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53-723: The Black Hundreds were reactionary , monarchist , and ultra-nationalist groups in Russia in the early 20th century. They were staunch supporters of the House of Romanov , and opposed any retreat from the autocracy of the reigning monarch. Their name arose from the medieval concept of "black", or common (non-noble) people, organized into militias. The Black Hundreds were noted for extremism and incitement to pogroms , nationalistic Russocentric doctrines, as well as various xenophobic beliefs, including anti-Ukrainian sentiment , anti-Polish sentiment , and anti-Semitism . The ideology of
106-410: A computer programmer) in 2008. Arnold Kling used it in 2010 to describe "Moldbug", and the subculture quickly adopted it. Proponents of the "Neo-reactionary" movement (also called the " Dark Enlightenment " movement) include philosopher Nick Land , among others. Persons who have at times been designated reactionaries, by themselves or others, include: Note that Germany did not become united as
159-571: A job on The Dearborn Independent newspaper. Brasol also helped in the production of anti-Jewish propaganda such as The International Jew . After the fall of the Soviet Union , the nationalist and monarchist movements were reborn in Russian society. In 1992, Alexander Shtilmark (former member of Pamyat ) decided to found a modern Black Hundred movement. The movement maintains contacts with other Russian nationalist organizations (like
212-544: A return to the pre-revolutionary model of social relations, with a strong role for the Church. Their utmost philosopher was Nicolás Gómez Dávila . Political scientist Corey Robin argues in his 2011 book The Reactionary Mind that modern conservatism in the United States is "inherently reactionary". Japan 's right-wing nationalist and populist movements and related organizations, which emerged rapidly from
265-497: Is of the past, and so is ecclesiolatry." They further elaborated in their political doctrine that fascism "is not reactionary [in the old way] but revolutionary." Conversely, they explained that fascism was of the right, not the left. Fascism was certainly not simply a return to tradition, as it carried the centralized state beyond even what had been seen in absolute monarchies . Fascist one-party states were as centralized as most communist states , and fascism's intense nationalism
318-470: Is reaction" and that "fascism, which did not fear to call itself reactionary... has not today any impediment against declaring itself illiberal and anti-liberal." Giovanni Gentile and Mussolini also attacked certain reactionary policies, particularly monarchism, and veiled some aspects of Italian conservative Catholicism . They wrote, "History doesn't travel backwards. The fascist doctrine has not taken Joseph de Maistre as its prophet. Monarchical absolutism
371-532: The re-criminalisation of homosexuality , restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of the Zhenotdel women's department. Reactionary is also used to denote supporters of authoritarian anti-communist régimes such as Vichy France , Spain under Franco , and Portugal under Salazar . One example occurred after Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature . On 26 October 1958,
424-555: The Constitutional Democratic Party , were assassinated by members of the Black Hundreds, their press organ Russkoe Znamya declared openly that "Real Russians assassinated Herzenstein and Iollos with knowledge of officials", and expressed regret that "only two Jews perished in the crusade against revolutionaries." The black hundred were known to have used violence and torture on anyone they believed
477-724: The Coup of 18 Fructidor . During the French Revolution, conservative forces (especially within the Catholic Church ) organized opposition to the progressive sociopolitical and economic changes brought by the Revolution; and so Conservatives fought to restore the temporal authority of the Church and Crown . In 19th Century European politics, the reactionary class included the Catholic Church's hierarchy and
530-628: The French States-General of 1789 fully prepared to press for expanding such practices in all provinces to the legal limit. They were horrified when, for example, the French Revolution permitted common citizens to go hunting, one of the few perquisites they had always enjoyed. Thus with the Bourbons Restoration, the Chambre Introuvable set about reverting every law to return society to conditions prior to
583-671: The German Realm and informally as the Drittes Reich (Third Realm), a reference to past reactionary German entities: the Holy Roman Empire (First Realm) and the German Empire (Second Realm). Clericalist movements, sometimes labeled as clerical fascist by their critics, can be considered reactionaries in terms of the 19th century since they share some elements of fascism while at the same time promoting
