23 Facts About Henk Sneevliet

Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or by the pseudonym "Maring", was a Dutch communist politician who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies.

Henk Sneevliet took part in the communist resistance against the occupation of the Netherlands during World War II by Nazi Germany, for which he was executed by the Germans in April 1942.

Hendricus "Henk" Sneevliet was born on 13 May 1883 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and grew up in Den Bosch in a poor Catholic family.

Henk Sneevliet became a member of the Social Democratic Workers Party as well as the Dutch Association of Railway and Tramway Employees in 1902.

From 1906, Henk Sneevliet was active for the SDAP in Zwolle, where he became the first social democrat city council member in the elections of 1907.

Henk Sneevliet was very active in the NV and was elected to the union's executive committee in 1906.

Henk Sneevliet's alienation strengthened him in his decision to leave the Netherlands for the Dutch East Indies.

Henk Sneevliet lived in the Dutch East Indies from 1913 until 1918, where he quickly became active in the struggle against Dutch colonial rule.

Henk Sneevliet returned to union work, becoming a member of the Vereeniging van Spoor- en Tramwegpersoneel, a railway union which was unique in having both Dutch and Indonesian members.

Henk Sneevliet was therefore forced to leave the Dutch East Indies in 1918.

Back in the Netherlands, Henk Sneevliet became active in the fledgling communist movement, becoming a salaried official of the party's National Labor Secretariat and helping to organize a major transportation strike in 1920.

Henk Sneevliet lived in China from 1921 to 1923 and was present at the founding congress of the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921.

Henk Sneevliet was an advocate of cooperation with the non-communist nationalist Kuomintang, headed by Sun Yat-sen, with whom he had personally established contact on behalf of the Comintern.

Henk Sneevliet rejected a separate offer from the Soviets to run the Guangzhou outpost of the Soviet state news agency ROSTA.

Early in 1924, Henk Sneevliet returned to Moscow, his tenure as a Comintern representative to China at an end.

Henk Sneevliet returned to the Netherlands from Moscow in 1924 to assume the position of secretary of the National Labor Secretariat.

Henk Sneevliet joined the executive committee of the Communist Party of Holland in 1925 but the two years were marked by worsening factional relations between Sneevliet and his co-thinkers and the bulk of the CPN leadership.

The denouement came in 1927, when Henk Sneevliet broke all ties with the CPH and the Comintern.

In 1929, Henk Sneevliet formed a new political party, the Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Henk Sneevliet remained interested in Indonesian affairs and in 1933 was sentenced to five months imprisonment for his solidarity actions for the Dutch and Indonesian sailors who took part in the mutiny on "De Zeven Provincien", which was put down by an air bombardment in which twenty-three sailors were killed and which at the time aroused considerable passions in the Dutch public opinion.

That same year, while still imprisoned, Henk Sneevliet was elected a member of the Lower House of parliament, a position in which he remained until 1937.

Henk Sneevliet had informed Victor Serge that Reiss, a leading GPU official in the Netherlands was "heartbroken" by the Zinoviev Trial and had crossed over to the anti-Stalinist Opposition.

When war broke out on 10 May 1940, Henk Sneevliet immediately dissolved the RSAP.