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.

 

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

Carl Schmitt’s 5 Lessons for Russia

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

From The Conservative Revolution (Moscow, Arktogeya: 1994), The Russian Thing Vol. 1 (2001), and The Philosophy of War (2004) – Article written in 1991, first published in the journal Nash Sovremennik in 1992

The famous German jurist Carl Schmitt is considered to be a classic of modern law. Some call him the “modern Machiavelli” for his lack of sentimental moralism and humanist rhetoric in his analysis of political reality. Carl Schmitt believed that, in determining legal issues, it is first and foremost important to give a clear and realistic outline of political and social processes and refrain from utopianism, well-wishing, and a priori imperatives and dogma. Today, the scholarly and juridical legacy of Carl Schmitt make up a necessary element of juridical education at Western universities. For Russia as well, Schmitt’s creativity is of special interest and particular importance since he took interest in the critical situations of modern political life. Undoubtedly, his analysis of law and the political context of jurisprudence can help us to understand more clearly and deeply what exactly is happening in our society and Russia.

Lesson #1: Politics above all else

The main principle of Carl Schmitt’s philosophy of law was the idea of the unconditional primacy of political principles over criteria of social existence. It is politics that organized and predetermined the strategy of internal economic factors and their increasing pressure in the modern world. Schmitt explains this in the following way: “The fact that economic contradictions have now become political contradictions…only shows that, like every other human activity, economics travels a path that inevitably leads to political expression” [1]. The meaning of such an allegation employed by Schmitt, understood as a solid historical and sociological argument, ultimately boils down to what can be defined as the theory of “collective historical idealism.” In this theory, the subject is not the individual or economic laws developing substance, but a concrete, historically and socially distinguished people which maintains, with its special, dynamic will – endowed with its own law – its socio-economic existence, qualitative unity, and the organic and spiritual continuity of its traditions in different forms and at different stages. In Schmitt’s understanding, the political sphere represents the embodiment of the will of the people expressed in various forms related to both the legal, economic, and socio-political levels.

Such a definition of politics stands at odds with the mechanistic, universalist models of societal structure which have predominated Western jurisprudence and legal philosophy since the era of the Enlightenment. Schmitt’s political sphere is directly associated with two factors which the mechanistic doctrines are inclined to ignore: the historical specificities of a people endowed with a special quality of will, and the historical particularity of a given society, state, tradition, and past which, in Schmitt’s opinion, finds concentration in its political manifestation. Thus, Schmitt’s assertion of the primacy of politics introduced qualitative, organic characteristics into legal philosophy and political science which are obviously not included in the one-dimensional schemes of “progressives”, whether of the liberal-capitalist or Marxist-socialist persuasion.

Schmitt’s theory thus considered politics to be an “organic” phenomenon “rooted” in “soil.”

Russia and the Russian people need such an understanding of politics in order to sufficiently govern their own destiny and refrain from once again, like seven decades ago, becoming a hostage of an anti-national, reductionist ideology that ignores the will of the people, its past, its qualitative unity, and the spiritual meaning of its historical path.

Lesson #2: Let there always be enemies; let there always be friends

In his book The Concept of the Political, Carl Schmitt expresses an extraordinarily important truth: “A people exists politically only if it forms an independent political community and contrasts itself to other political communities for the sake of preserving its own understanding of its specific community.” Although this point of view completely disagrees with the humanistic demagogy characteristic of Marxism and liberal-democratic theories, all of world history, including the real history (not the official one) of Marxist and liberal-democratic states, shows that such a fact is indeed true in practice, even if the utopian, post-Enlightenment conscience is incapable of recognizing it. In reality, the political division between “ours” and “not ours” exists in all political regimes and in all nations. Without this distinction, not a single state, people, or nation would be able to preserve its own face, follow its own path, and have its own history.

Soberly analyzing the demagogic assertion of anti-humanism, the “inhumanity” of such an opposition, and the division into “ours” and “not ours”, Carl Schmitt notes: “If one begins to act in the name of all humanity, on behalf of abstract humanism, in practice this means that this actor denies all possible opponents the claim to having human qualities at all, thus declaring himself to be beyond humanity and beyond law, and therefore potentially threatens a war which would be waged to the most terrifying and inhumane limits.” Strikingly enough, these lines were written in 1934, long before the Americans’ terroristic invasion of Panama or bombardment of Iraq. In addition, the GULAG and its victims were still not quite known in the West. In this view, it is not the realistic recognition of the qualitative specifics of a people’s political existence, which always presupposes the division into “ours” and “not ours”, that leads to the most terrifying consequences, but rather the striving for total universalization and the cramming of nations and states into the cells of the utopian ideas of a “united and uniform humanity” devoid of any organic or historical differences.

Beginning with these prerequisites, Carl Schmitt developed the theory of “total war” and “restricted war,” so-called “wars of form” in which total war is the consequence of universalist, utopian ideology which denies the natural cultural, historical, state, and national differences between peoples. Such a war actually threatens the destruction of humanity. As Carl Schmitt believed, extremist humanism is the direct path towards such a war which implies the involvement not only of militaries, but also civilian populations in a conflict. This, in the end, is the most terrible evil. “Wars of form,” on the other hand, are inevitable because of the differences between peoples and their indestructible cultures. “Wars of form” involve the participation of professional soldiers, and can be regulated by the defined legal rules of Europe that once bore the name Jus Publicum Europeum (European Common Law). Such wars, accordingly, represent a lesser evil whose inevitability’s theoretical recognition can protect peoples in advance from a “totalized” conflict and “total war.” On this note, it would be appropriate to quote the famous paradox posed by Shigalev in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, who says “Proceeding from absolute freedom, I arrive at absolute slavery.” Paraphrasing this truth and applying it to the ideas of Carl Schmitt, it can be said that the supporters of radical humanism “proceeding from total peace, arrive at total war.” With all due consideration, we have the opportunity to see Shigalev’s remarks’ in all of Soviet history. If Carl Schmitt’s precautions are not taken into account, it will be significantly more difficult to realize their truth, since there will be no one left to testify that he was right – there will be nothing left of mankind.

Now on to the final important point in the distinction between “ours” and “not ours”, that of “enemies” and “friends.” Schmitt believed that the centrality of this pair for the political being of a nation is valuable as within this choice is decided a deep existential problem. Julien Freud, a disciple of Schmitt, formulated this thesis in the following way: “The enemy-friend duality lends politics an existential dimension since the theoretically implied possibility of war raises the problem and choice of life and death in this framework” [2].

The jurist and politician, judging in terms of “enemy” and “friend” with a clear consciousness of the meaning of this choice, thus operate with the same existential categories which lend decisions, actions, and statements the qualities of reality, responsibility, and seriousness that all utopian humanist abstractions lack in transforming the drama of life and death into a war in one-dimensional chimerical decor. A terrible illustration of this was the coverage of the Iraqi conflict by Western mass media. Americans followed the deaths of Iraqi women, children, and the elderly on television as if they were watching Star Wars computer games. The ideas of the New World Order, the foundations of which were laid during this war, are supreme manifestations of how terrible and dramatic events are when deprived of any existential content.

The “enemy” – “friend” pair is both an external and internal political necessity for the existence of a politically complete society, and should be coldly accepted and conscious. Otherwise, everyone becomes an “enemy” and no one is a “friend.” This is the political imperative of history.

Lesson #3: The politics of “exceptional circumstances” and the Decision

One of the most brilliant aspects of Carl Schmitt’s ideas was the principle of “exceptional circumstances” (in German Ernstfall, literally “serious case”) elevated to the rank of a political-legal category. According to Schmitt, legal norms describe only normal socio-political reality flowing uniformly and continuously without interruptions. Only in such purely normal situations does the concept of “law” as understood by jurists apply to a full extent. There exist, of course, regulations of “extraordinary situations,” but these regulations are most often of all determined on the basis of criteria derived from a normal political situation. Classical jurisprudence, in Schmitt’s opinion, tends to absolutize the criteria of a normal station when considering the history of society as a legally constituted uniform process. The most complete expression of this point of view is Kelsen’s “pure theory of law.” Carl Schmitt, however, sees this absolutization of a “legal approach” and “rule of law” as an equally utopian mechanism and naive universalism produced by the Enlightenment with its rationalist myths. Behind the absolutization of law hides an attempt to “close history” and deprive it of its creative, passionate pattern, its political content, and historical peoples. On the basis of this analysis, Carl Schmitt posits a particular theory of “exceptional circumstances,” or Ernstfall.

Ernstfall is the point at which a political decision is made in a situation which can no longer be regulated by conventional legal norms. Decision-making in exceptional circumstances involves the convergence of a number of diverse, organic factors relating both to tradition, the historical past, cultural constants, as well as spontaneous expressions, heroic overcoming, passionate impulses, and the sudden manifestation of deep existential energies. The True Decision (the very term “decision” was a key concept of Schmitt’s juridical doctrine) is made in precisely such a circumstance where legal and social norms are “disrupted” and those that describe the natural course of political processes and which begin to act in the case of an “emergency citation” or “socio-political catastrophe” are no longer applicable. “Exceptional circumstances” means not merely a catastrophe, but the positioning of a people and its political organism in front of a problem, appealing to a people’s historical essence, its core, and its secret nature which makes this people what it is. Therefore, the Decision politically taken in such a situation is a spontaneous expression of the deep will of the people responding to a global, existential, or historic challenge (here one can compare the views of Schmitt to those of Spengler, Toynbee, and other conservative revolutionaries with whom Carl Schmitt had close personal ties).

In the French school of law, Carl Schmitt’s followers have developed the special term “décisionisme” from the French décision (German Entscheidung). Decisionism puts the main emphasis on “exceptional circumstances” since it is in this instance that the nation, the people, actualizes its past and determines its future in a dramatic concentration of the present moment in which three qualitative characteristics of time merge, i.e., the power of the source from which the people came forth in history, the people’s will facing the future and affirming the here and now where the timeless “I” is revealed and the people takes responsibility into its own hands to the greatest extent, and self-identity.

Developing his theory of Ernstfall and Entscheidung, Carl Schmitt also showed that the affirmation of all judicial and social norms happens during precisely such periods of “exceptional circumstances” and is primordially based on the both spontaneous and predetermined decision. The intermittent moment of the singular expression of will bears later on the basis of the constant norms which exist up until the emergence of new “exceptional circumstances.” This in fact perfectly illustrates the contradiction inherent to the ideas of those radical supporters of the “rule of law”: they knowingly or unknowingly ignore the fact that the appeal to the necessity of establishing the “rule of law” itself is a decision based on none other than the political will of a given group. In some sense, this imperative is put forth arbitrarily and not as some kind of inevitable, fatal necessity. Therefore, the acceptance or denial of the “rule of law” and in general the acceptance or denial of this or that legal model must concur with the will of the particular people or state to whom the proposal or expression of will is addressed. Supporters of the “rule of law” implicitly strive to create or utilize “exceptional circumstances” for the implementation of their concept, but the insidiousness of such an approach and hypocrisy and inconsistency in method can quite naturally draw a popular reaction, the result of which could very well appear as another, alternative decision. Moreover, it is all the more likely that this decision would lead to the establishment of a different legal reality than the one sought after by universalists.

The concept of the Decision in the super-legal sense as well as very nature of the Decision itself accords with the theory of “direct power” and “indirect power” (potestas directa and potestas indirecta). In Schmitt’s specific context, the Decision is made not only in instances of “direct power” (the power of kings, emperors, presidents, etc.) but also under the conditions of “indirect power”, examples of which can be religious, cultural, or ideological organizations which influence the history of a people and state not so clearly as the decisions of rulers, but which, nevertheless, are much deeper and formidable in operation. Schmitt believes that “indirect power” is thus not always negative, but, on the other hand, he merely implicitly alludes to the fact that a decision contrary to the will of the people is most often adopted and implemented by such means of “indirect power.” In his book Political Theology and its later addition Political Theology II, he examines the logic of the functioning of these two types of authority in states and nations.

The theory of “exceptional circumstances” and the theme of the Decision (Entscheidung) tied to it are of paramount importance for us today, as it is precisely at such a point in the history of our people and state that we now find ourselves, where “exceptional circumstances” have become the natural state of the nation and not only the political future of our people, but also the comprehension and essential confirmation of our past, now depend on the Decision. If the will of the people affirms itself and the people’s national choice in this dramatic moment, can clearly define “ours” and “others”, identify friends and enemies, and wrest political self-assertion from history, then the Decision of the Russian state and Russian people will be its own, historic, existential decision that will put a stamp of loyalty on millennia of spiritual “people-building” and “empire-building”. This means that our future will be Russian. If others make the decision, i.e., the supporters of the “common human approach,” “universalism,” and “egalitarianism,” which since the death of Marxism represent the only direct heirs to the utopian and mechanistic ideology of the Enlightenment, then not only will the future be “not Russian”, it will be “all-human” and thus be “no future” (from the standpoint of the being of the people, state, and nation). Our past will lose its meaning and the drama of great Russian history will turn into a silly farce on the way to Mondialism and complete cultural leveling into “universal humanity,” i.e., the “hell of absolute legal reality.”

