Left Wing, Right Wing, Far Left, Far Right - What Does It Actually Mean?

“The Irish government are left wing!” some maniac will write on social media. As if the Thatcherite neoliberal puppets of the rich we have in power in Ireland are somehow on the “left”. Confusion helps capitalism, it disguises what parties actually stand for and what class they actually represent.

Let’s start with the basics. The terms right wing and left wing originated in the French Revolution of 1789. Those who supported the King sat on the right and those who supported the revolution sat on the left. Even in 1791 when the aristocrats had been kicked out of power compromisers sat on the right and radicals sat on the left.

The terms right and left didn’t catch on for decades and parties were more likely to be called “reactionary” or “red”. In Britain the old aristocracy hung on in politics as the most rabid defenders of capitalism and Empire - they formed the Tory Party.

The Tories represented the right wing. The main opposition to the Tories was the Liberal Party - they represented the capitalist class and so politics right and left was dominated by the rich.

The formation of Labour parties at the beginning of the 20th Century shifted the political spectrum so that now the Tory parties represented the right, the Liberal parties the centre and the Labour style parties the left.

When the First World War broke out the Labour parties lined up with their own rulers and supported the war, betraying the working class they were meant to represent. The war was opposed by socialists like James Connolly in Ireland and Lenin in Russia.

These revolutionaries were now labelled “far left” to distinguish them from the “left” Labour parties. But if being “left” meant fighting for progress the term was now being dragged through the mud and dirt of the bloodied trenches of imperialist war.

After the war demobilised officers from the middle classes were angry about the life they were returning to, a wave of revolutions had swept Europe and counter revolution was encouraged by wealthy supporters of groups like the German Nazi Party.

These parties were on the “far right” - they wanted authoritarian rule and wanted to turn back all the gains the working class had made in the previous decades. The far left wanted to push forward, the far right wanted to push backwards.

In more recent decades we’ve seen Labour Parties become indistinguishable from Tory parties - sure didn’t Margaret Thatcher think that Tony Blair’s New Labour was her greatest achievement. Or just look at how Irish Labour behaved in government during the austerity years.

So the labels “right” and “left” began to break down as useful indications of a party’s policies. And these terms didn’t indicate which class a party represented. Particularly in the USA where right wing Republicans and so-called “leftists” in the Democrat Party both represent factions of the billionaire boss class.

Politics is much clearer if you look at what class a party represents. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are on the right because they support the rich, the capitalist class. They work for our local rich, like Denis O’Brien or Larry Goodman, and operate in the interests of vulture funds and US corporations.

They will always act in the interests of the rich no matter what their manifesto might say. The Labour Party is the political voice of the union bureaucracy. Hesitant, nervous, does what the bosses tell them to do once in power.

Sinn Féin are positioned on the left of the political spectrum but from a class point view they represent the middle class utopian idea that you can keep bosses and workers happy in an Ireland united under capitalism. You can’t, you have to pick a side.

The far right represent the small employers, publicans, small business owners, gym owners and all the people who wheel and deal for a living, whether by legal or illegal means (like drug dealers!). They were ruined by the pandemic and many went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole.

They want to go back to the dark old days of Church abuse and cover up, they miss that authoritarian old Ireland and mythologise it.

From a class point of view their job is to poison the working class so that the capitalists stay in power. It doesn’t matter if they think they’re opposing the government - if you look at what they achieve with a cold scientific eye, they help the rich.

It’s pretty obvious that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are laughing their heads off when someone blames an immigrant for a housing crisis four decades in the making, in a country where 160,000 homes sit empty.

From Fine Gael to the far right they don’t question the economic system we live under. Capitalism never gets a mention because from the big bosses to the ruined restaurant owner they all have a vested interest in its continuation. Workers don’t.

Terms “right” and “left” orginated in the French revolution. We need a new, working class left, that remembers that the origin of the term was rooted in revolution. Sitting on the left benches meant fighting for revolution, for progress - but no progress can be made by the working class if we leave housing, healthcare, food production to the capitalist private market.

The Red Network wants to unite all the best worker activists into one party that helps our class to see the truth of all other political parties, to see the classes they actually represent and then organises our class to fight them.