[Militant International Review, No. 52, July-August 1993, p. 2-7]
How far can reaction go? Nick Wrack looks at the rise of the European far-right.
The recent growth of far-right and neo Nazi groups across Europe, the increased votes for these organisations and especially the horrendous increase in racist attacks and murders, raises a series of vital questions for socialists.
n France the neo-fascist Front National (FN) took over 20% of the vote in 30 towns in the 1992 regional elections. Exit polls showed FN electoral gains among the industrial working class. A BVA institute poll found that the FN’s 19% support amongst workers matched both the Socialist Party (PS) and the conservative UDF. The Ipsos Institute concluded that the working class vote was 28% of the FN’s total electoral support. Its total 3.3m votes compared with 4.5m for the PS. More recently, in March this year, the FN received its best ever general election results. Although a first-round poll of 12.5%, 3.15m, was lower than the 1992 regional elections figure of 13.9%, it was a big increase on the 9.7% obtained in the 1988 general election. The FN strengthened its support amongst young males under 25, small traders, sections of the working class, and those who consider themselves to be marginalised from society. The FN’s leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, won 27% of the first-round vote in Nice and 42% in the second. More than a hundred FN candidates gained enough votes to enter the second round.
Support for the FN has been growing since the mid-1980s, mainly as a result of the failure of the Socialist Party government. Unemployment stands at over 10% and at 28% for 18-25 year-olds. The FN’s overt use of racism has been aided by the racism of the traditional right-wing leaders and also by the PS. Former Socialist Party prime minister, Edith Cresson, talked of chartering planes to repatriate immigrants, leading demonstrators to chant ‚We won’t fly Air Cresson‘.
In Belgium the neo-fascist Vlaams Blok (VB), led by former. Nazi collaborator Karel Dillen, stands for an independent Flanders and a return of all non-European immigrants to their countries of origin. It obtained 25% of the vote in Antwerp in 1991 and now has one MEP, two MPs and 60 councillors in ten cities.
In Austria the Freedom Party (FPÖ) stands openly on racist anti-immigration policies. Jörg Haider, the FPÖ leader, has praised Hitler’s labour policies. In November 1991, while the Socialist Party (SPÖ) lost 10% of its vote in Vienna, the FPÖ increased its vote three-fold to 22.6%, pushing the conservative People’s Party (PP [ÖVP]) into third place. In last year’s presidential elections, it received 16.5% in the first round. Whilst it cannot yet be described as a neo-fascist party, its strident anti-immigrant racism is a feature it shares in common with neo-fascist parties in other countries.
In Germany last year the neo-fascist Republikaner Partei (REP), whose leader Schönhuber was a former Waffen SS volunteer, won 11% in Baden-Württemberg, giving them 15 seats in the state parliament. The fascist DVU won 6.4% in Schleswig-Holstein, taking six seats. In Baden-Württemberg an estimated 170,000 deserted to the Republikaners from the ruling conservative CDU party and 110,000 from the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In Schleswig-Holstein the SPD lost an estimated 30,000 votes to the DVU. In this year’s local elections, in the state of Hessen the Republikaners won an average vote of 8.3%. In Frankfurt they polled over 25,000 votes, 9.3%, winning ten of the city’s 93 seats. The SPD vote fell 8%.
In the first quarter of 1993, there were 1,339 officially recorded racist attacks in Germany, compared with 807 in the same period in 1992. These figures underestimate the extent of racist attacks. In Solingen, on the night of 29 May, five Turkish women died after an arson attack on their home. Fourteen were injured in a fire-bomb attack on an asylum hostel in Munich. Asylum hostels in Berlin and Hanover were also fire-bombed.
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The rise of racism and the increased support for the far-right is related to a number of common European-wide trends. Despite the prolonged economic upturn in the 1980s, there was a continuous and widening gap between rich and poor. Then the problems faced by workers and the middle class were exacerbated by the onset of recession. Unemployment hit three million in Britain, France and Germany. The idea of permanently growing prosperity has been profoundly shaken. At the same time there had been the relentless drift to the right of the labour and trade union leaders, as they swallowed the capitalists‘ triumphalist belief in the efficacy of the market. With the collapse of the planned economy in the former USSR and Eastern Europe, this trend was reinforced.
