Fighting Campism Requires Understanding National Pathways: Lessons from Germany, Portugal, the Spanish State and US

The material basis for campism is national, economic, and historical

Campism isn’t just ideological confusion or emotional anti-Americanism. It’s sustained by material forces: Portugal’s Lusophone trade networks, Spain’s Latin American cultural ties, Germany’s energy dependencies and GDR institutional legacies. Defeating campism requires confronting these national economic and historical structures, not just better arguments about principles.

The Transatlantic Campism Model

A recent analysis of UK and US campism identified shared ideological roots in what the author calls “post-Stalinist ‘anti-imperialism’”: a Cold War worldview that reduced global politics to two camps, “Imperialism” (the West) and “Anti-imperialism” (the USSR and its allies). When the Soviet Union collapsed, this binary didn’t disappear. Instead, it migrated into groups that remained Stalinist or Stalinist-influenced, eventually fusing with online “anti-imperialist” and “multipolar” narratives.

The analysis traced how UK campism consolidated in the 2000s around Stop the War Coalition, the Morning Star, and sections of the SWP, creating a framework where anti-imperialism became moral shorthand for anti-Americanism. This led to defending or denying crimes of any regime opposed to the West: Iran, Assad, Putin, even elements of jihadism.

In the US, the anti-war movement’s collapse after 2008 left behind a campist media ecosystem (Answer Coalition, PSL, Grayzone) and a radical aesthetic detached from class politics, built around foreign policy takes and online “anti-imperialist” branding. The author argued that influence flowed both ways: the UK exported the language and moral framework, while the US exported the media ecosystem and conspiratorial digital form.

But is this transatlantic model universal? Tests against Portuguese, Spanish, and German cases reveal something crucial: while core campist mechanisms operate similarly across countries, national histories create fundamentally different campist pathways that require tailored anti-campist strategies.

Portugal: Colonial Legacy Creates Protective Loyalties

Portuguese campism confirms the Stalinist continuity thesis. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) maintained its Cold War binary framework through the 1974 Carnation Revolution without genuine democratic reckoning, preserving organizational cultures of “loyalty over inquiry.”

However, Portugal’s colonial wars in Africa (1961-1974) created distinctive campist obligations absent from the UK/US model. Portuguese campism uniquely defends corrupt Lusophone African regimes (MPLA in Angola, Frelimo in Mozambique) based on historical liberation struggle alliances, even covering up atrocities like the 1977 assassination of communist militants in Luanda. This isn’t geopolitical calculation; it’s institutionalized loyalty from shared exile, Cold War collaboration, and narratives of historical debt.

Anti-campist Portuguese leftists (like those in Rede Anticapitalista within Bloco de Esquerda, the APSR/Combate, and our namesakes at Toupeira Vermelha) face a specific challenge: combating campism requires confronting not just abstract “anti-imperialism” but deeply embedded post-colonial solidarity networks that invoke genuine anti-racist and anti-colonial principles to justify authoritarian apologism.

Spain: Multiple Reinforcing Campist Vectors

A review of Viento Sur, the Fourth Internationalist magazine, shows that Spanish campism reveals even greater complexity. The Communist Party of Spain (PCE) adopted Eurocommunism in the 1970s, supposedly breaking with Moscow. Yet this provided no immunity: “Stalinist habits of behaviour” (hábitos de comportamiento estalinistas) persisted [See Viento Sur 21] through Izquierda Unida (IU), including “regressive neo-Stalinism” (neo-estalinismo regresivo) used to purge critics [See Viento Sur 35]. Civil War memory, where USSR support defended the Republic, created powerful nostalgic attachments despite this being the height of Stalinist methods, including the extermination of the Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) [See Viento Sur 21].

The Pivotal Impact of the Anti-NATO Campaign (1986)

The definitive alignment of the Spanish state with the Western military structure, secured by the NATO referendum, acts as a primary catalyst for the enduring ideological crisis of the Spanish left, fundamentally shaping the vectors of campism and internal rigidity:

1. Solidifying the Neoliberal State: The successful referendum cemented the “definitive inclusion of Spain in the Atlantic bloc” (definitiva inclusión en el bloque atlántico) [See Viento Sur 25]. The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), which had previously campaigned against NATO (”OTAN, de entrada, no”), solidified its rapid transition to a “neoliberal force with progressive trappings” [See Viento Sur 1]. This success, achieved despite the massive anti-NATO mobilization [See Viento Sur 25], inflicted a widespread “feeling of impotence, of political nullity” (sentimiento de impotencia, de nulidad política) upon the opposition [See Viento Sur 25], accelerating political cynicism and withdrawal.

