What every radical should know about state repression - Victor Serge

Victor Serge's exposé of the surveillance methods used by the Czarist police reads like a spy thriller.

Submitted by Tyrion on October 19, 2014

An irrepressible rebel, Serge wrote this manual for political activists, describing the structures of State repression and how to dodge them. He also explained how such repression is ultimately ineffective. Not the biggest book in the world, Serge nevertheless proffers sage advice on everything from the limits of legal revolutionary action to being followed, placing it all in historical context. First published in 1925, this guide still has lots to offer.

Comments

Tyrion

9 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Tyrion on October 21, 2014

You can use the Kindle app for mobi files, the Nook app for ePub files, or this to convert them to another format.

Kate Sharpley

9 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Kate Sharpley on October 23, 2014

Worth reading - Serge, after all, had access to the captured Okhrana archives. But Serge (in common with many socialists and anarchists) has a "they'll never beat us!" attitude, that the victory of the revolutionaries is inevitable: "there is no force in the world which can hold back the revolutionary tide when it rises". Looking at twentieth-century history might suggest that's not the whole story.

Battlescarred

9 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Battlescarred on October 24, 2014

Yeah , worth reading but above all to see how much of a doctrinaire Bolshevik Serge was in 1925 with his justifications for terror, lauding of Trotsky's work within the Red Army, and dismissal of anarchists and Left Socialist Revolutionaries as "revolutionaries" and therefore outside the pale.
Serge was a great writer, above all with his novels. His political career however, from his time as an individualist anarchist through to his Bolshevism is not a very salutory experience.