Russia, Dugin, and Traditionalism in Politics: Political and Theological Placement of The Fourth Political Theory

John Cody Mosbey

March 3, 2015

Men of action cut a large figure in the history books, but it is the ideas placed in their heads by men of thought that actually determine what they do.

- Robert Zubrin

Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin, a contemporary Russian political philosopher and sociologist, postulates that the world has experienced three major political theories since the Enlightenment: the first, Liberalism; the second, Communism; and the third, Fascism. These three theories competed for supremacy, and although archaic vestiges 1

of both Fascism and Communism still have advocates (and even some remaining nation-state adherents), Liberalism emerged as the clear victor. With the fall of the Fascist States - Italy followed by Germany at the conclusion of World War II - and the subsequent complete collapse of the Soviet Union by 1991, Liberalism was left as the only serious political theory actor standing on the world stage. Despite the apparent victory, Dugin and others do not believe that Liberalisms victory is either permanent or desirable. Hence an alternative political theory to challenge Liberalism is being hailed; an additional paladin has entered the lists to tilt the champion, Liberalism. The new challenger is recognized as a sequential entry, a fourth theory.

To claim that Dugin is a controversial figure is to engage in serious understatement. He is at once claimed to be a significant influence to Vladimir Putin and reportedly out of favor in Moscow at the same time. He was listed as Head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow State University, then reportedly dismissed from the faculty in mid-2014 only to have conflicting reports from the University and others regarding his actual employment status. Andreas Umland, 2

1Aleksandr Gelyevichn Dugin ( ) hereafter Aleksandr Dugin unless his name is included in quoted material and given a different spelling.2 See for example: Comments in the Interpreter, http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-this-week-what-will-be-twitters-fate-in-russia/ (by-line: Catherine A.

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Russian and Ukrainian specialist and a Dugin critic, does not hesitate to pin the label obscurantist pseudo-scholar onto Dugin, and claims that Dugin uses conservatism as a cover for the spread of a revolutionary ultranationalist and neo-imperialist ideology. Dugin seems to exist in an ethereal world of present power and being out of 3

favor at the same time. However, it is Dugins political philosophy, its sticking power, and the reception it is afforded in the West - not his academic position nor his official titles - that possess the critical pertinence concerned in this present study.

Invitation to the Fourth Political Theory

To put Dugins nascent political philosophy in advocate terms, it favors a multipolar global political landscape upon which the First Political Theory, Liberalism, is curtailed, defeated some would say, and supplanted by the Fourth Political Theory. This Fourth Political Theory has been sketched out, but Dugin admits it lacks the detail or experiential elements needed to fully compare its viability to its long extant rival, Liberalism. Dugin characterizes his introduction to this fourth way as an invitation to participate in the full development of a new political paradigm. To just whom this 4

invitation is specifically directed is not completely clear, but it seems to have gained traction with the Russian New Right (RNR) and the Nouvelle Droite, the European New

Fitzpatrick) 27 June 2014, last accessed January 27, 2015. See also: Dugins CV posted on his website http://dugin.ru/biografia.html, last accessed February 18, 2015, 2008. Meeting in Belgrade with major national of Serbia - Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, T.Nikolichem etc. The book "Postfilosofiya", "Radical subject and his double." Series of lectures "Arheomodern." Getting Started at the sociological faculty of Moscow State University and the establishment of the Center for Conservative Studies. 2009 - 2014 Head. Department of Sociology of International Relations Sociology Faculty of Moscow State University. MV Lomonosov Moscow State University. Courses: Sociology of imagination, structural sociology, sociology of Russian society, Ethnosociology, Geopolitics, Geopolitics of Russia, Postmodern Philosophy and Sociology, Sociology of International Relations, Geopolitics and International Relations, Sociology of Gender. Tutorials "Sociology of imagination," "Logos and Mifos", "Geopolitics", "Geopolitics of Russia", "International Relations", "Ethnosociology." Monograph "The Fourth Political Theory," "Sociology of the Russian Society", "Martin Heidegger. Philosophy others started", "Martin Heidegger. The possibility of Russian philosophy", "Martin Heidegger. Last God," "The Fourth Way", five-volume "Noomahiya" " The war over the world. " Issuing regular publications: "Tradition", "Leviathan", "The Fourth Political Theory," "Deconstruction / Eidos," "Etnotsentrum." 3 Andreas Umland, Fascist Tendencies in Russian Higher Education: The Rise of Aleksandr Dugin and the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University, Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Spring 2011, retrieved from: http://www.demokratizatsiya.org/se/util/display_mod.cfm?MODULE=/ Last access February 11, 2015. 4Aleksandr Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory, First English edition, UK, Arktos Media Ltd 2012, 35.

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Right (ENR). What can be readily ascertained is that the Fourth Political Theory advocates a world ideologically opposed to many facets of Western European and U.S. liberal democracy. This Fourth Political Theory displays decidedly anti-modern characteristics, and this anti-modernism may be construed as anti-Westernism - especially Westernism U.S. style.

Dugins book, The Fourth Political Theory, is the recent culmination of his political thought regarding the trajectory of Russias political future and the demise of Western political power in the world arena. Dugin is unwilling to allow Liberalism to be 5

left standing alone on the political field, unwilling to accept that the defeat of Communism and Fascism has left Liberalism as the de facto last word in historical political development. Dugin is a vehement opponent of Liberalism.

Dugin describes his formulation of the Fourth Political Theory as a process that extended over several years. As the process continued, Dugin eventually rejected the idea that Communism and Fascism had salvageable elements that could be used to form a synthesis that eliminated the abhorrent manifestations of Soviet praxis and the unspeakable aberrance of Nazi National Socialist deviance.

