HUMEURS NOIRES
French Anarchist Federation
B.P.79
59370 MONS EN BAROEUL
FRANCE
E-Mail: HumeursNoires@lifl.fr


This come from the group REFLEX in France.

REFLEX: Reseau d'Etude, de Formation, de Liaison contre
l'Extreme-Droite et la Xenophobie

This review (and the people act against racism, fascism, laws against
migrants,cops murder...)

REFLEX, 14 rue de NANTEUIL, 75015 PARIS, FRANCE


Reflexes international  n 1(part 2/3)

The red-brown scandal
====================

	Earlier this year, a major scandal erupted in France over the
exposed links between communists and the extreme right. Known as the
Red- Brown scandal, these links sought to build the politics of
national-bolshevism in France.


	The term national-bolshevism joins two very precise political
concept. "National" is of course a reference to nationalism, that is
to say an overvaluation of national characters, national independence,
the unity of the nation , eventually integrating racial
characteristics etc. "Bolshevism" refers to two different ideas; the
first, strictly meaning the majority faction (Bolsheviks) of the
social-democratic workers party in Russia. Thus bolshevism refers to
Leninism , or a possible interpretation of the works of Karl Marx and
the organisational conclusions that the ideology draws, particularly
in Lenin's major works; the necessity of a structured and disciplined
party representing the avant garde of the proletariat and leading it
during a revolution. But more generally, bolshevism refers to a
political and economic system established after the taking of power by
the Bolsheviks in October 1917, thanks to the progressive elimination
of the workers' council system to which they were fundamentally
opposed.1

	Logically, these two terms do not appear to have much in
common, apart from being two bourgeois ideologies from the 19th
century. However, European political evolution has seen national-
bolshevism become a dominant movement. Thus in Germany,
national-bolshevism designated the movement led by the Strasser
brothers, and represented the left wing of the NSDAP (Nazi
Party). Gregor Strasser, a trainee chemist, joined in the post-World
War 1 period first the D AP then the NSDAP. His first years as a
militant were deeply rooted for him in the themes that he would
develop later; social inequality , extreme misery after the war, the
humiliation of Germany, revolutionary fervour...

	At the end of June 1993, following an enquiry by the
journalist Marieue Besnard and the novelist Didier Daeninckx, the
French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine revealed links that united
communists and richt extremists, notably concerning the collaboration
of certain journals such as L'Idiot International and Le Choc du
Mois.2 The relative failure of the auempt by the new riCht to
infiltrate the classic right, the evolution of a section of members of
GRECE 3 who joined the Front National, political chanCes(the fall of
the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism, the liberal consensus in
Europe) led to new orientations; in 1 989 Robert S teuckers estimated
that "the new right finds itself faced with a challenge - to renew its
discourse, to monopolise the new intellectual paths (Foucault,
Deleuze, Guattari, Gusdorf, Peguy etc), to create a transplant between
the new ideological language and its existing . body" 5

	The Belgian new right were the first to study the German
national- bolshevik Ernst Niekisch. Following that, one saw a
flourishing in the new right press of references to philosophers and
leftist writers, and the sometimes pure and simple theft of
libertarian slogans criticising the consumer society and the ideology
of work, for example.6 This with the aim, of course, of affirming
ideas of inequality, of separate development, behind leftist
terminology, but also of erasing the left-right opposition and making
appear new "peripheral convergences fichtinc the world of merchandise
and all the power of economic reason" . 7

On 12 May 1993, Alain de Benoist of GRECE, pleaded for the abandonment
of the left-right distinction, with him preferring the notion of a
..centre" and a "periphery", the first being composed of a "dominant
ideology", the second regrouping"all those who do not accept this
ideolocy" (this being an adapted version of analyses on links between
centre countries in the northern hemisphere and peripheral countries
in the southern hemisphere). This speech would have been unremarkable
if it had not taken place at a conference organised by Franceue
Lazare, a member of the executive council of the French Communist
Party. No one in the communist ranks found fault with any of that8 .

