Different shades of fascism

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Okay so there seems to be more then several fascist schools-of-thought and I wanted the definition of each group as well as their beliefs.

#1: Strasserists

#2: Nazbols

#3: Solidarists

#4: 3th positionists

#5: National anarchists

#6: National Bolsheviks

I got these names from another thread here on revleft so if any are unclear just ask and I'll give a link.If anyone has other fascist groups (not listed) in mind just post a definition of why they are scum.

[Nolan]

Okay so there seems to be more then several fascist schools-of-thought and I wanted the definition of each group as well as their beliefs.

#1: Strasserists

#2: Nazbols

#3: Solidarists

#4: 3th positionists

#5: National anarchists

#6: National Bolsheviks

I got these names from another thread here on revleft so if any are unclear just ask and I'll give a link.If anyone has other fascist groups (not listed) in mind just post a definition of why they are scum.

Nazbol is a shortened form of National Bolshevik. All listed are "third positionists."

[Widerstand]

Nazbol is short for National Bolsheviks, I'm pretty sure. Might want to add Neonazis (yes they exist still) and maybe the Islamophobist (think of EDL) and Ultra-Christian (uhm, Tea Party?) groups, which have fascist tendencies. Also I reminisce there are some fascist/theocratic Islamic fundamentalist groups?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Nazbol is short for National Bolsheviks, I'm pretty sure. Might want to add Neonazis (yes they exist still) and maybe the Islamophobist (think of EDL) and Ultra-Christian (uhm, Tea Party?) groups, which have fascist tendencies. Also I reminisce there are some fascist/theocratic Islamic fundamentalist groups?

I'm not aware of many fascist groups but any fundemental muslim fascist groups would be interesting to learn about,so if anyone has info post some please.

[Nolan]

Nazbol is short for National Bolsheviks, I'm pretty sure. Might want to add Neonazis (yes they exist still) and maybe the Islamophobist (think of EDL) and Ultra-Christian (uhm, Tea Party?) groups, which have fascist tendencies. Also I reminisce there are some fascist/theocratic Islamic fundamentalist groups?

The EDL isn't fascist, and the Tea Party isn't fascist. There is no such thing as Islamofascism, at least now how the media portrays it.

[Widerstand]

I'm not aware of many fascist groups but any fundemental muslim fascist groups would be interesting to learn about,so if anyone has info post some please.

From a quick search, I've come cross this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_Muslim

It's a difficult topic though, since a lot of muslims are called "fascist" by Islamophobes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism


The EDL isn't fascist, and the Tea Party isn't fascist. There is no such thing as Islamofascism, at least now how the media portrays it.

I thought the EDL had fascist elements and/or advocated fascist structures? Might be wrong though. You're prolly right about the tea party. I never said there is Islamofascism in the way the media portrays it...

[bricolage]

I thought the EDL had fascist elements and/or advocated fascist structures? Might be wrong though. You're prolly right about the tea party. I never said there is Islamofascism in the way the media portrays it...
The EDL stem more from the 'clash of civilisations' discourse, protecting the liberal west against the ravaging hordes of medieval muslims. Hence they will invoke ideas of womens rights, gay rights, freedom of speech etc. If anything its the logical extension of what Tony Blair started.

I'm sure there are individuals within the EDL that you could call fascist (not that there is any fixed membership of it), the basic ideology of the organisations however is not (even if its tactic of street fighting, marching is reminiscent of previous fascist movements).

[bricolage]

I made a post the other day in the thread about French persecution of the Roma people about what we can and can't call fascism and why it is essential we make this distinction. I'm going to repost it here because I am egocentric :cool:


I'm not one of those who labels everything as fascist, but this is Fascism, no doubt about it. Same goes for the Arizona immigrant law, the Greek government declaring marshal law against striking workers, etc.

