Why all of a sudden did Ukraine become the center of the Universe?

The United States Congress recently offered a standing ovation to Ukrainian President Zelensky.  Without a doubt, his country is virtually treated as the 51st state of the United States.  Yet, the United States government deals with Ukrainian borders exponentially better than America’s southern border.  In fairness to Zelensky, he proposed something American conservatives have been advocating for a long time – replacing the corrupt UN with a better international organization.

President Putin had been waiting for stars to align properly for the invasion: Trump is gone, the United States under Obama’s third term cordially cooperates with a profitable (to Russia) Iran deal, the West is obsessed with forced wokenization of its armed forces and eviction of women from women’s sports, Ukraine still dreams of joining balls-less NATO coalition, and Putin’s court nobility feeds him rosy self-propaganda images.

Let us recall Charles Spurgeon’s wise words, “Consider how precious a soul must be when both God and the devil are after it.” A modern rephrasing of this might be, “Why has Ukraine become so valuable that the leadership of Russia and ruling circles of United States are after it?”

Sadly, this post-Soviet state’s well-intended de-Sovietization, de-Leninization, and de-Stalinization had taken the wrong turn.  Unfortunately, though, Democrats decided to exploit the situation rather than assist Ukraine in rectifying it.

As a result, during Obama’s presidency, Ukrainians got an offer they could not refuse, and a well-oiled conveyer belt to transfer money from the West to Ukraine and back had begun.  Everybody benefited from the scheme; it was so well known and accepted that even children of many swamp-dwellers in Washington were introduced to it.  Nevertheless, nobody on the receiving and sending ends of the monetary conveyor dared to ask the simple question of who was the brain behind the scenes who orchestrated it.

One possible answer – which could also explain why Ukraine suddenly became so valuable – is that the Russian KGB planned, implemented, and maintained the “Ukrainian” financial conveyor.  (The term KGB is used here because of its broad acceptance, regardless of the abbreviation currently adopted in Russia for secret intelligence services.)

KGB was always described as “a state within a state.” Naturally, therefore, in most post-Soviet republics, including Ukraine, the vast majority of high-ranking KGB officers were members of the same exclusive club.  (The similar exclusive club had existed for the high-ranking Russian and Ukrainian military.  It explains why Russia could annex Crimea without firing a shot in 2014).  The Kremlin intended that Russia would position itself as the supervisor of financial flows to Washington politicians and, thus, influence American politics while hiding behind the Ukrainian façade.

It may seem as if the plot was brilliant – Russia was able to maintain everyone happy by bribing American politicians using American taxpayer funds.  Of course, there was involvement from corrupt Washington slime and Ukrainian gangs, but the complete story was obscured.  Putin was holding all the cards – and then Trump happened.

President Trump has made several attempts to stop the “Ukrainian” conveyor.  Unfortunately, he had no allies in that endeavor; by that point, many anti-Trump politicians regarded the “Ukrainian” conveyor as an indispensable and valuable source of accessible capital.  In his fight, Trump attempted to involve Zelensky but was unsuccessful; the effort ended in quid pro quo blame and bogus impeachment.  In office for just two months, Zelensky, who was considered an outsider by the Ukrainian powers that be, was never briefed about the conveyer by the previous Ukrainian administration.  Most likely, Zelensky had not fully comprehended the exact nature of Trump’s request during the infamous phone call on July 25, 2019.

Indeed, part of the American taxpayers’ wealth was applied by Putin long before the 2016 elections.  A significant amount of the funds from the “Ukrainian” financial conveyor system were utilized to spread the vicious “Trump is a Russian asset” hoax.  Moreover, the laundered funds had been directed to expel Trump from the White House in 2020.  It is acknowledged that the KGB is proficient at executing such “active measures” against a dedicated foe.  In short, Kremlin had, in fact, influenced several presidential elections in the United States, but, as Mueller Report confirmed, Trump had nothing to do with that.

Currently, there is a steady flow of financial, economic, military, and humanitarian aid into Ukraine; let us hope no one would dare to take the usual cut during wartime.  People, mostly unaware of the “Ukrainian” conveyor and its Kremlin management, are attracted by the bravery of Ukrainians and the undeniable Churchillian strength of Zelensky.  Nevertheless, the actual reason for the current war could be is that both Putin and the Washington establishment wish to bury the conveyer as deeply as possible.  The Democrats do not want any complications because of inevitable exposure, especially in a midterm election year; they desperately need Zelensky in their camp.  On the other hand, Putin wishes to regain control of the conveyer.  In order to do so, he must appoint a marionette as president of Ukraine.

