Interview with Alexander Dugin – Tremblay

Against Universalism: An Interview with Alexander Dugin by Rémi Tremblay

 

Editor’s Introductory Note: The following interview conducted with Alexander Dugin is useful because it helps to clarify some of the positions of the Neo-Eurasianists towards the current political structures and towards Western nations. However, as with the majority of Dugin’s interviews, it is rather limited in scope and provides very incomplete or inadequate explanations of certain important topics, which can lead to misunderstandings. For example, the commentaries on “Manifest Destinies” as well as the roots of empires can be misleading for many readers. Furthermore, it is particularly important to note that Dugin’s explanation of the Eurasian political structure in this interview can seem to imply an authoritarian, undemocratic, and rigidly elitist form of government. However, it is important to recall that in many of his works, Dugin has advocated a form of democracy for Eurasian regions based off of the concept of “organic democracy” (also advocated by Alain de Benoist), and has referred to the envisioned Eurasian empire as a “democratic empire.” For that reason, it is more likely that Dugin prefers a mixed political system which combines true democracy with meritocratic aristocratism. In order to fully comprehend Alexander Dugin’s vision, it is necessary to read his other key texts. – Daniel Macek (Editor of the “New European Conservative”)

Interviewer’s Note: My recent articles have been critical of Eurasianism, and have raised a few questions. Alexander Dugin, the author of the two books referred to in my articles, has kindly offered to answer them.

Rémi Tremblay: In the West, Eurasianism seems to seek to ally itself with nationalists. However, in Russia nationalist groups like the ones that support Russia in the West were crushed and repressed. What can Western nationalists learn from that repression?

Alexander Dugin: Eurasianism works with different groups who are against liberalism, North American hegemony and Modernity as a whole. These groups can be right or left. It is most important to be against liberalism and Atlanticism. But Eurasianism is not nationalistic—it is a Fourth Political Theory, ideologically similar to the European New Right of Alain de Benoist.

In the West there are two kinds of nationalists: (1) that characterized as anti-liberal, continental, anti-USA, and traditionalist; and (2) that characterized as pro-liberal, anticommunist, Atlanticist, pro-American and racist (xenophobe). The Eurasianists are willing to work closely with the former, but have little or nothing in common with the latter.

The same situation exists within Russia. There are Eurasian, imperial, traditionalist patriots who mostly support Putin and are loyal to the state, and the pro-liberal, racist, neo-Nazi extremists manipulated by the USA (like the Right Sector in Ukraine). If the latter are repressed, we enjoy it as much as when repression touches the pro-American liberal. They are a fifth column.

But at the same time Eurasianism is not the Third Path, it is the Fourth one. That means we are beyond right and left, as we refuse the materialism of communists (accepting and supporting their anti-capitalist struggle), while at the same time refusing “Nation,” in the spirit of Julius Evola, as a bourgeois concept based on Imperial-style traditionalism. Nations are now destroyed by the same forces that constructed them on the eve of Modernity. They have served their end [undermining] traditional Stände (elites), ethnic culture, and Medieval forms of society, and now are of no further use to the same Masonic, global, anti-traditional elite that created them. So, everybody from left or right is free to transcend their views and pass from the Second Political Theory or from the Third one to the Fourth.

Tremblay: You call for a multipolar world. However, one gets the impression that a bipolar or even a unipolar world would emerge with Eurasianism. Wouldn’t it be logical for Europeans to support an independent Europe, independent from Moscow and Washington?

Dugin: If we say we want to construct a multipolar world and not a unipolar or bipolar one, we are going to do exactly what we declare. The theory of a multipolar world formulated in my books and in the different documents of Eurasian movements shows clearly that we support exactly a Europe totally independent from Washington and from Moscow. We need to have some fully independent Great Spaces (Grossraum)—North American, South American, European, Islamic, African, Russian-Eurasian, Indian, Chinese and Oceanic—that could be allies or foes, depending on the concrete situation. We are totally against unipolarity and North American hegemony, as well as a bipolar system.

Tremblay: The multicultural super-state that you propose as the model for future states has precedents like Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. Can this model survive without an authoritarian leader? And likewise can multicultural Russia survive in the post-Putin era?

Dugin: The strategically centralized poly-cultural hyper-state is called Empire. Empire should be strong first of all in its ideology, and that ideology cannot be loose or liberal. It should be strong and based on the new aristocracy or ideocracy (as Eurasianists used to say). So, not only an Emperor but also an imperial ideology of a strong idealistic type is needed to grant cohesion to the whole system. I presume that Orthodox Christianity, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Islam are of such types. But they need the spiritual revival. The tri-functional Indo-European model studied by G. Dumezil should be the main platform for the societies of Indo-European origin. The society should be created not from below but from above. The meaning of the State is its spiritual mission. The aristocracy should consist of “Platonic Guards,” philosopher-warriors, that grant unity to the different ethnic groups representing the supra-ethnic elites, as was always the case in historic Empires.

But instead of one liberal, decadent North American financial Empire, there should be different Empires with different imperial visions. The Russian vision is obvious—it has its roots in our organic Orthodox tradition and Russian Eurasian Empire. I presume that the future of Europe lies in the restoration of the Charlemagne heritage and of the eschatological anticipation of the return of King Arthur. Possibly some would hope for the new Roman Empire professed by Virgil, who thought that Apollo would return and this time for eternity.

Tremblay: You claim that non-interventionist politicians like Ron Paul should be supported in the United States. However, you support interventionist politicians in Russia. If non-interventionists take control in the USA and interventionist politicians control the Kremlin, wouldn’t it become a unipolar world directed by Moscow?

Dugin: We have no possibility of exercising unipolarity, nor do we want to. Now there is unipolarity. It should be stopped. Non-interventionists are the only salvation of the USA, which is currently a tool in the hands of an anti-American elite that uses the American people in order to create global government. Without concentrating on inner political problems there will be no USA. The present masters will sacrifice the American people to their globalist agenda.

Russia is on the defense. Globalists attack us on our ground. Where is Ukraine? Is it close to the American borders? No, it is far, far away. But Washington supports Ukrainian liberals and neo-Nazis, pushing them to attack Russia. If some longsighted American politicians see that this is not correct and that it does not serve American interests, they are quite right and are real patriots.

Tremblay: You oppose American Manifest Destiny, but how does Orthodox Messianism differ?

Dugin: We oppose any kind of universalism. USA has its own mission. It is American—North American. Not universal. Manifest Destiny exists, not in the singular but in the plural. We need to use the expression in the plural, Manifest Destinies: American, European (that is quite different), Russian, Islamic, Chinese, and so on. No American dream—liberal and Calvinist—in its secular and materialist version must try to be the only Destiny for all humanity. The American people will pay a terrible price for this titanic presumption. Every great people has its own destiny. The American people are great, but not so great as to be able to deny the greatness of others. The globalist elite that has usurped the power in the USA must repent and surrender this ill-gained dominance.

Tremblay: In Putin Vs Putin, you talk about Putin being moderately Eurasianist based on his first two terms. In light of his third mandate, do you still have this opinion of a half-Western, half-Eurasianist politician?

Dugin: Yes, absolutely. He is half-Eurasianist. He is obliged to be more and more Eurasiniast but that is against his will. He is a liberal-capitalist, but a realist at the same time. Kissinger is much closer to him than we are, but still we support Putin because he will follow the Eurasianist course instead of his own. This is the hard geopolitical logic that binds him, so he will act exactly as we predict, including by the different logic of simply following circumstances and opportunities. He is a realist of pure type. We are not.

Tremblay: In the Great Spaces you propose, Quebec would be part of a bloc otherwise entirely Anglo-Saxon. Wouldn’t that mean the end of our culture and existence as an ethnos in the long term?

Dugin: The Empire conceived in the Eurasianist multipolar vision is never unidimensional, unlike modern nations. They should respect pluralism—ethnic and cultural. There are no fully homogeneous spaces. In Russia we have Muslims, Caucasians, Tartars, Siberians, Finno-Ugrians and so on. North America was built by Anglo-Saxons, Irish, French and Spanish with certain participation from other European nations, notably German, so I suggest the return to the ethnic organization: French Quebec should be French and so on. However, this should not be achieved in the process of creating a new national state, but cultural rights should be granted in the geopolitical context by the Imperial Constitution.

 

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Dugin, Alexander. An Interview with Alexander Dugin: Against Universalism.” Interview by Rémi Tremblay. Alternative Right, 21 May 2015. <http://alternative-right.blogspot.com/2015/05/an-interview-with-alexander-dugin.html >.

