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The Turanian Civilisation
The Turanian civilisation was created by the Mongols of Genghis Khan. Its primary feature is a military organisation adapted to a mobile war. It is best described by such words as camp, movement, space. For this reason family ties are very weak in this civilisation.
This civilisation has no public law. There is only private law and it is derived from the commands of the ruler. The state is the rulerls farmyard and his will is the law of the land. The society has no rights at all. It is not allowed to organise itself - it is the responsibility of the state to do so. Thus all organisations are steered from above and any initiative from below is squelched. The power is absolute and the ideal ruler is a ruthless despot. Everyone is in the position of a slave or servant with respect to his superior. Citizens do not exist at all. In the West a citizen lives also in his state. A Turanian lives exclusively in his state. All matters are state matters and there are no issues he can call entirely his own. All property is that of the ruler and one can only be a lease holder of some property. However the lease may be terminated at any time, at the will of the ruler. He has the right to dispossess anybody he wishes.
The whole organisation of life is military in nature, based on orders from above and thus it is maximally centralized. Bureaucracy serves the ruler and not the people. It acts in the name of the ruler and it is to him that it is responsible and never to the people that it deals with. Thus, all life is very mechanical much like in an army. It has no organic elements.
Since social organisation is geared towards war-making, it develops only when the state wins, when it has a military power and successes. When military successes are lacking, when there are no new acquisitions, the state weakens or even disintegrates. Thus the major social effort is directed towards building a military capability.
In the Turanian civilisation, nations in the European sense do not form. There are only conglomerates of peoples, clans and races. They are all bound by the winning star of a successful leader. Tem?jin, the first Genghis Khan, organised people of various races, ethnic origin and creeds into a successful army and led it to conquer the world. Wherever he set his foot, he organised life in a military manner leaving his lieutenants as the local rulers. Eventually, many emancipated themselves from the Mongol supremacy and continued as the new absolute rulers acting in the same manner. Frequently, the people organised in this manner pick up their name from some military ruler, the Seljuqs, the Nogais, the Osmans and others. A significant role is played in this civilisation by romanticism and the legends surrounding the memory of a successful ruler.
When a strong ruler is lacking, "troubled times" come. There is disorientation and weakening. Nobody knows what to do. The emergence of a new strong dictator indicates an end to the "troubled times", a return to normality.
In the Turanian civilisation, an attitude towards religion is almost non-existent. As a rule it is completely immaterial for the ruler what people believe, as long as the clergy do not interfere in the way the ruler rules, as long as the religion does not interfere in the matters of state and there is no criticism of the ruler on any issue. There is no ethic that would be binding on the ruler, so he should not be judged from the point of view of ethics.
Today, we see the Turanian civilisation most clearly in Russia. There, one-man rule is the norm. It matters not whether this is a khan, a tsar, a first secretary or a president. He is most loved and accepted if his rule is free of any constraints. And he has to be a winner. The Turanian people do not accept a looser as a ruler. So he has to prove that his domain and influence constantly grow. He is never criticised, nor contested. We should not expect Russia suddenly to accept a democratic system, because the people do not expect it. If asked to vote they will vote as the ruler will tell them to do. And of course any opposition will be squelched. A good example of the Russian way of thinking is the famous statement by tsar Nicolas II after the Baltic fleet was totally drowned in the famous battle of Cushima in the 1904 war with Japan. When following western press there were outcries that it was a mistake to send the Baltic fleet round the globe to Japanese waters, the tsar said: "What do these scum want and why do they interfere? It was my fleet!" Thirteen years later the tsar had to abdicate and was later killed by the Bolsheviks - yet today he is considered a saint and martyr in Russia. He is loved in spite of all his inadequacies.
