Draft:Conservative Revolution

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Not to be confused with the “New Right” movement of late 70s/early 80s that ushered in Reaganism and Thatcherism.

Suppress the dissenters Fascism

Bundle of rods

Alt-right Nazism Neo-Nazism

Fascists

Faith Goldy Kaitlin Bennett Peter J. Peters Nayib Bukele

Groups

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The Conservative Revolution (German: Konservative Revolution) was a German nationalist/conservative political movement that emerged during the interwar period Germany (Weimar Republic) following the first world war. Its name was popularized by Armin Mohler and his book Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932, which was first published in 1949. The movement is also referred to as German neoconservative movement, new nationalism, German pre-fascism and/or non-Nazi fascism.

Consisting of various sub-movements, the movement advocated new kind of conservatism and/or nationalism, one that was specifically German, or, more specifically, “Prussian”. Like other conservative movements in the same period, they sought to stem the rising tide of communism by proposing their own version of "conservative socialism", based on Bismarckian "applied Christianity" or “sozialstaat” (state socialism). Collectively, the movement was decidedly anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian and ultra-nationalist.

The Conservative Revolution never manifested itself as any kind of political party, with its beliefs being fundamentally different from the traditional conservatism of the German Centre Party or even the German National People's Party.

The movement's big legacy is essentially being the missing link between WWI-era German Imperialism and Nazi Germany. Although they didn't outright spawn the Nazis, they did smooth the way for Hitler's ascension. Historians studying authoritarianism and fascism see the Conservative Revolution and their ideas serving as a precursor to National Socialism, but are ultimately considered an entirely separate movement of "German fascism" that's distinct from National Socialism's brand of fascism.

Besides their impact on Nazism, the Conservative Revolution's impact is felt post-World War II. As following circa 1960s/1970s, the conservative revolution ideas have been assimilated by various European New Right (such as Nouvelle Droite and the German Neue Rechte). Furthermore, it has influenced 21st century far-right fringes, such as the Alt-Right and the Identitarian movement.

History

Beginnings of the actual movement

German defeat during World War I is one of the major factors for the start of the Conservative Revolution.

The participants of Conservative Revolution, many which were born in the 1890s, were primarily shaped by their experiences of the First World War. The war, as well as the German revolution of 1918–1919, served as a break with the past, which left them deeply disillusioned.

Firstly, the experience of the horrors of trench warfare, the dirt, the hunger, the obliteration and replacement of heroism with the effort to stay alive on a battlefield of random deaths. They also had - after the war - to deal with unemployment, a feeling of defeat, persecutions of atrocities during the war itself and the "Stab-in-the-back legend" (according to which they had been betrayed by their own compatriots, mainly Jews and left-wingers). They come to feel that there was no meaning in that war, or in life itself, that they were “like a puppet that has to dance for the entertainment of evil demonic spirits.” Attracted by nihilistic ideas, they seek to recreate the “comradeship of front-line soldiers,” thereby giving meaning to their experiences.

Although the idea of “Conservative Revolution” predates World War I, being first used by Friedrich Engels in 1848, but was later coined by Hugo von Hofmannsthal in the late 1920s in his lecture "Work as the Spiritual Space of the Nation" at the University of Munich.

The moment itself began to bloom by hands of writers such as Ernst von Salomon and Ernst Jünger and political theorists Carl Schmitt and Edgar Julius Jung, and was supported by political establishment figures, such as Kurt von Schleicher, and Franz von Papen.

Enter the Nazis

The downfall of Conservative Revolution can be attributed being matter of political parties. For one, they didn't have such. Two, the party that could make their vision of Germany true, was commanded by ruthless politician who didn't bend to their demands; the Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. They were caught in a bit of a pickle, but instead of first trying to rein in and play politics, they just voted Hitler as chancellor and tried to figure stuff out later.

