Elsevier

Political Geography

Volume 20, Issue 8, November 2001, Pages 1029-1051
Political Geography

Discussion
Alexander Dugin: geopolitics and neo-fascism in post-Soviet Russia

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Abstract

In this paper I aim to contribute to critical geopolitics through a discussion of the work of the radical right wing Russian geopolitician Alexander Dugin, focusing on his textbook The Fundamentals of Geopolitics: the geopolitical future of Russia. Dugin’s career and work are contextualized in terms of developments in Russian politics and the general shift towards Eurasianism in Russian foreign policy thinking in the last decade, and three main lines of inquiry are pursued. First, Dugin’s concept of geopolitics and his geopolitical strategy, conveyed both in text and maps (or cartogrammes), are related to debates about geopolitics, power and knowledge. I argue that Dugin’s geopolitics reproduce the worst excesses of the geopolitical and imperialist gaze, and I compare and contrast his proposals with aspects of current Russian foreign policy. Secondly, the relations between his work and questions of neo-fascism are explored. Here I argue that, despite the historically conflictual relationships between geopolitics and fascism, Dugin can in certain ways be considered a neo-fascist as well as a geopolitician. Thirdly, the relationship between rationalism and mysticism (or geopolitics and sacral geography) in Dugin’s writings, which I argue is connected in part with a reliance on environmental determinism and occultism, is highlighted at several points.

Countless people…will hate the new world order, be rendered unhappy by the frustration of their passions and ambitions through its advent and will die protesting against it. H. G. Wells (1940, p. 170).

In complex post-modern times…geopolitical visions and visionaries seem to thrive. Gearoid Ó Tuathail (1998, p. 2).

Introduction

While Russian geopolitical visions and traditions have at times been overlooked in western studies (see, for example, Dodds & Atkinson, 2000), a number of works have addressed the responses of Russian geopoliticians to the post-Cold War world (Dijkink, 1996; Erickson, 1999, Kerr, 1995, O’Loughlin, 2002, Smith, 1999, Tsygankov, 1998). In this article I aim to contribute to this growing literature through a critical discussion of the work of Alexander Dugin, a prominent and prolific advocate of geopolitics in Russia.

Russia has experienced an upsurge of interest in geopolitics in the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Several books have addressed the topic directly (Sorokin, 1996, Dugin, 1997, Dugin, 1999, Mitrofanov, 1997, Gadzhiev, 1998, Zhirinovsky, 1998, Zyuganov, 1998, Nartov, 1999), geopolitics is argued to be relevant to Russian policies on areas ranging from the Russian diaspora (Anon., 1998b) to education (Anon., 2000) in innumerable newspaper articles, and geopolitics has begun to be institutionalized (Erickson, 1999). It is commonly asserted that cognizance of geopolitical teachings is crucial to maintaining Russia’s identity and power, to its status, and even to the attainment of social justice on a planetary scale (in the case of Zyuganov, 1998). According to the preface of an undergraduate textbook it is important for Russian students to study geopolitics because of the threats posed by “expansionist policies” such as the US-sponsored New World Order, Greater Europe, Greater China and Greater Turan (Nartov, 1999, p. 4). Contemporary Russian geopolitical visions are dominated by the idea of Russia as a distinct Eurasian entity, signifying a shift away from the early 1990s when the foreign policy of the Yeltsin administration was dominated by a liberal and Westernizing orientation (Kerr, 1995, Tsygankov, 1998).

