The original German National Bolsheviks?

[Palingenisis]

Does anyone know anything about the original German National Bolsheviks?

Someone told me recently that Karl Radek actually had a lot of time for them.

[Sasha]

moved to history (and into ravachols line of fire ;))

[ComradeOm]

Someone told me recently that Karl Radek actually had a lot of time for them.That would be a surprise. IIRC Broué's The German Revolution deals with this in passing but I can't recall the details

[28350]

You mean Otto and Gregor Strasser?

I think there were some others that were more leftist then they were, I'm not sure. Whatever I learned about them I found on wikipedia, so just search there, I guess.

[ComradeOm]

You mean Otto and Gregor StrasserThe Strassers were never involved with 'national Bolshevism', despite being claimed as heroes by modern NazBols. This was a subsection of the KAPD/KPD that was based around Laufenberg and Wolfheim in Hamburg

[Die Neue Zeit]

German "National Bolshevism" was centered more around the ideas of Ernst Niekisch than the Strasser brothers.

[Palingenisis]

You mean Otto and Gregor Strasser?

I think there were some others that were more leftist then they were, I'm not sure. Whatever I learned about them I found on wikipedia, so just search there, I guess.

No comrade I dont mean Otto and Gregor Strasser or anything to do with "National Socialism".

Im talking about people like Ernst Niesich (?) and Ernst Junger once he stopped being just a total reactionary. These guys from what I can make out were not folkish, racial-nationalists and were very Pro-Soviet.

[Palingenisis]

The "socialism" favoured by the Strasser Brothers from what I can remember was at best Proudonian and at worst basically "Distributism" in red colours. The National Bolsheviks were in favour of central planning, etc.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I know where this thread is going. Sufficed to say, the Third Period was one of lost opportunities, when considering that both the SPD and the Nazis were not really united.

[GreenCommunism]

some national bolshevik faction in russia saw socialism in one country as a victory.

[Palingenisis]

I know where this thread is going. Sufficed to say, the Third Period was one of lost opportunities, when considering that both the SPD and the Nazis were not really united.

The National Bolsheviks from what I can make out were never on friendly terms with the Nazies for various reasons and indeed almost all ended up in concentration camps pretty quickly after Hitler came to power. Ernst Niekisch had come out of the SPD and had even been for a brief period in the USPD and taken part in the Bavarian workers' uprising of 1919 (Im going to ask a question either in history of learning about the USPD soon).

In what way was do you see the Third Period as being one of lost opportunities?

[Palingenisis]

some national bolshevik faction in russia saw socialism in one country as a victory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Ustrialov

The original National Bolsheviks such as the guy above in Russia were very different from the NazBols of today.

[28350]

Can the nationalism of a capitalist nation ever be progressive?

[Die Neue Zeit]

In what way was do you see the Third Period as being one of lost opportunities?

That's better discussed in private. ;)

[Palingenisis]

Can the nationalism of a capitalist nation ever be progressive?


There is nationalism and nationalism.

There are good grounds for seeing Germany as an "oppressed nation" during that period.

I guess what I was trying to find out is whether the original German National Bolsheviks were actually "Fash" or not.

[Rjevan]

The National Bolsheviks from what I can make out were never on friendly terms with the Nazies for various reasons and indeed almost all ended up in concentration camps pretty quickly after Hitler came to power. Ernst Niekisch had come out of the SPD and had even been for a brief period in the USPD and taken part in the Bavarian workers' uprising of 1919 (Im going to ask a question either in history of learning about the USPD soon).

Indeed, the German Nazbols were never on good terms with the Nazis. The left wing of the NSDAP (brothers Strasser, the early Goebbels, Ernst Röhm) mustn't be confused with the national bolshevik movement which mainly emerged from the writings of former KPD members Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim. They propagated "volk struggle/people's struggle" instead of class struggle because they believed that not only the working class but the whole people is revolutionary and that nationalism and socialism are inseperable.

Their ideas were adopted by people like Ernst Niekisch and Karl Otto Paetel.