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Manifesto of the Spanish Identitarian Solidarist Resistence

Principles of the Spanish Identitarian Circle: Resistencia Identitaria Solidarista

Translated by Daniel Macek

 

1. Europeanism. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistence is before all a European and Europeanist Comradeship. It is born with the principal objective of defending European identity. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistence considers Europe as a nation to construct in a future which is already present. The current configuration of global equilibrium makes it so that only great geopolitical blocs are capable of being protagonists of history, effective centers of power and decision, and in its turn assuring that its inhabitants be political actors and not mere obedient observers of orders and interests alien to their reality and will. Also, economically, we advocate the creation of grand self-centered and self-sufficient spaces capable of breaking the current dynamic tending towards a uniform and sole global market whose power and direction, in very few hands, also translates into the economic-political power and direction of the planet.

But beyond these considerations, we advocate the construction of a one and united Europe on the grounds of common origin and identity.

Staying within the above arguments would not end up having us exit the logic of the dominant thought, justifying European unity by circumstantial and transitory economic or political reasons. The geopolitical and economic necessities, having their importance, do not stop being valid transitory reasons here and now, but without either a larger entity or connection. On the contrary, for us the unity of Europe is based on its own essence, by way of categorical imperative, it must be a unity here and always based on immutable values and not on changing circumstances.

The unity of Europe derives fundamentally from the common identity and heritage of all the peoples and countries which compose it, all those heirs of the Indo-European peoples which, since its initial Northern European core has extended itself across our continent, and later also on others, giving itself the form and nature by which it still differs from the rest of the world. Some punctual exceptions refer also to more archaic nuclei emerging before the common home, but without doubt they also belong to the same ethnocultural reality, or certain allogenic invasions which in reality have left little more than some demonyms and languages whose true nature is still debated.

For all these reasons we define the Identitarian Solidarist Resistance as an identitarian European comradeship, whose objective is the study and dissemination of the ethnic and cultural heriatge of the European people. It advocates, as a consequence of the previous points, the construction of a united political entity of Europe from the Canary Islands to Vladisvostok.

Recovering our most ancient and complete political form, we advocate the constitution of this unity under the form of Imperium, of a superior integration of the diversity, rejecting the form of a macro-Jacobin state, and, being against the current formula of European Union which we neither want nor support, we denounce its bureaucratic and globalist drift as well as its submission to the United States and its almost total absence of political and military will in the world.

2. Religiosity. The reaffirmation of the values and principles common to all Indo-European religions. We denounce foreign values which have been introduced in Europe by religions originally from the desert regions of the Near East. This does not impede us from recognizing that Catholicism and other forms of Euro-Christianity have absorbed in many cases values and principles belonging to our heritage, and have become part of the inner religious feeling of many Europeans. Therefore, together with a purely Indo-European religiosity, in the form of its depth and origin, would be the religious possibilities which we contemplate for the Europe of the future.

We denounce the presence on our soil the religious forms with a will for political expansion and alien to our tradition and history, which have frequently served as an ideological base for the attack on our Great European Fatherland. Islam and Zionism are not religions of Europe and therefore cannot be nor should be grounded in Europe, and have their place far from our borders. In the same way, we oppose all types of current pseudo-religiosity, based simply on “personal well-being” and directed towards all types of misfits, which with the name and under the umbrella of the so-called New Age, tries to make neurotic and neutralize a growing number of Europeans.

3. Immigration. As a consequence of the current phase of capitalist development where interest prevails over all other considerations, and where individuals and peoples, previously dispossessed of their personality and idiosyncrasies, have become interchangeable commodities, we witness the current wave of people foreign to our land and our tradition. From the economic point of view, we advocate the adoption of necessary policies in the countries of origin so that these distressing would not come to be produced and each person has possibilities to develop a dignified life in their place of origin. We are sure that the vast majority of these immigrants would not be here if they would be given opportune conditions in their countries of birth. For that reason we demand the replacement of the current system of exploitation – based on the miserly interests of anonymous multinationals and decadent local elites whose combinations gives place to the chaotic political and economic situations which provoke this painful exodus – by another founded on the values of solidarity and efficacy.

In addition to its economic aspect, immigration concerns us, and very much from the perspective of maintaining the identity of Europe. Accordingly, before the threat which is posed by the exorbitant number and brutal birthrate of these foreigners on European soil, we defend the immediate adoption of measures to stop the arrival of new collectivities of immigrants, as well as the study and possible application of a program of return in the most humanitarian conditions possible.

4. Ethnicism. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance, as a European Identitarian movement, is manifested in favor of the defense of the personalities belonging to each one of the “carnal fatherlands” which compose our grand Europe. In a world with the tendency to individualism, to forgetting the past and the reality of peoples for the benefit of the universalisation of the global personality and the single market, the Identitarian Solidarist Resistance considers any positive identitarian reaction based on ethnic realities, as we also do the identitarian reactions which are based on membership to European nation-states.

This does not absolutely mean that we support the idea that each ethnicity goes to become its own and “independent” state. Considering that independence is the capacity to exercise a role in history and in the world according to one’s own will without giving in to interests of an foreign power, we are aware that only a united Europe could be such. Today neither Spain, nor France, nor Germany, nor Italy, nor the United Kingdom are sovereign states, since in all cases their decisions ultimately depend on Washington. Much less could it be that each one of the ethnic groups become micro-states, easy prey of the international dominion.

Inspired by the traditional concepts of European politics – eclipsed with the arrival of Modernity – we demonstrate against any uniformising and centralist idea of the state, and we demand that each one adopts a deferential internal composition with the plurality that it integrates. Definitively, we demonstrate ourselves in favor of the process of European unification to be realized by each one of the existing states, and the maintenance of the personality belonging to each ethnic community.

5. For a society based on the popular community constructed upon the pillars of family-tradition. Modern society is disintegrated. In fact, it can be said that there no longer exists society as such. The word “society” is no more than a euphemism for referring to a heterogeneous set of individuals united only by mere common interest; individuals who compete between themselves to occupy the best places in that so-called “society.” Individualism leads to the separation of material interests, to the separation of the most profound interests, and as a logical consequence, to the division of the people.

For all those reasons, the Identitarian Solidarist Resistance defends the popular community as the base and foundation of the state.

The popular community, contrary to the “society,” is homogeneous and organic. It is homogeneous inasmuch as it is composed of people united not by interest, but rather by bonds forged by millennia of common history, traditions, and heritage, who share the same principles and the same fundamental aspirations, which makes it an indivisible whole. And it is organic because it is not founded on an artificial union, but rather on the bonds of common heritage and tradition, a union of individuals who by their nature tend to share their destiny.

The popular community is not founded as a type of “social contract,” but rather on the same superior bonds which make up a family, which is the basis of community. From the family, it is followed in organic order, the clan or the neighborhood, which groups together several families by affinity, to the clan, the people, or the city, from this to the region, and finally the national-popular community, an organism which encompasses all of the previous ones as concentric rings. But on the basis of all these groups, we find the common heritage as a fundamental nexus of union; a common past, which allows facing a common destiny.

6. The defense of the land trough a responsible economy against consumerism and the “welfare culture.” The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance conceives the economy as an instrument in the service of the national community and not the community as an instrument in the service of the economy, as it happens with today’s society, in which everything revolves around economic parameters.

The current market system is constructed in the form of a circle of production and consumption that must revolve indefinitely and at an increasing velocity, since otherwise the system suffers, possibly even reaching collapse. The production-consumption relationship has been closed in on itself; it no longer depends on the real needs of the community, nor on the capacity of environment to support the level of production that the system requires. One produces and consumes simply to keep the cycle of the system in movement.

The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance denounces the capitalist international and the globalisation of the economy, since under the guise of “development aid,” it transfers its centers of production to countries with cheaper labor, favoring exploitation in these countries, and a rate of artificial standstill in the communities of origin.

Globalisation is also responsible for another, even more disagreeable phenomenon: illegal immigration, which no more than another tactic to cheapen production. The phenomenon of illegal immigration consists in reality of a massive “importation” of cheap labor to industrialized countries, in conditions of genuine slavery. The Identitarian Solidarist Resistance cannot but denounce this repugnant slave trade that is hidden behind illegal immigration, and injury that this practice poses for the dignity and the rights of workers, as much local as foreign ones.

7. As a necessary consequence of all the above, we summarize that we situate ourselves in dialectical opposition to the so-called New World Order and the values and principles which this mandates and wants to impose by force on the whole globe, so that we defend the resistances to the process of planetary uniformisation. The first and most consistent defense against this New World Order is the battle for the maintenance of our identity, personality, and heritage, considering as our own any Identitarian movement emerging on European soil.

