Dutch Digest
Dear Comrade Dawson:
The Dutch material to which I referred in my last communication consists of two different papers—Spartacus, the weekly organ of the Communist League, and now in its seventh year of publication, and secondly, De Vrije Socialist, weekly organ of the Free Socialists in the Netherlands, and founded in 1898 by Ferdinand Domela Niewenhuis, the celebrated Dutch Socialist and anti-militarist.
[De Vrije Socialist was sent to us by Wm. Van Den Hoff, of Seattle, Wash., U.S.A.]
The issues of Spartacus to hand are those of October to February last. Perhaps I need scarcely say that the Spartacus Communist League has nothing to do with the so-called "Communist" Party, more correctly known as Stalinists, but stands for genuine communism, namely, common ownership, and direct control by the workers.
Various articles in the issues before me are of interest to any student of international politics, and I shall therefore translate several of these.
In the issue of 19th October last is an article entitled "Are You, Too, a Cold-footer?" It says:
"We have lately received a folder which has been issued by the Information Service of the General Staff, and which is addressed to young men. It is illustrated by pictures that let you see what a fine fellow a soldier really is—in short, it is sheer propaganda for militarism.
We were already acquainted with this propaganda in the years of the German occupation; the Nazis swamped us with incentives to take service with the Storm Troops or the Free Legion, to fight in Russia. They, too, asked why we were not yet on the Eastern Front, and, following on their example, we shall, perhaps, be asked soon why we are not yet fighting in the East Indies. It is militarism to-day at every tick of the clock. It makes you giddy to read of the mighty sums that are being extracted for purposes of destruction. And there is retrenchment in everything else—in education, hygiene, the people's health, social services, sport, science, etc. Thousands of young men are taken from their work, although there are still plenty of complaints over the shortage of labor supply. Such is the position here, and such is the position the whole world over at the present moment. We know that militarism is indissolubly linked with the capitalist system; that one cannot fight against one without fighting against the other. We are aware, also, that the great capitalist powers, as we now know them, need a very strong military apparatus to defend their possessions.
Netherlands has been incorporated in the capitalist front, so that our bourgeois have no other choice left. We must do everything for these Great Powers that is necessary for the promotion of capitalism, and that lays all sorts of duties upon us. One can vote at the elections as one likes, but always we are fighting a government which has control here. Once can send as many motions of protest to the Government as one likes. It avails nothing, for the Government must carry out the obligations it has assumed, that is to say, propaganda for militarism must also be carried on. The war mentality must be preserved and still be increased as much as possible. One of the pictures in the folder shows us a pair of soldiers who are shooting with a machine gun, or something of the sort. Underneath, it says: "Are you, too, a cold-footer, at any price?"
"This price is a man's life, but nothing is said about that. This is the spirit that they are trying to arouse, the spirit of the beast-men, who at the word of command destroy everything as they are bid. That is what is made of young men by militarism, one of the worst outgrowths of the capitalist system. For us, this is one more reason to fight with all the strength that is in us against this abominable system, and to carry on tirelessly with our propaganda so that the working class shall attain to the insight to make an end to it."
This concludes this particular article. The resemblance to Australian conditions is illuminating. The writer might almost have been talking to the Chifley Government.
A longer article in the same issue, October 19, is entitled "Proletarian Mass-movement," with the sub-title, "The Amsterdam September Strikes as a Proletarian Mass-movement." It says:
"When the September strike against the compulsory sending of troops to the East Indies broke out at Amsterdam, this caught on well in a very short time so that in a few hours several tens of thousands from various branches of industry were involved in it. A new unity of struggle had arisen which we called a new consciousness of ourselves. And the explanation for such a swift spread lies in this, that the working class is practically always existent as such a consciousness, but as long as it does not come to the point of action, it is still merely a consciousness that is asleep.
"Now the most desirable thing for such movements is that they should have the necessary time to come to a full development. But you don't start from one or another organisation, which throughout the whole country, calls on all to participate in the movement. So also the notice of the September strike had first of all to be spread about so that all the time more and more should be drawn into the movement. And already, early in the morning, came the news from Zaanstreek that there also work had stopped in several industries; while in Ijmuider also the blast furnaces had gone on strike. What mattered now in the first place was to give the movement time to come to a full development, so that the working population of Rotterdam, Twente, and the other industrial districts could join in it.
"Only by the movement being allowed to come to fruition could a really great demonstration against the sending of troops abroad have taken place.
"Through the intervention of the Stalinist Party it did not really come to fruition. Just as the Stalinists in other countries have gained an inglorious fame as strike-breakers, so also their organisation in Netherlands could not be left behind in that regard. Already throughout the morning this organisation circulated a handbill that the Minister Beel must go, and their activities became a fight against a Minister, instead of a fight against the despatch of troops. Then one of the Stalinist leaders spoke to the strikers at Amsterdam, announcing that this movement was to be no more than a protest strike of 24 hours' duration. That was at 11 o'clock in the morning. This signified nothing else than that the Stalinists' plan was not to let this movement come to its full development. They practically killed the movement when it was still hardly begun.
And as it is true that the movement was begun by the Stalinist party, it only seems then that a genuine movement against the despatch of troops had not been among this party's real purposes. It would only mean that for the Stalinists this movement had merely the significance of a squabble involving the Minister concerned, as a part of their Parliamentary policy. In other words: they misused the masses for their own political purposes. (Emphasis mine.—K.J.K.)
"This course of events brings back to our memory the French postal strike at the beginning of August last. Under pressure from the postal men the Stalinist Trade Union leader announced a protest strike of 24 hours' duration. And this call was promptly and generally followed. But the postmen had already decided that a strike, as thus determined, was too inadequate, and therefore immediately began to organise the strike themselves when the leadership of the Trade Unions discontinued it. So a postal strike took place right through France, which was also directed against their own Trade Union, or, to speak in terms of psychology: The sleeping consciousness of the class became a self-conscious and active organism.
"At the outbreak of the September strike in Amsterdam, nothing of a similar kind happened. It was indeed a deep disillusionment, and many workers declared to us that they had expected nothing from this strike, as they had known beforehand that it would be called off immediately. But the call was, nevertheless, pretty generally followed. Only at the blast-furnaces was there still a bit of work carried on, and in some industries work carried on, and in some industries work was not done, even on the following day. But it did not come to the point of a new social force arising out of this sleeping consciousness. Therefore, the September strike stands on a lower sociological level than the French postal strike.
"We said above that the September strike had not reached the dimensions of a major demonstration against the despatch of troops, through the intervention of the Stalinist Party. And that is quite true; but it is more fruitful for the working class to examine the matter from another point of view. For we must just as truly say that it did not become a major demonstration through a lack of insight and of strength to act, on the part of the workers themselves. It is always well to seek the fault in ourselves, when the masses go wrong, for we must conduct ourselves as a class as a thinking and acting factor in social life.
"It has been demonstrated with the greatest of clearness, in this episode, how necessary it is that in every conflict, of whatever sort it may be, there should immediately be a strike committee formed out of the workers on the job, so that it can be a true working class conflict. And the committees of the workers on the job together a Workers' Council which binds together the whole terrain of the strike. The sleeping consciousness of the class then becomes the active consciousness of action in social deliberateness. Then there arises also a true movement from the workers themselves, and they do not so easily become pawns for this or that slick politician.
"This is the great lesson that the workers have to learn from the course of the September strike. This is the idea that the working class must appear in the arena as a new social power. That appears quite plain. And it is so.
"But, nevertheless, the breaking through of the idea embraces a whole period of ever new struggle and ever new disappointments, because old traditions so powerfully hinder a grasp of the new and simple truths."
This concludes the article I have selected from the issue of Spartacus for October 26. Here, again, we see a parallel with Australia. The treachery of the Stalinists on the question of the despatch of troops is paralleled here by their treachery on the question of the rocket range bomb range (See June issue, p. 14, "The Rocket Range Project.")
