Ludo Martens
| Ludo Martens | |
|---|---|
| Born |
12 March 1946 Torhout, Belgium |
| Died | 5 June 2011 (aged 65) |
| Nationality | Belgium |
| Occupation | Political Activist |
Ludo Martens (12 March 1946 – 5 June 2011) was a Belgian Communist political activist who also produced 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 in 1979 became the Workers' Party of Belgium. He also served as chairman of the Workers' Party.
Martens was the last foreigner to meet North Korean President Kim Il Sung prior to his death on 8 July 1994.
According to a press release by the Workers' Party, Martens died on the morning of June 5, 2011, after a long illness.
In 1994, Martens published Another View of Stalin (Un autre regard sur Staline), a history of the Soviet Union under Stalin that challenges in particular the historically accepted view of collectivisation in the USSR and the Great Purge. He explained his motivation for writing the book in the introduction:
Defending Stalin's work, essentially defending Marxism-Leninism, is an important, urgent task in preparing ourselves for class struggle under the New World Order.
Martens writes primarily in French; however, his books, especially Another View of Stalin, have been translated into Dutch, English, and numerous other languages.
In Another View of Stalin, Martens regards as the main factor behind the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor) to be bad conditions and alleged class enemy. With regard to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's research Gulag Archipelago, Martens stated:
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