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Federal Republic of Germany (1990)
Type of state: Multiparty system with history of fascist and communist dictatorship
Chancellor of Germany: Angela Merkel (Free German Youth (East Germany’s official communist youth section), Christian Democratic Union): November 22, 2005-present
President of Germany: Horst Kohler (Christian Democratic Union): July 1, 2004-present
Communist government:
1) Left Party (formerly Party of Democratic Socialism) in coalition governments with Social Democratic Party of Germany at state level, 2005-present
2) Party of Democratic Socialism (formerly East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party) in coalition governments with Social Democratic Party of Germany at state level, 1990-2005
3) German Democratic Republic, under government of Socialist Unity Party-led National Front of Democratic Germany and Soviet military occupation, 1949-1990
4) Bavarian Soviet Republic, under government of Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and anarchists, 1918-1919
Fascist government:
1) National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi), sole legal party, 1933-1945
Socialist International presence: Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
Communist presence: Left Party (founded 2005; merger of PSD, Labor and Social Justice Party (WASG) and members of German Communist Party (DKP)), DKP (legal party founded in West Germany, 1968), Communist Party of Germany (KPD; founded 1918; banned by Nazis, 1933; banned in West Germany, 1956), Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD; founded 1982; Maoist), Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group, 1972-1998)
Important notes:
1) The reunification of Germany in 1990 facilitated, by communist design, the communization of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) by merging the political parties that once constituted the NF, the popular front that ruled East Germany under the leadership of the SED, with West German political parties. Reunification also facilitated the infiltration of West German institutions and society with “former” career East German communists. As of 1990, therefore, the Soviet Bloc effectively extends to the Franco-German border.
2) After German reunification, the East German National People’s Army (NVA) was merged into the West German Bundeswehr. Most noncommissioned officers and almost all commissioned officers were discharged from service, while those who were accepted into the enlarged Bundeswehr were typically demoted by one rank. Political officers were posted throughout the NVA to promote loyalty to the SED.
3) The ruling communist party of East Germany, the SED, was formed in 1946 as a merger of those branches of the SPD and KPD operating in the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Germany. In addition to the SED, the NF consisted of the Free German Trade Union Federation, Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD), Democratic Farmers’ Party of Germany (DBD), National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD), Free German Youth (FDJ), Democratic Women’s League of Germany and Cultural Association of the DDR (GDR).
4) The NDPD was a haven for former members of the Nazi Party and the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces between 1935 and 1945. One of the chief objectives of the party was to end discrimination against former members of the Nazi Party. As such East Germany’s ruling National Front was actually an unholy union between East German Communists and Nazis, much as Syria’s governing National Progressive Front combines the neofascist Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, neofascist Syrian Social National Party, Syrian Communist Party and other socialist parties into one government. In 1990 the NDPD joined the Association of Free Democrats, which shortly thereafter merged into West Germany’s well-established liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).
5) After reunification East Germany’s CDU likewise merged with West Germany’s CDU. The East German CDU, however, was designed to coopt Christians into subservience to the SED. The LDPD also joined the Association of Free Democrats which, as noted above, merged into West Germany’s FDP. In 1990 the DBD merged with the East German CDU which, as noted above, subsequently merged into West Germany’s CDU.
6) The NF’s communist youth movement, the Free German Youth, was banned after German reunification, although it still operates openly, shares an office building with the Left Party, maintains a website, and continues to hold membership in the communist World Federation of Democratic Youth.
7) Founded in 1962, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin (SEW) evolved from the West Berlin branch of the SED. At the time of German reunification, the SEW merged into the PDS.
8) The Left Party, formerly known as the PSD, is the legal successor to the SED. The Left’s logo is pictured above. Between 1990 and 2005 the PSD achieved minimal support in western Germany, but regularly won 15 to 25 per cent of the popular vote in eastern Germany. The PSD entered coalition governments with the SPD in two eastern German states, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In 1998 the PSD elected 37 deputies with 5.1 per cent of the national vote, thus passing the five per cent hurdle required for proportional representation and full parliamentary status.
