Contextualizing the Recent Decline of Extremely Right-Wing Parties in Russia,"
Weatherhead
Center for International Affairs Working Paper No.
Dugin - Alexander Dugin and New European Radical Right
Throughout the 19th century, the princi- pal thinkers of "Russian national distinctive- ness" had upheld a culturalist approach, and, unlike their Western colleagues, accorded only very little importance to racial determinism.
113 Slavophile and Pan-Slavist thought remained under the influence of Hegel and Herder, and perceived the factual dimension of reality as a hidden fight between ideas.
Thus, for over a century, it has been "normal" for Russian intel- lectuals sensitive to the national question to affirm, in Dugin's phrase, that "every people advances in History according to its own trajec- tory, upholding its own understanding of the world.
That is why what is good for some peo- ples cannot be applied to others.
"114
Dugin, however, deploys an ambiguous cul- turalist and biological terminology with regard to this question: he uses the term ethnos with a positive meaning, seeing it as the primary point of collective reference ("the whole, the ethnos, according to the Eurasianists, is higher than the part, the individual"115), but at the same time remains critical of ethno-nationalism. According to Dugin, the superiority of the collectivity over the individual must be expressed in the political field as a "political ethnism. " This differential pluralism would be based on a corporatist system that would institutionalize intermediate echelons between the individual and the state. It would reveal Russia's true imperial nature. Unlike the Russians, who are "the empire's constitutive nation" [imperoobrazuiushchaia natsiia], the non- Russian peoples may benefit from cultural autonomy, but not from sovereignty, contrary to what was proclaimed during perestroika. 116 No nationality should be recognized territorially, because "Russians exist as the only national community within a supranational imperial complex. "117 Dugin argues that the negotiations between the federal center and the subjects of the federation started by Boris Yeltsin fostered separatism in the Caucasus and in the Volga-Ural region. This ethno-centrism should, on the con- trary, be condemned, since stands in the way of
ALEKSANDR DUGIN: A RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE EUROPEAN RADICAL RIGHT? 19
a national supra-unification of the Eurasian eth- nos. Dugin's strength is in his capacity for playing with concepts: for example, he proposes to "meet these identification tendencies of the peo- ples and regions of the Federation half-way," but in a controlled way that would subject them to the center. 118
Whether he bases himself on Eurasianist or New Right arguments, Dugin condemns nationalism in its ethnic and "chauvinist"variety, which he considers dangerous and obsolete. The idea of an ethnic miscegenation of peoples cele- brated by Western newspeak appears to him as disastrous as was the theory of racial purity, because both lead to ethnocide. On the contrary, "the Eurasianist attitude toward the ethnos remains conservative, based on the principle of the absolute necessity of protecting each ethnic group from the prospect of historical disappear- ance. "119 This terminology remains paradoxical: not only does Dugin refrain from rejecting the idea of race, he also seems confused in his understanding of ethnicity, as he gives it an emi- nently culturalist and civilizationist meaning, while at the same time using the terminology of the ethnos, which, following the Soviet tradition, remains very much tied to nature and even biol- ogy. This contradiction can be explained by Dugin's "post-modern" approach: he says he wishes to restore all the ideas, both religious and ethnic, that have been thrown out by moderni- ty, which is why he addresses the ethnic question in both a positive and a negative way: positive when he uses it against the globalized liberalism which he views as destructive of the differences between peoples, and negative when he sees ethnic nationalism as preventing the affirmation of Eurasian unity.
Thus Dugin's main activity, for several years, has been to speak out for a new interpretation of the idea of human rights. He is convinced that they constitute, through their claim to universal- ity, a "new kind of totalitarianism". He propos- es to develop a theory of the "rights of peo- ples,"120 appropriating Third Worldist discourse as the right has been doing for some time. According to Dugin, this theory will first be put into practice in Russia, because, due to its natu- ral federalism, that country advocates ethno-cul- tural autonomy in exchange for unitarianism in state affairs. "The concept of people [narod] must be recognized as the fundamental legal category,
as the main subject of international and civil law. "121 Individuals will be legally identified by their ethnic, religious or cultural affiliation. A similar theory had already been proposed a long time ago by Panarin, who put forward a "civi- lizational" rather than political pluralism which he saw as typical of Eurasia.
Dugin's absolutization of the ethnic collectiv- ity implies a difficult attitude toward the idea of cultural transfer. As Pierre-Andre? Taguieff has justly and repeatedly noted, the cult of difference implies a phobia of intermingling: it celebrates heterogeneity, but fears the mixing of peoples and traditions. Dugin considers the possibility of miscegenation between populations, or the transfer of cultural or political elements from one "civilization" to another, as dangerous. Indeed, he claims he has a "tolerant attitude toward eth- nic miscegenation on the level of the elites, but a cautious attitude on level of the masses. "122 Here he is once more in tune with the tradition of Soviet ethnology, which, following the theories of Yulian Bromlei and Lev Gumilev, had regular- lycalledforthedevelopmentofendogamoustra- ditions in order to preserve the "genetic fund" [genofond] of each ethnic entity. Once again, Dugin succeeds with aplomb in fitting old con- ceptions based on Russian or Soviet stereotypes into global intellectual debates. He adapts the Russian case to a more global theory on the cur- rent recomposition of collective identities under conditions of globalization, anchoring his ideas in alter-globalization movements, many of which have turned differentialism into one of their main dogmas.
CONTEXTUALIZING DUGIN'S PLACE
IN RUSSIAN PUBLIC LIFE
A survey of Dugin's ideas naturally prompts questions about the extent to which he is repre- sentative, about his strategies, and about the net- works through which his ideas are spread. In many senses, especially regarding his career, he can be considered to represent the general evo- lution of the Russian nationalist milieux over the past two decades. In the first half of the 1990s, these currents, then presented as "red-and- brown," were united in their opposition to the liberal reforms of the Yeltsin era. A change in their attitude toward the establishment set in during the prime ministership of Primakov, and gained momentum when Putin came to power,
20 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #294
an event which recomposed and narrowed down the political spectrum. Numerous nation- alist figures came to support the authorities while preserving their political structures, resulting in a kind of vociferous but fictitious opposition. This was the case with Ziuganov's Communist Party, as well as with Zhirinovskii's LDPR and the Rodina bloc. Dugin also followed this path from radical opposition to public pro- fessions of loyalty. This is why he likes to classi- fy himself as being in the "radical center" of the public spectrum:123 radical in his political and philosophical doctrines, but centrist by virtue of his support for the current president. He thus embodies one of the main tendencies of the European radical right, which virulently attempts to differentiate itself from the centrist discourse of the powers-that-be on an ideolog- ical level, while developing a public strategy for gaining respectability.
