Alexander Dugin admits he helped formulate the program of Zyuganov’s Russian Federation Communist Party and was involved with Romania’s controlled opposition National Salvation Front
Eurasian Revolution: Alexander Dugin's Fourth ForesightInterview with the Arco e Clava portal
1) Presidential elections will be held in Russia in a year. What is today's balance of power in the political sphere and who is more likely to represent the national interests of the Federation in case of taking a leading role in the Kremlin?
- I have almost no doubt that Putin will return. But not immediately, but having withstood the pause and intrigue. It is quite obvious that he is a Westerner and a liberal in the spirit of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The question is: why did Putin put it? He had no popularity and no political weight until 2008. Either it's a game on Putin's part (to put a temporary ruler who is not legitimate for the masses and convenient for the West), or a miscalculation. I think it's a game. But the game is very ugly and dangerous. We just lost time because of this game. We lost the rhythm for patriotic reforms. In any case, no matter how things turn out, Medvedev is Putin's mistake, either just a mistake or a fatal mistake. Putin himself and the legitimacy of his course irreversibly lost for the period 2008-2012. Judging by whether Putin will lose power or not, it can still turn into Putin's successful move. Judging by how much Russia has strengthened its position in recent years, this is already a definite failure. And Putin's failure.
In 2000, Putin began the necessary and overdue patriotic reforms, a radical correction of the course of the 90s. He took a lot of important steps, even saving ones. But I didn't finish anything at all. I left everything halfway. And today he begins to reap the fruits of this half-heartedness.
2) As you know, you are one of the authoritative representatives of the so-called neo-Eurasian circles, who often have a great influence on the institution of Russian politics. At the same time, Eurasianism is a rather complex and changing cultural trend from the inside, which appeared in the first decades of the last century, developed and outgrown the "Byzantium" of authors of the eighties, such as Alexei Khomyakov and Konstantin Leontiev. What are the consequences and aspects of the idea of Eurasianism for Russia, as well as for the whole continent, in the modern world?
- I have written many books and hundreds of articles on Eurasianism. I believe that the only saving ideology for modern Russia. Its meaning is that Russia is not a country, but a civilization, not the East and not the West, not modernity and not archaic, but something original. Therefore, Russia should develop in its own way, and not copy Western liberalism, capitalism, democracy and human rights. We have our own philosophy, our own religion, our own culture, our own anthropology and ontology. Russia is an independent civilization, which should be compared not with one or another European country, but with China or India, or with Europe as a whole, that is, with the cultural continent. Unlike Slavophilism and Byzantium, Eurasianism recognizes the value of non-Slavic cultures and ethnic groups and non-Orthodox religions (including Islam, Buddhism, etc.) and finds a place for them in Eurasianism. At the same time, Eurasianism sees in the Soviet period of our history not just an alien totalitarian materialistic ideology and the result of a conspiracy, but also the will of Russian society to holism, integrity, community, collective identity, unity. Hence National Bolshevism.
In a broader sense, Eurasianism thinks in the categories of classical geopolitics: Land/Sea, tellurocarty/thalassocracy and unambiguously stands on the side of Sushi and tellurocracy against Atlanticism, the United States and the unipolar West-centric and American-centric world. In this sense, all continentalists, including European ones, are "Eurasians".
Further, Eurasianism is the rejection of globalization as a universalism copied from Western societies and the United States. This is a project of a multipolar world organized on the principle of large spaces (K. Schmitt). In this sense, Eurasianism is a radical rejection of the hegemonic policy of the United States and unipolarity. Eurasianism insists on the pluralism of cultures and value systems, and the pluralism of ontologies and anthropologies, economic systems and confessions.
Eurasianism is a philosophy of differences that denies monotonous processes, including linear progress, growth, econocentrism, technologism, etc.
In a broad sense, Eurasianism has, in my opinion, a general planetary significance, since every culture and civilization can find its place in this philosophy and strategy.
3) The theory of Eurasianism, which you support, aims to create a multipolar global system. Explain what are the differences between a unipolar and a multipolar system? What are the benefits for the individual, the people and entire nations in the event of the possible creation of a multipolar global organization?
The unipolar world proceeds from the fact that only one strictly defined set of values is normative for all societies: individualism, market, parliamentary democracy, human rights ideology, technological development, material accumulation and liberalism. All these values were realized in the West and primarily in the United States. Everything else is to be brought to the same form as Western American society. The United States and the West are taken as an absolute example and are thought of as the basis for a world government. The unipolar world implies gradual desovereignization and unification of the world.
