Two worlds of Russian messianism: how does Alexander Dugin’s project differ from the dreams of Fyodor Dostoevsky

My critics say that I am in my article “False values ​​of Russian Eurasianism” (“MK”, 12/05/2023) is unfair in his assessment of Alexander Dugin’s project and that his messianism and dreaminess simply repeat the messianism of Russian culture, the same Fyodor Dostoevsky or Vladimir Solovyov. Undoubtedly, Alexander Dugin is a talented Russian philosopher. But we must know and remember that the basis of Russian religious philosophy of the early twentieth century, the basis of the messianism of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Solovyov, was religious humanism, the contemplation of man as a child of God. And at the heart of Dugin’s messianism, both when he was the founder of National Bolshevism in the 90s, and today, when he claims to be the founder of the new Russian Eurasianism, lies the Marxist doctrine of revolution, the Marxist philosophy of death. I want to say right away that in fact, Dugin’s Eurasianism with his “Russia is not the West” is no different from Dugin’s National Bolshevism, which was based on the principles: “anti-capitalism”, “revolutionism”, “special Russian civilization”, “isolationism” and “ economic self-sufficiency of Russia.”

We must see the qualitative differences between the messianism of the Eurasian Alexander Dugin and the messianism of Russian thinkers and writers of the 19th century. The most important thing: the Russian messianism of Fyodor Dostoevsky was supposed to solve, first of all, European problems and is strictly connected with the destinies of all of Europe. Dostoevsky has no traces of Eurasianism, he has no desire to immerse Orthodox Christian Russia in the values ​​of the East that Alexander Dugin speaks of, that is, to connect it with “Eurasian geopolitical impulses,” and even more so to connect it with “the dynamism and cruelty of the Mongol army.”

The Russian idea itself, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, as well as in Vladimir Solovyov, is associated with the idea of ​​uniting the peoples of Europe, overcoming their alienation from each other, and is associated with the desire to unite these peoples on some kind of universal basis. They were convinced that Russia would create the idea that would unite the peoples of Europe. This is what Dostoevsky himself says about this. “The nature of our future activities should be extremely social… The Russian idea, perhaps, will be a synthesis of all those ideas that Europe is developing with such persistence and such courage in its nationalities.”

Following Dostoevsky, the founder of Russian philosophy, Vladimir Solovyov, speaks about the same thing. From his point of view, “the Russian idea… has nothing exclusive and particularistic in it… It represents only a new aspect of the Christian idea… To realize this national calling, we do not need to act against other nations, but with them and for them.”

The messianism of Alexander Dugin not only has nothing in common with Christianity, with Russian Orthodox culture, but also opposes them. In fact, in my opinion, Dugin’s messianism is much closer to Leon Trotsky’s doctrine of permanent revolution than to the Christian messianism of Fyodor Dostoevsky.

And most importantly, if for Russian messianism of the 19th century, for Russian religious humanism, man was an end in itself, then for Alexander Dugin, Russian man is only a means of creating a special Eurasian civilization. For the ideologists of Eurasianism, all those who call on Russians to die in the name of preventing Russia from being Europe, there is no value in human life – a person is only a means to achieve their mystical goal. But for Fyodor Dostoevsky, for the entire Russian culture, a person cannot be a means, a person is an end in itself as a child of God.

To all those in the West and in Russia who see in Dugin’s teaching the meaning and destiny of Russian culture, I would advise you to take the time and listen to Alexander Dugin’s two-hour confession about his understanding of the dialectics of life and death, politics and much more. I will not hide that I listened with great attention to this confession of a talented mystic and realized how easy it is to seduce a Russian person who succumbs to suggestibility and the temptations of death. Here are just some phrases from the confession of Alexander Dugin: “With life, death is born, and death accompanies our life to the end. Only through death can we realize the value of life, realize what we are afraid of losing.” For a person living on earth and awaiting death, the place prepared for him in heaven and immortality is something transcendental, fabulous. But death is really freedom, but a person in heaven no longer has this freedom. What should he do if he is tired of the eternal blissful life and is tired of it? These are the terrible thoughts that Alexander Dugin’s confession inspired in me.

But basically in this confession there was a retelling not so much of the Marxist doctrine of revolution, but of the Trotskyist doctrine of permanent revolution. Listen: “in order to become a politician, it is not enough to be ready to die in political struggle. You will not become a real politician if you are not able to deal with your political opponent whom you defeated.” Listening to these discussions of politics by Dugin, I remembered that in Trotsky’s “My Life” there is almost verbatim the same thing when the author explains why he insisted on the physical elimination of the leaders of the left Socialist Revolutionaries after their unsuccessful coup.

And it is unlikely that the thinker Alexander Dugin, who tells us about his philosophy of death on radio and television, who teaches Russian people that there is nothing terrible in a nuclear disaster, which will carry the hated Americans to heaven with us, would be popular among us, if After the August revolution of 1991, we began to seriously decommunize our worldview, our ideology. And since for us today not only Lenin, but also Stalin are great statesmen, almost our national pride, then there is room for a new version of Dugin’s national-Bolshevism, which calls us to hatred of the West and teaches us to see the positive in nomadism Mongols, who conquered endless territories.

Meanwhile, a person is only a person because he gets tired of extremes, of extremes, he gets tired of the sacralization of death. In the end, we must take into account the dialectic of life and achievement. Death is red when it leads to the preservation of the lives of others. A feat is only a feat when it serves not death, but the preservation of life. And this circumstance, in my opinion, is not taken into account by Alexander Dugin, who preaches sacrifice without end. If everyone is a hero, then there will be nothing left of life. A feat is a feat because it is something exceptional. A massive feat is already self-destruction.

It is possible to resist the ideology of National Bolshevism of Alexander Dugin, which some politicians tried to turn into a state ideology, only by carrying in one’s consciousness the values ​​of Russian culture, humanism, and philanthropy. For Herzen, Dostoevsky and their comrades, it was indisputable that there was something abnormal, inhuman in Russian serfdom, and in Russian poverty, and in the atrocities of the Russian landowner against the Russian serf. And in order to find some justification for all this, they came up with the idea that there is some deep meaning in this suffering. And Herzen, and Dostoevsky, and even Vladimir Solovyov, behind their belief in a special historical mission, there was a desire to find a justification for what Dostoevsky himself called the “difficult situation” of Russian life. Behind the messianism of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Solovyov there is an awareness of the unnaturalness, inhumanity of Russian poverty, Russian slavery, the wretchedness of Russian life. Hence, from the desire to somehow justify the painful situation of Russian life, there was Fyodor Dostoevsky’s faith in the chosenness of God of the Russian people. As one of Dostoevsky’s heroes says: “The True Eternal God chose our poor people for their patience and humility, for their invisibility and lack of shine, into union with Himself: and with this people He will conquer the whole world to His Truth.”

We live in a time that our President Vladimir Putin calls “a tragedy not only for Ukraine, but also for Russia.” But I am convinced, I firmly believe that the beauty and power of Russian culture are immortal and they will still push out from the Russian soul everything that prevents us from loving life and defending life. Let’s return to the values ​​of the 90s, to the values ​​that were formulated in Vladimir Putin’s article “Russia at the turn of the millennium.” Why do we need Dugin with his philosophy of death, which actually compromises both Russian culture and ourselves? After all, we had so many great thinkers who called us to the Christian “don’t do to others what you don’t want for yourself,” called us to think about the most important thing – about preserving the life that we have today and that God gave us.