9) In 2005 the PSD entered an electoral alliance with the Labor and Social Justice Party (WASG), based in western Germany. Known as the Left Party, the new political merger won 8.7 per cent of the national vote in the September 2005 federal election and sent 54 deputies to the Bundestag, as the fourth largest parliamentary party, ahead of the Greens and only slightly behind the FDP. The WASG consisted of dissident Social Democrats and trade unionists. The DKP, a legal party founded in West Germany in 1968, endorsed the new Left Party ticket. The DKP was formed by former members of the old KDP, which was banned by the Nazis in 1933, revived after the Second World War, won seats in the first postwar Bundestag elections in 1949, and banned again by the West German government in 1956. The Left Party is the largest party in the European Parliament’s European United Left-Nordic Green Left parliamentary group.
10) Since German reunification, the Left Party’s connections, by way of its predecessor the SED, with the defunct East German Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, have come to light. After the 2005 election Marianne Birthler, Federal Commissioner for the Records of the National Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic, revealed that Lutz Heilmann, the Left Party’s top candidate from Schleswig-Holstein, had worked as a Stasi guard for several years. In a narrow vote, the Left Party in that state passed a vote of confidence that retained Heilmann’s candidacy. Lothar Bisky’s suspected Stasi past also prevented his election to one of the vice presidential posts in the Bundestag. Bisky joined the SED in 1963 and chaired the national PSD between 1993 and 2000. The chair of the Left Party in Saxony, Peter Porsch, may lose his mandate in the state parliament due to his known Stasi past. With the exception of the Left Party, all representatives in the Saxon parliament, including those of the CDU, SPD, FDP, Greens and National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) voted to initiate the investigation against Porsch. The NPD is a far-right party that harbored West Germany’s neo-Nazis in a fashion similar to that of NDPD in East Germany.
11) Ex-Stasi officers, including the ministry’s last director, Wolfgang Schwanitz, continue to be politically active in the reunified Germany through the Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support (GRH). The GRH receives support from the DKP and maintains its own website.
12) The Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as Red Army Fraction or Baader-Meinhof Group, was Western Germany’s most well-known communist terrorist organization. The RAF was a self-described “urban guerrilla” cell that murdered 34 people between 1972 and 1998. Its attacks surged during the autumn of 1977. Following the staged collapse of the Soviet Union, the RAF carried out several high-profile terrorist actions, including the murder of industrialist Ernst Zimmermann; a bombing at the US Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base, which killed three people; the car-bombing of Siemens executive Karl-Heinz Beckurts; and the shooting of Gerold von Braunmühl, a leading official in Germany’s foreign ministry. After German reunification, it was learned that, not surprisingly, the Stasi had provided financial and logistical support to the RAF, as well as shelter and new identities for RAF members.
13) The communist-instigated, Bolshevik-inspired German Revolution was suppressed by the Weimar Republic’s SPD government. During the 1919 Spartacist Revolt the KPD instigated an unsuccessful revolt in Berlin.
French Republic
Type of state: Multiparty with history of democratically elected communist government
Prime Minister of France: Francois Fillon (Rally for the Republic, Union for a Popular Movement, center-right): May 17, 2007-present
President of France: Nicholas Sarkozy (Rally for the Republic, Union for a Popular Movement, center-right): May 16, 2007-present
Communist government:
1) French Socialist Party in coalition with French Communist Party and Radical Party, 1981-1986, 1988-1993, 1997-2002
2) French Socialist Party in coalition with French Communist Party under leadership of Premier Paul Ramadier, 1947
3) Postwar provisional government under leadership of General Charles de Gualle included French Communist Party and other French Resistance members, 1944-1946
4) Popular Front (Socialist-Radical) government under leadership of Premier Leon Blum with support of French Communist Party, 1936
5) Left Coalition government under leadership of Premier Édouard Daladier with support of French Communist Party, 1932-1934
6) Paris Commune under leadership of Blanquists, or communists, Proudhonists, or libertarian anarchists, and libertarian republicans, 1870-1871
Fascist government:
1) French State (Vichy France) under Chief of State Philippe Pétain and supported by Nazi military occupation, 1940-1944
Socialist International presence: French Socialist Party
Communist presence: French Communist Party, Workers’ Party (Trotskyist), Revolutionary Communist League (Trotskyist), Communist Union (or Workers’ Struggle; Trotskyist)
Important notes:
1) The French Communist Party (PCF) traces its origin to the left wing of the French Socialist Party (PS), which defected in 1920, with assistance from Vietnamese communist, Ho Chi Minh. The right wing of the PS, under the leadership of Blum, remained in the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO) which, under the leadership of Mitterand, changed its name to the current one in 1969.
