The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The MLL Front played a considerable role in the strike, despite being reduced to a small organisation of some
300 militants. 1157 Like the old organisations they had formed a youth group, the MJC (Young Marxists
Committee) which edited a monthly publication: Het Kompas (‘The Compass’). Since January 1941, it had
produced a regular propaganda newspaper, Spartacus, which ran to 5,000 copies in February. It had the largest
circulation of illegal paper. 1158 The chosen title expressed an explicit political reference to Rosa Luxemburg. The
fact that Sneevliet himself translated the Junius Pamphlet, The crisis of Social Democracy, showed an evident
distancing from Lenin on the national question.
Before the strike, the MLL Front distributed much literature (leaflets, manifestos) calling for struggle.
Propagandistically, it called workers to form defence groups in their districts against anti-Semitic actions. At the
time of the anti-Jewish raids it launched the following appeal:
“If men and women of the workers’ districts rouse themselves in the Jewish district of Amsterdam... if they
undertake a struggle against the bandits hired by the Dutch National Socialist movement, then we will see a
magnificent demonstration of spontaneous solidarity which will appear in the factories under a superior and
more effective form.
“Respond to all acts of National Socialist violence through agitation and strikes of protest in the factories.
“Come out en masse from the factories, leave work and massively join up with class comrades in struggle in the
threatened districts.” 1159
The impact of the MLL Front in the strike in Amsterdam is hard to judge, although the NAS had 400 members
there before the occupation. It is certain that, although the CPN took the initiative in calling the strike – in a
situation of social agitation which was unfolding independently of it – the MLL Front played an important role
in spreading the strike to other towns. But, above all, the strike was wanted and led by the workers, independent
of all the slogans of the parties.
At the end of the strike, the MLL Front, while denouncing the CPN call for a strike on 6 th March, advocated the
formation of strike and action committees in the factories. 1160
The strike wave – contrary to the great mass strikes of the past – had not produced strike committees leading the
struggle. The February strike was spontaneous, without the spontaneous creation of specific workers’ organisms.
If there was a tendency in the MLL Front to overestimate the revolutionary character of a strike which at no time
was based on the workers’ own demands, its rejection of nationalism showed that it did not underestimate the
necessity of a struggle against the ideology of national resistance. If it were not to appear as a component of the
national front of anti-German resistance, it had to underline the necessity for internationalism. That is what it
lids. The appeal we have quoted above is unambiguous:
“How to struggle?
“Germany? No!
“England? No!
“The Third Front, the socialist proletariat.
“Against National Socialism and National Bolshevism!
“The international class struggle!”
1157 The figure of 150 militants is given by Sijes. It seems more probable – according to Wim Bot – that it was around 325.
There were between 60 and 70 cells of 5 members.
1158 Cf. Perthus, op. cit., p. 432.
1159 The photograph of this appeal can be found in Sijes book.
1160 The MLL Front denounced the CPN as unworthy of carrying the red flag of socialism by dint of its support for Stalin,
murderer of revolutionaries, and for Hitler. Cf. Wim Bot, op. cit., p. 47.
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