Brussels, 5- 7 May 2006

www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org

The Communist International and the Belgian Communist Party

Workers' Party of Belgium

Juliette Broder and Ludo Martens

Since its foundation, in 1885, the Parti Ouvrier Belge (POB), the (social democratic) Belgian Workers Party, has been characterized by its outrageous reformism.

The POB was not a political party in the proper sense of the word. It was a conglomerate of political groups, trade unions, cooperatives, mutual insurance systems, choirs, circles of artists, athletes, etc.

At the start of the First World War, the total number of members paying their membership dues amounted to 600,000!

But the political groups in the proper sense that made part of the POB counted only 13,000 members.

It's a most ingenious political system!

With 13,000 members, the reformist party had 600,000 families under its tight direction…

At the end of the first inter-imperialist war, the bourgeoisie accepted three "big shots" of the POB…in the imperialist government: Vandervelde, Anseele and Wauters!

In the region of Ghent, a city in the Flemish part of Belgium, a group of young people was advocating Marxism under the occupation and they founded, with soldiers who were opposed to the inter-imperialist war, a "Peace Group". They adopted the point of view of the Second International as agreed in Stuttgart in 1907, saying: "it is the duty of the working classes in the countries taking part (in the war), (...) to intercede for its speedy end, and to strive with all their power to make use of the violent economic and political crisis brought about by the war to rouse the people, and thereby to hasten the abolition of capitalist class rule."

In 1918, the group published a pamphlet that said: "In numerous villages, the Bolsheviks have (...) take governmental power into their hands: Russia has become a Socialist Workers' Republic. (...) Let us give our strong support to the magnificent and courageous champions of socialism, the Bolsheviks."

In November 1918, it became the first Belgian communist group. It was joined at the end of December 1919 by another important group from Brussels, that published the newspaper "L’ouvrier Communiste" (The Communist Worker) starting on March 1, 1920.

These two groups, together with some others that are less important, created on November 1, 1920 the Communist Party.

The Party's prime organiser, War Van Overstraeten, also attended the Second Congress of the Communist International in July 1920.

Joseph Jacquemotte was the leader of the trade union of employees in Brussels. Under German occupation, he organised a solidarity movement with the October Revolution. On November 17, 1918, on the very day of the truce, "L’Exploité, journal socialiste révolutionnaire" (The Exploited, revolutionary socialist newspaper) came out, the backbone of the organisation "Les Amis de l’Exploité" (Friends of the exploited).

At the 1920 All Saint's Day Congress of the POB, its Brussels federation voted under the influence of Jacquemotte, with 128 votes against 29, for the party's withdrawal from the Second International. At the same time, the POB had four of its "big shots"... in the bourgeois government: Emile Vandervelde, Joseph Wauters, Eduard Anseele et Jules Destrée.

In June of 1921, "Les Amis de l’Exploité" holds its third Congress, deciding to create the Parti Communiste Belge.

The new party wants to "organise the forces of the working class in a new and powerful class party... and to prepare the class to seize state power." It calls on its members to remain affiliated with their trade unions and cooperatives that are affiliated with the POB.

The party of Van Overstraete reacted in a sectarian way to the founding of the new party and denounced "the inconsiderate creation of a so-called communist party." "That group has always contented themselves to paint the pale democratic proposals of the social-patriots with some fake red colour." "We reject the founding of mass parties because they are condemned like social democracy to reformism and treason." "We only want the most steadfast elements at our side. In the ranks of the vanguard revolutionaries, there is too much social democratic weaknesses."

Van Overstraeten rejected L’Exploité's twin criticisms: "The existing PC is too closed and we need communists in parliament." Van Overstraeten retorts that "the preconditions for that kind of parliamentarism are not present in Belgium."

In fact Van Overstraeten's analysis often deviated towards idealism, elitism and anarchism: "For the proletarians to act themselves, and not just on the orders of the leaders, we want to be the agitators who sow in the hearts of all workers the hate for the bourgeois regime." "We condemn parliamentarism because it harms revolutionary action, we condemn mass parties because they are condemned to reformism and treason."

On July 13, 1921, the delegations of both Belgian Communist Parties were received by Zinoviev, who was the president of the Executive Committee of the Third International.

