Generals Without Troops
: Dutch Trotskyism during the OccupationThe following is the complete English translation of the text of Wim Bot's booklet, Generale zonder troepen. Het Comite van Revolutionaire Marxisten, zomer 1942-mei 1945, published in 1987 in Amsterdam and here printed with the author's kind permission. The original contains a fully annotated apparatus of it's source material, which we have been obligated to omit for reasons of space, and because, since all the materials are in Dutch, those conversant with that language will doubtless consult them in the author's own version at first hand.
This is the second of two such accounts devoted to the struggle of the revolutionaries in the underground against the German occupation, his first being Tegan fascisme, kapitalisme en oorlog. Het Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front, juli 1940 -- april 1942, a detailed study of the oppositional current led by Henk Sneevliet, which was published by Syndikaat of Amsterdam in 1983. French readers should also consult the author's chapter upon Sneevliet during the War contributed to Fritjof Tichelman's biography, Henk Sneevliet, which appeared in Paris last year, edited by Rodolphe Prager.
Wim Bot was born in 1956, and came into revolutionary politics through the student movement. From 1977 to l983 he was a member of the Internationale Kommunistenbond (now the SAP), the Dutch Section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. and served upon the editorial board of its paper. He parted company with them at the time of a 'turn to industry' that involved in his opinion dogmatism a sectarian climate and party pretensions. He is a member of the editorial board of Links, (Left), an independent journal of socialist analysis and discussion, and works at the left wing publishing house OJSIA in Amsterdam.
Material upon the Committee of Revolutionary Marxists is almost non-existent in English, though a little more is available about its antecedents. An article by Michael Williams entitled 'Sneevliet and the Birth of Asian Communism' appeared in New Left Review. No 123 (September/October 1980), and a further contribution 'On Sneevliet, the Dutch Communist Party and the February Strike of 1941' above the name of Graham Lock in No 127 of the same journal (May/June, 1981). For those with a command of Dutch there exists a full length memoir, Sneevliet, Rebel, written by his son-in-law, Sal Santen (1915-) published in Amsterdam in 1971. Along with Herman Drenth, the former PvdA MP, Santen was a member of the Revolutionair Kommunistische Partij (Revolutionary Communist Party) which succeeded the Committee of Revolutionary Marxists as a section ofthe International Secretariat ofthe Fourth International during the post-war period. In 1960 Santen was arrested along with Michael Raptis (Pablo) and jailed for attempting to forge French banknotes to assist the struggle of the FLN against French rule in Algeria. When Pablo split with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in 1964, Santen and most of his group went with him. He has since largely devoted himself to writing. An interesting film about his career, Sal Santen, Rebel, made in 1982 and directed by Rudolph Van berg, was screened at the National Film Theatre on 24 March 1986.
Introduction and acknowledgements
During the German occupation of the Netherlands only a small minority of the Dutch population was involved in illegal political activities. De Jong, who has tried to give a clear definition of the two concepts of active and passive resistance in his work, counts as activists those who were involved in clandestine resistance within a distinct organisational body. Thus the onderduikers (people in hiding), and the families which helped them, were involved in illegal activity, but, according to De Jong, they cannot be included in the resistance. According to his cautious and provisional estimation there were, until September 1944, about 25 000 resistance activists in the occupied Netherlands; afterwards their number grew to about 45 000.
Inside that minority of the Dutch population the revolutionary Socialists were only a small fraction. From July 1940 until April 1942 the latter were organised in the clandestine continuation of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (RSAP) and the Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg Front (MLL-Front). [l] At the beginning of 1942 the leadership of the MLL-Front was arrested and, after a trial, was shot on 13 April. The remainder of the organisation then split into two group, the Committee of Revolutionary Marxists (CRM) and the Communist League Spartacus. De Jong estimates the number of persons active inside these three organisations at 400, though probably that is on the low side and it amounted to between 500 and 600. But that does not alter the fact that the revolutionary Socialists were a small numerical minority within the resistance.
That minority of a minority made itself politically distinct from the rest of the resistance. To them the struggle against Fascism and Nazism was a continuation of what they had been doing already during the 'thirties. In the struggle against Nazism they refused to take the side of the Allies. The revolutionary Socialists did not consider the Second World War a conflict between democracy and dictatorship, but an imperialist war between 'hungry and well-fed robbers'. As long as capitalism existed there would be world wars and only the international Socialist revolution could end the permanent threat of war. The revolutionary Socialists hoped and expected that, because of the Second World War, a revolutionary wave would sweep over the world, such as had been the case, to some extent, at the end of the First World War. They tried to promote the independent resistance of the workers, and to that end their main activity was to make propaganda in illegal publications. The revolutionary Socialists in the Netherlands did not carry out any armed or violent activities during the occupation.
This account deals with the Committee of Revolutionary Marxists. It is an amplification of my earlier publication regarding the MLL-Front. So it must be pointed out beforehand that the above remarks regarding the minority position of the revolutionary Socialists inside the resistance apply to a much greater extent to the CRM than to the MLL-Front, though as far as the MLL-Front is concerned there are some important reservations. Of the pre-war political parties only the RSAP and the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) went into clandestinity, of which the RSAP was the first. Its illegal publications appeared from July 1940. In January 1941 the first issue appeared of the most important paper of the MLL-Front, Spartacus; it was the first illegal paper printed in the occupied Netherlands. Spartacus had a circulation of 5000. The importance of this becomes clear when one considers that the illegal press at that time only had a total circulation of about 57 000 copies. During the first phase of the occupation, when great confusion reigned, there was probably no other current in the occupied Netherlands which so sharply explained the politics and aims of the Nazis. The MLL-Front also contributed to the propaganda and agitation for the February Strike.
The CRM and the Communistenbond Spartacus (Communist League Spartacus), the other organisation originating from the MLL-Front, had much less significance. Spartacus was not capable of producing a real printed paper during the remainder of the occupation. On the other hand the other big underground newspapers only had a circulation of about 450 000 copies in December 1943. Whereas De Jong in his survey regularly mentions the illegal press of the MLL-Front, he limits himself as regards the CRM and the Communist League Spartacus to: 'they were no more than political sects where the smaller the following, the more fiercely the fire of conviction burned: Indeed one of the CRM members wrote to me:' What we did was no more than throwing a stone into a pond:
The purpose of this article is to give a summary of the development of a small group, which based its illegal activities upon a revolutionary Socialist judgement of the war. What were the possibilities during the occupation for groups which started from such a perspective? How did they analyse the course of the war and the occupation? What forms of resistance did they advocate? What was their relationship with other leftist groups? How did they come to their highly optimistic forecast of the future?
Up to now there has been no separate investigation of the CRM. In his unpublished article, De Trotzkistiese beweging in Nederland 1938-46 (The Trotskyist movement in the Netherlands 1938-46) Pieter-Jan Mol devoted a chapter to the CRM, which, however, was almost wholly based on the study of De Rode October (Red October), the main publication of the CRM. Moreover, Mol did not have available a great number of the issues during the period of the summer of 1942 to the autumn of 1943, since these are missing in the collections of the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie and the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis. Through Herman Drenth, a member of the CRM leadership, I obtained photocopies of the issues from that first phase. In the end I only failed to trace four issues out of the 44 published during the occupation. I also consulted the issues of the internal discussion bulletin of the CRM, Het Kompas (The Compass). In the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie I further found a discussion paper for CRM Youth which had not been previously mentioned. I also found in the collection of the publications of the CRM and in the archives of Piet van 't Hart and Georges Vereeken a (limited) number of pamphlets, circular letters and documents of the CRM.
Since I could fall back on no previous work the information that I got from former members of the CRM was indispensable in obtaining a picture of the organisational functioning of the CRM. I had contact with the following people: Thea Bloemsma, Andries Dolleman, Antoine Dolleman, Willy Dolleman, Herman Drenth, Peter Drenth, Cor van 't Hart, Rein van der Horst, Sal Santen, Wout Tieleman and Frits Zeggelink. Of them Herman Drenth, Santen and Tielman are the members of the CRM leadership still alive. Seven people (Bloesma, Andries Dolleman, Antoine Dolleman, Willy Dolleman, van der Horst, Tielman and Zeggelink) were part of the CRM in The Hague. Of the doings of the CRM in the other places where it was active I have been able to obtain much less detail. My contacts varied from obtaining a few specific items of information (Peter Drenth) up to and including an extensive combination of correspondence, telephone conversations and interviews (Tieleman). Tieleman sent me a detailed comment regarding my publication on the MLL-Front, where in particular he went into the history of the CRM. A number of other people involved refreshed their memories on the basis of Tieleman's contribution. The reader will observe that on a number of not unimportant points it proved to be impossible to reach a unanimous opinion. The importance of the reliability of the memory of those involved as an historical source is much greater for such a period of clandestinity than for 'normal' times, not only because it touches on a deeply felt period, but also because there are, on account of this clandestinity, scarcely any written sources which can elucidate certain organisational questions.
In the Dutch version I did not change anything in the spelling of the quotations incorporated in the text and in their accentuation. I thank for their co-operation, the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis and above all the members of the CRM mentioned, for whom my enquiry brought many emotions to the surface.
Of those members, the two sons of the murdered MLL-Front leader Willem Dolleman, Andries and Willy Dolleman both died, one after the other, in the first half of 1984. Until their death they remained principled Socialists.
Part 1 The birth of the CRM
'Heavy is the blow which has been inflicted on the ranks of the proletarian vanguard. Heavy certainly, but not annihilating. For barely had the sentence been executed but the opposition was organised anew and here, not two months later, we are out again with our first publication which, imperfect as it is, gives proof that Fascism too, as so many of its predecessors in this regard, miscalculates when it thinks that by terror and mass murders it can suppress the resistance which will be instrumental in its doom....
'Certainly, in many cases we stood, in the Party, against the comrades now fallen, especially as regards the attitude that is to be taken to the Soviet Union, a struggle in which we shall continue to proclaim our own opinion; but always it was a joint and common conviction that only the working class through struggle with its own strength can reach victory, the Socialist society. That is why we did not, and will not, take an anti-German, but an anti-Fascist stand. Not as fighters for the National Liberation of the Netherlands, but as fighters for the International Liberation of the World Proletariat through Socialist Revolution did our comrades fall. From that they take their great significance. It is in this spirit that our new paper De Rode October will write and the proletariat will gain the victory' (De Rode October no 1, June 1942).
With this article, written by Wout Tieleman. the revolutionary Socialists, who came to form the Comite van Revolutionnaire Marxisten, spoke out for the first time after the execution of Henk Sneevliet and the other leaders of the MLL-Front on 13 April 1942. Besides the CRM there came out of the MLL-Front the Communistenbond Spartacus. In order to understand why two new organisations emerged from the MLL-Front it is necessary to give some attention to the differences of opinion which had come up inside the MLL-Front.
The first difference was about the question how to evaluate the role of the Soviet Union. Sneevliet was of the opinion that no essential achievements of the 1917 revolution existed any longer in the Soviet Union. Influenced by the pact between Stalin and Hitler, he also found a convergence between the totalitarian system in the Soviet Union and that in Germany, and for that reason he denied the possibility of an invasion by Germany of the Soviet Union. When, on 22 June 1941, that invasion nevertheless took place, Sneevliet simply regarded the Soviet Union as on the same political level as its capitalist western allies. A part of the MLL-Front protested and advocated a revolutionary defence of the Soviet Union, notwithstanding its Stalinist degeneration, though they distinguished between this and the war aims of England and the United States.
The factional dispute was intense, especially when Sneevliet wanted to prohibit any discussion of this problem. Only after an ultimatum, principally from Willem Dolleman who, with Sneevliet and Ab Menist, constituted the leading trio of the MLL-Front, did Sneevliet climb down. In a letter, 'Mijn Afscheid' ('My Departure'), Dolleman announced that he would build a new organisation in which there would be democratic freedom of discussion. The restriction of that freedom in an organisation which claimed to be anti-Stalinist was absolutely unacceptable to Dolleman. After Dolleman's intervention there was an internal discussion bulletin -- Tijdsproblemen (Problems of the Time) in which the various currents of opinion were developed. Because of the arrest and execution of the MLL-Front leadership the discussion on the Soviet Union came to an end.
