In mid-May the previously unheard-of Aleksandr Borodai was declared Prime Minister of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”.
This fact alone should disabuse anyone deluded enough to believe that there is anything “progressive”, “anti-imperialist” or “left-wing” about the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and its Lugansk counterpart.
In 1992 Borodai fought as a volunteer in the war in the predominantly ethnic-Russian Transnistrian region when it broke away from Moldova. In 1993 he took part in the defence of the Russian Parliament after its dissolution by Yeltsin.
Borodai went on to write for the Russian newspaper Zavtra — poisonously anti-semitic, full of nostalgia for Stalin, rabidly Russian nationalist, and arguably outright fascist. According to the newspaper’s owner and editor, Aleksandr Prekhanov:
“I’ve known him (Borodai) since 1991. In terms of his ideology he is a Russian nationalist. He is a supporter of a strong Russian state… He’s always been close to me, and has preached the idea of a Russian national white — not red — imperial consciousness.”
Apart from turning his hand to running his own PR consultancies and working as deputy editor of the magazine Russian Businessman, Borodai helped Prekhanov to launch the Djen television channel in 2011.
Like Zavtra, the channel’s output consists of anti-semitism, Russian nationalism, conspiracy theories, homophobia, misogyny, denunciations of the decadence of European civilisation, and, more recently, treatises on the “fiction” of a Ukrainian national identity.
From the Crimea Borodai moved directly to south-east Ukraine: “The territory of the Crimea is quite closely connected to the Donbass, and naturally the people who set up these popular movements are the same people, they are connected to each other. So when I finished in Crimea, I automatically came here.”
More information about Borodai’s politics can be found in an interview recently published by Russkaya Vesna, the website of the Donetsk and Lugansk “People’s Republics”:
“Aleksandr, how did it come about that it was you who ended up as the head of the republic’s government?”
“Fate decreed it to be so. I cannot answer any differently. I was prepared to take this responsibility on myself and to take up this role simply by virtue of my personal characteristics.
“I see what is happening as a confirmation that history has not ended, contrary to the claims of fashionable philosophers. Today it is happening in front of our eyes. And the most important thing is that it is the history of my native country.”
“You are a product of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, the son of a philosopher. You’ll recall Plato’s idea that philosophers must rule. I know you fought as a volunteer in Transnistria and defended the Russian Parliament in 1993. What are your opinions?”
“To put it briefly and simply, I am a Russian patriot. I consider that the extent of the Russian world was artificially reduced as a result of certain circumstances, and that the Russian world was divided by artificially created borders. Those borders divide people of Russian culture ...
“Is it true that you were personally acquainted with the philosopher Lev Gumilev (see below). Could one say that his creativity has influenced your own views?”
“Many early but valuable memories link me to this mystic. I highly value his contribution to Russian culture and science. Absolutely, he has influenced me.”
“In that case, could what is happening in the Donetsk Republic be regarded as an eruption of passionarity (see below)?”
“What’s happening confirms that the Russian cultural archetype is far from having exhausted his vitality. Just as in Transnistria, so too in the Donetsk Republic we are confronted with the process of the self-organisation of the Russian world, in response to the uncompromising challenge it faces.
“What is happening in the south-east of Ukraine can be characterised as a Russian uprising. Russian in the broad sense of the word — in terms of culture, mentality and civilisation. But I’d also like to point out that ethnic Ukrainians are massively involved in the resistance movement. This process is not to be stopped.”
The Lev Gumilev praised by Borodai was a Russian ethnologist and anthropologist (and anti-semite) who theorized that ethnic groups went through a particular life-cycle. Such groups expanded, through conquest, when their national “passionarity” reached maximum heat.
“Passionarity” is stimulated by external, mostly natural, events (such as oscillations in solar radiation levels). Similarly, it is natural events which set cultures apart. Hence, according to Gumilev, the border between Russia and the West coincides with the negative isotherm for January.
