The Turner Diaries

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The Turner Diaries
Cover of The Turner Diaries (1st ed.)
Cover of the first edition
AuthorWilliam Luther Pierce (as Andrew Macdonald)
IllustratorDennis Nix
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre
PublisherNational Vanguard Books
Publication date
1978
Media typePrint
Pages211 (2nd ed.)
ISBN0-937-94402-5 2nd edition, paperback
LC ClassPS3563.A2747
Followed byHunter 

The Turner Diaries is a 1978 fiction novel by William Luther Pierce, a neo-Nazi and the founder and chairman of National Alliance, a white nationalist group, published under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald.[1][2] It depicts a violent revolution in the United States which leads to the overthrow of the federal government, a nuclear war, and ultimately a race war which leads to the systematic extermination of non-whites and Jews.[3][4] All groups opposed by the novel's protagonist, Earl Turner—including Jews, non-white people, "liberal actors," and politicians—are murdered en masse.[5]

The Turner Diaries was described as being "explicitly racist and anti-Semitic" by The New York Times and has been labeled the "bible of the racist right" by the FBI.[6][7] The book was greatly influential in shaping white nationalism and the later development of the white genocide conspiracy theory. It has also inspired numerous hate crimes and acts of terrorism, including the 1984 assassination of Alan Berg, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 1999 London nail bombings.[8][9][10][11] It is estimated to have influenced perpetrators in over 200 killings.[12]

Synopsis[edit]

The protagonist, Earl Turner, takes part in the apocalyptic overthrow of the United States federal government (referred to as "the System" throughout the novel). Turner and his fellow insurgents wage a race war which begins in North America and spreads to the rest of the world.

Plot[edit]

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A framing device which takes place in 2099 (100 years after the events depicted) gives the novel's main text a historical context, which is presented as the journal of Earl Turner, an active member of a white nationalist movement known as the Organization. After the federal government has confiscated all civilian firearms in the country under the Cohen Act, Turner and his colleagues take their movement underground to wage a guerrilla war against what he terms the "System", a loose network of America's most powerful institutions of government, media, society and finance, which are depicted as all being led by Jews who collude among each other.[5] The System begins by implementing numerous repressive laws against various forms of prejudice: by making it a hate crime for white people to defend themselves when crimes are committed against them by non-white people, even after all weapons have been confiscated; and pushing for new surveillance measures to monitor its citizens, such as requiring them to possess a special passport at all times to permanently monitor where individuals are. The "Organization" starts its campaigns by committing acts such as the bombing of the FBI headquarters, then carrying on a relentless, low-level campaign of resistance, assassination, and economic sabotage throughout the United States.

Turner plays a large part in activities in the Washington, D.C. area. When the President of the United States delivers a speech denouncing racists and demanding that all members of the Organization be brought to justice, Turner and other Organization members launch mortars into the streets of Washington from far away, forcing the President and other government officials to be evacuated. In another scene, Turner watches an anti-racism parade on television in which whites who are not part of the parade are pulled aside and beaten (sometimes to death) by non-white marchers; the march eventually turns into a full-scale riot. At one point, the crowd focus on a white cat, leading a protester to yell "Get the honky cat!" Turner's exploits lead to his initiation into the "Order": a secret neo-Nazi rebel group. The Order is secretly leading the Organization and their existence remains unknown both to ordinary Organization members and the System.[5] Later, Turner's hideout is raided by law enforcement. During an ensuing gun battle with authorities, everyone in the unit manages to escape but Turner is captured after nearly being killed. He is arrested and sent to a military base for interrogation by the FBI and an Israeli intelligence officer. He is tortured in an effort to coerce the release of information, but resists. The interrogators fail to extract the most valuable pieces of information from him, lacking awareness of the existence of the Order. However, he does reveal some information to them. Months later, other members of the Order rescue him from the prison. They inform him that he will be punished in the future for failing to commit suicide to avoid capture and interrogation. He acknowledges the authority of the Order and pledges to accept whatever punishment they impose, whenever they impose it.

Eventually, the Organization seizes the nuclear weapons at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California and targets missiles at New York City and Tel Aviv.[13] While in control of California, the Organization ethnically cleanses the area of all non-Aryans by forcing them into the East, which is still controlled by the System. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of African Americans are forced into the desert to cause an economic crisis on the System's welfare system and all Jews are beaten, lynched, or shot.[13] The resulting racial conflict in the east causes many whites to "wake up" and begin fleeing to Southern California, which becomes a white ethnostate. This deliberately fomented racial conflict, referred to as "demographic warfare", starts to bring in new recruits to both the Organization and the Order.[14] During this time, the Organization raids a black sanctuary and discovers a cannibalism operation where black people kidnap, butcher, and eat whites.