This trend is incompatible with either the preservation of the independence of the state or the preservation of the original culture. Therefore, the unipolar world is advocated by U.S. agents of influence, globalists, liberals, who are ready to sacrifice their societies for the sake of the utopia of a global society based on the complete atomization of man. Individuals can benefit from this, increase their comfort, achieve success. But cultures, civilizations, traditions and social ensembles are subject to liquidation and demolition. States are also doomed to gradual disappearance. Therefore, it all depends on the form of identity. If a person identifies himself only with an individual, then globalization and unipolarity can give him a chance (but this is far from guaranteed). If ethnos, culture, country, state, society, tradition, confession, etc. are important for a person, unipolarity is not for them. Multipolarity allows societies to remain unique. This is important for most of humanity. Therefore, the fight against globalization, unipolarity and Americanization is a common task, it is the business of all mankind.
4) Between 1989 and 1991, the whole world witnessed an event described by Putin as "one of the greatest geopolitical disasters of the last century", that is, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, headed by the USSR. From a political, economic and especially strategic point of view, what did that thirtieth anniversary that so deeply shook Russia mean for the so-called "near West" and for the whole world?
- The end of the two-pole world meant the onset of a unipolar moment (Krauthammer). From a geopolitical point of view, it was the victory of the Sea over the Land, the triumph of thalassocracy. Liberal capitalism and Americanism have become global and non-alternative factors. I'm not a Marxist or a communist, but the USSR was better than the capitalist world. The USA is the real empire of evil. The USSR disintegrated, and Russia tried to integrate into the Western world in the 90s. Those were terrible years for us, the 90s. When Putin came, the situation changed for the better. We began to realize how unfair, cynical and mean the American order is. We saw the spread of NATO to the East, double standards in relation to international terrorism, undisguised American aggressiveness.
Russia has become weak and has lost control over the near abroad. The country continued to degrade and collapse (Chechnya). Putin tried to stop the disintegration. I began to speak more harshly with the United States. Strengthened Russia's position at the international level. He began to play more actively in the post-Soviet space. I started looking for an alliance with continental forces in Europe. This caused hysteria in the West and led to his demonization.
But as I said, he stopped halfway.
5) From a geopolitical point of view, what interference could Russia make in the balance of relations between Europe and the United States? How is it possible to offer a Eurasian point of view to Western Europe? Do we need a deep cultural revolution for this?
- Eurasianism for Europe is Europeanism. Russia-Eurasia does not need a Eurasian Europe, but a European Europe, a Europe free from American dictatorship, strong, independent and focused on its own geopolitical interests. Europe as an independent and independent (from the United States) geopolitical and economic power, this is an ideal for Eurasianism. At best, such a continental European Europe could be an ally and strategic partner of Russia. And at least - an independent pole of the multipolar world, along with others.
How to achieve it? We need to throw off the American Atlanticist yoke. We need to find a way to develop a common strategy of Europeans and the Islamic world. It is necessary to overcome the contradictions between the right and the left, which correspond little. We need to go to a European identity. It is necessary to remember about European roots, culture, origins. About Tradition. But this is not the business of the Russians, but of the Europeans themselves. If there is no European revolution in Europe, it will disappear as a civilizational phenomenon in the coming decades.
6) In 1993, one of the main social tragedies of modern Russia took place. Depressed by the newly appeared liberal regime, the people go out to the squares, united by an extraordinary patriotic alliance of combat pro-Soviet and pan-nationalist forces, were stopped only by the bullets of the police and the army of Yeltsin, who soon put guns at the building of the parliament, which betrayed him. What was your theoretical contribution to the creation of the program of the revived communist party of Gennady Zyuganov and especially, in our days, what has been preserved in the political panorama of the experience of the National Salvation Front?
- I helped to ideologically formalize the program of the neo-communists Zyuganov. Participated in the National Salvation Front. I was in the White House and Ostankino in October 1993. Then we lost. The leaders of the popular opposition were not up to par. All of them were united by the denial of ultra-liberalism, Americanization, oligarchization, Russophobia of Yeltsin and his entourage. There was no positive program as such. It all ended in a defeat that I don't like to remember. The CPRF and other political organizations have failed everything they could. Today it's not political forces, but a pure simulacre. In Russia, politics moves in other ways - not by organizations, not by parties. I am focused on the development of the Eurasian Movement, on intellectual sociological, philosophical, ethnosociological, geopolitical developments, on the Fourth Political Theory on the other side of liberalism, communism and fascism. Until we have a solid ideological platform based on the analysis of new conditions (postmodern), we will not be able to change anything.
