Victor Serge: A Biography

by Susan Weissman

Overview

Revolutionary novelist, historian, anarchist, Bolshevik and dissident—Victor Serge is one of the most compelling figures of Soviet history. Set against some of the momentous events of the twentieth century, Victor Serge reveals dauntless vigor of a man whose views often reflect the struggles of our own time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781844678877
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	02/12/2013
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Susan Weissman is Professor of Politics at Saint Mary’s College of California. She is an award-winning broadcast journalist, sits on the editorial boards of Critique and Against the Current, and is the editor of Victor Serge: Russia Twenty Year After and The Ideas of Victor Serge.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations ix

Preface to the Paperback edition xi

Preface xxi

Acknowledgments xxv

Part I In the orbit of revolution

Introduction 3

1 In the service of the Revolution: 1917-21 11

2 Blockaded in Berlin; neutralized in Vienna; and into the Soviet fray 52

3 Back in the USSR - the Left Opposition struggles 1926-28 74

4 Stalinization 1928-33: the bureaucratic counter-revolution, solitary struggles in precarious freedom 109

5 Orenburg 1933-36, interrogation and deportation: digging the graves of the Revolution 144

Part II Another exile and two more: the final years

Introduction 175

6 Out of Russia, cornered in Europe 185

7 From Paris to Marseilles, Marseilles to Mexico: the long, last journey from nightmare to refuge 238

8 From Mexico, whither the USSR, the world? 264

Notes 281

Glossary 321

Bibliography 361

Index 390

What People are Saying About This

Mike Davis

Victor Serge was probably the greatest working-class writer of the twentieth century. As this superb study makes clear, he was also the Revolution's most ardent lover and indestructible conscience.

Adam Hochschild

Careful, sympathetic and informed.

Editorial Reviews

Victor Serge was probably the greatest working-class writer of the twentieth century. As this superb study makes clear, he was also the Revolution’s most ardent lover and indestructible conscience.” —Mike Davis

“Careful, sympathetic and informed.” —Adam Hochschild

From the Publisher

Susan Weissman presents Victor Serge, a member of that race of giants, a gargantuan in the fight for freedom and collective happiness.

Antonio Negri

Biography has many tasks, the most salient of which is obviously the recreation of a human personality for subsequent generations. Sometimes, this duty takes the form of a rescue operation, by which the record of an important life is prevented from toppling into oblivion. And sometimes, too, it is necessary to redeem a reputation from calumny. At the point where this is done properly, biography may shade into history and alter the way in which we view an epoch. Susan Weissman’s study of Victor Serge meets all the above conditions.

Christopher Hitchens

Victor Serge was probably the greatest working-class writer of the twentieth century. As this superb study makes clear, he was also the Revolution's most ardent lover and indestructible conscience.

Mike Davis

Careful, sympathetic and informed.

Adam Hochschild