2. Defining the Alternative Left’s Failure: The anti-NATO movement was critical in the formation of Izquierda Unida (IU) [See Viento Sur 2]. The movement represented a broad coalition of opposition groups. Its defeat meant that the key opposition force was born from a fundamental political failure, limiting its later potential. This failure demonstrated that the alternative left was “too anchored in the old and in old styles” (demasiado anclada en lo viejo y en viejos estilos) [See Viento Sur 34], contributing to ideological rigidity, or politicismo (excessive focus on institutional politics and electoralism, hindering grassroots mobilization) [See Viento Sur 1].

3. Reinforcing the Need for Anti-Imperialist “Camps”: The PSOE’s definitive entry into the Western military camp intensified the search among some radicals for ideological anchors outside the Atlantic sphere, reinforcing campist tendencies.

Campism Vectors: External, Internal, and Regional

Spain’s campism flows primarily from Latin American revolutionary discourse rather than Anglophone sources.

• Cuba as the “Secure Reference”: Cuba functions as Spain’s primary campist obligation, a “sacred” anti-imperialist fortress tied to 1898’s imperial collapse. Following the Soviet collapse, some on the Spanish left clung “desperately to a secure reference,” proving they had “learned nothing of their previous devotion to the USSR” [See Viento Sur 4]. This loyalty overrides democratic critiques, justified through self-determination discourse [also Viento Sur 4].

• Latin American Patterns: Nicaragua and Venezuela follow similar patterns. The complexity of these ideological alignments is visible when radical left movements (like the FSLN in Nicaragua) were sometimes painted with an “exacerbated Stalinism” [See Viento Sur 32] by critics when they sought alternatives outside the Western liberal model.

Crucially, Spain’s regional nationalist left (Basque, Catalan, Gallego) adds a layer absent from other cases.

• Reinforcing Anti-State Alignment: The failure of the massive, centralist anti-NATO campaign reinforced the view that the Spanish state was irrevocably aligned with imperialism [See Viento Sur 8; Viento Sur 25]. Their anti-Spanish State positioning naturally aligns with anti-imperialist solidarity elsewhere, creating multiple reinforcing campist vectors.

• Self-Determination Linkage: The fundamental denial of the right to self-determination (autodeterminación) within the Spanish state’s post-transition constitution [See Viento Sur 24], ensured that the regional left’s struggle for sovereignty at home fueled the defense of self-determination abroad. This made anti-campist work in Spain difficult, requiring engagement with legitimate national liberation struggles while resisting their campist instrumentalization.

Germany: State Division and Holocaust Guilt

German campism demonstrates yet another distinct pathway. Die Linke inherited institutional Stalinism from the GDR’s ruling SED through the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). This legacy featured “politics from above” rather than grassroots organization, making the party vulnerable to opportunistic nationalist shifts.

The GDR regime’s “strong state” suppressed civil society and increasingly deployed nationalist slogans to manage its legitimacy crisis. Post-reunification’s economic “hostile takeover” by Western capital created lasting anger (Wutpotenzial) in former GDR territories, providing fertile ground for both far-right AfD radicalization and left-nationalist projects like Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW.

Wagenknecht articulates “left-conservative” politics explicitly rejecting Marxism, revolutionary processes, and internationalism. Her program advocates nationalist and corporatist policy opposing immigrant workers, national constraints on politics, and opposition to “excessive climate protection” and gender politics. This represents Querfront (red-brown crossover) built directly on PDS institutional frameworks.

Critically, Germany lacks colonial obligations comparable to Iberian cases. Instead, Holocaust guilt creates what critics call a “political and moral pathology” where unconditional support for Israel suppresses debate, setting different rules for Israel than for Western rivals like Russia. This distinct historical obligation shapes German campism’s Middle East positioning fundamentally differently from other countries.

German anti-campist forces faced their litmus test in Ukraine 2022. Revolutionary socialists maintained that the conflict is simultaneously a national liberation war by Ukraine against Russian occupation and an imperialist proxy war between NATO and Russia. They support Ukrainian resistance and Russian anti-war movements while condemning Russian aggression and Western hypocrisy regarding Israel. This position rejected both pro-Russian campism and pro-NATO imperialism.

Two-Track Campism: A Revised Framework

These cases suggest campism operates on two distinct but overlapping tracks:

1. Post-Soviet campism (UK/US pattern): Defending any anti-Western state based on “enemy of my enemy” logic, flowing from unreconciled Stalinism and online “multipolar” narratives.

