What is National-Bolshevism? The Wikipedia free encyclopedia states that "National-Bolshevism is an ideology that attempts to combine elements of fascism and Stalinism. It also says that the National-Bolsheviks' economic ideology attempts to marry the New Economic Policy of Vladimir Lenin to the Corporatism of Benito Mussolini, and to marry Joseph Stalin's Socialism in one country with Adolf Hitler's "pure aryan nation". How is this possible? How can one uphold Lenin's and Stalin's Communist ideology intended for all humans of this planet and uphold Hitler's and Mussolini's ideology of white supremacy? Any Communist is perfectly aware that the mixture of Communist ideology with Nazi ideology is an unimaginable system that could never possibly function. To uphold Lenin and Stalin one must hold up its roots: Marxism. Marxism is a revolutionary ideology that promotes the overthrow of capitalism by an internationalist workers revolution, and thereby liberates the workers of the world. Fascsim promotes racial hatred and a society free from non-whites, Jews, and other "undesirables". But the Nazbols remain convinced that it is possible to create a society such as this. Or do they?
The National-Bolshevik Party (originally known as the National-Bolshevik Front) is one of many political parties that flourished in post Soviet Russia. Its founder is Russian fascist Eduard Limonov. The National-Bolsheviks are widely known in Russia and in the former Soviet Union, but its largest numbers remain for the most part in Russia and to a lesser extent other ex-Soviet republics. Outside the former USSR they claim to have branches in countries such as the USA, France, Sweden, and Spain. Nazbols have gained no publicity in the capitalist media and are almost never seen in the western countries (maybe in Nazi rallies), while in the Russian media they are often described as "radical leftists". Due to their usage of the hammer and sickle, as well as their stance against capitalism, the Western and the Russian governments; along with their propoganda posters containing Socialist revolutionaries have confirmed to many that Nazbols are leftist activists. Their latest biggest press release internationally was in December of 2004 when Nazbols occupied the presidential waiting room of the Putin administration in Moscow. Their flag was seen hanging out the window as they anti-Putin placecards rained down upon the street. It is totally understandable, their anger against the current capitalist regime in Russia.
Eduard Limonov, the National-Bolshevik Party founder is no stranger to being a trouble maker in Russia. He had been an anti-Communist Soviet dissident during the 1970's, when the Soviet leadership expelled him from the Soviet Union as stripped him of his Soviet citizenship, and found comfort in the USA who embraced him and others as "victims of Soviet repression". He would regain his Soviet citizenship by Mikhail Gorbachev during the reactionary perestroika years. It wasn't until 1991 that he first founded the newspaper Limonka, and then the Nazbol Party (Limonka is the party's newspaper). Limonov has listed his personal idols despite the ideological contradictions. He idolizes Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Russian Anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, Italian Fascist Julius Evola, and Japanese rightist Yukio Mishima. It is impossible to be a nationalist and a Bolshevik at the same time. But the trick is that in reality they are not at all Bolsheviks as many young radicals are led to believe.
Bolshevik ideology comes from great revolutionaries: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin who fought revolutions for the working-class. National-Bolshevik ideology has not one shred of the ideas of the Russian Revolution (which they denounce as a "Jewish coup d'etat that resulted in the deaths of millions of Russians"), workers liberation, or class struggle against oppression in their program. The Nazbol program revolves around nationalist chauvinism, patriotism, racism, and conservatism in a leftist cloak. Their call for revolution is in the same form as that of Communists. But the revolution they seek is a so-called "National-Revolution", i.e a bourgeois revolution. The National-Bolsheviks look up to revolutions such as the Libyan Green Revolution of Col. Muammar Qadhafi, the Iraqi Baathist coup of Saddam Hussein, and the Iranian Islamic Revolution of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. None of which were based on the principles of working class liberation or Socialist Revolution, but a mere trade of ruling classes who continued to leach of off the workers. In Iran's case it was a bit more interesting. Khomeini aided the CIA backed Mujahideen in Afghanistan with arms and volunteers to fight the Soviet and Afghan forces. He also called for a counter-revolutionary jihad in the Central Asian Soviet Republics which the CIA was willing to use as a counter-revolutionary dagger to drive through the heart of the Soviet Socialist state.
