VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND DIPLOMACY DEPARTMENT OF REGIONAL STUDIES

Yegor Zhuravlov

LEV GUMILEVS AND ALEXANDR DUGINS NEO-EURASIAN MOVEMENT AND ITS INFLUENCE ON RUSSIAN POLITICS

Bachelor Thesis

International Politics and Development Studies, State Code 6121JX043 Social Science Study Field

Supervisor Doc. Dr. Rytis Bulota (Research Desgree, Name, Surname) (signature) (date)

Defended ______(Dean of Faculty/Director of Institute/ Head of Group of Programmes) (signature) (date)

Kaunas, 2021

VYTAUTO DIDŽIOJO UNIVERSITETAS POLITIKOS MOKSLŲ IR DIPLOMATIJOS FAKULTETAS REGIONISTIKOS KATEDRA

Yegor Zhuravlov

NEO-EURAZIJOS LEV GUMILEVO IR ALEKSANDERIO DUGINO JUDĖJIMAS IR JO ĮTAKA RUSIJOS POLITIKAI

Bakalauro Darbas

Tarptautinės politikos ir vystymo studijos (anglų k.), Valstybinis kodas: 6121JX043 Socialinių Mokslų Studijų Sritis

Vadovas Doc. Dok. Rytis Bulota (Tyrimo laipsnis, vardas, pavardė) (parašas) (data)

Apgynė ______(Fakulteto dekanas / instituto direktorius / programų grupės vadovas) (parašas) (data)

Kaunas, 2021 Table of Contents

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………….1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………...4 THE EARLY FORERUNNERS OF THE MOVEMENT, ITS ORIGIN AND PHILOSOPHY……………………………………………………………………….6 1.1 The Early Forerunners of the Movement……………………………….6 1.2 Eurasian Philosophy…………………………………………………….18 THE CURRENT SITUATION IN THE EURASIAN MOVEMENT…………..20 2.1 Comeback of the Eurasian Movement in the XXI century…………...20 2.2 Russian Politics Planning Under Eurasian Influence…………………21 EURASIAN MOVEMENT INFLUENCE ON GLOBAL SCALE……………...25 3.1 The Nature of Eurasian Foreign Policy………………………………...25 3.2 Eurasian Armed Conflicts………………………………………………25 3.3 Eurasian Soft Power……………………………………………………..30 CRITICISM………………………………………………………………………...33 CONCLUSIONS…………………...…………………………………………….....38 List of references……………………………………………………………………40

Zhuravlov Y., Levas Gumilevas ir Aleksandras Duginsas Neo-Eurazijos judėjimas ir jo įtaka Rusijos politikai: baigiamasis politikos mokslų bakalauro darbas / vadovas doc. Doc. Daktarė Bulota R .; Vytauto Didžiojo universiteto Politikos mokslų ir diplomatijos fakulteto Regionistikos katedra. Kaunas, 2021. 45 psl.

Santrauka

Bakalauriniame darbe analizuojama konkrečios politinės filosofijos įtaka Rusijos politikai, vadinama eurazianizmu žlugus Sovietų socialistinių respublikų sąjungai.

Šiame konkrečiame darbe pagrindinė tyrimo tema bus sutelkta:

- Rusijos valstybė;

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- Levo Gumilevo ir Aleksandro Dugino neo-Eurazijos filosofija;

- Eurazijos ir neo-Eurazijos judėjimas apskritai.

Pagrindiniai šio straipsnio tikslai yra šie:

- pateikti paaiškinimą, kaip Eurazijos judėjimas atsirado Rusijoje 1990-aisiais;

- paaiškinti neo-Eurazijos judėjimo filosofiją ir kaip tai susiję su šiuolaikine Rusijos politika.

Pagrindinės užduotys yra šios:

- paaiškinti Eurazijos ir neo-Eurazijos filosofiją;

- paaiškinti dabartinę neo-Eurazijos judėjimo būklę;

- paaiškinti paties judėjimo ideologijos foną.

Tam pasirinkta metodika yra labiau susijusi su kokybiniais tyrimo metodais: analizuokite kultūrinę, istorinę ir net retoriką, kuria kalbėjo šios filosofinės minties pasekėjai. Didelis dėmesys bus skiriamas šio judėjimo steigėjams, jo raidai dešimtmečiais ir jo statusui šiandien. Taip pat kaip dalis kokybinių tyrimų čia daugiausia dėmesio bus skiriama pagrindiniams šių dienų Eurazijos judėjimo filosofo ir asmens, kuris viena ranka atgaivino šią koncepciją, įvairiems interviu ir vaizdo įrašams - Aleksandrui Duginui ir Levui. Atitinkamai Gumilevas.

Šiai konkrečiai analizei naudosime daugiausia Eurazijos šaltinius, tokius kaip: Paideuma TV, Evrazia TV, Konservatyvių tyrimų centras (Центр Консервативных Исследований) ir kt., Taip pat bendrą informaciją, kuri yra gana plačiai paplitusi ir žinoma dauguma ar beveik visi. Mes taip pat analizuosime kai kuriuos Rusijos propagandinius kanalus, tokius kaip TACC ar „Russia Today“, norėdami pabandyti paaiškinti pagrindinius aspektus, kaip Rusijos valstybinę žiniasklaidą veikia Eurazijos ideologija. Taigi šaltiniai yra parinkti geriausiu būdu, kad žmogus suprastų ir susipažintų su Eurazijos filosofija. Taip pat bus kreiptasi į šio judėjimo kritiką ne tik iš pačių eurazininkų, bet ir iš kai kurių Rusijos tyrėjų bei tarptautinių kritikų požiūrio.

Išvadose nurodomos eurazianizmo perspektyvos šiuolaikinėje Rusijoje ir kaip tai galima suprasti politikos mokslų srityje, bandant atlikti bet kokius tyrimus Rusijos politikos tema.

Raktiniai žodžiai: Eurazijos judėjimas, pasaulinė politika, šiuolaikiniai konfliktai, daugiapolis pasaulis, Rusija

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Zhuravlov Y., Lev Gumilevs and Alexandr Dugins Neo-Eurasian Movement and Its Influence on Russian Politics: Final Bachelor Thesis in Political Science / Supervisor Assoc. Doc. Dr. Bulota R.; Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Department of Regional Studies. Kaunas, 2021. 45 pages.

Abstract

The bachelor thesis analyses the influence of a specific political philosophy on the Russian politics called the Eurasianism after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics.

In this specific paper the main research topic will be concentrated around:

- the Russian state;

- the neo-Eurasian philosophy of Lev Gumilev and Alexander Dugin;

- the Eurasian and neo-Eurasian movement in general.

The main aims of this paper are:

- to provide an explanation in what way the Eurasian movement has emerged in Russia in the 1990s;

- to explain the philosophy of neo-Eurasian movement and how it is related to modern Russian politics.

The main tasks are:

- to explain of the Eurasian and neo-Eurasian philosophy;

- to explain the current state of neo-Eurasian movement;

- to explain the background of the ideology of the movement itself.

The methodology picked for that is more related to qualitative research methods: analyze of cultural, historical and even rhetoric spoken by the followers of this philosophical thought. A great attention is going to be paid to the founders of this movement, its development over the decades and its status today. Also as a part of the qualitative research here the focus is going to be addressed to the various interviews and videos by the main philosopher of the Eurasian movement these days and by the person who singlehandedly has brought the concept back to life – Alexander Dugin and Lev Gumilev respectively.

