Farewell comrade Jan Talpe! Long live socialism!

To All Comrades of the International Workers’ League — Fourth International:

We inform all members and supporters of our organization of the passing of Comrade Jan Talpe, a member of the Belgian LCT and the International Moral Commission. His passing is a profoundly painful loss. This is not because it was unexpected or surprising. On the contrary, it is painful because it was a conscious decision, and we had to endure an agonizing wait. For many years, we held this exceptional human being and comrade in high regard, enjoying his boundless generosity, his ability and clarity of thought, his fraternal humor, and his humility.

Without a doubt, our most senior militant has left us. Even at 92 years old, he remained active, dedicated, and disciplined until his final hours. He never sought to be a leader. Throughout his long and intense life and militant career, however, he trained and built revolutionary cadres in several countries and made important theoretical contributions that were published by our international organization.

His ideological, political, and geographical journey is striking. Born in 1933 in Belgium amid the rise of Nazism, he was raised in a Catholic family and was taught the value of “charity.” In his early youth, he decided to devote his life to the priesthood. During his education, he earned a degree in theology and a doctorate in physics.

While serving as a missionary in Brazil during the Castelo Branco dictatorship, he witnessed the hardships endured by the exploited and oppressed masses. It was there that he first encountered Marxism. He became radicalized and decisively engaged in the struggle of the oppressed. In keeping with his convictions, he moved to a working-class neighborhood. The exploiters’ state persecuted and imprisoned him for six months. A strong campaign in Belgium and internationally secured his release, after which he was deported.

He did not capitulate or break. He broke with the Church and began a new search. During his travels, he returned to Latin America and visited Chile after meeting Loly in France. She would become the love of his life and the mother of his children. She was participating in activities against the Pinochet dictatorship. He settled in Argentina. In the suburbs of Buenos Aires, against the backdrop of the Falklands War, he became involved with the IWL and helped found the MAS in Argentina.

A decade later, the uprisings in Eastern Europe and the USSR against capitalist restoration presented an opportunity and challenge for the IWL. Jan and Loly were on the front lines, along with their two children, and they settled in East Germany. There, they worked tirelessly with the “Eastern Team,” which united the region from Belgium and Germany to Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. Jan and Loly’s fluency in several languages was essential for translating numerous texts and interpreting at events throughout Europe and other countries.

Our beloved comrade Loly passed away in 2014, and we will always remember her as an icon of the IWL. We could go on at length about Jan’s exemplary and inspiring journey up to the present day. As recently as January 2026, the Brazilian government granted Jan amnesty. However, our greatest tribute to Jan is to share his farewell message:

Dear comrades in struggle,

My health is deteriorating day by day to the point where staying alive is becoming increasingly difficult. I have decided to leave. I bid you farewell with a smile.

A smile for having been able to live. To live as one of the 300 million mammals endowed with cognitive capacity on a planet where our species is threatened with extinction, just as the dinosaurs disappeared tens of millions of years ago, unless we reverse the calamity of concentrating the comfort of consumer goods in the hands of a tiny minority that disposes of the means to produce them as it pleases instead of fostering the development of these goods for all of humanity. I smile at having been able to participate in the fight to confront that calamity.

From my mother, I learned to do good for others without understanding who does evil. I also learned not to understand why there are “good” people and “bad” people depending on where they were born or the parents they happened to have. The “bad” ones stole jobs from the “good” ones.

In those nine decades—or at least from the age when those around me said, “He can dress himself now,” until they began to say, “He can still dress himself”—I learned that the “bad” people were bad because they mistreated the “good” ones and that there was a struggle between good and evil. I learned to choose a side in that struggle. I joined the “good guys” to confront the “bad guys.” In those struggles, I met people who could explain what that “mistreatment” entailed.

I learned that “class struggle” is not a bad term. I learned that there are bourgeois and proletarians. I learned that there is a struggle between them.

I have chosen a side. I have studied what that entails based on what Karl, Friedrich, Vladimir Ilyich, and Lev Davidovich explained and did by actively participating in the struggle. Today, on the eve of bringing this life of struggle to an end, I am proud to have behaved for decades in a manner consistent with that while remaining aware of my weaknesses.

I smile because for half a century, Loli, the mother of my children, has been by my side, selflessly and steadfastly struggling alongside the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

Comrades in struggle, today, April 20, 2026, I let go of your hands with a smile.