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The Dutch-German Communist Left separated from the Comintern (1921) on questions like electoralism, trade-unionism, united fronts, the one-party state and anti-proletarian violence. The present volume provides the most substantial history to date of this tendency in the twentieth-century Communist movement.

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The Dutch-German Communist Left, represented by the German KAPD-AAUD, the Dutch KAPN and the Bulgarian Communist Workers Party, separated from the Comintern (1921) on questions like electoralism, trade-unionism, united fronts, the one-party state and anti-proletarian violence. It attracted the ire of Lenin, who wrote his Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder against the Linkskommunismus , while Herman Gorter wrote a famous response in his pamphlet Reply to Lenin . The present volume provides the most substantial history to date of this tendency in the twentieth-century Communist movement. It covers how the Communist left, with the KAPD-AAU, denounced ´party communism´ and ´state capitalism´ in Russia; how the German left survived after 1933 in the shape of the Dutch GIK and Paul Mattick´s councils movement in the USA; and also how the Dutch Communistenbond Spartacus continued to fight after 1942 for the world power of the workers councils, as theorised by Pannekoek in his book Workers´ Councils (1946).

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Acknowledgements ... ix
Illustrations ... xi

Introduction ... 1

Part 1: From Tribunism to Communism (1900-18)

1 Origins and Formation of the ´Tribunist´ Current (1900-14) ... 11
2 Pannekoek and ´Dutch´ Marxism in the Second International ... 82
3 The Dutch Tribunist Current and the First World-War (1914-18) ... 132

Part 2: The Dutch Communist Left and the World-Revolution (1919-27)

4 The Dutch Left in the Comintern (1919-20) ... 177
5 Gorter, the kapd and the Foundation of the Communist Workers´ International (1921-7) ... 226

Part 3: The gic from 1927 to 1940

Introduction to Part 3: The Group of International Communists: From Left-Communism to Council-Communism ... 277
6 The Birth of the gic (1927-33) ... 292
7 Towards a New Workers´ Movement? The Record of Council-Communism (1933-5) ... 327
8 Towards State-Capitalism: Fascism, Anti-Fascism, Democracy, Stalinism, Popular Fronts and the ´Inevitable War´ (1933-9) ... 380
9 The Dutch Internationalist Communists and the Events in Spain (1936-7) ... 407

Part 4: Council-Communism during and after the War (1939-68)

10 From the ´Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front´ to the Communistenbond Spartacus (1940-42) ... 431
11 The Communistenbond Spartacus and the Council-Communist Current (1942-68) ... 456

Conclusion ... 517

Works Cited ... 533
Further Reading ... 550
Addresses of Archival Centres ... 614
Acronyms ... 615
Index ... 622

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