Only, they grossly underestimated Hitler. It didn't take long until Hitler and co. pulled the Reichstag fire, which allowed them to pull the silent coup with the subsequent Reichstag Fire Decree. Although Hitler wasn't exactly what one would unironically call a intellectual giant, he still knew what power he and his motley crew now had and the Conservative Revolutionaries were left with little to nothing to bargain with. The delusions of Conservative Revolution's big-wigs - in attempting to outmaneuver Hitler at any capacity - quickly evaporated and they were faced with four options: join, escape Germany, get imprisoned or die.

After 1933, some of the proponents of the conservative revolutionary movement were monitored, repressed and sent to concentration camps by the National Socialists, mainly by Himmler's SS. Notable one being Ernst von Salomon, who was persecuted for having a wife of Jewish origin. Some revolutionary conservatives supported the dictatorship, had promoted and were happy with the suppression of democracy, but criticized and opposed the more "progressive" aspects of National Socialism. Others simply never supported the National Socialist regime or its means, for example Ernst Niekisch or Ernst von Salomon.

Edgar Jung deemed Nazis a threat and attempted to organize a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler's regime. However, Jung - together with Kurt von Schleicher - were murdered during the Night of the Long Knives.

Other members and close associates of the conservative revolutionary movement disappeared into obscurity. Some, such as Schmitt and Konstantin von Neurath, joined the National Socialist Party or, like von Papen and Forsthoff, were persecuted by Hitler. Others, such as Niekisch, were sent to concentration camps.

Still others, such as Junger, remained or rejoined the Reichswehr and later the Wehrmacht, from where he subsequently conspired at the lower levels of the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 1944.

Following World War II

After World War II the movement was heavily criticized for having been instrumental in creating a political culture / zeitgeist that contributed to the spread of ideas that facilitated the emergence and acceptance of the sociopolitical ideas of National Socialism. However, some of its members and perceptions continued to have influence not only in post-war Germany, but in political developments even in the present in other countries.

In Italy, Julius Evola, theoretician of the so-called integral traditionalism as well as of a spiritual racism, was strongly influenced by the Conservative Revolution.

Currents

Between Armin Mohler, Louis Dupeux, Rolf Peter Sieferle; there is some disagreement about what the currents of the Conservative Revolution were. Based on their findings, French political scientist Stéphane François isolated three major strains within the Conservative Revolution, those being:

• Folkists (Die völkischen): advocated the nationalistic and ethnic superiority of the ancient Germanic people.
• Young Conservatives (Die jungkonservativen): advocated the reconstruction of the Reich as a supranational, wide-ranging region of medieval Germany.
• National Revolutionaries (Revolutionärer Nationalismus): advocated the creation of a warrior/workers' state for a nihilistic revolution through a total mobilization system.

Mohler also postulates that there was also the Leaguists (Bündischen) and Rural People's Movement (Landvolksbewegung); with these last two groups are less ideological and more practical. Sieferle on the other hand saw the two other groups being the "vital-activists" (aktivistisch-vitalen), and the "biological naturalists". Additionally, National Bolsheviks are also attached to this movement.

Folkists

See the main article on this topic: Völkisch movement

The völkisch movement, which had existed well before the conservative revolution, is still considered part of this movement. Compared to the Young Conservatives, the Folkists' idea of nationalism is vague, with it being hard to distinguish between "nationalist politics" from "ethnic ideology". To Folkists, nationalism was matter of "reviving German warrior character, that's been tainted modernism and alien influences." It was one of the most primitive and callous of the right-wing movements of the period. The childish and vulgar character of the Folkists manifested in the use of coarse and undifferentiated language. To them, there were just Germans and the non-Germans. Folkists writings were rosy and loaded with cliché buzzwords, generally containing simple and blatant anti-Semitism, often proclaiming: "Jews out!" Their goals was the elimination of the Jewish race, belief in the cultivation and selection of races, the belief in the superiority of Teutonic or Aryan people and the consequent theory of an inferior Slavic race, "Germanization" of Christianity and the revival of Germanic pagan religions. Out of three groups, those on the Völkisch side were most compliant and defected to Nazis when Hitler started to rise.

Young Conservatives

The Young Conservatives were similar in their politics to the German National People's Party, but they themselves distinguished themselves from the "old" Wilhemine-era nationalism through "new understanding of conservative essence of a younger generation." They did not like to be classified or fixedly positioned on either the left or right wing based on the distribution of power in parliament, but rather they emphasized the great difference between the old and new generations.

