The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Herman Gorter (1864-1927) belonged to the second generation of Marxists. This son of a Calvinist pastor was
certainly the greatest poet of his time. After writing a thesis on Aeschylus, he gained indubitable notoriety by the
publication of his symbolist and idealist poem ‘May’ (1889), which was to remain his most famous poem. After
a spiritual crisis which led him towards a kind of pantheism – inspired by Spinoza’s Ethics, which he translated
from Latin into Dutch – Gorter broke with the literary movement of his generation, and began to study Marx and
Kautsky. In 1897, he became an enthusiastic member of the SDAP. Very dynamic and a remarkable orator,
Gorter was above all a good populariser of Marxism, which he represented in a very lively manner easily
accessible by the great majority of workers. More than Pannekoek, who was much more a theoretician, Gorter
embodied Marxism for Dutch socialist workers. Thanks to his translations, he gave access to some of the works
of Marx and Kautsky, and after the War, to Lenin’s State and Revolution. He is presented in Holland today as
the poet of ‘May’ by literary critics who ‘forget’ his political dimension, but Gorter was above all a convinced
militant, won definitively for the revolutionary cause. In 1889, he demonstrated his sense of organisation by
founding the section of Bussum, whose president he became. He devoted himself to all the activities of the
socialist movement: in the trades unions and elections (he was several times a candidate for the SDAP, then for
the SDP), at congresses, intervening in strikes. As a party propagandist, he taught courses on Marxism for the
textile workers in Twente, a region in the eastern part of The Netherlands. Before 1914 Gorter, more than any of
the others, was above all an agitator, an organiser, and a propagandist in the service of his party. 25
More theoretical and less practical than Gorter, Anton Pannekoek to this day embodies the international
dimension of the Marxist left. He was the least ‘Dutch’ of his generation. After studying astronomy, where he
gained an international reputation – to the point where this eclipsed his activity as a Marxist theoretician between
1920 and 1960 – Pannekoek (1873-1960) made his political commitment. 26 But for this son of a liberal
businessman, his first choice was not socialism but bourgeois liberalism. At the beginning of 1899, he became a
member of the electoral committee in Leiden where he worked as an astronomer at the Observatory. After
extensive reading of utopian authors, but more importantly extensive discussions with social-democratic
militants, Pannekoek broke off all contact with his bourgeois milieu. In July 1899, he joined the local section of
the SDAP where he quickly became president, secretary and treasurer. He helped to form a workers’ union.
Wholly involved in militant activity, he was quick to assume responsibilities, and in 1900 represented the section
at the SDAP’s Rotterdam congress. The section was still largely composed of intellectuals who in 1907 were to
De Arbeiderspers, 1954) (reprint Nijmegen: SUN, 1977); see also: F. Kalshoven, Saks over Marx en de Marx-kritiek. Een
theoretisch, stilistisch en polemisch hoogtepunt in de geschiedenis van de politieke economie in Nederland, Amsterdam,
1990.
Despite abandoning the SDP, Wiedijk remained active. During the 1930s, he collaborated with Sneevliet and Henriëtte
Roland Holst on the monthly periodical De Nieuwe Weg. A literary critic by profession, he has left very critical Memoirs of
Troelstra’s SDAP and the Tribunist SDP: “Kritische herinneringen” in the periodical Nu, May-September 1929 (reprint
‘Kritische herinneringen’, Nijmegen: SUN, 1977).
25 See: H. de Liagre Böhl: Herman Gorter. Zijn politieke aktiviteiten van 1909 tot 1920 in de opkomende kommunistische
beweging in Nederland (Nijmegen: SUN, 1973), and Met al mijn bloed heb ik voor U geleefd (‘With all my blood I lived for
you’). Herman Gorter 1864-1927 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 1996). For his militant activity in the Bussum section,
see: Herman Gorter. Een revolutionair socialist in politiek, Bussum, 1977, pamphlet published by the section of the Pacifist
Socialist Party, Bussum/Naarden.
26 See: A. Pannekoek, Herinneringen (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1982), with an introduction by B.A. Sijes, an old member
of the GIC who published Pannekoek’s memoirs, written in 1944. In 1903, his attitude was already a radical one. In an
intervention at a big workers’ meeting in Leiden, he put forward and had voted a resolution demanding that “the workers
must block by all means possible the criminal laws”. Under threat of being sacked, he was summoned by Kuyper, the head
of the government, whose attention had been drawn to Pannekoek’s articles. After a general discussion on Marxism and his
articles, Pannekoek succeeded in getting Kuyper to agree that there should be no hindrance to “a civil servant freely
expressing his political opinions”. However, he was not “to enter into conflict with the law, on pain of losing his job”. These
threats did not prevent Pannekoek from writing constantly against the ‘law and the bourgeois state’ (op. cit., pp. 91-92),
especially in the form of theoretical contributions. Pannekoek, in the name of the Dutch Marxists, answered the antimarxist
theses of the left liberal leader M.W.F. Treub (1858-1931) in a contradictory debate: Het marxisme, Baarn, 1908, ‘Pro en
contra’ IV, p. 8.
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