Russians are “eschatologically chosen.” They need to stand in opposition to the false religion, the pseudoreligion of Western liberalism and the unfold of its evil: modernity, scientism, postmodernity, and the brand new world order. That is the thesis of Aleksandr Dugin, the outstanding Russian thinker, and a mentor of the Russian president Vladimir Putin. As a geographical “pivot space,” Russia should regain its place within the heartland of the Eurasian continent.
Political Philosophy
Aleksandr Dugin’s political idea of traditionalism needs to free socialism from its materialist, atheist, and modernist options. He calls his method “the fourth political idea” (2012) as a result of it’s directed in opposition to the opposite ideologies of communism, liberalism, and fascism. Dugin, who teaches sociology and geopolitics on the Lermontov College of Moscow, seeks a brand new political concept for Russia. He finds it within the area’s conventional id, which Dugin associates with “faith, hierarchy, and household.” As such, his idea is a “campaign” in opposition to postmodernity, the postindustrial society, liberal thought, and globalization.
In his homeland, Aleksandr Dugin is a widely known geostrategist and a mentor of the present Russian President Vladimir Putin. For Dugin, America is a risk to the Russian tradition and to Russia’s id. He makes his place unmistakably clear when he declares:
I strongly imagine that Modernity is completely flawed and the Sacred Custom is completely proper. USA is the manifestation of all I hate—Modernity, westernization, unipolarity, racism, imperialism, technocracy, individualism, capitalism.
In his eyes, America is “the society of Antichrist.” America of America is the ominous and alarming nation on the opposite facet of the ocean, “with out historical past, with out custom, with out roots … the results of a pure experiment by the European utopian rationalists.” He laments that America is imposing its planetary domination and experiencing the triumph of its life-style spreading everywhere in the world. He criticizes that “in herself and solely in herself” does America see the norms of progress and civilization.
In accordance with Dugin, the USA denies everybody else “the fitting to their very own path, their very own tradition, and their very own system of values.” His conclusion thus is that burying America “is our non secular obligation.” The salvation not solely of Russia however of virtually all of the Eurasian continent is the return to its “Sacred Custom.” Within the eyes of Dugin, Russia should return to its true id. A return to Russia’s greatness is an ethical obligation. America stands in the way in which of fulfilling Russia’s messianic name.
Geopolitics
In Dugin’s view, the cultural rift has a geopolitical counter piece. His nice imaginative and prescient is to create a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis that might fill the geopolitical black gap that had been left in Eurasia after the demise of the Soviet Union.
A few of Dugin’s fundamental ideas of geopolitics may be traced again to the English geopolitical geographer Halford J. Mackinder and the German geopolitical theorist Karl Hans Haushofer (1869–1946). Mackinder (1861–1947) introduced his thesis that the heartland of Eurasia is the “geographical pivot of historical past” at a gathering of the Royal Geographic Society as early as in 1904.
Mackinder’s prognosis stated that whereas the huge space of Eurasia has been inaccessible to ships, this drawback will finish as a result of Russia is about to assemble a complete railroad system. Being inaccessible to ships is not a drawback. With the railway system, the Russian Empire is on its strategy to put stress on “Finland, on Scandinavia, on Poland, on Turkey, on Persia, on India, and on China.” On this planet at massive, a modernized Russia would occupy the central strategical place held by Germany in Europe.”
On the time of Mackinder’s presentation in the beginning of the 20 th century, London was already involved in regards to the rise of Germany as an industrial powerhouse and if Russia ought to observe, a brand new and probably even larger rival would emerge. The prevention of any alliance between Russia and Germany gained strategic precedence within the international coverage circles of the UK. The idea of sustaining the stability of energy in Europe and adverting the conquest of Russia by Germany or vice versa grew to become a strategic crucial and motivated Britain to enter World Battle I in 1914.
Within the Nineteen Twenties, Karl Haushofer’s geostrategic imaginative and prescient of an axis from Paris, Berlin, and Moscow to Tokyo gained form in Germany and likewise attracted Soviet strategists. Dugin’s geopolitical idea represents the continuation of this line of thought and follows Haushofer in addition to Mackinder’s dictum: “Who guidelines East Europe instructions the Heartland: Who guidelines the heartland instructions the World-Island: Who guidelines the World-Island instructions the World.”
For Dugin, the battle between the North Atlantic Treaty Group and the Warsaw Pact in the course of the Chilly Battle stands in the identical context because the battle between Carthage and Rome. With the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of the US as the only superpower, this historic battle has reached a brand new stage. Now, Russia stands alone in opposition to a widened NATO. With this, the battle between the Atlantic area and the heartland of Eurasia is shifting in the direction of a showdown.
