Aleksandr Dugin, typically known as “Putin’s mind” due to his ideological affect on Russian politics, endorsed the policies of Donald Trump in a CNN interview aired on March 30. Dugin stated Trump’s America has much more in frequent with Putin’s Russia than most individuals suppose, adding: “Trumpists and the followers of Trump will perceive significantly better what Russia is, who Putin is and the motivations of our politics.”
Dugin made his name by espousing Russian nationalist and traditionalist – together with antisemitic – themes, and publishing extensively on the centrality of Russia in world civilisation. So, this endorsement needs to be a warning of the disruptive nature of the Trump White Home. It implies that Dugin believes Trump’s insurance policies assist Russian pursuits.
Dugin started his profession as an anti-communist activist within the Nineteen Eighties. This was much less due to an ideological antipathy for communism than his rejection of the internationalism that the Communist Social gathering of the Soviet Union espoused. He additionally criticised the occasion for breaking from conventional – particularly non secular – values.
Dugin proposes what he calls a “fourth political theory”. The primary three, he claims, are Marxism, fascism and liberalism – all of which he thinks include parts of error, particularly their rejection of custom and the subordination of tradition to scientific thought.
Dugin’s fourth political concept takes items from all three and discards the weather with which Dugin disagrees, particularly the dwindling significance of conventional household and tradition. The fruits is a melange of concepts that typically seem Marxist and typically fascist, however which all the time centre on the criticality of conventional Russian tradition.
His founding philosophy is traditionalism, which he views as a power of Russia. Thus, he has develop into a powerful supporter of the nation’s president, Vladimir Putin, who emphasises traditional Russian values. Dugin and Putin align of their criticism of liberalist anti-religious individualism, which they declare destroys the values and tradition on which society is predicated.
Dugin has worth for Putin as a result of he advances the president’s aims. Putin’s safety objectives are partially based on the precept that political unity is power and political division is weak spot. If Russia can preserve political unity by no matter means needed, it retains its notion of power. And if a state against Russia is split internally, it may be portrayed as weak.
The Russian authorities claims full political unity inside Russia. Its spokespeople reinforce that declare by declaring, for instance, the Russian citizens was so unified behind Putin that the 2024 Russian presidential election might have been skipped as an pointless expense. In addition they push a strained declare that the Russian inhabitants is unanimously behind the Ukraine warfare.
Dugin energises voters behind Putin, basing his assist on the philosophy of Russian greatness and cultural superiority, and the notion of Russian unity. His affect has been felt all through the Russian authorities and society. He publishes prolifically, and lectures at universities and authorities companies in regards to the harms of western liberalism. He additionally served as an advisor to Sergey Naryshkin, presently director of the International Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation.
Dugin’s views assist an expansionist Russia, particularly within the course of Ukraine. He questions the existence of Ukraine and promotes Russia’s warfare there wholeheartedly. However his assist for the warfare led to an try on his life. On August 20 2022, a bomb exploded in a automobile owned by Dugin, killing his daughter, Darya, who was driving it again from a festival of Russian traditional art.
AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov
Divide and conquer
Russia applies the identical precept of “unity equals power” to its adversaries, however in reverse. Many Russian political thinkers attempt to emphasise political divisions in unfriendly states. They work onerous to broaden present disagreements and assist disruptive political events and teams.
Such operations give the Russian authorities the power to denigrate the overseas powers that Russia considers adversaries by making them look weak within the eyes of their very own folks – and extra importantly, within the eyes of the Russian inhabitants.
Dugin lays a philosophical basis for overseas events that oppose the European Union and western liberalism, and that disrupt political unity. His views have been adopted by far-right political groups such because the German National Democratic Party, the British National Party, Golden Dawn in Greece, Jobbik in Hungary, and the National Front in France.
Dugin’s interview through which he endorsed Trump’s insurance policies is more likely to have been instantly authorised by the Kremlin. He pushes a Kremlin-sponsored endorsement of Trump’s divisive – and thus weakening – impact on US politics.
However Dugin’s excessive Russian nationalist rhetoric at instances clashes with Putin’s makes an attempt to incorporate all peoples of Russia in a powerful unified state, quite than solely ethnic Russians. As it’s a multi-ethnic state, Russian ethnic nationalism can impede Putin’s makes an attempt at portraying power by unity. The label “Putin’s brain” is barely correct typically.
The Russian authorities makes use of Dugin when he’s helpful and separates itself from him when his extremism is inconvenient. Dugin is a device who says most of the proper issues and facilitates Kremlin objectives. His endorsement of Trump needs to be seen in its context: Russia making an attempt to strengthen itself on the expense of the US.
