Belgian Communism in the Light of Its Vanishing (1976-1994)

Pascal Delwit

doi:10.4236/ojps.2018.83023

Abstract

In the 1987 national elections, the Communist Party of Belgium (PCB-KPB) lost all parliamentary representation for the first time since 1925. This failure reflects the accelerated collapse of Belgian Communism in just a decade. The events of 1989 and 1991 in Central and Eastern Europe and in the USSR will then confirm the de facto disappearance of the PCB-KPB. The article goes back to the roots of the decline of a medium-size Communist Party, but showed political and social relevance from 1925 to 1985. The decline is due to the industrial and socio-demographic dramatic changes. The paper also tackles the political choices made in the seventies and eighties to understand it. In particular, it embraces the internal paralysis of the party faced with the challenges posed to all the European Communist Parties at this time, and its inability to deal with them.

Highlights

As of 1976, the year of the municipal elections in Belgium, in the early nineties, the Communist Party of Belgium (Particommuniste de Belgique-Kommunistische Partij van België, PCB-KPB) experienced a considerable fall in its aura, to the point of losing, as it was, any electoral, political, cultural and trade union influence after 1989
In the 1987 national elections, the Communist Party of Belgium (PCB-KPB) lost all parliamentary representation for the first time since 1925. This failure reflects the accelerated collapse of Belgian Communism in just a decade
The third, which began with the 1985 legislative elections, marked the beginning of the end of the PCB-KPB in Belgian political and trade union life

Summary

Introduction

As of 1976, the year of the municipal elections in Belgium, in the early nineties, the Communist Party of Belgium (Particommuniste de Belgique-Kommunistische Partij van België, PCB-KPB) experienced a considerable fall in its aura, to the point of losing, as it was, any electoral, political, cultural and trade union influence after 1989. During this period, its falling-off had a timeline that was not original for most European Communist Parties (Delwit, 2016). We look at the evolution of the Communist Party’s standpoints in international matters, its reactions and its silence faced to 1989 events, the August 1991 coup and the collapse of the USSR

The Belgian Communist Dynamic Until 1989

Reasons for an Accelerated Decline

Don’t Give Up the Heaven

The Evolution of the PCB-KPB’s Internal Structure

Findings

Conclusion