National Bolshevism

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National Bolshevism is a political movement that claims to combine elements of nationalism and Bolshevism.[1]

National Bolshevism is often anti-capitalist in tone, and sympathetic towards certain nationalist forms of communism and socialism. Nevertheless, National Bolshevism is separate and distinct from National Communism. National Bolsheviks defend both Stalinism and Strasserism. Economically, the National Bolsheviks support a mix of the New Economic Policy of Vladimir Lenin and fascist corporatism.

The ideology claims a direct link to Hegel, whom it presents as the father of idealism. The ideology is highly traditionalist in the mold of Julius Evola. Amongst other influences claimed by the movement are Georges Sorel, Otto Strasser and José Ortega y Gasset (although this last influence is largely because of his rejection of left and right labels, which is also a feature of National Bolshevism).

Today, Russia is considered to be the center of National Bolshevism, and almost all of the National Bolshevik parties and organizations in the world are connected to it. Amongst the leading practitioners and theorists of National Bolshevism are Aleksandr Dugin and Eduard Limonov, who leads the unregistered and banned National Bolshevik Party in Russia.[2] National Bolsheviks participated in demonstrations against the G8 in Saint Petersberg.[3] Influenced heavily by the idea of geopolitics, current Russian National Bolshevism movements propose a merger between Russia and the rest of Europe in a union to be known as Eurasia. Lately there rose an opposition to the efforts of Limonov to find allies even if they are pro-Western capitalists; some even left the National Bolshevik Party and formed the National Bolshevik Front.[4]

There are National Bolshevik groups in Israel and in parts of the former Soviet Union, which are tied to the Russian National Bolshevik Party.[5] Other groups, such as the Franco-Belgian Parti Communautaire National-Européen also share National Bolshevism's desire for the creation of a united Europe (as well as many of its economic ideas), and French political figure Christian Bouchet has also been influenced by the idea.[6]

Contents

[edit] Germany

National Bolshevism is said to have roots in World War I Germany, where nationalist writers such as Ernst Niekisch and Ernst Jünger were prepared to tolerate the spread of communism as long as it took on the clothes of nationalism and abandoned its internationalist mission.[7]

There was a current in the German Communist Party based around Heinrich Laufenberg and Friedrich Wolfheim of Hamburg that, in 1919, argued for collaboration between workers' organisations and the bosses to drive the French army from occupying the Ruhr. They visited Karl Radek in the Moabit prison in 1920. A Russian Bolshevik, Radek disagreed with Lenin's support for the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Versailles. This current gravitated to the KPD(O) (Communist Party of Germany (Opposition)) despite their call for workers to give up their arms. At the August congress of the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD), the first topic of debate was nation and class.

Arthur Goldstein rejected the notion of a "revolutionary people's war" with the German proletariat and the bourgeoisie uniting against the Entente bourgeoisie. He argued that any such war should be fought not for national victory but to overthrow the Entente Cordiale bourgeoisie and carry communism into the Entente countries as well. He further discussed how during the war, the National Bolsheviks had described the Spartakusbund's policy of inviting soldiers to leave the front as a "stab in the back". Goldstein stated, "In the text Communism against Spartacism, it is openly admitted that in Hamburg the nation is elevated to the starting point of politics, that therefore the concept of the nation is considered the most important, that it should be the measure for the politics of the German and international proletariat."[citation needed]

Radek wanted some of the right-wing nationalists he had met in prison to unite with the Bolsheviks in the name of National Bolshevism. He saw in National Bolshevism a way to "remove the capitalist isolation" of the Soviet Union.[1]

Paul Eltzbacher and Karl Haushofer theorized about an alliance between nationalist forces in Germany and the Soviet Union, although they did not use the term National Bolshevism.

[edit] Russia

Flag of the Russian National Bolsheviks.
Flag of the Russian National Bolsheviks.

In Russia, as the civil war dragged on, a number of prominent "Whites" switched to the Bolshevik side because they saw it as the only hope for restoring greatness to Russia. Amongst these was Professor Nikolai Ustrialov, initially an anti-communist, who came to believe that Bolshevism could be modified to serve nationalistic purposes. His followers, the Smenovekhovtsi (named after a series of articles he published in 1921 Smena vekh (Russian: volte-face), came to regard themselves as National Bolsheviks, borrowing the term from Niekisch. Similar ideas were expressed by the Evraziitsi party and the pro-Monarchist Mladorossi. Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country" was interpreted as a victory by the National Bolsheviks.[8] Vladimir Lenin, who did not use the term 'National Bolshevism', identified the Smenovekhovtsi as a tendency of the old Constitutional Democratic Party who saw Russian communism as just an evolution in the process of Russian aggrandisement. He further added that they were a 'class enemy' and warned against communist believing them to be allies.[9]

The term National Bolshevism has sometimes been applied to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his brand of anti-communism.[10] However, Solzhenitsyn cannot be labeled a National Bolshevik since he was thoroughly anti-Marxist and anti-Stalinist, and he wished a revival of Russian culture that would see a greater role for the Russian Orthodox Church, a withdrawal of Russia from its role overseas, and a state of international isolationism.[11] Solzhenitsyn and his follwoers, known as vozrozhdentsy (revivalists) differed from the National Bolsheviks, who were not religious in tone (although not completely hostile to religion), and who felt that involvement overseas was important for the prestige and power of Russia.[12] There is open hostility between Solzhenitsyn and Eduard Limonov, the head of Russia's unregistered National Bolshevik Party. Solzhenitsyn has described Limonov as "a little insect who writes pornography", and Limonov described Solzhenitsyn as a traitor to his homeland who contributed to the downfall of the USSR. In The Oak and the Calf, Solzhenitsyn openly attacked the notions that the Russians were 'the noblest in the world' and that 'tsarism and Bolshevism ... [were] equally irreproachable', defining this as the core of the National Bolshevism to which he was opposed.[13]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Von Klemperer, Klemens (1951). "Towards a Fourth Reich? The History of National Bolshevism in Germany". Review of Politics 13 (2): 191–210. 
  2. ^ Court Upholds Registration Ban Against National Bolshevik Party
  3. ^ 'G8 to bring Russian city to standstill'
  4. ^ National Bolshevik Front website
  5. ^ See National Bolshevik Party#International gropus
  6. ^ G. Atkinson, 'Nazi shooter targets Chirac', Searchlight, August 2002
  7. ^ Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, p.315
  8. ^ Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, p.316
  9. ^ Speech by V.I. Lenin on March 22 1922 in V. Lenin, On the Intelligentsia, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1983, pp. 269-9
  10. ^ G. Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union, London: Fontana, 1990, pp. 421-2
  11. ^ Hosking, op cit
  12. ^ Hosking, op cit
  13. ^ A. Solzhenitsyn, The Oak and the Calf, 1975, pp.119-129

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[edit] External links