Political scientist, founder and Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy – about Western-centrism and the need to break the will of the West.
- Sergey Alexandrovich, "Russian mind cannot be understood"? Is it still the same? Or has something changed in our cultural code?
- I hope not. We have become much more complex. More than 150 years have passed since this poem, but the cultural code has not changed too much. In Russia, of course, you have to have faith. Especially given our history, our scope. It is impossible to fully understand Russia. I always recall the words of Field Marshal Minich, who said that "Russia is governed directly by God." He may have exaggerated, but in many ways it is true.
- You argue that Western elites, in many respects rightly, see one of the roots of their problems in Russia, which, in defending its security and sovereignty, undermined a five-century-old foundation on which stood a system of cultural, political, economic and military superiority and plunder. By whom and when was this foundation laid?
- This foundation was laid in the 16th-17th centuries, when, for a variety of reasons, Europe created better weapons, military organization and gained military superiority. First the Portuguese and the Spanish and the Dutch, then the English began to conquer the whole world, to impose colonial conditions on it, to offer their culture, their political orders. And those five centuries are just now coming to an end. The main thing is that the West is deprived of the opportunity to pump the world's GNP, that is, wealth, in its favor.
- So it turns out that Ukraine sacrificed itself to Western interests, and we are again in the way?
- I don't know if it did, because Ukraine has no national elite; it is ruled by a thieving, comprador junta that sold its people as Landsknecks to the West. Therefore, Ukrainians living in Ukraine can be sympathized with, even though they are ideologically heavily treated and turned into Russophobes to a large extent. As for the West, it is trying to stop its rapid decline, which began in the 1960s, then was interrupted by the Soviet collapse in the 1990s and since 2007-2008 has resumed and is on the rise. Ukraine is only one, albeit very important for the West, of the battles of rearguard aggression. It is trying to hold onto its dominant position by shamelessly turning the Ukrainian inhabitants into cannon fodder.
- And what kind of situation would Russia be in now if the special military operation had not begun on February 24, 2022?
- Russia would have been in a situation slightly more outwardly comfortable than it is now, but it would have been threatened by a much heavier war, and it would not have achieved the successes, the goals it had already achieved. War was absolutely inevitable. I have written and spoken about this many times, including 25 years ago when Russia in a fit of weakness and partial complacency signed the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which de facto legitimized further expansion of the alliance. Then, as later on, I wrote that all this would inevitably end in war, because apart from the NATO expansion itself, a huge number of contradictions were piling up that pushed the world, especially the West, which was losing its positions, toward war. I would have preferred it to start earlier, somewhere in 2018-2019, but I do not know the balance of power and calculations at that time. We were accumulating forces, but the enemy was also accumulating them, i.e. the West in Ukraine. Ideally this should have been done much earlier – in 2014. We could have used the enthusiasm, the rise and confusion of the regime in Kiev that came after the coup d'état, but it didn't happen then. Now, of course, we are much stronger, we have finally achieved full food security.
As for what would have happened to us if the special military operation had not begun, we would have been stuck in an ice-hole, not fully understanding who we were dealing with and where we should go. Now, during this year and a half, major positive shifts have already taken place. There was a mass nationalization of the elite and its consciousness. With the help of the West, we are quickly getting rid of the comprador bourgeoisie, a layer of which was enormously inflated because of the stupid reforms of the 1990s, and its peculiar type of thinking.
- A special military operation is underway, and nothing has changed in peaceful life, although the media constantly call on us to mobilize society. Is there something wrong with our spiritual culture?
- I have already mentioned the nationalization of the thinking of the elite and the elimination, now miserable, of Western-centrism and the comprador bourgeoisie. Another of the goals of the operation, I believe, is precisely the elevation of the people's spirit and, among other things, culture. I like what I see now very much. Strong works are appearing, powerful, on the verge of being great, plays, interesting literature. I see an awakening, what we can call the popular spirit. For example, "War and Peace" by Yuri Grymov and "Einstein and Margarita" directed by Alexander Marin.
- In your opinion, at this moment in history, does Russia have a national idea?
- Yes. There is a national idea, of course. But it is, unfortunately, not formulated, and this is a big mistake. We need a national Russian dream, an image of what we want to strive for and what we want to lead the world to. Such a dream is quite easy to formulate. But it needs to happen through serious conversations in society. Right now, I am very irritated and worried that the middle strata of the leadership circles are slowing down this process, they're afraid, or it's just alien to them. But I know that without great ideas, great powers cease to be great or simply perish. The whole world is strewn with the graves or shadows of formerly great powers that have lost their national idea.
- It seems to me that our national idea was partly formulated by Leo Tolstoy in his novel War and Peace: "...Since corrupt people unite amongst themselves to constitute a force, then honest people must do the same."
