Tag Archives: AfD

Putin and the European Far-Right: Partners in Crime

On Saturday, March 10th, at Kiev’s Free Russia House, Anton Shekhovtsov presented his book “Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir.” The book is the first to study the critical trend of the growing connection between the Kremlin and Western far-right activists, publicists, ideologists and politicians in considerable detail. An in-depth discussion with Mr. Shekhovtsov was held after his presentation.

 


About the book

It is impossible to analyze the Kremlin’s relations with nationalist and far-right European activists and political parties today if we do not first examine the roots of this partnership, which started to form in the 1990s. In turn, that cannot fully be understood without returning to the Cold War and events that preceded it in the 1920s and 1930s.

Just after World War I, National Bolshevism, a movement of far-left nationalists who rejected the Treaty of Versailles, appeared on the scene in Weimar Germany. This movement was greeted with some flirtatious interest by the Soviet Comintern, still in its infancy.  German National Bolshevism defined the western powers of France, Britain, and Belgium as enemies. German National Bolsheviks, with their young proletarian movement, became associated with the USSR to a certain extent. However, after the consolidation of Nazi Germany in 1933, this movement lost its momentum. National Bolsheviks and the left-wing faction of the Nazi Party were destroyed by Hitler’s SA during the Night of the Long Knives.

A few years after the Second World War, neutralist far-right milieu (former representatives of the Nazi SS and Hitlerjugend) existed in West Germany, hoping to keep West Germany neutral and non-aligned. These policies, once again, lined up with the interests of the Soviet Union. According to some reports, until 1955, when West Germany became a member of NATO, the Soviet Union financed far-right groups in the West with more money than their socialist counterparts in East. During the Cold War, that money quickly dried up as agency activity became more expedient.

Shekhovtsov’s book goes on to examine the connections in the1990’s between Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Aleksandr Dugin, Sergei Baburin and Sergei Glazyev. In the chaos of the 1990s, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of Russia’s far-right nationalist LDPR first attempted to create an international far-right force. Between 2000 and 2004, Putin’s first term, a number of conferences related to Zhirinovsky’s ambitions were held, but the Kremlin was largely uninterested. That period could be described as a honeymoon between Putin and the West. Everyone praised Russia, ignored human rights, and believed that perhaps giving Putin a little more time would lead to democratization.

In 2003, while getting ready for the “First People’s Patriotic Congress”, where Zhirinovsky’s far-right allies in France and Belgium were guests, Vladimir Volfovich wrote that the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia holds “patriotic views”, and the European “patriotic forces” are increasingly close to power. Their rise to power would turn out to be politically expedient for the Kremlin.

The next attempt to consolidate power was a more institutionalized form of cooperation between allies of the Kremlin and the far-right during controversial election monitoring in 2005. Then the media cooperated in 2008-2009, after the war with Georgia. A third wave, since 2011, has been crashing ever since as direct representatives of the Putin regime began to cooperate openly with such political forces as “National Front” (“Front National”) in France, the “Freedom Party” of Austria (“FreiheitlicheParteiÖsterreichs”), the Italian “Northern League” (“Lega Nord”), the Bulgarian “Attack” (“Атака”), among others. Today, agreements between “United Russia” (“ЕдинаяРоссия”, hereinafter “UR”) and Austria’s “Freedom Party” in 2016 and Italy’s “Northern League” in 2017 represent direct cooperation at high levels within both countries’ governments.

Today, the Austrian “Freedom Party” is the junior partner in the Austrian government coalition, and the “North League” recently stormed to its best performance in Italy’s recent election. People who maintain clearly pro-Kremlin stances are moving closer to power in Europe.

 

Does the Kremlin place the stake only on potential winners and why the far right needs Russia?

The Kremlin’s desire to cooperate with the Austrian “Freedom Party” was formally signed in 2016, as Austria went to the polls to elect a new president. For the first time since the Second World War, no representative of the main conservative (Austrian People’s Party) and socialist (Socialist Party of Austria) parties made it to the runoff round of Austria’s presidential election. A couple of weeks before the second round, far-right candidate Norbert Hofer was invited to Moscow to sign agreements with United Russia. United Russia seemed to get the ball rolling only when the far right looked within reach of victory…but then they narrowly lost the presidential election. By contrast, the agreement with the “Northern League” which sought to institutionalize cooperation since 2014, did not get signed until 2017. Ironically, the original agreement sought to create an agreement at a time when polls showed no significant support for the nationalist Lega Nord party.

