Europe's divided Left

...This party hopes to take a place on the French political map roughly similar to that of Die Linke in Germany...

...In the Netherlands, the Socialist Party is now the third largest in the country...

...Now they are united in their rejection of Sovietstyle politics...

...In Germany, Die Linke is already in many regional and city governments in the east of the country and is strong in Hamburg, Hesse, and Lower Saxony...

...In the 1990s, the then Party of Democratic Socialism—the renamed party that had run authoritarian East Germany for forty years—was widely regarded as a pathetic and fading remnant for old comrades in the East who were the main victims of unification...

...Social democrats everywhere are rethinking their ideas and programs...

...The parties blamed the perceived evils of neoliberalism on the "hegemonic power of the United States" and spoke of "irresponsible political and economic elites in Europe pushing ahead with hazardous capitalism" and "uncontrolled markets" at the expense of the people...

...In its 2008 Berlin declaration, the Party of the European Left called for the creation of a "social, peaceful and solidarity based continent" based on sustainable development, on a strong state sector, a strong regulation of existing financial institutions, and a halt to market solutions...

...But under the leadership of the charismatic former Social Democratic finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, who stormed out of his old party in 1999, Die Linke is eager to join center-left coalitions, although its ideological manifesto argues that it "will not compromise its principles in entering into alliances with others...

...But we are living through a time of flux and unpredictability...

...They cannot be dismissed as fringe parties...

...It needs to appeal to the young, to the new working class of post-industrialism, to those concerned with environmental issues, peace, and the rights of women...

...Just as important, should social democracy treat the forces to its left as a threat to its own position or a catalyst for its own renewal...

...Their parties argue that they are optimists who offer an exciting alternative to the technocratic managerialism of mainstream social democracy...

...But it did not make it easier to bring the splintered forces of the democratic Left together in any meaningful way...

...They reject workfare schemes to force the unemployed into low-paid jobs...

...There is a clear hostility among them to any use of military force to resolve international questions...

...This is most apparent in Germany, where the Social Democrats in the ruling Grand Coalition have been losing ground among their once core bases of electoral support...

...The popular appeal of the radical Left could well increase over the next few years...

...Across Europe, the radical Left is taking advantage of the confusion and weaknesses of social democratic parties that find it increasingly difficult to offer ways out of the economic crisis...

...The inevitable accommodations that have resulted may trouble many of the party's rank and file...

...The fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1990 may have destroyed the old-style communist parties on the continent, with their subservience to Moscow...

...Above all, they stress what they regard as popular responses to global issues...

...The ideologies and programs of these left parties reveal common features that transcend national differences...

...For the moment, however, the radical Left poses serious problems for the future of mainstream social democracy...

...They still believe that the radical Left represents social forces that cannot grow successfully...

...The socialist lefts may repudiate neoliberal capitalism in trenchant language and attack social democrats for appeasing free market forces, but they have to wrestle with all the familiar difficulties of political systems that represent a plurality of parties and traditions...

...The answers to those fundamental questions will determine the future political prospects of the European Left...

...Darkening times have not been the most propitious for the advance of socialism...

...It is true that the growth of such political groupings in many European countries does not so far threaten to bring about any dramatic transformation, but their existence as a challenge on the left is already weakening social democracy's electoral prospects...

...This is why the Norwegian experience is of wider importance...

...The current crisis of mainstream social democracy is in part due to the surprising tenacity and advance of more radical movements to its left...

...There is an insoluble dilemma that lies at the core of Europe's radical Left...

...Its self-declared ambition is to challenge neoliberalism through the creation of a credible and idealistic alternative...

...Nor is the advance of a credible radical socialist left confined to Germany...

...They support the cause of the Palestinian people and in varying degrees criticize Israel...

...In the past, social democrats saw the danger from the radical Left as a communist threat to their existence...

...The first will depend on whether the radical Left parties are willing to become pragmatists and accept the limitations imposed by the nature of pluralistic systems of government and representation...

...These socialist left parties are a growing threat to the mainstream Left because they are neither sectarian nor under the thumb of external forces but are developing ideologies and programs popular among a growing number of voters who may previously have backed social democracy...