2) After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939) established a non-aggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union, Premier Daladier’s government proscribed the PCF. During the early years of the Second World War, the PCF adopted a pro-Nazi stance, as did many other communist parties worldwide.
3) When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the PCF’s reversed its stance vis-à-vis the Nazi regime and joined the French Resistance. By 1944 the PCF controlled large areas of the country through the Resistance units under its command. Some communists wanted to launch a revolution and seize power in France as the Germans withdrew, but the PCF leadership, following Stalin’s dictate, resolved to cooperate with the Allied victors and called for a new Popular Front government.
4) The PCF supported the general strike of May 1968 but opposed the revolutionary student movement, which was dominated by Trotskyists, Maoists and anarchists. In 1976, the PCF publicly abandoned Soviet communism in favor of the Italian Communist Party’s Eurocommunism. Notwithstanding this apparent moderation of policy, the PCF remained loyal to Moscow, and in 1979, General Secretary Georges Marchais supported the invasion of Afghanistan.
5) The PCF’s electoral support has declined since 1980, but the influential French communists retain the second largest party in terms of membership, after the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Since its participation in Socialist governments and under the leadership of Robert Hue’s “mutation,” it had moderated its platform with social democratic policies.
6) The 2004 regional elections resulted in a major victory for the French Left, in which alliances of the PS, PCF, Left Radical Party and the Greens won the presidencies in 20 of France’s 22 regions, defeating the French Right, consisting of the UMP, Union for French Democracy and National Front.
7) Prominent twentieth-century French literati who embraced communism included existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, who did not actually hold membership in the PCF but was a fellow traveller, and absurdist Albert Camus, who did hold party membership. Sarte enthusiastically supported Algeria’s National Liberation Front, while Camus secretly advocated for incarcerated Algerians who faced the death penalty.
8) During the 1960s, Lionel Jospin, Socialist Prime Minister between 1997 and 2002, was a member of the Internationalist Communist Organization (ICO), a clandestine cell of Trotskyists committed to overthrowing the French Republic and establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat. In the 1970s, Jospin joined the PS while retaining membership in the ICO. Jospin concealed his communist membership from Socialist colleagues but in 2001 journalists and former comrades in the ICO forced Jospin to concede the truth about his membership in a revolutionary leftist cell.
9) Prior to his entrance into the political limelight, Jacques René Chirac, President of France since 1995, gravitated toward leftist politics, peddled the communist newspaper l’Humanité, and endorsed the communist-inspired Stockholm Call against nuclear weapons in 1950.
10) The Paris Commune of 1870 and 1871 is idolized by communists to this day. The Bolsheviks renamed the dreadnought battleship Sevastopol to Parizhskaya Kommuna in honour of the Commune, while the Soviet spaceflight Voskhod 1 carried a part of a communard banner. The communards used the red flag of socialism.
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (1867)
Type of state: Constitutional monarchy with multiparty system
Prime Minister of Luxembourg: Jean-Claude Juncker (Christian Social People’s Party, center-right): January 20, 1995-present
Grand Duke of Luxembourg (Head of State): Henri: October 7, 2000-present
Communist government:
1) National Union Government (consisting of Christian Social People’s Party, Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party, Democratic Party, and Communist Party of Luxembourg), 1945-1947
Socialist International presence: Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party
Communist presence: Communist Party of Luxembourg, The Left (merger of New Left and Revolutionary Socialist Party)
Important note:
1) Luxembourg, like France, Italy and other German-occupied countries, emerged from the Second World War with a short-lived provisional government that contained communists.
