The Orwellian paradox of Europe: the pacifism of the far right and the militarism of the left.

By Cristiano Addario de Abreu (*) - Et voici enfin ce que je me permets d'ajouter pour mon compte personnel: Maudites soient les démocraties ploutocratiques qui affament la Russie; je ne suisqu'un vieillard dont l'existence est à la merci de minimes accidents; more puissè-je, avant de descendre dans la tombe, see humilier les orgueilleuses démocratiesbourgeoises, aujourd'hui cyniquement triomphantes (1)

Behold, the 180° turn in US politics, with the election of Trump, has laid bare the regressive political and mental colonization of Europe. In an embarrassing spectacle of infantilized adults, shocked by the reality rubbed in their faces, traditional European leaders react by denying reality in a childish way: and the historical hijacking of the European left, since the Cold War (the first one...), is central to this shocking point reached today in European politics. The Orwellian metaphor is crystal clear (2) for understanding this process, using the work 1984 As a didactic dystopia. For, curiously, today reality shamelessly copies fiction. In the aforementioned work, Newspeak was the colonization of words, therefore of ideas, to put people at the service of Big Brother's objectives: in Newspeak, war meant peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. The Orwellian inversion invoked here perfectly explains what is happening in Europe, with the inversion of values, ideas, and words. Atlanticist Atlanticism corrupted the connection between European politics and reality, transforming words into their opposite, with an insistence repeated more than a thousand times, achieving Joseph Goebbels' goal of transforming lies into truths. The great European crisis of 2025 is that with Trump's victory, what was happening in [previous context] will occur. 1984 When there was a shift in geopolitical agreements between Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia—changing the geopolitical chessboard, history had to be rewritten. And that is what the Trump administration is doing, in a way that is destabilizing the world, but maddening for old Europe.

Context and Text

Historically, leftist forces have always been both supporters and defenders of pacifism. The German Social Democratic Party's support for war credits in 1914 represented a historic turning point in this tradition within leftist parties, betraying the long-standing pacifist tradition of the European left. The leftist figures who remained faithful to internationalist pacifism in 1914 were Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and other dissident figures from historical social democracy, as well as Jean Jaurès in French socialism—it is no coincidence that this deputy was assassinated after his speech denying his vote for war credits in the French parliament. These pacifist dissidents would later create the Third International with Lenin. And the First World War would prove that the European left had committed a historic betrayal of its foundations in that European summer of 1914, a betrayal that would take until 1945 to be digested.

In the post-World War II era, European social democracy learned, after much trial and error, the strength of neutrality within the context of the confrontation between the USA and the USSR. The cases of Austria, Finland, and Sweden were the most successful examples: these three countries remained outside NATO, politically neutral, and achieved remarkable development over decades, with full employment, broad democratic participation, and a prominent international role, obtained precisely because of their neutrality.

Therefore, political neutrality and pacifism are at the heart of the longest-lasting success of the European (Western) left in its history. And the destruction of this legacy is the work of neoliberalism, which destroys the entire legacy of the welfare state, especially after 2008, and destroys not only social achievements but also the logical, cognitive connections between words and things.

Fall of the Wall, fall of the Balance

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), which brought down “real socialism” not to neoliberalism (as the media mystifiers eternally repeat), but to the “Rhenish capitalism” they saw on the other side of the wall (3): East Germans looked at a capitalism highly regulated by the social-democratic/Gaullist hegemony of Western Europe, which created a prosperous society of full employment, productive and not financial, and with strong universal labor and social security coverage. It was never neoliberal capitalism that seduced Eastern Europe to tear down the wall, but rather the highly regulated model of capitalism, which neoliberalism continues to seek to destroy! This dishonest narrative imposed by the corporate media, claiming that the real socialism of Eastern Europe was "defeated" by neoliberalism, is an Orwellian path to transforming the meaning of words, imposing lies as truths, and transforming "war into peace, freedom into slavery, ignorance into strength"... For short-term memory is already corrupted by this lie that imputes to neoliberalism the "victory" over the real socialism of Eastern Europe. Thus, it is logical that the Orwellian trap lurks not only in economics but also in international relations: for the success of the "30 glorious years" of post-war Europe was a social-democratic economic experiment made possible by the political balance of the time, leveraged by the neutralist forces of Scandinavia, and in the heart of Europe, by Gaullism (which, not by chance, led to France's withdrawal from NATO). Gaullism was always linked to a popular, but not fascist, nationalism (as demonstrated by the withdrawal of support for colonialism in Algeria in 1962: De Gaulle did try to maintain Algeria, but ended up recognizing the inevitable march of history, alienating the right-wing forces that supported him at the time). De Gaulle exemplifies the right wing that fits within the left-wing agenda, with its effective but serene nationalism. This historical figure should be remembered here, at a time when much of the European Union believes it can ignore a leader like Putin at the table of planetary destinies...