Although the Young Conservatives called themselves conservatives, they drew a line against "reactionary" movements, which to them not only meant rigid nationalism that clung to the old, but also against a globalist liberalism that only delayed, without preventing, the growth of the new era.

The Conservative Revolution is understood as a "grand counter-revolution" that sought to wipe out the remnants of the French Revolution and replace them with new values. The Young Conservatives' Conservative Revolution sought to prevent the dehumanization of modern Europe and to create a new order, ethos, and a new European unity under German leadership. The kind of nationalism popularized by the Young Conservatives was in fact distinct from others, not only because it called for the restoration of power and German prestige, but also because it sought to get to the root of the "evils of modern civilization" itself.

The Young Conservatives' unique nationalist ideology, despite its lofty prophecies, vague spiritual presuppositions, and good guys versus bad guys worldview, was different from nationalism in that it was idealistic and pursued a high goals for a nation. However, there was too much apolitical romanticism, sectarianism, and dazzlement to contribute to any real reform. Carl von Ossietzky once called Möller's Third Reich "an apolitical elegy filled with monotonous melancholy." The ideology of the young conservatives was a high-minded ideology that neglected politics in the sense that it toyed with ideals, dreams, and grand words, but neglected to examine in detail the real political situation and the possibilities contained therein.

National Revolutionaries

War boy Ernst Jünger

National Revolutionaries were primarily presented by Ernst Jünger and his beliefs. Unlike the Young Conservatives, this nationalism took its war-time experience as its direct starting point, elevated the ideology of this experience to a political platform for the people, and was more militant, intense, and ruthless, permeated with a lot of romanticism and soul. Jünger said, "New nationalism seeks something particular, not universal, that is, the power of the soul." Those who transformed themselves into nationalists during the war denied enlightenment and reason, and new nationalism despised all universality and pursued uniqueness, believing that it was exactly this and that it could not be anything else. They ridiculed "Black-White-Red nationalism", whether to condemn it as Wilhelminian and therefore reactionary, or to dismiss it as cheap patriotism.

The National Revolutionaries' manifestos seem to have been written in a state of frenzied ecstasy. They were more intense, wild, and militant than any other nationalists of the conservative revolution.The National Revolutionaries had no political platform to overcome the crisis, but were content with their esoteric nature and preferred to shock citizens with their violent declarations.

They looked down on patriotic groups like the Steel Helmets with pity, glorified struggle and war, rejected all bourgeois and civic things, considered themselves conspirators, and threatened the despised democracy. Among the National Revolutionaries there was a strange air of romanticism, which claimed that their radical actions and words had a historical and destined necessity. They reminisced about heroic battles and mass warfare, while at the same time evoking the roots of the German spirit, claiming to find solace and encouragement in such figures as Meister Eckhart, Jakob Böhme, and Goethe.

Despite their gusto, the National Revolutionaries offered the people nothing but a declaration of war against all that was already established. Their image of the state was a simple transposition of the military organization into a state organization. Civil liberties were to be replaced by strong restrictions, and the type of citizen was counterposed to that of the frontline soldier or the worker, a type of heroic form of man who considered himself to have overcome the effeminate qualities of humanity and rational thought. Each man was to be sacrificed to a type or form, the individual dissolved in the community of the blood of the nation, and to willingly sacrifice his own life when the nation commanded. Basically, they wanted to do Starship Troopers for real, even moreso than the Nazi Party.

The ideas of these revolutionary nationalists were a rehash of Nietzsche's and Spengler's ideas into a political and activist ideology that was primarily driven by contempt for the civil and state image, which took on a kind of aesthetic quality, in which the overcoming of the state order, which was merely the successor to the loathsome spirit of Wilhelminism, was seen as something to be celebrated. This sinister "joy in downfall" permeates the spirit of National Revolutionaries.

