9: Political alternatives on the Western Left: Podemos, Syriza, Sanders and Corbyn

The combined economic, social and ideological crisis which struck the West in 2008 ought to have meant victory for the left. But instead, all over Europe and in the United States, the traditional centre-left in most countries has lost power and appears weak.

This chapter will focus on four of the most effective formations on the left which have emerged in the wake of the crisis, challenging the centre-left: Podemos and Syriza in continental Europe, and the movements behind Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn in the Democratic Party and the Labour Party.

In most of the main West European countries, the old socialist and social-democratic parties are out of office and losing influence.

In France, the Parti Socialiste, at the end of the presidency of the Socialist François Hollande, failed to make the runoff in the 2017 presidential election, as the Front National (FN) took second place. In Germany, the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) is the junior partner in the coalition led by Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and in opinion polls now comes third behind the CDU and the Greens. In Italy, the Partito Democratica (PD), which developed out of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), lost office to a right-populist alliance in March 2018. In Greece, the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement, PASOK, has all but disappeared; while in Spain, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, PSOE, has struggled to hold on as the largest force on the left, but managed to form a minority government. In Sweden, the Social Democrats, who governed for most of the post-war period, won their lowest level of support for a century in the September 2018 elections, although still remained the largest party.

Portugal is an exception, where the Partido Socialista remains the dominant force on the left and since 2015 has led a coalition including the Communists and the Bloco de Esqueirda (Left Bloc) of radical socialists. This coalition has been seeking to mitigate the effects of an EU austerity-oriented bailout programme while under IMF supervision.

In Britain, the Labour Party was voted out of government in 2010 and lost two more elections in 2015 and 2017. The election of Corbyn as leader after the 2015 defeat has pushed the party sharply to the left and seriously frightened the wealthier sections of British society. The acceptability of socialist ideas in the United States has also grown significantly in the wake of Sanders' unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2016.

The most successful groups on the radical left on the European continent have been Syriza and Podemos. Both arose outside the traditional socialist parties, under the impact of the crisis. Syriza has been the senior partner in the Greek government since 2015. Podemos has challenged PSOE for the leadership of the Spanish left, with successes for its associates in Madrid and Barcelona.

This chapter will examine the growth and development of these four movements - Podemos, Syriza, the Sanders campaign and the movement behind Corbyn - since they appear to be the most successful radical groups in Western Europe and North America. Why did some of the movements develop within existing parties, while others emerged as new organisations? How did they grow? How did they approach identity politics? Did the way they organised prefigure the sort of society they wanted to create? How radical were their aims and programmes? Did they succeed in increasing support for a socialist society, as opposed to a capitalist society with egalitarian policies and a welfare state? In other words, have they succeeded in what the English socialist William Morris called 'making socialists', or, in Gramscian terms, in challenging the hegemony of capitalist ideology in their societies?

Valuable research has been done on how the radical left parties in Europe responded to the Western financial crisis. In particular, Luke March has written the monograph Radical Left Parties in Europe (2011) and coedited with Daniel Keith Europe's Radical Left: From Marginality to the Mainstream? (2016).¹ Both were written too early to analyse the important developments in and after 2015. A penetrating survey of three of the new movements emerging from the crisis - Occupy Wall Street, Movimento Cinque Stella (Five Star Movement) and Podemos - is by Marco Briziarelli and Susana Martinez Guillem. Entitled Reviving Gramsci: Crisis, Communication, and Change (2016), it locates these movements within what Antonio Gramsci described as an 'organic crisis' in which the hegemony of the ruling capitalist class is challenged.² The Socialist Challenge Today: Syriza, Sanders, Corbyn, by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (2018), reviews three of the movements discussed in this chapter.³ Steve Richards' The Rise of the Outsiders: How Mainstream Politics Lost its Way (2017) examines the new movements of left and right and the decline of the centre-left and centre-right.⁴

The most substantial study of Podemos in English is Ińigo Errejón and Chantal Mouffe's Podemos: In the Name of the People (2016).⁵ The movement's founder, Pablo Iglesias, has written Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of Democracy in Europe (2015).⁶ The most detailed study in English of Syriza is by Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment (2017).⁷ This is a memoir of his time as finance minister in 2015. An independent analysis of Syriza's first months in power is Kevin Ovenden's Syriza: Inside the Labyrinth (2015).⁸ Bernie Sanders' own Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In (2017) combines autobiography and political manifestos.⁹ It is probably the most useful study of his presidential campaign. Heather Gautney's Crashing the Party: From the Bernie Sanders Campaign to a Progressive Movement (2018) is somewhat uncritical.¹⁰ There is a substantial literature on Corbyn's rise to the leadership of the Labour Party and his subsequent performance. Particularly noteworthy are two books with a sympathetic but critical approach: Richard Seymour's Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (2016), and The Corbyn Effect, edited by Mark Perryman (2017).¹¹

Debates about how to define socialism and new ways of getting there emerged after the 2008 Western financial crisis. The consequences of the crisis presented a new situation and new opportunities. Concerning the historical memory of the new movements, it was important that both Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos (born in 1978), and Alexis Tsipras (born in 1974), who became the leader of Syriza, began their political careers within the Moscow-oriented communist movement, in the youth organisations of the Eurocommunist Spanish Communist Party (PCE) and the more traditional, vanguardist Greek Communist Party (KKE), respectively.¹² This trajectory equipped them with some understanding of historical debates about the relationship between the working class, its party and the state.

The 2008 crisis revived social struggles. They first evolved around single issues or particular economic sectors. Young people were especially involved, not least because many had not found a place in the labour market and were hit disproportionately around the globe. Within the EU, young people in southern member countries - Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal - suffered most.

The year 2011 may be considered the beginning of the coalescence of these struggles into more general movements. The Arab Spring developed from the beginning of the year as popular movements against repressive regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain. On 15 May, over 100,000 people demonstrated in 54 Spanish cities against politicians, bankers and what they termed el Sistema. This was the movement which became known as the Indignados (the outraged or indignant), based particularly on young, educated people.¹³ A few days later appeared the aganaktismenoi (indignant citizens' movement), also known as the 'Squares' movement', in Greece. From September, the Occupy Wall Street campaign developed in the United States, further strengthened by campus protests against increased tuition fees. This movement, directed against the heart of finance capital, inspired 'Occupy the City' in London, in which scores of people lived for several weeks in tents outside St Paul's Cathedral. In Russia, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in the major cities in protest against fraud perpetrated on behalf of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party in the State Duma elections in December. Common to these protests was the new factor of the use of Internet platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, both to spread information about abuses in government and business and to organise and publicise protest actions.

These movements of political protest across different parts of the globe formed the background to the emergence of the four parties and movements which will be considered here. They appear in the order in which they became important.

Podemos: Left populism and centralisation

This section will show how a movement based on protests in the streets rose to become a major influence in Spanish national politics, able in concert with others to sack governments.

The background to the emergence of the Indignados in 2011 was anger at corruption in the Spanish political system, which extended even to the royal family. The two parties that alternated in power after the death of dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975, the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and the socialist PSOE, were losing support. The Eurocommunist PCE had already begun to decline with the transition to democracy and as far back as 1986 had created an alliance with other groups, the United Left (IU). A new centre-right group, Ciudadanos (Citizens), was gaining strength.

