 Gabor Vona, president of the Hungarian radical right-wing party "Jobbik," delivers a speech at a rally in Budapest, March 15, 2014. (Bernadett Szabo / Courtesy Reuters) |
Posted on 03/29/2014 9:48:21 AM PDT by annalex
Gabor Vona, president of the Hungarian radical right-wing party "Jobbik," delivers a speech at a rally in Budapest, March 15, 2014. (Bernadett Szabo / Courtesy Reuters) |
Given that one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated reasons for invading Crimea was to prevent “Nazis” from coming to power in Ukraine, it is perhaps surprising that his regime is growing closer by the month to extreme right-wing parties across Europe. But, in both cases, Putin’s motives are not primarily ideological. In Ukraine, he simply wants to grab territory that he believes rightly belongs to him. In the European Union, he hopes that his backing of fringe parties will destabilize his foes and install in Brussels politicians who will be focused on dismantling the EU rather than enlarging it.
In Hungary, for example, Putin has taken the Jobbik party under his wing. The third-largest party in the country, Jobbik has supporters who dress in Nazi-type uniforms, spout anti-Semitic rhetoric, and express concern about Israeli “colonization” of Hungary. The party has capitalized on rising support for nationalist economic policies, which are seen as an antidote for unpopular austerity policies and for Hungary’s economic liberalization in recent years. Russia is bent on tapping into that sentiment. In May 2013, Kremlin-connected right-wing Russian nationalists at the prestigious Moscow State University invited Jobbik party president Gabor Vona to speak. Vona also met with Russia Duma leaders including Ivan Grachev, chairman of the State Duma Committee for Energy and Vasily Tarasyuk, deputy chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources and Utilization, among others. On the Jobbik website, the visit is characterized as “a major breakthrough” which made “clear that Russian leaders consider Jobbik as a partner.” In fact, there have been persistent rumors that Jobbik’s enthusiasm is paid for with Russian rubles. The party has also repeatedly criticized Hungary’s “Euro-Atlantic connections” and the European Union. And, more recently, it called the referendum in Crimea “exemplary,” a dangerous word in a country with extensive co-ethnic populations in Romania and Slovakia. It seems that the party sees Putin’s new ethnic politics as being aligned with its own revisionist nationalism.
The Kremlin’s ties to France’s extreme-right National Front have also been growing stronger. Marine Le Pen, the party leader, visited Moscow in June 2013 at the invitation of State Duma leader Sergei Naryshkin, a close associate of Putin’s. She also met with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and discussed issues of common concern, such as Syria, EU enlargement, and gay marriage. France’s ProRussia TV, which is funded by the Kremlin, is staffed by editors with close ties to the National Front who use the station to espouse views close to National Front’s own perspective on domestic and international politics. The National Front wishes to replace the EU and NATO with a pan-European partnership of independent nations, which, incidentally, includes Russia and would be driven by a trilateral Paris-Berlin-Moscow alliance. Le Pen’s spokesman, Ludovic De Danne, recently recognized the results of the Crimea referendum and stated in an interview with Voice of Russia radio that, “historically, Crimea is part of Mother Russia.” In the same interview, he mentioned that he had visited Crimea several times in the past year. Marine Le Pen also visited Crimea in June 2013.
The list of parties goes on. Remember Golden Dawn, the Greek fascist party that won 18 seats in Greece’s parliament in 2012? Members use Nazi symbols at rallies, emphasize street fighting, and sing the Greek version of the Nazi Party anthem. The Greek government imprisoned Nikos Michaloliakos, its leader, and stripped parliamentary deputies of their political immunity before slapping them with charges of organized violence. But the party continues to take to the streets. Golden Dawn has never hidden its close connections to Russia’s extreme right, and is thought to receive funds from Russia. One Golden Dawn–linked website reports that Michaloliakos even received a letter in prison from Moscow State University professor and former Kremlin adviser Alexander Dugin, one of the authors of Putin’s “Eurasian” ideology. It was also Dugin who hosted Jobbik leader Vona when he visited Moscow. In his letter, Dugin expressed support for Golden Dawn’s geopolitical positions and requested to open a line of communication between Golden Dawn and his think tank in Moscow. Golden Dawn’s New York website reports that Michaloliakos “has spoken out clearly in favor of an alliance and cooperation with Russia, and away from the ‘naval forces’ of the ‘Atlantic.’”
