Third Position

{{hatnote|Not to be confused with [[third way]] politics.}}
{{Sources needed}}
{{Fascism}}
'''Third Positionism''' is a peculiar kind of political wingnut movements which attempt to mix [[fascism]], [[racism]], and far-right ultra-[[nationalism]] with whatever economic and social issues of the left they want to throw into their toxic stew, including anything from socialism, communism, capitalism, [[neo-paganism]], [[animal rights]], and radical [[environmentalism]], all the way over to old-left ideologies such as [[anarchism]] and [[Marxism]], and sometimes trying to bring back nearly-forgotten archaic economic ideas such as [[Distributism]] and [[Social Credit]].

The name refers to their claim that they have an ideology that is beyond both [[capitalism]] and [[socialism]] and represents a third pole in international politics distinct from, and in opposition to, the U.S. and Soviet blocs during the [[Cold War]]. This is dubious and gives far too much importance to this fringe movement, and far too little to the {{wpl|Non-Aligned Movement}}. Third Positionism is, essentially, nothing more than [[Horseshoe theory|ethno-nationalism]] with an economically leftist and/or countercultural spin.

One key difference from other white nationalists is that, while many of them tend to take a patriotic stance and romanticize European [[imperialism]], Third Positionists instead embrace a [[Third World|third-worldist]] view of foreign policy, viewing Western imperialism and neo-colonialism as agents of [[multiculturalism]] and multiracialism (or, for those given to overt antisemitism, of [[Zionism]]) that allow non-white cultural influences to creep into white Western nations from the colonies, and vice-versa.

Third world ideologies such as [[Muammar al-Gaddafi]]'s {{wpl|The Green Book (Muammar Gaddafi)|''Green Book''|,}} [[North Korea]]'s [[Juche]], and [[Arab nationalism]] are seen as sources of non-white racial nationalist resistance in the developing world, and viewed as kindred spirits to white nationalist movements in the developed West. Some Third Positionists in the US have even sought common cause with [[Black supremacy|black supremicist groups]] like the [[Nation of Islam]] over racial separatism and antisemitism,<ref>The [[Southern Poverty Law Center]]'s [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/nation-of-islam profile] on the Nation of Islam (links with Third Positionists are mentioned towards the bottom).</ref> while the [[New Right (Europe)|New Right in Europe]] cultivated ties with [[Islamism|Islamist]] groups. By contrast, more conventional white nationalists often rail against the "[[Yellow Peril]]" and [[Islam]].

==Groups==
[[File:Flag of the Eurasian Youth Union.svg|thumb|right|165px|If [[Dugin|your]] symbol looks like an [[anus]], you might be full of shit.]]
Groups that fall into this category include the Official National Front (now defunct) in the U.K. and its offshoots (still active), and the skinhead organization American Front (now defunct) in the U.S. [[Tom Metzger]], despite his heavy use of crude racist cartoons and rhetoric that most Third Postionists would distance themselves from, has often been described as Third Positionist.

More recently, third positionism has become a tendency within the [[alt-right]], often castigating pro-business conservatives as [[useful idiot]]s who have no effective response to perceived left-wing [[Entryism|infiltration]] of major corporations. Groups cut from this cloth sometimes use terms like "[[national anarchism|National Anarchism]]" (a white nationalist version of the left-wing anarchism), "[[National Bolshevism]]" (think Soviet Communism of [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] and [[Josef Stalin|Stalin]] mixed with Russian nationalism/Pan-Eurasianism of Limonov and [[Aleksandr Dugin|Dugin]]), and "alt-left" (not to be confused with [[Donald Trump]]'s use of the term to describe [[Antifascist Action|Antifa]]).

An American political party formed in 2010 calls itself American Third Position or A3P (now known as the American Freedom Party or AFP),<ref>[http://american3rdposition.com/ American Freedom Party]</ref> though its stance is not really Third Positionism so much as it is [[Producerism|producerist]] conservatism meets [[white nationalism]].

Another example is [[Matthew Heimbach]]'s Traditionalist Worker Party, a now defunct neo-Nazi, white nationalist party has advocated for Third Positionism in articles such as "Class Cooperation Against Capitalism and Communism: Third Position" and "Social Nationalism: An Economic Future for our people", mixing it with the existing ideology of European fascism (German Nazism/Hitlerism, British Mosley Fascism, and Codreanu Romanian Legionarism) and Orthodox Christianity in addition to advocating for Strasserism (see more below).