Lesson #4: The imperatives of a Great Space

Carl Schmitt also touched on the geopolitical aspect of social issues. The most important of his ideas in this sphere is the notion of “Great Space” (Grossraum) which would later come to be considered by numerous European economists, jurists, geopoliticians, and strategists. The conceptual meaning of “Great Space” in Carl Schmitt’s analytical perspective lies in the delineation of geographical regions within which the variations of the political self-manifestation of specific peoples and states included in this region can be conjoined to achieve harmonious and consistent generalization expressed in a “Great Geopolitical Union.” Schmitt’s point of departure was the question of the American Monroe Doctrine encompassing the economic and strategic integration of American powers within the natural borders of the New World. Given that Eurasia represents a much more diverse conglomerate of ethni, states, and cultures, Schmitt posited that it was thus worth speaking of not so much total continental integration as the establishment of several large geopolitical entities, each of which should be governed by a flexible super-state. This is in principle analogous to Jus Publicum Europeaum or the Holly Alliance proposed to Europe by Russian Emperor Alexander I.

In Carl Schmitt’s opinion, a “Great Space” organized into a flexible political structure of the federal imperial type would compensate for various national, ethnic and state wills and serve as a kind of impartial arbiter or regulator of possible local conflicts, “wars of form.” Schmitt emphasized that “Great Spaces”, in order to be organic and natural formations, would necessarily have to represent land territories, i.e., tellurocratic entities, continental masses. In his famous book The Nomos of the Earth, he traced the history of continental, political macro-entities, the path of their integration, and the logic of their gradual establishment as empires. Carl Schmitt noticed that parallel to the existence of spiritual constants in the fate of a people, i.e., constants embodying the spiritual essence of a people, there also exist geopolitical constants of “Large Spaces” which gravitate towards new restoration with intervals of several centuries or even millennia. In this sense, geopolitical macro-entities are stabile when their integrating principle is not rigid and abstractly recreated, but flexible, organic, and according with the Decision of the peoples, their will, and their passionate energy capable of involving them in a unified tellurocratic bloc with their cultural, geopolitical, or state neighbors.

The doctrine of “Great Spaces” (Grossraum) was established by Carl Schmiit not only as an analysis of historical trends in the continent’s history, but also as a project for future unification which Schmitt considered not only possible, but desirable and even necessary in a certain sense. Julien Freund summarized Schmitt’s ideas on future Grossraum in the following terms: “The organization of this new space will not require any scientific competence, or cultural or technical preparation insofar as it arises as a result of political will, the ethos of which transforms the guise of international law. Once this ‘Great Space’ is unified, then the most important thing of all will be the strength of its ‘radiation’” [3].

Thus, Carl Schmitt’s idea of “Great Space” also possesses a spontaneous, existential, and volitional dimension as does the fundamental subject of history in its understanding, i.e., the people as a political unit. Following the geopoliticians Mackinder and Kjellen, Schmitt juxtaposed thalassocratic empires (Phoenicia, England, the US, etc.) to the tellurocratic empires (the Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs, the Russian Empire, etc.). In his point of view, the harmonious and organic organization of a space is possible only in the case of tellurocratic empires, and Continental Law can only be applied to them. Thalassocracy, moving beyond the borders of its Island and initiating naval expansion, enters into conflict with tellurocracies and, according to geopolitical logic, begins to diplomatically, economically, and militaristically undermine the foundations of the continental “Great Spaces.” Thus, in the perspective of continental “Great Spaces,” Schmitt once again returns to the concepts of the “enemy-friend” and “ours-not ours” pairs, only this time on a planetary macro-level. The will of the continental empires, the “Great Spaces”, is revealed in the confrontation between continental macro-interests and the macro-interests from overseas. “Sea” thus challenges “Land,” and by way of responding to this challenge, “Land” most often returns to its deep continental self-consciousness.

As a side note, we will illustrate the theory of Grassraum with two examples. In the late 18th – early 19th century, the US’ territory was divided between several Old World countries. The Far West, Louisiana, belonged to the Spanish and later the French; the South belonged to Mexico; the North to England, and so on. In this situation, Europe represented a tellurocratic power for the US preventing the geopolitical and strategic unification of the New World on the military, economic, and diplomatic levels. After the US obtained independence, it gradually began to more and more aggressively impose its geopolitical will upon the Old World, which logically led to the weakening of continental unity of the European “Great Space.” Therefore, in the geopolitical history of “Great Spaces,” there are no absolute tellurocratic or absolute thalassocratic powers. Roles can changes, but continental logic remains constant.

Summarizing Carl Schmitt’s theory of “Great Spaces” with regards to the situation in today’s Russia, we can say that the separation and disintegration of the “Great Space” once called the USSR contradicts the continental logic of Eurasia, since the peoples inhabiting our lands lost the opportunity  to appeal to the [Soviet] superpower arbiter capable of regulating or containing potential and actual conflicts. But, on the other hand, the rejection of the overly rigid and inflexible Marxist demagogy raised to the level of state ideology can lead and will lead if allowed to a spontaneous, passionate restoration of the Eastern Eurasian Bloc, since such a reconstruction accords with all the organic, native ethni of the Russian imperial space. Moreover, it is most likely that the restoration of a Federal Empire, a “Great Space” encompassing the Eastern part of the mainland, would seize by means of its “radiation of power” those additional territories which are rapidly losing their ethno-state identities in the critical and unnatural geopolitical situation prevailing since the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand, the continental thinking of the genius German jurist allows us to distinguish between “ours” and “not ours” on the  continental level.

Awareness of the natural and to a certain extent inevitable confrontation between tellurocratic and thalassocratic powers offers the harbingers and creators of a new Great Space a clear understanding of the “enemy” facing Europe, Russia, and Asia that is the United States of America along with its thalassocratic island ally, England. Once again returning from the macro-level of the planet to the level of the social structure of the Russian state, it thus follows that the question should be posed: does a hidden thalassocratic lobby not stand behind the desire to influence the Russian Decision of problems in a “universalist” vein which can exert its influence through both “direct” and “indirect” power?

Lesson #5: “Militant peace” and the teleology of the partisan

At the end of his life (he died on April 7th, 1985), Carl Schmitt devoted special attention to the negative outcome of history which, indeed, is quite possible if the unrealistic doctrines of radical humanists, universalists, utopians, and the supporters of “common human values”, centered around the gigantic symbolic potential of the thalassocratic power that is the USA, achieve global predominance and become the ideological foundation of a new world dictatorship – the dictatorship of a “mechanistic utopia.” Schmitt believed that the modern course of history is inevitably moving towards what he called “total war.”

According to Schmitt, the logic of the “totalitarianization” of planetary relations on the strategic, military, and diplomatic levels is based on the following key points. Beginning with a certain point in history, or more precisely the epoch of the French Revolution and the independence of the United States of America, a maximal withdrawal from the historical, judicial, national, and geopolitical constants which previously guaranteed organic harmony on the planet and served the “Nomos of the Earth” was initiated.

On a legal level, an artificial and atomizing, quantitative concept of “individual rights” (which later became the famous theory of “human rights”) began to develop which replaced the organic concept of “rights of the people”, “rights of the state,” etc. In Schmitt’s opinion, the employment of the individual and the individual factor in isolation from the nation, tradition, culture, profession, family, etc. as an autonomous judicial category meant the onset of the “decay of law” and its transformation into a utopian, egalitarian chimera contrary to the organic laws from the history of peoples and states, regimes, territories, and unions.

On the national level, organic federal imperial principles came to be replaced with two opposing yet equally artificial conceptions: the Jacobin idea of the “nation-state” and the Communist theory of the complete withering away of the state and the onset of total internationalism. Those empires which preserved remnants of traditional, organic structures, such as Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, etc., rapidly began to be destroyed under the influence of both external and internal factors. Finally, on the geopolitical level, the thalassocratic factor intensified to such a degree that a profound destabilization of legal relationships in the sphere of “Great Spaces” took place. Let us note that Schmitt considered “Sea” as a space to be much less amenable to legal delineation and arrangement than “Land.”

The global spread of legal and geopolitical disharmony was accompanied by the progressive deviation of dominant political and ideological conceptions from reality and their becoming increasingly chimerical, illusory and ultimately hypocritical. The more that the “universal world” was spoken off, the more worse became wars and conflicts. The more “humane” that slogans became, the more inhuman became social reality. It is this process that Carl Schmitt called the beginning of the “militant peace,” i.e., a state in which there is neither war nor peace in the traditional sense. Today’s looming “totality” which Carl Schmitt warned of has come to be called Mondialism. “Militant peace” has received its complete expression in the theory of the American New World Order which in its movement towards “total peace” is clearly leading the planet towards a new “total war.”

Carl Schmitt considered the development of cosmic space to be the most important geopolitical event symbolizing a further degree of departure from the legitimate ordering of space, as the cosmos is even less amenable to “organization” then maritime space. The development of aviation was also a step towards the “totalization” of war according to Schmitt, with space exploration beginning the process of final illegitimate “totalitarianization.”

Parallel to pushing the planet to such maritime, aerial, and even cosmic monstrosity, Carl Schmitt, who was always interested in more global categories, the smallest of which was the “political unity of the people,” came to be drawn to a new figure in history, the figure of the “partisan,” the study of whom Schmitt devoted his final book to, The Theory of the Partisan. Schmitt saw in this small fighter against larger forces some kind of symbol of the last resistance of tellurocracy on the part of its last defenders. The partisan is, undoubtedly, a modern figure. He, as other modern political types, is divorced from tradition and lives beyond the Jus Publicum. The Partisan breaks all rules of warfare in his struggle. He is not a soldier, but a civilian using terrorist methods which would, in a non-wartime situation, be equated with hard-core criminal offenses akin to terrorism. Nevertheless, it is the Partisan who, according to Carl Schmitt, embodies “faithfulness to Land.” The Partisan is, put simply, an illegitimate response to the masked, illegitimate challenge of modern “law.” The extraordinariness of the situation and the constant thickening of “militant peace” (or “pacifist war,” which is one and the same) draw the small defender of soil, history, people, nation, and the ideas of the source of his paradoxical justification. The strategic efficiency of the Partisan and his methods are, according to Schmitt, the paradoxical compensation of the begun or beginning “total war” against a “total enemy.”

It is perhaps this lesson of Carl Schmitt, who himself drew much from Russian history, Russian military strategy, and Russian political doctrine including analyses of the works of Lenin and Stalin, that is most intimately understandable for Russians. The Partisan is an integral character in Russian history who always appears when the will of the Russian political establishment and deep will of the Russian people itself is deviated from to a maximum extent. Turmoil and guerrilla warfare in Russian history have always had a purely political, compensatory character aimed at correcting the nation’s course when its political leadership is increasingly alienated from the people. In Russia, partisans won the wars that the government lost, overthrew the non-Russian traditions of economic systems, and corrected the geopolitical mistakes of its leaders. Russians have always possessed a fine sense of when illegitimacy or organic injustice is inherent to this or that doctrine emerging through this or that character. In some sense, Russia is a gigantic Partisan Empire operating outside the law and driven by the great intuition of Earth, the Continent, that “Great, Very Great Space” that is the historical territory of our people.

At the present time, as the gap between the will of the nation and the will of the establishment in Russia (which represents exclusively the “rule of law” according to the universalist model) is threateningly large and as the wind of thalassocracy is intensifying the ordering of “militant peace” in the country and gradually becoming an extreme form of “total war,” perhaps this figure of the Russian Partisan will show us the path to the Russian Future through the extreme form of resistance, the stepping over of artificial boundaries and legal norms which do not accord with the true canons of Russian Law.

A more detailed assimilation of Carl Schmitt’s fifth lesson means taking up the Sacred Practice of defending Land.

Final remarks

Finally, the sixth, unscheduled lesson of Carl Schmitt can be called an example of what the leader of the European New Right, Alain de Benoist, calls “political imagination” or “ideological creativity.” The geniality of the German jurist lies in that he not only felt the “field lines” of history but also heeded the mysterious voice of essence, even though it is often hidden behind the bland, empty phenomena of the complex and dynamic modern world. We Russians should learn from Teutonic stiffness in setting our bottomless and overvalued institutions into clear intellectual formulas, clear ideological projects, and convincing and compelling theories.

This is necessary especially today because we live in “exceptional circumstances” on the threshold of a Decision so important that our nation has perhaps never seen the likes of it. The true national elite has no right to leave its people without an ideology which would explain not only what it feels and thinks, but what it doesn’t feel and think, and what has even been kept secret from itself and devoutly worshipped for thousands of years. If we do not ideologically arm the state, which “not ours” could temporarily snatch from us, then we must necessarily, without fail ideologically arm the Russian Partisan who is awakening today to fulfill his continental mission in what are now “Anglicizing” Riga and Vilnius, the “blackening” Caucasus, “yellowing” Central Asia, “Polonizing” Ukraine, and “black-eyed” Tartary.

