Editing National Bolshevism (section)

==History==
This article focuses on the two main 'branches' of National Bolshevism; the German branch, and the Russian branch.
=== Origins in Germany ===
==== [[File:HambNazbol.png]] Laufenberg and [[File:Fritz_Wolffheim.png]]Wolffheim ====
While the idea of combining nationalism with socialist economic principles had existed for decades prior, so-called "National Bolshevism", an attempt to merge the communist movement with the nationalist tradition would start within the [[File:Luxem-alt.png]] [[Classical Social Democracy|Communist Party of Germany]] and the [[File:Councom.png]] [[Council Communism|Communist Workers' Party of Germany]].

Following the failure of the [[w:November Revolution|November Revolution]] to establish a socialist state in Germany, [[File:HambNazbol.png]] [[National Communism|Heinrich Laufenburg]] and [[File:Fritz_Wolffheim.png]] [[Council Communism|Fritz Wolffheim]], who advocated for an alliance with the dissident nationalist factions in the country who rejected the Treaty of Versailles. According to them, they sought to establish a [[File:Erga.png]] [[Ergatocracy|dictatorship of the proletariat]] that would utilize German nationalism to place Germany back on a war footing against the occupying Allied armies in alliance with the Soviet Union. Class struggle was to be placed to one side in favour of cross class co-operation, in a war of national liberation. While the idea was initially met with some support and enthusiasm of the members of the Communist movement, support for it quickly ended when [[File:Lenin.png]] [[Leninism|Vladimir Lenin]] publicly denounced the policy and labeled Laufenberg as "absurd". After the two attempted to wrestle control of the Communist Party from [[File:Pieck.png]] [[Marxism-Leninism|Wilhelm Pieck]], the two were expelled from the Communist Party. 

Soon afterwards, Laufenberg and Wolffheim would become founding members of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany, a council communist organisation. Soon after the group's founding, Laufenberg and Wolffheim were expelled from the party for their National Bolshevist ideals. Laufenberg soon afterwards became a persona non grata in German communist circles and retired from politics, in 1932 dying.

==== [[File:Paetel.png]] Paetel and the Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists ====
Karl Otto Paetel, a young theorist from Berlin, had his start in the German Youth movement and the German communist movement. Paetel was a member of the ''Jungnationaler Bund'' (Junabu), an [[File:AntiDem.png]] anti-democratic and [[File:Anti-Semitic.png]] anti-semitic faction of the ''Bündische Jugend'' which considered itself part of the tradition of the Conservative Revolution which came to the forefront of German politics after World War I.

Seeking to establish a supra-national political union, Karl Otto Paetel would initiate a union of members of the ''Junabu'', the ''Deutsche Freischar'', the Artam league and the League of Free Socialist Youth into the so-called ''Junge Front'', who's aim was to achieve "an anti-capitalist union from right to left". The ''Junge Front'' advocated for a "Prussian socialism", who's socialism was defined as "an attitude... that thinks in terms of 'we' instead of 'I'."

Soon afterwards however, many members of the ''Junge Front'' would find an echo in the [[File:Nazi.png]] Nazi Party and Hitler Youth, with several members 'converting' to the Hitler Youth and Nazi Party. Paetel initially was a supporter of the Nazi Party, but soon became disillusioned with the party and Hitler, as he believed that the Nazis were no longer genuinely committed to either revolutionary activity or socialist economics. Seeking to split members off from the Nazi Party, similarly to [[File:Strasser.png]] [[Strasserism|the Black Front]], Paetel established the Group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists: which committed itself to the nation as "the ultimate political value", along with to the ''Volk'' and to socialism. The GSRN called for the nationalisation of all large and medium-sized enterprises and "class struggle of the oppressed", which would include an alliance with the Soviet Union and "all oppressed classes and nations".

