Left Populism 15/7/2015

Left populist Syriza party chairman and Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras

Very important article from their own spokespeople. Syriza and Podemos are not Social Democrats but “left populist” not of a class but of “the people”, a further extension of the traditional Stalinist Popular Front concept to a rejection of all class politics, a line that the Stalinists in general did not cross, remaining workers’ parties. Many have now become bourgeois workers’ parties after the collapse of the USSR. Of course the Euro-communists, from which Syriza emerged, did cross that line. Quote from article The winds are changing: a new left populism for Europe by Marina Prentoulis (Syriza spokeswoman in Britain) and Lasse Thomassen on 27 January 2015, acknowledging that they are in the same political category as, and a left version of, the Haider, Le Pen and Farage projects:

“A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of populism. This time it is not the far right populism of Haider, Le Pen and Farage, but a new left populism challenging not just the parties of the right but also the social-democratic parties and the traditional parties on the left.”

They have more in common with or actually have become similar or even the same as the Scottish National Party and Sinn Fein in Ireland – petty bourgeois nationalist political formation with no connection with the organised working class and therefore no pressure from below apart from electoral considerations. Therefore having mobilised for elections and won like in Scotland and Greece the overwhelming pressure comes from the pressure of finance capital and their Troika.

Syriza’s bubble burst very quickly, the SNP’s will take a little longer, the bubble of Podemos and Sinn Fein is yet to inflate properly but the “neither of the left or the right” course and agenda is now clear.

We of Socialist Fight were correct to call for no vote for Syriza, for the SNP, and will continue with Podemos later in the year and Sinn Fein next year.

The four are petty bourgeois nationalist parties and not any form of bourgeois worker’s reformist parties at all.

Left populist Oskar Lafontaine, used a term previously associated with the Nazi Party, Fremdarbeiter or alien workers, in his election campaign in 2005

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/marina-prentoulis-lasse-thomassen/winds-are-changing-new-left-populism-for-europe