Victor Serge Livres

A New York Review Books Original Victor Serge is one of the great men of the 20th century —and one of its great writers too. He was an anarchist, an agitator, a revolutionary, an exile, a historian of his times, as well as a brilliant novelist, and in Memoirs of a Revolutionary he devotes all his passion and genius to describing this extraordinary—and exemplary—career. Serge tells of his upbringing among exiles and conspirators, of his involvement with the notorious Bonnot Gang and his years in prison, of his role in the Russian Revolution, and of the Revolution’s collapse into despotism and terror. Expelled from the Soviet Union, Serge went to Paris, where he evaded the KGB and the Nazis before fleeing to Mexico. Memoirs of a Revolutionary recounts a thrilling life on the front lines of history and includes vivid portraits not only of Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin but of countless other figures who struggled to remake the world. Peter Sedgwick’s fine translation of Memoirs of a Revolutionary was abridged when first published in 1963. This is the first edition in English to present the entirety of Serge’s book.

"Victor Serge's Notebooks provide an intensely personal account of the last decade of the legendary Franco-Russian writer and revolutionary. They evoke Popular Front France, the fall of Paris, the 'Surrealist Château' in Marseilles, and the flight to the New World. They are replete with vivid life portraits (Gide, Breton, Saint-Exupéry, Lévi-Strauss), and moving evocations of fallen revolutionary comrades (Gramsci, Nin, Radek, Trotsky) and of doomed colleagues among the Soviet writers (Fedin, Pilniak, Mandelstam, Gorky). Serge's Mexican notebooks provide a fascinating account of his exploration of pre-Columbian cultures and portray political and cultural figures in Mexico City, from the exiles' psychoanalytic circle, to painters like Dr. Atl and Leonora Carrington and poets like Octavio Paz. These writings paint a vivid self-portrait and convey the intense loneliness Serge also felt in these years, cut off as he was from Europe, deprived of a political platform, prey to angina attacks, and anxiously in love with a younger woman"-- Provided by publisher

A biography of Leon Trotsky by two of his close friends and collaborators

Set against the backdrop of a tumultuous period in Petrograd, the narrative vividly captures the fervent revolutionary spirit amid internal and external counter-revolutionary threats. Victor Serge's portrayal highlights the resilience and dedication of those fighting for their ideals, offering a compelling glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of the revolutionary movement. Through rich detail, the book immerses readers in the complex dynamics of a city at the heart of a pivotal historical moment.

Serge's tale begins in the spring of 1917, the third year of mass slaughter in the trenches of WWI. When the flames of revolution suddenly erupt in Russia and Spain, Europe is burning at both ends.' Although the Spanish uprising eventually fizzles, in Russia the workers, peasants and common soldiers are able to take power and hold it. Serge's 'tale of two cities' is constructed from the opposition between Barcelona, the city 'we' could not take, and Petrograd, the starving, beleaguered capital of the Russian Revolution besieged by counter-revolutionary Whites.'

Brimming with the honesty and passionate conviction for which he has become famous, Victor Serge's account of the first year of the Russian Revolution--through all of its achievements and challenges--captures both the heroism of the mass upsurge that gave birth to soviet democracy, and the crippling circumstances that began to chip away at its historic gains. Year One of the Russian Revolution is Serge's attempt to defend the early days of the revolution against those, like Stalin, who would claim its legacy as justification for the repression of dissent within Russia.

Victor Serge served five years in French penitentiaries (1912-1917) for the crime of 'criminal association' - in fact for his courageous refusal to testify against his old comrades, the infamous 'Tragic Bandits' of French anarchism. 'While I was still in prison,' Serge later recalled, 'fighting off tuberculosis, insanity, depression, the spiritual poverty of the men, the brutality of the regulations, I already saw one kind of justification of that infernal voyage in the possibility of describing it.'

One cold Moscow night, Comrade Tulayev, a high government official, is shot dead in the street, and the search for his killer begins. In this panoramic vision of the Soviet Great Terror, the investigation leads all over the world, netting a whole series of suspects whose only connection is their innocence—at least of the crime of which they stand accused. But The Case of Comrade Tulayev, unquestionably the finest work of fiction ever written about the Stalinist purges, is not just a story of a totalitarian state. Marked by the deep humanity and generous spirit of its author, the legendary anarchist and exile Victor Serge, it is also a classic twentieth-century tale of risk, adventure, and unexpected nobility to sit beside Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and André Malraux's Man's Fate.

The book offers a compelling examination of political repression under czarist Russia, drawing parallels to contemporary activism. It highlights the struggles faced by those who challenge authority, making it a poignant reminder of the enduring fight for freedom and justice. Through its exploration of oppressive regimes, the narrative resonates with modern readers, emphasizing the timeless nature of resistance against tyranny.