[Hweinlant]

Concept of Eurasia, EuroSiberia or whatever is something I'm totally against:

Few notes about RUSSIAN Eurasia:

I hope This Board really acknowledges this RUSSIAN NATIONALISM;

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Aleksandr Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics
John B. Dunlop
1
One perceptive observer of the Russian political scene, Francoise Thom, noted as far
back as 1994 that fascism, and especially its “Eurasianist” variant, was already at that time
displacing Russian nationalism among statist Russian elites as a post-communist “Russian Idea,”
especially in the foreign policy sphere. “The weakness of Russian nationalists,” she emphasized,
“stems from their inability to clearly situate Russian frontiers. Euras[ianism] brings an
ideological foundation for post-Soviet imperialism.”
2
There has probably not been another book published in Russia during the post-communist
period which has exerted an influence on Russian military, police, and statist foreign policy elites
comparable to that of Aleksandr Dugin’s 1997 neo-fascist treatise, Foundations of Geopolitics.
3
The impact of this intended “Eurasianist” textbook on key elements among Russian elites
testifies to the worrisome rise of fascist ideas and sentiments during the late Yeltsin and the Putin
periods.
The author of this 600-page program for the eventual rule of ethnic Russians over the
lands extending “from Dublin to Vladisvostok,” Aleksandr Gel’evich Dugin, was born in 1962,
1
The author would like most warmly to thank Robert Otto for his generous and extremely helpful bibliographical
assistance. Thanks are also due to Glen Howard for bringing several useful bibliographical items to my attention,
and to my research assistants, Joyce Cerwin and Yuliya Shmeleva, for their fine work.
2
Francoise Thom, “Eurasiansm: A New Russian Foreign Policy?” Uncaptive Minds, vol. 7, no. 2 (1994), p. 76.
3
Aleksandr Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1997), 600 pp.
The book was republished without change by Dugin in 1999, together with lengthy supplemental materials – of no
great significance – appended under the title “Myslit’ prostranstvom”: Aleksandr Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki:
Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii; Myslit’ prostranstom (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1999), 925 pp. My references
are to the 1997 edition.

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2
the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Russian military officers.
4
According to one recent
press report, Dugin’s father was a general in the GRU (Russian military intelligence).
5
By all
accounts, Dugin was a bright and precocious youth with a talent for learning foreign languages
(he is said to have mastered no fewer than nine of them). While still a teenager, he joined a
secretive group of Moscow intellectuals interested in mysticism, paganism, and fascism. Both
the “masters” of this group and their disciples engaged, inter alia, in translating the works of
foreign writers who shared their interests. As one of his contributions, Dugin completed a
translation of a book by the Italian pagan-fascist philosopher Julius Evola.
Dugin is reported to have been detained by the KGB for participating in this study group,
and forbidden literature was subsequently discovered at his apartment. According to one
account, he was then expelled from the Moscow Aviation Institute, where he had enrolled as a
student some time in the late 1970’s. According to another account, he eventually managed to
graduate from the institute.
6
In 1987, during the second year of Gorbachev’s period of rule, at a time when he was in
his mid-twenties, Dugin emerged as a leader of the notorious anti-Semitic Russian nationalist
organization, Pamyat’, headed by photographer Dmitrii Vasil’ev. During late 1988 and 1989,
Dugin served as a member of the Pamyat’ Central Council.
In 1989, taking advantage of increased opportunities to visit the West, Dugin spent most
of the year in travels to Western European countries. While there, he strengthened ties with
4
Unless otherwise indicated, the biographical information on Dugin provided in this paper comes from Stephen
Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), pp. 190-220.
5
See Nikita Kaledin, “Podpol’e vykhodit naruzhu,” Stringer-news.ru, 1 April 2003. By contrast, Geidar Dzhemal’,
who served as a kind of mentor for Dugin in the early-to-mid 1980’s, recently stated: “His [Dugin’s] father is a
general in the KGB…” (In Konservator, egk.ru, 11 April 2003). Given Dugin’s veneratin of the GRU in his early
writings, it seems more likely that his father served in the GRU.
6
Charles Clover, “Will the Russian Bear Roar Again?” Financial Times (December 12, 2000).

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leading figures of the European New Right, such as the Frenchman Alain de Benoist and the
Belgian Jean-Francois Thiriart. These contacts led to Dugin’s “belated reconciliation” with the
USSR, just as that state was approaching its final demise. It was, it appears, to a significant
extent as a result of these contacts with the European Nouvelle Droite that Dugin became into a
fascist theorist. On the subject of Dugin’s indubitable fascist orientation, Stephen Shenfield has
written: “Crucial to Dugin’s politics is the classical concept of the ‘conservative revolution’ that
overturns the post-Enlightenment world and installs a new order in which the heroic values of
the almost forgotten ‘Tradition’ are renewed. It is this concept that identifies Dugin
unequivocally as a fascist.”
7
By the beginning of the 1990’s, as the Soviet Union was approaching its collapse, Dugin
began to assume a more high-profile political role. He formed an association with “statist
patriots” in the communist camp and was, for a brief period, close to the leader of the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Genadii Zyuganov. According to Stephen
Shenfield, Dugin “probably played a significant part in formulating the nationalist communist
ideology that was Zyuganov’s hallmark.”
8
In 1991, the year that witnessed the end of the USSR, Dugin made the acquaintance of an
important neo-fascist writer with ties to elements in the Russian military, Aleksandr Prokhanov,
whose journal Den’ (subsequently renamed Zavtra), served as a key sounding-board for the “red-
7
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, p. 195. For a representative sample of Dugin’s theoretical fascist writings, see the
750-page volume: Aleksandr Dugin, Absolyutnaya rodina (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1999).
8
Ibid., p. 192.

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brown opposition.”
9
Dugin himself soon emerged as “one of the leading ideologists of Den’ in
its best period (1991-1992).”
10
From July of 1992 on, Dugin also began to edit his own journal, Elementy: evraziiskoe
obozrenie, which appeared twice yearly (later once a year) in a print run of 5,000-10,000. The
journal’s title was borrowed from that of the theoretical journal of the French New Right,
Elements, edited by Alain de Benoist. Concerning Dugin’s journal, Aleksandr Verkhovskii and
Vladimir Pribylovskii have noted: “In speaking of Elementy, one should not forget that half of
each issue is comprised of ‘geopolitical notebooks’ containing articles about the global
opposition of various civilizations, primarily Russia and the West…”
11
During the early 1990’s, Dugin founded his own publishing house, named “Arktogeya.”
This name was borrowed from that of the publishing house of German racist writer Guido von
List (1848-1918). It combines the ancient Greek words arktos (north) and gea or gaia (land), a
reference to the vanished polar continent that was supposedly the original home of the Aryans.
12
In 1991-1992, Prokhanov and Dugin attempted to form an alliance between certain
leaders of the European New Right and several department heads and professors at the Academy
of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The no. 1, 1992 issue of Elementy published
the transcript of an April 1992 roundtable, held on the premises of the academy, which included
Lieutenant General Nikolai Klokotov, head of the Academy’s strategy department; Lieutenant
General Nikolai Pishchev, deputy head of the same department; Major General Vladislav
9
On Prokhanov, see John B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, second expanded edition
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 169-177.
10
Aleksandr Verkhovskii and Vladimir Pribylovskii, Natsional-patrioticheskie organizatsii v Rossii (Moscow:
Izdatel’stvo ‘Institut eksperimental’noi sotsiologii,’ 1996), p. 50.
11
Ibid., p. 51.