7) In Europe, neo-nationalist groups often oppose the process of federalization of Europe, as is the case in France. At the same time, especially during the Cold War, the same nationalists, using anti-communist intimidation, often contributed to liberalization, which is strategically reflected in Atlantic positions, as happened in Italy, for example, with the Social Italian Movement. In your opinion, in the light of recent geopolitical changes, can European nationalists become a worthy support for Eurasianism and thus be ideologically revived, or
on the contrary, become two opposites? Then what are the advantages and advantages of modern nationalism?
- It seems to me that Eurasianism and National Bolshevism could be very relevant for modern European non-conformist nationalism. Such groups already exist in Italy, France, Greece, and Eastern Europe. The prototypes of this can be seen in the non-conformists of the 30s (Munier, Denis de Rougemont), partly even Batai, Leiris, Caioua (where the left component was also available), in the Conservative Revolution, and after 1945 in the Young Europe of Tiriard and GRECE by Alain de Benoit. Today, in addition to the purely Eurasian currents in Europe, I am very close to Alain de Benoit, Alain Soral, Christian Boucher, whose analysis I share almost entirely. We can probably expect a positive evolution of the FN in France under Marina Le Pen. There are also interesting movements among the anti-American and anti-liberal leftists.
The old nationalism is completely outdated. A new European nationalism is needed, or simply Europeanism, which would combine Tradition and social justice, that is, revolution. We need to make a new analysis of enemies and friends. The enemies of Europe are the United States, liberalism, universalism, materialism, economicism, technicalism, Atlanticism. It's evil. Friends of Europe - Tradition, sociability, holism, spirituality, continentalism, value pluralism, multipolarity. I think it is necessary to carry out a fundamental revision of nationalism. De Benoit is the best there is in this sense.
8) The sociological, economic and philosophical teachings of Marx and Lenin are fundamental. In the current socio-economic system, what aspects of these theories are still relevant? What aspects should be revised and rejected? Is it possible to reconsider these teachings without falling into dogmatism, which, at least in Italy, has always given rise to political currents ideologically unfounded in the face of the pressing problems of our time?
- Marx has fundamental sociologism, analysis of capital and proletariat. Lenin has a wonderful and effective theory of revolution. In general, they are outdated. I don't think it makes sense to dig into the past. Communism has the value of denying liberalism and calling for the fight against capitalism. It's worth accepting. It is also worth accepting the holism inherent in socialism. But materialism, progressism, atheism are completely irrelevant. It's worth discarding. Philosophically, these are traces of the non-critical positivist culture of the 19th century.
I am convinced that fascism and the ideology of the third way are more inadequate. And liberalism in general is absolute evil both from the point of view of theory and from the point of view of modern practice. An alternative to liberalism should be sought not in the past, but in the future, not in old political theories, but in new ones. Specifically, in the 4th political theory, which would correspond to the conditions of postmodernism and would be based on a correct political and historical analysis of the results of the twentieth century and the results of the New Age. We need our own postmodern. The development of this line should be dealt with by both the right and the left, all those who are looking for an alternative to liberal globalization and American hegemony. In the current state, both neo-communism and neo-fascism only play into the hands of the enemy. We need to take a decisive step into the future.
9) Many centuries have passed since, ahead of the monk Philotheus, Ivan III decided to embody the myth of the Third Rome, rising from the ashes of the Byzantine Empire during its collapse. This idea, often emphasized by you, does not cease to exist, taking place even in the Soviet era, despite the clear gap between the political and religious spheres. In today's Russia, how do they look at this imperial bias, and what is the position of the Orthodox Church on this issue?
- The position of the church as a whole coincides with mine. The Third Rome is an ideal, a model and a norm for an Orthodox understanding of the socio-political structure of Russia and the peak of our national history. This idea is the quintessence of Russian political and historical self-consciousness. This translatio imperii made us who we are. This manifested itself in different forms both directly and indirectly. The Third International was a paradoxical communist edition of the Third Rome.
10) The creation of a Eurasian model also implies a new economic and social organization? Have you thought about creating an economic structure that can specifically oppose the capitalist free trade regime?