A second area of dispute was the trade union policy. Before the war the RSAP had focused mainly on the Nationaal Arbeids Secretariaat (NAS), the small revolutionary trade union. Trotskyist opponents inside the RSAP were of the opinion that by this tactic the Party had cut itself off from the mass of organised workers. At the beginning of the occupation the NAS disappeared; on the orders of the Nazis it had to dissolve and to join the Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (NVV). A part of the NAS leadership had, by the way, in order to make its continued existence possible, immediately capitulated politically at the beginning of the occupation by advocating 'self restraint'. They stated that it was useless to oppose the suppression of strikes and meetings.
With this development the MLL-Front leadership was faced with the disappearance of an important part of its social-political base. It was decided to orient to the workers who, before the occupation, had supported Social Democracy and part of that orientation was to work in the NVV, which was being 'synchronised' (gleichgeschalted) by the Nazis. The MLL-Front stuck to that option until August 1941 and combined its work in the NVV with calls to form illegal committees in the workplaces. In August 1941 the MLL-Front called on its members to leave the NVV, a part of the organisation, however, had earlier reached the conclusion that meaningful work was no longer possible inside the NVV.
Stan Poppe, a member of the MLL-Front leadership, developed Council Communist ideas. According to him the mass trade union movement had lost its clear purpose, and revolutionaries had henceforth to focus only on the formation of workers' committees and workers' councils.
In view of the political importance of both these differences it is very doubtful whether the unity of the MLL-Front would have been preserved if the wave of arrests of the beginning of 1942 had not ended the existence of the organisation. In any case these disputes constituted the background from which these two organisations emerged from the MLL-Front. At the time the question of the Soviet Union played the most important role, and this appears from the quotation from the first issue of De Rode October. The second point would come to the fore in the subsequent political development of the CRM and the Communistenbond Spartacus, for the CRM became a specifically Trotskyist organisation while Spartacus developed into a Council Communist one.
To reconstruct the origins of the split in the summer of 1942 is not a simple matter. Piet van 't Hart, a member of the CRM leadership and, after the war, historian of the revolutionary Socialist movement, stated in the post-war period that the foundation of the CRM was a reaction to that of Spartacus. Spartacus was founded without asking the advocates in the MLL-Front of the defence of the Soviet Union to join. Moreover, the founders of the CRM had little confidence in the clandestine character of the Spartacus organisation. Such was the explanation given by the CRM in August 1943. In February 1944 the Spartacus leader Stan Poppe produced a totally different version; according to him 'les officiels', or the adherents of the Trotskyist Fourth International, had 'entered' the MLL-Front, and after the executions they had tried to take over the organisation. According to Poppe that attempt failed because of the distrust of the members. What actually occurred? Part of the answer is to be found in The Hague where Andries, one of the sons of Willem Dolleman says 'When bidding farewell to my father (in Weteringschans prison) I whispered into his ear: "We carry on": I did so (at that moment, five weeks after his arrest!) knowing that "we" had discussed that.' Of course going on was not simple. So Andries' younger brother Willy wrote to me:
'I don't think that I immediately reacted with enthusiasm. The arrests and the executions naturally left a deep impression, especially the time in the evening when my father was arrested. And saying farewell in the prison under SS supervision, I did not doubt the necessity of carrying on, but yet....'
Willy Dolleman here refers to a visit of his friend Wout Tieleman in May or June 1942, who took the initiative and came to see him. Willy had been involved in the production of the illegal publications of the MLL-Front. His mother Meta tried to make him and Tieleman change their ideas, but finally sent them to Dolf Langkemper who, at the time of the German invasion, had been the organisational secretary of the RSAP. Langkemper disagreed with them, which is not surprising, since already before the war he had spoken against clandestine underground work, and so he had not taken part in the MLL-Front. Tieleman and Willy Dolleman also drew a blank with the Hague MLL-Front man Aaldert Ymkers. The Hague youth had no contacts with other places, and they therefore decided to carry on themselves, on the basis of their standpoint of the necessity of the defence of the Soviet Union. At the end of May Antoine Dolleman, Theo Jansen and Wout Tieleman met; they decided to publish a new paper. So in June 1942 the first issue of De Rode October appeared.
During that same period there were complications in Rotterdam. On 15 May 1942 Piet van 't Hart was released from detention in Bochum. Van 't Hart had taken part in the MLL-Front leadership and in the conflict regarding the Soviet Union he had sided with Dolleman. On 15 August l941 he had been arrested when, during a house search, a discussion bulletin on this question had been found. When he was released his wife, Cor, told him about the executions. To Piet van 't Hart this was, of course, a heavy blow. He was convinced that there must have been a leak, and he was determined to find it.
In Rotterdam, in the summer of 1942 (a more exact date is not known), the leadership of the Communistenbond Spartacus was formed. Poppe, with another comrade, was the initiator and had made the contacts. Poppe was the only member of the MLL-Front leadership who had not been arrested. He lived in Roosendaal, and Sneevliet had been with Poppe in his flat before he was arrested in Bergen op Zoom. For this reason van 't Hart did not think that Poppe should play a leading role in an illegal organisation for a moment longer. Many unpleasant and inconclusive discussions followed.[2] Thereupon contact was made between van 't Hart, who had not been involved in the first issue of De Rode October, The Hague youth and Harry Combrink. The latter had, after the arrest of the MLL-Front leadership, gone to Amsterdam; there, in order to speak about the necessity of building a new organisation, he had approached Sal Santen, a Trotskyist 'officiel', who in 1941 had been refused membership of the MLL-Front.
On 22 August 1942 the founding of the CRM took place in the church of the Swedenborg Society in The Hague; the father of one of The Hague MLL-Front youth, Frits Zeggelink, was the Minister there. Present at the founding were probably Harry Combrink, Andries Dolleman, Antoine Dolleman, Piet van 't Hart, Wout Tieleman and Frits Zeggelink. What was decided at the founding conference?
In an internal publication of the CRM of autumn 1942 there was mention both of a decision to break definitively from Spartacus and of the founding of an independent group. After the war Piet van 't Hart gave the same version; yet, according to him, it was also decided to strive for the restoration of unity in the future.
Thus far this is the account of the birth of both groups. The main uncertainty is whether, at the founding of Spartacus, it was decided not to involve the advocates of the defence of the Soviet Union. Piet van 't Hart was, besides Poppe, the only survivor of the MLL-Front leadership. If van 't Hart was not approached to form a new leadership one could put the responsibility for the split on Spartacus. It is, however, also possible that the foundation of Spartacus took place at the same time as the discussions between Poppe and van 't Hart. In that case it is hardly possible to indicate who took the initiative in the split.
In any case Poppe's 1944 version of the events does not convince. Some members of the Fourth International group in the Netherlands, the Group of Bolshevik-Leninists (GBL), had indeed entered the MLL-Front. At the beginning, the opposition to Sneevliet's policy had not been their doing. The people who supported Dolleman's and Piet van `t Hart's standpoint on the Soviet Union in the MLL-Front, sympathised with Trotsky, but they had not left the RSAP. The initiators of the CRM had not been members of the GBL.
The CRM and Spartacus started, in the summer of 1942, with about the same number of members who had been active in the MLL-Front. Both groups continued to exist during the remaining occupation years. Neither, however, reached the size and importance of the old MLL-Front. Indeed, while the resistance and clandestine activity grew the longer the occupation continued, for the revolutionary Socialist fraction of the resistance it seems that the pinnacle of their influence was during the first two occupation years.
Part 2 Organisational development
It was mentioned above that the formal founding of the CRM was a matter of a very small group from The Hague, Delft and Rotterdam. The term 'committee' was also chosen consciously; they considered themselves as a group which had yet to build an organisation.
It is not clear whether the contacts with Herman Drenth, who after the arrest wave that struck the MLL-Front, had left The Hague and gone into hiding in Groningen, already existed during the founding or were restored shortly afterwards. Already in 1942, contacts with Flip Grave in Eindhoven were made. Towards the end of 1942 or in the beginning of 1943 Sal Santen also joined the CRM, after which the building of the organisation in Amsterdam could start. [3] Santen and Tieleman estimate that towards the end of the occupation the CRM had about 50 members. On the basis of the material that 1 collected 1 estimate a membership of about 75, mainly concentrated in the three big cities: Rotterdam (25), Amsterdam (20) and The Hague(1O). Other groups of members were in the northern towns of Delfzijl, Groningen and Leeuwarden (in total about 10 people) and in Eindhoven. Separate members, or people who distributed De Rode October, were in Arnhem, Dordrecht, Leiden, Lutjewinkel and Nieuwewinkel. In Aalsmeer, Deventer, Sliedrecht and Zutphen the paper was distributed by members from other towns.[4]
Probably the number of 75 members is a bit on the high side, and the demarcation between members and sympathisers was not always drawn too precisely. Half a year after the liberation, on 1 December 1945 the CRM had 84 members; later the number of members rose to 150 by 25 January 1946.
As compared with the MLL-Front their small size appears clearly from these figures. The CRM itself spoke about a 'wave of desertion', the responsibility for which was ascribed, in harsh terms, both to the political confusion inside both the RSAP and the MLL-Front, as well as to the underestimation of the dangers of underground work. In my opinion, other important factors were the disappearance of the NAS field of activity, together with the death of Sneevliet and the other leaders who had played an extremely important role. In combination with that there was yet a further element which should not be underestimated. For the underground as a whole 1942 was a difficult year. However big the setbacks were, the overwhelming majority of the underground succeeded in recruiting large forces. A group like the CRM was thrown back on its own resources, and the army for which they hoped, that of the revolutionary workers, did not stir in Europe in 1942.
Moreover, the CRM itself applied far too rigid criteria for recruitment, which had a political as well as a practical cause. Time and again the necessity was underlined of building an homogeneous revolutionary party, which would be necessary for the direct and massive workers' struggles that were expected; so therefore the formation of cadres was the most important task for the CRM. It is clear, too, that the shock of the executions had an effect in that everyone was very conscious of the difficulties and dangers of more open political work.
Wout Tieleman, looking back at the initial period of the occupation says:
'Finally we were (and every illegal group initially was) a bunch of amateurs who dared to compete with a specially trained professional police and tracing apparatus who, during eight years and more, had gathered experience in Germany. We had only that experience in theory, and to obtain it in practice a price had to be paid. That price was, alas, paid, and it was higher than necessary.'
The rigidity of the organisation may appear from the orders which were given in the internal organ, Het Kompas. Without the permission of the leading bodies no material should be delivered in person; membership should be kept secret, and no enquiries should be made about it, particularly as to members outside one's own cell or unit. Discussion evenings with others could only be held with the permission of the leadership; permission was also necessary for making contacts -- even where former party comrades were concerned. There were continual appeals for prudence, with special warnings against nationalist organisations. Van 't Hart was of the opinion that during his detention in Scheveningen the latter had been too curious. In a conversation he states that he would have warned against the notorious traitor Van der Waals. The CRM leadership possessed potassium cyanide, dispensed by the eldest son of the Amsterdam revolutionary, Barend Luteraan. In case of arrest they intended to avoid a repetition of the MLL-Front drama.
Commitment
Clearly the directives were not always followed to the letter, but the CRM did become an organisation that worked prudently. As far as is known, nobody in the CRM was arrested because of their activities in the organisation. Leen Reedijk from The Hague, who was arrested in October 1944 after getting involved in a matter of false papers which had nothing to do with the CRM, was the only victim among the members of whom I am aware. Reedijk died when the train that transported him from Vught to Buchenwald was bombed.
