Early history Societies resembling communist society have been postulated throughout human history, and many have been proposed as the earliest socialist or communist ideas. The ideas of
Plato have been described as an early type of socialism. In medieval Europe, some philosophers argued that
Jesus believed in shared ownership of property and that the hierarchy of the
Catholic Church was contrary to his teachings. This included the
Taborites, who attempted to create a social structure that resembled a communist society. Numerous
emancipation movements have occurred throughout history, including
slave rebellions and
peasant revolts. Early examples of communist societies in fiction include
Utopia by
Thomas More, which proposed a society without personal property, and
The City of the Sun by
Tommaso Campanella, which proposed a society without the
family unit. Far-left politics comes from the left wing of the left–right political spectrum, which developed during the
French Revolution. Classical/historical far-left politics encompasses a range of
classical radical ideologies that advocate for political change. While the modern far-left tends to be socialist, the classical far-left is ultra-radical, such as
Hébertists during the
French Revolution and
Estrema Radicale in the
Kingdom of Italy. Historical far-left ideologies included
republicanism; while not necessarily limited to radical left-wing politics today, it was classified as "far-left" during the period when monarchy was the global norm. At that time, the centre-left typically supported
constitutional monarchy, leaving those advocating for a republic at the extreme end of the political spectrum. Modern far-left politics developed from support for socialism. This can be traced to Europe and North America in the late 18th century, when industrialisation and political upheaval caused discontent among the working class. Socialists were those who objected to the changing social and economic structures associated with industrialisation, in that they promoted
individualism over
collectivism and that they created wealth for some but not for others, creating
economic inequality.
19th century in 1863 Early European socialism was developed in the 19th century as the concept of a
working class formed. It was influenced by numerous philosophers, such as
Mikhail Bakunin,
Louis Blanc,
Louis Auguste Blanqui,
Henri de Saint-Simon,
Friedrich Engels,
Charles Fourier,
Ferdinand Lassalle,
Karl Marx,
Robert Owen, and
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The modern far left developed during the
Industrial Revolution as their ideas were adopted as a response to
capitalism and
industrialisation. Marxism and anarchism joined reformist socialism as the predominant left-wing ideologies. There were relatively few waged workers in the 19th century, which was still dominated by
subsistence agriculture and independent sale of basic goods and services. The early far left was primarily made up of industrial workers. Labour groups led the
Revolutions of 1848. The
Luddites were anti-technology activists who emerged during the British
Industrial Revolution, where they sabotaged machinery out of fear that it would displace workers. The term
socialism first came into use in the early 19th century to describe the egalitarian ideas of redistribution promoted by writers like
François-Noël Babeuf and
John Thelwall. Inspired by the
French Revolution, these writers objected to the existence of significant wealth, and Babeuf advocated a dictatorship on behalf of the people that would destroy those who caused inequality. Socialism was recognised as a coherent philosophy in the 1830s with the publications of British reformer Robert Owen, who self-identified as socialist. Owen, as well as others such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and
Étienne Cabet, developed the utopian socialist movement, and these utopian socialists established several communes to implement their ideology. Cabet responded to More's
Utopia with his own novel,
The Voyage to Icaria. He is credited with first using the term
communism, though his usage was unrelated to the ideologies that were later known as communism. Early anarchists emerged in the 19th century, including Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin. These anarchists endorsed many utopian ideas, but they emphasised the importance of revolution against and complete abolition of the state for a utopian society to exist. Mikhail Bakunin developed early anarchism by creating the
Anti-authoritarian International in 1872 after he challenged Marxism during the
Hague Congress. He argued that peasants rather than the working class should lead a socialist revolution, and he popularised calls to violence among the anarchist movement. Anarchist ideology spread to the Americas shortly after its development. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels introduced
Marxism in the 1840s, which advocated
revolutionary socialism. As the state bureaucracy was developed in the late 19th century and
labour rights were increasingly recognised by national governments, socialist movements were divided on the role of the state. Some objected to the increase in the state's involvement, while others believed that the state was a stronger alternative to protect worker's rights than labour movements. Many of the former moved to anarchism, while many of the latter responded with the development of social democracy. The Russian far-left group
Land and Liberty arose in the 1860s to lead peasants' revolts against the monarchy. It split in 1879 between the populist movement
Black Repartition and the anarchist movement
Narodnaya Volya. Narodnaya Volya engaged in acts of violence, called
propaganda of the deed, to incite revolution. These groups were eradicated following the
assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, but the methods used by Narodnaya Volya were adopted by other groups and set the precedent for modern
terrorism. The
First International was created in 1864 and lasted until 1872. The
Paris Commune was created in 1871. Many national trade unions were established in the 1880s, which coalesced into the
Second International in 1889. This group was officially aligned with social democracy but was predominantly influenced by Marxism.
