The article "Russia Needs a New Military Elite", by publicist Vladimir Mozhegov originally appeared on the Vzglyad website on July 24, 2022, but has since been substantially abbreviated, with the lengthy citation from the English writer, philosopher and lay theologian G.K. Chesterton (that is at heart of the original version) removed. MEMRI has translated the original version that it retrieved from the Rambler.ru website.
Relying on Chesterton's account of the Punic wars, Mozhegov sees Russia that protects the world's sanity desperately fighting a reincarnation of Carthage in the form of a commercially successful and advanced America with depraved ideas reminiscent of the human sacrifices in Carthage. The fight requires a military elite that will form the backbone of the new aristocracy.
Mozhegov's article follows below:[1]
Vladimir Mozhegov (Source: Vnnews.ru)
"Every authentic empire starts with a military elite. Rome became recognized as an empire in its wars with Carthage. Those same wars also fostered Rome's military elite of Rome, which defined its power for posterity. The power of Augustus, who ended the civil wars and whose rule inaugurated the classical era of imperial Rome, already had support of a powerful praetorian guard loyal to the emperor. The same went for the successor states to Rome –the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Austro-Hungary and the Russian Empire, were strong as long as their military elites were strong. Only the corruption of the military elites through revolutionary and Masonic ideas as well as their involvement in a senseless war, in which the two splinters of Rome were craftily pitted against each other brought down the hitherto great states.
"Today’s Russia, likewise, has one exclusive path to a great future, by creating a new military elite. A new Rome must be born in the new wars with Carthage and renew the world, just as the ancient Rome renewed it two thousand years ago. And it’s not about imperial ambitions and other nonsense, of which the world’s liberal propaganda is full of today.
"This is about a relentless logic of history, a logic of nature itself, a simple and understandable truth to all healthy people: humanity will only face final decay and doom, provided it will be headed by today’s liberal Carthage. It’s possible to evade doom only through mankind’s renewal. A renewal is only possible through war. Five and a half thousand years of human civilization, alas, have provided no other recipe. Even Christian truth affirmed itself in the world with a Bible in one hand, and a sword in the other. I reiterate, there is no other way to renew and save the world than through war.
"This was also true for the days when ancient Rome was established. This was supported by G.K. Chesterton, who famously described Rome’s war with Carthage as a battle between gods and demons, 'and it is vain to talk of giving a pestilence a place in the sun. And this is what we must understand, even at the expense of digression, if we would see what happened in the Mediterranean; when right athwart the rising of the Republic on the Tiber, a thing overtopping and disdaining it, dark with all the riddles of Asia and trailing all the tribes and dependencies of imperialism, came Carthage riding on the sea...
"'It was older, and much stronger, and prosperous than Rome was... It was called New because it was a colony, like New York... There was a note of the new countries and colonies about it, a confident and commercial outlook.... In the New Town, which the Romans called Carthage, as in the parent cities of Phoenicia, the god who got things done bore the name of Moloch, who was perhaps identical with the other deity whom we know as Baal... And Moloch was not a myth, or at any rate his meal was not a myth. These highly civilized people really met together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing hundreds of their infants into a large furnace.
"'We can only realize the combination by imagining a number of Manchester merchants, with chimney-pot hats and mutton-chop whiskers, going to church every Sunday at eleven o'clock to see a baby roasted alive... Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is some dim connection between brains and brutality, or that does not matter if a man is dull so long as he is also mean? Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as sentiment and all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are, like all men, primarily inspired by their religion... And it is their faith that the only ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is evil. They believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead things must be stronger than living things...
"'For Carthage fell, because she was faithful to her own philosophy and had followed out to its logical conclusion her own vision of the universe. Moloch had eaten his children. The gods had risen again, and the demons were defeated after all. They were defeated by the defeated, and almost defeated by the dead. Nobody understands the romance of Rome, and why she rose afterwards to a representative leadership that seemed almost fated and fundamentally natural. Who does not keep in mind the agony of horror and humiliation through which she continued to testify to the sanity that is the soul of Europe. She came to stand alone in the midst of an empire because she had once stood alone in the midst of a ruin and a waste...' (The Everlasting Man)[2]
G.K. Chesterton (Source: Bbc.com)
"Victory over Carthage and control of the Mediterranean Sea turned Rome into an Empire. And then the Empire subjugated the world to it, holding the sword in one hand and the idea of just power over the world in the other. 'Roman! Thou shalt learn to rule the nations powerfully. That is your art, to impose the conditions of peace, to show mercy to the submissive and to subdue the arrogant through war!' this is how the Roman idea was formulated by Virgil, the 'father of the West.' Then Christian Byzantium took up the baton from Rome. Then came the New Age, in the chaos of social revolutions and world wars, bringing revenge for Carthage. And when the last shards of traditional Rome, i.e. the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires fell, the new Atlantic Carthage on the world's shore finally gained new power.
