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Thoughts on Revolution
Revolutions are invented by intellectuals, made by
fanatics, and serve only the opportunists." -- Otto von Bismarck
The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in a
time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." -- St. Thomas Aquinas
by Freiheit*
July 30, 2002
There have been recently a series of articles dealing with strategy and
objectives of white nationalists in general terms, namely
Jasa Slovjanski's "Stop the Hate," M. Adam's "On Achieving Power," and
Gerald Morris' answer to this last one. It may seem strange
that I put Mr. Slovjanski's article along with the two others, as it deals
not with the revolution but with the present-day movement.
However, it shall be seen to be in every way as relevant as the others. In
the three, there are many good suggestions, much
speculation, but I think they all have missed something important. This is
why I offer my two-cents' worth. It will be a bit long, but, I
hope, useful.
In the first place, I must say I was taken aback by the vitriol in
Morris' article. It is always difficult to tell where argument ends
and character-bashing begins, but the adjectives Mr. Morris applies to Mr.
Adams, and the suggestion he sends information to Abe
Foxman, etc., certainly are past that frontier. This kind of provocateurism
does not further internal union, much less clarity in the
discussion of long-term objectives and the way to achieve them.
BASICS
Let us start with the obvious basic. White Nationalism is defined by
the belief that the European peoples are worth preserving.
This is all. In itself, it does not matter the reason for this belief, or
what other beliefs are joined, or what is the best way of achieving it,
or the price one is prepared to pay to achieve it. In this way,
libertarians, socialists, communists, individualists, atheists, catholics,
protestants, can all be White Nationalists. It is obvious that some
ideologies/religions are more easily compatible with this objective (it
is hard to think of, but not impossible to conceive, a Communist or Buddhist
white nationalist), but they are not included in it.
Well, the way I have defined it, and which seems to only reasonable way
to do it, it is also evident that White Nationalism cannot
stand as a complete ideology on its own. You say, "I believe European
peoples must be preserved"; now, so what? What is to be done? White Nationalism per se does not answer this question -- this is why I think it is very important to discuss what the hell we want to do.
Despite the fact that White Nationalism per se does not give us
answers, it gives us a moral compass with which to weigh options.
Every one of you reading this article knows it already, consciously or not:
what furthers the survival of European peoples is moral, what does
not is immoral. Now, of course, in practice, there will always be dissension
in deciding what furthers survival and what does not in specific
situations, but the margin of disagreement is much, much smaller than if we
do not recognize this principle; and moreover, this
dissession is much more factual than metaphysical, and so more easily resolved by discussion rather than force.
With the long-term objective of White Nationalism being survival, we
now ask, so what? As it is obvious and self-evident that the
present socio-political organization of the Western World is going to
destroy the European race, the short-term objective of White
Nationalists must be to destroy the present system and to replace it with
another more conducive to the long-term objectives. This
event we call "The Revolution." Note that the terms I used are extremely
abstract: what exactly is a system "more conducive to the
long-term objectives"? Will it be, for example, a democracy, a monarchy, a
dictatorship? What will be its economic organization? Will it
be intended as temporary (say, a "transition period") or permanent? Of
course, this is at present pure speculation, as the
Revolution is all but near; but if we don't know where we are heading, we
will get nowhere. And, as practically every one of us has an
opinion about it, we must at least know what the other is thinking. In
practice, the pragmatical attitude is more common and more
correct: the present system is so corrupt that almost anything would be
better than it; and the one thing the Revolution is sure to
accomplish is to replace the present ruling élite with one at least more
identified with White Nationalism, and that would be an
improvement anyway.
What then is the White Nationalist movement? A concise and somewhat
disrespectful definition would be "a bunch of people who
agree on little more than that the European peoples must survive, and that
this entails the destruction of the present system." In this
context I see the importance of Jasa Petrovic Slovjanski's article: his call
for internal union, for shredding secondary differences to
achieve the common objective is not only right in itself, but will have to
be repeated at every point in the road to Revolution. The
extremely great number of ideologies and currents of thought which are
compatible, or can be made compatible with, White
Nationalism, makes our movement especially prone to internal dissension.
