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Source Documents/The National Bolshevik Manifesto

The National Bolshevik Manifesto

Original language: German
Original publication: 30 January 1933
Written by: Karl Otto Paetel
Translated by: ARPLAN (Bogumil)
License of this version: Unknown, assumed CC0 or CC-BY
Other language versions: N/A
Link to PDF: PDF
Other links: Internet Archive


CONTENTS

Translator’s Introduction

On Paetel
Karl Otto Paetel was born into a solidly middle-class Berlin-Charlottenberg family on November 23, 1906. The son of a bookseller, Paetel developed literary and intellectual interests early, and like most youth of his generation his thinking and outlook was deeply affected by the experience of the Great War and Germany’s subsequent post-War travails. The flourishing German Youth Movement, too, had a strong impact on his development – it was Paetel’s involvement in various youth groups that helped reinforce his nationalist sentiments, as well as his appreciation for the comradeship that came with activity within the framework of a tight-knit organization united around a common cause.

In 1928 Paetel enrolled at Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin, studying philosophy and history with the intention of becoming a schoolteacher. Paetel’s studies were brought to an end only five semesters later as a result of his early forays into political activism. Defying a ban on demonstrations, a mass of students descended on the French Embassy in protest against the Treaty of Versailles, Paetel among them. To his shock he soon found himself slung in the back of a police vehicle, stuffed inbetween a Communist youth on one side and a National Socialist doctoral student on the other. The consequence of Paetel’s arrest once the University was alerted was the loss of his scholarship and his subsequent expulsion. With a sudden excess of free time on his hands, Paetel threw himself into journalism, writing articles for a variety of publications. He was particularly attracted to political subjects.

Paetel at this time was still also active within the Youth Movement; by this point in his life he had become a prominent figure within the hierarchy of the youth group Deutsche Freischar, an organization whose culture (initially, at least) complemented his own nationalist sentiments. As he became more politically active Paetel became much more strongly influenced by the ‘new nationalism’ popular at the time, a nationalism that positioned itself in the ‘revolutionary camp’ and rejected the stolidness of the old Wilhelmine era. Inspired by the work of figures such as Ernst Jünger, Ernst Niekisch, and August Winnig, Paetel’s writing adopted an increasingly radical tone, his nationalism becoming imbued with a strong undercurrent of anticapitalism. Yet as Paetel and his writing grew more radical, his position within the Deutsche Freischar became jeopardized. Paetel’s open sympathy for communism, his approving references to Lenin, his declaration that revolutionary young nationalists were the natural allies of the working-classes – these sentiments were a step too far for the Freischar. After writing an article in 1930 which criticized President Hindenburg over Germany’s ratification of the Young Plan, Paetel was forced to resign from his positions within the group.

In May 1930, an increasingly-radicalized Paetel decided to start taking serious political action. For a year he and a number of friends had been working within an informal group called the Young Front Working Circle, an advocacy organization which tried to rally left- and right-wing radicals to join together in common cause. Now Paetel and his comrades chose to reorganize themselves as a formal group with a formal program, seeking to do more than simply try and push members of the NSDAP towards ‘real socialism’. The ‘Group of Social-Revolutionary Nationalists’ (GSRN) they formed subsequently became one of the very few organizations in Weimar Germany which actually used the term ‘National Bolshevist’ to describe itself. Avowedly revolutionary, the GSRN advocated for the overthrow of the democratic-capitalist system, for a new government based on councils, for socialization of industry and land, for a military alliance with Soviet Russia, and for the arming of the masses as a Peoples’ Militia. The GSRN, whose members were, like Paetel, almost all of educated middle-class background, affirmed that it was the task of nationalists to work together with the classconscious proletariat in pursuit of these goals.

Despite this new sense of purpose, the initial focus of the GSRN – never a very large group – was on publishing and propaganda. An opportunity to engage in more lively action, however, was soon provided by the Left. A debate within the GSRN over whether to support the NSDAP or the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) in the September 1930 elections was suddenly resolved with the KPD’s publication of its new party programme, the ‘Programme for the National and Social Liberation of the German People’. This new programme was replete with nationalist language and demands, a deliberate attempt by the KPD to win back voters lost (or potentially lost) to the NSDAP. The GSRN however saw it as potential evidence that the KPD was drifting in a National Bolshevist direction, and so Paetel and his comrades threw their firm support behind the communists.

The GSRN thus became an ally of the KPD. Paetel and his group publicly supported the KPD during the election: writing articles, distributing propaganda, speaking at communist rallies. This cooperation continued on after the election, with the GSRN imploring nationalists to fight side-by-side with the KPD, declaring that only under the banners of communism would Germany be able to crush capitalism and liberate itself from the imperialism of the Versailles powers. GSRN members wrote articles for communist journals, joined KPD organizations like Antifascist Action, and in March and April 1932 they offered public support for the presidential campaign of KPD leader Ernst Thälmann. The KPD, for its part, provided its own form of support at times (such as by assisting in the distribution of the GSRN journal Socialist Nation), but overall the relationship was fairly one-sided.

