The Fourth Political Theory

beyond left and right but against the center

The people as a political concept is appearing today in opposition to liberalism. The liberals are hollering about a fascist or communist-fascist threat, and they are incapable of understanding the essence of the populist moment, which they interpret through old clichés. Hence why they are losing. Hence why they are doomed.

And yet both left and right are unanimous in thinking that this is only a moment, a limited period of time, a kind of quantum in historical movement. Probably no one can say whether the People and consequently populism is a system, program, strategy, or merely a temporary correction on the path of liberal globalization. The globalists had their moment in the early ’90’s – the unipolar moment. They ruined everything they could over thirty years, turning globalization and the unipolar world into a hideous caricature. The reformers in Russia in the ’90’s did the same with democracy. Now a different moment is arriving. The people is appearing on the stage of world history. This is a chance, a risk, a responsibility, and a challenge. But it is our moment. Not utilizing it would be a real crime. 

Yes, that’s right, not taking advantage of such a populist moment would be foolish and even criminal. But is there such a crime that we have not yet committed? Alas, everything rests on our shoulders. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful, open opportunity for a true alternative, a Russian alternative.

In order to escape this coded field of coded thinking, we need to deconstruct all of modernity. If we transcend the borders of modernity, we see a different society, a different notion of man, a different view of the world, a different notion of politics and the state. First of all, we finish the Cartesian subject and see something else. Let’s search for what there is in this other world. In sociology, this is called the transition from modern society to traditional society. The notions of tradition, religion, and pre-modernity already offer us an undoubtedly broader spectrum of alternatives. If we reject the laws of modernity such as progress, development, equality, justice, freedom, nationalism, and all of this legacy of the three centuries of philosophy and political history, then there is a choice. And it is in fact very broad in the least. This is what I have been saying. This is traditional society.

One of the first, simplest movements in the direction of the Fourth Political Theory is the global rehabilitation of Tradition, the sacred, the religious, the caste-related, if you prefer, the hierarchical, and not equality, justice, or freedom. Everything that we reject together with modernity and everything that we completely rework…

Elite of Fourth Way will collide with demagogues and hysterical "leaders", that a wave of new nationalism inevitably will bring to the front as the foam on the surface of fermenting sea. And the battle begins now. It would be better that neo-nationalist monster would be strangled in the cradle. But it is about to appear.

Therefore, now - after Trump's great succes - is relevant as never before the general plan for fundamental conservatives and traditionalists all over the world - at least of America, Europe, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the rest of Eurasia (and the others who will join us). We need a common front aimed not only at the rest of the Liberals (finish to drain liberal Swamp is technical task now), but as well to prevent and neutralize new nationalism.

We need to return to the Being, to the Logos, to the foundamental- ontology (of Heidegger), to the Sacred, to the New Middle Ages - and thus to the Empire, religion, and the institutions of traditional society (hierarchy, cult, domination of spirit over matter and so on). All content of Modernity - is Satanism and degeneration. Nothing is worth, everything is to be cleansed off. The Modernity is absolutely wrong -- science, values, philosophy, art, society, modes, patterns, "truths", understanding of Being, time and space. All is dead with Modernity. So it should end. We are going to end it.

“The Swamp” is to become the new name for the globalist sect, the open society adepts, LGBT maniacs, Soros’ army, the post-humanists, and so on. Draining the Swamp is not only categorically imperative for America. It is a global challenge for all of us. Today, every people is under the rule of its own Swamp. We, all together, should start the fight against the Russian Swamp, the French Swamp, the German Swamp, and so on. We need to purge our societies of the Swamp’s influence. Instead of fighting between ourselves, let us drain it together. Swamp-drainers of the whole world unite!

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).

By all principle parameters, the Russian Federation is the geopolitical heir of the preceding historical, political and social forms that took shape around the territorial of the Russian plain, from Kievan Rus through the Golden Hordes, the Muscovite Czardom, The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.  This continuity is not only territorial, but also historical, social, spiritual, political and ethnic.  From ancient times, Russian government began to form in the space of the Heartland, gradually expanding more and more, until it occupied the whole Heartland entirely, together with the zones adjoining it.  This spatial expansion of Russian control over Eurasian territories was accompanied by a parallel sociological process: the strengthening in Russian [Russkii] society of "land-based" social arrangements, characteristic of a civilization of the continental type.  

But Trump… He is a sensation. In fact, it is a real change from the usual display. The Republicans, as well as the Democrats, are the representatives of the US ruling elites. It is a special part of society, being quite far from the ordinary Americans. This elite considers not America, but the world, not society, but unbelievable sums of money serves not people, an abstract utopia of the world government and global financial oligarchy. The American elite is not even American. Thus, there is Donald Trump, who is tough, rough, says what he thinks, rude, emotional and, apparently, candid. The fact that he is a billionaire doesn’t matter. He is different. He is an extremely successful ordinary American. He is crude America, without gloss and the globalist elite. He is sometimes disgusting and violent, but he is what he is. It is true America.

