Contemporary Russian liberalism

This article analyzes contemporary Russian liberalism through the prism of competing trends of moderate pluralist and monistic radical thought. The author focuses particularly on the pluralist trend, less well known in the West, arguing that its prospects are more promising over the long term. Ideological and tactical differences within the liberal camp in Russia are compared with those in the West, both for the purpose of emphasizing that such differences are not unique to Russia and to show the connections between Russian and Western strands of liberal political thought.