By Welf Herfurth
IntroductionThis article has been written with a view to outlining an overall strategy for nationalist groups to follow – a course of action. In the weeks since the APEC demo, it has become clear to more than a few observers that our communist and militant anti-racist (Antifa) opponents are incapable of debating with us intellectually, and indeed are incapable of intellectual expression. A long, intellectual article posted at the New Right blog will have, in the comments section, abuse and threats of violence from our communist opponents – and never a discussion of the ideas and personages involved (e.g., Babeuf, Stalinist economics, Lorenz von Stein, de Benoist...). And, again and again, we at New Right (as do many other nationalists in Australia, whether they be German or not) get tagged with the ‘Neo-Nazi’ label – this is despite the fact that we here, at this site, have made our opinions clear on German National Socialism and the phenomenon known as Neo-Nazism (or Nutzism, as we disparagingly call it).
Having said that, the reaction from our communist opponents is, I think, beneficial. It can only benefit our cause, as I shall explain below, and part of our strategy ought to be to continue to provoke similar reactions in the future.
1. What is a Neo-Nazi?
Neo-Nazism is an attempt to revive German National Socialism in the modern era. As we know, German National Socialism was a form of fascism. There are a number of definitions of what fascism actually is, or was. Fascism can be defined as a radical form of socialism for the petit bourgeoisie (Hayek’s definition, and the definition of many other free-market conservatives who locate German National Socialism on the Left of the political spectrum, not the Right); or as an attempt to introduce a Traditional order in the modern world (which is how Evola understood it)... What distinguishes German National Socialism from other forms of fascism (Quisling’s, Mosley’s, Mussolini’s) is its adherence to the Führer principle. Simply put, National Socialism needed a Führer figure to hold it all together, and was nothing without him. As the German historian and liberal anti-Nazi Martin Broszat writes:
National Socialism was not primarily an ideological and programmatic, but a charismatic movement, whose ideology was incorporated in the Führer, Hitler, and which would have lost all its power to integrate without him. Hitler was never merely the spokesman for an idea that would have had an equivalent importance and existence without him. On the contrary, the abstract, utopian and vague National Socialist ideology only achieved what reality and certainty it had through the medium of Hitler. Thus there could be no effective opposition against Hitler in the name of the National Socialist ideology. Where this was none the less attempted, as for example by Otto Strasser and his mainly intellectual following, the features of the National Socialist ideology, which were composed of emotions, resentments and dreams, were exchanged for an ideology directed towards concrete material action (which was consistent in that respect and naturally permitted no omnipotent Führer) and failed to appreciate the charismatic foundation of the National Socialist movement. It had been far more typical of the general attitude of Party functionaries from the various ancillary organisations of the NSDAP
before and after 1933 that however much they thrashed out bitter quarrels amongst themselves they did not as a rule turn against Hitler, but tried to win him over to their respective interpretations of the National Socialist ideology and programme. That is they basically recognised him as the interpreter of the correct ‘idea’ and did not question his supreme authority to rule on ideological matters too. (Martin Broszat, ‘The Hitler State: the foundation and development of the internal structure of the Third Reich’, 1969, p.29).
So, in order for there to be a Neo-Nazism movement, there has to be a neo-Führer, who takes Hitler’s place symbolically as the integrating, charismatic head of the revived Nazi movement. The communist and militant anti-racist opponents of Western nationalism understand this instinctively: which is why, whenever they are on the look out for a ‘Nazi’ revival, are always hunting for the ‘new Führer’, whether he be Dr James Saleam, the ‘Reverend’ Patrick Sullivan, David Palmer, Jack van Tongeren.
