National Bolshevism is an ideology that attempts to combine elements of fascism and Stalinism. Influenced heavily by the idea of geopolitics, National Bolshevism seeks a merger between Russia and the rest of Europe in a union to be known as Eurasia. The ideology claims a direct link to Hegel, whom it presents as the father of idealism. In addition, it is fiercely anti-American in tone. It is also highly traditionalist in the mould of Julius Evola. Economically the National Bolsheviks seek to marry the New Economic Policy of Vladimir Lenin to the Corporatism of Benito Mussolini.

National Bolshevism as an intellectual movement claims to have its roots in World War I Germany, where nationalist writers such as Ernst Niekisch and Ernst Junger were prepared to tolerate the spread of communism as long as it took on the clothes of nationalism and abandoned its world-wide mission (an idea which seemed abhorent to the communists themselves). Meanwhile, in Russia, as the civil war dragged on, a number of prominent "Whites" switched to the Bolshevik side because they saw it as the only hope for restoring greatness to Russia. Amongst these was Professor Nikolai Ustrialov, initially an anti-communist, who came to believe that Bolshevism could be modified to serve nationalistic purposes. His followers, the Smenavekhites (named after a series of articles he published in 1921 Smena vekh or "Change of Landmarks"), came to regard themselves as National Bolsheviks, borrowing the term from Niekisch. Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country" was seen as a victory by the National Bolsheviks.

In Western parlance, the term "National Bolshevism" has, on occasion, been applied to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his brand of opposition to communism. However, strictly speaking, Solzhenitsyn cannot be labeled a National Bolshevik since, whilst he was not anti-authoritarian, he wished a revival of Russian culture that would see a greater role for the Russian Orthodox Church and a withdrawal of Russia from its role overseas into a state of international isolationism. Solzhenitsyn and the vozrozhdentsy (or "revivalists" as his followers became known) thus differed from the National Bolsheviks who were not religious in tone (although not completely hostile either) and who felt that involvement overseas was important for the prestige and power of Russia.

Amongst the leading practitioners and theorists of National Bolshevism are Thomas Sutter, Aleksandr Dugin and Eduard Limonov, who leads the National Bolshevik Party in Russia. The movement also likes to claim Otto Strasser as a disciple.

Links

• National Bolshevism from Christian Bouchet
• The link to Ecologism
• Dugin's National Bolshevism
• Sutter's National Bolshevism
• Russian National Bolshevik Party