Herman Gorter

Articles by Dutch poet and council communist, Herman Gorter, who helped found the KAPD and criticised Lenin.

The opportunism of the Communist Party of the Netherlands - Hermann Gorter

Hermann Gorter recounts his struggle against the Dutch Communist Party, following its abandonment of internationalist principles and adoption of reformist policies.

The communists are distinguished from the other working class parties by this only.... In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality....

The Origins of Nationalism in the Proletariat

An attempt by the Dutch communist in 1915 to explain how the working class of Europe ended up participating in the mass butchery of WWI.

[Note: This text is one section from Gorter’s Der Imperialismus, der Weltkrieg, und die Sozial-demokratie, translated by the author into German, Amsterdam, 1915. It was translated into English by D.A. Smart in 1977, for publication in Smart (ed.), Pannekoek and Gorter’s Marxism (Pluto, London).]

The Lessons of the “March Action”

Herman Gorter

The Lessons of the “March Action”-Gorter’s Last Letter to Lenin

Dear Comrade Lenin:

When we last parted in November of 1920, your last words on our quite divergent ideas concerning revolutionary tactics in Western Europe were to the effect that neither your opinions nor mine had been sufficiently tested: that experience would soon prove which of the two is correct.

We were in complete agreement on that.

The Politics of Gorter - Pannekoek

Anton Pannekoek responds in 1952 to criticisms of the politics of his late comrade Herman Gorter.

Why we need the Fourth Communist Workers' International - Herman Gorter (1921)

A topical 1921 article by Gorter that appeared in Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers Dreadnought.

The World Revolution, 1924

A 1924 article for Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers Dreadnought.

 

Open letter to comrade Lenin - Herman Gorter

Gorter responds with radical criticism to the reformist programme advocated by Lenin - i.e., for European communists to work within their Parliaments and existing unions.

The Politics Of Gorter - Anton Pannekoek (1952)

Pannekoek writes in defence of the politics and practice of his late friend and comrade.

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