National Bolshevism

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National Bolshevism is the name of a political movement which, at the time of the Weimar Republic, sought to align the German Reich with Soviet Russia or the Soviet Union and called for a national revolution , but not a global communist revolution .

National Bolshevik ideas could take very different forms, so that the corresponding groups were often divided. The word national Bolshevik is also used as a dirty word for communist or social revolutionary nationalists. As the inventor of the term applies Karl Radek , who thus, after the elimination of the KAPD from the Communist Party , disparaging the syndicalist oriented Communist policy of the Hamburg Revolutionary Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim designated (Hamburger national communism ) .

term

The main founders of national Bolshevism are two founding members of the KPD, Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim, in Hamburg. Their basic thesis was that the “mutilation of the German imperial body” by the “ Versailles dictate ” and the conditions of the Entente would inevitably lead to a proletarianization of the entire German people , with the exception of a small number of capitalists . Accordingly, they no longer saw only the working class , but almost the entire people as a revolutionary subject, whose future was the socialist council system .

In doing so, they viewed nationalism and socialism as inextricably linked. The term “folk whole” first appeared in her writings in 1919. They see the class struggle as a preliminary stage to the “popular struggle”. The working class, as the most progressive part of the “popular whole”, should lead the liberation of all oppressed “popular masses”, with the communist organization assuming an avant-garde function without creating new leaders. Thus the proletarian class organization becomes a “proletarian people's organization”. Laufenberg and Wolffheim were also influenced by syndicalist ideas.

Weimar Republic

Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf analyzed national Bolshevism in his influential study Left People from Right. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic (Stuttgart 1960) as consisting of three aspects: on the one hand, nationalistic tendencies in communism , on the other hand, socialist aspirations in the national camp - and thirdly, the temporary alliance of both currents (“ cross front ”) in the domestic political struggle against Weimar and in the desire for German- Soviet cooperation in foreign policy .

Schüddekopf saw the foundations of national Bolshevism in the ideas of 1914 , in the unfinished November Revolution , the rejection of the resulting Weimar Republic and the associated rejection of the Peace Treaty of Versailles, in which the communists and the right-wing radicals were common opponents of the Weimar coalition . The right-wing nationalists were also fascinated by the tight organization of the KPD as a mass party and the ruthlessness of the Soviet government. In addition, Klaus W. Epstein accepted :

“[A] explanation of the fact why this movement only gained real importance in Germany, despite its universal historical roots”, “lies in the strength of the romantic- national anti-Western 'German movement' of the 19th century - of which the national Bolsheviks were particularly proud - , partly [also] in the particular tragedy of the German political development since 1914. "

The term national Bolshevism also denotes the amalgamation of conservative and nationalist ideas with Bolshevism . Overcoming the class struggle propagated by Marxism was part of the ideology of the right-wing national Bolsheviks. Ernst Niekisch distinguished himself from the "pointed formulation of the fact of class antagonism" by Marxism and propagated a strong state without parties that should lean on the Soviet Union against Marxian internationalism . Left national Bolsheviks, in turn, advocated the class struggle, such as Karl Otto Paetel . Overall, however, national Bolshevism can be classified in the intellectual environment of the Conservative Revolution .

Often the KPD's tactical swiveling towards nationalism, such as the "Schlageter course" of the summer of 1923, in which the KPD supported the Ruhr struggle as a resistance to the Versailles Treaty on the advice of Karl Radek , is classified as national Bolshevik. However, these phases were hardly motivated by the desire for an ideological synthesis of nationalism and socialism, but resulted from the calculation of "neutralizing" members and voters of nationalist or fascist currents or winning them over to communism. However, since this tactic failed and tended to reinforce right-wing radical discourses, it was already highly controversial among contemporaries of the KPD; the Schlageter course of 1923 lasted only a few months.

Connection to National Socialism

Parts of national Bolshevism were also at home in the NSDAP or were temporarily close to its left wing around Ernst Röhm , Gregor Strasser and Otto Strasser : These were anti-Semites , but placed the goal of national socialism in the foreground. Otto Strasser resigned from the NSDAP together with some like-minded comrades on July 4, 1930 and published the appeal The socialists are leaving the NSDAP in the mistaken hope of dividing the party.

Present reception

One of the heads of national Bolshevism was Ernst Niekisch, the editor of the magazine Resistance. Journal for national revolutionary politics , which was published by the resistance publishing house, Berlin. Some representatives of today's New Right refer to this ideology using the cross-front strategy and take up its ideas. In addition to the group around Niekisch, a group around Karl Otto Paetel operated as a group of social revolutionary nationalists . For Ruth Fischer , who published in 1959 in the Frankfurter Hefte on national Bolshevism using the example of Ernst Niekisch, all national Bolsheviks were, based on Karl Radek's essay on Leo Schlageter, "Wanderer into Nowhere".