...Under the slogan "first on the Left," the Dutch Socialists may make further inroads at Labor's expense...

...This necessitates a commitment to compromise and cooperation with the mainstream Left...

...Ironically, their prospects will depend on how far their electoral appeals are rooted in the social democratic politics of the golden age...

...It spoke of the need for a "new synergy" that could influence the wider politics of the center Left and called for "common struggles" both in parliaments and on the streets...

...Events since last autumn have tended to vindicate those who always regarded the existing economic system as inherently unstable and inequitable...

...In its 2008 manifesto, the Party of the European Left argued that the radical groupings formed a "counter power" and a "designing force" to what it saw as the neoliberal consensus that it argued covered mainstream social democracy as well as the center right...

...The sinister role of the German Communist Party in the final months of the Weimar Republic, especially in its tactical willingness to ally with the Nazis to destroy democratic pluralism and its ferocious repudiation of the Social Democrats as "social fascists," was of crucial importance in ensuring Hitler's fatal triumph in 1933...

...Racism and xenophobia could return in more toxic forms than in the recent past...

...Both in opinion polls and electoral results at the regional and city level, Die Linke backers outvote the neoliberal Free Democrats and the Greens...

...But if the party hopes to prosper, it must learn to adopt parliamentary strategies that involve a willingness to shoulder the responsibilities that inevitably come from inclusion in governments...

...Calls for legally enforceable national minimum wages, more labor rights at work, and generous welfare policies for the jobless resonate with an increasing number of voters disaffected with social democracy...

...But like Die Linke they also have to function in parliamentary democracies with often elaborate proportional electoral systems that require compromise and accommodations...

...Economic events may determine the future of Europe's radical Left...

...They need to balance their absolutist and purist ends with a resort to pragmatic horse trading in Parliament...

...The political challenge this sets for the European Left looks daunting and is complicated by the growing divisions and rivalries inside its own ranks, as still small but increasingly significant radical socialist left parties are emerging in many European countries...

...They want stronger state protection for the elderly, the less well off, and the sick...

...They remain confident and optimistic in their belief that they have an increasing capacity and influence to help in rolling back the forces of neoliberal capitalism...

...Worryingly for the social democrats in Norway, Denmark, and Germany, there are signs that the radical left parties are starting to make significant inroads inside the trade unions, traditionally social democratic strongholds...

...But as the more radical left parties become absorbed in the necessary short-term tactics of parliamentarism, their popular appeal may weaken among many voters who see them as a break with the discredited politics of the mainstream Left...

...They reject the EU's Lisbon agenda, which they insist is committed to a neoliberal program...

...The wider European Left is in crisis...

...But they have no grounds for complacency...

...But can the new radical Left really forge a partnership or even an understanding with mainstream social democracy...

...These parties, complete with populist appeals, threaten the capacity of mainstream social democracy to renew itself...

...In France, the dangers of division between radical and pragmatic tendencies are illustrated by struggles within the fractious ranks of the Socialist Party...

...But today Die Linke—a coalition of those former Communists and left defectors in the West from the revisionist Social Democrats— has established a following across much of Germany that suggests it appeals to a broadening stratum of the German electorate...

...What unites them all is a general hostility to neoliberal capitalism, to the workings of the unfettered free market, deregulation and privatization of the public sector, low taxes, and low public spending that has characterized much of the mainstream politics of the Western world since the age of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan...

...As many as six cabinet posts are held by Socialist Left members, including the crucial finance, energy, environmental, and education portfolios...

...In looking back as well as forward, the radical Left may find it difficult to remain intellectually coherent, with negative consequences and limitations on its ability to make any permanent breakthrough on the European Left...

...Neoliberal capitalism means dismantling democracy," its own ideological manifesto asserts, and it speaks of the "barbaric" character of the American model—in its alleged commitment to inequality, exploitation, and degradation not only in Europe but across the world and inside the international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund...

...But the Socialists' firm advocacy of traditional social democratic values and programs and rejection of what they describe as "the period of superficiality and postmodernism" threatens Labor's long-term political future...

...During the Spanish Civil War, the Communist Party's campaign of terror against the ultra Left weakened republican solidarity at a crucial moment, to General Francisco Franco's military advantage...