The rise of Podemos

Seeking to turn the Indignados into an electoral force, a number of left-wing groups, including the Trotskyist Anti-Capitalist Left, and intellectuals formed Podemos ('We can') in January 2014. From the start, the leader was the young, pony-tailed, charismatic Pablo Iglesias Turrión, one of a group of political scientists at Complutense University of Madrid who, following Ernesto Laclau,¹⁴ were seeking to build a movement on the basis of populist rather than explicitly socialist or class-based appeals. Some of the group, such as Ińigo Errejón, also at Complutense and arguably the group's principal theoretician, had studied the experience of populism in Bolivia and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

In populist fashion, Podemos presented society as divided between 'us', the people, la gente, against 'them', the political and economic establishment, referred to as 'La Casta'.¹⁵ Iglesias argued that the Spanish elites were, in Gramscian terms, facing an organic crisis of the loss of hegemony and that this had led to a regime crisis.¹⁶ Podemos also opposed the Lisbon Treaty, increasing the powers of the EU, and Spain's membership of NATO. It argued, unlike the established parties, that political activity could be fun. Helped by Iglesias's status as a popular television presenter, Podemos succeeded in winning 8 per cent of the votes in the May 2014 elections to the European Parliament, doing especially well among the youth voters.

In the course of the first year of its existence, it grew to have the second largest membership of any party in Spain, behind the PP and overtaking PSOE. In November 2014, Podemos organised a 'Citizens' Assembly' to convert itself into a political party. This marked a turning point away from a more open, horizontal approach to organisation to a more centralised, vertical one and was achieved through the adoption of the structures by online voting; the leadership's proposals prevailed over those of a more horizontalist faction. This was followed by the adoption of the party executive by choice between slates rather than voting for individual candidates. The leadership's slate won, and the impression of a return to communist norms seemed reinforced by the election of Iglesias to the new post of general secretary. Alexandros Kioupkiolis, from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, has argued that the stagnation which Podemos suffered after 2015 began with the introduction of the centralist practices within the party, at odds with its proclaimed aims for society.¹⁷

In its campaigning, however, Podemos retained an open attitude. In the elections in Spain's two largest cities, Madrid and Barcelona, in May and June 2015, it supported anti-austerity coalitions, Barcelona en Comú and Ahora Madrid, rather than standing in its own right. These coalitions had built support in particular by opposing the eviction of tenants who could not afford to pay their rent and mortgage-holders who could not keep up their payments. Neither won outright control of the city councils but formed majorities together with PSOE; and both their candidates for mayor were victorious.

Symbolically, both new mayors were women. Manuela Carmena in Madrid had been active in the communist underground under Franco's dictatorship. Ada Colau, 30 years her junior, was a founder of an anti-eviction group, Mortgage Victims' Platform, in Barcelona; she had once been arrested for occupying a bank in a protest. She spoke of 'feminine values' being applied to 'a deepening of democracy'.¹⁸ Both Carmena and Colau lost office in the May 2019 elections, in Madrid to the resurgent right and in Barcelona to the Catalan Republican Left.

Ahead of the elections to the Cortes (lower house of parliament) of December 2015, Podemos aimed to overtake PSOE. On the way, it suggested joint primaries with the other left parties to agree on candidates; the other parties, including United Left, were unresponsive.¹⁹ Youth unemployment reached 55 per cent in Spain in 2015.²⁰ Jobless young graduates and others had time to campaign for Podemos. In the elections, Podemos became the third largest party, with 20.65 per cent, behind the PP with 28.71 per cent and PSOE with 22.02 per cent. This effectively ended the two-party system and inaugurated a period of government instability. Another election was called for June 2016. Podemos formed an alliance of left-wing groups, Unidos Podemos ('United we can'), this time including United Left, but their combined vote rose only to 21.2 per cent, still behind PSOE.

Changing the government

Following this election, the PSOE leader, Pedro Sánchez, sought to form a government with the support of Podemos. In October 2016, however, the PSOE right wing overthrew Sánchez. They preferred to support a conservative PP government under Mariano Rojay than allow Podemos into power.

Podemos had to take a position on the issue of Catalonia when the Catalan government held a referendum on 1 October 2017 on the independence of the region from Spain. Barcelona, which with a high proportion of immigrants from other parts of Spain was broadly against independence, was also a centre of support for Podemos. The PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos declared the referendum illegal, and the PP government sent police to beat citizens peacefully queuing to take part in the vote. Podemos took a principled position, avoiding the national-populist temptation of supporting the government, while also refusing to support independence. Instead it urged both sides to find a peaceful compromise.

The PP government lasted until June 2018, when a court found the Popular Party guilty of a major act of corruption. Meanwhile, Sánchez had regained the PSOE leadership. He proposed a no-confidence motion on Rajoy in the Cortes. With the support of Podemos it passed. Iglesias then called on Sánchez to include Podemos in a coalition government led by PSOE, but Sánchez refused and formed a minority government, depending on the support of Podemos.

This apparently influential position for Podemos concealed the fact that it was going through a period of splits, stagnation and decline. Iglesias himself had faced and defeated a leadership challenge in February 2017 from the theoretician Ińigo Errejón. In May 2018 Iglesias came under fresh criticism from within the party for supposedly 'joining the bourgeoisie' after buying together with his partner, the parliamentary spokesperson of the party, a €600,000 house with a swimming pool outside Madrid on a 30-year mortgage. They responded by putting their positions to a special confidence vote of the membership, winning easily. By then support for Podemos in the country was down to 18 per cent.²¹ The party was further weakened when Errejón left in January 2019. In the parliamentary elections held in the following April, the Unidos Podemos bloc won only 14 per cent of the vote, falling from 71 to 42 seats, while PSOE consolidated its leading position, winning 29 per cent of the vote.

The continuing refusal of Podemos to articulate an avowedly socialist position reinforces the view that it is a populist movement, although clearly oriented towards the left along the lines argued by Chantal Mouffe. It does not promote Spanish nationalism or anti-immigrant feeling, as right-wing populist movements do. It succeeds in attracting not only people on the left, but also those without ideology, even though the leaders are strongly influenced by Marxism. The political scientist David Bailey suggests that the leaders 'have become so focused on winning elections that their adherence to any particular set of political principles appears hard to discern'.²² A further concern, in the populist tradition of a strong leader, is the high profile of the general secretary, Iglesias, and his apparent invincibility in his position. While all political leaders today can expect to have their personal lives examined under a microscope, mistakes on his part might cause lasting damage to Podemos.

In the meantime, while attracting young, educated people into electoral politics, its failure to analyse the class and systemic roots of the austerity policy it opposes means that it is unable to pose an alternative to capitalist hegemony; or even, in Morris's words, to 'make socialists'.

Syriza: Three victories and a retreat

Like Podemos, Syriza gained support rapidly under the impact of crisis, but unlike Podemos, it succeeded in entering government. Elected in January 2015 on a programme of opposition to the austerity measures to deal with the Greek debt crisis proposed by the 'troika' - the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - it secured further support for its resistance in a national referendum in July 2015. Yet within a day of the referendum result, the Syriza government capitulated to the troika and embarked on the harsh austerity programme that they demanded.

Why did Syriza succeed so well in propagating its policies and values, and why did it capitulate? Its resistance to austerity policies was popular. It will be argued that, at the same time, Syriza's commitment to Greece staying in the euro made it a hostage to the rules of the troika; and it failed to prepare the population for the sacrifices that a decisive clash with the Greek ruling class and the troika would entail.

The rise of Syriza

Unlike Podemos, Syriza was openly on the radical left. 'Syriza' is the Greek acronym for the Coalition of the Radical Left, formed in 2004 as an alliance of various ecological, communist, Trotskyist, Maoist and other left groups. Tsipras was elected leader in 2008.

