Thoughts on National Syndicalism?

[ContrarianLemming]

national syndicalism was the basis of the italian fascist party, what do you guys think of it?
to me it just seems like a bastardization of syndicalism, i really dont see much of a connection with syndicalism, are no connection at all to anarcho syndicalism

http://www.freewebs.com/nationalsyndicalistparty/platform.htm

and while where at it, any thoughts on National Anarchists?

[Dimentio]

At the beginning of the 20th century, the main polarisation of European politics was between two mass currents, nationalism and various socialistic ideologies. Some smart-heads got the idea to mixture it all together to win support, and thus created ideologies which seem to suit RPG's better than real life (anarcho-monarchism probably being the worst example).

As for national anarchists, they are ultimately not discussing anarchism, but rather ethnocracy as they want the society to be divided up in ethnically secluded mini-societies which don't intermingle. In some ways, they could be seen as an attempt by nazis to go into the mainstream (their ideology, except for the rhetoric, has some similarities to the multiculturalism and community cohesion envisioned by some progressives).

[danny bohy]

u put national In front of any ideaology it becomes facist.

[Ravachol]

national syndicalism was the basis of the italian fascist party, what do you guys think of it?
to me it just seems like a bastardization of syndicalism, i really dont see much of a connection with syndicalism, are no connection at all to anarcho syndicalism

http://www.freewebs.com/nationalsyndicalistparty/platform.htm

and while where at it, any thoughts on National Anarchists?

I'll requote what I posted before in a thread on Mussolini and the National-'Syndicalist' roots of Fascism (mostly stemming from Sorel with little in common with the practice and theory of the CGT he claimed to study and who later turned to the Reactionary, Weimar Conservative-inspired Action Francaise).



Mussolini started out as a disciple of Sorel and went on to be active in the National-Syndicalist movement. Basically, the broad socialist movement split over the issue whether or not to support WWI and the National-Syndicalist movement sprang from the 'socialists' who supported WWI, eventually leading to the introduction of ultra-nationalism in their circles leading to a desire for 'national unity' and the abandonment of class struggle alltogether. The result was National-Syndicalism, the prelude of fascism. It should ofcourse be obvious that national unity is opposed to the interests of syndicalism and class struggle is an integral part of it and hence National-Syndicalism is no real syndicalism. But alas, there you go.




National-Syndicalism is corporatist in nature. So it's closer to Social-Democracy which preaches class-cooperation as well than to free-market capitalism. The main difference with Social-Democracy is that the organisation of fascism is far more authoritarian than Social-Democracy. Secondly, under fascism (whether National-Syndicalist or National-Socialist corporatism) the state uses it's power over industry mainly to direct it towards goals set by the authoritarian state, in the interests of the elite running that state. So it depends on your definition of capitalism. If you define capitalism in 'utopian' terms, like libertarians do, coporatism obviously misses the free markets and such. If you define capitalism as being mainly centred around private ownership of the means of production, it's obviously capitalist. So to me, corporatism (social-democracy included) is capitalist but with a stronger focus on class-colaboration to guarantee 'national unity'.


National-Syndicalism isn't so much Syndicalist as it is Corporatist. After Mussolini was thrown out of the PSI over the issue of Nationalism and his fixation with Irredentism, he abandoned class struggle all together and his vision of 'National-Syndicalism' included capital together with the state (run exclusively by the Fascist Party) as a major part of the 'copora' (economic corporatist councils) running industry.

Even the earliest variants of National-'Syndicalism' which sprung from Sorel (who was not a Nationalist himself though) and still talked about class struggle were completely out of touch with Syndicalist theory and practice. The vision of the general strike as a 'heroic myth' in the Bergsonian sense that ought to propel the masses forward is, despite appealing in a romantic sense, a dangerous one when combined with elitist vanguardism as advocated by Sorel for it quickly leads to authoritarianism.

Whilst initially a fierce anti-nationalist, Sorel later grew disappointed with the CGT for their lack of revolutionary violence (as opposed to his Blanquist vision of revolution) and turned to several reactionary movements who also circled around the Bergsonian idea of myth, most notably the heirs of the Weimar Conservative movement (including figures like Edgar Jung, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Junger (the main inspirator of National-Anarchism),Oswald Spengler,etc).
One of these groups was Action Francaise another the Cercle Proudhon (which bastardised Proudhon's Ideas into some sort of corporatist, elitist economics suited for an ultra-nationalist authoritarian movement).

Basically Sorel wasn't so much a nationalist, as he was a hopeless romantic and utopian fixated on myth and violence. This merged perfectly with the 'pure heroic masculine' ideal of early fascism however and that's where National-Syndicalism comes from.

As for National-Anarchism, I'll requote what I posted in the thread on Australia's National-Anarchists



National-Anarchism is a third-positionist permutation developed mainly by ex-NF member Troy Southgate. Ideologically it's very close to the Weimar Conservative Revolutionary movement (Eg. the like of Ernst Junger) and radical Traditionalism.

