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Ernst Niekisch supported an alliance with the Soviet Union to overturn capitalism, arguing for a union of all anti-liberal forces in Germany against the status quo.[3]
National Bolshevism as a term was first used to describe a faction in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) which wanted to ally the insurgent communist movement with dissident nationalist groups in the German army who rejected the Treaty of Versailles.[4]Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim led the faction and it was primarily based in Hamburg. They were subsequently expelled from the KAPD which Karl Radek justified by stating that it was necessary for the KAPD to be welcomed into the Third Congress of the Third International, although the expulsion would likely have happened regardless as Radek previously dismissed the pair as "National Bolsheviks" (which was the first recorded use of the term).[5]
National Bolshevism was among several early ultranationalist, and according to some, fascist movements in Germany that predate Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party.[6][7][need quotation to verify] During the 1920s, a number of German intellectuals began a dialogue which created a synthesis between radical nationalism (typically referencing Prussianism) and Bolshevism as it existed in the Soviet Union.[8] The pro-Soviet syncretic Society for the Study of the Soviet Planned Economy (ARPLAN) was founded in Germany in 1932, and contained both far-left and far-right radicals. ARPLAN's membership was very heterogenous: Niekisch was an active ARPLAN member, as was the Nazi politician Ernst Graf zu Reventlow.[9]
The ideology of Ernst Niekisch and the group which had formed around the publication, named Widerstandskreis, has been described as anti-democratic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, anti-western, as well as exhibiting racist and fascist traits.[13] Others have called his ideology outright fascist,[14] despite Niekisch condemning and critiquing fascism, primarily in his work "Hitler - ein deutsches Verhängnis".[15][16][17][18][19]
Niekisch strongly and publicly condemned Adolf Hitler, who he perceived as a democratic demagogue that lacked any actual socialism, he claimed and criticized that Hitler, after release from prison, started to look more towards Italian Fascism for inspiration, rather than Ludendorff.[20] After the Nazis took power, Niekisch organised a national revolutionaryresistance, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment until being released in 1945 by the Red Army.[21] Upon his release from prison, Niekisch started a political career in East Germany, which was abruptly ended after the crushing of the 1953 uprising, which resulted in him leaving the party and retiring from politics. Following his retirement, Niekisch moved back to West Berlin and proclaimed himself a 'victim of fascism' due to being blinded while imprisoned, after a long legal battle with West German courts, Niekisch received minor compensation from the Berlin government. Niekisch died in 1967.[21]
Logo used by Karl Otto Paetel and his Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists
Another prominent National Bolshevik was Karl Otto Paetel, notable for writing the National Bolshevist Manifesto (published 1933), in which he bases himself on Marxism.[24][25]
The GRSN, founded in 1930, was a direct response to the challenge posed by the rise in popularity of the Nazis. While initially somewhat receptive to Nazism, Paetel quickly grew disillusioned with the NSDAP as he no longer believed they were genuinely committed to either revolutionary activity or socialist economics. Similarly to the Communists and Strasserists, Paetel too, tried to split off vulnerable elements of the Nazi Party; an example of this being his largely unsuccessful attempt to win over a section of the Hitler Youth to his cause.[27] Paetel would later strongly condemn both Nazism and all other forms of fascism in the National Bolshevist Manifesto.[25][24]
The National Bolshevik project of figures such as Niekisch and Paetel was typically presented as just another strand of Bolshevism by the Nazi Party, and was thus viewed just as negatively and as part of a "Jewish conspiracy".[28] After Hitler's rise to power, many National Bolsheviks were arrested and imprisoned or fled the country.
