The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote on the matter:

To Heimbach, however, these were all worthy allies. In his Oct. 4 post, he defiantly described such groups as all part of a “big White Advocacy tent” and sneered at those who would “throw [their] allies under the bus to achieve ‘respectability.’” He would not, he vowed, play “the SPLC’s Kevin Bacon ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ Game” — that is, being embarrassed by links to various groups. And, indeed, Heimbach displayed no shame. Instead, he described the NSM, a thuggish group that has worked hard to provoke violence, as having “an impressive record of street activism and grassroots organizing on behalf of White working folks.”

On the other hand, Heimbach does try to distance himself (somewhat theoretically) from National Socialism (aka, Nazism), and instead, create a racialized ideology around Christianity and traditional values that is more digestible to the average American. Heimbach has gone to lengths to disovow racist terrorism (in his media interviews), and even went so far as to drive from Cincinnati to pay respect for the victims of Dylann Roof in Charleston, although he is close to the groups which ideologically influenced the massacre. He would go on to state in the media, “Dylann Roof is a victim in regards to he was a white man born to a society that actively hates him and hates his people, hates his culture and his identity.” Dig further and read his essays, and you come to understand that Heimbach has no problem with police violence.

But despite his efforts, Heimbach has a poor history of just how well he can distance himself from the more “colorful” members of his movement. In a 2013 essay, entitled, ‘A Christian Declaration,’ he denounced the Neo-Nazis among the white nationalist movement because apparently Hitler killed too many white people and hated Jesus (apparently all the other murdering was OK). But only a few months later, Heimbach appeared at a gathering of Neo-Nazis and skinheads giving a Nazi like salute. This led to his expulsion in the white nationalist Neo-Confederate group, The League of the South, but was soon after reinstated.

In a recent article by The New Yorker, the author hangs out with Heimbach and his co-horts while they watch the Republican debates. The author notices how Matthew Parrot, (who apparently is in a mixed-race relationship, go figure), co-founder of the TYN and Heimbach’s father-in-law, sips from a swastika coffee cup. To further muddy the waters, Heimbach has also been very supportive of the Neo-Nazi and white nationalist website, The Daily Stormer, which is blatantly anti-Semitic, racist, and pro-Nazi.

But Heimbach goes beyond just working with Neo-Nazis and other white nationalists, he’s trying to organize them. In a more recent video interview in 2015, the interviewer talks about how Heimbach is setting up a network of white nationalist, Neo-Nazi, and Neo-Confederate groups across the US. So, while Matthew is smart enough to realize that the white sheets and swastikas hurt his image, as the same time, he still needs the warm embrace of the white nationalist movement for numbers and support.

A New Day for A New Generation

Fascism gains ground when a popular upsurge of people decide it’s time for a change and head down the path that leads away from a liberatory multi-ethnic vision of freedom. – Confronting Fascism 

To understand why Heimbach and the Traditionalist Youth Network/Workers Party (although small) is important, we have to revisit the white nationalist scene in the early 1980s to mid to late 1990s, when the movement reached its most militant height and suffered from dramatic implosion. In 1983, the country was in an economic crisis much like today, and just as events such as the Waco Massacre or the more recent Bundy Ranch stand-off spurred many on the Right to action, a burgeoning farm crisis was also drawing many militants into the frey. Angry over foreclosures and the actions of banks, farmers began to speak of armed resistance. Gordon Kahl, who was once a member of the far-Right group, Posse Comitatus, became a martyr for the movement after dying in a shoot-out with authorities in the summer of ’83. Soon after, The Order, a white nationalist terrorist organization burst onto the scene out of the Pacific Northwest and carried out a wave of bank robberies, bombings, and the assassination of a radio talk-show host. The group was based upon the fictional organization presented in the book, The Turner Diaries, written by William Piece, who led the white nationalist organization, the National Alliance.

Through their bank robberies, The Order was able to fleece the white nationalist movement with hundreds of thousands of dollars, including the National Alliance. Founder of The Order, Robert Matthews, (pictured above) was later killed by law enforcement in a shootout and continues to be considered a martyr by white racists while still imprisoned members are described as political prisoners. David Lane, who still is incarcerated, is credited with the famous, “14 words,” often referred to by white nationalists including Heimbach.

In 1989, former Klansman and Neo-Nazi David Duke (who also has ties to Heimbach) ran for the Louisiana House of Representatives and won, staying in office until 1992. Duke, who became a Neo-Nazi while in college, went on to become involved in Knights of the Ku-Klux-Klan and various white power groups that took up the torch of the American Nazi Party (ANP) formed by George Lincoln Rockwell. Many of those involved in the KKK who were close to Duke went on to become other large movers and shakers within the racist Right, such asTom Metzger (White Aryan Resistance), Don Black (Stormfront.org), and racist serial killer, Joe Franklin. After winning his House of Representatives seat, Duke then attempted to run for Governor and lost, although he came very close. This shot in the arm to the white nationalist movement showed how far these ideas could translate in rural, working and middle class white areas.

But Duke’s election also showed the sickening poison of white supremacy on the white working-class. When Duke was elected into office in the Louisiana State Legislature in 1989, he came into power as his largely all-white district were facing massive unemployment and poverty. What’s ironic is that Duke campaigned on a predictably racist platform of gutting welfare and other social programs to African-Americans but in reality mostly just made life worse for the constituents in his district.