The media lionize President Zelensky; he is portrayed as the ideal hero (at least in ancient Greek terms).  Similarly, President Putin is demonized and made a superb villain, an unquestionable anti-hero (in absolute terms).  In combination with the horrifying images of bombings of civilians in Ukraine, the international darling and the international pariah are excellent instruments for Democrats to keep the American electorate distanced from the dirty under-the-carpet struggle.

When reviewing the first Russo-Ukrainian War, which is clearly not the first, it is vital to keep that hidden tussling in mind.  Voltaire wrote in 1731 in his book History of Charles XII, King of Sweden, that “Ukrania has always aspired to freedom.” Unfortunately, the road to freedom is not one of the straight lines; the story of Ukraine confirms that dirty realpolitik deals plague it.

[Originally published at American Thinker]

Russia’s dire future

Who could unite the ununitable — on both sides of the Atlantic?  President Putin has undoubtedly accomplished the impossible by bringing together the opposing political forces in the West.  No, they did not “unite” in the traditional sense.  Still, pro-socialist circles demonstrate a joint front with pro-conservative forces against the Kremlin.  Moreover, in response to the unprovoked Russian attack, the West condemned it nonstop.  (There are marginal groups of pseudo-conservatives who justify Putin’s aggression, but they are undoubtedly in the minority).

That alone indicates that an extraordinary event has occurred.  However, it is not simply a proverbial perfect storm.  As a matter of fact, we are experiencing a storm of biblical proportions — if one dares to look at the possible future.

At the end of 2021, the left, tarnished in the coronavirus battles (we refer to the pandemic’s political, not biological component), needed a pause.  In the early stages, the left welcomed the pandemic enthusiastically because, as everyone knows, leftists practice the “no crisis to waste” mode of operation.  However, they had no idea how to end it without losing (political) face, and Putin’s aggression has opened an escape hatch.  The coronavirus pandemic further compressed the coil spring until Putin foolishly released it.  By doing so, he has achieved unbelievable things.

While everybody is focused on Ukraine’s suffering, it is time to look at the most probable post-war settlement terms.  Russia has entered a challenging period.  For example, the head of the Russian delegation, which pretends to negotiate with Ukraine, is a former Russian minister of culture, Vladimir Medinsky.  He is known for saying that “the fact that Russia has been preserved and developed, proves that our people have one extra chromosome.”

Well, after a month or so of fighting, the Russian military — possessing an “extra chromosome” —  is no longer respected.  During the height of the nuclear scare, the Soviet Union was covered with propaganda posters like “attention: the enemy is eavesdropping.”  In 2022, Russians must be schooled in “attention: the enemy is taking notice.”  Those concerned about the Soviet-era nukes are, in reality, worrying more about the mental health of the Kremlin nano-fuehrer than the actual missiles and warheads.

China is no doubt paying attention.  Siberia, which is rich in all the elements of the Mendeleev Periodic Table, could be picked up quickly with little resistance — and with the wholehearted support of the local Russian population.  The current inhabitants of South Siberia are practically indistinguishable from the Northern Chinese population.  For the last decade, a Russian citizen in Siberia marrying a Chinese citizen has been widely considered a stroke of good luck.  These Russians would definitely greet the Chinese army — contrary to what Ukrainians did for Russians.

After every day passes without Ukrainian capitulation, Siberia appears to become more and more attractive as an acquisition target rather than well equipped, determined, and supported by Western countries Taiwan.  Like everyone else, China has been stunned by the Ukrainian resistance, but a more significant shock has been the largely unified position of the West.  Although this unity against the aggressor will not deter China’s communists, they will likely put Taiwan on the back burner for now and focus on the low-hanging fruit.

Likewise, the South Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island, currently in Russian hands but previously belonging to Japan, are giving heed.  The Königsberg (today Kaliningrad) region, previously German Prussia, is also tuning in.  So it is no surprise that the Russian citizens in these regions, far from Moscow, are eager to do all it takes to relieve massive economic and financial sanctions by merely switching jurisdictions.

