The Russian Empire is Reviving and Russians Should be Proud, Mozhegov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 21 – Russians have long been afraid to acknowledge that they have ambitions for the restoration of an empire. But they shouldn’t be, Vladimir Mozhegov says. Instead, they should be proud both of their ambitions and the goal of restoring the empire that their civilization formed.

            The latest concept paper on Russian foreign policy speaks of Russia as “a state-civilization,” the Moscow publicist says in an essay for Vzglyad. “And a state civilization is precisely what an empire is.” Consequently, Russia is and should be an empire (vz.ru/opinions/2023/6/21/1217412.html).

            “What does an empire mean?” he asks rhetorically. “It is above all sovereignty, size and tradition. And what is tradition? This is above all a great culture. The world of empires is distinguished from the world of democracy” in that it is governed by great ideas rather than by the greed of banks.

            Russians also need to recognize that empires are in conflict with one another. “Today’s so-called free world under the Anglo-Saxon yoke of central banks and transnational corporations is also an empire – but it is a liberal empire” based on “colonialism, the rule of capital and the rule of force.”

            Traditional empires like Russia’s, Mozhegov says, “have a completely different meaning: they are empires which bring the light of culture, peace and enlightenment.” To be sure, they are “militant empires” in that they use force to bring peace and well-being to those around them. Such is the paradox of empires.”

            But the key distinction is this: traditional empires bring peace through the use of force while the liberal empire of the West brings war and death through what may appear to many as peaceful means, the publicist says. And that highlights another characteristic of empires: their borders are always in flux because wars are going on along their peripheries.

            “That is what is happening today,” he continues; but everyone needs to remember that “the renewal of the world always involves war. The rebirth of an empire always proceeds through war. But just as one empire is at odds with another so too one war is at odds with other wars.

            According to Mozhgov, “the 20^th century began the century of the destruction of tradition empires” while the powerful secret empire of the West destroyed competitors by means of three world wars – two hot and one cold.” But “today, the Russian empire is reviving and thereby stopping the death-bearing movement of liberal chaos.”

            Another “most important” characteristic of empires is that “an empire conducts major wars on behalf of major ideas.” Russia has done that twice before and now it is doing so again “for the preservation of the very idea of man, the preservation of human beings as a species and man as the image of the Divine.”

            Wars are often the occasion for the transformation of empires, he says. The USSR entered World War II “as a Bolshevik enclave,” but it completed the war almost as a traditional empire … That was a real miracle; and a still greater miracle we have the right to expect today” with the rebirth of the empire,” something that will benefit the entire world.