Van Overstraeten first wanted to organise the merger of both parties and didn't want to agree that the former Exploité would join the International.

Zinoviev replied that the new party could join the International: "They are comrades who belong to us. Divergences can be overcome by a unity Congress."

Van Overstraeten's PC held its Second Congress on October 31 and November 1, 1921.

In his report to the International we can read the following: "Although the trade unions are affiliated with the POB, we remain active inside in order to unmask the reformism of the majority and the minority." The "minority" referred to were the partisans of Jacquemotte.

The ultra-revolutionary language of Van Overstraeten's group masked its contempt for the patient and often ungrateful work to guide the workers towards the economic and political struggle: "no illusions in the possibility of effective agitation in the trade unions..."

In his report about the Second Congress, Van Overstraeten writes also: "During the Congress, the theses of the International's Second Congress were adopted, with the exception of the thesis on parliamentarism." "All acts of treason, all damage done by reformism, are infinitely less dangerous than the long and vigilant sabotage of the proletariat's willingness to act and the constant substitution of this willingness by passive parliamentary methods."

Van Overstraeten accused the former Exploité of wanting to "unite the masses with bonds of passivity during electoral exercises." His alternative: "Through the selection of the most active, through their disciplined and continuing organising among the masses, win over the majority of them."

As his (logical) conclusion he proposes to the unity Congress to adopt a motion in favour of anti-parliamentarism.

Van Overstraeten: "Communist practice... has to be based always on the stimulation from below, on the arousal of the people, on the encouragement toward independence of characters who are looking for their force in their instinct and the conscious or unconscious aspirations of their class."

The same Van Overstraeten combined his anarchist tendencies with mysticism: "The work of Bolsheviks is animated by a sublime religious spirit. Seeing this confidence, we can expect the annihilation of all their enemies, and of all enemies of human truth, of which they incarnation."

Wilhelm Koenen of the Unified Communist Party of Germany, the delegate of the International, was the chairperson of the unification committee composed of ten members of each party.

At the time of the merger, the unified party counted 531 members.

In the common declaration on the unification, which was heavily influenced by Wilhem Koenen, we can read: "The merger has to be on basis of the statutes of the Third International and the decisions of the Second and Third General Congress. The Executive Committee insists particularly that, on one hand, the CP has to adhere to international discipline with respect to the parliamentary question and, on the other hand, the former left wing of the POB... fights vigorously any centrist and pacifist tendency."

In order to achieve a Party that is politically unified, the International has correctly waged an ideological struggle against the two deviations: on one hand the elitism and anarchism of Van Overstraeten's group and on the other hand the centrism and pacifism of the group of l’Exploité. These were indeed the two deviations at the origin of Belgium's communist movement. These deviations have never been weeded out by the roots...

Arguably, without the intervention of the International, the two groups, one sectarian and anti-parliamentarist, the other one a hostage to left reformism, would have never united on a Marxist-Leninist basis.

Later, the parliamentary elections have forced the two parties, that were both very weak, to unite in order to overcome the big difficulties to gain a mass base.

In 1923-25 Trotsky launches his attack on the general line of Stalin and the Russian CP.

In the CC of March 1, 1925, Van Overstraeten proposes a motion in the defence of Trotsky against the large majority of the central committee of the Russian Party.

Look at the formulation: "The CC condemns Trotskyism without reservations and all Trotsky's errors committed in his struggle against Leninist Bolshevism before the October revolution. The CC believes, to the contrary, that Trotsky's errors... do not allow to conclude that there is an attempt to revive "Trotskyism" and to substitute it for Leninism. The interpretation of Trotsky's theory appeared to be erroneous to us, if not completely wrong. We believe that Trotsky is a Leninist who, like many other Leninists, has to overcome his weaknesses."

This motion was adopted by the CC on April 10, 1925 with 19 votes against 3...

Jacquemotte proposed a motion in defence of the line of Stalin and the CPSU:

"The CC of the PCB considers it deeply regrettable that, contrary to the resolutions adopted by competent organs of the of the PCR and approved by the Fifth Congress, comrade Trotsky believed that he had to reopen the discussion on the line of the CC as approved by the XIII Conference and the XIII Congress of the Russian Party." The motion only gathers 3 votes out of 19...

