The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

“freedoms” and the introduction of a totalitarian system of rule – “freedom of thought has more and more
become a danger to capitalist society” 960 – signified the death of ‘democracy’: “Democracy, as the political
structure of youthful capitalism when there were many more small entrepreneurs, is no longer useful in the
present situation. It can no longer serve as a meeting place of opposing interests within the bourgeoisie [...]
society is becoming more and more ripe for national socialism”. 961
The GIC noted that this tendency towards totalitarianism imposed itself on all parties, whatever their political
colouring, fascist as well as ‘anti-fascist’. There was no significant difference between nazism and the National
Socialism of social democracy and stalinism. The proletariat had to wage a determined struggle against antifascist
ideology which, like fascism, was part of the active preparation for world war. Anti-fascism was not only
a way of binding the workers to the state in the democratic countries, its ideological function was to prepare the
workers for war. It was a lie, because the aim of the ‘democracies’ was not to fight the fascist system. In the
preparations for war, the anti-fascists were obliged to copy the methods of fascism:
“Coming from today’s patriots, the slogan ‘against fascism’ is a lie. They aren’t against fascism as such, they’re
against German fascism and its offspring [...] From the first day of the war, there is not one fascist measure that
the warring ‘democratic’ capitalists will not take, except one – calling themselves fascist.” 962
However, Dutch council communism was not homogenous on the question of anti-fascism. One group (the only
one), De Arbeidersraad, which had come out of the KAPN, increasingly adopted an anti-fascist ideology, which
became explicit with the war in Spain (see Chapter 9). This group had moved closer and closer to trotskyist
positions, since it considered the USSR to be a progressive factor in the ‘anti-fascist struggle’, owing to its
planned ‘non-capitalist’ economy. This group rejected the original positions of the KAPN in the 1920s: “The
economic policy of the Soviet Union, because it deviates from the ‘normal’ capitalist economy, represents a
growing danger for the general capitalist structure. Under the influence of the policy of planning, class relations
in Russia have been considerably modified”. 963
These positions were foreign to council communism and the GIC reacted strongly against them. 964 They were a
justification for anti-fascism; Russia became an ‘anti-capitalist factor’ (ibid.), a force against fascism. De
Arbeidersraad’s reaction to the GIC’s criticisms were symptomatic of an irreversible movement towards the
anti-fascist camp. In order to justify itself, De Arbeidersraad accused the GIC of being “under the influence of
fascist ideology” and of becoming “a counter-revolutionary group”. 965 This accusation against the GIC in
September 1935 was also directed against the LAO, to which Van der Lubbe had belonged. 966 De
Arbeidersraad, led by Frits Kief, Abraham and Emmanuel Korper, called for “the complete annihilation of these
groups”. These accusations were akin to the slanders directed at the communist left by the stalinist parties, and
even by certain trotskyist groups. 967
960 PIC, ibid.
961 PIC, No. 4, March 1934.
962 GIC pamphlet, September 1938, De tweede Wereldoorlog, Wanneer? p. 12.
963 De Arbeidersraad, No. 4, April 1935.
964 ‘Waarheen gaat de Arbeidersraad?’, in: PIC, No. 7, July 1935.
This group, as the GIC noted, was moving towards trotskyism. This was confirmed in 1937: the elements of Arbeidersraad
joined Sneevliet’s RSAP or the trotskyist groups. It is true that Luteraan, former leader of the KAPN, had already followed
this itinerary since 1932, by joining the left socialist OSP, and then the RSAP in 1935. All these itineraries were typical of
the great majority of the KAPN, which came out of the Essen tendency. This phenomenon parallels the evolution of the
Essen tendency in Germany, around Schröder and Reichenbach, towards the left socialist SAP, out of which came the Rote
Kämpfer fraction.
965 Declaration of Arbeidersraad, 14 th August 1935 – Collection of the periodical in Amsterdam, IISG.
966 De Arbeidersraad, No. 9, Sept. 1935, pp. 9-10.
967 In 1937, the Mexican trotskysts accused Eiffel [Paul Kirchhoff (1900-1972)], who became a proeminent anthropologist in
Mexico], a former member of the KAPD and AAU in Freiburg im Breisgau (1920-23), ex-trotskyist (1930-35) and member
of the Marxist Workers’ Group (linked to the Italian Communist Left) of being an agent of the Gestapo and the GPU in
Mexico. The Dutch councilist groups opposed such calumnies. In response to the accusations directed by De Visser and De
Groot’s CPN against the Dutch trotskyists, the Spartacus working group in The Hague declared: “There are few trotskyist
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