The multipolar world is primarily a philosophy. At its core lies a critique of Western universalism.

The West has racistly and imperialistically identified itself with humanity. There was a time when Britain claimed all seas and oceans as its own. Western civilisation declared all of humanity its property — primarily its consciousness. This led to the formation of a unipolar world.

In this world, there are only Western values. Only one political system — liberal democracy. Only one economic model — neoliberal capitalism. Only one culture — postmodernism. Only one conception of genders and family — LGBT. Only one version of development — technological perfection up to post-humanism and the complete displacement of humanity by AI and cyborgs.

According to its proponents, the unipolar world is the ‘triumph of world history’, the total victory of the modern Western era — liberalism, which has become the sole and indisputable ideology of all humanity.

Multipolarity is an alternative philosophy. It is based on the fundamental objection: the West is not all of humanity but only a part of it — a region, a province. It is not the civilisation in the singular, but one of several civilisations. There are at least seven such civilisations today — hence the most important concept of the multipolar theory — the heptarchy.

Some civilisations are already united into huge continental States, civilisation-states, or wénmíng guójiā (文明国家). For others, this is yet to come. The collective West, NATO countries, and vassals of the USA are just one of the poles.

Three more are:

• Russia-Eurasia,
• Great China (Zhōngguó 中国) or Tiānxià (天下),
• Greater India.

All of them are civilisation-states, which means something more than ordinary countries.

And three other large spaces, integrated to varying degrees:

• The Islamic world, tightly bonded by religion but politically disunited so far,
• Black Trans-Saharan Africa,
• Latin American ecumene.

All seven civilisations have completely different religious profiles, different systems of traditional values, different development vectors, and different cultural identities.

Western civilisation, contrary to its claims, is just one of them. Arrogant, bold, aggressive, deceitful, predatory, and dangerous. However, its claims to universalism are baseless, and its dominance is based on double standards.

Multipolarity stands in opposition not to the West itself but specifically to the West’s claims of uniqueness and universality. These claims are not unfamiliar to us; they permeate all systems of our culture, science, and education. The West, with its toxic ideology, has infiltrated our societies, seduced and corrupted the elites, placed our society under its informational control, and tried to lead our youth as far away from faith and tradition as possible.

However, the era of the West’s sole hegemony has ended. Its conclusion was marked by Russia’s stance and personally by our President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, when we refused to sacrifice our sovereignty and entered into mortal combat with the West in Ukraine. We are fighting in Ukraine not against Ukrainians but against the unipolar world. And our inevitable victory will be not only ours but a victory for all humanity, which will see first-hand that the power of the West is not absolute, that its policy of neocolonialism and de-sovereignisation can be decisively rejected, and that one can insist on one’s own stance.

Russia is one of the poles of the multipolar world. This is not a return to the old bipolar model but the beginning of a completely new world architecture.

The rapid growth of the Chinese economy and the strengthening of China’s sovereignty, especially under the leadership of the great leader Xi Jinping, has turned China into another completely independent pole. Seeing this, the West, represented by the globalist elite of the United States, immediately declared a trade war on it.

The Islamic world has challenged the West primarily in the religious and cultural spheres. Western values — openly calling for the destruction of traditions, family, gender, culture, and religion — are incompatible with the foundations of Islam. This is understood today by each of the nearly two billion Muslims. And today, the Islamic world has its own war with the globalist West — in Palestine, in the Middle East, where a shameful genocide of the Palestinian people — the killing of Palestinian infants, women, and the elderly — is underway with the total approval of the West.

India is another pole. Today — especially under the rule of Narendra Modi — it is an entire civilisation returning to its Vedic roots, its ancient tradition, its foundations. It is no longer a cultural and economic colony of the West but a rising world giant.

Africa and Latin America are methodically and consistently, albeit not without problems, following the same path.

The Pan-African movement is paving the way for a unified and comprehensive African integration, free from neocolonial control. This is a new theory, a new practice, incorporating the best aspects of previous stages of the liberation struggle, but based on a different philosophy, where religion, spirit, and traditional values play a crucial role.

Latin America also continues its path of anti-colonial struggle. Here, peoples are seeking new ways of consolidation and unity — overcoming outdated models that divided everyone into right and left. In many Latin American countries, supporters of traditional values, religion, and family unite with those who advocate for social justice under the banner of a common fight — against the neocolonialism of the collective West and its perverted anti-human culture.

The multipolar world today is not a utopia and not just a theoretical project. Six civilisations out of seven (from the planetary heptarchy) have united in a new bloc within BRICS. There are representatives from each of them. We are dealing with the institutionalisation of multipolarity. Great Humanity is uniting, understanding itself, and beginning to harmonise its traditions and orientations, its systems of traditional values, and its interests.

Only the collective West, trying at any cost to maintain its hegemony, categorically refuses to engage in this inevitable multipolar process. It opposes it. It plots and provokes conflicts. It carries out interventions. It tries to suppress all foci of independence with sanctions and direct pressure. And if that fails, it enters into direct military confrontation — as in Ukraine, in Gaza, and tomorrow possibly in the Pacific.

However, the West is not monolithic. There are two Wests. The globalist West of the liberal elites and the traditional West — the West of peoples and societies. The traditional West itself suffers from the tyranny of perverted globalists and tries, where it can, to rise in rebellion. The peoples of the West are not enemies of the multipolar world. They are primarily victims. As shown by our President’s interview with conservative politician and journalist Tucker Carlson, there is much more in common between Russia and the anti-globalists in the USA than it seems.

Therefore, the real victory of multipolarity will not be the defeat of the collective West but its salvation, its return to its own — Western — traditional (not perverted) values, to its culture (not to cancel culture), to its classical Greco-Roman, Christian roots. I believe that the peoples freed from the globalist yoke of the real West will someday in the future also join Great Humanity, becoming a respected pole of the multipolar world. To stop being a hegemon is in the interest not only of all non-Western civilisations but also in the interest of the West itself.

I welcome all participants of our Forum. We have gathered here to build the future, to comprehend the present, and to save our glorious past, ensuring the continuity of culture.

So different, special, unique, self-sufficient, sovereign — humanity is us!

Translated by Constantin von Hoffmeister

By Alexander Dugin