The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The result was a view which could be defined as academicism. The working groups were like a lot of little
academies each propagating a certain ‘opinion’. Their task was educational, each member had to “think and act
for himself”; and sociological: “the analysis of ever-changing social phenomenon”. 827 Was it still possible to talk
about political tasks for these groups?
The contradictions of the ‘new workers’ movement’
The theory of the ‘new workers’ movement’ was not a finalised theory of the rejection of any revolutionary
political organisation. The GIC affirmed that “all these groups, like parties, have a political programme”. 828 If
discussion groups appeared, it was out of the question – as Pannekoek himself underlined” – that the GIC should
dissolve itself into them. 829
At the same time, the formation of new groups was not an end in itself. There should be a movement towards
regroupment, provided there was a theoretical and political agreement, expressing the maturation of the
movement: “If common work proves itself to be a success in practice, then there can be a real fusion into one
large organisation of people with the same opinion. But the fusion into a single organic unit can only be the fruit
of a process of development”. 830
In a lucid and somewhat paradoxical way, the GIC could see that the working groups were no guarantee. They
were characterised by a great immaturity, by an “insufficient theoretical foundation” and a “revolutionary
impatience”. This immaturity, described as a “childhood disease” risked leading them in the end towards a
masked form of substitutionism, through “the artificial unleashing of violent action”, or at least trying to make
“revolutionary phrases” make up for their lack of clarity. 831
These statements prove that the GIC had not completely rejected the idea of the necessity for a political
organisation founded not on ‘opinions’ but on a programme. As such, it still constituted a vanguard whose task
was to regroup other, less politically mature groupings. In the discussion opened up by the publication of Canne-
Meijer’s text, the most ‘councilist’ elements were not mistaken in saying that the GIC still had some sort of
theory of a ‘political vanguard’ 832 : “The ideology of the working groups is completely opposed to the selfactivity
of the masses; it spreads a whole ideology of vanguards, parties and leaders”. 833
The Copenhagen conference (8 th – 11 th June 1935) and its consequences
The GIC’s theses on the revolutionary organisation met with strong opposition from the American and German
council communists. They unanimously rejected Canne-Meijer’s thesis that proletarian class-consciousness had
827 Canne-Meijer, op. cit.
828 Canne-Meijer, ibid.
829 Pannekoek, ‘Praktisch werk’, in: PIC, No. 2, Feb 1936: “the council communists should not dissolve themselves into
these groups”; “they are themselves a group struggling for a certain idea”.
830 Canne-Meijer, ibid.
831 “[...] Their words are terribly ‘revolutionary’, they paint the ruling class in horrifying colours, and they always end in a
stereotyped manner, with the alternative: revolution or collapse into barbarism. They can thus feel very revolutionary and
convince themselves that they are the precursors of the proletarian revolution […] The most revolutionary phrases cannot
make up for a lack of class clarity: the attempt to drag the proletariat onto the rails of revolution shows that these
‘precursors’ lack the most elementary clarity on the conditions for the proletariat’s struggle for its emancipation” [Canne-
Meijer, Das Werden einer neuen Arbeiterbewegung). In English: ‘The Rise of a New Labour Movement’; Web:
.
832 This ‘ultra’-councilist critique came from elements in Rotterdam who had been in Eduard Sirach’s Spartacus group in
1933. Within the GIC, Bruun van Albada and Jan Appel held onto a conception of the party, which was clearly expressed in
the Spartacusbond in 1945 (see the chapter 10).
833 PIC, No. 1, Jan. 1936.
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