Dennis Nix Cartoons

From title page of The Best of Attack! and National Vanguard magazine

From title page of The Best of Attack! and National Vanguard magazine

Prospectus for a New Community

This document appears to have been written by Dr. Pierce in 1985 or 1986, meant to inform and inspire certain National Alliance members to think about moving to West Virginia to become a part of his Cosmotheist Church Community.   (See Dr. Pierce's White Zion speech from September 1984.)


HISTORY: The Cosmotheist Community began in 1974 as a religious discussion group which met weekly in the homes of interested persons in the Washington, D.C., area. These persons shared a concern for the fundamental values and goals -- or lack thereof -- on which the directions being taken by modern, American society depend. They felt that materialism, egoism, and a lack of any sense of responsibility to the future had become so widespread and so deeply entrenched that the spiritual that the spiritual and moral basis of Western civilization was being eroded dangerously.

In their meetings they explored the causes of this spiritual illness: the urbanization which has been growing rapidly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, with the consequent breaking of the bonds between people and land; the historical failure of Christianity to take the physical basis of man's existence into consideration along with the spiritual basis and to build a community of blood as well as faith; the spread of democracy as a political doctrine, with the consequent decline in quality and responsibility of the leadership of the nations of the West, especially the United States. Underlying these trends they saw the common problem of wrong values, a problem made more intractable by an unnatural life-style.

The members of the discussion group formalized their association in February 1977 by organizing themselves as a church and adopting the name "Cosmotheist Community" (later changed to "Cosmotheist Community Church"). The Church's first publication, THE PATH, a statement of fundamental doctrine, appeared in the same year, and was followed by ON LIVING THINGS in 1979 and ON SOCIETY in 1984. Even before their formal organization they adopted as their symbol the Life Rune (also known as the Man Rune) from the Norse futhark (i.e., alphabet), with its meaning of creation, rebirth, and renewal.

The Cosmotheist doctrine has been expressed in part by many men. The great British playwright, George Bernard Shaw, was a Cosmotheist, and he spoke through such characters of his as Don Juan (in MAN AND SUPERMAN), who declared man's purpose to be the service of the Life Force in its eternal quest to know itself. The German giant of philosophy, Frederich Nietzsche, also was a Cosmotheist. His character Zarathustra expressed Don Juan's truth in different words; he saw man's purpose as preparing the way for a higher, more conscious, more nearly godlike man. And the English poet William Wadsworth was giving expression to his Cosmotheist awareness of divinity when he wrote: "And I have felt/A presence that disturbs me with the joy/Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime/Of something far more deeply interfused,/Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,/And the round ocean and the living air,/And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:/A motion and a spirit that impels/All thinking things, all objects of all thought,/And rolls through all things." Another English poet, Alexander Pope, summed up the Cosmotheist view very concisely in the words: "All are but parts of one stupendous whole/Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." The Cosmotheist doctrine may be epitomized very briefly in the following statements:

• There is only one reality, and it is the Whole -- the purposeful, self-creating, self-evolving Cosmos, which has both material and spiritual aspects, inseparably conjoined. Thus, Creation and Creator, Cosmos and Theos, Whole and God, are but different names for the same reality.
• Man is part of the Whole, and his consciousness is one manifestation of a universal, immanent consciousness.
• Man's ordained or natural purpose is the same as the Creator's purpose, which is self-realization.
• Man properly serves his ordained purpose by striving toward ever higher ever more conscious levels of existence, both biologically and spiritually. His ordained task is to advance, generation by generation, along the Creator's path of evolving self-consciousness. In the past he advanced blindly, driven by the immanent urge toward self-realization, self-completion. Now he must guide his advancement.

This doctrine imposes obligations on those who accept it. Since man is not only an agent, but also a part of the Creator, he is obliged to conduct himself accordingly. Since his purpose is service of the Creator's purpose, he is obliged to prepare himself to render service as effectively as possible. Effective service depends on knowledge, consciousness, and discipline. Each man and each woman has the obligation to know his identity and his purpose and to elevate that knowledge, through purposeful living, to an ever-present consciousness; furthermore, he has the obligation to be strong and fully in control of himself, so that he can apply his knowledge unfalteringly in his service.

Knowledge can be gained by diligent study almost anywhere, but consciousness is dependent on life-style and environment. And discipline is the product of lifelong training. The members of the church realized the impracticability of attempting to discharge their obligations in a satisfactory manner while living in an environment determined by values opposed to their own. They also recognized the formidable obstacles to raising children properly in such an environment.  With these problems in mind, in 1978 they began a building fund for the purpose of acquiring land where an environment more congenial to their needs could be established.

In October 1984 the Church purchased a 360-acre site on a mountainside in east-central West Virginia. The site was virtually in a natural state, with only one 100-year old farmhouse on it and no utilities. At the time of the purchase, one family moved into the farmhouse and began the preparatory work for bringing other families and single people onto the land. Wells were drilled, septic tanks dug, power and telephone cables brought in, and an internal road improved. A bathroom was added to the farmhouse, and mobile homes were brought in for additional  dwelling space. A second family settled on the land in mid-1985, and a large building was erected to serve as a church/community center, with a central area for meetings and religious services, a 7,000-volume reference library, shops, offices, and room for classrooms and other facilities. At this time the construction of the interior of the building, the improvement of dwelling units, and the development of other community facilities are ongoing projects.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE: The most immediate need of the community is for suitable members to become members. The basic building unit of the community is the nuclear family, and so couples and a sexually balanced mix of single men and women are being sought. The aim is to integrate four or five new couples into the community each year, with an ultimate limit of perhaps 50 families (200-300 people, including children).

One of the most important functions of the community will be the education of its children. Classroom training will cover not only the traditional subject matter (language. sciences, mathematics, history, geography, music, art, and literature), but will focu on those areas of knowledge required as a basis for a strong sense of identity, and this training will be suplemented with instruction in ethics and religion designed to develop in each child a Cosmotheist way of thinking and viewing the world, and to guide him toward a purposeful adult life as a member of the community. Training outside the classroom to build consciousness, character, and self-discipline in each child will be at least as important as his formal instruction and will determine the nature of most of his waking activity each day, in both play and work.

The development and refinement of the community's educational facilities will proceed apace with its growth in numbers. The same is true of the development of other aspects of the community, such as its self-sufficiency. At this time most of the community's food is purchased outside the community, as also are its electrical energy,  much of its fuel, and nearly all of its building materials. The production of nearly all of the community's food on its own land is a goal which should be reached within the next two or three years. The achievement of energy independence through the use of wind power and available organic fuel on the land, together with advanced energy-efficient materials and techniques for the construction of dwellings and other buildings, should come within a few more years.

COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND OPERATION: Persons who become members of the community are expected to be full-time members, without outside commitments or activities. The community will be self-supporting through tax-exempt donations and through the mail-order sale of books and other materials to the public. Income will be sufficient to provide a living allowance for each member, but there will be no room for luxuries, and no comparison can be made with customary salaries or  expenses on the outside. Every adult member will be integrated into the economy of the community, by participation in the community's income-producing activity, its food-producing activity, its educational or construction activity, or a combination of these.

Although several aspects of the community's life -- those named in the preceding paragraph and its religious activity -- are communal by choice or by necessity, the individual family remains the basic community unit, and each family or single unit is accorded as large a degree of privacy as is consistent with community goals. The individual must accept the responsibility for those functions which properly fall within the household sphere, including the provision of meals, the maintenance of dwelling facilities, and child care.

The most essential attribute of the community is its purposeful, religious nature. It does not exist primarily for the sake of its members, but to serve the Creator's purpose. Therefore, the comments on privacy above notwithstanding, each member of the community is required to subordinate certain personal prerogatives to the community purpose. Commitment to the community's goals, obedience to its rules, and adherence to its doctrine are obligations for every member. Thus, for example, every member is expected to accept without reservation the community's rule against the use of intoxicating or addictive substances, including alcohol and tobacco. And every parent is expected to yield to the community's authority in matters relating to the education and character building of his children.

PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR PROSPECTIVE MEMBERS: Productive work is considered a primary virtue in the community. And as a practical matter, the community will be able to maintain its existence only by demanding a large effort from each member. That is especially the case during this early period of community development, when there is more work than can be handled by the few members available to do it. But hard work and a relatively demanding schedule are things which members should consider permanent features of their lives in the community. The current work schedule is six 11-hour workdays per week, with one day per week reserved for family activity, household maintenance, and similar private activity; and for community religious services and other religious activity. (Much of the work of female members with husbands or husbands and children to care for will necessarily be in their homes, although at least some community work will be expected from every able-bodied female.)

The community is a social one, with a large degree of communication and collaboration among members. At the same time, however, while it remains small there will not be as many opportunities for large-scale social intercourse as exist outside the community. Thus, members should be neither excessively individualistic, making collaboration with other members difficult, nor overly dependent on having large numbers of other people around them in order to be happy. The ideal member should have a good blend of self-reliance and altruism. He should be capable of functioning well by himself and also be flexible enough to work with others.

Two features of the community which may place special demands on some new members are its isolation and its austerity. The isolation is deliberate, so that the community can most easily remain free of the opposed values which are prevalent outside and develop its own values and life-style with the least interference. Thus, members should not be dependent on recreational or other facilities outside the community which will lead to a lot of coming and going. A trip into town for supplies every ten days or two weeks is reasonable; three times a week is not.

The austerity, although unavoidable at this time, also will be deliberate in the future. It accords better with the community's nature and purpose than does luxury. Although the community always will endeavor to have the best tools available and to use them to perform its work efficiently, it will not put a premium on physical comfort for its own sake or on reducing physical exertion to a minimum. Manual labor is an activity which should benefit every member, and discomfort in moderation is not necessarily to be shunned. Parsimony in the use of resources, whether personal or community, should be the rule rather than conspicuous consumption.

William L. Pierce
   

White Zion, Part 2

Our Community
Speech by by Dr. William L. Pierce, September 1984

Having to live around non-Whites -- having to work with them every day, being exposed to Jewish propaganda non-stop -- is not just intimidating and demoralizing in the sense of sapping hope and enthusiasm: it is spiritually debilitating. It can infect us with wrong values. It can distort our attitude toward our work, and it can undermine our adherence to our principles. And the longer we have to work in order to reach our goal, the more urgent this particular consideration becomes. For five years, or even ten years, any person with a little backbone can grit his teeth, shut out most of the poison, and keep his heart and his mind on his work. But what about working for 25 years, or 40 years, or a whole lifetime? How does one keep the flame of idealism burning with a pure light then? How does one pass that flame undimmed along to the next generation of strugglers? One does it only if somewhere there is a center of strength and purity which does not change, a center from which one can draw inspiration and guidance, because it is a center from which everything alien and unhealthy has been excluded.

Then there are the strictly practical considerations of having a place to ourselves, where we can do things that we will need to do in the future, in private; where we can have facilities that we'll need as our struggle progresses. And in the future we will also need a place where we can have the physical security and the economic self-sufficiency which it may not be possible to have in a metropolitan area like Washington.

In other words, we have needed a Zion, both psychologically and physically. And we'll need one even more in the future. And now we have one.

[Aside:] I wonder if I can have the lights out, and the slide projector on.

This is ours. Every tree and every blade of grass that you can see is ours. We own more than half a square mile of the most beautiful land on this continent.

[Applause]

The hills, the rocks, the meadows, and the forests there are all ours.

We've been able to acquire this land only because a few of us, a relative handful, have had the vision, the commitment to our goal, and the spirit of self-sacrifice which eventually everyone who remains a part of our community must have. And when every one of us has the spirit of self-sacrifice which a few have already displayed, then there will be nothing which we cannot accomplish.

I'll say it again: We have this land because of the sacrifices of a relative few. They're people who did not sit back and hold on tight to what they had, thinking that when the times comes that we are really making great strides forward, then they'll give us a little boost. No. These were people who have had the faith and the selflessness to put everything they had on the line for us now, when we're still almost nothing compared to what we will be one day. And some of the names of these great-hearted few cannot even be told until our goal has been reached, perhaps in another generation.

But I can tell you now that what we have achieved in the past few months will make an enormous difference to us -- more difference than most people can imagine. It's not just that the center of our operations will be where rioting Blacks or a Jewish arson squad cannot damage it. It's not just that we can now survive economic setbacks and breakdowns in law and order and continue doing our work without interruption. And it's not just that we can assemble a larger staff in a more pleasant location and keep them working on lower salaries than would be the case in Washington or any other city. More important than all of these considerations of security and economy and self-sufficiency and new facilities are the biological and spiritual considerations. We're adding an entirely new dimension to our work.

Until now, all of us have had to live 24 hours a day in a Jewish world, while trying to do a little bit now and then to make it possible to have a non-Jewish world at some time in the distant and indefinite future. But now we are actually beginning to build a little piece of that non-Jewish world. There will actually be a place which we may think of almost as a very small country, less than a square mile in size, where some of our people can begin living in accord with our values and our principles 24 hours a day, every day; where children can be raised in accord with those values and principles. We'll have a little country which is ours spiritually as well as physically.

And that has a double value to us, just like Zion has a double value to the Jews. One part of the value will be what we will be doing there on the land, biologically and spiritually as well as physically. The other part of the value will be the meaning -- the inspiration -- which that will have for the rest of us as we continue living in the Jewish world and going about our recruiting duties. I expect that what we do on the land, in our own little country, will result in an enormous flow of strength and enthusiasm outward to everyone off the land; of strength to overcome defeatism and despair; of strength to keep on working and keep on recruiting year after year. Because there will be a new light in the world that every member can see, no matter where he is; a new evidence that his work and his sacrifices are not in vain. There will be something tangible, something concrete, something alive and growing and permanent which his efforts are adding to: a community which he knows will not fold up and go away overnight, as right-wing organizations have a habit of doing. That will make a difference for us everywhere.

