Can people preserve their cultural identity without a state claiming authority over them? Can communities govern themselves without making the individual subordinate to the collective? And can opposition to political centralisation coexist with attachment to language, heritage and tradition?

These questions lie at the heart of National Anarchism. They also predate the contemporary movement.

Its history requires two connected investigations. One concerns older arguments about freedom, federalism, nationality and community. The other concerns the particular political current that emerged through publications and international contacts during the 1990s and expanded in the following decade.

Confusing these histories produces two misleading accounts. One portrays National Anarchism as an ancient, coherent doctrine passed down unchanged. The other treats it as an invention with no relationship to earlier debates.

The evidence supports a more complicated story: a modern and controversial synthesis whose advocates drew selectively from several traditions, sometimes bringing together ideas whose original authors would have disputed their compatibility.

The historical problem: what does “national” mean?

For most readers, nationalism means loyalty to a nation-state: its government, territory, institutions and claims to sovereignty. National Anarchists generally argue that a people or cultural community need not be identical with a state.

That distinction has precedents. Anarchist thinkers have debated national liberation, linguistic communities and cultural belonging while opposing governmental domination. Their answers have varied considerably. Some supported struggles against imperial rule while warning that independence could replace foreign rulers with domestic ones. Others regarded nationalism itself as an obstacle to emancipation.[1]

A history of National Anarchism must therefore ask what each writer meant by “nation.” The word might refer to citizenship, language, ancestry, shared historical experience or a voluntary association. These meanings overlap, but they are not interchangeable.

Nor does support for cultural autonomy automatically establish support for National Anarchism. Historical resemblance is evidence for comparison; direct influence requires something more, such as citations, correspondence or explicit testimony.

Proudhon: federalism against centralisation

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon provides an important nineteenth-century starting point. His The Federative Principle, published in 1863, examined how political arrangements could distribute authority rather than concentrate it.

Proudhon envisaged relatively small political units linked through agreements, with central functions constrained by the participating bodies. His federalism was an attempt to reconcile freedom, cooperation and political order. It was more institutionally complicated than the simple abolition of every governmental function.[2]

For later decentralists, the attraction is clear: cooperation need not require absorption into an all-powerful centre. Different communities might coordinate their affairs while retaining substantial control over their own lives.

This makes Proudhon relevant to National Anarchist arguments. It does not make him a member of a movement that emerged long after his death.

His importance lies in the problem he addressed: how can people associate without allowing the machinery of association to become their master?

Bakunin: liberation without a new ruling class

Mikhail Bakunin sharpened the tension between nationality and political freedom. He recognised the struggles of subordinated peoples, but refused to make nationality an overriding political principle.

In Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism, originating in 1867, he acknowledged nationality as a historical reality entitled to free development. At the same time, he criticised nationalist doctrines that undermined provincial liberty and communal autonomy.[3]

This distinction matters. A people’s resistance to domination does not establish a right for its leaders to dominate others—or its own members.

Bakunin’s federalism also moved across several scales: individuals, communes and larger associations. National liberation could have an emancipatory meaning when connected to social freedom; it could become reactionary when subordinated to state-building.

National Anarchist writers can reasonably discuss this legacy. They must also confront its conditions. Bakunin’s defence of freedom cannot simply be detached from his hostility to privilege and imposed authority.

Stirner: the individual against sacred abstractions

Max Stirner introduces a challenge to every community-centred political doctrine.

In The Ego and Its Own, published in 1844, he attacked the subordination of living individuals to supposedly higher causes. The state, society and nation could become abstractions demanding sacrifice from the people whose lives gave them substance.

His discussion of patriotic sacrifice is especially pointed: individuals die for the national cause while the nation survives to celebrate their contribution.[4]

Stirner’s relevance extends beyond opposition to government. His criticism also reaches movements that replace the state with an equally demanding conception of community.

A National Anarchism drawing on Stirner must therefore answer an uncomfortable question: what happens when an individual rejects the traditions or expectations of the group?

If belonging is voluntary, refusal must remain possible. Otherwise, the collective has acquired the moral authority previously exercised by the state.

Landauer: community without uniformity

Gustav Landauer offers one of the most substantial historical connections between cultural belonging and anti-authoritarian association.

In his 1895 essay Anarchism—Socialism, he proposed overlapping forms of cooperation corresponding to different needs. Some matters concern humanity, others particular peoples or groups, and others individuals. No single structure needs to encompass every relationship.

He recognised common interests in language, literature and customs while arguing that economic organisation need not follow linguistic or ethnic boundaries.[5]

This is a richer vision than a world divided into sealed cultural compartments. A person might belong simultaneously to a local community, a cultural association and a network of producers.