Paradoxically, Dugin is isolated within the nationalist currents. He is their only substantial thinker, and his theories inspire numerous pub- lic figures and movements. At the same time, his theoretical position is too complex for any party to follow him entirely and turn him into its official thinker. He is also disturbing for the entire camp of Russian nationalism on several points: he condemns populism, which is central to the strategies of of the main figures: Ziuganov, Zhirinovskii, and Eduard Limonov. The various nationalist currents do not recog- nize him as their ideologist; thus, while he makes numerous Aryanist statements and adopts an ambiguous anti-Semitism, he is seldom quoted by Aryanist leaders, as he does not refer to the main neo-pagan reference book, the Book of Vles. He is also strongly criticized by anti-Semitic circles for condemning theories of a Jewish plot, rejecting revisionism, and appar- ently denying the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This elitist position, which he refuses to compromise in exchange for electoral success, is reminiscent of Alain de Benoist. However, Dugin cannot be entirely equated with the New Right: his stance is also informed by Traditionalism and fascism (in the sense out- lined above). Thus he does not go as far as de Benoist on Third Worldism, and uses racist arguments in a more pronounced way.
Dugin's intellectual eclecticism assures him a certain degree of success among the young gen-
eration, revealing post-Soviet Russia's lack of foundations of identity. His occultist leanings, his exacerbated religious sensibility, his rejection of communist ideology but not of the Soviet experience, as well as his ahistorical discourse about Russian grandeur, are his attractive points. Not only do his geopolitical theories restore to Russia the role of a global superpow- er, he also modernizes a certain variety of polit- ical fundamentalism, exalts a sense of hierarchy and war, resurrects the mythical triangle between Germany, Russia and Japan, and argues that cultures are incommensurable and will unavoidably come into conflict with one anoth- er. His anti-Western feelings are reinforced by the revival of Pan-Asianism in South-East Asia: all Neo-Eurasianists admire these countries for having successfully allied economic dynamism to political authoritarianism, as well as for their general rejection of Western domination and the "return" to Islamic values in the Muslim states of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Attempts to classify such a doctrine and per- sonality inevitably remain guesswork: Dugin is above all in search of himself, and his inner quest, particular the religious one, probably constitutes one of the matrixes of his political doctrines. Dugin's strategies are therefore tai- lored to fit his personal evolution and the insti- tutional position he hopes to reach. These strategies are organized along several lines: Dugin understands that the Eurasianist and geopolitical part of his theories is best suited to be widely spread in contemporary Russian soci- ety. In the same way, the idea of a unification of the patriotic scene and the creation of a kind of "union of nationalists without borders," which the International Eurasianist Movement hopes to become, strike a chord with numerous Russian political circles. Traditionalism, escha- tologism and esotericism are relegated to the background of his public activities, and are reserved for a more restricted circle of initiated followers, for example in the framework of the New University. Dugin's Eurasianism is proba- bly more promising than his National Bolshevism or Traditionalism: the term "Eurasia" is being adopted very extensively in Russia among very varied social and political milieux, though in a way that strips it of its orig- inal theoretical implications. Dugin thus seems to have succeeded, at least regarding this aspect
ALEKSANDR DUGIN: A RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE EUROPEAN RADICAL RIGHT? 21
of his thought, in his entryism into official structures. Indeed, as was observed very justly by the weekly Obshchaia gazeta, "Dugin is no longer considered to be the preacher of an ide- ological sect, but rather as an officially recog- nized specialist on geopolitical questions. "124
Dugin thus attempts to pursue a multiform strategy on the fringe of the classical electoral political spectrum. He develops a geopolitical discourse aimed at a large public, a concept of Eurasia as the basis for a new ideology of Russian great power for the Putin establishment, and Traditionalism and other philosophical and religious doctrines restricted to small but influ- ential and consciously elitist intellectual circles. Even if Dugin's institutional presence, in Russia and abroad, is based on groupuscules, the influ- ence of his personality and his works must not be underestimated. In spite of his rhetorical rad- icalism, which few people are prepared to follow in all its philosophical and political conse- quences, Dugin has become one of the most fashionable thinkers of the day. Using networks that are difficult to trace, he is disseminating the myth of Russian great power, accompanied by imperialist, racialist, Aryanist and occultist beliefs that are expressed in a euphemistic way and whose scope remains unclear, but that can- not remain without consequences.
Dugin's role as an ideological mediator will probably be an important point to consider in any long-term historical assessment: he is one of the few thinkers to engage in a profound renew- al of Russian nationalist doctrines, which had been repetitive in their Slavophilism and their czarist and/or Soviet nostalgia. His originality lies precisely in his attempt to create a revolu- tionary nationalism refreshed by the achieve- ments of 20th century Western thought, fully accepting the political role these ideas played between the two world wars. Therefore, in his opposition to American globalization, Dugin unintentionally contributes to the international- ization of identity discourse and to the uni- formization of those theories that attempt to resist globalization. He illustrates that, although aiming for universality, these doctrines are still largely elaborated in the West. This is a paradox- ical destiny for a Russian nationalist, whose self- defined and conscious "mission" is to anchor a profoundly Western intellectual heritage in Russia, and to use it to enrich his fellow citizens.
NOTES
1. For further details on the distribution of his publications (print runs, re-editions), see: Andreas Umland, "Kulturhegemoniale Strategien der russischen extremen Rechten: Die Verbindung von faschistischer ideologie und metapolitischer Taktik im Neoeurasismus des Aleksandr Dugin," O? ster- reichische Zeitschrift fu? r Politikwissenschaft, vol. 33, no. 2/2004, pp. 437-454.
