National Bolshevism, whose supporters are known as National Bolsheviks and colloquially as Nazbols, is a syncretic political movement committed to combining ultranationalism and Bolshevik communism. The movement first emerged in Germany following World War I, where figures such as Ernst Niekisch and Karl Otto Paetel advocated for a synthesis of radical nationalism and Soviet socialism to oppose Western liberalism and the Treaty of Versailles. This German current, often associated with the Weimar Republic's Conservative Revolution, sought a revolutionary "third way" that rejected capitalism in favour of a state-driven, nationalist collective.
In Russia, National Bolshevism appeared during the Civil War through the Smenovekhovtsy movement, which viewed the Soviet state as the primary vehicle for restoring Russian national power. While many early proponents were later purged under Joseph Stalin, the ideology influenced the revival of state nationalism in the 1930s. In the post-Soviet period, the movement was eponymously revitalized by the National Bolshevik Party, founded by Eduard Limonov and Aleksandr Dugin, which had little in common with the original "National Bolsheviks", and combined radical anti-establishment politics with Eurasianism.
History and origins In Germany
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.Pierre Broué, Ian Birchall, Eric D. Weitz, John Archer, The German Revolution, 1917–1923, Haymarket Books, 2006, pp. 325–326. 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).Timothy S. Brown, Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists Between Authenticity and Performance, Berghahn Books, 2009, p. 95.
National Bolshevism was among several early ultranationalist, and according to some fascist, movements in Germany that predate Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. 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. 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.Susan Gross Solomon, Doing Medicine Together: Germany and Russia Between the Wars, University of Toronto Press, 2006, p.130, 138, 139
After Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and subsequent seizure of control by the Nazis, rival ideological currents such as the Conservative Revolution, National Revolution and National Bolshevism weren't completely eradicated, but operated within the state, engaging in a continual —though ultimately unsuccessful— struggle to supplant the dominant National Socialist doctrine of the NSDAP. Following the collapse of the Nazi regime after the war, these tendencies reemerged within the German Right and eventually took a broader European significance, serving as the intellectual foundations for subsequent nationalist movements.
Ernst Niekisch and 'Widerstand'
One of the early and most prominent pioneers of the National Bolshevik movement in Germany was Ernst Niekisch of the Old Social Democratic Party of Germany. Niekisch was the founder and primary editor of Widerstand, a magazine which advocated for National Bolshevik ideology. Co-publisher and illustrator of Widerstand was the openly antisemitic A. Paul Weber, who saw himself primarily concerned with the future of Germany due to the growing popularity of Nazism. Other authors of the magazine included Otto Petras, Friedrich Georg Jünger, Hugo Fischer, Hans Bäcker, Friedrich Reck-Mellecze, and Alexander Mitscherlich.
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. Others have called his ideology outright fascist, despite Niekisch condemning and critiquing fascism, primarily in his work "Hitler - ein deutsches Verhängnis".: 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.
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. After the Nazis took power, Niekisch organised a national revolutionary resistance, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment until being released in 1945 by the Red Army. 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.
In modern times, Niekisch and his works have been cited and praised by both neo-fascists, in particular the Autonomous Nationalists, and some elements of the West German far-left. Aleksandr Dugin also referenced Niekisch in his book The Fourth Political Theory in relation to Eurasianism.
Karl Otto Paetel
Another prominent National Bolshevik was Karl Otto Paetel, notable for writing the National Bolshevist Manifesto (published 1933), in which he bases himself on Marxism.
Originally a figure in the German Youth Movement, and later the KPD, Paetel founded the Arbeitsring junge Front, and later the (GRSN), which sought to bring together radicals of left and right in pursuit of a "third way" between the NSDAP and the KPD, encompassing both nationalism and socialist economics.Brown, Weimar Radicals, pp. 32
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.Brown, Weimar Radicals, p. 78 & 134. Paetel would later strongly condemn both Nazism and all other forms of fascism in the National Bolshevist Manifesto.
Similarly to the National Bolshevism of Niekisch, Paetel's ideology was strongly anti-western, focusing on anti-imperialism and opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, as well as being characterized by an Anti-French sentiment. Paetel's National Bolshevism advocated for soviet democracy, while also emphasizing a strong nationalism, including a return to paganism, and believing that the nation is a prerequisite for building socialism.
Following Hitler's rise to power, Paetel fled Germany, initially to Paris and later New York, where he would die in 1975.
Strasserism
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".Robert Lewis Koehl, The SS: A History 1919–1945, Tempus Publishing, 2004, pp. 61–63. 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.
Prominent figures of this movement were the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser, after which the movement was later named, as well as Walther Stennes, Hermann Ehrhardt, and Ernst Röhm.
In Russia Russian Civil War
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.
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. 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.Speech by Vladimir Lenin on 27 March 1922 in V. Lenin, On the Intelligentsia, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1983, pp. 296–299.
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.
Co-option of National Bolshevism