Because the narrative war of corrupted words corroding history not only corrupts the collective memory of what was the post-war European economic success (the "30 glorious years"), but also corrupts the political and diplomatic success that underpinned that economic success: political neutrality! For this tendency towards neutrality was the political basis for European economic success in the second half of the 20th century.

Of course, no neutrality is total, and Western Europe was militarily subjected to the US with NATO, but there was a political window for effective relative neutrality then, which enabled immense social, political and human advances. This neutrality, incidentally, was the watchword of US foreign policy from its Independence until the First World War: this republic always prioritized and cultivated its political and economic independence to the maximum throughout the 19th century (4). And in a political and diplomatic version of List's "kicking away the ladder" about the economy, all US foreign policy, at least after the Second World War, seeks to prevent other countries from practicing neutrality policies in pursuit of their interests: because political neutrality is essential for long-term economic development for semi-peripheral entities in geopolitics.

European Neocolonial Regression under NATO: Destruction of the European Left under the Orwellian Shadow of the Democratic Party

For this colonial objective of US foreign policy (“us or them”, “there is no neutrality”...) was achieved in a surreal way in the Europe of the Ukraine War: an entire continent, the cradle of capitalism and world geopolitical relations, threw itself into the fire of believing the lies of the neoliberal narrative. Thus, Europe, from a junior partner of US imperialism, benefiting from relatively low security costs, threw itself into a very dangerous war with its long-standing neighbor: Russia, which has far more nuclear warheads than England and France combined, and will remain on the European border unless the world ends.

How was such an absurdity possible? 

The reactions of European political groups to Trump's shock of realism may give us the Ariadne's thread to escape the labyrinth of this story of European political madness. Don Quixote showed the monsters of madness in Habsburg Spain, in the face of the decadence of its empire. Today, Europe reveals destructive instincts in the face of the emergence of a multipolar world, beyond its imaginary garden... And the most bizarre manifestation of this European dementia and senility is given by the so-called "left" forces on that continent, who, like a "Princess Europe," complain that their American Zeus is no longer kidnapping them: shamelessly, in a nostalgic Stockholm syndrome of colonialism, the "democratic" leaders of Europe cry out for more war!!! 

There is a Europe, not of the people, but of the decrepit leaders, that cries out to be kidnapped by its American Zeus, and this Zeus despises it in pursuit of peace with Eurasia... which, curiously, is the best way out for Europe itself!

This collective dementia among European leaders is clearly fueled by money from corruption, militaristic interests, and the infamous military-industrial complex (well-established in France and England), but it's more complicated than that, being a product of the neoliberal narrative war of... WearBecause, besides spending over 40 years repeating that neoliberalism "defeated real socialism," that the mindless association with NATO is the best security for the world... This neoliberal narrative war attacks all political forces that defend national developmental interests when these are realized: as the coup against Dilma and the imprisonment of Lula showed when the industrial policy, and the sharing of the Brazilian pre-salt reserves, was put into practice by presidential decrees. Or when Gaddafi created a gold-backed fund and a gas supply agreement for Italy in Libya. Or even when any and all secular nationalist leadership in the Arab world stands up... Such nationalisms cause hives to imperialism, which has to destroy them as soon as possible. And this is the reason why Mr. Putin, with all his complicated contradictions and serious problems, causes so much hatred in the centers of Western power: his continued hold on power, which allows for structural political constructions, is already a terrible example for the underdeveloped world. And against this long-time resident of the Kremlin, an entire narrative of disqualification was erected to create a denial of the nationalism that Putin supposedly represents. The US Democratic Party led this, and in a process of destroying European politics, managed to do in Europe what it seeks to do with the PT in Brazil: it transformed (almost) the entire European left into a dull mirror of the US Democratic Party, centering the axis of these parties on agendas... race and gender, neoliberals in economics, and ignoring the agendas of laborism, developmentalism, and popular nationalism.

