By Victor Serge
ISBN-10: 1590174518
ISBN-13: 9781590174517
A brand new York overview Books unique
Victor Serge is likely one of the nice males of the twentieth century —and certainly one of its nice writers too. He used to be an anarchist, an agitator, a progressive, an exile, a historian of his instances, in addition to an excellent novelist, and in Memoirs of a Revolutionary he devotes all his ardour and genius to describing this extraordinary—and exemplary—career. Serge tells of his upbringing between exiles and conspirators, of his involvement with the infamous Bonnot Gang and his years in criminal, of his position within the Russian Revolution, and of the Revolution’s cave in into despotism and terror. Expelled from the Soviet Union, Serge went to Paris, the place he kept away from the KGB and the Nazis earlier than fleeing to Mexico. Memoirs of a Revolutionary recounts an exciting existence at the entrance strains of heritage and comprises bright photographs not just of Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin yet of numerous different figures who struggled to remake the realm.
Peter Sedgwick’s advantageous translation of Memoirs of a Revolutionary was once abridged whilst first released in 1963. this is often the 1st variation in English to provide everything of Serge’s publication.
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Sample text
This oppressive sense o f failure was not without its foundation in recent experience. As soon as Serge arrived in Mexico he paid the fa miliar penalty for his clairvoyance. His book on the Nazi aggression against Russia {Hitler contra Stalin) proved to be too frank for the public taste, since it predicted disastrous Soviet reverses in the early stages o f the war, with the peasants actually welcoming Hitler’s invad ers. As a result, the small firm that had published the book expired in ruin.
I kept finding the Racket, flourishing and sometimes salutary, in the age o f trade and in the midst o f revolu tion. We had yearned for a passionate, pure Socialism. We had satisfied ourselves with a Socialism of battle, and it was the great age of reform ism. At a special congress o f the Belgian Workers’ Party, Vandervelde,* young still, lean, dark, and full of fire, advocated the annexation of the Congo. We stood up in protest and left the hall, gesturing vehemently. Where could we go, what could become of us with this need for the absolute, this yearning for battle, this blind desire, against all obstacles, to escape from the city and the life from which there was no escape?
When you don’t have the genuine article, you live with the counterfeit. The co-op managers used to harass us. In his anger one o f them called us “tramps” because we were handing out leaflets in front of his shop. I can still recall our (bitter, bitter) sniggers. A Socialist, who used “tramp” as an insult. He would have chased Maxim Gorky* away! B. seemed important to me; I arranged to meet him. I was confronted by a very fat gentleman who 16 ■ M E M O I R S O F A R E V O L U T I O N A R Y was very keen to show me the plans o f the delightful house he was having built on favorably priced ground.
Memoirs of a Revolutionary (New York Review Books Classics) by Victor Serge
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