Victor Serge (1890–1947)
Author of The Case of Comrade Tulayev
About the Author
Victor Serge (1890-1947), best known as a novelist, was an active participant in the anarchist movement before becoming a committed Bolshevik once he reached Russia in 1939. An eloquent critic of tyranny no matter its form, Serge was a leading member of the Left Opposition in its struggle against show more Joseph Stalin, a cause that ultimately resulted in his exile from Russia. Ian Birchall is an independent writer and translator. His translations from the French include the writings of Victor Serge and Alfred Rosmer. He is on the editorial board of Revolutionary History and is a long-standing member of the British Socialist Workers Party. show less
Image credit: Victor Serge, early 1900s.
Series
Works by Victor Serge
Anarchists Never Surrender: Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938 (2015) 38 copies
The Serge Trotsky Papers: Correspondence and Other Writings Between Victor Serge and Leon Trotsky (1994) 19 copies
I maestri cantatori 6 copies
The Century of the Unexpected; Essays on Revolution and Counter-Revolution [Revolutionary History, V. 5, No. 3] (1994) 4 copies
L'An I de la Revolution Russe, Les debuts de la dictature du proletariat (1917-1918), 3 vols. 2 copies
Notes d'Allemagne (1923) 2 copies
Pour un brasier dans un désert: Résistance, messages, mains, destins (Type-type) (French Edition) (1998) 2 copies
Le tournant obscur. 2 copies
Kronstadt 1921 2 copies
16 fusillés à Moscou : Zinoviev, Kaménev, Smirnov... Lettres de Victor Serge de Russie, de Belgique, de Marseille, du Mexique. Le massacre des… (1977) 2 copies
LENINE 1917 1 copy
Αναμνήσεις ενός επαναστάτη 1 copy
LE NOUVEL IMPÉRIALISME RUSSE 1 copy
Hombres en prisión 1 copy
*ANY 1 copy
MİLİTANA ÖĞÜTLER 1 copy
De Weerspannige 1 copy
Sobre a repressão 1 copy
Lenin 1917 1 copy
Associated Works
Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993) — Contributor — 377 copies, 2 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Kibalchich, Victor Lvovich
Кибальчич, Виктор Львович - Other names
- Le Rétif
- Birthdate
- 1890-12-30
- Date of death
- 1947-11-17
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- revolutionary
anarchist
novelist
journalist - Organizations
- Bolshevik Party
Communist Party
Left Opposition
Bonnot Gang - Relationships
- Sejourne, Laurette (wife)
Kibalchich Russakov, Vlady (son) - Short biography
- Born in Brussels into a family of Russian anti-tsarist émigrés, Victor Lvovich Kibalchich left home at age 15. He became an anarchist and moved to Paris, where he began to write and publish articles in newspapers. He was imprisoned for several years as a terrorist and after his release, went to Spain. It was about this time that he took the pen name Victor Serge. After the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II, he decided to go to Russia, where he began to question the Bolshevik regime. He was expelled from the party, arrested as the leader of a "Trotskyite conspiracy," and eventual thrown out of the Soviet Union. Soviet agents continued to follow him for the rest of his life. Serge wrote several works of nonfiction, collections of essays, poems, and novels. His health weakened by years of struggle and poverty, he died of a heart attack in Mexico City in 1947. His book Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901-1941, was published in 1963.
- Cause of death
- heart attack
- Nationality
- Russia
- Birthplace
- Brussels, Belgium
- Places of residence
- Saint Petersburg, Russia
Berlin, Germany
Moscow, Russia
Brussels, Belgium
Mexico City, Mexico
Paris, France (show all 7)
Vienna, Austria - Place of death
- Mexico City, Mexico
Members
Discussions
Victor Serge in Fans of Russian authors (December 2025)
The Case of Comrade Tulayev in Fans of Russian authors (February 2016)
Reviews
Mémoires d'un revolutionaire par Victor Serge was first published in 1951. I read the English translation by Peter Sedgwick published in 1963. It is a long time since I have read such a fascinating autobiography. Serge was an anarchist, a Bolshevik, a Trotskyist, a revisionist Marxist; he was a journalist, a poet, a pamphleteer, a historian, an agitator and a novelist, but more importantly when he arrived in Russia in 1919 he was put to work in the newly formed Comintern and became friendly show more with the leading Bolsheviks who worked directly to Lenin. After the death of Lenin he became a leading figure in the opposition to the rise of Stalinist leadership in Leningrad working closely with Trotskyist supporters. He was expelled from the communist party in 1927 and shortly after arrested and imprisoned for a couple of months. On his release from prison he was no longer able to take an active part in politics. In March 1933 he was arrested again by the Soviet secret police and after a long period of solitary confinement and interrogation he was deported to Orenburg in the Ural region where he endured extreme hardship due to famine and constant surveillance. Following an international campaign organised by friends in Paris he was granted leave to exit the Soviet Union. He engaged in intense correspondence with the exiled Trotsky which led to disagreements, but he also assisted anti-Stalinist refugees and anti fascists in Paris. With the fall of France in 1940 he fled Paris with his son and lived a precarious existence in Marseilles before finally obtaining passage to Mexico. He continued to be harassed by various communist parties and was in fear of his life at the hands of the Soviet secret service.
