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Victor Serge

Victor Serge Biography

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“In the conflicts between capital and labour, the army has often intervened against labour - never against capital. In court the defense of the poor is nothing short of impossible, because of the cost of any judicial action; in effect, a worker can neither bring a case nor defend one. The overwhelming majority of crimes are directly caused by poverty and come into the category of attacks on property. The overwhelming majority of prison inmates are from the poor.”

PovertyCrimeBourgeois Law
Book:What Every Radical Should Know About State Repression: A Guide For Activists
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“Mi Rusi smo se držali zahvaljujući solidarnosti. Fond za hitne slučajeve nam je kupio taman dovoljno dodatnih namirnica da se održi plamen života i među onima od nas sa najmanje sreće, makar i kao ugarak. Nismo dozvolili da bilo ko od naših završi u Mrtvačnici dok su ostali izbacivali bolesnike iz svojih soba čim bi dobili šansu. Legali smo u krevete, jedan za drugim, škljocali zubima, dok su oporavljeni ili oni pošteđeni pazili na bolesne. Nastavili smo da se borimo, da razmišljamo. Drugu umotanom u posteljinu kome je glava gorela na jastuku prekrivena starom krpom za sudove, donosili smo vesti dana – dopise sa fronta: „džep” kod Chateau-Thierry-a, poslednji veliki pokušaj proboja Centralnih sila ka Parizu; dopise iz Rusije: teror, podvizi Čehoslovaka, „varvarizam Kineza i letonskih pretorijanaca iz garde Narodnih komesara”, negiranje glasina o ubistvu Trockog, Lenjinov oporavak, nacionalizacija teške industruje – I bolesni čovek bi se nasmejao, promislio stvari, poželeo da raspravlja, a to bi označilo pobedu života u njemu.”

RevolutionConcentration Camp Survivor
Book:Birth of Our Power
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“Early on, I learnt from the Russian intelligentsia that the only meaning of life lies in conscious participation in the making of history. The more I think of that, the more deeply true it seems to be. It follows that one must range oneself actively against everything that diminishes man, and involve oneself in all struggles which tend to liberate and enlarge him. This categorical imperative is by no way lessened by the fact that such an involvement is inevitably soiled by error: it is a worse error merely to live for oneself, caught within traditions which are soiled by inhumanity.”

ThinkingMenWayFactsSeemsLyingStruggleConsciousTraditionErrorsOneselfCaughtRangeMeaning Of LifeParticipationDiminishImperativesInvolvementInhumanityCategorical Imperative
Book:Memoirs of a Revolutionary
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“It is often said that ‘the germ of all Stalinism was in Bolshevism at its beginning’. Well, I have no objection. Only, Bolshevism also contained many other germs – a mass of other germs – and those who lived through the enthusiasm of the first years of the first victorious socialist revolution ought not to forget it. To judge the living man by the death germs which the autopsy reveals in the corpse – and which he may have carried in him since his birth – is that very sensible?”

MenYearsFirstsWellsMaySaidForgetJudgingRevolutionOughtBirthMassEnthusiasmSensibleSocialistForget ItCorpsesObjectionsGermsStalinismBolshevismAutopsy
Author:Victor Serge
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“What with the political monopoly, the Cheka and the Red Army, all that now existed of the 'Commune-State' of our dreams was a theoretical myth. The war, the internal measures against counterrevolution, and the famine (which had created a bureaucratic rationing apparatus) had killed off Soviet democracy. How could it revive, and when? The Party lived in the certain knowledge that the slightest relaxation of its authority would give day to reaction.”

GivingWarStatesDreamPoliticalCertainPartyDemocracyAuthorityRedArmyMythReactionsInternalsSovietRelaxationOur DreamsMonopolyTheoreticalFamineReviveCommunesCertain KnowledgeRed Army
Book:Memoirs of a Revolutionary
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“I believe that the formation of the Chekas was one of the gravest and most impermissible errors that the Bolshevik leaders committed in 1918 when plots, blockades, and interventions made them lose their heads. All evidence indicates that revolutionary tribunals, functioning in the light of day and admitting the right of defence, would have attained the same efficiency with far less abuse and depravity. Was it necessary to revert to the procedures of the Inquisition?”

BelieveMadeLightI BelieveLosesLeaderEvidenceAbuseErrorsCommittedRevolutionaryPlotEfficiencyInterventionProceduresDefenceFormationAdmittingDepravityInquisitionTribunalsBolsheviksBlockades
Author:Victor Serge
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