Similarly to the situation in Spain, two parties had alternated in power in Greece since the overthrow of the colonels' dictatorship in 1974: the conservative New Democracy and the socialist PASOK. In May 2010, under the impact of the financial crisis, the PASOK government signed a bailout agreement with the troika. The loan was conditional on the application of an austerity programme of spending cuts and tax rises, known as the 'Memorandum'. In 2011, as austerity continued, and under the impetus of the Indignados in Spain, the aganaktismenoi appeared and began to occupy public squares. The aganaktismenoi were not only opposing austerity but also making political demands for more accountable and direct democracy. Whereas Podemos evolved from the movement on the streets, Syriza already existed when the aganaktismenoi emerged, and was able to support and interact with them.

PASOK's implementation of the Memorandum, first on its own and then from November 2011 in coalition with New Democracy, led to the haemorrhaging of its support. The communist party, the KKE, previously the largest party to the left of PASOK, was suspicious of the movement in the squares because it could not control them; it therefore lost influence. Syriza overtook both and became the largest opposition group in the elections of May and June 2012. Syriza's Electoral Declaration proclaimed: 'a socialism with freedom, a fully blossoming democracy where all citizens participate in decision making is the strategic aim'.²³

Entrenched as the main opposition party, Syriza highlighted the struggles of different sectors of society against austerity, from employees of the broadcasting corporation which the government had closed down to the sacked cleaning ladies of the Ministry of Finance. It gave practical help to the victims of austerity too; it established food banks, known as Solidarity Clubs, all over Greece.

The majority of the Greek people strongly favoured remaining in the euro, despite the austerity policies, because of the association of the euro with political and economic stability and prosperity. Aware of this, Tsipras persuaded Syriza to abandon its opposition to the euro in 2012. Only in 2013 did Syriza transform itself from a coalition into a unitary party, but with an internal opposition, the Left Platform. They favoured leaving the euro and won 30 per cent of the Central Committee seats.

In September 2014 Tsipras unveiled the Thessaloniki Programme. It reflected pressure from the Left Platform. The programme promised the nationalisation of the banks, renegotiation of Greece's debt including a substantial write-off, and the reversal of austerity policies imposed under the Memorandum. All this was, however, to be subject to a balanced budget. The economist Yanis Varoufakis, who had agreed to become finance minister in a Syriza government, denounced the programme for promising more than could be achieved. He called on Syriza to face up to reality and promise, in the immediate term, only 'blood, sweat and tears' in the struggle to get the budget balanced. Tsipras's colleague Nikos Pappas explained to Varoufakis that in fact Varoufakis himself would author the real programme of action; Thessaloniki was only to rally the troops.²⁴

It would seem that Tsipras was consciously deceiving the Syriza members and the voters about what a Syriza government would be able to do. In order to ensure their election, they were making promises that could not be fulfilled without a confrontation with the troika.

Varoufakis himself had a broad understanding of the economic crisis facing not only Greece but also European capitalism and the European Union as an institution. His fear was that capitalism might collapse in the crisis before an alternative had been prepared to replace it. Given the weakness of the left in Europe, as a self-styled 'erratic Marxist', he came to the conclusion that the left should seek to stabilise the situation. As he warned in an article written before entering politics:

Europe's crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better alternative to capitalism than it is to unleash dangerously regressive forces that have the capacity to cause a humanitarian bloodbath, while extinguishing the hope for any progressive moves for generations to come. [...] we have a contradictory mission: to arrest the freefall of European capitalism in order to buy the time we need to formulate its alternative.²⁵

Resisting the troika

Syriza easily won the election held in January 2015 with 36.3 per cent of the vote and 149 out of 300 seats. The KKE refused to endorse the Syriza project and remained in opposition. Instead of allying with the left-wing parties, Tsipras decided to form a coalition with a small right-wing radical populist group, the Independent Greeks (ANEL). Their 13 seats gave the new coalition a stable majority.

Naturally, Tsipras was criticised for allowing this right-wing group into office. What made the Independent Greeks the right partner for Tsipras was their implacable resistance to austerity; and they promised not to interfere with Syriza's strategy negotiating with the troika.²⁶ The presence of the Independent Greeks in the coalition also indicated that Syriza was not intending to embark on specifically socialist policies, and could reassure the Greek ruling class of this. This failure to confront entrenched domestic interests weakened Syriza's resistance to the troika.²⁷

In the first week after the election, the government moved to stop privatisation, restore pensions, reintroduce the minimum wage, restore free prescriptions and hospital visits, and restore trade union rights. Greece's debt bailout had reached €240 billion, with the final tranche of €7.2 billion due in February to keep the government going. Tsipras appointed Varoufakis as finance minister. He announced that his ministry's cleaning ladies would be among those public employees who would get their jobs back.²⁸

The troika continued to insist on the application of the Memorandum. Varoufakis made clear that he wanted to compromise with the troika. Ahead of his first meeting with the EU finance ministers' Eurogroup on 11 February, he said Syriza was willing to implement 70 per cent of the Memorandum. This provoked a sharp protest from the head of the Left Platform, Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. At the Eurogroup meeting, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble announced, 'Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy.'²⁹

The Syriza leadership believed that they held a valuable negotiating card: the threat to leave the euro if Brussels was too unreasonable. A key problem with this was that the population was wedded to the euro; and Tsipras was not willing to challenge this publicly. Moreover, as Varoufakis has argued, already in 2012 Schäuble had decided that Greece should be forced out of the euro as an example.³⁰ Schäuble's refusal to negotiate on the terms of the Memorandum meant deadlock; but this was broken the following day by the intervention of Angela Merkel. She wished Greece to remain in the eurozone, and therefore wanted an agreement and overruled Schäuble.

The reform programme which Varoufakis submitted made a number of concessions to the troika. The raising of the minimum wage was postponed, early retirements would be halted and privatisations would not be reversed. Tsipras sought to maintain domestic support by introducing free electricity and food stamps to the poorest in Greece, further antagonising the creditors.³¹ The prime minister's tactics seem to have been to make concessions to the troika formally, but delay their implementation in practice, while presenting himself domestically to have been more successful in the negotiations than he had been. At the same time, he sought to enlarge his negotiating freedom by threatening to default on the IMF debt, when in fact he had no intention of doing so.³²

Trying to force Syriza to accept its programme, the troika threatened to deny Greece the $7.2 billion of bailout money. Without this, Greece would be unable to meet its due payments and would be declared bankrupt.³³ On 26 June the troika rejected the latest offer from Tsipras of substantial tax increases and presented an ultimatum. Greece had to implement the troika's programme, with harsher tax increases and a rise in the retirement age to 67 by 2022, in exchange for a five-month extension to the bailout. If the prime minister did not agree, the bailout would end in four days.

The referendum and after

Tsipras responded that night by calling a referendum on the bailout terms. The troika was joined by an alliance of German, French and Italian social-democratic leaders, warning that a vote against the terms would mean that Greece would have to leave the euro. Tsipras, Varoufakis and the government nevertheless asked Greeks to vote 'No' to the troika's terms, and Tsipras warned that the government would resign if the vote was 'Yes'.³⁴

The referendum campaign split Greece, with right-wing politicians and business leaders accusing Syriza of wanting to bring back the drachma. Trade unions and the left organised demonstrations and strikes for a 'No' vote. Defying Germany and Brussels, Syriza at the referendum on 5 July won a crushing 'No' vote of 61.3 per cent, including 80 per cent of voters under 34. Tsipras now sought the backing of the opposition parties in his efforts to have the debts rescheduled. Varoufakis resigned, blaming pressure from the creditors. Tsipras gave in to the political and economic pressure from Berlin and Brussels and offered a new programme of tough austerity measures to get another bailout and stay in the euro.³⁵

Seeking to explain why his colleagues had capitulated to the creditors so soon after winning an impressive victory at the referendum, Varoufakis has argued that Tsipras feared that if they persisted, the Greek right wing would organise a coup through the president and the security services. Instead, Tsipras wanted to continue the policy of pretending to cooperate with the troika while preparing resistance.³⁶ Whether or not Tsipras really feared a coup, it is undeniable that he would have lost popular support if he had allowed Greece to be pushed out of the euro.

