The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

It remained to be seen whether these discussion groups were circumstantial, in a period of the clandestine rebirth
of the revolutionary movement, or the latter’s definitive form.
The ‘working groups’ and the revolutionary party
The GIC’s theory of ‘working groups’ contained a number of ambiguities and confusions, which were
underlined by the German ‘councilist’ movement. By affirming in its texts that “the workers’ movement is
henceforward the movement of the workers in struggle” the GIC ruled out the possibility of there being
revolutionary groups which were distinct, though not separate, from the proletariat as a whole. 815 The only thing
that could emerge were ‘workers’ groups’, composed only of workers and not distinct from the proletariat as a
whole.
In fact, the definition of these groups remained rather vague. Sometimes they were “discussion groups”,
sometimes “propaganda groups”, and sometimes “opinion groups”. Sometimes they were not even groups but
study clubs. 816 It was a return to the old 19 th century movement, to the phase of workers’ circles prior to the
formation of the big, centralised political organisations with a coherent political programme. These circles were
‘clubs’ where workers could meet informally.
This return to the form of circles and clubs, which had been a primitive and provisional form of the nascent
workers’ movement, was seen as definitive by the GIC. Out of its reaction to what it called ‘Bolshevism’, but
also out of a gut distrust of the trotskyist movement, which was trying to build a revolutionary party in an
unfavourable, counter-revolutionary period, the GIC rejected any possibility of the circles and groups regrouping
into a centralised, programmatically elaborated unity that would play the part of political vanguard. Like Rühle
before them the GIC saw “the expression ‘revolutionary party’ as a contradiction in terms”. 817 As Pannekoek put
it, “in the expression ‘revolutionary party’, the term ‘revolutionary’ means a bourgeois revolution”. 818 Thus it
was not a particular form of the party – the type that aimed to be the workers’ general staff, to take power and
exercise a party dictatorship – but any form of party that was being condemned once and for all, including non-
’substitutionist’ ones. The GIC was against the formation of a party not because the council communists were
too few, too isolated from the indifferent and passive masses, to achieve some kind of unified party. It was
because this party-form existed to impose a programme, slogans, a direction to the struggle. According to the
GIC, a party could not be an active factor in the development of class consciousness, it could only be a
paralysing fetter on workers’ action. This fear of ‘violating’ proletarian consciousness was expressed very
clearly by Pannekoek:
“The old workers’ movement was embodied in parties and today the belief in parties is the most powerful fetter
on the working class’ capacity for action. This is why we are not seeking to create a new one, and this is not
because there are too few of us – any kind of party is small at first – but because in our days a party can only be
an organisation which seeks to direct and dominate the proletariat... The workers’ task is not religiously to adopt
the slogans of a particular group, not even ours, but to think for themselves, to decide and act for themselves.” 819
It followed from this that the GIC rejected the workers’ movement’s classical conception of a militant
organisation exerting an active influence in the proletariat. The whole function of a revolutionary organisation
was turned on its head.
815 See, among others: ‚De strijdkomités der wilde stakingen’, in: PIC, No. 1, Feb. 1938, p. 4.
816 Anton Pannekoek (anonymous), ‚Praktisch werk’, in: PIC, No. 2, Feb 1936.
817 See: Rühle, Von der Bürgerlichen zur Proletarischen Revolution (Dresden: Verlag Am andern Ufer, 1924). Web:
.
818 ‚Partei und Arbeiterklasse’, in: Räte-Korrespondenz, No. 15, March 1936.
819 ‚Partei und Arbeiterklasse’, idem; PIC, No. 1, Jan. 1936.
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