This is, by the way, increased by the fact that we have no
"illuminated leader" in the past in the way the Communists had Marx as a
common point of reference in their dissensions. In all
their subtle quarrels, Leninists, Reformists, Stalinists, Trotskyists,
Gramscists, etc., all quoted Marx and attempted to prove that he
would have agreed with them, if he were alive. To some this was easier to do
than to others, but all tried to do it, even the reformists
which Marx himself condemned. The only historical figure that could be
thought to serve this purpose for us would be Hitler. There are
only two problems: (1) National-Socialism is a much less-developed ideology,
in intellectual terms, than is Marxism (this entails no
statement as to what each contains of truth), and so is much less useful as
an element of union; (2) many White Nationalists are not
National-Socialists (I personally am not, although I would prefer, if I had
the choice, to live under Hitler than under present-day Western
régimes). The need for union is therefore very great.
THE REVOLUTION
We now get to "The Revolution." There are two things, entirely
dissimilar, which are involved in it: (1) Making the Revolution; (2)
Maintaining and consolidating the revolutionary government. There have been
tons of revolutions in the last two centuries, but very few
succeeded in making the second phase; one has only to think of the Communist
revolutions all over Europe at the end of the First
World War, every one of which failed to the chagrin of Lenin; or of the many
revolutions and counter-revolutions in the 20th-century
history of Latin America. This point is, I believe, overlooked by both Mr.
Adams and Mr. Morris, and I believe attention to it will ease the
dissensions between them.
In his article, Mr. Adams cites the following examples: (1) Sulla,
Crassus, Caesar and Augustus in the end of the Roman
Republic; (2) Adolf Hitler. He says that in both examples they worked
"within the system" to achieve revolution. Mr. Morris slams against
the examples, saying in effect that the end of the Roman Republic was no
revolution, as the persons involved were well-placed initially;
and he also says, remarkably, that the rise of National Socialism was no
revolution as well, and that Hitler failed to make it because he
"compromised," the great sin he accuses Mr. Adams of defending. Mr. Morris
cites examples of traitors in the National-Socialist hierarchy
(Hjalmar Schacht), and concludes, in capital letters: "WORKING WITHIN THE
SYSTEM IS NO WAY TO CARRY OFF A REVOLUTION!"
He continues: "The point is not to tail events and wait for something
to happen but to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN! A small, well-disciplined
revolutionary organization can do just that. It won't be easy, but we are
fighting for our lives and the lives of our posterity. We have no choice but
victory or surrender." This is all very heart-stirring, but no organization,
no matter how well-disciplined or truly revolutionary, can do that.
EVERY SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION began with an incredibly stupid decision by the
powers-that-be (or that-were): the Assembly of the
Notables (representative of the nobility) refusal to consider changes in
fiscal law in France in 1787; Louis XVI's decision not to punish
the separate meeting of the representatives of the Third Estate in May 1789
(it was forbidden by law, and the army wanted him to use
it); the Tsar's trying to take political representation from the only social
basis of support he had (struggle against the Duma,
1905-1914), and finally the Tsar's refusal to punish mutinied soldiers
(beginning of the February Revolution of 1917). More examples
could be cited, of these and other situations. There was nothing inevitable
about Revolution in each of these cases, and if the Ancien
Régime had not made very, very dumb decisions, they could well have
maintained or reformed themselves: no amount of
"well-disciplined revolutionary organizations" could have made a Revolution against a united front.
