Editorial from Kommunistisk Politik, No. 9, April 27, 2002
Le Pen's victory speech after the first round of the French presidential election expresses the ideas of the programme of the whole modern European fascistoid right:
"May 5 (the decisive election, KP) is the big day. Do not be afraid, you
humble people, you common people, you outcasts. Do not let yourself be locked
up in the old dividing of the right and left wing. You, who have been suffering
from all the mistakes and swindling of the politicians, you miners, smiths,
working men and women of all industries which have been destroyed by Maastricht's
Euro globalisation, you desperate farmers with your humble pensions and doomed
to ruin and destruction, you are the first victims of crime in the suburbs,
in the cities and in the villages.
I call on all men and women in France, regardless of race, religion and social
circumstances, to support this historical chance for national restoration.
I will rebuild the unity of the Republic and the independence of France. I will
restore law and order in the national territory and free our compatriots from
tax tyranny and bureaucracy.
Socially, I am to the left. Economically, I am to the right, and nationally,
I am more than ever for France."
Take away the French oratorical effect, change the country name, and you will
find the Dane Pia Kjaersgaard, the Austrian Jorg Haider, and the Italian Gianfranco
Fini. These three persons are of the same kind as Le Pen, and they all have
governmental influence.
They have the same demagogic appeal to "the man in the street", for
"national community" and nationalism, the same explosive mixture of
social demagogy and chauvinism, the same xenophobia and racism, the same mantra
called "law and order", the same "critique" of the EU and
the same anti-socialism and hostility towards trade unions.
Exactly the social demagogy - the promises of welfare to the workers and pensioners,
to the broad masses, combined with a banner flying nationalism - was the secret
of Hitler's and Mussolini's "success" in the last century. Their real
programme was war externally and terror against the working class and its parties
and organizations internally.
Today, the war is called "the global war on terror". It is already
going on. The attacks on the democratic rights are called "terror legislation"
while the attacks on the workers' organizations are being hidden under a mask
of individual "rights" against "compulsory trade union membership".
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen very quickly condemned Le Pen and
his policy. He must know it because he has married its Danish female pendant
and her policy (referring to the Fogh Rasmussen government's strong parliamentary
reliance on the Danish People's Party and its female leader, Pia Kjaersgaard,
translator's note). When the US echo in Denmark is holding his nose,
it must be because the stink is domestic and very close to him.
Europe's ultra-right parties are claiming that they do not recognize either
right or left. In practice, they stand together with the openly bourgeois parties,
using the similarity between these parties and the Social Democratic ruling
parties so it is hard even to see the difference, and besides, the difference
has no importance.
The ultra-right parties are making progress not at least where the modernised
Social Democratic parties have been in power and headed the reactionary union
state project of the European monopolies. Today, Le Pen's National Front is
being proclaimed as "the second largest labour party in France", and
it is an unpleasant fact that a considerable part of its progress has been registered
in the traditional workers' cities and working class districts.
Europe's ultra-right have succeeded in portraying itself as a "social"
alternative to the other bourgeois parties and a alternative to the Social Democratic
parties that also are performing as social demagogues, but their policy of class
collaboration has not proved successful. The Social Democratic supporting parties
are, without any exception, deadly struck by the crisis of Social Democracy.
In France, Hue's revisionist party, which still calls itself "communist",
has been almost wiped out.
Because the leftist forces have not been capable of establishing themselves
as an independent alternative to both the bourgeois and the Social Democratic
policies, fascist demagogues are running away with "the voters". In
Denmark, the Socialist People's Party (SF) and the Unity List (Red-Green Alliance)
are being dragged by the Social Democratic Party, and they themselves are dragging
the Communist Party of Denmark (DKP), the Communist Party in Denmark (KPiD)
and the Communist Party of Denmark (Marxist-Leninist) (DKP/ML). This is the
picture almost everywhere. Ultra-right is shouting with joy.
April 22, 2002