On 13 July, after another ultimatum, this time from Merkel and Hollande, he signed up to the 'Third Memorandum' to gain access to €86 billion in bailout funds. This austerity programme was worse than what he had earlier rejected, and the government conceded control over whole areas of economic and social policy to the troika.³⁷

The left wing of Syriza refused to support the deal; in August, with 40 Syriza MPs including Varoufakis rebelling, the programme was passed with support from opposition parties. Varoufakis argued that the deal would make the economy worse and allow Greek oligarchs to maintain their control over it.³⁸ Lafazanis led the Left Platform out of Syriza and formed Popular Unity. Having lost his majority, Tsipras resigned as prime minister; but the following month he led Syriza to victory in a general election, with 35.5 per cent, only slightly less than in January. Tsipras formed another coalition with the Independent Greeks. He had managed to persuade sufficient numbers of voters that if austerity was the price of staying in the euro, he could be relied on to minimise the impact on ordinary people.³⁹

Over the following three years, Syriza presided over more economic decline and cutbacks. Finally, in June 2018 it reached another agreement with the troika, deferring some debt repayments and extending another €15 billion in credits, but marking the official end of the bailout. By then GDP had fallen 26 per cent since 2010, wages nearly 20 per cent and pensions 70 per cent. Unemployment was at 20 per cent and youth unemployment at 43 per cent. Greece promised to maintain a defined budget surplus, excluding debt repayment, until 2060. Syriza was trailing New Democracy in the opinion polls.⁴⁰

The personality of Tsipras was an important factor in building up support for Syriza. Faith in Syriza and in Tsipras himself led to his election victory even after his capitulation to the troika following the referendum. The party's strategy, however, had been flawed from the start. Instead of telling voters in 2012 that there was a choice between austerity imposed from outside and leaving the euro, which at least in the short term would have made things worse, Tsipras made promises he knew he could not keep. He would not allow Greece to be forced out of the euro, although for negotiating purposes he was willing to pretend that he was. Varoufakis, on the other hand, was open about the depth of the crisis and the resulting dilemma, and he was prepared to leave the euro if it was the only way to escape the creditors' dictates. But he was unwilling to seek to bring down the EU structures, which he considered worth defending against chaos and the threat from the right. Neither Tsipras nor Varoufakis were ready to use the Greek crisis to argue for a transition to socialism.

In Spain and Greece, radical leftists believed that the main socialist parties were too enmeshed in the existing system to be agents of social change, and were sufficiently discredited to make the new movements, Podemos and Syriza, serious contenders for power.

In the United States and Britain, on the other hand, the two major parties of right and left were well entrenched. The first-past-the-post electoral systems tended to hinder the development of third parties. On the left, both the Labour Party and the Democratic Party could claim achievements in social reform, and both had strong links with the trade union movement. But the Labour Party's commitment to creating a socialist society was lukewarm, and under its leader Tony Blair removed the traditional aim of an economy based on 'common ownership' from the party constitution in 1995. The Democratic Party never had a socialist orientation and had strong ties to American business. So in both countries, socialists have debated for more than a century about whether it was possible to work inside them, or to create a separate socialist party. In 2015, two white-haired men attempted to move both these parties to the left.⁴¹

Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America: A political revolution?

The American left is still divided between those who fight for their ideas and for elective office through the Democratic Party, in some cases through the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and those who maintain their purity in isolated groups or as independent individuals. It is therefore not surprising that Bernie Sanders, the self-described 'democratic socialist' Independent US senator from Vermont, has had an ambiguous relationship with the Democratic Party. As well as seeking to influence Democratic opinion, most obviously in his campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, he has sought to appeal to campaigners and members of a variety of disadvantaged groups outside the party. This section will analyse Sanders' campaign and ask whether, despite its ultimate defeat, it had a more lasting impact. First, it will discuss the reasons why the campaign gained momentum but did not succeed. Then it will consider the impact on the DSA.

Bernie Sanders' campaign: Victory in defeat

In 2008, the financial crisis helped bring Barack Obama to office. Although the first Black president was socially progressive, he tended to follow neoliberal economic policies. This was clear in his advocacy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which not only aimed to bring down trade barriers but also shifted power from states to corporations. Extra-parliamentary movements gained strength: in response to the crisis, Occupy Wall Street in 2011, campaigns in support of raising the minimum wage, and Black Lives Matter in opposition to police killings of African Americans. Obama was re-elected in 2012, but in the November 2014 midterm elections the Democrats suffered severe losses. Obama's policies were not helping some of his core supporters and inequality was increasing.

The Democratic Party establishment settled on the former senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to be the 2016 presidential candidate, and to become the first woman president. While advocating public health insurance, she had generally favoured pro-business, neo-liberal economic policies, deregulation, and open trading. Socially she mixed with the wealthy.

On 26 May 2015, at the age of 73, Senator Sanders announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. His speech was entitled 'Today we begin a political revolution'. Using the term 'middle class' in the American sense, to mean the big majority of the population between the wealthy and the very poor, Sanders outlined his programme. He declared it was time for 'millions of working families to come together, to revitalize American democracy, to end the collapse of the American middle class' and bring their descendants 'health, prosperity, security and joy'. His speech promised to fight the domination of the political system by billionaires; income and wealth inequality; unemployment; trade agreements that allowed corporations to move their jobs from America to low-wage countries; and climate change. He advocated raising wages, breaking up the Wall Street finance houses, providing healthcare for all as a right, expanding social security benefits and abolishing tuition fees in public higher education institutions.⁴²

Sanders later offered a more detailed exposition of his domestic policy in 'An Agenda for a New America: How We Transform Our Country'. The section 'Ending the Rigged Economy' formed nearly half the document; this was a series of measures aimed at using the power of the federal government to make the economy more efficient and humane, serving workers and consumers rather than the 'oligarchy', and making it easier to form trade unions.⁴³

In November 2015, in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, he explained what he meant by 'democratic socialism'. The text referred back to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr., not to Marx and Engels. Some of its language nevertheless was posed in terms of class, amended for the American context, and reflecting the slogans of the new social movements.

If we are serious about transforming our country, if we are serious about rebuilding the middle class, if we are serious about reinvigorating our democracy, we need to develop a political movement which, once again, is prepared to take on and defeat a ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation. The billionaire class cannot have it all. Our government belongs to all of us, not just the one per cent.

As in the speech announcing his candidacy, the programme was similar to what might be found in a manifesto of a mainstream socialist party in Western Europe which was moving away from neo-liberalism. 'Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.' But this was not traditional socialism.

I don't believe the government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.

I believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America instead of shipping jobs and profits overseas.⁴⁴

Himself Jewish, Sanders understood the importance of identity issues alongside class. His equality agenda appealed to women and ethnic and sexual minorities. His championing of undocumented immigrants appealed particularly to Latino voters. He was aware, however, of his lack of appeal to Black voters, who were largely loyal to Hillary Clinton.⁴⁵ Very early in the campaign it became clear that Sanders was the main opposition to Hillary Clinton for the nomination.

As well as appealing to experienced activists from a variety of progressive causes, Sanders' campaign drew in hundreds of thousands of mainly young people who had not been involved in politics before. These provided the foot soldiers for knocking on doors and speaking directly to registered Democrats. Despite the candidate's age, the campaign made extensive use of the Internet: Facebook and Twitter messages, online advertising, and live streaming of meetings. Lacking wealthy backers, the campaign received most of its income from small online donations. Sanders gained backing from several trade unions. Most importantly, he succeeded in persuading the trade union umbrella body, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), who were expected to endorse Clinton as the establishment candidate, to postpone its decision until after the candidate had been chosen.