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#1732780231122636-599: The Russian Imperial Movement and the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers ) and also participated in the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War on the side of pro-Russian separatists. Reactionary In political science , a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante —the previous political state of society—which
689-725: The Scottish journalist Gerald Warner of Craigenmaddie , the Colombian political theologian Nicolás Gómez Dávila , and the American historian John Lukacs . The French Revolution gave the English language three politically descriptive words denoting anti-progressive politics: (i) "reactionary", (ii) "conservative", and (iii) " right ". "Reactionary" derives from the French word réactionnaire (a late 18th-century coinage based on
742-675: The Weimar Republic parliamentary era under the Weimar Constitution , which had succeeded the monarchy in 1918, despite it also being capitalist and classical. Although claiming to be separate from reactionism, the Nazis' rejection of Weimar was based on ostensibly reactionary principles, as the Nazis claimed that the parliamentary system was simply the first step towards Bolshevism and instead idealized more reactionary parts of Germany's past. They referred to Nazi Germany as
795-541: The absolute monarchy of Louis XIV , when the power of the Second Estate was at its zenith. This clearly distinguishes a "reactionary" from a "conservative." The use of the word "reactionary" in later days as a political slur is thus often rhetorical since there is nothing directly comparable with the Chambre Introuvable in the history of other countries. In the French Revolution 's aftermath, France
848-568: The aristocracy , royal families , and royalists who believed that national government was the sole domain of the Church and the State. In France, supporters of traditional rule by direct heirs of the House of Bourbon dynasty were labeled the legitimist reaction. In the Third Republic , the monarchists were the reactionary faction, later renamed Conservative . In the 19th century, reactionary denoted people who idealized feudalism and
901-783: The ruling class , including usage between conflicting factions of Marxist movements. Non-socialists also used the label reactionary , with British diplomat Sir John Jordan nicknaming the Chinese Royalist Party the "reactionary party" for supporting the Qing dynasty and opposing republicanism during the Xinhai Revolution in 1912. Despite being traditionally related to right-wing governments, elements of reactionary politics were present in left-wing governments as well, such as when Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin implemented conservative social policies, such as
954-587: The 19th-century popes buttressed the ideas of the clerical philosophers. From 1815 to 1848, Prince Metternich , the foreign minister of the Austrian Empire , stepped in to organize the containment of revolutionary forces through international alliances to prevent revolutionary fervor. At the Congress of Vienna , he was very influential in establishing the new order, the Concert of Europe , after
1007-507: The Black Hundreds' paramilitary groups, sometimes known as "Yellow Shirts". The Black Hundred movement published newspapers , such as Znamya (The Banner) or Russkoye znamya (Russian Banner), Pochayevsky Listok (The Pochayev Page), Zemshchina , Kolokol (Bell), Groza (Thunderstorm), Veche ( Popular Assembly ) and others. Many rightist newspapers, such as Moskovskiye vedomosti (Moscow News), Grazhdanin (Citizen) and Kievlyanin (Kievan), published their materials as well. Among
1060-515: The Chamber of Deputies. The Franchise was restricted to men over the age of forty, which indicated that for the first fifteen years of their lives, they had lived under the ancien régime . Nevertheless, King Louis XVIII worried he would still suffer an intractable parliament. He was delighted with the ultra-royalists , or Ultras, whom the election returned, declaring that he had found a chambre introuvable , literally, an "unfindable house". It
1113-417: The Church. His basic philosophy was based on Edmund Burke , who championed the need for old roots and the orderly development of society. He opposed democratic and parliamentary institutions but favored modernizing existing structures through gradual reform . Despite Metternich's efforts, a series of revolutions rocked Europe in 1848 . In the 20th century, proponents of socialism and communism used