On the other hand, it could be argued that there can be a ‘Führer’-less form of ‘Neo-Nazism’. The NPD is accused, by the German and international media, of being ‘Neo-Nazi’ all the time, even though it has no charismatic ‘Führer’ figure. In all fairness, the NPD does have a few things in common with the old German National Socialist and fascist movements. For starters, both are mass-movements, which emphasise extra-parliamentary organisation; both form women’s and children’s groups, and other groups which embrace people from all walks of life, all professions, with the intention of being more than political parties; both are on the Left, politically speaking, in many of their social and economic policies; both are radical and uncompromising; both have suffered persecution at the hands of liberal democratic States; both tend to make a mystique of street action and confrontations with communist opponents; both of course, are German and nationalist. One could, on that basis, apply the description ‘Neo-Nazi’ to the NPD. But, again, there is no Führer, and my argument (and Broszat’s) can be no German National Socialism, old or new, without a Führer-figure.
One of the problems of identifying the likes of the NPD with ‘Neo-Nazism’ is that so many other ideological groupings have appropriated parts of the National Socialist doctrine. Do we castigate the Greens, for instance, for being environmentalist, when one of the first environmentalist politicians was Adolf Hitler? A few scholars acknowledge the influence Hitler’s National Socialism had on Swedish social democracy – the welfare-statist brand of socialism which, in turn, influenced the British Labour Party (in the 1960s) and the Australian Labor Party (in the 1970s). In fact, one of the definitions of German National Socialism could be: welfare-statist social democracy plus dictatorship.
Incidentally, one can see how the Führer-as-integrator principle works for other political ideologies. Chavezism, for instance, is inconceivable with Chavez: in that respect, Chavezism is more ‘Neo-Nazi’ than the ideology of the NPD.
Oddly enough, the communists adhere more to the Führerprinzip, or ‘leader principle’, more than we nationalists do. Communism, even today, is nothing but a gallery of ‘great leaders’: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Jong-Il, Kim Il-Sung, Tito, lesser lights like Salvador Allende... Their word is law: none of the members of the communist parties are allowed to question the rulings, on any conceivable subject, by these men. Communism is the most authoritarian movement in the history of the world; it is also the most bound up with personality cults, ‘Great Leaders’ (or ‘Dear Leaders’). Hitler and Mussolini, of course, imitated this (and many other parts) of communist doctrine, and German National Socialism could be described as being little more than German Stalinism.
The advantage of the communist application of the Führer principle is that it discourages questioning, thinking and debate. Were the followers of communism allowed, for once, to question where socialism is going, what they, through their activism, are doing to achieve it, what a communist Australia would actually look like, communism would collapse. Or rather, belief in communism would collapse. Socialists would ask, for instance, how it is that mass immigration of Africans, Muslims and Indians helps the Australian working-classes – when these immigrants (especially the more disadvantaged ones, like the Sudanese) would compete with Australians for welfare benefits. And what on earth do gay rights have to do with socialism? Surely capitalism cannot be to blame for discrimination against gays? And why support socialism in Cuba when Cuba uses fierce state repression against gays? There are no answers to these questions: which is why the communist Führer principle is needed. It keeps communists from thinking.
2. What is wrong with Neo-Nazism?
To me, ‘Neo-Nazism’, particularly in its Nutzi, uniform fetishist form is a bizarre, antiquated and ultimately self-defeating ideology. Enough of it has been said here elsewhere at the New Right site. (See the article, ‘Freaks in the movement’, archived at http://newrightausnz.blogspot.com/2006/07/freaks-in-movement-this-is-statement.html ).
But, obviously, what I and many other nationalists dislike about ‘Neo-Nazism’ is not what our opponents on the mainstream Left dislike about it. To them, the objection to ‘Neo-Nazism’ is simple. During the Second World War (itself started by Germany, when it invaded Poland in 1939), Germany gassed eight million people, using weapons of mass destruction, and threw the corpses into giant ovens. Some were turned into soap; others into lampshades. The horrible, shrivelled corpses at Dachau and Bergen-Belsen are testimony to the evil of the ideology of German National Socialism, which committed the most terrible crimes of the twentieth century.