To these leaders the collapse of Stalinism meant the ‚death of socialism‘, which pushed them even further to the right. With the onset of recession, none of the traditional parties of the working class was able to offer any real alternative to the workers. Indeed, where they were in power, as in France and Spain, they were responsible for carrying out pro-capitalist, anti-working class policies.
There has been a loosening of the bonds between the parties of the working class and sections of the working class itself. Workers have been prepared to vote for other parties, either as a protest or because they see them as offering an alternative to the established political parties. This is shown in the vote for the Greens in France, the rise of the Northern League in Italy, and also partly explains the rise in electoral support for the far-right and neo-fascist parties. These parties have benefitted from the inability of the traditional workers‘ parties to offer any solutions to the problems facing workers and sections of the middle class.
There is widespread disenchantment with the established parties.
There is widespread disenchantment with the established parties. In Germany this year, a layer of national and regional politicians have resigned because of corruption scandals. These included former SPD leader, Engholm, transport minister, Kraus, and Max Streibl, CSU premier of Bavaria. Steinkühler, leader of the German TUC (DGB), was forced to resign after it was revealed that he had purchased shares in a Daimler-Benz holding company and made a profit of DM64,000 when the company was dissolved. He is said to have benefitted from inside knowledge.
The intensification of the economic crisis has enabled the far-right to step into a vacuum. They have latched onto social and economic issues such as unemployment and housing and used the poison of racism and anti-foreigner demagogy to try to win support.
The rise of the far-right and neo-Nazi parties must also be seen against the explosion of nationalism in the aftermath of the collapse of Stalinism. The racism which is a common feature in the propaganda of all of these parties is an extreme form of nationalism. The collapse of Stalinism in the former USSR and Eastern Europe led to a massive number of refugees coming to the West. The question of asylum-seekers has also been used by the racists to fuel their arguments. It is ironic that part of the process which led to the opening of the Berlin Wall was the growing number of asylum-seekers from East Germany and Poland entering West Germany following the breach in the Austria-Hungary border. At the time, it was hailed as a triumph for capitalism that so many from the Stalinist countries wanted to settle in the West. Now the whole question of asylum-seekers has become a central problem for the capitalist politicians of Europe.
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More than two million people have claimed asylum in European countries in the past four years. Ten years ago the total number seeking asylum in 23 European countries was just 71,000. Last year the figure was over 700,000: 438,000 of those applied to Germany, taking its cumulative number of asylum-seekers over the past four years to over one million, half the European total. Given the deepening recession, none of the capitalist countries is prepared to accept the extra cost of providing for these asylum-seekers.
The EC governments have agreed tougher guidelines for combatting illegal immigration. Germany and France are currently introducing much stricter border controls, tougher police measures and deportations. Charles Pasqua, the right-wing interior minister in the new French conservative government, has presented draft legislation restricting immigrants‘ rights to family reunion and extending police powers. His declared objective is ‚zero immigration‘.
In May, the German parliament changed the constitution to tighten the asylum laws. Until then the basic law had granted any refugee the right to seek asylum in Germany. The change will now mean that Germany will send back asylum-seekers to the neighbouring country from which they entered, for example, Poland or Czechoslovakia. Although the previous law was relatively liberal, asylum status was only granted to about 4% of applicants.
While the questions of immigration and asylum have been used by the parties of the far-right to gain support, these issues have also been utilised by the traditional conservative parties. Racism is a weapon used by the capitalist class to sow division within the working class. The immigration policies of the various capitalist countries, and particularly recent measures, have to be seen in this light. Faced with a worsening economic and social situation, the governments are attempting to divert the attention of workers away from the real causes of these problems – capitalism and capitalist crisis-policies.