From 20008 [sic] when the main principles of the 4PT [Fourth Political Theory] were clearly formulated I have renounced to any appeal to the second or third political theories (communism and nationalism) and I has [sic] concentrated exclusively on the elaboration of fully independent Fourth Political Theory breaking any ties with the [sic] Modernity. 6

The Not so End of History

Francis Fukuyama, perhaps the most recognized advocate of the triumph of Liberalism, claims that not only is Liberalism the only actor left standing among the first

5 Aleksandr Dugin, Fourth Theory, In a note from the editor the following is written, The bulk of the text in this book was published as Chetvertaia politicheskaia teoriia, which was published in St. Petersburg in 2009 by Amphora. The text has been revised by the author, and additional chapters have been added to it.6Dugin, The Long Path, This interview was posted on May 17, 2014 according to Open Revolt http://openrevolt.info/2014/05/17/alexander-dugin-interview/. This interview is posted in English. Open Revolt does not state if this interview was originally conducted in Russian or English, nor make any notes on translation.

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three theories, it is the only actor - period. In Fukuyamas interpretation, Liberalisms victory signified the cessation of competition for the worlds political stage. 7

Twenty-five years ago, just a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Francis Fukuyama published what became one of the most widely discussed and cited articles of the late 20th century. In "The End of History?" (the title lost its concluding question mark when it was published as a book in 1992), Fukuyama celebrated the global triumph of democracy and capitalism... 8

Fukuyamas opinion was succinctly expressed in his RAND paper in 1989 as it boldly proclaimed that,

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. 9

The boldness of Fukuyamas claim that the suspension of history occurred in 1989 is even more remarkable as it became evident that the mythical fishermans lament of the big one that got away was a more applicable expression than the end of history in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The possibility that Russia would follow the path of Western Liberal Democracy as the Soviet Union rapidly unraveled, can never really be known; it is now only a hypothetical question for what if pundits.

President George H. W. Bush, echoing a phrase employed by Woodrow Wilson, H.G. Wells, and others, noted many times beginning in 1990 that changes in Soviet policy signaled the emergence of a New World Order. Although he never really defined it exactly, Bushs New World Order seemed to evoke an era when the major world

7Francis Fukuyama, Have we reached the end of history?, Papers, Rand Corporation, 1989. The quoted article contains a footnote stating that it is based on a lecture presented at the University of Chicago's John M. Olin Center, and thanks Nathan Tarcov and Allan Bloom for their support in this and many earlier endeavors. See also, The End of History?, http://www.kropfpolisci.com/exceptionalism.fukuyama.pdf, last accessed January 27, 2015; Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History?", The National Interest (Summer 1989); and Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man, Free Press, 1992. 8Alina Rocha Menocal, History is So not Over, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/17/history_is_so_not_over September 17, 2014. Last accessed February 18, 2015. 9Fukuyama, End of History.

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powers work in concert for peaceful solutions to regional and global problems. Bush stated,

Time and again in this century, the political map of the world was transformed. And in each instance, a new world ordercame about through the advent of a new tyrant or the outbreak of a bloody global war, or its end. Now the world has undergone another upheaval, but this time, there's no war. 10

Ironically, less than a year later the President was also praising the attributes of Coalition Warfare in Iraq as an example of this New World Order. As the 1990s 11

progressed, the USSR collapsed, the turn of the century came and went, and with its passing the New World Order let the big one get away and Fukuyamas End of History was placed on indefinite hold. Before the end of the End of History, Fukuyama had expressed his confidence of Soviet buy-in to an optimistic alignment with Western Liberal Democracy not as how, but as how much.

The real question for the future, however, is the degree to which Soviet elites have assimilated the consciousness of the universal homogenous state that is post Hitler Europe. From their writings and from my own personal contacts with them, there is no question in my mind that the liberal Soviet intelligentsia rallying around Gorbachev has arrived at the end-of-history view in a remarkably short time, due in no small measure to the contacts they have had since the Brezhnev era with the larger European civilization around them. 12

As Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin was solidified after 1999, Fukuyamas incredulity of ten years earlier with the prospect of Russia longing for a past prior to the Soviet era must seem truly ironic today.

The automatic assumption that Russia shorn of its expansionist communist ideology should pick up where the czars left off just prior to the Bolshevik Revolution is therefore a curious one.

Because,

10George H.W. Bush, Remarks at a Fundraising Dinner for Gubernatorial Candidate Pete Wilson in San Francisco, California, February 28, 1990. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=18201&st=new+world+order&st1= Last accessed February 11, 2015.11See for example Bush, Remarks to Community Members at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina, February 1, 1991, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=19267&st=new+world+order&st1= Last accessed February 11, 2015.12Fukuyama, End of History.

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It assumes that the evolution of human consciousness has stood still in the meantime, and that the Soviets, while picking up currently fashionable ideas in the realm of economics, will return to foreign policy views a century out of date in the rest of Europe. 13

Fukuyama attempted to apply a linear progression of evolution using a Modernist concept of the political environment of the world while ignoring the reality that large segments of the world population harbor decidedly anti-Modern ideals and visualize the political environment using a much more circular conception. In the 1989 edition of The End of History? Fukuyama refers to Charles Krauthammers prescient 1988 remarks that if as a result of Gorbachev's reforms the USSR is shorn of Marxist-Leninist ideology, its behavior will revert to that of nineteenth century imperial Russia. Demonstrating that ideas may be out of date by looking ahead as well as by 14

looking back, the Fourth Political Theory outlined by Dugin and Russian political policy under Putin seems to smack decidedly more of Czarism than Liberalism. Krauthammer's speculation, rather that Fukuyamas assertion, has proved more accurate.

Dugins ideas gained traction within the Putin administration at a time of increasing Russian separation from the global aspirations of the New World Order.

Meanwhile Putin came to power for third term and that was the moment of his decisive rupture with liberalism. Now Putin accepted Eurasianism and Radical Center orientation moving every day closer and closer to Fourth Political Theory. So this move is going on right now. 15

So right now, Dugin said in his Long Path 2014 interview, Putins political realism is joining my Fourth Political Theory and updated version Eurasianism. 16

Fukuyama posited that the End of History would be so absolute that it might even become boring, and he speculated, Perhaps this very prospect of centuries of

13Fukuyama, End of History14Fukuyama, End of History, here referring to Charles Krauthammer in, "Beyond the Cold War," New Republic, December 19, 1988.15Dugin, Long Path.16Dugin, Long Path.

