The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

“As soon as the proletarian class struggle revealed more and more that capitalism was not capable of resolving
the vital problems of the masses, materialist philosophy ceased to be sure of itself and disappeared... The
bourgeoisie gave itself up to all sorts of religious beliefs and... bourgeois philosophers and intellectuals
succumbed to the influence of mystical tendencies. Very quickly they discovered the weakness and limitations of
materialist philosophy and began to speechify about the ‘limits’ of the sciences and the ‘insoluble enigmas’ of
the universe.” 912
An analysis already classic in the Marxist movement, especially with Pannekoek, before 1914 (see chapter 2).
In this, Pannekoek was not really going beyond his own theoretical work prior to 1914. Inspired by Dietzgen “an
integral, even essential component of Marxism”, 913 he stressed the indissoluble unity and interaction between
spiritual phenomena (thought) and material phenomena (the totality of the world). Against idealism and
empiricism, he reaffirmed the Marxist conception that spiritual and material phenomena, that is matter and mind
together, constitutes the real world in an integral way; the latter is a cohesive entity in which matter “determines”
mind and mind, through the intermediary of human activity, “determines” matter. The world is an integral unity
in which each part only exists as part of the whole and is entirely determined by the action of the latter:
“...Mind... is part of the totality of the universe and its nature lies in the ensemble of its relations with the totality
of the world.”. 914
What is remarkable in Pannekoek’s book, at a time when – in the line of Bogdanov and Bukharin 915 – Marxism
was being reduced to the level of ‘proletarian science’ and ‘sociology’, is the definition of Marxism itself.
Historical materialism is not a “science of nature” but a “science of society” linked to the proletarian class
struggle. Also significant, and showing an evolution in Pannekoek, who had defined Marxism as a “science”
before 1914, was the fact that his book argues that Marxism “is more than just a science”. 916 It is first and
foremost a vision of the world, from the standpoint of the proletarian revolution. Marxism has its scientific
validity in its method. As such “it cannot be an immutable doctrine or a sterile dogma imposing its truths”. With
his eye on Russian state philosophy, which denounced relativity as a “counter-revolutionary belief”, 917
Pannekoek insists that Marxism, although not a theory of the evolution of nature, is constantly being
revolutionised by the appearance of new phenomena in society, in politics and in science, phenomena which
“Marx and Engels were not able to predict or foresee”; Marxism is thus above all “an excellent tool and guide”
for explaining new realities; it is “a living theory whose growth is linked to that of the proletariat and to the tasks
and aims of its struggle”. 918
Nonetheless, the Dutch theoretician’s book fails to overcome a certain schematism. In line with the councilist
theses on Bolshevism, Pannekoek drew the conclusion, just from reading one book of Lenin, that the Bolsheviks
had never been Marxists: “We cannot reproach Russian bolshevism for having abandoned Marxism, for the
simple reason that it never was marxist”. 919 Pannekoek’s explicit thesis was as follows: Lenin’s “bourgeois
materialism”, corresponding to the “feudal” nature of Russia, was the theory of the “Russian bourgeois
revolution” and of state capitalism. Like the French bourgeoisie of 1789, the Bolsheviks used anti-religious
ideology to carry through this “bourgeois revolution”. This ideology had been necessary to the rising
bourgeoisie. Lenin’s vulgar materialism had its social base in the “new class” of intellectuals, the bearers of state
capitalism and a “new ruling class”. And Pannekoek concluded that “leninism is the theory of a bourgeois
912 Pannekoek, op. cit., p. 35.
913 Pannekoek, op. cit., p. 42.
914 Pannekoek, op. cit., p. 43.
915 See N. Bukharin, La théorie du matérialisme historique (Paris: Anthropos, 1971), where the ‘concepts’ of proletarian
science’ and ‘marxist sociology’ are defended. (pp. 9-15).[ English translation: N. Bukharin, Historical Materialism,
(International Publishers, 1925)].
916 Pannekoek, op. cit., p. 29.
917 Pannekoek, op. cit., p. 89.
918 Pannekoek, op. cit., p. 29.
919 Pannekoek, op. cit., p. 103.
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