Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek (2 January 1873 – 28 April 1960) was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism (Dutch: radencommunisme).
Biography
Pannekoek studied mathematics and physics in Leiden from 1891. Even before he went to college he was interested in astronomy and studied the Milky Way and variability of Polaris. He published his first article, On the Necessity of Further Researches on the Milky Way, as a student. He briefly worked as a geodesist before he returned to the Leiden Observatory (Leidse Sterrewacht) to work as an observer and write his thesis on the variability of Algol.
After reading Edward Bellamy’s Equality, Pannekoek became a convinced socialist and started studying the philosophies of Karl Marxand Joseph Dietzgen. Soon Pannekoek became a well-known Marxist writer, writing for both Dutch and German socialist magazines, like Die Neue Zeit. His astronomical and socialist careers first clashed when he was reprimanded for leading a strike support committee and was treated with dismissal from his job at the observatory by the Dutch government. Around the same time, he was growing dissatisfied with the stale atmosphere and outdated methodologies at the Leiden Observatory. He was offered the option to become a lecturer in Historical materialism at the school funded by the Social Democratic Party of Germany. He soon ran into trouble with the German authorities, who threatened him with expulsion if he continued teaching. He remained in Berlin, however, where he kept writing for journals and newspapers. In 1910, he moved to Bremen where he soon became one of the prominent proponents of the radical Bremen Left.
He was on holiday in the Netherlands when the First World War broke out. Prevented from returning to Germany, he started work as a cosmography and science teacher for secondary schools and a privaatdocent in History_of_astronomy at Leiden University. Though Willem de Sitter wanted to hire him as assistant director at the Leiden Observatory in 1918, the appoint was prevented by the Dutch government because of his outspoken Marxist sympathies. Instead, the Amsterdam city council appointed him at the University of Amsterdam in 1918 as a lecturer. In 1921, he founded the astronomical institute there; in 1925, he was appointed as extraordinary professor; and in 1932 as full professor.
Astronomy
In his scientific work, Pannekoek started studying the distribution of stars through the galaxy, as well as the light distribution of the Milky Way. Later he became interested in the nature and physics of stellar atmospheres. Because of these studies, he is considered to be the founder of astrophysics as a separate discipline in the Netherlands. He became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1925.
Apart from his theoretical work, he also went on several foreign expeditions to observe solar eclipses and take spectra of stars. In 1926 he undertook an expedition to Java in order to delineate the southern Milky Way. He was also interested in the history of astronomy and his book, A History of Astronomy, is considered a standard reference on the subject.
His work in galactic structure, astrophysics and the history of astronomy was of international renown and won him an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1936, as well as the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1951. The crater Pannekoek on the Moon and the asteroid 2378 Pannekoek are named after him. The Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam, of which he had been a director, still carries his name.
Thought
Council communism
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Anarchism portalA recognized Marxist theorist, Pannekoek was one of the founders of council communism and a main figure in the radical left in the Netherlands and Germany. He was active in the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Netherlands), Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany, Communist Party of the Netherlands, the Communist Workers’ Party of the Netherlands and the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany.
Pannekoek was best known for his writing on workers’ councils. He regarded these as a new form of organisation capable of overcoming the limitations of the old institutions of the labour movement, the trade unions and social democratic parties. Basing his theory on what he regarded as the practical lessons of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Pannekoek argued that the workers’ revolution and the transition from capitalism to communism had to be achieved by the workers themselves, democratically organised in workers’ councils.
Pannekoek was a sharp critic of anarchism, social democracy, and Vladimir Lenin and Leninism. During the early years of the Russian revolution, Pannekoek gave critical support to the Bolsheviks, a position shared by fellow council communist Herman Gorter. He expressed misgivings about the authoritarian tendencies of Leninism, fearing for the socialist character of the Russian Revolution unless it should find a rectifying support in a proletarian revolution in the West. His later analysis of the failure of the Russian revolution was that after Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power, they crippled the soviets. Instead of workers’ councils, the Bolsheviks had instituted the rule of their party, which in Pannekoek’s view is what led to the institution of the Bolsheviks as a new ruling class. He put his views forward in his 1938 book Lenin als Philosoph, originally published in German under the pseudonym J. Harper. It was translated into English in 1948 as Lenin as philosopher – a critical examination of the philosophical basis of Leninism.
Marxism and Darwinism
In a pamphlet Pannekoek strongly attacked and rebutted the arguments of Social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer, whom Pannekoek dubbed “Bourgeois Darwinists”.
On the basis of Darwin’s own writings—in particular on The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)—Pannekoek stated:
Their claim is that the extermination of the weak is natural and that it is necessary in order to prevent the corruption of the race, and that the protection given to the weak serves to deteriorate the race. But what do we see? In nature itself, in the animal world, we find that the weak are protected; that it is not by their own personal strength that they maintain themselves, and that they are not brushed aside on account of their personal weakness. This arrangement does not weaken the group, but gives to it new strength. The animal group in which mutual aid is best developed is best fit to maintain itself in the strife.
— Anton Pannekoek, Darwinism and Marxism, p. 39
Works
Scientific writings
- Untersuchungen über den Lichtwechsel von β Lyrae (1897)
- De wonderbouw der wereld – de grondslagen van ons sterrekundig wereldbeeld populair uiteengezet (1916, 1920, 1924)
- De astrologie en hare beteekenis voor de ontwikkeling der sterrekunde (1916)
- De astrophysica en hare moderne ontwikkeling (1925)
- Results of observations of the total solar eclipse of June 29, 1927 – 1: Photometry of the flash spectrum (1928) with Marcel Minnaert
- Results of observations of the total solar eclipse of June 29, 1927 – 2: Photometry of the chromosphere and the corona (1930) with N.W. Doorn
- De groei van ons wereldbeeld – een geschiedenis van de sterrekunde (1951)
- Het ontstaan van de mens (1957)
Political and philosophical writings
- Ethik und Sozialismus – Umwälzungen im Zukunftsstaat (1906)
- Religion und Sozialismus – ein Vortrag (1906)
- Godsdienst en socialisme – voordracht, op 14 September 1905 te Bremen gehouden (1907)
- Ethiek en socialisme (1907)
- Marxisme en revisionisme (1907); with Herman Gorter
- Omwentelingen in den toekomststaat (1907)
- Der Kampf der Arbeiter : sieben Aufsaetze aus der Leipziger Volkszeitung (1907)
- Het marxisme / pro: A. Pannekoek, contra: M.W.F. Treub (1908); with Marie Willem Frederik Treub
- Darwinisme en marxisme (1909)
- Die taktischen Differenzen in der Arbeiterbewegung (1909)
- Uit de voorgeschiedenis van den wereldoorlog (1915)
- De oorlog : zijn oorsprong en zijn bestrijding (ca. 1915)
- “The Third International,” International Socialist Review,” vol. 17, no. 7 (January 1917), pp. 460-462.
- Lenin als Philosoph (1938) pseud.: J. Harper
- (English: Lenin as Philosopher: A Critical Examination of the Philosophical Basis of Leninism. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2003.)
- Workers’ Councils (1947) pseud.: P. Aartsz