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For this specific analyze we will be using mostly Eurasian sources such as: Paideuma TV, Evrazia TV, Center of Conservative Research (Центр Консервативных Исследований), etc., and also the general info that is pretty much wide-spread and it known for to most or almost everybody. We will also be analyzing some of the Russian propaganda channels like TACC or Russia Today in order to try and to explain the key points of how Russian state media are influenced by Eurasian ideology. And so, the sources are picked in the best way to make a person understand and familiarized with the Eurasian philosophy. There will also be an address to the criticism of this movement not only from the perspective of the Eurasianists themselves, but also from the point of view of some Russian researchers and international critics.

The conclusions are pointing out the perspectives of Eurasianism in modern Russia and how it can be understood in the field of political sciences while trying to conduct any research on the topic of Russian politics.

Keywords: Eurasian Movement, Global Politics, Modern Conflict, Multipolar World, Russia

To begin with, when we speak about Eurasian movement in post-Soviet states we need to keep in mind the very first and most important fact – it is a pro-Russian movement, aimed at Russia as a key actor in the affairs between East and West and that the general ideology of neo- Eurasianism has emerged in its form as we know it today only after the collapse of the USSR in the year of 1991.

Some people may ask: why is this topic relevant if in fact the members of Eurasian movement are not even a part of Russian government? Why should one be interested in a semi- marginalized group if they have no real influence on Russian politics? The truth is, they do. The main idea in this case is not that the Russian government is orbiting the ideas of Eurasian movement, but the fact that the politics of Russian government can be very much described with the understanding of this philosophy. Aggressive moves of Russian foreign policy starting from wars in former Yugoslavia, Transnistrian conflict, Russian-Georgian War of 2008, annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the civil war in Ukraine, also the participation in war in Syria can be explained with the Eurasian philosophy. Russian modern conservatism and the decision to stay away from the Western liberal values, big role of the church and the post-Soviet ambitions of Russian Federation to act as a superpower it stopped being in 1991 – all of this has been described before from the point of view of Western realism but at the same time the explanation from that point of view is very narrow we might say, it does not include some specific historical, mental and more deep political analysis

4 which are crucial for understanding those processes and the prediction of the further actions of the Russian government. The Eurasian philosophy, even though it might be very much a part of a bigger utopia, explains many things in the determination of Russian political actions and moves in the world politics. And here is exactly why we might think that the approach to the topic in this specific manner, from the point of view not of the realist school but from the point of view of entire ideological movement combined with the rational realist analyze will help to create a new version and a new manner of understanding of the Russian politics and so we might think of this as a newness of this symbiotic approach.

The research design is based on the slow explanation in a pyramid-like manner: the basic explanation related to the Eurasian movement slow approach to how it is related to Russian politics inside the Russian state and after that the explanation of how exactly this Eurasian movement and philosophy are influencing the world politics in its own way in our era of political post-modernism.

The paper itself is divided into 3 main chapters where each of them is dedicated to a specific part of the Eurasian movement and they were briefly described during the explanation of research design:

- Chapter I is called “The Early Forerunners of the Movement, Its Origin and Philosophy” and it is dedicated to the most basic understanding of where Eurasian movement is coming from, who are the main people who influenced it and what is this Eurasian philosophy is all about. It is mostly a historic review of how Eurasian movement has started as such after the collapse of USSR and how it saw the further development of Russian state after the end of the Cold War. The chapter will be focused on why exactly we see the modern version of Eurasian philosophy as a creation of post-modern political world.

- Chapter II is called “The Current Situation in the Eurasian Movement” and it is mostly dedicated to the explanation of the modern Eurasian political thought, how it actually became a movement after its marginalized period and what were the main achievements and challenges in its way. It will focus a lot on comparing of Russian politics with the Eurasian philosophy and will be showing specific parts of Russian rhetoric aimed at the population and why it was working from the Eurasian point of view. So basically, chapter II is related to the Eurasian philosophy and Russian domestic policies.

- Chapter III is called “Eurasian Movement Influence on Global Scale” and it is very much related to Russian foreign policies unlike chapter II. We will be analyzing the

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development of Russian interference into the world politics, especially different sorts of armed conflicts around the globe and we will be trying to see how Russian actions and rhetoric and actions there correspond with the Eurasian understanding of how the Russian state must act in the world. And also, we will be able to see another important aspect of Eurasian philosophical thought – its influence on the world and its development because of specific trends in the Western Democratic world.

- Chapter related to criticism tells us about the critical approach to the concept of such ideology from the Eurasian perspective;

- The last part of this paper will be discussing the conclusions where the main focus will be on all of the achieved goals of the paper, on all of the correspondences a divisions between the Russian state and Eurasian ideology, we will once again see a clear outline of how Eurasian Philosophy is influencing the world during the post-modern era of politics and we will outline several possible guidelines of how to understand Russian politics and political moves with the knowledge we have gained from this specific analyze for the future in case anyone will be searching for an alternative way of understanding things rather than neo-realist or neo-liberal approach.

Here now we have covered the most general information about the paper itself and once again the outlining of the one fact here is very important. Historically, in European politics Russia has always been considered an underdeveloped state with backwards way of thinking, influenced by its Mongol past and lucky with a geographic position to expand eastwards. In fact Russian way of thinking, conducting politics and making things done has become one of the reasons why Russia has transferred from a regional power to the superpower as USSR and that is the same reason why today it is important to understand Russian politics since any of us can be certain for sure that after the 1991 it is still very hard not only for the Russian government but also for the Russian people to realize that their superpower has collapsed and so the radical and revanchist ideologies start raising again there and if they have a solid background like the ideology of Eurasian movement it is crucial for understanding of how politics must be done with Russia. “I had heard that Russia is different from all the other countries of Europe. Now I understood it.” – Fukuzawa Yukichi, Tokugawa Embassy 18621.

Chapter I

The Early Forerunners of the Movement, Its Origin and Philosophy

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1.1 The Early Forerunners of the Movement

The Eurasian movement itself has been founded during the interwar period in the 1930s of the XX century and was very much oriented against the Europe as “the main source for all the troubles in the world”, however after the Second World War has ended and the Cold War was raging through the second half of the XX century the concept was very much outdated since Europe at that time was fist of all divided between “East” and “West” referring to communist and democratic liberal ideologies and thus Europe technically became less significant in the world affairs as it used to be before that. The shift of the “world troublemaker” has been passed to another power which we know as the United States of America.

The first ideas of Eurasian ideology have emerged in the first half of the XX century right after the collapse of the Russian Empire and the slow rise of the Soviet Union. It has happened in the year of 1925 and the person who was the first to introduce the idea that Russian state was not the successor of the Kievlian Rus but rather the Golden Horde itself was Nikolai Trubestkoi2.

Nikolai Trubetskoi was involved into the creation of the basis of this new ideology, he was working on the concepts of multipolar world, Slavic-Turkic connections, the influence of the Mongol invasion on the Russian history, state, governmental and social institutions, way of thinking and etc. However, Nikolai Trubetskoi was very different from many other Eurasians back in the day. The Russian intelligence who supported the Eurasian ideas eventually found themselves divided due to the fact of the existence of the Soviet Union. Some of the Eurasians were active supporters of the new Bolshevik state, advocating that it has replaced Russia in its role of the bridge between two worlds, while the most conservative Eurasians including Nikolai Trubetskoi were arguing that the ideas of Eurasian ideology are incompatible with the materialistic ideology the Bolshevik USSR was based on.

