by
Slavoj Žižek
[...] To everyone’s surprise, Lenin says, ‘I’d like to have both!’ Why? Is there a hidden stripe of decadent jouisseur behind his austere revolutionary image? No – he explains: ‘So that I can tell my wife that I am going to my mistress, and my mistress that I have to be with my wife …’ ‘And then, what do you do?’ ‘I go to a solitary place to learn, learn and learn!’
Marx chooses a wife, Engels chooses a mistress ... playing on the fact that Lenin's advice to young people under socialism was ‘Learn, learn and learn’