Nazbol leader Eduard Limonov during the war in Bosnia was a mercenary and served as a sniper for the Bosnian-Serb Army. Limonov had admired the Serbian tactics for creating a Greater Serbia, and admired the ideas and action of Chetniks such as Radovan Karadzic, Vojislav Seselj, Vuk Draskovic, and Arkan of the cleansing of non-Serbs in the Serbian areas. Limonov applied this goal into the National-Bolshevik program for Russia to extend the borders of Russia into other former Soviet republics where there are large populations of ethnic Russians. After the rise of the "Great Russian Nation", the Nazbols want their Russia to regain its power, and then counter and defeat the Western liberal capitalism. Following this, Russia would then move into Western Europe and create a "Eurasian State" ruled directly from Moscow, a so-called "Eternal Reich". As we can now see, their goals are modeled right after Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich". Russian would then implement their own version of a "New World Order" where Russia would be the supreme imperialist leader in place of the United States as the dominant power in world politics. The Russia that Eduard Limonov and his Nazbols want to create is not at all based on the policies of the Soviet workers state. It is a state that would still have a ruling-class made up only of ethnic Russians dominating the other nations (Russia's minorities and "disloyal" Russians) of the former Soviet Union. The workers of Russia would find themselves in the same situation as the workers of Germany did after Hitler's coup. The Nazbol Russian state's policies instead of the Soviets' policies, would be based on that of the Czar, and Imperial Russia but with a military dictator (Eduard Limonov) in the Kremlin instead of an actual Czar.
The Nazbols enjoy their claim that they are above left and right, just as the German Nazi Party did. But unlike the Nazis, the Nazbols have an oxymoronic program as they portray themselves. More idealistic than the Communists, and better racists than the Fascists. Their propaganda has been an attraction to many radical minded youths in Russia whom are angry with the current Russian capitalism and/or Soviet nostalgics. The National-Bolsheviks use the images and slogans of great Communists such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara, along with the hammer and sickle to attract these radical youths to oppose the Russian capitalist regime. Nazbols also use words against capitalism such as it being a "Jewish economy", allowing minorities foreigners to stay and keep "the Russian nation" down. Unfortunately, due to Russia's current status which it has maintained since the counter-revolution many of these youths have not received proper education to where they are easily lured with not only left-wing phraseology and symbols, but Russian patriotism and chauvinism towards ethnic minorities and foreigners. The usage of revolutionary slogans and symbolism against capitalism has also kept the National-Bolsheviks from being labeled Fascists by the media. They are not the typical Fascists. The Nazbols, unlike the average Fascist does not openly praise Adolf Hitler and proclaim him the God sent messiah for the white race. Along with them using revolutionaries, distorting their views, and portraying them as nationalists, as opposed to praising Hitler have saved them from the public viewing them as Fascist.
The National-Bolshevik position on the war in Chechnya further confirms their Fascistic and nationalistic position. As far as Chechnya goes the Nazbols hold the identical mentality of other Fascist groups like the Russian National Unity and Pamyat: "Mr. Putin, we don't like you but we're with you". National-Bolsheviks call for the expulsion of all foreigners and repression against minorities. Specifically for the Chechens, the Nazbols call for Hitler's "final solution" against the Chechen people, meaning exterminating the whole nation be means of slaughter. Take the case of Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov for example. Yuri Budanov in March 2000 kidnapped an 18 year old Chechen girl Kheda Kungayeva. He suspected that she was a sniper after his men broke into her home while her parents were away. He abducted her, where Budanov raped and strangled her to death. He was arrested and tried in February of 2001. During his trial, Russian Fascist groups; the Russian National Unity, the Cossack Brotherhood, the National-Bolsheviks, and the social-imperialist phony "Communist" Party of the Russian Federation chanted slogans in support of Budanov calling for his release. It was here where the Nazbols made one of their many calls to eliminate the Chechen people. Nazbols also call to eliminate the gay and lesbians of Russia. According to the Maost Internationalist Movement the Limonka newspaper website at one point contained a leaflet of a firing squad with the dialogue "We don't care which one is the gay pedophile".
