Novorossiya has suffered significantly in regards to the destruction of Malaysian Air Flight 17 over Eastern Ukraine. It appears that in the sense of this tragedy being taken advantage of by the US-EU governing class, it is and will be done in order to justify the strangulation at birth of the new country of Новороссия (Novorossiya).
Novorossiya has suffered significantly in regards to the destruction of Malaysian Air Flight 17 over Eastern Ukraine. It appears that in the sense of this tragedy being taken advantage of by the US-EU governing class, it is and will be done in order to justify the strangulation at birth of the new country of Новороссия (Novorossiya).
The driving force behind the formation of Novorossiya is that a substantial majority of the people in the southern and eastern part of Ukraine do not recognize the new government which came to power in Kiev as the result of the violent overthrow of the previously elected government. The approach of the new Kievian government is not to allow those who disagree with their coup to go their own way, but is instead based on military means to force the capitulation of those who disagree.
It should be recognized that the two sides in this conflict are quite unevenly matched. In particular, the Kievian government has access to much better military equipment and financial resources than the rebels do. Of particular relevance is that the Kievian government possesses complete air-superiority. Furthermore, military action is taking place in the form of assaults by the Kiev government on the homelands of the rebels. Rebel warplanes are not making bombing runs over the Ukrainian capital or Lviv. Their artillery is not surrounding and opening fire on cities and villages in the parts of the Ukraine that support the Kievian government. On the contrary, the rebels are defending their own cities and villages from the assaults of the Kiev and are not advancing into territory inhabited primarily by supporters of the current regime.
Occam’s razor would suggest that the cause of the downed airliner was due to the rebels, who in their attempts to protect their cities, villages, and military units from aerial bombardments, mistook the airliner for a Ukrainian warplane. That such mistakes are not infrequent during the course of military action is evident from even a cursory glance through history.
Currently heard from public figures in the US-EU are statements of the form “if the rebels did this or the Russians are involved through their provision of the antiaircraft system used, then the rebels and/or the Russians should have hell to pay.” That such opinions are based on an antipathy to the rebel/Russian side can be derived from such individuals’ reactions to similar events. Probably the most appropriate one is the shooting down of a Russian passenger airline (Siberia Airlines Flight 1812) in 2001 by the Ukrainian military with an antiaircraft rocket. The repercussions of this downing, which resulted in the deaths of 78 people, were limited to payments by the Ukrainian government to victims’ families and the sacking of a handful of officers and officials. There were no sanctions applied to Ukraine by other countries and no criminal proceedings begun. Assuming that the treatment of the Ukrainians in this matter was appropriate, a neutral observer would likely conclude that the rebels should be treated in a similar manner. Indeed the culpability of the Ukrainian military in shooting down Flight 1812 would appear to be greater, as it occurred during peacetime, as opposed to the rebels who are operating under conditions of daily bombardments of their cities and villages made possible by the complete air-superiority of the Kievian government. In this regard, an appropriate means of preventing such further accidents would be imposition of a no-fly zone over the Ukraine. Other means could involve the provision of more advanced antiaircraft systems, along with appropriate training for the rebels with the aim of avoiding further cases of mistaken identity. It should be reiterated that the reason the rebels are concerning themselves at all with antiaircraft systems is due to the (otherwise unimpeded) aerial bombardment of eastern Ukraine by the Kievian government.
US-EU public officials, more often than not, are heard giving statements to the effect that the means to achieve peace is to cut off all aid to the rebels. However, if peace (as opposed to peace obtained by destruction of Novorossiya by the Kievian government) is indeed the highest priority, then the party that must be pressured is the attacking side, i.e., the Kievian government. Of course, this is the quickest possible means of obtaining peace and will result in victory for Novorossiya, as its goals of independence will be achieved, and hence, would logically be advanced by those whose primary goal is independence for Novorossiya.
The suggestions and insinuations that the only way to bring peace would be for the Russian people and government to stop supplying any aid to the rebels indicate that the sources for such suggestions support the Kievian government. This follows from the near certainty that cessation of all support to the rebels and the cessation of any more chances for future support will result in victory by the Kievian government.
The fact of the matter is that Russian support of the rebels is quite minimal. The author’s first hand experience is that such support is provided primarily on the grass-roots level. In the city that the author lives in, various individuals have formed groups that collect food, medical supplies, clothing, uniforms, boots and other items send it to the eastern parts of the Ukraine. Volunteers have also set out to aid the rebels primarily in the form of joining the armed resistance to the Kievian government. Somewhat surprisingly, there is no support from the city or federal government in this matter in the form of advertising such aid collection centers and/or encouraging people to participate in such aid. At a minimum, the Russian government would be expected to provide humanitarian aid on an official level but this is not observed. The clear evidence that the rebels possess some heavy military equipment (tanks, artillery etc.) is often taken as evidence that such equipment is from Russia. However, it should be kept in mind that the conflict is a civil war—in the course of which significant numbers of the Ukrainian military have defected to the rebels. This issue was particularly acute at the start of the conflict where it was not infrequent that military units sent to suppress the rebels in a particular village/city instead raised the rebel flag and wholeheartedly joined the rebels. The Kievian government has responded to this issue by raising paramilitary formations, such as the National Guard, which are staffed by people loyal to the Kievian government who have joined with the specific purpose of suppressing the rebellion and hence, contain very few individuals from the eastern parts of the Ukraine. Other paramilitary units exist which are funded and controlled by various oligarchs.
Returning to the issue of the downed airline, a glance at the positioning and treatment of the issue in the US-EU media clearly shows usage of the tragedy as a weapon against the rebels. Headlines such as “Armed men restrict access to crash site” or “Standoff with militiamen at crash site” (BBC) are used. Aside from the fact that the crash occurred in a war-zone, the fact of the matter is that any such crash site is typically cordoned off and guarded by armed men in almost any country. In other statements “Local residents have been allowed to wander around the wreckage of the plane” (BBC), however, the lack of a guarded perimeter is used as evidence of deliberate carelessness of the local authorities. Considering the issue, and recognizing the fact that the crash area is in a very rural area subject to military engagements, none of the above necessarily indicates any malign intent on the part of the local authorities. Such issues would be found at a similar crash site in almost any country.