Now, according to the communists and the Antifa, the ‘Neo-Nazis’ want to bring back that order, and start gassing, not only Jews, Poles, homosexuals and gypsies, but anyone who is not a white European or of European descent. Alan Moore’s classic 1988 graphic novel, V for vendetta, offers a good summary of the communist and Antifa view of Western nationalism – and the consequences of a ‘fascist’ return to power. The graphic novel depicts a dystopian Britain in the late 1990s, where 1930s-style fascists have taken over the world and have killed a good many Jews, homosexuals, Pakistani and Caribbean immigrants in death camps, and like Dr Mengele, carried out sadistic medical experiments on the inmates. The mainstream Left sincerely believes that propaganda like V for vendetta depicts nationalist goals accurately: they believe that we nationalists are all working together towards the same goal – of eliminating, through death camps, the ‘racially impure’ (whatever that means) members of Western society.
The Antifa demonise their opponents, making them out to be satanic. Militant anti-racism plays on nothing but fear: it is pure emotion. And it is purely negative, as well: ask them what their political policies are on inflation and interest rates, for instance, or conscription or abortion or the death penalty, are – and they have no answer. Because of the lack of foundations, the lack of arguments, they can only appeal to fear. They are more a belief-system than a political ideology, and with their appeals to fear and irrationalism, plus the almost religious attribution of satanic qualities to their opponents, they resemble a cult, like the Raelians or the Scientologists.
In the Antifa and mainstream ideology, the New Right and the National-Anarchists are part of the same ‘Neo-Nazi’ conspiracy. A few individuals of the mainstream Left have expressed their trepidation that naïve youths (who have been insufficiently indoctrinated, i.e., not converted to Marxist-Leninism) may go over to the National-Anarchist side, not understanding that the National-Anarchists are ‘Neo-Nazi’ fakes. In the communist scenario, the naïve youths, after becoming members of a National-Anarchist group, will eventually be led down the path to ‘Neo-Nazism’. Possibly, the new National-Anarchist recruit will be brought to a secret cavern by the other members, where he will find framed portraits of the Führer and George Lincoln Rockwell, and swastika flags, on the walls. The secret ‘Führer’ of the movement shall doff his anarchist garb to reveal a homemade brownshirt uniform. He will then unveil a fantastic plan to take over Australia and build death camps, run by blonde, Nordic women in ‘Ilse the She-Wolf of the SS’ uniforms, and fiendish doctor-sadists like Mengele.
Regardless of whether or not one believes in a National Socialist gassing of eight million people, the interesting thing is that the communists have a long backlog of atrocities of their own to atone for – and they do not apologise for them. While many nationalists push a revisionist line, the communists do not. Confront a communist with the nine million Russians killed by Lenin and Trotsky – during the Red Terror, and the mass famine deliberately triggered by the Bolsheviks to pacify the Russian population – and he will shrug and regurgitate the old Leninist cliché that ‘One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs’. Then there is Mao, whose Great Leap Forward killed 18 to 34 million people (depending on whose figures you believe); Pol Pot; and lesser-known figures like the Ethiopian communist Mengistu Haile Mariam. Even Castro, who is fondly regarded by Australian communist groups, killed thousands after his takeover of Cuba.
My point is that, given communism’s track record, people ought to hold communism’s past atrocities against Australian communist groups like Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative and others. How do we know that these groups do not have a secret plan to collectivise Australian agriculture, and starve millions of Australians to death? Will Australian soldiers be rounded up, Khmer-Rouge style, bound with nylon ropes and have their necks broken with blows from pick handles? (Or perhaps they will be given the softer, North Vietnamese communist version: internment in a ‘re-education’ camp until they get their thinking straightened out?). And what of the capitalist class? Will the Packer family be liquidated on the spot, or will they be forced to work with their hands (for the first time in their lives) in the fields of our newly-collectivised farms, while communist overseers, wearing black pyjamas and carrying Kalashnikovs, jeer at them and curse them? (‘No rice for you today, Mr Packer! Work harder!’).
4. The reality
I am, of course, being facetious here. The Australian communists do not have the demonic drive of a Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Pol Pot, Mengistu: they do not have what it takes to bring about a revolution.