Years from now, upon the end of silly anti-all-Russian hysteria, classics like Tchaikovsky, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, and Brodsky will be returned in due course, and Russian scientists will be back at American universities.  It’s highly likely that Russia will be almost unrecognizable by that time.  It is possible that Russia might no longer occupy one-seventh of the planet’s landmass.  Another reason is that the devastating sanctions are here to stay, because no one in Washington has the stomach to behave in a pro-Putin manner in the foreseeable future.

The end of Ruzzia as we know it due to economic blockade was brought up exclusively by Russia’s self-inflicted wounds.  Russia unwisely started shelling and bombing neighboring poor Ukraine, with just one-third GDP per capita compared to Russia’s.  Instead of a “victorious little war,” Russia must brace for a multitude of black swan events.  The biblical judgment over Russia is coming, assured by the unprecedented alliance of the left, the right, and the valor of the newborn Ukrainian nation.  Rephrasing William Gibson, the Russian defeat is already here — it is just not evenly distributed.

[Originally published at American Thinker]

Why a no-fly zone over Ukraine won’t work

Several decades ago, a colleague from a neighboring department at my university loaned me a marketing textbook.  Naturally, it was difficult to force a young physicist to read something that does not explore the Schrödinger Equation.  Anyway, I accepted the book, intending to surf it politely for a few minutes and then ignore it.

However, the moment I opened the book, I was hooked.  Since then, I have read and reread it several times.  One of the practicing marketing experts who also taught at the university wrote its introduction.  In particular, he described the type of homework given to his students.  As part of the course, students were required to develop a marketing program for new, high-quality drill bits.

All undergraduates completed the assignment, and all earned an F.

Indeed, the marketing guru substantiated an explanation for such disastrous results.  He noted that humans, in the truest sense of the word, do not need drill bits.  What people actually want is holes, not drill bits.  Thus, there is no need, and subsequently, there is no demand for them.  People need holes in wood, metal, plastic, whatever.  In reality, drill bits are only one part of the range of tools that allow men to accomplish their actual goals: the holes.

Any attempt to persuade individuals to purchase items they do not actually require is ineffective.  Such an endeavor is ultimately not profitable.  The correct, profitable approach is selling people what they truly desire: holes.  The professor argued that marketing should focus on the holes rather than drill bits.  Eventually, people will purchase these drill bits if they are convinced that they will get stunning holes at the end of the process.

Let us fast-forward to 2022.  The Ukrainian citizens call for establishing a no-fly zone over the country.  This is an excellent example of a situation where people demand things they do not actually need.  There is no question that Ukrainians are anxious to stop deadly Russian aerial and missile attacks, and that is a noble goal, but it has nothing to do with NATO’s no-fly zone.  A no-fly zone is one of many tools available to achieve this objective.  According to what is known, military personnel dislike it when civilians offer the mission and mandate specific tools.

Instead, let military professionals choose the methods and tools to stop terrible bombings and shelling of innocent civilians, assuming that the West — and, it seems, the world — wants to offer a helping hand to suffering Ukrainians.  We must stop the chorus of internet military experts who were prominent virologists and world-renowned epidemiologists just a few weeks ago.

Ukrainians should be informed that while the need to stop the bombardments is acknowledged, the external methods to resolve it are not their choice.  Various military, diplomatic, and economic tools are available — and the no-fly zone is just one (and not the most attractive) of them.  (Regarding this matter, we are still awaiting official calls to expel Russia from the United Nations, similar to the expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations for attacking Finland in 1940.)

One of the solutions would be a Lend-Lease-like program to deliver Ukraine high-tech anti-aircraft batteries.  Ukraine already uses high-tech Turkish drones; they have to be complemented with American-made surface-to-air missiles.

Along with anti-aircraft defense weapons, the United States has historically supported just causes while embracing a façade of neutrality.  There were, for example, approximately one hundred American military pilots who resigned from their commissions in 1940 and 1941 and joined Chiang Kai-shek’s army in the fight against Imperial Japan.  Note that American pilots entered the combat long before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) squadron became known as the Flying Tigers.  It is noteworthy that the Flying Tigers flew Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighters, made in Buffalo, N.Y., resulting in the first American aces of World War II.

