Every week, the producers and editors of Russia’s leading news outlets met with Surkov in the Kremlin for ‘guidance’ on reporting that week’s news — until they knew exactly what they could and could not say, and ‘guidance’ was no longer needed. Surkov simultaneously acted as the de facto leader of the United Russia party, which was (and remains) in control of the Russian parliament, existing primarily to rubber-stamp Putin’s preferred policies. Those who voted against the party line were summoned to the Kremlin and scolded by Surkov: “You will do as I say. You will vote as is written. Your job is to press the correct button.”

In his enforcement of Putin’s will — or his own interpretation of it — Surkov carefully constructed and presided over a system in which Russians could play-act an intricate imitation of democracy. Every persuasion on the political spectrum was given a Kremlin-backed voice within the system as Surkov ensured that the Kremlin organized and funded a wide range of political groups and movements, from liberal to Communist to conservative, sowing confusion and cynicism in the public while at the same time co-opting any genuine opposition. The messengers differed, but the message was the same — the Kremlin was always in control. Under Surkov’s simulation of politics, dissent wasn’t crushed: it was managed.

As one analyst puts it:

Surkov’s philosophy is that there is no real freedom in the world, and that all democracies are managed democracies, so the key to success is to influence people, to give them the illusion that they are free, whereas in fact they are managed. In his view, the only freedom is ‘artistic freedom’.

The regime’s chief propagandist saw himself as an artist — and ideologies were his designs. The entire country, in the words of Pomerantsev, was “living by the former wannabe theater director’s script.”

Surkov pointedly allowed a journalist to photograph his office in 2011.

When Kremlin-sponsored youth activists began ritually destroying the books of controversial Russian author Vladimir Sorokin, no one had any doubt which Kremlin official was the type to have them target a postmodern novelist. Open enjoyment of American poetry (his favorite poet is Allen Ginsberg, whose poems he has recorded himself reciting in English) and rap music (a framed portrait of Tupac infamously sat on display in his Kremlin office next to a photo of Barack Obama) alongside an appreciation for avant-garde theater and Western philosophers allowed Surkov to cultivate the public image of an intellectual savant — and in the words of Václav Havel, there’s always something suspicious about an intellectual on the winning side.

Alone in a colorless sea of bureaucrats who viewed him, according to those leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, as “a man between camps, whom people feared to remove and did not fully trust,” Surkov found creative outlets outside Kremlin walls: openly socializing with Moscow’s intelligentsia, publishing art gallery reviews, and writing lyrics for the Russian rock band Agatha Christie. Within the Kremlin, however, Surkov’s idea of himself as a frustrated artist constrained by systemic weaknesses and lesser men — unable to fully realize his vision for the canvas that was Russia — led him to lash out, at one point reportedly ranting, “The intellectual life in the [United Russia] party is close to zero.”

Close to Zero (sometimes translated as Almost Zero), a darkly comedic novel about a cynical PR man who manipulates a corrupt governor into greater and greater power, was published in 2008 by an unknown author named Natan Dubovitsky. It was immediately pointed out that Surkov’s wife was named Natalya Dubovitskaya — and an anonymous newspaper tip from the novel’s publisher confirmed that ‘Natan Dubovitsky’ was a pseudonym for none other than the stage manager of the system that Close to Zero was so savagely satirizing. Surkov wrote a typically ironic review, denying his authorship and saying “the author of this novel is an unoriginal, Hamlet-obsessed hack” before noting that it was nonetheless “the best book I have ever read.” The novel was adapted into a play at Moscow’s most elite avant-garde theater, and soon became a bestseller.

“His shadows, his puppets, his imagination,” Close to Zero says of its amoral protagonist, “were all controlled by the audience, not his own self.” And as Medvedev’s ‘presidency’ came to a close with Putin declaring his intention to return for a third official term against prevailing public sentiment, Surkov’s shadow games began to spiral out of his control. The mood among Russia’s creative and intellectual circles was shifting into something new and dangerous: by early 2012, hundreds of thousands of opposition puppets had cut their strings and turned into real, authentic protesters. Suddenly, political technology was not enough — a sizable portion of Russian society was demanding real political action.

Surkov, it was rumored, sympathized with the protest movement — or at the very least, understood it as a natural consequence of his own deceptions and illusions; the inevitable shattering of Russia’s democratic façade. His public comments only furthered speculation: “The best part of our society demands to be treated with respect,” he said with uncharacteristic frankness at the time — going on to ask a series of rhetorical questions: “Can we discuss how we build power? How we give it to the ‘best’ people? And after that? Then what should we do?”

If it was an attempt to challenge the true master of the the Kremlin, it was a failed one. For once, Surkov had gravely miscalculated: Putin prevailed over the protesters, and Surkov was fired. Russia’s political system was separated at last from its creator.

Surkov’s replacement had a harsher, blunter style, reflected in the hardliner methods of silencing dissent and ideological turn toward anti-Western conservatism that arrived with Putin’s return to the presidency. State repression, now, would be implemented out in the open, no longer through subtle manipulation from the shadows. Surkov’s ‘managed democracy’ experiment had failed — from now on, it was to be autocracy with little pretense.

Political exile, however, did not last long: within a year of Surkov’s forced resignation, Russia’s once and future president found new use for his former gray cardinal’s talents. By 2014, he was resurrected as Putin’s personal advisor on the Russian-occupied territories of Georgia — and Ukraine.

He had taken a bow from domestic politics, but Surkov would soon be directing life-and-death performances on a new international stage.