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Eurasian Mission: An Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism
According to Alexander Dugin, the twenty-first century will be defined by the conflict between Eurasianists and Atlanticists. The Eurasianists defend the need for every people and culture on Earth to be allowed to develop in its own way, free of interference, and in accordance with their own particular values. Eurasianists thus stand for tradition and for the blossoming variety of cultures, and a world in which no single power holds sway over all the others. Opposing them are the Atlanticists. They stand for ultra-liberalism in both economics and values, stopping at nothing to expand their influence to every corner of the globe, unleashing war, terror, and injustice on all who oppose them, both at home and abroad. This camp is represented by the United States and its allies around the world, who seek to maintain America's unipolar hegemony over the Earth. The Eurasianists believe that only a strong Russia, working together with all those who oppose Atlanticism worldwide, can stop them and bring about the multipolar world they desire. This book introduces their basic ideas. Eurasianism is on the rise in Russia today, and the Kremlin's geopolitical policies are largely based on its tenets, as has been acknowledged by Vladimir Putin himself. It is reshaping Russia's geopolitics, and its influence is already changing the course of world history. "Essentially, the unipolar world is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and countries. [...] I think that we need a new version of interdependence. [...] This is particularly relevant given the strengthening and growth of certain regions on the planet, which process objectively requires institutionalization of such new poles, creating powerful regional organizations and developing rules for their interaction. Cooperation between these centers would seriously add to the stability of global security, policy and economy." - Vladimir Putin, Valdai Club, October 24, 2014 Alexander Dugin (b. 1962) is one of the best-known writers and political commentators in post-Soviet Russia, having been active in politics there since the 1980s. In addition to the many books he has authored on political, philosophical, and spiritual topics, he is the leader of the International Eurasia Movement, which he founded. For more than a decade, he has been an advisor to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin on geopolitical matters. Arktos published his book, The Fourth Political Theory, in 2012, and Putin vs Putin: Vladimir Putin Viewed from the Right in 2014."
182 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
21 people are currently reading
485 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Dugin
133 books461 followersAleksandr Gelyevich Dugin (Russian: Александр Гельевич Дугин, born 7 January 1962) is a Russian philosopher and activist. As a founder of the Russian Geopolitical School and the Eurasian Movement, Dugin is considered as one of the most important exponents of modern Russian conservative thought in the line of slavophiles. He earned his PhD in Sociology, in Political sciences, and also in Philosophy. During six years (2008 – 2014), he was the head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations in Sociological Faculty of Moscow State University. His publications include more than sixty books such as Foundations of Geopolitics, Fourth Political Theory, Theory of Multipolar World, Noomakhia (24 volumes), Ethnosociology. The influence of Dugin’s thought on modern day Russia (including political leaders) is recognized by not only his followers but also his philosophical and political opponents. His ideas are sometimes judged controversial or nonconformist but almost all agree that they are inspiring and original.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 27, 2022
(a 4 not because it is good or well written or I agree, a 4 because I got exactly what I wanted from it, an understanding of Putin's motivations)
“Neo-Eurasianism utilizes the methodology of Vilfredo Pareto’s school, moves within the logic of the rehabilitation of the notion of organic hierarchy, picks up some Nietzschean motives, and develops the doctrine of the ontology of power, or of the Christian Orthodox concept of power as katechon. The idea of an elite leads us to the themes of the European traditionalists, who authored studies of the caste system in ancient society and of their ontology and sociology, including Guernon, Julius Evola, Georges Dumezil, and Louis Dumont. Gumilev’s theory of ‘passionarity’ also lies at the roots of the concept of the ‘new Eurasian elite.”
Lots to unpack in that description, from “Eurasian Mission” by Aleksandr Dugin who has become famous since Russia pulled the trigger on ‘new Eurasianism’ with its invasion of Ukraine. Dugin is a self-described National Bolshevik. He, among others, is the intellectual architect of Putin’s imperialism.
Pareto’s school is one of the study of inequality and specifically elites. Dugin emphasizes the importance of elites in his work, although differentiates between the caste elites he is advocating for in his Eurasia and the income elites in the West; with the basic difference being caste elites are cultural elites – nobles. There is much of feudalism in Dugin’s thinking. His work bleeds with the yearning for the days of peasants, nobles and the clergy. Even suggesting cities should be emptied and the fields repopulated.
Dugin has been described as a Fascist, but this is probably in the Italian sense not the German. At least not in the German racial sense – instead in the sense of the communal taking preference over the individual. He rejects all ideas of individual rights, instead bestowing rights upon collectivities as do other socialists – whether national or international.
The roots of his philosophy, however, do smell of the ancient forests of Siberia and the old legends and myths of prehistory. There is a neo-paganism in Dugin’s work; Julius Evola was an Italian student of paganism and the occult who permeated Hitler’s Germany as well with their occultic beliefs in Kali-Yuga and all that. Dugin believes that the katechon – orthodox theologians believe the katechon from Thessolonians is the Holy Spirit but Dugin presents the idea as a physical being who is both good and bad – restraining the Antichrist but at the same time preventing the end of days, which all good Christians yearn for – that the katechon these days is Russia, having been Rome before, and the Holy Roman Empire as well.
Passionarity is a term from Lev Gumilev, son of Anna Akhmatova the famous poet. It is, literally, the Russian ability to endure suffering and hardship and how that ennobles and glorifies the Russians as their special, unique contribution to the preservation of world order. Eurasianism seeks a multi-polar world, which is not a new idea. Four poles, one in Eurasia supervised by Russia; one in the Western hemisphere supervised by the US; one in Europe and Africa supervised by EU and on in Asia supervised by Japan. With no universalities of any kind to link them.
This was a fascinating read, except the end which was basically an Anti-American rant which is tiresome and without nuance. It shines a light into the mind of Putin and his group of Eurasianists and what they are up to. And that is helpful.
“Neo-Eurasianism utilizes the methodology of Vilfredo Pareto’s school, moves within the logic of the rehabilitation of the notion of organic hierarchy, picks up some Nietzschean motives, and develops the doctrine of the ontology of power, or of the Christian Orthodox concept of power as katechon. The idea of an elite leads us to the themes of the European traditionalists, who authored studies of the caste system in ancient society and of their ontology and sociology, including Guernon, Julius Evola, Georges Dumezil, and Louis Dumont. Gumilev’s theory of ‘passionarity’ also lies at the roots of the concept of the ‘new Eurasian elite.”
Lots to unpack in that description, from “Eurasian Mission” by Aleksandr Dugin who has become famous since Russia pulled the trigger on ‘new Eurasianism’ with its invasion of Ukraine. Dugin is a self-described National Bolshevik. He, among others, is the intellectual architect of Putin’s imperialism.
Pareto’s school is one of the study of inequality and specifically elites. Dugin emphasizes the importance of elites in his work, although differentiates between the caste elites he is advocating for in his Eurasia and the income elites in the West; with the basic difference being caste elites are cultural elites – nobles. There is much of feudalism in Dugin’s thinking. His work bleeds with the yearning for the days of peasants, nobles and the clergy. Even suggesting cities should be emptied and the fields repopulated.