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Iminov, head of the Academy’s department of military history; and “the leader of the European
New Right,” Alain de Benoist, as well as Jean Lalou, another New Right spokesman.
13
The commander of the General Staff Academy, General Igor’ Rodionov, was reported to
be “particularly well-disposed toward Dugin,” and Dugin’s ideas evidently continued to enjoy
his support once he became Russian Defense Minister in 1996-1997.
14
It may be of significance
that Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics was written during the time that Rodionov was serving
as defense minister.
15
The interest of the General Staff Academy and of the GRU in geopolitics and in
Eurasianism reached back some forty years. “Beginning in the 1950’s,” Francoise Thom has
remarked, “Soviet strategists like General Shtemenko and Admiral Gorshkov were inspired by
Eurasianist thinking.”
16
As for Dugin, he has singled out Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, a Soviet
military chief of staff in the early 1980’s, as “an outstanding geopolitician, strategist and
Eurasian.”
17
In 1993, Dugin joined his efforts to those of a charismatic demagogue, Eduard Limonov
(born 1943), and founded the National Bolshevik Party (NBP). As Verkhovskii and Pribylovskii
have pointed out, “The ideology of the National Bolshevik Party was fully generated by one man
– Aleksandr Dugin.”
18
While Limonov played the role of a fascist-style leader, Dugin served as
second-in-command and as the party’s chief theoretician. The new organization appears to have
12
Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1997), p. 395.
13
See “Rossiya, Germaniya i drugie,” Elementy, no. 1, 1992, pp. 22-25.
14
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, p. 198.
15
Clover, “Will the Russian Bear…”
16
Thom, “Eurasism…,” pp. 67-68.
17
Aleksandr Dugin, Konspiratologiya (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1993), p. 115.

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been more influenced by German than by Russian émigré National Bolshevism. The German
National Bolshevik Ernst Niekisch had “advocated a German-Russian alliance against the West.
In the Soviet Union, especially Stalin’s Soviet Union, many German nationalists [like Niekisch]
saw the logical fulfillment of the war against ‘Jewish capitalism’.”
19
In 1995, Dugin ran for the
Russian State Duma on a National Bolshevik platform but was resoundingly rejected by voters,
receiving a mere 0.85% of the vote.
20
In 1997, Dugin broke with the stormy Limonov and began a noteworthy political ascent.
In that same year, as has been mentioned, he brought out his Foundations of Geopolitics, one of
the more influential works of the post-communist period, written, it appears, with the assistance
of General Nikolai Klokotov of the General Staff Academy, who served as an official consultant
to the project. Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, head of the International Department of the
Russian Ministry of Defense, may also have served as an advisor.
21
Perhaps due in part to such
high-level input, “Dugin’s geopolitical ideas [as expressed in Foundations] are clearly much
more influential than are the other more openly mystical and esoteric sides of his philosophy.”
22
During the following year of 1998, Dugin’s career took a key step forward when he was
named an advisor on geopolitics to Gennadii Seleznev, chairman (or “speaker”) of the Russian
State Duma, a major player in Russian politics (for the month of June, 2001, Seleznev was
ranked the tenth most influential political figure in Russia by Nezavisimaya gazeta’s panel of
18
Verkhovskii and Pribylovskii, “Natsional-patrioticheskie organizatsii…,” p. 50.
19
Wayne Allensworth, The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization and Post-Communist Russia (Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), p. 257.
20
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, p. 194.
21
Clover, “Will the Russian Bear…”
22
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, p. 199.

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experts
23
). In the course of a March 1999 radio interview, Seleznev made public the fact that
Dugin was serving as one of his advisors and “he urged that Dugin’s geopolitical doctrine be
made a compulsory part of the school curriculum.”
24
Two years later, at the founding congress
of the new “Eurasia” movement, Dugin boasted, “I am the author of the book Foundation of
Geopolitics, which has been adopted as a textbook in many [Russian] educational institutions.”
During the same congress, the aforementioned General Klokotov – now a professor emeritus but
one who continued to teach at the academy – noted that the theory of geopolitics had been taught
as a subject at the General Staff Academy since the early 1990’s, and that in the future it would
“serve as a mighty ideological foundation for preparing a new [military] command.”
25
Dugin’s
book is presumably being used at present as a textbook at the General Staff Academy.
In 1999, Dugin’s publishing house brought out a volume of writings by the inter-war
émigré Eurasian writer, Prince Nikolai Trubetskoi. In his introduction to the volume, Dugin
wrote that Trubetskoi “can be termed the Eurasian Marx.”
26
It seemed that Dugin saw a similar
exalted role for himself as the formulator of a new “Russian Idea” at the dawn of a new century
and millennium.
Some time in late 1999, Dugin founded “The Center for Geopolitical Expertise” in
Moscow. In an article appearing in Zavtra, he speculated that this new center might shortly
become “an analytical instrument of the Eurasian Platform for, simultaneously, the Presidential
Administration, the Government of the Russian Federation, the Council of Federation, and the
23
“100 vedushchikh politkov Rossii v iyune,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 10 July 2001.
24
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, p. 197.
25
See “Stenogramma raboty uchreditel’nogo s’’ezda Obshcherossiiskogo Politicheskogo Obshchestvennogo
Dvizheniya ‘Evraziya,’ 21 aprelya 2001,” at ÅÂÐÀÇÈß
26
See the introduction by Dugin to Nikolai Trubetskoi, Nasledie Chingizkhana (Moscow: AGRAF, 1999), pp. 5-25.

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State Duma.”
27
In late March of 2000, in a second article appearing in Zavtra, Dugin offered a
vision of a future path-breaking role for the Russian secret police (which, of course, had until
recently been headed by the newly elected Russian president, Vladimir Putin). Whereas in his
1993 book, Konspiralogiya, Dugin had criticized the secret police for perceived “Atlanticist”
[i.e., pro-American and pro-British] sympathies, he now toasted the KGB (the initials he
preferred to FSB) as “a new caste, a new social stratum” called upon both to hold the line against
“American hegemony” and to “recreate a mighty Eurasian sovereign state” which would include
all of the CIS republics.
28
In August of 2000, after reading an article with which he agreed by “one of the chief
ideologists of the [Putin] Kremlin,” Gleb Pavlovskii, Dugin wrote the latter suggesting a
meeting. Pavlovskii, the creator of several influential pro-Kremlin web-sites, agreed to a
meeting. Commenting on this burgeoning relationship, journalist Andrei Kolesnikov remarked:
“Extreme right ideology is not only turning into the dominant view in Russian publications and
state rhetoric, it is also becoming fashionable in a salon sense.”
29
In November of 2000, shortly before undertaking a trip to Brunei, President Putin
declared publicly: “Russia has always perceived of itself as a Eurasian country.”
30
Dugin later
termed this statement “an epochal, grandiose revolutionary admission, which, in general,
changes everything. The prophecy of [French conspiratologist] Jean Parvulesco has come to
pass… There will be a Eurasian millennium.”
31
27
Aleksandr Dugin, “Evraziiskaya platforma,” Zavtra (January 21, 2000).
28
Aleksandr Dugin, “Zarya v sapogakh,” Zavtra (March 31, 2000).
29
Andrei Kolesnikov, “Posle podvodnoi lodki,” Izvestiya (August 29, 2000).
30
Vladimir Putin, “Rossiya vsegda oshchushchala sebya evroaziatskoi stranoi,” Strana.ru (November 13, 2000).
31
Posted on May 23, 2001 at: http://www.arctogaia.com/public/putin/htrr.

