Conversation with Duma MP Oleg Matveychev
I'd like to start with 1 loud event with your participation. How did you turn to Josep Borell and the then European Union leadership to ask that you be added to the black list of sanctioned persons?
- Hello. That's what happened. I am a man who has always actively supported the annexation of Crimea. I was there myself during the events of 2014, preparing the planned referendum. I was besides an observer of this referendum and a polytologist who discussed it. At the time of the start of peculiar Military Operation – being a blood and bone patriot – I was in the infirmary due to the fact that I had a coronavirus. In Duma, we have this custom, or, actually, the rules, that all Monday we pass tests on the virus. We're inactive going through these coronavirus tests today. Those who are ill, even asymptomatic, are not allowed to attend. And that's what happened to me. I got sick and couldn't vote. erstwhile sanctions were introduced, they included those who straight voted in a certain way. It turned out that any of us might have been among those who tried to avoid taking the position. That's why I asked Borell to add me to the list of sanctioned people. I don't know if he read it, but I actually got on that list in a small while. I'm very grateful for that. On the another hand, of course, I think that we should visit each another and talk, especially in the technological community. I could, for example, mention 2 events last year. In Kaliningrad, Kantowski legislature was held on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Kant's birthday. Kant's leading experts were not afraid to go there to honor the memory of this large thinker. In Moscow, on the another hand, we had the Eurasian Philosophical Congress, attended by 19 foreigners from 13 countries. They got there through Turkey, through Serbia, or whatever, but they got there. Of course, it would be better if we besides could travel to present our point of view and keep dialogue. The European Union authorities did not want this dialog and inactive do not want it. They like monologue.
It is very interesting what you said about the gathering in Kaliningrad, about the Kantowski legislature attended by scholars. I would like to ask you a question about culture, the alleged erasing culture. Unfortunately, in the European Union, including in my home Poland, its time has come. possibly now it is slowly, gradually passing away, but there was a period erstwhile practically everything related to Russia was banned, even in the area of philosophy, technological works, and culture. What is the situation in Russia? I'm asking due to the fact that Kant is simply a German philosophy. So, as I realize it, there's no specified thing as erasing culture in Russia, is there?
– Yes, we pride ourselves on the fact that everything inactive survives and exists, even in our cities, not only in Moscow. You can get off at Kiev Station – yes: Kiev Station. Next to the Moscow River, we have Shevchenka Boulevard. In the center of Moscow we have a monument to Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainian national poet who is considered the largest of Ukrainian writers. The same applies to Bald Ukrainians, poets and writers, and many others. He learns about them without problem in schools, researches their work at universities. If individual wants to compose a doctoral dissertation or a book on Taras Shevchenka – there is no problem. And yet we are talking about the Ukrainians with whom we are now actually at war. Not only Europe – there are no attempts to restrict it. If individual had proposed not to read European philosophers, European politicians, etc., they would have met the condemnation of the absolute majority of society. He would shortly be the victim of various haters, even those of the declared patriots. I'd be 1 of the first, though I'm a patriotic faction. I'd say right distant that you're not allowed to do something like that, and I'd ask you what we want to do. Russia is simply a country that has always displayed a will for dialogue, integration, building all bridges. Lately, we are becoming increasingly aware of this. There's been so much talk about it before, and possibly any people didn't even realize it. Our geopolitical strategy, which defines our reasoning and our approach, is completely opposed to Anglo-Saxon. Consider how an island as tiny as England could have ruled the planet in a certain age, in the 19th century.
