KATEHON

GEOPOLITICS AND TRADITION

Contents
EDITORIAL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
WHAT IS WRONG WITH EUROPE?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Alexander Dugin
10 CRISES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Leonid Savin
A HOT SUMMER IN THE BALKANS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Stevan Gaji
THE USAS IMPOSITION OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE AGAINST THE EU. . . . 27
Emilija Geleva
THE DELPHI DECLARATION ON GREECE AND EUROPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
DELPHI AND BEYOND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
WHAT HAPPENED TO FINLAND?
FROM A WELFARE STATE TO THE NEXT GREECE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Jarmo Nevalainen
THE IMMIGRATION MENACE
AND THE BACKGROUND OF THE CZECH LIBERAL DEMOCRACY CRISIS:
WHO WILL OFFER A SOLUTION? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Ladislav Zemnek
PRO WAR AND OPEN BORDERS. THE GEOPOLITICAL FRAMEWORK
OF GERMANYS MASS MIGRATION PROBLEM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Manuel Ochsenreiter

GLOBALIZATION
OR FINANCE CAPITALIST TROTSKYISM?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Christopher Borcella
BESTIA DEVICTUS:
THE SCO, EURASIANISM AND THE END OF LIBERALISM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Matthew Raphael Johnson
THE CIVILIZATIONAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL PARADIGM IN GEOPOLITICS.90
Alexey Kharin
THE ORTHODOX MAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Tommy Rydn
RUSSIAN MUSLIM CULTURE:
SOCIAL REALITY AND CONCEPT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Damir Mukhetdinov
PEOPLE:
THE CALL TO BE HEARD.
BRAZIL SEEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ALEXANDR DUGINS FOURTH POLITICAL
THEORY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
CEM
OSWALD SPENGLER ON THE SOUL OF RUSSIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Kerry Bolton
FEDERALISM IN UKRAINE
AND THE WAY TOWARD PEACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Enrique Refoyo

Katehon magazine
ISSN 2412-8570
Russia, Moscow 125375
Tverskaya str. 7, of. 605
tel./fax + 7 (499) 271 10 15
http://katehon.com/

Editorial
Katehon (Katekhon) is a term from the Gospel found in the second chapter of the
Apostle Pauls Second Epistle to theThessalonians, verses 6-7. Paul tells the Christians in
Thessalonica that the mission of a godly force he calls Katekhon consists of preventing the
rise of the Antichrist and the final victory of evil in history. Saint John Chrysostom, one
of the first archbishops of Constantinople at the turn of the 5thcentury and an important
early church father, interprets Katekhon to mean the state. If this is the case, the term
automatically obtains a political connotation. Contemporary post-modernist policy
has the potential to lead people away from Christian tradition, amid visible signs of the
emasculation of religious and metaphysical concepts, replacing the strength of the church
with worldly substitutes.
One such powerful substitute is the USA, whose political elite constantly appeal to
God while their motives are far from divinely inspired. From the position of conservative
Christian values, Americas legacy, which includes the financing US banks provided to
Hitlers Germany, the nuclear bombing of Japan, the establishment of miserable dictatorial
client states from Latin America to the Middle East, and the annual and baseless
promulgation of military conflict as a multi-billion dollar industry, the United States
has engaged in an unbroken and infernal chain of grievances against Christian decency.
These are only some examples. Given this, many may ask: will humanitys next Katekhon
expressly be one which can resist the expansionist plans of Washington, which creates
hostility and hatred on a global scale? Despite the seeming evidence, the answer to this
question remains ambiguous. After all, in the USA there are a large number of citizens
who condemn the actions of their leadership, and also resist the institutionalization of
godless laws which have been established according to a skewed re-conceptualization of
human rights and individual freedom. Such voices can also be heard in Europe, which has
gradually been absorbed into the EU and become the obedient satellite of the USA (under
the guise of uniform transatlantic valuesthis Newspeak only appeared in the 1970s).
Additionally, Christian traditions havent died off, the traditions which throughout the
centuries have inspired many historical leaders and statesmen.
If a small group of early Christians managed to resist to the repressive pressure of the
powerful pagan Roman Empire and create the hurch, later inspiring others to found
states that were established on Christian principles, one cant deny the possibility that
Europe and America can be healed from the political and spiritual ulcers which have
affected their respective societies.
This journal will serve as a mouthpiece for an international group of Christian
conservative thinkers, brought together by our analytical center. The aim of the center
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Autumn 2015

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is to develop an agenda that can adequately meet the challenges of the present age, and
may serve as a guide for political action. Of course, the editors wont limit themselves
exclusively to religious themes (including non-Christianbeliefs), and will offer a broad
analysis of current events and topical ideas related to geopolitics.
The first edition is devoted, generally, to Europe, which faces numerous problems. A
number of authors from countries throughout the region will reflect on present events
both in the context of the national interests of their respective countries, and from the
position of international relations. A number of articles will reflect an attempt to develop
alternatives to the present policy of neo-liberalism, from philosophical approaches to
specific projects which usually attract the attention of the expert community.
Our group will address these subjects and will engage in critical thinking while
maintaining a conservative approach. Additional materials and polemic works are also
available on the sitehttps://katehon.com

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What is Wrong with Europe?

Alexander Dugin

In order to correctly understand the nature of the present crisis, we need to conduct a
short analysis of the situation. I suggest three levels of analysis:
The ideological
The economic
The geopolitical
Liberal ideology is the source of the problem
Ideologically, the problem is liberalism, which is the sole ideology imposed on Europe
and the rest of humanity by the Anglo-Saxon world. Liberalism only affirms individual
identity and prohibits any kind of collective or organic identity. So liberalism, step by
step, refuses religion, the nation and gender identity in
order to set the individual completely free from any kind of
Liberalism destroys
organic unity. Gender is the core political problem because
European identity
the liberals insist on the optional nature of gender. They
fanatically promote the view that gender is an individual
choice. (Prior to this, they supported the concept that religion and nationality were
matters of individual choice.) The other crucial point is immigration. Liberalism refuses
to acknowledge religious or cultural identities as well as gender identity. Immigrants are
not considered as the bearers of different identities, but only as atomized individuals, like
everyone else who inhabits the liberal societies of the West. Thus, liberalism destroys all
forms of collective identity. In addition liberalism destroys European identity (with so
called tolerance and human rights theories). Together with the intentional destruction
Alexander Dugin is Philosopher, Ph.D., Founder of the Russian School of
Geopolitics, Adviser of the Speaker of Russian Parliament.

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of sexual identity, liberalism accelerates the

end of organic society as such. The end
of Europe is assured by the very fact of
Europes own acceptance of liberalism as its
mainstream ideology.
The last step in the development of
liberalism will be the purposeful negation
of our collective human identity. So
welcome to trans-humanism! That is the
liberal agenda for tomorrow.
Liberalism is a nihilist ideology. It insists
on liberty from any kind of collective
identity but never suggests something
positive. In the past, while competing
with the totalitarian ideologies i.e.
communism and fascism liberalism
was a concrete and attractive philosophy
precisely because it negated the concrete
nature of totalitarianism. At the same
time, totalitarianism promoted itself as
a better alternative to liberalism. But
when the various totalitarianisms were
eventually defeated (politically, militarily
and ideologically in 1945 and 1991), the
nihilistic nature of liberalism was revealed
for all to see. That is to say, liberalism can
only negate. It cannot affirm anything. It
is not an ideology of positive freedom (i.e.
freedom for something), it is an ideology
of negative liberty (i.e. liberty from). In
the past, these truths were not as explicit as
they are today.
And so, liberalism itself turned out
to be yet another totalitarian creed. For
example, today, one does not have the
liberty to be illiberal. One must be liberal.
Indeed, one can choose to be a liberal of the
left, right or centre; in some cases one can
even be a liberal of the far left or far right.
Nevertheless, one must always be a liberal of
some kind. If you are judged to be illiberal
by liberals, you are finished professionally
[6]

and socially labelled an extremist,

terrorist, etc. The liberals can tolerate, but
they can only tolerate tolerant people. If
you are not tolerant (in the liberal sense),
you yourself are intolerable.
Therefore, how can we oppose
liberalism? In the twentieth century
there were two options: communism
(socialism) and fascism. Both failed
historically politically, philosophically,
military, economically. They exist now as
simulacra. That is to say, they are either
hyper-marginal (existing on the fringes
of society) or manipulated in some way
by the overarching liberal agenda: hence
liberal-communism (of the post-modernist
type), which includes the anarchists and
Trotskyites. Then, on the other side, there
are the liberal-fascists who serve the
liberals by promoting their cause exactly as
the Islamic fundamentalists are used as a
weapon of constant fear and disinformation
in the hyper-liberal USA. So it is my belief
that to oppose liberalism, we must not
turn to the previous first, second and third
political theories of liberalism, Marxism
and fascism (respectively), but we must
turn to the nascent Fourth Political Theory.
I have developed this idea in my book The
Fourth Political Theory, translated in many
languages. Thus I have repeatedly stressed
the dire need to combat liberalism by
refusing and deconstructing it totally. At
the same time, we need to do this not in the
name of class (as in Marxism) nor in the
name of nation or race (as in fascism),
but in the name of the organic unity of
People, social justice and true democracy.
Liberals interpret democracy as the rule
of an agenda-driven minority against
the collective will of the majority. We, as
proponents of the Fourth Political Theory,
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need to restore the original meaning of the

term democracy, which is nothing less than
the rule of the organic majority; the majority
that shares a common identity i.e., the
rule of the People as a unified historical and
cultural collective.
Financial capitalism is a
catastrophe
Economically, the problem lies in
financial capitalism which pretends to
have overcome the real sector of industry
(and manufacturing) in favour of financial
markets, technology and the so-called
services industries. Such capitalism is
wholly monopolistic, focusing its attention
on creating financial bubbles that are
destined to burst in lieu of developing a
solid economic infrastructure. Such an
economy is based on fraudulent financial
speculations (of the G. Soros type) and
cherishes the illusion of infinite growth.
This contradicts reality, however. The
middle class is no longer growing. The
growth of the financial markets does
not correspond to the growth of the real
economic sector (manufacturing, industry,
etc.). Placing all of the attention on financial
institutions and promoting the outsourcing
of vital industries to the countries of the
Third World is the surest way to the abyss.
In other words, globalization is the surest
way to Hell. Although the first waves of the
crisis have already passed, new waves will
soon be here. The economic collapse of the
Southern European countries such as
Greece and, in the near future, Italy and
Spain is only the visible peak of the
immense catastrophe that looms on the
horizon. European unity is based on the full
acceptance of the financial capitalist logistic.
Only Germany now struggles in order to
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Autumn 2015

keep its economy in touch with industrial

realities. In so doing, Germany refuses to
embark on the train into nothingness. This
is the primary cause of the same old antiGerman hysteria currently manifesting
itself in Europe and the USA. Nevertheless,
the German economy might be the last
real Western economy; the rest are already
virtual economies.
So we need to reconstruct Europe on an
alternative economic basis.
Infinite growth is but a liberal illusion.
The fall of the middle class is the severe
reality. The only way out is through a
complete revision of the myths of financial
capitalism.
Atlanticism is wrong
Geopolitically, Europe is today an
Atlanticist
entity.
The
geopolitical
theory envisioned by Englishman Sir H.
Mackinder declares that there are two types
of civilizations the civilization of the
Sea (Sea-power) and the civilization of the
Land (Land-power). They are constructed
on an opposing system of values. Seapower is purely mercantile, modernist and
materialist. Land-power is traditionalist,
spiritual and heroic. Such dualism
corresponds to the paired concept of Werner
SombartHndlres and Helden. Modern
European society is fully integrated into the
civilization of the Sea, and is manifested in
the strategic hegemony of North America
via NATO.
This situation prevents Europe from
becoming an independent geopolitical
entity. More profoundly it perverts
the geopolitical nature of Europe as a
continental entityor Land-power.
So there is a dire need to change the
status quo and to restore the organic Land[7]

power strategy based on real European

sovereignty. Instead of Atlanticism, Europe
needs to become a continental strategic
power.
If we summarize the following points
we can logically deduce where we are in
European-Russian relations.
Modern Russia is:
relatively hostile towards liberalism
(more traditionalist and inclined towards
conservatism),
economically trying to free itself from the
dictatorship of the World Bank and MF,
geopolitically continental and antiAtlanticist.
These points underscore the reality of
why Russia is currently under attackin
Ukraine, in Moscow, everywhere. The
recent killing of the liberal Boris Nemstsov
was a blatant provocation that serves
only to demonize Russia in the eyes of
the West. The liberals, global financial
oligarchs and Atlanticists (the U.S. and the
financial elite) continually provoke hostility
between Russia and Europe. Indeed, they
continually strive to maintain their fragile
unipolar mandate by promoting ethnic
conflicts globally (divide et impera). The
war in Ukraine is the first step in a series
of future ethnic conflicts on European soil.
The global liberal elites are planning ethnic
wars not only in Ukraine or Russia but
in Germany, France, Eastern Europe and
elsewhere. And so, the liberal Empire tries
frantically to save its fragile hegemony by
dividing us all.
We need to resist this evil Empire in
order to construct a better Europe, a truly
European Europe. In such a situation,
Russia is the natural geopolitical friend of
Europe and the USA is the enemy. Therefore
we must work on developing a Russian[8]

European alliance, not because Europeans

love Russians or Russians love Europeans.
But because we need to act united in order
to save each other from the imminent
danger that menaces us all.

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10 Crises of the European Union

Leonid Savin

Currently, the EU faces a number of interconnected crises. Some of them are institutional,
others are caused by objective factors and demonstrate a general unpreparednessperhaps
even an unwillingnesson the part of Brussels to cope with new threats. Still other types
of crises are operated ones in which the important role is played by the USA as the main
partner of the EU in military, political and economic matters. And of course this partner
tries to advance its own interests.
Crisis of the general policy of European integration
The enthusiasm and pathos derived from the creation of uniform space has burnt
out, especially after the main beneficiaries from the project of the EU, i.e. Germany and
France, has become ever more obvious. The system of the adoption of political decisions in
the EU (European Commissioners are not elected by direct vote) contradicts democratic
standards and values. And that fact alone undermines the foundations of the national
states within the EU and strengthens the role of the bureaucracy. It generates a general
mistrust of the supranational institutions which do not have authority. In addition, the
weakened sovereignty of the national states significantly reduces their roles as players in
the realm of international politics. If in the past Germany, France, Italy and other countries
applied for the status of power-centers (even if they remained dependent on the USA via
NATO), now their possibilities noticeably reduced.
The interests and ambitions of certain countries face not only the natural competition
from the outside, but they also meet with internal sabotage which is expressed through the
blockade of various initiatives. For example, Germany did not support the development
of the Mediterranean Union which was initially backed by France. Similar mutually
Leonid Savin is Chief Editor of Katehon magazine and Director of the socialpolitical programs in the Institute of Economics and Legislation (Moscow,
Russia).

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dependent vulnerability led to the

emergence of the concept of the EU as a
small power.1 If, during the modernist era,
Europe could boast of having a coalition of
powers that contributed to setting the tone
of world history, today (in the postmodern
era) the EU is not considered to be an entity
of absolute values with regard to global
policy.
Crisis of economy
The risk of a Greek exit from the euro
zone and also the current debate
about possible new candidates for a
default shows an insolvency regarding
the economic policy of the EU. Though
well known neoliberals like George Soros
constantly advise European politicians
on economic matters, the EU abstains
from both full-fledged liberalization and a
return to a more rational approach to the
management of the banking sector.
Thus, there was a threat of the EUs
withdrawal of its Transatlantic partnership
on trade and investments i.e. what is
intensely lobbied by Washington.
The European public is a crucial target
of this American initiative. Nevertheless,
researchers note that according to the
international standards and laws of the EU,
there is only the mandate on negotiation, but
these negotiations take place behind closed
doors under the pressure of Washington.
Moreover, there were numerous attempts
from the USA to undermine the European
rules of data security.2 Reports of both
the European and American consumer
1 Asle Toje. The European Union as a Small Power:
After the Post-Cold War. Basingstoke: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2010
2
http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-257ttip-ralf-bendrath.pdf

[10]

organizations and representatives of civil

society testify to this fact.
Such actions are, as a rule, conducted
through the lobbyist companies. For
example, through Hogan Lovells, which
created the Coalition for Privacy and
Free Trade. The direct political interests
of the USA are obvious among such
heavyweights as Hugo Paemen, the
former US Ambassador in the EU; the
former representative of the USA on trade,
Clayton Eutter; the former Deputy Chief
Technology Officer in the White House,
Daniel Weitzner3; all of these men work
for Hogan Lovells. Will the European
consumers manage to stand under the
pressure of the multinational companies?
It is obvious that it is also a question of
political will among the leaders of the EU
countries.
Analyzing the macroeconomic indicators
in the EU, the German observer Eric
Zuesse came to the following conclusions
concerning the consequences of joining the
EU to transatlantic partnership:
Within the first 10 years the agreement
will lead to European net export
losses. The following entities will suffer
most of all: Northern Europe (2,07% of
GDP), France (1,9%), Germany (1,14%),
and also Great Britain (0,95%);
The agreement will cause decrease
in GDP growth. Taking into account
European netexport losses, Northern
Europe will face the largest reduction
of GDP (0,5%), France (0,48%),
Germany(0,29%);
The agreement will cause a failing of the
labor income. France will suffer most
3
http://www.hoganlovells.com/hoganlovells-forms-coalition-forprivacy-and-freetrade-03-18-2013

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strongly; it will lose 5 500 euros for

one able-bodied in annual calculation,
Northern Europe4 800 euros, Great
Britain 4 200 euros, Germany 3
400 euros;
The agreement will lead to loss of jobs.
The EU will approximately lose 600
thousand workplaces. The greatest
losses will be in Northern Europe223
thousand, Germany 134 thousand,
France 130 thousand, and also
Southern Europe90 thousand;
The agreement will lead to losses of state
revenues. The margin from the income
on indirect taxes (excises, a value added
tax) in relation to the state subsidies will
be reduced in all European countries.
Most strongly it will concern France
where total losses will be 0,64% of
GDP. Deficiency of state budgets of all
European countries will increase with
possible excess of the indicators fixed by
the Maastricht agreements in 3%;4
The agreement will cause the increased
financial instability, accumulation of
imbalances, the reduction of export
revenue, salary share in the income of
the population and also of state revenues.
In this situation the demand will have
to be maintained by the income and
investments. At the same time against
the decreasing rates of consumption
the growth of sales wont be able to act
as a driving force. Growth of cost of
assets which will support the income
and investments (generally in financial
sector) will become more realistic option.
Potential threat of macroeconomic
instability at such model of economic
4 http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/wpcontent/uploads/2014/11/TTIP-Studie-Tufts.pdf

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development is well-known and that was

shown by the last financial crisis.5
Crisis of European culture
Formation of the general space of the EU
forced to create special programs urged to
underline the
There were
unity of the
com mu nit y
numerous attempts
count ries.
from the USA to
Howe ver,
undermine the
instead
of
appealing
European rules of
to
historic
data security
facts and the
European
traditions (i.e. underlining the pluralistic
values), including Christian roots,
Brussels provoked creation of postmodernist model, the most known as
multiculturalism. Leaders of Germany and
France officially declared the crash of this
model a few years ago. Though the criticism
of multiculturalism is generally connected
with a demographic imbalance and process
of Islamization of Europe (and now the EU
must adopt the norms of its own native
citizens in face of Muslim culture, that is
more resistant than amorphous European
set of rules), the roots of this problem are
deeper, and possible consequences can be
much more serious (but also hypocritical
embraces under the flag of tolerance
cause generation of such figures as Anders
Breivik). It is not only about emasculation
of historical memory and its substitution
by trite ersatz culture, but also about an
5 Eric Zuesse, Obamas Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP) Would Be Disastrous
for Europe // Global Research, November 18, 2014
http://www.globalresearch.ca/obamas-transatlantictrade-and-investment-partnership-ttip-would-bedisastrous-for-europe/5414546

[11]

education system which institutionalizes

of intellectual degradation. Finally it can
lead to a dehumanization and change of
an anthropological picture of Europe. One
of the sad facts of this processadoption
of law on same-sex marriages that shows
the next crisis connected with sexual
orientation.
Crisis of gender identity
The project of transhumanity advanced
by the USA even more often is perceived in
the EU as the mechanism of destruction of
the European peoples of rich culture and
history. Unfortunately, a number of laws,
such as legalization of same-sex marriages
and gender education, were already
implemented in the countries of Europe,
but they cause serious resistance in the
vast majority of the population and can be
reconsidered in the future.
Nevertheless, it seriously strikes on
image of the EU. Europe is even more
often perceived as a nursery of sodomy and
legalization of perversions. The narrative
about Gayropa6 already became the
property of both an ordinary discourse,
and scientific researches.
Military-political crisis
The Ukrainian conflict and a false target
in the form of Russia had an essential
impact on the restructuring of the EU
armed forces or to be exact, predetermined
the plan of the manipulative actions taken
by the USA on the European arena. The EU
countries within
NATO became the hostages of
instructions from Washington, having
6 Oleg Riabov, Tatiana Riabova. The decline of
Gayropa? // http://www.eurozine.com/articles/201402-05-riabova-en.html

[12]

developed the long-term operation Atlantic

Resolve.
Besides the debate about the role of NATO,
the need of the corresponding payments
at the level of 2% of GDP and creation of
the European forces of reaction, in the EU
there appears the problem connected with
different opinions concerning the strategy
of actions itself.
On February 11, 2015 the militarypolitical group sent the letter of
recommendation to the Council of Europe
where it was specified that all member states
of the EU politically support carrying out
operations or missions, but only the limited
quantity of them wishes and has possibility
to take part in military actions.7
This EU military-political groups
recommendation compelled to adopt the
new provision on the mechanism of the
general expenses administration of on
carrying out military operations of the
European Union, known under Athena
code-name. The main idea consisted in
presenting the EU as a source of safety.
We will note that various civil and
military EU missions are now carried out
in the states situated far from the European
Unions borders: Afghanistan, Djibouti,
Somalia, Seychelles, Tanzania, Democratic
Republic of Congo, Mali, Niger, Central
African Republic, Palestine, Kosovo,
Bosnia, Georgia and Ukraine.
On March 27, 2015 the decision 2015/528
was made which approved 49 points and
two appendices on financing, compensation
and the reporting during preparation
and carrying out such operations. This
bulky bureaucratic document underwent
criticism from the public for its discrepancy
7 PMG Recommendations on Article 44 TEU,
Brussels, 11 February 2015

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with reality. In general an imbalance countries of the European neighbourhood

between desires and possibilities, especially policy block the trade deficiency was
financial, were declared as crisis of military- recorded.
political system of the EU.8
Data of Eurostat give such statistics on
the countries9:
Crisis of good-neighbourhood
Algeria2005 of 11460 million euros,
The policy of the neighbourhood of the
2010 of 5445 million euros
EU has long history. Officially it is directed
Egypt 2005 of 1066 million euros,
on creation of friendly buffer zones in
2010 of 6843 million euros
Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle
Israel 2005 of 4095 million euros,
East and South Caucasus. Actually part of
2010 of 8244 million euros
the projects turned into the instrument of
Jordan 2005 of 1964 million euros,
political and economic expansion (projects
2010 of2261 million euros
of Eastern Partnership and Southern
Lebanon2005of2845 million euros,
partnership) operating in the framework
2010 of 4274 million euros
of soft power. On the other hand, the
Morocco2005of2228 million euros,
absence of deep understanding of needs and
2010 of 5140 million euros
interests of the neighboring countries led to
Palestine 2005 of 192 million euros,
emergence and escalation of the conflicts in
2010 of267 million euros
the southern Mediterranean that caused a
Syria2005 of 1916 million euros, 2010
domino effect and a humanitarian disaster
of 115 million euros
in North Africa and in the Middle East.
Tunisia 2005626 million euros, 2010
It should be noted that the EU usually
of 1163 million euros
concludes agreements on association in
In other words, these states got the
exchange for the obligation of carrying
European goods and services more, but
out political, economic, trade or judicial
didnt sell their goods to the EU countries.
reforms. In exchange for this associated
It is typical for liberally focused economy
state can get duty-free access to some or to
when one country or group of the countries
all EU markets, the market of agricultural
creates special conditions for penetration
products etc., and also financial or technical
on the markets of other powers, under the
assistance.
screen of the open market and free trade, at
It is important to note that among the
the same time using protectionist measures
countries of the Southern partnership only
for certain types of production to protect
Algeria and Syria from 2000 to 2011 had
their own producers.
positive trade balance with the EU, but
The data provided in the European
in both cases it is connected with export
Neighbourhood Policy Countries. Essential
of energy carriers. For all other southern
macro-economic indicators 2013 report
8 Council Decision (CFSP) 2015/528 of 27 March published by the European Commission
2015 establishing a mechanism to administer the
convincingly testify that the EU, but in
financing of the common costs of European Union
operations having military or defence implications
(Athena) and repealing Decision 2011/871/CFSP //
Official Journal of the European Union, 28.3.2015

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

9
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_
OFFPUB/KS-32-12-269/EN/KS-32-12-269-EN.
PDF

[13]

no way the countries of the Southern

partnership was the winner.
The analysis of actions of the EU
concerning the states getting to a framework
of both partnership led to understanding
in many these countries that actually these
projects are of a veiled neo-colonialism
form. As a result a number of the countries
had to refuse a number of offers of the EU.
And in other countries (Moldova, Ukraine)
the European grants according to programs
of Eastern Partnership simply melt away
in corruption schemes.
Of course anti-Russian stances from
sanctions to media hysteria is the most
obvious example of the false strategy for
neighbourhood.

European Commission and European

Parliament synchronously suggest to set
quotas for the arriving migrants that, first
of all will strike on countries of Eastern
Europe, where also so quite deplorable
situation with a demography.
The placement of migrants in the former
concentration camps, where the Nazis
destroyed people during Second world war,
is one more attempt to construct a good
mine at a bad game.
Crisis in energy strategy
Sanctions against Russia directly
impacted the energy policy of the EU.
The concept of the Third energy package
directly contradicts national interests of a
number of the states which have deficiency
of own energy resources and counted on
preferences from Russia. The economic
benefit could be received both from gas
transit, and from direct consumption. But
a number of countries are compelled to
suffer humiliating indications of European
Commission.
Though it is officially told about need to
create the consolidated position and to work
for the good of interests of all members of
the EU, in practice it occurs differently. In
the report of the German institute on the
international affairs and security devoted
to power policy it is specified that the
discourse about the power union can be
interpreted generally as a symptom of a
crisis in integration of the EU10. Despite all
offered programs and strategies, including
regulation of gas deliveries, green energy
and climate changes, authors specify that
only pragmatic approach can bring results.
It is necessary to consider that this institute

The next crisis a problem with

migrants
Huge flow of refugees and migrants
in the EU is only a consequence of the
previous actions of the European Union in
the countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle
East. Besides, the assimilated Africans and
Asians (the second and third generations
from the former colonies) are a certain
intermediary link between new migrants
and indigenous Europeans. And earlier
adopted laws do not allow the resolution
of humanitarian issues, and that leads to
absurd and tragicomic situations.
Brussels came recently to the point when
an offer to heat the vessels transporting
illegal migrants were considered. So that
statements for need of humanitarian
missions and tolerance is no more than
hypocritical policy of double standards. Polls
in EU countries show that local population
is categorically against new inflow of illegal
immigrants from the countries of Africa, 10 Severin Fischer and Oliver Geden. Limits of an
Asia and the Middle East. Meanwhile the Energy Union, SWP Comments 28, May 2015, . 3.
[14]

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K AT E H O N

develops foreign policy for Germany and

these recommendations mean a prevalence
of will of Berlin over other states.
Considering the institutional capacity
of the Germans, it is possible to suppose
that Germany plans to assume shadow
management of future power union with
the emphasis on renewables. Any leakage
of the German plans and infringement of
interests of the countries which now have
possibility of a choice of energy resources
sources, can generate deeper crisis and split
between EU members.

the creation of realistic scenarios, as the

majority of forecasts appears to be wrong.
Perhaps, the people making decisions
in the EU should look amongst themselves
and more sensibly to look at the course of
things, without denying the use of other
models of political management.

Crisis of own promises

The impression is made that European
citizens have a very short political memory.
They quickly forgot not only the promises
of their leaders, but also one particular
example: The Thessaloniki declaration of
200311 is still not implemented. The Western
Balkans for more than 10 years did not turn
into a prospering and safe region. On the
contrarythe situation in many countries
of the region worsened. And the cause is: a
direct short-sighted policy of the EU.
Crisis of ideas
Strangely enough, many of the considered
crises are connected to the absence of ideas
among European politicians. Impenitence
of thinking and persuasive commitment to
the limited block of the schemes connected
with neoliberal ideology in various forms of
its interpretations (from Left Trotskyism to
the militarism of the Right) neither permits
an adequate or objective look at the organic
processes nor estimates them in a temporary
and historical prospect. It, in turn, blocks
the possibility of forecasting and dismisses
11

http://www.cespi.it/Rotta/dich-Salonicco.PDF

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[15]

A Hot Summer in the Balkans

Stevan Gaji

It seems that the Yugoslav commotion among peoples, as I like to call it, or a general
atmosphere of insecurity and anxiousness started again to dominate the post-Yugoslav
space. A series of political processes show a general insecurity and increased conflict
potential throughout the Balkan Peninsula. This includes the sea border dispute between
Slovenia and Croatiaboth of them who are NATO and EU membersbut that particular
example is in fact the least of problems and serves just as an illustration of the current
geopolitical neurosis in the Balkans.
Much more worrying are problems such as the massive (measured by tens of thousands)
emigration of Kosovo-Metochia ethnic Albanians towards western countries; example:
armed clash in May in Kumanovo, between ethnic Albanian terrorists and Macedonian
police, leaving dozens of fatalities; Macedonia arresting numerous ISIS activists in August,
yet unable to root-out terrorist camps on its territory; Serb-Croatian and Serb-Muslim
tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina; thousands of Middle-Eastern and Central-Asian (mostly
Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan) refugees crossing across the Balkans in pursuit of happinessor
just bare survivalsomewhere in western Europe; links of conflicts in Ukraine and Middle
East to the Balkans; new energy and transport routes as sources of tensions The list just
goes on. In other (non-Yugoslav) parts of the Peninsula things are also getting warmed up
and cooled down in waves. Greek crisis seems to be delayed for a while, yet nothing seems
to be finished. It appears, however, that besides the internal reasons, these new tensions
Stevan Gaji is political analyst of the Institute of European Studies,
Belgrade, Serbia

[16]

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

have their origins in the centres of power

far away from the Balkans, as was the case
so many times in the Peninsulas history. In
this article I will explain why I think so.
Albions Game
The approaching of 11 July 2015 meant
that Bosnian and regional political were
to be occupied on another Srebrenica
anniversary. In 1995 the Serbian army
(Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina)
took the Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia.
Srebrenica was a UN protected zone, yet
also a stronghold of Naser Ori, a notorious
local warlord and criminal (both war and
peacetime). Despite treaties between Serbs,
UN and Muslims, he constantly went from
the town and massacred Serbs in villages
surrounding the enclave between 1992 and
1995. The death toll of these raids is at least
3287 Serbs1. Just weeks before Serb forces
entered the enclave finally, Ori and his top
thugs abandoned it by helicopter for the
safety of Sarajevo. The Serbian offensive
resulted in many combat casualties among
Muslim soldiers who defended their
position and while attempting to cross
Serb-held territory under combat, to reach
Muslim-held territory in central Bosnia.
In addition, many Muslim POWs were
executed. The question regarding who
ordered the executions has stayed unclear
even after a series of processes at The Hague
War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY), as there was
no evidence that the Republika Srpska Army
command gave such orders. Disputed is
also the overall number of Muslim soldiers
who died in July 1995. The official Bosnian
1
http://www.nspm.rs/istina-ipomirenje-na-ex-yu-prostorima/kadkazes-srebrenica-nikad-ne-kazes-bratunac.
html?alphabet=c#yvComment134206 (accessed 16
August 15).

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

Muslim leadership and the political West

(US, UK and the Netherlands in the first
place) insist on labelling events as genocide.
This anniversary usually means that the
tensions between Serbs and Muslims get
heated in Bosnia, but the tensions this year
were higher then ever.
The reason for this was that the British
proposal of UN Security Council resolution
that would brand Srebrenica as genocide
has forbid the labelling of that narrative as
genocide denial and in effect labels Serbs
as a genocide nation. The resolution never
passed Russias veto, but the debate about
it heavily damaged relations between the
communities. One of its effects was (in
the contest of current geopolitical standoff
between the West and Russia) supposed to
contain the Serbs whom the UK views as
the exponents of Russia in southern Europe
and Mediterranean. Having this in mind,
the main goal of the resolution was to brand
the Serbian republic a genocide state, which
was to be used as a prelude for the revision
of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement and
for centralising Bosnia-Herzegovina at
the expense of Serbs. Without their state,
Serbs would be completely deprived of their
rights, which would in effect move Bosnia
back to 1992, reinstating the casus belli.
The commemorational ceremony in
Srebrenica happened after the resolution
has failed and turned out to become a
major international scandal. Trying to calm
the tensions, but also to please the western
countries who supported his rise to power,
Serbian PM Alexander Vuci went to the
ceremony, but after it ended he was nearly
lynched by an organised Bosnian Muslim
mob. It remains unclear if this was only
supposed to be a message or really a murder
attempt, but tomorrow morning Serbian
[17]

tabloid Alo named a supposed MI6 operative

on their cover page2, blaming him directly
for a murder attempt that was supposed to
be a provocation that would burn down
the Balkans. The tabloid went so far to
connect the British operative with the 2003
assassination of Serbian PM Zoran ini.
This meant that the political honeymoon
between Vui and the UK abruptly ended.
Not long after that Tony Blair ceased being
one of Vuis advisors3. The second half of
the drama was painted with the message of
peace that Vui sent by hosting member
of the collective Presidium of BosniaHerzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic (Muslim),

Dragan ovi (Croat) and Mladen Ivani

(Serb). Although the whole scene was very
kitsch, in general this turned out a good
move of Serbian PM, as it actually did ease
the high emotional tensions that were very
explosive potentially.
The response to all of this by Republika
Srpska President Milorad Dodik was
to call a referendum to restore judicial
powers vested to Republika Srpska by
the Dayton Agreement, but stripped off
by the so-called High Representatives of
the international community, in effect
the colonial-type viceroys of the political
West. Dodiks initiative was backed by
Russia, which meant that Russia raised
2 http://arhiva.alo.rs/vesti/aktuelno/ovaj-englez- the stakes and adequately responded to
stoji-iza-atentata-na-vucica/105911 (accessed 16
the British challenge. Vui previously
August 2015).
3
http://www.telegraf.rs/vesti/politika/1689310- politely suggested to Dodik to rethink the
vucic-ostao-bez-blera-i-stros-kana-stizu-novi- decision already made by the parliament
savetnici-evo-i-koji (accessed 16 August 2015)
of Republika Srpska. However, after
[18]

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K AT E H O N

Russia supported the referendum, I doubt

that Vui was to oppose the referendum
publicly, as this would be viewed badly by
his own voters. Most of his supporters are
fond both of Russia and especially of Russias
firm position on defending the Serbian
interest and their own obligations towards
the Dayton Agreement (as Russia is one of
the guaranties of the peace treaty). But even
more relevant is that Vuis voters are fond
of Dodik, whom they see as an independent
brave Serbian voice in the Balkans.
The behaviour of the Serb leadership
under President Dodik is absolutely
rational, however it is only such because the
Serb leadership is forced to behave like this
in the circumstances where the Bosnian
Muslim leadership is both NATO oriented,
and leaning towards Islamist religious
extremism. The ties of Bakir Izetbegovis
father Alija with the jihadists are well known.
The first Islamist militia on European soil
was the notorious El Mujaheed Brigade of
jihadist volunteers fighting for Bosnian
Muslims during the Yugoslav Civil War.
Izetbegovi Junior has excellent ties with
Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and many young
Bosnian Salafists fight in the ranks of ISIS,
Al-Nusra Front and other extreme groups
in Syria. Needles to say that both Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdoan and PM
Ahmet Davutoluin the spirit of NeoOttomanismrepeatedly gave threatening
statements on Bosnia-Herzegovina. They
implied Turkey would militarily interfere
against the Serbs if needed, which is not to
be taken lightly having in mind that now
the Turkish air force is engaged in bombing
Kurdish positions in Syria which essentially
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

allied Turkey with ISIS, it is an open secret

for already some time.
Nevertheless, in spite of the extremism
of the Wahhabi sect in Bosnia they
comprise from 5% to maximum 10% of the
overall Bosnian Muslim population, while
the vast majority of Bosnian Muslims are
secular. The voice of the moderates who
support peace and cooperation with Serbs
and offer alternative narratives to both the
past events and current processes in the
Balkans are however silenced both by the
official Muslim elite and media, but also by
the Western discourse constantly produced
in the media, which serves to maintain a
constant state of tensions between Serbs
and Bosnian Muslims. Otherwise Serbs
(Orthodox Christians) and Bosnian
Muslims should be natural allies, as they are
both essentially the same people, divided by
faith as a result of historical circumstances.
Furthermore, in the eyes of the West, both
are in essence Oriental, so their cultures
intertwine once again, having the historical
civilisation centre in Constantinople. The
1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina
showed that such cooperation is quite
possible when not interrupted from outside,
as in the case of Serbs-Muslims coalition of
the so-called Republic of Western Bosnia
centred in the town of Velika Kladua, led
by Bosnian Muslim leader Fikret Abdi
who disagreed with US-backed Alija
Izetbegovis intolerant policies.
Unfortunately, such cooperation was
rarely seen as it did not fit the outside
forces interests, in the most current case
[19]

the UK that geopolitically manipulates the

hostilities and tries to fuel another conflict.
Serbs and Anti-Serbs
It is well known that Croatian
nationalism is a neglecting type of
nationalism. It is actually defined through
negation of another identity. For a Croatian
nationalist, the first thing they want to
make clear is that they are not Serbian.
Everything rest is secondary and derived
out of that first principle. This of course has
its origins in history that is not as ancient
as often presented. From the beginning
of the 19th century and the process of the
formation of the Serbian state, the Habsburg
Empire felt the danger that all the Serbian
speakers might thrive to join the newly
formed state. Many of these people were
living in the Empires border areas, which
represented a real security threat. With the
help of Vatican and a circle of intellectuals
(both clerical and secular) the Black-Yellow
Monarchy decided to implant a new identity
into the masses of Serbian-speaking Roman
Catholics. This is why the identity of the
Serbian-speaking Balkan peoples started
to be defined on the basis of religion, not
language as it was the case for most other
European nations, such as Germans. That
is why the modern Croatian identity was
based on a negative mirror identity. This
case is far from being unique. Similar was
with the British Empire that facilitated the
partition of India to secure the division and
paralyse the potential rise of their former
colony into a major power. Today we have
India and Pakistan (as Anti-India). The
same might come out with Ukraine (as
[20]

Anti-Russia) if it remains an independent

state, as it is today, after the war ends.
Coming back to the present day, August
began with another anniversary. Croatia
celebrates the 20th anniversary of operation
Storm on 5 August 2015. that was a major
offensive of the Croatian forces trained by
the Military Professional Resources Inc.
(MPRI), a private US mercenary company
with strong ties to the Pentagon. The
operation was a military attack against the
Republic of Serbian Krajina which was (just
like Srebrenica) a UN-protected zone, even
some UN troops were killed by Croatian
army during the attack4. The US was directly
involved as their warplanes bombed Serbian
air defence, radar and communication
facilities5, thus allowing Croatian air force
to bomb Serbian refugee convoys. The
attack was utterly illegal from the point
of international treaties, yet backed by the
US, whos Ambassador Peter Galbraith
personally joined in riding a Croatian tank.
The result of the operation was that several
thousand Serbian civilians were massacred
by Croatian troops, while almost quarter
of a million Serbs were ethnically cleansed
from their ancestral lands and forced to flee
for safety in Republika Srpska or the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (today Serbia and
Montenegro).
To commemorate the victory day,
Croatia organised a military parade and
events all over the country, while the
leaderships of Republika Srpska and Serbia
decided to commemorate it as a day of
4
https://theremustbejustice.wordpress.
c om / 2 0 1 2 / 1 1 / 1 8 / t h r i l l e d - w it h - op e r at i on flash-president-clinton-gave-the-go-ahead-foroperation-storm/ (accessed 16 August 2015)
5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIh8_
UJrOGc (accessed 18 August 2015)

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K AT E H O N

sorrow. The celebration in Croatia was

fallowed by an outburst of WW2 Nazi
symbolism (from flags, hate songs and
WW2 Croatian Ustashe uniforms, to Nazi
salutes) glorifying the genocide committed
by the so-called Independent State of
Croatia (Nazi puppet state in occupied
and dismembered Yugoslavia) upon the
Serbs. This should not surprise knowing
the nature of the anti-Serb sentiment is a
necessary integral part of modern Croatian
nationalism.
Having in mind the 9 May ethnic
Albanian terrorist attacks in Macedonia
and a jihadist attack on a police station
in Zvornik (east Bosnia), all these events
combined show that tensions arise in the
ex-Yugoslav space. This most recent wave
of animosities in ex-Yugoslav space seems
to be coming out of nowhere. Although
the bad feelings did not go away, the new
clashes seem to be produced from abroad
and controlled for the time being. One
thing is already clear, that none of the
Yugoslav banana republics are ready for
war. Primarily because they have been
heavily de-industrialised and demilitarised
in post-war years. Even gravelly weakened
by reforms and professionalisation, Serbian
army remains a dominant military power in
the post-Yugoslav realm, while the Serbian
question remains the central question in
the Balkans.
Frustrations are high on all sides, but it
still seems that only solely internal forces
did not provoke the wave, which is why the
British failed attempt for a UN resolution
on Srebrenica and recent parade in Zagreb
seem to be coming from the same kitchen.
These Balkan skirmishes seem to be a part
of a much greater picture. The Russia-West
proxy war in Ukraine might be part of the
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

answer, but the real answer lies in the shift

the US is making globally by leaving
the Middle East and concentrating on the
Pacific to contain China.
It should
None of the
be sad that
Yugoslav banana
Ukrainian
conflict
is republics are ready
also somehow
for war.
connected to
the Balkans. The overwhelming majority
of Serbs support the Russian population
in Ukraine and Croats in general support
the other side. This is why many Serb
volunteers fight in the ranks of the proRussian militias, whereas some Croat NeoNazis joined the Azov battalion. Knowing
that many Islamists from the Balkans fight
in the ranks of ISIS and other groups in the
Middle East, it seems that the response of
the peoples in the region to the world crisis
is very Huntingtonian.
Turkey, Saudi-Arabia, Iran, and the
Balkan Muslim population
Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are in
a grave danger now. It could even be said
that both are in a danger of decomposition
in the nearest future, in the Syrian-Iraqi
style, though time will only tell how much
stamina they have. At the same time, their
main regional adversary Iran is in a
geopolitical growth and may rise as the
main regional power, as the result of the
wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen which are all
are proxy wars of Turkey, Saudi and other
minor Sunni Muslim courtiers against
the Shia Iran. The Iranian nuclear deal of
Vienna will show its results in the near
future, so it remains to be seen if Persia will
cooperate with the US on the expense of
Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but also on the
[21]

expense of their own ties with their ally

Bashar Assad, as French Middle East expert
Thierry Meyssan suggests.6
So, what is the connection with the
Balkans? All three of these sides have
supported the Bosnian Muslims during
the 1990-ies wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina
and all were sending arms, money and
fighters to Alija Izetbegovi in the name of
the Muslim cause. It seems, however, that
Iranians have regretted, as the Bosnian
Sunni Muslim leadership gave much more
influence to Turkey and Saudi Arabia
after the war. Furthermore, the Muslim
leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina, now
headed by Bakir Izetbegovi (Alijas son)
made some directly anti-Iranian moves.
They have voted for a UN resolution that
was condemning Syria (Irans greatest
friend in the Middle East), which was
logically seen as a treason in the eyes of
Teheran. Regardless of the obvious rise of
their regional influence, Iran can hardly
take the leading role among the Balkan
Muslims, for a simple fact that most of them
are Sunnis and Turkophiles. Yet the shift of
power in the Middle East will in one way
or another influence the relations in more
remote regions with Muslim populations
such as the Balkan Peninsula. The danger
is ever more serious if Turkey gets more
frustrated and desperate and tries to gain
some success in the Balkans to compensate
for defeats in the Middle East. This goes for
Saudi Arabia too.
The Balkans and the Gates of Tears
China bought the largest cargo terminal
at the port of Piraeus and plans to construct
a fast railway to connect it with the heart
6
http://www.geopolitika.rs/index.php/sr/246srpski-newsflash-slider/828-2015-08-07-11-48-17
(accessed 18 August 2015).

