His speech\u2019s blend of Orthodox Christian ethnic-Russian nationalism with conspiratorial anti-Americanism is a major tip of the hat to the movement known as neo-Eurasianism, an ultra-nationalist political philosophy whose explosive language has become either Mr. Putin\u2019s new guiding belief or, more likely, an important rhetorical tool in his political arsenal.<\/p>\n
The central figure in this movement is the bearded philosopher Alexander Dugin, who has played an on-and-off advisory role in Mr. Putin\u2019s political party for 14 years and who has frequently spoken to the media on behalf of Kremlin interests during the Ukraine crisis.<\/p>\n
In the years after communism collapsed, Mr. Dugin and other activists revived Eurasianism, a pre-communist movement that saw the Russians as a fully independent third \u201ccivilization\u201d between East and West. To this he added more Orthodox mysticism, the ideas of Martin Heidegger and of anti-globalization thinkers such as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, a sprinkling of gender studies and critical theory, and came up with a movement whose declared enemies are liberal democracy, modernism and the Enlightenment, which he sees not as ideas with their own proud and independent history in Russia (which they are) but as tainted Western imports.<\/strong><\/p>\n
In 1992, months after the Soviet Union collapsed, Mr. Dugin wrote proudly that \u201cthe Endkampf, the final struggle will burst upon us very soon \u2026 the decisive hour is already at hand, the hour of Eurasia. The great war of the continents is approaching.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
It is unlikely (we can hope) that these words are what Mr. Putin has had in mind when his speeches have referred to neo-Eurasian ideas. After all, the President showed little sign of being an ethnic nationalist or Eurasianist during his first two terms in office, or even the beginning of his third; this new language has emerged in recent years, after Russia\u2019s liberal middle class revolted against him and he sought a new political base.<\/p>\n
Rather, he seems to be drawing from Mr. Dugin\u2019s 2009 manifesto The Fourth Political Theory<\/em>, which became a sensation in Moscow circles. The other three political theories to which the title alludes are liberalism, fascism and communism; the first, (economic and political liberalism, including liberal democracy), is to be opposed by all means possible. Fascists and communists, Islamists and \u201cdefenders of the spiritual traditions of the pre-modern West\u201d are described as crucial allies in this struggle.<\/strong> He refers to his own ideology, the fourth, not just as neo-Eurasianism but frequently as \u201cNational Bolshevism\u201d (a reference to National Socialism \u2013 he is an admirer of the Nazi legacy)<\/strong>. He describes his ideology as \u201csocialism without materialism, atheism, progressivism and modernism.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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.\u00a0 The difference seems to be that the National Socialists were arrayed against every facet of the Biblical worldview, as symbolized by the Jews, seeking to \u201cpurge civilization of its Jewish elements\u201d; that is, the influence of the Bible.\u00a0\u00a0 The Nazis sought to purge even Christianity of its \u201cJewish elements,\u201d which liberal cultural Christianity\u2013which had already downplayed the authority of Scripture\u2013was quite able to accommodate.\u00a0 (See my book, which documents all of this.)<\/p>\n