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Europe’s divided Left
ROBERT TAYLOR
Europe has plunged into its severest
economic recession since before the Second
World War, with rising unemployment, plant
closures, and a credit crunch as the financial
system falters. The political challenge this sets
for the European Left looks daunting and is
complicated by the growing divisions and rival-
ries inside its own ranks, as still small but in-
creasingly significant radical socialist left parties
are emerging in many European countries.
These parties, complete with populist appeals,
threaten the capacity of mainstream social
democracy to renew itself.
To know modern history is to know the con-
sequences of a divided Left for European
democracy. Darkening times have not been the
most propitious for the advance of socialism.
During the 1930s, it was the authoritarian Right
that benefited far more from the consequences
of economic slump than the Left, with the rise
of virulent nationalisms and hostility to demo-
cratic values. Only in Social Democratic Sweden
and briefly in Popular Front France and Spain
did the forces of the Left secure effective politi-
cal power in government.
A primary cause of the Left’s catastrophic de-
feat in that dismal decade lay in the bitter ideo-
logical chasm that grew wider between the
forces of Soviet communism and social democ-
racy. The sinister role of the German Commu-
nist Party in the final months of the Weimar Re-
public, especially in its tactical willingness to
ally with the Nazis to destroy democratic plural-
ism and its ferocious repudiation of the Social
P O L I T I C S A B R OA D
Democrats as “social fascists,” was of crucial im-
portance in ensuring Hitler’s fatal triumph in
1933. During the Spanish Civil War, the Com-
munist Party’s campaign of terror against the
ultra Left weakened republican solidarity at a
crucial moment, to General Francisco Franco’s
military advantage. Even in France, the work-
place militancy of the Communists in the trade
unions did much to undermine the Popular
Front government of Socialist Léon Blum in
1936-1937, a coalition that the Communist
leadership refused to join. Genuine unity on the
European Left was always difficult, if not im-
possible, after the Russian Revolution split apart
the international labor movement.
The bitter conflict between socialism and
communism during the cold war after the 1940s
ensured long periods of right-wing power across
much of Western Europe outside the Nordic re-
gion. Powerful communist parties in France and
Italy weakened the wider Left fatally. The fall of
the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet
Union in 1990 may have destroyed the old-style
communist parties on the continent, with their
subservience to Moscow. But it did not make it
easier to bring the splintered forces of the dem-
ocratic Left together in any meaningful way.
The current crisis of mainstream social
democracy is in part due to the surprising
tenacity and advance of more radical move-
ments to its left. It is true that the growth of
such political groupings in many European
countries does not so far threaten to bring about
any dramatic transformation, but their exis-
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POLITICS ABROAD
tence as a challenge on the left is already weak-
ening social democracy’s electoral prospects.
These socialist left parties are a growing threat
to the mainstream Left because they are neither
sectarian nor under the thumb of external
forces but are developing ideologies and pro-
grams popular among a growing number of vot-
ers who may previously have backed social
democracy.
This is most apparent in Germany,
where the Social Democrats in the ruling Grand
Coalition have been losing ground among their
once core bases of electoral support. Die Linke or
the Left Party—founded in 2007—has rapidly be-
come the third-largest party in the country. Both
in opinion polls and electoral results at the re-
gional and city level, Die Linke backers outvote
the neoliberal Free Democrats and the Greens. In
the 1990s, the then Party of Democratic Social-
ism—the renamed party that had run authoritar-
ian East Germany for forty years—was widely re-
garded as a pathetic and fading remnant for old
comrades in the East who were the main victims
of unification. But today Die Linke—a coalition of
those former Communists and left defectors in
the West from the revisionist Social Democrats—
has established a following across much of Ger-
many that suggests it appeals to a broadening
stratum of the German electorate.
Nor is the advance of a credible radical social-
ist left confined to Germany. In the Netherlands,
the Socialist Party is now the third largest in the
country. At the November 2006 general election,
its representation in the Dutch Parliament
climbed from nine to twenty-five seats, and as
many as 18 percent of Dutch voters backed the
party at the polls, not far behind the proportion
voting for the mainstream Labor Party.
In Norway the radical Left even shares
power in a center-left government. It is true
that in the September 2005 elections the Social-
ist Left Party won only 8.8 percent of the votes
and fifteen seats in the Norwegian Parliament.
This was a less impressive performance than it
achieved in the 1989 and 2001 general elec-
tions. But the current Norwegian Labor admin-
istration needs the Socialist Left Party in its
coalition along with the Center Party in order to
govern. As many as six cabinet posts are held by
Socialist Left members, including the crucial fi-
nance, energy, environmental, and education
6 DISSENT Spring 2009
portfolios. In other European democracies—no-
tably in Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Swe-
den—the radical Left also has a small but signif-
icant presence in Parliament. They cannot be
dismissed as fringe parties.
