The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Chapter 11 The Communistenbond Spartacus and the council Coomunist current (1942-1968)
The birth of the ‘Communistenbond’ (1942-1945)
The MLL Front’s evolution towards internationalist positions (against the defence of the USSR, struggle against
both imperialist blocs, whether ‘democratic’, ‘fascist’, or ‘communist’) was atypical. Emerging from the RSAP,
orientated towards left socialism, the MLL Front moved towards council communist positions. This orientation
is to be explained above all by Sneevliet’s strength of personality. Despite his already advanced years, he was
still able to evolve politically, and he had nothing left to lose on the personal level. 1175 Such a profound political
transformation can only be compared with that – also atypical – of Munis group, of the RKD, and of Aghis
Stinas group. 1176
However, this evolution had not been taken to its final conclusion. The deaths of Sneevliet and his comrades – in
particular Ab Menist (1896-1942) – completely decapitated the Front’s leadership. The Front’s cohesion had
been partly dependent on the political authority of Sneevliet, who was more a militant guided by his intuition
and revolutionary conviction than a theoretician.
The death of Sneevliet, and of almost all the members of the central committee, annihilated the organisation for
several months. From March until the summer of 1942, all the militants remained in hiding, and avoided any
contact, for fear of the Gestapo, which they suspected of having dismantled the Front thanks to an informer
working within the organisation. However, the police archives, and those of Sneevliet’s trial give no indication
that such a Gestapo agent existed. 1177
Only Stan Poppe survived from the Front’s leadership. Under his influence, the Revolutionair-Socialistische
Arbeidersbeweging (Socialist-revolutionary workers’ movement) was founded during the course of the summer.
Although the organisation was formally in continuity with the Front, the term ‘workers’ movement’ suggested
that it saw itself neither as a front, nor as a party.
Following the formation of Stan Poppe’s group, Dolleman’s last supporters founded their own group on 22 nd
August 1942, in The Hague, with a trotskyist orientation. Thus was born the ‘Comité van Revolutionnaire
1175 One of Sneevliet’s sons (Pim) had committed suicide in 1932, the other (Pam) had been killed (or also committed
suicide?) in Spain in 1937 fighting in the POUM militia.
1176 Exiled in Mexico during the war, the Munis group look up internationalist positions against the defence of the USSR.
(See: Agustín Guillamón’s Preface to the Munis Obras completas, Vol. 1, pp. 13-28, Llerena 1999.)
The RKD, which had also sprung from trotskyism and included both French and Austrian militants, collaborated at the end
of the war within the French Fraction of the Communist Left. They moved gradually towards anarchism, after 1946, getting
in touch especially with the Libertaire in France and anarchist groups in Darmstadt – the ‘Föderation freiheitlicher
Sozialisten Deutschlands’ – and Hamburg (‘Kulturföderation freier Sozialisten und Antimilitaristen’). They disappeared
after 1949. For the RKD history, see political testimony of Georg Scheuer (pseudonyms: Armand, Gaston, Carl Langer,
Charles Berry, Martin Bucher, etc.): ‘Der andere Widerstand in Frankreich (1939-1945)’, in: Archiv für die Geschichte des
Widerstandes und der Arbeit (AGWA), No. 14, Bochum, 1996.
For the dissident trotskyist group (Internationalist Communist Union) of Aghis Stinas [Spiros (1900-1987)], in Greece,
which influenced Castoriadis, see: A. Peregalli, Contro venti e maree. La seconda guerra mondiale et gli internazionalisti
del ‚terzo fronte’ (Milano: ed. Colibrì, 2002).
1177 The studies of Max Perthus and Wim Bot on the MLL Front, based on German archives in Holland, give no basis for
such a hypothesis.
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