a revolutionary
guided by a coherent theory. Unlike anarchist leaders like Kropotkin, Cornelissen, or Jean Grave who put
themselves at the service of imperialist war, in the Allied camp 15 , during World War I, Domela Nieuwenhuis
14 P.J. Troelstra, Gedenkschriften. II. ‘Groei’ (Amsterdam: Querido, 1933), p. 137.
15 The Manifeste des Seize (Manifesto of the Sixteen), 1916. This declaration was signed by fifteen anarchists, and first
published the 28 th of February 1916. The complete list of signatories was: Christiaan Cornelissen, Henri Fuss, Jean Grave,
Jacques Guérin, Pierre Kropotkine, A. Laisant. François Le Lève (France, Lorient), Charles Malato, Jules Moineau
(Belgium, Liège), A. Orfila, Hussein Dey (Algeria), Marc Pierrot, Paul Reclus, Richard (Algeria), Tchikawa (Japon),
Warlaam [Varlan] Tcherkesoff.
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