The following is a statement of a member organisation of the jösb on the Austrian situation.

joesb@vorstadtzentrum.net

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Social Democracy is no Less Dangerous than Haider’s Rightist Populism

Via “anti-fascist” follies to “politically correct” totalitarianism facing the possibility of a government with participation of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ)
Declaration of the Revolutionary Communist League (RKL)

Not only in Austria, but all over Europe, an “anti-fascist” cry of leftist-liberals against Haiderism can be heard, even in Christian-conservative circles. Even Hillary Clinton felt bound to speak out against Haider. Those “humanist” crocodile tears of the ruling imperialist bourgeoisie are dutifully reproduced by the left. Now the EU commission crowned the whole story, announcing officially to isolate Austria in case of FPÖ government participation.
It is a terrible mistake not to know the main enemy
1
From an international point of view, the ruling group of the New World Order is left-wing liberalism. Left-wing liberalism advances neo-liberal globalisation, boundless exploitation of the Third World and even the impoverishment of relevant parts of the population in the West, they advance “humanitarian interventionism” — i. e. global imperialist aggression under the guise of human rights.

If an analogy with fascism can be seen today, then it is rather the political current expressed in its most clear form by Clinton and Blair.

Tell us, what is the difference between the alleged attack of Poland against Germany, and the massacre of Racak — both pretexts for aggression wars? The difference might be that the United States of America in their fantasy of omnipotence gave such a poor fabrication that the truth was found out even before their final defeat.

Are the genocide programmes of the USA launched against Vietnam, Kurdistan, Palestine, Iraq and Yugoslavia less bad than the Nazi schemes called lebensraum East, just because they have been committing them under the label of human rights?

Genocide has a constant facter of imperialist capitalism for more than a hundred years! The main difference between modern “human rights” imperialism and fascism is the internal régime, the political structure in the imperialist centres, which is not based on violent oppression of the antagonist working classes by means of civil war, but it is based on social, political and cultural integration of these working classes as junior partners of imperialist aggression. This makes modern imperialism even more dangerous, because it is more impenetrable.

It is thus small wonder that the ideological plaster of neo-liberal globalisation has “leftist” origins. As there is a lack of an antagonist working-class movement, the conception of “civil society” is transforming set pieces of comprehensive human emancipation into a system that is not just compatible with capitalism but even stabilising capitalism.

The end of history is proclaimed, and any collective social action is said to be not just meaningless, but even anti-democratic and totalitarian. Only the individual counts, organising its immediate environment, e. g. by participating in NGOs.

Freedom and emancipation are said to be only attainable by individual and isolated personal initiative. Individuals communicate only in the sphere of the market which creates ostensibly objective, inherent necessities (Sachzwänge) that are beyond the influence of the people, and ostensibly equal democracy.

The authoritarian state that found its most extreme form in fascism, must be restrained, but: The capitalist state as such is left untouched. Communitarianism, “civilian” neo-liberalism — a late decay product of the failure and integration of the 1968 movements — renders new stability (at least temporarily) to crisis-ridden capitalism by oppressing any collective resistance.
2
To call Haider a fascist is a clear expression of ignorance of the historic phenomenon of fascism as a régime of (preventive) civil war against a social revolution. Haider does actually have roots in that tradition, but his rise is owed to his breaking with this tradition.

Rightist populism has no party apparatus to speak of (in stark contrast to fascism): Right until today their party — or rather public relations factory — has difficulties to find cadres to fill the abundant political functions, especially on the lower levels of representation, and their party is not based on mass activism at all.

The ascend of Jörg Haider is due to the virtuous American-style media staging. His populism has neither a unified political programme nor a firm social basis. All those econimistic analyses of the FPÖ as an expression of those who lost in the modernisation process are rather superficial. Haiderism rather is an eclectic movement of protest not only against the social but also against the political and cultural decay caused by neo-liberalism.

Due to the parasitism of the middle classes in the West (including the working-class aristocracy) who defend with teeth and claws their privileges against the horrifying misery of the Third World and also against new poverty in the West, against masses of billions; and also due to the collapse of communism as an international liberation movement: The protest is channelled only to the right. The protest against neo-liberalism thus actually serves its acceleration and consolidation.

Actually, historically speaking, Haiderism is an essence, a decay product of social democracy, such as Blairism. Haider and Blair form antonyms, they are dissimilar twins of the same parents. Rightist populism and leftist liberalism are two poles of alternation of the new neo-liberal régime according to the American model. The current process to shape a new government is actually a régime change.

But this transition from the Second Republic (founded after World War II) to the Third Republic does not only mean the diminishing of Sozialpartnerschaft (institutionalised collective bargaining and cross-class collaberation) and the integration of the FPÖ, but also a further erosion of representative democracy and the installation of an American-style democracy spectacle of alternating parties, in which the SPÖ (Social-Democratic Party) as well as the FPÖ have fixed engagements; only the ÖVP (conservative People’s Party) — now paving the way to such a régime — might be left out.
3
Haider is a greater danger for us when he is in the opposition as when he joins the government, because in the latter case the contradictions of his anti-neo-liberal neo-liberalism will be exposed sooner or later. (This is why Haider himself won’t yet join the government, but puts forword puppets he can get rid of any time.) To overcome Haider, it seems that the masses have to experience his rule. There seems to be no shortcut. If it is true that class struggle is the motor of history — and we still think so —, then the potential conflict, the idea of instability a rightist coalition could create, is the lesser evil compared to the stifling social peace, the deathly silence of any coalition that includes the SPÖ.

In this sense a rightist government is an easier opponent than a leftist one. It might help us to what Austria needs most urgently: social conflict. Anyway there is hope that Schüssel (the ÖVP chancellor candidate) might commit the same mistakes as Berlusconi or Juppé, misled by his ravings for power or incapable Haider-underlings.
The main enemy still is “democratic” totalitarianism

Anybody who accuses us of appeasement, because we don’t have “anti-fascist” struggle as the first item on our list right now, is guilty of appeasement with “humanitarian” imperialism, that wages “anti-fascist” and “humanitarian” wars all over the world to defend its dominion, silencing the opposition by means of “politically correct” unified thought.

There can be no doubt that the struggle against a neo-liberal government including the FPÖ has to be as vigorous as the struggle against the neo-liberal SPÖ–ÖVP government. (Actually there is hardly any difference between the ÖVP–FPÖ programme and the SPÖ–ÖVP that did not come off — even concerning immigration!)

But those who call Haider a fascist, who see him as the main enemy, who thus exculpate leftist liberalism (and its EU-commission dictate), who actually suggest leftist liberalism as an alternative — those objectively become running dogs of imperialism, the system that created the Haider phenomenon.
Vienna, January 31st, 2000