Iron March Copycat Forum Offers Valuable Insight into Fascist Tactics
A rising forum that promises to follow in the footsteps of Iron March offers helpful — but unsettling — insight into fascist thinking and propaganda tactics. Below, I examine Fascist Forge, its members, and the dangerous threat it poses to public security.
About Fascist Forge
In the words of its founder, Mathias, Fascist Forge (FF) was created in Spring 2018 to give fascists “an online platform to make connections, share resources, organize, and ultimately further the Fascist Worldview.”
“The purity of our worldview is our highest ideal and we have zero tolerance for anything that opposes it,” Mathias wrote in a post dated May 9, adding that FF was intentionally “modeled after” the infamous Iron March website.
“Our aim is to continue where they left off,” he wrote.
Twenty-two days before that post, Mathias registered FascistForge.org with DreamHost, a Los Angeles-based domain registrar. This is interesting because, according to his profile on FF, Mathias is a 23-year-old living in Los Angeles, California.
Fascist Forge also appears to be co-moderated by a user named D. Aquillius, a 26-year-old living in the United States. Like Mathias, he is a member of the Iron Core group. (More on FF groups later.)
Connecting to Fascist Forge
I first learned of Fascist Forge from a post in Gab’s notorious “Read SIEGE” group where potential terrorists share fascist literature, music, and memes, as well as Atomwaffen Division and Siege Culture propaganda.
On September 17, Ordained Insurgency (@FountainOfAmmunition) shared a link to the forum and wrote that FF seemed similar to Iron March.
Furthermore, according to multiple introduction posts by members on FF, the forum has been promoted in fascist Discord servers, including a so-called “Path of Gods” server.
The Crucible
Fascist Forge is composed of two major subforums: “The Crucible,” which hosts their learning center and introduction posts, and “The Forge,” which is divided into four sections: Announcements (members only), Discussion, Theory, and Resource Center.
I won’t break down every section of the forum, but I will highlight some of its most interesting — and dangerous — threads.
Introductions
As of today, anyone can create an account on Fascist Forge. However, the first step of FF’s vetting process is introducing oneself to the community.
I have gone through all of the introduction posts created up to September 24 and found some interesting information about the FF membership.
- Out of nearly 70 members, only 34 people have introduced themselves.
- Twenty members (excluding Mathias and D. Aquillius) say they’re located somewhere in the United States. Non-US locales include Australia (3) and the Netherlands (2).
- One member says they plan on joining the US Navy, while three say they have experience with firearms. One member wrote “military” as one of their skills, but they did not elaborate on this.
- Fourteen members say they joined Iron March before it was shutdown.
- Religions of members include Esoteric Hitlerism (7), Orthodox Christianity (4), Catholicism (2), Paganism (2), Branch Davidianism (1), and Salafi Islam (1).
- Eight members are under the age of 18 and eleven members (excluding Mathias and D. Aquillius) are at least 18 years old. The youngest member is 14 and the oldest is 31.
- There are at least 3 ‘clubs’ active on the forum: Warpath Division, Legionary Resistance, and Iron Core. I don’t know if these are IRL organizations, but the latter seems to be reserved only for Mathias and D. Aquillius.
Membership Exam
To “separate the genuine and devoted from the unfit and incompatible,” Mathias urges members to take a “membership exam” comprised of 25 essay questions. This is the second and last step of the forum’s vetting process.
The answers to the exam questions can apparently be found in the forum’s “learning center.” (More on this component later.)
Mathias, in turn, apprises the community of “graduates,” or those who passed the exam with a score of 88% or higher, in a list last updated on September 18. As of September 24, only 17 out of 69 (or about 25%) members have graduated.
Learning Center
Meanwhile, in the Learning Center, Mathias provides downloadable “foundational materials” by fascist writers like James Mason and Alexander Slavros — one of the founders of Iron March.
The Forge
The Forge is the most alarming section of Fascist Forge. As I wrote above, I will highlight some of its most interesting threads.
Discussion
In Discussion, members have talked about how they can promote the forum on Gab with fascist propaganda, although Mathias has said he prefers word of mouth promotion. However, he wrote on September 18:
“…if I were to attempt to create mass awareness of the site, Gab would be the first target on my list. I’d make a few graphics promoting the site through purity spiraling/anti-gab rhetoric/emphasizing the importance of a platform dedicated to the Fascist worldview.”
