Alexander Dugin: The Eurasian Oracle

The Eurasian movement, which seeks to restore Russian power and prestige, is a form of National Bolshevism based on the geopolitical theory that Moscow, Berlin, and Paris form a natural political axis and potential power center. Alexander Dugin, the founder of the Eurasian Party, writes: The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the basic principle of opposition to the common enemy: Atlanticism and the American New World Order. A multipolar world must replace the current unipolar world currently dominated by the United States.

Much has been written over the past several years about the Russian university professor, Alexander Dugin, who has become a prominent Putin advisor although he has no official government position, nor in fact does he have the academic credentials to head the Sociology Department at Moscow State University. His advisory role as resident intellectual without portfolio appears to be based on his expertise in matters dealing with political philosophies and forms of government. Although the Russian Federation has a Constitution, the Government is quite new and untested in many regards. An intellect like Alexander Dugin could certainly be helpful in advising the President on the fundamental laws and principles that prescribe the nature, function, and limits of both the Russian and foreign governments.

Dugin, we are told, is an autodidact who has learned nine foreign languages and has immersed himself in 20^th-century history and political philosophies as well as a few, rarely mentioned arcane subjects. He has to date associated mostly with the proponents of a broad Red-Brown coalition consisting of Russian communists and admirers of certain aspects of German National Socialism. Dugin, despite his informal and unorthodox background, is a highly erudite and intelligent individual, seen by most as a political pundit and activist, a geopolitician, a publicist, and spokesman for Russia’s Eurasianists. Others, fewer in number, dismiss him as a mystic, an occultist, and a former member of a privileged family of the former Communist regime.

For several centuries the Russian Empire and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the largest empire on Earth with contiguous borders. The British Empire was worldwide, but scattered. Throughout Russia’s history, which in many respects paralleled that of the United States (both nations are outgrowths of Europe, Russia’s empire expanded to the East as far as California while the United States expanded to the West and the North to Russian Alaska). Both peoples — Russian and American — have a sense of “manifest destiny,” namely that they are somehow predestined to occupy a special place among the nations of the world.

The Russian people have always been divided on which path to follow to reach that special place in the world. Those who have favored close cooperation with the more developed West and a rapid pace of modernization in Russia have traditionally been referred to as Westernizers. Peter the Great, one of the first, was despised by his contemporaries as an antichrist for daring to change some of the older traditions. The common Russian folk, if not the Eurasianists, for the most part despised the Communists, the most recent proponents of immediate and ruthless modernization, for their large-scale unpopular industrialization projects. Because Jews are among the world’s most avid modernizers, i.e., enthusiastic critics and denigrators of the European past, and because they were so prominent in the Communist leadership, they attracted the animus of the common folk for their support and promotion of sometimes reckless modernization projects. Dugin, however, is not an anti-Semite in the familiar sense of the word although he has an abiding interest in the Jewish question, especially in Russia, and has written about it extensively.

In the past the opponents of Western modernization in Russia were called Slavophiles because they believed that the very nature of Slavic identity itself was somehow preordained to manage and control Russian progress. Great Russian nationalism was prevalent and feared by Russia’s neighbors as was the spread of pan-Slavism in Europe. Westernization and modernization, especially when managed by non-Russians, the Slavophiles believe, was always accompanied by corruption of the Motherland. Yesterday’s Slavophiles are today’s Eurasians.

Eurasians, including Dugin, find the American New World Order destructive of everything they cherish: their history, their sovereignty, mores, Orthodox religion, sacred traditions, and culture. They continue to respect Josef Stalin for keeping Russia strong, separate, and special.