Dugin has been described as a Fascist, but this is probably in the Italian sense not the German. At least not in the German racial sense – instead in the sense of the communal taking preference over the individual. He rejects all ideas of individual rights, instead bestowing rights upon collectivities as do other socialists – whether national or international.
The roots of his philosophy, however, do smell of the ancient forests of Siberia and the old legends and myths of prehistory. There is a neo-paganism in Dugin’s work; Julius Evola was an Italian student of paganism and the occult who permeated Hitler’s Germany as well with their occultic beliefs in Kali-Yuga and all that. Dugin believes that the katechon – orthodox theologians believe the katechon from Thessolonians is the Holy Spirit but Dugin presents the idea as a physical being who is both good and bad – restraining the Antichrist but at the same time preventing the end of days, which all good Christians yearn for – that the katechon these days is Russia, having been Rome before, and the Holy Roman Empire as well.
Passionarity is a term from Lev Gumilev, son of Anna Akhmatova the famous poet. It is, literally, the Russian ability to endure suffering and hardship and how that ennobles and glorifies the Russians as their special, unique contribution to the preservation of world order. Eurasianism seeks a multi-polar world, which is not a new idea. Four poles, one in Eurasia supervised by Russia; one in the Western hemisphere supervised by the US; one in Europe and Africa supervised by EU and on in Asia supervised by Japan. With no universalities of any kind to link them.
This was a fascinating read, except the end which was basically an Anti-American rant which is tiresome and without nuance. It shines a light into the mind of Putin and his group of Eurasianists and what they are up to. And that is helpful.
April 5, 2017
Not only does Bigfoot exist, but it turns out that he's an advisor to Vladimir Putin!
December 18, 2015
A very interesting read, indeed. I have to say this was my first exposure to the topic, and where there certainly are all manners of ideas (from the brilliant to some that are reminiscent of the worst ghosts from the darker episodes of the last century), the overall impression is quite good.
I took a lot of notes and need to find some time for the ideas to settle and write down the best from this one. Certainly, as a person that now finds himself more inclined to traditionalism in certain aspects, this was a source of some new ideas, or of ideas that were previously to me just cloudy intuitions.
The book itself is a bit of a mish mash of topics: a considerable hate for the liberal West and the USA, a call to warfare and revolution, some impractical advice on certain areas, a couple of interviews thrown in the middle, and a lot of not so hidden desire for Russia to become a superpower with an ample sphere of influence and well-secured strategic goals (access to warm waters for example). In spite of all of this it was for me a very interesting read.
I took a lot of notes and need to find some time for the ideas to settle and write down the best from this one. Certainly, as a person that now finds himself more inclined to traditionalism in certain aspects, this was a source of some new ideas, or of ideas that were previously to me just cloudy intuitions.
The book itself is a bit of a mish mash of topics: a considerable hate for the liberal West and the USA, a call to warfare and revolution, some impractical advice on certain areas, a couple of interviews thrown in the middle, and a lot of not so hidden desire for Russia to become a superpower with an ample sphere of influence and well-secured strategic goals (access to warm waters for example). In spite of all of this it was for me a very interesting read.
Read
November 13, 2014A new approach to globalism that rejects the Atlantic-centered new world order. I can see how this would be attractive to Russians and Asians from a world-block perspective. And how it has a realistic opportunity to challenge the old power balance. I would not say ist just a new package of Russian imperialism as some critics claim.
Its very vague, unspecific and at times overly complicated to (in my opinion) confuse the issue. It also does not address various important issues in the conceptualization of the macro perspective of world affairs.
Its difficult to rate such a book for several reasons but mainly because it raises more questions than it answers.
Am I now converted to Eurasianism? No!
Is it preferable to NWO? Absolutely!
Does it secure a future for Europeans? I dont see how it would.
Is it a good book? No. But it is a interesting notion.
Its very vague, unspecific and at times overly complicated to (in my opinion) confuse the issue. It also does not address various important issues in the conceptualization of the macro perspective of world affairs.
Its difficult to rate such a book for several reasons but mainly because it raises more questions than it answers.
Am I now converted to Eurasianism? No!
Is it preferable to NWO? Absolutely!
Does it secure a future for Europeans? I dont see how it would.
Is it a good book? No. But it is a interesting notion.
July 15, 2022
This book, published in 2015, is by one of the architects of Eurasianism - an ideological framework that is essentially in opposition to Western modernism, US hegemony, and globalization. The book is somewhat repetitive, yet does try to synthesize and analyze revolutionary movements in light of opposition to the system, that is, an international financial oligarchy, which in its essence self-perpetuates its power in order to enrich itself, and in so doing, undercuts and otherwise compromises the citizenry or masses of most countries on Earth. Although Dugin says Eurasianism is non-universalist, non-utopian, and open to all who oppose the imposition of Western hegemony, Dugin is making the same mistake many others have made since time immemorial: He simplifies complexity and creates a binary world view, rather than trying to elucidate the complexity of reality, both historical and present. So, in his analysis, the world is caught up in a Manichean struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, with the forces of darkness always lining up with the USA, the Atlanticists, and international oligarchs, which the forces of good and light are the masses, including the masses in the USA. He invites alliances with any comers on a tactical or temporary basis, as long as they oppose the West - and says any serious differences will be sorted out later, once the West is (somehow) defeated. However, there are those who oppose the West who are universalists themselves, who envision anarchic utopia, communist utopia or Islamist utopia (to name but a few of he many possible utopias), if Dugin is opposed to universalist utopias, how can be collaborate with those who advocate one sort of utopia or another? He feels his movement has no choice but to do so, and that all the disparate anti-Western, anti-capitalist elements - both right-wing and left-wing, etc. - must unite to defeat the insidious influence of Western liberalism, and that this is the only way to truly bring about a world revolution. The aftermath of such a revolution will be a re-ordering of the world into super-blocs or zones, each led by the leading state in the zone, such as the US, the EU, Russia, and China - while the individual countries within each bloc will basically trade off their sovereignty for autonomy. Here I think he is inspired by some of the ideas of the anarchists, along with having fun with outlining a new world order based on actual spheres of influence, an arrangement which would do away with nations and nationalism per se, in favor of autonomy.
