Henk Sneevliet
Encyclopedia
Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym
Maring (May 13, 1883 - April 13, 1942), was a Dutch
Communist
, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies
. He took part in the Communist resistance against the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II
and was executed by the Germans in 1942.
and grew up in 's-Hertogenbosch. After finishing his education, he started working for the Dutch railways in 1900 and became a member of the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP, the predecessor of the Dutch Labour Party) and the railway union
. From 1906, Sneevliet was active for the SDAP in Zwolle
, where he became the first social democrat
city council member in the elections of 1907.
Sneevliet was also active in the Dutch railway union, the NV and in 1911 he became its chairman. In the union, Sneevliet was one of the more radical voices. When an international sailor strike was called in 1911, several of the more radical Dutch unions took part, but the majority of the union movement and the majority within the SDAP were against it. For Sneevliet, this led to his alienation from both and strengthened him in his decision to leave the Netherlands for the Dutch East Indies.
(roughly equal to present day Indonesia
) from 1913 until 1918 and he soon became active in the struggle against Dutch rule. In 1914, he was a co-founder of the Indies Social Democratic Association (ISDV), in which both Dutch and Indonesian people were active.
He also returned to union work, becoming a member of the Vereeniging van Spoor- en Tramwegpersoneel, a railway union which was unique in having both Dutch and Indonesian members. Thanks to his experience as a union leader, he soon managed to turn this still fairly moderate union into a more modern and aggressive union, with a majority of Indonesian members. This union later formed the base for the Indonesian communist movement.
ISDV was strictly anti-capitalist
and agitated against the Dutch colonial regime and the privileged Indonesian elites. This led to much resistance against the ISDV and Sneevliet himself, from conservative circles and from the more moderate SDAP. In 1916 therefore he left the SDAP and joined the SDP, the predecessor of the Communist Party of Holland (CPH, later Communist Party of the Netherlands
).
After the Russian Revolution of 1917
, Sneevliet's radicalism gained enough support amongst both the Indonesian population as well as Dutch soldiers and especially sailors that the Dutch authorities got nervous. Sneevliet was therefore forced to leave the Dutch East Indies in 1918. ISDV was repressed by the Dutch colonial authorities.
Even after his return Sneevliet stayed interested in Indonesian developments and in 1933 he was condemned to five months imprisonment for his solidarity actions for the Dutch and Indonesian sailors who took part in the mutiny on "De Zeven Provinciën"
, which was put down by an air bombardment in which twenty-three sailors were killed and which at the time aroused considerable passions in the Dutch public opinion.
in Moscow, as a representative of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), which was the successor to Sneevliet's ISDV. Vladimir Lenin
was impressed enough by him to send him as a Comintern representative to China, to help the formation of Communist Party of China
, and he was present at the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921 together with Vladimir Neumann of the Russian Communist Party when the Communist Party of China was formally established.
Sneevliet was not impressed by the party and argued for cooperation with the Kuomintang
and Sun Yat-sen
, with whom he had established contacts personally. Although this policy seemed reasonable at the time, it proved to be disastrously wrong a few years later when Chiang Kai-shek
became the head of the Kuomintang after Sun Yat-sen's death (see Chinese Civil War
). Things came to a head in 1924, largely due to the worsening political climate in the Soviet Union
.
(RSP), this later became the Revolutionair Socialistische Arbeiders Partij (RSAP) after fusing with the Independent Socialist Party
(OSP), which had earlier formed under the stewardship of Jacques de Kadt
and Piet J. Schmidt. The RSP signed the Declaration of the Four in August 1933 along with the International Communist League, led by Leon Trotsky
, the OSP and the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
. This declaration was intended as a step towards a new International of revolutionary socialist parties. In the end the RSAP broke from the Trotskyists in 1937/38 and became a part of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Unity along with the Independent Labour Party
(Britain) and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM
) of Spain.
In the 1930s, therefore, Sneevliet and his party concentrated more on national issues, gaining some successes in organising the unemployed movement, strike actions, and the struggle against the rise of fascism. In 1933 Sneevliet, while still imprisoned, was elected a member of the Tweede Kamer, or Lower House, a position he mainly used to propagandise. Central to the activity of the small party was its relationship with a small trade union federation, the NAS, and it was due to a dispute concerning this body that the RSAP split from Trotsky's ICL.
