Published on June 4, 2024, by Il Grido del Popolo©️
From the sixth to the ninth of June, approximately 400 million EU citizens will partake in the democratic ritual of electing the next 720 members of the European Parliament. This event, often hailed as a holiday of democracy, may very well become a pivotal moment for a multitude of principles that underpin the bourgeois ideals of a democratic civil society.
Tolerance, diversity, equality, pluralism, individual rights, social welfare, accountability—these cornerstones of the current liberal paradigm are facing intense scrutiny as traditionally center-right and right-wing parties undergo a profound radicalization. The creeping normalization of fascist tendencies across European societies casts a long shadow over the socio-economic and politico-institutional future of the European Union. It is no surprise, then, that the ongoing campaigns by social democrats, social liberals, greens, and even some moderate conservatives to maintain the already strained relations of power, production, and reproduction reflect a palpable tension, bordering on horror.
To be more precise, the majority of analyses from various research centers and institutes suggest a clear restructuring of parliamentary seats, potentially transforming not only the image but also the entire politics of the European Parliament and the European Union. Undoubtedly, the illiberal threat emerges from the increasingly popular European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the radical right Identity and Democracy (ID) group. For now, I will intentionally spare the Left and other “socialist” contenders from scrutiny, as their relegation to the political margins (literally a mouse hole) speaks volumes about their significance on the world-historical and political stage.
As my colleague and dear comrade Gordan Stošević reminded us just before the New Year that the world will never be the same after the 2024 election year:
Imagine that round table, where in the near future the leaders of political parties such as the French National Front, the German AFD, the Italian Brothers, the Spanish VOX, the Portuguese CHEGA!, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Orban’s FIDESZ in Hungary, as well as Janša’s SDS in Slovenia and Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Polish PIS when they return to power. And all this supplemented with the extreme right in the Netherlands and the Scandinavian big four. Then this kind of Europe does not need any Russian military aggression, this bloc might be just enough to completely destroy the idea of European unification.
Amidst the formalist and positivist anticipations of the election outcome, analyses that predict a preliminary victory for populist, neofascist tendencies in European politics—fueled by a multitude of crises (employment, security, finance, war, agriculture, climate, energy, housing, health, etc.)—miss one crucial element that we Marxists never overlook. Indeed, a critique of capital in the context of an institutional sacrifice of liberal-democratic freedoms for the sake of unbridled accumulation forms our foundational approach to any unfolding historical process.
If we dare to zoom out from Europe and examine the geopolitical contours of global capitalism, we can clearly perceive—unless lost in the fog of bourgeois thought—a new redivision of the world, not into colonies, but into blocs, though peripheral states continue to occupy a colonial or semi-colonial position in the world economy. Just over a hundred years ago, finance capital pressured nationalist blocs into inter-imperialist rivalry, culminating in total war. Today’s geopolitics are not radically different, and despite the tangible tendencies toward fascistization, they reveal a much milder ideological antagonism.
Unlike in 1917, the idea of a proletarian or socialist revolution is nowhere in sight, save for a small number of closed, typically elitist intellectual circles. For the working class—the electoral masses—the bloody revolution that some Leftist ideologues still fantasize about from the comfort of their offices is no longer a viable political option. Apart from Lenin and the other luminaries at the forefront of the Bolshevik Revolution, not even figures like Antonio Gramsci, Amadeo Bordiga, Angelo Tasca, Karl Radek, Rosa Luxemburg, or Clara Zetkin, with their revolutionary politics, were able to withstand the fascist storm that reached its socio-historical and political zenith with the exterminationist policies of Nazi Germany—policies reminiscent of Israel’s ongoing genocidal onslaught in Palestine.
Returning to the point, it would be misleading to posit a direct causal relationship between the outcome of the EU elections and the rise of fascism—particularly not the kind of fascism reduced to the authoritarian psycho-profiles of certain politicians like Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, Geert Wilders, Santiago Abascal, or the two most prominent figures of the AfD, Jörg Meuthen and Alice Weidel. As the great sociologist and theorist of fascism Todor Kuljić warns in his book Fascism such a formalistic, personalistic, and moralizing-psychological attitude towards fascism conceals the concrete social origins of historical fascism. Put more precisely, fascism is capitalism in decay. Or, as Amadeo Bordiga would say, fascism is merely “the last card in the deck of the bourgeoisie.”
