Russian Nationalism Today: The Views Of Alexander Dugin

Contemporary Review, July, 2001 by Dmitry Shlapentokh

The Elite and the West

All of this does not work in post-Soviet Russia where the elite has tried its best to be integrated in the West. There is a vested interest of the newborn Russian elite to maintain a good relationship with the West. The Russian elite wishes to receive Western loans. These loans are actually gifts, for it is clear to all parties that Russia has no intention of ever repaying them. More importantly, the West is a haven for their capital.

The point here is that money and power are tightly connected in present day Russia. There is no such thing as private property, as it is known in the West. An individual's property rights depend on his relationship to the holder of power, especially in the case of such lucrative property as oil and other natural resources. Money is not safe, and for this reason the new Russians, the emerging rich, send their money to Western banks. This is one of the major reasons why the elite will try to maintain a good relationship with the West.

The same concern for money and property is what has made them allies of Yeltsin's and now Putin's regime, which despite its political vacillation remains a pro-Western force. A change in political leadership could easily lead to the re-division of property, and this is another reason why the present-day post-Soviet elite was so concerned with the transition to the post-Yeltsin era.

Thus, for various reasons, the elite sees a good relationship with the West as critical. And because of this I think it would be unbelievable to assume that the present day Russian elite would turn against the West.

Dugin argued against my position in the following way: First, he disagreed with my statement that the present day elite sees the West as indispensable to their economic well-being. As a matter of fact, in Dugin's view, the present day Russian financial oligarchy could hardly be incorporated into the Western economy. The logic of events will lead them to a confrontation with the West. And here he pointed to Boris Berezovsky, the financial tycoon who has been actively involved in politics and is seen by some people as a king maker.

Berezovsky and similar members of the Russian economic and political elite, Dugin stated, would not be able to function in the West. All of them are criminals, or at least semi-criminals, and cannot become a part of the Western economic system. Dugin pointed to the scandal with the Bank of New York where several of the bank's employees had been linked to money laundering. These sort of scandals endanger the ability of Russia to attract new loans from the West (and much of these loans go directly into the pockets of the Russian bureaucracy). Eventually these scandals will have serious repercussions, and the money the tycoons have in Western banks might not be safe in the future.

Recent developments give some credibility to Dugin's assumptions that the Westernism of the present day Russian oligarchy, whether they are ethnic Russians or Jewish, is a fleeting phenomenon, and that they will eventually have to join the Russian nationalists and prepare Eurasia for a showdown with its arch enemy, the United States. Dugin ended our conversation with the ominous statement that the perceived passivity of the Russian populace is deceptive and a great confrontation lies ahead. He also added that in the confrontation with the USA, Russia-Eurasia will not stand alone and will be able to assemble around herself a mighty alliance of assorted nations ranging from Israel to Iran.