Saul "Paul" de Groot (19 July 1899 – 3 August 1986) was a Dutch politician of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN).

[1] He was also a member of the House of Representatives for the CPN and chief editor of the party newspaper De Waarheid.

When Antwerp was threatened by German troops after the outbreak of the First World War the De Groot family fled to the neutral Netherlands and temporarily settled in Amsterdam.

Because of his activist past, great readability (besides Karl Marx he also read Heinrich Heine), intelligence, journalistic qualities and tactical insight, he stood head and shoulders above his fellow directors.

By the late 30s he was seen as the de-facto leader of the CPN, but this was not publicly announced and the position of chairman was retained by Ko Beuzemaker.

De Groot aimed his arrows at the German aggressor, but also continued to fight "Anglo-American imperialism", the government in London and the SDAP.

De Groot managed to escape through the back door, but his wife and daughter were taken to Auschwitz and gassed there, which made him feel guilty and troubled the rest of his life.

After the war, De Groot succeeded in quickly and easily regaining power within the CPN.

Fierce criticism in his own ranks and an ok from Moscow made De Groot decide in July 1945 to re-establish the CPN.

For example, with regard to the young Indonesian republic: on the one hand he was against sending Dutch troops to violently crush the nationalist resistance in Java and elsewhere, on the other hand he thought that young communists should be sent out and then propaganda within the army for Indonesian independence.

When the party suffered a dramatic election defeat in 1977 - the CPN dropped from seven to two parliamentary seats - De Groot knows this because the party hierarchy had been fooled by 'government machinations' around the recently completed train hijacking at De Punt.

De Groot moved with his (second) wife to a care flat in Zeist and after her death, in September 1985, to a Jewish nursing home in Bussum.