International Institute of Social History Amsterdam Anton Pannekoek and the Socialism of Workers' Self-Emancipation, 1873-1960 John Gerber Kluwer Academic Publishers ANTON P ANNEKOEK AND THE SOCIALISM OF WORKERS' SELF-EMAN CIP ATIO N 1873-1960 by JOHN GERBER 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht I Boston I London and International Institute of Social History Amsterdam CONTENTS Acknowledgements Xl Introduction X111 II lustrations XVll Chapter I The Making of a Socialist: The Milieu of Pannekoek's Ma rxism The Historical Context: Society and Social Democracy in the Netherlands 1 Struggling with Ideas: Pannekoek's Conversion to Marxism 5 Rank-and-File Militant: Pannekoek and the SOAP in Leiden 8 Chapter II Mind and Reality: Pannekoek's Methodology Pannekoek and Dietzgen: The Dialectics of Distinction 12 Theory and Social Development: The Class Basis of Science 18 Social Knowledge of a New Kind: Pannekoek's Conception of Historical Materialism 21 Chapter III Dutch Left Marxism in Formation: The Nieuwe Tijd Left, 1899-1906 From Romanticism to Marxism: The Origins of the Nieuwe Tijd Group 28 'First Life, Then Theory': The Trade Union, Agrarian, and School Debates 32 Vlll CONTENTS Deepening of the Split: The Dutch Mass Strike Wave of 1903 and its Aftermath 36 Chapter IV Bringing Socialist Insight to the Masses, 1906-1909 The Berlin Years: Theoretical and Propaganda Work for the SPD 43 Intransigent Marxism on the Offensive: The Tribunist Left 46 Chapter V Consciousness and Workers' SelfEmanci pation: Pannekoek's Political Thought prior to 1910 Consciousness and Socio-Economic Reality: Pannekoek's Theory of Ideological Hegemony 55 Organization and Ideological Development: Pannekoek's Conception of Revolutionary Praxis 63 Moral Consciousness and Social Transformation: Pannekoek's Conception of Proletarian Ethics 69 Chapter VI Struggling Marxism in Practice, 1910-1914 Break with the Marxist Center: Pannekoek Against Kautsky 72 Militants Against the Apparatus: The Bremen Left 77 'Sect or Party?' The Dutch SOP 88 Chapter VII Mass Action and Revolution: Pannekoek's Political Thought, 1910-1914 Revolution and Class Transformation: Pannekoek's Theory of Mass Action 95 Economics and Social Development: Pannekoek's Theory of Imperialism 100 Class Struggle and Nation: Pannekoek and the National Question 103 CONTENTS IX Chapter VIII War and Revolution, 1914-1919 War Against War: Pannekoek and the Zimmerwald left 108 From Sect to Party: The SDP and the New Internationalism 113 Militants Against the Current: The Bremen Left and the Formation of German Communism 117 The New Socialism of the Laboring Masses: Pannekoek's Political Thought, 1914-1919 127 �-�-�- -- �/thapter IX ···-- .. __ ( The Left Communist Alternative, 1920-1926 .... -· ·, ·= - · _- . -;�:;����e�:���:1: :n on the Offe���1ve: The Amsterdam Burea� Working Class Organization of the New Type: The KAPD and the AAUD 135 Pannekoek Against Lenin: LeftComm unism and the Comintern 142 Between Deventer and Moscow: The CPH and the Comintern 150 From Movement to Sect: Left Communism in Decline 157 Chapter X A New Workers' Movement in Formation: International Council Communism, 1927-1945 .-·-·-··�-� ,... .. �· · "'.--- ••O.-.,,_._ From Left Communism to Council Communism: The Origins of the GIC and GCC 163 The Permanent Crisis: The Theoretical Development of Council Communism in the Inter-War Period 169 -----;.., c_�p.ter---XI' l......---',..--" -rhe World of the Workers' Councils: Pannekoek and the Theory of Council Commun.ism The Workers' Way to Freedom: Rebellion and Council Organization 178 x CONTENTS Organization and Production: The Council State 183 Ideology and Social Reality: Pannekoek's Philosophical Critique of Leninism 187 Chapter XII Revolution and Reality: The Council Ideal in the Post- Wa r Period 'Hope is Far Distan(:/Pannekoek and the Dilemma of the Independent Left V 191 Re-thinking Marx: Pannekoek and the Rciconstruction of Revolutionary Theory and Practice 197 Unfulfilled Promise: Pannekoek in Historical Perspective 199 Notes 203 Bibliography 234 Index 249 Xl ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The obligations I have incurred in preparing this book are numerous and can never be adequately repaid. Harvey Goldberg supervised the original disser­ tation version and, in addition to putting up with my many idiosyncrasies forall these years, managed to give me a taste forasking the larger questions that historians are supposed to ask. If this work occasionally rises above mere narrative, it is largely his doing. Hyman Berman and Mulford Sibley introduced me to many of the issues involved in this work while I was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. In the early stages of this study, I benefited greatly fr om the advice given by the late Georges Haupt, whose own scholarship in