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Eurasia in the War of Networks
16.12.2014
The reason for writing this text was Vladimir Putin’s address to Russia’s Federal Assembly and the synchronized passage of the anti-Russian resolution 758 by the U.S. Congress. Commenting on the latter, Congressman Eliot Engel stated: "It’s time to recognize the fact that Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin is a threat to European security and to U.S. interests in the region[1]." Back in 2011, Hillary Clinton similarly proclaimed: “We are in an information war.”[2] In his address, Putin stated: "Crimea, the ancient Korsun or Chersonesus, and Sevastopol have invaluable civilizational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism. And this is how we will always consider it.”[3] In other words, he declared a tough course for the revival of Russia’s sovereignty and continental power, as well as its sacred Orthodox identity. In response, the United States openly mentioned its information war against Russia:
(20) [The House of Representatives] calls on the President and the United States Department of State to develop a strategy for multilateral coordination to produce or otherwise procure and distribute news and information in the Russian language to countries with significant Russian-speaking populations which maximizes the use of existing platforms for content delivery such as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Incorporated, leverages indigenous public-private partnerships for content production, and seeks in-kind contributions from regional state governments;
(21) calls on the United States Department of State to identify positions at key diplomatic posts in Europe to evaluate the political, economic, and cultural influence of Russia and Russian state-sponsored media and to coordinate with host governments on appropriate responses; [4]
In reality, they have been carrying out this war against us for quite some time. But now it has reached a new level.
Parallel to these developments, I have noticed an increase in direct attacks against Eurasianists and me, personally, as well as the broad network of those interacting with me in Russia and around the world in the recent months. The last straw was the hacked e-mail box of a member of the Eurasian Movement, which was followed by a flurry of publications in the Western mainstream media about the alleged Russian-agent network around the world. These supposed agents were referred to as the "Black International" for the purpose of discreditation. I believe that the time has come to make some clarifications and, at the same time, identify the next trajectory for our Eurasian strategy.
Eurasianism as an anti-Western ideology
Let me remind you of the pre-history.
From the moment of its inception in the 1920s, Eurasianism has always opposed the global domination of the West, European universalism, and supported the uniqueness of the Russian civilization. Therefore, Eurasianism is, indeed, an anti-Western ideology in the sense that it rejects the Western society’s right to impose its criteria of good and evil as the universal norm. Russia is an independent Orthodox-Eurasian civilization, rather than the periphery of Europe, insisted Eurasianists, following their ideological predecessors, the Slavophiles, along with other Russian conservatives.
Gradually, Eurasianism was enriched with the methods of classic geopolitics that were based upon the dualism of the Land and Sea civilizations. Englishman Halford Mackinder introduced this concept in the first half of the twentieth century; it was further developed by American strategists such as Nicholas Spykman and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Here, Russia serves as the core of the Land civilization, Eurasia’s Heartland, and is thus doomed to carry out a centuries-old battle against the Anglo-Saxon world. In the past, its core was the British Empire, and, from the second half of the twentieth century onward, this was the United States. Therefore, Eurasianists oppose Western hegemony, American expansionism, and Liberal values and support the distinct Russian civilization, religion, and tradition. Furthermore, Eurasianists not only oppose the West, but also Russia’s own Westernizers and moderates: Liberals, first and foremost.
If the Atlanticist West is the enemy of the Eurasianists, then the Eurasians are the enemies of the West and its agents of influence. This is logical. Eurasianists know who their enemy is, and whom they oppose, and the enemy knows who the Eurasianists are. In this case, it would be strange if the Atlanticists, U.S. imperialists, and Liberals loved the Eurasianists and their supporters around the world. And vice versa. Hence the obvious thesis: we are either on the side of the Land civilization or that of the Sea. Land stands for Tradition, Faith (for Russians, this is Orthodox Christianity), Empire, narod (peoples), the Sacred, History, Family, Ethics. The Sea is modernization, trade, technology, Liberal democracy, capitalism, parliamentarism, individualism, materialism, and gender politics. These two are mutually exclusive sets of values.