 

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Translated from: “Principios de Resistencia Identitaria Solidarista,” Resistencia Identitaria Solidarista, 21 April 2015, <http://resistenciaidentitariasolidarista.blogspot.com/2015/04/noticias-de-ris_21.html >.

 

The Nation-State & the Multipolar World – Dugin

The Nation-State and the Multipolar World

By Alexander Dugin

Translated from the Spanish by Lucian Tudor

 

One of the most important points of the Theory of Multipolarity refers to the nation-state. The sovereignty of this structure has already been challenged during the period of ideological support for the two blocs (the “Cold War”) and, in the period of globalization, the issue acquired a much sharper relevance. We see the theorists of globalization also talk about the complete exhaustion of the “nation-states” and about the necessity of transferring them to the “World Government” (F. Fukuyama, before), or about the belief that nation-states have not yet completed their mission and must continue existing for a longer time with the purpose of better preparing their citizens for integration into the “Global Society” (F. Fukuyama, later).

The Theory of Multipolarity demonstrates that nation-states are a Eurocentric and mechanical phenomenon, on a larger scale, “globalist” in their initial stage (the idea of individual identity, normative in the form of civility, prepared the ground for the “civil society” and, correspondingly, for the “global society”). That the whole of world space is currently separated into territories of nation-states is a direct consequence of colonization, imperialism, and the projection of the Western model over all of mankind. Therefore, the nation-state does not carry in itself any self-sufficient value for the Theory of Multipolarity. The thesis of the preservation of nation-states from the perspective of the construction of the Multipolar World Order is only important in the case that, in a pragmatic way, that impedes globalization (and does not contribute to it), and hides in itself a more complicated and prominent social reality. After all, many political units (especially in the Third World) are nation-states simply in a nominal form, and virtually represent diverse forms of traditional societies with more complex systems of identity.

In this case, the position of the defenders of the Multipolar World is completely the opposite of that of the globalists: If a nation-state effectuates the homogenization of society and assists in the atomization of the citizens, that is, implements a profound and real modernization and Westernization, such a nation-state has no importance, being merely a kind of instrument of globalization. That nation-state is not being preserved worthily; it does make any sense in the Multipolarist perspective.

But if a nation-state serves as an exterior support for another social system – a special and original culture, civilization, religion, etc. – it should be supported and preserved while it actualizes its evolution towards a more harmonious structure, within the limits of sociological pluralism in the spirit of Multipolar Theory. The position of the globalists is directly opposite in all things: They appeal to eliminate the idea by which the nation-states serve as an external support of something traditional (such as China, Russia, Iran, etc.) and, conversely, to strengthen the nation-states with pro-Western regimes – South Korea, Georgia, or the countries of Western Europe.

 

Translated from: El Estado nacional y el Mundo multipolar, Página Transversal, 25 January 2015.

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Dugin, Alexander. “The Nation-State and the Multipolar World.” Tankesmedjan Motpol, 29 March 2015. <http://www.motpol.nu/dugin2014/2015/03/29/the-nation-state-and-the-multipolar-world/ >.

 

Eurasia – Dugin

Eurasia Above All: Manifest of the Eurasist Movement

By Alexander Dugin

Translated by Martino Conserva

 

Introductory Note: We should note to our audience that while the present text is among the manifestos of the Russian Eurasia Movement, it should not be taken as a sufficient view into either Alexander Dugin’s philosophy or the Neo-Eurasianist philosophy in general. For example, the ideas of organic, participatory democracy as well as the idea of the Reich or “Empire” in the non-imperialist sense are not represented here. Furthermore, it should be remembered that although it is not entirely clear from the present article, Dugin’s Neo-Eurasianism can be seen as a Russian form of “Revolutionary Conservatism,” drawing its philosophical foundations not only from the original Eurasianist theorists, but also the philosophers of the German “Conservative Revolution” (Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Carl Schmitt, Werner Sombart, etc.), the Perennial Traditionalist school (Julius Evola, René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Mircea Eliade, etc.), and the European “New Right” (Alain de Benoist, Julien Freund, Armin Mohler, etc.). We urge our audience to read the other texts by or about Alexander Dugin on this site for a more complete understanding.  – Daniel Macek (Editor of the “New European Conservative”)

Crisis of ideas in contemporary Russia

In our Russian* society – especially in the social and political sphere – at the beginning of the new millennium a deficiency of ideas is painfully felt. The majority of the people – including governors, politicians, scientists, workers – are guided in life, in political choice by a set of momentary factors, casual concerns, transient ephemeral calls. We are quickly losing any general representation about the sense of life, about the logic of history, about the problems of man, about the destiny of the world.

Existential and social choice has been substituted by aggressive advertising. In the place of meaningful and accountable political ideology stands some effective (or ineffective) PR. The outcome of the struggle of ideas is defined by the volume of investments in entertainment. Dramatic clashes of peoples, cultures and religions are turned into shows inspired by transnational corporations and oil holdings. Human blood, human life, human spirit became statistical abstraction, consumer cost, at its best – demagogic figure of speech in mellifluous and ambiguous humanitarian lamentations, hiding a double standard.

In the place of totalitarian uniformity, a totalitarian indifference has come. The majority of political parties and formalised social movements pursue tactical purposes. Practically nowhere can be found an explicit and consequent ideology capable to snatch man from a state of sleepy indifference, to make life worth living.

Americanism and the need for an alternative

The most rigorous – but at the same time most harmful – world-view project has been formulated by consequent liberals. These forces, geopolitical oriented towards the US and the West, take as a sample for copying the American politics, American economy, American type of the society, American culture, American civilisation ideal. This camp has its dignity – their project is logical and consistent, its theory and practice are linked. But also logical are world evil, death, dissolving, division and loss of organic wholeness. The liberals say a decisive “yes” to that “uniform world”, confused, vain, individualist, oligarchic, deprived of any moral, spiritual and traditional orienting points, which the US – world superpower – strive to create on a planetary scale, understanding their technological and economic superiority as a mandate for a privately-owned hegemony on a planetary scale. This Americanisation of Russia, of the whole world, this slavish submission to the new world gendarme – gendarme of shows – obviously is not very much pleasant to many people. But this opposition more often appears only emotionally, fragmentarily, inconsistently. Peoples and whole socio-political movements are inertially satisfied with the old thongs, with the residuals of different, more harmonious and noble epochs, with anything at least in some way differing from the Atlantist tsunami which drags along the remains of our own Russian civilisation. The hostility to the American way of life, to the famous “new world order” is a fully positive quality, which should be greeted with favour anywhere we meet it. But it is not enough. An active counterproposal, a realistic, concrete and capable alternative is indispensable for us. Conditions at the beginning of the millennium are considerably new. And those who want a different future, rather than that controlled chaos and neon-light disintegration imposed on us by America, are compelled not only to say “no”, but also to formulate, to put forward, to demonstrate and to defend a different, our own, civilisation Plan.

The most massive, most generalising world-view offering such an alternative to the American hegemony, to the unipolar world, to the triumph of West, is Eurasism.

The founding-fathers of Eurasism

Historically, Eurasism existed for 20 years as an attempt to interpret to the logic of socio-political, cultural and geopolitical development of Russia as a uniform and basically continuous process from Kievan Rus to the USSR. The Eurasists have detected behind the dialectics of national destiny of the Russian people and the Russian State a unitary historical mission, differently expressed at the various stages. One major thesis of early Eurasists (count N.S.Trubetskoy, P. Savitsky) sounded like this: “The West against mankind ”, i.e. the nations of the world blossoming complexity of cultures and civilisations against the unitary, totalitarian Western pattern, against the economic, political and cultural domination of the West. Russia (both ancient, and orthodox-monarchic, and Soviet) saw the Eurasists as a stronghold and avant-garde of this world process, as a citadel of freedom against the unidimensional hegemony on mankind of an irreligious, secularised, pragmatical and egotistical excrescence – the Western civilisation, claiming for supremacy and for juridical, material and spiritual domination. On this basis the Eurasists accepted the USSR as a new – paradoxical – form of the original path of Russia. Disapproving atheism and materialism in the cultural sphere, they recognised behind the external facade of communism the archaic national features, behind Soviet Russia the legitimate geopolitical heritage of the Russian mission.

Being consequent and convinced Russian patriots, the Eurasists came to a conclusion about the inadequacy of the traditional forms, in which the National Idea in Russia was vested during the last centuries. The Romanov motto – “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” – was only a conservative facade hiding behind itself quite modern contents, basically copied from Europe.** Soviet patriotism expressed the national idea in class terms, which neither grasps the essence of the civilizational problem, nor did it recognise the meaning of the historical mission of Russia. The secular nationalism of the Romanov was but a formal imitation of the European regimes. Soviet patriotism ignored the national element, broke off the connection to traditions, swept aside the Belief of the fathers.

A synthetical new approach was indispensable. Such approach was also developed within the framework of Eurasist philosophy, within the social and political movement of the Eurasists. The founding-fathers of Eurasism for the first time gave the highest possible estimation to the multi-national (imperial) nature of the Russian State. They were especially attentive to the Turkish factor. The role of the heritage of Gengis-Khan, trustee of the Tatar statehood assimilated by Moscow in the XVI century, was seen as a decisive turn of Russia to the East, to its origins, to its own values. In the orthodox legend just this epoch is linked to the Sacred Rus, to the transformation of Moscow in the Third Rome (after the fall of Tsargrad and the end of the Byzantian Empire). The mission of the Sacred Rus was expressed in the self-assertion of its own Eurasian culture, of an original social system, distinct in its main features from that path followed by the countries of the Roman Catholic and Protestant West.

Russia was conceived by the Eurasists as the avant-garde of the East against the West, as a forward defence line of traditional society against modern, secular, ordinary, rationalised society. But in the centuries-old struggle for preserving a cultural “ego”, Russia differently from other Eastern societies actively acquired experience of the West, adopted the techniques it applied, borrowed some methods – but every time with the only purpose to confront the West with its own weapons. In modern language, this is called “modernisation without westernization”. Therefore Russia also managed longer than other traditional societies to effectively counter the pressure of the West.

From this the Eurasists came to a major conclusion: Russia needs not simply to go back to its roots, but to combining a conservative and a revolutionary new start. Russia must actively modernise, develop, partially open to the surrounding world, but strictly saving and hardening its own identity. Therefore some called the Eurasists as the “Orthodox Bolsheviks”.

Alas, historically, this remarkable movement was not appreciated in due measure. The impressing successes of Marxist ideology made the refined conservative-revolutionary perspective of the Eurasist ineffective, superfluous. By the end of the ‘30s, the original impulse of the Eurasist movement, both in Russia and among the Russian emigration, had definitively died away.

The relay race of the Eurasist idea was run henceforth not so much by politicians and ideologists, how much by scientists (first of all the great Russian historian Lev Gumilyov).

Neo-Eurasism

The dramatic events of the last decades in Russia, all over the world, have made again the Eurasists’ ideas urgent, essential. The West coped with its most serious civilizational opponent – the USSR. Marxist ideology suddenly lost its appeal. But a general new alternative to Westernism and liberalism (which today are embodied in their fullest development by the US and American civilisation – from which even the Europeans, the grandparents of the world monster, begin to feel nervous) has not appeared yet. And could not appear anyway.

The separate pieces – pre-Revolutionary nationalism, clericalism, the all-inertial Sovietism or the extravagant imagination of ecologism and leftism – could not turn into a united front. There was no common world-view base, no common denominator. The occasional rapprochement of positions of the opponents to globalism and Americanisation did not result in a true synthesis of world-views.

In this moment the most attentive minds, the purest hearts and the most flaming souls were converted too to the Eurasist heritage. In it they discerned a saving source, a germ of that doctrine, that ideology, which ideally met the requirements of the present historical moment.

Neo-Eurasism began to be built as a social, philosophical, scientific, geopolitical, cultural current since the end the ‘80s. Distancing from the heritage of the Russian Eurasists of the ‘20-30s, having incorporated the spiritual experience of the staroobryad tradition of Russian Orthodoxy, being enriched by the social criticism of Russian populists and socialists, having interpreted in a new way the achievements of the Soviet stage of domestic history, and at the same time having mastered the philosophy of traditionalism and conservative revolution, geopolitical methodology and original revolutionary doctrines of the “new left” (i.e. those intellectual currents, which were elaborated in the West, but directed against the dominant logic of its development) – Neo-Eurasism became the most serious world-view platform in modern Russian society, acquiring the form of complete scientific school, of a system of social and cultural initiatives.

Neo-Eurasism laid the bases of modern Russian geopolitics, gained a strong personnel potential of supporters in government structures and ministries and offices linked to the military sector, basing on Eurasist geopolitics many serious operational international, military and economic projects.

Neo-Eurasism influenced modern domestic politology, sociology, and philosophy.

Neo-Eurasism gradually became a relevant conceptual instrument of Russian state monopolies requiring a strategic pattern for developing a long-term strategy of macroeconomic activity, depending not from momentary political processes, but from historical, geographical and civilizational constants.

Neo-Eurasism laid the basis of the whole set of vanguard currents in youth culture, gave a vivifying impulse to creative, passionate development of the whole direction in art.

Neo-Eurasism had a strong impact upon political parties and movements in modern Russia – we find large borrowings from neo-Eurasist ideological arsenal in the programmatic documents of “Unity”, KPFR [Communist Party], OVR [Otetchestvo-Vsyo Rossiya], LDPR [Liberal-democratic Party], the movement “Russia” and of a series of smaller movements and parties. However these borrowings remain fragmentary, combined with other sometimes heterogeneous and even contradictory elements (all this makes large Russian parties rather tactical, de-ideologized formations created for the solution of short-term, local political problems).

The new social and political subject

The time has come to make the following step, to add Eurasism a concrete social and political dimension. Neo-Eurasist ideology gradually exceeded the level of pure theoretical elaboration. The new government of Russia is seriously engaged in the solution of strategic problems facing the country, and is obviously not satisfied with the primitive and destructive recipes imposed by the West and the bearers of Western influence in Russia: it needs a world-view and social and political support. The present authorities, their specificity, their social image, considerably differ both from the post-Soviet period and from the times of uncritical passion for reckless liberalism. A new state world-view, a new domestic pattern of polit-correctness have ripened. This is testified by that persevering search of a National Idea in which the authorities are today engaged.
If the usual political and party system is suitable for the decision of momentary problems (though we consider it as inadequate even in the narrow pragmatical sense), in an medium-term perspective (let alone a long-term strategic sight) it has no chance at all, and requires radical reforming. The existing system evolved during the process of demolition of the Soviet model and its substitution by a liberal-democratic pro-Western formation. But today neither the former, nor the latter is acceptable for Russia. And furthermore, it is inappropriate in the face of the very difficult situation the country is confronted to – a consequence of ludicrous policies previously followed. What we need are parties and movements based on a world-view, reflecting the interests of concrete strata of the population, merged with the people, educating, training and defending it, instead of exploiting the trust (and naivety) of the masses for the sake of private or group benefit.

All conditions have blossomed for the appearance of a rigorous Eurasist movement in new Russia. And those who stood at the origins of Neo-Eurasism, who formed the theoretical premises and bases of Russian geopolitics, Eurasist philosophy, conservative-revolutionary politology and sociology, who spent years fighting for the ideals of Eurasia, for the revival of the Russian people and our Great Power – those made the decision to form the new social and political movement “EURASIA”.

Who shall be the participants to the movement “Eurasia”?

To whom are we addressing the call to enter and to back our movement? To each Russian, educated and not, influential and the last of the dispossessed, to the worker and to the manager, to the needy and the well-off person, to the Russian and the Tatar, to the orthodox and the jew, to the conservative and the modernist, to the student and to the defender of the law, to the soldier and the weaver, to the governor and the rock-musician. But only to the one who loves Russia, who cannot think of himself without it, who has realised the necessity of a severe effort, which is required from all of us so that our country and our people remains on the map of the new millennium (from which they persistently attempt to erase us), to the one who wants, passionately wants, that all of us at last would raise in a mighty power, would cast away from our common organism its parasitic excrescence, would tear the veil of mental mist, would affirm above the country, the continent, the world our solar Russian ideals – ideals of Freedom, Equity, Fidelity to the Origins.

Radical Centre

The movement “Eurasia” is founded on the principles of radical centre. We are neither leftists nor rightists, we are neither slavishly compliant to the authorities, nor oppositionists at any cost, barking with a reason and without . We realise that today’s authority in Russia, the President of Russia Vladimir Vladimirovic Putin requires help, support, solidarity, cohesion. But at the same time blind submission to the leaders, uncritical connivance to authority only because it is authority, are today not less (if not more) pernicious than straight rebellion. We are centrists to the extent that the President and the authority act for the sake of the Power, for the sake of the people. And not in a populist and transient way, but in a medium and long-term perspective. Here again we will be for the President fervently, radically, up to the end, not paying attention to small inaccuracies, accepting all hardships and difficulties, which will arise since Russia will seriously be set by the purpose of rescuing itself and all the rest of the world from the terrible threat creeping from the West. Anything more centrist than our unconditional and total support to the patriotic power-building of the authority (even in its most unpopular actions) simply could not be. So, our forerunners, the Eurasists, supported the hated orthodox fundamentalist and Marxist regimes because they confronted the West – the worst of evils. But our radical centrism is not passive. We clearly realise that the present authority in Russia according to the logic of things has no (and cannot have) clear representation of the fundamental strategic purposes, of the philosophical and spiritual dramatic problem which is born by the new millennium – terrible, risky, threatening, problematic, misunderstood during centuries of bloody battles and cruel sufferings … In this sense the authority today is lost and requires help, orienting points, landmarks, specifying which is the task of the people, its most active, strong-willed, clever, idealistic, patriotic side (this also should gather in our movement, to become its core).

Here the roles are changed, and now is the turn of the authority to listen to the voice of Eurasia. This voice is not the servile “yes, sir? ” of condescending and artificial parties, good for chairs and tv-screens. It is the mighty radical appeal of the earth, the vote of generations, the cry from the depths of our spirit and our blood.

Priorities of the Eurasia movement

Our movement spreads the Eurasist principles to all levels of life.

In the religious sphere it means constructive solid dialogue between the creeds traditional for Russia, – Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism.*** The Eurasian branches of world religions have many differences from those forms which have taken roots in other regions of the world. There is a common style of Eurasist spiritual view, which, however, does not eliminate at all differences and originality of tenets. This is a serious and positive basis for rapprochement, mutual respect, mutual understanding. Due to the Eurasist approach to religious questions many inter-confessional frictions can be bypassed or arranged.

In the sphere of foreign policy, Eurasism implies a wide process of strategic integration. Reconstruction on the basis of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] of a solid Eurasian Union (analogue to the USSR on a new ideological, economic and administrative basis).

The strategic integration of internal spaces of the CIS should be gradually spread also to wider areas – to the countries of the Moscow-Teheran-Delhi-Beijing axis. An Eurasist policy is invoked to open for Russia an exit to the warm seas, not through war and sufferings, but through peace and open friendly co-operation.

Eurasist policies towards the West implies prioritary relations with the European countries. Modern Europe – as opposed to the epoch when the founding-fathers of Eurasism acted – does not represent anymore the source of “world evil”. The quick political events of the XX century contributed to transfer this doubtful record even more westward – to Northern America, to the US. Therefore at a present stage Russia can find in Europe strategical partners interested in the revival of its former political power. Eurasist Russia should play the role of the deliverers of Europe, but this time from the American political, economic and cultural occupation.

The Eurasist policy of Russia is directed towards active co-operation with the countries of the Pacific region, first of all with Japan. The economic giants of this area should see in the Eurasist policies of Russia the orienting point for a self-supporting political system, and also for a strategic potential of resources and new markets.

At a planetary level Eurasism means active and universal opposition to globalisation, is equal to the “anti-globalist movement ”. Eurasism defends the blossoming complexity of peoples, religions and nations. All anti-globalist tendencies are intrinsically “Eurasist”.

We are consequent supporters of “Eurasist federalism”. This means a combination of strategic unity and ethno-cultural (in definite cases economic) autonomies. Different ways of life at a local level in combination with strict centralism in the basic moments, linked to State interests.

We should revive the traditions of the Russian people, contribute to the recovery of Russian demographic growth. And most important, awake in the people its intrinsic organic spirituality, morale, high ideals, living and fervent patriotism. Without the prioritary revival of the Russian nation, the Eurasist project has no chance to become a reality. Understanding this fact is the base of our world-view.

Eurasism in social sphere means the priority of the public principle above the individual, subordination of economic patterns to strategic, social problems. The whole economic history of Eurasia proves that the development of economic mechanisms here happens according to an alternative logic than the liberal-capitalist, individualist patterns of personal benefit which evolved in the West on the basis of Protestant ethics. The liberal logic of management is alien to Eurasia, and despite enormous efforts there is no way to break this deep-rooted feature of our people. The collective, communitarian principle of governing the economy, the contribution of the criterion of “equity” in the distribution process – all this represent a steady feature of our economic history. Eurasism insists on a positive account and evaluation of this circumstance, and on this basis gives preference to socially-oriented economic patterns.

Eurasism implies a positive re-evaluation of the archaic, of the ancient. It fervently refers to the past, to the world of Tradition. The development of cultural process is seen by Eurasism in a new reference to the archaic, to the insertion of original cultural motives in the fabric of modern forms. The priority in this area is given back to national motives, to the sources of national creativity, to the continuation and revival of traditions.

Being a new and fresh world-view, just having taken a definite form, Eurasism primarily addresses itself to the youth, to the people whose consciousness has not been spoiled yet by random jumps from one inadequate ideological pattern to another, even less adequate. The Eurasist ideal is the strong, passionate, healthy and beautiful man (instead of the bastard cocaine-addict of mondialist discos, the half-assed gangster or the slut for sale). We are in the condition to offer different, positive values, instead of the cult of ugliness and pathology, instead of the cynicism and servilism before the surrogates of world shows. We shall not allow our children to be killed, violated, degraded, perverted, sold or chained to a needle. Our ideal is a celebration of physical and spiritual health, force and worthiness, faith and honour.

The movement “Eurasia” can become a reality only in the event that many people will gather around it. Much can be done even by a single man, but, as Lautréamont said, everyone should care for poetry!

To an even greater extent – everyone should care for Eurasia!

Now everything depends on our efforts. Nobody is promising just victories, raise of welfare or entertainment industry shares. Ahead stays daily laborious work, often invisible from the outside.

Ahead stay difficulty and battle, loss and labours, but ahead also stay pleasure and Great Purpose!

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Added Notes:

* Rossiskiy, i.e. with reference to citizenship of the Russian Federation. – Tr.

** Dugin here uses the term “Europe” (and thus also “European”) in the common Russian sense – also used by many Westerners – which equates “Europe” with the “West” in the old-fashioned sense, and therefore excludes not only Russians but most Eastern Europeans as well. This must be distinguished from the meaning of Europe in the much broader sense as is commonly used by many other peoples, whereby Eastern Slavic peoples are also considered European. – Ed.

*** We can also add to this list Paganism, for, as Leonid Savin – a major leader of the Eurasia Movement – has pointed out, “Russia is the only country in Europe that still has authentic pagan societies (Republics of Mari-El, Mordovia, Komi) with very interesting rites and traditions” (quoted from his Euro-Synergies interview, “Establish a Multipolar World Order”). It is also significant that Russian Eurasianism – along with Kazakh Eurasianism – aims for a respect for and study of Pagan religions and therefore also the maintenance of surviving Pagan communities. As Savin further commented, “Europe must learn from the Russian experience of coexistence of different religions (not forgetting paganism and shamanism – this belief is widely found in Siberia). In Europe, they use the term tolerance but we, Eurasianists, prefer the term complimentarity, proposed by Lev Gumilev, meaning a subconscious sympathy between different ethnic groups.” – Ed.

 

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Dugin, Alexander. “Eurasa Above All.” Arctogaia, 1 January 2001. <http://arctogaia.com/public/eng/Manifesto.html >.

See also: “Main Principles of Eurasist Policy” by Alexander Dugin

 

The Turning Point? – Benoist

The Turning Point?

By Alain de Benoist

Translated from the French by Tom Sunic

 

Centuries never immediately acquire a character that can reward them with a right spot in history. Thus the 20^th century did not really start until 1914. Will the 21^st century be labeled as “the 2015 century”? Without wishing to predict the future, which remains by definition unpredictable, we can try to look at today’s events, which in turn, can help us sketch the general framework of the future. One thing remains certain though: never has the world been so uncertain, never have we witnessed such across -the -board upheavals. In each domain decks of cards are being shuffled and reshuffled. With the old issues disappearing, new ones keep popping up on the horizon. Which are these main driving forces?

The background scene is pretty well known by all. Among the major problems emerging in the coming decades, four, at least, will prove to be crucial: the inevitable depletion of natural resources; the future of international migrations and inter-ethnic relations; the rise of new types of warfare (war for oil and war for water, space warfare, and cyber warfare), including the planned merging of electronics and living beings. What about the rest of the things?

