birth of our power (victor serge, tr richard greeman)

Serge is a neglected figure. Although flirting with autobiography, his writing lacks that spark of irony or self-reflection that the late twentieth century western literature was prey to, before it became overrun by the confessional tracts of the belligerent individual. He recounts the dreams of what we call politics. The revolution, the overthrow of the old guard, when Marxist idealism was still a recognisable thing. Having said that: what is politics, if not the actions of men and women at the coalface of history? Serge’s text here recounts his passage from Barcelona to Leningrad, 1917-1918. The war across the border rages and the radicals in Barcelona carry the hope that this might fuel their revolt. For now, they are frustrated. Serge flees to France, hoping to travel to Russia, but he is arrested and interned in a POW camp. Only when the war ends can he finally resume his journey. He arrives in a sepulchral Leningrad, another refugee seeking food, shelter and warmth. The reality of the revolution’s dreams are laid bare; glory will not be given, it will be earned.

There is something in the controlled naivety of Serge’s writing that draws the reader in, makes a friend of them. The reader becomes his belated co-conspirator, not least because Serge is clearly not seduced by the romance of revolution; rather he is wedded to it, warts and all. 

the case of comrade tulayev [victor serge]

Victor Serge is little known now, as Sontag’s introduction points out. In his heyday, Serge’s fame was such that Gide campaigned for his release from a Soviet prison, and he became the only writer to be freed by the Stalin regime, making his way around the globe until he ultimately settled in Mexico. 

The Case of Comrade Tulayev is an epic novel, with its roots in 19th century realism, coupled with a knowing, jaundiced twentieth century tone. The book is constructed around the murder of Tulayev, a senior Soviet official. It occurs in the late thirties, shortly before the outbreak of the second world war. Most of the characters the multi-person novel follows are battle-hardened men who participated in the Russian Revolution, many of them supposedly associates of Stalin, referred to throughout as ‘the chief’. Tulayev’s murder, which the reader knows has been committed by an insignificant, dreamy figure, is used as the excuse for a radical purge, where a whole swathe of the old guard is rounded up and found guilty of belonging to an imaginary plot. Most are executed, and their families are sent to internal exile in far flung corners of the empire.

The multi-character narrative is recounted in ten chapters. Each one effectively presents a different case study, with the action moving all over Russia and including sections in Civil War Spain and Paris. Serge creates an all-embracing portrayal of the purges within the pages of his book, revealing the savage political mechanisms which drive it and the complex reactions of its victims. Some are desperate, others succeed in placing it within a socio-historical context according to their Marxist principles. Most of the characters are world-weary figures who have seen so much that nothing more can surprise them. Their key conflict is whether they hang on to the principle of truth or not, in a land where truth has become a dangerous commodity. Serge writes with the authority of one who knows the reality behind the state’s lies, and his characters carry the burden of these lies/truths with them to the grave. 

This account does little justice to the ferocious wisdom and humanity of Serge’s novel, the writing of which appears to be an act of courage in itself. Speaking truth to power is never an enviable destiny; the weight of this truth permeates the whole, devastating novel, which manages to defend and honour the principle of the communist revolution whilst lambasting the inhumane bureaucratic system which colonised the revolution’s wake.