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boredom at the end of history will serve to get history started once again. Boredom 17

must have set in very quickly indeed. In what must now seem to Fukuyama to be an accelerated or arrested time/space continuum, either history does indeed seem to have started over again many fewer than the few centuries Fukuyama suggested, or in fact it never stopped at all.

Even without acknowledging the presence of such ideological forces as the Fourth Political Theory, Alina Rocha Menocal produced a pin to burst Fukuyamas hyperbolic End of History balloon:

When Fukuyama first wrote in 1989, a credible alternative to liberal democracy was not in sight. But that has changed. The extraordinary rise of China has turned it into a competing model of development. In Africa, Ethiopia and Rwanda have also emerged as showcases for the perceived superiority of authoritarian governments and hegemonic party systems in generating economic growth. 18

Although the examples of Ethiopia and Rwanda may not prove to be exactly showcases, Menocals pin is effective enough to illustrate the shortsightedness of Fukuyamas prognostications. Dugin vehemently disagrees with Fukuyama that the fall of the USSR amounted to the total victory of Liberalism and ushered in the End of History. Observing the continuous and often violent opposition to Western Culture so obvious in large portions of the globe, Dugin points out that there is ample evidence that history continues on. Menocal would agree and stated that with:

[C]ontinuing turmoil from Ukraine to Gaza to Syria, a recent publication from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace asked whether the world is falling apart. Such pessimism is more reminiscent of the gloomy conclusions drawn by the late economic historian and sociologist Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation, his classic analysis of the social, political, and economic dislocation that resulted from the collapse of nineteenth-century civilization, than of Fukuyama's ushering of a post-ideological world. 19

17Fukuyama, End of History.18Alina Rocha Menocal, History is So not Over. 19Alina Rocha Menocal, History is So not Over.

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Dugin portrays Liberalism as a deadly and godless trap with only one way out. 20

That way is to reject the classical political theories, both winners and losers, strain our imaginations, seize the reality of a new world, correctly decipher the challenges of postmodernity, and create something new - something beyond the political battles of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. The challenges of postmodernity that Dugin 21

wants to decipher include the challenge of Liberalism itself, and Dugin believes challenge of Liberalism can be defeated through a new approach. The approach to create something new is an invitation to the development of the Fourth Political Theory; something that is beyond Communism, fascism and liberalism and will define a multipolar world instead of a world of Western hegemony. 22

Unmodern Russia

John Lukacs tells us, The word modern first appeared in English about four hundred years ago, circa 1580. Derived from Latin, modern would be present, just 23

now, or belonging to today. Although Shakespeare used it to mean now common, 24

it came to be used as a comparison of sorts meaning something new as opposed to something old. With this inherent comparative characteristic, modern could be 25

used to create a demarcation of time to designate the now of the post-Enlightenment in comparison to the time of the Ancients including the intervening time neither ancient or modern. The interval between the Ancient and Modern eras was very naturally deemed the middle time or Medieval. 26

We live in the Modern Age, or so it would seem. But do we all live in the Modern Age? Lukacs says no. Lukacs corrects the initial inaccuracy of assuming that the Modern Age is a universal global-temporal condition with his observation that it is not

20Dugin, Fourth Theory, 12. 21Dugin, Fourth Theory, 1222Dugin, Fourth Theory, 12.23John Lukacs, At the End of an Age, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, 2002, 5. See also, footnote 2. 24See the Oxford Dictionary Online: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/modern. See also Lukacs, End of an Age, 5. 25Lukacs, End of an Age, 5. 26Lukacs, End of an Age, 5.

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the Modern Age, it is the European Age [italics in original]. The European Age is a 27

geographically dependent regional-temporal condition and Lukacs tells us that,

Until about five hundred years ago the main theater of history was the Mediterranean, and the principal actors were the people along or near its shores, with few important exceptions. With the discovery of the Americas, of the East Indies, of the shape of the globe itself, all this changed. The European age of world history began. 28

Commenting on the Modern Age, Lukacs rather pointedly states, the Ancient-Medieval-Modern chronological division is not applicable to countries and civilizations beyond the Western world. This inapplicability is important as it 29

underscores the inaccuracy, if not complete fallacy, of overlaying one set of cultural norms and understandings universally or globally. Realizing that the Modern Age is a European concept and that, the United States of America was a product of the Modern Age, born in the middle of it - indeed, at its high point - with its ideas and institutions having been largely (though not completely) the results of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, we can better grasp the error Fukuyama committed with his claims of Liberalisms global conquest. 30

Assuming Russia within a European construct forces Russia to be received in the West as having a European mindset. This assumption is dangerous because, if it is not an accurate characterization of the reality of Russian geopolitical self-identification, predictions of Russian actions and reactions in its international relations - especially in its relations with the West - will be skewed to the point of uselessness.

Western reception to Russian intentions viewed through the lens of Western Liberal Democracy tends to be poorly focused; the Western lens is ground to wrong prescription. In 1939 Winston Churchill spoke his famous epigram predicting Russian actions: I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a

27Lukacs, End of an Age, 10. 28Lukacs, End of an Age, 10. 29Lukacs, End of an Age, 5. 30Lukacs, End of an Age, 12.

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mystery inside an enigma... Churchills observation of Russian predictability is quoted 31

so often we sometimes fail to remember that he did not stop with merely his observation of Russian inscrutability, and we can be thankful for it. He left Britain and the West with an insight into deciphering Russian will with his additional surmise that perhaps there is a key to Russian reaction to political stimuli. Wisely Churchill opined, [t]hat key is Russian national interest. Viewing Russia through the properly ground lens of 32

Russian national interest will increase the Wests visual acuity.

