To Be Or Not To Be?

In today’s world, politics appears to be a thing of the past, at least as we used to know it. Liberalism persistently fought against those of its political enemies which had offered alternative systems; that is, conservatism, monarchism, traditionalism, fascism, socialism, and Communism, and finally, by the end of the Twentieth century, had defeated them all. It would be logical to assume that politics would become liberal, while all of its marginalised opponents, surviving in the peripheral fringes of global society, would reconsider their strategies and formulate a new united front according to Alain de Benoist’s periphery against the centre. Instead, at the beginning of the Twenty-first century, everything followed a different script.

Liberalism, which had always insisted on de-emphasising the importance of politics, made the decision to abolish politics completely after its triumph. Maybe this was to prevent the rise of political alternatives and to ensure its eternal rule, or because its political agenda had simply expired with the absence of ideological rivals, the existence of which Carl Schmitt had considered indispensable for the proper construction of a political position. Regardless of the rationale, liberalism did everything possible to ensure the collapse of politics. At the same time, liberalism itself has changed, passing from the level of ideas, political programmes and declarations to the level of reality, penetrating the very flesh of the social fabric, which became suffused with liberalism and, in turn, it began to seem like the natural order of things.

This was presented not as a political process, but as a natural and organic one. As a consequence of such a historical transformation, all other political ideologies, passionately feuding against each other during the last century, lost their currency. Conservatism, fascism and Communism, together with their many variations, lost the battle, and triumphant liberalism mutated into a lifestyle: consumerism, individualism, and a postmodern manifestation of the fragmented and sub-political being. Politics became biopolitical, moving to the individual and sub-individual level. It turns out that it was not only the defeated political ideologies that left the stage, but politics itself, and even liberalism, in its ideological forms, exited. This is why it became nearly impossible to imagine an alternative form of politics. Those who do not agree with liberalism find themselves in a difficult situation - the triumphant enemy has dissolved and disappeared; now they are left struggling against the air. How can one engage in politics, if there is no politics?

There is only one way out - to reject the classical political theories, both winners and losers, strain our imaginations, seize the reality of a new world, correctly decipher the challenges of postmodernity, and create something new - something beyond the political battles of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. Such an approach is an invitation to the development of the Fourth Political Theory - beyond Communism, fascism and liberalism.

To move forward towards the development of a Fourth Political Theory, it is necessary to: 

- reconsider the political history of recent centuries from new positions beyond the frameworks and clichés of the old ideologies; 

- realise and become aware of the profound structure of the global society emerging before our eyes; 

- correctly decipher the paradigm of postmodernity; 

- learn to oppose not the political idea, programme or strategy, but the ‘objective’ reality of the status quo, the most social aspect of the apolitical, fractured [post-] society; 

- and finally, construct an autonomous political model which offers a new way and a project for the world of deadlocks, blind alleys, and the endless recycling of the ‘same old things’ [post-history, according to Baudrillard].

This book is dedicated to this very problem... This is not dogma, nor a complete system, nor a finished project. This is an invitation to political creativity, a statement of intuitions and conjectures, an analysis of new conditions, and an attempt to reconsider the past.

The Fourth Political Theory is not the work of a single author, but is rather a trend comprising a wide spectrum of ideas, researches, analyses, prognoses, and projects. Anyone thinking in this vein can contribute his own ideas. As such, more and more intellectuals, philosophers, historians, scientists, scholars, and thinkers will respond to this call.

For my own country, Russia, the Fourth Political Theory, among other things, has an immense practical significance. The majority of Russian people suffer their integration into global society as a loss of their own identity. The Russian population had almost entirely rejected the liberal ideology in the 1990s. But it is also apparent that a return to the illiberal political ideologies of the Twentieth century, such as Communism or fascism, is unlikely, as these ideologies have already failed and proven themselves unequal to the challenge of opposing liberalism, to say nothing of the moral costs of totalitarianism.

Therefore, in order to fill this political and ideological vacuum, Russia needs a new political idea. For Russia, liberalism does not fit, but Communism and fascism are equally unacceptable. Consequently, we need a Fourth Political Theory. And if, for some readers, this is a question of freedom of choice and the realisation of a political will, which can always be viewed from a positive or negative position, then for Russia, it is a matter of life or death - ‘to be or not to be’, in terms of Hamlet’s eternal question. 

If Russia chooses ‘to be’, then it will automatically bring about the creation of a Fourth Political Theory. Otherwise, for Russia there remains only the choice ‘not to be’, which will mean to quietly leave the historical and world stage, dissolving into a global order which is not created or governed by us.

