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Lenin 2017: Remembering, Repeating and Working Through
by VI Lenin, edited and introduced by Slavoj Zizek
(Verso, £12.99)
LIKE a football match, this is a book of two halves. In the first, Slavoj Zizek dribbles around ponderously and aimlessly, with trademark labyrinthine arguments and cross-reference overload — “[To] put it in Deleuzian terms,” “in the Kantian sense,” the “Lacanian ‘master-signifier,’” yadda, yadda, yadda.
In the second half, mercifully, there's a game-changing substitution. Zizek takes himself off and brings on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who instantly assumes leadership.
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