Even more important is the fact that no communist revolution has come about by the revolt of the working classes against the capitalists. All the communists in history have won power as a result of war. Lenin won power only after Russia’s catastrophic defeat, at the hands of Germany, in WWI; the Bolsheviks emerged from the ashes of the Russian Civil War as the most powerful and unified force, and took advantage of the subsequent chaos to impose a dictatorship. Likewise, every subsequent revolutionary owes their successes, not to mobilising the working classes, but from defeating their opponents on the battlefield. (One exception is Mengistu: but Mengistu came to power through a military coup, and was able to used soldiers to liquidate any bourgeois-liberal, monarchist or rival communist opponents).
The truth is that the old-school communist revolutionaries had a unique genius, lacking in today’s Western communist parties, for exploiting the political opportunities that arose as a result of chaos. That chaos is not present today, and it is unlikely that today’s communists would know how to harness it to their advantage.
And so today’s Australian communists, who are schooled in the theory, but not practice, of communism, naively believe that power will be theirs for the taking, once the inevitable downfall of capitalism gets going. Marxist theory proves, scientifically, that the capitalist mode of production will go the way of feudalism – into the dustbin of history. All the communists have to do is agitate at the universities and TAFEs (by selling the Green Left Weekly and trying to encourage students to attend pro-Chavez rallies), march at trade union anti-Work Choices rallies, and run in elections. Then revolution will come about. Australia will turn into Cuba, except it will be a Cuba where people of all sexual orientations will be free to do their thing…
In truth, the only communists to hold true to historical communist practice are a few isolated groups around the world who have taken up the path of armed struggle. The Maoists in Nepal, who adhere to a Pol-Potist ideology and are engaged in an off-again, on-again war against the Nepalese State, are classic, old school communists. Given the disarray of the Nepalese politics, it is not inconceivable that the Maoist revolution could succeed, and a handful of revolutionaries could end up imposing their will on a reluctant, and hostile Nepalese population. Naturally, however, such conditions are not likely to replicate themselves in Australia.
5. What to do
Unfortunately, much confusion exists among nationalists as to who our enemies are. Nationalists tend to speak of ‘the Left’, and lump together all the disparate factions of the Left into a single group: ‘lefties’, ‘crusties’ and the like. But the fact of the matter is that the communists, and the anarchists, for instance, are unaware that we nationalists exist – at present. The only faction of the Left who are aware of us, and consider us to be a serious threat, are the Antifa, the militant anti-racists – who strive selflessly to avert a second Holocaust by posting photographs, names, addresses, telephone numbers, etc., of nationalist activists on the Internet.
It should be mentioned that it is doubtful that the Antifa are really ‘Left’ at all. Although they adopt a Trotskyist rhetoric (‘smashing fascism’ is a Trotskyist phrase), they do not seem to support communism or anarchism – nor even the watered-down social democracy of the Labor Party. No, they believe in racial harmony and the brotherhood of man – and the use of violence to enforce it. They believe in the same pan-racialist, multi-racialist ideology as the Labor Party, or the Democrats, or the Greens – but, in their case, they make that ideology political. Schmitt defines the ‘political’ as any conflict that is raised to the level of war between two or more parties: and certainly, the Antifa are political by Schmitt’s definition. But they are not Left, and, in Australia, they are not do not possess the numbers, the discipline and the organisation of the European Antifa. (According to postings on Stormfront, European nationalist activists are disappointed by the calibre of the Australian Antifa. Indeed, the Antifa in the Netherlands, for instance, is so powerful that it controls neighbourhoods, and hides illegal immigrants who are being sought by the police there). Here, their warfare is psychological. They could not summon up the numbers needed to ‘smash fascists’ at an APEC or anti-Work Choices rally; the communists, however, can.
