Seriously speaking, liberal hegemony in the country is still very strong. Since 1991, virtually all major tenets disseminated in education, the humanities, and culture have been built strictly according to liberal templates. Everything from our Constitution is liberal. Even the very ban on ideology is a purely liberal ideological thesis. Liberals do not consider liberalism an ideology itself — it is their ‘ultimate truth’. Under ‘ideology’, they comprehend everything that challenges this ‘liberal truth’, such as socialism, communism, nationalism, or the political teachings of traditional society.
After the end of the USSR, liberal ideology became predominant in the Russian Federation. From the beginning, it took on a totalitarian nature. Liberals usually criticise totalitarianism — both right-wing (nationalist) and left-wing (socialist) —while hastily equating liberalism with ‘democracy’, opposing it to any totalitarian regime. However, the profound philosopher and Heidegger student Hannah Arendt insightfully noted that totalitarianism is a trait of all modern political ideologies, including liberal democracy. Liberalism is no exception; it is totalitarian by nature.
Like any totalitarianism, it is about a particular group of society (a definite minority) claiming to be the ‘bearer of universal truth’, thus knowing everything about the universal. Hence, totalitarianism — from Latin totalis, meaning entire, whole, complete. Based on a fanatical belief in their ideology’s infallibility, they impose their views on the whole society. The totalitarian ‘everything’ is easily contrasted with the majority opinion or various ideological groups actually existing in society. Usually, the totalitarian ruling elite justifies their ‘rightness’ by claiming to ‘possess knowledge of the meaning of history’, ‘hold the keys to the future’, and ‘act in the name of the common good’ (only apparent to them). Often, theories of progress, development, or the imperatives of freedom, equality, etc., act as such ‘keys to the future’. Nationalist totalitarian regimes appeal to the nation or race, proclaiming the superiority of some (i.e., themselves) over others. Bolsheviks act in the name of communism, which will come in the future, considering the party elite as bearers of awakened consciousness, ‘new people’. Liberals believe capitalism is the pinnacle of development and act in the name of progress and globalisation. Today, this includes gender politics and ecology. ‘We rule over you because we are progressive and protect minorities and the environment. Obey us!’
Minority Theory and Majority Criticism
Proving the totalitarianism of Bolsheviks or Nazis is unnecessary; it is evident. But after the victory over Germany in 1945 and the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, liberalism remained the sole and main global ideology of the totalitarian type.
The Totalitarian Nature of Liberal-Reformist Rule in the 1990s
From the start, they ruled using totalitarian methods. In 1993, the democratic uprising of the House of Soviets was suppressed by force. The liberal West fully supported the shooting at the Parliament, as it was deemed necessary for ‘progress’ and ‘the movement towards freedom’.
In the 1993 elections, the right-wing opposition party LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia)1 won in the Duma, but they were dismissed as ‘marginals’ and ‘extremists’. The majority held no significance in the eyes of the ‘family’. Zhirinovsky was first branded ‘Hitler’, then reduced to clown status, helping to let off steam (i.e., ruling single-handedly and unchallenged over an utterly dissatisfied and disapproving populace regarding the main liberal course).
In 1996, other (this time left-wing) oppositionists — the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) — won the election. Again, the ruling liberal elite, representing a minority, ignored this. ‘The majority can be mistaken’, this minority asserted and continued to rule unchallenged, relying on liberal ideology, heedless of anything else.
Liberalism asserted its principles in politics, economics, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, jurisprudence, ethnology, cultural studies, political science, etc. All the humanities were completely hijacked by liberals and curated from the West through systems of ratings, scientific publications, citation indexes, and other criteria. Hence, not just the Bologna system and the introduction of the Unified State Exam, but most importantly, the content of the scientific disciplines themselves.
Putin’s Realism against Liberal Hegemony
However, the majority (systemic) liberals decided to adapt to Putin, occupy a formally loyal position, but continue to conduct a liberal course as if nothing had changed. Putin simply shared power with the liberals — realism, military sphere, foreign policy fell to him, and everything else — economy, science, culture, education — to them. This is not entirely liberal but tolerable — after all, in the USA itself, power also oscillates between pure liberal globalists (Clinton, Obama, Biden) and realists (like Trump and some Republicans).
In 2008-2012, Medvedev played the role of a Russian liberal. When Putin returned in 2012, it provoked an outcry from Russian liberals, who thought the worst was behind them and Russia would return to the 1990s — the era of pure and unadulterated liberal totalitarianism.
But even returning in 2012, Putin, contrary to his programmatic articles published during the 2012 election campaign, decided to leave the liberals alone, pushing aside only another portion of the most odious ones.
