Zizek on Stalin

Hi everyone, my first post here.

I was eager to sign up because after watching some of josephvstalin's coffee house vids on you tube (when he had the awesome marxist beard going and all) I wanted to share some of Zizek's sentiments about Stalin and communism. What better place then on the website forums right?

Below is a vid of the radical polemicist Zizek talking about Communism on the BBC show Hard Talk. it comes in 3 parts - have a watch and let me know what you guys think.

British News - "Let's have a balanced discussion about Communism in the modern world and get all the sides involved!"
American News - "Tide goes in, tide goes out. You can't explain that!"

That's exactly what I've thought. The idea that a disengaged populous decides the fate of a country every 5 years via a tick in a box is ludicrous.

Yes. It is better to have a totalitarian dictactorship, with the opposition opressed and people living of rationing. that is better then the evil Western democracy.

What a horrifying position to take. I'd rather have representative democracy than that. Ideally I'd have decentralised direct democracy as per anarcho-syndicalism.

It is called irony, my man.

There's a difference between having a strong, central government and being a totalitarian dictatorship.

I knew that, I was playing it straight to point out the ridiculous hyperbole you employed! Pointing out the flaws in Western representative democracy doesn't mean you only want a totalitarian autocratic government!

I would argue, a totalitarian dictatorship with an oppressed opposition is better. Precisely because it is so unlikely to maintain power long term, and would be a more authentic system than one that hides behind a representative democracy that is a two party facade.

Furthermore, an oppressed party would at the very least offer some meaningful alternative to the current system in power. A totalitarian dictator would have no reason to fear such a change in political parties if it was meaningless.

The violence of a totalitarian system would, in fact, be a very effective system in ensuring that citizens resist against the system to decide what is right for society in a meaningful sense, instead of just being satisfied with the appearance that their decisions hold weight (as is the casein a Western Liberal Representative Democracy). Our current two party system would be a much more agreeable political system for a dictator as it would channel any resistance from the populace by instigating a change to the alternate political party. A change which would not affect the elite in power in any meaningful sense.

An interesting point. However, your argument that the use of totalitarian dictatorship as the agreeable system because of its ability to promote pure change governed by the people is inherently flawed, due to its idealism. Think of some of the most oppressed peoples who rose up to change their lives for the better. The French had how many revolutions during the 1800's, Somali is in anarchy, and the the Russians put a man in power who killed more people than Hitler (but we do have a good reason to hate Hitler more). Totalitarian oppression simply makes people desperate, and desperate people often make poor decisions.

It's very important to distinguish between revolution (by and of the people) and what takes place the day after. I was merely making the observation, that revolution, by and of the people, is more likely to happen under a social-political paradigm of totalitarianism. I wasn't alluding to the idea that out of totalitarianism, citizens will rise up and govern a better society.

Citizenry can demand a better society, have a consensus about decisions on what's right for society, and even seize power - but the actual governance that takes place after the revolution is an extremely complex and dynamic affair.

Once revolution has taken place, governance and progressive change is a completely different question, and an extremely difficult one at that. Even Zizek doesn't have an answer for what should come the day after.

Given your Alias, I thought I'd add that Trotsky's idea of the permanent revolution is an extremely interesting one - it would be interesting to question what the essential factors are of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat to seize social, economic and political power - and how such power is maintained among the proletariat - especially in the absence of the antagonising force of a dictator. I'm sure it has something to due with Trotsky's belief in the impossibility of 'socialism in one country' - which was a major point of difference between him and Stalin.

So, you're arguing that a totalitarian government is preferred if society's goal is to promote change with the possibility of betterment. And that democratic governments hinder society's progression towards its goal by not promoting the possibility of change through the oppression of the people. Very interesting indeed. Also, my username was supposed to be a pun, you know "Leon Trotsky" on JosefVStalin.com. Nobody got it though.

http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2002/59/zizek.html

I don't understand Zizek here. "It sounds logical, but I think that it avoids the true paradox of freedom: that some limitations have to guarantee it." What is his evidence that freedom of speech must be guaranteed by limitations? Surely guaranteeing something which is free with limitations is guaranteeing something which is not free? What is free about limited speech rights? If he's pro speech control he should just be straight instead of utilising a paradox to obfuscate his opinion.