Will the 21st century be a Eurasian century? The United States has obsessive fear of seeing an assertive China-Russia alliance as a prelude to the constitution of a large continental bloc. Having been embarked on a series of geopolitical wars of aggression, it will do everything to encircle China and Russia, to impose the Trans-Atlantic “Free Trade” Agreement designed primarily to cut off Europe from Russia, to manipulate artificially the price of oil, and it will do so with its habitual brutality based on the principle: “If you are not our vassals, you are against us.” Events in Ukraine, a country which is the real geostrategic pivot of Eurasia, have already helped reactivate the Cold War — which had never really come to an end in the first place. The Maidan Square “revolution” has been from the outset more anti-Russian than pro-European, but it was the Americans who eventually drew benefit from it. The United States is prepared for anything, absolutely anything in order to uphold its status of “the indispensable nation.”

“De-Americanization of the World”

Russia, for its part, is seeking to implement a new geopolitical axis with Beijing and Tehran, a factor of multipolar balance of power opposed to the Atlanticist endeavors. The Chinese, after long procrastination, are no longer hiding their desire to “de- Americanize the world.” Yet, the future of Russia, a great power, albeit still fragile, in a similar way as China, with its own inner contradictions, remains uncertain. Countries of Eastern Europe are still hesitant as to which path to follow—all the more so as Germany is seeking to replace the former USSR as a federating factor in Eastern and Central Europe.

We are witnessing a restructuring of the forms of world domination. The United States, with its financial markets, its armed forces, its language and its culture industries remains the leading world power. Its economic impact, however, is decreasing bit by bit (its share of global industrial output has fallen from 45% in 1945 to 17.5% today), with the dollar representing today only a third of world trade in comparison to more than a half in 2000. The process of “de- dollarization” has already and simultaneously begun, in oil and gas trading and on the monetary front. Russia and China, emulated by other Third World countries, are using more and more their national currencies in trade and investment. The project of trade in energy and raw materials, without resorting to the dollar, is beginning to take shape. Meanwhile, the purchase of gold is gathering momentum. The advent of a new international reserve currency, designed to replace the dollar, seems inevitable.

The total debt of the United States has now reached a staggering $60 trillion figure (400% of GDP. i.e. public debt, private debt, corporate debt and household debt), which, for all intent and purposes, is no longer repayable. Other nations, trapped in the cauldron of debt, also run the risk of default. As a leading figure of a growth company, albeit with no growth in sight, Europe, which is already on the brink of recession, appears now to be close to collapse. The crisis of 2008 was only a dress rehearsal. A bubble in government bonds of all OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries keeps swelling. There are today over 100 trillion dollars’ worth of bonds and more than 555 trillion dollars in derivatives. What will happen when this “bond bubble” burst?

Self-Destruction of Capitalism

The fact of the matter is that capitalism has become incapable of continuing the “development of its logic within the framework shaped ironically by the logic of its own development” (Francis Cousin). To offset its declining level of performance, capitalism must constantly increase the volume of its profit, that is to say, it must constantly expand the scope of its trade opportunities. In order to insure, however, the free flow of goods and commodities, it must raise its productivity level, which in turn means lowering the share of living labor that has been domesticated through the wage labor system. Hence the proliferation of “superfluous people” — i.e., the unemployed. How to sell ever more and more to customers who are being forced to earn less and less with their wages? Conversely, how to deal with the zero marginal costs of digital goods and services? Capitalism is now facing the fundamental problem of the devaluation of capital value. The flight into the loan system and into calculated obsolescence, followed by the race into financial speculation and “derivatives,” has its limits. The model of consumerism through credit is coming to an end. Having destroyed everything, capitalism, just like a scorpion, is bound to destroy itself.

Saturation of the market, the explosion of debt, the downward trend in the rate of profit, the decline of Europe, the widespread rise of false consciousness, the activation of a sub-chaotic process of de-civilization — the world seems to have entered into an implosive and terminal stage. Can we get out of it other than by war?

It is no longer unreasonable to think that the war is approaching and that it will be a new world war. This will not be a “clash of civilizations” (for this to happen one needs some civilizations), nor a war between “Islam” and the “West.” Again it will be a war between the East and the West. A “final battle” between the powers of the Earth and the powers of the Sea, between the continental powers and thalassocratic powers, between the money system and the principle of reality. NATO, which has become an offensive military alliance servicing the American wars, remains the most threatening coalition to world peace. A sign went out when Vladimir Putin was labeled by the Americans as the main enemy. On December 4, 2014, the House of Representatives passed a resolution amounting to the declaration of war against Russia. The alternative is war.

 

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De Benoist, Alain. “The Turning Point?” The Occidental Observer, 21 February 2015. <http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/02/the-turning-point/ >.

 

Main Principles of Eurasist Policy – Dugin

Main Principles of Eurasist Policy

By Alexander Dugin

Translated by Martino Conserva

 

1. Three patterns (Soviet, pro-Western, Eurasist)

In modern Russia there exist three basic, reciprocally conflicting patterns of state strategy both in the sphere of foreign policy, and in the field of domestic policy. These three patterns form the modern system of political co-ordinates in which any political decision of the Russian government, any international step, any serious social, economic or juridical problem is decomposed.

The first pattern represents the inertial cliché of the Soviet (mainly later Soviet) period. It has somehow taken roots in the psychology of some Russian managing systems, often unconsciously, pushing them into adopting such or such decision on the basis of the precedents. This pattern is supported with the “relevant” argument: «It worked earlier, it will work also now». It concerns not only those political leaders who consciously exploit the nostalgic complex of the Russian citizens. The Soviet reference pattern is much wider and deeper than the structures of the KPFR [Communist Party of the Russian Federation], which now stands at the rim of executive power, far from the decisional centres. Everywhere politicians and officials, formally not identifying themselves in any way with communism, are guided by it. It is an effect of education, life experience, formation. In order to understand the substance of the undergoing processes in Russian politics, it is necessary to admit this “unconscious sovietism”. The second pattern is the liberal-democrat, pro-American one. It started taking shape with the beginning of “perestroyka” and became some kind of dominant ideology in the first half of the 1990s. As a rule, the so-called liberal-reformers and the political forces close to them identify themselves with it. This pattern is based on choosing as system of reading of the American socio-political device, copying it on the Russian ground and following US national interests in international issues. Such pattern has the advantage to allow to lean on the quite real “foreign present”, as against the virtual “domestic past” around which the first pattern gravitates. The argument here too is rather simple: «It works for them, it will work for us too». Here it is important to stress that we are not simply talking about “foreign experience”, but about the orientation towards the US, as to the flagship of the successful Western capitalist world.

These two patterns (plus their manifold variations) are diffusely represented in Russian politics. Since the end of the 1980s all basic world-view conflicts, discussions and political fights takes place between the bearers of these two views.

The third pattern is much less known. It can be defined as “eurasist”. We are dealing here with much more complex operations, than simply copying the Soviet or American experience. This pattern refers both to the domestic past and to the foreign present in terms of differentiation: it derives something from our political history, something from the reality of modern societies. The Eurasist pattern recognises that Russia (as a State, as a people, as a culture) is an autonomous civilisation value, that she should save its uniqueness, independence and power in that that became, having put at the service of this purpose any doctrine, system, mechanism and political technique which can to this encourage. Eurasism, in this way, is an original “patriotic pragmatism”, free from any dogmatics – be it Soviet or liberal. But at the same time, the wideness and flexibility of the Eurasist approach do not prevent this theory from being conceptually systematic, possessing all the marks of an organic, consequent, internally consistent world-view.

As the two former orthodox patterns show their unfitness, Eurasism becomes more and more popular. The Soviet pattern operates with obsolete political, economic and social realities, it exploits nostalgia and inertness, it lacks a sober analysis of the new international situation and the real development of world economic trends. The pro-American liberal pattern, in turn, cannot be realised in Russia by definition, being an organic part of another civilisation, alien to Russia. This is well understood in the West too, where nobody disguises their preference to see not a prospering and safe Russia, but, on the contrary, a weakened Russia, submerged in the abyss of chaos and corruption.

Therefore today the Eurasist pattern becomes most urgent, most demanded by the society.

So we must take a closer look at it.

2. Eurasism and Russian foreign policy

Let us formulate the basic political principles of modern Russian Eurasism.

We shall start from foreign policies.

As in every political field, also in foreign policy Eurasism proposes to follow the third path – neither sovietism, nor americanism. It means that Russian foreign policies should not directly reconstruct the diplomatic profile of the Soviet period (rigid opposition to the West, recovering a strategic partnership with “rogue countries” – North Korea, Iraq, Cuba etc.) while at the same time it must not blindly follow the American advisors. Eurasism offers its own foreign policy doctrine. Its essence can be summarised as follows.

Contemporary Russia can be saved as an autonomous and independent political reality, as a valuable subject of international policy, only in the conditions of a multipolar world. Consenting to the unipolar American-centred world is impossible for Russia, since in such world she could be but one of the objects of globalisation, inevitably losing her independence and originality. The opposition to unipolar globalisation, the assertion of the multipolar pattern is the major imperative of contemporary Russian foreign policies. This condition must not be put into doubt by any political forces: and from this follows that the propagandists of American-centred globalisation inside Russia must be (at least morally) delegitimized. The construction of the multipolar world (vital for Russia) is feasible only through a system of strategic alliances. Russia alone cannot cope with this problem, not disposing of sufficient resources for complete autarchy. Therefore her success in many respects depends on the adequacy and activity of her foreign policy.

In the modern world there are some geopolitical subjects which, due historical and civilisation reasons, also are vitally interested in multipolarity. In the situation now taking shape these subjects represent Russia’s natural partners.

They are divided in some categories.

The first category: powerful regional formations (countries or group of countries), whose relations with Russia can be conveniently expressed by the term “complementary”. It means that these countries own something vital for Russia, while Russia owns something extremely indispensable for them. As a result, such strategic exchange of potentials strengthens both geopolitical subjects. To this category (symmetrically complementary) belong the European Union, Japan, Iran, India. All these geopolitical realities can quite reasonably claim to a role of autonomous subjects in conditions of multipolarity, while American-centrism deprives them of this possibility, reducing them to mere objects. As the new Russia cannot be presented as an ideological enemy (that which ensured the US their major argument for drawing Europe and Japan into their orbit, and confounded the USSR into being pulled together with Islamic Iran in the “cold war” period), the imperative of complete subordination of these countries to American geopolitics is practically no more substantiated with anything (except for historical inertia). Hence, the contradictions between the US and the powers reciprocally complementary to Russia will be continuously aggravated.

If Russia will prove to be active and will substantiate with her potential the multipolar trend, finding for each of these geopolitical formations the right arguments and differentiated conditions for strategic alliance, the club of the supporters of multipolarity can become mighty and influential enough to efficiently achieve the realisation of its own project of future world system.

To each of these powers Russia has what to offer – resources, strategic potential of weapons, political weight. In exchange Russia will receive, on the one hand, economic and technological sponsorship on behalf of the European Union and Japan, on the other hand – political-strategic partnership in the South on behalf of Iran and India.

Eurasism conceptualises such foreign-policy course and substantiates it by the scientific methodology of geopolitics.

The second category: geopolitical formations being interested in multipolarity, but not being symmetrically complementary to Russia. These are China, Pakistan, the Arab countries. The traditional policies of these geopolitical subjects have an intermediate character, but strategic partnership with Russia is not their major priority. Moreover, the Eurasist alliance of Russia with the countries of the first category strengthens the traditional rivals of the countries of the second category at the regional level. For example, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have serious contradictions with Iran, as China with Japan and India. On a broader scale, the relations of Russia with China represent a special case, complicated by demographic problems, by the heightened interest of China to the scarcely populated territories of Siberia, and also the by absence at China of a serious technological and financial potential able to positively solve the major problem for Russia of technological assimilation of Siberia.

All the countries of the second category are delivered before necessity to manoeuvre between America-centred unipolarity (which does not promise anything good for them) and Eurasism.

With regard to the countries of this category Russia must act with the utmost caution – not including them in the Eurasist project, but at the same time aiming at neutralising as much as possible the negative potential of their reaction and actively countering their active inclusion in the process of unipolar globalisation (for which there are enough reasons).

The third category represents the countries of the Third World which do not possess enough geopolitical potential to claim even to the status of limited subjects. Concerning these countries Russia should follow differentiated policies, contributing to their geopolitical integration in zones of “common prosperity”, under the control of the mighty partners of Russia within the Eurasian bloc. This means that in the Pacific zone it is convenient for Russia to favour the strengthening of the Japanese presence. In Asia it is necessary to encourage the geopolitical ambitions of India and Iran. It is also necessary to contribute to expanding the European Union influence in the Arab world and Africa as a whole. The same states which are included into a traditional orbit of Russian influence must naturally remain there or be brought back into it. To this effect the policy of integration of the countries of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] to the Eurasian Union is directed.

The fourth category: the US and the countries of the American continent laying under US control. The international Eurasist policies of Russia must be oriented to show by any means the US the inconsistency of the unipolar world, the conflicting character and irresponsibility of all process of American-centred globalisation. Rigidly and actively (using to this purpose, first of all, the instrument of the Eurasian alliance) opposing such globalisation, Russia should on the contrary support the isolationist tendency in the US, saluting with favour the limitation of US geopolitical interests to the American continent. The US, as the strongest regional power, whose circle of strategic interest is disposed between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, can even be a strategic partner for an Eurasist Russia. Moreover, such America will be extremely desirable for Russia, as she will limit Europe, the Pacific region, and also the Islamic world and China, in case their aspiration were to follow a path of unipolar globalisation on the basis of their own geopolitical system. And if unipolar globalisation will keep being staged, it is Russia’s interest to back the anti-American mood in Southern and Central America, using, however, a much more flexible and wider world-view and geopolitical device than Marxism. In the same channel lays the policy of priority work with anti-American political circles in Canada and Mexico. Possibly also using in this direction the lobbyist activity of the Eurasian diasporas in the US.

3. Eurasism and domestic policy

Eurasism in domestic policy means following some major directions.

The integration of CIS countries into a united Eurasian Union is the major strategic imperative of Eurasism. The minimal strategic volume indispensable for starting a serious international activity to the creation of a multipolar world is not the Russian Federation, but the CIS taken as a single strategic reality, fastened by a single will and a common civilisation purpose.

The political system of the Eurasian Union in the most logical way is founded on the “democracy of participation” (the “demotia” of the classical Eurasists), the accent being not on the quantitative, but on the qualitative aspect of representation. The representative authority should mirror the qualitative structure of the Eurasian society, instead of the average quantitative statistical indicators based on the efficiency of pre-election shows. Special attention should be given to the representation of ethnoses and religious confessions. The “democracy of participation” must be organically integrated with a definite fraction of individual responsibility as much as possible expressed in strategic areas. The Supreme Leader of the Eurasian Union must concentrate the common will to the achievement of power and prosperity of the state.*

The principle of the social imperative should be combined with the principle of personal freedom in a proportion essentially differing as much from liberal-democratic recipes, as from the impersonal collectivism of the Marxists. Eurasism supposes here the preservation of a definite balance, with a significant role of the public factor.

In general, the active development of the social principle is a constant feature of the Eurasian history. It is shown in our psychology, ethics, religion. But as against the Marxist patterns the social principle should be affirmed as something qualitative, differentiated, linked with the concrete national, psychological, cultural and religious setting. The social principle must not suffocate, but strengthen the private principle, giving it a qualitative background. The qualitative understanding of the social factor allows precisely to define the golden mean between the hyper-individualism of bourgeois West and the hyper-collectivism of socialist East.

In the administrative system Eurasism insists on the model of “Eurasist federalism”. This supposes choosing as the basic category for building the Federation not the territories, but the ethnoses. Having separated the principle of ethno-cultural autonomy from the territorial principle, Eurasist federalism will forever liquidate the same reasons for separatism. So as a compensation the peoples of the Eurasian Union receive the possibility of maximal development of ethnic, religious and even, in some definite issues, juridical independence. The undoubted strategic unity in Eurasist federalism is accompanied by ethnic plurality, by the emphasis on the juridical element of the “rights of the peoples”. **

The strategic control of the space of the Eurasian Union is ensured by the unity of management and federal strategic districts, in whose composition various formations can enter – from ethno-cultural to territorial. The immediate differentiation of territories into several levels will add flexibility, adaptability and plurality to the system of administrative management in combination with rigid centralism in the strategic sphere.

The Eurasian society should be founded on the principle of a revived moral possessing both common features and concrete forms linked to the specificity of the ethno-confessional context. The principles of naturalness, purity, restraint, respect for the rules, liability, healthy life, righteousness and truthfulness are common to all traditional faiths of Eurasia. These undeniable moral values must be given the status of state norms. Scandalous social vices, impudent and public violation of moral foundations should be ruthlessly rooted out.

