The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

This was the beginning of an increasingly close joint activity by the SDP and the Bolsheviks. It was partly
thanks to the Russian left that the SDP was finally accepted as a full section of the International in 1910. With
one mandate, against seven for the SDAP, it was able to take part in the international congresses of Copenhagen
in 1910, and Basle in 1912. 107
Despite the manoeuvres of the revisionists, the SDP thus took its place in the international workers’ movement.
It was to fight alongside the international left, but especially the German left, for the defence of revolutionary
principles. Temporarily, however, the Marxist tendency in Holland was weakened by the split. Most of the
Tribunists had proven unable to fight to the end within the SDAP, either to reconquer the party, or at least to win
over the majority of workers. Their hasty split meant that the Tribunist leaders were unable to bring with them
elements like Sneevliet, Roland Holst, and Van der Goes, who remained Marxists, but with a centrist ‘wait and
see’ attitude. This being said, the little Tribunist party was undoubtedly a pole of clarity and regroupment for the
revolutionary elements.
The SDP’s Activity in Holland up until 1914
Up until the First World War, when it was to gain a growing audience in the proletariat, the SDP was ‘crossing
the desert’. It remained a small party without much influence in the Dutch proletariat: a few hundred militants
against several thousand in Troelstra’s SDAP. Its numerical growth was very slow and limited, despite its
militant spirit: at the time of the split, the SDP had 408 militants; by 1914, 525. 108 In percentage, the ‘party’ had
lost women militants: the SDP had 38 % of women in 1912, 28 % in 1914, according to De Tribune of May 13,
1914. The number of subscribers to De Tribune was limited and fluctuating: 900 at the time of the Deventer
Congress, 1,400 in May 1909 and 1,266 in 1914. Because of its limited audience, the SDP was never a
parliamentary party – though it became one at the end of the war; its participation in elections always ended in a
debacle. At the June 1909 elections, it won 1.5% of the votes in each district. Even Gorter, reputed to be the best
orator in the party, the only one able to arouse the workers’ enthusiasm 109 , met with a resounding failure: urged
to stand as a parliamentary candidate in 1913, in Amsterdam and the industrial town of Enschede, he won 196
votes for the SDP as against 5,325 for the SDAP. But although it took part in elections, this was not the real
terrain of the SDP, in contrast to the SDAP which had become completely bogged down in them.
Reduced to the size of a small group, the SDP – owing to the unfavourable conditions in which the Deventer
split had taken place – was unable to rally to its side the youth organisation, which had traditionally been
actively and radically in the forefront of the struggle against capitalism and war. The youth organisation “De
Zaaier” (‘The Sower’), which had been created in 1901, wanted to remain autonomous: its sections were free to
attach themselves to one or other of the two parties. 110 When, in 1911, the SDAP created its own youth
organisation, essentially to counteract the anti-militarist activity of “De Zaaier”, the latter broke up. The few
remaining militants (about 100) nevertheless refused to follow the SDP, despite their common orientation.
107 De Tribune, 10 September 1910. Wijnkoop and Van Ravesteyn (replacing Gorter, who was ill) were delegates to the
1910 Copenhagen congress.
108 Figures given by H. de Liagre Böhl, op. cit., p. 58.
109 According to Roland Holst (Kapitaal en Arbeid, op. cit., p. 93), Gorter was the only one able to “touch the workers
hearts, and arouse real enthusiasm in them”. However, his bourgeois education – but also the period, when the ‘leaders’ of
worker’s parties were often far removed from the rank-and-file – kept Gorter at a distance from the real workers. An
anecdote demonstrates this: Invited to make a propaganda visit to the textile town of Enschedé, Gorter stepped down from
the train, and calmly went to drink a coffee in a well known café, leaving the worker Van het Reve who had come to meet
him, to wait outside. After 1920, Van het Reve was to become a leader of the CPH [G.J.M. Van het Reve, Mijn rode jaren,
Herinneringen van een ex-Bolsjeviek (Utrecht: Ambo, 1982), p. 62].
110 Ger Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, ontstaan, ontwikkeling en teruggang van de Nederlandse jeugdbeweging tussen
1853 en 1940 (Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp., 1961). [Reprint, Nijmegen: SUN, 1971.]
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