Mikhail Bakunin was influential in developing anarchist ideas in the 19th century, advocating acts of violence instead of political discourse.
Errico Malatesta introduced the
propaganda of the deed in 1876 when he encouraged the use of violence in Italy to win the support of the working class.
Early 20th century in 1917 East Asian anarchism developed in the 1900s during the
Russo-Japanese War, based on the ideas of Japanese writer
Kōtoku Shūsui, who was in turn inspired by
Peter Kropotkin. This movement saw its greatest prominence in the 1920s in China. Anarcho-syndicalism was developed as a form of anarchism in the late 19th century, and it grew popular around 1900. It remained relevant in far-left politics through 1940. One important syndicalist movement of this period was the
Wobblies.
Left communism was developed as a criticism of Marxism–Leninism by figures like
Rosa Luxemburg and
Amadeo Bordiga in the early-20th century. The modern revolutionary left emerged in the
aftermath of World War I. Socialist movements had gained considerable political power in Europe by the 1910s, but they were fractured during the war. Before World War I, socialism was intertwined with the labour movement. Moderate left-wing nationalist factions split from socialists in defence of their nations during the war, while the remaining far-left adopted a revolutionary
cosmopolitan ideology. Opposition to World War I triggered
a series of revolutions across Europe. Those in Finland, Germany, Hungary, and Russia were led by socialist movements. Trade unions, workers' councils, and far-left parties were formed in many European nations. Numerous far-left movements developed with different ideological foundations. The strongest far-left movement developed with the
Russian Revolution and its establishment of Leninism. The
Bolsheviks seized power under the rule of Vladimir Lenin, and Lenin implemented the idea of vanguardism where the Bolsheviks were seen as continuing the revolution and preventing other economic systems from forming.{{Sfn|Gray|2023a on 6 January 1918. The
Tauride Palace is locked and guarded by
Trotsky,
Sverdlov,
Zinoviev and
Lashevich. Communism in early 20th century Europe often gained power in countries with significant polarisation between segments of the population on an ethnic, religious, or economic basis, and in countries that were destabilised by war. It was less prominent in industrialised nations, where social democracy maintained electoral success over Communist parties. The Russian Revolution was the only instance of a successful socialist revolution during this period. Communist groups sought to emulate the Russian Revolution that replaced capitalism with a
planned economy and established a system of
soviet councils to serve as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Other Communist governments were formed in
Bavaria,
Finland, and
Hungary, but they were short-lived. The Bolsheviks eventually became the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Communist parties developed in other countries after the Russian Revolution, splitting from the dominant social democratic parties. Throughout its existence, the Soviet Union provided both material and non-material support to Communist parties in other nations, and it provided refuge for the leadership of parties in exile. The Bolsheviks created the
Communist International in 1919 to bring together the Communist parties of several nations, and the
International Working Union of Socialist Parties existed from 1921 to 1923 for other socialist groups. They hoped to join forces with Western social democrats, but the alliances were never formed. Support for immediate revolution declined among the far-left; it seemed less feasible as state intervention within capitalist nations brought about improvements in quality of life for the working class. The social democratic movement moderated, and much of the European far-left lost influence outside of Russia by 1923. By 1922, as
Russian SFSR became one of the founding countries of
Soviet Union, it responded to widespread hunger and poverty with the
New Economic Policy, which restored market enterprise for smaller industries. After Lenin's death, a power struggle between
Nikolai Bukharin,
