".... For all European national revolutionaries the cause of the Iron Guard is a reminder that the peoples of "Western" and "Eastern" Europe are brothers. The example of the Iron Guard helps us to endure and persist. Our revolutionary task can only be fulfilled by the legionary ideal reborn. The martyrs of the Iron Guard have shown succeding generations that repression may postpone our revolution but it can not destroy it."

Bob Eccles

Michael Walker

Taken from the book "Legion", published by Rising Press in conjunction with Nationalist Books, BCM Kursaal, England.

FOREWORD

The National Revolutionary Critique

In November 1938 Corneliu Codreanu and 13 of his followers were executed by the Romanian police in the Tancabesti wood. The Romanian government had brought its conflict with Codreanu's Iron Guard to a murderous conclusion. From then on, the Iron Guard, which had fought persistently against corruption and the disintegration of a nation, was to know only persecution and death; but also from that time on the example of the Iron Guard was to inspire thousand of European nationalists. The example was one of purity and fidelity, the only measure of true greatness. A movement which never achieved power nevertheless enthuses the post war national revolutionary movements of Europe. The book "Legion" shows how it is possible.

The focal point in Codreanu's work is the cuib (nest) which he saw as a kernel of his movement. The cuib contains the model of a complete revolutionary organisation. Each militant possessing a function in that organisation. The cuib is the starting point for expansion and internal education, above all the development of a dynamic idea of responsability, something vitally important today. The Iron Guard opened new ways of political and technical betterment and more than any other movement it represents for national revolutionaries today a spiritual and political point of reference. The legionary represents 'between earth and sky' the future aristocracy of his country andthe altruism of his people, ready for the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of the race.

From the spiritual point of view the movement can be seen as strongly Christian, yet there are no sign of the amoral pacifism and the egalitarianism which typifies much of the 'Christianity'.The superficial observer might argue that there is a contradiction between legionary comportment (never turning the other cheek, for example) and legionary piety; but Christianity include a non-pacifist tradition. Neo-pagans and agnostics whose conception of the world is spiritual and moral also possess a sense of origins, a love of fatherland and family, in brief a sense of belonging: remembrance of past heroism and willingness for heroic sacrifice in the present are qualities that can be found in the Christian and non-Christian. Only the materialist , the man enslaved by lucre or mesmerised by gadgets, will find it impossible to identify with Codreanu's movement.

We have reached a watershed in European nationalism. Compromising leaders and their parties disappear without a tear being shed whilst the ideal of the Iron Guard remains and inspires each generation, a point of reference for those who would build rather than destroy, whose destiny is compelled by a noble love more than hatred. Codreanu, the 'leader on a white horse' became for the peasant masses the emissary of the St. Michael. He was a synthesis of the aspirations of the people - their sense of heroic origins and the yearning to retrieve national dignity. Codreanu and his legionaries set out to be an example of the 'new man' to come: they showed their love of their people in a practical sense by repairing bridges, building houses and responding to the urgent needs of the national community. The Iron Guard did these things out of love and not in order to win votes or gain popularity.

Nationalist it was, yet the Iron Guard transcended the barriers of nineteenth century jingoism and extended the hand of friendship to all peoples in struggle. Mota and Marin, two leading legionaries, fought in Spain at the head of a Legionary unit for Jose Antonio's Phalange and against internationalMarxism. They fell in combat in fulfilment of a supranational mission, martyrs in a European cause.

Codreanu's work and his legionary songs are widely known, especially in Spain, France and Italy. In Italy the revolutionary organisation Terza posizione (Third Position) based itself even structurally on the legionary model of the cuib (militant's cell) and the legion (the elite of revolutionary cadres) and consistently practised the legionary message, working side by side with the people to build a new and better nation and emulating the Iron Guard even in dignity under the tribulations of repression. In Britain the present advance of the cause of revolutionary nationalism has opened the way for the growth of the legionary ideal, an ideal which is able to supercede class differences by appealing to the best in all classes. The legionary elite transcends conflicts of class and party.

Political activity alone is not sufficient to accomplish radical change and the stirring example of a non-compromising stand of spiritual integrity in a disintegrating world. Under the parliamentary regimes of Europe, where political repression has put in doubt the very existence of legal national revolutionary organisations and where the reactionary right achieves 'electoral success', the legionary example is one of fidelity to an ideal in the midst of hypocrisy, compromise, cowardice, reaction and confusion. In the Soviet dominated areas of Europe the inspiration of the Iron Guard is a call to arms. For all European national revolutionaries the cause of the Iron Guard is a reminder that the peoples of 'Western' and 'Eastern' Europe are 'Brothers'. The examnple of the Iron Guard helps us to endure and persist. Our revolutionary task can only be fulfilled by the legionary ideal reborn. The martyrs of the Iron Guard have shown succeding generations that repression may postpone our revolution but it can not destroy it.

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Bob Eccles

Mihael Walker

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