To sum up, it is clear that Dugin has thought about world problems a great deal, and is quite erudite, but I do not think he has taken into account the fact that each worldview or system has its positive and negative aspects, and to reject the West simply because it is the West and not the East, is absurd, just as absurd as it would be to reject the East because it is not the West. There are indeed cultures around the world that perceive Western influence as demoralizing and a threat to traditional values. Yet, this is not the sole message of the West. Although Dugin is right about political correctness and the dictatorship of liberalism, the West has engendered monumental achievements which have helped all mankind, in science, medicine, agriculture, to name but a few. He neglects to admit that had it not been for a Western thinker, Marx, Russia would still be a backward, agrarian society, with an extremely low life expectancy, beset with periodic famine, illiteracy, and so forth. In our own time, although we may not agree with everything China does, it was the West - in fact, capitalism - that created the miracle of Chinese economic development, not tradition, not anything intrinsically Chinese or Eastern. Had Western corporations not invested in China starting in the 1980s, China would still be the backward, agrarian-oriented country it was under the Imperial system and later, under Mao´s version of communism. Income inequality is now rising in China and the West, and the capitalist system periodically breaks down into destructive recessions. So these are indeed negative aspects of the system - yet not impossible to mitigate or at least soften the effects of recession, if they are unavoidable. The irony is that Dugin is obviously a product of the West, is an educated, widely-read philosopher, and so he must understand that he would not be in a position to offer his critique of the West had it not been for the West, which originated the university system, including academic freedom to think and write against the West, if one so believes. This is in fact an aspect of Western liberalism that is often not found in the East, which may have a more rigid notion of permissible thought or expression, despite what he says about political correctness and the dictatorship of liberalism. There may well be a consensus of liberalism in general, but that doesn't mean there are no critics of the system on the left, the right, and from a religious or spiritual standpoint. There are however examples of intolerance toward anti-liberalism and indeed society has split into those who insist on the liberal agenda and those who would prefer to see the return of a more traditionally normative world. The latter currently have the upper hand on the Supreme Court despite overall liberal consensus in the US.
Dugin may resort to simplification of complexity in order to attract adherents, but he is in effect throwing the baby out with the bathwater. He speaks favorably of certain ancient Greek philosophers, yet ancient Greece is the cradle of the Western intellectual tradition! He is constantly invoking or referring to various French or Italian or otherwise Western European thinkers - all educated in the West in the Western system of education.
I think Dugin is a deeply patriotic Russian philosopher, who has tried to come up with an explanation for the collapse of the Soviet Union (a topic of endless discussion that will undoubtedly continue to be endlessly discussed and analyzed from here on in) and a way for it to return to its former superpower status - as leader of one of the supranational zones he advocates (along with 3 other leaders, as outlined above - the US, the EU, and China). In his envisioning, Russia would lead a zone of countries enjoying autonomy but not sovereignty, and thus would re-ascend to its former superpower status. The only way the EU, Russia, and China could ever wrest control of respective spheres of influence, would be the destruction of the US as a world hegemony - with its retreat into its original or traditional sphere of influence, the Western Hemisphere - leaving the rest of the world to be divided up into spheres of influence led by the EU, Russia, and China. I think Dugin has come up with his system, which can be quite polemical at times, as a way of supporting the countries that have become superfluous or irrelevant in the overall scheme of globalization, trying to give them a way to see themselves as meaning something, by supporting their cultures, spiritual heritage, etc.
Dugin is certainly a thoughtful philosopher, but his system is overly simplistic and apparently devised to help the non-Western, non-Atlanticist, countries of the world regain some status or power internationally. He is right about rejecting racism, nationalism, but I think his virulent rejection of the West is rather ridiculous, considering that he is in effect a product of the Western intellectual tradition. Yes, I think many people are opposed to globalization and neo-liberalism, and would like to see less income inequality and political correctness. But does the entire Western system need to be destroyed - in order to correct its injustices? Dugin is a revolutionist - he is convinced he has the truth and wants anyone to join who opposes the system as it is currently constituted. He seems to omit discussing the scientific advances of the West, although he does admit that the West is the source of most of the world´s technological progress. Despite what he says, I think Dugin is closer to the Russian revolutionary tradition than he admits. He thinks he has the answer, the answer will end alienation caused by globalized capital, the answer is a return to tradition, cooperation, spirituality. This sounds a lot like the SRs or the even earlier generation of Russian revolutionaries who were inspired by the peasants and went out into the countryside to organize. He thinks Russia is the vanguard of Eurasianism - similar to the idea that Russia was the epicenter of revolutionary communism under the Soviet Union.
The book is a slog and soporific at times. I can´t give it more than 2-stars because despite his erudition, he selectively ignores nuance. The East isnt always great, and the West isnt always terrible.
Here are the quotes:
¨The primary concern of Eurasianist philosophy is civilization.¨
¨Every human society belongs to a particular civilization and should be studied only in accordance with its own criteria.¨
¨The plurality of human societies each one of which represents a specific kind of semantic structure that is entirely unique and incomparable with any other, is the basis of Eurasian philosophy in general.¨
¨...to radically reject Western pretensions to universality, thus deconstructing Western universalism, ethnocentrism and its implicit cultural imperialism.¨
¨...for the Eurasianists the West was in the wrong--a purely regional phenomenon pretending to universal status via imperialism; thus it follows that modernity, which was also a Western phenomenon, is also entirely a product of this locale and is inherently imperialistic.¨
¨...called for an organic, agricultural economy, not materialism, and for ideacracy (the power of ideas). They also said ¨no¨ to democracy, favoring popular monarchy.¨
¨In the early 1990s neo-Eurasianism was an integral pat of the larger patriotic and anti-liberal movement (those in the opposition who represented a synthesis of the Left and the Right). After that, the Eurasianists became the core of the National Bolshevist movement. It wasn't until the late 1990s that an independent neo-Eurasianist movement...was formed.¨
¨The last important ideological shift in the philosophy of neo-Eurasianism occurred in 2007-2008, when the basic principles of the Fourth Political Theory were laid down.¨
¨...beyond liberalism, Communism and fascism.¨
¨...Eurasians advocated for multi-polarity, representing an alternative to uni-polar globalization and the neo-colonial Westernization...¨
¨The Western spiritual and material colonization of the rest of mankind is a negative phenomenon.¨
¨No single state or region has the right to claim to be the standard for all the rest.¨
¨...democracy does not represent a universal standard.¨
¨The Crisis of the Soviet Paradigm. In the mid-1980s, Soviet society began to lose its cohesiveness and its ability to understand both itself and the outside world. Cracks began to appear in the Soviet models of self-understanding.¨
¨The destruction of the state was not a chance outcome of the ¨reforms;¨ it was in fact among their strategic aims.¨
¨Neo-Eurasianism revolves around the idea of a complete revision of the history of philosophy according to geographical locations.¨
¨Rapprochement and dialog between countries and peoples should be achieved, but not at the price of cosign our identities.¨
¨We are strongly against globalization as a form of ideological, economic, political, and value-based imperialism.¨
¨Globalization is the imposition of the Atlantic paradigm.¨
¨The Eurasian Idea does not advocate for the creation of a world government on the basis of liberal-democratic values as the one and only path for mankind.¨
