Lalmand, Edgar

Born Aug. 20, 1894, in Bergues; died Nov. 25, 1965, in Brussels. Figure in the Belgian workers’ movement. The son of an office worker.

Lalmand served in the Belgian Army during World War I. In 1921 he belonged to the Communist Party of Belgium (CPB) for a brief period; he joined the party again in 1932. From 1932 to 1934 he was administrator of the CPB newspaper De Roode Vaan. In 1935 he was elected a member of the Central Committee and in 1936 a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPB. From 1937 to 1940 he was an editor of the central organ of the CPB, the newspaper La Voix du peuple. During the fascist German occupation of Belgium (May 1940occupation of Belgium (May 1940-September 1944) he wasSeptember 1944) he was active in the Resistance. After the leadership of the CPB was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, he became secretary of the party; in 1945 he became general secretary. He was a parliamentary deputy from 1945 to 1958. From February 1945 through March 1947 he was minister of supplies. While general secretary of the CPB, he committed errors, primarily of a sectarian nature, for which the Eleventh Congress of the CPB (1954) criticized him and dismissed him from the post of general secretary. He then withdrew from active political life.