A decade earlier than the Dugin’s geopolitical worldview gained prominence, the American geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski had additionally recognized the Jap European heartland as a pivot area. In his The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (2016), Brzezinski explains that to keep up America’s prime function on this planet, it should embody each Germany and Japan as its strongholds on the Western and Jap sides of the Eurasian continent to maintain Russia in test.
As to the significance of the geostrategic place of Russia and its neighbors, there could be not a lot distinction between Aleksandr Dugin and Zbigniew Brzezinski. For each, Eurasia is the chessboard on which the battle for world primacy continues to be performed. The elemental distinction, nonetheless, between America and Russia is that the collapse of the Soviet Union has left the US within the distinctive place having change into the primary superpower with a world attain.
To determine this hegemony, Brzezinski explains, Eurasia is the “geopolitically axial,” and Ukraine is a geopolitical pivot state. It follows that “with out Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire…. Nevertheless, if Moscow regains management over Ukraine … Russia routinely once more regains the wherewithal to change into a robust imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”
Critique
It’s exhausting to know that Dugin claims “custom” and “id” when in actual fact, the Russian historical past of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been a catastrophe. It was holding on to imaginary traditions that laid the groundwork for the calamities to occur. It was the resistance of the Tsars in opposition to liberalism and capitalism which have continued below the Soviets as much as the current management which have blocked Russia’s progress.
Within the twentieth century, Russia skilled one disaster after the opposite. The Russo-Japanese Battle of 1905 resulted in a humiliating defeat and provoked violent uprisings within the nation. World Battle I value tens of millions of casualties and devasted Russia’s economic system. The Bolshevik takeover led to the bloody civil battle of 1918–21 adopted by the Russo-Polish Battle of 1919–20. The Soviet Union started its existence parallel to the institution of the GULAG, the huge community of focus camps.
The pressured industrialization and the collectivization of agricultural land generated the Holodomor, the famines with tens of millions of deaths in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Stalin’s regime of terror incarcerated tens of millions in labor camps.
World Battle II of 1941–45 introduced horrendous navy and civilian casualties and was instantly adopted by the Chilly Battle with its arms race and dear engagements in lots of Third World international locations. The tragic battle in Afghanistan for over ten years, till 1989, delivered the ultimate blow and led to the breakdown of the Soviet Union. The failed temptation to determine a market economic system introduced not prosperity however established oligarchical state capitalism.
Likewise problematic is Dugin’s evaluation of battle and tradition as the primary battle between the Atlantic space and the Eurasian heartland. For each features, battle and tradition, his idea of “Atlanticists” in opposition to “Eurasians” is basically flawed. Wars among the many seafaring Europeans have marked the historical past because the instances of Greece and Rome and so they reached new heights after the invention of America. Likewise, the “land powers” France and Germany invaded Russia and each of them had been defeated by Russia with the help of the “Atlanticists.”
As to the thesis of a basic cultural rift between Western Europe and the Russian lands, one ought to keep in mind that the Russian Orthodox Church in lots of features is nearer to Catholicism than the Catholic Church is to Protestantism within the West. The Russian literature and music of the eighteenth century had been deeply influenced by the Western a part of Europe and the Russian contributions fed as strongly again to Western Europe. It was not a cultural rift that made Russia undertake Marxism as an alternative of free capitalism and the values of classical liberalism. Russia imported the false ideologies from the West. By choosing Marxism from the West as an alternative of liberal capitalism from the West, Russia made its best mistake to this point.
With respect to the present battle in Ukraine, not solely the international coverage of Russia has made itself a hostage of geopolitics but additionally America. By shedding Ukraine, Russia fears to be bereaved of its id along with the prospect of changing into a world participant once more. For the US, Ukraine is seen because the pivotal state to keep up and broaden its world hegemonic place. In each international locations, international coverage makers take a look at the geographical map and see a chessboard. Each appear to imagine that the authority over Ukraine decides with out ifs and buts their very own future.
It will not be the primary time in historical past that an “idée repair” like geographical dedication of world affairs places the prosperity and peace throughout the continents in danger.
Conclusion
When following the ideological path of Aleksandr Dugin, Russia would commit one other tragic error. As a substitute of following the illusions of an imaginary custom, the Russian management ought to acknowledge that aside from with free capitalism, there will likely be neither liberty nor prosperity.
Traditionally, Russia’s residence shouldn’t be exterior of Europe. Petersburg and Moscow are European cities. If, nonetheless, the Western powers ought to fail to combine Russia into a standard safety system, Russia will flip in the direction of Asia. With China, India, and Iran, new associations are ready.
Contemplating the strategic “pivotal” function of Ukraine, each Russia and the US could also be flawed.