Support for the Kremlin is not universal among European far-right parties, but for some of them, cooperation with the Kremlin legitimizes their cause. Extreme right-wing ideologies were marginalized after the Second World War, and while many realize they cannot fully break the liberal-democratic consensus in the West, they still preach a release from the endless marginal circle. Therefore, they claim: “We are in favor of Putin’s Russia, which has the same ideology as us, and at the same time, is a global actor”. They surreptitiously promote the rhetorical narrative to legitimize themselves through an indirect reference to the Kremlin.

 

Does the far right continue to strengthen its position in Europe now?

The growth of support can be traced throughout Europe, with the exception of Portugal and Spain. But it is important to understand that many far-right groups have become more moderate since the 2000s. Many have moved closer to the center-right because they understand they will not come to power with fringe ideals. In political science, there is a classic case when the fascist party became conservative in Italy when the “Italian social movement” (“MovimentoSocialeItaliano”), a party with roots in Mussolini’s fascist Italy, managed to rebrand in the 1990s and join forces with Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party.

In Norway, the “Progress Party” (“Fremskrittspartiet”), considered far-right in the early 2000s, has moved to the center and now it’s a national-liberal party. In Hungary, there was a unique situation when the parties reversed roles. Since 2015, “Jobbik” (“JobbikMagyarországértMozgalom”) deliberately decided to move closer to the center and effectively switched spots with “Fidesz” (“Fidesz – Magyar PolgáriSzövetség”). Fidesz later began to borrow slogans from “Jobbik.” According to the “Political Capital” think tank’s analysis, 10 different proposals from “Jobbik” were realized by “Fidesz”. ”Jobbik” couldn’t implement these proposals while in opposition. Now “Jobbik” has moved towards the center-right insofar as it supports the Central European University and defends George Soros, while “Fidesz”, being the far right party now, wants to close the university and demonizes Soros completely.

In other words, the support of the far right in Europe is growing not only due to the refugee crisis since 2015 and the weakening of mainstream forces but also due to the face that the far-right is becoming more moderate, so they can be acknowledged as legitimate participants of the political process by many people.

 

Legitimation of Putin’s regime via the far-right Europeans

The Putin regime has a constant legitimization problem. According to the UN’s voting results regarding the occupation of Crimea in 2014, no Asian, African and South American countries voted against. For Russia, it is important to show not only that Asians and Africans support it, but the “real Europeans” as well. They need to bring these Europeans to Crimea to let them wax poetic on TV about how wonderful life is on the peninsula.

In addition, this resource can be used to legitimize elections.

When it comes to Russia’s population, political elites and a vast majority of the television media are anti-Western and anti-American, but the ordinary people don’t always subscribe to this mentality. Russian society considers itself a part of European civilization, so they subconsciously want to be accepted by “white Europeans.”

Even though Putin’s Russia has totally anti-fascist rhetoric, it sometimes ties itself in knots trying to legitimize itself with European approval. When Luc Michel, an old-school Belgian marginal skinhead from the 1980s was brought to Crimea’s referendum in March 2014, he was introduced to the media as “head of the OSCE observation mission”, a complete fabrication. In fact, the OSCE refused to send a mission to the illegitimate referendum.

You can see the full version (in Russian) of the discussion in video.

What is behind the visit of the “Alternative for Germany” to Crimea?

“No human rights violations have been observed in Crimea”, — announced the group Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) political party members who visited Crimea in early February, 2018.

The nine-person delegation was composed of State Diet (Landtag) representatives and city council members, such as Evgeny Schmidt from the “Russian Germans for AfD” fraction; as well as Christian Blex, Nick Vogel, and Helmut Seifen, — all three from the North Rhine-Westphalia parliament.