Their conception of Anarchism revolves around Junger's adaption of Stirnir's "Anarch", the 'sovereign individual'. This 'sovereign individual' is interpreted as the embodiment of the 'natural aristocracy'. Their synthesis of Weimar conservative elitism and Junger's version of the "Anarch" is highly hierarchical.
Most national-anarchists don't reject static hierarchies at all and simply criticise those hierarchies generated by liberal democracy. And for all the wrong reasons too, namely them being 'unnatural' and 'poisonous for the volksgemeinschaft' to name two.
Obviously this core thesis alone is anathema to Anarchism.

National-Anarchism is highly elitist, anti-democratic and revolves around an 'appeal to nature' and other irrationalist assumptions about 'natural order', which are common traits of fascism. Their supposed rejection of the state is laughable as they argue in favor of racially/culturally homogenic, seperated communes where 'traditional tribal authority' is the rule of law. This is obviously statist, highly authoritarian and reactionary. It's nothing more than a fancy name for traditionalist, decentralized, tribalist fascism.


As you can see, again National-Anarchism is an attempt at third-position Syncretic politics originating in the Weimar conservative movement and has little to do with actual Anarchism. If anything, it resembles as bit of Stirnerism, but it's Nationalism is not individualist enough for that. It's basically decentralised ethno-nationalism.

As Dimentio observed keenly above, it has something in common with modern day 'multiculturalism', in the sense advocated by mainstream social-democratic parties, though. Do note 'multiculturalism' doesn't mean letting multiple cultures and ethnic groups co-exist, it is a specific ordering of society according to ethno-cultural groups represented by traditional communal authority figures that represent the entire, supposedly internally homogenous, group. This is obviously anathema to the free association principles of Anarchism and the class struggle.
It's funny though how this resembles National-Anarchist thought though...

A good article on this is from Aufheben #17 (http://libcom.org/library/croisants-roses)

[ContrarianLemming]

great post ravachol, really helpful, thank you very much

how you describe national anarchism actually reminds me of feudalism, without the king, i've always thought of feudalism as decentralized fascism.
it's worth mentioning that franco, whose movement today lives on through natonal syndicalism, was not a fascist in the italian or german sense, but a feudalist/monarchist. you might have noticed that the site i linked gives links to others "friendly" sites, there basically all "falangist"/spanish fascist sites.

i idea behind national anarchism, in it's critic of current hierarchy while suggesting it's own kind, reminds me of anarcho capitalism, which rejects corporate fascism (corporation over community) while suggesting it's own more decentralized individualistic fascism of individual boss over worker

thoughts?

[Ravachol]

great post ravachol, really helpful, thank you very much

how you describe national anarchism actually reminds me of feudalism, without the king,


It's funny you mention this as the National-Anarchists themselves have a great interest in Feudalism as examplified by the articles in Synthesis, the main magazine of the National-Anarchist group 'Cercle de la rose noire'.
At times they blend in Hans-Hermann Hoppe's (an ultra anti-democratic 'anarcho'-capitalist) monarchist thought.
Basically Hoppe advocates private ownership of the full public sphere amounting to Monarchism whilst stating his disgust with egalitarianism and democracy.

Hoppe also favors the 'Natural State' with closed borders, a form of regionalist nationalism merged with his insane authoritarian form of capitalism.
A lot of National-Anarchists adhere to Evolian thought as well, which was not so much Feudalist in the medieval European sense, but resembled the Indian Caste system (arguably feudalist in some sense as well).



i've always thought of feudalism as decentralized fascism.


Well that's a bit too reductionist. Fascism is always nationalist in nature and is a system tailored specifically for an industrial society. Feudalism, whilst highly authoritarian, can be very anti-nationalist and usually occurs in pre-industrial societies given the fact that Feudalism historically arose from ownership of large tracts of agrarian land, the main means of production in a pre-industrial society (We can see that Feudalism eroded with the rise of mercantilism and was, before that, threatened by the power of the craftsmen guilds).



it's worth mentioning that franco, whose movement today lives on through natonal syndicalism, was not a fascist in the italian or german sense, but a feudalist/monarchist.


Well there's two sides to Franco's regime. There's the Falangist origins with Primero de Rivera, who's thought was National-Syndicalist as well. And then there's the practice of Franco's regime, which used it's corporatist control over industry to favor the captains of industry.
This became obvious after de Rivera's Authoritarian 'Vertical Labour Unions' were put under control of the employers, which basically let the 'unions' function as a means of controlling the working class.

The main difference between de Rivera's initial Falangism as well as early Italian Fascism and Strasserist National-Socialism on one side and Franco's regime, Hitlerist National Socialism and, for example, Dolfuss' Austria on the other is the approach to 'fascism'. The former are all mass-movements with a very populist approach to fascism and a high distrust towards the ruling elite and a focus on violence. Whilst the latter are highly elitist regimes (movements would be to big of a term) affluent in upper-class circles bankrolled by big business.
Dolfuss' regime was, like Franco's, Nationalist Clerical-Authoritarian in nature and far removed from a mass-movement, their fascism was a very top-down sort of fascism, akin to the Hitlerist strain of National Socialism in the spirit of Himmler-Rosenberg.

So, in short, fascism has different faces, some populist mass-movements appealing to the 'national working class male' others elitist, sometimes monarchist/feudalist circles of affluent schemers.