It comes in some varying ideological forms but it's essentially the same thing.I have to disagree with you here, fascism is just not some term that can be thrown around in regards to any form of repression, authoritarianism or anti-worker activity. The problem here like with most things is that it remains hard to effectively define fascism due to its lack of coherency. In this way writes how its "ideas were unscrupulously pillaged from other traditions, cultures and doctrines. Moreover there is no locus classicus - akin, say, to the Communist Manifesto - which supplied the inspiration of fascist leaders and thinkers". However he does go on to identify five recurring themes in its evolution; statism, racialism, imperialism, elitism and National Socialism. I think these are useful, especially the statism (*) but perhaps not wholly adequate. Personally I'd add some references to militarism and the minimising of 'democracy' (in terms of the way it is currently conceived, ie. representative democracy. I don't want this to turn into a 'capitalism is not democractic, only communism is! type thing, no matter how true that may be).

Zeev Strenhell writes "the hard core and the most radical variety of a far more widespread, far older phenomenon: a comprehensive revision of the essential values of the humanistic, rationalistic and optimistic heritage of the Enlightenment".


(Note, I got these quotes from introduction to political ideology books I had in my first year at university, I still think they are quite useful though.)


This is what I think is most important here the identification of fascism by what it opposed, as he state, 'the essential values of the humanistic, rationalistic and optimistic heritage of the Enlightenment'. Classically fascists have of course been very clear on this;

"We stand for... sheer categorical definitive antithesis to the world which still abides by the fundamental principles laid down in 1789"

"The year 1789 is hereby eradicated from history".

In practical terms probably the clearest example of this is the fascist opposition to liberal representative democracy, of course once again spilling over into the intense statism.

When we look at for example this French action against the Roma people we can see it is not being perpetrated by a state antithetical to this tradition but rather a state that still sees itself as the direct descendant of 1789 itself. Furthermore the entire legitimising principles of the French state are ones inherited from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Being able to conflate things like ethnic cleansing with fascism not only, as I said, buys into the discourse of the caring democratic state but actually has profound political implications beyond this. What it does is, by pushing everything 'bad' to the 'right', draws the fault lines at fascism versus not-fascism. However by shifting these lines, by showing ethnic cleansing etc is not unique to fascism we are able to reassert the actual fault lines of society, that the divide is not fascist vs non-fascist, by capital vs labour.

I think another good example of this is Israel. Israel as a state has obviously been responsible for horrific examples of ethnic cleansing, systematic exclusion and national oppression but it is by no means a fascist state. Of course there have been fascist groups in Israel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kach_and_Kahane_Chai) (and in Zionist movements prior to its foundation), (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Maximalism) like there have been, and are, effectively fascist groups in France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_National_%28France%29), but none of this means that the French state or the Israeli state, or the American state or the Greek state today are fascist states. Like I said this is an essential distinction if we are to redfine the paramaters of political discourse and to reassert where the real divisions in societal life lie.


Unlike a lot of people I see Fascism not as just a far-right neonazi thing,Well obviously not seeing as fascism predates nazism... not to mention neonazism.


but an inherent ugly side to the modern monopoly-capitalist state that rears it's head when the conditions require it (when the capitalist system is threatened usually).Of course;

The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery.

* Mussoloni is clearest on this; "The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people."

In regards to the state I think this is important because it remains true that it is a lot easy to identify fascism when it is in control of the state as opposed to when it is not. When it is in the latter is easy to conflate fascist groups with the more general 'far right'.

[Sasha]

Nazbol is a shortened form of National Bolshevik. All listed are "third positionists."

basicly this, but i'll give an short rundown of all the strains you mentioned, please correct me if i'm wrong (ravachol ;))


Okay so there seems to be more then several fascist schools-of-thought and I wanted the definition of each group as well as their beliefs.

#1: Strasserists

one of most populair forms of contemparary nazi strains in western europe (esp. germany, netherlands), see themself in the line of the "left" or "good" nazis like the strasser brothers and the SA with their chief Rohm (basicly all the nazi's that killed in the night of longknives). Populairised by the prominent neo-nazi michael kuhnen, distrusted by traditional neo-nazis for being "steak-nazis" (brown from the outside, red from the inside) and the fact that both Rohm as Kuhnen where gay.
Populair because they can claim not to be involved in the holocaust.
prominent contemparary groups; blood&honour-RVF, autonumus-nazi's, NSA/ANS (holland), most freie kameradschaften.

