Exiled Russian scholar on why Dugin is no philosopher, and Russia no defender of ‘traditional values'

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In recent years, the Kremlin has sought to cast Russia as a bastion of so-called traditional values, positioning itself in stark contrast to what it describes as the morally decaying West. Yet beneath this veneer, a more complex reality persists. As exiled Russian philosopher Alexey Zhavoronkov told the Kyiv Independent, 'conservative rhetoric and concepts are employed to mask a different reality.'
Within the framework of traditional conservative thought, personal liberty is regarded as a foundational principle. But in today's Russia, such freedom is markedly absent.
As Zhavoronkov observes, those advancing the narrative of a 'conservative' Russia frequently do so less out of ideological conviction than opportunism — aligning themselves with the Kremlin to serve as de facto spokespeople for President Vladimir Putin's regime while also enriching themselves.
Among those frequently cited as intellectual architects of the Kremlin's 'traditional values' worldview is Alexander Dugin, referred to in Western media as 'Putin's brain' — a title that belies the ambiguous and likely overstated nature of his actual influence.
Dugin, who has openly called for the genocide of Ukrainians and maintains a network aimed at exporting his ideology far and wide abroad, presents himself as a philosopher. But as exiled Zhavoronkov explained to the Kyiv Independent, Dugin's work is marred by intellectual incoherence and lacks the philosophical depth required for serious consideration.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Kyiv Independent: Some right-wing contingents in the West claim that Russia is a last holdout for 'traditional values.' Could you go into more detail about the image that Russia is trying to project versus what is really happening there?
Alexey Zhavoronkov: This concept of 'traditional values' — and by that I mean the political use of the concept of traditional values — is very illustrative because there are hundreds of its interpretations in different documents and publications. If we look at official documents like Russian national development strategies, which offer lists of specific 'traditional values,' most of these values are not strictly conservative. We see notions like individual freedom, or we see something more associated with the philosophy of enlightenment (like the idea of human dignity) — meaning that traditional values are more along the lines of liberal thought. There are also certain concepts, such as collectivism, that were carried over from the Soviet period.
Conservative values mentioned in Russian official documents are mostly centered around 'traditional family' — beyond that, there isn't much. This serves as a good example of how conservative rhetoric and concepts — sometimes even borrowed from Western traditions, which are officially condemned in Russia — are employed to mask a different reality.
If we look at the conservative tradition in the U.S. and compare it to the Russian tradition, the differences are striking — they're two entirely different worlds.
The Kyiv Independent: How so?
Alexey Zhavoronkov: The differences exist on many levels, including political practice. But if we start with the theoretical side, the Anglo-American conservative tradition has a long and deep history. It doesn't begin as a reaction to the French Revolution (in the 18th century), but rather can be traced back to 15th- and 16th-century England. There's a lot to examine when analyzing this tradition.
There was no major rupture in the American conservative tradition after World War II. In contrast, the Bolshevik Revolution (in 1917) in Russia effectively severed the continuity of the country's conservative tradition. In the U.S., there have certainly been political crises within the conservative movement, but the development of the tradition was never interrupted. Moreover, in the U.S., after World War II, much of the conservative movement was defined by anti-communism. Overall, if we look at major themes and the political policies associated with them, there's very little overlap between the Russian and American traditions.
Russia sees itself as having a unique role in the world — it believes it should save the world, but it will save it by means of destruction.
The Russian tradition faced multiple issues that differentiated it from the American tradition — which itself had internal problems, such as the split between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives since the 1970s. I'll return to that later, because I think there are some similarities between American and Russian neoconservatives, though only at the level of the international political agenda.
As I mentioned, in Russia, we see a major interruption in the conservative tradition. There was certainly a conservative tradition before the revolution, though by the end of the 19th century, it was already in decline. It's also quite telling that as soon as the Russian (imperial) government, under Emperor Alexander III, officially adopted conservative rhetoric, conservatism as an intellectual movement practically disappeared. The government wasn't interested in serious programmatic works; it only needed slogans, which were mostly supplied by the official press.
There were a plethora of newspapers and some journals that labeled themselves as conservative, but there were virtually no intellectual platforms for Russian conservatives. The golden era of Russian conservatism — associated with the Slavophile movement in the mid-19th century — was already long gone. It wasn't revived later under Emperor Nicholas II, and then came the revolution. After that, there were only limited attempts to revitalize the conservative tradition during the Soviet period, by figures like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for instance. There were also some more radical conservative, mostly Orthodox, movements during the Soviet period. But aside from a few collections of essays and Solzhenitsyn's publications, there were no major works that could be considered significant intellectual manifestos. So we are left to piece together fragments from various texts — texts that are neither philosophical in nature nor structured as political programs.
