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Victor Serge | |
|---|---|
 Serge in the early 1920s | |
| Born | Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich (1890-12-30)30 December 1890 Brussels, Belgium |
| Died | 17 November 1947(1947-11-17) (aged 56) Mexico City, Mexico |
| Notable work |
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| Political party |
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| Spouse | Liuba Russakova |
| Partner | Laurette Séjourné |
| Children | 2, includingVlady |
| Signature | |
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Victor Serge (French:[viktɔʁsɛʁʒ]; bornViktor Lvovich Kibalchich,Russian:Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич; 30 December 1890 – 17 November 1947) was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary, novelist, poet, historian, journalist, and translator. Originally ananarchist, he joined theBolsheviks in January 1919 after arriving inPetrograd (Saint Petersburg) at the height of theRussian Civil War. He worked for theComintern as a journalist, editor, and translator and was an early critic of the emergingStalinist regime. Serge joined theLeft Opposition in 1923 and was expelled from theCommunist Party in late 1927 or early 1928. He was imprisoned by the Soviet regime in 1928 and again from 1933 to 1936.
Following an international campaign by prominent intellectuals, Serge was released from deportation inOrenburg and allowed to leave the Soviet Union in April 1936. During his subsequent exiles in France and Mexico, he continued to write extensively, producing critical analyses of the Soviet Union, several acclaimed novels depicting the lives of revolutionaries and the psychological toll of political struggle, and historical works. His most notable works include the novelThe Case of Comrade Tulayev, his historical accountYear One of the Russian Revolution, and hisMemoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901–1941.
Serge was a key eyewitness to and participant in the revolutionary movements of the early 20th century. His writings offer a unique perspective on the Russian Revolution, its degeneration intototalitarianism, and the broader struggles againstfascism andauthoritarianism. After decades of relative obscurity, interest in Serge's work experienced a significant revival towards the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, with many of his books being republished. He is remembered for his unwavering commitment to socialist ideals, his defense of individual freedom and critical thought, and his powerful literary testimonies to the "unforgettable times" he lived through.
Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich was born on 30 December 1890, inBrussels, Belgium, to impoverished Russian émigré intellectuals.[1] His parents wereNarodnik sympathizers who had fled Russia after the assassination of TsarAlexander II in 1881, a plot in which a relative,Nikolai Kibalchich, a chemist, played a key technical role and was subsequently executed.[2] Victor Kibalchich did not adopt the name "Victor Serge" until 1917, when he began writing forTierra y Libertad in Spain.[3]
In his youth, Serge joined theBelgian Young Socialists but soon became disgusted with their electoralism and opportunism.[2] He turned toanarchism, moving to Paris in 1909.[4] There, he associated withanarcho-individualist andillegalist circles, became a writer and editor for the journalL'Anarchie under the pen nameLe Rétif (The Stubborn One), and was implicated with theBonnot Gang.[5] Although he did not participate in the gang's expropriations, he defended the principle of individual expropriation.[6] Refusing to denounce his comrades, Serge was sentenced to five years of solitary confinement in 1913 for his association with the group.[3] This experience formed the basis of his first novel,Men in Prison.[3]
Released in January 1917, Serge was expelled from France and went toBarcelona, Spain.[3] There, he joined theCNT, participated in thesyndicalist uprising of July 1917, and wrote forTierra y Libertad.[3] Disillusioned with anarchism's inability to confront the question of power and drawn by theRussian Revolution, he decided to go to Russia.[7] He attempted to reach Russia via France but was arrested in October 1917 for violating his expulsion order and interned as a "Bolshevik suspect" in a French concentration camp atPrecigne for fifteen months.[8] In the camp, he studiedMarxism with other Russian revolutionaries.[9]
Serge was exchanged for French military officers held by the Russians and arrived inPetrograd in January 1919.[10] He was immediately struck by the harsh realities of theCivil War, famine, and theRed Terror, as well as the Bolsheviks' authoritarian measures.[9] An article byGrigory Zinoviev on "The Monopoly of Power" shocked him, raising concerns about the suppression of democratic liberties.[11] Nevertheless, Serge believedBolshevism was necessary for the survival of the revolution and joined theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in May 1919.[12]
Serge was quickly put to work in the newly formedCommunist International (Comintern), leveraging his linguistic skills and European revolutionary experience.[13] He worked with Zinoviev, then President of the Comintern, and Vladimir Mazin to establish the Comintern's administration.[14] He ran theRomance-language section, edited publications, translated, and met foreign delegates.[15] During the Civil War, Serge participated in the defense of Petrograd, served as a trooper in a Communist battalion, engaged in smuggling arms, and became a commissar in charge of the archives of the former Tsarist secret police, theOkhrana.[16] His experiences with the Okhrana archives led to his bookWhat Everyone Should Know about State Repression.[14]