It was this lack of reciprocity which led to a measure of disillusionment in the GSRN. Paetel came to suspect, quite rightly, that the KPD was hoping to co-opt and absorb his movement. Furthermore, by late 1932 he and his comrades had come to doubt the sincerity of the KPD’s nationalism. As KPDGSRN relations deteriorated, the ideological divisions between the two groups became more apparent; Paetel and his compatriots could no longer so easily wave away the fact that their end-goal of a nationalist-socialist sovereign German state, allied with but independent of a sovereign Soviet Russia, was fundamentally different to the ultimate goal of the KPD: borderless world communism. Although still pro-communist and supportive of the KPD, this division influenced the GSRN’s tactics, with Paetel attempting to organize a separate National Communist Party to compete in the November ’32 elections – an effort which failed due to the GSRN simply lacking the manpower and resources needed to bring forth a new legal political party.

The National Bolshevist Manifesto was published by Paetel as part of a second attempt to organize a National Communist electoral group, this time during the period in late 1932 to early 1933 when Germany was in a political shambles. The NSDAP was bleeding support, the KPD was gaining votes but struggling with internal factional disputes, and the entire Weimar system seemed on the verge of collapse. Yet events overtook Paetel in a fashion he had not predicted – the Manifesto he had laboured over was first published and distributed on January 30, 1933, the day Hitler became Chancellor and victorious, torch-bearing Stormtroopers marched in massed columns through the streets of Berlin. Many of the copies of the Manifesto were confiscated and pulped, Paetel’s publication license was swiftly withdrawn, and the publications of he and his comrades were shut down. The GSRN did not last much longer, being banned along with the other communist and ‘fellow-traveller’ groups in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire.

From that point onwards Paetel experienced significant harassment from the government, particularly as he continued to associate with figures considered unsavoury to the National Socialist regime. His name was included on a black-list of suspected traitors during the events of the June 1934 Blood Purge (the ‘Night of the Long Knives’), and by 1935 things had become so heated that Paetel was forced to flee Germany for his own safety. After some time moving around Europe he ended up in America, where he managed to find employment as an academic and eventually attained citizenship. In his later life Paetel published a number of different works, several of them detailing the history of German National Bolshevism. He died in New York in 1975.

On the Translation
This translation was made over the course of several months from early- to mid-2019. From the next page onwards everything, as far as is possible, is a replica in terms of content and style of Paetel’s original National Bolshevist Manifesto. All the numbered footnotes within the text (i.e. 1 2 3) are Paetel’s, translated from the original German. The only change that has been made to them is put some of them into order – whether due to a printing error or complications in formatting and layout, the German version of the Manifesto does not order all the footnotes sequentially: the details for footnote 59, for instance, are preceded by footnote 60 and followed by footnote 58. For the sake my sanity and that of the readers, I have fixed this for the English translation.

Paetel in the Manifesto makes extensive reference to newspapers, journals, books, and articles. Most of the original newspapers and journals Paetel references have had their German names left untranslated to make their identification easier (Paetel’s own frequently-appearing Sozialistische Nation is the one exception – I have consistently used the English translation Socialist Nation instead). Books and articles have had their names translated to make their contents more apparent to the reader, but the original German names are provided in brackets and Italics [“like so”] for anyone interested in tracking them down. The only works I have avoided this with are those which are already widely-known in English-speaking countries, such as those of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Jünger, etc.

At times in the text I have included the original German for a word or phrase alongside the English translation, [like this]. This has mainly been employed when translating striking or unusual expressions – typically völkisch language, which does not always have an easy, direct translation in English. The only other additions I have made to the text are my own Translator’s Notes. These are indicated in the text using footnote symbols (i.e. *†‡§) to make them easily distinguishable from Paetel’s numbered footnotes – the numbers are Paetel’s, the symbols are mine. Sometimes these notes are employed to provide detail on a translating choice, more commonly they are there to offer some historical background to the reader. Much of Paetel’s Manifesto is concerned with discussing and dissecting the ideas and writings of his political and cultural contemporaries, and he additionally makes frequent literary allusions and references to German historical events. This all has the potential of being rather obscure to modern, 21st century, English-speaking readers; Paetel assumes that his readers will of course know (for example) who “the communist Thomas” was or what “the slogan of the 97%” is in reference to, but this is less likely today than it was in 1933. I have endeavoured to be as neutral as possible in these sections, since one thing I despise is an editor or translator trying to influence my opinion on a text. Regardless, I am aware that these notes are my own work and not Paetel’s original, that people have downloaded this document to read Paetel’s words and not my own, so I have also attempted to make the separation as clear as possible. The Translator’s Notes sections are very clearly indicated at the end of the relevant chapters with a heading and a different font, and I have deliberately tried to make them as small and unobtrusive as possible. If people find them distracting or unnecessary then I will happily issue an edition of the translation without them.

I hope you enjoy this work. Please feel free to distribute it where you like. If you have access to the German original (there are PDF copies available online; I used a physical reprint from German publishers Haag & Herchen) and believe you can improve the translation, then also please feel free to do so. The most important thing is that Paetel’s writings are available – I have no special claim over them. If you have any questions, criticisms, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

BOGUMIL
arplan.org



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