What is interesting about the Eurasian ideology of Nikolai Trubetskoi is that it was denying any existing form of opposition to communist ideology which existed back in the day. He was an active critic of National-Socialism, claiming that the Nazi ideas about Germans being Aryan are not based on real facts. He was an active promoter of anti-materialism, anti-communism and a very radical defender of Orthodox Christianity and its philosophy. Nikolai Trubetskoi managed to survive the Nazi purges in Austria following the annexation of the state in 1938 but was not able to survive the Nazi pressure on his scientific work. He died after he found out that a part of his works were lost after Nazi investigations at his home.

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Nikolai Trubetskoi But Nikolai Trubetskoi was not the only person who singlehandedly has created the Eurasian ideas out of nowhere. He was not alone. The other 3 “fathers” of the movement and ideology are usually being recognized in such people as geography and economist Petr Savitsky, religious thinker Georgy Florovsky and musical writer Petr Suvchinsky.

Petr Savitsry3 created the theories of local development, economic power, cycles of economic history, cycles of Eurasian history, basic for Eurasianism. He was the creator of a new science - nomad studies, the creator of the Eurasian version of Russian geopolitics, contributed to geography, economics, political science, literary criticism, art history, etc4. Of particular interest to Savitsky was the interaction of the Russian ethnos with the Mongolian, from which the Russians, according to Savitsky, inherited "a sense of the continent." Despite all its severity, Savitsky considered the Tatar-Mongol yoke to be the best outcome for ancient Russia, which, in his opinion, was unstable and had to go through submission to some external force.

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Petr Savitsry Georgy Florovsky5 was contributing a lot to formulating the Eurasian thoughts on the part of religion and he was one of the people who considered Catholic Church to be one of the reasons why Russia and Europe are two different cultures. He was one of the people who started the debate about how the Eurasians should treat the Catholic Church and was very firm in his Orthodox roots. As the co-founder of the movement, he participates in the collective manifest "Exodus to the East" (1921). However, his connection with this movement did not last long: he took part in two more Eurasian collections (“On the Paths”, Berlin, 1922; “Russia and Latinism”, Berlin, 1923), after which, he entered into an ideological conflict with leaders of the movement, and finally broke with it after the publication in 1928 of his article "Eurasian temptation".

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Georgy Florovsky Petr Suvchinsky6 was a minor figure for the movement in terms of ideology and political thought but he was one of the main reasons why the Eurasian movement was spoken about in the first place. Together with Nikolai Trubetskoy and Petr Savitsky, he founded the Eurasian movement, from 1922 to 1928 he was the head of the publishing houses "Eurasia" in Berlin and Paris. In 1921 he participated in the first Eurasian work "Exodus to the East", was one of the editors of the magazine "Versty" (1926-1928).

Petr Suvchinsky

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Later on throughout the first half of the XX century many more movements started rising, like fascist movement in Italy lead by Benito Mussolini and national-socialist movement lead by Adolf Hitler. With the attention of the world to the Great Depression and the new rising powers of Axis, the Eurasian ideas were left unnoticed by many, especially since the division of the movement into pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet movements. The other famous successor of the founding fathers has made his way through many years after the first origins of the Eurasian movement. A son of two Russian poets and writers Nikolai Gumilev and Anna Akhmatova, Lev Gumilev spent his early years of life under the influence of his Eurasian mother who told him that she was the last of the line of the Great Khan Akhmat of the Golden Horde. It is believed that the influence of his mother gave him a push to become a historian who deals with nomads and Turkic tribes of Russia7.

Lev Gumilev in his youth Lev Gumilev8 has lived through the entire history of Soviet Union with him being born in 1912 and dying in 1992 at the age of 79. He was under the influence of Eurasian ideas for his entire life, starting from his youth, going through his almost 15 years in prison and ending up with his scientific passion after the Soviet de-Stalinization and academic career. His 15 volumes of academic

11 works and studies have become the basis for the neo-Eurasian ideology. Lev Gumilev referred to himself as “the last Eurasian”.

Not only he has brought the Eurasian ideas back to life, but he has also contributed to their development and innovation9.

One of his greatest contributions to the Eurasian political thought was the development of the Passionate Theory of Ethnogenesis10. The theory itself is aimed at describing and explaining the historical processes as the development of relations and interactions between different ethnicities which have originated in the same region and which were connected by political, economical and ideological communication meaning that altogether they were a specific part of the “historic mosaics”, completing each other in this or that way. With that theory Lev Gumilev has also introduced the definition of “super-ethnicity”11 meaning that a super-ethnicity is “Like an ethnicity, a super-ethnicity represented by its representatives opposes itself to all other super-ethnicities, but, unlike an ethnicity, a super-ethnicity is not capable of divergence. Super-ethnicity is determined not by size, not power, but solely by the degree of interethnic proximity”.

Lev Gumilev was not an orthodox Eurasian if we speak about the core of these ideas12. He did not pay much attention to the religious dispute about Catholic Church among Eurasian philosophers which had one of the most centered role in the Eurasian debates, he was never interested in the political formation or the governmental system of the future Eurasian state. Even though he was an active critic of the West, he never criticized liberal democracy, rule of law or market economy – in his opinion it was neither good nor bad it is just the fact that the Russian “super-ethnicity” was not ready yet to grasp these ideas, since he thought that this super-ethnicity was 500 years younger than its Romano-German counterparts.

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Lev Gumilev But with the Cold War on-going there was little time to consider any other possible ideological frameworks: Fascism/Nazism have been put in a grave during the Second World War, its remnants were sometimes visible in Franco Spain and some Latin Americans states but it was not an option to pick for a nation that wanted to develop itself; monarchies were slowly being replaced by “red” revolutions sponsored by USSR and the untried ideologies were either under the big influence of some powers (like it was in case of Arab Socialism in Egypt, mostly influenced by USSR) or were not tried at all. The only real choice the regimes had back in the day was communism or liberalism. The world was very much bipolar despite the fact that many states in the world have joined the non-association movement and thus it was not really possible for any state to develop its own points of view properly unless they were willing to cooperate with the USA or the USSR.

But this era itself has come to an end in 1991 when the Soviet Union has started to collapse. According to Francis Fukuyama, with the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact the world has reached so-called “the end of history” – a term which defines the end of the ideological fight in the world, a beginning of an era when everyone realizes that since the Cold War has ended with the victory of the Western powers and NATO so liberal democracy and market economy will sooner or later dominate the entire world and all of the future conflicts will be based not on ideology but on a cultural basis. Technically, what Francis Fukuyama said is that the world has entered a multi-polar era in which we live now but at the same time the world is very much unipolar since the only real

13 model for humanity to exist and follow is liberal democracy and market economy. And that is when we see the rise of Eurasian ideas.

The Soviet nation was in ruins, it did not exist anymore, all of the things that people were told about the fact that they live in the best state in the world, with the best education, medicine, military and etc, has turned out to be destroyed. The superpower has collapsed but the people remained. People who have faced a very rapid and sudden arrival of capitalism and private property, privatization. Millions lost jobs, shelter and had nothing to eat. The world has seen a very similar scenario after the end of the First World War when Germany has faced a similar fate and the revanchist tensions have been slowly rising in the society – both German and now ex-Soviet or Russian. “Plan of Dallas”, “CIA agent Gorbachev” and “traitors from within” – such ideas were floating among the nation that was destroyed not in a war but in a process of reforms. Now living through the 1990s, observing numerous wars, national hate and the discrimination of Russian population outside of Russia people were slowly turning more and more radical. And without a general national idea among the nation, since the collapse of communist ideals, a new time has come for ideologies that have been forgotten or lost. Numerous Nazi parties, radical liberal movements, the ideas to invite back the last members of Romanovs Tsarist family among monarchists, Soviet patriots and many-many others. Among them, as we might guess, has emerged new political participants calling themselves National-Bolshevik Party13 or Nazbol party led by 3 founding fathers: Eduard Limonov, Yegor Letov and Alexander Dugin. The last of the trio in fact is the founding father of neo-Eurasian movement which has emerged later on in the 1990s after Dugin has quit the Nazbol party. But what were the reasons for that and what made Dugin so special in this case? For that we need to look at the role each of these 3 founding fathers within the party they have created.

