Hüseyin Etil made a significant contribution to the Turkish intellectual world with his book, İsmet Özel ve Partizan (İsmet Özel and the Partisan). His speeches on the Turkish Left, polemology, and various concepts are noteworthy. When I spoke with him about the intellectual relationship between Ernst Jünger and Abdülkadir es-Sufi, he was the person who turned my interest toward conservative revolutionism and its representatives. Throughout this process, he did not withhold his support and views from me. We conducted an extensive interview with Etil on conservative revolutionism and its context in Turkey.
“Conservative revolutionism” – what is it and what does it signify? In what ways do conservative revolutionaries differ from conservatives and revolutionaries?
Firstly, the concept emerged within the German conservative-nationalist intellectual opposition of the 1920s. Although the term was first used by Thomas Mann in his article on Nietzsche in the Anthology of Russian Literature, it owes its widespread resonance to the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The figure who popularized the concept was Armin Mohler, Ernst Jünger’s private assistant. In Mohler’s usage, the term is an umbrella concept encompassing very different movements (Völkisch, young conservatism, National Bolshevism, Bündisch youth, and the peasantry movement). It covers a wide intellectual spectrum, extending from F. Nietzsche to N. Dostoevsky, O. Spengler to C. Schmitt, T. Mann to E. Jünger. The Conservative Revolution expresses the sum total of cultural revival efforts undertaken by the intellectuals of the period, seeking the recovery of a defeated Germany after the First World War. For Mohler, the concept of conservative revolution was essentially used with a strategic purpose. Many conservative revolutionary intellectuals were in opposition to the Nazis. Many were passified during the Nazi era. However, the conservative opposition of the Nazi period was unknown. Mohler wanted to reveal this, distinguish the generations, including Jünger, from the Nazis, and leave a rich intellectual legacy for the post-fascist period. It is clear that Mohler has been extremely successful in this regard.
Secondly, the concept of conservative revolution sounds paradoxical. This concept, in a sense, belongs to paradoxical times, phases where oxymoronic compounds exploded, and periods where wholeness, certainty, and consistency were lost. In everyday language, conservatism means “preservation.” It means preserving the family, the nation, religion, and the state, as well as the idea that outdated traditions, customs, habits, and institutions must be protected. Revolution, on the other hand, means the radical transformation of existing conditions. In this sense, the concept of revolution has been primarily associated with left-wing movements. Conservative revolution, however, combines two different instincts (preservation and destruction) in its program. It neither seeks a return to a previous state, as in reactionism, nor does it seek to preserve the given, as in conservatism. Because there is no value to be preserved in modernity itself. The conditions for sustaining traditional relationships in a traditional way have vanished in the face of the destruction wrought by modernity. Modernity has caused great devastation. Conservative revolutionary intellectuals proceed from this basic observation. In other words, the only way to resist the nihilism created by modernity and protect the future is through revolutionism. To protect, one must destroy. Conservative revolutionism is about re-establishing what is always valid under new conditions. In this sense, being conservative is not about being bound to yesterday, but about starting from what is always valid. It is a reassessment of the world, society, and humanity based on eternal principles and immutable constants. It is a revaluation of values, in a Nietzschean phrase.
The most important dimension of conservative revolutionism is its orientation toward building the future, rather than preserving the existing. In this sense, it is a kind of “resurrection” movement in German thought, whose roots are hidden in the anti-Western German modernization but which faced the destruction of the First World War. Here, revolutionism does not mean the aestheticization of destruction, but the rebirth of tradition, culture, and that which pertains to us. In this sense, it is fundamentally different from the Enlightenment and progressive understanding of history. On the one hand, it is the anger and ideology of the losers. It invests in thymos for a conservative government. It is a quest for a new beginning that also contains the resentment of losing. It is a reaction to being encircled. It is an “expedition” (huruç) movement. Conservative revolutionism is the authentic way of being revolutionary. It is a vision of a future where body and spirit, reason and emotion, or God and the world—which were fragmented by the Enlightenment and Cartesian understanding—are reunited. They hold liberalism, socialism, and Enlightenment rationalism responsible for the crisis of Western civilization. The conservative revolutionary has two enemies: destructive left-wing revolutionism and bourgeois liberalism. They blame these two currents for the destruction of the world and the loss of depth. In fact, the conservative revolutionary is angry at both “conservatives” and “revolutionaries” for operating within the general scope of liberalism. According to them, both conservatives and revolutionaries lack originality. Because, as Jünger underlined, the conservative’s originality is characterized by being very old, while the revolutionary’s originality is characterized by being very young. From this perspective, our revolutionaries appear quite old, while our conservatives appear extremely young.