[22]

of Europethrough Skoplje, Belgrade and

Budapest. Russia wants to do the same with
its Turkish stream gas pipeline through
Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary with
final destination in Austria. These facts
offer an obvious answer why we can see the
new wave of destabilisation in the Balkans.
Germany is not opposing these projects, as
they would strengthen their energy security
and supply of goods. The US on the other
hand was and still is the dominant foreign
power influencing external and internal
politics of the Balkan banana republics,
so they certainly are not happy about these
projects.
Both of these grand constructing projects
provide a unique historical opportunity for
the Serbs and Hungarians to find a firm
common interest which would be a great
opportunity for a long standing stability
and cooperation between the two peoples
and countries with a troubled bilateral
history. They would also connect all the
countries on their path and secure peace
and economic stability for a foreseeable
future. But instead of this, we can see all
these countries being sent on a path of
instability.
This region is only a fragment of a
picture that starts in the Middle East. The
story starts in 2001 when the US started
the war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq,
which left their greatest regional foe Iran
victorious, establishing a local hegemony.
Another defeat for the US was the so-called
Arab Spring that essentially deprived the
US from the control over the Suez Canal.
In Egypt they supported Mohamed Morsi
of the Muslim Brotherhood against their
old ally Hosni Mubarak, but at the end the
military junta led by Field Marshal Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi is turned out to be Nasserist
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

and it started cooperation with Russia very

soon after the coup detat. One wise thing
the US did was not to repeat the FrancoBritish fiasco of 1956 and enter another
disastrous war.
The Balkan construction projects
especially the fast railway as part of the
Chinese New Silk Roadare directly
connected to the current battle for the trade
chokepoints in the Middle East: Suez Canal,
Hormuz Straits and Bab-el-Mandeb (The
Gates of Tears). If the Suez Canal or Babel-Mandeb is closed for even a short period,
then what is the purpose of the Piraeus port
for China7? None. Chinese are switching
to the global commodities position, and
that switch is the imperial switch, 8 said
British historian Niall Ferguson. This
Chinese switch makes the US move its
focus towards the Pacific, in the process
trying to leave chaos behind in the Middle
East and elsewhere in Eurasia including the
Balkans. This is also the reason why we can
see the navies of all major powers including
China and Russia in and around these
chokepoints.
The US is leaving the Middle East. It is
gaining energy independence by developing
fracking and containing China becomes a
goal above all others. US President Barack
Obama said this explicitly in his statement
about concentrating of the US focus from
the Middle East to the Pacific9. This leaves an
open space for Russia. We have seen recently
that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of two
7https://w w w.youtub e.com/
watch?v=MWBV2Mn7NyM (accessed 18 August
2015).
8 Ibid.
9 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
barackobama/8895726/US-will-shift-focus-fromMiddle-East-to-Asia-Pacific-Barack-Obamadeclares.html (accessed 18 August 2015).

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

fierce regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran

visited Moscow in a short period of time.
The sudden change of attitude towards
Russia among the absolutist monarchies
of the Persian Gulf also shows that the
Wahhabi monarchs realised that ISIS, the
monster they created in Syria and Iraq, can
easily collect their royal heads too. After
all, the fate of former Western allies Hosni
Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi tells more
then a thousand words.
The main US goal in the Balkans is similar
to the goal they had in Germany after the
WW2to keep the EU in, the Serbs down
and Russia out for as long as possible, but
all of this without the a Marshal Plan 2 to
secure economic prosperity in the region,
quite the opposite. The US is well aware this
policy cannot be successful forever. The
Russians should do just the opposite if they
want to enlarge their share of influence in
the region, and the best way to do so is to
strengthen the Serb factor being both
central and Russophile.
Is the Refuge Crisis a Threat and, if
it is, to What Extent
Belgradeas many other Balkan
citiesis witnessing a very new and
surreal scene. The city parks around the
central bus and railway stations are full of
unfortunate travellers who walked their
way on foot, trains, sea and by any means
possible, to reach the Serbian capital and
to continue their journey to Hungarian
border and then further westward to the
lands of opportunity. The vast majority
of these people are not economic, but war
migrantsrefugees who fled the warzones
of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, all
[23]

inflamed by the US, NATO and their adhoc formed coalitions of the willing.
The Balkan countries that have been hit
the most by this wave are Greece, Bulgaria,
Macedonia and Serbia. The migrants reach
Bulgaria trough Turkey from which the
road leads them trough Bulgarian Trace
Valley to Serbia. Anothermuch bigger
route goes trough Greek islands onward
through Macedonian Vardar Valley and
Morava Valley in Serbia, from which they
try to enter Hungary (or Croatia, in a rarer
case).
This flood of migrants raises new
questions in already troubled societies.
The press and numerous experts and
commentators speculate that ISIS members
might be infiltrated into the masses of
refugees. The fear is even more fuelled by
several threatening videos of ISIS that call
for the attacks on Serbia, Croatia and so
forth in order of spreading the Caliphate
westward. This is not a nave threat,
knowing that many Balkan nationals
especially from Bosnia-Herzegovina and
from NATO-occupied Serbian province
of Kossovo-Metochiafight and many
have already been killed in the ranks of
the extremist organisations in Syria and
Iraq. Also the terrorist attack in April
2015 on a Republika Srpska police station
was perpetrated by a local claimed to be
associated with the Islamists. Some experts
fear that in the event of the Muslim-Serb
conflict, sleepers hidden among the
migrants might spread terror in major
cities and join the fight in the regions of
the Balkans (Bosnia, Macedonia, KossovoMetochia, southwest and southeast Serbia)
that might be lit up in a hypothetical future
war. Russian expert for the Balkans Elena
Guskova claims this war may start as early
[24]

as late-August10. The potential conflicts are

with the Albanian factor (Albania plus their
population in the region) or the Bosnian
Muslims if this fits the interests of the US.
This should certainly not be taken without
caution in the light of the US Secretary of
State John Kerries statement about the line
of fire between Russia and the West, where
he directly named a number of Balkan
states.
Another aspect of the problem is that
Hungary started building a wire fence
along the border with Serbia, as well
as media speculations that Serbia and
Macedonia should build refugee camps to
host hundreds of thousands of refugees,
and that the Western countries might send
the refugees back not to their countries
of origin, but to the first non-EU country
theyve entered before entering the Union.
While these may well be mere sensationalist
media speculations and orientalist
xenophobic scaremongering, the end of the
refugee crisis is not foreseeable. Only time
will tell how serious this problem can grow.
Conclusion
The Balkans should be not viewed only
as part of Europe, where it geographically
belongs, but also a part of the Greater
Middle East problems, and one of the key
hotspots in the current world crisis and
global shift of power. The US is retreating
from the Middle East in general and moving
politically and militarily to the Pacific to try
to contain China. US strategy is therefore
also to create conflicts everywhere it can
along the borders of Eurasia. The outline
of this process was bluntly given by John
Kerry in his famous countries on the
10
http://fakti.org/rossiya/rat-za-islamskudrzavu-na-balkanu-pocinje-krajem-avgusta
(accessed 17 August 2015).

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K AT E H O N

line of fire remark. This is done by the

retreating US to divide the continent and
lock it in conflicts for as long as it can. In
that way Eurasia cannot consolidate and its
countries will not be able to establish new
trade and energy routes, that would not be
under the control of the US (or political
West more broadly). As long as the US
controls the main sea routes it will be the
dominant world empire. It may be loosing
the grip, but would certainly not want to
let go without creating chaos before other
powers of the emerging multi-polar world
would take control. If they burst before
managing to organise, even better, that is
the logic of the US today.
In pursuit of this, another goal seems to
be a tendency of destroying classical nation
states by creating civil unrest everywhere
possible along the neuralgic points of
Eurasia, the Arab Spring that toppled
down secular Arab nationalist autocracies
and brought Mad Max-style chaos offers
a proof for that. If the society is thrown
down form the level of nation to the level
of ethnic group or tribe, unorganised in a
classical nation state manner, it is easier to
be manipulated with and it becomes locked
in conflicts with others. We have seen this
scenario unveil in Syria, Iraq and Yemen,
but the worse case scenario took place
in Libya and Somalia. All the mentioned
disputes and recent geopolitical skirmishes
and processes in the Balkans need to be
viewed in thus perspective.
American retreat from the Middle East
towards the Pacific Ocean means that
the influence of Russia is only likely to
increase in the region (Middle East, South
Caucasus and the Balkans), especially if
Russia plays its cards well. This also means
that the US may gradually retreat from its
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

bases in Kossovo-Metochia and elsewhere

in the Balkans, leaving a security gap and
increasing a conflict potential. If Russia
wants to benefit from this situation it should
maximally support the Serbs in the Balkans
to fulfil this security gap. By uniting the Serb
space, it would do exactly the opposite from
what the US and its European allies have
been doing for the last 25 years. Serbs are
located at the heart of the Balkan Peninsula
and still being the largest people between
Vienna and Constantinople, but also very
vulnerable. They are surrounded by NATO
and a bandwagon of traditional local
enemies that could be activated with the
help of US in any given moment. It should
not come as a surprise if the US uses Hitlers
WW2 blueprint of occupying Serbian space
by using local NATO countries to divide
the terrain into occupying zones. Recent US
military supplies to Bulgaria11 should not be
seen unnoticed in this context, especially
after Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisovs
threatening message to Macedonian PM
Nikola Gruevski to resign. But not only did
Borisov verbally attack Gruevski, he also
sent Bulgarian army to the border with
Macedonia.
In the light of all of the above, I strongly
believe Russias Balkan policy should be
concentrated around finding the means
to significantly support Serbia (politically,
economically and militarily) as soon as
possible, so that it can overcome this
immensely challenging period. It should
also be in support and help facilitate the
aspiration of the Serbian people to reunite
the Serb space in the future. This space
11
http://sputniknews.com/
europ e/20150818/1025877858/us-militar ybulgaria-tanks-artillery-deployment.html (accessed
18 August 2015).

[25]

is now divided into many failed state

formations, but before all of this Russia
should help preserve the bare existence of
the Serb population in hostile countries
and territories. Having in mind that the
Serbs are the westernmost outpost of the
Orthodox Christian-Slavonic world, by
doing so Russia would largely increase its
influence in the south of Europe and the
Mediterranean. Many challenges, however,
among which some are mentioned here, lie
ahead this long and wiggly road.

[26]

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K AT E H O N

The USAs Imposition of Asymmetric

Warfare Against the EU

Emilija Geleva

During the mid-July EU summit on the Greek debt crisis, the Italian Prime Minister
Matteo Renzi has urged Europe to move on, saying that Europe needs to deal with the
Greek crisis once and for all, and to proceed with other pressing problems confronting
the continent. The situation is very complex, Europe is needed on many battlefields like
the Ukrainian crisis, Islamic terrorism, Irans nuclear negotiations, Libya... His attitude
became even more rigid saying: Mediterranean borders are in flames, there is a war in
Ukraine, and here we are discussing how many channels Greek public television has to
have? Mr. Renzi, intentionally or not, correctly pointed out the many fires blazing on
EU territory, which EU leaders have been trying to extinguish in continuous actions.
But, did the EU by itself provoke a war in Ukraine? Did the EU create the ISIL terrorists
who are spreading terrorism and uncertainty even within its own borders? Did the EU act
alone in introducing economic sanctions against Russia? Is the EU willingly giving more
and more money to Greece? Did the EU contribute to having thousands of refugees on its
territory? The EU is not the root of all these problems. Yet why do they all occur, one after
another, inside the territory of the European Union? It is because the big transatlantic
brother plays the role of a global pyromaniac, inciting one political-economic-military
conflagration after another. And one of the important consequences of such destructive
action is keeping the European Union and its leadership in constant obedience and
outright subordination.
As for the EU, it performs the role of a small fireman trying to keep peace within
its borders. Meanwhile the USA is conducting asymmetrical warfare against the EU on
Emilija Geleva is a geopolitical analyst and ex-foreign policy adviser to the
Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[27]

five different layers simultaneously, thus

creating the following threats: 1) the threat
of terrorist attacks by ISIL within the EU,
2) the threat of growing economic problems
for the EUs largest countries because of the
economic sanctions against Russia, 3) the
threat of further destabilization within the
EU as a result of the Ukrainian war, 4) the
threat of the refugee crisis and the big social,
economic and demographic dangers which
come with it, 5) the Greek debt threat for
the stability and integrity of the EU. These
are the major asymmetric threats, which the
EU is facing with severe intensity especially
in the last two years. All these threats are
products labeled: made in USA.
Washington is pursuing these tactics
to keep the EU weak, as an irrelevant
international subject, while NATO is
deploying troops around Russian borders
in order to fulfill the USAs ultimate
geopolitical goal to perform another
one of its famous revolutions, i.e. one of
its many flowered, colored, or velvet
revolutions against Russia. This is all part
of the newest American concept of endless
war in order to achieve the final goal of
enslaving the whole world under the pretext
of fighting terrorism and introducing
democracy. The only new things are the
imaginative names of the so-called
doctrines or strategies. If it used to be called
creative chaos, it is now called endless
wardifferent names for the same aim.
And so, the reason for the above
mentioned threats is the foreign policy
agenda of the EUs big brother, i.e. the
USAs intention to impose the AngloAmerican
worldview,
implemented
mainly through the mechanism of its
foreign political and intelligence assets.
Nevertheless, that agenda is obviously
[28]

in serious trouble with the continued

spreading of chaos, organized pressure
and terrorism in different places around
the globe. Washington used to describe its
concept as creative chaos, but the everyday
killing of thousands of human beings has
nothing to do with creativityinstead it is
a total diabolical mess.
After the 2010 Arab spring started in
Tunisia, and then rapidly continued in Egypt,
Libya, Yemen, Oman etc., the evidence has
shown that traces of American funding
and instigation are all over the flower
revolutions. But the so-called democratic
changes did not take root in Syria. The
takeover of Syria did not succeed and that
was a big failure for the completion of the
Arab Spring revolution. And it was followed
by another American failure the case
of Edward Snowden. Although Snowden
discovered what was already well known
(that everything in the world is under
the illegal surveillance of the American
secret service), his leaked information
nevertheless gave the impression that the
USA had lost a major battle in its ongoing
geopolitical war with Russia. At the same
time, during the Winter Olympic Games in
Sochi, the entire world witnessed the real
glory of the opening ceremony, full of light
and symbols, celebrating the joy of life in
Russia and that nations rich culture and
timeless tradition.
This seemed to be the last straw because
exactly during the Winter Olympic Games
in Sochi the meltdown in Kiev exploded (in
February 2014). Actually, the prior foreign
policy agenda of the American president
Barack Obama was a complete disaster and
there was an urgent need of something to
heal the American frustration. For that
purpose, Ukraine was inflamed by a foreign
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K AT E H O N

organized putsch against the legally elected

government. This turned out to be an even
bigger disappointment for the USAone
more failure. Indeed, the final result of that
fascistic coup was Crimeas democratic
exit out of Ukraine and the formers
incorporation into Russia based upon the
peoples voice, i.e. popular referendum.
Now, the European Union has an ongoing
war in Ukraine followed by the disastrous
repercussions of the economic sanctions
imposed on Russia by the USA (and the
EU), where the main economic victim is
the EU itself, particularly Germany. The
Anglo-American analysts and politicians
are still in a state of utter shock wondering
how Russian President Vladimir Putin
dared to take Crimea, but without
any evidence that can confirm Russian
involvement contrary to international
law. Even more, Vladimir Putin was
seated in Sochi, watching the closure of
the perfectly organized Winter Olympic
Games during the Maidan revolution. For
months Western observers and politicians
could not understand how Putin had the
courage to refuse to obey U.S. policy. This
is because their arrogant mental matrices
are used to comprehending the motives of
all the fearful, submissive leaders within
the EU and those of the so-called banana
republics. It took them three months to
come to terms with reality before resuming
their politics of messy chaos around the
globe. Something bombastic was needed
in order to distract the attention from
the many obvious defeats of the AngloAmerican policy.
For that purpose, in June 2014, ISIS
suddenly came out of nowhere on the
front pages of newspapers all around the
world. It was reported that, all of a sudden,
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

approximately 800 hundred militants

created an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle
East, even though ISIS existed in Iraq as a
small extremist group two years before it
was reported in the mainstream media. Of
course ISIS appeared thanks to its regional
sponsors guided by big brother. What
we have now is a European Union which
is endangered by ISIS an ISIS which
already started a war with the Charlie
Hebdo terrorist attack. What is more, ISIS
has produced an uncontrollable Muslim
refugee influx into the countries of the EU as
a result of its terrorist actions in the Middle
East; needless to say, this greatly threatens
the overall stability of the EU. For sure, the
EU is not the main target of ISIL militancy;
it is only a useful form of collateral damage
for the big organizers of the game.
The U.S.-backed analysts explained
the nature of ISIL, whence it came, who
financed them, how prepared they are,
etc. However, no single Western expert
has come forward to clarify why ISIL
appeared in the first place. It was, first,
in order to refocus public attention to the
new horrific Islamist organization and to
take attention away from the unsuccessful
and negative American foreign policy.
Secondly, the more important goal was
Syriato finish the unfinished work there,
i.e. to topple the Syrian president Bashar
al-Assad. After only two months, ISIS
became very strong (thanks also to the
reality created by the mainstream media
reports)strong enough to be positioned
from both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border.
Then the USA began its bombing of Syria in
August 2014 under the excuse of destroying
ISIS locations, yet without going before the
UN Security Council (although there were
some signs that Syria gave a kind of voiceless
[29]

consent). While American drones were

bombing, ISIL began performing atrocities
in Iraq, Syria, Yemen etc. Obviously, ISILs
appearance was a planned move to open
the door to American bombing on Syrian
territory. NATO and the USA tried it once
before with drones but direct intervention
was never approved by the UN due to the
disagreement of Russia and China. The
Third goal was to intensify the nuclear
negotiations with Iran, and not to oppose
Iranian aid to the Syrian and Iraqi Shiite
government. Also, for the American
geopolitical strategy in Eurasia, it was very
important to
The EU has been kept make a small
hole in the
under permanent
strong triple
stress and
alliance
functional disorder b e t w e e n
R u s s i a ,
China and
Iran. The nuclear deal with Iran was
achieved recently, and American efforts to
remove Assad from power will continue,
probably, with NATO-backed Turkish
involvement. So, clearly, ISIL has been used
for the further destabilization and partition
of the Middle Eastern region.
All this provokes additional serious
problems for EU security and economic
stability. The EU has been kept under
permanent stress and functional disorder.
Only three weeks after the Charlie Hebdo
murder (last January) a new disturbance
occurred with the victory of Syriza in the
Greek elections. It spelled new trouble for
the EU and, after all, it is clear that Greek
uncertainty favored Washingtons politics
of permanent destabilization for the EU. The
newly elected Greek prime minister, Alexis
Tsipras, played into Washingtons plan by
[30]

resolving the debt crisis with EU. Let us not

forget also the smaller fires in the Balkans,
particularly in Serbia, Republika Srpska or
the attempt to repeat the Maidan scenario
in the Republic of Macedonia. Brussels had
to act as well, in order to prevent complete
destabilization of these countries and the
Balkan region as a whole.
While the European Union continues
to be preoccupied with the Ukrainian
war, sanctions against Russia, ISIL attacks,
Muslim refugees, the Greek debt crisis,
etc., Washington is not giving any official
statements. These problems do not really
affect the USA. And so, quite brazenly, the
USA has considered the option of delivering
more weapons to Ukraine while it criticizes
the EU for its inhuman behavior towards
refugees. Barack Obama did not join the
protests organized by the French president
Francois Holland after the Charlie Hebdo
terrorist attack. Although it is well known
that some American financial institutions
contributed to the Greek debt crisis,
there was no mention in the mainstream
press only wise Obamas advice that
the EU must keep Greece in the Eurozone.
Furthermore, even if it appeared that
some EU leader is hesitant toward the
implementation of sanctions against Russia
(or is not fulfilling the Anglo-American
agenda against Russia and against Putin
personally), then a friendly slap would
followas was the case with the Charlie
Hebdo terrorist murder or that strange
German airplane crash. Non-compliant
EU leaders like Hollande, who met Putin
last December while the West was trying
to excommunicate the Russian leader, or
the German chancellor Angela Merkel who
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

tried her best to ensure EU stability, were

swiftly upbraided by Washington.
The final result of this geopolitical
palimpsest picture is usually total obedience
and subordination of a countrys political
leadership to the economic-militarygeostrategic superiority of the USA.
Certainly, this comes as no real surprise,
but, up until fairly recently, U.S. policy has
not been so flagrantly aggressive against the
interests of the European Union, its alleged
ally and partner. Consequently, the EU
has morphed into the role of a ridiculously
subservient political lackey serving
exclusively Anglo-American interests at all
costs. Of course many EU leaders cannot
believe the reality of the status quo. They
are aghast that their American brother
is conducting asymmetric warfare inside
their countries in order to have a successful
proxy war with Russia. Was this the reason
behind the EUs creation in the first place?
Is this the role the EU is supposed to play in
the world, instead of acting in accordance
with its own important culture and
traditional values?
Obviously, the goal of the USA is to
have a weak European Union which is
obedient to Anglo-American geopolitical
needs an EU which is useful for the
USAs imperialistic conduct, especially in
the latters continued targeting of Russia.
The future of mankind cannot proceed in
this insane direction a direction which
only serves the interests of the American
ruling class. That is why the EU must act
in order to disable these ominous plots and
to contribute to the positive cooperation
among the nations and peoples of this world
without hegemonic domination.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[31]

The Delphi Declaration on Greece and

Europe

European governments, European institutions and the IMF, acting in close alliance with,
if not under direct control of, big international banks and other financial institutions, are
now exercising a maximum of pressure, including open threats, blackmailing and a slander
and terror communication campaign against the recently elected Greek government and
against the Greek people.
They are asking the elected government of Greece to continue the bail-out program
and the supposed reforms imposed on this country in May 2010, in theory to help and
save it.
As a result of this program, Greece has experienced by far the biggest economic, social
and political catastrophe in the history of Western Europe since 1945. It has lost 27% of its
GDP, more than the material losses of France or Germany during the First World War. The
living standards have fallen sharply. The social welfare system is all but destroyed. Greeks
have seen social rights won during one century of struggles taken back. Whole social strata
are completely destroyed, more and more Greeks are falling from their balconies to end
a life of misery and desperation, every talented person who can leaves from the country.
Democracy, under the rule of a Troika acting as collective economic assassin, a kind of
Kafkas Court, has been transformed into a sheer formality in the very country where
it was born! Greeks are experiencing now the same feeling of insecurity about all basic
conditions of life, that the French experienced in 1940, Germans in 1945, Soviets in 1991.
At the same time, the two problems which this program was supposed to address, Greek
sovereign debt and the competitiveness of the Greek economy have sharply deteriorated.
Now, European institutions and governments are refusing even the most reasonable,
elementary, minor concession to the Athens government, they refuse even the slightest
face-saving formula there might be. They want a total surrender of SYRIZA, they want its
humiliation, its destruction. By denying to the Greek people any peaceful and democratic
way out of its social and national tragedy, they are pushing Greece into chaos, if not civil
war. Indeed, even now, an undeclared social civil war of low intensity is being waged
[32]

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

inside this country, especially against the

unprotected, the ill, the young and the very
old, the weaker and the unlucky. Is this the
Europe we want our children to live in?
We want to express our total,
unconditional solidarity with the struggle
of the Greek people for their dignity,
their national and social salvation, for
their liberation from the unacceptable
neocolonial rule the Troika is trying
to impose on this European country. We
denounce the illegal and unacceptable
agreements successive Greek governments
have been obliged, under threat and
blackmail, to sign, in violation of all
European treaties, of the Charter of UN
and of the Greek constitution. We call on
European governments and institutions
to stop their irresponsible and/or criminal
policy towards Greece immediately and
adopt a generous emergency program of
support to redress the Greek economic
situation and face the humanitarian disaster
already unfolding in this country.
We also appeal to all European peoples
to realize that what is at stake in Greece it is
not only Greek salaries and pensions, Greek
schools and hospitals or even the fate even
of this historic nation where the very notion
of Europe was born. What is at stake in
Greece are also Spanish, Italian, even the
German salaries, pensions, welfare, the
very fate of the European welfare state, of
European democracy, of Europe as such.
Stop believing your media, who tell you
the facts, only to distort their meaning,
check independently what your politicians
and your media are saying. They try to
create, and they have created an illusion of
stability. You may live in Lisbon or in Paris,
in Frankfurt or in Stockholm, you may
think that you are living in relative security.
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

Do not keep such illusions. You should

look to Greece, to see there the future your
elites are preparing for you, for all of us
and for our children. It is much easier and
intelligent to stop them now, than it will be
later. Not only Greeks, but all of us and our
children will pay an enormous price, if we
permit to our governments to complete the
social slaughter of a whole European nation.
We appeal in particular to the German
people. We do not belong to those who
are always reminding the Germans of the
past in order to keep them in an inferior,
second-class position, or in order to use
the guilt factor for their dubious ends.
We appreciate the organizational and
technological skills of the German people,
their proven democratic and especially
ecological and peace sensitivities. We want
and we need the German people to be the
main champions in the building of another
Europe, of a prosperous, independent,
democratic Europe, of a multipolar world.
Germans know better than anybody
else in Europe, where blind obedience to
irresponsible leaders can lead and has indeed
led in the past. It is not up to us to teach
them any such lesson. They know better
than anybody else how easy is to begin a
campaign with triumphalist rhetoric, only
to end up with ruins everywhere around
you. We do not invite them to follow our
opinion. We demand simply from them
to think thoroughly the opinion of such
distinguished leaders of them like Helmut
Schmitt for instance, we demand them to
hear the voice of the greatest among modern
German poet, of Gnter Grass, the terrible
prophecy he has emitted about Greece and
Europe some years before his death.
We call upon you, the German people,
to stop such a Faustian alliance between
[33]

German political elites and international

finance. We call upon the German people
not to permit to their government to
continue doing to the Greeks exactly what
the Allies did to Germans after their victory
in the First World War. Do not let your
elites and leaders to transform the entire
continent, ultimately including Germany,
into a dominion of Finance.
More than ever we are in urgent need of
a radical restructuring of European debt,
of serious measures to control the activities
of the financial sector, of a Marshal Plan
for the European periphery, of a courageous
rethinking and re-launching of a European
project which, in its present form, has
proven unsustainable. We need to find now
the courage to do this, if we want to leave a
better Europe to our children, not a Europe
in ruins, in continuous financial and even
open military conflicts among its nations.
Delphi, 21 June 2015
The above declaration was adopted
by nearly all participants in the Delphi
conference on the crisis, on alternatives to
euroliberalism and EU/Russia relations,
held at Delphi, Greece on 20-21st of June. It
is also supported by some people who were
not able to be present. The list of people
who signed it follows. In it there are not
only citizens of EU countries, but also of
Switzerland, USA, Russia and India. Many
distinguished American scholars seem to
be more sensitive as regard the European
crisis, than the political leaders of EU
themselves! As for Russians, it is only
normal and natural to bear a great interest
for what is going on in EU, as EU citizens
bear also an interest for what is going on
in Russia. All participants in the Delphi
conference share the strong conviction that
Russia is an integral part of Europe, that
[34]

there is a strong interconnection between

what happens in EU and in Russia. They
are categorically opposed to anti-Russia
hysteria, which in fact is nothing less
than the preparation of a new, even more
dangerous cold, if not hot war.
Altvater Elmar, Germany
Member of scientific community of ATAC.
Retired Professor of Political Science, Free
University of Berlin.
Amin Samir, Egypt/France
Economist, President of the Forum Mondial
des Alternatives.
Ayala Ivn H., Spain
Researcher, Instituto Complutense de
Estudios Internacionales.
Arsenis Gerasimos, Greece
conomist, ex-minister of Economy,
of Finance, of National Defense and of
Education, ex-UN official and ex-director
of UNCTAD.
Artini Massimo, Italy
Member of Parliament.
Bellantis Dimitris, Greece
Lawyer, Ph.D in Constitutional Law,
Member of the Central Committee of
SYRIZA.
Black William, USA
Professor of Economics, University of
Missouri (Kansas City).
Cassen Bernard, France
Professor Emeritus, Universit Paris 8,
secretary general of Mmoire des luttes.
Chiesa Giulietto, Italy
Politician, journalist and author, ex MEP,
president of the Alternativa association.
Freeman Alan, Canada/UK
Geopolitical Economy Research Group,
Business School, Director.
Gabriel Leo, Austria
Director of the Institute for Intercultural
Research and Cooperation (IIIC), Vienna,
Member of the International Council of
the World Social Forum, Coordinator
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K AT E H O N

of the NGO Committee for Sustainable

Development of the United Nations.
George Suzan, France
Political and social scientist, writer,
President of the Transnational Institute.
Georgopoulos Dimosthenis, Greece
Economist, sociologist, political scientist,
Secretariat on Industrial Policy, SYRIZA.
German Lindsey, UK
Convenor, Stop the War Coalition.
Graeber David, U
Professor of Anthropology, London School
of Economics. Author of Debt: The First
5,000 Years.
Hudson Michael, USA
Professor of economics, University of
Missouri (Kansas City), UMKC. President,
Institute for the Study of Long-term
Economic Trends (ISLET).
Irazabalbeitia Inaki, Spain
Former MEP / responsible for International
Relationships for the party ARALAR,
Basque Country.
Jennar Raoul Marc, France
Dr. in political sciences, specialist on
European law and on WTO regulations,
writer of twenty books, among them
Europe, la trahison des lites.
Kagarlitsky Boris, Russia
Director of the Institute for globalization
studies and social movements (IGSO).
Kalloniatis Costas , Greece
Ph.D on macroeconomics, adviser to the
Ministry of Labour, researcher in the Labor
Institute of the General Confederation of
Workers of Greece.
Kasimatis Giorgos, Greece
Prof. Emeritus of Constitutional Law,
University of Athens.Founder and
Honorary President of the International
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

Association of Constitutional Law, exadvisor to PM Andreas Papandreou.

Koenig Peter, Switzerland
conomist / geopolitical analyst
KoltashovVasiliy, Russia
Head of the economic research unit of
the Institute for Globalisation and Social
Movements.
Konstantakopoulos Dimitris, Greece
Journalist, Writer, Coordinator of the
Delphi Initiative.
Koutsou Nikos, Cyprus
Member of Parliament from Famagusta.
Kreisel Wilfried, Germany
Former Executive Director, World Health
Organization
Mavros Giannis, Greece
Member of the National Council for the
Claiming of Germanys Debts to Greece.
Mityaev Dmitry A. , Russia
Deputy Chairman of the Council for Study
of Productive Forces of the Ministry of
Economic Development and the Russian
Academy of Sciences on Development
Issues.
Ochkina Anna, Russia
Head of Department of social theory at
Penza State University.
Pantelides Panagiotis, Greece
Economist, senior researcher, European
Institute of Cyprus.
Petras James, USA
Bartle Professor Emeritus , Binghamton
University, Ex-Director of the Center for
Mediterranean Studies (Athens), ex-adviser
to the Landless Rural Workers Movement
[35]

of Brasil and the Unemployed Workers

Movement in Argentina.
Pinasco Luca, Italy
National coordinator of Proudhon CirclesEditor for foreign policy of the journal
Lintellettualedissidente.
Radika Desai, USA
Professor, Director of the Geopolitical
Economy Research Group, University of
Manitoba.
Rees John, UK
Co-founder, Stop the War Coalition.
Roberts Paul Craig, USA
Former Assistant Secretary of the US
Treasury for Economic Policy, Associate
Editor, Wall Street Journal, Senior Research
Fellow, Stanford University, William E.
Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center
for Strategic and International Studies,
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Sideratos Aggelos, Greece
Publisher.
Sommers Jeffrey, USA
Senior Fellow, Institute of World Affairs,
Professor, University of WisconsinMilwaukee.
St Clair Jeffrey, USA
Editor, Counter Punch.
Stierle Steffen, Germany
conomist, ATTAC Germany.
Syomin Konstantin, Russia
Author, TV host at All-Russia State
Television (VGTRK.com).
Tombazos Stavros, Greece
Professor of Political Economy, University
of Cyprus, member of the international
Committee of Truth on Greek Sovereign
[36]

Debt (debt auditing committee) created by

the Greek parliament.
Vanaik Achin, India
Retired Professor of International Relations
and Global Politics, University of Delhi.
Wallerstein Immanuel, USA
Yale Sociology department, Senior Research
Scholar.
Xydakis Nikos, Greece
Minister of Culture.
Zachariev Zachari, Bulgaria
President of the Slaviani Foundation.
Zdanoka Tatjana, Latvia
Member of European Parliament
Contact e-mail: the.delphi.initiative@
gmail.com.

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

Delphi and Beyond

Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Greece is, without a doubt, one of the main places where the future of the globe is being
prepared. It is country in South-Eastern Europe which possesses an enormous historical
and spiritual heritage and, at the same time, is located at the crossroads of the Slavic,
Middle Eastern and Western worlds. It has been selected as the principal target of a "great
experiment" by world finance and the European elites, who have sought to fundamentally
"reconstruct" the political and social regime which has prevailed in Europe since the
Second World War (or even over the last several centuries).
In Greece, an international conference was held on the 20th and 21st of June on
theGreek/European crisis, where an attempt was made to search for alternatives to the
system of "euro-liberalism" and for ways to stop Europe for taking steps towards war with
Russia. Dozens of intellectuals, politicians and activists from various European countries,
including Russia, participated in it, as well as several critically-thinking American
economists.
The event was organized by a group of radical intellectuals, who are opposed to both
the complete domination of Europe and its political stage by the international capital
markets system,and the rebirth of aggressive and imperialisticinterventions abroad, as
in Ukraine or the Middle East. It was supported by the World Forum of Alternatives
(presided by Samir Amin), the Lyssarides Foundation of Cyprus, the Greek Institute for
Governance INERPOST (run by Gerasimos Arsenis, a former Greek cabinet minister
under thePanhellenic Socialist Movement) and the Institute for Globalization and Social
Movements.
The conference was held near the town of Delphi, once the center of the ancient Greek
world. It was in the process of this world's ascendance that Protagoras appeared: the
Dimitris Konstantakopoulos is journalist, writer, member of the organizing
committee of the Delphi conference, Greece.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[37]

student of Democritus and the mentor of

Pericles. He famously professed that "man is
the measure of all things" (and not "money
is the measure of all things", which might
serve as the motto of the Empire of Finance
currently attacking the nations of European
and what remains of their civilization).
These days there is a lot of talk, and
conferences have been held in Europe and
the US where austerity policies(a misnomer,
as we will try to show) are regularly
denounced, and there are calls for peace in
Europe and in the world. One is led to ask:
why do we need one more conference?
There are a number of ideas and
considerations which were at the roots of
the decision to organize this conference
and to organize it in Greece before the
(predictable) summer crisis. One of the
main reasons was that we don't just need
to denounce "austerity" or war, but to
begin discussing and developing a political
strategy, and the necessary tools and
networks to fight for it. This is, of course, a
process that needs to evolve in combination
with the development of an alternative
vision. Without such a strategy orsuch a
vision, it will only be possible to have partial
victories, and soon those victories will turn
into defeats.
In reality we are in the midst of along
hybrid world war, launched by the most
extremist and politically coherent wing
of international finance and the most
extremist geopolitical forces of the US
military-industrial complex, who have
adopted a neo-conservative ideology.
These forces believe that after the collapse
of the USSR and the decay of the political
institutionsof Europe (socialdemocratic or
Gaullist, like in France) and of the nationalist
regimes of the Third World, they have a
[38]

unique, historic opportunity to radically

alter all social and international relations
on the planet, effectively standardizing a
global financial system to serve the interest
of a global consumer monoculture. This
system's orthodoxy is spelled out by the debt
ratings agencies, which ensure an effective
global caste system based on sovereign
debt ratings, which give borrowers and
businesses from established countries
an implicit advantage over developing
countries, where borrowers, including
not only businesses or individuals but the
governments themselves, are obliged to pay
far more.
They think this must be done before the
economic potential of alternate centers of
the world economy becomes a threat to their
dominant position. They are using Greece,
the EU integration process, Ukraine, Iraq
andSyria, among others, to meet these
objectives.
Another factor at play here is that,
for the first time in human history, the
extraordinary advances of information
technologies, neuroscience, social sciences
mainly directed towards war, and new
mathematical tools like the chaos theory
have created the objective, material
means and tools for a new brand of global
totalitarianism.
Edward Snowden has said that
thesurveillance state is not only
technologically possible, itessentially just
needs to be turned on (what he called
"turnkey tyranny") for the realization of the
dystopias of Zamyatin, Orwell or Huxley
to be fully underway, something which
would make Hitler look like an alchemist
compared to modern chemists.
However, the victims of such policies
lack the necessary will and also the
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

necessary strategies and alternate vision to

respond to this "war" in a systematic way.
They are reacting here or there, and usually
when it is already too late. They often
prefer to conserve what they dispose and
to accommodate the dominating forces,
economizing on the efforts and the risks
associated with any serious attempt to stop
them.
This is, for example, what happened
with the enormous victory against "euroliberalism" during the French referendum
in 2005 and the social revolts that followed
it. The forces behind the great 'No' vote of
the French people analyzed perfectly what
they had rejected and the people understood
it perfectly as well. But they could notor
did not want todevelop an alternative to
what they had rejected. Sarkozy was able
to manipulate the situation and now JeanMarie Le Pen has started a new party to
express his dissatisfaction.
Another, even more tragic example is
the Greek one. The leaders of SYRIZA
refused to develop any comprehensive
economic program and also any coherent
international strategy to address the serious
problems the country was facing. Instead,
they blindly trusted forces from the USA
and obscure financial circles to help them
cope with Merkel. Those forces were finally
able to manipulate them in a very successful
way. Not only didthey put them on the path
towardsdefeat and capitulationbut they
transformed them into instruments of their
policies, with devastating political results
for the Greek people and for the European
left. They were able not only able to defeat
(at least for the moment) the Greek revolt,
they were even able to organize elections
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Autumn 2015

for Greeks to choose the executioner they

preferred.
"Greece is not bluffing", James Galbraith
(an advisor to Varoufakis) assured the
participants of the Delphi conference. Many
of them (including ministers and high
ranking members of SYRIZA) were rather
skeptical about aspects of the path the party
was taking. As it was proved afterwards,
"Tsipras was indeed bluffing".
In order to develop strategies and
tools, we need to know what is happening
exactly. Speaker after speaker at Delphi
analyzed the depth and extent of the
enormous economic, social, demographic
and psychological-moral disaster we
have personally witnessed in Greece in
the last five years as a result of the "bailout" programin detail. This disaster is
comparable to what happened during the
the last phase of the Weimar Republic and
USA during the Great Depression. There is
nothing comparable in the postwar history
of capitalist Europe. The participants
at Delphi were rather informed people.
But even they were astonished to hear
Professor Kasimatis, the top Greek expert
in constitutional law, analyze in detail
the legal terms of the clearly neocolonial
Loan Agreements imposed to Greece by its
"partners" in the EU, the ECB and the IMF.
These terms are not only a massive violation
of the provisions of the Greek constitution,
of European treaties and of international
law. They are in reality the blueprint for a
new form of totalitarianism.
Now if we assemble these elements
we have a clear picture of what is really
happening in Greece. Is it really possible
to describe such a huge catastrophe as
[39]

just a crisis, as a mistake, or as a simple

"extremity" of the system?
Even talk of austerity is an euphemism,
you don't use the word "austerity" when
describing a program that devastatingly
curtails the material preconditions for
people to survive and reproduce, dooming
the continued existence of their nation and
state. By analyzing the objective data on
Greece, we can substantiate the claim that
this is an effort to destroy a nation-state and
devoid its institutions of any real content.
We believe they are doing this because
only by doing it can they advance their
radical agenda of regime change, that is to
transform western "democracy" into a sheer
formality and to completely abolish the most
elementary social rights like the right to a
decent living and pension, to health care,
education etc., which constitute one of the
fundamental achievements in the history
[40]

of human civilization. They abolished them

in the ex-"socialist" world, and now they
want to abolish them in Western Europe,
beginning with Greece. If anybody has a
better explanation for what is happening let
him advance it.
I tried to expose Alexis Tsipras to such
ideas some years ago. He looked at me in
great disbelief. He could not believe that
we live in a world that that is so bad that it
could want to destroy Greece. As for Yanis
Varoufakis, he told me some years ago that
he does not believe in conspiracies, which
is another way of saying that we are living
essentially in a more or less good world
with more or less good guys governing us.
He also discovered, the hard way, that his
fellow Ministers of Economics were not
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

interested in his economic arguments. They

were executing orders from thefinanciers.
Now, after the disaster, Varoufakis along
with Lafontaine, Melanchon and some
others have recognized the necessity to
develop alternative strategies (an idea we
also clearly stated in what became known
as the "Mikis-Glezos appeal to save Greece
and the peoples of Europe" of October 2011,
which didn't yield any practical results). It's
better late than never. We hope their efforts
along with ours and of many other people
who could help will yield the desired results.
A second consideration behind the
Delphi conference was that we need, in order
to develop alternative strategies, to seriously
address some very difficult questions
like ethnicity, nation and nationalism,
the problem of what kind of European
integration we should fight for, the question
of protectionism and a delineation between
nationally-developed political struggles
and a European alternative. The question
of the euro is a very important one and not
one which can easily be answered.
It is clear, at least to some of the
Delphi participants, that the euro and the
Maastricht treaty are not simple tools of
a currency union between states or of the
imposition of a neoliberal economic policy
across Europe or of a way to permanently
transfer resources from Southern to
Northern Europe. It is all that, but it is at
the same time even more fundamental. It is
a way to take sovereignty from nation-states
and transfer it to the representatives of
international finance. This is accomplished
through the rules established by Maastricht
and through the practical domination in
economic practice of neoliberal dogmas, but
also through the global financial system's
enormous "targeted" capacity of influence
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

in the markets and its practical control of

the vast majority of political, intellectual
and media elites. Maastricht is the
cornerstone of a gigantic and deep plan of
regime change. While the targetedsystem is
at least theoretically based on the principle
of popular and national sovereignty, as
instituted in Europe after the English and
French Revolutions, the emerging system
is based on the domination of money,
enshrined in the "principles" of permanent
anti-inflationary policy (a way to safeguard
the value of money), of the "independence"
of the ECB (which translates into its
dependence on... Goldman Sachs and other
banks!) and to the "no bail-out" principle,
which paved the way for the attack against
the Greek nation-state.
Then solution seems quite logical. Just
leave the club. Such an option should not
be excluded, but it takes a great lack of
responsibility to believe such an exit will be
an easy promenade. A lot of problems are
positionedin a way that we are not able to
treat them properly in the limited space we
have available, which became also partially
clear during the Cypriot and Greek
experiences.
A third idea, which we tried to expose, I
think quite successfully in Delphi, was the
organic unity between the neoliberal and
the neoconservative project, the one being
the transposition of the other when you go
from the field of economy into geopolitics
and vice-versa. They are but two faces of a
gigantic world revisionist project and they
should be treated as such. You cannot fight
one without fighting the other.
If the efforts to deny the Western
European popular classes their most
elementary political and social rights
succeed, then a war of some form against
[41]

Russiawill be greatly facilitated. The

opposite is also true. An atmosphere of
external war, with Russia or with Islam,
will greatly facilitate social and political
regression in Western Europe.
It is not by chance that, fromthe time of
the First World War through the military
campaigns against Serbia or Libya, the
position towards external war has reflected
the dividing line inside "European
socialism", for whatever it's worth.
The fourth idea is that Russia in an integral
part of Europe. Western Europeans should
treat Russia as they do a European country
and Russia should be have like a European
country, with all its rights and without
any complexes. At the conference itself,
Russians participated as an integral part
of the European dialogue. Sergei Glazyev,
the famous researcher of Kondratieff long
economic circles and also an adviser to the
President of Russia, attracted great interest
amongthe participants; he developed his
idea that Greece has no future inside the
EU, but could have a rather bright one in
the context of Eurasian integration. He
had to communicate with the conference
attendees via Skype, as he is sanctioned by
the EU.
This idea of Russia being an integral
part of Europe is critical if we don't want to
continue to deny the continent the means of
its independence.
A fifth, also very important idea, is that
Germany and the European elites have
a regional strategy. Big Finance and the
neoconservatives have a global strategy.
However, the forces that resist them have
only national political and strategic tools.
This war cannot be won at the national level.
We have to initiate an osmosis of people
from different European nations. We should
[42]

develop our alternative in a language which

can bespoken by everybody. This was also
one of the reasons the organizers invited
people from nearly every European region
to participate.
The Delphi conference could not of
course "solve" all those problems we
mentioned above. It was an effort to put them
interms which were as clear as possible and
we believe posing the right questions is at
least half of the answer. Many participants
expressed their will to go on with launching
a kind of Delphi Initiative. We hope it
will become possible in close cooperation
with theother forces and people who are
interested in the same goals.

