The Communist Party of Luxembourg ( lb, Kommunistesch Partei vu Lëtzebuerg; french: Parti Communiste Luxembourgeois; german: Kommunistische Partei Luxemburgs;

abbr. An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

KPL or PCL) is a

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

. is the current chairman of the party.

History

The KPL was founded on 2 January 1921, in the town of

Niederkorn Niederkorn () is a town in the commune of Differdange, in south-western Luxembourg, on the Chiers river (), from which it takes its name. As of March 31, 2020, the town has a population of 7,272. Niederkorn is home to FC Progrès Niederkorn, a f ...

, making it one of the oldest parties in Luxembourg. In 1937, the Bech government attempted to introduce the so-called ''

Maulkuerfgesetz The ''Maulkuerfgesetz'' (Luxembourgish; "Muzzle law") was a proposed 1937 law in Luxembourg. Officially, it was entitled the "Law for the Defence of the Political and Social Order" (french: Projet de loi pour la défense de l'ordre politique et s ...

'' ("Muzzle law") which would have banned the party. The law was abandoned after failing to achieve popular support in a national referendum. Following the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the party, which won 11.1% in the legislative elections, joined the National Union Government (1945–47). Its first minister was Charles Marx. After Marx's death in a 1946 car accident, he was replaced by

Dominique Urbany Dominique Urbany (29 March 1903 – 21 October 1986) was a Luxembourgers, Luxembourgian politician. He was the father of journalist and politician René Urbany. Urbany was one delegates at the socialist congress at Differdange, that voted for a ...

. After the death of the leader of the

LSAP The Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party ( lb, Lëtzebuerger Sozialistesch Aarbechterpartei, french: Parti ouvrier socialiste luxembourgeois, german: Luxemburger Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei), abbreviated to LSAP or POSL, is a social-democratic, pr ...

, the coalition collapsed. With the principle of an all-inclusive government gone, the KPL was excluded from the next government and never returned another member to the cabinet. In 1964, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...

estimated the party membership to be approximately 500. In legislative elections held in the same year, the party registered 10.4% of the vote, and won five of the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

' 56 seats. The party's representation in the Chamber peaked at the following election, with six deputies, but fell, until the KPL lost its last remaining deputy in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...

. In the same year a minority opposing the Marxist-Leninist line of the party split and founded the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...

( lb, Nei Lénk) together with the rest of the Revolutionary Socialist Party ( lb, Revolutionär Sozialistesch Partei). In 1999, the KPL and the New Left agreed to found The Left ( lb, Déi Lénk). The Left had members of both parties and independents. Accordingly, KPL members ran on The Left lists in the

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

and 2000 elections and no separate KPL lists existed. After disputes between a majority within the Left and leading KPL members shortly before the

2004 elections 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

the party again ran separate lists. A number of the Left members were subsequently expelled from the KPL. The KPL is represented locally on the councils of

Differdange Differdange ( lb, Déifferdeng or (locally) ; german: Differdingen) is a commune with town status in south-western Luxembourg, west from the country's capital. It lies near the borders with Belgium and France and it is located in the canton ...

and

Rumelange Rumelange ( lb, Rëmeleng ; german: Rümelingen) is a commune with town status in south-western Luxembourg, on the border with France. Populated places The commune consists of the following villages: * Rumelange * Haut-Tétange (lieu-dit) Pop ...

. In Rumelange, it is part of the ruling coalition together with the

Election results

ImageSize = width:475 height:150 PlotArea = width:450 height:125 left:25 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:KP value:rgb(0.600,0.100,0.100) DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:0 till:20 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:0 PlotData= bar:Seats color:KP width:24 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S bar:1945 color:KP from:start till:5 text:5 align:center bar:1948 color:KP from:start till:5 text:5 align:center bar:1951 color:KP from:start till:4 text:4 align:center bar:1954 color:KP from:start till:3 text:3 align:center bar:1959 color:KP from:start till:3 text:3 align:center bar:1964 color:KP from:start till:5 text:5 align:center bar:1968 color:KP from:start till:6 text:6 align:center bar:1974 color:KP from:start till:5 text:5 align:center bar:1979 color:KP from:start till:2 text:2 align:center bar:1984 color:KP from:start till:2 text:2 align:center bar:1989 color:KP from:start till:1 text:1 align:center bar:1994 color:KP from:start till:0 text:0 align:center bar:1999 color:KP from:start till:1 text:1 align:center bar:2004 color:KP from:start till:0 text:0 align:center bar:2009 color:KP from:start till:0 text:0 align:center bar:2013 color:KP from:start till:0 text:0 align:center ImageSize = width:475 height:150 PlotArea = width:450 height:125 left:25 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:KP value:rgb(0.600,0.100,0.100) DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:0 till:300 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:50 start:0 PlotData= bar:Vote% color:KP width:24 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S bar:1945 color:KP from:start till:111 text:11.1 align:center bar:1948 color:KP from:start till:143 text:14.3 align:center bar:1951 color:KP from:start till:32 text:3.2 align:center bar:1954 color:KP from:start till:73 text:7.3 align:center bar:1959 color:KP from:start till:72 text:7.2 align:center bar:1964 color:KP from:start till:104 text:10.4 align:center bar:1968 color:KP from:start till:131 text:13.1 align:center bar:1974 color:KP from:start till:88 text:8.8 align:center bar:1979 color:KP from:start till:49 text:4.9 align:center bar:1984 color:KP from:start till:44 text:4.4 align:center bar:1989 color:KP from:start till:44 text:4.4 align:center bar:1994 color:KP from:start till:17 text:1.7 align:center bar:1999 color:KP from:start till:33 text:3.3 align:center bar:2004 color:KP from:start till:9 text:0.9 align:center bar:2009 color:KP from:start till:14 text:1.4 align:center bar:2013 color:KP from:start till:16 text:1.6 align:center

Footnotes

References

* Ruckert, Ali, Geschichte der Kommunistischen Partei Luxemburgs, Teil I: 1921-1946, Esch-sur-Alzette 2006 * Ruckert, Ali, Geschichte der Kommunistischen Partei Luxemburgs, Teil II: 1947-1954, Esch-sur-Alzette 2007 * Ruckert, Ali, Geschichte der Kommunistischen Partei Luxemburgs, Teil III: 1955-1960, Esch-sur-Alzette 2010 * Wehenkel, Henri, Communisme et postcommunisme au Luxembourg, in: Communisme 2014, 1989-2014 - L'éternel retour des communistes, p. 165-172 * Wehenkel, Henri, Die Kommunistische Partei Luxemburgs. Aufstieg und Fall einer Partei in: Moreau, Patrick/Marc Lazar/Gerhard Hirscher (eds.),Der Kommunismus in Westeuropa, Niedergang oder Mutation?, Landsberg/Lech, 1998, p. 477-497 * Wehenkel, Henri/ Foetz, Guy/Hoffmann, André, 1921-1981. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kommunistischen Partei Luxemburgs, Luxembourg 1981 * Wehenkel, Henri/Redondo, Jean-Laurent/Hoffmann, André/Urbany, Serge, Table ronde: PCL et/ou nouvelle gauche: renouvellement et/ou scission, in: Cahiers Marxistes, No. 201, April–May 1996, p. 121-144

External links

*
''Zeitung vum Lëtzebuerger Vollek''
newspaper aligned with the Communist Party of Luxembourg {{Authority control Political parties in Luxembourg

Communist Party of Luxembourg Political parties established in 1921 1921 establishments in Luxembourg International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties