Before becoming disillusioned with political militancy and retiring to a quiet rural life where he wrote the majority of his historical and metapolitical texts, Dominique Venner was heavily involved in the fight for French Algeria, both during and after the war. While serving a prison term for his involvement with the dissident paramilitary group, the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), he sought to write a text that would synthesize the vast domain of right-wing thought into a coherent political doctrine, a right-wing manifesto in the same vein as Vladmir Lenin's What is to be Done?

For a Positive Critique is the fruit of that labor, and it sowed the seeds for his future metapolitical endeavors with Europe-Action, GRECE, and ILIADE.

The Flaws of the “Nationalist” Opposition
Conceptual Defects
    Ideological Confusion
    Conformism
    Archaism
Organizational Defects
    Opportunism
    Mythomania
    Terrorism
    Anarchism

For a New Revolutionary Theory
There are no Spontaneous Revolutions
A Revolutionary Consciousness
No Revolutionary Doctrine, no Revolution!

Nationalist Perspectives
Critique of Liberalism and Marxism
A Virile Humanism
A Living Order
An Organic Economy
A Young Europe

Organization and Action
Notables or Militants
    For a Man or an Idea?
    Bluffing and Effectiveness
    The Notables and the Rank and File
Union of “Nationals” or Organization of Revolutionaries
    Hidden Enemies
    Zero plus Zero
    Unions and Committees of Agreement
    Monolithic and Disciplined Organization
Plots or Popular Action
    Behind the Times
    A Thousand Revolutionary Cadres
On the Occidental Scale
    An Exterior Lung
    Solidarity and Orchestration
    New Blood
To Begin
    Theatrical Revolutionaries
    Bases Among People
Craft Industry or Effectiveness
    Craft Industry
    Division of Labor and Centralization