Russia is a Great Space whose Great Idea is carried by her people in its gigantic, continental Eurasian soil. If a German genius serves our Awakening, then in doing so the Teutons have earned themselves a privileged place among the “friends of Great Russia” and will become “ours”, “Asians,” “Huns,” and “Scythians” like us – the natives of the Great Forest and Great Steppes.

Footnotes:

[1] Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen, p.127

[2] Julien Freund, “Les lignes de force de la pensée politique de Carl Schmitt”, Nouvelle Ecole  No. 44

[3] Ibid.

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

The Geographical and Geopolitical Foundations of Eurasianism

Author: Petr Savitsky

Translators: Jafe Arnold and John Stachelski 

Article authored in Prague, Czechoslovakia in late 1933 – early 1934, first published in the German theological journal Orient und Occident No. 17 (Leipzig: 1934). Republished in and translated from the collection Osnovy evraziistva [Foundations of Eurasianism] (Moscow: Arktogeia, 2002). 

Featured in Foundations of Eurasianism – Volume I 

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There are significantly more grounds for calling Russia the “middle state” (Zhongguo in Chinese) rather than China. The more time that passes, the more these grounds will make themselves evident. For Russia, Europe is nothing more than a peninsula of the Old Continent that lies to the West of its borders. On this continent, Russia itself occupies the main space, its torso. The total area of European states, taken together, is close to five million kilometers squared. The area of Russia within the borders of the contemporary USSR is significantly larger than 20 million kilometers squared (especially if one includes the space of the Mongolian and Tuva national republics of former “Outer Mongolia” and the “Uryankhay land” which at the current moment are parts of the Soviet Union).

With rare exception, the Russian people of the late 19th and early 20th centuries forgot about the spaces beyond the Urals (one of those who remembered them was the genius Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev). Now, another time has come. The whole “Ural-Kuznetsk combine,” with its blast furnaces, coal mines, and new cities with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants each, is being built behind the Urals. The Turkestan-Siberian Railway (“Turksib”) is being laid. Nowhere else is the expansion of Russian culture so wide and spontaneous as in another region beyond the Urals, in the so-called “Central Asian republics” (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan). The whole torso of Russian lands, the “shot from Negoreloe to Suchan station”, is coming to life.

The Eurasianists have their share of merit in this turn of events. At the same time, the nature of the Russian world is being lucidly revealed as the central world of the Old Continent. There were moments when it seemed that between the periphery of Western Europe to which the Russian lands up to the Urals belong (the “European Russia” of the old geographers) and Asia (China, India, Iran), there lay only a void. The Eurasianist arrangement of the Russian present is filling this void with the pulse of animate life. Since the end of the 19th century, a direct path from Europe to China and Japan has been laid through Russia – the Great Siberian Railway. Geography points out with absolute certainty that there is no other way to run roads from Europe (at least from its northern part) to Persia, India, and Indochina. Even today, such opportunities have not yet been fully realized. The Trans-Persian railway, cutting through Persia from the direction of the Northwest toward the Southeast and connected with the same route network as British India and Europe (through the Caucasus, Crimea, and Ukraine), was close to fruition on the eve of the world war. Currently, however, it has receded into the realm of unestablished projects due to political circumstances. There is no connection between the railways of Russian Turkestan (the “Central Asian republics”) and India, and Russian railway networks are not oriented toward Europe-India transit. But sooner or later, this movement will become a fact, whether in the form of railway paths, automobile lines, or air traffic. For the latter, the shortest distances are, let us say, of especially large importance for Russia. The greater the weight that will be procured by air traffic with its propensity and desire to fly in straight lines, the clearer the role of Russia-Eurasia as the “middle world” will become. The establishment of transpolar lines can still further enhance this role. In the Far North, Russia is a neighbor of America over a vast expanse. With the opening of a route through the pole, or rather over the pole, Russia will become the connecting link between Asia and North America.

Successive articles will discuss the Eurasianists’ aspiration to offer a spiritual synthesis of Eastern and Western elements. Here, however, it is important to point out the correspondences of this aspiration which are found in the field of geopolitics. Russia-Eurasia is the center of the Old World. If one eliminates this center, then all of the other parts of the Old World, this whole system of continental margins (Europe, Western Asia, Iran, India, Indochina, China, and Japan) becomes but a mere “scattered temple.” This world which lies to the East of Europe’s borders and to the North of “classical” Asia is the link that binds together the unity of all of these pieces. This is obvious in the present, and it will only become clearer in the future.

The linking and unifying role of this “middle world” has made itself felt throughout history. For several millennia, political dominance in the Eurasian world belonged to nomads. Occupying the space stretching from Europe to China, while simultaneously reaching toward Western Asia, Iran, and India, the nomads served as intermediaries between the  disparate worlds of settled cultures in their original states. Let us recall that historical interaction between Iran and China was never so close as in the era of Mongol rule (from the 13th to 14th centuries). And thirteen to fourteen centuries earlier, only through the nomadic Eurasian world did the paths of the Hellenic and Chinese cultures cross, as is shown by the latest excavations in Mongolia. It is an irremovable fact that the Russian world has been called to play a unifying role within the confines of the Old World. Only to the extent that Russia-Eurasia fulfills this vocation can it turn into an organic whole combining all of the diverse cultures of the Old Continent and remove the confrontation between East and West. This fact is not yet sufficiently recognized in our time, but the correlations expressed by it lie in the very nature of things. The tasks of unification first and foremost boil down to tasks of cultural creativity. A new and independent historical force, Russian culture, has emerged at the center of the Old World to fulfill a unifying and conciliatory role. Russian culture can fulfill this task only by cooperating with the cultures of all the surrounding peoples. In this regard, the cultures of the East are just as important for Russia-Eurasia as the cultures of the West. The particularity of Russian culture and geopolitics lies precisely in such a simultaneous and even-footed approach to both East and West. For Russia, there are two equal fronts – Western and South-Eastern. The Russian field of view can and should become one which first and foremost covers the entire Old World to an equal and full extent.

Let us return, however, to phenomena of a purely geographical nature. In comparison to the Russian “torso,” Europe and Asia both represent the outskirts of the Old World. Moreover, from a Russian-Eurasian point of view, Europe is, as has been said, everything that lies to the West of the Russian border, while Asia is everything that lies to the South and Southeast of it. Russia itself is neither Asia nor Europe. Such is the fundamental geopolitical thesis of the Eurasianists. In this view, there is no “European” or “Asiatic” Russia, but merely parts of Russia which lie to the West or East of the Urals, just as there are parts of it lying to the West and East of the Yenisei River, and so on. The Eurasianists continue: Russia is neither Asia nor Europe, but instead represents its own special geographical world. How does this world differ from Europe and Asia? The Western, Southern, and South-Eastern outskirts of the continent differ to a significant extent in their coasts and topographical diversity. This cannot be said of the main “torso” which constitutes Russia-Eurasia. This torso consists first and foremost of three plains (the White Sea Plain, the West Siberian Plain, and the Turkestan Plain), and the regions lying to the east of them (including the low, mountainous countries to the east of the Yenisei river). The zonal composition of the Western and Southern outskirts of the continent are marked by “mosaic-fractional” and far from simple contours. Forested areas, in their natural state, are replaced here in a bizarre sequence by, on the one hand, steppe and desert regions, and on the other side by tundra areas in (the high mountains). This “mosaic” is contrasted on the central plains of the Old World by relatively simple, “flagged” distribution of zones. With the latter designation we point to the fact that, when applied to a map, this distribution resembles the contours of the horizontal stripes of a flag.  Going from South to North, deserts, steppes, forests, and tundra follow each other successively. Each of these zones forms a continuous latitudinal band. The broad latitudinal division of the Russian world is further emphasized by the latitudinal stretch of mountain ranges framing the plains from the South: the Crimean ridge, the Caucasus, the Kopet Dag, the Parapamiz, the Hindu Kush, the main mountain ranges of the Tien Shan, the ranges in the North of Tibet, and the Ying Shan in the area of the Great Wall of China. The latter of these ranges lies on the same line bordering the southern, elevated plain occupied by the Gobi desert. This is linked to the Turkestan plain via the Dzhungarian gates.

In the zonal structure of the Old World’s mainland, one can also note features of a peculiar East-West symmetry which render the character of phenomena in its eastern outskirts analogous to those in its western edges and which differ from the character of phenomena in the middle part of the continent. Both the eastern and western margins of the continent (the Far East and Europe) are located at latitudes between 35 and 60 degrees North which are naturally covered by forested regions. Here the boreal forests directly touch and gradually transition into the forests of southern flora. Nothing of the sort can be observed in the middle world, where forests of southern flora exist only in the regions of its mountainous peripheries (Crimea, the Caucasus, and Turkestan) and never meet forests of northern flora or boreal ones, being separated from such by a continuum of steppe-desert strips. The middle world of the Old World can thus be identified as the region of the steppe and desert band stretching in a continuous line from the Carpathians to the Khingan taken together with its mountain frame (in the South) and those regions lying to the North of it (forest and tundra zones). It is this world that the Eurasianists call Eurasia in the exact sense of this word (Eurasia sensu stricto). This must be distinguished from the old “Eurasia” of Alexander von Humboldt which encompassed the whole of the Old Continent (Eurasia sensu latiore).

The Western border of Eurasia runs along the Black Sea-Baltic bridge, i.e. the region where the continent narrows between the Baltic and Black Seas. Along this bridge and in general in the direction from Northwest to Southeast run a number of indicative botanical-geographical borders such as, for example, the Eastern borders of yew, beech, and ivy. Starting on the shores of the Baltic Sea, each of these tree types then extends all the way to the Black Sea. West of these borders, i.e. where the aforementioned species still grow, the stretch of the forest zone is continuous along the entire length from North to South. To the East begins the division into the forest zone in the North and the steppe zone in the South. This boundary can be considered the Western border of Eurasia. Eurasia’s border with Asia in the Far East runs along the longitudes at which the continuous strip of steppes dips in its nearing the Pacific Ocean, i.e., at the longitude of the Khingan.

The Eurasian world is a world of “both periodic and symmetric zone systems.” The boundaries of the main Eurasian zones conform with significant accuracy to the spanning of certain climatic boundaries. For example, the Southern border of the tundra matches the line joining the point of average annual relative humidity of 79.5% at 1 P.M. (The relative humidity in the afternoon is of particularly great importance for the life of vegetation and soils). The Southern border of the forest zone lies along the line connecting points with the same relative humidity of 67.5%. The Southern border of the steppe (with its tip into the desert) is matched by the uniform relative humidity at 1 P.M. of 55.5%. In the desert, it is always lower than this value. Attention should be drawn here to the equality of intervals covering the forest and steppe zones. These coincidences and this rhythmic distribution of intervals can be established in accordance with different indices (see our book The Geographical Particularities of Russia – Part 1, Prague: 1927). This gives grounds to speak of a “periodic table of the zone systems of Russia-Eurasia.” Russia-Eurasia is a symmetric system, not in the sense of the East-West symmetry which we discussed in the preceding, but in a South-North symmetry. The treeless tundra of the North is matched by the treeless steppes of the South. Moreover, the calcium content and percentage of humus in soil from the middle parts of the black soil zone symmetrically decrease when moving in the directions of North and South. This symmetric distribution of phenomena can also be noted in terms of soil colors, which reaches its greatest intensity in the very same middle portions of the horizontal zone. Moving both Northward and Southward, the soil color weakens (passing through shades of brown to whitish ones). In terms of sand and rock substrates, there is also a symmetrical divergence from the border between the forest and steppe zones: between the steppe islands to the North and the “islands” of forests in the South. Russian science defines this phenomenon as “extrazonal.” The steppe sectors in the forest zone can be characterized as a “southward-bearing” phenomenon, while the forest islands in the steppes are essentially a “northward-bearing” phenomenon. The southward-bearing formations of the forest zone match the northward-bearing formations of the steppes.

Nowhere else in the Old World is such a gradual transition in zonal systems, with both its “frequency” and simultaneous “symmetry”, displayed so clearly as on the plains of Russia-Eurasia.

The Russian world thus possesses an exceedingly clear geographic structure. The Urals do not play the defining and divisive role in this structure which they have been attributed (and still are) by geographical “clichés.” By virtue of their orographic and geological specificities, the Urals not only do not divide but, on the contrary, rather closely tie together “pre-Ural” and “post-Ural” Russia, thereby once again demonstrating that, taken together, both geographically constitute the “single undivided continent of Eurasia.” The tundra, as a horizontal zone, lies both to the West and to the East of the Urals just as forest extends beyond one side and the other. The same is the case regarding the steppes and desert (the latter borders the southern continuation of the Ural-Mugodzhary from both the East and West). We can observe no significant changes in geographical environment signified by the “border” of the Urals. More substantial is the geographical border of the “Intermarium”, i.e. the space between the Black and Baltic Seas on the one hand, and the Baltic Sea and the coast of Northern Norway on the other.