However, the worsening political climate both abroad and nationally and the constant struggle against both the Stalinist
and social democratic
parties, as well as government interference, took a heavy toll on Sneevliet and his group. When war broke out on May 10, 1940, Sneevliet immediately dissolved the RSAP.
occupation of the Netherlands and as such was heavily involved with the February strike
of 1941.
As a known Communist, Sneevliet had to go into hiding even before he started his resistance activities. For two years he managed to keep out of the hands of the Nazis, but in April 1942 they finally arrested him and the rest of the MLL-Front leadership. Their execution took place in the Amersfoort KZ on April 12, 1942. It was reported that they went to their deaths singing The Internationale
.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Maring (May 13, 1883 - April 13, 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...
Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. He took part in the Communist resistance against the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and was executed by the Germans in 1942.
Early life
Sneevliet was born in RotterdamRotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
and grew up in 's-Hertogenbosch. After finishing his education, he started working for the Dutch railways in 1900 and became a member of the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP, the predecessor of the Dutch Labour Party) and the railway union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
. From 1906, Sneevliet was active for the SDAP in Zwolle
Zwolle
Zwolle is a municipality and the capital city of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, 120 kilometers northeast of Amsterdam. Zwolle has about 120,000 citizens.-History:...
, where he became the first social democrat
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
city council member in the elections of 1907.
Sneevliet was also active in the Dutch railway union, the NV and in 1911 he became its chairman. In the union, Sneevliet was one of the more radical voices. When an international sailor strike was called in 1911, several of the more radical Dutch unions took part, but the majority of the union movement and the majority within the SDAP were against it. For Sneevliet, this led to his alienation from both and strengthened him in his decision to leave the Netherlands for the Dutch East Indies.
Dutch East Indies
Sneevliet lived in the Dutch East IndiesDutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
(roughly equal to present day Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
) from 1913 until 1918 and he soon became active in the struggle against Dutch rule. In 1914, he was a co-founder of the Indies Social Democratic Association (ISDV), in which both Dutch and Indonesian people were active.
He also returned to union work, becoming a member of the Vereeniging van Spoor- en Tramwegpersoneel, a railway union which was unique in having both Dutch and Indonesian members. Thanks to his experience as a union leader, he soon managed to turn this still fairly moderate union into a more modern and aggressive union, with a majority of Indonesian members. This union later formed the base for the Indonesian communist movement.
ISDV was strictly anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
and agitated against the Dutch colonial regime and the privileged Indonesian elites. This led to much resistance against the ISDV and Sneevliet himself, from conservative circles and from the more moderate SDAP. In 1916 therefore he left the SDAP and joined the SDP, the predecessor of the Communist Party of Holland (CPH, later Communist Party of the Netherlands
Communist Party of the Netherlands
The Communist Party of the Netherlands was a Dutch communist political party. The CPN is one of the predecessors of the GreenLeft.- Foundation :...
).
After the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, Sneevliet's radicalism gained enough support amongst both the Indonesian population as well as Dutch soldiers and especially sailors that the Dutch authorities got nervous. Sneevliet was therefore forced to leave the Dutch East Indies in 1918. ISDV was repressed by the Dutch colonial authorities.
Even after his return Sneevliet stayed interested in Indonesian developments and in 1933 he was condemned to five months imprisonment for his solidarity actions for the Dutch and Indonesian sailors who took part in the mutiny on "De Zeven Provinciën"
HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën (1908-1943)
HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën was an armoured warship of the Royal Netherlands Navy from 1910 to 1942. She was armed with 2× 280 mm , 4 × 150 mm , 10 × 75 mm and 4 × 37 mm guns. Additionally she also had a 75 mm mortar...
, which was put down by an air bombardment in which twenty-three sailors were killed and which at the time aroused considerable passions in the Dutch public opinion.
Working for the Comintern
Back in the Netherlands, Sneevliet was somewhat marginalised by the leadership of the CPH, who criticised his tactics in the Indies. He therefore spent more time in the union movement, where he helped organise the 1920 transport strike. The same year he was also present at the second congress of the CominternComintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
in Moscow, as a representative of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), which was the successor to Sneevliet's ISDV. Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
was impressed enough by him to send him as a Comintern representative to China, to help the formation of Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
, and he was present at the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921 together with Vladimir Neumann of the Russian Communist Party when the Communist Party of China was formally established.
