The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

workers’ councils”, the KAPN’s founding nucleus found itself alongside the RSAP in calling for ‘antifascist
unity’ and unconditional support for the POUM and the FAI. 1038
The three other groups were united in their total rejection of the Popular Front and anti-fascist unity. Their
disagreements lay in their interpretation of revolutionary events in Spain. For the Hague group, as for Discussie,
it was nothing less than a ‘bourgeois revolution’ taking place against the ‘Feudal system’. But whereas different
socialist and anarchist groups of the left drew the conclusion that it was necessary to defend the Republic against
feudalism, these groups put forward the necessity to fight the ‘bourgeois revolution’ for the proletarian
revolution. For the anarcho-councilist group Discussie this led to the somewhat ambiguous position that
although the ‘bourgeois revolution’ led to state capitalism, in feudal Spain there were nonetheless two
“revolutionary groups”: the proletariat and the “rising bourgeoisie”. 1039
The councilist group from The Hague had a much clearer position, very close to that the Italian Communist
Left. 1040 From false premises – events in Spain were seen as being in continuity with the bourgeois revolutions
of the 19 th century – it ended up with the same political conclusions. The war in Spain was a fight between two
groups of capitalists. Although armed, the workers remained oppressed. They were prisoners of the militias,
“bourgeois military organisations”. The task of the hour was not to fight inside these organisms, but to destroy
them completely. The position of Proletariër was that of “revolutionary defeatism”:
“The struggle in Spain between the ‘legal government’ and the ‘insurgent camp’ is not at all a struggle for ideals,
but a struggle of determined capitalist groups who are lodged in the Republican bourgeoisie against other
capitalist groups... In terms of principles, this Spanish ‘cabinet’ is identical to the bloody Lerroux regime, which
in 1934 shot down thousands of Spanish workers... At present, Spanish workers are oppressed with weapons in
their hands! the workers are sent to the front and they are harangued there by the socialist bosses with the words:
‘defend with honour our revolution at the rear’, but they ‘forget’ to say here that the revolution was a bourgeois
revolution. The proletariat fights inside bourgeois military organisations, but soon the decomposition, the
putrefaction of these organisations will be on the agenda. However, they can only be destroyed if the proletariat
forms its own organisations. That means: the organisation of the proletariat in struggle for itself, that of the
workers’ and soldiers’ councils will soon have to, by the advance of the movement, enter into struggle with the
bourgeoisie”. 1041
The GIC tried to establish a more coherent position. Its political combat was essentially a defence of the
workers’ struggle against anarchism. While its analysis was very close to Bilan and the Proletariër group, the
GIC sometimes appeared divided on what responses to give. Giving diverse interpretations of the Spanish
situation, the GIC expressed contradictory positions in its periodical (PIC) which either manifested an
indifference to the fate of the Spanish proletariat – this is nothing but a ‘bourgeois revolution’ – or a conciliation
with the analysis of groups like Union Communiste or the Belgian LCI (see below).
The lessons drawn by the GIC from the events in Spain
No “bourgeois revolution”
1038 ‘Spanje’, in: De Arbeidersraad, No. 1/2, Jan.-Feb. 1937: “The workers of the POUM are sacrificing their lives in the
struggle against fascism...”. This group essentially supported the policies of the POUM by putting forward the need of a
workers’ alliance, as in 1934, between the ‘anti-fascist’ organisations of the POUM and CNT.
1039 ‘De opstand in Spanje!!!’, in: Discussie, No. 7, August 1936.
1040 The texts in Bilan of the Italian Communist Left or ‘bordigists’ on the Spanish question have been re-published by Jean
Barrot [pseud. of Gilles Dauvé]: ‘Bilan’. Contre-Révolution en Espagne (1936-1939) (Paris: ed. 10/18, 1979). Introduction
of Jean Barrot in English translation by Pirate Press, Black Star, P.O. Box 446, Sheffield, S1 1NY.
1041 ‘De beweging in Spanje’, in: Proletariër, No. 2, 27 th July 1936.
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