Niekisch, although being member of the USPD and involved in the Bavarian Soviet Republic, was more "right-wing"; he rejects class struggle and thus Marxism as "exaggeration of the importance of class struggle [...] which leads to a radical overthrow of traditions". Here he mainly refers to Prussian traditions which he idolized and seeked to combine with the "benefits of socialist economy and society" (= "Prussian socialism"). He emphasizes that the German people have to rise up against Versailles and form a strong state based on nationalism, Prussian militarism and authoritarianism and socialist economy. Then this new Germany has to ally with the USSR against the "rotten West" which is decadent and dying (he e.g. thought that the blacks ruin France). Niekisch was the editor of the "national revolutionary" newspaper Widerstand (Resistance) and in 1932 he wrote the book "Hitler. Ein deutsches Verhängnis" (Hitler. A German doom, here is the cover (http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/niekisch/index.jpg)) and warned about the Nazis rise to power. This got him imprisonment and torture under the Nazis. Later he first lived in the DDR but then moved to West Berlin.

Karl Otto Paetel on the other hand was more "left-wing" and upheld class struggle and seeked close relations with the KPD but he still was strictly anti-democratic and nationalist. He founded the "Gruppe Sozialrevolutionärer Nationalisten" (Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists). He also massively criticised the Nazis and published his main work, "The National Bolshevist Manifesto" in 1933. After imprisonment he fled to Paris in 1935 where he published "national revolutionary materials" for his comrades in Germany and tried to invade and undermine the Hitler Youth (which led to the founding of the "Black HJ", a group of oppositional HJ members). In 1965 he published a book about the history of the German national bolshevist movement (cover (http://euro-synergies.hautetfort.com/media/02/01/494495008.jpg)).

Although this was not intended Niekisch and to a certain degree Paetel, too influenced the "left" Nazis, like the brothers Strasser. They later left the NSDAP and created the "Black Front" which adopted the "Hammer and Sword" symbolism introduced by Niekisch (Strasserist flag (http://www.fotw.net/images/d/de%7Dnpdhs.gif) and Niekisch's symbol (http://www.bublies-verlag.de/media/niek-wid-30mm.jpg)). But as I said, the "National Bolsheviks" and the "Strasserists" had different aims and followed different ideas and while both clashed with the Nazis the National Bolsheviks never supported the NSDAP while the Strasserists only left the party when they saw that they had no chance against Hitler.

While the Natonal Bolsheviks were indeed pro-USSR and had sympathies for certain aspects of socialism they were clearly nationalist, volkish, anti-democratic and often racist. Today there are "autonomous nationalists" in Germany who use some of Niekisch's slogans in order to attract a "national revolutionary" audience and there is also a very small group of German Nazbols who mainly uphold Niekisch (some are pro-Strasser, some pro-Paetel) and try to put the works of the original Nazbols online and "invade" leftist and Antifa demonstrations with Niekisch's slogans for national revoltuion. While they are anti-NPD (German neo-nazi party) they clearly show fascist tendencies and are usually very unwelcome at leftist demonstartions. Ustrialov is a different story again and Russia's Nazbols are indeed very different from the Nazbols of the Weimar Republic.

[Palingenisis]

Thank you Rjevan!

[Dimentio]

Ernst Niekisch &/co really had more in common with modern-day anti-imperialist socialist nationalism than with fascism. Germany in the 1920's was a humiliated society, and some German communists and nationalists wanted to merge together together with the Soviet Union as well as liberation movements in the colonised nations against the western powers. I know that they were notable enough for Hitler to diss them in his book.

[Palingenisis]

Ernst Niekisch &/co really had more in common with modern-day anti-imperialist socialist nationalism than with fascism. Germany in the 1920's was a humiliated society, and some German communists and nationalists wanted to merge together together with the Soviet Union as well as liberation movements in the colonised nations against the western powers. I know that they were notable enough for Hitler to diss them in his book.

The Strasser brothers were reactionary fascist scum. I have no doubts about that at all.

The question is how far the German National Bolsheviks of the 20s and 30s were actual racial nationalists and just how reactionary were they. I really wish I could read German.

Ernst Niekisch according to wikipedia became an "orthodox" and even "anti-nationalist" Marxist while in the concentration camps during the war...He left the GDR over the putting down of a rebellion by workers over certain conditions.

[Antifa94]

The least dangerous/ most tolerable fascist in my eyes is a strasserite- they can easily be reeducated. contemporaneously, they are the most dangerous because they can recruit the working class.

Strasserism is NOT national bolshevism.

[Devrim]

Strasserism is NOT national bolshevism.

This is true. The two main figures in the original national Bolshevism were Fritz Wolffheim and Heinrich Laufenberg.

They were expelled along with the majority of the German Communist Party for refusing to abide by the 'conditions of membership'. Although they requested membership of the KAPD at its founding congress they refused it.


