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CHAPTER V

Socialism and Labor in Belgium

The main outlines of the movement in Belgium have already been sketched and it is seen to have been very much closer in its organization to the German than to the French plan. After the organization of the Labor Party in 1885 it gave itself up for several years to the fight for universal suffrage. In 1893, after years of unsuccessful propaganda, a general strike, which brought out 200,000 workmen, was staged as a demonstration in favor of suffrage, and resulted in the granting of a limited form of franchise which resulted in a Socialist vote of 345,000 and the election of twenty-nine parliamentary representatives. In 1913 a general strike was called in order to obtain better electoral laws.

The wonderfully strong organization of the Belgian Party led to its being considered the strongest element in the international, and the making of Brussels the center of the International Secretariat. The most active Socialist leader at that time, as well as the most radical, was Edouard Anseele, a born militant, as well as an able business man. On the other hand, the most scholarly and able parliamentary leader was Vandervelde, who shared with Huysmans the leadership of the International Socialist Bureau. It must not be understood that at that time. the trade unions or syndicates, which are more important in the commercial life of Belgium than in any other country, were all affiliated with the Socialist Party. This was far from being the case. A large section was affiliated with the clerical party; another with the liberal party, while a third remained independent. Of the total membership before the war, however, about three-fourths were affiliated with the Socialists.

In the development of the co-operative movement in Europe it is probable that the example of its wonderful success in Belgium has been the strongest single reason for its wide spread, first in England and finally in Russia. In the matter of Socialist programs, the very breadth of the movement has made the political program of the Belgian Labor Party about the broadest and the most valuable to study of all the National Labor Party programs. It is interesting to compare this program, which is pub

lished by Hunter ("Socialists at Work," pp. 172-177), with the famous Erfurt Social Democratic program of the German Party, issued in October, 1891, and which has served as a basis for German Socialist work ever since, and as an excellent short embodiment of a moderate interpretation of Karl Marx (p.169).

CHAPTER VI

Socialism and Labor in Holland

The recent closing of its frontier on the German side by the Dutch government, in order to prevent the inroad of Bolshevist propagandists, has called attention to an extraordinary situation in Holland; unexpected on account of the thrifty and cautious individualism of the Dutch character. During the war German propaganda was intense in Holland and gained control of banks, of big business and of political and intellectual leaders. The German policy of using Bolshevist agencies to disintegrate national sentiments and integrity found able exponents. Leading Dutchmen were tied to German apron-strings. Holland's international position makes the results important for us to understand, and to watch the Dutch government's struggle to prevent the possibility of a similar coup d'etat as that which Germany engineered in Russia through Lenine and Trotzky.

The Dutch leader of political Bolshevism is David Wijnkoop, who, we are informed, is a Jew. He and two other Communists, were elected in 1918 to represent Amsterdam in the Parliament, and he has been able to lead into the advocacy of revolutionary demands a considerable group of Socialists, Social Democrats and Laborites who do not belong to the Communist group. The effects on Labor programs in Holland is evident. The Social Democrat, Troelstra, is the leader in this radical swing.

The intellectual field is even more frankly invaded by Communism than it is in the United States. The presence of university leaders such as Mannoury, the mathematical professor, and Pannekoeke, the astronomer, on the executive board of the Communist Party, is a powerful aid to the spread of Bolshevik doctrines among the student body of every class. In the case of these men, the right to absolute freedom of speech and teaching has been raised by the government's refusal to appoint Dr. Pannekocke to the professorship of astronomy at the University

of Leiden.

As two further sources of danger among the Dutch themselves there are: The religious zealots, led by that fiery Communist preacher of the Dutch Reformed Church, Dr. Schermerhorn; and the sentimental idealists led by the greatest of living Dutch poets, Mme. Roland Holst, who urges the people "to rise and

sacrifice themselves for the common good because it is the holocaust on the barricades that must bring peace on earth and good will among men."

The present Spartacan revolutionary movement in Germany is increasing the danger in Holland and intensifying the call for immediate action. Thus far there have been no overt acts except the strike engineered by the Communists that will now be described.

The central figure, however, in Dutch Socialism is still the same as it has been for over twenty years Troelstra and his career must be sketched to explain the present situation. It was in 1894 that he and eleven others known as the Twelve Apostles-founded the Social Democratic Labor Party of Holland, and entered politics, electing four members of Parliament in 1897, seven in 1901, nineteen in 1913, and twenty-two in the present Assembly. From the beginning it was troubled with both anarchist and Syndicalist elements, but they never gained control. In 1913 the question of allowing Socialists to take part in the ministry was decided in the negative at a party convention which definitely stated that " a party like the Socialist Labor Party, which in its origin, its nature and its aims, is diametrically opposed to the political domination of the capitalist class, is under no obligation to join a capitalist ministry." A small radical group broke away in 1909, calling itself the Social Democratic Party, claiming to be purely Marxian. It sent representatives to the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences which the main body of Dutch Socialists had declined to recognize and it has now joined the Third (Moscow) International, changing its name to the Communist Party, and taking the usual anti-patriotic, anti-war, anti-parliamentary and ultra-international attitude. Meanwhile Troelstra continues to advocate for the main body of the S. D. L. P. participation in parliamentary life, even though it is unrepresented in the ministry. In this it is supported by the Federation of Trade Unions which backs up its political work. At present the Communists have three representatives in the Second Chamber (Wijnkoop, Van Ravesteyn) and the Social Democratic Labor Party has twenty-two members, under Troelstra and Schaper.

The present crisis has been brought on by the strike at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which began on February 14th, by the Netherland Federation of Transport Workers. It had been

threatening for some time and had received the support of the Social-Democratic Labor Party. But the official organ of this Socialist Party, the "Volk," which had previously approved the strike movement, withdrew its support on February 14th, after it had been shown by the Algemeen Handelsblad that Messrs. E. Bouwman and H. Sneevliet, chairman and treasurer respectively of the Federation, had been the guests of the Secret Communist Congress held at Amsterdam on February 3d, and following days, when they accepted the direction of the Communist Party for the Labor movement and pledged themselves to organize strikes in Holland as part and parcel of the Bolshevist movement in Western Europe and to give such strikes as far as possible a revolutionary character. "By associating the strike of the transport workers with the Bolshevist movement," says the "Volk" (14), "they have sold and betrayed the interests of the workers in question entrusted to their care, they have deceived the leaders of the League, and played such a double game that there can no longer be any agreement, between them and us (meaning the Socialists of the S. D. L. Party) with regard to this conflict. While on the one hand, Sneevliet and Bouwman were exploiting the strike in the interest of the Communist movement, Bouwman, on the other, was issuing a strike manifesto in which he declared the whole dispute to be purely a question of wages and labor conditions which would be ended and done with the moment the employers agreed to concede their demands."

The S. D. L. Party does not propose to have Holland come under the heel of the Bolshevist dictatorship. (Dutch Socialist Press in the " Political Review," February 27th.)

and the character of her business the transport workers are the The food supplies for Germany, relief for Austria and Hungary, were all held up by the strike. Owing to Holland's position key-note and determining factor of her commerce. It is freely stated that the strike may end in revolution. The head emissary from Russia, in charge of the International propaganda and relations, appears to be Rutgers, who represented the Dutch revolutionary Socialists at the organizing of the Third International in Moscow.

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