民粹主义并非右翼人士的专属。作为一个以历史必然性为基石的运动，共产主义在欧洲的胜利似乎遥遥无期。自马克思和恩格斯宣称资产阶级已命不久矣以来，已近两个世纪。不知怎的，资本家们设法继续掌控着经济的关键领域，甚至在那些曾落入苏联铁蹄下的中欧部分地区重新夺回了控制权。这种革命动力的匮乏，并非源于左翼民粹主义阵营中那些坚定信仰者缺乏热情。欧洲有二十多个信奉阶级斗争意识形态的政党，一直忙于设置路障、号召罢工以及组织关于殖民主义父权制本质的研讨会。尽管付出了这些努力，无产阶级专政依然遥不可及。如果如今有什么幽灵在欧洲游荡，那便是光谱另一端的民粹主义者，即那些非自由主义的右翼人士，他们似乎正在推翻既定秩序方面取得更为实质性的进展。
Populism isn’t just for right-wingers. For a movement predicated on historical inevitability, communism is taking an awfully long time to triumph in Europe. It has been nearly two centuries since Marx and Engels proclaimed the bourgeois goose cooked. Somehow the capitalists have contrived to retain control over the commanding heights of the economy, and even reclaim them in bits of central Europe that had fallen under the Soviet yoke. This dearth of revolutionary momentum is not for lack of zeal among the true believers on the populist left. Two dozen parties wed to class-struggle ideology across Europe have kept themselves busy mounting barricades, calling for strikes and organising seminars on the true nature of colonialist patriarchy. Despite their efforts the dictatorship of the proletariat remains as distant as ever. If a spectre haunts Europe these days, it is of the populists at the other end of the spectrum, those on the illiberal right, who seem to be making more tangible progress towards overturning the established order.
然而，如果受压迫者除了偶尔占据一间委员会会议室外尚未取得更多成果，那么左翼中的左翼政治派别正迎来高光时刻。9月20日，欧洲各地的同志欢呼雀跃，因为德国“红旗挥舞者”政党——左翼党（Die Linke）的埃利夫·埃拉尔普在柏林州选举中胜出。诚然，埃拉尔普的父母从土耳其移民至德国，她所承诺的仅仅是打击私人房东并将首都打造成一个“团结之城”，而非夺取生产资料，但即便如此。在瑞典，左翼党（曾被称为“共产党”，1990年弃用该名称）在本月的大选中表现不俗，以至于中左翼需要其支持才能确保议会多数席位。在欧盟的会议上，这些政党的未来部长们可能会遇到来自西班牙的同行，那里的民粹左翼也进入了政府。这可能不是2010年代末的希腊，当时激进左翼联盟（Syriza）执政（并将国家拖入困境），但在许多地方，左翼势力正过得相当不错。
Yet if the downtrodden have yet to seize much beyond the occasional committee room, the political faction on the left of the left is having a moment. On September 20th comrades across Europe cheered as Elif Eralp of Die Linke, the German party of red-flag wavers, came top in state elections in Berlin. Granted, Ms Eralp, whose parents migrated to Germany from Turkey, was offering merely to clobber private landlords and turn the capital into a „city of solidarity” rather than seize the means of production, but still. In Sweden the Left Party (once known as „communist”, it dropped the moniker in 1990) did well enough in national elections this month that it will be needed for the centre-left to secure a parliamentary majority. At European Union confabs, these parties’ future ministers may bump into fellow travellers from Spain, where the populist left is also in government. It may not be Greece in the late 2010s, when Syriza ran the country (into the ground), but in many places the reds are doing all right.
民粹主义右翼拥有足够的政治影响力，足以让中间派担忧：若更多此类人物掌权，局势将如何演变。相比之下，他们的左翼同行往往只具备如同学生会墙上剥落革命海报般的选举威慑力。欧洲议会中的左翼党团——作为衡量欧盟范围内影响力的粗略指标——在720个席位中占有46席，落后于三个中间派党团、生态主义者和民粹主义右翼。然而，该运动在选举中的 modest 成功掩盖了其实际影响力。除了作为潜在的联盟伙伴外，它还能充当搅局者。例如在法国，脾气暴躁的“不屈法国”领袖让-吕克·梅朗雄，如今第四次竞选总统，虽无望在4月大选中获胜，但民调显示他可能进入第二轮。这样的结果对极右翼候选人玛丽娜·勒庞而言堪称天赐良机，她在民调中遥遥领先。面对任何中间派候选人，勒庞都将面临激烈的决选，但她能轻松击败梅朗雄。事实上，梅朗雄可能通过将民粹主义右翼推上台而改变法国。
The populist right has enough political oomph to scare centrists into wondering what might happen should more of them come to power. In contrast, their left-wing counterparts often have all the electoral menace of a revolutionary poster peeling from a student-union wall. The Left group in the European Parliament, a rough proxy of influence across the EU, counts 46 members in a chamber of 720—behind three centrist factions, ecologists and the populist right. Yet the movement’s modest electoral success belies its influence. Besides being a potential coalition ally, it can act as a spoiler. In France, for example, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the cantankerous leader of Unsubmissive France now on his fourth presidential run, has no chance of winning the election in April. But polls show he might be the runner-up in the first round. Such an outcome would be a godsend for Marine Le Pen, the right-winger who is far ahead in the polls. She faces a tight run-off against any centrist candidate, but would handily beat Mr Mélenchon. He could, indeed, change France—by bringing the populist right to power.
