Liberal Totalitarianism

by Alexander Dugin
ARKTOS JOURNAL
DEC 26, 2023

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Alexander Dugin favours a transformative ideological shift in Russia to counter the

entrenched liberal hegemony and reawaken national consciousness.

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

Unlike the old (e.g., Hellenic) democracy, the majority and its opinion in totalitarian
regimes, including totalitarian liberalism, are irrelevant. There is an argument for
this: ‘Germans elected Hitler by a majority vote, so the majority isn’t an argument; it
can make the wrong choice.’ Only the ‘enlightened / awakened’ (woke) liberal
minority knows what is ‘right’. Moreover, the majority is suspicious and should be
kept under strict control. Progressive minorities should rule. This is a direct
admission of totalitarianism.

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
Liberalism arrived in Russia as the hegemony of pro-Western liberal minorities, the
‘reformers’. They convinced Yeltsin, who poorly understood the world around him, of
the unchallengeable nature of their position. The ruling liberal elite, comprising
oligarchs, a network of American influence agents, and corrupt late-Soviet senior
officials, formed the basis of the ‘family’.

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

Putin’s rise to power only changed the situation in that it introduced the principle of
sovereignty, i.e., political realism. This inevitably impacted the overall structure of
liberalism in Russia, as liberal dogma denies sovereignty altogether and advocates for
national states to be abolished and integrated into a supranational world government
structure. Therefore, with Putin’s arrival, the most consistent and radical liberal
minorities opposed him.

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

The Special Military Operation (SMO) changed a lot, as the beginning of military
actions in Ukraine finally contradicted the liberal dogma: ‘Democracies do not fight
against each other.’ And if they do, one of them is not a democracy. And the West
easily identified who. Of course, Russia. And specifically, Putin. Thus, the liberal
West finally refused to consider us ‘liberals’.

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

We are now entering a new cycle of re-electing Putin as the nation’s leader. There is
no doubt — he is unanimously and pre-emptively chosen by society. Consider him
already elected. After all, he is our main and sole hope for liberation from the liberal
yoke, the guarantor of victory in the war and the saviour of Russia. However, the
majority of Putin’s opponents are not on the other side but on this side of the
barricades. The liberal totalitarian sect is not thinking of surrendering its positions.
They are ready to fight for them to the end. They fear neither patriotic forces in
politics, nor the people (whom they have learned to keep under the bench under
threat of harsh punishment), nor God (they either do not believe in Him or believe in
their own, a fallen one), nor an uprising (some tried to show disobedience last
summer). Only Putin restrains them, with whom they dare not collide head-on. On
the contrary, systemic liberals are concentrated in his camp, if only because there is
no other camp.

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)

1 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.

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sakovkt Writes sakovkt’s Newsletter Dec 27

So, it appears that Russian Liberals rushed to Fukuyama's "end of history" along with
American Liberals,. Or, is it "the end of the world"?

It also appears as difficult to fight both Liberals and Totalitarians : the enemy of my
enemy,,,

The same holds for the now discredited Communists, with whom Libeals of that era got
along a lot better than with the "Totalitarians" of the "Right".

The answer I think is that neither "Fascism" nor Communism was forced upon people of
that era as Liberals today claim. The were embarced as alternatives to the constitutional
monarchies of "Liberal Europe" which had discredited themselves in WW1 and betrayed
the great hopes in the ensuing peace treaties. which proved Victorian but without the
Great White Queen.

People were adrift. Democracy had broken down into squabbling factions, much like
today,dominated by meony.

In fact, Hitler was appointed and the ensuing "Brown" election rigged by Franz von Papen
as the latter had the previous appointments and elections via control of major campaign
donations. This is exactly what's happening in America today. The donors control politics
so voting changes nothing. Hitler did change things though through "my will", as
Napoleon had. I understand that Mr. Putin was also picked as something of a front man
the oligarchs thought they could control. OF course, people were happy that someone
had finally broken the deadlock and was moving on matters of dire if plebian concern.

Mussolini and Franco were prime ministers with comparable powr to CHurchill while FDR
was no less a wartime autocrat of sorts who used to wr to reamke a "Progressive"
America
Expand fullas Wilson
comment had intended, as well as the world .
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Karti Marx Dec 27

DAMNIT TROTSKY 🤛🏽
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