CAN LENIN TELL US ABOUT FREEDOM TODAY?

Slavoj Zizek Today, even the self-proclaimed post-Marxist radicals endorse the gap between ethics and politics, relegating politics to the domain of doxa, of pragmatic considerations and compromises which always and by definition fall short of the nconditional ethical demand! The notion of a politics which wo ld not have been a series of mere pragmatic interventions, b t the politics of Tr th, is dismissed as "totalitarian!" The breaking o t of this deadlock, the reassertion of a politics of Tr th today, sho ld take the form of a ret rn to #enin! $hy #enin, why not simply Marx% &s the proper ret rn not the ret rn to origins proper% Today, "ret rning to Marx" is already a minor academic fashion! $hich Marx do we get in these ret rns% 'n the one hand, the ( lt ral St dies Marx, the Marx of the postmodern sophists, of the Messianic promise) on the other hand, the Marx who foretold the dynamic of today*s globalization and is as s ch evoked even on $all Street! $hat these both Marxes have in common is the denial of politics proper) the reference to #enin enables s to avoid these two pitfalls! There are two feat res which disting ish his intervention! +irst, one cannot emphasize eno gh the fact of #enin*s externality with regard to Marx, he was not a member of Marx*s "inner circle" of the initiated, he never met either Marx or -ngels) moreover, he came from a land at the -astern borders of "- ropean civilization!" .This externality is part of the standard $estern racist arg ment against #enin, he introd ced into Marxism the / ssian-0siatic "despotic principle") in one remove f rther, / ssians themselves disown him, pointing towards his Tatar origins!1 &t is only possible to retrieve the theory*s original imp lse from this external position, in exactly the same way St 2a l, who form lated the basic tenets of (hristianity, was not part of (hrist*s inner circle, and #acan accomplished his "ret rn to +re d" sing as a leverage a totally distinct theoretical tradition! .+re d was aware of this necessity, which is why he p t his tr st in 3 ng as a non-3ew, an o tsider - to break o t of the 3ewish initiatic comm nity! 4is choice was bad, beca se 3 ngian theory f nctioned in itself as initiatic $isdom) it was #acan who s cceeded where 3 ng failed!1 So, in the same way St 2a l and #acan reinscribe the original teaching into a different context .St 2a l reinterprets (hrist*s cr cifixion as his tri mph) #acan reads +re d thro gh the mirror-stage Sa ss re1, #enin violently displaces Marx, tears his theory o t of its original context, planting it in another historical moment, and th s effectively niversalizes it! Second, it is only thro gh s ch a violent displacement that the "original" theory can be p t to work, f lfilling its potential of political intervention! &t is significant that the work in which #enin*s ni5 e voice was for the first time clearly heard is $hat &s To 6e 7one% - the text which exhibits #enin*s nconditional will to intervene into the sit ation, not in the pragmatic sense of "adj sting the theory to the realistic claims thro gh necessary compromises," b t, on the contrary, in the sense of dispelling all opport nistic compromises, of adopting the ne5 ivocal radical position from which it is only possible to intervene in s ch a way that o r intervention changes the coordinates of the sit ation! The contrast

is here clear with regard to today*s Third $ay "postpolitics," which emphasizes the need to leave behind old ideological divisions and to confront new iss es, armed with the necessary expert knowledge and free deliberation that takes into acco nt concrete people*s needs and demands! 0s s ch, #enin*s politics is the tr e co nterpoint not only to the Third $ay pragmatic opport nism, b t also to the marginalist #eftist attit de of what #acan called le narcissisme de la chose perd e! $hat a tr e #eninist and a political conservative have in common is the fact that they reject what one co ld call liberal #eftist "irresponsibility" .advocating grand projects of solidarity, freedom, etc!, yet d cking o t when one has to pay the price for it in the g ise of concrete and often "cr el" political meas res1, like an a thentic conservative, a tr e #eninist is now afraid to pass to the act, to ass me all the conse5 ences, npleasant as they may be, of realizing his political project! / dyard 8ipling .whom 6recht admired1 despised 6ritish liberals who advocated freedom and j stice, while silently co nting on the (onservatives to do the necessary dirty work for them) the same can be said for