Hellenic Republic (1829)
(formerly Kingdom of Greece until 1974)
Type of state: Multiparty democracy with history of failed communist insurgency
Prime Minister of Greece: Kostas Karamanlis (New Democracy, center-right): March 10, 2004-present
President of Greece: Karolos Papoulias (Socialist Democratic Union, Panhellenic Socialist Movement): March 12, 2005-present
Communist government:
1) Panhellenic Socialist Movement, 1993-1996
2) New Democracy in coalition with Synaspismos (including Communist Party of Greece), 1989-1991
3) Panhellenic Socialist Movement, 1981-1989
Fascist government:
1) Fourth of August military regime, 1936-1941
Socialist International presence: Panhellenic Socialist Movement
Communist presence: Communist Party of Greece (KKE; Stalinist), KKE Interior (Eurocommunist), Renewing Communist Ecological Left (AKOA; split from KKE, 1968), Coalition of the Left, Social Movements and Ecology (Synaspismos; containing “former” KKE and KKE Interior members), Coalition of the Radical Left (consisting of Synaspismos, AKOA, Internationalist Workers’ Left (DEA; Trotskyist), Movement for the United in Action Left (KEDA; split from KKE), Active Citizens and independent leftists), Radical Left Front (consisting of New Left Current, Revolutionary Communist Movement of Greece (Maoist), Workers’ Revolutionnary Party (Trotskyist), Youth of Communist Liberation, Independent Communist Organization of Serres, Alternative Ecologists and independent leftists), Communist Organization of Greece (Maoist; split from KKE, 1964), Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Greece (Maoist; split from KKE, 1964), Socialist Workers’ Party, Anti-Capitalist Coalition, Organization for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece (anti-Russian Maoist)
Important notes:
1) From 1936 to 1941, Greece was ruled by a semi-fascist, authoritarian regime under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas. The Salazar regime in Portugal was Metaxas’ main inspiration. The Fourth of August regime employed military-style uniforms, salutations, songs and rituals, including the stiff-armed Roman salute. The KKE was banned during the Metaxas regime and the subsequent German occupation of Greece.
2) As with France and Italy, communist partisans formed an important part of the resistance against Germany’s occupation of Greece during the Second World War. Unlike France and Italy, however, Greek communists continued their insurgency against the new postwar Greek government. The KKE’s National Liberation Front operated a military wing called the National Popular Liberation Army (ELAS).
3) The first stage of the civil war spanned the years 1942 and 1944, in which leftist and rightist elements fought each other to establish supremacy over the Greek Resistance. During the second stage, the Greek communists assumed control over the Resistance and opposed the Greek government in exile, which had been formed under Allied auspices in Egypt. A center-right government, elected under irregular conditions endeavored to suppress the insurgency, which the KKE directed from its office in Athens. In spite of the general knowledge of the KKE’s leadership in the insurgency, the party was not outlawed until 1949.
4) The third stage of the civil war began in 1946, when armed ELAS veterans infiltrated into Greece from their base in communist Yugoslavia. ELAS restyled itself as the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), under the command of the ELAS veteran “General” Markos Vafiadis.
5) Finally, in July of 1949 Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito closed his country’s border to the DSE guerrillas and disbanded their camps on Yugoslav territory. Although the DSE still operated from communist Albania, this location was not ideal for instigating raids into Greece. As a result of the withdrawal of Yugoslavian support for the Greek insurgents, Titoists were purged from the ranks of the KKE, which also suffered from a loss of popular support.
6) In 1967 after several years of political instability, Greek nationalists feared that Prime Minister George Papandreou’s Center Union might form an alliance with the United Democratic Left, which consisted in part of former ELAS/DSE insurgents and which was openly supported by the banned KKE. In response, the Greek armed forces instigated a coup d’etat on April 21 that established a military regime lasting until 1974. In that year the Greek monarchy was abolished and the ban against communism lifted.