On September 6, graduate member Reltih started a thread on IRL recruitment “so that this reincarnation of Ironmarch doesn’t die during childbirth.” He advises that:
“…you have to cultivate the relationship. And like a relationship, you have to cultivate the redpilling. Not too fast but not too slow. You can introduce them to the numerous secret society’s running America…”
Theory
In Theory, Mathias has shared information about creating firearms in three threads titled “Building an 80% AR-15,” “Homemade Handguns,” and “300 Blackout.”
All of the threads contain how-to videos, images, and links to suspicious PDF documents.
In September, members discussed propaganda and its role in exacerbating tensions in society.
In Mathias’s own words:
“Propaganda addressing the system and its agents needs to instill fear, uncertainty, and a sense of insecurity — it should lead to headlines that remind the public of the danger and seriousness of our message…
Propaganda addressed to the masses should be strictly employed to increase societal tensions, division, and hostility between various opposing blocs, with special attention given to anything that agitates the masses against the system.”
Responding to a question if posters and stickers would be enough “to cause chaos,” Reltih opined that while these mediums are effective in attracting attention and recruiting fascists, “to cause chaos we would need to use an ISIS style approach, use shock and fear to gain notoriety on the world stage.”
“But that is the extreme,” Reltih acknowledged. “We must graduate the reach and publicity of the propaganda we are using towards lager efforts, like the racial eclipse stunt AWD did a while back, or do that on a larger scale on monuments across the nation.”
Mathias, on the other hand, replied that posters could indeed instigate chaos, adding that:
“The key is to keep the message concrete and away from abstractions, such as ‘us vs. the system’… we don’t target ‘the system’ itself as an abstract entity but rather the people who make the system work.”
To back up his point, Mathias pointed to a flyer created by the National Socialist Liberation Front (NSLF) and argued that threatening to kill local mayors and police chiefs (“the bottom rungs of the system”) via propaganda would likely result in more hysteria than threatening “those higher up in the system.”
A day later on September 11, Relith suggested they could “go full Kathy Griffin” with the busts of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government.
Lastly, in July, Mathias wrote that fascists should engage in illicit trades and refrain from paying taxes as a way to “engage in passive activities against the system.”
He also suggested that his comrades should commit identity theft, credit card fraud, bank robberies, and aim to “destroy critical system infrastructure.”
Resource Center
The Resource Center is a cesspool of hate literature, terrorism guides, and visual propaganda of Atomwaffen Division and Iron March.
I strongly urge readers not to access the forum — especially the following threads — because it’s likely on a government watch list.
Let’s move on.
As you can see from this graphic, Literature is by far the most populated section of the Resource Center.
The Warfare section of the center includes posts to an “Al Qaeda Terrorism Manual,” a guide on operating small firearms, and multiple US Army field manuals on intelligence collection and combat. The latter, unfortunately, can also be found on an official US military website — yet another disturbing example of military documents — albeit declassified and produced in 2001 — falling into the hands of potential domestic terrorists.
These lunatics don’t need access to the latest manuals from the US military to kill others and wage war against the state.
Italo, who created all three of the threads mentioned above, also invited members to contact him to obtain “actual OC” or “actual original content.”
On June 30, D. Aquillius posted a link to a “white resistance manual” hosted on a very dangerous website. The website — which has been on my radar for many months — is rife with guides on creating bombs, firearms, poison, and carrying out assassinations.
Finally, on September 20, ArchRain posted a link to a vile guide on “ethnic cleansing operations.”
Conclusion
This was originally going to be a (very long) Twitter thread, but after reading more of Fascist Forge’s posts, I decided to present what I found in a Medium article.
With that said, I believe the information here can be used to combat fascism online and IRL, especially when countering fascist propaganda and recruitment efforts. I also encourage readers to visit the Google spreadsheet I linked above for more information on the forum’s membership (email for access to spreadsheet). For example, in their introduction posts, most members described how they became fascists, which should be of use to CVE researchers.
I cannot emphasize enough how much Fascist Forge and its members threaten the public. If this turns out to be a competent successor of Iron March, law enforcement officials and activists would do well to keep an eye on this website until its inevitable demise.
Thank you for reading, God bless you, and God bless America.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
(Joel 2:12)
