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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
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B
The war in Ukraine has become the primary frame through which Western liberals think about Russia as a threat to global order. And for good reason. There is an important ongoing story about a democratic US ally struggling to resist imperial domination and a post war international system buckling under growing authoritarian pressures. But a closer look at ideological currents in Russia under Putin's leadership deepen the significance of the conflict in Ukraine and point to worrisome parallels between Putin's Russia and reactionary forces in the US and beyond. Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is Eli Karetney. I teach politics at Baruch College and have for years been the Deputy Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate center of the City University of New York. With our director, John Torpy on sabbatical this year, I have the privilege of serving as the Institute's Interim Director, which means I have the honor of hosting this podcast. Here with me today is Marlene Laruel, a French political philosopher and historian of ideas who specializes in the ideological transformations reshaping Russia, Europe and the United States. She is Research professor of International affairs and Political Science at the Elliott School of International affairs at George Washington University where she directs the Illiberalism Studies Program. She has written numerous books, including most recently Ideology and Meaning Making under the Putin Regime, which was published this year by Stanford Press. Welcome, Marlene. Thanks for joining us on International Horizons.
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C
Thank you so much for your invitation.
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B
I want to begin today by discussing how Russia fits into the fascism debate and the discourse on reactionary political movements. But first, can you tell us about the Illiberalism Studies program you direct at gw? How do you understand this concept of illiberalism? The program offers a fascinating definition, which is, if you'll bear with me, I want to read because it really captures in some wonderful specifics what you mean by this concept. So you quote on the program's website. I define illiberalism based on two components. One, a critique of liberalism either as a philosophy or a practice, in combination with a prior experience of liberalism before backlashing against it and two, the promotion of an alternative political project based on five criteria. One, a belief in the primacy of executive power and majoritarianism over and against institutional checks and balances and minority rights. Two, a defense of the sovereignty of the nation state over and against supranational institutions and international law. Three, a call for a realist and transactional foreign policy in a multipolar world based on a civilizationalist interpretation. Four, advocating for the cultural homogeneity of the nation over and against multiculturalism and finally, five, demands for respect for and preservation of traditional hierarchies and values over and against those of Left Progressivism. Wow, that is a wonderful definition that really captures some important ideas. Maybe you can say a little bit more about this and why the term illiberalism, why not reaction or conservatism or some of the other terms being used by thinkers.
- [05:07]
C
Thank you. The idea of that definition was to try to be as specific as possible in the relationship between illiberalism and liberalism and to be large enough so it could encompass what is happening in the different countries. Because of course, all that, all the different elements of that definition can be interpreted in a very radical way or in a much more moderate way. And they can be combined differently depending on each country kind of national political tradition. So I was looking for something that would have this kind of heuristic values. And why the term? Because for me, what illiberalism offer that, for example, populism, which has been one of these kind of concepts very much used at least the last 20 years, what illiberalism offer is that it's reshift the discussion not on Democracy, because usually populism is debated with democracy, but on liberalism. And so it's a way to rethink. Well, maybe the issue is with liberalism or that's the way it's interpreted. And that allowed to shift from regime discussion and the kind of rhetorical aspect, which was the populism. The regime aspect is more the authoritarianism concept really, to ideology and political philosophy. So I think that's what that term is allowing why liberalism and not conservatism or reaction? That I think it's still an open discussion between colleagues interested in the notion. Some consider that in fact, we shouldn't use illiberalism. We should say anti liberalism because it has a longer tradition, or some version of reactionary would work. What I like with illiberalism is the kind of the mirror game with liberalism and the fact that I use it in a very limited, a temporal space. Right. I'd say I use illiberalism to define something that began in the last 50 years. So I don't use illiberalism to describe the interwar period, for example. So you can have conservative, anti liberal, reactionary tradition intellectually and politically. But the political moment of now, I think, is best captured by the illiberalism concept because it forces us to put liberalism into the discussion. But it's still an open floor in a sense. Right. There are different schools debating all these conceptual articulations.
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B
Very interesting. To what extent does illiberalism, in the way you're describing it, grow out of liberalism? Maybe differently than conservatism or reaction or populism, which need not emerge out of a liberal context. But I think in the way you're describing it, liberalism does have that kind of precondition. Is that right?
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C
Absolutely. For me, it's important to see the backlash. You need to go through a liberal experiment one way or another, and then backlash. And I use that as a way to dissociate for more kind of classic authoritarian or dictatorial regime. So, for example, North Korea is not illiberal because he didn't have liberalism. That said, the division is not so obvious because I had discussion with some colleagues working on China and I was saying, okay, China is not illiberal for me, because he didn't have the experience of liberalism. But some colleagues working on China was like, well, you know, depending how you interpret the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party, you could say they had a liberal experience in the 2000, and then they kind of backlash on it. And you can interpret Xi Jinping as a backlash against the Liberal. So you see here also you would have a lot of discussion kind of going on on that. But for me it's really important to see illiberalism as a byproduct of liberalism. Right. It's because liberalism failed or people interpreted the failure or lived through some form of the failure of liberalism promises that they backlash. And the way they backlash is still by referring to some liberal arguments. Right. A lot of political figure who would that we would as scholar identified as illiberal would present themselves as kind of old fashioned liberals. You know, the traditional, you know, the grandfathers liberalism before the leftist progressivisms arrive. And economically a lot of illiberals government are still very liberal or neoliberal economically. So you see the relationship is a complicated one. It's not binary. You're liberal or you're illiberal. The both. Both are really entangled with each other.