2. Viacheslav Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii, Moscow: Panorama, 2002, p. 103.
3. The title of this show is not neutral. It refers to a famous collection of articles from 1909 called Vekhi, considered a manifesto against the ideology of the radical intelligentsia. The authors of Vekhi argued for the primacy of the spiritual and appealed to the revolution- ary intelligentsia to recognize the spiritual source of human life: to them, only concrete idealism, manifested in Russian in the form of religious philosophy, allows to objectivate traditional mysticism and to fuse knowledge and faith.
4. All his publications are available on the web. His two web sites, Arctogaia (www. arcto. ru) and Evraziia (www. evrazia. org) also include links to a nationalist network that includes web sites such as Novoe soprotivlenie (New Resistance), as well as to web-based maga- zines such as Lenin.
5. The Ways of the Absolute (Puti absoliuta), writ- ten in 1989 and published in 1991, The Conservative Revolution (Konservativnaia revoli- utsiia, 1994), Goals and Tasks of our Revolution (Tseli i zadachi nashei revoliutsii, 1995), Templars of the Proletariat (Tampliery proletaria- ta, 1997), The Philosophy of Traditionalism (Filosofiia traditsionalizma) and The Evolution of the Paradigmatic Foundations of Science (Evoliuciia paradigmal'nykh osnovanii nauki, 2002), The Philosophy of Politics (Filosofiia poli- tiki) and The Philosophy of War (Filosofiia voiny, 2004).
6. The Metaphysics of the Gospel: Orthodox Esotericism (Metafizika Blagoi Vesti (Pravoslavnyi ezoterizm), 1996) and The End of the World. Eschatology and Tradition (Konets sveta: Eskhatologiia i tradiciia, 1997).
7. The Mysteries of Eurasia (Misterii Evrazii) and The Hyperborean (Giperboreec, 1991), The Hyperborean Theory (1993).
22 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #294
8. Conspirology (Konspirologiia, 1992, republished in 2005), The Foundations of Geopolitics (Osnovy geopolitiki, 1996, four re-editions), Our Way. Strategic Prospects for the Development of Russia in the 21st Century (Nash put'. Strategicheskie perspektivy razvitiia Rossii v XXI veke, 1998), The Russian Thing. Essays in National Philosophy (Russkaia veshch'. Ocherki natsion- al'noi filosofii, 2001), The Foundations of Eurasianism (Osnovy evraziistva), The Eurasianist Path (Evraziiskii put') and The Eurasian Path as National Idea (Evraziiskii put' kak natsional'naia ideia, 2002).
9. Markus Mathyl, "The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-fascist Groupuscules in the Post-Soviet Political Space," Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 36, no. 3/2003, pp. 62-76.
10. Stephen Shenfield, Russian Fascism. Traditions, tendencies, movements, London: M. E. Sharpe, 2001, p. 194.
11. Eduard Limonov, Moya politicheskaia biografiia, St. Petersburg: Amfora, 2002, p. 64.
12. Andrei Tsygankov, "Hard-Line Eurasianism and Russia's contending geopolitical per- spectives," East European Quaterly, no. 3, 1998, pp. 315-334.
13. Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii, Moscow: Arktogeya, 1997. On this book, see J. B. Dunlop, "Aleksandr Dugin's 'Neo-Eurasian' Textbook and Dmitrii Trenin's Ambivalent Response," Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. xxv, no. 1-2/2001, pp. 91-127.
14. Aleksandr Dugin, "Evraziiskaia platforma," Zavtra, 21 January 2000.
15. Wayne Allensworth, The Russia Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post- Communist Russia, Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, and "The Eurasian Project: Russia-3, Dugin and Putin's Kremlin," paper presented at the National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Salt Lake City, 4-6 November 2005.
16. For further details on Dugin's connections with military circles, see: Dunlop, op. cit. , pp. 94, 102.
17. Franc? oise Thom, "Eurasisme et ne? o- eurasisme," Commentaires, no. 66/1994, p. 304.
18. "Evraziistvo: ot filosofii k politike," Dugin's paper at the founding congress of the Evraziia movement, 21 April 2001.
19. "My--partiia natsional'noi idei," Dugin's paper at the conference preparing the transformation of Evraziia from a move- ment into a political party, 1 March 2002.
20. An economist by training, Glaz'ev was known since the collapse of the Soviet Union as a partisan of economic reforms. In 1991, he was named vice-minister (and, in December 1992, minister) of foreign economic relations in Egor Gaidar's gov- ernment. He resigned after the October 1993 events, when he refused to support Boris Yeltsin in his struggle against the White House. Between 1993 and 1995, he was a Duma deputy, chairing the parlia- ment's committee on economic policies. Between 1995 and 1999, he worked at the Federation Council and moved closer to Aleksandr Lebed'. During these years, Glaz'ev changed his mind on his liberal economic principles and moved closer to the Communists. Today he is an interven- tionist and statist in economic matters, although he doesn't advocate a return to the Soviet model. In 1999, he was elected deputy on the CPRF list. Within Rodina, Glaz'ev embodied the left wing. In spite of his hasty departure from the electoral block, he succeeded in standing as candi- date in the presidential elections of March 2004 and garnered 4. 1% of the votes.
21. Dunlop, op. cit. , p. 104.
22. "Partiia Evraziia vykhodit iz bloka
Glaz'eva," Km. Ru, 19 September 2003, http://www. km. ru/news/view. asp? id=7D D7770F40434412B24FDB116 DB19000.
23. http://glazev. evrazia. org/news/190903- 1. html.