Of some interest is a report from the BBC in which a man guarding the crash scene, after being described as “squat and barrel-chested with poor teeth“ is reported to have stated: “You are only here because foreigners are dead.” For the people of eastern Ukraine, this man’s question has some relevance. In the course of the Kievian government’s military operations, hundreds of people have been killed by artillery and air-strikes carried out against cities and villages. For example, the day after Flight 17 was destroyed, it was reported that 20 civilians died in the course of artillery and/or aerial attacks on the city of Lugansk. These deaths and many others like them have not resulted in visits from OSCE observers and journalists from the US-EU. The fact that their deaths are not widely denounced or mentioned in the US-EU media contains within itself the implication that these deaths, as opposed to those of Malaysian Air Flight 17, are the somewhat unavoidable and deserved result of opposition to the Ukrainian government and its sponsors.
While there are many unanswered questions about the disaster and the dishonesty and hysteria of Western propaganda goes without saying, the objective political reality remains the same. The narrative has already solidified in the West–and Putin is to blame.
The glee with which the Washington foreign policy establishment greeted the crash of flight MH-17 is matched only by their silence about the continuing slaughter in Eastern Ukraine. Not only did they get to move the Central American invasion off the front page, the media and politicians got a chance to play their favorite sport of bear-baiting. While there are many unanswered questions about the disaster and the dishonesty and hysteria of Western propaganda goes without saying, the objective political reality remains the same. The narrative has already solidified in the West–and Putin is to blame.
Only a few weeks after being regarded by friend and foe as a master geopolitical strategist, Vladimir Putin is suddenly faced with a far more hostile Europe. In his attempt to pin the blame for the crash on Ukraine, President Putin also casually conceded that the area was Ukrainian territory. Perhaps this was his objective all along, as he has not been especially enthusiastic about aiding the “Novorossia” separatists. However, if the end result of the Ukrainian crisis is the tenuous seizure of Crimea (unrecognized by the rest of the world), the reduction of Russian influence in Ukraine and Europe, and the defeat of pro-Russian forces in the east, Putin will appear weak for the first time.
Russia is also under increasing economic attack designed to break the regime. “Capital is a coward” as they say, and the hallmark of American foreign and domestic policy is to harness corruption and degeneracy to further the country’s own ends. Russian billionaires are already feeling pressure and are being confronted with a choice of turning on Putin or jeopardizing their economic relations in the West.
Ironically, pressure on Putin is intensifying at the very moment he is acquiescing to the West’s wishes. He has held back from invading Ukraine. Russian nationalists are no longer enjoying access to the media, and even Alexander Dugin’s star has faded within officialdom. However, even as Putin is becoming more “pragmatic,” the pressure for sanctions is increasing.
Part of Putin’s problem is that he has been too clever by half. Throughout the crisis, Russia has maintained that Ukraine is being run by “fascists” and “Nazis.” While it’s true the only overt “Nazis” that seem to be fighting in the area are fighting for Ukraine, the nationalists seem to have little power within the current Ukrainian government and are mostly being used for cannon fodder.
Unfortunately, outside Galicia, Russia’s only real friends in the West are on the right. From Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen in Europe to Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan in the United States, Putin only gets a fair hearing from what can roughly be called the Dissident Right in the West. Social democrats and neoconservatives are too busy raging against him as a “tyrant” because he doesn’t allow enough gay pride parades. Occasionally, this even leads to what can only be called coded appeals for pre-emptive war against one of the greatest powers in the world–what Steve Sailer called “World War G.”
Since the beginning of his time in office, Vladimir Putin’s number one goal has been to prevent a State Department/Soros funded color coded “revolution” on the streets of Moscow. For that reason, he has imposed restrictions on foreign “activist” organizations backed by foreign money. Even his supposed crackdown on homosexuals is a ban on homosexual “activism,” not private sexual behavior. Unlike the nations of the West, Putin’s Russia has a government that actually governs, as opposed to serving as a jobs program for various minorities.
However, in today’s world, even a mildly conservative “sovereign democracy” is enough to inspire the fanatical rage of the Washington governing class and its pet media. The American media resorted to outright falsity when portraying the conflict in South Ossetia years ago. More recently, when Russia hosted the Winter Olympics, Western newspapers were filled with taunts and stories portraying the country as a kind of Third World disaster out of Borat. Strangely, the mass riots and collapsing infrastructure of World Cup host Brazil went all but unmentioned. When Pussy Riot disrupted a mass with an obscenity filled protest, the American Secretary of State posed with them for a picture, and National Review’s John O’Sullivan called them “virtuous” and “religious.” The liberal American media is far more hostile towards Putin’s Russia than they were to the Soviet Union, and conservatives seem excited to fight a politically correct enemy rather than more hapless brown people.
While Putin himself is usually sure footed in his responses, Russia’s larger public relations effort often seems hapless and confused. Russia Today, supposedly designed as a counter to the American media, usually appears like a kind of grab bag of left-libertarian features that wouldn’t seem out of place on Democracy Now. Though there is the occasional conservative guest who would be cut from the American mainstream media, the network keeps inviting guests who are almost guaranteed to be hostile. For example, RT invited on Jamie Kirchick—someone whose entire identity, ideology, and outlook on foreign relations revolves entirely on his predilection for sodomy—who promptly made a precious little spectacle of himself. RT also has a problem with its anchors quitting in order to receive the worshipful applause of the American press.
There is nothing Russia can do that will win over the Western press and the American government short of Putin resigning and Gazprom cutting a reparations check to GLAAD. None of the propaganda targeted at Western liberals seems to be taking. Russia is also being forced into an untenable financial position unless it caves unilaterally on all Ukrainian issues. Putin cannot do this without losing domestic support and risking Russia’s international position.
The alternative is to attack–and for Russia to support the only people inclined to support them, Traditionalists and conservatives. The West will not allow Russia to be a “normal” country while Putin is in power and while it insists on relatively conservative social stances. Therefore, Russia needs to take the cultural war into the heart of the West, where restive populations are already looking for an excuse to revolt against their political class over mass immigration, Islamization, political cor
rectness, and incompetence in foreign and domestic policy.
Let Washington, DC choke on it when Russia starts “Radio Free Amerika” to broadcast every day about how American corporations are helping the government spy on its citizens. Let RT start sending its reporters to the border to get some video of the MS-13 members the American government insists on calling “children.” Let’s see how the Huffington Post reacts to American audiences being introduced to Alexander Dugin. And let’s see what the reception will be if the People’s State of Donetsk makes like the Ukrainian forces and starts accepting foreign volunteers.
The strategic advantage has shifted to the West and stagnation is death for Russia. If the West is going to treat the Third Rome like a rogue state no matter what it does, it might as well act like one.
Ever since a US-backed junta seized control of Ukraine in February, the country’s ethnic, cultural and linguistic fault lines have been accentuated to deadly effect. The predominantly russophone south and east have already paid a terrible price for resisting the new liberal-nationalist regime, from a fiery massacre in Odessa to outright war against Donetsk and Lugansk, two regions bordering Russia that have declared their independence.