7) The prominent center-left politician Themistoklis Sophoulis was leader of the Liberal Party for many years. Sophoulis was prime minister of Greece three times, in 1924, from 1945 to 1946, and from 1947 to his death in 1949. In 1936 while Speaker of the Parliament he endorsed the Sophoulis-Sklavainas Pact with the KKE.
8) PASOK Prime Minister Andreas Georgiou Papandreou (1981-1989, 1993-1996) was active in Trotskyist groups beginning in 1938. The founders of PASOK, including Papandreou, originated from the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), established in exile in Sweden in 1968. PAK was committed to the overthrow of the military regime and the “socialist transformation” of Greece. Members of Democratic Defense, such as Nikos Konstantopoulos, assisted Papandreou in founding PASOK before later forming Socialist March and then Synaspismos. Democratic Defense was a clandestine organization that opposed the military regime and which engaged in some bombings.
9) An original member along with KKE Interior of Synaspismos, founded in 1989, the KKE withdrew in 1991. The ideology of Synaspismos is informed by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Nicos Poulantzas, Eric Hobsbawm, Noam Chomsky and the Frankfurt School philosophers.
Italian Republic (1861)
(formerly Kingdom of Italy until 1946)
Type of state: Multiparty system with history of democratically elected communist government
Prime Minister of Italy: Silvio Berlusconi (Forward Italy, communist-infiltrated liberal-conservative party; People of Freedom, planned merger of Forward Italy, National Alliance (post-neofascist), Social Action (neofascist), New Italian Socialist Party, Reformist Socialists, and assorted liberal, libertarian, and Christian democratic parties; close friend of Vladimir Putin): May 8, 2008-present, June 11, 2001-May 17, 2006, April 27, 1994-January 17, 1995
President of Italy: Giorgio Napolitano (Italian Communist Party (rightist faction), Democratic Party of the Left, Democrats of the Left): May 15, 2006-present
Communist government:
1) The Union (consisting of Democrats of the Left (formerly Italian Communist Party, PCI), Daisy-Democracy Is Freedom (including former PCI members), Communist Refoundation Party (including former PCI members), Federation of the Greens, Party of Italian Communists, Italian Democratic Socialists, Italian Radicals, Italy of Values, Popular-UDEUR, The Socialists, and Pensioners’ Party), 2006-2008
2) Olive Tree-Together for Italy (consisting of Democrats of the Left, Daisy-Democracy Is Freedom, and European Republican Movement) 1998-2000
3) Olive Tree-Together for Italy with support from Communist Refoundation Party, 1996-1998
4) Postwar provisional government included Italian Communist Party, 1944-1947
Fascist government:
1) Italian Social (Salo) Republic under government of Republican Fascist Party as sole legal party, 1943-1945
2) Kingdom of Italy under government of National Fascist Party as sole legal party, 1928-1943
3) Kingdom of Italy under government of National Fascist Party, 1924-1928
Socialist International presence: Democratic Party (founded 2007)
Communist presence: Communist Refoundation Party, Party of Italian Communists, International Communist Party, Italian Marxist-Leninist Party, Marxist-Leninist Italian Communist Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolutionary Communist League, New Red Brigades
Important notes:
1) Originally known as the Communist Party of Italy, the PCI evolved from a secession of Leninists from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during the latter party’s 1921 congress. Amedeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the defection. The Fascist regime banned the PCI between 1926 and 1944. Gramsci was jailed and the party leadership transferred to Palmiro Togliatti. The PCI held membership in all postwar provisional governments between 1944 and 1947. During the Cold War, the US Central Intelligence Agency directed money to the ruling Christian Democrats in order to hold at bay the electorally powerful PCI.