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On April 21, 2001, Dugin achieved new heights with the founding congress of the “Pan-
Russian Political Social Movement ‘Eurasia’.” The holding of this congress underscored the
close relations which Dugin had formed with present and especially former members of the
Russian special services. The congress took place in a hall belonging to the “Honor and
Dignity” Club, an organization of veterans of the special services and law enforcement
organizations. The head of the club, Vladimir Revskii, had earlier served in Vympel, a special
operations unit attached to the First Chief Directorate of the KGB (and, later, the SVR). Revskii
officially opened the congress and was later elected to membership in “Eurasia’s” ruling body,
the Political Council.
An even more noteworthy role was played at the congress by Petr Suslov, also a former
Vympel member, and a retired colonel in the SVR. Suslov served as head of the committee
which organized the congress and was then elected deputy leader of the new movement (with
Dugin being chosen the leader).
32
During the course of a July 2001 interview, Suslov confided
that he was a graduate of the Ryazan’ Paratroop School who had then “served in the structures of
the KGB… in a unit which conducted special operations abroad.”
33
In this capacity, he said, he
had served in Afghanistan, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. Retiring from the
SVR in 1995, he had later become a consultant on issues relating to the Caucasus for Duma
speaker Seleznev, which had provided him with an opportunity to meet Dugin, who was advising
Seleznev on geopolitical questions. The two soon realized that they agreed on many key
questions.
32
Yaroslava Zabello, “Evraziya – prevyshe vsego?” Transkaspiiskii proekt: informatsiono-analaticheskii server
(June 13, 2001).
33
Pavel Polnyan, “Sibir’ otchenlyaetsya legko,” Moskovskii komsomolts v Krasnoyarske, no. 29 (July 18, 2001), at:
http://arctogaia.krasu.ru/eurasia/dugin_krsk12.shtrr

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Writing for the Gleb Pavlovskii-sponsored SMI.ru, journalist Grigorii Osterman has
commented: “[Petr] Suslov himself enjoys broad connections within the leadership of the FSB
(there exists information that he is an external employee of the central apparatus of the FSB), as
well as in the Presidential Administration, bodies to which the leader of ‘Eurasia,’ Dugin, also
has entrée.”
34
“Dugin is already being perceived,” the weekly Obshchaya gazeta observed, “not
as the preacher of an ideological sect but as an officially recognized specialist on geopolitical
questions.”
35
In a similar vein, the investigative weekly, Versiya, observed in late May of 2001:
“Contacts between Pavlovskii and ‘Eurasia’ actually do occur, but most likely on the level of
personal consultations. Aleksandr Dugin and the head of Kremlin politico-technology enjoy
good, friendly relations.” Under Vladimir Putin, the newspaper continued, Dugin had become
“one of the drafters of the concept of national security.” It was noted that Dmitrii Ryurikov, a
leading advisor to President Yeltsin on foreign affairs, and the then Russian ambassador to
Uzbekistan, had agreed to become a member of “Eurasia’s” Central Council. Dugin’s new
organization, Versiya went on, was also engaged in “the preparing of analytical reports on
foreign affairs for the Presidential Administration…” As for the financial support of “Eurasia,”
the newspaper wrote: “The financial support of the movement comes through regional
organizations of the special services. And this support, according to our sources, is not small.
Moreover, not only finances are provided but also ‘necessary’ connections…”
36
In his address to the founding congress of “Eurasia,” Dugin first of all expressed his
gratitude to “the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation,” for its assistance,
34
Grigorii Osterman, “Esli vakhkhabizm ne sdaetsya, ego ipravlyayut,” SMI.ru (June 28, 2001).
35
Aleksandr Maksimov, Orkhan Karabaagi, “Oni v svoikh korridorakh,” Obshchaya gazeta (May 31, 2001).

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before proceeding also to thank the Moscow Patriarchate, the Central Spiritual Administration
for the Muslims of Russia, and other organizations.
37
On May 31, 2001, the Russian Ministry of
Justice officially registered the “Eurasia” movement, which was reported to have branches in
fifty regions of Russia.
38
In late June of 2001, “Eurasia” hosted an ambitious conference,
provocatively titled “Islamic Threat or a Threat to Islam?” held at the Presidential Hotel in
Moscow. The titular co-chairmen of the conference were Seleznev (who did not attend) and
Sheikh Talgat Tadzhuddin, the officially recognized head of the Muslims of Russia and the CIS
states.
39
By the summer of 2001, Aleksandr Dugin, a neo-fascist ideologue, had managed to
approach the center of power in Moscow, having formed close ties with elements in the
Presidential Administration, the secret services, the Russian military, and the leadership of the
State Duma. In an interview with the Krasnoyarsk division of Ekho Moskvy Radio on July 25,
2001, Dugin, commenting on Putin’s role at the recent G-8 meetings in Genoa, affirmed, “It is
my impression that in the international sphere Putin is splendidly realizing the Eurasian political
36
Latysheva, “Issledovateli…”
37
“Stenogramma…”
38
In Strana.ru (June 4, 2001).
39
Tadzhuddin was in fact recognized by a minority of the forty Muslim administrations in Russia but, on the other
hand, he was able to boast of “not at all bad connections with the [Russian] special services,” with whom he had
been cooperating since taking up his current post in 1980. See Maksimov and Karabaagi, “Oni v svoikh
korridorakh.” It should be noted that, on June 19, 2001, a rival organization of “Eurasians,” headed by State Duma
deputy Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov, held a founding congress for a new Eurasian Party of Russia (EPR). Niyazov is an
ethnic Russian (name: Vadim Medvedev), who converted to Islam in 1996. On July 26, 2001, the EPR, with
branches in seventy regions of Russia, was registered by the Russian Ministry of Justice. Dugin has assailed this
rival group as being witting tools of Saudi Arabia and of Wahhabism. On this rival Eurasian organization, see Novye
izvestiiya (June 30, 2001) and (July 27, 2001); Nezavisimaya gazeta (June 8, 2001) and (July 31, 2001); SMI.ru
(June 19, 2001); Moskovskii komsomolets (August 3, 2001); and NG-religii (August 8, 2001). For discussions of
the bitter feud between Dugin’s Eurasian organization and that of Niyazov, see Dmitrii Oreshkin, “Spor slavyan,”
Moskovskie novosti (April 15, 2003), and Arkadii Veselov, “Vesennee obostrenie evraziistvom,” Nezavismaya
gazeta, (May 21, 2003). Two recent articles on Niyazov’s organization are: “Novaya sila novoi Rossii,” Rossiiskaya
gazeta (July 24, 2003), and “Most v novuyu Rossiyu,” Nezavisimaya gazeta (July 29, 2003).

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model.”
40
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist incidents in New York City and
Washington, DC, Dugin’s opinion was solicited by a major Russian newspaper, along with the
views of the secretary of the Russian Security Council, the speaker of the Federation Council and
various Duma faction leaders, which testifies to the perceived influence which Dugin was seen to
wield at that time in Russia.
41
Several Russian journalists underscored that Dugin-style “Eurasianism” met a number of
political needs in Russia. A belief in the primacy of the rights of the individual over those of the
state, one journalist, Evgenii Ikhlov wrote, would result in the control of civil society over the
state. In Russia, by contrast, Ikhlov continued,
[O]ur new chief stratum are incapable of ruling under such a democracy… [T]hey stand
in need of an attractive foundation for another, non-democratic model. Here Eurasianism
extraordinarily fits the bill. It offers the following: an authoritarian-charismatic
(autocratic) model; selfless and ascetical serving of the regime as the highest form of
valor (the messianic great power syndrome); the agreement of ethnic and religious
minorities to play a subordinate role; and imperial xenophobia…”
42
“What induces the regime to seek a new ideology in Eurasianism?” another journalist,
Dmitrii Radyshevskii, asked. And he answered:
Here [in Dugin-style Eurasianism] there are ideas which meet the psychological needs of
society: there is an alternative to the failed love affair with the West; there is the
[Russian] tradition of messianism; and there is the proximity of Asia… The regime
stands in need of a new ideology, but of a traditional one, ‘integral and great.’ All of this
is happily combined in Eurasianism…”
43
40
A. Dugin, “Interv’yu dlya ‘Ekho Moskvy-Krsnoyarsk’,” 25 iyulya 2001, posted at:
http://arctogaia.krasu.ru/eurasia/dugin_int_1.shtm.
41
See “Rossiya dolzhna uchest’ oshibki Ameriki,” Nezavisimaya gazeta (September 13, 2001). For Dugin’s take on
the September 11
th
events, see his “Lastochki Apokalipsa,” (September 12, 2001), at
ËÀÑÒÎ×ÊÈ ÀÏÎÊÀËÈÏÑÈÑÀ.
42
Evgenii Ikhlov, “Oni v svoikh korridorakh: Dve storony novogo evraziistva,” Obshchaya gazeta (August 2,
2001).
43
Dmitrii Radyshevskii, “Soblazn evraziistva,” Moskovskie novosti, no. 18 (May 1-14, 2001).