His story is a fascinating one on its own but his steadfast character and his courage under intense provocation are qualities that I admired. In 1944 he wrote to Tolstoy's daughter and said;
"There is nobody left who knows what the Russian Revolution was really like, what the Bolsheviks were really like and men judge without knowing, with bitterness and basic rigidity"
He was there, he saw it all, and a key phrase in the letter is "there is nobody left" because many of his colleagues disappeared into the Gulags, or were executed or died from hardship. He himself reflected that he had spent a third of his adult life in prison (as a young man he had spent five years in prison in Belgium for his connection with an anarchist group).. He was against much of the violence handed down by the communist leaders, but realised it was necessary at certain times to take action. He documents the hardship of living in Russia at the time of the revolution, the struggle to find enough to eat, the lack of most creature comforts, even basic clothing was difficult to obtain and Russian winters are cold. The revolutionary governments struggling to accommodate themselves in the grand palace's of St Petersburg, when they could not even find means to keep warm. He also tells of incidents in the civil war between the red and white armies and Trotsky's decisive actions in leading the red army.
In addition to the story of his life and the pen portraits of the leading players, he also thinks deeply about the course of the revolution and the mistakes that were made and also of the difficulties the revolutionaries faced. The memoirs end with Serge reflecting on his life and his continued optimism for the future, even though the left and socialism were already in retreat in 1947. He fiercely castigates those communists who would not admit to the horrors of the Stalin regime.
"I have outlived three generations of brave men, mistaken as they may have been, to whom I was deeply attached, and whose memory remains dear to me. And here again, I have discovered that it is nearly impossible to live a life devoted to a cause which one believes to be just; a life, that is where one refuses to separate thought from daily action................... I must confess that the feeling of having so many dead men at my back, many of them my betters in energy, talent and historical character, has often overwhelmed me; and that this feeling has been for me also the source of a certain courage, if that is the right word for it."
He also says that his experiences have taught him that the evils of intolerance and the drive towards the persecution of dissent comes from a belief in the ruling elite that they have absolute possession of the truth, grafted on doctrinal rigidity and that led them to a contempt for the man who was different who thought differently and had a different way of life. He warns about the dangers of tyrants and the fascist way of shouting louder than everyone else to get their way.
"The end far from justifying the means commands its own means"
Reading this book gave me pause for thought. At the moment I am of the opinion that the third world war has already started with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli's genocide in Gaza. We are faced with dealing with tyrannical regimes in China, Russia, and America which will result in a fractured Europe, with the rise of the far right. Perhaps therefore Victor Serge's optimism for the future is misplaced and once again we will have learned nothing from history. This does not mean that we should stop reading powerful autobiographies like this one from Victor Serge and so 5 stars. show less
His story is a fascinating one on its own but his steadfast character and his courage under intense provocation are qualities that I admired. In 1944 he wrote to Tolstoy's daughter and said;
"There is nobody left who knows what the Russian Revolution was really like, what the Bolsheviks were really like and men judge without knowing, with bitterness and basic rigidity"
He was there, he saw it all, and a key phrase in the letter is "there is nobody left" because many of his colleagues disappeared into the Gulags, or were executed or died from hardship. He himself reflected that he had spent a third of his adult life in prison (as a young man he had spent five years in prison in Belgium for his connection with an anarchist group).. He was against much of the violence handed down by the communist leaders, but realised it was necessary at certain times to take action. He documents the hardship of living in Russia at the time of the revolution, the struggle to find enough to eat, the lack of most creature comforts, even basic clothing was difficult to obtain and Russian winters are cold. The revolutionary governments struggling to accommodate themselves in the grand palace's of St Petersburg, when they could not even find means to keep warm. He also tells of incidents in the civil war between the red and white armies and Trotsky's decisive actions in leading the red army.