Originally published at Soul of the East
Strategies for full-spectrum dominance encompass far more than just military means – their entire point is found in politics, the struggle for power. Movements proclaiming themselves the champions of national salvation thus deserve extra scrutiny, since they might serve precisely the opposite end.
Ever since a US-backed junta seized control of Ukraine in February, the country’s ethnic, cultural and linguistic fault lines have been accentuated to deadly effect. The predominantly russophone south and east have already paid a terrible price for resisting the new liberal-nationalist regime, from a fiery massacre in Odessa to outright war against Donetsk and Lugansk, two regions bordering Russia that have declared their independence. Had Vladimir Putin not moved to secure Crimea, the peninsula today would be suffering an analogous fate. When we consider the atrocities committed against the inhabitants of historical Novorossiya (New Russia), it must be understood that Kiev’s counterinsurgency is far more significant than a local conflict – it is a proxy war the Pax Americana wages against Russia in order to command the Eurasian heartland.
In the quest to “contain” and destabilize Russia, Washington has found willing and eager proxies in Ukrainian nationalists. Longtime enemies of Moscow, outfits like Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Rebel Army (UPA) worked in close partnership with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. With the Reichstag still smoldering and the new Cold War underway, the United States would continue where the Abwehr and SS left off, dropping nationalist agents into western Ukraine to conduct sabotage and guerrilla campaigns against the Soviet government until the early 1950s. The Berlin Wall may no longer stand, but US/NATO employment of Ukrainian nationalists in subversion programs continues to this day. Aside from the $5 billion the US has openly spent over twenty years to suborn Ukraine, it stands to reason that substantial clandestine assets were also dedicated to that objective.
Supported by the CIA as well as Polish intelligence, Kiev has attempted for the past two months to bring the east to heel, yet the regime has little to show for the effort other than dead and wounded in the thousands, while towns such as Slavyansk and Kramatorsk are pulverized under sustained bombardment. The regular Ukrainian army, demoralized, underfunded and under-equipped, hasn’t taken to the repression with the revolutionary fervor expected of them by the junta. Rather, Kiev has relied on the newly-instituted National Guard, foreign mercenaries and paramilitaries bankrolled by billionaire oligarchs like Dnepropetrovsk governor Igor “Benya” Kolomoisky, an ardent Zionist with a business empire reportedly built on ruthless criminality. Filling the ranks of these “special battalions” are motivated but often inexperienced thugs from neo-fascist Right Sector, the group that played a pivotal role in the success of February 22nd’s Maidan putsch. The death squads have proven adept at terrorizing civilians, but they haven’t fared so well in combat with local resistance forces.
Possible outcome of the Ukraine crisis: Novorossiya and already Russian Crimea (South/East), Malorossiya-Ukraine and Galicia (North/West).
Underlying the regime’s disastrous attempt to smash the revolt in the east is the utter incoherence of Ukrainian nationalism. Ukraine as a nation-state has all the natural viability of Belgium, for it is an artificial country hopelessly divided within Soviet-era borders. Civil war has erupted because ethnic Russians and culturally Russian Ukrainians, for generations living on traditionally Russian lands, refuse to accede to a poisonous chauvinism demanding the surrender of their religious, cultural and linguistic heritage. The armed ideologues who come to impose “ukrainianization” might as well be foreign invaders seeking to wipe out a subjugated people’s very identity, and this is why bands of rebels in the Donbas are fighting to the knife.
While far from the only case, the fabricated nature of militant Ukrainian nationalism becomes clearer through the lens of great-power competition. The shaping of “Ukraine” (originally Malorossiya – Little Russia – plus Galicia and Volynia) as an entity implacably hostile to “Muscovy” is an ongoing Western geopolitical project launched in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Poland and the Vatican maneuvered to fracture the unity of Orthodox Eastern Slavdom. From that time and in succession, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and now the United States have all found fostering and further inciting this antagonism as an economical means to undermine and even attack Russia itself. Though foolish and extremely dangerous, America’s latest bid to incorporate Ukraine into the “free world” is thus well-founded in historical precedent.
Also set in historical precedent is US collaboration with fascists. Far from limited to sponsorship of Pinochet-style military governments in Latin America, it’s worth recalling that Wall Street actively financed Adolf Hitler’s rise to Weltmacht. And so today the ultra-nationalists of Ukraine enjoy Washington’s tacit support as they drive to ethnically cleanse the country’s south and east of Russians and attain a pyrrhic victory for their ideology. Since Right Sector, Svoboda and other radical parties are enraptured by the legacy of National Socialism, they would do well to remember not only its fate, but also its dialectical function. The wholesale destruction and dehumanization wrought by Nazism merely cleared the way for the triumph of international capital, which from the end of World War II has enforced its dictates through liberal political economy, cultural Marxism and American military power. As US President Barack Obama elaborated in a recent speechin Warsaw:
We have a solemn duty — a binding treaty obligation — to defend your territorial integrity. And we will. We stand together — now and forever — for your freedom is ours.
The banksters are at liberty to subvert, invade and expropriate across the world forever. A key condition for the IMF’s extension of its $18 billion loanto Ukraine is “territorial integrity” – in their war on Novorossiya, nationalists act as the foot soldiers of predatory multinationals. They march not for their fatherland, but for the greater glory of Exxon-Mobil, Monsanto, and Lady Gaga; they are expendable, and so is Ukraine. Fantasies of a state from the Carpathians to the Caucasus seem quaint compared to the vision of planetary rule decreed by the masters of the dialectic, and the parochial nihilism of Bandera’s disciples represents only a transitory stage toward universal enslavement and the dissolution of all peoples.
Globalist elites design their policies according to the classical maxim of divide et impera, yet its esoteric corollary is solve et coagula, the alchemical process applied to entire societies. Behind inane sloganeering on freedom, democracy and human rights lies a relentless desire to destroy. Sovereignty must be ended, sex and the family distorted unto grotesquery, and God usurped by Mammon. The nation – the great extended family – must be annihilated. What the Brave New World needs are neither Russians nor Ukrainians, but demographic biomass engineered for exploitation.
Ukraine’s tragedy provides us a ready example of nationalism manipulated for the benefit of internationalist oligarchs. And Russia must meet its own challenge of upholding traditional identity against the onslaught of the West’s postmodern imperium. The organic, tribal nationalism of the blood can be reconciled with the higher demands of the spirit; such has been the mission of the Church and state in forming a wider Russian Orthodox civilization. In the meantime, the mounting outrages and provocations of the Kiev junta are catalogued for the sake of justice – to be meted out at a time of the Kremlin’s choosing.