Gumilev contrasted the “passionarity” of the Russian “super-ethnos” with “parasite states” which exercise only “chimera statehood”. Examples of the latter states were America and France, both of which have been created by Jews (who, lacking a “passionarity” of their own, are necessarily parasitic on other peoples’).
But whereas Gumilev, who died in 1992, thought that the life-cycle of the Russian “super-ethnos” had entered into a period of decline (as manifested in the collapse of the Soviet Union), Borodai believes that the Russian “super-ethnos” retains its vital force of “passionarity”.
On 23 May Borodai’s “Donetsk People’s Republic” opened its first foreign “consulate” — on the premises of the Moscow branch of the Eurasian Youth Union (EYU).
The EYU is the youth wing of the Eurasia Party, headed by fascist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin. Like its mentor, the EYU’s politics are anti-semitic, Russian-imperialist, authoritarian and “Eurasian” (i.e. in favour of the creation of a new Eurasian Empire, centred on Russia).
The consulate is to assist “the cause of re-unifying the territories of historic Russia which were artificially split up in 1991” and has already been recognised by a number of Russian “patriotic organisations”, including Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR — another Russian-imperialist, semi-fascist, etc., etc. party).
The next time British Stalinists want to stage a protest about fascism in Ukraine — perhaps they could direct their anti-fascist endeavours towards Prime Minister Borodai and his supporters? Or are they incapable of recognizing fascism when it comes draped in a Russian tricolour?
Apart from turning his hand to running his own PR consultancies and working as deputy editor of the magazine “Russian Businessman”, Borodai helped Prekhanov to launch the “Djen” television channel in 2011.
Like “Zavtra”, the channel’s output consists of anti-semitism, Russian nationalism, conspiracy theories, homophobia, misogyny, denunciations of the decadence of European civilization, and, more recently, treatises on the ‘fiction’ of a Ukrainian national identity.
Along with Prekhanov, Borodai is on the channel’s editorial board and, until recently, regularly hosted its programmes.
Another “Djen” regular is Konstantin Dushenov. He has served time for anti-semitic incitement and is the author of a video series entitled: “Russia with a Knife in its Back – Jewish Fascism and the Genocide of the Russian People.”
In early 2014 Borodai turned up in the Crimea, working as a “political strategist” for the peninsula’s “governor” (and mafia boss) Sergei Aksyonov at the time of its annexation by Russia.
From the Crimea Borodai moved directly to south-east Ukraine: ““The territory of the Crimea is quite closely connected to the Donbass, and naturally the people who set up these popular movements are the same people, they are connected to each other. So when I finished in Crimea, I automatically came here.”
More information about Borodai’s politics can be found in an interview recently published by “Russkaya Vesna”, the website of the Donetsk and Lugansk ‘People’s Republics’:
“Aleksandr, how did it come about that it was you who ended up as the head of the republic’s government?”
“Fate decreed it to be so. I cannot answer any differently. I was prepared to take this responsibility on myself and to take up this role simply by virtue of my personal characteristics.
I see what is happening as a confirmation that history has not ended, contrary to the claims of fashionable philosophers. Today it is happening in front of our eyes. And the most important thing is that it is the history of my native country.”
“You are a product of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, the son of a philosopher. You’ll recall Plato’s idea that philosophers must rule. I know you fought as a volunteer in Transnistria and defended the Russian Parliament in 1993. What are your opinions?”
“To put it briefly and simply, I am a Russian patriot. I consider that the extent of the Russian world was artificially reduced as a result of certain circumstances, and that the Russian world was divided by artificially created borders. Those borders divide people of Russian culture.
I am convinced that the difference between the inhabitants of, say, the Rostov and Donetsk regions is to a certain degree imaginary. I therefore see my task as defending and supporting my compatriots.
Basically, we are at one of the first stages (this became particularly obvious after the reunification of the Crimea and Russia), the gathering together of the Russian world, which was violently dismembered after the geo-political catastrophe of 1991.”