Under the conditions of capitalism, individuals have moved away from democratically shaping social and cultural relationships. In the face of indeterminate powers and mechanisms, humanity feels helpless, passive, and meaningless. The “authentic feeling of helplessness,” as stated by Karl Jaspers in his book The Spiritual Situation of Our Age, largely constitutes the “conservative revolutionary emotional universe.” Today, man is reduced to a being condemned to the flow of events. In such an emotional environment, conservative resistance turns into the possibility of an enthusiastic transformation. In nihilistic times, people turn towards the construction of new “realities” that give meaning to their lives. Liberal and socialist revolutions have pushed humanity into nihilism, making it indecisive. The people of today are indecisive. They are lost in the temporary waves of an absolute present. Conservative revolutions aspire to re-establish times of decision. Skepticism and criticism give way to the formation of new power elites with distant resolve and action. The aim is to create a new will that will decide, determine, and direct.
Is Conservative Revolutionism not also a form of nihilism?
Firstly, conservatism is certainly not an inability to demand and realize radical changes. Drawing on Edmund Burke, we can distinguish between two revolutions: on the one hand, the revolution of those who demand the absolute negation of the present for the sake of an uncertain future that no one has experienced, and on the other hand, the revolution of those who want to re-establish that which has been suppressed and displaced. The former are progressive revolutions carried out within a negative dialectic. These are revolutions that negate the present for the sake of an alternative tomorrow that is unimaginable today. The latter defines conservative revolutions. It is the work of bringing forth again the reality and meaning that was there before and was taken from us. These non-ideological and non-utopian revolutions stand out as the revolutions the world needs more than ever.
The conservative revolutionary strives to create new conditions from the perspective of the eternal. They are different from the nihilistic revolutionary. The conservative revolutionary demands destruction in the name of order. Revolution, in the sense of absolute destruction, is not their internal telos. The conservative revolutionary does not elevate negation to the level of a worldview, as in left-wing nihilism; on the contrary, they negate the existing in the name of a worldview. They believe that a revolutionary war must be fought in the name of a new order, not a revolution against order. They demand the destruction of existing conditions (the revolutionary side) and the re-creation of values to be preserved (the conservative side). It is the combination of preservation with the creative direction. Conservative revolutionaries do not create new ideas/values like progressive revolutionaries; they bring to light values that are already latently present. They descend into the hidden archives of cultural memory and our self, reprocess what is there, and transform them into usable and livable truths. By bringing the hidden truth in the archive to light, they restore it to life. Therefore, it is the revelation of what is always valid but has been buried, museumified, and archived by modern revolutions.
We can also answer this question by returning to Mohler. Mohler addresses nihilism in three forms: the form that emerged in Western Europe, in France (“Jacobin revolutionaries”), the second form that emerged in Russia (“Bolshevik revolutionaries”), and the conservative revolutionary German form that emerged in Germany. All these figures passionately endorse the transition through destruction. However, German nihilism points to another distinguishing aspect in Jünger’s formula of “Prussian Anarchism.” In this expression, the “anarchist” aspect points to the chaos and destructiveness of a time when the entire order turned into ruins. The ossified and decrepit old order must be destroyed. The process of destruction is endorsed as the only path to rebirth. The “Prussian” side of this expression emphasizes that destruction is not an end in itself. The world of life must be cleared for a new hierarchy. The dynamites, the explosives in Nietzsche’s words, “I am not a man, I am dynamite,” must be used for the construction of a new order. The Prussian anarchist desires chaos for hierarchy, the state of exception for the normal state. For him, destruction is the only way to salvation. Nothing can be built without destroying. Destruction turns into creation. The German nihilist sees the “return” at the end of the road. For example, in such a struggle, poetry also becomes the sole call for recycling.
Why have discussions about conservative revolutionism come to the fore today?
