Slavoj Žižek, dialectical-materialist philosopher and Lacanian psychoanalyst, is codirector of the International Centre for Humanities, Birkbeck College, London. His latest book is First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.
MORE BY THIS CONTRIBUTOR
RELATED ARTICLES
5 October 1995
The firm went bankrupt
1 April 2004
Kazimir Malevich
20 December 1990
Buttoned
7 March 2002
The memoirs of an early Soviet poet
31 October 1996
Out of the Great Dark Whale
10 November 1994
On the Banks of the Tom
27 April 2000
On Nikolai Gumilev
RELATED CATEGORIES
Biography and memoirs, Biography, Lenin, Vladimir, 1900-1999, 1900-1945, 1910-1919, 1900-1999, 1900-1945, 1920-1929, Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, Revolution, Communism
Vol. 24 No. 14 · 25 July 2002
pages 13-15 | 4266 words
Revolution must strike twice
Slavoj Žižek
- Lenin by Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, translated by George Holoch
Holmes & Meier, 371 pp, £35.00, November 2001, ISBN 0 8419 1412 5
The Left is undergoing a shattering experience: the progressive movement is being compelled to reinvent its whole project. What tends to be forgotten, however, is that a similar experience gave birth to Leninism. Consider Lenin’s shock when, in the autumn of 1914, every European social democratic party except the Serbs’ followed the ‘patriotic line’. How difficult it must have been, at a time when military conflict had cut the European continent in half, not to take sides. Think how many supposedly independent-minded intellectuals, Freud included, succumbed, if only briefly, to the nationalist temptation.
You are not Logged In
- If you have already registered login here
- If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
- If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
- If you are a member of a subscribing institution or University library please login here
- If you have an Institutional print subscription and online access is not included, find out about our Institutional online subscriptions
This article is also available for purchase from the London Review Bookshop. Contact us for rights and issues enquiries.
- print this article
Letters
Vol. 24 No. 16 · 22 August 2002
From Tom Kuhn
In his article on Lenin, Slavoj Žižek (LRB, 25 July) writes of Brecht's response to the crushing by Soviet tanks of the workers' uprising in East Berlin in July 1956 that 'he endorsed the violence as a sign of authenticity.' For a start, although he was undoubtedly a bit of a Leninist, Brecht had an aversion to violence, and it is hard plausibly to link him with Bataille, let alone Ernst Jünger. Second, Žižek presumably means June 1953, not July 1956: there is a significant difference between these dates for any history of the Left. Third, that Brecht waved at the passing Soviet tanks, as Žižek claims, is at best anecdotal; and there is no journal entry from this period in which Brecht muses about joining the Communist Party, or anything even vaguely similar. He did write a letter to Walter Ulbricht, its First Secretary, in which he expressed his allegiance to the Party, but a little later noted in his journal: 'the workers' demonstrations have shown that this is the rising class … The important thing would have been to use this first encounter to full advantage. This was the point of contact. It came not as an embrace but as a slap in the face, but it was contact nonetheless.'
Tom Kuhn
St Hugh’s College, Oxford
From Keith Flett
The ultimate impact of Slavoj Žižek's reference to hard-core porn sites in his discussion of Lenin is not to reinforce but to detract from his argument. His view of Lenin, that we should be realistic and demand the impossible, to borrow a phrase from May 1968, is a refreshing one in the age of Blair. But what I will remember most about his review is the reference to the porn site.
Keith Flett
London N17
Vol. 24 No. 17 · 5 September 2002
From Charles Coutinho
In addition to those pointed out already (Letters, 22 August), Slavoj Žižek's article on Lenin (LRB, 25 July) contains a number of other howlers. For example, the Bolsheviks' Decree on Peace was not a 'new politics that bypassed the state', but a case of the Bolsheviks following the example of the Jacobins' (and Girondins') quite similar declarations, addressed to the peoples of Europe during the French Revolution. Also, while no doubt the Bolsheviks did re-enact the events of October 1917 on 7 November 1920, by no stretch of the imagination was 'Petrograd … under siege in 1920'. By the time the third anniversary of 'Red October' took place, Bolshevik troops were fighting Polish forces in what is today Western Ukraine and Belarus. A further irony is that by November 1920, formerly revolutionary Petrograd was fast on its way to dissatisfaction with the Revolution – the Kronstadt Rebellion would take place the following year.
On a personal note, I can't agree with Žižek that kasha is 'tasteless'.
Charles Coutinho
New York
