Indeed, Dugin went to great lengths to let the reader in on his manipulations, and even flagrantly stated them to be such. In 2005, when ‘Great War of the Continents’ was republished in an anthology Conspirology, Dugin wrote proudly in the introduction that it represented the era’s ‘first conscious and structured attempt at conspirology’ – a vague definition but one that quite clearly indicates a deliberate attempt to mystify and manipulate. But while this might seemingly defeat the purpose of the conspiracy theory, which is to convince people that it is actually true, Dugin was in fact employing a clever rhetorical tool, which was no less effective on a cynical, jaded post-Soviet public. By giving the reader a peek behind his magician’s curtain, he was building rapport, simultaneously offering his advice with the seductive voice of a mandarin counsellor who whispered in the ears of princes. It was a pose that would become his calling card as a skilled propagandist exploiting the reader’s cynicism, rather than his gullibility.
Conspiracy theories, everything from the UFO craze to the Kennedy assassination, are a product of modern times. A growing body of scholarly research on the prevalence of conspiracy theories has focused mainly on explaining the irrational element – psychological factors which support such beliefs, for example. However, a minority view argues that the presence of conspiracy theories can at least sometimes be explained by the presence of actual conspiracies.25
For the rest of the 1990s, conspiracy theories engulfed Russian society, due to almost all the factors listed above. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the rampant economic crisis that accompanied it were so sudden that they seemed artificial. How to explain, for example, that one of the most powerful states in the world had voluntarily surrendered its hard-won imperial dominions and finally ceased to exist? Surely malevolent forces were at work behind the scenes…. But the prevalence of conspiracy theories did also appear to track a rise in actual conspiracies. Starting with the August 1991 coup and continuing through the 1990s and 2000s, Russia was ruled by little other than plots, cabals and manipulations. The events of October 1993 were a textbook conspiracy, and the re-election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 by a group of oligarch bankers, the ascent of Vladimir Putin and the launching of the second Chechen War in 1999 all continue to be hotly debated. The exact nature of the conspiracy that led to them is still a subject of much disagreement, but the fact that each was, fundamentally, a conspiracy is beyond doubt.
And so, it is worth pointing out that while Dugin was producing most of his conspiracy theories, he was actually doing so on behalf of a conspiracy – the group of generals and security men who sought unsuccessfully to sweep to power in the August 1991 coup. Dugin’s own position as writer and publicist to a cabal of military men only added to his mystique, and it is an impression that he has always sought to play up. His credibility as a conspiracy theorist was strengthened, in other words, by the impression he created that he was part of a conspiracy. And this, it turns out, was basically accurate.
On 23 July 1991, a long article appeared in the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya, penned by Prokhanov and signed by several army generals, prominent public intellectuals and government figures who would shortly become famous as the plotters in the doomed coup. (Sovetskaya Rossiya, rather than The Day, was chosen for the appeal because of its comparatively high circulation of 4.5 million.) The piece was called ‘Word to the People’.
An enormous unprecedented misfortune has occurred. The Motherland, our country, the great state entrusted to us by history, by nature and by our glorious forebears is perishing, is being broken up, is being plunged into darkness and oblivion… What has befallen us, Brothers? Why have we allowed evil, pompous rulers, clever and cunning apostates, greedy and wealthy money grabbers, to mock us, jeering at our beliefs, to take advantage of our naïveté, to seize power, steal our wealth, rob people of their homes, factories and land, cut the country into pieces, turn us against each other and pull the wool over our eyes?
The piece bore the hallmark of the experimental nationalism that was being crafted by Prokhanov in the editorial offices of The Day, presumably in cooperation with the military. It was signed by three members of the soon-to-be-infamous State Emergency Committee (GKChP). This was the closest thing to an official statement of ideology that would emerge from the coup plotters: a thumbnail sketch of the ideas they sought to bring with them to power. It was something breathtakingly new: scant reference was made to the Communist Party, and then only as a treasonous Trojan horse ‘which is being destroyed by its own leaders, and running into the arms of the enemy’.
Prokhanov referred to the October revolution, but in exclusively negative terms, in the context of significant catastrophes that had befallen the motherland: ‘Can we really allow, for the second time in this century, civil strife and war, once again throwing ourselves under the cruel millstone which grinds the bones of the people and breaks the backbone of Russia?’ Instead, he emphasized patriotism and statehood, and drew on religious imagery. He even referred to Yeltsin’s reformers as ‘the new Pharisees’.
We appeal to the Orthodox Church, emerging from its crucifixion, which is slowly rising from the grave. The Church, whose spiritual light shone in Russian history, even in times of darkness, today… finds itself worthy of support in a strong sovereign power. Let its clear voice be heard, calling out to save the voice of the people… We appeal to Muslims, Buddhists, Protestants, believers of all faiths, for whom belief is synonymous with goodness, beauty and truth; they are now being attacked by cruelty, ugliness and lies, the wreck of living creatures.
A new ideal of patriotism was apparent in the article – one that was multi-confessional, linking Russians to their past, to spiritual bonds, and not to an ideological commitment to mankind. The enemy was no longer capitalism, but the hidden penetration by scurrilous foreign saboteurs, democratic reformers ‘grovelling before overseas patrons from across the ocean, in search of advice and blessings’.
It was to be the clearest statement of purpose for the clumsily styled GKChP, which would shortly try in vain to reverse the tide of history. Soon, Dugin’s Eurasian and Atlanticist conspiracies would leap off the pages of his cranky manifestos and spring, fully formed, to life on the streets of Moscow.
The ‘Dawn Object’
Just before 5 o ’clock on 18 August 1991, a sweltering Sunday afternoon, five black Volga cars arrived at the gates of Foros, Gorbachev’s holiday residence (known as the ‘Dawn Object’) on the Black Sea coast of Crimea.
Gorbachev told Soviet prosecutors months later that he had not been expecting the visitors – five high-ranking KGB, army and party officials, plus bodyguards – and picked up the phone to call his KGB chief, Vladimir Kryuchkov, to ask what the visit was about. But the line had been cut. He called for the head of his bodyguards, General Vladimir Medvedev, whose black-humoured take on the situation, in the style of KGB generals who had seen it all before, was that this was a ‘Khrushchev variant’: former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had been removed by a plot while staying at his dacha in Pitsunda in 1964.
The next 73 hours would see a desperate struggle between two rival conspiracies within the Soviet hierarchy to wrest control of history. The delegation, it turned out, had been sent by Kryuchkov himself to recruit Gorbachev to the side of eight party bosses and generals who had agreed to form the State Emergency Committee, the GKChP. The precipitating factor was that two days later, on 20 August, Gorbachev was due to sign a new Union Treaty aimed at transforming the USSR into a confederation, which many feared would precipitate the domino-like break-up of the 70-year-old Soviet Empire into independent states. The GKChP’s objective was to secure Gorbachev’s agreement to declare a state of emergency, and put off the signing of the treaty.