The Organization raids the houses of all individuals who have been reported to be race traitors in some way (such as judges, professors, lawyers, politicians, clergy, journalists, entertainers, etc.), and white people who "defiled" their race by living with or marrying non-whites. These individuals are dragged from their homes and publicly hanged in the streets in Los Angeles in an event which comes to be known as the "Day of the Rope" (August 1, 1993). Most of these public executions are filmed for propaganda purposes.[13][5] The Organization has little use for most white "mainstream" Americans. Those on the left are seen by the narrator as dupes or willing agents of the Jews. Conservatives and libertarians are regarded as merely self-interested businessmen or misguided fools, because, the Organization states, the Jews "took over according to the Constitution, fair and square." Turner and his comrades save their special contempt for the ordinary people, who are depicted to care about nothing beyond being kept comfortable and entertained. Once the Organization instigates a nuclear war, the Organization opens compounds where food and shelter are available—but those seeking admittance are given a bayonet and told to come back with "the freshly cut head of a non-white person;" those unable or unwilling to pay such an "admittance price" are left to starve, as their death would "improve the race."

The Organization then uses both its southern Californian base of operations and its nuclear weapons to open a wider war in which it launches nuclear strikes against New York City and Israel, initiates a nuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union, and plants nuclear weapons and new combat units throughout North America. Many major U.S. cities are destroyed, including Baltimore and Detroit. While the United States is being engulfed in a nuclear civil war, governments all over the world fall one by one, and violent anti-Jewish riots break out in the streets. After the nuclear weapons are launched against Israel and Tel Aviv is destroyed, the Arabs take advantage of the opportunity and proceed to swarm into Israel, mostly armed with clubs and knives, and kill all Israelis. The governments of France and the Netherlands collapse, and the Soviet Union falls apart while experiencing a surge in anti-Semitic violence. Meanwhile, the United States is put in a state of absolute martial law and transformed into a military dictatorship. The United States government decides to launch an invasion of the Organization's stronghold in southern California. The leaders of the Order now inform Earl Turner of his punishment for having failed to resist his interrogators during his captivity: he must pilot a crop duster equipped with a nuclear warhead and destroy the Pentagon in a kamikaze-type suicide-strike, before the invasion can be ordered.

The epilogue summarizes how the Organization went on to conquer the rest of the world and how all non-white races of people were murdered. Africa was invaded; all of its black inhabitants were killed. Puerto Ricans (described as a "repulsive mongrel race") were killed and Puerto Rico was recolonized. After China attempts to invade European Russia, the Organization attacks with nuclear, chemical, radiological, and biological weapons, which render the entire country of China uninhabitable and rife with "mutants". In the United States, the last remaining non-white people are hunted down, along with all of the individuals who are involved in organized crime (such as the Mafia). One of the last steps in the Organization's victory is its truce with the remainder of the American military's generals, who agree to surrender if the former swears not to harm them or their immediate families, which the Organization accepts. The epilogue concludes with the statement that "just 110 years after the birth of the Great One, the dream of a white world finally became a certainty... and the Order would spread its wise and benevolent rule over the earth for all time to come."[5]

Publication history[edit]

The Turner Diaries was originally published in a serial form in the National Alliance publication Attack! between 1975 and 1978,[15] with one chapter released per issue during this period.[16] Enthusiastic reactions among racist sympathizers led Pierce to self-publish the story as a paperback in 1978.[17] Artist Dennis Nix contributed to the illustrations.[18] The main story was originally set in the 1980s; Pierce changed it to the 1990s when the series was compiled to be published as a book in 1978.[16]

The Turner Diaries was initially only sold via mail order from the National Alliance headquarters in West Virginia.[19] It had sold 200,000 copies by the late 1990s according to self-estimates generally considered reliable by scholars.[20][21] Other estimates have gone higher, giving a figure of 500,000 copies sold as of 2000.[19][1]

Commentary[edit]

  • John Sutherland, in a 1996 essay for the London Review of Books, wrote: "The Turner Diaries is not the work of a Holocaust-denier (although Pierce gives us plenty of that) so much as a would-be Holocaust-repeater."[13]
  • The Simon Wiesenthal Center calls it a "hate book".[22] The book has received criticism from The New York Times which noted its influence on white supremacists.[23]
  • Kathleen Belew wrote that some actions in the 2021 United States Capitol attack appeared to be inspired by the book's "Day of the Rope" and an attack on Congress in the book. She wrote that the book "really becomes a clear point of reference if you look at the photographs of the action".[24]

Political influence[edit]

Analysis[edit]

The Anti-Defamation League identified The Turner Diaries as "probably the most widely-read book among far-right extremists; many [of them] have cited it as the inspiration behind their terrorist organizing and activities."[5] The Policy on the Classification of Hate Propaganda, Sedition and Treason of the Canada Border Services Agency has classified The Turner Diaries as hate-propaganda literature that cannot be imported to Canada.[25][26]