Finally, a cable made public by WikiLeaks shows that Bulgaria’s far right Ataka party has close links to the Russian embassy. Reports that Russia funds Ataka have swirled for years, but have never been verified. But evidence of enthusiasm for Russia’s foreign policy goals is open for all to see. Radio Bulgaria reported on March 17 that Ataka’s parliamentary group “has insisted that Bulgaria should recognize the results from the referendum for Crimea’s joining to the Russian Federation.” Meanwhile, party leader Volen Siderov has called repeatedly for Bulgaria to veto EU economic sanctions for Russia.
In addition to their very vocal support for Russia’s annexation of Crimea within the EU, Jobbik, National Front, and Ataka all sent election observers to validate the Crimea referendum (as did the Austrian Freedom Party, the Belgian Vlaams Belang party, Italy’s Forza Italia and Lega Nord, and Poland’s Self-Defense, in addition to a few far-left parties, conspicuously Germany’s Die Linke). Their showing was organized by the Russia-based Eurasian Observatory For Democracy & Elections, a far-right NGO “opposed to Western ideology.” The EODE specializes in monitoring elections in “self-proclaimed republics” (Abkhazia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh) allied with Moscow, according to its website.
The Putin government’s cordial relations with Europe’s far right sit oddly, to say the least, with his opposition to “Nazis” in the Ukrainian government. Yet Putin’s dislike for Ukrainian “fascists” has nothing to do with ideology. It has to do with the fact that they are Ukrainian nationalists. The country’s Svoboda and Right Sector parties, which might do well in the post–Viktor Yanukovych Ukraine, stand for independence in a country that Putin does not believe should exist separate from Russia.
Similarly, Russian support of the far right in Europe has less to do with ideology than with his desire to destabilize European governments, prevent EU expansion, and help bring to power European governments that are friendly to Russia. In that sense, several European countries may only be one bad election away from disaster. In fact, some would say that Hungary has already met it. As support for Jobbik increases, the anti-democratic, center-right government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has tacked heavily to the right and recently signed a major nuclear deal with Russia. Russia plans to lend Hungary ten billion euro to construct two new reactors at its Paks nuclear plant, making Hungary even more dependent for energy on Russia. Jobbik’s Vona wants to go even further, taking Hungary out of the EU and joining Russia’s proposed Eurasian Union.
European parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for the end of May, are expected to result in a strong showing for the far right. A weak economy, which was weakened further by the European Central Bank’s austerity policies, has caused the extreme right vote to surge. Current polls show the far-right parties in France and Holland winning the largest share of seats in their national delegations. Brussels strategists worry that 20 percent of members of the new European parliament could be affiliated with parties that wish to abolish the EU, double the current number. That could cause an EU government shutdown to rival the dysfunction of Washington and deal a major blow to efforts to enlarge the Union and oppose Russian expansionism.
It is strange to think that Putin’s strategy of using right-wing extremist political parties to foment disruption and then take advantage -- as he did in Crimea -- could work in southern and western Europe as well. Or that some of the extreme right parties in the European parliament, who work every day to delegitimize the European Union and whose numbers are growing, may be funded by Russia. Yet these possibilities cannot be dismissed. Russia might soon be able to disrupt the EU from within.
To counter Russia, European leaders should start launching public investigations into external funding of extreme-right political parties. If extensive Russia connections are found, it would be important to publicize that fact and then impose sanctions on Russia that would make it more difficult for it to provide such support. Pro-European parties must find a way to mobilize voters who are notoriously unwilling to vote in European parliament elections. Europe will also have to rethink the austerity policies that have worsened the grievances of many Europeans and pushed them to support the anti-system, anti-European right. Although Germany has banned extreme right parties from representation, other countries have not. Germany may have therefore underestimated the extent of damage austerity policies could do to the European project and should rethink how its excessive budget cutting, monetary prudence, and export surpluses are affecting politics in the rest of Europe.
Putin’s challenge to Europe must be taken seriously. Rather than making another land grab in his back yard, he might watch patiently from the sidelines at the end of May as pro-Russia far-right parties win a dramatic election victory in European parliamentary elections. These elections could weaken the European Union and bring Russia’s friends on the far right closer to power.
Excellent analysis. I agree 100%.
I use “right wing” to describe conservatism that also recognizes the need for a measure of autocracy in the face of runaway democracy managed by the media.
Why should that endear him to the European right?
Harder to sympathize when nations burn babies for fuel and euthanize 12 year olds.
Fascist is a better descriptor than “Nazi.” Putin is certainly more like Mussolini than like Hitler.