In addition to the story of his life and the pen portraits of the leading players, he also thinks deeply about the course of the revolution and the mistakes that were made and also of the difficulties the revolutionaries faced. The memoirs end with Serge reflecting on his life and his continued optimism for the future, even though the left and socialism were already in retreat in 1947. He fiercely castigates those communists who would not admit to the horrors of the Stalin regime.
"I have outlived three generations of brave men, mistaken as they may have been, to whom I was deeply attached, and whose memory remains dear to me. And here again, I have discovered that it is nearly impossible to live a life devoted to a cause which one believes to be just; a life, that is where one refuses to separate thought from daily action................... I must confess that the feeling of having so many dead men at my back, many of them my betters in energy, talent and historical character, has often overwhelmed me; and that this feeling has been for me also the source of a certain courage, if that is the right word for it."
He also says that his experiences have taught him that the evils of intolerance and the drive towards the persecution of dissent comes from a belief in the ruling elite that they have absolute possession of the truth, grafted on doctrinal rigidity and that led them to a contempt for the man who was different who thought differently and had a different way of life. He warns about the dangers of tyrants and the fascist way of shouting louder than everyone else to get their way.
"The end far from justifying the means commands its own means"
Reading this book gave me pause for thought. At the moment I am of the opinion that the third world war has already started with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli's genocide in Gaza. We are faced with dealing with tyrannical regimes in China, Russia, and America which will result in a fractured Europe, with the rise of the far right. Perhaps therefore Victor Serge's optimism for the future is misplaced and once again we will have learned nothing from history. This does not mean that we should stop reading powerful autobiographies like this one from Victor Serge and so 5 stars. show less
Within the first chapter, Comrade Tulayev, a Central Party Committee member of some importance is shot dead on the streets of Moscow by a person of nearly no importance and on the spur of the moment. For the rest of the book, Serge introduces the reader to a disparate group of Communist personalities who ultimately have in common only their unsought candidacy for `guilt' or their role in the persecution of the accused, or both - the two categories were far from mutually exclusive. None of show more the accused actually had anything to do with the murder, but that was entirely beside the point. The system demanded victims.
Serge develops convincing and intriguing portrayals: of the (for-now) Party security chief Erchov; Gordayev, his grasping underling; the brilliant economic historian Kiril Rublev; Makeyev, the voraciously ambitious and brutal rural chief; Kondratiev, the Soviet agent assigned to do a status report on the Spanish Civil War and then called home rather abruptly; and others equally compelling.
The confessed guilt of the accused is compelled, which has nothing at all to do with finding the murderer of Comrade Tulayev. However, one of the accused escapes trial and execution by the caprice of The Chief, another by deceiving the seemingly indomitable interrogator, Zvyeryeva. Having done time in Stalin's gulag, Serge transfers some of his experiences to the book's characters (for example, his refusal to confess).
Serge paints a picture of a dark land where the rulers have been abandoned true aims of the Revolution to a desire for power that would be naked but for its clothing in revolutionary jargon. The ruling elite consume one another seriatim as needed to maintain their status. And yet there are those who retain their humanity, remain true to their revolutionary ideals, and their individuality.
[A minor quibble: The NYRB Classics series usually benefits from excellent introductions. Susan Sontag's introduction left this reader feeling slightly dull and poorly-read after attempting to grasp Sontag's brilliance. Others will no doubt have greater success in that effort.]
The Case of Comrade Tulayev deserves a place in the first rank of books on Stalin's totalitarian prison state, along side Darkness at Noon: A Novel and Judgment on Deltchev. Highest recommendation. Simply brilliant. show less
Serge develops convincing and intriguing portrayals: of the (for-now) Party security chief Erchov; Gordayev, his grasping underling; the brilliant economic historian Kiril Rublev; Makeyev, the voraciously ambitious and brutal rural chief; Kondratiev, the Soviet agent assigned to do a status report on the Spanish Civil War and then called home rather abruptly; and others equally compelling.
The confessed guilt of the accused is compelled, which has nothing at all to do with finding the murderer of Comrade Tulayev. However, one of the accused escapes trial and execution by the caprice of The Chief, another by deceiving the seemingly indomitable interrogator, Zvyeryeva. Having done time in Stalin's gulag, Serge transfers some of his experiences to the book's characters (for example, his refusal to confess).