Some opinion polls showed that Sanders was more likely than Clinton to beat any of the likely Republican candidates. In the primary elections and caucuses, Sanders succeeded in winning 22 states. In view of the historical suspicion of socialism in the United States, reinforced by the Cold War, this was a tremendous achievement for a socialist. He did badly in the southern states, reflecting his lack of support from Black Americans, except for those under 30. At the national convention in Philadelphia in July, Sanders had a substantial minority of the elected pledged delegates, while Clinton had a majority of these plus nearly all the 'superdelegates', establishment figures with ex officio voting rights.

Despite losing, Sanders opted to carry on working within the Democratic Party to influence its electoral platform, moving it left in a number of areas, including free tuition in public universities and colleges, expanding community health centres and curbing Wall Street's freedom to play havoc with the economy. He endorsed Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump's victory in the presidential elections, despite Clinton winning the popular vote, reflected a resurgence of White racism in American politics.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

The youth activism of 2015 and 2016, mobilised in support of Sanders, led to a huge boost in the fortunes of the DSA. Since its formation in 1982, the promotion of socialist ideas and candidates within the Democratic Party has been its main activity.⁴⁶ In June 2016 the DSA's strategy document welcomed Sanders' campaign and the rise of Podemos, Syriza and Corbyn with optimism. It put forward a 'vision of democratic socialism' involving 'radical democracy' and, instead of capitalism, 'economic democracy'. The latter would include 'the democratic management of all businesses by the workers who comprise them and by the communities in which they operate. Very large, strategically important sectors of the economy - such as housing, utilities and heavy industry - would be subject to democratic planning outside the market'. This was to the left of Sanders' platform. The document tried to reduce expectations: 'a democratic socialist society cannot produce total social harmony'; it 'will not be the utopia that many socialists of old imagined'.⁴⁷

After Sanders' presidential campaign, many of his supporters' groups converted themselves into DSA chapters. President Trump's Islamophobic, anti-refugee and anti-immigrant attitudes, together with his tax cuts for Wall Street and his anti-environmentalist policies, galvanised the young activists. DSA membership rose from 6,000 before the campaign to 32,000 in late 2017 and 47,000 in July 2018. The median age fell dramatically, from 68 in 2013 to 33 in 2017. The membership is reported as being 75 per cent male and 90 per cent White - repeating Sanders' failure to attract Black Americans.⁴⁸

The focus has been on getting its members elected as Democratic Party candidates to public office, with some success. In 2018, the DSA attracted considerable attention by winning a number of primaries for the midterm elections to federal and state legislatures, defeating established Democratic incumbents. Among the successful was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, a 28-year-old former cocktail waitress of Puerto Rican origin. She won the Democratic nomination and then the election to the House of Representatives from Queens, New York City. She campaigned on social issues and called for the abolition of the border control agency. Following the primary, she declared: 'I think a lot of working-class Americans and voters here have been waiting for an unapologetic champion for economic, social and racial dignity in the United States.'⁴⁹ Her victory was part of a wider wave of some success for progressive, mainly young female candidates.

Bernie Sanders did not expect to win the presidency. Jan Rehmann has suggested that Sanders is creating a '"historic bloc" of different subaltern classes and groups, and is particularly aiming at an alliance between working and middle classes'.⁵⁰ Sanders does not use Gramsci's terminology, but this description seems fair. The aim of Sanders and of the DSA has been to argue for an alternative way of organising society, 'making socialists'. The DSA has been clearer than Sanders about its desire to abolish the capitalist system. Both have embraced extra-parliamentary social movements and combined this with standing for office as candidates of the established party with its long-standing trade union links.

Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum: Transforming the Labour Party?

The election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party in 2015 was even more unexpected than the success of Sanders. He started his campaign with bookmakers' odds of 100-to-1 against him.⁵¹ This section will analyse why he was elected, how he has dealt with challenges from inside the Labour Party and the problems impeding his path to office.

In the general election of May 2015, Labour under its centre-left leader Ed Miliband had reasonable expectations of defeating the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, which had imposed five years of austerity. Instead the Labour vote fell, the Liberal Democrats collapsed and Prime Minister David Cameron was able to form a purely Conservative government. Labour's defeat was due, at least in part, to its inability to tell a convincing story on the economy. It was divided as to whether to address the government deficit with austerity policies, as the majority of MPs seemed to wish; or to make a decisive break and oppose austerity.

Corbyn elected leader, 2015

Ed Miliband resigned after his defeat and a leadership election was called. A handful of Labour MPs agreed that Corbyn, aged 66, would carry the left-wing, anti-austerity standard on this occasion. Within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), he had little support outside the far left. Corbyn's strength was his consistency and the widespread perception that he was honest. He was seen as not like other MPs, but someone who stuck rigidly to his socialist and internationalist principles. He always opposed the 'New Labour' philosophy of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and argued for more democracy and accountability within the party. The other three candidates were united in claiming that Corbyn's left-wing policies made him incapable of leading the party to an election victory.

Corbyn was helped by change in the leadership election rules. This allowed Labour supporters, who were not members, to pay £3 and have a vote of equal value to that of individual party members and affiliated individual trade unionists. Trade unionists, students, environmental activists and young people who had been active in anti-cuts campaigns flocked to register as supporters, and to staff the Corbyn campaign offices.

Much older people, who had supported the left-wing Labour minister Tony Benn in the 1970s but since dropped out of party activity because of outrage at Blair's policies, came back into the party in order to back Corbyn. Trotskyist and Communist organisations which had written off the Labour Party as irretrievably bourgeois also tried to join in. Almost 300,000 people, including nearly 100,000 trade unionists, joined the party, doubling its individual membership. Armed with the support of important trade unions, activists embarked on creating phone banks around the country to contact party members and recruit more supporters.⁵²

In September 2015, Corbyn was elected on the first ballot, with 59.5 per cent of first-preference votes. Since then he has faced the suspicion of him held by a majority of Labour MPs, and at least for the first two years, the opposition of the Party apparatus. Corbyn appointed his old far-left comrade John McDonnell to the key post of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer but sought to create a shadow cabinet representing the whole parliamentary party.

In October 2015, Corbyn's leadership campaign team began to transform their supporters' groups into a national organisation, Momentum, independent of the parliamentary leadership. The veteran activist Jon Lansman was the founder and leader of Momentum. The aim was to maintain a strong left grouping within the Labour Party, to protect Corbyn from attacks from Labour's right and centre, and build up the Labour Party as a grassroots, campaigning mass organisation.

An early Momentum statement spoke of the need to make the party more democratic, and for 'real progressive change', without explicitly calling for 'socialist' policies. It further declared: 'Momentum is the successor entity to the Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Leader campaign but it is independent of the Labour Party's leadership. It will work with everyone who supports Jeremy's aim of creating a more fair, equal and democratic society'.⁵³ In the constituency Labour parties (CLPs) and party branches, Momentum sought to enthuse the new and reborn activists, overwhelmingly Corbyn supporters, encouraging them to participate in local campaigns and stand for office and committees within the party. In response, the old guard of the party fought back; several hundred party members were suspended, mainly Corbyn supporters. They were accused of having supported other parties in earlier elections, or retweeting speeches by Green Party members or, most controversially, of anti-Semitism.

Challenge and consolidation: From the Brexit referendum to the 2017 general election

Sharp divisions in the Conservative Party over Britain's membership of the EU should have created opportunities for Labour to make gains in the May 2016 local election. In England and Wales, however, Labour made a small net loss and in Scotland, traditionally a bastion for Labour, fell to third place behind the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives. Tensions between the leader's office and party headquarters impeded the effectiveness of Labour's campaign.