Ukrainians must also observe that Flying Tigers represent a pre-woke American military.  Today’s politically correct military will take much longer to reach the right decisions.  For this reason, Ukraine must fight off the invaders with what it has at this juncture — until Pentagon lawyers and Washington swamp-dwellers are able to explore and crunch risks, profits, and political expediency.

[Originally published by American Thinker]

The Russian Ersatz-Fascism

The unprovoked attack on Ukraine has transformed most Internet pundits from world-renowned virologists and epidemiologists into experts in Eastern Europe geopolitics virtually overnight. Various explanations are offered, ranging from rational (“the restoration of the Soviet Empire” or “the irresponsible expansion of NATO to the East”) to irrational (“megalomaniac” or “madman” Putin).

Well, Putin is neither a-hundred-percent rational or a-hundred-percent irrational. His activities are manifestations of his ideology—and that aspect of the present war in Europe is often overlooked.

In 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin arranged for the transportation of the ashes of the Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin (pronounced as il’in) from Switzerland and reinterment in Russia at the prestigious Donskoi Monastery cemetery in Moscow. Putin’s personal funds were used to install the gravestone. The philosopher’s archive was purchased from the University of Michigan for 40 thousand dollars and relocated to Russia in the following year. Throughout the 21st century, Vladimir Putin has used the philosophical ideas of Ilyin in his speeches.

Why does Putin pay close attention to this obscure philosopher, otherwise unknown to the West?

Ivan Ilyin was a professor at Moscow University who was arrested by the Bolsheviks (Russian Communists) six times and sentenced to death for his anti-communist activities but was instead expelled from Russia. So, along with hundreds of distinguished Russian intellectuals, Ilyin boarded one of what turned out to be the infamous “philosophers’ ships.” Having settled in Germany, Ilyin, together with other expelled Russian academics, established the Russian Scientific Institute in 1923. It was there that he became the ideologue of the White Knight’s Movement of Russian monarchists (or simply White Movement), the philosophical foundation for Putin’s worldview. (During that era, the coloring scheme was pretty conventional—”Red” for communists, “White” for monarchists.)

However, the only reprehensible thing is that Ilyin regarded Fascism and National Socialism as special cases of the monarchist White Movement. Despite this, Ilyin was never a staunch supporter of Italian Fascism or German National Socialism. On the contrary, his entire life was dedicated to propagating the Russian Orthodox Christian version of Fascism.

Moreover, Ilyin made a grave blunder when he assumed the external attributes of Fascism in place of Fascism itself. It did not occur to him that Fascism, created under the leadership of the prominent socialist Benito Mussolini, belongs to the same Left ideology as Socialism and Bolshevism. It was Mussolini who built in Italy true “National Socialism,” in contrast to The Third Reich, which actually created “Aryan Socialism” (sometimes correctly termed “Racial Socialism”). As is well known, Mussolini was outraged because the Nazi Party (National Socialist Workers Party of Germany) appropriated the term “National Socialism,” which, strictly speaking, does not apply to it.

As with many other ideologies, Monarchism can be Left or Right—just as both right-wing totalitarianism and left-wing totalitarianism exist. Likewise, there is right-wing anti-Semitism or left-wing anti-Semitism. There is also right-wing Nationalism and left-wing Nationalism (although the use of the term “nationalism” outside of Germany is most likely incorrect). These isms are not distinct ideologies. Rather, they are external, secondary attributes of one or more underlying ideologies. As humanity has accumulated enough statistics, it is evident that totalitarianism and anti-Semitism are indeed prevalent in left-leaning movements. Although this is only true statically, it does not speak to the ideology’s dynamic character.

Putin has carried out the same mistake as Ilyin; that said, he has done so in the political rather than ideological sphere. There was a dilemma facing Russia two decades ago: as a post-Soviet- Union country, it needed a unifying ideology. Communism was a non-starter; the return to the pre-Soviet Tsarism was not popular. Putin has discovered Ilyin and has accepted the external characteristics of Ilyin’s White Movement as an ideology that would help Russia achieve success. Despite this, Putin, like Ilyin, is trying to combine the incompatible while maintaining the vagueness of the White Movement’s fundamental ideology.