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

What Happened to Finland?

From a Welfare State to the Next Greece

Jarmo Nevalainen

This article examines the process of how Finland transformed from a welfare state
into a country with growing economic and social problems. The European Union was
supposed to guarantee a prosperous golden era for Finland. In 2015 Finland slowly began to
understand what lies ahead if political leadership does not take seriously what happened in
Greece. Like it or not, Finland is heading exactly in the same direction. The only difference
is the time frame.
From 1980 to 2008 Finland changed drastically. Domestic capital lost its preferential
position as a prime source of investment. This happened because a deep recession hit
Finland in the early 1990s. A severe recession combined with thepropagandistic belief
that globalization can save countries from economic crises served as fertile ground for
changing Finland from a planned economy into a free market economy. Change started
in the 1970s but it really gained pace after President Kekkonen resigned in 1981. Finland
was a mixed economy where the government controlled everything from legislation,
trade and foreign policy, howeverit was not a totally closed system. Only the biggest
industrial companies were owned by the state. A well working system was changed to
an economythatbecame totally exposed to open markets. This was done in the name of
liberalisation and free markets. This occurred slowly over the course of decades because
Jarmo Nevalainen is board member of the Economic Democracy Finland NGO,
Consultant for oil refining.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[43]

the Finnish people were strongly opposed

to such policies. Politicians had to be very
careful and cunning not to impose changes
too quickly.
Since the 1990s,the public sector has been
under great pressure to privatize its services.
This means that the public sector is being
made available to private foreign investors
who profit greatly off of the services that are
vital for most people. Most of these services
used to be publicly owned; for example:
the social sector, health care, etc. However,
this also includes private companies which
own more and more functions that once
belonged to the public sector, for example
security companies doing tasks that used to
belong to the police, etc.
In the 1990s recession, the high
unemployment rate came as a shock and
it stayed for good. The atmosphere in the
work place got more tense and demanding.
Human resources were stretched to the
limit. Families were especially suffering
from this new wave of doing things. This
change went through every layer in society.
This abandonment of the old, where
regulation and planning was the best way of
doing things for not only the nation but for
the individual as well, was replaced by fierce
competition where market values replaced
the overall wellbeing of the people.
After the Second World War, Finland
was paid reparations by the Soviet Union.
This wasthe key component which enabled
Finland to prosper after the war. Although
reparations were a tough task to manage, it
can be said that because of them Finland
rose to a higher level of industrialization.
In addition, rebuilding the country after
the war had raised productivity, combined
with the devaluation of currency, which
made export levels boom. All these factors
[44]

opened new windows of prosperity, not

to mention a better quality of life and a
way to developintoa welfare state. These
factorsyielded strong economic growth over
a period of thirty years. Finlands growth
rate was approximately +5% over GDP
during that time. This prosperous period
occurred because Finland was under state
guidance. The system was actually a mixture
of a planned economy and free markets
combined with wise monetary policy. Japan
used similar policies to successfully recover
from the Second World War.
In the early 1980s, Margaret Thatcher
and Ronald Reagan believed that future
economics would be built around the
philosophy of monetarism. Monetarism is
a school of thought that emphasizes the role
of government in controlling the amount of
money in circulation. Monetarists believe
that variation in the money supply has
major influences on national output in the
short term and the price level over longer
periods, and that objectives of monetary
policy are best met by targeting the growth
rate of the money supply. The philosophy
of neoliberalism is often combined with
Monetarism. When these two are put
together their aim is to turn a nation-state
into a market-state.
Whereas in the past the government
allocated funds to a certain sector of society
based on available resources, Monetarism
changed the system so that these sectors
had to fund themselves by collecting
payments from the users of services or
goods. The public sector also started to
outsource services and some services were
cut off because there were not enough
market-based users to collect enough funds
to justify their place in the system. So, the
government role started to fade and it was
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

replaced by the will of investors combined

with a market value.
For example, day care used to be run by
a municipal structure. First some of those
day care facilities changed to a public utility,
then it changed to a public corporation
and finally it was privatized and sold to
an investor or highest bidder. After this,
the governments only role was to legislate
and monitor lawfulness.This development
was possible because the elite took this task
upon themselves. Neoliberalism managed
to justify its necessity for a liberal, global
economy. The elite, especially the business
elite,incorporated this belief into their souls
and minds as a new world order.
Nevertheless, the question must be
asked: What was the pivotal reason why
Finland changed its path from a welfare
state to market liberalism? The big reason
would be: there was a significant change in
the role of domestic capital and its crucial
role in the Finnish economy. Before the 90s
recession, foreign ownership was limited to
a certain segment of all Finnish companies.
That initial limitation started to grow fast
as the recession got more severe. Finally,
foreign ownership peaked in 2000 where
it was 73 % of all companies. In the years
since, foreign ownership has been slowly
declined to a level of 50 %.
Before this, however, there was an
avalanche of foreign investment and
ownership; there was a 20 % limit for
foreign ownership in Finnish companies.
The government wanted to raise it to a
maximum level of 40 %. However, the
negotiations for Finland becoming a full
member of the European Union would not
allow such restrictions. In 1993 Finland
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Autumn 2015

removed all restrictions concerning foreign

ownership.
This suited especially the American
investors. They saw the business sector
in Finland as a tempting investment
opportunity because the recession had
crashed the market value of Finnish
companies. One example of this was Nokia.
In 1992 the Nokia market value was smaller
than its daily cash balance.
Finnish companies became part of a
foreign investors portfolio. This was first
greeted as a positive development since the
banking sector and, therefore, domestic
capital had taken a huge hit during the
recession. Nobody wanted to talk about
the possible downsides and what that could
mean for Finnish companies in the long
term.
In many ways, Finland is a land of one
truth at a time. If you have something that
contradicts a prevailing paradigm, you
will get marginalized, ostracized and your
career options will become limited. This is
a typical feature of Finnish society because
there are very few individuals at the top
of the food chain, and those who actually
are at the top have made a pact that they
alone shall rule Finland. If you try to swim
against the proverbial current you will be
destroyed professionally. Big business, the
media, academia, political parties, etc. all
fields have been infected with this kind of
mentality.
Of course, this could change if common
people would know the truth as it relates
to history and the future things that are
planned for Finland and its citizens.
The economy of Finland was gathering
pace after a terrible recession. No let us see
[45]

how this was possible after a deep recession,

which changed Finland for good.
Jaakko Kiander, the former research
manager of the Government Institute for
Economic Research, wrote in 2001 that
there were three main reasons why Finland
recovered quickly from the recession in the
early 90s.
First: the devaluation of the Finnish
mark. Finland had a fixed exchange rate.
The value for currency was set too high
and it became impossible to defend against
market speculation. Finally on Nov. 14, 1991,
Finland devaluatedits currency by 14 %
because the Bank of Finland had exhausted
all its currency reserves. This made foreign
trade almost impossible because foreign
trade requires foreign exchange reserves
which will backits liabilities.
Secondly: the fixed exchange currency
was changed to floating currency. The
devaluation in 1991 was not enough.
Capital was leaking out of Finland because
the exchange value was still set too high.
To avoid another rock bottom, Finland was
forced to proceed into the floating currency
system on Sep. 7, 1992.
Third: the enormous success of Nokia
which created over ten thousand jobs in
Finland alone, making the Nokia market
in the year 2000 worth over 210 billion US
dollarswhich today equals the worth of
Royal Dutch Shellor the pharmaceutical
giant Pfizer. Nokia built enormous success
in less than a decade. Now 15 years after its
peak, Nokias market capitalization is 24
billion, almost ten times smaller.
The recession was not taken seriously
enough until it stopped all foreign trade.
Now Finland is a member of the Eurozone
and there is no such demand concerning
exchange reserves. The political elite in
[46]

Finland is ready and willing to destroy its

economy, and there is no such power to
resist. To bring true change to Finland there
needs to be a political will. And for that to
happen there has to be some sort of a crisis.
If we look at the PIIGS countries
(Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) the
destruction of the economy can go very far
before there is any sort of political crisis
which can put enough forces in motion to
initiate furtherchange.
In Finland this means that as long as the
eight parliament parties get enough votes
to maintain their position, there is neither
a political desire nor a need for change. In
other words, there is no true opposition
in parliament. Therefore, change will only
come from outside the established box
where the eight parliament parties can
wheel and deal as they like and keep their
position secured.
After gaining independence from Russia
in 1919, Finland was a nation with three
strong institutional pillars. The first pillar
was a strong President. The second pillar
was the government, which focused on
economic and social policies. The third
pillar consisted of the labor unions. While
the president had a firm grip on foreign
policy, the governments responsibility was
to develop the economy and enhance the
social well-being of the people, which led
eventually to the welfare state.
After the Second World War, President
J.K. Paasikivi and (especially) President
Urho Kekkonen expanded their power
beyond their mandate. Kekkonen was
famous for his tactics of directing how the
various Finnish governments were formed,
who got nominated as a minister, etc.
Kekkonen monitored the press and even
solved disputes within political parties. The
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K AT E H O N

people accepted this. They wanted a single,

strong leader who was a symbol of the
statea symbol of the highest authority, a
father of the nation.
During these years, Authority and the
Presidents will highlightedthe political
scene. This was reflected in the Finnish
parties themselves, where each chairman
was the undeniable leader of his party. This
was a time when everyday policies were
dictated by governmental institutions and
were very technocratic. Naturally then,
the party leaders soon became alienated
from the people. This development went
into turbo boostin the late 1960s when
parliamentary parties were given party
subsidies by the state. Such an action
ensured automatic funding and a new
independence from popular supporters no
matter what the leaders did.
Today the law governs party subsidies.
Every parliamentary party receives the
annual sum of 170,000 euros per one
representative.
Paasikivi and especially Kekkonen
created national unity by collaborating
with Social Democrats and communists.
However, the Finnish people had deep
wounds resulting from the 1918 civil
war fought between reds (led by the
social democratic party) and the whites
(led by the non-socialist conservativeled senate). The civil war was a total
catastrophe for Finland. Around 36,000
peopleor 1.2 percent of the nations total
populationperished. Even today, almost
one hundred years later, there is a deep
grudge between red and white families
in certain parts of Finland.
Kekkonen, who was seventeen at the
time of the civil war, took part in battles
on the white side and gained a reputation
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

as a worthy soldier. After the civil war he

was ordered to command an execution
squad and this affected him deeply. Later
on, when he was president, this particular
period of his life helped him see the future
perils waiting to strike Finland if this deep
grudge and outright hatred could not be
contained. He understood that Finland
needed something which would unite the
people around common objectives.
The first step was to get Social Democratic
support for Kekkonens foreign policies and
to accept him as the nations president. After
winning the 1956 presidential campaign
against Social Democrat candidate K.A.
Fagerholm (151149 in the Electoral College
vote), Kekkonen realised that getting Social
Democrats to accept him as Finlands
President was essential for the country.
Secondly, he adjusted the revolutionary
intentions of the communists to fit national
interests. Because of his relatively good
relations
The political elite
with
left
in Finland is ready
wing parties
and willing to
he
could
successfully destroy its economy,
accomplish
and there is no such
this
via
power to resist
consensus
policies (for
which he was famous). Kekkonens dogged
policy of consensus was probably his
greatest achievement in the domestic arena.
After his removal from office due to illness
in 1981, small winds of change started to
blow but it took a while before structural
changes really began.
Each year, in the many international
comparisons that are made by various
NGOs and world organizations, Finland
scores high (near the top of the list) in areas
[47]

such as schooling, social progress, economic

competitiveness, etc. In many ways the
foundation for this success lies in the
national consensus policy, which Kekkonen
first initiated, between president, political
parties and labor unions. Over the decades
these sectors refined their cooperation to
a level in which they had enough power to
smooth away all thebumps and wrinkles
that came along in recent history. The
greatest achievement of consensus policy
was how Finland got back on its feet
after the 90s recession. During that time,
Finland sufferedthe worst recession in its
independent history, as two major banking
establishments went bankrupt causing
a great deal of turbulence and financial
damage, not only for individual citizens but
also for the domestic economy. At the same
period of time, Finland also joined the EU
and later the Eurozone. It should be known,
there are strong hints that when Finland
joined the Eurozone there were violations
of its constitution, which, naturally then,
may be labeled as high treason. The former
minister of development cooperation Toimi
Kankaanniemi, who was in talks concerning
EMU (Economic and Monetary Union)
reservations, indirectly conceded this in
2012. Also the role of a number of former
presidents and the current one should
be examined in the international court.
Indeed, deception and diversion goes all
the way to the highest levels of the political
elite. Morally this is unforgivable, as so
many people have suffered greatly and
some have even paid the ultimate price!
Yes, Finland stared deep into the abyss.
Her people were agitated because of the
high unemployment rate, and the economy
of the country was spiraling downwards.
The Bank of Finland had lost literally all its
[48]

currency reserves defending FIM (Finland

Markka).
One particular reason enabled a quick
recovery to happen in a very short period of
time: economic growth. Without it Finland
would have slipped over the edge into
destruction, into the abyss without a return
ticket.
From the early 1980s Finland had
exposed its markets to global competition.
The liberalisation of the financial
institutions started in the early 80s. First
there were some very small steps taken but
banks felt their time had come since the
strong President Kekkonen had resigned
due to illness. These small steps, which were
never discussed nor voted on, continued
to be taken and gradually they formed a
strong package leading all the way to the
total liberation of the finance markets.
Notably, there are similarities with the
European Unions own federal development.
The EU also progressed with tiny little steps,
aiming to cross the line, where it would
not be possible for its individual members
to return to their former status as nation
states. These plans were laid down right
after World War II. Publicly the European
Union was a project of peace in Europe, to
ensure that war would never happen again
in Europe. At least this was the selling pitch
that was fed to the common people. Under
this veil, however,there were much more
sinister aims.
The European Union has always been a
project of the United States; the USAs front
or cover is Germany, which executes the
ordersof its transatlantic master. There have
been numerous statements from former
journalists, army and intelligent personnel
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

who back this view. Simply put, Germany is

still occupied by the United States.
After World War II Finland was in the
armpit of the Soviet Union. People did
not like it but it was reality. Paasikivi, and
later Kekkonen, understood the position
Finland was in. Finland had a 1,340 km
borderline with the Soviet Union. Securing
this North-West borderline would give the
Soviet Union time and resources to focus on
the more important things. Finland and its
political elite realised that being pragmatic
with the Soviet Union could present an
opportunity for Finland to take advantage
of its technological expertise. Commerce
was a prime example of this.
Finland and the Soviet Union did trade
on a bilateral basis. Finland would refine
different metal components, clothes and
other consumer products and trade them
for raw materials, especially oil. Russian
oil was refined and exported to the West.
Finland received oil for a reasonable price
and the Soviet Union acquired access
to Western petrol markets via Finland.
This was a win-win situation for both
countries.
Meanwhile, the United States was
monitoring Finland with great interest.
They did not want Finland to get along too
well with the Soviets. Their goal was to get
information as well as make valuable allies
who would be useful later on. The ultimate
goal was to lure Finland permanently
into the Western camp. This meant close
relations with NATO.
Because Finland was, back then, much
more important for the Soviet Union than
it is now for the Russian Federation, the
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

Soviet Union did not let Finland drift too

far away, into the arms of the United States.
This status quo began to weaken when
President Kekkonen resigned from office
and later died. Finland drifted further
away from Moscow with its membership in
EFTA (European Free Trade Association).
Finland was an associate member of EFTA
from 1961, but in 1986 Finland joined fully.
Association membership did not only lead
to full membership but it also paved the way
for Finland to apply for full membership in
the EEC (European Economic Community)
in 1973, where the same pattern happened
again. Finland signed the EEC free trade
agreement in 1974. The free trade agreement
fully came into effect in 1985. In 1989
Finland started its convergence with the
EC (European Community). The EC would
later become the EU (European union),
which Finland joined as a full member in
1995.
And so, the free market religionreplaced
Finlands former planned economy. This
was an open invitation for the United
States to lure Finland as one of its close
friends in other words, as a satellite
state.
Culturally Finland has been saturated
with American culture. Films, TV-series,
clothes, language, values have all been
flooding Finland since the end of the Second
World War. This has caused a deep wound
for Finland. Not only in the fundaments of
a country and its core values, but also in
the minds of the people. This delicate way
of brainwashing has been done carefully
with one objective only: that the people
of Finland should accept everything the
[49]

United States does or produces without any

questions.
When you talk to the common people of
Finland, you get the impression that they
are resigned. There is true despair among
the lower ranks of society. The elderly and
sick feel they are forgotten. Families with
children feel the government intrudes
in everyday life. There are thousands of
children who get their only meal in school.
The taxation rate is going up. The total
tax ratio might reach 50 % in the near
future. VAT (Value Added Tax) is 24 %;
food is 14%; and medicine 10%. Finland
has progressed from being a country with
a slight difference in the gap between rich
and poor, to a country with a considerable
gap between the two, and it is rising at that!
The reason for this was a big tax reform
done in 1993 by the government of Esko
Aho (Center party). The most damaging
decision was separate investment income
from income taxation. Later this led to
straight tax evasion since senior executives
and business owners started to get their
salaries in stocks or options rather than
salaries because of the favorable tax rate in
an investment tax ratio. This might have
never happened if there would have been
a strong president or a real opposition
party which would have opposed such bad
decisions.
Now 20 years into EU membership,
Finland is facing the greatest crisis after
the Second World War. There used to be
a consensus policy, which made sure that
recovery happened quickly after crisis.
Finland also had its own currency and
central bank. Neither currency nor central
bank may ensure welfare but they are
tools, which can be used to achieve those
objectives. Without such tools it is almost
[50]

impossible. Finland needs a political

movement outside established political
parties. There is a need to rebuild and unite
the fragmented country. Unrest is growing
but it is not strong enough yet. The situation
will change drastically by the next elections
in 2017.

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

The Immigration Menace

and the Background of
the Czech Liberal Democracy Crisis:
Who Will Offer a Solution?

Ladislav Zemnek

This article describes a condition of the Czech liberal-democratic regime 25 years after
the fall of the communist one. Relations between the establishment and the people on
the current migration crisis explains the negative attitude of the Czech society towards
immigration and afterwards focuses on an analysis of those Czech right-wing parties
which are set against immigration and Islamisation, describes mutual relations between
these organizations and its international ties and takes a look at a political backstage.
This analysis is not exhaustive; its goal is to outline discussed problems and put forward
possible solutions in a well-arranged way.
The failure of liberal democracy and desire for change
The migration crisis has been deepening. European countries have been facing a
massive refugee wave from those ones, which are totally different. This wave has already
affected the Czech Republic, deepening a chasm between the ruling establishment and the
people. An overwhelming majority of the Czechs refuse immigrants from understandable
reasons. Instead of lending an ear to the people, the government has been preparing a
propagandistic campaign that is to convince the people of its rightness and of a duty
to take on care on the illegal immigrants. Contempt for the peoples will have become
Ladislav Zemnek is Vice-chairman of the National Democracy political party,
Czech Republic

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[51]

one of the typical features of the Czech

democracy after the fall of socialism that
contributes significantly to its discrediting.
Along with deepening of a chasm between
the establishment and the people, a
protectorate character of our state has been
coming through increasingly. This fact
cannot be altered by state representatives
sober opinions, mainly those of the former
president Vclav Klaus and of the current
one Milo Zeman. Without regard to a
concrete coalition arrangement, a ruling
coalition always obeys Brussels with having
no courage to defy it. Unfortunately, it
applies to an overwhelming majority of
former and current parliamentary parties.
This is a reason why the people have
been looking for ways how to make
politicians to lend an ear to them. There are
many petition actions on different topics
including those demanding a referendum
not only on immigration, but also on leaving
the European Union. Demand for adopting
a law enabling a national referendum is

substantial and the government has been

preparing a new law indeed. However, its
draft supposes that voting on such issues as
immigration or leaving the EU would not
be possible at all. This is another example
of ridicule and contempt for the people. It is
obvious that the protectorate establishment
will not allow implementation of steps
that would be oriented against interests
of Brussels or Washington. Therefore it
seems that solution of essential problems
is not possible within standard liberal
democracy mechanisms under current
conditions and so it is necessary to find new
ways in the near future whose aims would
be to weaken establishment power and to
regain lost sovereignty and national dignity
that is being trampled by democratic
politicians every day.
The current state is unsustainable in
the long term because it leads to a massive
discontentment, frustration and apathy
at the same time as the people have been
ceasing believing that it is possible to

Street action of the National Democracy political party in Prague

[52]

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

achieve changes. All this is connected

naturally with deep mistrust of politics as
such, which appears to be an opening space
for populists and various business projects
who strongly oppose standard political
parties and promise radical changes. If such
projects succeeded in the elections, they
would not change the humiliating position
or the inner decay of the Czech Republic.
On the contrary, they would use the gained
power to their own economic profit, thus
connecting business with politics. Such
a process is known as oligarchization.
Current vice-premier Andrej Babi
represents an exemplary illustration of this
phenomenon.
When people understand that these
projects will bring no change and that they
have been deceived again, their frustration
and apathy will deepenwhich could have
fatal consequences not only for our political
life as protectorate position of the Czech
Republic and her dependency on both
denationalized and hostile Brussels elites
and the United States, who are interested in
maintaining its influence in Central Europe
and Europe, but on general consolidation.
A principle task for the Europeans is to
break their dependency on the USA, to
remove existing EU structures, setting up
a new European order based on completely
different values and principles. After all, the
current migration crisis is to a large extent a
consequence of destructive American policy
and its main pawnthe EU. However, all
European nations rightly feel that stop the
influx of migrants is necessary for survival
of Europe.
Minorities on the Czech territory
Situation in the Czech Republic is specific
in this respect. The Czechs constitutes a very
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

homogeneous society and have no strong

experience with alien minorities as many
Western countries have. Yet or maybe
just because of thatthe Czech society has
vigorously opposed the influx of migrants.
In the past German minority lived on the
Czech territory, that in the inter-war period
numbered more than 3 million people, i.e.
nearly a quarter of all population, and even
those were expelled after the Second World
War. Further, a strong Jewish minority
lived among the Czechs (comprising ca.
180 thousands of people according to
official statistics from 1921, nevertheless,
it was larger in fact), which was reduced
significantly thanks to the Third Reich
policy. In the present time, the gipsy
minority is the most noticeable one; yet it
is not active politically and organized being
an object of ridicule from the Czech society,
and also the Vietnamese, which have been
able to adapt by focusing predominantly on
economic activities. Other minorities are
marginal arousing no significant attention.
The closed character of the Czech
society is a consequence of geographical
conditions as well, has been dwindling due
to globalization, liberalization and other
negative processes.
According to official statistics from 2013,
nearly 450 thousand foreigners live in the
Czech Republic comprising more than 4
percent of all population; the foreigners
are concentrated mainly in the capital of
Prague where they make up to 13 percent of
the population. It is not possible to overlook
the fact that Prague has been losing its
Czech character significantly becoming a
typical multicultural Western-style city. I
would like to emphasize that I described
the situation before the migration crisis.
The migration wave is a fatal menace
[53]

for preservation of Czech identity. Its

preservation and developing is incompatible
with influx of migrants. Despite this fact, the
Czech government is not reluctant to accept
them. They have been boasting about that
they achieved refusal of obligatory quotas
which would have obliged the EU member
states to accept a determined number of
migrants on the basis of Brussels decision,
at the same time the government decided
that the Czech Republic would accept
illegal immigrants and in the upshot it can
mean that we will accept more people than
a number according to the quotas been. As
the government have stressed their merits
in defending national interests, they have
acted very hypocritically and misleadingly.
Anti-Islamic radicalismand
defense of liberalism
On the other hand, many political parties
and organizations endeavor to defend
national interests. One of them succeeded
in the last elections to the Chamber of
Deputies in 2013 gaining 6.88 percent of
votes. The party was called Dawn of Direct
Democracy lead by popular businessman
Tomio Okamura. However, his hopeful
project failed when a majority of his own
deputies revolted against him expelling
him and in August 2015 transformed the
party. Now it is called Dawn National
Coalition; its destiny is very doubtful
because they lost their main benefit when
expelling Tomio Okamura. The party
achieved success in the 2013 elections only
thanks to his popular face; in the present
day the new Dawn has no popular figure.
Their position could be bolstered in case
of cooperation with another organization,
founded in June this year, called Bloc
against Islam lead by Martin Konvika,
[54]

natural scientist and civic activist who

is known by his intransigent refusing of
Islam, by comparing it to Nazism and by
unscrupulous and vulgar assaults on his
opponents. Konvika is a populist who
focuses only on one issue. It is interesting
that attacking Islam he has been presenting
himself a defender of Christianity recently
that is in significant contradiction to his
pretentious support of LGBT rights,
relativisation of Christian morality,
support of mixing races and cultures etc.
Bloc against Islam pretends to transform
itself into a political party in order to fight
the election. They have started quite a
successful petition action whose aim is to
call a national referendum on accepting
refugees.
A substantial problem of this new
organization is its conciliatory attitude
towards the EU, ostentatious and repetitive
support of Israel policy and current liberaldemocratic regime. Stressing of Jewish
interests, that is probably connected with a
considerable number of people with Jewish
origin within management causes natural
mistrust and alertness, thus complicating
potential cooperation with conservatives
and nationalists with whom they share their
refusing attitude towards immigration.
Such a coalition has also been made
impossible due to frequent assaults on these
potential partners represented by National
Democracy in the first place. Bloc against
Islam would gain a significant benefit
if cooperating with Tomio Okamura;
however, such cooperation is utterly
improbable because of their good relations
with the new Dawn representatives of
who have already expressed readiness for
mutual cooperation. I consider their radical
attitude towards Islam manifesting itself
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

in humiliating and insulting it and their

fanaticism in relation to Islamic world to
be a serious problem. Ideal Blocs goal is
total extermination of this religion, which
is, moreover, reduced to a criminal political
ideology identical to Evil. This anti-Islamic
radicalism contrasts with liberal attitudes in
many other spheres just as with permanent
apology of Jewishness.
French National Fronts strange
policy
Former deputy Ji Janeeks Civic
Conservative Party (CCP) also takes a
stand against immigration. However, his
party is marginal, unknown publicly, not
operational and not very credible how
ambiguous attitude towards National
Democracy (ND) illustrates. Janeek made
a partnership agreement with National
Democracy in June 2015 that, nevertheless,
was contested permanently, it was canceled
due to obviously untrue reasons soon,
subsequently renewed and in August finally
ended from the NDs side after another wave
of assaults that called National Democrats
extremists, anti-Semites and racists. After
the agreement annulment a noteworthy
statement of one of the CCP representatives
followed allegedly no agreement ever
existed.
CCP as such would not be worth noting
unless it made a partnership agreement
with French National Front. Negotiations
with NF were held both by CCP and ND
simultaneously. The NF final decision is
very surprising not only due to abovementioned facts but also because CCP is
not against the EU and NATO consistently,
although they support conservative values.
Thanks to their new French partners CCP
became one of the founding members of
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Autumn 2015

the Movement for a Europe of Nations and

Freedom (MENF) and the connection with
Marine Le Pen is being stressed constantly,
thus endeavoring to hide no activities
in the Czech Republic. Therefore CCP is
interesting for their potential partners just
for the connection with NF and MENF.
After Jean-Marie Le Pen leaving from
the top in 2011, the National Front has been
shifting towards political mainstream so
the old principles have been in danger how
a quarrel between Jean-Marie and current
leader Marine and tension within the party
demonstrates. Concern about NF not to
betray conservative and national values
for election success seems to be justified.
Instead of being a support for the forces that
fight for conservative values, against the
EU, NATO and American influence on the
continent throughout Europe, NF has been
becoming more and more conformist and
liberal standing side by side with liberals,
socialists and mainstream media in their
fight against genuinely conservative and
nationalist parties. It can bring harmful
consequences. A position of Hungarian
Jobbik is in contrast to that of the NF; Jobbik
remains a consistent national conservative
force despite its election successes. It is
probable that the NF will clash with Jobbik
for the leading role among eurosceptical
forces in Europe. Considering abovementioned facts it is as clear as day which
party should enjoy our liking.
New outset on the Czech national
stage
A party which very strongly opposes
immigration, the EU and NATO, is
nationalist Workers Party of Social
Justice (WPSJ). Theoretically, it could be
a leading force of Czech eurosceptics
[55]

with significant anti-system ethos and in

the past it was indeed. Despite growing
disillusion and discontentment intensified
by the global economic crisis, the WPSJ has
been fading paradoxically not being able
to mobilize people as was before and since
2008, when was in its heyday, it has been
losing voters, members and readiness for
action. The WPSJ has a change to succeed
practically only in areas with large and
problematic gypsy minority as the party
became famous just for fighting against
them. A majority of the Czech society
perceives the party as neo-Nazi, skinhead,
racist and extremist with only lower classes
would vote for it, which limits very much
its real chances. In spite of a positive role
from the past it has became apparent that
its mission is over. Nowadays the WPSJ
manages to influence only its own members
and long-term sympathizers and its
coalition potential is zero, especially after
cooperation with informal organization
National Congress founded by National
Democracy was terminated. All the more
so they have been stressing external ties,
thus behaving as the CPP. The WPSJ
has traditionally close relations with the
National Democratic Party of Germany
and Slovak Peoples Party Our Slovakia lead
by Marian Kotleba. In June 2015 the WPSJ
was received into the European nationalist
party Alliance for Peace and Freedom
that is possible to describe as success given
the real partys position.
A comparison of WPSJ and National
Democracy activities in connection with
migration crisis is reflective of the real
situation. Protests against immigration
have been organized by Bloc against Islam,
WPSJ, ND and other apolitical subjects.
Despite a fierce medial blockade against the
[56]

ND from the very beginning of its existence,

protests organized by National Democrats
were the most successful definitely. The
highest number of people took part in
them, many other organizations including a
new Tomio Okamuras party, which is close
to the ND, supported them and they also
provoked the greatest response not only
in the mass media but among politicians
as well. A media attacks broke out being
accompanied by politicians including the
PM or the interior minister who declared
that such actions are unacceptable, that the
laws would be changed if necessary and
they threatened the ND organisers with
ten-years jail sentence.
These summer protests were a turn as the
ND became an object of general awareness
thanks to them and mass media started
to consider it a relevant political force,
even though they endeavor to discredit
it by permanent attacks. Journalists and
publicists label it as extremist, xenophobic
or anti-Semitic that in times of mediocracy
represents a serious danger. Therefore it
would be crucial for National Democrats
to be able to stand publicly. The ND exerts
pressure on the government not only by
demonstrations and harsh criticism but
also by appeals for founding militias, which
would defend the Czech people against
illegal immigrants. Such appeals excite
peoples lively interest so allied militia
squads have been already creating (apart
from these militia squads an organization
called Czechoslovak Reserve Soldiers
against the War Planned by NATO has
been established recently being prepared
for defending Czech borders).
Before bursting out of the migration
crisis the National Democracy engaged
by repeated protests in front of the US
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

embassy in Prague where they protested

against American imperialist policy and
Washington interference in internal affairs
of our country, by protest against American
military convoy that went through Czech
territory in March this year, by supporting
demonstrations against media propaganda
and on support of Russia just as by blockade
of the deviants Prague Pride parade. The ND
was the first Czech party in general which
refused decidedly to support the Kiev putsch
arranged by the USA, which expressed its
support to Russia speaking openly about
background of the Ukrainian crisis. Even
for these reasons I accepted invitation for
observation mission in Donetsk Peoples
Republic in November 2014. National
Democrats have fully appreciated Russian
role in the international politics and her
significance for reorganization of order in
Europe. Europe without Russia does not
mean anything else than submitting to
Washington. European renewal without a
firm bond with conservative Russia is not
feasible.

a menace as a migration wave is. The Czech

society was indifferent and apathetic and no
demand for a radical national conservative
party basically existed. Despite that a party
emerged being able to engage, it has been
developing and now it seems that National
Democracy represents the main threat for
the ruling establishment from all parties.
The thing is that National Democrats have
decided to tell the truth and act. And the
people have started to understand that.
Therefore the fear in the ruling politicians
eyes, therefore the repetitive police
interrogations, therefore the media attacks
which had to be started after keeping silence
and pretending that there is no National
Democracy had become unsustainable.
On my opinion radical change can be
brought only by a party whose aim would
be leaving the EU and NATO, rehabilitation
of traditional Christian values, a Europe
of free nations and the closest possible
cooperation with Russia, a party merging
radicalism with conservatism, decided
attitudes with restraint, nationalism with
Europeanism. On the Czech political stage
Who brings the hope?
such a combination is offered objectively
During last two years several subjects just by the National Democracy.
criticizing the EU, declaring a need of
defending national interests, warning about
the islamisation threat and taking a stand
against immigration were established. The
question is which of them embody authentic
patriotic forces, which of them are a project
responding pragmatically to growing
demand for radical and new solutions and,
finally, which of them were founded with
the aim of weakening of national forces. At
the beginning of 2014 when the National
Democracy was established no one expected
how the Russia-West relations would
escalate and that we would have to face such
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[57]

Pro War and Open Borders.

The Geopolitical Framework of
Germanys Mass Migration Problem

Manuel Ochsenreiter

Tourists arriving today at Stuttgarts Hauptbahnhof (Main station) might be surprised

these days and not in a positive way. Trains are crowded with African migrants,
flooding Germany from southern Europe. Every day, illegal migrants are crossing the
German borders. Since the Schengen agreement came into effect in 1995, there are no
border controls anymore. Whoever managed to step into the Schengen area can move
inside without any barriers.
Some German cities such as Munich officially declared an emergency state because the
city authorities cannot handle the amount of illegal migrants anymore. Across Germany,
towns and cities have been saying they cannot cope with the numbers of migrants. Along
with a shortage of lodgings in cities including Berlin, Munich and Hamburg, Germany
also struggles to process applications, which can take over a year.
The migration problem has only now become recognizable during the last months:
Illegal migrants are on the streets, on the public squares, and sitting in parks all over
Germany. They come from the west Balkans, from Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
The German government raised its forecast for the number of asylum seekers expected
to arrive this year to a record-breaking 800,000from a previous estimate of 450,000.
Migrant numbers across the EU have shot up during the summer months, thereby
overwhelming the authorities, from the Greek islands to the French port of Calais. Many
undertake dangerous sea voyages to reach Southern Europe, and then make their way
Manuel Ochsenreiter is editor of the German conservative Zuerst! magazine

[58]

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

across the continent in the hope of reaching

wealthier nations like Germany, the biggest
recipient of asylum seekers in the EU.
The German system seems to have
collapsed under the pressure of migration.
Now then: How must we deal with
this problem? The public debates about
migration radicalized within the past
months. It is a harsh war of words between
the controlled migration camp and the
open borders lobby. The open border
lobby is represented by a weird coalition of
liberal and left wing NGOs, which includes
the Green party, sections of the Left and the
labor unions, even parts of the Christian
Democrats. What is more, some media
groups and segments of the industrial elite
are calling for the total abolition of any
migration barriers. One should memorize
that coalition it will reappear later in
this article. The open border lobby fights
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

hard to dominate the public debates these

days. Whoever doubts their political aims
gets stigmatized as a xenophobe or even
a Nazi.
The migration debate has therefore
deterioratedinto
sheer
media
hysteria,having all the elements of
ridiculousness. One recent example: One of
the best paid German TV presenters, Claus
Kleber from the state TV channel ZDF, was
overcome with emotion when he reported
a story about a Bavarian bus driver who
welcomed illegal migrants in his bus with
the words: I have an important message
for all people from the whole world in this
bus: I want to say welcome. Welcome to
Germany, welcome to my country. Have a
nice day! That story made it in the news
show of Claus Kleber, who told the busdriver-welcome-story with tears in his
eyes. By the way: The same Claus Kleber
[59]

didnt show any emotions during his war

mongering speeches against Russia or Iran.
The hysteria continues: The German
actor Til Schweiger discovered the migration
topic for his image work. In the social
networks he attacks anyone who criticizes
the open border ideology. Schweiger also
announced plans to build a refugee center
which brought him a lot of applause from the
political mainstream. Even Sigmar Gabriel,
Germanys deputy chancellor and leader of
the Social Democratic Party, organized a
media-friendly meeting together with the
German movie star.
Schweiger has begun raising money to
convert an abandoned military barracks
near the Harz
German government Mo u nt a i n s
into a center
does not make any
for refugees.
effort to analyze
I get stopped
the connection
every day by
between the global people who
congratulate
migration movements and thank
and Western global me
he
proudly
told
politics
journa lists.
Even so, some people do actually dare
to criticize the German Hollywood star.
For them, he has just one answer: People
attacked me with the nastiest, most
xenophobic and racist comments Id ever
seen. It was really the dark, ugly side of
Germany coming up.
The ugly side includes for Schweiger
and the open borders lobby all those
moderate voices who call for respecting
the German asylum law, like the 2013
founded euro-sceptic party Alternative
fr Deutschland (AfD). They criticize
the fact that migrants who are refused
[60]

asylum applications are not consequently

deported. The AfD hits the nerve of the
problem: The Bundesamtfr Migration und
Flchtlinge (Federal office for migration
and refugees) in Nuremberg stated, that
more than one million asylum seekers are
right now in Germany. More than half a
million foreigners reside with a refused
asylum application on German territory,
among them many who were refused years
ago. Only around 40,000 refugees are
acknowledged for political asylum. These
numbers perfectly demonstrate the current
chaotic state of affairs. Consequently, the
term asylum has shed its original definition
to now mean a form of migration. The vast
majority of the migrants in Germany are
not persecuted refugees; they come for
economic reasons. The German authorities
do notact appropriately according to their
own asylum law anymore, as per the AfD
party and other critics of the German
asylum policy.
In addition to the inability to deal with
the recent migration chaos, the German
government does not make any effort to
analyze the connection between the global
migration movements and Western global
politics, which is strongly supported by
Berlin. It is obvious that the war-politics of
the last couple of decades is at least one of
the major reasons of migration.
Russias president Vladimir Putin
declared an ugly truth. Putin said the
following in an interview with Swiss RTS
television channel: Across the world and
in Western countries there are tectonic
shifts in public opinion towards greater
protection of national interests. Right
now Europe faces a specific problem a
massive influx of migrants. But did Europe
look into the origins of the decisions that
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K AT E H O N

led to this situation? We have to be honest,

these decisions came from overseas, while
Europe deals with the problem, the Russian
president said.
These sentences of Putin include more
truth than all of the migration studies
published by the German authorities put
together.
A huge number of the migrants from
the Balkans are Kosovo-Albanians from
the Kosovo Republica NATO created
de-facto regime established in 1999 after
the war against former Yugoslavia. The
German air force supported the war
against Belgrade. The first time since World
War II German planes attacked Serbia
(this time under NATO command). The
former Serbian province that declared
its independence officially in 2008 (in
reality it is a joint NATO/EU-protectorate)
developed into a black hole of corruption,
poverty and organized crime. The standard
of livingin the so-called Kosovo Republic
declined dramatically since 1999, although
the country has rich resources. The rightful
question beside all the human tragedies
of the war must be: Did the 1999 war
against Yugoslavia serve European or (in
particular) German interests? The answer is
made clear in all of the buses packed with
economic refugees from Kosovo hoping to
benefit from the German welfare system.
The same problem appears in other armed
conflicts with German support. The US led
wars against Iraq (1991 and 2003) wouldnt
have been possible without German
assistance and financial support, despite the
fact that the German Bundeswehr didnt
participate directly in the conflicts. But
Germany was and is stillthe most important
US-American military hub. US strategic
command centers, barracks, airports
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Autumn 2015

and other US military facilities have been

located in Germany since the end of World
War II, and no German government has
ever demanded that Washington withdraw
its troops.
The 2001 war against Afghanistan took
place with German military participation.
Today it is clear: The NATO mission created
more chaos and violence than the Taliban
government ever did prior to 2001.
One of the most important conflicts,
which opened the gates of mass migration,
was the Western aggression against Libya
in 2011. Western air forces bombed the
legitimate Libyan government while
Islamic extremists took over. Libya used
to guarantee an effective barrier against
mass migration to Europe in North Africa.
Libyas leader Muammar al-Gaddafi
warned the European nations in 2011 while
his country was bombarded to the ground
by the West: Thousands of people from
Libya will invade Europe. There will be no
one to stop them anymore.
The same pattern is visible in Syria:
Since 2011 the country which used to be
one of the most stable entities in the region
is getting destroyed more and more by
foreign terrorists and foreign funding (for
those terrorists). Masses of Syrians have
already left their homeland. Most of them
flee to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordanbut
a respectable amount manages to go to
Europe as well. In the past four years, Syria
has literally been bled of her people.
From the beginning, Germany has
played a destructive role in the Syrian
conflict. The German political elite
promoted their support for the so-called
armed opposition a camouflage term
for terrorists. One example: Between
January and June 2012, members of the
[61]

so-called Day After project (i.e. the

proposed day after the Syrian president
Assad is toppled) worked on a report that
would attempt to address the major aspects
of the future transition in Syria. They
were helped by experts in international
planning and diplomacy. The project was
jointly overseen, financed and supported
by the United States Institute for Peace
and the German Institute for International
and Security Affairs in Berlin. Some 45
Syrian opposition representatives of varied
backgrounds participated, including the
Muslim Brotherhood.
Russias president Vladimir Putin hits
the nail on the head when he blames Western
aggression against sovereign nations like
Libya and Syria as an important reason for
the migration pressure against Europe.
The already mentioned open-borders
lobby inside Germany plays a decisive role
inGerman support for such aggression. The
same groups, parties and organizations
which are currently promoting mass
migration policies are also promoting
Western military aggression. In 1999, as
foreign minister, the Green party figure
Joschka Fischer supported German military
participation in the Kosovo War. Today the
same party promotes the open borders
ideology. And so, the liberal open borders
lobby is identical with the pro war lobby.
A variety of different liberal groups,
including artist associations,have been
promoting military interventions over the
course of the last couple of decadesalways
with the same narrative: Germany has to
be on the right side of history; Germany
has to help stop a planned genocide here
(Kosovo) or gassing civilians (Syria)
there. Todays war lobby in Germany
argues in an antifascist way. That twisted
[62]

argumentation is even aimed at Russia

and its president Vladimir Putin, who is
called a dictator and even compared to
Adolf Hitler. The liberal pro-war lobby
argues that Berlin has to fight for the liberal
catalogue of Western values.
How are we to end such a (self) destructive
political path? The only constructive way
would be a complete geopolitical U-turn in
Berlin. However this would automatically
include a debate about the US-American
presence on German soil. But neither the
German government nor the so-called
civil society seem to be ready today to
emancipate themselvesfrom Washingtons
influence.

