The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

evolutionary situation, with the development of the proletariat’s political action, does the full dimension of the
mass strike’s importance and extent appear”. 53
Rosa Luxemburg, in her polemic against the revisionists, demonstrated better than anyone – except Pannekoek –
the struggle’s homogeneity, that is to say, an identical and simultaneous phenomenon at the turn of the century
spreading throughout Europe, including Holland, and as far as the American continent:
“In 1900, according to the American comrades, the mass strike of the Pennsylvanian miners did more for the
spread of socialist ideas than ten years of agitation; again in 1900 came the mass strike of the Austrian miners. In
1902 that of the miners in France. Again in 1902 a strike paralysed the whole productive apparatus of Barcelona,
in solidarity with the engineers’ struggle, while, still in 1902, a mass strike in Sweden demonstrated for universal
suffrage; similarly in Belgium during the same year, while more than 200,000 farm workers throughout eastern
Galicia struck in defence of the right to form trade unions; in January and April 1903, two mass strikes by Dutch
railwaymen, in 1904 a mass strike by rail workers in Hungary, in 1904 strikes and demonstrations in Italy, to
protest against the massacres in Sardinia, in January 1905, mass strike by the Ruhr miners, in October 1905, a
strike with demonstrations in Prague and the surrounding regions (more than 100,000 workers) for universal
suffrage in the Galician regional parliament. In November 1905 mass strikes and demonstrations throughout
Austria for universal suffrage in the Imperial Council, in 1905 once again a mass strike of Italian farm workers,
and still in 1905, a mass strike of the Italian railway workers...” 54
By preparing the political confrontation with the state, the mass strike poses the question of the revolution. Not
only does it demonstrate the ‘revolutionary energy’ and the ‘proletarian instinct’ of the working masses – as
Gorter emphasised after the 1903 strike 55 – it profoundly altered the whole situation at the turn of the century:
“We have every reason to think that we have now embarked on a period of struggles, where what is at stake is
the state’s power and institutions; combats that may last for decades through all kinds of difficulties, whose
length cannot yet be foreseen, but which will very probably in the short term usher in a fundamental change in
favour of the proletariat in the balance of class forces, if not the seizure of power by the workers in Western
Europe.” 56
These remarks by Kautsky in his book “Der Weg zur Macht” (‘The Road to Power’) were to be taken up by the
Dutch left against Kautsky and his supporters in the Netherlands, such as Troelstra and Vliegen. The 1901 strike
did indeed pose the question of ‘reform or revolution’, and inevitably led, within the SDAP, to a confrontation
with the reformists, who were betraying not only the Party’s revolutionary spirit, but the immediate struggle as
well.
The Marxist opposition within the SDAP (1903–1907)
The opposition within the Party was to be all the more vigorous in that the consequences of the defeat of the
strike, sabotaged by the Troelstra-Vliegen leadership, were a disaster for the workers’ movement. About 4,000
workers were fired for strike action. The membership of the NAS, despite its militant position in the struggle and
its opposition to Vliegen, fell from 8,000 in 1903 to 6,000 in 1904. Troelstra’s SDAP, now with a reputation for
treason, also suffered a considerable drop in membership, from 6,500 members at the end of 1902, to 5,600 at
53 Article by R. Luxemburg, ‘Theory and Practice’, Die Neue Zeit, Vol. 2, 1910. Amongst the texts in: A. Grünenberg (ed.),
Die Massenstreikdebatte. Beiträge von Parvus, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky und Anton Pannekoek (Frankfurt/Main:
Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1970).
54 See the same article, ibid., pp. 204-209.
55 Intervention by Gorter at the SDAP’s 1903 9 th Congress; quoted by Rüter, op. cit., p. 573.
56 K. Kautsky, as quoted by R. Luxemburg in her article ‘Theory and Practice’. Rosa Luxemburg makes polemical use of
Karl Kautsky’s declarations in favour of revolution. Der Weg zur Macht (‘The Road to Power’), written in 1909, had been
the swan-song of the ‘pope of Marxism’.
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