OTTO AND GREGOR STRASSER
Reaction vs. Revolution
by
Many people associate the term "Socialism" with Left-Wing
intellectuals, Communists or members of the Labour
Party. The sad reality is that the internationalist Left has completely highjacked this word and used it to hide their more
sinister motives. "Socialism", for the average Marxist-Leninist, is
the description given to the promotion of minorities above the larger community
as a whole. Left-Wing organizations are fond to trying to appeal to the working
class, or what they patronizingly refer to as "the Proletariat". The
ulterior objective behind such ideology is based upon a desire to divide and
rule. In other words, whilst these new organizations are offering support to
so-called "oppressed minorities", such as homosexuals, Black Power
groups and rebellious middle class students, they are in fact creating disunity
amongst the various members of society ensuring that they hold the only banner
behind which degeneracy and immorality can find a safe haven from the seemingly
encroaching rigors of normality. That society is becoming more degenerate, is
merely testimony to the fact that Communists are regularly able to rally
between two to three thousand protestors at the drop of a hat, as recently
happened on a wet Monday evening at an Anti-Nazi League demonstration in
There is simply no disputing the fact that Socialism is an integral part
of the Nationalist creed. To separate the very essence of the social sphere
from the concept of the nation, is to ignore the basic
fact that it is the People who actually comprise the nation itself.
Without people there can be no nation, and without a nation there can be
no people. On the other hand, it is quite certain that we have absolutely
nothing in common with the disgusting legions of the Left, but then, neither do
we owe any allegiance to those on the Right. Many so-called Nationalists are
content to describe themselves as being "Right of centre", or even as
"on the extreme Right-Wing", but it must be stated quite categorically
that Nationalism has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Right-Wing
politics. To simplify, a Right-Winger is no more Nationalist
than his counterpart on the Left. Both Communism and Capitalism are two heads
of the same beast.
Revolutionary Nationalists, on the other hand, rather than take a
portion of either camp and attempt to form some kind of a ridiculous halfway
ideology, are unconcerned with philosophical materialism altogether and reject
the middle and both ends of the system in its entirety. Revolutionary Nationalists
oppose the Reactionaries and the Reds alike, because we are genuine Social
Nationalists.
The doctrine of Social Nationalism was chiefly propagated by Otto and Gregor Strasser, two brothers who
joined the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP) during the 1920's.
This organization eventually came to be led by Adolf
Hitler, who in his selfish lust for ultimate power came to betray the very
ideal of Social Nationalism that had been promoted by the NSDAP from the very
beginning. To many so-called Nationalists, criticism of Hitler is viewed as
heresy. But nobody can ignore the plain and simple fact that Hitler totally
refused to condemn German Capitalists and the Right-Wing Establishment, and
even allowed the Party to receive funding from wealthy Jewish financiers in
Wall Street. The evidence for this claim can be found in Anthony Sutton's
excellent Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler.
The Strasser Brothers, however, who were both
extremely active in the NSDAP before the party came to power in 1933, were
regularly engaged in a war of ideology with Hitler himself, who refused to
advocate the decentralization of State power or offer the normal working people
of
“The Capitalist system with its
exploitation of those who are economically weak, with its robbery of the
workers’ labour power, with its unethical way of
appraising human beings by the number of things and the amount of money he
possesses, instead of by their internal value and their achievements, must be
replaced by a new and just economic system, in a word by German Socialism.”
Moving on to Points 13 and 14, the statement of Party principles called
for the destruction of the Capitalist system and its replacement by family
businesses and workers’ co-operatives. Once again, Hitler had no time for such
economic justice and these two articles of policy were soon forgotten. Otto Strasser, on the other hand, explained that:
“The alternative to the bankrupt
alien “solutions” of Communism and Capitalism, the idea which we present is the
political representation of parties, trades and professions based on our
ancient Guild system.”
Otto Strasser, who was once described as “a dauntless
man of compelling sincerity and charm” by the radical anti-Capitalist A.K.
Chesterton, then went on to propose a three-point programme
for industry and the workers:
“(1) There will come into being, in
contradistinction to the extant “class” of Capitalist, an “estate” of managers,
which, regardless of wealth or origin, will constitute a functional aristocracy
that, thanks to the very methods of its selection, may be said to be made up of
“captains of industry” or “commissioned officers of economic life.”
(2) The dispossessed “class of
proletarians” will vanish, its place being taken by an “estate” of fully
privileged workers, directly and indirectly participating in and therefore
interested in their “workshop”. They will no longer be objects of the economy,
but its subjects.
(3) The relations between State and
economic life will be radically altered. The State will not be the
“night-watchman and policeman” of Capitalism, nor will it be a dictator whose
bureaucracy cracks the whip that drives the workers to the bench and spurs them
to their tasks; but it will be a trustee of the consumers, and as such it will
have much influence, but only within and beside the self-determination of the
working producers, namely of the management and the staff of workers
(consisting in appropriate proportions of clerical and other intellectual
workers, on the one hand, and manual operatives, on the other).”
