The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The Bond’s Unionist ‘tactic’ was in contradiction to its theoretical position on the role and function of unions in
Western countries’ “semi-totalitarian society”. The unions had become organs of the capitalist state:
“There can be no question using the trade unions in the struggle for working conditions. The unions have
become an integral part of the capitalist social order. Their existence and disappearance are irrevocably tied to
the survival and collapse of capitalism. In the future, there will be no question of the working class still finding
advantages in the unions. Wherever the workers have begun and conducted a strike spontaneously, the unions
have showed themselves to be strike-breakers.” 1228
The Bond’s propaganda was thus an unequivocal denunciation of the unions. Not only should the workers carry
out their own struggle against the unions, through the ‘wildcat strike’, they should also understand that any
struggle conducted by the unions was a defeat:
“Revolutionary propaganda does not call for the transformation of the unions; it consists in showing clearly that
in the struggle the workers must thrust aside any union leadership, like vermin from their body. It must be said
clearly that any struggle is lost in advance as soon as the unions manage to take control of it.”
The ‘wildcat strike’ against the unions was the precondition for the formation of proletarian organisations in the
struggle.
• The movement of the class struggle and the councils
The publication of The Workers’ Councils in January 1946 was a determining factor in orientating the Bond
towards typically ‘councilist’ positions. Whereas before, the Communistenbond Spartacus had had an essentially
political vision of the class struggle, it began to develop more and more economistic positions. The class struggle
was seen more as an economic movement than as a process of increasing proletarian organisation.
Pannekoek’s vision of the class struggle insisted more on the necessity for a general organisation of the class,
than on the process of struggle. “Organisation”, he declared, “is the vital principle of the working class, the
precondition of its emancipation”. 1229 This clear affirmation demonstrates that the council communist conception
of the time was not the same as that of anarchism. Contrary to the latter, Pannekoek insisted that the class
struggle is less a matter of ‘direct action’, than of a developing awareness of the goals of the struggle, and that
consciousness precedes action:
“Spiritual development is the most important factor in the proletariat’s seizure of power. The proletarian
revolution is not the product of abrupt physical force; it is a victory of the spirit [...] in the beginning there was
action. But action is nothing more than the beginning [...] Any unawareness, any illusion as to the essence, the
goal, or as to the strength of the adversary, will end in misfortune, and defeat will establish a new slavery.” 1230
It is this consciousness, developing within the class, which made possible the outbreak of unofficial or illegal
strikes, “in opposition to the strikes declared by the trades unions, respecting the law”. Spontaneity is not the
negation of organisation; on the contrary, “organisation is born spontaneously, immediately”.
But neither consciousness, nor the organisation of the struggle, are aims in themselves. They are expressions of a
praxis where consciousness and organisation are part of a practical process of extending the struggle, which
leads to the unification of the proletariat: “...the wildcat strike, like a prairie fire, spreads to other companies and
See the article ‘Toon van den Berg’ (No. 2, February/March). The debate on the nature of the OVB can be found in UEK
No. 17, 22 nd July 1951. In fact, the Dutch trotskysts played an important role inside the OVB, and one of their leaders,
Herman Drenth (1916-2000), former builder of the CRM in 1941, was in the high bodies of the union.
1228 De Nieuwe Wereld, April 1947, translated into bad French for the conference of 1947 and published as a pamphlet, Le
Monde Nouveau.
1229 The Workers’ Councils, chapter on ‘Direct Action’.
1230 The Workers’ Councils, chapter on ‘Thought and Action’.
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