SP blew it when they backed down after they were critiqued for their anti-EU-spot. They lost the anti-EU-voter because of the backing down, they lost middle-class progressives who’re in favor of the EU by making the spot. They should’ve picked a path, and committed to it.
But the fact that they scored so high in the polls one day that the main business magazine published this , shows there’s still potential. I always get the impression that people in the Netherlands are generally more progressive then in Belgium, yet Belgium now has a marxist party which is virtually the second or third party of the country .
Don’t give up hope, organise.
SP is anticommunist, however. Unless you’re hedging your bets with Marxistisch Forum, I have high hopes for BIJ1 and all the new blood which hangs out around there (Radicaal, Rood)
SP is anticommunist
The SP is dead, in a leftist sense. The last struggle happened from the Summer of 2020 till the end of 2021. That struggle was necessary, but ultimately the fight for power over the party was lost. All marxists/communists are in ROOD or in the Socialisten (Socialists) working groups / local parties. Only a handful of unorganized communists remain in the SP. Others that have left already before the 2020-2021 struggle, fled to the Animal Party or Bij1.
Source: I’m a member of Communist Platform, with a decade of daily experience with the SP, and now active in one of the Socialisten groups.
Well yeah, the Marxists in the party are in MF, though with how hostile SP has positioned itself towards MF and Rood, I don’t know how to feel about “steering the SP leftward” rather than organising outside of it. It is still the biggest currently existing left-wing platform, though.
Rood is pretty trotsky/kautsky filled at the moment, which I don’t like, but it seems for some reason to be most popular with youth at the moment? Kinda confused on that tbh. They had their all-hands meeting today, and I got that impression
t seems for some reason to be most popular with youth at the moment
What gives you that impression?
Most western European coms are leftcoms nowadays it seems. Older generations remember a soviet union and the communist resistance, the new ones are idealist and wish for bloodless revolution.
Belgium is entirely carried by how based the french Walloons are, marxists + socialists poll at 45% in the south while the right + far right flemish parties poll at 45% in the north.
Yes, and the marxists also have +/- 8.5% in Flanders at the moment, which isn’t neglible.
When we campaign at factories, it’s clear that many people vote VB but have a lot of sympathy for us. VB has the appeal of the anti-system vote (when you oppose the system, the current politics, the destruction of the welfare state etc., you vote VB), but people generally respect the activism and the presence of PVDA among the workers. It’s only a matter of time before the anti-working class agenda of VB is laid bare for all to see, and they lose their anti-system appeal, then PVDA can take over their electoral base.
BTW, there’s nothing specifically “based” about the Francophone Belgians. The radical left out-organised the radical right there, and because of that the hegemonic anti-system vote is with the left now. The radical right will only manage to make a breaktrough there if PVDA ever abandons it’s principles. In other words, they have the same problems in the Francophone part of the country, as we have in Flanders, but because we’re a disciplined and highly organised party with an active presence among the working class, we still manage to have a decent score there as well.
PVDA is the best thing Belgium has going, but it’s pretty much the same as the SP used to be 10-15 years ago in the Netherlands. They are bureaucratic social-democrats, with only a minority of the party being made up of marxists.
![The meat lobby[Farmers party, BBB] is up to 2nd place in the latest dutch polls. I hate this country so fucking much.(hexbear.net)](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/gj8e2PjQv6.png){kind=link}