Churchills prescient observations were aired in an October 1939 broadcast and concerned his speculation on how Russia would act throughout the course of WWII. Offering insight into solving the Russian riddle, Churchill shrewdly noted that Russia would not put aside anything that, would be contrary to the historic life interests of Russia. It is very important to note that Churchill was not simply referring to what the 33

Soviet leadership of Russia would do in a specific instance; he was looking instead to how Russia had historically acted, and he was predicting that Russias future actions would be in keeping with the major Russian interests exhibited in the past.

Churchills reception to Russian intentions and actions in WWII provide pertinent insight when placed alongside of President Putins statement made more than 60 years later.

In November of 2000, shortly before undertaking a trip to Brunei, President Putin declared publicly: Russia has always perceived of itself as a Eurasian country. Dugin later termed this statement an epochal, grandiose revolutionary admission, which, in general, changes everything. The prophecy of [French conspiratologist] Jean Parvulesco has come to pass There will be a Eurasian millennium. 34

31Winston Churchill, The Russian Enigma, BBC Broadcast, London, October 1, 1939, retrieved from: http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/RusnEnig.html, last accessed February 15, 2015. 32Churchill, Russian Enigma. 33Churchill, Russian Enigma. 34John Dunlop, Dugins Foundations. See his footnote 30: [Vladimir Putin, Rossiya vsegda oshchushchala sebya evroaziatskoi stranoi, Strana.ru (November 13, 2000)] and 31: [Posted on May 23, 2001 at: http://www.arctogaia.com/public/putin/htrr]. last accessed 17 January 2015. See also: Restructuring Post-Communist Russia, edited by Yitzhak Brudny, Jonathan Frankel, Stefani Hoffman, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 174.

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Plainly, Putin does not place Russias future in a European context. Western reception will continue to be confused and out-of-focus if it interprets Russian intentions and actions as the intentions and actions of a Western Liberal actor. Fukuyama erred when he attempted to compare the liberal American Modern Age apple with the Russian tradition-embracing orange.

Amazingly enough Fukuyama glimpsed the coming reality of Russias forging ahead through history instead of waiting to become bored with the lack of it; but glimpse it was all he did. However, in his brief glimpse Fukuyama may have hit closer to center mass than he realized at the time. Engaged in second thought, he allowed, [u]nlike the propagators of traditional Marxism-Leninism, however, ultranationalists in the USSR believe in their Slavophile cause passionately, and one gets the sense that the fascist alternative is not one that has played itself out entirely there. Dugins 35

current claims of not being a proponent of Fascist doctrine notwithstanding, Fukuyama was correct that there is a Russian alternative that has not entirely played itself out.

Dugins Critique of Modernism and Liberalism

Dugin charges that Liberalism in the end contributes to decline and does not achieve the progress it claims. Communism and Fascism have collapsed, Peter J. Leithart asserts, then he assigns the belief that liberalism, the final twentieth-century ideology, turned into libertine postmodernism as soon as it triumphed, to Dugins mindset. Dugin believes that the idea of modernization is based on the idea of 36

progress. And for Dugin, progress applied to Modernism leads to the nihilism of 37

Postmodernity.

Considering progress as linear evolution is in keeping with the thinking of Herbert Spencer, and thus in turn with the concept of Social Darwinism wherein the struggle for survival yields a more perfect society through a Darwinian process of

35Fukuyama, End of History.36Peter J. Leithart, Fourth Political Theory, First Things, June 17, 2014, retrieved from: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2014/06/fourth-political-theory Last accessed February 14, 2015. 37Dugin, Fourth Theory, 55.

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natural selection. This process is in constant upward motion - a more perfect society is 38

better fit for survival and is constantly becoming even more fit through the continuing process of natural selection.

Dugin interprets Spencer as purporting two phases of social development - the first is the struggle characterized by physical force, the second more subtly in the market arena.

The struggle in the market sphere between the strong (meaning rich) and the weak (meaning poor) becomes more efficient and leads to higher levels of development until super-rich, super-strong, and super-developed countries appear...Liberal discourse, meaning the analysis of the liberal ideologist, is a completely animal discourse [Italics in original]. 39 Therefore, concludes Dugin, when we speak of modernization in the liberal

vein, of necessity we mean the enhancement of the social, political, cultural, spiritual, and informational scenario within which the absolute aggression of the strong against the weak can be implemented. Samuel Huntington may have disagreed with Dugins 40

association of Modernism and Westernism in some specifics, but his general conclusion does mirror Dugins in that the West's universalist pretensions increasingly bring it into conflict with other civilizations. 41

The validity of Dugins analysis is not the critical issue - the implication of it is. The bottom line is that Dugin and his colleagues of the RNR simply do not buy Liberalisms claims, especially those claims placing Liberalism at the end of history. What Dugin does see is the historical validity in the rise and fall of two out of three political theories of Modernity and the totally misguided ideology developed by the survivor. According to Dugin,

[L]iberalism itself has changed, passing from the level of ideas, political programs, and declarations to the level of reality, penetrating the very flesh of the social fabric, which became infused with liberalism and, in

38Dugin, Fourth Theory, 56. 39Dugin, Fourth Theory, 56.40 Dugin, Fourth Theory, 57.41Samuel P. Huntington, The clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996, 20.

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turn, it began to seem like the natural order of things. This was presented not as a political process, but as a natural and organic one. 42

Viewing itself as belonging to the natural order of things, Liberalism assumes the defeat of Fascism and the collapse of Communism as part of the perfection process of natural selection that lead to the inflated claims of the absolute victory leaving Liberalism standing entirely alone on the field of political theory. Lukacs expressed this Liberal assumption as a sense that this modern age might last for a very long time - indeed, perhaps forever. A sense of permanence clouded the Liberal mind and 43

resulted in the inability, or perhaps in the unwillingness of people to contemplate that, like the other ages of mankind, the Modern Age too may or will come to an end. 44

Dugin is not afflicted with this assumption.

