Anton Pannekoek

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Anton Pannekoek

Anton Pannekoek (born January 2, 1873 in Vaassen , † April 28, 1960 in Wageningen ) was an internationally recognized Dutch astronomer , astrophysicist and important theoretician of councilor communism .

Life

Anton Pannekoek studied astronomy at the University of Leiden from 1891 to 1895 . He then worked for the local observatory and received his doctorate in 1902.

Collaboration in the socialist and council communist movements

During his studies he began to deal with Marxism and the philosophy of Josef Dietzgen . Through this he came into contact with the “Nieuwe Tijd-groep” (“New Time Group”) in Leiden and became a member. From 1900 Pannekoek, meanwhile a member of the SDAP , began to work as a journalist. His articles are also published in translation in the Neue Zeit by Karl Kautsky and the Leipziger Volkszeitung under Franz Mehring . In 1904 he was forced to stop his political work in the Netherlands.

Pannekoek moved to Germany in 1906, joined the SPD and taught at the SPD party school in Berlin. After he was banned from doing this in 1907 on threat of expulsion, Pannekoek worked in the party archives and wrote for various party newspapers. He was present at the party congresses of the SPD in Essen (1907), Nuremberg (1908), Magdeburg (as a member of the Bremen delegation, 1910), Jena (1911), Chemnitz (1912) and Jena (1913). In addition, Pannekoek continued to write from exile for De Tribune of the Dutch SDP (a left-wing split from the SDAP), of which he had been a member since 1909. From 1909 Pannekoek was editor of the publications of the Dutch SDP, which were mainly printed in Germany. In the course of this, a close friendship developed with Herman Gorter . The two worked together with Henriette Roland Holst in the SDP . In the following year, Pannekoek was appointed training manager for the SPD in Bremen and later began to write workers' policy for the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung . He got to know Johann Knief and a lively intellectual exchange developed. He became the intellectual head of the left-wing radicals in Bremen . In the course of the mass strike debate, Pannekoek had already defended revolutionary ideas and agitated against reformism in the SPD. During this debate, in which the split in social democracy became apparent, the friendship with Karl Kautsky broke up .

With the outbreak of the First World War , Pannekoek returned to the Netherlands and subsequently worked as a lecturer in Helmond and Amsterdam. At the same time articles by him appeared in the Berner Tagwacht (editor Robert Grimm ), Lichtstrahl (editor Julian Borchardt ) and Arbeiterpolitik (editor Johann Knief). From 1917 Pannekoek was a representative of council communism , which rejected parliamentarism , participation in trade unions as well as the dictatorship of a party. In the socialism discussion after 1917, Pannekoek developed into a staunch opponent of " democratic centralism ", which was advocated by the Russian Bolsheviks under Lenin. In 1918 he became a member of the Communist Partij van Nederland (CPN) of which he remained until 1921, after which he joined the left-wing split-off Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands (KAPN). He worked closely with Herman Gorter together and had continued close contact to Germany and published under the name Charles Horner in the Communist Workers' Newspaper-Bremen , after the split of the KPD at the Heidelberg congress in the proletarians of the KAPD .

With his articles, Pannekoek had considerable influence on the council communist movement in the Netherlands and Germany. In 1921, however, he withdrew as far as possible from daily political events and until 1927 did not take part in the debates of the organizationally increasingly fragmented councilor communist movement. In 1927, through Henk Canne Meijer , with whom he worked closely until his death, he came into contact with the " Groepen van Internationale Communisten " (GIC) founded in the same year and shaped their political approach - without being a formal member or without to participate in immediate political activities - through his theoretical works and contributions to discussions. In 1936 Pannekoek also met Paul Mattick , with whom a collaboration developed.

In 1938 he published his work Lenin as a Philosopher under the name of John Harper. During the Second World War Pannekoek worked on his book Arbeiterräte , which was published in 1946 in two parts under the pseudonym P. Aartsz. Completion of the manuscript was tedious, as most of the Pannekoek's archives were burned during the Battle of Arnhem in 1944. In the following years, Pannekoek remained true to his convictions and corresponded, among other things. a. with Cornelius Castoriadis , but published very few articles.

astronomer

Pannekoek was director of the Astronomical Institute at the Universiteit van Amsterdam . He worked on the distribution of stars in the Milky Way and their structure, on star formation , variable stars and star spectra . He also dealt with the history of astronomy , where he published in 1916 and 1917 two fundamental works on Babylonian astronomy . In 1925 he was appointed associate professor and in 1932 professor . He traveled long distances to watch solar eclipses . On Java (at that time the Dutch East Indies ) he created a map of the southern sky in 1926 .

Pannekoek has been writing down his memoirs since 1944. Anton Pannekoek died on April 28, 1960 in Wageningen. His autobiography Herinneringen (Memories) did not appear in the Netherlands until 22 years later.

Honors

His work as an astronomer was honored after his death by naming the Astronomical Institute of the University of Amsterdam with his name. In 1925 he was elected a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences . In 1936 he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard University . In 1951 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society .

The asteroid (2378) Pannekoek and the lunar crater Pannekoek are named after Anton Pannekoek .

Works (selection)

literature

  • Hans Manfred Bock : Anton Pannekoek in the pre-war social democracy. Report and documentation . In: Yearbook of the labor movement . Vol. 3. Frankfurt / M. 1975, pp. 103-167
  • John P. Gerber: Anton Pannekoek and the Socialism of Workers' Self Emancipation, 1873-1960 . Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht u. a. 1989 ISBN 978-0792302742
  • Hans Manfred Bock: The Marx Dietzgen synthesis of Anton Anton Pannekoek and his circle . In: Marcel van der Linden (ed.): The reception of Marx's theory in the Netherlands . Trier 1992 ISBN 3-926132-18-3 , pp. 106–123 ( writings from Karl-Marx-Haus 45)
  • Cajo Brendel : Anton Pannekoek: Thinker of the Revolution. Ca-ira Verlag, Freiburg 2001. ISBN 3-924627-75-4
  • Anton Pannekoek: Workers' Councils . Texts on the social revolution. - Fernwald (Annerod): Germinal Verlag, 2008. - ISBN 978-3-88663-490-3

Web links

Commons : Anton Pannekoek  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brief biography of Gary Thompson ( Memento from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Pannekoek, Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Horner, Karl; Harper, John; Aartsz P.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Vaassen
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1960
Place of death Wageningen