Cornelia Hildebrandt ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG
Fragmentation and pluralism of Leftist parties in Europe
Introduction Like other parties, left-wing parties set themselves the task of representing different interests, integrating them into a political concept or overall platform, and striving to gain political power so as to implement these interests and concepts. In so doing they have to consider the possibility of participating in government, however contentious this option may be in their own ranks. They must be able to develop an inner structure and culture which enables them to perform these tasks. This involves training political leaders. Left-wing parties are also scenes of political power struggles about who has the ultimate say on strategic and programmatic issues in the parties, about gaining acceptance for political and power concepts. But they also concern issues of competence and recognition both inside and outside the parties. The relationships between the left-wing parties of a party system and the power constellations within the parties are the expression of a permanent struggle. Within a party system left-wing parties are distinguished first with reference to the fault line between social justice and free markets, and secondly with reference to the socio-cultural fault line between authoritarian and libertarian political concepts.1 To this should be added the attitude of left-wing parties to the European Union, which fluctuates between acceptance of the EU as an arena of political action and a critical attitude to its domineering political approaches and a rejection of the EU as an imperial power block, together with a general rejection of its prevailing policies. In order to distinguish and place the parties of different party systems 2 at European level the term “party family”3 is used. The left-wing parties belong to the party families of the social
1 The cleavage- or fault-line concept was developed in: Seymour M Lipset/Stein Rokkan: Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments in Seymour M. Lipset (ed.): Party Systems and Voter Alignments. Cross- National Perspectives , New York, 1967, pp. 1-63. On the significance of the two fault lines mentioned for the German party system cf. Oskar Niedermayer: Die Veränderungen des deutschen Parteissystems in Michael Brie/Cornelia Hildebrandt (eds.): Parteien und Bewegungen. Die Linke im Aufbruch , Berlin, 2006, pp. 101-110. 2 Among the numerous descriptions of party systems in Europe the following may be mentioned by way of example: Oskar Niedermayer/Richard Stöss/Melanie Haas: Die Parteiensysteme Westeuropas , Wiesbaden, 2009; Wolfgang Ismayr: Die politischen Systeme Westeuropas , Wiesbaden, 2008, and Die politischen Systeme Osteuropas , Wiesbaden, 2004; Jürgen Mittag/Janosch Steuwer: Politische Parteien in der EU , Vienna, 2010; Ellen Bos/Dieter Segert (eds.): Osteuropäische Demokratien als Trendsetter? Parteienuand Parteiensysteme nach dem Ende des Übergangsjahrzehnts , Opladen, 2008.
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democratic parties, the Greens and parties who see themselves as being to the left of the Social Democrats and the Greens, hereinafter referred to as Leftist parties. The classification of the parties made by the Party Research Unit – mainly along the above-mentioned social fault lines – and the parties’ own classification of themselves has nothing to do with the positioning of the individual parties vis-à-vis one another, as it is not unusual for them to deny each other the right to call themselves left-wing.
Left-wing parties all describe themselves in varying measure as being welfare state-oriented, although the Leftist parties reject the so-called free market economy more than the others. After the failure in the late 20th century of the Third Way aimed at reconciling social equality of opportunity with the free market system, the social democratic parties are still in search of policies that could facilitate such a reconciliation. They are currently being torn between the two poles without having any clear concept. The Greens too, as an ecological-liberal civil- rights party, are trying to reconcile social justice and market economics. Although the Leftist parties largely avoid this contradiction in their platforms, seeking to combine the defence of the welfare state with a prospect of changing or overcoming the system, even they have to face up to it in their practical politics at regional or national level.
The parties of the left-wing political camp are also separated by a socio-cultural fault line. The greatest value is attached to libertarian values by the Green parties, quite unlike the traditional communist parties.4 They differ according to their acceptance, criticism or rejection of the social system and their view of necessary social transformations. What really influences their policies is whether they are in power or opposition. To this must be added differences in determining the ways in which they mean to achieving their social aims and in their choice of strategic cooperation partners.
3 Cf. Tim Spier (2009): Linksparteien in Westeuropa. Eine kohärente Parteienfamilie? Lecture at the conference on “Parteienfamilien – Identitätsbestimmend oder nur noch Etikett?” of the Party Research Unit of the DVPW (Prof. Jun, Prof. Niedermayer), within the framework of the DVPW (German Political Science Association) Congress in Kiel, 2009, p. 13. 4 Ibid.
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Left-wing party families
Party Social democratic Leftist party family Green party families party family family
Main current: Social democratic Democratic Communist Green socialist Analysis of 21st century = Global financial- Imperialism as Contradiction present Deepest historical market capitalism highest stage of between a society upheavals since under neoliberal capitalism; production process the Industrial hegemony with historically new that destroys the Revolution; new class links between natural development open: divisions international foundations of our society of social and new corporations and lives and potential democracy or possibilities of governments. for an ecological unleashed emancipation. and humane violence. transformation. View of Contradiction Equal importance Dominance of Centrality of the central fault between of different social conflict between ecological fault lines unregulated conflicts: Labour labour and line. globalization and and capital, man capital. social democracy. and woman, nature and society. Aim of social Social democracy Democratic Society of the Sustainable and development as combination of society, in which free and equal peaceful society, welfare state and people can live without social harmony. socio-ecologically their own lives in exploitation and regulated market social security and oppression. economy. solidarity.
Modes of Evolutionary Transformational Revolutionary Evolutionary, change development to be process with social process of ecological- implemented via upheavals. overcoming economic reforms. capitalism. development; Green New Deal. Political Centre-Left Red-red-Green Orientation to Centre-Left option/ alliances with trade coalitions and Left working-class alliances and strategic unions, social alliances with movement, trade cooperation with a partners welfare trade unions and unions and wide strong associations, etc. wide variety of variety of anti- participatory civil social movements. capitalist society. movements.
Diversity and fragmentation of Leftist parties
The party landscape to the left of the Social Democracy is dominated by parties with a rich tradition going back 100 years in some cases, a history that is largely that of the Social
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Democracy, and more recent parties which are the products of dissolutions, splits, mergers or the founding of new political organizations. Thus one can speak of a very dynamic, constantly shifting party landscape on the European Left, which currently contains communist, reform- communist, socialist, left-social democratic, Green/left-wing, Trotskyite 5 and other parties. Some countries have one dominant Leftist party, while others have two or more Leftist parties with very different orientations that determine their political and parliamentary relevance.
Comparative European party studies deal with socially relevant parties, i.e. parties that take part in elections at least at regional level and are able to win seats. An all-European comparison of Leftist parties can therefore only be based on analyses of such Leftist parties as are represented in elected bodies. Thus although the numerous mini-parties and splinter groups of the radical Left are mentioned in the country reports available here, they are not the subject of these studies given the absence of empirical analyses. The national significance of Leftist parties largely correlates with their results in the European elections. Thus far the Leftist parties of Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania have not yet been represented in the European Parliament.6
AKEL in Cyprus, the Left Alliance in Iceland, and the Socialist Left Party in Norway (SV) are at present in government. Leftist parties in Europe that are currently strong include the KS ČM in the Czech Republic, the Left Party in Germany, the Bloco de Esquerda and the Communist Party in Portugal, and Sinn Fein in Ireland. In Spain and Portugal left-wing parties take the form of organizations composed of several groupings, such as the Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal or the United Left (IU) in Spain, while at the same time acting as autonomous parties. In some cases they compete against each other in election campaigns. The political Left in Italy is also very fragmented. The left-wing Rainbow Alliance that took part in the 2008 parliamentary elections consisted of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC), the Democratic Left ( Sinistra Democratica – SD), the Party of Italian
5 The numerous Trotskyite parties in France, with the exception of the NPA and Lutte Ouvrière (LO), are as socially and politically insignificant as the splinter groups of the IVth International and barely feature in European comparative party research, despite their sonorous names. They are only mentioned in order to give an idea of the left-wing party landscape and are not otherwise part of the present analyses. 6 Cf. Mittag/Steuwer: Politische Parteien in der EU , p. 179.