But while Duke was in office, other activity was brewing across the country. In Portland, Sacramento, and elsewhere, the white power scene grew in militancy and attacked synagogues with arson and carried out murders. Other right-wing militants were also becoming more active, for instance, the anti-abortion movement carried out a series of bombings across the US during the 1990s. In 1995, seeking vengeance against the siege and massacres at Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Timothy McVeigh, who was influenced by the Creativity Movement (a white nationalist take on Christianity) and the National Alliance, exploded a bomb at a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Throughout the 1990s however, those on the racist Right were seeing the growth of both an old, and new foe – anarchists. Learning from experiences by militants in the UK group, Anti-Fascist Action, a new group in the 90s called Anti-Racist Action (ARA) hit the streets andused physical confrontation to shut down meetings, protests, rallies, and events called by white nationalists, the KKK, and Neo-Nazis skinheads.

But by the 1990s, the white racist Right had more problems than anarchists disrupting their meetings and fighting them in the streets, as many white nationalist groups fell apart and their leaders went to jail (for a variety of embarrassing acts for the master race) or died. Aryan Nations, the National Alliance, World Church of the Creator; all the major players in the 90s were hit with lawsuits, arrests, infiltration, deaths, and money problems. But by the middle-to late 2000s, the movement saw an upsurge again, as white reaction to the immigration movement, Obama’s presidency, and the stand-off at Bundy Ranch again breathed life into the movement. It is in this context that a young person like Matthew Heimbach could rise to the surface.

Today Poolesville, Tomorrow the World

[I]t’s about flipping the table over. It’s about going to temple and saying that this is a violation of God’s law and creating a new homeland for whites around the entire world. – Matthew Heimbach

Matthew Heimbach was born in 1991 in the small town of Poolesville, Maryland, with a population of around 5,000, largely white, to a conservative McCain supporting family that took him hunting and to firearms expos. While Matthew presents his past as almost “prole-cred,” Poolesville in reality is an extremely affluent suburb of Washington, DC. Around age 14, Heimbach moved into the far-Right after reading various books obtained at gun-shows, such as the works of Sam Francis, a paleoconservative and editor of publications produced by the Council of Conservative Citizens and who also appeared at the American Renaissance Conference, a forum for academic white nationalists to discuss and hone their theory. Francis gained controversy after railing against ‘interracial sex,’ immigration, and multiculturalism in mainstream columns.

While in High School, according to an interview with the Daily Beast, Heimbach attempted to form a White Student Union, but the school administration balked at the idea and wouldn’t allow it. In 2009 Heimbach started attending university at Montgomery College, and was further impressed by the works of Pat Buchanan, another mainstream Republican politician who flirted with the far-Right and white nationalist ideas. Once in college just outside of Washington, DC and Baltimore, Heimbach headed up a school chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom, a activist group for conservative youth.

Heimbach then graduated to a new group, after being taken under the wing of Kevin DeAnna head of ‘Youth for Western Civilization’ in 2011, and would go on to form his own chapter. As with many of Heimbach’s later projects, YWC played up openly fascist imagery (their symbol used the ‘fasces’ Roman image of state power and authority) and drew links to the wider white nationalist scene, all the while staying fast to their position of not being “Nazis” or “racists.”

While the group tried to appeal to college republicans and conservatives, after much controversy and protests, YWC folded, and Heimbach would go on to form the White Student Union, causing again a flurry of controversy. After graduating from college, Heimbach then went on to merge the WSU into the Traditionalist Youth Network, (TYN), and now its political wing, the Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP). Thomas Buhls, who headed up the Bloomington, Indiana branch, is a former Klansman. Heimbach also took up a leading position in the racist and neo-Confederate group, League of the South.

During his time in college, Heimbach’s fame grew due to large scale media coverage in VICE and other outlets. But Heimbach generated controversy for leading reactionary protests and pulling stunts, not for being a great organizer. These actions included passing out flyers, chalking “White Pride” around campus, featuring talks by prominent white nationalists, and holding events such as ‘Straight Pride Days.”

In one of their most controversial actions, the White Student Union organized “night patrols” (pictured below, about 5-7 people walking around) of the campus as a means to combat black crime, even though African-American students made up a small percentage of the student body (despite having a large presence in the surrounding area), and the campus was statically one of the safest in the nation. This not to mention of course that the idea that there was a surging problem of “black on white crime” was ludicrous, but of course that wasn’t the point. Like all of the reactionary moves of Heimbach, the point wasn’t the facts, but generalizing and capitalizing on the fears of white people towards blacks. While the events were laughable they helped push Heimbach into the public eye.

Currently, Heimbach is a prominent speaker at various white nationalist functions across the United States. Appearing at events organized by the Council of Conservative Citizens (who influenced serial killer Dylann Roof and who have ties to a range of right-wing politicians and many Republicans), the American Freedom Party (organized by Southern California white-nationalist skinheads), and the yearly Stormfront gathering (a large white nationalist website, who’s collective members have murdered close to 100 people since 2009), Heimbach has taken center stage as a well respected speaker among the often fractured, racist Right.

Recently, Heimbach has expanded his mild-celebrity; he’s now even being courted by the mainstream news channels to come out and debate anti-racist writers and authors like Tim Wise, and profiled, often quite favorably in the likes of Al-Jazeera. By presenting himself as the voice of Nationalism for the white working-class, just as groups with politics closer to his own like the Nation of Islam or the New Black Panther Party (no relation to the original Black Panther Party) are seen to represent the nationalism of African-Americans.