This distinctive, lucid, and at the same time simple geographical structure of Russia-Eurasia is tied to a number of important geopolitical circumstances. The nature of the Eurasian world is minimally favorable to any sort of “separatisms,” be they political, cultural, or economic. The specific “mosaic-fractional” structure of Europe and Asia facilitates the appearance of small, confined, and isolated worlds offering the material preconditions for the existence of small states, cultural modes specific to a city or province, and economic regions possessing large economic diversity within a narrow space. But Eurasia is quite another case. The wide-cut sphere of “flag-like” zonal distribution is not conducive to anything of this sort. Endless plains habituate horizontal breadth and the spread of geopolitical combinations. Within the steppes, moving across land along the forests and numerous bodies of water, such as rivers and lakes, man found himself in constant migration, continuously changing his place of inhabitance. Ethnic and cultural elements are drawn into intensive interaction, cross-fertilizing, and mixing. In Europe and Asia, it sometimes happened that one could live only by the interests of his own “belfry.” 

But in Eurasia, if this happened at all, then in an historical sense this lasted only an extremely brief period of time. In Northern Eurasia there are hundreds of thousands of kilometers of forests among which there is not a single hectare of arable land. How can the inhabitants of this space survive without contact with the more Southern regions? In the South, on no less vastly spread steppes suitable for livestock and partly for agriculture, there is not a single tree across many thousands of kilometers. How can the population of these regions live without economic interaction with the North? The nature of Eurasia prompts people to the necessity of political, cultural, and economic association to a significantly greater extent than is observed in Europe and Asia. It is thus no wonder that what was in many respects a “unified” way of life, such as that of the nomads, existed across the whole space of the Eurasian steppes from Hungary to Manchuria, and throughout history from the Scythians to the modern Mongols.  It is similarly no wonder that such great attempts at political unification were born on the expanses of Eurasia, such as those of the Scythians, Huns, and Mongols (in the 13th-14th centuries), and others. These attempts included not only the steppes and desert, but also the northern forest zone and the southernmost “mountain hem” of Eurasia. It is no coincidence that the spirit of a sort of “brotherhood of peoples” is blowing over Eurasia, having its roots in the centuries-old contact and cultural mergers of peoples of the most diverse races, ranging from Germanic peoples (the Crimean Goths) and Slavs to the Tungus-Manchurians with links via the Finnish, Turkic, and Mongolian peoples. This “brotherhood of peoples” is reflected in the fact that there is no opposition between “higher” and “lower” races, but rather a mutual attraction, much stronger than any repulsion, which easily awakens a “will for a common cause.” The history of Eurasia from its first chapters to its latest is solid proof of this. These traditions were embraced by Russia in her foundational, historic cause. In the 19th and 20th centuries, they were at times clouded by deliberate “Westernism”, which demanded that Russians feel themselves to be “Europeans” (which they in fact weren’t) and treat the other Eurasian peoples as “Asians” or an “inferior race.” Such an interpretation led Russia to nothing other than disaster (such as Russia’s Far Eastern adventure at the beginning of the 20th century). It should be hoped that this concept has been completely overcome by now in the Russian consciousness and that the remnants of Russian “Europeanism” still hiding in emigration are void of any historical significance. Only by overcoming deliberate “Westernism” can the path be opened to real brotherhood between the Eurasian peoples – the Slavic, the Finnic, the Turkic, Mongolian, and others. 

Eurasia has previously played a unifying role in the Old World. Contemporary Russia, absorbing this tradition, must resolutely and irrevocably abandon the old methods of unification belonging to an outlived and overcome era, such as those of violence and war. In the modern period, the cause is one of cultural creativity, inspiration, insight, and cooperation. This is what the Eurasianists say. Despite all the modern means of communication, the peoples of Europe and Asia are still, to a large extent, sitting in their own quarters, living by the interests of their own belfries. Eurasian “place-development” propels this common cause by virtue of its fundamental qualities. The Eurasian peoples have been appointed to draw other peoples of the world along these paths by example. And then the relations of ethnographic kinship by which a number of Eurasian peoples are connected with various non-Eurasian nations, such as the Indo-European ties of the Russians, the Near-Asian and Iranian relations of the Eurasian Turks, and those points of contact that exist between the Eurasian Mongols and the peoples of East Asia, will become useful for the ecumenical cause. All of these relations can be beneficial to the construction of a new, organic culture for the “Old” World, which is (we believe) still young, carrying in its womb a grand future.

The Eurasian Union and Complex Systems Theory

Author: Leonid Savin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Ideology and the political sciences as a whole are directly tied to the scientific paradigm prevailing in society. In its time, Cartesian logic influenced political processes in European countries just as the principles and methods of warfare (the continuation of politics in its extreme from according to Clausewitz) and diplomacy changed following new scientific discoveries. Religious worldview is also directly linked to political designs. European colonists in Latin America attempted to build “heaven on earth” just as the Jesuits projected their vision of the world onto Indian society not only in terms of ethics and behavior, but also in urban planning and territorial management. In the 20th century, the most striking example of the influence of religious ideas on politics was the establishment of the state of Israel and the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

The 20th century is also well known for new discoveries in science. Albert Einstein shifted understandings of the nature of physics and Ilya Prigogine reminded the world of chaos in academic terms. The theories of “superstring”, self-organizing criticality, nonlinear geometry, epistemological anarchism, dissipative structures, and complex thinking and others all left their mark not only on natural but also political sciences.

Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American diplomat Steven Mann appealed to new fields in physics to explain the nature of ongoing political processes. Drawing on examples from different spheres of research, he showed that the self-dissolution of the USSR reminds one of how a pile of wet sand can crumble once the moisture (for the USSR this was ideology) ceases to play a binding role following evaporation. Unlike his colleagues who were concerned with the collapse of world’s second superpower for the sake of the imbalance in the system of global security as a whole, Mann kept his cool and, as he wrote in his article “Chaos Theory and Strategic Thinking”, after the elements of a system disintegrate, they soon inevitably fall back into place. In the same publication, he compared the state to a computer and ideology to a virus which can be applied as an instrument in capturing a territory without any material damage. In the case of the Soviet Union, liberal democracy was supposed to fill the void of the former ideology after regime change and impose new values which would aid the former Soviet countries in pooling together their material resources and helping citizens transform into the obedient consumers and staff personnel of the new “computer” system. As we know, such a mechanism was introduced into the post-Soviet space and led to disastrous consequences.

But if new scientific discoveries explaining the nature of natural processes are applicable to describing political disturbances, then why can’t we apply them to contemporary geopolitical dynamics and integration processes? After all, Western militaries have long since been considering non-linear thinking, holist theories, and various academic schools and striven to apply them in conflict simulations, combat tactics, and strategy. It might as well be that the philosophical ideas of post-modernity (such as the rhizomatic existence and chaosmos theories of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari) as well as more precise sciences preferring complex formulas and mathematical calculations will be sufficiently applicable in modeling new superstate entities, one of which is none other than the project for the Eurasian Union.

Such a term as “complex systems” utilized in modern science will come to be quite suitable for such a new formation. In addition, the presence of numerous actors associated with both the internal politics of this system and international relations compel us to appeal to yet another well-established designation, that of nonlinear dynamics.

Lets us see how a complex system operates in, at first glance, unpredictable conditions from the point of view of the new scientific paradigm the authors of which have long since been busy with such a trajectory. It is possible that such a theory will help us to predict the formation and development of the Eurasian Union as well as to avoid various mistakes in the future and circumvent diplomatic traps set by this project’s opponents on the chessboard of global geopolitics. Of course, it is difficult to limit ourselves to just one or another new discovery. Bearing this in mind, let us begin with the concepts of systems theory. One of the pioneers of this field was Lars Skyttner, whose monograph General Systems Theory: Ideas and Applications served as the basis for determining the very laws of a systems’ functioning. There are fifteen such rules.

1. The second law of thermodynamics. Although Skyttner refers to the redistribution of heat between bodies within a closed system, according to a number of authors this law is applicable to complex systems which are fundamentally open.

2. The law of complementarity. In the context of Eurasianism, Lev Gumilev developed the laws of complementarity between peoples. In systems theory, this law appears as the following: any two projections or system models allow one to acquire knowledge about one of the systems, as two systems are by no means fully independent or compatible. Accordingly, Paul Feyerabend and Nicholas Maxwell’s ideas on the existence of competing and alternative theories possess no less of a convincing base of evidence. Undoubtedly, the Eurasian Union is a project subject to numerous descriptions, sometimes even contradictory ones.

3. Holism. According to Skyttner, a system is composed of holistic properties which do not manifest themselves in any of its individual parts or interactions, while its individual parts consist of wholes which do not necessary appear in the system as a whole. In our case, the Eurasian Union is represented only partly by its system as a whole. The numerous details of which it consists escape from view. For example, the Eurasian space is made up of a great mass of different ethni and language groups which inhabit it. However, for one reason or another not all of the nationalities can make decisions pertaining to the supranational, international formation and, of course, not all languages can claim to be recognized as official languages of the union. Something similar can be said about the legal aspects of the union. Traditional laws and religion strongly influence a number of regions while in others they are totally absent. Moreover, the principle of holism leads to the necessity of interdisciplinary studies which reject the narrowness of “specializations” that are often insufficient for studying complex processes.

4. The “darkness” concept states that a system cannot be entirely known inside and out. Firstly, a given system’s elements themselves cannot be totally conscious of themselves and, of course, each one will be responsible for the information available to it in political processes. The armed forces of the US have attempted to solve this problem by means of establishing a global information network and network-centric foundations for combat operations in which the rapid exchange of information between each and every unit is supposed to establish situational awareness. On the tactical level, this is has been partially solved, but on the strategic and global levels such a task is still far from being completed. The deployment of new US bases and installations is partly explained by Washington’s desire to achieve informational superiority for controlling enemies and allies. However, due to fundamental disagreements on this matter by other states and the differences between political cultures, full spectrum dominance is unlikely to be feasible even by means of the US’ military strength. In connection with the darkness principle, the constant complaints of Western politicians as to the unpredictable behavior of the Russian leadership should also be noted. It is likely that these critics, from whose mouths such remarks are heard, have not yet matured enough to understand complex systems theory. After all, no-one  would deny that Russia is indeed a complex country in the broadest sense of this word.

5. The “80-20” principle, according to which the behavior of a system is formed 20% by its elements, while the remaining 80% is fulfilled by the stabilizing functions of the system, i.e., a kind of protective service. This concept in fact confirms the well-known theory that the minority is always behind both the establishment and death of states. The remaining masses are led by this simple minority (the “passionaries” according to Gumilev). This principle appears to be fairly clear. It is possible that mathematical modeling could contribute to an adequate allocation of resources (both human and material) in the creation of the Eurasian Union.

6. William Ashby, who deals with questions of cybernetics, i.e., control, was involved in the formulation of the law of requisite variety. According to this law, the variety of elements governing a system should be no less than the variety of perturbations input into the system. In other words, the greater the diversity of a system’s possible operations, the easier it will be to deal with possible deviations. Although this law is quite straightforward, some actions of the current leadership [of the Eurasian Union] display quite an inability to think in complex categories. Perhaps the very principle of democracy, with voter accountability and the need for a simple language and definite unification of terminology, is necessary in order to describe various operations. However, for such a project as the Eurasian Union, even in its initial format, quite a large number of alternative solutions for this or that issue will be necessary along with operational creativity. Undoubtedly, this involves the presence of this project’s detractors who see it as a serious rival and future opponent in the conduct of global affairs. It can be predicted in advance that these detractors will attempt to create a maximum number of obstacles which will manifest themselves in foreign policy as well as within the nucleus of the Eurasian Union. Therefore, it is necessary to be prepared for a great variety of perturbations in advance.

7. The principle of hierarchy. The word hierarchy immediately brings to mind either the pyramid of castes relevant to the agrarian period of human history, or the layers of political and bureaucratic ladders that reflect the principle of a state’s functioning in the industrial era. In the case of the Eurasian Union, however, such hierarchies are based on natural phenomena and consist of several integrated systems on each level. Thus, in complex systems hierarchy represents itself as a rather complex process instead of a single structure consisting of separated blocks. An example of this in international relations is presented by supra-state structures which need their own managerial language differing from the model used in the states themselves. Something similar to a new language that should qualitatively overcome existing ones must be developed for the Eurasian Union.

8. Modularity. Any system is divided into a certain number of modules. Researchers have noted that the spontaneous emergence of modular organization is peculiar to critical networks. The presence of such modules produces a system in which so-called “walls of resistance” appear which impede the passage of signals. This resistance can be posed by parties, bureaucratic officials, or the specific interests of regional or national elites. The Armenian political scientist Hrachya Arzumanyan noted in his studies on complex systems and contemporary security that modules are horizontal structures while hierarchies (as mentioned above) are vertical structures in complex systems which help one to better understand and instrumentally use a system, i.e., manage it.