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Communists (PdCI), and the Greens. The latest splits on the Italian Left took place in 2009 at the expense of the PRC. In Greece too fissiparous processes are at work. In addition to the Communist Party (KKE) and Synaspismos there is a wide variety of groupings belonging to the left-wing spectrum and whose ideological orientation extends from moderate socialists through Maoists to conspiracy theorists (cf. Marioulas). In France the emergence of new parties or party projects and alliances is proceeding very dynamically at present, with the Ecologie Europe on the one hand and the Front de Gauche on the other. The spectrum of Leftist parties itself currently comprises at least three parties, the most important being the French CP (PCF), the Party of the Left (PG) and the New Anti- capitalist Left (NPA). In Estonia and Belgium the radical left-wing spectrum is highly fragmented and completely marginalized, while in Austria and Luxembourg the Leftist parties make little impact at present. In the Scandinavian countries, on the other hand, the situation of the Leftist parties is remarkable. On the one hand they are, with the exception of Denmark, much less fragmented, and on the other they follow a strong socio-ecological line. This applies particularly to the Left Party in Sweden, the Left Federation in Finland, the Left Green movement in Iceland, the Socialist Left Party in Norway, and the Unity List of the Red-Green Alliance in Denmark. In Denmark there are several communist and Trotskyite parties, including three communist parties, none of which have any real political relevance. In Belgium there exists de facto a double, regionally split party system. The Communist Party of Belgium, the Trotskyite Revolutionary-Communist League, the Workers’ Party of Belgium are all mini-parties without a social or parliamentary base. The 2006 attempt to develop a long-term alliance of Belgian anti-capitalists collapsed in 2009 with the announcement by the Revolutionary Workers’ Party that it would contest the regional and European elections on its own. The Trotskyites also ran alone with their own lists, despite knowing that a fragmented Left stood no chance. The situation in Turkey is a special case. Given the still extremely authoritarian political structure and the conflict in Kurdistan, parties are constantly being banned. For these reasons the left-wing parties in Turkey are still highly fragmented. The development of left-wing parties in the former socialist countries requires a separate
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analysis in view of the radical transformation processes that have taken place since 1989.
Causes and implications of fragmentation
All these developments add up to a very differentiated image for Europe’s Leftist parties. The social base and political effectiveness of the parties mentioned vary greatly. In view of the divergent developments of left-wing parties and their low profile at the European level, the causes of this must be sought not only in external conditions – the national and international balance of political power and the policies of the ruling bourgeois parties – but also in the development of the left-wing parties themselves. This should be subject to analysis, as should the reasons for the persistent frictions and competition between and within the Leftist parties. Some of the contradictions and conflicts arise out of the socio-structural changes in the electorates and membership of left-wing parties and their ability to react to them. Studies have shown that they differ widely in their capacity to win the support of various social, political or cultural milieus (cf. Striethorst). The two voter groups that the Leftist parties can count on are: a) the traditional working class and more recent groups with experience of precarious employment, i.e. those who combine their expectations of left-wing parties with concrete material hopes, so that voting for these parties can be an expression of protest; and b) alternative scene milieus of the “’68 brigade” or younger age groups with post-materialist attitudes, who are often employed in the public sector. A study of the electorate and membership of the parties shows that the majority of left- wing parties often only reach one of the two milieus. The Greek CP is still largely a workers’ party, while the Synaspismos electorate tends to come from student circles and those employed in the public services. Although the PCF in France can still retain the loyalty of workers in its strongholds, it can barely reach the unemployed. It is different with the Left Party in Germany, which claims the loyalty of every fourth unemployed person. Italy’s PRC lost support among all voter strata in the last elections, but its losses were highest among blue- and white-collar workers. Although many Leftist parties claim to be a workers’ party or a party of those who have to work for a living, or of the socially weak, or of the socially or politically discriminated, in most of them workers make up a minority of their members. In the Scandinavian countries it
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is mainly white-collar workers and members of the middle classes that join Leftist parties (cf. Striethorst). Apart from the industrial working class in the classical sense, which is now in decline, the Leftist parties are less and less successful in reaching the working-class circles which have traditionally supported them. They have difficulty in living up to their claim to be the party of the lower orders spread across a range of different working and living conditions and making this the launching pad for their theoretical, political and organizational ideas. Although the increasingly precarious nature of working and living conditions is reflected in social criticism, little attention is paid to its significance as a source of political support for the parties. A large number of those threatened or affected by social and political exclusion are beyond the reach of even the Leftist parties. In France, for example, the left-wing forces failed “to react credibly to the fears of the population caused by increasing social precariousness and the yearning for security” (Sahuc). Even among PRC voters the proportion of the precariously employed or unemployed is very low (in 2008 it was just three percent). The PRC is perceived as the party of employees with “guaranteed jobs”, although Fausto Bertinotti (Secretary of the PRC from 1994 to 2004) has repeatedly drawn attention to the significance of precariousness as an overall social tendency.7 Nowadays Leftist parties must no longer just represent the interests of blue- and white-collar workers who, being securely unionized, belong to the “privileged” lower orders, but also the interests of all those who in all manner of ways are precariously employed in part-time or mini-jobs, or are unemployed and rarely belong to a union. The Leftist parties must take greater account of these new social conditions and competing interests and learn to show solidarity by resolving the new social and cultural tensions between those left-wing actors who still have security and those whose working and living conditions are totally insecure. These conflicts are expressed in different views of society and of what changes are needed, leading to new and different forms of political culture and collective decision-making. Most members of today’s younger and middle generations no longer bear the stamp of the political culture and tradition of the working-class movement, nor do they have life-long party
7 In his opening speech at the VIth Party Congress in 2005 Bertinotti describes precariousness as symbolic of a new social situation which is being extended from the world of work to all human activities and to life itself, as a structural negation of the coalition between workers, and as a principle of neoliberal governments; http://193.96.188.183/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Bertinotti_RedeParteitag_d.pdf.
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allegiances. Their experience of life and their ambitions are different, being embedded in a different social reality. We need to take a closer look at the diversity of left-wing political cultures and traditions. This also involves considering how to cope with different strategic approaches and political aims and how political and ideological differences and controversies are discussed. Comparative analyses of left-wing parties must pay more attention to those constitutive conditions set by the Leftist parties themselves. Although the existence of socially critical positions regarding social justice and democracy is due to the social fault lines, this is far from guaranteeing the political effectiveness and lasting success of parties claiming to tackle these conflicts and resolve them. This raises the question as to what conditions are conducive to the success of Leftist parties. What prevents left-wing parties from marshalling their various potential forces and developing attractive alternative projects, which under the slogan “We can create a different world” could act as a joint starting point? The party research unit subdivides the Leftist parties to the left of social democracy into “radical” and “extreme” left-wing parties, according to their relationship to democracy and capitalism.8 Below this level left-wing parties are further subdivided on the basis of their self- image into communist, pluralist socialist or Left Green parties, or designated on the basis of their historical legacy as communist, socialist or democratic socialist parties. Other distinctions supplement the said parties with categories such as “populist protest parties” or “parties of the little people”, which may be strong on national values, regional autonomy or self-determination, like Sinn Fein in Ireland.
