Mapping the Conservative Left: Why Some Socialists Sound Like the Right

Four conservative left tendencies: each represents a different form of capitulation

The rise of the far-right across Europe and North America has prompted urgent soul-searching on the left. From Trump's return to power to the growth of Alternative for Germany (AfD), from Giorgia Meloni's ascendancy in Italy to the surge of Reform UK, reactionary forces are capitalizing on widespread social discontent. Yet a troubling phenomenon has emerged alongside this rightward shift: sections of the left itself have begun adopting positions that sound suspiciously similar to those of their supposed political opponents.

This "conservative left" represents a fundamental betrayal of socialist principles. Rather than offering a genuine alternative to capitalist crisis, these currents have absorbed key elements of right-wing discourse—from economic nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment to cultural traditionalism and geopolitical authoritarianism. Understanding this phenomenon is crucial for any socialist strategy that seeks to build genuine working-class unity against our real enemies: the capitalist class and their political representatives.

The conservative left is not a monolithic bloc but encompasses several distinct, though interconnected, tendencies. These range from mainstream social democratic parties that have capitulated to neoliberalism while adopting cultural conservatism, to new "red-brown" formations that explicitly merge left economics with right-wing cultural politics, to campist movements that support authoritarian regimes abroad, to identity politics backlash that fragments working-class solidarity. Each represents a different form of capitulation to the forces we should be fighting.

The "Red-Brown" Vanguard: From Wagenknecht to Galloway

The most dangerous and explicit form of conservative left politics can be seen in the emergence of "red-brown" formations—parties and movements that consciously combine left-wing economic positions with far-right cultural politics. The term "red-brown" refers to the fusion of red (socialist) economic policies with brown (fascist) cultural and nationalist positions, a toxic combination that divides the working class against itself.

Germany's Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) represents the paradigmatic case. Formed in 2024 by former Die Linke leader Sahra Wagenknecht, the BSW has achieved significant electoral success by adopting what it calls a "left-conservative" platform. The party combines traditional left-wing positions on economic inequality and social spending with hardline stances on immigration, climate skepticism, and cultural traditionalism.

Wagenknecht's strategy is cynically calculated: she explicitly aims to "contest the electorate with the far-right" by adopting arguments "very similar to those used by the Alternative for Germany." The BSW demands strict limitations on immigration to "protect local workers and national cultural cohesion," opposes Green transition policies as threats to traditional industry, and promotes what Wagenknecht calls resistance to "lifestyle leftism"—code for opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, anti-racism, and feminist organizing.

The political logic here is devastating for working-class solidarity. As critics note, Wagenknecht's politics represent a "division of the working class itself: national workers on one side, immigrants on the other." Instead of uniting all workers against their exploitation by capital, the BSW creates an "alliance with employers" against immigrant workers, transforming class struggle into national competition.

Britain's George Galloway has pioneered similar tactics through his Workers Party of Britain. Despite its name, the party's politics combine economic populism with cultural reaction. Galloway has consistently opposed trans rights, describing transgender identity as "fashionable nonsense," while promoting what he calls "traditional family values." His party's 2024 manifesto combined calls for nationalization with opposition to "gender ideology" and promises to "end mass immigration."

Like Wagenknecht, Galloway presents this fusion as electoral pragmatism—appealing to working-class voters allegedly alienated by the mainstream left's focus on "identity politics." But this strategy fundamentally misunderstands both working-class consciousness and socialist politics. By accepting the far-right's framing of social issues, these politicians legitimize reactionary ideas while fragmenting the very class solidarity they claim to represent.

The red-brown disease can spread further without inoculation. Organizations at risk like Counterfire in Britain, while maintaining left-wing rhetoric, have consistently aligned with authoritarian positions internationally, acting as surrogates for Assad, Putin and Trump. Their opposition to supporting Ukrainian resistance and their hostility to transgender struggles reveals the logical endpoint of politics that prioritize "anti-Western" positioning over genuine solidarity with the oppressed.