Page 13
13
The Geopolitics of Dugin’s 1997 Book
Dugin’s militant views on geopolitics, as expressed in his 1997 “textbook,” will
presumably strike Western readers as both crude and mad, representing but a slight improvement
over, say, the ravings of Duma deputy speaker Vladimir Zhirinovskii. While Dugin’s ideas and
prescriptions are indeed extreme, dangerous and repellent, it should be emphasized that they are
very much in the tradition of the writings of inter-war fascists and of adherents of the European
Nouvelle Droite. Historically speaking, fascist “thought” has more than once resulted in
explosive expansionism. It should be noted, moreover, that Dugin does not focus primarily upon
military means as a way of achieving Russian dominance over Eurasia; rather he advocates a
fairly sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by
the Russian special services, supported by a tough, hard-headed use of Russia’s gas, oil, and
natural resource riches to pressure and bully other countries into bending to Russia’s will. While
Dugin, apparently, does not in the least fear war, he would prefer to achieve his geopolitical
goals without resorting to it.
Drawing on the extensive twentieth century literature on geopolitics – and especially on
the inter-war German school of Karl Haushofer – Dugin posits a primordial, dualistic conflict
between “Atlanticism” (sea-faring states and civilizations, such as the United States and Britain)
and “Eurasianism” (land-based states and civilizations such as Eurasia-Russia).
44
As Wayne
Allensworth has noted, once one penetrates below the surface of Dugin’s seemingly rational and
scholarly language in Foundations of Geopolitics, one becomes aware that “Dugin’s geopolitics
are mystical and occult in nature, the shape of world civilizations and the clashing vectors of
44
For a useful survey of the twentieth century Western geopolitical literature, see Geoffrey Parker, Western
Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century (London: Croom Helm, 1985). Chapter five of Parker’s book is
devoted to “German Geopolitik.”

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historical development being portrayed as shaped by unseen spiritual forces beyond man’s
comprehension.”
45
In Dugin’s treatise, as Allensworth underscores, the author has appropriated
almost wholesale “the idea” of Belgian geopolitician Jean Thiriart, who “recognized the
Russified Soviet Union as the final bastion of civilization in a Europe overrun by rootless
American consumerism.” Thiriart had earlier advocated the formation of a new “Holy Alliance”
of the USSR and Europe aimed at constructing a “Euro-Soviet Empire,” which would stretch
from Vladivostok to Dublin and would also need to expand to the south, “since it required a port
on the Indian Ocean.”
46
The Gorbachev Debacle
The Gorbachev years (1985-1991) represent, in the eyes of the author of Foundations of
Geopolitics, one of the most wrenching geopolitical defeats in the millennial history of Russia-
Eurasia-USSR. Beginning in 1989, it became clear that “no-one in the Soviet leadership was
capable of explaining the logic of traditional [Soviet] foreign policy and, as a result, there took
place the lightning-fast destruction of the gigantic Eurasian organism...” (p. 95).
47
Unexpectedly,
the USSR “found itself in almost the same situation as postwar Germany – its world influence
reduced to nothing, its territory sharply diminished, its economy and social sphere reduced to
ruins” (p. 96).
The Soviet disaster of 1989-1991, like the earlier German one, resulted, Dugin contends,
from a failure of the country’s leaders to heed the counsel of its geopoliticians. Hitler
disregarded the advice of Karl Haushofer and other specialists when he decided to invade the
45
Allensworth, The Russian Question, p. 249.
46
Ibid., p. 251.

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15
Soviet Union in 1941. In similar fashion, a “certain secret department of the GRU” and other
voices had long been advocating a “Eurasian” course for the USSR, but their advice went
unheeded (p. 103).
As Dugin sees it, the “project” which Westernizing Russian reformers attempted to
implement during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years has by now been fully discredited: “This
project denies such values as the people, the nation, history, geopolitical interests, social justice,
the religious factor, etc. In it, everything is constructed on the principle of maximal economic
effectiveness, on the primacy of the individual, on consumerism and the ‘free market’” (p. 179).
The Atlanticists (and, especially, the United States), Dugin believes, consciously plotted
the downfall of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. “The Heartland therefore is required to pay
back Sea Power in the same coin” (p. 367). The goal, as Dugin sees it, is to resuscitate and
reinvigorate Eurasia/Russia after the near-fatal geopolitical blows it absorbed in 1989-1991.
The current Russian Federation, which appeared in 1991 from under the rubble of the
USSR, is, Dugin emphasizes, not a full-fledged state but rather “a transitional formation in the
broad and dynamic global geopolitical process” (p. 183). The new states which have come into
existence on the space of the former Soviet Union also do not, with the sole exception of
Armenia, possess any markings of authentic statehood (p. 187). Rather they represent artificial,
ephemeral political constructs.
The ethnic Russian people, in contrast, are seen as “the bearers of a unique
civilization.”
48
Russians are a messianic people, who possess “universal, pan-human
significance” (p. 189). The Russian people, Dugin insists, can only serve as the core ethnos of a
47
Here and subsequently, the page numbers given in parentheses refer to the 1997 edition of Dugin’s book.
48
All italics appearing within quotations are those of Dugin.

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vast empire: “[T]he Russian people (= Russia) never made its goal the creation of a mono-
ethnic, racially uniform state” (p. 190). Such a distorted view represents “the Atlanticist line
masking itself as ‘Russian nationalism’” (p. 213).
“A repudiation of the empire-building function,” Dugin warns sternly, “would signify the
end of the Russian people as a historical reality, as a civilizational phenomenon. Such a
repudiation would be tantamount to national suicide” (p. 197). Deprived of an empire, Russians
will “disappear as a nation” (p. 251). The sole viable course, therefore, in Dugin’s view, is for
Russians to rebound from the debacle of 1989-1991 by recreating a great “supra-national
empire,” one in which ethnic Russians would occupy “a privileged position” (pp. 251-252). The
result of such a rebuilding effort would be “a giant continental state in the administration of
which they [Russians] will play the central role” (p. 253). This ethnic model, Dugin notes, is
quite similar to that of the former Soviet Union.
In order to facilitate the recreation of a vast Russia-dominated continental empire, Dugin
advocates the unleashing of Russian nationalist sentiment, but of a specific type. “This [Russian]
nationalism,” he writes, “should not employ state but, rather, cultural-ethnic terminology, with a
special emphasis on such categories as ‘Narodnost’’ and ‘Russian Orthodoxy’” (p. 255).
Religious sentiment, Dugin urges, should be placed front and center: “Russians should realize
that they are Orthodox in the first place; [ethnic] Russians in the second place; and only in the
third place, people” (p. 255). There is a need, Dugin goes on to insist, for the “total
churchification” of Russians, for the Russian nation to come to be viewed simply as “the
Church” (pp. 255-256). Such an emphasis, he believes, should – together with a persistent focus
on the glorious past and bright future of the Russian nation – help serve to bring about the
“demographic upsurge” so desperately needed by Russians today. Economic incentives by

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themselves will prove insufficient to promote such an upsurge (pp. 256-257). One “radical”
slogan, Dugin concludes, must be consistently put forward: “The nation is everything; the
individual is nothing” (p. 257). This slogan encapsulates one of Dugin’s most cherished beliefs.
Gutting Atlanticism
Employing the “strategy of the Anaconda” (a term borrowed by Dugin from inter-war
German geopoliticians and used by them in reference to Britain), the United States and its close
allies are seen as exerting unrelenting pressure on all of the coastal zones of Eurasia (pp. 103,
110). Following precepts enunciated by Francis Fukuyama among others, the United States
seeks to implant its own political and economic model throughout the globe (p. 127). Moreover,
following the prescriptions of Paul Wolfowitz, the United States attempts to reduce Russia’s role
to that of a lowly “regional power” (p. 199). In cynical fashion, the United States wants to
“transform Russia into an ‘ethnic reservation’ so that it can receive full control over the world”
(p. 169).
How is a revived Eurasian-Russian Empire to bring about “the geopolitical defeat of the
U.S.” (p. 260)? An appropriate response to the looming Atlanticist threat, Dugin contends, is for
the renascent Eurasian-Russian Empire to direct all of its powers (short of igniting a hot war), as
well as those of the remainder of humanity, against the Atlanticist Anaconda. “At the basis of
the geopolitical construction of this [Eurasian] Empire,” Dugin writes, “there must be placed one
fundamental principle – the principle of ‘a common enemy.’ A negation of Atlanticism, a
repudiation of the strategic control of the United States, and the rejection of the supremacy of
economic, liberal market values – this represents the common civilizational basis, the common
impulse which will prepare the way for a strong political and strategic union…” (p. 216). The