The logical consequence of the severe demands of membership was that a very great commitment was required of the members. In Het Kompas one of the members wrote that the devotion of two or three evenings a week could be asked for. Another correspondent reacted; members who only distributed newspapers were not enough, a revolutionist had to give himself fully, 'if necessary seven evenings a week'. The examples held up were those of the Russian illegal professional revolutionaries under Czarism. In De Rode October of February 1943 the rigid selection of the members was written about in a positive way: 'The storms of the Imperialist War have blown away the chaff and the golden pure grains have remained'.
In the bigger towns the CRM was organised in groups of five members who, through a cell leader, were in contact with the local and national leaderships. The publications of the CRM were, as a rule, delivered clandestinely; only with trusted contacts could they, after consultation with the cell leader, be handed over in person. The CRM did not have financial problems, as one of the leading members found a way to get money illegally through his job.
The leadership of the CRM consisted of Harry Combrink, Herman Drenth, Piet van 't Hart, Sal Santen and Wout Tieleman; the leadership also constituted the editorial board of De Rode October. It is not clear whether this leadership was elected during the founding conference on 22 August, or brought about by co-option. There is no agreed opinion among the former members as to the frequency or the location of the meetings of the leadership. The greater part of the articles for De Rode October were written by van 't Hart and Santen; Tieleman was responsible for the production of the paper. Cor van 't Hart maintained a large part of the communication network. She went to Drenth in Groningen and on her way there she delivered papers in Arnhem, Deventer and Zutphen and fetched things in The Hague before returning to Rotterdam.
Dangerous
She also took care of the contact with Santen in Amsterdam. During the winter of famine (1944-45) her role became still more important. Cor van 't Hart was not a member of the leadership but she did the 'greatest portion of the dangerous work', to use the words of Tieleman.
In comparison with the MLL-Front, the youthful age and the relative lack of experience of the CRM leadership is remarkable. Only Piet van 't Hart was more than thirty years old. Both because of this difference in age, and his participation as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War together with his past membership of the MLL-Front leadership, van 't Hart possessed by far the greatest political authority within the leadership. The youthful age of the leadership was, for the rest, a reflection of the age structure of the group as a whole. In The Hague it was the younger ones who continued after the executions, and in Amsterdam the construction of CRM work was generally the work of members of the pre-war youth organisations of the RSAP. Thus it was pointed out in De Rode October that now the younger generation had taken over the work of the older ones.
The first issue of De Rode October had been typed by Tieleman on carbon copies in a sales office for lead and zinc where he worked at Zieken in The Hague. This illustrates how the CRM had to start from scratch, without even the beginnings of an apparatus. The second issue of the paper appeared after the founding conference of 22 August. The first issues were manufactured in the same primitive way. One of the carbon copies went to Rotterdam, where the copy was re-typed. It is not certain how long this mode of manufacture went on, but in any case the issues were mimeographed from August 1943. Indeed, one could hardly call the first machine of the CRM a proper duplicator:
'Mimeograph box is a better term. It was indeed a kind of box, and inside it was a grid, on which a stencil could be attached. Under that there was a pack of paper and by moving a roller to and fro -- something like modern paint rollers -- you obtained a print. The disadvantage --very copy had to be taken out separately.'
After the mimeograph box came some other simple gadgets, until the CRM got hold of an Edison Dick hand mimeograph, with which the greater part of the De Rode October issues were made. By these improvements the circulation grew from some tens of copies to 2000 or 2500 copies in 1943. From the thirteenth issue the paper appeared with a red heading:
'To make a heading, we would buy a box of letters with enormously big rubber letters with which we composed the words De Rode October. Furthermore, we had the biggest possible stamp pad with red ink, but the stamp was too big for the box, so that for each heading the stamp had to be wetted twice.'
The paper was supplied by Van't Hof in The Hague, an adherent of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) [5] -- a Protestant Christian party -- who worked for the illegal paper Trouw. Before the war he supplied the RSAP, and during the whole occupation he supplied the MLL-Front and the CRM with paper.
During the occupation 44 issues of De Rode October appeared. Until September 1944 it was a monthly paper and after then, when the end of the occupation seemed to be near, the paper appeared every fortnight. During the whole famine winter they succeeded in issuing it twice a month; and even during the chaotic period of the razzias [6] in autumn 1944 editions were improvised. Because of the liberation of the south of the country the contact with the Eindhoven members was severed. Although just before that time a mimeograph had been brought to Eindhoven, as far as is known, no edition of De Rode October for the liberated zone was produced there. Because of the railway strike contact with Herman Drenth in Groningen was no longer possible; there too, no separate publication was undertaken. In autumn 1944 at Rotterdam, the local comrades mimeographed De Rode October at least three times. In Amsterdam too, material was independently produced.
The responsibility for production was in the hands of Tieleman who, together with Antoine Dolleman, produced the greater number of issues. The mimeographing was done from August 1943 until November 1P44 in the attic of Antoine Dolleman at the Herderinnestraat; afterwards the production took place in the parental house of Tieleman in the Oltmansstraat. If necessary the duo Tieleman-Dolleman was assisted by others; Rein van der Horst and Thea Bloemsma were regularly involved in the production of material, and Lena Dolleman-Schenk, together with Antoine Dolleman, produced an issue of De Rode October during the great razzias in November 1944.
Those involved in production invested, often in freezing conditions, an enormous amount of energy in the creation of their paper, using ink, stencils and paper of war quality, and lacking spare parts for the maintenance and repair of the machine. It was therefore quite understandable that the editorial board and Antoine Dolleman reacted indignantly when one of the members, in an internal contribution, complained about the appearance of the publications.
Evolution
A clear evolution can be discerned in the contents of De Rode October. The first issues contained only some general articles about the course of the war and the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary Socialists. During the April-May 1943 strike some shorter, real news items were printed and more articles per issue appeared. According to the CRM itself De Rode October had become more of an actual political newspaper, an 'agitational organ'. That conception does not seem quite correct to me, because the bulk of the paper continued to be analytical articles in which the general political line of the group was expounded.
The editorial board itself also regularly pointed out that because they did not have contacts in the state apparatus, like so many other illegal newspapers, they disposed of insufficient information. The members were urged to send in fewer polemics and more articles with a news value together with a theoretical introduction. The editorial board itself was greatly dependent on the Nazi press and the foreign radio and an article against the handing over of private radios to the Nazi officials referred to them as a 'priceless possession: The art of interpreting such sources was excellently mastered, for it is clear that a serious analysis of the situation was given in the articles on the course of the war.
The contents of the paper were chosen entirely by the editorial board; articles which did not completely harmonise with the line of the organisation were not published. Articles refused were, with an argument against printing them, published in the internal discussion organ of the CRM, Het Kompas. The latter appeared from November 1942 until the end of 1944, when the publication had to cease because of communication problems; in all thirty issues appeared. In the MLL-Front such a bulletin had only appeared after a fierce discussion, but the CRM leadership wrote that such a paper was always a necessity for a revolutionary organisation. So, notwithstanding the conditions of illegality, the CRM provided a paper in which all members could discuss the politics of the organisation. Besides the articles refused for De Rode October (someone who had had an article turned down wrote that De Rode October had become the private domain of the editorial board) Het Kompas published articles on certain questions and on the work of the organisation. The editorial board repeatedly called for more discussion articles.
Around the beginning of 1944 in The Hague there emerged a discussion group of about five young people around the CRM. From the CRM itself were Leen Reedijk (the centre of the group), Rein van der Horst (the contact with the leadership) and Thea Bloemsma. This group published the discussion paper De Pionier four times. It is remarkable that much was written on topics like art and sexuality in this paper, which was unusual in the revolutionary Socialist movement of that time. Perhaps an explanation can be found in the fact that the CRM members in question came from the Arbeiders Jeugd Centrale (AJC), the pre-war youth organisation of the Social Democracy which was strongly oriented to cultural matters. Moreover, unlike the CRM members, the people in the group did not come from the working class. Indeed, these youth needed a discussion on these topics as they had become separated from mainstream cultural life; they did not go to the cinema, etc., because Jews were no longer allowed there. [7]
Because of its interests this group was a strange animal, and the CRM leadership had an ambivalent attitude towards it. They twice reacted rather untactfully to discussion articles from the group, the first one on the membership norms of a revolutionary party and the second one on the conceptions of Wilhelm Reich regarding sexuality. The reactions of the leadership were, probably for reasons of security, published in De Pionier under Rein van der Horst's pseudonym, Barbarossa. He therefore wrote an angry letter to the leadership in which he, inter alia, criticised them because they had mentioned 'the revolutionary Marxist party'. In van der Horst's opinion this should not have been brought up because people had only got together to build a Socialist youth movement.[8]
On 21 November 1944, two days after writing this letter, van der Horst was arrested during a big round-up in The Hague. Leen Reedijk had been arrested one month earlier. The group evolved a little further at about that time. In January 1945 the fourth and last issue of De Pionier appeared under the chief-editorship of a new editor, who used the pseudonym H. Blommers. He pointed out that the character of the group was unclear. The clarity that he desired came with the appearance of the paper Revolutionnaire Jeugd (Revolutionary Youth), of which three issues appeared, from February till April 1945, with a circulation of between 500 and 1000. The paper had two pages and appeared under the control of Piet van 't Hart. Antoine Dolleman wrote the first issue, van 't Hart wrote the next two. Revolutionnaire Jeugd differed from De Pionier, in that it appeared as the youth organ of the CRM and the cultural aspect of the struggle for Socialism disappeared.
Finally in April 1944 the CRM published a booklet with six articles by Trotsky, dealing with Stalinism. In the introduction they announced their intention of publishing Trotsky's Transitional Programme and some of his texts on the rise of Nazism in Germany; these publications did not appear during the occupation.
Naturally the CRM needed 'safe' houses, forged coupons and ration cards and other papers on behalf of their own organisation. They could provide for their own needs in part. Andries Dolleman co-operated with Leen Molenaar, a member of the Spartacus leadership; as 'Zwarte Kees' Molenaar was very active in the field of security and welfare and through him the CRM got coupon cards. Thea Bloemsma and Rein van der Horst regularly had fugitives of their own circle in their home. The leadership co-operated with some resistance groups which specialised in providing those on the run and in the underground with coupon cards, identity papers and 'safe' addresses. Among others Combrink, Cor van 't Hart and Santen were involved in this.
Collaboration
One of the groups with which they collaborated was that of Rinus Pelgrom, a Council Communist who was also active in the left-Socialist resistance group De Vonk. His group was part of the Free Groups Amsterdam, a circle that did not want to join the Landelijke Organisatie voor Hulp aan Onderduikers (LO) (National Organisation for Aid to Fugitives) because they wanted to preserve their organisational autonomy. The collaboration with his group became so close that a part of it, including Pelgrom, joined the CRM. Another important contact was Bertus ten Dam, who was, before the war, a member of the Bond van Revolutionnaire Socialisten (BRS) (League of Revolutionary Socialists), a split from the RSAP. Ten Dam had, together with Piet van 't Hart, fought in Spain. He worked in the group of Daan Baruch and Eli van Tijn; Ab Oeldrich was the highly gifted forger of this group, which devoted itself to the falsification of identity cards and the obtaining of ration books. This group collaborated with the Persoons Bewijzen Centrale (PBC) (Identity Card Centre) of Gerrit van der Veen. Furthermore the CRM had, through Sal Santen, contact with the psychoanalyst Coen van Emde Boas. Herman Drenth, in Groningen, collaborated in the field of welfare with people from other groups. From the Pelgrom and Ten Dam groups, the CRM got coupon cards and false papers. Various CRM members were sheltered by Pelgrom. In its turn, the CRM in The Hague sometimes provided Pelgrom with ration books and coupons and assisted him in finding safe addresses.
