According to our media we have three left-wing parties;
- Party of Labour ( Partij van de Arbeid )
- GreenLeft ( GroenLinks )
- Socialist Party ( Socialistische Partij )
The PvdA ( Labour ) and GroenLinks ( GreenLeft ) used to be the bourgeois left-wing. In case of the PvdA we can say that bourgeois left-wing is not accurate to say. The PvdA has become a center capitalist party, much like the Christian Democratic Appeal ( CDA ). For many years the CDA was the main center party. But the massive political turn to the right-wing in the last 23 years, also turned the christian democrats to neoliberalism.
GroenLinks was formed in 1989 by three left-wing parties. The Communist Party of The Netherlands, the Pacifist Socialist Party and the Political Party Radicals. The CPN lost its marxist leninist ( stalinist ) ideology in 1982 when the party abandoned leninism ( stalinism ) for a mix of leftist ideologies. The PSP was a pacifistic party that opposed war. It was very active during the Cold War against both Washington and Moscow!
The last party was the PPR. A leftist; christian party that opposed the conservative ideology of the CDA. The PPR was not anti-capitalist and while it was the smallest of the three, it would be their ideology that is closest to GroenLinks today. When we look at GroenLinks we seen nothing that shows, that this party is socialist or anti-capitalist. GroenLinks claimes to be a progressive green party. But they do not oppose the market economy or the rule of big money. This shows how the socialist ideologies of both the CPN and the PSP were eliminated, in favor of the green progressive ideology of the PPR.
Genuine socialists you only find in the Socialist Party today. Unfortunate they are in a minority, since social democrats dominate the SP. Revolutionary socialists tried to work inside the SP, but the social democratic leadership expelled many. Those social democrats used to be maoists, dogmatic stalinists. First leader of the revolutionary; Socialist Party was Daan Monjé. He founded the SP in 1972. At that time the SP was a revolutionary party that wanted a proletarian revolution. Monjé died in 1986 and Jan Marijnissen took over. While Monjé was dogmatic and idealistic, Marijnissen was pragmatic and not ideologically pure.
Under his leadership the SP abandoned marxism in 1990 and searched for a Dutch socialism. After the year 2000, the SP became more and more an social democratic party. They could profit from the PvdA's turn to the right-wing. In 2006 they won a massive victory, scoring 25 seats out of 150 seat Dutch parliament. Unfortunate the social democratic leadership of Marijnissen tried to make a coalition government with the PvdA and the conservative; CDA. That failed because neither the social democrats nor the christian democrats wanted to govern with this former maoist party.
The SP lost 10 of its 25 seats during the Dutch elections in 2010. Why? Because the SP was not able to rally workers to its cause. In four years they only talked about coalitions with the PvdA, they did not campaigned for socialism or an end to capitalist exploitation. When the elections came, workers voted in favor of the right-wing national conservative; Geert Wilders and his Party for Liberty ( PVV ).
Two years later the first cabinet; Mark Rutte failed. New elections were organized for November 2012. Again the SP could win, the polls were great. But again the weakness of its social democratic leaders showed up. Instead of hard attacks against Mark Rutte, the new SP leader; Emile Roemer was weak and did not pushed hard against both the liberals and the social democratic; PvdA. In his mind Roemer wanted to work with the PvdA and only called for compromises and coalitions. Left-wing voters choose to trust PvdA leader; Diedriek Samsom over Emile Roemer. The PvdA won 39 seats and the SP remained on 15!
Those who voted PvdA got what they tried to prevent. The social democrats joined the (neo)liberals in a right-wing government. Massive cuts on social welfare are planned and the PvdA will support them. All those left-wing voters were again betrayed by social democracy!
Many in The Netherlands believed that the Party of Labour ( PvdA ) could stop the right-wing government of Mark Rutte, leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ( VVD ). Now we got four years of harsh attacks and cuts. The poor and the social weak will feel these attacks. Income tax for the lowest incomes has been raised from 33% to 37%. The taxes on luxury products ( all products except, food and medicine ) have been raised to 21%.
Students must now take a loan if they want to go to college. This could mean that many students will have massive debts after graduation. The rich will have nothing to fear. Again the liberals and social democrats will do their job in keeping capitalism save. The rule of the markets is again secured!
United Socialist Productions - Revolutionary Socialist Media will not surrender. We will fight for a workers council based democracy, in The Netherlands and Europa. We will fight social democracy, liberalism, conservatism and the remnants of stalinism.
Workers of the world unite!!