¨One of the main principles of Eurasianism is consistent, active and widespread opposition to the uni-polar globalist project.¨
¨...for centuries, Russia has sought an alternative to the Western model of social development, from the conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic and Protestant churches, to further opposition beginning in the Middle Ages and lasting until the end of the nineteenth century, and finally the confrontation between two global socioeconomic systems in the twentieth century.¨
¨All land will be under the collective ownership of the entire people of Russia and managed by the leadership of Russia. Autonomies will be provided those parcels of land that are currently occupied by them, and which can be used by them free of charge.¨
¨The concept of autonomy negates sovereignty and all its attributes. Instead, people, not territories with their problem-ridden borders, play the role of the subject.¨
¨The future world...multiplicity and diversity should be understood as a wealth and as a treasure, and not a a reason for inevitable conflict. There should be many civilizations, many poles, many centers, and many sets of values on our one planet, and in our one humanity.¨
¨The more an individual aspires to be unique within the context of the liberal paradigm, the more he becomes similar to everyone else.¨
¨European history was always based on the plurality of its cultures and the unity of its spiritual authorities. This was destroyed, first by the Protestant Reformation and then by modernity.¨
¨The individual, the class, and the nation (race) are all artificial constructions of the perverted and nihilistic metaphysics of the Enlightenment.¨
¨...the former national elites...become accomplices of the processes of globalization, betraying the interests of their state and of their fellow citizens, forming a global transnational class in which they have more in common with each other than with their former countrymen.¨
¨The processes of homogenizing globalization driven by markets must be stopped and reversed.¨
¨...it is necessary to crush the current dictatorship of the mass commercial media and to break up the monopoly of the global elites who currently determine the mass consciousness.¨
¨Greed and individualist self-interest are considered a sin or a weakness by nearly every human culture and religion. Justice and concern for the common good is one of the most common values. A just society is more normal than one that is based on selfishness.¨
¨The global revolution has two aspects: the unity of what is to e destroyed, and the multiplicity of what is to be built in its place.¨
¨...sometimes these [earlier] revolutions ...contained elements of its spirit which helped lead to today to the global oligarchic tyranny which works through both the financial and media sectors, among others.¨
¨...in the sixteenth century Europeans recreated the institution of slavery, which had cased to exist a thousand years earlier under the influence of Christian ethics.¨
¨[The United States]...is the empire of absolute evil.¨
¨Anyone who is not involved in this war on the side of the Revolution is already helping the global oligarchy to maintain and strengthen their power. The law of modern global society is lawlessness, and all norms have been reversed.¨
¨The global oligarchy maliciously incites one group against another to distract both from what should be their primary struggle.¨
¨The Global Alliance is against the notion of one, common revolutionary future for all.¨
¨We need to attack capitalism as the absolute enemy which was responsible for the creation of the nation as a simulacrum of traditional society, and which was also responsible for its destruction.¨
¨Russia defended its identity against Catholicism, Protestantism, and the modern West during Tsarist times and then against liberal capitalism during Soviet times. Now there is a third wave of this struggle -- the struggle against postmodernity, ultra-liberalism and globalization.¨
¨The idea is to join the spirit of Tradition with the desire for social justice.¨
¨It is easy to see that the secularization of Western Christianity gives us liberalism. The secularization of the Orthodox religion gives us Communism. It is individualism versus collectivism.¨
¨Putin was much better than Yeltsin. He saved Russia from a complete crash in the 1990s. Russia was on the verge of disaster. Before Putin, Western-style liberals were in a position to dictate politics in Russia. Putin restored the sovereignty of the Russian state.¨
¨
To sum up, it is clear that Dugin has thought about world problems a great deal, and is quite erudite, but I do not think he has taken into account the fact that each worldview or system has its positive and negative aspects, and to reject the West simply because it is the West and not the East, is absurd, just as absurd as it would be to reject the East because it is not the West. There are indeed cultures around the world that perceive Western influence as demoralizing and a threat to traditional values. Yet, this is not the sole message of the West. Although Dugin is right about political correctness and the dictatorship of liberalism, the West has engendered monumental achievements which have helped all mankind, in science, medicine, agriculture, to name but a few. He neglects to admit that had it not been for a Western thinker, Marx, Russia would still be a backward, agrarian society, with an extremely low life expectancy, beset with periodic famine, illiteracy, and so forth. In our own time, although we may not agree with everything China does, it was the West - in fact, capitalism - that created the miracle of Chinese economic development, not tradition, not anything intrinsically Chinese or Eastern. Had Western corporations not invested in China starting in the 1980s, China would still be the backward, agrarian-oriented country it was under the Imperial system and later, under Mao´s version of communism. Income inequality is now rising in China and the West, and the capitalist system periodically breaks down into destructive recessions. So these are indeed negative aspects of the system - yet not impossible to mitigate or at least soften the effects of recession, if they are unavoidable. The irony is that Dugin is obviously a product of the West, is an educated, widely-read philosopher, and so he must understand that he would not be in a position to offer his critique of the West had it not been for the West, which originated the university system, including academic freedom to think and write against the West, if one so believes. This is in fact an aspect of Western liberalism that is often not found in the East, which may have a more rigid notion of permissible thought or expression, despite what he says about political correctness and the dictatorship of liberalism. There may well be a consensus of liberalism in general, but that doesn't mean there are no critics of the system on the left, the right, and from a religious or spiritual standpoint. There are however examples of intolerance toward anti-liberalism and indeed society has split into those who insist on the liberal agenda and those who would prefer to see the return of a more traditionally normative world. The latter currently have the upper hand on the Supreme Court despite overall liberal consensus in the US.
Dugin may resort to simplification of complexity in order to attract adherents, but he is in effect throwing the baby out with the bathwater. He speaks favorably of certain ancient Greek philosophers, yet ancient Greece is the cradle of the Western intellectual tradition! He is constantly invoking or referring to various French or Italian or otherwise Western European thinkers - all educated in the West in the Western system of education.
I think Dugin is a deeply patriotic Russian philosopher, who has tried to come up with an explanation for the collapse of the Soviet Union (a topic of endless discussion that will undoubtedly continue to be endlessly discussed and analyzed from here on in) and a way for it to return to its former superpower status - as leader of one of the supranational zones he advocates (along with 3 other leaders, as outlined above - the US, the EU, and China). In his envisioning, Russia would lead a zone of countries enjoying autonomy but not sovereignty, and thus would re-ascend to its former superpower status. The only way the EU, Russia, and China could ever wrest control of respective spheres of influence, would be the destruction of the US as a world hegemony - with its retreat into its original or traditional sphere of influence, the Western Hemisphere - leaving the rest of the world to be divided up into spheres of influence led by the EU, Russia, and China. I think Dugin has come up with his system, which can be quite polemical at times, as a way of supporting the countries that have become superfluous or irrelevant in the overall scheme of globalization, trying to give them a way to see themselves as meaning something, by supporting their cultures, spiritual heritage, etc.