2) After the Greek coup d’etat in 1967, Luigi Longo and other PCI leaders allegedly feared a similar coup in Italy, sponsored by military officers and other “neofascist” elements. Giorgio Amendola formally requested Soviet assistance to prepare Italian communists for such an event. Between 1967 through 1973, Italian communists traveled to the Soviet Union and East Germany to receive training in clandestine warfare and intelligence-collecting techniques by KGB and Stasi officers. In 1972 Longo sent a personal request to Leonid Brezhnev requesting $5.7 million in funding, in addition to the $3.5 million that the Soviets provided the PCI in 1971. The Soviets also directed money to front companies that sustained PCI members with lucrative contracts.
3) Later the PCI publicly repudiated its slavish obedience to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after it was revealed that Czechoslovak State Security (StB) supported the Italian Red Brigades. By the 1980s the PCI wound up in the Eurocommunist camp.
4) Massimo D’Alema, Prime Minister of Italy between 1998 and 2000, held the post of secretary of the Italian Federation of Young Communists in the 1970s and later joined the PCI, which transformed itself into the “post-communist” Democrats of the Left, which eventually became the leading party in the Olive Tree and Union coalitions.
5) In October 2007 the following parties merged to found the Democratic Party: Democrats of the Left (“ex”-communist), Democracy Is Freedom-Daisy (centrist), Southern Democratic Party (centrist), Sardinia Project (centrist), European Republican Movement (social liberal), Democratic Republicans (social liberal), Middle-of-the-Road Italy (Christian democratic), and Reformist Alliance (social democratis). The leader of the new party Walter Veltroni was formerly a member of the Italian Communist Party and its later incarnations, the Democratic Party of the Left and Democrats of the Left. Veltroni was mayor of Rome between 2001 and February 15, 2008. The Democratic Party holds membership in the Socialist International.
Kingdom of Belgium (1830)
Type of state: Constitutional monarchy with multiparty system
Prime Minister of Belgium: Herman A. Van Rompuy (Christian Democratic and Flemish Party): December 30, 2008-present
King of Belgium (Head of State): Albert II: August 9, 1993-present
Communist government:
1) Postwar coalition of Socialist Party, liberals, and Communist Party of Belgium (PCB) under leadership of Prime Ministers Achille Van Acker and Camille Huysmans, 1945-1947
2) Wartime coalition including Communist Party of Belgium under leadership of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot, 1944-1945
Socialist International presence: Socialist Party, Socialist Party-Different
Communist presence: Communist Party (Flanders) (Flemish branch of PCB before 1989), Communist Party (Wallonia) (Walloon branch of PCB before 1989), Workers’ Party of Belgium (WPB), Left Socialist Party (Trotskyist), Movement for a Socialist Alternative (Trotskyist)
Important notes:
1) Between 1905 and 1922 Huysmans was secretary of the Second International. In that capacity he communicated with Chinese social democratic revolutionary Sun Yat-sen and corresponded with Vladimir Lenin between 1905 and 1914. At the Socialist Conference in Stockholm in 1917 he pleaded against continuing the war.
2) In 1979 the student-originated WPB opened its first congress, which adopted a Marxist-Leninist program. Ludo Martens was elected the first president. He is still considered the party’s most influential ideologist. A prominent observer at the first WPB congress was Laurent Kabila, a Marxist who seized power in 1997 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was formerly a Belgian colony. The WPB hosts the International Communist Seminar, which is one of the most noteworthy conferences of communist parties from around the world. The PCB has lost most of its influence and, as a result, the WPB is now the biggest communist party in Belgium. The party’s weekly paper Solidair/Solidaire exercises some influence among Belgium’s trade unions.
Kingdom of Denmark
Type of state: Multiparty with history of democratically elected communist government
Prime Minister of Denmark: Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberal Party of Denmark): November 27, 2001-present
Queen of Denmark (Head of State): Margrethe II: January 14, 1972-present
Communist government:
1) Social Democrats in coalition with Unity List (also known as Red-Green Alliance; consisting of Communist Party of Denmark (DKP), Socialist People’s Party (founder former DKP member), Left Socialists, and Socialist Workers’ Party (Trotskyist), 1994-2001
2) Social Democrats in coalition with Unity List (consisting of Communist Party of Denmark, Socialist People’s Party (founder former DKP member), Left Socialists, Socialist Workers’ Party, and Communist Workers’ Party (Maoist)), 1993-1994
Socialist International presence: Social Democrats
Communist presence: DKP, Socialist People’s Party, Left Socialists, Socialist Workers’ Party, Communist Party in Denmark (split from DKP, 1990), Communist Party of Denmark/Marxist-Leninist
Important notes:
1) The DKP was banned during the Second World War. Red Green Alliance cooperates with the Socialist Youth Front, which was established in 2001 and has 900 members.