- I know this phrase and I love it. But it doesn't seem to me to be a Russian dream. These are the right ideas. It has to be done. Absolutely. But our country, our people have something more to show to themselves and to the world. It's just that for now we are afraid of it.
- What is Russia's main line in geopolitics right now?
- The most important process happening in the world right now is not even the rise of the global majority, those we used to call the non-West. The most important process, the most fundamental one, is the very rapid decline of the West's moral, geopolitical, economic positions and its desperate struggle to maintain its former privileged position in the world system. This is the most key determinant of current world politics. It is the main source of all tensions, including the military operation in Ukraine.
- "The Russian power will grow with Siberia and North Ocean, and will reach to the main European settlements in Asia and America." Do you believe in this prediction of Lomonosov?
- First, this prediction partially came true. And it came true, incidentally, even before Lomonosov. Because if Russia, since the time of Ivan the Terrible, had not added to Siberia, it would not have become a great power, and it had already become great to a large extent due to Siberian resources and territories. From there came caravans of goods bought for soft junk in China, silver, and gold. Enormous money with which the Russian Empire was able to strengthen itself. One calculation said that only one caravan, which was coming from China through Russia, brought into the treasury enough money for Peter I to equip a regiment. It is quite obvious to me that Russia would not have existed as a great power without Siberia. We would not have withstood the onslaught of the West, and perhaps even from the south on the Central Russian plain. And even if we could have survived, we would have turned into the orthodox equivalent of Poland, which sounds humiliating. Now Siberia, of course, is the source of our future power, because the world is moving to Asia, and Russia has a unique competitive advantage for the new Asian century. There is a lack of water, of resources, of fertile soils, and we can provide a great deal. So I have no doubts that the future of Russia, the center of Russia must move toward the Urals, toward Siberia. I have been talking about this for many years. We need a third Siberian capital.
- One of the goals of the special military operation you claim is to halt the military and political expansion of the West, which would inevitably lead to thermonuclear war. Do you think we will be able to secure at least a short-term peace in order to realize the Siberian and other big projects?
- We now need to break the will of the West. Its struggle to maintain the remnants of its hegemony is leading the world into a thermonuclear World War III. We need to give them a fight, break their will to resist aggressively, force them to retreat, take a normal, even dignified place, and finally deal with their crises. But to do this, we must first win this confrontation. The West must retreat. Hopefully, without the use of nuclear weapons.
- Peter I called the Battle of Lesnaya the mother of Poltava Victoria, and the mother of what could be the special military operation?
- I think the special military operation could be the mother of a renewed Russia. A renewal of the elite is underway. Soldiers and officers who are fighting will form the backbone of the new Russian elite. Just as the soldiers and officers of the WWII formed the backbone of the Soviet elite in the brightest and most successful years of the Soviet Union – in the 50s and 60s. That is why it is necessary to win.
- What prospects do you see for the geopolitical map of the world?
- I look at the map of the future with enthusiasm. The South is rising, in part because we have undercut the foundations of Western dominance, its military superiority over the great civilizations. Look at what is happening in Turkey. The Arab world, India, Persia, China are rising. So now we have to stabilize the western direction, to defeat them, hopefully without any casualties, to make them retreat. And from that point on, we may start building a new Eurasia and a new world, involving some of the European countries in 10 to 15 years, when the self-cleansing from the present turbulence will pass in Europe.
- In one of your interviews, you listed the qualities a person needs to achieve his goals: knowledge, experience, intuition, and will. What does Russia need to achieve its goals?
- I did not say everything in my interview, there must still be love for oneself, family, readiness to serve the fatherland and the belief that there is something even higher above man, or man must dedicate himself to something higher – to God, if he believes. And Russia now needs self-renewal, the movement of its center toward the East, the rebirth on new foundations of its great culture. We are returning home from three centuries of travel in the West, in Europe, which, although gave us a lot of good things, but also brought monstrous sorrow: two world wars, communist ideology, which we have transformed from a dream into a rather harsh reality, and other infections. Now we need to understand who we are. I am very happy that my friends and colleagues at the Foreign Ministry have proclaimed Russia a state-civilization in the new Foreign Policy Concept. I would add to this that we are a civilization of civilizations. A uniquely open multicultural, multinational, multi-ethnic people.
- You often say that the global processes that are happening now will last 10-20 years. Why?
- Intuition, plus the calculation that the fiercely resistant globalist elites of the West – the comprador elites in Europe, the globalist anti-national elites in the United States – will be washed away during all this tension, and healthier forces will arise. They will bring us little pleasure, because the West is unambiguously moving toward fascism and totalitarianism. But it will be possible to talk to them about something, because the current ideological and moral state of a major part of the West, especially its ruling circles, makes them an incompetent partner. And in addition, they are moving away from human culture, from human ethics.