Despite opposition to National Bolshevism, usually on the grounds that it tends to take Marxist influence, a similarly syncretic, but non-Marxist, tendency had developed in the left-wing of the Nazi Party. This was represented by what has now come to be known as Strasserism. Initially one of the stronger factions of the NSDAP, the left-wing slowly started to lose power to Adolf Hitler's faction; this culminated in much of the wing splitting off to form the Black Front, whereas the rest would be purged in the Night of the Long Knives.[28]
As the Russian 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 Ustryalov, initially an anti-communist, who came to believe that Bolshevism could be modified to serve nationalistic purposes. His followers, the Smenovekhovtsy (named after a series of articles he published in 1921) Smena vekh (Russian: change of milestones), came to regard themselves as National Bolsheviks, borrowing the term from Niekisch.[8]
Similar ideas were expressed by the Evraziitsi movement and writers such as D. S. Mirsky, and the pro-monarchist Mladorossi. Joseph 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 Smenovekhovtsy 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 communists believing them to be allies.[29]
Liberal philosopher Peter Struve, who Ustryalov greatly admired, was initially sympathetic to calling it the most interesting movement to emerge among the emigre community, but soon turned against the movement denouncing it as superficial and a Trojan horse for the Bolshevik regime.[30]
Co-option of National Bolshevism
Ustryalov and others sympathetic to the Smenovekhovtsy cause, such as Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Ilya Ehrenburg, were eventually able to return to the Soviet Union and following the co-option of aspects of nationalism by Stalin and his ideologue Andrei Zhdanov enjoyed membership of the intellectual elite under the designation non-party Bolsheviks.[31][32] Similarly, B. D. Grekov's National Bolshevik school of historiography, a frequent target under Lenin, was officially recognised and even promoted under Stalin, albeit after accepting the main tenets of Stalinism.[33] It has been argued that National Bolshevism was the main impetus for the revival of nationalism as an official part of state ideology in the 1930s.[34][35] Many of the original proponents of National Bolshevism, such as Ustryalov and members of the Smenovekhovtsy were suppressed and executed during the Great Purge for "anti-Soviet agitation", espionage and other counter-revolutionary activities.[36][37]
Russian historian Andrei Savin stated that Stalin's policy shifted away from internationalism towards National Bolshevism[38] a view also shared by David Brandenberger[39] and Evgeny Dobrenko.[40]
The National Bolshevik Party (NBP) was founded in 1992 as the National Bolshevik Front, an amalgamation of six minor groups.[41]
The party has always been led by Eduard Limonov. Limonov and extreme right-wing ultranationalist activist Aleksandr Dugin sought to unite far-left and far-right radicals on the same platform,[42] with Dugin viewing national-bolsheviks as a point between communist and fascists, and forced to act in the peripheries of each group.[citation needed] The group's early policies and actions show some alignment and sympathy with radical nationalist groups, albeit while still holding to the tenets of a form of Marxism that Dugin defined as "Marx minus Feuerbach, i. e. minus evolutionism and sometimes appearing inertial humanism", but a split occurred in the 2000s which changed this to an extent. This led to the party moving further left in Russia's political spectrum, and led to members of the party denouncing Dugin and his group as fascists.[43] Dugin subsequently developed close ties to the Kremlin and served as an adviser to senior Russian official Sergey Naryshkin.[44][45] NBP was banned and outlawed in 2007 and its members went on to form a new political party in 2010, The Other Russia.[46]
Initially critical of Vladimir Putin, Limonov at first somewhat liberalized the NBP and joined forces with leftist and liberal groups in Garry Kasparov's United Civil Front to fight Putin.[47] However, he later expressed support of Putin following the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War.[48][49][50] Limonov died in March 2020[51] and his The Other Russia party re-organized and renamed itself to "The Other Russia of E. V. Limonov" to honor its founder.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The term National Bolshevism has sometimes been applied to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his brand of anti-communism.[52] However, Geoffrey Hosking argues in his History of the Soviet Union that Solzhenitsyn cannot be labelled a National Bolshevik since he was thoroughly anti-Stalinist and 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.[52] Solzhenitsyn and his followers, 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.[52]
There was open hostility between Solzhenitsyn and Eduard Limonov, the head of Russia's unregistered National Bolshevik Party. Solzhenitsyn had 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 Soviet Union. 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.[53]
The patriotism of the working class is profoundly progressive and revolutionary...By overthrowing the rule of the exploiting classes the working class creates the conditions for the fullest possible manifestation of its patriotism, for it itself is the true bearer of patriotism in our time...This does not in any way mean, however, that while belonging to the single international army of working people, the worker ceases to be a Frenchman, Englishman, etc...the building of socialism, can bring every nation real freedom, independence and national greatness. It follows that the most internationalist class - the working class - is at the same time the most patriotic class."