the liberal #eftist*s .or "democratic Socialist*s"1 relationship towards #eninist (omm nists, liberal #eftists reject the Social 7emocratic "compromise," they want a tr e revol tion, yet they shirk the act al price to be paid for it and th s prefer to adopt the attit de of a 6ea tif l So l and to keep their hands clean! &n contrast to this false radical #eftist*s position .who want tr e democracy for the people, b t witho t the secret police to fight co nterrevol tion, witho t their academic privileges being threatened1, a #eninist, like a (onservative, is a thentic in the sense of f lly ass ming the conse5 ences of his choice, i!e! of being f lly aware of what it act ally means to take power and to exert it! The ret rn to #enin is the endeavor to retrieve the ni5 e moment when a tho ght already transposes itself into a collective organization, b t does not yet fix itself into an &nstit tion .the established (h rch, the &20, the Stalinist 2artyState1! &t aims neither at nostalgically reenacting the "good old revol tionary times," nor at the opport nistic-pragmatic adj stment of the old program to "new conditions," b t at repeating, in the present world-wide conditions, the #eninist gest re of initiating a political project that wo ld ndermine the totality of the global liberal-capitalist world order, and, f rthermore, a project that wo ld nabashedly assert itself as acting on behalf of tr th, as intervening in the present global sit ation from the standpoint of its repressed tr th! $hat (hristianity did with regard to the /oman -mpire, this global "m ltic lt ralist" polity, we sho ld do with regard to today*s -mpire! 9 4ow, then, do things stand with freedom% &n a polemic against the Menshevik*s critics of the 6olshevik power in 9:;<, #enin answered the claim of one of the critics - "So, gentlemen 6olsheviks, since, before the /evol tion and yo r seiz re of power, yo pleaded for democracy and freedom, be so kind as to permit s now to p blish a criti5 e of yo r meas res=" - with the acerbic, "'f co rse, gentlemen, yo have all the freedom to p blish this criti5 e - b t, then, gentlemen, be so kind as to allow s to line yo p the wall and shoot yo =" This #eninist freedom of choice - not "#ife or money=" b t "#ife or criti5 e=" -, combined with #enin*s dismissive attit de towards the "liberal" notion of freedom, acco nts for his bad rep tation among liberals! Their case largely rests pon their rejection of the

standard Marxist-#eninist opposition of "formal" and "act al" freedom, as even #eftist liberals like (la de #efort emphasize again and again, freedom is in its very notion "formal," so that "act al freedom" e5 als the lack of freedom! ; That is to say, with regard to freedom, #enin is best remembered for his famo s retort "+reedom - yes, b t for $4'M% To do $40T%" - for him, in the above5 oted case of the Mensheviks, their "freedom" to criticize the 6olshevik government effectively amo nted to "freedom" to ndermine the workers* and peasants* government on behalf of the co nterrevol tion!!! &s today, after the terrifying experience of the /eally -xisting Socialism, not more than obvio s in what the fa lt of this reasoning resides% +irst, it red ces a historical constellation to a closed, f lly context alized, sit ation in which the "objective" conse5 ences of one*s acts are f lly determined ."independently of yo r intentions, what yo are doing now objectively serves!!!"1) secondly, the position of en nciation of s ch statements s rp the right to decide what yo rs acts "objectively mean," so that their apparent "objectivism" .the foc s on "objective meaning"1 is the form of appearance of its opposite, the thoro gh s bjectivism, & decide what yo r acts objectively mean, since & define the context of a sit ation .say, if & conceive of my power as the immediate e5 ivalent>expression of the power of the working class, than everyone who opposes me is "objectively" an enemy of the working class1! 