For the parties studied in this publication the editors suggest sub-groups within the family of Leftist parties that relate to the connection between self-image, conceptions of capitalism, alternative social models, and their attitude to their historical legacy. They should then be subdivided into communist parties, reform-communist parties, left-social democratic parties, pluralist left-wing alliances, and Green-alternative (party) alliances.
8 Luke March subdivides these two groups into further sub-groups. Cf. Luke March (2008): Parteien links der Sozialdemokratie in Europa. Vom Marxismus zum Mainstream? http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/ipa/05817.pdf.
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They should differ with regard to their programmatic orientation, strategy and organizational understanding (of the actual party type or that aspired to), including organizational development and inner-party democracy.9
All these factors change in accordance with the social framework and are the result of real struggles, successes and defeats, and ultimately of the capacity of the parties to come to terms with them. Thus all parties founded after 1989 see themselves as pluralist party projects, and their programmatic claims range from a juster society to 21st century socialism. Their actual parliamentary and extra-parliamentary influence on political processes naturally shapes their views of society and their ability to change it, especially if they are successful. Finding itself in government with 31 percent of the vote, the Progressive Party of Working People in Cyprus (AKEL) has to consider – seeing that is why it was elected – how to exploit the opportunities of a ruling party to shape policy. This also applies to the Left Party in the East German Federal states, which routinely wins over 20 percent of the vote in elections.
The selection and assessment criteria used in this article refer (a) to how the parties classify themselves: communist, reform-communist, socialist, Left-Green; (b) to their reflection of communist history – attitude to Stalinism and the Soviet development model; (c) to the ability of the party to develop and adapt to social changes (reformability of party projects); (d) to their formulation of social aims and their preferred ways and means of achieving them; and (e) to the parties’ capacity to cooperate and form coalitions.
The parties studied here include the communist parties which are now among the oldest parties in Europe, having arisen in the early 1920s as independent parties to the left of the Social Democracy; left-wing socialist parties or party alliances which arose as a result of the social upheavals of the late 1960s to the 1970s or 1980s; and parties which have only emerged since the collapse of state socialism, such as the Left Party in Germany. All these parties arose in times of social and political upheavals and unrest as a result of social and political differentiation processes.
An important factor in the development of Leftist parties since the 1960s has been the emergence of new social movements and civil society actors. These include the peace, anti-
9 Discourses on questions of party development or party reforms are scarcely to be found in the country reports of this volume and are therefore hardly touched upon by the comparative analyses.
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nuclear and anti-globalization movements; ecological and climate-protection movements; and new civil society actors in the shape of emancipatory civic organizations. In many European countries the trade unions have been forced onto the defensive, thus blurring the economic conflict between core workforces on the one hand and casualized groups on the other. There arose new forms of organizing those dependent on employment. Thus any analysis of Leftist parties must take account of their relationship to the trade unions and social movements and their capacity to forge bonds with those actors as well.
All parties to the left of the Social Democracy presented here share the political aim of changing social conditions in such a way as to create societies with more social justice, democracy, peace and concern for preserving the natural environment. What divides them, however, is the nature of their critique of capitalism; their view of the systemic changes or transformations that will be required; and the role of new property and power structures. Those who put their faith in a reform of society and those who favour a revolutionary break with the past that would inevitably entail radical changes in ownership structures, confront each other in terms of programme and strategy. The differing notions of system- or formation- related social transitions lead to divergent views on the strategic options available. These include: acceptance of the need for important strategic partners; a preference for political and social alliances and projects; and the relative weight assigned to parliamentary and extra- parliamentary work, culminating in the answer to the question of the conditions for participation in government.
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Sub-groups of the family of Leftist parties
Communists Reformed Left-wing, Left-wing Green- communists welfare-minded socialist parties alternative democratic and party parties and parties alliances party alliances
Examples Communist Party Communist Party Socialist People’s SYNASPISMOS, Red-Green Unity of Greece, of France, Party Party (Denmark), Bloco de Esquerda List (DK), Communist Party of Italian Com- Socialist Party (Portugal), United Socialist Left of Portugal, munists (PdCI), (Netherlands) Left (Spain), Left Party (Norway), Communist Party Communist Party Party (Germany) Left Green of Slovakia of Austria movement (Iceland) Critique of Anticapitalism – Anti-capitalist Capitalist critique Party alliances Ecological, capitalism central conflict critique of of society aimed at representing the economic and seen as between society; centrality concrete changes whole spectrum of feminist labour and of labour and within capitalism critique of questions equally capital. capital issue, but and beyond it. capitalism. important. also feminism and ecology.
Alternativ Communist Communist Solidarity-based Democratic Creation of a e/ path society after long society to be society with strong socialism as socially just, transitional achieved by democratic alternative system ecologically phase, revolutionary participation to capitalism to be sustainable and revolutionary transformation. structures. achieved by an feminist society. path. emancipatory process. Social Lower social Blue- and white- Voter potential Some white-collar Those employed base strata of collar workers, from lower and workers and in the public (social industrial especially in the intermediate strata, university services and dimen- workers, lower- welfare sphere, such as core graduates, some of students – more sions) class white-collar pensioners to a employees and them alternative women than workers, un- reduced degree, those employed in Leftists, newly men. employed, trade the unemployed. the public services. casualized groups, unionists. and the unemployed. Coopera- Vanguard claim Relativized Emphasis on Broad political and Red-red-Green tion and with option of vanguard claim political alliances social alliances political and coalition political alliances aspiring to broad with social with trade unions social alliances. options with trade unions alliances. democrats, and social and social Greens, trade movements. movements. unions and social movements. Projects 21st century Transformation of Solidarity-based Socio-ecological Ecological-social socialism. capitalist society. society that is transformation transformation caring, democratic (emphasis (caring, and ecological. remaining on the ecological and social question). feminist). Forms of Traditional forms Traditional forms Traditional and Diversity of forms Diversity of forms struggle of struggle, such of struggle and new, direct, of struggle. of struggle. as strikes and development of democratic forms demonstrations. new forms of of struggle. struggle.
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All these differences lead to divergent party projects and a wide variety of left-wing party landscapes, giving rise to a fragmented political Left. If one takes a closer look, it becomes clear that it is not the fragmentation of left-wing parties per se that is a problem. This can have political or cultural roots and, as in Portugal, have positive consequences and, under certain circumstances, such as in critical phases of political and social upheavals leading to the emergence of new social fault lines, even intensify. It can be a help in reacting to the social, political and – often underestimated by the Left – political-cultural contradictions that break out among the left-wing actors in the process. It may necessitate programmatic clarifications and learning from history, which can also lead to divisions among the Leftist parties in a country. What is certain is that the various cultural upheavals could not be taken up by the traditional communist parties without placing their own image in question. Nevertheless classical communist parties do not necessarily have to lose their social significance for that reason – see the KKE or AKEL in Greece. Thus fragmentation can – unless hindered by left-wing cooperation arrangements – also promote the success of left-wing parties. The limits are reached, however, when Leftist parties compete for the same voter groups instead of trying to win over important new social groups, if the aim of strengthening the Left as a whole so as to change the social balance of power recedes into the background to be obscured by internal power struggles. Thus the Leftist parties in Greece, France, Spain and Denmark compete with one another without ever managing to expand the voter base of the Left as a whole or to increase their overall result. But even in cases where parties are forced by electoral systems and election thresholds to form political alliances, these are not automatically successful if they lack a single unifying theme, if previous policies have been unsuccessful, or if basic issues of the Left remain unresolved – look at Italy.