	A week later, the magazine Elements (published by GRECE)
invited Marc Cohen, Communist Party member and editor of L'Idiot
International, to come and speak there about the "recomposition of the
French intellectual landscape" . Edward Limonov,9 editorial consultant
at L' Idiot, also collaborated on Revolution, a weekly communist Party
magazine aimed at intellectuals, like Le Choc du Mois, the extreme
right monthly, modern, swaggerinC and intellectually agressive. 10
	Finally, last May, L'Idiot published the article Towards a
National Front by Jean-Paul Cruse. This communist, a trade unionist
and journalist on the daily leftist newspaper Liberation, proposed "an
authoritarian politics of redressment for the country" which would
rally "people of spirit acainst people of things, civilisation against
merchandise - and the greatness of nations against the balkanisation
of the world... under the order of Wall street, international Zionism,
theFrankfurt exchange and the dwarfs of Tokyo". Decidely, a typical
conspiracy theory. Because for Cruse "the destruction caused by the
old left opens nothing new in the field". It would be necessary
therefore "to forge a new alliance", a "front" to regrouP .,Pasqua,ll
Chevenement,12 the communists and ultra-nationalists"' a new front
for a "violent burst of industrial and cultural nationalism" . The
national office of Cruse's trade union responded in a press release by
affirming Cruse's right to freedom of speech and condemning his
position, recalling that "these ideas are not those of the CGT" and
that it fought them .'with all its might". Not by opportunism but by
deep conviction. 1 3

Anti- Americanism has always been in France a value shared for
different reasons by most of the politicalforces. From Gaullists to
Communists via the extreme right and extreme left, America finds
itself accused of not being a true historical nation, of taking
without understanding the principals of the Lumieres14 and the
universal values of the French Revolution, and of wanting to dominate
the whole of the planet. The collapse of communism and the Gulf War
have revived this feeling. As Daeninckx noted in his enquiry.. there
are strong convergences with nationalist-revolutionaries on anti-
Americanism, the exaltation of nationalism, a radical critique of
social democracy and the rejection of liberalism.

	It is thus certain that a current of national-bolshevism
exists in France, fighting the consumer society, America,
"international Zionism" and social democracy, but it is nothing
new. Previously, in the 1970s, the organisation Lutte du Peuple,
founded from a split in Ordre Nouveau, called on the spirit of
national-bolshevism and used "a vocabulary copied exactly from that of
the extra-parliamentary left, notably in its critique of capitalism
and the bourgeoisie".l5 Today, the movement Nouvelle Resistance16 is
the political expression of this cent and auempts to "implement a
strategic line" for the "anti-system front" .  The friendships of
Nouvelle Resistance with different groups which call on the spirit of
national-bolshevism in varyinc degrees in Russia are there to prove
it. In their magazine Lutte du Peuple, theyoften make mention of
different groups and alliances with themselves. The "hatred" of the
West, and Yeltsin who is "selling off" Russia to the profit of
capitalism, serve to spearhead a rapprochement between former
communists and conservatives. One can cite Alexander Dugin (deputy
leader of the National Bolshevik Front), one of the correspondents of
Nouvelle Resistance in Russe, who congratulates himself on the
"current Russian revolution where respectively the neo-communist
nationalists represent the left wing and the neo-monarchists represent
the right wing".  This was also seen by Jean Thiriart17 and Michael
Schneider (editor of the magazine Nationalisme et Republique l8)
during a trip in August 1992 of which the objective was to make links
with the opposition to Yeltsin. At the beginning of 1992, Alain de
Benoist praised the birth of the magazine Dien (Today) which,
following the example of Krisis in France, introduced "non-conformism
and radicalism in the red-brown world and has as a slogan the search
for a Russian and national third way". Regarding the anti-semitism of
this magazine, it is necessary, according to de Benoist, to not
exaggerate the content of it. One can also find this type of discourse
in the former official communist publications. On demonstrations it is
not unusual to see red flags and Tsarist flags side by side. Today,
the opposition is structured, supported not least by the army. Stalin
has been rehabilitated and one can seen in the different publications
of the extreme right (Lutte du Peuple, and the Italian magazine Orion)
articles that refer to the "little father of the people".

