Henk Sneevliet Dutch politician, communist Date of Birth: 13.05.1883 Country: Netherlands

1. Early Life and Activism
2. Involvement in the Indonesian Independence Movement
3. Founding the Communist Party of China
4. Later Political Involvement
5. Parliament and Resistance

Early Life and Activism

Henk Sneevliet was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands on January 13, 1883. In 1900, after completing his education, he began working for the Dutch Railways and joined both the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDAP) and the Railway Workers' Union. By 1906, Sneevliet was based in Zwolle as an SDAP official, becoming the first social democratic city council member in the 1907 elections. He also became actively involved in the railway union NV and served as its chairman from 1911, advocating for radical positions within the labor movement.

Involvement in the Indonesian Independence Movement

In 1913, Sneevliet moved to Dutch East Indies and became a co-founder of the Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging (ISDV) in 1914, which included both Dutch and Indonesian members. He also worked with the Vereeniging van Spoor- en Tramwegpersoneel railway union, which later became a cornerstone of the Indonesian communist movement. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Sneevliet's influence among Indonesian workers and, more notably, Dutch soldiers and sailors, raised concerns among the authorities. On December 5, 1918, he was expelled from Dutch East Indies.

Founding the Communist Party of China

Upon his return to the Netherlands, Sneevliet played a key role in organizing the 1920 transport strike. Later that year, he attended the Second Congress of the Comintern in Moscow and Petrograd as a representative of the Communist Party of Indonesia, which had been formed out of the ISDV. Sneevliet was subsequently dispatched by the Comintern to China to assist in the formation of the Communist Party of China. He arrived in Shanghai on June 3, 1921, and immediately sent two Chinese communists to attend the Third Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. Sneevliet played a pivotal role in organizing the First Congress of the Communist Party of China.

In December 1921, Sneevliet visited Sun Yat-sen in southern China. He then returned to Beijing and provided Soviet representative Alexander Paikes with two messages for Moscow: one to the Comintern Executive Committee regarding an alliance between the CCP and the Kuomintang, and another to the Foreign Ministry proposing the appointment of a Soviet representative to southern China. Mikhail Borodin was ultimately appointed as the permanent Soviet representative in southern China. Sneevliet continued to facilitate the alliance between the CCP and the Kuomintang in 1922.

Later Political Involvement

In April 1922, Sneevliet left Shanghai and returned to Moscow via Singapore, Marseille, Amsterdam, and Tallinn, arriving in July 1922. He provided the Comintern Executive Committee with a detailed report on the situation in China. Sneevliet then returned to China and met with Sun Yat-sen in Shanghai on August 25, 1922, after which Chinese communists began to join the Kuomintang en masse while remaining members of the CCP. In the winter of 1922-23, Sneevliet again visited Moscow to discuss Chinese affairs with the Comintern leadership.

In 1927, Sneevliet's relationship with the leadership of the Communist Party of the Netherlands deteriorated, leading him to leave the party and establish his own Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), which later merged with the Independent Socialist Party (NSP) to form the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (RSWP). In 1934, the RSWP signed the "Declaration of Four" along with Leon Trotsky's International Communist League, the NSP, and the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. However, the RSWP eventually broke with the Trotskyists and joined the International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Unity (IBRSU) alongside the British Independent Labour Party and the Spanish POUM.

Parliament and Resistance

In 1933, Sneevliet was elected to the lower house of the Dutch parliament, the Tweede Kamer. When World War II broke out and the Netherlands was occupied by German forces, Sneevliet organized a resistance cell. He spent two years in hiding from the Nazis but was eventually caught and executed on April 12, 1942.