24. Aleksandr Barkashov's Russian National Unity (RNU) was one of the first groups to emerge after Pamiat' split up. Barkashov, who rejects the Orthodox and czarist nos- talgia of Pamiat' leaders, founded his own movement as well as the party newspaper Russkii poriadok. The RNU borrowed a significant part of its symbols from Nazism: the swastika, the Roman salute, paramili- tary clothes, and parts of the NSDAP's program, including a mixed economy and
ALEKSANDR DUGIN: A RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE EUROPEAN RADICAL RIGHT? 23
eugenic theories. The RNU contends that the USSR implemented a program of racial miscegenation between Slavs and non- Aryan peoples in order to make the Slavs disappear. The RNU differed from numer- ous others post-Soviet nationalist groups in its racialist definition of the Russian nation. The movement imploded in 2000 and is now split into numerous small groups.
25. The main exception was Dmitrii Riurikov, one of Boris Yeltsin's counselors on inter- national politics. In 2001, he became a member of the central board of Evraziia while he was Russia's ambassador to Uzbekistan (he was later transferred to Denmark).
26. In Russian it is impossible to distinguish between 'Eurasian' and 'Eurasianist' (evrazi- iskii chelovek).
27. Andreas Umland, "Toward an Uncivil Society?
Contextualizing the Recent Decline of Extremely Right-Wing Parties in Russia," Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Working Paper No. 02-03, 2002.
28. http://evrazia. org/modules. php? name =News&file=article&sid=1508.
29. He also republished Iakov Bromberg's Evrei i Evraziia and E. Khara-Davan's Rus' mon- gol'skaia in 2002.
30. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 97.
31. "Evraziisky triumf," in: P. Savitsky,
Kontinent Evraziia, Moscow: Agraf, 1997,
p. 434.
32. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 159.
33. Leontyev stood for a far-reaching turn in
Russian thought. He argued that Russians are not really Slavs but above all a people mixed with Turkic groups. In an ambiguous man- ner, he anticipated the "turn to the East" of the later Eurasianists: he abandoned the lin- guistic argument about Slavic identity and, for example, acknowledged that he preferred the Greeks to the other Slavs in the religious realm. Leontyev was the first to understand the potential of the "Turanian argument" to help Russia assert her identity against Europe. See: M. Laruelle, "Existe-t-il des pre? curseurs au mouvement eurasiste? L'obsession russe pour l'Asie a` la fin du xixe sie`cle," Revue des e? tudes slaves, Paris: Institut d'e? tudes slaves, vol. LXXV, no 3-4/2004, pp. 437-454.
34. Misterii Evrazii, p. 19.
35. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 247.
36. However, Dugin accepts the separatism of
those areas that he considers non-Russian (he proposes to return the Kuril Islands to Japan and Kaliningrad to Germany) provid- ed they remain under the control of allies of Eurasia and Continentalism.
37. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 341.
38. He also wishes to return Ukraine into the
Russian sphere of influence and to divide it in accordance with what he calls the ethno- cultural realities of the country. For further details, see: Dunlop, op. cit. , pp. 109-112.
39. "Evraziiskii otvet na vyzovy globalizacii," Osnovy evraziistva, p. 541-563.
40. Nash put', p. 47.
41. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 261.
42. Konspirologiia, also online at www. arctoga-
ia. com/public/consp.
43. Evraziia prevyshe vsego, p. 4.
44. Osnovy evraziistva, p. 762.
45. The reference book on Traditionalism is:
Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World. Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
46. Introduction ge? ne? rale a` l'e? tude des doctrines hin- doues in 1921, Le the? osophisme, histoire d'une pseudo-religion in 1921, L'erreur spirite in 1923, Orient et Occident in 1924, La crise du monde moderne in 1927.
47. Tampliery proletariata, p. 128.
48. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 11. 49. Milyi Angel, no. 1/1991, online at
www. angel. com. ru.
50. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 11.
51. Puti absoliuta, republished in Absoliutnaia
rodina (Moscow, 1999), p. 174.
52. Metafizika blagoi vesti, republished in
Absoliutnaia rodina, p. 510.
53. Puti absoliuta, p. 152-153.
54. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 255.
55. See for example his papers given at the 6th
World Russian People's Council in Osnovy
evraziistva, p. 704-715.
56. The Old Believers are a current of
Orthodoxy born after the Schism [Raskol], that is the separation, in the 17th century, of a significant portion of the Orthodox population from the official Russian church. They refused Patriarch Nikon's
24
KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #294
reforms of the Orthodox ritual and liturgy. They were repeatedly persecuted in czarist times and were at the origin of numerous religious and social revolts against the cen- tral authorities. Dugin sees himself as one of the so-called "united believers" who fol- low the Old Believers' rituals while recog- nizing the authority of the Patriarch. Other Old Believers, who have refused to acknowledge the Patriarchate in exchange for tolerance of their specific practice of worship, are in a minority today.
57. Russkaia veshch, vol . 1, p. 569.
58. Milyi Angel, no. 3/1996.
59. Milyi Angel, no. 2/1996.
60. see his Evoliuciia paradigmal'nykh osnovanii
nauki, his candidate of sciences thesis defended in 2000 at Rostov-on-Don University.
61. Evoliuciia. . . , p. 66.
62. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 12.
63. Puti absoliuta, p. 5.
64. Konservativnaia revoliutsiia, p. 85-97.
65. Konservativnaia revoliutsiia, p. 99.
66. Konservativnaia revoliutsiia, p. 4-5.
67. See Pierre-Andre? Taguieff, Sur la Nouvelle
droite. Jalons d'une analyse critique, p.
148-296.
68. In Den' nos. 2, 22, 34 and 37/1992 and
3/1993.
69. "I have a lot of reservations about a
'Eurasian' construction, which seems to me to be mainly phantasmagorical" (Taguieff, p. 311).
70. Taguieff, p. 254-265.
71. Konservativnaja revoliutsiia, p. 131-136. 72. Taguieff, p. 259.
73. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 135-191.
74. See for example the chapter "Races,
Runes, and Worships" in Misterii Evrazii,
p. 673-736 or Nash put', p. 21.
75. The Slavophile philosopher A. Khomyakov
(1804-1860) divided the world into two philosophical principles: Iranian and Cushite. He borrowed this idea from Friedrich Schlegel's philosophy of history. For more information, see Laruelle M. , Mythe aryen et re^ve impe? rial dans la Russie du XIXe sie`cle, Paris: CNRS-E? ditions, 2005.
