Anarchists Never Surrender : Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938

Notes
Translated and introduced by Richard Greeman (Oakland: PM Press, 2014). Translated and introduced by Richard Greeman (Oakland: PM Press, 2014). Later named Leningrad and now again St. Petersburg. Translated by Ian Birchall in Serge, The Revolution in Danger: Writings from Russia, 1919–1921 (Chicago: Haymarket, 1997). All the Right Enemies is the title of Dorothy Gallagher’s biography of another political maverick, Serge’s comrade Carlo Tresca, assassinated in New York by Fascists, Communists, Mafiosi, or all three in 1943. It would have suited Serge’s biography just as well. See Richard Greeman, “Victor Serge and Leon Trotsky,” in Greeman, Beware of Capitalist Sharks! Radical Rants and Internationalist Essays (Illustrated) (Moscow: Praxis Center, 2008). See Richard Greeman... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 46 : The Life of Victor Serge
The Life of Victor Serge 1890 Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (Victor Serge) born on December 30 in Brussels to a family of sympathizers with Narodnik terrorism who had fled from Russia after the assassination of Alexander II. 1908 Photographer’s apprentice and member of the socialist Jeunes-Gardes. Spends a short period in an anarchist ‘utopian’ community in the Ardennes. Leaves for Paris. 1910–1911 Becomes editor of the French anarchist-individualist magazine, l’anarchie. Writes and agitates. 1912 Serge is implicated in the trial of the anarchist outlaws known as the Bonnot Gang. Despite arrest, he refuses to turn informer and is sentenced to five years in prison. Three of his co-defendants were guillotined. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 45 : Serge in English
Serge in English FICTION Men in Prison (Les hommes dans la prison, 1930). Translated and introduced by Richard Greeman. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1969; London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1970; Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1972; London and New York: Writers and Readers, 1977; Oakland: PM Press, 2014. A searing personal experience transformed into a literary creation of general import. Birth of Our Power (Naissance de notre force, 1931). Translated by Richard Greeman. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1967; London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1968; Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1970; London and New York: Writers and Readers, 1977; Oakland: PM Press, 2015. From Barcelona to Petersburg, the conflagration of World War I ignites the spark of revolution, and poses a new problem for the revolutionaries’ power. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 44 : Anarchist Thought
Anarchist Thought The Origins: The Industrial Revolution of the Nineteenth Century The most profound revolution of modern times, carried out in Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century, is almost unnoticed by historians. The French Revolution cleared its path, and the political upheavals that for the most part occurred during the period between 1800 and 1850 contributed to hastening it. The significance of the historic development of that period can be clearly seen: a new mode of production was established equipped with a new technique. In truth, the Industrial Revolution under the First Empire began with the first steam machinery. The locomotive dates from 1830. Looms, which appeared at the beginning of the century, had already led to the formation of an industrial proletariat in centers like Lyon. In a few decades the bourgeoisie, armed with machinery, transformed—often literally—the surface of t... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 43 : Kronstadt 1921 Trotsky’s Defense, Response to Trotsky
Kronstadt 1921 Trotsky’s Defense, Response to Trotsky In a note published in America at the end of July, Leon Trotsky has finally spelled out his responsibilities in the Kronstadt episode. The political responsibility, as he has always affirmed, belongs to the Central Committee of the Russian CP, which took the decision to “reduce the rebellion by force of arms if the fortress couldn’t be brought to surrender first by peaceful negotiations, and later by an ultimatum.” Trotsky adds: “I never spoke of that question [Kronstadt 1921], not that I have anything to hide but, on the contrary, precisely because I have nothing to say…. Personally I didn’t participate at all in the crushing of the rebellion, nor in the repression that followed.” Trotsky recalls the differences that separated him from that time on with Zinoviev, the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. “I remained,” he wri... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

A Head Will Fall
A Head Will Fall NOTHING IS MORE REPUGNANT THAN THE MACABRE JUDICIAL COMEDY THAT all too often ends in a new exploit of the guillotine, one which is contrary to vulgar common sense, revolting to feelings and, from the social point of view, as unjust as it is immoral. Vulgar common sense clearly demonstrates in vain that a wound isn’t healed by amputation; that one crime—and a murder coldly decided on and prepared by the official representatives of society is a crime par excellence—doesn’t make right another, and in no way prevents the future crimes that contemporary illogic render inevitable. Logic and common sense! Only a few eccentrics—the anarchists—timidly attempt to conform to them. Revolting? Yes, t... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Once More: Kronstadt
Once More: Kronstadt (Editor’s note: This article was written in April 1938 and appeared in the July 1938 issue of the magazine New International, then published by the Socialist Workers Party.) I receive your review with great pleasure. It is obviously the best revolutionary Marxian organ today. Believe me that all my sympathies are with you and that if it is possible for me to be of service to you, it will be most willingly rendered. I shall someday reply to the articles of Wright and L.D. Trotsky on Kronstadt. This great subject merits being taken up again thoroughly and the two studies that you have published are far, very far, from exhausting it. In the very first place, I am surprised to see our comrades Wright and L.D. Trotsky ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Old Mole of Individual Freedom
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: The Old Mole of Individual Freedom VICTOR SERGE IS BEST KNOWN AS AN OPPONENT OF STALINISM, AN ALLY OF Trotsky who was sent to a Soviet prison camp and who, thanks to a western campaign in his favor, was able to leave the Soviet Union, where he carried on his fight against the Soviet dictator. Far less well known is Serge’s anarchist period, which began in an embryonic form in Belgium in 1906 and lasted at least until his departure for the Soviet Union in 1919. The lessons he learned as an anarchist, and more particularly the anarchist defense of individual freedom, would not only play a key part in Serge’s thought and action during his directly anarchist period but would also inflect his Bolshevik ac... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Communards
The Communards MARCH … AND NOW RETURNS THE ANNIVERSARY OF MAD HOPES, OF THE furious impulses and butcheries of the Commune, our last attempt at revolution. Forty-one years after the frightening experience the same illusions give rise in the same people to the same dangerous hopes. For if, as the proverb says, we live on hope, it also happens that we die of it; that for his dreams man gambles with his life—and loses. One of the hopes most deeply rooted in the popular soil is that in the magic virtues of insurrection. This is only natural. It is derived from the feeling of confidence inspired by force. What is force not capable of? The people, who suffer its rigors, upon whom the privileged and adventuress minorities daily exerci... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Anarchists and Criminals
Anarchists and Criminals FOR THE HUNDRED THOUSANDTH TIME THE QUESTION HAS BEEN POSED TO us without any ambiguity by policemen in search of conspiracies, by journalists in need of copy, by judges, by passersby who set themselves up as executioners. What should the attitude of anarchists be toward criminals? Reserved? Hostile? Sympathetic? We will attempt to answer. There are criminals and there are criminals. There are those who live on the margins of society’s laws because their nature is different from that of good citizens. And there are the others, those who didn’t become—or who didn’t remain—honest men, simply because they were weak or pursued by misfortune. The former are those who don’t fit in: rebe... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)