The iron rule for anyone wishing to succeed in the Dissident Right is to see what Russia or China want and then to align with it. The iron rule for anyone wishing to fail in the Dissident Right is to see what Russia or China want and then to not align with it. Or alternatively just follow logic and have your own opinions, as that generally fails just as well.
The reason for these weird rules is very, VERY simple. It is because the Dissident Right (and the Alt-Right before it) is controlled by a concept that was formulated by Lenin and Trotsky and used successfully to consolidate power, and then with varying success afterwards.
This is the concept of the "United Front."
The basic idea stemmed from the fact that most people are naturally anti-Communist or lack "political consciousness," while only a small hardcore are committed and politically conscious in the "correct" way. The Leninist strategy, therefore, was to seek a so-called broader "united front" that could then be steered towards increasing degrees of Leninist Bolshevism, and then later Russian Statist and Imperialist goals.
The crux of the United Front concept is to identify a "main enemy" and then to unite against it with other forces that will, in many cases, later become the main enemy itself. The key, however, is to have only one main enemy at a time.
For example, in the pre-February Revolution period, the Tsarist regime was the main enemy and the Bolsheviks were happy to shack up with other Leftists, Centrists, and even soft-Right forces.
Pavel Milyukov, a Russian constitutional democrat, who got the British to release Trotsky and who remained oblivious to the United Front tactics of the Bolsheviks
Once the Tsarist regime was overthrown, the same tactics were redeployed with a new main enemy, in this case the Centre-Left government of Kerensky.
Following the October revolution, the United Front policy was fast-cycled against a number of "competing" Centrist and Leftist organisations, until all power was centralised in the hands of a tiny cadre of bureaucratic psychopaths centred around Stalin. (Lenin by that time had died due to wounds sustained when one of the victims of the United Front policy struck back).
After running out of enemies in Russia itself, the concept was deployed internationally to break the diplomatic isolation of the Soviet Union, build up the power of the USSR, and subvert rival states.
The United Front strategy was noticeably used in Spain, where the Stalinist element was too small to dominate the anti-Franco side. Here, instead of focusing on defeating Franco, the Stalinists instead concentrated on eliminating their "main enemy" on the anti-Franco side, namely the Trotskyist-aligned Catalan anarchist movement. George Orwell's "Farewell to Catalonia" is testament to this madness that no doubt helped the Francoists to finally win.
Stalin decided that these Lefties were the "main enemy" of his United Front policy, not Franco.
This shows you that the United Front policy can operate at various levels -- from internal party (or even micro-movement) to the international realm of geopolitics, which brings us to Dissident movements in the West (both Left and Right).
From the viewpoint of the Kremlin and its imitators, these are viewed as "assets" that can "weaponised" against their societies to create polarisation, instability, and disinfo. So, their alignment has always been a subject of deep interest to those deploying such strategies.
United Front strategies were also deployed in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, where the "geniuses" in the Kremlin made the curious mistake of seeing the Social Democrats (today's SDP) as the bigger enemy, rather than the Nazis, whom they dismissed as a colourful aberration. Accordingly, the Stalinist-controlled Communist Party was commanded to quarrel with and beat up the so-called "Social Fascists" of the SDP. We all know how that turned out.
After Germany had been irrevocably lost to the Nazis, the Kremlin next attempted United Front policies -- by now cunningly renamed "Popular Front" -- all across Europe.
Moscow-controlled Communists were encouraged to form political coalitions with non-Communist socialists, liberals, moderates, and even conservatives in anti-fascist fronts. Meanwhile, back in Russia, Stalin was torturing and murdering lifelong Bolsheviks whose "ideological colouring" was a little off.
When this policy failed to defeat Fascism, which was actually favoured by Western democrats as a convenient bulwark against Psycho-Communism, Stalin made the momentous decision to do a complete 180 and align with Fascism itself. This famously led to the outbreak of WWII a couple of weeks later, and almost ended in the extinction of the entire Russian people and one or two less significant groups.