Landauer is consequently relevant both as a predecessor claimed by National Anarchists and as a test of their interpretations. His writing offers support for community and cultural life, but also reasons to resist reducing people to one exclusive identity.

The historical connection is strongest when these complications remain visible.

Rocker: the counterargument from within anarchism

Rudolf Rocker deserves a place because a serious history should include the arguments that challenge its central proposition.

In Nationalism and Culture, published in English in 1937, Rocker distinguished attachment to home and cultural life from political nationalism. He opposed the conversion of those attachments into loyalty to state power.[6]

His argument poses a question for National Anarchists: does describing a community as a nation protect cultural freedom, or encourage political claims that eventually demand conformity?

Rocker’s presence prevents the historical discussion from becoming a collection of favourable quotations. There has never been one uncontested anarchist answer to the relationship between identity and freedom.

The disagreement is part of the history.

Ernst Jünger: the sovereignty of the individual

Ernst Jünger contributes a different intellectual strand.

The Forest Passage appeared in 1951. Eumeswil, published in 1977, developed the figure of the Anarch: an individual who maintains sovereignty over himself while living within an existing order.

The Anarch differs from the political anarchist. His independence does not depend on first transforming society. He may accommodate external circumstances while withholding inward allegiance. Alain de Benoist’s interpretation emphasises this distinction between possessing political power and remaining sovereign over oneself.[7]

For National Anarchist readers, this offers a language of independence from parties, governments and mass conformity.

Yet the connection also exposes a tension. The inward sovereignty of an individual does not automatically produce a system of autonomous communities. Nor does it justify a community’s claim to obedience.

Jünger belongs in this history as an intellectual resource later writers interpreted. His Anarch should not be turned into the author of a political programme he did not formulate.

The modern current: convergence rather than a single beginning

The modern movement emerged through a mixture of anarchist references, ecological decentralism, revolutionary nationalism and European New Right thought.

Historian Graham Macklin’s study of Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction places their development within the history of the British far right. He interprets their synthesis as retaining a fascist ideological core while incorporating anarchist and countercultural themes.[8]

That scholarly interpretation differs sharply from participants’ descriptions of themselves. A responsible history must present both while testing them against documents and activity.

The modern current also had several centres. France, Germany and Britain contributed different personalities and routes into the same developing network. Later Australian involvement extended its international reach.

“Convergence” is therefore a more useful starting point than the assumption that one founder created a finished doctrine that everyone else adopted.

Hans Cany and the French national-libertarian strand

Hans Cany’s account complicates an exclusively British history.

In a retrospective statement, he dated his use of “national-anarchist” to 1991 or 1992 and treated “national-libertarian” and “anarcho-identitarian” as related descriptions.

He described involvement in small anarchist groups, an interest in the Alliance Ouvrière Anarchiste, and subsequent participation in Nouvelle Résistance. He also reported distancing himself from former associates whose politics he considered increasingly extreme right.[9]

These statements are valuable primary testimony. They establish his account of his development, although independent records remain necessary to settle questions of chronology and precedence.

Cany’s terminology expressed an attempt to reconcile cultural belonging with freely agreed association. His importance is therefore both conceptual and historical: he articulated a French version of the synthesis while contributing to its international connections.

In a 2014 interview, he identified Richard Hunt’s Alternative Green and the American Raven’s Banner Collective as influences. He described possible communities based on linguistic, philosophical, religious or other affinities.[10]

His positions also contained tensions. In the same interview, he rejected racial hatred and defended personal choice while opposing mass immigration and the ideological promotion of ethnic mixing. Those arguments belong in the record alongside his voluntary-association claims.

Understanding Cany requires examining both.

Peter Töpfer and the German contribution

Peter Töpfer represents another route into the modern current.

In a later autobiographical interview, he identified Cany as an important stimulus and recalled encountering his ideas during the mid-1990s. He also discussed his own combination of individual emancipation and collective identity.[11]

Such testimony helps reconstruct the movement’s international development. Ideas circulated through small publications, correspondence and personal contacts before acquiring more visible online platforms.

Töpfer’s account should be read as that of a participant explaining his trajectory. It does not provide an uncontested interpretation of the other ideologies he discusses.

His historical importance lies partly in this exchange between national settings. Modern National Anarchism developed through translation, reinterpretation and disagreement as well as shared declarations.

Richard Hunt: ecology and the scale of society

Richard Hunt deserves particular attention because his influence is explicitly acknowledged by participants.