A glance back into history The debates on social alternatives are not new, having dogged Leftist parties since their founding. The question of how to bring about social transformation – creating a society free from exploitation and oppression, an “association, in which the free development of each is
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the condition for the free development of all”10 – was crucial to the emergence of social democratic workers’ parties in the second half of the 19th century. Right from the outset these parties fell into two main categories: one that insisted on a revolutionary road to communism, and one that preferred to pursue the path of reform. However it was only the First World War and the European social democratic parties’ approval of that war that led to the split into social democratic and communist parties. The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in October 1917 became the symbol of a radical break with the past and stood for the attempt to build socialism. It seemed to usher in the dictatorship of the proletariat, although it soon deteriorated into a dictatorship of the communist party. Taking advantage of its new prestige in the left-wing movement, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) established its claim to lead the world communist movement. Europe saw the emergence of communist parties of a new type based on the Russian model, claiming to be the conscious vanguard of the working class for the fulfilment of its historical mission. This included the organizational and leadership principle of (democratic) centralism, of Marxism-Leninism as the sole theoretical and political foundation. The Bolsheviks’ successful seizure of power seemed to confirm the correctness of Lenin’s analysis of the development of capitalism into imperialism and of the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution. The exclusive orientation to the Soviet model of socialism and the recognition of the leading role of the CPSU became the decisive ideological criteria of communist parties. Criticism of Bolshevik rule or the proposal of revolutionary or socialist models that deviated from it – as in Yugoslavia, especially the experiment with “worker self-management” and the discourses of the “Praxis Group”11 about a “humane Marxism“ – were relentlessly attacked. The rejection of alternative paths of development or ideas of socialism was linked to an “implacable ideological struggle against any deviation from the Soviet model” as a means of keeping the Stalinist system in power. The persecution of “deviationists” was the ideological justification for the crimes of Stalinism. This continuing legacy of the Stalinist party model and the accompanying geopolitical vision ultimately led to the crushing of the 1956 uprising in Hungary and the
10 Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels [1848]: The Communist Manifesto , Penguin Books, 1967, p. 105.
11 The Praxis group was a group of Yugoslav philosophers and social scientists who represented a humanist, undogmatic Marxism. In 1964 they founded the periodical Praxis , which was banned in 1975. Its editorial board included scholars from Yugoslavia and abroad, such as Norman Birnbaum, Ernst Bloch, Erich Fromm, Jürgen Habermas, Leszek Kołakowski, Henri Lefebvre, Georg Lukács and Herbert Marcuse.
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Prague Spring in 1968, including all the movements supporting them outside the Czechoslovak Republic.
The entry of Soviet troops into Prague, the crushing of the reform-communist movement in the party, and the controversies they generated split the communist parties into those which steadfastly supported the course of the CPSU up to the collapse of state socialism, and those which condemned the crimes of Stalinism, which took a critical look at the development of real socialism and its party dictatorships, and rejected both the Soviet model as the sole valid one and the leading role of the CPSU in the world communist movement. Not only in Finland did the debates on government policy and the disapproval by the majority of the party of the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968 lead to a lengthy fragmentation process on the Left.12 Among the parties which condemned the crushing of the Prague Spring were the so-called Eurocommunist parties in France, Italy, Spain and Sweden. They demanded autonomy and equal rights for all communist parties. They stood for a democratic road to socialism, for a policy of broad alliances and an “opening of Marxism”. They rejected the uncritical support for the socialist states and pleaded for a pluralist, democratic socialism with the rule of law and a multi-party system. This was linked to efforts to “abandon the Leninist party structure”. There were attempts at reform which in addition to abandoning the leading role were aimed at developing instruments of inner-party democracy, such as rotation systems, open party discourses, lists open to non-members, and complaints committees. In fact, however, the real development of these parties lagged far behind these lofty aims, some of which were even withdrawn in the early 1990s.
On the other side were the pro-Soviet communist parties, such as the Luxembourg CP, the (West) German Communist Party (DKP) and the Communist Party of Greece, whose history, cannot be regarded in isolation from the military dictatorship in Greece (1967 – 1974). As for the Luxembourg CP, Sascha Wagener writes that for it the belief in the Soviet Union and the possibility of an alternative to Western capitalism are identifying features and, for trade- unionist CP members, important criteria distinguishing them from the Social Democracy.
12 Cf. Pertti Hynynen/Anna Striethorst: Linke Parteien und Politik in Finnland in Birgit Daiber/Cornelia Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa. Analysen linker Parteien und Parteiallianzen. Aufsätze zur politischen Bildung , RLS Papers Series, Berlin, 2009.
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According to Wagener,13 the intellectuals in this party were convinced that the existence of the socialist camp was necessary for the international balance of power. Furthermore, their proximity to Moscow served to keep them separate from the emergent Green movement. After 1968 many of those communist parties which clung to the Soviet model drifted further and further into political isolation, including the once strong communist parties of Belgium and Luxembourg.
Both the pro-Soviet and the reform-communist tendencies saw themselves as part of the world communist movement and, in view of the political, economic and military confrontation between the two blocs, were anxious to avoid the break-up of the world communist movement.
However, it was not only the political crises of the socialist countries with which the West European Left was confronted. By the end of the 1960s the development of communist parties on the Soviet model was finding itself increasingly in conflict with the realities of the social, political and cultural changes in the industrialized capitalist countries. In the end the communist parties of Western Europe, if they wanted to be successful in their own countries, had to take account of the real conditions of their industrialized capitalist societies and react to the emergence of new social fault lines. The protests of 1968 were directed not only against the occupation of Czechoslovakia and the war in Vietnam, but also against the unsolved structural problems at the universities and colleges; against the abuses afflicting the entire field of education in the early 1960s, chiefly in France but also in West Germany; 14 against the authoritarianism and paternalism of family structures; the school system; and the industrial and corporate structures of Fordism. In addition, however, they were also shaped by new social and cultural upheavals. An expansion of the middle class took place as a result of the expansion of the public and private service sectors.
The communist and socialist parties in the developed capitalist countries, to say nothing of the ruling communist parties in the state socialist countries, utterly failed to grasp the significance of the underlying social upheavals that led to the political unrest of the 1960s, the student
13 Cf. Sascha Wagener: Die Left in Luxemburg in Daiber/Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa , p. 27. 14 In West Germany the failure to come to terms with the Nazi past as demanded by the young generation also played a decisive role in these debates.
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protests, demonstrations and strikes, mainly in France, Germany, the USA, Italy, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland, but also in Poland and Czechoslovakia. These upheavals were an expression of fundamental changes in the social modes of production and living that unleashed processes of social, political and cultural differentiation. These developments – in combination with the educational explosion of the 1960s – changed people’s expectations regarding their right to shape their own future, to have more in political processes, and to be consulted in decision-making processes. These changes in political cultures and individual expectations and their repercussions for left-wing parties were underestimated, resulting in a failure to find the right organizational response. Both the socio-structural and socio-cultural changes were overlaid by political conflicts whose political and “cultural” expression are associated to this day with “May 1968” in Paris. In the last analysis the images of 1968 – students on the barricades in Paris and Soviet tanks in Prague – were part of a “ world revolution”. In the 1960s the Left in both “East and West faced the challenges of a revolution in productive forces”. 15
Today the year 1968 is part of an undigested legacy of the communist and socialist parties, which reacted very differently to post-1968 developments, either holding fast to their traditional understanding of politics and parties, or changing their view of themselves and of politics. Whatever conclusions were drawn, no fundamental changes in the organizational structures were made. One of the consequences of the diversification of social developments, the emergence of new political forms of action and new claims to participate on the one hand, and the failure of communist parties to make a clean break with the past and reform on the other, was the founding of new left-wing parties. Also, new political forms of organization arose outside of the parties. After the 1960s new social movements emerged which later – especially in the West European countries – crystallized into the Green parties. Unlike the communist, socialist and social democratic parties, they were able to win over at least part of the new left- libertarian social milieu to party politics, so that the left-wing party spectrum was now split into social democratic, communist and Green parties, which developed separately.