Social Democratic Capitulation: The "Third Way" to Nowhere

A second strand of conservative left politics emerges from the rightward drift of mainstream social democratic parties. This represents what we might call the "Third Way" variant of conservative leftism—parties that have abandoned anti-capitalist politics while adopting increasingly conservative positions on social and cultural issues.

Tony Blair's New Labour pioneered this model, combining acceptance of neoliberal economics with authoritarian positions on law and order, immigration, and civil liberties. Blair's governments introduced detention without trial, ramped up deportations, and promoted "British values" in ways that barely differed from Conservative rhetoric. This wasn't accidental drift but conscious strategy—an attempt to triangulate between left and right that ended up legitimizing right-wing positions.

Portugal's Socialist Party (PS) offers a contemporary example. Despite its name, the PS governs as a neoliberal party that has systematically undermined public services while adopting increasingly harsh positions on immigration and law enforcement. Their policies have created the social discontent that far-right parties like Chega exploit, demonstrating how social democratic capitulation paves the way for fascist advance.

These parties represent what Marxist Antonio Gramsci would call "transformism"—the absorption of potentially oppositional forces into the existing system. By abandoning any pretense of systemic change, they become indistinguishable from explicitly capitalist parties except in their rhetoric. Their "conservatism" lies not in adopting far-right positions wholesale, but in their defensive posture that accepts capitalism as eternal while making increasingly desperate appeals to "traditional" values and national identity.

The tragedy of social democratic capitulation is that it abandons precisely the universalist vision that could unite working people across racial, national, and cultural lines. Instead of fighting for policies that materially improve life for all workers, these parties retreat into defensive nationalism that inevitably benefits the right.

Campism: When Anti-Imperialism Becomes Its Opposite

A third strand of conservative leftism emerges from what analysts call "campism"—the tendency to organize politics around support for any regime or movement that opposes "Western imperialism," regardless of its internal character or treatment of working people. Campism represents a fundamental perversion of genuine anti-imperialist politics.

Traditional campism emerged during the Cold War, when many leftists automatically supported Soviet policies regardless of their impact on workers in the USSR or internationally. Contemporary "neo-campism" follows the same logic, supporting authoritarian regimes like Putin's Russia or Xi's China simply because they challenge US hegemony, while ignoring their oppressive internal policies and imperial ambitions.

Britain's Stop the War Coalition exemplifies neo-campist politics in practice. Despite its anti-war rhetoric, StWC has consistently opposed Western support for Ukrainian resistance while remaining silent about Russian war crimes. Their analysis treats the conflict as merely a "proxy war between imperialist camps," thereby "minimizing, if not outrightly denying, Ukrainian agency" and effectively supporting Russian conquest.

This isn't genuine anti-imperialism but its opposite—support for alternative imperialisms. Real anti-imperialist politics would support the self-determination of oppressed nations like Ukraine while opposing all imperial powers, including Russia and China. Campist politics, by contrast, subordinates the struggles of oppressed peoples to geopolitical calculations about weakening "the West."

The "tankie" phenomenon represents campism's most grotesque manifestation. This online subculture, particularly strong among younger leftists, promotes a "romanticized and nostalgic view of the Soviet Union and Stalinism" through memes and social media performance. "Tankies" (named after supporters of Soviet tanks crushing Hungarian and Czech uprisings) combine aesthetic nostalgia for authoritarian socialism with contemporary support for regimes like Putin's Russia.

This "digital neo-Stalinism" reveals campism's fundamentally conservative character. Rather than learning from the failures of 20th-century socialism to build more democratic and emancipatory alternatives, tankies romanticize authoritarian models that suppressed working-class self-organization. Their politics represent not revolutionary advance but reactionary nostalgia.

Identity Politics Backlash: The "Anti-Woke" Left

The fourth strand of conservative leftism emerges from backlash against what critics call "wokism"—though this term is often weaponized to attack any politics focused on racial, gender, or sexual oppression. Nevertheless, certain trends within identity-focused organizing do exhibit genuinely conservative tendencies that fragment working-class solidarity.

The problem isn't fighting oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, or other identities—this is essential to any genuinely socialist politics. The problem lies in approaches that atomize these struggles, divorcing them from class analysis and collective action. When identity politics becomes purely individualistic and competitive, it can indeed serve conservative ends.

