Marxists and Imperialism

One of the great unresolved problems which the Second Interna tional bequeathed to its post-1914 successors was the question of colonial policy.Superficially, colonialism posed no particular dif ficulties.In 1896, the London congress of the Second International condemned colonial expansion as an expression of capitalist enterprise.The condemnation was renewed by the Paris congress in 1900 and four years later by the Amsterdam congress.However, an attempt was made elements in the German party were far quicker to move on to imperialism as an issue.Beyond this, the left-opposition faction remained inside the German party until 1916.By contrast, the left-opposition in the Netherlands regrouped in 1909 and went over to the formation of a rival socialist party, the Sociaal Democratische Partij (Social Democratic Party--SDP).This SDP grouping would move on to the equation of capi talism, imperialism and war, and would also take a principled stand against Dutch rule in Indonesia.However, it remained a small, iso lated, splinter party, unrecognized by the Second International.Its genesis served merely to weaken seriously the marxist2 element within the recognized section of the International, the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiderspartij (Social Democratic Labor Party--SDAP).Founded in 1894, the SDAP was the product of a split within the older Social Democratische Bond.Seeking to disassociate social democ racy from the anti-parliamentary syndicalist mainstream within the Bond, a faction led by Frank van der Goes and Pieter Jelles Troelstra, founded a new party on its own.3This party emerged from the 1896 London congress of the Second International as the recognized Dutch section of that body.From its origins, the SDAP thus contained a powerful reformist tendency.The initial strength of the party lay in the small rural communities in the northern zone of the country and it was not until the turn of the century that the party began to make in roads in the larger cities and towns.The SDAP was very small.This lack of size is apparent from the following table.4 Within the context of theDutch political idiom, the term marxist was virtually synonymous with the left-opposition groupings which centered on the Nieuwe Tijd circle and later on the De Tribune faction.(These groups will be discussed later.)Although other elements in the SDAP regarded themselves as marxist, the term was effectively monopolized by the left-opposition.Just after the turn of the century, the left-opposition tended to define marxism in terms of the posi tions taken on various points of doctrine and policy by Karl Kautsky and his followers within the Social Democratic Party of Germany.Thus the SPD was often cited as an ideological model.Within the perimeters of a conventional leftright political spectrum, the center position in Germany was left-wing in the Netherlands.Between 1907-10, however, a process began whereby the leftopposition in the Netherlands began to move toward the Rosa Luxemburg, Leipziger Volkszeitung grouping in the Social Democratic Party of Germany

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