It was the result of the Brexit referendum of 23 June 2016, however, which led to the PLP rebellion against Corbyn. Since 1975, the Labour Party had supported Britain's membership of what became the EU. During the referendum campaign, Corbyn spoke and made videos opposing Brexit. After the referendum vote by a small majority to leave the EU, many Labour MPs accused Corbyn of campaigning ineffectually and even privately supporting Brexit. Corbyn himself gave some currency to this view by calling on the morning after the referendum for Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, announcing the intention of a member to leave the EU, to be activated at once.

Several resignations from the Labour front bench followed. On 28 June, the PLP passed a motion of no confidence in Corbyn's leadership by an overwhelming majority, 172 to 40. Corbyn had to fight another leadership campaign, this time against a single candidate, Owen Smith. As well as the issues of the elections and the referendum, Corbyn was attacked over his attitude towards women; over 40 female Labour MPs accused him of inattention to the online abuse of women. But the Momentum machine swung into action with its phone calls, emails and social media, and ensured a vote for Corbyn of 61.8 per cent, slightly higher than in the previous year.

Corbyn's victory consolidated his position in the party outside parliament, but the majority of MPs were not reconciled. In January 2017, the new Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May introduced into the House of Commons a measure allowing the government to activate Article 50. Corbyn imposed a three-line whip, forcing Labour MPs to vote in favour of this. Additionally, MPs feared that Momentum was trying to take over CLPs and replace them as Labour candidates with Corbyn supporters. They likened Momentum to Trotskyist groups who had entered the party in the 1970s-80s.

Lansman and his allies on Momentum's Steering Committee responded by abolishing the organisation's National Committee and pushed through a new Momentum constitution. This required all Momentum members to be or become Labour Party members; thus, the leaders hoped, banning Trotskyists. The constitution broadened Momentum's aims to include not only the 'election of a Labour government' but also 'to broaden support for a transformative, socialist programme'.⁵⁴

With Labour divided, and well behind the Tories in opinion polls, Theresa May called a general election for 8 June. Labour was expected to make losses, and the party apparatus based its strategy on protecting existing MPs in marginal constituencies. Corbyn and McDonnell, however, had control of the manifesto, 'For the Many, not the Few'. This was a phrase of Tony Blair's; the content, however, was a decisive rejection of neo- liberalism in favour of economic intervention, which recalled the Labour governments between 1945 and 1979. A National Transformation Fund of £250 billion would be established for infrastructural investment. A National Investment Bank would fund economic projects which the finance houses rejected. Water, the railways, energy and the Royal Mail would be renationalised. Workers' rights would be increased substantially, and some benefit cuts would be restored. A National Education Service would be established. Reflecting the experience of Bernie Sanders' campaign, university tuition fees would be abolished, and maintenance grants reintroduced.

Most of these were not, in reality, innovations, but a return to the situation before Margaret Thatcher's government. Indeed, not all the Conservatives' privatisations were to be reversed, and there was no return to the relatively high rates of income tax accepted by Labour and Conservative governments before 1979. Brexit would go ahead, since 'Labour accepts the referendum result'.⁵⁵

McDonnell produced a companion document costing the policies and outlining the source of funds, and a further paper explaining how Labour would crack down on tax avoidance.⁵⁶ At the same time, the Labour leaders tore into the Conservative manifesto, which was poorly costed and included a proposal to make elderly people pay more for their care. Labour dubbed this 'the dementia tax'. The prime minister proved an ineffective campaigner, unable to engage the voters and offering unhelpful, robotic responses.

Corbyn toured the country addressing overflowing meetings and, as the campaign progressed, narrowed the gap with the Tories. Meanwhile, Momentum members were fighting a campaign separately from that of the party apparatus. Advised by some activists from Bernie Sanders' team, they applied what McDonnell called 'the cutting edge use of targeted Facebook advertising'.⁵⁷ Momentum branches organised canvassing visits to marginal constituencies. More optimistic than the party apparatus, Momentum targeted marginal seats which might be won for Labour from sitting MPs from other parties.

The Conservatives remained in power as the largest party after the election but lost their majority. Labour increased its share of the vote by the largest amount since the war, from 30.4 per cent in 2015 to 40.0 per cent in 2017, with a net gain of 30 seats.⁵⁸ The turn of young people to Labour was most dramatic. Among the 18-24 age group, it reached 62 per cent. Age seemed to replace class as the best predictor of voting.⁵⁹ The promise to abolish tuition fees undoubtedly attracted many young people and probably their parents. Corbyn had proved himself as a campaigner among the electorate, not only the party. Momentum's strategy had been validated. Labour MPs, not only the new intake, began to take a more favourable attitude to Corbyn. But with the government's public divisions over Brexit, Labour should have done much better.

Towards a Corbyn government?

On several specific issues, Corbyn's approach was criticised both outside and inside the party. Corbyn was particularly active in solidarity with Palestinian groups and Latin American socialists. He was unfairly accused of sympathy for terrorism or for Venezuela's repressive policies. Corbyn laid himself open to accusations that he was not sufficiently critical of Putin's regime in Russia, or when he was, he tended to balance any criticism by attacking some aspect of Western policy. Parts of the Labour left had traditionally been sympathetic to the Soviet Union, but now communism had fallen and Russia was ruled by an authoritarian kleptocracy which had removed territory from two of its neighbours. It had nothing in common with socialism.

After Russia annexed Crimea, Corbyn wrote in April 2014: 'On Ukraine, I would not condone Russian behaviour or expansion. But it is not unprovoked, and the right of people to seek a federal structure or independence should not be denied. And there are huge questions around the West's intentions in Ukraine.'⁶⁰ Such equivocation became harmful in a party leader. In March 2018, when two Russians, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in Salisbury in South West England, not only the British government but also all competent experts were convinced that the action had been ordered by the Russian authorities. In parliament, Corbyn cast doubt on this explanation. Two days later, he repeated his doubts. 'To rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police, in a fevered parliamentary atmosphere, serves neither justice nor our national security.'

At the same time, he distanced the Labour Party from the Putin regime, with 'its conservative authoritarianism, abuse of human rights [and] political and economic corruption'.⁶¹ Corbyn supported proposals from McDonnell to crack down on the use of the City of London by Russian oligarchs for money laundering. But Corbyn's equivocation allowed the Conservatives and his Labour opponents to portray him as soft on Putin. It was only at the Labour Party Conference in September 2018 that Corbyn announced that he now accepted that the Russian state was responsible for the poisonings.⁶²

Corbyn and his allies failed to take seriously accusations of anti-Semitism made against them or their supporters. Corbyn was found to have defended a mural depicting ugly capitalists with Jewish features and had to apologise. Against this background, Labour failed to make expected gains in the May 2018 local elections. Some Jewish members of the party demonstrated at Westminster against anti-Semitism inside Labour. By the end of summer 2018, Corbyn acknowledged that the Party had not done enough to fight anti-Semitism in its ranks.

A still larger problem for Corbyn was Brexit. At the 2017 party conference, Momentum helped Corbyn by preventing a debate on the issue. Corbyn was still committed to Brexit, and this had been enshrined in the election manifesto. In 2018, however, as the possible results of Brexit appeared more unfavourable, if not frightening, the new young generation of Labour activists, including many Momentum members, became disenchanted with Corbyn's policy. A YouGov poll in September showed that 90 per cent of party members wanted Britain to remain in the EU.⁶³ At the party conference at the end of the month, the leadership partially relented. It agreed to allow the possibility of a second referendum; and that the option to remain was not ruled out. This was far, though, from agreeing to campaign against Brexit, as party members seemed to want.

