Nationalists of the World, Are They United?

Steve Bannon's extensive trips to Europe this year have not attracted enough attention, given that he is the chief theory of US President Donald Trump's nationalism. Bannon now wants to build a federation of nationalist parties in Europe. And yet, one might wonder how the ideologist of “American pre” could follow his political project in another country that is not America. Joining forces with the far-right French leader, Marine Le Pen é an open supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin Bannon appears to have in mind a new kind of “neo-nationalist international”.

As more and more countries are transformed into <x0 nationalist democracy” and <x2-liberal democracy” under the rule of the strong, nationalism has become a common ideological denominator. But the question is whether someone should take the oxymoor of nationalist internationalism seriously.
Historically, internationalism in general has been the preservation of the left, starting with attempts by French revolutionaries to export their political project across Europe. It was Napoleon Bonapart's dictatorship that put an end to this effort. But it is interesting to imagine what would have happened if the states of Europe then ideologically took the path of imperial republicanism.

Early in the last century, socialist internationalism drew closer than its ancestors to realize his global ambitions. Well-rooted in classical Marxism, the Socialist movement viewed the nation as a transit tool for achieving prolear universalism. Most countries would eventually approve communism under an international framework, and the nation state would become outdated.

At that time, the main Communists, such as Rosa Luxemburg, and even Vladimir Lenin for a time, believed that Communist institutions would gain a site in post-World War I Germany and then beam the rest of the world. With the fall of Imperial Russia, the Bolsheviks predicted the Soviet Union, which served as the outpost of global communism. But when communist revolutions in the rest of Europe failed, Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Buharin reconsidered the historic task of the Soviet Union as building <x0); socialism in a country of”.

The Soviet Union was initially conceived as a federation of Socialist republics under the yoke of a double institutional structure consisting of a common “ ” bureaucracy, on the one hand, and the Communist Party, on the other. Under this agreement, party commissioners formed a parallel power structure and reported to the Communist Party's Central Committee. In theory, federation republics were equal, and Russian nationalism was subdued. In reality, the Russian republic immediately dominated others because it was the seat of power.

On the economic front, the Soviet Union did not have an explosive nationalist-producing policy. However, because the production was centrally planned by Moscow, economic policymaking played a protectionist role, favouring several Soviet republics above others.
For decades after the war World II, many Communist and Socialist opposition parties in Europe would follow the Kremlin leadership. These included the French and Italian Communist Partys, each of which commanded about a third of their countries' fragmented electorates, as well as Germany's Social Democratic Party, which did not formally abandon its Marxist roots until the 1959 Bad Godesberg Congress.

Meanwhile, the West continued to dominate the world economy. With the United States leading the way, Western countries liberalised trade and encouraged others to open up their economies. In time, emerging new independent countries would join the Western-led international order. Even China, basically a Communist country, would eventually embrace Western economic principles in its quest to grow even further. Within Western democracies during this time, socialism was largely abandoned and replaced by social democracy, which rejected central planning in favour of markets as a mechanism for sharing resources.

Against this historical background, how should we interpret Bannon's initiative? His objective is certainly not to build a right-wing alternative to the Soviet federation. Right-wing nationalist leaders like Jéróme Rivière of French National Rachel ( recently renamed National Front) have dismissed that idea completely. “Bannon is an American and there is no place in a European political party,” said Rivière for Politico in July. We reject any surra-nationalist existence and are not participating in creating anything with Bannon. ”

Then Bannon's mission is not to improve policymaking or build new institutions for managing the economic and technological challenges of the 20th century. Rather, its only focus is weakness and, if possible, the deletion of benefits “liberal-social”, such as the European project.

At the heart of this project are two types of internationalism that Bannon and his allies want to destroy: one of the liberal right-right and the other of the liberal left centre. That goal, more than any political resemblance, is what unites Europe's far-right parties. Despite its weakness, Europe is still the focus of liberal international thinking. And that makes it a no-go for nationalists everywhere.

/ Project Syndicate