"While
Bush was talking in Brussels, Persson was quoting communist
revolutionary Vladimir Lenin to environmental and anti-globalization
protesters and urging them not to disrupt the meetings
in Gothenburg because of anger at Bush's policies. . .
. 'It's (EU) one of the few institutions we can develop
as a balance to US world domination,' Persson told protest
leaders at a so-called confrontation dialogue.' Addressing
their worries that the 15-member EU is serving international
business rather than the needs of ordinary people, Persson
said the European Union should also be developed to help
balance the power of 'world capital.' 'I'm not a fanatical
supporter of the EU. I never have been. But that's what
we have got and we have to make use of,' he said."
LENIN,
YES – HITLER, NO
Not
that his effort at a rhetorical rapprochement got him
anywhere, for the report goes on to say that "despite
quoting Lenin several times in keeping with the left-wing
tone of the dialogue, Persson and three other ministers
were met with jeers and foot-stamping rather than any
sense of comradeship." Naturally, they were jeering Persson,
not Lenin. What is shocking is that the Prime Minister
of any Western European country would dare to cite as
an authority such a monster as V. I. Lenin – a man who
founded a movement responsible for the murder of millions.
The Soviet state murdered more than Hitler's Holocaust,
and yet its founder is hailed as a patriot of European
unionism – without a peep of protest from anyone. Can
you imagine the outcry if, instead, Persson had cited
a fascist or Nazi ideologue in support of the European
idea? (One could come up with quite a few, as readers
of John Laughland's The
Tainted Source have discovered.) The outcry, however,
was not over the Lenin quotes, but over the apparent rift
this revealed in US-EU relations.
KHRUSHCHEV'S
OTHER SHOE
This
rift is naturally not
news to regular readers of this column, where we
have been keeping tabs on the growth and evolution
of the Euro-monster for quite some time now, but there
are a couple of new developments. What's really interesting
is that Persson's appeal to the reflexive anti-Americanism
of the far Left was ideological as well as tactical :
he was not merely asking them to support the EU as the
only possible counterweight to US hegemony, but also to
join with the Eurocrats in an assault on the bastion of
"world capital." It was just like old times again! Reading
this sort of thing is like going back in a time machine:
it could have been said by Brezhnev, Andropov, Khrushchev,
or any number of past Soviet leaders, even stern old Uncle
Joe himself. While this time they confined themselves
to strictly verbal histrionics, perhaps at some future
US-EU summit the Eurocrats will
start pounding the table with their shoes as a signal
of their extreme displeasure.
TWO
YOUNG COMMIES
The
two most radical European politicians when it comes to
economic and political integration are French Prime Minister
Lionel
Jospin and Joschka
Fischer, German Foreign Minister – both of whom have
recently been exposed a youthful Commies. Jospin was a
member of the International Communist Party (OCI), a rather
stodgy Trotskyist organization that even today holds high
the banner of the phantom "Fourth
International." Confronted with evidence that he might
indeed be a Trotskyist "mole," Jospin deflected the question
and instead said he was proud of his red past:
"It
is true that in the1960s I took an interest in Trotskyist
ideas, and I established relations with one of the groups
of this political movement. It was a personal, intellectual
and political journey of which I am not in the least ashamed.
. . . In the very different world that was the 1960s,
two elements were essential in my political development
– anti-colonialism and anti-Stalinism."
I
won't bore you with a mini-lecture on the history of French
Trotskyism (instead, see A. Belden Fields' Trotskyism
and Maoism: Theory and Practice in France and the United
States), except to say that infiltration was and
is a favorite tactic of the French Trotskyists, and indeed
a secret faction had long been embedded in the French
Socialist Party. I wouldn't be in the least surprised
if Jospin is one of the fabled "Pabloists," who found
a fertile recruiting ground among the hothouse flowers
of French Trotskyist intellectuals, of which the young
Jospin was one. The OCI was formed as a result of the
French Trotskyist rebellion against the infiltration
tactics of the international Trotskyist high command,
with General Secretary Michel
Pablo ordering all the national sections of the Fourth
International to infiltrate the Communist parties. If
we take Jospin's description of his "journey" as a journey
away from upfront orthodox Trotskyism toward Pablosim,
which sought to import Trotskyist ideology into the political
mainstream via the mass Socialist and Communist parties,
then it makes perfect sense that France has become the
most visible and militant champion of European political
union. "For
a socialist United States of Europe" is a Trotskyist
slogan from waaaay back, and it is bizarre to see
what I always thought of as the most abstract and unrealistic
intellectual construction of the exotic far Left now close
to becoming a reality.