Leon Trotsky, and
Joseph Stalin ended with Stalin taking power by 1928. Stalin implemented his ideology of Marxism–Leninism, which reorganised society and created a cult of personality in his favour. Under the rule of
Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union adopted
Stalinism in the 1930s. While the Communist International was initially democratic between its members, it removed disloyal parties while Stalin was in charge. This also entailed the
Great Purge in the late 1930s, an interpretation of Lenin's revolutionary violence that saw hundreds of thousands of Stalin's opponents killed, often to be replaced by ambitious loyalists. By this time, Marxism–Leninism was seen as the definitive implementation of communism by its followers globally, justifying the Great Purge as an effort to eradicate fascist infiltrators, with state censorship obscuring the Great Purge's extent. This view was challenged by the
Anti-Stalinist left, including anarchists and Trotskyists. Western Europe largely adopted
liberal democracy by the mid-1920s, and social democracy drew socialists to a more moderate stance. The far-left did not have significant political power and instead acted through labour movements, which engaged in strikes and insurrections. Its interest in communist revolution declined. There was not always a clear delineation between the far-left and the centre-left this time as they were often affiliated with the same organisations. Far-left parties in France, Germany, and Spain briefly took power in the 1930s but were eradicated as fascism spread across the continent. The
Communist Party of Germany had split from the
Social Democratic Party of Germany and became the largest Communist party in Western Europe, performing only 3.5 percent below the Social Democratic Party in the
November 1932 election. The
Communist Party of El Salvador and the
Communist Party of Honduras both led unsuccessful indigenous and peasants' uprisings in their respective countries during the
Great Depression. These parties, along with the
Communist Party of Guatemala, were persecuted and largely dismantled as a result. How to respond to
fascism was a question that divided the far left in the interwar years. During its
ultra-left “
Third Period”, the Communist International saw social democrats (who it labelled “
social fascists”) as an equivalent enemy to Nazism. Trotsky, in contrast, argued for anti-fascist unity just within the far left, in the strategy of the
United front. Spain's far left launched the strongest response to the right when it fought the
Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. Far-left
popular front groups arose in the mid-1930s. During the
Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, anarcho-syndicalists seized control of multiple regions in Spain, but this ended when the nationalist faction won the war. This, along with the rise of Communism, ended the relevance of anarchism among the far-left globally after 1940. As
mass production became more common, the traditional style of labour that anarcho-syndicalists objected to ceased to exist, preventing any significant resurgence in the movement. Trotsky died in 1940, and Trotskyism subsequently underwent a period of lesser influence over the following two decades. Western opinion of Communists briefly improved in the
aftermath of World War II because of Communist contributions to the war effort, and they saw minor electoral success in a few European countries. The
French Communist Party and
Italian Communist Party briefly became major parties in their respective nations, while the
Popular Democratic Front of Italy and the
Finnish People's Democratic League were formed as alliances between different far-left groups. Italian Communists moved away from Leninism and democratic centralism in 1944 in favour of mass membership and Catholic influences.
Antonio Gramsci, who was active in the 1920s and 1930s, became one of the main figures of Italian Communism. The
Cold War began shortly after, and Communist parties again became poorly regarded. The Soviet-backed
Communist Party of Germany emerged from World War II as a minor party in
West Germany, but it lost popularity over the following years and was banned in 1956.