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Dugin, Limonov, Letov Eduard Limonov14 was a Russian dissident, very critical of Communist Party of Soviet Union and spent many of his years in emigration working as a writer and publicist in France, Italy, USA. Even though his relations with Soviet government were harsh, he kept criticizing capitalism and liberalism while living in the US, has been a devoted follower of Stalinist version of socialism however his political program later on has proved to be more social-democratic. In the rhetoric sense he remained conservative socialist, Stalinist, Russian nationalist. Took part in several wars including his support for Serbia during Yugoslav Wars, Transnistria against Moldova, Armenia against Azerbaijan. Has been imprisoned for organizing the armed break into Kazakhstan “to protect Russian minorities”. Also has been supporting the annexation of Crimea by Russian Federation. Limonov has been a representative of more left ideological spectrum in the party.

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Eduard Limonov Yegor Letov15 was a Russian punk-rock artist, vocalist in a band “Grazhdanskaya Oborona” (“Гражданская Оборона”) and also was considered a dissident in Soviet times. Unlike Limonov, he spent his entire life in different parts of USSR and mostly in Russia, has been a victim of Soviet repressive psychiatry. Has mostly positioned himself as left anarchist. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991 he has radically changed his views from anti-Soviet to pro-Soviet. Has become one of the people in the party who had a strong semi-religious opinion about the Communism and the Party itself. “Communism is a teaching of Christ” as some of the Nazbol banners used to say. Within the party Letov has been viewed as a person who can attract youth and he perfectly did that since back in the day his band was very popular in Russia. Letov himself was representing more spiritual-propagandic part of the party.

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Yegor Letov Alexander Dugin himself could be described as the biggest anti-Soviet dissident out of three of the founders16. But like all of his colleagues in the 1990s he felt a big regret regarding that and his ideological position has started developing very fast. His own political position in Nazbol party was combining elements of the New Left, Marxism, old National-Bolshevism, Metaphysics of Communism and the original Eurasian ideas. The collapse of USSR he has perceived as the fact that “Civilization of Land has lost to the Civilization of the Sea” referring to the Russian political school and Anglo-Saxon respectively. Dugin has also taken part in some of the wars where Russia was involved, including Russian-Georgian War of 2008. He was the main ideologist of the party and it was because of Dugin why Nazbol party used to be referred to as “Red Fascists”17. However, in the late 1990s the only thing that kept Dugin in the party was his hatred for President Eltsin and pro- American cabinet of ministers in the Russian government. Starting from Putin’s first presidency he used to refer to him as the first “National-Bolshevik President” and was criticizing the fact that the Nazbol party was criticizing him. In 1998 he quit the party18 and later on has been more cooperative with the governments of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. Eventually has developed the concept of neo-Eurasianism, has founded the Eurasian movement and the Organization of Eurasian Youth in 2003. This is exactly the year when the Eurasian ideology has gained ground again and has started to develop and spread among the population.

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Alexander Dugin

1.2 Eurasian Philosophy

So the Eurasian Philosophy has started to develop in a new neo-Eurasian way officially starting from 2003 with a 10 year history as a part of Nazbol ideology. The main features of this ideology are19:

- “Third way” – a project uniting in itself parts of capitalistic and socialistic features;

The Eurasian economy must be stand on the following principles:

1. Subordination of the economy to higher civilizational spiritual values;

2. Macro-economic integration and division of labour in each part of the Eurasian union;

3. Creation of economic borders of the sub-divisions of the Eurasian union, so-called “great spaces” and “geo-economic zones”;

4. Creation of a single financial, transportation, energy, productive and informational system within the Eurasian space;

5. Strategic control of the centre on the system-forming branches and parallel maximal freedom of economic activity at the levels of medium and small business;

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6. Organic combination of the market forms of management with the social, national and cultural traditions of the regions (no uniform economic standard).

- Geopolitics aimed at the development and the expanding of the state withing one continent by all means (Tellurocracy20) and the confrontation with the USA and NATO who are perceived as nations that are landlocked on small pieces of land and thus are more focused at the development of their capacities through the sea (Thalassocracy21);

Basically, here Eurasians claim that according to their teaching the contemporary states face today the following outlooks22:

1. Self-liquidation and integration in the single planetary space under US domination (globalization, atlantism);

2. Opposing the globalization and attempts to preserve its own formal sovereignty, notwithstanding globalization;

3. Entering supra-state formations of regional kind (“great spaces”) on the basis of historical, civilizational and strategic community (the Eurasian choice).

- Soviet conservatism which perceives the USSR as the real Eurasian power.

The Eurasians look at the Russian Federation today and at the Commonwealth of Independent States as one of the autonomous political formations which will be the basis for the Eurasian Union which might be the basis for the Eurasian Continental Block.

Dugin himself in his philosophy and research has been very much related to the European New Right23 even though it might be hard to comprehend at first glance. But Dugin’s vision of Russia is very traditionalist, related in many cases to Orthodox Christianity. Duginist neo-Eurasian philosophy has stated what we have mentioned before – that Europe these days has lost its vanguard status in the Western politics and that most of the neo-liberal developments these days are coming from the United States and thus the United States and their unifying not diverse version of globalization, their Globalism in an enemy the whole world should fight against in this new multipolar world, where in neo-Eurasians opinion Russia is playing a major role as a historic bridge between East and West, between Europe and Asia.

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Map of Eurasia and Eurasianism

Chapter II

The Current Situation in the Eurasian Movement

2.1 Comeback of the Eurasian Movement in the XXI century

And so the XXI century has started for the world in a very unpleasant way. Russia as a state had to deal with low prices for oil, the abduction of President Eltsin, political uncertainty and the rising of the other populist and extremist groups. The Western World, in particular the United States of America, has been dramatically shocked by the fist massive terror attack in the “heart” of the “free world” – we speak of the terror attack of 9/11 2001. Right after 10 years since the ideological war has ended and the world was at gasp of the spread of the globalization and Western worldview, the Islamic extremist terrorists have been the first to rise their voice against such tendencies in our modern era referring to them as bad and as a destruction for the Muslim societies. “The War on Terror” has started and it was the first conflict for the last remaining superpower back then against ideological enemy again.

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With the tensions across the globe rising against the US/West, the Eurasians were gaining ground for expressing their opinions. As we have mentioned before, the Eurasian movement itself has started in 2003 and since then the influence and importance of this movement has increased. The most important factor for us these days is the fact that Dugin was able to explain his views to the Russian leadership and the fact that Russian leadership finds Dugins ideas corresponding with the Russian geopolitical interests back in the beginning of the XXI century and even now after 20 years since its beginning.

We almost never hear about the Eurasians before the third term of President Putin in 2012, that is very much related to the fact that Russian state was not strong enough to act actively internationally before the war with Georgia in 2008 and thus the Eurasian movement spent most of the time criticizing the Russian choice to implement the Western economical and social model. Many things started changing after the re-election of Putin in 2012 when for the first time after the collapse of the USSR the Russian state has finally decided to announce a clear strategy and political goals for the future24. That was the time when Eurasian philosophy has started officially uniting and routing into the Russian domestic and foreign policy.

