Victor Serge

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Victor Serge
Born	December 30, 1890 (1890-12-30) Brussels, Belgium
Died	November 17, 1947 (1947-11-18) (aged 56) Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality	Belgian Russian
Political party	Socialist Young Guards (1905–1909) Russian Communist Party (1919–1928) POUM (1937)
Spouse	Liuba Russakova
Partner	Vlady
Signature

Victor Serge (French:

Serge was born in Belgium to Russian revolutionaries in exile. He had little formal schooling and left home in his teens. He lived in a French mining village, worked as a typesetter, and went to Paris. While in Paris he became an anarchist and editor of one of the movement's newspapers.[4]

During that time he was caught up in the trial of the Bonnot Gang with his then-wife Rirette Maîtrejean and others. Some of the accused were executed, the women were acquitted and Serge was sentenced to five years imprisonment for refusing to testify. He was 22 years old at the time of his sentencing and was released in 1917.^[5][4]

In 1919 he arrived in revolutionary Russia during the civil war between the Red (revolutionary) and White (counter-revolutionary) armies. While concerned that the Bolsheviks were repressing opposition to their left, he later wrote, "Even if there was only one chance in a hundred for the regeneration of the revolution and its workers' democracy, that chance had to be taken".^[4]

Works available in English

Fiction

• The Long Dusk or Last Times (1946) Translator: Ralph Manheim; New York : The Dial Press. Translation of Les derniers temps, Montreal 1946.
• The Case of Comrade Tulayev (1967) Translator: Willard R. Trask; New York : New York Review of Books Classics. Translation of L'Affaire Toulaev. Paris 1949.
• Birth of our Power (1967) Translator: Richard Greeman; New York : Doubleday. Translation of Naissance de notre force, Paris 1931.
• Men in Prison (1969) Translator: Richard Greeman; Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Translation of Les hommes dans le prison, Paris 1930.
• Serge, Victor (1932). Conquered City [Ville conquise] (in French). Translated by Greeman, Richard. New York City:
  ISBN 978-1-59017-366-4
  .
• Serge, Victor (1939). Midnight in the Century [S'il est minuit dans le siècle] (in French). Translated by Greeman, Richard. New York City:
  ISBN 9781590177709
  .
• Serge, Victor (1971). Unforgiving Years [Les Années sans pardon] (in French). Translated by Greeman, Richard. New York City:
  ISBN 978-1-59017-247-6
  .
• Serge, Victor (2022). Greeman, Richard (ed.). Last Times (in French). Translated by Manheim, Ralph. New York City:
  ISBN 9781681375144
  .

• From Lenin to Stalin (1937) Translator: Ralph Manheim; New York: Pioneer Publishers. Translation of De Lénine à Staline, Paris 1937.
• Russia Twenty Years After (1937) Translator: Max Shachtman; New York: Pioneer Publishers. Translation of Destin d'une révolution, Paris 1937. Also published as Destiny of a Revolution.
• Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901–1941 (2012) Translator: Peter Sedgwick with George Paizis; New York: New York Review of Books Classics. Translation of Mémoires d'un révolutionnaire, 1901–1941, Paris 1951.
• Year One of the Russian Revolution (1972) Translator: Peter Sedgwick; London: Allen Lane. Translation of L'An 1 de la révolution russe, Paris 1930.
• The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky (1973) (with
  Arnold J. Pomerans
  ; Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Translation of: Vie et mort de Leon Trotsky, Paris 1951.
• What Everyone Should Know About State Repression (1979) Translator: Judith White; London: New Park Publications. Translation of Les Coulisses d'une Sûreté générale. Ce que tout révolutionnaire devrait savoir sur la répression, Paris 1926.
• Serge, Victor (2008). Albertani, Claudio; Rioux, Claude (eds.). Notebooks 1936-1947. Translated by Abidor, Mitchell; Greeman, Richard. New York City:
  ISBN 9781681372709
  .

• The Century of the Unexpected – Essays on Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1994) Editor: Al Richardson; special issue of Revolutionary History, Vol.5 No.3.
• The Serge-Trotsky Papers (1994) Editor: D.J. Cotterill; London: Pluto.
• Revolution in Danger – Writings from Russia 1919–1921 (1997) Translator: Ian Birchall; London: Redwords.
• The Ideas of Victor Serge: A Life as a Work of Art (1997), Edited by Susan Weissman, London: Merlin Press.
• Witness to the German Revolution (2000) Translator: Ian Birchall; London: Redwords.
• Collected Writings on Literature and Revolution (2004) Translator and editor: Al Richardson; London: Francis Boutle.

Non-fiction: pamphlet

• Kronstadt '21 (1975) Translator: not named; London: Solidarity.

Sources: British Library Catalogue and Catalog of the Library of Congress.

See also

• Anarchism in France
• Anti-Stalinist left
• Transatlantic (portrayal in 2023 TV series)

References

Sources

• Weissman, Susan (2001). Victor Serge: The Course is Set on Hope. London: Verso Books.
• Adam Hochschild Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels (Syracuse University Press, 1997), "Two Russians," pp. 65–87.

Further reading

• Fitzpatrick, Sheila (August 17, 2012). "Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge – review". The Guardian.
• Gorkin, Julián (1994). "The Last Years of Victor Serge, 1941–1947". Revolutionary History. 5 (3).
• Greeman, Richard (1993). "The return of Comrade Tulayev: Victor Serge and the tragic vision of Stalinism". International Socialism (58).
• Sedgwick, Peter (1978) [1963]. "Introduction". In Serge, Victor (ed.).
  ISBN 0-19-281037-5
  .
• Sedgwick, Peter (1984). "The Unhappy Elitist: Victor Serge's Early Bolshevism". History Workshop Journal. 17 (17): 150–156.
  doi:10.1093/hwj/17.1.150
  .
• Weissman, Susan (ed.). "Introduction". Critique. 28/29. Archived from the original on February 12, 2005. Retrieved March 14, 2007.
• Weissman, Susan (2013). Victor Serge. A Political Biography (2nd ed.).
  ISBN 9781844678877
  .
• Gordon, Paul (May 31, 2013). Vagabond Witness: Victor Serge and the politics of hope. UK: Zero Books.
  ISBN 978-1-78099-327-0
  .

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Victor Serge.

• Victor Serge Internet Archive in the Marxists Internet Archive
• Bulletin of the Russian Opposition: "Victor Serge and the IVth International". Statement criticising Serge by the editors of the Bulletin of the Russian Opposition, writing in Quatrième Internationale, April 1939. Source: Victor Serge & Leon Trotsky, La Lutte Contre le Stalinisme. Maspero, Paris, 1977. Translated for Marxist Internet Archive by Mitch Abidor in 2005. Retrieved April 28, 2005.
• Victor Serge Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
• An essay on Serge by Ben Lerner in The New York Review of Books