I think the last truly meaningful intellectual exchange between Russian conservatives and Russian liberals was the debate between Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov in the 1970s and 1980s. Both of them had clearly defined (but incompatible) visions of Russia's future.
Many aspects of that debate are either no longer relevant or problematic, such as Solzhenitsyn's idea of the nation. But still, it was a genuine (direct and indirect) debate that highlighted fundamental differences in how each thinker envisioned Russia's path forward over the coming century.
The Kyiv Independent: Why do you think the Russian government following the USSR's collapse, chose the path of neoconservatism?
Alexey Zhavoronkov: I think if we return to the issue of tradition, it's clear that there has been a break in its continuity. Contrary to what the Russian government suggests, this tradition has not been restored. Instead, the government is attempting something similar to what American anti-traditionalist neoconservatives aimed to do starting in the 1980s — namely, to formulate a global political agenda based primarily on the country's national interests rather than on international agreements and rules. These national interests are used to justify what I would describe as aggressive, even imperialist, policies aimed at establishing or maintaining dominance in various regions of the world.
Of course, the economic weight of a country like the U.S. is incomparably greater than that of Russia. Russia represents only a small fraction of the global economy and is now largely isolated from many international markets. Therefore, the Russian government had to come up with a different kind of justification for its imperial ambitions.
This justification has taken on a radical Orthodox form. This is where figures like Alexander Dugin come into play, along with many other ideologists who popularized the concept of 'Katechon' — which has become one of the key notions in Russian politics today.
The Kyiv Independent: Could you explain what that is?
Alexey Zhavoronkov: This concept enforces the idea that Russia is the world's sole and last protector against the Antichrist. Instead of American political and economic exceptionalism, which is manifested in (U.S. President Donald) Trump's policies, Russia has its own form of exceptionalism, but with different pillars supporting the ideology. For the U.S., the pillar is economic dominance, as seen in Trump's obsession with tariffs. For Russia, the pillar is spiritual or radical Orthodoxy, which contains strong elements of messianism. Russia sees itself as having a unique role in the world — it believes it should save the world, but it will save it by means of destruction. And to protect the world, Russia must be in a constant state of war with those who worship the Antichrist, namely with the 'Collective West.'
The so-called 'Collective West' is another political concept actively used in Russian politics. The permanent state of war also means a permanent state of exception within Russia, because war serves as a perfect justification for almost any political action. In such a situation, established rules no longer apply. The government can always claim that it's an exceptional circumstance.
The Kyiv Independent: You mentioned Alexander Dugin. Could you just go into who he is and how he came into prominence? In the West, they call him 'Putin's brain.' But his connections to Putin are highly debated. Does he have any real influence in Russia or is it just an outward projection?
Alexey Zhavoronkov: Yes, Dugin is a really interesting figure from the perspective of how he's seen from the West. For a long time — even in Western political science — he was widely regarded as Putin's favored ideologist, someone with direct access to him and the ability to advise him on key issues. This was, of course, not the case. And this still isn't the case today, although Dugin has gained significantly more favor in recent years for various reasons, one of which is the murder of his daughter.
I think Dugin is perhaps the most eclectic ideologist in Russia as of today. What he writes is mostly eclectic and situational commentary on what the Russian government does. At the heart of his 'philosophy' is the so-called Fourth Political Theory, a framework intended to create a new political ideology to replace existing ones such as Liberalism and Marxism. This idea is understandable on an elementary level, but there is no intellectual content in this theory. It consists only of slogans about the need to establish such a theory, without offering any clear explanation of what that theory should actually be. It's also evident that Dugin has no intention of developing it further, and neither do other ideological figures in Russia, largely due to the nature of Russian politics.
Contemporary Russian politics — much like during the reign of Emperor Alexander III — has no need for intellectual manifestos. The role of ideologists is largely to retroactively justify actions already taken. Their task is to claim, for example, that they have long supported a particular policy or alliance, referencing something they wrote in a book a decade ago.
The Russian government uses the strategy of fusionism. It has encompassed pretty much all movements that existed around it. Nowadays, we have Marxists and Stalinists who support Putin, but also traditionalists like Dugin, fascists, etc. This is a wild mix of people from diverse backgrounds who, in theory, should hold differing opinions — but in practice, they do not, at least not publicly. Many of them even collaborate within government-affiliated organizations, such as the Izborsky Club (a Russian think tank which Dugin is a member of, among others).
What we see in Russia is an eclectic blend of very different ideologies, all loosely labeled as conservatism. To better disguise this inconsistency, Putin — or more accurately, his speechwriters — occasionally reference conservative literature, sometimes even theories by Western authors.