The ration books obtained by the CRM were especially reserved for people who really needed them. Besides fugitives, there were the imprisoned comrades and the members working in Germany. For them Cor van 't Hart prepared food parcels. On the suggestion of Piet van 't Hart it was decided in order to prevent bureaucratisation and favouritism that CRM members were not allowed to use extra ration coupons, an example of van 't Hart's rigid proletarian morals. During the famine winter this rule was consciously 'sinned' against; Thea Bloemsma received extra coupons from Wout Tieleman so that she could continue to function as a courier.
The contacts described above were the responsibility of the leadership. For reasons of safety the making of local contacts was disapproved of. Reality was, however, more complicated. Rein van der Horst worked at the Burgerlijke Stand (Registrar's Office) in The Hague and there he was involved in the sabotage of the German administration. In autumn 1944 Thea Bloemsma got involved by chance in the sheltering of Jewish children. Frits Zeggelink sometimes 'took a little detour'. Such activities took place without the knowledge of the organisation.
Three phases can be discerned in the development of the organisation. The first was from the start in summer 1942 until the April-May strikes of 1943, during which time a national structure was developed. The second phase went from May 1943 until September 1944, during which De Rode October started to appear in a mimeographed form, and its character became more defined. At this time too Het Kompas appeared more regularly. De Jong characterises this period, as he does for the 'illegality' in general, as the purest unfolding of the resistance.
The third phase, from September 1944 until the liberation is the most difficult to judge. The partition of the Netherlands between that controlled by the Allies and that still occupied by the Nazis, the failure of the trains to function because of the railway strike, the dismantling of industry, the razzias of the male population and the famine winter led to the disintegration of society. Under these circumstances it was not so simple for the 'illegality' to continue to work, and certainly not for a tiny group like the CRM.
After the war Piet van 't Hart wrote that in this period a small group of CRM members achieved an inhuman amount. In this phase Wout Tieleman and Antoine Dolleman succeeded in producing De Rode October twice a month, in the non-soundproof attic of the home of Tieleman's parents. In Wout Tieleman's words:
'As soon as I had typed all the stencils I started, with stamp and stamp cushion, to stamp the headings on the first page. Quite a job! Meanwhile Antoine rolled on. Being ready with the stamp box I already started collating, and made small stacks of sheets...Antoine did the most fatiguing job, the rolling. I did not often relieve him because he had the machine so much at his fingertips that he felt when two sheets at a time went through the machine. The drying of the ink was a separate problem, for in that attic the ink remained too sticky and Antoine often had to warm the ink tubes on his naked body so that we could work.'
After the beginning of the big razzias in the autumn of 1944 it was nearly impossible for any men to go onto the streets; the CRM leadership called on the older members and women to take over jobs. Thea Bloemsma began dealing with the supply of paper and ink in The Hague. In her words:
'To me that was a day's work in itself. I put the paper in my pram and my child upon it, which was a heavy load through the snow. It worked excellently, and in that way one passed the heaviest control posts. Once I had some very important letters which had to be delivered to Wout Tieleman. Those 1 rolled into a dirty diaper of my daughter and with child and pram I got under way. At the control post the question was put: "Was ist das?" ("What is that") I said: 'Das is Stront"("That is shit"). I knew instinctively that if you said such a thing to a man you would pass the control post.'
In worn-out clothes, on a bicycle with the ends of a garden hose as tyres, Cor van `t Hart went through the freezing cold to The Hague, Amsterdam and the northern part of North Holland: 'I had little time to read the paper. Sometimes I was away for ten days, and came home for a short while and then went away again on the bicycle.' Harry Combrink also played a role in maintaining communications and, notwithstanding the razzias, made 'walking trips' between Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam.
Part 3 Main lines of the political position
Like the MLL-Front the CRM considered the Second World War not as a struggle between democracy and Fascism, but primarily as a conflict between various capitalist countries for the control of the world market. The Western Allies would try to stifle every important independent activity of the workers. The Allies' victory could not break the impasse of world capitalism, and so new economic crises and a new world war were inevitable. That the Soviet Union also chose the political side of its western military allies was, for the CRM, an extra proof of the reactionary, nationalistic policy of the governing Stalinist bureaucracy. According to the CRM the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers' state which had to be defended against the aggression of capitalist Germany. They considered that revolutionary developments in Europe would spread to the Soviet Union, whereas the defeat of the USSR would mean that reaction, both inside and outside that country, would seize the chance to strangle all the gains of the Russian revolution for ever. For that reason the CRM was of the opinion that their advocacy of the defence of the Soviet Union was in direct opposition to Stalin's policy.
In the first issue of De Rode October it was admitted that the situation was not encouraging. Because of the deep crisis of the workers' movement there had, 'against every expectation' been no revolutionary resistance to the war. In December 1942 it was stated that the weakest link of the system lay in the German satellites in Italy and the Balkans. A revolutionary breakthrough might originate there but it would bleed to death if the German working class did not join the struggle. The national resistance in Europe was judged negatively; such 'pro-English feeling' would not produce revolutionary resistance. According to De Rode October, such a development was only possible if there were revolutionary uprisings in other countries.
In February 1943 there was a negative reaction to the possibility of an invasion of Western Europe; such a second front could only be established when Germany had been considerably weakened, which meant that this would be the most probable time for some revolutionary development. They stuck to this perspective until the invasion of June 1944: that there was a race as to which would be first, the German revolution or the invasion. The outcome would be either a general revolutionary wave or the victory of the counter-revolution.
The Allied invasion of Italy in July 1843 confirmed the CRM in their opinion; if the Allied advance succeeded, and Germany was occupied, the revolutionary possibilities would vanish for a number of years. In the discarding of Mussolini by governing circles in Italy, the CRM saw an attempt to keep the revolution at bay. They paid a lot of attention to the development of the workers' resistance in Italy and to the counter-revolutionary role of the Allied military administration and of the Italian Communist Party. They warmly welcomed the important strike movements in England and the USA, and denounced the anti-democratic anti-strike measures of the governments in those countries.
A Political Declaration of August 1943 gives the fullest view of the Second World War by the CRM. The leadership attached much importance to this text which was put before the membership; they wrote that in a legal situation a conference would have been held. After consultation with the membership the final text was published in the fourteenth issue of De Rode October. Probably the Political Declaration is the most fundamental document of the revolutionary Socialist movement in the Netherlands during the occupation. Inter alia, a summary was given of the evolution of the resistance in Italy, Greece, the Balkans, the occupied West European countries and the Western Allied countries. For the CRM a rebirth of the German workers' movement stood in the forefront:
'The right slogans for the reinforcement of the resistance in the Netherlands against German imperialism will contribute towards that end. A sound spirit of resistance is alive in the Dutch proletariat. The coming events will decide whether the German revolution or the Allied counter-revolution will utilise this spirit.'
From this quotation it appears that, under the influence of events, their appraisal of the resistance in the occupied European countries had undergone some change; it was judged less negatively now as compared with the first months after the founding of the CRM.
After the invasion of June 1944 the CRM corrected the perspective in a more pessimistic way:
'In the sixth year of war, no wave of revolutionary resistance rolls over Europe, but discontented proletarians and peasants ally with their bourgeoisies in the uprising, in the partisan struggle, in the war against German imperialism and put all their hopes in the victory of Allied imperialism.'
To the CRM the invasion meant that the German revolution would take longer to mature, and that the revolutionary initiative would move to Italy and the occupied European countries.
In December 1944 it seemed a turning point was established by the development and growth of the workers' resistance in liberated France and Belgium, and by the flaring up of the civil war in Greece. The judgement of the national resistance in a number of European countries underwent a further nuanced change:
'Especially in France, Belgium and the Balkans, the resistance movement has assumed a radical character because of its predominantly proletarian supporters and the collaborationist activity of great parts of the possessing classes....
The struggle of the proletarians supporting the resistance movement has taken on such a sharp character because it is coupled with certain illusions about social and national liberation assumed to be inherent in the victory of the "democratic" powers and the Soviet Union:
In February 1945 a second wave of resistance was observed, through which Europe was becoming a 'revolutionary volcano'. The CRM continued to stick to this perspective; even in the very last issue of De Rode October that appeared during the occupation, it expected a further development of the resistance in Germany. This hope of a rebirth of the revolutionary sentiments of the German workers did not mean that the CRM had no eye for the enormous problems attached to it. In February 1943 the great importance of the defeat of the German workers' movement in 1933, when Hitler came to power without striking a blow, and the subsequent years of terror and destruction of the workers' movement were pointed out thus:
Therefore, young comrades, if the German proletariat has, notwithstanding this enormous and bloody war, not yet arisen, and if it takes such a long time before it takes up opposition, it is not because the German proletariat has changed, or because it prefers to play at soldiers so much, but because of this terrible defeat and nothing else.'
Time and again this point was underlined by the CRM. In addition the policy of the Allies was mentioned as an inhibiting factor on German revolutionary consciousness. The CRM turned vehemently against any theory of collective responsibility for Nazism by the German people and against the Yalta treaty through which the German workers were driven once more into the hands of Hitler. In the publications of the CRM a distinction was consistently drawn between Fascist and anti-Fascist Germans, a term like 'moffen' ('Krauts') was not used: 'Not in the London of Churchill, Gerbrandy and Albarda are our allies, but in the prisons and concentration camps of Germany: It is no exaggeration to say that the CRM tried to drum this into the heads of their readers against the stream.
Above all, the Soviet Union was reproached for its nationalistic policy, and for its support for the partition of Europe into spheres of influence, thus acting in opposition to a revival of the German workers movement. To the CRM the dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943 was a symbol of this policy; they devoted a long article and a special manifesto to the dissolution, which thus met the wishes of the Western Allies. Nevertheless, they considered that revolutionary possibilities would be improved if the Red Army liberated Germany from the Nazis; the military successes of the Red Army were called a 'glowing item'. In that respect the CRM thought that the soldiers of the Red Army would not turn against the revolutionary forces. For the same reason Hitler would prefer an advance by the Western Allies.
So, despite their recognition of these factors which hampered their cause, they maintained their belief in the coming German revolution. However, they could not give many concrete examples of their hopes. Regularly they pointed out the existence of a general war fatigue among the German population and so believed that, because of the hopeless military situation, the soldiers would become demoralised. The abortive coup against Hitler of 20 July 1944 was interpreted in this sense: 'Coups among the possessing classes are the classical preludes to revolutions'.
Many people will think that the central place of the German workers' movement in the political thinking of the CRM was utopian. In the CRM one reader formulated a criticism in two articles in Het Kompas at the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, thus at the time of the battle of Stalingrad. He pointed out that there was a combination of iron discipline, servile obedience and a highly developed technology in Germany. That the revolution could come first in Germany was thought 'very improbable':
'However hard it is, it is the duty of every revolutionist to say what is: the German governing class has found a very great part of the German people ready to play soldier, policeman or hangman.'
According to the writer (presumably Theo Jansen) the German masses had to be liberated, and it was the task of the European revolution to purify Germany. A revolutionary perspective, differing from that of the CRM leadership, was sketched out:
'Hitler cannot resist both the revolutions in the occupied territories and the "Allies", who have allied with the heroic resistance of the Russian workers and peasants, the more so as such uprisings would reinforce the Russian resistance and from the revolutionary war of the Soviet Union develop into a European revolutionary war against the citadel of the counter-revolution; Hitler-Germany.
The leadership reacted in a very irritable manner to this article which, in their opinion, went in the direction of the despised policy of Social-Democracy and the Communist parties. A strengthening of nationalism in Europe would drive the German workers further towards Hitler. According to the leadership, what was decisive was not where the revolution would begin, but the fact that without the support of the German working class not a single revolutionary break-through was possible. According to the leadership, revolutionists had vehemently to resist a partition of Germany and a 'second Versailles', that is to say a peace at the expense of Germany. The writer of the article reacted with a new piece under the title: 'Politicians who suffer from arteriosclerosis'. The danger of a new Versailles treaty imposed on Germany was posed, and a more active defence of the Soviet Union was advocated. The leadership replied to this second contribution still more vehemently; the writer was accused of 'rudenesses, insinuations and distortions'. It was repeated that his conceptions were diametrically contrary to those of the RSAP and the MLL-Front.