Dugins Traditionalism

Dugin articulates the same viewpoint as the one so clearly stated by Max Webers observation and paraphrased by Carl Schmitt, that it is possible to confront irrefutably a radical materialist philosophy of history with a similarly radical spiritualist philosophy of history. The mystical and esoteric nature of Dugins Traditionalism is 45

apparent throughout his writing and speaking, but nowhere more so than in his statement regarding the rationalism of Enlightenment Liberalism that, Tradition is an antithesis to Cartesianism. Formal logic Dugin went on to say, was where the Morning Star began the subversion of our majestic, sacral world. Dugin applies his 46

own radical spiritualist philosophy not only to his view of history, but to his view of the future as well.

42 Dugin, Fourth Theory, 11. 43Lukacs, End of an Age, 5. 44Lukacs, End of an Age, 6. 45Carl Schmitt (trans. George Schwab), Political Theology, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, Thomas McCarthy, General Editor, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, 1985, 42. Here Schmitt is using Weber to make his point that there is certainly a counterargument to the purely rational approach of Liberalism in issues of governance. 46Dugin, (Trans.) Andrey Bogdanov, We are going to Cure You With Poison, http://arctogaia.com/public/eng/ last accessed February 18, 2015.

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The Fourth Political Theory presupposes The collapse of modern ideology, and allows theology, all but excluded in Liberalism, to return and fill some of the vacuum, but according to Leithart, the theology that returns isnt necessary [sic - necessarily] the theology of Christian orthodoxy In keeping with the multipolar world anticipated by 47

the Fourth Political Theory, Dugin does not advocate a world where a single hegemon determines religious belief or practice. In a multipolar world that negates the hegemony of Western Liberalism, the fourth political reality rejects the civil religion of Enlightened France after the Revolution and the civil religion of the West in its current postmodern manifestations.

Martin Schwarz has written that Dugin has attempted to apply the teachings of Schmitt and others of the Conservative Revolution in Weimar Germany to, what Schwarz styles, the forced Westernization of Russia. Rejecting the absence of 48

theology in Liberalism, Schmitt made significant claims concerning even the Liberal states dependence upon theology, but with the view that Liberalism substitutes the heresy of secularism in its theological creation.

All significant concepts of the modem theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development-in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver-but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology. Only by being aware of this analogy can we appreciate the manner in which the philosophical ideas of the state developed in the last centuries. 49

Dugin rejects Liberalisms secular theology as an extreme form of hubris. Lukacs shares Dugins rejection of Liberalisms conceit witnessed by his claim that [m]ost liberals still cling to outdated dogmas of the so-called Enlightenment, unwilling to question the validity of Science. It is not so much science that Dugin despises; it is 50

Scientism. The approach of Liberalism that [d]emocracy is the expression of a political

47 Peter Leithart, Fourth Political Theory. 48 Martin A. Schwarz, Two Studies on Neo-Eurasianism, Eurasia, August 1, 2013. 49 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, 36. 50Lukacs, End of an Age, 38.

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relativism and a scientific orientation that are liberated from miracles and dogmas and based on human understanding and critical doubt, is in direct agreement with a worldview that would establish institutions and supranational laws of a federative structure. The Fourth Political Theory rejects the former and vehemently opposes the 51

latter.

Dugin presents a Traditionalist view in his critique of the Liberal Democratic West that can be seen to mirror Schmitts belief that The idea of the modem constitutional state triumphed together with deism, a theology and metaphysics that banished the miracle from the world. The Fourth Political Theory accepts the view 52

that the theology and metaphysics of rational Liberalism rejected not only the transgression of the laws of nature through an exception brought about by direct intervention, as is found in the idea of a miracle, but also the sovereign's direct intervention in a valid legal order. Dugin applies a mystical and monarchist element 53

in the Fourth Political Theory and favors sovereign intervention both metaphysically and politically.

The Fourth Political Theory includes goals expressed by Aleksandr Panarin concerning a combination of the Eurasian religions. The combination of religions 54

would allow consensus between Orthodox and Muslim cultures within the Eurasian sphere. Dugin and Panarin were not only contemporaries; Panarin had been a member of Dugins Eurasian Party elite and had intended to collaborate in other ways with Dugin until death ended his cooperation and collaboration. The inclusion and acceptance of 55

the various religions present in the Eurasian geographical sphere is more than the incarnation of Western ecumenical ideas, it involves a more interwoven religion and state concept than is present in any Western Liberal Democratic government.

51Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, 42. See http://www.recim.org/cdm/difin-an.htm a website for World Citizens for expressions of universally applied legal norms through a body of world governance. 52Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, 36. 53Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, 37. 54Schwarz, Two Studies. Here he references Marlene Laruelle: Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, 98. 55 Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism, 89.

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Religious elements contained within The Fourth Political Theory are offered by Dugin as proof that the Humanist ideals of Liberalism are not the last word in religious involvement in state politics. Richard Tempest, writing on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns anti-Modern expressions, notes that Solzhenitsyn particularly disliked the claims of [Modernisms] practitioners, or at least the more forwardlooking among them, to have superseded and surpassed 2000 years of cultural tradition. In contrast to 56Solzhenitsyn, Dugin would almost certainly agree with Oswald Spenglers view that Europe is in inevitable and imminent decline, but be in agreement with Solzhenitsyns rejection of "the quasieschatological mythologeme of the End that became well established in Western culture starting in the late nineteenth century, as in the death of God, as expressed by Nietzsche. 57

The Fourth Political Theory as Heresy

As ideologies, philosophies, and religions mature, a first stage development of orthodoxy and orthopraxy occurs. At the second stage orthodoxy and orthopraxis often collide and heresies are spawned. Then there is a third stage time when the bureaucracy of institutionalization overshadows orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and heresy alike.

