The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

political organisation in Holland, and even the first if one took into account the Pact that the Dutch CP kept a
semi-legal status for several months due to the German-Soviet Pact. 1148
A Central Committee of 9 members was set up. It included Sneevliet, Menist, Dolleman, Gerritsen, de Haan-
Zwagerman, Jan Koeslag, Pieter van ‘t Hart – known as Max Perthus (1910-1975) – Jan Schriefer and Stan
Poppe (pseudonym: T. Woudstra); the latter went on to play a decisive role in the creation of the Spartacusbond.
Sneevliet was the uncontested leader, writing almost all the political positions of the Front. At his side,
Ab(raham) Menist – of Jewish origin – was a born organiser; Dolleman was the treasurer and responsible for
publications.
Under the management of this Central Committee an external bulletin was regularly published (Het MLL
Bulletin) as well as an internal organ (Richtlijnen, i.e., Directives). For a while, the MLL Front propagandised
militants of the socialist SDAP and published ‘Letters to the social-democrats’ (‘Brieven aan Sociaal-
Democraten’). The latter were denounced as the “Judas of the workers’ movement”, after they took part in a
Dutch union that brought together liberals, religious parties and social-democrats in July 1940. 1149 This union
proclaimed its allegiance to the bourgeois monarchy of the House of Orange and hoped that German domination
in Europe would allow Holland to keep Indonesia as a colony. The SDAP was not banned by the new nazi
regime for several months. Many of the SDAP opposition who criticised their party chose another camp: the
British.
This policy of forcing the SDAP rank-and-file to confront the consequences of their party’s positions to the
social and political reality brought a certain number of them into the MLL Front. The Front did not adopt the
same policy towards the CPN. “Stalinism is fascism under its worst form”, it wrote. 1150
It should to be noted that in its Bulletins, the MLL Front did not pronounce on the class nature of the socialist or
communist parties. Its propaganda towards these parties, towards the SDAP in particular, showed that it still
considered them as a part of the ‘workers’ movement’. In this sense the Front remained the continuation of the
pre–war RSAP. But it was already differentiating itself both from the trotskyist parties and from the left
socialists by its refusal to support either the ‘democratic’ camp or that of the USSR. Its action was oriented as
much against the Dutch bourgeoisie as the German.
To the two imperialist fronts, the MLL Front opposed the Third Front (Derde Front), that of the proletariat: “The
MLL Front wants the insurrection of the proletariat in the warring countries and the fraternisation of soldiers and
workers through the struggle against the imperialist powers which has led them into this war. Such is the ‘Third
Front’ which is propagated in the writings of the MLL–Front”. 1151
This policy of the Front led the MLL to link up – at the end of 1940 – with the Vonk Groep (Spark group)
formed by Jef Last (1898-1972), Tom Rot (1909-1982), Dirk Schilp (1893-1969), and left pacifist-socialists,
including many artists and intellectuals, as Henriëtte Roland Holst. It was led also by Eddy Wijnkoop, a nephrew
of David Wijnkoop, member of the MLL Front – who died in 1944 in the Mauthausen camp –, with the
agreement of Sneevliet and the Central Committee. Publishing the illegal monthly De Vonk it defended the same
point of view as the Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front.
1148 Outlawed by the Dutch government, the CPN published its periodicals, Volksdagblad and Politiek en Cultuur, legally up
to the end of June 1940 under German occupation. In the periodical Politiek en Cultuur [‘Vijf historische dagen’, June
1940, pp. 321-325], Paul de Groot called for a “correct attitude” vis-à-vis the German occupation army.
1149 Wim Bot, op. cit., p. 25. A very small part of the Dutch social democracy supported the German camp and collaborated
with it, for example the ‘Troelstra Beweging Nederland’ [Troelstra Movement-Netherlands, or TBN – named after an old
leader of the SDAP, and led by Paul Kiès). P. Kiès (1895-1968) had been in 1926 the first regular army officer member of
the SDAP. Active agitator and journalist of the SDAP, he had built his own movement in 1938, which had a militant basis
in Friesland, and in order to “get the best from the SDAP and the CPN”. After May 1940, Kiès became a nazi collaborator.
Under arrest in May 1945, sentenced, he was freed in 1959. [See: BWSA 7 (1998), pp. 108-113.]
1150 Wim Bot, op. cit., p. 31.
1151 Cf. Perthus, op. cit., pp. 430-431.
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