Alternative Green supplied a setting for arguments about decentralisation, ecological limits and small-scale social organisation. Southgate credited the magazine with influencing his development during the 1990s.[12]

Hunt’s relevance shifted the discussion beyond identity alone. Questions of production, dependency and the scale of social life became part of the argument.

Could communities exercise meaningful autonomy if they remained wholly dependent on distant economic centres? What material arrangements would support decentralisation?

These questions help explain why ecological thought became significant within the movement. They also require practical examination. Local production may support resilience, but healthcare, infrastructure and complex manufacturing raise questions that cannot be settled by praising small communities.

Hunt helped shape the debate; that does not establish that every proposed solution was workable.

Southgate, the New Right and the politics of difference

Troy Southgate became a prominent English-language writer and organiser within the modern current. In interviews, he described a movement away from party-based revolutionary nationalism towards anarchism, decentralisation and intentional communities.[12]

The European New Right also supplied important material, particularly through Alain de Benoist’s arguments about cultural difference and opposition to universal models of society.

Spencer Sunshine’s critical study identifies this tradition as a major influence on National Anarchism. He argues that its language of difference can accommodate exclusionary or separatist politics rather than overcome them.[13]

De Benoist should therefore appear as an influential neighbouring thinker, rather than being casually classified as an anarchist. Julius Evola also belongs in an account of the radical traditionalist influences identified in scholarship on Southgate’s milieu.[8]

Their inclusion reveals an important difficulty: the modern synthesis draws on traditions with conflicting understandings of hierarchy, equality and freedom.

Those contradictions cannot be resolved simply by placing them under a new name.

My role: bringing the discussion to Australia

My involvement belongs to the movement’s international expansion during the 2000s.

Through New Right Australia/New Zealand, I helped create a platform where nationalism, anarchism, decentralisation and criticism of globalisation could be discussed together. It was broader than a National Anarchist publication, and describing everything published there as one coherent doctrine would misrepresent the project.

I wrote extensively, but other contributors included Troy Southgate, Tom Stanwell, P. Middleton and C. Godfrey. The platform brought different arguments into contact rather than presenting only my own position.[14]

My work also involved organising and speaking. The Sydney Forum provided a setting for political exchange, although its participants and history extended beyond National Anarchism. Movement publications recorded my speaking activities in Australia, Europe and the United States.[15]

Publishing formed another part of my contribution. My 2011 book, A Life in the Political Wilderness, collected essays reflecting my political experience. I also contributed to National-Anarchism: A Reader, alongside Southgate, Keith Preston and others.[15]

I would describe my historical role as that of an organiser, writer and intermediary helping to develop an Australian presence and international connections.

That history includes criticism. Researchers and political opponents interpreted our activities through the far right and challenged particular writings and associations. Those assessments form part of the record, even where I dispute their conclusions.[13]

My present writing places particular emphasis on decentralisation, voluntary association and the limits of collective authority. I do not believe individual freedom should disappear into demands made by a state, party or community.[16]

My earlier activities and present reflections belong to the same personal history, but they should not be treated as interchangeable evidence. A serious account must distinguish what I argued at different times.

Publications, networks and the limits of influence

The publication of National-Anarchism: A Reader, with contributors including Southgate, Preston and myself, illustrates the importance of collective publishing within the movement.[15]

Books, interviews and online platforms allowed a small current to acquire an international presence. They also made it possible for people with differing priorities to participate under overlapping descriptions.

Nevertheless, international visibility is not the same as extensive social influence. A book establishes publication; a conference establishes a meeting; neither demonstrates the creation of a functioning alternative society.

The evidence reviewed here documents writing, networking and advocacy more clearly than durable autonomous settlements. Claims about successful communities should therefore identify particular places, dates, institutions and outcomes.

That distinction protects the history from exaggeration without dismissing the significance of small political networks.

The unresolved test: does autonomy protect freedom?

The central practical questions concern power.

Who controls land and essential resources? Who decides membership? What happens when residents disagree? Can a person leave without losing access to family, livelihood or possessions? What protections exist for children, minorities and dissenters?

A community can call itself voluntary while making departure prohibitively costly. It can abolish official titles while allowing property owners, influential families or informal leaders to exercise unchecked authority.

Cultural autonomy presents another difficulty. Preserving a language or tradition is different from controlling whom people may marry, what they may believe or how they may identify.

These are tests for assessing any proposal for communal freedom. Small scale does not guarantee liberty, just as large scale does not by itself settle every question of domination.

Stirner’s defence of the individual, Landauer’s overlapping associations and Rocker’s suspicion of nationalism all remain relevant precisely because they prevent community from becoming an unquestionable ideal.