In later issues of Het Kompas there appeared further contributions by members who were of the opinion that De Rode October was too optimistic about the developments in Italy and notably Germany. The editorial board, however, thought this testified to a 'a superficial pessimism and impatience'. Finally Frits Zeggelink wrote to me that after 1933 he no longer believed in a German revolution. In all this it should not be forgotten how great the prestige of the German workers' movement had been before 1933. In the words of Rein van der Horst: 'We knew that history, it is not strange that we had hopes'. Sal Santen called the confidence in the German workers' movement 'a deeply rooted conviction'.
The CRM's conception of the situation in the Netherlands was part of its general political analysis of the Second World War as an imperialist war. Small nations like the Netherlands were only the playthings of the big imperialist powers. Since the Netherlands were treated by the Nazis as a 'colony' the question of national oppression' arose. The Dutch bourgeoisie in the war had chosen the side of England and the United States. However, they only wanted to create anew 'freedom' for their exploitation of the Dutch working class and the peoples in the Dutch colonies. Because the Dutch governing class was also the victim of the occupation and supported the struggle against the occupier, the struggle against their own bourgeoisie had to be carried on as an ideological struggle. In other words: the real war goals of the governing class had to be made clear.
According to the CRM national oppression had a radicalising effect on the workers:
'It would be ridiculous to close one's eyes to the enormous role played at this moment by national oppression in the political life of the Dutch workers. This problem occupies every worker at the moment, and because of this problem people start now to take an interest in political problems when formerly they thought of nothing.
Repeatedly it was stated that they appreciated the courage of the nationalist organisations. Any political collaboration with organisations which wanted an Allied victory was, however, sharply repudiated by the CRM:
'The task of the proletariat in an oppressed country is to struggle both against every sort of social and national oppression and for the right of national self-determination in co-operation with the proletariat of the oppressing country....'
'The real liberating force in the struggle against national oppression, and for the right of self-determination of the nations, can only be the revolutionary proletariat.'
Naturally the CRM was conscious that this task was extremely difficult in view of the misery of the occupation:
'Therefore the broad masses want first to get rid of Nazi oppression. Because their hatred is so great, every critical judgement about the Allies changes into fear that their enemy would profit, so their national feelings play a huge role here. Oppression by a foreign ruler is felt more severely than exploitation by their own bourgeoisie.'
Around Dolle Dinsdag (Mad Tuesday -- 5 September 1944),[9] when a swift liberation of the whole country seemed close, they had to conclude that they stood 'powerless in the midst of an Orange sea'. According to the CRM a real breakthrough in the Netherlands would only come out of revolutionary developments in other European countries. In the Dutch situation two issues stood out as central in that respect.
In the first place economic reconstruction in ravaged Europe would only be possible at the expense of the working class; low wages and long working days would be inevitable. Because of their financial dependence on loans from England and the USA, food and household goods would be scarce. It was expected that because of this the state would play a greater role and assume a more centralised and authoritarian character. In view of the size of the economic problems after the occupation, any promises of a more just society were, for the CRM, worth nothing. The plans, discussed at the time, to annexe bits of Germany after the occupation were interpreted by the CRM as a means of capitalist reconstruction, and rejected. The strikes in the liberated part of the Netherlands (in Eindhoven and in the Limburg mines), in the 'dark Catholic South' gave the CRM great confidence. It also saw these strikes as part of the general proletarian wave of resistance that it observed in Europe.
The second point concerned the future of Indonesia. Although leftist organisations like the CPN and De Vonk used Queen Wilhelmina's promise of greater independence for Indonesia, within a sort of Dominion status, as a starting point of their policy, the CRM saw in this promise merely the announcement of a 'new predatory expedition' and of a colonial war, which would be an inevitable consequence of the Liberation of the Netherlands. The CRM stuck to the old motto of the revolutionary workers' movement: 'Free Indonesia from Holland! Now!'
After the invasion this problem was argued out in nearly every issue of De Rode October. Attention was given to the argument that the fight of the Dutch troops in Indonesia was for the liberation of Indonesia from Japanese Fascism, or for the prevention of its domination by US influence:
'Suddenly everybody is moved to tears by the Japanese oppression of Indonesia, the country that, in the course of centuries, has been squeezed like a lemon, where every free national and cultural development was hindered by Dutch domination, and where the brave, who advocated the right of national self-determination, have perished of swamp fevers in the Dikgoel camp.
The CRM expected that the working class youth would not be enthusiastic about a colonial war, and in this they saw a great possibility for the recruitment of massive numbers of new members to the CRM. As far as is known the position of the CRM regarding Indonesia did not lead to any contacts with Indonesians living in the Netherlands during the occupation.
Because of the great importance of both these issues the CRM did not believe in an automatic, untroubled return to parliamentary democracy. They even thought that the era of parliamentary democracy was over for good, because capitalism had found itself in an epoch of structural decline. After the liberation the CRM did not expect freedom of organisation and the press for revolutionary organisations. At about the time of Mad Tuesday the leadership therefore called for the maintenance of total clandestinity.
The CRM was against the introduction of the state of siege and against every postponement of postwar elections. The practical arguments, supplied in that respect by minister-president Gerbrandy did not, according to the CRM, hold water; postponement was advocated in order to be able to start the reconstruction of the Netherlands and to prepare for the war in Indonesia. Because of the 'enormous changes', taking place among the masses, immediate elections would spoil the game of the governing class. Although the CRM was no champion of parliamentary democracy, they attached much importance to this question. At all times they demanded immediate general elections and freedom of organisation and the press.'[10]
The dismissal of the Social Democratic ministers from the Dutch government in February 1945 and the formation of a new cabinet strengthened the CRM in this view: because of the political plans of the bourgeoisie there was no longer any room for Social Democracy in the government. According to the CRM the composition of the new government proved that there was a conscious move to reaction and 'the hammer blow' was of course the nomination of De Quay as Minister of War -- since he had been the leader of the controversial Nederlandse Unie at the beginning of the occupation. In De Rode October of early January 1945 they spoke about a possible government of Social Democracy and the CPN: the CRM hoped that such a government would destroy the confidence of the workers in these parties.
From the above it will be clear that the whole idea of a 'liberation' for the CRM, had a limited meaning only: in the last issue of De Rode October that appeared during the occupation they wrote, though everyone naturally was relieved by the fact that the Nazi terror had come to an end, nevertheless attention must now be devoted to the political problems which we have mentioned above.[11]
Part 4 Resistance, theory and practice
A number of clear consequences in the field of the strategy and tactics followed from the principled internationalist stand advocated by the CRM. One of the most important was that they did not consider the German soldiers in the Netherlands as enemies, but as class companions with whom fraternisation had to be encouraged. The CRM did not succeed in creating organised contacts but did direct themselves in a propagandistic way to the 'German workers in uniform: In The Hague strips of gummed paper, on which slogans were applied with the stamp box, were glued on the walls of barracks buildings. In Rotterdam special leaflets in German were made; they were, inter alia, placed on the staircases of the Maas Bridge by Piet and Cor van 't Hart who, to that effect, applied the well-tried tactics of the courting couple. Afterwards Rein van der Horst called these activities 'shots in the dark: In De Rode October there is no article about any expressedly anti-Fascist resistance within the German army; all that can be found is an attempt to establish the growth of desertions at the end of the occupation, and the notice taken of the often lenient attitude of soldiers during the great razzias of 1944: 'It even happened that some people who came to report voluntarily were called idiots and driven back with rifle butts: In a development of its stand on German soldiers, there was the vehement denunciation of shaving the heads of 'Kraut maidens' at the liberation, which was called by the CRM a 'nationalist pogrom'. To the CRM the only criterion was a Fascist or anti-Fascist conviction; they pointed to double standards, because men with lady friends in Germany had not had a hair on their heads touched: 'This kind of thing can only occur in the head of a hypocritical petit-bourgeois who is pious in public and sins in secret'.
Integral
The CRM also directed its attacks on the destructive Allied mass bombing. The bombing of The Hague of March 1944, where there were more than 500 killed, could not be justified from a military standpoint according to the CRM; in The Hague the CRM publicised their standpoint in a pamphlet. The bombing of Dresden was described as a 'horrible murdering party': 'There is silence in the Orange camp about Dresden..Dresden, the burning heap of ruins, was the city of the most anti-Fascist part of Germany, Saxony.' The majority of the Resistance supported the Allied bombings and, at best, criticised operations where the setbacks for the civil population outweighed the military gains; to the CRM the bombings were an integral part of the imperialist war. Repeatedly the CRM spoke out against political assassinations of important people. They considered these forms of individual terror as counter-productive; the victims were simply replaced, and the reprisals of the occupier would take many victims. The CRM thought, therefore, that individual terror was not conducive to mass resistance. This was distinct from killing traitors and agents of the German repressive apparatus which, to the CRM, was a simple question of self-protection.[l2]
Neither was economic sabotage advocated by the CRM. They thought that this form of sabotage was similar to terrorist attacks; it was, however, admitted that economic sabotage in the form of working slowly 'was, in a certain sense, mass action'. It differed from military sabotage of the food supply, because that would be part of the warfare of the Allies and would, in the first place, hurt the population of the occupied territories. Just as in the case of assassination, the CRM made an exception of sabotage as a defensive action, such as in the context of the defence of the Soviet Union:
'Since 90 per cent of the German army has been thrown against the Soviet army, the workers (German and foreign) have the duty deliberately to weaken German war production, by means of so-called "economic sabotage" in the weapons and munitions factories and in the transports to the Russian front.'
This standpoint had been developed in the context of the war; economic sabotage was called for by the nationalist resistance. One may ask how well thought out the CRM conception was. In two articles in De Rode October, one dealing with foreign workers in Germany and the other dealing with workers who worked for the Wehrmacht at Rozenburg, passive resistance in the form of working slowly was proposed. Both cases fell within the criterion of the war production formulated by the CRM, but the argument for the defence of the Soviet Union was not mentioned in these articles. On the contrary, in the article on Rorenburg the (in my opinion correct) argument was used that under the terror of the occupation this form of workers' resistance was the most effective possible.
As to armed killings and economic sabotage, there existed no significant differences of opinion. Dissension only arose about an article in De Rode October in which the participation of workers in demolitions was rejected when, in the autumn of 1944, large parts of the industrial apparatus were dismantled by the occupier. In Het Kompas a member wrote that this article conflicted with the CRM policy, since it called for an individual refusal to obey orders. The editorial board replied that there were certain limits to the forcing of workers to sell their labour power; on certain matters which directly touched vital interests (like removing furniture from the houses of deported Jews, the demolition of working class dwellings, the removal of foodstuffs and the demolition of factories) every worker should put up resistance. In the case of demolition of the means of production a conscious demolition was involved, which had to be distinguished from the work of workers in the war industry. It was admitted in De Rode October that this distinction was not sufficiently clear.
In comparison with the rest of occupied Europe, armed resistance in the Netherlands was relatively unimportant. Nevertheless and despite the standpoint of the leadership, it is difficult to answer the question as to whether armed resistance did not have some attraction for CRM members. Theo Jansen from The Hague, probably the one who advocated a more active defence of the Soviet Union in Het Kompas. wanted to carry on an armed struggle just as he had done during the Spanish Civil War. He left the Netherlands and, via Scandinavia. finally ended up in the Dutch army. Frits Zeggelink wrote to me:
'During the war I was approached about three times by non-leftist groups. This Orange fuss and bustle was repugnant to me, but the armed resistance did tempt. For reasons of loyalty I kept off, and said that I was occupied already.'
