The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

who represented only himself, the conference was composed of eight groups, which formed a heterogeneous
mixture:
– Henri Chazé’s Union Communiste, a group in France coming out of trotskyism 1088 ;
– the Belgian Ligue des Communistes Internationalistes, represented by Hennaut;
– the GIC from Holland represented by Canne-Meijer;
– the ex-minority of the Italian Communist Left, excluded in November 1936, represented par Enrico Russo;
– the Cercle Marxiste de Paris (Bayard’s councilist group);
– the German Marxist Group, with a score of members and represented by Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow,
and also by Gavril Miasnikov, former leader of the Russian Workers’ Group 1089 ;
– Field’s League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party (USA and Canada), coming out of trotskyism and
represented by Krehm;
– Hugo Oehler’s Revolutionary Workers’ League of the USA 1090 , also coming from trotskyism and close to
the POUM.
The conference was at odds on all the points on the agenda: while all the groups were in agreement on “the
march towards war”, they could not agree to the characterisation of the USSR. The split on this question was
between, on one side, the GIC, the LCI, Union Communiste, the Cercle Marxiste, and on the other the groups
more attached to trotskyism. The latter, except for the ex-minority Bilan – represented by Enrico Russo 1091 – put
forward the necessity for a 4 th Communist International. Their perspective was to make contact with the POUM
and the trotskyist groups, in order to prepare a common conference.
This conference was quickly revealed as a total failure. The Bulletin de liaisons which was supposed to come out
of it never saw the light of day. It proved impossible to adopt a joint resolution. The GIC noted this failure by
underlining that “the conditions for the beginning of an international discussion” 1092 were lacking. The only
Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1977, he belonged to the Pivertist PSOP, then in 1940, to the
Mouvement National Révolutionnaire, led by Jean Rous (1890-1985), Henri Sellier (1883-1943), Henri Barré (1888-1972),
Maurice Jacquier (1906-1976), and Fred Zeller (1912-2003). The title of the MNR’s periodical, La Révolution française, is
revelatory of its programme. Its slogans showed a very definite nationalist orientation: “Proletarians, peasants, artisans,
small and medium bourgeois, French bosses, unite”, “Neither pro-British, nor pro-German, but pro-French”. Led by some
old trotskyists, the MNR disappeared in June 1941. Members joined up with the Gaullist resistance, but other re-integrated
with ‘classical’ trotskyism.
1088 For the political road of Henri Chazé, of his true name Gaston Davoust (1904-1984), cf. notice devoted to him in
Biographical Dictionary of the French labour movement (the ‘Maitron’), 1914-1939, 43 vols., under the direction of J.
Maitron and C. Pennetier.
1089 This “German group” was in fact that of Ruth Fischer and his companion Arkadij Maslow (1891-1941), who had been
trotskyists in exile in France from 1934-36 (cf. the thesis by Maurice Stobnicer, Le mouvement trotskyste allemand sous la
République de Weimar, Paris VIII, 1980, 380 pages). In 1939, Maslow edited in Paris the periodical Cahiers d’Europe
which had an anti-fascist and anti-stalinist orientation “internationalist and non-conformist” (sic) [No. 1, Jan. 1939.]
1090 For the itinerary of these groups, see Ph. Bourrinet, The ‘bordigist’ current, 1919-1999: Italy, France, Belgium, op. cit.
To order: Ortmans, Biggenweide 47, 2727 GR Zoetermeer (Netherlands).
1091 Enrico Russo (1895-1973), alias Candiani, was part of the ‘bordigist’ fraction in France, until his break in 1937. In Spain
he commanded the Lenin column of the POUM’s foreign volunteers. In Paris, he joined Chazé’s Union Communiste.
Handed over by the Vichy authorities to the Mussolini government, he was sent to prison for 5 years. Freed in 1943, he
became secretary of the Naples trade union centre (Camera del Lavoro), and a member of the ‘Montesanto’ CP. He turns up
later as a member of the Italian Social-Democratic Party, where he tried to animate a left current. Cf. article by P. Broué:
‘Le PC italien, la guerre et la révolution’, in: Cahiers Léon Trotsky, No. 29, March 1987.
1092 ‚Die Pariser Konferenz’, in: Räte-Korrespondenz, No. 22, July 1937.
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