Dugin is certainly a thoughtful philosopher, but his system is overly simplistic and apparently devised to help the non-Western, non-Atlanticist, countries of the world regain some status or power internationally. He is right about rejecting racism, nationalism, but I think his virulent rejection of the West is rather ridiculous, considering that he is in effect a product of the Western intellectual tradition. Yes, I think many people are opposed to globalization and neo-liberalism, and would like to see less income inequality and political correctness. But does the entire Western system need to be destroyed - in order to correct its injustices? Dugin is a revolutionist - he is convinced he has the truth and wants anyone to join who opposes the system as it is currently constituted. He seems to omit discussing the scientific advances of the West, although he does admit that the West is the source of most of the world´s technological progress. Despite what he says, I think Dugin is closer to the Russian revolutionary tradition than he admits. He thinks he has the answer, the answer will end alienation caused by globalized capital, the answer is a return to tradition, cooperation, spirituality. This sounds a lot like the SRs or the even earlier generation of Russian revolutionaries who were inspired by the peasants and went out into the countryside to organize. He thinks Russia is the vanguard of Eurasianism - similar to the idea that Russia was the epicenter of revolutionary communism under the Soviet Union.
The book is a slog and soporific at times. I can´t give it more than 2-stars because despite his erudition, he selectively ignores nuance. The East isnt always great, and the West isnt always terrible.
Here are the quotes:
¨The primary concern of Eurasianist philosophy is civilization.¨
¨Every human society belongs to a particular civilization and should be studied only in accordance with its own criteria.¨
¨The plurality of human societies each one of which represents a specific kind of semantic structure that is entirely unique and incomparable with any other, is the basis of Eurasian philosophy in general.¨
¨...to radically reject Western pretensions to universality, thus deconstructing Western universalism, ethnocentrism and its implicit cultural imperialism.¨
¨...for the Eurasianists the West was in the wrong--a purely regional phenomenon pretending to universal status via imperialism; thus it follows that modernity, which was also a Western phenomenon, is also entirely a product of this locale and is inherently imperialistic.¨
¨...called for an organic, agricultural economy, not materialism, and for ideacracy (the power of ideas). They also said ¨no¨ to democracy, favoring popular monarchy.¨
¨In the early 1990s neo-Eurasianism was an integral pat of the larger patriotic and anti-liberal movement (those in the opposition who represented a synthesis of the Left and the Right). After that, the Eurasianists became the core of the National Bolshevist movement. It wasn't until the late 1990s that an independent neo-Eurasianist movement...was formed.¨
¨The last important ideological shift in the philosophy of neo-Eurasianism occurred in 2007-2008, when the basic principles of the Fourth Political Theory were laid down.¨
¨...beyond liberalism, Communism and fascism.¨
¨...Eurasians advocated for multi-polarity, representing an alternative to uni-polar globalization and the neo-colonial Westernization...¨
¨The Western spiritual and material colonization of the rest of mankind is a negative phenomenon.¨
¨No single state or region has the right to claim to be the standard for all the rest.¨
¨...democracy does not represent a universal standard.¨
¨The Crisis of the Soviet Paradigm. In the mid-1980s, Soviet society began to lose its cohesiveness and its ability to understand both itself and the outside world. Cracks began to appear in the Soviet models of self-understanding.¨
¨The destruction of the state was not a chance outcome of the ¨reforms;¨ it was in fact among their strategic aims.¨
¨Neo-Eurasianism revolves around the idea of a complete revision of the history of philosophy according to geographical locations.¨
¨Rapprochement and dialog between countries and peoples should be achieved, but not at the price of cosign our identities.¨
¨We are strongly against globalization as a form of ideological, economic, political, and value-based imperialism.¨
¨Globalization is the imposition of the Atlantic paradigm.¨
¨The Eurasian Idea does not advocate for the creation of a world government on the basis of liberal-democratic values as the one and only path for mankind.¨
¨One of the main principles of Eurasianism is consistent, active and widespread opposition to the uni-polar globalist project.¨
¨...for centuries, Russia has sought an alternative to the Western model of social development, from the conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic and Protestant churches, to further opposition beginning in the Middle Ages and lasting until the end of the nineteenth century, and finally the confrontation between two global socioeconomic systems in the twentieth century.¨
¨All land will be under the collective ownership of the entire people of Russia and managed by the leadership of Russia. Autonomies will be provided those parcels of land that are currently occupied by them, and which can be used by them free of charge.¨
¨The concept of autonomy negates sovereignty and all its attributes. Instead, people, not territories with their problem-ridden borders, play the role of the subject.¨
¨The future world...multiplicity and diversity should be understood as a wealth and as a treasure, and not a a reason for inevitable conflict. There should be many civilizations, many poles, many centers, and many sets of values on our one planet, and in our one humanity.¨
¨The more an individual aspires to be unique within the context of the liberal paradigm, the more he becomes similar to everyone else.¨
¨European history was always based on the plurality of its cultures and the unity of its spiritual authorities. This was destroyed, first by the Protestant Reformation and then by modernity.¨
¨The individual, the class, and the nation (race) are all artificial constructions of the perverted and nihilistic metaphysics of the Enlightenment.¨
¨...the former national elites...become accomplices of the processes of globalization, betraying the interests of their state and of their fellow citizens, forming a global transnational class in which they have more in common with each other than with their former countrymen.¨
¨The processes of homogenizing globalization driven by markets must be stopped and reversed.¨
¨...it is necessary to crush the current dictatorship of the mass commercial media and to break up the monopoly of the global elites who currently determine the mass consciousness.¨
¨Greed and individualist self-interest are considered a sin or a weakness by nearly every human culture and religion. Justice and concern for the common good is one of the most common values. A just society is more normal than one that is based on selfishness.¨
¨The global revolution has two aspects: the unity of what is to e destroyed, and the multiplicity of what is to be built in its place.¨
¨...sometimes these [earlier] revolutions ...contained elements of its spirit which helped lead to today to the global oligarchic tyranny which works through both the financial and media sectors, among others.¨
¨...in the sixteenth century Europeans recreated the institution of slavery, which had cased to exist a thousand years earlier under the influence of Christian ethics.¨
¨[The United States]...is the empire of absolute evil.¨
¨Anyone who is not involved in this war on the side of the Revolution is already helping the global oligarchy to maintain and strengthen their power. The law of modern global society is lawlessness, and all norms have been reversed.¨
¨The global oligarchy maliciously incites one group against another to distract both from what should be their primary struggle.¨
¨The Global Alliance is against the notion of one, common revolutionary future for all.¨
¨We need to attack capitalism as the absolute enemy which was responsible for the creation of the nation as a simulacrum of traditional society, and which was also responsible for its destruction.¨
¨Russia defended its identity against Catholicism, Protestantism, and the modern West during Tsarist times and then against liberal capitalism during Soviet times. Now there is a third wave of this struggle -- the struggle against postmodernity, ultra-liberalism and globalization.¨
¨The idea is to join the spirit of Tradition with the desire for social justice.¨
¨It is easy to see that the secularization of Western Christianity gives us liberalism. The secularization of the Orthodox religion gives us Communism. It is individualism versus collectivism.¨
¨Putin was much better than Yeltsin. He saved Russia from a complete crash in the 1990s. Russia was on the verge of disaster. Before Putin, Western-style liberals were in a position to dictate politics in Russia. Putin restored the sovereignty of the Russian state.¨
¨
August 21, 2022
I intended to write a review to this book already since a couple of weeks; given today's news of the assassination of Dugin's daughter the time seems ripe. First and foremost, if 4 stars are given to this book, it is for the quality of its content, for the depth of the introduction into Neo-Eurasianism, and not due to fondness for Dugin's thinking.