The position of the CRM as regards the sending of Dutch workers to Germany was closely connected with the concepts treated above. As to their own members, the CRM had a clear position: their place was with the workers. When one was called for work in Germany one had to go and try to build politically, in collaboration with German revolutionaries. In the eyes of the CRM the millions of foreign workers would play a key role in a revolutionary development in Germany. This stand was also put in De Rode October, though perhaps in a nuanced form; the article was directed towards workers already employed in Germany who were on leave in the Netherlands. But the CRM did support foursquare the April-May strike of 1943, which was a protest against the plan to convey 300 000 former Dutch prisoners of war to Germany; the CRM advocated massive evasion and refusal. This call was not restricted to former soldiers, for whom the element of compulsion was indeed strongly present. According to the CRM the workers between 18 and 35, who had to report for labour service, should also offer resistance.
Conscription
However, in the following issues of De Rode October this topic was not touched on again. In February 1944 it seemed that they had returned to their former standpoint. In an article on the new conscription of workers it was stated that those sent out to Germany had to try to make contacts with anti-Fascist Germans. At the time of the razzias of 1944, which were a savage hunt for Dutch labour hands, the CRM called for evasion. Under such circumstances any other standpoint was hardly possible any longer.
A considerable number of CRM members did work in Germany. Of the Amsterdam members, three worked in Germany and one in Finland; a number of Rotterdam members, too, worked in Germany. In De Rode October regular information was given about the feeling among the foreign and German workers in Germany. After the war Piet van 't Hart wrote that the CRM had had contacts with illegal German groups. About this no concrete evidence is available. Peter Drenth from Groningen was involved in a short strike in Bremerhaven. After the war Toon Kwarwgen told Cor van 't Hart that he had had political contacts in Germany. The member working in Finland, together with a female cook, smuggled food to Russian prisoners of war, but he was not believed when he said that he was a Trotskyist; they had been all exterminated, hadn't they...?
In fact these directives on working in Germany were not always obeyed by everybody. In an article in Het Kompas it was stated that a number of members had backed out of going. The leadership was of the opinion that only members who were indispensable to the organisation should be allowed to go underground. An argument used in this connection was that members who evaded working in Germany had to go underground, which meant that they could not do political work. [13]
Vanguard
Towards the question of working in Germany the CRM advocated a classical revolutionary Socialist tactic, which was suitable for a small vanguard of revolutionaries. In my opinion, during the occupation this standpoint came into conflict with the needs of stimulating mass resistance. The occupation was characterised by a combination of national and social repression. To refuse to work in Germany was the most important means of resistance of the Dutch working class against Nazi super-exploitation.
The CRM attached little importance to advocating this form of resistance, as may appear from the fact that no article can be found in De Rode October about the great resistance among students against their dispatch to Germany in 1942 and 1943. [14] Under the influence of the mass action of the April-May strike the CRM made an important exception to its general rule. The argument that, for the working class, running away was not a possibility does not seem convincing, because after an Allied victory seemed likely, very large groups of workers succeeded in evading labour conscription. [15] The consistent line of the CPN in this respect during the whole occupation certainly played an important role in the growth of the popularity of that party. One must remember that, unlike the CPN, the CRM did not take a high moral attitude towards workers who left for Germany. Neither do these critical remarks mean that revolutionaries could not do any useful political work in Germany, although that work was certainly not easy.[16]
In March 1944 Piet van 't Hart took up the question of the black market in De Rode October. He rejected it principally because the living standards of the workers were worsened by it. Van't Hart was annoyed by the fact that some of the workers were infected by the black market, which meant preying on the misery of the proletariat and their degradation to the level of lumpenprolerariat. In Het Kompas there was a reaction to this article; the writer talked about the importance of the black market and its effects on social inequality. Class measures against the big traders were advocated. Van 't Hart's line was called moralistic, and it was said that its application would lead to starvation for those who did not participate in it. Van 't Hart replied under the heading: 'We have to be irreconcilable towards the black market', in which he said that perhaps revolutionaries had to starve in the struggle. He rejected posing concrete demands because these would not be feasible; in his eyes providing useful information about available goods was useless, since such information should be available to all. Van 't Hart wrote that his article had been misunderstood, as he had been concerned with class morality. He was not concerned with incidental buying or selling in the black market, but with black marketeers and notably with those workers who, by becoming black market traders, changed their class position.
During the winter of famine the CRM time and again described its horrors. At various times it was stated that class differences had been sharpened by hunger; the better-off would manage and the worst hit were, above all, the children, sick people and the elderly. Some criticism was made of a call in Het Oranje Bulletin, a paper of several resistance groups, not to go to the countryside for food; to the CRM it was madness to expect workers to accept starvation:
'Our password for the workers has, however, to be, comradely relations and solidarity towards your less favoured comrades, and expose all those who trade in potatoes at black market prices.'
One of the effects of the famine that the CRM pointed out was that many more reported to the Nazis for work; hunger appeared to be a more effective weapon than terror and intimidation. The arrival of the food parcels of the Red Cross was welcomed, but the CRM denied that the Red Cross was a neutral agency and emphasised the one-off nature of the deliveries of the parcels: 'Fortunately we also met numerous working class women (and they really could use the bread well!) who spoke of a tip, a comforter thrown to us: According to De Rode October the bourgeois underground played on the famine; the CRM saw in the misery of the winter famine an illustration of the barbaric character of the imperialist world war and that those who ameliorate the worst horrors are, by doing just that, no real benefactors.
What attention did the CRM devote to the mass deportations of the Jews and to their fate in the camps? In De Rode October of November 1942 the Nazi's racial concepts were appraised and demolished. A review of 1942 noted the massive deportations of that year. After that the paper was silent on the issue for a long time. In October 1944, in an aside, it was ventured that the deported Jews would return from their 'misery and tortures'. In February 1945 there was a reaction to the report that in Poland three million Jews had been murdered:
'We shudder when reading this. And we, who have almost all got Jewish friends, or perhaps Jewish family connections, deceive ourselves with the vague hope that maybe it is not that bad, and that more have been saved, or that it is propaganda.'
This, then, clearly showed what had been the reasoning behind the remark of October 1944. The CRM interpreted the genocide as a proof of the barbarism of decaying capitalism and pointed out the hypocrisy of the Nazi propaganda about 'plutocrats: It was further pointed out in the article that:
'The destruction of the Jews in Europe will be one of the blackest pages of world history. It is amazing how, even after all this sorrow, a sly, businesslike anti-Semitism catches on here too...but we swear that we, who see in the German proletariat, as well as in the Jews, the dupes and victims of Nazi barbarism, will hate and fight the assassins of our friends, family members and comrades until our last breath.'
According to De Jong, help to Jewish escapers was notably the work of Socialists, Communists and, in a somewhat later period, Christians of the Reformed Church. The CRM, too, contributed their modest part. From the foregoing it will be clear that in the CRM publications little attention was devoted to the fate of the Jews. Although earlier some illegal papers already had published information about the holocaust, the process of repression that the CRM noted themselves was nearly general in the resistance, although they were rather more conscious of the grim fate of the deported Jews than was the mass of the population. In the illegal press little was written about the deportees. The CRM was not a positive exception in that respect.
Massive
On 30 April and 1 May 1943 there was for the first time since the February Strike, massive open workers' resistance in the Netherlands. On Thursday 29 April it was announced that former Dutch prisoners of war (300 000 people) would be despatched to work in Germany. With this announcement the occupier made a big tactical mistake; no categories of exception were mentioned and the suggestion was made that all would be despatched simultaneously. The two days' strike originated spontaneously in Twente and assumed a general character in many parts of the country. In the Randstad (roughly the territory between Amsterdam and Rotterdam) there was much less strike activity. The strike was broken by savage terror; 80 people were executed after summary trials, 95 people were shot in the streets, 400 people were badly wounded and 900 of those arrested were sent to concentration camps. In De Rode October the strike was called a 'magnificent reaction to the repressive measures of German imperialism...never has such a strike wave, which has swept for some days over the Low Countries, been known in the Netherlands.'
There was extensive discussion as to why there had been strikes in the countryside and in the small towns but not in the big cities. According to the CRM, the main factor was that in the big cities the repression and terror were much greater. Yet the big cities would have been dragged along if there had not been a subsequent announcement that workers in factories producing for the German army were exempt from deportation. Also the railway personnel had not gone on strike. It r/as concluded that during February the countryside had left the cities to stand alone, but that now a fresh wind had come into the big cities from the countryside and the small towns:
'The new coalition between the city dweller and the peasant will rebuild the political leadership of the big cities. A resistance movement without the big cities is doomed to fail.'
According to the CRM, England and the USA had sabotaged the strike because no attention had been devoted to the strike on the radio transmitters; this proved that the Allies were afraid of independent action by the workers and peasants, and simply wanted a general uprising in the framework of the Second Front.[17] It was predicted that the deportation plans would be put into action gradually; massive evasion was called for to prevent the registration for employment of men between 18 and 35. The CRM was of the opinion, however, that evasion and hiding on such a scale were impossible. They advocated massive passive resistance and particularly called on the civil servants to sabotage the execution of the measure. This view was put forward not only in De Rode October, but also in a leaflet. According to the issue of De Rode October in which the leaflet was also included, this was the third leaflet of the CRM on the strike. The first two leaflets have, as far as is known, not been preserved.
It was asserted that many members of the CRM had participated in the strike: 'by persuading the strikers and encouraging the struggle. Others passed on leaflets calling for the strike.' The only known examples are from The Hague, of the three big cities, the one where the strike was most widespread. In view of the great concentration of the CRM in the three big cities it seems to be probable that the direct contribution of the CRM was limited to The Hague. Rein van der Horst was involved in a work stoppage in the Registrar's office. More important was the strike at the Post Cheque and Giro Service where the (mainly female) personnel struck for two days. The CRM members Antoine Dolleman and Fritz Zeggelink worked there and had contacts there. An initiative was quickly taken to produce a leaflet which was typed at his work by Wout Tieleman and printed by Antoine Dolleman at his home. Thus the CRM was the first illegal group that reacted to the strike at the Giro Service. After the strike Antoine Dolleman was amongst those who were arrested; but in that case men only were dealt with, for the striking women were, according to the German authorities 'laecherliche Jungfrauen' (ridiculous young ladies). A week after the strike Dolleman was called for by the management and interrogated by the SD men Schmidt and Bark; on 27 May, when in fact the CRM no longer counted in it, he was arrested. Dolleman was kept prisoner in Scheveningen for ten weeks.
On the eve of the first strike day Antoine Dolleman took the leaflet, which had been distributed in The Hague by bicycle, to Piet van't Hart in Rotterdam. Van 't Hart was overjoyed, as he had hoped for action from The Hague members. The effect of the strike on the CRM is apparent from his reaction. The contribution of the CRM to the strike was very small, but the fact that some members had participated in the strike and that they had been able to react to some extent with leaflets was an important matter to the CRM themselves. The issue of De Rode October appearing after the strike is characterised by an inspired tone. The CRM were convinced that they had proven themselves, and there was a call to reinforce the ranks of the organisation. The resoluteness and the self-confidence of the CRM had grown considerably, and the passivity during the strike of large parts of the prewar revolutionary milieu strengthened the CRM rather than weakened it. A slanging match was directed at these circles in the issue of De Rode October mentioned which makes clear what psychological mechanism was active here.[18]
Pressure
On Sunday 17 September 1944 the Dutch government, under pressure from the Allies, called on the Dutch railway personnel to strike in support of the Allied military offensive. The railway management who, in close collaboration with the pre-war trade union leaders, had struggled against the authorities during the occupation only when the narrow interests of the enterprise were concerned, agreed; they saw the strike as a means that could only be used in the framework of rapidly approaching liberation. They also hoped by leading the strike explicitly to limit the influence of leftist tendencies among the workforce. The strike became a success but, because of the failure of the Allied offensive, it became a double-edged sword; as a reprisal, Seyss-Inquart decided to stop all food transport to the western part of the country. The railway personnel, however, could not go back and the strike lasted until the liberation. With this unexpected development the grip of the railway management on the strike lessened; in a number of places there was a political vacuum as far as financial support and help for the strikers was concerned, and that was filled by various illegal organisations.