15 Stefan Bollinger: Die DDR, der Prager Frühling und das Ende des sowjetischen Sozialismusmodells . Presentation at the seminar on “Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the European Left” held by the Party of the European Left in Prague; http://die-linke.de/politik/international/dokumente_der_europaeischen_linkspartei/die _ddr _der_ prager_ fruehling_und_das_ende_des_sowjetischen_sozialismusmodells/.
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It is against this background that we want to make a subdivision into traditional communist parties and reform-communist parties, left-wing socialist parties and Left Green parties. The term “traditional communist parties” is used to refer to those parties that hold fast to the vanguard function of the party, to the overthrow of capitalism by revolutionary means, to communism as the goal of social development, and to Marxism-Leninism as a (scientific) world view. They include the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the Communist Party of Luxembourg (KPL), and the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). Many of these parties upheld the Soviet model of socialism and supported the crushing of the Prague Spring. The condemnation of the crimes of Stalinism as a system is not subscribed to by these parties. For this reason the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KS ČM) only has observer status in the European Left Party.
Among the communist parties that reformed themselves after the 1960s were the French and Italian parties. Today many see the dissolution of such a strong party with such a rich tradition of contributing to the political and theoretical legacy of the European Left as the Communist Party of Italy was the biggest mistake in the history of the Italian Left.
The term “left-wing socialist parties” refers to those parties that aspire to overcome capitalism and bring about a socialist society by a process of transformation. They reject the leading role of the party, seeing themselves as pluralist organizations and part of a broad social alliance with trade unions and social movements. Parties which no longer typically identify a democratic, socially just society with socialism or subordinate the question of system change to the concrete steps which are possible now, are described in this article as “left-social democratic” parties.
The Scandinavian left-wing Green parties in particular favour a firm link between ecological and social questions and social alternatives. They are more Eurosceptical or dismissive of the European Union than other Leftist parties.
The year 1989 and the collapse of state socialism The historian Stefan Bollinger writes that paradoxically the main problem of the year 1968 lies in the years 1973 and 1989, “when the hopes of a democratic road to socialism in the
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West were dashed as were those of a democratic renewal of socialism in the East”. The fascist military putsch in Chile marked the start of the neoliberal assault and the triumph of an aggressively anti-social variant of capitalism.16 The collapse of state socialism led to the profoundest crisis of the Left as a whole and in particular of the communist and socialist parties. The failure of state socialism found very different reflections in the various Leftist parties. For the PDS (one of the two parties that merged to form the Left Party in Germany) the 1989 break with Stalinism as a system was part of the party’s founding consensus. The Party of the European Left was also based on such a founding consensus, including the “unreserved rejection of undemocratic, Stalinist practices and crimes that stand in absolute contradiction to socialist and communist ideals”. 17 Back in 1956 the need to face up to the crimes of Stalinism and the Soviet military intervention in Hungary led to individual processes of change in Leftist parties. In Denmark the Socialist People’s Party (SF) was formed in 1959. The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of a number of left-wing pluralist parties which associated their founding with substantive, social and ideological openings.
These parties included the SP in the Netherlands , which was originally a little Maoist party of the 1970s which evolved into a party that brought together former members of the communist and social democratic parties, Trotskyites and representatives of Groen-Links (Green Leftists), Christian social reformers , intellectuals and activists of social movements, such as that for peace and against militarism, as well as of the anti-nuclear, environmental and anti-globalization movements. Traditionally there has always been a close relationship between the Dutch Leftist parties and representatives of the churches, especially Christian socialists.
In 1975 anti-EC members of the Workers’ Party in Norway and the minority fraction of the CP joined forces with activists of the environmental and women’s movements to form the Socialist Left Party .
The year 1986 saw the formation of the United Left (IU) in Spain, originally as an electoral platform of various parties and movements intended to facilitate Spain’s withdrawal from the
16 Bollinger: Die DDR, der Prager Frühling und das Ende des sowjetischen Sozialismusmodells . 17 European Left Party (2004). Statutes. http://die- linke.de/politik/international/gruendungsdokumente_der_el/statut_der_partei_der_europaeischen_linken_el/.
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NATO military alliance. This later gave rise to the present party in which eight parties, including communist, Trotskyite, humanist and regional parties, are represented.
In 1990 the Left Federation in Finland was founded as the continuation of a network of communist and “democratic” organizations. The new party was intended to unify and reform the squabbling Leftists who had been left in disarray by the collapse of the socialist system. It saw itself as a left-wing alliance “on the side of the workers, for peace and disarmament, for the natural environment, and for the oppressed majority of humanity”. The party was to become a forum in which various Leftist concepts could be exchanged and members engage in mutual support (cf. Kontula/Kuhanen).
Among the new pluralist parties that arose after 1989 in the wake of the dissolution of the PCI the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) occupies a special place. The PRC was able to bring together a broad spectrum of currents in the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary Left, seeing itself as an open and pluralist party. The heterogeneity of political cultures, party political associations, experiences and policies, that had often been at odds with one another in the past, would have been a challenge for any future party formation, especially if, as in Italy, the Left had a strong tendency towards autonomy. For this reason the palpable failure of the PRC’s broad pluralist approach to party-building and the current splits in the European Left must be analysed more closely. The sad fact is that the PRC, which had been so proud of its record up to 2006 (when it took part for the second time in a Centre-Left government), failed to clear the four-percent hurdle in the 2008 elections after Romano Prodi stepped down (cf. Hagemann).
Among the new pluralist types of Leftist parties that arose after 1989 as the result of party mergers is the Red-Green Unity List in Denmark . As a result of “bitter experience” it was formed in 1989 out of the Danish Communist Party (DKP), the Left-wing Socialist Party (VS) and the Trotskyite SAP (Socialist Workers’ Party, IVth International) as an electoral alliance designed to overcome the narrowness of the individual parties and the two-percent hurdle, thus ensuring seats in the Folketing. A prerequisite was the political reform of the DKP (cf. Johansen).
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The Left Bloc (BE) in Portugal , founded in 1999 as an alliance of parties, also numbers communist and Trotskyite parties among its constituent parties. Other pluralist party projects are the Left-Green Movement of Iceland (founded in 1999) and The Left in Luxembourg (founded in 1999).
After 1989 the historical, political and ideological legacy of the reform-communist, socialist and left-wing Green parties and those parties that reconstituted themselves was substantially extended to include the humanist and democratic traditions of the socialist idea, the legacy of the women’s, peace, anti-nuclear and environmental movements, the anti-globalization movement and today’s movements for climate protection and global social rights. They all share an abandonment of the communist “party of a new type”, i.e. the rejection of the claim to a “leading role” and of Marxism-Leninism as the sole theoretical and ideological foundation of the party.
Apart from the attempt at Austrocommunism in the years 1965-69, which included the rejection of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Communist Party of Austria took its cue from the CPSU for decades, admitted its allegiance to its communist legacy even after 1989, and retained its name, although it wanted to renew itself on the basis of a new interpretation of Marx. Its attempts at renewal were linked to “a view of the party in keeping with the times”, to which “feminism, internationalism, participation and radicalism belong in equal measure”. 18
Communist and socialist parties in the former socialist countries (except Russia, Ukraine and Belarus)
With the collapse of state socialism new party systems arose in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The former communist state parties undertook the transformation of the party system or they were forced to dissolve themselves by such newly founded political formations as the “Front for National Salvation” in Romania.