this area has set standards no one else has matched. J olyon Howorth also aided me greatly in the initial formulation of my ideas. Mrs. J.M. Welcker and Herman de Liagre Bohl helped orient me to,Dutch sources during my stay in Amsterdam. D1rk Struik, the late Paul Mattick, Cajo Brendel, and the late B.A. Sij es graciously shared with me their memories. Professor Dr. A.J. Pannekoek provided both invaluable information and indispensable criticism. I am also especially grateful to the close cooperation from fellowPannekoek scholar Mark Boekelman. When Mark and I discovered we were working on the same subject, we tended to react as if we were rivals. Fortunately, our good sense prevailed, and we have cooperated, as scholars should, ever since. I have also benefited greatly from correspondence and criticism from: Peter Rachleff, Bob Jones, Alain Pougeral, Corrado Malandrino, Neal Basen, and Dick Wortel. I should also like to express my gratitude to the followinglibraries and archives, and their staff, forthe use of their facilities and forthe assistance which they so kindly provided me: The International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), the Staatsarchiv Bremen, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Bonn), and the Univer­ sity of Wisconsin library. Finally, I thank my wifeAnne whose intellectual, logistical, and personal support was absolutely indispensable and far greater than she will ever realize. Xlll INTRODUCTION Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) has remained until recent years a largely ne­ glected and unknown figure in the history of socialist thought. 1 The partial eclipse of Pannekoek that began in the 1920's and the almost total eclipse later do not mean that he can be regarded as a purely ephemeral and negligi­ ble tendency in Marxist thought. On the contrary, his work can be viewed as one of the most thorough, consistent, and intelligent attempts yet made to develop Marxism as a theory of revolutionary practice, and the neglect he has suffered might be considered less the result of a reasoned intellectual judgment than the consequence of a concurrence of unfavorable historical events. Pannekoek's long life and political career spanned several epochs of so­ cialist history. His political maturity coincided with the rise ofsoc ial democ­ racy; his last years of political life witnessed the first stirrings of the New Left. His writings lefttheir imprint on both movements. During the inter­ vening years he was an international figure active in both the Dutch and German socialist movements. Prior to 1914 he collaborated with Karl Kau­ tsky on the Neue Zeit, taught in the SPD party schools, and along with Rosa Luxemburg emerged as one of the leaders of the left wing of German social democracy. Pannekoek was one of the first in Europe to understand the fundamental weakness of the social democratic movement and to anticipate its eventual collapse. Following the outbreak of the First World War, he was the first to call for the formation of a new International and later became a prominent figure in the Zimmerwald anti-war movement. Although he played a pivotal role in the initial formation of European communism and was a leader of the Comintern's Western European Bureau, Pannekoek was among the first to break with authoritarian communism. As the preeminent theoretician of the German 'left' communist KAPD in 1920, Pannekoek ar­ ticulated an alternative West European conception of communism and a powerful critique of Leninist orthodoxy, .whichearned him Lenin's denun­ ciation in Left-Wing Comnnmism, an Irifantile Disorder. From 1927 until his death in 1960, he remained active as the intellectual mentor of the qu;isi­ syndicalist .'counciLcommunist' movement. XIV INTRODUCTION On a theoretical level, Pannekoek can be situated within a definite period of European Marxist development spanning roughly the years 1900-1930. He belongs to a remarkably able generation of Marxist intellectuals whose concernswere defined by the disintegration of a politically and intellectually debilitating Marxist orthodoxy and the search for new revolutionary alter­ natives. In his bold and sweeping critique ofthe Marxism ofboth the Second and Third Internationals, Pannekoek grasped - perhaps more lucidly than any Marxist of his generation - the authoritarian tendencies in the political movements inspired by Marxism and sought to develop new .anti-bu-:. reaucratic models of revolutionary transformation. His extensive theoretical reflections, which posed questions that were virtually unique within Marx­ ism at the time, strikingly anticipated many of the most essential contribu­ tions made by other thinkers ofthe WesternMarxist tradition. 2 Like Lukacs, he articulated the centrality of ideas and consciousness to historical develop_­ ment and emphasized