The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

democracy. Even before 1914, theoreticians like Luxemburg and Pannnekoek, Gorter and Henriëtte Roland
Holst had affirmed the primacy of mass action over trade union and parliamentary action. They had insisted in
particular on the rule of class consciousness in the action of the proletariat, on the primacy of the spiritual factor’
over the ‘material factor’ (the economic crisis) in the unleashing of the revolution. It was in the wake of the
Russian revolution that the key ideas of left communism became more precise:
– the central role of the workers’ councils in the proletarian revolution and the transformation of society;
– the central role of the Unions and workers’ committees in the process that gives rise to the councils;
– the political role of organs of economic struggle, like the Unions, whose programme had to be directly
revolutionary and whose activities had to be closely linked to that of the communist party;
– the role of the communist party as a catalyst of class consciousness; the party’s structure had to be that of a
nucleus that regrouped not the broad masses but selected minorities of the proletariat;
– the central role of the western European countries which would form the ‘epicentre’ of the world revolution;
– the direct struggle for revolution in the industrialised countries, without using the old trade union and
parliamentary tactics; the struggle of the proletariat had become a struggle against the state and all its political
parties, and had ceased to be a struggle for reforms that could gain the proletariat a place within the state.
Such was the physiognomy of this left current of the 3 rd International. Having germinated within the 2 nd
International, it fully flowered in the sunlight of the revolution in Germany, the most industrialised country in
Europe.
The study of the German-Dutch left allows us to reply to a number of hasty assertions which characterise it as a
current of ‘Dutch personalities’, as a current of ‘western Marxism’, as a ‘utopian extremist’ or ‘syndicalist’
current.
A ‘Dutch school of Marxism’?
The Dutch Marxist current is often reduced to the personalities of Pannekoek and Gorter. Nothing could be more
deceptive. Alongside them, Henriëtte Roland Holst played a role of no lesser importance than Rosa Luxemburg
in elaborating the theory of the mass strike and of mass action. A less well-known militant like Barend Luteraan
was the decisive motor in the formation of the KAP in Holland.
In reality, the interpenetration of the German and Dutch left currents had been a constant from before 1914,
when the names Pannekoek, Roland Holst and Luxemburg had often been associated. After 1920, you can talk
about the theoretical and organisational fusion of the two. Some nuances still existed between the left
communists, above all in the interpretation of the ‘mortal crisis of capitalism’. The Dutch communists, especially
Pannekoek, had a tendency to reject the conceptions of the crisis put forward by Luxemburg in her
“Accumulation of Capital”, and later taken up by the KAPD. But the splits within the German-Dutch current
never revealed national specificities: the political and theoretical divergences, such as on participation in
economic struggles and the foundation of the KAI, cut across both the German and Dutch organisations.
As for the ‘anti-authoritarian’ and purely ‘councilist’ tendencies that some people think are characteristic of the
Dutch, and Gorter in particular, they were hardly present in the Dutch left communist movement in 1920; the
real seed-bed for the councilist, anti-organisational and anarchistic theories was in Germany, particularly in
Saxony around Otto Rühle. It was the theories of Rühle which ended up predominating in the Dutch GIC and
with Pannekoek, unlike the Berlin KAPD which fully maintained its party programme.
A ‘Germanic’ or ‘Western Marxist’ current?
The German-Dutch current is seen as a typically ‘Germanic’ current, born on the soil of the German revolution.
In this view, its typically ‘Germanic’ feature would be its rejection both of the heavy union bureaucracy and of
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