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B
And to what extent is the international context at the core of this definition too? Because previous conceptions, political philosophies tended to be more inward focused. And here some of the terms in your definition is oriented towards kind of a rejection of supernational authority, international law, the international system, if we can say the kind of post World War II international system. So to what extent is the international space part of the kind of illiberal project?
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C
I think it's an important element. Indeed. Not everything is kind of focused on domestic issue. The global order. Discussion on the global order has become part of the illiberal project and a large part, I think of attraction for illiberalism, at least in some countries. It was really the key element. We'll be talking about Russia. Russia has been rejecting the liberal international order before, rejecting liberalism as a kind of cultural project, for example. So for some countries, what they interpret as the unfairness of the liberal international system as being a core element. And that makes sense because we live in a much more globalized world than we were 50 years ago. So even those who are in favor of more protectionist exclusivist definition still function in a globalized system, where you have to take a stance on how you envision the international world order.
- [11:40]
B
So shifting to Russia and looking at the situation there, you mentioned that China is a kind of. There's dispute as to whether or not, according to your own terms, China fits into this illiberal framework. Is Putin's Russia a closer fit? And if so, does the kind of post Soviet experiment with liberalism count as this kind of a full encounter with liberalism? Or is there enough of a flirtation there to count that As a kind of experience and then a rejection.
- [12:19]
C
Yeah, I think Russia is a really good example of that because it's probably the country were the first country that really framed illiberalism and the rejection of liberalism in the 2000s. So even before Poland or Hungary, which are usually also kind of a key case studies, precisely because I think in the 90s, the radicality of the transformation that the Russian society had to go through created this kind of backlash because Russia experienced at the collapse of the Soviet Union all the different scripts of liberalism, the change in the world order status of Russia becoming a weakened great power, the arrival of political liberalism, the arrival of economic liberalism, of course, which was really kind of traumatic for every citizen and the kind of cultural openness. So they experienced liberalism in all its version. And then gradually in the 2000, the Putin's regime gradually began to complain about first the liberal world order, then liberalism or liberal democracy as kind of forcing a so called Western model on Russia and then the anti lgbt. So they gradually opened, expanded their backlash on liberalism to finally build now almost kind of ideological framework that refutes the majority of all these scripts of liberalism. So I think Russia is a really good example of how illiberalism has been constructed politically.
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B
Can we get a little bit more in depth into Russia's past, Russia's evolution since the end of the Soviet era thinking here, both in terms of Putin's thinking and the kind of Russian elites more generally. Maybe you can say some more about the ideas and experience that have shaped both Putin's worldview and the mindset of the Russian elite with respect to liberalism and the West.
- [14:39]
C
Yes, so here you have. It's really important indeed to dissociate the Russian elites maybe. And the kind of, the more grassroots perception. Right. The grassroots perception was really shaped and shocked by the arrival of neoliberalism or economic liberalization. That's really in the 90s, that was the big trauma. And so the society had a kind of natural reaction and kind of, you know, situational conservatism where the changes are going so fast that you just want those changes to slow down so you can adapt. So that was a very kind of situational conservatism in a time of big changes. It was not necessarily ideologically framed. I think among the Russian elites that was quite different. Right. So for sure the first shock was probably the loss of great power status and the kind of feeling of humiliation that large part of the Russian elites felt already in the end of the 90s. Right. So already Boris Yeltsin's second mandate has a lot of figures commenting on the loss of great power status and how it's problematic. Also on the kind of the lack of state capacity at managing the Russian Federation itself. We remember the war in Chechnya and so on. And then I think gradually it's really the backlash against the kind of the US unilateral moments. So of course the US invasion of Iraq, recognition of Kosovo independence, overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya, that have been the big moment for the Russian elites where they suddenly kind of lost face, at least that the way they would frame it in thinking that this liberal world order could make some room for them. And of course the tensions around the managing of the post Soviet space and already the war with Georgia in 2008, tension over Ukraine and over the Baltic state when they join EU and NATO. So all this international world order and the difficulties for Russia to feel it is recognized at the level they would like to be recognized, I think was the key element for the Russian elites. And then gradually the regime closed also its own kind of political space and give less and less room to the divergent opinion, the one that were more oriented toward what they were calling in Russia modernization. That could be both economic modernization and political modernization. Right. And once Putin came back to power for the third mandate in 2012, that's really the moment where you see the Kremlin elaborating on this notion of Russia, the conservative power, the traditional values, and then they really shift from just, you know, not being happy with economic world, with the kind of the political liberalism that pushed them for reform and with the world order, to really framing themselves as conservative and more and more authoritarian in reducing the kind of the space for alternative opinion. But that has been a long process. And I think that's a key point that Putin has been in power for 25 years. He's not the same man now that he was when he arrived in 2000. I think there was a moment where he was much more optimistic about being able to regain a great status for Russia without conflicting with the West. And then gradually, and that's something that I show in my book, they move from learning from the west to thinking you need to unlearn from the west. And then gradually you need to conflict with the west and unlearn and go to war being the kind of the last stage. So over a quarter of century, there have been a lot of evolution among these kind of Russian elites kind of collective thinking.