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Globalization
or Finance Capitalist Trotskyism?

Christopher Borcella

There is an ideological specter plaguing the international community of nations; it is the

most radical form of liberalism (or anti-Tradition) that has ever existed; indeed it represents
the combined political-economic-social-cultural vanguard of radical liberalism, and so it
constitutes the greatest possible danger to all the peoples of the earth: Globalization.
Now, of course, there have been countless works written on this complex and often
enigmatic world system some good, some bad. Without a doubt, all of the more
competent works highlight the incontrovertible fact that the world system commonly
known as Globalization is actually Atlanticist in origin, which is to say Anglo-Saxon,
and it is championed and promoted most viciously by the United States via its primary
political-economic-cultural nerve centers (i.e. the Pentagon, Wall Street and Hollywood).
Needless to say, it is not too often that the fundamental roots of this hellish monster are
either explored or revealed by even the best or most famous writers. In many cases, the
so-called conspiracy authors (or those labeled conspiracists by the mainstream media)
do a much better job of exposing the Globalist golem for what it actually is: a leftover and
yet greatly strengthened form of Trotskyite Internationalism, or more specifically: Finance
Capitalist Trotskyism. In other words, Globalization is best defined as a postmodern/postindustrial phenomenon which is: economically Financialist, culturally Capitalist, and
politically/socially Trotskyite. These three highlighted words represent the unholy trinity
of Globalization.
To understand the historical roots of Globalization, its component partsand its goals,
one must first go back to the height of the Cold War and inquire as to what ideological
Christopher Borcella is European-American scholar who is currently
employed by the United Nations Archives and Records Management Section in
New York.

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Autumn 2015

[63]

values were in dispute between the United

States and the Soviet Union. This is to
say, one must first understand the deepest
spiritual impetuses for the geopolitical
tensions that existed during the hottest
years of the USAUSSR rivalry. And so,
the following question must be posed:
What primary ideological values of
Marxism were openly opposed by the
United States?
Answer:
materialism,
antitraditionalism, ethno-socio-cultural massleveling, gender equality, internationalism
(the eradication of national borders), and
anti-classism (socialism).
It is more than ironic that out of all of
the principles of orthodox Marxism cited
above, only the last (anti-classism) was
prevented from taking root in American
society. In all other respects, the United
States and its NATO vassals werefar more
successful than the Soviet bloc countries
in implementing these anti-traditional
goalsand long before the Cold War had
officially ended.
Indeed, all throughout the twentieth
century the U.S. government poured vast
amounts of money into the radical massleveling of American societya fact that
has become increasingly obvious since the
famous counter-cultural upheavals of the
late 1960s. What resulted was a profoundly
liberal American worldview (accepted by
Democrats and Republicans alike) which
actually stood firmly against the professed
human rights which were claimed to
be upheld by the most radical voices of
the counter culture. There developed
a great paradox of ethnic and gender
equality which only highlighted the
multidimensional problems affecting the
innately hypocritical American societya
[64]

society which is indeed multicultural and

multiracial, yet which was also founded
on the genocide, slavery and oppression
of the same groups it now provides with
a paternalistic pat on the back. And so,
as the Trotskyite/Neocon Nathan Glazer
proudly boasted in the title of his 1998
book: we are all Multiculturalists now.
Whether Democrat, Republican or
so-called Independent all of the
American political elites have accepted
the socio-political dimensions of the
international communist ideology or what
can be termed mass-leveling or mass-hyperegalitarianism, i.e. Trotskyism. Under this
perverseliberal Trotskyite ideology, every
denizen of the planet possesses the same
rights so long as the dogma of liberalism (or
hyper-individualism) is never brought into
question. For those who are card-carrying
members of this stealthy totalitarian creed,
all the earths people are created equal in
the purest sense of the term meaning,
in the eyes of liberals all human beings
are cut from the same American mold,
they are all considered equally worthlessas
atomized pieces of consumerist cannon
fodder who must readily serve the liberal
Atlanticist elites. They must jump when the
commissars in Washington and New York
tell them to jump, they must go to war when
the commissars in London and Brussels tell
them to go to war, they must die when the
commissars in Hollywood tell them it is
heroic or culturally acceptable to do so.
This is Globalization. This is Death.
If one should visibly rebel against the
liberal worldview at any time, what follows
is his or her branding as a racist, even
though liberalism has fomented more
ethnic and cultural chauvinism than any
other creed known to man. Nevertheless,
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K AT E H O N

the heretic crusaders against liberalism

will undoubtedly be called racists. Public
censuring and total social alienationloss
of friends, livelihood and even ones own
family inevitably come next. This is
Trotskyism plain and simple. This is the
legacy of Trotskys liberal Left Opposition.
In fact it was Trotsky himself who first
coined the term racist in 1927. Needless
to say, Cultural Marxism or so-called
political correctness falls clearly within
the schema of Trotskyism. For those who
are not familiar with Leon Trotsky and his
connection to liberal Globalization, I will
provide a concise historical background.
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) was the chief
proponent of International Socialism/
Communism in the USSRhe represented
the anti-Leninist interests of the so-called
Left Opposition, or more precisely: the
liberal internationalist communists. What
can only be described as the National
Bolshevik tendency (or centrist position)
of the Bolshevik Party was championed
by Joseph Stalin who happened also to be
the originator and proud exponent of the
Socialism in One Country doctrine, not
to mention the rightful political heir to
Lenin.
In February of 1929 Stalin effectively
banished Trotsky from the Soviet Union
on account of his subversive liberalinternationalist propaganda which, if
taken seriously, would have destroyed the
Soviet Union at the most critical period
of its development after the great human
tragedies of the First World War (191417) and the subsequent Russian Civil War
(1917-1922). What the Soviet people needed
more than ever during this period (in the
absence of Lenin who died in 1924) was a
strong man in the Kremlin who represented
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Autumn 2015

the great bulk of the Russian and Soviet

masses. They needed a great man of steel
whorepresented the humble class origins
of the peasantry and yet also embodied the
combined supra-national aspirations of the
people. The man the Soviet people needed
was Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili:
Stalin.
Certainly, volumes can be written on
the subject of the Stalin-Trotsky rivalry,
however the main reason for the dispute
and Trotskys eventual exile (along with
the famous trials against the Left and Right
Opposition members) can be summed up
thus: Stalin was a National Bolshevik (not
ideologically but in his deeds)he restored
greatness not only to the Russian folk, but
to all the other
Trotskyites
Eurasian
e t h n i c promoted the view
groups who
that nations and
comprised
cultures do not
the
former
exist
Tsarist
and
then
Soviet
peoples. Stalin brought back order,
hierarchy, patriarchy, religious tolerance,
national patriotism, civic pride, as well
as a renewed interest in the arts and
sciences. Most importantly, all of these
achievements were accomplished within
a national or supra-national context; i.e.
they were accomplished for the Soviet
people and the Soviet people alone. The
liberal-internationalist Trotskyites, on
the other hand, spoke in terms of a world
revolution. They promoted the view that
nations and cultures do not exist that
an inorganic world community of workers
must have the unique Soviet experiment
foisted upon them mercilessly for the sake
of internationalism. Does any of this sound
[65]

familiar to the reader? If not, perhaps I

should replace the word internationalism
with globalization.
At any rate, the Stalin-Trotsky feud is
absolutely crucial if one is to understand
the ideological mechanics (if not the roots)
of postmodern Globalization. It is also
important to recall Stalins chief accusation
against the Trotskyites: that they were the
paid agents of international capitalism.
The validity of Stalins claim is glaringly
clear if one conducts the proper research,
particularly the well-documented collusion
between Monopoly Capitalism, the Federal
Reserve Bank and Leon Trotsky three
of the foremost pawns of the AtlanticistAmerican elites.
For example, it is a fact of history that
Leon Trotsky (real name: Lev Bronshtein)
was admitted into the United States during
World War I, and welcomed with open
arms by his fellow radical internationalists
in New York City. Yet far from living the
meager lifestyle of a comrade worker,
Trotsky lived an extravagant lifestyle,
owning one of the citys first refrigerators
and frequently being chauffeured around
in a limousine. Even more disconcerting,
President Woodrow Wilson provided
Trotsky with a passport to return to Russia
to advance the cause of international
revolution. This is not at all surprising when
considering the fact that Wilson had one
of the most liberal administrations in U.S.
history. Some of Wilsons most influential
and trusted advisors were: Paul Warburg,
Henry Morgenthau, Louis Brandeis,
Bernard Baruch, and Stephen Wise (just
to name a few). These same folks were
[66]

instrumental in the establishment of the

Federal Reserve Bank.
Other names which directly funded
Trotskys cause include: William Boyce
Thompson director of the Federal
Reserve Bank and a large stockholder in
the
Rockefeller/Rothschild-controlled
Chase Bank; Thompson donated 1 million
dollars to Trotsky for propaganda purposes.
Eugene Boissevain a prominent New
York bankerconnected to the Guaranty
Trust Company. Alexander Gumberg a
Wall Street businessman who also had
connections to Chase Bank. All in all, most
of the pro-Trotskyite support originated
from one single address: 120 Broadway,
New York City.
When one investigates the matter
thoroughly, one thing becomes perfectly
clear: the so-called red menace turns
out to be much more of a green menace,
due to the vast amount of U.S. greenbacks
which funded the cause of Trotskys failed
International Revolution. A sufficient
primer for those who might be new to
the subject would be: Antony C. Suttons
Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution.
While not an entirely accurate work, it does
highlight the early twentieth century roots
of Globalization quite convincingly, along
with Suttons other works such as Wall
Street & FDR, Wall Street and the Rise of
Hitler, and The Federal Reserve Conspiracy.
And so, a clear picture emerges from
a rigorous investigation of the facts: Big
Business, the Federal Reserve Bank, and
Leon Trotsky all firmly under the
control of the Atlanticist elites worked
in collusion to bring about an international
communist regime inside Russia with
two ultimately liberal goals: (1) the
neutralization of all business competition
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K AT E H O N

that could pose a threat to the monopolistic

hegemony of the United States and Britain,
and (2) the promotion of a radical social
world agenda. Needless to say, there is a
plenitude of corroborating evidence behind
the latter point, as it has always been the
richest members of the economic and
political classes (the robber barons and their
political capos the bosses) who have
supported the most outlandish forms of
social experimentation. Typically, the more
outrageous the cause, the more funding it
received. Thus, the ideology of International
Communism may well have been born
in 1848 the year Marx published his
famous work. But as a viable political force
International Communism was created and
bankrolledin the midst of World War I by
the wealthiest one-percent of the banking
class, their political lackeys andthe radical
agitator hitmen of Trotskyism.
By the 1930s, mass droves of the
latter group the radical agitator
Trotskyites immigrated to the United
States where they were welcomed with
open arms by the Roosevelt administration.
Immediately the disciples of Bronshtein
burrowed like plague-bearing rats into
positions of power within the Democratic
Party. Manylike Irving Kristol, Norman
Podhoretz, Nathan Glazer, Daniel Bell, and
Irving Howefound the Republican Party
to be just as easy to infiltrate, yet under the
guise of Neoconservatism. In time, the
GOP was successfully commandeered by
the sons of these former card-carrying
Trotskyites by second generation
Neocons like William Kristol, Richard
Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Podhoretz, et
al. This second generation would go on to
form the backbone of the Neoconservative
Movement of the 1990s and 2000s a
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Autumn 2015

rabid group of liberal free-market radicals

whose political trademark can be found
in virtually every one of their works and
speeches through the recurrent use of the
word Globalization. This conspicuous
trademark of theirs is simply another way
of saying Internationalism.
The Finance Capitalist world system
created by the abovementioned secondgeneration Trotskyites is the same one that
emerged victorious from the Cold War.
It current lyposes the greatest existential
threat to every living person on this planet
simply because it is depriving entire nations,
peoples, and cultures of their inherent right
to pursue their own traditional and unique
ways of life independent of American
control. This is unipolar Globalization in the
proverbial nutshell. It is an attack on true
autonomysince true autonomy can only
exist within a multipolar context and
thus it is an affront to the collective dignity
of all mankind.
Globalization must therefore be
destroyed by any means possible. And
when the usurious banking industry and
the power of stock companies and the
U.S. military industrial complex which
provides the armed muscle for the first two
areall finally destroyed, the Atlanticist
cobra will no longer have any venom in his
fangs. (And what threat is a cobra if it is
deprived of its only means of attack?)
Finance Capitalist Trotskyism (i.e.
Globalization) is the venom that is currently
poisoning the world. It is being employed by
whites and non-whites alike, by Christians
and non-Christians, Jews and non-Jews,
left-wing and right-wing; by members of
every race, confession and political creed
on the planet but all for the benefit of
one select group: the wealthiest one-percent
[67]

of the liberal Atlanticist power elites. To put

it another way: for the benefit of the AntiChrists.
And so, to conclude, it could rightly
be said that the Cold War was eventually
won neither by Capitalism (Thesis) nor
Communism (Antithesis), but by Finance
Capitalist Trotskyites the deceptive
International Synthesis of the two. The
Neo-Eurasianist worldview is therefore
vehemently opposed to the diabolical
synthesis the unholy union of both
systems, i.e. the Atlanticist/Anglo-American
extortionist racket which currently runs the
world under the guise of Globalization.
And peace-loving people all over the world
ought to be against this racket too!

[68]

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Bestia Devictus:
The SCO, Eurasianism and the End of
Liberalism

Matthew Raphael Johnson

The SCO in a Nutshell

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was created in 2001 as a comprehensive
regional institution focused on Asian security and economic development. Ideologically,
it is social-nationalist featuring a strong state, cultural and regional nationalism and a
spiritual focus in contradistinction to western materialism, capitalism and socialism.
The social-nationalist movement is occasionally called communist or even fascist by
clueless western journalists, who are worsted only by the useless field of political theory
that has refused to even recognize its existence. In its Charter, the very diplomatically
worded ideological component of Article II reads:
The member States of SCO shall adhere to the following principles: Mutual respect
of sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of States and inviolability of State
borders, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, non-use of force or threat
of its use in international relations, seeking no unilateral military superiority in adjacent
areas; equality of all member States, search of common positions on the basis of mutual
understanding and respect for opinions of each of them (SCO, 2009)

While the language is almost comically formal, it is a strongly stated attack on

liberalism and its capitalist empire. The official ideology of postmodern globalism does
not recognize races, borders or ethnic tradition as socially significant object. It generally
rejects the state except as an administrative body of coercion carrying out orders from
Matthew Raphael Johnson is a scholar of Russian Orthodox history and
philosophy, Ph. D.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[69]

elsewhere. Liberalism, like no other

ideology, has sought to remake the globe
using all forms of coercion including the use
of debt, finance, military force, diplomatic
pressure, mass media control, spontaneous
color revolutions, strategic name calling,
and even pornography to overwhelm,
demoralize and reduce rebels to its state of
mass abulia. Importantly, given the above,
only liberal interests can ever be the end
of coercion, and only such forces have the
right to utilize it.
Terms such as soft power are
misleading because it suggests that
psychological pressure is more humane
or acceptable than tanks. Nothing can be
further from the truth: dictatorships of old
used clumsy means of coercion to maintain
their power. Liberalism alone in world
history can dig into the very foundations of
thought and language to alter the default
cognition of the bovine mass. The USSR
might put dissidents in prison and torment
them physically. Only liberalism can alter
the meaning of these words.
The SCO was founded on the strength
of the Russo-Chinese alliance. Its other
founding members are Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
while Iran, India, Mongolia, Afghanistan
and Pakistan have observer status and
await full membership. It is not going too
far to state that it is the greatest threat in
existence to the western, liberal drive to
create the Atlantean, capitalist superstate.
In brief, the SCO institutionalizes
Chinese and Russian power in order to
protect themselves and their allies against
economic instability, ethnic separatism, and
terrorism. It is not shy about pronouncing
the end of US hegemony and demanding
local and regional control over its market
[70]

and resources. The SCO is a threat to the

liberal west, but the globes financial elites
have only their own arrogance to blame.
This body is ethically sound and crucial to
global reconstruction. It is, most of all, a
model response to the commercial, cultural,
economic and diplomatic hubris of finance
capital.
General Points in the Critique of
Postmodern Imperialism
For liberal empire, A. Iriye (2005) stresses
the concept of modernization as the most
important justification for colonialism and
imperialism. His argument is that colonial
governments before the 20th century
modernized their colonial subjects. They
built roads, reinforced bridges, introduced
rational accounting methods, advertising
and wage labor. These are presented by the
colonizer as progress, as well as inevitable.
Like modernity everywhere, it remakes
the very concept of the target population,
changing its scale of values, language and
reference points to more easily absorb them
into the hegemonic orbit. Without a cultural
foundation, rebellion is impossible. No one
can be a revolutionary using the frames of
reference of their tormentor (Iriye, 2005).
Complicating
matters
was
the
replacement of cultural elites with westerneducated new men that both love and
hate the modern drive to quantification. In
places like Ukraine, native oligarchs quickly
moved into the imperialist orbit as the best
bet against Russia. However, it might be
this very internal conflict that kept them
from creating viable states. There were some
exceptions, but most of the post-colonial
societies were fragmented, confused,
ideologically adrift, and conceptually
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K AT E H O N

paralyzed between native languages and

the language of progress.
As these states began to fail, they
were forced to approach western capital
for assistance, creating an entirely new
form of imperialism this paper is loosely
calling post-modern liberal modernity.
For states like Belarus, this fragmentation
was prevented by maintaining some of
the administration of the Soviet era,
and keeping a strong, social-nationalist
executive that avoided the destruction of
privatization.
The problem of globalization and its
direct connection to imperialism is that the
market has no identity. It sees the world in
quantitative terms. It is Darwinian in that
the destruction of a civilization, another
firm or a government is an expression of
natural selection. The superior destroy the
inferior. It is no accident that Darwin wrote
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Autumn 2015

in the midst of British industrialism and her

colonial empire. It was progress that justified
colonialism. If progress be vaguely
defined as moving towards a market-based,
secularized, tech-savvy, liberal society, then
societies that are agrarian, traditional and
religious are, therefore, backward. If they
are backward, then it is up to the advanced,
well adapted aspects of the human race to
show them the light (Harvey, 2007).
Dependency is another essential idea.
Patnaik (1996) states that this postmodern
liberal empire is based on a complex web
of dependency that has as its most visible
form the constant need for credit. Far from
the simplified model of states seeking their
own security, this new dependency is
based on a network of banks, media elites
and governments. Private and public are
now useless words that hide reality rather
[71]

than reveal it.1 States are too unwieldy and

cumbersome for for postmodern empires.
Only the high-tech, global MNCs and
esoteric layers of digital and symbolic
interaction can dominate so completely
and fundamentally. To retain the focus on
states, generally speaking, is simply to fail
to keep up with the new empire.
Few states are capable of having any
substantial impact over global trade. The
operative forces in international political
economy are elite cliques, symbolic and
arcane systems, fashionable and disposable
ideology and the psychological expertise to
keep this enchanted world from the bovine
throng.
Dependency, this new phenomenon
against which the SCO or BRICS have
developed to combat, takes on more direct
forms as foreign capital is concentrated
and centralized. Major international
conglomerates are so wealthy and well
capitalized that even the best of local
competitors have no chance. The shift of
local populations to western products is
not a voluntary one but is the result of local
producers going out of business. Western
products are bought, a new frame of
reference, language and ideology is slowly
poured over the divided and confused
population.
The mentality of the SCO, BRICS or
the Silk Road alternative recognizes
the nature of this dependency and its
consequences. The first steps towards
correcting this is to notice that states with
1 The present writer uses the term Regime to refer
to this public-private conglomerate of institution
that, working together, more or less form the core
of the globalist empire. NGOs, major speculators,
neocons in the US, NATO, major oil firms, CNN, etc
all have their roles to play in making this new empire
come to life.

[72]

tight controls over economic life are less

dependent on foreign sources of capital and,
because of their relative freedom, develop
in more rational ways. The problem with
western intervention is that it separates
the state from the economy, relativizes the
nation and rejects the spiritual altogether.
Politics and social life are now privatized,
and imperialism rests on the rejection
of an autonomous communal order. In a
recent article for the Center for Research on
Globalization, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
points out:
Fearing the multi-polar Silk World
Order, Washington is fast-tracking the
Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership
and
Trans-Pacific
Partnership negotiations. The US
Congress has even given US President
Barack Obama and his administration
authority to speed secretive negotiations
for establishing the two trade blocs that
seek to exclude Russia and China. To do
this the US is also doing its best to divide
Moscow and Beijing respectively from
their neighbours in Europe and Asia
by using the fighting in Ukraine and
the tensions in the South China Sea as
pretexts (Nazemroaya , 2015).

While the point here is very valid, it

has no bearing on public debate. Slow
tracking would do no good, since there
can be no public debate on such nuanced
and specialized topics easily butchered
or ignored by sloganeering advertising
executives. Negotiations on these treaties and
agreements is far beyond the media image
of Barack Obama and his administration.
These are the domain of private actors of
immense power unknown to the American
public, journalists and most politicians. It
can be forced through since there is no real
way to develop a comprehensive opinion on
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the matter. This development in geopolitics

requires years and years of focused research
to understand.
The broader point, one essential to
Eurasianism in general, is that liberal
loyalty to representative institutions only
makes sense if liberalism itself is served.
That the clownish American politics has the
ability, desire or time to slog though the tens
of thousands of pages of text and analysis
on these complex trade agreements makes
a mockery of the commercial republican
virtue so beloved of Nietzschian oligarchs.
In this same vein, Alexander Dugin
(2012) argues that this process is primarily
ideological and specifically post-modern:
Having triumphed, liberalism disappears
and turns into a different entityinto
post-liberalism. . . The status quo and
this inertia do not presuppose any
political theory whatsoever. A global
world can only be ruled by the laws of
economics and the universal morality of
human rights. All political decisions are
replaced by technical ones. Machinery
and technology substitute for all else
(Dugin, 2012: 19-20).

Liberalism is not, in other words, a

libertarian ideology. It is an authoritarian
one. Hardly believing that life choices are
basically equal, the only legitimate choices
are those which promote liberalism itself. At
the same time, liberalism is required for denationalization and corporate penetration
into new markets.
Significantly, Dugin deconstructs the
abstract globalized concept of ethics. The
problem is that if local or national tradition
be destroyed, what force will then give
meaning? What new language will replace
the old? If it is the global economic order
that, through modernization, has broken
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down local custom, then it is these same

institutions that will replace old meanings
with new ones. The implications here are
that the rule of Atlantean capital removes
all focal points for mass resistance since
the language that it must use does not
exist. Liberalisms power is that it can
get into the very mind of the person and
alter fundamental meanings of words and
symbols. Dugins argument throughout
his career is that liberalism, especially
in economics, shifts power to the private
sector, which need not follow constitutional
procedure when dealing with workers,
especially when they live abroad. Liberal
globalization, in this context, creates an
immense private sector that is almost
absolute in its ability to change thought
patterns. It rules far more effectively than
states and is far more powerful than these
lumbering giants.
On post-modern global universalism,
Dugin writes,
These [liberal] values are local
ones, emerging from the particular
development of a single culture, and
globalization is trying to impose them
into all of humanity as something that
is universal and taken for granted.
This attempt implicitly argues that the
values of all other peoples and cultures
are imperfect, underdeveloped and
should be subject to modernization
and standardization in imitation of the
western model (Dugin, 2012: 45).

False claims to universal and scientific

status help justify finance capitals
dominance. This is similar to the concept
of modernization above. Historically,
therefore, there are several conclusions
that come from Dugins view. First, that
liberalism, the ideology of globalism,
[73]

is really the result of English historical

experience and the very world that
produced Darwins work. There is nothing
universal about it, but in reducing all to
quantity, concepts of universal or local
are radically altered. Second, that what is
hoisted on the colonized is not a culture, but
a vapid materialism that rejects all spiritual
goods as either irrational or, at best, matters
of private preference. The postmodern
empire is totally unique in history as being
acultural. All that a culture is reaches its
negation in liberal domination.
Theoretically devised as an individualist,
libertarian concept of freedom, its implicit
connection with capitalism, democracy
and technology removes any libertarian
content from itself. This is partially because
it has no content that is not technical, and
partially because the values of liberalism
are very difficult to discern and are
gradually brought to perfection as a society
develops.
In its statement celebrating the 5th
Anniversary of the SCO, the joint heads of
state released this communique stating in
part,
Diversity of civilization and model
of development must be respected
and upheld. Differences in cultural
traditions, political and social systems,
values and model of development
formed in the course of history should
not be taken as pretexts to interfere in
other countries internal affairs. Model
of social development should not be
exported. Differences in civilizations
should be respected, and exchanges
among civilizations should be conducted
on an equal basis to draw on each others

[74]

strengths and enhance harmonious

development (SCO, 2006).

Again, in fairly prosaic language,

nation and civilization are put against the
egocentric individualism of postmodern
finance ideology. The vaguely democratic
or republican state is the easiest for capital
to penetrate. The more politicians are
dependent on external sources of funding
and attention, the easier they are to bring
under control. For the SCO by contrast,
numerous approaches to the state and social
life are accepted.
One important area for the state that still
remains is the control over currency. For
example, after the Asian currency meltdown
of 1997, the US Treasury Secretary, along
with representatives from the IMF, were
instrumental in redesigning the economic
structures of those states affected such
as Japan, South Korea and Thailand. The
economic crisis in those states permitted
the US a free hand in re-inventing these
societies (Gandasegui, 2007). The extreme
method of this imperialism is occasionally
understated. The meltdown made it possible
to re-create Asia in the western, financecapitalist image.
Those economies that were not affected
by the meltdown were precisely those in
which the state controlled interest rates and
investment, China, Burma and Taiwan.
The free market usually means a highly
administered, technocratic centralization
of capital imposed on a society unprepared
to resist it. The economic growth numbers
for this ideology in the third world is awful.
Those with a strong state sector, high levels
of homogeneity, and a nationalist focus
have done well. These are also the states that
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now make up the backbone of the SCO and speaking of building of civil society
related organizations.
in Syria. This is code for permit foreign
investment or else. As the industry of Syria
The SCO, Terrorism and Liberal
grew, Bashar al-Assad went from reformer
Rhetoric
to tyrant almost overnight.
As state-Marxism fled the Soviet Union,
Syria and her important port cities
Central Asia became the next target of
became central for Chinese penetration
western exploitation. Central Asia remains
into Central Asia. This is partially because
significant due to its oil and natural gas
Syria, Russia, Iran and Kazakhstan are
reserves as well as its large population. Just
essential allies of the new Chinese empire
as importantly, the pipelines from Russia
since the mid 1990s or so, seeing her as a
and Iran cross the area, dumping out into
means of helping create the multi-polar
China to the east and the Syrian port cities
in the west. Whoever controls this region economy necessary to eliminate American
will become the globes energy broker. The hegemony. Iran, Armenia and Russia have
artificially induced civil war in Syria has to been in the sights of the American foreign
do with eliminating Israels primary local policy establishment since the end of the
enemy, armed by the Russians as well as Cold War. Today, the Atlantic Regime
taking the important, Russian outfitted sees its worst fears being realized: a manifest
alliance of what Bush laughably called the
port cities such as Lattakia.
These Syrian cities are some of the most Axis of Evil, which refers to those states
significant elements in that economy and who a) actually want to control their own
connect the Syrian economy to the Iranian, economic destiny, b) are enemies of Israel
Indian and other states in Central Asia. and the US, and are c) non-liberal in their
Not only are these of immense strategic governments. Ultimately, the SCO is at the
importance, but they are also ultra- center of this Axis.
Since the creation of the SCO, Chinese
modern due to Russian investment in its
infrastructure. Israel began to fret about firms have invested in Central Asia,
this in the early 1990s as Russo-Syrian including joint investments with Russia in
scientific and industrial teams discovered the fields of energy and infrastructure. At
more and more sources of petroleum in this the same time Kazakhstan, wary of Chinese
penetration, seeks to use the organization
country.
The state run Syrian oil firms operate to control Chinese expansion as Uzbekistan
three major transport hubs, two on the wants to check the Kazakhs (Prantl, 2013:
Mediterranean and one at Lattakia. When 166). Each member has its own agenda,
Syria began supplying oil and gas to but the developing system of checks and
Lebanon, hence solidifying her dominance balances shows its political trajectory. While
over that strategic country, Israel responded it is true that the SCO has weak institutions,
with threats, and eventually, the creation of its functioning has been largely based on
riots and civic protests. Since the Syrian both formal and informal networks rather
transport hubs and oil firms were state than organizational development. This,
owned, liberal academics in the US began of course, has substantial implications for
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[75]

technology and international law (Prantl,

2013: 172).
The SCO has adopted a very hightech database of possible terror and other
security threats. Its defense initiatives
stress information technology as a means
of dealing with instability. Its networked
structure lends itself perfectly to the
telecommunication age and this approach
makes organizational structure a lower
priority. The SCO is taking the necessity of
a less formal organization and turning it
into the virtue of a networked organization
without a clear center.
To a limited extent, the development of
this sector in Russia and China might even
the playing field between the third world
and the west. The high-tech sector permits
leaders to keep track of the rapidly moving
world of currency speculation and money
markets. It allows poorer states, especially
when they pool resources, to monitor threats
to its security that, in an earlier era, cost a
fortune in military preparedness. Central
Asia can now devote more resources to
economic development now that Russia and
China are their sponsors.
The
self-interest
of
western
communications companies lie at the
pious condemnation of the SCOs desire
to control aspects of telecommunications.
Media and these forms of communication
are far more effective weapons than tanks
and gas. To seek some control or influence
over it is hardly a radical idea. The internet
as a source of news and social media are
not independence, since they too are highly
centralized by the major media firms. Most
media accessed online is CNN, Newsweek,
the New York Times and the rest.
China and the USA are engaging in
a massive war of computer hacking that
[76]

is unprecedented. This is especially the

case given Chinas regular accusations
that the US uses hackers (such as in the
famous Snowden case) to destabilize
its state controlled telecommunications
system (Eriksson and Giacomello, 226ff).
The US has passed similar laws such as
the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 which is
specifically aimed at both Russia and China
(Kain, 2012). The SCO has an obligation
to place limits on elite media, whose
irresponsibility, misrepresentation and
self-interest has all but destroyed political
discussion in the west.
Since GATT (ie the World Trade
Organization) emphasizes that developing
economies can take measures to protect
its fledgling industries, there is no reason
why this cannot also be applied to internet
security issues of all kinds, especially given
western dominance in this area as well
(see below and GATT, sec XVIII, entire).
Fledgling industries might also be local
media. This could be state owned, since,
contrary to myth, there are plenty of
examples of state-owned media companies
quite critical of their home government. State
ownership is at least equally as legitimate
as corporate ownership, so the wests elites
are not occupying the moral high ground.
In fact, there are plenty of reasons to see
state-owned media as superior to corporate
centralization (Cheah, 2007).
Since the SCO is dedicated to noninterference in national affairs, this also
provides a legal foundation for controlling
the wests access to Asian airwaves. There
is no human right protecting rapacious
broadcasts or social media manipulation.
Governments, especially poor ones, are
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concerned with western penetration into of human rights. This common argument
their economy and culture.
assumes that what these abstract, ethereal
Eriksson and Giacomello (2006) argue rights are is settled and uncontroversial.2
that centralized corporate media is certainly Further, they are not necessarily applicable
amendable to state or local control. It is not (in their fullness) to poor states struggling
a free media and has no particular moral with terrorism and violence as in Central
superiority to anything else:
Asia.
Certainly, developing states require
Cyber-threats and other challenges of
strong governments to focus investment
the information revolution are clear and
and maintain order in a financial fishbowl
present elements of the more general
trend of globalization, which arguably
controlled by others. Seeking stability
weakens the sovereignty and security of
through strong, representative (though
the state. Non-state actors are becoming
not necessarily liberal) states is far from
even more numerous and powerful
immoral. The endless American depression
because of the information revolution.
and the well known Spanish and Greek debt
The emergence of the Internet not only
crisesnot to mention the constant boom
made real-time global communications
and bust cycles of western financeforce
possible for existing NGOs, but also for
these governments to insulate themselves
new, exclusively online groups. This can
from the errors of their soi distant teachers.
obviously have both positive as well as
Calling this phenomenon authoritarian
negative effects: integration, cooperation,
and liberation may be eased, but also
and totalitarian is to obscure the issue
terrorism, transnational crime, and the
(besides being insufferably hackneyed).
destabilization of states (Eriksson and
According to this line of argument, only
Giacomello, 2006: 232).
western liberalism is legitimate and
This cuts both ways. The list of groups representative, which might be a surprise
with access to the latest in information to any blue collar worker living in the west.
warfare technology are immensely As a result, an unstated assumption is often
wealthy and powerful. Their control that only liberal states haves the right to use
over technology gives them a weapon of force to impose itself on the world in the
outstanding effectiveness. This cannot be name of not using force (cf. HRC, 2011 and
reduced to mere freedom of speech or 2 While completing my doctoral studies at the
other banalities; technology is a weapon.
University of Nebraska, I had the pleasure of suffering
The NGO, at least those that matter, through the lectures of the dean of human rights
are spokesmen for their elite founders. ideology, David Forsythe. His substantial corpus can
be consulted when verifying all the assumptions that
Every major western group has a long list this set of theories maintain: that we all know what
of corporate sponsors. Without deviation, human rights are, that liberalism is incontrovertibly
these NGOs all attack the SCO in the true, and that dissenters need to be gently silenced.
predictable way, actually reading more like Dr. Forsythe attempted to get my graduate funding
a script than serious political analysis. One pulled in a secret meeting of the tenured faculty in
1996 on purely ideological grounds (or so I was told
area of criticism has been that the SCO is by the then-chair of the department). Thank God
designed to insulate member governments he failed, but I learned a lesson on how these men
from criticism and intervention on questions interpret human rights in practice.
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[77]

Nurgaliev, 2009 for examples of this sort of

argument).
The Council on Foreign Relations
is comically dramatic in its elitist
disapprobation. It underscores some of the
assumptions that liberal critics of the SCO
makeoften without being fully aware of
them. They write:
U.S. interests in Central Asia include

energy and the effort to support

liberalizing and democratizing reforms.
The increased prominence of the SCO
has led policymakers and scholars to
question if the organization might
complicate the United States ability to
secure those interests. Some experts
believe that Russia and China want to
use the SCO to curb U.S. access to the
regions vast energy supplies. Similarly,
the SCOs call for the United States to
withdraw military forces from the region
was seen as an explicit challenge to the
U.S. military presence in Central Asia
(Scheineson, 2009).

Energy and democratic reforms, are

mentioned as if they are the same. This
article assumes far too much. Just a few
unwarranted suppositions are: 1) that the
US has interests in Central Asia; 2) that
these interests provide the unilateral right
to intervene when they are threatened;
and 3) that the US or its allies to the
exclusion of all else has a right to a
military presence in Central Asia. In the
same article, an organization of first rank
powers seeking an autonomous existence
is equated with being OPEC with bombs
(Scheineson 2009). Such rhetoric is puerile
and inflammatory, and speaks poorly of
American capital as represented by the
CFR (not to mention being anything but
representative). Such rhetoric is noted by the
[78]

SCO and thus continues the estrangement

between the declining US and a rising Asia.
Matthew Oresman, writing for Foreign
Policy, argues that China might be using
the SCO to pursue its larger regional and
global goals (Oresman, 2008: 79). This
is uttered as a condemnation. Assumed
here is the idea that only global capitalism
has actual interests. China does not, since
her government is illiberal and hence,
illegitimate. As a major power, however,
China has legitimate interests in Central
Asia as the US does in Mexico. For the
Chinese to demand an accounting of
NAFTA would be met with laughter in
Washington, yet, this is precisely what these
criticisms amount to (also see McCain and
HRIC for examples of this demand).
The Human Rights in China
organization, largely funded by the
Carnegie Institute and the Council on
Foreign Relations, argue in their summary
of the SCO that its basic doctrine:
is highly problematic in light of the

Chinese governments record of

characterizing the legitimate exercise
of religious, ethnic, cultural, and other
rights as separatism or extremism,
particularly in the Tibet Autonomous
Region and the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region (XUAR). . . (HRC,
2011: ii)

Firstly, these rights are assumed to be

legitimate without argument. Second, that
these are rights with the same certainty
as the freedom of the press. HRIC adds
to this polemic that the SCO has an
over-broad definition of terrorism
that relies heavily on ideology and the
existence of intelligence practices that
compromise international due process
and nondiscrimination guarantees and
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the right to privacy, including cooperative

surveillance, a shared database, and
blacklists, all of which are coordinated
through the SCOs Regional Anti-Terrorist
Structure (RATS) and lack transparency,
meaningful safeguards, and accountability
mechanisms. Further, according to HRC,
the worst sin of all is military and law
enforcement cooperation, including a trend
of expanding militarization of the region,
that is designed to send a chilling message
to targeted groups. . . and reinforce domestic
control through the threat of force (HRC,
2008: ii-iii).
This sort of irresponsible, unprofessional
and jejune writing creates the ideological
groundwork for war. Its also an excellent
argument for control over elite media.
Apart from calling the kettle black, this
conjures images of the SCO creating
concentration camps and death squads.
In reality, these are merely hypothetical
scenarios written to appear as if they have
actually occurred. Apart from all that, they
are simply incorrect.
First, there is no accepted definition
of terrorism anywhere; each country and
international organization has its own, often
mutually exclusive construct. Second, the
problem with the use of force underscores
the assumption that only liberalism has the
right to use force on others. Third, antiterror intelligence, by definition, cannot
be transparent. The CIA does not turn its
data over to an international organization
for scrutiny. They do not even turn over
information to Americans for scrutiny.
Finally, regional separatism has never been
tolerated by liberal governments anywhere.
From the Confederacy to Northern Ireland,
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such movements are met with violence and

repression.
International law backs the SCO here,
as its purpose is the creation of peace in a
turbulent area. It seeks local autonomy and
development, as well as the ability of the
third world in general to develop strong
markets and prices for their goods (see
below). In addition, the SCO is in the process
of creating a market for locally produced
goods; it is a market that the Central Asian
states cannot create for themselves.
The behavior of western states relative
to the SCO, Asia and the Middle East has
been duplicitous and arrogant. The western
claim over Central Asia is just one example,
but an immensely strategic one. Recent
leaked documents speak volumes about the
creation of an Islamic Central Asia by the
CIA. Former FBI translator Sybil Edmunds
has valuable information in this regard.
She reports the Turkish as well as Pakistani
press reported on CIA activities in Turkey:
Last year, during an immigration
court case involving Turkish Islamic
Leader, Fetullah Gulen, US prosecutors
exposed an illegal, covert, CIA
operation involving the intentional
Islamization of Central Asia. This
operation has been ongoing since the
fall of the Soviet Union in an ongoing
Cold War to control the vast energy
resources of the region Uzbekistan,
Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan
and
Turkmenistanestimated to be worth
$3 trillion (Edmunds, 2009).

