The Eurasianist Polemic in the Opposition

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold 

Written in 1992 for publication in the newspaper Den, but rejected for being too “intellectualist”; subsequently published in the book Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya (Moscow, 1994)

 

The Opposition and the System

In recent times, the delicate balance in the political and ideological opposition’s camp has begun to be disrupted by a burgeoning polemic between the “ethno-centrists” and “Eurasianists,” “reds” and “whites”, etc. On the one hand, this polemic has clarified the doctrinal principles of various tendencies, movements, and parties which before were too often vague and only unconsciously formulated. This is a positive aspect. On the other hand, this process is a sign of the opposition entering a scheme arranged by the System, i.e., its “conventionalization”, taming,  and “castration” in sterile, parliamentary, and party “games.” It should be noted that this process of eliminating opposition not through repression, but through domestication, gradual corruption, and “sterilization” has been brilliantly worked out in the mondialist West. In the words of Jean Thiriart: “There are two ways to destroy a revolutionary ideology (particularly communism): bureaucracy and parliamentarism.”

It is rather telling that in developed mondialist societies, there is in fact no opposition which really challenges the very principles of the System. Both right and left are but elements of a deliberate and cunning play. Our opposition, however, which took shape following August 1991, is a genuine opposition embodying the profound opposition of certain segments of society not only to specific actions of the ruling group, but to the very foundational principles of the worldview that has triumphed in the country following the defeat of the coup.

The onset of such extensive polemics within the opposition could lead to its fragmentation and subsequent integration into political niches specially prepared for it by the regime itself. Hence why it is very important to here and now clarify the emerging differences in outlook within the opposition and surmise the logic of their potential development.

The beginning of the polemic: Eurasianists and ethno-centrists

The main line of the emerging division in the opposition runs between the “Eurasianists,” “statists”, and “national-communists” on the one hand and the “nationalists”, “Panslavists”, and “monarchists” on the other. The main criterion and central motive of this debate is the question of our approach to the state and ethnos. It is precisely this understanding that is dividing the opposition today, and not the question of attitudes towards communism, religion, Marxism, etc.

On both flanks there is an extreme right (including anti-Marxists, Orthodox, and fascists, etc.) and an extreme left (including former members of the party apparatus, communists, socialists, etc.). The Eurasianists and “statists” affirm the superiority of the State over the Ethnos. Their nationalism is openly imperial, supra-ethnic, and geopolitical in nature and is often coupled with the traditionally Russian, Orthodox, state-religious messianism of the God-bearing people. For this wing, the dismemberment of the USSR is an Absolute Evil, and the perpetrators of this atrocity are to clearly designated as national criminals with whom no constructive dialogue, conciliation, or compromise can be made. This is the “irreconcilable, radical opposition” which boasts strong political determination to fight the System to the very end. In this struggle, the Eurasianists are ready to ally with any religious, national, and geopolitical forces in both East and West that can help in the fight against mondialism and contribute to the re-establishment of the Empire. Speaking in geopolitical terms, the “statists” consider mondialism and the thalassocratic USA to be the main enemy.

The “Slavophile nationalists”, for their part, assert the primacy of the ethnic factor. Such nationalism is limited to either the Great Russian ethnos or to advocating a pan-Slavic union. This camp harbors two poles: the pole of “ethnic minimalism” embodied in the projects of the St. Petersburg-based ROD organization which proposes to establish a mono-ethnic Great Russian state, and the “ethnic maximalist” pole which at times even proposes to restore the USSR, but only in the context and over the course of Russian national military and economic expansion into the breakaway republics (for example, under the pretext of defending the Russian population). The Slavophile nationalists do not rule out the possibility of dialogue and cooperation with the government under the condition that the influence of open and odious Russophobes and non-Russian peoples is restricted. In all cases, for them the main enemy is other peoples, Jews, etc. For them, geopolitical factors are of secondary and purely practical value.

Mutual claims

Both poles of the opposition have a number of fundamental claims against one another which are easily distinguishable. The ethno-centrists accuse the Eurasianists of:

  • betraying the interests of the “Russian ethnos” by agreeing to cooperate with other peoples (especially Turkic peoples and sometimes Europeans);
  • betraying the interests of Orthodoxy by cooperating with anti-globalist Islam and European Catholic, Protestant, or pagan national revolutionary movements;
  • betraying the Russian Monarchy by extending a hand of cooperation to national-communists (who are alleged to be responsible for the October coup and the destruction of the Tsarist regime);
  • betraying the unique folk character (Narodnost) of the Russian people by appealing to esoteric teachings and initiatory practices (which are unequivocally associated with “masonry”);
  • allowing for elements of socialism in the economic system of the future Empire (which is supposed evidence of a certain continuity with communist theories);
  • claiming their ideology to be superior within the entire opposition on the basis of its openness, universality, and globalism (which detracts from the position of pure “nationalists”);
  • finally, betraying Conservatism by adopting ideas of technological development, social construction, and state futurism (which contradict national archaic tendencies).

The Eurasianists, in turn, have also presented a number of claims against the ethno-centrists. They accuse the latter of:

  • aiding the collapse of the USSR by demanding sovereignty for Russia and the establishment of the foundations of statehood within the RSFSR (which only played into the hands of the democrats and mondialists);
  • provoking tensions surrounding the Russian population in the republics (since restricting the Russian nation to a narrow ethnic framework cannot but lead to alienating them from the other peoples of the empire);
  • depriving the patriotic movement of geopolitical awareness of the American strategy to conquer Eurasia (an aspect which the Americans take advantage of in extending their hands to those regions which the Russians leave unattended upon deciding to “focus on their own problems”);
  • diminishing the “universal”, “imperial”, and “messianic” nationalism of Russians to the level of purely ethnic borders (thus rendering Russian nationalism powerless, passive, and incapable of realizing its state mission);
  • conformist engagement in dialogue with the anti-national, mondialist, and pro-American Russian government whenever it makes hypocritical gestures towards Russian traditions (archaic and innocuous national-religious folklore);
  • idiotizing Russian traditions in advocating for the restoration of archaic and lurid aspects of pre-revolutionary Russia and renouncing the technological, strategic, and industrial achievements of the Soviet period;
  • too often advocating private property (national capitalism), which contradicts Russia’s social traditions;
  • finally, for being the main initiators of the split in the opposition by virtue of refusing the alliance consistently offered to them by the Eurasianists in line with the openness and pragmatism of their ideology which sets reconquering the State and restoring the Empire as its main goals.

Who are the Bolsheviks? Who are the Mensheviks?

Such are the fundamental motives of the growing disputes among the opposition which can hardly be stopped at the level of authoritative leaders calling for harmony and unity and offering admonition and personal sympathies. On this issue, however, these contradictions are fundamental in nature and can be circumstantially compared to the dispute between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Eurasianists are the Bolsheviks who refuse to compromise with the corrupt mondialist goverment, stoop down to parliamentary demagoguery, pursue conciliation with the system, and who do not intend to opt for limited and ambiguous compromises. The ethno-centrists are the Mensheviks who are content with limiting themselves to pursuing gradual reforms on the national level and abandoning the planetary National Revolution for the sake of small concessions from the mondialists who are willing to present Russians with a folklorish “national being” in Eurasian reserves.

In addition, it is an extremely important fact that the Eurasianist camp is engaged in a process of ideological creativity which is resulting in the formation of new concepts, such as “Slavophile futurism” and the great idea of the “Eurasian Empire” which in the future will be capable of not only recovering Russia’s lost geopolitical might, but also becoming a center of anti-mondialist doctrine suitable for giving impulse to the planet-wide process of ideological and geopolitical liberation from American bankocratic domination. This ideology is offensive, aggressive, and universally applicable – in both Europe and the Third World.

The “nationalists” are only focused on passive, defensive resistance. They look backwards with passionate nostalgia and sentimental longing for the past. They are loyal not so much to the spirit and essence of the Russian Tradition as to its external forms. Yet the mono-ethnic model of Russia is without a doubt an entirely “modernist” idea, as nothing of the sort has ever existed in Russian in all of her history.

However, it would be wrong to associate the “Bolsheviks” of the opposition (the Eurasianists) with “modernism” and the “Mensheviks” with “archaism.” In fact, both poles contain both modern and traditional elements, albeit only combined in different ways. The imperial orientation, openness towards non-Russian ethnoi, elitehood, and community-based economic traditions make up the deeply traditional aspects of the Eurasianists’ side. Yet the Eurasianists are modernists in terms of industrial, technological, and military-industrial projects and in supporting the establishment of global information systems and modern communications systems. The pure “nationalists” are modernists in their “mono-ethnicism”, their dislike for elites (which is evidence of individualism and egalitarianism),  and in their sympathies towards national capital. On the other hand, their rejection of industrialism and technological development is a purely archaic feature.

Are we already that different?

One particularity of this division should be emphasized, namely, that the Eurasianist wing of the opposition is potentially ready for dialogue and cooperation with the ethno-centrists. After all, the Eurasianists largely share the feelings of “ethnic nationalists” on the emotional level, but they refrain from taking such to the level of a doctrinal, ideological principle. The “national reaction” of the Eurasianists is mediated and deferred. For example, although they might experience the exact same dislike for the mafia-capital Caucasians as the ethno-centrists, the Eurasianists nonetheless refrain from escalating this aversion to a political category. While sympathizing and empathizing with those Russians who have found themselves outside of Russia’s borders, they do not blame the indigenous, non-Russian populations of these republics. Rather, in remembering the reason for this state of affairs, they blame the puppets of the Americans who have seized power in Russia itself for such treason. 

Similarly, while being overwhelmingly Orthodox, the Eurasianists do not insist on proselytism (which is in fact entirely alien to the Russian Church) and instead seek strategic alliance with all anti-mondialist forces in Eurasia regardless of their religious affiliation (while at the same time taking into consideration the metaphysical specificities of different religious by virtue of which, for example, fatalistic and anti-individualist Islam is typologically closer to Russian Orthodoxy than the Anglo-Saxon, individualist, and subversive Protestant pseudo-Christianity of showmen preachers).

Thus, the “Eurasianist Bolsheviks” stand for unity of the opposition. On the inside, they understand their ethno-centrist opponents, but remain convinced that ethno-centric projects are hopeless and ineffective. Nor are the Eurasianists characterized by such “patriotic spy-mania” in which “agents of Judeo-Masonic influence” are seen everywhere. In fact, it is only those most radical ethno-centrists who refuse to enter into dialogue with the Eurasianist statists, who conform with the anti-people, anti-Russian government, that should be suspect of belonging to the Atlanticist lobby, since a radical rejection of the foundations of Eurasianist geopolitics solely benefits the US’ agents of influence whose main task is weakening and subjugating the Eurasian continental powers at any costs.

Splits benefit the enemy

In summating our remarks, the following point must be expressed: If the opposition were to finally split into “Bolsheviks” and “Mensheviks”, then its internal structure would be violated and its “implacability” and “radicality” would be lost. The ethno-centrist flank would most likely be integrated into the System in the role of a harmless, folklorish “party of reserves” and the slogan “Russia for Russians” would proceed to destroy the last remnants of statehood, alienating other peoples and provoking further separatism within the Russian Federation. Left alone, the Eurasianists would be considerably marginalized and it would be much easier for the System to  finally kill them off. The “Bolshevik” wing of the opposition could furthermore be finally weakened by a new showdown, such as one between “communists” and the “right” or “socialists” and “fascists”, etc. In any case, we must anticipate the future outcome of such ideological and political disputes.

It is unlikely that this polemic, which is already picking up, can be avoided. Nevertheless, already today must we realize what it is inevitably leading to and seek not simple party compromise, but genuine ideological synthesis. It is absolutely obvious that the Eurasianists’ openness and their organic solidarity with ethno-centrists yields grounds for this possibility. As long as a showdown is inevitable, we should try to transform such into a constructive, creative process as a result of which the opposition and all patriots will strengthen their ranks and try to distinguish those ideological elements that are interested in quarrels, squabbles, and weakening our whole camp, pushing it towards either conformism or suicide by extremism.

The ideology of victory

The possibility of a true ideological synthesis which could perfectly unite the “Bolsheviks” and “Mensheviks”, “nationalists” and “Eurasianists”, and “national-communists”, “national-democrats”, and “ethno-centricists” is already in view. On the level of geopolitics, the opposition’s ideal should be a powerful and supranational continental Empire that is sovereign on the political, strategic, and economic levels. At the level of domestic national policy, the opposition’s ideal should be the full restoration of national justice for the Russian people which has been oppressed and trampled over long decades of an anti-Russian ideology. This in particular means a radical struggle to the last breath against the Russophobic rabble which has now seized power in the country. On the level of social policy, the opposition should insist on the restoration of social justice and on the state and society caring for each of its members and providing economic guarantees to each and every one of the Great Power’s citizens. Moreover, in the future the country’s economic system might satisfy both national-communists (with public and state ownership of key industries) as well as the advocates of national-capitalism (with private ownership for small and medium enterprises, the promotion of private productive initiatives in industry and agriculture, etc.). The tyranny of international finance capital will be put to an end immediately after the opposition comes to power. However, all spheres of cooperation with foreign industrial enterprises that are beneficial for our state and nation will be developed. All of the opposition’s members should participate in this ideological synthesis, while the only ones excluded from this process should be those who themselves want to exclude others from this all-national process and claim to be in sole possession of the truth in the final instance.

The seriousness of the situation in which the opposition finds itself today and the historic importance of our time is so great that any such stubborn criticism, denial, exclusion, pseudo-prophetism, and sectarianism – in a word, Menshevism – should be seen as “subversive activities” against Russia, the State, and the Nation. Let us not fool ourselves, for what we are living through today is a REVOLUTION. And this means that “revolution-time” and wartime laws hereby enter into force. Our words, our statements, and our articles are no longer private, individual opinions or literary, publicist polemics. We will now have to be seriously accountable for every single written and published phrase.

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

Towards a Social and Humanitarian Eurasian Union

Author: Leonid Savin

Translator: Jafe Arnold 

Any form of cooperation is governed by regulations, laws, and agreements between the involved parties. Therefore, in order to determine the criteria and official levels which regulate Eurasian cooperation in the social and humanitarian spheres, it is first and foremost necessary to analyze the foundational documents of the Eurasian Economic Union.

The Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union entered into force on January 1st, 2015. This founding document proclaims the continuity of Eurasian economic integration (from the Declaration of November 18th, 2011), and practically all of the treaty’s articles are dedicated to trade, customs regulations, integration, tariffs, and other economic mechanisms. Adherence to the principles of the WTO and UN is also highlighted.

Article 61 on Consumer Protection Policy, which consists of two points and two proposals, can to some extent be related to the social sphere insofar as it concerns policy agreements between member-states in the sphere of protecting consumer rights. The administrative cooperation defined in Article 68 concerns only issues of an economic nature and management, including the exchange of information and cooperation between competent authorities. Only Articles 97 and 98 on employment are social and humanitarian in nature, insofar as they indicate mechanisms for social protection, health care, procedures for workers in member-countries, as well as the mutual recognition of documents pertaining to education and employment opportunities, etc. However, these issues are integral to any economic and business operation, since labor relations imply social responsibility on the part of employers, certain state guarantees, and appropriate qualification necessary for employing labor.

The treaty contains no other articles or points related to social and humanitarian activities.

Moreover, according to the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Commission, there is no authority proscribed for the latter organ in the social and humanitarian spheres. Point 18 merely provides for the commission’s operations in the sphere of labor migration, while Point 20 mentions “other spheres determined by the Treaty [on the Eurasian Economic Union] and international treaties within the union.” According to the EEU’s legal portal, social and humanitarian issues were not considered in the acts adopted by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in 2015-2016.[1]

A similar situation can be observed with the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council.[2] No memoranda or joint statements with international organizations engaged in humanitarian issues have been issued.

Before the Treaty on the EEU, on October 30th, 2014 a joint statement was issued on cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union and the United Nations on industrial development. Even earlier, in 2013, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Eurasian Economic Commission and Economic Union and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Eurasian Economic Commission and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, and the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Commission and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), were all signed. Yet these UN commissions have nothing to do with social and humanitarian cooperation, although the United Nations does have corresponding bodies for these spheres.

Out of all the draft documents presented on the EEU legal portal that have either passed or are in the process of passing through public discussion (535 in total as of March 1st, 2017), in two years there has not been a single document which directly or indirectly relates to the social and humanitarian spheres.[3]

This situation is rather paradoxical since the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union was preceded by many years of significant intellectual work which implicitly related to the humanitarian sphere. Even if we consider exclusively economic factors or technical aspects, then they in one way or another have scientific foundations and are implemented in politics, and this is also pertains to the sphere of ideology and theories of the social and political sciences.

What’s more, it bears emphasis that the classical school of Eurasianists which arose among Russian emigres in the 1920’s, attached priority to questions of culture and society. The core of the Eurasian movement then was represented by the geographer Petr Savitsky, the philologist Nikolay Trubetzkoy, the lawyer Nikolay Alekseev, the historian and literary critic Petr Bitsilli, the philosopher and medievalist Lev Karsavin, the art historian Petr Suvchinsky, the historian George Vernadsky, the theologian George Florovsky, and the literary critic Dmitry Svyatopolk-Mirsky. Tellingly enough, there were no economists in this group, although state systems did receive significant attention in Savitsky and Alekseev’s works.

The end of the era of classical Eurasianism is associated with the works of Lev Gumilev, after which it is commonly accepted to recognize the beginning of neo-Eurasianism, whose founder in Russia in the early 1990’s was Alexander Dugin. Dugin not only directly popularized the ideas of classical Eurasianism in intellectual and political science circles, but also complemented its main provisions with geopolitical and economic aspects in accordance with the challenges of the day. This was marked by the need to pay more attention to heterodox economic models that go beyond classical liberal or Marxist doctrines. The President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, also actively supported Eurasianist ideas. It was he who proposed at the highest political level to create a new type of Eurasian association after the collapse of the USSR. A significant difference at the time was that Dugin worked in the intellectual sphere under adverse conditions, since the period of Boris Yeltsin’s reign was overall associated with an orientation towards the West, not searching for a way out of the crisis of identity or a unique, independent path of development, whereas Nazarabyev used administrative resources in parallel to the development of a national ideology of Kazakhstan. These remarks should be considered in analyzing the work of the EEU, particularly in the humanitarian sphere.

Imbalances in the trade-economic sphere have also been acknowledged in the comments of senior officials who have considerable experience in the humanitarian field. The groundwork of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) might be useful in this regard, since the EEU has a number of direct agreements with the CIS. To some extent, both of these inter-state projects are interrelated, since all EEU members are also CIS members.

For example, on July 2nd, 2015, during the Forum for Young Leaders of Eurasian Economic Union Member-Countries held in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the head of the Federal Agency for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation, Lyubov Glebova, remarked: “The development of cultural ties in the Eurasian space is important due to the fact that the entire history of our states exists within a common cultural space. Repression has never been at the heart of these relationships. Experience in mutual cultural enrichment helps us build relations today and allows us to avoid what we see in other parts of the world, such as the development of inter-ethnic conflicts sometimes artificially instigated from the outside.” [4]

In saying such, Glebova essentially confirmed Lev Gumilev’s famous theory of the complementarity of the various peoples inhabiting the Eurasian space and their influence on one another over the course of history. A similar opinion has been expressed by the former Executive Director of the International Foundation for Humanitarian Cooperation of the CIS and acting advisor to the President of Armenia on international cultural-humanitarian cooperation. In an interview in July 2016, he said regarding the EEU that the union has been established “in which economic relations play a key role. Without an economy, nothing can develop, and this is understandable. But at the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that without education, science, and without the inclusion of cultural and national questions, it is extremely difficult to build relations between peoples and states. For people to understand each other, and for an atmosphere of complete mutual confidence to be achieved, we direly need those contacts that are established only through humanitarian cooperation – through culture, art, and education. It is impossible to imagine the formation of a Eurasian alliance without cooperation in these spheres. Sooner or later, we will necessarily arrive at this. Why not get ahead of ourselves and in the near future start building these bridges that will surely help economic relations?” [5]

The General Secretary of the Eurasian Economic Community, Tair Mansurov, also suggested: “The Eurasian Union should become a union of states with a common economic, customs, humanitarian, and cultural space.” [6] As things stand, the first two of these areas have been realized and enshrined in the association’s governing documents, while the last two are still in their infancy.

Today, humanitarian-cultural cooperation exists only out of the inertia of the traditions laid down in the Soviet Union and Russian Empire. As a process of historical continuity, there are more positive than negative sides in this, but it nevertheless bears recognition that the 21st century requires a comprehensive and consolidated approach.

First of all, there is competition between countries. The states of Central Asia and the Caucasus are the objects of the geopolitical interests of many other countries with their own projects. The People’s Republic of China, for instance, is actively pursuing the expansion of its One Belt One Road project in the region, which is regarded not only as political-economic penetration, but also an instrument of China’s “soft power.” Although the SCO-BRICS summit in Ufa in 2015 declared that the Eurasian Union and New Silk Road projects would merge, to this day no clear plan of action has been deliberated on this matter.

Secondly, there can be several interrelated factors present that function as instruments of external “soft power.” For example, Turkey takes advantage of two factors at once – the Turkic and Muslim factors – to spread its cultural-religious influence in the countries of Central Asia (two Eurasian Union participants, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, have majority Muslim populations). Islamic ideas are also employed by Arab monarchies, in particular Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as the basis for their economic and spiritual penetration of the region.

In addition to those countries that have throughout history been of direct relevance to the states of the Eurasian Economic Union in terms of trade, influence, or conflicts, foreign actors are also attempting to influence integration and decision-making. The USA and the UK in particular present their own variety of programs in the context of liberal-democratic, Western ideology, which is not only unsuitable for the peoples and states of this part of the world, but is in many ways purely destructive in nature. In particular, such asserts the superiority of the individual over the collective and rejects the importance of historical and religious traditions, which liberalism presents as relics that must be overcome for the sake of progress (without mentioning any concrete goals). Meanwhile, “many of the Eurasianists’ social projects speak of the sobornost’ and collectivism of the people, i.e., those principles which have allowed them to not only survive in unique climactic conditions, but also build a powerful state. Cooperative interaction appears as an integral feature of social life in Russian sociology.” [7]

Overall, drawing a dichotomy between political-economic and political-cultural approaches might have long-term consequences. Other countries’ experiences show that cultural factors cannot be ignored or downplayed while preference is given exclusively to economic ties. The crisis in the EU, besides economic, political, and social factors, also has a cultural-humanitarian dimension.

As the famous French philosopher and New Right ideologue, Alain de Benoist, pointed out: “Since the very beginning, European construction has been carried out contrary to common sense. It started with industry and trade, rather than giving priority to politics and culture. What was built instead of this base and turned into a superstructure was represented by the Brussels Commission which, while devoid of any democratic legitimacy, still continues to be considered omnipotent. Construction should have been based on countries and regions with strict observance of the principle of subsidiarity, and with sufficient competence…European construction was done without the consent of the population (surveys were conducted only a few times, and people mostly negatively responded, but this was not taken into account and the surveys were repeated until they replied ‘yes’). Finally, the ultimate goals of European integration were not clearly defined, because there was never any consensus on this. But the key question is: are they building a powerful Europe with clearly defined geopolitical borders, one capable of governing all forces in synergy in order to forge an autonomous structure which might play a regulatory role in contemporary globalization? Or are they working on a market-Europe, a free trade zone with blurred borders which is supposed to be integrated into the zone of dominance of the American superpower? Unfortunately, we are closer to the second one. I am against such a Europe; I stand for the idea of the first Europe.” [8]

Sharply dividing the economic, political, social, and other aspects should be avoided. Rather, they should organically complement each other. “There are four common approaches to studying human affairs in which emphasis is on the social, cultural, economic, or political aspects respectively…To some extent, all of these categories include the other three insofar as social, cultural, economic, and political life are naturally interdependent. When we choose one of these names, we choose only an emphasis.” [9]

The experience of the Russian Federation in the 1990’s shows that emphasis must not be exclusively placed on the economic side of state policy, since a quantitative approach and focus on numbers can produce a profound gap with socio-political reality. This was clearly demonstrated by the liberal reforms implemented in Russia and the economic defaults that hit wide swathes of the population. The examples of other countries that have at one time found themselves in difficult economic situations (such as the Republic of Cuba and Islamic Republic of Iran) show that the ideological component, with emphasis placed on cultural and historical aspects, helped these countries’ leaderships to mobilize society and overcome numerous problems. Conversely, neglect for cultural-historical traditions has led to numerous tensions within societies (such as the escalation of sectarian conflicts in Iraq, progressive liberalization in Serbia leading to large-scale emigration in recent years, and the critical situation in Ukraine) which in turn also undermined these states’ economic systems.

Recently, a large number of events dedicated to questions of the EEU’s establishment and development have been held. Some of them have been systemic in nature and took place before the EEU project came to life. Others have begun to attempt to directly reflect on the EEU’s work in order to identify gaps and smooth over possible contradictions. A number of “Eurasian events” have been organized by social organizations and movements with funding from the state (usually one-time grants), and some educational institutions have systematically engaged in holding courses and educational and scholarly events. For example, the Ural State University of Economics in Ekaterinburg held the 7th Eurasian Economic Youth Forum in 2016.[10] This forum was the continuation of a cycle of events focused on harmonizing international relations alongside the International Youth Business Game’s “Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit – 2039” which was held at the Ural State University of Economics in 2009, as well as the first BRICS summit held in Ekaterinburg in the same year. The Eurasian Youth Herald is even published by the Ural State University of Economics. [11]

The Federation Council of the Russian Federation has also launched similar projects, such as the Eurasian Women’s Forum. Nine permanent discussion platforms have been established, each of which is a separate work group forming the basis for active cooperation between women’s leaders and women’s organizations. These forums’ activities are influencing the work on the program of the Second Eurasian Women’s Forum to be held in 2018. The Deputy Chairwoman of the Federation Council, Galina Karelova, has devoted particularly active work to such discussion forums as Women in Industry, Women in Agriculture, Women in the Shaping of Global Public Health Strategy, Women in Entrepreneurship, Women in Sport: Playing by One Set of Rules, and Charity without Borders, all of which have created a number of projects, including some featuring international participation.[12] These events have a pronounced gender character which is of no small importance in the modern international situation, in which serious attention is devoted to this factor. On the other hand, some of this forum’s initiatives have been criticized for having a pronounced liberal character. In particular, the National Strategy in Women’s Interests project published on the forum’s site has been severely criticized. It has been noted that many of the strategy’s provisions have been copied from Western feminist programs, such as “the outright destruction of traditional family values, basic models of behavior and social structure…many of the provisions approved by the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, D.A. Medvedev, in the National Strategy in Women’s Interests for 2017-2012 go against the National Security Strategy approved by the President of Russia, V. V. Putin, and grossly violate the constitutional rights of tens of millions of citizens of Russia.”[13]

Thus, it is necessary to adjust such initiatives in accordance with the value systems of the EEU’s societies.

Another important event is Eurasian Week, an annual exhibition forum held by the countries of the Economic Union and the Eurasian Economic Commission. The decision to organize this event was taken by the prime ministers of EEU countries in 2015. The forum has been called on to become an effective platform for dialogue where business and expert circles, union countries’ authorities, and third countries can discuss current, practical issues of economic development in the context of global challenges and work together to develop strategic solutions. The Eurasian Week forum was held for the first time in 2016, and this year’s forum’s theme is “The EEU on the Global Innovation Agenda.” This platform could be used to promote ideas of humanitarian cooperation as part of the common agenda of economic development and innovation (such as tourism).

Overall, the EEU itself represents a platform for generating new ideas, trends, and solutions for developing not only economic cooperation, but also improving humanitarian cooperation between the countries of the Eurasian economic space.

However, even among the various NGO’s and groups which have enthusiastically greeted the EEU project, there misunderstanding prevails as to the importance of the humanitarian field of Eurasian integration. For example, on the website of the Eurasian Commonwealth organization established in 2013, the “Humanitarian cooperation” section consisting of seven sub-sections is blank [14]. If in three years this sphere remains in a vacuum, then this suggests a shortage of ideas and proposals from civic non-profit initiatives dealing with questions of Eurasian integration.

The International Eurasian Movement can be considered to be an exception. Functioning since 2003 and working in a number of areas of humanitarian cooperation (science and education, youth, culture and art, interfaith relations, information policy), this organization’s operations are not even limited to EEU members. In several cases, the organization is working on Eurasian-oriented projects with other states, such as Iran, Turkey, Serbia, and Thailand.

Among the many expert communities and various NGO’s directly or indirectly related to the Eurasian Economic Union, one often hears wishes that humanitarian cooperation vectors will be strengthened, especially the youth, touristic, educational, and cultural-information spheres since, after all, “at the heart of integration, as any mutually beneficial process, always lies humanitarian cooperation.” [15]

As has been noted, strengthening humanitarian cooperation in inter-state educational ties between EEU countries would serve to popularize national and common human cultural and spiritual values, promote a healthy lifestyle among youth, support the activities of social associations and organizations in the interests of preserving ethnic identity, support national-religious uniqueness, preserve the spiritual and cultural heritage of indigenous peoples, and consolidation them within the civil society of this significant space – Eurasia. [16]

The Eurasian Union must produce its own meta-identity, otherwise it will not develop to be a sustainable formation and will remain at the level of a customs union. “This would be an unstable construct. In the modern world, as it turns out, economic reorientation occurs quickly, but in order to form a meta-identity it is necessary to change discourse and move on from inspecting the debris of the Past to building a common Future.” [17]

Footnotes:

[1] goo.gl/XOHukH

[2] goo.gl/yRXXwG

[3] https://docs.eaeunion.org/ru-ru/Pages/regulation.aspx#pagenumber=%220%22

[4] Подавление никогда не лежало в основе сотрудничества стран ЕАЭС — Глебова
https://regnum.ru/news/1939096.html

[5] Армен Смбатян: Невозможно представить становление Евразийского союза без гуманитарного сотрудничества, Московский экспресс, 20 июля 2016
http://moscowexpress.info/m/item/1660-15616354.html

[6] Т. Мансуров. Евразийский проект Нурсултана Назарбаева, воплощенный в жизнь. К 20-летию евразийского проекта 1994 – 2014. М., 2014. С. 330

[7] Попкова Т.В. Кооперативные теории и евразийство: единство базовых оснований// Народы Евразии: культура и общество. Третий Международный Евразийский научный форум. Астана, 2004. 47.

[8] Ален де Бенуа, Леонид Савин. Либерализм, кризис и будущее Европы, Геополитика, 07.06.2013 http://www.geopolitica.ru/article/liberalizm-krizis-i-budushchee-evropy#.WJHe2tKLTIU

[9] Карел ван Волферен. Загадка японской силы. М.: Серебряные нити, 2016. С. 26.

[10] http://eurasia-forum.ru/forum/o-forume/

[11] http://www.usue.ru/vestnik/

[12] В Совете Федерации обсудили подготовку ко Второму Евразийскому женскому форуму, 31 января 2017 http://www.council.gov.ru/events/news/76424/

[13] Людмила Рябиченко. А как же традиционные ценности? 15.03.2017 http://www.stoletie.ru/obschestvo/a_kak_zhe_tradicionnyje_cennosti_956.htm

[14] http://www.eurasianspace.com/gumanitarnoe-sotrudnichestvo

[15] Молодежь и неденежные отношения Кыргызстана и России, 28-01-2017 http://www.enw-fond.ru/proekty/4837-nedenezhnye-otnosheniya-kyrgyzstana-i-rossii-vzglyad-glazami-molodezhi.html

[16] Шкарлупина Г.Д. МЕЖГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫЕ СВЯЗИ КАК ФАКТОР УКРЕПЛЕНИЯ ГУМАНИТАРНОГО СОТРУДНИЧЕСТВА СТРАН ЕАЭС. http://izron.ru/articles/aktualnye-voprosy-yurisprudentsii-sbornik-nauchnykh-trudov-po-itogam-mezhdunarodnoy-nauchno-praktich/sektsiya-8-mezhdunarodnoe-pravo-evropeyskoe-pravo-spetsialnost-12-00-10/mezhgosudarstvennye-obrazovatelnye-svyazi-kak-faktor-ukrepleniya-gumanitarnogo-sotrudnichestva-stran/

[17] Игорь Задорин: «Евразийского союза не будет без общей идентичности», Евразия. Эксперт, 15 Июня 2016 г.http://eurasia.expert/zadorin-evraziyskiy-soyuz-identichnost/

Counter-Hegemony in the Theory of the Multipolar World

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

From Leviathan No. 5 [Moscow, Eurasian Movement: 2013] 

The most important aspect of the Theory of the Multipolar World (TMW) is the concept of counter-hegemony as first formulated in the context of the Critical Theory of International Relations (IR). In transitioning from Critical Theory to the Theory of the Multipolar World[i], this concept also undergoes a special sense of transformation which should be examined in more detail. In order to render such an analysis possible, we should first recall the main positions of the theory of hegemony with the framework of Critical Theory.   

