Category Archives: Philosophy

Dmitry Bykov in his literary lectures often mentions, that while the Russian Revolution of October 1917 was a horrible event that brought terror, annihilation of tens of millions, displacement of nations, etc, etc, the idea of the Revolution was a noble one: it was a (failed) project of the 20th century modernism to create an uebermensch. Hence in Alexandre Block’s classic The 12, Jesus Christ is floating somewhere in the midst of with the band of 12 scoundrels – the bloodthirsty revolutionary patrol.

In his lecture on Doctor Zhivago, Bykov expresses an idea that the novel contains bursts of Pasternak’s powerful irritation directed against, for instance, Jews – for not noticing the genius of Christianity, born out of their very midst, as one example. As another – Pasternak is deploring the Soviets, who brought with them the ideas of making everyone forcefully happy by introducing the “objective” laws of history into personal lives (Bykov, like Lacan, thinks that dialectical and historical materialisms are one and the same, and the distinction is indeed irrelevant for the purpose of his discourse). He further elaborates how Pasternak is raging against the revolting language of the Decrees, and, indeed, philosophy: the long-winded heavy wording reminiscent of Talmudic casuistic, earthly, devoid of any thought that could possibly take flight.

As someone who was born in Russia and raised there in the 80s, I can appreciate Pasternak’s revulsion. Life in the Soviet Union at the time had inoculated me against ever being charmed or fascinated by Marxism of any kind. If we have any hope of building a foundation for the new materialism (transcendental, for instance), we must first overcome the horrible legacy of what happened in Russia and the transformation Marx/Engels had sustained under interpretation of, arguably, most villainous characters of modern history such as Lenin or Stalin (although applying the term “villain” to these individuals evokes grotesque associations with “villain” as a dramatic persona, for it falls so short of doing justice to what they were).

Returning to the apparent contradiction in Bykov’s lectures (on one hand Revolution is a super-project to create a super-man, Jesus in the midst of this criminal mob, etc, on the other – a triumph of horrible banality and platitude, consuming everything in its way), I think, we can follow Lacan’s famous “There is no truth of the truth”. Indeed, after the first round of euphoria (floating Jesus) it became clear what the Revolution was: borrowing slightly from Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot, it could be pictured as an animal half bull and half lion, with the worst parts of each: the purely economic, stupid, consumption oriented head of the bull, and carnivorous, without conscience or remorse head of a lion. As much as we like to picture another, hidden “truth” (project of building a super-man) beneath this, we have to admit that it is no more than wishful thinking, posing as “truth of the truth”.

So, what makes us think, that it is the latter, the ugly side of the Revolution that is its truth, and not the deeply hidden project of creating an uebermensch? We should remember another Lacanian turn of phrase, (directed at analysand, but applicable nonetheless): truth always speaks directly and does not require deep hermeneutics: Moi la vérité, je parle. (I, the truth, I am talking). This means, that we can become aware of the truth by simply listening to the very language that is being spoken. No matter how the speaker may try to hide it, it is always the truth that talks. And the Revolution speaks plenty. It is the tedium of Lenin’s (not to mention Stalin’s) works, the decrees, the slogans, this inhuman language of the Soviet newspapers – openly cannibalistic with calls to exterminate the traitors of the regime “like rabid dogs” (vernacular too colorful to be reproduced in translation, especially if we keep in mind, that it was being unleashed against innocent people), in the 30s and late 40s – early 50s (times of Stalinist terror), to the bland, heavy, bureaucratic, devoid of any life of the newspapers I remember.

The truth spoke through the leaders of the USSR, who, trying to conceal their speech by replacing any talk with reading, achieved the most revealing effect. This act of suppressing speech itself betrayed them: their inability to talk was not just the sign that they were afraid to speak the truth (or indeed unable to simply talk like human beings), it was the truth talking through their loquacious silence. (One need to only remember a Galich song about a worker who was given a paper to read from at a meeting, and only too late did he realize that it was supposed to be read by a woman: “I’ve been a widow for six years now… But I’m ready to sacrifice myself to the struggle for peace.” The reaction: there was no reaction, except for praise from a high ranking Party official. Nobody listened, because the actual talk was delivered in silence).

If we listen to the language of the Revolution, we will have no problem empathizing with Yuri Zhivago’s bursting irritation. For we will be listening to the truth itself.