Ľuboš Blaha

Political activity

Blaha is a Member of National Council of Slovak Republic since 2012. He is the Member of the SMER-SD parliamentary group, although he is not a member of the party. He is considered the most left-wing MP in Slovakia. Blaha is a self-professed Marxist, but he rejects the former Stalinist regime. He endorses modern Western Marxism, radical democratic movements and culturally liberal positions. He is one of the most liberal Members in the SMER-SD parliamentary group in relation to minorities' and human rights issues. However, he has always claimed that in the era of neoliberal globalization the Left must be more substantially focused on socio-economic (radical redistribution of wealth, cooperative ownership, economic democracy) rather than cultural issues. Nevertheless, he supports and often advocates the liberal Left, or the so called New Left.

Politically, he supports classic social democracy with its emphasis on economic issues (Old Left), but he also stands in solidarity with the more radical socialist regimes, including Chavez's Venezuela, Castro's Cuba and Morales's Bolivia. He is often the subject of criticism for his admiration of Karl Marx and Che Guevara. His biggest inspiration is the Scandinavian social model, especially the one in Sweden. He praises particularly the high progressive taxes and worker's project funds (lontagarfondner). In Slovakia, he promotes the cooperative business model such as the Spanish-Basque Mondragón Cooperative Corporation.

He is a foreign policy realist. His opinions are inspired by the school of international political realism (e.g. the ideas of Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer) and neo-Marxism (especially William Robinson, Immanuel Wallerstein and Antonio Negri). He is one of the biggest critics of U.S. foreign policy. He openly criticized not only the war in Iraq, but also the war in Afghanistan. He also criticized the Western involvement in Libya and Syria. He is a critic of the foreign policy of Israel in relation to Palestine. He advocates for the rights of Armenians in relation to the Nagorno-Karabakh and criticizes Turkish foreign policy. He endorses many of the ideas of Noam Chomsky and Slavoj Zizek.

He is one of the greatest defenders of the Russian Federation in Slovakia since the Ukrainian crisis broke out. He is not an apologist for Vladimir Putin's regime, but he perceives the crisis in Ukraine as a geopolitical clash between the West and Russia, and he rejects the one-sided criticism of Russia and the growing Russophobia in Europe. He openly criticized the Sanctions against russia and he describes Russia as a friendly nation that liberated Slovakia from fascism in 1945.

Blaha is very critical towards the European Union, but rejects euroscepticism and nationalism. He considers the EU a neoliberal and elitist project, but he does not see a better alternative for Slovakia than the EU. He supports the fight for a different, better, and more social Europe that will be more left-wing and democratic. In the past, he advocated the project of European basic income, he consistently promotes social economy and cooperatives, and strongly advocates for a "Social Union".

He is the most pronounced critic of the TTIP agreement in Slovakia. He was the first Slovak Member of Parliament to visit the so-called "TTIP Reading Room". He describes the agreement as synonymous with neo-liberalism and the colonization of the European social model by American transnational corporations, and as the Chairman of the National Council of the Slovak Republic for European Affairs he actively supports its intense scrutiny.

During the Greek crisis in 2015, he was the only politician in Slovakia, who openly supported Syriza and defended the arguments of Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis. After the breaking-up of Syriza and the agreement between Greece and its creditors, he further criticizes the EU for the "rape of Greece" and for the imposition of a "neo-liberal diktat". He remains a supporter of Syriza.

Blaha has been one of the most resounding opponents of the mandatory quota proposals during migration crisis. His arguments are based on human rights (not forcing refugees to be settled in countries in which they do not want to live), on tactical thinking (Central European societies are not ready for shock solutions, they need time and sensitive approach), and on political realism (mandatory quotas in these societies would only favor fascists and the political far-right). He has criticized "bleeding-heart liberals" for their contempt of the people who are afraid of uncontrolled migration, calling them "racists" and "xenophobes". However, he strongly refuses and condemns islamophobia and advocates for the solidarity of Slovakia with the EU, be it material, financial or personal.

He is the author of the Declaration of the NC SR, in which all Slovak parliamentary groups declared their opposition to the quotas and emphasized other forms of solidarity, systemic solutions and the fight against right-wing extremists taking advantage of the migration crisis.

In the 2016 election campaign, he demonstrated his disenchantment with the EU and stressed the four issues which he sees as the main failures of Europe: Greece, Russia, TTIP and the migration crisis. There were other main themes of his election campaign in addition to the criticism of the European Union – resistance to capitalism and exploitation; resistance to Western imperialism and propaganda; fight for peace. Blaha espouses socialism, anti-capitalism, alter-globalism and moderate pacifism. Thus, he is marked as "communist" and "Russian agent" by critics.

Blaha is consistently one of the most pronounced representatives of anti-fascism amongst Slovak politicians. After the 2016 elections, when the neo-Nazi party Kotleba-LSNS got elected into the Slovak parliament, he has launched a Facebook-based series he calls "Re-educating Marian" (Marian Kotleba), in which is concentrates his criticism of the extreme right. Blaha condemns any signs of racism, xenophobia and fascism, he considers them as criminal offenses. He uncompromisingly refuses the fascist Slovak state under the presidency Jozef Tiso (1939–1945). He opines that fascists belong to jail, not to parliament.

Books