From 1926 to 1932, Jünger was active in writing, drawing close ties to nationalist and socialist youth groups and organizations. His brother Friedrich Georg Jünger also briefly joined him, apparently under his influence. Jünger was considered the "spiritual leader of new nationalism" and no one better expressed the wartime experiences of idealistic volunteers. He wrote that soldiers elevated their patriotic romanticism "to a refined aesthetic of the horror of death". In this way, a grandiose, dogmatic heroism capable of scorning and trampling on the world of merchants was cultivated for many years to come.

Jünger and other nationalists had no desire to create something new and better out of the chaos of the republic, that is, to give the republic itself a new foundation. They only saw in the democracy of the republic the realization of "the weathered ideals of our grandfathers. The 1918 revolution was "not a revolution at all, but a collapse", and Jünger believed he could agree with the young people that the revolution had to be started again.

National Bolshevism

See the main article on this topic: National Bolshevism

The most accurate expression of the ideology of "National Bolshevism" is found in the writings of Ernst Nikisch. Nikisch's National Bolshevism is a variant of National Revolutionaries, with a stronger social and political character. The decisive factor that distinguishes National Bolshevism from National Revolutionaries is its pro-Soviet orientation, symbolized by the Potsdam-Moscow axis. In the latter, Potsdam is seen as a bulwark of Prussian spirit and national consciousness, and Moscow as an example of the triumph of a national revolt over the Western spirit, rather than an example of a Communist state.

Nikisch saw the root of the nation's disaster in the penetration of Roman-Latin principles (what other nationalists call Western Europe) into the German people, and he contrasted this de-Germanization of Germany with the Prussian-Slavic spirit. Rather than trying to Bolshevism Germany on the Communist model, Nikisch sought to turn to Communist Russia to break the Versailles system and Germany's diplomatic subjugation to the Western powers. The most striking feature of national Bolshevist ideology was not communism, but nationalism. Nikisch appreciated the Soviet Union not because communism was being realized there, but because a state asserted its existence there, in opposition to the Marxist thesis that the state should disappear. Nikisch's leftism sought to give workers an important role in a national community centered on Prussian discipline, virtue, and devotion to the state.

Ideology

The movement was born from a sense of rejection of the liberal-democratic and bourgeois political regime created in Germany following the defeat in the Great War and the fall of Kaiserism. It expressed a scathing criticism of parliamentarism and democracy, defined as "the tyranny of money", as well as nostalgia for the traditional values ​​of old Germany. Three tendencies can be identified in it:

• Distinction between "Revolutionary" conservatism and "reactionary" conservatism.
• Anti-democracy.
• Prussianism: it took as a model Wilhelmine Germany and the Frederick Prussia that was at its origins, whose heirs were the Junkers;
• Pan-Germanism: the model was seen in the medieval Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic nation;
• Völkisch: in seeking the purity of German civilization, one went as far as the original Germanic populations, their sagas and mythologies.

Revolutionary and reactionary

Moeller van den Broeck saw conservatism of the conservative revolution as "different" from reactionary conservatism, and "revolution" should be affirmed. Therefore, Moeller did not deny the November Revolution or simply dismiss it as nonsense. He took the position that the defeat of the Great War and the revolution did not only bring about evil, but also a new and positive start. Stating that:

"Defeat is never irreversible. Even the worst peace is never decisive. But revolution must be won. Revolution is a one-off. Revolution is not a matter that one nation settles with another nation, but a matter entirely of a nation, which must settle it alone, and the direction that a nation can freely give to its own destiny is related to the outcome of the revolution."

Therefore, for Möller, revolution is "a moment that will never return in the life history of a nation," and the nation is either resurrected or fundamentally transformed in the revolution. The November Revolution was such a moment, which must not be allowed to stand, but must continue to advance until it reaches a definite conclusion and the political settlement of Germany takes a national form. It is therefore nonsense to try to "push back" the revolution, as the reactionaries wish to do.

"The revolution cannot be pushed back. It can be defeated, provided the time is not missed. But as soon as the revolution has become a fact, there is no other way to proceed than from it, which is a new fact for those who think politically and historically at the same time. There are now no other facts apart from this fact."