Cold War celebrating
Stalin's birthday in 1949 by the
Red Brigades (1978) The
Cold War began when a major diplomatic rift occurred between liberal Western nations, led by the United States, and communist nations, led by the Soviet Union. Communist parties were effectively outcast within the West, and most were aligned with Stalinism and the Soviet Union. The United States pressured other nations to purge Communist parties from their governments
in 1947, and the Italian government created its that effectively disallowed the
Italian Communist Party from taking power. The number of West European communists declined significantly, with only France, Italy, and briefly Finland retaining a notable communist presence. Under Soviet pressure, Eastern European communists remained dominant and became Stalinised. By the mid-1950s, the
Italian Socialist Party was the most influential anti-communist far-left party in Europe. Violent revolution was discouraged as the Cold War began, emanating from fears that Western nations would intervene. The Soviet Union's influence during and after
World War II spread Communism, directly and indirectly, to the rest of
Eastern Europe and into
Southeast Europe. Several of these countries became
people's democracies, which maintained some liberal
mixed economies before eventually coming under the influence of Stalinism. New communist governments were formed in
Albania,
Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia,
East Germany,
Hungary,
Romania, and
Yugoslavia. Most far-left governments adopted the Leninist system of vanguardism. China and North Korea took on the Marxist—Leninist variant that developed under Stalin's rule of the Soviet Union. The development of
post-industrial society and
postmaterialism in Western Europe caused many of the traditional sectors associated with communism to dissipate. Communist International had been dissolved in 1943, and it was replaced by
Cominform as the main communist international in 1947. This lasted until 1956. While Soviet-style Communist parties dominated the far left in the 1920s through the 1950s, the far left became more diverse during the Cold War.
Eurocommunism, a gradualist and democratic approach to socialism, developed in the 1960s and was supported by the Communist Parties
of France and
of Italy. Other far-left ideologies formed their own
party families. Communist movements resurged in Central America during the 1940s and 1950s despite repression from authoritarian governments, and Marxism–Leninism lost influence among these groups. The
People's Vanguard Party in Costa Rica aligned with the winning coalition in the
1944 general election. Following
Stalin's death, the workers of several Eastern European countries staged revolutions against Communist rule, which were suppressed by the Soviet military. Many of these countries were led by Stalinist rulers, who were forced out and replaced by the subsequent Soviet government. Yugoslavia distanced itself as a neutral Communist nation, aligned with neither the East nor the West.
Arab socialist groups took power in the Middle East during the 1950s and 1960s, and they persecuted the preexisting Marxist groups to replace them as the region's predominant far-left movement. The
Japanese Communist Party, supporting
scientific socialism, was the far-left opposition to the dominant
Liberal Democratic Party of Japan in the 1950s. Indonesia's far left was destroyed in
a series of anti-communist mass killings in the mid-1960s, ending the
Communist Party of Indonesia. The
Chinese Communist Party had been active since 1921, but it did not seize power in China until its victory in the
Chinese Civil War in 1949. As with the Soviet Union, the newly formed People's Republic of China carried out purges of political enemies, killing millions of landowners. The peasants were not targeted, however, instead using them as a base of political support. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, China under the rule of
Mao Zedong distanced itself from the Soviet Union. Maoism grew in popularity as an alternative to Soviet-style communism, but it did not result in any stable governments outside of China. At the same time, North Korea and
North Vietnam were established as communist governments, triggering the
Korean War and the
Vietnam War against South Korea and
South Vietnam, respectively. By the late 1970s, Maoism in China was replaced by
the ideology of
Deng Xiaoping, which restored the private sector and market pricing. Many European Communist parties were fractured by different Marxist ideologies beginning in the 1950s, with the greatest challenges coming from Maoist and Trotskyist factions. Some European Communist parties saw Maoism as non-hierarchal and internationalist and adopted it for these reasons, but European Maoism only became a major force in the
Albanian Party of Labour. Trotskyists gained influence among the European far left in the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly in France and the United Kingdom, but it was plagued by inter-fighting, which limited its reach. The
Communist Party of Finland lost its influence in the 1960s as a schism emerged between pro-Soviet and pro-modernisation factions. Left-wing nationalist movements developed in colonial territories in the 1960s, leading to rapid decolonisation, though traditional far-left ideas played a relatively small role in independence activities. Two major Latin American far-left ideologies emerged in the 1960s:
Guevarism and
Latin American liberation theology. Guevarism emerged from the
Cuban Revolution. The revolution's success dispelled the common belief among communists that socialist revolution could only occur after democratic and anti-imperialist reformist movements were successful. Many guerrilla militant groups formed in Central America over the following decades, triggering the
Guatemalan Civil War and the
Salvadoran Civil War. The
Sandinista National Liberation Front led the
Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979 and held power in Nicaragua until it was voted out in the
1990 general election.