The Concept of Hegemony in Realism

Although the concept of hegemony in Critical Theory is based on Antonio Gramsci’s theory, it is necessary to distinguish this concept’s position on Gramscianism and neo-Gramscianism from how it is understood in the realist and neo-realist schools of IR.

The classical realists use the term “hegemony” in a relative sense and understand it as the “actual and substantial superiority of the potential power of any state over the potential of another one, often neighboring countries.” Hegemony might be understood as a regional phenomenon, as the determination of whether one or another political entity is considered a “hegemon” depends on scale. Thucydides introduced the term itself when he spoke of Athens and Sparta as the hegemons of the Peloponnesian War, and classical realism employs this term in the same way to this day. Such an understanding of hegemony can be described as “strategic” or “relative.”

In neo-realism, “hegemony” is understood in a global (structural) context. The main difference from classical realism lies in that “hegemony” cannot be regarded as a regional phenomenon. It is always a global one. The neorealism of K. Waltz, for example, insists that the balance of two hegemons (in a bipolar world) is the optimal structure of power balance on a world scale[ii]. R. Gilpin believes that hegemony can be combined only with unipolarity, i.e., it is possible for only a single hegemon to exist, this function today being played by the USA.

In both cases, the realists comprehend hegemony as a means of potential correlation between the potentials of different state powers. 

Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony is completely different and finds itself in a completely opposite theoretical field. To avoid the misuse of this term in IR, and especially in the TMW, it is necessary to pay attention to Gramsci’s political theory, the context of which is regarded as a major priority in Critical Theory and TMW. Moreover, such an analysis will allows us to more clearly see the conceptual gap between Critical Theory and TMW.

Antonio Gramsci’s Hegemony Concept

Antonio Gramsci based his theory, later known as Gramscianism, on his understanding of Marxism and its practical embodiment in history. As a Marxist, Gramsci was convinced that socio-political history is completely predetermined by the economic factor and, like all Marxists, he explains the superstructure (Aufbau) through the base (infrastructure). Bourgeois society is in essence a class society in which the processes of exploitation reach their most concentrated expression in the form of the ownership of the means of production and the appropriation of the surplus value arising in the production process by the bourgeoisie. Inequality in the economic sphere (the base) and the domination of Capital over Labor composes the essence of capitalism and accordingly determines all social, political, and cultural semantics (the superstructure).

This thesis is shared by all Marxists, and there is nothing new or original here. But then Antonio Gramsci asked: how was a proletarian socialist revolution possible in Russia where, from Marx’s point of view (analyzing the situation in the Russian Empire in the 19th century from a prognostic perspective) and from the point of view of classical European Marxism from the beginning of the 20th century, the objective base (the underdevelopment of capitalist relations, a small proletariat, the predominance of the agricultural sector in the country’s total GDP, the absence of bourgeois political system, etc) excluded the possibility of a Communist party coming to power? After all, Lenin made this possible and began to build socialism.

Gramsci understands this phenomenon as fundamentally important, calling it “Leninism”. In Gramsci’s understanding, Leninism was the vanguard, advanced action of a consolidated and strong political superstructure (in the form of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks) in seizing political power. Once such a vanguard becomes a relevant factor, and revolution is successful, then it should rapidly develop the base through the accelerated creation of the superstructures whose according economic realities have not yet been implemented under capitalism, i.e., industrialization, modernization, “electrification”, “public education,” etc. Thus, Gramsci drew the conclusion that under certain circumstances politics (the superstructure) can stay ahead of the economy (the base). The Communist Party can “get in front” of the “natural” development of historical processes. Consequently, Leninism proves the existence of the significant autonomy of the superstructure in regards to the base.

But Leninism, as Gramsci understood it, was limited to the political segment of the superstructure, in which the functioning of law and government and the issue of domination are already solved. Gramsci insisted that the superstructure has yet another important segment which is not political in the fullest sense, i.e., not merely associated with political parties or bound to the issue of political power. Gramsci called this sphere “civil society.” Such a notion, however, should always be accompanied with the qualification of “civil society as understood by Gramsci”, for its meaning does not always coincide with the one that it is assigned in liberal theories. Gramsci’s civil society is the “zone of expansion” for the intellectual parts of society including science, culture, philosophy, art, analytics, journalism, etc. The Marxist, for Gramsci, relies on the regularity of the base in this domain, as for the whole superstructure. But…Leninism demonstrated that the regularity of the base, in some cases, is overcome by the relative autonomy of the superstructure, which advances ahead of the base’s processes. The experience of the Russian Revolution, as an historical example, demonstrated how politics is realized at the level of the superstructure. But here Gramsci emphasizes that, if this is so in the case of the political sphere of the superstructure, then why could something similar not happen at the level of “civil society?” It is at this point that Gramsci’s notion of “hegemony” appears.[iii] He successively outlines something analogous to the economic division of Capital vs. Labor in the base, or the contradiction between the bourgeois party and government vs. the proletarian party and government (as in the Soviet Union), can take place in the intellectual sphere (Gramsci’s “civil society”). This third realm of contradiction is termed “hegemony” by Gramsci, where bourgeois consciousness and proletarian consciousness vie for domination relatively autonomous from both politics and the economy.

Studying bourgeois sociology[iv], the German sociologist Werner Sombart showed that leisure is valuable for this third category, or third “class,” which partially possesses such comfort while other social groups either do not know or do not have such. Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit[v] similarly says that the Slave operates not by his own consciousness, but the Master’s consciousness. As is known, this and other elements of Hegel formed the foundation for Marx’s communist ideology. Continuing this chain of thought, Gramsci concluded that the adoption or rejection of hegemony (bourgeois consciousness structures) does not and cannot directly depend on the fact of belonging to the bourgeois class (in the sense of the base) or from political involvement in a bourgeois party or administrative system. Being on the side of hegemony, or against it, according to Gramsci, is a free choice. As an intellectual chooses it consciously, he is transformed from a “traditional” intellectual into an “organic” intellectual, i.e., one who consciously takes his/her stance on hegemony.

This leads to an important conclusion. The intellectual may oppose bourgeois hegemony even while living comfortably in a society in which capitalist relations are the basis and bourgeois political domination prevails. The intellectual can reject or accept hegemony freely, i.e., he has a gap of freedom similar to the autonomy of the political in regards to the economic base (as seen in the Bolshevik experience in Russia). In other words, one can be the carrier of proletarian consciousness and stand on the side of the laboring class for a just society even while being at the heart of bourgeois society. Everything depends on the intellectuals’ choice. Hegemony is thus a matter of conscience.

Gramsci himself came to such conclusions based on his analysis of political processes in Italy in the 1920’s-30’s[vi]. During this period, according to his analysis, the conditions prevailing in Italy were quite ripe for socialist revolution in terms of both the base (developed industrial capitalism and the sharpening of class contradictions and struggle) and the superstructure (the political successes of consolidated leftist parties). But, despite these seemingly favorable conditions, according to Gramsci’s further analysis, leftist forces failed in the intellectual field. It was here that Italy was most oppressed by bourgeois hegemony, who constantly introduced bourgeois stereotypes and clichés into popular consciousness even though these contradicted economic and political realities and the popularity of active, anti-bourgeois circles. In Gramsci’s view, Mussolini applied hegemony in his favor (fascism was disgusting for communists, who saw it as a form of domination by the bourgeois classes) and prevented an “artificial” socialist revolution from appearing in accordance with the natural historical course of events. In other words, despite waging (relatively) successful political battles, the Italian Communists overlooked “civil society”, the intellectual sphere, and the “metapolitical” fight. Gramsci saw this as the cause of their defeat.

Gramscianism has since been adopted by the European Left (especially the New Left) and left-wing movements in Europe have applied Gramscianism in practice since the 1960’s. The Leftist (Marxist) intellectuals (Sartre, Camus, Aragon, Foucault, etc.) were able to implant anti-bourgeois concepts and theories in the center of social and cultural life, thus taking advantage of publications, newspapers, clubs, and university departments which were integral parts of the capitalist economy, and they acted in the political context of the domination of the bourgeois system. They went on to prepare the events of 1968 which swept across Europe and the left turn of European politics in the 1970’s. Just as Leninism proved in practice that the political segment of the superstructure has a certain degree of autonomy, in the sphere of which activism can accelerate the processes unfolding at the base, so did the Gramscianism of the New Left demonstrate the efficacy and practical value of an active intellectual strategy in practice.

Gramscianism in Critical Theory: the Left Pivot

The Gramscianism which we have described has been integrated into IR Critical Theory by its modern representatives such as Robert Cox[vii], Stephen Gill[viii], etc. In Postmodernism, the autonomy of “civil society” was furthered and, consequently, the phenomenon of the intellectuals’ choice of hegemony and the placement of epistemological straggles above political processes and economic structures in general preserved the continuity of Marxist, leftist discourse. In this view, capitalism is regarded as generally better (more “progressive”) than pre-capitalist socio-economic systems even if it is obviously worse in comparison to any post-capitalist (socialist and communist) model by which it is to be replaced. This explains the structure of the project of counter-hegemony[ix]. IR Critical Theory remains leftist in its understanding of the historical process. One can describe this perspective in the following way: according to the representatives of Critical Theory, hegemony (bourgeois society culminating in the hologram of bourgeois consciousness) replaces that which “hegemonized” it (types of pre-bourgeois formations with inherent forms of pre-modern collective consciousness) only then to be subverted by counter-hegemony which, upon victory, is to establish post-hegemony. In the Communist Manifesto[x], Marx and Engels themselves insisted on the different ways in which communists’ opposition to the bourgeoisie has nothing to do with the claims against the bourgeoisie advanced by anti-bourgeois feudalists, nationalists, Christian socialists, etc. Capitalism is pure evil which concentrates in itself (albeit not so clearly and explicitly) previous forms of social exploitation. In order to defeat this evil, it must first be allowed to fully manifest itself, and only then can it be eradicated, instead of retouching its most odious features which only delays the horizon of revolution and communism. This must be taken into account when considering the structure of the neo-Gramscian analysis of international relations.

This analysis divides all countries into those in which hegemony is obviously strengthened (developed capitalist countries featuring industrial economies, the domination of bourgeois parties in parliamentary democracies organized in accordance with the example of the nation-state, a developed market economy, and a liberal legal system) and those in which, by virtue of various historical circumstances, such factors have not appeared. The first group of countries are called the “developed democratic powers” and the second are “borderline cases,” “problematic areas,” or even categorized as “rogue states.” The leftist (Marxist, neo-Maxist, and Gramscian) analysis is totally applicable in the countries in which hegemony is strengthened. However, in the case of countries displaying “incomplete hegemony”, things should be regarded in a different way.

Gramsci himself places these countries under the “Caesarist” category (seeing the experience of fascist Italy as a clear reference). “Caesarism” can be regarded in a broad sense as any political system in which bourgeois relations exist in fragmented form while their full political arrangement (in the form of classic bourgeois-democratic states) has been delayed. In “Caesarism,” the main point is not authoritarian rule, but the delay of the full realization of a fully-fledged, Western-style capitalist system (both base and superstructure). The reasons for this “delay” can vary from dictatorial styles of government, clan elites, and the presence of religious or ethnic groups in power to the cultural characteristic of a given society or the historical circumstances of a particular economic or geographical location, etc. What is first and foremost important is that in such a society hegemony acts both as an external force (from bourgeois states and societies) and as an internal opposition, which in one way or another is connected with external factors.

In IR, the neo- Gramscians insist that “Caesarism” is “incomplete hegemony.” Thus, its strategy is to ensure a balance between external and internal hegemonic pressures by granting certain concessions, all the while doing so only selectively in order to maintain power and prevent seizure by bourgeois political forces of the political superstructure presiding over the economic base of society. Caesarism is thus doomed to “transformism” (from the Italian transformismo), i.e., the permanent adjustment of hegemony, that very force which Caesarism constantly desires to delay or deflect down a false trajectory, the end of which is steadily approaching.

In this regard, IR Critical Theory considers “Caesarism” to be something that will sooner or later be eliminated by hegemony, as this phenomenon is nothing more than a “historical delay” rather than an alternative, i. e., a counter-hegemony in itself.

According to the representatives of modern IR Critical Theory, such“Caesarism” is obviously represented by most of the countries of the Third World and the major powers included in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Taking into account such characteristics, the limitations in such a conceptualization of counter-hegemony presented by the IR Critical Theory become clear as does the pure utopianism of alternative projects, such as Cox’s “counter-society”, which represents something expressionless and undefined. They proceed from the vague project of socio-political world order, which is supposed to appear “after liberalism”[xi]  (Immanuel Wallerstein) and conform to the usual left-wing communist utopia. A similar version of counter-hegemony is also limited by the fact that it hastily pushes numerous other political phenomena, which are obviously unrelated to hegemony and lean towards alternative versions of world order, into the category of “Caesarism”, and thus “incomplete hegemony.” This deprives these alternatives of any consideration as to their development towards an effective counter-hegemonic strategy. Nonetheless, it is this general analysis of the structure of international relations in the light of neo-Gramscian methodology which constitutes an extremely important trajectory for developing the TMW.

However, in order to overcome the limitations inherent to Critical Theory and fully exploit the potential in neo-Gramscianism, we should qualitatively expand this approach, going beyond left (and even “leftist”) discourse, which places the entire structure in the zone of ideological sectarianism and marginal exoticism (where such is currently found). In this regard, invaluable assistance can be found in the ideas of the French philosopher Alain de Benoist.

“Right Wing Gramscianism” – Alain de Benoist’s Revision

Back in the 1980s, the French representative of the “New Right” (“Nouvelle Droite”), Alain de Benoist, directed attention towards Gramsci’s ideas from the point of view of their methodological capacity[xii]. Just like Gramsci, de Benoist revealed the centrality of meta-politics as a special area of intellectual activity that prepares (in the form of a “passive revolution”) further political and economic changes. The success of the “New Left” in France, and in Europe in general, only confirms the effectiveness of this approach.

Unlike the majority of French intellectuals of the second half of the 20th century, Alain de Benoist was not a supporter of Marxism, a fact which isolated his position. However, de Benoist nonetheless built his political philosophy upon a radical rejection of liberal and bourgeois values, a negation capitalism, individualism, modernism, as well as a rejection of geopolitical Atlanticism and Western Eurocentrism. Moreover, he contrasted “Europe” to the “West” as  two antagonistic concepts. For de Benoist, Europe is the field of deployment of a special cultural Logos handed down from the Greeks which intensely combined the richness of the Celtic, Germanic, Latin, Slavic, and other European traditions. The “West”, on the other hand, is equivalent to the mechanistic, materialist, rationalist civilization based on the predominance of technology over other spheres. Alain de Benoist, like Oswald Spengler, understood the “West” as the “decline of Europe” and, along with F. Nietzsche and M. Heidegger, he is convinced of the need to overcome modernity as nihilism and “the abandonment of Being in the world” (Seinsverlassenheit). In this regard, the “West” is identical to the very liberalism, capitalism, and bourgeois society against which the New Right strove to fight. At the same time, although not being materialists, the New Right agreed with the key significance assigned by Gramsci and his followers to “civil society.” For example, Alain de Benoist came to the conclusion that the phenomenon which Gramsci called “hegemony” is a set of strategies, attitudes, and values which he considered to be “pure evil.” This led to the proclamation of the principle of “Gramscianism from the Right.”

This Gramscianism “of the right” means recognizing the autonomy of “civil society” as understood by Gramsci as well as identifying the phenomenon of hegemony in this sphere and the personal choice of one’s ideological position on the opposite side from hegemony. Alain de Benoist has published a programmatic work entitled Europe and the Third World – One and the Same Battle[xiii] which entirely bases itself on the parallels between the struggle of the peoples of the Third World against bourgeois neocolonialism and the will of European nations to free themselves from the dictatorship of the bourgeois market society and the morality and praxis of traders, and replace such a system with heroic ethics[xiv] (Werner Sombart).

The crucial importance of this “right-wing Gramscianism” for TMW is that such an understanding of “hegemony” that allows one to transcend leftist and Marxist discourse and reject the bourgeois order at the base (economy) and the superstructure (politics and civil society) not after hegemony has become a total planetary and global factor, but in spite of it. Hence the extremely importance nuance imbued with meaning in the title of de Benoist’s second programmatic work, Against Liberalism[xv], which contrasts to the neo-Marxist Immanuel Wallerstein’s After Liberalism[xvi]. For de Benoist, the “after” cannot be counted on. In any case, one must not let liberalism be allowed to become an accomplish fact. Liberalism must be opposed here and now and must be fought from any position at any point in the world. Hegemony attacks on a planetary scale and finds its bearers in the developed bourgeois societies as well as in those societies in which capitalisms has not yet been definitively established. Therefore, counter-hegemony should be perceived as something beyond sectarian ideological restrictions; if we want to create a counter-hegemonic bloc, then it must include all anti-bourgeois, anti-capitalist forces whether of the left, right, or those without any kind of definitive classification (Alain de Benoist himself has constantly emphasized that the division between “left” and “right” is not only outdated, but also does not correspond to the real choice of position – today what is significantly more important is whether one acts for or against hegemony).

Alain de Benoist’s right Gramscianism takes us back to the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels despite their rather exclusive and dogmatic appeal for the formation of a Global Revolutionary Alliance without “fellow travelers”. In contrast, we are dealing with one which unites all opponents of capitalism and hegemony and everyone who is essentially against this force. It is thus unimportant what is taken to be the positive alternative, since in this situation the presence of a common enemy is more pressing. Otherwise, according to the New Right (who in fact refused to call themselves “right”, the label which was given to their movement by their opponents), hegemony will be able to divide its opponents on artificial grounds and pose them against each other for the purpose of successfully dealing with everyone separately.

Denouncing Eurocentrism in Historical Sociology

The modern scholar of International Relations and one of the main representatives of historical sociology in International Relations, John Hobson, presents a completely different approach to this problem. In his key work, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics[xvii], Hobson analyzes nearly all of the approaches and paradigms of IR in terms of their hierarchies which are founded in principle on the comparisons of states, their roles, structures and interests to Western society as the universal referential standard. John Hobson concludes that all IR schools, without any exception, are based on an implicit Eurocentrism which recognizes the universality of Western societies and believes European history to be a phase compulsory for all other cultures. Hobson rightly considers this approach to be a form of European racism which gradually and imperceptibly passes from biological theories of the “superiority of the white race” to notions of the universality of Western cultural values, strategies, technologies, and interests. The “White Man’s Burden” becomes “the imperative of modernization and development.” At the same time, an indigenous society and culture are subjected to “modernization” by default – no-one asked whether they agree that Western values, technologies, and practices are universal of if they are an object of rejection. Only being faced with violent forms of desperate resistances in the forms of terrorism or fundamentalism does the West sometimes bring itself to ask the question: “Why do they hate us so much?” But the answer is a preconceived one: “The savagery and ingratitude of non-European peoples for all the blessings which Western “civilization” brings with it.”

Hobson importantly and convincingly shows that racism and Eurocentrism exist not only in the bourgeois theories of IR, but also in Marxism, including IR Critical Theory (neo- Gramscianism). The Marxists, despite their criticism of bourgeois civilization, remain convinced that its triumph is inevitable and thus share a common Eurocentrism in regards to Western culture. Hobson shows how Marx himself partly justified colonial practices insofar as they led to the modernization of the colonies and, thus, hastened the onset of proletarian revolutions. Thus, from historical perspective, Marxism is an accomplice of capitalist globalization and an ally of racist civilizational practices. Decolonization is regarded only as a prelude to the construction of the bourgeois state, which has yet to embark on full industrialization and move towards the future proletarian revolution. Very little separates this from the theories of the neo-liberals and trans-nationalists.

John Hobson thus proposes to begin to construct a radical alternative, a development of IR theory that is not based on Eurocentrism or racist approaches. He stands for the project of a “counter-hegemonic bloc” which, while being indeed nominated by neo-Gramscianism, would liberate itself from all forms of Eurocentrism and thus be qualitatively expanded.

The project of a non-Eurocentric theory of IR leads us directly to the Theory of the Multipolar World.

The Transition to Multipolarity

We can now bring together all of the above said on counter-hegemony and situate such in the context of the Theory of the Multipolar World (TMW) which is a theory of IR that is essentially, consistently no-nEurocentric, and which rejects hegemony on its own grounds and calls for the creation of a broad counter-hegemonic alliance or counter-hegemonic pact.

In TMW, counter-hegemony is understood in a similar way as neo-Gramscian theories and the Critical School of International Relations. Hegemony is the domination of capital and the bourgeois political system of society expressed in the intellectual sphere. In other words, hegemony is first and foremost a discourse. At the same time, the three segments of society designated by Gramsci, the base and the two components of the superstructure (politics and “civil society”) are considered by TMW to be predominant on the level of discourse, i.e., the intellectual sphere, in accordance with post-modern and post-positivist epistemology. Thus, questions of hegemony and counter-hegemony are central and fundamental to the construction of the TMW and its effective realization in practice. The sphere of metapolitics is just as important as politics and economics and does not eliminate them, but rather logically and conceptually precedes them. Man ultimately deals with his mind and and its projections. Therefore, the arrangement or reorganization of consciousness automatically entails a change in the (internal and external) world.

The TMW is a fixation of the concept of counter-hegemony in the concrete theoretical field. Until a certain point, TMW strictly follows Gramscianism. But when it arrives at the expression of the content of a counter-hegemonic pact, there arise certain divergences. The most important of such involves the rejection of left dogmatism; the TMW refuses to consider the bourgeois transformation of modern societies to be a universal law, which thus brings the Gramscianism and metapolitics of the TMW closer to the “New Right” (Alain de Benoist’s) version than that of the “New Left” (of R. Cox), but without excluding Marxism to the extent that it is an ally in the common struggle against capital and hegemony. Strictly, speaking, the term “right Gramscianism” is not entirely correct – it would be more correct to speak of an inclusive Gramscianism, i.e., in which counter-hegemony is widely understood as including all types of hegemonic confrontation and etymologically generalizing the otherwise rigid “counter”). This stands in contrast to exclusive Gramscianism (in which counter-hegemony is narrowly understood as “post-hegemony”). The TMW advocates inclusive Gramscianism. This position overcomes right and left and transcends the conceptual borders of the political ideologies of modernity, thus unfolding in the form of the Fourth Political Theory which is inextricably linked to the TMW.

J. Hobson’s contribution to the development of inclusive counter-hegemony is extremely important in this regard. His call to build a non-Eurocentric IR theory precisely coincides with the purpose of the TMW. International relations should be interpreted from a plurality of positions just as the construction of any universal theory must take into account different cultures, civilizations, religions, ethnic groups, societies, and communities. Every society has its own values, anthropology, ethics, regulations, identity, and understanding of space and time, and the general and the particular. Every society has its own “universalism” or at the very least its own understanding of “the universal.” What the West thinks about “universality” is well known, even too much so. It is time to give the rest of humanity the right to their own voices.

In its fundamental dimension, multipolarity means the free polylogue of societies, peoples, and cultures. But before this polylogue can actually appear, it is necessary to define general rules. Hence the a theory of International Relations, one which will involve an openness of terms, concepts, theories, notions, a plurality of actors, and the complexity and polysemy of expressions. In this case, TMW is not an end, but a beginning, the basic spatial preparation for the future world order.

However, the call for multipolarity is not sounded in empty space. Discourse on international relations and global political, social, and economic practice is dominated by hegemony. We live in a strictly Eurocentric world in which only one superpower (the USA) together with its allies and vassals (the NATO countries) are the imperialist dominants and in which market relations dictate all the rules of business practices, where bourgeois political norms are considered to be compulsory, where the technique and level of material development are considered to be the highest criteria, and in which the values of individualism, personal comfort, material well-being, and “freedom from” are extolled above all other factors. In other words, we live in a world of triumphant hegemony which has spread its network on a planetary scale and has subordinated all of mankind. Therefore, we need a radical opposition, struggle, and confrontation in order for multipolarity to be made real. In other words, we need a counter-hegemonic bloc (in the inclusive sense). We should now consider what resources this potential bloc has. 

The Syntax of Hegemony and the Syntax of Counter-hegemony

In its conceptual hologram, hegemony is based on the belief that modernity excels over antiquity (the past), that modernity triumphs over pre-modernity, and that the West dominates the non-West (the East and the Third World).

Thus we have the structure of the syntax of hegemony in its most general form:

The West=Modernity=the goal=welfare= progress=universal values=the USA (+ NATO)=capitalism=human rights=market=liberal democracy=law

VS

The Rest= backwardness (pre-modernity)=the need for modernization (colonization/aid/lessons/external control)= the need for Westernization= barbarism (savagery)=native values=pseudo-capitalism (non-capitalism)=violation (less respect) of human rights=unfair market (State role, clans, group preferences)=pseudo-democracy=corruption

These formulas of hegemony are axiomatic and self-referencing, a kind of “self-fulfilling prophecy”. One term is justified by another one of the equivalent chain and is opposed to any term (symmetric or not) of the second chain. This unpretentious rule creates the discourse of hegemony. While it may have the appearance of causality, illustration, descriptiveness, analysis forecasting, historical research, opinion polling, debate, opposition, etc., in its structure, hegemony is in fact built on this backbone supported by millions of variations and disclosed experiences. If we accept these two parallel, equivalent chains, we find ourselves within hegemony and fully codified in its syntax. Any objection will be extinguished by new suggestive passes galloping through one or another term in order to arrive at hegemonic tautology. Even the most critical formulas of discourse sooner of later slip into these constantly repetitive semantic synonyms and dissolve. It is necessary to recognize at least one of these identifications, and then everything else is preordained. Hence why the creation of counter-hegemony begins with the retraction of both of these chains. Let us create the symmetrical syntax of counter-hegemony:

The West≠Modernity≠the goal≠welfare≠ progress≠universal values≠the USA (+ NATO) ≠capitalism≠human rights≠market≠liberal democracy≠law

VS

The Rest≠ backwardness (pre-modernity) ≠the need for modernization (colonization/aid/lessons/external control) ≠the need for Westernization≠ barbarism (savagery) ≠native values≠pseudo-capitalism (non-capitalism) ≠violation (less respect) of human rights≠unfair market (State role, clans, group preferences) ≠pseudo-democracy≠corruption

If the equal signs hypnotically enter the collective consciousness as something matter of fact, then the detailed justification of each equal sign requires a separate text or group of texts. To one degree or another, the TMW and its parallels in the forms of the Fourth Political Theory,[xviii], Eurasianism, the “New Right” (A. de Benoist), non-Eurocentric IR theory (J. Hobson), traditionalism, postmodernism, and so on fulfill this task in their own way, but what is important is presenting this schema as the most generalized form of counter-hegemonic syntax. The denying of a meaningful expression is in itself meaningful due to its negation of the fact, which means that each inequality is in fact imbued with meaning and connections. In questioning the chain of the identification of hegemony, we obtain a semantic field free of hegemony and its suggestive “axiomatism.” This completely unties our hands and allows us to deploy counter-hegemonic discourse.

In this case, we have retrieved such basic guidelines for a specific purpose: the preliminary and most generalized estimation of the resources that can be theoretically expected in the construction of a counter-hegemonic pact.

A Global Revolutionary Elite

The counter-hegemonic bloc is built by intellectuals. Therefore, at its core should be a global revolutionary elite which rejects the “status quo” at its deepest level. In trying to understand one’s position at any point of the modern world – in any country, culture, society, social class, professional function, etc. – man sooner or later arrives at an understanding of the basic theses of hegemonic discourse in searching for deep answers to the deep questions of the social arrangement in which he lives. Of course, this is not possible for everyone even though according to Gramsci every man is an intellectual in one way or another. However, the only real intellectual is he who represents man in a holistic sense, a kind of delegate to the parliament of thinking humanity (homo sapiens) on behalf of the more modest representatives (those who cannot or do not want to realize the fullness of man in the form of the possibility culminating in the opportunity to think, i.e., being an intellectual). We have such an intellectual in mind when we speak of identifying hegemony. At the point when he is faced with a choice, i.e., realizing his opportunity to become an intellectual, he can say “yes” to hegemony and accept its syntax, thus continuing to act within its structure, or he can say “no.” If he says “no”, he is sent on the quest for counter-hegemony; he searches for accession to the global revolutionary elite.

This search can stop at the intermediate stage. There are always local structures (traditionalists, fundamentalists, communists, anarchists, ethnocentrists, revolutionaries of different types, etc.) who, realizing the challenge of hegemony and rejecting it, operate at the local level. At this point we are already dealing with the level of organic intellectuals who do not yet realize the need for culminating the rejection of hegemony in the form of a universal, planetary strategy. However, joining the real (not imaginary) fight against hegemony means that a revolutionary will sooner or later discover hegemony’s transnational, extraterritorial nature. To realize its goals, hegemony always resorts to the combination of internal and external factors, attacking whatever it considers to be its enemy or an obstacle to its imperial domination (the elements of the second chain, “the rest”). Thus, the localized resistance to the global challenge at one point reaches its natural limits. Hegemony may retreat at one time only to come back. No one can ever merely dodge its attacks.

When such a realization is acquired, the most intellectually developed representatives of local counter-hegemony will feel the need to pass to the level of a fundamental alternative, i.e., mastering counter-hegemonic syntax. This is the direct path to the Global Revolutionary Alliance which will be objectively and quite naturally formed by the global counter-hegemonic elite, which is destined to become the core of counter-hegemony. Herein lies the necessity of the Theory of the Multipolar World.


[i] Dugin, A. The Theory of the Multipolar World, Moscow, 2012.

[ii] Before the end of the Cold War, Waltz took  the example of the fight between the USA and the USSR as a fight between two hegemons. Now, his adherents promote the idea that a there will be a new bipolarity in which American hegemony will face China as the new candidate for the second pole.

[iii] “What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural “levels”: the one that can be called “civil society”, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called “private”, and that of “political society” or “the State”, said Gramcsi. “These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of ”hegemony” which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of “direct domination” or command exercised through the State and “juridical” government.” Gramsci A. The Prison Notebooks vol. 1. Columbia University Press, 1992

[iv] Werner Sombart. Der Bourgeois. München und Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1913

[v] Hegel G. W. F., The Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977

[vi] Gramsci A. The Prison Notebooks. Columbia University Press, 1992

[vii] Сох Л. Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method// Millennium. 12.1983.

[viii] GUIS. Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

[ix] The Neo- Gramscian, Nicola Pratt defines counter-hegemony as the “a creation of an alternative hegemony on the terrain of civil society in preparation for political change”. Pratt N. Bringing politics back in: examining the link between globalization and democratization// Review of International Political Economy. Vol. 11. No. 2. 2004.

[x] Marx K., Engels F. Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1955.Маркс К., Энгельс Ф. Манифест Коммунистической партии // Маркс К., Энгельс Ф. Сочинения. 2-е изд. Т. 4. М.: Государственное издательство политической литературы, 1955. С. 419-459.

[xi] Wallerstein I. After Liberalism. New York: New Press. 1995

[xii] BenoistdeA. Vude droite. Anthologie critique des idees contemporaines. P., Copernic, 1977.

[xiii] Benoist deA. Europe, Tiers monde, тёте combat. P.: Robert Laffont, 1986.

[xiv] Sombart, Werner (1915): Händler und Helden. München: Duncker & Humblot. 1915.

[xv] de Benoist A. Against Liberalism. To the Fourth Political Theory. S.-Petersburg, 2009

[xvi] Wallerstein I. After Liberalism. New York: New Press. 1995

[xvii] Hobson J. The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760-2010. Cambridge: Cambridge Umoniversity Press, 2012.

[xviii] Dugin A. The Fourth Political Theory. S.-Petersburg. 2009

 

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

Eurasia: A Special Worldview

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Dugin’s Guideline – 

Eurasia is not only a geographical concept; it is also a whole theory, system, and special worldview. Its essence lies in the following.

For centuries the West has striven to impose its norms and criteria upon all of mankind. This is its civilizational policy. And this has not changed over the centuries regardless of what stands at the forefront of the West’s ideology, be it Catholicism, Protestantism, Modernism, Liberalism, or Capitalism. With equal fervor the West builds its Empire at the expense of all other peoples. On the world map this is reflected in expansion from Europe to Asia and, most importantly, Eurasia, i.e., the territory of the Russian Empire situated in the key zone of the absolute center. To the west of us is Europe. To the east – Asia. We ourselves are something third.

