Partij, Raden, Revolutie
Anton Pannekoek, Jaap Kloosterman (editor)
238 pages, including notes and index
published in 1970

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Anton Pannekoek
council communism
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book review

Anton Pannekoek might just have been the most influential Dutch communist of the twentieth century, one of the few who was influential over the borders. Influential enough in fact, for Lenin to denounce him and his theories in Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder. Judging from this collection, Pannekoek wasn't that impressed with Lenin either. Not surprisingly, as they had radically different ideas about communism and the way to achieve revolution.

Partij, Raden, Revolutie ("Party, Councils, Revolution") is a posthumous collection of essays published in 1970, collected and edited by Jaap Kloosterman. Pannekoek had been dead for twelve years already and according to the title page, many of his essays were no longer available in Dutch, if they'd ever been available. It was this, combined with the increasing interest in alternative approaches to communism that lead to the decision to publish this collection, again according to the title page. This is therefore not just a historical collection of theoretical essays, but may also have been concieved as a polemic, a way to influence the debates running in far left circles on what strategies to adopt in politics. This might help explain some of the choices made in creating this collection.

The essays in this collection were written between 1919 and 1936, largely in the context of the socialist struggle in Germany and as responses to the changing political situations there. They were written for an audience already familiar with many of the ideas he put forth and who were certainly well versed in socialist jargon. In these essays, this sometimes leads to awkward or stilted writing, though once you get used to Pannekoek's style of writing he is remarkably clear most of the times.

What I found lacking in this collection was any effort to put Pannekoek's writing into context to those who might not be fully up to speed with the ins and outs of the German left before the Second World War. There is an afterword by the editor, Jaap Kloosterman, which puts forward a number of conclusions about Pannekoek and his theories, but fails to show how these conclusions are reached; they read more as propaganda than serious analysis. Some of this lack of context is migated by the largely excellent footnotes provided by the editor, clarifying some of the more obscure points Pannekoek is writing about, but I still miss a good introduction to Pannekoek, his life, writing and the circumstances in which he wrote these essays.

These are just quibbles however. After all, the meat of the book is in the essays and they have been selected with care, showing Pannekoek's evolving thoughts on revolution and the ideal organisation of the working classes. His core ideas are simple, laid out clearly and in each essay shown to fit the political situation a given essay is in response to. A certain amount of propaganda has to be taken for granted in this essays, as they were after all written to convince people his version of communism, council communism, was the only correct one.

Council communism was a response to the disappointments of social democracy and Lenin's brand of revolutionary communism both. Unlike social democracy, Pannekoek and other council or left communists rejected the parliamentary road of incremental change to achieve socialism, but they also rejected the view of the communist party as the vanguard of the revolution, leading the working classes but not part of it. Instead, all power should come from the working classes, with leadership provided through workers councils, like it had been at the start of the Russian revolution. These councils should be directly answerable to the workers they represent, without the people in the councils becoming leaders.

In this view there is no room for the communist party as leader of the working classes. Instead, Pannekoek sees the party as propagandist and educator of the working classes in which the workers are their own educators. The role of the party is to prepare the working class as a whole for the revolution, to help guide the revolution when it comes, but not to lead it. Pannekoek therefore also emphasised that the party should not strive for temporary gains, for quick successes that would be as easily lost again as they were gained. Eventually the party would be obselete, once the workers had taken power.

Since in Pannekoek's view the proletariat should organise themselves through workers councils, what of the older workers organisations, the trade unions? Pannekoek thought them unnecessary, a relic from a past when they were useful to get the workers organised, but capitalism had adapted itself to them. Trade unions were now used to control and manage the workers, just another instrument of the capitalist state, with a new class of trade union bureaucrats dependent on keeping the workers docile. In any crisis that could lead to revolution, the trade union would at best go for the easy gain, at worst betray the workers by making deals with the capitalists. Anytime the workers want to achieve something for themselves, they have to do it working around the trade unions, not through them.

In short, workers should organise themselves, not depend on party or trade union to do it for them, though the party can play a role in this organising process. They should always keep as their goal the revolution, which cannot come through winning incremental gains (the social democrat view) nor through attempted revolution by a self-appointed vanguard (the Leninist view). For Pannekoek, the revolution seems inevitable,something that will happen once the time is right and the main tasks of socialists is to recognise the revolution when it comes and in the meantime, they should educate and help organise the workers to prepare for it. Some seventy years later this seems slightly too simple: too much has happened in the meantime to believe the revolution is inevitable.