Hermann Gorter

Hermann Gorter , poet and Communist militant Dutch. Born with Wormerveer in 1864, died with Brussels in 1927.

Militant of the left wing of the Second International. In 1914, opponent solved with the world war, it is expelled of Holland and share food and to militate in Germany, where it is close to the Spartakisme, adheres to the Communist party of Germany (KPD), then with its scission, KAPD (working Communist party of Germany).

Prophetic as for the evolution of the International Communist, it writes in his text “ Open letter with the comrade Lénine ”, in 1921: " opportunism was not killed; not even on our premises. It is what we already note in all the Communist parties, in all the countries " ; “ the use will be again established bad parliamentary compromises with the social-patriots and the middle-class men ”; “ freedom of speech will be removed and from good Communists will be excluded ”. These predictions will be indeed largely checked.

Anticipating the possibility of the exclusion of the left wing of which it makes party, and the opportunist line triumph, it writes: " When opportunism is introduced again with its disastrous continuations for the conscience and the force of the proletariat, it is there a danger thousand times worse than when the left is shown too radical. The left, even when it goes too far for once, remains always revolutionist " ; “ the opportunist line is dedicated to becoming increasingly opportunist, being inserted more and more in the marsh, and to always more cause the loss of the workmen. Opportunism is the loss of the labor movement, the death of the revolution. It is because of opportunism that all the evil occurred: reformism, the war, the defeat and the death of the revolution in Hungary and Germany. Opportunism is the cause of our destruction. And it is present in the third International one… ” This vision, which seems very pessimistic in 1921, takes all its direction in comparison with the emergence of the Stalinisme, which began its bloody history shortly after.

Lastly, vis-a-vis the resolution taken by IIe congress of International, which requires “ a discipline of iron confining with the military discipline ”, Gorter rejects “ the discipline of iron, military obedience, the constraint of corpse of which we do not want ”. Compared to the trade unionism, it specifies: " Like the " gauche" the release of the spirits wants initially, and that she believes in the unit of the middle-class men, she recognizes that the trade unions must be destroyed and that the proletariat has need for better armes". In 1921 it is among the founders of the working Communist party of Germany: KAPD, then it joined its Fraction of Essen and becomes one of the leader of the Internationale working Communist (KAI). Its " Answer to Lénine" will be published in France in 1930 by the communist working Groupes.

The KAPD will be excluded shortly after from the International one.

Gorter is today a reference of the Communisme of council.

Works

H. Gorter, the international Communist Worker , (1923) in Invariance, year VII, series II, N°5

External bond:

files Gorter on marxists.org
Réponse to Lénine - http://www.marxists.org/francais/gorter/works/1920/00/gorter_19200000_1.html
As a poet: http://www.librairie-compagnie.fr/pays_bas/auteurs/g/gorter.htm

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