The Fourth Political Theory

beyond left and right but against the center

In Samuel Huntington’s famous article describing the impending “clash of civilizations”, Huntington mentions a very important formula: “modernization without westernization.” This formula describes the relationship to problems of socio-economic and technological development experienced by some countries (as a rule, those of the Third World) who, while understanding the objective necessity of the development and improvement of their social systems’ political and economic mechanisms, refuse to blindly follow the West, instead striving to put some of Western technology – in isolation from its ideological content – in service of their traditional value systems and national, religious, and political characters. Many representatives of the elites of the East, having received higher Western educations, return to their home countries with important technical knowledge and methodologies which they then use to strengthen their own national systems. Thus, instead of the rapprochement between civilizations expected by liberal optimists, what ensues is the arming of certain “archaic,” “traditionalist” regimes with new technologies which render civilizational confrontation all the sharper. 

The role of the USA, the last remaining superpower in the world, is central to global geopolitics today. Beginning with the end of the 19th century, this peripheral, marginal continent, previously but a European province secondary and complimentary to the Old World, increasingly became an independent political and cultural power. After the Second World War, the USA even came to act as the paradigmatic, universal model for the countries of Europe themselves and even Asia. The significance of the steady growth of America and the totality of the American ideological, cultural, psychological, and even philosophical complex goes beyond the framework of purely economic or military influence. “Mythological America,” “America as a concept,” and “America as the American Ideal” are today manifesting themselves all the more visibly. 

There must be compelling reasons why the “American idea” has taken root and implanted itself as something “neo-sacred” in global geopolitical consciousness connected to the collective unconsciousness of humanity and the mysterious continental geography that can be traced back millennia, the memory of which still lives in the archetypes of the psyche. Considering the “mythological” underpinnings of America as an “internal continent” is the main task of this chapter.

As the point of departure of our investigation we shall take the extremely interesting data concerning the sacred geography of the southernmost (or, more precisely, the south-western) territorial sector of Gardariki (the Galician principality) gathered in the book Hyperborean Dacia [13] by the Romanian Traditionalist author of a Guenonian orientation, Geticus (Basil Lovinescu). In this work, the author convincingly demonstrates on the basis of sacred toponymies and a deep analysis of Romanian folklore that ancient Dacia (modern Romania and Moldova) was once the sacred center of the Hyperborean tradition, albeit secondary in regards to Polar Hyperborea which was far more original than other indirect spiritual centers of traditional civilizations. In our opinion, the thesis of Hyperborean Dacia looks quite convincing and we would especially like to dwell on the mystery of the Danube delta which, according to Geticus, was the location of one of the main sanctuaries of Hyperborean Apollo. 

The author of Hyperborean Dacia notes the following peculiarity of the Danube delta and its cult center: river Danube flows into the Black Sea on the 45th parallel, i.e., on the belt dividing the entire northern hemisphere in half. Thus, the cult center of Apollo in Dacia was located in the far north for the entire southern half of the northern hemisphere whose establishment has only recently become known to modern historians of civilization. We note that the 45th parallel in general plays an extremely important role for Eurasia and in the far West. In France, two of the most important sacred centers, Lyon (the “city of meadows, i.e., the center of the geographical spiral of the druids as examined in Louis Charpentier’s book The Giants and the Mystery of the Origin [14]) and Grenoble (the “land of the Dauphins” [15] whose solar, Hyperborean symbolism was researched by the scholars Eugene Canseliet – Sevren Bafrue and Guy Beatrice in the book Land of the Dauphin [15]). At the same time in the Far East, in Mongolia, at approximately the same latitude is located the sacred center of Genghis Khan’s empire, the city of Urga. In addition, it is interesting note that the borders of the Russian Empire also more or less followed this parallel over a gigantic space resembling a sinusoid with a recess in the South in the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, and in the Pamir mountains, and a rise in the North in South-Eastern Siberia, Altai, and across the Amur River. In addition to such an important parallel at which the center of the Apollonian cult of “Hyperborean Dacia” was located, what is also extremely important for us is that the longitude of this place was 30 degrees east. It can be said that this meridian, in its northern part, was the axis of the Slavs’ settlement. To its west were the Poles, Czechs, Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Ukrainians, and Belarussians, and to its east are the Great Russians. Thus, in addition to the “extremely northern” location of “Hyperborean Dacia” in relation to the mediterranean world, the extreme South of its situation can also be considered in regards to the Slavo-Baltic-Scandinavian world and Gardariki Rus. In fact, the mouth of the Danube was always the southern sacred-geographical pressure point of the “masses” of the Slavic, Russian world to the north. 

The most profound Russian thinkers of the 20th century were undoubtedly the Eurasianists, the ideologists of the special Third Way wing of the first Russian emigration who expressed genuinely important and reliable considerations on the fate of Russia. In their conceptions, the geographical location of Russia between East and West plays a central role. For them, Eurasia amounts to Russia and the Russian ethnos (in the supranational sense of the word) is considered to be the modern carrier of Turanism, a special imperial psycho-ideology accordingly passed down to the people of Rus by the Turkic-Mongolian tribes of the Horde. Thus, the Eurasianists, in contrast to the representatives of the monarchist camp, were not so much “Panslavists” as Turkophiles. And this is not a paradox since a significant part of the Russian nobility and, in particular, many Slavophile ideologists of the 19th century who constituted a significant percentage of the top Russian elite,were representatives of the Turkic heritage. For many Eurasianists, Russia-Turan was a supra-political concept whose value was defined by its geopolitical mission.