Similar to Marx’s articulation in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the issue at hand is not whether historical fascism will prove victorious again—if fascism appears as an external phenomenon and enters history as its field of action—but whether the transnational bourgeoisie is willing to pay the price of political power because the Bonapartist (read: fascist) is capable of protecting its socio-economic security from the threats of the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie. Or, as Marx would put it, “that the crown must be removed from the bourgeoisie in order to save its purse.” I do not write this in vain. Let me remind you that the current President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, claimed in the last EU election debate (23 May) that she is open to collaborating with Italy’s Fratelli d’Italia (Meloni). The reasoning? Meloni is (allegedly) “pro-EU, against Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and for the rule of law.” Although her (EPP’s) partners on the center-left immediately objected, this was not a slip or a misinterpretation on our part. The EPP’s moderate conservatism, in conditions of multiple active battlefronts and one unapologetic genocidal war, is merely paving the way for the further normalization of the fascistization of Europe. After all, as Ljubodrag Duci Simonović writes coherently:
The “European Union” is not based upon the emancipating traditions of European nations, but upon the imperialist traditions of European capitalism. It is not a humanistic goal but a means by which the most powerful capitalist corporations achieve, through economic and political “measures”, the very same ends that Hitler was expected to achieve for German capital – but through militarism. It is a transitional phase in “European development” that leads towards the creation of a new (ecocidal) fascist order.
So, regardless of the tight political battle for parliamentary seats (followed by an even fiercer battle for the helm of the ship, namely the leadership of the European Commission), the reemergence of fascism should not be sought in some imperious rhetoric that solely stimulates the media spectacle. Instead, it lies in the new phase of inter-imperialist struggle within the transnational capitalist class—a struggle premised on the search for geostrategic zones that can provide access to labor and raw materials for free or at very low cost. These strategic zones, or frontiers, have historically been the gateways for colonial powers seeking to restore systemwide overaccumulation of capital, as Jason W. Moore postulates. Today, similar circumstances prevail. However, in the absence of new, “undiscovered” territories to be colonized and exploited, finance capital’s first refuge is war. Just as World War I and World War II (and any other great war) were preceded by stagnation in the provision of cheap labor, raw materials, food, and energy—marked by rising commodity prices and falling profit rates—so too is the looming threat of World War III.
The war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza are only two out of many unfolding processes have brought to the surface all the contradictions of global capitalism, now tainted by an ungovernable crisis. The unanimously imposed sanctions on Russia by the U.S. and its allies, particularly the EU, have reignited a food crisis, intensified militarization, and driven the last few nails into the coffin of the financial system. While the war has stimulated a few capital factions, it has not resolved the grave contradictions of capitalism. Whether war—though not identical to the conjunctures of 1917 in Tsarist Russia—will transform a national class conflict into a transnational class war depends on civil and intellectual disobedience, as well as political organization among the progressive (dare I say revolutionary) forces on the left.
However, as Marxist sociologist William I. Robinson forewarns, in the absence of political unity between the popular working classes and the professional managerial class (scientists, academics, artists, senior teachers, lawyers, directors of NGOs, PR managers), particularly if the latter does not relinquish its role as a reproducer of an increasingly destructive capitalist culture, it is likely that we will witness (and are already witnessing to some degree) “desperation erupt[ing] into racial, ethnic, religious, and other forms of aggression and into social violence among the oppressed themselves.”
With that being said, the working people who have been persuaded in all sorts of ways to go out and cast their vote (whatever that means anymore) must remember that despite the wide range of choices (a liberal dogma), there is no political alternative willing (let alone capable) of confronting the imperial Transatlantic bourgeoisie. As my dear colleague and comrade Gordan put it in an old conversation of ours, despite 80 years of unchecked economic, cultural, and military hegemony of the United States, the hotbed and stronghold of capitalism is in Europe. And in Europe, the fate of capitalism will be resolved. Fascist, liberal-democratic, or perhaps something else – it is still uncertain.
As far as the idea of a proletarian struggle for socialism is concerned, we should all acknowledge it as a remnant of a distant past or a religious desire for an utopistic (not utopian) future, especially if one counts on waging that struggle through the ballots in the coming days.
Author of the text: Deni Dagalev