The ideologies and programs of these left
parties reveal common features that transcend
national differences. What unites them all is a
general hostility to neoliberal capitalism, to the
workings of the unfettered free market, deregu-
lation and privatization of the public sector, low
taxes, and low public spending that has charac-
terized much of the mainstream politics of the
Western world since the age of Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The utter rejec-
tion of the American economic model is reflect-
ed in their ideological manifestoes. In Novem-
ber 2008 the parties of the European left met
together in Berlin and agreed on a joint pro-
gram for this summer’s European Assembly
elections that emphasized that crucial point.
The parties blamed the perceived evils of neolib-
eralism on the “hegemonic power of the United
States” and spoke of “irresponsible political and
economic elites in Europe pushing ahead with
hazardous capitalism” and “uncontrolled mar-
kets” at the expense of the people.
The most emphatic declaration of hostility to
neoliberalism has come from Die Linke, which is
the most influential political party in the pan Eu-
ropean socialist Left. “Neoliberal capitalism means
dismantling democracy,” its own ideological man-
ifesto asserts, and it speaks of the “barbaric” char-
acter of the American model—in its alleged com-
mitment to inequality, exploitation, and degrada-
tion not only in Europe but across the world and
inside the international institutions such as the
World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and
the International Monetary Fund. “We want to
ensure that capitalism is not the last word in the
history books,” Die Linke declares. In the classic
Marxist tradition of the Gotha and Erfurt pro-
grams of nineteenth-century German social
democracy, the manifesto paints a sweeping and
uncompromisingly bleak picture of the existing
global economic order. Events since last autumn
have tended to vindicate those who always re-
garded the existing economic system as inherent-
ly unstable and inequitable. The current crisis has
given the European socialist Left a grand narra-
tive to justify its existence.
Most of the radical left parties in Europe
emerged from the wreckage of the old commu-
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nist parties or in earlier breakaways from them.
Now they are united in their rejection of Soviet-
style politics. Die Linke in Germany denies it holds
any residual ties or sympathy with past authori-
tarian practices: “We reject any form of dictator-
ship and Stalinism as a criminal abuse of social-
ism,” its ideological manifesto seeks to reassure.
The European radical-left critique of neolib-
eralism is combined with an apparently strong
commitment to democratic social and collec-
tivist values. In its 2008 Berlin declaration, the
Party of the European Left called for the cre-
ation of a “social, peaceful and solidarity based
continent” based on sustainable development,
on a strong state sector, a strong regulation of
existing financial institutions, and a halt to mar-
ket solutions.
Ambitiously, Die Linke claims to be a new
party “the like of which there has never been
seen in Germany before,” as it seeks to bring all
progressive forces together from the feminist
movement, environmental groups, anti-racist
and anti-fascist bodies, and those who campaign
for peace and disarmament. Far from being a
party built on the Leninist principles of demo-
cratic centralism, Die Linke insists on its plural-
ism and tolerance and commitment to justice,
freedom, solidarity, and internationalism. The
party claims to champion the rights and needs
of individuals, which, it argues, can only be ad-
vanced through collective action by a democrat-
ic state. Its self-declared ambition is to challenge
neoliberalism through the creation of a credible
and idealistic alternative. In some respects it
looks and sounds like the Independent Social
Democrats, who were formed in the First World
War and lasted until the early 1920s.
Radical left parties elsewhere in Europe
share similar and often utopian aspirations for
the creation of societies and economies based
on equality, solidarity, and freedom. But like Die
Linke they also have to function in parliamen-
tary democracies with often elaborate propor-
tional electoral systems that require compro-
mise and accommodations. As a result they can-
not afford to remain uncompromising in their
wider appeal. They need to balance their abso-
lutist and purist ends with a resort to pragmatic
horse trading in Parliament. The socialist lefts
may repudiate neoliberal capitalism in trench-
ant language and attack social democrats for ap-
peasing free market forces, but they have to
wrestle with all the familiar difficulties of politi-
POLITICS ABROAD
cal systems that represent a plurality of parties
and traditions.
In its 2008 manifesto, the Party of the Euro-
pean Left argued that the radical groupings
formed a “counter power” and a “designing
force” to what it saw as the neoliberal consen-
sus that it argued covered mainstream social
democracy as well as the center right. It spoke
of the need for a “new synergy” that could in-
fluence the wider politics of the center Left and
called for “common struggles” both in parlia-
ments and on the streets.
All the radical left parties in Europe, albeit in
slightly different ways, regard themselves as the
defenders of what European social democracy
achieved in its postwar golden age. They sup-
port strong welfare states funded by high levels
of taxation and they oppose marketization or
privatizing of health and educational services.