The intuition of the Eurasianists proved to be quite true, but the origins of this concept stretch back to pre-history, to the epochs prior not only to the conquests of Genghis Khan and his successors, but also prior to even the appearance of Slavs on Russian lands. Where did Russia-Turan come from?

One of the few European geopolitical schools which has preserved an uninterrupted link with the ideas of the pre-war German continentalist geopoliticians is that of the “New Right.” This trend appeared in France in the late ’60’s and is associated with the philosopher and publicist Alain de Benoist, the leading figure of the movement. 

The “New Right” sharply differs on practically all matters from the traditional French right consisting of monarchists, Catholics, Germanophobes, chauvinists, anti-communists, conservatives, etc. The “New Right” includes those who support “organic democracy,” pagans, Germanophiles, socialists, modernists, etc. At the beginning, the “left camp” so conventionally, extremely influential in France considered such to be a “tactical maneuver” by typical rightists, but with time the gravity of this evolution was proven and came to be recognized by all. 

One of the fundamental principles of the “New Right’s” ideology, analogues of which soon appeared in other European countries, is the principal of “continental geopolitics.” In contrast to the “old right” and classical nationalists, de Benoist believed that the principle of the centralized Nation-State has been historically exhausted and that the future belongs only to “Great Spaces.” The basis of such “Large Spaces” are to be not so much associations of various states in a pragmatic political bloc, but the equal-footed conglomeration of ethnic groups of different scales into a “Federal Empire.” Such a “Federal Empire”  is supposed to be strategically unified, yet ethnically differentiated. Moreover, such strategic unity is to be underpinned by the unity of primordial culture.

Although Western analysts continue to debate the motivations of Russian President Vladimir Putin for forming his Eurasian Union, what is undeniable is that the most vocal proponent of this union is Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin laid much of the ideological framework for a Eurasian Union when Putin was just beginning to emerge in the upper echelons of the government of the Russian Federation, and Dugin has been as outspoken in his ideological agenda as Putin has been taciturn in revealing his own. In fact, when Dugin’s remarks concerning Russia’s involvement in Ukraine were widely interpreted asadvocating a genocidal campaign against Ukrainians who would oppose Russian occupation of portions of that country, Dugin lost his teaching position at Moscow State University and was eventually placed under sanctions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As this reviewer has noted in previous reviews of Dugin’s books — Putin vs. Putin and his Fourth Political Theory — Aleksandr Dugin views the confrontation between the United States and Russia in no less than apocalyptic terms and has sought to frame the contest between the two countries as the latest phase in an ancient war between the "powers of the Sea" and "powers of the Land." One of Dugin’s most recent books to be translated into English is Last War of the World-Island — The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia, and in this book, the author continues to advance this apocalyptic theme.

To tell the truth, war has broken out. War has been "broken out". That war, which is most important now, is the confrontation of two civilizations: the Land civilization, represented by Russia, and the Sea ​​civilization, represented by the US. It is a standoff between a trade-based system, and a heroic civilization, between Carthage and Rome, Athens and Sparta. However, at certain moments it reaches a “hot” stage. We are in this moment again. We are at the brink of the war, and also one exists. However, this war can become a major and, perhaps, the sole battle of our lives, at any time. As the major players – the US and Russia – are nuclear powers, the war involves all the nations of the Earth. It has every chance to become the end of humankind. Of course this is not guaranteed, but such a plot twist cannot be excluded.

The spiritual plan of the great conflict is comprehend in special terms and contexts. There, the balance of power is always in favor of the Light, despite the faithful’s position. However, at the strategic level, it may seem a little different. The roles in the war are not symmetrical. Russia is in a weaker position, but trying to get back its status of the global player. It only seeks to restore its potential regional power to exert its influence freely in areas near to its borders. However, it is unacceptable for the United States, which, despite everything, remain the global hegemony and refuse to lose the monopolarity by its own will.

There is a second agenda the US has concerning Europe. There is official, open American agenda – US wants to continue the liberal strategy of the integration of Europe within the existing framework. America will continue to proceed with this as long as everything is going well. However, the second agenda is much more radical – an emergency or alternative agenda. This agenda would entail the American instigation of a civil war in Europe. The real state of things (rather than at the propaganda level) would be that mass immigration provokes more and more of a reaction, anti-systemic parties and groups start to gain power and influence, gender politics start to be rejected, and the middle class continues to decline. This wouldn’t fit with what we hear, so it makes sense that there would be another agenda of the US concerning Europe. There is a growing interest in the US and above all Israel in funding and influencing the far right movement in Europe, the identitarian movement being the most obvious example. 

We are living in the decisive moment when Western civilization is approaching its end. Such terroristic acts as that of Paris 13.11 show it clearly and unmistakably. The West we knew doesn’t exist any longer. Can’t exist any longer. One upon a time there was a certain West. With patriarchic heroic values, Christian identity, deep and exquisite culture with Greek-Roman roots. The West of God, man and nature. There is nothing like that in sight. The ruins. The weak and poisonous liberal civilization based on self-indulgence and at the same time on self-hatred. With no identity but purely negative one. Peopled by humans egoistic and ashamed of themselves. It can have the future. In front of brutal post-modern ISIS-fighters it can’t affirm anything, can’t oppose anything, can’t suggest anything. The West can’t be any longer Western. It is loosing itself. It is drowning.