[Militant International Review, No 60, February-March 1995, p. 19-23]
Everywhere in Europe workers face difficult conditions in the class struggle. !n future issues MIR will be looking in detail at the left in the major European countries. Here James Long gives an overview of recent European developments which provide the backdrop to the tasks of socialists. This article is based on a talk given to the December 1994 meeting of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), attended by socialists from more than 20 countries.
The last period in western Europe has shown a general trend to the left in almost every country, although this starts from a fairly low level of working class consciousness. Look at the developments in Italy since the election of the right-wing Berlusconi government in March 1994. The victory of Berlusconi and the entry of the neo-fascist Alleanza Nationale (formerly MSI) into the government did not mark a fundamental shift to the right in the whole of Italian society.
Last October more than two million workers demonstrated against the welfare and pensions cuts proposed by Berlusconi. This fightback has led to a working class protest movement on a scale which has not been seen in Italy since the early 1970s.
However, the level of political consciousness which underlies that movement is very different to the Italian mass movements of the early 1970s, when conscious support for socialism was much more widespread than today. Nonetheless, this kind of mass struggle, involving millions of workers, is a necessary precondition for the re-emergence of a strong socialist consciousness.
While we would argue that the general trend in Europe is to the left, in those countries where there are social democratic governments, recent elections have shown a strengthening of the far right, for example the Vlaams Blok in Belgium and the Freedom Party in Austria.
But these extreme-right electoral successes don’t necessarily mean there has been a shift to the right in society as a whole. We can see that in Belgium, where hard on the heels of the elections last autumn, there were the biggest strikes since the 1930s against cut-backs and privatisation.
This combination of a strengthening of the far right, together with the re-emergence of militant social struggles, confirms what supporters of the CWI said for a long time: the depth of the capitalist crisis simultaneously strengthens at different speeds the forces of revolution and of counter-revolution.
Generally speaking the economic recovery is very weak compared with previous upswings.
In 1994 there was a general revival of the Western European economy, albeit a slow and uneven one. This revival, part of a world trend, is far from sufficient to break out of the general period of long-term recession in the European economies. Neither has it resulted in a general political stabilisation.
In Germany, however, the economic revival did rally some of the supporters of Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats, helping him to win the October 1994 elections. Nonetheless, it is by no means automatic that economic recovery strengthens the various governments, especially because the recovery is so weak given the overall depth of the economic, social and political crisis. Britain is a case in point here; economic recovery has not yet helped the Tory government at all.
Generally speaking the economic recovery is very weak compared with previous upswings. The level of investment is very low, which will weaken both the strength and duration of the revival. The slow pace of growth means that economic conflicts between the imperialist countries will continue to deepen.
Those conflicts were vividly on public display during the final stages of the GATT world trade talks at the beginning of 1994. In debating out the terms of the GATT agreement, and the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the US Congress has been very clear that their approach is ‚America first‘ – and to hell with all the others. The Congress has decided that if there are just three WTO rulings which go against US interests, then it reserves the right to pull out of the WTO altogether.
These inter-imperialist contradictions are exacerbated by the fall of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War has removed some of the ‚glue‘ which kept the ‚western alliance‘ together, leading to deeper divisions between the imperialist powers.
Inside the European Union (EU) important divisions of have developed. German reunification has, despite temporary economic problems, strengthened the overall weight of Germany. The position of France against Germany has been weakened, making French plans for co-management of Europe with Germany much less credible. This increased specific weight of Germany within the EU has made the British situation even more difficult.
The temporary economic upswing has not removed the basic dilemmas facing the main European capitalist classes. Every country has high unemployment.
Within that high level unemployment is a large increase in the number of long-term unemployed, leading to a large alienated section of the proletariat. The solution often used at the end of the last century – mass emigration, the export of the ’surplus‘ population to the US and the colonies – no longer exists.
Together with high unemployment, the Europe-wide offensive against the welfare state has been sharply gathering momentum. One symptomatic common factor is the crisis over state pensions for retired workers – this was a major disputed question in last October’s Swedish elections. The crisis over the welfare state reflects the position of the European capitalists, having to compete with US, Japanese and Asia-Pacific rivals, who of course do not have the extra cost of an elaborate welfare state.
Another crucial factor for the capitalists is globalisation of production. Firms with production situated in the so-called ‚third world‘ have much lower wages costs and therefore a potentially massive cost advantage. This puts big pressure on European firms to lower wage rates and increase labour ‚flexibility‘.
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Throughout Europe, governments are unpopular. This is even the case where existing governments have been re-elected, for example the Spanish social democratic government of Felipe Gonzalez and Helmut Kohl’s CDU in Germany. Kohl was only just re-elected, by the narrowest of margins. Paradoxically, the left vote in Germany, the SPD, Greens and PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) put together- was 48% – the highest ever. This means that the German government, like that in Spain, Italy and Britain, is a weak government. There is no guarantee that it will last four years until the next election.