The West believes that only its path of development, only its logic, and only its values are universal and common to all of mankind, and that all other peoples have simply not yet understood this. This means that the West, albeit temporarily (until they understand this), can and is even obliged to rule others. With such a blatant agenda, the West has in practice managed to colonize the East. This is no easy feat, but it managed to. But the West faltered in the face of Russia, Eurasia. We, Russians, opposed the West with something that stopped it in its tracks. It repeatedly tried to take us by force and ruse, but we held on. The East fell, but we didn’t. And we are holding out to this day. This is Eurasia as an idea.

Eurasia means not succumbing to the West’s claims to universality, rejecting its hegemony, and insisting that no one has a monopoly on truth, especially not the West. Eurasia is the possibility for peoples and civilizations to follow their own path and, if the logic of the path demands such, not only a non-Western one, but even an anti-Western path. This is Eurasia. This idea was understood by the first Eurasianists, Trubetzkoy, Savitsky, and Alekseev in the 1920’s. We too understand it. And Vladimir Putin understands it, since there is no other meaning of Eurasia.

If we understand what is at stake, then all the rest becomes crystal clear. If we are Eurasia, then it therefore follows that:

First, we must strengthen and defend our identity, our culture, faith, ethics, philosophy, our own Russian Logos. Eurasia means reliance on our own strength and allying with all those who share our attitude and reject the hegemony of the West.

Secondly, we must construct a foreign policy that allows us to be completely independent from the West in the spheres of defense, politics, culture, economy, and technology. Eurasia is the principle of self-sufficiency of a large space.

Thirdly, we must integrate the space adjacent to contemporary Russia into a single confederation or union in order to together create the potential sufficient for being a fully-fledged pole in a multipolar world, not a unipolar world as the West is trying to impose on us to this day. Eurasia is multipolarity.

And finally, we must create a Eurasian Order symmetric to what is called the World Government and strives to manage global processes from the standpoint of the West’s interests. Eurasia is a principally new elite thinking globally but most often oppositely to what the West’s intellectual headquarters think and, most importantly, do.

This is the only way to treat talk of Eurasia at the Economic Forum. If not, then not at all, and this will remain but empty talk. If we really mean what we are saying, this demands a radical shift in all policy, ideology, the entire course. We do not have historical time to move cautiously step by step.

 

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

The Rus of Rurik

Author: Vladimir Karpets

Translators: Jafe Arnold, Nina Kouprianova

Chapter 1 of Tsarsky Rod (2016)  

“He who correctly explains the name of Rus will find the key to explaining her primordial history,” wrote the Polish historian A.R. Brueckner. What’s more, not only its primordial history, but the very “seed of its logos,” its meaning, and he will find the key to the Russian future. As the monk Andronik (A.F. Losev) wrote, “the Greek expression EIS ONOMA or EN ONOMAK, ‘in the name’, itself proves that a name is a certain situating of divine energies, and the immersion and residence in it of all created beings leads to enlightenment and the salvation of the latter.”

Today we are beginning to grasp, to understand our name. Our own name. Our name – “Russians” – transcends the division into Great Russians, Belarusians, Little Russians, and Rusyns. It is derived from Rus.

And now the first and oldest question: Where are you from, Rus? In her book, Prizvanie varyagov [The Calling of the Varangians], Lydia Grot says:

Scholars have long paid attention to the abundance of hydronyms in Eastern Europe, the formation of whose names involved the root component ras/ros/rus’ or rus. The most ancient of known names for the main river of Eastern Europe, the Volga, was Ra. This was maintained by Ptolemy (the middle of the second century A.D.) and has been discovered in Herodotus (the fifth century B.C.) with the same vocalization of the root ra-. The historian A.V. Podosinov believes that there are even more ancient names for the Volga. One of them was preserved on the ancient Iranian Avesta, the commonly accepted dating of which is believed to be the end of the second and first half of the first millennium B.C. The text on this artifact mentions a river called Ravjha (Rangha or Rankha) in which many Iranian scholars see the Volga. In the hymns of the ancient Indian Rig Veda (from the end of the second to the beginning of the first millennium B.C.), there is reference to the northern river of Rasa which scholars equate to the Avestian Rangha and the Volga. In one Greek treatise from the third or fourth century A.D., the authorship of which is attributed to Agapimeno, there is mention of the Volga in the form of Ros. In the space stretching from the Volga/Rasa/Ros to Neman/Ros’ (Rus) can be found Ros’ or Rusa, a river in the Novgorod province; Rus’, a tributary of the Narew; Ros’, the famous tributary of the Dnieper river in Ukraine; Rusa, a tributary of the Seym; the Ros’ of the the Emajõgi river; the Ros’ of the Oskol river; and Poruse, a tributary of the Polist, etc.

The presence of the land of Rus and the Rusians themselves on the territory between rivers with the names Ras/Rus/Ros’/Rus’ speaks to the fact that Rus was supposed to be the ancestral territory of a people bearing the same name.

But it is completely clear that this is not only and not so much of a matter of ethnonyms. The Rig Veda also contains the word rasa which stands for “liquid,” “juice,” or “main substance,” and in the Mahabharata means “water,” “drink,” “nectar,” or “milk” i.e.,  it possesses related semantics.

Another example: in studying the etymology of the river in the Novgorod region named Poruse, which in antiquity was called Rusa, some scholars have come to the opinion that the river’s name is ancient Baltic and descends from the root rud-s/roud-s meaning red. However, this is a root word with the same meaning as in Sanskrit, hence it could have been borrowed to Lithuanian (given their proximity). This word is also in the Russian language. In Sanskrit, the word rudhir means red, blood-red, or blood. The Indologist N.R. Guseva explains: “the meaning of red in Sanskrit traces back to the ancient route rudh which meant ‘to be red or brown.’ This ancient meaning can be juxtaposed to the ancient Russian words rodry, rudy, or rdyany which denoted the color red, as well as the ancient Russian word ruda – blood.”

But what is this “blood”? What kind of blood?

Lydia Grot concludes that the name Rus, from which many rivers in Eastern Europe received their names, was the sacred name of the ancestor of the Rusian people.

The entire Hungarian and Romanian region is covered with names reminiscent of Rus: Poiana Rusca, Ruskberg, Russ, Rusor, Rusanesti, Ruscova, Rusova, Ruspoliana, Rustina, Rutka, Rostock, Rossia, Rosaci, Roschina. Many villages’ names are conjuncted with oros or orosh, which in Hungarian is rus.  They can also include olah or vlah, i.e., Roman, Magyar, horvat, roman, and nemet. This serves as undeniable proof that the population, at least in the old days, distinguished between themselves Rus, Walachians, Croatians, and Germans.

But this is by no means limited to “Eastern Europe.”

Besides the conventional singling out of an “Eastern European” Rus (Kuyaba, Slaviya, Ar(s)taniya), the scholar of “paganism” (we employ this concept with a certain degree of reservation), M.L. Seryakov, also distinguished “another Rus” far in the West. Later, over the course of our narrative, we will see the proto-geopolitical meaning of this.

M.L. Seryakov points to the Primary Chronicle’s testimony of the existence of Rus on both sides of the Varangian sea, i.e., also in the “English land.” Of course, Seryakov stipulates that he is not speaking of Jutland which, in his opinion, was inhabited by the Angles before their relocation to Britain. He also refers to the Jewish Book of Yosippon (from the 10th century), whose author “places one Rus in the neighborhood of the Saxons and Angels, and the second on the Dnieper.”

This testimony is important because the “Russian-British drama” has dragged on throughout all memorable centuries. But more on this later.

***

The phrase “Ancient Rus” was artificial in its common usage (before the 17th century). It arose from the desire of the official historiography of the 19th and especially the 20th century to identify Russian history with the histories of other peoples and states. The very desire for such an identification, however, betrays the poorly concealed doubt in its subject. In one way or another, it must be recognized that the Russian state of the 8th-10th centuries which is discerned as the epoch of “Ancient Rus” (no more nor less up until Peter the Great) has no relation whatsoever to the ancient, i.e., classical world. Before us is a typical medieval state. As for the actual period of Russian antiquity, then, guided by the methods of positivist science, i.e., documents whose dating is always doubtful, it is difficult here and now to speak of anything at length. It is necessary to draw only the most general outline.

Certain revelations which, not coincidentally, appeared at the very beginning of the Second World War in the journal Bulletin of Ancient History, appear to us to be extraordinarily valuable. The author of the article “On the Question of the Origin of the word ROS, ROSIA”, Russia, M. Syuzyumov, merely summarized the Old Testament and in particular Byzantine evidence of this ancient sacred name which later became a generally accepted ethnonym. M. Syuzyumov writes:

“It can be asserted with full certainty that the ancient Russians never called themselves ‘rossians’. There is no such word in Russian language in ancient artifacts. Moreover, it can be assumed that even the Byzantine Greeks themselves hardly called the Russians ‘rossians’ in spoken language…Liutprand, the bishop of Cremona who visited Constantinople the mid-10th century, mentions the Russians in his work Antapodosis. He reports that the Russians received their name from the Greek word ROYSIOS (which means ‘red’) and that this name was given to the Russians for the particular color shade of their bodies…In the Greek translation of Ezekiel, one encounters more than once the name ‘ros’ in the form of ‘rosh’: ‘Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him’ (Ezek. 38:2)…However, if one carefully follows the epithets of Patriarch Photios addressed to the Russians, then it turns out that Photios falls into an obvious contradiction. On the one hand, he calls the Russians  a world-famous people. On the other hand, about the same Russians in his second speech, Photios speaks of a people entirely unknown, ETNOS AFANES AL NASION, a mysterious, unknown ETNOS ASEOMOS, unclear people who are MEZE MEKHRI TES KAT EMON EPEL YSEOS GIGNOSOMENON, incomprehensible and unrecognizable upon approach. How can we combine his words TO TRYLLOYMENON, i.e., that they are those ‘about whom everyone speaks,’ ‘commonly-known’, and ‘infamous’ with his words that they are, AGNOSION, ‘unknown’ and AFANES, ‘shady’? If in mind is a concrete nationality, the Russians, who attacked Constantinople, then we are left with a contradiction, a genuinely irreconcilable one.

We will return to this “irreconcilable contradiction” again, and more than once. As for an “introduction to the problem,” let us recall the Varna caste system of Aryan society that was preserved (of course, in a diminished, rudimentary form) up until the French Revolution of the 18th century with its uprising of the “third estate” against the first (the aristocracy) and the second (the clergy). In the ancient Aryan (Japhetic) languages, sur, ms, kyr, syr, and sar meant not only the color red, but sun, gold, blood, (metal) ore, race, and generation (all of these concepts are essentially synonymous) and, of course, imperial power, the imperial-warrior, Kshatriya caste – in other words, the Golden Type or Royal Blood (Sang Royal). In addition, as noted in the 19th century by A.A. Kunik and V.R. Rozen: “Rus is from the Gothic hrodh, or glory (hence the definition of the Black Sea Goths as the Hrudgoths. This word was part of the name Rurik (Hrodhrekr) and originally meant the dynasty, only to then transition to mean the country where this dynasty ruled.”

Is it not interesting that in “Biblical Hebrew”, there is also this letter? Resh means head (including beheading) and prince, i.e., the ruler. The “mystery” of the “Rus race” (which is mentioned as the future race of the liberators of Tsargrad in The Tale of the Capture of Constantinople from the 15th century attributed to Nestor Iskander) is entirely explainable given that Byzantium did not develop dynastic elements. Anyone could become the emperor. At the moment of the fall of Constantinople, the Russians had an obvious, solid ruling princely dynasty. In this sense, the adjective “Russian” which has caused confusion among some modern authors becomes a quite natural designation for the royally anointed, the sovereign. Moreover, it turns out that for Russia the ethnonym and state name coincide with the name of its first ruling line. The meaning of this for Russian historiosophy, as for the Russian consciousness, cannot be overestimated.

There are just as many meanings and designations in the ethnonyms of the Slavs, or Novgorod Slavs called Slovene in Russian. In fact, we know from so-called “academic history” the names of the “Slavic tribes” – the Drevliane, the Vyatichi, the Poliane, Radimichi, etc. – who did not directly bear the name Slavs or Slovene and, despite the closeness of their languages, frequently did not understand one another.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” – everyone knows this beginning of the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1). The Word of God, or the Eternal Sacrifice slain before the beginning of time (here we cannot speak of time, but of aeonic dimension) is an image both ‘about’ and ‘before’ created from the red (ros) land of man (if we combine the Russian word for “word,” slovo and for “man”, chelovek, we have slovek). This is the “voiced image” (MEROIS or MERORIS) – the “first born from God” and the “first sacrifice” in one and the same name. The eternal sacrifice of the Son of God and God, the Second Face of the Holy Trinity, the “uncreated”, precedes the creation of created man in the sense known to him as materia prima. Jesus Christ from the heavens is the eternal Adam (the Red Clay) and is in one and the same name the new Adam and His Resurrected Flesh. Fallen Adam himself is in one and the same name the ruler, bestowing the names to creations, and the priest is the sacrifice of the mystery of Paradise (“fruit and prayer”). However, with the fall of the first man, the heavenly mystery was been deprived of its fruit and turned into bloody pagan sacrifice (all pagan cults, including the Dionysian), since for the restoration of the heavenly dimension and the new bloodless, Eucharistic sacrifice, the phenomenon of the sacrifice of the God-man himself in history was necessary. The pagan priests, however, and their Varna caste and tradition, preserved a corrupted memory of serving the God Word, of course in “shadow, not truth” in the words of Metropolitan Hilarion. The “shadow”, however, was so profound, down to the depths of the underworld, that it “demanded” human sacrifices as inevitable in a world outside of Christ. These dedicated priests originally, as far as is apparent, were originally Slavs or Slovene. It is from them, as some authors believe, that the ancient city of Slovensk probably received its name, which is precisely in the place of modern Novgorod (some trace it a bit further north and closer to a modern city on the Neva). “The Ilmen Slav sovereigns that founded Slovensk and Rus were the masters of all of Pomerania and even up to the Arctic Sea and along the great Pechora river and Vyma through the high, impassable mountains in the country of Siberia to the great river Ob and to the mouth of the whitewater river.”

One of the “gods” of the pre-Christian Slavic pantheon was Veles or Volos. Volosy, meaning “hair” in Russian, are an attribute of solar light, the king-priest (let us remember that the Word of God is the King and the High Priest). The first to draw attention to the anagram of the Volos-Word was the outstanding translator and writer Vladimir Mikushevich. In addition to a direct reference to the Adamic, heavenly rites even in “paganism,” before us is a direct indication that “Slav” or “Sloven”, i.e., the “voiced image” (MEROIS), is first and foremost a sacrifice and priest, albeit, of course, before the sacrifice, the God-Word, abolishes the “bloody, human sacrifice.”

Applying this to the “social structure” of the ancient society of the Slovene, there is the priest who is identical to a druid or sorcerer. Thus, the Slavo-Russian language is the royal, priestly language just as how in Europe, for example, the Franco-Celtic combination is a combination of free (francs) soldiers, i.e., the same people bearing light-brown hair and Celtic druids (kit-kchld – Chaldean – koldun) and the magi-“Slovene.” With the adoption of Christianity, the Varna caste division of Aryan society was, of course, cleansed of its “pagan abomination” and “mystery of iniquity,” i.e., specifically of blood sacrifices. Thus, it was miraculously transformed into the symphony of the Orthodox Empire and yielded the Bloodless Sacrifice of the Orthodox Priesthood. The concepts of “Russian”, “Slav,” “Frank,” or “Gaul” (hl-kl-klt), “Goth,” or “Celt” were gradually transformed into ethnonyms. This can only be realized upon setting aside the famous dispute between the “Normanists” and “anti-Normanists.”

The point is that both the Slavs and the Rus (like the Franks and Celts) ethnologically belonged to one Northern Aryan ethnos today known as the Veneti. In the days of old, one could stumble upon the name mentioned by Strabo – Vindelicum or Vendelicum (and the Baltic Sea was the Sinus Venedicus). Moreover, one of their names was Franks (the “free ones”) and the other was Slavs. As Eckhard wrote, “The Franks once dwelled near the Baltic Sea, where there is now the Vagria” (Franci olim ad mare Balthicum, ubu nune est Vagria). It should thus be clearly borne in mind that all of these ethnonyms are from later times. “The Franconian Slavs,” writes the 19th century Russian scholar Y.I. Venelin (Gutsa), “did not call themselves Vindelicum, just as they did not call themselves Slovene as the name existing only in ethnographic books. The very word Franks is a modern ethnonym derived from one of the names of the kings who ruled the ancient Vagria called Reges Francorum and who, according to Fredegar and the later chroniclers, were the descendants of the Trojan kings (the line of Priam). These are the Trojan Veneti settlers who formed the ruling, princely caste of whom Polybius wrote. According to him, they “differ little from the Celts, but speak their own language. The writers of tragedies often mention this people and speak of its many miracles.”

Everything thus turns out to be very simple: in the West they were called Franks, and in the East, Rus. This also renders clear the process of the transformation of the Varnas (the castes) into ethnoi (and not vice versa, contrary to Marxist and Liberal science) and renders it easier to trace the evolution of the remnants of the old law of the land.

The modern scholar of the history of law, M.A. Isaev, writes:

Rus could finally merge with the Slavs no early than the 12th century. The Russian Truth knew very well the Rusin opposed to both the Varangian Kyfling (the foreigner) and the Slav. This is a very characteristic feature of the Russian tradition. The sources of barbarian law usually secured legal position not only among different layers of the population, but also in different forms between ethnoi. The barbarian laws knew a similar differentiation between the conqueror peoples and, for example, the Romans, who continue to live according to jus Quiritium. But what distinguishes the Russian legal as well as cultural and state civilization among the whole lot of barbarian and ancient samples of Western European culture is the rejection of ethnic particularism as a principle of state life…

The latter is quite natural based on the Divine and Theophonic, not ethnic origin of royal (i.e., Russian) authority. Wherever authors more based in tradition do not literally, i.e., like “foreigners,” understand, for example, the Varangians (we will see below what this word meant among the ancient Aryans), the picture manifests itself more clearly, acquiring intelligible outlines.

The Primary Chronicle of the 15th century and the praise of the Russian language contained therein, the sources of which date back to the Kiev dome, says:

This will be known by all languages and all peoples that the Russian language is from nowhere and this holy faith and Russian alphabet was not introduced by anyone but God the Almighty, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit imbued/breathed faith and the acceptance of baptism and other Church customs from the Greeks to [St.] Vladimir [the Great], whereas the Russian alphabet was given by God in Korsun [Chersonesos Taurica in Crimea] to the Russians, and from this philosopher Constantine learned it, from this he wrote books in the Russian language. […] That same Russian man was virtuous in thought and action, in pure faith he isolated himself, and from the Russian language came early Christians, and it is not known by anyone where it came from. [1]

A.G. Dugin writes: “The Russian monarchical tradition began, as is known, with the calling of Rurik from the Varangians to kingship over a group of Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes. In the later period, descending from the first prince – Rurik – was the spiritual and genealogical justification of royal authority, its legitimacy and sacred legality. This tradition was so persistent and deep, so self-evident and absolute in Russians’ understanding, that it simply could not have been inconsistent with the indigenous archetypes of ancient forms of consciousness which, although they moved into the sphere of the unconscious, nevertheless did not lose their efficiency and validity. In our opinion, the calling of Rurik from among the Varangians was seen as a great, nationwide mystery embodying in itself the script of the supernatural origin of royal power which is characteristic for all ancient, traditional dynasties.”

Thus, Slavo-Russian means simply Divine-ruling. ROS and MEROIS. MEROIS is the “voiced image,” i.e., the voiced, or slovesny in Russian, and thus Slovensky – one of the names of the First Adam.

***

The modern world has an exceptionally short memory. While extolling “European civilization” as the kingdom of democracy, i.e., Laodicea (which sounds like the Greek synonym of the word laocracy, or rule of the people), it is forgotten that the history of the latter is the history of a mere three centuries. Moreover, the Russian liberals of the last century, dreaming of the “Novgorod Republic,” did not remember, did not know, and did not want to know of the sacred center of our ancient homeland which had nothing in common with their understanding of the “principles” of the French and American bourgeois revolutions as they envisioned and reflected upon in their minds.

It must be said that the most significant refutation of liberal forgetfulness is the historical and archaeological science of recent years that has paradoxically confirmed the Church Tradition (the chronicle tale Of the Slovene and Rus, the Christian Cosmography of Saint Cosmas Indikoplov and others), just as has practically all of the archaic Byliny, ancient Japhetic, and semi-fantastic corpus. A scholar of the Romans from the ’80’s and ’90’s of the last century who compared the results of historical-archaeological science with legend speaks of a place approximately covering the space between present-day Novgorod and St. Petersburg:

Great Slovensk. The ancient northern capital of the Japhites founded in 2409 B.C. and defunct after the rejection of the Apostle Andrew and the outbreak of hostilities by Princes Lalokh (Khalokh) and Lakhern against the ‘scepter of the Greek kingdom.’ In the 9th century, under the reign of Rurik, the northern capital was transferred down the river Volkhov and called New City, or Novy Grad. The works of the eastern geographers containing data related to the 50’s-’80’s of the 9th century speak of three groups of the Rus, the main of which was As-Slaviyu with its center in the city of Slava…usually identified with the Ilmen Slovenes and their center with the precursor of Novgorod, whose name has been preserved by eastern authors (see the works of A.P. Novoseltsev and V.Y. Petrukhin). The oldest part of Novgorod bears the name ‘Slavno’ which is consistent with the names in Arab sources. Based on this, it is clear that the expanses of Slovensk should, if not surpass, then at least match the square of the ancient part of Novgorod. However, contrary to common sense, the majority of Soviet archaeologists have identified such an enormous metropolis as Slovensk presented in sources as a small, princely ‘Rurik settlement.’ The real Great Slovensk, whose kilometer-long ramparts are covered by forest, remains unexplored and is not marked on archeological maps to this day.

Speaking of the history of Novgorod (from the 8th-9th centuries), much allows the assumption to be made that it was conceived of long before the official Baptism of Kiev as an Orthodox Christian city, as early Novgorodian Orthodoxy, with its special veneration of the Sophia, the Holy Wisdom, which also houses the genealogical mystery of (and indeed answer to) the House of Rurik itself.

Conventional historiography depicts the baptism of the land of Novgorod as the deed of the famous Dobrynya Malkhovich, the “uya” (uncle) of Saint Vladimir, done “by fire and sword”, and Novgorod itself and the Russian North in general as “pagan Wandea.” However, an attentive reading of local Novgorodian literary sources reveals a significantly more complex picture. Let us recall that in ancient times, Northern Rus was an integral part of Northern Europe as a whole in which the confrontation between Christianity and “paganism” – before the mass genocide orchestrated in the 9th-10th centuries on the order of the Carolingian papacy – did not acquire such tragic severity as in the Roman Empire. Let us also recall that behind the “round table” of King Arthur, the Druid Merlin sits adjacent to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in the Edda both pre-Christian cosmogony and Christian historiosophy coexist. Only under the Carolingians did the destruction of entire ethnic groups, such as the Saxons and Bretons, begin on religious grounds…

And yet was the Russian North “pagan” or Christian on the eve of the official Baptism of Rus?

In the Tale of Bygone Years that Passed in Great Novgorod, it is said:

In the age of our pious Russian great princes living in Novgorod and voluntarily at peace with all the lands, the Germans [foreigners] sent their envoys from all 70 cities. They bowed to the earth in front of the archbishop of Novgorod, and the local government, and military, and the entire city of Novgorod and said, “Dear neighbors! Give us a piece of your land in the middle of Great Novgorod where we can place a shrine according to our own faith and customs. [2] 

The Novgorodians responded, saying:

By the grace of God and that of the Most Pure Mother of God and our father, the archbishop, through blessing and prayer, in the birthplace of our lords, great Russian princes in Great Novgorod, there are only Orthodox churches of our Christian faith here. After all, how can light and darkness join forces? How can your shrine be built in our city? […] Mayor Dobrynia, blinded by a bribe and taught by the Devil, ordered to move the Church of St. John the Baptist to a different location and gave its place to the Germans [foreigners]. […] And when the Germans [foreigners] built their own church [of a different faith], they hired Novgorod icon painters and ordered them to paint the image of the Savior on the southern wall at the top in order to appeal to and seduce [Orthodox] Christians. And when these icon painters painted the image of the Savior in the [foreign] church without informing the archbishop about this, and took off the covers, then immediately at that moment came rain and hail, and the place where the image of the Savior was painted was knocked out by hail and washed away by rain without a trace. [3] 

At first glance, the Tale of Bygone Years was compiled and written by the zealots of piety. However, a reading of the commentary to it written by L.A. Dmitriev leaves one to think somewhat differently about its origins and – especially! – the reasons for its emergence and distribution. Dmitriev writes:

This tale dates figures among those landmarks of Novgorodian literature at the heart of which lie oral traditions of local origin…V.L. Yanin believes that the ‘there exist visible signs of the reliability of this legend.’ The legend itself apparently appeared very early, no later than the 12th century, but the tale was written down considerably later. E.A. Rybina noted that the Khutyn abbot Zacchaeus is named in literature dated to the years 1477-1478. Accordingly, the Tale of Bygone Years could not have been written earlier than the second half of the ’70’s of the 15th century. The pronounced anti-Boyar orientation of the Tale of Bygone Years, the words in its beginning on the independence of Novgorod, and the clearly evident condemnation of Novgorodian customs – all of this speaks to the fact that it was written after Novgorod’s loss of independence, i.e., once again no earlier than the late ’70’s of the 15th century. We cannot say what the thrust of the original legend of Dobrynya was, but the character of the Tale of Bygone Years is evidence that this work was forged in a democratic environment, and religious motives are no longer at the fore in the Tale…

But if not religious motives, then what kind? Let us pay attention to the words of this historian, namely, that this work was created in a democratic environment.

The book of the Novgorodian historian and archaeologist of the last century, Vasiliy Peredolsky, which we shall have to repeatedly cite (the book was published only in Novgorod in 1898 and has never been reprinted, neither before nor after 1917) indeed speaks of several mysterious temple (and not only temple) buildings somehow subsequently destroyed over the course of approximately the 8th-16th centuries. First and foremost, this most inquisitive historian, who was also the author of studies on the prehistoric tombs of the Novgorodian Slavs, points to the existence in Novgorod at least until the 13th century of an Orthodox church named after the Apostle Peter whose services were held in Latin. This church is also mentioned in the famous The Questions of Kirik. During the war with the sword-bearers, i.e., the Catholics, this temple was not disturbed but, moreover, all Novgorodians came to it for sacrifices. “Was it not Fryazian, i.e., did it not at all belong to the Christians of Roman Orthodoxy, the Fryazians, and did its original appearance have no relationship to the centuries before the division of the Church into East and West?” According to V.S. Peredolsky, this church standing on the corner of Malo-Mikhailovksaya and Nutnaya streets was destroyed. Overseas merchants established the Orthodox Pytatnitskaya church in 1156. The first Novgorodian church in general was thus, according to Peredolsky, the Orthodox church of St. Lazarus established in the pre-chronicle times (i.e., in the 9th-10th centuries at latest), and was completely destroyed. After the destruction of the temple, in its place remained Lazarev Hill on the Volkhov, upon which the temple was rebuilt in the 18th century in honor of the same saint. This Novgorodian historian also tells us that then, i.e., before the construction of the churches of Saint Elijah and Saint Sophia and before the famous Dobrynin campaign unleashed upon the “pagans” with “fire and sword,” an Orthodox church of Saint Mary Magdalene (who according to the Gospel of John and more detailed interpretations of the ancient Western exegetes was Saint Lazarus’ sister) stood in Novgorod. Peredolsky does not say where this church stood and what subsequently happened to it. However, his analysis of the history of the other churches points to certain peculiar points.

In the official chronicle, it is said: “In 1194 was established in Great Novgorod a wooden church of the Holy Trinity on the Sofia side, on Redyatin street of Shchetishcha Yugorsha which is now called Novinka.” In the same parchment book under the year “6673 since the Creation of the World”, it is written: “there was built the Church of the Holy Queen of Shchetitsinita.”  Soon after the name of this church was changed to the Church of the Holy Trinity of Shchetinitsa. But in honor of what queen was the church built and why was its name changed? It was officially claimed that it was erected by German merchants from the city of Stettin. However, in 1194 they could not have built an Orthodox church. In such a case, what was meant was clearly not the city of Stettin (Szczeczin), but a holy queen covered in shchetina, or “bristles.” The merging of pre-Christian with Christian symbolism is obvious in the name of the church. Here one can, of course, recall the ancient Hyperborean totem of the White Boar traceable back to the “primordial tradition.”

If we recall the purely northern location of the lands of Novgorod, the “Land of Saint Sophia” as the Novgorodians themselves called them, then we have an unexpected confirmation of the guesses of some contemporary authors. A.G. Dugin, whom we have already cited, wrote in particular: “But this country, as we have already said, was also called Varakhi, the ‘land of the Wild Boar,’ which corresponds exactly with the Greek root bor, i.e., north, or the country of Hyperborea (‘lying in the far north’)…And it is no accident that, according to Ancient Greek sources, the Hyperboreans sent symbolic gifts of wheat to Delphi via the Scythian and more northern Russian lands. It is curious that the word varakhi reminds us also of varyagi, i.e., the legendary people who gave the Russians a sacred monarch.”

In antiquity, both a woman’s comb for long hair and long hair itself were called bristles. The ancient Christian legend of Saint Mary Magdalene describing her voyage to Rome and Gaul (together with the righteous Lazarus, St. Martha, St. Joseph of Arimathea, and St. Maxamin) took particular note of her ascetic life in Sainte Marie de la Mer in southern France, where the saint appeared with long, ankle-length, reddish-brown hair. But is such a reference to the Land of the Wild Boar and the equally-apostle woman who bore the world not incompatible? Let us recall the ancient art of “making the incompatible compatible” which penetrated the entire medieval worldview and all of science from the apophatic theology of the Eastern Fathers to Western alchemical investigations. Let us also recall that the image of the “long-haired woman” or even “queen” in folk legends often bears an obviously chthonic-infernal shade. This should not surprise us. Traditional, sacred symbols are always twofold, just as the ‘smart light’ for the holy turns out to be the flames of hell for the sinner. The Nativity of St. John the Baptist is the day for flowering the fern and “rusalli merrymaking” (which was repeatedly pointed out in the lectures of V. Mikushevich), and so on.

What can be said of the mysterious “Shchetsinitsa”? This is the Slavic Marena, Marina, Mara, mora, kikimora, the French Cauchear (female kind). For the Carpathian Rusyns, this is lisova panna, nyauka, perelestnitsa, vtreshcha, mayka  a young woman with long hair but backless and with exposed entrails. This is the divje devojka, the mistress of the reindeer who nurtures them with milk. To her come the young, but they leave as the very old…According to the “Golden Legend”, Mary Magdalene was of the Japhetic royal family (her parents were Sir, i.e., Kir, and Eucharia) who ran from Herod, and in the canonical Gospels the Savior casts seven demons out from her (Luke 8:2), i.e., precisely those Japhetic “deities” who she, as princess, could serve.  Such a figure so teeming with canonically unconfirmed (but nowhere denied) dualistic characteristics could, among other things, have affected the fate of the most ancient temple built in her honor still during the time of the united church before it was later destroyed and, as part of the gradual “moralization” and institutionalization of a consciousness, she acquired new names – the “Holy Queen of Shchetitsinita” and the “Holy Trinity.”