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anti-Americanism of the Japanese, “who remember well the nuclear genocide and the disgrace of
political occupation,” must be unleashed, as well as the fervent anti-Americanism of
fundamentalist Muslim Iranians (pp. 234 and 241). On a global scale, Dugin declares, “the main
‘scapegoat’ will be precisely the U.S…” (p. 248).
One way in which Russia will be able to effect a turning of other states against
Atlanticism will be an astute use of the country’s raw material riches. “In the beginning stage [of
the struggle against Atlanticism],” Dugin writes, “Russia can offer its potential partners in the
East and West its resources as compensation for exacerbating their relations with the U.S….” (p.
276). In order to induce the Anaconda to release its grip on the coastline of Eurasia, it must be
relentlessly attacked on its home territory, within its own hemisphere, and throughout Eurasia.
“All levels of geopolitical pressure,” Dugin insists, “must be activated simultaneously…” (p.
367).
Within the United States itself, there is a need for the Russian special services and their
allies “to provoke all forms of instability and separatism within the borders of the United States
(it is possible to make use of the political forces of Afro-American racists)” (p. 248). “It is
especially important,” Dugin adds, “to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American
activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively
supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing
internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support
isolationist tendencies in American politics…” (p. 367).
Dugin’s Eurasian project also mandates that the United States be attacked through
Central and South America. “The Eurasian project,” Dugin writes, “proposes Eurasian
expansion into South and Central America with the goal of freeing them from the control of the

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North…” (p. 248).
49
As a result of such unrelenting destabilization efforts, the United States and
its close ally Britain will eventually be forced to quit the shores of Eurasia (and Africa). “The
entire gigantic edifice of Atlanticism,” Dugin prophesies, “will collapse...” (p. 259). He believes
that this could happen unexpectedly, as occurred with the sudden collapse of the Warsaw Pact
and the USSR. Expelled from the shores of Eurasia, the United States would then be required to
“limit its influence to the Americas” (p. 367).
The Moscow-Berlin Axis
Within the territorial sprawl of Eurasia, Dugin’s program focuses upon the formation of
three key “axes”: Moscow-Berlin, Moscow-Tokyo, and Moscow-Teheran. With regard to the
future of Europe, Dugin writes: “The task of Moscow is to tear Europe away from the control of
the U.S. (NATO), to assist European unification, and to strengthen ties with Central Europe
under the aegis of the fundamental external axis Moscow-Berlin. Eurasia needs a united,
friendly Europe” (p. 369). In advocating such a path, Dugin appears to be influenced by the
writings of the European New Right who, from the 1970s on, argued for “the strict neutrality of
Europe and its departure from NATO” (p. 139). The basic principle underlying the Moscow-
Berlin axis, Dugin writes, will be “the principle of a common enemy [that is, the United States]”
(p. 216).
In exchange for cooperating with Russia in this project, Germany, Dugin proposes, ought
to be given back “Kaliningrad oblast’ (Eastern Prussia)” (p. 228). As a result of a Grand
49
In this connection, the following report is of interest. During a visit to Moscow in May of 2001, President Hugo
Chavez of Venezuela “indicated that he and Putin share a vision of a world in which power must be more evenly
distributed to offset the unipolar influence of the United States, and that his dream of a ‘Bolivaran Federation’ of
Caribbean and Latin American nations fits into that scheme.” Chavez made it clear that he and Putin “would work
together to form a strategic alliance against [the] U.S.” (Petroleumworld (May 15, 2001).

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20
Alliance concluded between Russia and Germany, the two countries will divvy up into de facto
spheres of dominance the territories lying between them. There is to be no “sanitary cordon.”
“The task of Eurasia,” Dugin emphasizes, “consists in making sure such a [sanitary] cordon does
not exist” (p. 370). Russia and Germany together, he insists, “must decide all disputed questions
together and in advance...” (p. 226).
The integration of swaths of Western and Central European territory into a German
sphere of dominance will be directly encouraged and abetted by Eurasia-Russia. The formation
of a “Franco-German bloc” is especially to be supported (p. 171). “In Germany and France,”
Dugin asserts, “there is a firm anti-Atlanticist tradition...” (p. 369). Germany’s influence will
also likely spread to the south – to Italy and Spain (p. 220). Only Britain, “an extraterritorial
floating base of the U.S.” is to cut off and shunned (p. 221).
Moving eastward, Dugin proposes that Germany be offered de facto political dominance
over most Protestant and Catholic states located within Central and Eastern Europe. The
“unstable” state of Finland, which “historically enters into the geopolitical space of Russia” is
seen as an exception (p. 316). In this instance, Dugin proposes that Finland be combined
together with the Karelian Autonomous Republic of the Russian Federation into a single ethno-
territorial formation “with maximal cultural autonomy, but with strategic integration into the
Eurasian bloc” (pp. 371-372). The northern regions of Finland, Dugin adds, should be excised
and donated to Murmansk oblast’.
On the subject of the Baltic states, Dugin proposes that Estonia be recognized as lying
within Germany’s sphere. A “special status,” on the other hand, should be accorded to both
Latvia and Lithuania, which suggests that they are to be allocated to the Eurasian-Russian
sphere. Poland, too, is to be granted such a “special status” (p. 372).

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With regard to the Balkans, Dugin assigns “the north of the Balkan peninsula from Serbia
to Bulgaria” to what he terms the “Russian South” (p. 343). “Serbia is Russia,” a subheading in
the book declares unambiguously (p. 462). In Dugin’s opinion, all of the states of the “Orthodox
collectivist East” will with time seek to establish binding ties to “Moscow the Third Rome,” thus
rejecting the snares of the “rational-individualistic West” (pp. 389, 393). The states of Romania,
Macedonia, “Serbian Bosnia,” and even NATO-member Greece will all, in time, Dugin predicts,
become constituent parts of the Eurasian-Russian Empire (pp. 346, 383).
As for the former union republics of the USSR situated within Europe, they all (with the
single above-noted exception of Estonia) should, in Dugin’s view, be absorbed by Eurasia-
Russia. “Belorussia,” Dugin asserts flatly, “should be seen as a part of Russia…” (p. 377). In
similar fashion, Moldova is seen as a part of what Dugin calls “the Russian South” (p. 343).
On the key question of Ukraine, Dugin underlines: “Ukraine as a state has no
geopolitical meaning. It has no particular cultural import or universal significance, no
geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness” (p. 377). “Ukraine as an independent state with
certain territorial ambitions,” he warns, “represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and,
without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental
politics” (p. 348). And he adds that, “[T]he independent existence of Ukraine (especially within
its present borders) can make sense only as a ‘sanitary cordon’…” (p. 379). However, as we
have seen, for Dugin all such “sanitary cordons” are inadmissible.
Three extreme western regions of Ukraine – Volynia, Galicia, and Trans-Carpathia –
heavily populated with Uniates and other Catholics could, Dugin speculates, be permitted to
form an independent “Western Ukrainian Federation.” But this area must not under any