Moeller saw that this sort of reactionary spirit, which sought return to the Second Reich, to be fought against. Thats beucase its a thing of the past, and: "The reactionary man is a danger at home, not to the parliamentary state, but to the people." It is therefore essential to make a sharp distinction between the reactionary man and the conservative man.

A reactionary is someone who thinks that the life we ​​lived before 1914 was still beautiful and great, even the greatest. A conservative is someone who does not indulge in self-indulgence, but openly admits that those were terrible times.

Möller contrasts nationalism with reactionary ideas, or rather reactionary ideas without ideas. This nationalism is a revolutionary conservatism that places the state above all ideas, even above the idea of ​​monarchy. Monarchy and state never reconciled, and this had to be re-created by the people, in a few dangerous hours, in a few trying years. Then came the Wilhelmian era, and monarchy and state gradually split apart. He saw that Wilhelm's restoration would have been the ultimately nonsensical.

Anti-democracy

According to the doctrine of anti-democrats, the basis of democracy is the identity of the people and the government, so in the end the issue is the content and direction of the will of the people. Friedrich Georg Jünger (brother of Ernst Jünger) specifically raised this issue in one of his political essays as follows:

What is democracy anyway? It is what the people want. It is, then, a blank slate that is given concrete content by the specific will of the people. The will of the people is decisive. No constitution can resist the will of the people, no parliament can obstruct it, no party or coalition of parties can put chains on it.

Oswald Spengler presented the idea of ​​a "Prussian Socialism" in the sense of the unity of democracy and dictatorship. He emphasized that the Prussian Socialism would grow into the soil of democracy and that a decisive battle would eventually take place between democracy and the Prussian Socialism.

Since he originally considered democracy to be the rule of money, the concept of democracy only served as an opposing concept to the Prussian Socialism, and had a negative function, just like the concepts of liberal or parliamentary democracy in the writings of other anti-democrats. However, in his political commentary, Spengler also asserted that we Germans have their own democracy, and cited the Germanic vassal system and the old Prussian bureaucracy as historical evidence to prove this fact. For Spengler, the political maturity of the people was completely out of the question, so the true statesman, a great statesman, was to rule as the ruler of the people.

Spengler was not the only one to draw on the ancient history of the Germanic peoples to portray a democracy suitable for the 20th century. In one of the books of the Young Teutonic Knights, he made extensive use of the research on the Germanic concept of the nation, which was popular at the time. The Germanic democracy described there means the combination of the rule of the king and the freedom of the people, in which the king acts as the trustee of the national community, is responsible to the people, and can be dismissed by them. True democracy is found in a living community characterized by the Germanic principle of leader and servant. According to the author, there is no greater conflict than the conflict between the idea of ​​a civil law-governed state and the democratic principle modeled on the ancient Germanic model.^{[citation needed]}

In contrast, the nationalist groups of the Weimar period generally saw democracy in its original form, that is, in relation to liberal ideas and freedom rights. They were well aware that their republican enemies had adopted the slogan of democracy and as a result, democracy was discredited, so they did not particularly evaluate or reconsider this concept, but instead directly advocated their own nationalist state or Nazi state. To them, parliamentary democracy and its government are in every respect the most dangerous enemy of the state. In that it gives opening to vanity, self-satisfaction, chatter and parasitism, to negotiating the facts, and finally to bribery. To them, democracy was "dying before [everybody's] eyes" and was "nothing but a mass of great vanity." For conservative revolutionary thinkers, Weimar democracy was a state without contours, a state lacking a clear social structure.

Criticism of parliamentarism

TBA

Criticism of the party-state

TBA

Influence on Nazis

Nazism, as various commentators have already pointed out, is a complex of diverse ideas, and even if the first and foremost emphasis was on nationalistic ideas, this complex itself gradually grew into an open system that allowed for many interpretations and shifts in emphasis depending on the surrounding circumstances and the trends of public opinion. The ideological diversity of Nazism was a general condition for its large-scale mass appeal, which allowed the German voter to find his or her own ideological position in Nazism. The mass character of the movement can be seen in the way in which various ideological parts were pieced together piece by piece.