The accusation of populism levelled against Corbyn seems unjustified. He avoids an appeal to 'the people'; he attacks the Tories rather than the establishment or a ruling class; and while he allowed a cult of fandom to develop around him, his personal modesty and political style are the opposite of a strong populist leader.⁶⁴ Richard Seymour suggests that, far from the danger of populism, 'Corbynism will struggle to outrun the limits of Labourism'.⁶⁵ It is true that much of the 2017 election manifesto would not have seemed out of place as a product of the party mainstream in the 1970s. But Momentum has grown steadily, claiming 40,000 members by April 2018, with increasing influence in the constituencies and seeming willing to hold the leadership to a more radical direction.

Corbyn, McDonnell and Lansman had all battled since the 1970s at 'making socialists' rather than seeking political office. Now they had turned from the fight within the party to the struggle for state power. If they won an election, would they, in the face of adverse circumstances, possibly a post-Brexit crash, and a hostile ruling class, back down, as Syriza did after the referendum, and return to austerity? Unlike Greece, Britain remained a major European power, better able to withstand international pressure. Could a Corbyn government mobilise its supporters outside parliament to carry through its policies?

Conclusion

In order to understand the reasons behind the success of the four movements considered, it should be asked, albeit briefly, why groups in other large West European countries did not achieve the same level of success. Perhaps the most significant other new movement following the crisis was Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), which achieved third position and nearly 20 per cent of the vote in the 2017 French presidential election. The French left has long been divided, with three rival trade union federations. Now it is politically split between Mélenchon's supporters; the Parti Socialiste, hammered by Hollande's policy reversals; the communists; and those who moved to back the centrist Emmanuel Macron. In Germany, the left is split between the SPD; the well-established Greens who have become more of a centrist force in recent years; and Die Linke, whose roots lie in the former East German ruling party but which has picked up some radical support in the former West Germany. After it leaves federal office, the SPD is likely to reconnect with its trade union base and move to the left. The most disappointing of the post-crisis radical movements has been Movimento Cinque Stella. This Italian populist movement seemed to express grassroots protest. Unlike Podemos, however, it was led by a charismatic comedian, and then by centrist politicians who were prepared to share power with right-wing populists.

Returning to the questions posed at the start of the chapter, why did the four movements discussed here grow, and why did some develop inside existing parties? Podemos and Syriza, as new parties, were able to grow because of the discrediting of the existing socialist parties and the relative fluidity of southern European party systems. The Democratic Party and the Labour Party, on the other hand, are embedded in the political systems of their states, and protected by the electoral systems. A key factor facilitating the spread of socialist ideas in both parties, despite the conservative political cultures in both states, is the traditional link between the trade union movement and the two parties. This was especially the case with the Labour Party, which was created primarily by the trade unions and remains dependent on them financially.

All four movements discussed here had an open attitude towards cooperating with groups outside their control, including to some extent with other parties. The Democratic Socialists of America allowed its members to oppose Democratic Party candidates, while Momentum decided only in 2017 to require its members to be Labour Party members and work only for Labour candidates.

What of identity politics? All were aware of the importance of identity issues in building support. All sought to promote women. Syriza worked within the strongly pro-European political culture in Greece, while still using anti-German tropes. Sanders and the DSA were both aware of the lack of their support among Black people but did not find much success here. The issue of Britain's European identity was potentially problematic for Corbyn; his adherence to Brexit after the referendum was at odds with the pro-EU feelings of most of his young supporters. Still more problematic was the need to retain Labour's support among Jewish voters.

Did the means pursued by these movements prefigure the sort of society they wanted to create? The record is mixed. Sanders, as candidate, kept control of his own campaign. The DSA remains a decentralised body where the initiative of the local branches is decisive. Iglesias and Tsipras were both accused of limiting democracy within the party in order to ensure their control. Corbyn's three-line whips in favour of Brexit were resented, but he was unable to prevent Labour MPs from voting as they wished. Momentum in early 2017 may have gone beyond its rules in changing the constitution in order to exclude people from Trotskyist organisations. In 2017 it acted to prevent a debate on Brexit at the Labour Party conference. Generally, though, it has acted to build up Labour Party branches and introduce the concept of civilised political debate inside them.

How radical were these movements, and did they succeed in 'making socialists'? They all succeeded in mobilising large numbers of young people, previously uninvolved in politics, and achieving widespread support among the general population. All used the financial crisis to challenge the hegemony of capitalist ideas. While Podemos was not explicitly socialist, the other three all widened support for socialist ideas among the voters. Podemos did not replace PSOE as the main party of the left, but people close to it became mayors of Madrid and Barcelona. Syriza was the only one to form a government, but it was forced to implement austerity policies. Bernie Sanders did not become the presidential candidate, but he spread the concept of socialism among Democratic Party voters and laid the basis for further gains by the DSA. Corbyn became Labour leader but has not yet won an election. Even if he does not, Momentum has potential to keep pushing the Labour Party to the left. All four movements have grown because they have appealed to the real grievances of millions of people and pointed the way to an alternative. Politics in their countries have changed beyond recognition.

What is clear is that the fact that avowedly socialist systems have collapsed in Europe does not mean that the idea of socialism has died. It might even be argued that the collapse of the USSR makes it easier to separate socialism from Russian totalitarianism. It was only the model of one-party rule, combined with central planning, which was discredited. China's hybrid system is as likely to find friends on the right as on the left; few hold it up as an example of socialism to be emulated. The way has become clear for new concepts of socialism to be articulated, drawing not only on class but on issues of race, ethnicity, sex and gender, involving a multiplicity of movements as well as parties, and focussing on the needs of the individual rather than the state.

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¹Luke March, Radical Left Parties in Europe (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011); Europe's Radical Left: From Marginality to the Mainstream?, ed. Luke March and Daniel Keith (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

²Marco Briziarelli and Susana Martinez Guillem, Reviving Gramsci: Crisis, Communication and Change (New York: Routledge, 2016).

³Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, The Socialist Challenge Today: Syriza, Sanders, Corbyn (London: Merlin, 2018).

⁴Steve Richards, The Rise of the Outsiders: How Mainstream Politics Lost its Way (London: Atlantic, 2017).

⁵Ińigo Errejón and Chantal Mouffe, Podemos: In the Name of the People (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2016).

⁶Pablo Iglesias, Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of Democracy in Europe (London: Verso, 2015).

⁷Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment (London: Bodley Head, 2017).

⁸Kevin Ovenden, Syriza: Inside the Labyrinth (London: Verso, 2015).

⁹Bernie Sanders, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, paperback ed. (London: Profile, 2017).

¹⁰Heather Gautney, Crashing the Party: From the Bernie Sanders Campaign to a Progressive Movement (London: Verso, 2018).

¹¹Richard Seymour, Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (London: Verso, 2016); Mark Perryman, ed., The Corbyn Effect (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2017).

¹²'Introduction to Pablo Iglesias', New Left Review 93, May-June (2015): 5; Stathis Kouvelakis, 'Syriza's Rise and Fall', New Left Review 97, January-February (2016): 47-8.

¹³Briziarelli and Martinez Guillem, Reviving Gramsci, 98-102.

¹⁴Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005).

¹⁵Alexandros Kioupkiolis, 'Podemos: The Ambiguous Promises of Left-Wing Populism in Contemporary Spain', Journal of Political Ideologies 21, no. 2 (2016): 99-110; Briziarelli and Martinez Guillem, Reviving Gramsci, 111-3.

¹⁶Pablo Iglesias, 'Understanding Podemos', New Left Review 93, May-June (2015): 10.

¹⁷Kioupkiolis, 'Podemos', 111-3.

¹⁸Ashifa Kassam, 'Ex-Communist, Retired Judge, Blogger . . . The Woman Now Poised to Run Spain's Capital', Observer, 31 May 2015.