This official approach to Eurasianism has its origins in the foreign policy orientation known as democratic statism, one of the three perspectives identified by Graham Smith within which ideas of Eurasianism have been worked out. Democratic statism starts from the position that Russia’s identity and interests are not necessarily coincident with those of the west, but neither are they necessarily opposed to it. Alexander Dugin sits squarely within the New Right school of Eurasianist thought, and advocates a far more radical approach to the new world order. While it would be difficult to argue that Dugin’s writings have influenced Russian foreign policy directly, it is also difficult to agree with Laqueur (1993, p. 291) that “…it is unlikely that the rehash of geopolitics and Eurasianism, of Judaeo–Masonic conspiracy theories recycled as ‘mondialism’, and of German metaphysical philosophy with an admixture of neopaganism will ever amount to more than the parlor games of a handful of intellectuals.” In addition to the New Right, Smith also identified a communist Eurasianism associated with Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. New Right and communist Eurasianism are distinguished from democratic statism on many points, the most salient being their open radicalism and fundamental, if not defining, hostility towards the West. The New Right school, which Tsygankov terms hard-line Eurasianism, is distinguished from the communist by, inter alia, its debt to fascist and neo-fascist thinking (a variant of which supplies its name) rather than, or more properly in addition to, the experience of the Soviet Union. This distinction is to a certain extent based on differences of ideology, but also on personal and organizational history and rivalry. These two main streams within the Russian ‘irreconcilable’ or ‘patriotic’ opposition came together in the ‘red-brown’ (communist–fascist) coalition that opposed the Yeltsin regime from 1991 onwards, and though this coalition endured political defeat in October 1993 when the Supreme Soviet, which had become a focus for red–brown opposition, was forcibly dissolved on Yeltsin’s orders, links endure among some of its major figures.1 Dugin himself is an advisor to Gennady Seleznev, deputy leader of the Communist Party and parliamentary speaker, who stated that Dugin’s works should be used for teaching in schools (Nosick, 1999). Allensworth argues that Dugin’s importance to this opposition has not yet been properly acknowledged (1998, p. 248), and his geopolitical vision has not yet been given detailed attention within political geography.2

Dugin (who was born in 1962 into a Moscow military family) studied foreign languages and history, and went on to translate philosophical and geopolitical works into Russian. He began to make a name for himself as an intellectual and activist in the late 1980s around Pamyat, a small yet prominent movement on the far right that emerged with the apparent blessing of elements within the Soviet establishment. References to a Russian New Right emerged in 1990, around the time of contacts with European New Rightists such as Alain de Benoist and Robert Steukers, with whom Dugin arranged a roundtable that also attracted senior Russian military figures in 1992 (Laqueur, 1993, p. 138). He went on to become the chief ideologist of the National Bolshevik Party, and in 1996 stood as a National Bolshevik Party (NBP) candidate for election to the Duma in a St Petersburg constituency, receiving 2493 votes (or 0.85%) (Polivanov, 1996). He left the NBP in 1998 following disagreements with its leader, Edward Limonov. Dugin has long been associated with Alexander Prokhanov, the eminence grise of the irreconcilable opposition and editor of the newspapers Den (the Day) and Zavtra (Tomorrow), which published much of his early writing.

Besides publishing in Den, Zavtra, and his own journal Elementy (The Elements), Dugin publishes the periodicals Vtorzhenie (Invasion) and Milyi Angel (Dearest Angel), and has attempted to establish a ‘New University’ and ‘Centre for Special Metastrategic Research’ in Moscow. His publishing house, Arctogaia, reprints neo-fascist works such as The Crisis of the Modern World by Rene Genon, and Dugin has enthusiastically embraced the possibilities of the Internet, although Russian anti-fascists have taken direct action against such sites (Nosick, 1999). Den was apparently founded with the support of the Main Political Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, in response to the creation of the liberal Literaturnaya Gazeta (Laqueur, 1993, p. 139), and in this context it is worth noting that Arctogaia maintains links with Orientir (The Guide), a monthly journal of the Russian Ministry of Defence that is aimed at the officer corps. Despite some disruptions, Arctogaia is online at http://arctogaia.com.3 There, Dugin draws attention to the significance of the Internet for American Militia groups (http://www.sccamoscow.ru/lab/myth/d0/dugin.htm) (Castells, 1997). Arctogaia has 10 filials in 9 Russian cities, and one in Minsk. At the time of writing, Elementy was available online, at http://elem2000.virtualave.net/, as were Dugin’s books, in Russian, with some summarized in English. In May 2001, he founded a ‘socio-political movement’(called Eurasia) that aims to influence Russia’s political debate from a Eurasianist perspective (Dugin, 2001).

Since the rise of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency, Dugin’s prominence has increased, and Russia’s official Eurasianist orientation has been consolidated. During the Yeltsin era, figures such as Dugin were officially regarded as beyond the pale, but under Putin, proclamations of Russia’s derzhavnost (great power status) have become not just acceptable, but a genuine component of official discourse, and oppositionists have found much to praise in Putin’s programme. Dugin himself seized upon Putin’s description of Russia as a ‘Euroasiatic’ entity (Dugin, 2001). Something of a rapprochement has also occurred between the Presidency and the Duma, where Dugin is now director of a Centre for Geopolitical Expertise, and he is regularly quoted on www.strana.ru, the website of Gleb Pavlovksy, a controversial adviser to Putin.