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


#2: Nazbolssee #6


#3: Solidaristsfrench/belgium/flanders strain of corperatist fascism, suposedly predating nazism

N-SA (belgium)



#4: 3th positionists

basicly any atemt to fusion aspect of socialism and fascism; like red america said all the groups mentioned by wanderer fall under this umbrella.
other strains are Identair (france and italy), early Kaddafi/Gaddafi thought (libya), national syndicalism (italy/spain) and early peronism (argentina)

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


#5: National anarchists while being used since the 1920 the most prominent development came in the 1990 in england under former prominent BNP member troy southgate.
his group got some notority because of the whole green-anarchism debate (green anarchism was an eco-anarchist magazine that split over the fact whter or not 3th positionists should be allowed to publish in the magazine)

most prominent group still activ thats calling itself N-A is BANA (US)

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


#6: National Bolsheviksrelated to strasserism but with an tankie stalin festish, mostly influential in russia.
a lot already discussed on this board so use the search function

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

[rednordman]

Fascism is a bit of dark and twisted enigma too me. It can be both in support of and completely against capitalism and imperialism. Sometimes it can even be mistaken as a leftwing ideology, whereas other times its blatantly rightwing. I suppose the term 'third-way' does have some relevance after all.

[Ravachol]

basicly this, but i'll give an short rundown of all the strains you mentioned, please correct me if i'm wrong (ravachol ;))


That's pretty much a correct summation. I'd classify Third-Positionism as a more economistic sub-strain of fascism which emphasizes socio-economic issues (with corporatist solution) far more than other forms of fascism (like those influenced by Junger or Evola for example) in order to have a degree of mass (working-class) appeal. Examples are, as Psycho mentioned, National Syndicalism, Early Peronism and Strasserism (I'd classify Strasserism as Third-Positionist due to it's more-or-less corporatist nature) as well as Belgian Solidarism (which is inspired more by Italian-style PNF fascism than by NSDAP-style Nazism).



while being used since the 1920 the most prominent development came in the 1990 in england under former prominent BNP member troy southgate.
his group got some notority because of the whole green-anarchism debate (green anarchism was an eco-anarchist magazine that split over the fact whter or not 3th positionists should be allowed to publish in the magazine)

most prominent group still activ thats calling itself N-A is BANA (US)

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


Quoting myself:


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.

Whilst it could be argued Stasserism and other Third-Positionist ideologies have a genuine relation to Social-democracy-style corporatism (as far as socio-economics are concerned), National-Anarchism has nothing to do with Anarchism at all. If anything it should be called National-Tribalism (when groups like BANA are concerned) or National-Individualism (when groups around the German 'Junge Freiheit' are concerned). It's An-archism for a reason and not Anarch-ism :rolleyes:



related to strasserism but with an tankie stalin festish, mostly influential in russia.
a lot already discussed on this board so use the search function

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

There are several distinct strains of National-Bolshevism. The first being a typical Russian version of Strasserism with a tankie stalin fetish opting for a corporatist version of Lenin's NEP economics (the limonovist tendency within the NBP), the second (the anti-limonovist NBP faction) being a more or less classic fascist movement which takes all things naughty in Stalin and all nonsense as well (he ate Jewish babies,etc) and mash it together into a national antisemitic father-figure demi-god.

The last strain of National-Bolshevism is more complicated. It's centred mainly around the German 'Netzwerk Sozialistische Nation' and the online paper 'Der Fahnentraeger' (inspired by Ernst Niekisch) as well as some miniscule French groups. As I said elsewhere:



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.

Also, Revjan mentioned this about the loons around 'Der Fahnentraeger':




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.


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...
(..)
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.
(..)
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).


Also, fascism isn't really so much as a coherent political umbrella as a tendency or characteristic of certain movements or ideologies. See discussions elsewhere on this forum for definitions of Fascism (I remember having an extensive discussion about it with now banned member Jethro Tull regarding the posibility of 'Islamofascism').