I know that whether I am physically on the land or off the land, my heart will be on the land. And I believe that will be true of many others also. This very month marks the beginning of a dual mode of existence for us.

On the one hand, we will be continuing to build the Alliance here in Washington, and in Chicago, and in Philadelphia, and in Montgomery, and in Johannesburg, and elsewhere through personal recruiting and the distribution of Alliance publications as we have in the past -- but more efficiently than in the past as we continue to learn how to be better recruiters and as we continue to upgrade the average quality of our membership, and we develop our organizational structure. That is our Diaspora.

At the same time, however, we'll be working on our land, on our mountain. So while the Diaspora is recruiting, the mountain will be building an actual community which will be moving, as it says on the logotype of National Vanguard, "Toward a New Consciousness; a New Order; a New People." An actual community.

Now I'll tell you where I believe all of this is heading. I wrote about community-building in the August [1984] issue of National Vanguard, but only very briefly about community action, about what our community would do relative to the rest of the world. I was brief because I don't like to speculate on uncertain things in National Vanguard, and anything which depends as much or more on what everyone else does as on what we do is indeed uncertain.

But what I think will happen is this: Along the road to the Mulatto world which the Jews, and of course the Mulattos and the Mestizos themselves, are working to bring about, we're going to run into some interesting developments, mostly in the form of reactions to the main thrust of history.

We're going to see, for instance, the growth of a White subculture in the United States. Just as, during the Middle Ages, there were some people with a natural immunity to the Black Death -- to the plague -- so there will emerge a segment of American society which is more or less immune to the Judaeo-Christian poison. That "more or less" qualification is important. I'm not saying that a ready-made batch of Alliance members will emerge. But there will be a lot of people generally alienated from the Jewish society.

People, for example, who will cling to their "redneck" heritage through country music with an overt racial message and who will reject the various Black, Mulatto, and Jewish country singers the Jews are already using in an effort to pre-empt such a development. There will be people who will emerge as a market for explicitly "racist" films and cable TV programs, or for explicitly "racist" printed materials ranging from comic books to genuine literature -- not necessarily literature with any message or films with a moral, but simply material which appeals to people who want to read about their Whiteness, or people who don't like Blacks and find pleasure in seeing them getting their lumps in a movie. There'll be certain towns, or certain suburbs, which will gain a reputation and which will manage to remain militantly White, sort of like Cicero, Illinois, for example, and which will manage to thwart government efforts to "integrate" them. There'll be certain vacation spots, certain leisure activities, and perhaps even certain clothing styles which will be associated with a spirit of militant Whiteness. And there will be a lot of non-militant Whites who will participate in one way or another in the trend.

I think this will emerge in a lot of different ways and at a lot of different levels. I think one will see it in certain labor unions. I think one will see certain elements in the Republican party participating in it, and some elements in various professions -- academics, lawyers, perhaps even an unofficial faction in the American Medical Association. One will see a lot of people engaged in activities that the Judaeo-Christians will denounce as "racist." But these people won't run like rabbits and begin apologizing for being White when they're denounced, as is nearly always the case today. They'll have heard it so many times, it just won't bother them -- or if it does, they'll counterattack with a denunciation of Zionist racism in Israel or of Black racism or of "Hispanic" racism.

Reactions of this sort are inevitable in any period of rapid and drastic social change. The toughest elements of the race, when they finally have their backs to the wall, will resist going down.

The Jews will be expecting this opposition. They've seen it happen a hundred times in other countries and in other ages. They regard such reactions as the natural death throes, a sort of wild flailing and thrashing about, of a civilization they have almost killed. And they will run around pouring water on the hot spots, but not greatly worrying about it. Their main concern will be to keep the various reactions from coalescing, from gaining any coherence, and -- more than anything else -- to keep them from having a purpose, an ideology, a unifying spiritual basis. And so they will be promoting a new Charlie Pride, a new Neil Diamond, to short-circuit the White music fans. They'll be writing and publishing anti-Black materials themselves, in an effort to capture that particular market and control it. They'll put forward "leaders" -- new Barry Goldwaters and new George Wallaces. And they'll be taking polls, having endless televised discussions about the phenomenon, trying to talk it to death, as well as trying to deal with it in the standard ways, using governmental coercion, economic pressure, and so on.

And the Jews will figure that if they can keep the reaction under control for twenty years or so, for a generation, it will lose its vitality and die out. And then there'll be nothing left to threaten them, nothing left to thwart their plan for a Mulatto future.

But the Jews, as so often in the past, will figure wrong. They're going to lose their grip on the reaction. It's going to get completely out of control. It's going to catch fire. Because we're going to be there, fanning the sparks and pouring on the fuel.

[Applause]

We're going to be taking advantage of the new markets for books and magazines and videotapes and music which will open up. We're going to be pouring our material into these markets. We're going to make our message available to all of those reactionaries, and some of them are going to listen to it. And those who do are going to provide a coherence to the whole thing. And the message will be coming from the mountain, from our island of White values in a Jewish ocean. And we're going to put some purpose and meaning into the lives of a lot of those people. And some of them will join our Diaspora, and strengthen it, and others will join us on the mountain, on our little island.

And the day will come when our little island becomes two islands, maybe a thousand miles apart; and then three; and then a whole archipelago. We're going to build a fire that they can't put out. The message is going to be coming from every island in our archipelago. We may not save this country or this civilization. But we'll save something. And then we'll start over. With White genes, White values, a White purpose. And we'll build a whole new world.

The really great thing about what has just happened is that we don't have to wait until after some violent revolution or some other cataclysm in the distant future to start rebuilding the world. We've already started.

Our mountain -- our island -- is the beginning of a new world. And it will be new in every way. Remember, we're not trying to escape from the present so that we can return to the past. Our aim is to establish a base in the present from which we can shape the future. We're not trying to make a simpler, more peaceful, or more rustic world to which we can retreat while everything else goes to Hell. It will be necessary for us to remain very much in touch with the rest of the world while it continues on its course. We're not going to imitate the Amish by shunning machinery. We're going to use every tool and every weapon available to us which will help us get the job done.

Our community on the mountain, on our little island, will be governed by the spiritual values that it is our mission to preserve. So it will be, essentially, a religious community. But it won't consist of a bunch of monks practicing their calligraphy with goose quills and parchment. It will be a religious community using the latest and most powerful data processing and word processing equipment which we can afford to purchase. In fact, we are looking at the specifications now for a powerful new computer which will be the basis for the whole system.