Across Europe the capitalists have in the past deliberately encouraged immigration to provide cheap labour, fuelling the economic expansion up to 1974, In Germany, for example, the number of Turks rose from 68,000 in 1964 to 600,000 in 1974. Presently there are about 1.8m Turks living in Germany. Now the Turks along with asylum-seekers clearly not of Germanic origin, i.e. with darker skins, are bearing the brunt of the racism actively whipped up by the far-right and neo-fascist parties but cultivated by the CDU government. The asylum ‚debate‘ was initiated by the ruling CDU in the summer of 1991. A CDU circular to its branches argued that this should be the main issue with which to beat the opposition SPD. Prior to the debate only 11% of Germans considered the issue of asylum-seekers to be important. Afterwards, the figure was 41%. No sooner had the ‚debate‘ finished than the attacks on the asylum hostels by the neo-Nazis began. The racist propaganda of the traditional conservative politicians fuelled both widespread fears about the scale of immigration and the violence of the fascist thugs.
The SPD made no attempt to offer a socialist alternative to the CDU’s racist policies.
In response, the SPD has made no attempt to offer a socialist alternative to the CDU’s racist policies. Instead they simply capitulated to the CDU’s pressure and agreed to the constitutional change on asylum. Instead of lessening the problem of racist attacks, this simply fed the confidence of the racists and fascists who felt they had achieved a victory, with the tragic consequences at Solingen.
The wave of racist violence in both west and eastern Germany and the increase in the votes for the neo-fascists is a reflection of a widespread malaise throughout German society. The psychology of the German masses has undergone a series of profound shocks since 1989.
The reunification of east and west on a capitalist basis marked a counter-revolution. While initially popular, unification has led to massive disappointment, particularly in the east. The promise of greater prosperity has been rudely dashed, and the euphoria of 1989 has gone. In 1989 the workforce was 9.8m. Now it is 5.6m. Manufacturing employment in the east has collapsed from over 8m to only 700,000. Real unemployment is 35%. While easterners pay western prices, wages are less than 70% of western levels. This disillusionment has been a breeding ground for the racists and fascists.
In the west too there has been the shock of the biggest recession in twenty years, on top of the costs of absorbing the east. A ZDF television poll found that only 4% of those surveyed thought that Germany was ‚in order‘: 46% said the country had ‚large problems‘; 38% felt it was in ‚a difficult crisis‘ and 12% said it was facing ‚catastrophe‘. There has also been a dramatic disenchantment with the political system. A poll carried out in March showed that 60% believe political corruption is commonplace. A year ago 73% thought it was exceptional. The authority of politicians has reached an all time low.
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Given the absence of any lead by the established workers‘ parties, the frustration and despair of wide sections of the population, especially the youth, can find succour in right-wing parties which seem to offer something different.
The rise in support for these parties raises the question: how far can fascism develop as a form of reaction? In the course of the class struggle there will be periods of advance for the working class but periods of reaction are inevitable. This does not mean, however, that this reaction will, in the present period, give rise to fascist movements capable of taking power.
Fascism is a product of capitalism in extreme crisis. Trotsky described it as the ‚distilled essence of imperialism‘ and as capitalism ‚with its fangs pared‘. Fascism aims at the complete destruction of all the democratic gains that have been fought for and won by the working class. It aims at the destruction of the trade unions and all other workers‘ organisations. In Nazi Germany even the workers‘ chess clubs were prohibited. Fascism has as its aim the atomisation of the working class, destroying all elements of a new socialist society that exist within the old.
In the 1920s and 1930s fascism arose as a result of the economic catastrophe that racked capitalism and of the revolutions that shook Europe. Fascism triumphed as a result of the defeat of those revolutions due to the betrayal of the social-democratic leaders. Fearing they could lose everything, the capitalists resorted to the fascist groups, financing their organisations and unleashing them against the working class. The main feature of fascism in this period was its mobilisation of the petit-bourgeois who were neither part of the organised working class nor of the ruling capitalist class, but who had been ruined by the economic crisis. Whipped up by the demagogy of the fascists they were used as a battering-ram against the working class.