He also says that: "Before laying the matter of Lenin and Leninism to
rest, let's consider some of Lenin's methods and principles. I
certainly agree with Adams as far as adopting communist tactics goes. Lenin
led a tight little organization of just a few thousand members to
absolute power over a large empire." [Implication: as Lenin was against every
kind of compromise, it is evidence in favor of Mr. Morris
position.] However, that is not the whole truth. Lenin was able to lead "a
tight little organization of just a few thousand members to
absolute power over a large empire" only because he had support abroad (1). He only succeeded in making the Revolution because of Jewish support, both in America and in the Pale of Settlement (2). And
that was not enough: he would have been destroyed in 1918 if it weren't for the vast quantities of money the German Government gave him. Even this was not enough: in the middle of 1918, the Germans agreed to send their army into Russia to fight against the anti-Communist armies (they did go, but in the end did not have to fight, the anti-Communists fled the area). Now, with this unwavering foreign support, such a tactic may well be successful: but
where is foreign support for a White Nationalist Revolution? Who among
non-white races has interest in financing a revival of the Western
World (and money to do it in a meaningful way)? Lenin's success formula is
simply not applicable to us.
Now let us return to the two phases described above, and their relevance
to the question of "compromise or non-compromise," in
Mr. Morris' terms (with which, by the way, I disagree). What are the
necessary preconditions for the making of a Revolution? The first and
obvious one is revolutionary-minded individuals (us); the second is lack of
legitimacy of the present government in the eyes of a great
part of the people (it was very easy to delegitimize power in Absolutist
France and Tsarist Russia -- we must delegitize "democracy," and show it is nothing but dictatorship with a beautiful veneer; and this must be done both intelectually and with the people -- and is obviously beyond the limits of this article); the third is, as I have already said, an incredibly dumb decision by the Ancién Régime that opens the way for revolution.
Now, why does the Ancién Régime make these dumb decisions and pave the way for a revolutionary situation? Doesn't it know its
interests, and the results of these actions? Just plain dumbness
notwithstanding, in most cases it is simply because it has no choice.
One must always remember that, no matter how powerful or intrusive or
totalitarian the government is, it cannot control everything. And
every act which it does in its own interests has consequences, not all of which can be predicted at the time the decision was made. It does
happen that situations put political power in a corner, having to
choose between different options, all of which require the
sacrifice of something to save or increase the rest (the something may be
very small). In other words, the moment of truth is when one
part of the ruling élite has to part with some of the established privileges it has, either in order to save the rest, or to increase it, etc.
The revolutionary moment happens when the ruling élite splits: some support
the government's action, and other continue to defend another line of action. The internal debate in the élite continues, because
no government can kill off its own social basis of support
(the moment the government kills the recalcitrant part of the élite, the
rest become fearful for their lives, and will precipitate the fall of
the government to save themselves -- if the government can kill one part of
the élite, it can kill the other as well). As the rift widens, the
opinion, position, etc., of non-élite forces grow steadily. The losing part
of the élite tries to increase its strength by giving vent to some
popular demands; however, in every case the process proceeds so far so
rapidly that the élite is submerged (as there is a limit to how
far it will go in answering popular demands), and this is the beginning of
the Revolution. This happened with the French nobility
pre-1789, and with the Tsarist aristocracy pre-1917. In the turmoil, coups
d'État become possible (e.g. the Communist coup of October
1917), and it becomes impossible to stop the Revolution and re-establish the
Ancien Régime. In the revolutionary situation small, organized, non-compromising and revolutionary-minded groups can take power.
Here the example of the Bolsheviks is illuminating. But here only.
How does "compromise" appear here? It is, I believe, obvious that
neither White Nationalists nor anyone else can make a
Revolution against the élite as a united front. We will also have to wait
for the rift to appear, and to prepare, as did the Leninists, to act
decisively when the moment comes. When a tough decision is to be made and
the élite splits, part of it will start courting support by
taking up some of our positions (some have been doing it even before, e.g.
anti-immigration activists). What is to be our answer? I
believe it is obvious, and fully agree with what Lenin said and did when
that moment arrived for him: we must refuse every collaboration
with the élite. This is what Lenin said when he arrived in St. Petersburg
from exile, to the shock of his correligionaries who were, with the
rest of the socialist factions, collaborating with the part of the élite
that deposed the Tsar. The "new" élite (which was already a part of
the old) must be quickly overthrown, before it has time to consolidate its
power. I do not need to point out that, in the case of White
Nationalists, a similar situation is at best many years in the future.
