Issue #0

Memoirs of a revolutionary

Plot

Victor Serge (1890-1947) was an anarchist who initially supported he Russian Revolution. More important, he was also a writer of rare integrity, who left behind a remarkable eyewitness record in fiction, journalism, and above all his masterwork, Memoirs of a Revolutionary. In it he tells the story of how the Russian Revolution unfolded, swept up an entire nation, and eventually failed. The book begins in 1906, with Serge describing his impoverished, idealistic days as an activist in the left-wing movements of Europe; it ends with the years 1936 to 1941 after his release from exile to a remote city in a time of famine, expulsion from the Soviet Union, escape from Nazi agents in Paris, and flight to Mexico as a political refugee. More than a personal memoir, this insiders history of the revolution and its allied upheavals fills in the human details that add to our understanding of how mass movements take place, how governments stand and fall, how individuals survive in struggles between ideologies. It is a human memoir and, though set in an inhumane time, during a clash among powerful ideals, it is a humane memoir.