Social Matter

In this article, I want to refute the idea that Russia’s positioning as the defender of traditional values makes it an ally of Western restoration. In particular, similarities between the philosophy of Dugin (4PT) and Western criticisms of progressive Universalism don’t change the fact that the former goes hand in hand with Russia’s geopolitical interests. This is not to say that we must attack Russia as a foe. Nor is it to say that Russian and Western interests are always and forever irreconcilable. But it is to say that Western interests are distinct from Russian ones, and when there is a choice to be made we must take our own side.

In theory, 4PT accepts that Western responses to current ideological norms should come from a framework appropriate to Europe and the Anglosphere. In practice, those who believe that Putin’s traditionalist vanguard is the best hope for Western rebirth go far beyond this. Criticism of the Russian government is met with accusations of serving Western liberal oligarchs. Putin’s achievements become lionized, and his failures ignored. RT becomes trusted as a news source. (Before it appears in the comments, yes it is perfectly possible for both Western and Russian channels to be airing propaganda. One doesn’t exclude the other.) Russian media gives voice to radicals from across the political spectrum. The Kremlin itself condemns European right wing ideologies at the same time that it funds European right wing parties. This can be useful when voices marginalized by the ideological conglomerate of media, academia, and government are able to make their ideas heard. But Russia’s aim is not to create a resurgence of traditionalism, rightist ideas, or the values which strengthen civilization. Russia’s interests are its own, and its interest is dischord which will give it the opportunity to re-establish its sphere of influence. Even if one takes the position that re-establishment of Russian influence is a good thing,  it should be obvious that Russia is not here to restore the West, nor should we expect it to be.

Russia has always had a talent for weaponizing ideology. This goes back before Putin, even back before the hammer and sickle was ever hoisted on Russian soil. After the defeat of Napoleon, Tsar Alexander I went from being a sympathizer of liberalism and Enlightenment to promoting European unity against the Jacobin tide. When the time of the Tsars did come to an end, the internationalism of communist ideology lent the USSR a great advantage. From Asia to Europe and even America, communist faithful were manipulated into supporting the geopolitical interests of the USSR, the total absence of any workers’ utopia presumably going unmentioned. The NKVD and later KGB were skilled in infiltration and sabotage, but a lot of this depended on finding willing cooperators in the organizations they worked in. From State Department official Alger Hiss to the Cambridge Five spy ring, what makes many Soviet agents remarkable is that they weren’t just motivated by personal gain. Many of these people truly believed that they were serving a higher cause for the good of the world by serving the Soviet Union. They believed that the benefits of the West were outdone by its injustices, and that the injustices of the USSR were necessary for the Revolution. The lesson to be learned is this: when the interests of your ideology so systematically line up with the interests of a foreign power, it might be time to ask yourself whether you’re getting played. If you can’t tell who the useful idiot at the table is, it’s probably you.

But this skill at ideology and propaganda hid some important realities about the Soviet Union itself: chiefly, its stagnation. Soviet rule wrenched the country from an agrarian to an industrial position at stunning speed, at the cost of millions of lives from famine and other causes. Soviet institutions incentivized getting to know the right people rather than innovation and productivity. A socialist economy can function to a certain degree, especially when the state can simply move entire populations. But it could never attain the dynamism of the market economies, from American capitalism to European welfare states. The Official Truths of the USSR made for beautiful propaganda, because this propaganda was necessary to obscure the cold and real truths about how the country was actually being governed.

Many Westerners today have become fascinated with Russia. This time they’re people alienated by weak leadership and cultural masochism rather than by capitalist inequality. They see Western media and academia contesting each other to see who can do away with their heritage and self-respect fastest. It takes an impressive level of cognitive dissonance to apologize for every time the West asserted itself while simultaneously using drones to kill innocents a world away. By way of contrast, Putin has restored national pride to the hearts of many Russians. His cultivated image is one of unapologetic masculinity and forthright leadership. Little wonder that he would capture the imaginations of so many Westerners disgusted with their state of affairs. And so the question arises: how much is advancing 4PT, Eurasianism, and Putin propaganda doing for us and how much is it doing for Russia?

