Putin’s Rasputin: The Dangerous Mind of Aleksandr Dugin
While world democracies squabble, Putin and his deranged philosopher are plotting to bring about an autocratic world order
I recently read a report from Pew research which showed that about a third of US Republicans have a ‘favourable view’ of Vladimir Putin, and have confidence in his handling of world affairs.
One need not dig too deeply to work out how that shift has occurred over the last four years. Let’s start with Trump’s inexplicable (not to mention unbelievably creepy) man-crush on the Russian autocrat. From his eagerness to bring Putin back into the G8, to his regular praise and support of Putin, all the way down to recent reports that Trump knew of Russia’s campaign to pay bounties to terrorist groups in Afghanistan to kill US soldiers, Trump continues with his non-stop praise of Putin and the way he runs Russia. “I respect Putin,” Trump said in November. “He’s a strong leader.”
Apparently, a growing number of his ‘base’ agree.
Clearly, for any president and his avid followers who are eager to “Make America Great Again”, looking to Russia and the autocratic cult of personality which has built up around Putin would seem seductive, even attractive and something to emulate. Putin presents himself as an unflappable statesman and political force, guiding Russia out of the dark days of post-Soviet Russia into a new era. Why is that so bad?
Let me arm you for your next family holiday dinner with your right-leaning relatives. If someone you know thinks Putin will do right by the world, it’s time they got a wake-up call. Putin wants nothing more than to see world democracies fall apart, leaving a power vacuum where he and his cronies can swoop in to take control. Putin seeks to pave the way to a new fascist power bloc, ruled over by tyrants and religious zealots, with Russia as its guiding star.
How do I know? Just take some time and get familiar with the man dubbed “Putin’s Rasputin”, the fascist geopolitical philosopher, Alexandr Dugin. Dugin is a well-respected figure in Russian political circles, especially with Putin, and his ideas and strategies are the playbook by which Russian foreign policy is playing out.
Who is Aleksandr Dugin?
Aleksandr Dugin grew up, as did Putin, in Soviet Russia, born into a family of a colonel-general of Soviet military intelligence Gelij Alexandrovich Dugin and his wife Galina, a doctor and candidate of medicine.
As a young man, Dugin was shown to have an exceptional gift for languages (he speaks nine). While a teenager, he joined a secret society of intellectuals interested in mysticism, paganism, and fascism, and in the translating of these works from their original language into Russian. As one of his contributions to this secret society, Dugin translated a book by Italian pagan-fascist philosopher Julius Evola. Evola would prove to be a powerful influence over Dugin, especially his traditionalist ideas of a world reverted.
Involvement in such secret (not to mention fascist) societies was clearly not kosher in the USSR. Dugin was eventually detained by the KGB for his involvement in this group, and was (apparently) expelled as a student of an aviation school as a result.
Dugin spent a number of years as a dissident, a journalist fighting against communism. Before you think of this in admirable terms, it is important to remember Dugin was not your usual dissident. He was not bravely seeking a road to democracy and freedom for his fellow Russians, but instead fomenting his twisted fascist philosophy with other far-right European intellectuals.
Coupled with his fascist politics, Dugin was increasingly obsessed with all things mystical and religious, in particular what he imagined was the coming of End Times. His adoration of Heidegger’s pro-nazi philosophies, coupled with his worship of Evola began to lead him in new, and increasingly bizarre directions. His writings are full of eschatological ramblings, often using intellectual slight-of-hand to justify his growing obsession with bringing about some golden dawn for traditional societies, after the collapse of liberal democracies around the globe.
The end times and the eschatological meaning of politics will not realize themselves on their own. We will wait for the end in vain … If the Fourth Political Practice is not able to realize the end of times, then it would be invalid. The end of days should come, but it will not come by itself. This is a task, it is not a certainty. It is an active metaphysics. It is a practice. — Aleksandr Dugin
The Foundations of Geopolitics
It was in 1997 that Dugin published “The Foundations of Geopolitics”, a handbook for Russian dominance over the region and the world, and now required reading in the Russian military’s Academy of the General Staff.
In it, Dugin describes a new empire, which he calls Eurasia (for those familiar with Orwell’s 1984, the name should be eerily-familiar), a Russian-controlled bloc of nation-states which are ruled by ‘traditional’ religious and political structures. Think oppressive autocracies / kingdoms, mixed with the brutal control of traditional religion.
Dugin blames Atlanticists, a loose affiliation of ‘sea-faring states’ which are at philosophic war with Eurasia. He posits that these “Sea Powers” plotted the downfall of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR, and believes the time has come for revenge. In particular, Dugin blames the United States and its empire for the exportation of its progressive ideals.