More than ever before, we'll need the special skills and resources of our members. We'll need talented, trained men and women who can provide special capabilities for us on the mountain, on our island. And we'll need financial support from others, so that we can continue acquiring needed equipment and continue moving forward with the development of our community. We'll need a lot of help, a lot of commitment, a lot of faith, a lot of sacrifice. But we have a good bunch of people; a bright and resourceful and idealistic bunch of people. And by pulling together and giving it everything that we've got, we'll win this fight yet. Thank you.

[Applause]

Source:Kevin_A._Strom_20021130_White_Zion,_Part_2;_by_Dr. _William_Pierce

__________________

White Zion, Part 1

Jewish Survival Strategies
Speech by Dr. William L. Pierce, September, 1984

Some 4,000 years ago, in certain parts of the world, there were nomadic tribes who made their living from their flocks of sheep and goats. They lived on goat's milk and goat's cheese; they killed and ate a sheep occasionally; they sheared their sheep for wool; they made sandals and wineskins and other utensils from their animals; and they followed their flocks from one place to another in search of grass as the seasons changed. The nomadic life was a hard life. And it was a life with no past and no future. There was nothing permanent in the lives of the people, except their way of life. They had no fixed habitations, no land to which they belonged -- just land through which they passed with their flocks. They had no buildings, just their tents, so they had no architecture, no art, no literature. When someone died, he was buried on the spot and the tribe moved on. So they had no graves of their ancestors around them to remind them of a past, of a heritage, of an identity. They were tribes without roots. Only the present -- the here and now -- had any real meaning for these people.

There were towns and cities in this part of the world, but the nomads didn't live in them. They had to keep moving to find grass for their herds. When they passed a town, they might trade some of their wool or a few goat skins for pottery or for metal tools or weapons. Then they would move on. And the various nomadic tribes also traded with one another.

Each of them was like a large extended family, headed by a patriarch, with his wives and his sons and his grandchildren, and their wives and so on -- perhaps 200 to 300 individuals in a family. But all of these families or tribes remained quite similar in character, because not only was their environment the same, but there was a continuing genetic interchange among them. They customarily raided each other for women, or in more amicable times they purchased brides from one another.

But even in the best of times, some tribes didn't get on well with the others. One tribe in particular was headed by a patriarch who was especially rapacious and unscrupulous. He began to acquire a reputation among the other tribes for dealing in diseased camels. The members of his tribe would customarily make their sheep drink as much water as they could hold, so they would appear fatter than they really were before trading them to some unsuspecting father in another tribe for his daughter. Eventually, this particular patriarch and his fellow tribesmen had such a bad reputation for crooked dealings that they could no longer even stop at towns to trade. The townspeople would see them coming, and would throw stones at them.

And, of course, since one bunch of nomads looked pretty much like any other bunch to the townspeople, this one tribe's bad reputation began affecting all of the tribes. They were all likely to get stoned if they came near a town. And so the patriarchs of the other tribes got together and made a plan to gang up on the crooked one and fix his wagon good. They planned to get even with him for all of his cheating.

But old Abraham got word that they were coming. And so, in the middle of the night, he and his kinsmen folded their tents and stole away to the west. After a long trek, they ended in Egypt.

But in Egypt they persisted in the bad habits that old Abe had taught them. And so it wasn't too long before their popularity among the Egyptians was pretty low. And the more the Egyptians disliked them, the more they hated the Egyptians in turn, and the more they felt justified in cheating the Egyptians. It was a self-reinforcing process: Jew cheats Egyptian -- Egyptian finds chance to get back at Jew -- Jew feels wronged and is more likely to cheat next Egyptian he meets, and so on. Eventually, the Egyptians were fed up with the process, and they ran the Jews out of the country.

So the Jews were still nomads, still on the move. They still had no past, other than a few oral legends, and no future. And in fact they were now worse off than before, because they had become so accustomed to cheating as a way of life and so disinclined to do the hard work involved in being a nomad, that the life rankled them as never before.

When they left Egypt, they headed northeast into the land of the Philistines and the Canaanites. They sent out spies ahead of the tribe to feel out the country and survey the possibilities for this tribe whose bad relations with the rest of the world had made it cautious and cagey. When the spies reported back that the hill country where the Canaanites lived was full of rich cities, and that the inhabitants seemed to be off their guard, the sons of Abraham decided to go for it. Now, I don't need to go into all the details. You've all heard about how "Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho." The outcome of it all was that the nomads acquired a ready-made homeland for themselves, and the whole course of their history changed in the most radical way as a result.

If they hadn't stolen the Canaanites' cities, and eventually the coastal plain belonging to the Palestinians as well -- if they had instead remained nomads -- then their destiny very likely would have been the same as that of the other nomadic tribes. As Abraham and his cheating faded from memory, they gradually would have re-established their trading and wife-swapping contacts with other tribes. But in the cities of the Canaanites and the Palestinians, they acquired the art of writing, which others had developed. And with writing, they could for the first time hold on to their past. They could preserve their memories from generation to generation. They could more easily institutionalize the tricks of trade Abe had taught them. They could nurse the wrongs they imagined the world had done them, and they could fan the flames of their hatred by bringing out the holy books on special occasions and reciting everything that had happened to them. So not only their special trade tricks, and their hatreds, but also their sense of "us versus the world" became the basis for a religion which preserved all of these things.

And now they were living in one place all the time, instead of wandering with the seasons. So the land around them, and the events and people associated with it, began to acquire significance for them and to enter their racial memory through their religion, through their sacred writings, which more than anything else were a tribal history. Certain buildings and hills and streams gained emotional meaning for them over the course of generations, and added texture and detail to their concept of who they were. It was here in this stolen land that they really developed their sense of identity.

Unfortunately, acquiring a past and a stronger sense of identity didn't make this tribe any more lovable. And a few centuries later, the Romans began to feel about them the same way the Egyptians had felt. So the Romans finally lost their patience, and laid waste to the tribe, ran them off the land they had swiped from the Canaanites and the Palestinians, and dispersed them throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.

Now, for most people, such a calamity would have marked the end of their history. Their remnants, very soon, would have been absorbed by other peoples. But the Jews were different. They resisted being absorbed. They continued to nurse their hatreds. They clung to their past. They exalted in their notion that they were a special people, different from and superior to all others, even though they were spread among other peoples all over the world. And, for the most part, they maintained their identity -- certainly better than anyone else ever has done under similar circumstances.

Part of the secret of their success is that they were different. The thousand years they spent in Palestine breeding among themselves had frozen a special kind of nastiness into their genes. And partly it was their religion, which ritualized their hatred of the world. But more than anything else, it was their strong sense of peoplehood, which was intimately tied up with the land that they had formerly occupied.