Oleg Matveychev
In the 19th century, the Earth inhabited about a billion people, and any 500 million lived in 1 way or another in English colonies, under the boot of England – this tiny island, the poor, on which nothing grows, on which there are no more crucial natural materials. So how could she regulation half the world? It is very simple: utilizing the rule of "share and rule." It was their most crucial principle: the feeling of nations, religion and social classes against each other. The explanation of class fighting besides comes from there – after all Marx is buried in London. From there besides comes the feeling against each another men and women, young generations against older generations. all component that allows to conflict with 1 another, conflicting them – such, can be said, the generator of differences, the war generator. This is what English geostrategy is all about, which is 500 years old. It most likely started somewhere in Queen Elizabeth's time. They began to realize and realize it, to survey at all their universities, to train peculiar services in it. He knows her, and he uses all their elite. After any thought, we conclude that our strategy is in complete contradiction. We realize that if Eurasia does not want to be the chessboard that Brzeziński wrote about, where white and black figures, pawns, compete and struggle, then it must apply the other strategy – leading towards unification. That's where conventional values come from erstwhile we talk about family. Men, women, children, all generations should live in it in harmony. It's an old, traditional, good family. That's how you quit class fighting. We should be together, united. In a large society and country, everyone plays their part. Its function is intelligent, its officials, yet another is done by entrepreneurs, another people who deal with everyday life, working in services or in industry, etc. Everyone has a circumstantial function. Similarly, we would like to live in relationship with all our neighbors; we would like to launch with them the Northern Sea Trail, the confederate Corridor or the 1 Belt – 1 Road. To participate in all these projects that integrate us – I would even add the Northern Gas pipeline here. We are prepared to participate in the unification of Eurasia alternatively of its sharing, which the Anglo-Saxons do.
Actually, you were talking about soft force now. I'm sorry to usage this American and Anglo-Saxon word here. There are also concepts, as you know. However, I have a question. You mentioned the conservative, conventional values that modern Russia prides on. Don't you think that in the sphere of these values, after Donald Trump was elected, there was any competition in the form of the United States?
– Indeed, we note that the rhetoric Putin has been utilizing over the last 20-25 years has prevailed there. It raised the issue of conventional values in a soft, balanced way. We were dealing with a kind of spiritual Renaissance. Since the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century, many people began to go to church. Generally, the church began to play a large function in their lives, surely larger than before. erstwhile we see Trump repeating it as our president, on the 1 hand we consider it a kind of victory, but on the another hand, there is no peculiar pride in us that we have won, that we have succeeded. We consider it a triumph for common sense, which should yet prevail everywhere, on the full planet. We realize that this completely artificially generated dead end, which the erstwhile American administration entered, leading the full planet behind it, has its specific, locationable source. They are postwar philosophers, above all French postmodernists, who, reasoning most likely about the destiny of the planet and Europe after planet War II, led to a certain inflection. We remember all this...
Where all this was based. It was said after Auschwitz that we should no longer think in the way we thought before. The Frankfurt School argued that our civilization had logically reached fascism itself, that it was not any random choice of the incorrect path, and now it is essential to revise all the principles. Then they began to specify what fascism is. Fascism measured noses, skulls, knees, etc. So Fascism is simply a commitment to norms. That's why if we're anti-fascist, then we should quit our standards. We inactive have the consequences of this bizarre thesis, due to the fact that it was hard to identify fascism with standards in any way. Incidentally, many intellectuals had a very different view of the matter. The well-known manager Pasolini in the movie Salo, or 120 days Sodomy showed the other – that fascism comes from all perversions, perversions, etc. By the way, homosexual Foucault, 1 of the leaders of postmodernism, has just broken his relation with him. He stated that the manager misunderstood Fascism and did not capture its essence.
The point of view of postmodernists and Foucault has just prevailed in the intellectual environment. They said that the fight against fascism had to be undertaken, that is, with all standards. And there were inactive situations that began to wonder at the school on what rule and according to what standard it could be considered that the kid responds to the test well or badly. Why are we stressing this kid out by giving him fives or fours? And in general, it's incorrect to give him two, because, for example, he doesn't know that twice twice is four, due to the fact that it's force over his personality. And if it's about a black child, it's a terrible thing. The same besides begins in science, where it is assumed that everything can be done and no norms exist. Therefore, Feyerabend convinces us that there are no methods, there are no standards. You can compose whatever you want, everything will pass. Everything goes – that's his celebrated methodological thesis. And so it was in everything. In culture – who said a artist should paint? On the another hand, a actual artist should break all norms, draw Rafael's mustache or something. An art can be called any madness, virtually any. The same in religion – individual said that women cannot be pastors, priests? And why not – let them become priests, like homosexuals. And communion can, as it turns out, be virtualized online in any churches.