¹⁹Iglesias, 'Understanding Podemos', 21, 15.

²⁰Martin McQuillan, 'Post-Structuralist Politics', Times Higher Education, 26 March 2015.

²¹Michael Stothard, 'Spanish Leftwing Leader Wins Confidence Vote after House Furore', The Financial Times, 27 May 2018.

²²David J. Bailey, Protest Movements and Parties of the Left: Affirming Disruption (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 209-10.

²³Giorgos Katsembekis, 'Radical Left Populism in Contemporary Greece: Syriza's Trajectory from Minoritarian Opposition to Power', Constellations 23, no. 3 (2016): 392-8 (quotation, 398); Michalis Spourdalakis, 'The Miraculous Rise of the "Phenomenon SYRIZA"', International Critical Thought 4, no. 3 (2014): 355-7 (voting, 357).

²⁴Kouvelakis, 'Syriza's Rise and Fall', 52-3; Varoufakis, Adults in the Room, 88-90.

²⁵Republished as Yanis Varoufakis, 'How I Became an Erratic Marxist', The Guardian, 18 February 2015.

²⁶Anthea Carassava, 'Greek Radicals Take Power in Deal with Anti-Migrant Party', The Times, 27 January 2015; Paris Aslanidis and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, 'Dealing with Populists in Government: The SYRIZA-ANEL Coalition in Greece', Democratization 23, no. 6 (2016): 1077-81.

²⁷Ovenden, Syriza, 174.

²⁸Helena Smith, 'Out with Austerity, in with the Cleaners - A New Age Dawns', The Guardian, 29 January 2015.

²⁹Katie Allen and Helena Smith, 'Tsipras in Bold Mood as Crunch Talks Resume in Brussels', Guardian, 16 February 2015; Varoufakis, Adults, 231-47 (Schäuble quotation, 237).

³⁰Yanis Varoufakis, 'Germany Won't Spare Greek Pain - It Has an Interest in Breaking Us', Guardian, 11 July 2015.

³¹Anthea Carassava and Charles Bremner, 'Greece defies EU with handouts for the poor', The Times, 19 March 2015.

³²Varoufakis, Adults, 351-71.

³³Bruno Waterfield and Helen Womack, 'EU Draws up Secret Plan to Kick Greece out of the Eurozone', The Times, 10 April 2015.

³⁴Larry Elliott, Graeme Weardon, Nicholas Watt, and Helena Smith, 'No Vote Means You Are out of the Euro, Greece Warned', The Guardian, 30 June 2015.

³⁵Phillip Inman, Graeme Weardon, and Helena Smith, 'Greece Seeks Deal with €13bn Package of Reforms and Cuts', The Guardian, 10 July 2015.

³⁶Varoufakis, Adults, 467-71.

³⁷Ian Traynor, Jennifer Rankin, and Helena Smith, 'Europe Takes Revenge on Tsipras', The Guardian, 13 July 2015.

³⁸Phillip Inman, 'Varoufakis Labels Greek Deal a Gift to Tax-Dodging Oligarchs', The Guardian, 18 August 2015.

³⁹Aslanidis and Rovira Kaltwasser, 'Dealing with Populists', 1082-8; Kouvelakis, 'Syriza's Rise and Fall', 63-8; Jon Henley, 'The Voters Saw We Defended the Poor and They Backed Us', The Guardian, 21 September 2015.

⁴⁰Jon Henley and Daniel Boffey, 'Greece Hails Eurozone Agreement That Will End Eight Years of Austerity', The Guardian, 23 June 2018; Helena Smith, 'After the Crash: Has Greece Finally Escaped the Grip of Catastrophe?', Observer, 15 July 2018.

⁴¹Canada shows an interesting interaction of both these factors. The New Democratic Party has remained the main arena of left-wing politics, since like the Labour Party it has close links with the trade unions. As a third party in most provinces, however, behind the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, it loses out under the electoral system.

⁴²Bernie Sanders, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, paperback ed. (London: Profile, 2017), 117-28 (quotation, 118).

⁴³Sanders, Our Revolution, 185-444.

⁴⁴'Senator Bernie Sanders on Democratic Socialism in the United States', 19 November 2015, Bernie, accessed 15 May 2018, berniesanders.com/democratic-socialism-in-the-united-states/.

⁴⁵Sanders, Our Revolution, 140, 172.

⁴⁶Anna Heyward, 'Since Trump's Victory, Democratic Socialists of America Has Become a Budding Political Force: Why an Army of Young People is Joining DSA', The Nation, 15-22 January 2018, accessed 17 November 2018, http://www.thenation.com/article/in-the-year-since-trumps-victory-democratic-socialists-of-America-has-become-a-budding-political-force/.

⁴⁷'Resistance Rising: Socialist Strategy in the Age of Political Revolution: A Summary of Democratic Socialists of America's Strategy Document, June 2016', accessed 17 November 2018, www.dsausa.org/strategy.

⁴⁸Heyward, 'Since Trump's Victory'; Arwa Mahdawi, 'Socialism's No Longer a Dirty Word in the US', The Guardian, 30 July 2018.

⁴⁹Ben Jacobs and Lauren Gambino, 'The Former Cocktail Waitress Who Has Shaken up America's Ailing Democrats', The Guardian, 28 June 2018.

⁵⁰Jan Rehmann, 'Bernie Sanders and the Hegemonic Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism: What Next?' Socialism and Democracy 30, no. 3 (2016): 7.

⁵¹Richard Seymour, Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (London: Verso, 2016), 13.

⁵²Mark Perryman, 'The Great Moving Left Show', in The Corbyn Effect, ed. Mark Perryman (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2017), 8-9; Hilary Wainwright, 'Mind the Labour Gap', in The Corbyn Effect, ed. Mark Perryman, 115-8; Seymour, Corbyn, 13-57.

⁵³Momentum, 'Welcome to Momentum', n.d. [c. November 2015], accessed 29 December 2015, www.peoplesmomentum.com.

⁵⁴Momentum, 'Constitution', emailed to members on 10 January 2017.

⁵⁵'For the Many, Not the Few' (London: Labour Party, 2017), quotation, 24.

⁵⁶'Funding Britain's Future', and 'Labour's Tax Transparency and Enforcement Programme' (both London: Labour Party, 2017).

⁵⁷John McDonnell, Letter to Party Members, n.d. (March 2018).

⁵⁸Peter Dorey, 'Jeremy Corbyn Confounds His Critics: Explaining the Labour Party's Remarkable Resurgence in the 2017 Election', British Politics 12 (2017): 320.

⁵⁹James Sloam, Rakib Ehsan, and Matt Henn, '"Youthquake": How and Why Young People Reshaped the Political Landscape in 2017', Political Insight, April 2018, 4-8.

⁶⁰Jeremy Corbyn, 'NATO Belligerence Endangers Us All', Morning Star, 16 April 2014, accessed 8 March 2019, https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-972b-nato-belligerence-endangers-us-all.

⁶¹Jeremy Corbyn, 'Salisbury Was Appalling: But We Must Avoid a Drift to Conflict', The Guardian, 16 March 2018.

⁶²Matthew Taylor, 'Speech's Key Themes: Eyes Fixed on Electorate as Leader Sets Out Stall', The Guardian, 27 September 2018.

⁶³Toby Helm and Andrew Rawnsley, 'We Must Back Members on New Brexit Vote, Watson Tells Corbyn', Observer, 23 September 2018.

⁶⁴Jonathan Dean and Bice Maiguashca, 'Corbyn's Labour and the Populism Question', Renewal 25, no. 3-4 (2017): 56-65.

⁶⁵Seymour, Corbyn, 219.

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