Discussion here focuses on Dugin’s book, Osnovy Geopolitiki: geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii (Fundamentals of Geopolitics: The geopolitical future of Russia), which was first published in 1997, and written with the assistance of a lecturer in the Department of Strategy of the Russian General Staff Military Academy. This work, described as an uchebnik (textbook, manual or primer), incorporated material published in Den, Zavtra, and Elementy over the course of the 1990s. The first edition of Fundamentals of Geopolitics was followed shortly by a second, and a third edition was published in 1999, with the addition of a second book, whose title can be translated as Thinking spatially, Thinking through space or To think in terms of space (Myslit prostranstvom).4 Editions one and two sold out, and the first printing of the third edition (5000 copies) was becoming difficult to obtain in Moscow in September 1999.

In this article I pursue three main lines of inquiry. The first relates to the relationships between geopolitics, power and knowledge. In the terms of Ó Tuathail (1999, p. 111), this is a study of formal geopolitics (or Geopolitics), which takes as its object geopolitical thought and geopolitical traditions, and the relations between intellectuals, institutions and their political and cultural context as its problematic. Formal geopolitics has been criticized from many positions, but two broad lines of critique can be identified as particularly relevant for this study. The first is what might be called the liberal critique of Geopolitics, which, while accepting or asserting a legitimate place for geopolitical analysis, decries the use to which such analyses have been put elsewhere or in the past. This approach is exemplified by the arguments of American proponents of Geopolitics in the 1940s (Ó Tuathail, 1996) and Paterson’s reassessment of German Geopolitics (1987). Secondly, more critical approaches question the liberal distinction between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ forms and focus on the problematic nature of all geopolitical knowledge, citing the disempowering Cartesian perspectivalism, panopticism, reductionism, elitism, essentialism, and delineation of the Other inherent in the geopolitical gaze (Ó Tuathail et al., 1998; Ó Tuathail, 1996, Ó Tuathail, 1999). All Geopolitics is thus placed in question for its subordination of geography to strategies of power, and hence its incompatibility “with a genuinely cosmopolitan, post-territorial society” (Heffernan, 2000, p. 351). In following this second approach, it is therrefore not my intention to simultaneously construct a legitimate space for a putatively liberal geopolitics (such as the visions of Brzezinski, 1994, Brzezinski, 1997) or to endorse alarmist punditry (for example see Clover, 1999, Clover, 2000), although the open will to power in Dugin’s work means that it can be made to serve such purposes.

The second line of inquiry deals with the relationship between formal geopolitics and neo-fascism (understood, after Griffin, 1995, as a movement adapting original fascist ideas to post-war conditions, and more particularly in this context, to post-Cold War conditions). There are two elements to this. The first concerns the definition of fascism itself. If anything, fascism has proven a more difficult and contentious term than geopolitics, as testified by the immense literature on the subject (the collections edited by Laqueur, 1996, Griffin, 1998, Griffin, 1995 provide useful introductions to fascist writings and interpretations of fascism). I proceed from the argument that, while recognizing the inherent dangers of rationalizing and normalizing a phenomenon widely considered to be illegitimate, it is useful to consider Dugin in relation to what might be thought of as a broad fascist tradition, understood in terms of a particular constellation of ideas generally characterized by extreme reaction to the experience of modernity, articulated around a mythic core which “in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism”, where palingenesis relates to the idea of rebirth (Griffin, 1995, Griffin, 1991). Many writers and activists who can be argued to lie within this tradition reject the fascist label themselves, particularly in Russia where the term is generally thought applicable only to the Nazi regime. Fascism then becomes an alien phenomenon. Dugin adopts this approach to the term (see his response to the charge levelled by Yanov, 1995, at arctogaia.com/public/txt-yanov.htm), although he does profess sympathy and liking for early periods within Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, while, he argues, the former retained its avant gardism and the latter its socialism (Dugin, 1995). The second element, then, is the historical relationship between fascism and Geopolitics, and particularly the experience of Geopolitik in Weimar and Nazi Germany (Bassin, 1987, Murphy, 1997).

