Slavoj Zizek’s failed encounter with Leninism

The Slovenian cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek – most centrally in his Revolution At The Gates – has made it his business to reintroduce the Russian Marxist Vladimir Lenin to a new generation of activists. This in itself is a worthwhile project. Most believe that in building a new left we have to “leave the Leninist legacy behind” and greet any attempt to resurrect Lenin with “sarcastic laughter ... Doesn’t Lenin stand precisely for the failure to put Marxism into practice, for the big catastrophe which left its mark on the whole twentieth-century world politics, for the Real Socialist experiment which culminated in an economically inefficient dictatorship?”.[i] Žižek is part of a new generation of scholars who reject both the Cold War version of Lenin as “a devil” and the Stalinist version of Lenin as “a god”. The fact that a theorist of Žižek’s prominence takes Lenin seriously is important in itself, and the writings of Lenin to which Žižek introduces a new generation are remarkable. One early reviewer said that “Žižek's effort” in this revival of Lenin studies “demands praise. His courage to stand against both the prevailing postmodernism and liberal multiculturalism, his taking a stand on the side of radical action against impotent talk is to be commended.”[ii] This praise is unwarranted. This article will challenge Žižek’s interpretation of the relationship between Lenin and democracy, Lenin and violence, and Lenin and Stalin. The net effect of Žižek’s analysis is not to resurrect Lenin, but to resurrect Stalin – an utterly irresponsible project given the nightmare of Stalinism from which we have only just emerged. The article will offer some suggestions for a more fruitful approach to “resurrecting” the political legacy of Vladimir Lenin.