The Dutch-German Communist Left, represented by the German KAPD-AAUD, the Dutch KAPN and the Bulgarian Communist Workers Party, separated from the Comintern (1921) on questions like electoralism, trade-unionism, united fronts, the one-party state and anti-proletarian violence. It attracted the ire of Lenin, who wrote his Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder against the Linkskommunismus, while Herman Gorter wrote a famous response in his pamphlet Reply to Lenin. The present volume provides the most substantial history to date of this tendency in the twentieth-century Communist movement. It covers how the Communist left, with the KAPD-AAU, denounced 'party communism' and 'state capitalism' in Russia; how the German left survived after 1933 in the shape of the Dutch GIK and Paul Mattick’s councils movement in the USA; and also how the Dutch Communistenbond Spartacus continued to fight after 1942 for the world power of the workers councils, as theorised by Pannekoek in his book Workers’ Councils (1946).

This book offers a broad overview of an important and ongoing transformation in relations between political parties and their closest supporters. It focuses on established parliamentary democracies, showing how the changing nature of party membership is affecting how political parties define themselves and the choices presented to voters.

" ... accompanies the exhibition of the same name organized by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, in conjunction with the Mauritshuis, The Hague. The exhibition is on view from February 26 through June 19, 2011; and travels to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, July 9 through October 2, 2011, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 13, 2011 through February 12, 2012"--T.p. verso.