In 1992, Eduard Limonov founded the National Bolshevik Party in Russia . The right-wing populist Compact magazine and its publisher Jürgen Elsässer are also classified as at least partially national Bolsheviks.

See also

literature

  • Ralf Hoffrogge : The Summer of National Bolshevism? The position of the KPD left on the Ruhrkampf and its criticism of the “Schlageter course” of 1923 , in: Sozial.Geschichte Online, No. 20/2017.
  • Andreas surrounding area : National Bolshevism. In: Cyprian P. Blamires (Ed.): World Fascism. A Historical Encyclopedia. Volume 1: A-K. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara CA u. a. 2006, ISBN 1-57607-940-6 , p. 449.
  • Gerd Koenen : The Russia Complex. The Germans and the East 1900–1945. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53512-7 .
  • Michael Pittwald: Ernst Niekisch. Völkisch socialism, national revolution, German final empire (= PapyRossa-Hochschulschriften , Volume 37). PapyRossa-Verlag, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-89438-231-7 (also: Osnabrück, University, dissertation, 2000).
  • Markus Mathyl: The "unstoppable ascent" of Aleksandr Dugin. Neo-National Bolshevism and the New Right in Russia. In: Eastern Europe . Vol. 52, No. 7, 2002, pp. 885-900.
  • Erik Van Ree: The concept of 'National Bolshevism': An interpretative essay. In: Journal of Political Ideologies . Volume 6, No. 3, 2001, pp. 289-307, doi: 10.1080 / 13569310120083017 .
  • Birgit Rätsch- Langejürgen: The principle of resistance. Life and work of Ernst Niekisch (= series of publications Extremism & Democracy , Volume 7). Bouvier, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-416-02608-X (also: Munich, University, dissertation, 1994/1995).
  • Alexander Bahar : Social Revolutionary Nationalism between Conservative Revolution and Socialism. Harro Schulze-Boysen and the “opponents” group. Fölbach, Koblenz 1992, ISBN 3-923532-18-0 (At the same time: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 1992).
  • Ernst Niekisch, Andreas Paul Weber (Ed.): Resistance. Journal of National Revolutionary Politics. Resistance Verlag, Berlin (July 1926 to September 1934), ZDB -ID 534356-2 .
  • Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf : Left people from the right. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1960 (later edition as: Nationalbolschewismus in Deutschland 1918–1933 (= Ullstein-Bücher. Nr. 2996). The paperback edition reviewed and reorganized by the author. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main and others 1973, ISBN 3-548-02996-5 ) .
  • Karl O. Paetel: Temptation or Chance? On the history of German national Bolshevism. Musterschmidt, Göttingen a. a. 1965.
  • Louis Dupeux : “National Bolshevism” in Germany 1919–1933. Communist strategy and conservative dynamics. Beck, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-406-30444-3 (Zugl .: Paris, University, habilitation paper, 1974).
  • Erwin Oberländer : National Bolshevik tendencies in the Russian intelligentsia The “Smena Vech” discussion 1921-1922 . In: Year Books for the History of Eastern Europe , New Series, Volume 16, Issue 2, June 1968, pp. 194–211
  • Jane Burbank: Intelligentsia and revolution: Russian views of Bolshevism, 1917-1922. Oxford University Press on Demand, 1989.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "There was no national Bolshevik party, just a myriad of leagues, groups and magazines." Klaus Epstein : Review of Schüddekopf, Otto-Ernst, Linke Menschen von Rechts. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic, Stuttgart 1960. In: Historische Zeitschrift , Volume 193, 1961, pp. 676–681, here p. 679.
  2. ↑ a b Klaus Epstein: Review of Schüddekopf, Otto-Ernst, Left People from Right. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic, Stuttgart 1960. In: Historische Zeitschrift , Volume 193, 1961, pp. 676–681, here p. 678.
  3. ^ Ernst Niekisch: The way of the German workers to the state (= The German worker in politics and economy. A series of publications of the "Firn". 1, ZDB -ID 1035073-1 ). Verlag der Neue Gesellschaft, Berlin-Hessenwinkel 1925, p. 8.
  4. ↑ Cf. Ralf Hoffrogge : The Summer of National Bolshevism? The position of the KPD left on the Ruhrkampf and its criticism of the “Schlageter course” of 1923 . In: Sozial.Geschichte Online , No. 20/2017.
  5. ^ Robert S. Wistrich : Who was who in the Third Reich. A biographical lexicon. Supporters, followers, opponents from politics, business, military, art and science. Revised, expanded and illustrated German edition. Harnack, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-88966-004-5 , p. 262 ff .; on the basic anti-Semitism of the National Socialist left see the glossary of right-wing extremism of the Brandenburg State Center for Political Education ( memento of the original from October 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de
  6. ^ Wording of the appeal