Far-left politics

Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some scholars consider it to represent the left of social democracy, while others limit it to the left of communist parties. In certain instances—especially in the news media—far left has been associated with some forms of authoritarianism, anarchism, communism, and Marxism, or are characterized as groups that advocate for revolutionary socialism and related communist ideologies, or anti-capitalism and anti-globalization. Far-left terrorism consists of extremist, militant, or insurgent groups that attempt to realize their ideals through political violence rather than using democratic processes.
Ideologies
The definition of the far left varies in the literature and there is not a general agreement on what it entails or consensus on the core characteristics that constitute the far left, other than being to the left of mainstream left-wing politics. As with all political alignments, the exact boundaries of centre-left versus far-left politics are not clearly defined and can vary depending on context. Far-left ideologies often include types of socialism, communism, and anarchism.
According to political scientist Luke March, far-left groups may also be defined as those to the left of social democracy. Per Richard Dunphy, "the radical left" desires fundamental changes in neoliberal capitalism and progressive reform of democracy such as direct democracy and the inclusion of marginalized communities, while per March "the extreme left" denounces liberal democracy as a "compromise with bourgeois political forces" and defines capitalism more strictly. Far-left politics is seen as radical politics because it calls for fundamental change to the capitalist socio-economic structure of society.
Socialism
Socialists seek to create a socially equal society in which everyone has access to basic necessities and in which prosperity and knowledge are shared. It is derived from ideas of egalitarianism. Socialism has historically been divided into reformist socialism and radical or revolutionary socialism.
Modern social democracy is generally considered to be a centre-left ideology.
Democratic socialism is generally considered to be a left or radical left ideology, though historical democratic socialism has been described as centre-left. Democratic socialism is sometimes used interchangeably with social democracy in political rhetoric, but it is generally understood to be farther left. Communists may also identify as democratic socialists to contrast themselves with Stalinists. Democratic socialists reject social democracy for its association with neoliberalism, and they reject communism for its association with authoritarianism.
Communism and Marxism
Communism is an ideological group that seeks the creation of a communist society. Modern communism is a form of revolutionary socialism based on support for the communist society described the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, known as Marxism. Offshoots of Marxism include Leninism, Marxism–Leninism (which was distinct from both of its eponymous ideologies), Maoism, Eurocommunism, anarchist communism, and others.
Anarchism
Anarchism seeks to create an alternate form of society that excludes the state entirely. Anarchism incorporates elements of both socialism and liberalism, and it was a prominent ideology among the far-left globally from 1900 to 1940. Anarchist movements include classical anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, social anarchism, individualist anarchism, anarcha-feminism, black anarchism, and queer anarchism, and green anarchism.
Anarcho-capitalism is generally regarded as a right-wing ideology.
Positions
Far-left politics prioritize equality of outcome over equal opportunity. Far-left groups support redistribution of income and wealth. They argue that capitalism and consumerism cause social inequality and advocate their dissolution. Some far-left groups also support the abolition of private property. Scholars, such as Luke March and Cas Mudde, propose that socio-economic rights are at the far left's core. Moreover, March and Mudde argue that the far left is to the left of the political left with regard to how parties or groups describe economic inequality on the base of existing social and political arrangements.
Far-left groups are anti-establishment, opposing existing political and economic structures. Both anarchist and statist far-left ideologies may support disestablishment of traditional sociopolitical structures. They are opposed to liberalism and liberal democracy, though some far-left movements support other forms of democracy. They may be classified as radical, supporting a total reformation of society and its functions. Most modern far-left political parties have rejected radicalism and revolutionary politics, instead seeking to enact change from within government. Post-Soviet far-left movements in Europe and the United States are associated with anti-globalism and anti-neoliberalism. Proponents of the horseshoe theory interpretation of the left–right political spectrum identify the far left and the far right as having more in common with each other as extremists than each of them has with centrists or moderates. This theory has received criticism, however, by many academics.
In Europe, the support for far-left politics comes from three overlapping groups: far-left subcultures, disaffected social democrats, and protest voters—those who are opposed to their country's European Union membership. Political scientist Luke March identifies four major subgroups within contemporary European far-left politics: communists, democratic socialists, populist socialists, and social populists. European radical-left politics share many of the values of centre-left politics, including cosmopolitanism, altruism, and egalitarianism. They overlap in some areas with radical-right politics concerning radicalism, economic nationalism, Euroscepticism, and populism. Two clear distinctions emerge: first, "education [...] tends to statistically significantly lower chances of voting for radical right but increases the chance of voting radical left"; and second, radical-left voters tend not to share the social nationalism of the radical-right, instead having a socio-tropic, or other-regarding, bias based on the ideological concern for economic egalitarianism. Other characteristics may include anti-Americanism, anti-globalization, opposition to NATO, and in some cases a rejection of European integration.
