(Freud was aware of this necessity, which is why he put his trust in Jung as a non-Jew, an outsider—to break out of the Jewish initiatic community. His choice was bad, since Jungian theory functioned in itself as initiatic Wisdom; it was Lacan who succeeded where Jung failed.) So, in the same way that Lacan and Saint Paul reinscribe the original teaching into a different context (Saint Paul reinterprets Christ's crucifixion as his triumph; Lacan reads Freud through the mirrorstage Saussure), Lenin violently displaces Marx: tears his theory out of its original context, plants it in another historical moment, and thus effectively universalizes it.
Second, it is only through such a violent displacement that the "original" theory can be put to work, fulfilling its potential of political intervention. It is significant that the work in which Lenin's unique voice is first clearly heard is What Is To Be Done?—a text which exhibits Lenin's unconditional will to intervene in the situation, not in the pragmatic sense of "adjusting the theory to realistic claims through necessary compromises" but in the sense of dispelling all opportunistic compromises, of adopting the unequivocal radical position from which it is only possible to intervene in such a way that our intervention changes the coordinates of the situation. This contrast is clear with regard to today's Third Way "postpolitics" which emphasizes the need to leave behind old ideological divisions and to confront new issues, armed with the necessary expert knowledge and free deliberation to take concrete people's needs and demands into account.
As such, Lenin's politics is the true counterpoint to this Third Way pragmatic opportunism and to the marginalist Leftist attitude of what Lacan called le narcissisme de la chose perdue. What a true Leninist and a political conservative have in common is the fact that they reject what one could call liberal Leftist "irresponsibility": advocating grand projects of solidarity, freedom, and so on, yet ducking out when one has to pay the price for it in the guise of concrete and often "cruel" political measures. Like an authentic conservative, a true Leninist is not afraid to pass to the act, to assume all of the consequences, unpleasant as they may be, of realizing his political project. Rudyard Kipling (whom Brecht admired) despised British liberals who advocated freedom and justice while silently counting on the Conservatives to do the necessary dirty work for them; and the same can be said for the liberal Leftist's (or "democratic Socialist's") relationship to Leninist Communists. Liberal Leftists reject the Social Democratic "compromise"; they want a true revolution. Yet they shirk the actual price to be paid for it. They prefer to adopt the attitude of a Beautiful Soul and to keep their hands clean. In contrast to this false radical Leftist's position (that wants true democracy for the people, but without the secret police to fight counterrevolution and without their academic privileges being threatened), a Leninist, like a Conservative, is authentic in the sense of assuming the consequences of his choice— that is, being fully aware of what it actually means to take power and to exert it.
The return to Lenin is the endeavor to retrieve the unique moment when a thought has transposed itself into a collective organization, but has not yet fixed itself into an Institution (the established Church, the IPA, the Stalinist Party-State).