Yet another example, which is widely believed to be a [[Poe's Law|stealth parody]] yet is a good illustration of what Third Positionism is, is a website purporting to be the "[[Libertarianism|Libertarian]] National Socialist Green Party."<ref>[http://greenpolitics.wikia.com/wiki/Libertarian_National_Socialist_Green_Party "Libertarian National Socialist Green Party"], ''Green Politics Wiki''</ref>

There are some regional differences. Continental European groups like Germany's [[wp:The_III._Path|The Third Path]] favor pagan and skinhead imagery and hearken to radical anti-civilization ideologues like [[Julius Evola]] and [[Pentti Linkola]], as well as the writings of [[Francis Parker Yockey]]. By contrast, the American Freedom Party presents itself as a professional and businesslike political party, even avoiding any of Third Positionism's usual leftist flirtations in favor of capitalism, middle class [[social conservatism]], and economic nationalism. Groups in the United Kingdom seem to favor radically [[traditionalist Catholicism]] and agrarianism.

==Why?==
[[File:Strasserismi.png|thumb|right|165px|The banner of the Strasserite faction of the NSDAP. "Seizing the means of production from the Jew bosses!"]]
This leaves open the question of why somebody would simultaneously mix up a stew of neo-Nazism with left-wing social and economic views.<ref group=note>[[Jonah Goldberg|Some]] [[Conservapedia|conservatives]] claim that ''all'' Nazism and [[fascism]] were left-wing. This is a [[PRATT|hotly disputed point]].</ref> For a more nuanced political analysis of this phenomenon, look to the original National Socialist German Workers Party of the 1920s and early 1930s.

One faction, led by [[Adolf Hitler]], was merely interested in raw power, hatred, and putting their [[genocide|genocidal]] and militaristic fantasies into practice as well as being anti-Slavic, anti-Communist, and expansionist.

The other faction, led by the Strasser brothers (Otto and Gregor), took the "Socialist" part of the party's name seriously and espoused an anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeois left-wing working class revolutionary stance with redistribution of the wealth to Germans akin to [[communism]], hand-in-hand with extreme German [[nationalism]]. They were [[antisemitism|anti-Semitic]], but on an economic basis rather than a racial or religious one, seeing the Jews as the masters of [[capitalism]] and part of the ruling elite. This ideology was called Strasserism, and the movement has its own flag created by the Combat Revolutionary League of National Socialists (aka the Black Front) featuring a red hammer and sword with white outlines against a black background.

The Strasserite faction was violently purged by the Hitlerite faction not long after Hitler's rise to power, in the "{{wpl|Night of the Long Knives}}".<ref group=note>Hence [[Jello Biafra]]'s response to 3rd Positionists that "In a real Fourth Reich you'll be the first to go."</ref> Third Positionism, then, is more or less to neo-Nazism what Strasserism was to the original Nazism. Note the similarity of "[[national anarchism]]" and "[[national Bolshevism]]" to "national socialism".

==Similar movements==
There exist many syncretist political movements that mix left and right, such as [[libertarianism]], the [[Hardline]] movement and some other [[hard green]]s, and some [[conspiracy theorist]]s who simultaneously espouse conspiracy theories of the far left and far right. These are neither Third Positionist nor fascist and shouldn't be confused with such, but still illustrate how seemingly disparate political views can merge.

One curious footnote is the political cult of [[Lyndon LaRouche]], which holds opposing views to Third Positionism in many ways but ended up evolving into a similar fusion of [[wingnut]]tery and [[moonbat]]tery that, like Third Positionism, is often considered by critics to be a proto-fascist movement.

British right-wing ideologue [[Enoch Powell]] espoused many of the contrarian nationalist ideas that would later influence Third Positionism, often going against the conventional wisdom of the British right. Notably, he viewed the United States as a greater threat to Britain than the Soviet Union, feeling that the Americans had destroyed the [[British Empire]] for their own gain and wanted a united Ireland within NATO to combat communism (at the expense of British rule in Northern Ireland), and that Britain and Russia were "natural allies" in the European balance of power. However, his economic ideas were staunchly opposed to the left-wing populism of Third Positionism; he was a [[monetarism|monetarist]] and one of the first major British politicians to call for large-scale [[privatization]] of state-owned industries, more than a decade before [[Margaret Thatcher]] took office and put such plans into action.