Serge paints a picture of a dark land where the rulers have been abandoned true aims of the Revolution to a desire for power that would be naked but for its clothing in revolutionary jargon. The ruling elite consume one another seriatim as needed to maintain their status. And yet there are those who retain their humanity, remain true to their revolutionary ideals, and their individuality.
[A minor quibble: The NYRB Classics series usually benefits from excellent introductions. Susan Sontag's introduction left this reader feeling slightly dull and poorly-read after attempting to grasp Sontag's brilliance. Others will no doubt have greater success in that effort.]
The Case of Comrade Tulayev deserves a place in the first rank of books on Stalin's totalitarian prison state, along side Darkness at Noon: A Novel and Judgment on Deltchev. Highest recommendation. Simply brilliant. show less
“Living among wolves, it would be reasonable to learn how to howl and bite like the wolves, but I preferred another fate, a more dangerous one I suppose because here as everywhere, a kind of sentence weighs upon the man who tries to be a bit more human than the general lot . . .”
—Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge
It’s not the greatness of “The Case of Comrade Tulayev”; but then again, very few books are. To contain any single line such as that quoted above within any text, show more however, speaks volumes to the greatness bound up in the beleaguered mind and body of Victor Serge show less
—Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge
It’s not the greatness of “The Case of Comrade Tulayev”; but then again, very few books are. To contain any single line such as that quoted above within any text, show more however, speaks volumes to the greatness bound up in the beleaguered mind and body of Victor Serge show less
‘Memoirs of a Revolutionary’ is slightly mis-named, as it doesn’t read like a memoir. Instead, it reads like a piece of extended, on-the-ground reportage and analysis from the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, chronicling the civil war and subsequent slide into totalitarianism and terror. As such, it’s absolutely fascinating. Serge writes compellingly and the French has been well translated. I enjoyed phrases like, ‘pot-bellied peace’ and this anecdote about buying arms for show more the Reds using tsarist roubles: ‘Obviously the recipients of the Imperial bank notes were taking out a mortgage on our deaths, at the same time furnishing us with the means of our defense’.
Serge makes an excellent commentator on events, as he is both insider and outsider. Although for much of the book he lives in Russia, is part of the communist party, and works for the government, he is not Russian and retains strong links throughout Europe. He evidently had incredible skill at networking, as the memoirs are stuffed with names (however did he remember them all?) of the many figures he encountered over the years. Footnotes helpfully inform the reader when Stalin had each of them shot, as seems to have been the case with most. Serge was thus close enough to events, yet critical enough of the path they took, to offer fascinating insights. He remains something of a phantom within his own book, but gives the impression of urbane competence and analytical yet humane intelligence.
His diagnoses of how the revolution went wrong are very convincing. He is not greatly inclined to blame individuals - indeed, even Stalin does not come in for much personal rebuke. He is much more interested in institutional and circumstantial reasons behind events, such as wrong decisions that resulted in worse decisions. Indeed, his conception of history has very little of Marxist structuralism and quite early on he becomes concerned about the ‘theoretical intoxication bordering on delusion’ of leading Marxists. This absolute faith in doctrine appears to have been a precursor of cults of personality. In fact, Serge’s analysis reminded me of something I read about the French revolution (in [b:Ending the Terror|640628|Ending the Terror|Bronisław Baczko|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347467826s/640628.jpg|21464302]) - that those involved never agreed to disagree. As Serge phrases it: ‘The Party is the repository of truth, and any form of thinking which differs from it is a dangerous or reactionary error. Here lies the spiritual source of its intolerance.’
What I found especially striking and sad throughout the narrative was the parade of disillusioned revolutionaries, the author obviously being one such and knowing many more. At least Serge was willing and able to live elsewhere. As the situation become worse and worse, terror gripped Russia and the ideals of the revolution where betrayed, many former revolutionaries committed suicide. They were unable to reconcile themselves to the horrors of the communist regime, yet they could not bear to leave their home, their tattered political ideals, and live under capitalism once more. After devoting so much of themselves to the revolution, indeed subsuming any personal identity to it, their sense of self seems to have been shattered by the famines, purges, and repressions. Although Serge was evidently an idealist, he tempered this with an admirable pragmatism and espoused a socialism that was international in nature. He was determined to survive in order to publicise what was happening. As he repeatedly comments, outside Russia people either did not want to know what happening, did not believe things could possibly be as bad as he said, or both.
