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What Is To Be Done (With Lenin)?

By Slavoj Zizek

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died on January 21 1924, 80 years ago—does the embarrassed silence over his name mean that he died twice, that his legacy is also dead? His insensitivity toward personal freedoms is effectively foreign to our liberal-tolerant sensibility – who, today, would not experience a shudder apropos his dismissive remarks against the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionaries’ critique of the… return to article

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    The lesson of the 20th century, one that must be learned in the 21st, is as follows:  political freedom and economic freedom, and social justice, and equality are inseparable.  Whatever gains are proclaimed by taking the short-cut of sacrificing political freedom and the rule of law for economic and social justice winds up getting the recipients neither.  Totalitarianism and the New Class are the result.

    The path that works is the Vital Center, the Welfare state, and the examples of Sweeden and Finland are the best models.  Yes, to the Finnish station--but let us realize that the tracks are laid sound so that the train of history cannot be derailed.

    United States Posted by Steven C. Hill on Jan 21, 2004 at 4:13 PM

    In our societies we make the big choices by what our smaller choices are. A progressive society does not branch out into a radical idea without developing the idea on different levels first. Without developing initial levels a good idea can be turned into an anti-progressive platform. Healthy nation-states are not dependent on other states to use as prototypes. However, they may look to a system when manipulated to fit into thier laws and national temperment. That being said, ultimately freedom comes at the cost of the past.

    Canada Posted by Doug on Jan 21, 2004 at 5:53 PM

    Zizek must be an environmentalist, cause he sure likes to recycle.  Slavoj, my man, its great that you brought this argument to the In These Times audience, but your fans are waiting for newer, greater analogies, paradoxes and perhaps something about the out-of-control Kinder Egg craze here in Canada.

    Canada Posted by J Cummings on Jan 21, 2004 at 7:02 PM

    Greetings,
    Shortly before his death, Lewis Mumford, a truly _independent_ intellectual, said this: “Democracy grants every possible freedom in the world except one: to opt out.”

    All this reminds of the old philosophical dictum: “Your freedom ends just short of my nose.” And, reactionary freedom ends nowhere, as they have now devolved.  They can do whatever they wish to anyone’s “nose.” May Lenin’s chickens come home to roost.

    daigu

    United States Posted by daigu on Jan 22, 2004 at 1:54 AM

    How refreshing to see a non-hysterical reference to Lenin and his thoughts.

    IMHO: ‘Freedom’ is a con. ‘Liberty’ is the real thing.

    Australia Posted by Matt Quinn on Jan 23, 2004 at 12:10 AM

    It’s too bad that Lenin’s life ended so soon.  We can only guess as to what he would have done.  I believe that he truly desired freedom and/or liberty for his countrymen and for the masses of people all over the world.  Two things are certain; he inspired many people in his life and ever since, and at the very least Soviet history would have been different had he lived longer.  However we choose to struggle for justice is a definite choice that we all are free to make.  I am confident that people will never abandon this struggle. 

    United States Posted by jimmy on Jan 24, 2004 at 8:10 PM

    “Democracy grants every possible freedom in the world except one: to opt out.”

    Mumford was apparently “independent” of intellect.  This is among the most moronic axioms I have ever read.

    United States Posted by Nus on Jan 28, 2004 at 3:24 PM

    Socialism is a failure. Are you absolutely a cretin, or what? Maybe a fan of mass murder? The Nazi’s were socialists shithead! So were the Soviet scumbags. Grow up!

    Canada Posted by patwest on Jan 31, 2004 at 12:03 AM

    Zizek’s Lenin and Ours

    Posted to www.marxmail.org on January 31, 2004

    An “In These Times” article by cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek titled “What Is To Be Done (With Lenin)?” has been circulating on the Internet (http://www.inthesetimes.com/print.php?id=568_0_4_0). Today, a link to it popped up on neoconservative Denis Dutton’s “Arts and Letters” website, obviously a sign that Zizek was doing the left no favors when he wrote this article. Dutton is like a vacuum cleaner sweeping up every hostile reference to Marxism that can be found in the major media and academic journals. Despite his obligatory genuflection to Lenin, Zizek’s Lenin serves more as a token of ‘epater le bourgeois’ rebelliousness rather than a serious attempt to make him relevant in the year 2004.

    full: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/zizek_lenin.htm

    United States Posted by Louis Proyect on Jan 31, 2004 at 3:05 PM

    Zizek’s at it again.

    United States Posted by Elizabeth Dorn on Jan 31, 2004 at 7:12 PM

    Zizek’s at it again.

    United States Posted by Monica Gandhi on Jan 31, 2004 at 7:13 PM

    Mr. éiûek provides a classic exposition of formal and actual freedoms but manages to elide both practical and more recent theoretical explorations from his discussion.

    He claims that, since the people of Democratic Capitalistic states have no way of “opting out” of the system (no “formal” choice), they are left with only prefabricated choices constructed by the masters of the Capitalist order.  However, this is a false contrast to Marxism/Leninism because, as Mr. éiûek must surely recognize, the exact same observation can be made of Socialist and Communist states.

    Indeed, while he may believe that Lenin sought “to maintain the possibility of the true radical choice” I did not read Lenin’s passage in any such way.  The key line in Lenin’s quote - contra Mr. éiûek - is “Permit us to put you before a firing squad for saying that.”

    That is, Lenin offered no “way out” of his established order either and, indeed, offered a firing squad for even questioning that order. Therein lies the error in Mr. éiûek’s analysis.  While it is trivially true that Democratic Capitalist societies do not willingly offer up their own submission to his “radical choice,” neither does it force him to choose between silence and a firing squad.  More importantly, Mr. éiûek’s very argument *assumes* the point that he has the burden to prove: that his “radical choice” is any real choice at all.  Despite their supposed ignorance of the burdens of a Democratic Capitalist society, the great majority of his fellow Eastern Europeans apparently disagreed with Mr. éiûek concerning this very point when the Socialist order was overthrown last century.

    To make his point, Mr. éiûek compares our existing freedoms to that between “blue and red small bags” in the cafeteria.  But, for all its failings, no other society in human history has offered its participants so many opportunities to radically restructure their lives.  To follow the metaphor, if I don’t like the choices laid before me, I may indeed choose to simply leave the cafeteria or even to create my own.

    So please, Mr. éiûek, do not point up the universals of the human condition and lay the blame for them at the doorstep of Democratic Capitalism.  Show us instead that liberalism will offer the next century a means by which “humanity as a collective subject has the capacity to somehow limit impersonal...socio-historic development.”

    United States Posted by Wild Monk on Jan 31, 2004 at 8:49 PM
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