76. Giperboreiskaia teoriia, p. 5.
77. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 176.
78. Misterii Evrazii, republished in Absoliutnaia rodina, p. 575.
79. Metafizika blagoi vesti, p. 482. 80. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 190. 81. Misterii Evrazii, p. 78.
82.
Dugin, however, deploys an ambiguous cul- turalist and biological terminology with regard to this question: he uses the term ethnos with a positive meaning, seeing it as the primary point of collective reference ("the whole, the ethnos, according to the Eurasianists, is higher than the part, the individual"115), but at the same time remains critical of ethno-nationalism. According to Dugin, the superiority of the collectivity over the individual must be expressed in the political field as a "political ethnism. " This differential pluralism would be based on a corporatist system that would institutionalize intermediate echelons between the individual and the state. It would reveal Russia's true imperial nature. Unlike the Russians, who are "the empire's constitutive nation" [imperoobrazuiushchaia natsiia], the non- Russian peoples may benefit from cultural autonomy, but not from sovereignty, contrary to what was proclaimed during perestroika. 116 No nationality should be recognized territorially, because "Russians exist as the only national community within a supranational imperial complex. "117 Dugin argues that the negotiations between the federal center and the subjects of the federation started by Boris Yeltsin fostered separatism in the Caucasus and in the Volga-Ural region. This ethno-centrism should, on the con- trary, be condemned, since stands in the way of
ALEKSANDR DUGIN: A RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE EUROPEAN RADICAL RIGHT? 19
a national supra-unification of the Eurasian eth- nos. Dugin's strength is in his capacity for playing with concepts: for example, he proposes to "meet these identification tendencies of the peo- ples and regions of the Federation half-way," but in a controlled way that would subject them to the center. 118
Whether he bases himself on Eurasianist or New Right arguments, Dugin condemns nationalism in its ethnic and "chauvinist"variety, which he considers dangerous and obsolete. The idea of an ethnic miscegenation of peoples cele- brated by Western newspeak appears to him as disastrous as was the theory of racial purity, because both lead to ethnocide. On the contrary, "the Eurasianist attitude toward the ethnos remains conservative, based on the principle of the absolute necessity of protecting each ethnic group from the prospect of historical disappear- ance. "119 This terminology remains paradoxical: not only does Dugin refrain from rejecting the idea of race, he also seems confused in his understanding of ethnicity, as he gives it an emi- nently culturalist and civilizationist meaning, while at the same time using the terminology of the ethnos, which, following the Soviet tradition, remains very much tied to nature and even biol- ogy. This contradiction can be explained by Dugin's "post-modern" approach: he says he wishes to restore all the ideas, both religious and ethnic, that have been thrown out by moderni- ty, which is why he addresses the ethnic question in both a positive and a negative way: positive when he uses it against the globalized liberalism which he views as destructive of the differences between peoples, and negative when he sees ethnic nationalism as preventing the affirmation of Eurasian unity.
Thus Dugin's main activity, for several years, has been to speak out for a new interpretation of the idea of human rights. He is convinced that they constitute, through their claim to universal- ity, a "new kind of totalitarianism". He propos- es to develop a theory of the "rights of peo- ples,"120 appropriating Third Worldist discourse as the right has been doing for some time. According to Dugin, this theory will first be put into practice in Russia, because, due to its natu- ral federalism, that country advocates ethno-cul- tural autonomy in exchange for unitarianism in state affairs. "The concept of people [narod] must be recognized as the fundamental legal category,
as the main subject of international and civil law. "121 Individuals will be legally identified by their ethnic, religious or cultural affiliation. A similar theory had already been proposed a long time ago by Panarin, who put forward a "civi- lizational" rather than political pluralism which he saw as typical of Eurasia.
Dugin's absolutization of the ethnic collectiv- ity implies a difficult attitude toward the idea of cultural transfer. As Pierre-Andre? Taguieff has justly and repeatedly noted, the cult of difference implies a phobia of intermingling: it celebrates heterogeneity, but fears the mixing of peoples and traditions. Dugin considers the possibility of miscegenation between populations, or the transfer of cultural or political elements from one "civilization" to another, as dangerous. Indeed, he claims he has a "tolerant attitude toward eth- nic miscegenation on the level of the elites, but a cautious attitude on level of the masses. "122 Here he is once more in tune with the tradition of Soviet ethnology, which, following the theories of Yulian Bromlei and Lev Gumilev, had regular- lycalledforthedevelopmentofendogamoustra- ditions in order to preserve the "genetic fund" [genofond] of each ethnic entity. Once again, Dugin succeeds with aplomb in fitting old con- ceptions based on Russian or Soviet stereotypes into global intellectual debates. He adapts the Russian case to a more global theory on the cur- rent recomposition of collective identities under conditions of globalization, anchoring his ideas in alter-globalization movements, many of which have turned differentialism into one of their main dogmas.
CONTEXTUALIZING DUGIN'S PLACE
IN RUSSIAN PUBLIC LIFE
A survey of Dugin's ideas naturally prompts questions about the extent to which he is repre- sentative, about his strategies, and about the net- works through which his ideas are spread. In many senses, especially regarding his career, he can be considered to represent the general evo- lution of the Russian nationalist milieux over the past two decades. In the first half of the 1990s, these currents, then presented as "red-and- brown," were united in their opposition to the liberal reforms of the Yeltsin era. A change in their attitude toward the establishment set in during the prime ministership of Primakov, and gained momentum when Putin came to power,
20 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #294
an event which recomposed and narrowed down the political spectrum. Numerous nation- alist figures came to support the authorities while preserving their political structures, resulting in a kind of vociferous but fictitious opposition. This was the case with Ziuganov's Communist Party, as well as with Zhirinovskii's LDPR and the Rodina bloc. Dugin also followed this path from radical opposition to public pro- fessions of loyalty. This is why he likes to classi- fy himself as being in the "radical center" of the public spectrum:123 radical in his political and philosophical doctrines, but centrist by virtue of his support for the current president. He thus embodies one of the main tendencies of the European radical right, which virulently attempts to differentiate itself from the centrist discourse of the powers-that-be on an ideolog- ical level, while developing a public strategy for gaining respectability.
