The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The ‘new workers’ movement’ and the ‘working groups’
Canne-Meijer’s essential thesis was that an elaborated theoretical and political class consciousness could no
longer be developed and ‘crystallised’ in structured political organisations and parties whose aim was to ‘lead’
the proletariat’s action, thus depriving the class of its autonomy and spontaneity. The bankruptcy of the social
democratic and communist parties in 1933 was seen as the bankruptcy of any revolutionary group or party. Even
if they were new, even if they were to the left of the CPs, they represented the obsolete conceptions of the ‘old
workers’ movement’, according to which the party always had to impose itself as the ‘general staff’ of the
working class: “All organisations which claim for themselves the task of leading the struggle, which aim to
become the ‘general staff’ of the working class, are on the other side, even if their date of birth is still recent”. 810
Thus, for the GIC, it was not just the old parties who were on the other side of the barricade, but the new ones as
well. The ‘substitutionism’ of these new organisations was a class frontier dividing the old from the ‘new’
workers’ movement: “...we consider all those organisations who do not want to usurp power, but who elevate to
a principle the self-movement of the masses through the workers’ councils, as an integral part of the new
workers’ movement”. 811 Logically this meant putting the trotskyist and ‘bordigist’ organisations on ‘the side of
the enemy’, without considering their political and programmatic positions. 812 Anti-substitutionism was the real
political foundation of the ‘new workers’ movement’ which had to base itself on “The idea of the councils” if it
was to avoid repeating the failure of the Russian revolution.
In fact the ‘new workers’ movement’ was the fruit of the new period of defeat, dominated by fascist
totalitarianism. Reduced to clandestine activity, this councilist movement was condemned to exist in the form of
dispersed, underground groups:
“This new workers’ movement is already present, but still at its beginnings, to the point where you can hardly
talk about a developed organisational structure. For the moment it is taking the form of small illegal propaganda
groups which arise here and there and have different opinions on all sorts of political and theoretical issues...” 813
In fact the GIC was theorising the reality of the German communist movement, where the groups coming out of
the KAPD and KAU had transformed themselves into sealed-off discussion groups in order to avoid Gestapo
repression. This reality would, they thought, eventually apply to all countries through the “fascisation” of the old
democratic countries, a process strengthened by the failure of all the groups and parties of the ‘old workers’
movement’:
“In Germany for example, what has emerged from the ruins of the old workers’ movement are small, illegal
discussion groups through which the workers seek to move towards new relationships; in the present situation an
autonomous workers’ movement is only possible in the form of such discussion groups. And what has become
the reality in Germany will also happen in other capitalist countries in the near future. Even in the latter the time
has come – with the obvious collapse of the old workers’ movement – for the new form of discussion and
propaganda groups, or as we prefer to call them, the working groups.” 814
810 ‚Das Werden einer neuen Arbeiterbewegung’, Räte-Korrespondenz, No. 8/9, April 1935.
811 Räte-Korrespondenz, ibid.
812 This position of the GIC did not prevent them from having political relations with the ‘bordigist’ Italian and Belgian lefts,
and even participating in the 1937 Paris conference alongside trotskyist-type groups (cf. chapter 9). In Holland, the GIC
maintained links with Sneevliet‘s semi-trotskyist RSAP and with the NAS union, even encouraging joint work with them.
On 30 th April 1939, for example, there was a joint meeting in Amsterdam between the two organisations, aimed at setting up
‘action committees’ against ‘war and fascism’. While rejecting the organisational cartels (‘unitary committees’) the GIC
was for temporary ‘action committees’, on condition that “none of the organisations is held responsible for the action of the
committee as a whole”. This attempt to form an ‘action committee’ finally failed – according to the GIC – because of
“organisational sectarianism” [‘Mislukte samenwerking’, in: PIC, No. 4, June 1938.]
813 ‚Das Werden einer neuen Arbeiterbewegung’, ibid.
814 Ibid.
216