The phrase "day of the rope" has also become common in white nationalist and alt-right Internet circles, referring to an event in the novel where all "race traitors" are publicly hanged.[27][28][29][30]

White supremacist terrorism[edit]

The following terrorist attacks have been inspired by The Turner Diaries:

  • The Order (1983–84) was a white supremacist, terrorist organization which named itself after the political organization which is discussed in The Turner Diaries (1978). The Order murdered three people, including the talk radio host Alan Berg, and committed numerous robberies, counterfeiting operations, and acts of violence in an effort to provoke a race war in the United States.[31]
  • Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, was found with pages from The Turner Diaries after the attack. His attack closely resembled the bombing of the FBI's headquarters in the novel.[32]
  • John William King was convicted of dragging James Byrd, an African American, to his death in Jasper, Texas, in 1998. As King shackled Byrd's legs to his truck, he was reported to have said, "We're going to start The Turner Diaries early."[33][34]
  • David Copeland, a British neo-Nazi who killed three people in a bombing campaign against London's black, Asian, and gay communities in April 1999, quoted from The Turner Diaries while being interviewed by police.[35]
  • A copy of The Turner Diaries and other neo-Nazi propaganda were found in the home of Jacob D. Robida, who attacked three men at a gay bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 2006. Robida fled, killing a hostage and a police officer before committing suicide.[36]
  • A copy of The Turner Diaries and neo-Nazi propaganda and items which are associated with white supremacy and Nazism were found in the house of Zack Davies, who was convicted of a racist murder attempt in Mold, Flintshire, UK, in September 2015.[37]
  • The National Socialist Underground used the Turner Tagebücher in forming at least part of their ideological basis.[38] Members Uwe Böhnhardt, Uwe Mundlos, and Beate Zschäpe murdered nine immigrants between September 9, 2000, and April 25, 2007. A copy of the Turner Tagebücher was found on the trio's scorched hard drive after Böhnhardt and Mundlos committed suicide and set fire to their van on November 4, 2011.[39][40] The Turner Tagebücher has been banned in Germany since April 2006.[41]

Removal from sale[edit]

In late 2020, online bookstore Amazon removed all new and used print and digital copies of The Turner Diaries from its bookselling platform, including all subsidiaries (AbeBooks, The Book Depository), effectively stopping sales of the title from the digital bookselling market. Although Amazon did not state a specific reason for the removal, it followed the company's purge of a number of self-published and small-press titles connected with QAnon from its platform.[42] Social cataloguing and book review website Goodreads, another subsidiary of Amazon, also purged the metadata from its record for all editions of The Turner Diaries, replacing the author and title field with "NOT A BOOK", a designated moniker normally used by the platform to weed non-book items with ISBN numbers, as well as plagiarized titles, from its catalogue.[43]