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In the issue of Spartacus for November 9 there is an article on:
"RUSSIAN OR WESTERN DEMOCRACY"
The article is as follows:—
"Bourgeois democracy no longer has any significance in the fight waged by the working class against its oppressors. On the contrary, it is a social order which perpetuates the oppression of the working class. It is, therefore, also our meaning that the workers' own power must develop if they wish to free themselves from capitalist domination. They must organise themselves on the basis of industries, in order to take possession of these and to take in hand production for the needs of men. And by means of workers' delegates from industry, by workers' councils, they must establish a management, a new policy, through which workers' democracy shall be realised. Only then shall an end come to capitalist exploitation and oppression as a ruling class.
"We underline this, our conviction, anew, at the commencement of this article, so as to disclose clearly that we are not deviating from it when we indicate that a struggle can still be carried on through the means of bourgeois democracy. Naturally, we are not thinking here of Parliamentary action, achieved along the way of bourgeois democracy, or of political management, or of Parliament itself.
"That the class struggle cannot be forward here; but merely the collapse and subjection of the working class accomplished needs no demonstration. Also we do not have in mind the mutual strife of parties, which contest seats in Parliament with each other. We are alluding to the great electoral conflicts, when the great masses of the people come into movement and utilise the elections to demonstrate their will at exciting political moments.
"Such moments are rare in history, and they have little to do with bourgeois democracy and Parliamentarianism as such. The People's Front Election in Spain, the prelude to the Spanish Revolution of 1936, was such a moment. The elections for the Berlin Municipal Council, held on October 20 last, also bore this character, that by a majority of votes the population demonstratively expressed their will. It is true with a quite other tendency, and also not with so great significance as in Spain. But, nevertheless, the people made use of the vote to speak for or against—'for Western democracy' is what our bourgeois press makes out of it.
"Let us test closely what truth there is in that.
"Russian or Western democracies—what difference is there between them? Our 'democrats' extol Western democracy and say it is better than the Russian. The hangers-on of Russia contend, on the contrary, that only Russian democracy fulfils the demands of a true democracy. There immediately comes to mind the contention of Hitler that National Socialist democracy was the best. If one contents oneself with such assertions, then, in the most favorable case, it remains a theoretical question. Or, and that is less favorable, one joins one of the competing parties, and thereby cuts oneself off from what the other party has to say about the matter. It becomes different when one feels the blessings of a real democracy in one's life.
"Thus the Netherlands workers find every day that 'our' Western democracy makes the workers completely impotent, for Government bureaux' official decrees and those of recognised organisations decide all the social questions to which our personal lives are becoming more subject every day. The dictatorship of authority is expanding over all possible spheres, and the more it expands the more impotent 'the people' feel. That is the content of Western democracy, and one must live under it to learn to know it.
"So also the Berlin people have experienced the first rough grip of Russian 'democracy,' and by their votes for the Municipal Council have demonstrated their aversion. They had had enough experience of that sort of democracy when, under Hitler, 'the party' had done the talking. Whoever belonged to 'the party' could give orders, but he, himself, again stood under party discipline, and must be obedient to orders coming from higher up. The mass of the people was completely powerless.
"In Russia, democracy is simply the principle of party rule followed even more logically and thoroughly. There, authority directly invades private life. Factories, transport, necessities of life, housing, schools, press, radio—everything is State property, and the 'party' sceptre holds sway over all—the one and indivisible State party, which tolerates no opposition or contradiction which kills refractory persons, or kicks them out as renegades from its ranks—the party with the iron discipline, which preserves its unity by blindly following what its central chief, Stalin, commands in person.
"The people of Berlin were afforded the opportunity by the Municipal Council Elections, of accepting this Russian democracy or, to express it better, this party domination. They rejected it—that is the significance of this election. Indeed, the election took place after the Socialist Unity Party, under the pressure of the Russian occupation, had been brought into existence. It had been expected that it would secure the majority of the votes, and would become the one and only State party for this occupied territory, the party which could take over the legal introduction of 'democracy' according to the Russian model. It was an experiment of which one could covertly say: how the Russians had it in their hands, thus to test with the Berlin people, as to how much one could still expect that they would offer resistance to pressure.
"The Berliners in 1933 submitted to the Hitler democracy, and the bitter end of all that is still daily visible to their eyes. But they knew all too well that to express themselves for the Russian-sponsored Socialist Unity Party was the beginning of a new and even more terrible adventure. Did they have the hope of voting against that party to escape from this adventure? That is not to be assumed; but they were not going to contribute to it, they were not going to pronounce in favor of it.
