Third Position
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Third Position is a nationalist political strand that emphasises its opposition to both communism and capitalism. Advocates of third position views present themselves as neither left nor right.
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[edit] Argentina
The first Juan Peron regime (1946-55) embraced Third Positionist thinking with a hybrid of corporatism and social welfare initiatives.
[edit] France
Third Position ideology gained some support in France where, in 1985, Jean-Gilles Malliarakis set up 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, although a radical splinter group under Christian Bouchet, Nouvelle Résistance, continued to be informed by Third Position views.
[edit] Germany
Querfront (cross-front) was the name for the goals of the National Socialist (Nazi) movement in Germany to cooperate with the far left during the Weimar Republic. On the left, the Communist social fascism strategy focused against the Social Democrats, resulting in a stalemate and temporary cooperations with genuine fascist and extreme nationalist forces. The term is also used today for mutual infiltration of or cooperation with left and right-wing groups. Ernst Niekisch and others tried to combine communist and fascist forces to overthrow the existing order of the Weimar Republic. He called this merger National Bolshevism. Kurt von Schleicher pursued a strategy of demerging the left wing of the Nazi Party, to split the whole Nazi movement, and prevent Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Schleicher's idea was to merge left-leaning Nazis and the trade unions, but his plan failed.
The term Querfront today refers a close connection or similar approaches of left and right-wing radicals. Anti-Americanism and Antizionism have led to attempts of far right individuals to find common ground with parts of the peace movement and antiglobalization movements. Eastern Germany, especially Thuringia, has a significant amount of Querfront activities and supporters.[1]
[edit] Italy
In Italy, the Third Position was developed by Roberto Fiore, along with Gabriele Adinolfi and Peppe Di Mitri, in the tradition of Italian neo-fascism. Third Position’s ideology is characterized by a militarist formulation, an extreme nationalism looking favourably to national liberation movements, support for racial separatism and the adherence to a soldier style of life.
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 and the creation of a omul nou (new man) as called for by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. 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 1979. Third Position ideas are now represented in Italy by Forza Nuova, led by Fiore.
[edit] United Kingdom
Fiore's exile in the United Kingdom during the 1980s saw the export of Third Position to the UK, where it was taken up by a group of neo-fascists including Patrick Harrington and Derek Holland, who soon became known as the Official National Front. They called for the creation of Political Soldiers, who would be devoted to nationalism and racial separatism, also helping to clarify the economic stance of the Third Position by drawing from the early 20th century distributists, Social Creditors, guild socialists and other "radical patriots". Within the UK, the ideology was less overtly Catholic than in Italy, although Catholic social teaching remained an important aspect.
With the split of the National Front, the Third Position stance in Britain was carried on by the group Third Way, and more notably the International Third Position (ITP). Renamed England First, ITP continues to organise on a small scale and has produced a Third Position Handbook that details the aims of the movement.
[edit] Bibliography
- L. Cheles, R. Ferguson, and M. Vaughan, Neo-Fascism in Europe, London: Longman, 1992
- Giorgio Cingolani, La destra in armi, Editori Riuniti, 1996 (in Italian).
- N. Copsey, Contemporary British Fascism: The British National Party and the Quest for Legitimacy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004
- Gianni Flamini, L’ombra della piramide, Teti, 1989 (in Italian).
- ITP, The Third Position Handbook, London: Third Position, 1997
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Racial Nationalism, the Third Position, and Ethnoviolence
- Third Position On The Web - by Southern Poverty Law Center
