The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

of the mines and the formation of strike committees as part of an irreversible process of the rejection of all
political parties and unions. 1007
The formation of a “class front” 1008 meant the decline of the “old workers’ movement”, preparing the birth of a
“new workers’ movement”. This analysis, which paid scant attention to the international political environment
after 1933, was part of the council communist theory of a ‘new workers’ movement’ (see Chapter 7).
Initially, the GIC saw the French workers’ strikes – which were followed by movements in Belgium and even
Holland 1009 – as a sign that the international proletariat was emerging from the depth of defeat. In their form –
mass nature, spontaneity, factory occupations – they were “a gain which will benefit the whole world
proletariat”. And in their breadth, they were not far away from “the great revolutionary movements of the
working class in the last 30 years”. In reality, the GIC saw the form of the strikes as being more positive than
their content.
In fact, far from heralding a ‘French revolution’ – as the trotskyists proclaimed at the time – the strikes took
place under the banner of the Popular Front, whose parties exerted an unprecedented control over the French
proletariat. The left parties and the unions had succeeded in sharing up the power of the bourgeoisie by putting
an end to the wildcat strikes. The growth in the number of unionised workers – “from 900,000 to 2,600,000” –
was a sign that ‘order’ reigned. 1010 The Popular Front and the union front had kept bourgeois order intact: “The
mass strike had become a reality against the will of the organisations. Now it was a question of giving it a
character that would not endanger the capitalist order. For that, above all, order was needed. Order in the running
of the strike. No threat to the rights of private property, no attacks on ‘public order”. 1011 In the end, the
movement of the workers had been subjugated by the union and state apparatus, incarnated in the “old workers’
movement” (PCF and SFIO).
Like the Italian Communist Fraction at the same time 1012 , the Dutch Left insisted that the Popular Front, far from
being a “failed revolution” marked a further step in the preparations for a second World War. 1013 The nationalist,
anti-fascist ideology propagated by the left was directly dragooning the workers into war against Germany; in
this sense, the politics of the Popular Front were similar to those of National Socialism in Germany. It only
differed on one point: by basing itself on the left and the unions, it was more ‘effective’:
“Such a way of subjugating the wage labourers is seen by the majority of the French bourgeoisie as more reliable
than the fascist method of domination, which does away with all safety valves and can only work with the
methods of the butcher, with tear gas and machine guns [...] It is true that National Socialism in Germany and the
Popular Front in France both carry out the same task. They both create a national organisation on the basis of
capitalist relations of production.”. 1014
However, while the GIC saw that the Popular Front and its parties were directly part of the war effort, in the
name of anti-fascism, it did not consider that the strikes of May-June 1936 were a defeat for the proletariat.
1007 ‘De Belgische mijnwerkersstaking’, in: PIC, No. 9, August 1935. In No. 10, Sept. 1935, the GIC declared –
exaggeratedly – that the May 1935 strike by Belgian miners was the “high water mark of proletarian class struggle for ten
years”.
1008 This political “mot d’ordre” was used in an anonym pamphlet of Cajo Brendel: Het Volksfront marcheert, 1936, p. 12,
published by “Left Workers” (“linksche arbeiders”).
1009 In June 1936, a great fishermen’s strike broke out in IJmuiden, Holland. The strike committee was dominated by the
CPN. During the strike, the latter did not hesitate to propose a ‘united front’ with the fascists: “We salute the nationalsocialist
fishermen, who are in struggle at IJmuiden alongside their red brothers” [Quoted by the GIC in: ‘De IJmuider
visschers-staking’, in: PIC, No. 11, July 1936.]
1010 PIC, No. 9, June 1936, p. 10. The GIC’s figures for trade union membership in 1936 were inaccurate. The CGT had 4-5
million members. See A. Prost, La CGT à I’époque du Front populaire, 1934-1939 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1964).
1011 ‘De Fransche massastaking’, in: PIC, No. 14, August 1936, Räte-Korrespondenz, No. 18-19, August 1936.
1012 See review Bilan, ‘La victoire du Front Populaire en France’, No. 31, May-June 1936.
1013 Trotsky expressed this optimistic vision in an article with the evocative title “The French Revolution has begun” [see:
L. Trotsky, Wither France? (London: New Park, 1974).]
1014 ‚De Fransche massastaking’, in: PIC, No. 14, August 1936; Räte-Korrespondenz, No. 18-19, August 1936.
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