But while Heimlich’s star is soaring, both within his own movement and within the mainstream, it’s important that we look at the Traditionalist Youth Network, its ideas, and understand why it is just a repackaging of the same old fascist and racist standards. But moreover, how can anarchists reach out to rural and disenfranchised poor and working-class whites with a message of class war that also seeks to destroy the fascists and racialized capitalism?    

Bah, Heimbach 

The Nazi cultural model was not a businessman or politician, remember, but the Aryan warrior willing to fight and kill. Fascism was a movement for failed men…But failed not because of themselves , but because bourgeois society had failed them in a dishonorable way. So fascism called men from the middle classes to recover their heritage of being holy warriors…to seize State power from the bourgeoisie and completely eliminate the working class left. The bourgeoisie would be forced to step back, would fulfill their useful role in the economy and be rewarded as is needful for capitalism to function, but they could no longer control the State or nation. And the State would be made up of real men who wouldn’t profit from the petty counting of stocks, but by manfully just taking what they wanted. This is the truly rightist revolutionary aspect to fascism…It is capitalism run out of control of the big capitalists. – J Sakai

While German-American Nazis (through the German American Bund, pictured below) worked to gain influence for fascism pre-World War II, it wasn’t until George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, burst onto the scene during the civil-rights movement in the 50s and 60s that the movement really began to morph into what we see today. Rockwell argued that he needed to use the shock value of the swastika in order to get media attention and thus gain recruits, something that groups like the National Socialist Movement(NSM), continue to adhere to. Rockwell also started to promote the ideas of Holocaust Denial, because he reasoned that unless the facts of the Holocaust were attacked, then Americans wouldn’t stomach Nazism.

While only maintaining a small cadre, Rockwell (seen below) was able at times to gain popularity among broader sections of whites. In 1966 in a suburb of Chicago, many whites who were angry at blacks moving into their neighborhood rallied around Rockwell, (pictured below), who led them in chants of white power as marchers attacked blacks. In 1967, Rockwell was killed by a disgruntled former ANP member, but spawned a multitude of small groups that continue to trace their lineages back to him, such as the current National Socialist Movement, (NSM).

In response to the liberation movements of the 1960s and also seeing the rise of various forms of nationalism grow, such as Black and Chicano Nationalism, the white racist Right began to use the term, ‘white nationalism,’ to define their views. This term began to encompass the large body of thought and groups that often had opposing ideas and were at odds with each other for territory, space, and members. While the players in the movement at times tried to “de-Nazify” their image, by and large, the ideas remained the same. Even groups such as the NSM, (pictured below), have tried to rebrand themselves as a “white civil-rights” organization, despite the fact that their politics where anything but totalitarian, racist, anti-Semitic, and fascist.

What remains constant for Heimbach and other Neo-Nazis and white nationalists are several key concepts and points. This includes the idea that there is large scale Jewish control over the government and mass media and it is determined to “destroy the white race.” Heimbach, like fascists in the past, also contends that “international Jewry” controls both capitalism and “communism,” aka anything left-wing, at the same time.

While dubious and hoax tracks like ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ are laughable, people still read them and believe that a group of Jews runs the world, not a ruling class protected by military force, police, and networks of power. Also, by hinging the frame of the problems of working-class white Americans on a myth of “Jewish” domination or the threat of “black crime,” the fascists are able to obscure the very real racialized organization of life in America that actually does exist. Schools are more segregated now in the US, the wealth gap between black, Latino, and white families is greater than ever, and many African-Americans continue to live in extreme poverty. Far from a society where whites are in danger of ‘becoming extinct,’ America continues to stratify in terms of race and class.

The solution in the minds of the white nationalists: an all white fascist state to be created either through means of terrorism, ‘community organizing,’ or electoral votes. Heimbach proposes that areas that are majority white, stay white, and those that are majority black, stay black. Jews get New York and blacks get Detroit. Those that remain would be forced to pay certain taxes in an attempt to ‘encourage’ them to leave.

This basic ideas of “stop the hate and separate” flows across white nationalist groups and among many Black Nationalists ones as well, such as the Nation of Islam, who propose the creation of a black state in the American South. The group, Republic of New Afrika also proposed a similar idea. Much has been written in the past also, that shows the working together of groups such as NOI with the KKK, who has a similar goals of racial separation. George Rockwell of the ANP also famously once spoke at a Nation of Islam mosque (see below) after being invited due to his similar stance on Jews and racial separation.

However, across the Nationalist spectrum, everyone seems to disagree on who should get what. Some want a collection of various states, others just want to send people “back to where they came from.” Groups like the National Socialist Movement want to expel all “Jews, Homosexuals, and Communists,” executing those who refuse. They go even further to claim that they will grow to need more “living space,” taking a page from Hitler.

Imagine the police, surveillance, security, and bureaucratic State apparatus that would be needed to go from house to house and determine who would be fit to live in Matthew Heimbach’s USA? All who were traitors, ‘sexual-deviants’, ‘race-mixers,’ ‘feminists,’ and ‘commies’ would be out, or as Heimbach puts it, “Get a swift drop from a tight rope.” While fascism is often portrayed as the glorious movement that melds the people together with an all powerful State that sweeps away class divisions in a nationalistic fervor, the reality is that it is based, like all states, on an extreme build-up and maintenance of state violence and power.