The Revolution ends by devouring its own children.
”The Revolution ends by devouring its own children” – Jacques Mallet du Pan, 1793
There might be no truer words ever spoken than that by the French royalist who managed to escape the carnage wrought by the Reign of Terror. Revolutions release an incredible amount of violence and anarchy pent up in a nation and these forces are hard to tame once they are released from their black pit. They linger on after the blood of the old lords have been cleansed from the scaffolds and the bestial lust of the revolution continues to desire for more to die in order to create a new society.
After the initial wave of violence that sweeps away most of the old order, it’s bound to happen that some of the staunchest supporters will eventually find themselves headless after the next rounds of bloodshed. In past revolutions, such as in France and Russia, it was the moderates who found themselves devoured by the violence that was unleashed by the political upheaval. The Girondins were killed off by the Jacobins and the Mensheviks were killed off by the Bolsheviks.
But when the US State Department sponsors your revolution, it seems to be the extremists who get devoured by their creation instead.
Revolutions, state department-sponsored or not, require mass support to succeed and they have to rely on a large swath of interest groups to achieve their goals of overthrowing the previous regime. The ones with the most discipline, the most fervor, and the most fanatical followers typically gain the edge. The moderates attempt to peacefully navigate the treacherous waters of the new realignment, while the extremists offer the masses red meat and radical solutions to the problems besetting their nation.
When you throw in American involvement into the mix though, the moderates are favored with international aid, promises of greater integration into the global economy, and military advisers for the country’s armed forces. That’s also including the fact that the US helped form and support the forces that took part in the initial stages of the unrest.
And they didn’t do that in order to create a fascist order – they did it to spread American economic and cultural power. They are not keen on allowing traditionally-minded radicals to sow the seeds they gave and our state department will do everything they can to further their goals and the original purpose of the revolution they planted.
The two obvious examples that are testing this hypothesis right now are Ukraine and Egypt. While the blood spilled in these two cases haven’t matched the abattoir levels of the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks, they have made it clear that no longer useful extremists will be dumped and removed from avenues of power.
Last week, the interim government in Ukraine demanded that all armed groups disarm immediately and seized Right Sector’s headquarters in Kiev. This development comes after the police killed Oleksandr Muzychko, a notorious leader of the nationalist paramilitary group, and Right Sector stormed Ukriane’s parliament in response to the slaying.
Russian state media has reported that Ukrainian officials are planning on arresting many leaders of the paramilitary groups that popped up all over the country in response to the increasing violence and instability.
And it’s not just Right Sector and other paramilitary groups who are feeling the clampdown. The Svoboda party member who was originally appointed as defense minister stepped down after elements in the government pressured him to do so. Another Svoboda party member and journalist was tortured, murdered and dumped in a forest outside of Kiev by unknown assailants last weekend.
Needless to say, it looks like the new government in Kiev has had their share of the nationalist groups that were at the forefront in toppling Yanukovych and fighting his riot police. With billions of dollars from the US at stake and international disapproval of “neo-fascist” elements in the government, this is an obvious move on the part of Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his cabinet to placate their Western backers.
This is occurring in spite of the major role nationalist groups played in toppling Yanukovych. It was the nationalists who fought the police, took the bullets and baton swings, and occupied government buildings to create the conditions to delegitimize Yanukovych’s rule. The pro-EU crowd, liberals, and other “peaceful” marchers posed no threat to the existing order and were easily smashed by the Berkut. Enter in the right-wing elements to fight back against the state and things quickly change to favor the Euromaidan side.
While the Western media did its best to portray the protests as an outpouring of a desire to be Westernized — with the protestors representing a diverse spectrum of society — the fact is the men in balaclavas were not throwing Molotov cocktails on behalf of same-sex marriage and mass immigration.
But now the US needs fighters in the Ukrainian army and not on the street. They also want politicians who will quickly sign onto integration with the EU and won’t hassle them about the stipulations that comes with accepting a bailout from the IMF. The nationalists are not those people — now they are simply a nuisance to US interests. And with Washington controlling the purse strings, there’s little that the paramilitary groups and right-wing parties can do.
A similar situation has occurred when the “Arab Spring” swept over Egypt. Like the Maidan protests, a diverse spectrum of Egyptian society took to the streets of Cairo in 2011 to protest the corruption and incompetence of the ruling regime. Once again, the police and military attacked the protestors in an attempt to suppress the unrest. That was largely due to the fact that a militant, well-organized, and highly devoted segment within the protests was there and was willing to fight back against both the police and the pro-Mubarak counter-protestors.
That segment was the Muslim Brotherhood and they eventually toppled Mubarak through cutting a deal with the military and was able to assume authority over Egypt.
There was just one problem – this didn’t go according to state department plans. While our media portrayed the protests as composed of brown-skinned hipsters and enthusiastic liberals, the real winners of the revolution were anti-Western Mohammedans who were intent on turning Egypt into a theocratic state. That wasn’t the future that the US had in mind for the Mediterranean land where economic liberalism could swoop in and the leadership would cause no problems for Israel.
As the Arab Spring spread and turned into an embarrassment for American foreign policy by empowering Islamic radicals, Egypt looked like it could be chalked up as another failure of America’s naivety. But since Egypt was heavily dependent on aid provided by the West and the military was growing weary of the new government that imperiled that flow, America saw an opportunity to eliminate the radical element that came to dominate the revolution. Turning a blind eye as the military launched a coup amidst new protests, Egypt’s armed forces swiftly deposed Mohammed Morsi and violently crushed the opposition of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The crackdown in Ukraine looks far tamer when compared with the way Egypt’s new military junta brutally put down the Muslim Brotherhood.
Over 600 people were killed when the military toppled Morsi’s Islamic regime and cracked down on protestors who dispute the takeover in 2013. This was despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, the primary victims of the violence, were largely responsible for the successful revolution in 2011 that overthrew the previous Hosni Mubarak’s government that had fallen out of favor with the West.
Like the right-wing militants in Kiev, the Muslim Brotherhood was the key factor in toppling Mubarak’s government. They were willing to give back the violence that the police and military were giving them in spades and had the discipline and fervor to maintain their opposition through brutal suppression and times of doubt.
Unlike the Ukrainian nationalists, they were able to assume power, for a short time at least, immediately after the downfall of Mubarak. But their policies of implementing Islamic law, cracking down on Western dress and culture, belligerence in the face of international requests, and hostile relations with Israel made them unwanted rulers in the eyes of the State department.
