The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

The dropping of the term ‘communist’ meant an abandonment of a political continuity with the old ‘council
communist’ movement. The Bond’s increasingly familial atmosphere, where the word ‘comrade’ had been
banned in favour of ‘friend’, no longer had anything in common with the atmosphere of a political body
regrouping individuals on the basis of a common vision.
Henceforth there were two ‘councilist’ organisations in Holland. The one – Spartacusbond – disappeared in
August 1980, after being somewhat reanimated in the wake of 1968 and after opening itself up to international
confrontation with other groups. But by opening itself up to young, impatient and very activist elements, the
Spartacusbond gave in to the very ‘leftist’ temptation of participating in all ‘partial struggles’: the Amsterdam
‘krakers’ (squatters), ecology, women’s liberation. 1264 This brought with it the loss of its identity as a political
group attached to the tradition of the Dutch communist left.
Daad en Gedachte by contrast went on under the form of a monthly periodical. Dominated by the strong
personality of Cajo Brendel, particularly after the death of Theo Maassen in 1975, the review was sometimes the
point of convergence for anarchistic elements. The Daad en Gedachte tendency had taken ‘councilism’ to its
logical conclusion by rejecting the workers’ movement of the 19 th century as ‘bourgeois’, and by cutting itself
off from every tradition, in particular from that of the KAPD, considered too stained by ‘the spirit of the party’.
The influence of the students’ contestation after 1968 has had some impact on Daad en Gedachte, which
sometimes entered the terrain of ‘Third Worldism’:
“...the struggles of colonial peoples have contributed something to the revolutionary movement. The fact that
poorly armed peasant populations have been able to face up to the enormous forces of modern imperialism, has
shocked the myth of the invincibility of the military, technological and scientific power of the West. Their
struggle has also revealed the brutality and racism of capitalism to millions of people, and has led many of them
– above all among the young and the students – to engage in struggles against their own regimes.” 1265
In this way the workers’ struggles of 1968 were understood as a by-product of ‘national liberation struggles’ and
identified with a struggle of young students. By giving in to the pressure of a ‘leftist’ student milieu, Daad en
Gedachte, in its March 1988 issue, finally declared itself in favour of an implicit support of the South African
nationalist ANC, by opening a public subscription for the benefit of this organisation.
Such an evolution is hardly surprising. By taking up the theory of Socialisme ou Barbarie of a society divided,
not by class antagonisms, but by revolts of the ‘ruled’ against the ‘rulers’, the ‘councilist’ current should only
conceive of history as a succession of revolts by social categories and age groups. History ceases to be the
history of class struggle. The theory of the council communists in the 1930s, then that of the Communistenbond
in the 1940s ceded the terrain to a kind of anarcho-councilism. 1266
Today council communism in The Netherlands seems to have disappeared as a real current. It has left
‘councilist’ tendencies that are numerically very weak, and which have progressively attached themselves to the
libertarian current.
International council communists until the 70s
1264 See the (polemical) articles by the ICC group, in: International Review No. 2, 1975: ‘The epigones of councilism at
work, 1) ‘Spartacusbond’ haunted by bolshevik phantoms, 2) Councilism to the rescue of Third-Worldism’, and in No. 9,
1977: ‘Break with the Spartacusbond’, ‘Is the Spartacusbond alone in the World?’.
1265 Cajo Brendel, ‘Theses on the Chinese Revolution and Cultural Revolution’ (Aberdeen: Solidarity Group, 1971).
1266 A summary of Daad en Gedachte’s positions can be found in the Bulletin of 20 th January 1981, published for a
conference of various groups in which the ICC and several individuals representing only themselves also took part:
‘Kanttekeningen van Daad en Gedachte’ (‘Marginal notes from Daad en Gedachte’). Daad en Gedachte took part in the
conference as individuals, not as a group.
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