No fewer mysteries are to be found in V.S. Peredolsky’s reference to two ruined monasteries. The first of them was destroyed in approximately the 10th century which bore the name of Zverinsky Monastery. The second suffered such a fate in the 16th-17th centuries – the monastery of Saint Arcadia or the Arkadsky Monastery in the place of which also existed the similarly destroyed village of Arkazha. What’s more, the location around the former Zverinsky Monastery also bore the name Zverinets up until the 18th century. Herein are revealed the mysteries of these names (and the causes of the monasteries’ ruin), and here it is sufficient to offer a few most general observations. Homer referred to the Arcadians’ role in the siege of Troy and how later the Priam line of Trojan kins moved to the North through Arcadia. The Arcadians themselves claimed that they descended from the fabulous deity of the land of Arkas which translates to mean “bear.” According to mythology, Arkas was the son of the nymph Calypso, the main star of Ursa Major (the star of Arkas “heads” the Ursa Minor). Artaios (the “bear-like”) is an epithet of the Celtic Mercury (the Gaelic arto – bear; Greek ARKTOS – the name of the Centaur). The name of Hesiod’s centaur is ARKTOYROS, a designation of Arcturus, the guard of of Ursa Major in the Boötes constellation. The bear is the ancestor and the pervotsar (“first-king”), hence the Celtic King Arthur as well as the “secret,” “unpronounced” names of the beast – urs, rus, syr = tsar. At the same time, in Christian symbolism, the bear, like the lion, is a symbol of royal authority. Artos is the blessed Paschal bread distributed in the Orthodox Church on the Saturday of Bright Week in memory of the Risen King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The North, the Arctic, is the polar paradise, the land of the bear (ber, bjorn) and the white boar, the unity of the King and High Priest, the military element and the spiritual, the red and white castes. Understood in a meta-historical and eschatological perspective, the symbolism of such unity is genuinely Orthodox. It was revealed and then found expression in the famous images of the Reverend Sergey on Makovtsa and the Reverend Seraphim of Sarov who nurtured the bear in the forests of Russian Paradise – Diveeva.

As regards the Zverinsky Monastery, in the local Novogorodian dialect only the bear was called a beast (zver) and the name Rus (Urs) was taboo, never to be pronounced even in Christian times. In Latin, urs remained. The very name of the beast, “bear”, or in Russian medved is clearly a euphemism. In remote areas in the North and Siberia, hunters to this day still cautiously call a bear “that” or “the main one” or even “forest Archimandrite.”….Saint Urs from Ravenna can still be found among the Latin saints.

A certain semantic tie between the two “bear” monasteries and the church of the semi-folkloric “Holy Queen of Shchetitsinita” cannot escape our attention. After all, the bristle, schcetina, is an attribute of the boar. In the Golden Bristled Pig tale, for example, it brings prosperity and belongs to Baba Yaga. In any case, we believe that there apparently exists a link between the destruction of the churches of Saint Lazar and Saint Mary Magdalene (perhaps the “Queen of Shchetitsinita”) and the Arkad and Zverinsky monasteries. It is so obvious that it can be considered proof of the existence of Christian temples in the epoch of the still united – Orthodox! – church during the period that preceded the baptismal campaign of Dobrynya Malkhovich hitherto famously described as accomplished “by fire and sword” and as having met widespread resistance from the Novgorodians. Thereafter, this resistance was often represented as the resistance of the “Russian people” to allegedly “foreign” Orthodoxy. Moreover, the question begs itself: what kind of “paganism” did the “son of Malekh Lyubechanin” fight? We stand before the fact that at the time of Rurik’s calling to rule, the Russian North-West (the land of Rus and Sloven) was fully, if not to a considerable extent Christian, Orthodox. The worship of ever since unknown saints was observed there.

As an example which could serve as a further guide and key to the Introitus Apertus ad Occulusum Regis Palatium, we can refer to the testimony of the so-called Old Russian treasure found in 1892 in the Seltsa district of the Old-Russian district. Among the images on the coins of this treasure dating back to the 12th-13th centuries, V.S. Peredolsky discovered an unknown martyr in a hat like in the case of Boris and Gleb, with a cross and two lilies on both sides of the image. Who is this clearly royal martyr with lilies who was unknown to later Russian history?

We will come back to this. In the meantime, let us recall how in 679, in the Ardennes not so far from Novgorod, per dolum ducum et consensuum episcoparum (“with the participation of the leaders and consent of the bishops”), Dagobert II, the last truly reigning representative of the Merovingian dynasty, was killed under an old oak tree near a stream while hunting. He was killed on the orders of Pepin of Heristal, his own attendant, the grandfather of the future usurper of Pepin the Short, the founder of the “second” Carolingian “race” of the Frankish kings. Soon, however, the remains of the king turned out to be miracle-working and even defended the city of Stene from a Viking attack. One hundred years later, the martyr king was canonized by a meeting of Frankish bishops without the Pope’s approval. The spring of Saint Dagobert can be found in the Verdun forest in the Ardennes to this day and is revered as a shrine. However, Dagobert was put on the official list of French kings only in the 17th century and is absent in some French textbooks to this day.

We meet the cult of “unknown saints” as it once was directly preceding the history of ancient Novgorod in Europe (part of which in those ages was Northern Rus, named in some chronicles “Bretania”. G.P. Fedotov, who wrote a series of outstanding works on medieval studies alongside his passion for “Christian socialism”, summarized his observations on these phenomena in the following way:

Question can be raised as to such a peculiar phenomenon as the veneration of nameless saints confined to ancient tombs. This is the moment of transition from popular cult to canonization by the church, the transitional moment in the established biography of a saint. When did the church close its altars to these unknown, chosen representatives of the people’s faith?…In the least, the Carolingian Renaissance finds this cult to be still alive in order to inflict a fatal blow upon it…The age of Carolingian “enlightenment” apparently put an end if not to popular worship, then to the church’s reception of nameless cults…In the 17th century, Mabillon tells of a place in his contemporary France where a cult of unknown saints emerged. But this cult repressed by the Carolingian church could never rise again.

Indeed, the Carolingians themselves and the Roman “Catholic” Church that they produced, and the clergy of the Roman diocese, might have thought so.

But centuries pass and

The worm and mob will learn of the Lord

By the flower growing out of his hand

And “worm” and the “mob” – this is a democratic environment.

***

[1] Translated from Old Church Slavonic by Nina Kouprianova

[2] Translated from Old Church Slavonic by Nina Kouprianova

[3] Translated from Old Church Slavonic by Nina Kouprianova

 

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy and his Theory of Eurasianism

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Dugin’s Guideline – 

On April 16th, 1890, Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetzkoy, the great Russian thinker, linguist, and founder of the ideological movement of Eurasianism, was born. Trubetzkoy’s main idea was that Russia is not simply a European country, as the Russian Westernizers insisted, but a particular, separate civilization, the Russian World. This is the most important point.

We are no less different from Europe than Iranians or Indians. Sure, we share common roots with Greco-Roman civilization, but this civilization underwent a schism that began in the 6th century when the Western Empire fell away from Byzantium and then disappeared under attack by Germanic tribes. Already back then, two identities formed: a Catholic identity in the West, and an Orthodox identity in the East. The two gradually drifted away from one another further and further until, in 1054, the Orthodox and Catholic worlds parted ways once and for all. We, Russians, adopted Christianity from Byzantium and have kept none other than this Eastern Christian tradition to this day.

After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, we took over the Byzantine mission. This is not merely the mission of a country, Trubetzkoy asserted, but the pole of self-conscious and independent Orthodox civilization, its center. But the Slavophiles also recognized this. The innovation of Trubetzkoy and the other Eurasianists after him lies in that they added to this Byzantine religious and cultural heritage the Turko-Mongol component and drew attention to the fact that Russia’s expansion to the East precisely replicated the contours of Genghis Khan’s empire. We once again built this empire, only not from East to West as the Mongols did, but from West to East. This only strengthened Russia’s self-identity. Russians differed from the West religiously thanks to Byzantium, and geopolitically thanks to the Mongols and Turks, from whom we took the baton of ruling over the enormous space of Eurasia, this time Russian and Orthodox.

Trubetzkoy proposed this Eurasian idea for Russia, as an Orthodox and continental civilization, to lie at the heart of a new world view that was supposed to replace communism.

Trubetzkoy literally prophesied that communism would collapse insofar as it had no spiritual, religious dimension, no Christ at its head. But in order not to slide into the abyss of the West, which is an alien civilization to us, the Communist Party was to be replaced with the Eurasian Order.

According to Trubetzkoy and other Eurasianists, this Order was supposed to continue the course toward social justice and opposition to the West, but complete this ideology with an Orthodox, Byzantine dimension and put faith in Christ at the head. Trubetzkoy gave this a special term: ideocracy, or rule by idea.

Eurasianism was neither nationalism nor a mere restoration of the monarchy. Trubetzkoy called for appealing to the deepest essence of the Russian people and other fraternal peoples building the Great Empire together with it. The Eurasian elite was to become a new aristocracy serving God and the people. The Eurasianists named the West the main enemy, a complete antipode to our own civilization, or the main enemy of humanity as Trubetzkoy called it in his first programmatic book, Europe and Mankind. The message of his book boiled down to the need for humanity to save Europe, which was already rotting away by the beginning of the 20th century. And only the Russians had the strength to do this.

Only half of the prophecies of this great Eurasianist came true. The USSR collapsed as the wonderful idea of social justice was established without God and even against God. Instead of a Christian socialism, an anti-Christian socialism was built. And it collapsed. A Eurasian Order failed to be established and take over power from the communists. Instead, the worst enemies of Russia came to power – the liberals, a human enemy far worse than communists.

Now much is becoming clear. It is obvious that Trubetzkoy was right. We have proclaimed the construction of a Eurasian Union and we all the more clearly understand the true nature of the West. The second half of Trubetzkoy’s prophecy, the construction of a Eurasian Order, is, from the point of view of the Eurasianists, the meaning of the historical moment in which now we find ourselves.

 

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

The Dormition of the Mother of God

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold 

Chapter 13 of Mysteries of Eurasia (Moscow, Arktogeya: 1991) 

Theological symbolism

The “Dormition of the Mother of God” is one of the most revered icons in Rus. It is this icon that was first miraculously delivered from Constantinople to Kiev where it consecrated with its divine presence not only the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, but all of Holy Rus, the new (and final) bastion of Orthodoxy.

In the traditional depiction of this icon, we see on the lower level the Virgin falling into slumber on her deathbed surrounded by saints, and on the middle level we see the figure of Jesus Christ standing, holding the soul of the Virgin Mary in the form of an infant in his hands.

In considering the symbolism of this depiction, it is necessary to immediately point to the reverse analogy between the central figure of the Dormition of the Mother of God and the classical “Mother of God” icon. If in the traditional depiction of the Mother of God (for example, the “Vladimir Mother of God”, “Kazan Mother of God,” etc.) we see the ‘adult’ Mother of God holding Jesus, then in the Dormition of the Mother of God we see the inverse: the ‘adult’ Jesus Christ and the ‘infant’ Virgin Mary. Explaining this contrast will help us discover the universal, ontological character of the Christian tradition which, like any fully-fledged tradition, in addition to a historical aspect bears a deeply metaphysical, supra-historical charge directly tied to the spiritual understand of reality at large.

Thus, the very fact of the Incarnation of the God-Word in the material, human universe necessarily implies a certain “diminishment” of the fullness of the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, not an essential “depreciation” (the Trinity always remains self-resembling), but an external, apparent, visible depreciation. Christ is described in the Gospel as “suffering.” In the First Coming, the true nature of the Son remains veiled, hidden, and can only be guessed by chosen disciples. But for subsequent generations of Christians, defining this divine nature becomes the basis of Faith – Faith, not Knowledge, since Knowledge is associated with the ontological obviousness of a certain sacred fact, and the obviousness of the Son’s divinity manifests itself only at the moment of the Second Coming, the Coming of the Sacred in Power, in Glory, i.e., in his original ‘non-diminished’ quality. Therefore, the classical image of the Mother of God with the infant has a symbolic meaning that is central to prayer and Church practice. In this icon, as in the sacred map of reality, a ‘diminished’ spiritual center is shown surrounded by the human or, more broadly, material cosmic nature which externally ‘surpasses’ this center, is ‘predominant’ compared to it, and is ‘bigger’ than it is. The Mother of God with the infant describes the ontological status of the world between the First and Second Coming where the Son is already revealed to the world, but in a ‘diminished’ quality thereby demanding Faith, personal effort, and spiritual devotion on the part of believers for ‘dynamic,’ willed transformation of Faith into Confidence.

The Dormition of the Mother of God icon presents us with the inverse proportion. Rising above the concrete historical fact of the Virgin Mary’s personal death, the Orthodox tradition here offers a prototype of an eschatological situation, valuably pointing to the meaning of the sacraments of the End Times. The depiction of Christ holding the infant Virgin in his arms describes the true proportions of the spiritual world in which the Center, the Pole of Being, the God-Word is presented not as diminished, but in its full metaphysical extent. In the heavenly world, the ‘diminished’ is the ‘material,’ the ‘earthly’ cosmic portion, while the Spirit itself appears in its entirety. Here the Word is omnipresent and obvious and all-fulfilling.But the material world is not simply destroyed in heavenly reality. It is transformed, it is ‘drawn’ to the spiritual regions and rises to its heavenly and supra-material archetype. Hence, in fact, the special term ‘dormition’ (a calque from Greek “koimesis,” or sleep, rest, lie; in Latin ‘assumptio”) in contrast to the usual word ‘death.’ Dormition means ‘solace’, i.e., the transition from the state of ‘unrest’ inherent to material, physical reality to a state of ‘peace,’ in which all things abide in the regions of Eternity. Thus there is not ‘destruction,’ but ‘final disappearance’ understood by the word ‘death.’ It would be interesting in this regard to pay attention to the Russian etymology of the word ‘uspenie’ (dormition), which is akin to the Ancient Indian term ‘svapiti’ (literally ‘to sleep’). This Indian term literally means ‘to enter oneself’ or ‘dive into one’s inner self.’ As follows, our word ‘uspenie’ etymologically means ‘entering the inner world’, the ‘inner ‘world’ being a synonym for the ‘spiritual’ or ‘heavenly’ world. In the troparion for the celebration of the Dormition of the Mother of God, it is said: “in falling asleep she did not forsake the world.” This refers not only to the compassionate participation of the Mother of God in worldly affairs after her departure, but also the fundamental ontological event of the ‘casting of the material world’ into the spiritual sphere as a result of a special, unique sacred event. What metaphysical event is symbolized by the Dormition of the Mother of God?

This event is the End Times. It is at this moment, the moment of the Second Coming, that happens the final affirmation of true spiritual proportions in correlation to the material and the spiritual. The ‘material’ (the Virgin Mary) turns out to be an infinitesimal point in the Infinity of spiritual Light, the Light of the God-Word, Christ. Consequently, the Dormition icon reveals to the Christian the deep mystery of the End Times, which is not a global catastrophe, not the destruction or disappearance of the physical world as is seen most often by those who are only superficially familiar with Orthodox eschatology, but the essential and total restoration of the normal, natural, harmonious ways of being where the spiritual, heavenly Light completely incorporates the physical, material darkness. Therefore, from a Christian perspective, the End Times is the single most important event of an entirely positive, salvational meaning. The End Times is not a catastrophe, but the end of catastrophe since, from a spiritual point of view, any ‘unrest’, ‘worrying’, or ‘movement’ is essentially catastrophic for the spirit and, in addition, signifies the triumph of inferior, Satanic forces. The End Times, the End of the World, and Judgement Day act as something repulsive and negative only for the enemies of God, only for those who identify their fate with the dark course of restless, demonic fate. For believers, on the contrary, this is salvation, a celebration, and transformation – the universal and final ‘dormition’ of matter together with the universal and final ‘awakening’ of the spirit.

Thus, we can now distinguish three levels in this spiritual teaching manifesting such abundant wisdom in the icon of the Dormition.

  1. Historically, this icon tells of the death of the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ and her subsequent mercy for the believers and suffering of this world.
  2. Ontologically, it embodies the affirmation of true spiritual proportions of material reality in the larger picture of being, where the spirit fills everything while physical reality is ‘diminished’ to an infinitely small point.
  3. Eschatologically, it points to the meaning of the End Times, i.e., the restoration of true existential proportions and the affirmation of the absolute triumph of the Heavenly, Divine element. The ‘diminishing’ of matter in the End Times does not mean its destruction, but its ‘induction’ into the fullness of light and peace.

Universal symbolism

The symbolism of the Dormition icon (if we juxtapose it to the Mother of God icon) also has analogies outside of a Christian context. The clearest such similar spiritual concept of the structure of being is reflected in the Chinese symbol of Yin-Yang, in which the white dot against the black background signifies the diminishing of the spirit in matter, while the black dot against the white background is, conversely, matter in spirit. However, the Chinese tradition is characterized by contemplation and and the absence of an eschatological orientation. Thus, the Chinese are inclined to consider this symbol as a sign of eternal harmony while Christians see ontological plans in an historical and eschatological perspective, hence Christianity’s distinctly ‘dynamic’ character supposing the personal, volitional engagement of man in the outcome of the fate of the spirit. The Chinese believe that this volitional aspect is not so important insofar as the Tao ultimately arranges everything in the best way. Undoubtedly, similar symbolism can be found in many other traditions in reference to the correlations between the material and spiritual worlds, but the Chinese example represents something so clear and comprehensive that all similar parables can be reduced to it.

The sacred sign of Russia

The fact that the icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God was the first to be miraculously brought to Russia and the fact that its presence graced the Kiev-Pecharsk Lavra (which was the first center for the spread of Orthodoxy in Russia) leaves one to believe that Russia is under the special patronage of this icon. The Russian Orthodox tradition and Russian Church believe this. If we take into account all of the theological and ontological, as well as eschatological content of this icon’s message, then it is only natural to associate it with the sacred mission and spiritual fate of Russia itself.

On a historical level, such symbolism, applied to Russia, points to the constant participation of the Mother of God in the history of the Russian state, not only during periods of its fully-fledged Orthodox existence, but also during the dark periods of neglect and decline. As if it were a fulfillment of predestination that began with the spread of the Orthodox faith throughout Russian lands, approximately over the thousand years following the founding of the Kiev-Pecharsk Lavra to the moment of the collapse of Orthodox order in Russia, the Mother of God was a believer and declared that ‘henceforth She takes responsibility for Russia and sovereign Power therein.” The icon known as “The Sovereign” is dedicated to this. “And in falling asleep she did not forsake the world.”

On an ontological level, our symbolism might very well explain the cultural and psychological specificity of Russian Orthodox civilization, which was always contemplatively-oriented, drawn by the spirit to the heavenly sphere where true proportions are set once and for all, while sometimes neglecting earthly, practical, material things which seemed to the religious consciousness of Russians to be just as infinitesimal as the tiny figure of the Mother of God in the hands of the Savior.

Finally, on the eschatological level, the idea of Russia’s mission being tied to the End Times is clearly present in Orthodox thought. Hence, in particular, the rise of the idea of “Moscow as the Third Rome” or “Last Rome” who is destined to stand until the final moment of earthly history. If the Dormition icon ontologically describes the ideal essence of the Russian Orthodox soul, then in eschatological terms it points to the active side of Russian civilization, the mission it is destined to fulfill in human history. This mission is, without a doubt, connected to the realization of the End Times and the providential preparation of the Second Coming.

It is also important to recall the omens sent to Saint Anthony of Kiev before the construction of the first and main temple of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in honor of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God. Anthony prayed to God to send him a sign pointing out the place where a church should be built. In the morning, all of the ground was covered with dew, but in one place the earth was left completely dry. The next day, the miracle was repeated, but in the reverse order. The dew was nowhere to be found other than in the place where there had been no dew the day before. Finally, when the saint was gathering firewood, Fire rained down from the sky and set it alight. After this, no doubts remained as to the place to be chosen.

All three of these miracles have a strictly symbolic and doctrinal interpretation connected to the spiritual meaning of the Dormition. The dry place of the future Church in the middle of the dew-covered space is symbolically identical to the icon of the Mother of God in the which the fiery, dry, light element, Christ, is surrounded by the wet, earthly element, the Virgin Mary. The next day, the opposite occurs, which is the essence of the Dormition icon in which the dryness (i.e., fieriness, spirituality) of the earth surrounds a small, wet space (matter). The third miracle directly concerns the secret of the End Times, when the prepared firewood (the Church of true believers) will be lit on fire and transfigured by heavenly light force, the force of the Second Coming.

In this mysterious story of the founding of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is captured the deepest prophecy of the fate of Russia, the fate of Christianity and Orthodoxy, and its glorious and great future.

 

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

Pan-Eurasian Nationalism

Author: Nikolai Trubetzkoy

Translator: Jafe Arnold 

Written in 1927, republished in the compilation Foundations of Eurasianism (Moscow, Arktogeya: 2002) 

If before the main factor consolidating the Russian Empire into a single whole was the belonging of the entire territory of this state to a single overlord, the Russian people headed by their Russian Tsar, then now this factor has been destroyed. The question arises: what other factor can now solder together all of the parts of this territory into a single, integral state?

The revolution put forth the realization of a famous social ideal as such a unifying factor. The USSR is not simply a group of separate republics, but a group of socialist republics striving to realize one and the same ideal of a social system. It is precisely this common ideal that unites all of the republics together.

The commonality of this social ideal, and therefore its trajectory along which strives the state will of all the individual parts of the contemporary USSR is, of course, a powerful unifying factor. Even if the character of this ideal will change with time, the same principle of binding participation in the common ideal of social justice and the common will to reach this ideal will continue to lie at the heart of the statehood of all the peoples and regions currently unified in the USSR. But the question is whether this one factor for unifying different peoples into one state is sufficient. In fact, that the Uzbek Republic and Belarusian Republic are both guided in their domestic politics by the desire to achieve one and the same social ideal by no means means that both these republics will necessarily unite under the canopy of one state. What’s more, it does not follow that these two republics will not quarrel or fight amongst themselves. It is clear that a single common social ideal is insufficient, and that nationalist-separatist aspirations in individual parts of the USSR must be opposed with something else.

In the contemporary USSR, the antidote against nationalism and separatism is class hatred and the consciousness of the proletariat’s solidarity in the face of constantly impending danger. In each of the peoples comprising the USSR, only proletarians are recognized as full citizens and the Soviet Union itself is essentially composed not so much of peoples as the proletarians of these peoples. By seizing power and exercising its dictatorship, the proletariat of the USSR’s different peoples feels itself simultaneously threatened by its internal enemies (insofar as socialism has not been established, the existence of capitalists and even a bourgeoisie within the USSR in the ‘transition’ period must be admitted) as well as foreign enemies (in the face of the rest of the world left at the mercy of the rule of international capitalism and imperialism). In order to successfully defend the power it has seized against the machinations of its enemies, the proletarians of all the peoples of the USSR must unite in a single state.

Thanks to this view of the meaning of the USSR’s existence, the Soviet government has turned out capable of fighting against separatism. In this view, separatists are striving to destroy the state unity of the USSR, but this unity is needed by the proletariat in order to defend its power and, as follows, separatists are the enemies of the proletariat. The fight against nationalism thus turns out possible and necessary for the same reason, as such can easily be interpreted to be covert separatism. In addition, according to Marxist doctrine, the proletariat is void of nationalist instincts, as such are attributes of the bourgeoisie and the fruit of the bourgeois system. The struggle against nationalism is realized by the very fact of shifting the center of the people’s attention from the sphere of national emotions to the sphere of social emotions. The consciousness of national unity, being the precondition of any form of nationalism, is undermined by the aggravation of class hatred, and the majority of national traditions are tarnished by their relationship to the bourgeois order, aristocratic culture, or “religious prejudices.” Moreover, the ambitions of each people are to a certain degree flattered within their own borders, as their languages are recognized, administrative and other positions are supposed to be filled with people of the given local environment, and the region itself is often named after the people inhabiting it.

Thus, it can be said that the factor linking all the parts of the contemporary USSR into a single integral state is the official recognition of a single overlord of the entire state territory. Only before, the Russian people, headed by its Tsar, was recognized as such an overlord, while now such is considered to be the proletariat of all the peoples of the USSR led by the Communist Party.

The disadvantages of the above-described contemporary resolution of the issue are obvious. Not to mention the fact that the division into proletariat and bourgeoisie is, in relation to many peoples of the USSR, either entirely impracticable or completely irrelevant and artificial. It is particularly worth emphasizing that the resolution of this question in itself bears an indication of its temporality. In fact, the state unity of the peoples and countries in which the proletariat has seized power is feasible only from the standpoint of the current stage of the proletariat’s struggle against its enemies. The proletariat itself as an oppressed class, according to Marxism, is a temporary phenomenon subject to be overcome. The same is said of the class struggle. Thus, state unity in the above-described solution does not rest on any fundamentally permanent basis, but on a fundamentally temporary, transitory foundation. This gives rise to an absurd situation and a whole number of entirely unhealthy phenomena. In order to justify its existence, the central government must then artificially inflate the danger threatening the proletariat, must itself create the objects of class hatred in the form of a new bourgeoisie against which the proletariat must be incited, etc. In a word, it comes to supporting the idea in the consciousness of the proletariat that its position as the unified overlord of the state is extremely fragile.

The purpose of this article is not to criticize the communist conception of the state as such. We are examining the idea of the dictatorship of the proletarian in only one aspect, namely, as the factor unifying all the peoples of the USSR into an integral state opposed to nationalist-separatist tendencies. It should be recognized that even though this aspect of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat is still effective, it cannot become a lasting, enduring solution to the issue. The nationalism of the separate peoples of the USSR is evolving as these peoples increasingly come to grips with their new position! The development of education and literature in different national languages and the filling of administrative and other posts first and foremost by locals deepens the national differences between individual regions and creates among native intellectuals a jealous fear of competition with “alien elements” and a desire to more firmly strengthen their positions. At the same time, class partitions within each individual people of the USSR are fading just as class contradictions are gradually withering away. All of this creates the most favorable conditions for the development of nationalism with a separatist slant in each of the peoples of the USSR. The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat turns out impotent against this. The proletariat, having come to power, turns out to wield sometimes even strong doses of nationalist instincts which, according to the doctrine of communism, should be absent among the real, contemporary proletariat. And such a proletariat ascending to power turns out to care far less for the interests of the global proletariat than the doctrine of communism suggests…

Thus, the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the consciousness of the proletariat’s solidarity, and the incitement of class hatred shall ultimately turn out to be ineffective means against the development of nationalist and separatist aspirations among the peoples of the USSR.

The current resolution of the state unification of parts of the former Russian Empire is a logical consequence of the Marxist teaching on the class nature of the state and Marxism’s typical neglect for the national substrate of statehood. It should be recognized that, for the supporters of this doctrine, there is no other way than replacing the idea of the rule of one people with the idea of the dictatorship of one class, i.e., substituting the class substrate for the national substrate of statehood. And this substitution itself implies everything that follows. In any case, communists are thus more right and consistent than those democrats who, rejecting the national substrate of Russian statehood, preach broad regional autonomy or a federation without class dictatorship, failing to understand that the existence of a unified state is impossible under such circumstances.

For the individual parts of the former Russian Empire to continue to exist as parts of a single state, the existence of a single substrate of statehood is necessary. This substrate can be national (ethnic) or class-based. The class substrate, as we’ve seen above, is capable of uniting individual parts of the former Russian Empire only temporarily. A durable and permanent union is therefore possible only in the presence of an ethnic (national) substrate. Such was the Russian people up until the revolution. But now, as indicated above, it is already impossible to return to the situation in which the Russian people was the sole owner of all the state territory. It is also clear that no other people living on this territory can fulfill the role of the sole proprietor of all of the state’s territory.

Consequently, the national substrate of the state which was before called the Russian Empire but now the USSR can only be the totality of peoples inhabiting the state, considered as a special, multinational nation and as such one wielding its own nationalism.

We call this nation Eurasian, its territory Eurasia, and its nationalism Eurasianism.

Applied to Eurasia, this means that the nationalism of each people of Eurasia (the modern USSR) must be combined with a pan-Eurasian nationalism, i.e., Eurasianism. Every citizen of the Eurasian state should be aware not only of the fact that he belongs to such a people (or such a variety of a people), but also that this people itself belongs to the Eurasian nation. The national pride of the citizen should find satisfaction in both the former and latter consciousness. Accordingly, a nationalism should be built out of every one of these peoples. A pan-Eurasian nationalism should present itself as an extension of the nationalism of each of the peoples of Eurasia, a kind of merging of all of these individual nationalisms together.

Between the peoples of Eurasia, some kind of fraternal relations have always existed and easily formed which suggest the existence of subconscious attractions and sympathies (the opposite cases, i.e., cases of subconscious repulsion and antipathy between two peoples in Eurasia are very rare). Of course, there is not enough of some of these subconscious feelings. What is necessary is making the brotherhood of the peoples of Eurasia a fact of consciousness and, moreover, a vital fact. What is necessary is for each people of Eurasia, by recognizing itself, to recognize itself above all as a member of this brotherhood and occupying a certain place in it. And what is needed is for the consciousness of belonging to the Eurasian brotherhood of peoples to become stronger and brighter for each of these peoples than the consciousness of belonging to any other group of peoples. After all, some individual features can include an individual people of Eurasia in another, not purely Eurasian group of peoples. For example, by virtue of language the Russians are included in the group of Slavic peoples, and the Tatars, Chuvash, Cheremis, and others can be included in the group of so-called “Turanian” peoples, just as the Tatars, Bashkirs, Sarts, and others are included in the group of Muslim peoples on religious grounds.

These ties must be less binding and vivid for all these peoples than those unifying these peoples in the Eurasian family. Neither Pan-Slavism for the Russians nor Pan-Turanism for the Eurasian Turanian peoples nor Pan-Islamism for Eurasian Muslims should be in the foreground, but Eurasianism. All these “pan-isms”, strengthening the centrifugal forces of these individual nations’ nationalisms, emphasize a one-way connection from one people with others only by virtue of one characteristic, and are therefore incapable of creating a real and lively multinational nation and character out of these peoples.

In the Eurasian brotherhood, peoples are connected with one another not by one or another unilateral number of characteristics, but by the community of their historical fates. Eurasia is a geographical, economic, and historical whole. The fates of the Eurasian peoples are intertwined, firmly tied into a massive knot that is impossible to untangle to the extent that one people can refuse this unity only by artificial violence against nature, which can only lead to suffering.

Nothing similar can be said of those groups of peoples that lie at the basis of the concepts of Pan-Slavism, Pan-Turanism, or Pan-Islamism. Not one of these groups’ peoples are united to such a degree by historical fate. None of these “pan-isms” are as pragmatically valuable as pan-Eurasian nationalism. This nationalism is not only pragmatically valuable, but even directly, vitally necessary. After all, we have already seen that only the awakening of the consciousness of the multinational Eurasian nation’s unity is capable of giving Russia-Eurasia that ethnic substrate of statehood without which it will sooner or later begin to disintegrate to the great misfortune and suffering of all its parts.

In order for a pan-Eurasian nationalism to successfully fulfill its role as a factor unifying the Eurasian state, it is therefore necessary to re-cultivate the consciousness of the peoples of Eurasia. Of course, it can be said that life itself is handling this re-cultivation. The very fact that all the Eurasian peoples (like no other people in the world) have for a few years already experienced and outgrown the communist regime – this fact alone creates a thousand new psychological and cultural-historical ties between these peoples and forces them to clearly and really feel the commonality of their historical destinies. But this, of course, is not enough. It is imperative that those individual people who have now clearly and vividly realized the unity of the multinational Eurasian nation preach this conviction in each of the Eurasian nations in which they work. Here awaits an uncharted land of work for philosophers, publicists, poets, writers, artists, musicians, and scholars of the most different specializations. It is necessary to reconsider a number of sciences from the standpoint of the unity of the multinational Eurasian nation and construct new scientific systems to replace the old, dilapidated ones. In particular, this necessitates constructing a new history of the peoples of Eurasia, including that of the Russian people…

In all of this work of re-cultivating the national self-consciousness from the standpoint of the symphonic (choral) unity of the multinational nation of Eurasia, it might be the Russian people that will have to strain its hand more than any other Eurasian people. Firstly, the Russian people need more than others to deal with the old attitudes and points of view that situate the Russian national identity outside of the real context of the Eurasian world and divorce the past of the Russian people from the common perspective of the history of Eurasia. Secondly, the Russian people, which until the revolution was the sole lord of all of the territory of Russia-Eurasia, and is now the first (in number and significance) among the Eurasian peoples, naturally needs to set an example for the others.

