Revolution at the Gates Zizek on Lenin: The 1917 Writings

by Lenin, V.I.; Zizek, Slavoj; Zizek, Slavoj; Zizek, Slavoj

• ISBN13: 9781859845462
• ISBN10: 1859845460
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-17
• Publisher: Verso

Summary

The idea of a Lenin renaissance might well provoke an outburst of sarcastic laughter. Marx is OK, but Lenin? Doesn#x19;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#x19;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 Zizek 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 #x1C;cultural capitalism.#x1D; Zizek is convinced that, whatever the discussion #x13; the forthcoming crisis of capitalism, the possibility of a redemptive violence, the falsity of liberal tolerance #x13; Lenin's time has come again.

Author Biography

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and many more.

Table of Contents

A Note on Bibliographical Sources	vii
Introduction: Between the Two Revolutions	1	(14)
Slavoj Zizek
Revolution at the Gates
Letters from Afar	15	(41)
The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution (``April Theses'')	56	(6)
On Slogans	62	(7)
The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It	69	(37)
One of the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution	106	(7)
The Bolsheviks Must Assume Power	113	(4)
Marxism and Insurrection	117	(7)
The Tasks of the Revolution	124	(9)
The Crisis Has Matured	133	(9)
Advice of an Onlooker	142	(2)
Letter to Comrades	144	(18)
Meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies	162	(3)
Afterword: Lenin's Choice	165	(172)
Slavoj Zizek
The Right to Truth
Materialism Revisited
The Inner Greatness of Stalinism
Lenin as a Listener of Schubert
Did Lenin Love His Neighbour?
From passage a l'acte to the Act Itself
Welcome to the Desert of the Real!
Redemptive Violence
Against Pure Politics
For They Know Not What They Believe
``Cultural Capitalism''
A Cyberspace Lenin?
Against Post-politics
Return versus Repetition
Index	337