One utility in a belief system becoming orthodox is that it allows for heresy to exist - without orthodoxy there can be no heresy. Heresy affords followers, scholars and students a choice and provides opportunities to evaluate alternatives and deviations from orthodox positions. Heresy may develop through its own stages and deviation from orthodoxy given time may spawn an entirely new orthodoxy. Hence the heretical Judaism of Jesus followers became Christianity and the heretical Christianity of Luther became Protestantism.

The recognition of Traditionalism by Gunon and his adherents is a relatively recent occurrence. Although it purports to convey ancient Truth, the Traditionalist

56Richard Tempest, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, (anti)modernist, Published 20101112 Original in English Contribution by New Literary Observer First published in New Literary Observer 103 (2010) (Russian version), http://www.eurozine.com/, 1.57 Quoted in Richard Tempest, Solzhenitsyn, anti-Modernist, 1. See his footnote 2.

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School is largely a product of the 20th century. As Gunon gained followers, religious, 58

spiritual, and academic writing concerning him and his beliefs increased. Gunons Traditionalism and has become orthodoxy, at least for some, and is identified as Integral Traditionalism. 59

After Gunon and the other Traditionalist School founders and their works and followers produced Integral Traditionalism, heresy appeared as should be expected. 21st century Traditionalism appears to be in its second stage. Evola and his disciple, Dugin, are the designated heretics; at least it seems so as Evola and Dugin are characterized by Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland. In their challenge to the legitimacy of Dugins Traditionalism based upon their interpretation of Integral Traditionalisms Gunonian orthodoxy Shekhovtsov and Umland claim,

Dugins case raises a question also applicable to the assessment of Evolas and the ENRs interpretation of Integral Traditionalism: are Evolas theories and the ENRs ideology legitimate successors of Gunons teaching? The answer, we believe, is that they are not, or that they are at best skewed reinterpretations of Integral Traditionalism. 60 The orthodoxy ascribed to Gunons articulation of Traditionalism is evident in

Shekhovtsov and Umland as they proceed to offer specific examples of Evolas and Dugins heretical deviations:

The universalist core of the deist worldview of classical Traditionalism...is lost in the outlooks of Evola, the ENR, and the disciples of neo-Eurasianism. Dugin plainly rejects the transcendent unity of religionsa central concept of Integral Traditionalism. 61

Without arguing the merits of the opinion regarding whether the deist worldview of classical Traditionalism is an accurate depiction of Integral

58That is the body of works, views, beliefs, and their interpretation and articulation by adherents or followers of Gunon and his teachings. 59Mark Sedgwick provides counterpoints to Shekhovtsov and Umland in Is Dugin a Traditionalist, posted September 26, 2009 in the blogspot, Traditionalists, that he moderates. See: http://traditionalistblog.blogspot.ie/2009/09/is-dugin-traditionalist.html. Last accessed January 19, 2015. 60 Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 666. See footnote 16; Here the authors refer to Dugins Filosofiia traditsionalizma (Moscow, 2002), 4243, 100101 as evidence from Dugins own work. ENR is the European New Right (Nouvelle Droite). See http://ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n2p28_Warren.html for an interview with key ENR proponent Alain de Benoist. 61Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 666. See footnote 59.

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Traditionalism at this juncture, it does hold that, [n]either Evolas worldview nor the doctrines of the ENR and Dugin constitute the unequivocal rejection of Modernity that Integral Traditionalism explicitly demands. Shekhovtsov and Umland conclude that 62Dugin only partially rejects Modernism, accepting perhaps the technological aspects of progress in much the same way the USSR desired technology that rivaled the West without adopting the Liberalism that would usher in Liberal Democracy and cultural Westernization. 63

The position taken by Roger Griffin is that Evola and Dugin are Fascists and this fact explains the radical rejection of the Liberal Democracy portions of Modernism without rejecting its technological elements. Griffin argues that Evola and Dugin 64expound a fascism that is not anti-modern, but supports an alternative modernity. 65

Shekhovtsov and Umland may have correctly identified heresy in the Traditionalism of Evola and Dugin; however, heresy versus orthodoxy in the academic or theological sense is not the overriding engagement concern if Dugins Fourth Political Theory becomes manifest in Russian geopolitical action. Nevertheless, the very action of a Fourth Political Theory Russia itself would belie its heresy. [c]ontemplation versus action was one of the most fundamental antitheses for Gunon, who considered contemplation or cognition an expression of the traditional spirit, and action itself an anti-traditional one. So, by the orthodox precepts of Integral Traditionalism, the 66

application of action, however dressed as Traditionalism, would delegate the Fourth Political Theory and Russian geopolitical action into the realm of a Traditional heresy.

Shekhovtsov and Umland admit that, At their core, many of Dugins works are an amalgamation of Traditionalist concepts, Evolas theories, geopolitical ideas, and the

62Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist,669. 63Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 669. 64 Roger Griffin, The Sacred Synthesis: The Ideological Cohesion of Fascist Cultural Politics, Modern Italy 31:1 (1998): 523; idem, Modernism and Fascism. See footnote 37 in Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 669. 65Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 669. 66Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 668. See footnote 29 as here Gunon is being quoted from The Crisis of the Modern World (Hillsdale, 2004), 3336

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ideology of the German interwar Conservative Revolution. It is noteworthy that 67

Dugins Traditionalism is admitted, but it is probably that the amalgamation contributes a great deal to the exclusion of Evola and Dugin from the halls of orthodoxy.

Renaud Fabbris opinion is that Evola was infected with Nietzsches philosophy, including his racist ideas, before he came under the influence of Gunon, and this led to his deviation from the core of Perennialist teaching on far too many points to be considered as part of Gunons legacy. Still Shekhovtsov and Umland concede, There 68

is no doubt that Dugin has contributed to the development of Russian Traditionalism, but they add that he has done so less by thinking or writing than by being an industrious publisher. To an outsider Shekhovtsov and Umland may be engaged 69

academic hair-splitting, but so it is always in orthodox and heretical arguments within the religious academy. However, the geopolitical conclusion must be that Dugin is a Traditionalist - albeit perhaps a heretical one.