9. Redundancy of resources. Such a requirement is needed for ensuring stability under circumstances of disturbances as discussed in the description of the law of requisite variety and the 80-20 principle. It should also be noted that an important condition of the information age is that supplementary channels of communication are needed for the obtainment of proper information and its robust protection. Information leaks or the intentional incorrect interpretation of information can be used to destabilize a system from within.

10. The principle of “large density flow” is also connected with the previous point. If the flow of resources through a system is large enough, then more resources will be available for coping with disturbances. This all seems quite simple, but in addition to the tasks of ensuring the stability of a system, the questions of quantum leap, development, and evolution are might also arise, i.e., those societal imperatives for the realization of qualified policies and new achievements in science and technology.

11. Lars Skyttner’s  principle of sub-optimization is defined in the following way: even if all subsystems are individually designed to operate at maximum efficiency, this does not mean that the system as a whole will operate at the same efficiency. Vice versa, it is possible to develop the most effective model for a whole system, but its individual elements might not live up to such. This brings to mind certain thoughts associated with the unification and standardization of administrative decisions and processes. According to this principle, it follows that there is no single organization or collective which will be effective at all levels of a hierarchy. Hence the conclusion can be drawn that adequate staffing and proper organization is necessary for integration processes. Criticizing officials is totally appropriate especially with the amendment to Vilfredo Pareto’s theory of the rotation of elites and its allogenic origin suggested by sociologists.

12. The next principle, which also bears relevance to the previous one, refers to the redundancy of potential control. In order to achieve a desired approach, it is necessary to possess a sufficiently thorough understanding of a system. But here a problem arises. If complex systems theory takes into account difficulties arising from the description of a model, then for political processes both in Russia and the CIS countries, the potential for effective action is clearly lacking. The increasingly pronounced dichotomy between the top and the bottom, dissatisfaction in society, and the Center’s misunderstanding of the situation prevailing in the regions should serve as a serious warning for those dealing with issues of integration.

13. The principle of causal negative feedback and positive feedback, which is also a staple of physics, is linked to the equilibrium of systems. With the presence of negative feedback, the equalized state of a system remains invariant to a wide range of initial conditions. Lorenz’s strange attractor also fits the description of this principle. Positive feedback produces the opposite effects. This phenomenon is also called the law of creativity since the consideration of a social system depends on examining different results from all groups at once with the most similar initial parameters possible.

14. The principle of relaxation deals with the following: if the relaxation time of a system is less than the average time between disturbances, then a system is likely to be stable. This is directly relatable to integration processes seeing as how they mean the rearrangement of economic, legal, political, and social mechanisms. If this re-organization goes too fast, then it will fail to adapt to and “digest” previous impacts. Of course, the sheer overlay of impacts creates uncertainty as to which decisions should be taken to arrive at certain results. In light of the modernization of society’s requirement of ruling elites, it would be fully logical to think about just how many reforms are good, how they are presented, and how long the “breather” should be between reforms so that unfortunate consequences in the style of “Perestroika-2” are not encountered.

15. The principle of spotting is a quite interesting postulate proposed by Skyttner which says that systems constructed on restrictive rules, where what is permissible and what is not are specified in advance, are less stable than systems which develop randomly. At first glance, this appears to be a quite paradoxical idea. After all, the collapse of the USSR and similar experiences show that rigid, inflexible systems fall apart rather than chaotic ones. This is due to the change in the external environment of a system which drives the system to spend too many resources on following its single, pre-planned model of approach. This is rendered even more difficult when external players understand this and contribute to it from the outside. North Korea is perhaps the most exemplary such political model. The absence of strong dynamics in contrast to a rapidly changing context is particularly evident in this example. But in Russia and, more broadly, the countries potentially relatable to the Eurasian Union, the opposite is happening. Actions which might be contrary to accepted norms can often be directed towards the survival of a system and its effective functions. Of course, such a thesis is not an excuse for inconsistencies in foreign policy or justification for the efforts of oligarchical clans in the countries of the future Eurasian Union to defend their narrow self-interests veiled under integration.

We have briefly described the fundamental principles proposed for complex systems by Lars Skyttner. Yet there are still a number of attributes. In their time on the basis of interdisciplinary studies, scholars at the Santa Fe Institute developed methods for controlling complex, adaptive systems and other definitions. For example, the issue of emergencies inherent to the phenomena which we have discussed, albeit in regards to emergent states, was first discussed and described by them in examining the political processes which collapsed the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. At that time, the big players in Europe preferred to balance issues using suppressive methods against the disturbances which arose in newly-forming states.

The contemporary, no less active processes taking place on the periphery of Russia and at other points of the planet also hint towards paradigmatic geopolitical developments. But if earlier this appeared as a threat to nation-states, then today the idea of nation-state has sunk into oblivion and modern science even possesses an explanation for these processes. Balancing between order and chaos, which necessarily arise out of the properties of complex systems, and the pluralistic and non-linear thinking characteristic of their descriptions will be useful not only for explaining the changes already underway, but will also aid in designing the new reality of the Eurasian Union. The main task is choosing the right equivalents between current geopolitical perturbations and the theories of complex adaptive systems. This is at least totally possible on a theoretical level, and as an experiment it could be extremely useful for forecasting and modeling integration processes and possible threats against them.

 

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

Eurasianism in the Context of the 21st Century

Author: Leonid Savin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Eurasianist ideology has undergone a series of changes over the last 20 years. After Nursultan Nazarbayev, based on a Eurasianist approach, proposed forming a new union in the place of the USSR founded on a new principle, a few years passed before these ideas began to be implemented in state practice. If major milestones associated with intergovernmental projects are considered, then January 1, 2010 can be noted as the date when the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan began to function along with January 1, 2015 when the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) officially began to function. However, in addition to problems of unifying legal frameworks and defending the interests of the citizens of each country entering the EEU, there exists a trajectory of political philosophy which, although it remains outside of official political activities, nonetheless influences decision-making and the progress of scholarly and public debates in one way or another.

For the most part we are dealing with conceptions of Eurasianism developed by Russian emigrants in the 1920’s, the theory of which later began to be implemented in political practice by a number of scholars and politicians in Russia and Kazakhstan. As is characteristic for the pragmatism of Realpolitik and changes to the international situation, the exact ideas which are outlined in the works of eminent thinkers are not always realized.

The issues of new challenges and threats, from obvious geopolitical confrontation to shadowy and disruptive technologies, many of which are being indirectly or indirectly aimed against the Eurasian Union project, have become particularly relevant.

In this article we will try to delineate some of the possible future trajectories of the future development of the Eurasian Union project while focusing on a number of aspects necessary as a minimum for the functioning of a large state or intergovernmental association. These include questions ranging from political theory and economics to rethinking the world order and defensive strategy.

Etymology as a political construct

First and foremost, it is necessary to define a terminological apparatus associated with the prospects of creating the Eurasian Union. It is impossible to miss the opportunity to expand the already existing terminological base by bringing distinctive innovations to political discourse which reflect deep structures of understanding. As Martin Heidegger said, language is the house of being. In formulating (and reproducing) a corresponding etymology, we participate in the process of not only creating new thoughts, but also new processes related to reorganizing the Eurasian region. In addition, it is necessary to overcome the positivist approach in which Latin and, consequently, Western-centric terminology imposes itself upon the subject. Moreover, it is necessary to work out a lexicon, mechanism, and culture of international relations which are appropriate to the third millennium not only for the region under consideration, but for other corners of the planet.[1]

The name “union” in Russian means bond, or a connection, in referring to a certain community. This is essentially a loan word from the Latin conjūnctiō (connection, contingency, agreement) or the Greek word Σύνδεσμος (connection, link). In considering the paths of development of these terms, we see a significant difference. The widespread English term “union” comes from the same Latin term, but only in truncated form, as the word junction has less meaning and does not reflect the idea of community. Moreover, in a political lexicon this can mean an unstable association, including certain contracts or “unions.” There are more negative interpretations of this concept, such as “junta,” which refer to the numerous coups in Latin American countries carried out by militaries. The accepted interpretation is nominally suitable for a future union, but there are also plenty of other synonyms. However, this will be only a label for forms of intergovernmental structures. What will its content be?

The question of forms of governance (or co-governance) and mechanisms for decision-making immediately arises. Will a Eurasian parliament be created or will legislative power be delegated to an inter-parliamentary assembly of the Eurasian Union? Is the form of delegation of authority according to the European parliamentary example adequate in this situation or is there the possibility of creating a structure more flexible and responsive to the interests of the peoples of the Eurasian Union? Will polycentric law or consociationalism be accepted as tools for resolving socio-political and economic issues? Will economics remain the driving force of the Eurasian locomotive or will there be deeper reasons (albeit difficult for politicians to describe in words) for geopolitical consolidation (as Aristotle said – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts)?

At the current moment, the Eurasian Economic Union practically functions in the format of the Customs Union. New elements, especially the defense factor, personnel capacity, as well as a unifying ideology, have not entered the interests of opposing national elites for subjective and objective reasons.

Ancient philosophers believed that the state is the highest form of human creativity. If this is so, then such a unification of states into a unified force with carefully selected internal and external policies, and a system of balances and counters against external threats, would be the highest form of all. But a spiritual component, an ideology, must exist above everyday political constructions. In our opinion, Ideocracy, which is characterized by a common world view and the willingness of ruling elites to serve one common idea and a regent representing “the benefit of all peoples inhabiting this special autarchical world”[2] should become the political system of governance of the Eurasian Union. Unfortunately, this thesis remains only in theory under the current nomenclature. Preparing a new elite is a relevant task today.

Fateful geography

What is Eurasia? Although Eduard Suess used this word in his fundamental work “The Face of the Earth” [3] in pointing to the arbitrariness of the boundaries between Europe and Asia, it is undoubtedly necessary to take into account first and foremost the school of classical Eurasianist thought from Petr Savitsky to Lev Gumilev, as we cannot construct the theoretical foundations for a solid political reality in a purely geographical context [4]. Taking this as a foundation, we discover that the Eurasianists used this term in an exclusionary sense. Eurasia is a special world, not the mere totality of Europe and Asia. It is worth noting that “in this they followed the Slavophile views of the linguist, ethnologist, and geographer Vladimir Lamansky, who was the first to suggest that the Old World was divided not into two but into three continents – Europe, Asia, and Russia, or the “Middle World” of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia – on the basis of geographical and linguistic data.”[5] In this case we are dealing with a melding of cultures and peoples inhabiting this space who do not “fit” into the European and Asian margins of Eurasia [6]. A similar method of apophatic geopolitics can be used to model our possible future of the Eurasian Union.

The new political configuration will not be a recreation of the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire. It will also not be in the likeness of the European Union, where countries are divided according to linguistic, administrative and, in some cases, currency differences, but rather will be united on the basis of political-economic administration. Due to the fact that a number of the states of our future union have their own languages, it will not be similar to Latin-American integration projects [7]. On the other hand, in this process there is not only a continuation of a common past, but also common cultural and linguistic roots which allowed the Eurasianists to speak of a linguistic union. For example, Roman Jakobson’s designation of the common space of soft correlation practically coincided with the borders of the USSR, with the exception of the Far East, where the border ran roughly along the Omolon river separating Chukotka and Kamchatka (this zone was covered by Mongolia and the northern regions of China). And Lev Gumilev pointed out the complementarity of the Turkic, Slavic, and Finno-Urgic peoples inhabiting Eurasia over the mountain ranges ranging from Hindu Kush to Tian-Shan.

In addition, the formation of the Eurasian Union entails the the opportunity to assess all the insufficiencies of previous projects, from the level of the governing system to the interests of local communities.

But, first and foremost, we should look at the Eurasian mass from a global perspective.

In their imperialist ambitions, Anglo-Saxon geopoliticians speak of the Old World and the continuity of Western European political culture while forgetting the holistic picture of the world. The geographical axis of history, as well as Middle Earth (Heartland), are located in Russia [8]. Hence the famous formula of world domination which was corrected by Nicholas Spykman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Henry Kissinger and which, despite modification, has not lost its essence. But, as with any geographical organism, this Heartland would be incomplete without other vital elements. Thus, Kazakhstan is the soft underbelly of Eurasia offering access to the other countries of Central Asia, as to China and Russia [9], which represent Innerland, or the Inner Earth of Eurasia remote from the coastal zone (Rimland) as well as Middle Earth. In the West, Belarus and Ukraine are the logical extremity of the cultural-geographical Eurasian space ending at the border of the Carpathian mountains and the isotherm of January (according to Savitsky).It follows that Ukraine is an important link for the Eurasian Union and the bitter struggle of the US and West for this republic possesses geopolitical implications as the Eurasian Union would be incomplete without Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Eurasian Union is a bridge between West and East. Economically speaking, this is an important communication line between such political giants as the European Union and China. In connection with the expansion of the unified customs zone from the Masurian marshes in the North and the Caspian-Black Sea basin in the South on the one side to Dzungaria on the other, the possibility of creating a powerful transport corridor is already of great interest to Beijing. Thus, Petr Savitsky’s concept of the Eurasian land-sea finds its realization in the third millennium.

