Fernando Rosas: “Today’s far right is the result of the crisis of capitalism”

Fernando Rosas (b. 1946) has devoted his life to fighting and then studying Portugal’s former dictatorship. He opposed the Salazar regime from an early age (serving time in prison), before becoming one of Portugal’s leading historians on the subject. A committed leftist, he was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party and helped found two other parties: the Portuguese Workers’ Communist Party (PCTP-MRPP) in the 1970s and the Left Bloc (BE) in 1999, of which he is still a member. He has been elected several times as a member of parliament, and was a candidate for the Portuguese presidency in 2001.

He is professor emeritus at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he founded and chaired the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC). As a historian, he has written a number of books on the First Portuguese Republic, the Salazar dictatorship and the Carnation Revolution (Portugal’s 1974 revolution). They have been translated into Spanish, French, Italian and German. His most recent book, published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution, Ensaios de Abril (“April Essays”, Tinta da China, 2023), is an autobiographical account of this period in Portuguese history, complemented by earlier texts.

As Portugal celebrates half a century of democracy this year, we are seeing a vertiginous growth of Europe’s far-right. What factors do you think explain this situation?

In my opinion, we need to get away from the idea that fascism is a strange disease, some inescapable plague that has fallen from the sky. This was more or less the discourse in the 1930s. It was seen as a kind of plague, caused by the derangement of the people or of certain leaders. That’s not what it is. Like 1930s fascism, today’s far-right is the product of a crisis in the Western liberal order. In other words, a crisis of capitalism.

We are currently living through the second such crisis. The neo-liberal turn taken by capitalism since the 1980s has not solved the problems faced by ordinary people. It has created unemployment, job insecurity, concentration of capital and bankruptcies. It has engendered economic and social destruction, despair, anger and fear. Historically, this is exactly where the fascism of the past gained its support. The same is true of today’s far-right.

This social explanation looks to the exploitation and manipulation of primal – if understandable – human sentiments: the fear of losing one’s social status, of losing one’s job, and the anxiety of an uncertain future. This presents an opportunity for the most aggressive forces in financial capitalism to impose, with little resistance, a veritable neo-liberal dictatorship. The situation we see today is a product of the crisis of Marxism since the 1980s, the implosion of the Soviet Union, and a balance of political power tilted against the traditional left.

These are the factors that have created this offensive, which brings together a part of the traditional right with a new, radicalised right.

Their constituency is first and foremost the very rich. In Portugal, these are the ones who finance Chega [CH, Portugal’s main far-right party]: they are big bankers, property developers, those who prosper from speculation and from tourism. These sectors are the first to benefit from the speculative logic of capital, which is the substratum of neoliberal capitalism. Then come parts of the middle class: small and middling landowners, civil servants, nurses and police officers. In short, certain sectors of the working and middle classes who are hard-hit by the difficult economic situation and are easily manipulated.

The situation we see today is a product of the crisis of Marxism since the 1980s, the implosion of the Soviet Union, and a balance of political power tilted against the traditional left

Note that the far-right has not one constituency, but three. Firstly, there are the oligarchs who finance Chega. They are the big families, the big bankers, the property investment funds. In Portugal they are often linked to the tourist industry. They lunch and dine together, it’s all but public knowledge. So it’s a combination of these oligarchs and certain sectors of the middle class that have moved to the right.

Also in the coalition are those nostalgic for Portugal’s Salazarist ancien régime, who are present in the leadership of Chega. They are openly against the revolution of 25 April 1974. In their speeches, they always say that the country has been in a bad path for 50 years. Basically, it’s democracy that they don’t like and it’s because of democracy that the country is in trouble. They are nostalgic for Salazar’s dictatorship, fascism, colonialism and the colonial war.

And then there is what I call the “blind vote” of uninformed protest, which is essentially an emotional and irrational vote.

But surely this last group accounts for the majority of far-right voters, and explains its make-up?

Of course. The first two types of far-right vote are ideologically oriented. But this one is an empty and irrational protest vote. These voters lack the critical capacity to recognise the contradictions and lies in the populist discourse of Chega and its leader, who changes his mind three times in the same day. This vote is not only irrational, but also misnformed. It’s a vote of anger, a vote of fear.

Young people seem to be attracted to Chega, particularly through social networks. Do you include the youth vote in this last category?

Yes, and especially those younger than 18. The main group of young people that Chega has managed to reach is still in secondary education. That’s where the party is strongest. Things are more complicated for higher education: there, the right gives its support less to Chega and more to the Liberal Initiative [IL, right]. Left-wing parties such as the BE are very popular too: over 30% of BE voters are young people. As for the secondary schools. I’ve done a lot of sessions with them, talking about the Carnation Revolution, and it is clear to me that these young people cannot really be described as far-right.

So it’s a protest vote?

It’s a protest vote, it’s those who say that André Ventura [Chega’s leader] “has balls”, that “this guy is the one we need”, that “he says out loud what people are thinking”, and so on. In other words, it’s a vote completely devoid of rational analysis. In the case of many secondary-school students, it’s almost impossible to have a debate with them at the moment – especially during an election campaign. All of a sudden there is just no room left for reasoning. But that doesn’t mean we should give up trying. I’ve been to schools all over the country to talk about the Carnation Revolution, and it’s always gone down very well. Because when you organise a face-to-face discussion, even if there are opposing positions, it’s always fruitful.

This has also been a year of European elections. Is the European project failing?

If the European project is to survive, it will need fundamental reforms. What is this project? It prevents national economies from having their own currency and exchange-rate policies. The euro is a system that essentially works to the advantage of the strongest economies, in particular Germany and France, and disadvantages those on the margins. There is little economic sovereignty and none in the area of monetary policy. Everything is subordinate to a European Central Bank that nobody has elected and that nobody really controls. It is the bankers who run things.

Immigration policy is also a disaster: it boils down to building a big fortress. Absurdly, European countries have paid Morocco and Turkey to put refugees in camps and prevent them from leaving.

But Europe is becoming ever more obsessed with security, as we see in France.

[France’s immigration law is] a disgrace because it discriminates against French citizens who are not of French or European origin. In essence, Emmanuel Macron has adopted a text that suits Marine Le Pen perfectly. In the Netherlands, the far right won the election by promoting this type of legislation. But it’s the kind of law associated with civil war. What can it achieve? What will it do at a time when millions of people are fleeing drought, underdevelopment and hunger? Will it stop them leaving? No. The only viable solution is progress, economic development and a commitment to cooperation to help develop these countries. There are no other solutions.

As Europe declines demographically and needs immigrants, it is time to build real integration policies that are useful in every way, including for the European economy.

On the economic question the EU absolutely must adopt measures to regulate capital movements. Right now capital flows are running wild, speculative investing is all but unregulated.

Free movement of capital is the hallmark of the neo-liberal capitalism that emerged in the 1980s. However, postwar Keynesian capitalism regulated capital, with great success in terms of its economic model. As long as the most aggressive neo-liberal policies are not reversed, in the economic and financial spheres, in terms of immigration and even in foreign policy, the trend of the European Union will be towards break-up. We see it already with the war in Ukraine, where the EU has been incapable of taking its own political line.

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This article is published within the Come Together collaborative project