Thus, when mass protests assembled again in Cairo, the US saw a chance to rectify their mistake in letting the Brotherhood attain power and quietly backed the military coup that deposed Morsi and slaughtered hundreds of Brotherhood supporters all across Egypt. The Brotherhood was no longer useful to American interests and were becoming a nuisance. Thus, they were taken down with brute force.
What both of these cases articulate is how the US government uses radical forces to dispose of foreign governments they don’t like – and then later dumps the radicals when they serve no more useful purpose.
The US is capable of keeping the new governments in their pockets with money and promises of assistance and the new holders of power are more than willing to sell out their previous comrades to keep the cash flowing. Ukraine is now dependent on an International Monetary Fund loan to avoid bankruptcy and Egypt was dependent on Western aid to support its population. Having Nationalists and Islamic extremists in charge jeopardizes that stream when both groups want to maintain traditionalism and reject the cultural liberalism that the revolutionary benefactors seek to transmit to their respective country.
Previously, revolutionaries killed their brothers-in-arms over ideological disputes and a desire for purge the state of traces of the ancien regime. Now the stamping out is done simply over American dollars.
This is troubling in Ukraine where individuals with our mindset and with good intentions participated in the Euromaidan protests to free their country of foreign influence and promote identitarian goals. Several of these nationalists were appointed to prominent positions in the government and looked poised to gain even more power. Many within our sphere saw an opportunity in the growing power of far-right, nationalist elements in Ukraine, myself included.
But as the weeks pass by, this promise is beginning to look like a false hope.
If the cases of Egypt and Ukraine can teach us one thing, it is that the rules of revolutions are changing. It is increasingly difficult for countries to make their own path in their world independent of the old powers in their quest to free themselves. When US dollars and intelligence assistance come into play, that possibility becomes impossible. There is no way that America will invest millions of dollars and place a stake in their geopolitical scheme into a country, and then let that country be overtaken by anti-liberal forces.
They will do everything in their power to prevent that occurrence and when they control the money and the military, it becomes easier for them to eliminate nuisances.
The US has a solid footing in Ukraine and it does not want Svoboda or Right Sector taking power. Believing that these groups can take over and forge a “third position” is an unrealistic view of the situation on the ground.
America supports revolutions to further their own interests – not the interests of groups hostile to liberal ideas.
And that is why the new victims of revolution are the hard-line extremists who engineered the revolution’s success. Washington has no problem with manipulating these elements when they are useful for their cause, but once that usefulness is gone, then they are eliminated.
That is why identitarians should always be skeptical of any revolution that Western governments support. We should not be taken in by protestors draped in runes and shouting slogans that appeal to our sensibilities if they are earning the support of the European Union and other bodies we despise.
For the real enemy to identitarianism is American global hegemony. It wants to eliminate tradition and force man into the monoculture. Anything it backs is done to further this agenda and it will crack down on any elements that would hinder that achievement.
If the nationalists in Ukraine accept this fact, they could one day forge a new paradigm for whites to emulate and embrace. But that is unlikely to happen in the short-term with Russia threatening Ukraine’s border and the only ally the country has is America (however piss poor of an ally that is).
For it is now true, to paraphrase du Pan, that the Revolution that’s backed by America ends by devouring its own radicals.
Today, Ukraine is where methods of exerting influence from either side are put to the test. As propaganda becomes more sophisticated, the ways in which competing powers confront each other evolve as well. This much is certain: the protests on Kiev’s *Maidan* cannot be taken for face value.
Originally published at The Soul of the East
Three years ago I met Oleg Kalugin, the ex-KGB general whose well-known case of defection earned him the ire of the Russian authorities. In an interview, Kalugin once stated his belief that Vladimir Putin was “a temporary twist in history”, and perhaps this belief is why he found so much support among his American associates. I personally spoke with Kalugin on the future of Russia and its people, he told me it would be inevitable that Russia would collapse and break apart. Knowing the consternation that Americans often come to when dealing with the New Russia, is this the implicit goal of the Atlantic powers?
Even with the experience that Mr. Kalugin acquired in his time working for Soviet intelligence, he could not have not predicted Putin’s rise to power, describing the President as “a mere operative, one of the 3,000 who walked along our corridors”. It was twelve years ago that General Kalugin was found guilty in absentia for high treason. A known critic of the Putin administration, he became a naturalized citizen of the US and has remained there since. It seems like US government officials and turncoats alike are betting on the collapse of Russia, and it’s not uncommon to hear about a “crumbling” Russia from media commentary. But why does this mentality remain, and why are so many hopeful for the demise of the Russian state?
At the time of my meeting with Kalugin, before Ukraine and before Syria, I found no credence in spy’s forecast. Today the world has set its sights on Kiev as the cornerstone in determining who will take the lead in defining the century. Lines are being drawn and the terms of the game are being set. Make no mistake, a contest for hegemony is underway, and actions take precedence over ideology. Russia is not surrendering, and it is prepared to challenge the West in a way that perhaps only China has also done.
Today, Ukraine is where methods of exerting influence from either side are put to the test. As propaganda becomes more sophisticated, the ways in which competing powers confront each other evolve as well. This much is certain: the protests on Kiev’s Maidan cannot be taken for face value.
What can be said of the nationalists of Ukraine, whose employment of Nordic symbols and rhetoric runs directly opposed to some of the stated goals of the country’s new leadership? Although the Maidan riots began as the result of many groups participating, the breakthrough of Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) as the face of the Ukrainian uprising has attracted political fanatics of the right from other parts of the continent to join the protests. This was a deliberate move on the part of outside elements to lend them exposure and resources, knowing that European nationalists are usually on the side of Russia against the West. The matter is currently one of the most divisive topics among reactionary and nationalist political circles at the moment, and it has almost succeeded in undermining Putin’s most profound forms of overseas support. For all of the Russian media’s claims that the Ukrainian nationalists are the Wahhabists of Europe, the conclusion has solid premises, as unfortunate as that may sound. How is inviting foreign elements to fight in Kiev different from radical Islamists from the UK and US joining their brothers in Syria?
There is also the testimony of a former activist from Pravy Sektor, who admits the group’s cooperation with American military officials in (allegedly) trading looted documents for money, or the presence of Chechen militants side-by-side with the Pravy Sektor protestors on the Maidan. From a diplomatic perspective, even the Pravy Sektor’s meeting with Israeli officials wouldn’t have seemed so suspiscious if it wasn’t announced with enthusiasm from the group’s leadership. Respectable far-right organizations from other countries, such as Hungary’s Jobbik, have condemned them. But this is a sidenote in a time of soft power. Political extremists are now convenient tools of geopolitical influence, regardless of what they themselves might think.