As a detail, a comment about Weimar Germany. It is evident that
Hitler's rise to power does not conform to a violent
revolutionary period model of the kind commented upon above. However, I
believe it can also be used as an example, for the entire
Weimar period was one of internal division among Germany's ruling élite.
This division was along the line of what we can call the "old" and the
"new" élite. Imperial, pre-WWI Germany had, as every nation does, an
established political and economical élite. After WWI and the fall
of the II Reich, a new political élite took power (members of the reformist
Social-Democratic Party); this élite managed to maintain
political power both against the right (several putsch attempts in
1919-1921) and the extreme left (the Spartacist League). One point
to be kept in mind is that the new political élite had weak economic power,
and what it had was mainly via Jewish nouveau-riches'
support of socialism. So we had a new political élite, with a weak economic
power which was identified with non-Germans, the Jews; and
an old political-economic élite, which had lost much of its political power, but kept its economic power. Hitler perceived that, and took his
side with the old German élite. After the his failed coup d'État in 1923, he tried, successfully but only very gradually, to convince the old
German élite that he would destroy the new élite, if they gave him their support; and if they refused to act, they would be destroyed by
the new élite. Of course, élites only take drastic and potentially
inflammable measures when they are forced to: the growth of
Communism was Hitler's greatest ally. The new political élite's (which was,
after all, originally Socialists) lukewarm position towards
Communism gave Hitler the place of the only force which could save the old
élite. I won't enter here into the question of whether Hitler
was a sincere revolutionary who was using the old élite to gain power, or an opportunist who reinforced the old élite and fooled the
people with beautiful slogans. I believe, however, that the six years of
National-Socialist government in Germany in peace-time
demonstrate that Hitler was sincere, and that he tried to get rid of the old
élite by playing upon its internal dissensions, in a very gradual
and perilous game (if he went too obviously against it, his social basis of
support would collapse). From what I understand of Mr.
Morris' article, he doubts Hitler's sincerity (or his intelligence).
THE AFTERMATH
Napoleon is reported to have said to one of his brothers, on arriving
at the Tuileries: "We've arrived. Now we must find a way to
remain here." Taking power is one thing, keeping it another.
To keep things simple and not too much speculatory, let's remember what
power is. Hitler defined three characteristics: popular
will, force, and time. Every regime not founded on popular support will, in
the long run, fall; the regime must either conform itself to
obvious popular will, or remake the popular will to suit what it already is
doing anyway. It is obvious which kind of action happens today.
Besides popular will, force is also necessary, for the regime must be able
to achieve its objectives unconstrained by individual
selfishness. Force alone, however, can only sustain a regime for a small
period of time. The third point is the strength of tradition, the
feeling of "things have been this way since time immemorial." The truly
established, consolidated regime, whatever it is, must be based
in general terms on these three elements.
Suppose (or dream) that the White Nationalist Revolution has taken
place, whatever the context is. It is obvious that we don't
possess the third element (tradition). I don't see any way of changing the
opinion of the masses ("the lemmings," as Dr. Pierce calls
them) before the Revolution, so popular will will not be favourable to us;
at best it will be lukewarm. The only alternative to this would be
civil-war scenario in which all established powers successively fall, until
ours is the only option left; but I find this Turner-Diaries
possibility extremely, extremely unlikely. The conclusion is that,
immediately after the Revolution, the strongest, if not the only base of
our power, shall be force. Popular support and legitimacy by tradition will
have to be built afterwards.