As the apologist of the White Movement, Ilyin himself hesitated in determining where the movement should be placed on the political spectrum: on the Left or the Right. However, Ilyin has avoided the necessity of such a definition; in essence, he sought to develop a supra-ideological—or rather post-ideological ideology.

His 1928 article, “On Russian Fascism,” introduced the idea of a post-ideological social movement, “into where the political party spirit does not penetrate.” In the same article, Ilyin asks a rhetorical question: “When will we realize that there is no salvation in borrowing at all—for it does not matter whether democracy is adopted or fascism?” (Here, Ilyin correctly distinguishes the difference between democracy and Fascism). Ilyin argues that the White Movement “…is already on its way and must continue to follow the paths of independent creativity.” Because of the “independent creativity” of Russian Fascists in exile, the idea was developed that left-wing Fascist ideas of organizing society and right-wing Capitalist ideas could be combined to achieve the primary goal of monarchists—the restoration of the Romanov dynasty in Russia. According to historian James Pool, many wealthy Russian immigrants in Germany were more anti-communist and anti-Semitic than Hitler himself, and they supported the Nazis financially since the early years of The Third Reich.

As a result, this movement has been incorrectly characterized by Ilyin as Left Monarchism, ideologically close to Italian Fascism, but before it and, therefore, its ideological predecessor. In the above quote, Ilyin admits the previously mentioned unforgivable error—he accepts the attributes of Fascism as constituting Fascism in itself and does not see its Left, socialist nature. However, he was pleased to have been deceived because he saw allies in any movement that opposed the Bolsheviks, Communists, or Social Democrats in the struggle against the Bolshevik coup d’état in Russia in 1917.

In his ignorance, Ilyin did not realize that the struggle of the Italian Fascists against the Italian Communists was not a struggle between two opposing forces but an irreconcilable internecine struggle. A similar argument can be established concerning the bloody scuffles between National Socialists and Communists and Social Democrats in pre-war Germany. Later on, after the Second World War, in the 1948 article “On Fascism,” Ilyin complains that “Fascism had made several critical mistakes that determined its political and historical physiognomy and gave the very name its odious tint, which does not get tired to be emphasized by its enemies. Therefore, it is necessary to choose another name for future social and political movements of this kind.” (It should be noted that the quasi-fascist group Antifa, sponsored by the Democrat Party, follows that recommendation).

Fascists in France and later on in Italy never saw themselves outside the socialist framework, but National Socialists in Germany initially positioned themselves as “not Right or Left.” They enjoyed this self-identification in the eyes of the worldwide anti-capitalist movement for some time. Then, suddenly, Joseph Stalin abruptly changed the game’s rules: he decided to exploit the left-right conceptual dichotomy (in an indeed narrow setting) to prosecute the slightest opposition to his dictatorial rule altogether. Any aberration from the orthodox Communist party line—no matter how small—had to be labeled. Hence, the “Right-deviationists” and “Left-deviationists” were born.

The “Left-deviationists” were deemed “too orthodox,” “too revolutionary,” so much, as strange as it may seem, for the taste of bloodthirsty revolutionary Bolsheviks. In contrast, the “Right-deviationists” were considered traitors to the idea of the planet-wide socialist revolution because they dared to consider building a workers’ paradise by cleverly exploiting mechanisms of state capitalism. Unquestionably, the word “capitalism” was anathema for communists. The “Left-deviationists” were on the left from Stalin, and “Right-deviationists” were on his right.

Instead of the rostrum at the French Assembly, Stalin positioned himself at the center of the ideological universe and thus had opened a new page in the “left-right” semantic journey. To rephrase it, Soviet Communists delineated intra-communist opposition as either left- or right-wingers. The left-right labels are no longer utilized to describe opposite political forces; from now on, they characterize deviations relative to the official Soviet Communist party line. Stalin used it initially to incriminate another fellow Bolshevik, his bête noire Leon Trotsky, but eventually, by the 1930s, it grew into a tool for massive party purges.

As it appears, the slide of Leftist ideologies into left-wing totalitarianism is an inevitable consequence and a natural result of all left-wing regimes. There are no exceptions to this rule. Beginning with the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century and ending with Venezuela of the 21st century, all Leftist regimes have evolved towards totalitarianism. (It is interesting to note that the French Revolution happened at about the same historical epoch and for about the same reasons as the American Revolution, but if France chose the Left path of development, then America chose the Right one; the result of these two revolutions speaks for itself).

