The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory

ALEXANDER DUGIN

The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory

The Fourth Political Theory vol. II

Arktos: London, 2017

Contents

Part I: Democracy and Conservatism

Chapter 1: Democracy: Sacred or Secular?

Democracy as an Archaic Phenomenon: Collective Ecstasy

Democracy is Founded on Inequality, Idiotes

Political Modernization: From Democracy to Tyranny

The Paradox of the Renaissance: Forward to Antiquity

Archaic Signs of Modern Democracies: Suffragists and Hitler

Global Democracy as the Kingdom of the Anti-Christ

Chapter 2: Conservatism as a Project and Episteme

The Inadequacy of Common Presentations of Conservatism

The Philosophy of History and Diachronism

The Conservative and the Constant

Being is More Primary Than Time

The Conservative Project and Its Metaphysics

The Coming-to-be and the Coming-forth in Christian Eschatology

The Conservative Project Against Technology

The Conservative Episteme

Humanism as a Weapon of the Conservative

Empire — A Big Man

The Trichotomy of Empire

The Value of War

The Tripartite Structure of the Conservative Episteme

Part II: Empire and the Eurasian Idea

Chapter 3: The West and its Challenge

What Do We Understand By The West?

Europe and Modernity

The Idea of Progress as the Basis for Political Colonization and Cultural Racism

The Archaic Roots of Western Exclusiveness

Empire and its Influence on Contemporary Westernization

Modernization: Endogenous and Exogenous

Two Types of Society with Exogenous Modernization

The Conception of West and East in the Yalta World

In the 1990s the West Becomes Globalization

Globalization

Post-Modernity and the West

The Post-West

The Gap Between the Theory and Practice of Globalism

USA and the EU: The Two Poles of the Western World at the Start of the 21st Century

The Identity of Russia: Country or...?

Russia as a Civilization (Cultural-Historical Type)

Russia and the West in the 1990s

The Strategy of World Government in Relation to the USSR and Russia

Russia and the West in the Putin Era

Challenge to the West

CFR Networks in the Putin Period

Relations of Russia and the West in the Future

Perestroika 2: Russia Integrates into the Global West

Russia and the West in Eurasian Theory

Russia and the West From the Perspective of the Contemporary Russian Government

The Subjective Position of the Author

Chapter 4: Carl Schmitt’s Principle of Empire and the Fourth Political Theory

The Order of Large Spaces

The Monroe Doctrine

The Juridical Status of the Monroe Doctrine: Politics and the Law, Legality and Legitimacy

The Evolution of the Monroe Doctrine

The Large Space and Reich in Schmitt’s Understanding

The Soviet Large Space or Russian Reich

The New Relevance of the Fourth Political Theory

Chapter 5: The Project Empire

Empire without an Emperor

Empire as the Optimal Instrument for the Making of Civil Society

The Definition of Empire

The Empire of the Neo-Cons (Benevolent Empire)

Negri and Hardt’s Criticism of Empire

Alternatives to Global Empire: The Extension of the Yalta-Based Status Quo

The Islamic Empire (The Global Caliphate)

The European Union: A Teetering Empire

Russian Defeatists

The Anti-Imperialist Supporters of Russian Sovereignty

The Eurasianist Empire of the Future

CIS — The Site of the Future Empire

Empire After Tskhinvali

Friendly Empire — The Eurasian Axis

Eurasianism as an Imperial Ideology

Chapter 6: Eurasianism (A Political Poem)

Eurasianism as Philosophy (What is Philosophy?)

The Narod is Love

The Russian Body

The Gift of Language

A Russian Falls Asleep and Awakens

The Russian Person as an Absolute

The Narod’s Borders

State-Hedgehog12

The Spirit of the Earth

Territorial Space as a Form of Life

Living Borders

The Serbian Mountain

Eternity in Your Palms

There is No Time

For the Absolute Against the Relative

The Absolute Motherland

Russia is an Ontological Concept

The Individualization of Supra-Individual Experience

The Ontological Map of the World (Suhrawardi)

The Wellsprings of Western Exile

The Journey to the Country of the East

The Integration of the West into Eurasia (Descent into Hell)

The Purple Archangel of Russia

Spiritual Teaching: The Call to Repentance

Eurasian Truth

Eurasian Analysis

The Eurasian Language

The Eurasian Forecast

Eurasian Discipline is the Root of Freedom

Atlanticism is Absolute Evil

MTV — The Personification of the Abomination of Desolation: The Imperative of Relaxation