The question of the Russian Opposition becomes the subject of a general debate in the Belgian Communist Party at the end of 1927.

On November 27, the CC voted 15 against 3 for a resolution demanding the suspension of the expulsions from the Russian Communist Party and the convocation of a World Congress... The CC decides to forbid the defence of the line of the Bolshevik Party in the Drapeau Rouge (Red Flag)!

Van Overstraeten claims: "Stalin's theory that only a military intervention can block the road to socialism is not correct."

This is tantamount to the theory that socialism in one country is impossible. Van Overstraeten is making a reference to Trotski's theory about the interdependence of both systems. Stalin did not deny this interdependence but demonstrated that this thesis does not imply the dominance of one economy over the other.

Coenen responded to Van Overstraeten: "The Russian proletariat is not accomplishing a 'national task' while constructing socialism, but an international class task." He asks: "Does the CP of Russia forbids the other parties to wage revolution at home? Let's face it: the CPR is the partisan of socialism 'in several countries.'"

On January 1 and 2 of 1928, the CC of the PCB listens to two reports about the opposition within the Communist Party of the USSR.

The first one, presented by Van Overstraete, defends the Trotskyist opposition.

Coenen defends the line of the CPSU's CC and Stalin in the second report.

Each report is concluded with a motion. Both the motion of Van Overstraeten and Coenen get 13 votes.

Half of the CC is thus siding with the Trotskyites in their fight against the Leninist line that was defended effectively by comrade Stalin.

The "debate" about the Russian Party, launched by Van Overstraeten's group, serves not only to defend the Trotskyites and their line of capitulation but also to draw the Party into sterile debates that paralyses all action on the ground of the class struggle in Belgium.

On January 29, 1928 the representative of the Communist International makes a crucial intervention to the CC of the PCB. He wants to bring back the PCB... to Belgian territory.

"More than one year ago, the EC of the CI came to the conclusion that 'by its influence, the PCB has become a mass party but by its political activity, its organization, its working methods, its limited manpower, it has remained a small party of propagandists...' Any attempt to remain at the old organizational stage and to maintain the old working methods would make the party loose the influence it has gained among the masses and would develop the internal crisis..."

The diagnosis about Van Overstraeten: "Good decisions, wrong implementation."

"Any error in the organization, any weakness in the functioning of the Party organs should have its roots in the politics. The International has always considered the principal obstacle... the sectarian spirit that engenders, cultivates and justifies passivity... and paralyses initiatives of the activist members... They wanted to represent the accusation of "sectarians" as amean vengeance for the audacity they showed when supporting Trotsky."

The CI's representative consequently criticizes the party's absence of attention for the allies of the revolution in Belgium: the poor farmers and the Flemish liberation movement.

He concludes: "Social democracy has the trade unions as a base. To conquer this base is a menace for social democracy to collapse. A comprehensive, meticulous and concrete work plan has been elaborated... It was accepted reluctantly. Some important trade union federations have started to oppose the reformist centre, the Unity group has been formed. ... With our thousands of party members, surrounded by thousands of supporters, we could have been able to cover for two years already the country with a vast network of Unity groups, extend the influence of this organisation that is not communist yet hostile to reformism to thousands of members of the trade unions."

It is only at the end of 1928 that there is even a start of an assessment of the fundamental errors in the field of the trade unions. The Party was not able to mobilize the workers for a consistent struggle for their interest, it merely "pressured the reformist barons." "We will show us when the reformists break up the movement," it was said.

It is only in December 1930 that the Party launches a Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition that is able to prepare and wage the economic struggles of the working class independently and on the basis of their daily needs.