Paradoxically, Dugin is isolated within the nationalist currents. He is their only substantial thinker, and his theories inspire numerous pub- lic figures and movements. At the same time, his theoretical position is too complex for any party to follow him entirely and turn him into its official thinker. He is also disturbing for the entire camp of Russian nationalism on several points: he condemns populism, which is central to the strategies of of the main figures: Ziuganov, Zhirinovskii, and Eduard Limonov. The various nationalist currents do not recog- nize him as their ideologist; thus, while he makes numerous Aryanist statements and adopts an ambiguous anti-Semitism, he is seldom quoted by Aryanist leaders, as he does not refer to the main neo-pagan reference book, the Book of Vles. He is also strongly criticized by anti-Semitic circles for condemning theories of a Jewish plot, rejecting revisionism, and appar- ently denying the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This elitist position, which he refuses to compromise in exchange for electoral success, is reminiscent of Alain de Benoist. However, Dugin cannot be entirely equated with the New Right: his stance is also informed by Traditionalism and fascism (in the sense out- lined above). Thus he does not go as far as de Benoist on Third Worldism, and uses racist arguments in a more pronounced way.
Dugin's intellectual eclecticism assures him a certain degree of success among the young gen-
eration, revealing post-Soviet Russia's lack of foundations of identity. His occultist leanings, his exacerbated religious sensibility, his rejection of communist ideology but not of the Soviet experience, as well as his ahistorical discourse about Russian grandeur, are his attractive points. Not only do his geopolitical theories restore to Russia the role of a global superpow- er, he also modernizes a certain variety of polit- ical fundamentalism, exalts a sense of hierarchy and war, resurrects the mythical triangle between Germany, Russia and Japan, and argues that cultures are incommensurable and will unavoidably come into conflict with one anoth- er. His anti-Western feelings are reinforced by the revival of Pan-Asianism in South-East Asia: all Neo-Eurasianists admire these countries for having successfully allied economic dynamism to political authoritarianism, as well as for their general rejection of Western domination and the "return" to Islamic values in the Muslim states of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Attempts to classify such a doctrine and per- sonality inevitably remain guesswork: Dugin is above all in search of himself, and his inner quest, particular the religious one, probably constitutes one of the matrixes of his political doctrines. Dugin's strategies are therefore tai- lored to fit his personal evolution and the insti- tutional position he hopes to reach. These strategies are organized along several lines: Dugin understands that the Eurasianist and geopolitical part of his theories is best suited to be widely spread in contemporary Russian soci- ety. In the same way, the idea of a unification of the patriotic scene and the creation of a kind of "union of nationalists without borders," which the International Eurasianist Movement hopes to become, strike a chord with numerous Russian political circles. Traditionalism, escha- tologism and esotericism are relegated to the background of his public activities, and are reserved for a more restricted circle of initiated followers, for example in the framework of the New University. Dugin's Eurasianism is proba- bly more promising than his National Bolshevism or Traditionalism: the term "Eurasia" is being adopted very extensively in Russia among very varied social and political milieux, though in a way that strips it of its orig- inal theoretical implications. Dugin thus seems to have succeeded, at least regarding this aspect
ALEKSANDR DUGIN: A RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE EUROPEAN RADICAL RIGHT? 21
of his thought, in his entryism into official structures. Indeed, as was observed very justly by the weekly Obshchaia gazeta, "Dugin is no longer considered to be the preacher of an ide- ological sect, but rather as an officially recog- nized specialist on geopolitical questions. "124
Dugin thus attempts to pursue a multiform strategy on the fringe of the classical electoral political spectrum. He develops a geopolitical discourse aimed at a large public, a concept of Eurasia as the basis for a new ideology of Russian great power for the Putin establishment, and Traditionalism and other philosophical and religious doctrines restricted to small but influ- ential and consciously elitist intellectual circles. Even if Dugin's institutional presence, in Russia and abroad, is based on groupuscules, the influ- ence of his personality and his works must not be underestimated. In spite of his rhetorical rad- icalism, which few people are prepared to follow in all its philosophical and political conse- quences, Dugin has become one of the most fashionable thinkers of the day. Using networks that are difficult to trace, he is disseminating the myth of Russian great power, accompanied by imperialist, racialist, Aryanist and occultist beliefs that are expressed in a euphemistic way and whose scope remains unclear, but that can- not remain without consequences.
Dugin's role as an ideological mediator will probably be an important point to consider in any long-term historical assessment: he is one of the few thinkers to engage in a profound renew- al of Russian nationalist doctrines, which had been repetitive in their Slavophilism and their czarist and/or Soviet nostalgia. His originality lies precisely in his attempt to create a revolu- tionary nationalism refreshed by the achieve- ments of 20th century Western thought, fully accepting the political role these ideas played between the two world wars. Therefore, in his opposition to American globalization, Dugin unintentionally contributes to the international- ization of identity discourse and to the uni- formization of those theories that attempt to resist globalization. He illustrates that, although aiming for universality, these doctrines are still largely elaborated in the West. This is a paradox- ical destiny for a Russian nationalist, whose self- defined and conscious "mission" is to anchor a profoundly Western intellectual heritage in Russia, and to use it to enrich his fellow citizens.
NOTES
1. For further details on the distribution of his publications (print runs, re-editions), see: Andreas Umland, "Kulturhegemoniale Strategien der russischen extremen Rechten: Die Verbindung von faschistischer ideologie und metapolitischer Taktik im Neoeurasismus des Aleksandr Dugin," O? ster- reichische Zeitschrift fu? r Politikwissenschaft, vol. 33, no. 2/2004, pp. 437-454.
