***Books To While Away The Class Struggle By-COMRADE TULA-Victor Serge-A Book Review
Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin
Book Review
COMRADE TULA-Victor Serge
Generally, historical novels leave me dissatisfied as real history provides enough dramatic tension. However, every once in a while a novel comes along that illuminates a historical situation better than a history and begs for some attention. Victor Serge’s political parable falls in that category. His subject is a fictional treatment of the Great Terror highlighted by the Moscow Trials in the Soviet Union of the 1930’s. This Great Terror liquidated almost the whole generation of those who made the October Revolution of 1917 and administered the early Soviet state as well as countless other victims. Adding a personal touch, as an official journalist of the Communist International Serge knew many of that generation. The political and psychological devastation created by this catastrophe is certainly worthy of novelistic treatment. In fact it may be the only way to truly comprehend its effects. Serge is particularly well-placed to tell this story since he was a long-time member of the Trotsky-led Left Opposition in the Soviet Union and barely got out of there at the height of the Terror as a result of an international campaign of fellow writers to gain his freedom. The insights painfully learned from his experiences in the Soviet Union place his book in the first rank.
The plot line is rather simple- a disaffected Russian youth of indeterminate politics, as an act of hubris, kills a high level Soviet official in the then Stalinized Soviet Union and sets in motion a whirlwind of governmental reaction. As if to mock everything the Russian Revolution had stood until that time this youth ultimately goes free while a whole series of oppositionists of various tendencies, officials investigating the crime and other innocent, accidental figures are made to ‘confess’ or accept responsibility for the crime with their lives in the name of defending the Revolution (read Stalinist rule).
While the plot line is simple the political and personal consequences are not, especially for anyone interested in drawing the lessons of what went wrong with the Russian Revolution. The central question Serge poses is this- How can one set of Communists persecute and ultimately kill another set of Communist who it is understood by all parties stand for the defense of the same revolution? Others such as Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon, Andre Malraux in Man’s Fate and George Orwell in several of his books have taken up this same theme of political destruction with mixed success and ambiguous conclusions. In any case, aside from the tales of bureaucratic obfuscation in turning a simple criminal matter into a political vendetta which Serge treats masterfully, the answer does not resolve itself easily.
What Serge concludes, based I believe on his own personal trial of fire in that same period, and makes his novel more valuable than the others listed above is that one must defend ones revolutionary integrity at all costs. His personal conduct bears this out. The history of the period also bears this out not only in the Soviet Union but in Spain and elsewhere. For every Bukharin, Zinoviev or out of favor Stalinist factionalist who compromised himself or herself there were many, mainly anonymous Left Oppositionists and other such political people who did not confess, who did not abandon their political program and went to exile and death rather than capitulate. History being a cruel and, at times, arbitrary master may have not honored them yet. However, those courageous fighters need no revolutionary good conduct certificate before it, the reader of these lines, or me.
Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin
Book Review
COMRADE TULA-Victor Serge
Generally, historical novels leave me dissatisfied as real history provides enough dramatic tension. However, every once in a while a novel comes along that illuminates a historical situation better than a history and begs for some attention. Victor Serge’s political parable falls in that category. His subject is a fictional treatment of the Great Terror highlighted by the Moscow Trials in the Soviet Union of the 1930’s. This Great Terror liquidated almost the whole generation of those who made the October Revolution of 1917 and administered the early Soviet state as well as countless other victims. Adding a personal touch, as an official journalist of the Communist International Serge knew many of that generation. The political and psychological devastation created by this catastrophe is certainly worthy of novelistic treatment. In fact it may be the only way to truly comprehend its effects. Serge is particularly well-placed to tell this story since he was a long-time member of the Trotsky-led Left Opposition in the Soviet Union and barely got out of there at the height of the Terror as a result of an international campaign of fellow writers to gain his freedom. The insights painfully learned from his experiences in the Soviet Union place his book in the first rank.
The plot line is rather simple- a disaffected Russian youth of indeterminate politics, as an act of hubris, kills a high level Soviet official in the then Stalinized Soviet Union and sets in motion a whirlwind of governmental reaction. As if to mock everything the Russian Revolution had stood until that time this youth ultimately goes free while a whole series of oppositionists of various tendencies, officials investigating the crime and other innocent, accidental figures are made to ‘confess’ or accept responsibility for the crime with their lives in the name of defending the Revolution (read Stalinist rule).
While the plot line is simple the political and personal consequences are not, especially for anyone interested in drawing the lessons of what went wrong with the Russian Revolution. The central question Serge poses is this- How can one set of Communists persecute and ultimately kill another set of Communist who it is understood by all parties stand for the defense of the same revolution? Others such as Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon, Andre Malraux in Man’s Fate and George Orwell in several of his books have taken up this same theme of political destruction with mixed success and ambiguous conclusions. In any case, aside from the tales of bureaucratic obfuscation in turning a simple criminal matter into a political vendetta which Serge treats masterfully, the answer does not resolve itself easily.
What Serge concludes, based I believe on his own personal trial of fire in that same period, and makes his novel more valuable than the others listed above is that one must defend ones revolutionary integrity at all costs. His personal conduct bears this out. The history of the period also bears this out not only in the Soviet Union but in Spain and elsewhere. For every Bukharin, Zinoviev or out of favor Stalinist factionalist who compromised himself or herself there were many, mainly anonymous Left Oppositionists and other such political people who did not confess, who did not abandon their political program and went to exile and death rather than capitulate. History being a cruel and, at times, arbitrary master may have not honored them yet. However, those courageous fighters need no revolutionary good conduct certificate before it, the reader of these lines, or me.
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