Fascism historically, in Spain, Italy, and Germany, was based around the crushing of working-class power in the workplace, streets, and neighborhoods. This is why Fascists the world over have attacked anarchists, labor-unions, and other revolutionaries in their party’s infancy. Because they know as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, that the only way people can stop fascism is smashing it in the streets.

But despite the opposition, Heimbach has hope in the youth of American to create fascism. He stated in one talk:

Francisco Franco [fascist dictator of Spain] really identified that you really need to be able to take people from a democracy of sorts and indoctrinate the new generation.

In the end, the biggest irony of the modern white nationalists is that while they oppose big “Jewish” government, greedy capitalism, and “Jewish” communism, the world view they propose is totalitarian, horribly violent, and based on massive and expansive social control. For all their rhetoric of “freeing” the “white working-class,” they embody the worst elements of those that currently enslave it.

As some anarchists in Phoenix wrote regarding the white nationalist movement and the working class:

…White nationalist groups create fake histories and pray to Norse gods and such. They worship long-suicided leaders that actually sold their type out in the very societies they mythologize. For instance, how many NSM emails start with “stormtrooper”? And yet, in the heat of their Hitler love fest and working class posing, they forget the Night of the Long Knives, when Hitler sold out the Nazi SA (“stormtrooper”) working class formations (despite their reactionary nature) so he could build alliances with German industrialists, bankers and nobility.

So, you see, this is why all the white supremacist organizing in the last three hundred years or so has not led to the liberation of the white working class. It can’t. By definition. If it could have, it would have. Instead, all it does is enrich and entrench a powerful, mostly white elite, who run everyone else’s lives.

Family, Folk, and Faith

At the heart of Heimbach’s political program lies the idea of “Family, Folk, and Faith.” While at first these concepts seems mundane, if not cheesy, once you read into Heimbach’s ideology, you begin to understand what is really meant by them.

By Family, Heimbach is clear that what will be tolerated in his fascist America is a strict nuclear-heterosexual family, headed by the father along authoritarian patriarchal lines. Below is a picture of the Traditionalist Youth Network taking part in an abortion protest.

Heimbach promotes a “back to basics” version of the patriarchal family in which the man is the head of the household and is also the one engaged in the political and social life of the outside community. As he writes:

The natural order of life was for men to become loving husbands at a young age who led their families spiritually and their communities politically, and always with a sense of stewardship. However, this mission from God has been hijacked in recent decades by the enemy, telling men that self pleasure and the rejection of all responsibility is actually the true meaning of masculinity.

Heimbach goes on to discuss how this patriarchal system goes on to further organize the rest of society, with each class of people (just as gender) having a role in stabilizing the wider social order:

The definition of masculinity for generations has been those men who choose to live a noble life in service to others. Warriors were honored for their service in defense of the nation and of the Church while peasants were honored for their duty to clothe, feed, and work for the betterment of their families and their communities. Humility, service to others, and selflessness are the callings of Christian civilization around the globe, but personified perhaps most clearly in European Christian civilization.

The age of the bro and the self serving man is over, the age of a righteous and noble patriarchy is just beginning, join us.

In one article, Heimbach and other Traditionalist Youth Network activists spray paint slogans and leave chalk messages:

“TRADYOUTH.ORG FOR FAITH AND NATION” and “PATRIARCHY IS BACK” are among the slogans peppered down the sidewalk.

Heimbach is extremely homophobic, calling for the placing of homosexuals into ‘reeducation camps.’ On the Traditionalist Youth Network website he calls for a protest of a GLBT event and for the government to ban the ability of GLBT groups to hold public rallies and marches:

The current homosexual agenda is promoting a worldview that is against the moral worldview of the majority of citizens…This agenda to attack the sanctity of Christian churches by promoting “homosexual marriage” and to influence young people with a deviant lifestyle must be opposed by all honorable means.

This protest will be demanding that our State and local government stop granting permits to homosexual pride events and to stop any government funds from being spent to support this attack on Christian morality.

In another essay Heimbach comments:

I do not care if you are a man who “loves” another man, you do not have the right, privilege, or ability to marry him and carry on in a degenerate relationship. In any healthy society you would be dragged off to therapy to help you cope with your mental illness, not given glitter and assless chaps to parade down the street. A society helps the mentally ill; it doesn’t parade them around as normal.

By Folk, Heimbach means race. In his talks, Heimbach describes Jews as a race responsible for the death of Jesus Christ and states that they are a biological race outside of whites. He believes that whites should live separately from other races and should not allow non-whites into America. Heimbach goes on to state how young people will be raised in a new fascist American system:

We need to able to raise a generation or two or three generations, with true white values, true white morals, and a true system of government…

In another he states:

…Democracy, equality, egalitarianism, all of these things, that are the exact opposite of what we need to have the survival of our race.

In another essay he argues that having a multi-racial society makes freedom impossible:

Freedom works when it is within a homogenous population, bound together with an indestructible faith, and united on ethnic and cultural lines. Naturally and organically people in this situation want what is best for their community and therefore they fight to maintain it. This is why freedom in America originally worked, but only briefly. As any environment becomes more multiracial, more varied in its belief systems, and increasingly “diverse” freedom must come into the picture in order to maintain order.