2. Viacheslav Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii, Moscow: Panorama, 2002, p. 103.
3. The title of this show is not neutral. It refers to a famous collection of articles from 1909 called Vekhi, considered a manifesto against the ideology of the radical intelligentsia. The authors of Vekhi argued for the primacy of the spiritual and appealed to the revolution- ary intelligentsia to recognize the spiritual source of human life: to them, only concrete idealism, manifested in Russian in the form of religious philosophy, allows to objectivate traditional mysticism and to fuse knowledge and faith.
4. All his publications are available on the web. His two web sites, Arctogaia (www. arcto. ru) and Evraziia (www. evrazia. org) also include links to a nationalist network that includes web sites such as Novoe soprotivlenie (New Resistance), as well as to web-based maga- zines such as Lenin.
5. The Ways of the Absolute (Puti absoliuta), writ- ten in 1989 and published in 1991, The Conservative Revolution (Konservativnaia revoli- utsiia, 1994), Goals and Tasks of our Revolution (Tseli i zadachi nashei revoliutsii, 1995), Templars of the Proletariat (Tampliery proletaria- ta, 1997), The Philosophy of Traditionalism (Filosofiia traditsionalizma) and The Evolution of the Paradigmatic Foundations of Science (Evoliuciia paradigmal'nykh osnovanii nauki, 2002), The Philosophy of Politics (Filosofiia poli- tiki) and The Philosophy of War (Filosofiia voiny, 2004).
6. The Metaphysics of the Gospel: Orthodox Esotericism (Metafizika Blagoi Vesti (Pravoslavnyi ezoterizm), 1996) and The End of the World. Eschatology and Tradition (Konets sveta: Eskhatologiia i tradiciia, 1997).
7. The Mysteries of Eurasia (Misterii Evrazii) and The Hyperborean (Giperboreec, 1991), The Hyperborean Theory (1993).
22 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #294
8. Conspirology (Konspirologiia, 1992, republished in 2005), The Foundations of Geopolitics (Osnovy geopolitiki, 1996, four re-editions), Our Way. Strategic Prospects for the Development of Russia in the 21st Century (Nash put'. Strategicheskie perspektivy razvitiia Rossii v XXI veke, 1998), The Russian Thing. Essays in National Philosophy (Russkaia veshch'. Ocherki natsion- al'noi filosofii, 2001), The Foundations of Eurasianism (Osnovy evraziistva), The Eurasianist Path (Evraziiskii put') and The Eurasian Path as National Idea (Evraziiskii put' kak natsional'naia ideia, 2002).
9. Markus Mathyl, "The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-fascist Groupuscules in the Post-Soviet Political Space," Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 36, no. 3/2003, pp. 62-76.
10. Stephen Shenfield, Russian Fascism. Traditions, tendencies, movements, London: M. E. Sharpe, 2001, p. 194.
11. Eduard Limonov, Moya politicheskaia biografiia, St. Petersburg: Amfora, 2002, p. 64.
12. Andrei Tsygankov, "Hard-Line Eurasianism and Russia's contending geopolitical per- spectives," East European Quaterly, no. 3, 1998, pp. 315-334.
13. Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii, Moscow: Arktogeya, 1997. On this book, see J. B. Dunlop, "Aleksandr Dugin's 'Neo-Eurasian' Textbook and Dmitrii Trenin's Ambivalent Response," Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. xxv, no. 1-2/2001, pp. 91-127.
14. Aleksandr Dugin, "Evraziiskaia platforma," Zavtra, 21 January 2000.
15. Wayne Allensworth, The Russia Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post- Communist Russia, Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, and "The Eurasian Project: Russia-3, Dugin and Putin's Kremlin," paper presented at the National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Salt Lake City, 4-6 November 2005.
16. For further details on Dugin's connections with military circles, see: Dunlop, op. cit. , pp. 94, 102.
17. Franc? oise Thom, "Eurasisme et ne? o- eurasisme," Commentaires, no. 66/1994, p. 304.
18. "Evraziistvo: ot filosofii k politike," Dugin's paper at the founding congress of the Evraziia movement, 21 April 2001.
19. "My--partiia natsional'noi idei," Dugin's paper at the conference preparing the transformation of Evraziia from a move- ment into a political party, 1 March 2002.
20. An economist by training, Glaz'ev was known since the collapse of the Soviet Union as a partisan of economic reforms. In 1991, he was named vice-minister (and, in December 1992, minister) of foreign economic relations in Egor Gaidar's gov- ernment. He resigned after the October 1993 events, when he refused to support Boris Yeltsin in his struggle against the White House. Between 1993 and 1995, he was a Duma deputy, chairing the parlia- ment's committee on economic policies. Between 1995 and 1999, he worked at the Federation Council and moved closer to Aleksandr Lebed'. During these years, Glaz'ev changed his mind on his liberal economic principles and moved closer to the Communists. Today he is an interven- tionist and statist in economic matters, although he doesn't advocate a return to the Soviet model. In 1999, he was elected deputy on the CPRF list. Within Rodina, Glaz'ev embodied the left wing. In spite of his hasty departure from the electoral block, he succeeded in standing as candi- date in the presidential elections of March 2004 and garnered 4. 1% of the votes.
21. Dunlop, op. cit. , p. 104.
22. "Partiia Evraziia vykhodit iz bloka
Glaz'eva," Km. Ru, 19 September 2003, http://www. km. ru/news/view. asp? id=7D D7770F40434412B24FDB116 DB19000.
23. http://glazev. evrazia. org/news/190903- 1. html.
24. Aleksandr Barkashov's Russian National Unity (RNU) was one of the first groups to emerge after Pamiat' split up. Barkashov, who rejects the Orthodox and czarist nos- talgia of Pamiat' leaders, founded his own movement as well as the party newspaper Russkii poriadok. The RNU borrowed a significant part of its symbols from Nazism: the swastika, the Roman salute, paramili- tary clothes, and parts of the NSDAP's program, including a mixed economy and
ALEKSANDR DUGIN: A RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE EUROPEAN RADICAL RIGHT? 23
eugenic theories. The RNU contends that the USSR implemented a program of racial miscegenation between Slavs and non- Aryan peoples in order to make the Slavs disappear. The RNU differed from numer- ous others post-Soviet nationalist groups in its racialist definition of the Russian nation. The movement imploded in 2000 and is now split into numerous small groups.