What held them together was the idea of Zion. Whether they lived in Poland or Italy or France or Morocco or America, they developed no spiritual roots in those places, no sense of loyalty or belonging or past. Their only roots were in Zion; their only loyalty and sense of belonging were to those with the same roots. Even though they had not been there physically for hundreds of years, the idea of a place to which they belonged provided a sense of unity and gave them the strength to resist forming any loyalties to the various places in which they were living.

Very recently, of course, they were able to re-establish their physical presence in Palestine, and doing so gave them renewed strength. Even though most of them stayed where they were among various Gentile populations, the fact that they actually had their own turf in Palestine -- a place to which they could run if they got in trouble, to be sure, but even more: a place on which they could focus their imaginations, their loyalty, their sense of belonging, even more strongly now that some of their kinsmen were actually there running the place -- this fact gave them even greater self-confidence, greater arrogance and aggressiveness than they had when Zion was only an idea.

In addition to this psychological advantage, they now have also a real tactical advantage enjoyed by no other people: the advantage of being able to maintain a dual mode of existence, of being able to wage war against the world on two different fronts simultaneously. One front is the Diaspora. The other is Zion. If they were all in the Diaspora, they would eventually perish through absorption into the peoples around them: Even though they held out for many centuries in the past, the modern era has brought on a greatly increased rate of intermarriage nearly everywhere. In Zion, of course -- in Israel -- marriage with a non-Jew is illegal. So there they can preserve their genes and all of their cultural peculiarities. There they can resurrect their ancient language, which they couldn't have done anywhere else. Israel gives them the ability to maintain the physical and cultural identity they had been losing rapidly since the Napoleonic Wars in the last century, when the walls of the ghettos came down everywhere in Western Europe. So in the modern world Zion has become even more essential to Jewish survival, by serving as a genetic and cultural repository, than it was in the Middle Ages where its value to the Jews was only psychological.

But if it were not for the Diaspora, the Jews couldn't survive either. In particular, Israel couldn't last six months if there were no Jews in America to control the minds of the goyim and to keep the politicians bought. Then there would be no American jets and tanks and napalm going to Israel to keep the Arabs in line. And so both the Diaspora and Zion are essential to the survival of the Jews.

Today the Jews have the best of both worlds. They live among us, milking and controlling us -- but exposed to certain dangers in doing so. And they have their own exclusive turf, accessible only to them, where they can keep their secrets, preserve their genes, and plot their offensive against the world without interference or prying eyes.

In thinking about how we ourselves can survive, my mind has often turned to this unique survival advantage the Jews have: a place to themselves, plus a continued presence in the rest of the world. No one else has that. And in thinking about this, I eventually became convinced that we had to gain a similar advantage for ourselves if we were to survive.

Now, I must confess that I feel a little sheepish about using the Jews as an example for us. We certainly don't want to give the impression that we are modeling ourselves after the Jews or that we must turn to them in order to learn how to survive. But they do provide us with an instructive example that I find useful in illustrating certain ideas. And that's why I've used the past five or ten minutes to develop this concept of a dual mode of existence: Zion and the Diaspora working together for the purpose of survival and mastery.

I've written about survival considerations in the [National Alliance member's] Bulletin in the past, and I've written about them again in the August [1984] issue of National Vanguard, at least in a very general way. At the same time as I've been developing the general considerations, however, I've been thinking about the specifics -- trying to solve certain problems in my mind relevant to the implementation of a long-range survival plan.

Before I begin talking about specifics, I'll briefly review our general considerations. We've needed a way to make what we're building independent of any one person. We have needed to tie it to a living, growing community which embodies our values and our goals. If the whole community truly does that, if it is composed of the best of our people, if it is large enough and has enough resources to sustain itself, then it should be able to survive the loss of any one person and continue working toward our goals. If our goal were to get a candidate elected president in 1988, then survivability would not be an urgent consideration and we would be foolish to waste much time on it. But, as a matter of fact, our goal lies far beyond 1988.

I've been working to build the Alliance since 1970, and I'm now 50 years old. It becomes increasingly important to take steps to insure that the work of the Alliance goes on without interruption in case something happens to me. Even if I were immortal, however, and could remain at the helm indefinitely, we would still have a survivability problem.

We need, very soon, to have something concrete -- something visible and positive that everyone can see -- as evidence of our progress, as evidence that we are permanent and have substance, as evidence that it's all not just words, or some kind of trick done with mirrors. And for the most valuable people that we recruit, for the ones who have the most to offer in terms of putting their skills and talents to work for us, we need to be able to provide a totally supportive environment, an environment which not only keeps their morale up permanently, but which makes it physically possible -- economically possible -- for them to give up everything they have to give, and put it into our cause.

If we had unlimited funds, I suppose that we could solve that latter problem, and the morale problem as well: We could simply hire people at a higher salary than they could hope to earn anywhere else, and put them to work full time. And if they needed a little extra motivation to work harder occasionally, we could simply threaten to fire them. But that's not realistic. We still depend largely upon people's idealism, upon their willingness to make sacrifices, and we always will, even if we become a lot richer than we are.

And there is another aspect to morale in addition to just keeping up the enthusiasm necessary to get out of bed in the morning and tackle the day's work. We need to have a spiritually healthy environment, or we ourselves run the risk of becoming spiritually ill.

Source: Kevin_A._Strom_20021130_White_Zion,_Part_1;_Jewish _Survival_Strategies;_by_Dr._William_L._Pierce

Dr. William Pierce interviewed by Dr. Herbert Poinsett

These interviews seem to be from circa 1987.

Last Bulwark of the Roman Republic

Attack! Issue No. 65, 1978

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Nordic Warrior-Dictator Was Last Bulwark of Roman Republic

Sulla the Fortunate

Lucius Cornelius Sulla was born in 138 B.C., at the beginning of the Roman Republic’s last, strife-wracked century. Sulla was the last man to make a practical attempt to salvage the Republic his patrician forefathers had founded four centuries before him. His career reflects the grandeur and the horrors of the desperate struggle which brought about Rome’s gradual transformation from a city-state of free White men into a colossal empire in which tyrants ruled over half-breeds and slaves.

Sulla’s family was of the Roman aristocracy of blood, the patricians, who had formed Rome’s governing class from its earliest days and who still played the leading role in the affairs of the Republic at the time of Sulla’s birth. Sulla inherited the physical and mental traits of his ancestors. The Greek biographer Plutarch describes Sulla’s blue eyes as “terribly sharp and dominating.” His complexion was ruddy, and his hair was golden blond, which gave him, according to Plutarch, an extraordinary appearance in the Rome of his day, in which the mixing of breeds was already a long-established vice.

Sulla’s aristocratic physical traits were accompanied by a boundless ambition to advance to the highest honors which service to the Republic could confer, coupled with exactly that hard-headed pragmatism and will-to-action which had animated Rome’s leaders for centuries.