Alexander Dugin

2.2 Russian Politics Planning Under Eurasian Influence

In March 2012 Putin has stressed the importance of development of the economical cooperation between the states of Commonwealth of Independent States and stressed that a deeper

21 integration of these historical parts of the Russian Empire/USSR is needed. For us it is important to understand that in this statement the head of the Russian state has acknowledged one of the key Eurasian philosophical points – “The Third Way”, in way that it is aimed at uniting the economical forces of several states under the management of the sort of central government, the need for the economical strategy. But a very important fact is that Putin is stressing that this form of cooperation can not be done under the framework of the Eurasian Customs Union, no, he clearly speaks of the need of Eurasian Union. Dugin himself notes that this statement relates not only to the development of the economical sector but also that it is the first time Russian state has issued a specific strategy in relation to its neighbors. And as we know, according to the Eurasian theory strategical planning plays one of the major roles in the cooperation between the parts of the new “supra-state”.

Another important issue here is the fact that Putins’ regime really questions the dominance of the US in the world, according to Russian President the world can not be unipolar, he clearly sees the need for multipolar world we live now. Eurasians are also very much in favor of such development since that is their original idea of how “fair” world must be run with the balance of powers and with each big power having its own spheres of interest with their own dominance. For Putin that is ex-USSR and maybe some bigger part of Eurasian continent, like ex-communist Warsaw Pact states or ex-member-states of Union of Economic Cooperation. According to Dugin that process takes a lot of time and resources to make Russia one of these “-polars” in the multipolar world. By achieving that goal Russia is supposed to come back to the world arena as the global power, maybe even superpower.

We can also see that Putin mentions that he clearly draws a line between such terms as “nation” and “ethnicity”. And once again, from Eurasian point of view, that means only one fact, that means that Putin is views nation as a concept which determines the belonging to one state but the nation itself can be composed out of many other ethnicities. Even today we know that out of all people we call “Russians” not all of them are really them: Russian nation consists out of Ukrainians, Belorussians, Armenians, Latvians, Kazakhs, Buryats, Yakuts, Tatars, and many-many others. All of those people are “Russians”, however many of them keep their ethnical differences and features making Russian nation a very diverse term. Which is exactly how Eurasians perceive their view of how supra-states must be run. That people of these nations can and should have their ethnical differences but nationalism among those people must be suppressed in order to avoid separatism, to avoid nationalism of bigger ethnic groups, to avoid small nationalism and focus more on the global strategy of the state. “Nationalistic models are not compatible with the Eurasian nature of out society. If we want to keep, make it stronger and extend our sphere of interest we must be

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Eurasians and base our policy on this Eurasian political philosophy.” as Dugin says referring to world of Putin.

Another example of Putin being interested in the Eurasian politics is when he himself has again proved that on February 13, 2021 when said that he is fond of Eurasian ideas of Lev Gumilev25, pointing out that “Russia has not yet reached its peak of historic development”. If we look at this saying while keeping in minds that Putin referred to Lev Gumilev while saying that, he basically means the Russian state is not regressing yet as according to Gumilev each super-ethnicity has its own life-cycle when it develops, reaches its possible peak and then regresses, “becomes old and dies”. Putin denies the fact that USSR was the highest point of the Russian political development in the world and aims higher with greater ambitions and plans. And if he approves and likes the Eurasian ideas of Lev Gumilev, he means that he aims at the development of the new Eurasian state for Russia.

And the biggest influence Eurasian ideas had on the Russian politics was the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) on first of January 2015 by Russia, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. The Eurasian Union was seen as to be the second USSR according to the fears of many Western politicians, but the idea was not realized at its full potential due to the fact that the Eurasian partners of Russian Federation were not very interested in loosing their autonomy and sovereignty to Kremlin again. It is important for Russia to have this Union as a mean of economic influence over foreign markets and its own economic benefit and that is why Russia was trying to much to get as many partners involved as possible26.

Many in Russia and abroad are sceptical about the future of the EAEU, because of this specific nature of this project. All of the member states face same problem - they are not able to modernise their economies singlehandedly and thus they require investment and technology from abroad. There is also a great difference between the economic potential of Russia and of the other actual member states in Central Asia, which implies that this partnership is not quite equal among member states. Commitment to the EAEU appears to be low, and the use of trade-protection measures among members appears to be increasing. The free movement of goods remains an elusive goal. It has also been argued that achieving deep economic integration requires a commitment, mainly from Russia, not only to respect the already adopted rules of the EAEU but also to spearhead regulatory and institutional modernization of the member states, all of which suffer from poor governance27.

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It is true that the success of the EAEU will depend on Russia, but Russia itself suffers from poor governance. The main obstacle to Russia’s economic modernisation is not a lack of investment or advanced technology, but rather the hierarchical nature of its regime, the arbitrariness of its swollen bureaucracy and its lack of democratic institutions. These weaknesses are, in turn, the consequences of more fundamental political and ideological liabilities. The three faces of Russian neo-Eurasianism are reactionary ideology, imperial expansionism and economic integration, but as the first two grow stronger, the third becomes increasingly less likely.

So basically, what we can see here that modern Russia currently is only in the beginning stage of its Eurasian plan. It is clear for sure that such a difficult and complex plan of integration is impossible to achieve in a short span of time however the Eurasians raise a really important point about the fact that Russia itself as a state has this way of understanding how to run Eurasian state because it has been diverse historically and the understanding of civil nationalism or Eurasian nationalism is really developed there due to its historical development. And so while the Russian state is trying to achieve its goals in domestic policies, we are going to move forward to the Russian-Eurasian foreign policy.

Member states of the Eurasian Union

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Chapter III

Eurasian Movement Influence on Global Scale

3.1 The Nature of Eurasian Foreign Policy

And so, from the last chapter we have learnt an important fact that the Russian understanding of perception of policies related to nationalism and ethnic groups correlates with the Eurasian understanding. Such approach correlates very much with the concept of civil nationalism we meet in many cases in the governmental institutions of France today. We were able to see that the Russian domestic policy is mostly aimed at increasing its capacities to act as a powerful international actor with the perspective of becoming one of the most important parts in the modern multi-polar world to eliminate the unipolar US dominance and to defend its own unique way of governance, basically what we call today Russian oligarchy or authoritarian presidential rule and opposition towards some of the Western progressive values with the intention to revive spiritual values and “save” Russian people from the Western false idols. All of these domestic policies very much shift Russian foreign policy.

But when it comes to the foreign policy, we have previously covered that by the Eurasian understanding it must be aimed at the expanding of the state borders till there is basically nothing left to conquer. And only after that the state is aimed at the developing its own resources and itself – when it is secured and when the only possible threat is coming from across the seas. So is Russia really acting like that? Or is it at the stage of its Eurasian “conquest”? Now we are going to look at the Russian foreign policy, as one of the Soviet governmental figures Andrei Zhdanov used to say, “Foreign policy begins at home”28.

3.2 Eurasian Armed Conflicts

We have seen some of the Russian attempts to act against the spread of the will of the US and its allies since the collapse of the USSR. The first example has been the act of military aid to Serbian state during the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s but the general weakness of the state and the orientation towards Western way of development do not give us the right to say that the act of assistance to Serbian state has been motivated by Eurasian values and perspectives, no, it was more of a historical bond between the Russian and Serbian people going back in time. The state under the

25 administration of Boris Yeltsin and the first two presidencies of Vladimir Putin has been very weak after the collapse of the entire communist system and the completely reversed policy in regards of everything that has been done during the 70 years of Soviet rule.