The Entropic Ontology of the Far West (Behind the Pillars of Hercules)

Polarity of Signs

The Problem of the I

A Name is Serious

The Heresy of Individualism

Man is Simply a Conditionality

The Imperative of Struggle

We are Going Beyond the Horizon

Grass Through Asphalt

The Eurasian Ark

The Eurasian Network

Of Eurasian Affairs

A Simplification of Eurasianism

The Attraction of Allies

Eurasian Strength

Eurasian Goals

Part III: The Russian Behemoth

Chapter 7: The Structure of Russia’s Sociogenesis

The Formula of Russia’s Sociogenesis: Constants and Variables

Clarification of the Constants

Clarification of the Variables

Varieties of States

The Consolidated Schema

Varieties of Society

The Political-Economic Forms are Irrelevant

The Russian Axis

Russia’s Ethnic Core — the Russian Narod — Russian Civilization

The Russian Axis of Constants

Civilization and Government

The Fraction Society/Narod

Sociogenesis and the Analysis of Present Russian Society

The Contradiction Between the Constants and the Variables in Today’s Russia

The Party of the Constants and The Party of the Variables

A Forecast of Russia’s Future Social System

Chapter 8: The Russian Leviathan (State Terror)

Fear as Trembling

Hobbes and His Monster

The Russian Behemoth

Why is there Repression? Four Main Principles

The Proportions of Fear in Various Stages of Russian History

A Digression on The Freedom Loving and Recalcitrant Russian Narod

The Russian Leviathan Today

What Should We Do?

There Are — There Cannot Fail to Be — Ways Out

Chapter 9: Questioning Modernization

Chapter 10: Interests and Values After Tskhinvali

Revival of the Debate

Interests and Rules

From Interests to Values

The US Declared Its Interests Universal Values

Western Values Are Not Universal; Different Peoples Have Other Values

Russia is not a European Country, but a Eurasian Civilization

Tskhinvali Put an End to the Debate about Values

We Defended Our Values — Hence, We’re Right

We Defended Our Interests — Hence, We Are Strong

The End of Westernism in Russia

Appendixes

Alexander Dugin on Martin Heidegger

The Four Political Theories

Other Books Published by Arktos

Published in 2017 by Arktos Media Ltd.

Arktos.com | Facebook | X | Instagram

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means (whether electronic or mechanical), including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United Kingdom.

Translator

Michael Millerman

Editor

Jason Reza Jorjani

Cover and Layout

Tor Westman

ISBN

978-1-912079-55-1 (Softcover)

978-1-912079-54-4 (Hardback)

978-1-912079-53-7 (Ebook)

Part I: Democracy and Conservatism

Chapter 1: Democracy: Sacred or Secular?

In relation to democracy, there exist a multitude of erroneous myths. Most people are certain that this is the most contemporary, developed, civilized form of political organization, founded on the principle of the political equality of all individuals in a concrete society. To put it mildly, this is not at all so.

Democracy as an Archaic Phenomenon: Collective Ecstasy

Democracy is the most ancient, archaic, primitive and, if you prefer, barbarian form of political organization. The most ancient societies known to us from history were built on precisely the democratic principle. The main decisions relating to the fate of the tribe or even to the entire ethnos were always adopted collectively, on the basis of the general opinion of the plenipotentiary members of the society. The oldest families, soldiers, priests, and those called the masters of fire (household proprietors) comprised the elementary parliament of ancient peoples. Among the Germans this was called "Ting; among the Slavs, Veche; even the Roman expression Res Publica recalls the ancient collective assemblies of Latin tribes, where the general things fundamental for life had been discussed (res in Latin is thing, which is close in sense to the Russian Veche or German ting or ding, in German, also thing").

At the basis of democracy lies the principle of the collective form of decision making, and this procedure must take into account the widest possible spectrum of representatives from society. But this very principle is an inalienable part of ancient, archaic societies, where the individual has not yet been separated out as a self-reliant (independent) quantity and the most important historical actor was "the soul of the ethnos, most often understood as a totem, spirit, or ethnic deity. It was precisely in order to allow this supra-individual authority to interfere directly in the fate of the collective that democratic procedures were introduced. There was a demand to come to a decision about things" (veche), which none of the participants could do separately. This decision was anticipated from a transcendental authority, which manifested itself through the assembly. For that reason, all assemblies opened with rituals during which gods and spirits were summoned. In fact, it was they, acting through people, who made the decisions. That is the literal meaning of the Roman saying "Vox populi — vox Dei" the voice of the people is the voice of the divine.