0gainst this f ll context alization, one sho ld emphasize that freedom is "act al" precisely and only as the capacity to "transcend" the coordinates of a given sit ation, to "posit the pres ppositions" of one*s activity .as 4egel wo ld have p t it1, i!e! to redefine the very sit ation within which one is active! + rthermore, as many a critic pointed o t, the very term "/eally -xisting Socialism," altho gh it was coined in order to assert Socialism*s s ccess, is in itself a proof of Socialism*s tter fail re, i!e! of the fail re of the attempt to legitimize Socialist regimes - the term "/eally -xisting Socialism" popped p at the historical moment when the only legitimizing reason for Socialism was a mere fact that it exists!!! &s this, however, the whole story% 4ow does freedom effectively f nction in liberal democracies themselves% 0ltho gh (linton*s presidency epitomizes the Third $ay of the today*s .ex-1#eft s cc mbing to the /ightist ideological blackmail, his healthcare reform program wo ld nonetheless amo nt to a kind of act, at least in today*s conditions, since it wo ld have been based on the rejection of the hegemonic notions of the need to c rtail 6ig State expendit re and administration - in a way, it wo ld "do the impossible!" ?o wonder, than, that it failed, its fail re - perhaps the only significant, altho gh negative, event of (linton*s presidency - bears witness to the material force of the ideological notion of "free choice!" That is to say, altho gh the large majority of the socalled "ordinary people" were not properly ac5 ainted with the reform program, the medical lobby .twice as strong as the infamo s defense lobby=1 s cceeded in imposing on the p blic the f ndamental idea that, with the niversal healthcare, the free choice .in matters concerning medicine1 will be somehow threatened - against this p rely fictional reference to "free choice", all en meration of "hard facts" .in (anada, healthcare is less expensive and more effective, with no less free choice, etc!1 proved ineffective! $e are here at the very nerve center of the liberal ideology, the freedom of

choice, gro nded in the notion of the "psychological" s bject endowed which propensities s>he strives to realize! 0nd this especially holds today, in the era of what sociologists like @lrich 6eck call "risk society," A when the r ling ideology endeavors to sell s the very insec rity ca sed by the dismantling of the $elfare State as the opport nity for new freedoms, yo have to change job every year, relying on short-term contracts instead of a long-term stable appointment% $hy not see it as the liberation from the constraints of a fixed job, as the chance to reinvent yo rself again and again, to become aware of and realize hidden potentials of yo r personality% Bo can no longer rely on the standard health ins rance and retirement plan, so that yo have to opt for additional coverage for which yo have to pay% $hy not perceive it as an additional opport nity to choose, either better life now or long-term sec rity% 0nd if this predicament ca ses yo anxiety, the postmodern or "second modernity" ideologist will immediately acc se yo of being nable to ass me f ll freedom, of the "escape from freedom," of the immat re sticking to old stable forms!!! -ven better, when this is inscribed into the ideology of the s bject as the psychological individ al pregnant with nat ral abilities and tendencies, then & as if were a tomatically interpret all these changes as the res lts of my personality, not as the res lt of me being thrown aro nd by the market forces! 2henomena like these make it all the more necessary today to /-0SS-/T the opposition of "formal" and "act al" freedom in a new, more precise, sense! $hat we need today, in the era of the liberal hegemony, is a "#eninist" traite de la servit de liberale, a new version of la 6oetie*s Traite de la servit de volontaire that wo ld f lly j stify the apparent oxymoron "liberal totalitarianism!" &n experimental psychology, 3ean-#eon 6ea vois did the first step in this direction, with his precise exploration of the paradoxes of conferring on the s bject the freedom to choose! C /epeated experiments established the following paradox, if, 0+T-/ getting from two gro ps of vol nteers the agreement to participate in an experiment, one informs them that the experiment will involve something npleasant, against their ethics even, and if, at this point, one reminds the first gro p that they have the free choice to say no, and one says to the other gro p nothing, in 6'T4 gro ps, the S0M- .very high1 percentage will agree to contin e their participation in the experiment! $hat this means is that conferring the formal freedom of choice does not make any difference, those given the freedom will do the same thing as those .implicitly1 denied it! This, however, does not mean that the reminder>bestowal of the freedom of choice does not make any difference, those given the freedom to choice will not only tend to choose the same as those denied it) on the top of it, they will tend to "rationalize" their "free" decision to contin e to participate in the experiment - nable to end re the so-called cognitive dissonance .their awareness that they +/--#B acted against their interests, propensities, tastes or norms1, they will tend to change their opinion abo t the act they were asked to accomplish! #et s say that an individ al is first asked to participate in an experiment that concerns changing the eating habits in order to fight against famine) then, after agreeing to do it, at the first enco nter in the laboratory, he will be asked to swallow a living worm, with the explicit reminder that, if he finds this act rep lsive, he can, of co rse, say no, since he

