The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

A ‘petty bourgeois intellectual’ current?
The political adversaries of left communism, at the time of its ascent, believed that they had found the ‘key’ to
its existence and its radicalism in its sociological composition, its social basis and/or the socio-economic
modifications that had taken place in the proletariat.
The first explanation for ‘left radicalism’ was the enormous influence of intellectuals who had been pushed into
revolt and radicalised by the war and the revolution. In this view, intellectuals like Gorter and Pannekoek only
had to give theoretical coherence to this revolt, which expressed the impatience typical of the petty bourgeois
intelligentsia. We know the influence exerted by the KAPD and the Union movement on the German
expressionist movement and the Pfemfert’s periodical Die Aktion; for a time Pfemfert had been a member of the
KAPD. At the same time this party – at the beginning – had been led by intellectuals like Schröder, Schwab,
Reichenbach and Rühle. But such a sociological explanation does not fit in with reality. The presence of
militants from a ‘petty bourgeois intellectual’ background is a constant in revolutionary parties. The KPD, which
developed this argument against the KAPD, had a leadership even more strongly composed of ‘intellectuals’,
like Paul Levi, Thalheimer etc. In the second place, the presence of ‘intellectual fellow travellers’ in the KAPD
was of short duration, as seen by the departure of the ‘anti-authoritarian’ tendency around Rühle and Pfemfert
which certainly did express the impatience and distrust towards organisation characteristic of the individualist
psychology of this ‘intelligentsia’. In the third place, the left communist movement was massively composed of
workers. 90-95% of the membership of the KAPs in Germany and Bulgaria were industrial workers. In Holland
itself, where the proletarian composition had been less overwhelming in the Tribunist SPD, at the time of the
1921 split which gave rise to the KAPN, none of the old leaders from an intellectual background – Van
Ravesteyn, Gerrit Mannoury, Henriëtte Roland Holst, etc. – with the notable exception of Gorter – were to join
the new left communist party.
What in fact characterised the ‘Linkskommunismus’ current was its great distrust towards the ‘intellectuals’,
even revolutionary ones – the expression of a clear workerist tendency. This distrust was later theorised, above
all by Pannekoek and Mattick, when they saw the ‘marxist intelligentsia’ as the expression of a demand for state
capitalism by a particular social stratum, on the Russian model.
Another interpretation which is very widespread today, involves presenting left communism as the reflection of
the discontent of unskilled strata of the proletariat, opposed to the ‘labour aristocracy’ of the educated, skilled
workers. This conception was developed by an ex-member of the KPD, Paul Levi’s friend, Curt Geyer, in 1923,
in his book “Der Radikalismus in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung. Ein soziologischer Versuch“. According to
him, “radicalism is the spiritual and voluntary behaviour of the lower strata of the proletariat... the vulgar
marxist, mechanistic theories of radicalism correspond to the ways of thinking of the workers of big industry.
They are easily understandable and popular, because they correspond to the way their minds work.” And he
added, no without disdain for workers not lucky enough to be part of the ‘higher strata’, that “a weak intellect is
more disposed towards radicalism than a strong intellect...”.
Less contemptuous in tone, but no less negative, is the judgement made by Arthur Rosenberg in 1932, in his
“Geschichte des Bolschewismus: von Marx bis zur Gegenwart” – English translation: A history of bolshevism.
From Marx to first five years' plan, New York: Anchor books, 1967 – which goes in the same direction as that of
Geyer: “this movement was made up of the poorest, the most desperate and most embittered workers. They
passionately hated not only bourgeois society, but the whole social stratum whose life was a little less hard than
theirs. They rejected all diplomacy and all compromise and only accepted extremist actions. They rejected with
fanatical distrust any form of organisation or authority and saw themselves as being betrayed the moment anyone
recommended discipline or moderation.”
One of the old leaders of the left wing of the KPD described this radicalism as ‘utopian extremism’.
More recently, in the wake of the events of May 68, writers like Karl-Heinz Roth and Elisabeth Behrens, in their
book devoted to ‘the other workers’ movement’ (“Die ‘Andere’ Arbeiterbewegung”, Trikont Verlag, 1976)
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