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 he stand for the big catastrophe which left its mark on the entire twentieth-century?
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. 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.
In Revolution at the Gates, Slavoj Žižek locates the 1917 writings in their historical context, while his afterword tackles the key question of whether Lenin can be reinvented in our era of “cultural capitalism.” Žižek is convinced that, whatever the discussion—the forthcoming crisis of capitalism, the possibility of a redemptive violence, the falsity of liberal tolerance—Lenin’s time has come again.
Paperback, 352 pages
ISBN: 9781844677146
August 2011
$24.95 / £14.99 / $31.00CAN
Reviews
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A return to Marx may be acceptable today ... But a repetition of Lenin? ... Perhaps Žižek’s return to Lenin is merely tactical, figurative even. He can’t be serious, can he? ... Žižek claims that Lenin’s act, ‘his choice,’ continues to speak to those of us on the left today. Faced with our current conceptual deadlock, we must have the courage, the nerve, to risk isolation, self-annihilation even, in order to offer a real alternative to the false oppositions recuperated by and churned out for our consumption by the image industry of late capitalism ... The postmodernists and liberal multiculturalists, today’s Bernsteins and Kautskys – our contemporary Plekhanovs and Martovs, beware!
Blog
Occupy first, make demands later—Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek writes in the Guardian on the Occupy movement, its taboo-breaking nature, and why hard and patient work is now required.
Carnivals come cheap - the true test of their worth is what remains the day after, how our normal daily life will be changed. The protesters should fall in love with hard and patient work - they are the beginning, not the end. Their basic message is: the taboo is broken; we do not live in the best possible world; we are allowed, obliged even, to think about alternatives.
He goes on to respond to some of the criticisms of the Occupy protests:
Are the protesters violent? True, their very language may appear violent (occupation, and so on), but they are violent only in the sense in which Mahatma Gandhi was violent. They are violent because they want to put a stop to the way things are - but what is this violence compared with the violence needed to sustain the smooth functioning of the global capitalist system?
Discussions
Begin a discussionOther books by Slavoj Žižek, and V. I. Lenin
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Less Than Nothing
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Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?
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Living in the End Times
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Contingency, Hegemony, Universality
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The Hegelian legacy, Left strategy, and post-structuralism versus Lacanian psychoanalysis.
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The Idea of Communism
Edited by Slavoj Žižek, and Costas Douzinas
An all-star cast of radical intellectuals discuss the continued importance of communism.
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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock)
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Hitchcock gets onto the analyst’s couch in this extraordinary volume of case studies.
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In Defense of Lost Causes
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Acclaimed, adrenalin-fuelled manifesto for universal values.
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First As Tragedy, Then As Farce
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From the tragedy of 9/11 to the farce of the financial meltdown.
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The Fragile Absolute
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Argues that the subversive core of the Christian legacy forms the foundation of a politics of universal emancipation.
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The Ticklish Subject
by Slavoj Žižek
A specter is haunting Western thought, the specter of the Cartesian subject.
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The Plague of Fantasies
by Slavoj Žižek
The relations between fantasy and ideology, and the deluge of digital phantasms surrounding us.
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The Sublime Object of Ideology
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Exploring the ideologies fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society.
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For They Know Not What They Do
by Slavoj Žižek
The eminent philosopher explodes the roles of pleasure and desire in contemporary politics and culture.
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The Indivisible Remainder
by Slavoj Žižek
Confronts Schelling with Hegel, and illuminates popular culture and modern subjectivity.
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Virtue and Terror
by Maximilien Robespierre, and Slavoj Žižek
Robespierre’s justification of the Terror in the French Revolution.
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Lacan
Edited by Slavoj Žižek
A dazzling re-evaluation of Jacques Lacan, uncovering his hidden inspirations.
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The Metastases of Enjoyment
by Slavoj Žižek
The status of women and the role of violence in contemporary culture and politics.
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Iraq
by Slavoj Žižek
Žižek analyzes the bizarre logic used to justify the attack on Iraq.
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Welcome to the Desert of the Real
by Slavoj Žižek
Probing beneath the level of TV punditry, Žižek offers a highly original and readable account that serves as a fascinating and insightful comprehension of the events of September 11.
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Mapping Ideology
Edited by Slavoj Žižek
Indispensable contemporary writing on the subject of ideology.