Upon his arrival in Petrograd in 1919, Victor Sergethe great chronicler of the Russian Revolutionfound a society nearly shattered by civil war. In these essays he sketches a portrait of the darkest hours faced by the fledgling revolution, defending the new regime against its critics.
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"The novels, poems, memoirs and other writings of Victor Serge are among the finest works of literature inspired by the October Revolution that brought the working class to power in Russia in 1917. But young radicals often have only a vague sense of him -- and sometimes not even that. The appearance of two collections of his work in Haymarket editions is a welcome development. It's never too late for activists to discover Serge, but when you do, it feels like a revelation."
&mdash Scott McLemee -
"The novels, poems, memoirs and other writings of Victor Serge are among the finest works of literature inspired by the October Revolution that brought the working class to power in Russia in 1917. But young radicals often have only a vague sense of him -- and sometimes not even that. The appearance of two collections of his work in Haymarket editions is a welcome development. It's never too late for activists to discover Serge, but when you do, it feels like a revelation."
&mdash Scott McLemee
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Victor Serge, The Unconquered
William Giraldi for The Baffler
Some writers are destined to have two deaths—the first in life, and the second in memory. The lucky ones can be resurrected from that second death by cultural circumstance and the aid of overseeing angels, irked by injustice, believing these Lazaruses should be helped from their tombs. In 2004, Susan Sontag opened her essay “Unextinguished” with this query, much to the present case: “How to explain the obscurity of one of the most compelling of twentieth-century ethical and literary heroes, Victor Serge?”
Other books by Victor Serge
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Life and Death of Leon Trotsky
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Year One of the Russian Revolution
by Victor Serge -
Witness to the German Revolution
by Victor Serge