The point is, though, the communists are not aware of us. They do not acknowledge we exist, and to them, we are an irrelevancy. After all, history is inevitably progressing towards communism: does not the hostility of the Australian electorate towards Work Choices show this? We nationalists do not fit into the grand scheme of things. To the communists, nationalists are ‘Nazis’, and ‘Nazism’ was a tool of the German capitalist classes, who sought to lure the German working-classes away from communism. The capitalist class of Australia, however, is not, at the moment using ‘Nazism’ and ‘Fascism’ to trick the Australian working-classes; it is using the Australian Labor Party. Fortunately for communism, the Australian proletariat will eventually wake up to the Labor Party. The upshot is that communists and other like-minded progressives need not pay any heed, for the time being, to the ‘Neo-Nazis’ of New Right and other nationalist groups.
Were they to notice us, however, their reaction would be along the lines of: the ‘Neo-Nazis’ of New Right, National-Anarchism and other nationalist groups are in the pay of the Australian capitalist class and possibly the federal government itself. These ‘Neo-Nazis’ are trying to lure the Australian working-classes away from their salvation, communism. Really, all capitalism is ‘fascist, racist, imperialist’ – ‘Neo-Nazism’ is capitalism with the mask torn off. The solution? ‘Smash fascism’, use violence, use any means necessary…
The communists can be expected to say many things along these lines, and no doubt they will end up alienating potential members (e.g., left-leaning university students) with their hyperbole and bellicose rhetoric in attacking us; they will also, inadvertently, generate more publicity for us than we could manage to achieve ourselves. It is also possible that, by doing so, they will succeed in making us more attractive to the politically uneducated (that is, not indoctrinated with Trotskyism) university student.
I will, at this point, digress, and bring up the subject of Hugo Chavez, and in particular, one of the techniques he uses to get attention for his ideas. Recently, Chavez announced that he plans to bring his ‘Bolivarist revolution’ to Venezuelan high schools, and alter the content of high school text books along ‘Bolivarist’ lines, filling them up with the crapulous mumbo-jumbo of communist and other progressive ideologues (including the Colombian guerrilla groups). The reaction to Chavez’ announcement was entirely typical. Liberal democrats, in Venezuela and the United States, reacted with outrage, and demanded that Chavez adhere to the norms of free speech and liberal democracy. Chavez’ supporters (and he has many) reacted with enthusiasm.
Nowhere did anyone declare that Chavez’ policy was well-intentioned, but needed to be examined more closely, etc., etc., in the way that the Labor Party, for instance, reacts to any of John Howard’s policy announcements. No: Chavez polarises people, he splits them down the middle. You either love him or hate him. But this is precisely what Chavez wants. He wants the liberal democrats, the Bushophiles inside and outside Venezuela, to hate him; and he has, over many years, become awfully good at it. He instinctively knows what to do in order to get his opponents frothing at the mouth, hurling invective and hyperbole, making themselves look foolish, and piquing the interest of the otherwise apathetic masses. And he has done this, not once, but many times; he is, to a certain extent, a one-trick pony, pulling off the same stunt again and again. His opponents have such little regard for him that they do not see how they are being manipulated by the master. The solution to Chavezism? Incorporate him into the system, and treat him with respect: hold press conferences with him and George Bush, where the latter defers to him as respectfully as he would to Ehmud Olmert or Ariel Sharon.
One can see the parallels with Australian nationalism: all the communists at APEC had to do, for instance, was to invite the National-Anarchists up on stage and ask them to speak; the audience would have listened respectfully, and applauded – just as they did with the indigenous Australian woman at the start, and the North American conscientious objector – and National-Anarchism would have been neutered.
This will never happen. The communists can be expected to react with hostility and hyperbole, every time; and the same reaction can be provoked every time. In that sense, they are as predictable as machines.. The communist policy is always the same: no platform for fascists! No free speech for Nazi scum!
So how do we provoke them? How do we get their attention? Well, we only need to repeat APEC a thousand times over – APEC with more and more permutations. But it is essential to keep up the ‘Left’ talk, the ‘Left’ symbolism, the ‘Left’ imagery, the ‘Left’ sloganeering’, and the ‘Left’ methods of mass organisation, mass activism, extra-parliamentarism, and anarchistic, non-hierarchical, decentralised organisation. Such an approach will ensure that the communists will work themselves up into a state of hysteria: we are using their symbols, their ideas, to lure the naïve young away from progressive, multiracial, tolerant communism and towards ‘Neo-Nazism’ and capitalism. They will be unable to help themselves, and unable to see that the best means of ‘smashing’ us would be to give us equal rights and equal time at their rallies, and possibly in their publications as well.