Yes. The most important thing is to put non-material values at the center of the economy. The French sociologist Louis Dumont wrote about it perfectly. Capitalism is based on the fact that the main attitude it makes the relationship of the individual and private property, that is, the private subject and the privatized object (Cartesian dualism within the boundaries of individuality). This is the basis of the modern economic theory and practice of capitalism, as well as the critical theory of communism (Dumont brilliantly proves the methodological individualism underlying the Marxist analysis of economics). The alternative model of economics should focus not on this, but on social relations between people. The production, distribution and consumption of material values is only one of the dimensions of social existence. Putting this in the spotlight, we find ourselves in a methodological trap. I wrote the book "The End of the Economy", which proves in detail that the optimal economic model is formed in those societies that place the economy on the periphery of attention, and not vice versa. The less we think about the economy, the more effective the economic system will be.
In this sense, Georges Batay's works on the economy of the gift and the social functions of the victim are relevant. The cursed part, that is, the surplus product, must be ritually destroyed in the form of an orgy and sacrifice.
11) In late 1998 and early 1999. Evgeny Primakov scared the West, then being Prime Minister, insisting on the need to create a new continental bloc with China and India, which could restore the balance in the relations of international forces in relation to the excessive global power acquired by Washington. After the end of the relevant Sino-Soviet Cold War crisis, how do you think the birth of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be able to preserve long-term relations between Moscow and Beijing?
The need to create a military-political bloc, an alternative to NATO, follows directly from the Eurasian theory. Primakov's idea was not fully realized. The SCO is already a more serious step in this direction. China is Russia's partner in the multipolar world. Probably the most important. But at the same time it is a demographic threat. The art of politics is to maintain a balance between one and the other. It would be much better for Japan to take the role of Russia's strategic Eurasian partner, if, of course, it were out of American control.
12) The worker described by Junger is perhaps one of the most characteristic
anthropological figures of the beginning of the last century. Nowadays in Europe, the worker has lost many of the qualities highlighted by Junger to such an extent that he is masterfully lost in the social democratic mass. What role does the figure of a worker play and how important is it these days?
I think this figure has disappeared, gone down from the price. The worker embodies modernity. Peculiar, but modern. Today is postmodern. The industry has been replaced by the information society. I think we need a other figure (instead of the Worker). I put forward several concepts in this capacity: Radical Subject (the one who does not change when everything changes), Pre-Man (human preconcept), Angel (political angelology instead of K. Schmitt's political theology).
13) More than once you spoke positively about Stalin's epic rule at the head of the Soviet Union, highlighting his "great-power" character, expressed in his ideas of Marxism-Leninism and partial proximity to patriarchal orders, reinforced by his meetings as a Soviet leader with the heads of great powers during the Great Patriotic War. Research conducted several years ago and a proposal to canonize Stalin by some political and religious organizations struck Western analysts, who still count the Bolshevik state leader among the most ruthless traitors. How do Russians, including the younger generation, feel about Stalin?
- Stalin is becoming a Russian folk myth today. No one considers him as a historical figure. He is the great leader of a great country. Compared to today's Russia and its insignificant leaders, Stalin looks like a titan. His cult is growing as liberal Russophobic dwarves and the hatred of the West fight against it. I'm far from idealizing Stalin, I'm just stating a sociological fact.
14) In your opinion, is there a significant difference between twentieth-century capitalism and the "turbo-capitalism of our days" as defined by Luttwack? What direct consequences can this global dynamics lead to for an individual? Sociologist Sigmund Baumann proves that global capitalism has given rise to two different classes: extraterritorial, a symbol of "high finance" and speed, and another, which has no voice in the political sphere, originated in urban peripheral circles. In these places, the individual is excluded from the rest of society, living his meager selfish life in constant social fears. How important is the reform of society in this capitalist system?
- I consider the analysis of Lütwack and Bauman, describing the conditions of postmodernism, correct and correct. This phase of capitalism corresponds to postmodernism. I believe that capitalism is an absolute evil in itself in all its manifestations, early and late, modernist (industrial) and postmodern (information society). Capitalism cannot be reformed, it is subject to destruction. A society based on the normative figure of an economic person, in all its versions, is disgusting. But turbocapitalism is more sinister, aggressive, poisonous and informal than the former capitalism. That's why it exposes evil more clearly and colorfully. In this sense, the worse, the better. Where there is risk, there is salvation. We need to take a step forward beyond the border of "meager times" (which Gelderlin wrote about and commented in Holzwege by Heidegger), and not a hundred steps back.
Alexander Dugin
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140829025505/http://rossia3.ru/ideolog/nashi/arcoeclava