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#17327802311221166-706: The Nazis called their 1933 rise to power the Volksgemeinschaft (national revolution) showed that, like the Italian Fascists, they supported some form of revolution; however, the Germans and Italian fascists both idealized tradition, folklore, and the tenets of classical thought and leadership, as exemplified in Nazi-era Germany by the idolization of Frederick the Great . They also rejected
1219-913: The Saint Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP, an armed attack was carried out on the Tver tea house, where the workers of the Nevsky Shipbuilding Plant, who were members of the Union of the Russian People, gathered. First, two bombs were thrown by the Bolshevik militants, and then those who ran out of the teahouse were shot with revolvers. The Bolsheviks killed two and wounded fifteen people. Revolutionary organizations carried out many other terrorist acts, mainly against
1272-511: The chairmen of local departments of the Union of the Russian People. So, according to the police department, only in March 1908 in one Chernihiv province in the city of Bakhmach, a bomb was thrown at the house of the chairman of the local union of the RNC, in the city of Nizhyn the house of the chairman of the union was set on fire. The whole family died, in the village of Domyany the department's chairman
1325-482: The committee was shorn of its powers. After the execution of some 104 Robespierre supporters, the Thermidorian Reaction stopped using the guillotine against alleged counter-revolutionaries , set a middle course between the monarchists and the radicals, and ushered in a time of relative exuberance and its accompanying corruption. With the Congress of Vienna , inspired by Tsar Alexander I of Russia ,
1378-473: The day following the Nobel Committee 's announcement, Moscow's Literary Gazette ran a polemical article by David Zaslavski entitled, Reactionary Propaganda Uproar over a Literary Weed . The Italian Fascists desired a new social order based on the ancient feudal principle of delegation (though without serfdom ) in their enthusiasm for the corporate state . Benito Mussolini said that "fascism
1431-679: The defeat of Napoleon . After the Congress, Prince Metternich worked hard to bolster and stabilize the conservative regime of the Restoration period. He worked furiously to prevent Russia's Tsar Alexander I (who aided the liberal forces in Germany, Italy, and France) from gaining influence in Europe. The Church was his principal ally. He promoted it as a conservative principle of order while opposing nationalist and liberal tendencies within
1484-439: The government would bribe lower class individuals to act against the social revolutionaries of the time. The term "Black Hundreds" started to appear in newspapers around 1905, along with warnings that the government would mobilize the Black Hundreds in pursuit of mass murder, and would even resort to inciting anti-Jewish pogroms and strife between different religious groups. They alleged that the Black Hundreds were being organized by
1537-486: The late 20th century, are considered "reactionary" because they revised the post-war peace constitution and have an advocating attitude toward the Japanese Empire . "Neo-reactionary" is a term that is sometimes a self-description of an informal group of online political theorists who have been active since the 2000s. The phrase "neo-reactionary" was coined by "Mencius Moldbug" (the pseudonym of Curtis Yarvin ,
1590-538: The main critics of the White movement . They blamed the movement for not only failing to stress monarchism as its key ideological foundation but also supposedly being run under the influence of classical liberals and Freemasons . Boris Brasol (1885–1963), a former member of the Black Hundreds, was among those who later emigrated to the United States . There he befriended industrialist Henry Ford , who gave Brasol
1643-683: The monarchs of Russia , Prussia and Austria formed the Holy Alliance , a form of collective security against revolution and Bonapartism . This instance of reaction was surpassed by a movement that developed in France when, after the second fall of Napoleon , the Bourbon Restoration , or reinstatement of the Bourbon dynasty, ensued. This time it was to be a constitutional monarchy , with an elected lower house of parliament,
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1696-420: The movement is based on a slogan formulated by Count Sergey Uvarov : " Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality ". The term was intended to be pejorative in revolutionary newspapers, but adherents used it in their own literature. They traced the term back to the "black lands", where peasants, merchants, and craftsmen paid taxes to the government (lands owned by the nobility and church were called "white lands"), and
