Dugin, the State Department, and Brazil

Nova Resistênca (New Resistance), a Brazilian group that draws on and supports Alexander Dugin and is led by Raphael Machado, originally a proponent of Julius Evola before he discovered Dugin, has drawn the attention of the US State Department. 

Nova Resistênca is the subject of a report, available here, by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, a group that aims to “understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.” The report concludes that “While there is no direct evidence that… Nova Resistência [and certain other organizations that have promoted Dugin’s work]… are controlled by Russian intelligence services, the organizations have the hallmarks of other proxy websites and organizations that the FSB, GRU or SVR are known to direct, task or influence.”

The report is less interested in Nova Resistênca and Dugin’s thought than in how this thought is delivered and in possible links to the Russian state. Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory is described only very briefly, and classified as “pro-authoritarian disinformation,” a “neo-fascist, destabilizing ideology,” and part of “a violent, anti-liberal, neo-fascist agenda that serves as an ideological vehicle to destabilize democracies, upend the rules-based international order, and agitate for revanchist military activity in favor of the Kremlin’s strategic goals.”

The evidence for Nova Resistênca being a Russian proxy is far from conclusive, but still interesting. Its website, http://novaresistencia.org/, is hosted in Moscow, and shares an IP address with Dugin’s https://www.4pt.su/en. This website re-publishes a variety of pro-Russian material, including stories that promoted the Wagner Group, as well as Dugin’s material. Nova Resistênca and an address to it by Dugin were reported favorably by the Russian news service, Sputnik. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, spoke at an online “Global Conference on Multipolarity” organized by Nova Resistênca, Dugin’s International Eurasian Movement, a Chinese state organization, and the International Movement of Russophiles, a recently-established organization that evidently enjoys Russian state support and shares some activists with the Eurasian Movement. Whether Lavrov was invited by Nova Resistênca, Dugin, the Chinese, or the International Movement of Russophiles is unclear, but my guess would be the latter.

In the end, the report really only demonstrates that Nova Resistênca is inspired by Dugin, and that Dugin is anti-American, which we already knew. Perhaps what is most interesting is precisely that the US State Department has become interested in Nova Resistênca and Dugin. 

The report also identifies a number of other pro-Dugin groups that I have no investigated: the Center for Syncretic Studies in Serbia (2013-2022), the Junta Nacionalista del Peru and the Centro de Estudios Crisolistas (also Peru), the Vanguardia Nacional (Colombia), the Plataforma Multipolar (Argentina), the Coordinadora Nacional Tempestista (Mexico), and the Círculo Patriótico Chile.Probably all worth looking at.

My thanks to WP for drawing my attention to the report.