In Canada, The Turner Diaries is one of many titles considered by the Government of Canada to be "obscene" and "hate propaganda" under the Criminal Code.[44] The title is one of numerous titles to be confiscated when discovered in postal deliveries within Canada's extensive Quarterly List of Prohibited Publications, although print copies of the book still arrive to Canadian buyers without confiscation, generally by being marked simply as "Used Book" on shipping labels rather than listing The Turner Diaries by specific title. According to Ryerson University, "Today, officials of the Canada Border Services Agency prohibit publications that they regard as obscene or as hate propaganda. Officials derive their power from Tariff Item 9899.00.00. Most of their decisions are never appealed to an open court."[45]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Salamon, Julie (October 23, 2000). "Television Review; The Web as Home for Racism and Hate". The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2007.
  2. ^ Reed, Christopher (July 25, 2002). "William Pierce". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  3. ^ Harkavy, Ward (November 15, 2000). "The Nazi on the Bestseller List". The Village Voice. Retrieved September 5, 2007.
  4. ^ Shinbaum, Myrna (May 16, 1996), Q & A on The Turner Diaries, Anti-Defamation League, archived from the original on December 1, 2001, retrieved July 20, 2018
  5. ^ a b c d e f "Extremism in America: The Turner Diaries". ADL.org. Anti-Defamation League. 2007. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  6. ^ Applebome, Peter (April 26, 1995). "TERROR IN OKLAHOMA: THE BACKGROUND; A Bombing Foretold, In Extreme-Right 'Bible'". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Jackson, Camille (October 14, 2004). "Turner Diaries, Other Racist Novels Inspire Extremist Violence". Splcenter.org. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  8. ^ Berger 2016, p. 40.
  9. ^ Barkun 2014, p. 228.
  10. ^ Ross, Kaz (March 16, 2019). "How believers in 'white genocide' spread their hate campaign in Australia". Business Standard. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  11. ^ Evans, Robert (August 4, 2019). "The El Paso Shooting and the Gamification of Terror". Bellingcat. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
  12. ^ Ware, Jacob. "Testament to Murder: The Violent Far Right's Increasing Use of Terrorist Manifestos". International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague. ICCT. Retrieved November 4, 2023.
  13. ^ a b c d Sutherland, John (May 22, 1997). "Higher Man". London Review of Books. Vol. 19, no. 10. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  14. ^ "The Turner Diaries - Race Baiting at its Finest". Paul Robinson. December 12, 2009. Archived from the original on September 11, 2012. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  15. ^ Barkun 2014, p. 226.
  16. ^ a b Berger 2016, p. 6.
  17. ^ Goehring & Dionisopoulos 2013, p. 369.
  18. ^ Zeskind, Leonard (2009). Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-4299-5933-9.
  19. ^ a b Sutherland, John (April 3, 2000). "Gospels of hate that slip through the net". The Guardian. Retrieved September 5, 2007.
  20. ^ Whitsel 1998, p. 184.
  21. ^ Cullick 2002, p. 88.
  22. ^ "Jewish group complains over sale of hate books online". CNN. August 10, 1999. Retrieved October 16, 2009.
  23. ^ Alter, Alexandra (January 12, 2021). "How 'The Turner Diaries' Incites White Supremacists". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 19, 2021.
  24. ^ Dorany Pineda (January 8, 2021). "'The Turner Diaries' didn't just inspire the Capitol attack. It warns us what might be next". LA Times. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  25. ^ "Global News - Latest & Current News - Weather, Sports & Health News". Global News. Archived from the original on February 24, 2013. Retrieved March 15, 2013.
  26. ^ "Memorandum D9-1-15 - Canada Border Services Agency's Policy on the Classification of Hate Propaganda, Sedition and Treason". Canada Border Services Agency. February 14, 2008.
  27. ^ Ward, Justin (April 19, 2018). "Day of the trope: White nationalist memes thrive on Reddit's r/The_Donald". Southern Poverty Law Centre. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  28. ^ Wilson, Jason (June 15, 2018). "Doxxing, assault, death threats: the new dangers facing US journalists covering extremism". The Guardian. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  29. ^ "Weekend Read: When calling yourself a fascist is "edgy"". Southern Poverty Law Centre. Authored by SPLC Editors. May 11, 2018. Retrieved December 26, 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  30. ^ Tenold, Vegas (July 26, 2018). "To Doxx a Racist". The New Republic. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  31. ^ Bosworth, Charles Jr. (March 15, 1998). "Illinois Man Sought Start of Race War, Source Says". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis, Missouri: Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc. p. A1.
  32. ^ Collins, James (April 28, 1997). "OKLAHOMA CITY: THE WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE". Time.
  33. ^ Cullick 2002.
  34. ^ Miller, Phil (February 23, 2000). "Black Man's Killer Said: 'We're Starting the Turner Diaries Early'". The Scotsman. Edinburgh, Scotland: The Scotsman Publications. p. 3.
  35. ^ BBC Panorama: Nailbomber - AF Films on YouTube
  36. ^ Caywood, Thomas (February 8, 2006). "Infamous neo-Nazi literature found in killer's room". The Boston Herald. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Herald Inc. p. 5.
  37. ^ "Life term for Rigby revenge attacker". BBC News. September 11, 2015.
  38. ^ "Der NSU war nur die Spitze des rechten Terror-Netzwerks - VICE". Vice (in German). November 26, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2017.
  39. ^ Rundfunk, Ernst Eisenbichler, Bayerischer (November 4, 2013). "4. November 2011: Eine Neonazi-Terrorzelle fliegt auf | BR.de" (in German). Retrieved February 12, 2017.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  40. ^ Rundfunk, Christoph Arnowski, Bayerischer (February 4, 2016). "259. Verhandlungstag, 4.2.2016: Die Turner-Tagebücher und der NSU | BR.de" [The Turner Diaries and the NSU (National Socialist Underground)] (in German). Retrieved February 12, 2017.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  41. ^ Friedrichson, Gisela (November 6, 2014). "NSU-Prozess: Die Rolle der "Combat-18"-Zelle" [The role of the "Combat-18" cell]. Der Spiegel (in German). Munich. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  42. ^ Statt, Nick (January 12, 2021). "Amazon pulls white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries alongside QAnon purge". www.theverge.com. The Verge. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
  43. ^ "NOT A BOOK by NOT A BOOK". www.goodreads.com.
  44. ^ Canada Border Services Agency (June 29, 2012). "Canada Border Services Agency's Policy on the Classification of Obscene Material: Memorandum D9-1-1". www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca. Government of Canada. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
  45. ^ Ryerson University (August 9, 2019). "Canada Border Services Agency Quarterly Lists of Prohibited Publications". cfe.ryerson.ca. Centre For Free Expression. Retrieved November 24, 2021.

Bibliography

External links[edit]

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