Christiaan Gerardus Cornelissen (30 August 1864-21 January 1942) was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 syndicalist

Syndicalism

Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...

 writer, economist, and trade unionist.

Cornelissen was the second of five children of Johannes Cornelissen, carpenter in Den Bosch, Noord Brabant, and Mechelina van Wijk. He became a primary school teacher in Middelburg

Middelburg

Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...

, Zeeland

Zeeland

Zeeland , also called Zealand in English, is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. With a population of about 380,000, its area is about...

. In the late 1880s he started working for Recht voor Allen ("Justice for All"), the organ of the Social Democratic League

Social Democratic League

The Social Democratic League was a Dutch socialist political party. The SDB was the first socialist party to enter the Dutch House of Representatives.-Before 1881:...

 (in Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

: Sociaal-Democratische Bond, SDB). Next to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis

Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis

Ferdinand Jacobus Domela Nieuwenhuis was the Netherlands' first prominent socialist. He was a Lutheran preacher who, after he lost his faith, started a political fight for workers. He was the first socialist in the Dutch parliament.Nieuwenhuis was born in Amsterdam. His family added the second...

, he soon became a leader in the SDB, member of the central committee and head of the international secretariat. He stayed in the SDB, which was renamed to Socialist League, during the breakaway of the Social Democratic Workers' Party

Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands)

The Social Democratic Workers' Party was a Dutch socialist political party and a predecessor of the social-democratic PvdA.-1893-1904:...

 (in Dutch: Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij, SDAP). He attended the second congress of the Second International

Second International

The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...

 in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, both as a special correpondant of Recht voor Allen and as a delegate of the Dutch railworkers' union contributing to an anti-militarist resolution by the left wing at the congress.

In 1891, he translated the Communist Manifesto to Dutch. In 1893, he was one of the founders of the National Labor Secretariat

National Labor Secretariat

The National Labor Secretariat was a trade union federation in the Netherlands from 1893 to 1940.-Early years:...

 (in Dutch: Nationaal Arbeids-Secretariaat; NAS). In the following year, he got to know the French anarchist and trade-unionist Fernand Pelloutier

Fernand Pelloutier

Fernand Pelloutier was a French anarchist .He was the leader of the Bourses du Travail, a major French trade union, from 1895 until his death in 1901. He was succeeded by Yvetot...

 and he supported the anarchists expelled from the 1893 Zurich congress of the Second International.

The increasing influence of social democrats within the Socialist League led Cornelissen to move to Paris in 1898. However, he remained in contact with the syndicalist movement in the Netherlands and continued writing for the Volksblad

Volksblad

The Volksblad is an Afrikaans language daily newspaper published in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and distributed in the Free State and Northern Cape provinces, where it is the largest Afrikaans daily. It is South Africa's oldest Afrikaans newspaper...

and several anarchist periodicals. In France, he worked with a lot of the anarchists

Anarchism in France

Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...

 he had gotten to know in Zurich. Since he spoke both German and English in addition to French and Dutch, he was particularly useful as a translator. He contributed to La Voix du peuple and La Bataille syndicaliste under the pseudonym "Rupert" (a reference to his wife Elisabeth Katharina Frederike (Lilian) Rupertus whom he had married in October 1899), as he feared deportation should his anarchist activities become public.

In 1903, Rupertus gave birth to the couple's son Fred.

Cornelissen's international contacts were also useful in organizing the 1907 International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam

International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam

The International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam took place from 24 August to 31 August 1907. It gathered delegates from 14 different countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including Errico Malatesta, Luigi Fabbri, Benoît Broutchoux, Pierre Monatte, Amédée Dunois, Emma...

, which served to establish relations between anarchists worldwide. From 1907, he edited the Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste

Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste

Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste was a syndicalist periodical published from 1907 by Christiaan Cornelissen and from 1913 by the International Syndicalist Bureau in Amsterdam....

. He also played an important role in organizing the 1913 International Syndicalist Congress

First International Syndicalist Congress

The First International Syndicalist Congress was a meeting of European and Latin American syndicalist organizations at Holborn Town Hall in London from September 27 to October 2, 1913...

 in London.

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Cornelissen actively supported the Union sacrée, a patriotic truce between the French state and the socialist movement. He wrote several anti-German brochures in support of the war, and was a signatory of the Manifesto of the Sixteen

Manifesto of the Sixteen

The Manifesto of the Sixteen , or Proclamation of the Sixteen, was a document drafted in 1916 by eminent anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Jean Grave which advocated an Allied victory over Germany and the Central Powers during the First World War...

. His support for the war estranged Cornelissen from many of his syndicalist and anarchist comrades. After the war, he primarily dedicated himself to his economic studies. In 1944, his Traité général de science économique (General Treatise on the economic science), an elaboration on Théorie de la valeur (Theory of value), which he had published in 1903, to refute the labor theory of value

Labor theory of value

The labor theories of value are heterodox economic theories of value which argue that the value of a commodity is related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity. The concept is most often associated with Marxian economics...

, which both the classic economists and Marx adhered to, was published. He died in 1942 in Domme

Domme, Dordogne

Domme is a commune in the Dordogne department in Aquitaine in southwestern France. It is sometimes called the "Akropolis des Périgord".-Geography:Domme is located above sea level on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Dordogne river...

.