The Bolsheviks soon returned to the same despotic mode of rule and even Stalin is remembered with nostalgia by many. The rules of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were "troubled times". State property became private property of the oligarchs. But now we have Putin. A tsar returned. He dispossessed all of the oligarchs and Russia is back to normality -Turanian normality. To remain on the throne, the ruler must have successes. Today, they may constitute influence over countries buying Russian oil and gas. There will be growing attempts at regaining dominion over lands that Russia lost under Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
Poland met with the Turanian civilisation in its Mongolian primary model already in the XIII c. This, however, was only a transitional contact. They came, they conquered us and they soon left. They only left some folkloristic memories such as the interrupted bugle-call from the Krak?w Marian church tower and the Lajkonik. Later on however, we met with the Turanian civilisation more seriously and in fact, with four different cultures of it, the Tartar, the Turkish, the Cossack and the Muscovite. Each of these has influenced us in a different manner, in some instances quite successfully. Quite apart from the military contacts, which as a rule, protect against such influences, there was a time in Poland when we were very attracted by the Turkish model. Turkey, with its strength was impressive, also with the affluence of the Ottoman court. Particularly in the XIX c. when we did not exist as a state, Turkey did not recognise the partition of Poland and received many of our emigres. Many Poles found lucrative employment in Turkey reaching quite high positions. It was then that Turkishness was in vogue. It was fashionable to dress in a Turkish manner and to blame our political demise on the lack of a strong military organisation in pre-partition Poland.
The Cossack influence was also once quite strong, especially during the XVII c. The love of the steppes, of constant movement, of freedom from community life, proved interesting to many an adventurer who wanted to organise his own military group, his own mini-statehood sitting constantly on horseback. This was possible in the largely uninhabited eastern plains of what is now Ukraine. There was a lot of romanticism involved in this care free, brigand type of life, yet basically, representing nothing more than banditry. However, the occasional engagement in militarily conflict with similar bands of Tartars, Cossacks, or Turks added a sense of patriotism to this activity.
Much more serious was the influence of the Muscovite culture. This gave rise to what is known in Poland as "sarmatism", an attitude of some magnates on our eastern borders that was characterised by absolute self rule over their estates and total irresponsibility towards the state as a whole. These magnates, depending on the size and wealth of their estates, often treated themselves as independent princes. They had their own military forces, their own laws and often even an independent foreign policy, as was the case with several magnates from the Radziwi?? or Pac families. These magnates, if they wanted, could be a blessing to all around and often they were. However, they could also be their scourge, because they felt and in fact were above any law. That was because of the strength of their estates and the weakness of the state.
In more recent times, in the first half of the XXth c., the political camp of Marshal Pi?sudski was very much influenced by the Turanian way of thinking. We speak of his political camp rather than of a party. Other political movements referred to themselves on the basis of the ideology they adopted as socialists, national democrats, Christian democrats etc. The followers of the Marshal referred to themselves as Pi?sudskites. They were linked by a military organisation, functioning on the basis of orders given from the Marshal or in his name. Individual thinking was discouraged. The leader knew better. The Pilsudskites considered themselves above the law. They organised a coup dl?tat in May of 1926 and until 1939 ruled ignoring all laws. They manhandled, killed, or imprisoned political opponents. At the same time, they cherished a kind of military romanticism, great mobility, self-sacrifice, patriotism and demonstrated religious indifference.
During Soviet times (1944-1989), we were very resistant to civilisational influences from the East. Almost instinctively, we rejected all that came from there. However, the legend of Marshal Pi?sudski grew and an admiration for his style of ruling. Many people today dream of a strong arm rule as they are tired of the political uncertainty accompanying democracy, elections and party politics. This is a very great danger to our identity, for several reasons. First of all, this is a political philosophy that discourages thinking. It leaves thinking to the superiors. Such an attitude is necessary in an army, where responsibility is clearly hierarchical and there is no time for philosophising. In everyday life, we need to habitually use our reason to judge. Everything that kills thinking reduces us civilisationally.
Moreover, the fashion for Turanian thinking results in a constant search for a strong leader, the pointless anointing of almost anybody as the God given saviour and giving him total responsibility for everything. Soon, there is disappointment that he did not rise to the expectations and that he did not know what to do. In our Latin civilisation, the ruler must have the support of thinking, creative citizens and not only disciplined executors of his will. Good leaders are hard to come by. It is much more common that we have to rely on a team and we must be able to work together, the creativity of each member advancing the common cause.
Finally, Turanian thinking kills all organic effort from below. Many believe that something useful can only be done from above, from the central government. And thus they fight for the privilege of ruling. However, it is the specificity of our own civilisation that it is capable of correcting itself from below. It encourages everyone to do whatever is possible to improve life in the nearest proximity. Good ideas turned into functioning improvements will spread of their own by copying. This never happens in the Turanian civilisation. All improvements need to have approval from above and only then can they be introduced.
Turanian rulers remembered as great are those who introduced such improvements and those who expanded the realm, no matter how ruthless and inhumane they were in executing these successes.