At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Ufa in 2015, the leaders of Russia and China discussed a possible synthesis of the EEU and Silk Road Economic Belt project which China began to implement in the 2013.

“The integration of these two large-scale continental, integration, transport, and logistical projects is capable of offering not only significant economic benefits, but also, without exaggerating, creating a new geopolitical reality in the space of Eurasia and generating new, maximally favorable conditions for the economic and socio-political lives and interests of the countries of the continent, thereby reducing any possible pressure on Russia and China.”[10]

Although China, as a self-sufficient civilizational actor, lies outside the classical scheme of Eurasianism (India and Pacific Asia are also “outsiders”), such cooperation is acceptable and in some cases even necessary from the perspective of neo-Eurasianism.

Beyond the framework of classical Eurasianism

The main theses for rethinking classical Eurasianism were laid after the collapse of the USSR by Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, and the Russian scholar and geopolitician Alexander Dugin. They approached this issue from different sides, but their conceptions can be adequately combined and complement each other. N. Nazarbayev advocated Eurasianism from the perspective of a statist and for preserving the continuity of the Union. According to his plan, a new association was to overcome the discord inherent to the doctrines of Bolshevism, Marxism-Leninism, and the Soviet system, while simultaneously maintaining the economic ties between republics. His proposal remained unattended for many years due to a number of reasons ranging from conflicts in different republics to the erroneous orientation of the liberal-capitalist establishment imposed by the state and non-state actors such as the IMF and the World Bank. Alexander Dugin’s project of neo-Eurasianism appeared as a large-scale geopolitical doctrine reaching beyond the scope of conventional geographical borders. Carl Schmitt’s classic dichotomy of Land and Sea and division of enemies and friends automatically extended Eurasianism onto a planetary scale. [11]

Dugin noted that “Eurasianists are not only representatives of the peoples inhabiting the continent of Eurasia. Eurasianists are all those free and creative personalities who recognize the value of tradition, including the representatives of those regions which objectively remain bases of Atlanticism.”[12]

The Chinese researcher Tao Xu recently correctly noted that “the rapprochement between China and Russia is an inevitable result of the strategic pressure of the United States as well as the choice which the parties have made for the purpose of their own survival” [13]. In his publication, Xu noted that “the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation are the most durable political entities on the Eurasian continent possessing a historically long-lasting civilization and sophisticated industrial and agricultural base. Interaction between China and Russia not only promotes the security and development of these two states, but also might attract the attention of other countries on the territory of Eurasia, including Iran and Pakistan, in order to disrupt the strategic plans of the USA in the region” [14]. Further continuing a regional analysis through the prism of geopolitical imperatives, Xu quite logically points out that Latin America represents an external force of the Eurasian community, while Africa represents a friendly force. He also points out that there are many supporters of Russia and China in Asia.

Thus, the formation of the Eurasian Union along with other integration processes in other parts of the world would represent a movement towards creating a multipolar (polycentric) world. The sooner that the Eurasian Union is created, the faster the states comprising it, as well as other countries contributing to shaping the new world order, will be able to get out from underneath the influence of the US by direct (hard power) or indirect (soft power) means.

It is particularly important that the creation of a synergy of Eurasian power would render it sufficiently difficult for foreign forces, and first and foremost the USA, to establish pockets of control in the form of military bases or satellite states. While the presence of Washington’s influence can still be observed in Central Asia, especially in Afghanistan, it is quite feasible in the near future that proper cooperation between the countries of the region will fully squeeze out the US.

It should be noted that there are two more projects associated with Russia and China: the Arctic sea route and the “Pearl necklaces” strategy. The first is a geo-economic project being realized by Russia, since a major part of the Arctic is located within its sovereign economic zone.

China successfully realized its project somewhat earlier. This “necklace” represents a kind of sequence (or chain) of codes where each “pearl” is a nexus of Chinese military presence or geopolitical influence through which Beijing is building strategic relationships and developing opportunities for establishing a presence along the lines of sea communication that connect China and the Middle East [15].

These two belts are by and large actually closing Eurasia from the North and South and, if necessary, could be integrated into a logistical naval ring.

Economy

Should we follow the German idea of autarchy (self-sufficiency) as described in the books of Johann Fichte (“closed trading space”) and Friedrich List (“national system of political economy”) in overcoming various nationalisms (Russian, Kazakh, etc.) and advancing to the level of collective economic sovereignty? Or should we stick to the concepts of Nikolai Trubetskoy and Petr Savitsky, who spoke not only of economic decisions favorable for Eurasia, but also of a universal human ideal which might be embodied in the special world of a Eurasian supranationalism? [16]

The Gesellian system of free money, or the ethical economy, which would be based on various functionals depending on regional specifics, in one way or another needs to overcome the logic of neoliberal capitalism. Recent discussion on the possibility of establishing a BRICS bank is a good start for emerging out of dependence on the speculative assets of the West.

Overall, as noted by Gregory Gleason, a doctor of political science from the US, “the creation of a single economic space throughout the territory of Eurasia is long overdue” [177].

But if this “official formula of the current integration project in the framework of the Eurasian Union means economic integration while maintaining political sovereignty and guaranteeing  collective security”[18], then in the future this should be extended to include political and social unification processes, including those on the level of public diplomacy. This would allow reaching the level of system integration and developing its own rules of the game.

As a response to the challenge of globalization, it is also necessary to: (1) stimulate production for domestic markets, (2) utilize the principle of subsidiarity, (3) defend local trade from the ravages of transnational corporations and low tariffs, (4) encourage the introduction of ecological technologies, and (5) form a type of mixed economy [19].

No matter what might be said about the smart economy and information technologies, the two pillars of production will always be food and energy. Without food, the proper functioning of any workforce is impossible, and without the energy components of a factory, plants and transport will stop. Russia and Kazakhstan are the world’s largest producers and exporters of wheat. In addition, Russia and Kazakhstan possess vast stocks of hydrocarbons and radioactive materials and have the appropriate infrastructure for processing them. The raw material component has an ambivalent character since Russia and Kazakhstan are regarded by the West as its own oil and gas appendages. But nuclear energy, despite the incident in Japan [20], will remain promising and relatively cheap for a long time to come and, in connection with this, the future creation of alternative grain (and, more broadly, agricultural) and energy exchanges will mean a new role and new status for the Eurasian Union. In this context, the accession of Russia to the WTO is assessed by many Russian politicians and experts as an error.

If we return to the post-Soviet space, we see that Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan are undergoing the transition from the framework of the Customs Union to the Eurasian Economic Union.

Although a decline in trade and economic relations can be seen between these countries due to the ongoing global financial crisis, alternative models are actively being developed which fit within the overall package of EEU documents and do not conflict with the norms of nation states and international law. Special attention is paid to services or, more precisely, the formation of a single market for services as a complex and multifaceted process [21]

Ethnic groups in the political processes of the Eurasian Union

What kind of approach will be developed in resolving ethnic and traditional cultural issues between the future union’s peoples will affect its success to a large extent. Based on the theory of Lev Gumilev, we will most likely be able to avoid conflicts of the Huntington type, although attempts at stirring ethnic conflicts and destabilization from without can never be excluded.

The following can be designating among non-violent methods for managing ethnic differences: (1) integration and/or assimilation, (2) hegemonic control, (3) arbitration (including a third party in the process), (4) Cantonization and/or federalization, (5) consociationalism or the separation of powers [22]. The first option was tested in Western Europe in a “humanized” version and is known under the name of multiculturalism. Its failure was recognized in 2010 by the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Germany’s Angela Merkel. The second and third variants are absolutely unsuitable in our case. The fourth has been sufficiently studied in the example of the countries of Western Europe, and is not at all adequate for the realities of the Eurasian space. Consociationalism, which is often associated with corporatism, is more interesting since it is not based on economic principles that help to regulate class conflicts, but “on the basis of harmonizing social fragmentation along ethnic and religions lines” [23] which already exist, even in Russia. As some specialists on international law have noted, there exists a number of conditions which could render consociationalism effective. These are:

  • The segmental isolation of ethnic communities
  • A pluralistic balance of power
  • The presence of external threats common to all communities
  • Common loyalty to the state
  • The tradition of accommodating elites
  • Socio-economic equality
  • Small population size, the reduction of political pressures
  • A moderate multi-party system with segmental parties [24]

There is yet another important aspect: the crossing of boundaries which do not represent administrative lines, but rather social spaces with particular specificities. For example, if such a phenomenon is harmonized by common the Slavic ethnic particularities and Orthodox religious culture shared between Belarus and Russia, then between Russia and Kazakhstan there exist more differences not only along the line of Slavs vs. Turks or Orthodox vs. Muslims, but, for example, the presence of the Cossack element and the sharing of a common Turkic super-ethnos comprised of different parts. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of hybrid borders might turn out to have a positive effect. Historical experience shows that the intermixing of cultures contributes to the establishment of a polylogue of peoples despite their specific domestic, cultural, and ritual differences and different world views.

Critics and opponents

As regards current criticism of the idea of the Eurasian Union, there are a number of politicians and experts, mainly from the US and Western Europe, who have already called the initiative an attempt at reviving the Soviet Empire with a principal role for Moscow as the main decision-making center.

More astute analysts consider this initiative in the context of the international situation, the growing power of a number of states, and regional geopolitics. Lauren Goodrich of the Stratfor intelligence-analytical center called the plan for creating a Eurasian Union a restoration of the Russian Empire “as much as possible.” He believes that, due to unique geographical circumstances, Russia has unprotected borders and therefore has to maximize its territory and create strategic depth on its “outskirts.” Goodrich writes that “the final plan of Russia is regaining control over much of its former territories…Russia will begin this new integration of the Russian Empire by creating a union with former Soviet republics on the basis of Moscow’s current associations such as the Customs Union, the Union State, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. This will allow the Eurasian Union to strategically encompass both the economic and security spheres” [26]. Nevertheless, the American expert recognized that the Eurasian Union will not be a new copy of the USSR as Moscow has taken all errors associated with control into account. Therefore. “Moscow will influence foreign policy and security, but will not be held responsible for a large proportion of the domestic affairs of each country.”

The coup in Ukraine must be assessed as an attempt not only at controlling the country, but also at weakening Eurasian integration, as the events in Ukraine provoked actions by Moscow which evoked mixed appraisals. For example, the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has recognized the Kiev regime and even provided logistical support to Ukraine for conducting the military-punitive operation in Donbass. This caused a negative reaction on the part of Moscow.

The agenda of the day also includes the accession of Central Asian states, a prospect which has not escaped the attention of political scientists. Tajikistan is interested in joining the EEU and Uzbekistan is considered to be no less of an important figure on the Eurasian chessboard in geopolitical plans. But, there are tensions over water resources between these countries. The activity of militants in Afghanistan partially contributed to the strengthening of the role of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (there is a Russian military presence in Tajikistan which was recently strengthened by military transport and attack helicopters), but, nevertheless, an adequate integration of these two countries demands developing a detailed “road map.”

Be that as it may, any criticism should be thoroughly assessed. The picture is less clear when arguments “against” are sounded from US or Western European neoliberal think-tanks for whom, based on a neocolonial logic, the unifying process of Eurasia is not in their interests. If there is a rational kernel in the objections of opponents, then it is necessary to take into account these points and hold an extensive discussion. It is necessary to understand that the Eurasian Union is not a project of ruling elites, but the materialization of the aspirations of our continent’s peoples.

Strategy or strategies?

Each state has its own strategy of foreign political activity connected with national interests and values. In the example of the NATO bloc countries, we see that arguments arise often on issues of foreign policy which are connected with principles of strategic culture. The same could happen in the Eurasian Union if are attempts at synchronizing national strategies, including questions of security, are not made now.

The very project of the Eurasian Union will require a long-term strategy demanding ideological content as well as the institutionalization of a new strategic culture which should overcome ethnic, national, civill, and regional contradictions that, in previous historical stages, were causes for the escalation of conflict. Given the new international situation, they may take on new forms associated with the tactical priorities of ruling elites and external influence.

This strategy must necessarily be a Grand Strategy, since it implies not only a grand geographical scale and economic reforms in the states entering the future union, but also a strong reaction from rival countries or state blocs [27].

Although this term [Grand Strategy] originally applied to the art of war and pointed to the need for a state to make large-scale efforts in various spheres of activity during a war [28], it was reconsidered later by geopoliticians and began to be used in delineating the consolidating activities of a state and alliances with the aim of achieving certain strategic goals.