2) In 2005 the Communist Party in Denmark protested the attempt by the Interior Ministry of the Czech Republic to ban the Communist Youth Union in that country, claiming that Czech authorities were seeking to penalize the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which had obtained the third largest number of votes in recent elections.
Kingdom of the Netherlands, including Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (1648)
Type of state: Constitutional monarchy with multiparty system
Prime Minister of the Netherlands: Jan Peter Balkenende (Christian Democratic Appeal): July 22, 2002-present
Queen of the Netherlands (Head of State): Beatrix: April 30, 1980-present
Communist government: none
Socialist International presence: Labour Party
Communist presence: Green Left (founded in 1989 as merger of Radical Political Party, Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP), Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) and Evangelical People’s Party), Socialist Party (Maoist group founded in 1971 as Communist Party of the Netherlands (Marxist-Leninist)), Group of Marxist-Leninists/Red Dawn, New Communist Party of the Netherlands (founded in 1992 by members of defunct CPN), Offensive (Trotskyist entryist party that formerly operated within Labour Party and currently Socialist Party), Socialist Alternative Politics (founded in 1972 as League of Intenational Communists; split from PSP)
Important note:
1) Green Left has elected members to the North Holland Gedeputeerde Staten, as well as the Colleges of Aldermen and Mayors in Leiden, Nijmegen and Utrecht. Green Left candidates were appointed as one out of 12 Queen’s Commissioners in North Holland, and seven out of 414 mayors. The Dutch Minister of the Interior appoints mayors and Queen’s Commissioners.
Kingdom of Norway (1905)
Type of state: Multiparty with democratically elected communist government
Prime Minister of Norway: Jens Stoltenberg (Norwegian Labour Party): October 17, 2005-present
King of Norway (Head of State): Harald V: January 17, 1991-present
Communist government:
1) Red-Green Coalition (consisting of Norwegian Labour Party, Socialist Left Party (merger of Socialist People’s Party, Communist Party of Norway, Democratic Socialists-AIK, and Independent Socialists), and Center Party, 2005-present
Fascist government:
1) National Unification government under leadership of Minister President Vidkun Quisling, 1942-1945
Socialist International presence: Norwegian Labour Party
Communist presence: NKP, Socialist Left Party, Workers’ Communist Party (AKP; nonelectoral), Red Electoral Alliance (electoral front for AKP)
Important notes:
1) After Germany occupied Norway, the NKP initially allied themselves with the collaborationist government of Vidkuin Quisling and opposed the trade unions. Consquently, the Nazis tolerated the communists, including their publishing activities, until August 1940 when the party was banned by German authorities.
2) The NKP did not engage in resistance operations until 1941, at which point the Communist International, probably in response to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, directed the Norwegian communists to oppose the German occupation forces. The communists gained significant popular support for their role in the Norwegian Resistance. In the main, however, they were slavishly pro-Soviet, although the NKP did condemn the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The NKP still operates as an independent party, notwithstanding its participation in the creation of the Socialist Left Party.
3) The Democratic Socialists-AIK was originally founded as the Information Committee of the Labour Movement, an internal faction within the Norwegian Labour Party that opposed Norwegian membership in the European Union, then known as the European Community.