The Australian communist groups appear to recruit using what I call ‘chaff-cutter’ methods. They attract literally hundreds of young Australians, mainly students. But many of the prospective new members are naïve about the communism of a Socialist Alliance or Socialist Alternative: they believe that these organisations are liberal, like the mainstream political parties – that they encourage free thought and free debate. But the prospective member learns, very quickly, that Lenin and Trotsky had, in advance, worked out the answer to every political problem in existence – and that he had better recognise this or ship out. Subtle, and then not so subtle, peer pressure is used to bring a recalcitrant into line. Eventually, the prospective member gets fed up and ceases his association. He is a liberal and an individualist – both traits fostered by our liberal democratic society – and, at the same time, like many idealistic young people, wants to do something good and progressive. But the inflexibility which lies at the heart of any Marxist-Leninist party, and which is communism’s greatest strength (and greatest weakness) repels him.
The scenario is not all bad, however, for the communist group: a small minority of the prospective recruits will stay on and the communist group is left with a small hard-core. Communism is, above all, a ruthless ideology, which often turns on its own (there is no need to cite the many examples from history). But their recruiting and indoctrination policies – more reminiscent of a cult than anything else – get results. The wheat is separated from the chaff.
Here, though, we nationalists can step in – and pick up the chaff. And, it has to be said, we are not going to expand as a movement by recruiting the same old faces from Stormfront Down Under – the same old white nationalists and Australian bush patriots who have been hanging around the nationalist scene for years and years. No, we are only going to expand by recruiting people who have a fresh perspective which comes from being on the outside of the existing nationalistic scene.
In this connection, it is advisable that nationalists go out and attend as many political meetings as possible: lectures on Lenin, Trotsky, Chavez, etc., delivered by Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative, Resistance. But not only political meetings of the left; nationalists should attend also meetings of the mainstream parties like, here in Australia, the Liberal party, the Greens, ect.
The best course of action is to go there, as normal, intelligent people, and ask questions about their beliefs, and try and engage them in the debate they are so averse to. This is a New Right Australia strategy.
6. Mistakes made
Recently, a nationalist friend of mine – a man with a long and distinguished career in Australian nationalist activism – showed me a nationalist publication which he had helped edit and publish. It was a handsome production. But, while looking through it, I found a caricature of an African immigrant – a giant African immigrant, stalking the streets of some Australian city, with a knife in his hand, and, needless to say, up to no good. I chided my friend for inserting such a crude caricature with overtones of old-fashioned racism: it could have come straight off Tom Metzger’s website. My friend joked, half-heartedly, that at least the cartoonist didn’t draw blood dripping from the African’s mouth. I rested my case.
On the back of the publication there was a reproduction of a beautiful painting, done one hundred years ago, of the inauguration of the first Australian federal parliament. Looking at the picture, I found myself confused as to who the intended target audience of the magazine was: monarchists? Old Australian types who voted for Menzies in 1949? Often this Australian nationalism is an emotional nationalism, with no intellectual foundations, no ideology. Ask them to define what is ‘Australian’, and they will have no answer.
Even if one is not a republican, one will find such imagery incongruous. Granted, governor-generals are part of Australia’s past: but the emphasis is on the word past. Any young person (and the only people who could revel in such patriotic Australian imagery must be very old indeed – at death’s door if they voted for Menzies, anyhow) would find such a nationalist publication off-putting – as dull as a school trip to a museum of Australian history.
As for the cartoon of the African – and there were similar crude caricatures throughout the magazine – there are other, more tasteful ways to address the question of immigration. Link immigration to globalism, for one; or point out how immigration drains Australia’s resources (e.g., water resources) and is bad for the environment… No need to use pictures of blonde, nordic women cuddling blonde, nordic babies, either.
