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Even though she lost the French elections, Marine Le Pen demonstrated with her unprecedented vote count the growing potency of one of Putin's chief allies in Europe. Another of his admirers, Hungarian Prime Minister VĂktor Orban, recently won re-election in a landslide.
Less visibly but no less importantly, far-right parties are surging in the two original bastions of fascism: Italy and Spain. Giorgia Meloni, the homophobic and anti-immigrant leader of Brothers of Italy, could become Italy's first far-right prime minister after elections due in 2023.
A small political earthquake shook Spain last month when Vox, an explicitly xenophobic party (and, like Brothers of Italy, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party), entered a coalition government in the region of Castilla y Leon with the center-right People's Party (PP).
This is the first time since the death of fascist dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975 that far-rightists have held political office in Spain. National elections due next year could elevate to the heart of Spanish politics a party whose leader calls for a "Reconquista" of Spain (and who tweeted a video of himself riding a horse, Putin-style, across Andalucia).
Those who hope Vox might yield to the moderating influence of the People's Party are likely to be disappointed. The PP has already moved further to the right in order to appeal to Vox voters. In Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the demagogic and very popular president of the Madrid region, Vox has a vocal ally within the PP.
With their rhetoric about Catholicism and the sacredness of family, skepticism about climate change, attacks on LGBTQ rights, and neo-imperialist fantasies about the Spanish past, Vox members may at first sight seem like boilerplate white nationalists with a Latin accent.
The party's horse-riding leader Santiago Abascal boasts that he is never without his Smith & Wesson. His rants against immigrants and "dictadura progre" (woke or politically correct dictatorship), as well as his promise to build walls and to make Spain great again, appear to have been lifted from former U.S. President Donald Trump.
But Vox is deeply rooted in Spanish society, with supporters in the bureaucracy, police and judiciary. The party's leaders are alumni of elite private universities in Spain and abroad, not know-nothing nativists. Several are sophisticated professionals with experience in major banks and multinational corporations.
They know that political machismo helps relieve existential anxieties among an aging population. As in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere, many in Spain's still-conservative society feel threatened by the presence of immigrants and the emergence of strong feminist and LGBTQ movements.
Vox has also cannily hijacked the popular Spanish nationalism that emerged in reaction to Catalan separatism. It would thus be a mistake to regard the party as just another opportunistic far-right group, preying on voters' discontent with the traditional two-party structure.
Vox leaders have moved fast to cement ties with transnational far-right networks. Last year, Abascal announced the "Madrid Charter," a permanent organization that aims to consolidate his alliance with Latin American far-rightists against what he calls "communism."
In Madrid this January, Abascal presided over a grand conclave of European far-rightists including Orban, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Marine Le Pen. Far-right dynasts such as Le Pen's niece Marion Marechal and Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the Brazilian president, count among the party's friends.
Of course, Putin's widely condemned invasion of Ukraine has compromised Vox and its compatriots in Europe. The Polish government, for one, has parted ways with Orban over Ukraine. Other signatories of the Madrid Charter have been forced by public opinion to denounce Russia's warmongering.
Nevertheless, ideological affinities and institutional links between Russia and far-right networks in Europe may survive Putin's assault on Ukraine, especially as the cost of living continues to rise steeply. As Ukraine fades from the front pages, Putin's fellow travelers will be emboldened yet again.
Italy's contribution to the effort against Putin, already uncertain, would falter if the far-right assumes power after next year's elections. A right-wing government in Spain that depends on Vox is likely not only to threaten the country's recent social progress, such as abortion rights for women, but also to weaken its present strong support for Ukraine.
Ukrainian resistance to Putin's neo-fascism has proven to be robust. Much of Europe, however, is in danger of repeating its traumatic history of weakness before its own would-be strongmen.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Pankaj Mishra is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is author, most recently, of "Run and Hide."