Anyone who has read Dugin will have noticed clear and unsettling echoes of his ideas in Putin's recent speeches about Russia's seemingly rightful place in the world. Forasmuch as I want to shed light on Dugin’s geopolitical convictions I won’t withhold that his vision of a Russian restoration is much more than just a geopolitical order: Dugin openly subscribes to a strain of a blatantly occultist, reactionary school of philosophy also known as Traditionalism - a trippy mishmash of dandies and decadents, reactionary Catholics and surrealist Satanists, penniless aristocrats, and pretenders to titles – united in their alienation from and rejection of what they saw as the problems of liberal modernity, in particular its spiritual bankruptcy and its abandonment of a mythical past. Dugin's philosophical foundation should be kept in mind while reading his geopolitical writings.
In the 'Eurasian Mission' Dugin lays down the basics of Neo-Eurasianism, the latest version of a political project (Eurasianism) that started within the Russian émigré community in the 1920s. The movement was unified in their answer to the perennial question whether Russia is European or not: they all shared the belief that the Russian culture in essence is non-European – and since it is non-European, it needs to be characterised in terms other than the, Dugin calls it "self-evident", Western concepts of progress, linear time, homogenous space, materialistic physics, and capitalism. To achieve the Eurasian mission, which in essence means to overcome the world-order fostered by the West, Dugin conceptualizes a geopolitical blueprint, which urges Russia to come to agreements with countries such as Iran, Turkey, and India – as well as eventually waging war against other countries like Georgia and Ukraine.
To recap, in order to grasp Dugin's views at depth 2 theories need to be understood from my point of view. The first one is the 'Heartland Theory' by Sir Halford Mackinder. Mackinder claimed that “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world". To him, whoever controlled the area of Eastern Europe (nowadays Ukraine), would essentially control the world. As a matter of fact, Russia and the West have competed for centuries in geopolitics. Even though the Russian Empire ruled the Heartland in 1904, when Mackinder formulated his thesis, it lacked "virility, equipment, and organisation" because of its social, political, and technological backwardness. The introduction of the Heartland-Theory in the early 20th century laid the foundation for conflict between Russia and the West based on geography for centuries to come. Russia’s foreign policy can be understood in the context of its efforts to prevent outsiders from gaining influence in the Central Asian states.
The pivot's geopolitical unity therefore is the "conditio sine qua non" of the Heartlands functional validity on a Eurasian scale. Alexander Dugin and Russian foreign policy makers are well aware of that fact; rightfully so, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski once said: “It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”
Secondly, the 'Organic State Theory' by Ratzel shall be seen as another indispensable "field manual" in the geopolitical battlefield drawn by Dugin. Ratzel claimed that political entities, like nations, behave in a manner not too unlike from that of living beings. In order to survive, a state requires nourishment. This nourishment can only come in the form of a term he coined "Lebensraum", which means “living space”; thus, in other words: the appropriation of physical territory is the conditio sine qua non for state survival. Since complacency is not an option, the Organic State Theory contends that for a state to keep control, it must constantly seek out “Lebensraum” and expand into as much area as it possibly can. If it doesn't, it runs the risk of losing its security and is constantly at risk of attack because other political entities will likewise act in an organic manner, trying to expand their influence as much as possible to survive.
On an ideological level the Organic State Theory claims that states are more powerful than its individuals. Thus, the theory advocates for a spirit of political collectivism because as an organism the state determines the outcomes of its organs, which are the people. As a result, adherents of the Organic State Theory, like Alexander Dugin, claim that individualistic thought should be abandoned because a state cannot be viewed as an inert machine. This very school of thought disagreed with the idea that governments were just tools created to serve particular purposes or safeguard citizens' interests - quite on the contrary it's the people who help the state to achieve its goals.
You don't have to search very far to find instances of the Organic State Theory in action. The goal of all empires throughout history has been expansion. There has never been a political entity dedicated to voluntary shrinkage. As of today, due of the numerous pacts, agreements, and treaties that call for ceasefires, you don't see Organic State behaviour happening as obviously. However, a state operating in accordance with the Organic State Theory can still be seen for what it is. If a nation is unable to conquer a region, it resorts to the second-best course of action: interfering in foreign affairs to advance its interests. The Western involvement in the Middle East would serve as an illustration of this.
In fact, Eurasianism has been a topic of considerable debate in the arena of international affairs for decades now, through the so called "Special Military Operation in Ukraine" the theory only gained momentum. The very idea withstood the ravages of time – especially now it couldn’t be any more pertinent. To conclude with, the 'Eurasian Mission' by Alexander Dugin is as late-breaking of a book as they come. It is a known fact that Dugin has the Russian President’s ear. It is also true that his books are mandatory readings at the Russian General Staff Military Academy. Anyone who has read Dugin will have noticed clear and unsettling echoes of his ideas in Putin's recent speeches about Russia's seemingly rightful place in the world. As a matter of fact, Dugin has been calling for the invasion of Ukraine long before 2022 – as he vouched for the Georgian war long before 2008. Anyways, already in the 'Eurasian Mission' (2005 in Russian, 2014 in English) he called for a solution, as “Russophobia and separation from Russia have been promoted in Ukraine since the beginning of its recent sovereignty” (p.53) There are plenty of traces of the 'Heartland Theory' and the 'Organic State Theory' to be found in the gamble for Ukraine; Putin and the Russian elite seem to be well aware of that.
The restoration of a strong, authoritarian Russian state and the internal dissolution of Russia's opponents, particularly the liberal West, are clear objectives according to a broad reading of Dugin's writing. The modern world order, according to Dugin, must be seen as a struggle between the forces of "human rights, anti-hierarchy, and political correctness," represented by the "Atlantic" West, and the distinctively "Eurasian" Russian culture, which is still able — in contrast to the sclerotic West — to honour the mainstays of human life: "God, tradition, community, ethnicity, empires and kingdoms.”
Anyone who has read Dugin will have noticed clear and unsettling echoes of his ideas in Putin's recent speeches about Russia's seemingly rightful place in the world. Forasmuch as I want to shed light on Dugin’s geopolitical convictions I won’t withhold that his vision of a Russian restoration is much more than just a geopolitical order: Dugin openly subscribes to a strain of a blatantly occultist, reactionary school of philosophy also known as Traditionalism - a trippy mishmash of dandies and decadents, reactionary Catholics and surrealist Satanists, penniless aristocrats, and pretenders to titles – united in their alienation from and rejection of what they saw as the problems of liberal modernity, in particular its spiritual bankruptcy and its abandonment of a mythical past. Dugin's philosophical foundation should be kept in mind while reading his geopolitical writings.