A
COMMON "IDEALISM"
But
the aggressive attitude of the French toward European
integration is matched by the Germans, whose Foreign Minister
made a
sensational speech in which he called for an elected
European President and the construction of a federal political
system. Fischer, too, was involved with far Left groupings,
and has since "matured" into a "Green" of the watermelon
variety – green on the outside, but bright red on the
inside. Photos of him and his fellow leftie thugs beating
the sh*t out of a policeman cropped
up recently, and he has admitted his past "errors,"
which are attributed to "youthful idealism." In this common
"idealism," then, shared by Fischer, Jospin, and their
fellow commies of the "New" Left, we can see the vision
of Euro-socialism as having originated, in large part,
from the failure of Soviet-style Communism to attract
the majority of youthful socialists and self-conscious
Marxists during the turmoil of the 1960s. The radicals,
at that time, didn't join the pro-Soviet Communist parties,
but instead affiliated with independent groups: New Left
movements like Students for a Democratic Society (in the
US), and dissident Communist groups like the Trotskyists
or the Maoists. So by the time the Soviet bloc nations
rose up in rebellion, and the Soviet Union collapsed,
these leftists had already written off Stalinism as a
mistake: instead of mourning, they applauded, and exulted
that now they could wipe the slate clean and start all
over. And in the EU they have made an auspicious beginning.
. . .
A
SPECTER IS HAUNTING EUROPE
The
arrogance
of the EU, its bureaucratism which rivals that of
the old Soviet Union in its wastefulness
and self-aggrandizement, its unwillingness to let
its future subjects vote either for or against abandoning
national sovereignty, its explicitly socialist ideology
– all conjure up the ghost of the Kremlin. This haunting
feeling is exacerbated by the harsh diplomatic sanctions
(and even harsher rhetoric) that targeted
Austria when it elected a government not to Brussels'
liking. The Austrian Freedom Party was deemed to be too
right-wing to be recognized as legitimate, and the international
hate campaign against Joerg Haider, the Freedom party
leader, was taken up by the Left on a European-wide scale,
smearing him as a "Nazi." (In reality, Haider, aside from
his populist opposition to increased immigration, is nothing
but Newt Gingrich in lederhosen.)
RAPID
REACTION
The
same treatment was being readied for Bossi, and the same
propaganda apparatus that demonized Haider warned the
Italians that if they elected Berlusconi it would be to
the "shame" of Europe. Italians ignored the implicit threats,
and elected Berlusconi anyway. The Eurocrats' reaction
has so far been merely rhetorical, at least for the moment,
but the rapid political integration of the EU, as eagerly
anticipated and pushed by the French and the Germans,
may not rule out some action in the future. Like the old
Soviet Union in its heyday, the EU takes action against
member states who dare to defy the party line: and if
the EU gets its much-touted "Rapid
Reaction Force," might it not rapidly react against
a future Haider? Oh, but these "European patriots" wouldn't
bomb one of their own cities, now would they? But just
look what they did to Belgrade, and Novi Sad, two of the
oldest cities in Europe. They would, they could, and they
will – if they aren't stopped.
ATTACK
ON FREE SPEECH
The
EU, as the economist and author Bernard
Connolly put it, "is a threat not only to our
prosperity, but also to our liberties and, ultimately,
to our peace." For writing those words, by the way, Connolly,
an economist and a former EU employee, was sacked from
his job. The EU defended its speech-stifling policies
in court on the grounds that Connolly, in publishing his
critique of the EU, The
Rotten Heart of Europe, had committed the secular
equivalent of blasphemy, or seditious libel, and therefore
his book did not fall into the category of protected speech.
The
EU's top court attacked the book as "aggressive, derogatory,
and insulting," and ruled that the EU commission could
restrict dissent in order to "protect the rights of others"
and punish individuals who "damaged the institution's
image and reputation." The implications for those not
in the EU's employ are clear, and ominous. . . .