has the f ll freedom to choose! &n most cases, he will do it, and then rationalize it by way of saying to himself something like, "$hat & am asked to do &S disg sting, b t & am not a coward, & sho ld display some co rage and selfcontrol, otherwise scientists will perceive me as a weak person who p lls o t at the first minor obstacle= + rthermore, a worm does have a lot of proteins and it co ld effectively be sed to feed the poor - who am & to hinder s ch an important experiment beca se of my petty sensitivity% 0nd, finally, maybe my disg st of worms is j st a prej dice, maybe a worm is not so bad - and wo ld tasting it not be a new and daring experience% $hat if it will enable me to discover an nexpected, slightly perverse, dimension of myself that & was hitherto naware of%" 6ea vois en merates three modes of what brings people to accomplish s ch an act which r ns against their perceived propensities and>or interests, a thoritarian .the p re command "Bo sho ld do it beca se & say so, witho t 5 estioning it=", s stained by the reward if the s bject does it and the p nishment if he does not do it1, totalitarian .the reference to some higher (a se or common Dood which is larger than the s bject*s perceived interest, "Bo sho ld do it beca se, even if it is npleasant, it serves o r ?ation, 2arty, 4 manity="1, and liberal .the reference to the s bject*s inner nat re itself, "$hat is asked of yo may appear rep lsive, b t look deep into yo rself and yo will discover that it*s in yo r tr e nat re to do it, yo will find it attractive, yo will become aware of new, nexpected, dimensions of yo r personality="1! 0t this point, 6ea vois sho ld be corrected, a direct a thoritarianism is practically inexistent - even the most oppressive regime p blicly legitimizes its reign with the reference to some 4igher Dood, and the fact that, ltimately, "yo have to obey beca se & say so" reverberates only as its obscene s pplement discernible between the lines! &t is rather the specificity of the standard a thoritarianism to refer to some higher Dood ."whatever yo r inclinations are, yo have to follow my order for the sake of the higher Dood="1, while totalitarianism, like liberalism, interpellates the s bject on behalf of 4&S '$? good ."what may appear to yo as an external press re, is really the expression of yo r objective interests, of what yo /-0##B $0?T witho t being aware of it="1! The difference between the two resides elsewhere, "totalitarianism" imposes on the s bject his>her own good, even if it is against his>her will - recall 8ing (harles* .in1famo s statement, "&f any shall be so foolishly nnat ral as to oppose their king, their co ntry and their own good, we will make them happy, by Dod*s blessing - even against their wills!".(harles & to the -arl of -ssex, E 0 g st 9ECC1 4ere we already enco nter have the later 3acobin theme of happiness as a political factor, as well as the Saint3 stian idea of forcing people to be happy!!! #iberalism tries to avoid .or, rather, cover p1 this paradox by way of clinging to the end to the fiction of the s bject*s immediate free self-perception ."& don*t claim to know better than yo what yo want - j st look deep into yo rself and decide freely what yo want="1! The reason for this fa lt in 6ea vois*s line of arg mentation is that he fails to recognize how the abyssal ta tological a thority ."&t is so beca se & say so=" of the Master1 does not work only beca se of the sanctions .p nishment>reward1 it implicitly or explicitly evokes! That is to say, what, effectively, makes a

