2023-05-25 13:55:51
Since VOX stomped on the electoral arena, the center of the campaigns of the state institutional left (PSOE, UP, Más País) has been to appeal to vote for their parties to establish a “sanitary cordon against fascism”, while a sector of the PP took an ultra-right turn to take advantage of this new electoral space, with Ayuso as its greatest exponent. If the parliamentary left instrumentalizes the danger of the ultra-right, VOX and related peperos would benefit from being identified as the opposite of a government under which the risk of poverty increased by one point in 2022 to reach 27.8% of the population. It seems that both sides win with the existence of the other.
By Ame Luna – Red Current
Why is the extreme right growing?
In just 3 years, the votes obtained by VOX in the Generals grew spectacularly: from 47,182 in the 2016 Elections to 2,664,325 and 3,640,063 respectively in the first and second rounds of the 2019 Generals. VOX forged its popularity in opposition to the parliamentary left that had supported the motion of censure against Rajoy to make way for the PSOE, with Pedro Sánchez at its head. For his part, Ayuso obtained almost a million more votes in the 2021 Elections than in the 2019 Elections, also in opposition to the central government PSOE-UP.
If we focus on the 2019 General Elections, not only is the dizzying rise of VOX relevant, but also the fact that turnout in the second round dropped 6 points (reaching the historical minimum since the end of Francoism), which shows that political polarization not only translates into the growth of the ultra-right, but also in the increase of mistrust in parliamentary democracy.
Social polarization, of which the growth of the ultra-right is only a symptom (as are the growing labor conflicts), is a consequence of the false economic recovery that since the 2007/2008 crisis has been stifling the working class and the small company. Since then we have undergone 3 Labor Reforms (PSOE, PP, PSOE-UP respectively) that have standardized poverty wages through part-time and temporary contracts (in which we include permanent-discontinuous); We have also suffered the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 67 years and the disinvestment/privatization of Public Services, which since the modification of article 135 of the Constitution by the PSOE of ZP, have seen an alarming deterioration. To this day and under the “most progressive government in history”, galloping inflation devours our salaries while electricity companies, banks and supermarkets achieve record profits.
If we understand the growth of VOX in opposition to a “left” that keeps the majority in precariousness, we can explain its presence in the government of Andalusia after almost 40 years of PSOE governments.
Although, yes, what we are facing is fascism, as the parliamentary left claims, it seems that voting for that left, even with a stuffed nose, is a “lesser evil” that we have to assume, to avoid the great ” greater evil.”
Lea also | Spanish State | Red Page Publishing (May 2023 Edition)
Is fascism the same as extreme right?
Fascism is a mass phenomenon through which the bourgeoisie arms impoverished layers of the population to attack the labor movement when it poses a threat to capitalist private property in the development of the class struggle. For what we cannot say today that VOX or the most rancid PP suppose fascism, the erroneous characterization that the parliamentary left makes only serves its own electoral purposes, which feed back those of the extreme right.
We do not want to belittle the reactionary essence of far-right projects such as VOX or figures like Isabel Díaz Ayuso, more in the context of the Spanish State, in which the institutional right represents the political continuity of the economic power forged by repression and exploitation during the Franco regime, with the approval of a parliamentary left that, since the Transition, and hand in hand with the union bureaucracy, has served as a containment dam for the labor and popular movement, in exchange for its quota in the institutions.
We say that the extreme right is reactionary insofar as it plays a divisive role in the working class. His program places the oppressed groups (migrants, women, LGTBI) as a scapegoat in the face of the general misery to which capitalism condemns us, of which, as we have seen, the institutional left are also guardians.
In addition, the extreme right brazenly attacks the democratic liberties that the class struggle has been wresting from the capitalist State, liberties that, although partial due to the very material limits imposed by the system, facilitate the independent organization of the working class. An example of this would be the right to abortion; The attempt by the PP-VOX coalition government of Castilla y la Mancha to impose on women who want to abort, listen to the heartbeat of the fetuses, has to do with the attack on a right, which although the State partially contemplates, does not guarantee either fully, since it is a highly privatized service for which governments of all stripes are not willing to invest. The attempt of PP-VOX to attack this right, already partial, is to attack the autonomy of working women and therefore, also their political autonomy.
Read more about the differences between fascism and the far right here!
Is it enough to vote for the “lesser evil”?
As we have been explaining, the extreme right is consolidated in opposition to a supposed left that does not end the social problems of the majority. Defeating the extreme right at the polls is not enough. Without ending the social conditions that allow the strengthening of the right and extreme right, it will continue to be present. A supposed left that ensures the maintenance of social classes and that does not propose the socialist transformation of the economy, will always give political oxygen to the extreme right.
For Corriente Roja, the most powerful weapon that the working class has is its independent organization, not only against the ultra-right and fascism, but also against those governments that, in the name of progressivism, apply starvation policies that fan the reactionary flame among the masses that Without a real socialist alternative, they accept the false exit of racism, LGBTIphobia and machismo.
It is only the organized struggle of the working class, guaranteeing its self-defense as in Greece and its tireless fight against the bosses’ adjustment, which has annihilated Golden Dawn along the way, that can face the extreme right and fascism, Putting an end to the setback, decadence and barbarism to which this regime and this economic system condemn us, which are the breeding ground for reactionary ideologies. An organized struggle that is politically independent of the bourgeoisie, that puts all its governments and forms of domination against the ropes.
Published in corrienteroja.net 22/05/2023
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