There is a great deal to admire in these memoirs. Serge does not lose his faith in socialism, despite the privations and persecution he and his comrades suffer. His viewpoint is perhaps best expressed here:
His comments on Marxism are also well worth quoting:
Serge makes an excellent commentator on events, as he is both insider and outsider. Although for much of the book he lives in Russia, is part of the communist party, and works for the government, he is not Russian and retains strong links throughout Europe. He evidently had incredible skill at networking, as the memoirs are stuffed with names (however did he remember them all?) of the many figures he encountered over the years. Footnotes helpfully inform the reader when Stalin had each of them shot, as seems to have been the case with most. Serge was thus close enough to events, yet critical enough of the path they took, to offer fascinating insights. He remains something of a phantom within his own book, but gives the impression of urbane competence and analytical yet humane intelligence.
His diagnoses of how the revolution went wrong are very convincing. He is not greatly inclined to blame individuals - indeed, even Stalin does not come in for much personal rebuke. He is much more interested in institutional and circumstantial reasons behind events, such as wrong decisions that resulted in worse decisions. Indeed, his conception of history has very little of Marxist structuralism and quite early on he becomes concerned about the ‘theoretical intoxication bordering on delusion’ of leading Marxists. This absolute faith in doctrine appears to have been a precursor of cults of personality. In fact, Serge’s analysis reminded me of something I read about the French revolution (in [b:Ending the Terror|640628|Ending the Terror|Bronisław Baczko|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347467826s/640628.jpg|21464302]) - that those involved never agreed to disagree. As Serge phrases it: ‘The Party is the repository of truth, and any form of thinking which differs from it is a dangerous or reactionary error. Here lies the spiritual source of its intolerance.’
What I found especially striking and sad throughout the narrative was the parade of disillusioned revolutionaries, the author obviously being one such and knowing many more. At least Serge was willing and able to live elsewhere. As the situation become worse and worse, terror gripped Russia and the ideals of the revolution where betrayed, many former revolutionaries committed suicide. They were unable to reconcile themselves to the horrors of the communist regime, yet they could not bear to leave their home, their tattered political ideals, and live under capitalism once more. After devoting so much of themselves to the revolution, indeed subsuming any personal identity to it, their sense of self seems to have been shattered by the famines, purges, and repressions. Although Serge was evidently an idealist, he tempered this with an admirable pragmatism and espoused a socialism that was international in nature. He was determined to survive in order to publicise what was happening. As he repeatedly comments, outside Russia people either did not want to know what happening, did not believe things could possibly be as bad as he said, or both.
There is a great deal to admire in these memoirs. Serge does not lose his faith in socialism, despite the privations and persecution he and his comrades suffer. His viewpoint is perhaps best expressed here:
A French essayist has said, ‘What is terrible when you seek the truth, is that you find it.’ You find it, and then you are no longer free to follow the biases of your personal circle, or to accept fashionable cliches. I immediately discerned within the Russian Revolution the seeds of such serious evils as intolerance and the drive towards the persecution of dissent. These evils originated in an absolute sense of possession of the truth, grafted upon doctrinal rigidity. What followed was contempt for the man who was different, of his arguments and way of life. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest problems which each of us has to solve in the realm of practice, is that of accepting the necessity to maintain, in the midst of intransigence that comes from steadfast beliefs, a critical spirit towards these same beliefs and a respect for the belief that differs. In the struggle, it is the problem of combining the greatest practical efficiency with respect for the man in the enemy; in a word, of war without hate.
His comments on Marxism are also well worth quoting:
I do not, after all my reflection on the subject, cast any doubt upon the scientific spirit of Marxism, nor on its contribution, a blend of rationality and idealism, to the consciousness of our age. All the same, I cannot help considering as a positive disaster the fact that a Marxist orthodoxy should, in a great country in the throes of transformation, have taken over the apparatus of power. Whatever may be the scientific value of a doctrine, from the moment that it becomes governmental, interests of state will cease to allow it the possibility of impartial enquiry; and its scientific certitude will even lead it, first to intrude into education, and then, by the methods of guided thought, which is the same as suppressed thought, to exempt itself from criticism. The relationships between error and true understanding are in any case too abtruse for any one to presume to regulate them by authority; men have no choice but to make long detours through hypotheses, mistakes and imaginative guesses, if they are to succeed in extricating assessments which are more exact, if partly provisional: for there are few cases of complete exactness. This means that freedom of thought seems to me, of all values, one of the most essential.show less
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