One of the intriguing results of the 2006 Verkhovna Rada elections was that the so-called “Popular Opposition” bloc led by the head of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine and Doctor of Economic Sciences Natalya Mikhailovna Vitrenko (b. 1951), managed to come, with 2.93% of the official turnout, close to passing the 3%-barrier and thus almost entered the Rada. Vitrenko is the premier representative of radical anti-Westernism in Ukraine; she has also made herself known with her frequent invectives against Ukrainian politicians whom she does not hesitate to call “fashisty” (fascists). Both of these circumstances are ironic in as far as Vitrenko has, since 2004, been officially allied to a well-known post-Soviet propagator of Western Europe’s worst invention: fascism.
Vitrenko, along with former UNA-UNSO and current “Bratstvo” leader Dmitro Korchinski, entered in 2004, and is now listed in the directory of members of, the Highest Council of the Moscow-based International “Eurasian Movement” (see http://evrazia.org/). There was also an announcement in 2005 that Vitrenko and Korchinski entered the Highest Council of the Eurasian Youth Union – the International “Eurasian Movement’s” youth section with branches in, among other countries, Ukraine. Both of these organizations, the International “Eurasian Movement” and Eurasian Youth Union, are entirely devoted to the ideas of the Russian publicist and Doctor of Political Sciences Aleksandr Gel’evich Dugin (b. 1962). Dugin has become a famous political commentator in Russia during the last years, but has not (yet) been broadly noted in Ukraine. His name was recently mentioned in Ukrainian mass media in connection with the scandal that arose when Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykola Zhulinsky was barred from entering Russia during a private trip to St. Petersburg. This was interpreted as a retaliation for Ukraine’s refusal to permit Alexander Dugin entering Ukraine shortly before. In June 2006, Dugin had been declared persona non grata in Ukraine until 2011 for violating Ukrainian law, and was thus deported back to Russia when he arrived by plane at Simferopol airport in early June 2007 in order to attend the festival “The Great Russian Word” organized by the Russian Community of the Crimea.
In Putin’s Russia, Dugin has made himself known as a “neo-Eurasianist” and fanatic anti-American. Dugin also occasionally describes himself
– with reference to the German anti-democratic publicist Ernst Niekisch, as a “national bolshevist,”
– with reference to the French esotericist Rene Guenon and Italian Dadaist Julius Evola, a “traditionalist,”
– with reference to a German inter-war intellectual movement, a “conservative revolutionary,” or,
– with reference to the ideas of the Parisian theorist Alain de Benoist, a “new rightist.”
He has also made affirmative references to other non-Russian sources including British Satanism, European occultism or Japanese mysticism. As this list indicates, Dugin’s world-view is, to a large degree, a variation of a number of ideas that had their origins outside Russia. While Dugin poses as a radical anti-Westerner and devout Orthodox believer, his major concepts, in fact, are imported from various catholic and protestant countries of inter- and post-war Western Europe. That Vitrenko has entered the ruling body of an organization fundamentally inspired by non-Slavic and especially Western sources should make Ukrainian anti-Westerners think.
There is more: In spite of his dubious sources, Dugin finds himself today in the company of a whole number of highly placed Russian political and social figures such as Minister of Culture Sokolov, Federation Council Deputy Speaker Torshin or Presidential Aide Aslakhanov who, like Vitrenko, Korchinskii and other post-Soviet figures, have entered the International “Eurasian Movement’s” Highest Council. This circumstance makes it even more noteworthy that, in the past, Dugin has made many, to say the least, unorthodox statements on world history. In particular, Dugin gave some unusual assessments of West European fascism. To be sure, Dugin has often criticized German, Italian and other fascisms, for instance, in his article “Fascism — borderless and red” which is a chapter of the electronic version of his book 1997 The Templars of the Proletariat (see http://www.my.arcto.ru/public/templars/). Yet, what Dugin blamed the fascist movements and regimes of inter-war Europe for was that they were too moderate, too incoherent, too soft, and not truly revolutionary. Fascism, such is Dugin’s view, is, in principle, an excellent idea. Unfortunately, in Dugin’s opinion, it has never been consistently implemented. That shall be different after the break-up of the Soviet Union. In Russia today, finally, there will, as he writes in his “Fascism – borderless and red,” emerge a truly “fascist fascism.” In articles published before, such as “Conservative Revolution” (1991), “The Great War of the Continents” (1991-1992) or “Left Nationalism” (1992), Dugin had already elaborated why exactly he thinks that Russian fascism is a benevolent ideology, the SS was an organization with positive characteristics, the break-up of the 1939 alliance between Hitler and Stalin constituted an unfortunate event, etc. The banner of the notorious National-Bolshevik Party that Dugin co-founded in 1994 (and has left, in the meantime) is an obvious adaptation of the colors of the Nazi flag.
Vitrenko has, by entering the International “Eurasian Movement’s” Highest Council, officially accepted intellectual leadership from somebody who has not hesitated to formulate repeatedly and explicitly an attraction to various forms of inter-war fascism, and to indirectly classify himself as a fascist.
A final note on Dugin might be worth adding in view of Vitrenko’s frequent recent posing as a Ukrainian patriot. Dugin is not only notorious for his debt to Western radical anti-democratic ideas. He has, furthermore, made himself known by statements on the future of Ukraine not less extravagant than his statements on fascism. In his major book Foundations of Geopolitics (Moscow 2000), Dugin, for instance, writes that “[t]he sovereignty of Ukraine represents such a negative phenomenon for Russian geopolitics that it can, in principle, easily provoke a military conflict.” (p. 348). Apart from other similar statements about Ukraine as a whole (“Malorossiya” and “Okraina,” p. 799), he, in Foundations of Geopolitics, noted, with reference to Southern Ukraine, that “[a]n absolute imperative of Russian geopolitics on the Black Sea shores is the total and unlimited control by Moscow of [these shores] over their whole stretch – from the Ukrainian to the Abkhaz territory” (p. 349). Similar sentences can be found in Foundations of Geopolitics and other publications by Dugin. Recently, Dugin has suggested that Ukraine should be divided into two states (“razmezhevanie”) with the obvious prospect that Eastern and Southern Ukraine would de facto, if not de jure, become parts of Russia.
In view of the above and various comparable statements, it is surprising that Dugin has managed to link himself institutionally to a whole number of top actors of the government, parliament, media, and civil society of Russia – a country that defines itself, even more than Ukraine, by its victory over fascism, is proud of its anti-fascist credentials, and claims to have brotherly feelings for Ukraine. It is also odd that the International “Eurasian Movement” led by a sworn enemy of Ukrainian unity, fanatic apologist of fascism and persona non grata in Ukraine has, via the presence of deputies of Vitrenko’s electoral bloc, party and youth organization in many regional and local parliaments, acquired an indirect representation in dozens of Ukrainian state organs. An even more ironic situation will emerge, if Vitrenko, in the parliamentary elections on 30th September 2007, manages to pass the 3% barrier, and becomes a deputy of the 6th Verkhovna Rada. Then, Doctor Vitrenko could arrange for a television-bridge between Moscow and Kyiv and let Doctor Dugin explain to the Ukrainian parliament why the Ukrainian state is a bad, but a fascist state would be a good idea.
Andreas Umland, previously a fellow at Stanford, Harvard and Oxford, is Lecturer of German Studies at the Shevchenko University of Kyiv and editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” (www.ibidem-verlag.de/spps.html).
