The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

political past, marked less by syndicalism than by left socialism, which they had rejected within the MLL Front.
Such was the case of Stan Poppe.
Stan Poppe (1899-1991) had played an important part in the OSP. He had worked as secretary within the party
leadership. During the merger with the RSP, he had become a member of the RSAP’s political bureau. In 1936,
he was made party secretary and treasurer, and in December was a delegate, with Ab Menist, to the Conference
of the Centre for the 4 th International. Member of the high bodies of the RSAP in 1938, he was in 1940, one of
the leaders of the MLL Front. In the Front, and later in the Communistenbond Spartacus, he was known under
the pseudonym Tjeerd Woudstra. He was especially interested in economic studies, and his political orientation
remained a mixture of Leninism and ‘councilism’.
Most of the militants came from the old RSAP, without going through the trotskyist movement (anyway very
weak in Holland). Many continued as militants in the Bond after the war, some to the end of their lives, like
Bertus Nansink (died 1984) and Wiebe van der Wal. Others, like Jaap van Otterloo, Jan Vastenhouw, and Cees
van der Kuile, left in 1950.
Nonetheless, for another two years Spartacus’ evolution was marked by political ambiguities which showed that
the spirit of the NAS had not totally disappeared. Left socialist reflexes reappeared during contacts with a socialdemocratic
group which had left the RSAP at the beginning of the war, and whose strongest personality was
Wijnand Romijn. At the end of 1943, the latter had written a pamphlet under the pseudonym Socius, which
called for a ‘tactical’ support for the Allied war effort. Spartacus attacked this position violently, and gave up the
merger negotiations with Romijn. 1183 However, the very fact that the proposal to merge with this group should
be made, showed that the Bond had no class analysis of social democracy. Spartacus was a long way from the
council communists, who had always denounced the socialist groups, right or left, as counter-revolutionary and
bourgeois. This persistent effort to make contact with left socialists appeared again in November 1944, when it
carried out joint work with the group ‘De Vonk’ (see Chap. 10), which finally collapsed because of political
disagreements.
Although the break with trotskyism was complete organisationally, the same was not true ideologically, as far as
the left tendencies were concerned. During 1944, Poppe had two meetings with Vereeken’s group ‘Tegen de
Stroom’ (Against the Current). Although the latter rejected the defence of the USSR in June 1941, it maintained
its links with Raymond and Henri Molinier’s French Comité Communiste Internationaliste (CCI); after the war,
it joined the 4 th International. 1184 Still more significant was the fact that even within the Bond, the last hesitations
on the defence of the USSR never entirely disappeared. A small part of the organisation – which rejected the
defence of the Russian camp in the ongoing war – was in favour of such a defence in the case of a Third World
War between the Western Allies and the USSR. 1185
For two years – until the theoretical contribution of the ex-GIC gained the upper hand – the Bond tried to clarify
its political positions; its activity consisted largely of theoretical work in the form of pamphlets, and depended
largely on the efforts of Bertus Nansink and above all Stan Poppe.
This theoretical work is explained partly by the period – defeat of the strike of February 1941, deportations of
workers, extermination of the Jewish proletarians by the nazism in its camps – which was far of favouring
1183 See: Spartacus, ‘Bulletin van de revolutionair-socialistische Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland’, Jan. 1944.
After the war, with Jacques de Kadt and others, Wijnand Romijn edited the independent left socialist periodical De
Baanbreker, to which Gerard van ‘t Reve and Sal Tas gave some collaboration. This last one was after 1948 more and more
involved in an “anticommunist” activity, getting in touch with the American unions and the Komintern. [See article by P.
Koedijk, in BWSA 7 (1998), pp. 219-223]
In 1946, inside the PvdA, Wijnand Romijn, with the redaction of the periodical De Vlam – Piet Meertens (1899-1985), Tom
Rot (1909-1982), Sam de Wolf, Henriëtte Roland Holst –, gave birth to the Sociaal-Democratische Centrum, wich had 150
members.
1184 See G. Vereeken, The GPU in the Trotskyist movement (London: New Park, 1976), Chapter I.
1185 See: ‘De Sovjet-Unie en wij’ (The Soviet-Union and us), in: Spartacus, Oct. 1942, and Feb. 1944.
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