02.03.2000

SWP and Haider

PC anti-fascism

Jörg Haider unexpectedly announced on Monday night that he will resign as leader of the Freedom Party (FPÖ). This was certainly an astute political move which puts the pressure back onto the European Union and the United States - inviting them to drop the diplomatic sanctions which have been imposed on the coalition government in Vienna.

It was reported that FPÖ members were "visibly irritated and shocked" (The Guardian February 29) by the news, which sees Haider's political confidante and current vice-chancellor, Susanne Riess-Passer, taking over as party leader. Austria's fellow EU partners, on the other hand, were underwhelmed by Haider's decision. Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson, typically warned that the coalition government was "still on probation". And speaking on behalf of the hegemon of the western world, James Rubin of the US state department reiterated that it was not Haider, the individual, who was the main problem: "This doesn't change our concerns - the Freedom Party itself is part of the problem."

The formation of the FPÖ-People's Party (PPÖ) coalition government triggered off a tide of essentially liberalistic 'anti-fascism/Nazism', all with the blessing of the ruling classes of the US and EU and the mainstream media. Hence the 'never again' windbaggery we have had to endure over recent months. No surprises there of course. There is nothing the European bourgeoisie hates more than to be reminded of its own past - which in the 1920s and 30s saw it go right up to its neck in fascism, blood and filth. For the reinvented and impeccably anti-racist-fascist-Nazi bourgeoisie, Haider has appeared liked Banquo's ghost - he must be exorcised by using the learnt-by-rote incantations and more recently adopted rituals of political correctness.

However, what is truly disheartening about the Haider crisis is not the ascension to governmental power of the FPÖ-PPÖ coalition as such. After all, some 1.5 million people voted for Haider's party in an open, free and democratic election. Many of those who voted FPÖ - especially young workers - did so because it was seen as the 'party of protest' against the cronyism and corruption of the 'red and black state' (ie, the social democratic and conservative stitch-up which has characterised Austrian political-state-civil society since at least 1955). The real cause for concern lies in the fact that sections of the revolutionary left have been swept along by this tide of official anti-fascism/Nazism.

The effect has been to dovetail neatly behind the attempt of Austrian social democracy to resurrect itself as the dominant party of government. It mobilised 100,000 on to the streets of Vienna last month against Haider. The working class has deserted the SPÖ, but the left wants them to return to the fold. The reaction to the Macpherson report showed graphically that on many issues the current left is a mere moralistic appendage to bourgeois society - the voice of its conscience, not the voice of its revolutionary destruction.

The perfect case-study in standard anti-racism/fascism is of course the Socialist Workers Party. Its response to the Haider crisis has been hysterical right from the start. Naturally, the prime explanation for this does not lie in the realm of rigorous theory. What we see in the SWP's coverage of Austria is a more or less simple case of opportunism. The organisation desperately wants to feed off respectable liberal opinion. By doing so the leaders of the SWP believe they can get some cheap publicity, sell a few more - even a lot more - Socialist Workers and maybe gain a new swathe of recruits. Naturally the SWP tops could not give a brass farthing about expounding and developing a serious programme - one which targets the failure of social democracy as the main cause for the rise of the FPÖ, and maps out the building of a working class vanguard. That would immediately put them on a sharp collision course with the whole gamut of politically correct nostrums. In other words, it would run the danger - god forbid - of them making the SWP unpopular with its target, or imagined, audience and readership.

Hence the recent SWP-organised demonstrations outside the Austrian embassy. The protesters bore placards banally depicting Haider as Adolf Hitler, by drawing in the archetypal Hitler-type moustache onto photographs of the FPÖ leader. To make the point even more obvious, banners were waved which bore the memorable inscription, 'Haider is Hitler'. (In a similar fashion, the bourgeois media delighted in portraying Saddam Hussein and Slobadan Milosevic as latterday Hitlers - just as Anthony Eden in 1956 was fixated by the fanciful idea that general Abdul Nasser was an Egyptian incarnation of Adolf Schicklgrüber. All blatant justifications for imperialist warmongery.)

We suspect that the message that Haider is indeed Hitler may not come as news to Jörg Haider himself. The left in Austria has been saying that - ineffectively - for two decades. Nevertheless he is more prone to comparing himself nowadays to Tony Blair than the iron chancellor of the Third Reich. This was made plain by Haider in an article in The Daily Telegraph (February 22). He claimed to have "amazing similarities" with Blair. Warming to his theme, Haider writes: "The once dogmatic left Labour Party and the right-nationalist-dominated FPÖ of old have undergone an ideological metamorphosis." Both New Labour and the FPÖ are at last free of all "ideological ballast" - the "old ideological categories of 'left' and 'right' have become irrelevant". The FPÖ, continues Haider, now has a "positive attitude to Europe" - it has abandoned its "German nationalist stance" and become "an Austrian patriotic movement". Haider not unreasonably asks, "Are Blair and Labour extreme right because they do not accept the Schengen agreement and advocate stricter rules on immigration? If Blair is not extreme then nor is Haider." He adds that he "is arguably less tough on asylum-seekers and immigrants than Labour and Blair". Haider concludes: "Labour and the FPÖ work for reform in the state and a society without taboos. Both seek flexible possibilities for independent people in a changing society."