Essentially yes, given the word democracy is used very loosely here (that is given that the word is used to describe the two party political system common in western liberal societies).

If we were to describe Democracy as the process by which citizens have an equal opportunity to speak and be heard, Then I'd argue it is essential feature of progressive and meaningful change (specifically without violence). Indeed, the will of the people to rise up against an oppressive government, regardless of how violent it may be, can be argued as essentially Democratic according to this definition because it is the peoples very struggle to speak and be heard.

I couldn't put much of a context on the quote as the link doesn't seem to work for me (bad server) - and I don't pretend to understand half the things Zizek is on about - But he's using the term Freedom in a very philosophical sense here. That is my freedom to speak, act, etc is always limited by the very existence of others in an essential sense.

Forgive my abstraction here, but think of a circle on a page, the outer part of the circle is restricted by the inner part (the outer is not the inner) and vice versa. When it comes to freedom of speech, it would follow, in a very general sense, that my freedom to speak is limited by others freedom to speak. Therefore the freedom to speech must be guaranteed via some limitation.

That being said, I'm pretty uncomfortable with his stipulation that Chomsky shouldn't have written the preface Robert Faurisson's book. I don't believe you can easily extend Chomsky's stance from supporting freedom for all to the 'today it is them, tomorrow it is us' mentality. I think Chomsky's decision was a matter of principle, not a matter of fear for his own freedom to publish.

That's so much bullshit. People have the capacity to effect great change in their governments. A vote is a vote, and despite all of this whining about how ineffective it is, it does exactly what it's intended to do. You can put the people (or policy) you want into the power structure by voting for them. You can't do it any other way. Without engaging in violence, that is, and of course leftists, being the brutes they are, will prefer that method.

You can cry about voter apathy all you want, but the fact is that the system we have in place is inherently superior to autocracy. Take a step back and look at how fucking warped your perspective is when you hate the status quo so much as to wish for totalitarianism. It's truly disturbing. Of course, on this site, anyone who's not a die-hard socialist is automatically branded an Objectivist or fascist, so I guess this kind of thing should be expected...

I'm surprised I haven't had this happen yet, despite my continual use of Rand's terminology and apparent fondness for her arguments. Must mean they like me more than you. Swag.

I thank you for that.

That was all you needed to say. Ardinius claimed that autocracies were more authentic than representative democracies. I don't think I can agree there. Autocratic regimes often hide behind a representative facade with fraudulent elections, suspending representative democracy with states of emergency etc. Representative democracy is what it says on the tin - you vote for a representative. It does not guarantee that representatives will reflect the will of the public. The usual way that happens is through grass roots movements that elect members within their ranks to office.

I think I understand your point though, that representative democracy proponents proclaim that it represents the will of the people and that it has their interests at heart, and for that reason it isn't authentic. On that I agree.

This is an interesting point, people have instigated great change in their governments, but these have all been under the paradigm of a two party political system. True political change occurs when people are able to effect the functioning of the political system itself. Since the 1950s, you would be hard pressed to find a case where a country’s citizenry has been able to instigate an essential change in the political system of a Western Democracy that employs a two party political system.

I am in fact arguing on the contrary – the two party system is extremely effective in channeling the people’s demand for changes in a society through the voting system. You can, by all means put the people and policies into the power structure by voting for them, but that doesn’t change the power structure itself – which is the authentic source of political change.

This is a very limited view. There are a plethora of ways to exerting influence over an existing political power structure without violence or a people’s vote so that it serves your interests. To name a few: Political Party Donations, Protests, Influencing the media, lobbying, mass civil disobedience, plotting to discredit your political opponent and so on. Violence is in fact a very ineffective method as it generally tends to quickly marginalise the perpetrators in most Western Democracies.

Here I absolutely agree with you – the system we have in place is definitely much more effective in maintaining power than an Autocracy – which brings me to my original point – By virtue of the fact that an Autocracy is so unlikely to maintain power long term, in the long run, an Autocracy is a better system in the sense that its power structure is much more likely to change (due primarily to its direct and authentic exertion of power over the people).

I certainly don’t wish for a totalitarian system, I’m merely pointing out that such a totalitarian system is more subject to change than the current system we have in place – That, I would argue, is the truly disturbing thing.