"Even the most ‘totalitarian’ Stalinist ideology is radically ambiguous. While the universe of Stalinist politics was undoubtedly one of hypocrisy and arbitrary terror, in the late Thirties the great Soviet films (say, the Gorky trilogy) epitomised authentic solidarity for audiences across Europe. In one memorable film about the Civil War, a mother with a young son is exposed as a counter-revolutionary spy. A group of Bolsheviks put her on trial and at the very beginning of the trial, an old Bolshevik demands that the sentence be severe, but just. After she confesses her crime, the court (an informal collective of Bolshevik soldiers) rules that she was seduced into enemy activity by her difficult social circumstances; she is therefore sentenced to be fully integrated into the new socialist collective, to be taught to write and read and to acquire a proper education, while her son, who is unwell, is to be given proper medical care. The surprised woman bursts out crying, unable to understand the court’s benevolence, and the old Bolshevik nods: ‘Yes, this is a severe, but just sentence!’ No matter how manipulative such scenes were, no matter how far they were from the reality of ‘revolutionary justice’, they nonetheless bore witness to a new sense of justice; and as such, gave viewers new ethical standards against which reality could be measured."
— Slavoj Zizek
"Youth talks of ‘getting’ or ‘accepting’ ideas! But youth does not get ideas - ideas get him!" - Randolph Bourne, Youth and Life
Theme by Monique Tendencia
