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Victor Serge Quotes

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

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.

Victor Serge
Lying, Struggle, Men
Victor Serge (2002). “Memoirs of a Revolutionary”, p.374, University of Iowa Press

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?

Victor Serge
Men, Years, Judging
"Memoirs of a Revolutionary".

He who speaks, he who writes is above all one who speaks on behalf of all those who have no voice.

Victor Serge
Writing, Voice, Speak
Victor Serge (2014). “Birth of Our Power”, p.225, PM Press

Carelessness on the part of revolutionaries has always been the best aid the police have.

Victor Serge
Police, Revolutionary, Aids

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 clichés.

Victor Serge
Circles, Truth Is, Accepting
Victor Serge (2011). “The Case of Comrade Tulayev”, p.21, New York Review of Books

...and it is a serious matter to destroy a man's faith without replacing it.

Victor Serge
Men, Matter, Serious
Victor Serge (2014). “Birth of Our Power”, p.109, PM Press

What is terrible when you seek the truth is that you find it.

Victor Serge
Truth Is, Terrible
Victor Serge (2011). “The Case of Comrade Tulayev”, p.21, New York Review of Books

I followed his argument with the blank uneasiness which one might feel in the presence of a logical lunatic.

Victor Serge
Might, Argument, Logical
Victor Serge (2011). “The Case of Comrade Tulayev”, p.19, New York Review of Books

Writing should be testimony to the vast flow of life through us.

Victor Serge
Writing, Flow, Should

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?

Victor Serge
Believe, Errors, Light

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.

Victor Serge
Dream, War, Party
Victor Serge (2002). “Memoirs of a Revolutionary”, p.133, University of Iowa Press

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