The social upheavals, including the transformation of the entire political system of the socialist countries, led to the adoption of Western democratic or party systems, especially in
18 Leo Furtlehner: Zur Situation der Linken in Österreich in Daiber/Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa , p. 102.
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those countries which aspired to join the EU. The successor parties arose as a result of fissiparous and/or merger processes. In Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary the communist successor parties or newly founded parties took a strongly social democratic line.19 They included the SLD in Poland, the now insignificant Party of the Democratic Left (SDL) in Slovakia, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), and the socialist or social democratic parties of the former Yugoslavia. Although the Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSD) does not see itself as the successor to the Romanian Communist Party, it does contain some of the old political elite of that party. It acts on a pragmatic and opportunistic basis with regard to coalitions with the right- or left-wing party political camp.
All these parties belonged more or less to the party political “managers” of the transformation processes: some were in government and some still are.20 After 1989/90 the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), a direct successor to the Bulgarian Communist Party, had largely retained its leadership but renamed itself and dissociated itself from Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism. A large part of the socialist state property at home and abroad was put at the personal disposal of the leading and intermediate cadres. The BSP is far removed from left-wing socialist positions. Only in 2006 did it begin to develop a left wing which has increasingly been taking a critical view of its own party, saying that the BSP is far from having left-wing values and is also an oligarchic party for which “power is linked to cash and nepotism”. This made the founding of a new, “pragmatic, left-wing social democratic party” necessary. “It is not a question of revolution, but quite simply of (Western) European standards for the country” (cf. Müller).
Poland’s social democratic party, the Union of the Democratic Left (SLD), the strongest party in the left-wing spectrum, never saw itself as a welfare-oriented party. It justified this with the argument that this was the “card of the Right” and it was going to take up other issues. This is not the case with the Polish Union of Labour (UP). It has its origins in the Solidarno ść trade union and is more welfare-oriented than the SLD. Against this background the UP puts much more emphasis on community questions, the development of society and the protection of all
19 Cf. Michael Dauderstädt/Britta Joerißen: Die Europapolitik linker Parteien in den postkommunistischen Beitrittsländern , Bonn, 2003, p. 6. 20 Cf. ibid.; (cf. also Kanzleiter/Tomic).
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sorts of minorities, while the SLD focuses on a rapid accession to the EU, civil rights and a secular state (cf. Pilawski/Politt).
The successor parties of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia include the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Union of Social Democrats of Macedonia, the Democratic Party of the Socialists of Montenegro (DSP), the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia, and the Social Democratic Party of Croatia. The post-communist Social Democrats in Bosnia-Herzegovina are fragmented into various parties with only local influence (cf. Kanzleiter/Tomic).
Other parties originating from a former communist state party, such as the Slovak KSS or the Czech reform-communist KS ČM, retained their communist orientation. With the exception of the KS ČM, however, these are very small or mini-parties which, if they hold elected office at all, are only represented at municipal level and have no real political or social weight. So while one could, for example, reel off a list of remarkably named communist parties in Bulgaria, Romania or Poland, none of them would have any real social impact.21 Their view of themselves largely corresponds to that of the traditional communist parties. Thus at its VIth Party Congress in 2008 the CP of Slovakia defined itself as a Marxist- Leninist party which draws on the positive legacy of the past while at the same time being a party of the modern communist Left. The party is to develop as a “high-principled and at the same time realistic and modern left-wing party which recognizes the bourgeois basic rights and basic freedoms enshrined in the Slovak Constitution and international agreements on bourgeois and party political rights”. 22
One of the oldest left-wing parties in Poland is the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) with a tradition going back 115 years, while one of the most recently founded parties is Racja (Viewpoint), which campaigns for the separation of church and state in Poland and for the rights of minorities, e.g. same-sex unions. Both parties, however, are of little parliamentary or social significance. Nor do the communist parties in Bulgaria, such as the Bulgarian Communist Party or the Party of Bulgarian Communists, have any socio-political relevance. They are not represented
21 See the contributions by Holger Politt, Dorothée de Nève/Tina Olteanu in Daiber/Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa. 22 Heiko Kosel: Die Kommunistische Partei der Slowakei in Daiber/Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa , pp. 110-116.
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in the national parliament. How the new party political project Bulgarian Left (BL), a former left wing of the Bulgarian Social Democrats and currently a member of the European Left Party, will develop, is an open question. In Romania the radical Left operates exclusively in the extra-parliamentary arena. Unlike the moderate Left, it follows the tradition of the national communist past and of a democratic socialism.23 In 2006 the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS) failed to clear the five-percent hurdle, winning only 3.8 percent of the vote. In Yugoslavia the successor parties to the League of Communists include the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Union of Social Democrats of Macedonia, the Democratic Party of the Socialists of Montenegro (DSP), the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia and the Social Democratic Party of Croatia. The post- communist Social Democrats in Bosnia-Herzegovina are fragmented into various parties with only local influence (cf. Kanzleiter/Tomic). The Left Party in Germany, which arose as a merger of the PDS, based mainly in the East German Federal states, and the WASG – an electoral platform of left-wing social democrats, trade unionists, representatives of Trotskyite parties, anti-capitalist Leftists and activists of the anti-globalization Left in the West German Federal states – met the need for an all-German party which the PDS by itself was for various reasons unable to fill. The Left Party sees itself as a pluralist force for democratic socialism. It is a new type of Leftist party, which arose in response to the neoliberal policies of the Social Democrats. It contains representatives of completely different left-wing organizations – communists, reformed communists, socialists, social democrats, Trotskyites, trade unionists, critics of globalization, and – much less numerous – peace and environmental activists. It has strong left-wing socialist and left-wing social democratic leanings.
New alliances – and new splits
A large number of the aforementioned pluralist parties initially took the form of united-action or electoral alliances. This is true of the Unity List for the Left Bloc (Portugal), the United Left (Spain) and the German Left Party, which arose out of an effort to boost their election results. Against a background of seriously fragmented party systems and left-wing party
23 Cf. Dorothée de Néve/Tina Oltenau: Die Linke in Rumänien in Daiber/Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa , p. 155.
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landscapes and the electoral systems they were subject to, Leftist parties were forced to form electoral platforms with as broad a party coalition as possible. In Belgium this led to the cry: “A different politics” and the formation in 2006 of a new coalition called “A Different Left” (Une Autre Gauche – UAG) composed of critical trade unionists, independent Leftists, the CP, the Revolutionary-Communist League (LCR/SAP) and other parties like the Trotskyite Socialist Party of Struggle ( Parti Socialiste de Lutte – PSL). The alliance collapsed, however, in 2009, when the Workers’ Party and the LCR/SAP competed against each other in the European elections.
Founded in 2004, the left-wing Greek alliance SYRIZA currently unites twelve parties, social movements and organizations, of which the most significant are: SYNASPISMOS; the Renewed Communist and Ecological Left (AKOA, having observer status in the European Left Party); the Democratic Social Movement (DIKKI, an autonomous force in the Greek Parliament of the 1990s); and the so-called Active Citizens. The shared core of these ideologically widely separated groupings remains their resistance to the government formed by the two large parties, who are deemed to have a neoliberal outlook. SYRIZA created vastly greater scope for action and publicity, which benefited the smaller member parties. SYNASPISMOS expressed a desire for a united Left (cf. Marioulas).
In 2007 it was the French Trotskyites who rejected a unified political Left – like the NPA in the 2009 European elections. Nevertheless there developed in France, over and above the electoral platform, a new alliance, the Front de Gauche , in which the PCF and the Left Party (Parti de Gauche ) cooperated with each other in 2009/10 (cf. Sahuc). Both the PCF and the Parti de Gauche profited from the attempt to create a new multi-party Left Front for the 2009 elections to the European Parliament so as to free themselves from their long-standing dilemma of “coalesce with the PS or perish!” (cf. Sahuc).