Recent Russian intelligence documents

also say the same. This might come as a bit
of a shock to Americans, many of whom
think that the US is involved in fighting
Islamic terror. Just as the Cold War
was not about fighting Marxism (that
[79]

the capitalist elite did business with with

vigorously), but Russian nationalism, so
too, the war on terror is only incidentally
related to Islam. The deliberate creation
of an Islamic Central Asia would rule
this interpretation out, but this fact seems
to buttress the case the SCO is presently
making. In fact, a Pakistani newspaper said
this recently about the situation:
[Former] FSB head Nikolay Patrushev
has mentioned the names of these
companies and foundations, saying, The
brotherhood engages in anti-Russian
activities via two companies, Serhad
and Eflak, as well as foundations such as
Toros, Tolerans and Ufuk. Patrushev has
accused the brotherhood of conducting
pan-Turkish propaganda, of trying
to convert Russian youths to Islam
by sowing the seeds of enmity, and of
engaging in certain lobbying activities.
These companies and foundations have
turned up in the internet site of Fethullah
Gulen, alleged leader of the Nurcu
religious community currently living in
the United States who is a defendant in
several court cases in Turkey, accused of
engaging in anti-secularist activities. It is
reasonable to suppose that this money is
being aimed at China as much as Russia
(Edmunds, 2009).

Capitalism has neither an ideology

nor a religion. It seems that by stirring up
anti-Islamic rhetoric among benighted
American patriots, corporate American can
more easily cover over their own Islamic
agenda. Both the Chinese and the Russians
are active in the region, but Russia has the
upper hand due to the fact that the Central
Asian states were at one time a part of the
Soviet Union. The Chinese government
seeks influence, if not control, in this region
to battle the three evils of international
[80]

politics: fundamentalism, separatism and

terror. Given the large Islamic populations
of these areas, such fears are not entirely
unjustified.
Given the history, and the distrust
of the West, the US realized that
it couldnt get direct control, and
therefore would need to use a proxy
to gain control quickly and effectively.
Turkey was the perfect proxy; a NATO
ally and a puppet regime. Turkey
shares the same heritage/race as the
entire population of Central Asia,
the same language (Turkic), the same
religion (Sunni Islam), and of course,
the strategic location and proximity
(Nimmo, 2014).
Recently, Turkey showed itself to be
NATOs weak link. Turkey has all but
removed itself from NATO when it began
building a missile system with China.
The former Turkish Prime Minister (now
President) Tayyip Erdogan went to Russia
for protection against the US when the
deal goes through. The CIA tried to foment
a coup in Ankara in 2011 when this issue
was first broached, leading to the Prime
Minister sending a bunch of officers to
prison. This issue has become important
again in 2015 (AFP, 2015).
Heres the clincher: Turkey has
asked to join the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization. Right afterward, the
spontaneous protests began in Turkey.
The MIT (Turkish intelligence) has already
fingered several US operatives with the
protesters. This means that Erdogan has all
but left the western orbit. No Turkeyno
US in the Middle East.
The Turkish military is only slightly
smaller than the American. It is easily a
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match for the overstretched American

forces which are totally untested against
NATO regulars. Turkey has access to all
NATO secrets. War might be the only
option left for the bankrupt US and John
McCain has been yelling about this since
2011. This possible war (hot or cold) is on
the SCO clearly, and is a war the US has no
chance of winning.
Central Asia as the Graveyard of
Liberalism?
In July of 2015, the Center for Research
on Globalization made it clear that the US
was waging economic war on the SCO by
any means necessary. Speculation, the
nature of the western economy in 2015,
was betting against Chinese stocks in such
a way that the panic led to substantial selloffs. The purpose was to destroy investor
confidence.
Finance capital is in no position to
do much else. Without manipulating
governments, capital must rely on far more
significant forms of manipulation. The US
is out of money. The US taxpayer, forced
to bail out the bankers who are taking
their homes, has no will or understanding.
The US is overstretched with a total lack
of commitment for these almost totally
unknown wars at home. On the other hand,
Russia has sold the sophisticated S-300
missile systems to Iran and the upgraded
400 to China. These anti-missile systems
are far superior to what the west is presently
fielding.
General Joseph Dunford, chosen to be
the next US Chairman of the JCS, declared
Russia to be the main threat to the USA.
The US and NATO has increased troop
levels surrounding Russia, increased heavy
guns in the area and , most ominous of all,
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Autumn 2015

attempts to alter the conditions under which

NATO can use nuclear weapons. Worse, the
west is arming the rag-tag Ukrainian army,
hiring mercenaries and taking over Kievs
military policy. Since Kiev has no money
or any command over its small army,
Ukraine is now even more a protectorate of
the US and is tantamount to a declaration
of war against Russia (Williamson, 2015).
Therefore, the SCO is more needed than ever
to ensure that the oligarchy does not believe
they have a remote chance of winning any
sort of confrontation with the stronger,
wealthier and more unified eastern states.
Contributor to the journal Global
Research, Andrew G. Marshall, argues
that the Anglo-American obsession with
destabilizing the Middle East and Central
Asia is the last-ditch attempt to save the
eternally bankrupt West. He writes,
One of the main targets in this project
is Iran, for which the US and Britain have
engaged in massive acts of terror and
orchestrating large battles and conflicts
from within the already-failed state of
Iraq. The Anglo-American role as terrorist
supporters and as covertly orchestrating
terror attacks within Iraq is amply
documented. To imagine that these same
Anglo-American intelligence and covert
networks are not using their long-time
conduit, the ISI, for the same purposes in
Central Asia, is a stretch of the imagination
and logic. It is not merely the Middle
East that is the target, but Central Asia,
specifically for its geographical relationship
to the rising giants such as India and
China. This also follows in line with AngloAmerican strategies in destabilizing the
Central European region, specifically the
former Yugoslavia, and more recently,
[81]

Georgia, largely in an effort to target Russia

(Marshall, 2008).
The weapon of choice for an empire that
can no longer afford multi-front wars is the
color revolution backed by CIA and more
importantly, the NGOs. Again, making
hard and fast distinctions here leads to error.
Given the consuming financial constraints
of the US government, some of this work has
been outsourced to Soros and company. It
might be that liberalism has now succeeded
in completely obliterating the line between
public and private, or that the state is just
another corporate investment.
One important weapon in the fight
against these imperial maneuvers is cash.
In an official communication from 2011,
the SCO states:
In practice, Russia and China have
been going over to settlements in
national currencies for two or three
years already. . . the fact that the
Russian and Chinese Central Banks
have signed an agreement on mutual
pure swaps means that Russian and
Chinese businessmen. . . do not need
to convert the renminbi in dollars and
dollars in rubles, or vice versa, which
was the case earlier (SCO, 2011).
This is a substantial part of the real
threat. de-dollarization means that
western capital and the US will not have
the resources or the rationale to intervene
anywhere. Western banks will no longer
have power over global investment decisions
and, possibly, the WTO, IMF and any
number of other international groups will
lose their grip on the area. The elimination
of the dollar, especially in energy, spells
doom for western dreams of the PaxSorosia. The world seems headed towards
[82]

multipolarity in politics, but significantly,

also in markets, financial arrangements
and development methods.
In a speech by SCO Secretary-General
Bolat K. Nurgaliev at the SCOs Business
Council and Interbank Consortium, he
states:
...one thing is evident that in
conditions of the slowing pace of
economic growth the economic
model pursued by China is bringing
about results that are envied by
many countries. When they say
that the global economic order
established in the past must undergo
transformation by giving developing
countries broader representativeness
in a decision making process,
they mean, first and foremost, the
significant strengthening of Chinas
role (Nurgaliev, 2009).
Like many of the documents the SCO
issues, it communicates the need for the
restructuring of the global market, giving
greater clout to less powerful economies.
Similarly, in the Astana Declaration of
the SCO, President N. Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan said:
The SCO member states believe that
the implementation of joint measures
on overcoming the effects of the
global financial economic crisis and
ensuring a steady balanced growth of
the national economies must remain
a top issue on the Organizations
agenda. The SCO member states
stand up for further reforming the
international financial regulation,
strengthening the coordination of
policies and cooperation in the field
of financial regulation and control.
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K AT E H O N

The dialogue on the issues of effective

protection of the stability of the
member states financial systems will
continue (Nazarbayev, 2011).
These essential policy speeches
clearly show an organization that seeks a
restructuring of financial power relations.
As the west continues its decline under
debt and confusion, the east, led by China
and Russia, are demanding a share in
global power in line with their economic
development. China is the worlds second
largest economy, while Russia is eighth;
to hold that they possess no legitimate
interests in the regions adjacent to them is
preposterous.
The SCO, Greek Euro-Serfdom, and
the Fall of Liberalism
There are three specific policies that
led to the current Greek crisis. First, the
foreign-dominated plan to hide debt so as
to make the country look better to Brussels.
This was largely the work of GoldmanSachs. Second, as Greece entered the
Eurozone, the credit offered by French and
German bankers was eagerly bought up by
the oligarchy. Once rates inevitably fell, the
oligarchy was quickly able to sell this paper
to governments. The point is that Goldmans
manipulation provided Greece with a higher
credit score than was actually the case. This
meant better rates and less perceived risk.
Being unsustainable, this was a cynical
short term ploy that is unfortunately typical
of the present era (Lendman, 2015a).
The Greek crisis demonstrates the need
for the SCO and the disaster of continually
relying on a bankrupt west. This author
made these arguments 10 years ago to the
jeers of left and right alike. Today, its a
mainstream opinion. Greece is presently
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Autumn 2015

being parceled out and sold, with Warren

Buffet having recently bought the island of
Agios Tomas for 15 million Euro. The same
has long occurred in Ukraine, where major
oil firms from the US are buying parts of
the country and removing it from Kievs
jurisdiction. Greece needs to leave the EU
now before there are no independent parts of
Greece left (Krause, 2015). The implications
for the cancellation of political sovereignty
are staggering and yet again, western
journalists remain befuddled, using stupid
labels like liberal and conservative to
describe the political institutions of the
postmodern Regime.
Once it became clear that Greeks refused
extreme austerity and possibly wanted out
of the bankrupt EU, the typical clandestine
work began. Greece of course, has received
nothing of substance form the European
Union. As the Regime went into a moderate
damage control after the meaningless
referendum, suddenly, the prime minister
was quite interested in imposing austerity
without clear reason. The exoteric reason
for his sudden conversion is that the
European Central Bank (ECB) merely cut
off all sources of funds and rollover plans
until Tspiras gave in. The ECB did not
increase the loan limit as they had promised
and refused to permit Greek banks from
buying government paper. Finally, about
7.2 billion Euros of development assistance
has been held up by the ECB until the prime
minster gave in. It is not incorrect to say
that independent Greece no longer exists.
[83]

She has formal vassal status under the real taxpayers.3 All goes to the banking elites
while all populations involved get poorer.
powers in global politics, the banks.
The Greek debacle has the one benefit of
In a chilling passage from Barry Finger,
the Regimes new finance-politics is showing the Regime in full force. Given the
minimum of 4 billion Euro profit western
described:
banks have made off of Greece in the last
There is no mechanism for them to
several years, the weak position of the
write off excess debt. And, lacking a
Greek state permits its further dismantling
proper sovereign bank to underwrite
and genocidal thrust into 3rd world status.
fiscal decisions in accordance with
In this passage Steven Lendman writes on
the popular will, nations are captive
new mechanisms the Regime will use to
to private market forces. So the
transfer Greek assets to western capitalism:
bloodletting continues: austerity in
New provisions agreed on include
exchange for loans. A housebroken
Bank Recovery and Resolution
Greece is to be granted future loan
Directive (BRRD) measures for
rollovers, arranged through the
dealing with financial crises, making
Troika, to pay off and service existing
judicial proceedings more corporate
loans ad infinitum a permanent
friendly (speeding up settlements
Ponzi scheme, with no identifiable
and reducing business costs in
end game. And the only collateral
disputes) with greatly reduced
that Greece can provide against these
budgets, simplifying home and
loans is its public assets, its cultural
business foreclosures for greater bank
resources, and its tax base, all of
profits (beginning in January), and
which are rapidly shrinking in value
accepting Troika control of Greek
due in no small part to the imposition
affairs henceforth a humiliating
of the bailout system itself (Finger,
sovereignty destroying climbdown to
2015).
official vassal state status (Lendman,
This means that loans are used to pay
2015a).
back other loans, while in the meantime,
As most of the plant is heading for
taxpayers are fleeced and the country is
sold off. Many of the new loans are profits bankruptcy, the new order seems to be
from Greece. It is unsustainable, and that of the SCO and allies, and a consortium
suggests that bankers are taking what they of mega-banks who control entities like
can get and leaving town. Fingers idea is Greece or Peru. These have no relation
confirmed by Eric Zuesse, who writes that, to the nations of that name, largely now
starting in 2010, as private sector investors fictional. The state is just a debt collection
left Greek bonds, their debt was taken over 3 This writer remains skeptical about
governments buying anything. They are subject to
by governments and their own private banks for their credit as well. It would be like saying
bankers who then bailed out the investors the IMF bought debt from Bulgaria. There is no
now exiting the countrys loan market. IMF that is not just a consortium of banks seeking
Governments then will take the cash from profits off societies having no ability to resist them.
[84]

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K AT E H O N

agency run by politicians who are blamed

whenever the banks bring a nation to ruin.
The Greek crisis shows numerous
things about liberal dominance. First, that
the western media have no vocabulary or
understanding of any complex doctrine.
All will be simplified, camps drawn up a
priori and one-liners penned. Second, that
no one has faith in liberalism, capitalism or
the west in the least. Third, that Eurasia is
in an excellent position to fill in where the
exploitative and violent liberal hegemony
has long failed.
Greece
renounced
the
spiteful
sanctions on Russia. This is in part because
the Eurasian powers are offering financing,
diplomatic support and debt restructuring
and even renunciation that the west cannot
effectually answer. The European Union has
not failed, but statist, hybrid, liberalism
has. The hedonistic, corporate materialism
has wound up where the 19th century
conservatives said it would: in debt, death
and alienation. The west cannot rebuild
because there is no grounds for it. There is
no foundation, no understanding and not
even the vocabulary needed to rebuild. It
must come from without.
The economic problems of the US and
EU are largely terminal. To reform and
rebuild, there must be a common vision, the
resources available, the necessary focus and
the political will. None of these exist. The
US does not have allies but vassal states.
Rather than see the arrogance and stupidity
that has long destroyed any positive
content for the American federation, more
institutions and wealthy elites are brought
into the orbit of the regime and used for
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Autumn 2015

ideological cover, media control and NGO

activism.
Problems of integration between
members of the SCO are minor compared
with the EU and the terminally ill US.
Unlike the American empire, Russia is
seeking actual common ground rather than
the mere imposition of ideology and foreign
capital. The rule of banks will consist in
a vocabulary that still hearkens back to
politics without any of the reality. States
will exist as semi-fictional entities having
no authority in social life, but will be sued
to extract money from the population and
serve as scapegoat for the elites failures.
The SCO seeks integration of its sphere of
influence that is local and will use resources
(of all types, not merely physical) from the
normal deposits of the region. No ideology
will be imposed. The postmodern-financepolitic will demand ideological, educational
and governing reform designed to
eliminate the expression of any ideas not
amenable to quantification and that will
not assist in the transfer of wealth from the
nation to the Regime.
The US does not merely impose liberal
capitalism, but imposes feminism, easy
divorce, free abortion, homosexuality and
pornography as a matter of course. This
is an intrinsic aspect of the American
postmodern empire since capitalism
requires the mobilization of the most base
appetites for the quick sell and manipulation
of passions (rather than the more difficult
appeal to reason). Any hint that states will
act to protect cultures will lead to harsh
recriminations from the local media,
usually long since bought up by foreigners.
In Greece, the west has demanded the
imposition of homosexual rights laws
on the country, the elimination of nay
[85]

religious tradition on the state and the

rejection of even the slightest barrier for
third world immigration. Finance capital
has even forced the country to have all its
retail stores open on Sundays. State assets
are forced into liquidation and all available
liquidity goes into the hands of foreign
bankers for debt repayment. Her creditors
are now reorganizing the judiciary, and are
canceling Greek independence. In other
words, the troika is now overseeing all
legislation and budgetary processes at the
federal level and has veto power over it
(Lendman, 2015).
The Greek Orthodox church, largely a
secular, liberal institution, has collaborated
with the agents of its own destruction in
a familiar stage setting. Statements like
Orthodoxy is part of the Great European
Family is a mockery of the Byzantine
tradition and a complete capitulation to
secularism and ecumenism. The Orthodox
church has performed admirably in
operating all manner of social relief services
to compensate for the forcible shifting of
cash to foreign bankers, nevertheless, they
support the very same oligarchy that makes
such activities possible. Condemning
right wing xenophobia the church, or
the bureaucratic elements of it, have long
rejected the Greek nation, its culture and
any theological relevance to society at
all. The Common European Family a
phrase with absolutely no meaning or
parameters will long swallow up any
pitiful protests against the rape of the
country by usurers.

predatory capitalism and the European

Union itself. While realizing that an exit
from the Euro was unlikely, it was also
clearly stated that the financing terms from
the SCO would be far superior to that of
the west. Furthermore, that SCO or BRICS
financing is not dedicated to short term
profit, but long term stability.
China too was on the agenda, with a
clearly contrasting response to the recent
stock market failure versus western
responses to such crises. In China, the
state bank is actually a bank owned by the
state. It quickly moved in to stabilize the
situation without tearing the companies
apart, selling off assets or destroying whole
sectors (Beam, 2015). Expensive certainly,
but only in the short term. The foundation
of all these issues is the undeniable fact
that the west is in rapid, terminal decline.
This is long past the debating stage, and the
only real issues now concern how it will be
survived. Given this, Chinese capital, still
focused around exports to the west, are in
the process of adjusting to a world where
American debt makes any western recovery
impossible. Any economy, in other words,
that is dependent on the American market
is in trouble.
Putins phone call to Greeces prime
minister was a simple, yet unmistakable.
On July 7, Putin also spoke with the head
of the IMF, C. Lagarde. The point was not
to broker any deals or even say much of
substance. It is a reminder that, if the west
pushes too hard, the east will help pick up
the pieces. pick up the pieces. The Chinese
dominance in gold holdings means that she
The Ufa Summit
possesses a hedge that makes any shortThese issues were raised at the SCO- term instability easily to correct. Making
BRICS summit in Ufa, July 10 2015. Greek matters worse for the west, the Ufa meeting
debt, Putin made clear, was the fault of of the SCO-BRICS made it clear that Iran is
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Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

Of course, this requires the population to

say nothing.
Michael Chossudovsky (2010) writes
about the global recession and total
dominance of a unified, tiny oligarchy with
absolute control over all local politics (as
the Greek case proves). His analysis is that
the older models of economics have only a
tangential relationship to the reality. The
old market models of the neoconservatives
have no relation to the parasitic and nonproductive rule of usury. In fact, economics
as a discipline is so useless that it does
not even have a vocabulary to express the
oligarchy and its tyranny over workers
globally.
Most important, referring to the state
or government as something distinct
from profit-seeking firms is from mere
inertia. role of the state is a manipulation
of terms, since the distinction between
private and public power does not exist.
Organizations are used as mystifications;
The IMF or Europe only refers to the
handful of banks who control the economy
and basic policy. The label is used to deceive
and manipulate.
The market is another mystification,
since the ruling financial oligarchy is far
more powerful than any local market. It
creates the conditions for any market to exist
and hence, cannot be based on these market
forces. It is parasitic and non-productive,
since it manipulates value generated by
Conclusion
labor in complex deals taking advantage
The SCO is one of the most important of slight differentials between markets.
developments in world politics since the fall Currencies can be bought and sold with
of the USSR. Its mission is clear, as well as great profit based on temporary shifts in
the wests utter contempt for it. This is to value. Of course, all this value goes into the
be expected. Presently, western capital is in pockets of the banks and represents a totally
serious trouble and often requires the state useless waste of resources. The present level
to bail them out when things get difficult. of exploitation is far beyond anything that
a de facto member of the alliance and thus
off limits to any western military action.
The Ufa summit, as Alexander Mercouris
intelligently surmised, is the beginning of
the end for liberalism. He writes, What
we are seeing in Ufa is the coalescing of
the new power centre that is challenging
the historic hegemony of the US and
the European states (Mercouris, 2015).
The issue is that the Silk Road, Eurasia,
and states that the west have alienated
have finally found an alternative power
center. As Russia is the only member of all
represented organizations (SCO, BRICS
and the Eurasian Union), she is now the
linchpin of the counter-revolution.
The acceptance of India, Pakistan and
Iran is a clear signal to the west that their
policies are not globally accepted, ethically
sound or motivated by anything other than
the self interest of its elites. If thew SCO can
smooth over relations between Pakistan
and India, then its presence as the single
greatest threat to liberalism in the world is
firmly proven. The very fact that Turkey sits
on the fringes of this alliance must cause
an icy chill to trace along the spines of
western military elites. If Turkey becomes
a full member, then it is the end of NATO,
since Turkey will then hand over NATOs
secrets to the SCO in order to cooperate in
its security system.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[87]

Marx had considered and the system now

has no difficulty with condemning entire
populations to poverty.
The SCO unites Russia and China on
more than negative grounds. They are strong
land states with strong spiritual tradition.
They are normally seen as separate from
their neighbors and are loathe to follow
precedent from foreigners. They seek to
mix decentralized administration with
authoritarian rule and charism and have
a strong tendency to stress the communal.
This is granted its political edge given the
American insistence on political uniformity.
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[89]

The Civilizational and Ethnological

Paradigm in Geopolitics

Alexey Kharin

The present Russian philosophy of geopolitics actively leads to the formation of a

civilizational paradigm. Under this paradigmatic system,one must understand a system of
views and ideas according to a given civilizational impulse. This remains one of the main
subjects of contemporary international relations.
Sources of the civilizational paradigm include two groups of authors. Conventionally,
they can be termed as social philosophers and geopoliticians.
The first group includes the works of N.Y. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, and A. Toynbee.
The social and philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of civilization mainly
represents their work.
The second group is formed by K. Haushofer and C. Schmitt. The author S.
Huntington may also be added to the group. These authors have considered the situation
more from the geopolitical angle.
To describe civilization as one of the actors of world politics, the authors refer to such
categories as: geo-civilization, state-civilization, and civilization-state.
By civilizationwe understand acomplex of multilevel socio-cultural organizations,
founded on the basis of certain values and occupying a particulargeographic territory.
Under the state-civilization is understood the phenomenon in which political and sociocultural borders coincide. These states-civilizations are considered to be India and China,
for example. Geo-civilization isthe subject of global politics. Civilization-state is
an entity, striving to become, along with the Empire, an alternative to the modern
nationstate. We prefer to use here the category of civilization-state, rather than geoAlexey Kharin is Ph. D., senior lecturer of the Kirov branch ofthe Russian
Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

[90]

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K AT E H O N

civilization. This category is more general

and focuses on the embryo of a new state,
other than the nation-state. Availability
of civilization as such is one of the most
important prerequisites for the formation
of the civilization-state.
If we take Russian researchers, we have
four main approaches in the analysis of
civilization in geopolitics.
Evaluative (A. Dugin, S. Kiselyov,
L. Ivashov). Its representatives adopt the
basis of the evaluative system. This approach
is the most common. This position is
typical for A. Dugin. For himcivilization
is a broad and stable geographical and
cultural area, united by common spiritual,
values, stylistic, psychological attitudes
and historical experience. Most of these
areas coincide with the boundaries of the
spread of the world religions. The structure
of civilization may include several states,
but there are cases where the boundaries of
civilizations pass through individual states,
dividing them into parts [1].
Ethnological (V. Tsymbursky). For
V. Tsymbursky civilization is a groups
of nations controlled by the state with
sufficiently highlighted geographical area
in the world scenario. On top of that, they
consecrate their geopolitics with verticality,
religion or ideology. Civilizational
geopolitics of V. Tsymbursky firstly
considers the relationship between the
nucleus and the peoples of the periphery.
Cultural-geographical (S. Khatuntsev).
The marking of civilizations usually occurs
on a territorial criterion. According to
S.V. Khatuntsev, religions come and go,
while spaces remain. He treats civilization
as a geo-cultural community, which
emerges and operates among several
geographic individuals existing on our
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Autumn 2015

planet spaces of development. With

this theory S. Khatuntsev as V. Tsymbursky
are not opposed to the role of religion in the
life of civilization. It merely criticizes the
thesis of her defining role [3].
Universalist (A.S. Panarin). The most
prominent representative of this approach
is A.S. Panarin. In his latest works he
tried to bring a different understanding of
civilization. It is not a separate culturalhistorical type, opposed to other worlds,
but something global. Unfortunately, A.S
Panarin did not stop in more detail on the
treatment of civilization, as he did not have
time to develop this theory. Real civilization,
by his logic, must have a non local but
global character, offering a universal design
for other civilization.
The most significant representatives of
the civilized approach is often considered to
be L Gumilev. His great contribution to the
development of this given paradigm is well
noted, as well as its role in the development
of Russian civilizational strategy. His name
is even included in books on geopolitics.
Indeed, there are common elements
between the ideas of L.Gumilev and the
civilizational paradigm. Ethnic groups,
according to L. Gumilev differ by their
group self-identification. Their functioning
is associated with a particular landscape,
beyond which they try not to go. Gumilev
leads the concept of super-ethnos. He
defines it as a union of several nations,
based on a common consciousness and
spiritual kinship. This design resembles a
civilization.
The structures of the ethnos and
civilization are somewhat similar. We can
highlighten sub-ethnos, ethnicity and
super-ethnos. Secondly civilization
and their constituent sub-civilizations.
[91]

Several civilizations constitute the largest

unit of civilization mega-civilization.
Characterized by a source of descent.
Ethnic groups, like civilizations, pass
certain stages in their development, living
around the same period (though not far
from all)about 1,500 years. Description
L. Gumilev of ethnic dynamics coincides
with the observations of the representatives
of civilizational paradigm in geopolitics
and social philosophy.
But anyhow, L. Gumilev was the
representative of the ethnological approach,
and saw history through the prism of the
ethnos, and not the interaction between
civilizations. I must say that he also
criticized the idea of the representatives of
civilizational approachrepresented by O.
Spengler and A. Toynbee.
L. Gumilev understand ethnicity
as a stable, naturally formed group of
people, opposing itself to all other similar
groups, which is determined by a sense
of complementarily, and differential kind
of stereotypical behavior, which changes
regularly in historical time [5].
Thus, we talk about a group, community,
rather than a complex socio-cultural
organization, which marks a civilization.
Analyzing global processes, L. Gumilev
prefers to use the category of ethnic group
instead of civilization. Ethnicity lives
in obedience, as a rule, to the biological
rhythms, and civilization lives obeying
the spiritual laws. Ethnicity is the result
of passionate impulse associated with the
impact of the cosmos. It then fades into due
to biological aging.
The factors of civilizational formation are
diverse. They can be divided into external
[92]

and internal. Death of a civilization also

occurs for different reasons:
outside pressure, natural disasters,
spiritual crisis,
internal unrest,
burnout.
Death of any civilization is often a
consequence of departing from spiritual
values. Of course, in the description
L. Gumilev even the ethnos can move
astray from its own ideals, or replace them
with things more material. However, this is
the result of biological aging.
Civilization can be identified with the
society, as what concerns the ethnicity,
here L. Gumilev divides the concept
of ethnicity and society. Above we
already dealt with social communities. We
may add that contemporary sociologists
deal with two main types of social
communitiesethnic and territorial. The
latter can be attributed to a civilization.
Although, as a rule, refer to the territorial
community town, village, region, macroregion. But even if a civilization identified
as a type, it still remains to be a different
system than the ethnos. Ethnic groups as
such, are now the actors of international
relations as independent subjects, together
with different civilizations, remaining more
recognized than the later.
Regarding civilizations there are
ongoing discussions in the field of scientific
research. There is a position, according to
which the phenomenon of civilization is
more evaluative than real. In our time,
there are often talks about the human
civilization. Under this criterion is only
understood the Western civilization, which
tends to impose upon other cultures its
proper system of values. The rest should
adapt to the Euro-Atlantic area, borrowing
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K AT E H O N

everything needed for progress. Authors

in this field include A. Janov. He wrote
that Aristotle even in a nightmare could
not have dreamed about the fact that
the barbaric Persia will be considered a
civilization on par with democratic Athens,
but still has certain advantages over Greece
[6]. He considers only the free peoples as
civilized (SeeWest).
It should be added that ethnic groups
can come to replace one another, but the
civilization, nevertheless will live on. A
striking exampleis China. Its culture has
existed for centuries and millennia, while the
ethnic component has changed. The same
can be said about the Indian civilization.
The loss of certain ethnic groups may lead
to the disintegration of super-ethnos, but
not the loss of a civilization. Some people
can develop onto a civilization, making it
diverse. Ethnic groups also act as agents
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

of a civilization, but not those who isolate

themselves.
In summary, let us note a few points.
It is clear that L.Gumilev has contributed
largely to geopolitical studies. He has
made a significant impact upon the
main representatives of our civilizational
paradigm. His conclusions, observations of
life of ethnic groups often coincide with the
estimates of the supporters of the common
civilizational approach.
Representatives of the civilizational
approach can build on his ideas of interaction
between civilizations. Lets recall the
famous thesis of L. Gumilev. It is necessary
to look for friendsthis is the main value
in life, and not search for enemies, whom
weve already acquired. . This approach is
acceptable for a civilizational paradigm, as
well as for supporters of the idea of dialogue
among civilizations. One important
[93]

warning was raised by L. Gumilev regarding

the civilizational approach and of adoption
of an alien culture. The scientist, as well as
representatives of the civilized approach,
warned of the danger of separation from
the cultural roots. The people in this case
will lose its identity, without gaining
another. In connection with the latter
case we have Gumilev approaching on the
spiritual degradation of society, forming
a layer of consumers, calling them subpassionaries.
Concepts termed by Gumilev present
a large interest as those anti-system,
chimera (a combination of something
incompatible), super-ethnos and others.
Ethnic approach helps explain some of
the factors of formation and decay of
civilizations. Also, with the help of this
paradigm we can better assimilate the
structure of a civilization.
However, L. Gumilev is a representative
of the ethnological paradigm in geopolitics
whos approach is closer to to civilizational
approach, but still completely different,
using its own the technique of analysis.In
general, the ideas of L. Gumilev, as well as
of the representatives of the civilizational
approach, helps to better understand the
essence of the geopolitical processes.

and the history of nature, M., 1993. URL: http://

gumilevica.kulichki.net/MVA/mva09.htm (the date
of circulation: 28.05.2015).
Yanov A.L. How on earth civilizations? // Russia in
Global Affairs. 2006. 5. URL: http://globalaffairs.
ru/number/n_7415 (the date of circulation:
13.08.2013).

Bibliography
Dugin A.G. The theory of a multipolar world.M.,
2012. P. 464-465.
Tsymbursky V.L. Conjuncture of the Earth and Time.
Geopolitical and hronopoliticheskie intellectual
inquiry.M., 2011.P. 56.
Khatuntsev S.V. On the question of Huntington.
URL: http://www.apn-nn.ru/539683.html (the date
of circulation: 28. 05.2015).
Panarin A.S. Orthodox civilization in a global world.
M., 2003. S. 210.
Gumilyov L.N. Ethnosphere: history of people

[94]

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K AT E H O N

The Orthodox Man

Tommy Rydn

As a young child I used to accompany my mother to various Christian services. She

had been active in the Salvation Army as a young woman and was still a firm believer
in God. She never forced any of it upon me, she only asked if I could go to these meetings
with her. As an infant I had been what they call officially blessed in the Baptist church
of Linkping in front of the congregation. As Baptists the congregants did not believe in
any formal baptism of infants.
My father, who in his younger years had been trained as an opera singer by respected
names in that craft, was requested to perform at different locations in connection with
marriage ceremonies, funerals and festivities hosted by different denominations. Every
now and then, pastors and key people in the independent church (or charismatic movement
of the time) visited our home. Revival meetings were held annually in a big tent at walking
distance from where I lived. This was the environment in which I was raised.Down the
road, while still in my teens, I finally got baptised by my own free will in another part of
the country. Then in 1984 I traveled from the place of my baptism (a Baptist congregation
in Hedemora), where I had been residing due to school studies, back to my parish of origin:
Jonkoping. This city is sometimes called the Swedish Jerusalem in the vernacular. While
there, I became a fulltime student at what was called the Pentecostal Bible School located
at West Square.
There we had some well-known evangelical teachers; I remember the author Leif
Svensson the best. He appreciated the folkish cultures in Romania and what was then the
Eastern bloc, where he had been traveling. Looking at some of his later texts today, I find
that he was partly inspired by the Orthodoxy he had witnessed there; he thought there

Tommy Rydn is a Swedish sales professional who in cooperation with immigrant

communities aim to make the Orthodox faith, values and traditions known to
a wider public.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[95]

was something missing in our Christian

worship in the West. Unfortunately,he
lost his life together with a number of his
pupils when the passenger ship Estonia
sank at sea ten years later. I sense we could
have had interesting conversations today,
he and I, if he had been alive.At the bible
school we learned not only Bible history and
classical charismatic theology but also how
to evangelize door to door in the field. Other
topics included pastoral care, preaching and
congregational knowledge.
Strangely enough, I cannot remember
learning anything about the original
Christian Orthodox Church, but only about
how necessary it had been to break with
Mary-worshipping Roman Catholicism,
without being given a complete explanation
of this latter branch of the faith. I had not
learned about the Great Schism, norwas
I told that Catholicism was no longer
representative of the old genuine Orthodox
Church. This lack of information can
perhaps be explained by the fact that the
Iron Curtain made it difficult to learn about
genuine Orthodoxy.Furthermore, those who
confessed to this faith were mostly limited
to the immigration community and thus
viewed as an odd bunch.
Upon finishing bible school,in addition to
my compulsory military service, I decided to
embark on an adventure that would take me
as far from Sweden as possible. On my own
I travelled to the Republic of South Africa
- a nation that was utterly detested by the
Swedish government due to what was still left
of the old apartheid policies. Nevertheless,
I wanted to find out the truth about this
country and its many tribes for myself.
During my months there thanks to
establishing a network of helpful people
by advertising in the press and exchanging
[96]

personal mail in advance I met with

clergy, soldiers, elected officials, Blacks
and Boer farmers among others. I was
housed for some time in Bergville by Ds.
Jannie DuPlessis and his young family who
pastored the local mainstream congregation:
the Dutch Reformed Church. This was a
major Calvinist denomination, sanctioned
by the South African government, which
was heading in a somewhat more liberal
theological direction. I could see indications
that DuPlessis himself was beginning to
have sympathies for the more hardline
Calvinist splinter group: Afrikaans
Protestant Church.My dad supported my
efforts and wrote: Hey Tommy, Gods
peace! You are often in my thoughts and
my prayers accompany you always. Stay
healthy, stay close to Jesus and all will go
well for you! Your father.
Nevertheless, while I stayed in South
Africa I witnessedmany divisions within
the community of believers. I soon
recognized the fact that the different
churches competed with each other over
the alleged truth.This was the case even
within the majority church of Calvinism!
The pastors of some of these churches
even made up their own theology, like Bert
Steenkamp the cancer-stricken leader
of the sectarian Israel Visie, who I met
just outside of Bloemfontein at his home.
I recall we sat down in his bedroom office
and he showed me his own hardbound
revised version of the New Testament,
which omitted the parts of the Scripture he
felt contradicted the true gospel.
This altogether made me lose hope in
Christianity as a religion, even though I was
still as of yet unfamiliar with Orthodoxy.
At this time in my life, Christianity looked
too divisive, with its many competing
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

theological schools. It did not appear to

be something that would provide cohesive
strength for a nation and its people.
Thus, when I returned home to Sweden,
I began to disconnect from God and
viewed science as the answer to everything,
including politics. The Protestant version
of Jesus Christ was replaced by Friedrich
Nietzsche as far as philosophy was
concerned. Man was to become a superman
on his own, by genetic engineering if
necessary. Of course, in this vision of the
future I totally disregarded mans inborn
faults and the fact that our society and
worldis much more complex than any
ideological purity takes into account. But
in an environment of Swedish churches
that preached a socially accepted message
about love and up to this day pay lip
service to the governments postmodernist
agenda it was not difficult for me to
say No! to all of this. I did not desire to
be a part of this corrupt and dishonest
Christianity. And so, I proceeded to throw
out the baby with the bathwater.
With this on my mind I got married,
raised five children (indeed a fulltime
job!), and put all my focus on various nonChristian ethno-political activities which
made me a household name in Sweden
during the remaining part of the 1980s and
for the greater part of the 90s through TV,
books and the printed press, for better or
worse.
Today I know that it was a mistake to
pin my hope to this ethnic nationalism,
because my own people were no longer
synonymous with an understanding and
defense of fundamental cultural values. I
closed the doors to the many opportunities
working with those of another background
who had perhaps listened, and I preached
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

almost entirely in vain for those who did not

bother to hear my message.In the late 90s
my doubts had grown increasingly around
whether or not I was on the right track as
far as faith was concerned. I expressed this
in letters to other people. I began to think
that perhaps I had wasted my time, energy
and money on the wrong projects, the
wrong crowd.
Science could not explain mans spiritual
needs, science only reduced man to one
of several animals. The Orthodox writer
Vladimir Lossky (d. 1958) once wrote that
God introduced man finally to place him
as a king in a paradise. But in the social
Darwinist philosophy I had embraced,
man was first afish, then a monkey and
then a human being. However, there was
no explanation of how evolution suddenly
stopped with Homo sapiens. Nor was there
any real evidence of a direct evolutionary
connection, but mostly a cluster of scientific
theories with constant repetition eventually
to be seen as a truth. I was forced to realize
that what I had advocated for a number
of years was, for the most part, morally,
intellectually, and to some extent also
scientifically untenable. What had begun
as an intellectual and ideological stance
would come to an end in the same way
when I looked at it with more critical eyes.
In 2004 I had been divorced for three years
and was dating a young lady by the name of
Sveta. She was a university student from the
Russian industrial city of Izhevsk. I became
not only charmed by this representative
of Russian female beauty but also got a
glimpse into a Russian culture and way of
thinking until now quite unknown to me.
It should be added that my curiosity
about the Orthodox world had already
begun with the war in the Balkans during
[97]

the 1990s. I was hesitative regarding the

medias portrayal of one party in the
conflict, the Serbs, as sheer evildoers and
the other side as mere innocent victims. I
was not alone in my suspicion.
A Swedish UN soldier wrote me a letter
in the year 2000 on the occasion of his
service three years earlier in Bosnia, in
which he stated that he went there with
the preconceived, mass media induced
perception of Serbs as the bad guys but
Pretty soon, I changed my views because
my service was on both sides of the
demarcation line. Two years after this
letter a Swedish KFOR soldier wrote me
from Kosovo-Metohija: I feel more affinity
with the Serbs, which should be natural to
all Swedes really.
In 2006, I made yet another trip as a
business consultant on behalf of Swedish
clients to the Baltics. This time I had decided
to visit the Orthodox cathedral in Riga,
Latvia, and I asked my business contacts
of Russian origin for directions. When I
entered the building and witnessed its icons
and its humble believers something beyond
this world took a firm grip of my soul and
mind. I had to find out more about this
Orthodoxy, so different from anything else
I had seen in my life.
On my return to Sweden I looked for more
information, through books, and looked up
a Russian Orthodox priest who was himself
from Moscow. He provided me with some
study material and guidance. Three years
later we met in Gothenburg, and in the
witness of a young Russian immigrant
family I had my chrismation done in front
of the iconostasis; I was given the baptismal
name Tomas. The same Russian family had
their child baptised before me, and I was
invited right afterwards to celebrate with
[98]

Russian Church in Gothenburg, Sweden

them and their relatives in a meeting hall

nearby. To these emigrant Russians I was
now one of their own and thus part of the
family.To take the plunge and become an
Orthodox Christian was the best decision
I have ever made. Once I had been an
active anti-Communist activist who viewed
Russians as the quintessential archenemy.
Now, through my personal experiences in
Eastern Europe and the Russian Orthodox
believers I had met there, I had at last found
my home within the rich spiritual and
cultural treasury of Orthodoxy. I will not
take all the credit myself. In retrospect,
I know that there were people I have met
along the way, who prayed for me.
For me, Orthodoxy is mainly an
individual spiritual standpoint. But besides
this, it is also a cultural standpoint.
Already in the mid-nineties, I had
begun to realize that there was a kind of
invisible boundary right across post-Cold
War Europe. On the one hand, there was
Protestantism with its chaos, cultural selfloathing and disrupted spirituality. On the
other side of the border stood the Orthodox
Byzantine world that had survived the dark
years since 1917, and ironically thanks to
the Cold War had not been flooded with
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

foreign pop-culture and the materialism

that has since replaced communism as the
biggest existential threat to our cultural
existence.
In the post-Cold War era, the Eastern
Orthodox world put up a cultural and
spiritual barrier to the decadence of the
West, which wanted to export and force
this decadence upon them.
Our politicians, who act based
on their own spiritual and cultural
incomprehension, now required that
Orthodox believers in Eastern Europe
and Russia, who harbor a deep respect
for their heritage, adapt to what the
Western countries thus basically the
apostates consider development and
democracy.
Likewise, foreign governments give
monetary support to those who question the
Russian way, because the more fragmented
the Russian Federation or her Orthodox
neighbors are, the greater geopolitical
advantage the Western politicians will
receive. Under this consummately liberal
mindset one findsthe Orthodox Church to
be just one of several churches on a large
buffet line where you can pick and choose
as you want as if truth, historical lineage
and The Holy Tradition mean nothing.
A critical reader could object and say
that it is not that easy to make the Christian
Orthodox message heard in Sweden today.
Needless to say, there is indeed a spiritual
and cultural war ahead of us. Indeed, it
will require a combined numerical and
cultural strength if we are to become
something more than just a small group
of idyll dreamers. This strength can be
attained in forming a multifaceted alliance
involving faith, culture and politics with the
millions of people and numerous countries
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

that view themselves as Orthodox. After

all, these countries are in fact our next
door neighbors. Hence, geopolitics for
believers. With this alliance we will also
reconnect with the old and best elements of
a culture lost in a society so pre-occupied
with individual Ego.
In a country like Sweden, so colored
by the mentality of Protestantism and its
inborn rebellious nature towards tradition,
the Orthodox spiritual and cultural
counter-revolution must either have a
strong Orthodox immigrant presence in
its midst, or alternatively have a Swedish
leadership strongly rooted in the traditional
Eastern Orthodox faith and Church.
Anything else will guarantee that Swedes,
even if professing to be orthodox, fall prey
to the lures of modernism and ecumenism
by habit.
Finally, we also have to tie in with a force
greater than the individual. We must tie in
to God. We cannot succeed in this endeavor
on our own.