Dugin was born in 1962 to a privileged Bolshevik family. His father, Gelizh, was a colonel-general in Soviet Military Intelligence and his mother, Galina, a doctor. When Alexander dropped out of the Moscow Aviation Institute, his father arranged a position for him in the KGB archives. It was there, this writer believes, that Dugin received his real education in intelligence work. Of prime importance to the development of his later geopolitical views, Dugin studied the works of Halford John Mackinder, Carl Schmitt, and especially Karl Haushofer and their theories that world history has always been a continuous struggle between Land (tradition, religion, collectivism) and Sea (progress, atheism, individualism) forces. It was Haushofer that had opined in the 1930s: “The day when the Germans, Frenchmen, and Russians unite will be the last day of Anglo-Saxon hegemony.” It was this policy of trying to form a firm alliance between Russia and Germany that Ribbentrop and Molotov, with the support of many high-placed Wehrmacht officers and German foreign service officials stationed in Moscow, were pursuing in the late 1930s and early 1940s, knowing (or believing) that the UK and U.S. would be loath to wage war against an alliance of the two strongest Continental powers.

After first joining forces with Gennady Zyuganov, Alexander Prokhanov, and Eduard Limonov, all unrepentant Communists, Dugin helped form the National Bolshevik Front and eventually the Eurasia Party. But these associates and their political parties, although popular among the many Russians who favored the old Communist system over the “Casino Capitalism” introduced by Boris Yeltsin and his Harvard advisers, were not part of the new government and therefore had little power. It was in this period that Dugin wrote a series of articles on Russian Jewry.

As a follower of the Rene Guenon Traditionalist School, Dugin claims to be opposed to anti-Semitism, perhaps due to sharing a common ideological basis with the Jews in their Cabbala. He praises Gershom Scholem as the greatest Traditionalist thinker. Dugin on anti-Semitism: “I just cannot believe it. Some imaginary ‘masons’, the Jews behind every single thing, paranoia, mania of being constantly followed “(see here).

As an Eurasianist Dugin is fully aware that parts of Russia, in the plains north of the Black Sea, were the ancient cradle of the Indo-European language-speaking peoples of Europe and the Near East, the so-called Aryans. Jews arrived in Russia much later, but by the early 20th Century managed to usurp power over all-the-Russias through the Communist Revolution. Dugin writes about the fundamental metaphysical difference between the Aryan and the Jewish mentalities that have caused difficulties in the past. Dugin:

The Jews are the carriers of a religious culture that is deeply distinct from all historical displays of Indo-European spirituality — from ancient Aryan heathen cults to Hinduism and Christianity. The voluntary or forced seizure of the Jewish diaspora from the Indo-European peoples was not a casual episode of history, and no Orthodox Jew will ever deny the theological underlying reason for Jewish “distinctiveness”. The Jews are a community that keeps the secret of its radical differences from other peoples. If we do not admit that distinction, then it is simply senseless to speak about the Jewish problem…

Judaism sees the world as alienated from God, as an exile, as a mechanical labyrinth, in which wander the chosen people, whose real mission is found not in the famous victories of Joshua, son of Nun or the prophet Ezra, but in the tragic upheavals of dispersion. In particular the diaspora rather exactly corresponds to the spirit of classical Judaism, drawing an impassable abyss between the Creator and Creation…

Indo-European traditions, including Christianity, which spread out mainly among the Indo-Europeans, insist on a completely different vision of the World. The Indo-European world is a living reality, which is connected directly with God or, at least, with the Son of God. Even in the darkest times, in the Wolf Age, about which the Nordic tradition speaks, the connection between Creation and the Creator, the inhabitants of Space and primal Chaos, is not broken. It continues through the miracle of the Eucharist. Indo-European religious consciousness is a predominantly indigenous consciousness, a consciousness connected with the soil instead of dispersion, with possession instead of loss, and with connection instead of separation.