The amount of attention vested in the situation in Ukraine, especially from the US government itself, suggests that there are more interests at stake than merely allowing Ukraine access to the European Union. In December, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland bragged that America invested five billion dollars over two decades toward a “democratic Ukraine” while urging the government to “listen to its people,” all while standing in front of the logos of Chevron and Exxonmobil. Her flagrant disregard for EU interests in relation to Ukraine, revealed in her now-notorious phone conversation with the US Ambassador in Kiev, confirms Washington’s own less-than-altruistic ambitions for the country.
But the US and its economic assets could never gain leverage in Ukraine simply on their own; even John Kerry’s promise of billions in future investments cannot happen immediately. This is why men like Oleg Kalugin are so highly valued – their use of politics as a tool of subversion is an alternative to outright war. Indeed, the predictions that Russia’s involvement in Crimea would not lead to war are so far correct, but the potential is building. The division of Ukraine shows what political factionalism is capable of: the coordinated efforts of Leftists, gay activists, EU businessmen, ultra-nationalists, Jewish organizations, various churches, Chechens, Tatars, and still others demonstrate how external forces manipulate affairs of state.
None of the aforementioned groups would normally have anything to do with each other, and while some of them may be conscious of their role as pawns in a global game of influence, they can do little about it but fight on. I am reminded about another former Soviet spy I knew of, one based at the University of California, Berkeley during the 1960s, whose efforts to agitate radical college students into social unrest enjoyed some success. He too, eventually defected. Nevertheless, the methodology was effective.
I once stood on the Maidan nearly half a decade before it became what it is today, before outside players were involved to the degree they are now. It’s sufficiently clear that the unrest in Kiev is an engineered uprising, the likes of which have been seen as recently as Syria and as far back as Guatemala. For all of the manufactured regime changes across the world since the Second World War, the US has relied on a single factor to achieve these revolutions – the uncertainty and desperation of a people faced with adjusting to a rapidly-changing market and global environment. But viewing the masses gathered in Odessa, Simferopol, Kharkov, Donetsk, Sevastopol, and elsewhere, we see this is not the case in Ukraine. As some journalists have remarked, it was the people, not the police, who took back government buildings from the Kiev-based opposition. These are not pro-government “titushki,” as the opposition would label them, but the people, and they have spoken. These are the citizens who believe the Russian and Ukrainian people are one, a more genuine assertion of identity as opposed to the arbitrary goals of a political party.
There is, however, an almost unanimous agreement on the corruption of Yanukovych’s presidency, something which is undisputed even by the Russian government. Why would the people of Ukraine ask to join the European Union now, anyway? The East has shown itself to be a formidable player in international politics while the other side faces endless scandals and crises. Furthermore, the relationship between many Ukrainians with Russia goes beyond short-term economic goals; it is cultural. Insult is added when the West supports the ultra-nationalists behind the violence and mends their reputation, considering the emphatic efforts of elites to ‘fight hate’ in their own countries while simultaneously supporting it elsewhere.
A genuine cause for concern must arise when two global superpowers are so closely opposed to each other. Recall that the presence of Russian soldiers securing key infrastructure in Crimea echoes the events of 1999 in Pristina, when Russian paratroopers took control of an airport, resulting in a standoff with NATO. But a war is too costly. Defeated presidential candidates Clinton, McCain, and Kerry (among other politicians) have spoken harshly about the Kremlin’s involvement in Ukraine, at times making stale and hypocritical comparisons to past historical events. Critics, meanwhile, have noted Washington’s relative impotence as a global leader and Obama’s inability to seriously confront Putin’s actions.
Should we be afraid? If my experiences with spies, defectors or otherwise say anything, then yes, we should be. The situation can be described as the Man in Berkeley’s activities on a grand scale. Consider how both the government and media outlets played to the liberal sentiment of the American people during the Sochi Olympics, to the point that any semblance of failure or shortcoming at the events was desperately sought after while violent illiberal political groups have been receiving support and aid from the West in Ukraine and elsewhere. Nothing is as it seems. Action trumps ideology, and in this instance, the critical mass of the Maidan was wielded by the Western powers. Military threats are a last resort for NATO and the US; the true goal of their designs is subversion.
Speaking on the events of the Maidan, Dmitry Dyomushkin, leader of the ethnopolitical movement ‘Russians’ and a noted supporter of Chechen independence, has urged other nationalists in Russia to support the Maidan protestors and encouraged the distancing of Ukraine from Russian affairs. This would seem odd for a man that stands behind the Russian Imperial flag, but his sentiment is shared by other figures in the nationalist sphere. Nationalism is a historic facet of the Russian mind, an inescapable fact, and today’s nationalists want their country to take an even more conservative turn than it already has. Yet this can be exploited, much as ethnic sentiment in Ukraine has been used against Ukrainians.
The nationalists are already willing to come out and stand with Leftists and Communists against Putin, as was the case in 2012. If proper scrutiny is not given to the development of nationalism in Russia, the politics of pride, once used to advance the interests of the state, will be used against it.
Radical Islam has been used against Islamic states, so it cannot be excluded that subversion in Russia will arise with the face of fierce nationalism or religious fanaticism, and in the case of Doku Umarov and Dmitro Yarosh, it already has.
At this point, it is necessary to understand how propaganda has changed over the last century, because many approach the concept with 20th-century conceptions. We should look beyond the flags and shields and try to ascertain the true ideology of the people actually running the uprising.
Mr. Kalugin knows things I do not, and was his prediction of Russian balkanization an informed warning or an angst-ridden reaction to his conviction for treason back in Moscow? The resurgence of Russia is a “temporary twist” perhaps in the eyes of the West, whose drive to exert influence across the entire globe is now impeded by this counterbalance. The example of how Pravy Sektor has been used for harmful ends is an unwelcome warning to many of its would-be supporters, but it is a warning nonetheless.
There are Ukrainians and Western Ukrainians. These are two different social, national, ethnic, and cultural groups. Ukrainians are a West Russian *ethnos* which recognizes its historic unity with Eastern Slavs and *Velikorossy* (a historic term meaning “Great Russes,” often translated as “Great Russians”) as the core of the Eastern Slavs and the creators of an autonomous and powerful Eastern Slavic Orthodox State. Thus, Ukrainians are not simply “our people,” they are a part of us and, ultimately, they are we ourselves. They are not different, they are the same.
// Photo: The Washington Post
There are Ukrainians and Western Ukrainians. These are two different social, national, ethnic, and cultural groups. Ukrainians are a West Russian ethnos which recognizes its historic unity with Eastern Slavs and Velikorossy (a historic term meaning “Great Russes,” often translated as “Great Russians”) as the core of the Eastern Slavs and the creators of an autonomous and powerful Eastern Slavic Orthodox State. Thus, Ukrainians are not simply “our people,” they are a part of us and, ultimately, they are we ourselves. They are not different, they are the same.