Another forgotten conflict has started back in USSR but became “hot” in 1992. We speak of Transnistrian conflict in Moldova29. Mostly backed by the pro-Soviet forces, the 14th Army has been defending one of the self-proclaimed states against Moldovan forces and later on has switched oath to the Commonwealth of Independent States and Russian Federation. The troops are stationed in the state even today. We might call this one of the first signs of Eurasian conflict in a way that Neo-Eurasians perceive USSR as the Eurasian state and the 14th Army has been fighting for the Soviet Union and so, technically, fought for their Eurasian state.

Russian Troops in Moldova The first real turn in Russian politics has happened during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. Similar to the events that have been happening in Moldova in the 90s, local Georgian minorities were claiming that they were under threat of extermination by the Georgian government and were asking the Russian state for help. Georgia was and still is on its way of democratization and making attempts to apply to European Union and NATO. Russian state by that time was able to conduct foreign policy in regards of its neighbors and it could not allow the spread of the NATO or European values into the Caucasus region.

“… using the moment, we declare war against Georgia” – Dmitry Medvedev.

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The Russian-Georgian War30 or as some refer to it as “Five-day War” has shown us for the first time that the Russian government is not going to tolerate the spread of Western influence into its historical borders. Since Russia lost Finland and Poland in 1918 and has lost the Baltic states in 2004 to NATO, it was not planning to give up more possible influence and land to its competitors on the international arena. And indeed, Russian victory in the war has allowed it to disrupt the process of political integration of Georgia into the West and allowed it to have some puppet states where their influence is unquestionable.

Russian Troops in Georgia Starting from the third presidency of Vladimir Putin we have previously spoken that the goals to keep in close contacts with ex-Soviet Republics and to develop integration of the Eurasian Union were the main focuses of Russian foreign policy. And it really was so: Russia spent and spends big amounts of money supporting economies of Belarus, Ukraine, Central Asia and Caucasus regions. However, in 2013 Ukraine has faced Maidan or “Revolution of Dignity” when ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych has refused to sign association treaty with the European Union in Vilnius. With the pro-Russian government in exile and the Ukrainian people pushing for the turn to the West, Russian policy has been the same as it has been in regards of Georgia in 2008 – in the beginning of 2014 Russian troops have occupied Crimea, the referendum was held there and the Crimean Peninsula has became a part of Russian federation. Right after that

27 there have been attempts to overthrow the Ukrainian pro-Western government in the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine, only two of them were successful: Peoples Republic of Donetsk and Peoples Republic of Lugansk or as they are called now “Novorossia”. The war rages on today31, Russians have achieved their main goals in the region – get the Crimea and to bring chaos in Ukraine so it is unable to continue its Western integration. It has been crucial for Russia to avoid the integration of Ukraine into the European markets since the Ukrainian market was and still is to an extent one of the biggest in terms of its own exports. The armed conflict in Ukraine is basically the outcome of the competition between a more prosperous European Union and the Russian recently created Eurasian Economic Union. This conflict has put Russian Federation under a lot of strict sanctions and the economy of the state has suffered a lot from that. However, from the Eurasian point of view that was a good thing for one reason – the economic ties with Atlantist Western Civilization have been broken and so Russia was finally able to depend on its own resources and to impose deeper cooperation with other anti-Western powers, who question US dominance in the world, such as China, India, Iran, Syria.

Pro-Russian Troops in Ukraine

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Alexander Dugin the the Flag of Donetsk Peoples Republic Another war which relates to the competition of Eurasian Russia against the Atlantist West is the war in Syria32. In the beginning of the XXI century we were able to witness US interventions in the Middle East during the War on Terror. That was when the US forces have occupied Iraq with almost no support in the world but no one was able to do anything because at that time US still remained the only unquestionable superpower. In 2011 we have witnessed the Western intervention in Libya which has left the state in ruins and where the civil war rages on even today. And so, when the civil war in Syria has started the Western or Atlantist powers have started intervening against terrorist state ISIS and against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Russian forces have came into Syria when the Assads’ regime has asked for help. And so the Russian forces were dealing with ISIS together with the Western forces there, however the legal aid to the Syrian state by Russians did not allow the Western powers to act against Assad since it could lead to the direct confrontation with Russians. Eventually the Western coalition was withdrawing from the region and the Russians have secured a port for themselves in the Mediterranean Sea and also have spread their influence in the Middle East.

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Pro-Russian Demonstration in Sirya

3.3 Eurasian Soft Power

Since Russian state has been in a very poor situation starting from 2014, it was looking for new allies and is still trying to develop closer ties with its neighbors. Russian state is not only using its military power to spread its influence abroad but it also has a lot of sources of soft power in its hands which in a way contribute to the rise of sympathy towards their way of governance or the state.

The collapse of the Russian Empire and later the USSR and the entire communist system has left hundreds of thousands of Russians in different countries not only because they lived in those communist states before but also because the open borders have allowed millions of Russians to emigrate. Today Russians are considered as one of the most represented nations in the world in terms of population in different countries. Russian lobby even today is seen in the Baltic states, in Belorussia, in Ukraine, in Moldova, in some parts of Caucasus and Central Asia. They are able to influence politics in those states. We saw Moldovan and Ukrainian Russian uprisings and the creation of Soviet/Peoples Republics, we have seen a huge unrest among Russians in Estonia in 1993, we see a lot of complains and protests in Latvia when it comes to the education in Russian language at schools and voting rights. Many Russians live in the Western states, South America, Asia and Oceania. Their influence is less significant there and mostly because, as we have mentioned before, the main Russian interest is located in its ex-Soviet borders.

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The European states, which are the natural enemies and competitors of Eurasians, depend a lot on Russian natural resources. A vast portion of Russian gas comes to EU via the old Soviet gas- pipe road “Druzhba” or “Friendship” in English. With the sanctions hitting Russia, the EU has got a need to import gas from the US which is more expensive and takes more time. This creates a situation when the funds are being spent in not the most rational way since Russian gas is cheaper and easier to get, and it creates a situation when some of the conservative politicians from ex- Eastern block states like Hungary actually are not supporting the idea of such trade restrictions, favoring to a deeper cooperation with Russia and not excluding it from the European politics. For Eurasians that is beneficial for 2 main reasons: 1) The spread of soft power of Russian Eurasian state; 2) The creation of provocations within the EU and NATO, who are the natural enemies of Eurasians.

Russia has its own analogue of NATO called ODKB33 (Organizatsiya Dogovora o Kollektivnoi Bezopasnosti; Collective Security Treaty Organization) with such member states as: Russia, Armenia, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. We may see that these states have been a part of USSR and have eventually became in a Russian sphere of influence. Another example of the closer cooperation between the Eurasian states and the realization of the Eurasian policies.

Flag and Map of ODKB States Also Russia has numerous local initiatives aimed at economical development such as the development of natural resources in Iran, infrastructural projects with China and DPRK, economic

31 ties with such historical allies as Serbia and Cuba, also the programs for international students exchange in various Russian universities, and the last but not least – Russian Armed Forces recruit every citizen of the world in its ranks with the only requirement to have a good command of Russian language.

It has been pointed out before also, but it must be mentioned again that the Eurasian Economic Union34 is another Russian tool of geopolitical influence around its ex-Soviet sphere of influence. The combination of economic capacities and the creation of a unique economic zone within its sphere of interest can also be considered as one of the Eurasian goals since it sees the multipolar world as a set of regions where each great power is concentrating every resource in its own interests. Surely, for Eurasianists the economic union is not enough in order to achieve a complete ideal Eurasian state but it serves the purpose well regardless.