Widespread infantilism has turned Putin into a bogeyman, the biggest sexist and biggest homophobe in the world... Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian regime (which condemns people to death for homosexuality!) doesn't provoke any broader reaction from the European left, despite its recurring absurdities against the human rights of homosexuals and women in Saudi Arabia! And so, the phantasmagorical discourse eclipses reality, and madness grows unchecked, without counterpoints. 

Because the shock of reality needs to wake Europe up soon. And Trump being the trigger for this in no way disqualifies the ongoing process: however despicable and dangerous Trump may be, consistent with the strategies of the far-right on social media, which spread lies with elements of truth mixed in, his action against the war in Ukraine has been the only true and positive thing his government has done (amidst all the other crazy fronts...). And this needs to be recognized. Even the aggressive way of declaring the truth to Zelensky's face is a typical far-right strategy, in its anti-political aggression (which pleases voters in this camp), but in this case Trump's text is true (even if the form is rotten). Trump's big lie is that the US "gave 350 billion to Ukraine" (it would have been 180 billion...). But the truth about the amount is eclipsed by another: it's that they gave the amount to the US military-industrial complex in the end, and not to Ukraine! And Zelensky, if he were a real politician and not a scarecrow of imperialism, could respond to Trump. But he said nothing: he swallowed Trump's rudeness and will sign the colonial peace, which will make Ukraine hand over all its rare earths to the US.

And this is what the European "left" pretends not to recognize, and goes crazy when faced with: that it was complicit in the destruction of Ukraine, by never having defended the "Finlandization" of Ukraine, never having defended the neutrality of Ukraine (demanded by Putin since 2007!), but seeking to force Ukraine into NATO, and thus throwing this country into the hell of war. 

In this vacuum of European political rationality, the far right is rising, which curiously speaks of negotiating peace. And cynically, the traitors of the left (disguised as the left) continue to vote for the continuation of war credits for a Ukraine increasingly depopulated by men, and pretend to be "pro-Ukraine" while defending the continuation of the minced meat factory of the Ukrainian people on the altar of military-industrial complexes. 

Because in truth, those who defend the continuation of the war have nothing to do with the left! And they don't defend the Ukrainian people: they only defend the military-industrial complexes, they defend the war industry, and the party of eternal war, centered in the City of London. The "left" that continues to defend the devastating war in Ukraine is simply no longer left-wing. And if the far right defends peace in Ukraine, on this point it will be with the peoples of the world, even if in everything else they are anti-people.

Being on the left means being against the war in Ukraine first and foremost. And the game of mirrors between Democrats (in the US) and Trump, aimed at destroying the European left, is a dirty, complex game of thought that needs to be seen in the... Wear...and which has reduced Europe to a shadow of its former self, now diminished to a European DisunionWith a Poland that is viscerally anti-Russian, militarized, and empowered, while the traditional centers of Europe (Paris and Berlin) remain lost, and the historical capital of neoliberalism (London) continues to manipulate. It is symptomatic that it was in London, the capital of this country that abandoned the European Union, that the "European" meeting of the war party was held, so that they could continue to feed the military-industrial complexes with the blood of the Ukrainian people.

As De Gaulle knew, England is the Trojan horse of the European Union. And this 51st state of Orwellian Oceania remains strategic in preventing the unification of Eurasia envisioned by Orwell. Thus, the game of War continues with an integrated Oceania, a rising Eastasia, and a fractured Eurasia, bleeding in the black lands of Ukraine. 

Notes

1.  SOREL, Georges. Thoughts on violence, 1908. Paris: Marcel Rivière et Cie. pg 204
2.  Orwell, George. 1984. Companhia das Letras Publishing House, 2009.
3.  https://aterraeredonda.com.br/o-grande-vencedor-do-neoliberalismo/ 
4.  https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8137/tde-11082023-125212/pt-br.php    Pages 91, 97, 173, 178. 

(*) Cristiano Addario de Abreu holds a PhD in Economics