The Twentieth century has ended, but it is only now that we are truly beginning to realise and to understand this fact. The Twentieth century was the century of ideology. If, in the previous centuries, religion, dynasties, estates, classes, and nation-states played an enormous role in the lives of peoples and societies, then, in the Twentieth century, politics had shifted into a purely ideological realm, having redrawn the map of ethnicities, civilisations, and the world in a new way. On the one hand, political ideologies represented early and deeply rooted civilisational tendencies. On the other hand, they were completely innovative.

All political ideologies, having reached the peak of their dominion and influence in the Twentieth century, were the product of the new, modern era, embodying its spirit, albeit in different ways and under different symbols. Today, we are rapidly leaving this era. Thus everyone speaks, more and more frequently, of the ‘crisis of ideology’, or even the ‘end of ideology’. For instance, the existence of a state ideology is explicitly denied in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. It is time to address this issue more closely.

The three main ideologies of the Twentieth century were: 

[1] liberalism [Left and Right] 

[2] Communism [including both Marxism and socialism, along with social democracy] 

[3] fascism [including National Socialism and other varieties of the Third Way - Franco’s National Syndicalism, Perón’s ‘Justicialism’, Salazar’s regime, etc.].

They fought among themselves to the death, creating, in essence, the entire dramatic and bloody political history of the Twentieth century. It is logical to number these ideologies [or political theories] based in part on their significance, as well as in the order of their occurrence, as was done above. 

The first political theory is liberalism. It arose first, as early as the Eighteenth century, and turned out to be the most stable and successful ideology, having ultimately prevailed over all its rivals. As a result of this victory, it proved, among other factors, the justification of its claim to the entire legacy of the Enlightenment. Today, it is obvious that it was liberalism that was the best fit for modernity. However, this legacy was disputed earlier, dramatically, actively, and, at times, convincingly, by another political theory - Communism. 

It is reasonable to call Communism, much like socialism in all its varieties, the second political theory. It appeared later than liberalism as a critical response to the emergence of the bourgeois-capitalist system, which was the ideological expression of liberalism. 

And, finally, fascism is the third political theory. As a contender for its own understanding of modernity’s spirit, many researchers, particularly Hannah Arendt, in particular, reasonably consider totalitarianism one of the political forms of modernity. Fascism, however, turned toward the ideas and symbols of traditional society. In some cases, this gave rise to eclecticism, in others - to the desire of conservatives to lead their own revolution instead of resisting another’s, and leading their society in the opposite direction, such as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, and so on. 

Fascism emerged later than the other major political theories and vanished before them. The alliance of the first political theory with the second political theory, as well as Hitler’s suicidal geopolitical miscalculations, caused it to expire prematurely. The third political theory was a victim of ‘homicide’, or perhaps ‘suicide’, not living long enough to see old age and natural decay, in contrast to the ideology of the Soviet Union. Therefore, this bloody vampiric ghost tinged with an aura of ‘absolute evil’ is attractive to the decadent tastes of postmodernity, and is still used as a bogeyman to frighten humanity.

With its disappearance, fascism cleared the field for the battle between the first and second political theories. This battle took the form of the Cold War and gave birth to the strategic geometry of the bipolar world which lasted for nearly half a century. By 1991, the first political theory, liberalism, had defeated the second political theory, socialism. This marked the global decline of Communism. 

As a result, by the end of the Twentieth century, liberal theory is the only one remaining of the three political theories of modernity that is capable of mobilising the vast masses throughout the entire world. Yet, now that it is left on its own, everyone speaks in unison about ‘the end of ideology’. Why?

It turns out that the triumph of liberalism, the first political theory, coincided with its end. This only seems to be a paradox.

Liberalism had been an ideology from the start. It was not as dogmatic as Marxism, but was no less philosophical, graceful, and refined. It ideologically opposed Marxism and fascism, not only undertaking a technological war for survival, but also defending its right to monopolise its own image of the future. While the other competing ideologies were in existence, liberalism continued and grew stronger precisely as an ideology, in other words as a set of ideas, viewpoints, and projects that are typical for a historical subject. Each of the three political theories had its own subject. 

The subject of Communism was class. Fascism’s subject was the state, in Italian Fascism under Mussolini, or race in Hitler’s National Socialism. In liberalism, the subject was represented by the individual, freed from all forms of collective identity and any ‘membership’ [l’appartenance].

While the ideological struggle had formal opponents, entire nations and societies, at least theoretically, were able to select their subject of choice - that of class, racism or statism, or individualism. The victory of liberalism resolved this question: the individual became the normative subject within the framework of all mankind. 