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B
So in this confrontation with the West, I'm really interested to hear a little more about this and how Putin's thinking may have been shifting over time. Was this an evolution going on within him based on, you know, experiences based on power dynamics? Or. Or is this. Was this about kind of there's a consistent anti Westernism that because of Russian weakness after the Soviet Union came, you know, dissolved, Russian weakness kind of forced Russia to. To learn from the west, seek help from the west, and only and only when it kind of regained some stability and some strength, could it then kind of, you know, unleash its true anti Western face. Is that what's happening? Or was there a real kind of soul struggle within Russia on these questions of attitude towards the West?
- [19:40]
C
So you would find among the scholars of Russia, both schools. Right. So there are debates among us about how to interpret that I believe belong to those who believe there was an evolution. There were the moment where they really, genuinely believe Russia will be a great power. That was always the goal, but that great power and status will be regained more or less with the agreement of the west or without too much tensions. And they still wanted to learn a lot of things from the west, maybe not necessarily culturally, where they backlash more kind of vividly. But economically, the Russian economic at least, are very Western centric and learning from the West. So I think they genuinely kind of were hoping to make it work, the kind of normalization, Westernization of Russia, and then when it failed, they kind of gradually moved away. But you would have some colleagues in the field who would say, no, no, no. The anti Westernism were there since the beginning and they were just waiting for the moment they would have regained enough power to kind of backfire at the west, which seems to me untrue. If you look, for example, at the survey we have of the Russian elites where you could really identify, of course, you always had anti Western elites among what we call the siloviki. So the kind of law enforcement part of the elites where the anti Westernism was more structural, but a large part of the technocratic elites were pretty pro Western, or at least like we can cohabit coexist with the west peacefully for a very long time.
- [21:21]
B
Thinking a little more about the anti Westernism you write in your most recent book, how there are two distinguishable strands of anti Westernism. One, and Russian nationalism and imperialism as a rejection of Western universalism. And the second, Russian conservatism as an answer to the problem of Western liberalism. Maybe you can kind of explain each of those strands, please.
- [21:50]
C
Yeah, absolutely. So I think globally we could say now that the majority of the Russian elites would not believe in universalism anymore, but would defend a particularistic vision of the world based on this kind of civilization perspective. So Western universalism would be an hypocrisy. And then in fact, the world should be run by different civilization having all their own normative systems. So you cannot interfere in another civilization. That I think is largely shared. The question is, where do Russia belong? Is Russia belonging to a kind of European civilization? And in that case, Russia presents itself as the old authentic conservative Christian Europe against the kind of liberal, progressivist, decadent west that has forgotten its own Christian roots. So that's one way to frame it. And the other way is to say, no, Europe, it's its own civilization. Russia is a Eurasia civilization. And therefore it's not so much the being the true Europe that matters, it's being this kind of third continent between Europe and Asia, being open to Asia. In both cases, you have the Orthodox tradition and the kind of the legacy of the Byzantium Byzantine Empire that is celebrated. But you have two ways of interpreting that. And in fact, the regime is playing both cards, depending on the audience, depending on the context, depending on the speaker, because they all don't, not necessarily all agree together. Even now, in a time of war and decoupling with the west, you would still find member of the Russian elites who would say, well, we are the real old Europe and maybe even the real old west, right, the conservative West. And some would say, no, nothing to do with that. We should be Eurasia. We should be this kind of third continent, very specific civilization. So both exist and they try to maintain the two lines in parallel even nowadays.
- [24:04]
B
Where does Putin fit into this? And has that been a consistent kind of answer? Has he been shifting over time? Has his position been evolving? And I'm thinking here especially about the Eurasianists. How does he compare to the Eurasianists on some of these questions about whether Russia is a civilizational state? Is it somehow the inheritor and protector? I think you've written in the past that in some, according to some elites, Russia is like the inheritor or protector of European culture, or is it a civilizational state that defines itself in contradistinction to Europe? So what are the Eurasianists saying about these questions? And where does Putin fit in?
- [24:50]
C
So you know Putin because he's at the center, the central piece of the system. So he has to be centrist in its own. The way it's framed is usually saying both, right? He's still using narratives where he say, we have European roots, we are legitimate actors in this kind of Broad European Christianity, philosophy, conservatism, and we should continue to represent that. And at the same time, he has been really using the notion of Russia as a state civilization, which would push him toward the more Eurasianist narrative. And especially since the full scale invasion of Ukraine, he has been very much insisting on the multinationality of Russia and really kind of trying to emphasize we are specific. What make us a specific civilization is that we have many nations living as Russian citizen and kind of celebrating both the multinationality, but also the multi religiosity of Russia. So sending signals to the Muslims of Russia especially. So he really has both, depending on what he's trying to say and in which condition, in which context, he's saying that if you go to a lower level, you would find elites who would have won all the others. Right. More clearly being kind of more clearly partisan for one or the other. But Putin say boss precisely because he need to speak to all the different audiences.
