Radio Sawt Beirut Int'l
Lebanon, Beirut
Dawhet Aramoun
Phone:
Contact us form

The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP, Arabic, الـحـزب الشـيـوعـي اللبـنـانـي hizbu-sh-shuy‘uī-l-lubnānī) is a Marxist political party in Lebanon.

One of the oldest multi-sectarian parties in Lebanon, the LCP emerged out of the Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party in 1944.

Post-independence activities
During the first two decades of independence, the LCP enjoyed little success. In 1943 the party participated in the legislative elections but failed to win any seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The LCP again ran for election in 1947, but all of its candidates were defeated; in 1948 it was outlawed. During the 1950s, the party's inconsistent policies on Pan-Arabism and the Nasserite movement cost it support and eventually isolated it. The party was active on the anti-government side during the 1958 uprising. Surviving underground, the LCP in 1965 decided to end its isolation and became a member of the Front for Progressive Parties and National Forces, which later evolved into the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) under Druze leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt.

In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 3000.[1]

The 1970s witnessed something of a resurgence of the LCP. In 1970 Kamal Jumblatt as Minister of the Interior legalized the party. This allowed many LCP leaders, including Secretary General Niqula Shawi, to run for election in 1972. Although they polled several thousand votes, none of them succeeded in claiming a seat. But the LCP's importance grew with the arrival of the civil disturbances of the mid-1970s.


The LCP during the Civil War
The LCP established in the early 1970s a well-trained militia, the Popular Guard, which participated actively in the fighting of 1975 and 1976, marking the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90). During the war, the LCP was aligned with the LNM-Palestinian coalition (which was considered as mainly Muslim), despite its mainly Christian membership (in particular, Greek Orthodox and Armenian). [1]

Throughout the 1980s, the LCP has generally declined in power. In 1983 the Tripoli-based Sunni Islamist movement Tawhid (Islamic Unification Movement), reportedly executed fifty Communists. In 1987, in union with the Druze Progressive Socialist Party, the LCP fought a weeklong battle with the Shi'a militants of the Amal in West Beirut, a conflict that was finally stopped by Syrian troops.

Also in 1987, the LCP held its Fifth Party Congress and was about to oust George Hawi, its Greek Orthodox leader, and elect Karim Murrawwah, a Shia, as Secretary General when Syrian pressure kept Hawi in his position. Hawi, who had been a close ally of Damascus, was reportedly unpopular for his lavish life-style and for spending more time in Syria than in Lebanon[citation needed]. Murrawwah was probably the most powerful member of the LCP and was on good terms with Shi'a groups in West Beirut. Nevertheless, between 1984 and 1987 many party leaders and members were assassinated, reportedly by Islamic fundamentalists.


Hawi assassination
In June 2005, George Hawi (who had then left the party) claimed in an interview with al-Jazeera, that Rifaat al-Assad, brother of Hafez al Assad and uncle of Syria's current President Bashar al-Assad, had been behind the 1977 assassination of Kamal Jumblatt[citation needed]. It is widely believed in Lebanon that Syria was also behind Hawi's own death in a car bomb, some days later.