Elements for a revolutionary populist thought

The emerging Multipolar World is a geopolitical revolution. It doesn’t only mark a paradigm shift from the short unipolar moment established by the United States after 1991, but also the end of Western hegemony. The ongoing process of multipolarity is in favor of the different civilizations and against the Liberalist project of Globalization. Whereas Globalization tries to unify the world under one political system, one ideology and one civilization, multipolarity proclaims the diversity of different political systems, different ideologies and different civilizations.

Multipolarity and the Populist moment

Therefore arises the question: Where’s the place of Europe in this Multipolar World? The current position of Europe is in the orbit of the United States. After 70 years of Atlanticism Europe seems not able to express its own geopolitical interests. But as Hölderlin said: „But where danger is there the saving powers will grow as well.“ The Populist moment gave birth to movements like the Yellow Vests and parties all around Europe declaring war on the Liberalist elites. But even the Populist movements and parties lack a consequent strategy against Globalism and Liberalism. The attacks of the Globalists are directed against the core of European civilization. Christianity and its churches are profaned, the peoples get dissolvedin the „ice cold waters of egoistic calculation“ (as Karl Marx said), the family is contested as an instrument of oppression and also the different sexes are attacked for representing patriarchy in the idea of gender mainstreaming, whereas transhumanism is even willing to abolish the human itself in order to liberate the individual. To sum up this danger, Liberalism attacks on several fronts. But the populists only decide to fight on a few of them, especially because they don’t understand the importance of these battles. So far they put into question only certain aspects of the Liberal hegemony and don’t get the whole picture they form all put together. They call for an end of mass migration, but don’t question NATO which is destroying the homeland of people all around the world. They remain silent about the problem of Capitalism destroying their own culture and Christian religion, while they shout „Don’t Islamize our Americanization!“.

The two founding fathers of revolutionary Populist thought: Gramsci and Schmitt

All these aspects of the current intellectual war raging on inside the West show us the apocalyptic seriousness of the historical moment we’re living in. Therefore it’s more important than ever to take up the arms and choose a side. In the case of Europe we can choose between the current elites and their end of history or the cause of the peoples and history’s continuation. What populists all around Europe are currently lacking, is a revolutionary theory. But where can they find it? First we have to look in the Interwarperiod where we find the Communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci and the German Conservative Revolutionary Carl Schmitt. In the thinking of Gramsci we can find his theory of hegemony in order to better grasp how the current liberal regime works. If we adapt the ideas of Antonio Gramsci correctly, we realize that we can find the Liberal ideology not only in phenomena like mass migration and the deterioration of domestic security, or the capitalist economy, but also in geopolitical unipolarity and especially the cultural area. Therefore a resistance against Liberalist hegemony over Europe must be futile, if it’s just directed against one aspect of it. If populism is directed only against one or two aspects of hegemony, it must necessarily become just another example of „defensive modernization“ and will ultimately fail in the long run, as the political theorist Chantal Mouffe has stated. The emergence of Populism signifies the fact, that the political has returned to Europe and that we as Europeans can choose between different hegemonic projects. Liberalism is just one possibility – a revolutionary Populism oriented around the principles of Fourth Political Theory is the other one. These are the intellectual preconditions for a sovereign Europe in a multipolar world.

Land power, Katehon Europa and the nation state

In the field of geopolitics populists need to rediscover Carl Schmitt’s opposition between land and see. Therein he gave prove to the connection between sea power and progressivist ideas, whereas he highlighted the link between land power and conservatism. As Alain de Benoist further formulated the concept in referring to Zygmunt Baumann, the sea power tries to turn everything into a liquid state, therefore it „liquidates“ capital and migrants in order to let them flow like the sea. In order to withstand globalization Europe needs to become a „Katehon Europa“ as Carl Schmitt coined his term of an united European great space, so that it can stem itself against the Antichrist. In many ways this means Europe has to return to its geopolitical roots. First it has to acknowledge the fact that the nation state as the child of modernity is a) no longer able to enact its sovereignty and b) is not a protector of the people but an agent of Bourgeois interests.

The subject of Populist thought: the people

In developing a revolutionary Populist thought it’s necessary to lay the focus on the subject of Populism, the people. Unlike the nation the people isn’t an artificial community, but an historic organism. It’s not consisting of single individuals but of persons, finding their place inside the community. Whereas the nations only know a politically accentuated humanity above them and find their logical conclusion in the world state, the various peoples areGod’s thoughts as Herder concluded. Above the peoples we only find the civilizations, consisting of different peoples sharing the same religion, history and common space with each other. Every people for its own is damned to be liquidated by the West, but united as civilization they can wither the storm.

Multipolarity and the distributed heartland

Therefore it is imperative that a united European civilization must form a common empire in the traditionalist sense in order to guarantee peace on a domestic level and to defend its sovereignty in the face of the globalist onslaught. Furthermore, the rise of Russian-Eurasian, Chinese and Iranian-Shiite civilization have proven what Alexander Dugin calls the distributed heartland. There’s not just one heartland as envisoned by Halford Mackinder, but many. We as Europeans have one of them, our specific European heartland. This means we have to leave behind the „white man’s burden“, the Liberalist messianism of Human rights, (post-)modernity, progress and Enlightenment. We have to come to terms with Xenophobia. Only when we abandon our arrogance and superstition we can take a place among equal civilizations and return to our traditional Christian heritage. If the populists in Europe learn from these lessons, leaving behind the differences between the left and the right and formulate a revolutionary program directed against Globalization and Liberalism in all its dimensions, they can win. Multipolarity in both its intellectual and geopolitical dimension is the key to give back Europe its own destiny. But as in every struggle of liberation the Europeans themselves must make the first step to break out of Western hegemony.

The end of Caesarism: Reflection and Self-criticism as keys to European Multipolarity

A revolutionary theory not only enables populists all around Europe to differentiate between friend, enemy and main enemy, but also to create a strategy so that they can achieve the Europe’s liberation from Liberalism. A sophisticated theory also enables self-criticism and puts an end to careless Caesarism inside Populist movements and parties. Tragic examples of Populist governments failing because of Caesarism like in Italy and Austria would be a thing of the past.

Multipolarity: The civilizations united against globalism

As we can see, Multipolarity offers great chances to fight back against the forces of Globalization and end their advance. We witnessed this on the battlefields in Syria, where Russia and Iran prevented the fall of president Bashar-al Assad and the rise of ISIS. In Venezuela Russia and China managed to help president Maduro to withstand US orchestrated destabilization and regime change. If we see this potential of an anti-imperialist front consisting of different civilizations united against globalization, it would only be logical for Europe to join it in the long run too. Therefore it’s imperative for Europe to leave behind the West and form a pole of its own in the coming multipolar world order.