Official Logo of Eurasian Economic Union And of course, we need to mention that fact that the Eurasian Movement Organization is represented not only in Russia but in other states such as France, Greece, etc, making them into a pretty vast organization with a network around the globe.

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Flag of the Eurasian Movement So, these foreign policies of Russian state are really not one-sided and are indeed corresponding the Eurasian way of understanding how to conduct politics and are going step to step with the general understanding of the Eurasian state-building process and its philosophy.

CRITICIZM

When we look at the Eurasian movement, we might think that it is not really the Russian state that is following it but rather the movement itself is shaping itself with the development of the world politics. We may even say that everything we have mentioned is actually covered by the theoretics of neo-realism or just classical realism and that the Russian Federation is acting in a such way because it is the most rational way of action for the state in such a situation. That is not quite correct at least because the Russian state has started acting like it is doing now almost 2 decades after the movement of neo-Eurasians has emerged, even more, the state called Russian Federation was not a thing when the movement itself has originated.

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Realists find it hard to explain why Russian Federation would support some spiritual values in order to resist the spread of the Western values. Why would Russian Federation turn to those values if there was a way simpler trick in Soviet times by just calling those things “degenerate” and “the moral fall of the West”? Why would Russia turn to its “dark” past referring to Soviet purges of 1930s and occupation of states during and after WWII if the state itself is a complete turn away from the Soviet legacy and is supposed to admire its Imperial past or to try to create a new version of itself? The answer from the realist point of view suggests us that those are the tools to keep people under control who might have soviet nostalgia and to create some sort of soft power bond with ex-Soviet neighbors. But those soviet nostalgia generations are slowly aging and dying, being replaced by a new not Soviet generation, and the neighboring states do not really share that much of historical bond with the Soviet Union, apart from some cases like Belorussia. The answer is simple – the realist school is unable to normally reply to those issues because it is still using the Western approach to the topic.

Lev Gumilev has been criticized by many for his unorthodox scientific approach and was not considered so popular among his colleagues, he was some sort of an outcast who made his way into academics due to his great contribution to the development of the historical science. One of his best critics has been a Soviet writer and a member of Communist Party of the Soviet Union Vladimir Chivilihin35.

In 1980, the magazine "Our Contemporary" published V. Chivilikhin's novel "Memory", containing sharp attacks on Lev Gumilyov and his concept of Russian-Mongolian relations in the 13th century. In the mid 1980s “Izvestia” published an article by Gumilyov's student K.P. Ivanov "A Look at Ethnography, or Are There Two Doctrines about Ethnicity in Soviet Science?" with a list of the main borrowings made by Bromley. In the subsequent critical response of Mashbits and K.V. Chistov was reminded of fundamental differences in the understanding of the “deep essence of the ethnicity”, and the coincidences were explained as “natural when it comes to obvious things,” or as “more or less accidental”.

Generally speaking about criticizing the ideas of Lev Gumilyov until 198836, he was accused of a "biologizing" approach to ethnic history, of "geographical determinism." Secondly, his concept of Russian-Mongolian relations in the 13th century was criticized. Professional Turkologists and Sinologists rather ignored Gumilyov's works than criticized them. Thus, in the period from 1974 to 1988, there were no serious attempts to objectively consider the provisions of the scientist's concept and give more or less balanced criticism.

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The study of the movement of the Eurasians and their ideology in Soviet historiography began in the 1980s and the historical concept, some social-political aspects of Eurasianism were considered. It is worth noting the theses of the report by M.I. Cheremisskaya, the deposited works of D.P. Shishkin and A.V. Guseva. The main significance of the works of this period is seen in the introduction of information about the Eurasians into the scientific community, although the study of the movement itself was possible only in the appropriate ideological vein as a criticism of the bourgeois, anti-Soviet trend in the Russian emigration.

During the period under review, the study of Eurasianism takes place mainly in Western historiography. It begins in the literature of Russian emigration. Already after the release of the first Eurasian collections in the early 1920s of the XX century.

Criticism of the main provisions of the Eurasians in the emigrant environment is associated with the names of P.B. Struve, F.A. Stepun, V.V. Zenkovsky, G.P. Fedotova, N.A. Berdyaev. The most harsh criticism of the ideas of the Eurasians was given by the historian and publicist A. Kizevetter, who saw in these ideas an infringement of the national dignity of Russians. A. Kizevetter also denies the kinship of Eurasian ideas with Slavophilism, which, as he notes, was based on the doctrine of linear progress13. The historian defined Eurasianism as “a mood that imagined itself as a system,” thereby emphasizing its psychological motives and belittling its scientific consistency.

Another liberal historian, P. Milyukov, criticizes the historical concept of the Eurasians, emphasizing the European character of Russian civilization. Rejecting the main provisions and methodology of Eurasianism, Milyukov writes: "In the starting points of the thinking of the Eurasians, there is much that is true, although not belonging to this particular trend." and further, however, “the edifice which is being built on several initial correct positions is not new and incorrect.”

So now let us turn to the most widespread of criticism of Eurasian philosophy according to Alexander Dugin37:

- Critics of Eurasian civilizational pluralism

According to Dugin, some of the critics of the Eurasian philosophy claim that the definition of civilizational pluralism is wrong, basing on such facts that human civilization is one unit, with no other possibilities. To explain on that critics we might refer to the ancient Greece of Rome when Greeks and Romans have thought that only they are the civilization because of

35 their political system while everyone else were barbarians and not civilized. Basically, if we speak about modern days, we mean by that the fact that the nations that do not have universal Western values such as freedom of movement, right for life, right for non- discrimination and etc are barbaric or uncivilized.

Of course, that is wrong at least for the fact that the definition of civilization in modern days is understood differently and refers to culture. Even if we read Francis Fukuyama, we would see that after the so-called “End of History” we will be witnessing the cultural or civilizational conflicts around the globe, based not on ideologies but on the civilizational factor.

- Criticism of Russia as a civilization

The previous example has already proven us why this criticism has emerged. Mostly because such critics deny the fact that there are many civilizations. Usually by them Russia is referred as the European state or “bad” European state.

- Criticism of the unique development of Russia

The criticism about the fact that Russia is developing in its own unique way is coming from 2 directions:

1) Russia is not a civilization because there is only 1 human civilization. Since the Eurasian have already told why exactly this position is incorrect, we can only add that each civilization is developing in its own unique way and if we look at Russia as at the civilization we have to deal with the completely different civilizational evolution.

2) Russia belongs to European civilization and thus is developing as European civilization. A very good example in this case is the book by Lev Trotsky “The History of Russian Revolution” where he clearly explains the core differences between the development of the Europe and Russian state38. While Russia remained many of the Asian or Autocratic features of the social relationships and hierarchy, the technological development in the state was going leg in leg with the European one due to geographical reasons. This sole fact is enough to prove that this criticism is also wrong.

- Critics of the Western universalism and the necessity to stand against the colonial expansion of the West and its culture

The main argument against this criticism is the fact that the globalization and the universal human values and way of life, which are very common for the Western states, are being

36 imposed on everyone else in the world and thus the world is facing these trends not as the development but as a neo-colonialism aimed at the suppression of other cultures.

- Critics of the beneficial influence of the East in Russian history

This criticism is coming out of the previous criticism. The Globalization is very much related to the Western values and way of life as we know them today and so obviously the influence of everything non-Western (in Russian case Eastern) is bad for the state. However, the Eurasian followers are convinced that each civilization has its own unique way of development and thus it has its own unique set of values and so the criticism about the beneficial influence of the East in Russian history is often neglected.

