joined the "", an avant-garde dissident group which dabbled in Satanism, esoteric Nazism and other forms of the occult. In the group, he was known for his embrace of Nazism which he attributes to a rebellion against his Soviet raising, as opposed to genuine sympathy for Hitler. He adopted an alter ego with the name of "Hans Sievers", a reference to Wolfram Sievers, a Nazi researcher of the paranormal. Studying by himself, he learned to speak Italian, German, French, English and Spanish. He was influenced by René Guénon and by the Traditionalist School. In the V. I. Lenin State Library he discovered the writings of Julius Evola, whose book Pagan Imperialism he translated into Russian. Career and political views Early activism In the 1980s, Dugin was a dissident and an anti-communist. Dugin worked as a journalist before becoming involved in politics just before the fall of communism. In 1988, he and his friend Geydar Dzhemal joined the ultranationalist and anti-Semitic group Pamyat (Memory), which would later give rise to Russian fascism. For a brief period at the beginning of the 1990s he was close to Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the newly formed Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and probably had a role in formulating its nationalist communist ideology. In 1993 he co-founded, together with Eduard Limonov, the National Bolshevik Party, whose nationalistic interpretation of Bolshevism was based on the ideas of Ernst Niekisch. He left the party in 1998 following disputes with Limonov. Publishing career Dugin published Foundations of Geopolitics in 1997. The book was published in multiple editions, and is used in university courses on geopolitics, reportedly including the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. It alarmed political scientists in the US, and is sometimes referenced by them as being "Russia's Manifest Destiny". In 1997, his article, "Fascism – Borderless and Red", described "national capitalism" as pre-empting the development of a "genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism" in Russia. He believes that it was "by no means the racist and chauvinist aspects of National Socialism that determined the nature of its ideology. The excesses of this ideology in Germany are a matter exclusively of the Germans... while Russian fascism is a combination of natural national conservatism with a passionate desire for true changes." The "Waffen-SS and especially the scientific sector of this organization, Ahnenerbe," was "an intellectual oasis in the framework of the