Russia, Dugin, and Traditionalism in Politics: Political and Theological Placement of The Fourth Political Theory.
| Author | Mosbey, John Cody |
Men of action cut a large figure in the history books, but it is the ideas placed in their heads by men of thought that actually determine what they do.
--Robert Zubrin
Introduction
To claim that Aleksandr Dugin is merely a controversial figure is to engage in serious understatement. (1) He is acclaimed as a significant influence on Vladimir Putin and simultaneously reportedly to be out of favor in Moscow. He was listed as Head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow State University, then reportedly dismissed from the faculty in mid-2014 only to have conflicting reports from the University and others regarding his actual employment status. (2) Andreas Umland, Russian/Ukrainian specialist and Dugin critic, does not hesitate to pin the label "obscurantist pseudoscholar" onto Dugin, and claims that Dugin "uses 'conservatism' as a cover for the spread of a revolutionary ultranationalist and neo-imperialist ideology." (3) Translator and researcher, Yigal Liverant, on the other hand, describes Dugin as a "gifted and charismatic intellectual," and claims, "there is an undeniable connection between Dugin's politics and the regime change led by [Vladimir] Putin." (4) Dugin seems to simultaneously exist in an ethereal world of present power and official disfavor. However, it is Dugin's political philosophy, its sticking power, and the reception it is afforded (especially in the West), not his academic position nor his official titles, that make up the critical pertinence concerned in this brief study.
Dugin portrays Liberalism as a deadly and godless trap with only "one way out." (5) That way is "to reject the classical political theories, both winners and losers, strain our imaginations, seize the reality of a new world, correctly decipher the challenges of postmodernity, and create something new--something beyond the political battles of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries." (6) The challenges of Postmodernity that Dugin wants to decipher include the challenge of Liberalism itself. Dugin believes the challenge of Liberalism can be defeated with a new approach. The approach to "create something new" is "an invitation to the development of the Fourth Political Theory;" something that is "beyond Communism, fascism and liberalism," and it will define a multipolar world instead of a world of Western hegemony. (7)
The Oxford Roundtable of July 29--August 1, 2015 focused on the themes of Religion, Women, and History. This article addresses the placement of Dugin's Fourth Political Theory within these three overlapping realms. Remarkable of the Fourth Political Theory is its emphasis on the inclusiveness of religion, not the rejection, exclusion, or ambivalence accorded to it by the first three theories. The role of women as viable political actors, while not specifically rejected, must be viewed in Fourth Political Theory perspectives by considering the historical overtones of Traditionalism that Dugin combines with Russian Orthodoxy and the corresponding resonance to patriarchal and anti-modern elements of Islam included in his Eurasianist outlook. The implications for future traction of Dugin's Fourth Political Theory become more predictable with better understanding of its relationships to Religion, Women, and History.
Invitation to the Fourth Political Theory
To put Dugin's nascent political philosophy in advocate terms, it favors a multipolar global political landscape upon which the First Political Theory, Liberalism, is curtailed; defeated some would say, and supplanted by the Fourth Political Theory. This Fourth Political Theory has been sketched out, but Dugin admits it lacks the detail or experiential elements needed to fully compare its viability to its long extant rival, Liberalism. Dugin characterizes his introduction to this fourth way as an "invitation" to participate in the full development of a new political paradigm. (8) To whom this "invitation" is specifically directed is not completely clear, but it seems to have gained traction with the Russian New Right (RNR) and the Nouvelle Droite, the European New Right (ENR). What can be readily ascertained is that the Fourth Political Theory advocates a world ideologically opposed to many facets of Western European and U.S. liberal democracy. This Fourth Political Theory displays decidedly anti-modern characteristics, and this anti-modernism may be construed as anti-Westernism--especially Westernism U.S. style.
Dugin's book, The Fourth Political Theory, is a culmination of his political thought regarding the trajectory of Russia's political future and the demise of Western political power in the world arena. Dugin is unwilling to allow Liberalism to be left standing alone on the political field, unwilling to accept that the defeat of Communism and Fascism has left Liberalism as the de facto last word in historical political development. His refusal to concede Liberalism the victory defines Dugin as its vehement opponent.
Dugin describes his formulation of the Fourth Political Theory as a process that extended over several years. During this process, Dugin eventually rejected the idea that Communism and Fascism had salvageable elements that could be used to form a synthesis that eliminated both the abhorrent manifestations of Soviet praxis and the unspeakable aberrance of Nazi National Socialist deviance.
From 20008 [sic] when the main principles of the 4PT [Fourth Political Theory] were clearly formulated I have renounced to any appeal to the second or third political theories (communism and nationalism) and I has [sic] concentrated exclusively on the elaboration of fully independent Fourth Political Theory breaking any ties with the [sic] Modernity. (9) Dugin's invitation is to join with him in both placing flesh on the bones of the Fourth Political Theory. But, Dugin has a much more practical and existential invitation to extend as well: an invitation to participate in the rise of the Russian State as the Eurasianist counterbalance to the hegemony of the Global West.
Religious Aspects of The Fourth Political Theory
Dugin juxtaposes the Fourth Political Theory in diametric opposition to Western Liberalism. His enthusiastic inclusion of religion as an integral element of the state evidences a clear demarcation of Traditional versus Modern worldviews. In the Fourth Political Theory Dugin articulates a viewpoint very similar to the one so clearly stated by Max Weber's observation (paraphrased by Carl Schmitt), "that it is possible to confront irrefutably a radical materialist philosophy of history with a similarly radical spiritualist philosophy of history." (10) The mystical and esoteric nature of Dugin's Traditionalism is apparent throughout his writing and speaking, but nowhere more so than in his statement regarding the rationalism of Enlightenment Liberalism that, "Tradition is an antithesis to Cartesianism." "Formal logic," Dugin went on to say, was where antichrist "began the subversion" of the Traditional world. (11) Dugin's religious outlook involves a decidedly dualist view and he applies his own radical spiritualist philosophy not only to his view of history, but to his view of the future as well.
The Fourth Political Theory presupposes the disintegration of modern ideology and allows theology, all but excluded in Liberalism, to return and fill some of the vacuum. But according to Peter J. Leithart, "the theology that returns isn't necessary [sic] the theology of Christian orthodoxy" (12) In keeping with the multipolar world anticipated by the Fourth Political Theory, Dugin does not advocate a world where a single hegemon determines religious belief or practice. Advocating a multipolar world, at least until the Liberal West is rendered entirely obsolete, Fourth Political Theory vigorously opposes the hegemony of West. Dugin endorses theological Traditionalism and rejects the civil religion of Enlightened France after the Revolution and the civil religion of the West in its current postmodern manifestations.
Dugin rejects Liberalism's secular theology as an extreme form of hubris. Dugin shares John Lukacs's rejection of Liberalism's conceit contained in Lukacs' claim that "[m]ost 'liberals' still cling to outdated dogmas of the so-called Enlightenment, unwilling to question the validity of 'Science.'" (13) More correctly, it is not science that Dugin despises, it is Scientism. The approach of Liberalism that "[d]emocracy is the expression of a political relativism and a scientific orientation that are liberated from miracles and dogmas and based on human understanding and critical doubt," is in direct agreement with a worldview that would "establish institutions and supranational laws of a federative structure." (14) The Fourth Political Theory rejects the former and vehemently opposes the latter.
Dugin presents a Traditionalist view in his critique of the Liberal Democratic West that can be seen to mirror Schmitt's belief that "[t]he idea of the modern constitutional state triumphed together with deism, a theology and metaphysics that banished the miracle from the world." (15) The Fourth Political Theory accepts the view that the "theology and metaphysics" of rational Liberalism "rejected not only the transgression of the laws of nature through an exception brought about by direct intervention, as is found in the idea of a miracle, but also the sovereign's direct intervention in a valid legal order." (16) Dugin applies a mystical and monarchist element in the Fourth Political Theory and favors sovereign intervention both metaphysically and politically.
The Fourth Political Theory includes goals expressed by Aleksandr Panarin concerning "a combination of the Eurasian religions." (17) This combination of religions would allow and encourage consensus between Orthodox, Muslim, and other religious cultures within the Eurasian sphere. Dugin and Panarin were more than contemporaries; Panarin had been a member of...
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