Communism has historically emphasized economics and class over social issues. In the 1970s and 1980s, far-left movements in Western Europe were increasingly defined by the new social movements, which gave prominence to issues such as environmentalism, animal rights, women's rights, the peace movement, and promoting the interests of the Third World. These ideas as a singular movement became less prominent in far-left politics as they were subsumed by green politics, but they are still disparately supported by many in the far-left.
History
Early history
Societies resembling communist society have been postulated throughout human history, and many have been proposed as the earliest socialist or communist ideas. The ideas of Plato have been described as an early type of socialism. In medieval Europe, some philosophers argued that Jesus believed in shared ownership of property and that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was contrary to his teachings. This included the Taborites, who attempted to create a social structure that resembled a communist society. Early examples of communist societies in fiction include Utopia by Thomas More, which proposed a society without personal property, and The City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella, which proposed a society without the family unit. Modern far-left politics can be traced to Europe and North America in the late 18th century, when industrialization and political upheaval caused discontent among the working class. Socialists were those who objected to the changing social and economic structures associated with industrialization, in that they promoted individualism over collectivism and that they created wealth for some but not for others, creating economic inequality.
The term socialism first came into use in the early 19th century to describe the egalitarian ideas of redistribution promoted by writers like François-Noël Babeuf and John Thelwall. Inspired by the French Revolution, these writers objected to the existence of significant wealth, and Babeuf advocated a dictatorship on behalf of the people that would destroy those who caused inequality. Socialism was recognized as a coherent philosophy in the 1830s with the publications of British reformer Robert Owen, who self-identified as socialist. Owen, as well as others such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Étienne Cabet, developed the utopian socialist movement, and these utopian socialists established several communes to implement their ideology. Cabet responded to More's Utopia with his own novel, The Voyage to Icaria. He is credited with first using the term communism, though his usage was unrelated to the ideologies that were later known as communism.
Early anarchists emerged in the 19th century, including Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin. These anarchists endorsed many utopian ideas, but they emphasized the importance of revolution against and complete abolition of the state for a utopian society to exist. Bakunin argued that peasants rather than the working class should lead a socialist revolution, and he popularized calls to violence among the anarchist movement. Anarchist ideology spread to the Americas shortly after its development.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels introduced Marxism in the 1840s, which advocated revolutionary socialism. As the state bureaucracy was developed in the late 19th century and labor rights were increasingly recognized by national governments, socialist movements were divided on the role of the state. Some objected to the increase in the state's involvement, while others believed that the state was a stronger alternative to protect worker's rights than labor movements. Many of the former moved to anarchism, while many of the latter responded with the development of social democracy.
Early 20th century
East Asian anarchism developed in the 1900s during the Russo-Japanese War, based on the ideas of Japanese writer Kōtoku Shūsui, who was in turn inspired by Peter Kropotkin. This movement saw its greatest prominence in the 1920s in China.
Communism in early 20th century Europe often gained power in countries with significant polarization between segments of the population on an ethnic, religious, or economic basis, and in countries that were destabilized by war. It was less prominent in industrialized nations, where social democracy maintained electoral success over communist parties. The first communist revolution took place in Russia, when the Russian Revolution emerged in 1917 amid political instability caused by World War I. The Bolsheviks seized power, under the rule of Vladimir Lenin and his ideology of Leninism. The state ideology developed during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921, setting the preservation of Bolshevik power as the highest priority to assure the building of socialism as well as seeking to spread communist revolution to other nations. Some additional communist governments formed in Europe, but they lasted only months. Though the Bolsheviks identified as communist, the term socialist was often used interchangeably at the time.
By 1922, as Russia transitioned into the Soviet Union, it responded to widespread hunger and poverty with the New Economic Policy, which restored market enterprise for smaller industries. After Lenin's death, a power struggle between Nikolai Bukharin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin ended with Stalin taking power by 1928. Stalin implemented his ideology of Marxism–Leninism, which reorganized society and created a cult of personality in his favor. This also entailed the Great Purge in the late 1930s, an interpretation of Lenin's revolutionary violence that saw hundreds of thousands of Stalin's opponents killed, often to be replaced by ambitious loyalists. By this time, Marxism–Leninism was seen as the definitive implementation of communism by most communists globally, justifying the Great Purge as an effort to eradicate fascist infiltrators, with state censorship obscuring the Great Purge's extent.