Latin American liberation theology came amid the
Second Vatican Council and the
Second Episcopal Conference of Latin America, popularising far-left ideas among some Catholic Churches in the region. In the mid-20th century, agricultural workers, the unemployed, and white-collar workers replaced industrial workers as the main far-left demographics in Western Europe. Highly educated people surpassed blue-collar workers as the primary far-left demographic by the end of the 1960s. The New Left developed in Western Europe as an alternative to orthodox Communism in the 1950s, taking positions on social issues and
identity politics. It was unable to overcome traditional Communist parties except those of Scandinavia, where Communists were already sympathetic to ideas like Eurocommunism and humanism.
Communist Party of Denmark leader
Aksel Larsen was expelled from his party for his opposition to the 1956
Soviet invasion of Hungary, so he formed the
Socialist People's Party that became the new dominant far-left force in Danish politics. The rise of the New Left was associated with the rise of
new social movements and the
counterculture of the 1960s, which also saw the revival of anarchism. The Western far left as a whole resurged in the 1960s and 1970s as
American hegemony and capitalist systems came under scrutiny. There were periods of civil unrest and youth revolts in several European nations. The
Vietnam War was a catalyst for New Left activity.
Green politics developed as an offshoot of the New Left, but it was
deradicalised by the end of the 20th century and became a centre-left movement. New far-left socialist parties were formed across Western Europe, many Communist parties cut ties with the Soviet Union, and other Marxist movements such as
Maoism,
Trotskyism, and
workerism gained a presence in several countries' politics. Maoism significantly influenced far-left movements around the world in the 1970s and 1980s.
Eurocommunism developed in response to the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s to provide a democratic alternative for far-left ideas. It supports the expansion of European-style
welfare states and mixed economies until they resemble communist society. The
People's Alliance of Iceland had remained electorally relevant by avoiding Soviet influence and adopted Eurocommunism to some success. The spread of Eurocommunism meant that Soviet-aligned communist parties declined in Western Europe. It proved unable to maintain its influence by the 1980s as its supporters were unable to reconcile vanguardism with political pluralism. Smaller far-left groups revitalised interest in revolutionary communism in Western Europe. Maoist groups called the
K-Gruppen emerged from the
student movement in Germany. Maoist and Trotskyist groups briefly flourished in France in the 1960s amid the
French student movement and opposition to the
Algerian War. Italian Marxists like
Antonio Negri introduced
autonomism later in the decade. Support for the 1960s-era far left declined by the 1970s, giving violent revolutionaries more influence in the movement which further its decreased support.
Earth First! emerged in the 1980s in the United States, combining radical environmentalism and anarchism with other far-left social issues. The
Communist and Allies Group existed as a
transnational political party in the European Union during the 1970s and 1980s. Far-left parties had representation in the Nordic countries during the Cold War. In Sweden, a practice developed between the 1970s and the 1990s where social democrats would vote for the formerly Communist
Left Party so left-wing coalitions could be formed. The
Portuguese Communist Party and the
Portuguese Democratic Movement played a major role in the
Carnation Revolution. The French Communist Party was included in the French government of
François Mitterrand in the early 1980s. This wave of European far-left support dissipated in the 1980s as workers lost influence in the economy,
neoliberalism became dominant, and the United States re-exerted influence over Europe. As the economies of developed nations shifted, the far-left aligned with the workers of large corporations as opposed to small businesses and subcontractors. Arabic far-left groups reemerged in the 1980s and 1990s, but they often aligned with the traditional authoritarian governments as a means to oppose
Islamism. This prevented them from creating a party structure and caused leftists to act through decentralised movements. Far-left
Arab socialists were one of two groups alongside
Arab nationalists that made up the
New Arab Left, which began in Palestine and influenced other left-wing movements in the
Arab world.
Hadash formed as a communist coalition in Israel with a focus on
the country's Arab population.