Sulla’s aspirations were scarcely hampered by the humble economic lot which his family, despite its noble origins, endured. The young Sulla was an outstanding scholar. He mastered the arts of rhetoric and debate, so important to an ambitious Roman, and became learned in Greek and Latin literature as well.
During his student days Sulla roomed in cheap lodgings, in sharp contrast to the luxury with which Rome’s young aristocrats, already pampered with the spoils of the provinces, were accustomed to surround themselves. Yet even in those days Sulla amused himself in the raucous company of actors and musicians, a pleasure which he was to enjoy to the end of his life.

Sulla was successful with women. An affair with the rich but low-born Nicopolis was financially as well as emotionally rewarding, for she left Sulla her estate on her demise. Sulla was adopted by another wealthy woman (an increasingly common practice of the day). He inherited the bulk of her wealth as well. Thereby the young patrician acquired the means without which a successful political career in second-century Rome had become almost unthinkable.

Sulla’s entry into public life coincided with a time of renewed tension between two factions which had crystallized 25 years earlier, during the tribunate of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus: the optimates and the populares. Both groups drew their membership from the Roman upper classes, but they differed radically in their attitudes toward the senatorial oligarchy which had effectively controlled the Roman polity since the origins of the Republic. The faction which, under the leadership of the Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, developed into the populares (roughly, “party of the people”), sought to supplant the senatorial regime by appealing to the Roman masses.

The senatorial optimates (“the best men”) attempted to circumvent Tiberius’ program for the redistribution of public lands. In their efforts they used a variety of arguments, first appealing to Rome’s unwritten constitution, then to brute force. Tiberius was killed by a mob led by the optimates in 133 B.C., and Gaius and his followers, who had attempted to continue Tiberius’ program, were proscribed (publicly outlawed) by the Senate and hunted down in 122 B.C.

The populares, who derived wide support from the Roman lower classes and from the citizens of the Latin and Italian cities subordinate to Rome, were not to be so easily suppressed. Before his death Gaius Gracchus had enlisted the Roman equites to his cause. The equites (“knights”) were so called because in the earlier days of the Republic they had formed a class prosperous enough for each man to supply his own horse and equipment for cavalry service in time of war.

By the second half of the second century B.C., however, the equites had long since abandoned their military function and instead made up Rome’s banking and merchant class. Their financial support was increasingly important in the intensifying political struggle, and their resentment at the greater political and social prestige of the senatorial aristocrats was played on by the (likewise aristocratic) leaders of the populares.

Discontent with the policies of the optimates in the Senate surfaced with renewed vigor after 112 B.C., when the leaders of the anti-senatorial faction exploited popular discontent with the slow progress of the war against Jugurtha, the usurper-king of Numidia, in northern Africa. Jugurtha, who inaugurated his war against his royal cousin Adherbal by slaughtering the Roman population of Cirta, a city on the edge of the Sahara, was accused by the populares of systematically bribing the leaders of the Roman Senate in order to hinder their war effort against him. Although these accusations were greatly exaggerated, the war in Numidia had dragged on for five years when Gaius Marius was given the command of the Roman armies in Africa, and Sulla was made his quaestor.

Marius was a novus homo, a “new man,” as those Romans who were the first of their line to hold consular office were called. He was a natural opponent of the optimates (he had obtained the African command by forcing out the aristocrat Metellus) and an outstanding military leader. In Sulla, at first, he found an able subordinate.

Although Sulla seems to have had little prior military experience, he acquitted himself superbly in the Jugurthine War. His duties as quaestor were those of quartermaster and paymaster. In addition, he commanded the Roman troops in Marius’s absence.

In a short time, according to Sallust, a first-century Roman historian hostile to Sulla, he became the most skilled soldier in the Roman army. Sulla and the Italian cavalry squadrons which he commanded stood up well against Jugurtha’s troops, both in the hit-and-run raids across the deserts and the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and in the set-piece battles which Jugurtha and his allies undertook in a desperate attempt to end Marius’ scorched-earth strategy.

Sulla won the acclaim of the Romans by an exploit which brought the war to its close. Ingratiating himself with Bocchus, the king of Mauretania, Sulla took Jugurtha prisoner at Bocchus’ court, with the king’s approval, although it was a near thing, to the last minute, whether Jugurtha would be surrendered to Sulla or vice versa.

Plutarch reports that the popularity which Sulla gained by his capture of Rome’s wily enemy angered Marius and paved the way for the later enmity of the two men. In fact, Sulla served as Marius’ legate in several campaigns during the following years, notably at the great battle of Vercellae in northern Italy in 101 B.C., where the Romans annihilated a great horde of the Germanic Cimbri and their Celtic allies.
While Marius gathered the lion’s share of the honors for his victories over the Germans, including an unprecedented four consecutive consulships, Sulla gained valuable military experience in other campaigns against the Gallic tribes north of the Roman province of Narbonensis, in southern France, and against the untamed tribes of the Alps. The mortal rivalry with Marius would only explode several years later.

In 98 B.C. Sulla was elected praetor, the Roman official in charge of the administration of the Republic’s laws. In the following year Sulla was sent to administer the Roman province of Cilicia in Asia Minor. At that time the neighboring province of Cappadocia, to the north, was in ferment as a result of the expulsion of the pro-Roman King Ariobarzanes by Gordius. Gordius was suspected to be the pawn of King Mithridates of Pontus, who was gathering his forces for an eventual challenge to Rome’s overlordship in the east.

Sulla crushed Gordius, restored Ariobarzanes, and then achieved a diplomatic coup by opening relations with the Parthians, who were creating an empire on the Iranian steppes. Sulla made clear by his conduct during his interview with the Parthian ambassador Orobazus that the Roman Republic was the superior power, seating himself between and above the Cappadocian king and the Parthian envoy. He was showered with popular applause when he returned to Rome.

Shortly after his arrival in Rome Sulla was charged by Censorinus, a member of the populares, with corruption and extortion in Cappadocia. Such accusations against members of the senatorial faction had become commonplace after Gaius Gracchus’ institution of courts to try provincial administrators accused of malfeasance, since these courts were composed exclusively of equites. Naturally, those governors who showed the greatest care in protecting their colonial subjects from the depredations of Roman merchants and tax-farmers, almost all of them equites, were most likely to be indicted.

Censorinus’ accusations were flimsy, and he failed to appear in court on the appointed day. Nevertheless, Sulla had been served notice that the populares considered him a dangerous enemy.

In 91 B.C. a large number of Rome’s Italian allies revolted against Rome’s hegemony on the Italian peninsula. The rebellion was triggered by the assassination of the tribune Marcus Livus Drusus, who had alienated both the optimates and the equites by attempting to enfranchise the Italians.