Today, the quest for a conservative revolution is on the agenda in many parts of the world. A worldwide wave of conservative revolution is making itself felt. Conservative revolutionary intellectuals are increasingly coming to the fore in the post-liberal age. The ideas of the conservative revolutionary intellectuals of the Weimar period are being read by many people on the right and the left today. Today’s left reads Carl Schmitt more than Lenin. Intellectuals who were excluded from intellectual centers after the Second World War have begun to be canonized. For example, Ernst Jünger’s works are now considered classics. Nationalist-conservative intellectuals are replacing liberal-democratic-humanist intellectuals and their political visions in many parts of the world. States, nations, or peoples are returning to the idea that they have a “metaphysical destiny.” In the face of the egoism of liberalism and the consumer society, people are looking for ways to think of themselves again as “metaphysical destiny communities.” “Return to Order” has become an impressive call mobilizing masses in many countries of the world. Today, more people are moving away from the influence of choices and turning back to the magical reality of the idea of destiny. They intend to move from being a “contingent person” to being a “destiny person.” Even if not dominant, such orientations exist. It is also meaningful that these orientations are occurring after the collapse of the social welfare societies where people were most distanced from the idea of destiny.
Conservative revolutionism is the stance of periods when relations between conservatives and liberals deteriorated, and conservatives began to have an anti-liberal tendency. First, it is necessary to establish this clearly. It is observed that the political and strategic unity (historical bloc) established between liberalism and conservatism after the Second World War has dissolved in the last thirty years, and especially after the end of the Cold War, conservatism has reformulated itself on an anti-liberal basis. The “conservative democracy” movement played active roles in creating a new order in both Western Europe and modernizing countries in the post-fascist period. In this phase, right-wing parties were pulled to the center with the construction of a “conservative democrat” identity, and a parliamentary democratic order was established. However, in the new situation, political ideas and movements that position themselves at the center, such as “conservative democrat” or “liberal conservatism,” have declined. In short, both the ideological alliance between conservatism and political liberalism established in the post-fascist period and the ideological alliances between neo-liberalism and neoconservatism have collapsed today. Especially in today’s Western world, it has become increasingly difficult for a conservative to defend the economic, political, and ideological forms of liberalism. Liberalism has begun to be questioned again. Ideas, values, and institutions that were seen as solutions in the post-fascist period are seen as problems today. It seems difficult for a Kantian political culture to survive anymore. The values and solidarities that created liberal institutions have been shaken. People today are divided over “foundations.” It seems impossible to organize a new solidarity from the irony of anti-foundationalist intellectuals like Richard Rorty.
A characteristic of the new era is the return to the concept of “worldview.” The age of ideologies has receded; worldviews are back on the stage. The political scene is being reshaped according to worldviews, not according to right or left. Ideologies are also forced to reformulate themselves according to the struggles of worldviews. Our age is increasingly a post-liberal age. We saw the forms that conservatism took in the post-fascist period. The important political question of today is the forms that conservatism will take in the post-liberal period. We are in interesting times when liberal orders are being tried to be subverted from the right. In a period when revolutions from the left have lost all their fuel, the quest for revolution from the right has begun to make itself felt. A new form of conservatism is emerging in the post-liberal period. I think the renewed focus on the ideas of once-exiled writers is a reflection of this. Discussions that once closed are reopening. Conservatives no longer only want to manage and seize liberal institutions; they want to redefine and transform them. In the 1960s, to be young was to be left-wing. Today, those who are young, who represent the counter-culture, who reject traditional views, and who are not status quo are conservatives. Young conservatives are seeking a theoretical basis for their political actions. A revolution is taking place in conservative thought today. The revolutionary transformations in conservative thought, which we call “conservative revolutionism,” are poised to transform cultural, political, and economic ways of life. Conservative revolutionism has taken the form of an approach against political correctness, cancel culture, and woke movements. It stands out as a new political philosophy against these three movements. Actually, the interesting point, in my opinion, is that revolutionary conservatism is gradually becoming the dominant political philosophy of the political right. People are increasingly turning to revolutions where they can regain the certainty that belonged to their parents, grandparents, in short, to previous generations.
What is the equivalent of the conservative revolution thought in Turkey?