Heimbach goes on to argue for extreme violence and removal of non-whites:

Non-whites do not have the rights or freedom to move into white nations. This is our home and our kith and kin. Borders matter, identity matters, blood matters…The “freedom” for other races to move freely into white nations is nonexistent. Stay in your own nations, we don’t want you here.

Those who promote miscegenation, usury, or any other forms of racial suicide should be sent to re-education centers, not tolerated.

By Faith, Heimbach means a strict Orthodox interpretation of the Bible and in recent years has joined the Greek Orthodox Church after seeing how closely the Golden Dawn has worked with the Church in Greece. Heimbach also draws parallels between Christian Orthodoxy and anti-Semitic fascism and takes great inspiration from the Legionaries who served the monarchy. He writes:

To become a Legionnaire is not just to decide that a Western Orthodox monarchy and new nation on the North American continent is a good idea. To become a Legionnaire you are entrusted with the sacred mission to advance the Faith and work with your fellow Avalonian brothers and sisters…

Heimbach described religion ultimately as the vehicle in which many white Americans will come to his side. He states:

Religion is the ‘firery faith’ that people are willing to die for. I’m not going to die for tax cuts to the rich…but I will die for my faith.

While the catchy phrase of ‘Family, Folk, and Faith” might make some people curious to his ideas, ultimately its another “f” word that sums up all of Heimbach’s political convictions: fascism. In an essay entitled, I Hate Freedom, Heimbach writes:

Homosexuality, sexual perversion, race mixing, abortion, and all other sorts of “tolerance” all land at the feet of freedom. That doesn’t sound like a very good thing for the survival of our folk, but maybe that’s just me.

Americans are far too squeamish to admit that sometimes there are some things that just need a good ol’ fashioned government boot heel to stomp out. While we tolerate homeschoolers and organic farmers being arrested and harassed by the Federal authorities, people run in fear at the idea of breaking up a homosexual marriage ceremony, torching an abortion clinic, or doing any action that benefits the overall health and culture of their people.

Rabid dogs are put down, not allowed around the family kids. Our enemies are sick animals and we need to treat them as such.

Long before the Holocaust, Hitler laid the ground work for the ideological justification for mass murder, political repression, and genocide in his book, Mein Kampf. Likewise, Heimbach spells out what we wants to do do millions of Americans. Forcibly remove them from their homes, kill millions, and place millions more into reeducation camps. The Nazis often laughed that democracy would lead them into the halls of power so that they could carry out their campaign of murder and butchery. Hopefully we can be much smarter and stop these bastards before they’ve even begun.

Anarchists vs. Fascists

Anarchists…you do not have the right to voice your opinions. Your ideas are a sickness that spreads throughout a society to rot it from the inside. Only a suicidal or stupid culture would allow you to spread your filth that has only the purpose of uprooting and dismantling the society that was foolish enough to let you organize within it. “Freedom” of assembly and “freedom” of speech need not apply to Leftists, you are the enemy, pure and simple. – Matthew Heimbach

Fascism has always been an anti-working-class movement. From the start of the Fascist movement in Italy, Mussolini had his forces attack union halls, break up strikes to allow scabs to come in, attack working-class areas, and employ gangsters and organized criminals to assassinate and murder working-class revolutionaries. Several anarchists armed themselves and attempted to kill Mussolini and drive the fascists out, but were unsuccessful.

The early Fascists in Italy were backed by business owners and wealthy capitalists. Like in Germany, the fascists rose to power out of a period of working-class unrest and revolt. Anarchists, who were very active in the trade union and factory occupation movement were chief targets for fascist violence.

In Germany and Spain, fascists there did much to the same. The Nazi party fought against communists and syndicalists and would tried to drive them out of working-class areas. Gaining recruits from the unemployed, members of the SA, the Stormtroopers, lived in barrack halls and were often financed by a wealthy businessman who paid for them to be Nazi activists and break up communist and union activities. Fierce battles took place across the streets of Germany, as revolutionaries formed proletarian defense squats to attack Nazis. Hundreds of people were killed in street clashes before the Nazis came to power. It is no wonder then that once taking power, Hitler rounded up and began the process of killing and deporting tens of thousands of revolutionary and trade union militants.

Throughout this entire history of the 20th Century, anarchists have played a key role in the fight against fascism, both in the lead up to World War II and during the Nazi occupation. One of the most inspiring examples of this struggle against fascism has been the anarchist resistance to Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Starting in the summer of 1936, millions of Spanish workers and peasants rose up in arms against a coup by the fascists. Taking over factories and plots of land, they put their anarchist ideas into practice, while also organizing militias along anarchist lines to fight the military.

After the war and the fall of the Nazis and the Italian Fascists, Spain remained under fascist control (above Dictator Franco shakes hands with Hitler) and many anarchists were killed and imprisoned while the anarchist movement and labor-unions went underground. Against incredible odds, anarchists militants continued to conduct a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Spanish dictatorship until it fell and in 1977 the anarchist movement reemerged.

But as the 1980s rolled on, across Europe and the United States, Neo-Nazis again began growing in size and influence. To combat the growing fascist threat, anarchists participated in militant formations along with other anti-capitalist radicals such as Anti-Fascist Action (UK) and Anti-Racist Action (US).