Take, for example, Putin's speech from October 2021 — just a few months before the war began. In it, there's a noteworthy section where he offers a clear definition of conservatism. Interestingly, this definition closely aligns with liberal conservatism as understood by scholars like Michael Freeden and others. Conservatism, in this context, is portrayed as cautious progress based on principles of healthy realism and anti-isolationism, a framework of cultural relations that emphasizes respect for different traditions and viewpoints, aversion to extremism, etc.
All the rhetoric about cautious decision-making, anti-isolationism, and respect for others stood in stark contrast to what unfolded just a few months later. It's clear that Putin aims to appeal to the more conservative segments of the Russian population — and indeed, many Russians hold culturally conservative views in their everyday lives. But ultimately, this conservative messaging serves to mask policies that are, in many respects, deeply anti-conservative.
This is why I would label it as pseudo-conservatism — it mimics conservatism with the clear goal of making people feel more secure in turbulent times and fostering pride in their nation and government. However, in practice, what's actually happening has little to do with traditional conservatism.
The Kyiv Independent: We see from here in Ukraine why people like Dugin are so dangerous. He has actively called for the genocide of Ukrainian people for years — that's what got him kicked out of one university back in 2014 or 2015, if I'm not mistaken. But what damage has he and others like him inflicted upon Russian academia over the past decade of war? What damage can they inflict abroad?
Alexey Zhavoronkov: It's a really good question. I think Dugin's academic trajectory shows us that nowadays, the Russian government is seriously concerned with the issue of Russian academics not being too cooperative, for the most part.
There's a set of statistics from 2022 that breaks down how different social groups relate to the war, whether they support it actively, passively, or oppose it altogether. The group with the least support for the war was Russian academics, which signals to the government that this is a significant issue.
The government uses various means to control the excessively 'cosmopolitan' Russian academia. We see now that pro-government ideologists have been gifted their own institutes. Dugin now directs the Ivan Ilyin Higher Political School, an institute within the Russian State University for Humanities. This, along with other recent policies in education, is a signal to Dugin's colleagues from the same university and other institutions that they are now being closely watched. Naturally, this contributes to an atmosphere of paranoia and self-censorship.
This self-censorship did not start in 2022. We do not have hard statistical data, but we still have some facts from recent history, like the dissolution of the Department for Constitutional Law at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow directly after the public debate concerning the necessity of the 2020 amendments to the Russian constitution. This action was not the government's initiative. The university itself decided to lay off leading scholars in constitutional law, de facto, because there was no living constitution anymore. The constitution was amended in a way that several parts of it were practically destroyed.
People like Dugin contribute to the deterioration of the overall intellectual climate and the rise of self-censorship, which, I believe, is even worse than state censorship. In today's Russia, state censorship is more about punishing a few individuals, while the universities punish the other 200 people themselves out of fear. It's different from the Soviet Union, where state control was stricter and all-encompassing.
Externally, Dugin makes an impression, partly because he has an army of writers, translators, and many supporters promoting his books in Europe and the U.S. I know several colleagues here in Germany, for instance, who were excited that there was supposed to be a workshop on Dugin's philosophy at the Danube Institute in Hungary and wanted to attend. However, after watching some of his videos, they started questioning what he was actually saying. They realized it wasn't philosophy but more like justificatory commentary on the Russian political agenda, filled with big slogans trying to align him with current policies. For instance, in his talk with John Mearsheimer, Dugin explicitly states that Ukraine should have been either neutral or part of Russia, and now Eastern Europe should be either neutral or "ours."
Dugin gives the impression, externally, that he represents Russian philosophy today and embodies the intellectual majority among his colleagues, which is not the case. However, he is the loudest, with all the necessary resources and instruments at his disposal. While he presents himself as a traditionalist, he also uses capitalist tools to commercialize his ideas in the West, adapting his views depending on where he is. In this way, he reminds me of Trump a bit.
If we look at some of the translations of Dugin's books, like the German or English versions, it's striking how much he tailors his message to please his European audience. In Russia, he often speaks of the 'collective West' or Europe as a declining culture, a culture that promotes degeneration. But for his German audience, he or his ghostwriters prepared an introduction to one of his major works that says something like this: 'Germany has historically been oppressed by the U.S., but I, Dugin, am fond of German culture and thinkers.' Indeed, his Russian publications frequently reference Hegel and Heidegger, although he never understands their ideas. However, for his Russian audience, he also emphasizes the need for authoritarianism or even totalitarianism. When appealing to a German audience, he avoids such statements, knowing they wouldn't resonate with his readers there. Instead, he tries to appeal to a broader public, not just the most radical circles, by presenting himself as a German sympathizer.
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