Part of This Series of Posts:
The terms ‘nazbol’ and ‘red-fash’ or ‘red-brown’ gets thrown around a lot lately, even by self-professed ‘Communists’. The people who use these terms tend to be liberals who slander Communists and want to associate us with the horrors and brutality of fascism, while at the same time denouncing our history as such. This is in great contrast to the brutality that the Soviet had to endure and their heroic sacrifice in defeating the Nazis. While at the same time there are also ‘Communists’ who use this term to slander real Communists.
However while all this is a recent trend on the internet. (With some clowns actually identifying with and filling in the blanks of a meme ideology). In real life the real meaning (it’s real material application) of the term nazbol could not be further from that of the internet. In Russia the nazbol party was not actually a meme fusion of Nazism and Communism, in reality it’s ideology was actually a strange fusion of anarchism, liberalism and some fascist elements with nationalist characteristics and it’s membership was comprised almost exclusively of hippies. It rejected racism with the fascist elements being that it wanted Russia to unite the former U.S.S.R. through conquest (remember that this was the 90’s in the fallout of the U.S.S.R.'s collapse) and that it was a party that emphasised Russian ethnicity over other ethnic groups.
While these terms might originally have been used on the internet as memes to mock both Communism and fascism at the same time, it has also more recently began to be used by radical-liberals online deceptively to suggest that Communists are similar to fascists. Making out that both are ‘totalitarian’ (which is a term invented by the CIA and has been used to suggest that anyone who opposes the established liberal/globalist world order is fascist). According to these radical-liberals, anyone who opposes the unfettered imperialism of the United States is a ‘nazbol’ and any state that dares stand in their way is ‘red-fash’ or ‘red-brown’.
Radlibs such as ‘Vaush’ (who ironically are social-fascists, social-imperialists and even outright imperialists for their support of U.S. imperialist narratives time and time again) try to claim that Russia, China (and other anti-imperialist states) are ‘red-brown’ states, this whole argument is an imperialist argument that sets the precedent for US imperialism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere on ‘humanitarian’ grounds coming from the left. Ironically in Russia all nationalist parties are banned, this includes Nazi groups and nazbol parties, while parties that suck up to the west such as liberal parties are also banned with their leaders going to jail. An example of both would be Alexei Navalny who has a history of using slurs and even violence against minority groups. What is even more ironic is that despite all this Navalny is still pushed by the west and despite all their media fawning over him he enjoys absolutely zero popular support in Russia.
The term ‘red-brown alliance’ was used to dismiss the peaceful protestors of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis who opposed the rigging of the election against the Communists, and other parties who opposed the austerity of Yeltsin (who was backed the CIA). The police used violence against the protestors killing 147 people. Yeltsin refered to the protestors as a ‘red-brown alliance’. What made this whole situation even worse is that even internationally some Communist parties (such as the CPUSA) used this term and denounced the protestors.
The term is also used to refer to anyone who holds ‘social conservative’ views, radlibs were calling Pedro Castillo a ‘nazbol’ prior to his election as President of Peru, for his previous opposition to gay marriage. All this is despite the fact that historically Communists have been for the most part conservative with regard what we now call ‘social issues’ (prior to the neo-liberal era this term referred to issues such as housing and healthcare). The reason that the western left does this is so that they can completely dismiss mass movmements in the third-world as ‘reactionary’ and beneath them. They focus on social issues in the west so as to distract from their economic failings and failure to reach the masses as a result and so they can push their ‘humanitarian’ and ‘woke’ imperialism on the world under the guise of the left. Ironically these third-world movements are often more progressive on these issues than the western left themselves. Here is a good article which debunks lies from American leftists on this matter.
The people who use this term also use the term so as to protect the ruling class. Whenever we talk about the DoTB (normalised as the ‘Deep State’) or the bourgeoisie (normalised as the ‘Elites’) they cry ‘nazbol’ and assume that we are talking about a certain ethnicity, Jewish people, as they have already due to the use of this term equated us with Nazis. However what is ironic is that they are themselves anti-semetic because they are making the assumption that the elite and the establishment are composed solely of Jews or otherwise that there is no elite, when this could not be further from the truth. They show their true colours and expose themselves for who and what they are.
“Furthermore, [radlib] voices tend to argue that anything resembling Lenin’s analysis of capitalism in its imperialist stage is somehow anti-semitic. [Radlibs] will often claim that references to bankers, international bankers, or globalism is merely a coded repackaging of Nazi conspiracy theories about Jewish global domination. This allegation is absurd, and would render not just all adherents of Marxism-Leninism, but also many liberal critics of globalisation such as Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, and Naomi Klein to be Nazi propagandists” - Caleb T. Maupin
I have demonstrated the complete hypocrisy and malicious intent of those who use this term. It is clear that these are terms that we should avoid as they are used to slander and divide our movement. Given that fascism is the psychosis (breakdown) of liberalism, it should be of no suprise that that the fascism of the future will come from radlibs. We have seen recently their support of big tech censorship (‘conservatives’ are right-liberals while ‘liberals’ are left-liberals, the point is that radlibs are the avant-garde of liberalism) with them even becoming the footsoldiers (similar spiritually as to how the lumpen were the footsoldiers of Bonparte despite him serving finance capital primarily) of the Silicon Valley cartel crackdown on anti-imperialist voices. We have also seen their recent support for the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine (as well as other CIA backed counter-gangs elsewhere). As the U.S. empire continues to breakdown and the quality of life decreases at home and society collapses, we can expect them to become the footsoldiers of imperialism, reaction and further authoritarianism at home, and in a last ditched attempt to hold onto their quality of life and empire, who knows what they could do?
This is precisely what I mentioned about mentioning their mistakes whenever possible or opportune. And this is a big mistake on the part of the OP. By hiding Maupin’s real and de facto association with Nazbols (which I wasn’t even fully aware until your comment), it promotes a false and misleading view of Maupin which hides a much more clear reason why he is called a Nazbol, and OP even risks associating himself with Nazbolism by disregarding that.
On the matter of sublation, Maupin has apparently written a work denouncing the ties of famous BreadTube members to imperialist organizations recently mentioned by Grayzone. This may be very useful information for us, independent of Maupin’s reactionary tendencies. But by hiding these tendencies, OP actually hinders our cause, uncritically associating himself with reactionaries and misleading readers into doing the same.
It’s hard to navigate in the sea of contradictions that is people, and reality itself. But it’s an effort that every coherent communist should be attentive to.