“The air is thick with fascism in Europe,” says Max Rodermund of the Zetkin Forum for Social Research, ahead of the Fascism Back in Europe? conference, set to take place in Berlin from June 20 to 22. In addition to exploring the forms currently taken by fascist and far-right forces across the region, the conference will dive deep into the political context driving their rise. “The overall focal point is political orientation,” Rodermund explains.
This orientation comes at a critical moment, as European governments pursue aggressive rearmament, channeling hundreds of billions of euros into jets, submarines, and ammunition, while slashing healthcare and education budgets. The erosion of social support systems is widely seen as a major driver behind the surge of right-wing movements. “The strengthening of the right wing reflects different things,” Rodermund continues. “They play the role of channeling anger, fear, and disappointment among sections of the population. But at the same time, they are deliberately cultivated and supported by the ruling class.”
How capital fuels the rise of the far right in Europe
Such a dynamic forms the backdrop for understanding the political moment in Europe today. “We need to understand the political situation we are in much better: the connection between economic crisis and reactionary tendencies,” Rodermund adds. This includes the widespread betrayal of democratic processes by liberal parties, who, in their effort to preserve Western hegemony, have thrown even mainstream decision-making norms out of the window. “In Europe, in the West, we’ve seen in recent years that it was liberal forces who were the loudest in calling for war and who dismantled democracy at home.”
Sections of the conference will examine the intersections between fascism, imperialism, and capitalism, with speakers including Utsa Patnaik and Vijay Prashad. Sharpening the understanding of how the far right is embedded within the capitalist system is essential for building a meaningful alternative, many of the speakers pointed out ahead of the conference. “Benito Mussolini, the founding father of fascism, was one of the most diligent students of austerity policies – measures that characterize the routine management of the capitalist economy today,” said Clara Mattei of the Center for Heterodox Economics, one of the speakers at the conference. “Understanding fascism requires recognizing its ability to fulfill the fundamental demands of the capitalist order: high rates of exploitation and a docile labor force. This is precisely why uncomfortable alliances between liberalism and fascism have repeatedly surfaced throughout the history of our economic system.”
Mainstreaming fascism through historical revisionism
Such alliances are taking different forms depending on whether they appear in Europe’s core or on its periphery. “We see a rapid growth of far-right parties in almost all European countries, many with deep links to fascist actors,” Rodermund explains. “In Eastern Europe especially, this is paired with fierce anti-communism.”
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Through bans on communist symbols and historical revisionism, especially regarding World War II, elites are helping to delegitimize the left and bolster the far right. “The professional elite of German imperialism deploy sophisticated strategies to lay the foundations for fascist politics: by reducing the taboo around Nazi ideology and culture; by concealing, denying or instrumentalizing the past; by relativization of their own guilt through the (retrospective) ‘Nazification’ of the Soviet Union and Russia,” said conference speaker Susann Witt-Stahl.
The dynamic in Eastern Europe complements what’s happening in the core EU. “We are currently dealing with the clash of two opposing fascist waves,” explained Florian Nowicki, who will speak on re-emerging fascist currents in Poland. “Political forces, originating from liberalism and social democracy are standing up against ‘classical’ fascism, combining liberal elements with extreme chauvinism and militarism.”
Anchoring resistance
Understanding these currents is essential to developing concrete resistance strategies. It is therefore no surprise that building on such insights is another key goal of the conference. “We don’t want to paint a generalized, abstract concept of fascism that floats above history and struggle. That won’t help us at all,” Rodermund insists. “We need to dig into the concrete circumstances.”
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That is also why the event should be seen as a starting point rather than an endpoint. A major objective is to build a lasting network that can deepen this analysis and coordinate future efforts. “If we understand fascist actors as the reserve force for war, impoverishment, and repression, we must build mass movements targeting those very dynamics,” Rodermund says.
He emphasizes the importance of unions and international solidarity movements – like those mobilizing across Europe against the genocide in Gaza – as central in this effort to fight against fascism. “We must ensure we’re building an anti-imperialist, internationalist movement. Anti-imperialism and anti-fascism are deeply, deeply linked at this moment.”
For more information about the Fascism Back in Europe? conference, including the full program, registrations, and list of speakers, visit the official event page.