Western Ukrainians are a sub-ethnos, which historically separated itself from the Western Russian population, formed in Volhynia and Galicia, having experienced significant Polonization and the influence of Catholicism (in the form of the Uniate—Eastern Catholic—Church). Western Ukrainians consider themselves an autonomous group, opposing themselves to other Eastern Slavs (first and foremost, these are Velikorossy, “moskali” (a derogatory term that means “Russians”)), Orthodox peoples, but also Poles and Austrians. Therefore, they have never had (and will never have) statehood, since it is impossible to build a State on the basis of hatred toward all surrounding peoples.
Modern-day Ukraine houses people with a Ukrainian identity and a Western Ukrainian identity. Making peace between them was the goal of the Ukrainian state that existed between 1991 and 2014. Ukraine’s political elite failed to do so. The Western Ukrainian minority insisted that the entire modern-day Ukraine must possess a single—Western—identity, thereby opposing the rest of the Ukrainians. Thus, it was they who ultimately destroyed contemporary Ukraine. Thanks to them, that Ukraine is already dead. And the more they scream that it has not died, the faster and more irreversibly it continues to die.
Ahead of us is the final schism of the Ukrainian space into two halves: the Western part headed by Kiev (Pravoberezhie, the Right River Bank) and the South-East, which is dominated by the Ukrainian (Orthodox East Slavic) identity. Crimea has been reunited with Russia, so what is left is the appearance of a new essentially Ukrainian (but not Western Ukrainian) State—Novorossiya (literally, “New Russia”). It will both be independent and friendly toward Russia.
This State may, indeed, form, but this is not a guarantee. It is over this area that the real struggle begins.
What is left for Western Ukrainians is the construction of their Galician-Volhynian State, “Westernia,” on the Right River Bank. Most likely, this project is doomed to failure. The reasons are as follows:
First of all, Western Ukrainians will never abandon their claims to control South-Eastern Ukraine (Novorossiya). Therefore, this is where the conflict lines will be drawn.
Second, the Western Ukrainian identity is strictly anti-Polish, whereas Poland considers its former possessions in the Volhynia region to be historically justified, nor have the Poles forgotten about the ethnic cleansing of their ancestors by the so-called Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
Third, “Westernia” is exclusively oriented toward the U.S., not continental Europe, which will create tensions with the European Union.
Fourth, Galician ultra-nationalism will become obvious to the West sooner or later, and it is doubtful that anyone would want to deal with this kind of a regime on serious terms.
And, finally, this kind of ultra-nationalism will create tensions with Rusyns in the South-West (Carpathian Rus), Hungarians, and other ethnic minorities.
Therefore, the Right River Bank State will collapse, proving one truth: that which was never part of history cannot last for long.
It is obvious that there will be no dialogue between Russia and Western Ukrainians. Each time they crawl out, they will strictly and deservingly get “kicked in the teeth.” In contrast, history and fate themselves dictate not only a dialogue but brotherly unity between Ukrainians and Russians. And here we face a very important moment: Russia must act not as an enemy, but as a friend and patron of the Ukrainian identity. The Ukrainian ethnos, language, culture are all part of our spiritual and historic wealth. If Western Ukrainians, with their current negative identity, only deserve a “kick in the jaw” from us, then Ukrainians are worthy of love, friendship, and the most gentle and attentive kind of a relationship. We must not insist on the Russification of Ukrainians, but instead act as the guarantors of safekeeping and developing their culture, language, and identity.
Like many on the dissident Right, I viewed the news out of the Ukraine with anger. Once I removed the media’s distorted lens from what has happened in that part of the world, I realized the root- the radix- of the clashes speak to the natural truths we have been saying all along. That is that different people cannot live under the same government forever, and that forcing them together leads to crisis after crisis.
In late February 2014, the world looked on with jubilation or shock, depending on their region or political point of view, at the fleeing of the Ukraine’s embattled President Yanukovych from Kiev. Only days following a deal brokered between the government and opposition, steps toward stability after months of protests centered in the capitol deteriorated into a power vacuum quickly filled by the president’s opponents.
Western media hailed this as a victory of “the people,” that ever so nebulous platitude that propels useful idiots towards their martyrdom in hails of government gunfire. Russia and its sympathizers, along with those on the dissident Right, saw this is as the victory of the mob over the rule of law and an elected government. Both are mistaken, however. The state has, in fact, triumphed. The reasons for this lie in what a state is, and how it acts (or does not).
Famed German sociologist Max Weber defined the state as “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Recall the weeks and months leading to the recent change in Kiev. “Protesters”, protected by shields, gas masks, and that false label, and armed with Molotov cocktails, clubs, petrol bombs, bulldozers, and guns attacked police in a manner that warranted deadly force in response. Not only was deadly force not met with deadly force, but in most cases riot police simply stood their ground and acted as punching bags for their tormentors. Force would have been legitimate, but it was not applied.
A “peaceful protester”
Perhaps President Yanukovych was listening too closely to his opponents’ chief enabler. “We hold the Ukrainian government primarily responsible in making sure it is dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate way,” Obama told his media. Condemnation of the opposition’s actions is practically nonexistent, while every swing of a police baton in response was considered a human rights violation. It was one thing to put up with the propaganda of the opposition, but to allow it to use force for so long and to contest it so little was to invite legitimacy into the ranks of those who wanted the president gone or dead. Had Max Weber came to life in the tent camps of the opposition, he would look at the Ministry of the Interior troops as rebels against the regime in power.
Outside the Ukraine, the opposition was busy at work. International relations were established with the US, the EU, and several of its member states including Poland, Germany, France, and the UK. It did not matter to them that the opposition had associations with groups they themselves consider unsavory, such as neo-Nazis. After all, a sovereign often has to work with such people in order to achieve its ends. Examples abound, such as the US support of the contras, cannibalizing al Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria, and the mujahedeen of 1980s Afghanistan. Were the opposition truly a protest movement and not a state-in-waiting, associating with neo-Nazis would have led to their assets being frozen by Western powers, not those of the President and his staff.