"Wokism," properly understood, refers to approaches that reduce complex social struggles to individual consumer choices, moral posturing, or bureaucratic representation without challenging underlying power structures. This manifests in corporate diversity initiatives that replace collective organizing, "cancel culture" that substitutes personal attacks for systemic change, and academic discourse that obscures rather than clarifies class relations.

The conservative character of such approaches lies in their compatibility with capitalist social relations. A capitalism that includes more diverse CEOs and politicians remains capitalism. Identity politics that focuses on representation within existing institutions rather than transforming those institutions ultimately serves conservative ends.

Moreover, purely individualistic identity politics can generate its own reactionary backlash. The rise of the "manosphere" among young men, with its misogynistic and anti-feminist politics, partly represents a reactionary response to perceived feminist "excesses." While this backlash is unjustifiable, its existence demonstrates how fragmented identity politics can create political space for right-wing organizing.

The solution isn't to abandon struggles against racial, gender, or sexual oppression—these are integral to working-class liberation. Instead, we need an intersectional analysis that understands how capitalism generates and reinforces multiple forms of oppression while building collective struggle that unites rather than divides working people.

The Material Roots of Conservative Leftism

These conservative left tendencies didn't emerge in a vacuum. They represent responses to real material conditions and political crises that have shaped left politics over recent decades.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and discrediting of state socialist models created an ideological vacuum that left many socialists without clear alternatives to capitalism. This crisis of imagination made left politics vulnerable to various forms of accommodation with existing power structures.

Simultaneously, the neoliberal offensive since the 1980s created what theorists call a "pincer movement" against the left: appear too radical and face marginalization; moderate your positions and become indistinguishable from liberal parties. This pressure pushed many left parties toward the kind of capitulation represented by Third Way social democracy.

The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent austerity policies generated massive social discontent but also created political instability that far-right movements have exploited more effectively than the left. This context helps explain why some leftists have adopted red-brown strategies—attempting to compete with the far-right on its own terrain rather than offering genuine alternatives.

Economic changes have also fragmented traditional working-class communities and identities, making older forms of socialist organizing more difficult. The decline of industrial employment, the rise of precarious service work, and increasing social atomization have weakened the material basis for collective working-class politics.

Finally, the dominance of social media and digital communication has created new forms of political engagement that often prioritize performance over substance, individual expression over collective action, and ideological purity over strategic effectiveness. This context has enabled both tankie subcultures and individualistic identity politics.

Beyond Conservative Leftism: A Socialist Alternative

Understanding conservative leftism's material roots suggests strategies for overcoming it. Rather than simply condemning these tendencies, we need to build genuine alternatives that address the real problems they attempt to solve while maintaining socialist principles.

1. First, we need to rebuild a genuinely internationalist politics that supports oppressed peoples everywhere without subordinating their struggles to geopolitical calculations. This means supporting Ukrainian self-determination while opposing NATO expansion, defending Palestinian liberation while criticizing antisemitism, and building solidarity across borders while fighting our own ruling classes.

2. Second, we must develop an intersectional class politics that understands how capitalism generates multiple forms of oppression while building collective struggle that unites rather than divides working people. This requires fighting racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression not as separate issues but as integral aspects of capitalist domination.

3. Third, we need to articulate a positive vision of socialist democracy that learns from past failures while offering genuine alternatives to both capitalism and authoritarianism. This means promoting worker democracy, ecological sustainability, and social liberation as interconnected goals.

4. Fourth, we must rebuild working-class organization from the ground up, creating new forms of collective action appropriate to contemporary conditions while learning from historical experiences. This requires patient organizing work that builds real power rather than performative politics.

5. Finally, we need to develop media and communication strategies that counter both mainstream propaganda and social media manipulation while promoting genuine political education and collective action.

The stakes couldn't be higher. As fascist movements gain strength globally, the left faces a choice: continue fragmenting into conservative dead-ends or unite around genuinely emancipatory politics. The conservative left represents the path to defeat—dividing workers against each other while legitimizing right-wing ideas. Only by understanding and overcoming these tendencies can we build the united, international working-class movement necessary to defeat both capitalism and fascism.