In the 'Eurasian Mission' Dugin lays down the basics of Neo-Eurasianism, the latest version of a political project (Eurasianism) that started within the Russian émigré community in the 1920s. The movement was unified in their answer to the perennial question whether Russia is European or not: they all shared the belief that the Russian culture in essence is non-European – and since it is non-European, it needs to be characterised in terms other than the, Dugin calls it "self-evident", Western concepts of progress, linear time, homogenous space, materialistic physics, and capitalism. To achieve the Eurasian mission, which in essence means to overcome the world-order fostered by the West, Dugin conceptualizes a geopolitical blueprint, which urges Russia to come to agreements with countries such as Iran, Turkey, and India – as well as eventually waging war against other countries like Georgia and Ukraine.
To recap, in order to grasp Dugin's views at depth 2 theories need to be understood from my point of view. The first one is the 'Heartland Theory' by Sir Halford Mackinder. Mackinder claimed that “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world". To him, whoever controlled the area of Eastern Europe (nowadays Ukraine), would essentially control the world. As a matter of fact, Russia and the West have competed for centuries in geopolitics. Even though the Russian Empire ruled the Heartland in 1904, when Mackinder formulated his thesis, it lacked "virility, equipment, and organisation" because of its social, political, and technological backwardness. The introduction of the Heartland-Theory in the early 20th century laid the foundation for conflict between Russia and the West based on geography for centuries to come. Russia’s foreign policy can be understood in the context of its efforts to prevent outsiders from gaining influence in the Central Asian states.
The pivot's geopolitical unity therefore is the "conditio sine qua non" of the Heartlands functional validity on a Eurasian scale. Alexander Dugin and Russian foreign policy makers are well aware of that fact; rightfully so, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski once said: “It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”
Secondly, the 'Organic State Theory' by Ratzel shall be seen as another indispensable "field manual" in the geopolitical battlefield drawn by Dugin. Ratzel claimed that political entities, like nations, behave in a manner not too unlike from that of living beings. In order to survive, a state requires nourishment. This nourishment can only come in the form of a term he coined "Lebensraum", which means “living space”; thus, in other words: the appropriation of physical territory is the conditio sine qua non for state survival. Since complacency is not an option, the Organic State Theory contends that for a state to keep control, it must constantly seek out “Lebensraum” and expand into as much area as it possibly can. If it doesn't, it runs the risk of losing its security and is constantly at risk of attack because other political entities will likewise act in an organic manner, trying to expand their influence as much as possible to survive.
On an ideological level the Organic State Theory claims that states are more powerful than its individuals. Thus, the theory advocates for a spirit of political collectivism because as an organism the state determines the outcomes of its organs, which are the people. As a result, adherents of the Organic State Theory, like Alexander Dugin, claim that individualistic thought should be abandoned because a state cannot be viewed as an inert machine. This very school of thought disagreed with the idea that governments were just tools created to serve particular purposes or safeguard citizens' interests - quite on the contrary it's the people who help the state to achieve its goals.
You don't have to search very far to find instances of the Organic State Theory in action. The goal of all empires throughout history has been expansion. There has never been a political entity dedicated to voluntary shrinkage. As of today, due of the numerous pacts, agreements, and treaties that call for ceasefires, you don't see Organic State behaviour happening as obviously. However, a state operating in accordance with the Organic State Theory can still be seen for what it is. If a nation is unable to conquer a region, it resorts to the second-best course of action: interfering in foreign affairs to advance its interests. The Western involvement in the Middle East would serve as an illustration of this.
In fact, Eurasianism has been a topic of considerable debate in the arena of international affairs for decades now, through the so called "Special Military Operation in Ukraine" the theory only gained momentum. The very idea withstood the ravages of time – especially now it couldn’t be any more pertinent. To conclude with, the 'Eurasian Mission' by Alexander Dugin is as late-breaking of a book as they come. It is a known fact that Dugin has the Russian President’s ear. It is also true that his books are mandatory readings at the Russian General Staff Military Academy. Anyone who has read Dugin will have noticed clear and unsettling echoes of his ideas in Putin's recent speeches about Russia's seemingly rightful place in the world. As a matter of fact, Dugin has been calling for the invasion of Ukraine long before 2022 – as he vouched for the Georgian war long before 2008. Anyways, already in the 'Eurasian Mission' (2005 in Russian, 2014 in English) he called for a solution, as “Russophobia and separation from Russia have been promoted in Ukraine since the beginning of its recent sovereignty” (p.53) There are plenty of traces of the 'Heartland Theory' and the 'Organic State Theory' to be found in the gamble for Ukraine; Putin and the Russian elite seem to be well aware of that.
The restoration of a strong, authoritarian Russian state and the internal dissolution of Russia's opponents, particularly the liberal West, are clear objectives according to a broad reading of Dugin's writing. The modern world order, according to Dugin, must be seen as a struggle between the forces of "human rights, anti-hierarchy, and political correctness," represented by the "Atlantic" West, and the distinctively "Eurasian" Russian culture, which is still able — in contrast to the sclerotic West — to honour the mainstays of human life: "God, tradition, community, ethnicity, empires and kingdoms.”
April 19, 2022
Muy interesante el pluralismo de civilizaciones propuesto por Dugin. Sin embargo, veo casi imposible establecer una armonía entre civilizaciones antioccidentales. Los choques entre el neo-otomanismo Erdoganista y el eurasianismo Putinista demuestran que los intereses geopolíticos de Turquía y Rusia están en disputa. Además, no olvidemos la dialéctica de imperios durante la Edad Moderna; los Safávidas iraníes chocaban con los turcos, así como el chiismo de los ayatolás se enfrenta a Erdogan en Medio Oriente. A pesar de ello, veo importante recuperar una nueva lectura de la Edad moderna histioriográfica desde un pluralismo de civilizaciones. La modernidad no se restringe a Descartes ni Lutero, pues la Escolástica española, la fusión del Zarato Ruso con los kanatos túrquicos, el sincretismo hindú-islámico de los mogoles en la India y el resurgir de la filosofía islámica iraní con Mulla Sudra son verdaderos ejemplos de una modernidad que se construye de manera plural: una modernidad que no puede someterse a la homogeneidad del europeísmo. Por otro lado, La Misión Euroasiática es una lectura muy actual para comprender la ideología geopolítica rusa y los sucesos recientes en Ucrania.
December 13, 2022
The right conclusions drawn from the wrong reasoning. Dugin's philosophy is an obscurantist cocktail of Guenon-style traditionalism and Imperial Russian ethnolinguistics. His geopolitical praxis is fairly well thought through, but there's much better treatments of multipolarity now. He's not nearly as influential in United Russia as many western liberals believe him to be.