LETTER
TO A READER
My
last jeremiad against the evolution of the European super-state
was greeted with jeers by at least one letter writer,
who berated me for "selling out" to "US imperialism" in
not welcoming the Euro-monster on the world stage – and
I have the sinking feeling that not a few of my readers,
particularly some on the Left, agree with this dangerous
and entirely wrongheaded sentiment. Is it really necessary
to point out to advocates of a more peaceful world that
the growth of a new, aspiring superpower is nothing to
celebrate? Yet another superpower with imperial pretensions,
with its own military force and its own visions of global
"hegemony," is bad news for anti-interventionists
and opponents of imperialism the world over. For this
means that the danger of war is even greater, that the
arms race will accelerate, and that the militarization
of the world – including the world economy – will proceed
apace, in spite of the alleged end of the cold war.
DOUBLE
STANDARD
The
added danger is that this super-state is explicitly committed
to socialism, and is already exhibiting an ominous tendency
to silence its political opponents. Germany currently
outlaws all parties alleged by a special department of
the German federal government to be "extreme
rightist" or "neo-Nazi." France
has "hate speech" laws with clear and ominous
political implications. To be a neo-Communist, though,
is fine and dandy: far from jailing you, they may even
make you Foreign Minister (or, in the case of France,
Prime Minister).
GO,
BOSSI, GO!
Umberto
Bossi is right: the EU is indeed the Soviet Union of the
West. The "anti-Stalinist" leftists of Western Europe
slipped into power just as their old Stalinist rivals
were losing their grip in the East. The great irony here
is that the socialist West, under the aegis of the "European
idea," is moving in on the former Soviet bloc nations,
as the EU (and NATO) expand eastward to the Russian border
– so that socialism will be restored in Eastern Europe
under the guise of "European integration." And the Left
is flocking to the banner of Europeanism. "Ex-"Communist
parties that once embraced the Marxism of Lenin and/or
Trotsky now embrace the Marxism of Karl
Kautsky and the old German Social Democracy, the ideological
engine of European integration. Lenin, of course, denounced
Kautsky as a traitor who had defected to the bourgeoisie,
but it is the Leninists, after all, who lost out: the
state they founded is dead, while the EU is yet to be
born. The Euro-socialists may yet succeed where Lenin
failed, and that appears to be what Persson was trying
to explain to his fellow dialoguers.
THE
COUNTERWEIGHT
The
consolidation of a rival superpower, one that will challenge
the US for the position of No. 1, ought to chill advocates
of peace to their bones, no matter what their nationality
or political ideology. For this heightens the possibility
of war, and I'm not talking here about the small-scale
localized conflicts of the post-cold war era, but a renewed
cold war that could conceivably get white hot. It is true
that a counterweight is needed against the overwhelming
military, political, and economic dominance of the US
government, but that balancing force is not a rival state,
or any state, but the peoples of the world organizing,
each in their own countries, against the twin evils of
imperialism and globalism.
DEVOLUTION
AND DEMILITARIZATION
As
the great turn-of-the-19th-century liberal
Randolph Bourne
put it: "War is the health of the state." War requires
and thrives on the centralization of economic and political
power; peace, on the other hand, requires the devolution
of authority. Without firmly grasping the reins of power
at home – politically, economically, and in every other
sense – a nation cannot hope to build an empire abroad.
Conversely, a strictly limited republican form of government
cannot long coexist with an imperial foreign policy: one
must naturally overthrow the other. It is for precisely
this reason that we fight, here in this country, against
a foreign policy of intervention on a global scale. Every
country, like Italy, should have a "Minister of Devolution,"
for in that case we would live in a much more peaceful
world.
ORWELL'S
NIGHTMARE
Another
point needs to be made in this regard: The US is not the
sole source of military aggression or globalism in the
world. The emerging European super-state, although not
yet jelled, is a potentially equal danger to peace. Nor
should one rule out the consolidation of yet another challenge
to the American "hyperpower," this one centered in Eastasia,
with China at its core. George
Orwell's frightening scenario of a future in which
three superpowers contend for world hegemony and the earth
is consumed by perpetual war seems to have been remarkably
prescient: his terrifying vision was presented in
the form of a novel that made an enormous impression
ever since it was first published in 1949. So much so
that it led to the coining of a word, "Orwellian," meaning
a dystopia of unusual grimness and horror. If and when
the Euro-monster is born, instead of being killed in its
cradle by Europe's remaining patriots, its first howl
will be a war-cry. That's the way all nation-states
are born. If and when that dreadful birthday comes, we
will be living in a truly Orwellian world.