The GSRN initially was founded to attract "left-wing" National Socialists who were dissatisfied with the Nazi party following Strasser's break with Hitler. Following the Communist Party of Germany's declaration "on the national and social liberation of the German people", however, the GSRN's focus and policy changed. Paetel spoke of going "shoulder to shoulder with the... KPD" in order to achieve a "socialist" revolution. The GSRN would never achieve any notable status in German politics, having failed in its goal to siphon members off the Nazi party and other fascist organisations. On the day of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, Paetel would publish the National Bolshevist Manifesto, in which he wrote:
* The German people can only establish for themselves a true German nation through nation-building, socialism, and revolution.
* The nation is the highest value.
* "National Socialism" cannot be reformed, and a new ideology must take its place.
* National Bolshevism must reject [[File:Fash.png]] fascism.
* National Bolshevism must ally with the KPD. 
* National Bolshevists must commit themselves to a socialist planned economy, which binds ''Volk'' and Nation into an organic economic structure.
* The fulfilment of the aims of the National Bolshevists is the Free Greater-German Peoples' Council-State.
* The means of production must be transferred to the nation as common property, and the nation must fundamentally own all land and soil.
* Colonization of the East, nationalization of all large-scale and medium-scale industrial enterprises, the partial socialization of state goods, the nationalization of the monetary system
* National Bolshevists must struggle for a racially-appropriate religion attuned to the German people as a pre-condition for its unity.
* National Bolshevism must ally itself with the Soviet Union.
* National Bolshevism is not a 'reformed Marxism'.
* So-called 'Germanic democracy' is best practiced through the 'council-state'.
Shortly afterwards, Paetel was banned from writing and then fled to Czechoslovakia and then to Paris. As an opponent of Nazi Germany, he sought to, from exile, infiltrate the Hitler Youth to overthrow the Nazi state. In 1940, he fled France to immigrate to New York, where he continued his writings until his death in 1975.

==== [[File:Ernst Niekisch.png]] Niekisch and Widerstand ====
Parallel to Paetel was Ernst Niekisch. Niekisch was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and was instrumental in the foundation of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Niekisch later joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), from which he was expelled due to his vehement opposition to the Dawes Plan, the Locarno Treaties and the pacifism of the USPD. Following his expulsion, Niekisch joined the Old Social Democratic Party, in which he launched his own journal known as 'Widerstand'. Niekisch emphasized nationalism, and, inspired by Paetel and Laufenberg, adopted the name for him and his followers "National Bolsheviks".

Niekisch looked towards the Soviet Union as a continuation of both Russian nationalism and the old state of Prussia, who was glorified in conservative circles. Niekisch rejected Adolf Hitler, which he believed to be a democratic demagogue that lacked any real socialism, and instead looked towards Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union as the model for the Führerprinzip. Niekisch believed in the necessity of a German-Soviet alliance against "the decadent west" and the Treaty of Versailles.

While Niekisch would initially be tolerated by the Nazi authorities following their rise to power, the Nazis would soon ban Widerstand and, after an attempt to organize a revolution against Nazi authorities with Paetel, would be arrested by the Gestapo in 1937. Niekisch would go blind by the time of his release by the Red Army, where he then returned to Berlin. Niekisch's wartime experiences would lead him to reject nationalism bitterly, turning instead towards orthodox Marxism. Niekisch would join the Communist Party of Germany and then the Socialist Unity Party in 1946. Niekisch became a deegate of the German People's Congress and then the first People's Chamber (Volkskammer) of the German Democratic Republic. After the DDR's violent suppression of the East German uprising of 1953, he resigned from all political offices and then from the SED in 1955. Niekisch died 12 years later.

=== Origins in Russia ===
The origins of National Bolshevism in Russia mirror Germany to some degree. In the midst of the Russian Civil War, prominent members of the [[File:RussianWhites.png]] [[w:White movement|White movement]] defected to the Bolsheviks, as they saw them as the only hope to 'restore Russia to greatness'. 

'National Bolshevism' was coined as an ideology for these defectors by Russian emigre and professor Nikolai Ustryalov, a former anti-communist who believed that Bolshevism could be modified to serve nationalistic purposes. His followers, the [[File:SmenaVekh.png]] ''Smenovekhovtsy'', believed that there could be a reconciliation between the Bolshevik government and the White Russian diaspora. It was thought that Soviet power could evolve to the point of nationalism, rather than the internationalism of the 1917 revolution. Similar ideas were expressed by members of the [[File:Euras.png]] Eurasianism movement and the [[File:Mladorossi_Alt.png]] [[Mladorossism|Mladorossi]].

Many National Bolsheviks saw [[File:Stalin.png]] Stalin's policies, which emphasized Russian folk heroes and socialism in one country, as a victory for National Bolshevism.
==== National Bolshevik party and The Other Russia ====
==== Eurasianism ====