Because the strike was directly linked with the Allied war plans the CRM placed themselves behind the strike only with hesitation. That the workers, notwithstanding the great risks, had followed the call indicated that they possessed an enormous strength; they had to understand, however, that in future this weapon had to be applied to their own bourgeoisie, and they should not let the government and the Allies use the strike. The conclusion in the first article on the strike was sufficiently vague: 'The CRM does not therefore oppose the strike, insofar as it is directed against German imperialism'.
Exploited
In the next issues of De Rode October this view was elaborated. In the first place the strike was not a consequence of the government's call but of the hatred against the German repression; it was a proletarian action that was exploited by the western Allies. The CRM called for the formation of an Independent strike leadership, without bosses and managers. In case the Allied offensive succeeded the following demands had to be posed: the right to strike, which the railway personnel had not possessed since the 1903 strike, material improvements, freedom of organisation and an immediate end to the war. Early in November it was learnt that the occupier was making use of economic pressure to break the strike. The German workers who were running the railway traffic in the Netherlands should not be seen as scabs, because it was dangerous for them to stop work. The slogan of an immediate end of the war was brought forward as a means to unify a common struggle of German and Dutch workers.
From Het Kompas it appears that in the CRM the line on the railway strike was not undisputed. Several members advocated a more critical approach. Swartenberg was of the opinion that one could not speak of a proletarian action; the strike had to be converted into such. The leadership replied that they had also had problems in defining their standpoint, but they remained of the opinion that the protest against German rule was the central aspect of the strike. To this reply De Vries reacted: 'This vision would indeed have been correct if the Dutch bourgeoisie did not, in the shape of the Allied armies, march beyond the Dutch boundaries:
According to De Vries the class character of the leadership determined the class character of the strike itself. De Vries called this the most difficult problem since the birth of the CRM, and expressed the hope that the editorial board would reconsider their standpoint. Piet van 't Hart reacted and wrote that he enjoyed the businesslike tone of De Vries' criticism. He pointed to the fact that all the members of the CRM were young and inexperienced where such tactical problems were concerned; the leadership, too, had only come to an agreement after much discussion. Van 't Hart again explained his conception. During the occupation the working class had been enslaved in a manner previously unknown, and each act of resistance with class methods against that enslavement was progressive. The precise moment when the strike broke out did not matter:
'If we want to formulate things correctly we must say: the strike is a predominantly proletarian action called for and directed by the bourgeoisie, who try to use the anti-imperialist feeling of the masses for their own aims.'
Van 't Hart further asked himself from whence the reservations against the strike derived; according to him, they were due to the isolation of the CRM, and to the lack of contact with broad layers of the workers:
'It is, however, our duty to search for ways to obtain influence with this group of workers in future and to speak among them of our perspectives, if we don't do that we are just academic know-alls.'
Swartenberg, too, in his contribution, advocated a more active approach, for example the distribution of leaflets. As far as is known such activities did not, or scarcely, happened. In theory there existed, as has been said, some possibilities of playing such a role in the support of the strike, but one should keep in mind that the extremely difficult circumstances of the last year of the occupation limited those possibilities for a small group like the CRM. Nevertheless, it is clear that van 't Hart put his finger on a weak spot of the CRM.
Part 5 The CRM and other left wing resistance
The CRM mainly consisted of members of the MLL-Front who had opposed the policy of Sneevliet. Besides these the CRM had some members from the pre-war GBL, the section of the Fourth International, of whom Santen was the most important individual. In addition, from July 1944 until January 1945 the independent group around Barend Luteraan, a colourful veteran from the workers' movement, worked with the CRM in Amsterdam. During the war the CRM as a whole increasingly began to turn to the Fourth International, and Santen in particular worked for this.
In the autumn of 1942 the question arose as to whether the CRM considered itself as a continuation of the opposition in the MLL-Front. In the internal paper Over en Weer (To and Fro), which was in fact the first issue of Het Kompas, there was an article in which it was stated that the opening article in the first issue of De Rode October had been too positive towards Sneevliet and the MLL-Front. Sneevliet and his comrades had 'in a brave way offered their lives for the cause of the workers', but one could not recognise them as revolutionary Marxists' in the best sense of the word'. Of the CRM more political clarity was demanded: 'In a new paper of a new grouping one expects at least a declaration as why one is there and what one wants:
This criticism was sharply rejected in a reply by the editorial board; they referred to the opposition in the MLL-Front and explained that the first issue of De Rode October had appeared before the founding of the CRM and the break with Spartacus. The reply ended as follows:
'If the writer of the article was a bit more willing to collaborate in a positive way instead of producing petty criticism then this would undoubtedly mean a strengthening of the revolutionary Marxist camp, at a time like the present when every revolutionary has the job of exerting all his efforts.'
In view of the contents of the criticism it is plausible that it came from the side of the GBL; from the reply by the editorial board it can further be gathered that the person in question was not yet a member of the CRM, and that they wanted that to change.
In April 1943 the fallen leaders of the MLL-Front were commemorated in De Rode October. In this article vehement criticism of Sneevliet's policy was expressed, notably regarding his orientation on the NAS, and his dropping of the defence of the Soviet Union. One went even so far as to say that political confusion and the underestimation of the dangers of illegality had led to the catastrophe that had struck the MLL-Front. Again they identified themselves with the tendency around Dolleman in the MLL-Front. About the GBL it was said that they had taken the correct standpoints, but that their tactics, leaving the RSAP, had led to isolation. These appreciations of the MLL-Front and the GBL were regularly repeated. Evolving political events strengthened the CRM in this judgement, as did information about foreign organisations with which the RSAP had collaborated before the war; parties like the English Independent Labour Party (ILP) had admitted such during the war.
In the Political Declaration of August 1943 the CRM came out clearly for the Fourth International.[19] On 25 June 1944 the leadership went one step further by adopting a resolution in which they said that, notwithstanding the breaking of contact, they considered themselves the Dutch section of the Fourth International. According to the leadership this decision was not to be seen as just a symbolic act, but as the expression of a consistent internationalism. They called on the cells to vote on the resolution, and it was noted that in a situation of legality a national conference would have been organised. In the following issue of Het Kompas it was reported that every member was in favour of the resolution.
One of the local groups also proposed to change the name of the organisation into that of the Revolutionary Marxist Party; the term 'committee' obviously suggested the lack of a concrete political programme. Small size was of no importance as far as calling themselves a party, since the Fourth International, too, called itself a world party. The leadership opposed this proposal, as the number of members would be of importance. 'It would mean that we would make use of our secret underground nature to make propaganda by bluff'.[20]
It was admitted that the term 'committee' did not fully correspond with the existing situation, but also in view of familiarity the name CRM had to be maintained. The comparison with the Fourth International as a whole did not, according to the leadership, hold water; several sections did have a party basis, others had not. They wrote that they hoped to develop into a party as soon as possible. In the following issue of Het Kompas it was reported that all cells had expressed themselves against the proposal of changing the group name, although one district did not reply because communications had been severed.
A difference of opinion about the arguments for joining the Fourth International arose with some ex-members of the GBL inside the CRM, who thought that the leadership was too negative about the GBL. In particular they protested that the GBL had been attacked for a 'shameful capitulation' during the occupation. The leadership said that they were ready to withdraw this formulation, but stuck to their criticism of the GBL. Piet van 't Hart wrote that the ex-GBL members, as well as the leadership, were of the opinion that a conflict over this matter did not make any sense:
'We found each other on a common basis, we collaborated closely in the CRM, and there are, at present, practically no political differences anymore. From now on we are all CRMers...
'Let us act closely and not degrade our organisation into a sect which starts discussing third rate problems at the most critical moments, while the most important things are neglected.
In De Rode October of August 1944 the decision to join the Fourth International was reported, and it was stated that they considered themselves as a part of the new International; in the issue of the middle of April 1945 the June 1944 resolution was also explicitly mentioned. During the occupation, however, no contacts with the Fourth International were made, notwithstanding a plan of Tieleman and an attempt by Piet and Cor van 't Hart.[21] In the summer of 1943 they wrote that they did not have a single report about activities of the sections of the Fourth International, but that nevertheless they had full confidence in it. When in 1944 and 1945 reports came in about the role of the English Trotskyists in strikes and about the French Trotskyists in the Resistance, these were applauded.
They reacted with indignation to remarks from Spartacus> that Trotskyists elsewhere in Europe would choose the Allied side; according to the CRM this could only concern individuals, because the programme of the Fourth International did not allow for capitulation. Immediately after the war the CRM made contact with the Fourth International, and a manifesto was published in De Rode October. It is remarkable how much the main features of the political line of the CRM agree with those of the Fourth International during the war. [22]
From its foundation Spartacus developed in a Council Communist direction. In the second half of 1944 this led to the affiliation of Spartacus to the greater part of the Groep van Internationale Communisten (Group of International Communists), a pre-war Council Communist group. Hardly anything is known of its numerical size and geographical distribution, whilst the circulation figures of its publications also give no definite answer about the significance of Spartacus in comparison with the CRM. My impression is that both groups were of equal size, but that the CRM made itself more conspicuous as an organisation. [23] But then in Trotskyism a much bigger role is attached to the construction of a revolutionary organisation than in Council Communism.
Overlooked
After taking into account the story of the birth of both groupings, it is not surprising that the CRM and Spartacus did not treat each other in a friendly way. The CRM constantly reproached Spartacus for its passivity, 'helplessness', 'confusion' and 'dilettantism':
'Those who think they continue Sneevliet's policy can, politically speaking, not even be named in his shadow, and have fallen into helpless repetitions of phrases and childlike bungling.'
To the CRM Spartacus was a 'worthy result of the degenerative process of the RSAP' and activity with the objective of a merger was no longer deemed desirable:
'We would, in that case, be obliged to accept also all those elements who, by their often criminal stupidities and total ineptitude for illegal work, present great dangers.'
Notwithstanding the common characterisation of the war as imperialist, on nearly all important issues there existed great differences of opinion between the groups. We may mention here the attitude concerning left Social Democrats, the character of the Soviet Union, and according to the CRM, an inadequate raising by Spartacus of the Indonesian question and the lack of interest by Spartacus in championing the restoration of democratic rights.[24] However, the most important complex of issues involved the relationship between the revolutionary party, trade unions and workers' councils. Spartacus had sharply broken with any form of trade unionism; their starting point was that workers councils had to be prepared by means of nuclei in the enterprises, basing this on the fact that the key to the power of the working class was in the workplace. The CRM considered this an ultra-leftist conception. One should try to build a leftist tendency in the mass trade unions, since nuclei would not automatically change into workers' councils, for the latter could only come into existence in a revolutionary situation. To overestimate the importance of the level of activity in the workplace would, according to the CRM, lead to an underestimation of the problem of state power, and through that, an underestimation of the importance of the revolutionary party.
The CRM also argued against the proposition that, tactically, workers' nuclei in the workplaces were the only possible form of organisation during the occupation; this argument was judged as understandable but nevertheless wrong. This work would be too dangerous and ineffective in circumstances such as the social chaos of 1944-45. Their own standpoint was sharply formulated thus:
'In these rigid illegal circumstances the revolutionaries can, as long as this situation does not change in a revolutionary sense, such as proletarian resistance in Germany, take no other stand than to safeguard their own organisation as much as possible and make the greatest possible revolutionary propaganda against the imperialist war as well as exposing nationalist propaganda. (Such revolutionary propaganda was more important than the propaganda in the workplaces for cells, for such activity would be aimless and without real tasks.) Revolutionaries should work with all their strength for the construction of the revolutionary party which will be able to supply political leadership to the proletariat in the coming struggle.'