Most likely, Donald Trump is another designed product, a virtual figure. However, it is him who makes people feel fresh and hopeful. He is trustworthy: the black peacekeeper promised to change everything, but was unable to change anything, nothing at all, and Hilary Clinton, with a quickly aging poker face, doesn’t promise to change anything, maybe Trump will be able to get America’s natural borders back.

Maybe, that redhead rude Yankee from the saloon will get back to the problems inside the country and will leave humanity alone, which is tired of American hegemony and its destructive policy of chaos, bloody rivers and color revolutions?

Trump is a leader.

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.

The words that became the title of this lecture appeared in my consciousness as something in themselves. Not so much the idea as the formula: Satan and the problem of antecedent. It seems to me that this should be anything but a simple statement of something long known, is understandable. Many things in the process of preparing this lecture, I myself have been not completely clear. I hope that in the process of narration (from my side, with your – in the process of listening, that is, complicity) but there is a lot I can find out. Some things, so to speak, hanging in the air, and perhaps they will be formulated in the here and now. New The University (unlike the old) suggests spontaneous cognition, spontaneous epistemological grasp certain things, not specified initially. The main thing may (and should!) born at the time of presentation, in the process of focusing on certain aspects of a given topic.

While the EEU fulfills the economic, political, and symbolic goals of Eurasianism, Putin’s agenda can change without seriously affecting Dugin’s mission. He has the diversionary task of filling ideological vacuums created around the world by suspicion and skepticism regarding the United States, the European Union, and other liberal powers. Dugin’s ideology already resonates with both high intellectuals and the conspiratorial fringe. His ideas seem tailor-made to exploit continuing economic stagnation, distrust of EU bureaucracy, anxiety at the continuing influx of immigrants, and, crucially, the anxiety of those immigrants themselves, who fear the assault on their traditions that comes as a part of their resettlement in the West. Dugin is also obviously intent on maximizing the potential of his ideology through various political, intellectual, and social media networks. 

The principal aim of Professor Dugin's work is not simply to deconstruct the previous failed political theories, which he lists as fascism, communism, and liberalism, but to fashion a new fourth theory, utilising what may be learnt from some of the previous models after their deconstruction rather than dismissing them outright on the basis of particulars worthy of rejection. That is not to say that the Fourth Political Theory is simply a synthesis of ideas that in their singular form have seen their day. Dugin is conscious of the necessity to bring something new to the table, with one of the principal of these novel ideas being the rejection of the subjects of the old ideologies, such as class, race, or the individual, in favour of the existential Heideggerian concept of Dasein (roughly Being or being-in-the-world. Literally da – there; sein – being) as the primary actor.

What struck me on arriving in the US was the interest in and presence of other cultures, especially in relation to spirituality. Spiritual, New Age and occult centers (or at least bookstores) existed and seemed relatively vibrant. Religion was also far more important than in England, whether that was Christianity, Judaism, Tibetan Buddhism, or something else. There was (and of course still is) a big Chinatown, where Chinese was spoken (London’s is tiny). I practiced Kung fu in the early morning at a park in Chinatown and went for tea at a Chinese place afterward; I went to read in a French cafe that was always empty and the owners were actually French; I went to the spiritual and occult bookstores; to the museums, to Japanese events with my Japanese friends; and so on. Moving to the US, my life was steeped much more consciously in the archaic and the “Traditional” than in the much older culture of England.

Capitalism, of course, always seizes on what is different and exciting, and repackages it for the mainstream, often destroying the culture-creating roots as a consequence. But, if we leave aside this aspect, and get back to the people, America’s history is one with as much depth as anywhere else. Indeed, while Britain and Europe ape the most crass aspects of the USA, Americans often look to something more integral.

Fukuyama's main tenets

never getting to the core of things – "We [USA] are not good at democratizing countries". But then again, who in the world asked you to do that "for us"? This question has to be answered honestly—as a matter of fact, it is Paikin not asking this that proves the show to be sold in advance;

replacing truth for political correctness – "Liberal democracies don't fight each other". The idea is mischievous at least for three reasons:

the problem with this assumption relies not only in the accuracy of the claim itself (there has been wars between democracies), but also in the fact that its credo is precisely what leads to war against other kinds of regime, who are considered intrinsically a crime punishable by war; therefore, the claim recognizes its prejudicial vision of the Other as a phenomenon and legitimizes the necessity of their killing.

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.