While committed to the Bolshevik cause, Serge was critical of their authoritarian practices from early on.[12] He objected to the "stultifying structures" and the rise of bureaucracy.[12] The suppression of theKronstadt rebellion in March 1921 was a particularly distressing event for Serge.[17] He believed the Bolsheviks could have reached a compromise with the sailors, whose demands often mirrored earlier Bolshevik ideals, but that the Party panicked.[18] Serge was horrified by the Party's lies surrounding the event, considering it a "watershed for the Revolution and its ideals".[19] Despite his anguish, he ultimately sided with the Party, believing the alternative was counter-revolution.[20]
The introduction of theNew Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921 dismayed Serge, who saw it as a retreat towards capitalism.[21] He proposed an alternative, a "communism of associations", based on worker-controlled cooperatives and democratic planning from below, but this found little traction.[22] Disillusioned by the growing bureaucratization and the compromises of NEP, Serge and some French Communist friends attempted to establish an agricultural commune, "Novaya-Ladoga", in late 1921, but it failed due to local hostility and hardship.[23]
In late 1921 or early 1922, Serge accepted a Comintern assignment inBerlin.[24] He was tasked with editing the French edition of the Comintern journalInternational Press Correspondence (Inprekorr, orLa Correspondance Internationale, LCI).[25] He witnessed firsthand the economic and social decay ofWeimar Germany, the rampant inflation, and the political polarization.[26] He was critical of the Comintern's often misinformed and bureaucratic handling of the German revolutionary situation, particularly during the failed "German October" of 1923.[27]
During a trip to Moscow at the end of 1922 or in June 1923 for a Comintern Executive meeting, Serge was surprised by the relative prosperity brought by NEP but alarmed by the growing corruption and social disparities.[28] He noted the degeneration within the Comintern itself.[29]
From late 1923 to 1925, Serge was based inVienna, continuing his Comintern work.[30] Vienna had become a crossroads for international revolutionaries, and Serge associated with figures likeGeorg Lukács,Antonio Gramsci, andAdolf Joffe.[31] It was during this period in Vienna, in 1923, that Serge formally joined theLeft Opposition, which was coalescing aroundLeon Trotsky in the Soviet Union to resist the bureaucratization of the Party and advocate for a policy of industrialization and workers' democracy.[32] AfterVladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Serge wroteLenin 1917, a study that, while seemingly an official tribute, implicitly criticized the emergingStalinist leadership by emphasizing Lenin's internationalism and reliance on mass democracy.[33]
Serge returned to the Soviet Union in 1925, intending to actively participate in the Left Opposition.[34] He found a society in moral crisis under NEP, with widespread disillusionment and the rise of a new privileged stratum.[35] He became a leading figure in the Leningrad Opposition, working closely with Trotsky's supporters likeAlexandra Bronstein.[36] The Opposition advocated for a program of industrialization, revitalization of Soviet democracy, and a commitment to international revolution, opposingJoseph Stalin's theory of "Socialism in One Country".[37]
The internal Party struggle intensified, with Stalin, Zinoviev, andLev Kamenev (the "Troika") launching a campaign against Trotsky andTrotskyism.[38] After the Troika split in 1925, Zinoviev and Kamenev briefly formed theUnited Opposition with Trotsky in 1926.[39] Serge was involved in unifying the Leningrad Trotskyist and Zinovievist groups.[40] Despite their efforts, the Opposition was systematically silenced, their members harassed, and their platform suppressed.[41] Serge was expelled from the Communist Party just after theFifteenth Party Congress in December 1927, which also expelled the leading figures of the United Opposition.[42] He was arrested in March 1928 and imprisoned for seven to eight weeks.[43]
After his release from prison in 1928, Serge, now politically silenced within the USSR, turned to "serious writing" as a means of resistance and testimony.[44] He had suffered a near-fatalintestinal occlusion, which, combined with his political "death", led him to dedicate the rest of his life to chronicling the "unforgettable times".[44] In the following five years of precarious liberty, he produced a remarkable body of work, including the novelsMen in Prison andBirth of Our Power, and the historical workYear One of the Russian Revolution.[45] His works were published abroad but boycotted in the Soviet Union and often ignored or criticized by both the mainstream Western press and the official Communist left.[45]