Dugin is fervently anti-liberal, meaning he stands against any form of individual, civil, or democratic rights in favour of ‘traditional’ roles, values, and power. Liberal democracies, for Dugin, represent a decadence unfit for Eurasian thinking, and which should be either disrupted, or better still, destroyed.
We must create strategic alliances to overthrow the present order of things, of which the core could be described as human rights, anti-hierarchy, and political correctness — everything that is the face of the Beast, the anti-Christ or, in other terms, Kali-Yuga — Aleksandr Dugin
Dugin believes this new Eurasian empire is the Russian people’s birthright, to rule once again over lesser peoples in the lands surrounding them. According to Dugin, Russians are a messianic people, possessing “universal, pan-human significance”. He has, over the course of his life, written an entire faux-mythos of the Russian people. Russians are, according to Dugin, a rigteous and holy people, descended from the fictitious northern Arctic realm of Hyperborea, and destined to rule over the earth. This element of his propaganda factors heavily into his idealised vision of a fascist future. Eurasianism begins and ends with Russia’s ascendancy and control over the new empire. Anything less would be counter to his vision.
For Dugin, any and all liberal democracies are the poison in the world. It is our runaway capitalism which is destroying the world (and on this front, Dugin is not wrong: we’ve made a Mammon of capital at any cost), but more importantly, it is our individual freedoms and permissive mores which allow for too much focus on personal civil liberties and equality.
An important aspect of the Eurasian worldview is an absolute denial of Western civilization. In the opinion of the Eurasians, the West with its ideology of liberalism is an absolute evil. — Aleksandr Dugin
Dugin’s philosophy runs counter to any and all democracy. Progressive changes in politics since the 20th century is a sickness which encourages people to think for themselves, to have opinions and rights to said opinions which run counter to that of the State and the Church (in all their forms. Dugin is strangely accepting of any and all religious views, just so long as they are fundamentalist and repressive).
In Dugin’s disturbing worldview, a traditionalist vision is what is needed. This is both at a state and a religious level. Imagine most of us going back to serfdom under our societal and religious betters, and you start to get a good sense of what he’s after. Everything you and I hold dear about freedom and democracy, equality and social justice, Dugin would gladly hurl on the fire of his glorious, world-ending vision of tomorrow.
A world full of illiterate peasants kept in their place by ‘traditional’ cultures (read without rights), with a massive and medieval hierarchy keeping any and all masses in line. For the powerful, they will enjoy the comforts of modernity, but only in that it serves the State, the Church, the continuation of ancient and tyrannical civilisations.
Eurasianism and Russia: How Putin is Playing Dugin’s Playbook
Its anyone’s guess how much of this fascist propaganda is being taken seriously by Putin and his goons. One can say whatever they like about Putin, he is assuredly shrewd. He’s shrewd enough to see Dugin as a useful but ultimately disposable pawn to use for his advantage.
That said, much of what we see today from Russia runs parallel to what Dugin was proposing in The Foundation of Geopolitics. Interference in democratic nations, disruption of their systems and helping to spur on sectarian and racial animosity.
It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements — extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics… — Aleksandr Dugin
We watch Putin’s slow but inexorable game in play, much of it based on Dugin’s ideas. It is not simply America which is the target of Putin’s autocractic games, but democracies the world over.
Putin has waged a silent, surreptitious war against Western Europe, NATO, the US, and yes, most every democracy where and how he can. Putin continues to support and prop up strategic tyrannical regimes, seeking to forge a new far-right bloc of nation states in and around Russia. Interference in US elections, continued attacks on social media via Russian hackers, increasing support for far right / white supremacist movements in Europe and around the world.
All of this can be found in Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics, or in any number of his other writings. Does Putin put much stock in Dugin’s death cult ideal of a new Russian race? That hardly matters, and Putin knows this. All that matters is that democratic nations ebb while autocratic rule rises. Putin seeks power for Putin, and doing so on the world stage, using Dugin’s writing as his playbook, is his best chance of getting exactly what he and his mafia of oligarchs want most of all.
It’s been said that we are doomed to repeat history because we are forever incapable of learning from it. Take a long, hard look at Dugin, at Putin, at the fascist ideals which they press where they can. From this hard look, you will begin to see history repeating itself. It is the history of tyrants once more seeking to crush any and all evidence that democracy and freedom of the individual is not only alive and well, but that it is the only path forward for us as a species.
Ignore such men and their despicable philosophies and aspirations at your own peril.