Everything that can be suspended, all norm – is suspended completely. As we know, these French postmodernists were mostly based on the book by Russian philosopher Mikhail Bachtin, Medieval Culture and Renaissance, which was devoted to carnival and carnival culture. They were very inspired by this work. We all know very well that from the times of ancient Greece and Rome to the times of modern Europe, we besides have carnival periods, maslers. During their time, all norms and principles are suspended, the throne sits a clown, etc., but all this lasts only a fewer days a year, during the vacation season. These are exceptional situations that service precisely to confirm the existence of rules. You can gag like that, but you can't make rules out of these exceptions. It is not lawful to set a fool in the literal sense of the word on the throne, as it was done with Zelenski, to become a real ruler reigning for respective years, in this case a bloody ruler and a puppet in the hands of strangers. That's why this ongoing carnival always ends, due to the fact that there are rules in the world, there are laws in the world.
That's why the starting argument is that the more homosexuality there is, the little Fascism there will be, is fundamentally wrong. I don't want a choice between fascists and homosexuals, and I'm not curious in this kind of false alternative. There is genuine common sense, a healthy approach that most normal, average people in a good sense of the word have lived as their ancestors had commanded for millennia, thus extending their lineage. They planted trees, built houses, etc. And that's the way to live on this earth. All these terrible experiments on man are completely unnecessary. In my opinion, we are the successors of the heritage of humanism, due to the fact that people promoting these fresh alleged values, like Biden and his crew, were taking distant man's humanity and moving towards transhumanism. Let us now go consecutive to the answer to your question. I'm not certain Trump's fresh squad is so clearly aware of the difference between humanism and transhumanism.
The Trump team, together with Elon Musk and a number of others, featured a technocratic faction consisting of supporters of transhumanism. In a sense, it is 1 of the factions of this mainstream stream that has been broadcasting speech over the past 30-50 years. So there are those who have gone into social affairs and LGBT+, and others who are talking about genetic modifications, about how people with circumstantial characteristics can be bred, experimented with the human species. That's what Nietzsche wrote about. It's from different thoughts. At 1 time he claimed that it was possible to experimentation on humanity, on humanity, and if humanity was to vanish as a consequence of these experiments, then let it disappear. It was about the superman conquering man. I do not think that we should submit to specified experiments, all the more so on specified an almost industrial scale, the scale of the full planet or the full country. Let scientists work on it on any island to see what will come of it in 100-200 years, which they have achieved and only then show the results of these investigation to the wider community.
You were just talking about quite a few relationships with Ukraine, including family. After all, Ukraine was for you a part of 1 state organism throughout almost its full history, except, of course, areas of western Ukraine, its western circuits. So how much do you think we could do in the past to avoid peculiar Military Operations? I mean the soft force we talked about again. How do you think Russia and all Russian mir lost Ukrainians? That they were attracted to an ideology that was actually specified an artificial Western product? After all, we know who actually spread the ideology of the Polish nationalism among Ukrainians. Why didn't Russia do all this?
– Of course we know precisely who distributed it. We know about these centers in Canada, the United States. These are collaborators who had previously supported Hitler, the banders. Incidentally, the flag ideology is primarily anti-Polish. In Russia, we are looking with large surprise at the scenes on which Polish presidents or prime ministers embrace the Ukrainian president behind whose back these banders are behind. After all, Bandera devoted the most crucial part of his activity to fighting Poland, dealing with terrorism directed against Poland. We're very surprised. They all found refuge in Canada and America after the war and nursed their ideology there. They besides tried to influence the russian Union, but it had small effect. The thing is, even against their own countrymen, the cruelty of banders was terrible adequate that even most people in Western Ukraine did not support them. Witnesses of these events – many papers from court proceedings have been preserved – said terrible things. For example, about how they murdered a schoolteacher, killed her full family, etc. What was she murdered for? For working with the russian authorities. They killed her children, killed her parents, etc. In the village next door they killed the president of the collective farm. What did he do? The man who plowed the land is making certain that the tractor leaves the fields at the right time. But they kill him for working with the authorities.
All these people were respected in their villages and cities citizens. After all these acts of terror, cruel killings, etc., full cities and villages came to court and testified against banderovists. Therefore, only after eyewitnesses of these crimes died, or somewhere in the late 20th century, was it possible to tell fairy tales and romanticize the character of Bandera. Telling me that he was specified a hero who supposedly fought for independence, for everyone. They started talking about him and romanticizing him.
