The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The tone of this Manifesto broke with that of the CPN which in its call to strike mixed anti-nazi and nationalist
slogans, such as: “Struggle proudly for the liberation of our country!!!” 1161
The MLL Front never put forward anti-fascist slogans. Contrary to the Dutch Social Democratic groups who
made anti-fascism the ‘first stage’ in the struggle for socialism, it insisted on one unique stage: the struggle
against capitalism everywhere in the world. 1162
It is in this spirit that the ‘Derde Front’ developed a whole propaganda among German soldiers; very dangerous
since in Rotterdam some leaflets were distributed inside the barracks. The propaganda neither developed a call
for the defence of democracy, nor an appeal for pacifism. In the Manifesto of May 1, in German, one could read:
“The popular masses have no interest in a victory for Britain. Similarly they have no interest in a victory for
Germany. They must take their own destiny in their hands. They are the Third Front, which can and must
conquer!
“Down with the war, but also down with capitalist peace! World peace can only be obtained through the victory
of international socialism.” 1163
The rejection of the defence of the USSR. – The break with trotskyism
The outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR plunged Sneevliet’s movement into a profound disarray.
This disarray was further accentuated by the preventative arrest by the German police of militants or exmembers
of the RSAP and of the NAS, on the night of 24 th and 25 th June. Their underground work remained
undiscovered, and the clandestine network was hardly touched.
Greater still was the disorientation provoked by the attack of the German army on June 22 nd , something which
Sneevliet had not expected, since the title his article in the previous issue of Spartacus was ‘Stalin, toady of the
Germany’: The origin of this disarray was more profound. Despite the slogan against ‘National Bolshevism’, the
MLL Front had no theoretical position on the USSR. In its press it implicitly took up trotskyist concepts of
‘bureaucracy’ and ‘parasitic cast which it used to define the Russian state. It had the choice between taking
Trotsky’s analysis of the Russian state and calling for the defence of the ‘Workers’ State’, or of rejecting it and
calling for the struggle against both imperialisms
Little by little the MLL Front took position against the defence of the USSR. Its Manifesto of 23 rd June was still
half defending the USSR in the war: “...the Russian proletariat must not only preserve what is left of the
revolution”; it must also “at the international level, transform the ‘war of devastating peoples’ into civil war”. 1164
Behind this position lay the influence of Dolleman and Perthus.
In a second position Sneevliet made his own views felt, taking up the arguments of Rosa Luxemburg on the
possibility of a revolutionary defensive war:
“Hitlerism and stalinism dig their own graves in this war. The Russian workers must resist the fascist invasion,
but they can only turn the war into a war for revolutionary defence if they destroy the stalinist regime”. 1165
Finally, at the end of July, the leap was made. The MLL Front rejected any defence of the USSR. The war in
Russia had shifted the imperialist front. The thesis of the Central Committee published in Spartacus took a clear
position on the nature of the USSR. Russian society had taken a state capitalist character; the power of the
1161 The leaflet of the CPN is quoted in Sijes’ book.
1162 Cf. Wim Bot, op. cit., p. 52.
1163 ‘Der Maitag in Kriegszeit’, address ‘to the German comrades’. The ‘Manifesto’ is on p. 445 of Perthus’ book.
1164 ‘Aan de Nederlandse arbeiders, boeren en intellectuelen’ (‘To the workers, peasants and intellectuals of Holland’),
supplement to Spartacus, No. 10.
1165 ‘Brieven aan een jeugdvriend’, No. 14, July 1941.
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