"And then Russia, this last Rome, had no other choice but to rise again from the ashes and stand 'alone, in the midst of the ruins' of old Christian Europe. This is precisely the moment we are living through today. And it’s what we have to do again: it is for the dead to rise, for the defeated to be victorious. Not because it is 'imperial ambition,' but because 'in horror and in humiliation' we are today the only ones left in the entire world, who have 'preserved the sanity and the soul of Europe.'
"That is why the world needs Rome. And for that task Rome requires a new military elite. An elite that is born and tempered in war, not in gangster clashes over 'sacks of gold' and loans-for-shares auctions [referring to Russian loans-for-shares auctions of the Yeltsin years], but in war for truth, justice and the purification of the world.
"In general, the degradation of the modern world, this new Carthage, is most visible in the degradation of its elites. One cannot help but wonder when one looks from the rulers of the past - the Charles, the Ludwigs, the Kaisers - to the unidimensional miscarriages of contemporary democracy, rapidly continuing their negative evolution from dwarfs to mice. All this fuss over media animals, presidents and prime ministers, busily swarming in a television world that is a cross between a terrarium and a public house for the elderly.
"Generally speaking, the degradation of the modern world, this new Carthage, is most evident in the degradation of its elites. One cannot help but wonder while reading about the rulers of the past (about various Charleses, the Louises, the Kaisers) to the one-dimensional offspring of today’s democracy, rapidly continuing their devolution from dwarfs to mice, to this hustle and bustle of media animals, presidents and prime ministers, fumbling in a television world that is a cross between a terrarium and a public house for the elderly.
"Recently, our social network circulated a photo showing the transgender Admiral and the US Under Secretary of Health, Rachel Levin and Sam Brinton, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Nuclear Energy, stand together at a party held at the French Embassy, the former is dressed in uniform with a skirt, the other - in a dress and women's shoes caused a social outcry in Russian social networks. All in all, nothing unusual, it’s just the army of the new Carthage. Well, is there a more eloquent argument against the modern world?
The picture that Mezhugov is referring to posted on Brinton's twitter account.
"The other day the very same Rachel Levin reported cheerfully that the Biden administration is actively preparing to introduce the practice of curbing puberty for children and unhindered gender change operation. This is the very moment, when it should become crystal clear to every normal person on the planet that this world is incorrigible, it must be put to the flame. Carthage must again be destroyed.
"The 'Manchester merchant, with mutton-chop whiskers and stove-pipe hat,' going 'on Sundays [services] to admire the roasting of babies' and other 'practical people,' who are convinced that 'evil always triumphs ... that fear drives the world and therefore the heart of the world is evil,' believe that 'death is stronger than life, and therefore dead things must be stronger than living things', should burn in flames as well. And on these ashes a new world must be erected. Only new military elites can make it happen, the true ones, the Roman ones. The elites, who are born and tempered by a war for ideals. Elites that we have yet to raise.
"Well, Russia has always been a martial empire. And today it’s high time not only to remember this, but also to set clear objectives. A formation of a new ‘passion power’ [a term introduced by Lev Gumilev [a dissident historian in Soviet times who spent a decade in the state labor camps, that exalted the person willing to fight for ideals and his outsized role in history], a new upper social stratum, which will assume responsibility for creating a new civilization should be such a priority task. Such a power is shaped by war, shaped by a combatant army.
"Rome had always fought wars on its borders. Roman legionnaires have always been a privileged class. The army offered the best possible path for social mobility for a Roman citizen. A skilled warrior could always count on a political career, a rich plot of land, and the respect of fellow citizens. So, we, no doubt, vitally need a new cultural, intellectual, creative elite. But the new military elite is an even more urgent and necessary task for today. [I’m talking about] a military aristocracy, which becomes the backbone of the military empire, i.e., of the normal aristocratic elite of traditional society."