Serge was a firsthand witness to the brutal processes offorced collectivization and crash industrialization initiated by Stalin in 1928–29.[46] He documented the ensuing grain crisis, the war against the peasantry (dekulakization), the mass deportations, and the devastatingfamine of 1932–33.[47] His analysis, articulated in works likeSoviets 1929 (published underPanaït Istrati's name) and later inRussia Twenty Years After, traced these policies to Stalin's bureaucratic response to the failures of NEP and the regime's determination to maintain power at any cost.[48] He also chronicled the wave of show trials against "specialists" and former oppositionists, recognizing them as a means to find scapegoats for the regime's failures and consolidate Stalin's totalitarian control.[49]
In March 1933, Serge was arrested again by theOGPU (Soviet secret police).[50] After 85 days of solitary confinement and interrogation in theLubyanka, he was condemned without trial to three years of deportation inOrenburg, a remote city in the Ural region, for "counter-revolutionary conspiracy".[51] His apolitical sister-in-law, Anita Russakova, was falsely implicated in his case through a fabricated confession.[52]
Life in Orenburg was marked by extreme hardship, famine, and constant surveillance.[53] Serge, along with his son Vlady who joined him in 1934, endured near starvation. His wife Liuba's mental health deteriorated under the strain.[54] Despite the conditions, Serge continued to write, producing four books: the novelsLes Hommes perdus (about pre-war French anarchists) andLa Tourmente (a sequel toConquered City), a collection of poems titledRésistance, and work onYear Two of the Russian Revolution.[55]
Meanwhile, an international campaign for Serge's release was launched by his friends in Paris, includingMagdeleine Paz andJacques Mesnil.[56] The "Victor Serge Affair" gained prominence, particularly at the 1935 International Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture in Paris, where prominent figures likeAndré Malraux andAndré Gide were pressed to intervene.[57]Romain Rolland eventually raised Serge's case directly with Stalin during a visit to Moscow in 1935.[58]
In April 1936, Serge was unexpectedly granted permission to leave the Soviet Union.[59] However, his manuscripts were confiscated by theNKVD upon his departure, a loss he deeply lamented.[60]
Serge arrived in Brussels, Belgium, in April 1936, then moved to Paris.[61] He was immediately stripped of his Soviet nationality and faced continued harassment from NKVD agents and the Communist press, which libeled him as a "common criminal" and an agent of Trotsky.[62] He threw himself into exposing theMoscow Trials, writing pamphlets likeSixteen Executed: Where is the Revolution Going? andFrom Lenin to Stalin, and the more extensive analysisDestiny of a Revolution (published in English asRussia Twenty Years After).[63]
During this period (1936–1938), Serge engaged in an intense correspondence with Leon Trotsky, then in Norway and later Mexico.[64] They collaborated on refuting the Moscow Trial charges and analyzing Soviet developments. However, significant political differences emerged, particularly over theSpanish Civil War (Serge supported thePOUM, which Trotsky criticized), the Kronstadt issue (which Serge insisted on re-examining publicly), and the formation of theFourth International (which Serge viewed as premature and sectarian).[65] These disagreements led to a bitter polemical exchange and a rupture in their relationship by 1939, though Serge always maintained a deep respect for Trotsky's historical role and intellectual contributions.[66]
Serge was deeply involved in assisting anti-Stalinist andanti-fascist refugees in Paris. The NKVD's assassination campaign extended into Europe, claiming victims likeIgnace Reiss andLeon Sedov, Trotsky's son, whose deaths Serge investigated and publicized.[67]
With thefall of France in June 1940, Serge, accompanied by his son Vlady and his companionLaurette Séjourné, fled Paris.[68] After a perilous journey, they reachedMarseille, which had become a temporary refuge for thousands of anti-fascist intellectuals and political militants seeking to escape Europe.[69] Serge worked withVarian Fry and theEmergency Rescue Committee (ERC), living for a time at the Villa Air-Bel, a haven for endangered artists and writers.[70] Obtaining visas was an arduous process, hampered by bureaucratic obstacles and political suspicions.[71] After six harrowing months, Serge and Vlady finally secured passage on a freighter, theCapitaine Paul Lemerle, in March 1941.[72] Their journey involved detentions inMartinique (where they were briefly jailed) and theDominican Republic before they finally arrived in Mexico in September 1941.[73] Laurette Séjourné and Serge's young daughter, Jeannine (born in Orenburg in 1935), joined them in Mexico in March 1942.[74]
In Mexico City, Serge faced continued poverty, political isolation, and difficulties in publishing his work.[75] He was slandered by the local Communist press and NKVD agents as aNazi sympathizer and "fifth columnist".[76] He associated with other European exiles, including members of the POUM and independent socialists, forming the discussion group "Socialismo y Libertad", which published the journalsMundo andAnalysis.[77]
Despite the hardships, Serge's final years in Mexico were a period of intense literary and political reflection.[78] He completed some of his most important works, including hisMemoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901–1941, the novelsThe Case of Comrade Tulayev andThe Long Dusk (published in English asUnforgiving Years), and kept a voluminous journal (Carnets).[78] He wrote extensively on the nature ofWorld War II, the future of socialism, the Soviet system, and the rise oftotalitarianism.[75]