At the present moment, the Eurasianists’ work on re-educating this national self-consciousness is taking place in extremely difficult conditions. Such work, of course, cannot be openly carried out on the territory of the USSR. The emigration is predominated by people who are cognitively incapable of recognizing the objective shifts and results of the revolution. For such people, Russia continues to exist as a set of territorial units conquered by the Russian people and belonging to the Russian people alone by full and indivisible right. Therefore, these people cannot understand the issue of creating a pan-Eurasian nationalism and affirming the unity of the multinational Eurasian nation. For them, the Eurasianists are traitors because they replace the concept of “Russia” with that of “Eurasia.” They do not understand that it is not Eurasianism, but life itself that has produced this “replacement.” They do not understand that their Russian nationalism is in modern conditions simply Great Russian separatism, and that the purely Russian Russia which they want to “revive” is possible only given the separation of all the “outskirts” within the boundaries of ethnographical Great Russia. Other trends in the emigration attack Eurasianism from the opposite side, demanding that any kind of national identity be abandoned, and they suggest that Russia can be built only on the basis of European democracy without putting forth any unified national or unified class-based substrate for Russian statehood. Being representatives of the abstract Westernizing sentiments of the Russian intelligentsia’s old generations, these people do not want to understand that for a state to exist, what is needed first and foremost is this state’s citizens to be conscious of organically belonging to this whole, to this organic unity, be it either ethnic or class-based. In modern conditions, only two solutions are possible: either the dictatorship of the proletariat, or consciousness of the unity and originality of the multinational Eurasian nation and pan-Eurasian nationalism. 

 

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

Mysteries of Eurasia: Continent Russia

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Chapter 1 of Mysteries of Eurasia (Moscow, Arktogeya: 1991/1999)

 ***

The country within

Land-masses hold symbolic meanings which are as much linked with cultural stereotypes as with real-life experiences. Europe holds different meanings for the European who lives there, for the American who originated from it, for the African who is freeing himself from its influence, for the Pacific islander, and so on. Stereotypes of the continents have not remained purely and simply products of cultures born of more or less accurate knowledge, more or less lively feelings and more or less clear awareness. They have sunk into the unconscious with so strong an emotional charge as will emerge in dreams or in spontaneous reactions, often linked with unconscious racism. At this point a continent will no longer represent one of the Earth’s five land-masses, but will symbolize a world of images, emotions and desires. For example, Dr Verne has clearly shown in the analysis of one of his patients’ dreams that she did not regard Asia as a memory of, goal of, or desire for intercontinental travel, but as a symbol of ‘the return to something holy, to the world of the absolute, the mystery of out of the body experience, the way towards the oneness which bears the message of the true and real’. Asia had become an inner continent, like Africa, Oceania, or Europe. These continents and what they symbolize will differ from person to person. This inner dimension may fasten upon any place, be it town or locality; what is important is to know what it means to each individual, what images, feelings, emotions, and prejudices it carries, since these comprise the subjective truth of the symbol. Geography generates as much geosociology and geoculture as it does geopolitics.”[1]

Such is the content of the entry “Continent” from the French Dictionary of Symbols by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant. We have permitted ourselves to give such a long quotation in full since it immediately defines the plane upon which our study will unfold. Often amidst a rise of national feeling and even racism, and in flashes of patriotism among different peoples, irrational elements stand out on the surface which, at first glance, cannot be explained by logical reasoning or an analysis of egotistical motives behind such an ideological complex. The awakening of national, racial, or continental memory often occurs without any external reason. Deep archetypes of the unconscious simply and suddenly burst and, like a chain reaction, awaken the whole complex of a collective worldview that seemed to be long gone. Examples of this include the stability of Celtic-Irish, Jewish, Korean, African, and Japanese nationalisms which continue to live and grow despite all the social and historical preconditions objectively contributing to their extinction.

In principle, this is exactly the same case with the “enigma of Russian patriotism.” Mystical Russia, the “White India” of Klyuev, the “Holy Rus” which Yesenin set above Paradise and which Tyutchev equated to a religious principle in which one has to believe – imagine how absurd “Holy Australia” or “Faith in the Czech Republic” would sound! – is undoubtedly a deep reality of national psychology, an “Inner Continent” synthesizing in itself the worldview of a giant nation. The memory of “Continent Russia” may lurk and sleep in the depths of consciousness for many long years, but sooner or later it will come to life and, when the time of Awakening arrives, it will become a storm, a vortex, a scream.

However, the psychological reality of “Inner Russia,” in order to be effective and specified, should have an archetypal structure fully corresponding to objective historical processes and geographical areas. In this way, it is not merely a passive reflection of the external, but a paradigm which forms and structures the surrounding temporal and spatial space. In this regard, the famous historian of religions, Mircea Eliade, keenly observed: “Nature is something determined by culture (culturalmente condizionata); some of the ‘laws of nature’ vary depending on what the peoples of this or that culture understand by ‘nature.’”[2]

Russian Sweden

What is the archetypal structure of “Inner Russia?” On what is the concept of “Holy Rus” based? What are the origins of the complex of the imperial God-bearing people? We can find traces of this ancient tradition in the linguistic archetypes that date back to the formation of Indo-European unity and which, with remarkable resistance, are preserved in toponyms, myths, legends, and even in the ordinary correspondences between symbols and words. In addition, this entire complex of purely religious symbolism is closely linked with this ancient tradition. Otherwise, the baptism of Rus could not have happened so harmoniously and easily. The totality of Christian doctrine, in its ritualistic and symbolic paradigm, is consistent with the logic of older cults which were not abolished but transformed by Christianity into a new synthetic unity. The cycles of Russian lives and the specifics of Russian Orthodoxy present us with thousands of pieces of evidence of this. One canonical example of this is the summer festival of the prophet Elijah, who became the Orthodox expression of the old Aryan “god” of thunder, sky, and light, Il (from the same root of the ancient Russian word for “sun,”, solntse, which in old Aryan means “good light”).[3] Let us consider some aspects of the archetypal combinations which define the logic of the Russian national mentality. We will start with the concept of “Holy Rus.”

It is curious to note that evidently long before the arrival of the Slavs to the territory of Russia, the region of the Southern Russian steppes from the Black Sea to the south of the Urals was named by the Aryans inhabiting it “Dwelling of the Gods – Great Sweden” or “Cold Sweden,” and only much later did this shift with the Germanic tribes to Scandinavia, which became “Dwelling of people – Little Sweden.” The sacred rivers of the ancient Aryans flowed into this “Great Sweden”: the Don (Tanaquisl or Vanaquisl – “the branch of the river where the Vanir live”) and the Dnieper (Danapru or, in Greek, Borisphen). The very Russian word for Sweden, Shvetsiia – Sweden, Suetia – most likely meant “bright, white, luminous.” And this Indo-European root szet is possibly, and quite logically, etymologically similar to the Russian word for holy, svyaty. In addition, the Hindu tradition to this day still remembers Śveta-dvīpa, the “White Island” or “White Continent” lying to the North of India.

In most cases, Śveta-dvīpa meant the symbolic island of Vārāhī, the place where the Hindus’ ancestors originally resided at the North Pole. By analogy, it is appropriate to transfer this name to the territory of the temporary settlement of the Aryans before their migration to India. That the ancestors of the Hindus – the carriers of the Vedantic tradition in its earlier form – lived for a certain period of time on the territory of what is now Southern Russia is confirmed by modern archaeological excavations. Therefore, the light, white holy country was associated in ancient times with the Russian lands, a view which could take deep root in the consciousness of peoples, such as the Aryans, contact between whom was maintained even after their linguistic and traditional unity was destroyed, as well as other indigenous paleo-Asiatic peoples who on more than one occasion have demonstrated the unique capacity to preserve the mythological complexes which they received from the Indo-Europeans for entire millennia.

The second component of the combination of “Holy Rus” is the very name “Rus.” One of the most likely and acceptable etymological interpretations of this word is the Aryan root ros (compared with German rot, Latin russus, French rouge, English red, and Sanskrit rohita) which means red, ginger, or pink. It is entirely unimportant if Russia was named after a Slavic or Scandinavian tribe. The main point is that, on a subconscious level, red is closely associated with Russia, and was one of the favorite colors of the Russian princes, and the very Russian word krasny, besides denoting the color red, in the ancient Slavic language meant “beautiful”, “distinguished,” etc. It is also curious that another Russian word for designating the color red is chermny, which is etymologically close to the word cherny for black. In ancient Indian, the root krisna also meant “black” and “beautiful.” It cannot be ruled out that this etymological connection was somehow imprinted in language associations and in half-effaced semantic structures of linguistic thinking lending the meaning of the word red a kind of semi-conscious connection with the word black (i.e., “distinguished,” “clearly defined,” etc.). If we combine these two lines, then we see that the concept of “Holy Rus” might be translated into the colorful symbolic dyad: “white – red” or even “light – dark.” And, not incidentally, the combination of “white-red” was one of the most common among Russian princely heraldry, national costumes, ornaments, paintings, etc.

Khvarenah – Royal happiness

One of the most significant aspects of “Inner Russia” was the sacred mission of the Russian monarch. Holy Rus always had its sacred center. Just as it had its capital (first Kiev, then Moscow), it also had a living and personified pole of national sanctity: the Tsar, the Anointed by God. Interestingly enough, some of the Turkic peoples preserved the tradition of venerating the Russian monarch up into the 18th century. For example, the Buryats believed Catherine to be the incarnation (embodiment) of the White Tara, one of the greatest Bodhisattvas of Lamaism. Such  universal importance assigned to the monarchy within the framework of the Empire once again shows that Russia has never recognized itself to be something purely ethnic. By contrast, she is a reality of a higher level, a reality of the geosacred Tradition in which different peoples had their proper place. Therefore, the Russian White Tsar was simultaneously the Tsar of all ethnoi inhabiting the Empire.

The Russian monarchical tradition began, as is known, with the calling of Rurik from the Varangians to kingship over a group of Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes. In the later period, descent from the first prince Rurik was the spiritual and genealogical justification of royal authority, its legitimacy and sacred legality. This tradition was so persistent and deep, so self-evident and absolute in Russians’ understanding, that it simply could not have been inconsistent with the indigenous archetypes of ancient forms of consciousness which, although moved into the sphere of the unconscious, nevertheless did not lose their efficiency and validity. In our opinion, the calling of Rurik from among the Varangians was seen as a great, nationwide mystery embodying in itself the script of the supernatural origin of royal power that is characteristic of all ancient, traditional dynasties.

Let us try to clarify the sacred underpinnings of this mystery which confirmed the sacred-dynastic center in the space of “Inner Russia.” First of all, we can refer to Zoroastrianism, in which the mystical side of royal power was elaborated in detail and had a significant impact on the structure of the consciousness of the peoples who have inhabited the ancient Russian lands. Zoroastrians believed that the emperor has a special, more than merely given, right to rule. This sanction is embodied in the possession of a light-bringing force – Khvarenah. Khvarenah (or farn) is a condensed light energy which renders a person equal to a god. The symbol of Khvarenah was traditionally believed to be the falcon Vargan and sometimes the ram. On the other hand, Khvarenah was identified with the element of fire, which only naturally strives upwards towards heaven. Every Iranian king had his own personal fire symbolizing the possession of Khvarenah.

If we return to Rurik, called from among the Varangians to kingship, we see that he etymologically embodies this entire complex of Zoroastrian ideas (and apparently, some common Aryan ones). Rurik, in Scandinavian, means “falcon,” that is, the predominant symbol of Khvarenah. In addition, the word rurik is startlingly close to the Old Church Slavonic rarog, i.e., “fire” or “spirit of fire” (in fact, the old Church Slavonic rarog also meant “falcon”). With the baptism of Rus, Tsar Rurik also became anointed by God, endowed with the power of Christ, and referred to as the “Lamb.” Thus, the idea of the Christian monarch was the spiritual development and sacred confirmation of the ancient monarchical tradition perceiving the calling of Rurik as a nationwide acquisition of heavenly blessing, or Khvarenah. In this case, as in many others, Christianity did not abolish, but rather exalted and confirmed the ancient, pre-Christian faith.

Now about the Varangians. Without entering into the debates over the ethnic identity of this tribe (which is unimportant for us), we will try to identify the symbolic meaning of this name. Zoroastrianism once gave us some keys, so we turn to it once again. The word “Varangian”, in terms of sound and possibly also in terms of origin, is close to the name of the Zoroastrian god Varhorn (or Verethragna). Varhorn is one of the seven supreme “gods” of Mazdaism, the god of victory. It was none other than this god who was believed to be the fundamental carrier and bearer of Khvarenah, and he was traditionally associated with the falcon Vargan (compare: vargan, varingr, i.e., varyag which is Russian for “Varangian” or “viking”), as his constant companion or even his incarnation. Thus, the Varangians, in addition to their historical specificity, could represent some kind of symbolic meaning, the embodiment of full Khvarenah, royal happiness, one precious part of which – Rurik-Falcon – descended, like manna, on the grace-hungry tribes. But the mythological, etymological chain doest not end there. The word varyag is also quite comparable with the Sanskrit root svar, or “sky,” “sunlight,” (in fact, it is also very close to the Persian hvar from which Khvarenah is derived). It is possible that the Russian word for north, sever, is also related to svar, as the North was considered to be of a “heavenly, divine orientation” by the ancient Aryan peoples. Therefore, the correlation between the Varangians, the North and the sky perfectly corresponds to the very mysterious logic of the calling of the first Tsar.

It is possible to go still further. Varharn is the Persian equivalent of the Sanskrit word vritra-han, i.e. “Slayer of Vritra,” the epithet of the Heavenly Tsar, the god Indra. Indra is the Hindu archetype of all kings, who dwells and is found, according to traditional Hindu cosmography, in the sky – svar. The very name “Indians” and “Hindi” is by all means likely the theophoric (god-bearing) name of the “people of Indra,” and therefore a god-bearing people. The Varangians, for their part, as one of the Indo-European tribes, could have essentially been the theophoric people of Vargan or Vergarn-Veretragna, i.e., essentially the same as Indra, the “Slayer of Vritra.” Nor can it be excluded that the distant echoes of these mythological correspondences, living on in the depths of the national unconscious, gave rise to the concept of Russia as the “White India” among poets of a folk-mystical orientation, such as Klyuev and Yesenin. The Russian monarchical emblem, the Byzantine, two-headed eagle, can also be compared to Falcon-Rurik, the carrier of the magical power of Khvarenah. Another curious detail is that Moscow, the capital of the Russian state and the seat of the Russian Tsar, has as its emblem St. George slaying a serpent (the emblem of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky). Varharn (the god of Khvarenah) is first and foremost the god of victory, and St. George is also the victory-bearer. In addition, the very name Varharn-Veretragna, as we said above, means “Snake-Slayer,” or “Slayer of Vritra,” and St. George is usually depicted as killing the Serpent. It is also characteristic that Iranian mythology contains a number of tales depicting a struggle between a solar hero (Kersaspa, Traeton, etc.) and a Serpent or Dragon, the conflict of which is over the right to possess the mystical power of Khvarenah, a right for which the opponents challenge each other. Thus, the combination of these symbols in the coat of arms of the capital – the residence of the Tsar – along with the eagle as the symbol of Russia in general, yield the paradigm of the ancient structure of the monarchical mystery.

Another traditional symbol of royal authority and the state is the orb mounted with a cross – the symbol of the earth in ancient astrological texts. The state of the Russian Tsar, naturally, is identified with the Russian land. And here once again we are talking about “Inner Russia,” which we spoke about in the beginning. It is especially important that in the national sacred tradition, it is precisely the Tsar, the Anointed by God, the messenger of heaven, and the bearer of supernatural fire, who protects and keeps in his hands a gigantic land (hence the title “autocrat” from the seven secret saints of the Christian tradition on whom the whole weight of the world rests).

All of Russian history is permeated with the deepest understanding of the sacred role of the Tsar. This understanding contributed to a much more religious relationship between the Orthodox and the monarch than that seen between the Catholics and their kings.[4] Moreover the Orthodox idea of the Tsar sharply differs on a theological level from the corresponding Catholic concept. In Russia, there was never a division between purely spiritual life, subordinated to the spiritual hierarchy, and purely secular life, subordinated to kings, as in the case of the Catholic West. In the idea of Holy Russia and Tsarist Russia, all levels of the sacred way of life are combined. The Church, as the spirit of Russia, did not set itself above the Tsar, but recognized his supernatural and legal authority, and gave blessing to his power, without which the state would have lost its sacred pole. Thus, the “inner continent,” Russia, had its “inner center,” the sacred monarch. Their merging (their symbolic hierosgamos) accounts for the specific Russian fate and the deep dimension of Russian history.

The mystery of the pole

Now we would like to mention a study by the French Traditionalist Gaston Georgel devoted to historical cycles and the logic of the cultural development of ancient civilizations, which bears direct relevance to our topic. Georgel’s book under consideration is called Rhythms in History.[5] In this extremely interesting work, there is a small section which examines the patterns of the movement of the centers of this or that ancient civilization around the Eurasian continent. Without delving into the essence of the author’s interpretation of certain patterns, we will simply provide the facts which are given and which have direct relevance to “Inner Russia.” Studying the geographical location of the centers of ancient civilization, Georgel noted one astonishing peculiarity. Starting with Elam (around 4,000 B.C.) and finishing in our times, we can observe a shift of certain cultures from East to West. Georgel endeavored to draw a single line connecting the ancient center of Elamite civilization, located not far from the town of Kelat, the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, Greek Athens, and French Paris. The result exceeded all expectations.

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The arc connecting these centers turns out to divide them almost exactly into sectors of 30 degrees. According to the author’s notes, at exactly 30 degrees along the eclipse, the point of vernal equinox moves over a period of time equal to 2,160 years, that is, the time separating the epochs of these cultures is 4,000 years up to Elam, 2,000 up to Ur, a bit more than 2,000 years ago to Athens and, finally, to the contemporary “capital of Europe”, Paris. The arch extending over the East at 30 degrees leads to the location of the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, and the same arc of the same curvature, merely belonging to a circle of a larger radius, connects Jerusalem and Rome. But where does the center of this circle reside? Here once again is a strange thing: it lies at the intersection of the Meridian at 60 degrees east of the Arctic circle, i.e., on the territory of Russia, North of the Ural mountains (let us note that Moscow is located near to the radius which connects Athens with the center of the circle). It is with this, in fact, that Georgel ends his account.

We can go one step further and point to even more bizarre patterns. It is generally known  that the line of the North Pole is the projection of the circle of the celestial sphere, along which the North Pole of the World shifts (due to a phenomenon termed in astronomy the precession of equinoxes) around the pole of the eclipse. But if the celestial sphere is stationary, then the globe rotates in space relative to it, or more precisely, relative to the eclipse plane which is identical to the plane of the orbital rotation of the earth at 23.5 degrees. This shift of 23.5 degrees is fixed on the line of the Arctic circle. If we compare the point of the North Pole of the earth with the current north star – Alpha Ursae Minoris – then the center of the eclipse, and hence the true pole of the sky (the most immobile of all, as the earth’s axis makes a circle around it over a vast period of time – 25,960 years), will be projected on the line of the Arctic circle. But how can we determine which exact point?

Here the first globes of the Renaissance era come to our aid, on which at the same angle of 23.5 degrees, a projection of the eclipse inclined towards the earth’s equator and marking respectively the northern Tropic of Cancer and the southern Tropic of Capricorn was marked. What is important is on what meridian the projection of the sign of Capricorn is placed, which then allows one to logically determine the order of the projection of constellations on the globe, as well as to find in the Arctic circle the point corresponding to the center of the eclipse. All old maps and globes answer this question unambiguously: on the basis of late Medieval and Renaissance geographical knowledge, the sign of Capricorn, the southernmost point of the eclipse, is projected on the meridian which passes through the Ural mountains (the Ripheans, as the Greeks called them), the symbolic border between Europe and Asia. On this very meridian, 60 degrees East longitude, Gaston Georgel conducted his study of the geography of ancient civilizations! This means that the pole of the eclipse, the true celestial pole, when projected onto the globe, corresponds to the pole of the circle around which the focus of civilizations shifts over millennia.

screen-shot-2018-07-26-at-12.22.07-pm.pngIf today we are now capable of making similarly logical inferences on the basis of an elementary knowledge of astronomy and geography, then why should it be excluded that the  ancients, holding such knowledge (this is proven by a swathe of modern research on the ancient observatories of the Chinese, Sumerian, Celtic, and other traditions), and not being burdened by technocratic and agnostic prejudices, were perfectly well aware of the correlations between the earth and the sky, and built on these correspondences their sacred geography and the logic of their sacred history? It is most likely that the completeness of this synthetic knowledge gradually drifted into the realms of mental archetypes, fairy tales, fables, and legends, manifesting itself most openly in especially rotary periods in the history of mankind.

Russians and Hyperboreans

This French Traditionalist’s empirical discovery of the hypothetical pole of civilizations might help explain not only a number of enigmatic facts of humanity’s past, but also yield the keys to understanding one of the most strange secrets of our time – the secret of “Russian patriotism”, which can in no way be reduced to the banal nationalism of a particular ethnic group. “Russian patriotism,” in its deepest dimension, is universal and “pan-human” has F.M. Dostoevsky said, himself connected with the “inner continent,” with the central continent located in the vicinity of the fixed point of the “wheel of life,” the circle of the wandering human soul. And perhaps it is only appropriate that the city closest to the point of this Northern center was the city of Inta, which is similar to the name of the Peruvian sun god Inti and the Aryan Indra. Moreover, if we project celestial constellations onto land on the basis of the above-mentioned correlations, then our center, as well as the center of the eclipse, falls on the constellation of the Dragon, the eternal enemy of Indra and the “sun gods” of victory.

Interestingly enough, the abode of Indra in Hinduism is believed across various accounts to be in the North-East, and the name of Indra’s elephant, Airavata, coincides with the Jain name of the northernmost countries on earth. But this land, as we have already said, was also called Varahi, i.e., “land of the Wild Boar,” which precisely corresponds to the Greek root bor, i.e., “North”, the country of Hyperborea (“lying in the Far North”), the abode of the Sun of Apollo, who is also a “dragon slayer.” It is no coincidence that Ancient Greek sources tell of the Hyperboreans sending symbolic gifts of wheat to Delphi via the Scythian and more Northern Russian lands. It is curious that the word varahi reminds us also of varyagi, i.e., the legendary people who gave the Russians the sacred monarch.

In legends of the Hyperboreans, the “herbal” nature of their gifts, such as ears of wheat, is always emphasized. The ancient tradition believed that agriculture was the most important ancient occupation of people, prior to livestock breeding. The metaphysical view of the ancients on this reflects a fundamental peace and fixation (the sedentariness of farmers) which is put above dynamism and variability (nomadism and pastoralism). Moreover, the most characteristic occupation of Russians has always been agriculture. In this regard, the following fact is of interest: one of the old names for the Slavs in general was vene or Venety, as was one of the names of one of the Slavic tribes. And to this day, the Estonians and Finns still call Russians vene. In all of this it is impossible not to notice the obvious parallels with the Vanir of the Nordic sagas. The Vanir are the group of gods engaged in agriculture (in contrast to the nomads and pastoralists of the Aesir), who embody the traits of sacred peace-loving and, according to the ancient sagas, inhabited the lower reaches of the Dnieper and the Don. Here it is appropriate to recall that one of the favorite and most frequent Russian names is Ivan. Although the latter is derived from the Hebrew name John, it can be assumed that the self-designation of the Slavs survived in this Christian form. Moreover, there is a peculiar symbolic coincidence between the gospels’ tale about the head of John the Baptist and the ancient Germanic myths of the Vanir and the head of the giant Mimir, which the Vanir cut off and sent to the Aesir. This same story of beheading is central in the life of John the Baptist. Just as Odin, the leader of the Aesir, enlivens the severed head of Mimir, which foretells him of the beginning of the Final Judgement (Ragnarokr), so do the Christian parables tell us of the miraculous finding of the talking head of John the Baptist. Here it should be added that the warning of the Final Judgement from the head of Mimir is a direct parallel to the eschatological warning of the prophet John about the coming of the Messiah.

In our opinion, all of this can be explained by the existence of a united, primordial mythological complex that was rooted in the Indo-European peoples in primordial times. Historical outbreaks of this complex are always correlated with certain cyclical patterns and certain territories. The “inner continents” and their mythologies could slip across the planet together with their tribes, their bearers. They could be clearly fixed at certain places of the earth. They could be transferred from people to people. And finally, they could be integrated into different religious structures, thereby composing the archetypal unity of traditions. For us, the most important in all of this is identifying the specific logic of the archetypal tradition and its spiritual and symbolic content. The ethnoi which in this or that period became bearers of this Tradition soak in it, turning into theophoric (god-bearing) or idea-bearing ethnoi, thus becoming the earthly body of some kind of heavenly entity, a living idea, or an archangel.

Whatever might be the fleeting historical reasons behind the sacred association of these lands, and whatever peoples might have inhabited them, “Inner Russia” was, in its deepest dimension, identified with “earthly paradise”, with the territories of the Golden Age and, moreover, the symbolism of Hyperborea, Varahi, and the Vanir-Ivan tillers. Across the most different traditions, “Inner Russia” is constantly associated with none other than the ancient homeland of the free, immortal ancestors. To speak of a “national identity” of Paradise is quite ridiculous. It is for this reason that every upsurge in the unconscious archetypes of “mystical patriotism” in the Russian people has never been comparable to any ordinary, small nationalism. The Russians themselves call “Russians” all those who are in solidarity with them in their deep intuition of the sacrality of the lands upon which they live. This fundamentally distinguishes Russians from other peoples and, in particular, from other Slavs, who are much more soberly and rationally conscious of national boundaries. Although something of the sort has always been characteristic of truly imperial peoples, in Russia this was and is revealed in a special form with a special force.

Mystical Russia

Let us draw a few conclusions:

The self-consciousness of the peoples and nations traditionally inhabiting the territory of Russia is fundamentally connected with the specific, sacred geography of this territory.

In the complex of sacred geography, the lands of Russia occupy a central place in accordance with the ancient logic of astronomical and astrological correlations.

Consciousness of the uniqueness of Russia from the perspective of sacred geography largely determines the mystery of “Russian patriotism.”

“Russian patriotism” is imbued with a cosmic fate and is not only a fact of history. He who lives and learns Russia lives and learns the secret bequeathed to distant generations of ancestors who fought under the banner of Alexander the Great, galloped across the steppes among Tatar cavalry, worshipped the the Son of God in Byzantium, lit the sacred fires on the altars of Ahura-Mazda, listened to the teachings of the druids under the oaks of Europe, beheld in spiritual ecstasy the eternal dance of Shiva-Nataraja, built the ziggurats of Assyria, destroyed Carthage, and sailed the seas in boats with the curved neck of the Hyperborean Swan at the nose, always remembering the Heart of the World, the “golden heart of Russia” (Nikolai Gumilev) and “Mystical Russia.”

We are approaching an important spiritual milestone. Global forces are stretched to the limit, and in many ways the fate of our country today determines the fate of the planet. Therefore, it is important to break through to the depths of the sacrality of Russia and its prehistoric roots in order to understand its strange and sorrowful path, and to muster strength for the revival of this Holy Country and the rebirth of Continent Russia together with its secret, permafrost-covered center.

***

Footnotes:

[1] Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, The Dictionary of Symbols (London: Penguin, 1996), 233.

[2] Mircea Eliade, L’épreuve de labyrinthe. Paris, 1985.

[3] See Alexander Dugin, The Metaphysics of the Gospel, Chapter 36.

[4]  From a theological point of view, there exists a huge difference between Tsar, King, and Prince. The Tsar is the Emperor, the Basileus, the head of the church-going Orthodox Empire who unites under his reign a number of countries, kingdoms, and principalities. The principle of the Emperor-Tsar is associated not only with temporal power but also with the mystery of “Katechon,” “the one who withholds,” while royal dignity belongs to an ontologically different, lower, secular and administrative level.

[5] Gaston Georgel, Les rythmes dans l’Histoire. Belfort, 1937.

© Jafe Arnold – All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without expressed permission. 

The Great War of Continents

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Translator’s note: Although this piece was apparently first written between February 1991 and January 1992, this text has appeared in numerous versions in both internet and print editions, making it difficult to piece together different fragments and present a “perfect” or “final” edition. This translation was made on the basis of comparing the online texts available at zachetka.rf and arctogaia.org.ru, and using the print Serbian edition Konspirologija (Belgrade, Logos: 2008), and the print Russian edition Konspirologiya from 2005. Significant fragments lacking in one of the other texts but which are presented here are inserted as translator notes in italics. All of the footnotes to this text are taken from the 2005 Russian edition. This version has been approved by Alexander Dugin. 

***

Geopolitics and the secret forces of history

“Conspiracy” models are extremely diverse. In this sphere, the most popular is undoubtedly the concept of a “Judeo-Masonic” conspiracy so widespread today in various circles. In principle, this theory deserves the most serious study, and we must recognize that, despite the hundreds and thousands of works “exposing” this conspiracy and “proving” its non-existence, we do not have a fully scientific analysis of this subject. In this work, however, we will study an entirely different conspirological model which is founded on a system of coordinates differing from the “Judeo-Masonic” version. We will try, in general terms, to describe the planetary “conspiracy” of two opposing “occult” forces whose secret confrontation and invisible struggle has predetermined the logic of world history. These forces, in our opinion, are characterized above all not by national specificity or belonging to a secret organization of the Masonic or para-Masonic type, but by a radical difference in their geopolitical orientations. And in explaining the most recent “secrets” of these opposing forces, we tend to see that their difference rests precisely in two alternative and mutually exclusive geopolitical projects which stand beyond national, political, ideological, and religious differences, uniting people of the most opposite views and convictions into one group. Our conspirological model is the model of “geopolitical conspiracy.”

The foundations of geopolitics [1]

Let us recall the basic postulates of geopolitics, the science formerly known as “political geography” whose development is owed mainly to the English scholar and political expert Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947). The term “geopolitics” itself was first coined by the Swede Rudolf Kjellen (1864-1922) and then put into circulation in Germany by the German Karl Haushofer (1869-1946). Be that as it may, the founding father of geopolitics remains Mackinder, whose fundamental model laid the basis for all subsequent geopolitical studies. The merit of Mackinder lies in his ability to isolate and comprehend specific, objective laws of political, geographical, and economic history.

Even if the term geopolitics emerged relatively recently, the reality itself denoted by the term has a very long history. The essence of geopolitical doctrine can be summarized in the following principles.

In planetary history, two opposing and constantly competing approaches to the mastery of the Earth’s space, the “land” and “sea” approaches, have existed. Depending on which orientation (“land” or “sea”) this or that state, people, or nation belongs to, their historical consciousness, their foreign and domestic policies, their psychology, and their worldview accord with entirely separate rules. Given this peculiarity, it is fully possible to speak of a “land”, “continental,” or even “steppe” (“steppe” is land in its pure, ideal form) worldview, and a “sea”, “island”, “oceanic” or “aquatic” one (let us note in passing that we can find the first hints at such an approach in the works of the Russian Slavophiles, such as Khomyakov and Kireevsky).

In the ancient history of “sea” power, Phoenicia (Carthage) became the historic symbol of “sea civilization” as a whole. The land empire opposing Carthage was Rome. The Punic Wars are the clearest example of the confrontation between “sea civilization” and “land civilization.” In modern history, England became the “island” and “sea” pole, the “mistress of the seas” followed by the giant island-continent America.

England, like ancient Phoenicia, used primarily maritime trade and the colonization of coastal areas as the main instrument of its rule. The Phoenician-Anglo-Saxon geopolitical type generated a special “trade-capitalist-market” model of civilization based on economic and material interests and the principles of economic liberalism. Therefore, despite all possible historical variations, the general “sea” type of civilization has always been associated with the “primacy of economics over politics.”

Unlike the Phoenician model, Rome represented a model military-authoritarian structure based on administrative control, civil religiosity, and the primacy of “politics over economics.” Rome is an example of colonization not by sea, but by land, a purely continental type which penetrated deep into the continent and assimilated conquered peoples, who automatically became “Romans” upon conquest.

In modern history, the epitome of “land” power was the Russian Empire, along with the Central European Austro-Hungarian and German empires. Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary are essential symbols of “geopolitical land” in the period of modern history.

In the last several centuries, “sea civilization” has tended to be identified with Atlanticism, just as the “sea powers” of today par excellence are England and America, i.e., the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Atlanticism embodies the primacy of individualism, “economic liberalism” and “democracy of the Protestant type,” and opposes Eurasianism, which presupposes authoritarianism, hierarchy, and the posing of community-based, nation-state principles against small human, individualist, hedonistic, and economic interests. The Eurasian orientation in character is primarily pronounced in Russia and Germany, the two most powerful continental powers whose geopolitical, economic, and, most importantly, deep ideological interests are fully opposed to the interests of England and the USA, that is, the Atlanticists.

The Atlanticist conspiracy

As an Englishman and Atlanticist, Mackinder pointed to the danger of Eurasian consolidation and, since the beginning of the 20th century, prompted the government of England to do everything possible in order to prevent a Eurasian alliance, especially an alliance of Russia, Germany, and Japan (he considered Japan to be a state with an essentially continental and Eurasian worldview). Beginning with Mackinder, it is possible to take account of a clearly formulated and detailed description of the ideology of conscious and absolutized Atlanticism, whose doctrine formed the basis of the Anglo-Saxon geopolitical strategy of the 20th century. Parallel to Mackinder (and even a bit earlier than him), a similar theory was put forth by the American Admiral Mahan who prophetically realized the planetary function of the US in the century when this state was destined to become the “Sea Power” on a global scale.

Proceeding from this, we can define the essence of the intelligence work, military espionage, and political lobbying oriented towards England, the US, and Atlanticist ideology, the ideology of “New Carthage” which is common to all the “agents of influence,” all the secret organizations, and all the lodges and semi-closed clubs which have served the Anglo-Saxon idea in the 20th century and whose networks penetrate all continental, Eurasian states. First and foremost, naturally, this is directly related to English and American intelligence, especially the CIA, who are not just “guards of capitalism” or “Americanism,” but guards of “Atlanticism” united by the deep and multi-millennial super-ideology of the “oceanic” type. It is possible to call the aggregate of all “networks” of Anglo-Saxon influence “participants in the Atlanticist conspiracy” working not only in the interests of a single country, but in the interests of a particular geopolitical and, in the end, of course, metaphysical doctrine representing an extremely multifaceted, diverse, and broad yet nevertheless essentially united worldview.

Thus, generalizing the ideas of Mackinder, it can be said that there exists an historical “Atlanticist conspiracy” which, over the centuries, has pursued the same geopolitical goals oriented towards the interests of “sea civilization” of the neo-Phoenician type. Moreover, it is important to emphasize that Atlanticists can be both “left” and “right,” “atheists” and “believers”, or “patriots” and “cosmopolitans”, since their geopolitical worldview stands aside from all private, national, and political differences.

Therefore, we are in fact dealing with a real “occult conspiracy,” the meaning and metaphysical underpinning of which remain completely unknown to its most immediate participants, and even to its most key figures.

The conspiracy of the “Eurasianists”

The ideas of Mackinder, in exposing certain historical and political patterns which otherwise many had guessed or sensed, opened the way for a clear ideological formulation, the Eurasianist doctrine, to oppose Atlanticism. The first principles of Eurasian geopolitics were formulated by Russian White emigres known as “Eurasianists” (N.S. Trubetskoy, P.N. Savitsky, N.N. Alekseev [2], etc.), and by the famous German geopolitician Karl Haushofer (and his school, Obst, Maul, etc.).

Moreover, the fact of contacts between the Russian “Eurasianists” and Karl Haushofer leaves us to assume that German and Russian geopoliticians developed related topics simultaneously and in parallel.

The German school of Haushofer insisted on the necessity of a Eurasian geopolitical alliance of Russia, Germany, and Japan to oppose “Atlanticist” policies seeking to embroil Russia, Germany, and Japan against each other at any price. At the same time, Haushofer attentively followed the development of Eurasianist ideology among the Russian emigration and devoted solid materials to and a review of this topic in his journal Zeitschrift für Geopolitik.

Parallel to one other, the Russian Eurasianists and Haushofer’s group formulated certain principles of the continental, Eurasianist worldview, an alternative to Atlanticist positions. It can be said they expressed for the first time that which stood behind all the political history of Europe in the last millennium, tracing the path of the “Roman imperial idea,” which passed from Ancient Rome through Byzantium to Russia, and through the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to Austro-Hungary and Germany.

The Russian Eurasianists attentively and deeply analyzed the imperial and, to the highest degree, “land” mission of Genghis Khan and the Mongols, emphasizing the continental significance of the Turks in the Great Russians’ becoming an imperial ethnos and in the geopolitical formation of Muscovite Tsardom. Later, this idea was similarly developed by the heir to the Eurasian line and the great Russian historian, Lev Gumilev.

Haushofer’s group, for its part, studied Japan and the continental mission of the Far Eastern states from the perspective of a future geopolitical alliance.[3]

Thus, in response to the frank recognition of Mackinder, who outlined the secrets of the planetary Atlanticist strategy deeply rooted over centuries, in the 1920‘s the Russian and German Eurasianists uncovered the logic of an alternative continental strategy, the secret of the “imperial land idea” and the baton of Rome which invisibly inspired the politics of states with an authoritarian-idealistic, communal-heroic worldview.

The Eurasianist idea is just as global as the Atlanticist one and has also had a number of “secret agents” in all historical states and nations. All those who have worked tirelessly for the Eurasian Union, who for centuries have hindered the propagation of individualistic and liberal-democratic concepts (reproducing as a whole the typically Phoenician spirit of the “primacy of economics over politics”) on the continent, all those who have striven to unite the great Eurasian peoples under the sign of the East, and not the sign of the West – be it the East of Genghis Khan, the East of Ivan the Terrible, Lenin or the Prussian monarchy – all of them are “Eurasianist agents,” bearers of a special geopolitical doctrine, “warriors of the continent,” “soldiers of Land.”

The Eurasian secret society, the Order of the Eurasianists, however, did not merely begin with the authors of the manifesto Exodus to the East or the “Geopolitical Journal” of Karl Haushofer. This was, above all, mere discovering and scraping the surface of a certain knowledge which had existed since time immemorial along with corresponding secret societies and networks of “agents of influence.”

The same reveals itself in the case of Mackinder, whose belonging to English “secret societies” has been historically established.

The Order of Eurasia against the Order of the Atlantic.

Eternal Rome against Eternal Carthage.

The occult punic war has been continuing invisibly for thousands of years.

The planetary conspiracy of Land against Sea, Land against Water, Authoritarianism and the Idea against Liberalism and the Material.

The conspiracy of the forces of Being against the forces of Oblivion.

Are the endless paradoxes, contradictions, omissions and twists in history clearer, more logical, and more reasonable if we look at them from the position of occult geopolitical dualism? In such a case, do we not get countless victims by which humanity pays the price of strange political projects and deep metaphysical justifications? Would it not be a more noble and respectful gesture to recognize all those fallen on the battlefields of the 20th century as soldiers, heroes of the Great War of Continents, and not puppets of conditional and ever-changing political regimes unstable, transient, fleeting, random, and senseless to such a degree that death itself means something small and stupid for them? It is a different matter if those fallen heroes served the Great Land or the Great Ocean beyond political demagogy and the raging propaganda of ephemeral ideologies, if they served a geopolitical goal in the face of a multi-millennial history of secret confrontation between superhuman powers.

“Blood and Soil” – “Blood or Soil?”

The famous Russian philosopher, religious thinker, and author Konstantin Leontyev voiced an extremely important formula: “There is Slavdom, but no Slavism.” One of the main geopolitical conclusions of this wonderful author was contrasting the idea of “Panslavism” to the “Asiatic” idea. If this juxtaposition is carefully analyzed, we discover a common typological criterion which allows us to better understand the structure and logic of the geopolitical occult war of the Order of Eurasia against the Order of the Atlantic.

Despite the eclectic combination of terms in the concept of “Blood and Soil” by the German ideologist of a National-Socialist peasantry, Walter Dare, the problem is formulated differently on the level of the occult war of geopolitical forces in the contemporary world, namely, in terms of “blood or soil.” In other words, the traditionalist project of preserving a people, state, or nation’s identity is always faced with an alternative: either take the “unity of nation, race, ethnos, and unity of blood” as the main criterion, or “unity of geographical space, unity of borders, unity of soil.” The entire drama rests precisely in the necessity of choosing one or the other, and any hypothetical “both” remains but a utopian slogan which does not resolve, but obscures the problem.

The genius Konstantin Leontyev, a traditionalist and radical Russophile by conviction, clearly put forth the dilemma: “Russians need either to insist on the unity of Slavs, on Slavism (“blood”), or appeal to the East and realize the geographical and cultural proximity of Russians to the Eastern peoples connected with Russian territories (“soil”).”  In other terms, this question can be formulated as a choice between recognizing the supremacy of “race” (“nationalism”) or “geopolitics” (“statehood,” “culture”). Leontyev himself chose “soil”, “territory,” the peculiarity of Great Russian imperial, religious, and state culture. He chose “Orientalism”, “Asianism,” and “Byzantinism.”

Such a choice implied the prioritization of continental, Eurasian values over narrow national and racial values. The logic of Leontyev naturally led to the inevitability of a Russo-German, and especially Russo-Austrian union and to peace with Turkey and Japan. Leontyev categorically rejected “Slavism” or “Panslavism”, thereby arousing the indignation of many of the late Slavophiles standing on the position of either “blood above soil” or “blood and soil.” Leontyev was neither understood nor listened to. The history of the 20th century repeatedly proved the extreme importance of the problems identified by him.

Panslavism vs. Eurasianism

The thesis of “blood above soil” (in the Russian context, this means “Slavism” or “Panslavism”) first revealed all of its ambiguity during the First World War when Russia, having entered a union with the countries of the Entente, i.e., with the English, the French, and the Americans in an effort to liberate its “Slavic brothers” from the Turks, not only started to fight against its natural geopolitical allies – Germany and Austria – but also plunged itself into the catastrophe of revolution and civil war.  The “Slavism” of the Russians in fact turned out to work for the “Atlanticists,” the Entente, and the “neo-Carthaginian civilizational type”, which embodied the trade-based, colonial, and individualist Anglo-Saxon model. It is not surprising that the majority of those among the “patriotic Panslavists” from Tsar Nikolay II’s circle were employees of English intelligence services or simply “Atlanticist agents of influence.”

It is curious to recall an episode from the novel of the Russian patriot Hetman Petr Krasnov, From the Double-Headed Eagle to the Red Flag, where, in the midst of the First World War, the main character Colonel Sablin is asked: “Tell us frankly, who do you believe to be our true enemy?” He unambiguously responds: “England!”, but this conviction does not prevent him from honestly and courageously fighting precisely for English interests against Germany in paying his debt of absolute and unconditional loyalty to the Tsar.

The hero of Krasnov’s article is an ideal example of a Russian Eurasianist patriot, an example of the logic of “land above blood” which was characteristic for Count Witte, Baron Unger-Sternberg, and the mysterious “Balticum” organization consisting of Baltic aristocrats who  remained loyal to the royal family to the very end (just as the Tekin Prince and his division, described in Krasnov’s novel, remain loyal to the Tsar amidst widespread betrayal). The extent to which the Asians, Turks, Germans, and other “foreigners” in 1917 faithfully served the Tsar, the Empire, Eurasia, “soil,” and the “continent” can be contrasted with how the “Slavs” and “Panslavists” quickly forgot about “Constantinople” and their “Balkan brothers,” left Russia, abandoned the Fatherland for the countries of Atlanticist influence, the Western Ocean, Water, and betrayed not only the Homeland, but also the great Idea of Eternal Rome, the Russian Third Rome, and Moscow.

The Atlanticists and racism

In Germany, the adoption  of the idea of “blood over soil” resulted in equally dire consequences. Against the patriotic German Russophiles and Eurasianists such Arthur Mueller van den Bruck, Karl Haushofer, etc. who insisted on the “supremacy of living space” [4] in the interests of the continent as a whole and the idea of a “continental bloc”, the leadership of the Third Reich was eventually won by the Atlanticist lobby which exploited racist theses and, under the pretext that “Englishmen are Aryan relatives of the German ethnos”, sought to focus the attention of Hitler on the East and suspend (or at least ease) combat operations against England.

“Pan-Germanism” in this case (like the “Panslavism” of the Russians in the First World War) only played into the hands of the “Atlanticists.” It is entirely logical that the major enemy of Russia, who constantly strove to drag Hitler’s Germany into a conflict with the Russians and the Slavs (for “racial” reasons of “blood above soil”), was the English spy, Admiral Canaris. The extreme importance of the problem of “blood or soil” lies in that the choice of one of these two terms at the expense of the other allows one to identify, whether implicitly or indirectly, an “agent of influence” of this or that geopolitical world view, especially when the matter at hand is the “right” or “nationalist” camp. The essence of the “geopolitical conspiracy” of the Atlanticists (just as the Eurasianists’ one) includes the entire spectrum of political ideologies from the extreme right to the extreme left, while always leaving specific traces of “geopolitical agents of influence.” In the case of the “right,” the signal of potential Atlanticism is the principle of “blood over soil” which, among other things, allows attention to be diverted from fundamental geopolitical problems towards secondary criteria.

Who is whose spy?

The National-Bolsheviks of Germany can be mentioned among the examples of the influence of occult geopolitical ideology on the “left.” The German Communist-Nationalist Ernst Nikisch, the conservative revolutionary Ernst Junger, and the communists of Lauffenberd, Petel, Schultzen-Boysen, Winning, etc. are such examples. Eurasianist National-Bolsheviks certainly existed among Russians as well, and it is a curious circumstance that Lenin himself in emigration sought to converge with German politicians and financiers and, additionally, many of his theses are quite frankly Germanophile. In this case, we do not wish to argue that Lenin was in fact involved in the Eurasian Order, but rather that he was to some extent undoubtedly subject to the influence of this Order. In any case, the opposition of “Lenin as a German spy” to “Trotsky as an American spy” genuinely conforms to this specific typological scheme. At any rate, on a purely geopolitical level, the actions of the government of Lenin bore a Eurasian character [5], not least of all because the Leninist Joseph Stalin, against the “liberal demagoguery” present in Orthodox Marxism, maintained the united, gigantic Eurasian space of the Russian Empire. (Trotsky [6], for his part, insisted on exporting the Revolution, on its “mondialization,” and considered the Soviet Union as something transient and ephemeral, as a springboard for ideological expansion which should disappear in the face of a planetary victory of “Messianic communism.” In general, Trotsky’s mission bore the unconditional stamp of “Atlanticism” in contrast to the communist “Eurasianism” of Lenin.)

Bolshevik Leninist “internationalism” itself bore a certain “imperial,” Eurasianist” dimension with the principal of “soil over blood,” although this principle was of course distorted and perverted under the influence of other aspects of Bolshevik ideology and, most importantly, under the influence of Atlanticist “agents of influence” within the bosom of the communist leadership itself.

Summarizing these considerations, it can be said that a distinctive feature of representatives of the Eurasian Order in Russia was an almost “mandatory” Germanophilia (or, at least, Anglophobia) and, vice versa, in Germany Eurasianists were “required” to be Russophiles.

Mueller van den Bruck once made a very true observation: “French conservatives have always been inspired by the example of Germany, and German conservatives by the example of Russia.” In this statement, the entire logic of the geopolitical, continental background of the invisible occult struggle passing through the centuries, the occult War of Continents, is exposed.

Did you say GRU, Mr. Parvulesco?

The only Western conspirologist who consistently stressed the geopolitical character of “global conspiracy” or, more precisely, the two alternative “world conspiracies” (“Eurasianist” and “Atlanticist”) was the genius French writer, poet, and metaphysicist Jean Parvulesco, the author of many literary and philosophical works. [7]

In his long and extremely eventful life, he was personally acquainted with many prominent figures of European and world history, including representatives of the “occult parallel history”, mystics, prominent Masons, Kabbalists, esotericists, secret agents of various intelligence services, ideologists, politicians, and artists. (In particular, he was friends with Ezra Pound, Julius Evola, Arno Breker, Otto Skorzeny, Pierre de Villemarest, Raymond Abellio, etc.)

Having learned the specifics of our conspirological studies, Mr. Parvulesco gave us for our disposal certain semi-secret documents which allow us to explain many important details of the planetary geopolitical conspiracy. Of particular interest are the materials relating to the activities of secret occult organizations in Russia.

In the following exposition, we will try to present the most interesting points of the conception of Jean Parvulesco.

In Lausanne on February 24, 1989, in front of members of the administrative council of the mysterious “Institute of Special Metastrategic Research ‘Atlantis’”, Jean Parvulesco delivered a report with the intriguing title “The Galaxy of the GRU” with the subtitle “The Secret Mission of Mikhail Gorbachev, the USSR and the Future of the Great Eurasian Continent.” In this report, a copy of which Mr. Parvulesco gave us, he analyzed the occult role of the Soviet military intelligence, the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate) and the connection between the GRU and the secret Order of Eurasia. As a point of reference, Parvulesco took the book of the renowned expert on Soviet special services, the French counterintelligence officer and leader of the European Information Center, Pierre de Villemarest, who in 1988 released the bestseller The GRU: the Most Secret of Soviet Special Services, 1918-1988 in France.

The GRU vs. the KGB

The conspirological model of Villemarest boils down to the following: “The KGB is the continuation of the party, and the GRU is the continuation of the army. By its very definition, the army defends the state, and the KGB defends the party…the KGB is guided by the principle of ‘patriotism in the service of communism” and the army is guided by the opposite principle of ‘communism in the service of patriotism.’” Proceeding from the logic of the confrontation between the GRU and KGB as the most secret centers of a bipolar government in the USSR (the army and party), Villemarest constructs a fascinating and factual account of the history of the GRU.

The secret meaning behind the invisible history of the USSR from the October Revolution to Perestroika can be found precisely in the rivalry of the “neighbors”: the GRU, the “Aquarium” or “Military Unit 44388” in the Ice Palace, and the KGB, “the office” on Lubyanka street. How do these rival intelligence agencies relate to the two planetary geopolitical Orders, even more secret and hidden than the secret intelligence services themselves?

According to Parvulesco, the Eurasian Order was especially active in Russia in the 20th century. He believes its representatives to be the Saint-Petersburg Doctor Badmaev, Baron Unger-Sternberg, the secret Swedish advisors to Rasputin (who signed their cryptograms with the pseudonym “Green”) and a number of other less known personages. It follows that the special role of the future marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky should be highlighted, who, according to Parvulesco, was initiated into the mysterious “Polar Order” during his imprisonment in the German camp Ingolstadt where during the same period of 1916-1918 we quite surprisingly meet other important figures of modern history: General De Gaulle, General von Ludendorff, and the future Pope Pius the XII, Monsignor Eugenio Paccelli.

It is precisely from this group of Russian geopolitical mystics that the baton was later passed to the Bolshevik regime, but the most fundamental esoterica of the continental orientation [8] were grouped in the army and army structures where a large number of former Tsarist officers entered the ranks of the Reds in order to alter the nihilistic orientation of the Bolsheviks and create a Great Continental Power by pragmatically using the Messianic ideas of the communists [9].

On this note, it is significant that among the Reds themselves there were some agents of the Eurasian Order who pursued a secret, continental mission. (It is curious that the famous Red Robber Kotovsky was a left-anarchist occultist and mystic, and certain aspects of his biography suggest that he had contacts with the Eurasian Order).

Thus,  there existed an uninterrupted connection between the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russian “Eurasianists.”

The very creation of the Red Army was the work of agents of Eurasia, and it is interesting to recall in this respect the historical fact that twenty-seven days after the establishment of the General Staff of the Red Army on the Eastern Front on July 10, 1918, a brigade of Chekists attacked it and destroyed all of its members, including the commander in chief.

The brutal war between the “Red Eurasianists” from the army and the “Red Atlanticists” [10] from Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka did not cease for even a moment from the very first days of Soviet history.

But despite their losses, the agents of the Eurasian Order among the Reds never abandoned their mission. The creation of the GRU in the Red Army in 1918 under the leadership of Semen Ivanovich Aralov, a former Tsarist officer associated with military intelligence before 1917, was a triumph. More precisely, Aralov was the head of the Operational Department of the All-Russian Headquarters, one of the components of which was special intelligence. The specifics of Aralov’s activities and the mysterious, almost mystical immunity which this person enjoyed throughout all of his life, even, during the periods of the most thorough “purges” (he died a natural death on May 22, 1969) as well as some other details of his biography lead us to see in him a man of the Continental Order.

White Eurasianists – Red Eurasianists

According to Parvulesco, the Russian branch of the Order of Eurasians settled into the Red Army after the Revolution and, more precisely, in the most secret department, the GRU. But this, naturally, does not concern only “red” Eurasianists.

The Revolution divided Russians into “reds” and “whites”, but beyond this political and conditional division, there existed another, secret geopolitical division of zones of influence by the two secret orders – the Atlanticist and Eurasianist ones. In Red Russia, the Atlanticists were grouped around the Cheka and the Politburo, although up until the appointment of Khruhschev, not a single “Atlanticist” ever occupied the post of General Secretary (Lenin and Stalin were “Eurasianists” or were at least under the strong influence of agents of the Eurasian Order). Among the White emigration, there were fewer Atlanticists than in Russian itself, disregarding the obvious English spies such as the liberals in the likes of Kerensky and other Democrats. Even in the extreme right camp of monarchists, the Atlanticist lobby was extremely strong.

At some point by the beginning of the ’30’s, the GRU’s network of agents in Europe, especially in Germany, penetrated deep into the structures of German and French intelligence services and this GRU network matched the network of agents of the NKVD and later the KGB. GRU agents primarily penetrated army structures and at times the common Eurasian platform rendered people from the GRU and other European intelligence services not so much enemies as allies, collaborators, and in secret they even engaged in preparing a new continental project out of their governments. And here we are not even talking about double agents, but about the unity based on supreme geopolitical interests.

Thus, in Germany the GRU came into contact with Walter Nikolay, the chief of the “Bureau on the Jewish Question.” Thanks to him, the GRU had access to the highest leadership of the Abwehr, the SS, and SD. The central figure of this network was Martin Bormann. (This fact became well known to the Allies after investigations connected with the Nuremberg trials, and many of them were convinced that after 1945 Bormann disappeared in the USSR. It is known that Walter Nikolay himself actually came over to the Russians in 1945).

The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the subsequent revenge of the Atlanticists

Concerning Martin Bormann, a friend of Ribbentrop and Walter Nikolay, Jean Parvulesco tells one extremely revealing story which discloses secrets of the occult war of the two geopolitical Orders. Arno Breker, the famous German sculptor, told Parvulesco of a strange visit to him in Ackelsberg. On June 22, 1941, immediately after the attack of Hitler’s Germany on the USSR, Bormann came to him without warning and in a state of shock, having left his post at the Chancellery of the Reich. He repeated the same mysterious phrase over and over again: “On this June day, Oblivion won a victory over Being…Everything is over…All is lost…” When the sculptor asked what he meant, Bormann was silent, turned around from the door as if he wanted to say something, but then changed his mind and left, slamming the door.

This was the collapse of the longstanding effort of Eurasian agents. For the Atlanticists,  the date of June 22, 1941 was a day of great rejoicing, for an inter-continental war between two powerful Eurasian powers amongst themselves was key to the triumph of the Atlanticist Order, regardless of whatever side might win. June 22, 1941 was a tragic event for the Order of Eurasianists.

It is important to emphasize that the agents of the Eurasianist Order did everything possible in order to prevent such a conflict. Preparation for the concluding of the highly symbolic “Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact” (both of these men, incidentally, were convinced Eurasianists) had been actively carried out for years. Back in 1936, at the turn of the ’30’s, Stalin finally stood on the side of the Order of Eurasia and gave the chief of the GRU, Berzin, the order “to immediate cease any and all activity against Germany.”

In a secret message in 1937, Heidrich and Himmler similarly assured the Fuhrer that “Germany is no longer a target of Comintern activities and other subversive Soviet activities.”

The “Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact” was the culmination of the strategic success of the Eurasianists. But at the last moment the power of the Ocean prevailed. The Eurasianists in the GRU and, more broadly, in the army – Voroshilov, Timoshenko, Zhukov, Golikov, etc. – until the very last moment refused to believe in the possibility of war since the seriousness of the influence of the Eurasian (Russophile) lobby in the Third Reich was well known. (National-Socialist, anti-Slav propaganda was considered by them to be just as insubstantial and superficial as Marxist demagogic rhetoric in the USSR).

General Golikov (concealing his noble origins, his true date of birth, and his true biography which is explainable purely according to the “Eurasianist” Order conspiracy) even yelled at his subordinates upon receiving the information that the Germans crossed the Soviet border: “English provocation! Investigate this!” He could not know at that point what Martin Bormann did: “Oblivion had triumphed over Being.”

Contours of the Atlanticist lobby

Translator’s note: this section does not appear in the 2005 Russian edition nor on Arctogaia, but it appears in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka.

The secret Order of Atlantis has a most ancient history. Some traditionalist authors trace it back to Ancient Egyptian initiate societies and especially to the sect of the worshippers of the god Seth, whose symbols were the Crocodile and the Behemoth (i.e., aquatic animals), as well as the Red Donkey.

The sect of Seth later merged with various Phoenician cults, especially with the bloody cult of Moloch. According to the 19th century French conspirologist Claude Grasse d’Orsay, this secret organization continued to exist many years after the death of Phoenician civilization. It is worth noting that in Medieval Europe it bore the name of the sect “Minstrels of Morvan,” whose emblem was “Dancing Death,” or Dance Macabre. Grasse d’Orsay argued that the Reformation of Luther was carried out on the order of this sect and that Protestants (especially Anglo-Saxon and French ones) remain under its influence to this day. Jean Parvulesco believes that Giuseppe Balsamo, the famous Cagliostro, was one of the most important agents of precisely this secret Order which surfaced at the end of the 19th century under the guise of an irregular “Egyptian” masonry of the Memphis rite, and later the Memphis-Mizraim.

It is precisely this symbolic prehistory of the Atlanticists that characterizes the essence of their geopolitical and cultural and economic strategies. It reduces meaning to the accentuation of “horizontal” values, highlighting the lower aspects of human existence and society as a whole. This does not mean that Atlanticism is identical to vulgar materialism, but rather that the “material,” the purely economic, commercial aspect, occupies the central place in human activity. The reduction of value systems to the purely human level requires such radical individualism and anthropocentrism that is inherent to Atlanticism in all of its manifestations, and parallel to this reduction necessarily arises the characteristically “Atlanticist” skepticism and depressive irony in relation to the ideal, superhuman dimension of life. Indeed, the image of the Red Donkey and Dancing Death perfectly reflect the essence of “Atlanticist” skepticism. By some strange logic of history, the most radical forms of Protestant, individualistic, and socially and religiously critical consciousness after Luther’s reforms “gravitated” like a magnet to the Atlanticist regions, towards England and further West, deeper into the Atlantic towards America, where they found the most fertile ground in the most extreme forms of radical Protestantism in the likes of the Baptists, Quakers, and Mormons. (J.M. Allemand noted a symbolic coincidence: Christopher Columbus was sent off on his Atlantic journey that ended with the discovery of America from the port of Cadiz, which was an historically important center of Phoenician colonies on the Iberian peninsula).

But anchoring the Order of Atlantis in the Far West and the creation of a special, purely Atlanticist civilization in the US as part of the project of the Order was an exclusively interim state in the plans of the “neo-Carthaginian” Atlanticists. The next strategic step was exporting this Atlanticist model to other continents in a geopolitical colonization of the entire planet, transferring the West in its mystical and geopolitical meaning to the whole world, including, naturally, the East itself. Therefore, maintaining a network of Atlanticist agents in the states of Eurasia is not only a defensively pursued goal (the weakening of the alternative geopolitical force), but also an anticipation of offensive activities.

The vanguards of “Atlanticism” in Eurasia were the “leftist” and “anarchist” subversive movements, although an inner Eurasian opposition always existed among them. “Economic socialism” and “communism,” in their theoretical and pure form should be considered a form of “Atlanticist” propaganda, a political and social mask for the secret Order of the Red Donkey. If the specificity of the geopolitical and occult doctrines of the Atlanticist pole is taken into account, it becomes completely understandable why “leftist” subversive movements were encouraged by the Anglo-Saxon powers in continental, European and Euro-Asian countries while in England, and especially in America, “communists” and “social-democrats” make up a minuscule percent of the population. It should be said that the “left” has always been a fifth column in Eurasia for the Atlanticist lobby. Hence the natural harmony between Russian, Atlanticist-minded communists and the Anglo-Saxon capitalists which often bewilders foreign researchers and historians who are perplexed by such a fully mutual understanding between “class enemies,” i.e., the “Messianic” Bolsheviks with their dictatorship of the proletariat and the bankers of Wall-Street with their cult of the Golden Note of Taurus. The secret society of Dancing Death, the Red Donkey, the “Minstrels of Morvan,” and the brotherhood of the Ocean – these images help us to grasp the logic of the worldwide Atlanticist lobby, which seeks not only to protect its “islands,” but also turn the whole planet into “Carthage,” into a united, universal “human market.”

The KGB in service of “Dancing Death”

Translator’s note: this section appears at Zachetka and in the 2008 Serbian edition, but not on Arctogaia. In the 2005 Russian print edition, it is titled “The KGB infiltrated by Atlanticists.”

Pierre de Villemarest defined the Cheka (OGPU, NKVD, KGB) as the “continuation of the party.” It would be still more precise to say that it represented the secret center of the party, its intellect and its spirit. Jean Parvulesco supplemented this definition with an occult, geopolitical dimension.

According to Parvulesco, the KGB was the center of the most direct influence of the Atlanticist Order, and was in fact the cover for this Order [11]. Many have guessed the occult background of this organization. Some even spoke about the presence in the KGB of a secret organization of para-psychological studies, a so-called black-magic “Society of Viya,” where all leading figures of the USSR were allegedly initiated. Rumors of the mysterious “Society of Viya,” of course, are only a simplified and grotesque description of a reality which is much more subtle and deep, as the occult mission of the KGB was not confined to magical or psychic experiences in which, we shall note, this organization always showed some some sort of abnormal, heightened interest.

The KGB was initially established as a purely ideological-punitive structure designed to supervise subordinate communists and social and cultural spaces. In Parvulesco’s scheme, the communists, in their ideological, Messianic, Marxist dimension (= “Trotskyists”) behaved as colonizers and aliens towards the Eurasian population and regions subordinated to them, always maintaining an ideological distance from the needs, requirements, and interests of the indigenous population.

On the level of the purely “ideal,” they sought to impose upon Eurasian people an economic-centered model unnatural to the peoples of Eurasia, and to this end they needed to use a repressive apparatus. The Cheka (NKVD, OGPU, KGB) was initially a parody of the “knight-ideological” order designed to punish indigenous people and suppress their natural soils of existence. The Cheka (and KGB) also professed the thesis of “blood over soil,” but in a totally perverted, blood-sadistic form disturbingly reminiscent of the bloody Phoenician Cult of Moloch to which Atlanticist agents were typologically and genetically linked.[12] 

Translator’s note: The following text is an alternative ending to the section found in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka – The Cheka and KGB always served “Dancing Death” and many paradoxes and unreliable histories (due to their inhuman nature) connected with this dark organization become clearer if we take into account not only the metaphorical, but also occult-esoteric connection of this Order with ancient Middle Eastern cults whose agents never ceased to exist in reality, who have continued their secret circus through secret European and Middle Eastern organizations of the Atlanticist type.

The convergence of intelligence services and the “polar mission of the GRU”

The CIA, as an instrument of American Atlanticism, typologically belongs to the same conspirological category. Moreover, at the head of this organization have been prominent leaders of American Freemasonry who, in fact, are considered by European Masons to be heretics and sectarians. (It is worth posing the question of whether or not anything in the sphere of religion or metaphysics in the US exists which has not been heretical or sectarian). The CIA, just like the KGB, was always partial towards magic and para-psychology, and in general its role in modern civilization is fully comparable to that of the KGB, although the blood-sadistic essence is not so obvious in this case. Since the beginning of the century, the CIA (and its predecessors), together with English intelligence services, have layered Eurasia with a network of its agents who constantly influenced the course of historical events in the Atlanticist vein. In this sense, it is perfectly possible to speak of a “convergence of special services” or a “merging” of the KGB and CIA and their lobbyist unity on a geopolitical level. This is precisely what explains such an abundance of so-called “Soviet spies” in the higher spheres of power in America, starting with Hiss and ending with Rutherford who, according to some authors, passed on the hydrogen bomb project to the Soviet nuclear industry. (In fact, it is possible that it is precisely through the Atlanticist lobby of Soviet-American nuclear scientists that the academician Sakharov became acquainted with Mondialist projects of an anti-Eurasian orientation which formed the basis of his socio-political and futurological worldview).

It should be noted that the network of KGB agents in the USA and other Anglo-Saxon countries, duplicating the network of GRU agents, was in constant conflict with the “neighbor” agents to the Lubyanka and, given the divergence of the geopolitical and even metaphysical orientation of these two secret Soviet structures, it would be logical to assume that the main enemy of the CIA were agents of the GRU, and not the KGB.

This convergence of secret services, just as with the convergence of Soviet communists of the highest echelon with American Mondialists [13] in the case of Perestroika, is based on fundamental unity in geopolitical orientation, on the unity of a secret structure by which the Atlanticists control the West and Atlanticist agents in the East, who sometimes occupy the highest positions in state and political nomenclatures.