Anarcho-syndicalism was developed as a form of anarchism in the late 19th century, and it grew popular around 1900. It remained relevant in far-left politics through 1940. During the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, anarcho-syndicalists seized control of multiple regions in Spain, but this ended when the nationalist faction won the war. This, along with the rise of communism, ended the relevance of anarchism among the far-left globally after 1940. As mass production became more common, the traditional style of labor that anarcho-syndicalists objected to ceased to exist, preventing any significant resurgence in the movement.
Cold War
The Soviet Union's influence during and after World War II spread communism, directly and indirectly, to the rest of Eastern Europe and into Southeast Europe. New communist governments were formed in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The onset of the Cold War brought an end to communism's political influence in most of Western Europe, and the development of post-industrial society caused many of the traditional sectors associated with communism to dissipate. Following Stalin's death, the workers of several Eastern European countries staged revolutions against communist rule, requiring the Soviet military to suppress them. Many of these countries were led by Stalinist rulers, who were forced out and replaced by the subsequent Soviet government. Yugoslavia distanced itself as a neutral communist nation, aligned with neither the East nor the West.
The New Left developed in Western Europe as an alternative to communism in the 1950s, taking positions on social issues and identity politics. Green politics developed as an offshoot of the New Left, but it was deradicalized by the end of the 20th century and became a centre-left movement. The association of Marxism–Leninism with the Soviet Union also caused Eurocommunism to be developed as a democratic communist movement in Western Europe, but it only briefly saw electoral success in the 1970s. In the Years of Lead in Italy, far-left militants, such as the Red Brigades, justified the usage of political violence as a revolutionary means and defense against far-right terrorism and neo-fascism in Italy.
The Chinese Communist Party had been active since 1921, but it did not seize power in China until its victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949. As with the Soviet Union, the newly formed People's Republic of China carried out purges of political enemies, killing millions of land owners. The peasants were not targeted, however, instead using them as a base of political support. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, China under the rule of Mao Zedong distanced itself from the Soviet Union. Maoism then grew in popularity as an alternative to Soviet-style communism. At the same time, North Korea and North Vietnam were established as communist governments, triggering the Korean War and the Vietnam War against South Korea and South Vietnam, respectively. By the late 1970s, Maoism in China was replaced by the ideology of Deng Xiaoping, which restored the private sector and market pricing.
The Cuban Revolution led to Fidel Castro becoming the ruler of Cuba in 1959. Though he was not a communist, he aligned the nation with the communist movement to seek Soviet support. Many other nations adopted socialism distinct from Marxism–Leninism during the Cold Warm particularly in Africa and Latin America.
Communism was rapidly replaced between 1979 and 1992, in which eleven of the world's sixteen communist states were disestablished. By the 1980s, the Soviet Union moved away from ideas of international communism as such efforts came to be seen as too inconvenient. By 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had effectively abandoned communism. In Europe, the far-left declined after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and it remained relatively subdued during the 1990s. In many Eastern European countries, communist parties were banned by the new governments. In others such as Moldova, they saw continued electoral success.
21st century
Of the five communist states that survived into the 21st century, three of them — China, Vietnam, and Laos — had restored private ownership and reintegrated with global capitalist markets although state and public control continued as well. For instance, Peter Nolan argues that land in China was decollectivized but not privatized, with control of land remaining in the hands of the community. The Party of the European Left was established in 2004 as a pan-European political party for the far-left. The European far-left reemerged in the late 2000s and early 2010s as a Eurosceptic, anti-globalist response to the Great Recession. During this time, European far-left parties became frequent members of ruling coalitions. The far-left parties during this time were rarely new creations, instead descending from earlier far-left parties of the 20th century. In 2012, the autonomous region Rojava in northwestern Syria established self-governance based on an anarchist direct democracy at the local level and a one-party state at the regional level. While far-left parties were in power in the 2010s, they were often forced to put aside their strong anti-neoliberalism and accept neoliberal policies, either proposed by their larger allies or imposed due to the international context.
Far-left militants and terrorism
Many far-left militant organizations were formed by members of existing political parties in the 1960s and 1970s, among them the CPI (Maoist), Montoneros, New People's Army, Prima Linea, the Red Army Faction, and the Red Brigades. These groups generally aimed to overthrow capitalism and the wealthy ruling classes.
See also
Far-left politics
Anti-Stalinist left
Communitarianism
Radical left
Third camp
Anarchism
Anarchism without adjectives
Collectivist anarchism
Contemporary anarchism
Egoist anarchism
Mutualism
Communism and Marxism
Autonomism
Centrist Marxism
Council communism
Left communism
Trotskyism
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Radical left parties case studies
Radical left and radical right
Terrorism
External links
Political spectrum
Political terminology