No Matter Integral or Heretical, It is Still a Kind of Traditionalism

Whether orthodox or heretical, Dugins Traditionalism is a real influence in contemporary Russia that must be taken into consideration, and it matters little on the cold stage of geopolitical reality if hindsight places Dugin into history as an Integral Traditionalist, or a Neo-Traditionalist, or a Traditionalist by some other name. What matters is that by studying Dugins Traditionalism and its place in the Fourth Political Theory, a more proper reception can be had leading to Western policy decisions being knowledgeably made as Russia develops its Eurasian persona.

It is essential to any clear reception of the Fourth Political Theory that the impact of Traditionalism be contemplated. While Dugins interpretation of Traditionalism may differ from Integral Traditionalism, as part of the Fourth Political Theory Traditionalism must be afforded respect if for no other reason than of Dugins profession of it. The

67 Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 665. 68Renaud Fabbri, Introduction to the Perennialist School, www.religioperennis.org/documents/Fabbri/ Perennialism.pdf). 69Shekhovtsov and Umland, Dugin a Traditionalist, 672.

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influence of Gunon and Evola on Dugin and hence on Dugins political theories pertaining to Eurasianism permeate the entirety of his thinking.

Dugin has said that in his youth he was deeply inspired by Traditionalism of Rene Guenon and Julius Evola. Dugin still claims his position is on the side of 70

sacred Tradition against the modern (and post-modern) world. Dugin openly 71

connects his Traditionalist philosophy with Russian Orthodox practice, and he has, laid the basis for Traditionalist thought trying to apply the ideas of Guenon and Evola to the Russian Orthodox Christian tradition, Western reception of Dugin and the Fourth 72

Political Theory must give considerable weight to his assertion that, I firmly stand for spiritual and religious values against actual decadent materialist and perverted culture. Traditionalism was and rests central as the philosophic focus of all my later developments. 73

Rejection of The New World Order

Dugin perceives that the evils of Liberalism are embedded in Mondialism with its aims of one-world assurances of overarching justice and egalitarianism. Proponents of the Fourth Political Theory seem to impart the New World Order with much more Mondialist intent than perhaps President Bush actually intended in his repeated references to it between 1990 and 1995.

Dugins belief that the New World Order viewed genuine global cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union...not only possible, but very probable seems to conform to a rather tame interpretation of Bushs understanding of just what the New World Order was all about. In this light the New World Order is presumably 74

a product of convergence theory, predicting the synthesis of the Soviet socialist and Western capitalist political forms and close cooperation of the Soviet Union and USA in dealing with issues of a regional nature. However, in reality Dugin and his Fourth 75

70Dugin, Long Path. 71Dugin, Long Path. 72Dugin, Long Path. 73 Dugin, Long Path.74Dugin, Fourth Theory, 71. 75 Dugin, Fourth Theory, 71.

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Political Theory colleagues read much more threatening political overtones into New World Order yearnings than in relatively tame goals of cooperation and Soviet synthesis resulting in a more Western style democracy.

In the early 1990s, as President Bush began proclaiming the arrival of a New World Order, Dugin began to proclaim its inherent evil. After the Gulf War, Dugin wrote, almost all mass media outlets in Russia, as well as in the West, injected into the common speak the formula "New World Order," coined by George Bush, and then used by other politicians including Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Dugin immediately applied 76theological implications to these New World Order announcements and claimed that Orthodox Christianity and Islam clearly identify new religiosity, New World Order, and Moshiah with the most sinister player in the eschatological drama, the Antichrist (Dadjal in Arabic.). 77

The seriousness of the theological implications Dugin and his colleagues producing the journalistic magazine, Elements (Elementy), placed on Bushs repeated use of New World Order phraseology took on a conspiracy-like tone in statements such as,

The New World Order, based on the establishment of a One World Government, as has been candidly admitted by odeologists [sic] of the Trilateral Commission and Bildenburg, is not simply a question of politico-economic domination of a certain "occult" ruling clique of international bankers. This "Order" bases itself on the victory on a global scale of a certain special ideology, and so the concept concerns not only instruments of power, but also "ideological revolution," a "coup dtat" consciousness, "new thinking."

Eschatological Perspectives

Eschatology figures prominently in Dugins theological projections of the Fourth Political Theory and its relationship to the Eurasianism he espouses. The fall of

76Dugin, Ideology of the New World Government, editorial, Arctogaia, http://arctogaia.com/public/eng-ed2.htm, Last accessed February 14, 2015.77Dugin, New World Government, Here Messianic mention is more in the vein of traditional Judaism (still anticipating the coming) than the Orthodox Christian belief in Messiah as an already accomplished temporal and spiritual fact.

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Communism was interpreted by Dugin as an eschatological event evident in his remark that, [t]he victory of liberalism over communism was the proof in my eyes of its eschatological nature. The eschatological conflict is completely interwoven within the 78

Fourth Political Theory and is evidence of the critical aspects of theology as Dugins foundational base for the superstructure of his theory.

As follows from the very logic of apocalyptic drama, Dugin states, in the course of the last struggle, the clash will occur not between the Sacred and the profane, nor between Religion and atheism, but between Religion and pseudo-religion. Russia as 79

Eurasia is the opponent of a New World Order morphed from the Western inheritance of the Enlightenment. To proponents of the Fourth Political Theory, it is the false faith; the pseudo-religion of Liberalism and its extensions spawned in evil - Modernity, Postmodernity, and New World Order that is the Moshiah, the Antichrist of this world.