Historically, fascism has sought to mobilize many of the same people that anarchists have as well, largely the disaffected working-class and the unemployed. As the essay, ‘Anarchism Vs. Fascism‘ stated:

Anarchist struggle will also be paired on the flip side by a more militant fascist movement as the two are birthed out of the same forms of crisis. Alongside class struggle, it is to be expected that militant white-supremacist movements with anti-capitalist slogans would grow among the poorest and most alienated sectors of white society.

Anti-Fascist News wrote:

The antifascist movement, however, is only targeting a specific subset of the reactionary white population who is desperately trying to hold onto the illusionary benefits of white privilege.  Anytime you see a revolution happening that challenges the hierarchy that the ruling class benefits from, you will see some try to hold onto the meager superiority they have.  This is true white white nationalists, as well as Men’s Rights Activists in regards to gender equality, the Religious Right in regards to queer rights, and so on.  In a period of social upheaval, there will always be a vanguard of the fascist movement, and as working-class organizers that is one of the greatest enemies of mass social transformation…

Stealing Our Thunder?

“[Y]ou hurt ones [sic] of ours, we kill one of yours.” – Matthew Heimbach

Many modern day fascists attempt to come across as anti-capitalist, or at least hostile to the “bankers” and corporate America. Certainly Matthew Heimbach and the Traditionalist Workers Party engages in this approach. In many ways, this is nothing new. The Nazis always proclaimed themselves to be “socialists” of the nationalist stripe, and many took the politics of socialism seriously, such as Goebbels. The Nazis were also good at attacking both the capitalist bourgeois (in their rhetoric) and and the “caviar Left,” such as the Social Democrats as well as the communists. In doing so, they proclaimed (of course) that communism was a Jewish conspiracy the world over. Modern day fascists and Nazis continue this line of thinking, attacking both capitalism and the Left while adopting many of its slogans.

But in some cases, modern fascists are taking this a step further. In Britain, the openly Neo-Nazi and fascist groupNational Action has drawn media attention in the last year for organizing “White Man Marches.” The group’s politics is simply a rehashing of typical fascist and National Socialist standards, and takes a lot of inspiration from the pre-World War II group, The British Union of Fascists. But what is interesting about National Action is that much of their imagery (see the posters to the left and below) is very anarchist influenced. When on the streets, they dress head to toe in black and wear black masks. All of this looks largely like how anarchists appear when at protests, riots, and street confrontations: in black bloc.

During August in Liverpool, Antifa and anarchists all in black bloc faced off against a small number of fascists that were dressed in much the same way. While the White Man March was totally shut down and some of the fascists were beaten, unless you knew what side of the police line people were on, it would have been hard to tell the groups apart without the flags and banners.

There are several reasons why Neo-Nazi and fascist groups are doing this. Many are looking for a way to re-brand themselves outside of the skinhead subculture. In some cases, in Europe mostly, they have morphed into ‘Nipsters,’ or Nazi hipsters. In others, they adopt a more anarchist approach, as anarchists are often seen as the strongest radical street presence against the police and the most willing to fight. It is no wonder why they want to take that imagery for their own purposes.

In the past, fascist and racist groups have also attempted to use ‘National Anarchism‘ or ‘Autonomous Nationalism‘ as a Trojan horse into the anarchist movement, but these new groups like National Action and the Traditionalist Youth Network espouse nothing but openly Neo-Nazi and fascist politics. Also, it can be assumed that they have been strongly influenced by the Neo-Nazis andultra-nationalists in the Ukraine who have also adopted much of the anarchist aesthetic.

In much the same way, Matthew Heimbach is attempting to use anti-capitalist imagery and slogans while promoting his new fascist party, the Traditional Workers Party. The group uses a pitch fork inside a gear, (the gear have being used by many fascist groups), much like the hammer and sickle, to symbolize both blue-collar rural and urban white workers. Promoting fascist and racist politics as well as socially conservative Christian ideas, TWP is targeting working-class whites for recruitment.

Also, just as leftists, communists, socialists, and even some anarchists turned into Fascists during the build-up of World War II, currently it appears that some former radicals are turning to the Right as well. As one report from Southern California, several young people that came out of the anarchist scene apparently have cliqued up with the Traditional Youth Network. In their report on the Traditionalist Youth Network website, they write about using “black bloc” during a Planned Parenthood protest against a communist group, among other things. They write:

The Southern California Chapter of TradYouth really came into being this summer. We started out as a coalition of National-Anarchists and Traditionalists from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Our founding members all come from Catholic families, but have grown disenchanted with the hijacking of Christianity and with the alternatives being offered. We’re all disenchanted with a society which has been under “progressive” rule for our entire lifetimes.

As one online commentor wrote: “I can already see the incoming wave of racist anarchist thanks to your handy work.” Another fascist commented: “Mission accomplished!” Just as the Nazis took the language and militancy of socialism, modern day fascists are using anarchist imagery and slogans to the same ends.

White Working-Class United Against Fascism

[The white racist worker’s] aim and ideal was distorted…He began to want, not comfort for all men but power over other men…He did not love humanity and he hated [blacks]. – W.E.B. Du Bois

As long as you think you’re white, there’s no hope for you. – James Baldwin

The idea of white nationalism for white Americans is as ironic as it is stupid. Ironic because the majority of European settlers who colonized and carried out genocide against indigenous people’s in the Americas were largely seen as a problematic surplus population in the urban cores of Europe. As Europe teetered on the verge of revolt and collapse due to disease, potential revolution, and labor unrest, resettling peasants and the burgeoning working-class which was displaced from communal lands and forced into wage-workoffered an alternative to potential disorder. The poor are angry? Ship em off to the ‘New World’ and promise them land and freedom.