Sneevliet was not impressed by the party and argued for cooperation with the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
and Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
, with whom he had established contacts personally. Although this policy seemed reasonable at the time, it proved to be disastrously wrong a few years later when Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
became the head of the Kuomintang after Sun Yat-sen's death (see Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
). Things came to a head in 1924, largely due to the worsening political climate in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Back in the Netherlands
In 1927, after years of worsening relations between Sneevliet and his followers and the CPH leadership, Sneevliet broke all ties with the CPH and the Comintern and formed his own party, the Revolutionair Socialistische PartijRevolutionary Socialist Party (Netherlands)
The Revolutionary Socialist Party was a Dutch socialist political party.-Predecessors:The oldest predecessor of the Revolutionary Socialist Party is the Revolutionary Socialist Union , a group of dissidents from the Communist Party Holland led by Henk Sneevliet...
(RSP), this later became the Revolutionair Socialistische Arbeiders Partij (RSAP) after fusing with the Independent Socialist Party
Independent Socialist Party (Netherlands)
The Independent Socialist Party was a revolutionary socialist political party in the Netherlands.-History:...
(OSP), which had earlier formed under the stewardship of Jacques de Kadt
Jacques de Kadt
Jacques de Kadt was a prominent and often controversial 20th Century Dutch political thinker, politician and man of letters. Born into a liberal Jewish family, he was the youngest son of a factory manager, Roelof de Kadt, and his wife Bertha Koppens...
and Piet J. Schmidt. The RSP signed the Declaration of the Four in August 1933 along with the International Communist League, led by Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, the OSP and the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
Socialist Workers' Party of Germany
The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany was a political party in Germany. It was formed by a left-wing party with around 20,000 members which split off from the SPD in the autumn of 1931. In 1931 the remnants of USPD merged into the party, and in 1932 some Communist Party dissenters joined the...
. This declaration was intended as a step towards a new International of revolutionary socialist parties. In the end the RSAP broke from the Trotskyists in 1937/38 and became a part of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Unity along with the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
(Britain) and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM
Poum
Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....
) of Spain.
In the 1930s, therefore, Sneevliet and his party concentrated more on national issues, gaining some successes in organising the unemployed movement, strike actions, and the struggle against the rise of fascism. In 1933 Sneevliet, while still imprisoned, was elected a member of the Tweede Kamer, or Lower House, a position he mainly used to propagandise. Central to the activity of the small party was its relationship with a small trade union federation, the NAS, and it was due to a dispute concerning this body that the RSAP split from Trotsky's ICL.
However, the worsening political climate both abroad and nationally and the constant struggle against both the Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
and social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
parties, as well as government interference, took a heavy toll on Sneevliet and his group. When war broke out on May 10, 1940, Sneevliet immediately dissolved the RSAP.
Death
Some months later with Willem Dolleman and Ab Menist, he founded a resistance group against the German occupation, the Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg-Front (MLL-Front). This was largely engaged in producing propaganda for socialism and opposing the NaziNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
occupation of the Netherlands and as such was heavily involved with the February strike
February strike
The 1941 February Strike, also known as 'The Strike of February 1941', was a general strike organized during World War II in the Netherlands against the anti-Jewish measures and activities of the Nazis. Its direct causes were the pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam....
of 1941.
As a known Communist, Sneevliet had to go into hiding even before he started his resistance activities. For two years he managed to keep out of the hands of the Nazis, but in April 1942 they finally arrested him and the rest of the MLL-Front leadership. Their execution took place in the Amersfoort KZ on April 12, 1942. It was reported that they went to their deaths singing The Internationale
The Internationale
The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.The Internationale became the anthem of international socialism, and gained particular fame under the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1944, when it was that communist state's de facto central anthem...
.
External links
- Henk Sneevliet Archive at marxists.org
- Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI)Communist Party of IndonesiaThe Communist Party of Indonesia was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world prior to being crushed in 1965 and banned the following year.-Forerunners:...
- Dutch language biography of Henk Sneevliet
- Generals Without Troops: Dutch Trotskyism during the Occupation, Revolutionary History, Vol.1 No.4, Winter 1988-89
- Mohamed Hassan: Comparison of Henk Sneevliet's revolutionary work in 1920's Indonesia with the current situation in Gaza