In 2014, after the reunification with Crimea, there was another shift towards sovereignty and realism. Another wave of liberals, feeling they were losing their former hegemonic positions, ebbed from Russia. However, Putin, in his battle for the Russian world, was then stopped, and the ruling liberal elite again resorted to their usual tactic of symbiosis — sovereignty for Putin, everything else for the liberals.
The SMO Final Break with the West
But it seems we still want to prove at any cost: ‘No, we are the real liberals; you are not liberals. You have deviated from liberal democracy, supporting the Nazi regime in Kiev. We remain true to liberal dogmas. After all, they include anti-fascism, and that’s what we are fighting against — Ukrainian fascism — as required by liberal ideology.’
I am not saying that everybody in the Russian government thinks this way, but certainly, many do.
They fervently oppose patriotic reforms, throwing themselves into the breach to ensure sovereignty does not touch the most important thing — ideology. Antonio Gramsci called ‘hegemony’ the control of the liberal worldview over the superstructure — especially culture, knowledge, thought, and philosophy. And this hegemony is still in the hands of liberals in Russia.
We still deal with ‘sovereign liberalism’, i.e., the (contradictory and hopeless) attempt to combine the political sovereignty of the Russian Federation with global Western norms, i.e., with liberal totalitarianism and the omnipotence of the liberal Western elites who seized power in the country in the 1990s.
And the plan of Russian liberals is, even during the SMO, to retain their power over society, culture, science, economy, and education, so that — when all this ends — they can again try to present Russia as a ‘civilised and developed Western state’, where liberal democracy, i.e., the totalitarian dominance of liberals, was preserved even in the most challenging times. It seems Putin signed Decree 809 on traditional values (directly opposed to liberal ideology), added provisions about the normal family to the Constitution, mentioned God as the immutable foundation of Russian history, banned LGBT movements as extremist, constantly expanded the list of foreign agents, and declared the Russian people a subject of history and Russia a state-civilisation… However, the liberal hegemony in Russia still remains. It has penetrated so deeply into our society that it continues to reproduce itself in new generations of managers, officials, scientists, and educators. And this is not surprising — for over thirty years in Russia, a group of totalitarian liberals has been in power, having established a method of self-reproduction at the head of the state. And this is despite President Putin’s sovereign course.
The Time for a Humanitarian SMERSH
But the problem is very acute: Russia cannot be established as a civilisation, as a pole in a multipolar world, relying on liberal ideology and preserving the hegemony of liberals in society, at the level of public consciousness, at the cultural code level. Something akin to SMERSH in the realm of ideas and humanitarian paradigms is necessary, but there is clearly a lack of determination, personnel, institutions, and trained competent specialists — after all, liberals have been in charge of education for thirty years in Russia. They have protected themselves by blocking any attempt to step outside the liberal dogma. And they succeeded, making the humanitarian sphere either liberal or sterile.
The remnants of Soviet scholars and their methods, theories, and doctrines are not an alternative. Firstly, their approaches are outdated; secondly, they have forgotten them due to their venerable age; and thirdly, they do not correspond to the new civilisational conditions.
All this time, the totalitarian liberal elite has been preparing only and exclusively its personnel. Liberalism, in its most toxic forms, permeates the entire humanitarian sphere.
Many will say that there is the SMO and elections now; we will deal with the liberals later. This is a mistake. We have already missed the time. The people are awakening; the country needs to focus on victory. Everything remains very, very serious, and Putin keeps talking about it. Why does he often mention that everything is at stake and Russia faces an existential challenge? Because he sees it soberly and clearly: no victory in Ukraine, no Russia. But defeating the West in Ukraine and preserving the totalitarian omnipotence of liberals within the country is simply impossible. As long as they are here, even victory will be Pyrrhic.
That is why it is time now to open another front — the front in the realm of ideology, worldview, and public consciousness. The totalitarian domination of liberals in Russia— primarily in the realms of knowledge, science, education, culture, and defining value settings of upbringing and development — must end. Otherwise, we will not see the century of victory.
(translated by Constantin von Hoffmeister)
Footnotes
Translator’s note: The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) is somewhat misleadingly named, given its political stance, which is often described as nationalist and right-wing rather than liberal or democratic in the classical sense. The party was founded in 1989 as the Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union (LDPSU) by its leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. At the time of its creation, the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’ were used to signify the party’s opposition to the communist regime and its desire for reform, aiming to attract a broader segment of the population seeking change in the late Soviet period. However, as the party evolved, its actual policies and the rhetoric of its leader became increasingly nationalist and authoritarian, often contradicting liberal and democratic principles. The name LDPR remained, becoming more of a historical artefact than an accurate descriptor of the party’s ideology.
