Paul Goble reports: Russia is engaged in an ideological struggle with liberalism at home and abroad, the influential Russian Eurasianist Aleksandr Dugin says. Moscow has clearly articulated what it is against, but having failed to develop an ideology of its own, it remains incapable to saying what it is for and thus risks losing this competition.

In a TV interview, Dugin says “the West criticizes Russia and each of our actions be they in Crimea, Novorossiya or Syria from the position of liberalism.” And because of that, Russians in general and Vladimir Putin in particular have come to view liberalism as hostile to Russia.

To defeat it, the Eurasianist says, Russia must do two things, the first of which it is on its way to doing – rooting out all the liberalism which “put down deep roots” in Russian life beginning in the 1990s – and the second, articulating its own ideology to put in place of liberalism, something it has not yet done.

Ultimately, he suggests, “these two things are closely connected” because “we cannot pull out liberalism by the roots, if we do not find something to replace it.” And unfortunately, “the bearers of the liberal virus do everything … to sabotage from the inside any effort to advance a consistent alternative ideology” based on Russian identity and exceptionalism. [Continue reading…]