Maatstaf. Jaargang 26

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Sal Santen Fenner Brockway

Onlangs is bij Hart-Davis, MacGibbon London Towards Tomorrow verschenen, de autobiografie van de 89-jarige Fenner Brockway, eens voorzitter van de roemruchte Independent Labour Party, na de oorlog lid geworden van het Hogerhuis voor de Britse Labour Party.

In Nederland weinig bekend, is hij in Engeland ongetwijfeld de meest geziene socialistische leider, die in 1929, bij zijn verkiezing in het Lagerhuis, een briefje ontving van Winston Churchill: ‘I hate your politics but you deserve to be here.’

Een soortgelijk compliment kreeg hij later van het conservatieve Parlementslid John Page, die over hem schreef: ‘I think Fenner Brockway is the most succesful politician of his generation. Only he has been able to see the realisation during his lifetime of everything for which he has fought - though I disagree with all those aims.’

Deze lovende woorden hadden voornamelijk betrekking op Brockway's deelneming aan de strijd voor onafhankelijkheid van de vroegere koloniën. Men kan geen bladzijde in het boek opslaan of men komt de naam tegen van een of andere Aziatische of Afrikaanse leider, van Ho Chi Minh tot Kenyatta, met wie Fenner Brockway op enigerlei wijze relaties heeft onderhouden. In het bestek van een beknopt overzicht is het ondoenlijk, daarop nader in te gaan, evenmin als op een aantekening, gevonden op Hitler's nagelaten papieren, waarin Brockway wordt genoemd als een van degenen die moesten worden doodgeschoten na een Duitse overwinning.

Meer uitvoerige vermelding, voor de Nederlandse lezer, verdient evenwel de volgende passage met betrekking tot Indonesië. Vermoedelijk in 1946 (een jaartal wordt niet genoemd) vond de volgende gebeurtenis plaats: ‘An Indonesian sailor serving as a wireless operator in the Netherlands navy knocked at our Highgate door and excitedly exclaimed that he had a communication for me. He told me how he had picked up a long message from Sukarno, President of Indonesia, adressed to me. Edith and I could not believe him. We knew that die Indonesians, after the defeat of the Japanese, had resisted the restoration of the Dutch colonial administration and set up their own government. We knew that the Netherlands navy, regrettably with British help, was blockading Indonesia; contact with the outside world was possible only by wireless. Was it really true that Sukarno had attempted to reach me and that by chance this young Indonesian had intercepted his message? Over coffee we were convinced. The message, which our Indonesian visitor had roughly typed, set out broad terms for a settlement. In it Sukarno, perhaps remembering my chairmanship of the defunct League against Imperialism (although only a student, he had been present at the Brussels conference), asked me to set negotiations going.’

Voordat Fenner Brockway werd geprezen door vriend en tegenstander, en door menige (toekomstige) staatsman tot kontaktman werd uitverkoren, had hij als een kerel gevochten voor zijn plaats in de socialistische beweging. Als antimilitarist had hij tijdens de eerste wereldoorlog al enige jaren kennis gemaakt met de binnenkant van de gevangenis, en het was toen dat Karl Liebknecht hem een brief schreef, aanvangend met de woorden: ‘Het is de plicht van elke Socialist een profeet van internationale broederschap te zijn,’ terwijl Rosa Luxemburg hem onder meer liet weten: ‘Uit deze oorlog zal het gelid de weg terug vinden naar de oude vlag van het Internatio-

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nale Socialisme ...’

En niet toevallig noemt hij met ere zijn vriend en medestrijder Henk Sneevliet, aan wie hij reeds in een voorwoord tot een (eventuele) Engelse vertaling van mijn boek Sneevliet, rebel, de volgende woorden wijdde: ‘Henk Sneevliet was a dynamic figure in the conflicts between Lenin and Trotsky and afterwards Stalin. These are not only of interest to historians. The issues involved are fundamentally the same as we now have to resolve. Should Socialism be national or international, should political divergencies be suppressed, should proletarian dictatorship be democratised?

I knew Henk Sneevliet closely in the thirties. He was a member of the International Revolutionary Socialist Committee, standing between the Second and Third Internationals, on which I served representing the British Independent Labour Party. Sneevliet came for the Netherlands rsap, a union of dissident Communists and dissident Social Democrats. There were also representatives of the Communist Opposition in Germany, French dissidents, the Norwegian Labour Party (strange in view of its later record), revolutionary socialists from other countries and leaders of nationalist movements in Asia and Africa, including Indo-Chinese and Jomo Kenyatta from Kenya.

Sneevliet was outstanding among us. He was an impatient activist, seeking ways in which we could participate effectively in workingclass struggles and also a ceaseless controversialist testing action by principles deeply held. But I remember him best for his character and courage. He was dedicated to the Socialist cause, living for it utterly. His courage reflected itself in his end, shot with seven comrades bij the Nazis for his heroic resistance to their wartime occupation of Holland.