	Following the example of Jean-Paul Cruse, the French Com
munist Party has often developed a clear anti- Americanism . The great
American devil on the one hand, the great Soviet brother on the
other... The "communist collective of media workers" (The French
communist Party) complained in a communique of 8 July 1993 about the
witch hunt being made acainst one of its members (Marc Cohen) and
which aimed "to block all political debate linking the question of
nationalsovereicnty against American hegemony, and the historic values
of the international workers' movement". It is well known that
countries in eastern Europe have ardently defended these values.The
red-brown rapprochement is a remake from the 1930s. Let us remember J
acques Doriot, the national-populist who split from the Communist
Party in order to found the Parti Populaire Frangais and went on to
become a nazi collaborator. As at this time, there is today a cent
inside the heart of the French communist Party which promotes a
nationalist and populist discourse.

Those who put so much effort into denouncing the convergence between reds and
 browns often forget the ideological wanderings of their own circle. Through the
 magazine Krisis many contacts have been established between intellectuals of
 the new right and those of the left. During the summer of 1988, Krisis, edited
 by Alain de Benoist, broke the intellectual isolation of the new right and
 established   its ideologicalhegemony. Leftist thinkers were as much involved
 as the ideologues of GRECE. The beginning of this exercise   was marked by
 manipulation, then the magazine published articles that had already appeared
 elsewhere, without the permission of the authors. B ut Roger Garaudy (also
 involved with Nationalisme et Republique), J ean -Michel Palmier, Andre
 Comte-Sponville, J ean-Frangois Kahn, Regis Debray, Jacques Domenach,Jacques
 Julliard, Bernard Langlois or even Claude Karenooh (who pretends to be a
 libertarian) 19 all work unremiuingly with de Benoist,
and have participated without batting an eyelid at the magazine. Alain Decaux,
 former minister of the  socialist Government, doesn't feel in  the least
 bothered about siding with  people like Jean Mabire, Jean- Jacques Mourreau and
 Pierre Vial,  all three of whom who have passed  through GRECE to the Front
 National.

 The ideological confusion due to a loss of political landmarks and
referential marks on the left has - permiued the appearance of such
contacts and placed it in that of reactionary ideolocy. In France
today, the task of the left and indeed the anti-fascist movement must
be to make a clear separation of the two ideologies of ationalism and
bolshevism, and to expose those members of the left who seek to make
alliances with the extreme right. A new political discourse of the
left needs to be created to take up this challenge. Otherwise, our
next f|hrer might be wearing a red shirt.

 Notes

 1 - The Soviets betrayed by the Bolsheviks, Rudolph Rocker.

 2. The first was founded by Jean-Edern Hallier. Le Choc is a monthly
fascist magazine.

 3. A new right think tank led by Alain de Benoist, who is linked to
all the key fascists in France.

 4. S teuckers is a multi -lingual lecturer and has played the role,
since the departure of Guillaume de Faye in 1986, of deputy leader of
the new right on the intellectual plain. He edits the magazine
Vouloir.

 5. Robert Steuckers, Vouloir, no. 52-53, February-March 1989.

 6. Elements pour une culture europeenne, winter 1 992, no 7 5.

 7 . Elements pour une culture europeenne, spring l992, no 74.

 8. Rene Monzat, a leftwing investigative journalist who was present
in the room, was the only one to speak out against this and was put in
his place by Francette Lazare.

 9. Limonov has been since May 1993 the president of the
National-Bolshevik Front in Moscow.

 10. A magazine for the r adical and national right in France.

 11. The hardline right wing interior minister in - the current French
government.

 12. Socialist Minister for the army during the Gulf War , he was
nevertheless opposed to this war , he resigned and left the Socialist
Party.  Afterw ards, he made a campaign against the Maastricht
Treaty. Known for his nationalism and fervent patriotism.

 13. A propos d'un article publie par L'Idiot International",
communique of the SNJ-CGT, 25 June 1993.

 14. The Lumieres were the key French thinkers and philosophers
before the revolution, such as Voltaire,
 Montesqueiu and Rousseau.

 15. A radical nationalist right wing group in France.

 16. The main Third Position group in France today.

 17. A Belgian fascist and wartime collaborator who adapted
nationalism- bolshevism during the 50s and 60s into a philosophy which
he called national- community Europeanism.

 18, No longer published today, Nationalisme et Republique attempted
to be a magazine of critical support for
 ]ean-Marie Le Pen and the Front  National, Towards the end it evolved  towards
 a position very close to
 Nouvelle Resistance,

 19. All key intellectuals on the French left.

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from REFLEX via HumeursNoires@lifl.fr

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