PE Since our conversation there have been further troubling developments in international politics. Perhaps the most serious event in this context for many people, which I’m sure made you somewhat uneasy too, is the election of Donald Trump as president of the USA. Could you describe your impressions of the situation over there?
AB The situation I encountered in the USA during my lecture tour1 was certainly very shocking. Most of my friends are far to the left of Hillary Clinton. They were more on the side of Bernie Sanders during the election campaign, and only voted for Hillary Clinton to stop Trump from winning the election. Now we see that even that didn’t help, that it by no means prevented Trump’s victory, and they’re appalled and upset after this event, because they really never thought that Trump could actually be elected. All the polls were against him, and nonetheless they decided to vote for Hillary Clinton, so naturally they’re devastated now. Incidentally, a large part of my efforts consisted in suggesting explanations and attempting to find rational explanations for all of that, in order to break out of this trauma, this state of shock, by trying to convince them that one must face the struggle rather than freezing in a state of depression. I think I managed to do some useful work in that respect.
PE One can easily get the impression that most of Trump’s aggressive statements, and even some of his supposed political goals were mostly part of a campaign strategy that helped him gain the support of those known as the ‘left behind’, the losers of capitalist society, by skilfully exploiting their aggressions and frustrations. Do you think one really has to fear a fascist turn in American politics now? Or was it all just show?
AB I think the situation isn’t entirely clear. I’d simply note the following: a fundamental characteristic of fascist politics is the power of an independent party of its own. The great fascisms always had a loyally devoted party apparatus under them. Whether one takes Mussolini’s fascism or Hitler’s, there has never been a fascism without a complete party apparatus. That’s not the case with Trump. Trump doesn’t have his own party apparatus, he’s dependent on the Republicans, and since his election he’s also been forced to hold complicated negotiations to get a majority. So one can’t call him a fascist in the strict sense, which would apply to those people who strive to seize power not only on the basis of their ideas and statements, but on the basis of a solid organization that’s capable of mobilizing people on the streets, but also exerts a sufficient influence on the police and the military. I think Trump is far from having such influence. At the moment one should see him more as a demagogue of the extreme Right who has indeed managed to profit from the votes of those who are excluded from America’s capitalist system, and who are all the more discontented because they had previously felt that their future was guaranteed by the power and wealth of the United States. Now they see that it’s not the case, especially since the crisis of 2008, and that the USA too is being forced to downsize its industry, lay off workers and so on. Trump exploited that. And he was able to do so because there’s no counterbalance to the left of him. The only possible counterbalance would be Bernie Sanders, but he wasn’t the candidate; and not only that, he was also obliged to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign. So he inevitably came across as a false, pseudo-independent alternative, as someone who first gathered the youth around him, but then had to convince them to vote for Hillary Clinton after all. Obviously, he undermined himself somewhat by doing that.
So I don’t think we have to brace ourselves for a fascist turn in American politics, at least if one defines fascism in the strict sense. But we do have to be prepared for a classic shift of American politics towards an aggressive, nationalist and even more imperialistic orientation, perhaps in combination with a slightly risky and reckless foreign policy – I’m thinking of certain statements by Trump about relations with China and so forth – and with a strong internal movement against some of the social advances in American politics, such as the law successfully passed by Obama that at least guarantees a degree of security regarding medical care. All of that seems to be under threat! So I’m thinking of a form of right-wing countermovement. In France, Trump has often been compared to Thatcher or Reagan, with the great reactionaries of the 1980s. I think it will amount to something similar, albeit with a slightly more aggressive, populist and careless vocabulary. So even if we don’t quite have to use the word ‘fascist’, it’s certainly not good news.
PE You spoke of solidarity between refugees, the nomadic proletariat and, for example, the youth and the intellectuals, but the typical Trump voters are mostly from the white working class, so they’re neither from the educated classes nor among those who normally receive the sympathy of a middle class concerned with social solidarity. How can one effectively oppose this fascist populism in the West and bridge this social divide?
AB It’s true that the majority of Trump voters come from the white working class, but those votes wouldn’t have been enough by themselves to win the election. He was also supported by a substantial part of the affluent middle class, one shouldn’t have any illusions about that. But it’s true that especially because of the American electoral system, a small number of states that have large numbers of workers and have indeed gone through a process of deindustrialization exerted an especially great influence on the election result.
On a side note, I’d like to point out that the question of deindustrialization is of great importance in general, and now I’m thinking of Europe. In Britain, for example, deindustrialization is proceeding apace, and it’s the same in France. In the areas particularly affected by deindustrialization, such as northern France, Lorraine or the area around Marseille, many people vote for the National Front, and I’d venture to say that this makes it all the more important to offer these voters a communist alternative.