Thus, at the basis of democracy lies the archaic mysticism of collective ecstasy, when the community leaves itself to meet the collective soul (God), which, on the other hand, comes to them.

Democracy is Founded on Inequality, "Idiotes"

Democracy does not recognize individual equality. There is a cruel quality in it, separating those who are admitted to participate in the political ecstasy of decision from those who are not. For that reason, the real participants of democratic procedures in all societies recognized only concrete social groups. The structures differed in different societies, but the principle of the inclusion of some into the democratic process and the exclusion of others from it is the fundamental sign of all types of democracy.

In German warrior tribes, only free warriors and priests were admitted to the "ting." But since practically all the members of these tribes (including the priests) were warriors, the German warrior democracy, understandably, was the widest and most direct. Only slaves of war were excluded, along with women, children, and, naturally, foreigners. In the Greek polis where the democratic model was established, as in Athens, for instance, in order to participate in democracy it was necessary to be a citizen of the polis, which required the elevation of one’s family to the mythological fountainhead of the polis (the nobility), the possession of a certain level of material goods, and compliance with some determinate moral cast of mind. Poor folk, slaves and women were likewise excluded from democratic procedures, and the foreign born, including nobility from another polis, were called "idiotes (Gk: excluded ones, non-citizens). Underlying the contemporary clinical term idiot" is the political notion, designating a person kept strictly apart from democratic participation.

In all types of democracy a selection of its lawful participants is done to ensure the unconstrained access of the soul (God, the gods) of the collective to involve itself in the fate of the society.

Political Modernization: From Democracy to Tyranny

In the history of the West as in some other civilizations, the modernization of political systems proceeded from a rejection of democracy, most often in favor of aristocracy and monarchy. Although even in this case the sacred character of power was preserved, the individual, rational principle became increasingly visible. Political decisions were now made to a large degree by individuals or by a separate individual and therefore acquired a more rational and purely human character. In moving away from archaic democracy, civilization shunned the proximity of the gods and the world in which the human and the godly intertwined to the point of being indistinguishable. Thus, Aristotle wrote that, Democracy is pregnant with tyranny. Tyranny supersedes democracy as a more modern kind of political organization, where, for the first time, the separate individual is clearly revealed, in our case, the tyrant. In this process, the divine is humanized.

The Paradox of the Renaissance: Forward to Antiquity

How then can we understand the fact that in the modern age, in the era of the Enlightenment and progress, Europe turned precisely to democracy, the traces of which were lost in Western societies over two thousand years ago? It does indeed seem that between the ancient democracy of Athens and the modern European parliamentary republics, many centuries of Western history were marked by monarchic-aristocratic political systems. The answer is rooted in the Renaissance era.

The Renaissance era is responsible for many paradoxes that later made themselves known. In that period, a European genius decided to cast off the rational norms of the scholastics and to liberate the human dimension. Usually this is construed as a step forward. Few pay attention to the fact that the figures of the Renaissance themselves took as a model precisely the ancient Platonic man and repudiated Catholic dogmas not for the sake of a secular, scientific order (which did not yet exist) but for magical, alchemical, and hermetic teachings. In other words, they were favoring deep, archaic knowledge, the ecstatic practice of experiencing the all-encompassing, sacred character of the world. Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno, and Michelangelo were passionate advocates of Platonism and ancient Greece, searchers of the Egyptian mysteries, and connoisseurs of Kabbalah. The European interest in democracy stems from this heritage. Political democracy was discovered together with Plotinus and Hermes Trismegistus, the philosopher’s stone, and the ancient gods who seemed to have left the world forever.

Archaic Signs of Modern Democracies: Suffragists and Hitler

That is why we encounter upsurges here and there of the archaic principle in recent European history. Democracy itself becomes something sacred. Simply try in a conversation with a typical, modern European or American to doubt democracy — you’ll see the result. You’ll become an outcast, a non-citizen, an "idiotes. This can seem strange to many today, but women in Western societies were given the right to vote only after three centuries had elapsed since democratic procedures were introduced in Europe. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the suffragists (from the French word meaning: voting) demanded that European women be permitted to vote equally with men. Over a hundred years ago, American democracy still involved a racial principle (the rights of native Americans and of African slaves were curtailed) and property qualification (the presence of considerable property), which limited the circle of the elect permitted to exercise democracy. The American political system included the wide activities of masonic lodges and other secret societies, which gave, and continue to give, American democracy its sacred content. And, finally, a completely paradoxical example: the establishment of Nazi Germany. How did it happen that in a developed, modern, civilized and enlightened European country of the 20th century — a century of civilization and progress — on the basis of an absolutely democratic procedure, with widespread popular approval, a man came to power who reestablished in Germany not a medieval, but an even more archaic spirit, with mass rituals, irrational pseudo-scientific research, and harsh racial segregation? Here, as with all democracies, the principle of separation" was displayed anew in full measure: some were admitted to the ecstatic practice, and others were cruelly removed from it.