尽管大多数选民仍倾向于支持亲资本主义的政党，但左翼民粹主义政党却自认为革命东风正劲。在许多国家，它们成功利用了民众对加沙局势的愤怒。如今，极左翼人士的聚会中，巴勒斯坦国旗的数量已远超锤子镰刀旗（随之而来的对以色列的猛烈抨击，有时甚至带有反犹主义的意味）。与勒庞等人受益的政治碎片化趋势一样，这种趋势也助长了左翼的声势：过去，大帐篷式政党尚能将广大选民群体统一在同一个政治伞下，而这一时代已一去不复返。右翼民粹主义的崛起——左翼对手将其斥为“纳粹的继承者”，而他们自己往往也是斯大林主义的继承者——为欧洲坦克主义者们提供了一个共同的对抗目标。生活成本问题位居欧洲民众关切之首，那些主张实施租金管制、推行打破紧缩政策的预算方案，并在修辞上呼吁“斩首”亿万富翁的政党，与那些深感经济压力的选民产生了强烈共鸣。至于真正的“斩首”，则可以稍后再议。
Even as most voters still plump for pro-capitalist outfits, parties on the populist left feel they have the revolutionary wind in their sails. In many countries they have tapped into outrage over Gaza. Confabs of hard lefties feature more Palestinian flags than hammer-and-sickles these days (the ensuing Israel-bashing sometimes carries a whiff of antisemitism). The same political fragmentation that has helped the likes of Ms Le Pen has played into the hands of the left, too: gone are the days when big-tent parties could unify broad swathes of the electorate under a single awning. The rise of the populist right—or „heirs of Nazism” as they are described by their foes on the left, themselves often the heirs of Stalinism—has given the Euro-tankies something to rally against. Concerns over the cost of living are top of mind for Europeans, and parties proposing rent controls, austerity-busting budgets and a rhetorical guillotining of billionaires resonate with voters feeling the pinch. The actual guillotining can wait.
唉，在其他许多问题上，他们意见相左。尽管这些左翼民粹主义政党怀有国际主义抱负，但它们却难以凝聚成一个大于部分之和的整体。这在一定程度上是历史原因造成的：在外人看来，这些政党似乎是一团难以区分的共产主义混合物，但内部实则是错综复杂的派系斗争，列诺-马克思主义者与毛主义者、托派与后共产主义者相互倾轧。（2022年法国总统大选就包含了四个这样的派系。）冷战时期，许多共产党只是照搬莫斯科的指令，这赋予了其信条某种一致性。如今则不然。爱丁堡大学的卢克·马奇表示，欧洲各地的左翼民粹主义政党“共享某些核心价值观，但对其解读各不相同”。有些人仍在赞美俄罗斯——旧习难改，顽固不化——而另一些人则已向前看。欧盟究竟是压迫工人的新自由主义俱乐部，还是流氓无产阶级摆脱对帝国主义美国依赖的唯一途径？问两个左派人士，你会得到三种答案。分裂者！
Alas, on much else they disagree. For all their internationalist aspirations, the parties on the populist left have a tough time gelling into more of a sum than their parts. Partly this is historical: parties that seem like an indistinguishable lump of communism to outsiders are often a byzantine warren of rivalries pitting Lenino-Marxists against Maoists, Trots against post-communists. (The last French presidential election in 2022 included four such factions.) In the days of the cold war many communist parties simply copy-pasted directives from Moscow, giving their creed a certain coherence. Today, not so much. The populist-left parties across Europe „share certain core values but they interpret them differently”, says Luke March of the University of Edinburgh. Some still laud Russia—old habits linger stubbornly—while others have moved on. Is the EU a neoliberal club oppressing workers, or the only way for the lumpenproletariat to shake off dependency on imperialist America? Ask two lefties and you will get three answers.
然而，幽灵依然顽固。富人或许会感到不安，因为时间似乎站在左翼民粹主义一边。其在德国和法国年轻人中的成功引人注目。在柏林，埃拉尔普女士赢得了约45%的35岁以下选民的支持，是下一个政治派系得分的三倍多。在法国，左翼民粹主义更是遥遥领先，在24岁以下人群中的支持率接近50%。右翼民粹主义在农村地区表现良好，而左翼对手似乎已俘获了城市人群。不驯服的法国是许多名牌大学学生的默认选择，也就是明日精英的首选。随着时间的推移，一些年轻人可能会变得温和，转向中间派——开始缴税就有这种效果。如果他们不这样做，马克思或许还能会心一笑，哪怕不是最后的笑话，至少也能窃喜一番。© 2026 经济学人报社有限公司。版权所有。
Splitters! Still, spectres die hard. What might justifiably haunt the rich is the idea that time is on the side of the populist left. Its success among the youth in Germany and France is striking. In Berlin Ms Eralp won around 45% of voters aged under 35, more than triple the score of the next political faction. In France the populist left is even further ahead, polling at nearer 50% of under-24s. Whereas the populist right is doing well in rural areas, their rivals on the left seem to have captured the urban crowd. Unsubmissive France is the default choice of many a student at prestigious universities, ie, tomorrow’s elite. In time, some of the youngsters will mellow into centrists—starting to pay tax has that effect. If they don’t, Marx may yet have, if not the last laugh, at least a chuckle. © 2026 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.
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