Oddly enough, I agreed with around 90% of the publication’s content: the difference between their approach, and New Right’s, was one of emphasis, and of imagery. Thinking it over, I saw that the whole problem could be summed up in the form of a parable.
Suppose that Henry Lawson, or Jack Lang, or some other Australian ‘bush’ socialist could be transported in time to 2007. We nationalists would explain to him that the old Australian Labor Party, which championed white working man’s racialist socialism, has ceased to exist; in its place is a party of namby-pamby multi-cultism. The union movement, too, is no longer interested in fighting immigration: all it wants is the abolition of Work Choices and federal and state Labor government. Indeed, the union movement has lost the political power it once had – only 17% of the Australian workforce is unionised. The way forward for socialism – for a system where labour dominates capital, and not the other way around – is to restructure the entire political and economic system. That means changing liberal democracy. But that goal, in turn, can only be achieved by building up a mass movement on the streets, which will bring about radical change through mass pressure. To build a mass movement, we need to bypass the unions and the political parties, and start taking our message – of racialism and socialism – directly to the masses. What’s more, we need to talk the language of today – not the language of 100 years ago.
Unfortunately, our way is, for the moment, blocked – by communists, who, like parasites, attach themselves to every progressive cause, whether it be anti-globalisation or the trade union struggle for better wages and conditions. They are unpopular, in the minority, and they adhere to a theory which has been falsified by history. But they are convinced that their cause is the only moral one, and every political ideology contradictory to their own (including ours) is evil and immoral, and should be destroyed, by violence if necessary. Their bark is worse than their bite, but they are still numerous enough, and hostile enough, to prevent nationalists from reaching the masses and becoming a true, mass political force. And so one of the prime necessities of our movement is to unblock the communist blockage…
And that is what I would tell Henry Lawson.
In relation to this, it should be asked: why, if the communists have been going at it for so long, are they so unsuccessful? The communists enjoy all kinds of advantages that we nationalists do not: the media coverage they receive is generally favourable (e.g., see the media coverage of the APEC demonstrators); they can display their names and faces with impunity (at least, they will not be treated as harshly as a so-called ‘Neo-Nazi’ nationalist); they have numbers, nice newspapers, propaganda fliers, badges, flags, banners... And they can attend any demonstration for any cause whatsoever – anti-globalisation, anti-WorkChoices, anti-war – without being set upon by the other demonstrators. And, furthermore, most of Australia seems to support their positions on, for instance, the war in Iraq, or WorkChoices (or perhaps it is the case that the communists attach themselves to popular causes). And yet, they have made little to no headway in all the years they have been here: the communist revolution is further away than ever, and they cannot get one MP elected to state or federal parliament...
The answer, or the beginning of an answer, came to me when I was leafing through old issues of the Australasian Spartacist newspaper from the 1970s. This is a long-running Trotskyist-communist newspaper, which began in 1973 and which is still running today. More or less, it makes a cult, a fetishistic cult (like the Nutzi-cult of Hitler), out of Trotsky and Lenin: every political event – from the war in Iraq, to a trade union dispute in Sydney, to a scuffle between two rival communist groups holding stalls at a university – is interpreted from the perspective of Trotskyist Marxist-Leninism. The frightening thing is that there is no difference between the writing style, and ideas, of the 1970s issues written thirty years ago, and the issues written today. Which raises the possibility that the same person has been writing all the articles for that newspaper all along – and getting nowhere. This obsessiveness, and the refusal to countenance anything other than orthodox Leninist and Trotskyist view of socialism and politics, makes me speculate that the authors of Australasian Spartacist, and other communist publications (like the Green Left Weekly) are literally insane.
And this is why the communists have been failing in Australia for so many decades: they cannot ditch Lenin and Trotsky. It is not that Australians do not want radical socialism; it is that they cannot understand what two dead Russians – who died a long time ago – have to do with a political struggle in Australia today. (The same could be asked of many nationalists today: why is Hitler, for instance, so important?).