This is when the phenomenon of globalisation entered the stage, the model of a post-industrial society makes itself known, and the postmodern era begins. From now on, the individual subject is no longer the result of choice, but is a kind of mandatory given. Man is freed from his ‘membership’ in a community and from any collective identity, and the ideology of ‘human rights’ becomes widely accepted, at least in theory, and is practically compulsory. 

Humanity under liberalism, comprised entirely of individuals, is naturally drawn toward universality and seeks to become global and unified. Thus, the projects of ‘world government’ or globalism are born.

A new level of technological development makes it possible to achieve independence from the class structuralisation of industrial societies, in other words, post-industrialism. 

The values of rationalism, scientism, and positivism are recognised as ‘veiled forms of repressive, totalitarian policies’, or the grand narrative, and are criticised. At the same time, this is accompanied by the glorification of total freedom and the independence of the individual from any kind of limits, including reason, morality, identity [social, ethnic, or even gender], discipline, and so on. This is the condition of postmodernity.

At this stage, liberalism ceases to be the first political theory and becomes the only post-political practice. Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ arrives, economics in the form of the global capitalist market, replaces politics, and states and nations are dissolved in the melting pot of world globalisation. 

Having triumphed, liberalism disappears and turns into a different entity - into postliberalism. It no longer has political dimensions, nor does it represent free choice, but instead becomes a kind of historically deterministic ‘destiny’. This is the source of the thesis about post-industrial society: ‘economics as destiny’.

Thus, the beginning of the Twenty-first century coincides with the end of ideology - that is, all three of them. Each met a different end: the third political theory was destroyed in its ‘youth’, the second died of decrepit old age, and the first was reborn as something else - as postliberalism and the ‘global market society’. In any case, the form which all three political theories took in the Twentieth century is no longer useful, effective, or relevant. They lack the ability to explain contemporary reality or to help us understand current events, and are incapable of responding to the new global challenges. 

The need for the Fourth Political Theory stems from this assessment.

Some may argue that the liberals lie to us when they speak of the ‘end of ideology’ [this was my debate with the philosopher, Alexander Zinoviev]; ‘in reality’, they remain believers in their ideology and simply deny all others the right to exist. This is not exactly true. When liberalism transforms from being an ideological arrangement to the only content of our extant social and technological existence, then it is no longer an ‘ideology’, but an existential fact, an objective order of things. It also causes any attempt to challenge its supremacy as being not only difficult, but also foolish. In the postmodern era, liberalism moves from the sphere of the subject to the sphere of the object. Potentially, this will lead to the complete replacement of reality by virtuality.

The Fourth Political Theory is conceived as an alternative to postliberalism, but not as one ideological arrangement in relation to another. Instead, it is as an incorporeal idea opposed to corporeal matter; as a possibility entering into conflict with the actuality, as that which is yet to come into being attacking that which is already in existence. 

At the same time, the Fourth Political Theory cannot be the continuation of either the second political theory or the third. The end of fascism, much like the end of Communism, was not just an accidental misunderstanding, but the expression of a rather lucid historical logic. They challenged the spirit of modernity... and lost.

This means that the struggle with the postmodern metamorphosis of liberalism into the form of postmodernity and globalisation should be qualitatively different; it must be based on new principles and propose new strategies. 

Nevertheless, the starting point of this ideology is precisely the rejection of the very essence of postmodernity. This starting point is possible - but neither guaranteed, nor ordained by fate - because it arises from man’s free will and his spirit, rather than an impersonal historical process.

However, this essence [much like the rationale behind modernity itself - imperceptible earlier, but later realising its essence so fully that it exhausted its internal resources and switched to the mode of ironically recycling its earlier stages] is something completely new, previously unknown, and only surmised intuitively and fragmentarily during the earlier stages of ideological history and the ideological struggle.

The Fourth Political Theory is a ‘crusade’ against: 

- postmodernity; 

- the post-industrial society; 

- liberal thought realised in practice; 

- and globalisation, as well as its its logistical and technological bases.

If the third political theory criticised capitalism from the Right, and the second from the Left, then the new stage no longer features this political topography: it is impossible to determine where the Right and the Left are located in relation to postliberalism. There are only two positions: compliance [the centre] and dissent [the periphery]. Both positions are global. 

The Fourth Political Theory is the amalgamation of a common project and arises from a common impulse to everything that was discarded, toppled, and humiliated during the course of constructing ‘the society of the spectacle’ [constructing postmodernity]. ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’. The philosopher Alexander Sekatsky rightly pointed out the significance of ‘marginalia’ in the formation of a new philosophical age, suggesting the term ‘metaphysics of debris’ as a metaphor.