For this purpose it is necessary to tap into the syncretic potential of already existing doctrines and collective agreements. The academic pool, questions of natural determinism, the thinking of senior officials, tactical questions, and regional and intergovernmental spheres should culminate in a united, common Eurasian paradigm. It is necessary to study the general geopolitical context. As the prominent geopolitician Colin Gray said, context (from the Latin contextere) has two meanings. It can refer to that which “surrounds,” or that which now has daily relevance. At the same time, it can mean “that which weaves together” [29]. Unity is the context of the national security of the countries of the Eurasian Union and the foundations of future development. And if tactical errors in the realization of various programs can still be corrected, then a strategic error cannot be corrected. In our case, we have no right to make such a mistake as this means a loss of many future decades. So that this does not happen, the actors and founders of the Eurasian Union need to formulate the geopolitical context themselves, not under its influence.

Footnotes

[1] The very term “international relations” is not quite adequate as all existing schools – realism, liberalism, and constructivism – describe first and foremost relations between states, and not peoples who could be divided by state boundaries or, on the contrary, remain on the territory of one country.

[2] Trzubetzkoy, N.S. Об идее-правительнице идеократического государства.// Евразийская хроника. Выпуск XI. Paris, 1935. С. 29-37.

[3] Suess, Eduard. Hotel Das Antlitz der Erde. Vienna, 1885.

[4] Similar contractions can be observed in contemporary geopolitical debates taking place in Latin America, where representatives of the integration school of South and Central America criticize the contemporary political thought of North America on the level of terms, calling its region “Our America” (“Nuestra America”) and condemning the colonization processes of former European powers.

[5] Серио П. Структура и целостность. Об интеллектуальных истоках структурализма в Центральной и Восточной Европе. 1920-30 гг. – Мoscow: Языки славянской культуры, 2001. С. 89.

[6] However, a further and broader perspective of unification is fully possible. At the time, a number of European geopoliticians (Karl Haushofer, Jean Thiriart, Hordes von Lohausen) already proposed the project of a continental “Eurasian Empire from Dublin to Vladivostok,” and indicated the need for integrating the countries of Western Europe and the Soviet Union. More recently, the Chinese researcher Tao Zu proposed creating a Eurasian alliance of Russia and China for the joint defense of interests in opposition to the hegemonic ambitions of the US.

[7] The residents of  all countries of this continent, except Brazil, speak Spanish (in addition to native Indian Guarani, Aymara, etc.).

[8] Makkinder, H. “The Geographical Pivot of History”. Geographical Journal, 1904.

[9] Such a formulation was proposed by Z. Brzezinski in his book The Grand Chessboard.

[10] Grozin, А.V. Интеграционные проекты Пекина и Москвы для Евразии: перспективы взаимодействия // Постсоветский материк № 2 (6)/2015, С. 91.

[11] See Наш путь. Стратегические перспективы развития России в XXI веке. М.: Арктогея, 1999; Дугин А.Г. Проект «Евразия». – Moscow: Эксмо, Яуза, 2004; Дугин А.Г. Евразийский путь как национальная идея. – М.:Арктогея, 2002; Дугин А.Г. Основы геополитики. Геополитическое будущее России. – Мoscow: Арктогея, 1999.

[12] Dugin, A.G. Евразийский взгляд.// Геополитика № XIII, С. 5.

[13] Xu. Китаю и России следует создать Евразийский альянс.// Жэньминь жибао онлайн. 30/01/2012. http://russian.people.com.cn/95181/7714612.html

[14] ibid.

[15] Savin, L.V. Новая волна американской геополитики: взгляд на Китай // Институт высокого коммунитаризма, http://communitarian.ru/publikacii/aziaokeania/novaya_volna_amerikanskoy_geopolitiki_vzglyad_na_kitay/?sphrase_id=29940163

[16] Trubetzkoy, N.S. Мысли об автаркии.//Новая эпоха. Narva, 1933. С.25-26.

[17] Paramanov, V.. Евразийская интеграция и Китай: виртуальный экспертный форум. Часть 5.// Информационно-аналитический центр. 04.12.2011. http://www.ia-centr.ru/expert/12185/

[18] Solozobov, Y.M. Евразийский Союз: от идеи к практике.// Геополитика № XIII, С. 15-16.

[19] Savin, L.V. Глобализация во благо народов. Перспективы четвертой политической теории. Текст доклада на международной конференции «Земля, живи! От вражды к сотрудничеству цивилизаций». Moscow, 04.12.2009.

[20] It should be noted that Fukushima station is an American model. Modern Russian nuclear power stations have a high security level including in the case of natural disasters.

[21] Oshakbaev, R.S. Новые подходы к регулированию сферы торговли услугами в рамках Евразийского экономиеского союза // Союз Евразия, № 3, 2014. С. 64.

[22] John McGarry and Brendan O’leary. “The Marco-Political Regulation of Ethnic Conflicts” from The Politics of Regulating Interethnic Conflicts: Case Studies of Protracted Ethnic Conflicts (London, Routledge: 1993) pp. 1- 40.

[23] A Hassel. Salaries, Social Pacts, and the Euro: A new role for the state (Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press: 2006) pp. 281.

[24] Michael, K. Imposing Power-Sharing: Conflict and Coexistence in Northern Ireland and Lebanon (Dublin, Irish Academic Press: 2006) pp 27-28.

[25] In contrast to dialogue (Greek: Διάλογος) in which the participants of an interaction are two subjects, th term “polylogue” (or “multilogue”) is used for multilateral relations.

[26] Goodrich, L. “Россия: восстановление империи по возможности”.// Геополитика № XIII, С. 35-40.

[27] Савин Л.В. Великая Стратегия для Евразийского Союза.// Геополитика № XIII, С. 26-30.

[28] See Гарт Б.Л. Стратегия непрямых действий. – Мoscow: Эксмо, 2008.

[29] Gray, Colin. Modern Strategies Chapter 5 “Strategic Culture as Context” (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1999).

 

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

The Geopolitics of the European New Right

Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

Chapter 5 from Book 1, Part 2 of Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia (Arktogeya, Moscow: 2000) 

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1. Alain de Benoist’s Europe of a Hundred Flags

One of the few European geopolitical schools which has preserved an uninterrupted link with the ideas of the pre-war German continentalist geopoliticians is that of the “New Right.” This trend appeared in France in the late ’60’s and is associated with the philosopher and publicist Alain de Benoist, the leading figure of the movement. 

The “New Right” sharply differs on practically all matters from the traditional French right consisting of monarchists, Catholics, Germanophobes, chauvinists, anti-communists, conservatives, etc. The “New Right” includes those who support “organic democracy,” pagans, Germanophiles, socialists, modernists, etc. At the beginning, the “left camp” so conventionally, extremely influential in France considered such to be a “tactical maneuver” by typical rightists, but with time the gravity of this evolution was proven and came to be recognized by all. 

One of the fundamental principles of the “New Right’s” ideology, analogues of which soon appeared in other European countries, is the principal of “continental geopolitics.” In contrast to the “old right” and classical nationalists, de Benoist believed that the principle of the centralized Nation-State has been historically exhausted and that the future belongs only to “Great Spaces.” The basis of such “Large Spaces” are to be not so much associations of various states in a pragmatic political bloc, but the equal-footed conglomeration of ethnic groups of different scales into a “Federal Empire.” Such a “Federal Empire”  is supposed to be strategically unified, yet ethnically differentiated. Moreover, such strategic unity is to be underpinned by the unity of primordial culture.

The “Large Space” which interested de Benoist most of all was Europe. The New Right believed that the peoples of Europe possess a common Indo-European heritage, a single origin, and the principle of a “common past.” The conditions of the modern epoch, in which tendencies of strategic and economic integration are actively essential for the possession of any real geopolitical sovereignty, dictate the necessity of uniting in even a purely pragmatic sense. Thus, the peoples of Europe are destined for a “common future,” and therein de Benoist draws the conclusion that the thesis of a “United Europe of a hundred flags” [16] must become Europeans’ fundamental geopolitical standard. In such a perspective, as in all the concepts of the New Right, a striving to combine “conservative” and “modernist” elements,i.e., “right” and “left” principles, is clearly visible. In recent years, the New Right has rejected such a label insofar as it considers itself to be “right” to the same extent that it is “left.” 

De Benoist’s geopolitical theses are based on an affirmation of the “continental fate of Europe.” In this regard, he fully adheres to the conceptions of Haushofer’s school. From this follows the New Right’s characteristic juxtaposition of “Europe” and the “West.” For them, Europe is a continental, geopolitical formation founded on an ensemble of ethnicities with a common Indo-European origin and possessing common cultural roots. This concept is a traditional one. The “West,” on the contrary, is a geopolitical and historical concept of the modern world which denies ethnic and spiritual traditions, instead putting forth purely material and quantitative criteria of existence, i.e., an essentially utilitarian and rationalist, mechanistic bourgeois civilization. Accordingly, the USA is understood as the most complete incarnation of the West and its “civilization.” 

The concrete project of the New Right unfolds along this plane. Europe is to integrate into a “Federal Empire” in opposition to the West and the US. Moreover, regionalist tendencies are to be particularly encouraged, as regions and ethnic minorities retain more traditional features than the metropolises and cultural centers affected by the “Spirit of the West.” On this note, France is supposed to orient itself towards Germany and Middle Europa – hence the interest of the New Right in De Gaulle and Friedrich Naumann. On the level of practical politics, since the ‘70’s the New Right has acted in favor of Europe’s strict strategic neutrality, its withdrawal from NATO, and the development of independent, European nuclear potential. 

In regards to the USSR (and later Russia), the position of the New Right has evolved. Starting with the classical thesis of “Neither West nor East, but Europe”, the New Right has since gradually developed the thesis of “Europe above all, but better with the East than with the West.” On a practical level, the original interest in China and the project of a strategic alliance between Europe and China for the purpose of opposing both “American and Soviet imperialism” came to be replaced with a moderate “Sovietophilia” and ideas of a European-Russian alliance. 

The New Right’s geopolitics are radically anti-Atlanticist and anti-Mondialist in orientation. They see the fate of Europe as the antithesis of the Atlanticist and Mondialist projects and are thus opponents of “thalassocracy” and the “One World” concept. 

It should be noted that in the conditions of the total strategic and political domination of Atlanticism in Europe during the Cold War, de Benoist’s geopolitical position (theoretically and logically flawless), being contrasted to the “norms of political thought,” had no chance of becoming widespread. It was in its own way a kind of “dissidence”, and like any “dissidence” or “non-conformism,” it had a marginal character. To this day, the intellectual level of the New Right, the high quality of its publications, and even the number of its followers among European academia have been ignored by authorities and the analytical institutions which delegate authority to geopolitical projects. 

2. Jean Thiriart – Europe from Vladivostok to Dublin 

Yet another excellent variety of continentalist geopolitics was developed by another European “dissident,” the Belgian Jean Thiriart (1922-1992). From the early ’60’s onwards, he was the leader of the pan-European radical movement “Young Europe.”

Thiriart considered geopolitics to be the foremost discipline of political science without which it is impossible to construct a rational and farsighted political or state strategy. As a follower of Haushofer and Niekisch, he considered himself to be a “European National Bolshevik” and a builder of the “European Empire.” It was his ideas which anticipated the further developed and more sophisticated projects of the New Right. 

Jean Thiriart built his political theory on the principle of the “autarchy of large spaces.” Developed in the middle of the 19th century by the German economist Friedrich List, this theory asserts that the potential strategic and economic development of a state is possible only if it possesses sufficient geopolitical scale and larger territorial advantages. Thiriart applied this concept to the actual situation in Europe and came to the conclusion that the global value of Europe’s states would ultimately be lost if they did not unite into a unified Empire in opposition to the USA. Moreover, Thiriart believed that such an “Empire” would not be “federal” and “regional-oriented”, but ultimately unitary, centralized, and would become a powerful, single continental Nation-State in accordance with the Jacobin model. Here lies the fundamental difference between the views of de Benoist and Thiriart. 

In the late ’70’s Thiriart’s views underwent some modification. An analysis of the prevailing geopolitical situation led him to the conclusion that Europe’s scale was insufficient to liberate it from American thalassocracy. Consequently, the main condition for “European liberation” was the unification of Europe and the USSR. He moved from a geopolitical scheme involving three main zones – the West, Europe, and Russia (USSR) – to one with only two components, i.e., the West and the Eurasian continent. Moreover, Thiriart came to the radical conclusion that Europe would have to choose Soviet socialism over Anglo-Saxon capitalism. 

Thus appeared the project of the “Euro-Soviet Empire from Vladivostok to Dublin” [17]. This proposition nearly prophetically described the reasons which would lead to the collapse of the USSR if it did not commit to new geopolitical moves in Europe and the South in the near future. Thiriart believed that the ideas of Haushofer concerning a “continental bloc of Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo” were relevant to a large extent even now. It is important that these theses of Thiriart were presented 15 years before the collapse of the USSR and absolutely accurately predicted the logic and reasons behind this disaster. Thiriart unsuccessfully attempted to present his views to Soviet leaders, but he did personally meet with Nasser, Zhou Enlai, and senior Yugoslav officials in the ’60’s. It is significant that Moscow rejected his proposed organization of clandestine “European liberation brigades” tasked with waging a terroristic struggle against “Atlanticist agents” in Europe.