Today there is an entirely different situation from the 1920s and 1930s. The strength of the working class, despite setbacks and defeats in the 1980s, remains fundamentally intact. There is no longer the vast social reservoir for fascism amongst the peasantry and the urban petit-bourgeois. The section of the labour force employed in agriculture has been reduced to a tiny fraction. The urban petit-bourgeois has largely been absorbed into the working class. Teachers, civil servants and students, who in the past would have inclined to hostility towards the unions, are now part of the labour movement and have themselves been involved in strike action.
The ruling class too has learned from its experience with fascism. They found out to their cost that, having put the fascists in power, they could not control them. An autonomous mass fascist movement, based on the mobilisation of the frenzied petit-bourgeois and lumpen layers of the proletariat,is too unwieldy a weapon to be used again lightly. After all, as a result of Hitlers policies, the capitalists lost eastern and central Europe to Stalinism for thirty years. Since the second world war, the capitalists have preferred, when necessary, to resort to forms of Bonapartist or military-police dictatorships rather than handing power to fascists. The generals are far more closely linked through family and social ties to the ruling class and therefore are a more reliable instrument for maintaining direct rule.
This does not mean that fascism no longer poses a threat to the labour movement. On the contrary, it poses an extremely dangerous threat, which must be taken seriously. The capitalists will ruthlessly utilise the fascist gangs as auxiliaries in their battle against the working class.
However, the parties of the far-right such as the FN, the Vlaams Blok or the Republikaners have not, as yet, felt able to challenge the workers‘ organisations directly. At present, they are not confident of revealing completely their anti-working class programme. For the time being, their targets remain immigrants, ethnic minorities and small left organisations. They cannot, at the moment, challenge openly the trade unions. This is an indication of the weakness of these groups and of the strength of the organised working class. But this does not mean that they cannot grow and become emboldened if they are not challenged. With the continuous growth of mass unemployment, there is fertile breeding ground for them to grow if they are not countered by the labour movement.
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Fascism poses an extremely dangerous threat, which must be taken seriously.
Parties like the Republikaners and the French FN cannot yet be described as fully-fledged fascist organisations. Although their leaders may have fascist pasts and express fascist ideas, that alone does not completely determine the character of these parties. Their character has to be viewed as a process.
At present, in order to try to win support, organisations like the Republikaners and the FN have tried to present a respectable ‚democratic‘ face. By attacking the failures and corruption of the established parties, while at the same time utilising racism to appeal to the backward prejudices of sections of the workers and middle class, they have been able to register a protest vote against the traditional parties of government. Not all of their votes, however, can be described as protest votes. These votes also represent a growing national chauvinism. The virulent nationalism and racist anti-immigration stance of the far-right parties plays on the fears and worries of large sections of society who are faced with social crisis but are offered no alternative by the traditional workers‘ parties.
The Republikaners, the FN and the Vlaams Blok are still trying to establish themselves as respectable, mainstream parties, although as something new compared to the old parties. To do this they have to play down the overtly fascist aspects of their policies and activity. This is another indication of the limitations to their development at this stage.
In Germany there is a difference between the Republikaners and the openly Nazi-style organisations. While the latter play the role of extra-parliamentary fascist combat organisations to attack ethnic minorities and the left, the Republikaners have so far not developed in this direction. However, within such organisations there are undoubtedly Nazi elements and fascists with links to the openly Nazi combat organisations. For example, in the state elections in Hessen, the Republikaner Partei’s leading candidate in Hanau, Klaus zur Lienen, was forced to resign after his membership of the hardline neo-Nazi GdNF was revealed. It was also revealed that one of the Republikaner’s leading youth organisers in Baden-Württemberg took part in a Molotov cocktail attack on a left-wing youth centre in Pforzheim in 1991.
There are, therefore, tendencies within these organisations which can and will move in a more open fascist direction in the future. The leaders, for the time being, will try to keep these elements in the background. On occasions, however, Le Pen has not hesitated to use his street fighting thugs against demonstrators and to defend their actions later.
