Tina Nkechi
The global far right has been growing over the last three decades. This now includes Donald Trump in the US, Narendra Modi (Prime Minister of India since 2014), former president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, president Javier Milei of Argentina (elected in 2023) Recep Erdoğan of Turkey (President since 2014) and various European parties.
They join more traditional authoritarian regimes such as those in China, Russia and Iran. They also include authoritarian regimes across Africa including those in Egypt, Tunisia, Morrocco, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Tchad and the military juntas of West Africa (Burkina Faso, Guinee, Mali and Niger).
Thomas Hummel (of Tempest in the USA) argues that because the rise of the global far right defines our historical period, socialists must revive the strategy of the united front to challenge the new authoritarianism. His full article can be read here:
https://tinyurl.com/SocLab202513
The characteristics of the new authoritarians or neo-fascists include:
– An upbeat presidency, replacing militarism with mass media support, persuading the population that the government – especially the public sector (in particular social services) – is the enemy while strengthening the repressive capacity (police, army and prisons) of the state;
– initiating resentment and antagonism against ethnic or sexual minorities;
– publicising the fictitious qualities of the free market, pursuing tax and spending measures that redistribute income upward, etc.
The united front today
Much of what defined the united front strategy against fascism in Europe in the 1930s is still applicable today in the struggle against the new authoritarians. If the Left’s weakness and rise of the far right are indeed the defining features of the current period, then united front work has once again become essential.
We saw an excellent example of what this looked like with the experience of Golden Dawn in Greece, where an anti-fascist organization, KEERFA (United Movement Against Racism and the Fascist Threat), operating on the principles of united front work, completely smashed the ascendent fascist party. KEERFA built a large coalition of working class organizations, from unions to socialist groups, that shared a basic common interest in keeping Golden Dawn from growing.
We also had the mass movement including a general strike in Argentina in April, against the far right president elected last year, see: https://tinyurl.com/SocLab20256
These must be mass campaigns operating openly, that, while taking security seriously, do not prioritize a paranoid security culture above openness and effectiveness.
A new united front strategy answers questions about the specific role of socialist organization today. If we accept that re-building the vanguard of the working class through movement work is an essential part of meaningful left strategy today, then it has often left a question about what role remains for the socialist organization. In this period of growing reaction, it is clear that outside of the propagandistic role of socialist organization, its activist role must be in leveraging its embeddedness in specific struggles to build the anti-authoritarian fronts that unite those struggles, bring them closer in action to socialist politics, and work to smash the threat of the right.
Other books
Several other authors have written on this subject. This includes, David Renton’s book, The New Authoritarians – Convergence on the Right (2019).
See: https://tinyurl.com/SocLab20257
David says that:
The eighteen months between June 2016 and the end of 2017 saw the victory of Leave in Britain’s EU referendum, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, and unprecedented support for Marine Le Pen of the Front National in her campaign for the same office in France. Nearly a decade after the great financial crash, it is these figures and the alarmingly confident and radical version of right-wing politics they represent that have gained the initiative over a moribund centre and a still weak left.
For a more recent article by David published last month, see: https://tinyurl.com/SocLab20258
Another recent book, Disaster Nationalism – The Downfall of Liberal Civilisation (2024) by Richard Seymour was reviewed earlier this year by two comrades in Namibia:
https://www.namibian.com.na/is-fascism-back/
They say that Richard Seymour points out fictional catastrophes such as the ‘white’ genocide in South Africa, the Great Replacement of ‘white’ Americans by “brown” immigrants, and the ‘Romeo Jihad’ of Muslim men against Hindu women (in India).
This is not yet classic fascism but the emergence of a different kind of fascism promoted by a civil society network, culture wars and the goal of a constitutional rupture towards an authoritarian democracy. More details about Richard’s book are available here:https://tinyurl.com/SocLab20259
We can learn from this international experience, but we have to develop our own analysis of the T-Pain regime and how to fight it. The key lesson is that the left has to unite and work together in close co-operation if we are able to defeat this latest threat from the right. We also have to teach the new generation the dangers of authoritarian right-wing nationalism in either its civilian or military forms.