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circumstances be permitted to fall under Atlanticist control (p. 382). With the exception of these
three western regions, Ukraine, like Belorussia, is seen as an integral part of Eurasia-Russia.
At one point in his book, Dugin confides that all arrangements made with “the Eurasian
bloc of the continental West,” headed by Germany, will be merely temporary and provisional in
nature. “The maximum task [of the future],” he underscores, “is the ‘Finlandization’ of all of
Europe…” (p. 369).
The Moscow-Tokyo Axis
The cornerstone of Dugin’s approach to the Far East lies in the creation of a “Moscow-
Tokyo Axis.” In relation to Japan, he emphasizes, “the principle of a common enemy [that is,
the United States]” will prove decisive (p. 234). As in the case of Germany, Japan is to be
offered an imperial Grand Bargain. Dugin recommends that the Kuriles be restored to Japan as
Kaliningrad is to be restored to Germany (p. 238). For future expansion purposes, Japan is to be
encouraged to impose “its own ‘new order,’ which it planned to carry out in the 1930’s, in the
Pacific Ocean” (p. 277).
Another important ally of Eurasia-Russia, Dugin notes, will be India, which, like Japan,
will be invited to join Russia in efforts to contain and perhaps dismember China. The two
Koreas and Vietnam will also be invited to participate in this effort (p. 360). Mongolia is seen as
constituting “a strategic ally of Russia” and is to be directly absorbed into Eurasia-Russia. (p.
363).
Like the United States, the People’s Republic of China is seen as constituting an
enormous danger for Eurasia-Russia. Once it rejected Mao’s healthy path of “peasant
socialism,” China set about instituting economic reforms which have been achieved “at the price

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of a deep compromise with the West” (pp. 232-233). China, in Dugin’s perverse view, verges
upon being an Atlanticist factotum.
At several points in his book, Dugin gives vent to a fear that China might at some time in
the future “undertake a desperate thrust to the North – into Kazakhstan and Eastern Siberia” (p.
172). In a section entitled (in English) “The Fall of China,” Dugin directly warns: “China is the
most dangerous geopolitical neighbor of Russia to the South” (p. 359). China, he maintains, is a
danger to Russia both “as a geopolitical base for Atlanticism and by itself, as a country with
heightened demographic compactness in quest of ‘no man’s land’” (p. 360).
Because of the threat to Russia’s vital geopolitical interests represented by China, Dugin
holds that the PRC must be dismantled. He underlines: “Tibet-Sinkiang-Mongolia-Manchuria
taken together comprise a security belt of Russia” (p. 363). Eurasia-Russia must seek at all costs
to promote “the territorial disintegration, splintering and the political and administrative partition
of the [Chinese] state” (p. 360). “Without Sinkiang and Tibet,” he concludes, “the potential
geopolitical breakthrough of China into Kazakhstan and Siberia becomes impossible” (p. 362).
As “geopolitical compensation” for the loss of its northern regions, China, Dugin
recommends, should be offered development “in a southern direction – Indochina (except
Vietnam), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia” (p. 363). These areas constitute China’s
appropriate sphere of dominance.
It should be noted that in the lengthy postscript section appended to the 1999 version of
Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin reaffirmed his belief in the need for Eurasia-Russia to effect a
dismembering of China (p. 781). In an interview given by Dugin in late July 2001, however, he
backed off slightly from this position – presumably in deference to Putin’s stated position on

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China – but only to a degree. He continued to insist that Russia’s relations with Japan, Iran, and
India were more vital and significant than those with China.
50
The Moscow-Teheran Axis
The most ambitious and complex part of Dugin’s program concerns the South, where the
focal point is a Moscow-Teheran axis. “The idea of a continental Russian-Islamic alliance,” he
writes, “lies at the foundation of anti-Atlanticist strategy… [T]his alliance is based on the
traditional character of Russian and Islamic civilization…” (p. 158). “On the whole,” he
continues, “the entire Islamic zone represents a naturally friendly geopolitical reality in relation
to the Eurasian Empire, since the Islamic tradition … fully understands the spiritual
incompatibility of America and religion. The Atlanticists themselves see the Islamic world, on
the whole, as their potential opponent” (p. 239).
As the result of an especially broad Grand Alliance to be concluded with Iran, Eurasia-
Russia, Dugin maintains, will enjoy the prospect of realizing a centuries-old Russian dream and
finally reaching the “warm seas” of the Indian Ocean. “In relation to the South,” he writes, “the
‘geopolitical axis of history’ [Russia] has only one imperative – geopolitical expansion to the
shores of the Indian Ocean” (p. 341). “Having received geopolitical access – in the first place,
naval bases – on the Iranian shores,” he writes, “Eurasia will enjoy full security from the strategy
of the ‘Anaconda ring’…” (p. 241). Eurasia-Russia and the Empire of Iran, he emphasizes, will
have “one and the same geopolitical tendency…” (p. 242).
As a consequence of this Grand Alliance, Eurasia-Russia, Dugin asserts, should be
prepared to divide up the imperial spoils with “the Islamic Empire in the South” (p. 239). After
50
Dugin, “Interv’yu dlya ‘Ekho Moskvy-Krasnoyarsk’.”

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asking the question “What is the Russian South?” Dugin answers that it includes “the Caucasus
[all of it]”; “the eastern and northern shores of the Caspian (the territories of Kazakhstan and
Turkmeniya)”; “Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirgiziya and Tajikistan”;
plus “Mongolia” (already discussed). Even these regions, he notes, should be seen “as zones of
further geopolitical expansion to the south and not as ‘eternal borders of Russia’” (p. 343).
“Control over the Caucasus,” Dugin notes at one point in the book, “opens … an exit to the
‘warm seas’…” (p. 349).
The extensive stretch of territory lying to the south of the Russian Federation is, thus, to
be divvied up with a future Iranian Empire and, it emerges, with Armenia as well. “A special
geopolitical role,” Dugin writes, “is played by Armenia, which is a traditional and reliable ally of
Russia in the Caucasus. Armenia will serve as a most important strategic base in the thwarting
of Turkish aggression to the north and to the east…” It is necessary, therefore, he maintains, to
create “the [subsidiary] axis Moscow-Erevan-Teheran” (p. 352). “The Armenians,” Dugin
underlines with approval, “are an Aryan people … [like] the Iranians and the Kurds” (p. 243).
Azerbaijan represents one example of how the trio Eurasia-Russia, Iran, and Armenia
might choose to divide up the spoils. “If Azerbaijan,” Dugin warns, “maintains its [present] pro-
Turkish orientation, then that ‘country’ will be split up among Iran, Russia and Armenia. Almost
the same holds true with regard to other regions of the Caucasus – Chechnya, Abkhaziya,
Dagestan, etc.” (p. 243). “It makes sense,” Dugin writes elsewhere, “to bind Azerbaijan to Iran”
(p. 352).
Dugin underlines that Kazakhstan will be integrated “into a common continental bloc
with Russia” (p. 354). Abkhaziya, too, will be tied “directly to Russia” (p. 351). A “united
Osetiya” might also, he speculates, be incorporated into Eurasia-Russia (p. 351). And as for the

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remaining parts of Georgia? Dugin implies that what remains of this Orthodox Christian country
after Russia absorbs Abkhaziya and South Osetiya might be turned over to Iran as booty,
appropriate punishment, presumably, for its prickly independent course toward Russia in the
post-communist period.
A key reason for concluding a Grand Alliance with Iran, Dugin explains, is Russia’s need
for a Muslim ally in its struggle against secular Turkey and “Islamic Saudi Arabia” with its
dangerous Wahhabism. Turkey, it emerges, is to be treated as harshly as the United States and
China. “It is important,” Dugin writes, “to take into consideration the necessity of affixing to
Turkey the role of ‘scapegoat’ in this [Eurasian] project” (p. 244). Kurds, Armenians, and other
Turkish minorities are to be provoked into rebellion. There is a need, Dugin stresses, to create
“geopolitical shocks” within Turkey (p. 352). Like Azerbaijan, Dugin predicts, Turkey could in
the future be dismembered by Eurasia-Russia, Iran and Armenia. If, however, such a
dismemberment should not occur, then, like China, Turkey must be encouraged to expand
exclusively southward, “into the Arab world through Baghdad, Damascus, and Riyadh…” (p.
244).
Conclusion
In a moment of exultant imperial elan, Dugin revealingly trumpets at one point in his
book: “The battle for the world rule of [ethnic] Russians has not ended” (p. 213). It is necessary
to speak the unvarnished truth. An official advisor on geopolitics to the speaker of the Russian
State Duma is a dangerous Russian fascist. As has been noted, Dugin also enjoys reported close
ties to elements in the Presidential Administration, the secret services, the military, and the
parliament. While Dugin’s influence should in no wise be exaggerated, it should also not be