What lies behind this general unpopularity of governments? Personal living standards have fallen. Cutbacks in state financing have led to a general deterioration in the quality of life for millions. There is a huge increase in job insecurity not only for the working class, but important sections of the middle classes as well. De-regulation has now also hit the middle-class professions – they’re losing ‚jobs for life‘. An increasing number of them are employed on short-term contracts, no sick pay or holiday pay. It doesn’t matter if you’re told that there is an upturn in the economy if your job is insecure and you’re struggling to keep your head above water financially.
This journal was right to predict that there would be major struggles against Berlusconi.
Europe has been affected, like many other parts of the world, by the post-1989 ‚democracy‘ wave, stemming from collapse of Stalinism. In Europe this focussed on the struggle against corruption, While the most obvious example of this is Italy, it has become a Europe-wide phenomenon, with major corruption scandals in Spain, France, Ireland and Britain. Widespread corruption among politicians is a symptom of the depth of the crisis, while the revolt against it reflects growing cynicism about official politics and politicians in general.
There’s also a growing hostility to the European Union (EU). This is linked to a very accurate perception that power is being handed to an undemocratic cabal acting in the interests of big companies. Moreover, the EU is seen (quite rightly) as responsible for some of the cutbacks in state welfare spending. Each country in the EU is forced to try to meet strict monetary criteria to meet the preconditions for monetary union set down in the Maastricht agreement. This means savage cutbacks in the national budget, draconian ones in Italy, Sweden and Austria.
Because of this, and thanks to the lack of working class leadership, this anti-EU feeling is often tinged with nationalism, which the anti-Maastricht right-wing tries to exploit.
An important aspect of this is the EU directive on tendering for public services. The EU says that public services must be put out to tender by 1996, and that firms anywhere in the EU should be allowed to bid, The impact of this can be seen, for example, in the German transport services. Bus workers were told they must accept a 30 per cent wage cut, or a foreign company with much lower wage costs could take their jobs! But faced with immediate industrial action, the employers retreated and the German government promised to stop law wage tenders.
All these processes – continued economic crisis, state cutbacks, mass unemployment, restructuring the workforce, corruption scandals and cynicism and hostility to traditional politicians – have gone furthest in Italy.
Two of the major parties, the Christian Democracy and the Socialist Party, have effectively collapsed, although the Christian Democrats are represented by a small new formation, the Popular Party (PPI). The fragmentation and turmoil of the Italian party system is also demonstrated by the fact that in the June 1993 local elections the Party of Communist Refoundation (RC) became the second biggest party in Milan and Turin.
The election of the Berlusconi government seemed to contradict the idea that there was a trend towards the left in Europe. But now we can see that this journal was right to predict that there would be major struggles against Berlusconi’s attempt to ‚Thatcherise‘ Italy. There is tremendous disappointment and disillusionment among those who voted for him because he represented something ’new‘. People thought Berlusconi hai ‚clean hands‘: now they can see that the very opposite is true.
The March 1994 elections brought the neo-fascist Alleanza Nationale into the government, with three ministers. While this didn’t mean that fascism was in power, the appearance of these semi-fascist forces in the cabinet has spurred mass opposition, especially given the anti-fascist traditions of the Italian workers, particularly in the northern industrial regions. The Alleanza Nationale in government was a provocation to the left which helped to stimulate opposition to the regime and create a huge movement against Berlusconi. Now there are discussions on the formation of a new government, possibly involving the PDS, the PPI and Northern League.
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The fact that the economy has begun to improve has in some countries helped to develop struggles – struggles over wages and defensive struggles against privatisation and capitalist restructuring. The PASOK government in Greece retreated on fully privatising the national phone company. 120,000 workers in Belgium were involved in strikes against privatisation last autumn.
The airline industry is today a centre of struggles over costcutting, as the European owners attempt the kind of deregulation which occurred in the US in the 1980s. Thus there have been major struggles in Air France, Iberia airways in Spain, TAP in Portugal and in some small German airlines.
We are witnessing the development of important class battles. The trade union leaders are under immense pressure from the state and employers to collaborate with anti-working class attacks. Union leaders have been told industry must become ‚leaner and fitter‘ if workers are not to lose their jobs. This is creating tensions within unions. There are important beginnings of the development of opposition within the unions, including in some countries structured left opposition tendencies.
But in many countries union membership is falling and there are growing numbers of non-organised workers. Struggles today among unorganised workers, or even within unionised sectors, are throwing up new forms of struggle going outside the traditional structures – new forms of informal co-ordinations, strike committees and so on. It will be very important for socialists to follow these developments.