However, this tragic mistake, served to redeem the policy in Stalin's eyes, and following the defeat of the Nazis, United Front policies were back at the forefront of the "velvet glove" takeover of one East European state after another.
Attempts were then made to use United Front strategies even in areas where they couldn't be backed up by the Red Army. But rather than the difficult stretch of seeking to take control of Western governments, the Kremlin embarked on the easier preliminary step of taking over dissident movements.
This meant attacking and smearing those dissidents who refused to be aligned with Moscow's interests; while those that toed the line were generously funded and promoted.
1960s dissident rightist with a message (a strong Europe) that did not align with Kremlin interests
Kremlin asset being arrested for violently disrupting dissidents not aligned with Moscow
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, there was a drop-off in such tactics, and a certain Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin became temporarily unemployed.
Dissident movements in the West were temporarily allowed to revert to a more "organic" state. But Vladimir Vladimirovich's subsequent career saw a return to old, tried-and-tested Stalinist techniques, both in Russia and further afield.
These of course included a revitalisation of United Front tactics.
It was decided that dissident movements, whether Left or Right, that opposed NATO, Neo-Con power projection, or EU unity were "good," while those that didn't were "bad." Those that criticised Russia, its increasing violence, brutality, and tyranny, and its crack-down on its own nationalists were "bad," while those that turned a blind eye to Putin's excesses, while claiming that their own milquetoast governments were tyrannies run by paedophiles, were "good."
Also, the coming of the internet and social media as the dominant mode of political expression and opinion forming, allowed massive scope for renewed United Front techniques.
Anybody remember Assad memes or why the Alt-Right was so keen to push this non-entity?
Control of the Dissident Right, or at least its total alignment with Moscow's goals, was a vital part of this and explains much of what we have seen since 2008 and especially since 2014.
For example, why did the nonsensical Libertarian movement led by someone with a charisma lobotomy suddenly become a thing round this time? Well, just look at his views on NATO and defence spending to find out.
These suited Moscow's agenda, so Moscow's massive influencer network was mobilised to hack the internet and make this garbage go viral.
When the Alt-Right got going in 2010, much of it was deeply pro-Western and inherently anti-Russian, while also being critical of the Neocon "invade the World, invite the World" strategy. One of the dominant Alt-Right ideas was that of the Western "ethnostate," or else a strong and united Europe.
This could not be allowed to stand. Accordingly, United Front techniques were used first to "Nazify" the movement, as a tool of control, and then to promote a split between ethno-nationalists (around Richard Spencer) and petty nationalists around Greg Johnson and Counter-Currents.
Meanwhile all Alt-Righters were collectively pushed towards anti-EU, anti-Neocon, and anti-NATO views.
When the promotion of petty nationalism led to increased criticism of Imperialist Russia from those at
Counter-Currents and elsewhere, an attempt was made to crush or corral those elements in the Dissident Right. This was one of the motivations behind the setting up of the
Alt-Right corporation in 2017, where Kremlin "deep asset" Daniel Friberg skin-suited Spencer.
Friberg (left, ill-fitting Kremlin suit) directing Spencer at Charlottesville
Although the Alt-Right corporation collapsed in a typically Spencerite mess, this and other efforts such as those overseen by another Kremlin "deep asset"
Charles Bausman (TRS, etc.) finally led to the situation where the Dissident Right became a nebulous, ideologically chaotic puddle of discontent that nevertheless marches in surprising lockstep with the Kremlin.
Conditioned through the cattle prods of donations, bot likes, and other methods, it uniformly opposes the EU, NATO, and any country struggling to defend itself against Russian invasion and ethnic cleansing.
Any important dissident rightist who shows signs of deviating significantly from this agenda is quickly identified and becomes the "main enemy" of the United Front strategy that has captured and weaponised dissidence in the West.
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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia), or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.
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