s bject freely choose what is imposed on him against his interests and>or propensities% 4ere, the empirical in5 iry into "pathological" .in the 8antian sense of the term1 motivations is not s fficient, the en nciation of an inj nction that imposes on its addressee a symbolic engagement>commitment evinces an inherent force of its own, so that what sed ces s into obeying it is the very feat re that may appear to be an obstacle - the absence of a "why!" 4ere, #acan can be of some help, the #acanian "Master-Signifier" designates precisely this hypnotic force of the symbolic inj nction which relies only on its own act of en nciation - it is here that we enco nter "symbolic efficiency" at its p rest! The three ways of legitimizing the exercise of a thority ."a thoritarian," "totalitarian," "liberal"1 are nothing b t the three ways to cover p, to blind s for the sed ctive power of, the abyss of this empty call! &n a way, liberalism is here even the worst of the three, since it ?0T@/0#&Z-S the reasons for obedience into the s bject*s internal psychological str ct re! So the paradox is that "liberal" s bjects are in a way those least free, they change the very opinion>perception of themselves, accepting what was &M2'S-7 on them as originating in their "nat re" - they are even no longer 0$0/- of their s bordination! #et s take the sit ation in the -astern - ropean co ntries aro nd 9::<, when the /eally -xisting Socialism was falling apart, all of a s dden, people were thrown into a sit ation of the "freedom of political choice" - however, were they /-0##B at any point asked the f ndamental 5 estion of what kind of knew order they act ally wanted% &s it not that they fo nd themselves in the exact sit ation of the s bject-victim of a 6ea vois experiment% They were first told that they are entering the promised land of political freedom) then, soon afterwards, they were informed that this freedom involves wild privatization, the dismantling of the social sec rity, etc!etc! - they still have the freedom to choose, so if they want, they can step o t) b t, no, o r heroic -astern - ropeans didn*t want to disappoint their $estern t tors, they stoically persisted in the choice they never made, convincing themselves that they sho ld behave as mat re s bjects who are aware that freedom has its price!!! This is why the notion of the psychological s bject endowed with nat ral propensities, who has to realize its tr e Self and its potentials, and who is, conse5 ently, ltimately responsible for his fail re or s ccess, is the key ingredient of the liberal freedom! 0nd here one sho ld risk to reintrod ce the #eninist opposition of "formal" and "act al" freedom, in an act of act al freedom, one dares precisely to 6/-08 this sed ctive power of the symbolic efficiency! Therein resides the moment of tr th of #enin*s acerbic retort to his Menshevik critics, the tr ly free choice is a choice in which & do not merely choose between two or more options $&T4&? a pre-given set of coordinates, b t & choose to change this set of coordinates itself! The catch of the "transition" from the /eally -xisting Socialism to capitalism was that people never had the chance to choose the ad 5 em of this transition - all of a s dden, they were .almost literally1 "thrown" into a new sit ation in which they were presented with a new set of given choices .p re liberalism, nationalist conservatism!!!1! $hat this means is that the "act al freedom" as the act of conscio sly changing this set occ rs only when, in the sit ation of a forced choice, one 0(TS 0S &+ T4- (4'&(- &S ?'T +'/(-7 and "chooses the

impossible!" 7id something homologo s to the invention of the liberal psychological individ al not take place in the Soviet @nion in the late ;<s and early A<s% The / ssian avant-garde art of the early ;<s .f t rism, constr ctivism1 not only zealo sly endorsed ind strialization, it even endeavored to reinvent a new ind strial man - no longer the old man of sentimental passions and roots in traditions, b t the new man who gladly accepts his role as a bolt or screw in the gigantic coordinated ind strial Machine! 0s s ch, it was s bversive in its very " ltra-orthodoxy," i!e! in its over-identification with the core of the official ideology, the image of man that we get in -isenstein, Meyerhold, constr ctivist paintings, etc!, emphasizes the bea ty of his>her mechanical movements, his>her thoro gh depsychologization! $hat was perceived in the $est as the ltimate nightmare of liberal individ alism, as the ideological co nterpoint to the "Taylorization," to the +ordist ribbon-work, was in / ssia hailed as the topian prospect of liberation, recall how Meyerhold violently asserted the "behaviorist" approach to acting - no longer emphatic familiarization with the person the actor is playing, b t the r thless bodily training aimed at the cold bodily discipline, at the ability of the actor to perform the series of mechanized movements!!! F T4&S is what was nbearable to 0?7 &? the official Stalinist ideology, so that the Stalinist "socialist realism" effectively $0S an attempt to reassert a "Socialism with a h