Global Democracy as the Kingdom of the Anti-Christ

21st century democracy presents itself externally as the most modern political system and attempts to include all individuals, without respect to citizenship, sexual orientation, material capability, or racial and ethnic specifics. It is based on a theory of human rights. But in this case, too, there is no trace of either the rationality of elections, the significance of individuality, or the equality of influence on decision-making. The reasonableness of one person is suppressed by the unreasonableness of another, and through all the attempts to modernize democracy its ancient, absolutely archaic and in the final analysis irrational essence (what rationality is there in the turn to the vague, ecstatic spirit?!) emerges again and again. Only now, through the project of worldwide civil society, there speaks not the spirit of the polis, tribe or narod [Volk, people. Most often transliterated in the singular as a technical term and translated peoples when plural. The adjectival form has been translated popular or ethnosocial depending on context], but some other kind of generalized, common essence, which the Christian tradition is inclined to interpret as the Prince of the World. And the inarticulate mumbling of the planetary masses is interpreted by the colleges of the ancient high priests, who speak today in the masks of champions of the open society or globalization. One can guess whom they really serve.

Chapter 2: Conservatism as a Project and Episteme

The Inadequacy of Common Presentations of Conservatism

One of the most typical delusions regarding the concept of conservatism consists in the simplistic idea that conservatives are those, who want to preserve the past, leaving (or making) everything as it was. In fact, in the political sense, conservatism is not the preservation of the past and not even the appeal to tradition. Conservatism is a philosophical approach, which interprets time very specifically. It does not merely select some sector of time (the past) as a priority, but operates with a peculiar notion of time, which is by no means banal and which demands more careful examination.

The Philosophy of History and Diachronism

In the culture of modernity we have become used to operating with a diachronic approach to history, which has become for us something self-evident. This approach isolates three temporal categories, set in strict and irreversible order: the past, the present (the passing), and the future. Notice, the past is that which has passed. The present is that which stands [the Russian noun for present, nastoyashcheye, consists of the prefix na- on and the root stoyat’, to stand] and the future is that which will come, or come forth. The roots of all these concepts — the past, present and future — are tied [in Russian] not to the sense of being, but to the sense of movement (or its moment of standing, stopping on.) The specific character of historicism and the philosophical of history consist in precisely this. This model of understanding the world through movement and stillness was proposed in the West in modernity [the Russian term for modernity is New Time"] together with the concept of progress. Such unidirectional time already contains in itself the idea of pro-gress [from the Latin progressus], that is, literally, movement forward.

The total and extensive adoption of this diachronic paradigm at times forces conservatives themselves to direct their attention to the past as normative when laying out their philosophical and political positions. The conservative thereby as it were agrees with linear time. He acknowledges the fact of progress, but only to extract from it an alternative, negative conclusion. It looks like in acting in this way the conservative is by definition retrograde, that is, someone who goes back. But that is incorrect; because it is not at all what has passed that interests the conservative, especially as modern people understand this past.

The Conservative and the Constant

In fact, in place of a temporal diachronic topography of past, present, and future, conservatives operate with an entirely different, non-diachronic, synchronic model. The conservative protects and defends not the past but the constant, the perennial, that which essentially always remains identical to itself. Defining conservatism, the philosopher Alain de Benoist said very truly that, the root is not that which once was, but that which always grows, something living.

As soon as we affirm that conservatives do not fight for the past, but rather for the constant, for the fundamental constants of society, humanity and the soul, we will be able on good grounds to understand the attitude of the conservative toward all three temporal modalities. Like the present and the future, the past is valuable not in itself, but only in the fact that there is something constant in it.

There are many periods in Russian history differing in substance and significance, and all of them are in the past. In the past were the Specific Fragmentation, the Mongolian Conquest, the Times of Trouble, the Dissidence, the Petrine Reforms, the Bironovshchina, the February Revolution, Khrushchev’s Thaw, Perestroika, Yeltsinism and much more that is categorically unacceptable and anomalous for a consistent Russian conservative. When a conservative turns over the pages of a book of Russian history,