Otto Wille Kuusinen, "Cosmopolitanism, not patriotism, is the ideology of the imperialist bourgeoisie."[61]
Members of the Executive Committee of Worker-Jägers
Before the independence of Finland, Finnish nationalists sent volunteers to German army, to the 27th Jäger Battalion, who were supposed to act as the revolutionary vanguard who would incite a revolution in Finland against the Russian Imperial government. When the Finnish civil war started, most sided with the White Army but a third sided with the communists. The so-called "Red jägers" were left-wing working class jägers who formed the executive committee of Worker-Jägers that maintained contacts with left-wing revolutionaries back home and in Germany. Influential politicians of the labor movement at the time, K. H. Wiik, Oskari Tokoi and Yrjö Mäkelin, among others, supported the Jäger movement. The son of the latter, Leo Mäkelin, joined the ranks of the Jägers on February 14, 1916.[62][63][64]
Edvard Gylling, Commissar of Finance for the Revolutionary "Red" Finnish government and later Chairman of Karelian ASSR implemented a policy to increase the economic independence and to Finnicize Karelian population.[65] According to Gylling, the successful construction of socialism in Karelia required " the implementation of nationalist politics in a communist spirit", which would win the support of the anti-Russian peasant population. Among his nationalist policies was the Finnicization of the Karelians, because the ultimate goal was the unification of the region with Finland.[66] He believed that the autonomous Finnish-speaking Soviet Karelia could act as a springboard from which the revolution could spread to Finland and Scandinavia. His vision was to create a "Scandinavian Socialist Federal Republic" or "red Greater Finland" separate from Russia, which would also include Eastern Karelia.[67][68] However, to Gylling's chagrin, the borders of Soviet Karelia were drawn in 1924 in such a way that Russians made up more than half of its population, while Karelians and Finns remained a minority.[65][69] The Finnish language was made one of the official languages of the republic and efforts were made to make it even the main language. School language was changed to Finnish, in some places against the will of the local population.[70] During Gylling's time, Finnish workers from Canada and the United States were also systematically enticed to Soviet Karelia, from which several thousands would be recruited during the Great Depression.[71][65]
After the death of Avraham Stern, the new leadership of the Israeli paramilitary organization Lehi moved towards support for Joseph Stalin[85] and the doctrine of National Bolshevism,[86][87] which was a break from the group's fascist outlook under its previous leader.[88]
Nathan Yellin-Mor, one of the leaders of Lehi, formulated the group's unique form of Hebrew National Bolshevism.[89]
^Van Ree, Erik (October 2001). "The concept of 'National Bolshevism': An interpretative essay"(PDF). Journal of Political Ideologies. 6 (3): 289–307. doi:10.1080/13569310120083017. S2CID216092681. pp. 289, 304: National Bolshevism can most properly be defined as that radical tendency which combines a commitment to class struggle and total nationalization of the means of production with extreme state chauvinism... In this essay I have taken as my point of departure Dupeux's approach of sticking to the original 1919 connotation of the concept of National Bolshevism, to include among its ranks only movements with a serious commitment to socialism in its extreme form, i.e., to communism, as well as to the chauvinist variety of nationalism.
^ abASCHER, ABRAHAM; LEWY, GUENTER (1956). "NATIONAL BOLSHEVISM IN WEIMAR GERMANY: Alliance of Political Extremes Against Democracy". Social Research. 23 (4): 450–480.