The German parliamentarians had been invited to Crimea by the obscure organization called the Regional German Ethnic and Cultural Autonomy of the Republic of Crimea. Its Chair Yuri Gempe confirmed that the Autonomy covered part of the expenses associated with the trip. Incidentally, Mr. Gempe happens to serve on the Crimean State Council as representative of the Putin’s United Russia party.

This trip has set off an outpour of indignation from various German federal government officials, outraged the leadership of the AfD party itself and drove a wedge among its various chapters. While the Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia AfD factions have supported the visit, several local AfD chapters refused to endorse it. The Berlin AfD attempted to publicly distance itself from the controversial visit by stressing via its social media accounts that the trip was private in nature and the delegation members hadn’t received the mandate “from neither the faction nor from the party”.

“I am critical of this visit” – stated George Pazderski, the head of the Berlin AfD in his interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He felt that this initiative by his colleagues was dangerous in that it could “shut the doors to other east European countries”. He also speculated that the parliamentarians who visited Crimea may have been simply “used” by someone.

Notably, the visit has been covered extensively in the Russian media. Russian newspapers and TV channels have described in rich detail the astonishment of German guests who, contrary to their pre-trip expectations, observed modern well-designed highways instead of beat-down roads.

In their coverage, Russian outlets conveniently leave out certain details. For example, “not every segment clarifies that these were local officials representing State Diets (Landtag)”, —notes a reporter from Deutschlandfunk. “Instead, they are introduced simply as “German parliamentarians”. Such nuance is critical. The politicians who spent a week in Crimea and returned to Germany on February 9, are members of local parliaments from three states: North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, and Berlin. They are not part of the AfD’s leadership and do not play a significant role in decision-making at the federal level. For example, one of them, Roger Beckamp, merely chairs an AfD chapter at the City Council of Cologne.

This was not the first trip by AfD representatives to Crimea. The April 2016 visit by an EU Parliamentarian and AfD member Marcus Pretzell to the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by the Russian Federation turned out just as scandalous when it was uncovered that it was sponsored by a Russian foundation. This became evident from the disclosure documents filed by the German politician at the insistence of the Ethics Commission of the European Parliament.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (which is a part of Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine) has opened a criminal investigation against the German citizens who visited the peninsula. The announcement has been published on the website of Prosecutor’s Office.

The case was initiated under Article 332-1 Part 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Violation of the entry regulations to the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine”). The Prosecutor’s Office stated, that “on February 3, 2018, a group of citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany arrived in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in disregard of the order of entry to the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. The above-mentioned citizens planned to use this visit to meet with representatives of the Russian occupation authorities to discuss cooperation with the German side”.

This, however, is not the end of the story of the odious adventures of AfD reps. Some of them (Christian Blex, for example) followed up with a trip to Syria, which also triggered a negative reaction, including from the ruling party of Christian Democrats (CDU).

On Tuesday, March 6, 2018, Michael Brand who represents the CDU/CSU parliamentary faction issued a statement denouncing the trip to Syria by a number of MPs from the AfD party. He declared that “meeting with criminal cliques” while “dictator al-Assad uses bombs and chemical weapons” is “just awful.” AfD members of parliament “did not shy away even from meeting the ruthless mufti” who, according to Brand, “called for suicide attacks in Europe and personally signed thousands of death warrants”.

Why would members of German local parliaments so actively pursue foreign affairs activities while conducting them “privately”? The AfD delegates insist that the latter trip was self-paid, which contradicts the Russian official story. Such activity is outside of their jurisdiction level and is not sanctioned by their party or even local chapters.  Clearly, courting scandal and the attention of the media is one of the key political tactics of the AfD. The Russian media omits from its coverage the AfD’s far-right populism, asks no inconvenient questions and portraits it as a viable political force in Germany.

We should, therefore, not be surprised to discover AfD representatives serving as so-called “independent” observers during the Russian presidential elections. Exactly what they will “observe” is hardly a mystery either.

The Russian government is planning a large “international” conference in Crimea this April.  The invitations have been already issued to the left-wingers as well as to AfD members. We will just have to wait and see whether the AfD participation will once again take the form of “personal visits”, or the party leadership would finally stop this homegrown diplomacy.

