Aleksandr Dugin

Today in Russia the lack of national idea is felt very acutely. On the one hand, everyone understands it is necessary, on the other hand, it's not that easy to offer something reasonable, something new or something convincing yet. For many years I have been thinking over this problem and poring at a problem of national idea and recently (while analyzing the events in the world, visiting different European countries) one thought crossed my mind – concerning the way to manage the issue of national idea. I will express it as an offer, as ahypothesis and then probably the society or, above all, the State will decide to accept it or not. The idea is that we need to occupy Europe!

To Conquer! And annex!

Here firstly many people would say: well, what is it, what does this idea mean: to conquer, to annex, to include in own borders, to win? How comes? And, on the other hand, after this initial hostility is over, or indignation, or the feeling that something wrong is said or thought. Or maybe it's a wrong time, a wrong epoch; and indeed, what does it mean to invade Europe? When it will take place, well, it is necessary to give people the opportunity to groan, shout there.

Liberals will say: well, we have always assumed that and that's why you have behaved in such a way... And when this wave will come down, squealing agents of the West, the fifth column, other forces of the kind and the bewilderment of patriots who, in general, understate the agenda in order to be saved, if only to survive, that's when the indignation wave is over, one might think: why not? And then remember, for example, the projects of our great poet Fyodor Tyutchev, who appeared with this concept in the 19th century.

He believed that the Russian empire must conquer Europe, that the Russian tsar (=monarch) must be the pan-European king and in such a way to recreate the Byzantine Empire. You can give them a high degree of autonomy within the framework of the global Roman Empire or the Third Rome. Orthodoxy may perfectly come to an agreement with the conservative Catholic circles.

We won't forbid Catholics to practice their religion on our imperial territory, as it was in earlier periods of imperial unity, let's say from the era of Constantine the Great to Charlemagne, and having a certain level of autonomy, Western Europe admitted the unity of the Byzantine emperor anyway.

On the other hand, the same imperial idea can be seen in Nietzsche's works. Nietzsche said: let Europe be like Greece under the protection of Rome, let Russians conquer Europe. Nietzsche have already said it from the position of the Germans. It will be much better, then we can focus on the development of our culture, our national identity, and we will not take care of the strategic issues. Russian troops put their guard, their patrols on our territory, they will just protect us, defend us and we'll rise as a unique cultural background.

In other words, there are representatives of this idea in Europe also.

Oswald Spengler thought the same way. A friend of Merezhkovskii, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, who admired Dostoevsky, shared the same opinion. In fact, the European elite (to a great extent) considered the prospect of surrendering Europe to Russia. Strong Russia, conservative Russia, self-confident Russia, Russia on the rise. In other words – we are sure to have a fifth column (pro-Russian) in Europe. These are the European intellectuals who want to strengthen their own identity.

You can look at the armed forces in Europe. And these are almost zero. Of course there is NATO, but the thing is that NATO doesn't meddle in harsh military operations. We can see it through the examples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We clashed with their friend Saakashvili and we emerged the winners. There was a lot of noise and some "water ballet" in the Black Sea – American cruisers, NATO cruisers, so what? South Ossetia and Abkhazia are ours! Or our own!

So, we will offer Europe to be itself. We will just establish a protectorate over them all!

So there is also a question that Europe is militarily weak. Of course we do not need to fight. And why would we fight with weapons? Let's fight the soft power. Let us offer to protect Europe from gay marriage, from FEMEN, from Pussy Riot and save Europe from itself (=save Europe from Europe). After all, Europe, European consciousness is decomposing and all sane Europeans understand that after a while Europe will turn into an abyss. There will be just enclaves of degenerates, archaic emigrants who simply destroy the European identity. They need to do something about it, and look they are like Breivik – they already shoot their own citizens. So they start to destroy themselves because they don't understand what to do. So let's tell them: this is under our protectorate, we will provide protection! You see our Pussy Riot serve time in prison! And we will put into prison yours! You have FEMEN roistering in churches; they quickly get a bludgeon in the snoot here and are sent to garbage trucks, which is their historic homeland! Then Ukraine or Georgia will havenowhere to hurry and while going to Europe, they will come to us.

Consequently Europe benefits from this Russian protectorate. Secondly, in fact Europe hates itself so much, repents so much in front of everybody, in fact Europe is tired of going down this path of nihilism. And we'll say: we have no complaints for you. It's enough to repent! We will establish the order! You aren't able to cope with emigration, but we will handle it. Well, the solution for immigrants is the following – a suitcase, train station, go back home! Of course we will have to tighten our migration laws a little bit too. But anyway the situation we have stands no comparison with what is happening in Europe. Europe is simply disappearing right in front of our eyes. Therefore, we are the Indo-European people. We can also remind that in this case we have a wide variety of other ethnic groups; we have the experience of the present, effective multiculturalism. So those who are afraid that they will be evicted immediately, don't worry, we will not evict them immediately. We'll offer them a system of adaptation measures in order to stay in our global Eurasian empire – empire that includes Europe. Another example of absolutely perfect use of our Eurasian cultural diversity in Europe, we will show what real tolerance is. Not by attitude, not as indifference to strangers, but as integration of a variety of societies and cultures into one civilization.

Then, our citizens will be satisfied, because the visa issues will be solved automatically. There won't be visa control questions and any borders. The EU will simply enter the Eurasian Union as a part of it. And then our pro-westerners will be completely satisfied also, because we will be in Europe. Russia will become Europe to some extent, because the borders will not exist. European values may move toward us if the Europeans save them, because these European values in their present post-modern terms, are exactly the thing that is killing Europe. So actually, we will introduce some patriotic censorship in the European media. Not liberal as now, when different levels of liberal newspapers are checked ten thousand times whether there is any non-liberal element.

