Ludo Martens

Ludo Martens (12 March 1946 – 5 June 2011) was a Belgian far-left activist who founded and served as the first leader of the Workers' Party of Belgium. He wrote several works on the political history of Central Africa and the Soviet Union.

In 1968, Martens founded the group Alle macht aan de arbeiders (All Power to the Workers), which became the Workers' Party of Belgium in 1979. He served as president of the Workers' Party until 2008. Martens was the last foreigner to meet North Korean president Kim Il Sung before his death on 8 July 1994. According to a press release by the Workers' Party, Martens died on the morning of 5 June 2011 after a long illness.

Biography

Martens was born in 1946, as the eldest son of a furniture manufacturer. Martens referred to the notion of Stalinist crimes as a "myth" and claimed that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in which the Soviet Union agreed to invade Poland in conjunction with Nazi Germany and divide Poland, Romania, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia between one another into respective "spheres of influence", was "a key for victory in the anti-fascist war". Harpal Brar wrote in Martens' obituary: "His book Another view of Stalin, while nailing the bourgeois, professorial and Khrushchevite revisionist lies about Stalin, brought to the fore the brilliance of Stalin's stewardship of the CPSU(B) and the USSR, which made such a monumental contribution to the march forward of the Soviet people and humanity at large".

Works Pierre Mulele, ou, La seconde vie de Patrice Lumumba (Antwerp: Éditions EPO, 1985). . Sankara, Compaoré, et la révolution burkinabé (EPO, 1989). . Abo: une femme du Congo (EPO, 1992). . L'U.R.S.S. et la contre-révolution de velours (USSR: The Velvet Counter Revolution) (EPO, 1991). . Un autre regard sur Staline (Another View of Stalin) (EPO, 1994). . Kabila et la révolution congolaise: panafricanisme ou néocolonialisme? (EPO, 2002). .