What is national Bolshevism?

[ashtonh]

Hey guys me here I've heard it mentioned on this site before but what is it exactly?

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

It's basically a haphazard combination of hardcore russian nationalism with 'socialism' of a reactionary nature. It's very similar to Starsserism, which was the 'left' tendency of the Nazi Party in Germany.

To put it rather crudely: they are fascists in 'red' clothing.

[Red Economist]

National Bolshevism started as Russian Nationalists who supported the Bolsheviks when they saw that it could produce a strong state after the civil war. They supported Stalin's Socialism in One Country in the 1930's. They support a Eurasian Union between Russia and Europe. They're one of the 'odd' hybridization that came from Communism mixing with other ideologies- but basically the nationalism comes first and the Bolshevism comes second as a means to realize their nationalist goals.

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

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Historically, the term was used by proto-Nazis (Niekisch - what a Slavic surname, by the way - etc.) who wanted to be communists. Today, the term is used by Nazis who want to be communists or at least make people believe they're communists.

[Chainsaw]

They are neo-Stalinists, therefore Red Fascists, and supporters of a Eurasian Empire; a "third Rome" (their words) with Russia as the crown.

Blind idealists, and pseudo-scientific reactionaries.

[cyu]

Like most right-wing attempts at populism, the leaders attempt to use whatever ideology happens to come along, bend it to their own will in an attempt to gain followers and put themselves in power. Being in power is the primary goal of the leaders - actually doing anything for their followers is only an incidental part of getting in power and maintaining power. Their followers are basically the uninformed that can't see through their lies.

[Tim Cornelis]

The ideological nature of fascism is based on palingenetic ultranationalism.

"Griffin’s definition of fascism can be boiled down to three words: “palingenetic populist ultra-nationalism.”39 Each of these terms needs explanation:

Palingenetic: From the Greek palin (again or anew) + genesis (creation or birth). It refers to a myth or vision of collective rebirth after a period of crisis or decline.

Populist: A form of politics that draws its claims of legitimacy from “the people” (as opposed, for example, to a monarchical dynasty or divine appointment) and uses mass mobilization to win power and transform society.

Ultra-nationalism: It treats the nation as a higher, organic unity to which all other loyalites must be subordinated. Ultra-nationalism rejects “anything compatible with liberal institutions or with the tradition of Enlightenment humanism which underpins them.”40"

(http://sdonline.org/47/two-ways-of-looking-at-fascism/)

"Fascism seeks to promote more than mere patriotism, the love of one's country; it wishes to establish an intense and militant sense of national identity, which Charles Maurras (1868–1952), the leader of Action Française, called ‘integral nationalism’. Fascism embodies a sense of messianic or fanatical mission: the prospect of national regeneration and the rebirth of national pride. Indeed, the popular appeal that fascism has exerted has largely been based upon the promise of national greatness. According to Griffin (1993), the mythic core of generic fascism is the conjunction of the ideas of ‘palingenesis’, or recurrent rebirth, and ‘populist ultranationalism’. All fascist movements therefore highlight the moral bankruptcy and cultural decadence of modern society, but proclaim the possibility of rejuvenation, offering the image of the nation ‘rising phoenix-like from the ashes’. While fascism may be a revolt against modernity, it does not succumb to reaction or the allure of tradition. Instead, it fuses myths about a glorious past with the image of a future characterized by renewal and reawakening, hence the idea of the ‘new’ man. In Italy, this was reflected in attempts to recapture the glories of Imperial Rome; in Germany, the Nazi regime was portrayed as the ‘Third Reich’, in succession to Charlemagne's ‘First Reich’ and Bismarck's ‘Second Reich’."

(Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies, Third edition)

So National Bolshevism focussed on a national rebirth based on the historical past of the Soviet empire when it was a superpower: a phoenix rising from the ashes.

[Illegalitarian]

Everyone pretty much said it already, but to add to the echoing chamber: It's just a fucked version of Russia nationalism that plays off of ostalgie by using old M-L imagery

[keine_zukunft]

it's not that dissimilar from strasserist national socialism i believe.

[Rurkel]

The Limonovite National Bolsheviks (the ones that made an alliance with a fraction of Russian liberals some years ago, the alliance is broken now due to the rebellion in Ukraine which the liberals oppose) are more like D'Annunzio than Hitler.

I know, to the extent D'Annunzio was a proto-fascist at all, the difference between the two is more like the difference between the two stages.