In spite of the commonsense ideas of Strasserism,
the list of contradictions continues, as a result of the fact that Hitler
meekly
refused to condemn the Right, gaining control of the NSDAP and eventually
leading
In Point 17, it was explained that there would be an end to the rule of
the big landowners, and that there would be a resettlement of the expanded
peasantry. During the 1920’s, over 20% of
“The object of agriculture is to make sure that the community will be
fed. The land available for the use of the community is owned exclusively by
the nation, for it was not by any individual but by the community at large that
the land was acquired, by battle or by colonization on the part of the
community, and by the community it has been defended against enemies. The
community as owner puts the land at the disposal of the nation in the form of
“entails” to those able and willing to use them for husbandry and
stock-raising. This will be undertaken by self-governing corporations of local
peasant-councils. The size of the farms will be limited in accordance with the
local qualities of the land: the maximum being determined by the principle that
no one may hold in "entail" more land than he is able to farm
unaided; and the minimum being determined by the principle that the
landowner must have enough land to provide, not only food for self and family,
but a superfluity by the disposal of which he will be able to obtain clothing
and shelter for his family.
The maximum limitation will result in freeing large quantities of land
for settlement by peasants, particularly in
In the event of bad farming, an "entail" will also revert to
the community, the decision upon this matter resting with the local
self-governing body (peasant-council) in agreement with the state (represented
by the circle president). The introduction of "entail" into German
agriculture will be in such manifest conformity with German tradition and with
the right and necessary ideas of peasant possessor-ship, that
neither psychological nor material difficulties are likely to ensue."
The sad motive behind Hitler's blatant refusal to listen to Otto and Gregor Strasser, was power. Whilst Hitler saw power as the objective, the
group of people who agreed with the vision of these two brothers, commonly
known as the Strasser-Circle, only saw power as the
means to implement their Social Nationalist programme.
Once again, the common people paid the price for the selfishness of a
reactionary. In 1930, things finally came to a head and Otto Strasser began to clash with Hitler on a regular basis. His
newspaper, the Arbeitsblatt, which was based in
Strasser announced his total support for the German
workers. Meanwhile, the powerful industrialists themselves put pressure on
Hitler to condemn the views of Strasser and bring the
strike to a halt. Hitler called Otto Strasser to a
private meeting at his hotel the following day, where he attempted to bring him
into line by ordering him to submit to his authority. During a heated debate,
Hitler accused him of promoting "bombastic nonsense" by placing
emphasis on the Ideal rather than the Leader. Strasser
was right, of course, but Hitler was only interested in personal power and
chose to put himself before the economic freedom of the German people. Otto Strasser went on to rightly accuse Hitler of trying to:
"…strangle the social
revolution for the sake of legality and your new collaboration with the
bourgeois parties of the Right."
Hitler angrily denied this and tried to condone what modern Capitalists
today like to call "free enterprise". He also went on to endorse the
Capitalist philosophy that "might is right" and that "the strong
survive, whilst the weakest go to the wall":
"The Capitalists have worked
their way to the top through their capacity, and on the basis of this
selection, which again only proves their right race,
they have a right to lead."
This statement alone is testimony to Hitler's allegiance to Capitalism
and Big Business, and reveals the unbridgeable gulf that exists between
reaction and revolution. Hitler, after failing to come up with any real
argument against the genuinely Socialist principles of Otto Strasser,
eventually wrote to Goebbels and instructed him to
drive Strasser and his supporters from the Party.
Otto Strasser remained true to his beliefs and, as a
result, was expelled from the NSDAP soon afterwards, setting up a group known
as the Union of Revolutionary National Socialists--the forerunner of the Black
Front. Otto Strasser was finally interned by the
SIS-OSS and became a broken-hearted exile in
Before this essay is brought to a conclusion, it is only fair that
Nationalists are assured of Strasserism’s total
incompatibility with Marxism and the “Socialism” of the Left. Here are a few
excerpts from Otto Strasser’s polemic comparison of
the two ideologies:
“How German Socialism differs from
Marxism:
a. The personal initiative of the
responsible managers is preserved, but it is incorporated into the needs of the
community.
b. Within the systematically planned
management of the whole national economy by the State (organically safeguarded
by the equal third of influence which the State has in every industrial
enterprise) the wholesome rivalry of the individual enterprises is maintained.
c. The treatment of State and
economic enterprise, that is to say of official and
industrial manager, on equal footing is avoided so is the arbitrary power of
the State which deprives the worker of his right.
d. Everyone engaged in an
enterprise is, by virtue of his being part-possessor as a citizen, one of the
immediate and influential possessors of his enterprise, his “workshop”, and can
exert this possessive right in full measure on the supervisory council of the
concern. The form of the factory fellowship, founded upon the legal idea of the
fief, and given life by the great self-governing body of the workers’ and
employees’ councils, on the one hand, the industrial and trades’ councils, on
the other, constitutes the new economic system of German Socialism, which is
equally remote from Western Capitalism and Eastern Bolshevism, and nevertheless
complies with the requirements of large scale industry.”
On a final note, I hope that this short essay on Strasserism
has persuaded some of the more misguided supporters of the Hitler regime that
genuine Socialism has yet to achieve a practical breakthrough and progress from
the purely theoretical stage. It is futile for any Nationalist to look back to
Nazi Germany as a worthy example of what is best for our English nation, or
even for