As 1915 came to an end, Holst made up her mind about the social democrats: “they are not humans, they are puppets. . . . it is totally impossible to bring about socialism in the party.” (December 28, 1915). Incidentally, Henriette was married to SDAP member Rik Roland Holst, a famous artist.
In the previous weeks, she had already moved largely in the direction of the communists. Her international comrades had precipitated this move. The Polish journalist Karl Radek had tried to convince her at Zimmerwald that “two sects are no better than one.”
He and Lenin had urged the leaders of the Dutch communists, David Wijnkoop and Willem van Ravesteyn, to make overtures to Roland Holst. They did not heartily endorse this proposal, however.
Holst assessed Wijnkoop as “a narrow-minded blockhead.” Wijnkoop and Van Ravesteyn referred to Holst in their correspondence as “a goody-goody woman. . . baby Jet. . . a stupid politician with a cowardly mind. . . . she is going about with Trotsky. . . the Honorable Lady. . . .”
Finally, Holst invested her own money in the manifesto and had 10,000 Dutch copies printed at the end of October. She organized many propaganda meetings in the country to explain the content of the manifesto. In the course of time, her interpretations drifted away from the original text and came closer to the more radical version of Lenin and his “Zimmerwalder Linke.”
As a matter of tactics and principle, we absolutely need to convince people that by signing the manifesto, one automatically rejects the defense of the national sovereignty of Holland, e.g., the defense of the Dutch colonial empire, Dutch imperialism. . . . (7 November1915, Robert Grimm papers B134).
On January 2, 1916, Holst actually joined Lenin’s ZImmerwalder Linke. She published “The Resolution of the Zimmerwalder Linken” in a new bulletin, Vorbote, Internationale Marxistische Rundschau.
At ZImmerwald she had already reserved money and energy to launch this bulletin, and now she became chief editor at the suggestion of Lenin.
The Vorbote produced only two issues, and the first issue triggered Trotsky’s anger. He wrote a very long, reproachful letter in Russian to Roland Holst, which sheds a peculiar light on his relationship with Lenin at that time: .....The critical reader will be stunned by the mental poverty of this bulletin. . . . it goes against good taste, both political and literary, to use a bulletin as a platform for Lenin’s resolution. . . . you took a great step in the direction of extremism. . . . (Roland Holst papers 12).