The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The period of transition from capitalism to communism: the Grundprinzipien
The question of the period of transition towards communism after the seizure of power by the workers’ councils
was always approached by the German, then the Dutch council communists, from a strictly economic angle.
According to the GIC, the degeneration of the Russian revolution and the evolution of Soviet Russia towards
state capitalism proved the failure of ‘politics’, in which the dictatorship of the proletariat was seen first and
foremost as a political dictatorship over the whole of society and which pushed the proletariat’s economic tasks
into the background. This idea was expressed with particular emphasis by Pannekoek: “The traditional view is
the domination of politics over the economy... what the workers have to aim for is the domination over politics
by the economy”. 851
This view was exactly the reverse of the one held by other revolutionary groups in the 30s, such as the Italian
communist left, which had opened a whole theoretical discussion about the period of transition. 852
Unlike the German and Italian communist lefts, the GIC did not show much interest in the political questions of
the proletarian revolution, in theoretical reflections about the state in the period of transition. 853 The relationship
between the new state of the period of transition, the revolutionary parties, and the workers’ councils was never
dealt with, despite the Russian experience. Neither is there anything on the relationship between the
revolutionary International and the state, or states, in countries where the proletariat has taken political power.
Likewise, the complex questions of proletarian violence and the civil war in a revolutionary period were never
posed. 854 For the GIC it seems that there was no problem of the existence of a state – or a semi-state – in the
period of transition towards communism. The question of whether it would exist, and of what would be its nature
(‘proletarian’ state or a ‘scourge’ inherited by the proletariat) was never posed. These problems were more or
less evaded.
The GIC’s main text on the period of transition, The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and
Distribution (Grundprinzipien Kommunistischer Produktion und Veiteilung) only dealt with the economic
problems of this period. 855
The GIC’s starting point was that the failure of the Russian revolution and the evolution towards state capitalism
could only be explained through its ignorance of, or even its denial of the necessity for an economic
transformation of society – this problem being common to the whole workers’ movement. But paradoxically, the
851 ‘De Arbeidersklasse en de Revolutie’, in: Radencommunisme, No. 4, March-April 1940.
852 Some of Bilan’s texts on the period of transition have been translated into Italian: Rivoluzione e reazione nello stato
tardo-capitalistico nell’analisi della Sinistra Comunist (Milano: Università degli studi di Messina, Dott. A. Giuffrè ed.,
1983), introduced by Dino Erba and Arturo Peregalli.
853 The question of the state in the period of transition was raised above all by the Essen tendency of the KAPD in 1927. The
workers’ councils were identified with the ‘proletarian’ state [see KAZ (Essen), Nos. 1-11, 1927). The only contribution by
the Berlin tendency was a text by Jan Appel (Max Hempel) criticising “Lenin’s state communism”: ‘Marx-Engels und Lenin
über die Rolle des Staates in der proletarischen Revolution’, in: Proletarier, Berlin, No. 4-6, May 1927.
854 Only Pannekoek studied the question of violence in the revolution, opposing both the anarchist principle of non-violence’
and emphasising the fundamental role of consciousness in the revolution: “...non-violence cannot be a conception of the
proletariat. The proletariat will use violence when the time comes as long as it is useful and necessary. At certain moments
workers’ violence can play a decisive role, but the main strength of the proletariat lies in the mastery over production... The
working class must use all methods of struggle that are useful and effective, according to circumstances. And in all these
forms of struggle its internal, moral strength is primary” [Anonymous (A. Pannekoek), ‘Geweld en geweldloosheid’, in:
PIC, No. 2, Feb. 1936.]
855 The Grundprinzipien were republished, with an introduction by Paul Mattick in 1970, in Berlin, by Rüdiger Blankertz
Verlag, The Dutch edition, which contains many additions, was republished in 1972 by ‘De Vlam’ Publ., with an
introduction by the Spartacusbond. A full English edition was published in London (1999) by an ‘independent group of
communists’, 1999. (Web:< http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/gik1.pdf>)
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