- Critics of common elements of culture among the peoples of Eurasia

Eurasians claim that each civilization shares some parts in common, while the opponents of Eurasians claim that each culture is completely different and thus the possibility for these cultures to exist together in harmony is impossible and so all of the Eurasian ethnicities are being held together in a fake manner. The example that the anti-thesis is not relevant for Eurasians is the fact of the existence of Russian state where representatives of various ethnic groups live inside of Russia and live in harmony with Russian population. As an example we may call the Buryats living with Russians in Novosibirsk without any serious issues.

- Criticism of the thesis “landscape of the state defines its destiny”

Eurasians claim that the geographical position of the state determines its policy, while the opposition of theirs is convinced that the main determination of the state policy are rationalism, history, culture, economy. However that can be easily dealt with if we look at the Russian and British/French way of colonization. The availability of the land has determined the expansionist Eurasian policy of Russia, while the English or French colonization was aimed at the exploitation of the colonized lands for the benefit of the metropolis because of a completely different colonization process.

- Critics of geopolitical continuity

The Eurasians refer to USSR as to the failed or “heretical” attempt of the creation of the Eurasian state. They agree with the fact that the Russian Empire, USSR and Russian Federation are all part of one historical development and so the geopolitical ancestry of this regime is more than relevant, while the enemies of Eurasian policies deny the fact that USSR has anything to do with Russian geopolitical history. That fact can be easily neglected

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by the fact that the new version of Russian constitution now clearly says that the Russian Federation is the state-continuator of USSR.

Criticism of Eurasian ideology is also based on other ideas, such as the fact that Russian state finds this ideology useful only because it justifies the ways of how Russian Federation is run in an authoritarian way39. These semi-spiritual excuses and points the Eurasianists raise allow the Russian government to play the card of “not being suitable for Western democracy” even though Russia is quite open to democratic changes and has shown a possibility to adopt the necessary reforms when needed. It is being pointed out by some critics that even though that the times have changed, the Eurasian ideology just perfectly suits Russian interests in terms of continuation of the Soviet-like system they once had, just with the usage of different tools. So basically the main criticism within such points is focused around the fact that Russia is not actually a Eurasian state of any sort by nature or destiny but rather is just using this ideology when needed in order to achieve some geopolitical goals for itself.

As we can see, the criticism against Eurasian political thought exists and it has a lot of points that may attract our attention. Most of the points of criticism above are coming from the pro- Western, Nazi, religious fundamentalist, Zionist, and Marxist points of view. But all of the criticism that is coming sounds weak and not really strong enough for one specific reason. If we look at the critics of Marxism in the XIX century and at the critics of Marxism today we can clearly see that modern critics have way more arguments in their hands because the attempt to create a Marxist state has been tried and the great experiment has failed in 1991. However, the Eurasian state has never been really declared even as a project and so most of the criticism we are dealing with today is related to the concepts and theory but not practice. We might start getting to the criticism of its realization if Alexander Dugin will be right and the Russian government will really announce that its main goal is the establishment of the Eurasian state based on Eurasian values and philosophy.

CONCLUSIONS

Eurasian philosophy is simple. It clearly explains to us that these specific turns in Russian policies are done in such a manner so it stresses the most important features of Russian society which have developed throughout the history and also preserves them and not eliminating just for

38 the sake of Western modernization and globalization. “The movement around the circle helps us to understand that everything is cyclical and so we return to our true selves and so we will create a new country, it will be a fresh country, alive, it will be filled with the great energy of our people and all the other people who are a part of this movement. Walking in circles is the best form of modernization” – as suggests Alexander Dugin40. And if we look at the Russian state today, we can see that it is actually trying to do so, to move in circles, to return to its own roots, traditions and past so it can develop a new strategy of its own development. And for that reason Russia is attempting in a way to “reunite” itself by establishing this new Eurasian union or just a sphere of influence in the ex-USSR as we might understand it.

Eurasian philosophy has emerged much earlier of course, and it has emerged among the Russian emigration across the world in the 1920s of the XX century, it has been brought back to life singlehandedly by one enthusiast named Lev Gumilev in the second half of the XX century. However, the complete reincarnation of this ideology can be easily explained with the fact that after the collapse of the USSR the Russian government has lost itself and was blindly “rebuilding” itself to become a Western state as we know them today. It did not work. The Russian government has realized that to keep its influence in the world it actually must be another and to preserve its own way of functioning. And the ideas of Lev Gumilev were very fitting for achieving that goal. The Russian government has started following the Eurasian philosophy because it was actually corresponding to the modern Russian geostrategy and because it still does. While the Western world is speaking of diversity, the Eurasians actually tend to impose it and to impose this diversity and to preserve it the Eurasians realize that the confrontation with the US and its Allies is inevitable since both are two completely different systems with different ways of life. We may argue that it is a big cover for the Russian state to avoid any positive democratic reforms but we are not able to do anything about it as long as the Russian leadership decides to stick to this course.

Eurasian movement is not a form of ideology that can be imposed on everyone and its goal is not world dominance as it was in case of 3 most successful ideologies of the XX century: Fascism, Communism and Liberalism. Eurasian movement and ideology are actually about the mutual benefit and the creation of the system of political balance in a multi-polar world but this world is acting in such a way that no one is losing by being part of this or that sphere of influence. The Eurasian project is just completely different from what we have seen before through the course of history and since it is a project that has been reborn after 1920s since its foundation, we can only watch as the Russian state is being successful or not when it is following the Eurasian guidelines set for it by Alexander Dugin41. One thing is known for sure – Russian foreign policy is based on the

39 fact that Russia sees itself as a great power, and that is exactly why Eurasianism is approved by Russian government, since it is a useful instrument to promote the status of great power for Russia.

Successful or not – it only depends on the fact if its opponents will start using the knowledge of this teaching and philosophy to plan their further steps in regards of the Russian Federation. Until then, the Eurasian philosophical thought remains one of the most interesting creations of our current era and we must keep an eye on its development both in theory and practice!

Eurazijos judėjimas nėra ideologijos forma, kurią galima primesti visiems, ir jos tikslas nėra dominavimas pasaulyje, kaip tai buvo 3 sėkmingiausių XX amžiaus ideologijų atveju: fašizmas, komunizmas ir liberalizmas. Eurazijos judėjimas ir ideologija iš tikrųjų yra susiję su abipuse nauda ir politinės pusiausvyros sistemos sukūrimu daugpoliariame pasaulyje, tačiau šis pasaulis veikia taip, kad niekas nepraranda būdamas tos ar kitos įtakos sferos dalimi. Eurazijos projektas visiškai skiriasi nuo to, ką matėme anksčiau per visą istoriją, ir kadangi tai projektas, atgimęs po 1920-ųjų nuo jo įkūrimo, galime tik stebėti, kaip Rusijos valstybei sekasi, ar ne, kai ji laikydamasis Eurazijos gairių, kurias jai nustatė Aleksandras Duginas. Tikrai žinoma vienas dalykas - Rusijos užsienio politika yra pagrįsta tuo, kad Rusija save laiko didinga valstybe, ir būtent todėl eurazijizmą patvirtina Rusijos vyriausybė, nes tai yra naudinga priemonė didžiosios valstybės statusui skatinti. Rusija.

Sėkminga ar ne - viskas priklauso tik nuo to, ar jos oponentai pradės naudoti šio mokymo ir filosofijos žinias planuodami tolesnius veiksmus Rusijos Federacijos atžvilgiu. Iki tol Eurazijos filosofinė mintis tebėra vienas įdomiausių mūsų eros kūrinių ir turime stebėti jos raidą tiek teorijoje, tiek praktikoje!

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