...If recession turns into depression, the political consequences may strengthen the radical right...

...The European radical-left critique of neoliberalism is combined with an apparently strong commitment to democratic social and collectivist values...

...Die Linke in Germany denies it holds any residual ties or sympathy with past authoritarian practices: "We reject any form of dictatorship and Stalinism as a criminal abuse of socialism," its ideological manifesto seeks to reassure...

...In November 2008 the parties of the European left met together in Berlin and agreed on a joint program for this summer's European Assembly elections that emphasized that crucial point...

...Radical left parties in Europe are helping to energize democratic politics and to increase popular participation...

...At the November 2006 general election, its representation in the Dutch Parliament climbed from nine to twenty-five seats, and as many as 18 percent of Dutch voters backed the party at the polls, not far behind the proportion voting for the mainstream Labor Party...

...They demand continuing high state spending and levels of taxation, controls on capital, and more egalitarian social policies...

...What unites them even more in their foreign policies is their attitude toward the European Union...

...In Germany, many social democrats remain committed to modernization strategies for the social market model, and they view Die Linke as a backward-looking party identified with the failed politics of East Germany...

...Die Linke or the Left Party—founded in 2007—has rapidly become the third-largest party in the country...

...In the Netherlands, the Socialists are the main opposition, while the mainstream Labor Party is a part of the current coalition government...

...In a clear appeal to women, they give a high priority to comprehensive child-care provision...

...The bitter leadership contest last fall between Martine Aubry and Segolene Royale was partly personal and partly about whether the party would present itself as the anchor of a "plural Left" as in the past or seek alliance with the political "center...

...In Norway the radical Left even shares power in a center-left government...

...Radical left parties elsewhere in Europe share similar and often utopian aspirations for the creation of societies and economies based on equality, solidarity, and freedom...

...We want to ensure that capitalism is not the last word in the history books," Die Linke declares...

...The radical Left can often look modern, tolerant, and open to new ideas while at the same time upholding traditional collectivist values...

...They support strong welfare states funded by high levels of taxation and they oppose marketization or privatizing of health and educational services...

...A primary cause of the Left's catastrophic defeat in that dismal decade lay in the bitter ideological chasm that grew wider between the forces of Soviet communism and social democracy...

...To know modern history is to know the consequences of a divided Left for European democracy...

...In the United Kingdom the Left is all but extinct—thanks mainly to the consequences of a first-past-the-post electoral system...

...Such a move may weaken the purity of the wider socialist appeal...

...The gap between much of the fine-sounding rhetoric and the realities of democratic politics has always troubled the European Left...

...In other European democracies—notably in Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden—the radical Left also has a small but significant presence in Parliament...

...Its parties almost all oppose Western military involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan...

...The bitter conflict between socialism and communism during the cold war after the 1940s ensured long periods of right-wing power across much of Western Europe outside the Nordic region...

...But it also evokes a nostalgia for the lost world of postwar Europe, when social democratic values underpinned the growth of welfare states, collective solutions, and the positive role played by democratic governments in the social transformation of society...

...Its social composition indicates growing support among women, voters under the age of thirty, those employed in the public services sector, and those active in social movements who are particularly attracted by the politics of the radical Left...

...All the radical left parties in Europe, albeit in slightly different ways, regard themselves as the defenders of what European social democracy achieved in its postwar golden age...

...Such a strategy has made its most significant breakthrough in Norway, where the Norwegian Socialist Left Party argues that its tactical aim is to push the country's larger Labor Party more leftward, but believes this can be done not simply by agitating on the sidelines but by sharing in the obligations of governance...

...To their credit, the radical Lefts— though with some exceptions—have rejected any forms of populist appeal that would fuel such emotions...

...But their hopes of making any further political progress depend on establishing closer and warmer relations with despised social democracy...

...This was a less impressive performance than it achieved in the 1989 and 2001 general elections...

...In some respects it looks and sounds like the Independent Social Democrats, who were formed in the First World War and lasted until the early 1920s...

...The radical Left prefers "soft" power through the United Nations...

...Their analysis of what they should do will depend on whether the radical left parties can continue to expand their popular appeal...

