War in Ukraine and Anti-Fascism

In May 2014, directly after the Russian occupation of Ukraine's Crimea, an event called the Holy Alliance took place in the beautiful baroque Liechtenstein City Palace in Vienna. Among the attendees were Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the even more extreme niece of far-right Marine Le Pen, prominent Le Penist party member Aymeric Chauprade, Spanish prince Sixtus Henry Bourbon-Parma, the then-leaders of Austria's Freedom Party Heinz-Christian Strache and Johann Gudenus (both later infamous for their Ibiza vacation scandal), the head of Bulgaria's far-right Ataka party Volen Siderov, and, according to media reports, several Croatian far-right extremists.

The Holy Alliance gathering was funded by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, known for his connections in the Kremlin and the upper echelons of the Russian Orthodox Church. The central theme was defending Europe from "liberal ideas and homosexuality in the name of patriotism and Christian family values." A few months later, a similar meeting with similar topics and attendees took place in Moscow and occupied Donetsk.

The themes of these and similar meetings form the ideological thread connecting the culture wars of far-right politics in many European countries, the U.S., and elsewhere. Though the emphasis and national contexts differ, the culture war always centers around the same discourse: opposition to liberal values, homosexuality, and the perceived decadence of liberal elites.

In the U.S., this narrative is led by Trump and his followers under the MAGA brand, used to ban schoolbooks and curricula, attack the Capitol and constitutional institutions, deny election results, and restrict the rights of women and social minorities. These are policies, ideas, and people whom President Joe Biden recently labelled as "semi-fascism."

In Europe, much is heard about the danger of "cultural Marxism." Former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša explained it in Hungary's Mandiner weekly in December 2020: "The Communist Manifesto from the 19th century states that to create a new world—communism—one must dismantle the nation, family, private property, private education, and religion. Paradoxically, communism failed to achieve this goal despite massive violence and suffering. Therefore, the same objectives are now pursued differently: through mass media, universities, cultural industries, multinational institutions, mass migration, imposed multiculturalism, and certain political parties. Something is happening, skilfully hidden, but anyone who knows history and political concepts can see the direction this is heading."

Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 mostly young people in Oslo and on the island of Utøya, also focused extensively on the fight against cultural Marxism in his manifesto.

The Vienna meeting of the Holy Alliance also featured strong representation from Russia, including philosopher, political scientist, and ideologue Alexander Dugin, who recently came to international attention following the assassination of his daughter and ally Darya Dugina.

Alexander Dugin is certainly a controversial figure, though Western media often exaggerate his direct influence on Putin. Until recently, he was relatively unknown in Russia. Still, even if not a modern-day Rasputin whispering into Putin’s ear, his writings provide insight into the ideology dominating Russian political and intellectual circles and reflected in Putin's policies toward Russia, its "near abroad," and the world—especially the West, the U.S., the EU, and Ukraine.

Dugin outlined his ideas of Eurasia and the Russian world in his 1997 treatise "Foundations of Geopolitics." This work is essential for understanding the backdrop of recent events, including the aggression against Ukraine, showing that the ideas behind Putin’s policies are deeply rooted in Russian political psychopathology and have been since at least the fall of the Soviet Union.

The central thesis of Dugin’s "Foundations of Geopolitics" is the establishment of a Eurasian empire dominated by Russia. He claims ethnic Russians are "bearers of a unique civilization" and a "messianic people" with "universal significance for all humanity." According to Dugin, the Russian people can only serve as the core of a vast empire. "Abandoning the creation of an empire," he warns, "would mean the end of the Russian people as a historical reality and civilizational phenomenon. Such a refusal would be national suicide. Without an empire, Russians will disappear as a nation."

If you can't quite place where these words sound familiar from, try translating them into German. They’d fit in Mein Kampf like a hand in a glove. In 1997, Dugin wrote this about Ukraine: "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical, cultural, or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusivity. Ukraine as an independent state with territorial ambitions presents a huge danger for all of Eurasia, and without solving the Ukrainian problem, it is generally meaningless to speak of Russian geostrategy."

Sound familiar? Putin expanded Dugin's thesis in his pseudo-historical pamphlet "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians." Despite its title, the claim of unity rests on the assertion that Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are one people, and Ukraine is an artificial construct. Putin ends the article with the peaceful assurance that Russia never was and never will be anti-Ukrainian, and that the future of Ukraine should be decided by its citizens. Six months later, he launched the "special military operation."

But the architects of the Eurasian empire did not confine their search for support to the far right. To make real inroads, they had to seek backing across the political spectrum, including the centre. This became especially effective after the attack on Ukraine, in a strategy reminiscent of another key element from Dugin's "Foundations of Geopolitics," which calls for "beheading the Atlanticist anaconda."

Dugin wrote—again, in 1997—that Russian security services and their allies must "provoke all forms of instability and separatism within the borders of the U.S. It is especially important to stir up geopolitical disorder in American domestic politics, to encourage all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, to actively support all dissident movements—extremist, racist, and sectarian groups—thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. At the same time, it would make sense to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."

Everything we've seen regarding attempts to influence U.S. elections and other recent votes, including Brexit, as well as the Holy Alliance meetings and financial support for far-right movements, suggests this plan did not remain a dead letter in Dugin's book.

The attempt to establish a Eurasian empire with Russia at its helm is being carried out not only through direct intervention in American and European societies and politics but through the skilled exploitation of our own weaknesses and mistakes. Putin and his cohort have so far proven to be excellent psychologists. To dismantle Western democracies, they needn’t expose themselves much. Through their bots, they push buttons tied to accumulated frustration and anger, offering each person exactly what they want emotionally—for some, a fight against liberal democratic values, for others, resistance to American policies and influence. They subtly nudge us toward what we instinctively want, and then we continue on our own, some more slowly, others with gusto.

Right-wing populism and Pavlovian anti-Americanism on the political left are both nourished by the mistakes, inconsistencies, injustices, and delusions of Western liberal democracies. These include selfishness, ruthless economic interests, double standards, breaches of international law, and unrestrained neoliberalism, which in recent decades has created countless humiliated, marginalized, and angry citizens in the West. Not only is this worth condemning, but it is largely to blame for why the Kremlin finds it so easy to undermine Western liberal democracies.

We will not save the liberal democratic model without deep geopolitical, societal, and economic changes. But we must recognize the difference between a system that, while imperfect and inconsistent in upholding its own humanistic and democratic values, still contains mechanisms of self-correction—through elections, independent judiciary, media, and civil society—and an ideology and regime that responds to all criticism with violence, proudly promotes nationalism, authoritarianism, hatred of minorities, contempt for democratic values, and dominance over other nations as its mission.

I doubt my writing will change the minds of those who admire Putin’s ruthless challenge to democratic values. But I have a message for those who see him as a solution to the wrongs and injustices perpetrated by the West. I understand, respect, and in many ways share their outrage. But Putin is not the answer. His success would drag us from the rain into the boots of vampiric nationalist imperialism that sustains its power through suppression of democratic rights, aggression, and hatred toward critics and minorities.

These tensions and manipulations reached a boiling point with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. I too dearly wish the bloodshed would end soon. I support peace initiatives. But we must not forget that Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine is fighting for its survival—just as we Slovenians did more than seventy years ago. If anyone, in the name of peace, has trouble supporting a Russian defeat, let them at least support Russia's withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. Any other outcome would mean a victory for the aggressor.

A compromise where the wolf is fed, and the goat is blamed will not bring peace. The outcome of this war will determine the Europe and world we live in tomorrow. It is naive and dangerous to believe that Putin is using energy supplies to pressure Europe merely because of sanctions, and that lifting those sanctions would return things to the way they were. Can anyone really believe that if sanctions were lifted, Putin would again supply energy reliably and at low prices, thereby helping Western countries avoid social instability and crisis—which only play into his hands—while giving them time and opportunity to find alternatives and thus neutralize his most powerful weapon, supported by the invisible hand of the market and catastrophic panic-mongering?

No, my friends. Lifting sanctions would only bring political and moral discredit to the European Union, while allowing Russian policy to selectively support those countries and politicians willing to bow to its aggressive imperialism. The consequences for Europe's future, stability, and security are not hard to imagine.

In this aggression against Ukraine, I stand firmly with the victim—as a democrat, a European, a humanist, and above all, a committed anti-fascist. And I urge those who see Putin's Russia as a solution to the world's accumulated problems and injustices to reconsider. I don’t think they are fascists—on the contrary, I’m convinced they are not. Precisely because of that, I urge those who see themselves as today’s digital Spanish Republicans to critically assess whether, in bashing the EU, sanctions, liberal democracy, military aid to victims of aggression, and in applauding protests organized by the far right and Russian bots in European capitals, they haven’t inadvertently ended up on the wrong side in this never-ending struggle against fascism.