7. Conclusion: The strategy of tension
Something else that leapt out of those old issues of Australasian Spartacist was an account of the famous ‘Battle of Lewisham’ in Britain in 1977, which was an epic confrontation between the British National Front and hundreds of communist protestors in South-East London. The clash was violent, leading to hospitalisations, and the police use of tear gas, riot shields, etc., against the protestors. Reading the venomous account of events from the communist perspective, I was reminded of the (far smaller, by comparison) Battle of APEC. Economic, and to a great extent, social, circumstances in Britain in 1977 differed from those of Australia in 2007: but otherwise, nothing has changed. The National Front in the 1970s was a mass-movement with a popular base, and left-leaning; it won a certain amount of support from the British working-classes, effectively challenging the communists and socialists in what the latter two regarded as their own domain. The communist response was to ‘crush fascism’. Hence, the ensuing confrontation at Lewisham.
Perhaps (depending on whose account you believe) some members or supporters of the National Front, who were still bourgeois in outlook, and still held to liberal democratic ideas, found the idea of a political confrontation with communists off-putting; that is, they did not want to suffer verbal abuse from communists, and have bricks thrown at them, and be assaulted. Which is a natural enough reaction. But they did not realise, and many nationalists in Australia today do not realise, the political value of these confrontations. Suppose that 500 or a 1000 nationalists from all around Australia joined up to march through Sydney or Melbourne. The police would be out in force, as would the media; and so would the communists. The spectacle would ensure more media coverage for nationalism than we could generate by ourselves (through pamphleteering, etc., or through websites); and, at the same time, events would radicalise our membership and draw them closer to one another. And the communists would do all of this for us for free. If we are to look at it in economic terms, the return from a demonstration pays even more than the investment in pamphlets and websites.
And all of this can be done tomorrow. Some liberal media commentators will argue that events like the Battle of Lewisham came about because of the high inflation and high unemployment in Britain in the seventies; which is untrue. All one needs is a large body of nationalists who are prepared to go out and demonstrate: then the communists will show up, and behave like they have behaved for the past ninety years. Like monkeys in a zoo cage, they will jump up and down, shriek and spit. And the average Australian will wonder what all the fuss is about, and some of them may even become interested in nationalism as a result.
The essential thing is this: all demonstrations have to be well-organised, for a worthy cause, and above all, disciplined!
We at New Right do not endorse violence. One can, however, use the metaphor of war: that is, any confrontation with communists is a battle in a political war. A good many nationalists in Australia and elsewhere are in political fairy-land; they think they can form a nice little bourgeois liberal democratic party, and be treated with the same respect, and enjoy the same rights, as all the other liberal democratic parties. But, once their parties get up and going, they are due for a shock. The communists will use non-liberal democratic means to deny them their rights. And, possibly, a more effective Antifa will spring up and oppose them with the same means.
Christian Blocher’s Swiss People’s Party (SVP) recently held a rally which was set upon by the Black Bloc of Left-wing Chaotics (an Antifa Black Bloc), who caused an enormous amount of property damage and disruption. The group was arrested, and the rally went ahead. Christian Blocher’s party posted a triumphant account of events at http://www.svp-udc.ch/internet-tv.html . But Australian nationalists cannot expect to get off as lightly. Which is why we must take the war (again speaking metaphorically) to the enemy.
And, while I am not a militarist, I must state my belief that this kind of confrontation is good: it cleanses, it purifies, it bonds the ‘soldiers’ – who are made up of disparate social groups who may have otherwise never have come into contact with one another – together. And, psychologically, to go on the attack is much better than going on the defence: which is the posture many nationalists take now, confining their ‘activism’ to the Internet and not trying to get their ideas out to the Australian community. Which is why we at New Right Australia/New Zealand endorse a strategy of tension. And we endorse direct political confrontation, with the goal of smashing political dogmas, and forming a real social alternative.
*Welf Herfurth is a political activist who lives in Sydney / Australia. He was born and raised in Germany. He can be contacted on herfurth@iinet.net.au
