Doug Henwood wrote:
> All you Leninists out there may be glad to hear (or maybe you won't,
> since it might confound your paradigm) that at a reading last night
> in NYC, Slavoj Zizek said that it was time to go back to Lenin.
> "Everyone" now is talking about Marx, but that's too easy; we all
> know about alienation and the "fetishism of merchandise." What we
> need now, he said, is someone who'll cut off some heads.
That! is Leninism????????? My Lenin is the one who (in opposition to Trotsky) insisted that a revolution in Russia depended on there being thousands more Father Gopins. That is, my Lenin is the one who put spontaneous action by masses of people. led mostly by non-marxists, at the center of all revolutionary activity. The best commentary on Lenin (the best guide on how to use Lenin's collected works) is Mao's *Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan*.
Who is your Lenin? On what works do you base your Lenin? It looks like Slavoj knows as little about Russian history as he knows about Greek Drama.
Please, tell us something about him that would give us a reason to read him.
Carrol