"One can understand that there is pressure enough exerted; for the Russians have it in their power at any moment to seize the most vital necessities of life of the whole population. They also actually have seized such things, for the inventories of many factories have been forwarded to Russia, others have made works for Russian establishments. The connecting-up to Russian economy of the Russian-occupied territory was already decided, in fact—the only thing possible besides. The formation of a single Socialist Unity Party signified nothing more than that a single German administration was to carry out what the occupation authorities now perform. That could have taken place behind a democratic screen, and in the eyes of the mandatory power (Russia) that was a recommendation.
"Now that the recommendation has not been accepted, the mandatory power appears again without scruple, as such. Thousands of technicians and wage-workers have been sent after the factory installations.
"The Berlin workers—for they form the great mass of the electors—knew that things stood thus: That their lot, this was or that, was decided. That they refused to help the party regime into the saddle, and that they thereby voluntarily placed themselves under the penalties of party discipline, testifies to a deeper consciousness than people outside Berlin can conceive. For it is not only pressure that could have brought them to accept. There are enough proletarians spread over the whole world who, as fanatical followers of the Stalin Party voluntarily subject themselves to the obedience of party discipline and swallow an open betrayal of their class because they see the victory of Russia and of their own party as the only way by which the working class can be freed from capitalist domination. It should also not be overlooked that about 400,000 votes out of nearly two million went to the Socialist Unity Party. The expectations of a victory by the party were, therefore, not wholly without foundation. Only a real glimpse of Russian democracy destroyed its chances.
"Through letter from Berlin we here learned that 'tragic mistakes' took place at the time of liberation by the Red Army—for instance, that the workers of Berlin, who wildly greeted the liberators were treated as Fascists who deserved to be shot down. But how could it be otherwise, when the Russian soldiers were daily subjected to the hate propaganda of Ilya Ehrenburge, which depicted all Germans as Fascists. We have seen such 'tragic mistakes' happening during the war when we heard the voice of Moscow Radio ask the Netherlands patriots: 'Have you all fulfilled your task? Have you all killed a German?' It has not just remained at this 'tragic mistakes.' The people, and the workers, have been treated as vanquished, with all the consequence of that situation.
"There has now already been for quite a long time political pressure on the masses, under which everybody must measure his words. If you are not on your guard the consequences could be fatal. In such an atmosphere one cannot gain a majority for the voluntary acceptance of that sort of democracy. Perhaps the elections were the last opportunity to demonstrate aversion to it. What still cannot be said about the whole business is that it was an expression in favor of Western democracy."
In the issue of Spartacus of November 30 there is an article on "Spartacus and Militarism." It says:—
"How does Spartacus stand on the question of militarism? Well, that is quickly stated. It stands against militarism because militarism stands against the working class. Militarism is not the first, but indeed the last word of capital in the class struggle. When the means of fraud and deception, veiled behind that phrase, 'consideration of the question,' have failed and the worker seizes on his means par excellence, the strike, then the military are called to arms, then they try to break the strike with armed blacklegs, with arms, which comes pretty well to the same thing.
"We are not stating anything of which any worker is unaware, for insofar as he has had no experience of it himself, instances lie close at hand, within his grasp; they are still before us in the memories of the strikes of the wharf laborers in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. As regards America, there is no need to speak. And every worker knows this also. He is always more or less conscious of this abominable power. It feels to him like a permanent threat, which already makes many people waver right from the beginning. It is then also the effective power of the ruler which strikes us down and destroys us. No single link can bind us to this power. It is, by its nature, the means for one class to dominate and oppress the other. Without this instrument of power the subjection of the working class would not be possible. This has conduced to many seeing in militarism the cause of the subjection, and to fight it in separate anti-military organisations or, insofar as the political parties are concerned, to treat it as a problem apart, in long resolutions, without having arrived first of all at a concerted and clear analysis of the question. In reality, militarism does not form an independent problem. It is one of the means—though a very powerful one—through which, on international rivalry, and on the other hand, suppresses the working class, so that the making of surplus value should pursue its course undisturbed.
