Nu, EU, nu, pogodi!*
"Vladimir Putin has asserted himself as the leader of the emerging European conservative revolution. He has stated that he is not opposed to Europe but to a united European empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok and against the pro-American puppet, the EU".
...
"A crucial time has come, the time of Eurasia. The great battle of the continents is nigh - the maritime civilisation against the continental civilisation. America represents the former, and Russia the latter".
Welcome to Aleksandr Dugin's bizarro-world! The guru of Russian ultra-nationalism, the neo-Nazi fanboy and ideologue of the concept of the Eurasian Empire. For the likes of him, chopping Crimea away and swallowing it whole was just the first step, the next one being the creation of Novorussia on the territory of South and East Ukraine; and the end result is supposed to be the rise of a new superpower, spanning Europe and Asia, which is to stand up to the US and make the world multipolar once more.
Preposterous or not, Dugin's theories and those of the other ideologues of Eurasianism do matter for understanding Putin's Empire of the Mind doctrine (dubbed by The Foreign Policy magazine), whose forceful manifestation in Crimea shocked much of the international community and found both the EU and the US completely unprepared. A doctrine that not only sustains Putin's enormous popularity at home, but also seems to be earning him supporters among Europe's radicals and populists, of all places. Some of their messages bear a striking similarity to the Kremlin "key points" as so mindfully formulated by Putin's polit-technologians. Same terms being used, same rhetoric lambasting the opponents: "Euro-gays", "Sorosoids", "liberasts", etc. And if Putin's pals from London to Sofia and from Paris to Athens do fare as well at the upcoming EU elections later this month as expected, then Putin is about to gain a formidable, and enormously vocal lobby at the very heart of Europe.
With his long beard, wandering gaze and melancholic outlooks, Dugin kind of looks like a Slavic prophet from the times of old, Rasputin-style. For some he might be just a clown who's allowed to excessively speak on TV and freely spread his eccentric theories, a weird mixture of amateurish geopolitics, unapologetic Bolshevism and outright neo-fascism (yep, I'm aware it does sound like the weirdest combination ever - because that's what it is). But Dugin is not just some obscure teacher from the Moscow State University, he's a frequent guest in Kremlin and a personal friend of many among Putin's most immediate circle. Like one Sergey Glazyev, Putin's advisor on Ukraine and the Eurasian Union, who shares Dugin's membership at the Izborsky Club. That's a think-tank that was founded by the chief editor of the Zavtra newspaper, Alexander Prokhanov, who's been openly advocating for the restoration of the USSR (through force, if necessary). Prokhanov is also a frequent guest at Kremlin, where he regularly praises the "powerful ideological transformation" under Putin's tenure, as opposed to the ideological black hole that used to reign at Yeltsin's time. Another prominent member of the Eurasian circle is Kremlin's fave propagandist, Dmitry Kiselyov, who became (in)famous for his statements that Russia is the only country genuinely capable of turning the US into a pile of radioactive ash, and that the hearts of homosexuals who died in car crashes should be torn out and incinerated, since they're unfit for prolonging someone else's life.
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But this colourful palette of great thinkers that defines Putin's worldview definitely wouldn't be complete if we didn't mention Ivan Ilyin, a White-Russian philosopher from the first half of last century. He was the ideologue of the All-Russian military union, he wrote of the "unique Russian soul" and used to explain how Russia must "re-discover" itself, first spiritually, then politically, and thus save the world. Yes, we're speaking of a special God-chosen civilisational mission here, no less. Ilyin's ideas have now been made part of the history schoolbooks across Russia, and Putin often likes to cite him in his speeches. He even made sure that Ilyin's bodily remains be returned from Switzerland (where he had died in 1954) and re-buried at the Donskoi Monastery with great honours, the president personally paying for the fancy epitaph.
It's evident that Putin is viewing the West as an enemy, and somehow fancies himself being at war with it for some time. But the EU and US somehow failed to notice that, and for a time Kremlin was using their naivety to its advantage (until the masks finally fell off, that is). Including by the use of Western resources and know-how for creating a social and economic project that was largely based along the lines of the Western model. It is just now that most people have started realising what he has done.
And what is that? Well, Putin is building an alternative model, based on the standoff against Europe and the US above all, while simultaneously trying to turn them against each other and sow discord amidst the trans-Atlantic alliance (a tactic that's been almost brought to perfection by former and current empires such as Britain and America). That's the foundation that sustains his regime, since he's no longer able to provide a sustained growth of the living standard of his subjects. His turn towards proclaiming Russia's national identity, propping up the famous "Russian soul" meme, and acting like a whiteknight for the traditional family values as the sternest building block of society, perfectly fits into his political agenda.
The West is conveniently being waved like a scarecrow into the faces of the Russians, while the Western-type democratic values are constantly being under pressure. By attacking the West's decadence, Putin is simultaneously trying to discredit Western liberal democracy. But he doesn't stop there - he strives to fill that vacuum with an alternative proposition: a mixture of nationalism, social conservatism and authoritarianism. And it's working for the time being.
In this deliberate clash of paradigms, the confrontation with the US is as coveted as it's inevitable, while relations with Europe are much more nuanced. For example Dugin claims Russia is the "protector of the European heritage" (as a counterpoint to the "traitorous EU"), its mission is to save Europe from moral decay and bring it back to its real ideals. In his latest direct televised dialogue with the public, Putin stated that "we're all united by common conservative values". That may seem to contradict another speech of his from last year where he spoke of strengthening the Russian national identity and opposing the mechanical copying of other models that are foreign to the Russians. And also in turn differs from the points he had made after the Crimean annexation. It may almost seem as if he's trying to cast new bridges over the newly opened gap between Russia and Europe. But not so fast - we must've all learned by now that Putin is not as simple to understand as we may be hoping.
One of the reasons for this turn is his desperate desire to get legitimisation of his policies, mostly at home. That's why he needed European "observers" at the Crimean "referendum". And the radical parties that provided those observers (among them, the French National Front, the Hungarian Jobbik, the Austrian Party of Freedom, the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the Italian Northern League, the Bulgarian Ataka, and also representatives of the far-left in Greece and Germany), have been flirting with Kremlin ever more overtly as of late.
While until recently the leftist parties used to be out of suspicion for being Russia's Trojan horses in Europe, now some of Putin's best buddies are from the ranks of the far-right. The French National Front leader Marine Le Pen has visited Crimea once and Moscow twice since the beginning of this year alone, and last month she met the Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin (who's currently included in EU's no-entry black-list), stating her support for Kremlin's position on the Ukrainian crisis, praising the Crimean takeover, and accusing the EU of having started a Cold War v.2.0 with Russia. Meanwhile, Jobbik's leader Gabor Vona of Hungary has enjoyed great hospitality in Moscow, his latest visit in March having been described on his party's website as "a major breakthrough", where it had become obvious that "the Russian leaders consider Jobbik as a partner". And the chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache recently said that "instead of playing the stooge of the US in the encirclement of Russia, Brussels must finally be able to build positive relations with Moscow and show understanding of Russian interests".
Kind of odd that a bunch of self-declared nationalists would suddenly embrace the interests of a foreign power with neo-imperial aspirations, isn't it? But the foe to my foe is my buddy, I suppose.
There actually are many things that the European populists have in common with Kremlin. From the xenophobia and the emphasis on fundamentalist Christian values, to the aggressive assertion of national interests. But the strongest connection of all is their shared desire to undermine the EU in its current form. There are two reasons that the far-right is so fond of Putin. One is ideological, the other strategic. Putin is promoting a nationalist approach both in domestic and foreign policy. That brings him closer to them. The second (and more important) element is the strategic one. Both these parties and Putin are radically anti-EU, which makes them natural partners. Kremlin's goal is to shake the EU from within. And in this, the team of the Euro radicals, although still not a major force in the European parliament (which they're still unlikely to become, despite the expected strong results in May), could be useful to him up to a point. Their very presence in Brussels serves Putin's propaganda interests and allows him to have tools at his disposal within Brussels itself, and yet another lever of spreading his messages and exerting influence, beyond the mere dominance on the energy market.
Basically, the channels that Russia is using to make further inroads into European politics are as follows: media brainwashing for the masses, plus bribes in one form or another and economic pressure for the elites. Russia has been very generous in both respects, "stimulating" a number of fringe politicians across the Old Continent who've shown a readiness to sell themselves to the Russian interests. Whether the Putin-love of parties like Ataka and Jobbik is supported with actual funds, is of course hard to prove outright for the time being. But it's clear that their disproportionately loud presence at the political scene both at home and in Brussels could only be making Putin very pleased, and troubling the minds of those who are hoping for a more united response to Russia's aggressive Putinite doctrine.
* The title comes from a very popular Soviet-time children's cartoon movie, Nu pogodi! (You Just Wait!), where the Bad Wolf constantly chases the Little Rabit, always to a hilarious end. Ironically, Putin did make an attempt to ban the beloved cartoon from TV (since it was teaching kids of bad things like smoking, because the Bad Wolf is sometimes seen smoking on screen) - but the public outcry was too big to handle, so Dear Leader did a rare backpedaling on that.
...
"A crucial time has come, the time of Eurasia. The great battle of the continents is nigh - the maritime civilisation against the continental civilisation. America represents the former, and Russia the latter".
Welcome to Aleksandr Dugin's bizarro-world! The guru of Russian ultra-nationalism, the neo-Nazi fanboy and ideologue of the concept of the Eurasian Empire. For the likes of him, chopping Crimea away and swallowing it whole was just the first step, the next one being the creation of Novorussia on the territory of South and East Ukraine; and the end result is supposed to be the rise of a new superpower, spanning Europe and Asia, which is to stand up to the US and make the world multipolar once more.
Preposterous or not, Dugin's theories and those of the other ideologues of Eurasianism do matter for understanding Putin's Empire of the Mind doctrine (dubbed by The Foreign Policy magazine), whose forceful manifestation in Crimea shocked much of the international community and found both the EU and the US completely unprepared. A doctrine that not only sustains Putin's enormous popularity at home, but also seems to be earning him supporters among Europe's radicals and populists, of all places. Some of their messages bear a striking similarity to the Kremlin "key points" as so mindfully formulated by Putin's polit-technologians. Same terms being used, same rhetoric lambasting the opponents: "Euro-gays", "Sorosoids", "liberasts", etc. And if Putin's pals from London to Sofia and from Paris to Athens do fare as well at the upcoming EU elections later this month as expected, then Putin is about to gain a formidable, and enormously vocal lobby at the very heart of Europe.
With his long beard, wandering gaze and melancholic outlooks, Dugin kind of looks like a Slavic prophet from the times of old, Rasputin-style. For some he might be just a clown who's allowed to excessively speak on TV and freely spread his eccentric theories, a weird mixture of amateurish geopolitics, unapologetic Bolshevism and outright neo-fascism (yep, I'm aware it does sound like the weirdest combination ever - because that's what it is). But Dugin is not just some obscure teacher from the Moscow State University, he's a frequent guest in Kremlin and a personal friend of many among Putin's most immediate circle. Like one Sergey Glazyev, Putin's advisor on Ukraine and the Eurasian Union, who shares Dugin's membership at the Izborsky Club. That's a think-tank that was founded by the chief editor of the Zavtra newspaper, Alexander Prokhanov, who's been openly advocating for the restoration of the USSR (through force, if necessary). Prokhanov is also a frequent guest at Kremlin, where he regularly praises the "powerful ideological transformation" under Putin's tenure, as opposed to the ideological black hole that used to reign at Yeltsin's time. Another prominent member of the Eurasian circle is Kremlin's fave propagandist, Dmitry Kiselyov, who became (in)famous for his statements that Russia is the only country genuinely capable of turning the US into a pile of radioactive ash, and that the hearts of homosexuals who died in car crashes should be torn out and incinerated, since they're unfit for prolonging someone else's life.
But this colourful palette of great thinkers that defines Putin's worldview definitely wouldn't be complete if we didn't mention Ivan Ilyin, a White-Russian philosopher from the first half of last century. He was the ideologue of the All-Russian military union, he wrote of the "unique Russian soul" and used to explain how Russia must "re-discover" itself, first spiritually, then politically, and thus save the world. Yes, we're speaking of a special God-chosen civilisational mission here, no less. Ilyin's ideas have now been made part of the history schoolbooks across Russia, and Putin often likes to cite him in his speeches. He even made sure that Ilyin's bodily remains be returned from Switzerland (where he had died in 1954) and re-buried at the Donskoi Monastery with great honours, the president personally paying for the fancy epitaph.
It's evident that Putin is viewing the West as an enemy, and somehow fancies himself being at war with it for some time. But the EU and US somehow failed to notice that, and for a time Kremlin was using their naivety to its advantage (until the masks finally fell off, that is). Including by the use of Western resources and know-how for creating a social and economic project that was largely based along the lines of the Western model. It is just now that most people have started realising what he has done.
And what is that? Well, Putin is building an alternative model, based on the standoff against Europe and the US above all, while simultaneously trying to turn them against each other and sow discord amidst the trans-Atlantic alliance (a tactic that's been almost brought to perfection by former and current empires such as Britain and America). That's the foundation that sustains his regime, since he's no longer able to provide a sustained growth of the living standard of his subjects. His turn towards proclaiming Russia's national identity, propping up the famous "Russian soul" meme, and acting like a whiteknight for the traditional family values as the sternest building block of society, perfectly fits into his political agenda.
The West is conveniently being waved like a scarecrow into the faces of the Russians, while the Western-type democratic values are constantly being under pressure. By attacking the West's decadence, Putin is simultaneously trying to discredit Western liberal democracy. But he doesn't stop there - he strives to fill that vacuum with an alternative proposition: a mixture of nationalism, social conservatism and authoritarianism. And it's working for the time being.
In this deliberate clash of paradigms, the confrontation with the US is as coveted as it's inevitable, while relations with Europe are much more nuanced. For example Dugin claims Russia is the "protector of the European heritage" (as a counterpoint to the "traitorous EU"), its mission is to save Europe from moral decay and bring it back to its real ideals. In his latest direct televised dialogue with the public, Putin stated that "we're all united by common conservative values". That may seem to contradict another speech of his from last year where he spoke of strengthening the Russian national identity and opposing the mechanical copying of other models that are foreign to the Russians. And also in turn differs from the points he had made after the Crimean annexation. It may almost seem as if he's trying to cast new bridges over the newly opened gap between Russia and Europe. But not so fast - we must've all learned by now that Putin is not as simple to understand as we may be hoping.
One of the reasons for this turn is his desperate desire to get legitimisation of his policies, mostly at home. That's why he needed European "observers" at the Crimean "referendum". And the radical parties that provided those observers (among them, the French National Front, the Hungarian Jobbik, the Austrian Party of Freedom, the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the Italian Northern League, the Bulgarian Ataka, and also representatives of the far-left in Greece and Germany), have been flirting with Kremlin ever more overtly as of late.
While until recently the leftist parties used to be out of suspicion for being Russia's Trojan horses in Europe, now some of Putin's best buddies are from the ranks of the far-right. The French National Front leader Marine Le Pen has visited Crimea once and Moscow twice since the beginning of this year alone, and last month she met the Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin (who's currently included in EU's no-entry black-list), stating her support for Kremlin's position on the Ukrainian crisis, praising the Crimean takeover, and accusing the EU of having started a Cold War v.2.0 with Russia. Meanwhile, Jobbik's leader Gabor Vona of Hungary has enjoyed great hospitality in Moscow, his latest visit in March having been described on his party's website as "a major breakthrough", where it had become obvious that "the Russian leaders consider Jobbik as a partner". And the chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache recently said that "instead of playing the stooge of the US in the encirclement of Russia, Brussels must finally be able to build positive relations with Moscow and show understanding of Russian interests".
Kind of odd that a bunch of self-declared nationalists would suddenly embrace the interests of a foreign power with neo-imperial aspirations, isn't it? But the foe to my foe is my buddy, I suppose.
There actually are many things that the European populists have in common with Kremlin. From the xenophobia and the emphasis on fundamentalist Christian values, to the aggressive assertion of national interests. But the strongest connection of all is their shared desire to undermine the EU in its current form. There are two reasons that the far-right is so fond of Putin. One is ideological, the other strategic. Putin is promoting a nationalist approach both in domestic and foreign policy. That brings him closer to them. The second (and more important) element is the strategic one. Both these parties and Putin are radically anti-EU, which makes them natural partners. Kremlin's goal is to shake the EU from within. And in this, the team of the Euro radicals, although still not a major force in the European parliament (which they're still unlikely to become, despite the expected strong results in May), could be useful to him up to a point. Their very presence in Brussels serves Putin's propaganda interests and allows him to have tools at his disposal within Brussels itself, and yet another lever of spreading his messages and exerting influence, beyond the mere dominance on the energy market.
Basically, the channels that Russia is using to make further inroads into European politics are as follows: media brainwashing for the masses, plus bribes in one form or another and economic pressure for the elites. Russia has been very generous in both respects, "stimulating" a number of fringe politicians across the Old Continent who've shown a readiness to sell themselves to the Russian interests. Whether the Putin-love of parties like Ataka and Jobbik is supported with actual funds, is of course hard to prove outright for the time being. But it's clear that their disproportionately loud presence at the political scene both at home and in Brussels could only be making Putin very pleased, and troubling the minds of those who are hoping for a more united response to Russia's aggressive Putinite doctrine.
* The title comes from a very popular Soviet-time children's cartoon movie, Nu pogodi! (You Just Wait!), where the Bad Wolf constantly chases the Little Rabit, always to a hilarious end. Ironically, Putin did make an attempt to ban the beloved cartoon from TV (since it was teaching kids of bad things like smoking, because the Bad Wolf is sometimes seen smoking on screen) - but the public outcry was too big to handle, so Dear Leader did a rare backpedaling on that.