Henk Sneevliet

Henk Sneevliet

Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie (Henk) Sneevliet (born May 13, 1883 in Rotterdam , † April 13, 1942 in Leusden ), also known under the pseudonym Maring , was a Dutch communist politician , union leader, anti-fascist and agent of the Comintern . He was a co-founder of the Indonesian Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party . During the German occupation of the Netherlands , he was executed as a co-organizer of the February strike .

Early years

Sneevliet grew up in Herzogenbusch . After finishing school, he worked for the Dutch railway from 1900 and became a member of the Social Democratic Workers 'Party (SDAP) and the railway workers' union . Since 1906, Sneevliet worked for the SDAP in Zwolle , whose first social-democratic city council member he became in the elections of 1907.

Sneevliet also agitated for the Dutch Railway Workers' Union (NV) and became its chairman in 1911. He was one of the most radical members. In 1911 an international seamen strike was called, which was supported by a few radical Dutch unions and a minority in the SDAP. This led to an alienation between Sneevliet on the one hand and the SDAP and the trade unions on the other. So he left the Netherlands and went to the Dutch East Indies .

Dutch East Indies

Sneevliet lived in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia ) from 1913 to 1918 and quickly became active in the fight against Dutch colonial rule. In 1914 he co-founded the Indies Social Democratic Association (ISDV), in which Dutch and Indonesians worked.

He was also unionized again and became a member of the Vereeniging van Spoor-en Tramwegpersoneel , the only railway workers' union that had both Dutch and Indonesian members. Thanks to his experience as a trade unionist, he was able to quickly transform the fairly moderate organization into an aggressive union with a majority of Indonesian members. This union later formed the starting point for the Indonesian communist movement. The ISDV was strictly anti-capitalist and made propaganda against both colonial rule and the Indonesian elite. The ISDV and Sneevliet therefore met resistance from conservative circles and also from the SDAP. In 1916 he therefore left this party and joined the SDP, a forerunner organization of the Communist Party of the Netherlands .

After the Bolshevik coup in Russia in 1917 , the support of Sneevliet's radicalism by the Indonesian people and the Dutch soldiers, and especially the seamen, reached a level that worried the colonial authorities. Sneevliet had to leave the Dutch East Indies and the ISDV was fought. Sneevliet, however, was still interested in the development in the Dutch colony and was sentenced to five years in prison in 1933 for his support for a mutiny on the Dutch warship De Zeven Provinciën .

Activity for the Comintern

On his return to the Netherlands, Sneevliet was criticized by the leadership of the Communist Party (CPH), which did not agree with his tactics in the Dutch East Indies. He therefore concentrated on trade union work. He organized the transport workers' strike of 1920. In the same year he also took part in the Second World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow as a representative of the Communist Party of Indonesia , the successor organization to the ISDV. He made enough impression on Lenin to be sent by him to China as a representative of the Comintern . He should organize the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

He was present at the 1st congress of the new party (founding congress) in July 1921 together with Nikolski , an agent of the Soviet Russian military secret service, where he actively participated in the discussion and convinced the emerging party to cooperate with the Comintern. Both agents provided the new party with substantial sums of money sent from Moscow. From 1923 Sneevliet campaigned for the formation of a united front with the Kuomintang in order to increase the influence of the CCP in China. His cover name in China was Maring . Sneevliet was close to the Trotskyists at this point , which brought him into conflict with the Stalinists .

Further work in the Netherlands

For several years, relations between Sneevliet and his supporters and the leadership of the Dutch Communist Party (CPH) had deteriorated so much that in 1927 he broke off all contacts with the CPH and the Comintern. He founded his own party, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (Revolutionair Socialistische Partij), which in 1935 merged with the Independent Socialist Party (under the leadership of Jacques de Kadt and Piet J. Schmidt) into the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (Revolutionair Socialistische Arbeiders Partij) was converted. The latter worked with Trotsky at least since 1934 . Eventually Sneevlit's party separated from Trotskyism and joined the International Bureau for Revolutionary-Socialist Unity , of which the most famous member was the Spanish POUM .

In general, Sneevliet and his party focused on domestic political problems in the 1930s and organized, with some success, the unemployment movement, strikes and anti-fascist actions. Since 1933 Sneevliet, although imprisoned, was a member of the Second Chamber of the States General (Lower House of the Dutch Parliament), a position which he mainly used for propaganda purposes. Cooperation with a small trade union confederation, the NAS, was essential for the small party. Due to a dispute over relations with this organization, Sneevliet's party split from Trotsky's International Communist League .

Due to the aggravated international situation and the internal struggle against Stalinism and social democracy as well as repression by the government, Sneevlink and his party got into a difficult position. When the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Sneevliet dissolved the party. After a few months he formed a resistance group against the German occupiers, the Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg-Front (MLL-Front), together with Willem Dolleman and Ab Menist. They opposed the occupation regime, for socialism and took part in the February strike in 1941 . Since the beginning of the occupation, Sneevliet lived underground. In April 1942 he was arrested and executed along with the entire MLL leadership.

literature

• Fritjof Tichelmann: Henk Sneevliet 1883-1942. A political biography . Bochum 1978 ISBN 3-88339-017-8

Web links

• Literature by and about Henk Sneevliet in the catalog of the German National Library
• http://www.iisg.nl/bwsa/bios/sneevliet.html