The question of the European Union’s existence has once again become topical through the conflict between the Eurocracy and American leadership, where, among other things, Elon Musk has said that the EU should be dissolved and the Trump administration threatened to annex Greenland. The reactions from the Eurocracy have been stronger to Musk offering citizens freedom of speech through X/Twitter than to the direct threats against Greenland. They are historically comparable to comprador elites1, accustomed to their status as vassals in an American order, a caste of middle managers without the prerequisites to stand up for Europe’s interests in a partly new situation.
This stems, among other things, from their lack of a legitimate definition of Europe; their alternatives are based on “values” often opposite to the interests and very existence of the European peoples. A better understanding of Europe is found in the European right, including Julius Evola, David Engels, and the New Right with names like Dominique Venner, Alain de Benoist, and Guillaume Faye. Attitudes toward the really existing European Union vary here. The various populist and nationalist parties in Europe today often have a negative view of the Union in general and the Eurocracy in particular, with demands for, among others, Swexit, Brexit, and Frexit, while there is also an expressed solidarity between the European peoples (compare Yann Fouéré’s and the New Right’s “Europe of a Hundred Flags”). Aside from this, in the European right, as well as in the more heterodox left, there is a tradition where a strong and united Europe is seen as a prerequisite for the European peoples to manage in a new reality (Europe was often described as occupied by the USA and the Soviet Union). Here we find names such as Jean Thiriart, Oswald Mosley, Julius Evola, and Jordis von Lohausen. There is also, normally independent of this legacy, a younger tendency that can be described as more or less radicalized EU federalism (compare Ave Europa). Its advocates support the EU, both against the USA and against Russia, but do not necessarily share the Eurocrats’ agenda regarding population replacement and similar issues. Here there are actors who are obvious influence campaigns as well as genuine Europe patriots.
Jean Thiriart
One who wishes to be free must want to be powerful. – Jean Thiriart
Jean-François Thiriart 22 March 1922 – 23 November 1992)
Among the foremost advocates and champions of a united Europe we find the Belgian Jean Thiriart (1922–1992), whose work Un empire de 400 millions d’hommes l’Europe from 1964 was recently translated into English as Europe, An Empire of 400 Million. Thiriart grew up in a left‑leaning family and was a socialist in his youth. During the German occupation there were socialists and communists in all European countries who preferred to support Germany and Italy over the USA and the Soviet Union; in Belgium they formed Les Amis du grand Reich Allemand. Thiriart participated in the struggle for the German‑European order and was trained by the German elite soldier Otto Skorzeny. This laid the foundation for a lifelong friendship, but also meant that after the war Thiriart was judged a traitor and collaborator.
After the war he retired from politics, founded a successful business in the optics industry, and became a family man. Sometimes he visited Skorzeny in Spain, where he also met Skorzeny’s friend Perón. It was not until the 1960s that he returned to politics. Belgium was then preparing to leave Belgian Congo, and Thiriart, driven by solidarity with the Belgian colonists, engaged again. Some time later he also became involved in the struggle for the French in Algeria, the so‑called pied‑noirs. These were lost battles, which Thiriart soon realized, but he also saw them as part of the struggle for Europe. “To defend Berlin, support Portugal in Angola, and to support the government of South Africa is to defend ALL of Europe,” to quote Thiriart’s analysis from 1964.
The American world order meant that Europe was occupied, even if France and Belgium nominally belonged to the victorious side of World War II. The USA therefore acted so that they would lose their colonial spheres, so that these instead could be tied to Washington. The anti‑communist rhetoric that dominated large parts of the “right” concealed this fact. Thiriart was inspired by Spengler and F.P. Yockey, and came to see a united Europe as the only counterweight to the USA and the Soviet Union. History had left the nation‑state behind; those who could not form continental states would only be victims of the new great powers. Similar thoughts about European community had guided many nationalists at the end of World War II, when they also could fight under the same banners. The old socialist Thiriart therefore engaged in the struggle against the American world order. He founded Jeune Europe, a movement that saw a united Europe as a counterweight to the USA and the Soviet Union. The movement had several international contacts and alliances, including in the Middle East. Gradually Thiriart began to change his attitude toward the Soviet Union, and advocate rapprochement between the Soviet Union and Western Europe. Towards the end of his life he forged contacts with Russian nationalists; Aleksander Dugin has mentioned him as an inspiration.
What is Europe?
The work of creation is not yet finished, it will never be in the view of the Promethean man. – Jean Thiriart
Thiriart was strongly influenced by Spengler in his defense of Europe; he saw European high culture as unique and worth fighting for. There was a biological element in his interpretation where he argued that a miracle such as our civilization presupposed “a biologically superior race and a favourable terrain.” According to Thiriart, different human races differ in both intelligence and creativity; to this comes the distinction between societies built on mechanical versus organic solidarity. The former form conformist ant colonies, the latter are the foundation for innovative and creative epochs like the ancient Greeks and Europe. Thiriart’s ideas recall Wittfogel’s warnings about “oriental despotism” when he wrote about Rome that “the consuls governed turbulent but vigorous men; the emperors of decadence reigned over subjects. The former handled strong men, the latter guarded sheep.” For Thiriart Europe represented a synthesis of aristocratic individualism and society, threatened by the mass societies that the Soviet Union and the USA constituted. One can often read “Indo‑European” where Thiriart wrote “European” (“Indo‑European Union”).
This means that Thiriart’s eurocentrism also had a global aspect. By defending creative Europe he benefited all humanity; Thiriart wrote about this that “Europe does not bear only its own destiny. It bears also the destiny of men living outside its borders, it bears the destiny of humanity.” In Spenglerian terms Europe was the culture from which the civilizations of the Soviet Union and the USA sprang, but civilization without culture is sterile. (“ONLY Europe possesses culture, whence its primacy over the United States and Communist Russia, which possess only the civilization born of our culture.”) Thiriart emphasized in Un empire de 400 millions d’hommes l’Europe the historical continuity from the ancient Greeks through Rome and the Middle Ages to today’s Europeans. Not least he addressed the many times Europeans have faced seemingly overwhelming threats and defeated them: “Europe, stronger, has always picked itself up, always triumphed… we have had, in our history, to combat enemies more vigorous, and we have vanquished them… races more proud and stronger than the Soviet Russians or the United States broke against the courage and the will of the men of Europe.” Defeatism was, in Thiriart’s eyes, a crime (“defeatism should be denounced, fought, restrained penally in the most severe fashion”).
His worldview differed from, among others, Evola’s in that it was materialist, albeit a vitalist and constructionist one (compare Nietzsche, Locchi, and Faye). Will was a central factor, whereas mystical and metaphysical factors were not. One who sees a spiritual renaissance as a prerequisite for the future of the European peoples can nevertheless gain significantly from Thiriart as a geopolitician and social critic.
Geopolitics
…those who place their hopes in the protection of another nation find masters in searching for protectors. – Jean Thiriart
It is as a geopolitician that Thiriart is best known today; apart from von Lohausen he is arguably the foremost theorist of an independent Europe. His style and historical knowledge permeated most of his writings; pungent quotes abound especially regarding politics and geopolitics. He could note that “one of the rare forms of respectable democracy is that of armed men” and compare the Soviet Union with ancient Rome in its attempts to become a sea power (“you say that the Bear has learned to swim, and it’s true. The she‑wolf also learned how to swim 22 centuries ago”). Power and will are central factors in Thiriart’s model of history, akin to Heraclitus and Nietzsche. States and groups are very often in conflict. At the same time there is a dynamic dimension in his model, where technological development makes the entry requirements into the great power club ever higher. Italy could be a great power a hundred years ago, but not today. This, in combination with Europe in 1964 being occupied by two extraneous powers — the USA and the Soviet Union — meant that she needed political unification to assert herself. Thiriart described this as “…a situation analogous to that of ancient Greece; in fact, just as the ‘city states’ which refused unification fell under the domination of Philip of Macedon.” What has been called Kleinstaaterei and “petty nationalism,” focus on conflicts with European neighbors, offered the occupiers constant opportunities to keep Europe down.
