|
Author
|
Topic: Lenin's legacy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
jeff house
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 518
|
posted 24 July 2002 12:35 PM
I didn't find the article so badly written or difficult. Of course, it has its own vocabulary, which is mostly Lenin's. "Economism", for example,
refers to the idea that economic conditions, by themselves, will cause the proletariat to become revolutionary. Lenin, of course, argued that this would never occur, that revolutionary consciousness had to be brought to the working classes "from without", meaning from a party of professional revolutionaries.I think the main point is that leftists shouldn't just wait around to make a revolution...they should leap at it, cause it by the force of their convictions and acts. I think that this, in fact was Lenin's biggest historical achievement; in the face of social democrats waiting for history
to move in their direction, he "telescoped the dialectic". It is an open question whether doing so forced Soviet Socialism into a 70 year cul-de-sac, though. I am not competent to address that question. I very much dislike what Zizek has to say about "authenticity" though. This is a buzzword from existentialism, but here twisted somewhat. While existentialists like the "authentic", nazis always liked "the primitive". Zizek's suggestion that violence and tanks in the streets are "authentic" could be used by any tyrant, from Pinochet to Stalin to the next guy, tomorrow.
From: toronto | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Email this thread to someone!
