As with everything the answer is…it depends. If they are outright fascist like the AfD or the National Front, then no, they should not be condoned, not even opportunistically. But there is a lot of grey zone still in between, and sometimes nationalistic movements if they are primarily anti-EU and anti-NATO, even if they have reactionary elements to them, can be useful. However communists should remain strictly separate from these bourgeois nationalists, we should have our own parties and use whatever unrest and anti-imperialist feeling that there is to advance our own message, to educate and agitate.
And here is where the so called patsocs go wrong: yes you may be able to opportunistically poach away a few people from the right, but this will never be the main base of support for us, don’t make the mistake of thinking most of the working class is right wing, they are not, and we should not pander to reactionaries. The most principled revolutionaries don’t come from the more privileged strata of society - the petty bourgeois who tend to participate in these right wing protests - but from the most disadvantaged and most harshly affected by all the various intersections of oppression under capitalist society.
Therefore our main messaging needs to be targeted at establishing solidarity among a broad working class base with oppressed minorities. In the meantime the right wing nationalist reaction to the liberal hegemony’s failures is at least useful insofar as it destabilizes and delegitimizes the entire system. These are dangerous times and simultaneously with the repression that is bound to come toward both the nationalist right and the anti-imperialist left from the liberal establishment, the same crisis that opens an opportunity for the revolutionary left also opens opportunities for fascists. And right now fascist forces are stronger and more established in Europe and US.
But that is yet another sign that we are living through a pre-revolutionary situation. Whether or not that revolution can materialize or is smothered in its cradle by a stronger fascist reaction is up to how well we can organize.
As with everything the answer is…it depends. If they are outright fascist like the AfD or the National Front, then no, they should not be condoned, not even opportunistically. But there is a lot of grey zone still in between, and sometimes nationalistic movements if they are primarily anti-EU and anti-NATO, even if they have reactionary elements to them, can be useful. However communists should remain strictly separate from these bourgeois nationalists, we should have our own parties and use whatever unrest and anti-imperialist feeling that there is to advance our own message, to educate and agitate.
And here is where the so called patsocs go wrong: yes you may be able to opportunistically poach away a few people from the right, but this will never be the main base of support for us, don’t make the mistake of thinking most of the working class is right wing, they are not, and we should not pander to reactionaries. The most principled revolutionaries don’t come from the more privileged strata of society - the petty bourgeois who tend to participate in these right wing protests - but from the most disadvantaged and most harshly affected by all the various intersections of oppression under capitalist society.
Therefore our main messaging needs to be targeted at establishing solidarity among a broad working class base with oppressed minorities. In the meantime the right wing nationalist reaction to the liberal hegemony’s failures is at least useful insofar as it destabilizes and delegitimizes the entire system. These are dangerous times and simultaneously with the repression that is bound to come toward both the nationalist right and the anti-imperialist left from the liberal establishment, the same crisis that opens an opportunity for the revolutionary left also opens opportunities for fascists. And right now fascist forces are stronger and more established in Europe and US.
But that is yet another sign that we are living through a pre-revolutionary situation. Whether or not that revolution can materialize or is smothered in its cradle by a stronger fascist reaction is up to how well we can organize.