The Frankfurt School of Socialism adherents were strongly pro-Soviet (a generous amount of them were veritably Stalinists) and, customarily, considered National Socialism a form of deviation to the Right from the mainstream trajectory of Soviet (i.e., International) Socialism. Consequently, they emigrated from pre-war Germany to the United States and brought this particular understanding of the designation.

Ilyin hoped to defeat Left totalitarianism in Soviet Russia with the help of the Fascist “chevaliers.” However, left-wing totalitarianism—into which both Italian Fascism and National Socialism of The Third Reich quickly and naturally evolved—could not destroy the underlying platform that both left-wing ideologies were built upon. Ilyin, even in 1948, contemporary to these events, was still in the thrall of illusions when he asserted that Fascism “arose as a reaction to Bolshevism, as a concentration of state-protective forces to the Right.” Thus, Ilyin supported the post-war myth of the Frankfurt School that Fascism and National Socialism were right-wing movements.

In the article “National Socialism. New spirit. I” (part II was never written), published just four months after Hitler got to power, Ilyin praises the Nazis. He welcomes the “legal self-destruction of the Democratic-parliamentary system” in Germany. He emphasizes that Germany “managed to break the democratic impasse, without violating the constitution.” For Ilyin, the main thing was that in Germany, “everything that is involved in Marxism, social democracy, and Communism is being removed.”

Ilyin’s tragic mistake was that he could not recognize that Fascism and National Socialism are close ideological relatives of Marxism, Communism, and other strains of left-wing ideology.

Ilyin eloquently writes that the seizure of power by the National Socialists is “a coup not of disintegration, but concentration; not destruction, but conversion; not violently lax, but powerfully disciplined and organized; not immense, but dosed. And what is most remarkable is that it causes loyal obedience in all sections of the people.” It is this direction of development of modern Russia that Putin chose for himself, who sees Russia as “powerfully disciplined,” and “causing loyal obedience in all sections of the people.” At the same time, all Putin’s actions are formally carried out, according to Ilyin, “without violating the constitution.”

Ilyin was also struck by the rapidity with which German National Socialism developed. Hitler came to power in January 1933, and the Russian Scientific Institute was placed under the control of the Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda by October of that year. In July 1934, Ilyin was dismissed from the institute, of which he had been a founder (it is known that in March 1934, Ilyin refused to cooperate with the Nazis, although he had before supported them and hoped they would be effective in combatting the Soviet communists).

In 1938, the world-famous Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff saved Ilyin from inevitable imprisonment and death in a concentration camp by paying 4,000 Swiss francs in collateral (about $30,000 today); this allowed Ilyin to not only flee to Switzerland but also to stay there and live without fear of extradition back to The Third Reich. It is worth noting that Rachmaninoff, earlier, in 1923, helped a fellow ex-pat from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, Igor Sikorsky, by writing him a check for $5,000 (about $75,000 today). That is how Sikorsky’s successful aircraft manufacturing business in America got its start.

In this way, Ilyin’s passion for Germany’s version of Fascism came to an end. Will Putin end his enthusiasm for Ilyin? A former nuclear superpower seeking to build capitalism using totalitarian socialist methods (and the current top leadership of Russia knows of no other method) is doomed to failure.

As such, this conclusion is not based on Putin’s political mistakes but instead on Ilyin’s convoluted, pseudoscientific post-ideological ideology. Essentially, Putin’s political errors result from his post-ideological foundation. In the same way that Ilyin himself was inclined to work with anyone, even the devil, to defeat Soviet communists, Putin decided to use Ilyin’s ideas about the White Movement in order to attain his political objectives.

What are these objectives? To bring back the Soviet Union? To reestablish the Warsaw Pact? No, Putin does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past and is not satisfied with the accomplishments of his predecessors.

The goal of Putin, like Stalin and Lenin before him, is world domination.

Putin, the architect of the KGB Caliphate in Russia, is driven by precisely this desire to dominate the world.