So we’re in a serious situation at the moment, and that’s partly because the far Right all over the world is trying to exploit phenomena like deindustrialization, people’s frustration, poverty and so forth for their own gain. One can observe the same thing in South America, where all the left-leaning governments have been voted out of power in recent years because they no longer had any way to tackle the discontent of the populace. Now they’ve been replaced by, maybe not quite fascists, but certainly extreme right-wingers. And when I speak of the solidarity between refugees, the nomadic proletariat, the youth and the intellectuals, then the progress in this area shows that great efforts will still be needed to guide the traditional working class back to left-wing hypotheses. In my view, that class is stuck deep in reactionary, nationalist or xenophobic mindsets, and has been for twenty or thirty years. There’s a right-wing culture that has entrenched itself in these areas. In France the National Front has been present in those regions for a long time now, which is why much work will be needed to combat this tendency successfully. That’s the main problem in re-establishing a true European Left, because if it doesn’t manage to regain its popular base, it will remain a very fragile and precarious force that only affects one section of the youth and the intellectuals.
PE So the weakness of the Left strengthens the Right?
AB But of course.
PE So one has to analyze the weakness of the Left.
AB The weakness of the Left is connected to the collapse of traditional communism. In the USA there wasn’t any communism, but there was still a Left in the form of the Democratic Party, which stood in the tradition of Roosevelt, advocating a stronger intervention in society by the state. What ultimately destroyed the people’s faith in the Left completely was unchecked economic liberalism, and the fact that state measures to protect the weakest in society had disappeared almost everywhere. This means that protection from unemployment, slightly stronger labour regulations that make dismissals more difficult, social security, equality in the education system – all those things are in the process of being utterly destroyed everywhere, not just in the USA, but also in France. And it’s only possible because ordinary people, people from the working class, aren’t politically organized. That’s obvious. But the major parties like the Social Democrats in Germany, which aren’t communist parties, are clearly weakened. And this political situation we’re in today, which is a rather serious and tense one, essentially follows from the downfall of the classical Left in Europe and everywhere else in the world, be it the social-democrat Left or the communist Left. The result is that more and more people are joining the side of the far Right.
PE So you think that the working class, which was traditionally represented by the Left, is now moving to the right-wing camp because the Left doesn’t have any more solutions to offer it?
AB It’s quite obvious that the Left is gradually adapting to the Right everywhere. That’s the problem, and you’re not entirely unaffected by that yourself (laughs). That’s the result of a persistent anti-communism.
PE But you don’t really think that the root of the problem is the fact that the attempt to establish a socialist or communist society failed?
AB I do, I think it may be the main problem.
PE And you think that analyzing the problems that led to the fall of the Left could help develop ideas for a new Left?
AB The certainly depends significantly on the conclusion one draws from past events, but so far this conclusion has consisted purely in discarding everything, and if one discards everything, one ends up in a situation like the one we can observe now, where the only alternative that people see and that isn’t part of the ruling system is offered by the far Right. So the people are discontented with the democratic-capitalist system in its current form, and they have good reason to be so: deindustrialization, the removal of social safety nets and so forth. They see that there’s nothing coming from the Left, so they turn towards those who present themselves as the ‘new’ ones.
The only political force in France that utters the word ‘worker’ in today’s political discourse is the far Right. Such categories have completely vanished on the Left. All that remains of the Left is a vague democratism. And in this state, if faced with a great crisis of capitalist society, how is it supposed to present itself as if it were capable of leading society? In France we’ve had socialist governments for years, and in France there are coalitions between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, so these forces bear some of the responsibility for this situation.
PE Reforming the Left in favour of a solidarity-based society would undoubtedly require a radical political turnaround. Why does the Left flagellate itself instead?
AB Firstly, the Left is indirectly affected by the consequences of the collapse of the socialist states, that’s beyond doubt, and secondly, it has gradually reached the conviction that it’s part of the prevailing order; it has become a governing Left, and it still is. For it to develop a new perspective, it’s urgently necessary for it to position itself very clearly outside the ruling system. That’s exactly what the far Right is doing; even Trump claims to be against the establishment. One has to make it clear from the outset that one is distancing oneself from this system.
PE You mean, with the help of a solidarity-based communist perspective for the Left?
AB Yes, I’m quite sure about that, because I think it’s the only way to convince people that the programme of the Left actually differs from the prevailing system. And this system is truly sick.