Both Marius and Sulla served as generals in the campaign against the rebellious allies, which came to be known as the Social War (socius being the Latin word for ally). Sulla proved himself as skilled a general as Marius, and even more energetic. His leadership was decisive in quelling the uprising, as was Rome’s magnanimous grant of citizenship to those Latins and other Italians who surrendered their arms to Rome.
Scarcely had the Romans overcome the threat on the peninsula when Mithridates launched an attack against the Romans in Asia Minor unprecedented in its scope and ferocity. At least 80,000 Romans, most of them bankers and tax gatherers, were butchered throughout the cities of Asia Minor. The Roman military forces were overwhelmed, and Greece and Syria were drawn into the revolt.

The question of who was to lead the Roman armies to restore the situation in the east touched on more than military and foreign affairs. Even more than the great prestige which would be conferred on such a leader, the army he would command might be a powerful weapon in the factional strife which was always simmering in Rome.

It was Sulla whom the Roman people chose for the command, after he had been elected consul for that year. Marius, enraged at having been passed over, allied himself with the unscrupulous tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus. Sulpicius, who had formed a band of young toughs, recruited from the equites, which he called his “anti-Senate,” obliged Marius by unconstitutionally revoking Sulla’s appointment and naming Marius to command the Asian expedition. Sulpicius then unleashed his supporters on the optimates, killing hundreds of them and forcing Sulla to flee for his life to his forces at Nola, 130 miles southeast of Rome.

Sulla reached the encamped legions in advance of the officers whom Sulpicius and Marius had dispatched to inform the men of the change in command. The army rallied to Sulla, stoned Marius’ staff officers, and marched on Rome. Enroute Sulla and his men were met by Servilius and Brutus, two of the praetors, who beseeched Sulla not to outrage precedent by violating the sacred boundaries of the city. Even as they spoke, Marius’ supporters were embarking on a new slaughter of the aristocratic faction.

Sulla disregarded the pleas of the praetors and advanced on Rome, after first deceiving the delegates from the city into believing that he intended to halt outside the gates. Two of his subordinates led an advance force into the city, and Sulla followed with the remainder of the legions. After a brief but bitter street fighting, the Sullan army gained the city.

Marius made a brief attempt to rally Rome’s slaves to his cause by offering them their freedom, but to no avail. He fled Rome, eventually reaching safety in Africa. Sulpicius Rufus was slain, along with numerous followers.

Despite their salvation from the populares, many senators were displeased with Sulla’s uncompromising measures. His preeminence boded ill for the principle of collegiality which the oligarchy swore by. There were, as well, a large number of populares remaining. Although they found it prudent to veil their sympathies for the moment, they stood ready to resume the struggle for the mastery of Rome on Sulla’s departure.

Thus it was that the Roman people elected magistrates hostile to Sulla. Foremost among them was Lucius Cinna, from whom Rome’s aristocrats would later endure heavy losses. Sulla swallowed whatever anger he felt at the elections, since the situation in Asia was deteriorating rapidly. He decided to deal with Rome’s foreign enemies first.

Greece had largely embraced the cause of Mithridates in the first flush of his success, seeing in his victories an opportunity to regain the freedom they had lost to Rome in the preceding century. Nonetheless, the Hellenes affected to greet Sulla warmly, doubtless remembering the ruthless measures his predecessors had taken in 146 B.C., when the Romans had razed Corinth.

Alone of the Greek cities, Athens held out against the Romans, defended by its tyrant Aristion. Sulla invaded the proud city, battering at the walls with all the complex machinery of ancient siege warfare.
To finance the vast quantities of material needed for his operations Sulla hit upon the sacrilegious plan of approaching the rich treasures dedicated to the gods at Olympia, Epidaurus, and Delphi. The Greeks at Delphi were understandably horrified by Sulla’s intentions; his emissary, Caphis the Phocian, returned with the word that the guardians of the temple had heard Apollo’s lyre sounding from the inner shrine.

Sulla laughed off this portent. Wasn’t music a sign of joy, rather than anger? Evidently the god was delighted at the prospect of Sulla overseeing his wealth. The treasures were duly confiscated and sold to further the siege of Athens. After the discovery of a weak point in the Athenian defenses, Sulla’s forces stormed the city, inflicting great carnage on the inhabitants.

Meanwhile Taxiles, one of Mithridates’ generals, was moving south from Thrace and Macedonia with seemingly overwhelming forces. Sulla marched quickly from Athens to the open country of Boeotia, north of Attica. At Philoboeotus he joined forces with the Roman general Hortensius, who had advanced southward from Thessaly just ahead of Taxiles’ armies.

At Philoboeotus the entrenched Romans confronted over 100,000 of the enemy, chiefly Medes and Scythians, although Greek mercenaries constituted the backbone of Taxiles’ force. The Asiatic army outnumbered Sulla’s forces by five to one. Sulla decided to wait Taxiles’ troops out, counting on the superior Roman discipline to hold, while the barbarians, unaccustomed to a war of position rather than of movement, grew restless and relaxed their guard.

Sulla’s strategy bore fruit. After several days of preparation he launched his attack against an enemy that had begun to rove around the countryside, engaged in disorderly foraging and plundering. A detachment of Sulla’s Greek allies from the Boeotian town of Chaeronea managed to gain a height above and behind the enemy, inflicting first panic and then heavy losses on the Scythians below them. Sulla’s troops pressed forward relentlessly, and the scythe-wheeled chariots on which Taxiles had counted whirred harmlessly past them.

Even so, it was a difficult fight. More than once the vastly superior numbers of Mithridates’ army seemed about to overwhelm the Romans, but each time Sulla shifted the right wing, which he commanded personally, to the critical point. Finally the enemy lines buckled for the last time, and the Romans gave pursuit, inflicting great slaughter.

No sooner had Sulla defeated Taxiles than he received word that Flaccus, a supporter of Marius, was moving toward him with an army ostensibly meant to reinforce him, but more likely with secret orders to attack him. At the same time, a large army of Mithridates’ picked troops, commanded by Dorylaus, landed at Chalcis and swarmed into Boeotia.

Once again Sulla confronted a large Asiatic army in Boeotia, this time on the plain of Orchomenus. Here the enemy refused to fall prey to Sulla’s waiting game. Dorylaus attacked at once and sent the Romans legionaries reeling. Sulla leaped from his horse, seized a standard, and pushed forward through his fleeing men, shouting, “As for me, Romans, I can die here with honor; but as for you, when you are asked where it was that you betrayed your commander-in-chief, remember and say: ‘It was at Orchomenus,’” Sulla’s example rallied his men, and in three sharp engagements the Romans all but annihilated Mithridates’ second invading army.

The victory over Dorylaus came at an opportune time. Reports from Rome were reaching Sulla of renewed and bloodthirsty campaigns by the populares against his own senatorial party. His wife Metella had been forced to flee with her children. She joined Sulla with the news that his opponents had burned down his houses and villas.