Under what conditions are these various alliances successful?
New failures – new splits
Among the parties which are of most importance to the development of the European Left are the PRC and Synaspismos, whose organizational structures and policies had an impact on other European parties and whose relationship to the diversity of new social movements based
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on new institutions, such as the European social forums, was an example to Europe’s Leftists. In view of this fact the recent fissiparous processes within both parties are of significance for the European Left as a whole, especially as both parties belong to the founding members and driving forces of the Party of the European Left.
After the unsuccessful elections of 2008 in Italy Rifondazione Comunista split into one wing aiming at making the party and its political development independent of the Social Democrats while bringing its organizational development more into line with its communist legacy and its image of itself as the party of the new working class, and another insisting on the continuing necessity of cooperation with the Social Democrats. The latter sees itself as a representative of social movements both inside and outside parliament. In 2009 there was an official split and a new party arose called Socialism and Freedom – Movement for the Left (SEL – MpS Socialismo e Libertà – Movimento per la Sinistra ), which initially took the form of an electoral platform of parties and movements representing traditional strands of the Italian Left. By its own account the SEL unifies for the first time organizations of the communist and socialist libertarian milieus with those of the environmental movement, sections of the “social Left”, and left-wing intellectuals, thus consciously placing itself in a different political tradition than that of the PRC. This is worthy of note, as the PRC had also seen itself as a new party model whose task consisted in bringing together old and new movements, such as the trade-unionist and anti-globalization movements, thus contributing to the emergence of a “new working-class movement” and creating the prerequisites for the long-term overcoming of capitalist society and liberation from wage slavery.24 It was precisely this modern image projected by the PRC that made it so attractive in the eyes of many Leftists in Europe. It finally foundered as a result of participation in government and the strategic weaknesses this revealed, including the false estimation of the political and social cooperation partners for a Centre-Left government. At the same time the PRC overestimated its capacity for action in this government and the role of social movements as stable, left-wing forces critically supporting the work of the government on the basis of solidarity. The problem of how to create its own profile on the basis of concrete political and organizational development remained unsolved. The clarification of basic programmatic questions and their
24 Cf. Mimmo Porcaro: Die italienische Partei der kommunistischen Neugründung (PRC) in Michael Brie/Cornelia Hildebrandt (eds.): Für ein anderes Europa. Linksparteien im Aufbruch , Reihe Texte, Berlin, 2005, p. 291 ff.
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linkage to genuine radical policies never took place. Neither concrete improvements in living conditions were possible, nor the realization of alternative projects. No progress was made in laying the foundations for creating social and political majorities.
The central conflict of the Greek Left within Synaspismos could be described in similar terms. Here too different strategic approaches, especially to the relationship with the Social Democrats, led to the breaking away of a strong parliamentary social-democratic-oriented group and the founding in June 2010 of a new party called the Democratic Left, in which, as in the Italian SEL, a large number of elected officials organized themselves into a new party. So far, however, none of the numerous tendencies (not only in Greece and Italy) has proved able, either theoretically or in terms of genuine radical policies, to solve the problem of winning social and political majorities for a change of social system.
After the failure of the state-socialist countries there is a lack of vision – and not just on the Italian or Greek Left – regarding a radical and yet viable socio-ecological transformation. Socialism – or a just society based on solidarity – is still the social goal of Leftist parties. How to get there, however, is an open question.
Views of socialism and of the party
The identity of the Left is bound up with its commitment to social justice, to a society that is more caring, democratic and peaceful. This society is described as a solidarity-based or socialist society which can be developed either by revolutionary or transformative processes, or by reforms.
The Left Federation in Finland has dispensed with the term “socialism” and describes the society it aspires to as one that is democratic, peaceful, and politically and culturally open.
A social goal formulated in more or less general terms has also been adopted by the SP in the Netherlands, which like many other parties following the collapse of state socialism strove to find a new perspective which was distinct both from the socialist model practised thitherto and from the line of the social democratic parties. The aim of social development was to be to change capitalism by a policy of “re-regulation of national capitalism with communist elements, a Christian social ethic, the use of new media, and a specifically grass-roots-
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oriented organizing concept”. 25
Parties that call themselves socialist use the term in different ways and associate it with different concepts and strategies. For some socialism means a society that can be reached by means of social and democratic improvements in the concrete ways of working and living under capitalism, for others it means a transformation that begins in capitalism but goes beyond it, while for others again it is the result of a revolutionary upheaval for which preparations are to be made today. The Socialist People’s Party in Denmark aims at a “popular socialism” that is distinct from real or scientific socialism, meaning by this a juster society. Many of the parties under investigation here, such as the Unity List in Denmark, the Left Parties in Germany and Luxembourg, or the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), use the word “socialism” to mean a democratic socialism which includes democratic ways of transition, although these ways have yet to be conceptualized. To this the Danish Unity List adds an ecological dimension. The KS ČM in the Czech Republic refers to socialism as the “transition from the capitalist form of society to a juster society – socialism”. It defines socialism as “a democratic society that will protect the political, personal, economic and social rights of all human beings on the basis of a prospering economy and full employment” (cf. Holubec).
The Left Bloc in Portugal describes socialism as a concrete policy of struggle against exploitation, for the democratization of social relations, for common property, and against oppression. For the Greek CP socialism is the “ultimate goal of the revolutionary transformation of Greek society through the abolition of capitalism and the building of socialism and communism” (cf. Marioulas).
The NPA in France speaks of a 21st century socialism. The aim of the New Anti-capitalist Party is a system of collective organization, an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. It draws upon the class struggles of the socialist, communist, libertarian and revolutionary traditions and a socialism that is free from exploitation and oppression, racism and all discrimination, not least of women. Socialism places the private ownership of the means of production in question. But first profit must be redistributed in the form of pay rises, pensions for old people and minimal social living
25 Cornelia Weissbach: Die emanzipative Linke in den Niederlanden in Daiber/Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa , p. 37.
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standards. This is the urgent response to the immediate needs of those worst affected by the crisis. The necessary revolutionary break with the past must be part of a mass mobilization for a different Europe.
The last AKEL Party congress in Cyprus in 2005 retained the concept of scientific socialism. Its statutes continue to correspond to those of a cadre party. In practice, however, AKEL had already embarked on a reform-communist course even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It does not claim that the party is the vanguard of the working class whose sole legitimate representative it is, and does not aspire to a revolutionary, but to a reformist transformation of society in the direction of socialism. This change of heart is doubtless due to its experience of power.
Ideas of socialism in post-socialist countries
The programmatic switch to a democratic socialism is more difficult in countries that have experienced state socialism at first hand. The idea of socialism and its practical manifestation still met with approval among sections of the population immediately after the collapse of the state socialist system. A survey taken in the year 2000, showing considerable differences between the former socialist countries and reflecting to some extent their various stages of development and standard of living, is worth noting. In 2000 approval of the idea of socialism was, with the exception of Germany, well below the value placed on the reality in all other countries which experienced what was known as “really existing socialism”. In Germany the value placed on the idea of socialism was highest (two thirds of respondents), while approval of what it was like in practice was expressed by just over a third – a mean value compared to the other former socialist countries. The lowest ratings were those in the Czech Republic, where only a fifth of respondents expressed their approval both of the idea and the reality. The highest ratings for the idea (half) and the reality (over two thirds) were in Bulgaria. The ratings in Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland and Romania were somewhat lower.