^Helmut Schumacher & Klaus J. Dorsch (2003). A. Paul Weber: Leben und Werk in Texten und Bildern (in German). E.S. Mittler & Sohn. p. 104. ISBN978-3813208054. In einer Verlagsbroschüre von 1930 wurden als ständige Mitarbeiter »Joseph Drexel, A. Erich Günther, Ernst Jünger, G. Friedrich Jünger [!], Hjalmar Kutzleb, Ernst Niekisch, Gustav Sondermann, Dr. Friedrich Weber, Maler A. Paul Weber, August Winnig u.a.« genannt, weitere Autoren waren Hans Bäcker, Hugo Fischer, Otto Petras, Friedrich Reck-Melleczewen, Otto Nickel und Alexander Mitscherlich.
^Helmut Schumacher & Klaus J. Dorsch (2003). A. Paul Weber: Leben und Werk in Texten und Bildern (in German). E.S. Mittler & Sohn. p. 104. ISBN978-3813208054.
^Davies, Peter; Lynch, Derek (2002). The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. Taylor & Francis. ISBN9781134609529. National Bolshevism – Current of fascist thinking associated with Niekisch. It held that German Nazism was a pervesion of 'real' fascism and, thus, that aspiring fascists and fascisms should look towards the USSR, rather than Hitler, for inspiration.
^"Ernst Niekisch – Widerstand gegen den Westen". Zeitschrift für nationale Identität (in German). 7 September 2020. Retrieved 21 August 2023. Natürlich stimmt es, dass er Antifaschist war, wenn auch als Nationalist, denn er sah im Faschismus eine westlich-romanische Ideologie, eine Versuchung der Deutschen, ein „Deutsches Verhängnis".
^"Richard Herzinger - Erinnerung an den Nationalbolschewisten Ernst Niekisch - Intervention". Perlentaucher - Online Kulturmagazin (in German). Retrieved 21 August 2023. In den Nazis sah Niekisch dagegen geist- und seelenlose Rationalisten, die dem "Dämon" der westlichen Technik verfallen seien. Den Nationalsozialismus hielt er für eine Kopie des italienischen Faschismus und somit für eine Schöpfung der ihm verhassten "römischen Welt". Er verstieg sich sogar zu der Behauptung, der Faschismus und sein deutsches Pendant seien in Wahrheit verkappte Bewegungen zur Rettung des Liberalismus.
^Walkiewicz, Wolfgang. "Ideologie - Radikal rechts-links". Der Freitag (in German). ISSN0945-2095. Retrieved 21 August 2023. Es ist eine Abrechnung mit dem kleinbürgerlichen Nationalsozialismus, eine Kritik des Faschismus von rechts. Der Demagoge Hitler sei nur eine weitere Erscheinungsform des „Demokratismus". Früher ertönte aus der Kraft seiner Stimme noch der Urlaut der gepeinigten und geschändeten deutschen Kreatur. Nun sei der faschistische Nationalsozialismus keine Auflehnung gegen Versailles, sondern der Schatten, den die romanische Übermacht über den deutschen Protest wirft. Hitler agiere als „der Gendarm des Abendlandes gegen den Bolschewismus".