[99]

Russian Muslim Culture1:

Social Reality and Concept

Damir Mukhetdinov

A history of the question

Islam appeared on the territory of what is now modern Russia in the middle of the
7th century. In the almost fourteen centuries since then, one can speak of an intimate
interaction between the peoples who forged the Eurasian civilization and the bearers
of Islamic identity. There is no doubt that Islam became a part of Russian and Eurasian
identity and exerted a considerable influence on its formation. However, in the 19-20th
centuries when there were heated arguments about Russias place in world civilization,
about Russias path, and about the Russian Idea, practically no attention was devoted
to the Islamic factor. This is a serious omission in the various historiosophical projects
1 Russian Muslim Culture is a necessarily inadequate translation of the Russian term rossiyskoe
musulmanstvo, which contains untranslatable nuances. 1. Rossiyskoe is the adjective from Rossiya and refers
to the state or country of Russia, and not to the Russian ethnicity, or the Russian languagethis is expressed by
russky. The contrast is similar to that between, for example, British vs. English. This is important as rossiyskoe,
applied to Islam, does not presuppose it is the religion of ethnic Russians, but only of citizens of Russia: Tatars,
Chechens etc. are not ethnic Russiansbut are Russian citizens, inhabitants of the Russian civilizational space.
2. The word musulmanstvo means the collective of Muslims; it has the same form as the English word Jewry
from Jews. When reading the phrase one must there keep in mind that it refers to the Muslim collective of
the country or territory of Russia, and the author is trying to define its special characteristics viz-a-viz world
Islam. One might translate the phrase Russian Islam, but that would imply that Islam itself has become Russian,
whereas it is only the embodiment of a universal Islam that has been adapted to the Russian situation. The
author discusses these nuances in the next section. [Translators note.]

Damir Mukhetdinov is first Deputy Chairman of the Religious Board of

Muslims of the Russian Federation, Deputy Director of the Centre of Arabic
and Islamic Studies in the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow
State University, Ph.D. (Moscow, Russia).

[100]

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

developed by Russian thinkers, such as

the Russian Idea of Solovyov, Ilyin and
Berdyaev, the Slavophilism of Danilevsky
and Leontyev, or the Eurasianism of Savitsky
and Trubetzkoy. In the few passages where
Russian philosophers mention Islam, it
appears as an exotic or obviously marginal
form of religiosity, and in the best instance as
a sort of potential Orthodoxy. But there is
no deep philosophical or cultural analysis2.
This is all the more surprising given that at
the beginning of the 20th century Islamic
thought and Islamic identity were already
being analyzed in European scholarship,
even if not in as much detail as one might
wish. This neglect of the Islamic factor and
the Muslim population of Russia can be
explained by the dominance of Orthodoxy
and the real lack of success at finding
a synthetic, all-human position, the
necessity for which was often recognized
by Russian thinkers (consider Dostoevsky:
For wherein lies the strength of the spirit
of the Russian people if not in its directing
its ultimate aims towards universalism and
all-humanity?).
This lacuna in our native Russian
philosophical
reflection
about
the
civilizational mission of Russia was
reproduced in full measure in the 1990s and
early years of the 21st century. The revival
of the Russian religious-philosophical
heritage, the development of ideas based on
the uniqueness of Russia as a civilizational
state went hand in hand with a lack of
attention towards Islam and the Muslim
population. If Islam was mentioned it was
only fleetingly and formalistically. There
were no real attempts to consider and
reflect upon Russian Muslim identity or
2 A good overview of the problem can be found in
[Smirnov (ed.) 2010: 161-196].

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

to integrate it into Russias civilizational

strategy. In my experience, this has always
been accompanied by an extremely low
level of knowledge about Islam among the
Russian intelligentsia. The idea of Islam as an
archaic religion, which oppresses women
and engages in terrorism that was bandied
about in Western Islamaphobic discourse
at the beginning of the 21st century3 is also
thoroughly typical of our own so-called
intelligentsia. One might be able to explain
the indifference to the Islamic factor in the
19th century as due to ideological pressures,
but in light of the current orientation
towards multiculturalism, interreligious
dialogue, and civilizational uniqueness,
i.e. in light of the neo-Eurasian trend, this
is hardly very convincing.
The first attempts to think about
Russian Muslim culture were made in
the 19th century by Tatar thinkers. The
jadid movement (from the Arabic, jadid,
new) campaigned for the modernization
of the Muslim population, the expansion
of education, educational reform, the
study of secular subjects, and taking
advantage of the achievements of science.
Many jadids assumed that a key role in
the modernization of Russian Muslims
would be played by the Russian people,
who they thought of as intermediaries
between the Muslims and enlightened
Europeans4. In his foundational article
Russian Muslims the prominent Crimean
Tatar thinker Ismail Gasprinski expressed
this in the following manner: I believe
that sooner or later Russian Muslims, who
have been formed by Russia, will lead other
Muslims in intellectual development and
3 Cf. [Kundani 2014].
4 On the jadid movement cf. the overviews given
in [Kemper 1998; Yuzeev 2007].

[101]

civilization. There was thus an expectation

that fruitful interchange with the Russian
people would lead Muslims to succeed
in forming a unique form of identity that
would combine dedication to tradition
and moderate modernization. It is worth
mentioning that optimism and faith in
progress were characteristic of the jadids
in general, although in their later works
(especially with Musa Bigiev) there is a
noticeable disenchantment with the onesided nature of progress and an increasing
emphasis on the lack of spirituality of
European society and its pursuit of material
benefits.
Unfortunately, the jadids attempts to
develop the concept of a Russian Muslim
Culture were not taken any further. It seems
to me that today this theme is of strategic
importance. Thus I have tried to draw
peoples attention to it in a number of recent
publications.5 Here I will briefly outline my
vision of the problem.
What is the concept of Russian
Muslim Culture?
The concept of Russian Muslim
Culture (rossiyskoe musulmanstvo) can
be used in three senses. Firstly, it means
the conglomeration of special practices of
5 I wrote an article on this theme especially for the
X International Muslim Forum, which took place on
10-12 December 2014 in Moscow. The article was
called Russian Muslim culture: a call to reflection
and contextualization. [Mukhetdinov 2014]. A
later development of this theme was turned into a
monograph called Russian Muslim civilization
[Mukhetdinov 2015], which includes an original
article, reviewers reactions, and an academic essay
dedicated to the Sufi elements in Russian culture.
For more detail on the theses presented here the
reader can turn to the monograph where they are
developed in far more detail and with much more
factual support.

[102]

Islam or Muslim cultures on the territory

of the Russian Federation. Secondly, it
indicates the bearers of these practices, that
is, Russian Muslims themselves. Thirdly,
it implies the conceptualization of specific
practices of Islam and its bearers, that is
the concepts or ideologemes, which most
adequately capture the uniqueness of the
Muslim communities and defines the
strategy for their development.
This concept should not be confused
with widespread journalistic terms such as
Russian (rossiyski) Islam, Russian (russky)
Islam or traditional Islam. Islam cannot
be Russian, Arab or Tatar. It is universal
and therefore its fundamental principles are
above ethnicity. The ummah was already
multiethnic in its earliest stages. The feeling
for the unity of the ummah is more intense
for Muslims than among representatives of
other religions. Nonetheless, Islam does not
deny ethnic and national diversity. In the
Quran it says: O mankind! We created you
from a single (pair) of a male and female,
and made you into nations and tribes, that
ye may know each otherverily, the most
honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he
who is) the most righteous of you.(49:13).
As Tawfik Ibrahim demonstrates
in his work 6, the Quran is in general
characterized by a pluralistic position.
A human being, in the complex form
in which he is manifested in the world,
cannot go beyond ethnicity, cannot cease
to possess a specific bodily constitution,
cannot stop thinking in specific patterns,
or stop speaking in a concrete language that
possesses its own grammatical structure.
All these things are natural and must be
taken into account. Spiritual development
does not mean that one must deny ones
6

[Ibrahim 2015]

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K AT E H O N

ethnicityin this world one cannot deny it

any more than one can abandon ones body
or mental processes but that one must
aim for perfection within the limits and
boundaries that ethnicity sets before us. In
reality there is no Russian, Tatar or Arab,
but only a virtuous or unvirtuous person.
But one can only become virtuous by being
a Russian, Tatar or Arab. Ethnicity defines
our existence too strongly for it simply to be
ignored; even a conscious effort to liberate
oneself from ethnicity will mean joining
another ethnic group or simply refusing to
think about ones own ethnicity. Belonging
to the ummah does not mean abandoning
ones ethnicity. The real ummah does not
suppress ethnicity: ethnicity is overcome
on the spiritual level, but who is a true
member of this spiritual ummah, who is
truly God-fearing in the eyes of the Creator
(that is, strictly speaking, a true muslim,
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

literally humble before God) is not given

to us to know. Thus the Quranic revelation
supports ethnic diversity and a healthy
interest in ones own identity.
The attempt to understand the nature
of Russian Muslim culture is motivated
by precisely this attentiveness to ones own
identity and its traditions. If we look back
through history, we can see that Islamic
practice has never existed in isolation from
a concrete culture, and when it comes to a
new land, it sprouts new shoots and forms
local methods of worship, or a Muslim
culture. At the same time it is wrong to
say, as some critics do, that this has led to
the appearance of innovations (Arabic.
bidah) and the pollution of Islam. In
reality, Islam is capable of integrating into
itself everything that does not contradict
its principles (the possibility of such an
interpretation is made explicit in the Hanafi
[103]

madhhab), so that a traditional culture in

which Islam occupies a leading place, will
in time become a Muslim culture, that is,
it will absorb shades of Islamic meaning at
all levels.
This is precisely what occurred in the
Eurasian region. Islam came to the modern
territory of Russia back in the 7th century
c.e. and since then it has been the faith of
numerous peoples in diverse conditions.
Over a long time Russian Muslim
civilization has matured and in the process
combined within itself several components:
The traditions of local peoples
The influence of other Islamic cultures
(primarily Arab, Turkish and Persian)
Mutual exchange with Slavic, Turkic and
Finno-Ugric peoples
The influences of European learning
(generally through the medium of
Russian education)
Consequently, we possess a conglomerate
of cultures, such as the Bashkir, Chechen,
Tatar, Crimean Tatar and others, which
developed in a unique civilizational
space and which are distinguished by the
complete dominance of an Islamic spirit that
pervades all aspects of life and creativity. I
am convinced that a deep meditation on
these concepts will allow us to develop a
discourse on Russian Muslim culture that
is adequate for the present age and will help
overcome the clear defects in intellectual
reflection that exist today.

political, philosophical and civilizational

trends. The creation of such a concept
or ideologeme is only possible through
contextualization, that is, the definition of
external and internal tendencies. We should
say something about this briefly.
An important feature of the ideological
climate of contemporary Russia is the
implicit recognition that the historically
unique feature of our country is its status as
a civilizational state which is characterized
by cultural and religious pluralism and
a special vector of development. K.N.
Leontyevs term, flourishing complexity
is probably the best way to describe this
global formation. The goal of uniting the
country and defining perspectives for its
future progress within the framework of
an emerging multipolar world has led the
Kremlin elite to draw up a set of concepts
and ideas of a neo-Eurasian type. This set
of ideas is not yet a complete ideology: a
more appropriate term would be protoideology. It received its fullest expression
in the foundational articles of Putin and
in a number of his speeches, especially one
speech given at Valdai in 2013. The essence
of this proto-ideology can be reduced to
four principles: anti-globalism, traditional
multiculturalism, the defense of traditional
values and moderate conservatism. These
principles are not linked to short-term
interests but have conceptual philosophical
foundations.
Anti-globalism
relies
on
a
Contextualization
philosophically-based
pluralism
of
In order to preserve Russian Muslim worldviews and models of development.
culture and define a strategy for its This conception has been factually
development it is necessary to have a reinforced by the growth of the economic
concept that will be broad enough to power of the BRICS countries, which has
encompass its main features and highlight been accompanied by a broad post-colonial
its place in the context of modern social, reflection about the identity of separate
[104]

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

centers of power, or local civilizations. The

task of Eurasian integration is to organize
one of these poles. The future multipolar
world corresponds to the Quranic vision
of pluralism. In the Quran it says: And
had Allah not checked one set of people by
means of another, the earth would indeed be
full of mischief. (2: 251). Russian Muslims
are undoubtedly concerned that ultraliberal
models of development, especially in
the area of values, are not mechanically
transferred onto Russia. As practice shows,
behind superficially attractive models
there lies far from attractive content: the
preaching of total hedonism, orientation
towards the material world, a crisis of
spirituality, erosion of cultural diversity,
extinction of languages, the uniformity
of humanity, the destruction of nature,
technologization/virtualization of reality
and social relationsthese are only some
of the costs.
The traditional multiculturalism of the
neo-Eurasian proto-ideology means that
development in Russia will be linked to
deeper interreligious and inter-cultural
exchange, and to the encouragement of the
peaceful coexistence of Eurasian spiritual
traditions and the cultures formed under
their influence, without prioritizing any one
culture. Russian Muslim civilization is also
interested in such a project. It has a centuriesold experience of peaceful coexistence with
representatives of other religions. This
peaceful potential is contained within
Islam itself 7. In the Quran it says: There
is no compulsion in religion. (2:257). To
you be your Way, and to me mine! (109:6).
Say: The Truth is from your Lord; let
him who will, believe, and let him who will,
reject (it). (18:29). It is worth noting that

another aspect of tolerance is eschatological

optimism, which is widely disseminated in
Russian Muslim civilization. It is sufficient
to recall the theory of the all-encompassing
nature of the divine mercy which was
developed in the works of Musa Bigiev8.
According to Bigiev, God has endowed
every particle of creation and being with
His mercy so that man too is always in the
bosom of His infinite mercy. From this
follows the temporary duration of Hell and
the ultimate salvation of all people (after
correction obviously). In developing these
ideas, Bigiev drew on deep theologians like
al-Ghazali and Ibn Arabi. Unfortunately, in
the Middle East the principles of tolerance
contained in Islam have not been observed
in practice recently.
The defense of traditional values is
driven by a desire to preserve the social
morality and ethical guidelines that
reflect long-established norms of behavior
and attitudes to reality which have been
formulated clearly in the precepts of the
world religions. The necessity of articulating
attachment to these principles distinctly is
driven by the fact that in European society
an erosion of values is taking place under
the cover of slogans like emancipation and
liberalization. Obviously, Russian Muslims
as religious people are staunch supporters
of tradition, and along with other ethnoreligious minorities, they form the core
of Russian conservatism. It is interesting
that the Russian political elite, primarily
in the person of Putin, when explaining
the reasons for the need to disengage from
ultra-liberal European values often appeal
to the position of the Muslim peoples.
Moderate conservatism is conceived of
by the architects of the neo-Eurasian proto-

Cf. [Ibrahim 2015; Kamali 2010].

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

Cf. [Bigiev 2005].

[105]

ideology as a combination of the format of

secular society with the moral and spiritual
advantages which the traditional religions
give us. This is precisely a moderate,
contemporary conservatism and far from
the fundamentalism of Islamic radicals
and Protestant sects. I would say that
it is a unique blend of robust European
democracy, technical progress, education
and moral conservatism, with equal rights
for the four leading religions and minority
cultures. Russian Muslims are ready to
support this strategy in every way. This is due
to the fact that Russian Muslim culture is
itself characterized by moderation (Arabic,
wasatiyyah, Quran 2:143), and is capable
of combining a contemporary way of life
and thought with the principles of Islamic
doctrine. It is not a religion of the desert,
not hyper-ascetical, it doesnt summon
its followers to run off into the forest, or
to curse the technical achievements of
civilization and European learning. Due to
its flexibility, it is capable of absorbing all
the best that contemporary civilization has
to offer 9.
Thus Russian Muslim civilization is
well integrated into the strategy of the neoEurasian development of Russia. Moreover,
it is only possible to preserve ones identity
within the framework of this strategy.

the local and the conceptual. The local

problems include:
Radicalization (including via the
influence of geopolitical competitors)
Islamophobia
Attempts to suppress Islam by force
Integration of immigrants
There is a vast literature on these
problems, so I do not want to dwell on them
now. I will only point out that where there
is the political will and concrete programs
these problems can be solved easily. More
interesting are the conceptual problems
which are not immediately observable in a
superficial analysis.
The fundamental challenge facing
Russian Muslim culture is linked to the
intensification of modernization. This
intensification is necessary for the state if it
is to compete in our times. Starting from the
17th century Europe has begun to impose
on the whole world the technological
project of development, including the race
for arms. Those countries which did not go
down the path of modernization invariably
ended up on the colonial periphery. This is
what happened with the greater part of the
Islamic world. However, Russian Muslims,
integrated as they were into the Russian state,
found themselves in a more advantageous
position. Now when it comes to intensifying
the pace of modernization there is a danger
that, along with modernization, Russia will
gradually be penetrated by the ideology of
ultra-liberalism.
Unfortunately, discussion of this
Challenges
theme often runs up against a wall of
Among the challenges facing Russian misunderstanding. Liberals tend to think
Muslim civilization one can highlight both that the widespread criticism of degenerate
Europe is nothing but a propaganda
9 An interesting discussion of this theme can
be found in the Tatar thinker, Ziyaeddin Kamali. device. I propose that, on the contrary, the
propaganda is superficial and does not take
[Kamali 2010: 151-152].
[106]

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K AT E H O N

account the deeper meaning that underlies

the processes occurring with regard to
gender in Europe.
In the era of Enlightenment liberalism
had an entirely positive meaning: freedom
was interpreted as freedom of religion,
freedom of ownership, freedom to acquire
knowledge, freedom of speech and so on; in
the 19th century the idea of freedom was
used to defend the interests of the working
class, the rights of women, national
movements and so on. These were all worthy
ideals which inspired a great number of
people. However, the logic of liberalism
is unforgiving. If we make a certain idea
fundamental, then we must be prepared to
follow it to its logical end. Thus consistent
liberals, such as ultra-liberals truly are, in
the second half of the 20th century then
began to get interested not in the rights
of women and the oppressed classes, but
in the rights of perverts and post-gender
people. If the founders of liberalism, who
were practically all respectable Christians
had seen what the Frankfurt school,
radical feminism, the New Left and the
postmodernists, would do to liberalism,
they would have been horrified10.
By proclaiming the full freedom of
the individual and organizing society
according to this principle, liberals
automatically legitimized outcomes such
as the relativization of morality, samesex partnerships, the destruction of the
traditional family, hedonism and LGBTperversion. By making the individual,
the subject, and his personal I want the
cornerstone of their thought, they make
all types of identity the prerogative of his
10 Cf. the analysis of the major transformation
that liberalism underwent in the 20th century in
[Buchanan 2002].

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

personal whim and tie their hands when

it comes to limiting this whim. Any legal
limitation then becomes an enslavement of
personal freedoms, which is unacceptable
for liberalism. Practically speaking, the
release of the individual whim is a legal
license for any sin or perversion.
From the point of view of Islam, the
freedom proclaimed in ultra-liberalism is
essentially the emancipation of the lower
part of a person, the animal soul, or nafs. It
is important to understand that where there
is an increase of the human I, the human I
want, or the human whim, Islam can find
no place, for Islam is humbling of ones will
before the Divine will. It is not by chance
that the leading Sufis in their mystical
states affirmed that I no longer exist, there
is only God (al-Junayd). A modern person
says just the opposite: there is only I, there
is only my I want, my animal desire. But
this is an illusion, for as is well-known, a
holy place does not remain empty. And we
Muslims understand very well who has in
fact occupied this place.
Typological characteristics
The
conceptualization
and
contextualization planned here is intended
to preserve Russian Muslim culture and
define its future prospects for development.
But what is the specific nature of Islams
existence in Russia? To get a detailed
answer to this question one must refer to
the specialized literature 11. Here I will only
outline those components which I have
managed to discern as a result of my own
11 Cf. the following monographs: [Habutdinov
(ed.) 2009; Zagidullin (ed.) 2007]. An overview of
my position is given in the essay, Sufi elements in
Russian Muslim culture. [Mukhetdinov 2015].

[107]

Muslims in the Army of Russian Empire

observations, and I will focus mainly on the

culture of the Volga region.
In the development of Russian Muslim
civilization a key role was played by Sufism
(Arabic, tasawwuf). In the widest sense
Sufism should be understood as referring to
the teaching about the Way (tariq) that leads
a person to the attainment of divine truths;
it is a teaching that also has a multifaceted
practical dimension. The essence of Sufism
was formulated nicely by the Tatar thinker
Abu-n-Nasr Kursavi: Tasawwuf consists
of the purification of the heart from bad
habits, worldly cares, [it leads the heart] to
be in accordance with the natural pattern
[of the human essence] (rusum tabiiya).
All this is in order that a personafter the
heart has been cleansed from bad qualities
and attained charitable qualities, and his
[108]

concerns have become more elevated,

and he is focused on the performance
of worship, following the Prophet in the
shariah, and after his fleshly soul has
turned aside from sordid passions may
become a Sufi.12. European researchers
who took the statements of Hanbalite
scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn alJawzi uncritically, long considered Sufism
to be something foreign to Islam. However,
in work done in the second half of the 20th
century it was convincingly shown that the
classical forms of Sufism grew organically
out of the practice of abstention from
the worldly (zuhd) of the early Muslims,
and in essence are a formalization of the
12

[Kursavi 2005: 170].

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K AT E H O N

methods of divine gnosis 13. Sufism can be

considered an answer to the Quranic call
to follow the straight path (Quran 10:25,
16:4, 6:149 etc). This straight path is thought
of as a path to God that passes through selfperfection and gnosis, primarily gnosis of
ones own soul and heart. The conception
of gnosis (marifa) is a leading motif in the
Sufi tradition, stretching from the Prophet
(peace be upon him) and the early ascetics
up until our own days.
It was the Naqshbandiya Sufi brotherhood
that exerted the greatest influence on Russian
Muslim civilization.14 This Sufi tariqat was
founded by Muhammad Baha-ud-Din
Naqshband (1318-1389), who was a native of
Bukhara. The Naqshbandiya brotherhood
is characterized by moderation, restraint,
a preference for the sober spiritual state:
hence their quiet or silent dhikr, the
aversion to music and dances during
devotion, and their cautious attitude
towards miracles. The Naqshbandiya
brotherhood also effectively distanced itself
from the practice of retreating from society.
Sheikh Naqshband rejected ostentatious
piety, ostentatious asceticism and ritualism,
and summoned people to live in the world
and maintain strong social ties: one of
his well-knowing sayings is, The heart
towards the Beloved (Allah), and the hand
towards action. Moderation, restraint,
tolerance, rejection of emotional extremes
and aggression, an orientation towards this
world and life in this world all this is
characteristic of the Naqshbandiya tariqat,

and these features have long defined the

shape of Russian Muslim culture15.
I propose that the Russian form of
Islamic culture is best described as an
Islam of the heart. This definition should
be understood not just in the ethical sense,
but in the ontological sense too. The heart
(qalb) is the centre of human existence
and the main organ of divine gnosis. The
Lord says in a hadith qudsi: I cannot be
contained by the earth and the heavens but
the heart of my faithful servant can contain
me. The Sufi thinker Ibn Arabi gave the
deepest explication of this statement.
Ibn Arabi calls the human heart the
water of life. This water of life plays the
role of a whirlpool of being in his ontology,
a constant permutation of all existence,
a dynamic flow, a realization, a pulsation,
in short, a permanent new creation (khalq
jadid). Another important association
which Ibn Arabi makes use of is based on
the origin of the Arabic word for heart,
qalb, which comes from the root q-l-b,
to revolve, to change. The heart is thus
thought of as a vessel for all the changeable
forms of being. The heart so conceived by
Ibn Arabi is equated with the Perfect Man
(al-insan al-kamil), that is, the higher state
which every person should realize within
themselves. In other words, a person
ascends through his heart, by descending
deeper into it, to a special state where all
forms of being are integrated, to a state of
perfect divine gnosis. And Ibn Arabi calls
this state khira, distraction, but also the
13 Cf. [Massignon 1968; Corbin 1958; Melchert whirlpool. Khira is the highest mystical
1996; Knysh 2010]. The monograph by the Russian contemplation, a special type of distraction
academic I.R. Nasyrov is especially deserving of
in the Sufi, who sees God in everything but
attention. He looks in detail at the origins of Sufism
and outlines its ontological and epistemological at the same time recognizes His essential
foundations in [Nasyrov 2012].
14 Cf. [Weismann 2007].

KATEHON

15 For an in-depth justification of this theory cf.

the article by [Sibgatullina 2001].

Autumn 2015

[109]

(dhat) transcendence, who perceives the

One as multiple, and the multiple as One,
or the manifest as hidden and the hidden as
manifest. Distraction is, as it were, a state of
being seized by the pulsations of the heart,
by the whirlpool of reality16.
This experience, which was given rational
form by Ibn Arabi, expresses the highest
ideal of the Sufi, and in the Naqshbandiya
tariqat it is attained through the practice of
stillness of the heart (wuquf-i qalbi). Out
of this experience, as the centre of Muslim
life, all the external forms of the culture
are made explicit. Thus Russian Muslim
culture bears the stamp of this origin, and
expresses it in the intention to sacralize this
earthly life.
In truth, if everything embodies the
creative plan of God, if everything is
permeated by the Light of the heavens and
the earth (Quran 24:35), one has no choice
but to develop a life-affirming worldview.
Our culture is characterized by a striving
to detect in everything, even the most
insignificant thing, the presence of God,
His Light, Mercy and personal involvement.
Not by chance did Musa Bigiev lay a special
emphasis on the following ayat: My mercy
encompasses all things. (7:156). The
intuition for the sacral permeates music,
art, festivals, everyday life, and forms a
unique type of everyday religiosity. This
intuition allows us to understand why
there is a permanent effort to Islamize
folk customs, and give them a new Islamic
meaning. Russian Muslim culture as it were
wages a constant battle against the idea of
self-sufficient existence, the independence
of earthly life, with trivial and profane
consciousness, which is permeated with
16 For more on Ibn Arabis understanding of the
heart, cf. [Chittick 1989: 106-109].

[110]

duality and thus with shirk, or polytheism;

it gravitates towards the sacralization of
reality, towards the uncovering of the
eternal essence within empirical being.
In other words, it gravitates towards the
immanent and living vision of God (which,
obviously, should not be confused with
pantheism).
One can say that the immanent vision of
God is precisely the vision of the heart. But
the dominance of this vision of the heart
has its reverse side, one of them being that
less attention is devoted to other means of
cognition. Unfortunately, our culture is still
at the level of a folk culture, a spontaneous
culture, it has engaged in little internal
reflection, and this is where the illusion
arises that it is secondary in relation to
Arab, Turkish or Persian culture. But this
is a deeply mistaken notion. We should not
fall into the same errors that the Russian
Westernizers made in the 19th century. The
absence of rational reflection does not mean
the absence of culture itself. In fact, a living
heart-felt faith is much more important
than a dry fruitless intellectualism and
this is in fact one of the key motifs of the
Sufi worldview. It is not by chance that for
Russian Muslims the epithet of the Prophet
(peace be upon him) as unlettered
(ummi) was always particularly important,
as it signified the immediacy of perception.
In reality, to become a vessel into which the
divine Truth is poured, a person should
not be clouded by intellectual prejudices.
To recall another Sufi metaphor: in order
to shine with the pure divine light, the
heart of a person should take the form of
a polished mirror, otherwise he will distort
the light. Russian Muslim culture has for
centuries been shining with this light, and
Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

our present task is to fill in the intellectual partake in the construction of a Eurasian
gaps by means of thorough reflection.17
civilization of a conservative type. Given
Russian identity: a shift in emphasis? the demographic tendencies by 2030
the number of Muslims in Russia is
So the concept of Russian Muslim
expected to rise to 20-22% of the overall
culture aims to unify different sociopopulation18 this automatically means
cultural realities on the basis of a single
the inclusion of Islam in the field of
civilizational concept. In view of the present
legitimate discourse.
neo-Eurasian trend, this concept includes
The nature of this inclusion should be
anti-globalism, the defense of traditional
thoroughly thought through. Over the
values, traditional multiculturalism, and
centuries Russian Muslims have not played
moderate conservatism. By following these
a substantial role in the formation of the
four tendencies Russian Muslims, as the
ideological agenda of Russia. But now
most conservative part of society, can make
it is impossible to close ones eyes to the
a serious contribution to this identity. Of
Islamic factor, for in the future its role will
special importance is the cooperation of
only increase. This attempt to think about
Muslims with the other world religions
Russian Muslim culture is an invitation
which are practiced in the Russian
to dialogue. I hope that it will help us to
Federation.
better understand ourselves and allow us
The challenges facing Russian Muslims
to smoothen the process of ethno-religious
are
numerous:
radicalization,
the
shift that is occurring in Russian identity.
exportation of foreign forms of Islam, the
problem of integrating immigrants into Bibliography
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KATEHON

Autumn 2015

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//

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Sibgatullina 2001 A. Sibgatullina. Religious Sufi
motifs in Tatar literature. // Islam in the middle Volga
region: History and Modernity. Kazan, 2001..
497-515.
Smirnov 1993 A.V. Smirnov. Velikiy sheikh
sufisma: opyt paradigmalnogo analisa filosofii Ibn
Arabi [The great sheikh of Sufism. The experience
of the paradigmatic analysis of the philosophy of Ibn

[112]

Arabi]. Moscow, 1993.

Smirnov (ed.) 2010A.V. Smirnov (ed.). Rossiya i
musulmansky mir. Inakovost kak problema. [Russia
and the Muslim world. Otherness as a problem].
Moscow, 2012.
Weismann 2007I. Weismann. The Naqshbandiyya:
Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi
Tradition. Routledge, 2007.
Yuzeev 2007 A. Yuzeev. Philosophskaya mysl
tatarskogo naroda [The philosophical thought of the
Tatar people]. Kazan, 2007.
Zagidullin (ed.) 2007I.K.Zagidullin (ed.). Sufism
kak sociokulturnoe yavlenie v rossiyskoy umme.
[Sufism as a socio-cultural phenomenon in the
Russian ummah]. Nizhny Novgorod, 2007.

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People:
The Call To Be Heard.
Brazil Seen from the Perspective of
Alexandr Dugins Fourth Political Theory
CEMCentro de Estudos Multipolares
(Center for Multipolar Studies), Brazil

Brazil, Introduction
What is Brazil? What is its identity? Is there such thing as a Brazilian people or a
Brazilian nation? Is there a single Brazil or rather several Brazils? These are questions
faced not only by foreigners curious about this huge South American country but also by
any nonconformist Brazilian in the 21st century. Delving into these questions shall shed
some light on global issues. For Brazilians, these are the propedeutic questions that must
be addressed before embarking upon any political-civilizational project involving Brazil
and Latin America. Because few topics are more central to this critical age of oursthe
age of ultramodernitythan the topic of identity.
We could, of course, follow in our journey the suggestions of the late Brazilian
anthropologist and intellectual Darcy Ribeiro who, in his masterpiece Brazilian Peoples
(1999), proposed at least five Brazils: a crioulo Brazil (African-Brazilian), an Amazon
caboclo one (of Native Indian ancestry), a cowboy sertanejo one (of the Brazilian bush or
steppes), a caipira one (peasant Brazilian), and also the Southern Brazil (with its gauchos
and gringos). Expanding his classification, we could also talk of the following Brazils: coastside, rural, Native, Quilombola1, Baroque, and also a cosmopolitan and a metropolitan
Brazil, where Liberalism has diffused much more widely and where the capitalist mode of
productionwhich is gradually reaching its financist stage (Dugin, 2010) has become
firmly consolidated. As a matter of fact, Brazilian identitarian makeup (from either
an ethnic-racial or an ethnic-geographical point of view) can hardly be understood in
1 Quilombolas are the residents of quilombos Brazilian hinterland settlements founded by escaped
African slaves (Brazilian Maroons). Today Quilombolas are therefore the descendants of slaves who escaped
Brazilian plantations.

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[113]

homogeneous terms or in a homogenizing

mindset to paraphrase Carl Schmitt,
Brazil is no political universe but instead a
pluriverse.
A hundred and ninety three years of
political independence seem not to have
been enough to provide satisfactory answers
to the above problems and here lies the
great difficulty in building a civilizational
project for Luso-America. Brazil, in the last
two centuries, has been ruled by factions,
parties and leaders representing to a greater
or lesser extent all the great three political
theories of modernity, which are, according
to Russian Philosopher Alexandr Dugin,
liberalism (First Political Theory, born in the
18th century), socialism (Second Political
Theory, appearing in the 19th century) and
nationalism (Third Political Theory, emerged
in the 20th century). These theories wanted
to resolve the paradigms set by the Modern
Era, such as individuality, progressism, the
scientific method and approach, reason, the
defeat of the Traditional world. All three
theories spent the 20th century fighting
each other for hegemony, and the absolute
winner was liberalism, with the overthrow
of the Third Political Theory in 1945 and
the Second Political Theory in 1991. The
outcomes of being governed by leaders
issued from these three political theories,
good or bad, have proved to be insufficient
from the point of view of the identitarian
multiplicity that constitutes the very core of
the Brazilian nation since its beginnings.
Moreover, everything that has been built
by the countrys previous leaders as part of
a civilizational project was actually done
so on a sort of travesty or parody on
houses of cards atop buried lost truths. The
Brazilian ruling classes of all three political
theories have tried to vertically impose
some sort of ideal image of what Brazil
[114]

should be. They tried to create a modern

identity for its peoples out of fantasies,
mystifications and surfaces. However, in
a territory such as ours, populated by so
many different communities (by diverse
ethnic groups, cultures and religions mixed
together in varying degrees and organically
established generations ago), any attempt
to carry out a project based on an abstract
simulacrum of identity will inevitably
annihilate internal diversity, favoring an
official paradigm of national unification
in a state project designed by uprooted
intellectualswho end up being the tools
of a predatory nomadism, characteristic
of the globalist elites with a cosmoliberal
mindset.
The Three Modern Political
Theories in a Brazilian Scenario
All three political theories of modernity
can, to some degree, be blamed for
the corrosion of Brazils traditional
communities: The government of Getulio
Vargas, for instance, which is the main
exponent of the Third Political Theory
(nationalist ideology) in Brazil. During his
Nationalization Campaign, Vargas went
so far as to publicly burn the State flags
(under the National Union Flag), thereby
suppressing regional identities for the sake
of a so-called national unification. He went
on to repress Brazils German communities,
placing limits on public usage of the
German language (ROST, 2008; WERLE,
2003) and so on. President Vargas promoted
a rather vague and ambiguous notion of
true brazility as something that could
be found, or so went the rhetoric, in the
real Brazilians, the Amerindians not
the German, Italian or other more recent
European (non-Portuguese) migrants.
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The fate of both Indians and European

migrants, however, was to be the samein
Vargass nationalist project the Natives were
to be actually integrated in the Brazilian
nationality, leaving behind their aboriginal
condition (Garfield; College, 2000, p. 18).
Also, despite having created economical
development and taken a non-aligned
position in relation to the plutocratic
powers of the world, the Vargas regime
made Integralism and other third position
movements illegal.
Vargass death opened up room for
treasonous rulers aligned with Atlanticism,
in a succession of failures andinstability
which culminated in the fall of Joo
Goularts (Jango) short National Labourist
administration, and in the 1964 coup
dtat, giving way to the deep liberalism
that haunts the country up to the present
day. The repressive violence employed by
the military was justified by the supposedly
overriding threat of communism.
Initially supported by the CIA, the
Brazilian military government was based on
an anticommunism and patriotism of the
bourgeois-chauvinist type. As for foreign
policy, in the final phase of the regime,
there was in fact (for pragmatic reasons)
a certain diversification of international
relations; alliances with the non-aligned
nations were sought, especially during
General Ernesto Geisels administration
in the 1970s. However, in the domestic
sphere, the Brazilian military regime did
not offer a very promising fate to organic
communities: by way of repression and
genocide, indigenous peoples of various
ethnic groups were massacred: the Patax
of Bahia State were purposely infected with
smallpox; the Krenak of Maranho state
had their ancient and traditional ways of
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life targeted (labeled as mental pathologies)

and were sent en masse to mental asylums
for the most trivial reasons and so on.
In the sphere of the Second Political
Theory (leftist ideology), the identitarian
question might be placed in different terms.
The main reason why it is so difficult to
determine what the Brazilian identity is
lies in the fact that throughout history
Brazils geopolitical alliances were made
with groups and nations that had little in
common with our own historical fate, such
as the Anglo-Saxon nations (one might
add that those alliances were always to our
disadvantage), while, to the same extent the
Latin-American and Hispanic-Iberian ties
were neglected. The identity of any given
nation is closely related to its continental
identity and, clearly, Brazil was formed
out of a dual synthesis between the Iberian
nations (Spain and Portugal) and the LatinAmerican indigenous nations. Our natural
ties with the latter are of a much stronger
nature than with the former.
It is in the light of this context that
Bolivarian projects (and initiatives
such as the Frum de So Paulo) must be
understood. Among the several possibilities
of an integration of Brazil itself (or rather
of the different Brazils) in a supranational
bloc, the Bolivarian proposal is a notorious
alternative, represented by Hugo Chvezs
project of the Bolivarian Alliance for the
Peoples of our America, that is, the ALBA
(Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de
Nuestra Amrica). ALBAs project could
potentially integrate Brazil into a great
space built upon anti-Americanism, LatinAmerican autochthonous socialism and the
[115]

local cultures of indigenous and catholic

persuasion.
One could also potentially think of
a continental integration including all
Latin American countries (not just South
America), such as the one idealized by
Norberto Ceresole and by Alberto Buela
(1999) or even other such projects like
Andr Martins Meridionalism. Perhaps
also a Hispanic-imperial solution, based
on the reconstruction of Filipe IIs Empire
and the goal of opposing, if not neutralizing
English influence worldwide or at least
in this part of the world (Empire against
imperialism, as Italian Philosopher Julius
Evola would say).
In short, independent of the specific
content of each integrationist proposal,
both the continental union and the
strengthening of economic and political
ties with the alternative nations (especially
with anti-systemic and anti-imperialistic
countries) could mean for Brazil not only
economic, but identitarian survival. It is
true, though, that not all leftists can see
things outside their economist lenses.
They suffer from a nearsightedness that
has substantially contributed to the
fragmentation of the Left and the creation
of endless internal struggles, all to the
advantage of cosmoliberal advocacy.
Nevertheless, the recapturing and
building of identitarian ties within both of
these great spaces would require a definitive
break with todays geopolitical model. First
and foremost, it would call forpolitical and
ideological agents capable of taking these
potential projects ahead in spite of foreign
interferences. Nowadays, Brazils closest
agent to performing this task is the Workers
Party (PT), of social-democrat affiliation.
The Workers Party is Brazils only coherent
[116]

political power in the sphere of the Second

Political Theory, but it has lately adopted
a conciliatory policy, shaping its course of
action by means of a compromise with the
great financial oligarchies.
The BRICS group, which could very
possibly provide us with an alternative to
the alliance with the Anglo-Saxon bloc,
is yet to be properly explored by Brazil. It
remains a secondary choice, while relations
with the USA are still favored. Maintaining
such a dichotomist foreign policy has its
costs: firstly, the sacrifice of Brazils own
economic and productive emancipation;
secondly, the gradual loss of its cultural
identity, replaced by an artificial, alien and
imposed mass culture that manifests itself
in ethnic violence.
In the last four years of President
Dilma
Rousseffs
government,
for
instance, murders in the countryside
have grown exponentially indigenous
leaders, peasants and even local religious
leaders have been killed in rural areas by
landowners and hired gunmen (Canuto;
LUZ; Costa, 2014). Suicide rates among
indigenous communities are currently
above the national average. This indicates
that the indigenous communities of Brazil
are feeling the full effects of anomie,
mass industrialization, and the ongoing
alienation from their land. This is a crisis of
an identitarian nature, occurring under the
wings of the developmentalist technocratic
policies undertaken by the current Second
Political Theory government. In practice,
such policies consist in evicting regional
communities from their homelands in
order to build industries and hydroelectric
power plants.
As for the First Political Theory, it had its
zenith in the 1990s during President Collors
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short term in office (he was impeached

in 1992) followed by Fernando Henrique
Cardosos (FHC) neoliberal administration.
FHC was a plutocratic president who
privatized a considerable part of the
national economic sectors and who kept
a close relationship with the deliberative
organs of globalism the Bilderberg
Club, the CIA and those foundations tied
to philanthropic capital, such as the Ford
Foundation. The story of this relationship
was told by British historian F. Stonor
Saunders in Who Paid the Piper? During
this period, Brazilian foreign policy was tied
to a strictly economist outlook. Its defenders
argued that Brazil should acknowledge
the economic hegemony of the advanced
capitalist nations, such as the USA, Japan
and the countries of Western Europe. Thus,
a solid relationship with these countries
should be built because their markets
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would play a key role in absorbing Brazilian

exports and their capital would be essential
for investments in the national economy.
However, the entire process of
privatization, the structural reforms and the
implementation of international agendas
had severe consequences, such as the signing
of the Non-Proliferation Nuclear Treaty in
1998 and also the acceptance of the USAs
project of creating the Free Trade Area of
the Americas (FTAA). The following were
some of the consequences: low international
financial return, an intensive process of
denationalizing the economy, a boost in the
cost of living, unemployment and increased
social inequalities. It was this state of affairs
that opened Brazil to the emergence of
political and ideological forces of a nationaldevelopmentalist brand which emphatically
advocated policies of social justice and
inclusion. This was the context in which
[117]

the Workers Party i.e. the Partido dos

Trabalhadores (PT) attained its first
presidential electoral victory (president
Lula in 2002, re-elected and followed by
Dilma Rousseff of the same party, also reelected and president as of 2015).
The Dubious Way In Our History
Our goal here is none other than to
correct the old Luso-Brazilian mistake of
giving preference to the domination of an
alien Anglo-Saxon Atlanticist agendawhich,
at the same time, denies our Iberian roots.
This pattern seems to be a historical
constant that can be seen in past events such
as the Revolution of Avis and its climax
in the Battle of Aljubarrota (1385), when
the interests of the merchant bourgeoisie
(supported by the Pope) prevailed over the
Portuguese pro-Spanish faction, connected
to the old nobility. One should notice that
Spain (allied to France) was, at that time, a
kingdom of a more feudal character and the
victory of the nobility in Portugal would
have been a hard blow to its merchant class.
France and Spain, in geopolitical terms,
represented Land Power, as opposed to Sea
Power (England, in this case having coopted Portugal).
These episodes are part of that historical
process that made Portugal one of the
first modern nation-states in Europe a
state that founded a maritime empire.
It is this Portugal that is sung, in all its
contradictions, by poets such as Gil Vicente
and Luis de Cames; a double Portugal: a
nation of traditions Christian, peasant,
heroic, conquerorand, at the same time,
a merchant and thalassocratic nation of
modernity. A deep nation and a bourgeois
nation: One which gave birth to the Island
[118]

of the True Cross; the other, to brazilwood

(pau-brasil)2.
Apparently, the falseEnglish Portugal
prevailed here. It was in the image of this
Portugal that the insurgent Brazilian nation,
which became an Empire in 1822, mirrored
itself when it walked the path of debt with
the House of Rothschild to finance the
crushing of the regional revolts during the
Regency Era; when, together with Albion,
it fought a war with its brother nation
of Paraguay; and when it massacred the
Catholic peasant community of Canudos,
baptizing the nascent Republic in blood.
This is all the resultof centuries of
fratricidal warfare fought in the context
of the historical process of building our
modernity to forge an Enlightened national
identity.The cost of such a colossal endeavor
can be best expressed by the Portuguese
word atraso (a sense of backwardness and
delay): a nation that could become the
counter-hegemonic Heartland, the pole of a
Catholic Latin insurgency that would have
shook the very foundations of the modern
world. But that was not so.
There is anunfulfilled project in modern
Brazil, para ingls ver, in the popular saying
(meaning that it is just-for-show, for the
Englishmen to see it). Underneath this
pretense of modernity, in the deep strata
lie many real Brazils, enclaves and islands.
2 Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross) was
the first name given by Portuguese navigators to the
newly discovered land on the coast of what later
became known as the country of Brazil. Pau-brasil
or brazilwood (Caesalpinia echinata) is a Brazilian
timber tree. The name of the nation is, according to
some (and there are controversies), shortened from
Terra do Brasil (land of brazilwood). Brazilwood was
an important source of red dye for Europe (highly
valued) and became a large part of the exports and
economy of the land.