- [26:19]
B
I just want to say, ask you to say a little bit more about these two frameworks and especially in terms of, on one hand, seeing Russia as a multinational imperial state with a strong state state at the center, and on the other hand, Russia as in ethno national civilizational state that privileges the Russian nation, the Russian people, Russianness. So let me say a little bit more about these two kind of worldviews.
- [26:56]
C
Yes. So here also they have been both used by the Russian elites and by Putin in parallel. Right. You can find Putin talking about precisely what I was saying, the multinationality aspect of Russia and the plurality of religion and their legitimacy and narrative. That would be much more what we call Russian world oriented, insisting on the ethnic Russian as being the core nation of the Russian state. And also as Russia as a defender of ethnic Russians abroad. And the narrative has been used, of course, against Ukraine. So you have both Eurasia and Russian war that can be used by state structure and by Putin in different conditions. And of course, they don't articulate well together Right. In our vision the way in fact they articulate that they are all under the state umbrella. Right. So the perception of the Kremlin is that what is defining Russia is the state, not the people, the state that define Russia. And patriotism is a statist patriotism. And inside that statism perception, you have kind of concentric circles. So if you are ethnic Russian and Orthodox, you are the core of the core of the center. If you are ethnic Russian but you converted, for example, to Catholicism or Protestantism or you're not believer, you are a second circle, you're still very legitimate, but slightly less than the other. And then it goes by concentric circle for all kind of ethnic minorities and so on. And what has been more recently added to this kind of pyramidal hierarchical perception of the content of the state in Russia is that the ethnic Russians who were abroad were always considered as compatriots. So they were somewhere in one of these concentric circles, but not central. But gradually, especially after 2021, when Putin published this famous text on the unity of the Russian and the Ukrainian nation, you can see that this kind of narrative about Ukrainian and Belarusian being one nation with Russian, it got upgraded in the pyramid. Now, this kind of irredentist aspect has been much more visible in the state narrative. And it's contradictory, right? If you are a tata or a boyat in Russia, it's. It's probably weird to hear the state telling you that Ukrainians are part of the Russians. But as you know, in Russia, we don't use the same terminology. So the narrative is to say that Ukrainians and Belarusian are part of the Russky narrator. So you use the adjective Russky to define the kind of ethnic cultural unity. But the citizens of Russia are rassiyanye, so it's a slightly other term. So rassiyanye allow for the multinationality aspect. Ruski allow for the irredentist and more ethno nationalist aspect.
- [30:04]
B
These different strands, you know, Putin's holding them together, as you said, he's at the center of, you know, a state power, and he's able, because of his, you know, unique status and position, to be able to hold these really diverse strands together. What does Russia look like after Putin? Are there other figures that can hold these pieces together?
- [30:26]
C
That's the big question. It's probably. I mean, when you look at the trajectory of other authoritarian states, the second leader that arrived once the kind of father of the nation in quotation mark disappeared has to readjust, right? Because the legitimacy is never the same. Putin will have a unique legitimacy in his kind of legacy because he. Because he stayed in power very long. And he's the one who kind of reframe and rebrand Russia as a very kind of strong state, both domestically and on the international scene. Those who will come after may play either for or against Putin's legacy, but they will have to readjust. And it will be interesting to see if the tendency will be toward the multinationality or the tendency will be more toward the irredentisms. And here it's very unclear to know because you don't really see the political forces. Right. They are probably potentially there, but these potentialities are not kind of visible enough. And it will also depend how, you know, the transition is done, how the war is finished, and how in which situation Russia find itself at the moment where the kind of the political transition is happening. But of course, the tension will be much more difficult to manage for the successor than it is to manage for Putin. Because in a sense, Putin is above everyone in Russia. So he had that capacity at talking all these different languages. Not sure those who will be succeeding him will be able to do that again. They may have to take a stance.
- [32:03]
B
I want to explore where religion plays a role in all of this. First by asking you to say a few words about Christianity in Russia. The role it plays among the people, kind of historically being a kind of cultural glue that really imbues society with meaning, what role it plays at the kind of at the elite level. And then I want to shift and kind of look for parallels, as you've written recently in a fascinating article that shows the kind of parallels between Christian nationalism in America and what they're looking to Russia to learn from. So maybe say a few words about Christianity in Russian history and culture and then we'll look for these parallels.