Kurdish nationalism emerged as the predominant far-left ideology in Turkey after
a period of political violence and
the subsequent coup eradicated the previous leftist groups in 1980.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union Communist nations in Europe struggled economically in the 1980s, and many faced popular revolts. The Soviet Union moved away from ideas of international communism as such efforts came to be seen as too inconvenient. Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev effectively abandoned communism, leading the nation toward liberalism in its final years. The final Soviet-led international communist meeting was held in November 1987 to mark the seventieth anniversary of the October Revolution. It included not only communist parties, but other left-wing parties as the Soviet policy of socialism in one country disintegrated. Communist and socialist parties severely declined in Western Europe after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union. Many communist parties were unable to survive once the Soviet Union no longer existed to finance them. The far-left was challenged by the
neoliberal consensus after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Intergovernmental institutions and increasing globalisation embedded neoliberal economics into the global economy, making it harder for the far-left to work against it. The
end of history theory was proposed by
Francis Fukuyama, asserting that the neoliberal consensus effectively ended far-left politics They remained largely irrelevant for several years until a period of regrowth toward the end of the 1990s. Many of the communist parties effectively disappeared from politics, while others rebranded or moderated. The European transnational political party Communist and Allies Group split in 1989 as
Left Unity and the
European United Left, and the latter merged with the
Nordic Green Left Alliance to form
GUE/NGL in 1994. The
Party of the European Left emerged in 2004. In many Eastern European countries, communist parties were banned by the new governments. Most communist parties in Eastern Europe moved toward the centre-left. The
Socialist Party of Ukraine was the only electorally relevant democratic socialist movement of Eastern Europe, but it also moved away from socialism over time. Those that remained communist held more influence than their counterparts in Western Europe. Moldova was an exception to the rejection of communism, where the communists won presidential elections throughout the 2000s. As the social democratic vote was already contested by green parties and the New Left, formerly communist parties in Western Europe often shifted toward democratic socialism. Exceptions occurred in Italy and Poland, where the respective parties had already been moving toward social democracy. Surviving far-left parties shifted toward domestic politics and made attempts to distinguish themselves from Soviet-style communism. Parties like the
Communist Party of Greece maintained their adherence to traditional communism after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, while others like the
Communist Refoundation Party in Italy tried to introduce new communist ideas. The
Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the
Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova remained relevant in the former Soviet Union, while the
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia emerged as the most prominent communist party in
East-Central Europe. The far-left was able to rebuild limited support by the end of the decade. Supporters of the far-left in Europe at this time were more likely to be professional workers, students, and the unemployed. The share of working class supporters declined as they sought other ideologies. It appealed to anti-neoliberalism and tried to rebuild ties with the working class. Most far-left parties in Europe prioritised a broader societal shift to the left instead of disputing individual policies. Far-left parties in Europe became more amenable to joining coalitions. Many of them became more open to reformist politics as a temporary means to combat neoliberalism. Detailed platforms of societal reconstructions were avoided so as not to emulate Stalinism. The far-left primarily expressed itself through movements led by unions, pacifists, and
alter-globalisation advocates instead of traditional political parties. Over time, unions became less involved in these and social activism became more common. Despite his criticism of leftism,
Ted Kaczynski became influential within green anarchism and anarcho-primitivism with his essay
Industrial Society and Its Future in the 1990s, which received attention because of Kaczynski's use of
letter bombs to forward the cause. Far-left parties reappeared in
post-Soviet states in response to voter frustration with the new governments. Leftist parties in Russia and the
Balkans exchanged Marxism–Leninism for left-wing nationalism. The Indonesian party system destabilised after the
fall of Suharto in 1998, and the traditional leftist electorate—trade unions and peasant associations–did not develop political representation.