“Is it true that you were personally acquainted with the philosopher Lev Gumilev (see below). Could one say that his creativity has influenced your own views?”
I was still a child when I had the good fortune to associate with him. He was often a guest in our home and spent summers in my father’s dacha. Once he even had something like a mystic revelation, but I’ll talk about that another time.
Many early but valuable memories link me to this mystic. I highly value his contribution to Russian culture and science. Absolutely, he has influenced me.”
“In that case, could what is happening in the Donetsk Republic be regarded as an eruption of passionarity (see below)?”
“What’s happening confirms that the Russian cultural archetype is far from having exhausted his vitality. Just as in Transnistria, so too in the Donetsk Republic we are confronted with the process of the self-organisation of the Russian world, in response to the uncompromising challenge it faces.
What is happening in the south-east of Ukraine can be characterized as a Russian uprising. Russian in the broad sense of the word – in terms of culture, mentality and civilization. But I’d also like to point out that ethnic Ukrainians are massively involved in the resistance movement. This process is not to be stopped.”
The Lev Gumilev praised by Borodai was a Russian ethnologist and anthropologist (and anti-semite) who theorized that ethnic groups went through a particular life-cycle. Such groups expanded, through conquest, when their national “passionarity” reached maximum heat.
“Passionarity” is stimulated by external, mostly natural, events (such as oscillations in solar radiation levels). Similarly, it is natural events which set cultures apart. Hence, according to Gumilev, the border between Russia and the West coincides with the negative isotherm for January.
For Gumilev, the Mongol domination of medieval Russia saved Russia from the West and Catholicism and created a Russian “super-ethnos”, through a merger of Eastern Slavs (currently: Russia, Ukraine and Belorus) with Tatars and Mongols.
Gumilev contrasted the “passionarity” of the Russian “super-ethnos” with “parasite states” which exercised only “chimera statehood”. Examples of the latter states were America and France, both of which has been created by Jews (who, lacking a “passionarity” of their own, are necessarily parasitic on other peoples).
But whereas Gumilev, who died in 1992, thought that the life-cycle of the Russian “super-ethnos” had entered into a period of decline (as manifested in the collapse of the Soviet Union), Borodai believes that the Russian “super-ethnos” retains its vital force of “passionarity”.
On 23rd May Borodai’s ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ opened its first foreign ‘consulate’ – on the premises of the Moscow branch of the Eurasian Youth Union (EYU).
The EYU is the youth wing of the Eurasia Party, headed by fascist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin. Like its mentor, the EYU’s politics are anti-semitic, Russian-imperialist, authoritarian and ‘Eurasian’ (i.e. in favour of the creation of a new Eurasian Empire, centred on Russia).
A particularly important day in the EYU’s calendar of annual celebrations is 29th December – birthday of the late Baron Ungern-Sternberg, a czarist officer, anti-semite and staunch monarchist who established a short-live dictatorship in Mongolia in 1920.
According to a biography of the late baron – who dreamt of leading an Asian empire against the decadant West and had a habit of riding into battle bare-chested and necklaced with bones – the baron’s politics were “proto-fascist, with motifs of racism, feudal hierarchy, regenerative bloodshed and mystic communion with primitive virility.”
The consulate is to assist “the cause of re-unifying the territories of historic Russia which were artificially split up in 1991” and has already been recognized by a number of Russian “patriotic organizations”, including Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR – another Russian-imperialist, semi-fascist, etc., etc. party).
To mark the opening of the consulate, representatives of the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and the LDPR held a joint press conference, which also announced a formal signed agreement between the two bodies, whereby the LDPR is now the ‘official’ collector in Russia of ‘humanitarian aid’ for the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’.
The next time British Stalinists want to stage a protest about fascism in Ukraine – perhaps they could direct their anti-fascists endeavours towards Prime Minister Borodai and his supporters? Or are they incapable of recognizing fascism when it comes draped in a Russian tricolour?