- [32:52]
C
Yeah. So the Russian Orthodox Church has always been a very strong kind of cultural element in the Russian history. Kind of very long perception of Russian history. But Russia has always been multi religious. Right. There was always Muslim minorities, part of the core of Russia. If you think about Tatarstan and the Volga region, then the conquest of the Caucasus, there was always a Jewish minorities. And then when Siberia got conquest, you had a Buddhist minority. So the multi religiosity was always part of that. But he also with this kind of hierarchical pyramid, the Russian Orthodox Church dominates and the other are authorized, but they have to follow the line given by the Russian Orthodox Church. In today's Russia, the church has a really paradoxical situation. People refer to it as a kind of an identity marker and a cultural marker of their identity and their historical continuity. So the church is protected. The majority of Russian citizens, for example, have been supportive of the law against blasphemy. So you cannot attack the church. It doesn't mean that people are religious. If you look at the numbers, you have only like half of Russia, ethnic Russians considering themselves like believers. People may identify as Orthodox, but non believer Orthodox. So only a majority. Yeah, like half of them would identify it as religiously Orthodox. And the number of people going to church is one of the lowest in Europe. Right. So you have that gap between a very strong identity, cultural marker that is promoting the church and the very low kind of religiosity of the Russian society. To deal with that kind of tension. The church has no other choice to partner with the state and to gradually became a kind of second junior partner of the state. They have some disagreement on some issues, especially related to memory of Soviet repression and so on, where the church is much more critical of Soviet repression. That's what the state would be. But more or less now they work together in kind of trying to enshrine the traditional values and family values and patriotism on the Russian society. So they work hand by hand, the state and the church together, even if they may have still some tension. And they work also together in foreign policy, right, where the Russian Orthodox Church, but also the Muslim institution of Russia, has been very much acting in favor of Russia abroad, talking to other Eastern Christian or talking to Muslims abroad. What has been happening since the beginning of the war, I mean, the full scale invasion, is that religiousity has become more and more important first. So inside the society you have, of course, especially for the families who have someone on the front, you have fear for the loved one. So you have a lot of kind of, you know, re spiritualization, you know, esoterism, kind of astrological, you know, practices of, you know, you buy talisman, you go to the church, you. You kind of ask the priest to pray for the loved one who is in the front. So you have all these kind of fierce grassroots fears for men on the front that have kind of legitimized or kind of give more power to the church, but also to a lot of new age astrological occult movements or this kind of very vibrant grassroots religiosity. And then at the elite level, you really can see very visibly more and more Russian elites using an eschatological and a religious language to justify the war. So presenting it as an existential war at the war of those who believes against the depraved, liberal, secular West. The church itself has been kind of gradually moving toward creating a kind of theology of the fair or the holy war to justify the conflict in Ukraine. So the church itself has been producing kind of theological arguments. And then among Russian elites, you see the references to religion, to God, you know, to dying and going to evil, even to so to paradise. And this kind of, yes, Catholic aspect has become very much, much more visible. And it was not the case before. Before the Russian public political space was very secular. And it's no more the case now.
- [37:41]
B
And you see the war as being kind of pivotal in this change. Because you said a few minutes ago, Russian society in terms of ordinary people's connection to religion is as a kind of cultural marker of identity, but not necessarily in terms of belief or practice. And it sounds like the wars creating some changes in terms of kind of how society, the need to turn to religion.
- [38:14]
C
So I think so. I mean, even if we don't really have survey that would show suddenly, you know, a higher number of people going to church. But I think the fear, especially in the part of the society that is directly connected with that has men on the front, you have a rise of everything that is magic or, you know, superstition protection. So I'm not sure it's really helping the church itself because it's also giving power to a lot of kind of non traditional religious movement or New Age movement. But you can feel this kind of practices that are para religious or superstitious if you want to frame them like that, that have been on the rise.
- [39:00]
B
So how does this all play into the kind of geopolitical situation? I saw a few days ago, Steve Bannon posted on his X page the following quote which I found interesting. Russia is a Christian nation. There is a lot of affinity between the American people and the Russian people, and that's what the globalists hate. Secularists and atheists detest Russia and want no rapprochement with the US really curious to get your reaction to this. Does this mean that Bannon represents that kind of wing of MAGA that sees Christian nationalism as the basis for a real rapprochement between the US and Russia? Or is this kind of geopolitical calculations and about, you know, shared enemies and, you know, liberalism and globalism as a kind of shared enemy that can, you know, bring the two nations together. So this is like geopolitics or is this like cultural affinity in his mind?
- [40:07]
C
Well, I think it's both. Right, but you indeed can identify inside the MAGA diversity, a trend that had a kind of favorable to Russia narrative that where it's difficult to dissociate if it's the geopolitical argument or the genuine ideological affinity that is playing there. I would think that for people like Bannon, the ideological affinity is a key criteria that is perceiving Russia as a spiritually coherent and, you know, ideologically uncompromised policy that is showing a path that the US could take at the model that I think is kind of genuinely shared. I would say if you go higher in the Trump administration, you probably would have the geopolitical argument being more important than the shared affinities. Right. So the idea that, okay, we don't want any more of this multi supranational institution, we don't like the eu, we don't like the US support for Ukraine, which is a Biden legacy. We want all these kind of globalist elites, as they call them, to be kind of removed. So then the geopolitical aspect is more important. But I think for part of the MAGA crowd, and you can see around some phenomenon happening in that MAGA world, like conversion to Orthodoxy, the orthobro movement, really this idea that Russia has been showing a kind of metaphysical coherence that is admirable for them and that is a model for them. And so I think it's a minority, but it's still a pretty powerful kind of perception or rereading of Russia for the US culture that was never interested in Russia at all globally, except to see it as its enemy.
- [41:57]
B
Can you say a little more about that? Because this is really, this is a surprise that there are segments of American conservatism, the New Right, the ascendant New Right, that looks to Russia in an entirely different way. At least a segment of that movement looks to Russia as a model. We never would talk that way in the US in the past, of course. Right. But as an ideological model. Can you, can you say a little more about that? You've written that Russia blends spiritual and temporal power in a way that creates a kind of model for the New Right that American Christian nationalists especially see this kind of blending of the spiritual and the political in a way that, like you say, has a kind of metaphysical coherence that we don't see in the west, in the US in the kind of in a liberal world. So what is that model? Give me some examples of that.
- [42:53]
C
Yeah, but maybe first two kind of sociological or historical reason to understand how it happened. Right. It really emerged during the Obama administration at a time where the US Right was feeling like they were losing on all fronts. They were also afraid of losing their own kind of demographic support in the US and interpreting Obama presidency as being a really kind of super progressive one. And at the moment where Putin emerged with this conservatism traditional value narrative. So that helped one of the suddenly looking at Russia and being afraid for their own vision of America. And the second moment is that at the same time, the U.S. right, which was always super Americano centrist, has been communicating with Europe. Right. So you had more and more kind of exchanges. You know, the New Right. The European new right was translated in English. Some new right fish figure from the US Went to travel to Europe. And of course, in Europe, you already had a new right that was more interested than you about Russia. So I think the internationalization of the American right and the fact that they got much more connected to Europe, the fact that many of the people around the MAGA world are converted to Catholicism also means that the connection with Europe are more important. And therefore, if you read European far right, you read about Russia, right? So this kind of very Americano centrism of the U.S. american right, it's over in a sense, right? They got globalized, they got Europeanized, and then they discovered Russia. So what they found impressive in Russia is indeed this idea that you have, which is in Russia a very traditional definition of, you know, Byzantine power, that the temporal and the spiritual work hand by hand. That you can see Putin and the Patriarch talking together, being represented together. That Putin has been very vocal on the traditional value and the Christian argument. And they also have a vision of the Russian society as very conservative and very ethno national, which I think is a mistake on the diversity of what the Russian society is. But they have been able to project on Russia a kind of idealized, mythical Russia that they see either as this kind of Christian nation or as a kind of white nation, depending if they belong to the religious or more to the white nationalism dimension. And the way Russia has been playing on the international scene and kind of communicating these notions, developing this kind of conservative soft power that gives. Give exactly this. What I was trying to explain this idea that Russia, you know, is very clear on what matters for them philosophically, politically, and the. The fact that they, you see also, you know, the connection between the church and the Russian army. So the idea that you can use force and force is legitimized spiritually, religion is legitimizing the use of force is also something that I think is very attractive for this part of the MAGA world, right? So Russia offer all these clues that they can put together and that resonate with the Christian nationalism that is developing here. That is this idea that for the US to be once again a great leading nation, you need to say the US is a Christian nation and a white, more or less nation, and you need to change institution and to infuse them with religion. And that they feel is something that Russia has been doing and that Russia is more advanced that what the U.S. so I think that's where the kind of the attraction lies on.
- [46:57]
B
And it's interesting to Hear you describe how the role that race plays into this. You've written that. One important difference. Despite American and Christian nationalists looking to Russia as an inspiration, one key difference is that the American Christian nationalists are more tied to race, to white identity, and they're projecting that onto a Russia that maybe has been kind of like in myth, as a kind of the white Russian people, but in reality is a far more diverse, diverse body politics. So can you say a little bit more about that? There's a kind of inversion America, liberal America that's inherently diverse and kind of conservative, traditionalist Russia that we think of as white. There's a kind of inversion here where American conservatives are projecting onto Russia a kind of whiteness and Russia's actually embracing its own multinational kind of diversity. That's unusual and interesting.
- [48:04]
C
Yeah. And that tell you how much all this kind of transnational connection and mutual borrowing, they are all based on your own dreams. Right. And not on the reality of the other countries you're looking at. Right. So, and if you follow, for example, you know, the movement of ideological immigration to Russia, you have Europeans, Americans immigrating to Russia for ideological reasons. They will always show you the white Russia once they are based in Russia. Like if they would totally kind of invisibilize the multi ethnic diversity of Russia. So I think on that, Russia is playing a kind of ambiguous card because domestically the Russian regime would very much insist on the multinationality because they have to speak to 20% of Russian citizens who are not ethnic Russian when they project abroad. I mean, if they talk to Muslim countries, they will project the minority. But when they talk to the Western far right, they are projecting their own whiteness by playing the kind of we are the gatekeeper, the one who are keeping the kind of the Christian identity. And indeed the US is projecting this kind of whiteness over Russia, which has no reality, kind of sociologically and demographically speaking. So you can see it's a mirror game between the two countries where they both admire and borrow from each other, but things that are kind of very different from the reality, the sociological, demographical realities of both societies.
- [49:35]
B
I want to turn to one Russian political thinker, philosopher Alexander Dugin, who you've written about as a way to, to better understand maybe what's happening. He's been called Putin's brain. Whether that's justified or not. He's gone through his own kind of evolution, but his thinking, I think, can pull together some of these various kind of strands that we've been discussing today. So I want to spend a few minutes talking about him and where this might tie into some kind of eschatological thinking. So we'll kind of finish off with that. But first with Dugin. As I said, he's been called Putin's brain. And you've written in a chapter in your Russian Eurasianism book, which was absolutely fantastic, that Dugin represents the kind of Russian version of the European radical right. Maybe you could say a little bit more about that, where. Where he shows where European ideas have kind of filtered through kind of the Russian ideological landscape. And I'm interested not only in his thinking as such, but his thinking about Putin, because I think you've also written that that's been a kind of evolving story. Right. Early on, when Putin came to power, I think Dugin said something like, he, here's our man, the Eurasian man, right? And then maybe he lost some of that enthusiasm. Maybe he saw Putin as being too. Kind of too sympathetic to liberals or to the Atlanticists or to the west, maybe lost some hope. But then in 2014, and certainly in 2022, Russian invasion of Ukraine, it seems like he's really come around to becoming, you know, playing this role of the Putin ideologist. So maybe say a little bit about Dugin's thinking, how his thinking has emerged and. Or evolved and his. His changing views about Putin and where he is now. Mm.
- [51:49]
C
So I belong to those who spend their time saying that Dugin is not Putin's brain. And that was a Western media construction that has been very useful for him, but that is not the reality. And inside the Russian ideological kind of system and actors is a very contested person in Russia and considered a problematic one. That doesn't mean he doesn't have some of his access, but he's really not that close to Putin and is considered as someone who is precisely too pro Western right. So what makes Dugins different from all the other ideological actors? That is really someone who has embraced the Western far right intellectual construction from the 30s to nowadays. So he's the kind of, indeed the equivalent of Alain de Benoist for the French pharaoh. From the French New Right, he has been introducing Heidegger, translating, Julius Evola, Rene Guinon. So he's really his full. He's built on European far right intellectual legacy much more than on a domestic Russian one. And on that, he has been a really impressive translator in all senses. Right. Translating like, literally books from different European language to Russian, but also translating and adapting the European far right political theories to make them acceptable in a Russian context. So on that he played A really impressive role in kind of introducing in Russia a known so far European thinking and kind of playing this being the face of Russia, when Russia tried to talk to the European far right and now to the US Far right. So what is really kind of making now especially very kind of a fascinating but a problematic person for the Russian ideological construction is that he very much embraced Trump. And as we were discussing at the beginning, you still have tension inside the Russian perception that, okay, even when the west becomes conservative or illiberal, do they become our friend because we are all conservative Europeans or Westerners, or do we consider Russia is its own civilization? And in that case, Trump or not Trump doesn't make a big difference. Right. So since Trump's reelection, Dugin has been pretty kind of pro Trump and kind of trying to develop a kind of communication tool with Musk, with Steele, with Curtis Yarvin. So he's trying to be seen as the US Version of this kind of Trumpism world, the same way where for 30 years he was trying to present himself as the Russian version of the European a new right. The way he's looking at Putin is always super complicated. So it's a kind of love hate relationship from Dugin aside, and the way he's frame it now is that he said there is a solar Putin and a lunar Putin. So the solar Putin is when Putin is when Dugin thinks Putin is kind of doing the right things, being tough, being tough on the west, being tough on Ukraine. So that's the good thing, Putin. But there is a lunar Putin where Putin is still too shy, too pro Western, not ready to go to full scale war with the West. So you can see Dugin is never kind of really happy with Putin and found him too soft both on domestic repression and on kind of international reaction. So it's a complicated relations. Right, But I think it's Dugin's own relation to Putin. Putin has no relation to Dugin. He knows who is him. But it's really, really not a key figure in the kind of the Putin overview of who matters ideologically? I don't think it's a reciprocal relationship.
- [55:54]
B
And so who are the other key thinkers and what other ideas then are in fact influencing Putin's thinking and his policies? And where is there space between Dugin kind of, as you say, becoming a full on Trump supporter and maybe others in Putin's orbit that have a different view about Trump or about the west or about a potential rapprochement with the.
- [56:21]
C
US So one key name, for example, to kind of illustrate in parallel with Dugin would be Sergei Karaganov, one of the most famous Russian foreign policy expert and really an influential one, closer to the decision making circle than Wadugin is. And so Caragano, for example, has been very explicitly the one who built since the full scale invasion of Ukraine, who reoriented Russia toward the global south, saying Russia and the global south are sharing an anti colonial, anti Western imperialism narrative. We should work with what they call the world majority against the West. And so Caragano, for example, has been very clear about like, well, you know, true Trump or not Trump, it's still the US and the US are still an imperial or neo imperial country. Russia should continue to move toward the global South. That's where the future will be happening. In any case, the west is declining and they are not our friends. So you can identify these people and this tension inside the intellectual or political landscape in Russia today. Right. So it's not uniformized on that aspect. Respect. So Karaganov is a good example of that kind of diverging with Dugin kind of perception on how to should we be get, should Russia get closer to the US or continue to move away from the West.
- [57:45]
B
So where I promised that we'd keep this at about an hour. So I want to try to close things off by coming to this, the question of eschatology, kind of apocalyptic worldviews. Peter Thiel, lots have been talked about recently that he's doing a kind of lecture circuit in the last few years in really prominent places where he's talking a lot about the Antichrist. Not clear exactly what he means or what's being said in these closed door lectures. But he talks about the catacomb. Maybe you could say a few words about what this idea is and how it's, or whether it's kind of filtered into Russian discourse. But what is the catacomb? What is this idea of holding off the Antichrist and the Antichrist as a kind of spiritual concept? What's the political, you know, manifestation of this principle?
- [58:46]
C
Yes. So is this notion coming from Byzantine theology that is indeed saying like some people or some countries are the shield. Right. The one, the last protection before the arrival of the Antichrist, the one that will be able to kind of withhold the world and the kind of the traditional, the logic order of the world once the Antichrist is arriving. That narrative has been reintroduced by Dugin and many others into the Russian political language. And indeed with the war in Ukraine, the kind of catacombic references of Russia like the last country that is still able to keep the world as it should be has been very much developed. And in that case, the Antichrist is liberalism, globalism, progressivism, right? Those who want to shake the system and promote extreme relativism are the Antichrist, and the one who keep Christianity and traditional values are the catacomic power. So that has been very much developed in the Russian tradition also because it's coming from the Byzantine world and then it's arrived in the U.S. indeed, through different channel, until, because of his references to Renegira and all the figures, has been also playing this kind of Antichrist kind of notion. And here you can see. So these two groups of the kind of tech right world and part of the Russian world are kind of talking the same kind of language on the way they interpret what is happening in the world. And this idea that we should reintroduce political theology in our everyday political language, that the only way for politics to work is to become theological, to have religious differences which allow you to name your enemy as metaphysical enemy and therefore to use violence against them, I think that's one of the implicit or sometimes explicit subtext, but also to say things are holy. So you bring back the sacred, the holy in the kind of mundane political discussion to try to transform our society. And of course, the fact that both in US and Russia, you have strong messianic tradition. The idea of being, you know, elected by God to have this kind of manifest destiny that helps the two countries, at least some actors into the two countries, to create narratives that are indeed very much parallel and seems to be responding to each other.
- [61:25]
B
So just to kind of wind this down in the context of this Antichrist idea, you know, listening to whatever I can get my hands on in terms of Peter Thiel's recent talks, he's really specific when he talks about the Antichrist as kind of an emerging totalitarian one world state. And the kind of holy war against this kind of despotism, as you say, becomes justified. You have a secularist turning to the concept of holy war to justify the holding off or the shielding the world from the Antichrist. Is that the way that, whether it's Dugin or others, the discourse among Russian elites, is this the idea that the worst abomination, the worst horror that is imaginable is the emergence of a kind of totalitarian one world state? Or is it something more nuanced? Is it about liberalism? Is it about kind of cultural change, disillusion of kind of Russian destiny? Like what are they talking about when they, when they see this, this, the threat?
- [62:49]
C
Yeah, I think the Russian perception among Russian elites would be much more about just like, you know, trying to survive against Libya, liberalism becoming a kind of, you know, totalitarian system. I don't think they have such vision necessarily of the kind of the world transformation of humankind, you know, because of artificial intelligence arriving and so on. That, I mean, Dugin has that because he can read the Americans publishing on that. And so he is in touch with steel, with Curtis Yavin. So is trying to build that right now, that kind of narrative. But I think for the majority of Russian elites who are not kind of Dugin oriented, it's more about, you know, a very much more traditional vision that we want the kind of the globalist system will collapse and we will be the one kind of standing on our two feet and helping the world to go back to the normality it should have. So they have a much more kind of pragmatic definition of this kind of eschatology. But I think Dugin and some people around him are really interested also in the kind of the technological revolution that is really an important part of the US right tech narrative. And they are trying to import that also in Russia.
- [64:05]
B
So how does this all come back to Ukraine then? You've written that for many Russian elites, they believe that they're quote unquote, fighting the Antichrist in Ukraine. Of course, that's loaded with kind of, with kind of, you know, rhetoric. But, but is there some kind of a deeper truth there with this, this discourse about the Antichrist? How, how are we seeing that in Ukraine? Or how do Russians see that danger in Ukraine? Because this is a different way of understanding the war in Ukraine. Right. It's not just about kind of Russian power and kind of a revanchist empire or kind of dominating our, you know, little brothers that always, we've always had control over. It seems like there's. There's something else happening here too.
- [64:53]
C
Yeah, there is this idea that the war in Ukraine is really, you know, the quintessential moment of the globalist system. Right. The moment where the liberal west, the Biden America and the European technocratic Union are fighting against a catacomic power. So on. That it has a metaphysical aspect that indeed has nothing to do about like it's the reunification of Ukrainian with Russia. It's really this idea in the extreme moment where the globalist system is fighting the catch on and therefore it has who will win the war will have an impact on the way the global order will be reshaped for the next decades or century. So that's the kind of metaphysical aspect of really like the Christians are fighting the non Christian. And if you watch the Russian talk show, you will see a lot of that kind of religious reading of the war in Ukraine, you know, trying to say that the Lenski is, in fact, you know, participating in Satanist, you know, curse that are anti Christian. So they have that kind of interpretation of a kind of a religious war is happening in Ukraine now.
- [66:04]
B
Fascinating and horrifying. Thank you so much, Marlena. This has been a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to discuss these important matters. Thank you so much.
- [66:16]
C
No, thank you so much for the invitation and for all the great questions. Thank you. Eli.