The question is how far the German National Bolsheviks of the 20s and 30s were actual racial nationalists and just how reactionary were they.

They weren't racists at all, as far as I am aware. They had positions on nationalism not far from those of most people on RevLeft today, in my opinion


I really wish I could read German.

There is one text by Wolhiem, and one by Laufenburg on Libcom:

http://libcom.org/history/factory-organisations-or-trade-unions-fritz-wolffheim

http://libcom.org/history/hamburg-revolution-heinrich-laufenberg

Devrim

[Rjevan]

They weren't racists at all, as far as I am aware. They had positions on nationalism not far from those of most people on RevLeft today, in my opinion
Depends. Laufenberg and Wolffheim weren't racist, at least I haven't seen anything clearly racist by them so far (although Wolffheim became more and more anti-Marxist later) but Niekisch was racist. It's not only his ideas about Prussians - and thus "Prussianism" - being the natural leaders of Germany because of their "superior" combination of German and Slavic blood but statements like this which can be found repeatedly when he rants against the West. He illustartes why Germany has to ally with the East and reject the West, as Germany is faced with these two options:


Entweder asiatisch oder afrikanisch zu werden, sich an das vernegerte Frankreich oder an das tatarische Rußland zu schmiegen.
"To become either Asian [i.e. Russian] or African [i.e. the West], to nestle to nigger-France or to Tatar-Russia."

[Dimentio]

The Strasser brothers were reactionary fascist scum. I have no doubts about that at all.

The question is how far the German National Bolsheviks of the 20s and 30s were actual racial nationalists and just how reactionary were they. I really wish I could read German.

Ernst Niekisch according to wikipedia became an "orthodox" and even "anti-nationalist" Marxist while in the concentration camps during the war...He left the GDR over the putting down of a rebellion by workers over certain conditions.

I think that they might very well have been borderline antisemitic, but they weren't racists in the classical sense since they equated the German struggle for national self-determination with for example the struggle of Egypt, of India and of China. They were also positive to a Berlin-Moscow axis against the west, a policy which during the 1920's and up to Hitler's acquisition of power actually was pursued by the German army, which purchased equipment from the Soviet Union in return for educating the officers of the Soviet Army (the Rapallo arrangement). In 1934, the German army actually opposed a non-aggression pact with Poland since the army was Pro-soviet.

As for racism during that time. It was a time when it was politically correct to be racist. We often forget that when we look at the early 20th century that racism was prevalent almost everywhere. The only ones who weren't racist were basically christian and secular humanist philantropists on one side, and communists on the other.

[Palingenisis]

While the Natonal Bolsheviks were indeed pro-USSR and had sympathies for certain aspects of socialism they were clearly nationalist, volkish, anti-democratic and often racist. Today there are "autonomous nationalists" in Germany who use some of Niekisch's slogans in order to attract a "national revolutionary" audience and there is also a very small group of German Nazbols who mainly uphold Niekisch (some are pro-Strasser, some pro-Paetel) and try to put the works of the original Nazbols online and "invade" leftist and Antifa demonstrations with Niekisch's slogans for national revoltuion. While they are anti-NPD (German neo-nazi party) they clearly show fascist tendencies and are usually very unwelcome at leftist demonstartions. Ustrialov is a different story again and Russia's Nazbols are indeed very different from the Nazbols of the Weimar Republic.

When you say volkish what exactly do you mean by that comrade and how is being "volkish" different from being an ordinary racial nationalist? There is an "Autonomous Nationalist" group in England called "English Nationalist Resistance" but looking over their forum the only serious difference I saw between them and the run of the mill "revolutionary right" was that they preffered US style hardcore punk to oi! music and copied the autonomes and sXe kids in terms of clothing style as opposed to being skinheads. They were cynical about the BNP and NF but said that would never the less vote for them.

Are these "Autonomous Nationalist"/modern German Nazbols a reaction to the "Anti-German" scum who seem to have infected a lot of the German Left with their ideas (if the actual Anti-German groups remain quite small)? What fascist tendencies do they show?

[Palingenisis]

Depends. Laufenberg and Wolffheim weren't racist, at least I haven't seen anything clearly racist by them so far (although Wolffheim became more and more anti-Marxist later) but Niekisch was racist. It's not only his ideas about Prussians - and thus "Prussianism" - being the natural leaders of Germany because of their "superior" combination of German and Slavic blood but statements like this which can be found repeatedly when he rants against the West. He illustartes why Germany has to ally with the East and reject the West, as Germany is faced with these two options

But did Laufenberg and Wolfheim actually work with Ernst Niekisch?

