Zhou Enlai on the French Revolution
anecdote · apocryphal/historical ·
retold in 7 talks
When asked in 1953 what he thought about the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai replied 'It's too early to tell', which Žižek uses to illustrate retroactive historical judgment: after 1989 the French Revolution looked like a mistake, but now it is rehabilitated.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 7
“it's too early to tell”
“Zhou Enlai answered, 'It's too early to say what it meant.' Zhou Enlai was right.”Slavoj Žižek: Quantum history2025-11-28 · 1:32:58
“It's too early to say. We don't yet know what was the French Revolution.”
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, 1 jobsuses
retroactivity
×4
Its cast and sources
populated by
Zhou Enlai7Ezra Pound2Ivan Ilyin2Byung-Chul Han2Alexander Dugin3Akira Kurosawa4Charles Darwin2René Girard2
alongside works
Every retelling 7
5:33 Slavoj Zizek, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Paul Holdengraber / Los Angeles, 28 October 20252025-10-28 · 1:42:20
When asked in 1953 what he thought about the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai replied 'It's too early to tell', which Žižek uses to illustrate retroactive historical judgment: after 1989 the French Revolution looked like a mistake, but now it is rehabilitated., illustrating retroactivity,historical judgment
Slavoj Žižek: Quantum history2025-11-28 · 1:32:58
Zhou Enlai reportedly said it is 'too early to say' what the French Revolution meant, illustrating that historical meaning is only determined retroactively by later events (like the fall of socialism)., illustrating retroactive causality,history
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai stated it was 'too early to say' what the French Revolution was, arguing that its historical meaning is only determined by its later consequences (like the rise of socialism)., illustrating retro-activity of art/history,changing the past
When asked at the Geneva Korean War negotiations what he thought of the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai replied: 'It is still too early to tell', illustrating how the meaning of historical events remains open., illustrating retroactive rewriting of the past,historical contingency
Asked by a French journalist in Geneva in 1953 what he thought of the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai replied 'It's too early to say', Žižek cites this as a model for the long temporality of historical judgment., illustrating historical revisionism,long-term perspective on revolution,emancipatory movements and the past
At the 1952-53 Geneva negotiations on Korea, a French journalist asked Zhou Enlai what he thought of the French Revolution; he answered 'it's too early to say', and Žižek insists he was in no sense wrong., illustrating retroactive meaning of the past,futur vs avenir