Moshiah of the World Government is not simply a "cultural project," new "social myth," or "grotesque utopia," but is something much more serious, real, terrible. It is completely obvious that opponents of mondialism and enemies of the New World Order (staff members of "Elements" count themselves among these) must take on a radically negative position in respect to this ideology. This means that it is necessary to counter the World Government and its plans with an alternative ideology, formulated by negating the doctrine of the New World Order. 80

Matthias Riedl, a scholar at Central European University, Budapest and a writer in political theology, has drawn on source material as varied as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Project Megiddo to Eric Voegelins essay, The Political Religions in his paper on Apocalyptic Politics. Riedl noted the eschatological nature of certain 81individuals and terrorist organizations detectable in their attempts to create

78Dugin, Long Path. 79Dugin, New World Government. 80Dugin, New World Government. 81Matthias Riedl, Apocalyptic Politics On the Permanence and Transformations of a Symbolic Complex , http://www.academia.edu/9624320/_Apocalyptic_Politics_On_the_Permanence_and_Transformations_of_a_Symbolic_Complex_ , 1. last accessed March 1, 2015. See, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Project Megiddo (1999), http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps3578/www.fbi.gov/library/megiddo/megiddo.pdf . See also, Eric Voegelin, The Political Religions, in Modernity without Restraint, The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), pp. 19-73.

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environments conducive to their particular visions of apocalypse. Drawing on the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, Riedl stated,

As investigations and academic studies later showed, the main perpetrator Timothy McVeigh like other far-right terrorists was inspired by the racist novel The Turner Diaries, published pseudonymously in 1978 by the far-right leader William L. Pierce. McVeigh had followed in detail the description of a car bomb attack on a federal building that he found in the book. However, the Turner Diaries are more than just a terrorist manual in the disguise of a novel; they are also an apocalypse. In part they emulate the narrative of ancient apocalypses, for instance, when the hero is granted inspection of a secret book and in an ecstatic vision gains insight into the whole course of human history. 82 McVeigh left no substantive writings to indicate he subscribed to the

eschatological leanings of The Turner Diaries; and while McVeigh attempted to ascribe a political motive to his actions, there is little to no evidence that he associated his extreme violence with any form of apocalyptic vision. Likewise, Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, is decidedly anti-Modern - especially in the sense of being anti-technological. But, Kaczynski did not write or promote any significant eschatological message in his attempts to thwart a technological society that he viewed as decidedly opposed to his concepts of Natural Law. Anders Breivik, who was directly responsible for the deaths of scores of mostly young people in Norway, comes closest of the three (McVeigh, Kaczynski, and himself) to imbuing his cause with religious elements and promoting a form of religious conflict through a bizarre form of retro-Templar knighthood. But, even Breivik's writings exhibit a dearth of definable eschatological characteristics. It seems that anti-Modern praxis per se does not require an apocalyptic framework. However, Dugins Traditionalism begins with a religious foundation and is therefore more than just the rejection of the Modernity of Liberalism.

The end times and the eschatological meaning of politics will not realize themselves on their own, Dugin writes in The Fourth Political Theory. Vehemently 83anti-Dugin critic James Heiser suggests that this statement, and other similar ones,

82Matthias Riedl, Apocalyptic Politics, 1. See, Andrew Macdonald (real name, William Luther Pierce), The Turner Daries, open source, https://archive.org/details/TheTurnerDiariesByAndrewMacdonald . 83 Dugin, Fourth Theory, 183.

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illustrate Dugins belief that the apocalypse can be hastened; Heiser further contends that Dugin desires the accelerate the event. If the Fourth Political Practice is not able 84to realise the end of times, then it would be invalid. The End of Days should come; but it will not come by itself, Dugin says. 85

Aiding and abetting Armageddon is not a Dugin exclusive. Aum Shinriky attacked the Tokyo Subway In March 1995. In addition to the novel use of a weapon of mass destruction (sarin gas) as the fatal medium, Aum Shinriky combined Tibetan Buddhism and the New Testament book of the Apocalypse as the basis for their attempt to accelerate the End of Days.

The ideology of Aum Shinriky, based on the teaching of their guru Shk Asahara, draws from Tibetan Buddhism and a variety of other forms of Asian spirituality. However, Asahara claimed that he had also turned to the Apocalypse of the Christian Bible, as result of divine inspiration: My guru, the god Shiva, suddenly said to me: Now is the time to decode the Book of Revelation, receive its message, and start Aums salvation work. 86

Riedl quoting Robert Lifton adds, Consequently, the gas attack was meant as a self-assigned project of making Armageddon happen. 87

Much apocalyptic literature is Manachian. Dugins eschatology tends to Manachian expressions as well; Mervyn F. Bendle, writing for Quadrant, characterizes Dugins eschatology by first comparing it to previous forms of apocalypticism, Then goes on to write,

Dugins view is dualistic, depicting the world as a battleground within which the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, spirit and matter, contend for the fate of the planet. In Dugins version of apocalypticism, it is the Atlanticist New World Order based on liberalism, modernity, and materialism, that represents the forces of evil, while the peoples of Eurasia with their stronger spirituality constitute (or will soon constitute) the New Eurasian Order and form the vanguard for the forces for good. 88

84 James D. Heiser, "The American Empire Should Be Destroyed": Alexander Dugin and the Perils of Immanentized Eschatology, Repristination Press, Malone, TX, 2014. 85 Dugin, Fourth Theory, 183. 86Matthias Riedl, Apocalyptic Politics, 2. See footnote 2, here Riedl credits Robert J. Lifton, Destroying the World to Save It: AumShinriky, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism (New York: Metropolitan, 1999), 47. 87Matthias Riedl, Apocalyptic Politics, 2. See his footnote 3.88Mervyn F. Bendle, Putins Rasputin, Quadrant On-Line, September 3, 2014. Last accessed March 1, 2015.

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Russia plays greatly in the eschatology of the Fourth Political Theory. The

meaning of Russia is that through the Russian people will be realized the last thought of God, the thought of the End of the World, Dugin is quoted as saying - and it is hard to get more politically eschatological than that. 89

89 Quoted in Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001, 197, Shenfield credits an Alexandr Yanov critique of Dugins statement(s) in his notes.

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