Niekisch came out of the SPD....Did any of people called National Bolsheviks come out of the "Right" proper besides Ernst Junger (and how much he was an actual National Bolshevik is open to question though he was friendly with them)?

[Palingenisis]

http://libcom.org/library/appendix-iii-note-national-bolshevism

[Palingenisis]

`The above was written by a French Left-Communist (though non-ICC).

[Ravachol]

When you say volkish what exactly do you mean by that comrade and how is being "volkish" different from being an ordinary racial nationalist? There is an "Autonomous Nationalist" group in England called "English Nationalist Resistance" but looking over their forum the only serious difference I saw between them and the run of the mill "revolutionary right" was that they preffered US style hardcore punk to oi! music and copied the autonomes and sXe kids in terms of clothing style as opposed to being skinheads. They were cynical about the BNP and NF but said that would never the less vote for them.

Are these "Autonomous Nationalist"/modern German Nazbols a reaction to the "Anti-German" scum who seem to have infected a lot of the German Left with their ideas (if the actual Anti-German groups remain quite small)? What fascist tendencies do they show?

True 'Nazbol' tendencies of the Niekisch variety are pretty small compared to the Strasserite variety although there are several Niekisch-inspired currents in Europe's far right scene, most notably the webzine 'Der Fahnentraeger' (which links to the DKP, Marxists.org, the IRSP,etc) which mainly holds that only 'volkish' segments of the working class are revolutionary thus trying to merge racial-nationalism and class struggle in an utterly confused fashion.
Miniscule segments of the Dutch NSA (National Socialist Action) follow the same line which has led to conflict both within the NSA and the far-right scene.

Most NazBols of the Niekisch variety nowadays try vainly to mix racial nationalism with 'class struggle' effectively resulting in some weird argument in favor of what ammounts to racially-based 'working class' tribes, seperated from eachother. Other groups are thinly veiled corporatists holding that an entire 'nation' can be a revolutionary 'class' (which they then interpret as 'group' rather than a relationship to the means of production) rising up against 'finance capital' (in an anti-semitic fashion ofcourse), thus not differing that much from unquestioning anti-impies who maintain that 'national capital' isn't the problem and is an actual ally. :rolleyes:
Obviously, this has nothing to do with communism whatsoever.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Depends. Laufenberg and Wolffheim weren't racist, at least I haven't seen anything clearly racist by them so far (although Wolffheim became more and more anti-Marxist later) but Niekisch was racist. It's not only his ideas about Prussians - and thus "Prussianism" - being the natural leaders of Germany because of their "superior" combination of German and Slavic blood but statements like this which can be found repeatedly when he rants against the West. He illustartes why Germany has to ally with the East and reject the West, as Germany is faced with these two options:

"To become either Asian [i.e. Russian] or African [i.e. the West], to nestle to nigger-France or to Tatar-Russia."

I don't know. Marx made some racist comments himself.

His Prussianism reeks more of chauvinistic nationalism than outright racism to me, and is not dissimilar to Stalin's own Great Russian chauvinism... especially during and after WWII.


I think that they might very well have been borderline antisemitic, but they weren't racists in the classical sense since they equated the German struggle for national self-determination with for example the struggle of Egypt, of India and of China. They were also positive to a Berlin-Moscow axis against the west, a policy which during the 1920's and up to Hitler's acquisition of power actually was pursued by the German army, which purchased equipment from the Soviet Union in return for educating the officers of the Soviet Army (the Rapallo arrangement). In 1934, the German army actually opposed a non-aggression pact with Poland since the army was Pro-soviet.

I suppose there should be another thread on the validity of the foreign politics that started from the verbal repudiation of Versailles (plus military buildup), gained momentum with Anschluss, continued further with the re-partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union (Germany here being both socialistic and nationalistic in this alternate history), and culminated in the demise of France.

Of course, in such a thread, there would be discussions on Germany helping the Republican forces instead, as well as itching for the trigger finger against Fascist Italy, leaving the Soviet Union to settle the score with Japan, Finland, and at least part of non-Polish Eastern Europe for the sake of Slavic unity.

[Palingenisis]

Could Juche be called National Bolsheviskism? Has Niekisch had any direct or indirect influence on North Korea?