...Moreover, many social democrats do not believe it helps their own capacity to rebuild and grow if they are over-tolerant of the forces that threaten to undermine them from the radical Left...

...In the meantime, the Trotskyists of the Revolutionary Communist League have launched an "Anti-Capitalist Party" seeking to encompass the more radical Left and draw support away from the squabbling Socialists...

...In the classic Marxist tradition of the Gotha and Erfurt programs of nineteenth-century German social democracy, the manifesto paints a sweeping and uncompromisingly bleak picture of the existing global economic order...

...Socialists denounce the mainstream center Left for its technocratic approach to politics and willingness to compromise with neoliberalism...

...They want a more social Europe of "the people and not the bankers...

...The hegemony of social democracy in recent years was helped by such arrangements with the radical Left in Sweden, which provided the necessary votes in Parliament while avoiding the responsibilities of holding office...

...The radical Left argues that social democracy has compromised far too much with neoliberalism and abandoned many of its traditional core values through misguided projects of modernization...

...Genuine unity on the European Left was always difficult, if not impossible, after the Russian Revolution split apart the international labor movement...

...They often campaign for national solutions to Europe-wide problems...

...Far from being a party built on the Leninist principles of democratic centralism, Die Linke insists on its pluralism and tolerance and commitment to justice, freedom, solidarity, and internationalism...

...Historically, radical left and communist parties have often agreed to support center-left coalition governments but without joining them...

...The party claims to champion the rights and needs of individuals, which, it argues, can only be advanced through collective action by a democratic state...

...In Denmark and the Netherlands, the radical left parties have campaigned successfully for a "No" vote on referendums on either the euro or the European Treaty or Constitution...

...They argue for greater democratic accountability in European decision making and less centralized control from Brussels...

...Such arms-length attitudes by the mainstream lefts in Europe may not be so easy to maintain in the future...

...During the 1930s, it was the authoritarian Right that benefited far more from the consequences of economic slump than the Left, with the rise of virulent nationalisms and hostility to democratic values...

...In its commitment to internationalism, the radical Left offers what it believes to be a genuine alternative to existing global power politics...

...Ambitiously, Die Linke claims to be a new party "the like of which there has never been seen in Germany before," as it seeks to bring all progressive forces together from the feminist movement, environmental groups, anti-racist and anti-fascist bodies, and those who campaign for peace and disarmament...

...The utter rejection of the American economic model is reflected in their ideological manifestoes...

...For their part, many Social Democrats insist that they will not seek or agree to the formation of strategic alliances in power with Die Linke, and some argue they would prefer to continue in grand coalition with Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats rather than line up with Lafontaine's party...

...Only in Social Democratic Sweden and briefly in Popular Front France and Spain did the forces of the Left secure effective political power in government...

...The Danish Socialist People's Party, with 13 percent of the vote in the 2007 election and twenty-three seats in Parliament, claims that it is committed to what it calls "popular socialism...

...Even in France, the workplace militancy of the Communists in the trade unions did much to undermine the Popular Front government of Socialist Leon Blum in 1936-1937, a coalition that the Communist leadership refused to join...

...Much of the radical Left is opposed to the very existence of NATO as a collective security organization, with the exception of the Norwegian party...

...The most emphatic declaration of hostility to neoliberalism has come from Die Linke, which is the most influential political party in the pan European socialist Left...

...It is true that in the September 2005 elections the Socialist Left Party won only 8.8 percent of the votes and fifteen seats in the Norwegian Parliament...

...For the most part, they still remain suspicious and doubtful about the nature of the ideological challenge coming from their left...

...But the current Norwegian Labor administration needs the Socialist Left Party in its coalition along with the Center Party in order to govern...

...Most of the radical left parties in Europe emerged from the wreckage of the old communist parties or in earlier breakaways from them...

...Powerful communist parties in France and Italy weakened the wider Left fatally...

...The current crisis has given the European socialist Left a grand narrative to justify its existence...

...As a result they cannot afford to remain uncompromising in their wider appeal...

...The Norwegian experience suggests it is a strategy that works...

...The party displays a surprisingly hard-headed realism toward racism and Islamism and insists that the Netherlands has to address the dangers of xenophobia by a populist attitude to the upholding of the rule of law and the need for cultural integration...