Neo-Eurasianism in the Post-Soviet Period
A group of neo-Eurasianists, led by me, has been restoring and developing all these ideas as a comprehensive worldview starting from the late 1980s. We have reestablished a significant portion of the ideological heritage left by the original Eurasianists, added geopolitics and Traditionalism, and applied them to the political realities of the rapidly disintegrating USSR. Like the first Eurasianists of the 1920s—writing in emigration—we supported the transformation of the USSR into the Eurasian Empire. These transformations were supposed to involve preserving the entire space under unified strategic leadership, but changing the ideology to Orthodoxy and Eurasianism. And just like the original Eurasianists, we were convinced that the Liberals and Westernizers are the worst enemy of the Russian idea (worse than Communists), and that they would tear Greater Russia (USSR) apart if they were to be in power. After all, they were part of the Atlanticist network. This was fully confirmed in due time: they did get into power and did destroy it. And then they tried to break up the Russian Federation. Therefore, Eurasianists stood in radical opposition to Yeltsin and the entire Liberal-democratic pro-Western puppet regime of the 1990s, which was dominated by the comprador bourgeoisie and Russophobic agents of the U.S. This period marks the first demonization of neo-Eurasianists—the patriotic opposition in Russia—as "Russian chauvinists" in the United States and the West. Western ideologues even dragged a number of patriotic leaders into this anti-Eurasianist hysteria by using their ignorance and vanity and, occasionally, by simply bribing them.
All that changed by the year 2000 when Putin came to power. He began to transform the Yeltsin system in the patriotic vein, embodying a significant portion of ideas directly within the principles and values of the Eurasianist ideology. This and only this is the reason why the Eurasianists have supported Putin and support him still. There is nothing personal here: we opposed Yeltsin, an Atlanticist-Westernizer, and began to support patriotic Putin. This is a purely ideological, crystal clear choice. This is also the reason why the degree of hatred toward Eurasianists among Russia’s Liberal Westernizers along with the U.S.-dominated West had increased dramatically.
Today, Putin's policies are increasingly moving along the lines of Eurasianist ideas. This is why the West along with Russia’s Liberal media and Liberals within the government that pragmatically support Putin have begun to carry out a direct attack against Eurasianists. They view the danger of Eurasianist support for Putin not in their number or influence, but in the sheer power of Eurasianist ideas, based on geopolitics and the civilizational method, accurate historic analysis and a radically anti-Western, anti-Liberal orientation, leaving no room for manipulation, fraud, and deception for the Westernizers. For this reason, thorough effort has been put into ensuring that Putin would not offer the slightest support for the Eurasianists. According to the architects of Atlanticism, this would lead, sooner or later, to marginalized Eurasianism, pushing its ideology out into the periphery. This required colossal effort for the West and Russian Liberals. We cannot say that we successfully overcame all their efforts, but the opposite is also obvious: Putin confidently marches toward the establishment of the Eurasian Union. He does not fear openly challenging the West and its Liberal values, loudly addressing Faith, Tradition, and the conservative foundations of society.
Eurasian Networks Abroad
Already in the 1990s and especially in the 2000s, Eurasianists began to create a vast and extensive network relying on those forces that also rejected Atlanticism and American hegemony, opposed Liberalism and gender politics—those who stood for Tradition, the sacred, Christianity and other traditional faiths. Most often, the Eurasianist network has tended to include conservatives that are normally referred to as “right-wing.” Quite often, however, there opponents of American hegemony were found on the “Left” as well. Some of them were Russophiles, whereas others gravitated toward Eurasianism for pragmatic reasons: Russia’s traditional society was stronger than that of the West, and Russia’s strategic potential could become the counterweight to American domination. Many in Europe and beyond its borders studied geopolitics and easily identified the proponents of the Land civilization—to which they subscribed themselves (representing Tradition versus Liberalism)—in Eurasianism. However, the Eurasianist network was incomparably weaker and narrower than the enormous Atlanticist counterpart, supported by global capital (for instance, George Soros), pro-American Liberal elite (which almost always is the ruling class), military and intelligence power of the U.S. and NATO, an ever-expanding segment of youth attached to the Western network, forming a cosmopolitan view of things, individualism, overcoming morality, and a complete break with religion, traditions, narod (peoples), family, and even biological sex (gender). Nevertheless, the Eurasian network has been developing on the basis of those forces that disagreed with the new form of global domination—the "third totalitarianism" that rejects the rights of all other ideologies, if they do not recognize the basic principles of Liberalism. Any anti-Liberal alternative “on the Left” was classified as a "Stalinism" and "GULAG," whereas those “on the Right” were called "Nazi" and "Auschwitz." Eurasianism was neither Communist nor Fascist, that is, neither "Right" nor "Left." This is why Liberals have dubbed it the "Red-Brown International." Depending on the circumstances, they could declare Eurasianism to be "a network of KGB agents" ("Stalinism") or the "Black International" ("Eurasianist Fascism"). No one cared about the fact that it was neither one nor the other: for Liberals, there is no truth outside Liberalism. This explains the systematic and deliberate campaign by the Western mainstream media that had begun in the 1990s in order to systematically discredit Eurasianism and Eurasianists.
