On the split in the social-democratised ex-Stalinist Party of the European Left and the bourgeoisification of the “left”

By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 6 February 2025, www.thecommunists.net

In an interview, Marga Ferré, the President of transform! Europe – the think tank of the Party of the European Left (PEL) – talks about the recent split her party has suffered. The PEL is the European alliance of various ex-Stalinist parties which have undergone a process of thorough social democratisation after 1991. Their most important components are the LINKE in Germany, Syriza in Greece and the Communist Parties in France and Spain. ^[1]

The parties of PEL have a long history of combining socialist phrases with supporting or participating in capitalist governments in the EU which implemented a policy of militarism and austerity. The French PCF was part of the government when NATO waged war against Serbia in 1999 and against Afghanistan in 2001. Syriza implemented a brutal austerity policy dictated by the European Union. [2] The PCE and IU are part of the Spanish government which implements the NATO policy against Russia. ^[3]

And the German LINKE has a longstanding history of defending the “right to exist” of the Israeli Apartheid state, of siding with Israel in its wars against the Palestinian people by leading representatives and of expelling supporters of the Palestinian cause. It is hardly surprising that, according to current polls, the LINKE might not even reach the threshold at the German parliamentary elections in a few weeks. ^[4]

As a result, most parties of PEL have suffered decline and splits. In September last year, a number of parties left PEL and created another left-reformist formation – the European Left Alliance (ELA). Its most important component is the La France Insoumise, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the strongest left-wing force in France. Other important parties are the Swedish Left Party, the Left Alliance in Finland, the Portuguese Left Bloc and Podemos in Spain.

While Mélenchon’s LFI distinguishes itself favourable from most other PEL parties by playing a supportive role in the pro-Palestine solidarity movement since 7 October 2023, ELA as a whole can hardly be called a left-wing split from PEL. Podemos still supports the NATO government of Sánchez, and in May 2022 the Left Alliance voted in its majority for Finland to join NATO. [5]

So, basically this is a fall out between left-reformist forces where ELA has now 18 and PEL 16 deputies in the European Parliament.

Naturally, Ferré laments the decline of her party in the interview. But she refuses to advocate any substantial corrections in their party’s policy. Quite the opposite, she argues in favour of continuing the reformist policy of advising, supporting and participating in imperialist governments. Such people can't be helped.

“When I problematise the tendency to be part of the mainstream (which runs through part of the European left and underlies this period of splits) I don’t mean this as a criticism of being in the institutions. On the contrary, I strongly argue that the left has to contest spaces everywhere, institutions and governments included.”

However, she makes a statement in the interview which is particularly interesting. She admits that ordinary people can hardy distinguish the “radical left”, i.e. the left-reformist parties in PEL, from social democracy and Green parties.

“[T]he political distance that existed in previous decades between social democracy and the radical left has been narrowing. In some countries there is a very fine division for voters between the left, social democracy or the greens: they are becoming indistinguishable for the audiences they are addressing.”

And this is indeed true. Their role as “left-wing” advisors and executioners of the imperialist bourgeoisie makes the ex-Stalinist parties more and more indistinguishable from social democratic and Green parties. Not only this, the “radical left” has increasingly a similar social composition of its membership and electorate like these bourgeois parties, i.e. mostly people coming from the middle class and the labour aristocracy.

We pointed to this process of bourgeoisification of the “left” already several years ago, but it is refreshing to hear such an insight from an authoritative source from within the camp of left reformism! [6]

As a matter of fact, many centrist organisations which claim to stand for socialist revolution but are bogged down in opportunist adaptation to the reformist party and trade union bureaucracy, have entered a similar road. They might talk about the “working class” and the “oppressed” but the bulk of their supporters belong to the middle class and the labour aristocracy. Fearing to become isolated from this milieu, they assimilate many of their social-imperialist and liberal prejudices so that they themselves become increasingly indistinguishable from the reformist host from which they parasitise.

Socialists can follow an authentic revolutionary path only if they consistently break with such “left-wing” middle class and labour aristocratic milieu. This does, of course, not exclude the policy of approaching reformist forces for united front activities. But a revolutionary party must be based on the mass of the working class and oppressed, not on its upper strata!