The Third Position is a set of neo-fascist political ideologies that were first described in Western Europe following the Second World War.
History
The term "Third Position" was coined in Europe and the main precursors of Third Position politics were Italian fascism,
Legionarism,
Falangism, Prussian socialism, National Bolshevism (a synthesis of far-right
ultranationalism and far-left
Bolsheviks) and
Strasserism (a radical, mass-action, worker-based form of
Nazism, advocated by the "left-wing" of the
Nazi Party by brothers
Otto Strasser and
Gregor Strasser, until it was crushed in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934).
Neo-fascist,
neo-Nazi author Francis Parker Yockey had proposed an alliance between
Communism and
fascism called the red-brown alliance (red being the color of communism and brown being the color of Nazism). Yockey lent support to
Third World liberation movements as well.
Germany
Querfront ("cross-front") was the cooperation between conservative revolutionaries in Germany with the far-left during the
Weimar Republic of the 1920s.
Ernst Niekisch and others tried to combine communist and anti-capitalism nationalist forces to overthrow the existing order of the Weimar Republic. He called this merger "National Bolshevism". During his early years in Nazi Party as SS-Gauführer, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler worked briefly as a deputy of Gregor Strasser, then head of party propaganda department. Influenced heavily by Strasserism ideas, Himmler attacked capitalism and viewed socialism as "the natural economic system" during the 1920s.[Turner, Henry Ashby Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, New York: Addison-Wesley, 1996, pp. 24–29.]
The term is also used today for mutual entryism or cooperation between left and right-wing groups. For example, at a Berlin peace rally on February 24, 2023, called by Sahra Wagenknecht, at the time a leading figure of Germany's socialist Left Party, and feminist Alice Schwarzer in support of their manifesto calling for negotiations and stop of military support of Ukraine, far-right factions and pro-Russian supporters were in attendance.
France
During the 1930s and 1940s, a number of splinter groups from the radical left became associated with radical nationalism.
Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party (from the French Communist Party) and Marcel Déat's National Popular Rally (from the French Section of the Workers' International). Third Position ideology gained some support in France, where in 1985 Jean-Gilles Malliarakis set up a "Third Way" political party, Troisième Voie (TV). Considering its main enemies to be the United States, communism and
Zionism, the group advocated radical paths to national revolution. Associated for a time with the Groupe Union Défense, TV was generally on poor terms with Front National until 1991, when Malliarakis decided to approach them. As a result, TV fell apart and a radical splinter group under Christian Bouchet, Nouvelle Résistance, adopted National Bolshevik and then
Eurasianism views.
Italy
In Italy, the Third Position was developed by
Roberto Fiore, along with Gabriele Adinolfi and
Giuseppe Dimitri, in the tradition of Italian
neo-fascism. Third Position's ideology is characterized by a
militarism formulation, a palingenetic ultranationalism looking favourably to national liberation movements, support for
Racism and the adherence to a soldier lifestyle. In order to construct a cultural background for the ideology, Fiore looked to the
ruralism of
Julius Evola and sought to combine it with the desire for a cultural-spiritual revolution. He adopted some of the positions of the contemporary far-right, notably the
ethnopluralism of Alain de Benoist and the Europe-wide appeal associated with such views as the Europe a Nation campaign of
Oswald Mosley (amongst others). Fiore was one of the founders of the Terza Posizione movement in 1978. Third Position ideas are now represented in Italy by
Forza Nuova, led by Fiore; and by the movement
CasaPound, a network of far-right social centres.
United Kingdom
In the 1980s, the National Front, a British fascist party that had experienced the height of its success in the 1970s, was taken over by a Strasserist faction that referred to themselves as Third Positionist. The Strasserist-led National Front was also characterised by Baker as National Bolshevist in ideology. Reflecting the
Nouvelle Droite's influence, the Strasserist Official NF promoted support for "a broad front of racialists of all colours" who were seeking an end to multi-racial society and capitalism, praising black nationalists like
Louis Farrakhan and
Marcus Garvey. Their publication,
Nationalism Today, featured positive articles on the governments of Libya and Iran, presenting them as part of a global anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist third force in international politics; its members openly acknowledged the influence of Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi and his Third International Theory. This may have had tactical as well as ideological motivations, with Libya and Iran viewed as potential sources of funding. This new rhetoric and ideology alienated much of the party's rank-and-file membership. It experienced internal problems, and in 1989 several of its senior members—Nick Griffin, Derek Holland, and Colin Todd—split from it to establish their International Third Position group. One of its leaders was
Roberto Fiore, an ex-member of the Italian far-right movement
Terza Posizione.
United States
In the United States, Political Research Associates argues that Third Position politics has been promoted by some white nationalist and
Neo-Nazism groups such as the National Alliance,
American Front, Traditionalist Worker Party,
Patriot Front, and White Aryan Resistance, as well as some black nationalist groups, such as the Nation of Islam, since the late 20th century.
In 2010, the American Third Position Party (later renamed American Freedom Party) was founded in part to channel the right-wing populist resentment engendered by the 2008 financial crisis and the policies of the Obama administration.
See also
Notes
Bibliography
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Cheles, L.; Ferguson, R.; and Vaughan, M. (1992) Neo-Fascism in Europe. London: Longman.
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Cingolani, Giorgio (1996) La destra in armi. Editori Riuniti. (in Italian).
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Copsey, N. (2004) Contemporary British Fascism: The British National Party and the Quest for Legitimacy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Flamini, Gianni (1989) L’ombra della piramide. Teti. (in Italian).
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International Third Position (1997) The Third Position Handbook. London: Third Position.
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External links