In his final writings, Serge grappled with the profound crisis of socialism in the wake of Stalinism and fascism. He analyzed the Soviet Union as a form of "bureaucratic totalitarianism with collectivist leanings", distinct from both capitalism and traditional socialism.[79] He saw similar "collectivist tendencies" inNazi Germany and even in aspects of theNew Deal, fearing the rise of new, undemocratic social formations managed by technocratic elites.[80]
Serge called for a fundamental renewal of socialist thought, emphasizing the "defence of man", "defence of truth", and "defence of thought" as essential preconditions for any genuine socialist project.[81] He stressed the need for socialist movements to integrate democratic principles and individual liberties, warning against the dangers of authoritarianism, sectarianism, and dogmatism.[82] He maintained a deep, albeit critical, adherence to Marxism, arguing for its humanistic core and its relevance for understanding and transforming the world.[83] His concept of the "sense of history"—a conscious participation in the collective human endeavor for a better future—remained a central theme.[84]
Victor Serge died of a heart attack in Mexico City on 17 November 1947.[78] He was impoverished, his clothes threadbare.[78] Some of his associates, including his son Vlady, suspected he might have been poisoned byMGB agents, as the circumstances of his death while hailing a taxi were somewhat unclear, though no definitive proof has emerged.[85] He was buried in the Spanish section of thePanteón Francés cemetery in Mexico City.[85]
Victor Serge's literary output was prodigious, encompassing novels, historical works, political essays, poetry, and memoirs. He turned to "serious writing" as a novelist in 1928 after his first Soviet imprisonment, viewing literature as a means of testimony and a way to explore the human dimensions of revolutionary struggle and defeat.[44] According toWilliam Giraldi, Serge's novels may be "read like an alloy of"George Orwell andFranz Kafka: "the uncommon political acuity of Orwell and the absurdist comedy of Kafka, a comedy with the damning squint of satire, except the satire is real."[86] In his studies of Serge,Richard Greeman described him as aModernist writer influenced byJames Joyce,Andrei Bely and Freud; Greeman also believed that Serge, although writing in French, continued the experiments of such Russian Soviet writers asIsaac Babel,Osip Mandelstam, andBoris Pilnyak, and poetsVladimir Mayakovsky andSergei Yesenin.[87]
Ben Lerner in a review of the "unsettling explorations of the tension between individual and collective life" that are Serge's novels describes his materialism as having "a spiritual element [where] physics and metaphysics, frequencies and faith, interpenetrate". Furthermore, that "everything that glows is precious to Victor Serge, is a source of wonder, a glimmer of possibility beyond the catastrophe of the present".[88]
His novels, such asMen in Prison (1930),Birth of Our Power (1931),Conquered City (1932),Midnight in the Century (1939),The Case of Comrade Tulayev (1948), andUnforgiving Years (published posthumously), are deeply informed by his personal experiences as an anarchist, Bolshevik, oppositionist, prisoner, and exile.[89] They often depict the moral dilemmas, psychological pressures, and human tragedies faced by individuals caught in the maelstrom of historical events. Weissman notes Serge's style often involved portraying great historical events where the actions of the masses, rather than single characters, drove the plot.[45]Nicholas Lezard callsThe Case of Comrade Tulayev "one of the great 20th-century Russian novels" that follows the traditions of "Gogolian absurdity".[90]
His historical and political works, includingYear One of the Russian Revolution (1930),From Lenin to Stalin (1937), andRussia Twenty Years After (1937, originallyDestiny of a Revolution), offer partisan yet scholarly analyses of the Russian Revolution and its subsequent degeneration.[91] HisMemoirs of a Revolutionary (1951) is considered a classic of 20th-century political autobiography.[78]
Victor Serge's life and work were largely marginalized during the Cold War, caught between the anathemas of Stalinism and Western anti-communism.[92] However, beginning in the late 20th century, there has been a significant revival of interest in his writings.[93] Many of his books have been republished and translated into multiple languages, and his work is increasingly recognized for its literary merit and its profound insights into the political and moral crises of the 20th century.[93]
He is valued as an incorruptible witness to the revolutionary upheavals and totalitarian tragedies of his time.[92] His consistent defense of human freedom, his critique of all forms of oppression, and his efforts to forge a democratic, libertarian socialism continue to resonate with contemporary readers and activists.[94] As Susan Weissman notes, Serge "belongs to our future" due to his unwavering commitment to a society that "defends human freedom, enhances human dignity and improves the human condition".[93] Despite the defeats he witnessed, a persistent theme in Serge's work was that "the course is set on hope".[95]
Sources: British Library Catalogue and Catalog of the Library of Congress.
