At the start of the Cold War, in 1952, a book came out in the USA and Britain entitled “The Russian Menace to Europe”. The authors were listed as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A collection of articles, speeches and letters by the two founding fathers of the modern socialist movement, the book’s editors argued that Marxism and Stalinism had nothing in common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is more to the book than that. Because during the decades-long political careers of Marx and Engels, there were periods when there were no good options politically. There were few labour parties and those that existed — the exception being in Germany — were usually quite weak. This did not deter Marx and Engels from writing about current politics. And taking sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the United States, for example, they fully supported the Republican Party and its leader, Abraham Lincoln, in their fight against the slave-owning rebels of the Confederacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Europe, they took a particular interest in Russia, writing about it at length until the 1890s. They argued that Russia was the “gendarme of Europe”. The tsar intervened in neighbouring countries to put down democratic revolutions. And he also maintained an extensive diplomatic service that engaged in subversion across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point of this book was to show that the Soviet Union under Stalin, just like the Russian empire under the tsars, had as its goal world domination — starting with Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found myself drawn to this remarkable book yet again this week as I read the results of the German elections.\u00a0 Those elections cannot be understood outside the context of Putin’s wars of aggression, most importantly the invasion of Ukraine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many analysts have struggled to explain German politics, continuing to think of political parties there as being on a left\/right spectrum.\u00a0 And traditionally, when the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD) dominated German politics, that may have made some sense.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n But in the twenty-first century, all European politics happen in the shadow of the Kremlin.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me give one example. A former leader of Die Linke, the far Left party with roots in East Germany’s ruling Stalinist party, Sahra Wagenknecht, launched her own party which journalists have struggled to define. It sometimes seems left-wing, but it is at the same time strongly opposed to migrants. Is it a party of the Left?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even the far-Right AfD, which did spectacularly well this week, claims that it is not — all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding — a fascist party. Some people point to its leader Alice Weidel, a gay woman whose partner is a woman of colour. Does this sound like a party of the Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What unites the parties of Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Weidel is that they both hate immigrants and want to deport them all. Their parties are racist parties, weaponising the issue of migration. They also support the Kremlin in its aggressive war against Ukraine. This is not coincidental. Putin is also something of a “Christian nationalist” and is keen to use migration to weaken and divide the West. The two anti-immigrant, pro-Putin parties together won more than a quarter of the total number of votes cast. Among young people, they did exceptionally well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The divide in German politics — and indeed, European politics — is between those parties which lend support to Russian aggression and those which oppose it.\u00a0 This is true in the UK as well, where Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is both racist and pro-Putin.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s a world that Marx and Engels would be familiar with.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the editors of “The Russian Menace to Europe” wrote seven decades ago, Marx and Engels reached the conclusion that Russia “had already become the severest and most intransigent opponent of any revolutionary or national change in Central and Western Europe.” Russia, in their view, “was the main menace to European democracy and European freedom.” That was true in the 19th century, true again during the Cold War and true now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many bad things happened in the German elections this week. Neo-nazi and racist ideas have been legitimised for the first time since 1945, regardless of who forms the coalition government. The CDU has already demonstrated its willingness to work with the AfD, even if not going so far as to welcome them into the government. What is acceptable in German politics today is several degrees to the right of where it was a week ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The worst thing about what happened in this week’s German elections is not that the enfeebled SPD continued its decline, or that the next German chancellor will be yet another business-friendly conservative. No, the worst outcome is the gigantic increase in support for the anti-immigrant, racist, pro-Russian parties — particularly among the young. That is where the next great political battle must be fought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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