The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Conclusion
This history of the German-Dutch left has tried to fill an important gap in the history of the revolutionary
workers’ movement in Europe. While the history of Germany and of its social movements in the 20 th century is
fairly well known through works in French and English, this isn’t true of the Netherlands. Generally seen as a
third-ranking power – perhaps above all because the Dutch language is not widely known – the recent history of
the Netherlands has largely remained terra incognita. And that’s not even to mention the history of its workers’
movement, at a time when, as Jean-Louis Robert underlined in the French historical review Le Mouvement social
no. 142 (1988), “we are seeing a decline in ‘pure’ political history and particularly in the study of the workers’
movement”.
Our researches have been guided by a personal interest in the little-known history of the left communist
movement at the time of the Third International. We were particularly stimulated by the meetings and
discussions we had with old militants of the German-Dutch left like Jan Appel and B.A. Sijes, both of whom are
now dead, or like active members of this left: Stan Poppe (disappeared in 1991), and particularly Cajo Brendel.
But the interest one can have in the German and Dutch communist left has an objective basis. This current was
an essential element in the left-wing reaction against the ‘opportunist’ and ‘reformist’ degeneration of the 2 nd
International. At the theoretical level, the names of Luxemburg and Pannekoek are inextricably linked, both
through the close connections between the German and Dutch lefts, and through the coherence of their
revolutionary marxist vision, which converged in the same critique of Kautsky’s ‘centrism’. The theoretical roots
of the Third International are to be found as much in the left current of Pannekoek and Luxemburg as in Lenin’s
bolshevik current. For all these reasons, the German-Dutch left can only be understood in the context of a global,
international history of the Marxist left before and after 1914.
It was the praxis of wide layers of the German proletariat in particular, but also the simultaneous praxis of the
international proletariat in the wake of the Russian revolution, which gave life to the left communist current on
the social level rather than just the theoretical level. Like Bordiga’s Communist Party of Italy, which Lenin
qualified as ‘leftist’, the German KAPD – influenced as much by Luxemburg as by Gorter and Pannekoek –
regrouped tens of thousands of workers. Through the Unions (AAU), the KAPD influenced and acted upon the
antiparliamentary and anti-trade union responses of hundreds of thousands of revolutionary workers. In The
Netherlands, the influence of the communist left was more theoretical than practical.
The reduction of left communism to the level of small groups after 1922 in no way diminishes the interest of this
current:
• The history of the workers’ movement cannot be reduced to the history of the ‘winners’ (the social
democrats or the stalinists). In 1919, it was not inevitable that left communism would be defeated.
The history of the workers’ movement, like the history of humanity in general, is not fated in
advance. The defeat of the world revolution in Germany, and the consequent isolation and
degeneration of the Russian revolution and the Komintern, were the essential cause of the defeat of
left communism.
• The numerical weakness of a current in the revolutionary movement is neither a necessary nor a
sufficient reason for placing it in a historical curiosity shop. The numerical decline of the bolsheviks
between 1914 and 1917, when the party had only 2,000-5,000 militants, did not prevent it from
having a growing influence in the Russian proletariat in 1917.
• In fact, the political and theoretical positions of a revolutionary organisation are what really count. It
would be wrong to reduce them to a mere chapter or even a paragraph in the general history of
political ideas. In certain historical and social conditions, ‘ideas’ become a material force that
“seizes hold of the masses” (Marx).
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