The German Left Party wants “to build up a democratic socialist society in which the freedom and equality of each and every individual is the condition for the development of all in solidarity”. This can be attained – according to the draft for a new party platform to be
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approved in 2011 – by means of an emancipatory process in which the dominance of capital is overcome by democratic, social and ecological forces, giving rise to a society of democratic socialism. Worthy of note is the more libertarian formulation of the PDS party platform of 2003, which says socialism through freedom is the possibility of shaping one’s own life and society by oneself and in association with others: freedom as a point of reference of socialist policy, equality as the measure of participation in the benefits of freedom.
The representatives of the PPS in Poland describe themselves as Polish socialists and include the entire history of the party in their view of themselves, a party which has consistently stood for social justice, a democratic understanding of socialism, and Polish independence.
Although the Estonian Left can base itself on the fact that left-wing – socialist – politics is mainly associated in the Estonian mass consciousness with the welfare state and support for the socially weak, this notion of left-wing politics leads to nothing more than “consumer or school socialism”. The state is regarded as a landlord on whose grace and favour the fate of society depends. “This is the image of socialism that many inhabitants of Estonia still have. Those who yearn for the return of such a “landlord” are the oldest and not particularly well educated or qualified section of the Russian-speaking population, which under the Soviet regime included industrial workers” (cf. Golikov/Palm). In contrast to this is the ideal of a pluralist socialism, which does not deny the experience gained from the former kind of socialism, but wants to critically supersede it.
In the formulation of the platforms of all Leftist parties the contentious issues that are subject to the most heated discussion are the centrality of the conflict between labour and capital, the ownership question, and participation in government. To sum up we can say that the term “revolution” is largely used nowadays by the parties studied here to describe the historical context of 1917 or 1989. The term “transformation” is also used primarily as a historical category or an all-embracing description of political, social or global changes. Sometimes the term “transformation” refers to the post-1989 changes, as it is in sociological research, without political implications. In internal party politics this term is much less frequently used as a strategic approach in the sense of necessary alternative transformation processes. “Social transformation is a struggle for a change in the balance of forces in society, and no state power is worth having if it does not also entail transformational
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autonomy and the effective ability to break with the prevailing interests and the powers that be in the economic, political and social fields,” writes José Soeiro of the Bloco de Esquerda .26 How this is to come about is an open question and subject to dispute, not just for the Portuguese Left. In this sense we are still waiting for a “positive” analysis of the failure of the state socialist model and of the illusion of a peaceful way. What is noticeable, although it cannot be explored any further here, is that the radicalization of left-wing positions, especially in the West European parties, constitutes a return to the classical instruments and theoretical legacy of Marxism – supplemented by feminist and ecological issues and more recent analyses of classes and capitalism – with the aim of a revolutionary change of society. At the same time, however, the real demands of most Leftist parties are focused on questions of distribution, while the study of questions of alternative modes of production and living lags behind (cf. Striethorst). The diversity of approaches with regard to methods, strategies and image will continue to shape the future of Europe’s Leftist parties. The debates “within the Left” may increase in the coming years under the pressure of social polarization and growing social, political and cultural exclusion processes and may be linked to the question of the attitude to left-wing violence.
Problems of pluralism
For parties of the radical Left the term “pluralist”, depending on the image they wish to project: means the abandonment of their claim to a leading role and the productive study of different world views arising out of the entire democratic left-wing legacy and entailing different views of present developments in capitalism.
In the opinion of Mimmo Porcaro, the Rifondazione Comunista missed a historical opportunity in 2006 of using federative forms of cooperation to unite parties and social initiatives on a basis of equality in a joint project to integrate with itself the new social base of the anti-globalization movements and the trade unions. The PRC had “as part of the movement” not submitted to any conscious organizational reordering of the relationship to its
26 José Soeiro: Der Bloco de Esquerda und die Neugründung der Linken in Portugal in Daiber/Hildebrandt (eds.): Die Linke in Europa , p. 137 f.
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external subjects, “but merely [attempted] an imitation of the pluralism of the movements within the PRC organization”. 27
What was and what is the problem? Pluralism in parties comes up against their hierarchical structures and must impose itself in the power spaces of the parties, even if they are open and transparent. Pluralism as the unity of different yet equal views of politics and policies is not harmonious, but combative, not a final state to be reached, but part of a functioning inner- party democracy. Pluralism can only contribute its full potential to left-wing parties if it is organically distributed across the individual levels and bodies, adaptable and structurally elaborated, and if the parties create open participatory spaces which are of party political relevance and can thus influence the decisions of the party bodies. in this sense pluralism must rediscover itself “organically” in the structures and developments of its own organization and be able to reinvent itself – under the protection of and malleable by instruments of inner-party democracy.
The policy of strategic alliances will only be convincing to the public if the latter finds a corresponding phenomenon within the party, and the struggle for power is combined with the aim of “giving it up or passing it on” in the sense of the broadest possible participation in decision-making processes. Moreover pluralism must also prove successful in practice – in the social activities of parties, their acceptance and growing influence.
Inner-party democracy is interpreted and implemented differently by the parties, depending on their view of themselves and their history. In situations where communist parties were persecuted and banned, as in Spain, Portugal, Greece or Cyprus, strict democratic centralism was seen as a necessary means of “guaranteeing discipline among the members” (cf. Marioulas).
Under the conditions of state socialism inner-party democracy was stifled by communist dictatorship. The forming of fractions was forbidden. The public discussion of controversial issues was impossible. Under the conditions of developed capitalist states democratic centralism increasingly served as a means of resisting party reforms. The after-effects have
27 Mimmo Porcaro: Die Partei der kommunistischen Neugründung zwischen scheinbarer Kontinuität und tatsächlicher Diskontinuität ; www.rosalux.de .
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still left their mark on the classical communist parties such as AKEL (cf. Marioulas). Thus for a long time Luxembourg’s CP was unable to shake itself free from centralism. The SP (Netherlands) is still strictly organized on centralist principles while at the same time being close to the grass-roots and local activities, their decentralized campaigns being laid down by the party leadership.
For Déi Lénk (Luxembourg), on the other hand, the breach with this notion of democracy as part of the founding consensus according to which “all members of the Left retain their freedom of opinion, both inside and outside the movement”. 28 The Greek CP is still bound by the programme approved at the 15th Party Congress, which defines it as a revolutionary organization and vanguard of the working class, whose organization according to the principles of democratic centralism is enshrined in its statutes. Important resolutions are passed either by the Central Committee – or more likely by the Politburo – or the party congresses held every five years. The forming of fractions is not allowed, and the regional organizations have hardly any possibilities of publishing their own material, although they are plentifully supplied with that of party headquarters.
However the parties practise inner-party democracy or understand pluralism, they will only be successful in the long term if they present social interests attractively from a programmatic, strategic and cultural point of view, i.e. if they combine vision and daily experience with genuine radical policies. They will only be successful if they themselves are socially open projects and address the central questions of the day and, like the SV in Norway, meet social and ecological issues with realistic policies. The SV can impose some of its demands as a ruling party. This is where the yardstick of left-wing participation in government is really applied, though it remains a challenge. People are profiting from the red-red coalition between the Social Democratic Workers’ Party, the Socialist Left Party and the peasant party, and especially the Workers’ Party, in political terms. The latter has proved a dilemma that faces not only the Norwegian Left. In coalitions with a social democratic party the profile of a party to the left of it is often lost sight of.
28 Wagener: Die Linken in Luxemburg , p. 28.
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Thus for Leftist parties their system-changing approach remains important as their alternative social vision. The trick is still to combine this vision with practical realpolitik, as parties in government, in opposition, or in the extra-parliamentary Opposition. This also includes independent socio-political projects which differ from those of the Social Democrats and Greens and yet can fit in with them.
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