They demand continuing high state spending
and levels of taxation, controls on capital, and
more egalitarian social policies. They want
stronger state protection for the elderly, the less
well off, and the sick. They reject workfare
schemes to force the unemployed into low-paid
jobs. In a clear appeal to women, they give a
high priority to comprehensive child-care provi-
sion. The radical Left argues that social democ-
racy has compromised far too much with ne-
oliberalism and abandoned many of its tradi-
tional core values through misguided projects of
modernization.
But their hopes of making any further politi-
cal progress depend on establishing closer and
warmer relations with despised social democra-
cy. This necessitates a commitment to compro-
mise and cooperation with the mainstream Left.
Such a strategy has made its most significant
breakthrough in Norway, where the Norwegian
Socialist Left Party argues that its tactical aim is
to push the country’s larger Labor Party more
leftward, but believes this can be done not sim-
ply by agitating on the sidelines but by sharing
in the obligations of governance. The inevitable
accommodations that have resulted may trouble
many of the party’s rank and file. But if the
party hopes to prosper, it must learn to adopt
parliamentary strategies that involve a willing-
ness to shoulder the responsibilities that in-
evitably come from inclusion in governments.
Such a move may weaken the purity of the
wider socialist appeal. The Norwegian experi-
ence suggests it is a strategy that works.
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POLITICS ABROAD
In the Netherlands, the Socialists are the main
opposition, while the mainstream Labor Party is a
part of the current coalition government. Social-
ists denounce the mainstream center Left for its
technocratic approach to politics and willingness
to compromise with neoliberalism. But the So-
cialists’ firm advocacy of traditional social demo-
cratic values and programs and rejection of what
they describe as “the period of superficiality and
postmodernism” threatens Labor’s long-term po-
litical future. Under the slogan “first on the Left,”
the Dutch Socialists may make further inroads at
Labor’s expense. The party displays a surprisingly
hard-headed realism toward racism and Islamism
and insists that the Netherlands has to address the
dangers of xenophobia by a populist attitude to
the upholding of the rule of law and the need for
cultural integration.
In Germany, Die Linke is already in many re-
gional and city governments in the east of the
country and is strong in Hamburg, Hesse, and
Lower Saxony. But under the leadership of the
charismatic former Social Democratic finance
minister, Oskar Lafontaine, who stormed out of
his old party in 1999, Die Linke is eager to join
center-left coalitions, although its ideological
manifesto argues that it “will not compromise
its principles in entering into alliances with oth-
ers.” For their part, many Social Democrats in-
sist that they will not seek or agree to the for-
mation of strategic alliances in power with Die
Linke, and some argue they would prefer to
continue in grand coalition with Angela
Merkel’s Christian Democrats rather than line
up with Lafontaine’s party.
Such arms-length attitudes by the main-
stream lefts in Europe may not be so easy to
maintain in the future. The popular appeal of
the radical Left could well increase over the
next few years. Its social composition indicates
growing support among women, voters under
the age of thirty, those employed in the public
services sector, and those active in social move-
ments who are particularly attracted by the pol-
itics of the radical Left. Worryingly for the social
democrats in Norway, Denmark, and Germany,
there are signs that the radical left parties are
starting to make significant inroads inside the
trade unions, traditionally social democratic
strongholds. Calls for legally enforceable nation-
al minimum wages, more labor rights at work,
and generous welfare policies for the jobless
resonate with an increasing number of voters
8 DISSENT Spring 2009
disaffected with social democracy. The radical
Left can often look modern, tolerant, and open
to new ideas while at the same time upholding
traditional collectivist values. Their parties argue
that they are optimists who offer an exciting al-
ternative to the technocratic managerialism of
mainstream social democracy. The Danish So-
cialist People’s Party, with 13 percent of the vote
in the 2007 election and twenty-three seats in
Parliament, claims that it is committed to what
it calls “popular socialism.” Across Europe, the
radical Left is taking advantage of the confusion
and weaknesses of social democratic parties that
find it increasingly difficult to offer ways out of
the economic crisis.
In its commitment to internationalism, the
radical Left offers what it believes to be a gen-
uine alternative to existing global power poli-
tics. Its parties almost all oppose Western mili-
tary involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
They support the cause of the Palestinian people
and in varying degrees criticize Israel. Much of
the radical Left is opposed to the very existence
of NATO as a collective security organization,
with the exception of the Norwegian party.
There is a clear hostility among them to any use
of military force to resolve international ques-
tions. The radical Left prefers “soft” power
through the United Nations.
