Henk Hoekstra

Born June 17, 1924, in Amsterdam. Figure in the Dutch working-class movement.

The son of a worker, Hoekstra graduated from a school of electrical engineering. He joined the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) in 1945. In 1949 he was a committee instructor of the CPN in Friesland Province, and in the following year he was elected to the Central Committee of the All-Netherlands Youth League. From 1950 to 1952, Hoekstra served on the editorial staff of Jeugd, a newspaper for young people; later he worked as an instructor for CPN committees in Rotterdam and The Hague. In April 1955 he became a member of the Central Committee and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPN; he was a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPN from 1955 to 1967, a position he resumed in June 1972. In January 1968 he became chairman of the Central Committee of the CPN. From 1966 to 1977, Hoekstra served on the foreign affairs commission of the Lower Chamber of the Parliament.