On
June 5, 2007, the Ukrainian government declared Russian intellectual
Aleksandr Dugin persona non grata and banned him from entering the
country for a period of five years. This exceptional decision was
motivated by a series of inflammatory remarks made by Dugin and his
followers about Russia's various pro-Western neighbors, the Ukraine
foremost among them. It was not long, however, before Kiev retracted
its decision, fearing further deterioration in its relationship with
the superpower to the east. Dugin, after all, is not merely a
philosopher. He has influential friends in the Russian presidential
cabinet and is associated with many leading politicians, as well as
prominent academics and celebrities. And indeed, Ukrainian apprehension
was justified by the events that followed: That very evening, Ukrainian
presidential adviser Mykola Zhulynsky and his family, who had arrived
in St. Petersburg to visit the graves of their relatives, were deported
by the Russian government. This retaliation had no mitigating effects
on Dugin's aggressive public campaign against the Ukraine. On October
12, activists from Dugin's International Eurasian Movement sawed
through the country's national emblem--a statue of a trident situated on
Mount Hoverla--and announced that they had thus "castrated" the Ukraine
of its sovereignty. Following this ostentatious act of vandalism, Dugin
was again banned from entering the Ukraine. This did not, however,
prove to be the end of the affair. Authorities in Moscow were quick to
show their support for the provocative thinker, and promptly deported
Ukrainian political analyst Sergei Taran. The Russian Foreign Ministry
left no doubt about Moscow's motivations when it announced that Taran's
expulsion was a direct response to the Ukrainian ban.1
If
nothing else, this seemingly bizarre series of incidents demonstrates
the enormous influence Aleksandr Dugin has come to wield in his native
Russia. A gifted and charismatic intellectual, Dugin is the author of
sixteen books on philosophy and politics that profess an extremist
worldview which combines authoritarian politics with an imperialist
strategic agenda and a nostalgic longing for the glory days of the
Soviet Union.2 Inspired
by philosophers closely associated with fascism and Nazism, Dugin is an
outspoken critic of capitalism, liberal democracy, and the bourgeois
social order, which he identifies with his archenemy, the United
States. Despite his radicalism--or perhaps because of it--Dugin is a
favorite of the Russian establishment, a sought-after figure in the
media, and a popular and oft-quoted political analyst.
Dugin
was not always such a prestigious public figure. Barely a decade ago,
he was at best a marginal player in Russian politics. During Boris
Yeltsin's presidency in the 1990s, Dugin was a relatively unknown
intellectual who spread his doctrines among small circles of followers.
His attempt to enter Russian politics and bring his ideas to the public
through the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) ended in an embarrassing
electoral defeat. It was only in the late 1990s that Dugin finally
began to shed his image as a professional gadfly and mingle with senior
government officials, finally emerging onto the national stage in the
early 2000s. Not coincidentally, Dugin's meteoric ascent from anonymity
to fame took place alongside Vladimir Putin's rise to power as Russia's
new strongman. Indeed, there is an undeniable connection between
Dugin's politics and the regime change led by Putin, a former KGB
officer who has put an end to democratization in Russia and subjected
it to a centralized authoritarian regime.
Dugin
and his philosophy cannot, therefore, be dismissed as an insignificant
episode in Russian intellectual history. On the contrary, they reflect
the dominant trend in current Russian politics and culture, and their
influence over the general public and decisionmakers in the Kremlin is
only going to become stronger. If we wish to understand the zeitgeist that
prevails in Russia today, it is essential for us to acquaint ourselves
with this thinker, who expresses the innermost feelings of many of his
fellow countrymen and their leadership. Dugin's intellectual and
political biography is, in many ways, a window into a nation and
culture that many Western observers still regard as, in Churchill's
famous phrase, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."
The
strange rise of Aleksandr Dugin to the heights of intellectual and
political prominence is inextricably linked to the recent history of
Russia and the dramatic changes it has undergone since the collapse of
communism. Unfortunately, these developments were, at least until very
recently, of little interest to the rest of the world. The invasion of
Georgia in August 2008, however, has now proven that the Russian bear,
eulogized a mere two decades ago, was at best hibernating. During
Putin's term of office, Russia has become a strong and proud country
once again. Its coffers swollen by high gas and oil prices, its
population enjoying relative security and economic stability
(admittedly threatened by the current global economic meltdown), its
army winning encouraging--if not unexpected--victories in Chechnya and
Georgia, Russia is swiftly regaining its power and influence in the
international community as American hegemony erodes. In light of these
achievements, the Russian public is willing to accept, if not agree to,
Putin's anti-democratic politics and the widespread corruption within
his administration.
Things
were entirely different in Russia a decade ago. Between 1991 and 1999,
the Russian Federation was faced with the difficult, and perhaps
insurmountable, challenges posed by democratization, an attempted
transition to a market economy, the war on terror and organized crime,
and the question of its new place in a unipolar world. Boris Yeltsin's
presidency was beset by political and economic crises: In 1991, prior
to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, senior members of the Communist
Party attempted a coup and failed; in 1993, Yeltsin, backed by the
military, suppressed an uprising in the Russian parliament; in 1994,
the First Chechen War broke out, lasting three years and taking a heavy
toll on Russia; and in 1998, following a financial collapse in Asian
markets, the ruble severely depreciated, the banking system crashed,
and the government was forced to declare bankruptcy.