The alternative to conservative leftism isn't moderation or accommodation—it's revolutionary politics that takes seriously both the material conditions of working-class life and the emancipatory potential of collective struggle. This is the socialism we need: internationalist, anti-capitalist, democratic, and uncompromisingly committed to the liberation of all oppressed peoples.

Further reading

Here are five articles that directly address our topic:

1. • "Do conservadorismo de esquerda ao comunismo ácido" by Diogo Machado: This article directly defines and analyzes "esquerdas conservadoras", differentiating them into two faces of capitulation: the 'third way' (e.g., Tony Blair/PS) which is a surrender to neoliberalism, and the 'conservative left' (e.g., Wagenknecht) which incorporates the cultural agenda of the far-right. It argues that a purely social-democratic platform is inherently conservative as it lacks structural change, and criticizes a focus on immediate proposals within a capitalist grammar as a renunciation of the fight for cultural hegemony and structural alternatives. Machado advocates for "acid communism" as a radical, creative, and collective political imaginary.

2. • "As duas identidades da esquerda etiquetária" by Francisco Louçã: This article identifies campism and sectarianism as the defining characteristics of the conservative left. It explains how campism, originating from the Cold War alignment with the USSR, persists today in supporting any regime hostile to the US, even if it's an "autocratic and plutocratic" one like Putin's Russia. This alignment leads to "insanable contradictions" and a succession of compromises with various regimes. The article further argues that sectarianism, fueled by virtual social networks, deforms political discourse and isolates the left from potential allies in social struggles.

3. • "Novos tankies e o neoestalinismo digital: como é incubada a Esquerda Conservadora" by João Bernardo Narciso: This article explores the phenomenon of "new tankies," young leftists romantically nostalgic for the Soviet Union and Stalinism. It explains how online platforms, particularly social media, foster this subculture through uniform cultural patterns, memes, and shock tactics that oversimplify complex historical and theoretical analyses. This digital socialization, often disconnected from real collective activism, leads to "purismos ideológicos e identitarismos políticos" and prioritizes principle affirmation over collective action, thereby risking the left's potential to unite and win.

4. • "“Wokismo”. O conservadorismo de esquerda que a direita prefere" by Ana Vasquez and Hugo Monteiro: This piece argues that a certain type of "wokism," as perceived and often weaponized by the right, constitutes a form of "conservative left". It suggests that when the "woke" designation becomes a comfortable classification that depoliticizes positions, isolates demands, and frames claims in a competitive manner, it becomes suitable for a right-wing common sense. The authors, citing Susan Neiman, critique an approach that confines each oppressed group to the "prism of its own marginalization," reducing social struggle to a private, particular criterion that approaches a "conservative dogmatic" stance. It emphasizes that this individualistic, competitive approach neglects class alliances and collective action necessary for anticapitalist struggle.

5. • "Qual é a nossa pátria? - crítica do nacionalismo de esquerda" by Daniel Borges: This article critiques "nacionalismo de esquerda" (left-wing nationalism), arguing that its "mortal sin" is confusing its political subjects. It uses the example of Sahra Wagenknecht's politics in Germany, which, under the guise of recentering workers' struggles, divides the working class by prioritizing national workers over immigrants. This approach is seen as a "movement of resistance to globalization and cultural transformations," which, by forming a coalition of workers and employers against immigrant workers, effectively aligns with conservative and divisive policies. It concludes that while anti-colonial movements have historically used the national question for liberation, a "critique of left-wing nationalism is nothing more than a critique of a divisive policy".

These five recommended articles – all appeared in Anticapitalista #78, published in January 2025.

This particular issue marked a significant change for Anticapitalista, as it was "renovated" with its entire space dedicated to reflective texts. The primary goal of this new format is to deepen debate within the Bloco de Esquerda, explore new questions, and offer fresh approaches to enduring themes, ultimately contributing to the questioning of dogmas and the construction of a socialist ideology for the future. The central theme of this special issue, which these five articles directly address, was "Anatomia das Esquerdas conservadoras" (Anatomy of Conservative Lefts).