Gradually, the influence of Eurasianism and Eurasianist networks grew outside of Russia (in Europe, Turkey, and the former Soviet Union—especially Crimea and the eastern territories of the former Ukraine), and within Russia itself. Putin's response to the coup in Kiev—reunification with Crimea and the start of liberating Novorossia—served as a telling moment demonstrating the steadily growing significance of Eurasianism, often gone unnoticed by the surface-based observer. I described these scenarios as inevitable as early as the 1990s (See A. Dugin, Osnovy Geopolitiki [Foundations of Geopolitics] Moscow, 1997). Back then, I explained them through historical inevitability and geopolitical necessity: according to the logic of Eurasianist geopolitics, Ukraine will either join the Atlanticists (then the east and south will secede) or Russia (then the western regions will revolt). This is precisely what happened, and Putin acted as a true Russian patriot and Eurasianist under difficult circumstances rather than a Liberal and Atlanticist. As a result, the official West along with Russian Liberals and their veiled accomplices initiated a new wave of persecutions against Eurasianists, who were accused of endless and, at times, completely absurd claims, and blamed for all the deadly sins. The stronger these ideas became and the clearer was their embodiment in real political acts, the more hatred they aroused among the representatives of the Sea civilization and its network.
Network against Network
At the very beginning of the Ukrainian drama, I nominally divided Russia’s Atlanticists into the "fifth" and "sixth" columns. The "fifth" column represents overt Atlanticists, Liberals, and supporters of U.S. politics, who oppose Putin and Russian patriotism. The so-called "sixth" column disguises itself as pragmatists and state bureaucrats, supporting Putin on the outside. Like the “fifth” column, however, they categorically reject Eurasianist ideas and attempt to either restrain or sabotage any of Putin’s patriotic endeavors, dealing a blow to the Eurasianist network both in Russia and abroad. In Ukraine, the Maidan was an Atlanticist initiative. Crimea became the first Eurasianist answer to the Maidan. Novorossia would have been the second Eurasianist answer, but here, our offensive has (thus far) been contained by the Atlanticists in Russia and beyond. Much has changed during the course of the dramatic events in Ukraine in 2014. But Eurasianist geopolitics remains unchanged: Russia’s strategy involves sovereignty, multipolarity, and complete independence from American domination. Putin speaks and acts upon this notion. Therefore, despite everything, Eurasianists fully support Putin and his course. Again, this is nothing personal. At any given moment, certain aspects of his policy can generate small or great degrees of enthusiasm, while others—no enthusiasm at all. In general, however, a large segment of time measured in decades will reveal the fact that it is Eurasianist politics to which Putin subscribes. And it is obvious that he will adhere to this course later on. His latest address to the Federal Assembly leaves no doubt about this. It was impossible not to understand this from his speech. Openly declaring the Eurasianist platform, Putin stated:
If for some European countries national pride is a long-forgotten concept and sovereignty is too much of a luxury, true sovereignty for Russia is absolutely necessary for survival. Primarily, we should realize this as a nation. I would like to emphasize this: either we remain a sovereign nation, or we dissolve without a trace and lose our identity. Of course, other countries need to understand this, too. [5]
In terms of the Ukrainian situation, Eurasianist networks in Europe demonstrated their full potential. Almost all the pro-Russian protests, election observers, and even the French volunteers in Novorossia were somehow connected to the Eurasianist networks or to closely related or parallel movements. This is quite natural. In Europe and other places, Eurasianists are well aware of geopolitics, grasping the fact that this is not a conflict between two Slavic nations, Russia and Ukraine, but the Land versus Sea, American hegemony and unipolarity against the multipolar world represented by Russia. Therefore, the Eurasianist network does not act in the interests of Russia, but rather, the interests of Europe and the idea of multipolarity. Again, this is nothing personal: there are those who agree with Liberalism and American agenda and those who disagree. Europe’s conservatives do not agree with being dominated by the U.S. Consequently, they turn their gaze toward a place that offers a possible alternative. And what do they see? Putin's Russia and the Eurasianist ideology. And they understand one through the other, regardless of the starting point.