It was this fundamental distinction relating to their respective Weltanschauung that initially drew a line of demarcation between the Judaic worldview and the Indo-European understanding of the Sacred. Orthodox Jews, according to their own religious and mystical outlook, regard non-Jews as “goyim”. In much of their English language literature, Indo-Europeans are perceived as “naive and infantile optimists”, not realizing the terrible secrets of the Abyss, the theological drama of dispersion and the terrible secrets of the diaspora…

The difference between metaphysical war and physical war is that the first aspires to a victory of the traditional synthesis of the truth and, secondly, while the second aspires to make one of the two combatant parties victorious. None of the physical methods are acceptable in this dramatic historical opposition. German concentration camps could destroy Jews, but they were not able to extirpate Jewry. On the other hand, the Hassidic commissars could not, despite all their bloody genocide, erase the population of the eternal “Russian Empire”…These examples alone show that neither the Jewish nor the Goyim question can be solved with physical force…

The world of “Judaica” is a world hostile to us. But our feeling of Aryan justice and the gravity of our geopolitical situation require comprehension of its laws, rules and interests…The Indo-European elite stands today before a titanic task — to understand those who are not only culturally, nationally and politically, but also metaphysically different. And in this case, “to understand” means not “to forgive”, but “to defeat” — “to defeat with the Light of Truth”. (To Understand Is to Defeat)

In this paper Dugin makes the important point that Jews in general do not share the same sense of “spirituality” (respect, veneration, reverence, devotion) that Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and other religions do in their sacred religious beliefs and traditions because the Jews do not believe that there can be any personal connection between the deity and man. This fundamental metaphysical divide, Dugin believes, prevents Jews from sharing the beliefs of the goyim with respect to the “sacred”.

In another booklet, The Jews and Eurasia, written during this same period, Dugin explains how it was possible for Jews

• to have been: largely responsible for both the birth and the death of Communism;
• to be both the enemies and allies of Capitalism;
• the founders and critics of Christianity, Trotskyites and Stalinists; and have representatives on both sides of almost every important issue.

Dugin attributes this unusual ability to an innate duality in the Jewish nature – an observation he shares with Jewish scholars Jacov Bromberg and Mikhail Agursky. These experienced Hebraic researchers hold that a sizable number of Jews may, on the basis of their actions and opinions, be referred to as Oriental Jews while the remaining Jews, owing to their very different and antagonistic beliefs, may be called Occidental Jews.

Among the traits of the Oriental Jews are: the Hassidic-traditionalist attitude, mysticism, and cabbalism, religious fanaticism, extreme idealism, anti-materialism, and a tendency to abstraction and theorizing. It was members of this group, mostly East European Jewry that became communists, Marxists, revolutionaries, Stalinists and national Bolsheviks — the true believers.

The second group (often German Jews), strongly opposed to the first, may be called Occidental Jews. Characteristics include: rationalism, bourgeois tendencies, Talmudists, the Aristotelian-rationalistic line in the Jewish religion, business and economics oriented, strongly attracted to money.

It was, according to Dugin, mostly poor unworldly Oriental Jews who established, enforced, and perpetuated Stalinism with religious fervor and terror. Of course some more worldly and better-educated Occidental Jews (bankers, university professors, misguided altruistic types) did support their poor cousins from the East in propagating Communism. Conflict between these two Jewish groups existed in the Soviet Union throughout its history, finally culminating during and after World War II when the Oriental Jews consorted with and shared their views with their richer kinsmen in the West.

The absolute turning point, Dugin maintains, came in 1948 when the State of Israel was established. Bourgeois traits like nationalism, patriotism, desire for better living conditions, appreciation of freedom of speech and press, better food, and the rest infected the Oriental Jews to the point that Stalin could no longer rely on their loyalty.

When Stalin conveniently met death in 1953, the system he and his followers founded and built to superpower status collapsed and disintegrated. Ironically, as Dugin notes, a sufficient number of Soviet Jews, now occidentalized, remained in place and continued to cooperate with their brethren in the West, especially the United States and Israel. The result was oligarchic control of Russia’s natural resources.

