Rosa Luxemburg on premature seizure of power
example · Rosa Luxemburg ·
retold in 4 talks
Žižek quotes Luxemburg's polemic against revisionist fears of premature revolution: since the proletariat is absolutely obliged to seize power 'too early,' the objection to prematurity is simply an objection to revolution tout court. The right moment only emerges through premature attempts.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 4
“since the proletariat is absolutely obliged to seize power once or several times too early before it can maintain itself in power for good the objection to the premature conquest of power is at bottom nothing more than a general opposition”
“as Rosa Luxemburg said there is never the right time for a revolution by acting too early in a wrong way you create the conditions maybe for a right moment”
“the future will be socialism or barbarism. Well, it can be both at the same time as we learned from Stalin, no?”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
retroactivity
×1
il n'y a pas de métalangage
×1
non-productive repetition
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Eduard Bernstein2Helmut Dahmer2Thucydides2Emanuel Swedenborg1Maoists / Naxalites1Alexander Kerensky1Roberto Gualtieri1Anton Alikhanov1
alongside works
Philosophy of Nature / Encyclopaedia (Hegel)1Peloponnesian War (Thucydides)1Libido and Society (Dahmer)1Knowledge and Human Interest (Habermas)1Holzwege / Off the Beaten Track (Heidegger)1Éloge de l'amour / In Praise of Love (Badiou)1Jena fragments on love and reconciliation1Hitchcock's masterpieces of the 1950s1
Every retelling 4
Žižek quotes Luxemburg's polemic against revisionist fears of premature revolution: since the proletariat is absolutely obliged to seize power 'too early,' the objection to prematurity is simply an objection to revolution tout court. The right moment only emerges through premature attempts., illustrating retroactivity of truth,there is no metalanguage,repetition without Aufhebung
1:23:12 Slavoj Zizek:Lenin,Stalin, China,India, Africa,Yugoslavia,Latin America, fascism, democracy, & West2024-02-03 · 1:25:29
He cites Rosa Luxemburg's idea that there is never the right time for a revolution, arguing that acting 'too early' creates the conditions for a 'right moment,' justifying unconditional engagement with imperfect movements., illustrating revolution-violence,philosophy-general
Luxemburg's alternative 'socialism or barbarism' is given a Žižekian twist: it can be both at the same time, as we learned from Stalin, the transition itself producing barbarism., illustrating interregnum / morbid phenomena,revolution-violence
24:34 German Idealism and Psychoanalysis with Slavoj Zizek, Alenka Zupancic, Mladen Dolar - Part 22012-04-20 · 36:35
Bernstein counseled waiting for conditions to ripen; Luxemburg answered that you must try to take power prematurely, only the failed premature attempt creates the right moment., illustrating the right moment only arrives through the wrong moment