2. Post-colonial campism (Iberian pattern): Protecting former colonial territories’ “anti-imperialist” regimes through historical solidarity obligations rooted in liberation struggle alliances and cultural-linguistic ties.

Germany demonstrates both tracks can coexist with additional national factors. GDR “Ost-algia” functions differently from general USSR nostalgia, while Holocaust guilt creates unique Middle East ‘obligations’. Economic dependencies (energy, trade) reinforce campist geopolitics through material interests beyond ideological frameworks.

National Battles Against Campism: Strategic Implications

Understanding these distinct pathways transforms anti-campist strategy. A one-size-fits-all approach imported from UK/US contexts will fail because it cannot address the specific historical, cultural, and institutional factors sustaining campism in each national context.

• In Portugal, anti-campists must disentangle genuine anti-colonial solidarity from authoritarian apologism. This requires demonstrating that supporting Angolan or Mozambican peoples’ democratic aspirations is more authentically anti-imperialist than defending corrupt MPLA or Frelimo regimes. The battle is over who truly inherits the liberation struggle legacy.

• In Spain, anti-campists face the challenge of engaging regional nationalist movements’ legitimate grievances while resisting their campist instrumentalization. Supporting Catalan or Basque autodetermination doesn’t require defending Venezuelan authoritarianism. Anti-campism must demonstrate that genuine internationalism means solidarity with Venezuelan workers resisting both US sanctions and Maduro’s repression, not knee-jerk defense of “Bolivarian” rhetoric.

• In Germany, anti-campists must simultaneously combat Querfront convergence with the far-right while refusing NATO-aligned imperialism. The Ukraine position demonstrates this is possible: supporting Ukrainian national defense while opposing both Russian imperialism and Western hypocrisy. German anti-campism requires exposing how Wagenknecht’s “left-conservatism” betrays working-class internationalism by scapegoating immigrants and accommodating nationalist narratives rooted in GDR institutional pathologies.

Across all contexts, the battle requires:

1. Historical reckoning: Confronting how specific national communist parties failed to achieve genuine democratic transformation, preserving Stalinist organizational cultures of “loyalty over inquiry.”

2. Institutional analysis: Understanding how campism flows through specific organizational structures (PCP, PCE/IU, SED/PDS/Die Linke) rather than treating it as purely ideological.

3. Material interests: Recognizing how economic dependencies (German energy, Spanish-Latin American trade) and historical obligations (Portuguese Lusophone ties, Spanish Ibero-American relationships, German Holocaust guilt) create material bases for campist positions beyond mere ideological confusion.

4. Generational dynamics: Addressing how “new tankies” or “digital neo-Stalinism” among youth represents superficial political socialization through globalized aesthetics, requiring different engagement than traditional party campism.

5. Anti-sectarian intelligence: Providing better strategic analysis of left organizational dynamics than campist narratives offer, demonstrating that anti-campism produces superior understanding of revolutionary possibilities.

Beyond “Anti-Imperialism”: Reconstructing Internationalism

The comparative analysis reveals that campism persists because it addresses real needs: anti-colonial solidarity, resistance to Western domination, organizational loyalty, historical memory. Defeating campism requires offering superior answers to these genuine political questions.

This means reconstructing internationalism on principles that:

• Support peoples’ self-determination against all imperialisms, not just Western ones

• Defend democratic principles universally rather than suspending them for “anti-imperialist” regimes

• Build solidarity with working-class and democratic movements everywhere, including within states opposed to the West

• Analyze all states through materialist class analysis rather than binary camps

• Maintain organizational cultures valuing critical inquiry over defensive loyalty

The battle against campism cannot be won through abstract principle alone. It requires understanding how national histories create specific campist pathways, then developing targeted strategies addressing each country’s distinct institutional structures, historical obligations, and material interests. Only by recognizing campism’s national roots can we build the genuinely internationalist alternative the revolutionary left desperately needs.

What this means for Red Mole readers: Understanding campism’s national variations isn’t academic; it’s essential for effective organizing. Whether you’re combating Lusophone apologism in Portugal, challenging Cuba romanticism in Spain, or resisting Querfront in Germany, success requires strategies tailored to your specific national context while maintaining common anti-campist principles. The enemy of campism isn’t abstract internationalism but concrete solidarity with workers and oppressed peoples in their specific struggles against all forms of imperialism and authoritarianism.