[Dimentio]

I suppose there should be another thread on the validity of the foreign politics that started from the verbal repudiation of Versailles (plus military buildup), gained momentum with Anschluss, continued further with the re-partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union (Germany here being both socialistic and nationalistic in this alternate history), and culminated in the demise of France.

Of course, in such a thread, there would be discussions on Germany helping the Republican forces instead, as well as itching for the trigger finger against Fascist Italy, leaving the Soviet Union to settle the score with Japan, Finland, and at least part of non-Polish Eastern Europe.

If the national bolsheviks had taken over power in Germany, the likelihood for western interventionism would have increased quite much. The western powers were reluctant to do anything against Hitler because they initially recognised the German communists as the "greater evil". If the German government had been Pro-Soviet, the western powers would never have accepted the remilitarisation of the Rhineland or the Anschluss, and would have imposed more far-reaching sanctions against Germany. Do you believe for example that Suharto ever would have got away with invading East Timor if he had been a leftist nationalist?

The term "volkish" means basically "folkish". Germany in the 1920's was a bit like America in the 1960's - even with its own hippie movement, the Wandervögel (travelling birds) who merged together an adoration for nature and free love with nationalism.

Juche has different ideological roots than national bolshevism. A bird and a bat do both fly, but that doesn't mean that they belong to the same group of species.

[Ravachol]

Could Juche be called National Bolsheviskism? Has Niekisch had any direct or indirect influence on North Korea?

I think it would be anachronistic to call Juche National Bolshevism but the similarities between Sŏn'gun and 'Prussian Socialism' are remarkable, each within their own cultural contexts ofcourse.
I do, however, believe neither National Bolshevism (of whatever variety, Niekisch or otherwise) nor Juche have anything to do with Communism.


Another proponent of National Bolshevism I forgot to mention, who's quite prominent in Europe's far-right scene is Jean-François Thiriart. Thiriart was an ex-Fichte Bund (NazBol group) member and was a member of a group composed of ex-leftists supporting collaboration.
He was one of the founders of Jeune Europe which espoused Mosley-like and Strasserist ideas and later become an associate of infamous pan-slavic ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugin.

Thiriart's thought has influenced segments of the German far-right scene around Evola's and Weimar Conservative ideas as well as other groups like the Belgian N-SA (New Solidarist Alternative, not to be confused with the Dutch NSA) who's leader is an ex-Maoist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If the national bolsheviks had taken over power in Germany, the likelihood for western interventionism would have increased quite much. The western powers were reluctant to do anything against Hitler because they initially recognised the German communists as the "greater evil". If the German government had been Pro-Soviet, the western powers would never have accepted the remilitarisation of the Rhineland or the Anschluss, and would have imposed more far-reaching sanctions against Germany.

For the purposes of this discussion I'll leave out the US, due to either its isolationism or its focus on the Pacific.

I do agree with your assessment of a more hostile Franco-British alliance, but I'm sure they'd have their hands full come Spain. It's not like as if any German military official, regardless of political stripe, was preparing to fight the last war like the French military.

Thanks for bringing up the Rhineland, though. For a momentum I thought you'd bring up Sudetenland, which I consider to be chump change in comparison to a re-partition of Poland, which would have bolstered the eastern alliance.

I wonder if a pro-Soviet Germany would have insisted upon a renegotiation of the 1922 Union Treaty such that an enlarged Soviet Union would have been an alliance between Germany and an enlarged RSFSR (per Stalin in 1922). The notion of purged military officials being German agents would have been scrapped.

[Dimentio]

Stalin would very likely have found another excuse to purge the officers. Maybe for being Pro-British or Pro-French.

Eventually, a national bolshevik Germany would anyway have ended up in a conflict with the USSR, much like Mao and Khruschev got into conflict over what in reality was geostrategic issues and the leadership issue over the socialist bloc.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In light of the new thread, please delay that spoiler until the latest possible time. ;)

[Dimentio]

Should we start a BOP maybe? :lol:

[Rjevan]

Sorry for not replying, I had problems with my internet access again...

When you say volkish what exactly do you mean by that comrade and how is being "volkish" different from being an ordinary racial nationalist?
In contrast to ordinary racists and nationalists the volkish racial-nationalists often uphold a sort of "national socialism". The general idea is that "das Volk" (the people) has to be united and struggle against its inner and outer enemies (who often happen to be Jews) and everything foreign and "un-volkish" (like democracy). The volkish movement massively influenced the nazi ideology and Hitler himself.


