National Bolshevism

National Bolshevism, whose supporters are known as National Bolsheviks and colloquially as Nazbols, is a syncretic political movement committed to combining ultranationalism and communism. National Bolshevism as a term was first used to describe a faction in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) which wanted to ally the insurgent communist movement with dissident nationalist groups in the German army who rejected the Treaty of Versailles. Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim led the faction and it was primarily based in Hamburg. They were subsequently expelled from the KAPD which Karl Radek justified by stating that it was necessary if the KAPD were to be welcomed into the Third Congress of the Third International. Although the expulsion would likely had happened regardless, as Radek previously dismissed the pair as "National Bolsheviks" (which was the first recorded use of the term). National Bolshevism was among several early ultranationalist, and according to some, fascist movements in Germany that predate Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. During the 1920s, a number of German intellectuals began a dialogue which created a synthesis between radical nationalism (typically referencing Prussianism) and Bolshevism as it existed in the Soviet Union. One of the early and most prominent pioneers of the National Bolshevik movement in Germany was Ernst Niekisch of the Old Social Democratic Party of Germany. Niekisch was the founder and primary editor of Widerstand, a magazine which advocated for National Bolshevik ideology. Co-publisher and illustrator of Widerstand was the openly antisemitic A. Paul Weber, who saw himself primarily concerned with the future of Germany due to the growing popularity of Nazism. Other authors of the magazine included Otto Petras, Friedrich Georg Jünger, Hugo Fischer, Hans Bäcker, Friedrich Reck-Mellecze, and Alexander Mitscherlich.

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