But a full and outright merger of these two subsidiaries of the Order of Dancing Death was persistently hindered by the efforts of the alternative Eurasianist lobby connected with the GRU and the Soviet General Staff which included in its network many European and Asian intelligence services (especially German, Arab, and French ones, the latter connected with the secret geopolitical project of General De Gaulle, etc.), united in the service of the alternative Order – the Order of Eurasia.

Translator’s note: The following text is an alternative ending to the section found in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka –  [the Order of Eurasia], alternatively called the society of the “Minstrels of Murcia”, the polar “Order of Heliopolis”, the Order of Apollo, the Solar Conqueror of the Serpent-Python, that very Serpent which the Greek tradition identified with the Egyptian god Seth and the Red Donkey.

The Flares and Eclipses of the Eurasian Sun

Let us now follow the general outline of the vicissitudes of the occult war between the Eurasianist Order and the Order of the Atlantic within the Soviet system. As we have said in previous chapters, Lenin overall adhered to the Eurasian orientation. It is characteristic that the Eurasianist Semen Ivanovich Aralov created and headed the GRU. It was Aralov who laid down Eurasian continental principles in the structures of this secret army organization, grouping around itself the most valuable and capable “brothers of Eurasia” who, like himself, came over to the Reds for implementing a special meta-political mission. Interestingly enough, at the beginning of the ’60’s Aralov published a book under the expressive title “Lenin led us to victory.”

One important detail should be clarified here: the so-called “Leninist guard,” despite its political proximity to Lenin, in most cases belonged on a geopolitical level to the alternative, Atlanticist geopolitical orientation. The “closest comrades of Lenin”, and not the “ambitious tyrant Stalin” (as many mistakenly consider him today) stood behind the dismissal of the country’s leadership.

The end of Lenin’s rule marked the transfer of power into the hands of the Atlanticists and, indeed, we observe a significant improvement of relations between the USSR and the Anglo-Saxon countries, and primarily the USA, in the second half of the ’20’s and the first half of the ’30’s. Parallel to this we see the symptomatic reshuffling of cadre in the GRU. In place of the Eurasianist Aralov, the Atlanticist and Chekist Berzin created a structure of agents based on Comintern and communist fanatics, i.e., Atlanticist elements.

But Berzin failed to totally change the orientation of the GRU. The structures established by Aralov were simultaneously too strong and flexible to give up without a fight. Moreover, we note that despite all the attacks of the Cheka and the NKVD on the army, the military enjoyed significant authority and nurtured its intellectual, geopolitical elite in the bosom of the GRU. It is interesting to pay attention to one detail: all the leaders of the GRU until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War who succeeded Aralov were shot. O.A. Stigge, A.M. Nikonov, J.K. Berzin, I.S. Unshlikht, S.P. Uritsky, N.I. Yezhov, and I.I. Proskurov – all of them (except General Proskurov) were non-military cadre and they all worked against the Eurasianist idea, but this did not hinder the GRU from remaining a purely Eurasian organization secretly striving for the realization of a great continental project.

The resignation of Berzin in 1934 after 9-years of tenure as head of the GRU involved a serious fracture in the occult war behind the scenes of the Soviet leadership. Hitler’s rise to power extraordinarily strengthened the position of the “continental lobby” in the Soviet leadership.

In 1934, GRU agents began preparing a strategic German-Russian union which saw its culmination in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Stalin finally revealed his commitment to a Eurasian orientation in believing that the anti-Atlanticist tendencies of National-Socialism would distract the attention of the Anglo-Saxon powers and, in such a situation, it would be possible to finally move to destroy the powerful “Atlanticist” lobby within the USSR. The destruction of the “Leninist guard” began.

All the Stalinist processes, although sometimes seeming absurd and completely unfounded, were in fact grounded on a geopolitical level. All the “right” and “left” conspiracies were pure reality, although Stalin did not decide to call the entire “Atlanticist lobby” by its name and accuse it of operating already for a long time in the Soviet leadership. Apparently, he had his reasons for fearing a terrible and cruel reaction. Therefore he was compelled to mask his claims against this or that group of senior cadres with “conditional” accusations and allegorical labels.

Layer after layer of the agents of influence of “New Carthage” were destroyed by Stalin, but retaliation was unavoidable. It should be noted that a particularly serious blow to the Eurasian lobby was the elimination of the head of the “Polar” lodge within the Red Army, Marshal Tukhachevsky. Although, in this case, the revenge of the Atlanticists on Tukhachevsky and all the accusations presented against him were fully justified, yet this is only so in the perspective of a purely “Atlanticist”, anti-Eurasian context of sabotage.

The Second World Catastrophe

Translator’s note: in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka, this section is titled “After ‘Victory’”

Hitler’s attack on the USSR was a great Eurasian catastrophe. The victory of the USSR in this terrible fratricidal war between two geopolitically, spiritually, and metaphysically close, related peoples, between two anti-Atlanticist oriented regimes, Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany, was, in fact, tantamount to a strategic defeat. All historical experience shows that Germany never reconciles with defeat, meaning that the victor, by the very fact of victory, ties the knot of a new, emerging conflict, and sows the seeds of a future war. Excluding the above-mentioned, Yalta forced Stalin to solidarity with the Allies, that is, with those states which had always been sworn enemies of Eurasia. Stalin, perfectly understanding geopolitical laws and already making his Eurasianist choice, could not afford to give in.

Immediately after the defeat of Germany, Stalin began to implement a new geopolitical project. The Warsaw Pact and the unification of the countries of Eastern Europe under the sign of Great Soviet Russia should not be forgotten. And then came the first conflicts and disputes with the Atlanticists.

Until 1948, Stalin still concealed his continental intentions and even endorsed the creation of the state of Israel, which was a major strategic action by England (and Atlanticism in general) in strengthening military, economic, and ideological influence in the Middle East. But in 1948, using among other things the strengthening of the political positions of the army (Zhukov, Vasilievsky, Shtemenko, etc.), Stalin returned to orthodox Eurasian geopolitics, resumed anti-Atlanticists purges in the Soviet leadership, and “cursed” Israel as an anti-continental formation generated by “Anglo-Saxon spies.” Strangely enough, the death of Stalin coincided with a most dramatic and intense moment in the realization of his Eurasianist plans, when the prospects of a new continental union between the USSR and China, which would radically change the logic of the planetary alignment of forces and revenge the Order of Eurasia, became viable.

If we take into account these reasons as well as the geopolitical features of the post-Stalin course of the USSR, then the version advanced by many European historians in which Stalin was assassinated is more probable.

The main role of the NKVD and its chief, the sinister Beria, the worst enemy of the GRU, the General Staff, and Eurasia, in the supposed assassination of Stalin is noted by the majority of historians.

In 1953, eight years after the pseudo-Victory, there had been only one step towards real victory (just as in 1939). But instead, the world saw the Fall of the Titan.

(The author’s views on Beria have substantially changed since this paper was written as new elements of historical interpretation have been brought to light by (mostly) Russian historians. Thus, an article by A Potapov (“Eurasia and the Secret Services”) appeared in Elements (no. 9) which presents a completely different view of Beria and his role.)

The “polar” mission of General Shtemenko

According to Jean Parvulesco, from the second half of the ’40’s, General-Colonel Sergey Matveevich Shtemenko (1907-1976) was a key figure in the Eurasian geopolitical lobby in the USSR.

His high sponsors were Marshall Zhukov and General Alexander Poskrebyshev (who, according to some sources, fulfilled a mission under Stalin similar to Martin Bormann’s under Hitler, that is, he was the vehicle of Germanophile ideas).

During the ’60’s, Shtemenko was one of the key figures of the Soviet Army. In different periods, he was commander of the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact countries and Chief of the General Staff of the USSR. But his appointment most relevant to the fundamental line of our conspirological study was his position as head of the GRU in the years 1946-1948 and 1956-1957. Under Shtemenko, the GRU’s “polar”, occult, Order dimension imparted into the structure of the GRU by its founder Aralov were restored.

Pierre de Villemarest called General-Colonel Shtemenko the first and most outstanding Soviet geopolitician in full correspondence with the traditional logic of the Eurasianist Order. In his book, Villemarest wrote: “Shtemenko belonged to that special caste of Soviet officers who, although being “Soviet,” were nevertheless representatives of the Great Russian spirit and expansionist beliefs.” And further: “For this caste, the USSR was an empire called upon to govern the Eurasian continent, not only from the Urals to Brest, but from the Urals to Mongolia, from Central Asia to the Mediterranean.”

The strategic plans of Shtemenko included peaceful economic and cultural penetration into Afghanistan (which he spoke of in the years 1948-1952) and the entry of Soviet  troops into Arab capitals, such as Beirut, Damascus, Cairo, and Algiers. Already in 1948 Shtemenko insisted upon the special geopolitical role of Aghanistan, which would allow the USSR to gain access to the ocean and boost the military power of the Soviet fleet in the Black and Mediterranean seas.

It is important to note that the famous Admiral Gorshkov was a close friend of General-Colonel Shtemenko.

Under Stalin, Shtemenko and the occult subdivision revived by him created a powerful and advanced network of Eurasianist influence which, despite all of Beria’s attempts to erase it, was not destroyed even after Stalin’s death (although from 1953 to the middle of the ’60’s the Eurasianist lobby within the army was compelled to maintain a defensive position).

As an unavoidable evil, for 23 years (1963-1986) the GRU had to tolerate as its leader the Atlanticist agent from the Lubyanka, the former “liquidator” of General Petr Ivashutin. This was a necessary compromise. General-Colonel Shtemenko, an agent of the “Polar Order,” the Order of Eurasia, is a key which helps us to understand the secret logic of Soviet history from Khrushchev to Perestroika.

Translator’s note: The following text is an alternative ending to the section found in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka – In fact, this history, as all world history, is the both open and obscured fight of two secret orders, the “Minstrels of Morgvana” and the “Minstrels of Mursia,” devotees of the Egyptian Seth and the Red Ass, and devotees of the northern, polar Apollo, the slayer of the Snake-Python.

Nikita Khrushchev – an agent of Atlanticism

Khrushchev was the first protege of the Atlanticist lobby to become the individual leader of the USSR. Despite his disputes with Beria, Khrushchev leaned on the KGB and at a definite time made the final, opposite choice to that of Lenin and Stalin. Khrushchev’s activity was directed towards destroying the internal structures of the Eurasianists in the USSR and undermining the global continental project of a super-state planetary bloc.

The ascent of Khrushchev represented the ascent to power of the KGB.

Once he had consolidated his position, Khrushchev began to inflict blow after blow upon all the levels of the continental-patriotic blobby. All of his attention was henceforth centered on the Anglo-Saxon countries, especially on the US. Khrushchev’s slogan “catch up with and surpass the West” meant alignment with the Atlanticist powers and the acknowledgement of their social and economic superiority. The thesis concerning “the rapid approach of communism” [14] was aimed at once again riding the “left-messianic” and “Bolshevik-internationalist” tendencies which had been almost forgotten during the long years of Eurasian, imperial geopolitical Stalinism.

Khrushchev aimed to strike a blow at all of the “soil-based” traditional structures which been saved due to the secret protection of the Eurasian Order even during the most terrible periods of the Red Terror. Khrushchev even wanted to definitively get rid of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Khrushchev was “Americanist” and “Atlanticist” in everything he did ranging from the famous overseas “corn” to his destruction of the Eurasian cult of personality (a typical, Tsarist-Papist, Byzantine feature traditional for the Russian mentality).

[Translator’s note: In the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka, there is no mention of the Eurasian cult of personality. Instead, the following alternative text is presented – [Khrushchev was “Americanist” and “Atlanticist” in everything he did ranging from the famous overseas “corn” to his] military concepts based exclusively on deploying intercontinental missiles to the detriment of all other types of weapons. Khrushchev did not care for the Eurasian continent at all. He was concerned with Latin America, Cuba, etc.]

Between the Atlanticists of Khrushchev’s war cabinet (whose leader was Marshall S.S. Biryuzov) and the Eurasianists of Shtemenko’s group, there was almost an open conflict.

[Translator’s note: In the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka, the following text appears here – Khrushchev insisted on the concept of “nuclear intercontinental blitzkrieg” which, from the continental point of view, is nothing but strategic sabotage which weakened the real military power of continental forces, shattered the economy, and created a planetary, apocalyptic threat.]

After Khrushchev dismissal, “Red Star” quite fairly wrote: “That strategy, which we eventually refused, could only have been born in an ill brain.”

[Translator’s note: In the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka, the following text appears here – Even earlier in the same “Red Star,” Shtemenko warned: “In no way is it possible to base the safety of the USSR only on ballistic intercontinental missiles.” Starting with Khrushchev, there was a final separation of intra-state functions: the “pure party men” and representatives of the Lubyanka joined in solidarity with Khrushchev’s strategy of “nuclear blitzkrieg” (the Soviet Army itself became the first hostage of the “nuclear terrorists” from the CPSS or, more precisely, the Atlanticists wing of the CPSS), while the Eurasianists and GRU lobbyists insisted on the development of conventional arms and attempted to take revenge through military studies of the cosmos.]

In 1958, Khrushchev removed the powerful and extremely popular Eurasianist, Marshall Zhukov, from power. In 1959, he made another offensive move by placing one of the most odious figures of Soviet history, the bloody executioner known under the nickname “the corrupter,” the Chekist Ivan Serov, at the head of the GRU.

This bloody personage, an ideal type for the characteristics of the Order of the Red Donkey as a whole, was hated by the General Staff and, naturally, by the employees of the GRU themselves and the patriots of Eurasia first and foremost. The second “Atlanticist,” General Mironov, became the responsible curator for so-called “administrative organs,” which meant overseeing the army and intelligence units.

Khrushchev’s offensive maneuvers, nonetheless, were met with well-organized occult resistance by the Eurasianists. Konev, Sokolovsky, Timoshenko, and Grechko attempted to throw out Khrushchev at any cost.

Let us note that with each and every passing day with this “Atlanticist” in power, irreparable ideological, strategic, and political damage was done to the USSR, and the interests of continental powers in general.

Let us also note a curious detail: precisely in the period of Khrushchev the predominance of the “totalitarian-Hegelian” line in Soviet “ritually” Marxist philosophy (which assumes the primacy of supra-individual and “objective” factors over the individual and subjective) was replaced by the domination of the “subjective-Kantian” [15] line (which assumes the primacy of the individualistic and “subjective” over the “objective”).

From this time on began the rapid degradation of civic education and the rise of a new constellation of “Khrushchevite” academicians and scientists who represented a mob of unskilled and arrogant laymen. (Let us recall, for example, the typical “Khruschevite” A.N. Yakovlev, who admitted that he criticized Marcuse without bothering to read him, whereas the Stalinist scientists continued, albeit in their own way, pre-revolutionary academic traditions and, as a rule, were distinguished by their knowledge of the authors which they sincerely or not-so sincerely criticized).

Starting with Khrushchev, an ”Atlanicist” oriented, groundless and cosmopolitan intelligentsia began to spread across society which the KGB “failed” to see even in its most radical and dissident varieties. Themes from the West and the US began to spread through the USSR as “forbidden” yet “alluring” ideals from the beginning of the ’60’s.

The long path to 1977

The removal of Khrushchev was undoubtedly the work of the hands of the Order of Eurasia.

It is telling that eight days after his departure from the post of General Secretary, the plane which had on board two key agents of the “Atlanticist” lobby, Marshall Biryuzov and General Mironov, crashed.

After Khrushchev’s knockout, the Eurasianists gradually began to recover their positions. Leonid Brezhnev was a figure supported by the Eurasianists.

It is indicative that the writer Smirnov wrote in 1965 that “On May 9, 1965, columns of veterans in the victory parade in Moscow were passed by Marshall Zhukov himself, decorated with military awards.”

After seven years of Khrushchevite disfavor, Zhukov was once again rehabilitated. This was a real victory for the GRU.

But the triumph of the Order of Eurasia under Brezhnev was far from complete. The “Atlanticists” from the KGB were not going to surrender. Continental projects were constantly stopped. In the mid ’60’s, there even appeared a paradoxical situation in which the prospects of a continental bloc were discussed without the USSR.

In regards to this, it would be of interest to provide some data about the negotiations between Arthur Axmann, the former head of the “Hitler youth” organization and a member of the Eurasianist lobby within the SS, and Zhou Enlai concerning the establishment of a united continental bloc of Beijing-Berlin-Paris which would bypass the USSR.

General De Gaulle himself wholeheartedly welcomed such a project. Even Bucharest was to join it in the future.

Arthur Axmann told Jean Parvulesco in Madrid about a subsequent episode during his flight to Beijing. On that very plane sat a group of Soviet military men who tried to convince Axmann of the necessity of including the USSR in this Eurasianist project which had long been the dream of Axmann, an opponent of the anti-Slavic racism of Hitler since his time of involvement in the Eurasianist lobby inside the SS (the SS cricle of Gauptman, Alexander Dolezalek, Richard Hilderbrandt, Gunther Kaufmann and others who, of course it shouldn’t be forgotten, were associated with Walter Nicolai and Martin Bormann).

The officers of the GRU also reported to Axmann on the intrigues of the Atlanticist lobby in the USSR which had put insurmountable obstacles before the geopolitical projects designed for the benefit of the continent, and hence all the continental powers, the largest of which was USSR. Using traditional tactics, the Atlanticists from the KGB had forced the army to come to terms with Ivashutin (an old Chekist and highly unpopular figure) as the head of the GRU for 23 years.

But, nevertheless, since 1973 Bezhnev began to promote military men closer and closer to the leadership of the country. In 1973 Marshall Grechkov became a member of the Politburo. His successor Ustinov also joined this body, although it is worth noting that the leaders of the KGB, Andropov and his later successor Chebrikov,  had been members of the Politburo since 1967.

But the peak of triumph for the Army and the GRU was in 1977 when the new Brezhnev Constitution established the “Security Council” which became a separate and formally independent legal and political force. This was a victory for the army over the KGB. This was a victory for Eurasia.

It is worth noting that Brezhnev cautiously and deliberately fulfilled his promises to the Eurasianist lobby in changing the Soviet power structure behind the scenes. The army now had full representation at the very top.

Brezhnev’s strategy was overall continentally oriented, although the main sphere of strategic interests was the cosmos and space weapons. In simultaneously developing space war projects, the geopolitics of Brezhnev’s era developed both ideological and political models which took into account the new strategic and military terminology, as well as typology, of the space age.

In this context it is important to recall the ideas of the writer and ideologist of the patriotic movement, A. Prokhanov, who was tightly linked with specific geopolitical groups in the General Staff since the time of Marshall Ogarkov.

Prokhanov ensured that the Soviet-Eurasian military strategists of the late ’70’s and the first half of the ’80’s developed serious projects for a new continental-space civilization founded on a combination of spiritual, soil, and metaphysical traditions of Eurasia with ultra-modern technology, space stylistics, and the global “new communications” system. In Prokhanov’s opinion, this should have been the Eurasianist response to the American model of “star wars,” which presented the future space age as a triumph of Anglo-Saxon ideas not only on Earth but throughout the whole universe.

The ideologues of the General Staff prepared to oppose the American Universe and American Cosmos with the Russian Universe, Eurasian Universe, the image of Great Eurasia projected on boundless regions of stars and planets.

The Lubyanka “neighbors” chose a cosmos in the image of the “island” commercial-colonial civilizations of the extreme West. The American model quite satisfied them.

Thus, in the latest technological guises, we once again encounter the most ancient themes, the voice of many millennia of history, the call of our distant ancestors, which always put forth essentially one problem: “Is it necessary to destroy Carthage?” No matter what the guise, this problem always presents itself.

The geopolitics of Marshall Ogarkov

One of the most direct heirs to the geopolitical mission of Shtemenko was Marshall N.V. Ogarkov, an eminent geopolitician, strategist, and Eurasianist. We should note that he continued the work of the “Polar Order” in the army into the mid ’80’s. Of the three Brezhnev General Staff chiefs, Zakharov, Kulikov, and Ogarkov (all three were staunch Eurasianists), the most striking was Ogarkov, a brilliant master of disguise who many times outplayed external as well as internal Atlanticists. It was Ogarkov who was the organizer of the Prague operation which went so smoothly only because he managed to totally confuse NATO intelligence services and brilliantly, convincingly serve them misinformation.

It is also of interest to note that the “Prague Spring” events ended with a “sad autumn” for the democratic putschists, and these events were in some sense a strategic duel between two personages privy to the deepest secrets of planetary conflict. Today it is well known that the occult author and director of the “Prague Spring” was David Goldstucker. It was Goldstucker who opposed the operation of Ogarkov, and it should be noted that Ogarkov’s victory was not simply a victory by the brute force of Soviet tanks, but a victory of thought, cunning, and the splendid mastering of the art of misinformation, “camouflage,” with the aid of which the NATO leadership was submersed in utter confusion and did not manage to react in time as, of course, Dr. Goldstucker and his proteges (Dubcek, Havel, etc.) generally expected.

Ogarkov was the initiator of the creation of the “Spetsnaz,” which were intended to carry out  local and lighting-fast operations in the enemy’s rear which were absolutely essential for the success of purely continental, local military operations. Geopolitically, Marshall Ogarkov always openly (unlike the stealthy and cautious Eurasianist Grechko) defended the “Eurasianist project” and strove to transform the armed forces of the USSR so that they could operate best in a protracted, local war with a predominance of conventional weapons. After Khrushchev, the issue of “nuclear and intercontinental” weapons acquired a symbolic meaning depending on whether the accent of military doctrine was placed on a “global” war or a “local” war. The distinction appeared in army circles between “ours” and “others’”, that is between representatives of the Eurasianist and Atlanticist lobbies, with “local war” (meaning the use of conventional weapons without the use of nuclear weapons) being the slogan of the Eurasianists, and “total nuclear war” being the slogan of the Atlanticists, who never ceased to exercise ideological pressure on the army. Ogarkov’s circle grouped together the military elite of the Eurasianist orientation. First and foremost, his associates were marshals Akhromeev and Yazov. Both of them, especially Akhromeev, were initiated into the secret “Polar Order” founded in the Soviet Army by Mikhail Tukhachevsky in parallel to the similar organization of Aralov which was created immediately after the appearance of the GRU.

The Afghan catastrophe

Translator’s note: This section does not appear in the 2005 Russian edition or at Arctogaia, but appears in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka.

The concentration of huge authority in the hands of Eurasianist military men after 1977 posed a threat to the Atlanticist clan. For the KGB and other servants of the “Dancing Death” within the Soviet leadership, some kind of urgent response became extremely important. It is appropriate to note that some data suggest that the Afghan war was instigated by the KGB in order to discredit the army over the course of a protracted and pointless conflict, and provoke the Atlanticist interference by the United States in the internal political situation [of Afghanistan]. Specialists in occult Sovietology such as Pierre de Villemarest and Jean Parvulesco consider the Afghan conflict to be a provocation against the Soviet army and, more broadly, against the entire Eurasianist lobby. Conscious of the geopolitical projects of General Shtemenko and in particular the geopolitical value of Afghanistan, the people from the Lubyanka decided to provoke an armed and violent intervention in Afghanistan’s internal political situation. (It should be noted that Shtemenko himself ruled out such an intervention and insisted on peaceful integration and  the gradual economic penetration of Afghanistan in accordance with the normal logic of any organic and natural economic and cultural expansion along the North-South axis). Not only the very beginning of this senseless war, but also its indecisive, uncertain, and dismal conduct were the results of the KGB’s intervention in the affairs of the army. The Atlanticists needed the USSR to lose a war which would lead to the final destruction of the Eurasianist bloc. Therefore, special divisions of the KGB staged terrorist acts against the peaceful Afghan population, something which would have been a complete absurdity iced Soviet troops genuinely wanted to integrate Afghanistan and turn it into a geopolitical vassal. From the top through the party and the Atlanticist politburo, they strove to restrain the most reasonable military operations, sometimes interrupting them when they started to succeed. Pierre de Villemarest claims that this war was lost only because the highest Soviet leadership wanted it to be lost. Be that as it may, this war was fatal for the army, the GRU, and the Eurasianist Order.

The “Right” in the KGB and the Andropov paradox

Translator’s note: This section does not appear in the 2005 Russian edition or at Arctogaia, but appears in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka.

One very important point emerged during the post-Brezhnev era which is characteristic of the entire history of the invisible struggle of the two Orders. Its meaning lies in the fact that, as we stress before, the Altanticist lobby in Eurasia was based not only among the “left” (although, of course this was given preference due to the typological proximity of their conceptions to Atlanticist ranks), but also among the “right.” For precisely this reason, the post-war NKVD and KGB, remaining essentially Atlanticist, adopted certain ideological traits of a military, conservative, “right” orientation. Although dating back to the ranks of the anti-soil, anti-Russia and anti-statist red punitive bands of the ’20’s, the KGB was all the while subject to the significant influence of the “right” Eurasianists of the GRU and the General Staff during the time of the domination of Stalinist imperialism. Precisely such an ambiguity in the KGB logically led to a certain compromise in the structure of the KGB, and this explains all the political and conspirological “oddities” associated with this organization. Even if the essence and main center of the KGB remained purely Atlanticist and integrated into a single network of planetary Atlanticist intelligence, there was an overall “nationalist” atmosphere which developed on the periphery among its employees and even among its officers. The “nationalism of the Lubyanka” (sometimes coupled with a fairly strong Judeophobia) always accorded with the principal of “blood over soil,” that is, it never possessed a properly continental, imperial,  or Eurasian dimension. Such a state of affairs quite suited the figures of the Atlanticist Order insofar that the “naive nationalism” of its employees served as an excellent disguise for the network of anti-soil, “Messianic,” and Mondialist agents. Overall, the post-war KGB was typologically similar to the Pan-Slavic groups in the Tsarist government on the eve of the First World War and the racist, xenophobic organizations of the Reich which served as a cover for Atlanticist “residents”. It is from this perspective that we should consider the ascent to power of Yurii Andropov, the former chief of the KGB, after the death of Brezhnev. The above-mentioned considerations regarding the ambiguity of the KGB help us to understand the duality of Andropov’s role, who was simultaneously believed to be the father of Perestroika and democratization, the “maker” of Gorbachev, as well as an extreme conservative who attempted to restore the totalitarian epoch of Lavrenty Beria. Interestingly enough, two directly opposing assessments of Andropov coexist in the views of ordinary Russian people. One is that “Andropov was a Jew and a Zionist” and the other is that “Andropov was a patriot and an anti-Semite.” (Naturally, both of these definitions should be understood metaphorically). In fact, the mystery of Andropov is simple: he was a typical representative of the KGB, that is, a complete and staunch Atlanticist loyal to his Order of “Dancing Death.” It is worth noting that he might have been a “Jew-Zionist” and a “Patriot-anti-Semite insofar as this pair of opposites is fit into an extremely simplified conspirological model, whereas, in reality, the picture is more complex and its decisive factors were neither national nor political criteria, but only fundamental and often carefully hidden geopolitical orientations. The ascent of Andropov was the second terrible blow against the army after the beginning of the Afghan war. We should note that at the head of the state was now a representative of the organization which for all of its existence strove towards only one goal: the destruction of the Order of Eurasia within the USSR, the destruction of the secret structures created by Aralov, Tukhachevsky, Shtemenko, Ogarkov, Axromeev, and other Eurasianists, the detonation of Eurasia from within, and the final rendering of a continental bloc an unrealizable utopia, a fiction, and seeking final victory for “New Carthage”, the US, and the establishment of a New World Order on the planet, a New Commercial System. The ascent of Andropov, the ascent of the “right wing of the KGB,” meant no more nor less than the beginning of Perestroika.

The double agent Mikhail Gorbachev

The preliminary phase of Perestroika, the preparation of new cadre, the assignment of roles and bringing needed people into the leadership, and the general train of events were all realized by Yurii Andropov along with other analysts from the Atlanticist special services and experts from the Order of “Dancing Death.” But Andropov perfectly understood that the Eurasianists could attempt to take revenge, kick out the Altanticists of the KGB, and that the Politburo’s secret Polar Order could direct the country onto a Eurasianist course at any stage of Perestroika. Therefore, the selection for a main figure for the new policies fell to the most evasive and uncertain of the leaders, who was so cautious, flexible, and “streamlined” that none of the factions knew which Order he was actually working for. On the other hand, due to the ancient tradition of the Atlanticist Order to which Andropov belonged, it was customary to pay special attention to people whose exterior has some sort of expressive defect. Precisely according to this principle the high priests of the cult of the Egyptian god Seth were selected. Gorbachev, with his mark (which one Muslim Traditionalist read as the Arabic inscription of three letters, kaf, fa, and ra, which gives kafir, meaning “godless”) was the most appropriate figure. Zooming in on Gorbachev, Andropov hoped that his candidature would satisfy both geopolitical groupings, as the resolution of internal tensions in the USSR was already long overdue and policy changes should have been logically supported by both the Atlanticists and Eurasianists. As regards the Atlanticists, interest in changes was obvious, and after the beginning of the Afghan War and the ascent of Andropov to power, the Eurasianists were just as uninterested in maintaining the status-quo than the Atlanticists. Thus, transformation would go smoothly. Gorbachev was convenient and beneficial for everyone. Guardians from both conflicting Orders, A.I. Lukyanov and A.N. Yakovlev, were put alongside Gorbachev. Both of these personalities were direct participants in the divided continental conspiracy and represented the two warring sides.

The true face of Anatoly Lukyanov

Since 1987, Anatoly Ivanovich Lukyanov had been the head of the so-called “administrative organs.” From then on, the fate of any appointment or promotion among high-ranking military officials depended on him. While showing loyalty to Gorbachev, Lukyanov nevertheless constantly tried to interpret the ambiguous and vague hints of the new Kremlin leader in a Eurasianist way. Gorbachev’s desire to end the Afghan conflict was the work of the army, and there is reason to believe that Lukyanov was involved in this geopolitical action. Although he was just as flexible and cautious as Gorbachev, Lukyanov differed in that he had a strict and clear geopolitical orientation. His goal, as was the goal of the Polar Order, was a Great Eurasia from Mongolia to the Mediterranean, a Pax Euroasiatica, a great continental union. As a resolute of his post, Lukyanov was obliged to control the GRU and supervise the General Staff. But in reality, this neat and quiet person was not a “supervisor from the Messianic Bolsheviks” over the Eurasianist state within a state, but a messenger of the GRU who kept watch over the Bolshevik-Atlanticists for the army. Under the guise of supposedly standing “left of the center,” Lukyanov realized a special mission in the Supreme Soviet, the meaning of which consisted in forming a parliamentary bloc oriented in favor of the secret Eurasianist mission.

Mr. Perestroika

Already since the beginning of the ’70’s, Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev had been one of the main ideologists of open Atlanticism in the USSR. To give credit where it is due, it was him who began to launch more open attacks on the Eurasianist patriots in 1974 when the positions of the GRU were very strong and Grechko had already become a member of the Polar Order in the Politburo. Openly calling for an ideological pogrom against “National Bolshevik” literature, which in those years served as a tribune or exchange of encrypted information, ideas, concepts, and projects of the entire patriotic Eurasianist lobby, Yakovlev put himself at risk. Despite the fact that he had the patronage of Andropov and higher circles of the KGB after the publication of his article “Against Anti-Historicism,” which was a manifesto of Russophobia and anti-patriotic Atlanticism, he still had to be sent outside of Russia. The KGB decided to turn “poison into medicine” and utilize the sending of Yakovlev to Canada in order to activate the Atlanticist spy network. According to information provided by Jean Parvulesco in his report “The Galaxy of the GRU,” in Ottawa, where Yakovlev was send as an ambassador, he came into contact with David Goldstucker who at the time represented the foreign interests of Israel in the US and participated in confidential talks with a Chicago firm associated with nuclear energy. Doctor David Goldstucker who, as is known, was an important personage not only among Israeli special services, but also in the intelligence services of the Anglo-Saxon countries (which in general resembles the typical situation for the Soviet KGB), developed an Atlanticist strategy for future Perestroika together with A. Yakovlev. This fact is so well known in the West that Yakovlev is known as “Mr. Perestroika.” Thus, for the second time in history, the same characters prepared for a desperate, complex, dangerous, and exhilarating geopolitical duel.  It is important to note that Goldstucker, an agent of “Dancing Death,” suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the GRU in the Prague Spring on account of the organized, clever, lighting-fast, and courageous servants of the Order of Eurasia, General Shtemenko and Marshal Ogarkov. This same Goldstucker prepared revenge a decade later. This time, however, the GRU and Soviet General Staff were to be attacked on their own territory, and not in “neutral” Czechoslovakia. And this time, Goldstucker did not place his hope on heavy-footed NATO with its huge, terrifying, but useless (in some situations) nuclear arsenal. Now, the main destructive weapon of Goldstucker, this representative of planetary Atlanticism, was the tactical supernova weapon of the Order of the Red Donkey. The hope of Atlanticist battle groups was laid in the captain of the Anglo-Saxon occult “special forces” who left Ottawa to return to the rear of the Eurasianist enemy: puffy “Mr. Perestroika.”