"The standpoint of the anti-militarists in this question is, in essence, the same as that of the Socialist parties of the old stamp. These, too, wanted the working class and all humanity to fight militarism as an independent phenomenon. In their statements of principles and their programmes the parties had chapters set apart, specially devoted to this subject. Their ideas and objectives never went beyond a People's Army (Social-Democratic programme) or Arming of the People (Communist programme). As long as reformism was not completely in control, in the Socialist Democratic Party, they have a free Radical meaning to their People's Army. They voted against every war credit, and the slogan, "Not one man and not one penny," also resounded in the Lower House. But in their first coalition with the Liberals and Independent Democrats the agreement was reached that they would not vote against a war credit as long as it was not higher than the previous one.
"The reformist method—to reach the Promised Land gradually by small improvements—was here put into practice on this question of militarism. Capital was beginning to be weakened at this point, and militarism was being checked, it was said. That clever Troelstra, the leader, had wickedly led the Liberals by the nose. What he represented to the Liberals as a concession to the mwas [sic] really a victory, a concession by the Liberals. That the latter also did not really lack slickness, appeared from their behavior at the elections, when once the Leftist Ministry had got to them. The grant for war purposes was indeed higher, but that was only because everything had become so much dearer; it was, nevertheless, known to everybody that the prices of everything had risen very swiftly in late years. But, in August, 1914, came the war, which put an end to all slickness. In practically all countries, the Social Democrats stood in the front rank to defend 'the Fatherland,' and a week before its sudden and unexpected end, the Social Democrats of Germany, in great announcements in their party paper Vorwaerts, were asking for the last penny from the starving proletariat in order that the war should be prosecuted.
"This question of anti-militarism gave further trouble. It could not leave men's minds in peace. Pacifism, the consequence of the aversion to war, enforced itself in the Socialist Party in Netherlands, and found expression finally in a resolution arrived at by pressure from the oppositionist De Kadt, in which 'bold obedience' was mentioned, to be invoked in case of the army being used. Very Radical, this. After the opposition was out of the party this resolution was revoked, and so was the tactic of democratisation of the army, of which also one heard little in recent years, so that we must assume that, with all these democratic and progressive governments, the army, too, has become democratic...
(This, of course, is sarcasm.—K.J.K.)
ARMING OF THE PEOPLE
"This was the policy set down in long resolutions of the Netherlands Social Democratic Party, which, shortly after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, joined the Third International as a Communist Party. The militarism of the bourgeoisie was to be absolutely rejected; in the coming great class conflict the army would be disintegrated and a force democratically organised anew. This was no militarism, but arming of the people, the organisation of the righteous power of the people in order to hold down the already dying bourgeoisie. To the anti-militarists, who especially extolled the method of refusal of service, it was retorted, 'Not outside the campo, but in the camp, in order to carry on propaganda there against militarism.'
FORCE AND MILITARISM
"The horror of militarism, especially here in Holland, has had no small part in the workers' absolute rejection of force, however much this may not have been in the foreground recently. Force, however, is still not militarism. Gentle, ethically disposed natures can, under particular circumstances, by which their righteous indignation is awakened, annihilate adversaries, by force, thus protecting others. Such men are rightly honored by society. Whenever power is used for a great and good purpose, then there is nothing objectionable in it. It only remains to be deplored that the use of it is necessary. If there is formed, however, a permanent organisation, then it is inevitable that characters appear in it who have chosen power as a career, and seek it as a gratification for their darker impulses. This is the case with our military careers in the standing army—these men who choose the career as a means of livelihood, to whom it is pleasing to go bossing through life with arrogant countenances, to reduce others to obedience like sheep, to teach them how one must use the bayonet, how the latter, when it remains sticking between the ribs, must be wrenched out by an efficient twist, in order to be ready at once for an enemy (?) following on. These people are distorted natures who can live in such a military apparatus. Such an apparatus, with such individuals, is needed by the ruling class, a frightful apparatus, the power par excellence through which they can maintain themselves against home and foreign enemies.
