The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Politically, the RSV (like Roland Holst), can be considered as a ‘centrist’ group, between the SDAP and the
SDP. On the one hand, it declared for “national and international mass action”, for the renewal of class
movements; on the other, it refused to condemn the SDAP’s attitude to the war, in the name of a unity which
should be concretised by the “concentration of all revolutionary workers”. Nonetheless, this hesitation did not
prevent an increasingly active collaboration between the RSV and the SDP. However, in concrete practice the
SDP – although it was clearer politically and theoretically – was to trail the RSV when in 1915, the renewal of
international relations between revolutionary groups, which had been broken by the war, became a reality.
From the outbreak of war, Lenin had naturally made contact with the Dutch. He urged the SDP to “create closer
ties” between the Russians and the Dutch. 320 He was certainly not thinking of an association with Roland Holst,
whom he saw – since she had adopted a centrist attitude towards the Tribunists in 1909 – as another Trotsky, or
even Kautsky, transplanted to Holland. 321
But the SDP remained divided about a clear activity of close collaboration with the German and Russian
revolutionaries. A small minority of the party leadership around Gorter was determined to carry out international
work against social-chauvinism and the kautskyist centre. Gorter thus proposed to Lenin the publication of a
Marxist review, with Pannekoek as editor, to replace Kautsky’s Neue Zeit. 322 Lenin agreed entirely with this
proposal. In reality, the efforts within the SDP towards regroupment with other revolutionary groups in
Switzerland, before Zimmerwald, were the work of Gorter and Luteraan another member of the SDP leadership,
and a delegate to the Bern international conference of socialist youth in April 1915, not as an official
representative of the SDP, but as a member of the young socialist group ‘De Zaaier’ (‘The Sower’), which was
independent of the party. 323 This organisation had 100 members, and published the journal De Jonge socialist
(‘The Young Socialist’). Luteraan immediately made contact with Lenin. 324
By contrast, the position of Tribunism’s old leaders – Wijnkoop, Ravesteyn, and Ceton – was very ambiguous.
Lenin wanted to work closely with the Dutch in preparing the Zimmerwald Conference. In a letter to Wijnkoop,
written during the summer, Lenin wrote forcefully: “But you and we are independent parties; we must do
something: formulate the programme of the revolution, unmask and denounce the stupid and hypocritical
slogans of peace”. 325 An urgent telegram was sent to Wijnkoop just before the Conference: “Come straight
away!”. 326
And yet, the SDP sent no delegates to the Conference, which took place from 5 th to 8 th September 1915.
Wijnkoop and his friends circulated the – unconfirmed – information that the Conference’s organiser, the Swiss
MP Robert Grimm, had voted at the beginning of the war in favour of credits for the mobilisation of the Swiss
army. On 25 th September, De Tribune published the ‘Zimmerwald Manifesto’ written by Trotsky, but did not
320 Letter from Lenin, in: Wiessing, Die holländische Schule des Marxismus (Hamburg: VSA, 1980), pp. 33-34.
321 After Zimmerwald, Lenin became more ‘soft’ with Roland Holst, “a comrade, who stays in a median position between
Marxists (‚De Tribune’, Gorter, Pannekoek) and opportunists” [Contre le courant, Vol. 2 (Paris: Maspéro reprint, 1970),
p. 15)]. Roland Holst wrote a political article on Zimmerwald’s significance: De internationale socialistische konferentie van
Zimmerwald, in: De Nieuwe Tijd (1915), pp. 591-599. She gave a personal (and relevant) testimony on the conference, in: Het
Fundament (1935), ‘Herinneringen aan Zimmerwald’. In its unpublished ‘Memories’ on Leo Trotsky (Persoonlijke
herinneringen aan Leo Trotski, 1940, IISG’s archives), she thought that the attitude of Trotsky was by far away more
“positive” than that of Lenin, essentially “destructive”.
322 Letter from Gorter, cited by Wiessing, op. cit., p. 34. This letter, like much of Gorter’s correspondence, can be found in
the former ZPA (Zentrales Partei Archiv) of the Moscow Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Wiessing was able to gain access
to them. Some letters of Gorter’s correspondence with Lenin have been published: Garmt Stuiveling, ‘Gorters brieven aan
Lenin’, in a collective work: Willens en wetens (Amsterdam: Querido, 1967).
323 See G. Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1961). The Bern conference was strongly oriented to the
left. The Socialist Youth International published in its magazine Jugend Internationale contributions against the war.
324 See Luteraan’s testimony, in an interview by Igor Cornelissen in 1964: ‘Lenin vroeg: hoe gaat het met Gorter?’ (‘Lenin
asked me: how is Gorter?’), Vrij Nederland, 28 th Nov. 1964.
325 Letter written in June or July 1915, in Lenin’s Letters: Briefe, Vol. IV (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1967), p. 80.
326 H. Lademacher (ed.), Die Zimmerwalder Bewegung. Protokolle und Korrespondenz. Vol. II (The Hague: Mouton, 1967),
p. 103.
99