Between false alternatives

The true logic of Perestroika, that is, the logic of Gorbachev’s uncertain, cyclical maneuvering between two poles, which vividly reminds one of what happens with patients with manic-depressive psychosis, actually remained entirely incomprehensible until the August putsch for the same reason that very few actually guessed the true role of Anatoly Lukyanov. Such secrecy eventually resulted in catastrophe for the Eurasian lobby. In this case, the Atlanticist authors of the anti-imperial project of Perestroika resorted to the traditional method of creating a pseudo-opposition, that is, a false substitute for the genuinely “conservative” pole. Since the true enemies of the Atlanticists were not merely nationalists, but “nationalists of an imperial, continental type,” or “continentalists,” it was only natural that the pseudo-opposition to the outright Atlanticism of “Mr. Perestroika” would be anything but genuinely Eurasianist. According to this logic, the people of the Atlanticist Order, with the active participation of the KGB, created  parallel and consistently false poles. These poles were: (1) the “conservative communists.” Their symbolic figures were Yegor Ligachev and then Ivan Polozkov (both disappeared like smoke at a certain moment, and it is not surprising that their opposition was not based on any principles besides the fact that it was an original and deliberate hoax); (2) the “patriots and nationalists,” whose movement was created with the active participation of the KGB which projected its chauvinistic Judeophobic positions on marginal groupings of sincere but narrow-minded patriots, and in doing so set a special algorithm for a “patriotic movement” which was insufficiently strong to cause any serious harm to the increasingly “legalized” Atlanticist lobby; and (3) the “National Bolsheviks.” This current was more interesting and stood closest of call to the ideas of the Eurasianist lobby but, thanks to the efforts of the KGB, the movement’s awareness of its limits acquired a repelling, grotesque, and extremist character both in terms of an excessive accent on “Leninism” and an excessive Judeophobia. Finally, there was (4) the supreme cunning of the Atlanticist KGB, as the KGB pretended to represent an opposition of “democrats.” This project served even the honest employees of the Lubyanka, the “patriots” who were treated with a certain degree of confidence and hope.

But, at the same time, KGB detachments arranged Atlanticist revolutions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, staged repression spectacles in Romania, brought down the Berlin wall, kicked out Zhivkov, and aided separatists in the Baltic states and the Caucasus. Furthermore, as a culmination of their Atlanticist triumph, they prepared the theatrical putsch in August, 1991! The “most streamlined man,” the one with a characteristic mark on his forehead, cruised between “Mr. Perestroika” and Anatoly Lukyanov while it outwardly appeared that his second pole was not Lukyanov, but some kind of other, more odious, more infamous, more catchy, but in fact completely insignificant figureheads. With expectation and anticipation, the GRU and the army looked to Anatoly Lukyanov. Sure, there had been some changes. These included the end to the senseless war in Afghanistan, the reduction of intercontinental weapons, and steps taken towards Germany, Japan, and China in foreign policy. The Eurasianists could not but welcome these. Even the theme of a “common European home” dedicated to the Polar Order could easily have been interpreted in their favor. After all, this doctrine was derived from the geopolitical arsenal of the Eurasianist opposition in the SS (typologically related to the Order of Eurasia in the GRU) to which Axmann, Hilderbrandt, Dolezalek, Kaufmann, etc. belonged. But the collapse of the Union, the attacks against the army, the desire to involve the army in nationalistic and minor-territorial conflicts, self-destructive policies in the Blatic states, the destruction of the last remnants of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact once valuable to the Eurasinaists, and the nomination of uncontrolled mobsters and outright crooks for the political arena left the GRU at a dead end. Anatoly Lukyanov remained in the shadows.

Lukyanov cautiously, consistently, and gradually prepared a responsive, decisive, and final strike. Until the last moment, it seemed to him that all could be saved in a minute, and that the Eurasianist lobby could take advantage of all of the positive geopolitical sides of Perestroika, and kill “Mr. Perestroika” and his accomplices who had had all “stood up” at that time. He expected that a new, great era would begin, an era free of communists, Atlanticists and the servants of “Dancing Death” – an era of Eurasia, Cosmic Eurasia, and an era of the Sacred Sun Continent. But then August of 1991 burst onto the scene.

The Putsch and the culmination of the occult war

Deputy Obolensky, a member of the commission on investigation of the State Committee on the State of Emergency, gave a single, strange statement to the media some time after the putsch: “The truth concerning the events of August, 1991 might only be discovered by our descendants a hundred years from now.” What terrible secret did Obolensky encounter when investigating the history of the putsch? From the point of view of geopolitical conspirology, there can be only one explanation: he encountered some materials related to the occult war of the two Orders behind the scenes of power, the mysterious confrontation between the Order of Eurasia and the Order of Atlantis. Only in this sense does the statement of deputy Obolensky make sense and his confidence in the safety of the secret become clear. The August putsch was (or was meant to be in the minds of its authors) the culmination of geopolitical confrontation, a crucial moment in the invisible war. The Order of Atlantis could not have been unaware that the Eurasianists had prepared a certain operation for the winter of 1991-1992 that was to result in the imposition of military rule over the territory of the USSR under the pretext of stabilizing the socio-political and economic situation. It is worth noting that they also knew perfectly well that the Eurasiainst-oriented military board was ideologically non-communist and patriotically oriented, but without the “anti-Semitism,” xenophobia, and “Pan-Slavism” that was traditional for the KGB. In other words, the military board promised to be stable, liberal in the sphere of economics, geopolitically correct, and devoid of the terrorist excesses inherent to Bolshevik forms of dictatorship. In addition, the Eurasianist Military System, the Roman Imperial System, undoubtedly had all chances to be popular to the greatest extent as it would reject “Communist dogmatism” and “Marxist utopianism” on the one hand and, on the other hand, its natural hierarchy, discipline, centralization, communitarianism, communality, and “integrity’ (in Khomyakov’s conception) would be attractive to all truly Eurasian ethni. The patriotism of the Military System had to be imperial, and not “Russian” and “nationalist” in the narrow sense. All of this rendered this prospect not only unacceptable but fatal for the Atlanticist lobby inside the USSR, as well as for all Atlanticist Mondialism on the planet. Despite the huge destruction done to the country by the agent of the Order of “Dancing Death, “Mr. Perestroika,” along with his associate from the KGB, Shevarnadze (who is in fact the “cursed one” to his own, Georgian people) the Order of Eurasianists knew how to use this negative situation for the benefit of its own position. After all, worthy successors of the great Russian strategists Shtemenko and Ogarkov worked in the secret departments of the GRU. The geopolitical duel with Goldstucker could once again end in defeat for this experienced and astute representative of the Order of Atlantis. The main task of the Atlanticists was preventing the imposition of martial law in the USSR which the very logic  of events appeared to be leading to. To this end, the August putsch was organized.

Marshal Yazov’s calculation

The major mistake of the Eurasianists in August, 1991, and especially the personal mistake of Marshal Yazov, was trusting the head of the KGB, Kryuchko. This was a strategic trap. The KGB had already been trying for many years to create agents for itself under the guise of “patriot-nationalists” and using the peripheral mass of “uninitiated” employees who genuinely believed in the “Judeo-Masonic” conspiracy and considered themselves to be “nationalists” or “National-Bolsheviks.” On the other hand, fraudulent maneuvers were made at the very top of the government: both Chebrikov and Kryuchkov strove for solidarity with the military Eurasianists against the “cosmopolitan democrats.” (In fact, the democratic movement was organized by the KGB and was even more artificial and “assembled” than the patriotic movement, since Russians and other true Eurasianist ethni more naturally supported the “right” as opposed to the “left” – this is a historical constant). In order to hide the double play of the Atlanticists from the KGB, they created myths of a “Judeo-Masonic wing of the KGB” (In particular, the Moscow branch was accused of this as a counterweight to the Union-wide and later RSFSR-wide KGB of Yeltsin, etc). In fact, the KGB engaged in anti-Eurasianist activities, destroying the structures of the Eurasianist network in Eastern European countries and overthrowing “soil” and anti-Atlanticist regimes (such as Ceausescu’s regime which, by the way, always focused on a Eurasian continental bloc and hated the Atlanticist “servitude” of the USSR leadership). Be that as it may, the case of the State Committee on the State of Emergency clearly shows that Kryuchkov, in some not so comprehensible ways, managed to convince a few Eurasianists – Marshal Yazov and Oleg Balkanov – to rush the introduction of martial law and accept help from the KGB which, allegedly, had rejected its Atlanticism and come to stand on the side of the army in deciding to act against the “democrats.” It is possible that Kryuchkov stipulated some conditions for this organization, as in the case of instituting a fully military, Eurasianist board structure of the KGB, which would have, of course, destroyed the KGB at least in its old, party-terrorist, mondialist and Atlanticist form. We do not know which arguments the agents of the Order of Eurasia presented to Marshal Yazov. It is obvious that the signing of the Novo-Ogarevo Agreement had nothing to do with this. Everything could have changed, invalidating any “papers” by the pen of those random people in the leadership alongside streamlined “Gorby” who did not understand the geopolitical situation clearly at all and who were put in such positions not for making decisions, but for “masking” and for the sake of being people “chosen” by the mark of the occult. What should Kryuchkov have said to Marshal Yazov? This could have been the last move dedicated to the essence of the Eurasian Order’s strategy which had been struck by the thousand-year old occult confrontation, the destiny of the continent, the destiny of the Eurasian Cosmos, the destiny of the imminent and, as it seemed, close victory. Why did Yazov believe the leader of the anti-Eurasian organ? All that remains is speculating on this. It is obvious that the mistake of Marshal Yazov had some kind of terrible secret behind it, perhaps even the participation of paranormal, “magical”, or psychic effects, or the effects of psychedelic drugs. This is likely if one recalls the testimony of some of the members of the State Committee on the State of Emergency that they were completely unconscious for three fatal days. Only idiots can believe that the people who reached the highest level of a political, military, intelligence, and “conspirological” career could have behaved like irresponsible alcoholics in such a decisive situation, being drunk and hungover in a city full of tanks and “democratic” agitators. The version of Kryuchkov’s poisoning of the other eight members seems to be unlikely since the GRU guarded their leaders more vigilantly than Gorbachev himself. The case of the “mistake of Marhsal Yazov” was apparently a combination of multiple occult-ideological and para-psychological factors which were synchronously triggered. But what kind of “weapon” did the Order of Atlantis use at this point? It is still too early to speak about this.

Mr. Perestroika goes on the attack

Immediately after the members of the State Committee on the State of Emergency were arrested, certain aspects of the conspiracy which usually remained in the shadows, were revealed, as it what happens at any moment of supreme conspirological and ideological tensions. The most candid moment was Mr. Perestroika’s “coming out” in the Russian parliament. Of course, his mission was not warning “naive” deputies of “punks which could once again surround Gorbachev.” This silly speech was uttered by “Mr. Perestroika” to the blind. Yakovlev arrived in the Russian parliament and demanded the arrest of Lukyanov. The Russian parliament, composed of incompetent and random people with no clear geopolitical orientation and who based decisions on random, chaotic, and anarchistic emotions, could have spoiled the entire affair out of cowardly agitation following the shock of the incident in Moscow. Yeltsin, either not receiving all the information on time or having simply forgotten about the most important thing (the mental condition of the Russian president also leaves us to believe that he was under a certain para-psychological influence that not only European conspirologists, but also Western journalists noted, and this explains the inadequacy of Yeltsin’s belonging to the “far right” and forces us to return to the occult war version of psychotropic effects), delivered his crushing polemic against the eight and forgot about the main objective.

Yakovlev arrived at the “white house” (recognized more as the “yellow house” at that time) to demand the arrest of Lukyanov. Yeltsin obediently repeated the famous phrase to “Mr. Perestroika”: “Lukyanov stood behind the conspiracy of the eight; he is the major ideologist of the conspiracy.”

Lukyanov and the ritual Sabbath at the tomb of Marshal Akromeev

In the person of Luykanov lies the secret explanation of the August putsch. Lukyanov was supposed to be ousted at any cost. The threat of Eurasian occult structures was concentrated precisely in his hands. Since 1987, Anatoly Lukyanov had been the protector of the Polar Order, the Eurasianist Order, and the hope of the Eternal Empire of Rome. The putsch was centered precisely around him. It was Lukyanov who was the only one of the Eurasianists, or the only one of those associated with the affairs of the State Committee on the State of Emergency who did not succumb to Kryuchkov’s provocation and remained legally innocent in relation to the coup. Dragging him down had failed more than once, and this was the unplanned and unfortunate miscalculation of the Atlanticists. Therefore Yakovlev, bypassing all legal norms, hurried “in a revolutionary way” to accuse Lukyanov through the tongue of Yeltsin of being the ideologist of the conspiracy. In fact, Lukyanov really was an ideologist, but the ideologist of the other conspiracy of the “Polar” conspiracy, of the saviors of the great Continental Power, the conspiracy of Eurasia against the Western Islands. But despite the end of Lukyanov, presenting him as the head of the conspiracy and destroying the entire network of Eurasian agents and the entire secret structure of the GRU on these grounds did not succeed. The victorious Atlanticists were able to remove only the upper echelon of “party” and military conservatives who did not pose any special danger. Besides the murder of Pugo, the most important blow to the Eurasian lobby was the mysterious death of Marshal Akhromeev and the subsequent events that took place at his grave. Here it is necessary to make a small digression into the history of the Order of Atlantis and especially into the history of the medieval “Order of the Minstrels of Morvan”, whose emblem was the “Dancing Death”, or Dance Macabre. According to Grasse d’Orsay who studied this Order, its adherents used the symbol of the “Risen Dead” or the “Deceased who left the grave” as their hieroglyphic password. In certain branches of the Order which were engaged more in “magic” and “necromancy” than occult politics and geopolitics, there existed the ritual of exhuming corpses with a symbolical and occult purpose. The entire story of the death and subsequence exhumation of Akhromeev’s corpse indicates the involvement of the Atlanticist Order in his death and, perhaps, its darkest, most magical ramifications. In any case, Western conspirologists have detailed the desecration of the marshal’s body and identified it with precisely the “ritual of exhumation” practices even to this day in the West by members of quite dark sects. It is possible that the agents of Atlantis hoped to find some kind of secret documents buried together with Akhromeev or special marks on his body. All of this becomes more than probable if one considers the important role of Akhromeev in the military-based Polar Order and his close ties to Ogaryov, one of the main personalities of the Eurasianist Order. Be that as it may, after the putsch the Atlanticists took some decisive steps in beheading the Eurasianists. Already a month later it became clear that their attack failed and that their hysterical attempts to urgently finish collapsing the state demonstrated their fear and panic. The Order of Eurasia was not completely destroyed, and its turn to strike back had come.

Translator’s note: The following text is an alternative ending to the section found in the 2008 Serbian edition and at Zachetka – It is worth noting that certain signs suggest that this strike was intended to be the last one.

Metaphysics of the Occult War

The confrontation between the Order of Atlantis and the Order of Eurasia, stretching across centuries and millennia, has been veiled in the most different forms and is in some sense the main conspirological content of history, the history of great planetary passions, the history of peoples and religions, races, and traditions, spirit and flesh, war and peace. The confrontation of the two Orders should not be simplified to the moralistic image of a struggle between Good and Evil, Truth and Lies, Angels and Demons, etc. In fact, this struggle between two opposing types of worldviews, two metaphysical pictures of Being, two paths through space, and two great Beginnings is not merely an opposition of one to the other. It is in fact a necessary confrontation between the two in so far as all the cosmogonic and cosmological process of the cyclical course of human history is based on this [dualism]. The Order of Eurasia, the Order of the Male Beginning, the Sun, Hierarchy – this is the projection of Horus, Apollo, Ormuzd, the Solar Christ-in-Glory, the Savior of the Almighty. Eurasia, as the Land of the East, is the Land of Light, the Land of Paradise, the Land of the Empire, the Land of Hope, and the Polar Land. The Order of Atlanticists is the Order of the Female Beginning, the Moon, Orgiastic Equality – this is the projection of the Egyptian Seth, the Python, Ahriman, Suffering Christ, Man immersed in metaphysical despair and the lonely Gethsemane prayer. The Atlantic, as Atlantis in the form of the Land of the West – this is the Land of Night, the Land of the “exiled to wells” (as the Islamic Sufis say), the Center of Planetary Skepticism, the Land of the Great Metaphysical Spleen. Both Orders have the deepest ontological and sacred roots. They have metaphysical reasons to be what they are. To consider one of the Orders to be an historical coincidence means denying the secret logic of human and cosmic cycles. The choice of geopolitical path demonstrates the choice of metaphysical path, esoteric path, the path of Spirit through the universe. Therefore, no guarantees exist. Therefore, strictly speaking, claiming that Eurasia is good and Atlantis is bad, or that Rome is good while Carthage is evil, and vice versa, is impossible. Everyone called by their Order must take a decisive step and serve precisely their Order. The laws of our world are not determined, but depend on the outcome of the Great Battle, the outcome of the drama of “Eurasia versus the Atlantic,” and depend on the totality of planetary solidarity on the part of all of those called to service, all of the soldiers of geopolitics, and all of the secret agents of Land and Sea. The outcome of this cosmological war of Apollo with the Python depends on each of us, whether we are aware of it or not.

The End Times

All traditional religious and metaphysical teachings describe the End Times, the end of the cycle, as the Last Battle, as the final struggle. Different traditions interpret this conflict in different ways and while one party might be presented in one tradition as the “party of Evil,” in other traditions it becomes the “party of Good” and vice versa. For example, for Orthodox Christians Judaism is considered to be the religion of the Antichrist in the End Times, while for Jews themselves the “gentile-Christians from the northern country of the King of Gog” act as the concentration of eschatological Evil. The Hindus believe that the Tenth Avatar, who is to come at the end of the cycle, will destroy the “Buddhists,” and the Buddhists themselves believe that the Buddha of Forthcoming Times, the Savior of Maitreya, will appear among the Buddhist community. And so on. None of this suggests the relativity of the distribution of roles in the Final Battle, nor the impossibility of earlier choosing self-evident Good and securing for oneself participation in the eschatological struggle for the “right” side. On the contrary, as concerns the Final Times, it is said that “even the chosen will be seduced.” The choice between one of the two eschatological “parties” cannot be anything formal. It is a choice of the Spirit. It is the Supreme Risk, the Great Metaphysical Drama. Precisely for this reason, nothing in the reality of the eschatological epoch, as many traditional and religious authorities assert that we are living in such an era, suggests that we can serve absolute negative or absolute positive. It is especially foolish to absolutize any political form and equate it to “Absolute Evil” or “Absolute Good.” Even the beginning of true choice is located far beyond the limits of foreign political ideologies, beyond the conventional division into democrats, fascists, and communists. The true choice begins at the level of geopolitics and ascends further by a “prophetic spiral” (as Jean Parvulesco explained) to the heights of Mysticism, Metaphysics, Gnosis, and the heights of the Incomprehensible Divine Mystery. The Orders of Eurasia and Atlantis form the final external mystery of human, common history. In fact, within these Orders there are many other mysterious and closed spheres associated with Pure Metaphysics. But be that as it may, the true, full, and conscious eschatological struggle begins precisely from the point of the collision between the Order of Eurasia or the Order of the Atlantic. Even if one does not go deep enough into the ultimate secrets, simply working for the Order is sufficient to be an active, called, and chosen participant in the Great Drama.

Endkampf

The German word Endkampf (“final battle,” “battle of the end”) wonderfully expresses the essence of the contemporary planetary situation. Eschatological motives, motives of the End Times, penetrate not only religious and mystical movements but also immediate politics, economics, and everyday life. Since 1962, devout Jews in Israel have lived in a special “End time,” in the “time of the Messiah.” The US is striving to establish a special New World Order on the Planet. The European Mondialist Jacques Attali preaches the coming of the final phase of the special Trade Order. The Islamic peoples (especially Shiites) expect the Madi, the hidden Imam, to arrive soon. The Hindus are sure that the Kali-Yuga, which we note as the Dark Age, is coming soon. The racist eschatologism of the world’s national socialist movement is experiencing a revival. In Christian communities, more and more prophecies are emerging about the Last Pope (Flos Florum) for the Catholics or the Last Patriarch for the Orthodox. Lamaists are sure that the modern Dalai Lama is the last one. China is frozen in mystical expectation. Soviet communism fell suddenly and unexpectedly. All of these signs tell us that the Endkampf is beginning, that the Final Battle is beginning. In an eschatological context, even the words of the Bolshevik song “This is the final and decisive battle” sound like a disturbing revelation, a hint towards the planetary Endkampf.

The Order and “ours”

We should note that the term “ours” in a global geopolitical context is not used often enough. The famous German geopolitician and jurist Carl Schmitt insisted on the need to introduce the concept of “ours” for clarifying geopolitical self-determination of a given nation, state, or ethnic bloc. The famous television reporter Alexander Nevzorov realized this in practice in a series of his reports. In today’s Russian Empire, “ours” has become a clearly Eurasian concept which includes not only Russians and Slavs but also Tatars, Turks, Finno-Ugrians, etc. which recognizes their genetic connection with the imperial space and the imperial idea. In practice, Nevzorov’s “ours” is the total definition of indigenous Eurasians, imperial natives, the owners, by right of culture and birth, of great lands. It is telling that Atlanticists in Russia do not use this word (this is logical since they are here among what is “not theirs”, what is foreign; for them, their “ours” lives beyond the continent, on the distant and ominous “Island”). For Jean Parvulesco, who already made such a term fundamental to geopolitical and conspirological concepts, the concept of “ours” is even more inclusive (although he himself belongs to Nevzorov’s “ours”). Jean Parvulesco identifies the notion of “ours” with the entire network of the Great Continental Bloc’s supported from Japan to Belgium, from China to France, from India to Spain, from Iran to Germany, and from Russia to Italy. “Ours,” for Parvulesco, is a synonym for the Eurasian Order itself with all of its offshoots and groupings which, consciously or not, openly or secretly, are in the zone of its geopolitical, mystical, and metaphysical influence. “Ours” is the united, invisible eschatological front of the Continent, the Front of Land, the Front of the Absolute East, the western province of which is Europe, “our” Europe, a Europe opposed to the “West,” the Europe of Tradition, Soil, and Spirit. “Ours” includes both Catholics and Orthodox, Muslims and Hindus, Taoists and Lamaists, Pagans, and Mystics…but only those of them who are committed to the Continent of the East and its secret and unknown fate. Parvulesco speaks of a “parallel France,” “parallel Romania,” “parallel Germany,” “parallel Russia,” “parallel China,” etc. as spiritual essences, as invisible spiritual dimensions of the real countries that are united in the secret jurisdiction of the united “parallel Eurasia,” “Eurasia of Pure Spirit.” “Ours” are the warriors of “parallel Eurasia,” the heroes of the Absolute East, insofar as they serve, according to occult logic, the “prophetical helix” of the Single Idea, the Single Goal, the Single Hidden Principle. It is important to note that more than once the German Conservative Revolutionary, nationalist, Russophile, and Eurasianist Arthur Muller van den Bruck said in paraphrasing Khomyakov “(the Church is One”): “There is only one Reich (one Kingdom), just as there is only one Church.” This is the Reich of “ours”, the Church of “ours.” This is “our” Kingdom and “our” Church.

The Hour of Eurasia

As long as we are in Eurasia, as long as we speak on its behalf, and as long as we remain linked with its mysterious, mystical flesh, Eurasia belongs to us,  to “ours.” Despite all the persecution by the Atlanticists, despite all the effectiveness of their disruptive strategy, despite the severe and deep “dream” of entire regions and entire peoples inhabiting it, and despite all the predominance of agents of the Atlanticist Order in continental politics, continental culture, and continental industry, the process of “decolonization” is inevitable. But we must not fall into archaism by protecting some obsolete cultural, social or political forms. We should not be conservatives by inertia. The Order of Eurasia is the complete Conservative Revolution, the Great Revival of geopolitical consciousness, the path of the Vertical, and not the path of slithering oscillations to the left or right or attempts to stagger backwards. The Order of Eurasia is the harsh and open duel with the strong and clever Opponent, the Order of Seth, the Red Donkey, the Order of “Dancing Death.” We must throw the servants of the Ocean into the ocean. We must send agents of the “Island” back to their “Island.” We should rip those who have betrayed “ours”, betrayed our ideals and our interests, out of the political, cultural, and national flesh of the Continent. Yes, our enemies have their own truth. Yes, we should respect their deep metaphysical choice and we should look closely into their Secret, the secret of the “Wells of the West.” But in doing so we should not lose our resoluteness, our rage, our cold and passionate Cruelty. We will be forgiving only when our Continent will be free, when the last Atlanticist will be thrown into the Salt Walter, into this symbolic element belonging to the Egyptian god with the face of the Crocodile. Judging by certain signs, “the Time is at hand.” The Endkampf, the Final Battle, should break out here and now. Are you ready, gentlemen of the “Polar Order”? Are you ready, soldiers of Eurasia? Are you ready, wise strategists of the GRU? Are you ready, great peoples, having made your bet by the very fact of your birth?

The decisive Hour of Eurasia is already near…

The final point of the GREAT WAR OF CONTINENTS is already nearing…

Footnotes:

[1] The third and most complete edition of my textbook “Osnovy geopolitiki” (Moscow, Arktogeya) was published in 1999, in which this discipline is illuminated in its historical and scholarly aspects with appendices featuring the main, classical texts of the founding fathers of geopolitics, such as H. Mackinder, K. Haushofer, P. Savitsk, C. Schmitt, etc.

[2] A monograph including the classics of Eurasianism was published in 1997-1998 with my comments and under my editorship by “Agraf” publishing house.

[3] I devoted an episode from the philosophical and historical radio program, Finis Mundi, to this topic – “Karl Haushofer: Kontinentalnyi blok,” released on CD in 2000.

[4] It should be noted that in Haushofer’s theory of “living space” or “Lebensraum,” there was no hint at anti-Slav expansionism which which this expression was associated for Hitler and other ideologists of the Reich. See Karl Haushofer’s “De la geopolitique” edited by Fayard (France, 1986).

[5] Lenin and some of his other concrete steps should be recognized as being Eurasianist. In particular: the Brest-Litovsk peace agreement, and especially the Rapallo agreements. For the young Soviet government, peace with Germany was the main prerequisite for later geopolitical revival and transformation into a socialist empire.

[6] The formula “Lenin=National Bolshevik” vs. “Trotsky= international Bolshevik” is, of course, somewhat somewhat of an oversimplification. At a certain stage (when he was the commander in chief of the Red Army) Trotsky was interested in the ideas of the Russian National-Bolshevik Nikolai Ustryalov. Trotsky’s position gradually evolved and at a later period he criticized Stalin precisely for “nationalism” and “statism.” The very idea of “World Revolution” is not as straightforward as it might seem at first glance. In a geopolitical context, it can be understood as a force pulling the Soviet, Land East towards the Atlanticist, Liberal West. This is how the geopolitical significance of Bolshevism was understood by the first German “Right” National Bolsheviks – Count von Reventlow and Walter Nicolai. The opposition of Lenin to Trotsky is often understood by geopolitical and political circles in precisely in this reduced form.

[7] On Jean Parvulesco, see A. Dugin’s “The Russian Thing” – “Star of the Invisible Empire”, the text “Geopolitics of the Third Millennium” by Jean Parvulesco in the third edition of “Foundations of Geopoltiics,” or listen to “Jean Parvulesco: From Simon Magus to Fantomas” (on CD), part of the FINIS MUNDI philosophical and historical radio series.

[8] Since “Great War of Continents” was written (and not without its influence), Russian researchers such as Oleg Shishkin and Alexander Kollakidi have greatly contributed to knowledge of such “esotericists of a continental orientation,” to which many well-known Russian and Soviet historical figures can be related.

[9] During the time of working on the text “Great War of Continents” (1991), the author adhered to the opinion that the anti-Eurasian nature of pure Orthodox Marxism partly transformed into National Bolshevism albeit under the influence of specifically Russian elements. Further research on this topic has led the author to the conclusion that socialist doctrine itself (and to a large extent, Marxism) already carries continental elements opposed to Liberal ideology. Consequently, the National-Bolshevik synthesis is a product of the combination of the implicit Eurasianism in Russian culture and the implicit Eurasianism in socialist teachings. This point was noted by George Sorel in his remarks on the 1919 edition of “Reflections on Violence.” This topic was similarly dealt with in A. Dugin’s article “Paradigm of the End” published in the journal “Elements” No. 9 (1998) and in the book “The Russian Thing.”

[10] The thesis on “red Atlanticists” from the Cheka now seems to the author to be quite inadequate, even more so because it is known that in the Cheka there existed an influential group of “esotericists of a continental orientation”, in particular Gleb Boky, Yakov Blyumkin, Barchenko, etc. But the geopolitical model of Jean Parvulesco, and to n even greater degree that of Pierre de Villemarest, operates with the simplified scheme of “GRU vs. KG.” The rejection of this model would deprive the further narration of any and all meaning. See footnote [9]

[11] This position now seems to be too rough of a simplification. The Eurasianist line was undoubtedly present in the KGB. If we accept the Eurasianist underpinnings of Marxism as a doctrine and the fact that the KGB was “the continuation of the Party,” then this can in no way be indicative of any “Atlanticism” of this structure, but rather the contrary. It would be more precise to speak of two types of Eurasianism: the inertial-strategic one (characteristic of the army and the GRU) and the dogmatic-ideological one (characteristic of the Cheka and KGB). Naturally, the dogmatic-ideological side was dynamic and mobile, and therefore a change in geopolitical orientations hear could come significantly easier. Strategic thinking is associated with the problems of defense and war, and is therefore much more stable. See also footnotes [9] and [10].

[12] Now the author would prefer to operate with a slightly different schema. Atlanticism (in New Age) in its ideological sense is identical to Liberalism and capitalism of the Anglo-Saxon type. In Liberalism, everything – both form and content – is “modern” (i.e., anti-traditional). The complete antithesis of liberalism (= “the spirit of the New Age”) is traditionalism or fundamental conservatism (“right Eurasianism”). Socialism (more widely understood as ranging from Marxism to anarchism, corporatism, or syndicalism) is modern in form, but traditional in content. It outwardly matches the “spirit of the New Age,” while internally it is opposed to this spirit.

Applying this model to analyzing the Soviet period in Russian history, we obtain the following picture: the national-statist, patriotic factor in the USSR was the expression of the substantial side of socialism, its undoubtable conservatism embodied in the purely Eurasianist vector. The bearers of this radically conservative Eurasianism were housed in the army and the GRU.

The Party and the Cheka (KGB) operated with the formal ideological side of socialism which possessed certain common features with liberalism (“spirit of the Enlightenment,” faith in “progress”, etc.) To a significant degree, this modern form served the anti-modern content in more effectively confronting liberalism, which is modern in form and content. The Party, in this role, was represented a veiled National Bolshevism and served Eurasia. But purely theoretically, at certain times and in certain sectors of the ideological structure (the form of socialism), a weakening of the formal structure could have happened with opened the opportunity for contacts, dialogue, and even convergence with the liberal camp. In such a case, the ideological weapon of the modern form of socialism drew not from within, against liberalism and against its modern content, but from without, against the anti-modern, traditional, and Eurasianist content of real socialism. Only in this special case does it make sense to speak of Atlanticist sides of communist ideology, the party apparatus, and its most effective weapon, the KGB.

This was most clearly and fatally revealed in the last stages of the Soviet regime, when the great Eurasian state was destroyed from above by renegades of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and by the efforts of some of the USSR’s KGB employees, who en masse defected to serve the geopolitical enemy.

[13] See footnote [12]

[14] This is connected with the separation of socialism’s form from its content, which is discussed in footnote [12]

[15] The Hegelian tradition in Marxism corresponds to the traditionalist content of communist ideology. The transition to Kantianism – revisionism in essence – is actually a retreat from the anti-bourgeois, anti-liberal, and anti-Atlanticist line.

 

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