Perhaps Putin is setting up these parties to later create a reason for the Russians to later move in and “Liberate” them.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. Pretty much all of European political philosophy is what we in the US would call leftist, whether the Europeans call it right or left. For them, the difference is between international and national socialism; overweening, intrusive government is accepted as a given. Here, the difference is between the ascendency of the state over the individual (leftism) versus the ascendency of the individual over the state (rightism). There really isn’t an equivalent to our right in Europe.
I think you’re right. It’s overly simplistic, but we must remember that we face a very definable enemy. The people in control of these European countries are the same as the Obama regime. The same globalist ideology of progressivism. If the rise of other parties destabilizes and collapses the EU, its a plus for us.
In the western third of Ukraine, the majority are Russian speakers. It is the western part, around Lyov, that is truly European.
If the EU and UN go, I genuinely think we can turn the clock back and save civilization.
Correction: the Eastern part is Russified.
I think you’re right, but I don’t use the term ‘autocracy’. I see conservatism as a reactionary form of libertarianism. the right left spectrum runs from libertarianism on the right to statism on the left.
True conservatism states that libertarianism is the preferable position, but that civil society as it stands today is not suitable for libertarianism, and because of that, the civil society must be changed or ‘restored’ to its previous station for the most part.
And of course, within conservatism are several sub-ideological groups.
My pleasure.
Well, certainly the western elite have little respect for liberal democracy, except for the election rituals, which give them legitimacy. Of course, they are trying to undermine any vote that goes against them. It will be interesting to see if the UKIP does well this spring. If it can bring aboard some of the working class that has supported Labour, and whose leaders have same contempt for their values that Obama has for ours.
Some rational people in Europe might be attracted to policies that fought back at muslims in their midst, as Putin appears willing to do.
Mother of God repel Putin!
It be interested to hear you distinguish between Russian and Ukrainian “nationalism.”
True American Conservatives DO have something in common with Putin and it is not an ideological agreement and it has different principles and motivations - both are EU skeptics, and both do not accept the western political elite’s myth that (no matter what Putin is about) the EU is NOT about empire building - it is. The EU is NOT about Liberty, NOT about democracy, NOT about “tolerance” or “diversity”; it is about expanding CENTRAL authority over more and more daily life in Europe in Brussels, in unelected bureaucrats and supra-national courts given final and perpetual say-so by one-off “democratic” acts which close off local, “national” democratic decisions about many things after that.
The effort to confuse the radically Leftwing German National Socialist movement, with the "far Right," of course goes back to Stalin's propaganda, refocused on the subject after the German invasion in 1941. This mis-characterization was very much abetted by Leftist theorists in Roosevelt's New Deal--which had much in common with the Nazis in dealing with the Great Depression--but needed to differentiate itself, as part of the war effort.
The concept of the "Right Wing," of course goes back to the French Revolution, where the great landowners & State Church leaders sat on the Right in the National Assembly. While it is generally coextensive with Conservatism, in any nation, that is not inevitably so--depending on which institutions the conservatives in any particular nation, consider most important.
Thus we can say that the Monarchists & supporters of the continuity of established and vested positions are right wing, and almost always Conservative. But Conservatives in countries like the United States & Switzerland, with a long Republican tradition, tend to be Republicans, as well as more sympathetic to a greater degree of social mobility, than those in some of the other European nations.
Now, when one looks not at traditional values & interests, internal to any nation; but rather to relations between nations; there is some overlap between Right & Left, with respect to many issues--such as trade, immigration, imperialism & ethnicity. In my humble opinion, the doctrines of the great Swiss authority Vattel, from a quarter millennium ago, offer a clearer insight than anything likely to be offered by so called contemporary "pundits."
The Founding Fathers applied Vattel's principles in devising a foreign policy that once made us the most admired peoples on earth. The EU, like America post Wilson, has gone off on a tangent, and consequently those in Europe--whom the CFR lumps together as "right-wing," are reacting. Whatever any of those groups' policies on domestic issues; their reaction to the loss of control over their respective cultural heritages, certainly seems justified. A people's culture reflects their nature & generations of experience, for which their is no substitute.
But, of course, in my humble opinion, our fellow countrymen, generally, have over-looked the most significant lesson for us, clear in the Crimean events--and that goes to what the American Left's deliberate efforts to change American ethnicity is doing.
William Flax
The present corruption of the concept of "Liberty," by the ACLU, NAACP, SPLC, ADL, and the like; which prevents local communities from enforcing the cultural or religious wishes of the inhabitants, by allowing any dissenting litigant to enjoin what was once permitted; is actually anti-libertarian, and part of a totalitarian utilitarianism, which reduces all aspects of culture to the lowest level that everyone can be forced to accept.
William Flax
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