^Buchheim, Hans[in German]. "Ernst Niekischs Ideologie des Widerstands" [Ernst Niekisch's Ideology of Resistance] (PDF). Institute of Contemporary History (Munich). pp. 21 (356), 22 (357). Nach seiner Entlassung aus der Festungshaft jedoch habe sich Hitler von Ludendorff abgewandt und sich mit dem „MariaMuttergottes-General" von Epp verbündet; er habe Mussolini und den römischen Faschismus zum Vorbild gewählt und sich so als das decouvriert, was er wirklich sei: ein romanisierter Deutscher, der den Stoß des deutschen Protestes auffangen und abbiegen sollte. Er gehorche dem Auftrag, den ihm sein romanisierter Instinkt stellte, nämlich die mobilisierten Energien des deutschen Protestes im Fehleinsatz zu vergeuden und damit der römischen Überfremdung freies Feld zu schaffen. Das von Hitler versprochene Dritte Reich sei weniger eine politische Möglichkeit als vielmehr eine religiöse Hoffnung, nationaler Messianismus nach jüdischer Art. Man spüre die katholische Atmosphäre, wenn man eine nationalsozialistische Massenversammlung betrete: der Führer zelebriert das deutsche Befreiungs- und Erlösungswunder. Und deshalb sei man überall, wo der Nationalsozialismus einbreche, für Preußen und den Protestantismus verloren; denn wer schon Nationalsozialist sei, werde auch bald Katholik sein. Hitlers sozialpolitisches Programm sei nicht sozialistisch, sondern sozialpazifistisch, ein Taschenspielerkunststück der kapitalistischen Ordnung; Hitlers Nationalismus sei nichts weiter als die deutschtümelnde Haut des Romanismus und eine Abendländerei in Bärenfällen.
^Niekisch, Ernst (1932). Niekisch, Ernst - Hitler, ein deutsches Verhaengnis (in German). Widerstands-Verlag Anna Niekisch. pp. 8 (10), 9 (11). Hitler vollzog die Trennung von Ludendorff und verband sich mit dem "Maria-Mutter-Gottes-General" Epp. Er wählte sich Mussolini und den italienischen Faschismus zum Vorbild. Er bestätigte das fremdartige Braunhemd, das mit deutschen Atmosphäre nicht zusammenklingt; wie südeuropäische Besatzungstruppen stehen seitdem seine Scharen auf deutscher Erde. Die römisch-faschistische Grußform wurde verbindlich; an die Stelle der deutschen Fahnen, die herrlich mit dem Winde tanzen, trat die strenge tote Form prangender Standarten von jeder Art, wie sie bisher römischen Legionären, italienischen Faschisten, katholischen Prozessionen vorangeleuchtet hatten. Die Bewegung, die nunmehr aufsneue Boden zu gewinnen versuchte, war nicht mehr, was sie 1923 gewesen war. Jetzt hatte sie sich auf römischen Stil ausgerichtet. [...] Die Faschisierung des Nationalsozialismus war seine Vermünchnerung, faschistischer deutscher Nationalismus ist so lauter und echt, wie bayrische Reichstreue mit dem eigenstaatlichen Vorbehalt es ist. Faschistischer Nationalismus ist nur nationalistische Fassade; hinter ihr versteckt sich ein gebrochenes deutsches Rückrat. Er ist denaturierter Nationalismus für deutsche Haustiere, die sich noch darauf halten, den Schein der Wildheit zu wahren.
^Савин, Андрей (January 2017). "Ethnification of Stalinism? National Operations and the NKVD Order № 00447 in a Comparative Perspective". Ethnic and Religious Minorities in Stalin's Soviet Union: New Dimensions of Research. Edited by Andrej Kotljarchuk & Olle Sundström. Stockholm: 62. The choice of "unreliable nations" as an internal enemy and the "fifth column," as well as the shift in the national policy of the Stalinist regime of the 1930s from internationalism to Russification and "National Bolshevism,"is generally consistent with the theory of the ethnification of Stalinism.
^Rogatchevski, Andrei; Steinholt, Yngvar (21 October 2015). "Pussy Riot's Musical Precursors? The National Bolshevik Party Bands, 1994–2007". Popular Music and Society. 39 (4): 448–464. doi:10.1080/03007766.2015.1088287. S2CID192339798.
^Yasmann, Victor (29 April 2005). "Russia: National Bolsheviks, The Party Of 'Direct Action'". Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. Retrieved 15 November 2018. For this mobilization, the NBP used a bizarre mixture of totalitarian and fascist symbols, geopolitical dogma, leftist ideas, and national-patriotic demagoguery.