In class stratified Europe, there was no concept of ‘whiteness,’ instead there were workers and peasants, nobility and indentured servants, priests and merchants, and a variety of local, neighborhood, and regional alliances – but not white. What’s ironic is that this so called ‘natural hierarchy’ is exactly what the white nationalists want to preserve through the fascist state they are looking to create. This was the same reality that so many ‘white’ Europeans fled in drooves into America.

The idea of a ‘united Europe’ is preposterous, as European nations invaded, fought, and slaughtered each other for control of land and territory. Thus, the idea that somehow all white people are magically linked together is simply a retelling of history and reality. The masters of the old world didn’t have anything in common with the surplus people who became colonists, just as the capitalists that owned factories had nothing in common with the workers. So, for white people to conceive of themselves as having some supposed affinity with other people from Europe or ‘common cause,’ is simply the creation of a nationalist mythology that attempts to link all whites together under a fascist banner, blurring class lines.

Furthermore, as settlers arrived in the New World, some quickly found that they had more in common with the Native people they encountered than the local magistrates or conquistadors that were attempting to run the show. Maroons, or societies of free women and men were established, as runaway black African slaves, former white indentured servants, and indigenous people banded together. This potential pool of insurgents, made up of former slaves, working-class and indentured whites, and Native people’s, created a sea of angry people that could link up to set fire to the new colonial system. Hoping to break apart any potential rebellion, by the 1600s, laws began to be passed which attempted to define ‘whiteness’ and criminalize whites who married non-whites while at the same time giving them special benefits over others (policing powers, the ability to own weapons, and the power to get property and have a vote). This led to the creation of a system many call white supremacy which continues to this day.

The fine folks at the Crimethinc podcast break it down for us in their show:

Alanis: Damn. So the idea of creating people as “white” was to divide people along lines of race so they didn’t unite along lines of class?

Clara: In broad terms, yeah. To be clear, though, all white people, across lines of class, benefited materially from African slavery. The food that fed them, the infrastructure that sustained their daily lives, the raw materials for their emerging industries: nearly all of these came from African labor, while the greed for indigenous land drove settlers from the poorest servants to the richest magnates. But this exploitation benefited the few way more than the many, and early resistance to the colonial regime made it clear that there was no guarantee which side people would take when it came to conflicts with authorities. They had to find a way to secure the loyalty of European settlers against Africans and indigenous folks to make their whole colonial venture work. So whiteness was created as a ruling class strategy for social control. And that’s central to how it functions to this day.

Alanis: All right, so you mentioned free or cheap stolen land, plus a social (but not economic) equality with other European colonists at the expense of black people – the “wages of whiteness” on a social and psychological level – as the carrots the colonial governments could offer to European settlers as they made them into white people. What was the stick?

Clara: The stick was that participation in the white race was not optional, and penalties for breaking white racial solidarity were harsh. Take, for example, the very first law in the American colonies that used the word “white,” where it was debuted as a legal concept. It came in 1691 in Virginia, in a law prohibiting interracial marriage. It said, “Whatsoever English or other white man or woman, bond or free, shall intermarry with a Negro, mulatto or Indian man or woman, bond or free, he shall within three months be banished from this dominion forever.”

Alanis: Wow…

Clara: So the stick could be pretty severe: throw in your lot with black or indigenous people, get banished from your community forever. Notice that the law specifically targets the “white” person for punishment, and that it sets “race,” not status as bond (meaning slave or servant) versus free, as the basis for the category. This is a whole new era.

It’s pretty significant that the first instance of whiteness in the law comes shortly after the laws are changed to make black servitude lifelong and hereditary; in 1662 Virginia passed a law dictating that a child born to a black mother and a white father would inherit the slave status of the mother. This is the beginning of an entrenched hereditary and racially defined regime of slavery. To make that stick and keep the lines clear, there needed to be laws against “interracial” unions, and thus some more clarity about what “race” Christian Europeans constituted.

Alanis: But you’re saying this was a political construction, one that served a purpose related to securing the labor supply, not something that codified a previously existing sense of racial solidarity.

Clara: Yeah, I think that’s fair to say. Who knows exactly what sense of affinity any particular European felt with any other. But the idea of a “white race” didn’t exist in language, in science, in theology, in law, or in any of the other places where it would take root over the next centuries until the late 1600s and after.

Myths are all that fascists have to offer white people in the United States or anywhere else. The myth that poor and working-class white people have something in common with those that rule (or would rule) them. The myth that “whiteness” is biological or preordained and not simply an invention aimed at keeping people from rising up against their colonial masters. The myth that whites should be brought together under one fascist banner and that this will somehow better our lot.

Anytime we look at history, we see holes in fascist and racist ideas. Once, there were various indigenous groups and tribes of people across what we now call Europe, but they were slowly conquered and absorbed into the Roman and other empires. Thus, the people that became those who went on to be settlers, who then became “whites,” were by and large, the descendants of indigenous people who were conquered by great empires – not some mythical white brotherhood. Furthermore, as Christianity spread across Europe, it used extreme violence, torture, and repression to destroy any link to indigenous and pagan traditions. During the “Burning Times,” millions of women were burned and horribly murdered in an attempt to destroy indigenous lifeways and enforce new modes of production based around the patriarchal family, private property, and wage-labor. Even looking at the history of Christianity in Europe, we see movements and struggles break out that point to liberatory and anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-statist forms of life, such as the Levellers, the Diggers, and the Luddites. But of course all of this is left out of Heimbach’s view of the world.