Our efforts to establish an international movement between the Internationals failed. We made the mistake of striving to be loyal to principles within a vacuum instead of seeking

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to gain acceptance for our principles within the mass forces of the workingclass. Most of us came to realise the mistake, some joining Communist parties, some the Left within Social Democratic parties. But I must not begin to leave the impression that Sneevliet's Socialist contribution was futile. It was immensely worth while. At the early age of 26 years he was president of the Union of Railway Workers. Three years before the First World War he was prominent in the international seamen's strike. He formed the first Socialist party (later to become the Communist party) in Indonesia. He was secretary to the Committee of the Second World Congress of the Third International which drafted the historic Communist Declaration on Colonialism. He became the International's representative in the Far East where he took part in establishing the Communist party of China. When he left the party because of his opposition to Stalinism and sympathy with Trotsky he was elected to the Dutch Parliament as a representative of the rsap, continuously voicing the claims of the workingclass. He was outspoken in his defence of the unemployed when they revolted in Amsterdam in 1934. He courageously took a leading part in the brave general strike in Amsterdam in 1941 against the deportation of the Jewish population by the Nazis. All through his life Sneevliet was fearless in his championship and actions on behalf of the workingclass against capitalist and fascist repression.

This book is written by his son-in-law. Sal Santen was often in conflict with Sneevliet's political diversions, but he writes with affection and admiration of the dedicated revolutionary. I found his description of the scene when his wife visited her father in the death cell deeply moving. Sal was refused permission to enter the prison as a Jew, but through Bep sent a message paying tribute to the revolutionary who by his deeds had broken through the frontiers of tyranny as a living and dying Socialist.

Sal has written more than a biography. We see Henk Sneevliet as a living personality and as such, he must be an inspiration to all who share his Socialist convictions. We learn as we read much of the early history of Communism, but the final effect of the book, particularly for Young Socialists, is to illuminate an example of dedication and courage which cannot fail to influence our service to the Cause in all the coming years.

Fenner Brockway.’

Men denke niet, dat Fenner Brockway's belangstelling zich beperkte tot de bovengenoemde twee gebieden. Hij had (heeft) een grote literaire betrokkenheid, waarvan een uitgebreide briefwisseling met Bernard Shaw, gepubliceerd in zijn boek Outside the Right getuigt. In zijn autobiografie Towards Tomorrow neemt Fenner Brockway een korte drie-akter uit 1917 op, die Bernard Shaw hem toezond in de plaats van een artikel over het Palestina-probleem, en waarvan de derde akte bestaat uit de woorden: ‘Mr Bernard Shaw in his sumptuously furnished study reading the announcement of the Balfour Declaration.

As if one were not enough.’

Historische woorden...

Op dezelfde wijze raakte hij bevriend met Bertrand Russell, over wiens kennismaking hij schrijft: ‘He was shy when he came to offer his services and one's first memory of him was a simple modesty, soon accompanied by twinkle-eyed humour, becoming an irrepressible Puck.’

En niet minder levendig beschrijft hij zijn relatie met H.G. Wells: ‘He joined in the fun at our socials. I still laugh when I think of him in “The Grand Old Duke of York”, bouncing up and down excitedly, clapping his plump little hands, and squealing in his thin treble voice, “pretty, pretty, pretty”, in appreciation of the girls as they danced between the two lines. He was the youngest among us. I have a vivid memory of an avening meal in

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his home when Edith and I were his guests. We watched through the window a group of small birds driving away a hawk by screeching and beating their wings round it. “A lesson for man,” said hg.’

Ontroerend is de wijze, waarop Fenner Brockway van zijn eerste ontmoeting met George Orwell, kort na het uitbreken van de Spaanse burgeroorlog vertelt: ‘It was just after this that I met Eric Blair, already known as George Orwell for his Road to Wigan Pier. He came to see me at Head Office, tall, fair, reserved, to talk about going to Spain. He was attracted by the ethical, libertarian Socialism of the ilp but had been disillusioned by visits to London branches where Communists and Trotskists had wrangled. We had lunched together and he unbent, lively and laughing, saying he was indifferent as to whether he joined the International Brigade or the ilp contingent in Spain - all he wanted to do was to have a “whack” at Franco.’ Hij kreeg die kans. ‘Orwell had missed death at the front by a fraction of an inch, a bullet scraping his windpipe, and his voice was thin and husky. He told me he had resolved by accident the problem of which brigade to join; the ILP contingent was just leaving for the front and he had gone with them. He was still uncommitted, but was deeply impressed by the workers’ revolution and later wrote his Homage to Catalonia. I think it was experience of Communist behaviour in Spain which aroused his loathing of dictatorship expressed in his Animal Farm and 1984.’

Laat ik besluiten met een persoonlijke herinnering aan Fenner Brockway, die ik deel met het nog in leven zijnde groepje voormalige leden van de Onafhankelijke Socialistische Partij. Er was een demonstratieve bijeenkomst, als ik mij niet vergis op Frankendaal in Amsterdam, met als sprekers Piet Schmidt, de partijvoorzitter, en na hem Fenner Brockway. Het zal in 1933 zijn geweest, en wij, allemaal jonge mensen, hadden nooit eerder een socialistisch leider ontmoet die zo tot onze verbeelding sprak. Zelf herinnert Fenner Brockway zich over die gelegenheid: ‘Before returning to London I addressed a great anti-war demonstration with Peter (Schmidt) in Holland and, repeating Keir Hardie, urged an international general strike if war were imminently threatened. My speech received press attention and the Government ordered my immediate departure, and informed me that I would not be allowed to return. In fact, I have visited Holland several times since and have not been challanged.’