This sympathy for the flags began to grow with the departure of the erstwhile generation. The youth took it all. If we look at the present alleged flags, etc., we will see that these are people who are 20, 30 or 40 and who are in 1990. They were inactive children, but gradually soaked in this romanticism, specified a romance of teenagers, and then became militants of Azov and another Nazi battalions. All of this, this full process, has been reinforced and fed to the 5 billion dollars that Victoria Nuland herself spoke of, that this is how much the United States pumped into Ukraine, into propaganda and soft force. Your question is, why didn't Russia invest in this soft force and take alternate action in 2000? I personally wrote respective books on this subject, including the sovereignty of the spirit, as well as the work of the American elephant precisely about Ukraine, which was a bit in a climate of fantasy, let's say – a book in which I proposed a task for our authorities on how we should influence Ukraine. I cited various examples, specified as the fact that after the Ukrainian Majdan 2004 and the outbreak of the gas war, Timoshenko, who participated in gas talks, etc., lost respective billion dollars. I told you that if we had all this money, these fewer billion dollars, invested in soft power and propaganda, we could have avoided their loss.
Moreover, Ukraine would be as friendly as possible to us and possibly there would be no Majdan at all. I told you we had to work on it. I've always offered to the authorities specified projects, I've written about it, I've been in the media. And I heard the answer from our authorities all the time: we are not interfering in the interior affairs of another countries. I replied that possibly it was time to interfere, however, due to the fact that everyone else interferes in our affairs, wherever they can, in our interior policy, etc. I've heard we have a position like this based on our principles. We have many problems of our own in Russia, we do not have adequate resources for many projects in Russia itself, we request to rebuild, develop, etc. If we start handing out money on all sides, it will end in keeping our beneficiaries, from which we will not know what the benefit will be, and in return we can get the other effect. It will most likely seem unusual to you, due to the fact that your propaganda tells you that Russia and Putin are everywhere, that they interfere everywhere, that they control everything, even Trump and many others; that there are his people, spies, KGB, FSB, virtually everywhere, like the Skripals, etc.
Actually, it's unusual that we're truly not interfering in anything. We have any cultural projects. We have an organization like Rossa Hardy that has rather a large number of representations, about 100 in different countries. erstwhile I asked the chief of this structure what projects she was implementing, I learned from him that in Central Asia, for example, in Kazakhstan, they have an yearly budget of 15 million rubles, or about $150,000, so that our viewers could imagine it better. There is besides a request to pay rent of buildings, salaries of employees, etc. What soft force measures can be organised for specified amounts? We can organize Russian language courses, talk about our writers, organize anniversary nights in honor of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, etc. We're handing out any books, something else we're doing, but it's all actually just influences in the sphere of culture. As to the implementation of any political projects, the establishment, as the Americans do, of networks of NGOs engaged in human rights and another activities, we have never dealt with it, and we have no experience.
You know, we have, besides at the level of the authorities of our country, specified a belief that we are in this sphere in advance in a losing position in a rivalry with the Anglo-Saxons, that it is their specialty, their weapons, their strength. We think there's no point in trying due to the fact that they're stronger at it. But if they lead us to the ultimate, we will apply methods in which we are stronger. And we're stronger on the battlefield. In a verbal confrontation they can defeat us, but if it comes to fighting hand-to-hand – we know that we will win. That's why we're not worth it. And that is what happened late with Ukraine erstwhile a certain border was crossed. Putin proposed respective times to make a common safety architecture in Europe. He wanted to realize certain rules that we would all follow. The trend was rather the other and led to the rejection of all rules. America has declared a treaty on rocket defence systems, and it was an agreement that was essential for security. It has regulated a number of issues, and for 50 to 60 post-war years it was a fundamental safety arrangement. More precisely, the agreement itself was concluded later, in the 1970s, but the logic was the same, it afraid the issue of common impact, etc. The locations where missiles could be collected, places where they could not be stored were identified; areas defended and areas not protected, etc. Everything was regulated there.