Jean Thiriart’s views currently underpin the active, non-conformist movement of the European National-Bolsheviks, such as the European Liberation Front, and are thoroughly in line with the projects of contemporary Russian Neo-Eurasianism. 

3. Thinking in Continents – Jordis von Lohausen

Thiriart himself was very close to the Austrian general Jordis von Lohausen who, unlike Thiriart and de Benoist, did not participate in direct political activism or build concrete social projects. Instead, Lohausen adhered to a strictly scientific approach and restricted himself to pure geopolitical analysis, although his original position as a continentalist and follower of Haushofer was one and the same with that of the National-Bolsheviks and New Right.

Lohausen believed that political power can only become durable and sustainable when rulers think in terms of “millennia and continents” rather than in immediate or local categories. His main work, accordingly, is titled The Strength to Conquer – Thinking in Continents [18].

Lohausen was of the opinion that global territorial, civilizational, and cultural as well as social process are only understandable if they are examined from a “farsighted” perspective as opposed to what he termed historical “short-sightedness.” In human society, authority, upon which the choice of historical path and the most important decisions depend, should be guided by the most general schemes which allow this or that state or people to find their place in a vast historical perspective. Therefore, the basic discipline necessary for the determination of power strategies is geopolitics in its traditional sense of operating with global categories while remaining aloof of analytical particularities (like Lacoste’s “internal” school of applied geopolitics). Modern ideologies and the latest technological and civilizational shifts undoubtedly change the topography of the world, but they cannot cancel the basic laws linked to natural and cultural cycles that are measured in millennia. 

Such global categories include space, language, ethnos, and resources, etc. Lohausen thus proposes the following formula of power: “strength = force x location.” 

Lohausen elaborates:

“Insofar as Strength is Power multiplied by location, only a favorable geographical position offers the opportunity of fully developing internal forces.” [19]

Thus, power (political, intellectual, etc.) is directly linked with space. 

Lohausen separated the fate of Europe from the fate of the West as he considered Europe to be a continental formation only temporarily under the control of thalassocracy. Accordingly, the geopolitical liberation of Europe requires a spatial (positional) minimum which can be achieved only through the unification of Germany, integration processes in Central Europe, the restoration of Prussia’s territorial integrity (torn between Poland, the USSR, and the GDR), and the further gathering of European states into a new, autonomous bloc independent of Atlanticism. In this scheme, it is important to note the role of Prussia which Lohausen (following Niekisch and Spengler) considered to be the most continental, “Eurasian” part of Germany. If Koenigsberg was the capital of Germany instead of Berlin, then European history would have gone in a different, more “correct” direction with an emphasis on a European-Russian alliance against Anglo-Saxon thalassocracy. 

Lohausen considered the future of Europe to be unthinkable from a strategic perspective without Russia and, vice versa, Russia (the USSR) needed Europe. Without it, Russia would be geopolitically “incomplete” and vulnerable to America, whose location is so much more advantageous that, consequently, its strength could sooner or later outstrip the USSR. Lohausen stressed that the USSR could have four different Europes to its West – a “hostile Europe,” a “subordinated Europe,” a “devastated Europe,” or a “European ally.” The first three variants would be inevitable if the USSR continued its European policy which, indeed, ultimately brought the Soviet Union to defeat in the Cold War. Only striving to make Europe “allied and friendly” at any cost could have redeemed the fatal geopolitical situation of the USSR and signaled a new stage in geopolitical history – a Eurasian stage. 

Lohausen purposefully confined his position to pure geopolitical observations, and he ignored any ideological issues. For example, to him him Boyar Rus, Tsarist Russia, and the Soviet Union were all parts of a single continuous process independent of changes in the ruling system or ideology. Geopolitically, Russia was heartland and its fate was predetermined by its lands no matter what regime ruled it. 

Like Thiriart, Lohausen foresaw the geopolitical collapse of the USSR as an inevitability if it continued to follow its usual course. However, what Atlanticist geopoliticians considered to be a victory, Lohausen saw above all as a defeat for continental forces. With this, however, there was a nuance. The collapse of the Soviet system could open new opportunities for creating a positive point of reference for the establishment of a future Eurasian bloc, a continental Empire, insofar as certain restrictions such as the ones imposed by Marxist ideology would be removed. 

4. Jean Parvulesco’s Eurasian Empire of the End

A more romantic version of geopolitics was put forth by the famous French writer Jean Parvulesco. Earlier geopolitical themes in literature had arisen in George Orwell’s dystopian1984 which futuristically described the division of the world into three enormous continental blocs: Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania. Similar themes can be encountered in the works of Arthur Kestler, Aldous Huxley, Raymond Abellio, etc. 

Jean Parvulesco made geopolitical themes central in all of his publications, thereby opening a new genre of “geopolitical fiction.” 

Parvulesco’s concepts can be summarized briefly by the following [20]: the history of mankind is the history of Power and authority. Various semi-secret organizations strive to access central positions in civilization, i.e., Power, the cycles of existence of which far exceed the duration of conventional political ideologies, ruling dynasties, religious institutions, or states and nations. The two organizations that have acted throughout history, albeit under different names, are distinguished by Parvulesco as the “Order of Atlanticists” and the “Order of Eurasianists.” Between these two forces rages a centuries-old struggle participated in by such disparate figures as the Pope, patriarchs, kings, diplomats, financiers, revolutionaries, mystics, generals, scientists, artists, etc. All socio-cultural manifestations, accordingly, boil down to primordial, albeit extremely complex, geopolitical archetypes. 

This is a geopolitical line pushed to the logical limit, the roots of which were even clearly traced by the rather rationalistic founders of geopolitics as such who were “foreign” to such “mysticism.” 

In Parvulesco’s plots, General De Gaulle and the geopolitics structures founded by him, which remained in the shadows after his presidency, play a central role. Parvulesco terms this “geopolitical holism.” Such “geopolitical holism” is the French analogue of the Haushofer school’s continentalism. 

The main task of the supporters of this line was the organization of the European continental bloc “Paris-Berlin-Moscow” and in this aspect Parvulesco’s theories interlock with the theses of the New Right and the National-Bolsheviks. 

Parvulesco maintained that the current historical stage is one of the culmination of centuries of geopolitical confrontation in which the dramatic history of the continental-civilizational duel will come to a head. He predicted the imminent emergence of the giant continental-scale construction of the “Eurasian Empire of the End” and the final showdown with the “Empire of the Atlantic.” He described this eschatological encounter in an apocalyptic tone as the “Endkampf” (“Final Battle”). Interestingly enough, the fictional characters of Parvulesco’s texts act side by side with real historical personalities, many of which the author maintained (and to this day still does) friendly relationships with. Among them are politicians from De Gaulle’s inner circle, English and American diplomats, the poet Ezra Pound, the philosopher Julius Evola, the politician and writer Raymond Abellio, the sculptor Arno Breker, various members of occult organizations, etc. 

Despite the fictional character of Parvulesco’s texts, they in fact possess relatively enormous geopolitical value, as a number of his articles published in the late ’70’s strangely enough accurately described the situation which prevailed in the world in the mid ‘90s. 

5. The Indian ocean as a path to world domination – Robert Steuckers 

The total opposite of the “geopolitical visionary” that was Parvulesco is the Belgian geopolitician and publicist Robert Steuckers, the publisher of the two prestigious journals Orientations and Vouloir. Steuckers approached geopolitics from a purely scientific, rationalist position and strove to liberate the discipline from what he deemed all of its “random” eccentricities. Following the logic of the New Right in an academic orientation, he nonetheless came to conclusions strikingly close to the “prophecies” of Parvulesco. 

Steuckers also believed that the socio-political and diplomatic projects of different states and blocs, no matter in whatever ideological form they are clothed in, represent veiled and temporarily indirect expressions of global geopolitical projects. In this phenomenon he saw the influence of the “Land” factor on human history, as man is a creature of the earth (created from earth). As follows, earth and space predetermine man in the most significant of his manifestations. This theory was the precursor of “geohistory.” 

For Steuckers, a continentalist orientation was a priority as he considered Atlanticism to be hostile to Europe and believed the fate of European prosperity to be connected with Germany and  [21]. Steuckers was an active proponent of Europe’s cooperation with Third World countries and the Arab world in particular. 

Along with this, he stressed the enormous importance of the Indian Ocean to the future geopolitical structure of the planet. He defined the Indian Ocean as the “Middle Ocean” located between the Atlantic and Pacific, strictly in the middle between the eastern coast of Africa and the Pacific zone home to New Zealand, Australia, New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Indochina. Maritime control over the Indian Ocean was considered to be a key position for geopolitically influencing three of the most important “large spaces,” i.e., Africa, southern-Eurasian Rimland, and the Pacific region. Hence the strategic priority attached to various small islands in the Indian Ocean, especially Diego Garcia which is equidistant from all coastal areas. 

Steuckers asserted that the Indian Ocean was the territory on which all of European strategy should be focused insofar as it is through this zone that Europe could influence the USA, Eurasia, and Japan all at once. From his point of view, the decisive geopolitical confrontation which would determine the future 21st century would unfold in precisely this space. 

Steuckers actively busied himself with the history of geopolitics and is the author of the article on geopolitics in the new edition of the Brussels Encyclopedia

6. Carlo Terracciano: Russia + Islam = the salvation of Europe 

A particularly active center of continentally-oriented geopolitics can be found in Italy. After the Second World War, the ideas of Carl Schmitt were more widespread in Italy than in any other European country, and thanks to this the geopolitical mindset is very common there. In addition, it was precisely in Italy that Jean Thiriart’s “Young Europe” movement and the ideas of continental National-Bolshevism were most developed of all. 

Of all the numerous political and sociological journals and centers of the New Right dealing with geopolitics, the Milanese “Orion” magazine, in which the geopolitical analyses of Dr. Carlo Terracciano were published regularly over the course of 10 years, is of particular interest. Terracciano professed the most extreme version of European continentalism most immediately congruent to Eurasianism. 

Terracciano fully accepted the map of Mackinder and Mahan and concurs with the rigorous civilizational and geopolitical dualism distinguished by them. Moreover, believing that the fate of Europe as a whole totally depends on the fate of Russia, Eurasia, and the East, he clearly stands on the side of heartland. For him, the continental East is a positive and the Atlanticist West is a negative. Radical approaches are exceptions among Europeans, even among continentally-oriented geopoliticians, and Terracciano does not put any accent on the special status of Europe, instead believing that it is a mere secondary point in view of the planetary confrontation of thalassocracy and tellurocracy. He fully subscribed to the idea of a united Eurasian State, a “Euro-Soviet Empire from Vladivostok to Dublin,” which brings him close to Thiriart. However, he does not share the “Jacobinism” and “universalism” inherent to Thiriart, instead insisting on ethno-cultural differentiation and regionalism which, in turn, brings him close to Alain de Benoist.

Terracciano underlines the centrality of the Russian factor which he combines with another interesting point – he believes that the most important role in the fight with Atlanticism belongs to the Islamic world, especially the anti-American regimes of Iran, Libya, Iraq, etc. This leads him to the conclusion that the Islamic world is, to a large extent, a proponent of continental geopolitical interests. He even considered “fundamentalist” versions of Islam to be positive in this regard. 

The ultimate formula which summarizes the geopolitical views of Dr. Terracciano is the following: Russia (heartland) + Islam vs. USA (Atlanticism, Mondialism) [22].

Terracciano saw Europe as the bridgehead of a Russo-Islamic anti-Mondialist bloc. In his opinion, only such a radical approach can objectively result in a genuine European renaissance. 

Terracciano’s views are shared by other associates of Orion and the intellectual center working at its base (including professor Claudio Mutti, Maurizio Murelli, the sociologist Alessandra Colla, Marko Battarra, etc.). A number of leftist, social-democratic, communist, and anarchist circles in Italy, the newspaper Umanità, and the journal Nuovo Angolazione have gravitated in this National-Bolshevik direction [represented by Terracciano].

Footnotes:

[16] Alain de Benoist “Les idess a l’endroit”, Paris, 1979

[17] Jean Thiriart “L’Empire Eurosovietique de Vladivistok jusque Dublin”, Brussell, 1988 

[18] Jordis von Lohausen “Mut zur Macht. Denken in Kontinenten”, Berg, 1978 

[19] Ibid

[20] Jean Parvulesco “Galaxie GRU”, Paris, 1991 

[21] Robert Steukers “La Russie, L’Europe et L’Occident” dans “Orientation” № 4 nov.-dec. 1983 

[22] Carlo Terracciano “Nel Fiume della Storia” in “Orion”, Milano, №№ 22 — 30, 1986 — 1987

 

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