Stalin: both deviations are worse
anecdote · Soviet/Stalinist ·
retold in 7 talks
When asked whether the right or leftist deviation was worse, Stalin replied 'They are both worse', Žižek applies this to Brexit: both Remain and Leave were 'both worse.'
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 7
“Which deviation is worse the right one or the leftist one he snapped back They are both worse”
“you know what his answer was. not they are both equally bad, but they are both worse.”10:13 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 6pub. 2018-11-28 · 1:39:14
“both are worse. not both are equally bad, but both are worse.”
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
stalinist dialectical materialist vision
×1
retroactivity
×1
radical opportunism
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Heinrich Heine2Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais1Hardt and Negri1Daniel Bergner1Scott Barry Kaufman1Laurence Olivier1Kevin Spacey1Alfred Rosenberg1
alongside works
Every retelling 7
When asked whether the right or leftist deviation was worse, Stalin replied 'They are both worse', Žižek applies this to Brexit: both Remain and Leave were 'both worse.', illustrating false choice / both options are worse,Brexit as false dilemma
10:13 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 6pub. 2018-11-28 · 1:39:14
When asked which deviation is worse, rightist or leftist, Stalin answers: 'They are both worse.' This implies the leftist deviation is objectively not leftist at all, but conservative/rightist., illustrating Stalinist dialectics,retroactive determination
When Stalin was asked in 1928 which deviation was worse, right wing or left wing, he replied 'both are worse,' meaning not equally bad but each worse in its own way. Žižek applies this to Trump vs. Clinton., illustrating status quo,radical opportunism,both Trump and Clinton as symptoms
Asked in the late 1920s which deviation is worse, rightist or leftist, Stalin answered not that both are equally bad but that 'they are both worse'; Žižek applies the quip to Kamala and Trump., illustrating both are worse,third-party strategy
Accused of building a repressive police apparatus while preaching the withering of the state, Stalin replies that the dialectic is precisely that the state withers away through the strengthening of its apparatuses. Žižek calls this the worst kind of Hegelian dream, the danger of his own pro-state dialectic., illustrating Rückgängig machen
57:10 Slavoj Žižek & Lee Smolin: Marxism Meets Quantum Physics | Robinson's Podcast #2062024-05-05 · 59:44
Žižek concludes with a 'benevolent loving joke': 'as a Stalinist, I order you to get better. If you don’t get better, KGB will come after you, strictly please.', illustrating everyday-life