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understated. One is required to ask whether Russian fascism – a tendency which exhibits
contempt both for international borders and for international law – has a realistic chance of
emerging as the “new political thinking” in international affairs in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In
late 1998, one Russian academic, Andrei Tsygankov, appropriately warned that the discourse of
Dugin and of like-minded “Eurasians” is in reality “the discourse of war.”
51
Interviewed by a journalist from the army newspaper Krasnya zvezda in May of 2001,
Dugin patiently explained: “Eurasian space is the territory of Russia, the countries of the CIS
and a part of the adjacent territories to the West and to the South, where there is no clear-cut
geopolitical orientation. All of this comprises Eurasian strategic space broadly understood.”
52
The army reporter offered no objections to this quite mad schema.
Aleksandr Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics, to sum up, represents a harsh and cynical
repudiation of the architecture of international relations which was laboriously erected following
the carnage of the Second World War and the emergence of nuclear weapons. With Dugin and
with his “system,” one has returned, it seems, to something like the combustible inter-war period
and to something akin to the rise of fascism in Europe, with the lurid imperial fantasies of the
Duce and the Fuhrer and other fascist demagogues. Could, one wonders, a reversion to a
destructive past be the “dividend” which Russia and the West are to receive for having finally
and with enormous effort put an end to the Cold War?
Postscript—Aleksandr Dugin after 11 September 2001
In the period directly following the attacks upon the United States on 11 September 2001,
Dugin’s political stock in Russia appeared at first to be as high as ever. Over the course of a
51
Andrei P. Tsygankov, “Hard Line Eurasianism and Russian Contemporary Geopolitical Perspectives,” East
European Quarterly (Fall 1998), pp. 323 and 329.
52
“Geopolitika. Evraziiskii milliard.”

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single week in late September, he was, for example, featured twice on the pages of the military
daily, Krasnaya zvezda.
53
From September through December 2001, Dugin continued to benefit
from broad exposure in the Russian media. He exploited this situation to launch one assault after
another against what he considered to be deeply flawed policy decisions on the part of the
Russian leadership vis-à-vis the American military buildup in Afghanistan and, especially, on the
subject of the obtaining by the U.S. of basing rights in former Soviet Central Asia.
Comparing the attacks of 11 September to such key historical events as the assassination of
Archduke Ferdinand and the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Dugin decreed that the twenty-
first century “has begun as an epoch in the hegemony of the U.S. in the world, as a mono-polar
world.”
54
In Dugin’s perverse view, it was the United States government itself that was behind
the events of 11 September, events which had been unleashed to distract the American public
from the weak state of the country’s economy. “Whoever was the author of the terror acts,”
Dugin commented to a Kazakhstani publication, “had to be a very serious structure, and only the
U.S. is that.”
55
By conducting an all-out assault on Islamic radicalism, the U.S., as Dugin saw it, had directly
endangered the Russian state, not to speak of his own cherished Eurasian project. As a result of
the assault by the U.S. on the Taliban, “the situation will be destabilized throughout the world
wherever there is an Islamic populace. In addition to Islamic states, this zone includes Eurasia,
53
See Krasnaya zvezda (September 22 and 26, 2001).
54
In Krasnaya zvezda (September 22, 2001).
55
In www.navigator.kz (23 October 2001).

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Russia, and Europe…. Henceforth Russia must live in an infinitely less secure position… The
situation seems to me to be catastrophic.”
56
How should Russia have reacted to the vigorous American response to the events of 11
September? What Russia should have done, Dugin insisted, was to announce that it intended “to
preserve full neutrality” with regard to the conflict in Afghanistan and that it would remain true
to the “multi-polar model of the world.” Russia should have come to immediate agreement
“with China, India, Iran and other Islamic countries concerning the elaboration of a single
strategy.”
57
What particularly exercised Dugin was the fact that recent polls suggested that the Russian
populace shared his ideas and not those of the Russian leadership. He cited the results of a
public opinion survey conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion
(VTsIOM) on 2-5 November 2001: 71% of respondents in that poll believed that Russia
belonged to a “‘Eurasian’ or Orthodox civilization” and that a Western path of development was
thus unsuitable for the country; only 13% of respondents deemed Russia to be “a part of Western
civilization.”
58
During the first three months of 2002, Dugin virtually disappeared from the pages of the
Russian press. Presidential disfavor may have been a factor behind this (temporary) change in
status. In mid-January 2002, Putin, during a state visit to Poland, affirmed unambiguously:
“Russia is a European country and not a Eurasian one, if one takes into account the cultural
56
From Dugin’s press conference held at the “Mir novostei” press center in Moscow on 5 October 2001; for the text
of Dugin’s comments see: Íàöèîíàëüíàÿ Èäåÿ .
57
In www.navigator.kz (October 23, 2001).
58
The polling results were posted by Dugin at ARCTOGAIA on November 26, 2001.

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criteria proposed by [the late] Academician Dmitrii Likhachev.”
59
These comments may have
been directed, inter alia, at Dugin and his followers.
The Founding of the “Eurasia” Political Party
By the spring of 2002, Dugin had managed to emerge from brief obscurity and to reclaim and
perhaps increase the level of political influence that he had enjoyed before the events of 11
September 2001. On 30 May 2002, the founding congress of the “Eurasia” Political Party,
headed by Dugin, was held in Moscow. At that time, the political-social movement “Eurasia”
was officially transformed into a political party of the same name. A total of 204 delegates
representing fifty-nine regions of the Russian Federation were in attendance. It was announced
at the congress that the new party, which was said to number 10,000 members nation-wide,
intended to compete for seats in the State Duma during the forthcoming December 2003
elections. It was apparently a perceived strong need to involve Dugin and his new party in the
Duma election effort that induced the Russian Presidential Administration to rescue them from
temporary obscurity.
Keynote addresses to the May 2002 congress were made by Dugin and by Talgat Tadzhuddin,
chairman of the Central Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Russia and the European
Countries of the CIS. In his speech, Dugin underlined that his new party would be promoting
“scientific patriotism based on geopolitics.” Among the goals of the new party were:
“immediately to set about transforming the CIS and the Eurasian Economic Community into a
‘Eurasian Union’”; to oppose America-centric “globalism”; and the conjoining of the peoples
and religious confessions of Russia into a harmonious “Eurasia-wide nationalism.”
60
59
In Strana.ru (January 17, 2002).
60
On the congress, see Eurasia.ru.com (May 13, 2002 and 31 May 31, 2002); APN.ru, (June 3, 2002); and
Interfax.ru, (June 28, 2002).

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Letters of greeting were read to the participants in the new political party’s founding congress
from Aleksandr Voloshin, head of the Russian Presidential Administration, and from Aleksandr
Kosopkin, head of the Main Department for Domestic Politics of the Presidential Administration.
Representatives of the Russian Orthodox, Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish confessions participated
in the work of the gathering.
61
During mid and late 2002, evidence concerning Dugin’s increased political clout began to
mount up. It was reported, for example, that Dugin was serving as an informal advisor to
Aleksandr Voloshin and that he was preparing various draft programs for him and for the
Presidential Administration.
62
At the same time, Dugin continued to serve as an advisor “on
geopolitics and national security” to Duma speaker Gennadii Seleznev.
63
In addition, Dugin was
named a member of the prestigious Experts’ Council of ORT state television. The thirty-five
members of this council were reported to be meeting once a week to advise the ORT
management on programming issues.
64
One reason that Dugin succeeded in reclaiming a position of influence may have been
connected with the somewhat more nuanced view of the Russian leadership’s policies that the
Eurasian leader began to articulate. The most detailed expression of this attempt at political fine-
tuning occurred in the course of an interview that he gave to the newspaper Versiya in June of
2002.
65
61
See Eurasia.ru.com (May 31, 2002).
62
APN.ru (July 16, 2002).
63
Zvezda.ru (August 29, 2002).
64
Gazeta.ru (July 26, 2002).
65
“Zadacha Putina sozdat’ v Rossii stabil’nyi politicheskii rezhim,” Versiya (3 June 3, 2002).

