72 April 2015
I
N last month’s Village, Yanis
Varoufakis, Finance Minister in
Greece’s Syriza Government, was
quoted as saying that it is “the
Left’s historical duty, at this par-
ticular juncture, to stabilise capitalism,
to save European capitalism from itself
and from the inane handlers of the Euro-
zone’s inevitable crisis.” He said the Left
in Europe should work towards a broad
coalition, “the purpose of which ought
to be the resolution of the Eurozone
crisis and the stabilisation of the Euro-
pean Union.”
When Mr Varoufakis lectured in
Dublin two years ago he spoke as an
advocate of deeper EU integration, a
critic of the Nation State as the locus
of democracy, and a proponent of
Euro-Keynesianism, euro bonds and a
Leftism
demands
national
independence
ahead of
socialism
The French Revolution sought national
independence and democracy not the
Russian Revolution’s socialism.
So should Greece
By Anthony Coughlan
INTERNATIONAL Greece
April 2015 73
Eurozone fiscal union - almost a form of
socialism from Brussels.
Greece may well end up abandoning
the euro and restoring the drachma,
but in seeking to stay in the Eurozone
and thereby keep the euro-currency, its
new Government is certainly seeking to
save European capitalism from itself and
to preserve its basic structures, the EU
and the EU’s supranational institutions.
As Syriza negotiates these days for ever
more money from its creditors Mr Var-
oufakis is finding out how realistic is his
vision of a leftwing ‘Europe’. It is hard to
see Chancellor Merkel and Herr Schau-
ble sharing it.
Varoufakis’s words highlight the illu-
sions of many leftwingers on ‘Europe”’.
Mainstream European social democracy
supports the EU treaties. Most leaders
of Europe’s Labour and social democrat
parties have looked with equanimity for
decades on the hollowing-out of their
respective Nation States as key func-
tions of government were shifted from
the national to the supranational level,
where they are exercised by non-elected
committees – the Brussels Commission,
Council of Ministers, Court of Justice and
ECB – that are responsible as collectivi-
ties to no one. In this attitude the Centre
Left is echoed by many on the Far Left.
They adopt this position because
they have persuaded themselves that
someday, by some means they do not
explain, the social transformation they
have failed to bring about at national
level can be achieved supranationally.
In the meantime they can make politi-
cal careers for themselves in supporting
the integration ‘project’.
We live i n wh at mi ght be called t he Hel-
lenistic Age of capitalism, when regional
blocs of capitalist states interact glo-
bally. Transnational capital has come
to dominate national capital, although
there are continual tensions between the
two levels. Finance capital in turn has
attained hegemony over transnational
capital. The central political project of
European-based transnational capi-
talism today is to undermine Europe’s
Nation States and the national democ-
racy that underpins them. This frees
the owners of Big Capital from control
by national governments responsible to
citizen-voters. It erects free movement
of goods, services, capital and labour –
the classical pillars of laissez faire - into
constitutional principles that are legally
In seeking to
stay in the
Eurozone
Greece is
seeking to
save European
capitalism
from itself
“
74 April 2015
difficult to deal with. This contrasts with
the Left in Latin America, whose popu-
lar appeal over generations has rested
on opposing Yankee imperialism. Or in
Asian countries like China and Vietnam,
where the Left led the fight against the
Japanese and French empires.
Most European countries were either
empires or parts of empires until World
Wars 1 and 2. Historically the main-
stream Left in Europe identified with
maintaining those empires and backed
them against their respective imperial
rivals. Mainstream Labour and social-
democrat parties supported their
respective Governments in sending
their fellow-workers into the slaughter
of World War 1. Revolt by radical left-
wing minorities in Ireland, Russia and
Serbia were the exceptions which proved
the rule. After World War 2 Europe’s
mainstream social democrat parties
supported NATO, the arms race and the
Cold War. They liked belonging to States
that were big noises in the world. Today
they happily identify with the EU and
think of themselves as helping to run a
collective European superpower.
The general failure of the European
Left to stand for national independence
and democracy vis-à-vis the EU/Euro-
zone has had the effect of handing over
these potent causes to the Right. The
beguiling melody of popular national-
ism and the eloquent defence of national
heritage have been largely ceded by the
Left to UKIP in Britain, Marine le Pen’s
National Front in France, the Liga Nord
and Beppo Grillo’s Five Star Movement in
Italy, the Alternative Party in Germany,
the Finns Party in Finland and to similar
movements in other EU countries.
The advance of the political Right
across the EU is a measure of the abdi-
cation and political incompetence of the
Left. Leftwingers respond with invective
against ‘right-wing nationalism’, while
their own electoral popularity declines.
They have forgotten a relevant remark of
V.I.Lenin’s in the early 1920s: “Fascism
is a punishment for the sins of omission
of the proletariat.” •
Anthony Coughlan is Associate Professor
Emeritus of Social Policy at Trinity College
Dublin
binding on every EU State.
If being genuinely on the Left is to
oppose the central project of European
capitalism, logically it should mean
opposing EU/Eurozone integration and
defending Europe’s Nation States in
face of the EU Treaties. It means giving
political priority to upholding the cen-
tral principle of the French Revolution
– national independence and democracy
– as the key political challenge of our
time, rather than advancing the central
value of the Russian Revolution - social-
ism, however one might define that.
There is not the least prospect of social-
ism in Europe in our day. But defending
the Nation State and national democracy
in face of their erosion by the EU is to
confront EU-based transnational capital
and its supporting political structures. It
is to be unfashionable, unpopular and no
darling of the media, which in general is
happy with those structures. It calls for
continual defensive battles, to prevent
things getting worse. These demand
different political tactics from offensive
ones. Left-wing parties bent on achiev-
ing public office, whatever about power,
eschew such thankless positions.
Many in the European Left dis-
miss opposition to EU integration as a
manifestation of nasty nationalism - a
nationalism which for them is always
narrow, never broad. They stigmatise
nationalism as ‘right-wing’ and reac-
tionary, while counterposing it to their
own ‘socialism’ as opposite rather than
complementary.
In reality nationalism, understood
in its positive sense as a corollary of
internationalism, is concerned with
establishing a Nation State and main-
taining that State’s independence once
established, in co-operation with the
other States making up the international
community. Whether logically or his-
torically national independence comes
before socialism, capitalism and any
other ‘-isms’, for these are concerned
with the domestic policy of independ-
ent States once established.
The Left in its broadest sense –
namely, the Trade Union and Labour
movement, plus the different political
traditions of social democracy, social-
ism, communism and Trotskyism – has
its origin in criticism of the ill-effects of
capitalism and has historically been the
bearer of reforms and proposed alterna-
tives to it.
It is undeniable however that the Left
in Europe has always found nationalism
The Left in
Europe has
always found
nationalism
difficult –
unlike the
Left in Latin
America
“
INTERNATIONAL Greece
French Revolution (1830, mind)

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