The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

‘right’ 100 – which was based in the Belgian capital. The aim of the meeting was to resolve the ‘Dutch question’.
Contrary to their fears, Gorter and Wijnkoop got a lot of understanding from the ISB; it was indignant about the
expulsions decided at Deventer, and tried to obtain the reintegration of the excluded members as the free
expression of Marxism within the SDAP. Huysmans, the secretary of the Bureau, went to Holland as a mediator,
to obtain the following decisions from the SDAP:
– annulment of the Deventer exclusions;
– the acceptance of one of the excluded editors in the new weekly run by Henriëtte Roland Holst;
– the recognition of the right of expression for the Marxist minority.
On all these points, the leading organs of the SDAP seemed to be shaken by Huysman’s opinions, put forward
on 15 th March. But, the day before, in Amsterdam, there had been held the founding Congress of the Tribunist
party, which took the name SDP (Social Democratic Party). Its foundation had thus been decided on by its
members without even waiting for the results of the ISB’s negotiations with the SDAP. The latter, though aware
of the discussions since 10 th March, had confirmed the exclusions on 13 th March.
The SDP was thus born in a situation of extreme confusion. It was a small party of 419 members divided into
nine sections. Its programme was that of the old party prior to 1906, before the revisionist modifications.
Wijnkoop was nominated by the Congress as party president, because of his organisational capacities. Gorter
became a member of the SDP leadership. But his organisational weight was too weak to counteract the personal,
even ambitious policies of Wijnkoop, who was ready to sacrifice any possibility of unity on the altar of ‘his’
group. Such a policy was all too convenient for the revisionist majority of the SDAP who wanted a definitive
split with the Marxist current.
For all these reasons, the ISB’s efforts to put an end to the split failed. A majority of the Extraordinary Congress
urgently called for 21 st March a week after the founding Congress, rejected Huysman’s proposal to return to the
SDAP. Gorter, along with a few of the SDAP’s old guard, was in favour. He judged the attitude of Wijnkoop to
be particularly irresponsible, denouncing him in private as ‘unboundedly opinionated’. 101 He was so demoralised
that he even considered leaving the SDP. However, the rejection by the ISB and the SDAP of the conditions for
the reintegration of the Tribunist militants made him decide to commit himself fully to the activity of the new
party.
The Congress of 21 st March, despite Wijnkoop’s ambiguous attitude, had in fact left a door open to a
reintegration into the old party. A Congress resolution expressed the majority’s desire to maintain a single party
in Holland. The Congress therefore put forward its conditions for the Tribunists to maintain their Marxist
criticism and activity within the SDAP were they to be accepted: “[the Congress] wishes there to be a single
Social-Democratic party in Holland and directs the Party Committee, in the interests of unity, to give itself the
full power to dissolve the SDP as soon as:
– the SDAP, through a referendum, annuls the exclusion of the three editors;
100 In 1914, all were to join the ‘Union sacrée” against Germany.
101 Letter from Louise Gorter to Pannekoek on 23 rd March 1909, quoted by De Liagre Böhl, op. cit. Although he could only
follow the situation from a distance, in Berlin where he had been teaching since 1906 in the SDP’s party school. Pannekoek
agreed wholeheartedly with Gorter. He was against any hurried split, in order to win over a large part of the old party. In a
letter, he advised Wijnkoop to form a compact Marxist group, and even to accept “the suppression of De Tribune”.
Although he fully supported the new party, he was very critical of Wijnkoop and Van Ravesteyn. In his memoirs, written in
1944, he considered that the two leaders “sole intention was to create their own party”. These quotations (Herinneringen,
op. cit., pp. 143-145) show how closely Gorter and Pannekoek agreed on the need to form a Marxist fraction in the old party
before considering a split.
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