ABSTRACT
The vast literature in many languages on the problems of freedom is full of ambiguities and contradictions, and has occasioned a whole series of questions and objections. If freedom is the opportunity the subject has of realizing its “self,” then for freedom to come into being it is necessary, first, that this “self” should emerge, and second for some opportunities to arise for this “self” to find expression and embodiment in particular actions. For freedom to become real, the subject, differentiated objectively and subjectively from the social whole, must also have definite opportunities for accomplishing a free action, that is, an action expressing the subject’s interests and conforming to its intentions. Actually, V. I. Lenin is speaking about something quite different, namely the extremely close connection between any subject living and acting in a particular society and the various characteristics of that society, the direct dependence of that subject’s freedom or nonfreedom on these characteristics.
