Revolution at the Gates: Zizek on Lenin: The 1917 Writings

The idea of a Lenin renaissance might well provoke an outburst of sarcastic laughter. Marx is OK, but Lenin? Doesn’t Lenin stand for the big catastrophe which left its mark on the entire twentieth-century world political scene, for the Real Socialist experiment which culminated in an economically inefficient dictatorship? Lenin, however, deserves wider consideration than this, and his writings of 1917 are testament to a formidable political figure. They reveal his ability to grasp the significance of an extraordinary moment in history - his instinctive understanding of the unique revolutionary chance. Everything is here, from Lenin-the-ingenious-revolutionary-strategist to Lenin-of-the-enacted-utopia. To use Kierkegaard’s phrase, what we can glimpse in these writings is Lenin-in-becoming: not yet Lenin-the-Soviet-institution, but Lenin thrown into an open, contingent situation. Slavoj Zizek’s major introduction situates the 1917 writings in their historical context, and tackles the key question of whether Lenin can be reinvented in our era of ‘cultural capitalism’. Zizek is convinced: whatever the discussion - the forthcoming crisis of capitalism, the possibility of a redeeming vio