And once again, Official Truth obscures trends which still leave Russia fragile as a country. Of course, this isn’t to say that all Official Truths are created equal. Orthodoxy and cultural pride are nowhere so totalitarian as the Soviet system was. Properly framed, they can even aid in implementing solutions to some of these crises. But Russian expansion in geopolitics won’t protect the state from its failures in providing sound governance.

First, demographics. The reproductive crisis of the Russian population has been well known since the end of the Soviet Union. Despite a recent surge in births, official predictions still envision a decline resulting in significant economic and social stagnation. Ironically, modern Western liberalism managed to out-progress Communism, which meant that social mores in the USSR were more traditional than we are used to today. Today, cohabitation is up 30% for women, but a much lower number of these end up in marriages. At this point, the proportion of Russian women who get and stay married has dropped from 60% in 1990 to 34% just six years later. Today, the UN estimates that half of Russian marriages end in divorce. Mortality rates are higher now than they were during the 50’s – an increase which started around a decade later, in large part due to alcoholism. Russian men have born the brunt of this, facing high rates of chronic disease and a life expectancy of 64 years. That’s lower than their male counterparts in Iraq, who make it to around 70 years despite over a decade of war and a fundamentalist death cult controlling a chunk of their territory. Now as others have pointed out, these obstacles are not insurmountable, and Russia is indeed making progress. But if the result of its ideological shift is that resources are devoted to funding expansion rather than moving forward in its social and economic development, these advances could be undermined. Diplomatic pushes as with Egypt and the Eurasian Economic Union bring more opportunities with less costs.

This brings us to investment in the population. If your people don’t feel confident enough to invest in the future, your country won’t have much of one. Two big incentives are health and economic opportunity. Tax cuts and benefits won’t encourage people to reproduce if their children are at risk of dying young and becoming caught up in crime or drug use. If Russian families are to keep reversing the demographic decline, they must be able to reverse their educational and medical decline. This requires stable institutions, which give people the confidence to make significant investments. The great failure of Russian governance since the fall of the USSR has been the inability to stem the tide of corruption. Putin’s supporters paint him as having smashed the corrupt oligarchy. In reality, corruption as a business model has grown under Putin’s rule. The Interior Ministry estimates that the average bribe has grown 26 times between 2008 and 2011, much faster than inflation. It’s a consistent issue with states which focus on ideology and personality cult to the exclusion of sound governance. It’s also what allows Western-funded dissidents to appeal to popular discontent. After the flags stop waving and the ruler returns to the capital, the grind of daily life goes on. The inability to build strong, trustworthy institutions makes the state fragile overall. There will come a day when Russia must make do without Putin. Perhaps he will have a successor ready to go. But should the Russian state take this risk? General health and order was much higher when the Soviet Union was dissolving. Not so today. A power struggle in the Russian state could tear the country apart.

And ultimately, the fate of Russia has dire consequences for the West, be it Left, Right, or divided between the two. Chechen fighters have been a core fighting force for Islamic State since its inception. Russia is a major supporter of Central Asian governments which will have to deal with hardened fighters returning from Iraq and Syria. The terrorist group is already leaving its mark in North Africa. A Russian collapse would give ISIS a free reign to increase its demands for loyalty from Islamists in the region seeking to ascend in the new power vacuum, and it has money, weapons, and experience to tempt them with. And whatever criticisms we have of Russia’s governance, the fact is that it remains a voice in opposition to the equally weaponized ideology which our own elites want to see overtake the entire globe. Whatever future the West has depends on having good political and economic relations with the growing powers of the new millennium. If all goes well, we will be one of them.

If pro-Russian Westerners overstate the glories of Putin, my belief is that Western ideologues will keep doing everything they can to damn Russia for rejecting them. There is a dangerous mixture of fatal hubris and existential terror at the heart of how the West today is being governed. We don’t know what the future map of the West will be. We can guess at ethnic and cultural demographics. We might imagine what ideologies will take over. But what we can say for certain is that our coming generations of leaders must find an antidote to this mixture and ingest it. 4PT and similar ideologies born in Russia have been crafted to secure the future of the Russian world. They will not do the same for the heirs of Western Civilization.

Dugin Eurasia Fourth Political Theory Geopolitics russia