^ abcG. Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union, London: Fontana, 1990, pp. 421–2
^A. Solzhenitsyn, The Oak and the Calf, 1975, pp. 119–129.
^Kipp, Jacob W. (September 2002). "Aleksandr Dugin and the ideology of national revival: Geopolitics, Eurasianism and the conservative revolution". European Security. 11 (3): 91–125. doi:10.1080/09662830208407539. S2CID153557856.
^Burbank, Jane (22 March 2022). "The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved 23 March 2022. After unsuccessful interventions in post-Soviet party politics, Mr. Dugin focused on developing his influence where it counted — with the military and policymakers… In Mr. Dugin's adjustment of Eurasianism to present conditions, Russia had a new opponent — no longer just Europe, but the whole of the 'Atlantic' world led by the United States. And his Eurasianism was not anti-imperial but the opposite: Russia had always been an empire, Russian people were 'imperial people,' and after the crippling 1990s sellout to the 'eternal enemy,' Russia could revive in the next phase of global combat and become a 'world empire.' On the civilizational front, Mr. Dugin highlighted the long-term connection between Eastern Orthodoxy and Russian empire. Orthodoxy's combat against Western Christianity and Western decadence could be harnessed to the geopolitical war to come.
^Lackman, Matti: Jääkärimuistelmia, s. 22-23. Helsinki: Otava, 1994. ISBN 951-1-13498-1
^Salomaa, Markku: Punaupseerien nousu ja tuho, pp. 20, 25-26. Otava, 2018. ISBN 978-951-1-32381-5.
^ abcMikko Uola: ”Gylling, Edvard”, Suomen kansallisbiografia, osa 3, s. 387–389. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2004. ISBN 951-746-444-4.
^Markku Kangaspuro: Neuvosto-Karjalan taistelu itsehallinnosta – Nationalismi ja suomalaiset punaiset Neuvostoliiton vallankäytössä 1920–1939. Bibliotheca Historica 60. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Helsinki 2000.
^Nevakivi, Jukka (1967). "Iivo Ahava, punainen heimosoturi". Studia historica: acta Societatis historicae Ouluensis 1967. Oulu: Historical Society of Oulu. pp. 261–283. ISSN 0475-1655
^Soikkanen, Timo: Yrjö Ruutu: Näkijä ja tekijä. Itsenäisyyden, eheyttämisen ja uuden ulkopolitiikan juurilla. Helsinki: WSOY, 1991. ISBN 951-017306-1.
^Janne Riiheläinen, Tapaus Juha Korhonen Väkivallaton maanpuolustus ja sen henki 5.12.2021, viitattu 25.7.2024
^"Some 20 Finns fought against Ukraine in Donbas, facing no consequences in Finland – media". Euromaidan Press. 13 May 2024. "Johan Backman says that he continues to help Finns who have gone to Eastern Ukraine to fight. He does not feel responsible for the people he recruits." Johan Bäckman is an important central figure for Finnish fighters, who had organized their travel from Finland to the Donbas and engaged them in illegal activities there. Janus Kostia Putkonen arrived in Donbas from Moscow via Rostov, southern Russia, in March 2015.
^Heller, Joseph (1995). "The Zionist Right and National Liberation: From Jabotinsky to Avraham Stern". In Wistrich, Robert S.; Ohana, David (eds.). The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory, and Trauma. Routledge. p. 88. ISBN978-0-714-64641-1.
^Bosilkov, Ivo (2021). "The state for which people? The (Not so) left populism of the Macedonian far-left party Levica". Contemporary Southeastern Europe. 8 (1): 40–55. doi:10.25364/02.8:2021.1.4.
^Haran, Olexiy; Zimmer, Kerstin (2008). "Unfriendly takeover: Successor parties in Ukraine". Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 41 (4): 548. doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2008.09.002.