Of course, it was not the Nazis themselves who created the foundations of Nazism all by themselves. They simply inherited its world-view from other nationalist writers, journalists, race scholars, and literary German worshippers. Of course, Nazism also incorporated a substantial part of the spiritual heritage of anti-democratic movements, such as those developed by neoconservatives and national revolutionaries.

The Nazis inherited the glorification of war from the national revolutionaries, the rejection of liberalism and individualism from the neoconservatives, the worship of power and the strong and the contempt for humanity and the so-called "feminine" from the Georges Sorel (Theory on Violence), the glorification of race and blood from H.S. Chamberlain (and many other academic racialist scholars), the emphasis on the "will" as an element of the creative act from Lebensphilosophie thinkers (as evident Rosenberg's "Nazi ethics"), and from Marxism, only when it was convenient, in its anti-capitalist sentiments (such as Otto Strasser's left-wing National Socialism).

They then encapsulated everything in the "Nazi world view" and scattered the vision of the Third Reich that would solve all the problems of the era in one fell swoop with this ideological panacea. With exception to prior antisemitism, some occult shenanigans and Hitler's raw a-holeness, Nazis didn't have many original ideas, let alone solid foundation to their beliefs.

Noted people

Photos	Name	Contributions	Fate
	Edgar Julius Jung	Considered the intellectual leader of the Conservative Revolution.	Causalty of Night of the Long Knives; found dead on July 1, 1934.
	Carl Schmitt		Defected to the Nazi Party. Captured by American forces in 1945 and released a year after. Died in 1985.
TBA	Ernst von Salomon
	Ernst Jünger	Spearheaded the National Revolutionaries strain of Conservative Revolution
TBA	Friedrich Georg Jünger	Younger brother of Ernst Jünger. He was an active writer in radical and nationalist magazines and, together with his brother.	Jünger was critical of the National Socialist regime, and his cultural criticism shifted from radical to more conservative criticism of technology.
	Arthur Moeller van den Bruck	Emissary of the Young Conservatives strain. Writer of the 1923 book "The Third Reich", which formulated Conservative Revolution's ideal of national empowerment.	Committed suicide in 1925.
	Oswald Spengler	Major ideologue, writer of the The Decline of the West and Prussianism and Socialism, which formed much of Conservative Revolution thought.	Was isolated by the Nazis in 1934; following his debate with Alfred Rosenberg and releasing "Hour of Decision", which was critical of Nazism. Died of a heart-attack in May 8, 1936.
	Kurt von Schleicher		Causalty of Night of the Long Knives; killed June 30, 1934.
	Franz von Papen
	Stefan George	The other guy known as "Der Führer". The leader of the George-Kreis.	Went on to exile in Switzerland to avoid the Nazi government in 1933. His health subsequently began to fail and he died in December of the same year.
	Hugo von Hofmannsthal
	Werner Sombart
	Hans Freyer
	Gottfried Benn
	Othmar Spann
	Thomas Mann		Cut his ties to Conservative Revolution in 1922.
	Martin Heidegger		Defected to Nazis.
	Karl Haushofer
TBA	Alfred Baeumler		Defected to Nazis. At the end of war, the spent three years in two different interment camps. One of the few Nazi professors who did not return to a university post.
	Ernst Niekisch
	Konstantin von Neurath		Defected to Nazis.

See also

• Tea Party movement: the other reactionary collective formed by a stupid decade spanning war and pointing fingers at a new leftist political movement, which then got supplanted by some loudmouth dictator and his reactionary loons.

References

Sources

• Dupeux, Louis (1992). La Révolution conservatrice allemande sous la République de Weimar. Paris: Kimé. ISBN 978-2908212181. 
• Woods, Roger (1996). The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-333-65014-X. 
• Bar-On, Tamir (2011). Backes, Uwe; Moreau, Patrick. eds. Intellectual Right - Wing Extremism – Alain de Benoist's Mazeway Resynthesis since 2000 (1 ed.). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. doi:10.13109/9783666369223.333. ISBN 9783525369227. 

Citations

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