This nano-fuehrer of the White Movement from a St. Petersburg slum, who unexpectedly had catapulted to the Russian presidency, sees himself as the World Sovereign. Capturing parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Syria is more than just an attempt to restore the Soviet Union. It was a dress rehearsal before the attempt to seize world supremacy. Toward this end, Putin created precarious anti-American Axis of China-Russia-Syria-Iran-North Korea (modeled after the Axis countries of The Third Reich-Italy-Japan during the Second World War).

By the way, Ilyin had always put the word “Ukraine” in quotes because he held this country an integral territory of Russia, and his post-Soviet vision of Russia includes Ukraine as an organic part of Russia. In 2014, Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which was a direct result of Ilyin’s worldview. As long as Russia’s leaders support Russian Ersatz-Fascism, they will continue attempts to re-occupy the post-Soviet space.

In addition, Putin regards Ukraine, and all other countries, for that matter, not as sovereign states but rather as rebellious provinces within a future unified Orthodox Fascist Empire. It looks like the vast majority of the world leaders have finally comprehended this; even Switzerland had recently dropped its 207-years of neutrality due to Kremlin’s aggression toward Ukraine. Putin’s principal competitors in the world dominance endeavor—Socialist International (Socintern) and World Economic Forum—are left far behind, for they do not have access to weapons.

Putin punctually fulfills Ilyin’s post-ideological program, which includes Ilyin’s harsh post-war criticism of Fascism.

Having a strongly negative view of Russian and German anti-Semitism, Ilyin was a genuine Russian intellectual. By attracting Russian oligarchs of Jewish origin into power, Putin managed, if not eradicating, at least substantially suppressing manifestations of state anti-Semitism in so traditionally anti-Semitic a country like Russia.

Besides criticizing Fascism, Ilyin also complains about the lack of spirituality present in The Third Reich as well as the Nazi hostility towards Christianity. Putin also rectified the situation by elevating the role of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Ilyin’s opinion, the Nazi Party established a monopoly on party power in The Third Reich. Putin also took this into consideration—in modern Russia, there are many political parties (although not one opposes the Kremlin). Moreover, Putin follows Ilyin’s direct instruction that political parties in post-Soviet Russia are not to act as independent forces; they should plainly exist to institutionalize elections.

Finally, Ilyin criticizes Fascism for creating a totalitarian system; he argues Fascism should be limited only to “authoritarian dictatorship,” capable of “giving religion, the press, science, art, economy and non-Communist parties freedom of judgment and creativity to the extent of their political loyalty.” Putin has apparently taken this recommendation literally. In modern Russia, journalists and citizens are entitled to freedom of expression, but only “to the extent of their loyalty” to the authoritarian regime.

The problem with Putin is that he is building Right-by-definition capitalism in Russia through the use of Left-by-definition ideology.

It is an approach that guarantees the instability of Russian society and its eventual collapse. The policies of Europe are essentially the same as those of Putin’s Russia: right-wing capitalism injected with left-wing ideology. Consequently, Europe favors Putin (to a certain degree, of course) and is against Israel, which has abandoned the Left ideology, and against the United States, which stubbornly refuses to adopt Socialist ideas.

In addition, Putin does not miss many of Ilyin’s recommendations regarding engaging Russian-speaking immigrants outside of Russia. During the time of Ilyin, this was an acute issue. However, now, when roughly thirty million Russian-speaking citizens from the former Soviet Union live outside of Russia, it is Putin’s intention to treat this multi-million contingent ideologically and propagandistically in the spirit of Ilyin.

According to Timothy Snyder, Ilyin was of the opinion that “Russia would save the world not from but with Fascism.” Note that Putin justifies—in a truly Orwellian manner—the current aggression toward Ukraine as an “Anti-Nazi special operation.”

Having no appreciation for the illogic and inconsistency of Ilyin’s post-ideology, Putin meticulously adheres to his teachings and, as a result, introduces one of the bloodiest varieties of Left ideology in Russia. Essentially, he promotes marriage between the aggressive atheism of Italian and German Fascism with the militant theology of the unique Russian Orthodox Christianity. Like Anton Chekhov’s textbook gun, this explosive mixture of contradictions has been hanging over Russia, ready to fire.

Putin earned the disparaging nickname “The Moth” during his affirmative years. This epithet followed him into the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB and was unofficially attached to him throughout his career with the KGB. However, upon becoming President of Russia, The Moth was in search of a windshield—and found one in Ukraine.

[Originally published by NOQ Report]