For a long period the social democratic parties have been moving to the right politically. This move to the right is being mirrored among some of the ex-Stalinist parties like the PDS in Italy.
The move to the right among the social democratic leaders reaches new depths.
The move to the right among the social democratic leaders reaches new depths; for example the Swedish Social Democratic Party fought the last election on a programme which actually promised public spending cuts. Once they were re-elected, they then said that the cuts package would be even bigger than promised!
A similar situation developed with the social democrats in Austria. After the Austrian election, in the discussions to form a coalition government headed by the social democrats, they proposed a £14.5 billion cuts package – and that in a small country with just 8 million people! In addition we have the situation in Britain, where the decade-long shift to the right obviously continues. In Germany the SPD leaders are now following the example of the British Labour Party, trying to develop their own campaign of ‚modernising‘ the party – to the right. Social democracy is less and less identified with reforms, especially among younger layers. It is difficult to think of when the last substantial reforms were carried out, for example, by a British Labour government. The workers‘ parties in Europe still have their rock-solid areas of support, but this is declining as their leaders carry out counter-reforms. Generally, their electoral support is becoming more volatile, more temporary, more conditional. Even when they get big votes – which could happen in the next British general election – it still wouldn’t mean that this electoral is base long-term and solid.
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If in general there has been a left shift in the recent European elections, within the left vote there has been a shift to forces to the left of social democracy; and in this we can include the Greens, even if the Green parties are not strictly speaking workers‘ parties. In the perception of the youth and others the Greens are perceived as being to the left of the traditional parties.
The United Left in Spain, a coalition of different groups including the ex-Communists, is consistently recording 15 per cent of the vote. In the Swedish elections, the Left Party and the Greens got 11.2 per cent between them. In Germany the PDS and the Greens got 11.6 per cent. Even in the west of Germany the PDS got 337,000 votes. So while the bulk of the workers in west Germany still voted for the SPD, there is still a section, a minority section, which votes to the left of the traditional parties. This is very important for the perspectives of revolutionary socialists.
However increases in the votes for the social democrats do not automatically result in an enlargement of the membership of their parties – in fact at this stage generally not.
The move to the right in the social democrats doesn’t mean that there can’t be a shift to the left in the future. In fact the French Socialist Party under new general secretary Henri Emmanuelli has adopted the 35-hour week with no loss of pay; but individual left policies are within a framework of a sharp shift to the right, at least for the moment. Another feature of the electoral landscape has been the recent decline in the far-right vote. The exceptions here, already referred to, are Belgium and Austria, and this is linked to the fact that social democracy is in the government. It is the lack of a credible left alternative to social democracy that creates the space for the growth of racist and neo-fascist groups. Where a strong left alternative has existed, for example in Germany and Sweden, the vote of the far right has declined.
Although there has been a general decline in the electoral support of the far right, the attacks on the immigrant and black populations has not ceased – leading to a mood of rebellion among the immigrant populations. This can be seen most clearly with the ‚urban intifada‘ of the North African youth in France.
If we have outlined a framework of a general shift to the left, within that it is necessary to look at the level of consciousness in the working class. One must be careful not to be too schematic and make too sweeping generalisations for the whole of Europe. But nearly everywhere there is a feeling of insecurity, a feeling that the present set-up is unjust, that politicians are corrupt, that the future is uncertain. This general feeling is being reflected in an increase in union struggles, but also the ’shock‘ elections results – which don’t always go to the left of course. There is more scepticism about the traditional workers‘ parties.
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For the overwhelming majority of workers, what the alternative is to capitalism is not yet clear. There’s no doubt that the collapse of Stalinism – combined with working class defeats in the 1980s – did throw back the consciousness of the working class. This wasn’t just a question of the ideological offensive waged by the bourgeoisie, but the concrete experience of Stalinism in power and of social democratic governments which only attempted to solve the crisis at workers‘ expense.
What is important today is that in the new conditions of instability, crisis and break-up of traditional politics, the objective conditions for a rebirth of socialism as a global alternative are being developed. This requires, as we saw with the birth of the workers movement, the fusion of the advanced layers of the working class with the ideas of Marxism. Just like 100 years ago, this means a rigorous fight against all the reactionary ideas that a period of crisis throws up.
In the next period the ruling class could be forced to rely once again on the social democrats and the union bureaucracy. In Britain, it seems only a matter of time before Labour is in government. In Italy the PDS could well be in a coalition soon, In Germany there is an unofficial coalition over many issues; and in Sweden the social democrats have been re-elected.
This process, of continued crisis and social democratic governments, also creates the basis for the development of a left opposition in society. This is especially the case since there is at present not much of an influx of workers and youth into the traditional working class parties. It creates the basis for the development of new left oppositions in the workers‘ organisations and the strengthening of Marxist formations on a European level.
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