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The former is juridically and discursively

constructed by social thought and the
ruling classes over the latter, that is, over
the ancient forces of the deep Brazils a
pluriverse of northeastern sertes (steppes),
pampas, Amazon ribeirinhos and cerrado;
all surrounded by rural towns, coastline
cities, metropoles and megalopoles. This
configuration makes up a hierarchized
network that is the contemporary face of
archeomodern Brazil, in Dugins parlance.
What paths come to light?
The Multipolar Endeavor and BRICS
A possible path to follow based on
multipolarity will necessarily consider
alternatives such as the aforementioned
BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa). BRICS concerns not
only Brazilians, Russians, et al., but all of
the earths peoples. Here a geopolitical
mindset is needed.
If, as we have discussed, Brazilian
identitarian features require, for their
very survival, action, practicality and a
political project, it is nonetheless true that
these things call for a reference to guide
them. There is, indeed, an interdependence
between identitarian survival and a political
project. The latter is in need of something
on which to base itself the national
interest, a classical term of geopolitical
literature which may seem vague enough
or just insufficient for our purposes. But,
the raison dtre of Geopolitics resides
basically in producing an accurate reading
of the national interest, or, in other words,
grasping the very essence of the population
it is dealing with, so that this essence may
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point the way for domestic and foreign

policy to pursue.
In the sphere of domestic policy, the
construction of a multipolar world poses
itself as the great parameter to be sought.
Multipolarity, in geopolitical terms, may
provide greater stability to the international
system, as the new balance of power would
make military aggressiona very costly act
for the aggressors (due to the possibility of
equally intense counter-attacks). However,
the stability of the international system is
not, in itself, the sole reason to aim for such
a parameter.It is quite possible to argue that
a bipolar world could be equally stable, as
it also contains a balance of power. The
advantage that a multipolar world would
provide is that such a balance of power could
take place while at the same time a certain
number of power poles could maintain their
own sovereignty and autonomy that
is, they could remain faithful to the real
essence of their populations (Dugin, 2012).
In this way, multipolarity would mean
something quite differentfor Brazilian
independence and autonomy from that
which was experienced during the Cold
War a time when one could even
acknowledge a certain stability in the
international system.Nevertheless, real
autonomy and independence was restricted
by the USA, the power that de facto defined
the parameters of action for the Western
World. Besides that, a multipolar world
would provide a greater availability of
options to forge alliances, agreements,
treaties and international arrangements,
allowing Brazil to accommodate those
which better reflect its national interest.
[119]

Multipolarity would, in the last resort,

provide us collectiveliberty.
The seed of a projection towards
multipolarity in matters of foreign policy
was in fact planted during PT Lulas
administration (2003-2010). The principles
that guided PTs policy had parallels in
the early 1960s, in the administrations of
presidents Jnio Quadros and the Leftist
Joo Goulart (Jango). It is interesting
to note that such principles were later
recovered by the very military regime that
overthrew Jango, in its next phase, under
president Geisel, 1974-1979 (Gonalves,
2010).
In the Brazilian quest for a multipolar
world the BRICS group exerts a fundamental
role. BRICS appeared under a quite informal
character. Economist Jim ONeill first
mentioned it in a study as the next group
of countries to have economic ascension
[120]

and to whom it would be interesting to

form a group in order to coordinate their
common interests. The initiative to create
the informal BRIC group (from which the
BRICS group materialized) came mainly
from Russia and Brazil, as told by thenchancellor (of Brazil) Celso Amorim.
One thing that should be highlighted
is the status of the BRICS group projects
in the international sphere. Its members
see themselves and project themselves as
emerging powers. Not as future imperialist
powers but as representatives of a large
part of the geopolitical Souths claims and
vindications. In this spirit, one of the goals
of BRICS is to create alternatives to the
current model of international financial
institutions, such as the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank
(COOPER AND FARROQ, 2015). The
international status that BRICS provides
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grants the creation of counters and balances

to the current order, avowing an alternative
model to existone which the developing
world may support as part of a project for a
new international order.
Finally, it is important to stress the great
significance of the creation of the BRICS
New Development Bank (NDB). After a few
internal conflicts (e.g. China and India both
aiming for hosting the bank headquarters),
NDB is finally in the process of forming
and shall have an initial capital of fifty
billion dollars. It intends to finance heavy
engineering projects in the developing
world. The bank has an equitable power
structure and one of its goals is to be
an alternative to reduce dependency on
traditional sources of funding. It seeks to
cater to non-members also. Besides that,
BRICS has set up a Contingent Reserve
Arrangement (amounting to 100 billion
dollars) which will create even greater
stability and may turn out to be a quite
useful tool in dealing with the liquidity
crises which often arise courtesy of the USA
and EU.
The Brazilian role in this process is rather
peculiar. Brazil is in a strategic position to
deal with BRICS-Latin American relations
or, in other words, to provide support and to
help shape the way in which Latin America
shall fit into a new world that craves
multipolarity, autonomy and respectfor
peoples identities.
The Jumbled Path
In the sphere of domestic policy, the
Brazilian political scenario in Dilma
Rousseffs second term of office is quite
unstable, and in a way unseen since the
1990s. Rousseffs troubles started before
the last election. She won by a tight margin,
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defeating the somewhat neoliberal PSDB

(Social Democrat Party) candidate Acio
Neves. The president got reelected and faced
a very delicate and complex situation: a
rebellious presidential allied base, a hostile
Congress, the effects of the international
economic crisis finally being felt in Brazil,
successive corruption scandals involving
her PT party (Workers Party), all eagerly
reported by the establishment media and,
on top of that, a shrinking economy. Such
are the challenges faced by the reelected
administration.
In a clear attempt to please the market
(that mysterious yet infallible force), Dilma
Rousseff is starting her second term already
in flagrant contradiction with her original
campaign promises via a series of liberal
moves:
Pleasing the national and international
oligarchic class: the president has, for
instance, appointed Ktia Abreu as Minister
of Agriculture, Ms. Abreu of PMDB (centerright party) being a notorious mouthpiece
for Monsanto and a typical member of the
rural land owning oligarchic class;
Guaranteeing a compromise with the
banking establishment and international
speculative capital interests: the new
Minister of Finances is none other than
Chicago Boy Joaquim Levy, the former
president of Bradesco Asset Management,
a division of Brazils second largest private
bank. Mr. Levy also held several positions
in the IMF (in the 1990s) and was one of
the architects of the austerity programs that
[121]

doomed nations such as Spain, Ireland and

Greece in the following decade;
Cuts on essential sectors: Rousseff/Levys
unpopular measures include spending cuts
on education and other key programs.
Meanwhile, Brazilian banks show record
profits and Brazils public debt has some of
the highest interest rates in the world.
This scenario provides us with a clear
example of how Brazil is approaching the
post-liberal phase of its history, thereby
confirming Alexander Dugins prognostics
in his book The Fourth Political Theory and
corroborating the historical-ideological
phenomena and processes described
therein.
Nonetheless, not even all of that seems
to be enough to please the financial
community. Rousseffs PT still does not sit
well with them. The growth in polarization
since last election means they are closer
than ever to having their ideal scenario.
Moreover, Brazils public demonstrations in
2013 have proved that there is fertile soil for
a bolder move. As a result, we are witnessing
the rise of a coup network among the rightwing libertarian types (with populistconservative overtones).
The dissatisfaction with Rousseffs
government is present in many sectors:
from those who voted for defeated PSDB
candidate Acio Neves to the leftists(which
also encompasses the unions), to all the
many disappointed workers who resent
fiscal squeeze policies, not to mention the
academic researchers who can no longer
benefit from their scholarship and funding
programs. Few people still have the
disposition to defend the government.
Looking forward to instrumentalizing
this general frustration, newly risen
Libertarian movements (funded by
[122]

American organizations such as the Atlas

Network and the Koch Brothers web)
have been ostentatiously spreading antiPT propaganda through the various social
networks. They aim to bring people out to the
streets, organizing protests to demand the
removal of President Rousseff from power
(be it impeachment or resignation). We
even hear,with more and more frequency,
popular claims for yet another military
coup. These are usually depoliticized
manifestations
against
corruption,
and middle class reactions against a
constructedconspiratorial
propaganda
according to which all Latin American
nations which have been engaged in counterhegemonic efforts are, actually, a part of
some global communist movement tied to
the international Left and committed to the
promotion of anti-family and anti-religious
agendas. Ironically, the main international
promoter of such movements and of color
revolutions as mechanisms of economic,
social and cultural homogenization is,
precisely, the USA, which imposes western
values as ideal standards.
The truth is that popular discontent with
PT leadership is anything but natural. It is
also true that president Lulas government
introduced many advances, such as a foreign
policy which has placed Brazil in a more
sovereign position, and also significant
improvements for Brazils poorest citizens
through the implementation of social
programs. Rousseff, his successor, did not
accomplish any such feats, and was forced to
step back in many ways. And so, Brazil has
remained a commodity exporter, without
any great efforts to strengthen its industry
or any educational/cultural projects
which could provide the nation with real
meaning. Rousseffs administration has
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also shown great disregard for national

defense; and her spirit of servitude toward
the markethas only heightened the peoples
rage. The educational program proposed
by Rousseff consists, basically, in the
promotion of the American Way of Life as
a paradigm for nation building. In the end,
Lula and Rousseffs greatest achievement is
their contribution for the construction of
the BRICS bankan accomplishment that
will last for posterity.

that shall let Brazil place itself before the

other peoples of the world as a stronghold
and an example of the multiple possibilities
of this new political theoryas a theory of
peoples and their civilizations.

The Fourth Political Theory as a

Civilizing Project
Thus, the main challenge we Brazilians
face is to determine what tools are left to
consent to a more authentic and organic
interpretation of Brazil and therefore
lay the groundwork for a civilizational
project that does not suffer from the
same vicissitudes of all previous national
projects. We believe that few countries need
the Fourth Political Theorys gnoseological
tools more than Brazil. The search for the
present and organic concreteness of each
people as a political subject is that which
shall permit the establishment of Brazil
as a house of many peoples several
nations interconnected, organically tied
and yet autonomous. Unity in multiplicity
(in varietate concordia) plurality for a
common destiny. Voluntary separation in
a common space. In the same spirit, Julius
Evola writes about the need for an inner
Jihad and an outer Jihad; Brazil needs an
inner struggle against a form of homegrown
cultural imperialism which attempts to level
all cultures that dwell on its territory. Brazil,
in short, needs an inner multipolarity (just
as it needs outer multipolarity. As above, so
below). This internal struggle for peoples
identities is the very condition of possibility
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[123]

Oswald Spengler on the Soul of

Russia

Kerry Bolton

It would be easy to regard Oswald Spengler, author of the epochal Decline of The West
in the aftermath of World War I, as a Russophobe. In so doing the role of Russia in the
unfolding of history from this era onward could be easily dismissed, opposed or ridiculed
by proponents of Spengler, while in Russia his insights into culture-morphology would be
understandably unwelcome as being from an Slavophobic German nationalist. However,
while Spengler, like many others of the time in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution,
regardedpartiallyRussia as the Asianised leader of a coloured revolution against
the white world, he also considered other possibilities. This paper examines Spenglers
views on Russia as a distinct culture that had not yet fulfilled her destiny, while Western
civilisation is about to take a final bow on the world historical stage. His views on Russia
as an outsider are considered in relation to the depiction of the Russian soul by seminal
Russians such as Gogol.
Russias Soul
Spengler regarded Russians as formed by the vastness of the land-plain, as innately
antagonistic to the Machine, as rooted in the soil, irrepressibly peasant, religious, and
primitive. Without a wider understanding of Spenglers philosophy it appears that he
was like Hitler a Slavophobe. However, when Spengler wrote of these Russian
characteristics he was referencing the Russians as a still youthful people in contrats to
the senile West. Hence the primitive Russian is not synonymous with primitivity as
popularly understood at that time in regard to primitive tribal peoples. Nor was it to be
Kerry Bolton is writer, fellow on geopolitics, history and international
relations, Ph.D. (New Zealand).

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K AT E H O N

confounded with the Hitlerite perception of

the primitive Slav incapable of building his
own State.
To Spengler, the primitive peasant is
the well-spring from which a race draws
its healthiest elements during its epochs
of cultural vigour. Agriculture is the
foundation of a High Culture, enabling
stable communities to diversify labour
into specialisation from which Civilisation
proceeds.
However, according to Spengler,
each people has its own soul, a German
conception derived from the German
Idealism of Herder, Fichte et al. A High
culture reflects that soul, whether in its
mathematics, music, architecture; both
in the arts and the physical sciences. The
Russian soul is not the same as the Western
Faustian, as Spengler called it, the Magian
of the Arabian civilisation, or the Classical
of the Hellenes and Romans. The Western
Culture that was imposed on Russia by Peter
the Great, what Spengler called Petrinism,
is a veneer.
The basis of the Russian soul is not
infinite space as in the Wests Faustian
(Spengler, 1971, I, 183) imperative, but is
the plain without limit (Spengler, 1971,
I, 201). The Russian soul expresses its
own type of infinity, albeit not that of the
Western which becomes even enslaved
by its own technics at the end of its lifecycle. (Spengler, 1971, II, 502). (Although
it could be argued that Sovietism enslaved
man to machine, a Spenglerian would cite
this as an example of Petrinism). However,
Civilisations cannot do anything but follow
their lifes course, and one cannot see
Spenglers descriptions as moral judgements
but as observations. The finale for Western
Civilisation according to Spengler cannot
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Autumn 2015

be to create further great forms of art

and music, which belong to the youthful
or spring epoch of a civilisation, but to
dominate the world under a technocraticmilitary dispensation, before declining into
oblivion that all prior world civilisations. It
is after this Western decline that Spengler
alluded to the next word civilisation being
that of Russia. At that stage Spengler could
only hint at the possibilities.
Hence, according to Spengler, Russian
Orthodox architecture does not represent
the infinity towards space that is symbolised
by the Western high cultures Gothic
Cathedral spire, nor the enclosed space of the
Mosque of the Magian Culture, (Spengler,
1971, I, 183-216) but the impression of
sitting upon a horizon. Spengler considered
that this Russian architecture is not yet a
style, only the promise of a style that will
awaken when the real Russian religion
awakens (Spengler, 1971, I, p. 201. Spengler
was writing of the Russian culture as an
outsider, and by his own reckoning must
have realised the limitations of that. It is
therefore useful to compare his thoughts on
Russia with those of Russians of note.
Nikolai Berdyaev in The Russian Idea
affirms what Spengler describes:
There is that in the Russian soul which
corresponds to the immensity, the
vagueness, the infinitude of the Russian
land, spiritual geography corresponds
with physical. In the Russian soul there
is a sort of immensity, a vagueness, a
predilection for the infinite, such as is

[125]

suggested by the great plain of Russia.

(Berdyaev, 1).

just that there always seems to be more

consideration and respect for others in
any given situation.

Prussian
Socialism,
Russian
Of the Russian concept of property and
Socialism
of capitalism, Berdyaev wrote:
Of the Russian soul, the ego/vanity
The social theme occupied a predominant
of the Western culture-man is missing;
place in Russian nineteenth century
the persona seeks impersonal growth in
thought. It might even be said that
service, in the brother-world of the plain.
Russian thought in that century was to a
Orthodox Christianity condemns the I
remarkable extent coloured by socialistic
as sin (Spengler, 1971, I, 309). Spengler
ideas. If the word socialism is not taken in
wrote of Prussian Socialism, based on the
its doctrinaire sense, one might say that
socialism is deeply rooted in the Russian
Prussian ethos of duty to the state, as the
nature. There is already an expression
foundation of a new Western ethos under
of this truth in the fact that the Russian
the return to Faith and Authority during
people did not recognize the Roman
the final epoch of Western civilisation. He
conception of property. It has been said
contrasted this with the socialism of Karl
of Muscovite Russia that it was innocent
Marx, which he regarded as a product of
of the sin of ownership in land, the one
English economics, (Spengler, 1919) as
and only landed proprietor being the
distinct from the German economics of
Tsar: there was no freedom, but there was
Friedrich List for example, described as
a greater sense of what was right. This is
the national system of political economy,
of interest in the light that it throws upon
the rise of communism. The Slavophils
where nation is the raison detre of the
also repudiated the Western bourgeois
economy and not class or individual.
interpretation of private property equally
The Russian concept of we rather
with the socialists of a revolutionary way
than I, and of impersonal service to the
of thinking. Almost all of them thought
expanse of ones land implies another form
that the Russian people was called upon
socialism. It is perhaps in this sense that
to give actual effect to social troth and
Stalinism proceeded along lines different
righteousness and to the brotherhood
and often antithetical to the Bolshevism
of man. One and all they hoped that
envisaged by Trotsky et al. (Trotsky, 1936),
Russia would escape the wrongness and
and established an enduring legacy on
evil of capitalism, that it would be able
to pass over to a better social order while
Russia.
avoiding the capitalist stage of economic
A recent comment by an American
development. And they all considered
visitor to Russia, Barbara J. Brothers, as part
the backwardness of Russia as conferring
of a scientific delegation, states something
upon her a great advantage. It was the
akin to Spenglers observation:
The Russians have a sense of
connectedness to themselves and to
other human beings that is just not a
part of American reality. It isnt that
competitiveness does not exist; it is

[126]

wisdom of the Russians to be socialists

during the period of serfdom and
autocracy. Of all peoples in the world the
Russians have the community spirit; in
the highest degree the Russian way of life
and Russian manners, are of that kind.

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Russian hospitality is an indication of

this sense of community. (Berdyaev, 9798).

Here again, we see with Berdyaev, as

with Spengler, that there is a Russian
Socialism based on what Spengler referred
to as the Russian we in contrast to the Late
Western I, and of the sense of brotherhood
dramatised by Gogol in Taras Bulba, shaped
not by factories and money-thinking, but
by the kinship that arises from a people
formed from the vastness of the plains, and
forged through the adversity of centuries of
Muslim and Mongol invasions.
The Russian Soul
The connections between family, nation,
birth, unity and motherland are reflected in
the Russian language.
[rod]: family, kind, sort, genus
[rdina]: homeland, motherland
[rodteli]: parents
[rodt]: to give birth
[rodnt]: to unite, bring
together
[rodovi]: ancestral, tribal
[rodstv]: kinship

Russian National Literature starting

from the 1840s began to consciously express
the Russian soul. Firstly Nikolai Vasilievich
Gogols Taras Bulba, which along with
the poetry of Pushkin, founded a Russian
literary tradition; that is to say, truly
Russian, and distinct from the previous
literature based on German, French and
English. John Cournos states of this in his
introduction to Taras Bulba:
The spoken word, born of the people,
gave soul and wing to literature; only by
coming to earth, the native earth, was it
enabled to soar. Coming up from Little
Russia, the Ukraine, with Cossack blood

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in his veins, Gogol injected his own

healthy virus into an effete body, blew
his own virile spirit, the spirit of his race,
into its nostrils, and gave the Russian
novel its direction to this very day.

Taras Bulba is a tale on the formation

of the Cossack folk. In this folk-formation
the outer enemy plays a crucial role. The
Russian has been formed largely as the result
of battling over centuries with Tartars,
Muslims and Mongols. Cournos writes of
the Gogol myths in reference to the shaping
of the Russian character through adversity
and landscape:
This same Prince Guedimin freed Kieff
from the Tatar yoke. This city had
been laid waste by the golden hordes
of Ghengis Khan and hidden for a very
long time from the Slavonic chronicler
as behind an impenetrable curtain. A
shrewd man, Guedimin appointed a
Slavonic prince to rule over the city and
permitted the inhabitants to practise
their own faith, Greek Christianity. Prior
to the Mongol invasion, which brought
conflagration and ruin, and subjected
Russia to a two-century bondage, cutting
her off from Europe, a state of chaos
existed and the separate tribes fought
with one another constantly and for the
most petty reasons. Mutual depredations
were possible owing to the absence of
mountain ranges; there were no natural
barriers against sudden attack. The
openness of the steppe made the people
war-like. But this very openness made
it possible later for Guedimins pagan
hosts, fresh from the fir forests of what is
now White Russia, to make a clean sweep
of the whole country between Lithuania
and Poland, and thus give the scattered
princedoms a much-needed cohesion. In

[127]

this way Ukrainia was formed. (Cournos,

Introduction, ibid).

them know what brotherhood means on

Russian soil! (Spengler, 1971, II, 113).

Their society and nationality were defined

by religiosity, as was the Wests by Gothic
Christianity during its Spring epoch. The
newcomer to a Setch or permanent village
was greeted by the Chief as a Christian and
as a warrior: Welcome! Do you believe in
Christ? I do, replied the new-comer.
And do you believe in the Holy Trinity?
I do.And do you go to church?I do.
Now cross yourself. (Gogol, III).
Gogol depicts the scorn in which trade
is held, and when commerce has entered
among Russians, rather than being confined
to non-Russians associated with trade, it is
regarded as a symptom of decadence:

Here we might see a Russian socialism

that is, so far form being the dialectical
materialism offered by Marx, the mystic wefeeling forged by the vastness of the plains
and the imperative for brotherhood above
economics, imposed by that landscape.
Russias feeling of world-mission has its
own form of messianism whether expressed
through Christian Orthodoxy or the nonMarxian form of world revolution under
Stalin, or both in combination, as suggested
by the later rapport between Stalinism and
the Church from 1943 with the creation
of the Council for Russian Orthodox
Church Affairs (Chumachenko, 2002). In
both senses, and even in the embryonic
forms taking place under Putin, Russia is
conscious of a world-mission, expressed
today as Russias role in forging a multipolar
world, with Russia as being pivotal in
resisting unipolarism
Commerce is the concern of foreigners,
and the intrusions bring with them
the corruption of the Russian soul and
culture in general: in speech, social
interaction, servility, undermining Russian
brotherhood, the Russian we feeling
that Spengler described. (Spengler 1971,
I, 309). However, Gogol also states that
this materialistic decay will eventually
be purged even from the soul of the most
craven Russian.
And all the Setch prayed in one church,
and were willing to defend it to their
last drop of blood, although they would
not hearken to aught about fasting or
abstinence. Jews, Armenians, and Tatars,
inspired by strong avarice, took the liberty
of living and trading in the suburbs; for the
Zaporozhtzi never cared for bargaining,

I know that baseness has now made its

way into our land. Men care only to have
their ricks of grain and hay, and their
droves of horses, and that their mead
may be safe in their cellars; they adopt,
the devil only knows what Mussulman
customs. They speak scornfully with
their tongues. They care not to speak
their real thoughts with their own
countrymen. They sell their own things
to their own comrades, like soulless
creatures in the market-place. The favour
of a foreign king, and not even a king,
but the poor favour of a Polish magnate,
who beats them on the mouth with his
yellow shoe, is dearer to them than all
brotherhood. But the very meanest of
these vile men, whoever he may be,
given over though he be to vileness and
slavishness, even he, brothers, has some
grains of Russian feeling; and they will
assert themselves some day. And then the
wretched man will beat his breast with
his hands; and will tear his hair, cursing
his vile life loudly, and ready to expiate
his disgraceful deeds with torture. Let

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and paid whatever money their hand

chanced to grasp in their pocket. Moreover,
the lot of these gain-loving traders was
pitiable in the extreme. They resembled
people settled at the foot of Vesuvius; for
when the Zaporozhtzi lacked money, these
bold adventurers broke down their booths
and took everything gratis. (Gogol, III).
The description of these people shows
that they would not stoop to haggling; they
decided what a merchant should receive.
Money-talk is repugnant to them.
The Cossack brotherhood is portrayed
by Gogol as the formative process in the
building up of the Russian people. This
process is, significantly, not one of biology
but of spirit, even transcending the family
bond. Spengler treated the matter of race as
that of soul rather than of zoology. (Spengler,
1971, II, 113-155). To Spengler landscape
was crucial in determining what becomes
race, and the duration of families grouped
in a particular landscape including
nomads who have a defined range of
wanderingform a character of duration,
which was Spenglers definition of race.
(Spengler, Vol. II, 113). Gogol describes
this race forming process among the
Russians. So far from being an aggressive
race nationalism it is an expanding mystic
brotherhood under God:
The father loves his children, the mother
loves her children, the children love their
father and mother; but this is not like
that, brothers. The wild beast also loves
its young. But a man can be related only
by similarity of mind and not of blood.
There have been brotherhoods in other
lands, but never any such brotherhoods
as on our Russian soil. It has happened
to many of you to be in foreign lands.
No, brothers, to love as the Russian
soul loves, is to love not with the mind or

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Autumn 2015

anything else, but with all that God has

given, all that is within you. Ah! (Golgol,
IX).

The Russian soul is born in suffering. The

Russian accepts the fate of life in service to
God and to his Motherland. Russia and Faith
are inseparable. When the elderly warrior
Bovdug is mortally struck by a Turkish
bullet his final words are exhortations on
the nobility of suffering, after which his
spirit soars to join his ancestors:
I sorrow not to part from the world. God
grant every man such an end! May the
Russian land be forever glorious! And
Bovdugs spirit flew above, to tell the old
men who had gone on long before that
men still knew how to fight on Russian
soil, and better still, that they knew how
to die for it and the holy faith. (Gogol,
IX).

The depth and duration of this cult of

the martyrs attached to Holy Mother Russia
was revived under Stalin during the Great
Patriotic War. This is today as vigorous
as ever, as indicated by the celebration of
Victory Day on 7 May 2015, and the absence
of Western representatives indicating the
diverging course Russia is again taking
from the West.
The mystique of death and suffering for
the Motherland is described in the death
of Tarus Bulba when he is captured and
executed, his final words being ones of
resurrection:
Wait, the time will come when ye shall
learn what the orthodox Russian faith is!
Already the people scent it far and near.
A czar shall arise from Russian soil, and
there shall not be a power in the world
which shall not submit to him! But
fire had already risen from the fagots;
it lapped his feet, and the flame spread

[129]

to the tree.... But can any fire, flames,

or power be found on earth which
are capable of overpowering Russian
strength? (Gogol, XII).

depths of the young soul is cast in the old

moulds, young feelings stiffen in senile
works, and instead of rearing itself up in
its own creative power, it can only hate
the distant power with a hate that grows
to be monstrous. (Ibid.).

The characteristics of the Russian soul

that run through Tarus Bulba are those
of faith, fate, struggle, suffering, strength,
Russia is the example of Historic
brotherhood and resurrection. Tarus Bulba Pseudomorphosis given by Spengler
established the Russian national literature as being presented to our eyes to-day.
that articulated the Russian soul.
A dichotomy has existed for centuries,
starting with Peter the Great, of attempts
Pseudomorphosis
A significant element of Spenglers culture to impose a Western veneer over Russia.
morphology is Historic Pseudomorphosis. This is called Petrinism. The resistance of
Spengler drew an analogy from geology, those attempts is what Spengler called Old
when crystals of a mineral are embedded Russia. Spengler, 1971, II, 192). Spengler
in a rock-stratum: where clefts and cracks described this dichotomy:
occur, water filters in, and the crystals are
This Muscovite period of the great
gradually washed out so that in due course
Boyar families and Patriarchs, in which
only their hollow mould remains. (Spengler,
a constant element is the resistance of
II, 89).
an Old Russia party to the friends of
Then comes volcanic outbursts which
Western Culture, is followed, from the
explode the mountain; molten masses
founding of Petersburg in 1703, by the
pour in, stiffen and crystallize out in their
pseudomorphosis which forced the
turn. But these are not free to do so in
primitive Russian soul into an alien
their own special forms. They must fill out
mould, first of full Baroque, then of
the spaces that they find available. Thus
the Enlightenment, and then of the
there arise distorted forms, crystals whose
nineteenth century. (Ibid., II, p. 192).
inner structure contradicts their external
Spenglers view is again in accord with
shape, stones of one kind presenting the
what is spoken of Russia by Russians.
appearance of stones of another kind.
Nikolai Berdyaev wrote in terms similar to
The mineralogists call this phenomenon
Spenglers:
Pseudomorphosis. (Ibid.).
The inconsistency and complexity of the
Spengler explained:
By the term historical pseudomorphosis
I propose to designate those cases in
which an older alien Culture lies so
massively over the land that a young
Culture, born in this land, cannot get
its breath and fails not only to achieve
pure and specific expression-forms,
but even to develop its own fully selfconsciousness. All that wells up from the

[130]

Russian soul may be due to the fact that

in Russia two streams of world history
East and West jostle and influence one
another. The Russian people is not
purely European and it is not purely
Asiatic. Russia is a complete section of
the world a colossal East-West. It unites
two worlds, and within the Russian soul
two principles are always engaged in

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K AT E H O N

strife the Eastern and the Western.

(Berdyaev, 1).

us and a superficial philosophy of

enlightenment was assimilated. The
Russian aristocrats of the eighteenth
century absorbed Western culture in the
form of a miserable rehash of Voltaire.
(Berdyaev, 16).

With the orientation of Russian policy

towards the West, Old Russia was forced
into a false and artificial history. (Spengler,
II, 193). Spengler wrote that Russia had
The hatred of the West and of Europe
become dominated by Western culture
is the hatred for a Civilisation that had
from its Late epoch:
already reached an advanced state of decay
Late-period
arts
and
sciences,
into materialism and sought to impose its
enlightenment, social ethics, the
primacy by cultural subversion rather than
materialism of world-cities, were
by combat, with its City-based and moneyintroduced, although in this pre-cultural
based outlook, poisoning the unborn
time religion was the only language in
culture in the womb of the land. (Spengler,
which man understood himself and
1971, II, 194). Russia was still a land where
the world. In the townless land with its
there were no bourgeoisie and no true class
primitive peasantry, cities of alien type
system but only lord and peasant, a view
fixed themselves like ulcers false,
confirmed by Berdyaev, writing:
unnatural, unconvincing. Petersburg,
says Dostoyevski, it is the most abstract
and artificial city in the world.

After this everything that arose around

it was felt by the true Russdom as lies
and poison. A truly apocalyptic hatred
was directed on Europe, and Europe
was all that was not Russia The
first condition of emancipation for the
Russian soul, wrote Aksakov [1] in
1863 to Dostoyevski, is that it should
hate Petersburg with all this might and
all its soul. Moscow is holy, Petersburg
Satanic. A widespread popular legend
presents Peter the Great as Antichrist.
(Spengler, 1971, II, 193).

Berdyaev also discusses the introduction

of Enlightenment doctrines from France
into Russia:
The Western culture of Russia in the
eighteenth century was a superficial
aristocratic borrowing and imitation.
Independent thought had not yet
awakened. At first it was French
influences which prevailed among

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Autumn 2015

The various lines of social demarcation

did not exist in Russia; there were no
pronounced classes. Russia was never an
aristocratic country in the Western sense,
and equally there was no bourgeoisie.
(Berdyaev, 1).

The cities that emerged threw up an

intelligentsia, copying the intelligentsia of
Late Westerndom, bent on discovering
problems and conflicts, and below,
an uprooted peasantry, with all the
metaphysical gloom, anxiety, and misery
of their own Dostoyevski, perpetually
homesick for the open land and bitterly
hating the stony grey world into which the
Antichrist had tempted them. Moscow had
no proper soul. (Spengler, 1971, II, 194).
The spirit of the upper classes was
Western, and the lower had brought in with
them the soul of the countryside. Between
the two worlds there was no reciprocal
comprehension, no communication, no
charity. To understand the two spokesmen
and victims of the pseudomorphosis, it is
[131]

enough that Dostoyevski is the peasant,

and Tolstoi the man of Western society. The
one could never in his soul get away from
the land; the other, in spite of his desperate
efforts, could never get near it. (Ibid.).
Berdyaev likewise states of the Petrinism
of the upper class:
Peter secularized the Russian Tsardoni
and brought it into touch with Western
absolutism of the more enlightened
kind. The Tsardom of Moscow had
not given actual effect to the messianic
idea of Moscow as the Third Rome,
but the efforts of Peter created a gulf
between a police absolutism and the
sacred Tsardom. A breach took place
between the upper governing classes of
Russian society and the masses of the
people among whom the old religious
beliefs and hopes were still preserved.
The Western influences which led on to
the remarkable Russian culture of the
nineteenth century found no welcome
among the bulk of the people. The power
of the nobility increased and it became
entirely alien from the people. The
very manner of life of the landowning
nobility was a thing incomprehensible to
the people. It was precisely in the Petrine
epoch during the reign of Katherine II
that the Russian people finally fell under
the sway of the system of serfdom. The
whole Petrine period of Russian history
was a struggle between East and West
within the Russian soul. (Berdyaev, 15).

Russian Messianism
Berdyaev states that while Petrinism
introduced an epoch of cultural dynamism,
it also placed a heavy burden upon Russia,
and a disunity of spirit. (Ibid.). However,
Russia has her own religious sense of
Mission, which is as universal as the
Vaticans. Spengler quotes Dostoyevski
[132]

as writing in 1878: all men must become

Russian, first and foremost Russian. If
general humanity is the Russian ideal,
then everyone must first of all become a
Russian. (Spengler, 1963, 63n). The Russian
Messianic idea found a forceful expression
in Dostoyevskis The Possessed, where, in a
conversation with Stavrogin, Shatov states:
Reduce God to the attribute of
nationality?...On the contrary, I elevate
the nation to God...The people is the
body of God. Every nation is a nation
only so long as it has its own particular
God, excluding all other gods on earth
without any possible reconciliation, so
long as it believes that by its own God
it will conquer and drive all other gods
off the face of the earth. At least thats
what all great nations have believed
since the beginning of time, all those
remarkable in any way, those standing
in the vanguard of humanity...The Jews
lived solely in expectation of the true
God, and they left this true God to the
world...A nation which loses faith is no
longer a nation. But there is only one
truth; consequently, only one nation
can posses the true God...The sole God
bearing nation is the Russian nation...
(Dostoevsky, 1992, Part II: I: 7, 265-266).
Spengler saw Russia as outside of
Europe, and even as Asian. He even saw
a Western rebirth vis--vis opposition to
Russia, which he regarded as leading the
coloured world against the white, under
the mantle of Bolshevism. Yet there
were also other destinies that Spengler
saw over the horizon, which had been
predicted by Dostoyevski.

Once Russia had overthrown its alien

intrusions, it could look with another
perspective upon the world, and reconsider
Europe not with hatred and vengeance
but in kinship. Spengler wrote that while
Tolstoi, the Petrinist, whose doctrine
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K AT E H O N

was the precursor of Bolshevism, was

the former Russia, Dostoyevski was
the coming Russia. Dostoyevski as the
representative of the coming Russia does
not know the hatred of Russia for the
West. Dostoyevski and the old Russia are
transcendent. His passionate power of
living is comprehensive enough to embrace
all things Western as well. Spengler quotes
Dostoyevski: I have two fatherlands, Russia
and Europe. Dostoyevski as the harbinger
of a Russian high culture has passed
beyond both Petrinism and revolution, and
from his future he looks back over them as
from afar. His soul is apocalyptic, yearning,
desperate, but of this future he is certain.
[65] (Spengler, 1971, II, 194). Spengler cites
Dostoyevskis The Brothers Karamazov,
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Autumn 2015

where Ivan Karamazov (Dostoyevski, 1880,

34: II: V: 3) says to his mother:
I want to travel in Europe I know
well enough that I shall be going only
to a churchyard, but I know too that
that churchyard is dear, very dear to
me. Beloved dead lie buried there,
every stone over them tell of a life so
ardently lived, so passionately a belief
in its own achievements, its own truth,
its own battle, its own knowledge, that I
knoweven now I knowI shall fall
down and kiss these stones and weep
over them. (Spengler, 1971, II, 195).

To the Slavophil, of which Dostoyevski

was one, Europe is precious. The Slavophil
appreciates the richness of European high
culture while realising that Europe is in a
state of decay. Berdyaev discussed what he
regarded as an inconsistency in Dostoyevski
and the Slavophils towards Europe, yet one
[133]

that is comprehensible when we consider

Spenglers crucial differentiation between
Culture and Civilisation:
Dostoyevsky calls himself a Slavophil.
He thought, as did also a large number
of thinkers on the theme of Russia and
Europe, that he knew decay was setting
in, but that a great past exists in her,
and that she has made contributions of
great value to the history of mankind.
(Berdyaev, 70).

It is notable that while this differentiation

between Kultur and Zivilisation is ascribed
to a particularly German philosophical
tradition, Berdyaev comments that it was
present among the Russians long before
Spengler, although deriving from German
sources:

Late West transplanted as a weed onto the

soil of Russia, represented by Tolstoi who,
stands midway between Peter and
Bolshevism, and neither he nor they
managed to get within sight of Russian
earth. Their kind of opposition is not
apocalyptic but intellectual. Tolstois
hatred of property is an economists, his
hatred of society a social reformers, his
hatred of the State a political theorists.
Hence his immense effect upon the
Westhe belongs, in one respect as in
another, to the band of Marx, Ibsen, and
Zola. (Ibid.).

Dostoyevski, on the contrary, was

indifferent to the Late West, looking
beyond the physical, beyond questions
of social reform and economics, and
to the metaphysical: Dostoyevski, like
every primitive Russian, is fundamentally
It is to be noted that long before Spengler,
unaware of the physical world and lives
the Russians drew the distinction
in a second, metaphysical world beyond.
between culture and civilization, that
The living reality is a religious one, which
they attacked civilization even when
Spengler compares most closely with
they remained supporters of culture.
primitive Christianity. Dostoyevski is a
This distinction in actual fact, although
saint, Tolstoi, only a revolutionary, the
expressed in a different phraseology, was
representative of Petrinism, as the forerunner
to be found among the Slavophils. (Ibid.).
of Bolshevism, the last dishonouring of
Tolstoi, who sought to overcome the the metaphysical by the social, and a new
problems of Civilisation by a return-to- form of pseudomorphosis. The Bolshevists
Nature in the manner of the Western and other such revolutionaries were the
Enlightenment philosopher J J Rousseau, lowest stratum of Petrine society. (Ibid.,
II, 196). Imbued with ideas from the Late
on the other hand, is the product of the Late
West, the Marxists sought to replace one
West, enlightened and socially minded, and
Petrine ruling class with another. Neither
sees only a problem, whereas Dostoyevski represented the soul of Russia. Spengler
does not even know what a problem is. states: The real Russian is the disciple of
(Spengler, 1971, II, 195). Spengler states that Dostoyevski, even though he might not
the problematic nature of life is a question have read Dostoyevski, or anyone else, nay,
that arises in Late Civilisations, and is a perhaps because he cannot read, he is himself
symptom of an epoch where life itself has Dostoyevski in substance. The intelligentsia
become questionable. It is a symptom of the hates, the peasant does not. (Ibid.). He
[134]

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K AT E H O N

would eventually overthrow Bolshevism

and any other form of Petrinism. Here we
see Spengler unequivocally stating that the
post-Western civilisation will be Russian.
For what this townless people yearns
for is its own life-form, its own religion,
its own history. Tolstois Christianity was
a misunderstanding. He spoke of Christ
and he meant Marx. But to Dostoyevskis
Christianity, the next thousand years will
belong. (Ibid.).
To the true Russia, as Dostoyevski
stated it, not a single nation has ever been
founded on principles of science or reason.
Dostoyevski continues, with the character
Shatov explaining:
[N]ot a single nation has ever been
founded on principles of science or
reason. There has never been an example
of it, except for a brief moment, through
folly. Socialism is from its very nature
bound to be atheism, seeing that it has
from the very first proclaimed that it
is an atheistic organisation of society,
and that it intends to establish itself
exclusively on the elements of science
and reason. Science and reason have,
from the beginning of time, played a
secondary and subordinate part in the
life of nations; so it will be till the end of
time. Nations are built up and moved by
another force which sways and dominates
them, the origin of which is unknown
and inexplicable: that force is the force
of an insatiable desire to go on to the
end, though at the same time it denies
that end. It is the force of the persistent
assertion of ones own existence, and
a denial of death. Its the spirit of life,
as the Scriptures call it, the river of
living water, the drying up of which is
threatened in the Apocalypse. Its the
sthetic principle, as the philosophers
call it, the ethical principle with which

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Autumn 2015

they identify it, the seeking for God, as

I call it more simply. The object of every
national movement, in every people
and at every period of its existence is
only the seeking for its god, who must
be its own god, and the faith in Him as
the only true one. God is the synthetic
personality of the whole people, taken
from its beginning to its end. It has never
happened that all, or even many, peoples
have had one common god, but each
has always had its own. Its a sign of the
decay of nations when they begin to have
gods in common. When gods begin to
be common to several nations the gods
are dying and the faith in them, together
with the nations themselves. The
stronger a people the more individual
their God. There never has been a nation
without a religion, that is, without an
idea of good and evil. Every people has
its own conception of good and evil, and
its own good and evil. When the same
conceptions of good and evil become
prevalent in several nations, then these
nations are dying, and then the very
distinction between good and evil is
beginning to disappear. Reason has
never had the power to define good and
evil, or even to distinguish between good
and evil, even approximately; on the
contrary, it has always mixed them up
in a disgraceful and pitiful way; science
has even given the solution by the fist.
This is particularly characteristic of the
half-truths of science, the most terrible
scourge of humanity, unknown till this
century, and worse than plague, famine,
or war. (Dostoyevski, 1872, II: I: VII).

Here we have the expression of the

Russian soul, its repudiation of Petrinism,
and in a manner similar to Spenglers,
the identification of faith, not darwinian
zoology or economics, as the premise of
culture-nation-race-formation, and the
[135]

primacy of rationalistic doctrines as a

symptom of decay.
Conflict Between Money & Blood
Spengler
states
that
at
the
LateWinterepoch of a Civilisation
where money-thinking dominates, a point is
reached where there is a reaction: a Second
Religiousness which returns a decaying
Civilisation to its spiritual foundations.
There proceeds a revolt against oligarchy
and a return to authority, or what Spengler
called Csarism, and from there the
fulfilment of a destiny before being eclipsed
by a new high culture.
The Second Religiousness is the
necessary counterpart of Csarism,
which is the final political constitution of
a Late Civilisation In both phenomena
the creative young strength of the Early
Culture is lacking. But both have their
greatness nevertheless. That of the Second
Religiousness consists of a deep piety that
fills the waking-consciousness (Spengler,
1971, II, 310).
Spengler states that the profoundly
mystical inner life feels thinking in money
as a sin. The money-thinking imposed
on Russia as Communism was Western
insofar as Marxism reflects the economic
thinking of Western civilisation in its Late
epoch, (Ibid., II, 402):
[A]n upper, alien and civilised world
intruded from the West (the Bolshevism
of the first years, totally Western and unRussian, is the lees of this importation),
and a townless barter-life that goes
on deep below, uncalculating and
exchanging only for immediate needs.
We have to think of the catchwords
of the surface as a voice, in which the
Russian, simple and busied wholly with
his soul bears resignedly the will of God.

