As indicated previously, I was raised by socialist peace activists; my parents having been ‘war babies’ who were evacuated to escape the ‘Liverpool Blitz’. (A favourite bed-time story of my father’s was to tell me how,as a child, he had helped his father put out a German incendiary bomb that had fallen on their house, which they had to vacate due to bomb damage.)
Growing up amongst the International Socialists during the 1960s and 1970s, I heard about American and Soviet imperial over-reach. Recent events have, inevitably, evoked conversations with my father of a half century ago.
When I asked him about the rise of the Nazis, my father was clear: the failure of the Left to unite against Hitler resulted in Nazi success at the polls in 1933. As to the anti-democratic forces currently deployed on social media- and the use of freedom of expression as a ‘sword’ rather than a ‘shield’ – my father’s clarity would be welcome. On asking him why, given one’s notions of ‘English fair play’ and freedom of speech he said that neo-Nazis should not be given air-time, he replied that the only way to deal with them was by way of pest control – drawing a parallel between fascists and rats.
Having seen a recent exhibition of the work of the Film and Photo League, I felt an echo of the 1930s – when fascists and socialists fought one another on the streets of Berlin – and at protests in London were were kept apart.
The exhibition impelled me to reading recommended by my father: Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism. (As distinct from Character Analysis, which having happened upon at age 14 in our living-room, had bemused me with its images of the ‘Orgone Accumulator’: a box which Reich (who coined the term ‘the sexual revolution’ ) believed would harness orgone energy, a universal life force.)
Reich examined themes that resonate to this day: ideology as a material force; authoritarian ideology, including the authoritarian family [and the essential notion of reproduction of the ‘natural order’ by way of the Aryan family] nationalistic self-confidence; and race theory. Although of their time, Reich’s below questions remain pertinent:
(a) why do the masses allow themselves to be swindled?
(b) why didn’t they see that…Hitler promised the capitalists that their rights would be protected?
(c) how long can fascism exploit the masses’ disappointment in Social Democracy and their “rebellion against the system “ for their own narrow purposes?
In her war-time diary, the writer Sylvia Townsend Warner (an ardent Communist, and likely Stalinist) noted her wife Valentine Ackland’s observation:
“that the Left has made a great mistake in underestimating the stupidity of the German people: its vast extent of lumpen-bourgeoisie, readers of the Daily Express (we have it too) [whatever the outcome of WWII] they will still fell inferior to the intelligentsia, will still remain as fascist as ever.”
In the 1970s, when I expressed concern to my German teacher that, as coal mines were closing, the Wirtschaftswunder. (‘economic miracle’ ) the rebirth of the Ruhr valley – to which many guest workers had migrated – would be short-lived, she replied that it was thriving.
Fifty years on, the Ruhrgebiet has been hit – by globalisation. At the Thyssenkrupp steelworks in Duisburg, for example, in the face of cheap Chinese imports forty per cent of the workforce faces redundancy. Against this backdrop, the Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) has sought to lure workers away from the SPD – alleging “it is no longer a workers’ party… rather but a party of higher earners”.
Gelsenkirchen is Germany’s poorest town, with municipal buildings looking decrepit and streets sadly shabbier since it’s hey-day as the SPD’s ‘red bastion’. Although the SPD parliamentary candidate kept his seat, the AfD won a quarter of the Zweitstimmen (the second votes which determine the percentage seat in the Bundestag).
What is clear from the German election is considerable alienation from the social democrats. Like the Labour Party, the SPD was founded by workers’ collectivist movements. Unfortunately, neither party has grappled with the effects of globalisation.
As I said before, Margaret Thatcher’s tinkering with the money supply (monetarism) decimated British industry. Communities that had grown around local manufacturing became reliant on jobs in the service sector.
Having, in 2016, been alarmed by the vote to leave the EU, and having since traversed England, I have found it helpful to ponder development economist Paul Collier’s views on that result. After the Brexit referendum, Collier wanted to explain why so many working-class voters opted for Brexit:
“the experience of the provincial workforce is defined by the new anxieties: their towns forlorn, their skills devalued, their prestige shredded, their family structures fraying.They are now the mutineers, and not only in Britain: Brexit for sure, but also Trump … and the far-right AfD. All of these movements have performed the strongest in regions where people feel they are missing out.”
Collier’s signposting of such movements confirms the danger of the convulsive shifts that have erupted over the past decade. He says that “ place has become a dimension of the new grievances…because economic inequalities have widened…the less well-educated are in crisis, stigmatised as the White Working Class.” Proposing pragmatic measures, Collier latterly suggested ways to build social cohesion: via investment, including in ‘clean’ energy.
And yet, it must be recalled – in the light of the ‘Remain’ campaign of nine years ago, economic argument alone will not suffice to challenge the threats posed by the far-right. Instead, investment to repair damage endured over decades by local communities must be a top priority.
Reading Anthony Barnett’s New Statesman article at the turn of this year, I recalled many years ago attending his talk on the conflicted cultural site that is ‘Englishness’. Even now, confusion abounds as to the political correctness of the self-defining Englishman or woman.
Barnett signalled a significant recent text by Caroline Lucas. In her compendious review of the review of the land and literature of England, while noting conceptions of Englishness, the former Green Party leader suggests that:
“ Perhaps the most serious danger that flows from the failure to acknowledge English political consciousness is the opportunity it provides for populist agitation.”
In view of the unfolding political, and environmental, crises, and the potential for destruction of our planet, Lucas’s words underscore the need to subvert far-right ideology in all its hydra-headed forms. To that end, the time has come to devise radical strategy- perhaps by returning to Gramsci’s conceptions of counter- hegemony, and the interregnum.
References:
Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, ed. Mary Higgins and Chester M. Raphael, Souvenir Press, 2008
Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner, ed. Claire Harman, Virago, 1995
John Kampfner, Why the Germans Do It Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country, Atlantic, 2020
David Renton, No Free Speech for Fascists: Exploring ‘No Platform’ in History, Law and Politics, Routledge, 2021
Max Czollek, De-Integrate: a Jewish Survival Guide for the 21st Century, Restless Books, 2023
Wolfgang Münchau, Kaput: the End of the German Miracle, Swift Press, 2024
Anne-Sylvaine Chassany, How Scholz’s party is losing ground in Germany’s industrial heartland, Financial Times, 22.2.25
Paul Collier, How to save Britain from London, Prospect, 12.10.18
Paul Collier, Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places, Penguin, 2024
Anthony Barnett, Who can answer the English Question? New Statesman, 6.12.24
Caroline Lucas, Another England: How to Reclaim Our National Story, Hutchinson Heinemann, 2024
Cristina Lafont & Nadia Urbinati, The Lottocratic Mentality: Defending Democracy against Lottocracy, Oxford University Press 2024
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