The state in-waiting meets its future collegues
Offices of the government throughout Kiev and western Ukraine were taken by an actual Occupy movement, whose agents could travel wherever they please. This new state had complete freedom of movement in its own territory, and was going to show this to its opponents just as Germany demonstrated to Britain and France that it could place the Wehrmacht in the Rhineland. As that government and every other before or since has shown, it can break its own laws and agreements as the Ukrainian opposition did. The truce reached shortly before the opposition’s power went from de facto to de jure is now gone and will not be remembered outside Russia or our circles. “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”
Throughout the conflict, President Yanukovych’s government showed the world it was not a true state, as his opponents did the opposite. When I watch footage of an opposition bulldozer pushing against police barricades, I am reminded of the NYPD removing Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. Though all deaths in this chapter of the Ukraine’s history are unfortunate, the force used so far by the opposition has been proportionate for what their real aim was: the overthrow of the government and its replacement with their own.
How a real state handles insurrection
Like many on the dissident Right, I viewed the news out of the Ukraine with anger. Once I removed the media’s distorted lens from what has happened in that part of the world, I realized the root- the radix- of the clashes speak to the natural truths we have been saying all along. That is that different people cannot live under the same government forever, and that forcing them together leads to crisis after crisis.
As the opposition and now the government in the Ukraine has accomplished, so should we emulate. Before we can have a state, we must have a state-in-waiting. Established leadership and alliances abroad are necessary, and luckily we are in the mature stages of this step. What we lack are the heartlands out of which a demos can grow into a state. It has been said that we are the ultimate cosmopolitans, jetting around the world to attend conferences and drink champagne with other elites as we talk politics, science, and culture. This however is exactly what our leadership should be doing as elites, though it is not enough. We must have that connection to folk and soil should we ever hope not just to lead, but to govern.
Do not fret then over this crisis. The short-term gain by Washington and the short-term loss by Moscow are of little concern to men of archaic virtues with eyes on the cosmos. What we have witnessed is a reaffirmation written in blood of our eternal principles. Hearken close, listen well, and when it comes time for us to push the pretenders aside, remember the lessons taught here.
Russia is capable of ceasing to be the world’s gas station (there are more suitable candidates for this purpose) and gaining self-respect:
Is there anything that Russia can offer the world other than oil of the “Ural” brand?
Russian journalist Mikhail Moshkin analyzes the current instability in Ukraine with a special focus on the meaning of traditional Russian identity and statehood. This translation was originally published at The Soul of the East.
The state is the actuality of the ethical Idea. It is ethical mind qua the substantial will manifest and revealed to itself, knowing and thinking itself, accomplishing what it knows and in so far as it knows it.
G. W. F. Hegel
A well-known formula, “the patient is either alive or dead,” encapsulates the Ukrainian situation in its entirety for those looking from the outside (and, most likely, the participants themselves). Either the Maidan finally topples Viktor Yanukovich over, or, a more likely scenario in light of the current events is that Yanukovich will give up everything he possibly can, handing out status positions in the government to the Maidan triumvirate, which is rapidly losing popularity for collaborating with “zlochinna vlada”—“criminal authorities” (offending Oleg Tyagnibok to top it off!). And, considering that it is impossible to return to the pre-Maidan status quo, Yanokovich will become a “lame duck,” with the 2004 Constitution in his beak and the omnipotence of the Verkhovna Rada. In a country that just collapsed into yet another economic and political pit.
Given the prospect of Vitali Klitschko’s presidency (yet how can the boxer become president if Yulia Tymoshenko is released?), the prospect of a “white-and-blue” regional separatism, the secession of Crimea, etc., are all real possibilities. We are seeing the signs thereof already. At the same time, all our political scientists and analysts should not get overly excited about “redrawing the new underdeveloped countries on the map.” The specter of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Fronde haunted Ukraine as early as 2004 as well, but even then, with Viktor Yushchenko’s victory (does anyone still remember this political figure?), the southeastern autonomous region did not come to fruition, whereas Yevgeniy Kushnarev, the chief ideologue of separatism, got off lightly. Most likely, despite the ever-present antagonism between Galicia and the Southeast, there won’t be a “divorce.”
It looks like we might end up with bad infinity. Either, after the Maidan’svictory, we return to the “orange-ism” of ten years ago, or, after Maidan is pacified, we go back to the status quo from six months ago. The Eternal Return of one and the same, one and the same, one and the same.
In other words, this is obvious.
More central to this question, in response to the challenge of the Maidan—a gauntlet had been thrown down without any doubt—is what Russia can say or, more importantly, do. Let us attempt to be honest with ourselves and answer the following question: why is it that we, as we stand now, have the right to restore the Eurasian space, the triune Slavic union, and so on?
Critics of “gathering the lands of Russia” are, sadly, correct that our “Babylonian” spirit is still strong. And we have yet (do we?) to transform from the New Babylon into the Third Rome. Is it the Russia of mindless celebrities that is the beacon for all those discontent with “Euro-Sodom” and globalist Americanism?
Yes, we can become the focus of hope, but only if we ourselves find meaning in our own existence throughout history.
The author of this text is neither a Communist nor a fan of the USSR, “USSR v. 2.0″ or futuristic modernist projects in general. Therefore, he can only comment distantly: Russia of the 1920-30s (even if it were thrice Soviet and socialist, it remained Russia) was a realized possibility of a different world order and a different future. Antonio Gramsci and Georgi Dimitrov were pro-Soviet Communists not because of grant money, whereas Romain Rolland and Lion Feuchtwanger composed panegyrics without any exchange for thirty pieces of silver.
Russia is capable of ceasing to be the world’s gas station (there are more suitable candidates for this purpose) and gaining self-respect:
Is there anything that Russia can offer the world other than oil of the “Ural” brand?
Something does emerge as a sketch: this is a country that remains the bastion of Right-wing conservative Christian value, and, in general, a sort of a stronghold of the “global Right” force, ready to pick up J.B. Fichte, Alexander Hamilton, and Yamamoto Tsunetomo, ejected from the steamship of Modernity. What remains to be done is small: transferring this from the sphere of declarations (they are very much at odds with reality) into the sphere of political action.
We will also have to examine our recent past, since we were considered a stronghold of the “global Left” in the 20th century. It would be most logical to treat the Soviet era precisely as a period in history. Otherwise, there is the impression that Lenin and Stalin are still alive ruling our lives on a daily basis. It is time to leave necropolitics behind.
The latter will help us stop looking for cravings toward Tradition, faith, and hierarchy in the Communist Party’s congresses and speeches of leaders. We must stop looking for traces of Rurikid and Romanov Empires in the “Red Empire,” or, conversely, we must stop searching for crypto-Communists among the likes of Alexei Kudrin, Oleg Deripaska, and Viktor Yanukovich. Without bias or wrath, we must choose all that will be useful to us (that same socially-oriented economy with, as mentioned hundreds of times, Right-wing politics), leaving Vladimir Ilyich and Iosif Vissarionovich for the historians.
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