Haider's Daily Telegraph article elicited a swift reply from the sanctimonious Tony Blair. A Downing Street spokesperson stated: "The idea that there are genuine similarities between the two is so risible that I do not think it is worth wasting our breath."

The analogy between Haider and Blair poses a whole host of fascinating questions vis-à -vis the SWP. Haider directly compares himself to Blair, even argues that he is 'less extreme' than Blair and New Labour when it comes to the question of Überfremdung ('over-foreignisation'). Using the logic of the SWP and Haider's very own words, it can only be the case that 'Blair is Haider'. Therefore it surely follows that, 'Blair is Hitler'. Now, as we all know, the SWP - along with virtually the entire left - called for a Labour vote in 1997 (even celebrated Blair's landslide general election victory in May as a "class vote" which would "fructify" the class struggle). Would we therefore be justified in holding demonstrations bearing placards which read, 'SWP is pro-Hitler'?

In a recent issue of Socialist Worker (February 19) we were presented with a perfect example of the SWP's opportunism with regards to the Haider brouhaha. This took the form of an unsigned article - though obviously written by an authority on the question: eg, Chris Bambery or Chris Harman - designed to persuade and assuage the SWP rank and file over its toying with out-and-out liberalism.

The article under examination is studded with all manner of howlers and gobbledegook. Like the nonsensical assertion that fascism "allows the capitalists to squeeze profit out of workers by turning society into a barracks under military discipline" - slave labour is in fact notoriously unproductive. Or the one-sided claim that "at first Mussolini stressed virulent Italian nationalism and the assault against the left" - when everyone knows that the success of the Italian blackshirts was partly due to their radical anti-capitalist rhetoric (that explains why we take a balanced view of, for example, the Seattle anti-WTO protest). Nor were Hitler's Nazis called the National Socialist Workers Party for nothing - appeals to the left and 'anti-capitalism' are a general characteristic of mass-based fascist movements.

The real point to make here is that the description of fascism as laid out in Socialist Worker is accurate - but only as far as it goes. Yes - "fascists are more than simply nasty rightwing politicians who scapegoat minorities and preach nationalism". They do indeed "aim to destroy all forms of working class organisation" and "seek to draw support from across society". No disagreements here. However, none of these elements constitute a workable definition. Fascism is a moment, not an articulated ideology, when major sections of finance capital turn to naked dictatorship and terror to stave off imminent revolution and/or capital is unable to rule in the old way. In other words, fascism is the counterrevolutionary organisation of capitalist crisis on behalf of finance capital as a whole. It strikes against the working class and against internal splits and divisions.

The Socialist Worker article then asks, "Is Haider a fascist?" Answer - "Yes. He has identified with open Nazis. He praises Hitler's SS and echoes his propaganda. He would not do so throughout a political career lasting three decades if he were not a fascist." In other words, to hell with science: 'Haider is a Nazi' - even though there is no "paramilitary movement of uniformed thugs" on the streets of Vienna, nor any sort of revolutionary crisis. Just believe that "the Austrian Tory party, the People's Party, has collapsed in the polls with much of its support going to Jörg Haider's Freedom Party", when in fact it is the crisis of social democracy (that is, disgust with and electoral rebellion against the SPÖ) that has bred the success of the FPÖ.

It is the failure of the left and the working class movement in Austria and elsewhere - under non-revolutionary conditions - that has led to the rise of the xenophobic and populist FPÖ, just as it was the failure of social democracy and the 'official communist' movement in the revolutionary conditions of post-World War I Europe that paved the way for the triumph of fascism across the continent. This must be understood. The ideological hegemony of official anti-racism/fascism over the working class movement also points dramatically to the failure of the contemporary British left in providing an independent programme.

The SWP may sell a few more papers with its 'Haider is Hitler' headlines, its calls for state action against the British National Party and the removal of the works of David Irving from the bookshelves. But it is the likes of Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Anne Widdecombe and Michael Portillo, along with the British state, who gain the most. Banning or prohibiting debate on racism or fascism - in the name of anti-racism and anti-fascism - only serves the interests of those who fear the truth. Such calls act against our interests.

If it is to free itself, the working class needs the truth.