When judging this opinion various aspects have to be clarified. One may ask: what was the sense of the nuclei which Spartacus tried to build with other far left people if they were isolated from the overwhelming majority of the workers?[25] The argument of social disruption, used by the CRM, was realistic too. But in contrast to the MLL-Front the CRM did not call for an organisation in the enterprises in the form of nuclei or committees in any sense. The CRM stand, as rendered in the above quotation, seems to be a theoretical justification for their own isolation.
The same article in De Rode October was the only one in which attention was given to the formation of a unified trade union movement; they wrote that they acclaimed such a trade union federation, on the basis of one organisation per branch of industry. From the article it appears that the CRM itself was not involved in the initiative to form a unitary trade union federation. [26] After the war the CRM tried to build an opposition in the Eenheidsvakcentrale EVC (Unitarian Trade Union Central), but in that arena one could not build on the position held during the occupation.
It must be clear that the breach between both heirs of the Sneevliet movement could not be healed. Apart from the matter-of-fact aspect of the differences of opinion, the split had led to bitterness in both groups. The quotations of the CRM above speak for themselves. It has been mentioned before that Poppe explained the split in terms of a Trotskyist plot. In his conversation with Vereeken in 1944 Poppe complained above all about the discussion and the 'organisational methods' of the CRM, and he belittled the political differences of opinion. So the CRM, contrary to their co-thinkers in Belgium and France, had, in his eyes, not gone on to support the nationalist movement. How much this conversation can be believed is a very moot question. Vereeken was a dissident Trotskyist and no admirer of the Spartacus' Council Communism; it seems that in this conversation Poppe took this properly into account.
Notwithstanding the split, personal contacts continued to exist in various towns. In Arnhem there was somebody who could not accept the split, and who distributed material for both groups. When Willy Dolleman had gone into hiding in Enschede, and had no more contact with the CRM, he distributed the publications of Spartacus. In Rotterdam the CRM obtained practical assistance from Spartacus members. We have mentioned already the collaboration between Andries Dolleman with Leen Molenaar, by means of which the CRM got its ration cards.
Support
De Rode October criticised the material produced by Wijnand Romijn, a left Socialist, who wrote under the pseudonyms Montagnard and Socius. In them Romijn, without supporting the political aims of the United States and England, advocated tactical support to the Allied powers. Revolutionary developments were, according to Romijn, only possible when Hitler's Fascism had been militarily defeated.
The CRM did not want to identify themselves with this conception. According to the CRM, Romijn overlooked the fact that the military defeat of Germany as a consequence of an Allied advance would lead to the repression or the prevention of a revolution in Germany. Moreover, the CRM was of the opinion that Romijn's reasoning could as well be turned upside down, that the military success of Germany could lead to a revolutionary breakthrough in England and the United States. Moreover, the CRM pointed to the independence struggle in the colonies of the Allies; the support of that struggle in India for instance, meant a weakening of English imperialism. In the CRMs opinion, it was therefore impossible to support the colonial independence movement and at the same time, from tactical motives, wish for an Allied victory in the war: 'By standing up consistently for the one, one had to betray the other'.
The CRM recognised the difference between the form of political rule in the Fascist as opposed to the democratic capitalist countries. After all, the neglect of these points had been one of the most important points of criticism of the policy of Stalin and the German Communists by the Trotskyists in the years 1929-33. But it was emphasised that these were merely different forms of rule within capitalism, and that it was not the contradiction between democracy and Fascism which was the cause of the Second World War. According to the CRM this contradiction lost its sharpness because of the war, as appears from the following words directed towards Romijn:
'Without thoroughly examining the character of this war, without accounting for what is left of the famous "democracy" in England or America, one carefully and stiffly closes one's eyes to the "democratic" and liberating performance of English-American imperialism in India or Africa.'
The CRM characterised Romijn's political opinion as centrist, lying between reformism and revolutionary Marxism, since, according to Romijn, a revolutionary development could be realised by a parliamentary Socialist government. The CRM wrote that they did not expect much from Romijn's group, although they did not exclude a 'positive development' by some of them.
It was deemed to be of more importance that workers, radicalised by the occupation, might turn towards this tendency. For that reason the CRM said that they wanted to follow the development of the group, to exchange material and to begin a discussion, without thereby giving up their own positions beforehand.
Reproached
As far as I know, such an organised contact did not materialise. In De Rode October hardly any attention was paid to De Baanbreker, an illegal left-Socialist paper, of which Romijn was an editor and which appeared from August 1944. Spartacus, on the contrary, did have contacts with the Romijn group. The CRM repeatedly reproached Spartacus for having a too positive attitude towards Romijn. But in fact Spartacus took, on the main issues, the same stand as the CRM and Spartacus thought the differences to be too great to able to proceed to a merger. Only once did De Rode October extensively discuss the left-Socialists around the paper De Vonk. That scanty attention is remarkable as De Vonk had more or less originated from the MLL-Front. Moreover De Vonk, which advocated a policy that to a considerable extent corresponded to Romijn's, was an important force on the left of the resistance.
In the article in De Rode October in mid-October the tactical choice of support for the Allied powers by De Vonk was naturally criticised. The main part of the article looked at the Indonesian question; in response to a challenge on that issue in De Rode October, De Vonk clarified their point of view in September 1944. They thought that it was the task of Socialists to fight against Japanese Fascism in Indonesia:
'Above this comes the fact that the Queen and the government did make very categorical promises regarding the future autonomy of Indonesia and its position as a territory with equal rights within the Kingdom which, if they are kept, will mean a great step forward for Indonesia and a much better starting point for future action...De Rode October now suggests in anticipation that those promises will not be kept. We set against that the following: They cannot be kept anyway if Indonesia is not liberated from the Japanese in the first place. Or does De Rode October perhaps think that Indonesia will get a better deal if it is freed by the Americans and made a colony? We think the reverse.'
The CRM vehemently rejected this point of view, as already appears from the heading of the articles; 'De Vonk as a propagandist of the imperialist predatory war of the Dutch bourgeoisie':
'We ask De Vonk: Does the Dutch bourgeoisie want to reconquer Indonesia for any other interests than class interests? Would De Vonk think that their capitalist rulers, who stinted every cent of dole money for the jobless, will spend millions for the liberation of Indonesians on whose blood and sweat they became rich? Doesn't the slogan "liberation" just serve to hide that fact?...Whether we think that Indonesia gets a better deal if she becomes an American colony? As if that will depend on the Dutch workers ! The gentlemen of De Vonk however, here lay bare their real character. If Indonesia has to be a colony, then let "us" profit.'
Whether there were many personal contacts between members of both groups remains to be seen. The contact with Pelgrom in Amsterdam has already been mentioned. Sal Santen once did a lecture for De Vonk.
In the autumn of 1944 the Comite voor Concentratie van Socialistische Krachten (Committee for the Concentration of Socialist Forces) wrote theses which could serve as a basis for such a concentration. Regarding this committee no information can be found in the CRM's literature, and the members of CRM could not clear up this matter. In view of the contents of the theses it is possible that Romijn was involved on the committee. They spoke out for a revolutionary party on an international basis: the transition from capitalism to Socialism would bear a revolutionary character. A war against Japan in Indonesia was rejected as being imperialist. The text contained the following passage regarding their stand vis-a-vis the war:
'Struggle against the Fascist counter-revolution is a necessity for Socialists under all circumstances, if the interests of the national bourgeoisie seem to run parallel here with those of the Socialist proletariat, it does not mean that for that reason the working class should avoid the struggle against Fascism. We must understand and put forward that our cause is not the same as that of the capitalist democracies and can never be connected with it...That is why the working class should have the right to make a stand for its aims in that struggle by means of a free press and radio. It should have the right to stand for the formation of soldiers'councils in order to be able to keep, in that way, the military apparatus under control. We are ready to support, with all means, any resistance against the German Nazi regime, with this reservation, that we refuse to do anything that goes against the interests of the working class, and thus against the Socialist solutions advocated by us.
The CRM wrote a reply in which it was stated that by formulations like the above 'the little devil of national unity' peeped around the corner time and again. The CRM admitted that to struggle only against the Dutch bourgeoisie came down to the support of German imperialism; the working class, however, should struggle directly against Nazism, without supporting its own bourgeoisie.
The Comite voor Concentratie van Socialistische Krachten was indignant at this reply by the CRM. It reproached the CRM for 'pedantic sectarianism: so that anybody who did not fully subscribe to the CRM programme was called by it a 'social patriot'. It was pointedly stated that they, unlike the CRM, saw a tactical difference with the situation of the First World War; the workers not only want peace, but also the destruction of fascism and that struggle could not stop when the Nazis had been driven out of the Netherlands. What happened further to this discussion I do not know; probably it quietly died.
Nationalist
The policy of the CPN (Communist Party of the Netherlands) was condemned by the CRM as being nationalist:
'They carry the basest nationalist propaganda and try to pretend that their infamous traitorous policy is "Leninist". These shameless agents of Allied imperialism carry on a propaganda which openly supports British imperialism. They make propaganda for an English "liberation" and intervention. All that Lenin wrote about American and English imperialism is ignored.... Together with the national bourgeoisie they try to obscure class antagonisms.'
To the CRM the CPN was totally dependent on the 'shock troops of the Stalinist bureaucracy', which would lead to the partition of Europe into spheres of influence. This criticism of the CPN was repeated time and time again. 'Monarchist Communists' were very scornfully spoken about with reference to the publication of He Oranje Bulletin (The Orange Bulletin) together with the nationalist organisations, and when De Waarheid (Truth -- the CPN paper) supported the shaving of the heads of the 'Kraut maidens' the CRM spoke of 'banal nationalist instigators'. The heaviest fire was reserved for when the CPN dropped the slogan 'Free Indonesia from Holland now'.
However, the CRM could not avoid recognising that the CPN was extraordinarily active in the Resistance. Its influence was ascribed to sympathy for the struggle of the Red Army, the confusion in the workers' movement, and to phenomena like organisation, faith, tradition and fear of disunity. According to the CRM many followers of the CPN had the illusion that the nationalist policy was only a tactical manoeuvre, and that after Hitler's fall the Red Army would fight for revolution in Western Europe. The CRM, therefore, thought that in future the workers who followed the CPN would come into conflict with its nationalist party policy, and they believed that the CRM would be able to try to win these people to revolutionary Marxism.
Indeed, after the war some CPN members joined the CRM; but only as isolated individuals. The enormous sacrifices, not only by the Soviet Union but also by the CPN during the war, only reinforced the party loyalty and blind faith of the CPN members. It cannot now be ascertained whether and on what scale were the contacts between members of the CRM and CPN during the occupation. When working in relief works Sal Santen came into contact with various CPN members and delivered De Rode October to a member of the provincial CPN leadership. Nevertheless the fact is that the CRM was not something that bothered the CPN.
According to the CRM, Social Democracy had already carried out a left bourgeois policy before the war, and the degenerative process had continued during the occupation. To the CRM this was clear from a pamphlet that Koos Vorrink wrote under the pseudonym 'Spectator':
'In the Netherlands they showed their true colours when, in an illegal pamphlet, one of their leaders spoke thus -- that Socialism could be achieved by bourgeois democracy and some elements of welfare.'
In the eyes of the CRM, Social Democracy had practically disappeared as a political factor during the occupation:
'A movement that disposed of nearly a quarter of the Dutch voters, that before the war had a trade union movement of about 300 000, and ran a press for hundreds of thousands of readers, was not capable of doing anything at this time. No other group of the population behaved in such a way, and so the leadership of the masses came entire and unscarred into the hands of the nationalists.'
The CRM thought that after the war a process of political differentiation in the Social Democratic ranks could be expected.
De Rode October regularly reacted to the viewpoint of Het Parool, which might be considered a Social Democratic paper. The Rotterdam CRM member Irene de Wilde also collaborated with a group of Het Parool. The CRM reproached Het Parool for not standing for the complete independence of Indonesia. They reacted indignantly to the Het Parool concept th