International Communist Seminar


The International Communist Seminar was an annual communist conference held in May in Brussels, Belgium. It was organized by the Workers' Party of Belgium.
In 1992, Ludo Martens, leader of the WPB initiated the conference, which gathered various tendencies of Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations. He is noted for having proposed the unification of the four main tendencies of the Marxist-Leninist movement. These are the pro-Soviet groups, the pro-Chinese, the pro-Albanian, and pro-Cuban. Around 200 organizations of Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe have taken part in it. For four years, from 1992 to 1995, the ICS worked on identifying "the true causes of the capitalist restoration in Soviet Union" and in Eastern Europe and to draw lessons from it for the future.
The last seminar took place in June 2014. The member parties have largely been absorbed into International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.

Annual conference

Themes of the recent ICS Conferences:
  • 1996: The anti-imperialist struggle under the New World Order.
  • 1997: The way of the October revolution is the way of the liberation of the workers
  • 1998: The working class, its leading role, new forms of exploitation and experiences of struggle and organization.
  • 1999: Imperialism means war
  • 2000: Imperialism, fascization and fascism
  • 2001: The world socialist revolution in the conditions of imperialist globalization.
  • 2002: Economical crises and the possibility of a major world crisis
  • 2003: The Marxist-Leninist Party and the anti-imperialist Front facing the war
  • 2004: The strategy and tactics of the struggle against global US imperialist war
  • 2005: Internationalist experiences and tasks of Communists in the struggle against imperialism
  • 2006: Present and past experiences in the international communist movement: "The impact of the Communist International on the founding and the development of the communist parties in particular countries", "The exchange of concrete experiences of Party work in the working class and among the youth"
  • 2011: The strengthening of communist parties in times of a deepening capitalist systemic crisis
  • 2013: The attacks on the democratic rights and freedoms in the world capitalist crisis
  • 2014: 100 years after World War I - The world in 2014

Participating parties