Essay:Conservative Revolution

The idea of a Conservative revolution to crush the Left, restore the traditional culture and return to times before the Great War was made popular by German Conservatives and Nationalists such as Oswald Spengler, Thomas Mann, Ernst jünger, Martin Heidegger, Edgar Julius Jung, Carl Schmitt or the Nobel Prize winner Heimito von Doderer, but also by more controversial figures such as Giulio Evola and Germann Wirth, who were involved with Neopaganism and the occult. It was developed after WW1, when they saw bloody combat with the newest weapons like the flamethrower or the submachine gun. But after four years of live in the trenches, they returned home only to see their native countries destroyed by ethnical separatism and left-wing revolutions. As the historian Robert Gerwarth says in his book The Vanquished: Why The First World War Failed To End, 1917-1923, many of these soldiers, some being even officers, disliked to see crowds of peasants, workers and low-rank soldiers wearing red banners and behaving disrespectfully to those who fought for their land four long years. But in Austria, as well as in many countries, the classical pre-war right-wing parties were paralised. So these deceptioned soldiers had to close their mouths until the revolutionary wave was over. Some of them joined right-wing groups such as the Freikorps in Germany or the Heimwehr in Austria, but others decided to use more intellectual ways of confronting this hard problem. For instance, Oswald Spengler, who didn't fight because of being physically weak, published his acnowledged book The Decline of the West or Der Untergang des Abenlandes in German in 1918, and a second part followed in 1923. He developed the civilisations theory, according to which mankind is divided between many civilisations, the Western one is collapsing due to Socialism and Liberal revolutions and a Russian civilisation will rise some day in the far future. Some of his predictions were wonderfully true, such as his view of our days' cities or the progressing moral and cultural degeneration encouraged by Leftist forces. Many other writers and learned people also had similar ideas, but there never was a coherent political party with these ideas, nor some generic definition of a Conservative Revolutionary, since there were many differences. Trying to find this definition, the right-wing German and Swiss scholar Armin Mohler decided in the 1950 book Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932 that most proponents were Catholics from Bavaria or Austria who rejected Liberalism, Socialism and parliamentary democracy for a monarchy such as the Second Reich (1871-1918). The party most akin to them was the monarchical DNVP or Deutsche National Volkspartei (which means "German National People's Party).

Note how the ideas of those World War One veterans are similar to views held by the Blackshirts of Mussolini about the same time, specially if we remember that Giulio Evola was an Italian Germanophile who supported Mussolini until the 1960-s. Spengler thought that Mussolini was better than Hitler, and Edgar Julius Jung was nearly a Fascist himself, supporting the ideas of mobilizing all of the supposedly organic nation to achieve this revolution. Wikipedia states that the DNVP was "proto-fascist", but there might be Liberal bias. Also the movement had an ambivalent attitude towards capitalism, which can side the Conservative Revolution within the Third Position, which is opposed both to Marxism and to Liberalism, as Fascism did. The movement sees nothing wrong in Authoritarianism and dictatorial government, because they considered a way to stop the decay of the society. The historian Fritz Stern --who was a disciple of the Liberal Lionel Trilling and an advicer to the Democrat US Ambassador to Germany Richard Holbrooke -- advices against "the politics of cultural despair", in which he includes this ideology because they "glorify force, prophesy the age of an imperial dictator" and "condemn all existing institutions" But the attitude towards Nazism was more divided. Spengler, Mann and Rauschning denounced them, Heidegger, Schmitt and von Doderer joined the party, but Evola and Wirth were enthusiastical supporters. Even the idea of a "Third Reich" was coined by Moeller van der Bruck in his 1923 book Das dritte Reich or The third realm. This support is one of the reasons of the low popularity of these point of view today.

Now is not very popular because of its relationship with Nazism, which, however, is sometimes unfairly considered more important, overlooking the struggle of some proponents in the army against Hitler in the July 20 plot of 1944. Despite that, there have been some modern supporters. Francis Parker Yockey (1917-1960) was an American philosopher who considered himself a follower of Spengler. He wrote the book Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, which he claimed to be a secuel to Spengler's work. In that book, he defended an authoritarian end to the decay and an alliance of the Nazis --like him-- with the Communists against the democratic nations. The abovementioned Armin Mohler was a partisan of the movement himself, being influenced by Spengler and even the National-Socialism to start the New Right movement. DNVP was restored in the sixties, but very soon joined the NPD, self-described as "the only significant German patriotic force", whoch exists to this day. Giulio Evola continued speaking out for Fascism until he declared himself apolitical near the end of his live. The Italian Neofascist party Fiamma Tricolore supports his ruralism and traditionalism against the progressing urbanisation. His work Imperialismo Pagano was translated to Russian by Alexander Dugin, who believes in the civilisation theory and opposes democracy.

Despite the movement being very theorical, there have been some counter-revolutions which can be considered Conservative revolutions. Here comes a list: -1920 Hungarian anti-communist reaction by Admiral Horty -1922 March on Rome, because it was approved by Spengler and other proponents -Bulgarian 1923 coup against the government of a peasants' party allied with Communists and Anarchists -Portuguese 1926 revolution against a Liberal republic, which led to the National Dictatorship, after which Salazar came to power in 1930 -Spanish Alzamiento Nacional of Francoists in 1936 against a Socialist republic -Romanian 1940 coup by the Iron Guard against the king Carol II -Argentinian 1943 military and nationalist coup which led Perón to power in 1946. -Chilean counter-revolution of Pinochet's military junta against the Communist Allende in 1973 -Argentinian junta's takeover in 1976 -Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, as it was a revolution against Liberalism and Communism

If you are interested in the topic, please read the book "The Vanquished: Why The First World War Failed To End, 1917-1923" to know the general mood of the society after the Great War, including the Right. You also can read some original works, for instance, The Decline of the West or another Spengler's books: Preussentum und Sozialismus, which deals with the connexion between German Conservative Nationalism and Socialism, and The Hour of Decision, which is a book about Nazism from a Conservative Revolutionarian point of view.