Tribunists

a group of left-wing Social Democrats that existed in the Netherlands from 1907 to 1918 and was associated with the newspaper De Tribune, which had been established in October 1907.

From 1907 to 1909 the Tribunists were an opposition group in the Social Democratic Labor Party of the Netherlands (SDLPN); they attacked, from Marxist positions, the opportunism of the party’s leaders. After being expelled from the SDLPN in February 1909, the editors of De Tribune—D. Wijnkoop, W. van Ra-vensteyn, and J. Seton—founded the Social Democratic Party of the Netherlands (SDP) in the following month. During World War I, V. I. Lenin considered the Tribunists to be “among the best revolutionary and internationalist elements in international Social Democracy” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 30, p. 45). At the same time, Lenin criticized the Tribunists for their erroneous position on the self-determination of nations, for the inconsistency of certain of their leaders in the campaign against opportunists, and for their pacifism (ibid., vol. 27, p. 260 footnote, p. 273; vol. 30, pp. 46–47; vol. 49, pp. 104–05,189,191).

After the Communist Party of the Netherlands was founded in 1918, many Tribunists joined the party. During the 1920’s, however, some former Tribunist leaders, including H. Gorter, A. Pannekoek, H. Roland-Hoist, W. van Ravensteyn, and J. Seton, broke with the communist movement.