25. The main exception was Dmitrii Riurikov, one of Boris Yeltsin's counselors on inter- national politics. In 2001, he became a member of the central board of Evraziia while he was Russia's ambassador to Uzbekistan (he was later transferred to Denmark).
26. In Russian it is impossible to distinguish between 'Eurasian' and 'Eurasianist' (evrazi- iskii chelovek).
27. Andreas Umland, "Toward an Uncivil Society?
Contextualizing the Recent Decline of Extremely Right-Wing Parties in Russia," Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Working Paper No. 02-03, 2002.
28. http://evrazia. org/modules. php? name =News&file=article&sid=1508.
29. He also republished Iakov Bromberg's Evrei i Evraziia and E. Khara-Davan's Rus' mon- gol'skaia in 2002.
30. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 97.
31. "Evraziisky triumf," in: P. Savitsky,
Kontinent Evraziia, Moscow: Agraf, 1997,
p. 434.
32. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 159.
33. Leontyev stood for a far-reaching turn in
Russian thought. He argued that Russians are not really Slavs but above all a people mixed with Turkic groups. In an ambiguous man- ner, he anticipated the "turn to the East" of the later Eurasianists: he abandoned the lin- guistic argument about Slavic identity and, for example, acknowledged that he preferred the Greeks to the other Slavs in the religious realm. Leontyev was the first to understand the potential of the "Turanian argument" to help Russia assert her identity against Europe. See: M. Laruelle, "Existe-t-il des pre? curseurs au mouvement eurasiste? L'obsession russe pour l'Asie a` la fin du xixe sie`cle," Revue des e? tudes slaves, Paris: Institut d'e? tudes slaves, vol. LXXV, no 3-4/2004, pp. 437-454.
34. Misterii Evrazii, p. 19.
35. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 247.
36. However, Dugin accepts the separatism of
those areas that he considers non-Russian (he proposes to return the Kuril Islands to Japan and Kaliningrad to Germany) provid- ed they remain under the control of allies of Eurasia and Continentalism.
37. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 341.
38. He also wishes to return Ukraine into the
Russian sphere of influence and to divide it in accordance with what he calls the ethno- cultural realities of the country. For further details, see: Dunlop, op. cit. , pp. 109-112.
39. "Evraziiskii otvet na vyzovy globalizacii," Osnovy evraziistva, p. 541-563.
40. Nash put', p. 47.
41. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 261.
42. Konspirologiia, also online at www. arctoga-
ia. com/public/consp.
43. Evraziia prevyshe vsego, p. 4.
44. Osnovy evraziistva, p. 762.
45. The reference book on Traditionalism is:
Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World. Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
46. Introduction ge? ne? rale a` l'e? tude des doctrines hin- doues in 1921, Le the? osophisme, histoire d'une pseudo-religion in 1921, L'erreur spirite in 1923, Orient et Occident in 1924, La crise du monde moderne in 1927.
47. Tampliery proletariata, p. 128.
48. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 11. 49. Milyi Angel, no. 1/1991, online at
www. angel. com. ru.
50. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 11.
51. Puti absoliuta, republished in Absoliutnaia
rodina (Moscow, 1999), p. 174.
52. Metafizika blagoi vesti, republished in
Absoliutnaia rodina, p. 510.
53. Puti absoliuta, p. 152-153.
54. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 255.
55. See for example his papers given at the 6th
World Russian People's Council in Osnovy
evraziistva, p. 704-715.
56. The Old Believers are a current of
Orthodoxy born after the Schism [Raskol], that is the separation, in the 17th century, of a significant portion of the Orthodox population from the official Russian church. They refused Patriarch Nikon's
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KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #294
reforms of the Orthodox ritual and liturgy. They were repeatedly persecuted in czarist times and were at the origin of numerous religious and social revolts against the cen- tral authorities. Dugin sees himself as one of the so-called "united believers" who fol- low the Old Believers' rituals while recog- nizing the authority of the Patriarch. Other Old Believers, who have refused to acknowledge the Patriarchate in exchange for tolerance of their specific practice of worship, are in a minority today.
57. Russkaia veshch, vol . 1, p. 569.
58. Milyi Angel, no. 3/1996.
59. Milyi Angel, no. 2/1996.
60. see his Evoliuciia paradigmal'nykh osnovanii
nauki, his candidate of sciences thesis defended in 2000 at Rostov-on-Don University.
61. Evoliuciia. . . , p. 66.
62. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 12.
63. Puti absoliuta, p. 5.
64. Konservativnaia revoliutsiia, p. 85-97.
65. Konservativnaia revoliutsiia, p. 99.
66. Konservativnaia revoliutsiia, p. 4-5.
67. See Pierre-Andre? Taguieff, Sur la Nouvelle
droite. Jalons d'une analyse critique, p.
148-296.
68. In Den' nos. 2, 22, 34 and 37/1992 and
3/1993.
69. "I have a lot of reservations about a
'Eurasian' construction, which seems to me to be mainly phantasmagorical" (Taguieff, p. 311).
70. Taguieff, p. 254-265.
71. Konservativnaja revoliutsiia, p. 131-136. 72. Taguieff, p. 259.
73. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 135-191.
74. See for example the chapter "Races,
Runes, and Worships" in Misterii Evrazii,
p. 673-736 or Nash put', p. 21.
75. The Slavophile philosopher A. Khomyakov
(1804-1860) divided the world into two philosophical principles: Iranian and Cushite. He borrowed this idea from Friedrich Schlegel's philosophy of history. For more information, see Laruelle M. , Mythe aryen et re^ve impe? rial dans la Russie du XIXe sie`cle, Paris: CNRS-E? ditions, 2005.
76. Giperboreiskaia teoriia, p. 5.
77. Filosofiia traditsionalizma, p. 176.
78. Misterii Evrazii, republished in Absoliutnaia rodina, p. 575.
79. Metafizika blagoi vesti, p. 482. 80. Osnovy geopolitiki, p. 190. 81. Misterii Evrazii, p. 78.
82.