21st century Of the five Communist states that survived into the 21st century, three of them — China, Vietnam, and Laos — had restored private ownership and reintegrated with global capitalist markets although state and public control continued as well. For instance,
Peter Nolan argues that land in China was decollectivized but not privatised, with control of land remaining in the hands of the community. At the start of the 21st century, the far-left was associated with the
global justice movement and supported populist leaders. This reached its height with the
1999 Seattle WTO protests and protests against the
27th G8 summit in 2001, which symbolised a growing rejection of the neoliberal consensus. The movement began holding the annual
World Social Forum in 2001. Its influence diminished following the
September 11 attacks, but it survived as a leading force in
opposition to the Iraq War. Far-left violence decreased dramatically by the 21st century, with a limited presence remaining in developing nations and only a small number of isolated attacks in developed nations. The
Party of the European Left was established in 2004 as a pan-European political party for the far-left. The far-left parties during this time were rarely new creations, instead descending from earlier far-left parties of the 20th century. Among the European
great powers, Germany was the only one where the far-left made strong electoral performances in the 2000s, with the prominence of the
Party of Democratic Socialism and
WASG, which merged to become
Die Linke in 2007. While the Italian Communist Party was historically the most prominent communist party in Western Europe, the Italian far-left fractured and was dissolved into the centre-left in the 2000s. The French far-left did not face significant gains or losses as other European far-left groups did at the time. Left-wing populism experienced a surge at the start of the 21st century beginning with the rise of
Hugo Chávez and
Evo Morales in Latin America. The environmentalist left was targeted by the United States government in
Operation Backfire during the
Green Scare in the 2000s, in which environmentalist groups carried out attacks and acts of sabotage. The anonymous ultra-left works of the
Invisible Committee in France were produced in 2008, advocating a unified resistance to capitalism during times of crisis.
Individualists Tending to the Wild was formed in Mexico as a self-described
eco-terrorism group in the 2010s. Leftist politics diminished in the Arab world by the 21st century as autocratic governments placed
token opposition from leftist figures in the legislature. Revolutionary left-wing politics were not prominent during the 2011
Arab Spring, although socialist groups played a role e.g. in the
Egyptian revolution and anarchist ideas were put into practice in the
local councils established as part of the
Syrian revolution. In 2012, the autonomous region
Rojava in northwestern Syria established self-governance based on an anarchist direct democracy at the local level and a one-party state at the regional level. The 2010s also saw a
global wave of protest movements against
austerity and
finance capitalism, including the
Occupy movement and the
indignados, in which radical left ideas were prominent. The anti-industrialist
Zadists became active in France in the 2010s as they occupied and squatted on the sites of planned development projects. Far-left militant groups participated in
the war against the
Islamic State in the 2010s. Anarchist and autonomist movements were active during the French
Yellow vests protests in 2018, where they competed with the far-right for control of the movement.
Emergence and positioning of the populist left , the fourth general secretary of the Progressive Party of Working People, who served as the
President of Cyprus from 2008 to 2013 Far-left parties became more prominent in democratic systems following the
Great Recession. There is disagreement as to whether this is associated with an overall increase in support. Some of these parties, such as
La France Insoumise in France,
Podemos in Spain, and
Syriza in Greece, deliberately incorporated populism into their identity. At the same time, in the
United Kingdom and the
United States of America, populist movements formed around
Jeremy Corbyn and
Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders gained support from the far-left in the
2016 United States presidential election. When far-left parties took power, they were forced to work within national and international systems that prevented them from unilaterally changing the economic structure. They moved their focus away from the long-term goal of socialism so they could seek broader support from anti-neoliberal coalitions. They adopted support for a left-libertarian welfare state based on
Keynesianism and social justice as a temporary measure on the path toward socialist society. The communist
Progressive Party of Working People controlled the government in Cyprus from 2008 to 2013. Far-left parties in Greece, Portugal, and Spain made significant electoral gains in 2015, including Syriza taking control of the Greek government. Gains beyond these countries were limited, as
right-wing populism was instead boosted in other countries. Left-wing extremist activity is uncommon in 21st-century Europe. It is even less common in Canada and the United States, where it aligns with movements like
Antifa and
Black Lives Matter as well as
radical environmentalist and other social justice movements. The far-left became more prominent in the United States in opposition to
Donald Trump following the far-right
Unite the Right rally in 2017. While the American far-left had developed over the previous years as a movement for
economic justice, it shifted toward
anti-racism as its primary cause, especially after the
murder of George Floyd by police officers in 2020, which became a focal point of the anti-racism movement. The European far-left was split on the issue of
COVID-19 lockdowns, in which some found government measures to be oppressive but others counter-protested against far-right opposition to the lockdowns. == Far-left terrorism ==