Are these "Autonomous Nationalist"/modern German Nazbols a reaction to the "Anti-German" scum who seem to have infected a lot of the German Left with their ideas (if the actual Anti-German groups remain quite small)? What fascist tendencies do they show?
They frequently refer to the Anti-Germans as example of what is wrong with the left and basically label every leftist party as Anti-German (like Die Linke and DKP). They also hail Jürgen Elsässer, a former communist and later Anti-German, now not only a notorious homophobe but hero of the "nationalist left". So partially they might be a reaction to the Anti-Germans if they are former leftists but today most of them seem to come from the far right and the NPD.

This makes clear that they are following right-wing populism and "third-positionism" ("neither left nor right", "a third way between communism and capitalism"), the old fascist tactic. They are also attracting many young people who are fed up with capitalism and are looking for something which is rebellious, cool and offers comradeship. So they walk around in Che shirts and keffiyehs and promote their volkish socialism (the banner is saying: "Together against capitalism - for a national socialism"):

http://www.eurorex.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Autonome_Nationalisten-Schwarzer_Block.jpg

While most "autonomous nationalists" are always working together with the NPD the Nazbols I mentioned are keeping distance from and spend a good deal of time on making fun of and criticising the NPD. They call themselves "Netzwerk Sozialistische Nation - Die nationalrevolutionäre Alternative" (Network Socialist Nation - the national revolutionary alternative) and are closely linked to "Der Fahnenträger", the Nazbol online-newspaper which Ravachol mentions. They reject Strasser as nazi and are mainly upholding Niekisch, some go with Paetel, too. But they also reject and mock every leftist party as anti-German and then they complain that nobody likes them but that both the radical left and the radical right hates them...


But did Laufenberg and Wolfheim actually work with Ernst Niekisch?
No, they didn't. Laufenberg tried to stay close to the communist movement and founded a party called "Bund der Kommunisten" (Communist League...) which soon disappeared and later he denounced Marx as "the idealist of historical materialism".
Wolffheim parted from Laufenberg in 1922 and finally joined Paetel's Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists.


Niekisch came out of the SPD....Did any of people called National Bolsheviks come out of the "Right" proper besides Ernst Junger (and how much he was an actual National Bolshevik is open to question though he was friendly with them)?
Not to my knowledge and although Jünger wrote for Niekisch's Widerstand and influenced many "Nazbols" I wouldn't count him to the National Bolshevik movement. He also influenced many nazis and at first also sympathized with Hitler. The term "conservative revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_revolution)" is controversial but imo Jünger clearly fits into this movement while I wouldn't say the German National Bolshevik movement as a whole belongs to it, like some people do.


Could Juche be called National Bolsheviskism? Has Niekisch had any direct or indirect influence on North Korea?
As Ravachol said, equating National Bolshevism and Juche is wrong but they definitely share certain characteristics. And while Niekisch had no influence on the developement of Juche (at least as far as I know) it has to be said that Strasserists like the Kampfbund Deutscher Sozialisten as well as Nazbols like Netzwerk Sozialistische Nation hail the DPRK, Juche and Songun (and Saddam's Ba'athist Iraq).

[Ravachol]

Not to my knowledge and although Jünger wrote for Niekisch's Widerstand and influenced many "Nazbols" I wouldn't count him to the National Bolshevik movement. He also influenced many nazis and at first also sympathized with Hitler. The term "conservative revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_revolution)" is controversial but imo Jünger clearly fits into this movement while I wouldn't say the German National Bolshevik movement as a whole belongs to it, like some people do.


There are parallels between Thiriart, Junger, Niekisch and eventually Sorel though. All seem to uphold the Bergsonian idea of 'myth' as a driving force in some highly idealist fashion (thus necessarily departing from Marxism). This 'myth' (Sorel saw the General Strike as a 'myth' to work towards and not a real tactic) creates identity and national unity and thus a 'revolutionary people' according to these thinkers (Junger hailing 'myth' in a militarist fashion not too different from Evola). To a significant segment of the NazBol movement their 'bolshevism' isn't as much a true socio-economic system as it is a form of 'identity politics' that serve the cause of national unity in one way or another (whether by uniting opposed class interests or by eliminating non-Volkisch elements of the working class).
In a similar fashion, the current Russian NazBols promote 'Bolshevism' (in a truly warped fashion) as a form of national 'identity politics' with imagery of 'the Russian empire at it's highest point'.