At the start of the 1930s, an "ultra-left wind" blows through the International and the Communist Party of Belgium, which declares there is "a profound evolution in the sincerely socialist workers' opposition to the social-fascist politics of their leaders. In order to channel this opposition, to prevent it an evolution towards the revolutionary communist politics, the "left" social-democratic leaders are and will be used most. They are the most dangerous enemies of the workers who are starting to withdraw from the social-democratic stranglehold." (Resolution of the 5th Congres of the PCB, 1931)

In the PCB, which was deeply divided in a dogmatic sectarian wing and a left-reformist wing, such a strong left wind had to provoke a return of a right wind sooner or later…

On July 18, 1936 Le Drapeau Rouge published what was called (by the right wing of the PCB...) "Jacquemotte's political testament". We read the following:

"Before this powerful current of unity that has uplifted and galvanzied the masses,... the realization of the unity between the organizations of the POB and the PC has become one of the central questions of the Belgian workers' movement. ... The Communist Party has its platform and its principles. It has to maintain its autonomous organization until there is an agreement on common principles between the POB and the PCB. ... The time has come to put forward the question of the realisation of the organic unity of the POB and the PCB. ... The leadership has decided to propose the Congress to join the POB as an autonomous organisation. This proposal would make from the PCB a component party of the POB."

Relecom, who became the new secretary general after Jacquemotte, continues this ultra-rightist line. He writes in 1936 in "Pour le salut du Peuple" (For people's salvation): "We don't want to break up the POB, contrary to the Trotskyites, those treacherous enemies of workers' unity. We don't want to destroy the POB, want to rectify and consolidate it." He even adds this pearl: "It is possible to strengthen democracy... forbidding the intervention of financial organisms in political life, restoring the fullness of the Parliament's functions...."

This Communist Party's secretary general ignores thus that capitalism constitutes a society that is divided in social classes where dictatorship of the capital is imposed by "democratic" means if possible, and by the most brutal violence if necessary... Under a regime of the dictatorship of the big capital, this man wants to "forbid" the intervention of big capital in politics...

The PCB before, during and after the war 40-45

The anti-fascist war will be the decisive test for the PCB: Has it been able to assimilate the political theses of Marxism-Leninism and its organizational principles? Did it acquire the capacity to lead the working masses in the struggles for their demands and in the struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie?

The International would be dissolved in 1943: the PCB's leadership has to prove now what it's worth.

In October 1936, the Belgian king Leopold III, declared that Belgium has to adhere to a policy of neutrality. Leopold III also says: "The potential enemy (i.e. Germany) could invoke an alliance of Belgium with one of its enemies as an excuse." Leopold III would quickly capitulate for the Nazi aggression and become a collaborator. This so-called politics of neutrality was supported firmly by the POB and especially by Spaak, POB minister for foreign affairs, and Henri De Man, the POB's president.

The PCB was the only party to denounce the politics of neutrality which was benefiting Hitler.

In the morning of the German invasion, May 10, 1940 hundreds of communists, most of them Party cadres, were detained..

What class to lean on to fight fascism?
Secretary general Relecom responds that the struggle against fascism has to be based on all social classes, without any priority. We have to defend on all democrats, he says, and they are to be found in all classes, even, he adds, in the parties of the extreme right and in the army where we can fish them out.

Until September 13, 1939 all speeches of Relecom, proclaim that "Hitler is the number one enemy." But that day marks a 100% turnabout. The PCB's CC declares: "Our country.. should not become the toy of Hitler's Germany, nor England's." A statement for the workers explains: "We don't want to die for Hitler, nor for Chamberlain." The slogan is: "Neither London, nor Berlin." The PCB declaration of October 2, 1939: "The war is not an anti-fascist war, but properly characterized it is an imperialist war, resulting from successive capitulations of democratic states, in the hope to redirect the fascist countries to the socialist countries."

It is true that since the rise of Hitler to power, to which they largely contributed, France's and Germany's policy was solely guided by their hope that Hitler would annihilate the USSR! This policy has imposed upon the Soviet Union the tactical need for the German-Soviet pact, a pact also approved by the PCB.

The Party the bourgeoisie wanted to dismantle by massive arrests, was re-established surprisingly quickly in the first days of the occupation. The Catholic and Liberal Parties ceased to exist as parties.

Henri De Man, the POB's president puts himself at the service of the occupier and dissolves his party!