man face," i!e! to reinscribe the process of ind strialization into the constraints of the traditional psychological individ al, in the Socialist /ealist texts, paintings and films, individ als are no longer rendered as parts of the global Machine, b t as warm passionate persons! The obvio s reproach that imposes itself here is, of co rse, is the basic characteristic of today*s "postmodern" s bject not the exact opposite of the free s bject who experienced himself as ltimately responsible for his fate, namely the s bject who gro nds the a thority of his speech on his stat s of a victim of circ mstances beyond his control! -very contact with another h man being is experienced as a potential threat - if the other smokes, if he casts a coveto s glance at me, he already h rts me1) this logic of victimization is today niversalized, reaching well beyond the standard cases of sex al or racist harassment - recall the growing financial ind stry of paying damage claims, from the tobacco ind stry deal in the @S0 and the financial claims of the holoca st victims and forced laborers in the ?azi Dermany, p to the idea that the @S0 sho ld pay the 0frican-0mericans h ndreds of billions of dollars for all they were deprived of d e to their past slavery!!! This notion of the s bject as an irresponsible victim involves the extreme ?arcissistic perspective from which every enco nter with the 'ther appears as a potential threat to the s bject*s precario s imaginary balance) as s ch, it is not the opposite, b t, rather, the inherent s pplement of the liberal free s bject, in today*s predominant form of individ ality, the self-centered assertion of the psychological s bject paradoxically overlaps with the perception of oneself as a victim of circ mstances! The case of M slims as an ethnic, not merely religio s, gro p in 6osnia is exemplary here, d ring the entire history of B goslavia, 6osnia was the place

of potential tension and disp te, the locale in which the str ggle between Serbs and (roats for the dominant role was fo ght! The problem was that the largest gro p in 6osnia were neither the 'rthodox Serbs nor the (atholic (roats, b t M slims whose ethnic origins were always disp ted - are they Serbs or (roats! .This role of 6osnia even left a trace in idiom, in all ex-B goslav nations, the expression "So 6osnia is 5 iet=" was sed in order to signal that any threat of a conflict was s ccessf lly def sed!1 &n order to forestall this foc s of potential .and act al1 conflicts, the r ling (omm nist imposed in the E<s a mirac lo sly simple invention, they proclaimed M slims an a tochthono s -T4?&( comm nity, not j st a religio s gro p, so that M slims were able to avoid the press re to identify themselves either as Serbs or as (roats! $hat was so in the beginning a pragmatic political artifice, grad ally ca ght on, M slims effectively started to perceive themselves as a nation, systematically man fact ring their tradition, etc! 4owever, even today, there remains an element of a reflected choice in their identity, d ring the post-B goslav war in 6osnia, one was ltimately forced to (4''S- his>her ethnic identity - when a militia stopped a person, asking him>her threateningly "0re yo a Serb or a M slim%", the 5 estion did not refer to the inherited ethnic belonging, i!e! there was always in it an echo of "$hich side did yo choose%" .say, the movie director -mir 8 st rica, coming from an ethnically mixed M slim-Serb family, has chosen the Serb identity1! 2erhaps, the properly +/@ST/0T&?D dimension of this choice is best rendered by the sit ation of having to choose a prod ct in on-line shopping, where one has to make the almost endless series of choices, if yo want it with G, press 0, if not, press 6!!! The paradox is that what is thoro ghly excl ded in these post-traditional "reflexive societies," in which we are all the time bombarded with the rge to choose, in which even s ch "nat ral" feat res as sex al orientation and ethnic identification are experienced as a matter of choice, is the basic, a thentic, choice itself! 9! See Michael 4ardt and 0ntonio ?egri, -mpire, (ambridge, 4arvard @niversity 2ress ;<<<! ;! See (la de #efort, 7emocracy and 2olitical Theory, Minneapolis, Minnesota @niversity 2ress 9:HH! A! See @lrich 6eck, /isk Society, Towards a ?ew Modernity, #ondon, Sage 9::;! C! See 3ean-#eon 6ea vois, Traite de la servit de liberale! 0nalyse de la so mission, 2aris, 7 nod 9::C! F! See (hapters ; and A of S san 6 ck-Morss, 7reamworld and (atastrophe, (ambridge .Ma1, M&T 2ress ;<<<!

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