[[Paleoconservatism]] is an American movement that is explicitly right-wing rather than left-wing. While it has many similarities with traditional European conservatisms, American culture is different enough to make this movement distinct. Many of its critiques of globalization and modern capitalism are similar to those used by Third Positionists (i.e. "they're vehicles of multiculturalism that are destroying Western civilization"), but the critique is explicitly localist and in many ways pre-modern, rather than the modernist quasi-socialist critiques of fascism's variants. It shares this distinction in common with most strains of conservatism. Where paleoconservative philosophy departs from Continental European models is its different wellsprings such as [[Edmund Burke]] and the Federalist Papers, while hearkening back to an idealized version of America's agrarian frontier history as a cultural touchstone. There are dueling schools of thought regarding the school's relationship to "the other,"<ref>Kolozi, Peter. [http://www.academia.edu/483924/Conservatives_Against_Capitalism "Conservatives Against Capitalism: The Conservative Critique of Capitalism in American Political Thought."] Particularly relevant for this footnote are chapter VI on the paleoconservatives, and chapter III on the Southern Agrarian ideology of the early 20th century, which in Kolozi's opinion is an ideological antecedent to paleoconservatism. Note that the frontier/ Yankee agrarian model had key differences from the Southern model, so a good case must differentiate between those.</ref><ref name=Sobran>Sobran, Joseph. [http://www.wildwestcycle.com/f_pensees.htm "Pensees: Notes for the Reactionary of Tomorrow."] This is an inside view of Paleoconservatism from a long-standing exponent; see esp. its discussions of Alienism and fascism.</ref> but the behavioural fact is that paleoconservatives have traditionally been anti-immigration, even when most immigrants were European. Some are also foreign policy isolationists to an extreme degree.<ref>Wikipedia, [[Wikipedia:Churchill,_Hitler_and_the_Unnecessary_War|''Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War'']]. A book by [[Patrick Buchanan]], arguing that World War I and World War II were unnecessary.</ref>

==See also==
===Individuals===
{{collist|3|

* [[Aleksander Dugin]]
* [[Ba'ath Party]]
* [[Bashar al-Assad]]
* [[Charles Manson]]
* [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]]
* [[George Galloway]]
* [[Francis Parker Yockey]]
* [[Louis Farrakhan]]
* [[Joseph Goebbels]]
* [[Juan Perón]]
* [[Kim Il-sung]]
* [[Kim Jong-il]]
* [[Kim Jong-un]]
* [[Lyndon LaRouche]]
* [[Pol Pot]]
* [[Robert Mugabe]]
* [[Rodrigo Duterte]]
* [[Willis Carto]]
* [[Muammar al-Gaddafi]]
* [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]]
* [[Oswald Mosley]]
* [[Ron Paul]]
* [[Saddam Hussein]]
* [[Savitri Devi]]
* [[Jürgen Elsässer]]
* [[Vladimir Putin]]
}}
===Ideologies===
{{collist|3|
* [[Alt-right]]
* [[Hard green#Ecofascism|Ecofascism]]
* [[Fascism]]
* [[Black supremacy]]
* [[Bolshevik]]
* [[Corporatism]]
* [[Distributism]]
* [[Juche]]
* [[Left-wing fascism]]
* [[Nation of Islam]]
* [[National anarchism]]
* [[National Bolshevism]]
* [[Nazism]]
* [[Neoreactionary movement]]
* [[Neo-Nazism]]
* [[Producerism]]
* [[Radical traditionalism]]
* [[Red fascism]]
* [[Third way]]
* [[White nationalism]]
* [[White supremacy]]
}}
===Other===
{{collist|3|

* [[Hitler and socialism]]
* [[Horseshoe theory]]
* [[Khmer Rouge]]
* ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''
}}
==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==

* [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2000/winter/neither-left-nor-right/third-position SPLC profiles of Third Position websites.] The article was written in 2000, and very few of these sites are still online (most have been defunct for years), but still a useful profile.
* [http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/ Who Makes The Nazis?] — a good blog on neo-fascist use of alternative music (including folk and [[punk]]) and the counterculture, which are exactly the playgrounds favored by Third Positionists.
* [http://tinychat.com/thirdposition Third Position Chat room]

[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Neo-Nazism]]
[[Category:Totalitarianism]]
[[Category:Authoritarianism]]

Categories: Fascism, Racism, Neo-Nazism, Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism