The Fourth Political Theory

beyond left and right but against the center

This is the logic behind the current surge of Russophobia in the CIS countries. There is no doubt that there is friction. They have always existed, and in the era of the collapse of the USSR, they bore a character close to ethnic cleansing against the Russian population and the practice of genocide – on a large territory of the CIS countries. Today the scale is incomparably smaller. And because millions of Russians were forced to flee. And because it is completely unprofitable for the authorities of the CIS countries to draw additional attention to this. Of course, new countries are building their own national states, and language plays a key role in such cases. But even this can be solved gradually and gently. And when necessary, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan do just that.

Francis Fukuyama recently wrote a fairly objective and balanced article about the end of American hegemony. Fukuyama in the early 90s was clearly in a hurry to declare the worldwide victory of liberalism and the end of history. He later corrected his position. In some personal conversations with him, I became convinced that he understands many world processes quite realistically and is able to admit mistakes in his forecasts – a rare feature among narcissistic political scientists who make mistakes every day and that only makes them even more arrogant.

On August 10, 70 AD, a very important event took place for two world religions – Christianity and Judaism. On this day Roman legions of the emperor Titus broke into Jerusalem, which was defended by the Jews-Zealots who had raised against the Roman power. The Romans subjected the inhabitants to indescribable brutality repression, killing hundreds of thousands of people. They burned the city itself to the ground, and they destroyed the Second Temple, built by Zerubbabel after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, to the ground. The fall of the city was preceded by a terrible famine, which also claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and was accompanied by monstrous events, including cannibalism, which is colorfully described by the Jewish historian Josephus.

The problem with the Russian elections is that the idea of ​​representative democracy and especially party representative democracy is completely alien to Russian political culture and tradition. At the same time, Zemskaya democracy, the election of village elders, and before the schism and parish priests, has a long history in Russia. At the most critical moments – as, for example, at the end of the Time of Troubles – the people even chose a king, a new dynasty. And before that, it was the popular decision to form a militia – especially the second, which saved the country. But the Russians never really chose parties. They chose people – their own people, acquaintances, or those they believed. They were always chosen personally, not in bulk. The Russian tradition is personal. She wants to see a person as a political figure. He wants to understand him, know him, trust him. And sometimes hate him, despise him, punish him. But always it is a person. Our view of the world is deeply human. And about politics too.

On August 14, 1385, the authorities of two neighboring medieval states – Poland and Lithuania – met at the Krevo castle, which is located on the territory of today’s Belarus, and concluded a historical pact – union. The alliance between the two neighboring and very influential states at that time was sealed by the marriage union of the Queen of Poland Jadwiga, the last of the Piast dynasty, and the pagan Lithuanian prince Jagiello. At that moment, this seemed an excellent geopolitical solution, since it allowed two previously hostile states to focus on solving more important problems – to resist the Teutonic Order located in the neighboring Baltic lands and to strengthen the influence of Lithuania in the east, which was under the rule of the Mongols and controlled by the Russian princes. vassals of the Mongols.

From the very beginning of his rule, Putin began to withdraw Russia from the influence of the West and its globalist structures. With each step, Russia became more and more independent and sovereign. It not only stopped the disintegration that began under Gorbachev and continued under Yeltsin, but began to expand its territory (this is clearly seen in the reunification with Crimea, and in many other things). And as the course of Russia became more and more independent, the pressure on it from the West grew. At the same time, Putin himself and the forces loyal to him in Russia were subjected to systematic demonization and criminalization. In the eyes of the liberals, relations with Russia acquired an increasingly pronounced ideological character.

The seizure of all power by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the shameful flight of the Americans and their allies require a broader survey of fundamental changes in world geopolitics. Afghanistan has been an indicator of these changes over the past 50 years. It was with him that the fractures in the global architecture of the world were associated. Of course, this was not the cause of geostrategic transformations, but rather a  screen on which, more clearly than anywhere else, the fundamental changes in the world order were reflected. 

Agamben has long been dealing with the problem of “bare life”, when the pressure of the political system reaches the very biology of man, penetrates his body, and seeks to control it at the biochemical level. A person in the ultimate dictatorship turns precisely into a biological object, determined by a set of sanitary indicators. Real totalitarianism seeks to control not the mind, but the body. This is “naked life” when a person is equated with a set of biological indices. This, according to Agamben, is the end of man and the triumph of the most disgusting political systems imaginable. In his writings, Agamben stressed in every possible way that the most avant-garde and perfect example of “naked life” was the situation of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. The prisoners in them were not considered human at all.

It is quite natural that Russia, which seeks to strengthen its sovereignty and is generally oriented towards a multipolar world, interprets many processes proceeding from its interests and from its values, which sometimes do not coincide at all with the interests and values ​​of the United States, NATO countries and globalist circles. But this gives no reason at all to call Russian media policy in the international context either “disinformation” or “propaganda.” However, in the eyes of the State Department and the entire Western propaganda machine, everything that does not coincide with the views of the globalists and the United States, contradicts them, gives an alternative point of view, opposes their strategies and approaches, is perceived as an “enemy attack.” 

Survival is the most important concept of Spinoza. For him, it is associated with duration and life, as the ability to preserve one’s identity for a certain period. Ability = strength. Further, Deleuze, reflecting on Nietzsche, force = life. Survival is persistence in durability, perseverance. The will to last. Survivalism is a lifestyle aimed at only one thing – survival, which means, life for the sake of life, strength for the sake of strength.

In the modern world, a multipolar model is clearly taking shape – almost taking shape. It replaced the unipolarity that was marked after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and especially the USSR. And the unipolar world, in turn, replaced the bipolar one, in which the Soviet camp geopolitically and ideologically opposed the capitalist West. These transitions between different types of world order did not take place overnight. Some aspects changed, but some remained the same by inertia.