On May 17, 1940 the Germans occupy Brussels. La Voix du Peuple (The People's Voice) of May 29-30, 1940 still says: "In this imperialist war, the peoples of Flanders and Walloon don't have anything to win from this war." The capitulation of May 28, 1940 is welcomed as "a real relief." Now people should "go back to work and rehabilitate the country." Interestingly this is exactly the same slogan as Leopold III launches, the collaborator number one!

From the first months of the occupation, there are communists who organize strikes despite the official line of the Party. The most spectacular strike takes place in Liège in May 1941 with 100,000 strikers under the leadership of Julien Lahaut, a member of the political bureau.

The CP will soon be the only pre-war party, not aligned with the new order, to present itself as such to the population.

Since January 1941, underground structures are in place that grew out of strikers' committees that were established in the course of the actions. They will be the origin of the future Committees for Labour Struggle that would exist in all companies of the country and since then there was not one single day without a strike bursting out against the occupier.

In May 1941 the Party distributed a platform assigning to the Communists the only task to fight against the occupier and calling for the establishment of an Independence Front, a broad popular movement of resistance to the enemy. The Resistance, initiated by the PC only, was organized around seven strategies.

First. Since spring of 1941, armed partisan groups are established under the name of Armée Belge des Partisans (Belgian Partisan Army). 962 German military, including generals, colonels, majors, etc. have been killed and 1017 have been injured. 1137 traitors and collaborators have been killed. There were 1268 acts of sabotage against the railways, including the destruction of 10,305 railway cars. Second. The Committees for Labour Struggle united the working class against the occupant. They denounced the treason of the trade union leaders and the collaborating trade union, Union des Travailleurs Manuels et Intellectuels (Union of Manual and Intellectual Workers), that was established by H. De Man. They also organized political and economic strikes and the sabotage of the production.

Third. As the peasantry was still numerous in the country, the Party initiated Mouvement de Défense Paysanne (Peasant Defence Movement) that fought against German impositions, destroyed the rape fields. (The Germans needed rapeseed oil for their vehicles.) The MDP supplied the Resistance with food and safe houses.

Fourth. The Party initiated or associated itself closely with underground resistance organizations of intellectuals. The doctors, for example, organized themselves in Médecine Libre (Free Medicine). Their primary task: give care to the underground resistance. The lawyers were organized in Justice Libre (Free Justice). Their primary task: ensure the defence of resistance fighters when they had to appear in court. The National Teachers' Front had the heavy task to counter the Nazi propaganda in schools and universities.

Fifth. The Party initiated the Rassemblement National de la Jeunesse (National Assembly of the Youth) to organize the working youth and students from all political and religious backgrounds and from Flanders, Walloon and Brussels.

Sixth. The Party participated actively in the Civil Resistance that prepared clandestine literature (statements, newspapers, etc.) and take charge of its distribution. The Civil Resistance also produced counterfeit documents, food stamps, etc. Also the postmen should be mentioned who played a significant role in the interception of mail send by or to the Gestapo.

The Independence Front, created at the CP's initiative, elaborated a platform with the following key points.

1. Fight the occupiers with all means.

2. Sabotage and fight the collaboration.

3. Denounce the wait-and-see attitude.

4. Punish the traitors.

5. Boycott and sabotage the institutions created by the occupiers.

6. Prepare the national uprising.
   

Entering into an alliance with the patriotic bourgeoisie, in the heart of the united front, the CP would commit the grave error to cede the leadership over the front to the bourgeoisie. At the same time, it would abandon its autonomous program. The PCB forgot that, under whatever circumstances, the bourgeoisie always maintains its class character. The CP had become the representative of the masses' immediate aspirations without trying to lift their aspirations beyond the objective of "chasing the occupier", or to elevate their aspirations to revolutionary consciousness. And yet, it had many opportunities: the people were fighting not only for booting out the occupier but also for the establishment—after those horror years brought about by the political interests and the capitulation of the leading classes—of a just and fraternal society as they saw exemplified by the heroic USSR.