Kingdom of Spain (1812)
Type of state: Multiparty with history of democratically elected communist government and ongoing communist insurgency (ETA)
Prime Minister of Spain: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (pro-communist parents, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party): April 17, 2004-present
King of Spain (Head of State): Juan Carlos I: November 22, 1975-present
Communist government:
1) Popular Front (consisting of Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, Workers’ General Union, Communist Party of Spain, Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, Republican Left, and Republican Union Party, with support from the Esquerra Party (Catalan nationalist) and National Confederation of Labor (anarchist)), 1936-1939
Fascist government:
1) National Movement (Falange), sole legal party, 1970-1975
2) Traditional Spanish Falange and Juntas of National-Syndicalist Offensive (Falange), sole legal party, 1939-1970
Socialist International presence: Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party
Communist presence: Communist Party of Spain (PCE), United Left (IU, PCE-led coalition), Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE), Communist Party of the Basque Homelands (communist nationalist), Batasuna (coalition of leftist Basque nationalists, banned 2003), Zutik (merger of Communist Movement of Euskadi and Basque branch of Revolutionary Communist League (Spain)), Aralar (leftist Basque nationalist), Andecha Astur (leftist Asturian nationalist), Izquierda Asturiana (leftist Asturian nationlist), Izquierda Castellana (leftist Castilian nationalist; briefly included Communist Party of the Castilian People, associated with PCPE), Communist Unification of Spain
Important notes:
1) The Communist Party of Spain is the third largest political party of Spain, leads the coalition United Left (IU), and exerts influence in the largest union of Spain, Workers’ Commissions. The PCE currently maintains connections with the ruling Communist Party of China, Communist Party of Cuba, and Workers’ Party of Korea.
2) Founded in 1986 as an electoral coalition, IU opposes Spain’s participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. IU consists of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but is dominated by the PCE.
3) In 1982 popular support for the PCE dropped from 10 to three per cent, while the IU increased to nine per cent in 1993 (1,800,000 votes) and eleven per cent in 1996 (2,600,000 votes). Since 1999 the IU’s popular support has dropped, declining to five per cent in 2000. In the latter election the PCE entered a pact with the PSOE.
4) In May 1937 Spanish President Manuel Azaña named Juan Negrín López President of the Government, or prime minister. The PCE deeply infiltrated Negrin’s government, leading opponents, on both the Spanish left and right, to accuse the prime minister of being a Stalinist puppet.
5) The PSOE was originally committed to establishing a socialist Spain but has now embraced social democracy. During the Spanish Civil War the PSOE divided into three wings: a revolutionary Marxist wing under the leadership of Francisco Largo Caballero; a centrist but violence-prone wing under the leadership of Indalecio Prieto; and a reformist wing under the leadership of Julian Besteiro. The dictator Francisco Franco banned the PSOE in 1939, along with all other parties other than the Falange. During Franco’s rule Socialist leaders were imprisoned, assassinated and exiled.
6) The current pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish Socialist Prime Minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was, along with his family, traditionally attracted to the PCE. In 1977, the year of Spain’s first democratic elections after the fall of the Franco regime, Zapatero openly supported the communist and socialist parties by posting posters for both organizations (source: Óscar Campillo Madrigal, Zapatero: Presidente a la Primera, First Edition; La Esfera de los Libros, Spain, 2004). Pictured above: Zapatero wears a Palestinian kaffiyah at a recent meeting of the Socialist Youth Movement. Zapatero’s ascent to power is due in part to the Madrid train bombings, perpetrated by the Palestinians’ Islamist colleagues in Al Qaeda, which scared Spanish voters away from the conservative People’s Party that had supported the USA-led War on Terror.
7) Batasuna was founded as Herri Batasuna in 1978 and known as Euskal Herritarrok between 1998 and 2001. In the past the party elected representatives to the parliaments of the Basque and Navarese Autonomous Communities, as well as the European Parliament. Since Batasuna is widely considered to be the political wing of the communist insurgent army, Basque Homeland and Freedom (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, ETA), the party was banned in 2003 and its representatives barred from the Spanish Parliament. Both the United States and the European Union list Batasuna as a terrorist organization. Herri Batasuna’s founding convention was held in Lekeitio, home of Santiago Brouard who was then the leader of the Revolutionary Socialist People’s Party (Herriko Alderdi Sozialista Iraultzailea, HASI).
Once Upon a Time in the West 