The armed forces of Eurasia and the power ministries and offices must be considered as the strategic skeleton of the civilisation. The social role of the militaries should increase, it is necessary to restore their prestige and public respect.

On the demographic plan is indispensable to achieve the “proliferation of the Eurasian population”, morally, materially and psychologically encouraging having many children, making of it the Eurasian social standard.

In the field of education it is necessary to strengthen the moral and scientific education of youth in the spirit of faithfulness to historical roots, loyalty to the Eurasist idea, liability, virility, creative activity.

The activity of the informational sector of the Eurasist society must be based on the strict observance of civilisation priorities in making light upon domestic and foreign events. The principles of formation and intellectual and moral education should be set above the principles of entertainment or commercial benefit. The principle of freedom of speech must be combined with the imperative of liability for the freely spoken words.

Eurasism supposes the creation of a society of a mobilisation kind, where the principles of creation and social optimism should be the standard of human life. The world-view should uncover the potential possibilities of the man, enabling everyone – overcoming (internal and external) inertia and limitation – to express his unique personality in the service of society. At the basis of the Eurasist approach to the social question lays the principle of a balance between state and private. This balance is defined by the following logic: all scale, related to strategic sphere (military-industrial complex, education, safety, peace, moral and physical health of a nation, demography, economic growth etc.) is controlled by the State. Small and medium production, the sphere of services, personal privacy, the entertainment industry, the sphere of leisure etc. are controlled not by the State but on the contrary by personal and private initiative (except for those cases when the latter conflicts with the strategic imperatives of Eurasism in the global sphere).

4. Eurasism and the economy

As against liberalism and Marxism, Eurasism considers the economic sphere to be neither autonomous nor determining for socio-political and state processes. According to the Eurasists’ belief, economic activities are only a function of various cultural, social, political, psychological and historical realities. We might express the Eurasist relation to the economy, rephrasing the Gospel truth: “not the man for the economy, but the economy for the man”. Such relation to the economy can be called as qualitative: the thrust is done (made) not on formal digital indexes of economic growth, a significantly wider spectrum of indexes is allowed, in which the economic force is clean is considered in a complex with others, predominantly having social character. Some economists (in particular Joseph Schumpeter) already tried to introduce qualitative parameters into economics, separating the criteria of economic growth from those of economic development. Eurasism sets the issue from an even wider perspective: what matters is not only economic development, but economic development combined with social development.

The Eurasist approach to the economy can be expressed as a simplified scheme in this way: state regulation of the strategic branches (military-industrial complex, natural monopolies and similar) and maximal economic freedom for medium and small business.

The major element of the Eurasist approach to the economy is the idea of the decision of a significant number of Russian national-economic problems within the framework of the Eurasist foreign policy project. It is in view of what is present. Some geopolitical subjects vitally interested in the multipolarity of the world – first of all, the European Union and Japan – have a huge financial-technological potential, whose engaging can sharply change the Russian economic climate. At the present stage it is regretfully necessary to acknowledge that there are no sufficient resources in Russia for (even relative) autarchy. Therefore investments and other kinds of interaction with the advanced economic regions is vitally necessary to us. This interaction should be initially plotted on the logician by more volumetric, rather than is narrow economic relations – investment, credits, import-export, energy deliveries etc. All this should be set in the wider context of common strategic programs – such as the joint assimilation of fields or the creation of unified Eurasian transport and information systems.

In some sense Russia must lay the burden of the revival of its economic potential to the partners of the “club of supporters of multipolarity”, actively using to this purpose the possibility to offer extremely convenient joint transport projects (the “Trans-Eurasian main”) or vital energy resources for Europe and Japan.

A relevant problem is also the return of capital to Russia. Eurasism creates very serious reasons to this purpose. The confused Russia of the period of liberal reforms (beginning in the 1990s), completely turned to the West, referring to herself with distaste, immersed in the psychosis of privatisation and corruption, and the Eurasist, patriotic, state-oriented Russia of the beginning of the XXI century are diametrically opposite political realities. Capital fled a weak and collapsing Russia. In a Russia set on a path of strength and recovery, capital must return.

In the Western countries most of the capitals taken out from Russia can neither be saved nor increased. In the beginning of the 1990s, the West looked with approval at Russian capital flight (mainly of criminal origin), considering – according to the “cold war” logic – that the weakening of post-communist Russia would play in the hands of NATO countries. Now the situation has sharply changed, and in the present conditions serious problems will arise (they already have, indeed) for the owners of illegal capitals in the West

The Eurasist logic means the creation of the most favourable conditions to the return of these capitals to Russia, which in itself will provide a serious impulse to the development of the economy. Contrary to some purely liberal abstract dogmas, capital moves back faster to a state with strong, accountable authority and precise strategic orienting points, rather than to an uncontrollable, chaotic and unstable country.

5. Eurasian path

Eurasism is the pattern most precisely responding to the strategic interests of modern Russia. It gives the answers to the most difficult questions, offers an exit to the most entangled situations. Eurasism combines openness and attitude to dialog with fidelity to historical roots and consequent assertion of national interests. Eurasism offers a consistent balance between the Russian national idea and the rights of the many peoples inhabiting Russia and more widely Eurasia.

Some definite aspects of Eurasism are already being used by the new Russian authorities oriented to a creative solution of the difficult historical problems Russia has to face the in new century. And every time this happens, efficiency, effectiveness, serious strategic results speak for themselves. The integration processes in the CIS, the creation of the Eurasian Economic Commonwealth, the first steps of the new foreign policy of the Russian Federation concerning Europe, Japan, Iran and the countries of the Near East, the creation of a system of Federal districts, the strengthening of the vertical line of power, the weakening of the oligarchic clans, the policy of patriotism and statehood, the increase of responsibility in the work of the mass media – all these are relevant and essential elements of Eurasism. For the time being these elements are intermingled by the inertial trends of the other two patterns (liberal-democrat and soviet). And yet it is perfectly clear that Eurasism is steadily moving to its zenith, whereas two other patterns conduct only “rear-guard fight”.

Enhancing the role of Eurasism in Russian politics is an evolutionary and gradual process. But the time has already come for a more attentive and accountable learning of this really universal theory and philosophy, whose transformation into political and world-view practice is under our eyes.

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Added Notes:

* On democracy and demotia, Dugin also wrote elsewhere (“Milestones of Eurasism”) the following: “Western democracy was formed in the particular conditions of ancient Athens and through the centuries-old history of insular England. Such democracy mirrors the peculiar features of the ‘local European development.’ Such democracy does not represent a universal standard. Imitating the rules of the European ‘liberal-democracy’ is senseless, impossible and dangerous for Russia-Eurasia. The participation of the Russian people to the political rule must be defined by a different term: ‘demotia,’ from the Greek ‘demos,’ people. Such participation does not reject hierarchy and must not be formalized into party-parliamentary structures. ‘Demotia’ supposes a system of land council, district governments or national governments (in the case of peoples of small dimensions). It is developed on the basis of social self-government, of the “peasant” world. An example of ‘demotia’ is the elective nature of church hierarchies on behalf of the parishioners in the Muscovite Rus.” He further explains that “The thesis of ‘demotia’ is the continuation of the political theories of the ‘organic democracy’ from J.-J. Rousseau to C. Schmitt, J. Freund, A. de Benoist and A. Mueller van der Bruck. Definition of the eurasist concept of ‘democracy’ (‘demotia’) as the ‘participation of the people to its own destiny’.”

** On his concept of federalism, Dugin further wrote in another article (“The Eurasian Idea”) the following: “Eurasianism rejects the center-outskirt model of the world. Instead, the Eurasian Idea suggests that the planet consists of a constellation of autonomous living spaces partially open to each other. These areas are not nation-states but a coalition of states, reorganized into continental federations or “democratic empires” with a large degree of inner self-government. Each of these areas is multipolar, including a complicated system of ethnic, cultural, religious and administrative factors.”

 

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Dugin, Aleksandr. “Main Principles of Eurasist Policy.” Международное Евразийское Движение, 21 June 2001. <http://evrazia.info/article/421 >. (See this essay in PDF format here: Main Principles of Eurasist Policy).

This article was also republished at the official Fourth Political Theory website: <http://www.4pt.su/mk/node/30HYPERLINK “/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=421” >. The original Russian version (titled “Основные принципы евразийской политики”) can be found here: <http://evrazia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=43 >.

Note: For a brief discussion of Dugin’s theories and also a listing of major translated works by him, see Natella Speranskaya’s interview with Dugin: <https://neweuropeanconservative.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/civilization-as-political-concept-dugin/ >.