January 23, 2026
Dugin is said to be Putin's brain. The book is an overview of Dugin's political philosophy. It's a book that should be read and studied by anyone who wants to understand modern geopolitics, including the actions and rhetoric of the current US government and its base, whose general grievances with the modern world seem oddly similar. Globalists, a hatred of liberalism, a denigration of the "unipolar" world in favor of a "multipolar" world, and so on. All of these in Dugin can be successfully superimposed upon MAGA, Trump, The Heritage Foundation, and influencers. I am surprised nobody has done a serious comparison because it seems Dugin is also America's brain.
Apart from its practical value, in terms of substance, there is no serious engagement with the literature in political science or political philosophy or philosophy despite several instances where names are dropped. It is poorly conceived, poorly argued, and poorly written. It is not a work of scholarship but a kind adolescent, right-wing screed against US hegemony that seems based on equal parts nostalgia for the Soviet era and a shameless hope for a future world order that sees Russia recognized for its greatness and role in the world, viz., territorial expansion and global influence.
Apart from its practical value, in terms of substance, there is no serious engagement with the literature in political science or political philosophy or philosophy despite several instances where names are dropped. It is poorly conceived, poorly argued, and poorly written. It is not a work of scholarship but a kind adolescent, right-wing screed against US hegemony that seems based on equal parts nostalgia for the Soviet era and a shameless hope for a future world order that sees Russia recognized for its greatness and role in the world, viz., territorial expansion and global influence.
January 1, 2021
Plans for global revolution by Putin’s private philosopher, sometimes feels like reading a weirdo terrorist group manifesto, but get two stars because it’s actually quite interesting to look inside these people’s worldview. Places Central Asia, Caucasus etc in the new World Order, surprisingly easy read.
November 18, 2020
A book I assigned to my students for understanding the Eurasianist paradigm, one of its most succinct expressions. That being said, the translation is a bit misleading, and while the book predicts a lot of geopolitical trends, it does feel a bit dated even a bit over a decade later.
July 22, 2022
Anybody looking to understand current Russian foreign policy should read this. There are some interesting interviews and debates to be found on YouTube for anyone who might like a preview of Dugin and his ideas.
August 27, 2022
This is a solid read and definitely a decent introduction to Eurasianism, outlining its ideological principles and goals, its relation to other movements and ideologies, and a brief exposition of its intellectual history.
Read
April 6, 2022Sometimes you have to read stuff just to know what ideas are out there... This was certainly a ... manifesto... oh man...
August 24, 2022
Gocuman büyük resim.
February 12, 2025
reading dugin not in a kazakh steppe warlord typa way but bc u have to listen to both sides bro 😔🙏 it takes two to tango they say
June 28, 2016
In this work Alexander Dugin analyzes the development of earlier Eurasianism to its current manifestations on the political scene. According to Dugin, “Eurasianism is a type of structuralism with the accent placed on multiplicity and synchronicity of structures” (Dugin loc. Cited 68). This means there are a plurality of human societies, each with its own “mode of growing” that must be respected.
Dugin sees Russia’s role as defending the possibility of each civilization’s unique flourishing. This means Russia creates the political space as opposed to the Atlanticist desire to impose globalization. In terms of method Dugin largely applies Heidegger’s philosophy, though not universally. He draws upon suggestions made by both “Left” (dialectical) and “Right” (traditionalist) thinkers as they both oppose neo-liberalist/globalism (loc. 434).
How would a Neo-Eurasianist Policy Look?
Dugin isn’t blind to the advances that globalism has made. Whether we like it or not, it happened and we can’t go back to 19th century nation-states. Please note this: We are not nationalists in the strict sense of the word. Therefore, he suggests “several global zones (poles). The Eurasian Idea is an alternative or multipolar version of globalization” (loc. 641). Similar to his claims in The Last War of the World-Island, we no longer see a battle between East/West or North/South, but of Center/Periphery with the Atlanticist Civilization (New York/London/Brussels) at the center.
And within these zones there are poles and “Great Spaces,” or democratic empires that are organically constituted. Some examples
(I) Iran-Syria-Armenia
(2) Germano-Nordic/Frankish
(3) Anglo-American
(4) Mediterranean Europe
(5) Eurasian Europe
Etc. (see this article for more discussion on Meridian Zones; http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/...)
Dugin argues for regions to have autonomy, not sovereignty and boundaries, not borders. Boundaries arise from an organic wholeness. Borders are used to divide, boundaries to bind. For countries with large amounts of land, major cities should be depopulated and there should be a network of townships. Townships are ecological settlements separated from the cities by clean forests (page 85).
Dugin ends his philosophical analysis with remarkable insights into social atomism. Lockean/empiricism/libertarianism is false because it rests upon a false physics, a false ontology. Atomism is false because we now about sub-atomic structures. Empirical social philosophies are false because within the individual are underlying currents that resist reductionism.
This book isn't perfect, though. There was a coherent argument throughout, but some chapters seemed like blog articles tacked on.
Dugin sees Russia’s role as defending the possibility of each civilization’s unique flourishing. This means Russia creates the political space as opposed to the Atlanticist desire to impose globalization. In terms of method Dugin largely applies Heidegger’s philosophy, though not universally. He draws upon suggestions made by both “Left” (dialectical) and “Right” (traditionalist) thinkers as they both oppose neo-liberalist/globalism (loc. 434).
How would a Neo-Eurasianist Policy Look?
Dugin isn’t blind to the advances that globalism has made. Whether we like it or not, it happened and we can’t go back to 19th century nation-states. Please note this: We are not nationalists in the strict sense of the word. Therefore, he suggests “several global zones (poles). The Eurasian Idea is an alternative or multipolar version of globalization” (loc. 641). Similar to his claims in The Last War of the World-Island, we no longer see a battle between East/West or North/South, but of Center/Periphery with the Atlanticist Civilization (New York/London/Brussels) at the center.
And within these zones there are poles and “Great Spaces,” or democratic empires that are organically constituted. Some examples
(I) Iran-Syria-Armenia
(2) Germano-Nordic/Frankish
(3) Anglo-American
(4) Mediterranean Europe
(5) Eurasian Europe
Etc. (see this article for more discussion on Meridian Zones; http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/...)
Dugin argues for regions to have autonomy, not sovereignty and boundaries, not borders. Boundaries arise from an organic wholeness. Borders are used to divide, boundaries to bind. For countries with large amounts of land, major cities should be depopulated and there should be a network of townships. Townships are ecological settlements separated from the cities by clean forests (page 85).
Dugin ends his philosophical analysis with remarkable insights into social atomism. Lockean/empiricism/libertarianism is false because it rests upon a false physics, a false ontology. Atomism is false because we now about sub-atomic structures. Empirical social philosophies are false because within the individual are underlying currents that resist reductionism.
This book isn't perfect, though. There was a coherent argument throughout, but some chapters seemed like blog articles tacked on.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews