Often seen to be a form of National Bolshevism, one of the basic ideas that underpin Eurasian theories is that Moscow, Berlin and Paris form a natural geopolitical axis because a line or axis from Moscow to Berlin will pass through the vicinity of Paris if extended. Dugin and his Eurasia Party foresee an eternal world conflict between land and sea, between the United States and Russia. He believes: "In principle, Eurasia and our space, the heartland (Russia), remain the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-Americanrevolution". According to Dugin's book The Basics of Geopolitics (1997): "The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us. This common civilisational impulse will be the basis of a political and strategic union". The party has been deemed neo-fascist by critics,[4] a label Dugin denies.[5]
The Eurasia Party was founded by Dugin shortly before George W. Bush's visit to Russia at the end of May 2002. The party hopes to play a key role in attempts to resolve the Chechen problem, with the objective of setting the stage for Dugin's dream of a Russian strategic alliance with European and Middle Eastern states, primarily Iran and states like Germany.
Alexander Dugin, an exponent of neo-Eurasianism, initially followed the ideology of National Bolshevism. Expanding out of National Bolshevism, he brought into the existing ideology of Eurasianism the idea of a "third position" (a combination of capitalism and socialism), geopolitics (Eurasia as a tellurocracy, opposing the "Atlantic Anglo-Saxon thalassocracy" of the United States and NATO) and Russian conservatism and Stalinism (the Soviet Union as a major Eurasian power). In Dugin's works, Eurasian concepts and provisions are intertwined with the concepts of European New Right. Researchers note that in the formulation of philosophical problems and political projects, he significantly deviates from classical Eurasianism, which is presented in his numerous works very selectively, eclectically. In Dugin's version of neo-Eurasianism , the Russian ethnos is considered "the most priority Eurasian ethnos", which must fulfill the civilizational mission of forming a Eurasian empire that will occupy the entire continent. The main threat is declared by the United States and the English-speaking world in general under a "neo-liberal" ideology he calls "Atlanticism". His most preferred form of government is a Russian dictatorship and a totalitarian state with complete ideological control over society. In the 1990s, Dugin criticized Italian fascism and German Nazism as "not enough fascist" and accused China of anti-Russian subversion.[citation needed] In subsequent years, he abandoned direct apology for fascism and called for collaboration with China, and began to refer to his positions as being from the traditions of the conservative revolution and National Bolshevism.[citation needed] However, researchers typically refer to neo-Eurasianism (also known Fourth Political Theory and Duginism) as a form of fascism.[citation needed]
Ideology
Dugin states that the Eurasia Party is developing the foundations for an entirely new political ideology, the Fourth Political Theory, which integrates and supersedes liberal democracy, Marxism, and fascism.[2] In this theory, the main subject of politics is not individualism, class struggle, or nation, but rather Dasein (existence itself).[13] According to Dugin, his aim is to take elements from all three, 'neutralise and decontaminate' negative aspects such as racism (in the case of fascism) and incorporate them into this new ideology. He refers to this ideology as a 'timeless, non-modern theory' valid for all time.
Dugin views liberalism as having 'defeated all its competitors'. He refers to the derision of the past by liberals and the modern concept of 'progress' as being seriously flawed, going so far as to describe it as racism and even 'moral genocide against the past'.[2]
From the three other political theories, he discards the aspects he finds unacceptable and highlights what he sees as the positive qualities. He combines them to form a new political theory based on the 'ethnos', describing this as ‘the greatest value of the Fourth Political Theory as a cultural phenomenon; as a community of language, religious belief, daily life, and of sharing resources and efforts; as an organic entity’.[2]
Platform
The Eurasia Party is based around the following five principles:
It is a social conservative party, believing that the development of the market must serve the national interest. Interests of the state are in command and administrative resources must be nationalized.
With respect to foreign policy, the Eurasia Party believes that:
A path the West has taken is destructive. Its civilization is spiritually empty, false and monstrous. Behind economic prosperity is a total spiritual degradation.
The exceptional character of Russia, its difference from both West and East, is a positive value. It must be saved, developed and taken care of.
From the cultural, social and political points of view, Europe is close to the United States, but its geopolitical, geostrategic and economic concerns are on the contrary close to Russia-Eurasia.
Domestic policy
With respect to Russia's domestic policies, the Eurasia Party intends to:
Promote Eurasist federalism by conferring the status of political subjects onto the ethno-cultural formations and by enforcing the principles of the rights of the peoples.
^Andreas Umland; Steffen Kailitz (2017). "Why fascists took over the Reichstag but have not captured the Kremlin: a comparison of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia". Nationalities Papers. 45 (2).
^Dugin, Alexander (2012). The Fourth Political Theory. Translated by Mark Sleboda; Michael Millerman. Arktos Media. p. 213.
^Kipp, Jacob W. (September 2002). "Aleksandr Dugin and the ideology of national revival: Geopolitics, Eurasianism and the conservative revolution". European Security. 11 (3): 91–125. doi:10.1080/09662830208407539. S2CID153557856.
^Burbank, Jane (22 March 2022). "The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved 23 March 2022. After unsuccessful interventions in post-Soviet party politics, Mr. Dugin focused on developing his influence where it counted — with the military and policymakers… In Mr. Dugin's adjustment of Eurasianism to present conditions, Russia had a new opponent — no longer just Europe, but the whole of the 'Atlantic' world led by the United States. And his Eurasianism was not anti-imperial but the opposite: Russia had always been an empire, Russian people were 'imperial people,' and after the crippling 1990s sellout to the 'eternal enemy,' Russia could revive in the next phase of global combat and become a 'world empire.' On the civilizational front, Mr. Dugin highlighted the long-term connection between Eastern Orthodoxy and Russian empire. Orthodoxy's combat against Western Christianity and Western decadence could be harnessed to the geopolitical war to come.
^"The Pan-Russian Social-Political Movement EURASIA: stages of our path". Eurasia. 1 March 2002. Retrieved 24 May 2014. 3. The EURASIA party is a traditionalist party. It is founded on a system of values elaborated through the centuries by the traditional Eurasian confessions – Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism. This is a very important point to us. We do not simply pay lip service to religion as to a cultural relic, as a tribute to polit-correctness. To revive the traditional faiths, to establish the dominant and founding role of religious values in the society, to fight for spirituality, intellectual development, higher ethic ideals – this the axial and main task of the party EURASIA. Our Church is separated from the State, and this is right; but she is inseparable from the society, culture, education, information. We stand today in a total crisis of moral and spiritual values. We resort to the traditional confessions as to a safe haven, we trust only them in this issue. The overwhelming majority of the members of EURASIA are believers, first of all Orthodoxes, then Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and so on.