For Thiriart the goal of geopolitics was always to change the world, to realize the free Europe. The first step was resistance against the occupiers, which included creating a revolutionary organization, qualitative cadres, and a base, a “Piedmont,” in a favorably disposed state. But Thiriart also described the desirable relations between the free Europe and other regions and powers. The Soviet Union was to be pushed back and leave Europe; the Thiriart who in 1964 wrote Un empire de 400 millions d’hommes l’Europe was clearly anti‑communist. He noted, among other things, that “unitarian Europe will not tolerate Communism within its borders under the naive and suicidal pretext that it is ‘one opinion among others’.” Thiriart identified the Eastern Bloc’s weak points and could write that “we do not wish to resist and we do not wish to defend. We wish to bring to the European man a spirit of revolution with the power that it might contain; Communism we wish to attack in its colonies.” These “colonies” included the non‑Russian nations and the European working class. Already in 1964, however, he could foresee more constructive relations with a Soviet Union that had left Europe: “politics consists in conducting oneself with certain enemies as if they could become friends tomorrow, and vice versa… we should bring down the USSR but not destroy it.”
The USA was a natural enemy of European freedom, but like the Soviet Union a possible future ally. Thiriart wrote about this that “as regards the USA, the first stage of action will aim at decolonising Europe from the ECONOMIC and military Yankee tutelage… an alliance of the classical type between Europe and the USA is evidently not to be rejected a priori. It can be accomplished only on a footing of strict equality between two sovereign states.” Like, among others, Mosley he saw Africa as an economic extension of Europe: “Africa is the natural prolongation of Europe… modern Africa cannot do without Europe. The economies of these two continents are complementary. Europe cannot, further, in any case, tolerate that an extra‑African power might install itself in Africa and thus threaten our southern flank.” That a free Europe would be nuclear‑armed was obvious to Thiriart.
The European Union
Faced with the Russian and American nationalisms one should create a European nationalism. – Jean Thiriart
Thiriart had at once a negative and positive view of the really existing EU. On the one hand it was a liberal project and the Eurocrats were as incompetent as incapable of representing Europe’s interests vis‑à‑vis their American masters (“‘Legal’ Europe does not exist because it is not independent; it is only a sort of American super‑Panama”). At the same time the EU project contained seeds of a united Europe: “a federal Europe (single army) could be the preparatory stage to a unitarian Europe.” Political elections sometimes yield results not intended by those who hold them. In Un empire de 400 millions d’hommes l’Europe Thiriart reviewed the various possible paths to a united Europe; after his own organization, the EU was one possibility.
It is worth noting that if the attitude toward a European superstate forms a continuum with the superstate at one pole and “the Europe of a hundred flags” at the other, Thiriart was close to the former (compare Evola’s comparisons with the German Länder in his analysis of the Third Reich). He did not mean that the various national and regional cultures should disappear, but the primary political identity would be the European. Administratively the future Europe would also be flexible (“..the future administrative divisions within Europe will be supple and mobile”). But again, Thiriart is rewarding even if one does not fully share the ideal of “Europe a nation”; among other things his arguments against an alliance of European nation‑states are worth confronting if one prefers that alternative. Otherwise he can hint at a possible synthesis of genuine right and EU federalism. Robert Steuckers has noted that “EU can only survive when it finds its ideological roots again, i. e. the very notion of autarky. Otherwise the process of decay will amplify tremendously and lead to the complete disappearance of the European peoples and civilization. In this process the EU area may become, as a kind of new ‘Eurabia’ or Euro‑Turkey or Afro‑Europe, an appendix of a ‘Transatlantic Union’ under US leadership.” Exactly how today’s EU could be reformed is another question; Thiriart’s analysis suggests that revolutionary changes rather than reforms are needed.
On the subject of this article we’d like to present Europe – An Empire of 400 Million by Jean Thiriart. This is not just a historical curiosity. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the intellectual roots of a truly sovereign and unified Europe. Thiriart was a prophetic voice who foresaw the emergence of a multipolar world and the necessity of continental unity to confront the disintegrating forces of petty nationalism, American hegemony and global chaos. His vision of a Magna Europa, stretching from Brest to Bucharest and blending Western technology with Eastern resources, remains more relevant than ever.
This new English edition, translated, annotated and introduced by author and historian Dr Alexander Jacob, provides critical insights into Thiriart’s geopolitical strategy, cultural philosophy and revolutionary thought. We strongly encourage you to purchase the book not only to deepen your understanding of this pivotal thinker but also to support our work.
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Back to the article where we will look deeper into Jean Thiriart’s communitarian socialism as a European alternative to both capitalist plutocracy and collectivist mass society, grounded in syndicalist ownership, discipline, and deproletarianization. We will also examine his view of man and organization, where character, elite cadres, and a unified European political will outweigh ideology, discussion, and liberal abstraction.
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