Is the European Far-Left Blue or Green?

[Heinrich Faust]

Let’s discuss the spiral stage of some European far-left parties! I’m especially interested in Die Linke, Sinn Féin and some left-wing populists.

Some general comments on terms

• Since this is a thread about European politics, please avoid understanding and using  "liberal" in the American sense as "social liberal" or "modern liberal" (like "progressive"). Please think of and use "liberal" in the British sense as "classical liberal" (like "capitalist"). The same goes for other terms that carry a slightly different connotation in America.
  Also note that there are several right-wing "Liberal Parties" throughout Europe, which might be otherwise classified as conservative or nationalistic.
• I use "communist" only for stage blue entities. Furthermore, I call the whole Eastern bloc "communist", even if the self-description might be "socialist".
• Please keep in mind that some abbreviations can refer to various parties in different countries. I’ll try my best to avoid misunderstandings.

 

Europe’s general political constellation

It’s quite easy to group the array of political parties to an international family of sister parties:

Neo-fascist parties (blue-red)

E.g. British National Party, NPD, Fratelli d’Italia, L’SNS, or Jobbik.

Traditional Nationalists (blue)

E.g. UKIP, RN (former FN), Vlaams Belang, FPÖ.
Usually trying to represent the man in the street with a quite socialistic vibe, but not clear to distinguish from the following..

National conservatives and right-wing populists, often with a liberal economical manifesto (blue-orange)

ACRE, Dansk Folkeparti, PVV, N-VA, AfD, SVP, Lega, Fidesz, Czech SPD, PiS…
These parties can also attract red and orange people who actually aren’t that conservative.

The typical conservatives (orange-blue)

E.g. EPP, the Tories, FG, the French Republicans, Forza Italia, PP, PSD, New Dimokratia, PNL, PO.
These are often big catch-all parties with a wide range. The best example would be the officially conservative CDU in Germany with Angela Merkel, who is quite green.

Classical liberal parties (orange)

ALDE, Lib Dems, LREM, Ciudadanos, FDP…
Some of them tend to open up towards green, while others try to attract blue voters, too.

Social democrats and socialists (green-orange-blue)

SPE, Labour, PD, and lots of parties containing an S.
Usually, they have a long history all the way back to the working-class movement. Some still preserve blue roots. I find these difficult to classify because to me their programmes seem to be much more progressive than most of their voters.
Also, many of them seem to have fewer reservations towards blue parties than one could think. And not just towards left-wing blue, there are popular examples for coalitions with right-wing blue parties as well, e.g. in Austria (SPÖ-FPÖ) or in Slovakia (Fico and the SNS).
Especially in Eastern Europe, there’s a lot of corruption going on in centre-left parties and many of them have strong blue elements, too. The most remarkable example is the very blue BSP in Bulgaria, formed directly out of the ruling party of the communist era. It’s mainly the Western European social democrats and socialists which are green-orange, and even they often have blue shadows.

The Green Parties (green)

As green as their name, and usually the only parties with a mainly green electorate.

The far-left (green and blue)

These are the parties we want to talk about here. In a conventional, non-spiral approach they are often considered to be similar and many of them are part of the GUE/NGL in the EP. They are usually just distinguished on how left-wing they are, but never if they are pre-capitalist (blue) or post-capitalist (green). Even themselves usually see all far-left parties as comrades and sometimes have hard times understanding why e.g. their Greek sister party forms a coalition with the far-right.
All far-left parties tend to be attractive for stage red voters who want to milk the social welfare state.

Blue examples include most communist and working-class parties. A good green example are the Scandinavian leftists like Sosialistisk Venstreparti, Vänsterpartiet and Enhedslisten.

 

Some interesting case studies

Die Linke

After the cease of the Eastern bloc (stage blue) one-party systems, most of the former ruling parties didn’t just vanish, but instead tried to integrate into the new democratic system, some more successful than others. E.g. the former BKP, now BSP, is still dominating Bulgaria’s political system.

A similar case happened in the former GDR, where the old ruling party SED changed names to PDS and became part of the party spectrum. Over time, the old communist politicians became less, the name was changed to Die Linke, the party established in Western Germany as well, the content became more stage green, and now, the party is turning more and more into an equal part of the progressive part of the spectrum building coalitions with the Social Democrats and the Greens, similar to the habits in Scandinavian countries.
It’s also helpful to observe the relationship to and evolution of smaller allied parties like Austrian KPÖ or Federal German DKP.

So on one hand, there’s lots of stage green stuff going on within Die Linke. On the other hand, there are clearly stage blue elements, too. First of all, the voters! Many of the politicians and members might be intellectual green people, the electorate tend to be more stage blue.
Another thing is the ongoing missing of distance to their history as ruling party of a blue dictatorship. There’s still a lot of sympathy for the old SED and both, the elite and the base, having issues to acknowledge the GDR as an Unrechtsstaat. Of course, this alienates some truly green people who otherwise might be attracted by the modern socialist ideas.

There’s also an ongoing support for Putin and Russia, like in most European (both left-wing and right-wing) stage blue parties.

Sinn Féin

At first sight, SF is a quite stage blue socialist, nationalist and Catholic party. However, they integrate more and more modern stage green elements as well, e.g. green energy. For me, it’s hard to tell, whether they’re just focussing on blue topics to attract more voters or they actually are that blue with some random green peaks.

A similar case are the Basque EH Bildu. A different, but also interesting, case is the centre-left Scottish Nationalist Party.

Southern European left-wing populists

Let’s take a closer look at parties like La France Insoumise, Podemos, and Syriza!
Movimento 5 Stelle is also a remarkable player in that category, even though far too liberal to be considered as far-left. I would rather call it a centre-left populist catch-all party which is mainly stage orange. However, there are obvious similarities to other Southern European left-wing populists, and maybe we can find an answer whether M5S is more orange-blue or more orange-green.

The main green aspects of all these parties are their fight against corruption, and commitment for ecology and environmental protection. Common blue aspects include their EU-sceptic, anti-globalist, pro-Russian positions. We should also mention the pan-populist coalitions with the far-right (Syriza with ANEL in 2015, M5S with LN in 2018).

 

These are some of my thoughts. I’m looking forward to reading some opinions on this topic. Please share your insights and knowledge about the European far-left, and let us all together elaborate a profound picture of such parties and their spiral stage.

The Far-Left outside of Europe

While there's a bigger or smaller far-left party in most European countries, in other developed Western democracies (Israel, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) far-left parties never established. This might be accidental; there might be a reason for that. In East Asia, there are small far-left parties like the Japanese Communist Party or the Minjung Party in South Korea. Both seem quite stage blue to me. If someone in here is familiar with Japanese or South Korean domestic politics, please feel free to share your views on this as well.