The United States' denunciation of this agreement has actually led to the escalation of the arms race. It was as a consequence that Putin recommended the production of avant-garde, earpieces and specified weapons. It was then that preparations for armed conflicts specified as those in Ukraine began. Unfortunately, I will repeat that we were not dealing with soft forces. We most likely had quite a few economical ties. We were hoping that there would be any rationality in everything. Ukraine is simply a crucial transit country. The transit of gas was needed and crucial for her. Europe will always request inexpensive gas and the same oil. They're inactive moving through it, by the way, fertilizer pipelines. In addition, there are grain markets on which we have worked. We see Belarus expanding its trade with Russia. The standard of surviving in Belarus present is 4 times the standard of surviving in Ukraine. Why? For this simple reason, it can keep good neighbourly relations. We thought that Ukraine would behave like this sooner or later. That people who have so many relatives in common can't break up their relationship. Turns out they can. It turned out that propaganda led after 2014 to this... I know a fewer families whose members have travelled in different directions – for example, my cousin from Ukraine came to Moscow. Others remained there, others inactive have relatives and families there. I know cases where, for example, parents don't talk to their own daughter due to the fact that she married a Russian and lives in Russia. They haven't spoken to each another since 2014. They haven't spoken in 10 years. How do you realize that? Unfortunately, propaganda is able to break even household ties. To underestimate this propaganda is, I will repeat, our Achilles heel. Unfortunately, we don't like to do this.
What is Poland's place and does it even be in Russia's informational agenda? How curious are the Russians in what is happening in Poland and the future of our relations?
We have 2 Polish people in our heads. 1 Poland is somewhat Soviet. It's a festival in Sopot, stars and actresses like Barbara Brylska. There are inactive specified wonderful russian memories of friendship, etc. I was besides in Warsaw, and Krakow, and Krynica Zdrój, which is in respective very different places. And returning from Germany, I drove all over Poland, going to Minsk. As part of this kind of tourism, erstwhile dealing with Poles daily, I had no problems with communication, with any aspect. Our languages are similar, we even admit acquainted words, we laughter erstwhile these words sometimes mean something different. On the another hand, there are Polish authorities who, although they are changing, are constantly harassing Russia, making the strongest statements to irritate us, which is why they bite us all the time, sting us, and so origin specified a negative attitude. Again – not so much in relation to Poland as a full and to Poles, but to the state and to power. There are things that are kind of out of politics. It's all about the dead, the holy things. The past of president Kaczyński's death had a peculiarly negative consequences. Everything was clear: the investigation explained everything. You remember how Medvedev, who was then president, said that it was besides a tragedy for the Russian people, due to the fact that it happened in our territory, and for all country, it is an highly sad matter, and we feel guilty not due to the fact that we are straight liable for it, but simply due to the fact that they came to visit, as if they were our guests.
When the Polish authorities started this dance with coffins and saying that it was a terrorist attack, that it was a murder, that Putin did it on purpose, etc., it evidently left us, it provoked outrage. The second thing that hit our relations seriously was, of course, to fight the statues. Between 400 and 600 1000 Russians gave their lives for the liberation of Poland. Of course they went to Berlin, just through Poland. abruptly their monuments began to be removed, demolished. We have large respect for these people, those Poles who opposed the demolition of monuments. They were shown on our TV. 1 should not let specified vandalism, it is not Christian, it is not Slavic. Human morality does not let the rights of the dead to be violated, especially by fallen soldiers, heroes. Plus, all that talk about business in the russian period. If this was an occupation, tell me, how many concentration camps did the russian Union build, how many in gas furnaces did it burn Poles? Where are the russian concentration camps? There's not? Then why do you compare and put it on the same level, and on this basis destruct russian soldiers' monuments? 1 more thing – what I said about the confusion around Bandera. It seems to me that here Poles and Russians should be solidarity, due to the fact that Ukrainian Nazis murdered their 3 main enemies. It is in all their manifestos, everywhere that the actual Ukrainian should hatred them. In the first place it was about Lachów, or Poles, then Jews, then Moscow, or Russians. While we are fighting this Ukrainian nationalism, why do Poles and Jews not aid us, why do they accept this nationalism, why do they say it's good, why do they not consider it their own?
Thank you for talking to me.
He spoke: Mateusz Piskorski
Oleg Matwiejczev (born 1970 in Novokuźniec) is simply a Russian philosopher (Dr. philosophical sciences), a political scientist, political marketing advisor, and in 2018 a associate of Vladimir Putin's election staff, a associate of the Duma of the ‘One Russia’ faction, Vice-President of the Information Policy Commission.
Think Poland, No. 13-14 (30.03-6.04.2025)
