The Left in Europe - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung

alternative hegemonic bloc? How can it create a society in which the freedom
of the individual is the condition for the freedom of all, a society
which the left-wing parties of Europe can call socialist?
In order to discuss such questions with parties, trade unions and social
movements on the spot the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation – supported by its
offices in Brussels, Warsaw and Moscow – works closely with its partners
Transform!Europe and the parliamentary group of the Left in the European
Parliament. Together with the latter a long-term project on the non-social
democratic Left in the European countries was launched. Within this
framework the country reports collected here constitute a first snapshot, a
necessary basis for the elaboration of a joint research programme.
The primary intention is to give the reader an overview of the history
and current situation of left-wing parties in Europe, it being remembered
that the articles express solely the views of the authors.
The Left presents a very different picture in each of the individual countries,
resulting from the different traditions and political structures in the
country under consideration and from differences in the sense of identity of
the various organizations. Among the left-wing parties selected by way of
example for the present volume are some that have evolved out of former
ruling communist parties, some that have a Eurocommunist background,
some that come from the non-social democratic reformist Left, some that
belong to the traditionally communist Left with a feminist extension, and
others.
The party-political Left as documented here is very much shaped by the
economic, political and social situation in the individual countries, by its
social milieu, by the strength or weakness of civil society, and by the trade
unions and other social movements. It has to assert itself within the political
conditions of the local party and electoral systems. It is also shaped by
the local social democratic parties, whose situation is often no less complex
and without whom there will be no left-wing majorities for a change of policy.
But it is also a particular challenge for the radical Left if the social
democrats – as in Slovakia, for example – are particularly successful.
The Left is in search of a modern pluralist identity, between tradition
and the social requirements of openness and renewal. Both exist in every
party – both are lived and needed in parallel by the parties’ members, like
the old symbols of the working class and the new symbols of a changed
world. Such complicated clarification processes inevitably lead to splits to
begin with before stable new coalitions become possible in subsequent
phases. In France, for example, the non-social democratic Left is split into
at least four parties, and it is currently attempting to regain support through
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