This logic is obvious to friends, but it is also evident to enemies. Putin is enemy number one for today’s Liberal West and the Sea civilization, because he consistently defends the interests of the Land counterpart. Any successful leader making Russia great and independent would be a "villain" in the eyes of the West, no matter who he really is. Therefore, Putin simply cannot become a hero for the U.S. and global Atlanticism. To do so, he would have to destroy Russia, as Gorbachev did with the USSR, for which he was applauded.
The same applies to Eurasianism: no matter the ideology, if it defies America’s hegemony, while relying on a powerful nuclear state, it cannot be indifferent or viewed in an abstractly neutral manner. Enemies understand everything very well and will use every effort to demonize Eurasianism by any means necessary. They employ denigration, defamation, slander, insults, false labeling, misidentification with "Stalinism" or "Fascism" (depending on the particular context) bought trials, and so on.
Under Attack. Preparing a Counteroffensive
At some point, Putin, as the leader of a great country, and the Eurasianist ideology, as a conceptual apparatus that accurately describes the challenges and goals of the current geopolitical situation— where old ideologies (Left and Right) no longer work—fused into a shared object of all-encompassing hatred in the eyes of the entire Atlanticist network. Anyone who supports Russia or even criticizes the West simultaneously becomes "Putin’s agent", "Russian spy," and a "Eurasianist." At the same time, it is worth noting that when we mention the so-called fifth column in Russia and the network of Atlanticist agents, we are instantly bombarded with accusation of paranoia and conspiracy theories.
But look at the mainstream-media headlines in the West: the search for "Putin's fifth column" is in full swing, there are lists of “Russian spies,” and there is a direct campaign to identify all those who are sympathetic toward Russia on the basis of a hacked Eurasianist email. What is our small heroic network of those who oppose today’s Liberal world order in comparison to the trillions of the Federal Reserve System, Liberal universities, the latest technology, global mainstream media, as well as the tens of thousands NGOs and agents of influence within the European and Asian elites? But this network inspires rage and fury in the enemy. After all, Russia is with us. And Putin leads Russia. Our people and history stand behind him. No longer does a handful of enthusiasts carrying Novorossia’s flags and Putin’s portraits on the streets of Europe seem so pathetic. This is the alternative civilization—that of the Land, of the Heartland—arising from slumber. And it will continue to arise until fully awakened.
This is a calm before the storm. The situation in Novorossia has reached a dead end. Pressure on Russia is growing by the minute. We are under a powerful onslaught. Anyone who actively supports Putin, links up with the Eurasian network, and defies the American Beast, is currently under attack. Under heavy fire. This fire grows. Pressure becomes increasingly strong. Betrayal is particularly unpleasant in this situation. It is unfortunate when the enemy is well aware of how dangerous you are to him, whereas your potential friend seems to be unaware of your usefulness. Herein lies the real test. One can endure it only through a powerful idea. Despite psychological tricks and complex network games that our opponents use to strangle us.
We have established and will continue establishing Eurasianist networks throughout the world. We have worked and will continue working against American hegemony in order to undermine it. We have supported and will continue supporting all alternative players in Europe and Asia that stand for Tradition (for us, Russians, this is Orthodox Christianity, first and foremost), justice, freedom, and a multipolar world. Despite the aspirations of today’s West: there is not one, but many civilizations; there is not one (Liberal), but many ideologies; there is not a single humanity, but a rich diversity of cultures that do not accept globalization and will fight it to the bitter end.
God is with us, you, nations, prepare for battle and be shattered, for God is with us! (From Isaiah 8:9-10)