Bassin argues strongly that the racial doctrines that defined so much of the Nazi variant of fascism were ultimately incompatible with the environmental determinism and materialism of Geopolitik, and that this incompatibility was an important component in the demise of the German geopoliticians. Similarly, Dugin repeatedly criticizes the Nazis for their prioritization of race over space, again enabling him to avoid the narrow fascist label, and side with the ‘dissidents of fascism.’ He has also criticized the post-Soviet Russian National Unity movement, a national–socialist organization loosely based on the Nazi model. If racial doctrine is an essential component of fascism, then Dugin is certainly not a fascist. But Dugin certainly makes reference to many writers (such as Carl Schmitt and Oswald Spengler) from whom fascists draw considerable inspiration, and recycles several other fascist themes. If Dugin cannot be considered a fascist in the narrow historical sense of the word, he certainly inhabits a closely related ideological space, referring to the supremacy of will as well as environmental determinism. In some senses, then, I argue, Dugin can be considered a neo-fascist, as well as a geopolitician.

The third line of inquiry focuses on the (related) tensions between rationalism and anti-rationalism, and scientism and mysticism in Dugin’s writings. These tensions produce contradictions and obfuscation that make his work somewhat resistant to conventional interpretation or coherent summarization. To some extent, these issues stem from a reliance on environmental determinism, as well as occultism, eclecticism and sheer inconsistency (Peet, 1985). Dugin asserts that Geopolitics is a science, and therefore proceeds according to rationalist principles. However, he also argues that it has not yet been fully separated out from its origins in ‘sacral geography’, a traditional discipline that allows insight into the otherwise obscure interactions of the elements that determine the conditions of human existence. Such arguments have found a receptive audience in post-Soviet Russia, where the writings of the late Lev Gumilev, a dissident Soviet anthropologist and geographer who took up Eurasianist ideas, have been very popular. One of Gumilev’s arguments was that the vitality of human societies was determined by impulses of passionarnost, meaning ‘instinct’ or ‘drive’, received from outer space (for more on Gumilev see Hauner, 1990). Hence, the impulses propelling the geopolitical dynamic are seen as ultimately being beyond rational comprehension.

Section snippets

Concept of Geopolitics

The politics of Dugin’s geographical knowledge are clear: “Geopolitics is the worldview of power, a science about power and for power” (p. 13); it is also “the science of how to rule” (p. 14). As such, it is argued that Geopolitics is inherently elitist, because only elites can grasp adequately the abstractions that it deals in, and the large scales at which space ‘reveals itself’. Geopoliticians are inevitably partisan, appreciate ‘national feeling’, and associate themselves with ‘patriotic

The Geopolitics of the new empire

In discussing Dugin’s geopolitical strategy for Russia I refer to his textual and graphical mappings of world politics, drawing on critical geopolitics and critical works on mapping. His proposals are also compared with current Russian policy and more mainstream strategic thinking.

Although Dugin asserts the importance of plurality and multiple identity, these are ultimately constrained by his strategic vision, which is defined by a single metanarrative. As Ó Tuathail argues, “In geopolitical

Neo-fascism and the Geopolitical dynamic

Interwoven with Dugin’s geopolitical vision is a constellation of philosophical and metaphysical ideas that, firstly, constitute his worldview, and secondly, specify the forces driving his version of the geopolitical dynamic. Besides Eurasianism, Dugin identifies himself as a proponent of two extreme reactionary positions, Conservative Revolution (which aims to create a new order based on neo-traditional models of religion, state, nation, and economy) and National-Bolshevism (which views the

Conclusion

In this paper I have sought to characterize the place of Alexander Dugin within contemporary Russian ideas of Geopolitics, and to broaden the scope of critical geopolitics. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the metanarrative of Marxism–Leninism, Russia has seen something of a turn to Geopolitics, the conventions of which have been used to articulate a wholesale rethinking of Russia’s place and role in the world. At the same time, O’Loughlin (2002) demonstrates the gulf that exists

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the three anonymous referees for their constructive criticisms. I am also grateful to Stephen Shenfield for sharing his thoughts on Russian geopolitics and fascism. He, along with participants at sessions of the annual meetings of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (in 1998), and the Royal Geographical Society–Institute of British Geographers (in 2000) gave useful feedback on early drafts of this paper. Many thanks also to Phil Stickler for redrawing the maps. Clea

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