The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

production are still persisting and with the development of capitalism are becoming more prolonged and
extensive, so that ills that were once limited locally are more and more becoming world-wide catastrophes.” 85
The majority in the SDAP considered these attacks on Troelstra’s revisionist theories to be merely personal.
After this the revisionists forbade the selling of De Tribune at a public meeting where Troelstra was speaking,
thus committing an extremely serious act in the history of the workers’ movement and in contradiction with the
freedom of criticism in a workers’ party. This was the beginning of the process of the exclusion of Marxist
positions, a process which was to accelerate brutally in the years following 1909.
Gorter against Troelstra on the question of ‘proletarian morality’ (December 1908)
During 1908, De Tribune published a collection of Gorter’s major contributions to the popularisation of
Marxism: “Historical Materialism Explained to Workers”. Taking the example of the 1903 strike, Gorter showed
that the class struggle produced an authentic class morality which entered into contradiction with the ‘general’
morality defended by the supporters of the existing order. The materialist conception, defended by Gorter, which
undermined the fundamentals of any religious morality, was violently attacked in parliament by the Calvinist
delegate De Savornin Lohman on 19 th and 20 th November. In defending the unity of the nation, he accused social
democracy of wanting to incite war between the classes and thus intoxicate the working class with Marxism.
Instead of making a bloc with Gorter in the face of attacks by a representative of this bourgeois conception,
Troelstra launched into a diatribe against Gorter, whom he presented as unrepresentative of the party and a mere
caricature of Marxism. For him, morality was not determined by social relations; it was equally valid for the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie. To support this he drew on the ambiguous concepts that Marx had used in the
statutes of the 2 nd International: those of rights, duties and justice. 86 But Troelstra, by deliberately confusing
values common to mankind and the official morality which he presented as universal, transformed the morality
of the class struggle – guided by common interests and an activity aiming at victory – into a monstrosity.
Gorter’s materialism was a pure appeal to murder and ended up in a vision of barbarism. According to him,
Gorter, for example, would be against “a worker saving a capitalist’s son from drowning”. 87 Troelstra’s
demagogy in this argument was identical to De Savornin Lohman’s, with whom he sided.
Gorter replied spiritedly, as was his style, as much against De Savornin Lohman as Troelstra, with a rapidly
written pamphlet, published for the needs of the struggle. 88 After a period of political isolation, he threw himself
into the struggle for the party. Gorter focused sharply on the person of Troelstra who “in reality, in the essence of
what he is saying, has chosen the camp of the bourgeoisie”. 89 He also showed that Troelstra was betraying
Marx’s real thinking by using the ambiguous terms of the statutes of the 2 nd International. The correspondence
between Marx and Engels, published some years later, triumphantly vindicated Gorter’s arguments. In a letter of
4 th November 1884, Marx explained that he had been obliged to, make some concessions to the Proudhonists: “I
85 See: R. Luxemburg: The Accumulation of Capital (New York: Routledge, 2003). Pannekoek’s critique – ‘Theoretisches
zur Ursache der Krisen’ – was published in Kautsky’s Die Neue Zeit, Vol. 31 (1912-1913), pp. 780-792.
86 In a letter to Lion Philips, dated 29 November 1864, Marx explained very clearly why he had included these figures of
speech inherited from a bygone era: “Out of politeness to the Italians and the French who always use grand phrases. I had to
accept a few useless figures of speech in the Preamble to the Statutes, but not in the Address.” [quoted by R. Dangeville, Le
Parti de classe : activité, organisation (Paris: ‘Petite collection Maspéro’, 1973)].
87 This assertion by Troelstra is quoted in Gorter’s polemical pamphlet: Klassemoraal, een antwoord aan Jhr. de Savornin
Lohman en Mr. P.J. Troelstra, leden der Tweede Kamer, Dec. 1908 (‘Class morality: an answer to jongheer De Savornin
Lohman and Mr. P.J. Troelstra, members of Parliament’).
On De Savornin Lohman, Christian conservative Calvinist politician, founder of the Christelijk Historische Unie (CHU) in
June 1908, see: L.C. Suttorp: Jhr. Mr. A .E de Savornin Lohman (1837-1924): zijn leven en werken (The Hague: A.A.M.
Stols, 1948).
88 Adapted from the articles published in De Tribune, 5 th Dec. 1908.
89 See: Klassemoraal, p. 11.
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