PE But what do you say to people who agree with you, but still remember very well that all attempts at socialism have ended in disaster?
AB This doesn’t strike me as a very weighty argument. Of course these attempts failed a number of times, but the regime under the law of private property has existed for millennia, and it has always existed; the communist regime, by contrast, only has a history of seventy years. So it’s hardly surprising that it’s not simple and one has to fail at first. Considering that capitalism is the dominant structure, I don’t think this failure is particularly significant. It’s entirely natural, and there were failed attempts before that too, for example in the nineteenth century, when workers’ uprisings were crushed, as with the Paris Commune. So we’re at the very beginning of a massive historical process concerned with liberating ourselves from the forms of inequality and oppression that prevent every true community, and which have defined humanity from the start of its historical existence. Of course, it’s important to think about why failures occurred, one has to discuss the issue of the Leninist party and so on. There’s much to do in the name of this process, but one mustn’t give up completely, because if one gives up, one doesn’t really have a right to complain about the existence of fascism.
PE Precisely the reference to the common good seems to anger the protest voters who are receptive to populism; for example, when they rail against ‘do-gooders’. How can one make the idea of a solidarity-based politics attractive to these people again?
AB That’s indeed a very difficult task, but one that we must face, which requires engaging with the problems that directly affect these people. One has to show them that in reality, the suggestions of the far Right are not in their interests at all. One has to fight the discourse of the far Right, which is actually completely reactionary, which is liberal without any solidarity, point by point. And on the other hand, one has to show that our suggestion, our new programme, genuinely contributes to opening up a new terrain, a new mode of being for politics and community.
I think that perhaps one has to invent or recover a new language; it’s a difficult matter, because one can’t simply fall back on the language of the Left, as it’s exhausted and people no longer believe in it after seeing that the Left is part of the state machinery at the official level. One has to invent a new language. Perhaps one can find individual elements of this new language more in the old communism of the nineteenth century than the state communism of the twentieth century, because Marx’s ideas had little in common with those of the Stalinist state; they were ideas of free association, communal democratic organization and so forth. One should return to this language, which is, after all, the authentic language of communist politics.
PE Your friend and colleague Slavoj Žižek said in an interview that he would even prefer Trump to Clinton, because he saw her as the total embodiment of the establishment and would only ensure that everything continued as before. The election of Trump, on the other hand, might wake people up.2 What do you think? Do you believe in a ‘great awakening’ in the USA following this election? Is there a positive aspect to this election result?
AB I have a completely different view from Slavoj Žižek, because I think one should never support fatalist politics. I consider it politically untenable to say that I’ll vote for Trump because his victory would be so disastrous that good things would surely emerge in reaction to it. In a sense, that’s exactly what the German Communist Party did in the 1930s: it said that the true enemy was not Hitler but the social democrats. One shouldn’t forget that. Essentially, the Communist Party back then was close to claiming that it wasn’t bad to vote for Hitler, as he wouldn’t stay in office for long anyway and one had to beware of the social democrats far more. To me, what Žižek said tends in a similar direction, and I find it irresponsible. It’s irresponsible to say that one will vote for a thug because one thinks it will animate people to resist. If one wants people to resist, one has to give them genuine and positive reasons to do so. That’s simply the work that has to be done, and counting on the negative propaganda of the far Right to do this work for us is a very dangerous strategy, in my opinion. It’s an absolute misconception and I’m completely against it. It’s an idea that might exact a very high price.
PE In America there were numerous protests after the election. Is there an upheaval in society at the moment that might awaken latent forces such as the youth?
AB I hardly think so. There were young people demonstrating in the streets on election day itself and in the following weeks, but these protests have meanwhile come to a halt. Now people have realized that the problem can’t be solved with a few demonstrations, but that it’s a matter of developing a general political perspective again. And of course one has to oppose Trump, that’s obvious. But that’s also where the biggest danger lies. I think that the resistance to Trump, the same as with Le Pen in France, is coming mostly from the educated youth. Not all of the youth, just the students.
After the election, I attended a large rally with Bernie Sanders in Boston where the audience consisted largely of students. There were hardly any less educated young people. So when one speaks of the youth, one should be aware that it’s one part of the youth that has a long tradition of demonstrating and an essentially student character; a group that does exert a certain influence in Europe and in the USA, but ultimately constitutes only a small part of the population. I
think this part of the youth will indeed become active and organize, but it will be important for it to go a step further, to ally itself with others, speak to others and not insulate itself, because if it does that, it will remain a small minority.