The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Despite the party’s theoretical solidity, there was a serious risk that the SDP would slide into sectarianism. The
party’s links with the industrial proletariat had loosened since the split. Less than half its members worked in
factories or workshops; a considerable number were office workers and teachers. The party leadership – at least
until 1911 111 – was composed of intellectuals, solid theoreticians 112 but – except for Gorter – often sectarian and
doctrinaire. This leadership was tending to transform the SDP into a sect.
The struggle against sectarianism within the SDP was posed from the beginning. In May 1909 Gerrit Mannoury
– one of the leaders of the party and a well-known mathematician – declared that the SDP was the one and only
socialist party, since the SDAP had become a bourgeois party. Gorter, the one who had fought most bitterly
against Troelstra, vigorously opposed this conception. At first in the minority, he showed that although
revisionism did lead towards the bourgeois camp, the SDAP was above all an opportunist party within the
proletarian camp. This position had direct implications at the level of propaganda and agitation in the class. It
was in fact possible to fight alongside the SDAP, whenever the latter still defended a class position, without
making the slightest theoretical concessions to it.
‘Sect or party?’, this was the question Gorter posed very clearly to the whole party in November 1910. 113 The
question was whether the SDP was going to associate itself with a petition for universal suffrage launched by the
SDAP. The SDP, like all the socialist parties of the day, fought for universal suffrage. The central question was
therefore the analysis of political struggles. At first, only a small minority, led by Gorter, supported the idea of
the petition and agitation for universal suffrage. It needed all Gorter’s influence for a small majority to emerge in
favour of common activity with the SDAP. Gorter showed the danger of a tactic of non-participation, which ran
the risk of pushing the party into total isolation. Towards the SDAP, which was certainly “not a true party” but
“a conglomeration, a mass trooped together under a band of demagogues”, the tactic had to be that of a “hornet”
stinging it in the right direction. This attitude was to remain that of the party until the war, when the SDAP
crossed the Rubicon by voting for war credits (see Chapter 3).
The evolution of the SDAP in fact confirmed the validity of the combat which the Tribunists had waged against
the revisionists from the outset. The latter were being progressively drawn into the ideology and state apparatus
of the bourgeoisie. In 1913, the SDAP pronounced itself in favour of military mobilisation in case of war, and
Troelstra openly proclaimed adherence to nationalism and militarism: “We must do our duty” he wrote in the
SDAP daily. 114
Strengthened by its electoral success in 1913, the SDAP, which had won 18 seats, was ready to accept three
‘portefeuilles’ ( ministerial posts) in the new left liberal government of Dirk Bos (1862-1916) – party “Vrijzinnig
Democratische Bond”, or VDB, founded in 1901. The participation in a bourgeois government would have
meant the total abandonment of its remaining proletarian principles by Troelstra’s party; it was becoming a
bourgeois party integrated into the state apparatus. However, there was a last, weak proletarian reaction within
the party: at its Congress in Zwolle (known as ‘portefeuilles’ congres’) a small majority (375 against 320)
emerged, led by Troelstra, opposed to ministerial participation. 115 It is true that the agitation against participation
111 In 1911, a number of workers entered the SDP leadership: men like Barend Luteraan, who played an active part in “De
Zaaier” youth movement during the war, and then at the head of the CPH opposition during 1919-21.
112 Willem van Ravesteyn was a historian and librarian; Cornelis Ceton, a biology teacher; Gerrit Mannoury was a famous
mathematician and logician; Johannis A. N. Knuttel (1878-1965) was a member of the Philology and Literary Commission
of the Dutch Literary Society, writer-compiler for the Dictionary of Dutch language (Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal).
[See: Biografisch woordenboek van het socialisme en de arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, The Hague, 1986-2002, and:
Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, Amsterdam, 1979-2002.]
113 ‘Sekte of Partij’, in: De Tribune, 19 Nov. 1910. Gorter lucidly pointed out that an organisation’s small size was no
guarantee, and was in fact as great a danger as the opportunism of a mass organisation: “Our enemies condemn the small
group to impotence by exclusion: and in a small group, there is the danger that it may close in on itself. This danger
threatens the small organisation, even if its principles are the best in the world. This danger also threatens our own small
party”.
114 Het Volk, 19 May 1913.
115 S. de Wolff, op. cit., p. 121. Rosa Luxemburg, who was ill, informed on the Dutch situation, nonetheless pointed to the
SDAP as an example of ‘intransigence in the International, against’ ministerialism. The radical attitude of Troelstra in the
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