Dugin’s contempt for the current oligarchic system of exploiting Russia’s mineral resources to the benefit of Western businesses is evident in his recent comments on the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case. Dugin:

Khodorkovsky stands for organized crime in Russia. It is unimaginable that a man like Khodorkovsky, even in a Western country, would not be jailed. He is just as criminal as all the other oligarchs who became overnight millionaires…Khodorkovsky increasingly took pro-Western positions like calling for a sharp drop in support of the Russian Army. He supported Western liberal forces in Russia. For Khodorkovsky the disarmament of Russia was an important way to open the country to Western liberal development. Russian independence and sovereignty would be bartered for greater ties with the West. As the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky announced that he could not only buy the parliament but the voting results as well. Khodorkovsky went even further. He blackmailed Putin by threatening to sell “Yukos,” Russia’s largest oil company, to the Americans. In effect, Khodorkovsky declared war on Putin. Putin reacted by bringing the oligarch to court where he was convicted for his crimes, not for his political views. The West has made a hero out of Khodorkovsky because he wanted to make Russia a part of the West. (Zuerst interview, May 2012)

It was only after Dugin became acquainted with Yevgeny Primakov and Vladimir Putin that his ideas gained greater popularity. Dugin holds Putin in the highest esteem. According to Dugin, Putin personally is a liberal, thoroughly pro-Western politician who believes equally deeply that Russia must protect her sovereignty and independence. Fruitful negotiations with the West are only possible when Russia’s sovereignty, and the State’s determination to defend it, is understood and respected. If to this point Dugin’s movement has been a strictly internal Russian affair, it has recently sprouted international wings with plans for a Russo-Islamic Pact, including Iran and Iraq, and a Turkic-Slavic alliance in the Eurasian sphere.

Both the Arabs and the Turks still smart at the treatment they received at the hands of the French and British after World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. As a result, they may be more amenable to better relations with Moscow. Moreover, the Eurasianists recognized that Islamists are already at war with the United States all over North Africa, the Near East, and down the East African coast. Some Eurasianists have proposed uniting the entire Orthodox Christian world and encouraging them to join with radical Islam in confronting American materialism with Old World spiritual values and traditions.

For example, ten years ago in his Principles of Geopolitics Dugin wrote:

It would be wise to return the Kaliningrad region (Koenigsberg, East Prussia) to Germany so as to eliminate the last territorial symbol of a horrible fratricidal war. In order that this action is not seen as just another Russian geopolitical capitulation, it would make sense for Europe to agree to make other territorial changes and other ways of expanding Russia’s strategic zone of influence… (see Robert Logan. “Terrorism, Eurasianism & Russo-American Cooperation,” The Barnes Review, No. 6, 2004.

And more recently:

Germany is an occupied country run by a foreign power. The Americans exercise real control. Germany’s own political elite is not free. As a result of this situation Berlin cannot act for the good of the country, as it should. In fact, at the present time Germany is being governed against her own best interests. We Russians can help the Germans because we understand Berlin’s predicament better and could improve it. For example, we are building Russo-German networks at many different levels. We can work together with different groups in the Federal Republic and deepen our cultural relations. I firmly believe that one day there will be a free, strong, and independent Germany in Europe to play the role of an important intermediary between the East and the West. Germany’s fate will not be that of a vassal of Brussels and Washington. (Dugin Interview. Zuerst. Germany, No. 10, 2012, p. 12)

To counter perceived U.S. provocative interference in Russia’s internal affairs, Dugin’s closest advisor and colleague in the Sociology Department at Moscow State University, Leonid Savin, the chief editor of the journal Geopolitika, has been made responsible for monitoring the activities of all foreign NGO (Nongovernmental Organizations). Dugin describes various U.S. sponsored activities that interfere with and attempt to distort Russian life. The sole purpose of these groups, which are funded by the U.S. and European governments, is to destabilize the Russian State and incorporate it in the Western system. Dugin:

The U.S. millionaire, George Soros, for example, whose foundations provide massive support to pro-Western groups in Russia, plays an important role in such activities. In addition, other U.S. organizations like, for example, “Freedom House,” that gets 80% of its financial support from the U.S. government, distributes U.S. politician Gene Sharp’s booklet The Politics of Nonviolent Action which explicitly influenced the revolutionaries in Ukraine.

