How a vociferous minority leads the anger of the streets in a dangerous direction.

The other day I was wondering, how is it that the left, starting with Ukraine, struggles to fight any battle that is not primarily anti-Western?

To get an opinion from the left, I thought I would reflect with Niccolò Musmeci, 29, National Secretary of the Young Socialist Federation.

“The ideological, antagonistic and maximalist left is in conflict with the left of the reformist method. Ideology is still today the bearer of dogmatic, almost religious attitudes , still fascinated by the mirage of revolution, necessary more to define an identity than as a concrete project.

What is the method?

“The method is to get one’s hands dirty”, to accept complexities, to measure oneself against imperfect power relations, to stick to reality, to apply the politics of compromise. It is precisely this method that has produced historical achievements such as the Workers’ Statute (when the communists abstained in the vote, because with the bosses you don’t come to terms). The reformist method eschews positions for their own sake and tries to read the time in which it operates first and foremost.

On the contrary, an ideological left ‘lives the present in contradiction to reality’. It speaks as if the world stopped decades ago, as if globalisation and technology (AI, robotics, quantum computers, etc.) do not impose new questions. If you do not adhere to the narrative you are excluded, ‘you are considered an enemy, a social-fascist’.

A nostalgic area, often anagrammatically advanced but still quite performative in front of the web cameras, retrieves from the archive of the defeated of history fragments of a communism never really elaborated. Least of all in Italy. For this left , the world that came after the collapse of the USSR still remains an enemy, and against the enemy then any ally becomes acceptable. But this is not the case, this is where analysis is replaced by narration.

The enemies of this idea of the left include the system of social democracy and social liberalism.

This line of thinking allows one to bypass critical judgement: how is it possible that movements that call themselves progressive struggle to condemn authoritarian regimes, religious fundamentalism and neo-colonial drifts? The answer is terrible but necessary: ‘a part of the movementism on the left is still linked to those illiberal worlds’.

Let us clearly state one principle: Soviet communism was a mistake in history, like all totalitarianisms. Unfortunately, however, on some, despite the experience of history, as a political pole it continues to exert a magnetism.

It is no coincidence that, for example, anti-Europeanism becomes a meeting ground between the ideological left and right-wing sovereignisms. It is then that on various issues (European integration, single currency, common defence, support for Ukraine precisely) we end up playing into the hands of nationalisms. In other words, those who believe they are resisting the right, go on to strengthen its most reactionary elements. By trying to fight the system, one tilts dangerously.

These are obvious contradictions that are not addressed, rather they are tolerated.

Yet, the European Union, which also stems from socialist culture, is the project that put an end to the cyclical extermination between sister cultures, how can this not speak to a leftist?

We live in the present, and in the present colonialism is primarily that of China and Russia. A coherent left cannot ignore it in search of an ideological amarcord. If from the left one justifies Russia, the Maduro regime or Hamas fundamentalism, one is not part of the solution but part of the problem.

If he prefers ideology to method, preconception to reformism, then he will confuse radicalism with extremism.

Thus ‘the left is distancing itself from power’, losing credibility and leaving room for its opponents. It is surprising that this happens ‘at a time in history when, especially from Gen Z globally, there is a great demand for democracy and human rights’.