Sulla opened negotiations with Mithridates’ general Archelaus at Delium. He haughtily rejected Mithridates’ offer of an alliance and advanced across the Hellespont to Dardanus on the Troad. There Sulla and Mithridates negotiated a treaty obliging the king of Pontus to withdraw from all the lands he had invaded and to pay a large indemnity to the Roman Republic.

Sulla was roundly criticized for letting so relentless an enemy of Rome escape on such easy terms. Yet Sulla and what remained of the senatorial class in Rome were in mortal danger. Cinna and his chief henchman, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, had solidified their hold on Rome by a reign of terror. In Greece, Flaccus’ army, now commanded by Fimbria, menaced Sulla.

Sulla advanced to Thyateira, where Fimbria’s forces had encamped. Such was Sulla’s popularity that large numbers of his opponent’s men began to desert to him. Fimbria, confronted with the inevitable, took his own life. Sulla stopped at Athens once more, where he confiscated a large library containing excellent editions of Aristotle’s works, and then marched across Greece to Dyrrachium. From there he embarked for Italy.

Sulla landed with his army at Brindisium, on the heel of the Italian boot, in the spring of 83 B.C. He faced grave strategic problems, for his Roman enemies outnumbered him heavily. His own troops’ term of service had elapsed, and there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t simply go home. Furthermore, the populares were bolstered by the fanatical support of the non-Latin peoples, particularly the hardy Samnites and Lucanians, still unreconciled to their enforced subordination to Rome.

Sulla easily obtained his men’s enthusiastic allegiance, declining a large gift which they subscribed to him. Their spirit stood him in good stead. After the landing Sulla led his troops to victory against the consul Norbanus, driving him and the remnants of his forces across the Apennine passes to Capua. Sulla’s lieutenant Lucullus routed another army of the populares at Fidentia.

Sulla moved slowly up the peninsula, gradually but steadily augmenting his forces from the mounting defections which plagued the armies of the populares. His enemy Carbo, foreshadowing Machiavelli’s terms, remarked that in making war on Sulla he had to deal with a man who was at heart both a lion and a fox, and the fox was more worrisome than the lion.

Advancing northward, Sulla defeated the son of his old patron and later enemy, Marius, in a pitched battle at Sacriportus. Sulla’s generals, among them Pompey and Crassus, who later formed the first triumvirate with Julius Caesar, annihilated the remainder of Carbo’s forces, and Carbo fled to Africa.

Just before Rome, at the city’s Colline gate, Sulla fought his last battle. The enemy, most of whom were Samnites led by the embittered anti-Roman Telesinus, fought desperately, and the outcome was in doubt through the night. Sulla, reinforced by Crassus’ troops, managed to drive the enemy to Antennae, where he set them one against the other by an offer of clemency to one of their legions. After their surrender, Sulla had them all dragged to the Circus at Rome, where he commanded that they be mercilessly slaughtered.

Sulla recognized that his military victories over the populares would not be sufficient to destroy the threat they posed to the Senate’s control of Roman political life; the remainder of the Marian faction had to be rooted out and destroyed. To that end Sulla instituted a brutal and thorough purge of the leading populares and their supporters among the equites.

As the captive Samnites were being cut down in the Circus, Sulla’s partisans were already making their bloody rounds among the men who had backed Marius and Cinna. Sulla’s men were without scruple; among them were many former populares, who now turned their murderous attentions to their erstwhile companions. At least 1600 equites were slain and as many as 40 senators. Their property was appropriated by Sulla, to be handed out to his friends and operatives.

After crushing the populares, Sulla staged an impressive triumph to commemorate his victories over Mithridates. Garlanded patricians, newly returned from exile, added to the solemn dignity of the procession. At the close of the ceremony, Sulla addressed the Roman people, and publicly assumed the surname Felix (“the Fortunate”), in recognition of the tie which binds every great man with fate and destiny.

Sulla’s proscriptions appalled many optimates, who had previously hurried to acclaim him as their savior on his triumphant return to Rome. With the open danger banished, the members of the senatorial class – like conservatives in every age – showed themselves all too willing to carry on the affairs of state on the basis of an idealized vision of the past rather than facing the stern demands of the present and future.

Sulla had no intention of allowing the class and system of government which he had restored to fall victim to its own squeamishness. Since both consuls were dead, he brought about the appointment of an interrex (interim king, an office harking back four centuries to the days of the monarchy). As had been arranged, the interrex, acting under the provisions of a special law, proclaimed Sulla dictator for an unlimited term to enact legislation and to reorganize the Republic.

Sulla, the first Roman dictator since the dark days of the second Punic War 125 years before, fulfilled with scrupulous punctilio the duties with which he had charged himself. He introduced changes which greatly reduced the opportunity for unscrupulous politicians to appeal for the support of the urban rabble, and he limited the legislative powers of the tribunes, who drew their mandate from the popular assembly. Furthermore, he barred tribunes from holding any future offices, which deterred ambitious Romans from using the tribunate as a stepping stone to higher office. Most unpleasantly for the rapidly increasing proletarian idlers of Rome, Sulla eliminated the corn dole.

At the same time Sulla took positive steps to strengthen the Senate. He increased its numbers from somewhat fewer than 300 members to 600, thereby more than making up, at least in quantity, for the senators who had fallen to the populares.

In addition Sulla clarified and reformed the procedures by which one might be selected to the magistracies. A sizable interval – ten years – was mandated for men seeking to hold office they had previously held. Furthermore, Sulla attempted to put a stop to abuses of provincial commands by regularizing the process by which retiring magistrates were appointed to govern the provinces.
Sulla’s institution of a system of permanent courts to deal with criminal offenses was an innovation which eventually formed the basis for much of Europe’s system of criminal justice.

After serving as dictator for a year, then as consul, Sulla relinquished any claims to political power and became once again a private citizen. He retired to his estate in Campania, north of Naples, where he occupied himself in writing his memoirs, which have been, most unfortunately, lost to posterity. In 78 B.C., little more than a year after his retirement, he died a painful death from cancer.

Sulla’s funeral in Rome was the most elaborate conducted for any Roman citizen to that day. His bones were buried on the Campus Martius, the burial ground of the Roman kings. His tomb bore an inscription to the effect that no man did more to help his friends or to hurt his enemies.

Sulla’s reforms were not enough to save the Republic. They dealt primarily with the political manifestations of deep-seated social, and ultimately racial, problems. Then, too, he was the last man of stature that the optimates produced. After his demise, even former Sullan lieutenants like Pompey and Crassus sought the personal aggrandizement to be gained by cultivating the support of the equestrian financiers and urban masses. Sixty years after his death Rome was a Republic in name only.

It could be argued that Sulla’s task was a hopeless one, that he was defeated before he started by the racial miasma into which the Aryan founders of Rome were well in the process of being drawn. Even if that be true, Sulla deserves to be remembered as one of the great White statesman and soldiers of all times, whose courage and guile on behalf of his race’s elite never failed him, truly a man with an iron heart.