The concept of conservative revolution was used to define the cultural movements that marked Germany in the 1920s. In this respect, conservative revolution is a category used to identify certain intellectual movements rather than a political movement. Conservative revolutionism is, in Schlegel’s words, a “great process of rejuvenation.” It is the re-blossoming of a tired and old nation by returning to its own roots. It is the re-flowering of culture by escaping the reality of being a barren land. The conservative revolution is a cultural renewal movement that opposes modernity and the Enlightenment. Intellectuals who opposed modernity and Enlightenment ideas found salvation in the idea of intellectual and spiritual renewal. The conservative revolution in our country is essentially the cultural movement of the educated rural populace. In this regard, I believe that the intellectual-cultural movement represented by names like Nurettin Topçu, Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, and Sezai Karakoç possesses the basic motifs of conservative revolutionism. The “renaissance” emphases we see in names like Necip Fazıl, Nurettin Topçu, and Sezai Karakoç against Kemalism’s eschatological revolution are an expression of a conservative revolutionary orientation. These names are, in my opinion, among the most ardent, enthusiastic, and faithful representatives of the “conservative revolution” expectation. They were the generations who refused to sit like silent tenants in their new homes and believed that one must fight to live. They sought solid foundations instead of a loose and rotten ground. These orientations are evident in Nurettin Topçu’s metaphysical rebellion, Necip Fazıl’s thymotic energy, and Karakoç’s idea of resurrection (diriliş). These writers, who developed a “public interpretation of existence” from a new perspective and subjected the problems created by Westernization and modernization to cultural criticism, created a new axis of public debate. It is noteworthy to observe how literature and aesthetic rebellion turned into a form of political opposition, especially in Necip Fazıl Kısakürek and Sezai Karakoç. The criticisms of Necip Fazıl Kısakürek and Sezai Karakoç are opposition to (progressive) cultural revolutions through poetics. In these examples, the way literature becomes a tool of revolutionary salvation projects and a part of identity consciousness is remarkable. For instance, Karakoç’s poem “Thunder” is like a flash of lightning in the calm and enlightened sky, the symbolic universe of progressive revolutions. Thunder always represents the end of one time, a change of time, the beginning of a new time. The time of “Revolution” is ending, initiating the time of “Resurrection.” The first awakening of the New Turkey is here. Here we witness the fervent passions of the will to move from a temporary appearance to the truth of the eternal. The conservative revolution is a revolution within the revolution. It has carried out a revolution in the existing revolutionary traditions. In this sense, the conservative revolution is a revolution that will overthrow the revolution, in Necip Fazıl’s phrase. That is the victory of the spirit over matter. It is the idea of a spiritual revolution that ends the domination of matter over the spirit, reducing matter to the spirit’s secondary instrument.
The best metaphor for the conservative revolutionary imagination, in my opinion, is “resurrection” (diriliş). It puts the idea of Return instead of progress. Karakoç’s slogan “Not Revolution but Resurrection” also aptly describes Turkey’s great crossroads. The “Turkey of Revolution” and the “Turkey of Resurrection” are positioned in opposition to each other. One will either rely on a libertarian revolutionism by breaking away from its roots or conquer the future by returning to its roots. The cultural movement represented by these names is ultimately a movement of return to the roots, return to the self, and return home. Against the progressive-revolutionary cadres who found salvation in submission to contemporary values, conservative revolutionaries who found salvation in the values that constitute their own existence aimed to initiate a resurrection by relying on God, rather than accepting the death of God. The idea of Resurrection advanced against the Revolution has meant the insistence of Turkish reality on its Muslim identity in the face of secular revolutions. They expressed that the Revolution could be countered not by reform, but only by resurrection. They argued that new forms could rise not through abstractions but over their unique roots. When they underlined the principles worthy of preservation, they by no means simply meant a return to pre-revolutionary conditions. They differ from conservative reformers by virtue of their search for “spiritual rebirth.” Conservative revolution does not mean the exact imitation of the past or its anachronistic revival. Because being an heir does not mean being an epigone. These intellectuals, instead of meeting the death of tradition with a cynical attitude or a banal and simple reactionism clinging to the past, aimed to re-establish tradition in the future by relying on the eternal truths within the tradition. Unlike reactionism, revolutionism describes the ability to create new forms. The state of defeat against the West was not the loss of the essence, but the loss of the form, and new forms absolutely had to be created. The conservative revolutionary, the resurrectionist in Karakoç’s phrase, turns to the roots of a finished culture and tradition in this definition. Now the revolutionary upheaval will end with a return, with a resurrection. The word “Revolution” has thus returned to its original meaning, that is, the return to the first state of the essence. In the beginning, revolution meant a regression, the revival of a previous state. This call for regression refers to the heritage of centuries embedded in the heart of Turkish society. This heritage is an understanding of society that finds its self in Islam. This revolution, the return to one’s own origin of this sublime self that is worn out, scattered, and destroyed. In this realization, man is a homo revolvens. Resurrection is the return to eternal principles. In short, the conservative revolution aims for “the return to the person you are.” The conservative revolutionary is the person who “wants to return to their heart.” In this respect, the conservative revolution movement is “the return to the great historical line,” in Yahya Kemal’s phrase. The true result of every genuine revolution is nothing other than the attainment of one’s own character. Behind the effort to eliminate existing conditions lies the desire to attain one’s own unconditional reality stratum.