1749-518: The new all-Russian Black Hundred organization "Ob’yedinyonniy russkiy narod" (Объединённый русский народ, or Russian People United). After 1907, however, this organization disintegrated, and the whole Black Hundreds movement became weaker as the membership rate steadily declined. After the February Revolution 1917, the remaining Black Hundred organizations were officially abolished. After emigrating abroad, many Black Hundreds were among
1802-402: The person believes possessed positive characteristics that are absent from contemporary society. As a descriptor term, reactionary derives from the ideological context of the left–right political spectrum . As an adjective, the word reactionary describes points of view and policies meant to restore a status quo ante . As an ideology , reactionism is a tradition in right-wing politics ;
1855-594: The police, and called for resistance. The term became more closely associated with pogrom-like violence after thousands of people were killed in attacks on demonstrations, public assemblies, and in the anti-Semitic pogroms that followed the October Manifesto . and others. Members of the Black Hundred organizations came from different social strata —such as landowners, clergymen, the high and petty bourgeoisie , merchants , artisans , workers, and
1908-564: The pre-modern era—before the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution—when economies were mostly agrarian , a landed aristocracy dominated society, a hereditary king ruled, and the Catholic Church was society's moral center. Those labeled "reactionary" favored the aristocracy instead of the middle and working classes . Reactionaries opposed democracy and parliamentarism . The Thermidorian Reaction
1961-479: The prominent leaders of the Black Hundred movement were Alexander Dubrovin , Vladimir Purishkevich , Nikolai Markov , A. I. Trishatny , Pavel Krushevan , Pavel Bulatsel, Ivan Vostorgov, M. K. Shakhovskoy, Saint John of Kronstadt , Hieromonk Iliodor , Bishop Hermogen , and others. When two Duma delegates, Grigori Iollos ( Poltava province) and Mikhail Herzenstein (b. 1859, d. 1906 in Terijoki ), both from
2014-403: The reactionary stance opposes policies for the social transformation of society, whereas conservatives seek to preserve the socio-economic structure and order that exists in the present. In popular usage, reactionary refers to a strong traditionalist conservative political perspective of a person opposed to social, political, and economic change. Reactionary ideologies can be radical in
2067-467: The same time be of tremendous benefit to the revolution. Revolutionary army groups must at once find out who organises the Black Hundreds and where and how they are organised, and then, without confining themselves to propaganda (which is useful but inadequate) they must act with armed force, beat up and kill the members of the Black-Hundred gangs, blow up their headquarters, etc., etc. On behalf of
2120-456: The sense of political extremism in service to re-establishing past conditions. To some writers, the term reactionary carries negative connotations— Peter King observed that it is "an unsought-for label, used as a torment rather than a badge of honor." Despite this, the descriptor "political reactionary" has been adopted by writers such as the Austrian monarchist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn ,
2173-864: The so-called "declassed elements". The Postoyanny Sovyet Ob'yedinnyonnykh dvoryanskikh obshchshestv Rossii ( United Gentry Council ) guided the activities of the black-hundredists; the Tsarist regime provided moral and financial support to the movement. The Black Hundreds were founded on a devotion to the Tsar , church, and motherland, expressed previously by the motto of Tsar Nicholas I : " Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality " ( Pravoslaviye, Samoderzhaviye i Narodnost ). The Black Hundreds conducted oral propaganda : in churches by holding special services and during meetings, lectures, and demonstrations. Such propaganda provoked anti-Semitic sentiments and monarchic "exaltation" and incited pogroms and terrorist acts , performed by
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2226-683: The term reactionary polemically to label their enemies, such as the White Armies , who fought in the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution . In Marxist terminology, reactionary is a pejorative adjective denoting people whose ideas might appear to be socialist but, in their opinion, contain elements of feudalism , capitalism , nationalism , fascism , or other characteristics of
2279-445: The term "hundred" ( sotnya ) was used to refer to a feudal administrative division. In the right wing extremist imagination, it was the loyal people of the Black Hundreds who gathered to fight Poles and traitors when it was needed. Revolutionary newspapers identified the Black Hundreds as a threat, describing them as "hooligan gangs" paid by the government to threaten political opponents. The Menshevik leader Julius Martov feared that