Putin’s Friends on the New Political Map of Europe

2017 was quite a successful year for the European project. Far-right parties did not win in key countries such as France and Germany. Or, rather, the consolidation of the far-right did not take place in the countries where we thought or feared it would happen.

In the Netherlands, the last minute surge by the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy ensured that the far-right Freedom Party would not become the largest party in the Dutch House of Representatives. In France, Marine Le Pen was soundly defeated in the presidential elections and her National Front won only 8 seats in the National Assembly.

However, the far-right party Alternative for Germany received 12.6% of the vote in the September elections, enough for 96 seats in the Bundestag and third place overall. Their presence in the parliament may have brought Germany closer to her European counterparts where the far-right also have representations in their parliaments. If AFD propagates right-wing populism instead of neo-Nazism or fascism, that ideology has a right to be represented in the Bundestag as it is supported by a substantial part of a population as a form of opposition to the talking points of liberal democracy so widely-spread nowadays. It is good for liberal democracy as it returns the discussion on emigration, cultural and national identities into a more civilized framework.

Today Europe is in the situation of duality, where the dialogue between the two poles of power will determine the future of the European Union. The first pole is represented by France and Germany, especially after the victory of Emmanuel Macron and his recent speech where he outlined approximate plans for future much-needed reform of the EU.

The second pole is the Visegrád Group and in particular Poland and Hungary, with the Czech Republic and Slovakia catching up. This block is formed around non-liberal trends, which are predominant in these states. Even though today these movements are concentrated in Hungary and Poland, similar trends appear to be growing stronger in the Czech Republic.

In my opinion, the dialogue between these two poles will largely determine the future of the European Union. Europe’s near future will likely be centered around the debate of Macron’s plan. This plan will be strengthened by Germany’s position after the creation of the Jamaica Coalition (CDU, FDP, The Greens). Currently, Germany is still in a transitional state and is not taking part in the discussion so far, but will most likely join after the rebooting of Merkel’s government.

As for the influence of the Kremlin, the main allies of the Putin regime in Germany are the Social Democrats, who had and still have much more influence than the “Alternative for Germany”. The latter is by far the most pro-Russian party, but in terms of its importance, it is very much inferior to the Social Democrats, in particular, in the business sphere. Among the Social Democrats, there are lobbyists of big businesses and large industrial groups in Germany who, guided by postmodern Realpolitik sentiments, would like to return to the relations they used to have before with Russia and the Putin regime.

Despite a lot of doubt, there’s still an optimistic air to be found around the development of the European Union. There’s a good possibility that when put to the test, the far-right’s arguments and plans will crumble as they fail to deliver real results. Marine Le Pen should not be dismissed yet, but on the other hand, the National Front is at a chaotic crossroads following their dual defeat at the ballot box. Perhaps the National Front is doomed to split into a more moderate and a more radical wing. The Kremlin, of course, will continue to influence or will try to influence the processes that take place in the European Union, not only through the far-right but also through business structures through Putin’s and his closest associates’ personal connections with leading or significant politicians of the European Union. The paradigm of attempts to influence will persist.

Kremlin has acted and will act based on a variety of national contexts. If the Putin regime gets to cooperate with mainstream players or more influential players, then Russia will not resort to any particularly destructive actions. If these Putin’s friends disappear or lose their influence, it is likely that the regime will again turn to cooperation with the far-right. It will always depend on the specific national context.

For example, speaking of the parties Jobbik or Fidesz in Hungary (the latter is in power, the former is the in the opposition to the latter), Russia, as far as I know, does not support Jobbik, although it was quite pro-Russian and, probably, stays the most pro-Russian party. But Russia does not support Jobbik for the simple reason that there is Fidesz, with which Russia is pleased to work. And since Jobbik is in the opposition to Fidesz, then it would be somewhat inconvenient for Russia to support the opposition to its friends. Similar situations happened in many countries, including France in 2012, when Marine Le Pen was eager to cooperate with Russia, to meet and communicate with Putin. But Putin initially placed its stake on Nicolas Sarkozy or François Hollande. It did not work out when Hollande became President and the only thing left was to start cooperation with the National Front. In other words, specific context is important for Putin’s Russia: with whom to work, through whom to influence, and if not influence, then, perhaps, engage in some kind of subversive actions.