Hooked Horseshoe Theory Suggests That the Two Extremes of Political

1 Hooked Horseshoe theory suggests that the two extremes Rather than remembering the roles European of political ideology, the far left and right, are not nations played in exporting capitalism, empire, positioned at opposite ends of a straight line, but and disease across the globe, the resolution called as two points closer to each other than either is to for member states to remember very specifi c the centre. To many adherents of this theory, the elements of the second World War. On its face, horseshoe is in fact more of a circle, where left and this is an admirable (if somewhat trite) gesture. right meet, collapsing political and ideological Looking deeper into the motion, one can see that diff erences into ill-defi ned concepts like ‘totalitar- the only crimes to be remembered are those of the ianism’, ‘extremism’, or ‘radicalism’. fascist and socialist nations, whose ‘totalitarian- ism’ was seemingly the only cause of the war and On September 18, 2019, the European Parliament its atrocities. Th e USSR and Nazi Germany, Stalin passed a resolution ‘on the importance of Europe- and Hitler, are portrayed as having strode side by an remembrance for the future of Europe’. side across the continent, spreading demagogy wherever they went. Believing this story re- European nations were on the brink of their 2 quires one to ignore the fact that Nazi Germa- own revolutions. In 1919, the Communist Party ny exterminated communists alongside Jews, of Germany, formed of those disillusioned with Roma, and other ‘undesirables’, and put out of the governing Socialist Party of Germany, led one’s mind the 27 million Russians who died in an uprising in emulation of the Bolsheviks in the fight against Hitler and fascism.1 Russia. Rather than encouraging conciliation with the revolutionaries, or acceding to any This is horseshoe theory in action. Liberals of their demands, the centre-left socialists and conservatives in the European parliament engaged the services of ultra-nationalist para- lining up to declare their ‘radical’ opponents military forces known as Freikorps to brutally indistinguishable from one another, according put down the rebellion, murdering thousands, to a strange and inaccurate history of the 20th including the famous theorist and leader Rosa Century. It would be laughable, but for the fact Luxemburg. The Freikorps would go on to form that many far-right European parties voted for the base of the Nazi Party. the motion, expressing their full support for the political maneuvering of the liberal centre Somewhat less dramatically, we can think of against its vaguely drawn enemies. the New Zealand Labour Party’s behaviour when forming governments post-MMP. After For the ascendant nationalists in Hungary, the 1999 election, Labour were forced to rely Romania, and Poland, this motion provides on the support of both the Alliance and the fuel for the fight against a displaced com- Greens to form a government. Heading into munism (expressed through culture wars 2002, the Alliance had split over the issue of against shadowy ‘cultural Marxists’ attempt- sending troops to Afghanistan, and tensions ing to bring down the structure of the family, with the Greens were running high over the the community, and the state), and a new debate around genetically modified organisms. acceptance by their respectable Western and In a memorable moment during the campaign, Northern European colleagues. Unlike those in Prime Minister Helen Clark referred to the the West who believe that ‘cultural Marxism’ is Greens as ‘goths and anarcho-fem- behind everything from increasing acceptance inists’. Rather than form a similar of gender diversity to gun control legislation, coalition in 2002, Labour threw their non-white immigration to decreased speed erstwhile partners to the wind, doing limits, conservative nationalists in these coun- everything in their power to margin- tries have the power to implement their crazed alise the left and embrace the con- agendas. In doing so they face little to no push- servative-Christian United Future back from centrist ideologues as long as they party. In 2005 Labour moved even 1) reject traditional Nazi symbology or overt further to the right, relying on both anti-semitism and 2) project economic compe- United Future and the xenopho- tence. ‘Anti-communism’ when unleashed as bic-nationalist New Zealand First it has been in the former Soviet bloc is a rabid party for support. Under the sixth virus that doesn’t only attack communists, but Labour Government, headed by strikes at anyone fighting for progressive social Jacinda Ardern, government policy change, or against the corruption of the ruling appears to live or die at the whim of parties. New Zealand First, which as recently as 2017 was seen as a proving ground As we can see in this example, whereas the or- for New Zealand’s young alt-right. ganic theory of the ‘pragmatic’ political centre has the left and right collapsing into one an- The horseshoe is a falsehood. Not other, in practice the tendency for the right and only do the far right and far left have very little centre to overlap to the point of indistinction in common, but the political centre has consist- is far stronger. History is full of such occur- ently aligned itself with the right rather than rences. Following the first World War and the allow the left a taste of power. A more accurate Russian Revolution, Germany and many other visual metaphor for the political spectrum is the fishhook, where the far-left is at one end of Fascism doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s a 3 a straight line, the centre further along the line, strategic response from the ruling class to and the far right hooking around close to the a crisis of capitalism. When the rate of profit middle. begins to fall, or working class movements gain strength, fascism (propped up by the centre) is To merely assert this, even with the aid of allowed to thrive in order to restore conditions historical examples like those given above, is to of profitability. As with Capital’s other means repeat the logic of the horseshoe theoreticians. of restoring profitability, imperialism, this Instead, we need to search for the reasons entails the violent imposition of a dictator- underlying the solidarity between the right and ship and the crushing of organised resistance the centre. movements, while enforcing open markets and ensuring the privileges of the elite. It is no The traditional Marxist understanding of this mistake that one leading theorist of fascism de- tendency, still largely accurate, is that politics scribes it as the application of the techniques of is an expression of class conflict; class war by colonisation to the population of the imperial other means. Allegiances in this war are of ul- core. In the same way that they propped up the timate importance. The right’s marriage to the murderous colonial expeditions of history to bourgeoisie, and the socialist left’s to the work- save capitalism from crisis, conservatives and ing class, is self evident. More of a challenge is liberals enable fascism at home. figuring out the class allegiance of those that claim to be neutral in this conflict, generally As well as considering the class allegiances liberal or conservative centrists. Though they of political actors, we also have to analyse the will very rarely be open about it, clouding their very nature of the state. The state as we know it politics with appeals to notions of cross-class emerged under very particular conditions in a unity or denunciations of the political altogeth- very particular place, and still bears the marks er, the attachment of the centre to the status of its birth. Marxists understand the state as quo seals their status as tools of the ruling an expression of class rule, an instrument to be wielded by whichever class controls it, but in more sophisticated accounts grant it a degree of autonomy. Thus, while recognising that the state as it currently exists is thoroughly bour- geois, there remains the possibility of genuinely progressive reforms being won through its channels, and further that the working class can eventually conquer and make use of it for our own ends. This analysis is correct, but its dry mechanical nature obscures what really lies behind the power of the state: nothing. Or, more accurately, nothing but pure violence. Here the widely used liberal definition of the state as possessing ‘the monopoly on the 1 None of this is to excuse Stalin or the Russian state for their numerous crimes. These abuses, however, were driven by an entirely different logic than that of Nazism. The Soviet state was not genocidal, and was class. When a serious challenge to the power rooted in universal values, as opposed to the of the ruling class emerges, as in the failed particularism of Nazism (or fascism more broadly). The collapsing of the two categories doesn’t just serve German revolution of 1919, the centre will use to demonise the Soviets, it also prevents an accurate any means at their disposal to combat this, accounting of the material and ideological causes of including allegiances with the fascist right. the atrocities they committed. legitimate use of violence’ is more instructive. This doesn’t imply an idealism, or an aban- 4 The secret that we all know but refuse to speak is donment of the state to forces that would that at the heart of the law is not moral certitude, gladly use it against us, but compels us to be more human rights, or even class rule, but the threat of creative in imagining a future society predicated violence. on something other than brute force.

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