"Also, this power is fed by industry, cannot exist without its co-operation in our time, now that this militarism has taken on enormous proportions, now that a great part of industry is working for it, it is above all needed for it to be securely placed against dislocation by the enemy at home, the working class, and it is more than every necessary that peace and order should reign in all industries. Thus Spartacus stands against militarism, just as the working class stands against it. The capture of the industries of transport and of other means of communication is the greatest blow for the military apparatus, next to it should be the mass refusal of service, desertion by the armed workers in order to defend the industries; the rest, the proletariat can and do conquer without creating a new organisation, foreign to themselves, and separate from themselves.
"The necessary condition is, however, the control of the industries, on a completely democratic basis; then no independent military organisation, standing apart, can exist.
"Once the power of the working class has been consolidated, then this force can slowly be safely eliminated, since the division into classes has ceased to exist.
"It should be remarked here that no closer definition of this phrase, 'Arming of the People,' was given, that without any further explanation its organisation and conditioning of the working class as a new army can be understood.
"Along with it went the bringing of the basis and means of production into the possession of the community. As no nearer definition of that community can be given, everything can be comprehended under that. Both questions are, therefore, indissolubly connected with each other, the organisation of force is one with the organisation of the basis and means of production.
LENIN AND ENGELS
"In his book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Engels had already very early with wonderful acuteness defined militarism as a 'special power which is no longer immediately identical with the people's own organisation of themselves as an armed power.' Engels has this about the origin of militarism, and then says 'This special public force is necessary because a self-acting armed organisation of the people has become impossible, since the division into classes.' That Lenin, in his publication, 'State and Revolution,' had no clear picture of this 'self-acting organisation' is shown by the incorrect translation by which self-acting is equated with independent, by which means the genuine antithesis which Engels had in mind disappears. Later on, Lenin speaks about 'a new organisation of this kind which the oppressed class shapes for itself, but one which serves not the exploiters, but the exploited.' (Italics by Spartacus.)
"The whole of this comes very near to a falsification. With Lenin, the special power separated from the people is not opposed to the self-active organisation identified with the people, but according to him, the question is: Does such an organisation serve the bourgeoisie or the proletariat? If it serves the proletariat, then it ceases to be militarism. This is very understandable, for when the pamphlet ('State and Revolution') was written, Lenin had had no single instance of an industrial proletariat arming itself and organising itself. The first instance came to pass in March, 1920, in Germany, during the famous Kapp coup. The troops which Germany at that time still had in the Baltic countries were recalled, but on their return attempted to carry out a coup d'etat. The Social Democrat Government fled. With an unparalleled spontaneity strikes broke out throughout Germany. The militarists' rebellion fell flat, on the average, but in the Ruhr district the workers seized arms. In the south they drove the Reichswehr over the bridge hard at Kenlen; in the north they shut them up in the fortress of Wesel. The armed groups had various names. Some sections named themselves after Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. But there were also others which simply took the name of their industry. For ten days they had held power in the important industrial district; the armed workers were supplied by and through this district, and regular relief by troops from the industries took place.
"There you had the self-acting organisations identical with the workers. It was the armed industrial proletariat, and this power was no independent power like that used by the ruling class and separated from the people—because the workers in those days had full control in the industries, and their armed power depended on that.
"In the Russian Revolution there was again formed an independent army separated from the people. As a national revolution it saw itself surrounded by foreign and hostile powers, and had to wage a life and death struggle against them. Trotsky became Generalissimo, and made use of Generals from the old Tsarist army. While in the beginning there was still, through proletarian influence, some democracy in the army, it quickly made place for the rigid, cast-iron discipline known of old. In the literature of the Third International, a real cult of force was fostered. Force was worshipped. The parties affiliated to the Third International began to establish independent, and sometimes armed detachments, with cast-iron discipline. These were the Red Front soldiers: That was what had become of Arming the People. National Socialism, however, with its arming of the people removed theirs, and with that the phrase has also disappeared from their literature.
"After the German occupation of Holland, and with the formation of our new army, 'Die Waarheid' (Truth, the Stalinist organ), wrote that they would cherish this new army."
This concludes the articles I am translating from the issue of Spartacus for November 30. There are interesting articles in later issues also, but I shall leave these till another occasion.
In my next communication I shall survey the French Socialist publications of to-day.
Yours fraternally,
K. J. Kenafick.
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