Fascism will lead to mass murder, repression of anyone who opposes the state, all-out war, and the suppression of individual freedoms. This was true in Germany, Italy, and Spain, as it is currently within the territories controlled by ISIS. Fascism must be destroyed, crushed, and obliterated.

Heimbach Maneuvers

Whether you are a Christian authoritarian like myself, a Constitutionalist, a fascist, a National Socialist, or whatever stripe of white Traditionalist, [it’s] time for a new unity within our folk and new ideas for a new age. – Matthew Heimbach

Contemporary fascists, white nationalists, and Neo-Nazis, will continue to push forward in their ideas as they attempt to gain ground and recruit members during times of crisis. Currently, Heimbach and others like him are seeking to intervene in several ways. They are trying to engage the broader right-wing and left-wing movements and ‘racialize’ them. For them, this means working within everything from the anti-gay, anti-abortion, and the broader ‘culture war’ movements to solidarity struggles with the Palestinians.

At the same time, Heimbach is also pushing for the formation of secessionist white areas, reminiscent of the former Aryan Nations compound. He states in one talk:

Where I think all pro-white organizations need to go is fundamentally, white separatism, the creation of white homelands is the only way that we can ensure the existence of our people.

In the new documentary film, Welcome to Leith, white nationalists, including Heimbach’s Nazi allies in the National Socialist Movement, attempted to take over of a small rural town in North Dakota. Seems like the take over didn’t go so well and Craig Cobb, who spearheaded the venture, was run out of town and faced heated protests. One thing is clear however, white nationalists of all stripes will continue to attempt to create zones for themselves. It’s up to us to make sure that they are given no quarter.

We are going to continue to see white nationalists and fascists creep into the mainstream. With only a few degrees of separation already between the like of Ann Coulter, as the crisis continues to deepen, white nationalists will seem more and more as simply an established part of the Right. For all their talk of the “Jew media,” white nationalists always will get more airtime than anarchists or other radicals. The notion that George Lincoln Rockwell had many years ago still rings true, slap on a swastika armband on (or a Traditionalist Youth Network one) and start screaming “white power!” and the media will come running.

Furthermore, white nationalists and fascists are going to continue to attempt to enter into established right-wing movements and organizations, from the Tea Party to the Republican Party, and they are already throwing their hat behind Trump. We have to be there to draw lines in the sand and split these movements, showing the contradictions and exposing both the fascists and broader racist and reactionary right-wing which gives it space to grow.

Also, we have to be on guard against the further coming together of a US based Neo-Nazi, fascist, white power skinhead, white nationalist, and Neo-Confederate network that exercises greater organization and coordination. Throughout history, fascists have always attacked working-class radicals who would stand up to them. This is why Neo-Nazis and fascists in the US have always targeted anarchists and other revolutionaries. If they were able to mobilize their forces in the streets, they would most certainly use their forces to attack our demonstrations, bookstores, gatherings, and community centers. As the events in Olympia recently show, this is what they are attempting to do, although currently we have them outnumbered and outfought in the streets. We have to make sure that things stay that way.

But moreover, beyond out-fighting, anarchists have to out-organize the white nationalists. We have to show not only do white working-class and poor people have nothing in common with the rich elite, we have to show that they have more in common with other non-white workers, the unemployed, and poor and working-class people across the globe than with the fascists and racists. We have to be able to include ourselves in the struggles of the poor, rural, and white working-class and push an anti-racist, anti-fascist, and anti-white supremacy body of politics. We have to be able to show connections to other struggles and bring them together. As the Spanish anarchists stated, “The War and the Revolution are the Same.”

Fascism will always rely on force; against it’s enemies, against the state, and against everything that stands in its way. We have to be willing to meet that force with a force of our own. But our force just isn’t military, it comes from the networks, organizations, and power of everyday relationships that we have within working-class neighborhoods, communities, and workplaces. But beyond just fighting in the streets, we also have to be able to fight on the terrain of ideas. Fascism attempts to make enemies of everyday people, and make common cause among people who have different class interests. We have to be there, fighting for a different narrative.

As anarchists, we have always gone up against the forces of reaction, nationalism, racism, and fascism. From the streets of Barcelona against the soldiers of General Franco to the current day battlefield of Rojava against ISIS. As the growing Neo-Nazi and fascist Right grows in Europe against the unfolding refugee crisis, so too does the forces of nationalism and racism here in the US. The lyrics to the old song by anarcho-punk band Chumbawamba still rings true:

“They’re out there burning houses down
And they’re peddling racist lies
And we’ll never rest again
Until every Nazi dies!”

FASCISM AND WHITE NATIONALISM OFFER NO SOLUTIONS, ONLY A FINAL ONE!

More Resources: 

Book list for Anti-Fascists

Confronting Fascism

Militant Anti-Fascism

Beating the Fascists

Anti-Fascist News

The Torch Network

Anti-Fascist Network

Know Your Enemy: 

Matthew Heimbach Interviewed by the National Socialist Movement

Matthew Heimbach, “I Hate Freedom”

Traditionalist Youth Network, Twitter

Matthew Heimbach Twitter Account