CPN

In three interviews Jaap Wolff (not to be confused with his brother Joop, who also played a prominent role in the CPN leadership) and Gerard Maas, former board members of the CPN, discuss the history of the Communist Party. Topics include: the period 1958-64; the crisis of 1977 and the fall of party leader Paul de Groot; the CPN during the war; the relationship to social democracy.

Ger Verrips used these interviews to write a fascinating and colourful history of the CPN.

He gained access to collections of never-before-examined documents in the hitherto closed archives of the CPN in Amsterdam, the CPSU in Moscow and the BVD. Verrips spoke to the leaders of the party and managed to break through the closed nature of the party leadership. His portrait of Paul de Groot, forty years the dominant leader of the CPN, is surprising. His portrait of the war years and the resistance of the communists is disconcerting. His account of the Cold War, the reactions to the Hungarian uprising, the break with Moscow and the internal party struggles is revealing. The final period of crisis, intellectual revival and ultimate decline are inescapably described.

Also note the other CPN collections: Living CPN history, Women of the CPN, interviews with former CPN members, and more interviews with former CPN members.