New England neo-Nazi organization on the march in CT
In the past several weeks, the openly neo-Nazi organization “NSC-131” has stepped up its activities in Connecticut. The organization appears to have recently initiated a recruitment, visibility, and terror campaign across the state. Its members have so far flyered around Bristol, Hartford, West Hartford, and Southington, spreading their Nazi propaganda and seeking like-minded fascist militants.
Connecticut, as with other states in New England, has become a breeding ground for a new wave of fascist recruitment. For instance, one of the leaders of the Patriot Front, Alex Beilman, is a Meriden resident originally from Wallingford. And this isn’t the first time that NSC-131 has taken action in Connecticut: In May, for instance, NSC-131 members hung a Nazi banner from a Hartford overpass. The organization was founded in Massachusetts in 2019 and has been rapidly growing in numbers, expanding into new states and counties, and forming connections with other fascist organizations since then.
The basis of NSC-131’s ideology is white supremacy, with particular emphases on anti-blackness and antisemitism. The organization absurdly claims that white settlers in New England and the U.S. generally are “under attack” and must be “defended” from such “threats” as civil rights organizations (they name Black Lives Matter), Black and Latino street gangs, anti-fascists in general and Communists in particular, an elaborate (and fictitious) Jewish conspiracy, and the other usual targets of Nazi conspiracy theories and violence. “NSC” stands for “National Social Club”, which refers to the “National Socialism” of the Nazi Party, while 131 is a code for “Anti-Communist Action” (ACA).
NSC-131’s leader, a man named Chris Hood, came out of the “libertarian” fascist Three Percenter and Patriot Front organizations and is widely suspected by anti-fascist activists to be an FBI informant, as are many leading figures in civilian-fascist movements across the U.S. Other known members of NSC-131, whose identities were revealed in a doxxing campaign carried out by anti-fascist activists, include men by the names of Liam MacNeil, Andrew Hazelton, Harrison Fournier, Jeremiah Shivers, and Tyler Moody.
The forces of fascism at work in America
Who is Hood and who are his Nazi followers? White suburbanite psychopaths; the spoiled, dead-eyed sons of wealthy small business owners, landlords, real estate developers, white-collar professionals, and cops; silver spoon-fed university students at UMass Lowell; “security experts”, NRA-certified firearms instructors, members and ex-members of white-power militias, such as the III%ers; undercover cops and undisguised klansmen. NSC-131 is a club for future mass-shooters and fascist insurrectionists of the type who carried out last year’s January 6th pro-Trump coup attempt. These neo-Nazi civilian fascists are the shock troops, the unofficial brownshirts, and the state-sanctioned terrorists of the settler-capitalist ruling classes, and they will only become more violent and better organized as the accelerating periodic crises of capitalism jolt the imperialists and lesser capitalists into heightened panic and frenzied reaction against the oppressed masses.
Nazism is not new or foreign to this country, nor is it an aberration in American history. American neo-Nazism is nothing but the U.S. Empire’s founding principles taken to their extreme, yet logical, conclusions. This not-so-unique variety of fascism is the purest expression, unbridled by “liberal” sensibility and decorum, of the class interests of our propertied-settler enemies. In past decades, this American-made fascism has been taken up by Know-Nothings, Klansmen, Eugenicists, and Hitlerites, and represented by such captains of American expansion as Andrew Jackson, Henry Ford, and Ronald Reagan. A manifestly fascist America — the America represented by a president like Donald Trump, a ruthless billionaire like Jeff Bezos, and a reactionary jurist like Clarence Thomas — is the inevitable result of economic processes that began with the landing of English settlers in New England, their genocidal extirpation of the Native peoples, their enslavement of Africans in the Carolinas, and their militant expansion west. This is America.
Anti-fascist tactics and fascist reaction
Unfortunately, some of our anti-fascist comrades (and some long-time grifters operating in online anti-fascist spaces) have “taken the bait” and retaliated against this fascist upsurge from a weak and unprepared position. Uncensored images of NSC-131’s posters, flyers, and other promotional materials circulated online, going viral thanks to (rightfully) angry shares, effectively providing our enemies with free advertising. Without carefully censoring contact info, well-meaning but unthinking anti-fascist activists have all but ensured that NSC-131 will reach its intended audience of “disaffected” neo-Nazi youths. Meanwhile, the recent doxxing campaign against NSC-131 has, very predictably, provoked a violent reaction, against which we are unprepared to defend ourselves and oppressed communities in New England.
While we of course support any and all effective anti-fascist action, we implore our comrades to think as strategists, not as adventurists. Exposing, inconveniencing, intimidating, and street-fighting with fascists might offer catharsis to some, but such actions must be planned to inflict maximum damage with minimum repercussions, and self-defense against the inevitable fascist reaction must be prepared ahead of time. We must strike only once we can achieve a total, decisive, conclusive victory over our enemies, only once we can effectively end them. We must utterly destroy our enemies without getting destroyed in turn, and without allowing the oppressed masses to suffer the brunt of fascist reaction. We cannot sacrifice the safety of our comrades, our allies, and vulnerable persons among the oppressed masses for the fleeting dopamine rush provided by the sort of ephemeral, ultimately meaningless “victories” against a handful of opponents we saw this week.
Community self-defense urgently needed!
Fascist violence is almost never punished by the state. In fact, FBI operatives often groom and set loose mass shooters; the horrific mass shooting carried out in Buffalo this May is the most recent example of such operations. Aside from this, warning signs of violence from angry, anti-social white men are routinely “overlooked” and “ignored”, if not actively fostered, by the police and other agents of the State. That’s one of many reasons why we can’t trust the government, local or federal, to end the problem of rising fascism. And this is a problem — one that’s not going away.
So, what’s the alternative?
Community self-defense. The State will not defend oppressed communities; it is up to us to keep ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbors, and our communities safe from fascist violence. We must organize and defend one another.
So, what should you do?
Talk to your friends and family today. Talk about what’s happening with your neighbors tomorrow, and promise to look out for one another. Hold a community meeting this week. Go to your community centers, churches, mosques, synagogues; meet in libraries, public parks, and people’s homes. Learn self-defense and first-aid skills with your loved ones and neighbors. Organize a neighborhood watch and carry out patrols to keep the most vulnerable folks in your community safe. Calmly follow and intimidate civilian fascists and cops until they leave your streets.
Do not trust the police. Do not talk to the police. Do not rely on the police. The police support fascist violence. Cops and klan go hand-in-hand.
To our anti-fascist comrades:
We call on all anti-fascists in New England to go out and serve the oppressed communities targeted by the forces of fascism — civilian and State alike. Bring the masses education, raise their consciousness, hold mass meetings, learn from them and attempt to meet their needs, and organize and equip them with skills and tools in preparation for practicing community self-defense. Create the conditions that will allow us to victoriously and permanently expel NSC-131, Patriot Front, and all other civilian fascist organizations from our cities and counties.
We cannot win through superior arms — not yet. We cannot win through superior violence. Early clashes and confrontations, amateurishly instigated from a position of weakness, will only embolden, harden, and serve to expand NSC-131 and their larger network of fascist organizations; do not make the most vulnerable persons among the oppressed masses suffer the wrath of fascist reaction at this stage, when we lack the means to fight back and win. We can only win, long-term, through superior organization and superior strategy.
Update!
Since the writing of this article but before its publication, a local committee of concerned persons has formed in Bristol, Connecticut. This is the Bristol Anti-Racism Brigade (BARB), which has begun discussions about how to counter this open Nazi action.
