Communist Party of Belgium


The Communist Party of Belgium was a political party in Belgium from 1921 to 1989. The youth wing of KPB/PCB was known as the Communist Youth of Belgium. The party published a newspaper known as Le Drapeau Rouge in French and De Roode Vaan in Dutch.

History

The Communist Party of Belgium was formed at a congress in Anderlecht, Brussels on 3–4 September 1921. KPB/PCB was formed through the unification of two groups, the Communist Party led by War Van Overstraeten and the Belgian Communist Party led by Joseph Jacquemotte, following a split from the Belgian Workers Party. At the time of its foundation, KPB/PCB had around 500 members. KPB/PCB became the Belgian section of the Communist International. The party gained parliamentary presence in 1925, as both Van Overstraeten and Jacquemotte were elected to the Chamber of Representatives. By 1935 KPB/PCB had 9 deputies in the Chamber and 4 members in the Senate. In 1938 it had a membership of about 8,500.
During the Second World War, the party had to go underground during German occupation. The party was also closely affiliated with the Partisans Armés, a resistance group during the occupation, however in 1943 much of the party leadership was arrested by German forces. After the end of the war, the party was strengthened and won 23 seats in the parliamentary elections. The party participated in a coalition government with the socialists and the liberals from 1946 to 1947.
On 18 August 1950 the party chairman, Julien Lahaut, was assassinated. No one was ever sentenced for the murder. In 2015, however, a team of Belgian historians concluded that it had been orchestrated by anti-communist elements inside the intelligence services, with a prominent role for the agent André Moyen.
In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 9,890.
The party briefly flirted with the Eurocommunist tendency in the 1970s, but retained an ambiguous relationship with Eurocommunism: it did not entirely reject the Soviet model and remained sceptical towards the formation of a Western European power bloc.
KPB/PCB lost its parliamentary presence in 1985.
In 1989 KPB/PCB was divided into two separate parties, Kommunistische Partij in Flanders and Parti Communiste in Wallonia.
Several foreign communist parties, American, British, German, French and Dutch, had branches in Belgium.

Chairmen of KPB/PCB

General Secretaries of KPB/PCB

Notable members

Communist burgomasters (mayors)

  • , last mayor of Cheratte from April 1971 to December 1976, deputy from 1968 to 1981
  • , last mayor of Cuesmes from 1965 to 1971, senator from 1949 to 1950, then again from 1954 to 1974
  • Marcel Mereau, mayor of Hensies
  • Elie Hoyas, mayor of Le Roeulx from 1976 to 1982
  • , mayor of Le Roeulx from 1982 to 1985, deputy from 1968 to 1974
  • , mayor of Roux from 1947 to 1950, senator from 1946 to 1954
  • René Mathy, last mayor of Vyle-et-Tharoul
  • Paul Carette, mayor of Warchin

Election results

In the 1971 and 1977 General Elections, the Communist Party used separate lists for both Flanders and Wallonia, despite remaining a single party

It is unclear whether the Communist Party decided not to run separate lists for the 1974 General Election or the data for regional lists is simply not available