The
economic liberalization led by Yeltsin's administration was plagued by
corruption throughout, and benefited two groups in particular:
criminals, who flourished after years of living underground, and the
handful of entrepreneurs generally known as the "oligarchs." These men,
some of whom had been apparatchiks during the Soviet era,
successfully navigated the transition from politics to the business
world. Their sharp political instincts, honed by years of negotiating
the impenetrable Soviet bureaucracy, and close ties to government
officials allowed them to take advantage of the sweeping privatization
of Communist Party assets and become fabulously rich almost overnight.
Outside
of these privileged circles, however, the vast majority of the Russian
people suffered greatly. Instead of enjoying the fruits of reform, they
were faced with hyperinflation, skyrocketing unemployment, loss of
public property, and rising crime. Media outlets freed from the grip of
government censorship bombarded the public with unfiltered and often
distressing information. Moreover, the dissolution of the Soviet empire
prompted a massive influx of Russian and non-Russian refugees from the
newly independent republics, which the Federation was ill-prepared to
absorb. On top of it all, indiscriminate Chechen terrorism made
Russia's already angry streets all the more dangerous.
Thus,
the euphoria that followed the collapse of communism was quickly
overtaken by disappointment, insecurity, and despair. The talented
author Victor Pelevin described these sentiments in his novel, Homo Zapiens,
published in 1999. The hero of the story, Babylen Tatarsky, a typical
member of the Soviet liberal intelligentsia, drifts through a Russia
marked by decline and decadence:
It was a very strange world. Externally it had not changed too much, except perhaps that there were more paupers on the streets, but everything in his surroundings--the houses, the trees, the benches on the streets--had somehow suddenly grown old and decrepit. It wasn't possible to say that the essential nature of the world had changed either, because now it no longer had any essential nature. A frighteningly vague uncertainty dominated everything. Despite that, however, the streets were flooded with Mercedes and Toyotas carrying brawny types possessed of absolute confidence in themselves and in what was happening, and there was even, if one could believe the newspapers, some kind of foreign policy.3
The
malaise Pelevin describes was caused, to a large extent, by Russia's
sense that it had lost the national greatness it once knew. The Soviet
Union was not a worker's paradise--in fact, it was quite the
opposite--but it did give the Russian people a sense of order and
stability. For many of its citizens, the ussr's global reach and power
were a source of pride. The collapse of the Soviet bloc and the
political, social, and economic crises that swept through Russia in its
wake changed all that. Russians went from being the subjects of an
awe-inspiring superpower to the citizens of a defeated country plagued
by domestic problems and lacking any substantial international
influence.
This
humiliation was most keenly felt by the Russian military. The army,
whose prestige had already been greatly diminished by the withdrawal
from Afghanistan in 1989, was almost in shambles: naval vessels were
rotting in their docks, nuclear missiles were rusting on their launch
pads, and fighter jets were grounded. Nonexistent morale, a shrunken
budget, and a series of failures in Chechnya threatened to make
Russia's military a laughingstock to those who had once trembled at the
mention of its name. The situation in the arms industry was even worse.
Since the end of the Cold War, weapons sales had dropped worldwide,
particularly in the Middle East. The factories that had once armed the
Soviet superpower and its satellites were on the brink of bankruptcy.4
Things were no better among law enforcement officials in the Ministry
of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, and the police force. They
felt betrayed by the Soviet collapse, and many of them resigned because
of their minuscule salaries. Widespread corruption among those who
stayed further lowered their prestige in the eyes of the general
public, which had never held them in high regard. Tough times came even
to the formerly omnipotent intelligence service: Between 1990 and 1995,
its name and mission changed at least five times; it suffered from a
brain drain, shrinking resources, and the loss of its deterrent power.
Only after the creation of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 1995
and its success in the war against Chechen terrorism was the service's
reputation somewhat restored, though it has never reclaimed the stature
it enjoyed during the Cold War.
Russia
of the 1990s was, in short, a mere shadow of the "Evil Empire" it once
had been. Its traditional rival, the nato alliance led by the United
States, was acting unimpeded, without any apparent regard for Russian
interests or any fear of Moscow's response. The military actions of
America and her allies in Serbia and Iraq conveyed a profound
disrespect for the Kremlin, which could do nothing but voice its
opposition. This ongoing humiliation inspired a surge of nationalist
rage, directed mainly toward the Ukraine and the Baltic states, which
had unequivocally rejected their Soviet past and expressed their desire
to be incorporated into the West. This was seen by the Russian public
as an attempt to "jump ship"--an unforgivable act of betrayal by those
who had once been their closest compatriots.
Overtaken
by confusion, frustration, and nostalgia for its former glory, Russia
was a breeding ground for xenophobia and nationalist discontent. Such
impulses, which had long been repressed or recast into "acceptable"
form by the old Soviet regime, began to emerge as a genuine political
movement as an ever-increasing number of activists took up the war cry
of their dishonored nation.5 The most brilliant and talented of them all was Aleksandr Dugin.
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