Gafurov is a Russian
Marxist within
Alexander Buzgalin's school of thought, though his beliefs subscribe more closely to
positivism than Buzgalin's
dialectical metaphysical beliefs. He rejects the concepts of the
Asiatic mode of production and the USSR's
state capitalism, which he based on analysis of the role of credit relations in USSR and other countries with a state capitalist system. He supports the reconciliation of
Stalinism,
Trotskyism, and
Maoism as he believes the differences have only historical significance. He also supports the quantitative
theory of imperialism, holding that stronger imperialism is better than weaker imperialism, a view that contradicts
Leninist defeatism. Gafurov believes this position allows for tactical alliances with weaker imperialist approaches such as
Russian and
Iranian imperialism, though he rejects
Chinese imperialism. Despite this, he supports China in all
South China Sea conflicts except for the conflict with
Vietnam over the
Paracel Islands. Gafurov's anti-crisis beliefs are rooted in
Keynesian economics. The
Central Bank of Russia and the
Ministry of Finance both rejected his hypotheses on grounds of the absence of said mismatch. With
epistemological data, Gafurov is considered a
nominalist. He views
ethics as a narrative, "positive rather than normative" as "[e]thics and behavior are subject to the same laws." In the late 1990s, Gafurov wrote several articles for the journal
Рынок ценных бумаг (
Securities market), building on the
Ergodic approach to
equity research. He wrote that statistical methods could be used only when the
time series of securities' prices are subject to
ergodicity principles. The practical significance of Gafurov's thereom
corollary, which he calls
lemma, is based on the
Bayesian approach. In 2013, Gafurov began working with
Buzgalin on
international political-economic network reorganization. Gafurov disapproves of
NATO,
neocolonialism, and
neo-racism and is critical of the
European Union's "parasitic capitalist policies" in Africa and Europe, claiming that "capital is indifferent to everything except its profit. It needs to capture new markets and destroy their production." He is a leader of the Russian Social Forum movement and has participated in writing programs documenting the movement in defense of labour. In 2017, he was a key organizer of the
World Festival of Youth and Students in
Sochi, Russia and made at least 11 speeches during the festival.
Conflict-specific opinions Gafurov has published opinion pieces about a number of conflicts throughout his career. In 2011, he wrote in support of
Laurent Gbagbo following the
2010 Ivorian presidential election, when both Gbagbo and opponent
Alassane Ouattara took an oath of office, leading to the
2010–2011 Ivorian crisis. Gafurov was among the most prominent supporters of
President Gaddafi during the
First Libyan Civil War in 2011 due to his perception that the war was a "tribal reaction" to Gaddafi's attempts to modernise Libya; the fact that insurgents were headed by former
Minister of Justice Mustafa Abdul Jalil; and the economic interests of Russia's
oil and gas sector. In 2016, Gafurov spoke at the
POLISARIO Congresses in
Algeria. The same year, he suggested that to settle the
Syrian crisis, the Russian Foreign Policy should garner support from
Catholic American
lobbyists. He has been deputy chairman of the Russian Committee for Solidarity with Peoples of Libya and Syria since its founding. He defended the
Syrian government during the
Siege of Daraa, believing it to be a conflict between the
Druzites and
Bedouin. In February 2014, following the
Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, Gafurov outlined what he believed should be the principles of
Ukraine: removal of the "
fascist self-proclaimed government" in
Kyiv, its "
IMF-inspired economic program," and
Crimean annexation by Russia; and federalisation of Ukraine so its regions could self-determine whether they wanted to
integrate into Europe, join a
free-trade zone with the
Eurasian Customs Union, or declare independence from both. He later changed his position on Crimea based on supposed damage done to Ukraine's economy following the Revolution of Dignity and the
Crimean people's refusal to return to Ukraine. In February 2017, he criticised the
United States for calling for the return of Crimea to Ukraine, promising that he would personally campaign to do so once the United States returned
Texas,
California,
New Mexico, and
Arizona to
Mexico. His comments led some to suspect him of secretly organising the transfer of refugees, mainly members of the
Communist Party of Ukraine,
Borotba and other leftist organizations, who were persecuted and tortured during the
Revolution of Dignity, to Russia. In 2016, he hypothesized that any election "from the
United States to the
DPRK, from
India to
Russia, from
Switzerland to the
People's China, from
Germany to
Syria," the number of illegal, "thrown in" votes is consistently between 5% and 10% of votes for one or two candidates. This is based on the
mathematical expectation of this figure in the presence of a sufficiently large number of polling stations and a large number of elections. This hypothesis is used to calculate the budgets of election campaigns in Russia. Gafurov accused the United States of hypocrisy over
nuclear non-proliferation, claiming they were the only nation to ever
drop atomic bombs on cities. In October 2020, he claimed
internationalism is the only way to achieve a ceasefire between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, a view met with criticism from both
Armenian and
Azerbaijani nationalists. Following
Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war, Gafurov began speaking out against Russian propaganda; the
Kremlin has not challenged his views. Gafurov opposes the concept of
intellectual property, claiming that it damages the
common good and that most modern culture is sponsored by the state and philanthropy anyway. He was among the first Russian scholars to publish his PhD dissertation on the internet as early as 1996; this led to his involvement in some Russian
Dissernet scandals as a source of violated copyright. Gafurov has been accused of plagiarising short news articles from Greek, Indian, and Bengali radical Marxist sources several times. He has also been criticised for "
dilettantism" in his psychological and philosophical works, in part due to his application of mathematical concepts not common in these fields. In general, Gafurov approaches psychology from an experimental and analytical standpoint and seeks to identify hidden rationality in irrationality. ==Personal life==