The recent outrageous “Pussy Riot” publicity stunt was immediately presumed by the Russians to have been supported by U.S. NGOs. In this unfortunate event, too many Americans including several celebrities, mistaking the smutty antics and political acts of this particular group as demonstrations for human rights, applauded the performance.

Dugin and his Eurasianists are fully aware that many Europeans also disapprove of American dominance, the homogenization of cultures, and the loss of ancient traditions as fervently as do the Russians. As early as 1959 Charles de Gaulle declared: Oui, c’est l’Europe, depuis l’Atlantique jusqu’à l’Oural, c’est toute l’Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde. (Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe that will decide the fate of the world.) And as recently as 2002 Henri de Grossouvre wrote Paris-Berlin-Moscow: The Way of Peace and Independence, about which General Pier Marrie Gallois, France’s foremost geostrategic thinker said: “Europe would never regain its sovereignty until it throws off American suzerainty and does so in alliance with Russia.” (Michael O’Meara, Ref. 2)

During the past several decades aggressive U.S. diplomatic and military escapades in East Europe and the Muslim world have caused sentiment in Europe to turn sharply against American globalization adventures. For example, Alain de Benoist, founder of the “New Right”, a movement also referred to as “Identitarianism,” declared:

What poses the biggest threat to collective identities today is the system “that kills the peoples,” that is to say, the imposition of an across the board system of global homogenization that eliminates all human diversity, diversity of the peoples, of languages and cultures. … The greatest danger is the rise of indistinction, the erasure of differences, the destruction of popular cultures and lifestyles in a globalized world in which the only recognized values are those expressed by the price tags, that is to say by big money … Like many Europeans, I am amazed that American conservatives defend almost unanimously the capitalist system whose expansion methodically keeps destroying everything they want to conserve. (Alain de Benoist.. “On Identity”. Speech given at the meetings of the National Policy Institute, Washington, DC, on November 2, 2013)

Thirty years earlier during the Cold War de Benoist made the same point but in a way that made every Frenchman’s ears perk up, “Better to wear the helmet of a Red Army soldier, than to live on a diet of Hamburgers in Brooklyn.”

While Alexander Dugin would very much appreciate being publicly associated and joining forces with Europeans like those involved with the New Right, the feeling is not reciprocated. The French and most other Europeans simply do not trust the Russians. Barring any unforeseen catastrophe, such as the social disintegration or financial collapse of the United States, the possibility of any grand European alliance with Russia is nil. Consequently, Dugin’s philosophizing and theorizing, a Russian specialty, will continue.

In his The Fourth Political Theory, Dugin proposes that the best features of the three failed ideologies of the 20^th Century – liberalism, communism, and fascism – be selected and joined together to form the political ideology of the 21^st Century. However, before the features of the failed ideologies found useful for the new Party are selected, other features, considered toxic, must be thoroughly expurgated. Thus, all traces of racism are deleted from Fascism (Nazism); anti-spirituality ad economic determinism from Marxism (Communism); and individualism from Liberalism. What remains may be useful for the fourth political theory.

The “Eurasian Idea” is presented as an alternative to U.S. global hegemony and places a so-called “Multipolar World” in opposition to Western liberal universality. Dugin insists that in the Multipolar World all peoples would have the right to form their own future with the roots of their own history intact. This would occur within the framework of alliances among the different peoples of the Continent. One such alliance is Eurasia. The Eurasian idea is a geopolitical concept developed by Russian intellectuals like Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Piotr Savitzky, and Lev Gumilov early in the last Century (Dugin Interview. ZuerstGermany. Nos. 8-9, 2013, p. 52-53).

Bibliography:

1)                  Wikipedia and Metapedia entries for personalities and pertinent events.

2)                  Michael O’Meara. Boreas Rising: White Nationalism and the Geopolitics of the Paris-Berlin-Moscow Axis. The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2005

3)                  Charles Clover, “Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland.” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 2, 1999

4)                  Israel Shamir. Putin’s Wise Counsellor. Alternative Right, No. 6, p. 25, 2013

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