The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

During 1915, opposition to the war began to increase throughout Europe, giving an impetus to the movement
which was to lead to Zimmerwald. In Britain, the first great strikes of the war began in February, in the Clyde
Valley. At the same time in Germany, the first food riots broke out, where working women protested against
rationing. In Holland itself, working women were later to play an important part in the struggle against the war.
In Russia, from May until August, strikes spread through the textile industry. Political opposition to the war
emerged from hiding. On 20 th March, Otto Rühle, who till then had voted for war credits ‘by discipline’, joined
Liebknecht in voting against, while 30 social-democrat deputies abstained by leaving the Reichstag. There was a
significant renewal of revolutionary forces. Alongside the ‘International Socialists’ who published Lichtsstrahlen
(‘Rays of Light’) and were close to the Bolsheviks and the Bremen Linksradikale, Rosa Luxemburg’s group
distributed thousands of leaflets against the war, and in April published the first issue of Die Internationale,
calling for the “reconstruction of the International”. Even in France, where chauvinism was particularly strong,
reactions appeared against the war. Unlike Germany, these came first from the revolutionary syndicalists around
Monatte, influenced by Trotsky and his group Nashe Slovo (‘Our Word’). In the engineers’ and teachers’
federations of the Isère and the Rhone, the majority declared against the ‘Sacred Union’. Within the Socialist
party, the Haute-Vienne federation took the same direction.
These were the preconditions for the Zimmerwald movement. Within the socialist parties, a de facto split was
under way on the question of war and the break with ‘social-chauvinism’, which posed the question of
reorganising the revolutionary International. It was posed in the two conferences held in Bern in the spring. The
conference of socialist women, held on 25 th /27 th March did so negatively, since although it declared ‘war on
war’, it refused to condemn the ‘social patriots’, or to consider a new International. The bolshevik delegates left
the conference, refusing to endorse an ambiguous attitude. The second conference, of the international socialist
youth, responded positively: it decided to establish an autonomous international youth bureau, and to publish a
periodical, Jugend Internationale, to fight against the 2 nd International. In a manifesto, the delegates declared
their support for “all revolutionary actions, and all class struggle”. “It is a hundred times better to die in prison as
victims of the revolutionary struggle, than to fall on the battlefield in a struggle against our own comrades of
other countries, for our enemies’ thirst for profit.” 318
The Dutch Young Socialists, close to the Tribunist SDP, joined this radical tendency. In Holland, within the
SDAP itself, militants opposed to their party’s nationalist policy – made official at the Arnhem Congress in April
1915 – had regrouped in a ‘Revolutionary Socialist Club’ in Amsterdam. The initiative came from Wout Wolda,
and above all from A. B. Soep, who had been prevented from speaking against nationalism at the Congress, and
who had published a pamphlet with the significant title of Nationalism or Internationalism? They decided to
create a federation of clubs, which took the name of “Revolutionair Socialistisch Verbond” (RSV,
‘Revolutionary Socialist Union’). They intended to develop an opposition to the war, both inside and outside the
SDAP. However the RSV leadership included elements who did not belong to Troelstra’s SDAP. The RSV’s
recognised spokesman was Roland Holst, who had been outside any party since leaving the SDAP in 1912.
Essentially composed of intellectuals, the RSV had little influence in the working class. Its reduced numbers –
100 members at the most – gave it more the appearance of a cartel than an organisation. Its members were
organisationally very confused: many were still in the SDAP, and so belonged to two organisations. This
situation was to last for several months, until they were expelled from the SDAP, or left voluntarily. No less
vague was the attitude of the members of the Tribunist SDP, who although they were members of a
revolutionary organisation, nonetheless joined the RSV. The SDP’s Utrecht Congress (20 th June 1915) had to be
very firm in banning membership of multiple organisations. Those who had joined the RSV on 2 nd May 1915
were required to leave it. 319
318 Jugend Internationale, No. 1, Zürich, 1 st September 1915. [Reprint: Jugend Internationale. Die elf historische Nummern
der Kriegsausgabe 1915-1918 (Berlin: Verlag Neuer Kurs, 1972).]
319 De Tribune, 17 th July 1915. The RSV published a monthly De Internationale. The RSV was represented under this name
by Roland Holst at Zimmerwald. Sneevliet left the SDAP to join the RSV in March 1916, then the SDP in Indonesia. In
1912, he had already left the SDAP for the SDP. A year later, he rejoined the SDAP on his departure for Indonesia.
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