This line of reasoning can be found with more traditional fascists as well such Dutch WWII-collaborator Pieter Emiel Keuchenius (a member of the NSB and Niederlandische SS) who wrote 'Bloed en mythe als levenswet' which means 'Blood and Myth as laws of life' which echoes some of these thoughts.

[thälmann]

to the hystoric natbols: strasser and co were fascists with no doubt. niekisch and the groups and peoples in this area are more difficult. there were some antisemites in this movement, but also peoples like nieksich, who were in KZ during fascism and in antifascists organisations after war...but this people i also wouldnt call progressive or revolutionary

autonomous nationalist and nazbol scum here in germany today: theyre ordinary fascists, just trying another tactics. sometimes very confusing like the "Fahneträger" magazine...but they are...no communist or anarchist or even bourgois antifascist in germany would work with them.

because someone said it before: yes the antigermans are a very big problem here, but these autonomous nationalists are not an answer to this phenomenon. if they were, it wouldnt make them better.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This 'myth' (Sorel saw the General Strike as a 'myth' to work towards and not a real tactic) creates identity and national unity and thus a 'revolutionary people' according to these thinkers (Junger hailing 'myth' in a militarist fashion not too different from Evola).

Most of the left today makes a fetish out of strike waves and general action. The "Communist Left" certainly does, by outright stating that only mass strike waves (and preferrably "spontaneous" ones) herald the beginning of some revolutionary period.

Sorel never gave credit to Bakunin for being the true creator of this fetish. Gorter and even Luxemburg never gave credit to Sorel or Bakunin after popularizing their mass strike fetish.

[Ravachol]

Most of the left today makes a fetish out of strike waves and general action. The "Communist Left" certainly does, by outright stating that only mass strike waves (and preferrably "spontaneous" ones) herald the beginning of some revolutionary period.

Sorel never gave credit to Bakunin for being the true creator of this fetish. Gorter and even Luxemburg never gave credit to Sorel or Bakunin after popularizing their mass strike fetish.

There's a very significant difference between Bakunin (and later Malatesta, Durruti,etc) and Sorel regarding the general strike here. To the 'true' Syndicalist the General Strike is an actual strategy but by no means 'the only herald of the beginning of some revolutionary period'. To Sorel and the other idealist observers of the Syndicalist movement the General Strike is a fetishized myth.

The Revolutionary Syndicalist rejection of parliamentary activity is not out of some mindless practice-fetish with regards to strike waves but because of the lack of worker self-activity and worker's autonomy in parliamentary 'struggles'.

In a sense, one can see Autonomist-Marxism as being on the same line (without Syndicalism's focus on Industrial Unionism) arguing in favor of a Proletarian reconquista (for lack of a better word :p) of the social terrain thus building consciousness and autonomy through struggle that would not be build by parliamentary struggle which is waged by representatives.

Secondly, direct action (which is far broader than Strikes as it includes actions as diverse as sabotage, self-reduction and factory occupations) is the full expression of direct conflict between Capital and Labour with the strike being an example of the refusal of current material conditions. Most (Anarcho-)Syndicalists, Autonomists and other parts of the "Communist Left" hold that refusal is one of the prime weapons of the working class.

[Palingenisis]

Most of the left today makes a fetish out of strike waves and general action. The "Communist Left" certainly does, by outright stating that only mass strike waves (and preferrably "spontaneous" ones) herald the beginning of some revolutionary period.


Why I consider the Left Communists or at least the ICC "crypto-syndicalist" is that they seem to dismiss all struggles outside of the work place (or at least some of them do) and they believe that all social and political problemns will get magically solved somehow in the course of economic struggles. However they do talk about the formation of a "Party".

[Ravachol]

Why I consider the Left Communists or at least the ICC "crypto-syndicalist" is that they seem to dismiss all struggles outside of the work place


This is a very often-heard misrepresentation of Syndicalist positions. Revolutionary Syndicalists in general and Anarcho-Syndicalists in particular do not reject struggle outside of the work place at all, on the contrary. Historically Syndicalists have always organised in the neighbourhoods around issues such as unemployment, housing struggles, schooling,etc.

A parallel position within Post-Operaismo (and Autonomism as it's successor) is the idea of the 'social factory', where capitalist relations have expanded far beyond the fordist model of the factory into the full sphere of public life, thus transforming the entire social terrain into a battleground between Capital and Labour