2332-516: The weapons of the Black Hundred terror. Radical socialist parties organized revolutionary terror in retaliation to the Black Hundred activities. Vladimir Lenin , leader of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP wrote in 1905: The fight against the Black Hundreds is an excellent type of military action, which will train the soldiers of the revolutionary army, give them their baptism of fire, and at
2385-437: The word réaction , "reaction") and " conservative " from conservateur , identifying monarchist parliamentarians opposed to the revolution. In this French usage, reactionary denotes "a movement towards the reversal of an existing tendency or state" and a "return to a previous condition of affairs". The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first English language usage in 1799 in a translation of Lazare Carnot 's letter on
2438-581: The works of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko , in particular. In Odessa , the Black Hundreds shut down the local branch of the Ukrainian Prosvita society. This organization was dedicated to spreading literacy in the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian cultural awareness. The Black Hundreds organized four all-Russian congresses to unite their forces. In October 1906, they elected the so-called glavnaya uprava (a kind of board of directors ) of
2491-678: Was a movement within the French Revolution against the perceived excesses of the Jacobins . Maximilien Robespierre 's Reign of Terror ended on 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor year II in the French Republican Calendar ). The overthrow of Robespierre signaled the reassertion of the French National Convention over the Committee of Public Safety . The Jacobins were suppressed, the prisons were emptied, and
2544-470: Was a threat to the Tsar. Members of the Black Hundreds carried out raids (with unofficial government approval) against various revolutionary groups and pogroms, including inciting pogroms against Jews. The historian of the Black Hundred movement Sergei Stepanov, writes that after the 1905 Russian Revolution , fighting squads of the Union of the Russian People and other extremist right-wing organizations became
2597-411: Was also the means used by diminished aristocrats to get themselves a bigger piece of the pie. In the 18th century, those gentry whose fortunes and prestige had diminished to the level of peasants would search diligently for every ancient feudal statute that might give them something. For example, the "ban" meant that all peasants had to grind their grain in their lord's mill. Therefore, these gentry came to
2650-446: Was continually wracked by quarrels between right-wing legitimists and left-wing revolutionaries. Herein arose the clerical philosophers— Joseph de Maistre , Louis de Bonald , François-René de Chateaubriand —whose answer was restoring the House of Bourbon and reinstalling the Catholic Church as the established church . Since then, France's political spectrum has featured similar divisions (see Action Française ). The teachings of
2703-625: Was killed, two chairmen of departments were killed in Nizhyn. The Socialist-Revolutionaries also killed prominent Black Hundreds such as Nikolai Bogdanovich and Gavril Luzhenovsky. The Black Hundreds classified Ukrainians as Russians, and attracted the support of many Russophiles who considered themselves Russian and rejected Ukrainian nationalism and a Ukrainian identity. The Black Hundred movement actively campaigned against what it considered to be Ukrainian separatism, as well as against promoting Ukrainian culture and language in general, and against
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#17327802311222756-565: Was not found in the period prior to the French Revolution. Although the German Nazis did not consider themselves fascists or reactionaries and condemned the traditional German forces of reaction (Prussian monarchists , Junker nobility, and Roman Catholic clergy ) as being among their enemies, next to their Red Front enemies in the Nazi Party march Die Fahne hoch , they virulently opposed revolutionary leftism. The fact that
2809-531: Was the Declaration of Saint-Ouen that prepared the way for the Restoration. Before the French Revolution, which radically and bloodily overthrew most aspects of French society's organization, the only way constitutional change could be instituted was by extracting it from old legal documents that could be interpreted as agreeing with the proposal. Everything new had to be expressed as a righteous revival of something old that had lapsed and had been forgotten. This
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