A history of arguments, not a finished doctrine

National Anarchism has an identifiable modern history and a broader, disputed intellectual ancestry.

Its modern development involved people including Cany, Töpfer, Southgate and myself, alongside influences such as Hunt and de Benoist. Its advocates also returned to older writers who examined federalism, cultural belonging, individual sovereignty and life beyond centralised authority.

Those connections are worth investigating. They do not establish that every earlier thinker endorsed the later synthesis.

Nor should the movement’s controversial origins end the investigation. Origins help explain ideas; documents, practices and consequences help assess them.

The question running through this history remains substantial: can people maintain meaningful forms of belonging without acquiring the power to impose those forms on others?

Any convincing answer must protect both the freedom to build a community and the freedom of the person who chooses another life.

References and source notes

[1] José Antonio Gutiérrez and Alex Prichard — “Introduction. Anarchism and the national question—historical, theoretical and contemporary perspectives” (2023).
An overview of the diversity of anarchist approaches to nationality and national liberation.
Read the article — Nations and Nationalism

[2] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon — The Federative Principle (1863).
Particularly relevant for its discussion of authority, liberty and the federal contract.
Read the English text — Marxists Internet Archive

[3] Mikhail Bakunin — Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism (1867).
Especially important for the distinction between nationality as a historical fact and nationality as an overriding political principle.
Read the English text — PDF

[4] Max Stirner — The Ego and Its Own (1844).
Relevant to individual sovereignty and criticism of the demands made in the name of the state, society and nation.
Read the English text — Marxists Internet Archive

[5] Gustav Landauer — “Anarchism—Socialism” (1895).
Discusses overlapping voluntary associations and distinguishes cultural interests from the organisation of labour.
Read the English translation — Panarchy

[6] Rudolf Rocker — Nationalism and Culture (English edition, 1937).
Provides an important counterargument concerning nationalism, political authority and cultural freedom.
Read the full text — The Anarchist Library

[7] Ernst Jünger — Der Waldgang / The Forest Passage (1951) and Eumeswil (1977).
These works provide the figures of the forest rebel and the Anarch. For the interpretation used in this article, see Alain de Benoist’s “Soldier, Worker, Rebel, Anarch: An Introduction to Ernst Jünger.” This is a later interpretation, rather than Jünger’s own statement of National Anarchist doctrine.
Read de Benoist’s essay — PDF

[8] Graham D. Macklin — “Co-opting the Counter Culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction” (2005).
Published in Patterns of Prejudice, 39(3), pp. 301–326. An influential critical historical study of the British current.
Publisher’s page and DOI · Accessible reproduction — The Anarchist Library

[9] Hans Cany — Autobiographical statement on National Anarchism in France.
Preserved in a German translation by Peter Töpfer. The host page was updated in 2007; this does not establish the original statement’s composition date. Used as participant testimony concerning Cany’s early involvement and terminology.
Read the German translation

[10] Hans Cany — Interview by Betty Monde (2014).
English translation republished by Attack the System on 25 March 2014. Primary testimony concerning Cany’s influences, political positions and interpretation of community.
Read the English interview

[11] Peter Töpfer — “Die linke Herkunft des Nationalanarchismus.”
A retrospective interview used as participant testimony concerning his personal development and encounter with Cany’s ideas. Its broader ideological claims should be evaluated independently.
Read the German interview

[12] Troy Southgate — “Interview with National Anarchist writer Troy Southgate.”
Primary testimony concerning the influence of Richard Hunt’s Alternative Green and Southgate’s account of his political development.
Read the interview — Amerika

[13] Spencer Sunshine — “Rebranding Fascism: National-Anarchists” (2008).
Published by Political Research Associates on 28 January 2008. A critical interpretation of the movement’s influences, activities and exclusionary positions.
Read the article — Political Research Associates

[14] Welf Herfurth — “New Right Australia/New Zealand: The Political Blog That Refused to Fit Left or Right” (2026).
Published on 16 September 2026. A retrospective firsthand account; its descriptions of the project should be distinguished from independent assessments of its influence.
Read the article — Substack

[15] National Anarchists AUS/NZ — “Books.”
Movement promotional material documenting Herfurth’s collected essays, speaking and organising biography, and the listed contributors to National-Anarchism: A Reader. Promotional praise is not treated as independent evidence.
Read the publication listings

[16] Welf Herfurth — Substack “About” page.
Used for his present account of individual freedom, community and political independence, rather than as evidence of what he believed throughout his earlier career.
Read the About page