For two decades, Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin has publicly advocated that Russia invade Ukraine. For this reason, since 2006, its entry into the country is prohibited. During the 2014 conflicts, when pro-Russian activists led protests to the east and south of neighboring territory as Moscow annexed Crimea, Dugin called for the complete eradication of Ukrainian national identity. At the time, he declared himself disappointed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had not taken the opportunity to carry out a full-scale invasion.
In 2022, while the real possibility of a frontal military attack is back on the agenda and Putin seems willing to finally follow Dugin’s insistent recommendation, the Russian thinker shows again the size of his influence on the Kremlin.
speeches and attitudes of the president, who has ruled Russia with an iron fist since 1999, the willingness to fulfill the country’s “manifest destiny” seems clear, in the view of the thinker: to form a new empire, composed of Eastern Europe and Asia, capable of opposing, politically, militarily, economically and culturally, the zone of influence of the United States.
This plan would translate into a kind of new Soviet Union, not communist but not necessarily democratic, and China’s close ally. For him, the United States represents and defends a series of values that he does not consider natural to humanity, but inventions of the West, such as individualism and human rights.
Often cited as Grigori Rasputin by Putin, in reference to the mystic who strongly influenced the Russian royal family at the beginning of the century 20, Alexander Dugin followed an inconstant trajectory until establishing itself as an intellectual reference from the decade of 90. Since then, he has even inspired the creation of a group of followers in Brazil, and led to a famous public debate with the philosopher Olavo de Carvalho.
Influence of Nazism
Born in Moscow on January 7, 1962, Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin was the son of a military man and a doctor. At the age of six, he was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church – later, he became a member of a group that practices the religion following the rules prior to a series of reforms carried out in the rites, between 1652 and 1666.
To 19 years, Aleksandr enrolled in the Moscow Aviation Institute, but did not complete the course. He would go on to pursue undergraduate and master’s degrees in philosophy, with two PhDs, one in sociology and one in political science. He also learned, self-taught, to speak Italian, French, English, German and Spanish.
In the decade of 80, participated in a group of occultists, the Yuzhinsky, who flirted with Satanism. He began to study pagan religions, especially those of Eastern Europe and Asia. He also provisionally adopted the pseudonym Hans Siever, in honor of Wolfram Sievers, former director of the Nazi organization Ahnenerbe, who in the years 30 carried out archaeological research in order to confirm the supposed superiority of the Aryan race.
Siever also participated in experiments with concentration camp prisoners and was sentenced to death during the Nuremberg Trials. At the time, Dugin said that it was possible to adopt valid practices from Nazism and Fascism to rescue the former greatness of the Russian empire.
Em 2006 , already in the scenario of the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the philosopher acted decisively in the formation of the National Bolshevik Front, whose symbol was a hammer and sickle inside a white circle surrounded by a red flag – the result , visually, it was quite similar to the Nazi flag.
The group would become known for carrying out violent protests in which the members, often armed with grenades, proposed boycotts of products of Western origin. The philosopher continues, to this day, to defend the use of violence: for him, the Norwegian sniper, Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 20 people in 2011, is an example to be followed, because it represents a symptom of the decadence of Western civilization. “The end is coming for Europe. Let’s leave all multiculturalism, Freemasonry and gay pride. Let’s let all the filth of Europe get rid of it. The more Breiviks, the better.”
After breaking up with the group in 1999, in 2001 Dugin participated in the creation of the Party for Eurasia. In 2005, he took charge of the creation of an arm of the party for young people – for years he has been advocating for the importance of forming leaders from a young age. In 2009, he released the most influential of his many books: The Fourth Political Theory , which proposes the overcoming of liberalism, communism and fascism, in order.
Although Dugin and Putin are not seen together, and the Russian president does not even mention the philosopher by name, his influence is clear on the actions from the government. His book Foundations of Geopolitics is required reading at the Military Academy of the General Staff of Russia. Still, the aggressive approach earns Dugin some restrictions on his activities. After calling for the genocide of the Ukrainians in 2014, he was even removed from his post at Moscow State University.
Relationship with the Brazil
In Brazil, there is a group, founded in 2015 in Rio de Janeiro, who follow Dugin’s thought. It is about the New Resistance, which is defined as “a political organization of national-revolutionary orientation, composed of labor, distributists, traditionalists, nationalists of different strands and supporters of the Fourth Political Theory that defends a broad resistance and at various levels to the political neoliberal economics, Atlanticist imperialism, the globalist agenda and the Zionist lobby in the media and in governments.”
The New Resistance is an anti-liberal and anti-capitalist stronghold, says the entity on its official page. “We accept a certain diversity of political positions, as long as they are based on an anti-liberalism/anti-capitalism, political and economic, that is deep and consistent”. For Brazil, the organization proposes “a strong, economically sovereign and politically independent State, centralized in relation to all strategic and national security issues and decentralized at the grassroots, in relation to most other issues”.
Constantly compared to the American Steve Bannon and the Brazilian Olavo de Carvalho, the Russian philosopher even led a debate with Olavo – who even posted videos in which he read his answers to his colleague. The Brazilian did not agree with Dugin’s criticism of Western civilization. The intense exchange of replies and rejoinders was brought together in a book, The United States and the New World Order. When Olavo passed away, Dugin used his Facebook account to post a photo of Olavo and Bannon.
