critical theory with slavoj zizek: when I ironically refer to myself as a Leninist, when people ask me “What kind of Leninist?” I always say the Lenin of 1915. When, with the fiasco of the First World War, everything shattered for Lenin. And what did he do? He went to Switzerland and started to read Hegel. That’s the Lenin that I like. To admit fully the disaster. The first task of a Marxist today is to be radically self-critical. To admit that it’s not just, you know, like the social democratic left betrayed a more radical legacy. No no no, the whole leftist project has to be radically re-thought.