[136]

Marxism amongst Russians is based

on an inward misunderstanding. They
bore with the higher economic life of
Petrinism, but they neither created it nor
recognised it. The Russian does not fight
Capital, but he does not comprehend it.
Anyone who understands Dostoyevski
will sense in these people a young
humanity for which as yet no money
exists, but only goods in relation to a life
whose centre of gravity does not lie on
the economical side. (Ibid., II, 495n)

Spengler states above that the Russians

do not fight capital. (Ibid., 495). Yet their
young soul brings them into conflict with
money, as both oligarchy from inside and
plutocracy from outside contend with the
Russian soul for supremacy. It was something
observed by both Gogol and Dostoyevski.
The anti-capitalism and world revolution
of Stalinism took on features that were
drawn more from Russian messianism than
from Marxism, reflected in the struggle
between Trotsky and Stalin. The revival of
the Czarist and Orthodox icons, martyrs
and heroes and of Russian folk-culture
in conjunction with a campaign against
rootless cosmopolitanism, reflected the
emergence of primal Russian soul amidst
Petrine Marxism. (Brandenberger, 2002).
Today the conflict between two world-views
can be seen in the conflicts between Putin
and certain oligarchs and the uneasiness
Putin causes among the West.
The conflict that arises is metaphysical,
but oligarchy and plutocracy can only
understand the physical. Hence, moneygetting by means of money is an impiety, and
(from the viewpoint of the coming Russian
religion) a sin. (Ibid.). Money-getting by
means of money manifests in speculation
and usury. It is the basis upon which the
economics of the Late West is founded, and
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K AT E H O N

from which it is now tottering. That this was

not the case in the Gothic era of the Wests
high culture is indicated by the Churchs
strident condemnation of usury as sin.
Spengler predicted that in answer to the
money-ethos a third kind of Christianity,
based on the John Gospel, would
arise, looking towards Jerusalem with
premonitions of coming crusades. (Ibid.).
The Russian also eschews the machine,
to which Faustian man is enslaved, and if
today he adopts Western technics, he does
so with fear and hatred of wheels, cables,
and rails, and will blot the whole thing
from his memory and his environment, and
create about himself a wholly new world, in
which nothing of this Devils technique is
left. (Ibid., II, 504).
Has time proved Spengler wrong in
his observation that the Russian soul is
repelled by the materialism, rationalism,
technics and scientism of the Late West,
given that the USSR went full throttle to
industrialise? Spengler also said that Russia
would adapt Western technics for her own
use, as a weapon. Anecdotally, in our time,
Barbara Brothers, a psycho-therapist, while
part of a scientific delegation to Russia in
1993, observed that even among Russian
scientists the focus is on the metaphysical:
The Russians seem not to make the
divorce between hard science and heart
and soul that we do in the United States.
Elena is probably a classic example. In
her position as a part of the Academy
of National Economy, a division of the
Academy of Science, she works in facts
and statistics all day long; when you
ask her how (how in the world!) she
thinks they will make it, she gives you a
metaphysical answer. The scientist part
of her gave a presentation that showed us
how it was absolutely impossible for the

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Autumn 2015

economy to begin to work. Yet, she says,

I am not pessimistic.

Again, Spenglers observations of the

Russian soul are confirmed by this anecdote:
the true Russian even the scientist and
mathematician does not comprehend
everything as a problem in the Late
Western sense. His decisions are not made
by Western rationalism, but by metaphysics
and instinct. It is an interesting aside to
recall that under the USSR, supposedly
predicated on dialectical materialism, the
metaphysical and the psychic were subjects
of serious investigation to an extent that
would be scoffed at by Western scientists.
(Kernbach, 2013).
By the time Spengler had published The
Hour of Decision in 1934 he was stating
that Russia had overthrown Petrinism and
the trappings of the late West, and while he
called the new orientation of Russia Asian,
he said that it was a new Idea, and an idea
with a future too. (Spengler, 1963, 60). To
clarify, Russia looks towards the East, but
while the Westerner assumes that Asia
and East are synonymous with Mongol,
the etymology of the word Asia comes
from Greek A, ca. 440 BC, referring to
all regions east of Greece. (Ibid., 61). As
an ethnic, historical, cultural or religious
designation it means as little as as the World
War I propaganda reference to Germans as
Huns. During his time Spengler saw in
Russia that,
Race, language, popular customs,
religion, in their present form all or any
of them can and will be fundamentally
transformed. What we see today then is
simply the new kind of life which a vast
land has conceived and will presently
bring forth. It is not definable in words,
nor is its bearer aware of it. Those who

[137]

attempt to define, establish, lay down

a program, are confusing life with a
phrase, as does the ruling Bolshevism,
which is not sufficiently conscious of its
own West-European, Rationalistic and
cosmopolitan origin. (Ibid.).

Of Russia in 1934 Spengler already saw

that of genuine Marxism there is very
little except in names and programs. He
doubted that the Communist programme
is really still taken seriously. He saw
the possibility of the vestiges of Petrine
Bolshevism being overthrown, to be
replaced by a nationalistic Eastern type
which would reach gigantic proportions
unchecked. (Spengler, 1963, 63).Spengler
also referred to Russia as the country least
troubled by Bolshevism, (Ibid.,182) and
the Marxian face [was] only worn for the
benefit of the outside world. (Ibid., 212). A
decade after Spenglers death the direction
of Russia under Stalin had pursued clearer
definitions, and Petrine Bolshevism had
been transformed in the way Spengler
foresaw. (Brandenberger, 2002).
Conclusion
As in Spenglers time, and centuries
before, there continues to exist two
tendencies in Russia : the Old Russian and
the Petrine. Neither one nor the other spirit
is presently dominant, although under
Putin Old Russia struggles for resurgence.
Spengler in a published lecture to the
Rheinish-Westphalian Business Convention
in 1922 referred to the ancient, instinctive,
unclear, unconscious, and subliminal drive
that is present in every Russian, no matter
how thoroughly westernised his conscious
life may be a mystical yearning for the
South, for Constantinople and Jerusalem,
a genuine crusading spirit similar to the
spirit our Gothic forebears had in their
[138]

blood but which we can hardly appreciated

today. (Spengler, 1922).
Bolshevism destroyed one form of
Petrinism with another form, clearing the
way for a new culture that will some day
arise between Europe and East Asia.
It is more a beginning than an end. The
peasantry will some day become conscious
of its own will, which points in a wholly
different direction. The peasantry is the
true Russian people of the future. It will not
allow itself to be perverted or suffocated.
(Ibid.).
The Great Patriotic War gave Stalin
the opportunity to return Russia to its
roots. Russias Orthodox foundations
were returned on the basis of a myth, an
archetypically Russian mysticism. The
myth goes that in 1941:
The Virgin appeared to Metropolitan
Ilya of the Antiochian Church, who
prayed wholeheartedly for Russia. She
instructed him to tell the Russians that
they should carry the Kazan Icon in a
religious procession around the besieged
city of Leningrad (St Petersburg). Then,
the Virgin said, they should serve a
molieben [2] before the icon in Moscow.
The Virgin said that the icon should stay
with the Russian troops in Stalingrad,
and later move with them to the Russian
border. Leningrad didnt surrender.
Miraculously, Moscow was also saved.
During the Battle of Stalingrad, the
icon was with the Russian army on the
right bank of the Volga, and the Nazi
troops couldnt cross the river. The Battle
of Stalingrad began with a molieben
before the Kazan Icon. Only when it
was finished, did the troops receive the
order to attack. The Kazan Icon was at
the most important sectors of the front,
and in the places where the troops were
preparing for an offensive. It was like

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K AT E H O N

Government allowed Easter celebrations.

On 4 September 1943 Stalin invited the
hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church
to the Kremlin to discuss the need for
reviving religious life in the USSR and the
prompt election of a Patriarch.
This is the type of Myth that is nationforming. It exists as a constant possibility
within Russia. Spengler stated in his lecture
to the German businessmen in 1922 that,
There can be no doubt: a new Russian
people is in the process of becoming. Shaken
and threatened to the very soul by a frightful
destiny, forced to an inner distance, it will
in time become firm and come to bloom.
It is passionately religious in a way that we
Western Europeans have not been, indeed
could not have been, for centuries. As soon
as this religious drive is directed towards
a goal, it possesses an immense expansive
potential. Unlike us, such a people does not
count the victims who die for an idea, for
it is a young, vigorous, and fertile people.
(Spengler, 1922).
The message to Metropolitan Ilya from
The arch-Conservative anti-Marxist,
The Theotokos [3] for Russia was that:
Spengler, in keeping with the German
The cathedrals, monasteries, theological
tradition of realpolitik, considered the
seminaries and academies have to be
possibility of a Russo-German alliance in
opened in the whole country. The priests
his 1922 speech, the Treaty of Rapallo being
have to be sent back from the front and
a reflection of that tradition. A new type
released from incarceration. They must
of leader would be awakened in adversity,
begin serving again. When the war
to new crusades and legendary conquests.
will be over, Metropolitan Elijah has
The rest of the world, filled with religious
to come to Russia and witness how she
yearning but falling on infertile ground, is
was saved. The metropolitan contacted
torn and tired enough to allow it suddenly
both Russian church representatives
and Soviet government officials. Stalin
to take on a new character under the proper
then promised to do everything God
circumstances. Spengler suggested that
indicated. (Russia before the Second
perhaps Bolshevism itself will change in
Coming).
this way under new leaders. But the silent,
During The Great Patriotic War 20,000 deeper Russia, would turn its attention
churches were opened. In 1942 the Soviet towards the Near and East Asia, as a people
in the old times, when in response to
earnest prayers, the Virgin instilled fear
in enemies and drove them away. Even
atheists told stories of the Virgins help
to the Russian troops. During the assault
on Knigsberg in 1945, the Soviet troops
were in a critical situation. Suddenly,
the soldiers saw their commander
arrive with priests and an icon. Many
made jokes, Just wait, thatll help us!
The commander silenced the jokers.
He ordered everybody to line up and
to take off their caps. When the priests
finished the molieben, they moved to
the frontline carrying the icon. The
amazed soldiers watched them going
straight forward, under intense Nazi fire.
Suddenly, the Nazis stopped shooting.
Then, the Russian troops received orders
to attack on the ground and from the
sea. Nazis died in the thousands. Nazi
prisoners told the Russians that they saw
the Virgin in the sky before the Russians
began to attack, the whole of the Nazi
army saw Her, and their weapons
wouldnt fire. (Voices from Russia).

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[139]

of great inland expanses. (Ibid.). Berdyaev, Eurasianism, for example; not of the East
discussing the Slavophil outlook, wrote:
nor the West, but of Russia.
Russian reflections upon the subject
of the philosophy of history led to the
consciousness that the path of Russia
was a special one. Russia is the great EastWest; it is a whole immense world and in
its people vast powers are confined. The
Russian people are a people of the future;
they will decide questions which the
West has not yet the strength to decide,
which it does not even pose in their full
depth. (Berdyaev, 70).

There are no certainties. While Spengler

postulated the organic cycles of a High
Culture going through the life-phases of
birth, youthful vigour, maturity, old age
and death, it should be kept in mind that
a life-cycle can be disrupted, aborted,
murdered or struck by disease, at any time,
and end without fulfilling itself. Each has its
analogy in politics, and there are plenty of
Russophobes eager to stunt Russias destiny
with political, economic and cultural
contagion. The Soviet bloc fell through
inner and outer contagion.
What Spengler foresaw for the possibilities
of Russia, yet to fulfil its historic mission,
messianic and of world-scope, might now
be unfolding if Russia eschews pressures
from within and without. The invigoration
of Orthodoxy is part of this process, as is the
leadership style of Putin, as distinct from
a Yeltsin for example. Whatever Russia is
called outwardly, whether, monarchical,
Bolshevik or democratic, there is an
innereternalRussia that endures and
awaits its time on the world historical stage.
We see it now with the re-emergence of
[140]

Bibliography
Berdyaev, Nikolai. The Russian Idea, MacMillan Co.,
New York, 1948
Brandenberger, D. National Bolshevism: Stalinist
culture and the Formation of Modern Russian
National Identity 1931-1956. Harvard University
Press, Massachusetts, 2002.
Brothers, Barbara J. Psychiatry Today, 1 January 1993,
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199301/
russia-soul
Chumachenko, T.A. Church and State in Soviet
Russia, M. E. Sharpe Inc., New York, 2002.
Cournos, H. Introduction, N V Gogol, Taras Bulba
& Other Tales, 1842, http://www.gutenberg.org/
files/1197/1197-h/1197-h.htm
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov, 1880
Dostoevsky, Fyodor.
University Press, 1992.

The

Possessed,

Oxford

Kernback, S. Unconventional research in USSR

and Russia: short overview, 2013, http://arxiv.org/
pdf/1312.1148.pdf
Russia before the Second Coming, Svyato-Troitskaya
Sergiyeva Lavra Monastery, p. 239; Archbishop
Alypy, My thoughts about the Declaration of
1927, 2 February 2005, http://www.stjamesok.org/
ArbpAlypyBIO.htm
Spengler, Oswald. Prussian and Socialism, 1919.
Spengler, Oswald The Two Faces of Russia and
Germanys Eastern Problems, Politische Schriften,
Munich, 14 February, 1922.
Spengler, Oswald. The Hour of Decision, Alfred A
Knopf, New York, 1963.
Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of The West, George
Allen & Unwin, London, 1971.
Trotsky, Leon. The Revolution Betrayed: what is the
Soviet Union and where is it going?, 1936.
Voices from Russia, 15 January 2008, http://02varvara.
wordpress.com/2008/01/15/the-wonderworkingicon-of-kazan-of-the-most-holy-mother-of-god/

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K AT E H O N

Federalism in Ukraine
and the Way Toward Peace

Enrique Refoyo

What about federalism?

The Federal system can serve to find a solution to the problems of Ukraine. Nevertheless,
it did not experience enough constitutional change, as requires other changes. They will be
developed in the proceeding lines.
Object of action.
First of all, the object of action in this dissertation is the people who are in the conflict
zone of Donbass, to end the bloodletting, the deaths, injuries and destruction. And the
second object of action is the people from all over Ukraine, in order to find peace and
security in a country without conflicts, and without the problems that beset it.
Objective of change.
The first objective of change in this dissertation is the creation of agreements in the
peace process, to stop and to end the conflict in Donbass, and then to settle upon a federal
political system, which serves as a clear and trustworthy base, and which also provides
freedom and equality for all Ukrainians. Finally, my hope is that these proposals -to build
a new political system- will serve also as a basis to create the desired prosperityto end
the political corruption that has dragged the whole society into this unfortunate situation;
and for the latter purpose, the change must begin in every single person.
Enrique Refoyo is political analyst from Spain

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[141]

Institutions and values

The Institutions establish a framework
and may encourage certain behaviours, but
the values are what sustain the systems: The
values presented by politicians and citizens.
Institutions.
Institutions establish a stable framework
for action, both citizens who vote for
politicians, and politicians who manage
political institutions. However, Institutions
are tools and dependent variables; so we
must find the hands that handle this tool to
discover thecause of the ills in Ukraine.
Values.
Here is where the problems of the
Ukrainian institutions lie: in their lack of
values, and the lack of implementation
of values that were established in the
laws. Reality does not exist in the words
promulgated. Here is where the problems
start, and not exclusively in a matter
of policy, because problems are the
consequence of society. Politicians are a
reflection of a certain society, so, people
should initiate the political change.
If all people strive for the common
good, to end corruption, to be valiant and
efficient in jobs, to create harmony where
there is discord, and intervene as many
times as they can in political affairs. It is
the strength of a people, which can force a
change in policy: Strong and participatory
citizens are the key. There are no messiahs,
there should only be people.

(Kiev). These federal subjects get adjusted

to Ukraines history. In this way, there
would be 4 Federal Regions with similar
size and population, and 1 Federal City.
So, it is possible to create a Federal Senate
composed of 13 members: 3 from each
region (3x4=12) and 1 in the Federal city, in
all, 13 federal senators. Thus, Ukaine would
have three political levels: Federal, Regional
and Local. At this point, I must note that,
for me, political institutions can represent
a larger or smaller number of people, but
any attack from one institution to another,
is an attack of some people against others,
and this constitutes a lack of solidarity and
even, despotism.
In this way, I understand that this
proposal would be consistent with the
idiosyncrasies of all Ukrainian territory,
which is in no way homogeneous. But,
on the other hand, I dont understand
how differences would carry a negative
value among the European peoples, and
why because of this, we must continue
the Jacobin policy of creating nationalstates as if we were the bourgeoisie of the
nineteenth century. Cultural differences in
Europe are not a sin, but a blessing that has
been systematically attacked by materialist
ideologies of the nineteenth century
onwards.
Thus, the Central Federal Region would
Regional distribution
match with the original Ukraine, the South
Federal organization.
Federal Region would correspond to the
I propose the transformation of the territory conquered by the Russian Empire
current Ukrainian unitary State into a (in 18th century) with the help of Cossacks,
Federal System, whereby: Ukraine would the Western Federal Region would
be composed by 4 Federal Regions (West, correspond to the area most influenced by
Center, East and South) and 1 Federal City center-european kingdoms, and the East
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K AT E H O N

Federal Region would correspond to the

area of Don Cossacks, which also is very
influenced by Russia and inhabited by many
Russians. Finally, the Federal City of Kiev
would have this honour in recognition of its
historical character, and also, as an area of
high population density.
Up until here, I have defined the regional
level, regarding the federal power. Now, I
will address the question of the structure of
regional political institutions. I understand
that each federal region would have a
Parliament of 100 seats and a Regional
President elected by the citizens; for its part,
the Federal City, as local level coincides with
the regional, would have a single assembly
composed of 30 seats, but, the mayor would
be elected by the citizens.
Federal electoral system.
After presenting the proposal, I must
specify all points to offer a credible and
functional project. So, now I will explain the
magnitude of seats and the way of choosing
these political institutions.
Each Federal Region showing the
character of equality between them will elect
three senators and the Federal City will elect
1 senator. So, I understand that a Federal
Senate composed by 13 representatives is
enough to initiate the chamber of territorial
representation of the new Ukraine.
One part would be the chamber of
citizen representation (Verkhovna Rada)
and I understand that circumscription
there should be unique for all Ukraine.
To force, in this way, a political strategy
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

across Ukraine and not to seek support in a

concrete way and forget the rest.
The duration of mandates may be 4
years1, and elections to the Ukrainian
institutions will be in different years (not all
at the same time, but, this will be explained
after). Thus, with a legislature of 4 years,
there would be an election each year in
different institutional levels2.
The federal regional electoral system
will consist of simultaneous elections for
the unicameral regional assembly and
the regional presidency. In the case of the
Federal City, local elections were never held
by the coincidences of circumscriptions.
Population tables3.
In these tables we can see that the 4
Federal Regions have a population of around
10 million inhabitants, and the Federal City
has nearly 3 million inhabitants. Thus, the
proportion of people to senators would be
approximately equal for all, being 1 senator
for each 3 million of Ukrainians. I said
before, I understand that 13 senators is the
minimum acceptable number, which could
1 In order to create an atmosphere of trust
between citizens and politics, I would put in the
constitution that would be first 2 legislatures of 4
years, and before starting the third legislature, there
will have to be a vote by referendum and approved
by at least, 55% of citizens, the following legislatures
are raised to 5 years, and this would be effective
for all institutional levels of Ukraine. If it is not
approved, it could be proposed another referendum
to raise the legislatures to 5 years, later 6 years after
the preceding referendum.
2 In elections, should pass at least 350 days
from each election. Because it could happen that
an election is on 31 December and next day on 1
January, elections on another level.
3 Data extracted from: http://database.ukrcensus.
gov.ua/PXWEB2007/eng/news/op_popul_e.asp

[143]

TOTAL POPULATION BY REGION

WEST
CENTER
EAST
SOUTH C. of KIEV
10.653.237 10.426.432 9.220.322 9.646.095 2.890.836

be increased, but it has to be in an equal

proportion for all federal subjects.
The way to peace4
Creating peace.
This objective is simple to explain and
hard to build: Create a path towards peace,
first in the Donbass and after in the rest
of Ukraine. To do this, everything must
be progressive, creating the conditions for
peace through reconstruction of confidence
between people and governments, while
rebuilding the areas devastated by war.
Special zone of Donbass.
The armed conflict is there. It is not
going to be solved if it is ignored. It
must be supported in full, and for this to
work everybody must learn to build and
compromise. Thus, if the federal project
will start in Ukraine, Donbass (oblasts of
Donetsk and Lugansk) would need to be
established as a Special Zone in order to
propose a concrete deal aimed at the ending
of the conflict and to ensure that conditions,
which can potentially start another conflict,
4 A project of nationhood for all Ukrainians, to
avoid constant self-destruction.

[144]

are removed. This cannot be done by force,

but by understanding Ukraines reality.
Peacekeeping Operations.
In other parts of the world, where
conflicts and wars have taken place,
peacekeeping operations have been initiated
by international forces. That took place
because these operations are theoretically
impartial;they are only concerned with
maintaining and ensuringconditions for
peace. In spite of these operations it was not
always useful for making peace, and what
could be the better option to Donbass is
its own process for carrying out the peace
process. So, I am going to develop it in these
lines.
Withdrawal of all military forces.
This point is fundamental and common
to all peace operations. If there are no
military forces in the area, in theory, there
will be no fighting. Therefore, the first thing
is to establish a safe corridor between two
sides, and to have an impartial force to
ensure border peace.
Secondly, all military forces should
withdraw
simultaneously
and
the
empty space must be occupied by more
peacekeepers, who will be in charge of
police duties while conducting the peace
process. The withdrawal of Ukrainian
troops will reach the administrative border
of Donetsk and Lugansk oblast; and the
withdrawal of Novorossias militias must
reach (but not cross) the Russian border.
In both cases, the vacating military forces
should focus on specific areas and known
areas to both sides, and they should be
controlled by the peacekeeping force.
So, both sides would know where their
troops are and where the rival troops are.
Furthermore, the peacekeeping force has a
duty to warn both sides when they make an
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K AT E H O N

unauthorized movement of troops on those

bases for withdrawal.
Establishing a peacekeeping force.
As I stated in the previous point, the first
task is to form a peacekeeping force that
performs the policemens work, while the
peace process is performed. Now, you will
ask yourselves: What peacekeeping force?
Who will provide the forces, who will pay
their salaries and who will provide them
the necessary resources?
I think these key questions have their
answer in the creation of the Peacekeeping
Force for Donbass (PFD), consistingof
the Belarusian military, because I
understand that Belarus would be the most
impartial5,havingcloser historical ties with
Ukraine and Russia.
Similarly, the peacekeepers could
come from the military forces of other
neighboring States which aim to garner a
peaceful resolution, like Spain, whose army
has gained a great international reputation
for its peacekeeping activities since 1989.
In any case, regardless of the origin of
the peacekeepers, the second problem is:
who paysthe salaries and provides materials
to the peacekeeping force? As the Donbass
is divided in two zones, which we can call
east and west; in my opinion, the expenses
of the west zone should pay Ukraine6, and
5 As far as possible, in relation to the neighbors of
Ukraine.
6 Or the US and EU, because, since the beginning
of the protests in Kiev, always showed full support
for Ukraine, and this is a good time to demonstrate
this full support for Ukraine and peace.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

the expenses of the east zone should pay

Russia7.
Authority of Vigilance and Control.
Mutually sincere communication and
cooperation is the basis for building trust to
hold the peace process. Therefore, I propose
the creation of an Institution, an Authority
of Vigilance and Control (AVC), to monitor
and control the steps of the peace process. I
further propose the creation of a tripartite
committee between the Popular Republics8,
the Ukrainian Government and the
Peacekeeping Force.
This body would be composed of 8
full members and 8 observer members, as
follows:
Full members: 2 delegates from the
Popular Republics, one designated in the
DPR and another designated in LPR. 2
Ukrainian delegates, one for Donetsk oblast
and one for Lugansk oblast, the choices are
made by the Ukrainian government which
proposes 2 candidates to be elected by
absolute majority in the Verkhovna Rada
or directly proposed and elected by simple
majority in Verkhovna Rada. And 4 delegates
of the peacekeeping force, of which 2 will be
allocated in the eastern zone, and another 2
allocated in the western zone. In each zone,
1 must go to the Donetsk Oblast and 1 to
the Lugansk Oblast. And their choice comes
from a military order of peacekeepers,
because they are militaries and they have
a hierarchy of commandment. The aim of
these 8 delegates is to take decisions by an
7 Since they must also prove that support for the
Russian population this should not be limited to the
rapid return of the Crimea to Russia strategic, but
also fully concerned about the Russian population
of Donbass.
8 They constituted their own Donetsk Popular
Republic (DPR) and Lugansk Popular Republic
(LPR).

[145]

absolute majority (although unanimous

decisions would be more suitable), on
measures to take in the peace process and
they must always be symmetrical.
Observer members: From the west
(European Union) and from the East
(Russian Federation) should designate
4 delegates each, and composed in the
same manner, i.e.4 representatives of the
peacekeeping force. The aim of the observer
members is to inform all full members of
the development of the peace process or
suggest the proper steps to take.
The long way: Creating confidence.
To be honest, trust is like virginity; when
it is lost, it will never return. Even so, there
is still a possibility of regaining confidence
by means ofa constant and sincere working
relationship among its many parts. Only in
this way can one rebuild confidence.
Why do I value confidence as an
important element in the peace process?
Simply because confidence is the foundation
of all relationships. No couple can feel
appreciated or mutually loved without
having a sense of confidence. Therefore,
to make a successful peace process, all the
efforts of both sides must aim to create the
necessary mutual confidence.
Without peace, there is no future.
If the peace process fails, it will
notestablish the necessary conditions for
a peaceful and prosperous population in
either the Donbass or the rest of Ukraine.
Without peace, there is no future, because
there will be a divided Ukraine and many
Ukrainians will be exiled. It will always be
a fractured country.
Political Base.
About the current Ukrainian State
it is said that it is a failed state, which is
harmful for the society for various reasons.
[146]

First, people cannot have a normal life;

they cannothave normalcyliving within
a context of uncertainty and instability.
Second, it is a failed State, therefore society
cannot develop, and institutions are not
consolidated. This is becausepolitics and
the State are limited to be the arms with
whom oligarchies pillage the country and
never come to meet their natural functions,
which is to lead and manage the countrys
resources in the pursuit of social and
economic prosperity 9. And thirdly, a failed
State is always doomed to destruction.
For these reasons, I believe that it is
important for this system to have a stable
and fair base. A fair base must exist within
the entire political system. Finally, I must
add here other values, which are found in
great works: Patience and perseverance.
Maybe the results cannot be seen in a day,
but day by day we can appreciate the results
of a job well done; this would be like taking
care trees, results appear after much time
has elapsed, but all of your care will be seen
someday. And in political systems the same
is true; this is a distance race, not a fast race.
Development.
In logical continuation to the previous
point, if we have the institutions and values,
and the process of peace, we must seek the
development of the normal functioning of
political institutions, without alterations or
interruptions due to any kind of interference.
I refer in this respect to the oligarchies,
which spread corruption throughout the
polity, and afterward they proceed to trash
the entire society with more corruption.
Citizens should know their responsibilities
and what responsibilities they have to
demand of their politicians. The oligarchy
9 Under the course of electoral preferences that
citizens show in elections, referenda and polls.

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K AT E H O N

and corruption will not disappear by their

own will, but they will fall by the force of
the people who understand their reciprocal
dutiesand the overall legacy which they are
leaving for their descendants.
So, if today there is no political effort and
struggle made by the people, then a country
with a worthy legacy can never exist. If
Ukrainians do not try today, existence of
their country will always be questioned,
it will be a weak country, controlled by
manipulative, selfish and thieving elites.
And worst of all, it will be an abandoned
country because its people will emigrate
instead of strive to create a future better
without the yoke that grips them today.
Own sovereignty.
Another typical aspect in failed states
is the lack of their own sovereignty. Their
people are not sovereign, and the oligarchy
that commands is in the service of foreign
powers. The sovereignty, the values and
the livelihood of the political system,
come from the same place: The people.
All Ukrainians are needed for this work;
whereas the oligarchy is the destroyer of
popular sovereignty.
Once the people are sovereign and
responsible for themselves, institutions
will be able to ensure the welfare of all
Ukrainians. This is the first part in achieving
sovereignty, since in todays world, no
State can assert itself, and everyone needs
partners in the world. Here, the Ukrainian
people should choose reason and not wild
passion.
Thus, partners are needed in the world,
but the world is made of strong States which
seek for themselves what they tend to deny
to weak States. Therefore, the sovereignty
of the Ukrainian people is even more
important because, if they are strong and
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

they country is strong, they will cease to

be pushed around by foreign countries.
Moreover, this could be the first great
example of another possible world one
which turns its back on war games and
foreign influence.
Equality of Ukrainians.
Letus now mention another point which
is a topic of great conflict in Ukraine, at least
since 1991. Looking from the perspective of
the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union,
the Ukrainian territory and latter State,
received huge extensions of land and people
who lived there.
Russians in the east and south; Poles,
Hungarians and Romanians in the west.
There are many ethnicities in the Ukrainian
State which left the Soviet Union10 in 1991.
Why have the leaders of the Ukrainian
State (since 1991) gone to great lengths to
create a nation-state in the nineteenthcentury bourgeois style of Western Europe?
More specifically: Why have those leaders
wanted to create a nation-state that destroys
everything which comes out of the cultural
planning of those leaders? The result of the
homogenizing policy from Kiev, has been
the flight of Crimea (which had already
tried in 1991-1994) as well as the oblasts of
Donbass.
I will tell you a secret (which is really
not so secret): when a state tries to impose
a uniform version for all the people, do
you know who is the first victim? The
same culture that is trying to impose itself
on others, because this culture is denied
the right to be intrinsically its own. The
Ukrainian culture is believed to be unique,
and must be imposed throughout the
territory of the Ukrainian State. Thus, the
10 With the exception of the Crimean peninsula
which is undoubtedly a part of Russia.

[147]

first victim of the Ukrainization is the

Ukraine itself. About this, we know much
in Spain, when some governments tried
to impose the Castilian language, the first
victim was Castilla, and, when others tried
to impose their own regionalism, such as in
Catalonia and Galicia, the first victim were
their own regions, in which was denied
the diverse and deep rooted character,
and imposed a falsehood as a common
element. And, Do you know what there
are in common with all those impostors?
In which the only thing they care about
is getting power, no matter the cost, they
play with the same people that they assure
to love. To my disgrace, I see the same in
Ukraine.
What would be the solution to this
serious problem? Simply, no government,
individual or political groups, can impose
or threaten with imposing the objective of
persecuting certain parts in Ukraine. To
do this, it all starts with the appreciation
of what really Ukrainians, and what there
is in Ukraine. Every culture is a precious
treasure that cultivates and leaves as a
legacy to future generations. Cultures are
not a nuisance, the culture is our identity;
it is what makes us unique. But materialist
despots see the culture only like a hindrance
to mold in their own will, and transform it
in the myth that sustains this regime of lies.
Electronic voting and referendums.
Electronic voting is useful to reduce costs
and make the electoral process much faster
and, in theory, more exact the electoral count.
Although the manipulation of electronic
voting and voting ballot is equally possible.
In the short term, electronic voting can be
expensive to buy and establish the computer
equipment and system security that should
be done and distributed throughout the
[148]

country. However, the establishment of

electronic voting in the medium and long
term, is more cheaper in production costs,
counting and destruction of ballots; besides,
electronic voting facilitate the convening of
referendums by any institutional level on
matter within its competence.
Necessary constitutional changes.
All constitutional changes are necessary
to implement and sustain the changes. Now
I am going to develop them, but I am not
going to deal on legal procedures but the
results to reach.
Establishment of the Federation.
First, we should establish a federal
organization with the 4+1 (4 Federal
Regions and 1 Federal City). Specifying
names, and limiting them territorially. As
we saw: Federal Regions, West, Central,
East, and South, and the Federal City of
Kiev.
Clarifying the institutional levels.
Secondly, there must be established three
institutional levels: Federal, Regional and
Local. Each one, with its own division of
powers, in the east, with its own executive
and legislative power, and also, with its levels
in the scale of Ukrainian judicial power. As
well, the federal level for the whole Ukraine
is the Verkhovna Rada and the Federal
Senate as legislative power, and President
of Ukraine as executive power. Each federal
subject has his own Unicameral Parliament
and its Regional President; and after the
Local level with his local assembly elections
and the direct election of the mayor.
Distribution of Powers.
First, I understand that it is necessary the
establishment of a logic to the distribution
of powers between the different levels. Thus,
we could use this logic for other cases and
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K AT E H O N

this will not be an ad hoc case. Then, it can

set the rule that: Federal jurisdiction, which
affects the whole territory or supposes an
international action; and it is jurisdiction
of the federal subjects, which only affects its
own territory.
Thus, I am going to establish an outline
of competencial distribution in the project
of Ukrainian Federation.
Exclusive competences of the Federation:
Political
institutions
(legislative
and executive) and the Federal
Administration and Staff regulation.
Judicial
institutions
and
the
administration necessary for its good
working.
Land borders, airspace and territorial
sea, exclusive economic zone and
continental shelf.
Federal Police, Army, purchase and sale
of weapons, ammunition and military
equipment.
Federal budgets and general economic
project, customs and excise, the
monetary system (currency exchange,
issuing money).
International Relations, foreign policy,
international treaties, foreign trade.
Identification documents for national
and foreigners in Ukraine and issuing of
Passports.
Competencies-Framework11:
Rights, freedoms and duties of citizens
and foreigners.
Rights legislation: Criminal, Civil,
Commercial, Administrative litigation.
Environment and natural resources.
Public Works, infrastructure and power
plants.
Health services and social protection.
Education, Culture, Research and
Tourism.
Exclusive powers of the federal subjects:
Political
institutions
(legislative
and executive), and the creation of

administrative institutions that they

deem necessary.
Creation and management of a regional
police, which will support the functions
of the federal police.
Regulating the use of existing languages
in federal subjects, different of Ukrainian,
and in any case, all languages will public
spaces and their learning will be offered
in the educational system of the federal
subjects.
Cultural and tourist promotion and
scientific research in the area of federal
subject.
Request from federal subjects to federal
level for making, checking or abolishing
a law in a concrete topic.
Free assignation of budget in the matters
within its competence.
Exclusive powers of the municipalities:
Political
institutions
(legislative
and executive), and the creation of
administrative institutions that they
deem necessary.
Request from municipalities to their own
federal subjects for making, checking or
abolishing a law in a concrete topic.
Free assignation of budget in the matters
within its competence.
Shared competence:
The tax system and economic
Independence. This system can operate
as follows: All taxes collected, go to the
same fund (for all Ukraine) and then
distributing in this way:
For the Federation: 30% of the budget.
For the Federal Subjects: 40% of the
budget, to deliver depending on the
population of each Federal Subject.
11 This means that the federation establishes the For Municipalities: 30% of the budget,
legal framework, or in other words, the mnimum
to deliver also depending on their
legal to each area that should be regulated with
specific and concrete laws of the federal subjects.
population.
KATEHON

Autumn 2015

[149]

Competences not assigned:

Competences not allocated, will be
assigned in a competition framework.
Legal principles.
The legal principles mark us the binding
values on the subjects of law, that here those
principles will be political principles. At
this point, I am going to make a list and
definition of values that could be legal
principles in Ukrainian politics.
Equality: Legal and Real equality of all
Ukrainians, everyone is equal and no one is
better or worse than others.
Respect: Respect the dignity of all
Ukrainian citizens, both citizens and
institutions.
Friendliness: To avoid the confrontation,
and seek the cordiality between citizens
and institutions mutually.
Solidarity: Mutual solidarity among
all Ukrainians. All Ukrainians and their
institutions must worry and care for
themselves reciprocally.
Welfare: Both citizens and political
institutions should aim to achieve wellbeing for themselves and their citizens.
Exemplarity: First, exemplarity of
politicians to citizens. Politicians must
be the best example of effort and honesty.
Second, citizens must also be that example,
and if politicians are not exemplar, people
must require that exemplarity from the
politicians.
Hierarchy: There are higher laws and
lower laws, being in this order from top to
bottom: Constitution, federal laws, laws of
the federal subjects, laws of municipalities.
Thus, the lower laws cannot contradict
the superior, and if it occurs, it would
[150]

be expelled from the legal system by the

competent court.
Competence: The competences assigned
exclusively to an institutional level, cannot
be regulated by another level. Neither the
federation or any other federal subject or
municipality. And the competent court
must regulate this. Although a federal
subject could approve a temporary law
in a competence-framework, in case of
Federation had not made a law.
Start-up and functioning
of the federal system
Here I will exemplify the functioning
of the system with all that is was said
previously, to be clearly see and understand
the values and institutions that I think
as a good option for Ukraine to have a
prosperous future, in addition to the peace
process in the Donbass.
First, it must be undertaken the process
of peace. Without that, there is no real
possibility to undertake political, social and
economic changes throughout Ukraine. So,
this one is the first and necessary step, if the
peace process is not actually started, neither
can start the process of political change.
But, if we assume that the peace process
will begin now, and the sides will put good
faith to end peacefully the conflict, it will
begin to discuss how to start the new system
under name of Ukrainian Federation, but
in a spirit of carrying out further necessary
and positive transformation.
Thus, it would have convened a
constituent assembly elections, and the
Verkhova Rada12 which would be elected, it
12 To avoid a power vacuum in the presidency
of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada may be elect by
absolute majority one of iths members to act as
interim president.

Autumn 2015

K AT E H O N

will create a project of federal constitution13.

The constitution must be submitted to the
referendum and must be approved by at
least of 55% of all citizens eligible to vote. If
it is not approved, the Verkhovna Rada must
reform the project, taking further demands
and needs of Ukrainians. It would submit to
referendum again, and would be approved
by 55% of Ukrainians. It fails again, it would
be presented a system of national opinion
polls to ask for what Ukrainians want and
make another constitutional project and
after submit it to referendum.
Once approved, the process should
continue. With the constitution approved
by the Ukrainians, will immediately launch
the election at federal level, in order to
compose the new federal presidencies and
federal assemblies, and in this path, it can
start the adoption of exclusive competences
and make its part in the exhaustive
regulation of competences-framework.
CONCLUSIONS
This is definitely the hardest part. What
can be concluded? Well, this work presents a
series of proposals that seek to create peace
in Ukraine, as well as the establishment of
a just political system, which deals with
equality and respect for all Ukrainians, and
is able to provide a prosperous and peaceful
future for all Ukrainians.
To carry out these changes, as necessary
as urgent, can only be done through hard
13 To create this Project of constitution, the
arrogance and the despotism should not exist.
If Ukraine really wants to change, and to be a
country and not a land in conflict, then, coexistence,
cooperation, good example and trust, must be values
which residing in politics.

KATEHON

Autumn 2015

work by all sides in the conflict. In addition,

the people of Ukraine must take their
place, claiming a just politics, and verify
that the promises, are accomplished facts.
Remember the Cossacks who are very
revered in Ukraine, if they were free, it was
because they were a community formed by
people dedicated to political affairs, and
also they looked for the common good, and
were not isolated individuals who are led by
foreign trends and sustained oligarchs who
talked about patriotism while executing the
biggest robberies against all Ukrainians.
I must also say that I dont know how
useful may have what is written here. Just
I understand that it is the duty of every
European, that we must ensure the peace
and the brotherhood of all Europeans.
We must resolve conflicts peacefully,
but without falling into suicide pacifism;
weapons must be prepared to fight against
the real enemies of Europeans and not to
fight against brothers. Still fresh in memory
is Yugoslavias war, and a similar situation
and the same mistakes are happening in
Ukraine.
I guess also that will come much critics
telling that a Spaniard doesnt know what is
really happening in Ukraine. It could be true.
But it could also be false, because in Spain we
have always lived in a permanent conflict.
Our twentieth century is not very different
from Ukraine. We had wars, dictatorships,
rise and fall of different regimes. Any
Spaniard knows very well the problems that
exist in Ukraine, because in Spain we have
a majority of population that is the most
selfish and individualistic, allowing the
corrupt government and greedy oligarchy,
and also allow or encourage the creation of
a false and twisted image what Spain is. We
had a transition from the last dictatorship
[151]

to a supposed democracy; many people

say that transition was exemplary, I think
that it was not absolutely exemplary, many
important issues were left unresolved, as
was the idea of Spain as a living country and
common project of all its peoples; and lack
of genuine popular community, and with
greedy politicians, now we have constant
crisis in which is risen the question, what
is Spain? For all this, yes, in Spain we know
very well what is happening in Ukraine, we
know the price of things badly done since
longer time than Ukraine.
Finally, I invite all Ukrainians to have
a thought on whether it is worthwhile to
think about peace, to think about a better
future, to think about being citizens of a
just community where all Ukrainians take
care mutually. Think on it, everybody, if
getting this tremendous achievement has
enough value to leave behind all the insults
and aggressive actions. And if it does, then
move toward the future, from east to west,
where everybody is eager for equally.
Epilogue
Antonio Machado, Spanish poet of the
20th century, wrote a speech in the early
months of the Spanish Civil War (19361939), of which I emphasize this paragraph14
that speaks of and old expression and its
origin comes from the ancient laws of
Castilla, and it continues being a simple and
understandable knowledge, which should
never forget:
Nobody is more than anyone, says
and adage ofCastilla. Perfect expression of
modesty and pride! Yes, nobody is more
than anyone because to nobody is given
to outdo everyone, since in all there are

somebody who wins, in circumstances

of place and time. Nobody is more than
anyone, because and this is the deepest
sense of the phrase-, however much it worth
a man, shall never a value higher than the
value of being human. Thus speaks Castilla,
a people of lords, who has always despised
the toff.
Bibliography.
Constitution of the United States (1787). [Accesed
in: 03/08/2015].
http://www.archives.gov/espanol/constitucion.html
Fundamental Law of Germany (1949). [Accesed in:
03/08/2015].
https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80206000.pdf
Russian Constitution of 1993. [Accesed in:
03/08/2015].
http://web.archive.org/web/20120921121800/
http://www.spain.mid.ru/constitucion_sp.html
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14 Fuente: Machado, Antonio.Sobre la defensa

de la difusin de la cultura.

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