Henk Canne Meijer

Henk Canne Meijer was born on 30 Dec. 1890 and died on 28 Dec. 1962. In these 70 years, an organized labour movement emerged and passed away. This organized labour movement — Social Democracy — began as a movement that revolutionized the working class. But this movement became one of the forces that preserved society. From a movement that propagated the class struggle as an essential factor for the future and the consciousness of the working class, it became the movement that sees the harmony of the classes as a condition for the “welfare state”.

Henk Canne Meijer was 27 years old when the Russian Revolution broke out. He was one of the millions for whom this powerful social upheaval was to determine their entire lives. He was among those who cheered the Russian Revolution. But the criticism of it from the German Left-Wing Communists and from Anton Pannekoek and Herman Gorter in the Netherlands around 1919/20 had an effect on him. He joined the opposition communists who propagated the independent struggle of the workers by means of workers' councils and thus turned against party communism, the communism of the Bolsheviks. They could not agree to the Moscow directives, which amounted to re-engaging in parliamentarism and the trade union movement — political instruments that had already been rejected by social democracy. Henk Canne Meijer was one of those who published “De Kommunistische Arbeider” in November 1921, the organ of the Communist Workers' Party in the Netherlands.

Henk Canne Meijer was a metalworker until the age of 23, when he was on the road in Germany and Italy. But his thirst for knowledge and his social commitment led him to look for a profession in which he had more time to devote to the workers' struggle. He became a teacher, which fully achieved the purpose of his decision. He also had a great interest in biology — he had already started studying it — but he decided to abandon it: his decision had already been made.

However, he maintained his interest in biology and psychology throughout his life, putting his knowledge (which he constantly expanded) at the service of the workers' struggle. I am thinking, for example, of his as yet unpublished work “From Working Animals to Free Men”, which contains very modern psychological views on our “mind apparatus”, and of many other as yet unpublished works, e.g. “Remarks on Men and Society”.

The great defeats of the working class since 1921 and the confusion that this brought into the ranks of the revolutionary workers influenced Henk Canne Meijer. Little can be found in the remains of his archives about his activities during this period. But he must undoubtedly have read a lot and attended many meetings. Around 1926/27, he and others published manifestos, pamphlets and excerpted study material. The arrival of Jan Appel in Holland inspired him. It was he who had worked out the theoretical basis for an economic, political lesson from the defeats of the Russian and German revolutions.

Henk Canne Meijer turned the original manuscript of Jan Appel's “ Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution” into a publication that polemicized and settled accounts with bourgeois and “socialist” theorists, speaking a clear language for unread workers. It was also he who, in the 1930s, when the council movement was completely deadlocked, gave the movement a new impetus with his article on “The Rise of a New Labour Movement” and thus relaunched the discussion in the revolutionary groups outside Holland. Henk Canne Meijer was not just a theoretician, although — modest and withdrawn as he was — he might have given that impression to those who did not know him. However, when he was able to debate at public meetings, he seized the opportunity. But Holland did not offer the political climate in which quiet characters could develop into sharp, sensational revolutionaries. Henk Canne Meijer was a promoter; it was nothing too much for him to be a guide for young revolutionaries in the maze of theory and practice. He was a true teacher. But not only that. He also took the initiative to publish magazines, newspapers and manifestos. He was and remains the soul of the Group of International Communists (GIC). For years, his house was the center for the meetings of the GIC, where the articles for the PIC(Press Service of the GIC) were also discussed. His name will be forgotten by the public. He was one of the unwavering revolutionaries who quietly built the path, tackled things, formed people who passed on their knowledge to others. Henk Canne Meijer is still remembered by many as a great fighter, a knowledgeable man and a warm-hearted person who tried to live as a communist in his own time. He was buried in Amsterdam in the presence of his wife and very few comrades.

‎
Written: 15.10.1970, BA Sijes