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32
During this interview, Dugin expressed a recognition that Putin was required to tack
politically between the positions of those who wanted a “strong hand” and “a patriotic
orientation” and those who favored Western values. According to recent public opinion polls, he
underlined, 71% of Russians are patriots while only 13% are enamored of Western-style
liberalism. Before the upcoming Russian parliamentary and presidential elections, therefore, it
seemed inevitable that “statist initiatives will receive a new impulse.” The Eurasian Party that he
heads, Dugin emphasized, has a greatly superior ideology, for example, to that of the lackluster
pro-Putin “Edinaya Rossiya.” Putin, Dugin concluded, stands today in strong political need of a
“Eurasian flank,” and the Eurasia Party is happy to provide it.
Dugin Emerges as a Virulent Critic of the U.S.-led War in Iraq
Like the events following 11 September 2001, the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and its
coalition partners and the war that accompanied it during March-April of 2003 (the conflict was
officially declared by the U.S. to be over in May) served once again to move Dugin and his
views close to the center of the Russian political stage. During this charged period, he published
a large number of articles in the Russian press, granted numerous interviews to the media and
participated in a plethora of round-table discussions.
66
Like a number of statist Russian
intellectuals, Dugin suspected (and clearly hoped) that the United States would come a cropper
in the conflict. Dugin and his close ally, leading spinmeister Gleb Pavlovskii, one website,
Stringer-news.ru, noted acidly in mid-April, had been engaged in “fomenting anti-American
sentiments in Russian society” and in maintaining that “Russia was close to the Arab world and
would fuse with it in ecstasy,” when “suddenly it was made clear that it [their position] had been
66
For a sample, see Argumenty i fakty (April 2, 2003); Versiya, (April 7, 2003); Konservator, (April 11, 2003);
Komsomol’skaya Pravda, (April 16, 2003); Izvestiya (April 24, 2003).

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a mistake! A terrible unforgivable mistake! The vengeful Americans had already placed Russia
on the black list of their opponents or of their unreliable partners.”
67
Left in an even more
exposed position than Dugin was his close political ally, Talgat Tadzhuddin, who “on 3 April
[2003] had declared a jihad against the U.S. in connection with the war in Iraq.”
68
That Dugin had been intentionally fomenting violent anti-Americanism could scarcely be
doubted. “I believe,” he asserted in mid-May of 2003, “that the chief enemies of Russia are the
two Bushes—both Bush senior and junior—plus Bill Clinton. And also certain advisors of the
Russian president…who are adherents of a pro-American course.”
69
“Bush today is a new
Hitler,” he trumpeted in late May.
70
Despite a widespread perception that he had overreached
politically, Dugin nonetheless continued to enjoy fairly extensive access to the Russian media.
Dugin’s “Eurasia” Prepares for the December 2003 Duma Elections
At the end of February 2003, Dugin had entered into negotiations with a leading Russian
politician, Duma deputy Sergei Glaz’ev, concerning the possible creation of a “left patriotic”
coalition that would link “Eurasia” and Glaz’ev’s “Party of the Russian Regions.” Glaz’ev was a
leading economist of quasi-socialist inclinations and a corresponding member of the Russian
Academy of Sciences. On 1 March 2003, Glaz’ev participated as a guest in a meeting of
Dugin’s party held at the Presidential Hotel in Moscow; on 19 May, Dugin, in turn, attended a
conference hosted by Glaz’ev.
71
67
“Rossiya snova sobiraetsya lyubit’ Ameriku do drozhi v kolenyakh!” Stringer-news.ru (April 11, 2003).
68
In Íîâîñòè ìèðà ðåëèãèé. Îáùåñòâî è ðåëèãèÿ. ÑÌÈ è ëèòåðàòóðà î âåðå è êîíôåññèÿõ. (April 16, 2003).
69
“Kto glavnyi vrag Rossii?” Komsomol’skaya Pravda (May 15, 2003), round-table discussion.
70
Carried by IMA-press in Moscow, (May 25, 2003).
71
On this, see Kreml.org, (July 24, 2003), and glazev.ru (August 4, 2003).

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On 24 July 2003, at the Hotel Rossiya in central Moscow, a closed meeting was held of the
Political Council of “Eurasia.” At this meeting, it was resolved to support the creation of a “left-
patriotic bloc” with Glaz’ev and his party. “According to the unanimous opinion of the
participants of the enlarged political council,” a report concerning the meeting observed, “S.
Glaz’ev is at the present moment the optimal political figure for the consolidation of the broadest
spectrum of left patriotic forces.”
72
In a statement appearing on a web-site affiliated with
Glaz’ev’s organization, Dugin was quoted as maintaining: “The bloc of Glaz’ev today has the
best chance of all the new forces seeking to participate in the elections. It has all chances not
only to break the 5% barrier but to gain much more than that.”
73
While Dugin asserted that the new bloc would be a “protest” one that was “oppositional” in
orientation, he was (and not for the first time) being misleading. As a number of political
commentators pointed out, the new coalition—which aspired to involve other parties as well--
was being brought to life through the intensive efforts of Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of the
Russian Presidential Administration, a close ally of Aleksandr Voloshin. The aim behind the
creation of the new bloc was patently to have it take votes away from Gennadii Zyuganov’s
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF). Indeed in late April of 2003, Dugin had
participated in a conference organized by Kremlin “political technologists” in which the creation
of a “KPRF-2” had been openly discussed.
74
On 11 August 2003, Zyganov charged bitterly:
“Sergei Glaz’ev is being pushed by the Presidential Administration headed by Aleksandr
Voloshin and Vladislav Surkov into the creation of a left patriotic bloc.”
75
72
See “Partiya ‘Evraziya’ voidet v blok Glaz’eva,” Press-center@evrazia.org, (July 24, 2003).
73
In avtr.ru, (August 5, 2003).
74
Aleksandr Anokhin, “KPRF-2 budet osnovana na religii I levykh ideyakh,” Versiya (April 28, 2003).
75
“Glaz’ev postavil Zyuganovu ul’timatum,” Gazeta.ru (August 11, 2003).

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By late July of 2003, discussions were being held concerning precisely which three Russian
politicians should head the so-called troika on the “party list” of the new bloc as it began to
prepare to contest the Duma elections. Dugin appears to have entertained hopes that he might be
able to capture the No. 3 slot in the troika, following Glaz’ev and, perhaps, Dmitrii Rogozin, the
well-known chair of the State Duma’s Committee on International Affairs.
76
On 6 August 2003,
it was reported, however, that Vladislav Surkov of the Presidential Administration had confirmed
soon-to-retire Colonel General Georgii Shpak, the commander of the Russian Airborne Forces,
for the No. 3 spot.
77
The situation remained volatile and extremely fluid, however, and there
remained at least a distant chance that Dugin might be able to break into the coalition’s election
troika.
78
That the Kremlin would even contemplate assisting the placing of a figure such as
Dugin on the troika of an electoral bloc having what some commentators saw as a realistic
prospect of breaking the 5% barrier constituted grounds for concern.
76
Ol’ga Tropkina, “Glaz’ev snizoshel do Dugina,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, (July 28, 2003).
77
In newizv.ru (August 6, 2003).
78
On August 9, 2003, it was reported that Dugin had met that same day with Glaz’ev. Dugin confirmed his
readiness to support Glaz’ev in the formation of a new bloc and “to present a list of members of the [“Eurasia”]
party who would appear on the federal and regional election lists of the bloc that was being formed.” (press-
center@evrazia.org [August 9, 2003])