In other words, there is a real totalitarian racist, Western, Eurocentric liberal censorship. We will cancel this censorship, give people the opportunity to express their opinions freely, but we will introduce censorship, for example, anti-nihilistic censorship, censorship that will deter or simply locate nihilistic manifestations of the human soul. Moreover, because we have had the experience of such an expansion in Europe during the Soviet era, when our Communist Party (Third International,

Comintern, the Cominform) achieved very powerful results... in penetrating the parliaments of European countries. Yes, it was an instrument of our foreign policy.

Today the situation has changed, we are no longer communist countries, but we can find other partners. And then, if we now put national ideas – the annexation of the European Union in the Eurasian Union, expansion in Europe – we can actually get together around a great purpose. Imagine, then, to join Europe! This, this is – in the Russian style! If we are told to increase the GDP by 0.1-3 percent, accommodate migrants, or vaccinate dogs – it is certainly cool, but it's not in Russian style.

That's why we don't do anything of this. We are not going to increase any GDP, because we don't care about it. Russians mobilize for a great purpose. To annex Europe – is a great goal. By the way, Russian Westerners of the 19th century, who admired the West – how did they admire it? They wanted to adopt Western technology for Russia to become powerful and great, so that Russia could win the West – let us also appeal to the same Westernism.

You like the European technology – let's, let us take it. How do we get it? They will give it in dribs and drabs – transfer one transistor in exchange for oil, for gas.

No, let's take it all together, all European high technologies at a time, it is simple: we grab Europe and we have all the high technology! Here it is -development, modernization, if we wanted it! Here it is – the Europeanization of our society! Peter I (the Great) opened a window to Europe and what did he show from there? He showed... He simply moved out the cannon (gun), and began to participate in European politics: launched Russian soldiers and Cossacks in the center of Europe. Bistro, we left such traces. Therefore, it seems to me that this throw to the West is extremely important now. This Eurasian idea, and, if you will, Europeanization and modernization, and national self-affirmation, and a great national project. Well, for example let's take Chubais with nanotechnology? Firstly, the whole country hates him. He was given nanotechnology in order for him not to see anything else, so then he is gone to this microcosm and never shows up. Now they look where the money is gone. There, in nano-micro world. Naturally, this microman, this micro idea, nano-idea, nano people they can't become national ideas. This is nano national idea of some sort. That means we will disappear in the microscopic space, and there will disappear the budget and the money too. We are able to do this easily. So, let's do macro-global macro-fundamental project, for real: the conquest of Europe! Yes, we will have to convince someone. So what? After all, I think we should use not the hard power but the soft power for this, Eurasian soft power, find the fifth column, to form and move forward, lead our people to power in Europe, to strengthen, for example, by means of the Gazprom money – to buy principal advertising agencies in European publications, which have influence on the press, and simply to operate as active as the West acts towards us. In fact – to counterattack. They attack us with their NGOs, with their doctors without borders, cyclists who help rebels and the Wahhabis.

Well, we'll play with them according to their rules. And there is nothing personal. In the paradigm of international politics realism it is quite natural. That is, we started with the fact that this thesis is impossible, absurd, paranoid, we haven't resources, desire, will. Well, these seem to be natural arguments, which are on the surface. But, if you look in a different way, if the discourse is configured differently, then it is a great national idea! Concerning this Solovyov, Vladimir Solovyov, the founder of Russian religious philosophy, thought that it is necessary to unite Russia and Europe, but under the auspices of the Russian Tsar! For some reason it is forgotten.

I gave a speech in a very large Catholic conservative center, there were loads of people, just almost the size of a stadium in Paris recently, and I told them about our things in common. They said: we want to unite with you! They say: you have such a conservative church, you have such a society, it still retains decency unlike our society, we simply admire you!

Let's unite! I say – let's! It is a good idea.

But let us remember those times that really allowed us to be together. It was before Charlemagne. This imperial period from the fourth to the ninth century, when we lived in a single empire, the united Christian world, and then it began to divide, well, it came to the great schism. So, let's unite not on the Catholic, Uniat papal principle, when all of you admit the greatness of the Pope, and everything else you want, let's unite not on this modernist principle, but on the Imperial: single Russian king or Russian President for the whole Europe with the diversity of the Eastern and the Western Church. We can unite, not exactly unite, but cooperate with each other, because we have a common enemy, we are attacked by evil. Their churches and our churches, their culture, and our culture are attacked. And Protestants, especially those that are believers (spiritual), not just nominal Protestants, but those who really accept Christ by faith, Christians, they also won't be against such an association.

Of course they won't, because Russia gives them protection from the kingdom of the Antichrist. That is the mission – the katahon and the mission of the withstanding, the mission of restricting the world of Antichrist and apostasy, which should not enter the society. This is the sense of the empire. We'll just bring back the European, Roman, and Greek Byzantine Empire in their place. We are building an empire. They are building the European Union, a kind of an empire too, but the principles are very miserable. They are weak, for example, if the economy does not work well, they just fall apart! And we'll say: we don't care if the economy is good or bad, we'll do what Russian – Eurasian well – European, Imperial, Roman king or our Russian Roman king will say. So where will you go? Economics – good, but it does not matter! Not by bread alone... the king will remind! The main thing is to respect human dignity. Here it is – a humane, new Roman idea. I think it is a good project for Russia. After all, the most optimal form of presentation of the national idea.