The electoral successes of parties like the Republikaners, the FN and the Vlaams Blok will tend to reinforce the more parliamentary wing at the expense of the extra-parliamentary, fascist elements. The Republikaners, formed in 1983, have in the past made overtures to the CDU with offers of coalition. The CDU, fearful that it could lose votes to the Republikaners, has echoed their racism. However this has not prevented a loss of votes from the CDU, or undermined the Republikaners, but has actually tended to reinforce their position and give them greater confidence. There are obviously elements within the CDU who are politically very close to the Republikaners. Heinrich Lummer, a former CDU West Berlin minister, has advocated a coalition with them. Recently Rudolf Krause, a leading CDU member in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, left the CDU to join the Republikaners, to become their first member in the Bundestag.
The FPÖ in Austria was until 1986 regarded as a small mainstream right-wing party. Until the autumn of 1986 it was in a governing coalition with the Socialist Party. The election of Haider as leader marked a new stage in its development with its adoption of nationalism and anti-immigration policies. There was an uneasy coalition between the Haider wing and its more liberal wing around Heide Schmidt. The electoral successes kept the liberals on board.
Earlier this year, however, Haider launched a petition campaign to force a constitutional change to end immigration, establish separate schools for non-German speakers, repatriate illegal aliens and make foreigners carry insurance papers and work permits. Haider’s boast that the petition would receive one million signatories, more than the 780,000 votes the FPÖ won in the general election, was not realised, with fewer than 420,000 signatures collected. In contrast 250,000 demonstrated in Vienna against the petition. The opposition organised against the petition opened up divisions within the FPÖ and Schmidt’s wing split to form Liberal Forum. This will have its impact upon the future evolution of the FPÖ.
These parties are unstable groupings whose development will be determined by the class struggle.
These new right parties are unstable groupings whose development will be determined by the class struggle and the balance of forces within society. In Germany in the last few months there has been a massive strike movement of steel workers and engineers in the east. Last year there was the massive public sector strike in the west. Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary trends are stalking one another, but it is clear that the balance of forces rests with the working class. At present the working class is far too strong to be confronted directly by these organisations. As the workers‘ struggles develop these organisations will be pushed back.
Already we have seen that the whip of counter-revolution, in the form of the horrendous racist attacks in Germany and elsewhere, has provoked a massive response from workers, youth and wide sections of the middle class. The huge demonstrations that took place across Germany in response to the Solingen murders, as well as demonstrations before, show this. This strength of opposition has to be taken into account by these parties. They have to be careful not to overstep the mark at this stage. On the other hand, seeing this mass anti-racist movement can lead the more extreme and openly fascist groups to adopt even more terroristic actions out of frustration at their own impotence.
The response to the racist attacks so far, even without the traditional parties and unions of the working class taking a lead, shows the limitations, at this stage, for the development of more openly fascist organisations. In many cases, demonstrations have been spontaneous or organised by relatively small forces and yet they have received a massive response. In the course of these events, a campaign around a clear anti-racist and anti-fascist programme can win tremendous support.
The Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE), launched in 1992, has already given a bold lead, organising in October a European-wide demonstration of over 40,000 in Brussels, and conducting anti-racist campaigns throughout Europe. It is vital to extend the ideas and approach of YRE to the wider labour movement.
Our task is to make clear to broad layers of workers the real anti-working class aims of the racist and fascist organisations. The lies of the extreme right, which are used to place the blame for social problems onto immigrant workers and long-settled ethnic minorities, must be systematically answered. Through demonstrations and other actions, the advanced sections of the labour movement must campaign to shatter the influence of racist and chauvinist ideology among sections of workers and the middle class. Organised sections of the working class must be mobilised to counter intimidation and physical attacks by fascist thugs, building up local and national organisations to defend communities and left organisations against attacks.
The fight against racist and fascist organisations, which are a auxiliary weapon of big business, must be linked to socialist policies to eradicate the rotten social conditions in which racism and fascism breeds. The divide-and-rule tactics of the right must be answered by a strategy to unite all sections of the working class around a clear programme, forging strong links between immigrant workers‘ and ethnic minority groups and the trade unions and traditional workers‘ organisations.
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