In this respect, the memoirs of Georges de Lovinfosse, a liaison agent between London and occupied Belgium, are significant. He described his mission together with André Wendelen, an officer of the Intelligence, in preparation of the territory's liberation. "Of course, we first thought about the liberation of the territory... and moreover we wanted to revert to the integral implementation of our Constitution... The resistance army we wanted to bring under our control immediately risked to escape us... a general insurrection would have put Belgium again to fire and sword... My mission was ... to keep the insurrection in check at all times". (p. 186-187) "For Wendelen and me, the crucial problem was the following: Who has to assume civilian and military powers between the liberation and the return of the Belgian authorities?" (p. 196)

No hesitation for de Lovinfosse and Wendelen: "order has to be maintained against the communists and the best way to assure that is "to engage the troops of the Resistance organisations into the regular army, in order to reinforce the Allies but also to reduce the insurrectionary climat." (13)

After the liberation, the Party would try to obtain some crumbs of the power through the participation in the government. The CP would be used by the big bourgeoisie in order to disarm the people. The CP's right opportunism will put it it definitively on the road that determined its political line from the post-war period until today.

After the liberation, on September 5, 1944 the Independence Front, which is under the direction of the PCB, calls for the restoration of the State, its institutions, its "constitutional liberties". It calls on the pre-war government, in exile in London, to take the lead of the country again, the very government that had carefully protected the fascists and detained the communists.

The CP would practice, in the words of the Independence Front's program, "strict and loyal collaboration with the authorities," implying governmental judiciary and police authorities, high officers of the Belgian army and the Anglo-American authorities who make the laws in the liberated countries. But the people, the Resistance, calls for vengeance against the collaborators. And yet the IF's program, approved by the CP, prescribed the disappearance of the Resistance through its incorporation into the legal Belgian army under the pretext that the war was not yet finished although anybody new its end was near and inevitable. The resistance refused to surrender their arms and protested. Blood flowed during a confrontation between resistance fighters and the police in rue de la Loi in Brussels. The Party's leadership, eager to participate in the government, gave its agreement to the Anglo-Americans to disarm the Resistance.

The modalities of the Resistance's disarmament and its incorporation into the legal army were signed by Albert Marteau, communist Minister of Public Health. Geoffray Warner remarks that a meeting took place on November 17, 1944 between General Erskine, the English high commander, and the communist ministers. Warner notes: "A joint communique was published at the occasion of this meeting. Signed by General Erskine, Mr. Marteaux, Mr. Demany and Mr. Dispy, it concludes... : 'The three ministers... declared their agreement to do all they could to assure the respect of law and that anything would happin in good order.... they committed themselves to ensure that the Resistance movements would avoid any confrontation with the Allied armies.'"

The CP was thus given the sinister mission to take advantage of its influence in the Resistance to ensure an effective disarmament and therefore the triumph of the "bourgeois legality."

In reality, the situation at the time of liberation was such that the CP was in the possibility to establish a state of a new type; i.e. of the new democratic type that could have opened the way towards a society of the socialist type. In fact, the willingness of the masses made it possible. Instead of accepting the London government, the disarmament of the Resistance, etc., it would have been sufficient to ask the people to express themselves in an election immediately upon liberation. But for that, a genuine CP would have been necessary, a CP that wouldn't shrink for the bourgeoisie, nor for Anglo-American imperialism and with confidence in the masses.

Let ius mention two declarations of Edgard Lalmand, the Party's new secretary general. They date from 1946. They speak for themselves and don't need any comments. The first one is an excerpt of "Bâtir une Belgique Nouvelle" (Building a new Belgium), the second from "Pour la Rénovation du Pays" (For the Country's Renewal). Lalmand writes: "At this occasion (the industrial reconstruction), our working class has given proof of its selfless patriotism. When the hour of liberation rang, the Belgian workers, who were strained by four years of fierce occupation and the heroic struggle against the invader, didn't hesitate to use the difficult situation the country was in to their advantage."

"The participation of representatives of the world of labour in the administration of the economy and the management of the companies will dampen to a certain extent the anarchist and asocial character of capitalist production and the continuing contradictions between private and general interest. Through the co-management, we are laying the foundations of economic democracy and prepare the transition of the capitalist to a socialist regime."

That is how the PCB, sunken into revisionism, would negate its own ideals.

Despite the criticisms of the International, the line of left reformism that dominated the former group of l'Exploité–Communist Party in 1918 has never been eradicated and revisionism has finaly taken the reins of the Party.