The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

and developed since the birth of the GIC, was not very different from that of the Italian communist left in the
1930s. 843 Like the latter, but more audaciously, the GIC stressed the importance of the generalisation of the
economic struggle in the form of the mass strike. But unlike the Italian and Belgian ‘bordigists’, it laid particular
emphasis on the self-organisation of the wildcat strikes. This meant the formation of ‘committees of struggle’
(strijdcomités), elected and revocable by all the workers in struggle. 844 As in Germany during and after the First
World War, the workers would elect trusted militants who were directly responsible to the strikers’ general
assemblies. All workers regardless of what union or political group they belonged to, could and must be part of
the committees of struggle in order to achieve a real “class unity”. 845 In order to avoid betraying their unitary
function and turning into new unions, such committees could not be permanent: they arose and disappeared with
the struggle itself. It was only in a revolutionary period that there could appear and develop, really permanent
organs, unitary in the sense of regrouping the whole proletariat: the workers’ councils. But despite their
spontaneous formation, the councils did not arise out of nowhere. The “precursors” of this unitary selforganisation,
preparing the “class organisation”, were necessarily born before the outbreak of the mass struggle.
These “embryos” of the councils were none other than the “propaganda nuclei”, formed by militant workers who
organised themselves and carried out agitation with a view to the future massive struggles. But these
“propaganda nuclei could not proclaim themselves to be the unitary organisation itself: “...the propaganda
nucleus is not itself the class organisation”. 846
Such propaganda nuclei were basically workers’ groups with no real political orientation, but defending an
‘opinion’ in the class struggle. But in practise the GIC seemed to confuse ‘opinion groups’, or the ‘working
groups’ in the Dutch left’s theory, with these workers’ groups. This gave rise to a disturbing confusion between
workers’ organisations and revolutionary organisations.
Given its ‘anti-substitutionist’ theory, the GIC denied both these ‘opinion groups’ and the ‘propaganda nuclei’
any political role in the workers’ economic struggles. For Pannekoek, there was no point in these groups waging
a political struggle to orient workers’ strikes and demonstrations, in opposition to other groups and parties, even
when the latter were working from within, from inside the factories, against workers’ self-organisation. He was
concerned to avoid breaking ‘class unity’ through useless political confrontations:
“Council communism considers all workers to be part of class unity, over and above the demarcations between
organisations. It does not enter into competition with these organisations [...] Council communism doesn’t say to
workers who are members of parties and organisations: leave them and join us.” 847
This anti-political vision, in which the council communist organisation was rigorously separated from and
external to the workers’ struggle had practical consequences. 848 For example, in the struggles of the unemployed
in Holland, in which the GIC intervened, the group’s slogan when unemployed committees were formed was
“outside all the unions and political parties”. 849
For the Dutch council communists, the same held true in a revolutionary period. When the workers’ councils
formed they would reject any action by revolutionary parties within them, in order to get on with the economic
task of transforming society. There would have to be a radical separation between on the one hand the
revolutionary groups “forming an independent organisation of revolutionary workers in the freely acting
working groups” and the “independent organisation of the working masses in the workers’ councils”. 850 The
activity of revolutionary groups was limited to facilitating the economic tasks of the councils.
843 See Ph. Bourrinet: The ‘Bordigist’ Current 1919-1999, Italy, France, Belgium, op. cit.
844 PIC, Nos. 1 and 4, February and June 1938.
845 PIC, No. 4, June 1938.
846 ‘De strijdcomités der wilde stakingen’, in: PIC, No. 4, June 1938.
847 ‘Praktisch werk’, in: PIC, No. 2, Feb. 1936.
848 This conception was expressed early on in the 1931 pamphlet on the unemployed movement: Werkloozenbeweging en
Klassenstrijd. Some council communist militants were active in the small unemployed workers’ committee, the WAC,
which was under control of the CPN.
849 ‘De stempelstaking, de Centrale Advies Comissie en de Communisten’, in: PIC, No. 2, Feb. 1932.
850 Canne-Meijer, op. cit.
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