The irony of the National-Bolsheviks is they claim to oppose capitalism. As we'll now see, their roots (including Limonov) are in total collaboration with the liberal bourgeois democracies of the West. The Nazbol ideology is based on the writings and ideas of Russian White Nikolai Ustrialov, German nationalist Ernst Niekisch, and German Fascist Otto Strasser. Nothing in their program contains the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or Che Guevara. Nikolai Ustrialov was a staunch anti-Communist who fought in reactionary White Army (aided militarily and financially by the USA, UK, and their imperialist crusade of sixteen western armies) against Bolshevik Red Army. He later became impressed with the Soviet Union's expansion, and believed the Bolshevik ideal could still uphold Russian nationalism. It was Ustrialov who first used the term "National-Bolshevik" in Russia, and began tp promote it openly. During the Great Purges of Joseph Stalin, Ustrialov was charged with being a counter-revolutionary and committing anti-Soviet activities. Ustrialov was tried, convicted and executed by the NKVD on Comrade Stalin's orders. German nationalist Ernst Niekisch invented the "National-Bolshevik" title. He too had the same idea of Soviet Russia being a nationalist state, rather than a workers state. Although he was staunchly anti-semitic, he refused to support Hitler and the Nazi party. His stance against Hitler landed him in prison until 1945. Niekisch then lived in East Germany until 1953, when he supported the attempted counter-revolutionary putsch directed by Radio Free Europe. After the Russians and East Germans crushed counter-revolution, Niekisch fled to the West, where he was welcomed as a "victim of Communism".
Otto Strasser was a member of the German Nazi Party, but would later oppose Hitler. Otto Strasser and his brother Gregor had both served in the German army in World War I. The aftermath of the war sparked the German Revolution led by Communists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and the Social-Democrats, when they mobilized the German workers to revolt which led to the downfall of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Strasser brothers both joined the proto-Fascist Freikorps (remnants of the monarchy) of the German Weimar Republic when they crushed the revolution. The Strasser Brothers then participated in the Freikorps when they invaded and crushed the short lived Bavarian Soviet Republic (established and declared by the workers of Bavaria modeled after Soviet Russia) killing thousands of workers. The Strasser brothers would later join Adolf Hitler's National-Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP - Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei). But in 1934, one year after the Nazi coup in Germany Adolf Hitler began to see the leading members of the S.A (sturmabteilungen - meaning storm troopers) paramilitary as a threat to his power with their left leaning views. The Strasser brothers and others like them (such as the S.A leader Ernst Roehm) began to oppose Hitler of his capitalist policies in preserving German corporations, privatization with nationalization. They attempted to create a renegade faction with left-wing views while still holding on the racist policies. That year Hitler lauched a series of bloody purges of the S.A leadership. Gregor Strasser, Ernst Roehm, and many Nazis with leftist views were arrested and executed by the Gestapo in what was called "The Night of The Long Knives". Otto Strasser fled Germany where his writings would come to influence the National-Bolsheviks and other Third Positionists. So it is crystal clear that the Nazbols stand against the working class, and whose side they are on.
Nazis (National-Socialists) are not Socialists but are Fascists. Therefore Nazbols (National-Bolsheviks) are not Bolsheviks but are Fascists. The only real difference is the cute appearance of the Nazbols with their leftist acting. Cancer is cancer no matter where or how it attacks the body. Fascism is fascism whatever name it goes by it is still malignant to the working class. |