What unites them even more in their foreign
policies is their attitude toward the European
Union. In Denmark and the Netherlands, the rad-
ical left parties have campaigned successfully for a
“No” vote on referendums on either the euro or
the European Treaty or Constitution. They reject
the EU’s Lisbon agenda, which they insist is com-
mitted to a neoliberal program. They want a more
social Europe of “the people and not the
bankers.” They argue for greater democratic ac-
countability in European decision making and
less centralized control from Brussels. They often
campaign for national solutions to Europe-wide
problems. Above all, they stress what they regard
as popular responses to global issues.
The gap between much of the fine-sounding
rhetoric and the realities of democratic politics
has always troubled the European Left. In
France, the dangers of division between radical
and pragmatic tendencies are illustrated by strug-
gles within the fractious ranks of the Socialist
Party. The bitter leadership contest last fall be-
tween Martine Aubry and Ségolène Royale was
partly personal and partly about whether the
Dissent Spring 2009:Dissent, rev.qxd 3/4/2009 3:07 PM Page 9
party would present itself as the anchor of a
“plural Left” as in the past or seek alliance with
the political “center.” In the meantime, the Trot-
skyists of the Revolutionary Communist League
have launched an “Anti-Capitalist Party” seeking
to encompass the more radical Left and draw
support away from the squabbling Socialists. This
party hopes to take a place on the French politi-
cal map roughly similar to that of Die Linke in
Germany. In the United Kingdom the Left is all
but extinct—thanks mainly to the consequences
of a first-past-the-post electoral system.
But can the new radical Left
ly forge a partnership or even an understanding
real-
with mainstream social democracy? Just as im-
portant, should social democracy treat the
forces to its left as a threat to its own position or
a catalyst for its own renewal? The answers to
those fundamental questions will determine the
future political prospects of the European Left.
The first will depend on whether the radical
Left parties are willing to become pragmatists
and accept the limitations imposed by the na-
ture of pluralistic systems of government and
representation. This is why the Norwegian ex-
perience is of wider importance. Historically,
radical left and communist parties have often
agreed to support center-left coalition govern-
ments but without joining them. The hegemony
of social democracy in recent years was helped
by such arrangements with the radical Left in
Sweden, which provided the necessary votes in
Parliament while avoiding the responsibilities of
holding office.
But as the more radical left parties become
absorbed in the necessary short-term tactics of
parliamentarism, their popular appeal may
weaken among many voters who see them as a
break with the discredited politics of the main-
stream Left. Moreover, many social democrats
do not believe it helps their own capacity to re-
build and grow if they are over-tolerant of the
forces that threaten to undermine them from
the radical Left. Their analysis of what they
should do will depend on whether the radical
left parties can continue to expand their popular
appeal. In the past, social democrats saw the
danger from the radical Left as a communist
threat to their existence. They still believe that
the radical Left represents social forces that can-
POLITICS ABROAD
not grow successfully. In Germany, many social
democrats remain committed to modernization
strategies for the social market model, and they
view Die Linke as a backward-looking party iden-
tified with the failed politics of East Germany.
Economic events may determine the future of
Europe’s radical Left. If recession turns into de-
pression, the political consequences may
strengthen the radical right. Racism and xeno-
phobia could return in more toxic forms than in
the recent past. To their credit, the radical Lefts—
though with some exceptions—have rejected any
forms of populist appeal that would fuel such
emotions. They remain confident and optimistic
in their belief that they have an increasing capac-
ity and influence to help in rolling back the
forces of neoliberal capitalism. But we are living
through a time of flux and unpredictability. The
wider European Left is in crisis. Social democrats
everywhere are rethinking their ideas and pro-
grams. For the most part, they still remain suspi-
cious and doubtful about the nature of the ideo-
logical challenge coming from their left. But they
have no grounds for complacency.
Radical left parties in Europe are helping to
energize democratic politics and to increase pop-
ular participation. Ironically, their prospects will
depend on how far their electoral appeals are
rooted in the social democratic politics of the
golden age. There is an insoluble dilemma that
lies at the core of Europe’s radical Left. It needs
to appeal to the young, to the new working class
of post-industrialism, to those concerned with
environmental issues, peace, and the rights of
women. But it also evokes a nostalgia for the lost
world of postwar Europe, when social democrat-
ic values underpinned the growth of welfare
states, collective solutions, and the positive role
played by democratic governments in the social
transformation of society. In looking back as well
as forward, the radical Left may find it difficult to
remain intellectually coherent, with negative
consequences and limitations on its ability to
make any permanent breakthrough on the Euro-
pean Left. For the moment, however, the radical
Left poses serious problems for the future of
mainstream social democracy.
Robert Taylor is associate member of Nuffield
College, Oxford. He is writing a history of parlia-
mentary socialism in Britain.
DISSENT Spring 2009 9