Liberalism Now Defeated in Russia and the US ‘Unfortunately’ will Return and Possibly in the Form of a ‘Liberal Monarchy,’ Surkov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 20 – Vladislav Surkov, sometimes referred to as “Putin’s brain” and a commentator with enormous influence in the Kremlin, says that liberalism has now suffered a crushing defeat in the US just as it did in Russia two decades ago but that “unfortunately” it may return from unexpected directions and in the unexpected form of “a liberal monarchy.”
    In a new essay entitled “The Sexual Counter-Revolution and Liberalism,” Surkov argues that liberalism lost its way and instead of dealing with “real problems” switched “instead to far-fetched and noisy conversations about sex” and insisted that everyone accept that there are multiple genders and not just two (actualcomment.ru/seksualnaya-kontrrevolyutsiya-i-liberalizm-2411201547.html).
    This “latest attempt at a sexual revolution failed miserably,” he says; and “the counter-revolution, thank God, is triumphant. The attack of perverts and paragenders has been repelled.” But the reason for the defeat of this idea is more important because it carries with it a message for the future.
    According to Surkov, “liberalism degenerated into libertinism for one simple reason: freedom itself has ceased to be valuable.” It used to be a privilege but “under conditions of ass democracy … to be free means to be like everyone else. That’s boring, and there is a temptation to live without freedom given the possibility that this will be more fun.”
    “And by the way,” the commentator says, “it will be.”
    “Previous generations paid for American freedom with blood and sweat,” he continues. “The current one got it for free as a matter of course. As a result, freedom itself is something ordinary and no one cares about it. Having achieved its original goals, it has ceased to be one” itself and those who promote it have lost their face.
    What happened first in Russia in 2003 and now in the US, Surkov argues, is this. Because liberals advanced meaningless goals, they were defeated. But that isn’t the end of history that some may imagine because “sooner or later,” liberalism will “unfortunately” return, although it may not look like anything today’s liberals would recognize or claim.
    The liberalism of the future may come from China or from the Arab world, he suggests. And such liberal regimes “do not necessarily have to be democratic. Locke for one actually suggested that democracy was harmful to freedom; and a monarchy is useful instead.” Indeed, if there is such a thing as “illiberal democracy, then there can be a “liberal non-democracy.”
    Consequently, there is good reason to fear the return of liberalism in the West and in Russia; and those who oppose such liberalism need to recognize that possibility and do what they can to fight against it.
    Surkov’s words are in many respects playful and over the top, but they are worthy of note precisely because they likely reflect the way in which the current master of the Kremlin views the situation and how he is likely to present to others of the currently victorious anti-liberal coalitions elsewhere.