How are we to defeat counter-revolution? Of course, it all depends on
specific conditions which cannot be predicted, but I don't
think it is a wise move to antagonize all previous "insiders" and throw them
into the arms of counter-revolution. It is in this light that I
see, positively, Hitler's actions (dubbed by Morris "compromising"): he
tried at the same time not to throw the old élite in the arms of
his enemies, and to transform portions of it into true supporters of the
revolutionary régime (the most eloquent example is the son of
former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who enthusiasically supported Hitler, despite the
fact that Hitler's rise to power killed every hope of future
restoration of the Kaiser), while taking all their power of control over the
government (controlled by the Nazi Party) and economic policy
(government economic regulation). They remained rich, but their riches could
not easily buy political power. Lenin and Trotsky did this
even more obviously: in the "Red Army of Workers and Peasants," over 75% of
the officialdom was composed of former Tsarist officers
(remember that only the nobility could reach officialdom under Tsarism). The
same happened in the Organizations of Production; the
workers complained that, formerly, they worked for Mr. Serguei under
capitalism; now, under communism, they continued working for
Mr. Serguei, but Mr. Serguei wasn't the owner of the business anymore, he
was its government-appointed overseer. By the way, Mr.
Serguei couldn't order them to be killed for a trifle under capitalism, but
now under communism he could!
It is obvious that we don't desire the extreme corruption and outright
lying of the communist revolutionary aftermath, which fully
justified the prescient Bismarck phrase I quoted in the beginning. While
keeping our objectives in view, depending on the specific
situation, "compromise" may be either bad and traitorous, or the only way
and therefore good. It is not per se one or the other. Until
the revolution (that is: now), I don't see any problem in "working within
the system," or "infiltrating institutions." The problem of
government spies in the movement is to me beside the point, as spies will
exist whether we work "within" or "outside" the system. At
worst, it will bring us no good. At best, one well-positioned person in what I
called a revolutionary moment can do much to further the White
Nationalist cause.
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NOTES
(1) Mr. Morris implies that Mr. Adams was wrong when he said Lenin
collaborated with Tsarism. This is not correct. The official
journal of the Bolsheviks, which Lenin founded in Switzerland in the 1900s,
Iskra, was financed and overseed by a man Lenin knew was
a Tsarist spy. Some time before the Revolution he was exposed, but Lenin
defended him and he was kept. After the Revolution, this
guy was killed. It is rather obvious that Lenin accepted it because it was
the only way he had at the time to finance his journal, and it
did not imply that Tsarism had bought him off. The Tsar gained in turn
knowledge of the internal workings of the Bolshevik Party.
These informations are in Richard Pipes (Jew), Concise History of the
Russian Revolution. New York, 1994.
(2) The Pale of Settlement was the area to which Jews were restricted
by law in Tsarist Russia. It encompasses basically Western
Russia, along with Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, etc.
(3) As a detail, Mr. Morris accuses Himmler of being a traitor and of
not redeeming himself at Nuremberg. I don't think it so easy to decide; he
did what he did in the last weeks of the war, when Hitler was dreaming of a
super-counterattack at his bunker, and Germany was being destroyed
uselessly. Whatever one thinks, Himmler is certainly innocent of the charge
of not redeeming himself at Nuremberg: he was murdered by the British much
before the "trial" (officially, he committed suicide with a hidden poison
pill, one day after surrendering himself to the British; very strange
behaviour, why surrender if you planned suicide?)
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* I am a 20-year-old South American white male who believes White
Nationalism is a Pan-European ideal, and that the revolution
must start in the United States, otherwise it will be crushed by it. I'm not
a member of any organization, and write under a pseudonym
as in "my" homeland dissension from NWO rules is punishable by a long period
of imprisonment. By the way, these are about the only laws which are really enforced here... I also ask indulgence for my English,
as it is not my mother-language.
FREIHEIT
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