The Lebanese Communist Party
- The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) is a Left-wing, Marxist, and democratic socialist political party in Lebanon, founded in 1924 by the Lebanese intellectual, writer and reporter Youssef Ibrahim Yazbek, and Fouad al-shmeli a tobacco worker from Bikfaya.
The party was officially founded on October 24, 1924, in the Lebanese town of Hadath south of Beirut. The party's name was at that time Lebanese People Party in an attempt to dodge French policies banning 'Bolshevik' activities.
Declared illegal in 1939 when the French ruled Lebanon, the ban was relaxed during World War II. For about twenty years, the LCP controlled communist political activities in both Lebanon and Syria, but in 1944 the party was split into the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian Communist Party.
During the first two decades of Lebanon's independence, the LCP enjoyed success. In 1948 it was outlawed. The party was active on the anti-government side during the 1958 uprising. Surviving underground, the LCP became a member of the Front for Progressive Parties and National Forces, which later evolved into the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) under leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt.
In 1970, Kamal Jumblatt as Minister of the Interior legalized the party. This allowed many LCP leaders, including Secretary General Nicola Shawi, to run for the 1972 elections. Although they polled several thousand votes, none of them succeeded in claiming a seat.
During the early 1970s, the LCP established a well-trained militia, the Popular Guard, which participated actively in the fighting of 1975 and 1976 at the start of the Lebanese Civil War. The LCP was aligned with the LNM-Palestinian coalition.
During the Lebanese war the left Communist party allied with the Socialists, the Mourabettoun and the Palestenians against the Christians right at the beginning of the war. The Communist were fought against by almost every religious group in Lebanon, from the Phalange, Amal and Hizbullah, and 'Jama3a'.
The LCP was very active in the guerrilla warfare against Israel. During the Israeli invasion in 1982 George Hawi, a Lebanese politician and former secretary general of the LCP created the Lebanese National Resistance front together with Muhsin Ibrahim.
The Communists could not foresee the upcoming dispute between the Syrians and the Palestinians as they refused to take any part in the battles against the Palestinian camps while so many other parties did and imposed a blockade on the camps.
By the late 1980s, unknown people embarked on an assassination spree that resulted in purging known leftist intellectuals such as Hussein Mroue and Mahdi Amel among others. This was coupled with the beginning of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.
In 1987, in union with the Progressive Socialist Party, the LCP fought a week-long battle with the militants of Amal in West Beirut, a conflict that was finally stopped by Syrian troops.
Living under Syrian tutelage stirred a dilemma among the leftists' leadership, intellectuals and rank and file. Hawi became a critic of the influence of Damascus in Lebanon late in his life.
The leftist division survives to this day and has, since its eruption, witnessed several developments. The first and foremost of these developments was the resignation of George Hawi in 1992, also congresses saw the exit of Mrouwweh and other prominent leaders of the party. The congresses witnessed the election of Farouq Dahrouj as the new secretary general of the party, Hawi returned to the party as head of its national council (formerly the central committee), but later abdicated in the 1998 8th congress, which also saw the second election of Dahrouj as secretary general, the party is now lead by Dr. Khaled Hadadi, elected in the 2003 9th Congress.
Following Hawi, several communist voices started calling for the rejection of the soviet model and the revival of the party's role as a spearhead in the fight for Lebanon's sovereignty and independence.
George Hawi was assassinated when a bomb planted in his car was detonated by remote control, as he travelled through Beirut's Wata Musaitbi neighbourhood.
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